The term Anglican as a brand name is of Victorian vintage.  It perhaps summons up that feeling of English self-confidence which went along with the Empire and perhaps antimacassars. The British were not only in charge of vast areas of the world but were gifting to those populations Christianity clothed in the civil and moderate temperament of the Established Church.

It is true that there were battles about Churchmanship as bitter as those now fought over sex. The difference was that almost all the bishops who came to Lambeth in 1867 were British products of the better Public Schools and graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, sharing a common language, from the same “class” and all loyal to the British Throne.  Of course there were the Americans but they were busy emulating the culture and ethos of the Church of England in architecture, ceremonial and the method and content of theological education for the clergy despite their odd form of government.

A late Victorian would answer the question, “What is an Anglican?” easily. She would stutter something about membership of a Church in communion with the See of Canterbury, which used a recognizably common version of the Book of Common Prayer and for whom the Articles of Religion, parsed in either Catholic, Evangelical or Broad Church prose were “in use” (to quote the then wording of PECUSA’s Constitution.)

After the middle of the 19th Century there arose small groups who qualified in all aspects save that of being in Communion with Canterbury. They were located in South Africa, North America and England. Were these bodies Anglican?  Opinions varied but most suggested they were not. “Anglican” referred to a structural association, the leaders of which as individual bishops were recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury by beinging invited every ten years to the Lambeth Conference. The bishops of these Evangelical outposts were not invited to Lambeth! Enough said. It was much more “British” to express disapproval by ignoring such types than to issue statements denouncing them.

During the past year  two events challenge this traditional use of the term “Anglican”. The first was the creation of the Anglican Church in North America.  The second, this week was the announcement that the Roman Catholic Church is to create Anglican Ordinariates for those who in faith and conscience have either left Provinces or the Anglican Communion or contemplate so doing.

Involved in all this is a linguistic shift of some importance.  When I was exercising the episcopate in what is termed now a “continuing church”  it was often suggested to me that my ecclesial body could not use the term Anglican in self-description because it was not in communion with Canterbury. When I sought a ruling from +Robert Runcie, then Archbishop of Canterbury he replied that the relationship was “fluid”: a delightful and typically Anglican fudge.

Rome now seems to interpret the term to mean a tradition, an ethos, a way of doing liturgy and perhaps pastoral work, or a cultural-religious phenomenon.  In affirming such an interpretation in formal canonical language it does Anglicanism no favor.  While “Communion-Anglicans” are struggling with the matter of structural and ecclesial integrity, concerning the breadth and limits of autonomy, Rome issues a Constitution which logically suggests that Anglicanism has no ecclesial and structural integrity at its core, but is rather a “spiritual” and traditional phenomenon, the essence of which may be captured and preserved without reference to what it actually is.  Anglicans should be concerned that we are seen no longer as a Church of Churches, but rather a flavor!
View the original post

I appreciate your key points here, Fr. Tony.  I think you are insightful to note that, with the Vatican’s recent creation of the Apostolic Constitution for Anglicans, Rome implicitly considers Anglicanism a flavor. 

However, I think your reading of all this presupposes a view of Anglicanism that understates how much we have been influenced by the winds of evangelicalism through intermarriage with our fellow ‘resident aliens’ such as the Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, etc. (here I evoke the book by Hauerwas and Willimon which calls us to understand ourselves as ‘resident aliens’ in a post-Christendom world).  This, from my experience, is not merely a factor in North America, but is surely true in Africa and Asia, where many Anglicans were trained at Protestant (often Baptist) seminaries. 

If one begins with a premise that identifies Rome as the desiderata of all things (as many Anglo-Catholics seem to) and indeed hold to teachings that don’t value fully how the Spirit has worked through these evangelical fragments to transform Christianity and many cultures in quite positive ways (and here I bring to mind the great achievements of liberalism in its most positive historical sense (abolition of slavery, education of the masses, nearly universal suffrage in large parts of the world, etc.)), then one might conclude that Anglicanism is merely a flavor and be persuaded that now is the time to move to Rome.

From my perspective, I see very little evolution implicit in the thinking by Rome if in fact their actions constitute a conclusion that we are merely a flavor.  It seems to me entirely consistent with the moral reasoning of those who see the ‘other’ as somehow less Christian themselves if they are not of the same spiritual bloodlines.  For the many Anglicans who have been blessed by the winds of evangelicalism, this is just more of the same that will shift the sands a bit within a particular group of Anglicans, but it ought not distract us from sharing with the world the distinctive approach to Christianity that is Anglican, and from continuing our evolution as we reflect on what it means to embody Christ on a global scale with a communion ecclesiology which has presuppositions quite distinct from the Roman model.

Tony,

Is there any actual evidence that Rome has ever considered us a church of churches? In spite of our own claims, as long as Apostolicae Curae is and has been in place, is it not the case that Rome has always seen us as a flavor of Protestantism, however much more to Rome’s taste than say Baptists?

If that is the case, does this new overture to disaffected Anglicans really represent a shift of Rome’s understanding? Or is it, as much as anything, reflective of Rome’s own concerns?

I agree with Craig that whatever Rome thinks of us, officially or unofficially, it is incumbent upon us as Anglicans to put forth and live into a distinctively Anglican catholic vision. That is, if we truly desire to be a catholic expression of Christianity. I am increasingly doubtful that that is a desire of the current dominant party in TEC.

If we were to develop the Anglican Communion into something that was recognizably catholic, the RC are still not going to recognize us as legitimate as long as we reject their innovations. But, they’d have to take us more seriously than they seem to be inclined to at present.

Craig, I was at a program last evening featuring Hauerwas and he made the point that, apart from everything else, this tells us that the Kasper faction has clearly lost.  This is very sad for ecumenical relations and reinforces the sense that The Vatican’s intended direction really a is turning away from Vatican II.  In this, I disagree with Matt that Rome has “always” seen Anglicans as “a flavor or Protestantism,” because I think there have been many highly-placed, thoughtful people over the years who have a broader view.  My relationships over the years with individual RC priests has also reinforced this, though I understand that they do not and cannot speak for the church itself.

-Bob

That’s big stuff, Fr. Bob.  By that I mean Hauerwas’ claim that this is a turning away from Vatican II.  There seems to be no question that this is a loss for the Kasper faction. You may be right that there are Romans who have viewed Anglican priests as equivalent rather than deficient in orders.  That there have been some who have a positive view of Anglicans such as you suggest involved in ARCIC seems undisputable.  It is certainly sad for ecumenical relations if it means that Rome is turning away from Vatican II.

But as soon as I say that, it makes me think that it is even more important now that we finish our own brand of global communion ecclesiology as a potential way of gathering in all the Reformation fragments.  My implication here is that our Covenant provides a rallying point, I think, around which many non-Romans might gather. And that might be something we Anglicans can do that Rome may never be able to do, particularly if in fact they are veering away from the Vatican II vision of us as separated brethren.

But if many of our own Anglo-Catholics, who sometimes confess Vatican I like attitudes towards other Reformation fragments, depart for Rome, that may make it easier for Anglicans to be the focus of re-union for the other Reformed divisions.

This is one of those times where even though I think my position is probably by far the majority in the USA at least, I feel like the odd man out. It is apparent to me that the larger implication of the Oxford movement is that the church as a whole started listening to the Roman tradition again. BUT “listening” did not imply “heeding”; they remained Protestant in that they continued to maintain an attitude of criticism towards what they read and heard. But they heeded a lot, so that (to take my pet example) the main consecration prayers of 1979 use language that is more consonant with a substantial change of the elements than that of previous American books, where the text is more consonant with a “real presence without substantial change” theory of communion. The result was that Hooker’s way of reading tradition was in some respects moved over to reading a different tradition.

One of the ways this is played out is in the way that two papal bulls have been responded to. Apostolicae Curae is more reliably discussed, because we have in Saepius Officio a more or less official response—not because it represents an institutional response (which it doesn’t, if only because it’s the response of two English bishops and therefore doesn’t speak officially for PECUSA), but because it is the response of two church officials, plus those who advised them of course. What strikes me about AC is that it advances a technical rather than an ecclesiological argument, and to that SO replies in kind: that the technical argument is defective because the defect in rite advanced in AC is historically found in Roman rites. The archbishops therefore invoked, by implication, the rule that “you have to be right to be infallible.”

Which leads me to the ex cathedra doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Never mind the allergic reaction to Mariology that huge swathes of Episcopalians have; ex cathedra sticks in the craw as a gross violation of theological process. But my personal view—and I think this is very widely shared—is that the dogma just doesn’t work because it makes a hash out of the economy of salvation. Or to put it together, the typical Episcopalian thinks that the dogma has no force, both because they hold that the pope has not real authority to dogmatize, and because the theology is bad anyway. What I’m thinking, though, is that a colonial churchgoer probably would have stuck with “the bishop of Rome hath no authority in this colony of England.”

What strikes me most of all in the responses I get from my conservative Catholic friends (and it shows up in the long StandFirm thread too) is how powerful is the notion that the church must express itself as a coherent, consistent, complete and authoritative wholeness. They really can’t deal with my observation that the Church Militant isn’t like that, and that one can only observe the church of the bishop of Rome meeting these criteria by accepting a priori that it has them. It’s making for a great deal of argumentative incoherence because they simply don’t hear the observation that “it isn’t like that”, because they work under the principle that the, um, their church dictates how one sees, and therefore what they can hear.

Jumping back to our church, though, it seems to me that the increasingly federal structure being dictated from 815 and abetted by GC and various dioceses is in part a result of all that post-Oxford hybrid theology and ecclesiology. Michael’s continuing talking point of “GC said it and that settles it” is very Roman in its fusion of polity and dogmatizing; so is the transformation of the presiding bishop into an executive empowered to act in the absence of GC.

Let me give an anecdote for some years back. We used to have in our neck of the woods an ecumenical thanksgiving service, which rotated from building to building except for the Baptists, because theirs was half the size of anyone else’s, and the Catholics, because… So here it was our turn, and the Baptist preacher showed up in her robe, and the Methodists and Lutherans came in their vestments. And here we had three Catholic priests in the first pew, in street clericals. Art Lillicropp, who was interim at the time, was furious and exasperated, but he managed to drag them into the sacristy and drape them in every last even vaguely appropriate vestment the closets held. Because of course they really admitted that the other four were Christian ministers just as they were, but they had to pretend that they didn’t believe this and that nothing was really happening, and donning vestments would be an admission common prayer had some legitimacy. That’s also why the service was never in their building.

That’s what I find all over the place: there are Catholic priests who admit that they have the same job that clerics of other denominations have, and there are clerics who are caught up in the pretense that there aren’t any other Christians.

Charles Wingate - 23 October 2009 04:11 PM

snip

Jumping back to our church, though, it seems to me that the increasingly federal structure being dictated from 815 and abetted by GC and various dioceses is in part a result of all that post-Oxford hybrid theology and ecclesiology. Michael’s continuing talking point of “GC said it and that settles it” is very Roman in its fusion of polity and dogmatizing; so is the transformation of the presiding bishop into an executive empowered to act in the absence of GC.

However delighted I am to be a foil for Charles, it was the founders of the Episcopal Church who decided that GC settles it and that State churches (which preceded Dioceses) were, one accession was made, bound by the decisions of GC even if they sent to representatives.  The 1789 Constitution is well worth reading.

As to what Rome might think of us or how they regard us, who cares? The current administration is so regressive that there is really no point in talking to it.  With Vatican II undone and all the windows closed, I am happy to see efforts at reuniting with them closed down. I would be more interested in unity with the actual Orthodox bodies of the east, but of course women’s ordination shuts that door.

I do not think the Anglican Covenant is any sort of rallying point.  With respect to classic Anglicanism it is deficient in its structure of sources of authority, by omitting reason and simply gluing the scripture biases of the biblical supremacists together with the tradition supremacy of the conservative “catholics.”  Once you excise Reason from the formulary you leave the Anglican flavor.

As for flavor.  I often identify denominations with flavors.  Christianity is ice cream, and nearly everyone has a very strong view on which is the best flavor of it.  Of course Rome does not really think we Anglicans are ice cream, just a sort of ice milk.

But insofar as it weakens, dilutes and confuses the reasserter/realigners I am pleased to see the Pope dabbling about.

So how will the first track second track thing work with this flavor metaphor?  I can just see us arguing over who is Cold Stone ice cream and who is 31 flavors!

I confess that you made me chuckle, Michael. 

Could you point to the sections of the Covenant that excise Reason?  That’s not something I see there.  Put again that I argue that reason and tradition are implicitly present in the word Scripture so that it’s redundant to even mention them.  I agree with you that reason should not be excluded as a source of authority, would add that it is not possible to exclude it, but really can’t see where the Covenant does so.  Help me out.  Perhaps I need to be more concerned about this.  Or perhaps you are projecting a fear into your reading of it, inferring an exclusion.  Since the Virginia Report explicitly cites Reason as a source of authority n our communion ecclesiology, I fail to see how the Covenant could go in a different direction.

Michael Russell - 23 October 2009 06:46 PM

However delighted I am to be a foil for Charles, it was the founders of the Episcopal Church who decided that GC settles it and that State churches (which preceded Dioceses) were, one accession was made, bound by the decisions of GC even if they sent to representatives.  The 1789 Constitution is well worth reading.

Perhaps so, but the elevation of the presiding bishop into her present assumed authority was made possible by the changes of the last century; from Smith to Talbot the PB (as one may read even today in Canon IV.9.1) merely acted as agent and certifier of the acts of others. I read, for example, that the PB requires the “consent” of the three senior bishops, which as I recall,when asked of late, was not given; but that was not sufficient to stop her from proceeding. I would venture to guess that a century prior, Tuttle might not have been heeded; but then, his offices were in St. Louis, not on 2nd Avenue.

Well, with Vatican II undone and all the windows closed, I am happy to see efforts at reuniting with them closed down.

I confess some warped interest in what exactly “Vatican II undone” means, especially since as an Episcopalian who has been subjected to the liturgical “reforms” oft attributed to the council, I would suggest that any Anglican worthy of the name would welcome the end of the indecent and disorderly rites carried out under that banner. And as someone who also has direct experience with Orthodoxy, I insist that it was only ever an Anglican fantasy that reunion with the east was ever possible; while we could thus escape Rome’s Borg-like embrace, doctrinally Constantinople, Moscow, and Antioch are far more regressive.

In a way, Michael, you are actually in the same camp as Dr. Tighe, who confessed to me that he would welcome the progressive takeover of the Church of England that the loss of the Anglo-Catholics may precipitate. It is not because he is a progressive, because he is not; he wants to the the CofE destroyed.

it was the founders of the Episcopal Church who decided that GC settles it and that State churches (which preceded Dioceses) were, one accession was made, bound by the decisions of GC even if they sent no representatives.

Yes, Michael, bring that one up again.  The fact that a diocese would be bound by GC even if the diocese didn’t send reps doesn’t mean what you seem to think it does.  But then neither does “unqualified accession” mean what you think it does.  “Unqualified accession” means that the diocese agreed to be bound by all the C&C of TEC while they remain affiliated with TEC.  That goes for whether they send reps to GC or not.  However, neither of these points speak to a situation in which a diocese has chosen to dissaffiliate with GC.  “Unqualified accession” is not equivalent to “irrevocable accession”.  Back in the day, before the current Presiding Bishop took office, canonical language had a precise meaning and the language was carefully chosen.  Had the early fathers of TEC wanted the polity you desire, they would have used precise language to achieve that.  Instead, they deliberately chose language that was patterned after international treaties done by sovereign states.

Anyway, since you don’t seem to think that anyone is worth dialoguing with except yourself, I don’t think that you are terribly open to other points of view.  Best to leave you alone to be the “warm, inclusive church” with all those folks who think exactly like you.  Once y’all get rid of all those troublemakers and folks who think differently, everyone will get along just fine and I am sure that nobody will question the Interpretations of the Canons by the Supreme Leader anymore.

Fr Tony. If Anglicanism is a “flavor,” then I must admit that in the U.S. it is generally embedded in the “tainted Halloween candy” being distributed by much of the Episcopal Church. Sometimes I think we Episcopalians are in the middle of a class-C horror movie with Vincent Price at the organ. Without outside help we are obviously incapable of removing the “taint” that makes us a danger to the Anglican Communion and other Christians worldwide as well as to our sibling denominations in the U.S.

This “tainted Halloween candy” is cheap grace—“the acceptance of God’s grace in salvation without the desire to repent of sin or live a life of obedience in Christian discipleship,” as one source describes it. Parents and kids may like the “flavor,” but the tainted form is a danger to the entire community.

We should be thankful, however, that in a few enclaves Episcopalians are still delivering that “flavor” in a healthy form—a form reflecting biblical truth and proper church order.

Dick

James Wirrel - 24 October 2009 02:51 AM

it was the founders of the Episcopal Church who decided that GC settles it and that State churches (which preceded Dioceses) were, one accession was made, bound by the decisions of GC even if they sent no representatives.

Yes, Michael, bring that one up again.  The fact that a diocese would be bound by GC even if the diocese didn’t send reps doesn’t mean what you seem to think it does.  But then neither does “unqualified accession” mean what you think it does.  “Unqualified accession” means that the diocese agreed to be bound by all the C&C of TEC while they remain affiliated with TEC.  That goes for whether they send reps to GC or not.  However, neither of these points speak to a situation in which a diocese has chosen to dissaffiliate with GC.  “Unqualified accession” is not equivalent to “irrevocable accession”.  Back in the day, before the current Presiding Bishop took office, canonical language had a precise meaning and the language was carefully chosen.  Had the early fathers of TEC wanted the polity you desire, they would have used precise language to achieve that.  Instead, they deliberately chose language that was patterned after international treaties done by sovereign states.

Anyway, since you don’t seem to think that anyone is worth dialoguing with except yourself, I don’t think that you are terribly open to other points of view.  Best to leave you alone to be the “warm, inclusive church” with all those folks who think exactly like you.  Once y’all get rid of all those troublemakers and folks who think differently, everyone will get along just fine and I am sure that nobody will question the Interpretations of the Canons by the Supreme Leader anymore.

James,

Just as the US Constitution provides no right of secession to States once joined, neither does the TEC Constititution provide any right of deaccession to Dioceses.  The absence of a specific prohibition is not permission, its absence is a sign that it is impossible.

I attempt to participate here, James, though statements like your last paragraph surely demonstrate no welcome to viewpoints different from your own.  I argue ideas and behavior, rather than buying the party ACI line of fabrications and wishful thinking.

Craig (per #4), I should be careful to note that Prof. Hauerwas did not claim that Rome had turned away from Vatican II.  Rather, my interpretation is that there appears to be a clear movement away from at least the spirit of Vatican II when one considers the variety of changes over the past decade, many instituted by Benedict (or, formerly, as Cardinal Ratzinger).  For example, the Tridentine mass was replaced by the new mass in the vernacular (cf. BCP 1928 to BCP 1979).  The older Latin form could be used on occasion, but only with the express permission of a bishop, and priests who disobeyed were subject to ecclesiastical discipline.  The official position now is that with Vatican II, “the impression was given” that the Tridentine form had been declared invalid, but in fact that was never the case.  It was always valid and any priest can say the Latin Mass without special permission.

Interestingly, Cardinal Ratzinger was among those who made this determination some time ago, though it is only recently that it has been publicized (surely just a coincidence).  ARCIC seems to have been losing steam steadily in recent years and this latest seems to sound the death knell, at least practically, though the structures remain in place.  While in some ways the retreat from Vatican II began fairly soon afterwards, it is only in this latest regime (Benedict’s) that we see the overturning of that order so dramatically and in public.  It is, or course, expressed as a clarification of an erroneous “impression” rather than as a change, but it certainly is the reassertion of the older, closed order against the (formerly) new.

I believe that your conclusions are right on the mark, as far as Anglicanism and TEC are concerned.  We have an opportunity of our own to clarify and differentiate ourselves in the name of the catholic tradition, and I look for ways to do that which are positive, rather than negative, in nature.  Hauerwas’ argument that Christians must not only tolerate, but actively engage in conflict at some level in order to be true to our call is powerful.  We are able to claim our catholicity only by virtue of our differences.

-Bob

Until recently, I was a doctoral student in the theology school at Catholic University of America in DC. The spirit of Vatican II was still very much alive in many of the professors (esp. older clergy or religious). The younger RC students, particularly seminarians, were more troubling. They very much took to heart the declaration in “Dominus Iesus” that other churches are not “churches proper” but rather should be called “ecclesial communities.” In fact, it was not unusual to hear someone say that we’re not true churches because we’re not in communion with Rome. I’ve even heard a student say (in a class on ecclesiology with Dr. Joseph Komonchak, a leading authority on the history of Vatican II) that in a situation where there cannot be a bishop who is in communion with Rome the Church cannot exist.  (Mind you, there’s then a lot of fudging when it comes to the Orthodox.)

As for Vatican II, there’s not an explicit renunciation of it but a constant reinterpretation of it that often runs contrary to what the council documents say and what the council fathers intended (as recorded in reports to the council, deliberations in the council, and directives on implementation following the council).

The absence of a specific prohibition is not permission, its absence is a sign that it is impossible.

This is, of course, nonsensical Michael.  The term “accession” was a carefully chosen term.  Nation-states “accede” to a treaty.  It would be absurd to state that once a nation-state accedes to a treaty that it is “impossible” for them to withdraw.  The right to withdraw from a voluntary organization or treaty is assumed.  Your argument is further weakened that for “missionary dioceses” - i.e. those dioceses considered to be less autonomous than full dioceses - there is a specific procedure for them to leave TEC.  It would be absurd to state that a full diocese has less rights then a dependent diocese.  Therefore, this adds to the argument that the absence of any prohibition against a diocese leaving is a sign that such a disaffiliation is well within the rights of the diocese.

Michael - I enjoy interacting with you and tweaking your nose every now and again.  I am not the one saying “those folks are not worth talking with” or “those people are just conspirators” or “those people are criminals” or “those people are schismatics”.  Based on your comments, it seems that there are precious few Christians in the world today who you don’t classify as wild-eyed fundamentalists, crazy Baptists, schismatics, Popish fanatics, etc.  I find your comments amusing because you embody so many of the characteristics which you so loudly condemn in others.  So I do welcome your contributions and am often amused by them.  But I do enjoy tweaking the noses of folks (both on the left and the right) who seem so certain of their own positions and seem so quick to condemn those who don’t agree with them.