Sydney "Anglicanism" - the other innovation

Probably, most of our readers are aware of an innovation that had arisen in the Diocese of Sydney before the end of the last century. That innovation is called "Lay Administration," which means Lay Celebration of the Eucharist. It has never seemed necessary from my home in America to spend much time and effort combating the Sydney innovation, because until recently it has been unthinkable that it might spread (perhaps our two Australian bloggers, Sandra McColl and Fr.Kirby, have run into the problem directly). After all, in the official Anglican Communion with the heresy of women's "ordination," several women have come to feel empowered-finally!-having broken through the stained-glass ceiling; and, no doubt, they'll be damned if they are going to share the "power" with just anybody.

However, some of the Sydney "Anglicans" have begun showing up in other spots, including America. Furthermore, a year after GAFCON and its American child (having appropriated a name formerly taken), the Anglican Church in North America, the Sydney innovation may come to be tolerated, helping to make it seem mainstream, conservative or orthodox compared to the Same-Sex heresies. For, sadly, that is how the re-appraisers known as "Reasserters" think: They see error as a matter of priorities that they can number in terms of their importance, rather than as symptoms of revolt against God by rejection of His word as understood according to the Universal Consensus of Antiquity.

The Reapparaisers have no concept of Antiquity, and would have to look up the term "Universal Consensus." They have a Bible, and they have modern teachers through whom they see as much of the English Reformers as those modern teachers care to let them see. Their spiritual and doctrinal epistemology jumps from the close of the first century (just the Bible), to the 16th century with a very brief stay, lest they gather more than they want, directly to the modern era. For absolute authority they have a new version of Sola Scriptura, and it is not the kind first mentioned by Thomas Aquinas, or trumpeted by 16th century Reformers. The new Sola Scriptura is an absolute sola, in the sense of something destitute. In that sense, the Reappraisers finally have no Bible, at least not the Bible recognized by the Church.

Ultimately, the Bible to them must be an original or autographa, an actual manuscript produced by the writers. That is because Scriptura Destitute cannot, finally, trust even so much as the scribes who copied it, inasmuch as discovery of a better manuscript has, theoretically, the power to overthrow the Bible as we know it. If you doubt this, consider that Wayne Grudem actually wrote that if a book were found, and verified to be the work of an Apostle from the First Century, we would have to recognize it as Scripture (apparently, without regard to its content).1 The logic of this must lead, as well, to the opposite conclusion: If a book could be shown not to be the work of an Apostle (Grudem's own dubious standard, inasmuch as no one knows who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews) it would have to be scratched from the Canon. An obvious problem with Grudem's view is that it places recognition of Scripture in the hands of modern day scientists and their methodologies, not in our trust that the Church has recognized the Master's voice as guided by the Holy Spirit with Universal Consensus in Antiquity (John 16:13, I Cor. 2:16).

Jensen vs. the Church

How does this relate to the Sydney innovation? In every way. To be fair, we may note that Archbishop Peter Jensen wrote a defense of his position favoring Lay Administration and posted in online. 2 In some ways it presents some good ideas that do not need to be disputed, but they always end with a twist that disregards the Reason of Anglican doctrine. At best, his good ideas are half-truths. That is not to accuse him of dishonesty, inasmuch as I cannot doubt that he really believes he is teaching the truth of God's word. The problem is not the direction he seems to be going, but rather, that he does not go far enough in that direction. Nor does he spend enough time paying attention along the way. In other words, he means to go in the same direction that the English Reformers traveled, towards the true meaning of Christian doctrine and practice, the truly Catholic way. However, he does not spend enough time with those English Reformers; he does not hear all that they say, and so he actually contradicts the very Formularies of Anglicanism that he professes to believe.

So, in the end he summarizes his position "in a box," with five points. The first is "1 Scripture is silent on the question as who [sic] may administer the Lord’s Supper."

Once again, this presents the difference between Sola Scriptura, and Scriptura Destitute.

We all know Article VI, which opens, "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." The Article lists the Scriptures with the words, "the Canonical Books." Here we run into the genuine Anglican doctrine, because only the Church could have determined the Canon. Anyone who even so much as uses the expression "the Canon of Scripture" has already acknowledged what we call, in Hooker's terms, the Church with her authority, in which both Right Reason and Tradition are, actually, one.3 Here we see that by having a Canon of Scripture, rather than merely a Recommended Reading List, we cannot escape the Vincentian Canon: Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est ("That which has been believed always, everywhere and by all"). In determinig doctrine, the teaching of the Church from earliest times and the Bible are interdependent. To understand the Biblical doctrine on Eucharistic Celebration, we must see the silence of Scripture on this one point as answered by the Universal Consensus of the community in which the Bible was written, handed down, and its various books recognized.

Archbishop Jensen has named Cranmer, Hooker and others, and quoted from the Articles, to try to strengthen his case, which he sets forth clearly:

"It is commonly suggested that the development of lay administration of the Holy Communion is contrary to the very being of Anglicanism. Certainly it would have to be agreed that non-priestly administration would be quite contrary to some expressions of Anglicanism. But the assertion that it is contrary to the ethos of the Anglican Church really speaks for one side of the Church only. It suggests that one particular view of priesthood and of communion, and one only, is of the essence of the Eucharistic theology. Without going into the question of whether there is only one valid opinion, it is empirically true that at least two views have been evident in the Church for a very long time. According to the thinking of one such view, lay administration is impossible. Accordingly to the other view it is possible, although opinions differ as to whether it is advisable."

Whether or not what the Ordinal presents within "the ethos of the Anglican Church really speaks for one side of the Church only," must be weighed by the Rites of Ordination that have been a part of the Church of England and Anglicanism since 1550, with the clarifications of the later editions. 4 So, does he mean that only "one side" believes the Preface to the Ordinal?

"It is evident unto all men diligently reading holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles' time there have been these Orders of Ministers in Christ's Church; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. Which Offices were evermore had in such reverend Estimation, that no man might presume to execute any of them, except he were first called, tried, examined, and known to have such qualities as are requisite for the same; and also by publick Prayer, with Imposition of Hands, were approved and admitted thereunto by lawful Authority. And therefore, to the intent that these Orders may be continued, and reverently used and esteemed in the Church of England, no man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon, in the Church of England, or suffered to execute any of the said Functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according to the Form hereafter following, or hath had Episcopal Consecration, or Ordination."

To "execute" the office of priest certainly includes Eucharistic celebration. But, to get around "which Offices were evermore had in such reverend Estimation, that no man might presume to execute any of them, except..." etc., Jensen makes this argument:

"3 The priestly role is above all that of pastor of the congregation and cannot be handed over to someone else.

"4 Delegation of the various elements of the role is possible, however, and given developments in ecclesiology, desirable.

"5 The retention of administration of the Lord’s Supper as the only element which cannot be delegated detaches word from sacrament and confuses the congregation about the nature of the sacrament and the priestly role."

Earlier, he had quoted a report by the Australian House of Bishops called Eucharistic Presidency.

"As far as the English Reformation was concerned, the Report says: ‘we find the same heavy stress on the Ministry of the Word in relation to ordination, in line with the continental reformers. In the pre-Reformation Sarum rite, the candidate for priesthood was handed the chalice and/or paten as symbols of priestly office with the words, 'Receive the power to offer sacrifice to God', whereas in the 1552 English Ordinal, the Bible alone is given, accompanied by the words, 'Take thou authority to preach the Word of God, and to minister the holy sacraments in the congregation.’ (para 4.42)"

On which he builds his case further:

"That is to say the two dominical sacraments depend for their life upon the explicit word of Christ and upon the fact that they visibly proclaim the gospel. In particular, the Lord’s Supper focuses us on the death of Christ with the assurance of God’s favour towards us. It is a 'Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ’s death' (Article 28).

"There is an indissoluble connection, therefore, between the word of God and the sacraments indicated by the necessity of the sermon in the service of Holy Communion. It is not 'Anglican' to equate word and sacrament. A non-preaching communion service is a contradiction in terms, where the taking of bread and wine is removed from the context of the preaching of God’s word. It is the word of God which warrants the sacrament and explains it. The communal eating of bread and wine is the outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace, namely the grace of God towards us in Christ and at work in our lives. Despite the current emphases of Eucharistic theology, the emphasis of the Book of Common Prayer (including the Catechism thereof) dwells on the Lord’s Supper as spiritual union with Christ (the refreshment of our souls by the bread and blood of Christ) and the faithful remembrance of what Christ has done on our behalf. What is required of those who come to the Lord’s Supper is that they 'examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins; steadfastly purposing to lead a new life; have a lively faith in God’s mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of his death; and be in charity with all men' (Catechism of the Book of Common Prayer). Not surprisingly, the ordination service published with the Book of Common Prayer emphasises the priestly role of preaching and living the word of God rather than the administration of the sacraments"

The obvious, glaring problem with his reasoning is that he ignores what the bishop says in even the earliest Ordinal, when Ordering a man to the priesthood:

"Receive the holy goste, whose synnes thou doest forgeve, they are forgeven: and whose sinnes thou doest retaine, thei are retained: and be thou a faithful despensor of the word of god, and of his holy Sacramentes. In the name of the father, and of the sonne, and of the holy gost. Amen... Take thou aucthoritie to preache the word of god, and to minister the holy Sacramentes in thys congregacion[, where thou shalt be so appointed]."

In this earliest Ordinal it is sacramental ministry that identifies the specific Order of "priest" with the words of Scripture, "whose synnes thou doest forgeve, they are forgeven: and whose sinnes thou doest retaine, thei are retained."5

The later editions say the same thing, adding only these words to clarify, for those untrained in the use of Scripture, the specific Order , "... for the Office and Work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee by the Imposition of our hands." The words, "be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God, and of his holy Sacraments," and "Take thou Authority to preach the Word of God, and to minister the holy Sacraments in the Congregation, where thou shalt be lawfully appointed thereunto," suffer at the hands of extremists. Some Anglo-Catholic extremists (yes, Virginia, there are some Anglo-Catholic extremists) seem only to hear the mention of sacraments, and the Sydney "Anglicans" seem only to notice the part about preaching. But, the priest is a minister of both.

As has been stated on The Continuum, more than once, efforts by some Anglo-Catholics (following an alleged Roman Catholic lead) to reduce the priestly office to its sacramental role, and thereby to under-emphasize the pastoral and teaching responsibilities and gifts inherent in that Order, is quite wrong. This I have stated in clear terms more than once, summarizing my arguments with the words of E.J. Bicknell (from a footnote):

"As we have said, the English word priest by derivation simply means 'presbyter'. But it has acquired the meaning of 'sacerdos'. The Christian presbyter in virtue of his office is a 'priest'. Priesthood is one of his functions."6

However, as we must turn neither to the right hand nor to the left, but walk within a via media that avoids extremes, and follows the advice of St. John Chrysostom not to accidentally endorse one error by refuting the opposite error,7 we must refute Jensen's view. Archbishop Jensen argues that the laity may preach, and that, of necessity, along with preaching is Eucharistic Celebration; if they may do one thay may do the other. 8 We may explore the argument itself presently, but first we must note that he tries to pin Sydney's new and novel idea on Cranmer. What he fails to see is that we cannot interpret the English Reformers accurately by drawing our own conclusions from their writings, no matter how intact our logic, unless we face the facts of what polity they insisted on, both by the full body of their teachings and by Canon Law.

In the words of Richard Hooker:

“Is it a small office to despise the Church of God? ‘My son, keep thy father’s commandment,’ saith Solomon, ‘and forget not thy mother’s instruction: Bind them both always about thine heart.’ It doth not stand with the duty we owe to our heavenly Father, that to the ordinances of our mother the Church we should show ourselves disobedient. Let us not say we keep the commandments of the one, when we break the law of the other: for unless we observe both we obey neither.” (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, 3.IX.3)

Hooker upholds not only the teaching of the Church, but also, what he calls “her ecclesiastical authority,” not to be redundant, but to extend the meaning to include all aspects of polity.

It may be that some sort of Lay Preaching is permissible under certain conditions, and certainly no one should silence a member of the laity who can, by writing and teaching, edify and instruct us in the ways of holiness and in theology, or who may be a very effective evangelist. Indeed, and without any dispute, Deacons may preach from the pulpit if licensed by the Bishop. But, the Anglican Ordinal in the Ordering of Priests, lays specific and particular emphasis on the authority, responsibility and the gift through Ordination to be a minister of God's word in a new way that he had not been heretofore as a Deacon, and does so in a line that includes as well his sacramental role. Surely this teaches us something of substance. The priest has a duty and a charism to be that minister of Word and Sacrament, and this answers the subject Jensen raises about the connection between preaching and celebrating the Eucharist. Furthermore, it answers it according to the only practice ever permitted in the Church, both before and after the English Reformation.

Archbishop Jensen and the Sydney "Anglicans" quite rightly reject women's "ordination." But, using the same methodology of Scriptura Destitute, rejecting both the particular teaching of Anglicanism, and how that teaching is one of fidelity to Scripture via Universal Consensus and Antiquity, they promote an innovation every bit as rebellious and heretical.

____________________________

1. Grudem, Wayne: Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, Zondervan Publishers, 1995 Van Nuys.
2. It is entitled Theological reflection on lay administration.
3. “Be it in matter of the one kind or of the other, what Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after this the Church succeedeth that which the Church by her ecclesiastical authority shall probably think and define to be true or good, must in congruity of reason overrule all other inferior judgments whatsoever.” (Richard Hooker, The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book 5.VIII.2)
4. That is, clarification of what the Rites always had meant.
5. From an earlier Latin Ordinal translated by Cranmer, the first English Ordinal used verses of Scripture to identify respectively the three Orders.
6. E.J.Bicknell, A Theological Introduction to The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. See Pastoral Priesthood, and The Elders that Rule Well.
7. St. John Chrysostom: Six Little Books on the Priesthood.
8. What does he make, then, of Cranmer's rubric from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer? "When the holy Communion is celebrate on the workeday, or in private howses: Then may be omitted, the Gloria in excelsis, the Crede, the Homily, and the exhortacion, beginning..."

Deaconesses

Michael sent this as a comment on the San Joaquin thread, but I decided not to publish it as such. I think it is worthy of a separate thread. I know for a fact that the Anglican Catholic Church has lay deaconesses, but know nothing of the ministry as such. Perhaps, as a starter, someone there could brief us on just how that ministry is perceived and practiced. At the same time, it would be interesting to know if the ACC, or any of the other continuing jurisdictions, provide for permanent deacons.

I believe that it's time for the traditional Anglican movement to undertake a comprehensive historical and theological study on the diaconate, the order of deaconesses, and the role of laity in the liturgy.

The goal of such a study should be to develop a policy on the ministry of women that is at once wholely orthodox and catholic, and also designed to utilize the gifts and callings of women in the fullest and most effective way within that orthodox context.

It should seek to develop a theology of diaconal service, explain the differences between deacons and deaconesses, and also outline various proposals for how deaconesses can minister within the Anglican context. The work of other orders for women (both traditional monastic orders and contemporary "secular" orders) should also be considered.

The end result of this should be to preserve, completely and without fault, the orthodox character of the church, but also to provide maximum support, without reservation, to those women called by God to various ministries within the church. This should include programs for theological education and credentialing, with the understanding that although ordination to Holy Orders is a unique type of vocation that is male in character, the Church badly needs the vocations of women.

A Neglected Opportunity

From a hotel in Flagstaff, AZ. I have access to the archives of Touchstone magazine. After the news from Rome last month, it occcurs to me to provide some background. Therefore, I take you to June 2002 and one of my articles on an even earlier document.


A Neglected Opportunity

Robert Hart on the Criticisms of Dominus Iesus

In the Fall of 2000, the document Dominus Iesus: On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church was put out by the Vatican to make it clear that sound doctrine is not superseded by the passing of time and that eternal verities are not subject to any essential change simply because mankind, including the Church, experiences the increase of knowledge. Among the eternal verities, it included, much to the indignation of some other Christians and the press, the claims of the Roman Catholic Church.

I am an Anglican priest, not a Roman Catholic, and when I first read the news reports, I was sure that the Vatican had gone much too far. I began to exchange words to that effect with my Roman Catholic brother, until I read the declaration for myself. Then I said, in his language, mea maxima culpa, which in my language means, “by my own most grievous fault.” For what I saw in it was simply what the Holy Father intended, as America Press would later report: “The cardinal [Ratzinger], responding to criticism . . . said it was written because Pope John Paul II ‘wanted to offer the world a great and solemn recognition of Jesus Christ as Lord at the culminating moment of the Holy Year.’”

The primary issue in the document is the unchanging universality of the gospel. It boldly defends the mission of the Church, and encourages us with a reminder that that mission remains exactly what the Lord Jesus commanded, that his gospel be presented to all peoples as the revelation of God’s salvation for all nations on the earth. At a time when such a defense is sorely needed, Dominus Iesus heartily proclaims what all Christians should hold dear, that the gospel is unequaled by anything in the variety of mankind’s religious genius.

Essentials Maintained
With profound sensitivity, both to non-Christian religions and other Christians who are, like myself, not in communion with Rome, the Vatican maintained the essentials of the faith shared by Christians the world over. Appealing to Scripture from beginning to end in a way reminiscent of the patristic method, the Roman see maintained the unique and universal saving revelation of God in Christ, as the full title of the declaration suggests.

This Vatican document spoke of the Church. This it had to do as part of its thorough discussion of salvation, in which discussion the Church must figure as the instrument of God’s kingdom on earth. The Church does not merely proclaim redemption, it offers redemption, having in its life the full gift of salvation in Christ, both by his Word and by the sacraments.

The document said nothing new, and following the pattern of The Catechism of the Catholic Church, maintained the Magisterium’s teaching on the Petrine See in a way most sensitive to those who do not agree, but are, nonetheless, baptized into Christ and share the same faith of the Creed and the same Scriptures. It acknowledged their place in Christ and their ministry of spreading his salvation, even if they are “not in perfect communion” with the See of Rome.
Read carefully, it does not “unchurch” baptized and faithful Christians, though it never wavers in its adherence to the belief that the fullness of the Church “subsists in the Catholic Church.”

“Fullness” does not mean that the Church subsists exclusively in the Catholic Church, but speaks of the whole deposit of truth and of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that is entrusted to her.
Among these gifts of the Spirit are the sacraments. The truth is the teaching that has been handed down from Christ and his apostles through all of the subsequent ages, and that is guarded by the successor of St. Peter, namely, the bishop of Rome. This was the belief of the Catholic Church long before Dominus Iesus was written.

Alleged Offense
Faithful to its own beliefs, the Vatican expressed the different degrees of closeness to the Catholic Church held by the other Christian Churches. In so doing, it created the one and only section used as a “pull quote” by the press. The alleged offense was in its description of the Catholic Church and its treatment of the rest of the Christian world as being either “particular Churches” or not Churches at all but “ecclesial communities.”

The offending passage began with the claim that “there exists a single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him.” It then described, in a less controversial passage, “the Churches which, while not existing in perfect communion with the Catholic Church, remain united to her by means of the closest bonds, that is, by apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist.”

These it called “true particular Churches” and said that in them “the Church of Christ is present and operative . . . even though they lack full communion with the Catholic Church, since they do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the Primacy, which, according to the will of God, the Bishop of Rome objectively has and exercises over the entire Church.”

Dominus Iesus then discussed those “ecclesial communities” that “have not preserved the valid Episcopate and the genuine and integral substance of the Eucharistic mystery.” These, it said, “are not Churches in the proper sense; however, those who are baptized in these communities are, by Baptism, incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church.”

These words received all the attention, but it would have been only fair to give equal attention to these words that followed:

Therefore, these separated Churches and communities as such, though we believe they suffer from defects, have by no means been deprived of significance and importance in the mystery of salvation. For the spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Catholic Church.

But such attention was not given by the press.

The hue and cry that followed drowned out the real message of the declaration. In fact, one would think that the whole doctrine of papal primacy had been invented in and for this very document, meant by the Vatican to set back ecumenical progress by a hundred years.
Clearly, throughout Dominus Iesus, the Roman See has taken care to express a degree of solidarity with all Christians, but not in such a manner as to compromise its own doctrine. But, to be considered “proper” or not “proper” does not carry within it a judgment on the reality of salvation in Christ or the genuine faith of those Churches. It speaks instead of the conviction that, in various degrees, they lack the “fullness” God intended.

Yet, this charitable restatement of Roman doctrine was treated as a shocking bit of incivility. Most astonishing of all was the reaction of the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. George Carey, who immediately expressed his offense at being told that the Anglican Communion was not a “proper” Church, despite the fact that the Anglicans were never mentioned by name.

Two Ironies
“The idea that Anglican and other churches are not ‘proper churches’ seems to question the considerable ecumenical gains we have made,” said Archbishop Carey. There are two ironies here.

The first is in whom Carey (speaking for many other religious leaders) blamed for the division. Beginning in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a desire to pursue ecumenical relations with Rome was increasingly a priority of the Anglican Communion. Relations continued along a road of significant progress, reaching what would prove to be their summit in the 1960s and early 1970s, during the time of Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey. But the unity sought for was not to be achieved.

The failure was principally caused by a rebellion against Church Tradition in the 1970s, namely, the decision of Anglican bodies, including the Episcopal Church, to admit women to the priesthood. This spread to other churches of the Anglican Communion until England began to “ordain” women in 1992. This was done with the active support of Dr. Carey, though he knew that the innovation would be the death knell of hopes for unity with the Church of Rome, and with the Orthodox Church as well.

Now there are female Anglican clergy whose ordination never can be seen as sacramentally valid, not only by Rome and Orthodoxy, but by traditional Anglicans as well. What a very unecumenical development indeed, not only breaking off useful discussions with the Catholic and Orthodox churches, but sharply dividing the Anglican Communion itself. It is one of the reasons why I am a priest in the Continuing Anglican movement, separated from the Episcopal Church in which I was raised, and therefore from Canterbury, too.

Add to this the diversity of moral teaching that has come to be associated with the once good Anglican name, against which the archbishop has given no strong defense, and his statement must be turned on himself. It all does great harm to “the considerable ecumenical gains we have made.” For the Vatican to restate its long-held doctrine on the Primacy is by no means a significant obstacle to ecumenical progress. And how could it compare to the unfaithfulness the archbishop has supported?

Discussions between Rome and the Anglican Communion have become a mere formality, without real purpose, due to the novelty of women’s “ordination” in 1976. Time has seen the situation worsen, and all by acquiescence to the initiative of apostasy in the Anglican Communion, not by Roman intransigence. What, then, is the basis of the English archbishop’s complaint?

Various Protestant leaders jumped onto the bandwagon with Dr. Carey, denouncing the bad manners of the pope, and especially of Cardinal Ratzinger. In fact, so have significant leaders within the Roman Catholic Church. What have they all missed? What, in this document, have they ignored? This is where we find the second irony: Dominus Iesus is a document that deserves to be seen in exactly the opposite way to the reputation it has been given. It is, in fact, a very ecumenical document.

Two Kinds of Ecumenism
Of course, we must bear in mind the distinction between two kinds of ecumenism. We have become perhaps too used to a sloppy kind, the kind in which anything of substance, about which people may disagree, is simply avoided. Serious thought is extinguished, and the lesson is learned that theology is a bad word, something to be avoided at all costs. Is it any wonder that from such ecumenism as this only laziness, and eventually immorality, can grow?

The other kind of ecumenism is the kind that takes seriously the need to hold dear the truth for which we are willing to die, and for charity’s sake to find common ground as Christians. Theology and morals are not allowed to slide into the abyss. Where we can agree, we do so in good conscience, and where we cannot agree, we disagree with charity. Our common purpose is to serve our Lord, and as much as we can honestly do so, to serve him together. And here we find that there is much common ground.

The document Dominus Iesus serves, by its main emphasis on “the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church,” this very end. It serves it not only as between different respective Churches and Rome, but also among all Christians in a more general sense. It fits the second model of ecumenism, the mature and responsible kind, by establishing common ground on matters of major importance without the pretense of ignoring essential differences. This is simple honesty.

The body of Dominus Iesus is a powerful and eloquent statement of the Christian faith, carefully worded and defended by a consistent appeal to the authority of the Bible. If read fully, it gives all Christians an expression of their common ground, not only with Catholics who obey the see of Peter, but also with each other in the face of a world growing ever more hostile to the very notion of Christianity as a missionary religion.

It gives us a strong word of encouragement to resist the demand—heard as loudly from many church leaders as from the secular world—that we drop our exclusive and universal claim of salvation in Christ, and that we both halt and condemn our own mission to the nations. It presents a needed apologetic at a time when rather vocal church leaders have decided that we have no right to convert people to Christ, and favor political correctness and multiculturalism over faithfulness to Christ and his Great Commission that we make disciples.

By appealing to Scripture, Dominus Iesus gives to all Christians, certainly including the Protestant Evangelicals, reason to study its contents for their own edification. It refers to the scriptural teaching as being “without error.” Evangelicals and fundamentalists can rejoice over the faith expressed in the truth taught by the Scripture, especially on the essential matters of faith in Christ. The document speaks simply and plainly of the inspiration of Scripture by saying that these books “have God as their author.”

On one of my weekly radio broadcasts I read a large portion of the document. Many of the listeners to the station were Evangelicals, quite appreciative of the document’s emphasis on the statement of St. Peter: “Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is no other name given under heaven among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).” Apparently the disappointment of the morning for some people was that this powerful affirmation of Bible truth had come from the Vatican.

Also, it is of no small consequence that the document quotes the Nicene/Constantinopolitan Creed without the controversial filioque. (The filioque is the addition of “and the Son” to “proceedeth from the Father” in the article on the Holy Spirit.) It has never been acceptable to the Orthodox Church, and its use in the West has caused contention for centuries. This was a clear gesture of respect and conciliation intended for the Orthodox.

Neglected Opportunity
Dominus Iesus received undeserved bad press. Treating all Christians, and indeed all people, in accord with their inherent dignity—a dignity that requires that one be honest when one thinks others are in error—it has, nonetheless, been characterized as unecumenical, triumphalistic, and insensitive. This is a very great shame. At the very least, it ought to be studied for its profound defense of the gospel and the mission of the Church.

Dominus Iesus has been a very neglected opportunity for all Christians to forge stronger ties with each other and to study the meaning of our shared mission to the nations as believers in the same Christ.

From the archives

In light of current discussions, or at least recent discussions, I believe it would be useful to refer to a much earlier posting by Fr. Kirby. The sanity and reason of this piece demonstrates that among the ACC there are voices far more ready to seek reconciliation than may be seen in some of the comments of late. In this post, our brother has put forth a genuinely Catholic point of view seasoned with the classic Anglican temperment that makes room for right reason. Fr. Kirby's post is a far superior kind of thinking to the rigid apparent Donatism of certain others who, based on a view that is fully debatable and dubious, presume to lay down a claim to jurisdiction as if that alone settles everything. Such a claim presumes trust, even when it has not been earned; it presumes agreement of fact, and therefore willful sin, without any evidentiary basis.

The balance must exist between holding firm to principles and compassion. Furthermore, charity becomes an empty word if we are unwilling to hear each other out, and consider another point of view. Unity, without truth, is evil; this is why God scattered the people at the Tower of Babel. The unity of Christians is based on truth, and is accomplished only as a result of the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost; and we must keep this unity in the bond of peace.

I refer also to an even earlier post- of sorts, older than the whole internet. It is a quotation from a post, a letter, by Saint Paul the Apostle:

"...by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. "

Galatians 5:13-15

I Bid Your Prayers

Next Saturday I shall be in London for the annual synod of the Anglican Catholic Church's Diocese of the United Kingdom, before taking a few days to catch up with old friends in Kent and Hampshire.

I shall be meeting with our episcopal visitor, the Rt Revd Rommie M. Starks, and with the diocesan board of ministry, to discuss the future of my ministry in the ACC. At the heart of our talks will be my petition to be made a postulant for Holy Orders and the eventual establishment of an ACC mission in Nicosia.

I ask you prayers for my safe travel and for all of us as we seek to know and to do God's will.

Albion Land

Women's Ordination, an Eastern Orthodox View

Frederica Mathewes-Green, a former Episcopalian, now Orthodox priest's wife, and an unusually gifted and thoughtful writer, posted the following. Check it out.

http://www.frederica.com/writings/womens-ordination.html

An Anatomy of Error V

With the holidays behind us, it is time to continue looking at the 2003 series An Atomy of Error, published that year in New Directions. The fifth part of that series dealt with the issue best summarized in this little excerpt:

The maleness of the incarnation for the modern liberal Christian and the post-Christian feminist is sufficiently remarkable to need explanation or mitigation. For the Fathers of the Church, in the culture of late antiquity, it needed no explanation. It was ‘natural’ and inevitable, hence the ‘silence’.

We recommend it, and invite comments for discussion on The Continuum.

Will the Continuum Survive?

I draw your attention to the very blunt and less-than-encouraging piece of this title written by Death Bredon over at The Patristic Anglican

An Anatomy of Error IV

Continuing as promised, I recommend to our readers the April 2003 portion of the Anatomy of error series that ran in New Directions. here is an excerpt:

There are, of course, enormous problems about how these biblical insights are to be applied and lived out in modern post-Enlightenment society. But there ought not, in our view, to be any dispute about the fact that they are incompatible with – indeed opposed to – the doctrinaire egalitarianism which is often espoused by the supporters of women priests. That egalitarianism is both arrogant and heavy-handed – arrogant because it fails to take account of the simple fact that all previously recorded societies have been patriarchal, and that they have accorded differential roles to women and men; heavy-handed because it lacks all subtlety and nuance in response to the human condition, indiscriminately condemning as ‘sexist’ or sinful whole swathes of activity from fairy stories to pornography.

Women and the Ministry: A Document (IV)

The following is the first Orthodox document to be included in the series. It is published with the kind permission of its author, Fr Shnork Souin, pastor of St Mary Armenian Apostolic Church in Livingston, New Jersey.

It is conceived as a "discussion as to what the Orthodox view of ministry and priesthood is in view of her Tradition vis a vis the 'Protestant and Western' ecclesiology that 'controls and directs' the World Council of Churches and modern Christendom."

Read it here

Women and the Ministry: A Document (III)

The following, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, is the third document in the series on Women and the Ministry.

This was an Apostolic Letter to the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II, setting out why the church reserves priestly ordination to men alone.

An Anatomy of Error III

In the March 2003 issue, New Directions continued the series that I have been recommending, and to which I have provided the first two links. Again, I offer an excerpt:

It is a commonplace of the debate about women’s ordination that Evangelical and Catholic opponents are coming from different corners. The Catholics, it is said, major on the priest as icon of Christ; the Evangelicals on the Pauline doctrine of Headship. This distinction – the darling of those Liberals whose aspiration is to divide and rule – is expressed in the wording of the two Schedules to the 1993 Measure.

But is it the case that the Catholics and Evangelicals are using different, perhaps incompatible, arguments? It has never seemed so to us. Evangelicals, of course, have often majored on issues of authority in the Church: what they delight to call ‘leadership’. Catholics have been wary of such language as dangerously unscriptural – and any Cruden, they tell you, will establish that! So what is the argument from ‘headship’; and what is the primary meaning of kephale in the relevant texts?

Again, here is the link to the whole article.

An Anatomy of Error II

Last week I provided a link to the first installment of An Anatomy of Error from New Directions, published in 2003. This week I present the second, a gloves off bit of theological apologetics. Here is an excerpt:

But the ‘problem’ of Jesus need not be framed in radical feminist terms; it is, in fact, endemic in the whole movement. Since it is axiomatic for supporters of women’s ordination that a male priest cannot adequately represent women, the question naturally and inevitably arises: how can a male incarnation?

Read the whole thing, and feel free to comment here on The Continuum.

The Anatomy of an Error

Forward in faith/UK has been publishing New Directions for several years. The magazine is mostly the work of Anglo-Catholics in England, but its relevance extends beyond that country. I have written for the magazine in the past, and so have friends of mine such as William Tighe, David Mills and Patrick Henry Reardon. In 2003 the magazine ran a series about the subject of women in Holy Orders called The Anatomy of an Error. I recommend it as a good place to begin discussions here at this blog. From the first article in the series, here is an excerpt:

The House of Bishops of the Church of England turned to the consideration of Scripture and the Tradition (how adequately readers will judge for themselves) after they had considered the details of actual legislation...The appeal to Galatians 3.28 invariably takes the passage out of its context in the Pauline writings, out of its historical context in both first-century paganism and Judaism, and out of the process whereby ‘the Christian community has reflected on it and interpreted it through history’. It requires the passage to be read in conflict with other Pauline passages; it requires us to suppose that Paul stood in judgement on Jesus himself, who had appointed no women as members of the Twelve; and it foists upon Paul notions of sexual equality unheard of before the European enlightenment of the eighteenth century.

Read it all here.

Women and the Ministry: A Document (II)

Those of you who read the first post in this series may have asked yourselves why it is not rather entitled Women and the Priesthood. The answer is quite simple -- the priesthood is only one narrowly focused form of ministry. It is so firstly within the context of Holy Orders, which also includes the diaconate and the episcopate, and secondly in the broader ministry of the laos, or the people of God.

The priesthood can only be properly understood in the context of the ministry of all believers, and that within the paradigm of the Church as the mystical body of Christ, who is its head, and its many parts, or members: the faithful.

The second document we will publish in this series is Mulieris Dignitatem, an Apostolic Letter issued by Pope John Paul II on August 15, 1988.In it, the pope speaks of the full measure of what women can and must be doing in the life of the Church.

The letter begins:

THE DIGNITY AND THE VOCATION OF WOMEN - a subject of constant human and Christian reflection - have gained exceptional prominence in recent years. This can be seen, for example, in the statements of the Church's Magisterium present in various documents of the Second Vatican Council, which declares in its Closing Message: "The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at his moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women imbued with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling". This Message sums up what had already been expressed in the Council's teaching, specifically in the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes and in the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity Apostolicam Actuositatem.

Women and the Ministry: A Document (I)

A great deal of heat has been generated on The Continuum this week over the question of women and the priesthood. Concretely, the continuing churches were attacked for their "retrogade" stance on the question, and we were asked to state the grounds upon which we base our rejection of the ordination of women to Holy Orders.

That is a more than reasonable request, and one that over the course of a number of posts we shall fulfil.

I need to begin by stating that the position of the continuing churches on the role of women in the ministry is not one that we formulated, but one that we inherited from the universal Church -- founded in Holy Scripture and witnessed to by 2,000 years of Holy Tradition. This, indeed, is one of the reasons we adopted the term "continuing church" to describe ourselves: our purpose was to remain true to the faith as we had received it and not to attempt, as others were, to do something we believe we are not entitled to do.

As a preliminary, I shall post some key documents from the Roman Catholic Church, which set forth its position on the matter. With the Orthodox world being more disparate in terms of ultimate authority, the task is a bit more complicated. But I also intend to post documents from that tradition, once I am satisfied that they are more or less universally accepted within it.

We will then look at specifically Anglican sources of doctrine, all of which have grown out of this broader catholic perspective, though some -- naturally from our point of view -- have distorted that perspective.

The first document is the Declaration on the Question of Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood, issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on October 15, 1976 at the instruction of Pope Paul VI.

Pope John Paul II, writing 18 years later in the Apostolic Letter, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, had the following to say:

"When the question of the ordination of women arose in the Anglican Communion, Pope Paul VI, out of fidelity to his office of safeguarding the Apostolic Tradition, and also with a view to removing a new obstacle placed in the way of Christian unity, reminded Anglicans of the position of the Catholic Church: 'She holds that it is not admissible to ordain women to the priesthood, for very fundamental reasons. These reasons include: the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men; the constant practice of the Church, which has imitated Christ in choosing only men; and her living teaching authority which has consistently held that the exclusion of women from the priesthood is in accordance with God's plan for his Church.'"

The 1976 declaration begins as follows:

"The Catholic Church has never felt that priestly or episcopal ordination can be validly conferred on women. A few heretical sects in the first centuries, especially Gnostic ones, entrusted the exercise of the priestly ministry to women: This innovation was immediately noted and condemned by the Fathers, who considered it as unacceptable in the Church. It is true that in the writings of the Fathers, one will find the undeniable influence of prejudices unfavourable to woman, but nevertheless, it should be noted that these prejudices had hardly any influences on their pastoral activity, and still less on their spiritual direction. But over and above these considerations inspired by the spirit of the times, one finds expressed -- especially in the canonical documents of the Antiochan and Egyptian traditions -- this essential reason, namely, that by calling only men to the priestly Order and ministry in its true sense, the Church intends to remain faithful to the type of ordained ministry willed by the Lord Jesus Christ and carefully maintained by the Apostles."

The full text of the declaration can be found here.