About the Great Exodus

A LESSON FOR US AS WELL?


Dr. John Armstrong writes, in a post today entitled "The Great Catholic Exodus," the following (Of course, he means by "Catholics" Roman Catholics, though the author is a Protestant.):

"Rarely do I hear Catholic commentators and apologists admit that the Catholic Church in America is losing people/communicants in very large numbers. The reasons for this exodus are complicated and rarely discussed by Catholics, the very Christians who ought to be profoundly concerned...One out of every ten Americans is an ex-Catholic. If these people formed a separate denomination they would become the third largest denomination in the U.S. after Catholics and Baptists. One of three people who was raised a Roman Catholic no longer self-identifies as a Roman Catholic. But the U. S. Catholic bishops have not spent a single dime trying to understand 'why' this has been happening...The primary reason Catholics leave their church is that their spiritual needs are not being met. Read that statement again. 71% said this was their reason in the Pew Research. Simply put, the Catholic Church has failed to give its people a deeply satisfying spiritual experience. Put another way the evidence indicates that doctrine has very little to do with why a person chooses a congregation. The real reason is rooted in a growing and maturing spiritual experience."

It is important to note that the author is not a gloating and gleeful Protestant happy with decline among "the competition." He says: "Again, I have no horse in a race here. I am concerned, as most of you know, for the whole of the church; thus I take no delight in the problems that American Catholics face. " And, neither do we here at The Continuum.

The Lesson for us

Is there a lesson in this to be learned by Continuing Anglicans? I believe there is. For although we see significant growth in other countries, especially in Africa, throughout the United States and other western countries the number of Continuing Anglicans in general has not grown as it should have after 34 years since the St. Louis congress. We need to ask why, and see if we can learn something from the research about the decline among American Roman Catholics.

The need for "a deeply satisfying spiritual experience" should not be dismissed as merely an expression of existentialism. In spite of the many criticisms justly aimed at the Charismatic movement of the 1970s, one thing I learned in my youth among those very people, is that every individual needs to have Christ Himself at the center of his own life. This can be treated with too much emotion, and turned into mere sentimentality. Or it can become the kind of religious excitement that burns out because too many elements were generated by the flesh, or even because demonic powers took advantage of people who sought visions and revelations for the sake of experience itself.  

The very term "spiritual experience" needs, therefore, to be taken seriously both for the legitimate need as well as for the dangers it invokes. But, we need to look at the legitimate need. After all, the problem that Dr. Armstrong has mentioned is not a Roman Catholic problem; it is a human reality that can be a problem, or a benefit, for everyone.

Simply put, overall, are we offering "a growing and maturing spiritual experience" to our people? In some ways it appears that we must be, for after 34 years we would have died out if we had not attracted new and younger members. However, if a healthier percentage of people, who, having at one time joined one of our churches, remained in Continuing Anglicanism our numbers might be at least twice what they are. 

Therefore, let us ask three relevant questions: What is healthy spiritual experience? What produces it? What hinders it?

What is healthy spiritual experience?

Healthy spiritual experience has been the topic of Christian writers throughout the entire history of the Church. (In fact, not to promote a book simply because a friend and fellow Continuum blogger is the author, but because it is a good book, I recommend a modern resource by our own Fr. Nalls, Prayer: A Field Guide.) Frankly, weekly attendance at church on Sunday is not enough. The old saying, "Give God one hour of your week" suggests not even the minimum life of prayer, but rather something that is far, far less than a healthy minimum standard.

Healthy spiritual experience for believers is the whole life of faith, in which encouragement of regular attendance on Sundays requires no special effort, inasmuch as wild horses would not keep them away. Frequent Communion and Daily Prayer were great and practical spiritual recoveries of the English Reformers. We have a most excellent tool in our offices of Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, which are of great importance in the Book of Common Prayer. 

What produces healthy spiritual experience?

Deep down, at the center of an individual's life, which the ancient Hebrews spoke of as "the heart" (associated with much more than mere emotion) something very real and radical must live. And, this is why I urge even the most High Church of Anglo-Catholic clergy to learn to preach good Evangelical sermons. After all, such preaching was very important throughout the history of the Church It is the Catholic Tradition, even though some Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics have turned from it in an equal and opposite reaction to the reaction against sacramental grace and practice by some Protestants. 

Anglican clergy have the resources to help everyone grow into rich and mature spiritual experience. Wise Anglican clergy draw on the best of the best in the whole Catholic Tradition, including every good thing recovered in the Protestant and Evangelical side of our heritage, as well as all the rest of it.

Healthy spiritual experience is knowing Christ Himself (John 17:3), which each and every person needs. It may involve a deeply felt conversion experience, or it may simply grow from earliest childhood; it may involve emotion, or it may be quiet. But, without that personal attachment to Jesus Christ Himself, on a level far deeper than one's religious preferences, spiritual experience is, at best, a meaningless term. It is not enough to know all the right liturgical steps, rubrics or Ritual Notes. 

Finally, What hinders healthy spiritual experience?

To begin with, among Continuing Anglicans, every time some new church has been formed from an existing church body, although some fellow got to wear a purpler shirt and bigger miter, several lay members have been lost, perhaps to wander off and be devoured by the wolf, or perhaps simply to find some kind of church free of petty, power grabbing Pharisees. The horror stories of shameless sinful behavior by clergymen, without any regard for the needs of people, defy belief. My reaction is twofold: I am glad that the concordat churches appear to have been cleansed of deadly influences, but I am disgusted that certain priests and bishops proved to be such wolves themselves. Infighting and politics, spiritual gunfights and brawls, always produce a depressed and dead feeling even among the most well-meaning, that is the faithful remnants who have suffered such ravenous shepherds. They need to be gathered (קָבַץ) from the places to which they have been scattered (Isaiah 40:11)

Ignorance is another factor, as the Bible says so plainly: 

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children." (Hosea 4:6)

"And wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times, and strength of salvation: the fear of the LORD is his treasure." (Isaiah 33:6)

Clergy who are experts on liturgy, but ignorant of theology and lazy in preaching, do more harm than good. They need to get honest jobs and do something less dangerous. Every priest has been ordained to do more than celebrate the sacraments: Over every priest, at his ordination, the bishop has said: "And be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God, and of his holy Sacraments." The priestly ministry is essentially about two major duties: The word of God and the sacraments. If you are a priest, and you foolishly choose one at the expense of the other, you are failing.

We should encourage learning and make sure that the Bible is studied in our churches. And, the study of the Bible must not be about trying to satisfy curiosity. What the Lord said to His disciples just before His Ascension represents a principle:

"When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, 'Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?' And he said unto them, 'It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.'" (Acts 1:6-8)

Recently, the whole world was laughing at a preacher who attempted to predict that day and hour. The principle here is bigger. Whatever has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God, including His rule in one's own heart (where it all begins) is not worth asking about. 

"Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, 'Lord, and what shall this man do?' Jesus saith unto him, 'If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.'" (John 21:21,22)

Ignorance, of the kind that is deadly, cannot be cured by opening the Bible merely to satisfy speculative curiosity. It is cured by learning the word of God so as to promote faith in Christ, to live by God's general will (i.e., to know His commandments), and to be changed within by hearing. Ignorance is often accompanied by superstitions, legalism, unhealthy scruples, presumption, and many other details that a truly pastoral priest will recognize as a doctor recognizes symptoms. 

The worst thing, of course, is unrepentant willful sin. The answer is simple and should provoke fear: "They which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:21) Of course, if the teaching and example of clergy promote the dangerous general ease felt by those who fall prey to the error of Universalism (that everyone will be saved no matter what), a doctrine concerning which the weight of Scriptural evidence is to the contrary, more will be lost than healthy spiritual experience. Eternal life, the only true and lasting life, could be entirely forfeited. 

Conclusion

Rather than dismiss Dr. Armstrong's articles as a RC problem, let us take lessons to heart for the good of our own house.