Showing posts with label Anglicanism. Show all posts

The newly ordained Fr Robert Hendrickson is a curate at Christ Church in New Haven, Connecticut.  He blogs at The Curate's Desk and in this post addresses the longstanding question of how one can simultaneously be Anglican and Catholic.  A tip of the biretta to Society of Catholic Priests.

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At the parish I serve, we hear Confessions, offer daily Mass, believe strongly in the Real Presence, say the Daily Office, offer Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and hold Our Lady in high esteem. These are all integral parts of a Catholic faith that sustains this community. They point toward “the thing itself” which we hold dear – that we worship a living God that condescends to come among us.
We are also a parish that has women serving as priests, has long supported LGBT causes, supports a degree of freedom in matters of conscience such as birth control.
For some, this seems like a case of serious cognitive (or at least theological) dissonance. Yet this is the joy of Catholic Anglicanism. We balance holy tradition with reason and Scripture in such a way that the individual is neither left unmoored to their own devices (as with much of mainline Protestantism) nor denied the dignity of conscience (as with much of Romanism). This kind of Generous Orthodoxy, to purloin a term, is supported by the comprehensive underpinnings of a creedal theology and Prayer Book Catholicism.
Our first concern is “the thing itself.” This means that our worship and service are directed toward the Holy One. All that we have we offer in worship, praise, and thanksgiving. It also means that we trust in a competent God that can handle the many issues that divide the Church today.
I believe that Catholic Anglicanism offers the best of traditional Catholicism and also offers substantial and distinctive contributions to the life of the Church.

Michael Ramsey (1904-1988) served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1961 to 1974.  He was also a distinguished Anglican theologian.  His article "What is Anglican Theology?", published in the January 1945 issue of  Theology is perhaps even more relevant now, in light of the ongoing fracturing of the Anglican Communion.  A hat-tip to the site Full Homely Divinity.

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The method, use and direction characteristic of Anglican divinity first came into clear light in the writings of Hooker.  His theology claimed to do both far less and far more than the theologies of Calvin, of Luther, and of Trent.  It did less in that it eschewed any attempts to offer a complete scheme of Biblical doctrine, or an experiential assurance of justification, or an infallible system of dogma.  It did more in that it appealed to a larger field of authority and dealt with the whole man rather than with certain parts of him.  For it appealed to Scripture, tradition and reason:  "the Spirit everywhere in the scripture...laboreth to confirm us in the things which we believe by things whereof we have sensible knowledge".  And it dealt with the whole man, both by its reverence for his reason and his conscience and by its refusal to draw a circle around the inward personal element in religion and to separate it from the world of external things.  It was congruous with all this that the Incarnation, with the doctrine of the Two Natures, was central, and that the Church and the Sacraments were closely linked with the Incarnation.  The claim of this theology to be "Catholic" rested not only upon its affinity with antiquity but upon the true "wholeness" of its authorities and of its treatment of man and his need.  It offered him not only justification in his inward self but the sanctification of his whole being through sharing in the divine life.

The method, use and direction seen in Hooker persisted.  Amid many diversities of emphasis there can be traced in Anglican divinity an appeal to Scripture which refuses to treat Scripture as a self-contained law or to select the doctrine of justification by faith as the essence of the Gospel, and insists instead that Scripture needs interpreting with the aid of the tradition of the Church as the witness and keeper of holy writ.  And with the appeal to Scripture on these lines there is linked both the study of the ancient Fathers and a reverence for reason and conscience such as commands authority while eschewing infallibilism.  In the centuries between Hooker and today the different elements in the Anglican unity have have often "gone apart".  High-churchmen, valuing tradition but missing the more  dynamic aspect of the Word in the Scriptures, have sometimes been led into a "traditionalism".  Evangelicals, holding the Bible in high esteem but divorcing it from the living tradition of the Church, have sometimes been led into a "scripturalism".  Broad-churchmen, reverencing reason but missing the significance of certain aspects of Scripture and tradition, have sometimes been led into a sort of "rationalism".  In each case there has been a tearing asunder of things which in the Anglican vocation are bound together--the Gospel,  the Catholic Church, sound learning.  Yet the underlying unity, often strained and never to be defined, has not perished.

Matt Gunter of Into the Expectation has put together an excellent statement of what differentiates Anglicanism from other Christian traditions. Read the whole thing for full effect.

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Anglicanism is:

Biblically Focused: "The Holy Ghost rides most triumphantly in his own chariot" [ie Scripture]--Thomas Manton (1620-1677).

Rooted in Tradition: "One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that period--the centuries, that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of our faith."--Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626)

Reasonable: "Faith is not a bird of prey sent by God to peck out the eyes of [humans]"--Nathaniel Culverwel (1619-1651)

Centered in Worship and Prayer: Anglicans do theology "to the sound of church bells, for that is what Christian theology is really all about--worshipping God the Savior through Jesus Christ in the theology of the apostolic age".--Michael Ramsey (1904-1988)

Sacramental [especially Eucharistic]

Catholic and Protestant/Evangelical: "Our special character and, as we believe, our peculiar contribution to the Universal Church, arises from the fact that owing to historic circumstances, we have been enabled to combine in our one fellowship the traditional Faith and Order of the Catholic Church with that immediacy of approach to God through Christ to which the Evangelical Churches especially bear witness, and freedom of intellectual inquiry, whereby the correlation of the Christian revelation and advancing knowledge is constantly effected"--William Temple (1881-1944)

Liberally Catholic and Generously Orthodox: Anglican Christianity...is..."conspicuously orthodox on the great fundamentals of the Trinity and the Incarnation"...It avoids the extremes "represented by a dogmatism that crushes instead of quickening the reason of the individual, making it purely passive and acquiescent, and on the other hand by an unrestrained development of the individual judgement which becomes eccentric and lawless just because it is unrestricted"--Charles Gore (1852-1932)

Passionate but Patient: ..."There is in the Anglican identity a strong element of awareness of the tragic, of the dark night and the frustration of theory and order by the strangeness of God's work"..."The result is a mixture of poetry, reticence, humility before mystery, local loyalties and painful self-scrutinies"--Rowan Williams.

Martin Thornton (1915-1986) was a priest of the Church of England and a prominent writer on the contemplative life. His English Spirituality (Cowley 1986; out of print but check Amazon for used copies) is a masterful introduction to the subject, covering both its pre- and post-Reformation aspects. Chapter 20 deals with the role of the Book of Common Prayer in spirituality and its relationship to the Rule of St Benedict .

The Prayer Book and the Rule of St Benedict

At first sight, the 1662 Prayer Book might appear to be even more than its thousand years apart from the Regula. The ages and circumstances are as different as they can be: Monte Cassino seems an entirely different world from the parish of St Mary, Manchester. But that is only the judgement of social history. From the point of view of ascetical theology, these two documents have a remarkable amount in common, and in a very real sense Caroline and modern England remains "the land of the Benedictines". There are five points of practical interest.

1. The basis of both the Prayer Book and the Regula is the fundamental, and biblical, threefold Rule of the Catholic Church: Office-Eucharist-personal devotion. The Prayer Book Office is two-fold instead of seven-fold, and is more elaborate, but both sets of Offices are based on the Psalter, both constitute corporate worship, the main emphasis of which is objective praise. Both presuppose a weekly celebration of the Eucharist although provision is made for more frequent services as required.

2. Both documents point to the ideal of a life of contemplative recollection, with private prayer as but a support to this. Jeremy Taylor [17th century English bishop] writes, "I would rather your prayer be often than long", St Benedict says prayer should be "short and frequent": neither provides much direct teaching on formal prayer and neither gives any semblance of a "method". Recollection is not just a religious exercise but that whic controls and colours practical daily life: to the Carolines all the duties of one's station, to the Benedictine, manual labour. The 57th "Instrument of Good Works" is simply "to apply oneself frequently to prayer"; the 48th and 49th are "to keep guard at all times over the actions of one's life' and "to know for certain that God sees one everywhere". Those are "Caroline" phrases if ever there were any. In fac the whole of this fourth chapter of the Regula is of recollective significance, moral rather than affective, and could be almost a skeleton syllabus for Caroline moral and ascetical theology.

Both Regula and Prayer Book couple recollection with repentance and progress towards perfection, and both extend daily recollection into the setting of the liturgical year.

3. Both systems are designed for an integrated and united community, predominantly lay. Ch 62 of the Regula makes it clear that there is no distinction between priest and lay-brother "except with regard to his office at the altar". The Rule is for everyone within the united community, while the priest is exhorted to set a good example of obedience to it to encourage the others.

4. Both books breathe a sane "domestic" spirit, and are noted for prudence, especially over physical discipline like fasting and mortification. St Benedict's Prologue speaks of "a school for the Lord's service, in the setting forth of which we hope to order nothing that is harsh or rigorous". The Regula is "a little rule for beginners" aimed at the needs of the less gifted. The Whole Duty of Man, arranged as a companion to the Prayer Book, is "laid down in a plain and familiar way for the use of all, but especially the meanest reader". Simon Patrick's A Book for Beginners, or A help to Young Communicants, another Prayer Book guide, goes even further with "directions for such as cannot read"; it is requested that "their masters and mistresses, or some good neighbor or relation, to be so charitable as to read them their duty about the matter". Like the Christian faith itself, both St benedict and the Prayer Book are capable of nurturing saintly doctors and saintly illiterates.

5. Liturgical revisers and pastoral planners do not always realise that the Prayer Book, no less than the Regula, presupposes a comparatively compact and very stable community. Whatever the difficulties we face to-day, and whatever reorganization may be necessary, the geographical parish is as much as part of the Prayer Book ascetic as the monastery was to the Benedictine Rule. The Common Office, empirical guidance within the "family" unit, as well as rubrics relating to Baptism and the residential qualifications for marriage and burial, all presuppose "Benedictine" stability. Whatever the answers to our practical problems, we should realise that huge parishes, group-ministries, industrial chaplaincies, eclectic congregations, and so on, are basically ascetical matters which are opposed to the Prayer Book system of spirituality.