From "First Things": A Consideration of the 'Anglican Reset'

Hans Boersma, Gerald McDermott, and Greg Peters collectively ask: "Is the Anglican "Reset" Truly Anglican?" in First Things, posted on June 9 of this year:

The Kigali Commitment of April 21, 2023, was a shot heard around the world. Thirteen hundred Anglican leaders, dominated by bishops and clergy from the Global South, gathered in Kigali, Rwanda, to declare that they no longer recognized the Archbishop of Canterbury as their leader. Representing 85 percent of the Anglican Communion, they pronounced their determination to “reset the Communion on its biblical foundations.”  

The boldness of this statement is striking. Not only does it signal the end of English domination of the Communion, but it also demonstrates counter-cultural courage. The leaders of the Global Anglican Fellowship Conference (GAFCON) and the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) have defied Global North elite opinion and financial coercion by denouncing the Church of England’s February 2023 decision to bless same-sex couples. . .

The question they ask, while commending the one thousand, three hundred leaders for taking a stand, is if they've taken their stand on the right foundation:

The Kigali Commitment repeatedly appeals to the authority of the Bible alone and fails to mention either the authority of the Church or the role of tradition, describing the Bible as “the rule of our lives” and the “final authority in the church” without mentioning that Scripture functions within the context of tradition—in particular, the common liturgy of the Church and the Book of Common Prayer—and the Church’s teaching authority.

They cite Bishop John Jewell (1552-1571), Richard Hooker (1554-1600), and Bishop Francis White (1564-1638), and more recently, the 2002 statement of Evangelicals and Catholics Together to demonstrate that Anglicans and even some Evangelicals have acknowledged "there is no such thing as Scripture without tradition, that every person reads Scripture through the lens of some tradition or other, whether he realizes it or not", attributing that sentiment to Hooker. This is in contrast to the Kigali Commitment's reliance on the "clarity" of the Biblical text as Boersma, McDermott, and Peters see it.

That reminded me that Catholic World Report recently featured an interview with Casey Chalk about his new book  The Obscurity of Scripture: Disputing Sola Scriptura and the Protestant Notion of Biblical Perspicuity (Emmaus Road, 2023). Chalk also refers to this hermeneutic of interpretation as "perspicuity", citing the Westminster Confession of Faith, paragraph 7:

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all: yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

Chalk's comment:

The above statement requires a little bit of unpacking. The Westminster divines are not saying that all of Scripture is equally clear, but that enough of it is that both learned and unlearned Christians, relying on the Holy Spirit in prayer and leveraging things like biblical preaching or good commentaries, that they should be able to understand what is necessary for salvation.

So, anytime you talk to a Protestant and he or she says something like “the Bible clearly teaches X,” they are making recourse to the doctrine of clarity. Of course, a lot of times that person may be going well beyond what the Westminster divines had in mind, given their narrow understanding of perspicuity. But the basic premise is that Scripture is clear enough on what’s necessary for salvation, or the essential doctrines of the Christian faith, that any well-meaning Christian should be able to read his or her Bible and find precisely that.

Be that as it may, when I read the text of the Kigali Commitment, I did note that the signers of this document did appeal to Anglican tradition and the teaching authority of the Church of England, specifically to the Lambeth Conference of 1998:

Public statements by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other leaders of the Church of England in support of same-sex blessings are a betrayal of their ordination and consecration vows to banish error and to uphold and defend the truth taught in Scripture.

These statements are also a repudiation of Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which declared that ‘homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture,’ and advised against the legitimising or blessing of same sex unions’. 

This occurred despite the Archbishop of Canterbury having affirmed that ‘the validity of the resolution passed at the Lambeth Conference 1998, I.10 is not in doubt and that whole resolution is still in existence’. (page 2)

I thought of what Saint John Henry Newman might say about this putative schism in the Anglican Communion. Or rather, what he did say to those in "the Religious Movement of 1833" who had remained in the Church of England as he referred to them in his lectures on Anglican Difficulties.

In the first lecture "On the Relation of the National Church to the Nation" he warned them:

I have said all this, my brethren, not in declamation, but to bring out clearly to you, why I cannot feel interest of any kind in the National Church, nor put any trust in it at all from its past history, as if it were, in however narrow a sense, a guardian of orthodoxy. It is as little bound by what it said or did formerly, as this morning's newspaper by its former numbers, except as it is bound by the Law; and while it is upheld by the Law, it will not be weakened by the subtraction of individuals, nor fortified by their continuance. Its life is an Act of Parliament. It will not be able to resist the Arian, Sabellian, or Unitarian heresies now, because Bull or Waterland resisted them a century or two before; nor on the other hand would it be unable to resist them, though its more orthodox theologians were presently to leave it. It will be able to resist them while the State gives the word; it would be unable, when the State forbids it. Elizabeth boasted that she "tuned her pulpits;" Charles forbade discussions on predestination; George on the Holy Trinity; Victoria allows differences on Holy Baptism. While the nation wishes an Establishment, it will remain, whatever individuals are for it or against it; and that which determines its existence will determine its voice. Of course {9} the presence or departure of individuals will be one out of various disturbing causes, which may delay or accelerate by a certain number of years a change in its teaching: but, after all, the change itself depends on events broader and deeper than these; it depends on changes in the nation. As the nation changes its political, so may it change its religious views; the causes which carried the Reform Bill and Free Trade may make short work with orthodoxy.

We'll have to wait and see how the Archbishop of Canterbury, et al, respond to the Kigali Commitment, but Newman predicted the direction the Church of England would go: following the Nation, the Parliament, and the zeitgeist of the age.

The Third Monday of the Month: On the Son Rise Morning Show

This morning on the Son Rise Morning Show, Matt Swaim and I will discuss recent events in the Anglican Communion. I'll be on the air after the 7:45 a.m. Eastern/6:45 a.m. Central break. You may listen live here.

I'm referring to the meeting of the 37 Primates of the Anglican Communion last week in Canterbury. The big announcement last week was that after agreeing to the agenda, the Primates addressed the issue that threatened to destroy the Anglican Communion by temporarily suspending the Episcopal Church in the USA from the Anglican Communion's official functions, while it is still part of the Anglican Communion:

The meeting started by agreeing the agenda. The first agreed item was to discuss an important point of contention among Anglicans worldwide: the recent change to the doctrine of marriage by The Episcopal Church in the USA.

Over the past week the unanimous decision of the Primates was to walk together, however painful this is, and despite our differences, as a deep expression of our unity in the body of Christ. We looked at what that meant in practical terms.

We received the recommendation of a working group of our members which took up the task of how our Anglican Communion of Churches might walk together and our unity be strengthened. Their work, consistent with previous statements of the Primates’ meetings, addressed what consequences follow for The Episcopal Church in relation to the Anglican Communion following its recent change of marriage doctrine. The recommendations in paragraphs 7 and 8 of the Addendum A below are:

“It is our unanimous desire to walk together. However given the seriousness of these matters we formally acknowledge this distance by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity.

“We have asked the Archbishop of Canterbury to appoint a Task Group to maintain conversation among ourselves with the intention of restoration of relationship, the rebuilding of mutual trust, healing the legacy of hurt, recognising the extent of our commonality and exploring our deep differences, ensuring they are held between us in the love and grace of Christ.”

These recommendations were adopted by the majority of the Primates present.

It just cannot be coincidental that this statement was issued on the same day as the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady in Walsingham, which was followed by the organizing of an Anglican Ordinariate in the USA a year later. Nor can it be ignored that the Vatican had arranged for two great relics of England's Catholic past to be on display at Canterbury: the staff of Pope St. Gregory the Great and the bloodied vestment of St. Thomas of Canterbury.

Most commentators note that this is just puts off the harder decisions about marriage in the Anglican Communion, because the Episcopalians and other "liberals" are not going to change their teaching, while the more "conservative" Anglicans, from Africa for example, are not going to change theirs or allow the "liberals" to change Anglican teaching throughout the Communion. This semi-suspension just "kicks the can" down the road for another meeting to reconsider where the two sides are.

Pope St. Gregory Leading the Angels Again

As the 37 primates of the Anglican Communion gather in Canterbury, a very symbolic emblem of papal authority will be on display at the Cathedral, per this Anglican Communion News Service story:

The crozier of the sixth century Pope who sent Augustine to England to begin the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons will be in Canterbury as the Primates of the Anglican Communion gather for their meeting in the city next week.

The ancient carved ivory headed crozier will be on public display at Canterbury Cathedral during the weekends before and after the Primates Meeting after being loaned to the Cathedral by the Roman Catholic monks of San Gregorio al Celio in Rome. Saint Augustine had been prior of the monastery, which had been built by Pope Gregory I before his elevation to the Papacy. Augustine lead a seven-year mission to England and is recognised as the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

“We are very pleased to receive the crozier as a symbol of ecumenical encouragement at this time of the meeting of Anglican Primates and as a link with St Gregory whose vision of the conversion of England caused Augustine to found the community at Canterbury,” the Dean of Canterbury, the Very Revd Dr Robert Willis, said.

Commenting on the loan, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said: “Allow me at this point to congratulate you on the highly symbolic value of the loan of this relic, dear to the Church of England, which venerates Pope St Gregory the Great, the promoter of the evangelising mission to the Anglo-Saxon people and is therefore a mark of the bond that spiritually unites the Catholic and Anglican Churches.”

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, commented on the importance of Pope St. Gregory the Great to Christianity in England when Pope Benedict XVI and he prayed Evening Prayer together in Westminster Abbey (September 17, 2010):

Christians in Britain, especially in England, look back with the most fervent gratitude to the events of 597, when Augustine landed on these shores to preach the gospel to the Anglo-Saxons at the behest of Pope St Gregory the Great. For Christians of all traditions and confessions, St Gregory is a figure of compelling attractiveness and spiritual authority – pastor and leader, scholar and exegete and spiritual guide. The fact that the first preaching of the Gospel to the English peoples in the sixth and seventh centuries has its origins in his vision creates a special connection for us with the See of the Apostles Peter and Paul; and Gregory’s witness and legacy remain an immensely fruitful source of inspiration for our own mission in these dramatically different times. Two dimensions of that vision may be of special importance as we reflect today on the significance of Your Holiness’s visit to us.

St Gregory was the first to spell out for the faithful something of the magnitude of the gift given to Christ’s Church through the life of St Benedict – to whom you, Your Holiness, have signalled your devotion in the choice of your name as Pope. In St Gregory’s Dialogues, we can trace the impact of St Benedict – an extraordinary man who, through a relatively brief Rule of life, opened up for the whole civilisation of Europe since the sixth century the possibility of living in joy and mutual service, in simplicity and self-denial, in a balanced pattern of labour and prayer in which every moment spoke of human dignity fully realised in surrender to a loving God. The Benedictine life proved a sure foundation not only for generations of monks and nuns, but for an entire culture in which productive work and contemplative silence and receptivity—human dignity and human freedom—were both honoured.

So yesterday I posted the story about Vespers according to the Catholic Liturgy of Hours being celebrated in the Hampton Court Palace Chapel, today about the papal crozier being sent from Rome to Canterbury during the crucial meeting of the Anglican Communion. Archbishop Welby is hoping to avoid further division in the Anglican Communion over the issues of so-called "gay" marriage and women priests and bishops. In his message to the primates, Welby noted:

“We have no Anglican Pope. Our authority as a church is dispersed, and is ultimately found in Scripture, properly interpreted. In that light I long for us to meet together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and to seek to find a way of enabling ourselves to set a course which permits us to focus on serving and loving each other, and above all on the proclamation of the good news of Jesus Christ."
"We have no Anglican Pope": perhaps that's the problem!

And this Religious News Service story mentions an even more important relic coming to England while the primates meet, which should remind them again of Catholic unity:

In December, a much more eye-catching “holy” (sic) relic will be flown in from Rome – the bloodied vestment worn by St. Thomas Becket when he was beheaded at the high altar of Canterbury Cathedral by four armed knights loyal to King Henry II, after a quarrel between the king and his archbishop.

(Why would a media organization with the title Religious News Service put scare quotes around the word holy?)

Pope St. Gregory the Great; St. Augustine of Canterbury; St. Thomas a Becket: the way to unity is certainly symbolized through the relics on display at Canterbury! May the unity of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church with the Vicar of Christ lead the Church of England home to Rome through the Anglican Ordinariate! Blessed John Henry Newman, pray for us!

Books, Books, Books! Three in Queue

I have three great books lined up for Summer reading. I've started the first one, Romantic Catholics: France's Postrevolutionary Generation in Search of a Modern Faith by Carol E. Harrison from Cornell University Press:

In this well-written and imaginatively structured book, Carol E. Harrison brings to life a cohort of nineteenth-century French men and women who argued that a reformed Catholicism could reconcile the divisions in French culture and society that were the legacy of revolution and empire. They include, most prominently, Charles de Montalembert, Pauline Craven, Amélie and Frédéric Ozanam, Léopoldine Hugo, Maurice de Guérin, and Victorine Monniot. The men and women whose stories appear in Romantic Catholics were bound together by filial love, friendship, and in some cases marriage. Harrison draws on their diaries, letters, and published works to construct a portrait of a generation linked by a determination to live their faith in a modern world.

Rejecting both the atomizing force of revolutionary liberalism and the increasing intransigence of the church hierarchy, the romantic Catholics advocated a middle way, in which a revitalized Catholic faith and liberty formed the basis for modern society. Harrison traces the history of nineteenth-century France and, in parallel, the life course of these individuals as they grow up, learn independence, and take on the responsibilities and disappointments of adulthood. Although the shared goals of the romantic Catholics were never realized in French politics and culture, Harrison's work offers a significant corrective to the traditional understanding of the opposition between religion and the secular republican tradition in France.

As I read the introduction I thought how nineteenth century Catholics in both England and France had to rebuild their churches--the English after centuries of penal laws and martyrdom; the French after the Revolution, the Terror, and the revolutionary campaign of De-Christianization that led to destruction of churches, suppression of monasteries, and the martyrdom of priests and nuns. The difference for the French, as Harrison is explaining to me, is that as the Catholic laity worked to influence their society--re-evangelize it!--they also had to consider the Church's relationship with the monarchy and whether it was good for the Church or not. Harrison notes in the introduction that nineteenth century Catholics in France were for a time at least solidly ultramontane, ascribing the weakness of the Church in France during the Ancien Regime partially to its Cisalpine stance of loyalty to the Bourbons instead of the Papacy. More on Romantic Catholics after I've read it!

Then I have The Oxford Movement: Europe and the Wider World 1830-1930, edited by Stewart J. Brown and Peter B. Nockles from Cambridge:

The Oxford Movement transformed the nineteenth-century Church of England with a renewed conception of itself as a spiritual body. Initiated in the early 1830s by members of the University of Oxford, it was a response to threats to the established church posed by British Dissenters, Irish Catholics, Whig and Radical politicians, and the predominant evangelical ethos – what Newman called 'the religion of the day'. The Tractarians believed they were not simply addressing difficulties within their national Church, but recovering universal principles of the Christian faith. To what extent were their beliefs and ideals communicated globally? Was missionary activity the product of the movement's distinctive principles? Did their understanding of the Church promote, or inhibit, closer relations among the churches of the global Anglican Communion? This volume addresses these questions and more with a series of case studies involving Europe and the English-speaking world during the first century of the Movement.

My husband gave me both of these books for Mother's Day!

And finally, thanks to the Queen Anne Boleyn blog and Beth von Staats who introduced us in a way, I have received a review copy of God's Traitors: Terror and Faith in Elizabethan England, from the author herself, Jessie Childs!

The Catholics of Elizabethan England did not witness a golden age. Their Mass was banned, their priests were outlawed, their faith was criminalised. In an age of assassination and Armada, those Catholics who clung to their faith were increasingly seen as the enemy within. In this superb history, award-winning author Jessie Childs explores the Catholic predicament in Elizabethan England through the eyes of one remarkable family: the Vauxes of Harrowden Hall.

God’s Traitors is a tale of dawn raids and daring escapes, stately homes and torture chambers, ciphers, secrets and lies. From clandestine chapels and side-street inns to exile communities and the corridors of power, it exposes the tensions and insecurities masked by the cult of Gloriana. Above all, it is a timely story of courage and frailty, repression and reaction and the terrible consequences when religion and politics collide.

I may have to bump God's Traitors up in the queue after Romantic Catholics!

What are you reading, readers? Or planning to read?

The End of the Anglican Communion?

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams is resigning, of course you know. And now comes news that the Anglican Communion, of which the AofC kind of leads, is breaking up. Williams had backed a Covenant to hold the Communion together in spite of the fact that it is breaking up over doctrinal and moral issues: the Covenant didn't really address any of the issues. The BBC has the news here:

The Church of England cannot sign up to a plan aimed at preventing the global Anglican Church from splitting up after half its 44 dioceses voted against it.

The Archbishop of Canterbury backed the Anglican Covenant in a bid to ensure divisive issues - such as gay bishops - did not cause the Communion to split.

A vote by the diocesan synod of Lincoln meant 22 dioceses had opposed the plan.

The covenant had already been rejected by conservative global Church leaders, whom it was intended to placate.

So his own bishops and dioceses in Great Britain would not support Williams' plan. William Oddie, who blogs at The Catholic Herald, pointed out that Rowan Williams' failure as AofC was pre-ordained by the establishment of the Church of England:

All Archbishops of Canterbury fail, quite simply because the Church of England isn’t a Church at all, it’s a theme park: you wander about and choose the rides you want to go on. It’s not there to change you but to reflect what you already are. It has no consistent theology; it has a portfolio of theologies, each one inconsistent with the others. We all know that.

Oddie comments that Archbishop Williams has not lived up to the expectations created by all those who called him a great theologian. He has not applied a consistent theological position to his leadership of the Church of England and/or the Anglican Communion, according to Mr. Oddie.

I don't feel qualified to comment on all the Archbishop's theological efforts--I've read one book of his, on St. Theresa of Avila, for whom he did not seem to have that much sympathy. But I agree with William Oddie on the Church of England: since it is a political construct, a compromise handled by the Tudor sovereigns and successive Parliaments, it has never functioned as a universal church, but as a national establishment--and the foundations of that establishment have certainly weakened over the years. I write that while acknowledging that it has members who believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the World and follow orthodox Catholic doctrine, sometimes in spite of their Church. Some of those members are being welcomed into the Catholic Church through Pope Benedict XVI's Personal Ordinariate structure, and some of them are coming in one by one. Like Blessed John Henry Newman and so many of the converts that followed him, they recognize the Truth: their Church does not have the authority to proclaim some central teachings as the sina qua non of communion. Certainly, it was Baptism in the nineteenth century with the Hampden and the Gorham cases. Lately, it has been the issue of women's ordination, which really led those opposed to re-examine the true meaning of priesthood, and recognize its absence in their church and its presence in the Catholic Church (and in the Orthodox Church, too).