By Robin G. Jordan
The appointment of Bishop Harvey as the Dean of the Anglican Church in North America is very telling about the emerging ecclesiastical culture of the AC-NA. Those who occupy positions of leadership at the provincial level do not appear to regard themselves as bound by the rules embodied in the church’s instruments of governance. This raises questions about the kind of ethic and in turn the kind of theology that dominates the AC-NA’s emerging ecclesiastical culture. As the former Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggins observed, “a sound ethic can precede only from a sound theology.” [Donald Coggins, Preaching: The Sacrament of the Word, New York: The Crossroads Publishing Company 1988, 144]
The conflict between conservatives and liberals in the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church has been over moral values and doctrinal beliefs. In these two churches the abandonment of traditional morality has gone hand in hand with the abandonment of orthodox doctrine. One of the effects of these developments has been the erosion of principle in guiding conduct and a loss of respect for the “rule of law.” The result is what church leaders believe will bring about a desired end increasingly determines how they act. A large number of those occupying positions of leadership in the Anglican Church of North America are former clergy and members of the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church. They appear to have brought this attitude into the AC-NA with them.
Archbishop Duncan was very insistent as Moderator of the Common Cause Partnership and then as Archbishop elect of the Anglican Church in North America that the instruments of governance of the newly-formed church should not be too detailed, majoring in what he described as “minors.” This Archbishop Duncan claimed was a major weakness of The Episcopal Church system of ecclesiastical governance. He suggested a correlation between a church’s preoccupation with the details of its constitution and canons and its spiritual condition. A church that was genuinely spiritual would not be overly concerned with the details of these instruments of governance. Archbishop Duncan argued for what he described as a “minimalist” constitution and set of canons. Written instruments, the provisions of which were clear, detailed, and precise—important safeguards against arbitrariness in governance and abuse of power, he maintained would prove a hindrance and obstacle to mission. Rather the AC-NA should “major in the majors” as he put it. To the bystander, it sounded as if Archbishop Duncan and the others making these arguments did not want anything that might get in the way of them doing what they wanted to do. These arguments were very telling about the attitude of those making them toward constitutional government and the “rule of law” in the church. Expediency required them to accept a constitution and a set of canons but they clearly favored a form of church government which did not limit the discretionary powers of the top leaders but left a great deal to their judgment.
The comments of AC-NA members on another web log in response to the concerns expressed in this article series offer valuable insights into the AC-NA’s church culture. One comment was to the effect that a church that is “spiritual” and has “spiritual” leaders does not need rules. There was the inference that rule-making and rule-keeping are legalistic and unspiritual. Another comment took the position that it did not matter if church leaders did not follow manmade rules as long as they obeyed biblical teachings. Christ’s warning against nullifying the word of God for the sake of human tradition was cited as the Scriptural basis for this point of view.
Neither viewpoint is biblical. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians addresses problems of the Corinthian church related to the beliefs of members of that church that in having received the Holy Spirit, they were free not to follow any moral principles or code. The freedom of the Gospel, as Paul draws to the attention of the Corinthians, is not license for immorality or unprincipled conduct. In his writings Paul stresses the role of church leaders as models for other Christians. If they are immoral or unprincipled in their conduct, they set a bad example for their fellow Christians. They also risk becoming stumbling blocks not only for other believers but also for those outside the Christian community. Their conduct reflects poorly on the whole Christian community as well as themselves and their particular part of that community. It becomes the cause of reproach from outsiders and of entanglement in the snares of the devil.
These comments suggest that AC-NA leaders are fostering ethical confusion in AC-NA members and creating fertile ground in which unbiblical beliefs and values may flourish. They point to a strong element of antinomianism and a decidedly un-Anglican disregard for the “rule of law” in the ecclesiastical culture of the AC-NA.
The establishment of a Provincial Assembly shorn of any significant role in the governance of the AC-NA except that of ratifying the decisions of the Provincial Council points to another aspect of the AC-NA’s church culture. A significant number of the clergy who shaped the AC-NA’s present system of ecclesiastical governance and now hold its top leadership positions share a common dislike of a synodical form of church government and a common distrust of the laity. Even though it is self-evident that the bishops and other clergy of the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church bear the lion’s share of the responsibility for the present state of these two churches, this particular group of clergy tended to blame the synodical forms of church government and the laity of the two churches. Archbishop Duncan was very insistent that the inaugural Provincial Assembly should not try to modify the constitution and the set of canons that was submitted to it for its approval, and should avoid what he claimed to be another major weakness of The Episcopal Church’s system of ecclesiastical governance.
The AC-NA does not require that the judicatories—dioceses or other groupings of congregations—which form the church, must have a synodical form of church government. Under the AC-NA constitution and canons the outgoing bishop of a judicatory is not prohibited from choosing his successor and the successors to any auxiliary bishops of the judicatory. The AC-NA canons only require that a list of nominees or the name of the bishop elect should be submitted to the College of Bishops for appropriate action. They have very little to say about the governance of judicatories beyond requiring judicatories to have a standing committee or its equivalent to act as the ecclesiastical authority of the judicatory in the absence of the bishop, allowing judicatories to continue to operate under the provisions of the constitution and canons of their parent province, and permitting them to hold local church property in trust if they already do so or take it into trust if a local congregation gives its written consent.
One of the AC-NA’s largest founding entities, if not its largest, is the Anglican Mission in the Americas. A primatial vicar, acting on the behalf of the primate of the Anglican Church of Rwanda and responsible to him, governs the AMiA with the assistance of a council of missionary bishops. The primate and house of bishops of the Anglican Church of Rwanda chooses the missionary bishops that comprise this council. Each missionary bishop is responsible for overseeing a regional network of the AMiA. The council of missionary bishops may submit nominations for new missionary bishops. The primatial vicar may veto a nomination. He may also make nominations of his own. The council of missionary bishops may nominate a successor to the primatial vicar. The Rwandan primate and the house of bishops are not jurisdically bound to choose a new missionary bishop or primatial vicar from any of the nominees whose names are submitted to them. The AMiA has an agreement with the AC-NA that the AC-NA College of Bishops will welcome all new bishops that the Rwandan primate and house of bishop chooses. The AC-NA has no equivalent of a synod and its clergy and laity do not share with its bishops in the governance of that ecclesial body. The primatial vicar may convene and consult gatherings of AMiA clergy but these gatherings can make only recommendations. They have no legislative powers. Except in appointive positions its laity plays no role in the governance of the AMiA.
In the months before the formation of the AC-NA the provisions of the AC-NA provisional constitution and canons relating to the selection of the initial bishop for a new judicatory became the subject of heated debate on the Internet. They were open to interpretation that the College of Bishops selected this bishop from a list of two or three nominees that the new judicatory submitted to it. The guidelines for the completion of an application for the recognition of a new judicatory supported this interpretation. This writer and others drew to the attention of the Governance Task Force that the College of Bishops’ selection of new bishops represented a significant departure from a long tradition of a diocese electing its own bishop and the bishops of the province confirming the election, which went back to the early church. The ACNA finally issued a statement through one of the members of the Governance Task Force that, while the preferred method for the selection of the initial bishop of new judicatory was for the College of Bishops to select the bishop from such a list of nominees, a new judicatory could elect its own bishop and then submit the name of the bishop elect to the College of Bishops for confirmation of the election. However, the guidelines for the completion of the application form were not corrected. The language of the provisions of the proposed constitution and canons that had prompted the debate was not made clearer. The issues of what would happen if the College of Bishops rejected all nominees on a judicatory’s list and whether a judicatory could elect a successor to a bishop that the College of Bishops had selected were not properly addressed.
In the AC-NA there are two dominant schools of thought relating to ecclesiastical governance. The first school of thought is a strong advocate of prelacy. Adherents of this school of thought argue that the corrective to what happened in the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church is strong “spiritual” bishops governing the church. They downplay the contribution of bishops with prelatical aspirations to the plight of conservative Anglicans and Episcopalians in North America. It may also be said of many of its adherents as Stephen Noll once said of the Africans: they need to learn to distinguish between episcopal power and episcopal tyranny. Adherents of this school of thought are also likely to hold opinions similar to the two viewpoints described earlier in this article. A significant number of the AC-NA’s present leaders belong to this school of thought, particularly those who share a common dislike of a synodical form of church government and a common distrust of the laity.
The second school of thought favors a synodical form of church government in which ecclesiastical governance is in the hands of the church as whole, both clergy and laity together, and not exclusively in the hands of bishops or any other particular order. This school of thought sees bishops playing a limited constitutional and canonically defined role in the government of the church. It would give bishops and other church leaders much less discretionary powers than the first school of thought and would require a system of checks and balances and other safeguards to discourage arbitrariness in governance and the abuse of power. There are various shades of opinion between these two schools.
An aspect of the AC-NA church culture that deserves further comment is the secretiveness. As was noted in the preceding article, the provisional AC-NA constitution and canons were not made public until after their adoption. The lack of openness and transparency that characterized the Common Cause Leadership Council also characterizes the Provincial Council, its Executive Committee, and the other committees and task forces at the provincial level. A report of the Prayer Book and Common Worship Task Force that was released after the inaugural Provincial Assembly was given limited circulation and was not made public. The AC-NA canons make no provision for the publication of the deliberations of the Provincial Council in a journal and the only account of its most recent meetings were carefully worded press releases. What AC-NA members hear back home is what their leaders decide to tell them.
AC-NA members tend to deny the existence of problems in the AC-NA or minimize their seriousness and attack those who call attention to their existence or to their seriousness. Those in and outside AC-NA who express concerns over developments within the AC-NA are labeled as hostile to the AC-NA. There is very low tolerance for internal and external criticism even if it is constructive and friendly. These attitudes also appear to be a part of the AC-NA’s emerging ecclesiastical culture.
A final aspect of the AC-NA’s church culture that is coming out into view is the worldliness of that culture. Archbishop Duncan and its other spokesmen like to draw attention to the number of AC-NA congregations and to compare them with the number of TEC congregations. They sound like corporative executives comparing the growth of their corporation with that of their competitors. The preoccupation with being larger than the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church shows that the AC-NA, like the ACA and TEC, is a captive of the larger culture and is influenced by its values and ways of thinking. The AC-NA, like the larger Christian community in North America, is far from free of worldly influences. In this regard the difference between the AC-NA, the ACA, and TEC is one of degree.
The AC-NA does have a number of congregations that are vibrantly Christian and fully committed to the work of the Great Commission. In these congregations the spiritual gifts and natural talents of all members, young and old, are employed to bring the gospel to a lost and fallen world. The question is will these congregations grow and thrive in this kind of church culture in the long-term? Or will they be forced to seek a healthier environment in which they can carryout their ministry?
18 comments:
If you think of how the "Continuum" churches fared, making the case that AC-NA is both diverse and functional is pretty important. Giving to or joining what could be a three parish sub-schism as has happened over there is likely to be an unpopular option. Especially if one is trying to maintain the idea (fiction in my view) that AC-NA will eventually replace TEC and AC Canada in the councils of the communion, size matters.
I can think of many reasons to criticize their leadership (as an Episcopalian I can think of dozens!) but talking up both size and growth is hardly one.
FWIW
jimB
Diverse, Jim? A conservative evangelical with my views is no more welcome than liberal Catholic with your views. You and I might find a place in the AC-NA as long as we keep our views to ourself and do not try to practice what we believe and value. But how different is that from the Episcopal Church?
The AC-NA has not been operating long enough to decide how functional it is. However, the aspects of the AC-NA's emerging church culture that I draw attention to in my article are not good signs.
You'll have to explain for our readers what you mean by "a three parish sub-schism."
Pointing to the attention of the membership the number and size of any new congregations and how much of that growth is from conversions is one thing, pointing to their attention how their church is besting two existing churches is another. Sounds to me like a McDonald's executive boasting that his company has more franchises than Burger King. I think that I hit the nail on the head when I identify worldliness as underlying such boasting.
Hmmm..... I find it difficult to defend Duncan et al. After all, I am
the sort of person they left TEC to avoid. ;-)
By "three parish sub-schism" I was referring to the constant re-division of what began as the St. Louis Declaration. In that document those who split from TEC over the ordination of women promised to stay together. At this point they have fractured so often that there was at least at one point a group of 3 parishes, one bishop and a couple clergy who were claiming to be the communion.
I dunno, maybe it is 'worldliness.' If it is, I suppose the obvious question is where you and those who agree with you have to go? TEC would welcome you, but not change to fit your views. So too, LCMS or some of the less conservative Lutherans.
I actually wish AC-NA well in most things. That is I hope and expect they will loose most of the litigation, but as did AMiA, they could move on and prosper. The question is where they go from there?
FWIW
jimB
In answer to your last question, Jim, I think the AC-NA's future is tied in part to the Anglican Communion's future.
As for myself and those who agree with me I think that we are out in the cold. Unless an Anglican body is formed to provide us with a new home, we most likely will end our days in a non-Anglican church or no church at all.
A number of interesting papers have been presented on the fragmentation of the Continuum. When I run across one, I post it on Anglicans Ablaze. The AC-NA folks are putting a lot of effort into keeping the AC-NA from fragmenting, which explains some of the developments in that body, various concessions made to various constituent groups. They see the unraveling of the alliance comprising the AC-NA as a victory for liberalism and immorality and at this stage are willing to make sacrifices to maintain unity. No AC-NA leader wants to be held responsible for causing the unraveling of the alliance so they go along with things that they find objectionable. This means that decision-making is vulnerable to the exploitation of the fear of a particular decision causing a division in the alliance, a division that might cause it to unravel.
I wish I had seen it earlier, but ACNA and its predecessor Common Cause always was a cobbled-together assortment of self described "Anglicans" who ironically could never agree as to what "Anglican" meant except that it did NOT in their minds mean anything like the original (16th Century) definition nor more precisely how those English Reformers would have set the term into a Biblical context.
So now they struggle to hold the creature together; conservative Catholics and broadchurch ecumenist evangelicals.. but not conservative evangelicals. Hardly surprising, and it's increasingly clear that the problems are unfixable. How right you are to say that 'we' are left out in the cold.
We of conservative evangelical churchmanship do notice ACNA's stated objectives seem very long on mission and church-planting and short on our invaluable heritage of beautiful, substantial, deeply reverent worship. I feel the worship of God is the church's primary "work," and evangelism hinges on our being able to bring unbelievers in where the Truth is proclaimed in the context of God receiving all that is due Him.
Patricia
Patricia,
I can assure you that the maintenance of Divine Worship is at the forefront of our work in the Missionary Diocese of All Saints.
CLL
http://ststephenlouisville.org
Chris,
You failed to mention that the Missionary Diocese of All Saints is affiliated with Forward in Faith North America. At the meeting of its 2009 Assembly FIFNA adopted a resolution urging all churches affiliated with that organization to use the 1928 American Prayer Book, the 1549 Prayer, and the various missals and manuals that have been prepared to supplement these rites. The 1928 American Prayer Book departs significantly in its theology from the more Reformed 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the 1549 Prayer Book was a transitional Prayer Book which Cranmer introduced to help the English Church make the transition to the Reformed liturgy of the 1552 Prayer Book. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer is substantially the 1552 Prayer Book with some alterations and additions.
You also failed to mention that the various missals and manuals, the use of which the resolution urged make the liturgy of the 1928 American Prayer Book and the 1549 Prayer Book even more Catholic in theology and liturgical usages than they are already. They introduce liturgical elements that embody doctrines that the English Church rejected at the Reformation such as the sacrifice of the Mass and Transubstantiation. In the case of the 1928 American Prayer Book they make more apparent these doctrines where they are incipient in that service-book.
The maintenance of Divine Worship may be at the forefront of the work of the Missionary Diocese of the All Saints but it is worship that gives expression to doctrines that are anathema to Anglicans like myself who are of Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical in our doctrine and practice and seek to uphold and maintain the Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical character of the Anglican Church.
Where we may agree is on the importance of worship that is reverent and substantial, worship that truly comes from the heart and satisfies and nourishes the soul.
In my experience worship that is really "beautiful," which goes beyond appealing to human preferences and tastes, reveals God's own beauty. It can be very simple and dignified, that is, serious in manner and reflective of a mindfulness of the presence of a holy God. Processions, candles, incense, eucharistic vestments, the ringing of sacring bells, and elaborate and often uninteligible ceremonial are needless embellishments. Indeed they can become idols, appealing to our senses and drawing attention away from God to themselves. Well-chosen music--hymns, Psalms, canticles, spiritual songs, and service music, on the other hand, can be used to heighten the attractiveness of our worship, provided that it is used not as mere ornamentation but as an integral part of that worship.
"Attractiveness" may not be the best choice of words. While music can make our worship more appealing, there is a danger that it too can become an idol. But where music is properly used it can draw the heart to God. It can help to give voice to the prayers of the heart. It can also edify, console, and exhort.
Robin,
The 1549 was chosen because it represents the English Church during its earliest expression of reform, before the tumult of accession strife and the puritan rebellion. It is thus least partisan and most broadly English. The 1928 was recommended because it is acceptable to all but the puritanical of Anglicans, and is a source of unity with the Orthodox throught its Eucharistic canon with epiclesis.
"Even though it is self-evident that the bishops and other clergy of the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church bear the lion’s share of the responsibility for the present state of these two churches, this particular group of clergy tended to blame the synodical forms of church government and the laity of the two churches"
Because it is actually self-evident to any observer that in TEC it is actually the HOD, and the laity in particular, which are driving the LGBT agenda in TEC. They are way ahead of the HOB and have been pushing them hard every three years at general convention. If it was up to the lay delegates, TEC would have had SSM rites written into the Book of Common Prayer a decade or more ago. I see nothing about TEC's particular form of ecclesiastical government that should commend it to ACNA...
Chris,
It depends upon your reading of English Church history. As Bishop Gardiner draw to Archbishop Cranmer's attention, the 1549 Prayer Book contained material that could be interpreted to support the doctrines that the Anglican Reformers had rejected as unbilical. The missals and manuals that have been developed to supplement the 1549 Prayer Book move it even more closer to the unreformed Pre-Reformation Medieval service books and the unbiblical doctrines they embody.
As for the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, I refer you to my earlier article, "What Is Wrong with the 1928 Book of Common Prayer?" on the Internet at: http://anglicansablaze.blogspot.com/2009/09/whats-wrong-with-1928-book-of-common.html. Among its defects are that it embodies doctrines that the Anglican Reformers rejected at the Reformation because they found no support for these doctrines in the Bible.
Does unity with the Orthodox justify liturgical usages that give expression to theology that is unbiblical? The 1549 epiclesis is based on an Orthodox model but the 1928 is not. It is based upon the 1764 Scottish Non-Juror epiclesis and reflects the peculiar Eucharistic theology of the Usager Non-Jurors. The Non-Usager Non-Jurors, by far the larger number of the Non-Jurors, were satisfied to use the 1662 Book of Common Prayer with its muted epiclesis. As with the 1549 Prayer Book the missals and manuals developed to supplement the 1928 Prayer Book move it even further in a unreformed Catholic direction.
The two dominant church parties at the time of the compilation of the 1928 Prayer Book were the Anglo-Catholics and the Broad Church liberals. Traditional evangelical Anglicanism had disappeared from the Episcopal Church by 1900. As Bishop C. Fitzsimmon Allyson wrote Dean Terry Holmes in private correspondence, the only so-called "evangelicals" in the Episcopal Church were liberal Low Churchmen and not true evangelicals. The 1928 Prayer Book reflects the doctrinal views of these two church parties. It is not only much more unreformed Catholic than its predecessors, including the 1662 Book of Common Prayer but it is also much more liberal! It paved the way for the more Catholic and more liberal 1979 Book of Common Prayer!
The Restoration bishops who compiled the 1662 Book of Common Prayer were all Laudian High Churchmen and they incorporated very few of the proposed changes that Richard Baxter and the Presbyterians sought made in the Prayer Book. Indeed the Restoration bishops made many changes that they did not like. They refused to accept the 1662 Prayer Book and it cost them their livings. They were ejected from the Church of England.
The 1662 Book of Common Prayer enjoys the status of a historic Anglican formulary with the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1661 Ordinal, not only in the Church of England but also a large number of the provinces of the Anglican Communion. The 1549 Prayer Book and the 1928 Prayer Book do not enjoy such status in Anglicanism. The 1928 Prayer Book does, however, enjoy the dubious honor of being the first major revision of the Prayer Book of an Anglican province that became apostate and heretical. The 1549 Prayer Book enjoys the equally dubious honor of being a partially reformed liturgy that was used to justify the reintroduction of unreformed Catholic and liberal doctrine into the same province.
Robin,
Thank you for making my point for me. Why was the 1928 skewed in a particular direction? Because of the puritanical faults of the REC folk. When they seceded, there was no balancing act, no voice of loyal opposition, no call to remember history. (Just as the church would have been similarly disabled had all the AC's split, and not been around to remind the church of her pre-schism past.) I laud their doctrinal rigor, but lament the way it played out because it meant that the PECUSA lost balance.
The AC-NA hopes to restore the balance that held both parties in check (the Evangelicals and the Catholics) so that we get a true evangelical catholicism, which is the aim and genius of Anglicanism. We first deal with outright heresy, then progress to define our place within the grand drama of Anglican Christianity. We have the added task of synthesizing the awakenings of charismatic consciousness within the Anglican Communion.
I hope that Evangelicals like yourself will see the failures of the past and learn that we cannot leave the Anglican Church in North America to either party, but must instead deal with the reality of faithful Anglicans in both camps.
AeroAnglican
Did the Episcopal laity approve the candidacy of gays and lesbians for the ordained ministry and then ordain gay and lesbian clergy? Did the Episcopal laity confirm an openly gay bishop-elect and consecrate him the bishop of New Hampshire? Did Episcopal laity turn a blind eye when their clergy blessed gay and lesbian unions or entered into such unions? Did Episcopal laity give permission for their clergy to bless such unions? Did Episcopal laity from the pulpit and the lecture platform and in books and magazine articles teach heresy? Did the Episcopal laity fail to discipline their fellows when they made heretical pronouncements? Did they discipline and defrock conservative Bible-believing clergy who disagreed with them? Did they attempt to seize the buildings and other local church property of conservative Bible believing congregations and to change the locks on the doors of the buildings? The laity did not push the House of Bishops to take the positions it has taken. The bishops themselves took those positions. Ted Gulick who was bishop of Kentucky did not appoint an openly lesbian deacon as the pastor of three mission churches in socially conservative western Kentucky where I live because they asked for an openly lesbian pastor. He appointed her because he advocates the normalization of homosexuality in the Episcopal Church.One of those churches is now closed. On of them is on its last legs.
The problem in The Episcopal Church is not its synodical form of church government. The problem is its liberal and revisionist bishops, clergy, and seminary professors. In Episcopal parishes and churches the clergy have a lot to say in who serves on the vestry and the committees and who is elected or appointed as delegates to the diocesan convention. A parish or church with a liberal or revisionist rector or vicar is not going to send conservative delegates to the diocesan convention and a diocesan convention dominated by liberal and revisionist clergy and liberal lay delegates is not going to elect conservative bishops and to send conservative deputies to General Convention.
The solution is not to put the government of the church solely into the hands of the bishops or a small elite group of bishops, clergy, and selected laity. This makes the church even more vulnerable to one church party dominating the church and making its own agenda the church's agenda. The solution is to adopt a synodical form of church government that incorporates safeguard against the dominance of one church party and to enforce these provisions in its instrument of governance. As the Anglican Church in North America is presently constituted whatever theological outlook dominates the bishops and clergy of the Anglican Church in North America is going to dominate that church. It already shows a drift which from a conservative evangelical point of view is not Scriptural. The Anglican Reformers would have had problems with it. The Episcopalians who migrated to the Anglican Church in North America did not escape the liberal and revisionist influences in that church and those influences is reflected in their thinking.
Chris,
What I see in the Anglican Church in North America is a church that has decided that has no place for conservative evangelicals or classical evangelical Anglicanism, or even the the Anglican Reformers as far as that goes. It is a church that has a place for Anglo-Catholics and basically what were called in the past Liberal Evangelicals or Broad Church Liberals. This second group may not be liberal in quite the same way as previous groups of Anglicans that have earned this moniker, but they are similar enough to these earlier groups to be described by that name.
What you basically have in the Anglican Church in North America is a "balance," if it can be called that, which is similar to that which existed in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the early twentieth century after the conservative evangelicals withdrew from that church over the refusal of the High Church party to countenance any revision of the Prayer Book to make it more acceptable to conservative evangelicals. The conservative evangelicals only asked for alternative forms and language but High Church Party would not give them even that.
Gillis Harp his Mandate article, "Navigating the 'Three Streams': Some Second Thoughts about a Popular Typology," on the Internet at: http://anglicansablaze.blogspot.com/2009/09/navigating-three-streams-some-second.html, draws attention to some problems associated with the "three streams" model that is enjoying popularity in some quarters of the AC-NA. It is a flawed model and as Gillis points to our attention, one that the Anglican Reformers would not have embraced.
Robin,
Prior to the Anglo-Catholic revival, church attendance was lowest since before the Christianization of England. I think I recall something like 6 communions made at the Easter Service at St. Paul's Cathedral (London) in 1804. (Fuzzy remembrance, so the particulars may be wrong - but the sentiment is on track.)
The strenuous repression of either party leaves the church unfit to pass on the faith as the pendulum of culture swings between intellectualism and romanticism. We need both lungs to breathe (just as the Church needs both Latin & Eastern branches).
The Puritan impulse among Evangelicals almost inevitably collapses into Continental Protestantism. That process has to be reversed - and a healthy dose of shared order and work will do a great deal to heal that breach. (Please know that I speak as someone who is a convert from Westminster-Confessional Presbyterianism. I want to be part of a church that has grown through the 16th & 17th century, but looks for its unity in the first 1000 years of church history.)
Chris,
As Stephen Sykes and others have shown, the condition of the Church of England at the time of the Oxford movement was not as low as Anglo-Catholics maintain. Indeed, their claim is largely propaganda and intended to justify the Oxford movement.
As Samuel Leuenberger points out in Archbishop Cranmer’s Immortal Bequest: The Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England: An Evangelistic Liturgy, the Oxford movement, in its early stages, benefited from its commitment to and use of the Protestant and Reformed liturgy of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
Bishop John Jewel in preparing his Apology for the Church of England, considered only the writings of early Church fathers from the first six centuries of the Christian Church. He did not cite the isolated opinions of a single Patristic writer or the later Patristic writers' quotations of an earlier writer. He cited only those opinions of several early Church fathers who were in a agreement on a matter and then if he himself based upon his own study of the Bible concluded that their common opinion was agreeable to Scripture. I commend his cautious approach to contemporary theologians.
The extent of unity of doctrine and practice in New Testament times as well as the first five centuries of the Christian Church is a matter on which all scholars, even conservative ones, do not agree. Some would have us see unity where there is none; others would have us see disunity where there is unity.
There is considerable disagreement between Anglo-Catholics and conservative evangelicals on a number of important matters. A number of these matters relate to salvation and therefore are not matters of indifference. Both church parties cannot be right. One party must be right and the other wrong. You speak of passing on the "faith." But what if the "faith" being transmitted is the wrong "faith"? I for one am not willing to consign millions of souls to a Godless eternity for the sake of "unity."
Continued below.
The Edwardian Reformers were much more Reformed in their views than Anglo-Catholics allow and they arrived at these views independently of the continental Reformers from their study of the Bible. An early bit of Tractarian revisionism was to claim that the English Reformation did not affect the Catholic faith in the Church of England and to blame the Puritans for any movement of the English Church in a Reformed direction. This is pure bunk. The tension that came to exist in the Church of England by the end of Elizabeth I's reign was tension between two branches of the Reformed party in the English--those who were for most part satisfied with the reforms that had been made and those who wished to make further and more radical changes.
Distance from the pre-Reformation English Church, the Edwardian Reformation, and the Marian Persecution was among the factors that prompted the Catholic Reaction in the seventeenth century. However, the Catholic Reaction enjoyed the most popularity among the royal family and the nobility. The excesses of Charles I and his Archbishop of Canterbury Wiliam Laud, its strongest proponents, would provoke civil war.The royalist Caroline High Churchmen were forced to flee into exile on the Continent where they encountered a Roman Catholic Church intent on converting the heirs to the English throne to Roman Catholicism. The Church of England and Anglicanism was attacked as a "failed experiment" as they are attacked now by those sympathetic to Roman Catholicism. A number of extreme High Churchmen converted to Roman Catholicism. But Cosin, Bramhall, and others defended the Church of England against what in modern parlance would be described as a "hostile takeover bid" and went to great lengths to prevent the conversion of the heirs to the English throne to Roman Catholicism. Their experiences in exile on the Continent helps to explain why the changes that they made in the English Prayer Book at the time of the Restoration were much more moderate than what they might have made.
The Oxford movement was at its heart a Counter-Reformation movement and the later Tractarians showed their true colors when they introduced into the Church of England Roman innovations in doctrine and worship that had been adopted at the Council of Trent or afterwards.
Converts to Anglo-Catholicism from another tradition are apt to be highly critical of their former tradition to which they belonged while at the same time exhibiting a very uncritical view of their new tradition. If they had not wholeheartedly bought into its intellectual presuppositions, they would not likely have changed traditions. Rejection of the intellectual presuppositions of their former tradition is part and parcel of conversion.
Anglo-Catholicism and Roman Catholicism are not the "primitive faith" of the New Testament Church. Returning to the doctrines and practices of even the first five centuries of the Christian Church does not guarantee that they are Scriptural or apostolic. Even wide-spread agreement in the Christian Church during that period does not guarantee it. The New Testament records departures from the "primitive faith" even before the death of the apostles. The most reliable authority to which we can turn on what is Scriptural and apostolic are the Scriptures and the writings of the apostles themselves. This is what the English Reformers did and we would be wise to follow their example. They themselves were following the example of Jesus and the apostles.
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