From an Anglican Priest on the "Perspicuity of Scripture", "Sola Scriptura" and the Future of Traditional Anglicanism

An assessment by the Rev. Matt Mirable of the Anglican Church in America.  Protestantism is a dead end:

"Ever since my early days at St. Paul's Episcopal Church I have heard something like this; '... plan to support Anglicans who leave the Anglican Church of... over doctrinal revision which overturns the plain teaching of Scripture.' This phrase was in a communication from GAFCON today. This phrase, 'plain teaching of scripture' has always been problematic. All the sincere evangelical and charismatic Anglicans who hoped, by their prayers, charismatic energy, and evangelical commitment to the 'plain meaning of scripture' to turn the church back from progressive revisionism and never stopped to ask why it could not stem the tide. It is because they failed to ask this one question - the plain meaning of scripture according to whom? Which community can speak authoritatively about the plain meaning of scripture? Certainly not those who hold a protestant formula that puts the individual as the locus of authority. Or the local-in-time-and-space church. When we say the 'plain meaning of scripture' we mean the received plain meaning as understood by the majority of confessing Christians and doctors of the church from antiquity. We can no longer afford this phrase, standing alone, disconnected frorm the church that preceded it. Too many Anglicans fail to understand how postmodernism has undermined authoritative truth claims and how, failing to place their interpretation of scripture within the consensus of that which has been believed always, everywhere and by all lose any authoritative claim. In a postmodern world, in answer to the postmodern context, the only cogent answer is the 'meanings of scripture in concert with the greatest consensus of the church across time'. This must be the new standard of authoritative discourse around the meaning of scripture and the teaching of the church. We are well beyond the Reformation. Whatever formulary you wish to retain from that Anglican movement is addressing an entirely different set of concerns. It is time to answer present heresies with the appropriate development of doctrine. This, I propose, is the place to start."

Christianity Doesn't Need More Safe Men

Here.

Shameless Plug

"Call No One 'Father'"

I always roll my eyes when I read or this this tired proof texts from Protestant fundamentalists and certain Evangelicals.

Including Evangelical Anglicans.

New To The Blogroll

Continuing Forward  New web site of the G3 Synod.

Apologia Anglicana  Blog of Christian Wagner

Orban on Christian Nationalism

I always get a kick out of the woke Neo-Anglicans who rail against "Christian Nationalism".  Somehow it has escaped their notice that Anglicanism itself, and the prayer book they pray, are products of English Christian Nationalism.  Even in Africa, the conservative Anglican churches are arranged along national(istic) lines, just as the Orthodox Churches are.  They may be Anglican, but they are the Anglican Church of Nigeria, Uganda, etc., which things are a testimony, yes, to nationalism, but also to the universality of Anglicanism.  At the end of the day, we are just the Catholic Church.  Even Rome cannot escape Christian Nationalism.  There are the English, the (execrable) Germans, and the Poles.

The following is something from the Facebook page of the Neo-Anglican priest I have used here before as an example of Neo-Anglican pathology:

At the Stop the Steal March the other day a lady who took the stage is quoted to have said, “We have to align our spirituality to our politics.”

It's exactly that sort of thinking, which is a misalignment of priorities, that has brought Christianity to a point of crisis in America. A point where a significant chunk appears to heeds the beckon call of nationalism, instead of the gospel message.

Beth Moore said it best, "...I have never seen anything in these United States of America I found more astonishingly seductive & dangerous to the saints of God than Trumpism. This Christian nationalism is not of God. Move back from it."

Move back we must.

We are to be disciples of Christ only.

Our allegiance is due to him, and him alone.

The priorities and policies we devoted ourselves to should always align with kingdom values, demonstrating kingdom ethics.

We can love our country and engage in it's (sic) system, but as believers and subjects of King Jesus we can't risk becoming lost to the political idolatry of America.

So if you must engage, know that your politics must always be subservient to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Heh, heh, he said "Beth Moore."  But I digress.

One might conclude from this priest's comment that he is committed to an Anabaptistic view of political engagement, but really he is not.  When you read between the lines of his copious comments on that matter, as I have, you will know that he is a liberal-leftist whom I suspect votes Dem most of the time.

But enough of him.  Comes Orthodox political writer Srdja Trifkovic with this new article in Chronicles Magazine about Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban on the relationship between Christianty, liberty and the nation.  Some salient excerpts:

Christianity has created nations in this part of the world. If we Hungarians had not followed Christianity for a thousand years, we would have disappeared; so we must also protect the nation. But we also have to protect religious communities and the Church. To summarize, our task is not to protect theological principles, that is the mission of the Church; but our mission is to protect the great Christian achievements of our civilization.…

The Westerners have chosen to live in a post-national and post-Christian world, and we respect that. But they want even more. They want us to live that way too. For this reason, if any spirituality emerges in regional cooperation that includes the protection of national Christian cultures, ideological attacks immediately follow – a left-liberal attack that stems from Brussels but which is linked to American liberal and economic powers. They don’t want us to be free, they want us to be free only in the way they would like us to be.…

We Central Europeans are in favor of preserving our nation-states because we believe that democracy can only be achieved within national frameworks. Western Europe, on the other hand, wants an empire based in Brussels. This is our key difference with Europe.

Said Neo-Anglicans should start staying in their lane and learn some humility about just how ignorant they are.  And not only ignorant, but also dangerous.

And arguably heretical.  Acts 17:26.

A Neo-Anglican Priest Writes on His Facebook Page. . .

"Have you ever took (sic) the time to consider that it was the most theologically conservative believers in the New Testament that were the ones who attempted to demand adherence to the Law? Perhaps fearful of not only innovation, but more importantly a Jesus centered/focused/oriented life where the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament and its perceived positions on things like "justified" violence, etc, lose authority in light of the Gospel.

#ThingsThatMakeYouSayHmmm"

Words fail, almost.   And yes, this is the same Neo-Anglican priest who is the subject of a number of posts here.

This priest left the Catholic soundness of the Anglican Continuum for the pottage of the muddled "Convergence" movement.  He's not sure whether to be Anglican, Protestant, Charismatic or Radical.  All these things are jumbled in his mind.  He thinks there can be some sort of synthesis, a sign of profound mental and theological confusion.  And the end of it, for him, is some sort of political liberalism.

This priest's confusion is evident here when he suggests that "justified violence" is a relic of the "Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament" (is there a distinction?).   I wonder what he does with Romans 13:1-7 and the "justified violence" St. Paul embraces there.  This passage is not only applicable to how we as Christians should view St. Augustine's Just War theory, which is regnant in the West and more or less accepted with qualifications in the East, but to Christian Resistance Theory.  Justified violence in the Christian mind is Catholic.  Pacifism is not.  If that makes us conservative, so be it.  His alternative is unthinkable from a Catholic point of view.

Anglican Theologian Writes In Defense of the Just War Doctrine

J.R.R. Tolkien's Vision of Just War

The Pacifist Temptation

Know Hope

I love this picture. It was taken on April 25 when our Presiding Bishop Thomas E. Gordon came to visit us at Blue Ridge Anglican Mission.

When I look at this picture, I am filled with hope about the future of the Anglican Continuum and especially our little corner of the Lord's vineyard in the Orthodox Anglican Church.

Some people say the Continuum is doomed. A bunch of old blue hairs clinging on to the Anglican past, they say. I don't believe it. Think the Battle of Helm's Deep.

In this picture you can see men ranging from old to middle aged to youth, and this is an icon of things that are happening throughout the Continuum, in those parishes and dioceses that are forward thinking. And we stand to gain more.

The temptation to go to Rome or Orthodoxy is strong. I understand why some do, but I know a few Romans and Orthodox who understand why most of us won't go. There has to be an English Catholic Church that is neither Roman nor Orthodox. Not Roman, because we, with the Orthodox, believe that the Church is organized along nationalistic/ethnic lines, not a "universal" one. Not Orthodox, because our episcopal patrimony is English/Scottish/Irish, not Greek or Slavic or Arabic or some "vicariate" standing in for them.  And when I say that, though I speak of an English Catholic Church, Anglicanism is manifested in nationalistic\ethnic lines that are anything but English only, and which speaks to the power of Anglican universality.  Anglicans are Anglo-Celtic, Asian, African, Indian and Latin American, among others.

Just a few doors down from our place of worship is a Carpatho-Russian Orthodox mission. I know its priest and we have communicated face to face and through email over the years. He is an ex-Anglican, but he reserves nothing but the utmost respect for us Anglo-Catholics, and has confided to me that he's experienced some cruelty at the hands of Orthodox bishops and that in theory he would be happy as an Anglo-Catholic priest. I have confided in him that I truly do miss my Orthodox past. Neither of us is going anywhere, however. We are charged as priests to faithfully tend our little corner of the Lord's Vineyard under the authority of our bishops. The conversion thing is done for both of us.

Who knows, maybe the Lord will use the both of us in an ecumenical endeavor of some sort.

Anyway, said picture. Here is our outpost of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church in Hendersonville, North Carolina.

 

Time For You To Get Out Of The ACNA

Time for you Anglo-Catholics in ACNA to get out of there and into the Continuum. You Reformed in ACNA too, for that matter.

From Fr. Lawrence Jones, an REC priest:

"So according to this article (https://anglicanchurch.net/staff-transitions/) it appears that the ACNA is officially claiming the Every Tribe and Nation Initiative and the Director of the Anglican Multiethnic Network as parts of the ACNA.

Yet, the person who is the assistant director of the Director of the Anglican Multiethnic Network, Johana-Marie Williams, posts as her reason for her personal blog:

'The goal of this blog is two-fold:

1. To show how who Jesus is answers womanist, posthumanist, and afro-pessimist ontological concerns.

2. To show how a deeper commitment to Jesus Christ, the Bible, and the Church can (and should) legitimately lead to a deeper commitment to fighting the capitalist-imperialist-racist-hetero-patriarchy.'

This should give one serious pause."

_____________________________________

Her bio at the "AMEN" page:

"Johana-Marie Williams Assistant Director

Johana-Marie Williams is a writer, artist, and historian focusing on Black women's health and religio-spiritual experiences and is passionate about reaching the lost through a transformed Church. As one of five children to Black Southern pastors who integrated high schools, universities, and churches, Johana-Marie firmly believes that the best apologetic to those who are already familiar with the Church and have been hurt by it is a visceral example of racial justice, multi-ethnicity, and fullness of life offered by the Gospel. This interest is expressed in a congregational context through her involvement in prayer ministry and conversations around multi-ethnicity at Incarnation Tallahassee. Her current projects included papers on the history of Black midwives in Florida and on the intellectual history post/transhumanism among Black women writers in speculative fiction."

It Bears Repeating and It's Quite Clear, Really

"If the government required that we all wear orange beanies, we would be obliged to obey until we were able to vote them out of office." - Archbishop Mark Haverland

"The conclusion for me is that I am under no obligation to obey unconstitutional or irrational laws. . . .

The right to resist unjust and irrational laws is as American as pumpkin pie, and a good thing it is too if the thought of Cranmer, Hooker, Andrewes et al. lead us to the conclusion that if the government requires us to wear orange beanies we are obligated to obey. . . .

As I mull over my answer to your questions, I'm thinking about starting at the patently absurd proposition that if the government requires us to wear beanies we are obligated to do so, and then working back from there.  .  . .

The long and the short of all this is that the people may assert certain rights and powers. One of those rights and powers would be to tell a government who required orange beanie wearing to go pound sand, and if it came to it, to rise up in revolt, with armed revolt as the last resort. And I don't particularly care whether such a belief isn't Anglican. I'm not infallible, but then again, neither are Anglican musings on political theory - or anything else for that matter. We Anglicans say that Scripture is the font of what we should believe and practice, and I think Scripture's answer on this looks significantly different than that of the Anglican divines you reference. As does the answer of reason. . . .

There is *good reason* to obey the traffic laws, and none of them violate constitutional rights. There is *no good reason* behind an arbitrary orange beanie law, and it is violative of a person’s right to wear or not wear a beanie of any color. I submit that is not a prescription for chaos.

Secondly, yes, there are remedies at law – except in cases such as when there are way more orange beanie voters than there are anti-orange beanie voters. No possibility of throwing the bum orange beanie tyrant out because too many irrational voters are on his side. And except when the courts have become hopelessly politicized. (Ahem.) That’s when the recourse to civil disobedience is taken. I don’t agree with your stance that for Christians civil disobedience must only be passive. Our revolution was anything but passive, and this idea of the legitimacy of active resistance is enshrined in our fundamental law, principally the Second Amendment.

We Anglicans are subject to the political milieu in which we live, and if we simply can’t come to terms with one of the basic facts of our American political system, which is that active resistance is justified in some cases, well, maybe we’d be happier living in the UK, the land of the Anglican divines you keep referencing. Things are just peachy for Anglicans there these days. ;)

Your Eminence, I believe that we are at an impasse here and further exchanges here would be pointless, though I will indeed take you up on the challenge of writing an article and posting it at my blog. Thanks for this challenging and irenic exchange." - The Embryo Parson

May a Christian Engage in Acrtrive Ciivil Disobedience?

Words To Ponder

Why The "Laudable Practice" Blog Is Not On My Blogroll

While the blogger is a fine writer and thinker, I found that I could abide, inter alia, neither his occasional anti-Tractarian pomposity nor his ardent embrace of an Old High Church theology that constitutes a rejection of the patristic mind and the Great Tradition just as surely as did the Edwardine theology, however much both would protest to the contrary.  But today I discovered another reason I won't add him to my list of Anglican blogs:

Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

Let's face it.  If you're clergy in the Anglican Communion, this is where you will end up or will be forced to leave or at least marginalized.  Fr. R.R. Tarsitano put it deftly here:

Those familiar with the work of writer John O’Sullivan will know his famous “O’Sullivan Rule,” which simply states that any organization that is not essentially and doctrinally conservative will eventually become liberal. This rule explains why organizations like the Boy Scouts of America and the American Association of Retired People are becoming more and more politically progressive. Unfortunately, the same holds true for the all too human organizations we call churches. All Christian churches should be fundamentally conservative because the Bible expressly claims that the greatest revelatory moment in human history happened 2,000 years ago—we are a people always looking to the past to understand the present and the future (basically the definition of a good conservative); however, in this present age—an age in which all new things are deemed good or useful—a church must be radically committed to the conservation of the apostolic deposit or it will trade it away to be last on the firing line. A church is either progressing or conserving, there is no neutrality in the 21st-century war between evil and good.

No room in my blogroll for any Anglican blog that is not "essentially and doctrinally conservative."

What We Believe; What We Do

If you want to understand Continuing Anglicanism, watch this.

Remembering C.S. Lewis

Here.

Gay Anglicans in the ACNA

Hans Boersma and Rod Dreher comment on the latest controversy in the Anglican Church in North America.

Pieter Valk's "Dear Gay Anglicans" letter can be read here.  (At the urging of ACNA bishops, he took the letter down from his own page.)  Full list of signatories can be read here. 

Are Anglicans Political Anabaptists?

A Neo-Anglican priest writes this at his page:

Since I became a Christian back in '97 I hear believers on occasion say stuff about returning to being a first century New Testament Church, to rediscovering the early church, etc etc.

Funny thing is most of them did not seem interested in surrendering political power, embracing potential persecution (even though it's an indisputable fact that the church booms under it), and returning to the way of peace soaked in love.

Instead it continues to seem repugnant among some to accept a non-Christian holding a political office here in America's secular government. Additionally there's quite frequently a knee jerk reaction of crying foul at the sight of perceived potential "persecution," and let us not forget the appetite for violence (gun rights, death penalty, war, etc.) that continues to grip the heart of many.

If we really wanna embrace the Jesus way... We have to let go of the American christian (intentionally lowercase) way.

Jesus doesn't conveniently fit in the right/left box... Nor should a Christian.

This is just such a huge birds nest of confusion that it's hard to know where to start unraveling it.  I'll start here, I guess:

First, why would any Anglican care about what free-church Evangelicals seeking to (re)create the "New Testament Church" think or say or do about anything?  We know the end of their unconsciously Harnackian experiment, and we want none of it.  All of Anglican divinity holds that the authority and interpretation of Holy Scripture is mediated to us through the Great Tradition.  We therefore look to the Fathers, Doctors and Divines of the Church for the answer of what and where the Church is, not the many millions of ecclesially rootless Evangelicals.  For Anglicans, Hooker provided the definitive methodology, and what's more, our Anglican Divines have, at least semi-authoritatively, spoken on such matters 

But our Neo-Anglican priest still has a bone to pick with it all.   If we are truly interested in being the early Church, he reasons, we will become, essentially, political Anabaptists.  The pacifistic and generally apolitical Anabaptists got the early Church right and most of us Anglicans have it wrong when it comes to matters of persecution, war, peace, guns, and the death penalty.  If we are truly interested being the true Church, we  will suffer persecution willingly, never take up arms, and never advocate state violence towards foreign adversaries and domestic criminals who commit capital crimes.   In so doing we will somehow manage to avoid "the right/left box" and be truly like Jesus.

What I find interesting every time I debate these young Neo-Anglican "Franciscans" is that when they start describing how their truly Jesus-like views transcend "the right/left box", it always ends up being something that strongly resembles the liberal-left's political worldview, which of course has dominated liberal mainstream Protestantism for nearly 100 years.  So the question is whether they are truly looking to the earliest centuries of the Church or to a worldview that is way more recent.  And foreign.

Our priest alludes to the fact that the early Church was pacifist.   What he conveniently fails to mention is the reason why it was pacifist, and as any number of tomes would inform him, it was pacifist not because it was devoted to a philosophy of pacifism per se.  Once the Church passed through the fires of Roman persecution and became the religion of the empire, she would go on to adopt in one form or another the Just War Doctrine of St. Augustine.  That doctrine entered into the stream of the Great Tradition and is why Anglicans such as C.S. Lewis and Nigel Biggar have argued that "Christian pacifism" is an ideology that is incoherent, dangerous and ultimately unscriptural.  (See the video here for the totality of Lewis' argument.)

Our priest also doesn't seem to notice the analogy we have from church history on the question of chiliasm. Just as a few of the earliest Fathers embrace some kind of pacifistic practice, a few actually taught chiliasm as a doctrine.  But the Church came to reject the chiliastic eschatology, just as surely as she rejected pacifism.  Just because something is very early does not mean it is necessarily correct.  The Church must judge. 

For those interested in what I have written on this matter here at OJC, here are links to my Christian Pacifism archive and my Christian Resistance and Praxis archive.

A Theology of Faces

A young left-leaning priest I know had this to say recently on his Facebook page:

The other night (my wife) and I went to a restaurant (only the second time since the pandemic began), we entered wearing our masks and we removed them once seated in order to eat. As we prepared to leave we put our masks back on and a guy at the table next to us, thankfully appropriately distanced, began to loudly voice his disgust at the fact that we were putting masks on. Apparently it offended his delicate sensibilities and his fragile grasps of what rights are and how masks do not dismantle any American rights.

Don't be that guy.

Actually, do be that guy. 

A Theology of Faces: Notes on the Costs of Masking, Anglican theologian Joshua Farris at Mere Orthodoxy

Stealing Our Faces: The Deeper Effects of the Mask Movement, Mo Woltering (Roman Catholic) at The Imaginative Conservative

Face masks turn us into voiceless submissives - and it’s not science forcing us to wear them, it’s politics, Peter Hitchens (Anglican) at the Daily Mail

Mask-wearing fanaticism sure looks a lot like a religion, Steve Deace (Evangelical) at The Blaze

Till We Have Faces Covered, Devin O'Donnell at Touchstone

The Church Unmasked, Aaron Ames at Touchstone

Against Masks: Not Hindering Our Personal and Relational Connection With Others, Jim Fitzgerald (Presbyterian) at The Aquila Report

Why the Left is pro-mask, Dennis Prager (Jewish) at the North State Journal

The Freedom Not to Wear a Mask, John Tammy at the Brownstone Institute

The Covid Cult, Lecture by Tom Woods (Roman Catholic).  Spend the 20 minutes to watch this video.

Baptist v. Anglican

Why I Am A Baptist, R. Albert Mohler Jr.

Why I Am No Longer A Baptist, Fr. Mark Perkins

May a Christian Engage in Active Civil Disobedience?

My long-time readers know that I have posted a number of articles here on the case for active civil disobedience under the broader heading of Christian resistance theory and practice.  I recently entered into a discussion on this question at my Facebook page with Archbishop Mark Haverland, the Presiding Bishop and Metropolitan of the Anglican Catholic Church, O.P.  Today Archbishop Haverland  posted an article about our exchange at his blog.  As currently written, the article refers to me as "Fr. Smith", perhaps the Archbishop's gracious intent to preserve my anonimity so as to keep me from being publicly embarrassed. :>)  However, I stand by what I have written and accordingly have no objection to having my real name attached to my argument.  The Archbishop and I have chatted about this today and he may edit his article accordingly.

As I recently explained, other duties have kept me away from writing much here at The Old Jamestown Church, and that has not changed.  I am under a mountain of obligations just now.  I do intend to publish a point-by-point reply to His Eminence's article, but I accordingly won't have time for it for awhile.  However, I am publishing here our entire exchange from my Facebook page, along with a few comments from other friends involved in it.  What I'd ask you all to do is to read the Archbishop's article and the two previous articles of his on civil disobedience to which he provides links.  Then come here and read the Facebook exchange, as it wll obviously serve as part of the basis of my forthcoming reply.

As mentioned in His Eminence's article, our exchange began with his response to the meme below.  I am currently involved in COVID-19 activism related to what I believe is the politically-motivated overreach of mainly Democratic governors, county commissioners and city councils in response to the virus.  One of the issues is their mask mandates.  I am absolutely convinced that the real science does not support the  recommendations of our state "health experts" regarding masks, and therefore that the mask mandate is irrational.  I also believe it is unconstitutional.  In addition to local activism, I have been posting comments, links to articles and memes on my Facebook page, including the one that touched off our exchange.   Here it is, followed by the text of that exchange: 

           

Mark Haverland Or that I have moderately good manners and care about the feelings of others....  

Christopher Little Allow me to respond by posting something a friend wrote a few days about the mask controversy:

"I don’t do crazy. I don’t care how comfortable it might make crazy people feel. Some people think that if you step on a crack you will break your mother’s back. I’m not going to avoid cracks just to make them feel better. They will just have to learn coping skills for their own psychotic manias. I’m not going to join them in their folly."

I realize I've stepped on some toes here, but I did it and will continue to justify it for two reasons, one, the adoption of moderately good manners and care about the feelings of others can only be taken so far, and relatedly, people need to be awakened from their slumber. Memes such as the offending one here is one way to do that on Facebook.

In connection with memes, I've posted a number of scholarly articles and videos that I believe wholly refute the "science" that our vaunted "health experts" say they are relying upon. I believe these studies show that the emperor has no clothes, and while that may both befuddle and offend the fans of the naked emperor, it's truth that is paramount, not people's feelings.

David T. Nethery I tried to explain "I don't do crazy" to someone the other day and they just could not grasp it. So frustrating. The constant propaganda and brainwashing has made it hard for many people to even consider that many "experts" have been wrong or else have been deliberately lying because of their political affiliation. -- The example of "don't step on a crack, you'll break your mother's back" is great . An example I've used is that the mask is a lucky rabbit's foot . Some well meaning , but gullible person says: "Here, take this lucky rabbit's foot and it will protect you from all manner of hoo-doo and floobershazam." Uh, no, sorry , I don't do superstition. And please don't tell me what you saw in the tea leaves or when you were reading your Tarot cards either. Not interested.

Mark Haverland  But nobody in the world thinks stepping on a crack will break anybody's back, while plenty of people believe that wearing a mask, if one is sick, lessens the chance that I will spread disease to others. Even if they are wrong, good manners dictates a reasonable accommodation to the mistaken feelings of others. In which case, my comment was, I think, a reasonable response to the meme. When in doubt, err on the side of kindness and consideration. Having said which, I am sure we both can agree to disagree agreeably.

Caoimhín P. Connell With respect, Y.G. (Haverland), helping people wallow in the mire of superstition and enabling their unfounded fear is not charitable. Bringing light to ignorance is charitable, thus breaking the chains of that ignorance and releasing the superstitious from their fetters.

Mark Haverland to  Caoimhín P. Connell I am not a doctor, but for years when I have visited people in the hospital with an infectious disease. I have been asked to put on a mask, for everyone's protection. I am not an expert, but it makes sense that a barrier that prevents water droplets from being as prevalent also limits the spread of disease. And people who ARE experts also suggest that that precaution is almost certainly helpful. So if one's common perceptions and expert opinion agree, there clearly is enough authority to suggest compliance for the sake of good manners with the wishes of others. And when public authority requires that, the authority of Romans 13 mandates such compliance to avoid sin. If you are arguing that CoVid-19 is not real, not contagious, or is not a potentially very serious disease - particularly for the elderly and for those with co-morbidities, then you up against every physician I know - and I know many.

Christopher Little But the issue, Your Eminence, is that there is no doubt. Like I said, you can only take good manners so far. The science simply does not support what our "health experts" say, the mask mandates are accordingly irrational and unjust, and many of us are simply not going to sacrifice *truth* and our liberty to the "mistaken feelings" of others. We need to be leading the way, not passively acquiescing to such ill-conceived mandates and thereby propagating falsehood.

Christopher Little Please listen carefully to what Rancourt says both about unbiased RCT studies and why the "health experts" should be questioned.

https://youtu.be/C1ODBTdNiG0

ANTI-MASKERS: RIGHT OR SELFISH?

Christopher Little https://www.americanthinker.com/.../what_good_do_the...

What good do the masks do, really?

Mark Haverland Christians are obliged to obey even foolish and ineffective laws, so long as they do not mandate the performance of a clearly immoral act. The only moral disobedience permitted is the refusal to perform a positively immoral act (e.g., if the government commands that you abort a child or commit blasphemy or adultery). If the government required that we all wear orange beanies, we would be obliged to obey until we were able to vote them out of office As for the science, I'm going to go with all the physicians I know, the public experts, and public officials (of all political stripes).

Christopher Little I simply don't agree with your interpretation of the Romans and other pertinent texts, especially given the American theory of the derivation of political power. I know you have written on your blog about this, but I have researched and written fairly extensively on this matter as well, with respect to Christian resistance theory and how it relates to the right to keep and bear arms.

Christopher Little The conclusion for me is that I am under no obligation to obey unconstitutional or irrational laws.

BTW, in many places around the country it is no longer possible to vote them out of office.

Caoimhín P. Connell to Mark Haverland But I AM an internationally recognized expert in respiratory protection and contamination control and although the tautological argument is made that there is "consensus" that community mask wearing slows the spread of the virus, no such consensus exists, and the scientific consensus is that community mask wearing promotes the spread of disease.

As a scientist, I'm held to an higher standard (from a liability perspective as well as a technical and moral perspective) and we advise our clients to follow evidence-based decision-making criteria and therefore do not wear masks.

Mark Haverland to Caoimhín P. Connell I take your expertise seriously and am not inclined over time to accept generally agreed upon ideas just because they are generally agreed upon. In this case, I will revert to good manners and continue to wear a mask when I go into a grocery store.

Mark Haverland Christopher Little This is good Americanism but bad Anglicanism. The sons of Locke are appalled as their children turn into followers of Rousseau. But they are all children of the Enlightenment. 

Christopher Little I've known for quite some that this is your position, but it is not mine. I don't believe there is only one Anglican understanding of this issue. That's why some Anglicans fought on the side of the colonists, drafted a constitution that is anything but monarchical, and fought on the side of the Confederacy, including Leonidas Polk, the "Fighting Bishop." Even the stalwart monarchist Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn recognized that "anarchism" held a place in the monarchist framework as a means to check a king's power unjustly exercised.

So no, I am not about to be cowed by the assertion that my view isn't Anglican.

Christopher Little One more thing: your articles on resistance theory show that you recognize its roots in medieval theology, so you can't dismiss it as merely the brainchild of the Enlightenment.

Mark Haverland I have no wish to cow you or anyone. I would encourage you to consider the central errors of modern political developments and the anti-theological ire embedded in the thought of Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, and the rest. There IS only one classically Anglican theory, I think, in regard to obedience. The Deist Virginians were only nominally Anglican - they had to be to hold office. Religiously Jefferson and Madison and Washington all had abandoned Christianity by middle age. They saw some utility in the educative and moral influence thereof, but they were not in any serious sense Anglican or Christian. I have no problem with checking monarchical power: a mixed regime is usually superior to a purely monarchical regime: but 18th century Britain WAS a mixed regime with a limited monarchy, powerful Lords, a powerful Commons, and an official place for the Church in the constitution. To see the modern problem, start with Locke's first letter on toleration. The problem is very clear: the only 'heresy' is asserting that there is heresy and the only thing that is intolerable is asserting that somethings should not be tolerated. The only essential doctrine, in other words, is asserting that there are essential doctrines. There is our current world. We live in Lockeland, and its dissolution around us is simply the working out of its internal principles and confusions. The answer is not another version of modern ideology.

Christopher Little Again, you cannot reduce resistance theory to Lockeanism. It goes back from the Enlightenment to the Protestant Reformation to a stream of resistance theory running from St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas. That is, it stems from *Catholic* theology. Now, I know from your articles that you conclude those Catholic theorists were in error. I conclude that they were right, based in no small part on biblical data. So you have chosen one theologoumenon and I have chosen another.

I would also say this: whatever you may believe about the secession of the colonies, I believe our constitutional system has successfully - thus far anyway and only generally speaking - protected the traditional rights of Englishmen whereas the Commonwealth and its vaunted monarchy have pretty much tossed them wholesale out the window. Most Commonwealth folks are mindlessly deferential to government, and this is an unfortunate vestige of the "Anglican" view as you understand it. The nation brought into bring through our secession remains the last, best hope for liberty in the world, and I believe that is by God's design.

And it's why I won't wear a mask, based on the science referenced in this discussion.

Mark Haverland There's actually very little in Thomas that supports a right of active resistance. The more I've read Thomas, the most he seems opposed. John of Salisbury is a more promising example for your case. He was special-pleading for Becket and Becket's ilk, and all of that gets swept up quickly into the issue of extravagant papal claims and the reasonable desire of the kings to control baronial and Church power. In a 'Thomas vs. Henry' fight, no Anglican in the 16th or 17th century would support the Thomas, whether Becket or More. There certainly is a Catholic case for active resistance. That's why Anglicans identified your position as the 'Jesuitical-Puritanical' view. Calvinists and RCs, yes. Anglicans? Not so much. On the more recent effects of the American vs. the English systems - I think you have a good case. But the fact that there are some good effects in fact from an earlier action only proves divine Providence, which neither of us doubts. As for Biblical data, again, Cranmer, Hooker, Andrewes, Laud, Hammond, Taylor, the Wesleys interpret it the same way I do. I am content.

Christopher Little I am content as well. The historical minutiae do not concern me; it is enough for me that there is a case for resistance based on both biblical precedent and the Church's reflection, which provide us with two theologoumena. One of these influenced both England's Glorious Revolution and the American Revolution. The right to resist unjust and irrational laws is as American as pumpkin pie, and a good thing it is too if the thought of Cranmer, Hooker, Andrewes et al. lead us to the conclusion that if the government requires us to wear orange beanies we are obligated to obey.

Mark Haverland  I would be interested in the limits to the supposed right to break the law. The Calvinists used to limit active resistance to cases when lesser magistrates led the charge, but you don't seem to support such a qualification. The 'Declaration' implies that it takes an extraordinary train of grave impositions and violations to justify rebellion, but again, you seem to think individual laws may be rejected. Is you argument, Father Little, that every individual is free to break laws that he deems unjust or finds irksome? Are there qualifications? And what are the Christian and Anglican authorities that support that theory? If this is too much for a Facebook thread, perhaps write an essay.

Christopher Little I might do that. In fact I came this II close to responding to your essays on resistance at my own blog, but got distracted and put it on the back burner. Maybe now is the obvious time, though at present I have more pressing matters to deal with.

As I mull over my answer to your questions, I'm thinking about starting at the patently absurd proposition that if the government requires us to wear beanies we are obligated to do so, and then working back from there. ;)

As to what "Christian and Anglican" sources say about my theory, well, I'm guessing I won't find anything in those sources that truly speak to the orange beanie example; that would probably fall, rather, under the category of common sense, that is, reason. (Hooker would therefore probably approve of my method.)

Reason: that is precisely why I said I won't obey unjust or *irrational* laws, not unjust or personally irksome ones. Please don't twist my words.

And yes, I don't exactly follow the Calvinist view on the fallback to the lesser magistrate as the sole recourse for resisting tyranny. This is due in part to our American "legal fiction" concerning the derivation of political power: People -> States -> Federal government. The Ninth amendment refers to certain unnamed rights retained by the people. The Tenth Amendment refers to powers retained by either the states or the people. There is no lesser magistrate here, but there certainly is a recognition of the rights and powers of the people. In our system, I think it's the county governments that are the kind of lesser magistrates to which that doctrine refers.

The long and the short of all this is that the people may assert certain rights and powers. One of those rights and powers would be to tell a government who required orange beanie wearing to go pound sand, and if it came to it, to rise up in revolt, with armed revolt as the last resort. And I don't particularly care whether such a belief isn't Anglican. I'm not infallible, but then again, neither are Anglican musings on political theory - or anything else for that matter. We Anglicans say that Scripture is the font of what we should believe and practice, and I think Scripture's answer on this looks significantly different than that of the Anglican divines you reference. As does the answer of reason.

Mark Haverland But everybody who wants to break the law believes he has a good reason for doing so. If the locus of the right to pick and choose laws and the right actively to disobey laws that are not immoral (e.g., demanding blasphemy) or 'indifferent' (wearing a hat or beanie is in moral terms just that) is the individual, then we seem to invite chaos. To explain your position, you'll need to show how you avoid that conclusion. The U.S. is, or was, a well-ordered regime. Here if the government seeks to infringe liberty unconstitutionally, then there are constitutional and legal remedies. The answer to the command to wear an orange beanie is not to break the law, but to challenge the law lawfully. Even if the command were intrinsically immoral as well as silly, traditional Christian civil disobedience doctrine requires that the disobedience be public and accepting of the consequences so as to prove sincerity. Which is why those who believed that a given war is immoral are not free to run away to Canada, but must stay, refuse a draft, but then accept punishment. If there are no real Anglican or Christian authorities for a position, then I return to the conclusion that it may be good Americanism, but isn't good Anglicanism. Hooker would not accept the idea that individuals have the right to pick and choose laws, deciding that laws they don't like may be refused as 'unreasonable' or 'unconstitutional'. Not even the Founding Fathers would accept such an argument.

Mark Haverland I would suggest you write an essay indeed. I may write on the same subject. I've dealt with the general issue of obedience and the general Anglican position traditionally called 'passive obedience'. I haven't written on the positions to the left of those Anglicans have favored - and the subject might be worth pursuing. I'll answer yesterday's question about Machiavelli later after reviewing. I haven't read 'The Prince' or the discourses on Livy in years and need review.

Christopher Little First of all I, reject the proposition that every person who breaks the law believing “he has a good reason for doing so” actually does have good reason. He may have some sort of “rationale”, but that doesn’t mean it’s based on either reason or a valid exercise of one of the class of unspecified rights referenced in the 9th Amendment. There is *good reason* to obey the traffic laws, and none of them violate constitutional rights. There is *no good reason* behind an arbitrary orange beanie law, and it is violative of a person’s right to wear or not wear a beanie of any color. I submit that is not a prescription for chaos.

Secondly, yes, there are remedies at law – except in cases such as when there are way more orange beanie voters than there are anti-orange beanie voters. No possibility of throwing the bum orange beanie tyrant out because too many irrational voters are on his side. And except when the courts have become hopelessly politicized. (Ahem.) That’s when the recourse to civil disobedience is taken. I don’t agree with your stance that for Christians civil disobedience must only be passive. Our revolution was anything but passive, and this idea of the legitimacy of active resistance is enshrined in our fundamental law, principally the Second Amendment.

Lastly, I bear back my former answer to you regarding whether my view is “Anglican.” I don't particularly care whether my position is or isn't "Anglican". I'm not infallible, but then again, neither are Anglican musings on political theory - or anything else for that matter. We Anglicans say that Scripture is the font of what we should believe and practice, and I think Scripture's answer on this looks significantly different than that of the Anglican divines you reference. As does the answer from reason.

We Anglicans are subject to the political milieu in which we live, and if we simply can’t come to terms with one of the basic facts of our American political system, which is that active resistance is justified in some cases, well, maybe we’d be happier living in the UK, the land of the Anglican divines you keep referencing. Things are just peachy for Anglicans there these days. ;)

Your Eminence, I believe that we are at an impasse here and further exchanges here would be pointless, though I will indeed take you up on the challenge of writing an article and posting it at my blog. Thanks for this challenging and irenic exchange.

Useful Idiots, "Anglican" Style

"In political jargon, a useful idiot is a derogatory term for a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause's goals, and who is cynically used by the cause's leaders. The term was originally used during the Cold War to describe non-communists regarded as susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation. The term has often been attributed to Vladimir Lenin, but this attribution is unsubstantiated." Wiki 

I have recently been unfriended and blocked by two Anglican priests with whom I have had close connection, one a young priest in the ACNA, and the other, sadly, canonically resident in one of the Continuing jurisdictions.  They have both become intoxicated by the cause, slogans and activism of BLM, without realizing that there is an important distinction to be made between the godly proposition that black lives do indeed matter and the violent and destructive Marxist principles that fuel so much of that organization, and those of  Antifa, whose communist ideology and violence has now been fully revealed.  The aforementioned former priest has a "Christian" Facebook friend who has adopted Antifa symbols as his profile and cover pictures.  He has exchanged pleasantries with him.  I have screen captures etc.  in case this priest reads this blog entry and tries to say it isn't so.

When they embrace Critical Race Theory and go protesting on the streets, however peaceful those protests are, they are playing into the hand of the radical Left, who mean ill not only toward traditional culture, society, and govenment, but toward Christ and His Church itself.

A time will soon come that will reveal not only their useful idiocy and shame, but even their betrayal of Christ, however much they say they love him.  Good intentions aren't an excuse. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with them.  These priests need to wake up, and soon.  (Matt. 7:22)