"The Church doth read ..."

While the questionable Christology of the Homily against peril of Idolatry is not the place to begin Anglican reflection on Nicaea II, it does offer a good example of another practice retained at the Reformation.

The Homily commences with an overview of Old Testament teaching on images:

And first of all, the scriptures of the Old Testament, condemning and abhorring as well all idolatry or worshipping of images, as also the very idols or images themselves ...

Reviewing a range of Old Testament passages, between consideration of Deuteronomy and the Psalms we find the following:

Read the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the book of Wisdom concerning idols and images ... See and view the whole chapter with diligence, for it is worthy to be well considered.

Here we see an example of what Article 6 means in its declaration that "the Church doth read" the "other books".  The Apocrypha is intended by the Article to shape aspects of the Church's communal practices ("example of life and instruction of manners").  As with the 1549-1662 lectionaries' use of the Apocrypha, the Homily reads the Book of Wisdom as a part of the Old Testament.

While the Homily against peril of Idolatry, therefore, represents a significant aspect of the impact of the Reformation rupture on Anglicanism, it also signifies continuity in how Anglicanism is to read the Old Testament including the Apocrypha.  The Church as a reading community must attend to "the other books".

"The creator of matter who became matter for my sake": Anglicanism and Nicaea II

The place of Nicaea II within Anglican theological thought is something of an old chestnut.  The late Peter Toon was quite explicit in his judgment that Anglicanism accepted as definitive the first four ecumenical councils, but not the seventh:

By the classic Anglican theological method one could never arrive at the doctrine (including theory and use) of icons set forth by the Council of Nicea II (787) ... An Anglican cannot accept the 7th Council's dogma as binding if he is true to his Anglican method and mindset.

What led Toon to comment on the matter was the Continuum's statement in the Affirmation of St Louis accepting all seven ecumenical councils.  A recent discussion on a Continuing Anglican site has highlighted the significance of the Affirmation's declaration and insists that this can be reconciled with the Homily against peril of Idolatry:

The essence of the Anglican Homily was about something else. To say that the teaching in the Homily must contradict the essence of Nicea II is to equate icons with idols; in which case, it is the one who argues for their mutual exclusion, who thereby says that the Council and the Homily are irreconcilable, who discredits and rejects Nicea II. It is that person who treats the Council as favoring idolatry, and who calls it into question.

But can such an interpretation claim to be an accurate reading of the Homily?  Not only does the Homily praise the actions of the Iconoclasts, it quite definitively rejects Nicaea II:

And if this be not sufficient to prove them image-worshippers, that is to say, idolaters, lo, you shall hear their own open confession; I mean, not only the decrees of the second Nicene council ... as they teach that images are to be honoured and worshipped.

The Homily also employs the same understanding of the Incarnation employed by the Iconoclasts:

No true image can be made of Christ's body, for it is unknown now of what form and countenance he was.  And there be ... divers images of Christ, and none of them like to other; and yet every of them affirmeth that theirs is the true and lively image of Christ, which cannot possibly be.

So is this a glaring example of the Anglican rupture with the Great Tradition?  To reject the authority of an ecumenical council and to apparently affirm the heresy of the Iconoclasts - as the Homily does - would suggest that Anglicanism's relationship to the Great Tradition is, at best, less than catholic, less than orthodox.

This assumes, of course, that the Homily has significance for contemporary Anglicanism.  That significance derives from the affirmation of the Homilies in the Thirty-Nine Articles - and a theologically-serious Anglicanism has to take account of the Articles.

So what are we to make of Nicaea II and the Homily against peril of Idolatry?  Firstly, the Homily stands within a well-established western response to Nicaea II.  The council of Frankfurt (794 AD) rejected the teaching of Nicaea II.  Indeed, the Homily invokes the council of Frankfurt "against the second council of Nice assembled by Irene for images ... and the errors of the same".  Western confusion in the face of Nicaea II remains a contemporary phenomenon.  In his The Spirit of the Liturgy, the then Cardinal Ratzinger stated that "the Church in the West ... must achieve a real reception of the Seventh Ecumenical Council".

Secondly, to state the obvious, the iconoclastic controversy was a debate over the nature of the Incarnation.  As a contemporary Orthodox source has stated:

The Iconoclast Christology rests on Chalcedonian Apophaticism but seems to ignore completely the main assertion that Chalcedon had borrowed from the Tome of Leo: "each nature preserves its own manner of being" and "meets the other (nature) in the single hypostasis." Their Christology seems to indicate that the deification of the humanity of Christ suppresses the reality of the properly human natural character.

St John Damascene's words indicate the true locus of the controversy:

Now that God has appeared in the flesh and dwelt among us, I make an image of God in so far as he has become visible.  I do not venerate matter; but I venerate the creator of matter who became matter for my sake, who willed to make his dwelling in matter; who worked out my salvation through matter.

Against this background, therefore, Anglicanism's reflection on Nicaea II must give priority to Article 2's reaffirmation of the Christology of the ecumenical councils:

two whole and perfect natures, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together in one Person, never to be divided.

It is from here - Article 2 and not the Homily against peril of Idolatry - that Anglicanism's reflection on Nicaea II should begin.  Beginning from here, then, we affirm the understanding of the Incarnation proclaimed by Nicaea II in its first anathema:

If anyone does not confess that Christ our God can be represented in his humanity, let him be anathema.

Thirdly, Anglican-Orthodox dialogue has significantly contributed to the "real reception" of Nicaea II urged by the then-Cardinal Ratzinger.  The 1984 Dublin Agreed Statement declared:

In the light of the present discussion the Anglicans do not find any cause for disagreement in the doctrine as stated by St John of Damascus [quoted above] ... By the incarnation of the Word who is the image of the Father (2 Cor. 4.4; Col. 1.15;Heb. 1.3) the image of God in every man is restored and the material world itself sanctified and again made capable of mediating the divine beauty.

The 1976 Moscow Agreed Statement also indicated a significant development in an Anglican approach to Nicaea II.  The 1888 Lambeth Conference had indicated that because of the teaching of Nicaea II "it would be difficult for us to enter into more intimate relations with that Church".  Moscow, by contrast, emphasised the extent of Anglican reception of Nicaea II:

They [i.e. Anglicans] welcome the decisions of the Seventh Council in so far as they constitute a defence of the doctrine of the Incarnation.

While we Anglicans have - for a variety of cultural, linguistic and devotional reasons - shared with the rest of the Latin West a caution concerning aspects of the Council, this exists alongside a robust reaffirmation of the theology of the Incarnation that Nicaea II defended and a significant process of 're-receiving' the Council's teaching in dialogue with our Orthodox brothers and sisters.  Nicaea II is not, then, an optional extra for Anglicanism.

(The icon is the British Musem's Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.)

Immensity cloistered

Today was the monthly eucharist for the local Walsingham Cell.  How appropriate, then, that the Old Testament reading from the daily eucharistic lectionary should be from Exodus 40 on the tabernacle, including verse 34:

The cloud covered the tabernacle of the testimony, and the glory of the Lord filled it.

The parallel with Luke 1:35 has provided a rich source of reflection in the Church's tradition:

The Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow you.

As the Lutheran theologian Robert Jenson has highlighted, the Church's celebration of the Blessed Virgin as the Tabernacle is a confession of the scandal of the Incarnation:

The space delinated by Israel to accommodate the presence of God is finally reduced and expanded to Mary's womb.

Or, in the beautiful poetry of John Donne - "immensity cloistered in thy dear womb".

John Stott and the renewal of orthodoxy

The death of John Stott provides an opportunity to give thanks for the orthodox and gracious witness of an evangelical Anglican who did much to strengthen and encourage global Anglicanism's confession of the Great Tradition.  In an interview in 2007, Stott drew attention to the significance of Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy for evangelicalism:

We stand in the mainstream of historic, orthodox Biblical Christianity. So we can recite the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed without crossing our fingers.

It was on this basis that Stott's teaching and example provided a context which allowed evangelical Anglicans to work with catholic Anglicans for the renewal of the Communion according to Scriptural, patristic and creedal norms.

It is fitting to leave the last word to Clayboy:

I remember thinking many years ago that Stott was wrong in his Bible Speaks Today book on 2 Timothy, where he argued against the – in my view natural – reading that Paul was praying for the deceased Onesiphorus when he said

may the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day (2 Tim 1:18)

He was the kind of evangelical that commended evangelicalism to non-evangelicals, clarified every issue he spoke or wrote about, and patently loved the Word made flesh and the written word that (he held passionately and rationally) attested to him.

Though he disagree with me, and I with him, on this matter, I pray “may the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day”.

RIP John Stott (1921-1911).

Anglicanism and the European crisis

Islamic philosopher Tariq Ramadan has drawn attention to the European crisis, a crisis much deeper than economics alone:

It is no longer clear, in Europe itself, who is truly European or what are the geographical borders of the European continent. If you no longer know who you are and where your boundaries are, small wonder you are lost in a globalizing world.

This sense of disorientation is everywhere in a European debate driven by deep identity and psychological crises wedded to the threat of economic and political instability - all ingredients that fuel insecurity, and undermine self-confidence and hope.

Is there an Anglican contribution to be made to this "deep identity" crisis faced by Europeans?  A case can surely be made that the Anglican churches of the British Isles - so profoundly shaped by mainland European influences since the original evangelisation of these islands - should have a perspective to share on European identity.  We are ecumenical partners with the ancient Christian traditions of western and eastern Europe, through the ARCIC and Anglican-Orthodox dialogues.  We are in communion with the Nordic Lutheran churches and the Union of Utrecht.  Anglicanism has a presence in many European countries through the Church of England's Diocese in Europe.

There are a number of experiences that British Isles' Anglicans could bring to bear on this debate.  We have both the experience of being established churches (England, Ireland until 1871 and Wales until 1920) and the reality of being religious minorities (Scotland since the 17th century, Ireland and Wales since dis-establishment).  Both experiences reflect differning aspects of the European context.  England and Wales, in particular, are quite pronounced secular societies - one might even suggest that the process of de-christianisation is quite advanced in both societies.  +Rowan, as Archbishop of Canterbury, has been active in responsibly addressing a key issue raised by Tariq Ramadan - Europe's relationship with its growing Islamic minority.  Anglicans in Ireland have bitter experience of communal conflicts and the challenges of building peace and reconciliation.  +Canterbury and +York have shaped public debate by reflecting on the ongoing significance of Christian heritage and identity to the United Kingdom's national narrative.

In other words, Anglicans in these islands for some years have been addressing the issues of national identity and narrative, the success or failure of multiculturalism, and the impact of secularism and secularisation.  While we have produced nothing as coherent or as robust as John Paul II's Ecclesia in Europa, common themes are evident.  Engaging in the debate highlighted by Ramadan might also draw British Isles' Anglicanism out of its notorious theological insularity, requiring us to meaningfully interact with other Christian traditions in Europe on what the Church's message is to a Europe which has lost its way.

The Porvoo Agreement (1992) has already committed British Isles' Anglicanism and Nordic Lutheranism to precisely such engagement:

[Our churches] are called together to proclaim the Christian hope, arising from faith, which gives meaning in societies characterized by ambiguity ... This common proclamation in word and sacrament manifests the mystery of God's love, God's presence and God's Kingdom.

In a Europe in which meaning - the meaning of past, present and future - has been lost, Anglicanism, alongside the continent's other great Christian traditions, has a word to speak. 

"All creation is indebted to you"

On the feast of Saints Anne and Joachim, words from a sermon by Saint John Damascene:

Joachim and Anne, how blessed a couple!  All creation is indebted to you.  For at your hands the Creator was offered a gift excelling all other gifts: a chaste mother, who alone was worthy of the Creator ...

While leading a devout and holy life in your human nature, you gave birth to a daughter nobler than the angels, whose queen she now is.  Girl of utter beauty and delight, daughter of Adam and Mother of God, blessed are the loins and blessed is the womb from which you come.

The development of eucharistic adoration

Further reflecting on Article 28's critique of the medieval practices surrounding Eucharistic adoration, it is worth considering the views expressed by a certain Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in his The Spirit of the Liturgy.  Commenting on the Church's changing Eucharistic discourse between the patristic and medieval eras, he says:

It is true that this linguistic change also represented a spiritual development ... We can agree that something of the eschatological dynamism and corporate character (the sense of "we") of eucharistic faith was lost or at least diminished ... the Blessed Sacrament contains a dynamism, which has the goal of transforming mankind and the world into the New Heaven and New Earth, into the unity of the risen Body.  Again, the Eucharist is not aimed primarily at the individual.  Eucharistic personalism is a drive toward union, the overcoming of the barriers between God and man, between "I" and "thou" in the new "we" of the communion of saints.  People did not exactly forget this truth, but they were not so clearly aware of it as before.  There were, therefore, losses in Christian awareness, and in our time we must try to make up for them, but still there were gains overall.  True, the Eucharistic Body of the Lord is meant to bring us together, so that we become his "true body".  But the gift of the Eucharist can do this only because in it the Lord gives us his true Body.  Only the true Body in the Sacrament can build up the true Body of the new City of God.  This insight connects the two periods and provides our starting point.

The then-Cardinal Ratzinger's recognition that medieval developments brought "losses", and that there is a contemporary need to recover patristic Eucharistic insights, is notable.  We practice Eucharistic adoration not, as in the late medieval era, as an alternative to celebrating the mystery of the Eucharist, but to deepen our awareness of it.  As The Spirit of the Liturgy states:

Adoration is not opposed to Communion, nor is it merely added to it.  No, Communion only reaches its true depths when it is supported and surrounded by adoration.  The Eucharistic presence in the tabernacle does not set another view of the Eucharist alongside or against the Eucharistic celebration, but simply signifies its complete fulfillment ... In this place the Lord is always waiting for me, calling me, wanting to make me "eucharistic".  In this way, he prepares me for the Eucharist, sets me in motion toward his return.

Article 28, ARCIC and eucharistic adoration

The Conciliar Anglican's reflections on eucharistic adoration very articulately reflect the 'high Laudian' tradition's concerns regarding such devotions.  With specific reference to Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, he says:

There is a danger of creating a condition in which the people begin to perceive the presence of Christ as a mere object. This is particularly hazardous when the service of Benediction is not accompanied by an actual celebration of the Eucharist in which the people are invited to receive the Body and Blood. The actual eucharistic character of the sacrament is lost. Instead of receiving Christ in an act of graceful obedience through the rite that Christ ordained, for the remission of our sins and the renewal of our souls, rather we stare at Him from afar and make note of His presence while having it denied to us.

Even a cursory reading of Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars demonstrates that late medieval practices associated with eucharistic adoration displaced the patristic emphasis illustrated by Augustine's words:

It is the sacrament of yourselves that is placed on the Lord's Table, and it is the sacrament of yourselves that you are receiving.  You reply 'Amen' to what you are, and thereby agree that such you are.  You hear the words 'The body of Christ' and you reply 'Amen'. 

Contrast this with Duffy's account of late medieval practice:

Frequent communion was the prerogative of the few ... For most people receiving communion was an annual event ... But the reception of communion was not the primary mode of lay encounter with the Host ... For most people, most of the time the Host was something to be seen, not to be consumed.

It is in this context that Article 28 insisted "the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped".  Rather, the article restored the patristic emphasis on participating in the eucharist:

It is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ’s death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.

Developments in the Anglican and Roman communions in the 19th and 20th centuries have profoundly changed the context which Article 28 addressed.  In 1905, Pius X declared "frequent and daily Communion, as a practice most earnestly desired by Christ our Lord and by the Catholic Church, should be open to all the faithful".  Within Anglicanism, as a result of the Catholic Revival, reservation of the Blessed Sacrament was restored within Anglican practice.  The English BCP Proposed in 1928 provided for reservation, while the Scottish Prayer Book of 1929 stated:

According to long-existing custom in the Scottish Church, the Presbyter may reserve so much of the consecrated Gifts as may be required for the Communion of the Sick and others who could not be present at the celebration in church.

With reservation, eucharistic adoration also developed within Anglicanism.  Elevation of the consecrated Host is now the norm in many Anglican celebrations of the eucharist.  Benediction also became common in Anglo-catholic parishes in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. 

The new context in both the Anglican and Roman communions - with eucharistic adoration no longer regarded as somehow an 'alternative' to participating in the eucharist - resulted in the ARCIC agreement, endorsed by the Lambeth Conference in 1988.  ARCIC I's Elucidation on the eucharist recognised with regard to eucharistic adoration that "there can be a divergence in matters of practice and in theological judgements relating to them, without destroying a common eucharistic faith" (9).  The Elucidation provided the theological rationale for the practice of eucharistic adoration:

Adoration of Christ in the reserved sacrament should be regarded as an extension of eucharistic worship, even though it does not include immediate sacramental reception, which remains the primary purpose of reservation ... Any dissociation of such devotion from this primary purpose, which is communion in Christ of all his members, is a distortion in eucharistic practice (8).

Adoration, therefore, is in the service of the eucharistic mystery.  It is oriented towards the community celebrating and receiving the holy eucharist.  Indeed, its purpose is to intensify and deepen the community's prayerful approach to receiving the Body and Blood of Christ.

But what of The Conciliar Anglican's cautionary words:

The question that has to be answered by those Anglo-Catholics who promote Benediction and similar devotions is whether or not such things can be participated in fully without believing in the problematic philosophy of transubstantiation.

The primary concern of Article 28 concerning transubstantiation - that it "overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament" - reflects the Anglican Reformation's concern to recover the affirmation present in patristic eucharistic theologies that, as in the Incarnation, the eucharist is to be thought of as "consisting of two realities, earthly and heavenly" (Irenaeus).  ARCIC I, however, provided an account of the presence of Christ in the eucharist which affirmed both this concern and the concern of the doctrine of transubstantiation:

Becoming does not here imply material change. Nor does the liturgical use of the word imply that the bread and wine become Christ's body and blood in such a way that in the eucharistic celebration his presence is limited to the consecrated elements. It does not imply that Christ becomes present in the eucharist in the same manner that he was present in his earthly life. it does not imply that this becoming follows the physical laws of this world. What is here affirmed is a sacramental presence in which God uses realities of this world to convey the realities of the new creation: bread for this life becomes the bread of eternal life. Before the eucharistic prayer, to the question: 'What is that?', the believer answers: 'It is bread.' After the eucharistic prayer, to the same question he answers: 'It is truly the body of Christ, the Bread of Life.' (Elucidation, 6.)

A serious engagement with the Thirty-Nine Articles has to be a defining feature of any theology which seeks to be regarded as Anglican.  This brings challenges to all Anglican traditions.  It will anchor liberal Anglican reflection in classical Christological affirmations.  It will challenge an evangelical Anglicanism which too often aligns with a Zwinglian view of the Sacraments and a Latitudinarian view of the Church.  It will also, however, force catholic Anglicans to heed the Reformation's critique of the late medieval era's displacing of key aspects of the patristic experience of catholicity.  In light of this, therefore, many thanks to The Conciliar Anglican for leading us to reflect on the Articles and contemporary Anglicanism.

"A very different sound" - feast of St Mary Magdalene

What can I say, how can I find words to tell,
about the burning love with which you sought him,
weeping at the sepulchre,
and wept for him in your seeking?
How he came, who can say how or with what kindness,
to comfort you, and made you burn with love still more;
how he hid from you when you wanted to see him,
and showed himself when you did not think to see him;
how he was there all the time you sought him,
and how he sought you when, seeiking him, you wept ...

How different is, 'Master!'
from 'If they have taken him away, tell me';
and, 'They have taken away my Lord,
and I do not know where they have laid him,'
has a very different sound from,
'I have seen the Lord, and he has spoken to me.'

St Anslem's Prayer to St Mary Magdalene.

TEC and the gospel of the national narrative

Those of us who support the Covenant should occasionally peruse the website of the No Anglican Covenant coalition.  It is important to hear the concerns and fears of those opposed to the Covenant and to consider if their critique of centralised authority in the Communion has merit.

That said, some of the articles contained in the 'resources' section of the No Anglican Covenant site beggar belief.  For example, consider this recent claim:

The proposed Anglican Covenant is un-American ... Our mixed feelings about episcopal authority emerge out of our ecclesiastical culture. For better and worse, that cultural ethos is individualistic and egalitarian, attributes reflective of our national culture ... The Covenant, quite simply, is un-American.

I will pass by on the opportunity to draw attention to the very unpleasant historical usages of the phrase 'un-American'.  The explicit statement, however, that culture should take precedence over ecclesiology is deeply disturbing.  Ecclesia and koinonia will inherently challenge any "individualistic ... national culture".  This is not to be anti-American.  Ecclesia and koinonia similarly challenge key aspects other national narratives - for example, certain readings of British 'pragmatism' and 'scepticism'.  The Church is called at times to be precisely 'un-American' and 'un-British'.

The sense of 'manifest destiny' that permeates some TEC accounts of opposition to the Covenant is indicative of an ecclesial community which has prioritised a national narrative over and against the call to catholicity.  It exemplifies what occurs when nationalism rather than catholicity becomes a church's defining characteristic.

Are progressives stuck in the Victorian era?

According to Preludium, those of us who believe Anglicanism is in crisis have lost the plot.  Crisis?  What crisis?  Almost all Anglicans, Preludium states, are firmly orthodox:

I gather almost all Anglicans, in The Episcopal Church and everywhere else, maintain the elements of the Lambeth Quadrilateral to be central: Scripture, Creeds, Sacraments, and Episcopal oversight, are all there. 

This, somewhat confusingly, includes the statement from +New Hampshire explored by Anglican Down Under:

"I know Jesus to be the son of God," he told a group of about 50 people, "but what a small, limited God we would have if that was the only manifestation".

According to Preludium, +New Hampshire's statement - quite rightly described by Anglican Down Under as "a christological statement which, putting it diplomatically, falls below the Nicene and Chalcedonian par" - is entirely consistent with the Lambeth Quadrilateral:

I also agree with Bishop Robinson.  He said, “I know Jesus to be the son of God but what a small, limited God we would have if that was the only manifestation."  Manifestation (I presume) means "manifestation of God."  I presume Jacob's dream involved a sufficiently manifested presence of God to where he knew that God was in that place.  Manifestation of God means, I suppose still small voices and the Son of Man appearing in the fiery furnace, etc.  Maybe "manifestation of God" could also mean God's appearance in people outside the Jewish / Christian confines all together.

Nice try, but it doesn't quite wash.  +New Hampshire was not attempting to affirm the continuity of the Old and New Covenants.  Nor was he referring to natural revelation.  He was, it appears, suggesting that the scandal of the Incarnation is, well, far too scandalous.  Or, to use his own words, "small" and "limited".  We - the Church - require a 'larger', more 'generous' vision of God than the Incarnation.

And this, we are told, is consistent with Scripture, Creeds, Sacraments and Episcopacy.  Preludium's point would, of course, have been very much stronger if he had said that +New Hampshire's comment stood outside the Lambeth Quadrilateral - that Scripture, Creeds, Sacrament and Apostolic Succession could not be reconciled with such an obviously heterodox statement.  But such a statement would, I fear, be unacceptable to those who oppose the Covenant in the name of the Lambeth Quadrilateral.  Heterodoxy, we seem to be told, is not a category of any relevance to Anglicans.  We are, in case we forget, "almost all" orthodox.

The Covenant, however, provides an alternative to an empty repetition of the Lambeth Quadrilateral:

1.2 In living out this inheritance of faith together in varying contexts, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:
(1.2.1) to teach and act in continuity and consonance with Scripture and the catholic and apostolic faith, order and tradition, as received by the Churches of the Anglican Communion, mindful of the common councils of the Communion and our ecumenical agreements.
(1.2.2) to uphold and proclaim a pattern of Christian theological and moral reasoning and discipline that is rooted in and answerable to the teaching of Holy Scripture and the catholic tradition.

We are called to read Scripture and proclaim the Creeds in "continuity and consonance with ... the catholic tradition".  We are to be "mindful" of our ecumenical agreements: try asking ARCIC or the Anglican-Orthodox dialogue if +New Hampshire's words reflect the faith of Nicaea and Chalcedon. 

The original intent of the Lambeth Quadrilateral was to provide a means to overcome Anglican-Roman-Orthodox divisions.  It assumed adherence to the Tradition.  In the words of the PECUSA bishops in their Chicago statement of 1886:

we do hereby affirm that the Christian unity can be restored only by the return of all Christian communions to the principles of unity exemplified by the undivided Catholic Church during the first ages of its existence; which principles we believe to be the substantial deposit of Christian Faith and Order committed by Christ and his Apostles to the Church unto the end of the world, and therefore incapable of compromise or surrender by those who have been ordained to be its stewards and trustees for the common and equal benefit of all men.

The Anglican crisis of the late 20th/early 21st century has shattered that assumption.  "The substantial deposit of Christian Faith and Order" is now a matter of profound debate amongst Anglicans.  The Lambeth Quadrilateral emerged from and addressed a profoundly different theological landscape.  Isn't it a strange set of affairs when progressives seem to devotedly cling to a document from the late Victorian era?  They do so, however, to avoid Anglicanism addressing the crisis in orthodoxy and orthopraxis which has afflicted us in recent decades.

The sacramental presence of the Christian communities in the Holy Land

This week's conference at Lambeth Palace on the future of Christians in the Holy Land, jointly hosted by the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster, again raises an issue clearly dear to +Rowan.  In a Times article in 2006, he said that the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East had something special to say:

To the Westerner, they say: “Remember that Christianity didn’t start in England or even Rome; it’s a Middle Eastern faith.”

It is this almost sacramental-quality of their witness to the Incarnation to which +Rowan returned in his appeal at the CofE General Synod for support for the work of the ecumenical charity Friends of the Holy Land:

I hope that in the weeks ahead, fellow-Anglicans will give generously to support this vision, and consider ways of becoming better informed and more involved with the issues – not as part of any kind of political campaign but as part of what we owe to our brothers and sisters in Christ's Body, in supporting the continuance of the vital presence of Christian communities in the land where our Lord preached, lived and died the Gospel.

The temptation to engage in political activism (either pro- or anti-Israeli) is, of course, all too present.  +Rowan is, however, calling us to something quite different from such partisanship.  The Christian communities of the Holy Land are a living witness to the truth that God assumed flesh in that land, amidst that people.  The Church universal is gravely impoverished if this witness is lost.

Anglicanism "a part of the Western Latin Church tradition" - Cardinal Levada

At a recent Ordinariate-related conference in the States (h/t Thinking Anglicans), a speaker made reference to a lecture given in 2010 by Cardinal Levada (a prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith).  Levada's rationale for regarding the Ordinariates as different to the 'Eastern Catholic'/Uniate churches is interesting:

A strict comparison between the Anglicans and the Eastern Church and Catholic Churches would not be correct ... The legal framework for Anglican communities seeking full communion precisely as communities would be different from that of Eastern Churches. They remain a part of the Western Latin Church tradition. That is why the Holy Father has decided to erect personal ordinarities in order to provide pastoral care for such groups who wish to share their gifts corporately with their Catholic sisters and brothers and with whom they have shared a long history before the Reformation in the 16^th century.

Referring to Anglican communities before their transition into the structures of the Ordinariates, he describes their Anglican tradition as "a part of the Western Latin Church tradition".  Admittedly he also - as you would fully expect - reaffirms Apostolica Curae.  Notwithstanding this latter point, it does provide an interesting affirmation of the fact that Anglicanism shares in the tradition of Latin Catholicity: our debate with Cardinal Levada would be over the extent to which we as Anglicans are formed and shaped by the Latin patrimony. 

Anglicanism is an expression of Latin Catholicity.  This is true of our liturgy, our Orders (received from the great Latin Church as per the Preface to the Ordinal), our pastoral traditions (including sacramental confession), our spirituality, our dogmatic theology.  The reforms of the 16th century sought to recover earlier expressions of Latin Catholicity, overlaid by late medieval theological discourse and devotional practices.  The present Anglican crisis concerns developments impacting on this claim to be an expression of Latin Catholicity.  Such is the gravity of the present crisis.

(The illustration is the frontspiece of the 1560 Latin translation of the Book of Common Prayer.)

Confessing the filioque?

The Conciliar Anglican's discussion of the filioque reminds us that three successive Lambeth Conference - '78, '88 and '98 - have urged the churches of the Anglican Communion to remove the filioque.  Lambeth '78 "request[ed] that all member Churches of the Anglican Communion should consider omitting the Filioque from the Nicene Creed" (35.3), while Lambeth '88 "recommend[ed] to the provinces of the Anglican Communion that in future liturgical revisions the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed be printed without the Filioque clause" (6.4) 


Alongside this recognition of Orthodoxy's critique of the implications of the filioque for both Trinitarian theology and conciliarity, it is also important to remind ourselves of the caution expressed by the Anglican-Orthodox 2006 statement The Church of the Triune God:

There are however dangers in a one-sided or polemical assertion of the Eastern doctrine that the Spirit proceeds ‘from the Father alone’. As we have already said, some argue that Greek patristic theology did not deny some kind of dependence of the Spirit on the Son within the immanent Trinity. It is certainly true that we cannot think of the Spirit proceeding from the Father without recognising that the Father is Father of the Son, just as we cannot forget that the Father who begets the Son is also the one who breathes forth the Spirit. The Spirit does not proceed from an isolated divine individual but from a person, a Father eternally related to a Son (1, 19).

There have been undoubted failings in the Latin tradition's theological apologia for the filioque.  That said, when the Third Council of Toledo introduced the filioque into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan confession, it was seeking to affirm the Trinitarian vision of God over and against the anti-Trinitarian tenents of Arianism.  In light of this, the rationale for the confession of the filioque - even while removing it from the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed - has the continued potential to enrich the Trinitarian faith of both Latin West and Orthodox East, as recognised in The Church of the Triune God:

For Orthodox theology therefore the Son is not and cannot be the source of the Holy Spirit’s being; and in this particular St Augustine agrees precisely, even if his followers were not always so careful. But some argue that in patristic thought the involvement of the Son in the coming forth of the Spirit is not wholly restricted to the level of the economy. This point requires further reflection and elucidation, and holds significant promise both for the reconciliation of Eastern and Western theological perspectives and for our vision of what life in the Church truly entails (1, 16).

Consideration of the filioque, therefore, extends significantly beyond its admittedly dubious liturgical usage.  As Anglican-Orthodox dialogue has accepted, the Latin West's Trinitarian reflections on the matter of the procession of the Holy Spirit cannot be merely dismissed as entirely flawed.  The confession of the filioque both bears within itself elements of the East's Trinitarian thought and seeks to ground the relationships of the Eternal Trinity not in metaphysical speculations but in the revelation of Triune Love seen in the Incarnate Word.

Revelation of the Triune God or life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

For a revealing insight into the prevailing mindset in TEC,  it is worth reading the article by Rev. Canon C.K. Robertson, Canon to the Presiding Bishop.  Robertson used the occasion of his visit to the CofE General Synod to let us know the events which determined TEC's relationship to the rest of the Communion:

The Rev. William White spent several years with the group we now know as the Founding Fathers. As chaplain to the Continental Congress, he met with them, dined with them, swapped late-night stories with them (his next-door neighbor was Dr. Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence). White's unique role gave him a front row seat to the debates of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the rest concerning the single most important issue of the day: independence. How could a collection of British colonies live into a new reality as a united, self-governing nation? How could they maintain the best of the values they had inherited while creating a new system that would fit their context? As they deliberated, White listened ... and learned.

As if to make sure that we grasp what he is actually saying, Robertson brings his article to an end with a rather staggering sentence:

Over two centuries ago, a revolution gave birth to a new nation and a new Church.

So there you have it.  TEC, according to the Canon to the Presiding Bishop, was born in Philadelphia in 1776 and it is this spirit which continues to animate TEC.

Compare this impoverished account of the political origins of TEC with the Covenant's glorious vision of what gave birth to the Church:

God has called us into communion in Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 1.9).  This communion has been “revealed to us” by the Son as being the very divine life of God the Trinity.  What is the life revealed to us?  St John makes it clear that the communion of life in the Church participates in the communion which is the divine life itself, the life of the Trinity. This life is not a reality remote from us, but one that has been “seen” and “testified to” by the apostles and their followers: “for in the communion of the Church we share in the divine life”.

St Benedict and "the renewal of European civilisation"

On the feast of St Benedict, +Rowan on Benedict of Nursia, patron of Europe, echoing the conclusion to MacIntyre's After Virtue:

The Benedictine Rule did not set out to 'save civilisation'; what it did was to define in itself the components of a certain kind of civilisation. You may recall Thomas Merton's exclamation on his first visit to the abbey of Gethsemani, that he had discovered the only real city in America. The way in which the Benedictine contribution to Europe has sometimes been discussed is in terms of a kind of withdrawal into enclaves where the memory of civilisation was preserved, not always fully understood - a sort of archive of cultural treasures. But, while this is not completely wrong, it misses out the positive contribution of Benedictinism as a model of active Christian life in itself; Benedict's monks were creators of community before they were librarians, and the vision of human possibility and dignity contained in Benedictine witness was at least as important as the conservation of classical letters - or rather, it gave to the heritage of classical letters a clear and practical application, animated by faith. If the Rule is to be one of the sources for the conservation and renewal of European civilisation in the centuries to come - granted that these centuries may be every bit as brutally anti-humanist as the so-called Dark Ages - it will be because of this sketch of political virtue, not because of any merely conservatory role.

Pro nobis

From +Rowan's presidential address to the CofE General Synod, an interesting reference to the substitutionary understanding of the atonement:

The American Presbyterian writer Timothy Keller has recently published a book on Mark’s gospel, entitled King’s Cross.  It is a vividly written and often very moving presentation of the great themes of the gospel (and incidentally offers a forceful defence of substitutionary language for the atonement that might give second thoughts to some who find this difficult).

What we might see here is - at least partly - evidence of Balthasar's influence on +Rowan's thinking.  In his contribution to the collection of essays Balthasar at the End of Modernity, +Rowan referred to Balthasar's importance to "a renewal of Christian ontology".  Balthasar's influence on +Rowan is, therefore, well attested.  And it is at the Cross that Balthasar's theology is particularly distinctive in the context of contemporary theologies.  In the A Guide for the Perplexed series, Rodney A. Howsare notes of Balthasar:

Anselm's approach to this problem [the Cross], which has fallen on hard times in recent theology, has got to be retreived, at least in part.  What Balthasar admires about Anselm's approach is the latter's insistence on taking both sides of the drama between God and his creation with the absolute seriousness demanded by the biblical text.

Balthasar's Anselm-like proclamation of the atonement as substitution is, indeed, striking.  Take, for example, this passage from Mysterium Paschale:

Above all, the Cross is the full achievement of the divine judgement on 'sin' (II Corinthians 5, 21) summed up, dragged into the daylight and suffered through in the Son.  Moreover, the sending of the Son in 'sinful flesh' took place only so as to make it possible to 'condemn (katakrinein) sin in the flesh' (Romans 8, 3).

Balthasar then goes on to quote Anselm himself on God's righteousness against unrighteouness:

It is gripped by the life of God, consumed, and annihilated as dry wood by fire.

It is, therefore, perhaps not surprising that +Rowan, who has previously referred to Balthasar's "often stunningly powerful focus on the unconsoled dereliction of the crucified", would take the opportunity at at CofE General Synod to reassert the Tradition's reflection on the Cross being pro nobis.  Perhaps it is also a small sign of hope for Anglicanism, even amidst our current crisis of orthodoxy and orthopraxis.

Contra Gnosticism and rationalism

From the 'Canterbury Letters' series at the Creedal Christian, an excellent summary of the counter-cultural importance of the liturgical year to catechesis and evangelisation:

Nevertheless, by rejecting the church year as one legitimate way to tell and retell the story of redemption, the Puritans helped to underscore the sense of evangelical religion as disembodied, detached from the space-time continuum.

By contrast, a robust embracing of the church calendar can act as an antidote to the types of crypto-Gnosticism and rationalism that we discussed in earlier letters. As one walks through the cycle of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Pentecost, Lent and Easter, we are reminded that what matters most is not ideas but events.

The Anglican crisis, the Tradition and Inter Insigniores

Thinking Anglicans notes that the first 10 CofE dioceses to consider the matter have voted in favour of the ordination of women to the episcopate.  The pressure group WATCH, on the basis of these votes by diocesan synods, has stated "Across the country Church members are saying, ‘Please just get on with making women bishops’. They are voting overwhelmingly in support of the legislation that will make that happen".

Anglican Down Under urges Anglicans - particularly evangelical Anglicans - to avoid certain flawed arguments.  For the 'pro-side', this includes "There is evidence for women being presbyters and bishops in the New Testament", when this is clearly not the case.  For the 'anti-side', "Jesus set up an unchangeable tradition of leadership".  Closely related to this, however, is another very weak 'pro' argument - "For nearly 1900 years the church misread Scripture".

This debate inevitably requires us to address the authority of the Church as, in the words of Article 20, "a witness and keeper of holy Writ".  That witness is the 'Tradition'.  And it is here that Anglicanism's practice of ordaining women to the priesthood and episcopate faces its greatest challenge.  Perhaps Paul VI best expressed this in his 1976 declaration Inter Insigniores:

The Catholic Church has never felt that priestly or episcopal ordination can be validly conferred on women. A few heretical sects in the first centuries, especially Gnostic ones, entrusted the exercise of the priestly ministry to women: This innovation was immediately noted and condemned by the Fathers, who considered it as unacceptable in the Church [a footnote points to, amongst others, the words of St Irenaeus] It is true that in the writings of the Fathers, one will find the undeniable influence of prejudices unfavourable to woman, but nevertheless, it should be noted that these prejudices had hardly any influences on their pastoral activity, and still less on their spiritual direction. But over and above these considerations inspired by the spirit of the times, one finds expressed - especially in the canonical documents of the Antiochan and Egyptian traditions - this essential reason, namely, that by calling only men to the priestly Order and ministry in its true sense, the Church intends to remain faithful to the type of ordained ministry willed by the Lord Jesus Christ and carefully maintained by the Apostles.

Anglicanism at the Reformation sought to re-appropriate the faith and order of a patristic catholicity over and against late medieval definitions of the faith and practices which, it was considered, obscured patristic insights.  Here, however, Anglicanism has overturned patristic practice and has done so through the votes of diocesan and provincial synods.  When later generations of ecclesiastical historians come to write about the Anglican identity crisis of the late 20th/early 21st century, it is difficult to think how they will do so without addressing these actions.  The presenting issue is not so much the gender of those ordained to the ministerial priesthood and the episcopate.  It is, rather, Anglicanism's decision to fundamentally re-order its relationship to patristic catholicity.  And that, it might be suggested, is the Anglican crisis.

The Psalter and the monastic style

The most recent meeting of the Anglican-Jewish Commission, held in Jerusalem in mid-June, addressed the issue of the Psalms and their importance to both the Christian and Jewish traditions.  According to the Commission's communique, the shared use of the Psalter in the liturgies of both traditions has significance:

The Commission noted that arguably no part of scripture unites us as does the Book of Psalms, while at the same time giving voice to an all-embracing universality ...

The participants emphasized how much they were enriched by the explorations of scripture and liturgy that they shared. One discovery was the parallel liturgical uses of verses from the Psalms, which provided deeper insights into the nature and possibilities of the text. For example, in the invitation to prayer we both use: "Open Thou our lips and our mouths shall tell Thy praise" (Psalm 51). The cyclical use of Psalms as the bedrock of liturgical tradition was also noted, whether focused on the individual or on the community.

The Commission's words should recall Anglicans to the importance of "cyclical use" of the Psalter in the Daily Office.  While the so-called 'cathedral style' of the Office has been in vogue in recent times, with its emphasis on a themed use of the Psalms, the Commission's implicit recognition of the 'monastic style' ("the cyclical use of Psalms) does recall us to Cranmer's original intent in his revision of the medieval liturgy of the hours:

Now of late time a few of them [i.e. the Psalms] have been daily said, and the rest utterly omitted.

The monastic style of reading the Psalter - echoing Judaism's cyclical use - signifies the Church standing in the flow of salvation history, "a wild olive shoot ... grafted in their place to share the richness of the olive tree". 

Where, however, it would be interesting to hear more from the Commission is in regards to its statement that "no part of Scripture unites us as does the Book of Psalms".  While this may be true of Jewish and Christian liturgical practice, it cannot overlook the fundamental aspect of the Church's praying of the Psalter.  In the words of St Augustine, the Psalms are the "voice of the whole Christ, head and members".  And it is in the monastic style of reciting the Psalter that the Psalms most fully become Christ's prayer in His body, the Church.

The AMiE diaconal ordinations and catholic communion

The debate over the recent AMiE diaconal ordinations - commented on by +Canterbury here, replied to by AMiE here - is a worrying sign of a further degeneration of Anglicanism's ability to live out and give expression to catholic order.  Catholicity and covenant has considerable sympathy with the following statement in AMiE's recent communication:
Episcopal collegiality within England needs to be matched by both Episcopal collegiality with the wider Anglican Communion and Episcopal integrity in upholding and teaching the truth of the Christian faith as found in the Scriptures.

This, however, does not answer the important questions raised by the conservative evangelical Cranmer's Curate regarding the 3 ordained deacon:

By what process were they recommended for theological training?  By whom were they theologically trained?  Why were they ordained deacon in Kenya?  Who is due to ordain them as presbyters?

The apparent failure to obtain letters dismissory from the respective English diocesans and the decision by a Kenyan bishop to ordain deacons for another diocese/province in the Communion without the consent of that diocese/province is surely suggestive of a serious rupture in the life of the Communion.  And, to be clear, we are talking about the 'mother church' of the Anglican Communion.

That said, to attack AMiE - as seems to have been the case in the strongly-worded centrist-evangelical Fulcrum statement - somewhat misses the point.  The breakdown in the norms of catholic order, once associated with the consequences of events in TEC, is now afflicting the very heart of the Communion.  The real issue is not AMiE but rather the Communion's inability to respond to such events.

Of course, Anglicanism is not the only communion to experience ordinations without due authorisation.  On 29th June a bishop was consecrated for a Roman Catholic Chinese diocese at the behest of the Chinese Government and without Papal approval.  The following extracts from the Holy See's statement on the matter clearly indicate the seriousness with which the matter is being addressed:

The Rev. You Shiyin, ordained without Papal mandate and hence illegitimately, has no authority to govern the diocesan Catholic community, and the Holy See does not recognize him as the Bishop of the Diocese of Leshan. The effects of the sanction which he has incurred through violation of the norm of can. 1382 of the Code of Canon Law remain in place [i.e. excommunication] ... The consecrating Bishops have exposed themselves to the grave canonical sanctions, laid down by the law of the Church ... An episcopal ordination without papal mandate is directly opposed to the spiritual role of the Supreme Pontiff and damages the unity of the Church. The Leshan ordination was a unilateral act which sows division and unfortunately produces rifts and tension in the Catholic community in China.

Admittedly there is a difference between diaconal ordinations and an episcopal consecration.  The significant difference to be noted, however, is between the response of the Holy See and that of +Canterbury to unapproved ordinations.  The Holy See immediately invoked the Code of Canon Law in order to protect communion and catholicity.  By contrast, +Canterbury described the situation as "problematic" and "requiring further discussion", even while accepting that the presenting matter is fundamental to communion and catholicity - "the issue is one of episcopal collegiality".

The AMiE diaconal ordinations are a symptom of the break down of catholic communion within Anglicanism.  This is why attacking AMiE is a red herring.  These diaconal ordinations have been preceded by a number of acts by provinces and dioceses within Anglicanism which have torn asunder catholicity - disputed episcopal consecrations (beginning with New Hampshire), authorising 'lay presidency', doctrinal revision rejecting the stated will of the Communion.  In each case, Anglicanism has found itself incapable of reasserting the norms of communion and catholicity.  And now the break down of catholic communion is impacting on the Church of England itself. 

Church, the human person and communion

Into the Expectation has a wonderful reflection on the nature of communion.  Autonomy - whether of the Kantian variety in ethics or the provincial type in Anglican ecclesiology (and examining the relationship between the two would be interesting) - is a rejection of the fundamental importance of communion for the human person: it is not good for us to be alone.

Fr. Matt highlights how radical right (Donatists?) and radical left (Gnostics?) in Anglicanism appear to have an ecclesiology shaped by the principle of autonomy:

For both, the church is basically a free association of individuals with little real commitment, loyalty, responsibility, or accountability. Thus, we have individual “church shopping”, individual congregations shopping for the province that suits them, schism within the Episcopal Church, and a rejection of mutual accountability in the Anglican Communion.

The alternative proposed by Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy to such autonomy and individualism is the vision of the human person in communion:

Thus to be Christ-centered is to be church-centered. We will recognize the interconnectedness of salvation and the necessity of being incorporated into and belonging to the church in order to fully live into that salvation.

We will respect the dignity of every human being. But, we will train ourselves to think of human beings in terms of persons-formed-in-communion as opposed to free, isolatable individuals - persons with whom we are inherently connected, whose burden we are to bear (Galatians 6:2), whose feet we are to wash (John 13).

It is in the "physical, historical, institutional reality" of the Church that communion is to be found and lived out.  Again we see that the Covenant debate is not about same-sex relationships.  Prioritising the principle of autonomy over the call to communion risks shaping the Church around a narrative fundamentally different to that which has been revealed.

1534 and all that - royal supremacy, autonomy and conciliarity

As the 'unique Anglican doctrine' debate continues, I was struck by Tobias' comment on the post below:

[An] understanding of catholicity as engrained in classical Anglicanism [requires us] to look closely at what the classical Anglican Founders said to the Roman Catholic Church of their day.

Tobias is critical of my 'historical revisionism', imposing a vision of conciliarity on what he terms "primitve Anglicanism".  Such "primitive Anglicanism" rejected conciliarity at the Reformation, invoking the autonomy of the 'national church'.

Surely a problem with such a Whiggish account of the sturdy independence of the ecclesia anglicana is that the Anglican Reformation explicitly recognised that the autonomy of a national church was carefully circumscribed.  Thus Article 34 places definitive limits of the authority of a national church:

Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done edifying.

Canon XXX of the 1603 Canons, referring to the sign of the Cross in Baptism, likewise placed the emphasis on the authority of a national church over ceremonies, while also declaring that even then there should be a concern to retain as far as possible the cermonies used by other churches:

So far was it from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy, France, Spain, Germany, or any such like Churches, in all things which they held and practised, that ... it doth with reverence retain those ceremonies, which do neither endamage the Church of God, nor offend the minds of sober men.

Alongside this recognition of the authority of a national church to reform ceremonies, the Anglican Reformation foreswore any authority on the part of a national church to reject an ecumenical council.  The criticism of Trent was that it was not ecumenical.  To quote from Jewel's Apology:

We have not tarried for in this matter the authority or consent of the Tridentine council, wherein we saw nothing done uprightly, nor by good order; where also everybody was sworn to the maintenance of one man; where our prince's ambassadors were contemned; where not one of our divines could be heard.

By contrast, Jewel recognises the authority of the authentically ecumenical councils:

We abandon and detest, as plagues and poisons, all those old heresies which either the sacred Scriptures, or the ancient councils have utterly condemned.

Such acceptance of the imperative of conciliarity on matters of faith is written into Anglicanism's historic formularies - the Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy of the first five of the 39 Articles, the continued use of the Nicene Creed in the eucharistic liturgy, and the consistent references in the Homilies and successive Canons to the need for preachers to abide by the faith of the ancient fathers.

So what about conciliarity on, for example, the doctrine of the eucharist?  This is indeed where conciliarity breaks down - but it broke down right across European Christendom in the Reformation era.  The realist-figurative tensions latent in patristic eucharistic discourse, combined with the 16th crisis in authority, deprived Latin Christendom (Reformed and Tridentine) of the ability to speak with one mind and one voice on the eucharist.  The Anglican Reformation did not apply the principle of conciliarity to eucharistic doctrine because the means to do so did not exist - and because no-one else in Western Europe at the time did so.

Is this historical revionism?  Perhaps all historical narratives engage in revisionism of a sort.  Nor can the fact be overlooked that the Anglican Reformers could never have envisaged a global Anglican Communion, with the vast majority of Anglicans free of the 'royal supremacy'. 

That said, a case can be made that the Anglican Reformation at least recognised in theory the limits to be placed on the exercise of autonomy by a national church and the need for a national church to accept the need for conciliarity.  Article 34 is, considering the exalted claims made for the royal supremacy by Cranmer and other reformers in their works, a remarkably modest and moderate definition of the authority of a national church. At the very least, the tension between autonomy and conciliarity is recognised in "primitive Anglicanism" and does not endorse the exalted claims for autonomy (our new doctrine of the royal supremacy?) that are now common in some Anglican circles.

The late, great Anglican experiment?

Peter Carrell has noted the debate between Fr. Jonathan at The Conciliar Anglican and Br. Tobias Haller, BSG of In a Godward Direction.  Needless to say, catholicity and covenant is much, much closer to the position outlined by The Conciliar Anglican.  For most of Anglicanism's history the proposal advanced by In a Godward Direction would have caused consternation:

A fellowship, a communion — not a "church" or a "federation" — of self-governing churches whose individual decisions do not bind the others, even as they cooperate in mission and ministry, that forms our only peculiar offering to the tapestry of world Christendom.

Leave aside for the moment the idea that "a communion" can possibly be a body "of self-governing churches whose individual decisions do not bind the others" - such a body would be a communion in name only.  As Anglicanism spread across the globe, to the Americas, Africa and beyond, the level of deference to Canterbury and the Book of Common Prayer was quite striking.  Seabury's desire to receive episcopal consecration from Augustine's Chair and the subsequent change in English law to facilitate such further consecrations neatly illustrates this.

This classical Anglican experience of authority and communion is what The Conciliar Anglican summarises:

Our notions of unfettered autonomy for individual churches are very recent and not at all tied to classical Anglicanism which balanced the doctrine of self-governing, national churches with the much more central doctrine that Holy Scripture, interpreted through the lens of the Fathers and the creeds, is our highest authority, through which the Lord governs His Church.

This is, indeed, the Anglican experience.  In a manner somewhat akin to Orthodoxy, Anglicanism sought to live out a patristic catholicity in national churches.  The problem is that in the late 20th/early 21st centuries, the Anglican experiment has begun to quite seriously fall apart.  The model of authority and communion summarised by The Conciliar Anglican has, unfortunately, failed.  Significant decisions impacting on the Anglican claim to catholicity have been taken by national churches (sometimes even by dioceses) without regard to authority and communion beyond the confines of the national church. 

While, therefore, I believe The Conciliar Anglican in his account of the classical Anglican understanding of the 'autonomy' of national churches, I also believe that those of us who subscribe to that understanding have - frankly - lost the debate.  It is possible, just possible, that the Anglican Covenant will restore a sense of catholicity and communion to Anglicanism by correcting the false view of autonomy promoted in recent decades.  That is to be seen.  But right now, at this moment, at least in North America, the British Isles and Australia-NZ, we have lost.

Homooúsios/consubstantiálem

The debate amongst our Roman brethren over the new translation of the Missale Romanum should be watched carefully by Anglicans.  There are lessons to be learnt for the next round of Anglican liturgical revision - above all, the need to recover the theological depth and linguistic beauty of Cranmer's revision and translation of ancient texts of the Latin rite. 

The National Catholic Register has reported another bone of contention for progressives in the new Missal.  The Nicene Creed will, instead of the statement "of one Being with the Father", proclaim "consubstantial with the Father".  Those Anglican provinces which have retained a traditional BCP eucharistic rite alongside revised rites will, of course, be aware of the not insignificant differences in the translation of the Creed.

The Church of Ireland's Rite Two, in common with the former translation of the Roman Rite, states "of one Being with the Father".  Rite One (1662), however, more accurately conveys the faith of the Council of Nicaea:

Being of one substance with the Father.

Homooúsios/consubstantiálem is, quite simply, neither narrated nor conveyed by the phrase "of one Being".  In fact, while homooúsios/consubstantiálem has been given meaning through the Church's prayerful reflection on the faith of Nicaea over one and a half millenia, "of one Being" utterly lacks any such prayerful reflection.  It is, in other words, tradition-less.

Proclaiming the Eternal Word to be "of one substance" or, as in the new Roman translation, "consubstantial"is an invitation to enter the Church's tradition of prayerful reflection on the mystery of the Holy Trinity.  As Msgr Andrew Wadsworth - director of the Vatican's International Commission on English in the Liturgy - has stated, such tradition-ed language enables the "recovery of a theological vocabulary" by the entire Church.

Those Anglican provinces which have retained Cranmer's theologically richer and more accurate translation of the Nicene Creed in their traditional eucharistic rites should perhaps give consideration to allowing it to be used in contemporary rites, replacing the flawed translation usually found therein.  It would be another expression of an Anglican 'reform of the reform'.