Serious dialogue on important matters between Christians of differing backgrounds and convictions can be a good thing, especially when there is mutual respect and a common submission to Christ Jesus as Lord.
Likewise a kind of dialogue or conversation with important Christian teachers and theologians of the past can also be a good thing, especially when the present-day conversationalists genuinely wish to discover that which the worthies of the past were seeking to convey by what they wrote. Let us recall that Christian doctrine is not like the theories and hypotheses of the various sciences. A theologian of the fourth or tenth or sixteenth century may well know (have known) more about the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the truth of the Holy Scriptures than say a theologian of 2006, educated at Oxford and Harvard, knows. So there can be great benefit in seeking to understand and to converse with important teachers of doctrine, piety and holiness from yesterday.
In 2006 Episcopalians/ Anglicans in the West/North of the world, where regrettably the Anglican Way seems to be losing its true character and witness, are beginning to recognize that they can benefit from conversation with the mind and voice of the Church of England, when it spoke during a period of laying foundations and of formative influence. That is, they can learn from the English Church in the middle of the sixteenth century, through two of its Archbishops, Thomas Cranmer and Matthew Parker, who speak on behalf of the Church of their time through what we now call the Formularies of the Church of England and of the Anglican Way, that is through The Book of Common Prayer with The Ordinal and The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. Between them they were primarily for these texts in their published form.
Regrettably too many of us in the West/North have neglected, during the last third of the twentieth century and on into the twenty-first, to read or use a genuine edition of the classic Book of Common Prayer (first edition 1549) and we have found all our sustenance in one or other of the modern books of alternative services (e.g., USA, 1979; England 1980 & 2000; Canada 1985) and modern paraphrases or dynamic equivalency versions of the Bible. Using these regularly has served to cut us off from our roots and plant us in modernity without anchors to the central message of the Scriptures and the traditions of the Anglican Way.
Further, the Ordinal has only rarely been used for ordinations and consecrations and so we have lost a sense of the Reformed Catholic doctrine of the ordained Ministry and of the office and duties of priests and bishops (no wonder we have CEO’s now!).
Finally, the Articles of Religion have been virtually wholly neglected except by a few conservative Evangelicals and devoted High Churchmen. Thus a sense of what genuine Reformed Catholicism is has not been planted in our churches.
There has been no conversation worthy of the name between the fathers of Reformed Catholicism and ourselves as modern Anglicans. And we are the losers for we have lost much of our genuinely Anglican ethos and character, and often filled the vacuum with either a generic evangelical/protestant church growth culture or a generic liberal, ecumenical culture, or a mixture of the two.
The Anglican Way of Reformed Catholicism is based upon the authority and supremacy of Scripture, but Scripture as received, preserved, and translated within the catholic Church, not Scripture interpreted by private judgment. It is the Way which preserves the doctrine and character of the Early Church through its commitment to creeds, dogma, the Threefold Ministry, Liturgical Worship, canon law, government by synods and so on. Yet it does not neglect evangelism and the call to growth in maturity and membership as it follows insights from the Lutheran and Swiss Reformations of the 16th century. In fact, it has been well said that the genius of the Anglican Way, as it originated in the Church of England between 1549 and 1604, has never been to grow its own theological nourishment, but rather to prepare what is provided from elsewhere (e.g., the patristic age, the medieval Church and the Continental Reformation) and to set it attractively and decently upon the table.
Thus it is very clear within the Anglican Way of Reformed Catholicism, by a study of what Cranmer and Parker actually wrote in the Formularies, what are the essentials of the Christian Faith and Religion and what are the adiaphora, the important yet secondary things that are not essential to salvation but useful for the good order of the Church on earth in a particular place and time. Therefore, Anglicans speak strongly only of those things which are truly central and essential both to Christianity as the Faith and for the existence of the one, holy, catholic an apostolic Church. Anglican comprehensiveness (in terms of churchmanship) exists within this framework of moderation which distinguishes the major from the minor and does not major on minors. The Anglican Via Media, as it is called, is not half way between Anabaptism (radical Protestantism) and Roman Catholicism; but it is considered moderation in terms of knowing what is essential and what, though good and useful, is not essential.
On a wide area of doctrine and piety, worship and discipline, Cranmer and Parker speak to us and we hear something rare in our times. For example,
- we tend to think of morality and ministry in terms of human rights, whereas they thought in terms of God’s order for man, his commandments and laws for man;
- we think of the immanence of God first (his presence everywhere) and of his transcendence secondly and in the light of his immanence (so we tend to panentheism and pantheism), but they begin with the Majesty of God, his glorious transcendence and see his presence in space and time in this light;
- we think in terms of equality for men and women in all areas life and regard “patriarchy” as a terrible thing, but they rejoice that God is the Father and that “headship” is given to the husband and father, as well as to the bishop, so that they shall exercise generous, gracious patriarchy in home and church;
- we think of having a relationship with God which we can in part negotiate, but they submit to a sovereign Lord who by grace regenerates, justifies, adopts us and make us his children to display good works to his glory; we tend to think of the weekly Eucharist as a kind of spiritual fast food that we take when we feel like it or when provided, but for them preparation for Holy Communion in repentance and faith is necessary for right reception;
- And we think that to read and meditate upon the Bible whenever we have time and the inclination is OK, whereas they recognized the daily duty of devout reading and meditating on Scripture with self examination.
To engage in this conversation we need carefully to use the classic BCP for a time (e.g. 1662 England, 1962 Canada, 1928 USA) especially the Daily Office; then a little later read carefully the Ordinal and Articles as we continue to use the BCP; and then ask the question; How did Cranmer and Parker actually approach, read and interpret Scripture and how does this differ from my approach or that of my church?
This is not a one evening dialogue but a steady conversation over months. But do not be put off. TRY it.
The Revd Dr Peter Toon Feb 3 2006 drpetertoon@yahoo.com
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