What Was the Oxford Movement?

Were (the Church of England's) pastors priests of the Catholic Church (as the Prayer Book insisted) or ministers of a Calvinistic sect?

Pretty much the central question to be answered for the purposes of settling the issue of Anglican identity, is it not?  My answer is that is that our pastors are in fact priests of the Catholic Church, not ministers of a Calvinistic sect, BUT that Anglicanism at least makes room for certain doctrines that came to be associated with Calvinism.  Said doctrines are not necessarily "Calvinistic", however, as they antedated him, in certain cases by a thousand years.

We are not Presbyterians with prayer books, however, and the English Reformation didn't end with the Settlement.  Hooker and the Caroline divines are as important to classical Anglicanism as are Cranmer and Jewell, and what's more, I don't  believe we can ignore the Tractarian legacy in our attempt to articulate Anglican identity.

What Was the Oxford Movement?

Advice

From Christian philosopher and apologist Doug Groothuis:

Advise (sic) from a long-time curmudgeon, philosopher, and social critic.

1. Develop your theology of suffering.
2. Develop your theology persecution.
3. Develop your theology of martyrdom.
4. Develop your theology of civil resistance.

You will need all four--soon.

Only if you live in the Middle East and perhaps Western Europe, says I.

Here in the United States, persecution of Christians is against the fundamental law of the land, and if that law is ever set aside or systematically ignored by the liberal state, then the people may - and likely will - take that state down, by force if necessary.  That's 18th-century American political philosophy, folks, and it's more or less enshrined in law.   Stop wringing your hands.  Yes, develop your theologies of suffering, persecution and martyrdom, but as you develop your theology of civil resistance:

1.  Develop your understanding of Anglo-American constitutional history.  Then:

2.  Develop your defiant, steely resolve.

3.  Develop your stash.

4.  Develop your marksmanship skills. 

5.  Develop your local connections, and cry . . .

"¡Viva Cristo Rey!"

For some further thoughts on some medieval Catholic theologians who are known for their work on Christian resistance theory, see:

Christian Resistance Theory: John of Salisbury

Christian Resistance Theory: The Catholic Second Amendment

Another Anglican Making Sense on Immigration

A Christian's call to halt mass Muslim migration to Europe, by Gavin Ashenden.

Previously:  When Anglicans Make Sense.

A Christians call to halt mass Muslim migration to Europe - See more at: http://anglicanink.com/article/christian-call-halt-mass-muslim-migration-europe#sthash.vmsQrfFy.wY3VRADA.dpuf

A Christians call to halt mass Muslim migration to Europe - See more at: http://anglicanink.com/article/christian-call-halt-mass-muslim-migration-europe#sthash.vmsQrfFy.wY3VRADA.dpuf

Russia and the West Have Swapped Spiritual and Cultural Roles

Quite possibly this is true.

I'm not sure I can be quite as sanguine as this writer, for I suspect there is more here than meets the eye. There are some things about the situation in Russia that give me pause. That said, what's happening in what Samuel P. Huntington called the "Orthodox Bloc" has me very intrigued. And hopeful.

My readers know how important the issue of "muscular Christianity" is to me.  Eastern Orthodoxy is muscular Christianity.

I'd like to think that orthodox Anglicanism can rival the muscular Christianity of Orthodoxy.  I believe it can, but it has some doin' to to in order to get there.

So Be It

   

"Islamophobes" 'R' Us

Have you been branded an Islamophobe – a slur word invented by Muslim leaders and clerics against non-Muslims?

Then join the ranks of the world’s greatest political leaders, military leaders, writers, philosophers, historians, researchers and intellectuals; the movers and shakers of history.

Islamophobes

This!!

From Martin Thornton:

Personal petition is the heart of prayer as corporate adoration is its peak.  It is unfortunate that Protestantism tends so to stress the value of petition - "sincere prayer from the heart" - that it obscures its ultimate consummation in the corporate worship of the Church.  It is just as regrettable that a certain type of Catholicism so emphasises the Office and the Mass that it overlooks a personal religion which alone guarantees adequate participation in them. - Christian Proficiency, p. 87.

Evangelical is not enough.  Catholic is not enough.

When Anglicans Make Sense

Hitchens: We won't save refugees by destroying our own country

While Peter Hitchens used to be an atheist like his older brother Christopher Hitchens he became a Christian later in his life. Accordingly, he became a member of the Church of England and is now an advocate of moral virtues founded on Christian faith and institutions such as marriage. Today Hitchens defends the use of the Church of England's 1662 Book of Common Prayer and of the King James Bible. Of the latter, he has written "it is not simply a translation, but a poetic translation, written to be read out loud... to lodge in the mind and to disturb the temporal with the haunting sound of the eternal". He argues Christianity has been systematically undermined by social liberals and cultural Marxists. "The left’s real interests are moral, cultural, sexual and social. They lead to a powerful state. This is not because they actively set out to achieve one," Hitchens writes. "It is because the left’s ideas – by their nature – undermine conscience, self-restraint, deferred gratification, lifelong marriage and strong, indivisible families headed by authoritative fathers."- Wikipedia

A few days ago I posted this article, in which I criticize the Church of Rome, much of Evangelicalism, and orthodox Anglican leadership here in North America for their admittedly warm-hearted but ultimately reckless and biblically baseless stance on illegal immigration.  Today Peter Hitchens chimed in, and I want to set him forth as an example of what real orthodox Anglican leadership looks like.  Excerpts:

Actually we can’t do what we like with this country. We inherited it from our parents and grandparents and we have a duty to hand it on to our children and grandchildren, preferably improved and certainly undamaged.

It is one of the heaviest responsibilities we will ever have. We cannot just give it away to complete strangers on an impulse because it makes us feel good about ourselves. . . .

As William Blake rightly said: ‘He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars. General good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite and flatterer.’. . .

Thanks to a thousand years of uninvaded peace, we have developed astonishing levels of trust, safety and freedom. I have visited nearly 60 countries and lived in the USSR, Russia and the USA, and I have never experienced anything as good as what we have. Only in the Anglosphere countries – the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – is there anything comparable. I am amazed at how relaxed we are about giving this away.

Our advantages depend very much on our shared past, our inherited traditions, habits and memories. Newcomers can learn them, but only if they come in small enough numbers. Mass immigration means we adapt to them, when they should be adapting to us.

So now, on the basis of an emotional spasm, dressed up as civilisation and generosity, are we going to say that we abandon this legacy and decline our obligation to pass it on, like the enfeebled, wastrel heirs of an ancient inheritance letting the great house and the estate go to ruin?. . . .

Can we stop this transformation of all we have and are? I doubt it. To do so would involve the grim-faced determination of Australia, making it plain in every way that our doors are open only to limited numbers of people, chosen by us, enduring the righteous scorn of the supposedly enlightened.

As we lack the survival instinct and the determination necessary, and as so many of our most influential people are set on committing a sentimental national suicide, I suspect we won’t.

To those who condemn reasonable calls for national self-defence as bigotry, hatred and intolerance (which they are not), I make only this request: just don’t pretend you’re doing a good and generous thing, when you’re really cowardly and weak.

Don't be content with this smattering of quotations.  You need to read the whole article.

From His Mouth to God's Ears

The Imminent Decline of Contemporary Worship Music: Eight Reasons

Thankfully, my own generation is beginning to die. While ostensibly created “for the young people,” the driving force behind contemporary worship music was always my own Sixties generation of anti-adult, anti-establishment, rebellious Woodstockers and Jesus freaks. Once my generation became elders and deacons (and therefore those who ran the churches), we could not escape our sense of being part of the “My Generation” that The Who’s Pete Townsend had sung about when we were young; so we (not the young people) wanted a brand of Christianity that did not look like our parents’ brand. Fortunately for the human race, we are dying off now, and much of the impetus for contemporary worship music will die with us (though the commercial interests will “not go gentle into that good night,” and fulfill Dylan Thomas’s wish).". . . .

"Contemporary worship" to me is an oxymoron. Biblically, worship is what angels and morning stars did before creation; what Abraham, Moses and the Levites, and the many-tongued Jewish diaspora at Pentecost did. It is what the martyrs, now ascended, do, and what all believers since the apostles have done. More importantly, it is what we will do eternally; worship is essentially (not accidentally) eschatological. And nothing could celebrate the eschatological forever less than something that celebrates the contemporary now. So ultimately, I think the Apostles’ Creed will stick its camel’s nose into the liturgical tent, and assert again our celebration of the “holy catholic church, the communion of the saints.” The sooner the better.

Do Orthodox Christians Believe in the Atonement?

Yes they do, argues Fr. John Whiteford.  Nevertheless,

There are many contemporary Orthodox writers who wish to deny or downplay a number of concepts that relate to our redemption. They will argue we don't believe Christ had to die in our place, or that His blood needed to be shed to pay the penalty for our sins. They will deny the legitimacy of legal terms, in favor of the idea that the Church is a spiritual hospital.  The problem is not that the Church is not a spiritual hospital, but rather that in emphasizing one set of images used to explain our salvation, they deny a whole set of equally valid images that are clearly Biblical. It is true that in the west there was an over emphasis on legal imagery, but the solution to such an imbalance is not a new imbalance in the opposite direction. We can and should speak of sin as an illness, but when we die, we do not go before the final medical exam -- we face the final judgment, which is a legal image if ever there was one. And so we can also speak of sin as a transgression of the Law of God, and of our need to be justified by God, even as we speak of sin in terms of an illness that we need to be healed of.

Fr. Whiteford goes on to argue that there is support in Orthodox divinity for something that at least resembles a penal, substitutionary view of the atonement:

St. Gregory Palamas, in his Sixteenth Homily (delivered on Holy Saturday: "About the Dispensation According to the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Gifts of Grace Granted to Those Who Truly Believe in Him"), speaks quite a bit about the need for Christ to die in our place. The entire homily is well worth reading, but here are some excerpts:

"Man was led into his captivity when he experienced God's wrath, this wrath being the good God's just abandonment of man. God had to be reconciled with the human race, for otherwise mankind could not be set free from the servitude. A sacrifice was needed to reconcile the Father on high with us and to sanctify us, since we had been soiled by fellowship with the evil one. There had to be a sacrifice which both cleansed and was clean, and a purified and sinless priest" (Christopher Veniamin, trans. Saint Gregory Palamas: The Homilies (Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2009) p. 124).

"Christ overturned the devil through suffering and His flesh which He offered as a sacrifice to God the Father, as a pure and altogether holy victim -- how great is His gift! -- and reconciled God to our human race" (p.125).

"For this reason the lord patiently endured for our sake a death He was not obliged to undergo, to redeem us, who were obliged to suffer death, from servitude to the devil and death, by which I mean death both of the soul and of the body, temporary and eternal. Since He gave His blood, which was sinless and therefore guiltless, as a ransom for us who were liable to punishment because of our sins, He redeemed us from our guilt. He forgave us our sins, tore up the record of them on the Cross and delivered us from the Devil's tyranny (cf. Col 2:14-15)"( p. 128f)."

Fr. Whiteford concludes his article, essentially, with a call for "balance" between juridical and incorporationist views of salvation.  Harmony between East and West, in other words.

Sound of wild applause.

We find an example of what Fr. Whiteford is criticizing in a recent article from Orthodox blogger Tim Holcombe entitled How We Are Saved.

To properly understand salvation, what it is, and how it is obtained, we must first address proper context. Any Christian should quickly agree that Christ our Savior provides the ultimate context, thus, it is beneficial for us to see what He taught to His followers.

A casual look at the Gospels show clearly that Christ founded His Church. His Church was built upon His commandments. Christ promised us that the gates of hell would never prevail against His Church.  The Church is an ontological reality. It is the very Body of the living Christ, and the two cannot be separated, as Christ is the Head. This is why we say “find the Church, and you will find Christ.” This is why Saint Cyprian of Carthage wrote “outside the Church there is no salvation,” for Christ and the Church are eternally united. . . .

What most protestants believe is rooted in the teachings of Martin Luther and John Calvin.  Salvation is more of a judicial act, ostensibly taking one’s case before a judge, pleading for mercy, and awaiting the verdict.  They even use legal terms, such as “acquittal” and “justification.” . . . .

All these notions are a very far cry of the teaching of Christ on the matter of salvation.

To revisit the foundations, we must go to the beginning of our salvation. . . .

The event of the glorious Incarnation of Christ fulfilled the prophecies of Old Testament prophets, as Christ, the God-man came to the Earth, born of the Virgin Mary.   He existed (and exists) both as God and man, a living example of what God had always intended.  Protestants rarely speak of the Incarnation, because the act of salvation for them has been ultimately reduced to a mere formula, a one-time, quick judicial act.   But the Incarnation was the coming in the flesh of Christ our God, the union of human and divine nature, which Adam enjoyed prior to the Fall.  The Incarnation was the living, breathing example of what God intended, and intends for us.  Christ serves as our example, the uniting of humanity with Divinity.  The Church calls this process theosis,  which is the process of a worshiper becoming free of hamartía (“missing the mark”), being united with God, beginning in this life and later consummated in bodily resurrection.. For Orthodox Christians, theosis is salvation. Theosis assumes that humans from the beginning are made to share in the Life or Nature of the all-Holy Trinity.   As Saint Peter writes:

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. (2 Peter 1:4)

For the Christian, the crucifixion served not as Christ “paying the penalty for our sins,” rather, for the destruction of death, which was the consequence of the Fall.  Christ conquered death by death.  And after His death, he descended into Hades to restore our Father and Mother, Adam and Eve, and all peoples who dwelt there, as death had been conquered, thus restoring them to unity with God. . . .

Salvation is union with Christ.  It is the saving and restoration of the whole man.  It is not a mere past act, grossly minimized by the recitation of a simple prayer.   Salvation is both past, present and future.   It is a living, ongoing reality.   For the Christian, Christ has saved us, is saving us, and will save us.

Salvation begins for us in the waters of holy Baptism, where our sins are washed away, and we are united to Christ.   We reject all former delusions, and begin a lifetime process of repentance, turning from our fallen natures, and growing in Christ through obedience to Him.   We participate in His very life, His Body in the Holy Mysteries which He has given to His Church.   We partake of His Body and Blood at each Divine Liturgy when we receive Holy Communion. We repent of our sins through confession, and receive forgiveness and absolution.   We pray, and fast, give alms, do good works which are profitable for our salvation, and receive encouragement by dutifully studying the lives of the Saints, observing how they obtained salvation by their exemplary lives of holiness. . . .

The Church (which maintains the promises and commandments given by Christ Himself, Who is the Head) properly sees sin as a disease of the soul, a disease which leads to eternal death.   The disease is cured by full participation in the Church, the Body of Christ, and the partaking of the life-giving Mysteries contained therein.

So what we have here in Holcombe's presentation on salvation is exactly what Fr. Whiteford argues is, from what he believes is a true Orthodox perspective, an unbalanced view of the matter, which is to say merely the incorporationist (or "therapeutic") side of biblical soteriology to the exclusion of the juridical side.  I notice as well how much Holcombe's view mirrors this one. 

I've argued previously that this same lack of balance is manifested in much of Anglo-Catholicism, and that the cure for this is to fully embrace the Augustinian legacy.  In my thinking, that includes the theology of Anselm of Canterbury on the nature of the atonement and all of its juridical implications, as well as that of Bernard of Clairvaux on grace and justification.  Despite what Holcombe seems to be saying, those implications -- acquittal and justification -- are things that have clear support in the New Testament.

See A Reader Sends This Article.

(One more incidental point about Holcombe.  While I obviously take issue with his argument here, he is one of my favorite political and cultural bloggers.  He's a traditional Southron, and his stuff on the flap over the Confederate flag is priceless.)

Trouble

I won't be earning any points with many Anglican leaders with this post, but here goes anyway. To be read in conjunction with the post below: 

Shock Poll: 59% Back Trump On Deportation of Illegals

Twenty percent of illegals caught at border have criminal records

No entry? Sweden’s far-right calls for vote on immigration, French want to shut borders

Hungary bars migrants from trains; smugglers wait in wings

Alien Invasion of Europe: Now a Deluge

EU faces crisis of "biblical proportions"

Czech President Calls for Army to Defend Border Against Migrants

Murder of elderly couple in Sicily fuels Italy's growing anti-immigrant sentiment

‘People in Europe are full of fear’ over refugee influx

The 'refugees welcome' fad will do more harm than good

The New Invasion of Europe

More On The Alien Invasion of Europe

No Will To Survive

Islamic State Terrorists Caught Crossing Into Europe as "Refugees"

Without borders in Europe, there is no hope of ending this migrant crisis

What’s all the fuss about Germany?

Islam's Conquest of Europe

When Anglicans Make Sense

Another Anglican Making Sense on Immigration

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Four out of five migrants are NOT from Syria: EU figures expose the 'lie' that the majority of refugees are fleeing war zone

"Welcome Refugees!"

The Left's (and Right's) Dishonest Biblical Argument for Taking in Syrian Refugees

The Dangers of Refugee Humanitarianism

Image There's No Border

At some point, the Church - Roman, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant - will be forced to find her tongue on this issue.  I think I can accurately predict that she will have to do much better than spouting the kind of platitudes we've heard thus far from Rome, liberal Protestants and many Evangelicals about dealing justly with the "stranger", because what we're talking about here is not the odd "stranger" or bona fide refugees who represent no existential threat to a nation and who will be repatriated at the proper time.  Rather, we're talking about a tsunami of nomadic illegal aliens who intend to stay, and among whom are "sleepers" and criminals who intend to subvert, injure, kill and destroy.  Not to mention the millions who will overtake the West simply by the act of reproduction.  No nation or group of nations is capable of absorbing such a horde without comitting cultural and demographic suicide.

A nation without enforceable borders is not a viable nation.

All that seems to be lost on the folks dedicated to "welcoming the stranger".  They are instead motivated - ostensibly anyway - by the desire to do justice and by the potential for evangelization they believe exists with respect to the influx of immigrants.  I think there's another motivation, however, and that is the desire not to be associated with the perceived harshness of a position that thinks coolly and clearly about the implications of illegal immigration for demographics and culture.  In other words, the position I am taking here, and one that is shared by multitudes of Christians.   The other view, however, is that Christians must be "nice", doncha know, and therefore cannot espouse any position that appears not "nice" to the "strangers" in our midst.  (I believe it is George Will who once wrote something to the effect that conservatives are supposed to have cool heads to compensate for not having warm hearts.)

Regrettably, ACNA is on apparently on board with the Evangelical immigrant assistance organization Immigration Alliance, in something called the Anglican Immigration Inititiative.  See this report of its task force and the emphasis therein on "welcoming the stranger."

Well, orthodox Anglican bishops and other leaders need to "get real" on this thing.  First of all, they need to start seriously reading the work of the prognosticators, asking themselves  the question of whether or not their support of such initiatives might just be a derelict position to take if the prognosticators are right, and there is every reason to think that they are.  Secondly, they need to "get real" about Holy Scripture.  Nowhere does Holy Writ say or even imply that a nation must commit suicide in the interest of accommodating the "stranger".   In fact, the Bible indicates the exact opposite of what the ACNA initiative and other Christian pro-immigrant organizations argue:  God expects people to obey the law -- which includes laws regarding the existence of borders -- and the "stranger" mentioned in the pertinent texts is NOT the same thing as an illegal immigrant. 

My suggestion to our bishops, for what it's worth - sigh!, is that you need to stop aping Rome, the liberals and the Evangelicals in this matter, because if you don't, you're going to find yourself on the receiving end of the growing populist ire written about in the articles linked above, and what's more, you will have done so without the Bible on your side.  You will have also arguably given aid and assistence to the Enlightenment and its modern-day anti-Christian progeny, even though that wasn't your intent.

For further reading on the exegetical issue regarding the "stranger", see The Use and Abuse of the Bible in the Immigration Debate, by James K. Hoffmeier.  Also,  A Biblical Perspective on Immigration Policy, by James R. Edwards, Jr.  Last but not least, We won't save refugees by destroying our own country, by Peter Hitchens

Russia Is Not Our Enemy

The Western liberal state is our enemy.  Radical Islam is our enemy.  But Orthodox Russia is not our enemy.

We need a paradigm shift in the West that would pave the way for a genuine Northern Alliance of Russia, Europe, and North America, as all three face similar existential threats in the decades ahead. In an uncertain and ever more brutal world, the Northerners may finally consider banding together, lest they be defeated in detail. - The North Worth Saving

Anglican leaders received in Moscow

Anglican Leaders Received in Moscow

For the Record: From ACC Metropolitan Mark Haverland on the Term "Anglican Catholic"

With apparent reference to my previous blog entry:

On the term ‘Anglican Catholic’: in the United States ‘Anglican Catholic’ is a registered service mark of the Anglican Catholic Church. That is, it is the ACC's property and may not be used by others without infringing on the ACC's rights. The term is also protected internationally in many places under the Madrid Protocol. The ACC registered its name in part with the experience of the Roman Catholic Church in mind. ‘Roman Catholic’ was not registered by the Roman Church, and people with no connection to the papacy are free to call themselves, misleadingly, Roman Catholic. The ACC has no wish to be unfriendly or difficult. The name ‘Anglican Church of North America’ was used by the ACC long before ACNA came along and is preserved in our Constitution and Canons. Since we did not actively use the ACNA name, however, we made and make no objection to its use by others. But we do object when others use ‘Anglican Catholic’ and, particulary when the use is by ecclesial bodies with no relation to us, insist on our service mark rights.

Thanks for letting me know, Your Grace.   I had a discussion with Fr. Munn a few months ago in which the term "Anglican Catholic" appeared to be used in a more generic sense, as a synonym, I thought, for "Anglo-Catholic."   I appreciate your setting the record straight.

First Things: The Uncertain Future of Protestantism

Last Tuesday, leading representatives of different models of conservative American Protestantism gathered at Biola University to discuss and debate the “Future of Protestantism.” Peter Leithart, an ecumenically-oriented apostle of “Reformational catholicism” faced down Fred Sanders of Biola, a spokesman for the “unwashed masses of low-church evangelicals” and Carl Trueman of Westminster Seminary, an unapologetic representative of Calvinistic confessionalism. Those hoping for a hard-hitting debate, or a quick and full resolution of the questions, were bound to be disappointed: the three interlocutors were much too patient, irenic, and thoughtful for that. No, it was a conversation, and like almost all good conversations, inconclusive, an invitation to further conversation.

Here's the 2.5-hour video:

All three speakers granted that some kind of reunion with Rome (and with Orthodoxy) must be eventual goals for Protestantism, which could not think of itself as the sole bearer of the church’s future. All three insisted therefore that Protestantism should be characterized more by its positive witness than by a negative self-definition over against its enemies. All three also managed to agree that the content of this witness was largely set by the terms of the early Protestant confessions, that the solas of the Reformation constituted fundamental truths that must remain the ground of future Protestant ecumenical engagement. Finally, all agreed that the best forms of ecumenism, for the foreseeable future at least, should be local and ad hoc, involving such small but powerful gestures as learning to pray with and for local Catholic and Orthodox churches. . . .

The differences that did emerge, then, were in part simply dispositional. Leithart is a cheery optimist about Rome’s willingness and ability to reform and meet Protestants half-way, Sanders an optimist about the ability of low-church evangelicals to gradually remedy their defects through patient retrieval of the tradition, Trueman a determined pessimist about both possibilities.

They were also in part theological. On the issue of sacraments, which dominated much of the discussion (partly due to Leithart’s firm insistence on the absolute necessity of weekly communion), Sanders said little, given his low-church Zwinglianism on the issue, Trueman admitted their importance but stressed the centrality of the Word, and Leithart camped out on his own more sociological De Lubacian sacramentology.

They were also in part a matter of pastoral sensibility, with Leithart seeing the greatest pastoral danger in the scandal of disunity, Trueman in the relativization of the doctrines of grace and subsequent weakening of salvific assurance. And of course, part of the difference was rhetorical: Leithart continued to identify “Protestantism” by its most widespread contemporary expressions, and accordingly called for its abolition, while Sanders and Trueman remained puzzled by this odd attempt to define something in terms of its most defective forms, rather than its historic essence.

This last difference, however, highlights perhaps the most important and persistent difference between the speakers, one that remained sadly unexplored: a difference over the nature of history. Put briefly, Leithart was skeptical that there is such a thing as a historical essence to Protestantism, at least one that deserves to be jealously preserved. His stirring opening statement invoked a repeating Biblical pattern of creation, death, and resurrection to new creation to suggest that Protestantism is not a diseased form that needs to be restored to its original health, but the historically-necessary senescence of something bound to die and rise again as some new and unforeseen synthesis. (Leithart’s reference to the neo-Hegelian philosopher Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy suggested that the Hegelian resemblance is no coincidence). Within such a schema, no historical movement, however necessary, valuable, and more-or-less true, can expect to endure unchanged. Thus, despite the resemblance of his “Reformational catholicism” to, well, the Reformation, Leithart would rather free us from the unhealthy attachment to something ultimately bound for replacement. While for Sanders and Trueman, the future of Protestantism must be an extension (not without any change, of course) of its past and present, for Leithart it will be a new, unpredictable work of the Spirit.

I'm with Leithart.  I truly can't see it being any other way, especially for classical Anglicanism, which despite its classicality is way ahead of the curve.

Leithart: The End of Protestantism

"The Reformation isn’t over. But Protestantism is, or should be."

Protestantism ought to give way to Reformational catholicism. Like a Protestant, a Reformational catholic rejects papal claims, refuses to venerate the Host, and doesn’t pray to Mary or the saints; he insists that salvation is a sheer gift of God received by faith and confesses that all tradition must be judged by Scripture, the Spirit’s voice in the conversation that is the Church.

Though it agrees with the original Protestant protest, Reformational catholicism is defined as much by the things it shares with Roman Catholicism as by its differences. Its existence is not bound up with finding flaws in Roman Catholicism. While he’s at it, the Reformational catholic might as well claim the upper-case “C.” Why should the Roman see have a monopoly on capitalization?

A Protestant exaggerates his distance from Roman Catholicism on every point of theology and practice, and is skeptical of Roman Catholics who say that they believe in salvation by grace. A Reformational Catholic cheerfully acknowledges that he shares creeds with Roman Catholics, and he welcomes reforms and reformulations as hopeful signs that we might at last stake out common ground beyond the barricades. (Protestants also exaggerate differences from one another, but that’s a story for another day.). . . .

Some Protestants don’t view Roman Catholics as Christians, and won’t acknowledge the Roman Catholic Church as a true church. A Reformational Catholic regards Catholics as brothers, and regrets the need to modify that brotherhood as “separated.” To a Reformational Catholic, it’s blindingly obvious that there’s a billion-member Church of Jesus Christ centered in Rome. Because it regards the Roman Catholic Church as barely Christian, Protestantism leaves Roman Catholicism to its own devices. “They” had a pedophilia scandal, and “they” have a controversial pope. A Reformational Catholic recognizes that turmoil in the Roman Catholic Church is turmoil in his own family. . . .

A Protestant’s heroes are Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and their heirs. If he acknowledges any ancestry before the Reformation, they are proto-Protestants like Hus and Wycliffe. A Reformational Catholic gratefully receives the history of the entire Church as his history, and, along with the Reformers, he honors Augustine and Gregory the Great and the Cappadocians, Alcuin and Rabanus Maurus, Thomas and Bonaventure, Dominic and Francis and Dante, Ignatius and Teresa of Avila, Chesterton, de Lubac and Congar as fathers, brothers, and sisters. A Reformational Catholic knows some of his ancestors were deeply flawed but won’t delete them from the family tree. He knows every family has its embarrassments. . . .

A Protestant is indifferent or hostile to liturgical forms, ornamentation in worship, and sacraments, because that’s what Catholics do. Reformational Catholicism’s piety is communal and sacramental, and its worship follows historic liturgical patterns. A Protestant wears a jacket and tie, or a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, to lead worship; a Reformational Catholic is vested in cassock and stole. To a Protestant, a sacrament is an aid to memory. A Reformational Catholic believes that Jesus baptizes and gives himself as food to the faithful, and doesn’t avoid speaking of “Eucharist” or “Mass” just because Roman Catholics use those words.

Reformational Catholicism meets George Weigel’s Evangelical Catholicism coming from the direction of Rome, and gives it a hearty handshake.

Protestantism has had a good run. It remade Europe and made America. It inspired global missions, soup kitchens, church plants, and colleges in the four corners of the earth. But the world and the Church have changed, and Protestantism isn’t what the Church, including Protestants themselves, needs today. It’s time to turn the protest against Protestantism and to envision a new way of being heirs of the Reformation, a new way that happens to conform to the original Catholic vision of the Reformers.

Amen.

Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry

Just finished this book by Hans Boersma, who holds the J. I. Packer Chair in Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C.  Highly recommended.  The author calls for a return to the "sacramental ontology" of the Platonist-Christian synthesis of the early Church Fathers.  The reviews at the Amazon page are definitely worth reading.  Bishop Ray Sutton mentioned the significance of this book in his recent talk on real presence at the ICCA, which I also highly recommend.

                       

"Reformation Christians" and Anglicans

Piggybacking on this and this.

William Witt avers in the first discussion linked above,

The long and short of it is, I am highly in favor of ecumenism (with Rome and Orthodoxy). At the same time, I think that the only proper way for ecumenical relations to move forward is that those of us who are Reformation Christians need to recognize that there are reasons that we are not Roman Catholics or Orthodox, and that progress can only take place if ecumenical discussion is a two-way street.

Something else struck me this afternoon about Witt's use of the term "Reformation Christians" with reference to his pro-WO party.  Not only have I pointed out something of the irony of Witt & Company's claim to be "Reformation Christians", since all of the Reformers, English and Continental alike, would have viewed their innovation with horror and contempt, but Witt & Company's "Reformation Christian" theological methodology is wholly unAnglican.  Let me explain.

As almost any Anglican theologian or church historian worth his salt would tell you, the English Reformation was unlike the Continental Reformation both in terms of its conservatism and its stated appeal to the Church Fathers.  It was this very thing that was responsible for stopping the Calvinist trajectory in its tracks under Elizabeth.  The Calvinist trajectory being thus supplanted, Anglican divinity embarked on another trajectory which sought to flesh out what the English Reformers claimed about their ressourcement project.  Anglicanism took a decidedly Catholic turn under Elizabeth, and then Hooker.  The Caroline divines became the bridge between Hooker and the Tractarians, Old High Church complaints about the latter notwithstanding. 

As for the "Continuing Reformation Christians" in the Church of England and her offspring, well, they went in two directions.  One party became fellow travelers with the "Reformation Christians" on the Continent who morphed into to radical liberal Protestantism.  The other party became fellow travelers with the "Reformation Christians" on the Continent (and Scotland)  who morphed into radical conservative Protestantism. 

The kind of "Reformation Christian" with which Dr. Witt and his gang associate themselves seems to be a hybrid of the two.   On the one hand we see this commitment to egalitarianism and feminism that find roots in the radical liberal party, but we see as well a commitment to the radical conservative party that takes the sola scriptura and semper reformanda principles to the nth degree.  It's a real witches brew, one that is bubbling in "Evangelical" circles outside of Realignment Anglican ranks. Think of any number of today's Evangelical spokesmen (and, more importantly, its spokeswomen).

Classical Anglicanism, which sought to establish its place in the Great Tradition, has no place for this kind of "Reformation Christianity."  It took a completely different tack.  We will either affirm it, and behave accordingly, or we'll become something else.  Unless they humbly change their minds, Witt & Company have no part in Classical Anglicanism.  In that event, I guess we'll have to let them be "Reformation Christians."

Psalter Reading from Tonight's Office (8/20)

Psalm 104, chanted to a wonderful setting by the Bramdean School Chapel Choir.

Is Women's Ordination a "Heresy"?

As I stated here?

Dr. Witt and a person commenting on this question tonight are dismissive of my claim.  Per Witt:

As for accusations of “heresy,” yawn. I think it would take some real effort to make a theological case that advocacy of women’s ordination is not simply mistaken, but “heretical.” “Heresy” has to do with a position that is not only theologically mistaken, but touches on the center of Christian faith in such a manner as to distort the central “subject matter” of Christian faith. So Arianism is a “heresy” because (as Athanasius argued), only God can save, and, if Christ is not divine, but only a creature, then he cannot save us.

I don’t see how one could reasonably argue that “male only” clergy is essential to the heart of Christian faith in the same way that Nicene and Chalcedonian orthodoxy are at the heart of Christian faith. Disagreement about this issue is more along the lines of other disagreements between Christians, that while, important are, to some extent, adiaphora. As an Anglican, I disagree with Roman Catholics about transubstantiation, with Lutherans about ubiquity, and with Presbyterians about polity. I don’t think that their views are “heretical.”

Just so it's clear, I do understand the distinction between orthodoxy and orthodopraxis.  The ordination of women to the priesthood is an act (praxis), not a belief, so in the technical, ecclesially declarative sense it is not a "heresy."  However, I maintain that the practice of women's ordination is still "heretical", and this for two reasons:

1) The definition of αἵρεσις reads as follows: "a self-chosen opinion, a religious or philosophical sect, discord or contention." The belief in some dioceses of the ACNA that women may be ordained to the priesthood, and for some folks in the ACNA, the episcopate, most certainly represents a "self-chosen opinion" held against the consensus not only of the Church Fathers, but of the Reformers (which essentially undoes Witt's assertion that defenders of WO in the ACNA are "Reformation Christians").  It most certainly reflects as well the existence of a "religious sect" that promulgates its "self-chosen opinion" in the face of the belief of the vast majority of the world's orthodox Christians.  And it most certainly has introduced "discord and contention" into Anglican ranks;

2) The practice is likewise heretical because of the heretical beliefs on which the practice is based.  As many opponents of WO have argued, it is possible to discern in various arguments made for the practice, alternatively or together, gnosticism, aberrant triadology, aberrant christology, and an aberrant view of the creation order.

So, Dr. Witt and CarterS, that's our story and we're sticking to it.

If it were possible in our lifetimes to see the Great Schism healed and a great council of the Roman and Orthodox Churches convened to address the issues of the day, I am quite confident that one of those issues would be women's ordination, and that the practice would be anathematized precisely for the two reasons I've set forth above.  That is, if Rome's and Orthodoxy's current ruminations on what they view as the heresies underlying the practice of WO are any indication.  In that hypothetical Witt would certainly be compelled to revise his argument.

But it's a far-fetched hypothetical, so let's return to the issue of how WO is "heretical" here in the current ecclesial situation.  A heresy does not necessarity need to be ecclesially defined as such for it to be a heresy.  Before a controversy over a perceived departure from orthodox doctrine ever gets raised to conciliar consideration and judgment, the claim that it's a heresy must first be made, somewhere, by someone, after which a controversy ensues.  This is where we are right now.  The acceptance of WO in Anglican ranks is only a few decades old.  Even the ACNA says it's currently in a process of "reception."  The issue is not ripe for ecclesial assessment and judgment, though it seems clear that one day it will be.  Until then, the debate goes on.  Here are a dew examples of others who also call WO a "heresy".  (You'll have to slog through the articles to see where the accusations of "heresy" are made.):

Roman Catholic

Heresy and the Priestly Ordination of Women

Anglican Ordination of Women Bishops Ends Reunion Prospects

Orthodox

Thoughts on Women's Ordination

Anglican

Priestesses in Plano (Rearding a position paper issued by Christ Church in Plano, TX (AMiA), which apparently became the basis of an ordination that took place there several months later.)

"Nobody gives a ...": A good reason why we are Continuing Anglicans

However, as I read Witt's comments tonight, it's pretty clear that none of this matters to him or other such "Reformation Christians."  I suppose that's his way of saying "Nobody gives a . . .".   But then again, that has been the attitude of heretics - the holders of a self-chosen opinion over against the Church -- from time immemorial.

Loving Lynda

A bit of a diversion from the standard fare to bring you this important advertisement.  If you get a chance, see this movie when it's released.   The Walters are longtime family friends, especially on my wife's side.  I took some of my first theology courses from Jim at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.  Jim married us in 1977 and buried my mom in 2007.  Lynda hosted my wife's wedding shower and was present at both our marriage and my mom's funeral.  One of Jim and Lynda's sons is an Anglican priest.

Lynda went to be with the Beloved in 2012.  She spent many long years suffering from MS before she died, and I saw some of that up close and personal when we would visit family in Arkansas.   Words would fail if I tried to convey, according to my limited perception, anything about how Jim and Lynda suffered but also how great God's grace was through it. That's why you need to see this movie -- and have it shown at your church.