This echoes my feelings on the recent discourse surrounding the article in question so completely. There is not a point made here that I disagree with. And I think it's just so important.
I have felt that if Anglicanism does not have a theological content and richness of heritage beyond affiliation with Canterbury (as I can tell is some peoples stance on the matter), then the need to gatekeep it and preserve its identity in the first place becomes questionable. Not that the Communion has no value, I believe it does. But that doesn't and shouldn't mean it defines what Anglicansim is.
Thankfully, I don't think that Anglicanism is just communion with Canterbury. And I believe that Anglicanism is valuable and worth having, precisely because it has profoundly enriched my faith and relationship with Jesus.
It's frustrating and tragically common to witness some within The Episcopal Church deny our Anglican identity or advocate further discarding our theological, liturgical, and patrimonial heritage. Such horror is done at our peril.
I dearly hope and pray a greater embrace of Anglican identity and Anglican resourcement is the future in The Episcopal Church. I certainly will work to that end.
Edit: I should also say that I deeply appreciate the nuance regarding assumptions about how inclusion of LGBTQ people or a support of women's ordination is related (or rather, not related) to ones commitment to Anglican theological heritage and identity.
Thanks so much, Serene! I remember seeing a comment of yours, I think on Twitter, about this where you said that your experience of becoming an Anglican was of falling in love with a tradition at the same time as it was falling out of love with itself -- you put it more elegantly, though. And I remember thinking 'yes, this is exactly it!'
I think focusing on particular rites, styles of rites and historic documents misses elements that truly make Anglicanism. I think "via media", worship in the vernacular (and I would also say style and community practice) of the congregation and community, and the three-legged stool of scripture-tradition-reason are far more definitive of being Anglican than particular rites and historical documents. These elements portray a tradition that would modify with its own experience and the social context that it finds it in, and therefore, wouldn't appear to be that of a previous era. It is meant to be living and breathing rather than nostalgia over cold imagery and practices. The presence, experience and integration of GLBTQ folks like me, for example, are an example of staying true to these important Anglican characteristics.
Thanks for the comment! I'd just point out that, speaking as a historian of Anglicanism, the definition of Anglicanism that you offer is one that is very recent; it comes from the19th and primarily the 20th century. It's not an understanding of Anglicanism that the figures in the sixteenth and seventeenth century whom I study would recognize as describing their commitments, for example. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's a wrong or illegitimate definition to hold, to be clear. But I think it's worth being clear about both the advantages and the shortcomings of any account of Anglican identity - and for me, the fact that it doesn't apply very well to most of Anglican history is a problem.
I agree with Ben’s reply and would point out that the the way you and many understand the word “reason” in the scripture, reason, tradition “ formula is not what it meant in the 16th century. This is contextually closer to science and logic than a rationalization.
Thank you for writing, Father Ben. As an LGBTQ person who is still fairly new to the Episcopal Church, I love how your piece both helps further inform me of our Anglican heritage and how it exposes the false disjunction of LGBTQ people/inclusion and the embracing of orthodoxy, as well as our particular tradition and Anglican heritage--not to mention it's helping me understand more of the history of how we got here! I appreciate your style that is generous to all parties cities while simultaneously voicing your critiques--an art form we need more of in our discourse in general today. God bless!
Thank you for this. I appreciate your clarity, as always. I do have questions. The C if E sis in fact have a Prayer Book revision planned in the 1920s, right. Very much like the Episcopal Church's 1928 version. It's rejection was a political decision, not the reaction of the governing bodies if the church. (Unless we count parliament as a governing body.) Why has the standard focused so heavily on 1662 when the Episcopal Church already had new versions of the prayer book beginning in 1789? As one who was firmed with the 1979 BCP I find the centrality of Holy Eucharist actually consistent with Cranmer, who assumed, as do we all, that the worshippers would also pray the Daily Office. What is it you find in 1979 that so radically diverges from Anglicanism? And you've no doubt written extensively about this, so links to relevant articles would be fine. I have great respect for your reasoning. Just wondering how we find ourselves apparently on different sides here.
The ghost of Otis Charles reminded me that the central place of baptism in the book is deliberate. I served 13 years in a newly modeled church with an architectural line from baptistry to altar. My predecessor (who served before and after 1979 BCP) insisted that the lines should be baptistry, ambo, altar. He designed and remodeled the facility, but we disagreed on the relative proportion of the ambo. (I'm short. Didn't relish climbing above the multitude; he wanted a true ship's prow). His final compromise is elegant and simple. But I wonder if that is an example of what you find distinctive about 1979?
Thanks so much for this, Mary Beth - all very good questions! I definitely have thoughts on these and would be curious to hear what you think!
So, first of all, as far as 'why the 1662', from the very beginning of the Anglican Communion the 1662 was held up as a the common liturgical standard from which the various liturgies of national churches derived and to which they were, in at least some sense, accountable. You can find this stated very clearly as the locus of Anglican unity and identity (along with the Articles & the Ordinal and a connection with Canterbury) at the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, for example, and periodically since then through about the middle of the twentieth century.
It's certainly true, as you note, that the US had its own prayer book that deviated in some ways from the 1662 in 1789. Absolutely! But for all that it seems to me that the prayer book is recognizably in a 'Cranmerian' family of liturgies in a way that becomes much less with the liturgical movement revisions. That is, the language is almost entirely that of the 1662, if occasionally rearranged and supplemented, and the preface to the prayer book itself expresses a desire for continuity with that liturgy.
It seems to me that the liturgies of the Liturgical Movement, whatever their other merits, do mark a break in the Anglican liturgical tradition. Cranmer's 1552 text (with edits or rearrangements) is no longer the basis of baptism or the Rite II Eucharist, but instead texts are newly composed. And - almost as dramatic - one of the signature principles of Cranmer's liturgical reform (as outlined in the Preface to the 1549 BCP), that there be a single, largely invariable liturgy for each service, is rejected because of the multitude of options (multiple Eucharistic prayers, multiple rites, lots of other places where presiders have to make choices about how to structure the liturgy). This gets described in both liturgical scholarship of the time and the statements of Anglican liturgical commissions such as the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation as a move in thinking about the unity of a liturgy in terms of 'shape' rather than 'text.' That is, what matters is no longer that we are saying the same things, but that our liturgies have the same broad shape (and so various options can be slotted in for a given component or part of this broad shape). Ironically, this is the principle behind the Directory of Public Worship, the liturgical sourcebook authorized after the abolition of the BCP and episcopacy during the English Civil War.
Now, none of this is to say that the 1979 BCP is an awful text or anything like that! I have no problems using it. And you're certainly right to point to the recovery of weekly communion as something that was, in fact, more in line with the original intention of Cranmer and the 16th century than what ended up happening in Anglican history. But I think it does mark a significant break with our Anglican past in its embrace of 'shape' over 'text' in thinking about liturgy and in its rejection of Cranmer (a rejection its framers were quite explicit about) in the Rite II Eucharist. As I was saying over on Facebook, I *do* think that revision was needed in the 70s/80s, but I wish that it had been much lighter touch. Ideally I wish it would have preserved more uniformity in common prayer. And at the very least, I wish that there would have been a contemporary-language version of Cranmer's Eucharistic prayer as received in the American Church (something like the 1928 or 1979 Rite I Eucharist but in a contemporary-language register -- the Church of England has done this in their Common Worship series, quite successfully I think). Because I think that some of theology of the old prayer book that is very dear to me has been somewhat lost in the relegation of the traditional American Eucharistic prayer to Rite I.
My apologies for taking so long to get back to you. I have been pondering your reply, talking with some of my liturgical geek companions, and confirming that I was formed from a very early age with shape. Obviously with Louis Weil as my seminary professor for the liturgy and theology class, it was our task to discern shape in a variety of the texts. And likely it was always a stretch. As you and Samuel Bray point out, the main benefit of "shape" over "text" is the ability for flexibility in Anglican subsidiarity. So I guess the horse is already out of the barn. When Samuel Seabury came back with the "wee bookie" from Scotland, we ended up with the epiclesis over the people, and a Eucharistic prayer that does more work than just relying on the words of institution to make the meal. Were the non-jurors the ones who set us adrift? Interestingly enough, when I preside at a Lutheran church that is resolutely in favor of the words of consecration, without much thanksgiving (despite their being an option for myriad prayers contained in their 1000+ page Evangelical Lutheran Worship) it reminds me of the parts that don't seem to actually be there in 1662. And maybe if I had been raised in 1662 I wouldn't see anything weird about that. There are many things I think need addressing in the 1979 BCP, like finishing the work on the burial office, like re-thinking the arrangement of the Ash Wednesday liturgy, etc. But, imho, isn't that attention what makes us Anglican, and not the words? The faithful proclamation of God's Word and sacraments?
Thank you for your reply -- and for hearing from this non-scholar old priest.
Hitting send before proof-reading: *despite their having the option....
And "isn't that attention" -- I THINK by "attention" I meant, "that ongoing desire for revision to bring us back to the source while also reaching the people in our churches."
I remember many, many decades ago when I, as a very young seventh-generation (or perhaps more) Virginia Episcopalian first encountered a Black person who was not descended from African-American slaves (and, as a general rule, either Baptist or AME). She was, I recall, from Barbados. She seemed exceptionally familiar with church matters, so I asked her what her denomination was. She said, "I'm an Anglican." I was thunderstruck. A Black Anglican! To this day I recall a new sensation...a nascent feeling of pride and gratitude that I belonged to the worldwide Anglican Communion. That has been, ever since, a primary source of my identity.
Rev, I think you hit the nail on the head. I (Mia culpa) was on of those who stated the article was scandalous. And I stand by that. We hold a very similar view towards "Anglican ethos" and I appreciate you highlighting the same concerns I had. It is scandalous to say Queer people like me are making the Episcopal Church lose its Anglican character, not the fact that we reject the Formularies. Thank you for your clarity 🙏
The author here forgets that from 1549 on, the Church of England, and the later provinces around the world have been wrestling with the Protestant-Catholic contrast, synthesis or dynamic, and most of all in the evolution of the Prayer Books. 1979 is the fulfillment of the long struggle to re-appropriate the theology and practice of the whole church before the Reformation. And that without pushing Protestant-minded Anglicans out of the communion. Many Anglicans have aways looked beyond the "Formularies" to understand them. For some the 1979 American book was the fulfillment of all the "Catholic" movement of all the years of Anglican history. But I don't remember many "evangelical" or "low-church" folks rejecting the 1979 Book on that account. And there is a reason for that.The ecumenical liturgical movement was going behind the 16th Century disputes to find a broad consensus across that 16th Century divide. To say nothing of the riches of the Easter church which continued an ancient church identity well beyond the West's Middle ages and 16th Century.
Thanks for the comment! I just want to note that construing the history of Anglicanism as a matter of wrestling with 'Protestant' vs 'Catholic' elements is a very particular way of construing Anglican history, one that in my opinion reflects the concerns of nineteenth century Anglicans but does not map particularly onto what the Anglicans in the 16th century I study thought that they were doing. Certainly you are right to point out that the goal of the liturgical movement was to find an early church consensus in worship behind the Reformation disputes. Unfortunately, the scholarly consensus upon which their liturgical work was based has not aged well (contemporary liturgical historians are much less confident in their ability to find a universal patristic 'shape' of the liturgy), and - in my view, anyway - the implementation of the liturgical movement ended up unhelpfully limiting the diversity of Christian worship as it developed since the 4th century. You, of course, may very well (and, I gather, likely do) see things differently.
Well, thanks for your reply. I am obviously an anglo-catholic, and so I'm not personally very taken with what the 16th century Anglicans were up to. All that has little to do with my day to day life of faith and prayer. I would always have been hoping to see the catholic tradition possible and available for anybody in the Episcopal church. I guess we look at the liturgical movement differently. If you're interested, I was fired up reading Schmemann's "For the Life of the World," as well as "The Seven Story Mountain" by Merton. But I'm a life-long Episcopalian. So I AM Anglican, and my orientation has always been part of that. For what it's worth, the enduring and still to be realized fruits of the Vatican II reforms are not one or another way of organizing church things, much less a hankering after a 4th century imagined picture of worship. It is and will be agency for all the members of the church in God's mission in the world. THAT's what's going on the the changes of the 1979 Prayer Book as well as the aims of the liturgical movement.
"This is why my hope for the future of Anglicanism in North America is not in turning back the clock just a bit to the late twentieth century but embracing a yet older Anglican tradition." Quite compelling. Of course, the question is whether biblical theological anthropology and stable notions of gender are disposable in the Prayer Book-Ordinal-Articles tradition, or not. When one lives deep in those Formularies is becomes difficult, I would suggest, to avoid the cosmic significance of male-female anthropology based, as it is, on the deep mysteries disclosed in the Chalcedonian Definition itself, expositing Holy Writ. The difficulties in ACNA currently show how problematic that revision is and the next step for Episcopalians will be the hallowing of poly relationships, obviously, completing the departure from Chalcedon's nuptial significance. ACNA only trails behind by about 30 years on its current trajectory of Formularies-lite. The current Global South rush to women bishops appears to be calcifying this move globally in the constitution of the GSFA. It is an interesting time to be an Anglican.
This echoes my feelings on the recent discourse surrounding the article in question so completely. There is not a point made here that I disagree with. And I think it's just so important.
I have felt that if Anglicanism does not have a theological content and richness of heritage beyond affiliation with Canterbury (as I can tell is some peoples stance on the matter), then the need to gatekeep it and preserve its identity in the first place becomes questionable. Not that the Communion has no value, I believe it does. But that doesn't and shouldn't mean it defines what Anglicansim is.
Thankfully, I don't think that Anglicanism is just communion with Canterbury. And I believe that Anglicanism is valuable and worth having, precisely because it has profoundly enriched my faith and relationship with Jesus.
It's frustrating and tragically common to witness some within The Episcopal Church deny our Anglican identity or advocate further discarding our theological, liturgical, and patrimonial heritage. Such horror is done at our peril.
I dearly hope and pray a greater embrace of Anglican identity and Anglican resourcement is the future in The Episcopal Church. I certainly will work to that end.
Edit: I should also say that I deeply appreciate the nuance regarding assumptions about how inclusion of LGBTQ people or a support of women's ordination is related (or rather, not related) to ones commitment to Anglican theological heritage and identity.
Thanks so much, Serene! I remember seeing a comment of yours, I think on Twitter, about this where you said that your experience of becoming an Anglican was of falling in love with a tradition at the same time as it was falling out of love with itself -- you put it more elegantly, though. And I remember thinking 'yes, this is exactly it!'
I think focusing on particular rites, styles of rites and historic documents misses elements that truly make Anglicanism. I think "via media", worship in the vernacular (and I would also say style and community practice) of the congregation and community, and the three-legged stool of scripture-tradition-reason are far more definitive of being Anglican than particular rites and historical documents. These elements portray a tradition that would modify with its own experience and the social context that it finds it in, and therefore, wouldn't appear to be that of a previous era. It is meant to be living and breathing rather than nostalgia over cold imagery and practices. The presence, experience and integration of GLBTQ folks like me, for example, are an example of staying true to these important Anglican characteristics.
Thanks for the comment! I'd just point out that, speaking as a historian of Anglicanism, the definition of Anglicanism that you offer is one that is very recent; it comes from the19th and primarily the 20th century. It's not an understanding of Anglicanism that the figures in the sixteenth and seventeenth century whom I study would recognize as describing their commitments, for example. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's a wrong or illegitimate definition to hold, to be clear. But I think it's worth being clear about both the advantages and the shortcomings of any account of Anglican identity - and for me, the fact that it doesn't apply very well to most of Anglican history is a problem.
I agree with Ben’s reply and would point out that the the way you and many understand the word “reason” in the scripture, reason, tradition “ formula is not what it meant in the 16th century. This is contextually closer to science and logic than a rationalization.
Thank you for writing, Father Ben. As an LGBTQ person who is still fairly new to the Episcopal Church, I love how your piece both helps further inform me of our Anglican heritage and how it exposes the false disjunction of LGBTQ people/inclusion and the embracing of orthodoxy, as well as our particular tradition and Anglican heritage--not to mention it's helping me understand more of the history of how we got here! I appreciate your style that is generous to all parties cities while simultaneously voicing your critiques--an art form we need more of in our discourse in general today. God bless!
This is so kind! Thank you, Luke!
Thank you for this. I appreciate your clarity, as always. I do have questions. The C if E sis in fact have a Prayer Book revision planned in the 1920s, right. Very much like the Episcopal Church's 1928 version. It's rejection was a political decision, not the reaction of the governing bodies if the church. (Unless we count parliament as a governing body.) Why has the standard focused so heavily on 1662 when the Episcopal Church already had new versions of the prayer book beginning in 1789? As one who was firmed with the 1979 BCP I find the centrality of Holy Eucharist actually consistent with Cranmer, who assumed, as do we all, that the worshippers would also pray the Daily Office. What is it you find in 1979 that so radically diverges from Anglicanism? And you've no doubt written extensively about this, so links to relevant articles would be fine. I have great respect for your reasoning. Just wondering how we find ourselves apparently on different sides here.
The ghost of Otis Charles reminded me that the central place of baptism in the book is deliberate. I served 13 years in a newly modeled church with an architectural line from baptistry to altar. My predecessor (who served before and after 1979 BCP) insisted that the lines should be baptistry, ambo, altar. He designed and remodeled the facility, but we disagreed on the relative proportion of the ambo. (I'm short. Didn't relish climbing above the multitude; he wanted a true ship's prow). His final compromise is elegant and simple. But I wonder if that is an example of what you find distinctive about 1979?
Forgive typos.. most are mine, the rest belong to auto-completion
Thanks so much for this, Mary Beth - all very good questions! I definitely have thoughts on these and would be curious to hear what you think!
So, first of all, as far as 'why the 1662', from the very beginning of the Anglican Communion the 1662 was held up as a the common liturgical standard from which the various liturgies of national churches derived and to which they were, in at least some sense, accountable. You can find this stated very clearly as the locus of Anglican unity and identity (along with the Articles & the Ordinal and a connection with Canterbury) at the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, for example, and periodically since then through about the middle of the twentieth century.
It's certainly true, as you note, that the US had its own prayer book that deviated in some ways from the 1662 in 1789. Absolutely! But for all that it seems to me that the prayer book is recognizably in a 'Cranmerian' family of liturgies in a way that becomes much less with the liturgical movement revisions. That is, the language is almost entirely that of the 1662, if occasionally rearranged and supplemented, and the preface to the prayer book itself expresses a desire for continuity with that liturgy.
It seems to me that the liturgies of the Liturgical Movement, whatever their other merits, do mark a break in the Anglican liturgical tradition. Cranmer's 1552 text (with edits or rearrangements) is no longer the basis of baptism or the Rite II Eucharist, but instead texts are newly composed. And - almost as dramatic - one of the signature principles of Cranmer's liturgical reform (as outlined in the Preface to the 1549 BCP), that there be a single, largely invariable liturgy for each service, is rejected because of the multitude of options (multiple Eucharistic prayers, multiple rites, lots of other places where presiders have to make choices about how to structure the liturgy). This gets described in both liturgical scholarship of the time and the statements of Anglican liturgical commissions such as the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation as a move in thinking about the unity of a liturgy in terms of 'shape' rather than 'text.' That is, what matters is no longer that we are saying the same things, but that our liturgies have the same broad shape (and so various options can be slotted in for a given component or part of this broad shape). Ironically, this is the principle behind the Directory of Public Worship, the liturgical sourcebook authorized after the abolition of the BCP and episcopacy during the English Civil War.
Now, none of this is to say that the 1979 BCP is an awful text or anything like that! I have no problems using it. And you're certainly right to point to the recovery of weekly communion as something that was, in fact, more in line with the original intention of Cranmer and the 16th century than what ended up happening in Anglican history. But I think it does mark a significant break with our Anglican past in its embrace of 'shape' over 'text' in thinking about liturgy and in its rejection of Cranmer (a rejection its framers were quite explicit about) in the Rite II Eucharist. As I was saying over on Facebook, I *do* think that revision was needed in the 70s/80s, but I wish that it had been much lighter touch. Ideally I wish it would have preserved more uniformity in common prayer. And at the very least, I wish that there would have been a contemporary-language version of Cranmer's Eucharistic prayer as received in the American Church (something like the 1928 or 1979 Rite I Eucharist but in a contemporary-language register -- the Church of England has done this in their Common Worship series, quite successfully I think). Because I think that some of theology of the old prayer book that is very dear to me has been somewhat lost in the relegation of the traditional American Eucharistic prayer to Rite I.
I hope this helps - I nattered on a bit! I think that this is one of the best pieces on the question: https://davenantinstitute.org/the-shape-fallacy-the-book-of-common-prayer-as-text/
My apologies for taking so long to get back to you. I have been pondering your reply, talking with some of my liturgical geek companions, and confirming that I was formed from a very early age with shape. Obviously with Louis Weil as my seminary professor for the liturgy and theology class, it was our task to discern shape in a variety of the texts. And likely it was always a stretch. As you and Samuel Bray point out, the main benefit of "shape" over "text" is the ability for flexibility in Anglican subsidiarity. So I guess the horse is already out of the barn. When Samuel Seabury came back with the "wee bookie" from Scotland, we ended up with the epiclesis over the people, and a Eucharistic prayer that does more work than just relying on the words of institution to make the meal. Were the non-jurors the ones who set us adrift? Interestingly enough, when I preside at a Lutheran church that is resolutely in favor of the words of consecration, without much thanksgiving (despite their being an option for myriad prayers contained in their 1000+ page Evangelical Lutheran Worship) it reminds me of the parts that don't seem to actually be there in 1662. And maybe if I had been raised in 1662 I wouldn't see anything weird about that. There are many things I think need addressing in the 1979 BCP, like finishing the work on the burial office, like re-thinking the arrangement of the Ash Wednesday liturgy, etc. But, imho, isn't that attention what makes us Anglican, and not the words? The faithful proclamation of God's Word and sacraments?
Thank you for your reply -- and for hearing from this non-scholar old priest.
Hitting send before proof-reading: *despite their having the option....
And "isn't that attention" -- I THINK by "attention" I meant, "that ongoing desire for revision to bring us back to the source while also reaching the people in our churches."
I remember many, many decades ago when I, as a very young seventh-generation (or perhaps more) Virginia Episcopalian first encountered a Black person who was not descended from African-American slaves (and, as a general rule, either Baptist or AME). She was, I recall, from Barbados. She seemed exceptionally familiar with church matters, so I asked her what her denomination was. She said, "I'm an Anglican." I was thunderstruck. A Black Anglican! To this day I recall a new sensation...a nascent feeling of pride and gratitude that I belonged to the worldwide Anglican Communion. That has been, ever since, a primary source of my identity.
Rev, I think you hit the nail on the head. I (Mia culpa) was on of those who stated the article was scandalous. And I stand by that. We hold a very similar view towards "Anglican ethos" and I appreciate you highlighting the same concerns I had. It is scandalous to say Queer people like me are making the Episcopal Church lose its Anglican character, not the fact that we reject the Formularies. Thank you for your clarity 🙏
May I make clear that in my article I never put the loss of Anglican identity as a matter of those concerned with matters of gender.
The author here forgets that from 1549 on, the Church of England, and the later provinces around the world have been wrestling with the Protestant-Catholic contrast, synthesis or dynamic, and most of all in the evolution of the Prayer Books. 1979 is the fulfillment of the long struggle to re-appropriate the theology and practice of the whole church before the Reformation. And that without pushing Protestant-minded Anglicans out of the communion. Many Anglicans have aways looked beyond the "Formularies" to understand them. For some the 1979 American book was the fulfillment of all the "Catholic" movement of all the years of Anglican history. But I don't remember many "evangelical" or "low-church" folks rejecting the 1979 Book on that account. And there is a reason for that.The ecumenical liturgical movement was going behind the 16th Century disputes to find a broad consensus across that 16th Century divide. To say nothing of the riches of the Easter church which continued an ancient church identity well beyond the West's Middle ages and 16th Century.
Thanks for the comment! I just want to note that construing the history of Anglicanism as a matter of wrestling with 'Protestant' vs 'Catholic' elements is a very particular way of construing Anglican history, one that in my opinion reflects the concerns of nineteenth century Anglicans but does not map particularly onto what the Anglicans in the 16th century I study thought that they were doing. Certainly you are right to point out that the goal of the liturgical movement was to find an early church consensus in worship behind the Reformation disputes. Unfortunately, the scholarly consensus upon which their liturgical work was based has not aged well (contemporary liturgical historians are much less confident in their ability to find a universal patristic 'shape' of the liturgy), and - in my view, anyway - the implementation of the liturgical movement ended up unhelpfully limiting the diversity of Christian worship as it developed since the 4th century. You, of course, may very well (and, I gather, likely do) see things differently.
Well, thanks for your reply. I am obviously an anglo-catholic, and so I'm not personally very taken with what the 16th century Anglicans were up to. All that has little to do with my day to day life of faith and prayer. I would always have been hoping to see the catholic tradition possible and available for anybody in the Episcopal church. I guess we look at the liturgical movement differently. If you're interested, I was fired up reading Schmemann's "For the Life of the World," as well as "The Seven Story Mountain" by Merton. But I'm a life-long Episcopalian. So I AM Anglican, and my orientation has always been part of that. For what it's worth, the enduring and still to be realized fruits of the Vatican II reforms are not one or another way of organizing church things, much less a hankering after a 4th century imagined picture of worship. It is and will be agency for all the members of the church in God's mission in the world. THAT's what's going on the the changes of the 1979 Prayer Book as well as the aims of the liturgical movement.
Thanks for this. Some thoughts of my own occasioned by this and the living church piece: https://lastschoolmen.substack.com/p/on-are-episcopalians-anglican-and?
"This is why my hope for the future of Anglicanism in North America is not in turning back the clock just a bit to the late twentieth century but embracing a yet older Anglican tradition." Quite compelling. Of course, the question is whether biblical theological anthropology and stable notions of gender are disposable in the Prayer Book-Ordinal-Articles tradition, or not. When one lives deep in those Formularies is becomes difficult, I would suggest, to avoid the cosmic significance of male-female anthropology based, as it is, on the deep mysteries disclosed in the Chalcedonian Definition itself, expositing Holy Writ. The difficulties in ACNA currently show how problematic that revision is and the next step for Episcopalians will be the hallowing of poly relationships, obviously, completing the departure from Chalcedon's nuptial significance. ACNA only trails behind by about 30 years on its current trajectory of Formularies-lite. The current Global South rush to women bishops appears to be calcifying this move globally in the constitution of the GSFA. It is an interesting time to be an Anglican.