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Continuing Anglican Churches Announce Formal Accord

Virtue Online has apparently scooped this story, since as of this posting the announcement hasn't appeared anywhere else online.  H/T to reader AnAwkwardAardvark for notifying me.  Text of the letter:

January 4, 2016

We the undersigned bishops of the Continuing Anglican churches, as indicated below, pledge to work cooperatively, in a spirit of brotherly love and affection, to create a sacramental union and commonality of purpose that is pleasing to God and in accord with godly service to our respective jurisdictions.

Additionally, we will endeavor to hold in concert our national and provincial synods in 2017. Our goal for this meeting will be to formalize a relationship of communio in sacris.

During the intervening period, we will work in full accord toward that end. We will seek ways to cooperate with each other, supporting each others' jurisdictions and communicating on a variety of ecclesiastical matters. We will maintain regular monthly communication by teleconference.

The Most Reverend Walter Grundorf, The Anglican Province of America

The Most Reverend Mark Haverland, The Anglican Catholic Church

The Right Reverend Paul C. Hewett, The Diocese of the Holy Cross

The Most Reverend Brian R. Marsh, The Anglican Church in America

This is welcome news.  It seems to mean that the old division between ACC/APCK/UECNA and APA/ACA is over.  However, tensions between Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Protestant provinces in the Continuum remain.  My hope for the sake of both unity and perpetuity is that all the Continuing provinces will follow the ACC/ACPK/APA/ACA lead on the Anglo-Catholic side and the UECNA/AECUS lead on the Anglo-Protestant side.  All this fragmentation is not only scandalous, but if a true classical Anglican option is to exist for North Americans the Continuum needs to unify.   Because of its toleration of women's ordination and its charismania, Realignment Anglicanism for the most part cannot provide that option.

What Does the Bible Really Say About Alcohol?

A great piece from Relevant Magazine.

See The Anglican Beer Club for my take.

Have Church Your Way: The High Cost of the Worship Wars

Another great article from Ponder Anew, which is linked on my sideboard.

After fighting the worship wars for a generation, evangelical churches first tried something they called “blended” worship (I used to make people mad by calling it “lukewarm worship”), which wasn’t the REAL blended worship as much as it was an ad hoc order of service usually including hymn/chorus medleys. In the end, nobody was any happier, usually because the medleys were weird and the enmeshment of organ and praise band even weirder. It magnified the disunity.

Larger churches came up with a solution: two services, each with it’s own “worship style.”

It sounded great, and sure enough, there were some results. The emotional intensity simmered.

But it’s cost us in the end.

We try to have it more in heaven as it is on earth. And by doing so, we symbolically make it less on earth as it is in heaven. . . .

During my years teaching in the public school system, I worked with young children from mostly underprivileged families, and I witnessed first hand the tragedy of childhood obesity that plagues poor communities. And believe me, it is a tragedy. At first glance, it doesn’t make sense. Poverty shouldn’t lead to obesity. But think about it. If you’re hungry and immobile, what’s available on every corner, is inexpensive, and demands very little effort. Carbs. From convenience stores, gas stations, fast food restaurants. And so, carbo-loading is what’s for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Every day.

So it is with the church’s worship. We’re building Burger Kings when we should be planting gardens and digging wells. We’re further indulging the carb-addicted, malnourished population with the same cheap fluff, instead of offering them a balanced meal of Word and Sacrament. Be hospitable, yes, but don’t dumb it down. Don’t make it easy. Trading the body and blood for donuts and coffee is robbing you blind. It might allow you to survive for a while, but it won’t empower, it won’t sustain. It won’t last.

And we wonder why the church’s muscles continue to atrophy.

No more rock concert with a self-help sermon at the end. Bring back the ancient pattern of liturgy, the corporate prayer, the sacred dialogue, the “and also with you.” No more all-request golden hour, either. Lose the media, the lights, the effects, and make room for the heights of wonder and imagination our creative God deserves from us. Use music, old and new, that is beautiful and well-constructed. Chose music that carries the beauty of the Christian story with honor and dignity, instead of the creative paucity piped into our lives everywhere else. No more splintering congregations in the name of giving everyone what they want.

After all, what they needed was there all along.

Commemoration of the Holy Innocents

From UECNA Presiding Bishop Peter Robinson:

"December 28th is the described by the BCP as 'The Innocents' Day.' Please take time on the 28th to pray for an end to the many crimes that are still perpetrated against children today - especially for an end to the sexual exploitation of children, the genital mutilation of girls, and child labour. Also, please spare a prayer for the victims of abortion. Not just for the children lost to abortion, but for the women who are permanently scarred by going through with the procedure."

Amen.

Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child,
Bye bye, lully, lullay.

O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we sing,
"Bye bye, lully, lullay"?

Herod the king, in his raging,
Chargèd he hath this day
His men of might in his own sight
All young children to slay.

That woe is me, poor child, for thee
And ever mourn and may
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
"Bye bye, lully, lullay."

"The Spirits of the Prophets Are Subject to the Prophets"

Some additional commentary on Three Streams Anglicanism.

Here are two helpful articles, a "pro" piece from First Things written by Dale M. Coulter entitled A Charismatic Invasion of Anglicanism?, and a "con" argument from Stand Firm written by Fr. Matt Kennedy entitled Questioning Charismaticism.  Both articles have interesting combox discussions worth reading.

In Coulter's opinion,

. . . Pentecostalism is nothing less than a modern version of Christian mysticism. Its twin emphases of sanctification and the charismatic mirror the monastic movement from penance to ecstatic union. This is part of why it is both misunderstood by evangelicals, receives much traction in Catholicism and Anglicanism, and has been a doorway for many low-church believers to become Anglican, Orthodox, or Catholic. It is also why Pentecostalism as a movement constantly experiences the tension between its mystical and evangelical DNA. If evangelical revivalism is its father, Christian mysticism is its mother.

There's a nagging issue with Coulter's assessment here, however, which is that Pentecostalism looks nothing like traditional Christian mysticism, but rather more like the kind of ecstaticism we see in certain pagan religions.  I'm not saying that Pentecostals are pagans, but simply that the kinds of manifestations and behaviors we see in Pentecostalism look more like pagan ecstaticism than historic Christian mysticism. 

What's more, I find it intriguing that when at least some charismatics join either the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church, without necessarily abandoning the belief that their previous experiences as Pentecostals were valid, they nevertheless leave those experiences behind and move into the more historic form of Christian mysticism.

Exhibit A:  The sojourn of Alicia Chesser:  A Charismatic Christian Presses On to Catholic Maturity.

Exhibit B:  One of the comments at the Coulter article from Fr. Barnabas Powell, charismatic convert to Eastern Orthodoxy:

Wonderful article. As a former Pentecostal pastor, now Orthodox, I have always felt Pentecostalism was the Holy Spirit working to draw Western Christianity back to a more mystical intimacy with God that humbled the intellect.

Now, as an Orthodox, I find all my nascent Pentecostal longings matured and fulfilled in the timeless tradition. (Emphasis mine)

"I find all my nascent Pentecostal longings matured and fulfilled in the timeless tradition."

Hmmmm. 

In a couple of recent discussions I've had with a charismatic deacon who was ordained with me in 2014, I mentioned to him something that Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky said and that many Orthodox writers stress, which is that tradition is merely the "life of the Holy Spirit in the church."  As I argued to my fellow deacon, that is how I continue to view holy tradition, and in connection with that belief I see both the Church's worship and her historic mysticism as the work of the Holy Spirit, and not the "traditions of men."  The way we pray when gathered at the Eucharist, the vestments we wear, the music we chant, the ornaments we place in the church and the way we build edifices for worship, all this is due to the Holy Spirit selecting some things from the surrounding culture to freeze in time as it were, while not selecting other things.  

Likewise with our mysticism, we have a 2,000 year old mystical tradition that combines the best elements of Neoplatonism with biblical theology.  Fr. Powell wrote that he found his Pentecostal longings "matured" and "fulfilled" in this "timeless tradition."  The Orthodox Church has a highly developed theology of the Holy Spirit, and Anglican charismatics would do well to acquaint themselves with it

Coulter believes that Pentecostalism is a "modern version of Christian mysticism."  One could counter, however, that Pentecostalism looks more like an attempt - an immature attempt -- to reinvent the mystical wheel.  What's more, will the Holy Spirit make post-Eucharistic joy altar dancing and the Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey part of the Great Tradition?  My educated guess is no.

It is very encouraging to see fresh dialogue between the Orthodox and ACNA; it's reminiscent of previous constructive dialogues.  My contention is that if traditional Anglicanism is going to survive as a true branch of the Catholic Church, it will need to strike some sort of deal with the Orthodox churches down the road, with whom it has more in common than it does with the Church of Rome.  In short, Anglicanism will need to truly become the "Western Orthodoxy" that some of its spokesmen have termed it.  This will likely mean that we will have to jettison certain things.  Women's ordination, for starters.  It will also surely mean no more altar dancing, etc., for the Orthodox are likely to insist that Anglican charismatics find all their "nascent Pentecostal longings matured and fulfilled in the timeless tradition."

This shouldn't necessarily be a hard thing, for the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.

A Charismatic Christian Presses On to Catholic Maturity

Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.  But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.  When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. - St. Paul

A former Managing Editor of First Things recounts her journey from charismaticism to Roman Catholicism.  Excerpts:

And there were miracles. One afternoon, when I was about four, I came into the kitchen to find mom sitting immobile at the table, in the grip of what she would later describe as “a black cloud, a satanic fog.” I began to speak in tongues, and the cloud disappeared, as did the anorexia from which she had suffered for years. At a healing service around the same time, our minister laid his hands on my left leg, which curved in at the ankle and required me to wear a special heavy shoe, and as he prayed I watched my leg straighten out before my eyes. Being a dancer would never have been possible without that healing. Most of all, we prayed as a family, whenever there was something that needed praying about. We prayed in the words of St. Paul: we were washed in the blood of the Lamb, putting on the armor of Christ, treading on serpents and scorpions, believing that we might receive. We laid hands on each other and agreed that by his stripes we were healed. Jesus was as much a part of our family as any of us; in fact, he was its center, since everything that happened to us came from him.

Before long, though, my parents became concerned about what they were seeing in the charismatic movement. The churches in which we worshiped kept breaking into factions over everything from doctrine to finances. Members could not agree on what to preach, how to pray, how to interpret Scripture rightly, and finally there would be a split, usually a bitter one. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The “faith message” said that you could have anything you wanted—even a new car or a bigger salary”—if only you believed enough. When our friend Greg got pneumonia, he was urged not to see a doctor but rather simply to declare himself healed. If he had enough faith, the church said, his health would be restored; going to a doctor would demonstrate, in fact, a lack of faith. Greg died soon thereafter, a martyr to what my parents began to see as an increasingly suspect and even blasphemous gospel. . . .

My advanced placement English class had me reading stories and novels by that brilliant Catholic apostate, James Joyce. They were full of words I’d never heard before: chasuble, monsignor, transubstantiation. For help in understanding Joyce’s points of reference I went to my friend Emily, a devout Catholic and, as it happened, a member of Fr. Norbert’s parish. An after-school talk about definitions turned swiftly into a probing conversation about the Church, in which Emily described what happened during Mass. She was calm and thorough, but when she arrived at the Canon, her voice grew intense. Her eyes shone when she said: “The whole Mass culminates in what happens here, in the Eucharist, when Christ becomes present.” As she explained what Catholics believed about the Eucharist, something stirred in me, as well. “Christ becomes present.” I didn’t know quite what that meant, or how it happened, but I knew it was him I wanted to see. Emily invited me to join her at Mass, purportedly to get a firsthand look at all those chasubles and things. The next Sunday I found myself kneeling next to her near the altar at St. Anne’s.

I’d long had an amateur’s interest in things Catholic. Having discovered Gregorian chants and books of icons at the library, I had wondered at the purity and variety of the liturgies and the richness of the art. Studying the aesthetics of the Church, however, had not prepared me for this experience of the Church in the flesh.

My mind was in chaos in the midst of this strange ceremony. As I knelt before the stone table, covered with an intricate lace cloth, and gazed at the mother-of-pearl icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa and the huge gold tabernacle—while Fr. Norbert sang the antiphons and censed the sanctuary—I felt as though I was moving about in a dark room where strange figures brushed up against my shoulders, and strange voices guided me along. I was lost, but not afraid, and when the bell rang after the words of consecration—when I looked up to see Fr. Norbert holding the white Host above his head—I wasn’t even lost. It was Jesus. And I was home.

After Mass, Emily introduced me to Fr. Norbert. He grasped my hand and looked into my eyes, and I felt the Holy Spirit’s power coming into my heart. It was the same steady, physically palpable force I had felt when that preacher laid his hands on my leg so many years before. Before long, I told him that I would like to enter the Catholic Church. “Well, come and see,” he said with a gentle smile, and he told me to be at the religious education building on a Tuesday night a few weeks later, when RCIA classes would begin. . . .

It’s not too much to say that my charismatic upbringing trained my eyes to see all this. In the rituals of the Catholic Church, in the saints, in the papacy, and in the sacraments, I was able to recognize a drawing near to the person of Christ—in large part because another tradition taught me to recognize him in the first place. I continue to invoke the Holy Spirit; I rely on the Word. In the confessional, there is a powerful sense of Jesus’ healing mercy and my own radical dependence on it. All of this, all learned from the faith of my parents, converges with and deepens my experience of the Church. I have traveled very far, and there is far to go. Through it all, I know Christ will keep leading me home.

I wonder if there is a lesson here from St. Paul and the author of this article about moving on to spiritual maturity from the childish nature of the sign gifts to the maturity of Catholic faith.  Of course, the writer of the article sees the Catholic faith in terms of communion with the Church of Rome and acceptance of her doctrines.  Both Anglican and Orthodox Christians obviously dispute that understanding, but her point in finding the telos of the sign gifts in the rituals and sacraments of the Church is one that Anglican charismatics should seriously consider.  The legacy of traditional Anglican spirituality is exceedingly rich; there's nothing "stuffy" about it.  Why do we need any "new thing"?

Happy Christmas to All!

Don't let the Annie Lennox thing fool you. This is cool.

This is my all-time favorite carol, which I learned a few years ago originated in Southwest England, whence my father's ancestors came.

A Final Word on Altar Dances, Fire Juggling, and "Three Streams" Anglicanism

Referencing the discussions below.

I want to preface this blog entry on something of a positive note.  Mr. Alspach concluded his interaction at the Facebook discussion by saying, "For the record, Bishop Ruch is one of the godliest and creedally orthodox men I've ever met, and apart from his charismatic views of worship, he's a fantastic bishop." I would say the same thing about my own AMiA bishops.  Mr. Alspach and I simply question certain aspects of Pentecostal theology and the propriety of altar dancing, fire jugglers, etc., that's all.

Furthermore, I personally don't mean to single out either Bishop Ruch or Church of the Resurrection for critical treatment.  As should be evident by this discussion, what we're talking about here is the much broader phenomenon of "Three Streams" Anglicanism, and I want to say a couple of words here about that.

I know a priest through Facebook who once wrote that he left AMiA because of its "Three Streams" orientation, which he wryly described as, "You know, the charismatic, the charismatic and the charismatic."  If that's a characterization, it's probably an unfair one, but if it's meant to be hyperbolic, I for one can understand its point.  There does seem to be an overemphasis on the "signs-and-wonders" manifestations of the Holy Spirit in certain quarters of Three Streams Anglicanism, one that could be rectified by both a more balanced trinitarianism and a healthier balance with the "biblical" and "Catholic" streams.

Now, I am not a cessationist, for three reasons: 1) there is no sound exegetical case that Spirit-wrought miracles were confined to the time of the apostles; 2) there is testimony throughout church history of miracles.  In his City of God, St. Augustine recounts a number of miracles he had observed in his day.  At least two of them, from what I remember, were Eucharistic and relic-related miracles, the same kind of miracles to which modern Roman, Orthodox and Anglican Catholic Christians have attested; 3) in my experience as a chaplain, I have witnessed what appears to have been a miraculous recovery from the death process.  The lady, a Roman Catholic, was actively dying, but suddenly woke up and was discharged a day later.  The hospital staff were blown away.  So, the Holy Spirit still "does stuff" in this day and age.

However, it does not follow from any of this that everything that purports to be miraculous activity of the Holy Spirit is indeed so.  Both the Old and New Testaments are abundantly clear about the need to exercise discernment when it comes to prophecy and miracles.  One of the things that stand out to me about the history of charismatic Evangelicalism is all the many times it has failed to exercise proper discernment.  One can think of any number of stories about fraudulent televangelists and clearly fake miracles, and shake his head in wonderment why so many charismatics were so gullible about these things.

Nor does it follow that just because the Spirit still "does stuff" in this day and age mean that every "Spirit-filled" worship service is an authentic manfestation of the Spirit's activity.  Take the Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey, for example.  So, the other criticism I have is that so much of what happens in charismatic worship is based on emotional manipulation, usually accomplished by cues from either the "worship leader," the "worship band" or both.  As a friend of mine familiar with one such church explained his experience to me,  "It's a weekly thing. . . .  There's about 10-15 songs that they routinely play throughout the year too that trigger it." 

There's nothing whatsoever in the New Testament that would justify this kind of emotionalist worship centered on a "worship leader" and a "worship band."  Throughout her history, the Church's worship has been liturgical only, centered around Word and Sacrament only.  The only "worship leader" known to the Catholic Church, of which we Anglicans are a branch, has been the priest acting in persona Christi.  For most of its history, the Church's music was sung or chanted a cappella by choirs generally not visible to the congregation.  This is how Anglicans worshipped until the late 20th century, when Pentecostalism and "contemporary Christian" music were embraced by many Anglicans.

Not all Anglicans, however, and when looked at historically not most Anglicans.  What's more, the advent of "Three Streams" Anglicanism has only served to introduce yet one more divisive "party" into an already divided church.  For me personally, this and the problems described above have prompted a major rethink about the "new things" said to be the work of the Holy Spirit.

            

Facebook Dustup Over the "Anglican Post-Eucharistic Joy" Video

This blog entry is a continuation of the one I posted yesterday about charismatic excess.  (See this for previous musings of mine on "bad charismatic habits".)

There is an excellent discussion taking place at the Anglican Church of North America Facebook discussion page on the propriety of national flags in the sanctuary.  In the course of that discussion, a Facebook friend of mine named Steven Alspach mentioned that we have bigger fish to fry, namely, the problem of what passes as "Spirit-filled" worship in some Realignment Anglican churches.  Mr. Alspach posted the photo of fire jugglers at one of these churches, Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, IL, and I followed up with the "Anglican Post-Eucharistic Joy" video.

This elicited a comment from a fellow who is familiar with Church of the Resurrection, Stephen Johnson, which highlights, I think, the kind of disdain that many "Spirit-filled" Christians have for those of us who aren't charismatic:

God forbid that expressions of joy and biblical communal dancing should occur at a celebratory service such as the consecration of a new bishop.

Psalm 149:3

praise His name with dancing; Let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre.

I have witnessed the joy of Anglicanism and the pure unadulterated stuffiness of tired disgruntled Episcoalean (sic) Anglicanism. I will take the joyous version of the Upper Midwest over the spiritually dying stuffiness of other Anglican churches any day of the week.

To which I replied:

Straw man, Mr. Johnson. C.S. Lewis would have been quite at home, as are many of us, in that "stuffy" worship, and he would have been appalled at witnessing what went on at that service, as we are.

I'll take Lewis as a model of authentic Anglican spirituality over the supposedly "Spirit filled" any day.

This touched off a lengthy exchange between Messrs. Johson and Alspach:

Stephen Johnson -

Define "authentic Anglican spirituality". Anglicans can't agree on anything, how can there be one "authentic Anglican spirituality"? I was there that day, when Bishop Ruch was consecrated, and what I saw was a genuine response of joy to the new work God was doing in the diocese.

I am as conservative as they come. I am very guarded when it comes "Spirit filled" stuff. However, spiritually dying is clear as day.

God is honored by expressions of joy and gratitude. God is honored by singing new songs in addition to the old with a joyful heart. We must be on guard against bad theology and/or awful musicality, but new does not equal bad.

Please clarify what was so appalling about the service. What was so appalling that would make embracing what Cranmer, Parker, Hooker, et al rejected more appealing?

I'm not saying everything Rez does is best; I am saying we can't be too quick to condemn.

"…[Christians] believe that the living, dynamic activity of love has been going on in God for ever and has created everything else. And that, by the way, is perhaps the most important difference between Christianity and all other religions: that in Christianity God is not a static thing–not even a person–but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama. Almost, if you will not think me irreverent, a kind of dance…

And now, what does it all matter? It matters more than anything else in the world. The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made.”

–from C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Steven Alspach -

Wow, Stephen Johnson, you are just way off on this one.

First, you presented us with a false choice: (1) Anglican worship with wild dancing, or (2) Dead Anglicanism with stuffy worship. Did you ever consider the possibility that both are abhorrent? Instead of either of those, I would like to go to a classical Anglican Church where we worship the Master with due reverence and awe and wonder.... How about that?

Second, the verse you quoted in the Psalms has nothing to do with worship IN THE SANCTUARY. The priests of the Old Testament DID NOT dance around in the Holy Place. That kind of activity took place in the outer courts, or during processions, or in any common area in Israel--but NOT in the sanctuary. People do this all the time.. They quote those verses in the psalms, sucking them out of their proper context, and then misapply their meaning to justify some innovative and inappropriate behavior during worship.

Third, your quote from CS Lewis has nothing to do with dancing at the altar during corporate worship... He is actually employing Eastern Orthodox theology in this section of his Mere Christianity (and the Orthodox would NEVER wildly go dancing around their altars). Lewis is speaking to the idea of the Trinity acting as a "synergia"-- a well coordinated, well choreographed, and beautifully orderly divine "dance." You are making serious errors in quoting this to us. You are, first, taking the word "dance" at face value (as if CS Lewis was talking about literal dancing). Second, you are assuming that "dance," when used of the Trinity, is employing the image of American Dancing--which is wildly spontaneous, disordered, and individualistic. I assume you have seen other cultures dance, correct? English ballroom dancing? Greek dancing? Middle Eastern dancing? You've seen these right? Highly, orchestrated, communal, and.....in a word.... SYNERGISTIC. Acting as one unit.

Third, you then make the logical jump that this dancing should be done by Christians around the altar at the consecration of the Eucharist (which HAS NEVER HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH........ever). John Chrysostom forbade dancing at weddings for crying out loud... Are you telling me he would have been so happy to see wild dancing around the altar during Liturgy??? Please.

The Eucharistic Joy video from Rez is actually a wonderful trip back in time.....to pagan, mystery cult worship. For 4,000 years, the one God has been worshipped a certain way--distinct from the worship of the nations--and, in a fit of ecstatic insobriety, Rez decided unilaterally to abandon this worship at the altar. With the kind of nonsense that has taken place at the altar in that diocese, I truly am amazed at the grace of God, because if even ONE of those acts had been committed while we were under Law, everyone would have been struck down dead on the spot.

Stephen Johnson -

1. I never set up a false choice. I expressed my own personal sentiments regarding what I have seen in the Upper Midwest vs what I have seen elsewhere.

2. The true sanctuary is now within the believer as that is where the Holy Spirit dwells. If we were under the Law, everyone except the priests would be struck down dead in every church in the world just for entering into the sanctuary.

3. The dance that C.S. Lewis mentions is about the Trinity and he also mentions we should follow its model.

4. There was certainly nothing "wild" about the dancing. Half the congregation holding hands running around in a giant circle is not wild dancing. What happened on stage was a simple dance.

5. This is not an every week occurrence. This was a unique celebratory service.

6. Will there not be dancing in heaven?

7. The fact that dancing is shown in a favorable light and a negative light in scripture proves that dancing is not inherently wrong.

8. Are you stating our brothers and sisters in Africa perform pagan cult worship?

Steven Alspach -

1. I think you set us up with a false choice; you don't think so. Dead issue.

2. Okay, be careful with language here. "sanctuary" refers to the building of the Temple. "Most Holy Place" or "Holy of Holies" or "Inner Sanctuary" refers to a specific room in that Temple. Make that distinction. The book of Hebrews tells us that Christ is in the Holy of Holies, the Inner Sanctuary, the Most Holy Place, in heaven. That leaves the question: Where, then, is the Sanctuary? The NT tells us that the new Sanctuary is the Body of the Church (1 Cor 3:16). However, both in the Scriptures AND in the early fathers, this Temple of the Body of the Church is expressed physically by the church gathered together on the Lord's day, and, sacramentally, by the church building itself (the Anglican Book of Homilies, especially 'On the Right Use of the Church,' may be of interest to you here). St Paul alludes to this idea when he reminds his Gentile followers in his letter to the Ephesians, "For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both into one and has broken down the DIVIDING WALL OF HOSTILITY" (Eph 2:14). The "dividing wall of hostility" is a metaphor, but it is a metaphor that refers to the ACTUAL wall in the Temple complex which separated the court of women from the court of the Gentiles. In other words, Paul is saying, "Listen, when you all gather, there are no more 'courts'-- there is only the Sanctuary and the Most Holy Place. Christ is in the Most Holy Place in heaven as our High Priest, but YOU are in the Sanctuary as a kingdom of priests."

Every time we gather on the Lord's day to offer the oblation and receive God's Holy Word, we are ministering IN THE SANCTUARY. We should therefore conduct ourselves in a manner consistent with the Levites in the Sanctuary of the Old Covenant. It's the same God. God has not changed. We are not Marcionites. There are proper and improper ways of coming into His specific presence. Speaking of conducting ourselves during worship, the writer of Hebrews says, "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may worship God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28-29).

3. So, let us be clear here.... Are you suggesting that CS Lewis' main purpose in describing the Trinity as "a kind of dance" is to prove that Christians should be dancing more often? Again, you're taking a theological metaphor and making it into a literal imperative. That's ridiculous.. Lewis is calling us into "synergy" and into the reciprocal love of the Tri-personal God... He's not saying that the best way to experience the Tri-personal synergy is to literally start dancing...

4. There was nothing "wild" about the dancing, in YOUR 21st century post-modern American eyes. But if you looked at it through the Historical Church's eyes, spanning all cultures and time frames, it certainly IS wild. Totally out of control. Nothing decent or orderly about it, especially when done at the altar--arguably the holiest place in the entire material universe: where the Church of God offers the Sacrament and communes with the Living, Cosmic Christ.

6. This IS a weekly occurrence. I was a member at that church for 3 years (technically, I'm still on the membership role). Especially during Easter.. It's a very manufactured atmosphere. This was not a one-time, spontaneous outburst. Weeks before Bishop Ruch was consecrated, people at the church were already talking about how they were going to just explode with dancing afterward. Ruch himself even tried to temper this spiritual manipulation a couple weeks before by saying in the announcements, "Whatever the Holy Spirit desires, THAT we will do. We can't manufacture Him." But, of course, by even saying this, the anticipation of counterfeiting a "break out of the Holy Spirit" was already mounting and the seeds of charismatic manipulation were already being sown.

6. Please quote Scriptures that you have in mind about dancing in heaven. I may be ignorant of what verses you are referring me to consider.

7. I don't understand...

8. Inherent in this question is the assumption on your end that the African churches can do no wrong.. Yes, I think the African churches are wrong on this point. You should know that dancing in African Anglican (and Catholic) services is a purely post-colonial phenomenon. It was started as a reaction against what many African nationalists considered to be "white man's worship." But this was a mistake... The way we worship is not "white," but Semitic. We learned this kind of reverence and awe from the Jews... The Africans need only to look East to see how their Ethiopian and Egyptian brethren have been worshipping for 2,000 years to realize that they are innovating when they introduce cultural dancing at the altar on the Lord's Day.

And I'm not claiming that I have authority to say that our church is committing serious errors, I am claiming that the Church throughout history does. I am merely pointing us to the authority; not claiming the authority for myself.

This is where their exchange stands as of this posting.  I'll post additional exchanges if they occur. 

As for what constitutes authentic classical Anglican spirituality, I'd say that's a no-brainer.  Look to the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican divinity from the Reformers to the Tractarians,  and realize that both point us back to the spirituality of the Fathers and especially the Benedictine tradition.  So many charismatics seem to be so preoccupied by the "new things" the Holy Spirit is supposedly doing in the Church that they ignore or minimize all the old things that have stood the test of time and cannot be passed off as the "unadulterated stuffiness of tired disgruntled Episcopalian Anglicanism." 

If one desires to know more about the authentic Anglican spiritual tradition, he should start with the works of Martin Thornton.

Christmas 2015: A Time For the Introspection Our Society Desperately Needs

Again, I can't stress enough to my readers the importance of this magazine.

Christmas 2015 comes at a time when we need the kind of introspection and consideration of what is really important in life which it provides. Christmas, of course, is many things. It is a season of celebration and family reunion, a season of merriment and good cheer. More than this, however, it is a time for contemplation of the meaning of life—and of our own lives—and of seeking our answer to the question of what God expects of us.

Even many who proclaim themselves to be Christian seem not to understand that the views of man and the world set forth by Jesus—and the one which dominates in the modern world—are contradictory.

This point was made in the book Jesus Rediscovered, published in 1969, by Malcolm Muggeridge, the respected British author and editor. Muggeridge, who had a religious conversion  while preparing a BBC documentary about the life of Christ, pointed out that the desire for power and riches in the world—a desire to which so many are committed—is the opposite of what Jesus commanded. Indeed. Jesus was tempted by the Devil with the very worldly powers many of us so eagerly seek:

"Finally, the Devil showed Christ all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said: 'All this power I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will give it.' All Christ had to do in return was to worship the donor instead of God—which, of course, he could not do. How interesting, though, that power should be at the Devil's disposal, and only attainable through an understanding with him! Many have thought otherwise, and sought power in the belief that by its exercise they could lead men to brotherhood and happiness and peace—invariably with disastrous consequences. Always, in the end, the bargain with the Devil has to be fulfilled—as any Stalin or Napolean or Cromwell must testify. 'I am the light of the world,' Christ said, 'power belongs to darkness.'"

Speaking of our own time, Muggeridge notes, "The parts of the world where the means of happiness in material and sensual terms are the most plentiful—like California and Scandinavia—are also the places where despair, mental sickness and other twentieth century ills are most in evidence. Sex, fanned by public erotica, underpinned by the birth-control pill and legalized abortion, is a primrose path leading to satiety or disgust; the rich are usually either wretched or mad, the successful plod relentlessly on to prove to the world and to themselves that their success is worth having; violence, collective and individual, bids fair to destroy us all and what remains of our human situation . . . as Pascal points out, it is part of the irony of our human situation that we ardently pursue ends which we know to be worthless."

The Western world was once motivated by religious values, although it often acted in violation of those values, and a view of a God-centered universe. Now, it has turned its attention to other things. Malcolm Muggeridge lamented, "I firmly believe that our civilization began with the Christian religion, and has been sustained and fortified by the values of the Christian religion, by which the greatest of them have tried to live. The Christian religion and these values no longer prevail, they no longer mean anything to ordinary people. Some suppose you can have a Christian civilization without Christian values. I disbelieve this. I think that the basis of order is a moral order; if there is no moral order there will be no political or social order, and we see this happening. This is how civilizations end."

Lewis on Christmas

The Dancing Vicaress of Blyth and Other Such Folly

12/23 Update:  Discussion continued here.

_______________________________________

For the "Anglican Follies" file.

Here is Kate Bottley, the "Dancing Vicar(ess)" of Blyth (or is that Blithe?):

Now, conservative Anglicans will simply dismiss this as yet another example of the antics of lunatic left clergy in the Church of England, but then they would need to explain the whys and wherefores of what occurs in ACNA's Diocese of the Upper Midwest (DUM).   Here's a clip from the consecration of Stewart Ruch III, DUM's first bishop:

And a photo of something that happened at the same church.  Fire jugglers!:

A friend mine commenting on this says,

I'm not the only one (to have left). There is a huge revolving door in that diocese: people come in by the droves, and the ones who buy what their selling stay, but a significant amount of members end up bolting for Catholicism or Orthodoxy--I know tons. They spend their years in that diocese getting silenced or marginalized if they don't drink the Three Streams Kool Aid. As a result, they create a diocese of uncatechized charismatic/evangelicals who dress up and play church.

Ouch.  So which is worse, I wonder?  The liberal Dancing Vicaress of Blyth or the "conservative" Dancing Fire Jugglers of DUM?  Both end up forcing people who are seeking traditional Catholic faith and practice away from Realignment Anglicanism and into Roman, Orthodox or Continuing Anglican ranks.  I must be honest and say that I'm feeling the latter's tractor beam on me these days.  And I wonder how long the REC will hang in there with ACNA. 

In Praise of Whisky

Written in the 1690s.  If you don't love whiskey or the English language as it used to be spoken and sung, you have no soul.  ;>)  Lyrics below. 

"Come, and doe not musing stand
if thou the truth discerne
But take a full cup in thy hand,
and thus begin to learne-
Not of the earth, nor of the ayre,
at evening or at morne-
But joviall boyes your Christmas keep,
with the little Barly-Corne.

"Twill make a weeping widow laugh,
and soon incline to pleasure;
"Twill make an old man leave his staffe,
and dance a youthfull measure:
And though your clothes be ne'er so bad,
or ragged, rent and torne,
Against the cold you may be clad
with the little Barly-Corne.

"Twill make a miser prodigall,
and shew himself kind hearted;
"Twill make him never grieve at all,
that from his coyne hath parted;
"Twill make a shepherd to mistake
his sheepe before a storme;
"Twill make the poet to excel;
this little Barley-Corne.

"It is the neatest serving man
to entertain a friend;
It will doe more than money can
all jarring suits to end;
There's life in it, and it is here,
'tis here within this cup,
Then take your liquor, doe not spare,
but cleare carouse it up.

William Winstanley: The Man Who Saved Christmas from Cromwell's Misery

Great article from the Daily Mail.   Under the Puritans and the other radicals, it was "always Winter but never Christmas." Thank God for Aslan on the move in England.

Effeminate Synod

While Anglicanism has struggled with it's own particular forms of unmanliness, Roman Catholic writer Leon Podles has extensively documented the effiminacy problem in Roman Catholicism.  Anthony Esolen -- remember this guy's name, and read all the stuff written by him that you can find -- shows how Rome's effiminacy problem manifested itself at the recent synod on the family.  I'm thrilled that he is now writing for Chronicles Magazine, which all of you should be reading.  Here's some quintessential Esolen from the article:

The synod’s final recommendation to Pope Francis is mainly bland and inoffensive.  It is also an exercise in unreality.  That’s what happens when your mode of thought and expression is neither philosophical and theological, nor earthy and poetic: It does not aspire to reveal the essences of things, and it does not confront the sweat and mire of the created world.  The bishops write in sociological patois, abstract and banal at once.  Reality escapes them.

Let me illustrate.  The document insists on the complementarity of man and woman, and quotes Pope Francis as suggesting that each sex does not know itself except in relationship with the other.  But in what does that complementarity consist?  The bishops won’t say.  Pope Leo XIII, who spent his long pontificate writing about the Christian family, said that the father’s authority in the family, which is a gift to its members, proceeds from the fatherhood of God Himself.  The bishops do not cite Leo, nor do they note that fatherhood has been under assault in every Western nation for the last 60 years.  Boys spend their school years having their natural energies smothered with drugs, and having their natural bent toward what I call hierarchical adventures frustrated or belittled.  The bishops turn aside.

Men are to be like Saint Joseph, they say, the protector of Mary and Jesus, and that is well enough, but some men must be providers for and protectors of women and children even if they do not have Joseph’s meek character.  How do we raise all boys, whatever their dispositions, to be strong and faithful fathers?  Obviously, we must work with the masculine nature, acknowledging its reality and training it up to maturity.  But the bishops ignore the problem.  All they do for men is to wag the finger and repeat that tired bit of feminist nagging, that women’s entry into the workplace—often to the detriment of the family—has not been answered by men doing more of the household chores.  Real men wear aprons.

The bishops repeat a common reading of Ephesians 5:21, “Submit yourselves to one another,” as if it applied only to men and women in marriage, and not to the whole of the Christian life.  Yet almost in the same breath they say there must be no “subordination,” and again the patois gets the better of them.  There can be no submission without subordination.  If a man submits his energies and his fatherly authority to the welfare of his wife and children, he has established a hierarchy or taxonomy of goods, whereby one good—say, his delight in risk—will be subordinated to another (say, the security of the family).  Besides, subordination is what Saint Paul is talking about.  His Greek hypotassomenoi is exactly equivalent to Latin subordinati.  The Christian life is to be characterized by subordination, as the lower obeys and honors the higher, and the higher submits to the good of the lower.  That, after all, is how the body works, as Paul is at pains to remind the egalitarians of Corinth.  There is such a thing as a body without a head.  It is called a corpse.

And what if it is characteristic of that God-ordained masculine nature to form hierarchies?  For nothing dangerous or difficult in this world is ever done without them.  They are at the heart of every great cultural institution in the history of man, from the Greek gymnasion to the medieval university to the Renaissance art studio to Bell Laboratories in its heyday.  Without hierarchy you cannot dig a canal or build a city wall or fight a battle.  Or, for that matter, bring a heathen people to Christ.  But the bishops will not consider it. . . .

The bishops, like liberals everywhere, put their faith in programs run by experts rather than in culture.  A true builder has to know the ground where he is building and the materials he must use.  The program-builder draws a picture on paper and thinks he is done.  So the bishops hold forth a couple of programs as solutions, one for the front end and one for the back.  They recommend better premarital instruction and quicker annulments.

The one will not help, and the other will probably make matters worse.  The fact is, all of a boy’s life should be oriented toward making him a man, and therefore, God willing, a husband and father; similarly for the girl.  There is your true and only premarital instruction.  Boys are male and girls are female as a biological fact.  They will be manly and womanly only if we teach them to be so.  As C.S. Lewis says, you cannot castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.  And you cannot teach the high adventure of indissoluble marriage—a genuinely noble aim for manhood and womanhood—if you spend half of your time winking at every sin against that indissolubility.  Lawlessness is a teacher.

One final comment, after which I hope I shall never again have to write about a gathering of bishops.  The document is effeminate.  I do not mean feminine; there is nothing womanly about its disengagement from the pride and passion of man, nothing motherly about its dainty refusal to get the hands dirty in treating sin, nothing like Mary in its looking for a legalistic way out of trouble.  The mother who loves her children corrects them and bids them obey their father.  The mother who coddles her children and mocks their father does not.  The mother who loves her children forgives them their sins.  The mother who excuses their sins does not.  The mother who loves her children teaches them the truth and holds them to it.  The mother who lets her children do as they please, and calls it good enough, does not.  There is no strength in effeminacy.  When the wolves come, the effeminate flee.  That, too, is an old story.

A Reader Responds to "Trouble"

Trouble, posted on September 2 re: what I believe is the unthinking response to both the illegal immigrant and Syrian refugee crises on the part of some Anglicans in ACNA and elsewhere.  My reader writes:

Wow. I'm glad I'm not the only one disturbed that ACNA is taking the stance it is. I was starting to wonder if I was the only one, and crazy.

I need help. I need a church parish that isn't pushing "charity" to illegal immigrants. It's not just happening at the top in ACNA. It's happening at the bottom. Last month, I had to endure a guest speaker at our parish that pooh-poohed anyone who called someone an "illegal" (because that's considered mean now). He runs a "charity" organization that reaches out to illegal immigrant communities in our area. I have no problem with preaching the Gospel to these people and calling them to repentance. Sadly, the repentance seemed to be missing from his message. He gave us the heart-warming story of reaching out to an illegal immigrant gang member, where he repeatedly bailed the gang member out of jail. Eventually, said gang member ended up being deported, even though the guest speaker obviously was bummed about it. This was supposed to warm our hearts and teach us not to give up on people. All I got out of it was cheap grace. Not only that, but he told us another "heart-warming" story about his holding a Bible study for gang members at a diner. The gang members ended up getting into a violent altercation with another rival gang in the parking lot. The diner called the police. What does the guest speaker do? He helps his gang get into the car and becomes the get-away driver. Everyone in the audience was laughing but me. I don't understand how any of that was funny.

The worst part is, he admitted his organization lobbies for "immigration reform"--and we all know what that really means.

I ended up emailing my pastor a very long email about this stating my reasons why I feel it's cheap grace, as well as including my own sob story on how illegal immigration and cheap grace has adversely affected both me and members of my family. Because if I don't counter the endless stream of sob stories with my own, I'll be labeled as heartless and cruel. How can I possibly use cold, hard statistics against little Pablo sleeping on a kitchen tile in a tenement? Unfortunately, my tactic seems to have backfired on me. My pastor implied in his response that my past hurts are causing me to read into the guest speaker's sermon more than was there. He also said he had a bunch of his theologian buddies review the sermon audio, and he said none of them felt it conveyed cheap grace. He is either naive or a liar, because he doesn't seem to believe that this organization is lobbying for amnesty, thinking that "immigration reform" could mean anything. He wants to meet with me in person to discuss this further, but I don't think he wants to change his mind. He is out to change mine. Given that our church is now partnering with this organization for a Christmas toy drive to give toys to the children of these illegal immigrants in our area, I think he knows very well what this organization is about. I lean toward him being a liar, as much as it pains me to assume that. I don't want to believe that about my pastor. I feel like a horrible person for even thinking it, but surely nobody can be that naive?

Given that my Pastor is using a "greater numbers" tactic (gathering his theologian buddies to make me feel outnumbered--as if I don't already feel outnumbered knowing full well I'm the only one protesting that guest speaker's sermon), I decided to call up one of my own theologian/Greek-Hebrew scholar buddies to see if I was just delusional and hypersensitive. My friend didn't have time to listen to the guest speaker, but it turns out he knew well the organization the guest speaker represented. He told me they believe government should pay for our charity via our taxes. He advised me to shake the dust off my feet and get out of this church. Naturally, I asked him where else is there to go? He lives a bit far away, and he recommended a certain denomination of Presbyterians in the area, but it turns out the nearest one has women elders. (Obviously, his own church, farther away, doesn't, since he doesn't believe in that either.) I'm a woman, and I'm uncomfortable with women elders. I'd also like to stay Anglican. I was essentially Baptist/Calvary Chapel until I began to read Philip Schaff. I really like Anglicanism in theory. I'm desperate to find Anglicanism in practice. Finding a parish that cracks open the Book of Common Prayer would be nice, too. I'm very new to Anglicanism, and so far my ACNA church has never even cracked the BCP open.

I live in Orange County, CA. Can you please help me? There must be somewhere I can go, even if it isn't Anglican, that isn't involved with blatant Scripture twisting and corruption. And yet, I know all the supposedly conservative, Bible-believing denominations seem to be doing this same sort of thing at one level or another, and especially where I live. I am so frustrated. And I can't even begin to tell you how disappointed I am at ACNA. Yes, taking GOVERNMENT money for Syrian refugees via World Relief is corruption. There are strings attached, and I bet one of those strings is zero proselytizing. I am aghast that we would compromise the Church's mission set forth by Jesus.

Please help. I no longer feel welcome at my church, and I want a church where I am comfortable putting money into the collection plate, knowing that it won't be spent on enabling illegal immigrants to continue breaking laws.

Thank you for your blog. I learn a lot here that I'm not learning in my parish. You seem so sensible and Biblical. I wish I could have a pastor like you. And sorry for the long post. I just need a shoulder to cry on. I feel so alone facing this at my parish. I am so relieved that I am not alone in thinking something is seriously wrong.

Thank you, reader, for your kind comments about this blog and about me.  I am a deacon and therefore not a pastor, my moniker notwithstanding.  I do sympathize with your sense of desperation about all this.  We seem to be in the minority, but take heart for two reasons: 1) majority opinion is never the arbiter of truth.  You have the facts on your side, so it doesn't matter that you're in the minority; and 2) while you and I may be in the minority, my sense is that it isn't by much.  Many Anglican lay folk and a goodly number of traditional Anglican clergy are on our side.  It's just a matter of seeking them out and finding them.  You found me.

As I see it, there are three problems with Anglicans who are on the pro-illegal immigrant and pro-Syrian Muslim refugee bandwagon.  The first problem relates to the desire of many clergy (of all conservative denominations) to be seen as  "nice", "relevant" and interested from evangelistic motives to reach out to these people - as if there aren't "untold millions" of American citizens who need both our material support and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.   The second problem is the neo-Anglicans, who purport to be conservative, are only half to three-quarters so it seems to me.  Theirs is a form of theological and political neoconservatism that isn't truly rooted in our historic Anglican patrimony on these matters.  I have even found among those who belong to ACNA unabashed Pelagians, feminists, and supporters of gay marriage.  ACNA may not officially support such things, but currently it truly is engaged in a "cat-herding" project, and the semi-liberal mentality is there in both laity and clergy.  And then, thirdly, I think there is a consequent inability or unwillingness (or both) to listen to the critiques of our immigration and refugee policies from the authentic Right.  They're just stopping their ears, because it's too painful to listen to reason.  So be of good cheer.  You may currently feel alone, but you're not, and what's more, you're making sense and they are not.   Remember the story of Winston Churchill, "a Cassandra who turned out to be right."

Like me, the trad Anglican trad conservative journalist Peter Hitchens decries this disconnect between our historic political, cultural and theological worldview and our dalliance with political and cultural liberalism.  And he minces no words on support for the Syrian refugees and by logical extension illegal immigrants from Latin America:

Every one of the posturing notables simpering "refugees welcome" should be asked if he or she will take a refugee family into his our her home for an indefinite period, and pay for their food, medical treatment and education.

If so, they mean it.  If not, they are merely demanding that others pay and make rool so that they can experience a self righteous glow.

Sort of sounds like the folks you encountered at church, does it not?

So, I do sympathize with your dilemma.  I will contact you offline regarding an option for you there in Orange County.  In the meantime, I think you'll find this NRO article by David French useful.

Stay Orthodox, or Else

Every so often I read something that tends to put a damper on my ecumenical bonhomie with respect to the Orthodox Church.  Here is such an item, written by one Fr. Leonidas.

No priestly act is of more far-reaching consequence than a conversion to Orthodoxy.

It crucially determines for all time the convert’s personal status, his marital rights and restrictions as well as his religious allegiance. If a pledge of unqualified loyalty to the Orthodox Church is subsequently betrayed, the result is disastrous, not least for the priest involved, should he have been guilty of an error of judgment in authorising the conversion on insufficient evidence of sincerity.

In that event, he is bound to feel some personal responsibility and liability for every violation of Canon Law the convert may commit. For only through his act in accepting a non-Orthodox into the Orthodox Church do actions like not attending the Sacraments or not keeping the fast days become grave breaches of Canon Law. Little wonder that many conscientious priests, under the weight of this crushing responsibility, contemplate conversions with extreme, sometimes perhaps excessive, hesitation.

The conditions for becoming an Orthodox Christian are simple enough in definition. A properly qualified catechist, after instructing the candidate, must be satisfied that the candidate is genuinely willing and able to accept the religious discipline of the Orthodox Church without reservation, whereupon the formal act of conversion is carried out, either by baptism where the candidate has not been previously baptised in the name of the Holy Trinity, or by the Sacrament of Holyc Chrismation, and the signing. of a letter by which the candidate on the one hand is renouncing his former faith and on the other confessing his Orthodox faith. . . .

Anyone prepared to follow Ruth’s example of total loyalty will be accepted into the Orthodox faith with open arms. But in the absence of such candidates, we should occupy ourselves with the challenge to convert should-be Orthodox, rather than would-be-Orthodox, to Orthodoxy.

If you can manage to slog through the entire article, you'll see a sterling example of how Orthodoxy *can* be cultic in some of its quarters.  *Can be*, not is.

Unfortunately, this mentality does get a boost from the teaching of St. Theoplan the Recluse, who when asked if the "heterodox" will be saved, answered thusly:

You ask, will the heterodox be saved... Why do you worry about them? They have a Saviour Who desires the salvation of every human being. He will take care of them. You and I should not be burdened with such a concern. Study yourself and your own sins... I will tell you one thing, however: should you, being Orthodox and possessing the Truth in its fullness, betray Orthodoxy, and enter a different faith, you will lose your soul forever.

No pressure. ;>)

As I've implied above, not all Orthodox Christians share this rigorist view.  Orthodox theologian Bradley Nassif reacts strongly to it in an article at Orthodoxy Today entitled "Reclaiming The Gospel."

Outside of Orthodoxy, have you noticed how the healthiest Christian communities around today are the ones who preach Christ, not their own denomination? They speak of Jesus, not their "Baptist," "Methodist" or "Pentecostal" identities. Yet, all we seem to hear from our pulpits is "Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy, Orthodoxy!" We are obsessed with self-definition through negation. It is a sick religious addiction. We often shore up our identity as Orthodox by constantly contrasting ourselves with Evangelicals or Catholics. I wish we would talk more about Christian faith, and less about "Orthodoxy."

Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart speaks to the intense anti-Westernism associated with this "sick religious addiction:

The most damaging consequence . . .  of Orthodoxy’s twentieth-century pilgrimage ad fontes—and this is no small irony, given the ecumenical possibilities that opened up all along the way—has been an increase in the intensity of Eastern theology’s anti-Western polemic. Or, rather, an increase in the confidence with which such polemic is uttered. Nor is this only a problem for ecumenism: the anti-Western passion (or, frankly, paranoia) of Lossky and his followers has on occasion led to rather severe distortions of Eastern theology. More to the point here, though, it has made intelligent interpretations of Western Christian theology (which are so very necessary) apparently almost impossible for Orthodox thinkers. Neo-patristic Orthodox scholarship has usually gone hand in hand with some of the most excruciatingly inaccurate treatments of Western theologians that one could imagine—which, quite apart form the harm they do to the collective acuity of Orthodox Christians, can become a source of considerable embarrassment when they fall into the hands of Western scholars who actually know something of the figures that Orthodox scholars choose to caluminiate. When one repairs to modern Orthodox texts, one is almost certain to encounter some wild mischaracterization of one or another Western author; and four figures enjoy a special eminence in Orthodox polemics: Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and John of the Cross.

I am one of an increasing number of people I know who have converted to and then left the Orthodox Church.   According to the rigorists cited above, my defection is "disastrous" and I have accordingly "lost my soul forever."  What darkened, ignorant, sectarian hooey.  

But at least St. Theophan knows better now. ;>)

All this ties into what I wrote earier today:  the Anglican Churches, however disordered many of them currently are (Roman and Orthodox disorders to be discussed separately) constitute an authentic branch of the Catholic Church.  It makes no difference to us that neither Rome nor Orthodox recognizes us as such, just as it makes no difference to us that the Two One True ChurchesTM are out of communion with each other, and that many in their respective ranks consider the other churches damned schismatics and heretics.  We don't find our validation in their opinions, but in historical and confessional fact.

Fr. Oliver Herbel is an Orthodox priest who is doing some good reflection and writing on the phenomenon of why Orthodox Christians, both cradle and convert, leave the Orthodox Church.  Hear ye him, not this Fr. Leonidas fellow.

The Benedictine Spirit in Anglicanism

From a Roman Catholic Benedictine, Fr. Robert Hale, OSB, published in 1980.  An excerpt:

Most Roman Catholics probably still think of the Anglican Church (in the United States known as the Episcopal Church) as arising in the sixteenth century and as a direct consequence of certain marital problems of Henry VIII. But Anglicans themselves resolutely propose another conception of their Church quite different from this simpler interpretative model. John Macquarrie, for instance, one of the most influential of living Anglican theologians, [writing in 1970] affirms: 'Anglicanism has never considered itself to be a sect or denomination originating in the sixteenth century. It continues without a break the Ecclesia Anglicana founded by St Augustine thirteen centuries and more ago . . . Our present revered leader, Arthur Michael Ramsey, is reckoned the one hundredth Archbishop of Canterbury, in direct succession to Augustine himself.

In this view, then, the Anglican Church was founded by St Augustine of Canterbury (a monk, it might be noted here, sent to England by the great monastic Pope Gregory I).

The Anglican Bishop Stephen Neill insists in the same way as Macquarrie upon this continuity of Anglicanism with the pre-reform Church in England, only he takes us back even further into the Celtic origins of Christianity in England; he writes: 'The [Anglican] has never imagined that the Reformation was anything other than a Reformation. It was in no sense a new beginning. The English Churchman regards himself as standing in the fullest fellowship and continuity with Augustine and Ninian and Patrick and Aiden and Cuthbert and perhaps most of all, the most typically Anglican of all ancient saints, the Venerable Bede.'

Thus, the Anglican insists that if one wishes seriously to come to terms with Anglicanism, he is going to have to go back to its true roots and study Augustine, Ninian, Patrick, Aiden and Cuthbert (all of them monks), and especially that most Benedictine of these founding fathers, also 'that most typically Anglican of all ancient saints, the Venerable Bede.'

The Anglican theologian Anthony Hanson notes that there is nothing particularly, new about this insistence on Anglican continuity with the pre-Reform Church: 'Anglican apologists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries constantly maintained that the Church of England was not a breakaway Church, like the Evangelical Church in Germany or the Reformed Church in France. It was the same continuous Catholic Church that had at the Reformation "washed its face."'

And the Roman Catholic scholar of Anglicanism George Tavard, citing Anglican theologians of the sixteenth century regarding the 'uninterrupted succession' of their sacraments, theology and faith, acknowledges that among the Anglican writers of that period 'this theme constantly recurs.'

Thus, to the traditional polemical Roman Catholic query of' where was the Anglican Church before Henry VIII?' the Anglican pointedly responds: 'In England, where else?' And he proposes this response very sincerely, it should be noted, not as a rhetorical trick but as a true expression of his experience of the sacramental, liturgical, theological and devotional continuity of the post-Reform Anglican Church with the pre-Reform English Church. The Roman Catholic may have some difficulties in accepting tout court and without qualification this Anglican thesis; but correct ecumenical method requires him to recognize that at least this is the way Anglicans ('high Church' and 'low', although emphasis might differ) sincerely experience their own Church life. And it is primarily with this Anglican experience and self-identity that Roman Catholics must come to terms in a true ecumenical dialogue, and not just with their own conception of what Anglicans must be.

It's refreshing to read a Roman Catholic Benedictine monk almost come out and acknowledge that the Church of England and her progeny constitute a branch of the Catholic Church.  For that is what we as Anglicans believe, and we believe it because it's true.  (This is why Fr. Hart repeatedly refers to it as the "branch fact" and not "branch theory.")  It is refreshing, but not validating.  We need neither Rome's nor Orthodoxy's validation.  Our Catholic validity is a fact.

Fr. Hale's article echoes the argument of Canon Arthur Middleton, whose books I have written about here.   That argument is that Anglican identity is going to be found neither in a Maurician notion of comprehensiveness, nor in that notion taken to the nth degree by liberal apostates, nor in the reduction of the English Reformation to its Edwardian phase.  It will only be found in its historical and dogmatic connection to the undivided Church of the first millennium, and as a "nationalistic" ecclesiastical jurisdiction that is modeled largely on that of the Orthodox Churches.  There is no need for Anglicans to jettison the English Reformation, but by the same token we ought not place undue emphasis on our Protestant character, except a Church that has "washed its face", to quote Fr. Hale.  We are Protestant only to the extent that we believe in the importance of our Augustinian inheritance.  We are not Presbyterians with prayer books.

Please read the whole article for the author's wider point about Anglican's essentially Benedictine character.  This is a great read.