June 1, 2009
To be fair to the English
I haven’t written here in a while and had some thoughts on my mind so now’s as good a time as any to share them.
In a previous post I talked about my reasons for becoming Catholic, as opposed to the other two options that seemed open to me at the time. I spent a bit more time in that post talking about my reasons for not going Orthodox, and felt that I glossed over the Anglican piece a little too quickly. Since it’s something that’s been mentioned more than once I thought I’d take a moment to talk a bit more about our friends in the Church of England.
First, I should say that I was a bit dismissive in one of my previous statements. I said that, “Additionally, I simply felt that the political reasons for forming the Anglican church in the first place simply weren’t very convincing for me.” I didn’t unpack that however, which I should have. First off, it is important to note that the idea of ‘Anglicanism’ has existed for centuries, mainly as the distinctly British Isles stream of the Catholic faith. Much like there are many ethnically based branches of the Orthodox church there are also cultural streams in the Catholic church that have existed since the earliest days of the church. Much before the split that formed the Church of England proper, there were seeds of a culturally distinct church going back to the days when Augustine was sent to Britain in 597. These distinctions showed themselves in various ways throughout the years, embodied in various people such as Thomas a Becket and John Wyclif. It was people like this that formed the backdrop that allowed Henry VIII to move for a more formal separation when he wanted an annulment that the Pope refused to grant. So even though it was the act of Henry VIII that began the formal Anglican church, there was a distinct cultural difference that was present for ages previous.
Second, I wanted to emphasize again a point that I made in my previous post that there are a great many wonderful Anglican’s that are doing amazing work for God’s kingdom in the world today. When you peel back the veneer that is current state of the Episcipol church in America right now you find that there are many wonderful parishes trying to balance the commitent to the traditional (such as the Book of Common Prayer) with the needs of the modern secular world. One of the wonderful things I remember in Seminary was the deep liturgical history and heritage that the Anglican tradition tried to bring to the Protestant world. Many times the churches that were on the cutting edge of reviving ancient spiritual practices, were the Anglican churches.
It’s because of this desire to hold on to tradition, and the desire to still associate itself with the line of Apostolic Succession yet, engage the world in a way that is much closer to the way that Protestantism behaves, that has caused the Anglican church to be associated with a term called ‘via media’. That is to mean, that they often see themselves as the ‘middle way’, the church that is between the ancient Roman world, and the bridge to the new churches of the Protestant Reformation. However, I believe it is this balancing act that has given the Anglican communion it’s greatest strengths, and it’s greatest weaknesses. Especially in the church in America. It too often seems that the Anglican church tries to be everything to everyone but in the end becomes nothing to no one. The grasp and desire for diversity and acceptance often leads the Episcopal church in America into squabbles and hardships that end up detracting from a primary purpose of the Church, which is to bring the incarnation into the lives of Christ’s followers.
As I listen to many programs about converts to the Catholic church, I’m surprised at how many of them are from the Anglican church. What’s even more intersting is how many of them ended up leaving, not because of a complete lack of theological merit in the Anglican church, but because of what was seen as a complete breakdown in the structure and leadership of the church. In many ways this is what caused me the most issue with considering a conversion to the Anglican church. Not the lack of theological truth and depth (John Wesley, my historical mentor was a deeply committed Anglican), but it’s lack of direction and purpose in the world as it struggles with it’s mission, as a church trying to walk a very fine ‘middle’ line, and perhaps falling too often.
Written and posted by Jamison on June 1, 2009, 8:18 pm.
Filed under: General Discussion
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