tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post6821754516374922592..comments2024-03-24T15:19:06.377-04:00Comments on The Continuum: The theology of unityFr. Robert Harthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05892141425033196616noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-44623269820442620582011-11-02T15:13:34.157-04:002011-11-02T15:13:34.157-04:00I also must express appreciation for Aidan's r...I also must express appreciation for Aidan's rant. He touches on a subject in which I have a keen interest, i. e., the sad fact tht the term "Evangelical" has well nigh been evacuated of any tangible meaning. Like Aidan, I abhor the praise bands and choruses and the Rick Warren style worship which has come to be associated with the term. Having suffered though a couple of neo-Anglican events, I wonder what Augustus Poplady or Bishop Ryle would have to say about such froth.<br /><br />Being a regular reader of "New Reformation" magazine and occasionally of blogs associated with its writers, I can tell you that not only are classical Anglicans disassociating themselves from the word "Evangelical," but so are the consistently Reformed. People like R Scott Clark, Carl Trueman and Darryl Hart wish to distance themselves firmly from "seeker sensitive worship" and the squishy theology it promotes.<br /><br />I am happy to be called a conservative/traditional Catholic Evangelical. But Rite II worship with praise choruses is about 180 degrees away.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-82550600603414340302011-11-02T13:41:53.203-04:002011-11-02T13:41:53.203-04:00I used "Evangelical" as a synonym for lo...I used "Evangelical" as a synonym for low churchmanship, since the only low churchmen I know refer to themselves in that way.<br />So when I said that Anglo-Catholics may worship as Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals as evangelical, I really just meant that one subset of Anglicans would not force another subset to slavishly follow their preferred liturgical expression. In other words the ban on incense that was once in place in England to prevent priests from being "Romish" should never happen in a unified continuing Church. If my parish wants a platoon of altar boys obscured by smoke and your parish wants white walls and a priest wearing nothing but a stole, then so be it. As long as the BCP is the unifying element then the Church is big enough to allow the ornate and the austere and everything in between.<br />I'm not sure if we agree or disagree since we may be using terms differently.<br />RC ColaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-91353130724491541902011-11-02T10:12:12.741-04:002011-11-02T10:12:12.741-04:00Aidan,
That was the finest and soundest rant I...Aidan,<br /><br />That was the finest and soundest rant I've read in a long time, and I mean that in the *best* sense of the word.<br /><br />I too came out of Evangelicalism a long time ago. I was overjoyed to discover the Anglican paradigm soundly tethers the free grace of the Gospel and the riches of catholic worship and theology to the life of the Church without recapitulating to every corrosive novelty, Roman or Protestant, after the Middle Ages.<br /><br />Pax,<br />Steven Augustine Badal<br />ACC LaymanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-55406456345183302462011-10-29T21:14:31.614-04:002011-10-29T21:14:31.614-04:00Cont from Part 1 (by Aidan, forgot to sign my name...Cont from Part 1 (by Aidan, forgot to sign my name) <br /><br />(pt 2) Second we must ask What is worship? What does "Anglo-Catholics can worship as ACs and Evangelicals can worship as Evangelicals" mean?<br /><br />By Evangelical are we talking about praise bands, charismatic "prayer warriors," and free-church worship with big screens over the Swedish coffee table up front- and the underlying theology about what sacraments and "ministers" are (or are not) often lurking behind this? (There is a lot of this on ANCA web sites.) If the Anglo-Catholic wing is actually Anglo-Papists using Elizabethan language (The Ordinariate) there is no unity in that either. The theology is different, and that is what we must be unified about. <br /><br />The Continuum Blog writers have done a great job of showing what classical Anglicans believe. The fact that in the past the REC removed much from the American BCP (references to eating the body and blood of Christ, regeneration in Baptismal, priestly absolution, and "by our office and ministry" in ordination) shows that the BCP actually DOES teach a Catholic (NOT Roman) understanding of The Church, the Eucharist, and that the sacraments are Divinely appointed effectual means of grace, not bare symbols. <br /><br />We need to move beyond the old Low / High Church argument. Adding a post-communion prayer from the Missal and doing the Asperges doesn't make you a Romanist. Using the Altar Service Book (a straight, said, BCP Communion) doesn't make you an Evangelical or Presbyterian in decent vesture. I attend both forms of the Prayer Book service: same theology, same sacraments, same reverence, same Lord. Anglican corporate worship and spirituality is rooted in the Liturgy: Eucharist as the prime Sunday service as a minimum, and then the Daily Offices supporting our daily prayer life. The BCP clearly is set up for this. <br /><br />I left Evangelicalism over 20 years ago. Anglicans are not Evangelicals, period. The intent of corporate worship is not the same. The means of grace is not the same. The understanding of ordained ministry isn't the same. Why import things which come from a different theology into Anglicanism?<br /><br />The Evangelical movements first emerged in the 1700's with Pietism and Methodism. They featured revivals and an emphasis on the need for an experiential personal salvation moment while downplaying or vilifying rituals, traditions, and sacraments. The Wesley bothers encourage increased piety and frequent Communion - but many wanted to leave The Church, something the Wesley's warned them not to do. These ideas morphed to the Free Church in England which must bring a smile to the Puritans who always wanted freedom from liturgy, sacraments, and the threefold ministry. <br /><br />From there we end up with Darby and dispensationalism leading to today's Evangelical fixation on The Rapture, and Left Behind. The Evangelical Azusa Street Revivals lead to Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movement, private revelation and freelance exorcists who see deamons behind ever door. I grew up around all of this.<br /><br />On a few ANCA web sites I learned about "soaking prayer" whereby people lay on the floor and "let the Holy Spirit come love on you" while listening to insipid Easy Listening Christian praise music. I've seen liturgical dancers and praise bands with spot-lights and side stages. I'm sorry, but I am not interested in "Ecclesia 's Got Talent" whereby entertainment masquerades as worship performed by people with not enough talent to cut it on any other stage. Please, let all mortal flesh keep silence.<br /><br />The Book of Common Prayer gives us a very clear structure for our spiritual life allowing us to maintain decency and order, predisposing us to reverence. What possible unity can come from verbally declaring "UNITY!" while allowing strange and erroneous ideas about worship. -AidanAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-87930560708031570602011-10-29T21:06:44.585-04:002011-10-29T21:06:44.585-04:00(part1) First, many keep reverting to the Roman mo...(part1) First, many keep reverting to the Roman model for a Continuing Anglican Church. While we could use to consolidate some of the alphabet soup into fewer crock pots this is not essential to the actual life of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.<br /><br />In theory, ANY group which has Apostolic Succession and valid three fold ministry, adheres to the Creeds, the Ecumenical Councils, believes Sacraments are effectual means of grace, etc... can be in communion with each other - regardless if their liturgy (and minor traditions) are Greek, Polish, English, etc. If any Bishop and his dioceses teach or practice heresy, they fail to be in communion with the rest of the Church. This was the problem of ECUSA - the other Bishops would not discipline those they were in communion with who were teaching heresy. <br /><br />We've seen over the last ten years what happens when a continuing Bishop mixes the Roman and Alphabet Soup models by globe trotting around as mini-pope, setting up jurisdictions within jurisdictions and consecrating men to the Bishopric who (literally) wear hats in three different , and often theologically contradictory jurisdictions. This is clearly, not only a bad idea it isn't how the Church is supposed to be run. <br /><br />The early model of the church was all Bishops succeeding the Apostles in communion with each other. This is the essential, regardless of how all of those Bishops administer the daily affairs of their diocese. The Greek and Russian churches have different Bishops and different liturgies, exist in each others back yard in the United States anyhow, and are in Communion with each other. In fact, there are far less things hold Continuing Anglicans from achieving Communion with the Orthodox branches than there is with Rome. <br /><br />As Fr. Vernon Staley expressed it, these are fractures or full on breaks within the Body, not from it. Sometimes bones heal and are stronger because of it. In the case of the English Reformation the break was necessary due to indulgences, the storehouse of merits, false ideas about the Eucharistic sacrifice, and other issues. The Church in England actual sought to restore frequent Communion to the laity in a language they could understand, something that took Rome a whole lot longer to fix. Those skipping to the Ordinariate are pretending there was never a need for the broken bone, or that the Church in England was wrong to have broken it in the first place.<br /><br />Then there is the question of the place of Evangelicals within the unity of the Continuing movement. This is the flip side of the Ordinariate folks, the thread running through Anglican history that wanted to downplay, or rid itself, of liturgy, sacraments, and the essential nature of the three fold ministry in Apostolic Succession. We see this thread in the creation of the REC in the late 1800's, and in the ANCA which has some odd "worship" practices in many places, and women ministers in some places. <br /><br />If we are to have unity we must be clear then about what the Church is and what is her worship and sacraments are supposed to be. (cont in pt2)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-35586671429164115872011-10-27T12:52:29.358-04:002011-10-27T12:52:29.358-04:00I don't think he is being cryptic at all, just...I don't think he is being cryptic at all, just the fact that all these Bishops got together and talked is a sign of unity. The fact that all shared in communion is somewhat monumental, in that a few years ago it would have been hard to get them in a room together. <br /><br />This has been somewhat multifaceted, with two different conferences, attendance at various synods, participation at each others consecrations. However the ball rests in the court of the older and larger continuing churches (I do like that term) for a variety of reasons. This is not to say that smaller jurisdictions will not be welcomed into unity, just to say that the process needs to start where the most splits have occurred, as healing wounds is crucial to the overall process.AFS1970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-64271910445000704952011-10-27T09:38:02.505-04:002011-10-27T09:38:02.505-04:00I take it that the four presiding bishops in the p...I take it that the four presiding bishops in the photo are ready to bury the hatchet for the greater good of Anglicanism. What needs to be worked out are details and canons to ensure that all members have freedom to worship according to the mode of Anglicanism (i.e. Anglo-Catholics can worship as A-Cs, Evangelicals can worship as Evangelicals) yet we have the unity of orthodox theology, the 39 Articles, the Seven Ecumenical Councils, the three ancient creeds, 1928 BCP, etc.<br />Thus once the accord is agreed upon there will not be a bunch of churches under a loose umbrella of "continuning churches" but there will be one Church called the "Continuing Anglican Communion" (or something to that effect). <b>This is pure conjecture.</b><br />It's human nature to want to be part of something larger than oneself. With several tiny continuing churches it is difficult to attract and keep members. Some won't leave the Anglican Communion out of fear, some will go to Rome or Constantinople instead, some will or will no come from protestant denominations. They just want to come to a church that is sane, not suffering from existential crises, and big enough so that when you tell people, 'I belong to X-Church,' they don't say, "Wha~? Huh?"<br />I have no idea what the number of faithful would be in a truly unified Continuing Anglican Communion but perhaps it would be enough that the Archbishop of Canterbury would bring the bishops into discussion the way the Pope has brought the SSPX in for discussion. Looks like the SSPX is going to help Rome shed the double-knit polyester and tambourines. Perhaps a Continuing Anglican Communion can help the CofE and the other provinces to shake off women priests and other obscenities.<br />No matter, God bless the bishops for showing the natural maturity and for accepting the supernatural grace to grant Continuing Anglicans genuine unity. Although not practicing in a continuing church, I am more than sympathetic (quite a fan, really) and I will pray for a positive outcome. <br /><br />RC ColaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18902745.post-56852689445723824822011-10-26T17:04:58.863-04:002011-10-26T17:04:58.863-04:00Okay, you have to spill the beans Fr. Hart. You&#...Okay, you have to spill the beans Fr. Hart. You're being way too cryptic.Fr. Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16869676716891199486noreply@blogger.com