Being Protestant in Reformation Britain by Alec Ryrie

That's an intriguing title because one's first thought might be: what else were people (if they weren't Catholic) in England during the Reformation? I think we might (or at least I might) be too quick to assume that there was one way of being part of the Church of England.

According to the book description from OUP:

~Offers the first comprehensive survey of the early Protestant religious experience
~Provides a distinctive perspective on the dynamism, intensity, and breadth of early British Protestant culture
~Focuses on the material reality of religious experience
~Integrates religious history with currently lively fields such as history of emotion, of childhood, and of Puritan reading and writing
~[Is] Clearly and accessibly written

The Reformation was about ideas and power, but it was also about real human lives. Alec Ryrie provides the first comprehensive account of what it actually meant to live a Protestant life in England and Scotland between c. 1530-1640, drawing on a rich mixture of contemporary devotional works, sermons, diaries, biographies, and autobiographies to uncover the lived experience of early modern Protestantism.

Beginning from the surprisingly urgent, multifaceted emotions of Protestantism, Ryrie explores practices of prayer, of family and public worship, and of reading and writing, tracking them through the life course from childhood through conversion and vocation to the deathbed. He examines what Protestant piety drew from its Catholic predecessors and contemporaries, and grounds that piety in material realities such as posture, food and tears.

This perspective shows us what it meant to be Protestant in the British Reformations: a meeting of intensity (a religion which sought authentic feeling above all, and which dreaded hypocrisy and hard-heartedness) with dynamism (a progressive religion, relentlessly pursuing sanctification and dreading idleness). That combination, for good or ill, gave the Protestant experience its particular quality of restless, creative zeal.

The Protestant devotional experience also shows us that this was a broad-based religion: for all the differences across time, between two countries, between men and women, and between puritans and conformists, this was recognisably a unified culture, in which common experiences and practices cut across supposed divides. Alec Ryrie shows us Protestantism, not as the preachers on all sides imagined it, but as it was really lived.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Part I: The Protestant Emotions
1: Cultivating the Affections
2: Despair and Salvation
3: The Meaning of Mourning
4: Desire
5: Joy

Part II: The Protestant at Prayer
6: The Meaning of Prayer
7: Answering Prayer
8: The Practice of Prayer
9: Speaking to God
10: Prayer as Struggle

Part III: The Protestant and the Word
11: Reading
12: Writing

Part IV: The Protestant in Company
13: The Experience of Worship
14: Prayer in the Household

Part V: The Protestant Life
15: The Meaning of Life
16: The Stages of Life

Conclusion
Select Bibliography

The author is Alec Ryrie, Professor of the History of Christianity, Durham University:

Alec Ryrie studied History and Theology at the universities of Cambridge, St Andrews, and Oxford. He is now Head of Theology and Religion and Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University. His previous books include The Age of Reformation (2009), The Sorcerer's Tale (2008), The Origins of the Scottish Reformation (2006) and The Gospel and Henry VIII (2003).

From The Telegraph

I like this writer's take on the status of the Church of England. Writing for The Telegraph, Pat Buchanan biographer (The Crusader: The Life and Tumultuous Times of Pat Buchanan) Timothy Stanley says:

Being cruel to Anglicans is about as low as kicking a puppy. The Anglican Church does a lot of good for a lot of people and its presence in British public life forces debates about politics and social policy to be a bit more reflective than they would otherwise be. It is also capable of profound beauty. Village churches are arks of Englishness: neatly stacked Books of Common Prayer, hard wooden pews, a perfume of human breath and burning wax, a Union Jack hung above a shrine to the fallen. I pray that the Church of England is never disestablished, for I feel about these temples in the same way that I do public libraries. I never visit them, but it brings me comfort to know that they are there.

In the 21st century, what is the purpose of the village church? For much of the establishment of the Church of England, the answer seems to be “relevance” – they must earn their status in society by reflecting society's diversity of background and opinion. The great irony is that they want to make relevant something that is actually devalued by the attempt to make it relevant. God doesn’t do “relevance.” He just is – and, for most religious consumers, that’s what makes him so appealing. . .

In its desire to be “more human,” the Anglican Church has rebelled against human nature. For it is natural to want some dimension of authority in our lives. People go to church for answers to the big questions, and it's the answers (“Love me and love thy neighbour”) that then compel them to go out in the world and build a better society. I hope the next Archbishop will break from this trend and talk more forcefully about God. He might notice a small bump in Sunday attendance.

Mr. Stanley also published an interesting analysis of the vote on female bishops:

Wow – we truly live in an age of miracles. The Church of England just voted in favour of tradition. To be precise, its Synod failed to garner the necessary two thirds majority to allow for women bishops. A majority did want change, just not a large enough one – and most of the opposition seems to have come from the laity rather than the clergy.

Nevertheless, given that the Anglican Church’s trajectory has been very liberal of late, this is a huge surprise. It’s also a blow to the leadership of the incoming Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. One of the very first things he did when picked for the job was to endorse women bishops. He obviously hoped to wrap this issue up and so inherit a more united church. Instead, he inherits all the old divisions and quarrels that poor Rowan Williams had to endure.

Expect much of the liberal establishment to be outraged. In many ways, they have a right to be. The Anglican Church has evolved into something like an unofficial branch of the welfare state, and there’s a general feeling that it has a duty to be as representative as the rest of our public sector. A vote against women bishops is certainly a pedantic vote against equality in a church that has already accepted women priests. If a woman can be a priest, why can she not make other priests priests? It seems spiteful and unfair.

But from the perspective of traditionalists and evangelicals, this was about holding the Church together through messy compromise. If women bishops had gone ahead a) opponents would have felt compelled to accept their authority and b) those women bishops would have had to confront clergy and parishioners who didn’t respect their appointment. It might have been a recipe either for further exodus or civil war. At least this way, the fudge continues for another few years. It’s all so very English.

The Church of England Says "NO" to Female Bishops

In rather surprising news, the Church of England rejected the cause of female bishops this week:

The Church of England's governing body blocked a move Tuesday to permit women to serve as bishops in a vote so close it failed to settle the question of female leadership and likely condemned the institution to years more debate on the issue.

The General Synod's daylong debate ended with the rejection of a compromise that was intended to unify the faithful despite differing views on whether women should be allowed in the hierarchy. But backers failed to gain the necessary majority by six votes.

"There is no victory in the coming days," said Rev. Angus MacLeay. "It is a train crash."

The defeat was a setback for Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who retires at the end of December, and his successor, Bishop Justin Welby. Both had strongly endorsed a proposed compromise that would have respected the decision of those who objected to the ordination of women bishops.

Instead of ending decades of debate on the issue in the church, the narrow defeat opens the church, which has around 80 million members worldwide, to further years of internal discussions. It also forms an uncomfortable backdrop to the start of Welby's leadership. He is due to be enthroned in March.

Passage of legislation to allow women to serve as bishops must be approved by two-thirds majorities in the synod's three houses: bishops, priests and laity. Some took heart in the fact that both the bishops and the clergy voted overwhelmingly in favor. But among the laity, the vote fell short, with 132-74.

On his blog, Standing on My Head, Father Dwight Longenecker provides background on the decision here and on the divisions within the Church of England here.

In the former, he notes:

The crisis in the Church of England occasioned by today’s rejection of women in the episcopate is likely to be long, drawn out and bitter. The liberals have campaigned for women bishops for twenty years. The majority of bishops and clergy voted in favor of the measure. It lost in the House of Laity by only six votes. The rest of the British people don’t understand the fuss. They’ve had women priests for twenty years in the Church of England and for most people this is simply a common sense question of equal rights for women.

. . . the negative vote may well have even more serious implications for the freedom of religion in England. If the Members of Parliament decide to over rule the General Synod there may be a constitutional crisis involving the established status of the Church of England and a crisis over religious freedom which will tumble over into serious implications for the relationship between the state and other religious bodies like the Catholic Church.

And in the latter:

The divisions between Liberal, Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical are, in many respects, only superficial and historical. The real division is between those Anglican Christians (no matter how they dress or worship) who believe that the Christian faith is a revealed religion, established by God and therefore unchanging, and those who believe the Christian religion is a human construct developed out of the circumstances of a particular historical and cultural setting.

Those who believe the Christian religion is revealed by God supernaturally also believe that the Church is essentially not of this world. They exist in this world to challenge the ways of this world. They are not supposed to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed. Those who believe that the Christian religion is revealed by God for the eternal salvation of souls see this world as needing repentance and forgiveness and salvation. They don’t mind if the world rejects them. They expect that. When asked to compromise the faith and change the faith to adapt to the world they assume the martyr’s stance. “Offer incense to idols? Bring on the roaring lions, the coliseum and the crowds.”

The second category of Christian are those who believe the religion is a human construct. They think it is the result of certain historical and cultural conditions and accidents. As it was produced by a cultural context, so Christianity has always adapted to the culture in which it finds itself. They see this as a good thing. This is their method of evangelization. They follow the lead of the current cultural climate because they see that as the way of being relevant and connecting with the people in their culture. They do not view the world as full of souls to be saved so much as a wayward child that needs educating and a little bit of discipline in order to reach his full potential. Christianity is for them, a method of personal growth and a system for societal change. It is for them more of an ideology than a theology.

The clash therefore is between those who believe the Christian religion is revealed and those who think it is relative.

Father Longenecker sent me a copy of his new book, Catholicism Plain and Simple for my review, an I'll post it here, of course. I already love the cover, with one of Rembrandt's portraits of Jesus. Looks like perfect reading for the Year of Faith. From the Introduction:

This book presents the basics of the Catholic faith in simple, straightforward language. You will not find here complex philosophical arguments, insider churchy talk or complicated theological language. I have avoided hi-falutin' references and obscure quotations. There aren't any academic notes or quotes in Greek, Latin and Aramaic. This is meat and potatoes religion. This book does not answer all the questions or make all the arguments. It simply starts by explaining why we believe God exists, and then goes on, step by step to explain who Jesus Christ is, what his life and death mean and how the Catholic Church came about. It explains what it means to be a Catholic and how one lives the Catholic faith. This book is an excellent text book for someone who is in RCIA or confirmation class. It also provides an excellent back-up and refresher course for Catholics to know their faith better.