tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post2933808120693589703..comments2024-03-24T15:19:06.377-04:00Comments on The Continuum: Hooker on the Incarnation, Salvation and the SacramentsFr. Robert Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-49567843793334205232009-08-08T16:28:59.660-04:002009-08-08T16:28:59.660-04:00Sandra, I immediately looked up Canon Middleton...Sandra, I immediately looked up Canon Middleton's book on Abebooks.com and ordered it. It appears that he has another couple of books that should be equally interesting.<br /><br />The restoration of the Anglican and Christian mind is something in which I am very interested. I believe that unless we find some way of doing so the freedoms which we have so much enjoyed may be absent for the next generation. In fact, I am convinced that there is a connection between both the freedom and the prosperity which the English speaking and Anglican world have enjoyed and our faith. I have noticed that as the faith dies so does the interest in being free.Canon Tallishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05182884929479435751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-86093111365916255922009-08-08T02:05:27.270-04:002009-08-08T02:05:27.270-04:00Canon Tallis, I love your story. The capacity of c...Canon Tallis, I love your story. The capacity of children to understand and appreciate things has been grossly underestimated in recent decades. Everything from watered-down 'family' liturgies to avoiding the hard questions when teaching them. When I was a child it didn't really worry me that I couldn't fully understand everything I heard. I picked out the bits I could cope with and with time gradually got the full picture. If the same things are taught from the pulpit year after year (in different form, but the same things), the faithful will grow in their understanding.<br /><br />On another tack, I don't know how many of you have read Restoring the Anglican Mind by Canon Arthur Middleton of the C of E. I enjoyed it so much I gave it away, which is a pity, because it refers, I think, to a group in the C of E who are concerned to publish the Anglican classics, essentially for the benefit of the poor souls who are still in the C of E. They have already produced a nice little volume of excerpts of Andrewes. Canon Middleton himself is an excellent man and a fine priest. He persists in a belief that the C of E can be restored to its senses, but apart from that I think most folks here would find him on the same page as the rest of us. He's a BCP traditionalist, which is a rare thing in England.Sandra McCollhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15452475999110574881noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-78090176579696171202009-08-08T01:51:31.659-04:002009-08-08T01:51:31.659-04:00But, Father Hart, you should not feel remiss. This...But, Father Hart, you should not feel remiss. This sort of work is best done when you let the Spirit move the heart and the pen. I simply rejoice that they are there and that I can go back and re-read then every couple of months. Indeed they have inspired me to re-acquire books which I loaned out but which were never returned to re-read some of the Anglican spiritual and theological classics I first read as a youth.<br /><br />I would very much commend both the re-reading of your series and that of Father Kirby as well.Canon Tallishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05182884929479435751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-18033585318953120652009-08-08T00:54:28.081-04:002009-08-08T00:54:28.081-04:00BCP Catholic
I wrote several such posts last year...BCP Catholic<br /><br />I wrote several such posts last year, and have felt remiss at having not done so in several months. The essays about classic Anglicanism have a link on the right side of this page.Fr. Robert Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-1525806209801437002009-08-07T15:41:01.940-04:002009-08-07T15:41:01.940-04:00Yes, I'd agree with that. I myself have not h...Yes, I'd agree with that. I myself have not had anything to say, as Hooker has said it all so much better than I ever could, and I have nothing to add. I'm not distressed at the lack of comments -- in fact, a plethora of uninformed comments would be distressing.<br /><br />edpoetreaderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11613032927883843078noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-14278869387697034942009-08-07T15:32:53.307-04:002009-08-07T15:32:53.307-04:00It is a wonderful post and full of truth that all ...It is a wonderful post and full of truth that all Anglicans need to know.<br /><br />I wonder if people read this, like I did, and were so awed by the scholarship, that we agreed with it, but just couldn't see much reason to comment other than agree.<br /><br />I would like to read more posts like this on Hooker. He is an amazing theologian.<br /><br />BCP CatholicAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-57405076577552457722009-08-07T11:15:51.755-04:002009-08-07T11:15:51.755-04:00Canon Tallis,
I have been quiet mostly because I ...Canon Tallis,<br /><br />I have been quiet mostly because I have very little to add which would be constructive. With the exception of a few cultural idiosyncracies toward the end of Book V, I can't think of anything off the top of my head which I find to be objectionable. It's clearly stated and couched in patristics, scripture, and Christology. It manages to be more precise and more careful than any Continental Reformer could ever hope to be. When Anglicanoids (quite literally, those who seem like Anglicans) go loony, they do not do so because they're following Hooker to his logical conclusions, as you might find with a Lutheran or Presbyterian. They do so where they <i>disagree with him</i>. That alone is noteworthy.<br /><br />I've never found Hooker to be especially difficult reading, but then I don't find the Shakespeare difficult, either, who was more or less a contemporary.RSC+https://www.blogger.com/profile/00639369749327986414noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-75875963763576019122009-08-07T09:25:17.638-04:002009-08-07T09:25:17.638-04:00Given the passage of time since Father Hart put up...Given the passage of time since Father Hart put up this post, the failure of those who read this blog on a regular basis to comment seems to be making my point about most of us thinking that the reading and understanding of Hooker's work to be simply "too hard" for the ordinary Anglican. It is as if we were in the process of proving a comment Bishop Gore once made from the pulpit of a Chapel in London that most Anglican clergy like to get their theology from the two penny pamphlets from Westminster Cathedral. <br /><br />I hope that I will be pardoned for dredging up an incident from my youth. The rector was in the process of preparing a fair number of children for confirmation when one of them asked him a "hard" question. I could see almost immediately that it was not one that he hand anticipated coming from such a group and began fumbling for a simple answer to what was a fairly sophisticated 'adult' question. Finally, he gave up and began to give an answer that was taken almost entirely from Hooker whom he quoted frequently in his sermons. When he had finished and was waiting for backwash from the small mob of thirteen year olds, the one who had asked the question said, "that was simple; why didn't you say that in the first place?" And from the nodding of heads you could see that the rest of them agreed with him.<br /><br />Why is it that so many of us are afraid of reading. Yes, Hooker is dense. He wastes few words, but he is not obscure. He make take reading and re-reading to firmly plant his argument in our minds, but for those of us whose job is to know and maintain the Anglican faith, we are not going to find it in someone else's two penny pamphlets.<br /><br />In either the Cloud of Unknowing or Hilton's The Ladder of Perfection, the writer comments that the clergy read books and by means of his sermons, the people read the clergy. If our clergy don't constantly read and re-read the Catholic and Anglican classics, how can they be read by those who may sit in the pews on Sundays but who are the very people who is properly excited by what they hear and experience will do the missionary work we need to rebuild the church we allowed by our inaction to be destroyed by the ignorant.<br /><br />I believe that God is speaking to all of us by means of this blog just as he spoke to Francis and giving us the same message - "Go, rebuild my church which is falling down all around you!" To obey Him we must lift the theological stones and put them back in their places until our people are so filled with the "consentient mind and voice of the fathers" that they and we will shine "like sparks among the stubble." <br /><br />I know that there is something marvelously right about classical prayer book Anglicanism, if only for the reason that Lucifer has gone to such extreme measures to stuff it out. But those of us who have been called into this wonderful path, this via media, know that we can say with faith "Thou also shall light my candle; the Lord my God shall make my darkness to be light." And if we, even we few, will allow God to make our darkness light, how much light will He create from our burning?Canon Tallishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05182884929479435751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-22646236670412153692009-08-06T13:40:47.154-04:002009-08-06T13:40:47.154-04:00Thank you, Fr Hart, for posting this
Doubting Tho...Thank you, Fr Hart, for posting this<br /><br />Doubting ThomasAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-859007281706970202009-08-06T08:50:15.487-04:002009-08-06T08:50:15.487-04:00When a community has a theologian such as Hooker, ...When a community has a theologian such as Hooker, you read and re-read him and thank God that he has given the Church someone to say it so clearly. Unfortunately too many Anglicans fear Hooker as being "too hard," and fail to give him the attention he deserves. Thank God that Father Hart is not one of them.Canon Tallishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05182884929479435751noreply@blogger.com