Mindful of the present debate in the CofI, Changing Attitude Ireland invokes an understanding of Anglican diversity:
In the Church of Ireland, we have always lived with profound differences in our understanding of issues of significant theological weight, such as the nature of God’s revelation in Holy Scripture and our understanding of the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
Theological diversity is, as Changing Attitude Ireland states, a fact within Irish Anglicanism: such pluralism is, of course, not unique to Anglicanism. But the two examples set forward by Changing Attitude Ireland - our theological understandings of Scripture in relation to revelation, and eucharistic doctrine - do raise significant questions.
While there are diverse approaches to understanding God's revelation in Scripture and eucharistic doctrine, Church of Ireland communities share common practices regarding both. Irrespective of how we think the Triune God's revelation is related to Scripture, we read Scripture together in the offices and the eucharist, saying of Scripture "This is the word of the Lord". Irrespective of how we think Christ is present and active in the holy eucharist, we affirm that he is in our authorised eucharistic liturgies: "The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for you ..."
Our theological pluralism is, therefore, within the context of shared practices as a Church. We can go further: our theological pluralism is secondary to our shared practices. Some may consider that there is no theological objection to lay or diaconal presidency. Some may consider that there is no theological objection to infants receiving the eucharist. But the requirements of the Church of Ireland's common life mean that such theological reasoning is secondary to our shared practices of episcopal ordination being required to preside at the eucharist and confirmation before Holy Communion being the norm.
It is, of course, possible that shared practices may be reformed as the Church reflects in the light of Scripture and Tradition. But such reform flows from the Church's corporate reflection and discernment - diocesan, provincial and Communion-wide. Until such reflection and discernment is undertaken, shared practices must be respected and upheld for the sake of communion.
Leaving aside the responsibilities placed upon us as a Church in communion with Anglicans across the globe, leaving aside consideration of the need for our theological reasoning to have doctrinal reference to the Articles and the BCP, Changing Attitude Ireland's reference to Scripture and the eucharist actually militates against diversity of practice. Shared practices trump theological diversity. This is what it means for the Church to be communion.
6 comments:
"Shared practices trump theological diversity. This is what it means for the Church to be communion."
I think you've hit the nail on the head!
And you've raised a question that goes to the heart of current woes within Anglicanism: what happens when those shared practices are changed to suit agendas that directly challenge what it means for the Church to be communion?
Bryan, thanks for this. It is, obviously, somewhat easier for us in Ireland than for yourself in TEC. But the idea of 'shared practices' is perhaps more central to Anglicanism's common life than, say, Roman Catholicism (a communion defined by papal authority) or Presbyterianism (defined by adherence to the Westminster Confession). This, I think, is why undermining shared practices within Anglicanism is particularly destructive of communion.
In your use of the language of "shared practices," I'm reminded of Timothy Sedgwick (an Episcopalian and Christian ethicist) who talks about the Christian moral life in terms of "practices of piety" (hence the title of his book The Christian Moral Life: Practices of Piety). Drawing on the Book of Common Prayer, Sedgwick highlights Anglican practices of piety in terms of "the reading of scripture, prayer and worship, table fellowship, abiding love of others, and the embrace and care of those in need outside the accepted boundaries of the community." This, he maintains, is what he means "by speaking of Christian faith as practical piety - what Anglicans have called a holy or godly way of life."
I get a little wary, however, when folks like Sedgwick say that "the identity of the Anglican tradition as a form of Christianity is not a matter of confession of beliefs but a way of life that is given in the church." There's truth in that statement, to be sure (as you noted, we don't have the equivalent of the Westminster Confession). But to amplify the meaning of this by saying "Christian faith is not first of all a matter of right belief but of right relationship" seems, to me, to establish a false dichotomy. Ways of life - practices of piety or shared practices - give expression to beliefs. Liturgy entails and enacts doctrine. And right relationships also express beliefs about what is fitting, good, and true. Orthopraxis and orthodoxy go together. And Anglicanism is, after all, a creedal tradition.
Perhaps I'm reading too much into what folks like Sedgwick are saying. But I am hypersensitive these days to Episcopalians (lay and clergy) who are willing to publicly say - in spite of the rich theological depth of the Prayer Book and its adherence to the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds - that we don't have doctrine, we just pray together and engage in common mission. As though shared practices (including especially the shared practices of Prayer Book liturgies) don't articulate doctrinal content!
Bryan, entirely agree with your caution re: the Sedgwick line. Our shared practices are expressions of a shared narrative. For Anglicans that shared narrative is received in the Creeds, the BCP and the Articles. Reforming shared practices or undoing them without definitive reference to the means by which we receive the shared narrative means something quite disturbing - that another narrative is now assumed to be authoritative. And that, unfortunately, probably sums up the experience of some aspects of contemporary Anglicanism.
Very well said, indeed.
It seems to me that often an ill-defined conception of "experience" supplies the new authoritative narrative within much of contemporary Anglicanism (and beyond). And so speaking of another narrative displacing the received narrative reminds me of Eve Tushnet's response to an essay on scripture and experience by Luke Timothy Johnson. Tushnet writes:
"Experience is itself a kind of text, and texts need interpreters. How often have we thought that we understood our experiences, only to realize later that we had only the barest understanding of our own motives and impulses? We all know how flexible memory can be, how easy it is to give an overly gentle account of our own motivations, how hard it is to step outside our lifelong cultural training and see with the eyes of another time or place. To my mind, Johnson’s approach places far too much trust in personal experience. He views our experience as both more transparent and less fallible than it is. To take personal experience as our best and sturdiest guide seems like a good way to replicate all of our personal preferences and cultural blind spots. Scripture is weird and tangly and anything but obvious—but at least it wasn’t written by someone who shared all our desires, preferences, and cultural background. At least it wasn’t written by us. And so it’s necessary to turn at least as much skepticism on 'the voice of experience' as Johnson turns on the voice of Scripture. It’s necessary to look at least as hard for alternative understandings of our experience as for alternative understandings of Scripture."
And again:
"But our human experience, including our erotic experience, cannot be a replacement for the divine revelation preserved by the church. We must be careful not to let it become a counternarrative or a counter-Scripture."
Superb quotes. The misunderstanding of the relationship between Scripture, Tradition, Reason and experience is a contemporary Anglican sickness. Tradition is the Church's response to and reflection on Scripture - it carries significantly greater weight than Reason or Experience in interpreting Scripture precisely because it is the mind of the reading community which attends to Scripture (cf. Article XX on the Church as "a witness and a keeper of holy Writ"). Reason and Experience inform how we receive Scripture and Tradition but, for the very reasons outlined by Tushnet, must themselves be interpreted by Scripture and Tradition: they cannot be 'autonomous' sources of authority.
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