The Oratory
The Rev. Dale C. Hathaway
Oct. 17, 2017
Introduction
By way of introduction let me tell you a little about myself. At the beginning, though, I would say that I don’t speak for all Anglicans. Just me.
I was ordained a priest in 1982 and served as a parish priest in Wisconsin. I returned to Notre Dame in 1984 to continue graduate studies in theology, Hebrew Studies, and liturgy. I have served parishes in Indiana and Hawaii and am currently supplying on Sundays in congregations in South and North Carolina.
My wife, Mary Pat Sjostrom is here tonight. She teaches Math Education at Winthrop University and is the reason we moved to Rock Hill in 2014. I am canonically a Priest of the Diocese of Hawaii, and I started out my journey as an Episcopalian in the state of Colorado.
Currently I am retired as a parish priest and teach courses in the Religion Department at Winthrop. Dr. Judge, well-known to you all, is, of course, the chair of the department.
opening
When I first agreed to this talk I thought, ``Well, I can do that." Then I began to reflect on all the facets of Anglicanism that I thought I would want to include, and I realized that it is, in fact, a daunting task. It’s not really any easier in my mind if I’ve only got a ½ hour to work with. Some of the greatest minds in my church tradition have made an attempt to bring it all together and I am clearly no match compared to them. Some prominent examples from the last century include:
- Urban T. Holmes III, What Is Anglicanism?
- John Howe (Our Anglican Heritage)
- The Study of Anglicanism by Stephen Sykes (Author)
- A History of the Church in England J. R. H. Moorman
Caution not withstanding, I offer you this little essay on what it means to be Anglican. For those of you who are interested you can access the talk at my sermon blog. I have copies of the url for you.
Henry VIII
The first thing I want to address is the proposition that Henry the 8th founded the Church of England. I honestly don’t know anyone writing about Anglicanism who would make that claim. At the same time, I think that there are many who make that assumption. It all began far earlier. Let me illustrate it this way.
I once was enchanted by a very difficult Welsh poet who evoked in several of his long and difficult poems the countryside the land which is now London England. He painted a picture of rolling meadows, trickling streams – in every way a pastoral scene where one could while away an afternoon looking at birds and butterflies. We need to go back in time, to just such a scene as that conjures up, a time a long ways before Henry VIII. London was founded by the Romans in the year 43 of the Common Era. Sometime not long after that Christianity was brought to Britain. Archaeological evidence dates from at least the 3rd century. Legendary accounts reach back earlier than that. Anglicanism as I understand it, anyway, began when Christianity reached the shores of what we today call Britain.
With the shrinking of the Roman empire, Britain which was a far western colony, fell off the radar of Rome. There followed a period of invasions of various Germanic groups, including the Angles who gave England its name and this thing we call Anglicanism. We now think of this time as a kind of interlude – during which Celtic Christianity took root throughout Britain, Scotland, and Ireland. In the 6th century of the Common Era Augustine was sent as a missionary from the Roman Church to evangelize the islands. There was an encounter between two different traditions, the Roman and the Celtic. This Celtic face of Christianity is of great interest in the current day. It preserved certain distinctive practices in contrast to those of the Roman church and many today evoke that Celtic spirit as the modern church struggles with its own identity in the 21st c. My wife and I have used elements of these traditions in our own personal prayer. The confrontation between these two traditions, the Roman and the Celtic, was more or less resolved in favor of the Roman tradition at the Council of Whitby in 664.
During the Middle Ages, Britain took its place alongside the rest of developing Christendom, playing an important role in the development of liturgy, of universities, and the administration of the church and so on. cf. e.g. Wikipedia And it was really during this time that ``seeds" of what became the Reformation began.
In the 1300’s John Wycliffe was already teaching and writing influential documents that gave a foundation for much of what would emerge two centuries later in the Reformation proper. These things included a commitment to translating the Bible into the vernacular, criticism of the clergy, a new understanding of the sacraments, and even questioning the role of the papacy itself.
As the 1500’s began, there was a stirring across Western Christendom, and we have heard in these presentations something about that. In England Henry had published a document defending the Church Against the attacks of Martin Luther. The pope named him “a defender of the Faith.” So much for the founder of the Anglican Reformation.
What Henry VIII didn’t have was a male successor to the throne. His moves to establish himself as head of the church in England rather than the Pope, was his effort to make possible his own male successor. It was not an attempt to reform the Church at that point.
This fundamental break, like so many other developments in the church, was based not on theological perspectives, faith perspectives, or scriptural criteria, but rather on power and authority. A thousand years ago political control was an important issue for the church. It still is which is part of why John Paul II formally rejected any claim by the Catholic Church to ``temporal authority" beyond Vatican City itself.
Another way I have thought of these political tensions, looking and acting like theological issues, is by recognizing the political nature of the church and churches. From the beginning. I have often quoted a teacher of mine from seminary who said, ``Wherever two or three are gathered together, there you have politics." Politics has informed the development of the church from the beginning and continues to do so to the present day. The story of the Anglican church is bound up with politics, together with theology, prayer, sacraments, etc.
So Henry’s desire for a divorce lead to more and more effects both intended and unintended. Theologically the great break with traditional Catholic theology took place not under Henry’s reign but under his son’s, Edward VI.
Henry’s Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, had become persuaded of the truth and importance of Luther’s and Calvin’s teachings, and he moved to institute those reformed teachings into the Church of England. The history of England being what it was, there were lots of back and forth shifting of politics and theology. Under Queen Mary there was a shift back to the Catholic Church and then with the succession of Elizabeth, Protestantism was brought back into England. It wasn’t clear from one generation to another where the Church of England stood on theological as well as authority issues, as it shifted from decade to decade through war and disputes. The English Civil War was in some measure a war over theology. The journey of the Pilgrims and Puritans to this country was a political action as well as theologically motivated move.
Ultimately, as 1700 approached, there was an agreement on the establishment of the church in England as the official church of the land. It also allowed for an official place in society for the various nonconformist churches, Puritans, Baptists, Ana-Baptists of various sorts – those who had been represented in various factions of the Civil War. It is just such an establishment that our constitution rejects and the same sort of freedom of religion that it affirms – for all.
English Empire & Episcopal Church
As the Church of England sought to stabilize in the British Isles it was faced with trying to find a way to exist in the Empire from Ireland to Hong Kong and Australia to the colonies in America. The story in our country obviously came to a head at the time of the revolution.
When it came time to declaring independence and a war was fought, none of the Bishops of the Church of England sympathized with the colonies. There were clergy and congregations but no Bishops and an Anglican Church couldn’t continue without a hierarchy in Apostolic Succession.
In 1783 Samuel Seabury was elected from Connecticut to travel to England to be ordained a bishop. As it happened however, it was illegal in England to ordain someone who would not proclaim an oath of Allegiance to the English crown. Seabury then turn to the church in Scotland which would allow such an ordination without allegiance to the English Monarchy – up to the present day, I think, it has a less than sympathetic attitude to its neighbors to the South.
By 1787 the English church had changed the rules and William White and Samuel Provoost were ordained the second and third Bishops of the Episcopal Church. From thence forward, there have been bishops in the apostolic succession in the American Anglican church.
For similar kinds of reasons the establishment of the Episcopal Church needed to make adjustments in the Book of Common Prayer that would no longer apply in an independent country. These can be easily seen in the establishment of a structure of polity in the Episcopal Church along the lines of the newly-established United States of America, with a tri-partite division of authority rather than the more monarchical structure of the Church of England.
As the English Empire has developed now over the centuries, there have developed a number of different ``flavors" of Anglicanism: the Church in Aoteoroa (New Zealand) and Australia, the church in Hong Kong and Singapore, the Church in Scotland and Ireland, and so on.
The Anglican Way of seeking a synthesis or compromise for living together – agreeing to disagree – as regards the conflict between protestantism and Catholicism is popularly known as the Via Media.
Out of the cauldron of this tension emerged two documents that were formative for the English language and in particular the religious use of the English language. The authorized version of the English translation of the Bible otherwise known as The King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer are products of the Church of England. The reforms of liturgy that began in the 1500s with attempts to radically change the worship of the church under Thomas Cranmer (BCP 1549) and finally resulted in a balance of elements from Protestantism and Catholicism in the Book of Common Prayer of 1662. It remains today one of the authorized prayer books for us in the English church. The use of the Book of Common Prayer is one of the distinctive (almost essential) elements of Anglicanism. You can find people using the Book of Common Prayer who are not Anglican. But I don’t think you could find anyone identifying as Anglican who doesn’t use the Book of Common Prayer, in one of its variations.
To give just one example of the distinctive compositions of the BCP, the ``General Thanksgiving" was composed in the 1600s and may trace its heritage back to a private prayer of Queen Elizabeth.
Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give you humble thanks
for all your goodness and loving-kindness
to us and to all whom you have made.
We bless you for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for your immeasurable love
in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ;
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.
And, we pray, give us such an awareness of your mercies,
that with truly thankful hearts we may show forth your praise,
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up our selves to your service,
and by walking before you
in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit,
be honor and glory throughout all ages. Amen.
The classic attempt of the Anglican way – the via media – is to find some means of bringing together opposing forces. So in contrast to many of the developments of the Reformation, the Anglican way has elements of Catholicism and Protestantism in its pronouncements, documents, and its effort to define its own orthodoxy.
In the Book of Common Prayer we can see that at work in the classic 39 articles. These remain in prayer books up to the present day and at least officially I believe, in England, they are still a part of an ordination process and one must profess allegiance to them in order to be ordained.
- Articles I–VIII:
- The Catholic Articles: The first five articles articulate the Catholic credal statements concerning the nature of God, manifest in the Holy Trinity. Articles VI and VII deal with scripture, while Article VIII discusses the essential creeds.
- Articles IX—XVIII:
- The Protestant and Reformed Articles: These articles dwell on the topics of sin, justification, and the eternal disposition of the soul. Of particular focus is the major Reformation topic of justification by faith.
- Articles XIX–XXXI:
- The Anglican Articles: This section focuses on the expression of faith in the public venue – the institutional church, the councils of the church, worship, ministry, and sacramental theology.
- Articles XXXII—XXXIX:
- Miscellaneous: These articles concern clerical celibacy, excommunication, traditions of the Church, and other issues not covered elsewhere. Article XXXVII additionally states among other things that the Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction in the realm of England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-nine_Articles
In this summary you have listed a fairly good account of the things that divided Christians during the Reformation. Burning issues of theology and polity. The Church of England jumped right in the middle of it and from the beginning tried to find a way to be inclusive rather than exclusive.
Anglican identity
Writing in the 1500s, Richard Hooker was the most influential thinker in the development of Anglican’s distinctive via media. His educational background was traditional and classical while his religious leanings were Protestant and Reformed. He has for centuries been credited with fashioning the Anglican path ``in the middle way", the via media, between Catholicism and Protestantism. It has entered the popular mind in the form of a three-legged stool, symbolizing the foundation of Christian revelation and authority in: 1) Scripture, 2) Tradition, and 3) Reason. He was one of the first of many representatives of Anglicanism to argue for a broad inclusive expression of Christian Faith.
So Anglicanism in the general is based not on Protestantism’s Sola Scriptura nor based on the ecclesiastical foundation of Catholicism’s “tradition, scripture and magisterium”. For him authority rests on scripture, tradition, and reason or experience.
While the metaphor of the three-legged stool is obviously overly simplistic, it does point to an element of Anglicanism that is genuinely distinctive. Reason and experience are important components of being Anglican. There was an advertising campaign a number of years ago that one didn’t need to check one’s mind at the door when you entered an Episcopal Church.
An example of this principle at work was given to me many years ago in describing the way by which the Church of England and the wider Anglican communion came to a conclusion that birth control was acceptable.
The way it was told to me was that in the Lambeth Conference of 1920 The Bishop’s had agreed to uphold the traditional teaching opposing all forms of birth control. In the gathering of 1930, however, one of the Bishops in the discussion about the topic asked for a show of hands of how many of the Bishops themselves used contraception. When the show of hands was fairly significant the vote changed. Experience had led to theological development.
Ecumenism
Anglicanism has been a major force in the ecumenical movement of the last 2 centuries.
An early attempt at expressing a self understanding had been made in the late 1800s in the so-called Chicago-Lambeth quadrilateral.
- The Holy Scriptures, as containing all things necessary to salvation;
- The creeds (specifically, the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds), as the sufficient statement of Christian faith;
- The dominical sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion;
- The historic episcopate, locally adapted.
These four points remained for the 20th century the basis for ecumenical efforts involving or lead by Anglicanism. They were the chief definition that I was taught in seminary and during the discussions of the 1990’s through the early 2000’s with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America they form the basis of the conversations that I was aware of.
The same Lambeth Conference that made the decision about birth control also made an attempt to define Anglicanism:
Their resolution #49 approved a statement of the **nature and status of the Anglican Communion**,“ namely thatthe Anglican Communion is a fellowship, within the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted dioceses, provinces or regional Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury,” which have three things in common:
-
``they uphold and propagate the Catholic and Apostolic faith and order as they are generally set forth in the Book of Common Prayer as authorised in their several Churches"
-
``they are particular or national Churches, and, as such, promote within each of their territories a national expression of Christian faith, life and worship"
-
they are bound together ``by mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the bishops in conference."
An example of this ecumenical effort making real progress can be seen in the churches of South and North India. In the 1940s and later these efforts brought together churches of four different traditions: Anglican (Episcopal), Congregational, Presbyterian and Methodist.
Lex orandi, lex credendi
Already in the fifth century there is an expression of a principle that the prayer and worship of Christians leads to Theology and belief. Lex orandi, lex credendi. A simplistic way of thinking of this principle is that the experience of prayer precedes the development of theology. An example might be to say that Christians of the early church experienced the power and validity of prayer in the name of the Trinity. Only then did the theology of the Trinity begin to develop.
This has been an abiding principle for Anglicanism and it finds its expression in the essential importance of the Book of Common Prayer. Ann B Davis, well-known actress from the television show The Brady Bunch, was an Episcopalian and for many years a member of an extended Christian Community under the bishop of Colorado. She would give talks around the country about her move towards becoming a serious Christian. She said that she had been an Episcopalian all her life and in that capacity knew the Book of Common Prayer – at least those portions that were read in church on a regular basis. As an adult she experienced conversion that led her to reading the Bible. She would say to her audience that she was startled when she did that at how often the Bible quoted the Book of Common Prayer. The joke of course is that it’s quite the opposite.
19th c. Emergence of Anglo-catholic
When I was asked in the 1970s through the 1980s what it meant to be an Episcopalian or an Anglican, I would tell people that it was very much like a Catholic but without a pope and that our clergy could marry.
Things have become much more complicated today. But there’s a certain element of Truth in that statement. Very often I have encountered couples from different denominations, for example Catholic and Baptist, who find a common ground in the Episcopal Church.
As Anglicanism developed over the centuries, there emerged two competing visions of the church, each of them reflecting sympathies with either the Reformation or Catholic tradition. A shorthand way of describing these ``branches" of Anglicanism is to refer to them as Low Church and High Church, corresponding to Protestant-leaning Anglicans and Catholic-leaning Anglicans. In the development of Christian thought during the 18th century and with the impact of the Enlightenment and rationalism, there emerged a third party and that came to be known as a Broad church. So even when I was in seminary it was common to hear someone identify themselves as either High, Low, or Broad church.
A mentor of mine said that in his travels around the country, he found that the more important distinction was not whether a church was high, low, or broad, but rather whether there was an active faith in a living God or not.
All too often Anglicanism has found expression in a dry, tradition-bound faith, defending the status-quo more than the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Another mentor of mine told me the story of how Anglicanism was:
-
Lutheran in theology
-
Calvinist in polity
-
Catholic in haberdashery
Throughout the history of Anglicanism there has been a broad representation from many different viewpoints. One expression of this that was important to me in my early formation, was the observation that of all the Protestant churches in the United States the Episcopal Church was the only one that didn’t divided over the Civil War. Whatever the slant you take, Anglicanism has sought – to repeat myself – to define itself by what it encompasses rather than by what it excludes.
Current circumstances
As I began to prepare this talk I became aware that I would need to say something about the current situation in the Episcopal Church which is to say Anglicanism as it is experienced in the United States. As I drove several times in these past few weeks up into the mountains of Western North Carolina I passed through several small towns where there was an Episcopal Church and then right down the street an Anglican Church – judging by the signs outside them. This phenomena is a result of schism happening in the church, divisions occurring over disagreements of theology, sexual orientation, the role of women in the church, etc etc. Back when I was still anticipating going to seminary in the 1970s, my mentor in the parish that I attended at the time, experienced his own home church in Denver, St. Mary’s by name, being the first one to split away from the Episcopal Church. The rector became a bishop and the denomination that resulted has disappeared. At the time this was because the Episcopal church had made a decision to begin ordaining women. The divisions have kept coming over the succeeding decades as a church has wrestled with one ethical and moral issue after another.
By the 1990s it was clear that the Episcopal Church was moving in a direction to embrace fully the membership within the community of homosexual persons. In time there was a wide acceptance of the LGBT community. Openly gay people have now been ordained and legally married in this country.
During this time there have been some perhaps many who have felt that the church moved past them and that they no longer had a voice and a place within the Episcopal Church. So various traditionalist elements have broken with the National Church and attempted to align themselves with various groups around the world who also identify as Anglican. This attempt to provide an alternative Anglican expression in this country is still unfolding as we speak. It’s not clear to me whether these groups will be accepted by for example the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the meantime you can drive down the street in towns of South and North Carolina and see an Episcopal church and just down the street an Anglican Church that might be aligned with a church in Africa or a breakaway diocese of North America or of the Church of the Southern cone in Latin America.
Why an Anglican?
In conclusion I would like to say something about what is it about Anglicanism that would attract someone? There were two things that stand out for me from the time I chose to become Episcopalian leaving behind my father’s methodism. One was lighting candles. Such a simple Act that seemed to me to bring life to the space of worship.
If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
(“Little Gidding” from The Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot)
The other thing that captivated me and drew me into the Anglican ethos was a single common cup that had wine in it. Everyone in the room drank from this cup – at least in those days. The symbolism of having wine which the New Testament portrays Jesus as using in the very ritual that is Remembered at every Eucharist, an alcoholic beverage that even as a 12 year old I knew carried spirit enough to make one inebriated with the spirit. Shared by all.
These were symbols that were powerful for me. From that moment onward, at least as a young adolescent, I understood something about the power of symbols, the power of sacrament, and in the language of many an Anglican, the Incarnational Manifestation of God – these spoke to my heart.
I have come to recognize that they don’t speak to everyone but to many they do. And for them the Episcopal Church can be a home.
