Intro
Thank you for inviting me back as it were for an encore talk on Anglicanism.
We have been asked this year to reflect on three aspects of our religious tradition. In my case the Anglican tradition. The three aspects: scripture, sacraments , and tradition .
One of the first thoughts that comes to my mind is that the very question itself supposes that there is something that can be identified as “Anglican tradition”. I’m not sure just to begin with how much one can pin down the tradition I represent.
I refer to the adage that I quoted a year ago at my presentation: the Anglican tradition is made up of one part of Lutheran theology, another part Calvinist polity, and the third part Catholic haberdashery.
One of the basic premises of my tradition is that it reaches back across the entire history of Christianity in Britain. The first Christians were present in what is now London by the second century of the Common Era. To say that the Anglican tradition covers so much time means that one needs to include the earliest Christian tradition of the first several centuries, the development of Celtic Christianity in the British Isles from the earliest. At least up until around the year 1000 and then in a recovery of the present time. Famously the Roman Catholic Church send Augustine as a missionary in the sixth century. From that time one could consider the Anglican tradition as Roman until after the time of Henry the 8th. Henry the 8th to himself was a strong Defender of the most traditional account of theology, certainly until the Pope got in the way of him providing an heir to his throne. What Henry sought there was Authority that is an underlying issue for each of the elements we are considering today: scripture, tradition, and sacraments.
Following Henry the 8th there was a fairly continuous growth and development of a distinctively Anglican character, but most of that has been dependent on other developments throughout Christianity. so in part the challenge today is to distinguish between what is peculiar to the Anglican tradition and not dependent on Lutheran or calvinist or anabaptist, and ultimately enlightenment, scientific, and other more recent intellectual development, all of which have impacted various elements of the Anglican tradition.
In the current age I might point to the importance of the fundamentalist reaction of a hundred years ago and the resistance to various impulses that the Catholic church called modernist. each of these has left a significant mark on my tradition and none of them has let go of the tradition.
I am conscious that so much of what passes as Anglican is really some aspect of one particular part of Christianity that if one were to remove those Elements which we share with other Christians one would be left perhaps with very little at all.
This year our topic has been framed as: scripture, sacraments, and tradition. I am asked to look at those elements from an Anglican perspective.
As a basic approach to our subject I had a couple of choices before me. I could talk about the three elements in succession, in each case focusing on what seems distinctively Anglican.
A different approach would be to ask, “What is the theme of these three topics that binds them together? What is the over arching question being asked that produces an interest in these three particular topics, scripture sacraments and tradition?”
In my case, I have another issue that seems prominent at the very beginning and that is the question of whether there is anything distinctively Anglican? I think that a pretty good case could be made that when one walks into an Anglican church there isn’t anything peculiarly Anglican other than incidental and insignificant things.
One of the ways I think about the overarching question is this. If there is one thing that distinguishes reformation theology it is the claim that the authority for the church is to be Scripture alone. Sola Scriptura. If there is one thing that is distinctive about the Oldest traditions in Christianity, the Catholic and Orthodox churches, it would be the importance of ritual and sacraments. As to the third topic before us, tradition, for myself, the first thing that comes to mind is Tevye singing the song in Fiddler on the Roof. That’s tradition from an eastern European Jewish perspective, so perhaps beyond our scope here, but I’ll come back to it later.
In this talk I’m going to follow the first approach I have described. I’ll look at our 3 topics in succession. But I will be doing it in a sense with an underlying motivation. I think the cement that binds the 3 topics together is authority. So that is my goal in this talk, i.e. to make the case that what we are asking about is the nature of authority in Anglicanism.
Before beginning, though, let me say something about my contention that there isn’t anything especially Anglican for us to pay attention to.
Ad campaign
The Episcopal Church ran an AD campaign in the 1990s that included one poster that proclaimed the Episcopal Church was a place where one didn’t have to check your intelligence before entering. The source for that line is – I honestly didn’t know this until preparing this talk – Robin Williams! He was an Episcopalian and so was authorized to make fun of being an Episcopalian. Like the poster I passed out at the beginning, Episcopalians, sometimes, at their best, know enough to not take themselves too seriously. I am reminded of a joke I heard shortly after ordination. It goes,
How do angels fly? They take themselves lightly.
Top 10 reasons to be an Episcopalian
link
(full of one liners like: “My youngest daughter, a precocious church-goer, once described it this way: “The evangelical services are like grade school, and the Episcopal services are like grad school.”
He had described himself as an “honorary Jew”. Finally, Williams was a member of the Episcopal Church. He described his denomination in a comedy routine as “Catholic Lite - same rituals, half the guilt.” blog
“Top 10 reasons to be an Episcopalian” (in reverse order) by Robin Williams
- No snake handling.
- You can believe in dinosaurs.
- Male and female God created them; male and female we ordain them.
- You don’t have to check your brains at the door.
- Pew aerobics.
- Church year is color-coded.
- Free wine on Sunday.
- All of the pageantry - none of the guilt.
- You don’t have to know how to swim to get baptized.
- No matter what you believe, there’s bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.
Note about history
scripture
Oratory talk: Scripture
Now one of the first things one has to overcome as an Anglican talking about the Bible is to disabuse folks of the notion that God wrote the Bible in Elizabethan English. The King James Bible *authorized *version of the Bible, was of course “authorized” by and for the Church of England. In that sense, then, God is Anglican – I’m sure you all recognize that.
Among the 2nd and 3rd things that I have to talk about in an introduction to the Bible is that there are different versions out there, with different content. I’m talking about the inclusion of the Apocrypha, or inter-testamental books, between the Old Testament and the New. I decided at a very early stage in my adult study of the Bible that it was essential to include inter-testamental literature. Ultimately I concluded that in the study of the Bible one needed to include a whole slew of extra-biblical literature as well – just in order to adequately understand what the Bible is in fact saying to us. But the fact that one can buy a Bible in most bookstores with and without the Apocrypha is but the first step in discovering that there are many critical issues that one must consider when reading the Bible. That is a particularly Anglican approach. It is both Catholic and Protestant, it is open to the latest critical thinking and apparatus when applied to Scripture, and it is appropriately proud of the importance of the Anglican contribution to the whole subject.
We might first consider the formal definitions that we have inherited over recent centuries in the “catechism” of the Book of Common Prayer.
Catechism Definition
The Holy Scriptures
Q. What are the Holy Scriptures? A. The Holy Scriptures, commonly called the Bible, are the books of the Old and New Testaments; other books, called the Apocrypha, are often included in the Bible.
Q. What is the Old Testament? A. The Old Testament consists of books written by the people of the Old Covenant, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to show God at work in nature and history.
Q. What is the New Testament? A. The New Testament consists of books written by the people of the New Covenant, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to set forth the life and teachings of Jesus and to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom for all people.
Q. What is the Apocrypha? A. The Apocrypha is a collection of additional books written by people of the Old Covenant, and used in the Christian Church.
Q. Why do we call the Holy Scriptures the Word of God? A. We call them the Word of God because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible. …
Now I include that here mostly as a way of demonstrating the difficulty in asking about the Anglican approach to Scripture. The catechism definition is probably as close as one is going to get to an official understanding. But, on the whole, it’s not very helpful. I have found that the most helpful thing the catechism definitions do for us is to point to some of the most significant controversies that have concerned the church in the past. Generally it’s not very aware of the current debates. Usually the response we find there will attempt to thread a mine-field as peaceably as possible.
(different Bibles) – NRSV (with Apocrypha). In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions much of what is known as Apocrypha is present but it is treated differently, incorporated into the text.
History of the development of the Bible
Tevye – Tradition
An abiding aspect of the Anglican approach to Scripture has been an openness to critial and historical understanding. This means that whether it was reformers or high church Anglicans, there has been an openness to recognizing that Scripture is not a static monument, erected once at the origins, but can only be understood and followed as a living, developing interpretative effort.
- LXX was the earliest Christian “Bible”.
- development of NT canon
- Masoretic text
- Bible in translation – Latin, Coptic, etc.
- [my claim] that as Islam and Christianity came into greater contact, there began an awareness of historical developments in the first 1,000 years of the church. The recovery of ancient documents that would lead to a critical awareness by the time of the Enlightenment. Thus an awareness of the need to read and understand the Bible critically
- Reformation attempt to return to an original Bible
- battles of the past couple of centuries over how to read scripture, whether literally or some other way [n.b. that the argument in fact goes back to the beginning of the church]
Deller gives a broadly accurate summary of the state of Anglican understanding of scripture in a 2006 lecture. He outlines the Anglican approach as a series of tensions and themes that have been wrestled with over the centuries. Several tensions include:
- a general resistance to Biblical fundamentalism
- a deep devotion to both the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. This could be elaborated on as a preference for the authority of prayer and practice over the authority of doctrine and legislation – lex orandi over lex credendi. It means that it is prayer which leads to belief, or that it is liturgy which leads to theology. The guideline is familiar in theology dating back many centuries.
- reading scripture through the lens of doctrine (one might be high church, low church, etc.) but also with an appreciation of the broad view of God’s work of creation and covenant with humanity.
- usually attributed to Richard Hooker is an approach to the authority of scripture as being tempered and balanced with an appreciation of the traditions of the church and human reason
- continuing tensions raised with e.g. Darwinism,
- the challenge of bringing the gospel to cultures of great variety through the world …
He concludes his overview by suggesting an overarching tendency in the Anglican approach to scripture:
So what is the Anglican Way of interpreting the scriptures? Our Anglican history with the Bible suggests to me that there are two overarching tendencies—either we relativize or we moralize.
sacraments
The Sacraments
cf. Augustine on Eucharist: “Be what you see; receive what you are”
Q. What are the sacraments? A. The sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace.
Q. What is grace? A. Grace is God’s favor toward us, unearned and undeserved; by grace God forgives our sins, enlightens our minds, stirs our hearts, and strengthens our wills.
Q. What are the two great sacraments of the Gospel? A. The two great sacraments given by Christ to his Church are Holy Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.
Our word “sacraments” is a latinate word. It was used as the church developed from a primarily Greek speaking community to a Latin speaking community. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Roman_mysteries The Greek word that it translated was mysterion, which for our purposes we can say meant mystery. Even as the earliest Christianity distinguished itself from the popular mystery religions of the Roman Empire elements of it influence the development of Christian practice. There was present in that Roman world a civil religion which was related to the Empire, and there were philosophical schools that functioned like a religion, and the Mystery religions. Because the mystery religions were ultimately condemned and suppress when Christianity became the official religion of the empire, not as much is known about them as we would like.
There have certainly been times in the history of the church when the sacraments appeared to be simply mysteries that cannot be explained or religious truths that could only be expressed in sophisticated philosophical terms.
That last reason that Robin Williams gives points to the dynamic I am most aware of as I have prepared this talk, namely that it is difficult to pin down one Anglican tradition or teaching. My experience in the church and I have spent most of my life as an Episcopalian, suggest that indeed any position that one might stake out Can be found in the Anglican communion and the corollary that any generalization that one might make one can find a counterexample.
One way into recognizing the character of the tradition I learned from a bishop who retired in the 1990s. He would give workshops on how to invigorate and nurture small churches and small Church environments. He was the bishop of the Upper Peninsula which is all small communities.
He would ask groups of the Episcopalians how many of them were born into the church. His experience matches my own in asking that question. Most Episcopalians sitting in the pews became Episcopalian sometime after childhood, often as adults. One thing that I used to conclude from that tendency is that the Episcopal Church is not very good at passing on its traditions to the children. None of my five children attend the Episcopal Church although all of them would be happy to attend if asked.
Bishop Ray, was his name, in the upper peninsula had something different to identify. He would ask the people who became Episcopalian by choice why they did that. And the answers followed a pattern wherever you ask them. They became Episcopalian because there was something about the liturgy, it was something about the sacramental Experience one finds on a Sunday morning worship. My own expression of this when I became Episcopalian as a 11 or 12 year old was that it was the use of candles and the use of real wine in a common chalice.
Later on when I became confirmed only after I had learned definitions from the catechism and have learned that a sacrament was “A. The sacraments are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace, given by Christ as sure and certain means by which we receive that grace” Did I realize that one can in fact put words on what was at first just experience for me?
What I experienced was the sacred. I valued that there were clearly actions and objects that were sacred. The Methodist Church that I had known up to that point seemed strikingly plain and ordinary. I have since learned enough to know that that’s not a fair evaluation of the Methodist tradition but my point here is to try to say something about what it means to be an Anglican.
To say that a Sacrament is an “effective sign” means that it “effects what it signifies”. In other words, it brings about (or brings into being, if you prefer) the reality that it signifies. So, for example, the water of Baptism signifies a cleansing or purifying (water is a natural element that cleans or purifies). And thus, when one is baptized in water, one’s soul is cleansed or purified from the stain of Original Sin. So you see, the significance (sign) or symbolism of water, through the power of the Sacrament of Baptism, effectuates (brings about) cleansing or purifying of the soul. yahoo
Brief historical note
Ideas about sacraments have changed radically throughout the history of the church. In Eucharist or the sharing of Christ’s body and blood, we’ve gone from Augustine’s notion of “real presence” (God is there), to Aquinas’ perception of transubstantiation (the physical bread and wine participate in the Universal Substance of Christ) to Tridentine [from the Council of Trent] doctrine of transubstantiation (the physical bread and wine become physically the Body and Blood), to Zwingli’s memorialism (nothing changes, we just remember) and around to Anglican “real presence” (God is there, we’re not going to be to specific about how). blog
One of my teachers in seminary made a very simple argument / statement about the Eucharist that has guided me ever since. I think it is quintessentially Anglican. His statement was that the church has spent enormous energy arguing over the nature of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But he said, no one has argued over the real absence of Christ in the Eucharist. A comprehensive Anglican understanding would focus on the presence and leave it at that.
During the centuries of the development of theological understanding regarding the sacraments there were a variety of lists as to how many “official” sacraments there were. The Catholic tradition settled on 7. Luther argued about the status of marriage as a sacrament. The Reformation settled on 2 “scriptural” sacraments. In Anglican circles there have been arguments as to how far the “39 Articles” are determinative. In the Church of England it has been more important than in the many national churches within the wider communion. Over and over again the Anglican way has been a path measured between competing poles. Life in tension. Via Media
- Authority of experience and pragmatism
- (divorce, birth control)
link to tradition
Tradition
The official web site of the Episcopal Church pays attention to this issue of authority and tradition. It recognizes that for centuries now, the 3-legged metaphor for Anglican authority has been prominent.
The threefold sources of authority in Anglicanism are scripture, tradition, and reason. These three sources uphold and critique each other in a dynamic way. Scripture is the normative source for God’s revelation and the source for all Christian teaching and reflection. Tradition passes down from generation to generation the church’s ongoing experience of God’s presence and activity. Reason is understood to include the human capacity to discern the truth in both rational and intuitive ways. It is not limited to logic as such. It takes into account and includes experience. Each of the three sources of authority must be perceived and interpreted in light of the other two.
The Anglican balance of authority has been characterized as a “three-legged stool” which falls if any one of the legs is not upright. It may be distinguished from a tendency in Roman Catholicism to overemphasize tradition relative to scripture and reason, and in certain Protestant churches to overemphasize scripture relative to tradition and reason. The Anglican balancing of the sources of authority has been criticized as clumsy or “muddy.” It has been associated with the Anglican affinity for seeking the mean between extremes and living the via media. It has also been associated with the Anglican willingness to tolerate and comprehend opposing viewpoints instead of imposing tests of orthodoxy or resorting to heresy trials.
This balanced understanding of authority is based in the theology of Richard Hooker (c. 1554-1600). It may be further traced to the teaching of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Urban T. Holmes III (1930-1981) provided a thorough and helpful discussion of the sources of authority in his book What is Anglicanism? (1982).
file:closing
Authority
In the year leading up to my going off to Seminary, when I was in my late 20s, my priest at the time wanted to expose me to Nashotah house and conveniently the retired Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, was giving a week-long teaching series on Authority in the Gospel of John. I don’t remember very much about the series except for thinking that it was more a meditation on the Gospel of John than a teaching about Authority. But I did learn something important about the Gospel from those talks. It turns out that for Michael Ramsey, glory (doxa), was a major interest of his. He used it to interpret John. He passed on to those who met a glimpse of glory. It is the title of a recent biography of him: Glory Descending.
In the next 2 years I had the great good fortune during my time in seminary to get to know Archbishop Ramsey and his wife Jane even to the point of having them over to dinner. He was awe-inspiring and fell asleep for a few moments in the middle of dinner. His wife, Lady Jane, was witty and carried the conversation as if she had presided at such meals all her life.
The opportunity I had to spend an evening with Michael Ramsey – not just that evening but many others also – gives me a 6th degree of connection to many of the most important people of the 20th century. Pope Paul VI, just this weekend canonized, gave him the ring that he wore on his hand that night.
I tell the story because I think it illustrates the kind of authority that has made sense in the Anglican tradition over many centuries. It is an authority built on relationships. It is person oriented rather than law oriented. It is built around common experiences rather than principles.
A story that I heard while in seminary to illustrate some of what I’m saying is as follows. At the Lambeth Conference of the early 20th century the question of birth control was put on the table for the Bishops to reflect on. Society itself was wrestling with new developments both scientific as well as social. I believe during the 30s The Bishop’s were considering the question and most of them in their stuffy sort of way we’re prepared to leave the traditional teaching of the church in place. At a certain point however someone asked the question of the Bishops around the table how many of them in their own lives and marriages used birth control. When most of them raise their hand, together they were able to make the decision that the church needed to change its traditional teaching.
The Anglican tradition is pragmatic. It is flexible. It tries to be grounded both in the traditions of the church as well as the realities that human beings live in. It is prepared to learn both from scripture and the common experience of human beings.
There is a very nice summary of what it means to be Anglican by the chaplain of St George’s Memorial Church Ypres, Flanders, Belgium. Jack McDonald The vicar of the church has all of Europe as his mission field and because the area is one of the principal cemeteries for the Fallen of World War II in Europe there are visitors from throughout the world really. Needless to say many of the visitors to his Chapel have no clue what it means to be Anglican.
What makes Anglicanism distinctive he says is not its world wide reach, nor in a particularly distinctive theology or basis for theology. Scripture is held in high esteem the sacraments are regarded in the same kind of manner as the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. The classic councils of the church together with the Creeds that they produced are regarded as authoritative for the church. But he says this:
So we are still left with the question of what makes Anglican Christianity distinctive, and to this there is no definitive answer. Different Anglicans will offer different explanations with equal sincerity. My own answer, the fruit of a decade of dialogue with European non-Anglican Christians, is that Anglicanism has a particular style of thinking exemplified by the obscure 16th century country vicar Richard Hooker, who described the root authority of the Church of England as subsisting in “Scripture, reason and the voice of the church” - the famous threefold cord of Scripture, tradition and reason. Other churches have equal respect for the Bible, for the catholic tradition and for the exercise of the reason which God gives us. But in Anglicanism, this attention to Scripture-tradition-reason has become part of our church DNA.
So in closing the themes of this talk have pointed me in the directions of Authority in the Anglicanism. The tentative suggestions are then some combination of the following:
- the triad of: Scripture, Tradition, and Reason
- a preference for lex orandi over lex credendi
- authority that prefers relationship over definition and logic
- authority that is comfortable living in tension – a via media
