Communion and the Global South

In the aftermath of the communique recently issued by the Global South primates, Fr Michael Poon (h/t TLC) raises some significant issues which the Global South needs to address:

Can the Global South primates come up with a coherent ecclesiastical structure that can hold their “mission and networking” together, once the existing Communion instruments are deemed dysfunctional? ... Will their churches adopt the Anglican Communion Covenant, in which the existing four instruments assume a central place? ... In what concrete ways then will the “orthodox” Anglican churches express their interdependence and accountability? ... This question becomes even more acute because the canonical status of the primates varies from province to province ... The provinces would need to do much more solid theological work on their ecclesiology.

Poon's standing within the Global South gives considerable weight to those questions.  If the Global South is to contribute to the renewal of Anglicanism as a communion - with an identifiably catholic understanding of what communion entails - it needs to articulate a vision of how our common life as Anglicans will find expression.  The Province of South Asia, after all, in its accession to the Covenant, referred to the Communion's "ecclesial deficit".  The Global South communique, however, is quite explicit that this "ecclesial deficit" cannot be addressed by the Instruments of Communion in their present form:

The Anglican Communion’s Instruments of Unity have become dysfunctional and no longer have the ecclesial and moral authority to hold the Communion together.

So what would hold the Communion together?  What form would Instruments of Communion and Unity have to take in order to renew Anglicanism as a communion?  As far as Poon is concerned, the Global South shares in the very "ecclesial deficit" which it has identified:

The primates may need to be more disciplined and intellectually constructive to tackle the order and unity questions in their future endeavors. Their credibility is on the line, perhaps in the same way that they see Canterbury’s authority undermined. They owe this to the faithful in their provinces, and to Anglicans worldwide. To whom much is given, much will be required.

The importance to the Communion of the Global South rising to this challenge cannot be underestimated.  The future of Anglicanism is inextricably caught up with the Global South.  As the primates' communique stated:

Today, the majority of Anglicans are found no longer in the west, but in churches in Africa, Asia and Latin America that are firmly committed to our historic faith and order.

Michaelmas and the "curious fantasy"

They are lincked into a kinde of corporation amongst themselves, and of societie or fellowship with men (LEP I, 4.2).

Hooker's words at the outset of his Lawes remind us that the created order has communion with the angelic hosts - and is thus endowed with a greater purpose than autonomous reason can imagine:

spirits immateriall and intellectuall, the glorious inhabitants of those sacred places, where nothing but light and blessed immortalitie, no shadow of matter for teares, discontentments, greifes, and uncomfortable passions to worke upon, but all joy, tranquilitie, and peace, even for ever and ever doth dwell (4.1).

One can almost hear Screwtape's expression of disgust that mortals should be called into communion with such spirits:

He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His "free" lovers and servants - "sons" is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals (Letter II).

The "wonderful order" (to quote the collect for Michaelmas) of angels and mortals united in communion is the fruit of the Triune God's "curious fantasy".  As St Bernard for the feast declares, our communion with angels and archangels speaks of the destiny bestowed on the created order by the redemption wrought by the Holy Trinity:

The angels of peace desire in us unity and peace, for these are things that characterize their own commonwealth, and when they see such things produced in us, they marvel at the birth of the new Jerusalem on earth.

Celtic bishops conference 2011: more than delegates

The bishops of the Anglican Celtic churches - Ireland, Scotland and Wales - are holding their bi-annual conference this week in Pitlochry, Perthshire, Scotland.  It is an interesting example of the variety of experiences faced by Anglican churches even in neighbouring jurisdictions. 

Unlike England, the religious cultures of each of the Celtic nations has been predominantly shaped by other traditions: Roman Catholicism in Ireland, Presbyterianism in Scotland, Dissent in Wales.  Ireland and Wales had Anglican establishments: Scottish Anglicans faced penal laws throughout the 18th century.  All minister in nations fundamentally defined by difficult historical relationships with England - but Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (where the majority of Irish Anglican live) continue to be part of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland (with a not insignificant Anglican minority) a separate sovereign state.   Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have found the transition to post-industrial economies incredibly difficult, and are notoriously reliant on the public sector.  The economy of the Republic of Ireland experienced the 'Celtic Tiger' of the '90s and early '00s, only to become categorised by Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal as the EU economic danger-zone.

The Celtic heritage (itself a historically dubious concept) which the three churches share is of considerably less significance than the contemporary political, economic and social realities faced by each in their respective societies.  It seems that this is being reflected in the purpose of the meeting, according to the official communique:

The topics for discussion will include faith and identity – an opportunity for each of the provinces to share their experiences in identity and political change as a result of devolution and explore the issues of sectarianism in Scotland and Ireland ... They will also explore religion and culture in its contemporary context and the response to new spirituality and current competing sociological analyses of the state of religion in western society.

And in stark contrast to the TEC's recent House of Bishops' meeting with its seminars on liberation theology, the Celtic bishops realise that it is no longer the 1980s:

Throughout the four day meeting, the Bishops will be lead in bible study and discussions by the Rev Professor David Brown, Professor of Theology, Aesthetics and Culture at St Andrews University.

Brown's work is not without its critics, but as this review by John Macquarrie indicates, he is a serious theologian committed to a pattern of theological reflection defined by Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy.  Macquarrie contends (rightly) that Anglican theology in England has gone through something of a renaissance in recent times and that "David Brown is among the foremost in its revival".  The contrast with TEC's bishop spending their time discussing liberation theology is painfully obvious. 

At the very least, the Celtic Bishops conference indicates how episcopates from neighbouring jurisdictions should pray, reflect, converse and celebrate the eucharist together.  It is one expression of being in communion and it contributes to the deepening of our communion.  And contrary to some ongoing debates in TEC, this is what bishops are meant to be about.  They are not delegates of their dioceses.  They are shepherds who lead, guardians who safeguard.  In the words of the CofI Ordinal:

As chief pastors they share with their fellow bishops a special responsibility to maintain and further the unity of the Church, to uphold its discipline, to guard its faith and to promote its mission.

On the subject of communion ... on the margins of the meeting there might also be some interesting conversations on the Covenant.  Scotland and Wales are, at best, lukewarm on the Covenant.  Only 1 of Ireland's 12 bishops, however, voted against the Covenant at May's General Synod. 

(The photograph is of the Celtic primates - l/r Scotland, Wales, Ireland.)

"What we're after is not simply justice": beyond captivity to secular discourse

At a recent conference held in Lambeth Conference on women's ministry and its future development, +Rowan's concluding comments emphasised that "in arguing for and working for the full inclusion of women in the ordained ministry of the church what we’re after is not simply justice".  Rather than flowing from social change and secular discourse, it flows from a theological affirmation of the Incarnation:

The conversations, the questions, the presentations, have drawn us into thinking about what it is for a priesthood at an episcopate to be human.  And in its humanity – and what I spoke of this morning as the drawing in of the maximum range of human experience into priesthood – in that respect of course to say something absolutely crucial about the saving humanity of Jesus Christ.

It is, of course, characteristic of +Rowan that he challenges us with the radical nature of orthodoxy's Christological affirmations, thereby urging the Church to move on from its captivity to the secular discourse of modernity and postmodernity.

Also worth noting is his thoroughly Augustinian description of the nature of priesthood and episcopate contra secular management theories:

Bureaucracy exists partly so that you can say, “I've done that.” And I think ordained ministry at any level is rather profoundly about knowing you’ve never done that ... And bureaucratisation can mean perhaps taking the priesthood away from justification by faith and anchoring it in a kind of justification by box ticking.

In his comments concluding the conference, +Rowan wonderfully demonstrated how the ministerial priesthood and episcopate cannot be shaped by secular discourse. Rather, they flow from the heart of the Church's narrative - Incarnation and justification by faith.

Joy, envy, anger, grief ... but all shall be well

How should Anglicans respond to the Ordinariate?  +Dan Martins' reflections as a friend leaves TEC for the US Ordinariate provides a model of a loving, principled Anglican response:

Part of what I feel is joy. One whom I love is filled with joy, and I cannot but "rejoice with those who rejoice," per St Paul's injunction. This is the realization of a vocation he has felt coming on for a long number of years now, carefully and prayerfully discerned. What's not to like about that?

Part of what I feel is envy. This is a little difficult to articulate. I don't wish I had been standing beside my friend today. These are not the conditions under which reconciliation with the See of Rome would seem coherent and compelling for me. But reconciliation with the See of Rome is, in my opinion, a surpassingly worthy objective--certainly for Anglicans, but for all other Christians as well. To be out of communion with a church that has double apostolic foundation is, at best, an anomaly, and the burden of explanation rests on those outside such communion. The organic visible unity of Christ's Body should be at the top of everyone's prayer list.

Part of what I feel is anger. I'm angry toward all the forces that have contributed to making contemporary Anglicanism the fractious mess that it currently is. I am angry that other developed-world Anglicans have named a justice issue where I don't believe one exists, and have advanced a social agenda that a huge minority (at least) of the Episcopal Church (let alone the rest of the Anglican Communion) was not ready for. And I am angry that, with impatience that they see as righteous, some have resisted those developments by resorting to incendiary rhetoric, and turned aside from the agonizing but holy work of staying connected to a church that is still a church, even if it is in grave error. So my anger is bi-directional. Today's events in Fort Worth may have been inevitable; I don't know. But they have certainly been hastened by outside forces, and unnecessarily so.

Most of what I feel is grief. Something quite precious to me has been changed into a very unfamiliar and uncomfortable shape, so I experience it as a loss. That my friend and I can no longer receive the Blessed Sacrament at the same altar is a reality I can scarcely contemplate. I will get over it. Grace will abound in ways I cannot presently imagine. In the meantime, I will be sad, and my challenge will be to make friends with that sadness and put it at the disposal of the Holy Spirit for the outworking of God's providence. 

All will be well. All will be well. All manner of things shall be well.

Anglicanism has lost faithful disciples to the Ordinariates, but our trust is that the Ordinariates will be a kind of first fruits, a foretaste of our Communion's reconciliation with the See of Peter and Paul.  As such, the Ordinariates emphasise - rather than detract from - the significance of ARCIC III: the very point of the Ordinariates, after all, is that the Anglican tradition can find a place amongst those churches in communion with the See of Rome.  Amidst the pain of the parting of friends, those of us who remain Anglicans and those who have journeyed before us into communion with ancient apostolic see of the West, should both listen to the words of Blessed John Henry Newman in his final sermon as an Anglican:

Remember such a one in time to come, though you hear him not, and pray for him, that in all things he may know God's will, and at all times he may be ready to fulfil it.

1061 and all that: St Mary of Walsingham

There are aspects of the Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham that speak more of Baroque grandeur than the Augustinian reserve which marks classical Anglican Marian devotion.  But today's feast of St Mary of Walsingham is a celebration of the scandal of the Incarnation, of the God who took flesh and blood in the womb of the girl from Nazareth.  The experience that the Lady Richeldis had in prayer in 1061 - a vision of the Holy House of Nazareth - led to the foundation of Walsingham, England's Nazareth.  It stands as witness to the flesh and blood reality of the God of the Church's proclamation. 

In the words of Augustine:

The true Word, God equal with the Father, true soul, true flesh, true man, true God, true nativity, true passion, true death, true resurrection.

+Rowan's statement on anniversary of the papal visit

The Archbishop of Canterbury's website does not appear to carry the text of his message commemorating the first anniversary of the papal visit to Great Britain.

Here is the full text (available through a link on the website of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales):

Twelve months on, we look back on the visit of Pope Benedict with abiding gratitude. The visit was a great gift for all the Christian communities of the United Kingdom, affirming their role in society and strengthening their resolve to serve the communities of this country. The Pope’s memorable speech in Westminster Hall and many more of his public sermons and addresses brought a remarkable and creative theological mind to bear on the issues of the day, and proved impossible for even the most dedicated secularist to ignore or dismiss.

But perhaps most importantly of all, those days last September visibly reminded the public at large that Christian discipleship is not the concern of some tiny ageing minority but a reality enthusiastically embraced by millions of all ages and races. Pope Benedict showed us all something of what the particular vocation of the See of Rome means in practice – a witness to the universal scope of the gospel.

We who belong to other Christian families gladly acknowledge the importance of this witness and join with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in thanking God for the inspiration and challenge of Pope Benedict’s visit, in the hope that we can go on working together for the sake of Christ’s good news here in the United Kingdom.

+Rowan Cantuar

Lambeth Palace

Feast of the Holy Cross, 15 September 2011

+Armagh's statement: Covenant, BCP and 1.10

Archbishop of Armagh Alan Harper's statement on the CofI civil partnership controversy has been criticised by VirtueOnline as "an attempt to do damage control".  There would seem to be little doubt where +Alan Harper's personal theological convictions lie: he is, to use the phrase of John Habgood, 'a conservative liberal'.  His address to a USPG conference in 2008 cautiously outlined the potential for "a new status for homosexual relationships within the life of the Church".

His recent statement, however, is perhaps suggestive of other theological and pastoral concerns - rather than merely his own personal theological convictions - shaping his approach to the current debate in the CofI.

Firstly, in describing a changed context since the CofI House of Bishops last spoke - inconclusively - on the matter of same-sex relationships, he refers to the Covenant:

the progress on the discussion of these issues within the Anglican Communion which led to the Anglican Covenant which the General Synod agreed to subscribe at the May session 2011.

The CofI's 'subscription' to the Covenant is therefore being interpreted by +Armagh as having significance to the present debate in the CofI.  While the Synod debate on the Covenant was witness to some frankly quite silly talk that the Covenant would not alter decision-making processes in the CofI, +Armagh is surely signalling here that it has indeed changed matters.  How the CofI addresses the civil partnership controversy will thus be at least partially shaped by the fact that we have subscribed to the Covenant.

Secondly, +Armagh takes the opportunity to reiterate his initial comments on the controversy:

the Church of Ireland does not regard a civil partnership as matrimony and that there are no proposals for the provision of rites of blessing for same gender relationships.

In other words, the liturgies (Rites One and Two) for the Solemnisation of Matrimony as in the Book of Common Prayer 2004 express the doctrine of the CofI on this matter, and no liturgical provision exists or is planned for the blessing of same-sex relationships.  This, of course, reflects the settled will of the Anglican Communion as expressed in 1.10.

Thirdly, +Armagh concludes his statement by quoting 1.10 (c).  This is, I think, incredibly significant. 

I also wish to say that, as fellow human beings, homosexual people are entitled to be accorded the same respect and dignity as others. Many are “members of the Church and are seeking the pastoral care, moral direction of the Church, and God’s transforming power for the living of their lives and the ordering of their relationships” (Lambeth 1.10) in exactly the same way as are all other members of the Church of God.

+Armagh clearly understands 1.10 (c) as having an authority in the CofI, shaping how CofI parishes should be inclusive of gay Christians.  Presumably, therefore, 1.10 (d) and (e) have a similar authority and should similarly inform CofI theological reflection and pastoral practice.

While there will be disappointment in some conservative quarters, there is much in the Archbishop's statement for traditionalist Anglicans to 'bank'.  He establishes a framework for the CofI's theological reflection - the Covenant, the Book of Common Prayer, Lambeth 1.10.  It is difficult to see how such a framework can advance a 'progressive' agenda. 

Being shaped by Matthew's grammar

On the feast of St Matthew, words from Stanley Hauerwas on the radical nature of Matthew's Gospel:

"The book of the genesis of Jesus Christ" is not a modest beginning.  Matthew starts by suggesting that the genealogy of this man Jesus requires our revisiting the very beginning of God's creative acts: "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth" (Gen. 1:1).  That is, for Matthew, to rightly understand the story of this man Jesus, we must begin with God because this is God's Messiah.  Therefore just as the book of Genesis provides us with the generation of the heavens and the earth (Gen. 2:4), so Matthew provides us with the genealogy of Jesus.  And, for Matthew, the reverse is also true.  Namely, it is necessary to understand the genesis of Jesus if we are to understand "in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth".  In Jesus we now rightly understand that beginning because we can now see the end.

For some time - that is, in the time often identified as modern - Christian and non-Christian alike have thought that belief in God primarily depends on whether you think the world had a beginning: "Something had to start it all".  God, therefore, becomes an explanation for why there is something rather than nothing.  However, the god that must exist in order to show that what exists has a beginning too often, due to our fantasies, is not a god who comes to us in Jesus Christ.  It is the Christian conviction, a conviction shaped by the grammar of the first verse of the gospel of Matthew, that we can know there was a beginning, because we have seen the end in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Stanley Hauerwas SCM Theological Commentary on the Bible: Matthew (p. 23).

After Dawkins

"The coolness of atheism is very much in evidence".  +Rowan's comments last week in conversation with comedian (and practicising Roman Catholic) Frank Skinner have highlighted a feature of the post-9/11 world.  It is not merely social disengagement from the practice of Christianity that marks our societies.  There has been a populist ideological edge a lá Dawkins to the rejection of Christianity as a public truth. 

And yet, all is not as clear as first suggested by the YouGov poll emphasised by Thinking Anglicans.  To begin with, the figure of 40% defining themselves as having "no religion" exists alongside a figure for 19% saying "I do not believe there is a God or gods, or any other higher spiritual power".  Despite the 'rage against God', atheism remains a minority creed in the UK.  Amongst 18-34 year olds, those who say they "never" pray stands at 26% - this in the same age group of which 53% say they have "no religion".  It is also worth noticing that the figure of 18-34 year olds who pray every day or several times a week is 24%, with a further 11% saying once a week or several times a month.

Where Dawkins & co. at first seem to have made progress is in public perceptions of religion and faith traditions:

Religion is a cause of misery and conflict - 79% agree;

Religion is an excuse for bigotry and intolerance - 72% agree;

Organised religion in terminal decline in UK - 61% agree.

It all seems pretty clear, doesn't it?  Until, that is, respondents were asked "It is good for children to be brought up within a religion".  Agree 49%/Disagree 29%.  Even amongst the 18-34 year old group, respondents split evenly - 36% Agree and Disagree.  The most 'secular' age group cannot muster a majority to deny that it is good for children to be brought up within a faith tradition.

There is, perhaps, something here of the argument outlined in Alan Billings' Secular Lives, Sacred Hearts.  The intensely ideological and very public critique of religion has not displaced the conviction that a faith tradition is a good when it comes to any society's most significant action and vocation - nurturing the generation to come.

While Dawkins has made an impact in to some extent shaping public perceptions of religion in the UK, the poll indicates that it is not aggressive atheism which has shaped contemporary attitudes to faith.  Rather more significant was the decisions of the parents of those in that crucial 18-34 year old category.  In the 35-54 year old group, 69% regard themselves as having been brought up as Christians when children.  Only 27% say they were brought without any religious tradition.  For 18-34 year olds, that figure jumps to 39%, with 52% saying that as children that were brought up as Christians. 

However theologically imprecise the experience was, it does seem - again, as Billings argues - that the decision by a growing proportion of parents of those who are now 18-34 year olds to break with the traditions and rituals of public Christianity (baptism, Carol services, Remembrance Sunday etc) has done significantly more to advance secularisation in the UK than the books of Richard Dawkins. 

So what should contemporary Anglicanism in the British Isles glean from the YouGov poll? 

Firstly, Dawkins has not made people atheists, as +Rowan indicated in the Skinner interview:

I'd want to know how many atheists [Richard Dawkins' book] The God Delusion created ... The book sold, but did it make a difference to the number of people who were actually committed one way or the other?

His work has, however, contributed to negative public perceptions of religion.  It is not Dawkins on evolution that has had an impact - it is Dawkins on the Inquistion.  Challenging and changing those perceptions must surely now be part of evangelisation.

Secondly, there remains even in secular Britain a surprising openness to the transcendant.  When it comes to the experiences of prayer and of nurturing children, a Britain with 40% defining themselves as being of 'no religion' remains open to the language and practice of faith.  Considering the significance to British Isles Anglicanism of Common Prayer and involvement in public education, Anglicans need to recover a confidence in speaking of the Church's role in both experiences.

Thirdly, re-discovering the importance of the traditions and rituals of public Christianity as contributing to evangelisation.  In some ways, this challenges all traditions within Anglicanism.  Evangelicals can often see such practices as, at best, a distraction from the gospel.  Catholics, as a distraction from a sacramental church.  Liberals, as a distraction from the kingdom.  What the British experience suggests, however, is that these practices contribute to the Christian narrative remaining - however imprecisely and fitfully - the spiritual, emotional and intellectual context for reflection on meaning and purpose.  As such, this also provides the context for receiving the Church's call to discipleship.

Finally, do the research.  It is always important to read a poll alongside other polls.  The Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales commissioned Opinion Research Business (ORB) to conduct polling on the impact of last year's visit to Britain of Benedict XVI.  The findings of this poll contrast quite dramatically at key points with those in the YouGov poll.  For example, whereas 79% in YouGov regarded religion as a cause of misery and conflict, 51% in the ORB poll agreed that "religion is, on balance, a force for good", compared to 30% disagreeing.  In YouGov, 78% agreed that religion had no place in politics.  In ORB, 59% agreed that "there is a place for God, religion and virtue in public life", with only 25% disagreeing.  At the very least, placing the ORB poll alongside that of YouGov suggests a much more complex landscape of attitudes to religious belief in contemporary Britain.  The context for evangelisation in our society is much more interesting - and much more open - than some headlines would have us believe.

TEC's House of Bishops study liberation theology ... seriously?

Bishop Dan Martins' blog has provided readers with an insight into the meeting of TEC House of Bishops in one of the overseas dioceses, Ecuador.  According to +Dan:

The subject of the continuing education is Liberation Theology. We have so far dedicated two afternoons and one morning to it, and we're not finished yet ...

One can almost hear the Bishop's frustration when he writes:

It came of age in the 1970s and 80s, waxed for a while, and then waned significantly. It is no longer in fashion--in fact, it has a certain "retro" feel to it ...

In fact, so retro is it, that Bishop Dan highlights the questionable relevance of liberation theology in a post-Christendom context:

As I continue to ponder the ramifications of the rapid advance of the post-Christian era in western society, it strikes me that Liberation Theology may actually presume a Christendom paradigm, in which the Church advocates for the Christian poor in challenge to their Christian exploiters. In such a model, evangelization is not a paramount concern; the cast of characters in the drama are presumed to already be evangelized, to already be part of the community of the altare Dei.

It is almost as if those responsible for continuing education in TEC's House of Bishops decided to live up to the critics' stereotype of that Church.  Liberation theology?  Seriously?

In his Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason, John Milbank - hardly a cheerleader for global capitalism - highlighted the fundamental weakness of liberation theology:

The claim of political and liberation theology that theology 'requires' secular social science always implies the displacing of the Christian metanarrative, essential for the constitution of faith, by new modern stories, which themselves arose partially as an attempt to situate and confine faith.

Yes, just what TEC needs at this juncture in the crisis of contemporary Anglicanism.

The sacramental and liturgical church in an age of individualism

The David Brooks' op-ed "If it Feels Right ..." has caught the attention of Creedal Christian and Anglican Down Under.  Brooks reflects on the work of a group of sociologists led by Christian Smith which resulted in Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood.  Based on on the study's interviews with American 18-23 year olds, Brooks highlights the loss of moral discourse:

What’s disheartening is how bad they are at thinking and talking about moral issues.  The interviewers asked open-ended questions about right and wrong, moral dilemmas and the meaning of life. In the rambling answers, which Smith and company recount in a new book, “Lost in Transition,” you see the young people groping to say anything sensible on these matters. But they just don’t have the categories or vocabulary to do so.

For Brooks, the wider cultural significance of this loss of a moral discourse confirms the concerns expressed by Alasdair MacIntyre (After Virtue), Charles Taylor (A Secular Age), Allan Bloom (The Closing of the American Mind) and Gertrude Himmelfarb (The Moral Imagination):

Smith and company found an atmosphere of extreme moral individualism — of relativism and nonjudgmentalism. Again, this doesn’t mean that America’s young people are immoral. Far from it. But, Smith and company emphasize, they have not been given the resources — by schools, institutions and families — to cultivate their moral intuitions, to think more broadly about moral obligations, to check behaviors that may be degrading. In this way, the study says more about adult America than youthful America ...

Many of these shortcomings will sort themselves out as these youngsters get married, have kids, enter a profession or fit into more clearly defined social roles. Institutions will inculcate certain habits. Broader moral horizons will be forced upon them. But their attitudes at the start of their adult lives do reveal something about American culture. For decades, writers from different perspectives have been warning about the erosion of shared moral frameworks and the rise of an easygoing moral individualism.

Both Creedal Christian and Anglican Down Under point to the questions this cultural context raises for the Church's mission.  In words of Creedal Christian, " the Church faces daunting challenges when it comes to the work of evangelism".  In the past week +Dan Martins has also considered the implications of the cultural context of radical individualism for evangelisation by liturgical and sacramental churches:

There are reasons I am not a free-church evangelical! I believe in sacraments and historic church order. I think they're not only nice, but essential. But in the meantime, my rootless and systemically weak evangelical friends are also frighteningly more nimble and more adaptive and responsive to feedback than are the structures of the church in which I serve. They are at the wheel of a ski boat, while the craft I'm driving is a loaded supertanker doing thirty knots. What this means is that the practices that they might find successful in taking the gospel to the denizens of contemporary culture may not work for me. They can't just be adopted wholesale--not, at any rate, without either surrendering some of the core identity of a sacramental and liturgical church, or bending the strategy that I'm adapting so much as to compromise its effectiveness. 

There are, in fact, no proven and reliable "best practices" for evangelization by Catholic Christians in 21st century American culture. And I find that fact simultaneously daunting and energizing. Anyone who does not find being in uncharted territory frightening is probably not sane. By that measure, I am quite sane! At the same time, anyone who does not find being a pioneer exciting may not be fully alive.

Perhaps it is the essence of catholic Christianity - "a sacramental and liturgical church" - which answers some of the longings of those who are "lost in transition", who are seeking a narrative because of "the erosion of shared moral frameworks".  Admittedly, too many expressions of catholic Christianity are still in Christendom-mode, still relying on our individualist culture to produce catholic Christians.  A recovery of the pre-Christendom patristic approach to the catechumenate offers a model for the post-Christendom churches.  To quote from William Harmless' Augustine and the Catechumenate:

Augustine's classroom was his basilica; here the rhythms of education moved to the rhythms of the liturgy itself.  Every gesture, every sign, every word mattered - whether ritual greetings, sitting-and-standing arrangements, the cross people "wore" on their foreheads, or the secrecy of what followed dismissal.  All these, Augustine insisted, held some import for how one believed, felt, and act.  In this classroom, silence was rare; instead, the atmosphere was rowdy, emotionally charged, more like that of a sports arena than a modern church.  It offered entertainment as well as instruction, theatrics as well as worship; its drama was salvation history; its script was the Scriptures; and its actors included everyone.

The oil of mercy

Re-reading (after over 10 years) Peter Nockles' The Oxford Movement in Context, I am struck by his account of how classical Anglican thinking developed on the issue of justification.  The re-reception of an (but not the) Augustinian teaching at the Reformation was followed by a reaction amongst the later Caroline Divines against the perceived Solafidian aspects of Puritan covenant theology.  Anglicanism recovered a rich sense of the significance of justification as (at least to some extent) process, not merely past event.  Nockles quotes Taylor on faith:

like a stomach poweder faith only works if it purges and purifies.

Taylor's words came to mind when reading The Byzantine Anglo-Catholic's excerpt from Frederica Mathewes-Green's The Jesus Prayer: the ancient desert prayer that tunes the heart to God:

The problem, I think, is that we are imagining a prisoner in court, begging the judge for mercy.  It is up to the judge whether to kill this man or free him, and she is justifiably angry.  His only hope is to squirm and plead, and beg her to be lenient.

Picture instead the man in Jesus' parable (Lk 10:  30-37) who was robbed and beaten on the road to Jericho, then left for dead.  His helplessness was so extreme that he was not even able to ask passersby for mercy, and the priest and scribe passed by on the other side of the road.  Yet, the Samaritan saw him and had compassion, and rescued him from death.

That's the kind of "mercy" the Jesus Prayer asks for.  We are not trying to get off the hook for a crime, but recognizing how the infection of sin has damaged us.  Revealing all the extent of our illness to the heavenly physician, we seek his compassionate healing ...

In Greek, the word is eleos, and many of the Western liturgical churches still pray in Greek, "Kyrie, eleison," that is, "Lord, have mercy."

A listener in the ancient church would have heard a resonance between eleos and elaion, the word for olive oil.  Your experience with olive oil might be limited to salads, but in the ancient Mediterranean world, olive oil was used in a wide variety of ways, and filled essential roles.  A wick placed in a clay lamp filled with olive oil could burn and illuminate the darkness.  Medicinal herbs were combined with olive oil for healing; the Good Samaritan "bound up [the beaten man's] wounds, pouring on oil and wine" (the latter for the antiseptic quality of alcohol).  Olive oil would also be a medium for fragrant herbs in the making of perfume.  And of course it would be eaten; in a region where there were few sources of fat, olive oil provided essential nutrition.  Sufficient fat in the diet conferred a health glow, and the psalmist thanks God for giving "wine to gladden the heart of man, and oil to make his face shine" (Ps 104:  15).  This poetic echo between eleos and elaion contributed to a richer sense of "mercy" than we perceive in English ...

In the contemporary West, repentance is now considered an introductory activity to life in Christ (if it's considered at all); in the East, repentance lasts for a lifetime.  Salvation means healing from the sickness of sin, and we are always seeking to confront the sin that infects us, and to be healed at ever deeper levels.

"Bishops guard a life they did not create"

The most recent edition of The Living Church carries a superb essay by Fr. Ralph McMichael on the ministry of bishops.  Invoking the traditional understanding of the Blessed Virgin as an icon of the Church - "Mary is the Church, the Body of Christ realized at the celebration of the Eucharist ... The Church exists to be pregnant with Jesus, to be the body from which Jesus appears into the world" - Fr. Michael sees St Joseph as an icon of the vocation of the episcopate:

Like Joseph in the birth and maturation of Jesus, bishops guard a life they did not create. Bishops do not instigate new life; they care for the life the Holy Spirit realizes within the flesh of the Church. Bishops are guardians of the Church’s ministry to bear Jesus in the world, to be the body of Christ. This means, of course, that bishops do not pursue courses of action that center on themselves, that raise their profile in the world beyond, or away from, the Church. Who bishops are within their inner selves, whether in conscience, temperament, or opinion, is not the episcopal point, and can never become their episcopal profile. Bishops are guardians of Jesus and the Church that bears him to the world.

Like Joseph, bishops provide the traditional home in which the life born of the Church and the Holy Spirit matures, and from which this life appears. The authority of bishops resides within their representative ministry as persons of tradition; they have the authority of guardianship. They invoke the Holy Spirit into the life of the Church, and into the lives of the baptized, as those who stand in the place where tradition has located them. Straying from this place vacates their authority. Bishops abide as Joseph to the Church’s Mary for the sake of Jesus.

This is why, from the beginning, apostolic ministry was for the purpose of witnessing to the resurrection. Bishops witness to the resurrection, the appearance of Jesus from another unexpected place, from the tomb. The Holy Spirit conceives Jesus anew from the grip of the grave; Jesus is the firstborn of the new creation. The episcopal ministry of Joseph begins at the empty tomb. Unlike the soldiers guarding the status quo, bishops guard the possibility of the appearance of the risen Jesus, of the breaking in of the life realized only by the Holy Spirit. The virginal conception and the resurrection of Jesus share a common clarity: They are both the unmistakable act of God. Bishops are the traditional guardians of the creative acts of God.

It is a wonderfully challenging icon.  The bishop's relationship to the Church's proclamation is equivalent to St Joseph's role in the Incarnation - witness and guardian not creator, enabling the Church to be authentically Marian, to bear the given Narrative of the Incarnate, Crucified and Risen One.  As such, it challenges those ecclesiologies which would exalt synodical government over and against the episcopal vocation (evident in some commentary opposed to the Covenant).  Perhaps more dramatically, it also declares that bishops do not have an authority independent of the Tradition.  A bishop's ministry only finds authentic meaning as a witness and guardian to the Narrative of redemption, "of the creative acts of God".  Outside this, speaking another narrative (a narrative in which such acts of the Triune God are not affirmed), a bishop ceases to Joseph-like.  And a Church ceases to have a guardian of the life we have received. 

Amongst those who have exemplified the essense of the episcopal vocation - Peter, Cyprian, Augustine, Chrysostom - it is Joseph who is the exemplar of the bishop's mission in and relationship to the Body of Christ.

"I was all moist with blood"

Whether we question the likelihood of St Helena discovering the true Cross in 326AD or adhere to Article 22's critique of "worshipping and adoration ... of reliques", we may wonder about the wisdom of celebrating Holy Cross Day.  Is Good Friday not the Church's commemoration of the Cross and passion? 

And yet, the calendar of the classical Book of Common Prayer retained 14th September as Holy Cross Day.  Anglican liturgical revision has restored propers for the day, including the collect which reflects on the ancient Christian theme of a means execution being the means of grace:

Almighty God,
who in the passion of your blessed Son
made an instrument of painful death
to be for us the means of life and peace ...

In the midst of Ordinary Time in September, today's Feast confronts us with the physicality of our Redemption.  It came through wood.  The 7th century Anglo-Saxon poem The Dream of the Rood hauntingly captures this as it presents the Cross speaking of the Passion:

They drove me through with dark nails;
on me are the deep wounds manifest,
wide-mouthed hate-dents.
I durst not harm any of them.
How they mocked at us both!
I was all moist with blood
sprung from the Man's side
after He sent forth His soul.

The physicality of our Redemption undid the physicality of our Fall.  The Genesis narrative of the Fall (the reading for today's morning office), for all of its mythical nature, is grounded in the this worldly, in the physical: a naked man, a naked woman, a tree, fruit, and even the Enemy has physical form as a serpent.  And it is in this world, amidst the physical, that we experience the Fall.  My hatred, lust, greed, envy are grounded in the physical.  Redemption, therefore, cannot be as in the Gnostic myths, removed from the muck of the physical, leaving the physical untouched.  Redemption is powerfully physical because it is the Redemption of the physical: a naked Human, a Tree, Blood, a grieving Mother, a Beloved Friend, callous onlookers and participants. 

Holy Cross Day proclaims the truth of Augustine's words:

Flesh, then, had wounded you, flesh heals you.

Changing Attitude Ireland's statement

The Changing Attitude Ireland statement, responding to the joint statements of four evangelical groupings in the CofI, rightly urges a "reasoned discussion" characterised by "mutual generosity and grace".  As such, Changing Attitude Ireland should be thanked for reminding us of the need to ensure that theological debate is not conformed to the norms of partisan, politicised discourse.

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.

Creedal minimalism and our common life

Into the Expectation's recent discussion of creedal minimalism reaffirms the Trinitarian and Christological core of the Church, but also questions the tendency to raise other matters to the level of creedal belief:

If the Creed is the fundamental and central summary of the faith, then other things are less fundamental and less central. I am suspicious of the tendency among some to elevate almost their every conviction and pious opinion to “creedal” status ... The Creedal outline is at the center. Other Church teaching and discipline radiate out from that center in concentric circles of importance. We will have disagreements about how near the center this or that might be. But, let us debate with passionate patience and humility, taking into account that we all only see as though through a glass darkly ... as a radical centrist, I am willing to live, even if uncomfortably, with considerable disagreement – and disagreement is inevitable – even on things that I think are fairly near the center as long the disagreement is anchored in the Creed and an honest engagement with scripture and tradition.

What perhaps needs to be included in this discussion in is the difference between "considerable disagreement" in terms of theological reflection and the need for shared practices in the Church's common life.  We can, therefore, have theological debate about same-sex partnerships or lay presidency - theological debates that will be conducted within the Trinitarian and Christological framework of the catholic creeds.  This, however, must not seek to undermine the shared practices of the Church's common life which both express and facilitate communion.  The definitions contained in the liturgy of Matrimony and the Ordinal's requirement for episcopal ordination cannot be unilaterally set aside (by parishes, dioceses or provinces) without rupturing our common life. 

Article XXXIV explicitly declares that the practices which promote the Church's common life cannot be set aside on the basis of "private judgment":

Whosoever, through his private judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, (that others may fear to do the like,) as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church ... and woundeth the consciences of the weak brethren.

Creedal minimalism, after all, includes our confession of faith in "the holy catholic church" - it embraces, in other words, faith in the church as communion.  Theological debate, within the context of the creeds' Trinitarian and Christological affirmations, is necessary for the Church's reception of revelation to be living and authentic.  Such debate must, however, be also subject to our creedal affirmation of the church as communion.  Debate in and of itself cannot be justification for acting on theological opinions in a manner which overturns shared practices which express the Church's common life as a communion.

Further reflections on the CofI evangelical statement

Catholicity and covenant has already commented on the initial statement released by four evangelical groupings in the Church of Ireland on the civil partnership debate.  The fuller version - available here - expands in some interesting ways on the initial statement. 

The theological reflection contained in the fuller version implies a much richer ecclesiology, more cognisant of the themes of classical Anglicanism, than is sometimes the case in evangelical Anglican ecclesiology.  This is particularly evident in three areas.

(i) The locus of doctrine: the fuller version of the statement recognises the authority of tradition and liturgy in the Church's life. 

We regret the apparent lack of regard for the doctrine and teaching of the Church of Ireland in relation to human sexuality and marriage. Founded on scripture, flowing from reason and following tradition, our church, in its teaching, life and liturgical practice ...

It is significant that conservative evangelical Anglicans, often prone to invoking an understanding of sola scriptura over and against tradition and liturgy, have articulated a view of the inter-relationship between Scripture, tradition and liturgy in a way which accords with Anglicanism's historic experience.  It is through Tradition and liturgy that Anglicans receive Scripture. 

(ii) The bishop as a focus of unity: a nascent congregationalism implicit in some conservative evangelical Anglican ecclesiology has, at times, sought to deny the episcopate's vocation to be a focus of unity.  The statement appears to reject such congregationalism:

His bishop is required to promote unity and might reasonably have been expected to have cautioned Dean Gordon that his proposed actions were divisive and could therefore not have his support.

This recognition of the episcopate's vocation to promote unity - fully in accord with classical Anglicanism's historic understanding of the episcopate and with our ecumenical agreements with Rome and Orthodoxy - signals a renewed reception by evangelical Anglicans in Ireland of the gift of the episcopate.

(iii) The call to communion: as with the initial statement, the fuller version prioritises the Church's call to communion.  Actions which impair or break communion are to be rejected:

We believe that great hurt and pain will be caused to the life of the church by such actions. There is no doubt that these seemingly unilateral and unprecedented actions will do nothing to promote unity, peace and love among God's people in the Church of Ireland.

Such an understanding would also suggest that the practice of 'lay/diaconal presidency' and the undermining of Article 27's affirmation of infant baptism should be equally rejected by the evangelical Anglican constituency. 

There is much for Communion-oriented catholic Anglicans to affirm in the fuller version of the statement.  It offers hope that conservative evangelical Anglicans Ireland are serious about working with classical Anglicans who stand outside their constituency in order to promote catholic order and evangelical faith in the Communion.

9/11, anger and faith

From +Daniel Martins' pastoral reflections on the 9/11 anniversary, addressed to the faithful in the Diocese of Springfield:

In addition to being afraid, we are also angry, even ten years later. We not only suffered the loss of lives and the destruction of property, our national pride was wounded. They went after some potent symbols of American identity: the twin towers, the Pentagon, and, but for the heroism of those aboard United 93, probably the Capitol Building or the White House. I must confess that I have at times pictured those who plot terrorism when one of the imprecatory Psalms comes comes up in the daily office lectionary, such as these lines from Psalm 109: "He loved cursing, let it come upon him; he took no delight in blessing, let is depart from him. He put on cursing like a garment, let it soak into his body like water and into his bones like oil...".

To the extent that we are afraid or angry, then, we do neither ourselves nor anyone else any favors by trying to deny or repress those feelings. We do well to recognize and acknowledge them. Then, as disciples of Jesus, we do well to lay that fear and anger at his feet and allow him to deliver us from them. When I visit the churches of our diocese, the liturgy often concludes with the Pontifical Blessing, which begins with the line from Psalm 124: "Our help is in the name of the Lord." This is the context into which we are invited to place our fear. Then we can take note of the scriptural counsel to avoid letting our instinct for revenge get the better of us: "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord" (Romans 12:19, Deuteronomy 32:35). This is the context into which we are invited to place our anger.

9/11 and the response of faith

From The Living Church story "St Paul's welcomes the pilgrims of 9/11", the words of Nathan Brockman, Trinity Wall Street’s director of communications and editor of Trinity News:

One of the more remarkable things I’ve seen is how immediately people’s faith came into play. Right after the first tower came down, the South Tower, you can imagine the proximity — it got very dark, it got very loud, you could feel the church shaking. There was a congregation gathered there, seeking comfort, solace. Once the cascade stopped, Stewart Hoke, who was a priest here at the time, stood up before the congregation and he recited the Beatitudes. It was one of the most powerful things I’ve ever encountered. That was the response of faith. It wasn’t the reaction to run, it wasn’t the reaction to react violently, or panic.

Liturgy, the Tradition and the traditions

Anglican Down Under and Bosco's Liturgy have been reflecting on the former's suggested liturgical law within Anglicanism:

Here is a law of worship participation which, with a very few exceptions, I propose holds true throughout our church today: the closer a service adheres to our liturgical history, the older and the smaller will be the congregation; the converse being the younger and larger the congregation in an Anglican parish, the further will be the service from that liturgical history.

Bosco rightly urges us to think the matter through with care:

Many/most look at the reality and go: it is liturgy that causes the shrinking and ageing of a community – so let’s lessen liturgy in order to grow our community.  But it is not liturgy that is causing the shrinking. It was only yesterday that Peter noted that in our country the only historic denomination that is not in decline is the Roman Catholic one. And if any denomination does liturgy – it’s Roman Catholicism.  If it is not liturgy per se that causes ageing and shrinking congregations, perhaps it is the way that liturgy is done?

What this does not alter, however, is the fact that many growing Anglican congregations in the English-speaking world appear to increasingly adhere to a form of non-liturgical worship.  The danger here is not merely a loss of Anglican identity.  It is, rather, something more profound.  Anglican Down Under hints at this:

In parishes which (perhaps rebelling against the formality?) have moved away from prayer book liturgies, a different form of 'locking in' to a (more recent) tradition may have occurred.

The perceived contrast implied in the nomenclature of 'traditional' and 'contemporary' worship is, of course, deeply erroneous.  We cannot worship outside a tradition: the theologically significant question is whether our liturgy is shaped by the Tradition or another tradition.  'Contemporary' worship, no less than 'traditional', can be conformed to cultural norms.  Non-liturgical worship, by its very nature, is particularly vulnerable to this.

Catholicity and covenant has previously discussed the theological significance of all-age, non-eucharistic services ceasing to use the Creeds, replacing them with new formulations.  Such an approach is, no doubt, motivated by a desire for worship to speak to the culture of late modernity.  In so doing, however, it robs the Church of the ability to authentically proclaim the gospel of the Triune God.  Another tradition, another theology begins shapes the Church's prayer and worship.

Also worth noting in light of the comments of Anglican Down Under and Liturgy, is the recent experience of the CofE's cathedrals.  According to the report on the official statistics for 2010:

Attendance levels at regular weekly services in Church of England cathedrals have increased significantly more this year, by 7%.  Since the turn of the millennium, they have have steadily grown by a total of 37%, which is about 4% on average each year ... Midweek attendance has more than doubled since the turn of the millennium and is approaching the same level as Sunday attendance.

Cathedrals are explicitly centres of liturgical worship, usually with a very high standard of liturgical formation for both clergy and laity and - another vital point - with an experience of 'common prayer': daily celebration of the offices and the eucharist.  This is not to suggest that the cathedral experience can or should be replicated in parish churches.  It is, however, a warning against a too-easy assumption that non-liturgical worship is necessary for growing congregations.

Perhaps if we are to learn anything from the English cathedral experience, it is that Anglican parish liturgy needs to be more intentional, less 'fussy' (and non-liturgical worship can be very fussy!), related more to the Church's confession of faith and life of prayer (i.e. a much greater emphasis on liturgical formation), and less prone to the 'cut-and-paste' approach which undermines any experience of being nurtured in common prayer.  The alternative is a non-liturgical format which will fail to form (and renew) the Church in the rhythms of Trinitarian and Christological faith which intentionally shape classical Anglican liturgy.

"The supremely wonderful member"

On the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, words from St. Augustine expressing his characteristic reverential reserve regarding the Theotokos, a characteristic shared by the Anglican tradition.  The Blessed Virgin cannot be thought of apart from the Church, the body of the redeemed - but in that body she has pre-eminence:

She believed by faith, she conceived by faith, she was chosen to be the one from whom salvation in the very midst of the human race would be born for us, she was created by Christ before Christ was created in her... Mary was blessed, because even before she gave him birth, she bore her teacher in her womb ... Mary is holy, Mary is blessed, but the Church is something better than the Virgin Mary. Why? Because Mary is part of the Church, a holy member, a quite exceptional member, the supremely wonderful member, but still a member of the whole body (Sermon 72A).

The 1549 eucharistic rite reflected this Augustinian affirmation of the pre-eminence of the Blessed Virgin within the body of the Church:

And here we do geve unto thee moste high praise, and heartie thankes, for the wonderfull grace and vertue, declared in all thy sainctes, from the begynning of the worlde: And chiefly in the glorious and moste blessed virgin Mary, mother of thy sonne Jesu Christe our Lorde and God.

On the feast of her Nativity, we give thanks for the place the virgin girl from Nazareth has in the mystery of redemption: she is the "supremely wonderful member" of the Church.

The call to communion and the CofI debate

As the civil partnership controversy grows in the CofI, it is worth reflecting on the statement jointly issued by four evangelical groupings within the Irish church.  Three particular aspects of the statement are worth noting.

Firstly - and this is essential - the statement couches the debate in terms of the 'church as communion':

Our desire is for a continuing and growing unity within the Church of Ireland.

The debate within Anglicanism is not about sexuality.  It is about ecclesiology.  Is the Church a communion, flowing from the life of the Triune God, or is it a mere political confederation, structured so as to respect autonomy?  That evangelical groupings should recognise the significance of communion ecclesiology is to be welcomed.

Secondly, the statement's wording implies support for the CofE's House of Bishops 2005 Pastoral Statement on civil partnerships:

Is this a celibate relationship? While the latter question may seem intrusive it is a recognition that a Civil Partnership does not necessarily presume a relationship that involves sexual intimacy.

Against this background it would is surely necessary for the CofI's House of Bishops to address the threat to the Church's communion by issuing a pastoral statement based on the CofE position:

The House of Bishops does not regard entering into a civil partnership as intrinsically incompatible with holy orders, provided the person concerned is willing to give assurances to his or her bishop that the relationship is consistent with the standards for the clergy set out in Issues in Human Sexuality(19) ...

Thirdly, the statement recognises the ecumenical context and the damage that the matter could inflict on the CofI's ecumenical relationships:

[This] will cause pain and grief within our Church and damage relationships with other Christian traditions in Ireland with whom we work closely at local as well as regional level.

To give the most obvious example, the ARCIC II statement Life in Christ: Morals, Communion and the Church affirmed a shared Anglican-RC teaching on marriage and sexuality (see para. 58 and also 87).  Unless the current debate is resolved by the House of Bishops in a maner which coheres with the ARCIC II statement, the negative impact on ecumenical relationships is obvious.

What is missing from the statement, however, is any reference to the settled, conciliar teaching of the Anglican Communion - Lambeth 1.10.  The House of Bishops, in light of the particular calling of the episcopate, has a responsibility to ensure that the CofI promotes the Church's experience of communion.  This requires abiding by 1.10.  Again, this understanding of the vocation of the episcopate is part of the CofI's ecumenical commitments:

For the nurture and growth of this communion, Christ the Lord has provided a ministry of oversight, the fullness of which is entrusted to the episcopate, which has the responsibility of maintaining and expressing the unity of the churches ... It is exercised so that unity and communion are expressed, preserved and fostered at every level: locally, regionally and universally (ARCIC II The Church as Communion, para. 45)

It is a painful time for the CofI and for those whose personal circumstances are caught up in this debate.  However, the measured tone of the joint statement by the evangelical groupings - particularly its emphasis on communion ecclesiology - offers the CofI a way forward, recognising our responsibility within the Communion and our ecumenical commitments.  It is now over to the House of Bishops.  The ecclesiology expressed in contemporary Anglican reflection and in the ARCIC process makes their responsibility very clear.

Benedict and Luther: a purification of Reformation memories

Benedict's forthcoming visit to his German homeland will contribute to what could be a very significant RC-Lutheran statement.  Zenit has reported:

According to the Vatican official on ecumenism, the Church and the World Lutheran Federation are preparing a Joint Declaration on the Reformation, in view of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther's 95 Theses. Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, announced this in an interview with the German Catholic agency KNA. In this context, Vatican Radio reported Monday that Benedict XVI wants his Sept. 22-25 trip to Germany to have an ecumenical focus. The Catholic-Lutheran document will "analyze the Reformation in the light of 2,000 years of Christianity," noted Vatican Radio. "The joint commemoration of this anniversary could be the occasion for a mutual mea culpa," the report suggested. For Cardinal Koch, "a common purification of the memory" is necessary. During his trip to Germany, Benedict XVI will visit Erfurt, where Luther carried out part of his studies. Cardinal Koch said that it was the Pope himself who wished to give this trip a notable ecumenical dimension.

This echoes words used by Benedict himself in an address to a delegation from the German Evangelical Lutheran Church earlier this year:

Let us look together to the year 2017, which will recall theses of Martin Luther from 500 years ago. On that occasion, Lutherans and Catholics will have the opportunity to celebrate throughout the world a common ecumenical commemoration, to fight at the world level for fundamental questions, not ... under the form of a triumphant celebration, but as a common profession of our faith in the One and Triune God, in the common obedience to Our Lord and to his Word. We must attribute an important place to common prayer and to interior prayer addressed to our Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness of mutual wrongs and for the fault related to the divisions. Part of this purification of the conscience is the reciprocal exchange on the appraisal of the 1,500 years that preceded the Reformation, and which are common to us.

As with the 1999 RC-Lutheran Joint Declaration on Justification, this forthcoming statement on the Reformation should have significant implications for the Anglican-RC relationships.  Firstly, it could provide a context for Anglicans and Roman Catholics to jointly celebrate a range of anniversaries this century related to the events of the Reformation era.  Secondly, it will hopefully give to both Communions a shared discourse to describe the Reformation.  Thirdly, it will challenge those in the two Communions who still adhere to triumphalist and often sectarian narratives of the Reformation.

Anglican identity is intimately caught up with the events that began in Germany in 1517.  We should, then, be listening closely to Benedict's words as he visits his homeland and speaks with Luther's successors.  The ARCIC dialogue has achieved agreement on significant theological and ecclesiological issues.  But the emotional and historical self-understanding of both Communions remains deeply affected by our conflicting narratives of the Reformation.  Benedict's visit to the land of Luther, and the subsequent RC-Lutheran statement, will hopefully enable a deeper Anglican-RC reconciliation.

Noble simplicity and the eucharistic mystery

The New Liturgical Movement site - an excellent resource for understanding the 'reform of the reform' in the Roman liturgy - is hardly a fan of Cranmer.  That said, there are similarities between some classical Anglican liturgical principles and the Roman 'reform of the reform' (for example, dignity of liturgical language, respect for the dynamics of traditional liturgy, liturgical music which recognises the priority of the Word and the human voice). 

In a posting yesterday NLM critiqued 'clutter' around the altar, urging instead a noble simplicity.  A not entirely dissimilar principle was at work in Cranmer's instruction for the Lord's Table to have "at the Communion time ... a fair white linen cloth upon it".  It is a necessary reminder for those of us who are catholic Anglicans that there is a beauty to noble simplicity, particularly when it comes to the celebration of the holy eucharist.  That said, liturgical 'clutter' is hardly the preserve of catholic Anglicans - many evangelical Anglican quasi-liturgical all-age services provide horrendous examples of verbal clutter, distracting the local church from a focus on the Word, prayer and praise.  Nor to be forgotten is the physical clutter that often accompanies powerpoints and praise bands.

The picture above provides an excellent example of a traditional Anglican liturgical style.  There is a noble simplicity to the altar cloths, the two candles and the surrounding architecture.  The contrast with the clutter of the medieval parish and Baroque triumphalism is obvious.  So too, however, is the refusal to accept a Puritan rejection of liturgical beauty.  The beauty of noble simplicity allows the church to prayerfully reflect on and enter into the mystery of the eucharist.

Denying the sacrament of the altar in New Zealand

Anglican Down Under gets it right - wearing a chasuble doesn't make one a catholic.  He notes that the two NZ dioceses which have just rejected the Covenant tend to a catholic style in worship.  The problem is that these chasuble wearers have a radically protestant ecclesiology:

The great irony in these decisions is that in style many of the voters against the Covenant will have been catholic (chasuble wearing, more rather than less candles in the sanctuary, crossing, bowing, etc) but in expressing a liberal theological approach to the point of rejecting the Covenant (perhaps especially when the objection has been that the Covenant goes against 'Anglican ecclesiology') the substance of the anti-Covenanters' theology is protestant in the sense of exercising the right to protest against an attempt to develop the substantive catholicism of our church as a body with coherent doctrine measured against the doctrine of global Anglicanism. Our church is a confused church in many ways, but most importantly we are confused about the nature of the church. As simply as I can put it the confusion concerns the church as the body of Christ, a unified body with diverse members. In our church we often seem to wish to preserve diversity at any cost and look suspiciously on all attempts to enhance our unity. This is a deeply unbiblical theology (cf. Ephesians 1). I wonder if the Auckland and Waiapu synods reflected on the implications of their protestantism? Were chasubles left hanging in the vestries as an expression of renewed protestant fervour?

Perhaps Newman was right after all - "religion as mere sentiment [...] is a dream and a mockery".  And there is no greater mockery than pretending one is a catholic at the altar and then denying the catholic nature of the Church as the Body of Christ.  The words of St Augustine speak powerfully into this situation:

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'.  Be, then, a member of Christ's body, so that your 'Amen' may accord with the truth.

To confess the Body of Christ on the altar and then to deny the Church's unity and communion as the Body of Christ is not in accord with the truth.

Thoughts on Milbank's "The Suspended Middle"

The 108 pages of The Suspended Middle offer a provocative insight into the heart of the agenda of the Radical Orthodoxy.  Milbank's exploration of de Lubac's Surnaturel and the papal reaction in Humani Generis, is the background against which he proposes a re-reading of the Latin West's history of the doctrine of grace.

The texts of Radical Orthodoxy are rarely, if ever, easy reads.  It is, perhaps, open to the accusation that it is theology done for the academy rather than the Church: quite ironic, considering Radical Orthodoxy's critique of the academy.  In the midst of intensely academic discourse, however, Milbank has the gift of summarising in short statements key positions of Radical Orthodoxy.

Close to the heart of Radical Orthodoxy is a turn to Plato, rejecting the Aristotelianism that has shaped Western theological reflection, both Reformed and Counter-Reformation.  Milbank is definitive in his assessment of medieval scholasticism's reception of Aristotle:

It was the arrival of Aristotelianism that created a crisis for the theology of grace (p.101).

The turn to Plato is, above all, evidence of Radical Orthodoxy's Augustinianism, an Augustinianism freed from the suffocating embrace of catholic and protestant neo-scholasticisms:

For Augustine himself ... the imago Dei that always remains involves some degree of participation in the Godhead, if not the participation of grace, and is destined to rise, by grace, into a similitudo of God (p.37).

De Lubac, says Milbank, offers such a re-reception of Augustine, a re-reception that radically impacts on the West's traditional readings of Augustine and justification:

De Lubac ... wished to stress that the original and authentic Latin patristic understanding of the operation of grace (especially that of Augustine) was not essentially different from the Greek patristic notion of deification (p.16).

And yet, this proclamation of de Lubac - alongside the Orthodox Bulgakov -as "one of the two truly great theologians of the twentieth century" (p.105), does not equate to an uncritical acceptance of the nouvelle theologie movement.  Alongside de Lubac, Balthasar towers as a leading figure in this movement.  For Milbank, however, Balthasar's defining reflections are open to damning criticism:

Balthasar ... encourages an abandonment of the metaphysics of cosmic harmony in favour of a gnostic hypostasiazation of the violence of the cross (p.73).

For those of us heavily influenced by Balthasar, Milbank's critique should drive us back both to Balthasar's texts - even if we do return unconvinced by such a critique of a theologian whose reflection on the Cross is immersed in Scripture and Tradition.

Finally, Milbank's praise for de Lubac doctrine of grace does not mean that all aspects of de Lubac's theology are to be endorsed.  His ecclesiology - shared with Balthasar - differentiated between the Petrine Church of office and the Marian Church of the laity.  Milbank forcefully emphasises that this ecclesiology, particularly influential in contemporary Roman theology, falls short of the Church's calling to be Marian in all of her dimensions:

The Petrine function should also be, as such, Marian, in that, at the heart of its shaping activity it also has to do with a receptive giving birth again to Christ in the Eucharist, from whence (according to de Lubac) flows the body of the Church (p.105).

Radical Orthodoxy, after all, is no staid establishment orthodoxy.  It is, instead, an authentically radical re-telling of the Tradition, enabling the contemporary Church to proclaim Truth within, and over and against, the cities of this world.