The Failure of the Anglican Experiment...?
Greetings again to all,
What I am about to write is going to seem traitorous and disloyal. It may infuriate some. In fact, I feel horrible for even thinking what I am thinking but that's the way it is.
Are we witnessing the failure of the Anglican Experiment?
What I mean by that is historic Anglicanism's committment to a non-papal, scriptural and conciliar Catholicism without a strong central authority. Are we discovering that this vision is untenable and unworkable in our time?
Before I go on, let me say that I am committed to the Anglican Way. I am committed to the Anglican liturgy and to the spirituality and pastoral vision of the English tradition. But can we really exist as a truly Catholic church with no centralized authority whatsover? I don't mean we all just need to become RCs and accept Papal authority as it stands now. But isn't there something in all of us that looks for authority...tangible, human authority?
Think about it. Everybody has a "pope." In other words, everyone has an authority that they look to for a final and authoritative word on matters of great importance. For many Anglo-Catholics, it is the Holy Father himself. For revisionists, it's Spong or Griswold. For many faithful Anglicans, it's Akinola. For '28 BCP folks it's Peter Toon. There seems to be a primal consciousness of the need for authority; central, final authority. Of course we believe Jesus Christ is the ultimate authority, and for Anglicans, that Scripture is the supreme authority in matters of faith and practice. But who mediates that authority to us? That is the question at hand.
The Windsor Report seems to want to give a greater role to the Archbishop of Canterbury. And while it is certainly a small step, it is indeed a step toward more centralized authority. Anglicanism for years has been trying to cope with the lack of central authority by coming up with various "instruments of unity." In the midst of all of this, we have qualified every statement that has come from these instruments as non-binding and advisory. But are we realizing now that our experiment of Catholicism without central authority has simply failed? I shudder to think.
The Windsor Report is a fine piece of theology, to be sure. It presents us with a vision of being in Communion by way of loving interdependence and autonomy-in-relationship. It holds us accountable to the bonds of love and affection which hold us together. But is it too generous to human nature to assume that we will not inevitably push through our own agendas, citing "autonomy" and "differing contexts" as a pretense for our lack of desire to submit ourselves to the good of the Communion? I think perhaps.
In the end, who will come down as the final word and "tell 'em no" when a body wants to push something through that is patently contrary to the Faith? All bishops in our Church are called to guard the faith and unity of the Church. But who decides what that faith is? Every bishop in the Church claims to be fulfilling ordination vows, but if that is the case, how come there are almost as many "faiths" as there are dioceses?
Perhaps the Anglican Experiment as we know it has simply failed. Where we go from here, I have no clue, only God does. I believe in the Lord's promise that the gates of Hell will not prevail over His Church. But I fear that "business as usual" is about to change dramatically.
I'd appreciate some more thoughts on this...
Pax Vobiscum,
RED+
posted by FrRon @ 2:17 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
I AM surprised, Father, at your willingness not to have a papacy! All joking aside, however, your comments are spot on. Authority is something we NEED. We simply were built to live under authority and I think we as a Communion are suffering the effects of not having any.
Father Ron,
I would have to say that Anglicanism certainly needs magisterial authority, and this change in polity will clearly lead to a death of the Anglican "experiment," though I hesitate to call it that. I lend more of the problem to the nature of sola scriptura. The great issue is that Anglicans can have varied scriptural interpretations, on the one hand, leading to what is perhaps an ungodly amount of diversity. But, on the other hand, it lends to comprehensiveness. What we may have to admit is that the Scriptures cannot be pulled from the body of Tradition, and as the RCs and Orthodox, determine ourselves from this position. Either way, it is certain that Anglicanism will not be the same in the future, and thus the experiment, in many ways, has failed.
But, this is an experiment which has never been evaluated. Is the hypothesis correct? I think we will find out.
Isn't the real problem that Anglicans have been simultaneously carrying on a variety of different experiment all along? The "Anglican experiment's" success or failure is largely dependent on what your vision of Anglicanism is. Is it "reformed catholicism" (and if so, do you put more emphasis on the "reformed" or the "catholic")? Is it "western Orthodoxy"? We all seem to agree that "Scripture, Tradition and Reason" are characteristic of Anlgicanism. But which one do we consider MOST characteristic? There have always been Anglicans who felt free to loose "reason" upon Scripture and Tradition in the radically skeptical fashion. Others bow to Tradition as the determinative for interpreting Holy Scripture and use reason primarily to access that Tradition. Angllicanism is a lab full of experiments, often working from entirely different assumptions. I realized this while living in Chicago. Having come from Fort Worth, I naturally thought in Anglo-Catholic terms, though I was aware of and respected evangelical Anglicanism. But when I got to Chicago I learned that most Episcopalians I met there were essentially liberal Protestants with an aesthetic taste for "liturgy" (liturgies that were infinitely maleable, btw). It has long been thus. THE Anglican experiment hasn't failed. There never has been just ONE!
I suppose the real question before the Anglican Communion at present is whether the recent experients of the ECUSA leadership are so dangerous and are producing such noxious fumes that ECUSA needs to be thrown out of the Anglican lab before they destroy us all.
Randall,
In regards to your question about the nature of Scripture, tradition, and reason, I would refer you to a concise little article that Dean Munday of Nashotah wrote in the latest edition of the Missioner. Fr. Moore should have it if you want to ask him. I found that article to be the most succinct orthodox Anglican explanation of Hooker's three sources.
RED+
Lee,
I agree with you about the liberal use of sola scriptura. But that's exactly what it is, the LIBERAL use of that doctrine. The Reformers certainly had "sola scriptura" as their battle cry, but they would not have come up with some the crap we now come up with. As I argued in my post, we all want and need some kind of central, magisterial authority, as you concurred. What is that organ, be it a council or an individual, that will arbitrate between competing visions of what the teaching of Scripture and Tradition is? The Reformers, although citing the Scriptures as their final and ultimate authority, really meant (depending on which tradition you followed) scripture as understood by the Westminster Confession, or the Augsburg Confession, or the Helvetic Confession. Even the Reformers had their final authorities to safeguard the biblical teaching as they understood it. That was the nature of sola scriptura for the Reformers, as you know. But the current use of sola scriptura is sola scriptura with my feelings or opinion of it as the final arbiter.
So you're right, we NEED magisterial authority. Everyone has it, whether Pope, councils, or confessions, and I think we are learning that we cannot survive as we are at this point.
You are spot on about the role of confessions for the magisterial Reformers. I am reminded that "we are not a creedal church" was a veritable mantra of the "liberal Protestant" ECUSA types I knew in Chicago. It was their way of utterly rejecting any hint of magisterium, even if it was just a short-form summary of the teachings of the Faith (their parishes often tossed out or modified even the Nicene Creed at Sunday Mass, btw, no doubt for the same reason). Without some form of magisterial authority the Anglican Communion is doomed. The recommendations of the Windsor Report may be a decent start in that regard. And thanks for the reading recommendation, Father. I will inquire of Fr Moore if he still has his copy.
Sorry, the looney lefties in Chicago used to insist that "we are not a CONFESSIONAL church." My previous post had a Feudian slip reflecting their contempt for the Nicene Creed!
Peter Toon's outlook on the Anglican Way give us another example of how magisterial authority functions for some Anglicans. For Toon and other Prayer Book Society types, the Historic BCP, Ordinal, and 39 articles form the "magisterium" for those in the category of "Classical Anglicans" or evangelical catholics. So even within Anglicanism there is a bit of confessionalism involved, at least within our Reformed heritage.
We just can't get away from authority, no matter how we slice it!
Why does anyone need denominational Church at all? I have abandoned it totally after trying for years to bring my vocation as a Nun and an Anchoress into various denominations. While I found and find many lovely and holy onesin every denomination, all I find else is bureaurcracy, red tape, and not ever the love of Jesus. All I meet see me as in Jesus, and I am now a Consecrated Anchoress/Nun in a long established Order where denomination- or lack of it in my case - matters not. My real authority is Jesus; my Abbess is the human to who I owe Holy Obedience. Her authorty is Jesus too; we are autocephalous I was Conscrated in an RC Convent Chapel and my Vows received as Proxy by an RC Franciscan Friar. I was raised Church of England when that was a strong and simple faith, but somehow denomination has never meant anything to me. Simply Jesus. Reading the posts makes my head spin and I see not the connection between them and the Jesus I know and love so dearly. Theology and "politics" are hot air. Bless you all anyway as I stay in my simplicity and utter devotion to Jesus and my Sisters. With no other human authority needed. Certainly no man.....I will and do pray with anyone who is in Jesus. And whose faith does not leave the basis of Bible authority. We do not need more.
I'm a senior at GTS, just finishing GOE's. I came across this blog this morning (very early in the morning). I couldn't sleep. I came to Anglicanism out of American-Evangelicalism/Pentecostalism, which might be considered a strange sojourn. I chose to attend GTS because of my need to understand liturgy and because I wanted to have a little bit of a challenge theologically. I didn't just want to gather around me ideas that and people who would scratch my itching ears. While General may a bit more theologically "liberal" than I am, it has been a wonderful experience – as iron sharpens iron, in a sense. I am doing my field placement work in a wonderful Anglo-Catholic parish, BTW. An aside - I do not know of anyone here at General, even the most liberal, who would look to Spong as an authority! Few would see Griswold as an authority to whom to give allegiance.
Anyway, I primarily came to Anglicanism because of its comprehensiveness. Here, strangely, people with wide and divergent views and on any number of things argued and debated and at times fought, but they all stayed together. People with very different pieties could have honest communion with one another. That is an amazing feat in the world of American Christianity, and perhaps in all of the Church.
When I see what is going on within Anglicanism today and all the rumblings and failings and threats, I see the worst of American-Evangelicalism that I left behind coming to roost in Anglicanism. It is not new, of course; history shows that we have been through such times before. I am very sad that this thing called Anglicanism (where people can recognize Christ in one another by witnessing the fruit of their lives and taking their testimony of devotion to Christ as true whether they completely agree with their theological perspectives or biblical interpretations or not) is so threatened.
The ethos of Anglicanism will survive, but within which body or organization is yet to be seen. There are those who are conservative and liberal and moderate and anything else who are devoted to the Anglican Way and who will remain together. There will be those within each camp who will decide that they can no longer accommodate the other people with whom they disagree and will do their own thing. The decision is ours to make. For myself, I will remain an Anglican – one who allows for a divergence of opinion and who will be very careful when attempting to judge another man’s servant. I will proclaim the Gospel as I understanding, being informed primarily through scripture, but with an abundance of reason and tradition to help me better understand the way. The more I learn, the more I understand how much I do not know.
Perhaps you are correct. But I think the failure is not in the lack of a Anglican papacy. There is no Orthodox pope, yet one does not see them consecrating divorced adulterers who are living with concubines!
That was a stupid thing to do. No wonder the others bishops hit the ceiling.
Using reason, scripture and the compendium of Christian experience over 2000 years, we knew the Robinson adventure was the failure.
I wonder, with a heavy heart, how much longer the Episcopal Church US will survive as an entity. Griwald and Robinson's church is a failed experiment. The Anglican Way will persevere - if only because the bulk of our brethern are in Africa.
We are searching for a new rector and I suggested to a friend (who is also a priest) that we should look to Africa or the Caribbean. She replied 'Oh, they are so conservative.' I replied, 'Yes, but they love Jesus and take the Gospel seriously.'
Post a Comment
<< Home