I think it would give a lot of American Anglicans a bad attack of the vapours if you told them that there was once a very influential Evangelical Movement in the Protestant Episcopal Church. Certainly, given that history tends to be written by the victors, its contribution to the life of the Church has been all but air-brushed out by the Anglo-Catholic, and Broad Church historians that have produced the standard works on the history of the Episcopal Church. Curiously, apart from the early chapters of Allen Guelzo's "For the Union of Evangelical Christendom" and Diana Hochstedt Butler's "Standing Against the Whirlwind" (OUP 1995), the subject has not been much studied, so much of what I have to say here is gleanings from either 19th century publications, such as "The Life of Alfred Lee, 1st Bishop of Delaware," or from books which focus on wider Evangelicalism.
Traditional church historians tend to date the start of the Evangelical Revival in the Episcopal Church to 1811 which saw both the consecration of Alexander Viets Griswold (1766-1843) as Bishop of the Eastern Diocese - a grab bag of New England States unable to support their own bishop - and the ordination of William Meade (1789-1862) to the diaconate. This is more of a matter of convenience than anything else, as there had been Evangelicals in previous generations starting with the Great Awakening of the 1740s and 50s. Perhaps the best known of these are Isaac Milnor, who had originally been a Methodist, but was ordained by Bishop White in 1789, and Richard Channing Moore (1762-1841), who was originally a doctor, but was converted in his early twenties and sought ordination in the Episcopal Church, achieving prominence, first as a New York Rector, then as Bishop of the Church in Virginia. Moore's ministry reflected the activist streak in Evangelicalism, as he spent the winters preaching at the Monumental Church, Richmond, and then rode circuit in the summer, confirming, and preaching in courthouses, lent churches, and in abandoned Anglican structures. Assisted by the like of William Meade, and W.H. Wilmer, the PEC in Virginia began to rise from its deathbed. However, Virginia was not the only beneficiary of Evangelical activism. After a spat with the High Church Bishop Hobart of New York, Philander Chase moved to Ohio and organized the Church there, serving as bishop for fifteen year, before resigning and moving on to Michaigan and Illinois. These pioneers saw their function as to found the basic institutions needed to sustain the Church - school, college, and seminary - and as a result Virginia Seminary, and Bexley Hall came into being to support the Evangelical cause in the Mid-Atlantic States and Ohio respectively.
If the 1810 and 1820s were seedtime, then the 1830s were a time of harvest. The consecration of William Meade as Assistant Bishop of Virginia, Charles McIllvaine as Bishop of Ohio, B.B. Smith as Bishop of Kentucky, Leonidas Polk as Bishop of the Southwest, and Stephen Elliott as Bishop of Georgia meant that third of the bishops consecrated in the 1829-41 were Evangelicals, and this trend was to continue through the 1840s, and into the 1850s. Predictably, the Evangelicals concentrated on the four Cs of Evangelicalism - Christ, the Cross, Conversion, and Causes - producing a version of Episcopalianism that accorded well with the sensibilities of the American middle class, and this in turn produced steady, even spectacular growth. However, it wasn't to last, not just because of the rise of Tractarianism, but because there was an incidious threat to Evangelicalism from within the Protestant tradition. Higher Criticism of the Bible.
Higher Criticism had developed in Germany around 1800, and it applied a whole battery of philolgical, historical, and literary techniques to the Bible. However, the dominant note was that of rationalism - a mindset where if it seemed improbable, it was improbable, and had to be either explained or explained away. American Evangelicals who had grown up in a pre-critical bubble were ill-equiped to face this. The usual response was to either accept the German theories about the origins of the Old Testament, and later, the New uncritically, or else to flee to fundamentalism, though Fundamentalism with the capital-F did not develop until the 1920s. The rot set in for the Episcopal Evangelicals in the 1860s when some of the next generation of leaders, such as Phillips Brooks, embraced Higher Criticism, and increasingly, the Social Gospel with the result that the old moderate Calvinism of Evangelical Episcopalianism was slowly eroded. Evangelical-leaning seminaries such as Episcopal Theology School, Bexley Hall, and Philadelphia Divinity School increasingly embrace the liberal stance on the Bible, with only Virginia Seminary lagging behind. The departure of some strong conservatives such as G. D. Cummins and James Latané to the Reformed Episcopal Church in the mid-1870s also did not help, but it was not decisive. Episcopal Evangelicals, assaulted by Tractarianism, Ritualism, Schism, and Higher Criticism, increasingly look like yesterday's news in a religious environment which increasingly valued form over content in line with the consumerism of urbanizing America.
However, Evangelicalism did not die out, though it was increasingly of the liberal sort having affinities with the less confessional sections of Lutheranism accepting, but not really embracing, the insights of Higher Biblical Criticism whilst still preaching Christ, the Cross, and Conversion, and retaining the same old commitment to causes. Perhaps the best known of these 'liberal' Evangelicals in the mid-twentieth century was the Rev. Samuel Shoemaker, whose landmark ministry at Calvary Episcopal Church, New York, has largely been forgotten in favour of his work with Alcohols Anonymous.
Unfortunately, what calls itself "Evangelicalism" in the Anglican/Episcopal Churches in the USA today is not really a linear descendent of the old Evangelicalism, or even of mid-century Liberal Evangelicalism, but rather it is the product of the interaction of Low Church Episcopalianism and the Charismatic Movement in the 1970s and 80s. This makes it 'wobbly' when compared the old Evangelicalism as exemplified by some of the 'conservative woke' elements in the ACNA and elsewhere.
Monday, February 20, 2023
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Is Anglicanism Reformed?
The very title of this post will give some folks the vapours, as they have been brought up in the Post-Tractarian World in which, if Anglicanism is seen as Reformed at all, it is with a small 'r' that is immediately followed by the word Catholic. No-one on the Reformed side of Anglicanism would actually disagree with this, but they would define Reformed in more stringent terms than merely knocking a few mediaeval barnacles off the ark of salvation.
The argument that Anglicanism belongs to the Reformed family of Churches starts with the nature of the English Reformation itself. Unlike many of the German principalities, England had a slow reformation - lasting from approximately 1533 to 1604, though the main phase ended in 1571 with the publication of the final version of the Articles of Religion. However, before we run off with the idea that the Articles had fundamentally changed their character, it has to be remembered that the 1563 version of the Articles was also in the Reformed camp, as were the Forty-two Articles of 1553 which preceded them. You would have to go back to the unpublished Thirteen Articles of 1537/8 before you found a Lutheran statement of faith produced by English Churchmen, and even then it is very hesitant, being the product of Thomas Cromwell's pro-German policy in the run-up to the Cleves marriage.
If one looks at the two main confessional documents of the English Reformation, the (39) Articles of Religion, and the Book of Common Prayer, a series of proposition emerges that definitely put the Church of England into that strand of the Augustinian Theological tradition which we call "Protestantism" and furthermore, to put it into the subset known as "Reformed." So let us spend some time looking at these formularies in turn.
The Articles
The 39 Articles have a fairly extensive pre-history in that Cranmer had been working on a confession for the English Church on-and-off since 1536. However, one factor one has to contend with is that Cranmer himself evolved theologically throughout his adult life from a humanist Catholic, to a 'Lutheran' to someone who held a theological position that may be labelled 'Reformed.' The question when looking at statements of faith, sermons, and other documents that come from his pen is 'when?' Cranmer was cautious in his public pronouncements avoiding make controversial statements until he thought he had the full support of those in authority over him. It seems likely that Cranmer moved from the Lutheran to the Reformed camp somewhere before 1545, but as late as 1548, in response to the need for a reformation catechism, he allowed the publication of the Catechism of Justus Jonas, a Lutheran work. However, the 1549 BCP show the influence of Bucer and Melanchthon so that, even though the format is very conservative, the doctrinal passages, such as the exhortations in the Mass, already show the influence of the Rhenish Reformers. Cranmer certainly seems to have openly favoured the Philippist/Reformed camp during Edward VI's reign. With Peter Martyr, Martin Bucer, Fagius, and Jan Laski all active in England together with native Reformed sympathizers such as Nicholas Ridley, John Hooper, Rowland Taylor, Hugh Latimer, Miles Coverdale, and Cranmer himself, the Edwardine Church took on a markedly Reformed hew. This move certain left its mark on the Forty-two Articles of 1553. The 39 Articles of 1563/71 differ little from the 42 Articles of 1552 except for a slight softening of the wording of certain articles, and the removal of certain references which had lost their topicality by 1563. In principle, the Articles of 1563 are best described as being concerned firstly in establish the broad catholicity of the English Church (Articles 1-8); its acceptance of Augustinian theology (Articles 9-18); its Protestant critique of Rome (Articles 19 to 24); its acceptance of the Reformed variant of the Augustinian theology of the Sacraments and Ministry (Articles 25-33); and finally with the particular concerns of the English/Anglican Church in terms of the relationship of Scripture and Tradition, and Church and State (Articles 34-39). In many respects it is the influence of Bucer, Bullinger, and Melanchthon which is strongest, rather than that of Luther or Calvin. I would basically describe the Articles of Religion as being 'moderate Reformed' meaning that have a positive and dynamic understanding of the sacraments, which aims to maintain the positive aspects of sacramental teaching without getting bogged down in scholastic speculation. It is actually in its teaching about the Lord's Supper that the Articles show their moderate Reformed pedigree most clearly in that they affirm the 'Real, Spiritual Presence' or 'Virtualism' of Bucer, Calvin, and Melanchthon, rather than the more subjective views of say Bullinger, or the realist version of Sacramental Union with its dependency on the concepts of communication idiomata, and ubiquity a beloved of Lutheran Orthodoxy, though it is perhaps closer to the latter in intent. In other respects, such as their position on Justification, Election, and the Authority of the Church the Articles walk a line between the Reformed and Lutheran positions in the hopes of building a Protestant Consensus. In most respects, though, the Articles of Religion line up theologically with their Reformed contemporaries, the Belgic Confession, and the Second Helvetian Confession. However, their spirit is alien to the Rationalist theology of the eighteenth century as they require the reader to engage positively with concepts such as Predestination to Life, Baptismal Regeneration, and the Spiritual, Real Presence, which were common in the later sixteenth century, but were nonsense to the Rationalist and Latitudinarians. Modernists find their high view of Scripture difficult to take, whilst Anglo-Catholics find them insufferably Protestant and either try and explain them away (Tract XC), or more honestly, simply apply a razorblade to them.
The Book of Common Prayer
If, theologically, the Church of England was more-or-less at one with the German strain in the Reformed tradition, she showed a good deal of independence in her liturgy. One suspects that the Puritans were correct in their assessment that if Bloody Mary had not come along Cranmer would have made further changes, but God in His providence ordained otherwise, and what the Puritans 'got stuck with' was a modified version of Cranmer's second BCP of 1552 which suited Elizabeth I's purpose of creating a Protestant National Church. Before I get into the details I think we do need to dispose of some myths.
The first of these is that the 1549 BCP still 'catholic' whilst the 1552 is 'protestant.' On the face of it this would seem to be true, but it has to be remembered that the Exhortations were an integral part of the Liturgy as conceived by Cranmer, and therefore the 1549 already contains the 'True Presence' Eucharistic theology which the mature Cranmer had embraced at some point prior to 1549. Cranmer also abolished the Gregorian Canon, the Offertory and the major Elevations which were seen as the underpinnings of Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass by the Reformers. In a very real sense 1549 is a Protestant liturgy that tries to hide the fact, whilst 1552 makes its Reformed and reforming credentials much more apparent.
In the last 30 years a consensus has emerged that the old story that Elizabeth I would have preferred the 1549 BCP to be reintroduced in 1559 has largely been disposed of. The minor changes in the 1552 were intended to reconcile "Lutherans" and cultural conservatives (to import a modern concept) to the Settlement. Thus the Queen and Council agreed to a temporary retention of Mass vestments and much of the old paraphernalia of worship to reconcile conservative laymen to the Settlement. In the end, Elizabeth was perhaps forced to move faster than she intended, and the net effect of the policy decisions of 1558-1565 was to create the two worship traditions within Anglicanism - the Court tradition which governed worship in the Chapel Royal. the Cathedrals and Collegiate Church, and a more obviously Reformed parish church tradition. These two traditions were to coexist for the next 300 years until major elements of "Cathedral" worship were imported into the Parish Churches in the mid-Victorian period.
The 1552, 1559 and 1662 BCPs both blend Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed elements. Much traditional material was retained for the old service books even though it was often reworked, so for example, the Breviary was abridged and reworked into Morning and Evening Prayer, whilst the traditional Latin Litany was reworked, along the lines of Luther's Litany into the version we have in the BCP today. Cranmer was very often the 'filter' through which continental ideas were incorporated into English practice, and in particular he seems to have drawn on a variety of Lutheran and moderate Reformed texts. Most folks are familiar with the idea that Cranmer and his Committee used the 'Simple and Religious Consultation' drawn up for Archbishop Herman von Weid by Martin Bucer and Philip Melanchthon as one of his major sources for the 1549, and I also believe it is well-known that both Martin Bucer, and Peter Martyr Vermigli offered critiques of the 1549 which did much to guide the 1552 revision. However, Cranmer did not allow his own sense of what was 'proper' to be overwhelmed by his advisors, and at least so far as Morning and Evening Prayer were concerned apart from the addition of a penitential introduction the conservative tone remained. The Baptismal Office received some adjustments such as the omission of chrism and the Chrisom (christening robe) but the most radical changes were to the Communion Service.
The 1549 had preserved much of the old structure of the Mass, the only significant omissions being the Gradual, the Offertory prayers, and the old Canon. This relatively traditional service had had inserted into it the 1548 Order of Communion immediately before the reception of the sacrament. This consisted of an Exhortation, General Confession, Absolution, Comfortable Words, and that masterpiece of Cranmer's, the Prayer of Humble Access. The Order of Communion had contained most of the Reforming material in the 1549 Communion Service, but in 1552 a far more radical approach was taken with Cranmer and his associates taking the traditional material and blending it to produce a new service similar in shape to the sort of Reformed Liturgy that Bucer had produced in Strasburg in the 1530s and early 1540s with features of Bucer's Reformed service, such as the Decalogue, now appearing in the English BCP. I will examine the relationship between the Liturgical work of Cranmer and that of Bucer in a future post, but for the time being I will be content with the following observations.
The Traditional Fore-Mass is considerably rearranged. Instead of the Collect for Purity, Introit, Kyrie and Gloria we now have the Collect for Purity, the Decalogue with an expanded Kyrie as the response to each Commandment. The traditional Collects, Epistles and Gospels are largely retained as they had been in 1549, the Creed and Sermon follow in their accustomed place, and then after the collection of alms, the Prayer for the Church Militant occurs, reflecting both the custom of the Mozarabic Rite, and, closer to hand, the practice of the Reformed Church in Strasburg. On most Sundays the service could conclude at this point with one or more collects and the blessing. As the people were unaccustomed to frequent communion, and the rule was now 'no Mass without Communicants' this meant that weekly celebration of the Eucharist soon became the exception rather than the rule. As a result it became necessary to give warning of when there would be a Communion, and two exhortations are provided for this purpose, one of which originally appeared in 1549.
When the Lord's Supper was celebrated the next item was an exhortation to self-examination and worthy Communion. This fencing of the Table was typical of Reformed practice, though Cranmer's exhortation owes as much to Lutheran sources as to Reformed. Then comes the Invitation and General Confession followed by the Absolution and Comfortable Words. Cranmer makes one of his rare literary slips here reversing Bucer's order by putting the Absolution first. The Preface survives as was common in Lutheranism, as does the Sanctus. Then follows the Prayer of Humble Access which in this position becomes very obviously a prayer for worthy participation in the mystery rather one directed towards worthy reception of the elements. The Eucharistic Prayer then follows, and consists of little more than a brief statement of why the church does this, and the Words of Institution. In 1552 and 1559 there were no manual acts. Communion followed by the Lord's Prayer then follows. The Eucharistic Prayer is completed by either the Prayer of Oblation or the Prayer of Thanksgiving, then the Gloria in Excelsis is said, and lastly the priest dismisses the congregation with a blessing. One thing that is truly notable about Cranmer's Eucharistic rite is that it places communion in the middle of the Eucharistic Prayer to further reinforce the idea that it is first and foremost a communion service, and to emphasize that the real presence is not localized in the bread and wine, but is actualized through faithful participation in the mystery. It was actually a bit of a master stroke when the 1549 and 1559 words of administration were combined in 1559, as its balance of realist and symbolist language neatly expresses the Bucerian understanding of the Eucharist that Cranmer had embraced in the 1540s.
It can be seen from this that the principal reason that Anglo-Catholics of all stripes have done their best to either abrogate, or remodel and reinterpret the Eucharistic rite Cranmer left the Church is that its view of the Eucharist falls into the Reformed type. Structurally it shares similarities with the Dutch and German Reformed liturgies which are just too obvious to deny; however, these similarities are obscured by the removal of traditional elements such as the Preface and Sanctus from continental forms.
I have not yet sufficiently researched the Baptismal Office, but my preliminary investigations have shown that the sort of very positive language that one sees in the Prayer Book concerning baptismal regeneration is anything but foreign to mid-16th century Reformed theology. Bucer, Bullinger, Calvin, and Vermigli all had a high view of baptism - perhaps so high as to surprise their 21st century followers if they were to investigate the matter. However, I shall have to leave this aside for a future article.
It may be seen from the above notes that the two main forms we have inherited from the Reformation period, the Articles of Religion, and the Book of Common agree theologically with the German-Swiss and Rhenish Reformed traditions, though they are to some degree at odds with the Scottish tradition. In the main the differences between the late sixteenth century Church of England, and the Reformed Churches of Zurich, Basle, the Rhine Palatinate, etc., were of governance and custom not theology. Therefore, all attempts to "unprotestantize" the Anglican tradition are by definition unhistorical in their basis.
The argument that Anglicanism belongs to the Reformed family of Churches starts with the nature of the English Reformation itself. Unlike many of the German principalities, England had a slow reformation - lasting from approximately 1533 to 1604, though the main phase ended in 1571 with the publication of the final version of the Articles of Religion. However, before we run off with the idea that the Articles had fundamentally changed their character, it has to be remembered that the 1563 version of the Articles was also in the Reformed camp, as were the Forty-two Articles of 1553 which preceded them. You would have to go back to the unpublished Thirteen Articles of 1537/8 before you found a Lutheran statement of faith produced by English Churchmen, and even then it is very hesitant, being the product of Thomas Cromwell's pro-German policy in the run-up to the Cleves marriage.
If one looks at the two main confessional documents of the English Reformation, the (39) Articles of Religion, and the Book of Common Prayer, a series of proposition emerges that definitely put the Church of England into that strand of the Augustinian Theological tradition which we call "Protestantism" and furthermore, to put it into the subset known as "Reformed." So let us spend some time looking at these formularies in turn.
The Articles
The 39 Articles have a fairly extensive pre-history in that Cranmer had been working on a confession for the English Church on-and-off since 1536. However, one factor one has to contend with is that Cranmer himself evolved theologically throughout his adult life from a humanist Catholic, to a 'Lutheran' to someone who held a theological position that may be labelled 'Reformed.' The question when looking at statements of faith, sermons, and other documents that come from his pen is 'when?' Cranmer was cautious in his public pronouncements avoiding make controversial statements until he thought he had the full support of those in authority over him. It seems likely that Cranmer moved from the Lutheran to the Reformed camp somewhere before 1545, but as late as 1548, in response to the need for a reformation catechism, he allowed the publication of the Catechism of Justus Jonas, a Lutheran work. However, the 1549 BCP show the influence of Bucer and Melanchthon so that, even though the format is very conservative, the doctrinal passages, such as the exhortations in the Mass, already show the influence of the Rhenish Reformers. Cranmer certainly seems to have openly favoured the Philippist/Reformed camp during Edward VI's reign. With Peter Martyr, Martin Bucer, Fagius, and Jan Laski all active in England together with native Reformed sympathizers such as Nicholas Ridley, John Hooper, Rowland Taylor, Hugh Latimer, Miles Coverdale, and Cranmer himself, the Edwardine Church took on a markedly Reformed hew. This move certain left its mark on the Forty-two Articles of 1553. The 39 Articles of 1563/71 differ little from the 42 Articles of 1552 except for a slight softening of the wording of certain articles, and the removal of certain references which had lost their topicality by 1563. In principle, the Articles of 1563 are best described as being concerned firstly in establish the broad catholicity of the English Church (Articles 1-8); its acceptance of Augustinian theology (Articles 9-18); its Protestant critique of Rome (Articles 19 to 24); its acceptance of the Reformed variant of the Augustinian theology of the Sacraments and Ministry (Articles 25-33); and finally with the particular concerns of the English/Anglican Church in terms of the relationship of Scripture and Tradition, and Church and State (Articles 34-39). In many respects it is the influence of Bucer, Bullinger, and Melanchthon which is strongest, rather than that of Luther or Calvin. I would basically describe the Articles of Religion as being 'moderate Reformed' meaning that have a positive and dynamic understanding of the sacraments, which aims to maintain the positive aspects of sacramental teaching without getting bogged down in scholastic speculation. It is actually in its teaching about the Lord's Supper that the Articles show their moderate Reformed pedigree most clearly in that they affirm the 'Real, Spiritual Presence' or 'Virtualism' of Bucer, Calvin, and Melanchthon, rather than the more subjective views of say Bullinger, or the realist version of Sacramental Union with its dependency on the concepts of communication idiomata, and ubiquity a beloved of Lutheran Orthodoxy, though it is perhaps closer to the latter in intent. In other respects, such as their position on Justification, Election, and the Authority of the Church the Articles walk a line between the Reformed and Lutheran positions in the hopes of building a Protestant Consensus. In most respects, though, the Articles of Religion line up theologically with their Reformed contemporaries, the Belgic Confession, and the Second Helvetian Confession. However, their spirit is alien to the Rationalist theology of the eighteenth century as they require the reader to engage positively with concepts such as Predestination to Life, Baptismal Regeneration, and the Spiritual, Real Presence, which were common in the later sixteenth century, but were nonsense to the Rationalist and Latitudinarians. Modernists find their high view of Scripture difficult to take, whilst Anglo-Catholics find them insufferably Protestant and either try and explain them away (Tract XC), or more honestly, simply apply a razorblade to them.
The Book of Common Prayer
If, theologically, the Church of England was more-or-less at one with the German strain in the Reformed tradition, she showed a good deal of independence in her liturgy. One suspects that the Puritans were correct in their assessment that if Bloody Mary had not come along Cranmer would have made further changes, but God in His providence ordained otherwise, and what the Puritans 'got stuck with' was a modified version of Cranmer's second BCP of 1552 which suited Elizabeth I's purpose of creating a Protestant National Church. Before I get into the details I think we do need to dispose of some myths.
The first of these is that the 1549 BCP still 'catholic' whilst the 1552 is 'protestant.' On the face of it this would seem to be true, but it has to be remembered that the Exhortations were an integral part of the Liturgy as conceived by Cranmer, and therefore the 1549 already contains the 'True Presence' Eucharistic theology which the mature Cranmer had embraced at some point prior to 1549. Cranmer also abolished the Gregorian Canon, the Offertory and the major Elevations which were seen as the underpinnings of Transubstantiation and the Sacrifice of the Mass by the Reformers. In a very real sense 1549 is a Protestant liturgy that tries to hide the fact, whilst 1552 makes its Reformed and reforming credentials much more apparent.
In the last 30 years a consensus has emerged that the old story that Elizabeth I would have preferred the 1549 BCP to be reintroduced in 1559 has largely been disposed of. The minor changes in the 1552 were intended to reconcile "Lutherans" and cultural conservatives (to import a modern concept) to the Settlement. Thus the Queen and Council agreed to a temporary retention of Mass vestments and much of the old paraphernalia of worship to reconcile conservative laymen to the Settlement. In the end, Elizabeth was perhaps forced to move faster than she intended, and the net effect of the policy decisions of 1558-1565 was to create the two worship traditions within Anglicanism - the Court tradition which governed worship in the Chapel Royal. the Cathedrals and Collegiate Church, and a more obviously Reformed parish church tradition. These two traditions were to coexist for the next 300 years until major elements of "Cathedral" worship were imported into the Parish Churches in the mid-Victorian period.
The 1552, 1559 and 1662 BCPs both blend Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed elements. Much traditional material was retained for the old service books even though it was often reworked, so for example, the Breviary was abridged and reworked into Morning and Evening Prayer, whilst the traditional Latin Litany was reworked, along the lines of Luther's Litany into the version we have in the BCP today. Cranmer was very often the 'filter' through which continental ideas were incorporated into English practice, and in particular he seems to have drawn on a variety of Lutheran and moderate Reformed texts. Most folks are familiar with the idea that Cranmer and his Committee used the 'Simple and Religious Consultation' drawn up for Archbishop Herman von Weid by Martin Bucer and Philip Melanchthon as one of his major sources for the 1549, and I also believe it is well-known that both Martin Bucer, and Peter Martyr Vermigli offered critiques of the 1549 which did much to guide the 1552 revision. However, Cranmer did not allow his own sense of what was 'proper' to be overwhelmed by his advisors, and at least so far as Morning and Evening Prayer were concerned apart from the addition of a penitential introduction the conservative tone remained. The Baptismal Office received some adjustments such as the omission of chrism and the Chrisom (christening robe) but the most radical changes were to the Communion Service.
The 1549 had preserved much of the old structure of the Mass, the only significant omissions being the Gradual, the Offertory prayers, and the old Canon. This relatively traditional service had had inserted into it the 1548 Order of Communion immediately before the reception of the sacrament. This consisted of an Exhortation, General Confession, Absolution, Comfortable Words, and that masterpiece of Cranmer's, the Prayer of Humble Access. The Order of Communion had contained most of the Reforming material in the 1549 Communion Service, but in 1552 a far more radical approach was taken with Cranmer and his associates taking the traditional material and blending it to produce a new service similar in shape to the sort of Reformed Liturgy that Bucer had produced in Strasburg in the 1530s and early 1540s with features of Bucer's Reformed service, such as the Decalogue, now appearing in the English BCP. I will examine the relationship between the Liturgical work of Cranmer and that of Bucer in a future post, but for the time being I will be content with the following observations.
The Traditional Fore-Mass is considerably rearranged. Instead of the Collect for Purity, Introit, Kyrie and Gloria we now have the Collect for Purity, the Decalogue with an expanded Kyrie as the response to each Commandment. The traditional Collects, Epistles and Gospels are largely retained as they had been in 1549, the Creed and Sermon follow in their accustomed place, and then after the collection of alms, the Prayer for the Church Militant occurs, reflecting both the custom of the Mozarabic Rite, and, closer to hand, the practice of the Reformed Church in Strasburg. On most Sundays the service could conclude at this point with one or more collects and the blessing. As the people were unaccustomed to frequent communion, and the rule was now 'no Mass without Communicants' this meant that weekly celebration of the Eucharist soon became the exception rather than the rule. As a result it became necessary to give warning of when there would be a Communion, and two exhortations are provided for this purpose, one of which originally appeared in 1549.
When the Lord's Supper was celebrated the next item was an exhortation to self-examination and worthy Communion. This fencing of the Table was typical of Reformed practice, though Cranmer's exhortation owes as much to Lutheran sources as to Reformed. Then comes the Invitation and General Confession followed by the Absolution and Comfortable Words. Cranmer makes one of his rare literary slips here reversing Bucer's order by putting the Absolution first. The Preface survives as was common in Lutheranism, as does the Sanctus. Then follows the Prayer of Humble Access which in this position becomes very obviously a prayer for worthy participation in the mystery rather one directed towards worthy reception of the elements. The Eucharistic Prayer then follows, and consists of little more than a brief statement of why the church does this, and the Words of Institution. In 1552 and 1559 there were no manual acts. Communion followed by the Lord's Prayer then follows. The Eucharistic Prayer is completed by either the Prayer of Oblation or the Prayer of Thanksgiving, then the Gloria in Excelsis is said, and lastly the priest dismisses the congregation with a blessing. One thing that is truly notable about Cranmer's Eucharistic rite is that it places communion in the middle of the Eucharistic Prayer to further reinforce the idea that it is first and foremost a communion service, and to emphasize that the real presence is not localized in the bread and wine, but is actualized through faithful participation in the mystery. It was actually a bit of a master stroke when the 1549 and 1559 words of administration were combined in 1559, as its balance of realist and symbolist language neatly expresses the Bucerian understanding of the Eucharist that Cranmer had embraced in the 1540s.
It can be seen from this that the principal reason that Anglo-Catholics of all stripes have done their best to either abrogate, or remodel and reinterpret the Eucharistic rite Cranmer left the Church is that its view of the Eucharist falls into the Reformed type. Structurally it shares similarities with the Dutch and German Reformed liturgies which are just too obvious to deny; however, these similarities are obscured by the removal of traditional elements such as the Preface and Sanctus from continental forms.
I have not yet sufficiently researched the Baptismal Office, but my preliminary investigations have shown that the sort of very positive language that one sees in the Prayer Book concerning baptismal regeneration is anything but foreign to mid-16th century Reformed theology. Bucer, Bullinger, Calvin, and Vermigli all had a high view of baptism - perhaps so high as to surprise their 21st century followers if they were to investigate the matter. However, I shall have to leave this aside for a future article.
It may be seen from the above notes that the two main forms we have inherited from the Reformation period, the Articles of Religion, and the Book of Common agree theologically with the German-Swiss and Rhenish Reformed traditions, though they are to some degree at odds with the Scottish tradition. In the main the differences between the late sixteenth century Church of England, and the Reformed Churches of Zurich, Basle, the Rhine Palatinate, etc., were of governance and custom not theology. Therefore, all attempts to "unprotestantize" the Anglican tradition are by definition unhistorical in their basis.
Monday, December 30, 2019
Theological Foundations - The Articles of Religion
The theological foundations of Anglican were long accepted to be the Bible, the Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. To a greater or lesser extent modern Anglicanism, even in some of it relatively conservative manifestations, often bypasses or radically reinterprets several or all of these. As a result Anglicans have become very confused about their identity. The Articles are probably subjected to more revisionist treatment than the other three put together simply because a lot of modern Church-people think they are irrelevant, or have definite reasons for not wishing to accept that Anglicanism ever held the theological position held by framers of the Articles, so perhaps it is time for me to give a page or two to the History of the Articles of Religion (AOR).
The text of the AOR that you have in your 1662 BCP is that of 1571 when the Articles reached their present form. The version used in the USA is a very light revision of the 1571 text made in 1801. This, apart from the omission of Article XXI - Of the Authority of General Councils and the deletion of the Athanasian Creed from the text of Article VIII, do not differ theologically from the Articles of 1571. This suggests that at the very least the leadership of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1801 were prepared to accept the theology of the English Reformation as it was then understood. The years immediately after 1801 saw an upswing in Evangelicalism (the old sort, not what passes for Evangelicalism today) which if anything strengthen the adherence of the Protestant Episcopal Church to the Reformation by creating a party that consciously sought to maintain and propagate Reformed theology. There can be little doubt that for most of the nineteenth century the dominant theology of the Evangelical Party in the PECUSA was that of Old Princeton, and that tradition was carried on well into the twentieth century by the Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia. Whilst Princeton theology is at some distance from the Reformation - it represents a sort of early nineteenth century redaction of Reformed Scholasticism - it was a good deal nearer the mark than the Latitudinarian theology of the eighteenth century. But what about the Articles in their original context?
It may be stating the blindly obvious but the Articles had a long gestation. The first attempts to write an English Confession of Faith come within a couple of years of Henry VIII's break with Rome with the Wittenberg Articles, the Thirteen Articles leading to the Ten Articles of 1538, which attempt to take a middle road between the Humanist influenced by conservative Catholicism of Henry VIII and the Augsburg Confession, and these Articles probably represent the high water mark of Lutheran influence in England. The Ten Articles lasted less than two years before being replaced by the reactionary Six Articles of 1540, and there matters official rested until after Henry's death in January 1546/7, though the pressure on Protestants eased somewhat after the crisis of 1542/3. After Henry's death Cranmer and his circle produced "some Articles" in late 1547 that were intended to pave the way for reform, but it was not until late 1552 that a full English Confession was produced in the form of the Forty-Five Articles that Cranmer submitted for comment and revision, and which were approved by Parliament in June 1553 by which time their number had been reduced to forty-two. The ink scarcely had time to dry on these before Edward VI died, and the full scale reversion to Catholicism often referred to as the Marian Reaction takes place.
The Articles that were produced in 1552 were very similar to those produced ten years later, though they contain several articles specifically condemning in Anabaptist heresy, which were felt to be unnecessary at the later date. They are organised in the way that had been traditional since the time of Peter Lombard in that they begin with the doctrine of God. Gerald Bray in "The Faith We Confess" divides the Articles into the following sections; the Catholic Articles - 1 to 9; the Protestant Articles 10 to 34; and the Anglican Articles 35 to 39. I would go a little further and divide the Protestant Articles into those which apply to all Protestants - basically 10 to 23; and those which are more specifically Reformed 24 to 34. Not every article fits neatly into its assigned category, for example, all protestants would accept the teaching contained in Article 32 - Of the Marriage of Priests, but at least this scheme gives us pegs on which to hang the structure of the Articles.
The Articles themselves are very largely a product of the interplay between domestic and continental reforming forces. In the end, the teachings of Wycliffe only find a place in the Articles in as far as they reflect the ideas of later Reformers. Wherever possible Cranmer and his colleagues avoided taking sides in the dispute between the followers of Luther and those of Zwingli, Bullinger, and Bucer. For example Article 17 - Of Predestination, uses language that would not have been unacceptable to Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, or Bullinger. When considering the sacraments, the Articles commit themselves to the Swiss camp, but not vehemently so. Bucer's language about a spiritual real presence is there, as is language reminiscent of Bullinger's understanding of the Baptism. On the whole they are conciliatory without loosing sight of the fact that the principle influences with England were committed to Reformed theology, but from whence did they get this reformed theology?
There can be very little doubt that Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Holgate, and the other protestant minded clerics of the 1530s and 1540s were a pretty independently minded bunch. Unlike the Scots who soon traded the Scots Confession of 1560 for the admittedly superior Second Helvetic Confession, the English Church seems to have displayed a certain insularity whilst still being engaged with the European mainstream of Protestant thought. We are told that Cranmer read slowly with a pen in his hand ready to mark any passage that caught his eye, and there is evidence of the same thoroughness in the other Reformers. Yet at the same time as they were engaged in their own studies of the Scriptures and of the early Fathers, they were reading the current Reforming literature, and corresponding with Reformers in Germany and beyond. The reign of Edward VI afforded Cranmer the opportunity to invite a number of these theologians to take shelter in England in the wake of the Schmalkaldic War. Bucer, Fagius, Laski, Occhino, and Vermigli all spent time in England and Fagius and Bucer were doomed not to survive the cold winters of Cambridge. Datheen, the Dutch Reformer also spent one of his periodic exiles in England 1551-53, and a number of lesser lights passed through England in the hopes of gaining patronage and employment during these years.
This all came to an end quite suddenly in July 1553 when Edward VI died of tuberculosis. The botched attempt to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne implicated Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley in treason to a greater or lesser extent, and these architects of the Article of Religion perished in the flames of Mary's persecution of Protestantism. Some of the rising generation of evangelical leaders laid low in England during Mary's reign, such as Matthew Parker and John Whitgift. Others scattered to the Low Countries, Germany, and Switzerland with appreciable numbers settling in Basle, Emden, Frankfurt, Geneva, Strasburg, and Zurich. This enabled the Reform-minded Englishmen, and women, to see the Reformed Church at work at close quarters. The preference for Reformed cities indicates the degree to which by 1553 Lutheran influence had waned in England. Men like Barlow, Coverdale, Cox, Grindal, Sandys, and Whittingham were already familiar with Reformed ideas before their exile, and tended to gravitate towards the cities where these ideas were practiced. Bucer's influence made Strasburg attractive, whilst Bullinger's made Zurich the natural home for others. Geneva attracted a small but vocal exile contingent which included John Knox, Pilkington, and Whittingham. Knox, of course, went back to his native Scotland to provide the moral and intellectual leadership to the Reformation there, whilst Pilkington and Whittington, along with Scory and Coverdale, to some degree provide the link between the exiles and Puritanism.
Bloody Mary died in November 1558 and was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth. Attempts have been made to depict Elizabeth as everything from a closet Catholic to an agnostic, but in as much as she had any strong religious views they were the product of the circle that educated her which included Sir Thomas Cheke and William Grindal (brother of the later Archbishop.) Both Cheke and Grindal were sympathetic to Reformed theology, and indeed, Cheke eulogized Bucer after his death in 1551. Matthew Parker, another member of the Bucer circle at Cambridge, also seems to have had an association with Elizabeth that predates her accession. It would reasonable to assume from her education and associations that she favoured the sort of moderate Reformed settlement that emerged between 1558 and 1571. Elizabeth's choice of Bishops seems to confirm her preference for moderate men. Matthew Parker went reluctantly to Canterbury; Thomas Young to York; Edmund Grindal to London where he was reluctant to discipline the proto-Puritan element among the clergy; Robert Horne to Winchester; and James Pilkington to Durham where he did his best to push Protestant views in an Catholic-leaning environment. Other prominent sees went to men like Richard Coxe, who had led the Prayer Book faction in Frankfurt, and Nicholas Bullingham who seems to have been a reliable upholder of the settlement even though he was a lawyer not a theologian by training.
After re-establish the use of the BCP in 1559, and cleansing churches of much of their remaining Popish imagery from 1560 onwards, official attention then turned to the establishment of a confession of faith. Cranmer and Cheke's 42 Articles of 1553 were the obvious starting point. Of the 42 three were removed as being redundant, and Article 7 re-written with most of the 'donkey work' of revision falling on Matthew Parker and John Jewel. The combination of Parker and Jewel ensured there would be no radical alterations in the Articles. Parker had lain low during the Marian reaction, whilst Jewel had ended up in Zurich. Elizabeth I suppressed Article XXIX as being offensive to Lutherans until 1571 at which point the present English text, albeit without Charles I's somewhat peculiar preface of 1628, became the primary summary of the Church of England's teaching. In theology and outlook they smack more of Bucer's Strasburg, or Bullinger's Zurich than either Wittenberg or Geneva. They avoid speculative points wherever possible, and it is only by close comparison to the First (1536) and Second (1564) Helvetic Confessions, the Belgic Confession (1561), and the Scots Confession (1560) that their moderate Reformed tone can be detected.
The Articles have proved a remarkably enduring document, and have been endlessly interpreted, misinterpreted by way of commentary down the centuries. Although large parts of the Anglican Communion have decided to relegate them to the category of an historical document, some provinces, for example, Nigeria continue to regard them as important in defining the nature of Anglicanism. Although some Continuing Church, such as the ACC have bypassed the Articles of Religion, other continuing Churches such as the United Episcopal Church, and the Reformed Anglican Church continue to see them as significant statements that encompass the basic framework of Anglican theology.
The text of the AOR that you have in your 1662 BCP is that of 1571 when the Articles reached their present form. The version used in the USA is a very light revision of the 1571 text made in 1801. This, apart from the omission of Article XXI - Of the Authority of General Councils and the deletion of the Athanasian Creed from the text of Article VIII, do not differ theologically from the Articles of 1571. This suggests that at the very least the leadership of the Protestant Episcopal Church in 1801 were prepared to accept the theology of the English Reformation as it was then understood. The years immediately after 1801 saw an upswing in Evangelicalism (the old sort, not what passes for Evangelicalism today) which if anything strengthen the adherence of the Protestant Episcopal Church to the Reformation by creating a party that consciously sought to maintain and propagate Reformed theology. There can be little doubt that for most of the nineteenth century the dominant theology of the Evangelical Party in the PECUSA was that of Old Princeton, and that tradition was carried on well into the twentieth century by the Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia. Whilst Princeton theology is at some distance from the Reformation - it represents a sort of early nineteenth century redaction of Reformed Scholasticism - it was a good deal nearer the mark than the Latitudinarian theology of the eighteenth century. But what about the Articles in their original context?
It may be stating the blindly obvious but the Articles had a long gestation. The first attempts to write an English Confession of Faith come within a couple of years of Henry VIII's break with Rome with the Wittenberg Articles, the Thirteen Articles leading to the Ten Articles of 1538, which attempt to take a middle road between the Humanist influenced by conservative Catholicism of Henry VIII and the Augsburg Confession, and these Articles probably represent the high water mark of Lutheran influence in England. The Ten Articles lasted less than two years before being replaced by the reactionary Six Articles of 1540, and there matters official rested until after Henry's death in January 1546/7, though the pressure on Protestants eased somewhat after the crisis of 1542/3. After Henry's death Cranmer and his circle produced "some Articles" in late 1547 that were intended to pave the way for reform, but it was not until late 1552 that a full English Confession was produced in the form of the Forty-Five Articles that Cranmer submitted for comment and revision, and which were approved by Parliament in June 1553 by which time their number had been reduced to forty-two. The ink scarcely had time to dry on these before Edward VI died, and the full scale reversion to Catholicism often referred to as the Marian Reaction takes place.
The Articles that were produced in 1552 were very similar to those produced ten years later, though they contain several articles specifically condemning in Anabaptist heresy, which were felt to be unnecessary at the later date. They are organised in the way that had been traditional since the time of Peter Lombard in that they begin with the doctrine of God. Gerald Bray in "The Faith We Confess" divides the Articles into the following sections; the Catholic Articles - 1 to 9; the Protestant Articles 10 to 34; and the Anglican Articles 35 to 39. I would go a little further and divide the Protestant Articles into those which apply to all Protestants - basically 10 to 23; and those which are more specifically Reformed 24 to 34. Not every article fits neatly into its assigned category, for example, all protestants would accept the teaching contained in Article 32 - Of the Marriage of Priests, but at least this scheme gives us pegs on which to hang the structure of the Articles.
The Articles themselves are very largely a product of the interplay between domestic and continental reforming forces. In the end, the teachings of Wycliffe only find a place in the Articles in as far as they reflect the ideas of later Reformers. Wherever possible Cranmer and his colleagues avoided taking sides in the dispute between the followers of Luther and those of Zwingli, Bullinger, and Bucer. For example Article 17 - Of Predestination, uses language that would not have been unacceptable to Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer, or Bullinger. When considering the sacraments, the Articles commit themselves to the Swiss camp, but not vehemently so. Bucer's language about a spiritual real presence is there, as is language reminiscent of Bullinger's understanding of the Baptism. On the whole they are conciliatory without loosing sight of the fact that the principle influences with England were committed to Reformed theology, but from whence did they get this reformed theology?
There can be very little doubt that Cranmer, Latimer, Ridley, Holgate, and the other protestant minded clerics of the 1530s and 1540s were a pretty independently minded bunch. Unlike the Scots who soon traded the Scots Confession of 1560 for the admittedly superior Second Helvetic Confession, the English Church seems to have displayed a certain insularity whilst still being engaged with the European mainstream of Protestant thought. We are told that Cranmer read slowly with a pen in his hand ready to mark any passage that caught his eye, and there is evidence of the same thoroughness in the other Reformers. Yet at the same time as they were engaged in their own studies of the Scriptures and of the early Fathers, they were reading the current Reforming literature, and corresponding with Reformers in Germany and beyond. The reign of Edward VI afforded Cranmer the opportunity to invite a number of these theologians to take shelter in England in the wake of the Schmalkaldic War. Bucer, Fagius, Laski, Occhino, and Vermigli all spent time in England and Fagius and Bucer were doomed not to survive the cold winters of Cambridge. Datheen, the Dutch Reformer also spent one of his periodic exiles in England 1551-53, and a number of lesser lights passed through England in the hopes of gaining patronage and employment during these years.
This all came to an end quite suddenly in July 1553 when Edward VI died of tuberculosis. The botched attempt to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne implicated Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley in treason to a greater or lesser extent, and these architects of the Article of Religion perished in the flames of Mary's persecution of Protestantism. Some of the rising generation of evangelical leaders laid low in England during Mary's reign, such as Matthew Parker and John Whitgift. Others scattered to the Low Countries, Germany, and Switzerland with appreciable numbers settling in Basle, Emden, Frankfurt, Geneva, Strasburg, and Zurich. This enabled the Reform-minded Englishmen, and women, to see the Reformed Church at work at close quarters. The preference for Reformed cities indicates the degree to which by 1553 Lutheran influence had waned in England. Men like Barlow, Coverdale, Cox, Grindal, Sandys, and Whittingham were already familiar with Reformed ideas before their exile, and tended to gravitate towards the cities where these ideas were practiced. Bucer's influence made Strasburg attractive, whilst Bullinger's made Zurich the natural home for others. Geneva attracted a small but vocal exile contingent which included John Knox, Pilkington, and Whittingham. Knox, of course, went back to his native Scotland to provide the moral and intellectual leadership to the Reformation there, whilst Pilkington and Whittington, along with Scory and Coverdale, to some degree provide the link between the exiles and Puritanism.
Bloody Mary died in November 1558 and was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth. Attempts have been made to depict Elizabeth as everything from a closet Catholic to an agnostic, but in as much as she had any strong religious views they were the product of the circle that educated her which included Sir Thomas Cheke and William Grindal (brother of the later Archbishop.) Both Cheke and Grindal were sympathetic to Reformed theology, and indeed, Cheke eulogized Bucer after his death in 1551. Matthew Parker, another member of the Bucer circle at Cambridge, also seems to have had an association with Elizabeth that predates her accession. It would reasonable to assume from her education and associations that she favoured the sort of moderate Reformed settlement that emerged between 1558 and 1571. Elizabeth's choice of Bishops seems to confirm her preference for moderate men. Matthew Parker went reluctantly to Canterbury; Thomas Young to York; Edmund Grindal to London where he was reluctant to discipline the proto-Puritan element among the clergy; Robert Horne to Winchester; and James Pilkington to Durham where he did his best to push Protestant views in an Catholic-leaning environment. Other prominent sees went to men like Richard Coxe, who had led the Prayer Book faction in Frankfurt, and Nicholas Bullingham who seems to have been a reliable upholder of the settlement even though he was a lawyer not a theologian by training.
After re-establish the use of the BCP in 1559, and cleansing churches of much of their remaining Popish imagery from 1560 onwards, official attention then turned to the establishment of a confession of faith. Cranmer and Cheke's 42 Articles of 1553 were the obvious starting point. Of the 42 three were removed as being redundant, and Article 7 re-written with most of the 'donkey work' of revision falling on Matthew Parker and John Jewel. The combination of Parker and Jewel ensured there would be no radical alterations in the Articles. Parker had lain low during the Marian reaction, whilst Jewel had ended up in Zurich. Elizabeth I suppressed Article XXIX as being offensive to Lutherans until 1571 at which point the present English text, albeit without Charles I's somewhat peculiar preface of 1628, became the primary summary of the Church of England's teaching. In theology and outlook they smack more of Bucer's Strasburg, or Bullinger's Zurich than either Wittenberg or Geneva. They avoid speculative points wherever possible, and it is only by close comparison to the First (1536) and Second (1564) Helvetic Confessions, the Belgic Confession (1561), and the Scots Confession (1560) that their moderate Reformed tone can be detected.
The Articles have proved a remarkably enduring document, and have been endlessly interpreted, misinterpreted by way of commentary down the centuries. Although large parts of the Anglican Communion have decided to relegate them to the category of an historical document, some provinces, for example, Nigeria continue to regard them as important in defining the nature of Anglicanism. Although some Continuing Church, such as the ACC have bypassed the Articles of Religion, other continuing Churches such as the United Episcopal Church, and the Reformed Anglican Church continue to see them as significant statements that encompass the basic framework of Anglican theology.
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
The Old High Church Ethos
Ethos is a word that seems to have been popularized, at least in Church of England circles, by the Rev. John Keble. It refers to that combination of ideas, principles, practices, and precepts that guide an organisation or individual very often as an unspoken or unwritten code which everyone seems to follow, but cannot quite define. Although the word was popularized by a Tractarian, it is without doubt that there was an ethos guiding the Old High Churchmen as well. At its worst, it was not much more than seemliness, at best, it could provide the basis for a very deeply felt religious experience, but not one that wore its heart on its sleeve. Much of this stemmed from where the old High Churchmen were educated, and where they liked to 'hang out.' They were creatures of the older Public School, the Oxbridge College, and the Cathedral Close created an atmosphere where public worship and private devotion were valued, but display was very decidedly not welcome. Even in the country vicarages to which they were preferred after completing their University careers and serving their curacies, they cultivated the same conservative principles with the same reserve and seemliness that had been so much part of their environment growing up. You could almost say that they originated by their way of living the jibe, "Change? We're Anglicans, we don't do change!"
The fact that they were Establishment Men was both a blessing and a curse to the Old High Churchmen. The curse side of it was that they were too much associated with Toryism, but in a sense that was a defect of a virtue. The Old School Tories were paternalistic, and at least in theory, believed firmly that the rich a responsibility to the poor, and that every man was bound together in a mutual interdependence in which every man in his station contributed something to the stability and prosperity of the nation. Unfortunate in the 1820s and 1830s this made them look like agent of repression, as the new industrial middle class started to want to claim their share in the government of the country. This dismantling of the Anglican Parliament in 1828/9 followed by the Reform Act of 1832 put High Churchmen rather too publicly in the position of being the opponents of Reform, and this brought down a good deal of hostility on the Church. However, the wisest of them realised that the Church needed to put their house in order before the Whigs did it for them. As a result, a series of Ecclesiastical Commissions led principally by Charles Blomfield, the Bishop of London, piloted through a series of moderate reforms, equalizing the income of the Bishops, making provision to equalize the population of the various dioceses, streamline cathedral chapters, and making arrangements for the augmentation of the income of the poorest parishes, whilst at the same time making it easier for the Bishops to divide overly large parishes, and build new churches. The Tractarians for the most part opposed this sort of common sense reform, not so much because they opposed reform per se, but because the Old High Churchmen chose to do it through Parliament, rather than wait for the creaking machinery of Convocation to be revived and reformed. It took them a while to adjust to the consequences of the Reform Act, and a government that was no long theoretically, as well as practically, Anglican. In the end they compromised with the new realities, sighed for the old certainties, but made sure that the new were as little inconvenient as possible.
They also believed that the State was by definition Christian, and in the case of England, Anglican. When it came to their faith, they took it from the Bible, the Prayer Book, and the Articles of Religion, seen through the writings of men like Daniel Waterland, all of which tended to inculcate a rather studious, sturdy, and sacramental Protestantism. That does not mean to say that they were not unaware of the Catholic roots of Anglicanism. Van Mildert was probably the man who made Charles Lloyd aware of how much the Prayer Book owed to the Breviary, and he in turn passed that knowledge on to the Tractarians. Van Mildert also believed that the English Reformation had made the Church of England Protestant in order that it 'might be more fully and properly catholic.' For the Old High Churchman the Reformation was both a rediscovery of Biblical theology - a theology which was supported and illuminated by reference to the Early Fathers, and also a time when the abuses of the Middle Ages were sloughed off. They shared the Latimer and Ridley as heroes with the more Evangelical brethren, but they also revered Laud and Charles I as high principled, if occasionally wrong-headed, martyrs to the cause. The eighteenth century had shorn services of some of the Beauty of Holiness that the Laudians had insisted upon in the 1620s and 30, and their Caroline Successors had revived at the Restoration in 1660. Copes had fallen into disuse except at Westminster Abbey by the late 1760s, and had the occasional use of incense to sweeten church buildings had disappeared by the 1780s, but old customs such as bowing at the Holy Name (in the Creed, at least, if not elsewhere), at the Gloria Patri, and to the Holy Table when entering and leaving the Church still survived widely. High Churchmen tended to cultivate Church Music, though they were often somewhat hampered by the life tenure customarily extended to organists and lay clerks, and they made some early, if ill-advised attempts to put their cathedrals into better repair. They also restored parish churches. Both churches in my home town received considerable attention in first two decades of the 19th century long before the rage for church restoration hit c. 1850, and it is not unusual to see significant work done in the years immediately following the Napoleonic Wars.
Where it is hardest to pin down High Churchmen is on the subject of what constituted their personal religion. In one sense the proverbial archetypal Georgian sermon text "To fear God, and to keep His commandments; that is the whole duty of man" would cover the greater part of it. They were brought up as Christians, they believed it was their duty to be Christians, and to that end they worshipped, prayed, and gave alms. They even gave thought to missionary work through SPCK and SPG, and the education of the poor through the National Society. In that respect, their religion had a very practical cast but even this was hidden behind a shield of reserve. They hoped that folks would be led to a more sincere profession of Christianity by quiet example, rather than by preaching, exhortation, and that favourite Evangelical weapon, the tract. Perhaps illustrative of the difference of attitude is the shock of the then Evangelical J. H. Newman at seeing his new friend, the High Churchman, John Keble slip a copy of 'The Whole Duty of Man' into a draw rather than leaving it around to do people good. Although both went on to other things, most famously, the Tracts for the Times, the incident is illustrative of the difference between the Evangelicals and the Old High Churchmen in the 1820s, and also the basically unassuming, and reserved cast of the Old High Church spirituality.
Saturday, February 17, 2018
It Has Been a While
Looking at the blog schedule it seems that it was June when I last ran off at the fingers, and it is not mid-February. A couple of posts have been started and forgotten about, so perhaps I have not had anything compelling to say. Certainly, last year was an exciting one, in that we moved to Virginia and settled in the Shenandoah Valley. This was an extremely good move for both of us because although we both loved the wide open spaces of the west, we also hated the wide open spaces of the west, so the time had come to move somewhere a little more densely populated, but not too densely populated. The Shenandoah Valley with small towns every five to ten miles fitted the bill wonderfully, and we are very happy here. Perhaps the lack of blogging is a sign that I now have people to talk to - not in depth, but those random everyday contacts that make us human - which was something a bit lacking where we lived before.
I have to admit that even though it is the beginning of Lent I do not have anything that is particularly setting my fingers in fire. We have had the annual Facebook debate on what colour to use in Lent, and I had a happy time up in the peanut gallery proving that a little learning is a dangerous thing. Basically, the conclusion of the matter, at least for me, has long been that the great colour debate is a nineteenth century, first world problem that we are still rehashing. So far as Lent is concerned there is plenty of precedent even within the relatively straightened confines of England for violet (Exeter), ash (Sarum), or black (Lichfield, and Post-Reformation use), so you pays your money and takes your choice! We have also had the 'to ash, or not to ash' debate, which is solved in the UECNA by allowing the use of the 1967 Scottish Episcopal "Ash Wednesday, Lent, and Holy Week" materials, so you can either follow the BCP and not, or use the Booklet and do ashes. It also serves to remind us of how good we Anglicans are at arguing about adiaphora - to borrow a useful Lutheran word - and not considering the weightier matters of the Law, or rather Gospel.
Lent is a penitential season, and although being of the Reformation Tradition we talk far more about repentance than penance, the state of mind rather than the act, there is no getting away from the idea that Lent is a time in which we need to slough off old bad habits, and take on new good habits. This is all through the Grace of God, of course. The greatest dangers to Christian living today seem to be much the same as ever - being so busy that we forget God, or being so lazy that we do not get to Him. We are also, as a society, intolerably distracted. We seem to give too much attention to a lot of little electronic devices with small screens that seemed to be designed to suck our brains out! Certainly the idea of an electronics fast has been gaining popularity in recent years, and some of my more interesting online friends seem to disappear about this time every year. It certainly is a reminder to me that "anti-social media" takes up a lot of our lives these days.
So what about Lent? I guess it is the usual - cuss less; eat less; spend less time watching telly, Facebooking, texting, whatever... and also prayer more, read Scripture more, attend Communion as often as we can, show Him forth in Good Works as a sign of justifying faith. Lent is a time to be mindful of God, so let that be out goal through the coming forty days.
I have to admit that even though it is the beginning of Lent I do not have anything that is particularly setting my fingers in fire. We have had the annual Facebook debate on what colour to use in Lent, and I had a happy time up in the peanut gallery proving that a little learning is a dangerous thing. Basically, the conclusion of the matter, at least for me, has long been that the great colour debate is a nineteenth century, first world problem that we are still rehashing. So far as Lent is concerned there is plenty of precedent even within the relatively straightened confines of England for violet (Exeter), ash (Sarum), or black (Lichfield, and Post-Reformation use), so you pays your money and takes your choice! We have also had the 'to ash, or not to ash' debate, which is solved in the UECNA by allowing the use of the 1967 Scottish Episcopal "Ash Wednesday, Lent, and Holy Week" materials, so you can either follow the BCP and not, or use the Booklet and do ashes. It also serves to remind us of how good we Anglicans are at arguing about adiaphora - to borrow a useful Lutheran word - and not considering the weightier matters of the Law, or rather Gospel.
Lent is a penitential season, and although being of the Reformation Tradition we talk far more about repentance than penance, the state of mind rather than the act, there is no getting away from the idea that Lent is a time in which we need to slough off old bad habits, and take on new good habits. This is all through the Grace of God, of course. The greatest dangers to Christian living today seem to be much the same as ever - being so busy that we forget God, or being so lazy that we do not get to Him. We are also, as a society, intolerably distracted. We seem to give too much attention to a lot of little electronic devices with small screens that seemed to be designed to suck our brains out! Certainly the idea of an electronics fast has been gaining popularity in recent years, and some of my more interesting online friends seem to disappear about this time every year. It certainly is a reminder to me that "anti-social media" takes up a lot of our lives these days.
So what about Lent? I guess it is the usual - cuss less; eat less; spend less time watching telly, Facebooking, texting, whatever... and also prayer more, read Scripture more, attend Communion as often as we can, show Him forth in Good Works as a sign of justifying faith. Lent is a time to be mindful of God, so let that be out goal through the coming forty days.
Monday, June 26, 2017
Low Churchmanship
It occurred to me the other day that the term 'Low Church' is just as much of a putty nose as 'High Church.' Over the centuries it has been used to describe those who were for the exclusion of James, Duke of York from the English throne, and minimized the differences between Churchmen and Dissenters; it has been used for the 18th century Latitudinarians; 19th century Evangelicals; and early 20th century Liberals - at least here in the USA - or the so-called Virginia Churchmanship. In the later 20th century, Low Church began to reacquire some of the Evangelical connotations it had before, but this time tinged with the Charismatic Movement. That said, the neo-Evangelicals do tend to use the Evangelical label for themselves, rather than the old Low Church label - perhaps because the older leaders of ACNA and AMiA still remember when "Low Church" meant liberal. In the UK, where I grew up, Low Churchmanship could mean either mild Evangelicalism, or what I have heard described as "Liverpool Low" a sort of Prayer Book Protestantism that still has a memory of being Evangelical long ago, which one also used to find quite widely in parts of Ireland.
In the last 50 years, liberalism has generally drifted higher in churchmanship, with ceremonial replacing doctrine as Liberalism has drifted further from historic Christianity. In most dioceses in the USA, the old Low Church liberals have been replaced among the clergy by women and men who are largely broad in ceremonial, and Revisionist in theology with "the culture" having at least as much influence as Scripture, Tradition, and Reason in the formation of their theological opinions - or the lack of them. However, the old Liberalism still respected Scripture, whilst accepting open inquiry as to its history, origins, and meaning, and could say the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds with more-or-less a straight face. This is a long way from where a large part of the Episcopal Church is today. There liberalism of a William Lawrence or a Henry Knox Sherrill is a long way from that of a Frank Griswold or a Catherine Jefferts-Schori, not least because it accepted the fundamental validity and rightness of Western Christian culture, and of a Classical education. Today's liberals seem to be locked into the tyranny of Relativism, and a major collective guilt-trip about being white, wealthy, and western to the extent that they seem to want to commit theological, cultural, and economic suicide.
Personally, I tend to view Low Churchmanship in terms of what it owes to both "rational orthodoxy" and, at a distance, Evangelicalism. Please note that when I say 'Evangelical' I mean the religion of Moore, Meade, and Ryle - a moderate, evangelizing, Calvinism based upon the Bible, the Articles, and the BCP - NOT American style revivalism. This makes a huge difference because it means that it is a form of Evangelicalism that is not dominated by subjective feelings with a limited theology based upon the Bible, but the evangelical expression of the great Augustinian theological tradition in its Calvinistic variant. In short it is Evangelicalism with a fully developed theology, which although it encompasses the Biblicism, Crucicentrism, Activism, and emphasis on Conversion that is common among all Evangelicals, it has a solid theological foundation. In some respects this preoccupation with theology has been both the glory and the curse of old-school Anglican Evangelicalism. A lot of people seem to live on their emotions, and as a result of this the order and restraint of Anglicanism seem foreign, but on the other hand, this orderly approach to Evangelicalism has produced some great "saints" such as William Wilberforce, John Newton, Henry Martyn, and a host of others who strove valiantly for the cause of Christ.
One thing that seems more needful today than ever is an Evangelicalism that is theologically rooted. Much of what passes for Evangelical, or more accurately Revivalist, religion in the USA today is not in any meaningful sense Christian even though it claims the name. Joel Olsteen, Benny Hinn, and many of the popular TV revivalists pedal a religion which embraces one of more of the major Christian heresies of the first Four Centuries, and is as much theatre as anything else. I guess one can say it is a case of zeal without discernment, and certainly without theology. It is the religion of emotion, and that religion of emotion will not survive well when the inevitable intellectual conflict with Islam arises in our local communities. Ill-catechised Christians will be easy meat for Islamic proselytizers, just as they are for the door-knockers Mormon and Jehovah Witnesses. I wonder how long it will be before I get someone on my doorstep who introduces himself as 'Bubba Ali' and tells me that he is from the Staunton Mosque and would like to talk to me about Jesus...
In the last 50 years, liberalism has generally drifted higher in churchmanship, with ceremonial replacing doctrine as Liberalism has drifted further from historic Christianity. In most dioceses in the USA, the old Low Church liberals have been replaced among the clergy by women and men who are largely broad in ceremonial, and Revisionist in theology with "the culture" having at least as much influence as Scripture, Tradition, and Reason in the formation of their theological opinions - or the lack of them. However, the old Liberalism still respected Scripture, whilst accepting open inquiry as to its history, origins, and meaning, and could say the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds with more-or-less a straight face. This is a long way from where a large part of the Episcopal Church is today. There liberalism of a William Lawrence or a Henry Knox Sherrill is a long way from that of a Frank Griswold or a Catherine Jefferts-Schori, not least because it accepted the fundamental validity and rightness of Western Christian culture, and of a Classical education. Today's liberals seem to be locked into the tyranny of Relativism, and a major collective guilt-trip about being white, wealthy, and western to the extent that they seem to want to commit theological, cultural, and economic suicide.
Personally, I tend to view Low Churchmanship in terms of what it owes to both "rational orthodoxy" and, at a distance, Evangelicalism. Please note that when I say 'Evangelical' I mean the religion of Moore, Meade, and Ryle - a moderate, evangelizing, Calvinism based upon the Bible, the Articles, and the BCP - NOT American style revivalism. This makes a huge difference because it means that it is a form of Evangelicalism that is not dominated by subjective feelings with a limited theology based upon the Bible, but the evangelical expression of the great Augustinian theological tradition in its Calvinistic variant. In short it is Evangelicalism with a fully developed theology, which although it encompasses the Biblicism, Crucicentrism, Activism, and emphasis on Conversion that is common among all Evangelicals, it has a solid theological foundation. In some respects this preoccupation with theology has been both the glory and the curse of old-school Anglican Evangelicalism. A lot of people seem to live on their emotions, and as a result of this the order and restraint of Anglicanism seem foreign, but on the other hand, this orderly approach to Evangelicalism has produced some great "saints" such as William Wilberforce, John Newton, Henry Martyn, and a host of others who strove valiantly for the cause of Christ.
One thing that seems more needful today than ever is an Evangelicalism that is theologically rooted. Much of what passes for Evangelical, or more accurately Revivalist, religion in the USA today is not in any meaningful sense Christian even though it claims the name. Joel Olsteen, Benny Hinn, and many of the popular TV revivalists pedal a religion which embraces one of more of the major Christian heresies of the first Four Centuries, and is as much theatre as anything else. I guess one can say it is a case of zeal without discernment, and certainly without theology. It is the religion of emotion, and that religion of emotion will not survive well when the inevitable intellectual conflict with Islam arises in our local communities. Ill-catechised Christians will be easy meat for Islamic proselytizers, just as they are for the door-knockers Mormon and Jehovah Witnesses. I wonder how long it will be before I get someone on my doorstep who introduces himself as 'Bubba Ali' and tells me that he is from the Staunton Mosque and would like to talk to me about Jesus...
Friday, November 4, 2016
Well, Your Grace, How Should It Be Done?
That question appeared recently in the comments to a recent article on this Blog, and I have to say that I do not have a simplistic answer. The main thing is to assert an honestly Anglican identity, which means we look firstly to the Book of Common Prayer in its entirety, then to the Canon Law of the Church, and lastly to the preferences of the congregation that we serve. Unfortunately, we cannot do this without both a certain amount of historical knowledge, and a certain amount of unlearning of common custom which has often grown up as 'window dressing' rather than meaningful ceremonial incorporating elements at variance with the genius of the BCP.
For my own part, I would have to say that Anglican ceremonial has to fall between two poles. On the Protestant end one has to acknowledge the authority of the 1604 Canons, and that whilst they are no longer binding in the USA, they do provide us with a brief summary of what was considered the minimum in the Church during the days of what some authors call 'The Puritan Aggression.' Although much was allowed to fall by the wayside, it has to be remembered that the Communion Table was to be covered with a frontal that went down to the ground - hence the Laudian fall which envelops the altar - and covered with a fair white linen cloth for the Communion. Surplice, tippet, and hood were required in parish churches, and the use of the Cope was not to be omitted in cathedrals for the Eucharist. A proper pulpit and font were to be provided, along with service books, a chalice and paten, and registers. As for ceremonial, the sign of the cross, and the ring are explained, and bowing at the Holy Name of Jesus is required. The result ceremonial is austere, but reverent. On the Catholic end is the Ornaments Rubric of the 1559 BCP which was reiterated in 1662. This particular rubric is a bit of a mystery wrapped inside of a riddle, but the Royal Commission of 1906 seems, for very good reasons, seems to have concluded that the 1559 BCP's rubric was intended to reinstate the vestments used under the 1549 BCP, though if you take its wording literally, you will discover that the 1549 BCP was actually introduced in the third year of King Edward the Sixt. However, in addition items mentioned above, the alb, chasuble, and cope are legal, along with the bishop's crozier, mitre and almuce.
Whilst I tend to prefer a simple liturgy, I have no quarrel with those who prefer the Alcuin Club, and Percy Dearmer, called the 'English Use.' This adapted late mediaeval ceremonial to the Book of Common Prayer (note order of priority) taking into account the decisions of the competent courts. In some respects, the most enthusiastic adherents of this approach were the cathedrals, and the greater parish churches simply because it stood for ENGLISH or Prayer Book Catholicism against the values of that eccentric communion with its headquarters on the Vatican Hill. Certainly, in places like Lincoln Minster in the 1980s, the ceremonial used had a certain massive dignity, but it was not fussy. The altar party entered in albs, and apparelled amices, with the celebrant, deacon, and sub-deacon in copes. Other cathedrals used chasubles, dalmatics, and tunicles, but at Lincoln it was the cope. On arrival at the altar all bowed with the celebrant going to north side of the altar, and the deacon going to north side, and subdeacon to the south side of the broad step now inhabited by the Novus Ordo coffee table of more recent usage! The celebrant would read the service at the altar facing East, first at the north side, then from the middle; with the subdeacon and deacon stepping out to read their own particular elements of the liturgy, the Gospel being accompanied with lights and cross. Little more was done in the Prayer of Consecration than to do the manual acts prescribed by the BCP, and everyone retired again at the end of the service in good order. Matins and Evensong appeared rather more austere - I used to refer to the 'off duty' clergy as the 'Black Pudding Club' as they would attend in cassock and gown, not cassock, surplice, and tippet - and the officiating clergy kept their movements to a minimum. The overall impression was one of the BCP being done decently, and in order.
On the other hand, I do tend to think that Low Churchmen can drop into sloppiness if they do not watch it. I tend to prefer "Central Churchmanship" in parish churches, even though I think something a bit more elaborate is appropriate for cathedrals. Surplice and stole or a simple set of Eucharistic vestments for the Communion service, and surplice and tippet for Matins and Evensong is my usual comfort level, but I am not really that hung up on ceremonial, except that my "Anglo-Irish" ancestry gives me a hearty aversion to ceremonial exuberance. What I am hung up on is loyalty to the Book of Common Prayer as written. Unless one's bishop has authorized additions such as the Benedictus qui venit, they really should not be used, and even then, there is a lot to be said for following the BCP as written, not least of which is that it cuts one free from the liturgical fidgets. Certainly, when I encounter an (over) elaborate service where the former Congregation of Rites has as much, if not more, influence than the BCP, I am inclined to want to cross the threshold again. We had a Reformation, and the rite which was reformed was in many respects much simpler than that of 16th century, never mind 19th century, Rome, to which some folks spend so much time and energy trying to approximate the reformed rite of the BCP.
I really do not want to be prescriptive about ceremonial, but I do think we need to keep two ideas before us. Firstly, we are Anglicans, not wannabe anything elses. Secondly, the function of worship is to offer glory and praise to God, so every time we approach the altar or the reading desk we need to remember "I must decrease; He must increase!" That means that the church's ceremonial should minimize the individuality of the priest, and take him into the liturgy as an integral part thereof as the 'minister' and not the focus of public worship. For this reason I object in the strongest terms to the westward facing position at communion, and to the practice of individualizing or omitting the accustomed vestments. The minister should stand at the Lord's Table or the reading desk not as Pastor Bob or Fr. Jim, but as just another minister of Word and Sacrament.
For my own part, I would have to say that Anglican ceremonial has to fall between two poles. On the Protestant end one has to acknowledge the authority of the 1604 Canons, and that whilst they are no longer binding in the USA, they do provide us with a brief summary of what was considered the minimum in the Church during the days of what some authors call 'The Puritan Aggression.' Although much was allowed to fall by the wayside, it has to be remembered that the Communion Table was to be covered with a frontal that went down to the ground - hence the Laudian fall which envelops the altar - and covered with a fair white linen cloth for the Communion. Surplice, tippet, and hood were required in parish churches, and the use of the Cope was not to be omitted in cathedrals for the Eucharist. A proper pulpit and font were to be provided, along with service books, a chalice and paten, and registers. As for ceremonial, the sign of the cross, and the ring are explained, and bowing at the Holy Name of Jesus is required. The result ceremonial is austere, but reverent. On the Catholic end is the Ornaments Rubric of the 1559 BCP which was reiterated in 1662. This particular rubric is a bit of a mystery wrapped inside of a riddle, but the Royal Commission of 1906 seems, for very good reasons, seems to have concluded that the 1559 BCP's rubric was intended to reinstate the vestments used under the 1549 BCP, though if you take its wording literally, you will discover that the 1549 BCP was actually introduced in the third year of King Edward the Sixt. However, in addition items mentioned above, the alb, chasuble, and cope are legal, along with the bishop's crozier, mitre and almuce.
Whilst I tend to prefer a simple liturgy, I have no quarrel with those who prefer the Alcuin Club, and Percy Dearmer, called the 'English Use.' This adapted late mediaeval ceremonial to the Book of Common Prayer (note order of priority) taking into account the decisions of the competent courts. In some respects, the most enthusiastic adherents of this approach were the cathedrals, and the greater parish churches simply because it stood for ENGLISH or Prayer Book Catholicism against the values of that eccentric communion with its headquarters on the Vatican Hill. Certainly, in places like Lincoln Minster in the 1980s, the ceremonial used had a certain massive dignity, but it was not fussy. The altar party entered in albs, and apparelled amices, with the celebrant, deacon, and sub-deacon in copes. Other cathedrals used chasubles, dalmatics, and tunicles, but at Lincoln it was the cope. On arrival at the altar all bowed with the celebrant going to north side of the altar, and the deacon going to north side, and subdeacon to the south side of the broad step now inhabited by the Novus Ordo coffee table of more recent usage! The celebrant would read the service at the altar facing East, first at the north side, then from the middle; with the subdeacon and deacon stepping out to read their own particular elements of the liturgy, the Gospel being accompanied with lights and cross. Little more was done in the Prayer of Consecration than to do the manual acts prescribed by the BCP, and everyone retired again at the end of the service in good order. Matins and Evensong appeared rather more austere - I used to refer to the 'off duty' clergy as the 'Black Pudding Club' as they would attend in cassock and gown, not cassock, surplice, and tippet - and the officiating clergy kept their movements to a minimum. The overall impression was one of the BCP being done decently, and in order.
On the other hand, I do tend to think that Low Churchmen can drop into sloppiness if they do not watch it. I tend to prefer "Central Churchmanship" in parish churches, even though I think something a bit more elaborate is appropriate for cathedrals. Surplice and stole or a simple set of Eucharistic vestments for the Communion service, and surplice and tippet for Matins and Evensong is my usual comfort level, but I am not really that hung up on ceremonial, except that my "Anglo-Irish" ancestry gives me a hearty aversion to ceremonial exuberance. What I am hung up on is loyalty to the Book of Common Prayer as written. Unless one's bishop has authorized additions such as the Benedictus qui venit, they really should not be used, and even then, there is a lot to be said for following the BCP as written, not least of which is that it cuts one free from the liturgical fidgets. Certainly, when I encounter an (over) elaborate service where the former Congregation of Rites has as much, if not more, influence than the BCP, I am inclined to want to cross the threshold again. We had a Reformation, and the rite which was reformed was in many respects much simpler than that of 16th century, never mind 19th century, Rome, to which some folks spend so much time and energy trying to approximate the reformed rite of the BCP.
I really do not want to be prescriptive about ceremonial, but I do think we need to keep two ideas before us. Firstly, we are Anglicans, not wannabe anything elses. Secondly, the function of worship is to offer glory and praise to God, so every time we approach the altar or the reading desk we need to remember "I must decrease; He must increase!" That means that the church's ceremonial should minimize the individuality of the priest, and take him into the liturgy as an integral part thereof as the 'minister' and not the focus of public worship. For this reason I object in the strongest terms to the westward facing position at communion, and to the practice of individualizing or omitting the accustomed vestments. The minister should stand at the Lord's Table or the reading desk not as Pastor Bob or Fr. Jim, but as just another minister of Word and Sacrament.
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