The daily office: missional outreach and/or the prayer of the baptised?

Do read Tony Hunt's reflection on the Covenant site and at Theophiliacs on the missional significance of the daily office:

There are at least four ways, I believe, that the Office can function as a tool for mission that addresses some pressing contemporary issues facing TEC:
1) In the post-Christian situation it can serve to renew the catechumenate and foster discipleship;
2) Which aids in thinking through the pressure for Communion Regardless of Faith and Baptism;
3) Yet which is sympathetic (in a way) toward those who clearly crave “spirituality” but who have an abiding distrust of “organized religion.”
4) Much of the main work in this scheme can be done by lay people and deacons. Given our financial situation, this is something at least to consider.

He goes on to describe how such a missional praying of the Office could work in church plants and parishes:

In the Office, people can come to know many of the basics of the faith and even participate in its performance without needing to come under the discipline of the Church and be baptized. It’s, to use the phrase, “inclusive,” but it’s still in keeping with the baptismal ecclesiology of the Prayer Book. On Sundays, the core group of the plant would meet to celebrate the Eucharist if they had a priest or receive the reserve elements from a deacon, it being understood that catechesis and baptism is necessary to participate.

What I’m suggesting is that church plants and parishes ought to consider the Office, maybe a sung Evensong or Compline, as a fitting way to expose fresh faces to Christ. From there, emphasize the necessity of catechesis and baptism as a way to come to know Christ and the fellowship of the Church most fully.

This reflects something of the experience of Evensong in particular in English cathedrals, providing a place for seekers and re-engagers to experience prayerful reflection on the Church's proclamation.  There is much in the praying of the daily office which would have significance for seekers and re-engagers.  Perhaps above all, prayer, psalms and scripture are experienced - they are tasted.  The liturgical year and the collects also provide means by which to nurture a Trinitarian and Christological reading of scripture.

There are also, however, some questions flowing from Tony Hunt's suggestion.  Firstly, would it undermine the sense that the daily office is the opus of the baptised people of God?  Would an emphasis on the missional use of the daily office perhaps suggest that this is for 'beginners' with the eucharist - and no office - for the baptised?

Secondly - and related to this - is it easy to reconcile a notion of the daily office being oriented towards seekers with its importance as a key means of sanctifying the Body of Christ?  For example, the use of the Psalter and the lectionary is oriented towards the latter.  All of Scripture is read, all of the Psalter is prayed.  Would a quite different lectionary and selection of Psalms be required for a missional use of the office?

Thirdly, would a Service of the Word (see the Common Worship provision) perhaps be better oriented towards intentionally addressing seekers and re-engagers?  The daily office is not, after all, 'stand alone': it is a daily discipline stretching over the years.  Its use of Scripture and Psalter is demanding.  By contrast, a Service of the Word might be better placed to introduce seekers and re-engagers to Scripture and prayer, not least because of its thematic flexibility.

None of this is to deny the importance of introducing catechumens and new disciples to the joyful discipline of the daily office.  That, however, is perhaps my key point: should praying the offices be the work of the local church to which seekers and catechumens are introduced, rather than the local church's offering to seekers?

Douthat on renewal: what place for Anglicanism?

An excerpt from his Bad Religion forms a Ross Douthat article on the ABC: Religion and Ethics site. It surveys the potential architecture of Christian renewal in the 21st century West.  Amongst the themes identified by Douthat, three in particular struck catholicity and covenant.

Firstly, attitudes to wealth and consumerism:

It's rare to hear a strident Sunday sermon about the temptations of the five-course meal and the all-you-can-eat buffet, or to hear a high-profile pastor who addresses the sin of greed in the frank manner of, say, Saint Basil the Great in the fourth century AD:

"The bread that you possess belongs to the hungry. The clothes that you store in boxes, belong to the naked. The shoes rotting by you, belong to the bare-foot. The money that you hide belongs to anyone in need. You wrong as many people as you could help."

Note that Basil isn't arguing for a slightly higher marginal tax rate to fund modest improvements in public services. He's passing judgment on individual sins, and calling for individual repentance. There are conservative Christians today who seem terrified of even remotely criticizing Wall Street tycoons and high-finance buccaneers, lest such criticism be interpreted as an endorsement of the Democratic Party's political agenda. But a Christianity that cannot use the language of Basil - and of Jesus - to attack the cult of Mammon will inevitably be less persuasive when the time comes to attack the cult of Dionysus.

Secondly, establishing communities in a postmodern culture in which community is dissolving:

A renewed emphasis on nonmarital forms of community could have broader applications as well. With the eclipse of the nuclear family, we increasingly inhabit a culture of singletons and divorced, unwed parents and unmarried retirees, in which millions upon millions of people pass through life without the stability of a two-parent family and then find themselves growing old alone. There is a void here, in other words, that a more holistic Christianity should find ways to fill - rediscovering the resources of the Christian past to address the needs of the American present.

Thirdly, the significance of the apologetics of beauty:

True, there are some high-profile Christian artists - the novelist Marilynne Robinson, the poet (and editor of Poetry magazine) Christian Wiman, even the demon-haunted Mel Gibson - but nothing that even resembles a significant Christian presence in literature and architecture, television and film ... Worse, many Christians are either indifferent to beauty or suspicious of its snares, content to worship in tacky churches and amuse themselves with cultural products that are well-meaning but distinctly second-rate. Few Americans think of religion as a great wellspring of aesthetic achievement anymore, and the Christian message is vastly weaker for it.

So what relevance may these themes highlighted by Douthat have for Anglicanism?

Regarding attitudes to wealth and consumerism, it is a school of theological reflection which has emerged from within Anglicanism - Radical Orthodoxy - which has provided the most articulate theological critique of the capitalism and consumerism of late modernity.   John Milbank has also noted a communitarian ethic embedded within classical Anglicanism, "a practical critique of homo economicus". Recovering the orientation of this classical Anglican political economy, and enriching and expanding it through the reflection of the Radical Orthodoxy school would give to contemporary Anglicanism a means by which to develop counter-cultural pastoral, catechetical and teaching resources to shape disciples in the marketplace.

The creation of what Douthat terms "non-marital forms of community" can provoke Anglicans to consider what within our tradition and experience can address the "liquid society" of postmodernity.  As Alison Milbank and Andrew Davison powerfully argued in For the Parish, we should not assume that the traditional concept of the parish and its ability to create community has outlived its usefulness.    Alongside this, the Fresh Expressions initiative has provided space for a new monasticism and related forms of community to emerge.  Behind this we can also be thinking of Nicholas Ferrar's Little Gidding community.

Anglicanism has also traditionally been - as Tony Hunt has recently stated - a poetic tradition: "Anglicans are traditionally best at devotional, poetic, and irregular dogmatics".  Our cathedrals, experiencing something of a renaissance in England, are communities in which liturgical, musical, artistic and architectural beauty are particularly esteemed.  Recovering a sense of cathedrals' historic vocation to interact with artistic communities would give a greater prominence and purpose to this ethos.  The evangelistic and apologetic significance of beauty in this context can be seen in how Evensong and Compline can be celebrated in our cathedrals - giving expression to the beauty of grace and truth in the disenchanted, flattened environment of the postmodern city.

Douthat's vision for the renewal of contemporary Christianity in the West has a focus on "a robust Catholicism and a robust Calvinism".  There can, however, also be a place for Anglicanism in this vision - an Anglicanism which recovers coherence and confidence around its Christological centre, in which its practices contribute to the new evangelisation and the shaping of disciples in postmodernity.

Upper Room, Mount, Aeropagus: envisioning the vocations of Anglicanism

Groups - the so-called traditionalists and progressivists - are also a problem that takes up a great deal of our time and energy. Here there is a danger of slightly losing sight of our main task which is to announce the Gospel and communicate Church doctrine in a concrete way.

No, it's not ++Rowan speaking to the Anglican Communion.  It is actually the new Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith speaking about tensions and divisions within the Roman Catholic tradition.  It points to the reality that historic traditions and global churches will embrace a variety of theological perspectives.  The challenge is to ensure that these perspectives cohere in serving the Church's communion rather than, as Michael Poon has suggested is the risk facing Anglicanism, "splintering into tribalism".

It is against this background that Christopher Wells' reflection on TEC's General Convention is a must-read.  Wells urges against that "splintering into tribalism".  How is this to be done? First, he addresses conservatives:

Let the Communion Partner dioceses and parishes flourish and multiply across our church, as a devoted movement of unity and renewal. Let us learn and teach the faith ever more confidently, with joy, rooted in affection for and loyalty to our worldwide family and all our brothers and sisters.

Then addressing the "majority party" in TEC, he urges liberals and progressives to create a space for the flourishing of catholic and evangelical Anglican witness:

A commitment by all our leaders to cultivating lively evangelical and catholic conviction in this church, even of a traditionalist sort, in the recognition that thereby the rule of faith itself will be upheld and passed on to the next generation.

Wells, however, is not engaging in a mere political plea on behalf of evangelicals and catholics.  He envisages a Communion in which the liberal tradition continues to be honoured as integral to the Church's mission and witness:

I borrow here from the Rev. Canon George Sumner, principal of Wycliffe College in Toronto, who suggested at TLC’s evening “Conversation” in Indianapolis that the leaders of the Episcopal Church now face a “Mauricean” moment, in which the nature and extent of our diversity will be decided. For F.D. Maurice (1805-72) still exemplifies the best of Anglican liberality — not as a church party but as a posture, given, in Oliver O’Donovan’s description, to a “centripetal” penchant for “stepping back, untangling the skein, reconciling conflicting views, toning down exaggerated positions, forging coalitions, squaring circles, finding commonsense ways through.” Is such a liberalism still to be had in our corner of Ecclesia Anglicana, characterized by cultivated and principled patience, generosity of spirit, and pluralism of practice within the grammatical world of the Gospel?

Implicit in this is a powerful reminder to catholic and evangelical Anglicans of our need to affirm a liberal tradition also exemplified in John Habgood, a former Archbishop of York who described himself as a "conservative liberal".  This tradition affirms the Church's Christological confession (unlike, for example, the liberalism of Spong) while committed to a respectful dialogue with the world.  It is a tradition which challenges evangelicals and catholics to address the world as it is - not the world of the 1950s - requiring us to meaningfully engage with other faiths, with scientific knowledge, with the culture which emerged from the 1960s.

That this is far from the harshly ideological progressivism evident in parts of the Communion in the North Atlantic is a matter of deep regret.  We need the liberalism of Maurice and of Habgood because of the contribution it can make to Anglicanism's mission and witness.  Encouraging such a liberalism, sharing in theological reflection with it, and respecting spaces which enable it to flourish is also a part of the vocation of catholic and evangelical Anglicans.

If it is the vocation of catholic Anglicans to ensure that the Church takes it place with the Apostles in the Upper Room on the first Easter Day, gathered around the Risen One through the sacramental order, and the vocation of evangelical Anglicans to continually bring the Church to the mount in Galilee in which we continually receive afresh the Great Commission, it can be the vocation of a liberal Anglicanism in the mould of Maurice and Hapgood to ensure that the Church is in the Aeropagus, in dialogue with the world, in the name of the Crucified and Risen One.

The Church and the Market: Babylonian captivity?

Amidst Ross Douthat's damning assessment of liberal ecclesial traditions, there is an equally damning insight into some conservative ecclesial traditions:

This decline [in liberal denominations] is the latest chapter in a story dating to the 1960s. The trends unleashed in that era — not only the sexual revolution, but also consumerism and materialism, multiculturalism and relativism — threw all of American Christianity into crisis, and ushered in decades of debate over how to keep the nation’s churches relevant and vital.

Traditional believers, both Protestant and Catholic, have not necessarily thrived in this environment. The most successful Christian bodies have often been politically conservative but theologically shallow, preaching a gospel of health and wealth rather than the full New Testament message.

It is a stark reminder to those of us who call ourselves orthodox that we cannot be self-righteous in face of the progressive/liberal tradition's conformity to the cultural norms of late modernity.  Conformity to the cultural norms of late modernity has also profoundly shaped orthodox/conservative theological opinion and practice.  Fr. Tony Clavier suggests that the churches after Christendom have all alike been shaped by Lockean and Whiggish presuppositions:

Becoming a Christian involved no longer a renunciation of “the world, the flesh and the devil” but was rather a personal action of someone to adopt a form of religious life which had no real bearing on society other than a commitment to a voluntary form of living or “morality" ... The churches had their separate role and were free to frame the “religious” lives and morality of their members as long as they made no claim to possess an authority based on an apostolic authority with exclusive claims on culture and society ... It is clear that the religious Right and Left are both in their own way formed and shaped by Locke’s philosophy and a Whig approach to human conscience and behavior.

As Douthat hints, it is in the realm of the Marketplace that orthodox/conservative ecclesial traditions are perhaps particularly exposed to the charge of conforming to culture.  In the North Atlantic age of prosperity which began in the 1980s until falling apart in the present economic crisis, was the economic behaviour - attitudes towards and practices of spending, borrowing, consuming - of the orthodox counter-cultural?  Or was it, instead,Lockean economic behaviour, the outworking in the Marketplace of Enlightenment individualism? 

In his new book Metaphysics: The Creation of Hierarchy, Adrain Pabst - connected with the Radical Orthodoxy school - has pointed to the importance of re-connecting with an understanding of the Marketplace and economic relations shaped not by Enlightenment individualism but by the Christian Neoplatonist tradition of metaphysical reflection. As Pabst puts it:

The problem with modernity and post-modernity is that both buy into the secular assumption that the state of nature of is violent and that it requires an artificial order - exemplified by the authoritarian statism of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan and the morally neutral market associated with Adam Smith's "invisible hand." These otherwise very different accounts of politics and ethics share one fundamental point: that humans are naturally individual and self-interested ...

Laissez-faire capitalism reduces not only goods and labour but also land and social relations to commodities that can be freely exchanged according to their monetary market value. Linked to this is the primacy of subjective, individual rights over mutual duties and reciprocal responsibilities within groups and associations.

Contrast this with the view of the human person associated with the insights of Christian Neoplatonism:

My argument is that the existence of individual human beings cannot be explained in secular, immanentist terms as some autonomous achievement owing to individual substance. Instead, the irreducible relations among human beings is best understood as the imperfect reception and return of God's originating gift of relationality.

In other words, an anthropology flowing from adoration of the Triune God necessitates radically different attitudes to and practice in the Marketplace than those which are culturally prevalent in late modernity.

Fr. Clavier ends his post by asking questions which challenge those of us who are orthodox no less than those who are progressive:

In what manner does being a Christian demand a renunciation of the world views and ways of life practiced in general in contemporary culture? In a post Christian world, at least in the West, where does a Christian locate primary allegiance and at what cost?

Much contemporary catholic and evangelical Anglican theological reflection has - for obvious reasons - addressed matters of ecclesiology, authority and human sexuality.  But an orthodoxy that is truly and authentically radical (excuse the pun) must also address that vast amount of our daily activity and interaction which occurs in the Marketplace: what does it mean to be conformed to the Crucified and Risen One there?  A refusal to address this in evangelisation, theological reflection, catechetics and spiritual formation would be no less a conforming to cultural norms than that so prevalent in the post-60s progressive and liberal theological tradition.

God's kin: Saints Anne and Joachim

Let us sing praises to Joachim and Anna,
the couple honored by God
and they are His kinsmen.
They have borne for us the Maiden
who in a manner beyond understanding
gave birth to Him Who though fleshless,
became the incarnate to save the world.

From the Orthodox troparion for the feast of Saints Joachim and Anna, a beautiful reflection on the scandal of the Incarnation: God has kin.

Here: on the vocation of catholic and evangelical Anglicans

Ephraim Radner's profound reflection on TEC post-General Convention on the Covenant blog emphasises the grounds for hope - the hope of theological renewal:

Who are the predominantly younger theologians and priests clustering around The Living Church’s Covenant blog? Or “A Tribe Called Anglican”? Or those who read more individual blogs like “Creedal Christian” or “The Conciliar Anglican”? Or those who have contributed to the recent book Pro Communione? Or who attend seminaries like Wycliffe College or Duke Divinity School? They are the future of Anglicanism in North America, that is who; and they are the reason why I am not so much worried about The Episcopal Church as eager simply to see the inevitable fruit of faithfulness whose seed is well-sown.

For those of us outside North America and TEC, Radner's words of hope also have significance.  They have significance because they proclaim that the decline and irretrievable failure of Anglicanism is not inevitable.  That even in difficult and unlikely ecclesial contexts, the catholic and evangelical vision of Anglicanism can yet take root and grow.

In the midst of the doctrinal and ecclesiological confusion within contemporary Anglicanism, many of us in recent years will have looked longingly over the Tiber (or the Bosphorus) - the Newman option.  But we have chosen the Keble option.  We have been formed as catholics here, within Anglicanism.  It is as Anglicans that we have been nourished by real presence and eucharistic sacrifice, by sacramental confession and spiritual direction, by the "walking sacraments" (Farrer) of bishops and priests known to us, by daily office and an Augustinian devotion to the Blessed Virgin.  Here.  In Radner's words, "so, we are pointed to the place of our witness ... just here".

Those of us who have experienced brokeness and failure in our own lives know that it is in the pain of brokeness and failure that renewal comes.  It is also the experience of sacramental confession. In Farrer's powerful words:

We do not learn what dependence on God is, except through having our self-dependence broken in the mill of life, slowly and painfully.  Many tears, much shame, continual repentance, this is the lot of those who pledge themselves to God.

And so it is with the brokeness and failure of contemporary Anglicanism.  It is the necessary precursor to renewal.  In fact, more than a precursor.  It is the means of renewal.  So Radner ends his reflection with the words of Hosea - "He has torn… and he will bind us up".

Another time of tearing also comes to mind.  We have just celebrated the Feast of St Mary Magdalene. We have heard again of her loss, her confusion, her pain, her fear at the tomb.  In his sermon for the feast, ++Rowan reminded us that the Risen One spoke to Mary in her experience of brokeness and failure:

Faith means looking to Jesus in the hope and confidence that he will call us by our names, that he will see us whole, everything about us – the good, the bad, the clear, the muddled – and simply speak our names and say “it’s alright, I have called you by your name – you belong to me”.

Here - the place of loss, confusion, muddle - we belong to him.  Here - the place of failure and death - we are known to him.  Here catholic and evanglical Anglicans are called to witness in communion with the Crucified and Risen One.

"Within the context of the church": theological study and Anglican renewal

From the communique emerging from the recent Global South conference:

Much work needs to be done theologically and practically to guide the church in this call of discipleship within each culture. To this end, churches and theological centres need to share resources and to work together. Greater coordination is needed between theologians and theological centres. Much of this theological work is to apply within the context of the church community and her needs.

This echoes John Milbank's reflections on current Anglican (specifically CofE - but it applies throughout Western Anglicanism) weakness and the need to address such weakness:

Perhaps most decisive is the collapse of theological literacy among the clergy - again, this is partly a legacy of the 1960s and 70s (made all the worst by the illusion that this was a time of enlightening by sophisticated German Protestant influence), but it has now been compounded by the ever-easier admission of people to the priesthood with but minimal theological education, and often one in which doctrine is regarded almost as an optional extra ...

The Church of England needs to make higher education its top priority - especially given that it can no longer necessarily rely on the universities providing theological courses if they are given no ecclesial assistance. In Britain, we need excellent divinity schools and an enhanced church role in the existing universities of Anglican foundation - from Oxford and Cambridge to the smaller and more recent institutions.

Both the Global South and Milbank are emphasising the importance to Anglican renewal of theological study and research undertaken in the Church and for the Church.  The academy's approach to theology continues to be shaped by the norms of that enlightened "sophisticated German Protestant influence" - a point made by ++Rowan in his excellent review of Vermes' latest account of Christian origins:

It has much in common with the picture elaborated in the great theological schools of the European universities, especially in Germany, from the late 19th century onwards.

So what does theological study in the Church and for the Church look like?  St Mellitus College (Dioceses of London and Chelmsford) and (its partner) the St Paul's Theological Centre (HTB) offer examples of what is possible.  St Paul's Theological Centre description of its mission neatly captures the vision:

St Paul’s Theological was founded in 2005 with the aim of helping bring theology back into the heart of the church. Based in Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in London, it has aimed from the beginning to place excellence in theological teaching and exploration within the context of a vibrant local church, rather than a university.

While doctoral and post-doctoral research admittedly requires a different context, there are robust models of theological formation present in Western Anglicanism.  Developing these models and applying them in other provinces in the West should surely now be a central feature of the vocation of those seeking the renewal of North Atlantic and Australasian Anglicanism.  And where a province lacks the vision to do this - not least because its opinion formers have themselves been shaped by the academy's, rather than the Church's, theological norms - networks of churches, dioceses, theologians and bishops can do so.  It is prayerful theological study and reflection within the Church's communion and serving the Church's communion that offers the hope of Anglicanism renewed - as our brothers and sisters in the Global South have reminded us.

+Durham and Rerum Novarum: Anglican hope?

Giles Fraser's interview with +Durham has rightly been highlighted by Anglican Down Under.  What particularly struck catholicity and covenant was that reference to Rerum Novarum:

Talk of the common good is exactly where Bishop Welby is at, ethically. He cites Pope Leo XIII's 1891 letter Rerum Novarum as the greatest influence over his moral thinking.

Roman Catholic social teaching since Rerum Novarum - re-applied to late 20th century liberal society by John Paul II in Centesimus Annus - represents a particular gift from the See of Rome to the churches.  Which is precisely why an evangelical Anglican bishop of Durham can declare it to be "the greatest influence over his moral thinking".

The best of contemporary Anglican theology has provided further reflection on this teaching.  ++Rowan has used his position as ABC to attempt to urge public discourse in contemporary polities to re-engage with a vision of the common good after the failed economic and social experiment of libertarian individualism.  Oliver O'Donovan's Common Objects of Love: Moral Reflection and the Shaping of Community provided a profoundly Augustinian reflection on post-9/11 realities:

A people, we may say, is a gathered multitude of rational beings united by agreeing to share the things they love.

The Radical Orthodoxy school, of course, has made no secret of its commitment to Rerum Novarum, to the extent that John Milbank has been hailed by some RC sources as "one of the leading exponents of Catholic Social Teaching".

In many ways this suggests something of the outlines of an Anglican future.  It is inherently ecumenical, receiving the gifts of the church catholic, rather than engaging in the strident isolationism evident in some expressions of contemporary Anglicanism.  It will flow from theological reflection of a very high standard which seeks to be excitingly faithful to the Tradition (Radicial Orthodoxy is an excellent example) - as opposed to the quite frankly embarrassing offerings emerging from liberal Anglicanism's immersion in the culture wars of late modernity.  And it will have an explicit focus on post-Christendom evangelisation and catechesis, rather than the casual acceptance of secularism that has marked too much Anglican thinking in the West since the 60s.

One might think that it was almost providential that a See (Durham) which in the 1980s produced a notorious example of Anglicanism conforming itself to secular norms has in its current (+Welby) and previous bishop (+Wright) suggested the potential of an ancient-future Anglicanism, bringing transformative catholic and evangelical hope to the secular society.

"Supposing him to be the gardener ..."

On the feast of St Mary Magdalene, words from an Easter sermon by Lancelot Andrewes:

He comes unknown, stands by her, and she little thought it had been He ... Not only not knew Him, but mis-knew Him, took Him for the gardener ...

She did not mistake in taking Him for a gardener; though she might seem to err in some sense, yet in some other she was in the right. For in a sense, and a good sense, Christ may well be said to be a gardener, and indeed is one ...  A gardener He is then. The first, the fairest garden that ever was, Paradise. He was the gardener, it was of His planting. So, a gardener ...

This day if ever, most properly He was a gardener. Was one, and so after a more peculiar manner might take this likeness on Him. Christ rising was indeed a gardener, and that a strange one, Who made such a herb grow out of the ground this day as the like was never seen before, a dead body to shoot forth alive out of the grave ...

You thought you should have come to Christ's resurrection to-day, and so you do. But not to His alone, but even to Mary Magdalene's resurrection too. For in very deed a kind of resurrection it was wrought in her; revived as it were, and raised from a dead and drooping, to a lively and cheerful estate. The gardener had done His part, made her all green on the sudden.

Anglican futures: conservative, liberal or deep?

There is an excellent reflection by Leroy Huizenga at First Things exploring the 'conservative churches grow' thesis.  This follows on from the Rachel Held Evans-Rod Dreher exchange, in which Dreher notes that "that liberal churches are not benefiting from the culture shift".  Huizenga notes, however, that 'liberal' and 'conservative' have a range of meanings apart from the totemic culture war issues:

Churches conservative in doctrine are often liberal in liturgy while churches liberal in doctrine are often conservative in liturgy.

The longer term consequences of 'conservative doctrine-liberal liturgy' are hinted at by Huizenga in his discussion of the growing proportion of "nones" - spiritual but religious:

To hold on to those tempted to become Gnostic “nones,” we must attend not only to doctrine but to liturgy, so that our faith becomes neither an acrid intellectual system nor an empty form but rather an all-encompassing culture embracing the whole person, body, mind, soul, and spirit, in a community of love.

Contemporary Anglicanism, of course, has a particular and obvious temptation to conform to the 'liberal doctrine-conservative liturgy' paradigm - but there is also a growing constituency in the Communion which embodies the 'conservative doctrine-liberal liturgy' ethos (think Sydney, think elements of Fresh Expressions).  But Huizenga's point suggests that it those ecclesial communities which possess the 'deep church' characteristics of counter-cultural doctrine and liturgy which have the greatest potential for forming disciples and impacting the culture.  If there is a distinctive role for catholic Anglicans within contemporary Anglicanism, is it perhaps to create local ecclesial communities embodying deep church?

Note: catholicity and covenant will be taking a break over the next few days.

Keble's counsel to a New Oxford Movement

It is one of the treasures of the Common Worship calendar that it commemorates John Keble not on the anniversary of his death (29th March) but on the date on which he delivered the Oxford Assize sermon in 1833 - 14th July.

Considering our contemporary challenges and divisions within the Communion, we can listen afresh to words taken from the close of Keble's famous sermon:

As to those who, either by station or temper, feel themselves most deeply interested, they cannot be too careful in reminding themselves, that one chief danger, in times of change and excitement, arises from their tendency to engross the whole mind. Public concerns, ecclesiastical or civil, will prove indeed ruinous to those, who permit them to occupy all their care and thoughts, neglecting or undervaluing ordinary duties, more especially those of a devotional kind.

Amidst the conversations in both the British Isles and the States about the possible shape and values of a New Oxford Movement, it is difficult to think of more important counsel.

"Are we content to be accounted the mere creation of the State?"

Considering the threats emanating from some parliamentarians that they will not countenance provisions to protect the integrity of those in the CofE who cannot accept woman bishops, William Oddie over at The Catholic Herald levels an old Roman charge against Anglicanism:

Simon Hughes MP, another member of [Parliament's ecclesiastical] committee, says that its members have a “duty” to ensure the proposals do not conflict with equality law. “The ecclesiastical committee obviously does not set out to impose its will on [the Church], however we have a duty to make sure that anything that comes before us does not break any of the principles of the law of the land,” he said.

There you have it, really: an Erastian Church is ultimately a secular organisation, though one in which religion is permitted, so long as it doesn’t clash with the ethical principles which govern secular society

Leaving aside Oddie's anti-Anglican polemics, it is painful to read such accusations precisely because they appear to have a degree of truth in current circumstances.  This provides a particular challenge not just for those catholic Anglicans and evangelical Anglicans unable to accept the consecration of women to the episcopate.  In a more profound sense, it poses a challenge for those of us who believe that the rationale for the consecration of women to the episcopate is theological in a catholic and orthodox sense. It is those who so believe who should be challenging and rejecting the threats being made by Parliament's ecclesiastical committee.  A catholic vision of the Church must reject Erastianism.  (In this regard, Thinking Anglicans has announced a series of contributions on the current impasse over women bishops in the CofE: it will be interesting to see if any supporters challenge the Erastian ecclesiology of Parliament's ecclesiastical committee.)

A failure to hear such voices will have a series of consequences.  It will undermine the case for the consecration of women to the episcopate being in accordance with catholic theology: instead, it will suggest that, at the end of the day, it is merely a case of conforming to secular norms.  It will signal to important constituencies of evangelical Anglicans and catholic Anglicans that supporters of women bishops are quite content to use the secular power to drive them out of the CofE.  Above all, it will declare that for a majority of its supporters in England, the case for women bishops is more important than a catholic understanding of the Church: Erastianism will be judged acceptable because it delivers women in the episcopate.

That the CofE should hear such claims and threats uttered by Parliamentarians in the year 2012 is, perhaps, providential.  We are, after all, only one year short of the 180th anniversary of Keble's Assize Sermon.  In a manner similar to Keble, Tract no. 2 addressed claims and threats uttered by Parliamentarians.  It words continue to have a stark relevance - a relevance which must be acknowledged by supporters of the consecration of women to the episcopate:

Are we content to be accounted the mere creation of the State, as schoolmasters and teachers may be, or soldiers, or magistrates, or other public officers? Did the State make us? can it unmake us? can it send out missionaries? can it arrange dioceses? ... No one can say the British Legislature is in our communion, or that its members are necessarily even Christians. What pretence then has it for not merely advising, but superseding the Ecclesiastical power?

"We are abandoning all forms of giveness": discernment and communion

Seriously trying means being seriously patient.

So counsels Oliver O'Donovan - almost certainly contemporary Anglicanism's greatest moral theologian - at the conclusion of his A Conversation Waiting to Begin, addressing Anglicanism's debate over same-sex relationships.  Contemplating the meaning  for those in same-sex relationships of the mystery of the gift of the human sexuality, the reality of our sexual brokeness and the Church's calling to live out truth in love, calls for the serious patience O'Donovan urges.  The moratoria called for by the Instruments of Communion and the conciliar teaching of Lambeth 1.10 provided Anglicanism with the means to exercise such patience.

While the Communion seeks to wrestle with how same-sex relationships fit into the vision of human flourishing and ecclesial life set out in Scripture and Tradition, TEC's General Convention - which has already rejected the call to exercise patience-in-communion on this matter - has unilaterally decided to reject the need for patient discernment-in-communion on another issue which raises even deeper questions for the Church's tradition of moral reflection than same-sex relationships - transgender identity.

In his response to the General Convention's actions on transgender issues, +South Carolina stated:

The whole range of transgenderism goes contrary to the gay and lesbian debate. We are abandoning all forms of givenness.

These are profoundly important words.  They not only point to the significance of 'giveness' in the Church's tradition of moral reflection on sexual love (and see the Indianapolis Statement on this).  They also emphasise that transgenderism raises a radically new set of questions for the Church's moral teaching, different in kind to those posed by the experience of same-sex relationships.  For example, +New Hampshire's statement in the TEC House of Bishops' debate on transgenderism suggests an understanding of the physical, of the flesh, which radically overturns the Church's theology of the body:

Gender identity the particular identity of what I am is not a physical manifestation.

The issue has barely begun to be significantly reflected upon by moral theologians, by the Communion or by our ecumenical partners.  TEC's General Convention, however, has seen fit to bypass the serious patience required for discernment-in-communion.  +South Carolina's words - "we are abandoning all forms of giveness" - summarise not only the moral theology espoused by TEC but also its understanding and practice of the ecclesiological context for the process of moral discernment.

St Benedict, apostolic life and the new evangelisation

On the feast of St Benedict, words from ++Rowan's address at the Abbey of Monte Cassino, during his visit to Rome earlier this year:

So often, when we think about strategies of mission, especially strategies for the evangelization or re-evangelization of our historically Christian countries, we are tempted to overlook this dimension of the converting power of the apostolic life. It is not just that people are attracted by lives of virtue and service, true as that undoubtedly is. We are speaking of the converting power of poverty and vulnerability, of silence and praise, of labour and fidelity. Especially in a world in which strong bonds between people are hard to find – whether it is the world in which Benedictine monasticism began, the world of a dissolving empire and a violent and chaotic social environment, or the world we know today, the praying community shows how people can be bound together in work and contemplation. The connection with the material world that is lived out in daily, prosaic, necessary, but not in the obvious sense ‘wealth-creating’ labour teaches perspective and patience. We are not gods; we need the world around, and we need sane and sustainable relations with the world around. The mutual dependency of the community teaches realism and generosity (the generosity of the receiver as well as the giver). But above all, the discipline of worship, sanctifying the entire day, teaches that the world in all its variety can be given meaning and that our final destiny is simply to be held in the delight of God’s presence.

The apostolic life is thus more than a ‘good’ life in the conventional sense, but a life that exhibits how God is different, that explains what we mean by transcendence.

Common way? The failure of synodical Anglicanism

The words of Anglican Down Under, reflecting on the proceedings at the General Synods/Convention in England, NZ and the States, neatly summarise matters:

Not, of course, that the state of the Anglican churches elsewhere conventioning and synodising is much improved on our machinations ... How sweetly Rome will be sleeping tonight!

NZ and the States have chosen autonomy over communion (NZ on the Covenant, the States on blessings for same-sex relationships).  And a not insignificant number of synod members in England appear to want traditionalist Anglo-catholics and evangelicals to simply leave the CofE.  In the words of George Pitcher (a strong supporter of women bishops):

It's too easy to say, as some supporters of women bishops do, that those who can't face women bishops can embrace the ordinariate ... [We] have to ask ourselves whether we really want to lose our catholic tradition in the Church of England.

Just how pathetic this state of affairs is can be seen when we read ARCIC II's reflection on synods and synodality:

The term synodality (derived from syn-hodos meaning ‘common way’) indicates the manner in which believers and churches are held together in communion as they do this. It expresses their vocation as people of the Way (cf. Acts 9.2) to live, work and journey together in Christ who is the Way (cf. Jn 14.6) (ARCIC II The Gift of Authority III, 34)

Instead we have synods in England, NZ and the States - in various ways - deciding that journeying together in communion is too painful, too risky, too demanding.  The Dean of Virginia Theological Seminary (h/t Creedal Christian) has pointed to this dynamic at work in the life of TEC:

There are those who are using the language of inclusion to justify exclusion. There are voices that insist that anyone who has the temerity to believe in traditional marriage, confined to man and woman, should not be allowed in the Episcopal Church; there are voices that want to advocate an unthinking vision of Eucharistic hospitality, which would result in the madness of inviting a Muslim who does not even believe that Jesus died on the cross to a table that remembers our Lord’s death; there are voices that want to cut ties to the Anglican Communion family because it had a problem with our progressive stance; there are plenty of voices who want to exclude in the name of inclusion.

Living with disagreement is tricky. The desire to make the Church pure is so strong. We are so sure we are right that we don’t welcome conservatives. We are so sure that our progressive stance will be vindicated that we insist that those who want to “move less quickly” are ignorant appeasers.

In certain provinces of the Communion, synods and conventions have become the means by which to undermine our common way, our journey together, our experience of communion.  This is the crisis in Anglican ecclesiology after the rejection of the Covenant - the decision by (declining) Anglicanism in the developed world to opt for synodical Anglicanism over conciliar Anglicanism.  Our much vaunted system of synodical government alongside the historic episcopate is being exposed as a fraud, a mechanism and a process which militates against our common way, our life as communion. 

Catholicity and covenant has, in the past, been highly critical of GAFCON.  At least, however, the GAFCON-aligned provinces are committed to conciliarity rather than communion-denying synodalism.  Synodical Anglicanism has opted for autonomy over the Crucified and Risen One's call to communion and unity.  Such is its bankruptcy.  Which is why an Anglicanism seeking to be authentically catholic and evangelical must explore new forms of community shaped - not by the claims of autonomy and independence - but by the humility and obedience of conciliarity and communion.

Diversity without scandal - Tony Hunt on the Anglican vocation

Over at the Covenant site, Tony Hunt reflects on the call for a New Oxford Movement from The Curate's Desk.  Despite the all-too obvious challenges facing and failures of Anglicanism, both posts convey a sense of hope of what is possible for the Anglican catholic vocation.

What is particularly striking about Tony Hunt's piece, is its view of Anglican diversity - something that catholic Anglicans have always found uneasy to affirm both in terms of theological reflection and pastoral practice. 

What I’d like to see is “Anglican” denote a scripture reading church that takes the fathers, ecumenical councils, and traditions as authoritative, and one that is episcopally governed, with a concrete history. With these three things, scripture, tradition, and episcopacy, we “catholics” get everything we need. To the extent that these enclaves exist and have unfortunately become wedded into a (theologically unreflective and unjustified) happy clappy “broad church” meta-ethos, we find ourselves buying into the modern depoliticizing of religion into an irrational but allowable personal and private opinion. This is no doubt related to the serious lack of academically rigorous theological debate around church dividing issues. Consider that different monastic orders in Roman Catholicism have different ethoi, and their distinctive theologies have subtle shades and emphases; many have their own ordo, their own rule of prayer and liturgy, yet they still fall under the banner “Roman Catholic” without scandal. So perhaps an “evangelical Anglican” ethos would produce theology with its own uniqueness; nevertheless we need to see this as under the banner “Anglican,” held together by the three things I just mentioned. When a Roman Catholic talks about “Dominican theology” they don’t mean the same thing as when we say “evangelical theology;” they’re all still responsible to dogmatic theology that is universally true.

Here is an account of Anglican unity-in-diversity that flows from catholic experience - from the 'symphonic' nature of catholicity itself.  Crucially, it is not dependent on an ecclesiology shaped by the postmodern virtue of 'inclusion' (itself destructive of catholic truth and order):

Difference is not a threat to unity and the truly catholic is a peaceful unity-in-difference; yet unity is to be found in the action of God in Christ in his Church and not in a belief in “tolerance” or “inclusion.”

The comparison of Anglican unity-in-diversity with the diversity of the liturgical, theological and pastoral traditions of the various monastic orders of the Roman tradition also leads to the necessary reminder that to be catholic is not merely a "subjective aesthetic preference":

Not that high liturgy is bad, obviously, or that low church is actually praiseworthy, but it’s such an incredibly narrow vision of the catholic. Also think of certain austere monastic orders that live a simple life and perform simple prayers and liturgies. We would never suggest they “aren’t catholic.”

What immediately comes to mind here is experience of black scarf, north-side 1662 early Sunday morning celebrations of the eucharist: austere, quiet, simple.  My eucharistic faith was nurtured in such a context from teenage years.  I never doubted eucharistic sacrifice ("we and all thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins") or the reality that Christ's body and blood were "verily and indeed taken and received" in the Sacrament.  To an extent, the austerity, quietness and simplicity emphasised these very truths.

In this symphonic vision of Anglicanism set forth by Tony Hunt, perhaps we are left with a question.  He counsels - following Benjamin Guyer - that "catholic" should be given up as a moniker precisely because it belongs to all of Anglicanism.  But what then of the vocation of those previously termed "catholic Anglicans"?

At least to some extent, surely a case can be made for the moniker continuing to have relevance.  We need evangelical Anglicans to continually recall us to Anglicanism's evangelical identity.  We similarly need catholic Anglicans to remind us of Anglicanism's vocation to catholicity.  This vocation is held in creative tension with the call to reform, with the imperatives of evangelicalism.  But it does require such a witness within Anglican life and experience to ensure that the vocation to catholicity is not forgotten.

Catholicity and covenant has previously suggested that a renewed catholic Anglican vocation will have a three-fold focus - eucharistic adoration, Marian devotion and sacramental confession.  Each of these enrich in significant ways the Church's life and proclamation.  It is only a catholic Anglican presence which will ensure that they are a reality in contemporary Anglicanism, contributing to Anglicanism's symphonic experience of catholic truth.

Better Together

An important open letter to the General Synod from 9 CofE bishops outlining the gracious and generous Anglican Catholic vision set forth by Better Together:

We support the initiative to promote unity and our common life and mission within the Church of England called Better Together.

The Church of England finds itself in a difficult place as it approaches the General Synod in July and the debate on the ordination of women to the episcopate. There remains, frustratingly for us all, a clear lack of consensus on the best way to proceed.

We believe that two principles, long accepted by the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion, remain at the heart of this debate. The first is that it is the will of the majority that women be ordained as bishops.

The second is that a way must be found to respect the minority who are unpersuaded that this is a theological development which they can, in conscience, embrace. Recognition of this conviction must benefit the Church of England as a whole.

This debate is grounded on sincerely held theological convictions. As the Archbishop of Canterbury said, this is not simply a matter of opinion but of obedience: obedience to Scripture, to Tradition, to the wider consensus of the universal Church.

On the one hand there is the majority wish of members of the Church of England, voicing,perhaps, the perceived norms of wider society around issues of equality.

On the other hand, our attention is being called to the mind of the Church catholic East and West. This is that “one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church” of which, in its Declaration of Assent, the Church of England claims to be a part.

As bishops committed to furthering the mission of the Church of England to all the people of this nation, we are also deeply mindful of our vocation to be guardians of the faith and to work for the full visible unity of the one Church of Jesus Christ. We pray for consensus and a way forward.

We are wholeheartedly committed to honouring those women whom the Church of England calls to the ordained ministry. We ask, too, for that proper respect for conscience which will continue to allow all traditions in our Church to flourish without detriment to one another.

The Right Rev Geoffrey Rowell, Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe; The Right Rev Jonathan Baker, Bishop of Ebbsfleet; The Right Rev Martin Warner, Bishop of Chichester; The Right Rev Nicholas Reade, Bishop of Blackburn; The Right Rev Norman Banks, Bishop of Richborough; The Right Rev John Ford, Bishop of Plymouth; The Right Rev John Goddard, Bishop of Burnley; The Right Rev Martyn Jarrett, Bishop of Beverley; The Right Rev Tony Robinson, Bishop of Pontefract; The Right Rev Mark Sowerby, Bishop of Horsham; The Right Rev Peter Wheatley, Bishop of Edmonton

Synods and conventions - old cloaks, old wineskins

It is a time for synods - New Zealand, the States, England.  Whatever the strengths of the theological case for synodical government, Anglican Down Under reflects on the reality:

Mostly our experience of synods and conventions is putting unshrunken cloth onto an old cloak. Amending and adjusting our rules and regulations, policies and budget pennies, is about incremental change. And sometimes we wake up years later, debating same old, same old issues and wonder where the increments went to!

ADU's reflections are shaped by the appropriateness of today's gospel reading in the daily eucharistic lectionary used across the Communion:

No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak ... Neither is new wine put into old wineskins.

Our synods too often take on the form of the old cloak and the old wineskin.  The speech given by the President of the House of Deputies of TEC's General Convention particularly exemplifies this.  For those who foolishly think that the Church's life should be shaped and formed by the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus, Bonnie Anderson points to a very different event - 1776:

Just as we celebrate the distinctive democracy of the United States on Independence Day, we should celebrate the distinctive polity of the Episcopal Church that became part of our DNA because of the circumstances of the American Revolution in which our church was born.

The critiques of this speech provided by The Curate's Desk and Draughting Theology should be read.  Draughting Theology describes it as an example of "the guilt-ridden fighting that has come to define so much of the rhetoric in our current debate".  The Curate's Desk sees it demonstrating the poverty of partisanship:

As the Church struggles to renew its common life she seems to be too taken with the language and meme of perpetual revolution.  Rather than taking the opportunity to help us find new and shared hope she articulated a divisive view of the Church and a dated understanding of the nature of power and relationship.

And what of England?  Read some of the comments associated with the WATCH petition against the House of Bishops' amendments to the legislation permitting the consecration of women to the episcopate:

I value the Anglican approach to holding views in tension, but there comes a time when it is simply a matter of refusing to address prejudices ...

It is time to pass this measure in the form in which it has already been affirmed by a large majority ...

The arrangements for woman-free enclaves of the church should only ever have been transitional: the amendment threatens to make the division, and the injustice, a lasting feature.

These are comments about a respected theological position held by many faithful Anglicans regarding the ordination of women to the ministerial priesthood and the episcopate, a position adhered to by our key ecumenical partners.  Providing a gracious, generous space for those Anglicans who cannot accept this development would not be weakness but testimony to Anglicanism's commitment to unity in diversity.  The problem is that when our discourse becomes defined by synodical processes - by votes, majorities, petitions, victory and defeat - gracious, generous space becomes failure.

If the Anglican tradition is to contribute to the Church's renewal and mission in a 21st century post-Christendom context, it won't be through the structures and processes of synods and conventions.  These processes and structures are becoming akin to the imperium of the conclusion to Macintyre's After Virtue.  We need to turn aside from shoring these up and construct new forms of Anglican community to renew and revitalise the Anglican way through the new dark ages.

Unity, reformation, coherence - celebrating the martyrs of the Reformation Era

Today's commemoration in the Common Worship calendar of Thomas More and John Fisher, martyred in 1535, calls for reflection on how Anglicans commemorate the saints and martyrs of the Reformation Era.  More and Fisher, of course, were martyred by Henry VIII because of their denial of the royal supremacy and their support for the papal supremacy.  No doubt some in the Roman tradition (and in some Protestant traditions) see the inclusion of Thomas More and John Fisher in our liturgical calendars as yet more evidence of Anglican confusion and incoherence.

For Anglicans, however, there is coherence in commemorating and celebrating the sanctity of both those who sought to protect the unity of the church catholic and those who sought its reformation.  Amidst what historian David Starkey recently referred to as the "high drama, tragedy, nobility and suffering of the Reformation", English Christians responded in different ways to the tension that existed (and exists) between the two vocations - the vocation to unity and the vocation to reformation. 

This Anglican approach is no mere liturgical nicety.  This is so for two reasons.  Firstly, it challenges a prevailing cultural narrative, shaped - as Eamon Duffy has noted - by the presuppositions of the Whig interpretation and secularised Protestantism, in which the Reformation is perceived to be the victory of individualism and reason over and against authority and tradition.  The Reformation, in other words, becomes a harbinger of the Enlightenment. 

By celebrating side by side those who gave their lives to protect the unity of the Church and those who gave their lives for the reformation of the Church, Anglicans are declaring an alternative to the 'harbinger of the Enlightenment' interpretation.  Instead, we are saying that the saints and martyrs of the Reformation Era gave their lives for the Church catholic - because the life and proclamation of the Church is of infinite value and significance.  Their martyrdoms join in witness to authentic life being found not in the Enlightenment but in the Church.

Secondly, in celebrating both the martyrs of unity and the martyrs of reform, Anglicans are also seeking to answer the 'Dawkins interpretation': the virus of religion leads to hate and death.  Yes, in the Reformation Era we see the reality of sin and of the Church's brokeness.  But we also see the presence of conscience and of those who rejected the claims of the State to be the final arbiter.  We see that violence and State power do not have the last word, but that this goes to those shaped and formed by the Cross and Resurrection - to Thomas More and John Fisher, to Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer (commemorated on 16th October).

For Anglicanism - called to be both catholic and reformed - there is a particular poignancy in commemorating both the martyrs of unity and the martyrs of reform.  We are called to somehow embody the witness of both, to receive the example and inspiration of both.  Of course, we fail.  We (spectacularly) fail in the call to unity.  We fail to be authentically reformed.  Which is why year by year we need the commemoration of these martyrdoms to enable us to be reminded of what others have given in their fidelity to the call to unity and the call to reformation.

Merciful God,
who, when the Church in this land
was torn apart by the ravages of sin,
inspired Thomas to put conscience above earthly honour,
so that he died the king's good servant, but yours first:
give to your Church that peace which is your will,
and grant that those who have been divided upon earth
may merrily meet in heaven ...

(Collect from the Church in Wales for the commemoration of Thomas More.)

"A certain veneration" - relics and Anglicans

Ahead of the visit to England of the relic of the heart of St John Vianney, RC bishop of Shrewsbury - Mark Davies - has talked of the significance of relics to the history of Christianity in England:

For most of our Christian history the relics of the saints have created a kind of “spiritual geography” across this land from St Edward’s relics at Westminster to the relics of St Cuthbert at Durham. Great centres of prayer and pilgrimage were inspired by the relics of these saints, which had served the same purpose as those relics carried by the first missionaries to the English people. They awakened the hope of holiness and provided a visible, tangible reminder of the communion of saints.

If anyone thought this was simply part of our past then the remarkable scenes three years ago during the visit of St Thérèse’s relics pointed to the continuing need to be inspired by the saints in early 21st-century Britain. It should not, of course, surprise us that, just as the relics of the saints were part of the “first evangelisation” of these islands, so they might also have a role to play in their “new evangelisation”. It is in the saints that we always see the Church at her most authentic and it is within the communion of saints that we are always called to live the Christian life.

So how is an Anglican to respond?  The "spiritual geography" to which Bishop Davies refers continues in an Anglican context, as those who have prayed at the shrines of St Cuthbert in Durham (pictured above) and St Edward in Westminster have experienced.  Nor is this merely an accident of history.  The relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux were welcomed to Yorkminster in 2009.  In 2008, Hereford Cathedral hosted the relics of St Thomas of Hereford (loaned from a Roman Catholic institution) alongside the Cathedral's own relics of Ethelbert (the 8th century martyr) and Thomas Traherne.

That sense of relics being "a visible, tangible reminder of the communion of saints" can be seen in more 'ordinary' ways.  The steady trip of pilgrims (including Southern Baptists) to St Mark's parish church in east Belfast - where C.S. Lewis was baptised - is testimony to the power of the tangible, to grace profoundly touching the ordinary.  Similarly with the ecumenical pilgrims who share in the Eucharist at Saul each St Patrick's Day - the site of Patrick's first church in Ireland.

But do the Articles not call Anglicanism to a very different course? In Tract XC, Newman pointed to how the Homily on Peril of Idolatry recalled the patristic reverence for relics, particularly St Helena's ("the godly empress's") approach to the true Cross.  Thus Article 22's critique of the "Romish doctrine" of the worship and adoration of relics is compatible with "a certain veneration", as seen in the patristic churches.

While an Anglican approach to relics will have a greater reserve than seen in the Roman tradition, it can and does celebrate how grace overshadows persons and place, tangible testimonies to the coming of the Kingdom. 

After Wallace - episcopacy, evangelicals and evangelisation

The Ugley Vicar notes that with the impending retirement of +Wallace Benn, the CofE is losing "the only surviving Conservative Evangelical bishop in England who takes the traditionalist line on the ordination and consecration of women".  Benn has been a suffragan since 1997 in the Ango-Catholic stronghold of Chicester diocese.

This should give us pause for thought.  Wallace Benn represents a significant strain of Anglican thought that has experienced something of a renaissance in the CofE.  What is more, it is a strain of Anglicanism that contributes in important ways to evangelisation.  The commentary accompanying the Proper Provision petition noted this:

We now have 178 clergy "signed up" - representing 259 churches ... They have provided 367 ordinands over the past 10 years and have, on average, more than doubled their congregration and planted 68 new churches or congregations in the past 10 years.

Now, yes, there are issues to be addressed concerning this renewal of conservative evangelical Anglicanism - on ecumenism (especially the ARCIC process), sacramental theology (often Zwinglian at best, and far from Calvin), the nature of the episcopacy, the gift of holy orders, the proposal of 'lay presidency' at the Eucharist (as much an innovation as certain actions by TEC).  This, however, does not detract from a recognition of the vitality conservative evangelicals bring to evangelisation.  To seek to marginalise - or, worse, exclude - conservative evangelicals from the episcopate risks alienating faithful Anglicans who have much to offer the CofE's mission to English society.

This brings to mind Elizaphanian's provocative reflection on the failure of the CofE as an institution to enable authentically priestly ministry.  He invokes the classic Macintyre statement on "new forms of community" as the Roman imperium collapsed, and asks:

Is it time for priests of good will to turn aside from shoring up the CofE and start constructing new forms of Anglican community?

The question can also be appropriately applied to the episcopate.  When a network of conservative evangelical Anglican parishes and communities is contributing significantly to evangelisation, how should the CofE seek to provide episcopal oversight for these communities in a manner which encourages and enables their mission?  From a catholic perspective, recognising the particular charism of this apostolate (i.e. the Reform network) can be compatible with the episcopate's call to serve and express the Church's unity and communion precisely because it serves the Church's call to evangelisation.

Crucially, this question is posed here not in order to address Anglicanism's existing culture wars, but rather from the perspective of a post-Christendom missional church.  And that will require a post-Christendom, missional episcopate.

Thomas' wound: when the Church of Office fails

He showed his hands; and by showing the scars of his wounds he healed the wound of Thomas' unbelief.

Gregory the Great's words - "the wound of Thomas' unbelief" - are a potent reminder of how Thomas' failure to believe the apostolic proclamation of the Resurrection is almost on a par with the Petrine denial on the night of the Passion.  In both incidents, we dramatically see the failure of what Balthasar terms "the Church of Office".

And yet it is this very fraility of the Church of Office which brings us back to the Crucified and Risen One - "put your finger here and see my hands", "follow me".  The weakness and brokeness of the Church of Office demonstrates the reality of grace in the Church's life.

It is this grace-filled weakness and failure of the Church of Office which recalls the whole Church to the Christological centre, to kneel with Thomas before the wounds of the Crucified and Risen One, to be commissioned afresh with Peter to follow in the way of the Cross.

Here, perhaps, is something of the ecclesiological humility that Anglicanism traditionally values.  It is not the Church's strength and power which convincingly proclaim the Cross and Resurrection - it is, rather, the Church's very weakness and failure which most dramatically witness to the Christological centre.

(While the classical BCP calendar and a few Anglican provinces celebrate St Thomas the Apostle on 21st December, most Anglicans share the post-Vatican II Roman practice of celebrating him on this day, 3rd July.  This was the date of the translation of the relics of the Apostle and Martyr.)

Imagination, symphony and the new evangelisation

The media interest in atheist convert to catholic Christianity, Leah Libresco, continues.  While there are some worrying aspects to this (not the least of which is the pressure it puts upon her during her RCIA process), it is interesting to read her perspective on the dynamics of her own ongoing conversion.

Two things struck catholicity and covenant about her answers in this interview.  The first is the presence (again) of C.S. Lewis.  The Creedal Christian has recently picked up on Fr. Robert Barron's reference to the apologetic value of Lewis' view of hell.  What is interesting is how Lewis' imagination rather than his reason is proving to have a more enduring apologetic significance.  Hence Libresco:

Beyond philosophy, some books, especially The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce were pretty good at catching me out in my moral failings, including some I hadn’t thought of as weaknesses. These books were a pretty good counterpoint to the more abstract moral philosophy I was reading.

These two works ask profound questions that touch the heart and imagination in a way which, perhaps, the more rationalistic Mere Christianity does not.  The Screwtape Letters ask if I, with Screwtape, am unable to believe the scandalous idea that fleshly human beings are actually capable of being in communion with the Creator.  The Great Divorce asks me 'Who/what do I love?', because it is my love/s which orient my life - now and in eternity.

Secondly, Libresco's description of the importance of space being given for those in the process of conversion to question is noteworthy.  I read it shortly after reading Anglican Down Under's posting 'The Open Church and Its Enemies'.  Not being a Karl Popper fan and also somewhat anxious that the Anglican experience of being 'open church' results in, well, TEC, I was unsure of the wisdom of his terminology.  But reading Libresco is a reminder of exactly how 'open church' should work - giving us space to explore the Tradition, to be amazed at it and to grow in wisdom through it:

Catholicism does a pretty good job of creating a forum for debate without getting so loosey-goosey that everyone is essentially functioning as a prophet ... Not all of the Church’s moral teachings make sense to me, and, when I ask questions, it’s much preferable to have people point me towards explanations than to accuse me of distrusting the Church or trying to sneak in as a heretic.

Truth, as Benedict XVI is fond of saying (following Balthasar), is symphonic.  The beauty and coherence of the Church's proclamation should mean that we say to inquirers and seekers "come and see", rather than "you must".  (I'll pass over the obvious question re: Anglicanism being "so loosey-goosey".)

The apologetics of the imagination, and a Church that is open precisely because it affirms the beauty and coherence of Christocentric faith: food for thought in considering the shape and content of evangelisation in post-Christian societies.

Seven bishops - we've been here before

The move against the seven orthodox TEC bishops is an incredibly serious matter.  Many of elsewhere in the Communion are (perhaps naively) shocked at this development, not least as General Convention approaches and threatens to further deepen the grave rupture in Anglicanism's experience of communion.

One does wonder, however, if those making the allegations against the Seven are aware of the historical precedent - the Seven Bishops of 1688, accused of seditious libel.  The Seven of 1688 took their stand for "our Holy Mother, the Church of England" against an Executive exercising power in a manner that the Seven could not "in prudence, honour or conscience so far make themselves parties to".

As for identifying the contemporary equivalent within TEC of James II's hostility to Anglican interests, let the reader understand.

Update: Yes, there are nine TEC bishops involved in the entire matter, but it was seven bishops who signed the amicus brief.  The historic parallel was too tempting to miss!