No mention of the commissioning of 'overseers' at All Souls Langham Place for the CofE Evangelical Council so far. So, here it is. Schismatic? Another Society?
Schismatic? Certainly. Yet another step on a long road of con-evos wanting all the privileges of establishment and none of the messy business of having to work with faithful Christians who disagree with them. If they can't tolerate a bishop who doesn't share their attitude to sex then there are a number of sects (such as the Free Church of England) who will accommodate them with a suitably homophobic superior. Demanding the CofE contort itself to provide them with a special walled garden away from the gay cooties is absurd.
For me, one of the most depressing things about this is that it was highly predictable and seems to have been barely noticed by the C of E Powers That Be. That such a move should be so regarded tells me all I need to know about the state of the C of E at the moment. They are afraid to challenge the homophobes, who are getting increasingly bold.
Linked to this is the increasingly common assertion that only they are 'orthodox' and that those who disagree with them are not (which logically means that all dissenters are heretics). The definition of 'orthodox Christianity' now seems to hinge on sexual matters more than beliefs about God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit.
For me, one of the most depressing things about this is that it was highly predictable and seems to have been barely noticed by the C of E Powers That Be. That such a move should be so regarded tells me all I need to know about the state of the C of E at the moment. They are afraid to challenge the homophobes, who are getting increasingly bold.
Linked to this is the increasingly common assertion that only they are 'orthodox' and that those who disagree with them are not (which logically means that all dissenters are heretics). The definition of 'orthodox Christianity' now seems to hinge on sexual matters more than beliefs about God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit.
It's particularly egregious when they can manage to swallow their huge disagreements over the ordination of women and tolerate different views on divorce. The claim that these tepid prayers of blessing are beyond the pail is just not credible. It speaks to power play rather than theological conviction: this is the issue where they think they have enough support to throw their weight around.
For me, one of the most depressing things about this is that it was highly predictable and seems to have been barely noticed by the C of E Powers That Be. That such a move should be so regarded tells me all I need to know about the state of the C of E at the moment. They are afraid to challenge the homophobes, who are getting increasingly bold.
Linked to this is the increasingly common assertion that only they are 'orthodox' and that those who disagree with them are not (which logically means that all dissenters are heretics). The definition of 'orthodox Christianity' now seems to hinge on sexual matters more than beliefs about God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit.
It's particularly egregious when they can manage to swallow their huge disagreements over the ordination of women and tolerate different views on divorce.
Eh. This is a strange complaint running alongside the one that they are too doctrinaire. I can find plenty to critique, but this isn't it imo.
For me, one of the most depressing things about this is that it was highly predictable and seems to have been barely noticed by the C of E Powers That Be. That such a move should be so regarded tells me all I need to know about the state of the C of E at the moment. They are afraid to challenge the homophobes, who are getting increasingly bold.
Linked to this is the increasingly common assertion that only they are 'orthodox' and that those who disagree with them are not (which logically means that all dissenters are heretics). The definition of 'orthodox Christianity' now seems to hinge on sexual matters more than beliefs about God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit.
It's particularly egregious when they can manage to swallow their huge disagreements over the ordination of women and tolerate different views on divorce.
Eh. This is a strange complaint running alongside the one that they are too doctrinaire. I can find plenty to critique, but this isn't it imo.
I think inconsistency and performative outrage are both fair criticisms.
For me, one of the most depressing things about this is that it was highly predictable and seems to have been barely noticed by the C of E Powers That Be. That such a move should be so regarded tells me all I need to know about the state of the C of E at the moment. They are afraid to challenge the homophobes, who are getting increasingly bold.
Linked to this is the increasingly common assertion that only they are 'orthodox' and that those who disagree with them are not (which logically means that all dissenters are heretics). The definition of 'orthodox Christianity' now seems to hinge on sexual matters more than beliefs about God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit.
It's particularly egregious when they can manage to swallow their huge disagreements over the ordination of women and tolerate different views on divorce.
Eh. This is a strange complaint running alongside the one that they are too doctrinaire. I can find plenty to critique, but this isn't it imo.
I think inconsistency and performative outrage are both fair criticisms.
Alternatively what's happened is that regardless of their original positions on both those issues they have - in actual practice - shifted a fair way.
If your complaint is that they are - instead - trying to have both their cake and eat it .. well I give you the Anglican Church.
Demanding the CofE contort itself to provide them with a special walled garden away from the gay cooties is absurd.
They did it for those who refuse to recognise the orders of female priests. We still have “flying bishops” even after 30 years
What they're demanding goes beyond even that, though: they're demanding an entirely separate province. The flying bishops are at least under the authority of the Archbishop of the province.
Demanding the CofE contort itself to provide them with a special walled garden away from the gay cooties is absurd.
They did it for those who refuse to recognise the orders of female priests. We still have “flying bishops” even after 30 years
What they're demanding goes beyond even that, though: they're demanding an entirely separate province. The flying bishops are at least under the authority of the Archbishop of the province.
Well, they are and they aren't. In some ways it's just another round of evangelicals in an episocopal church failing to believe in the episcopacy.
Demanding the CofE contort itself to provide them with a special walled garden away from the gay cooties is absurd.
They did it for those who refuse to recognise the orders of female priests. We still have “flying bishops” even after 30 years
What they're demanding goes beyond even that, though: they're demanding an entirely separate province. The flying bishops are at least under the authority of the Archbishop of the province.
Yes but, and I was very much of that wing at the time, the Trad Catholics did demand a third province*, the alternative episcopal oversight was what they *settled* for.
To that extent, this feels like first shots rather than 'take it or leave it' - though I'm not a conservative evangelical so don't know if it's right to feel that or not.
*In fact, IIRC they demanded it twice - 1992 at the time of women's ordination, and then again at the time of women's ability to become bishops (2014? ish?)
I no longer go to church, although (if asked) I guess I might still class myself as a fairly High Church Anglican, but I'm probably not missing anything.
I'm no longer Anglican - and arguably never was completely as I'd not been 'confirmed' - so don't have a stake in this beyond that of concern for fellow Christians of all persuasions. Besides, there is more than enough infighting within my own Tradition.
But I think it's fair to point out that the conservative evangelical wing of the CofE (and Anglican Communion more generally) is no more monolithic than any other segment or faction.
Someone observed to me the other day that all Anglo-Catholics were Tories, simply because those he'd met were. He was surprised when I pointed out that I knew clergy and laity from that tradition who certainly weren't.
But caveats aside, I do see both glorious and inglorious inconsistencies across Anglicanism in all its forms, not just on these issues but almost anything and everything else.
How the heck anyone can reconcile all the anomalies/inconsistencies call them what you will, is beyond me.
It seems to me that plenty of people at one 'end' or the other would be happier (relatively) somewhere else - be it Rome, Constantinople, Geneva...
Disestablishment might help to some extent but I think it goes deeper than that.
Anglicanism was (is?) a great experiment and it may have more to bring out of the test-tube yet.
I may be simplistic but I've for a long time wondered why some Anglicans don't hive off to independent fellowships of one form or other or cross the Bosphorus or Tiber.
But then, I can't imagine what the Anglicans would look like if they only had a MOtR or 'broad church' wing as it were.
I'm no longer Anglican - and arguably never was completely as I'd not been 'confirmed' - so don't have a stake in this beyond that of concern for fellow Christians of all persuasions. Besides, there is more than enough infighting within my own Tradition.
But I think it's fair to point out that the conservative evangelical wing of the CofE (and Anglican Communion more generally) is no more monolithic than any other segment or faction.
Someone observed to me the other day that all Anglo-Catholics were Tories, simply because those he'd met were. He was surprised when I pointed out that I knew clergy and laity from that tradition who certainly weren't.
But caveats aside, I do see both glorious and inglorious inconsistencies across Anglicanism in all its forms, not just on these issues but almost anything and everything else.
How the heck anyone can reconcile all the anomalies/inconsistencies call them what you will, is beyond me.
It seems to me that plenty of people at one 'end' or the other would be happier (relatively) somewhere else - be it Rome, Constantinople, Geneva...
Disestablishment might help to some extent but I think it goes deeper than that.
Anglicanism was (is?) a great experiment and it may have more to bring out of the test-tube yet.
I may be simplistic but I've for a long time wondered why some Anglicans don't hive off to independent fellowships of one form or other or cross the Bosphorus or Tiber.
But then, I can't imagine what the Anglicans would look like if they only had a MOtR or 'broad church' wing as it were.
I'm Anglo Catholic and am definitely not a Tory. What I am concerned about is attempts to use sexuality as a demarcation line, or worse, a push for GAFCON influence/oversight.
I may be simplistic but I've for a long time wondered why some Anglicans don't hive off to independent fellowships of one form or other or cross the Bosphorus or Tiber.
For con-evos the line has been that the CofE is a "good boat to fish from" which was ok while they were content to get on with fishing. Now they're intent on grabbing the tiller it's more of a problem. For conservative ACs there is the issue that Roman and Eastern bishops will treat the oath of canonical obedience as something actually to be followed and the priests can't just do what they like, as has rather become the norm in the CofE. And for all parties (including the remaining handful of actual liberals/atheists) there is the pressing practical issue of buildings, stipends and pensions, with which the CofE remains well supplied.
With existential threats to the world in general appearing new every morning (or so it sometimes seems), there's a lot of people pretending to be ostriches.
This constant preoccupation with sexuality is, frankly, tedious, and I'm glad that I no longer have any part in the equally tedious arguments for and against...
I'm a liberal catholic and not an atheist, but I'm not a priest. I'm also a gay man. I'm not sure how I'm supposed not to take an interest in the issue of sexuality for as long as people want to exclude me on those grounds.
I may be simplistic but I've for a long time wondered why some Anglicans don't hive off to independent fellowships of one form or other or cross the Bosphorus or Tiber.
For con-evos the line has been that the CofE is a "good boat to fish from" which was ok while they were content to get on with fishing. Now they're intent on grabbing the tiller it's more of a problem. For conservative ACs there is the issue that Roman and Eastern bishops will treat the oath of canonical obedience as something actually to be followed and the priests can't just do what they like, as has rather become the norm in the CofE. And for all parties (including the remaining handful of actual liberals/atheists) there is the pressing practical issue of buildings, stipends and pensions, with which the CofE remains well supplied.
Sure. I get all that but I'm not so sure the conservative evangelicals want to 'grab the tiller' in the sense of wanting to steer the entire ship for the entire voyage, so much as, as they see it, preventing it from running aground.
But yes, clergy doing their own thing has been an issue for sometime irrespective of issues of sexuality. I attended a very impressive but ecclesialogically inconsistent Anglo-Catholic service recently where the incumbent prayed for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Welsh bishops (it was in Wales) and the Ecumenical Patriarch (but not the Pope).
The liturgy itself seemed a strange hybrid of his own devising which contained very little I recognised from other Anglo-Catholic services I've attended. It was quite something. But I don't know what it was.
If you don't believe that con evos want to steer the whole ship, I can tell you right now that that is how it feels from the inside. The vapours they put on when anyone does anything which doesn't meet their exacting standards of hatred have to be seen to be believed.
ETA: and they can be inspected on the CEEC site and various other places, including blogs, as far as the eye can see, or stomach can stand. My stomach's capacity is the limiting factor in my case.
I s'pose what I meant is similar to what Chrisstiles was saying. They were more than happy to let other people to do the hard work of navigating the vessel provided they could continue to fish from it. Now it's taking a turn they don't like they are trying to mutiny.
But more broadly, and I'm not necessarily referring to sexuality issues here, it strikes me that both the evangelical (in its conservative and charismatic forms) and Anglo-Catholic wings (in all the variety we find there) can veer towards control-freakery.
I was stopped from leading the intercessions in the 11am service in an evangelical parish because I did so in 'too traditional' a way. I was allowed to do it at the 9am service with the oldies.
At the other end of the spectrum I've known clergy enforce particular liturgical actions with almost military precision to the extent you'd imagine those who didn't conform to face firing squads at dawn.
I'm a liberal catholic and not an atheist, but I'm not a priest. I'm also a gay man. I'm not sure how I'm supposed not to take an interest in the issue of sexuality for as long as people want to exclude me on those grounds.
Liberal as in "liberal theology" a la Don Cupitt, John Shelby Spong, or Richard Holloway; or (like me) theologically orthodox but socially liberal? The former was who I was clumsily aiming at.
Oh yes, I get that entirely, and certainly they have taken most of their tactics from the "traditionalist Anglo-Catholics" who led the way in this gish gallop 30 years ago. It's a gish gallop because nothing short of their precise requirements is ever enough, and they try to achieve them by simply never giving one time to get in contact with reality.
The Church of England is multifarious, in a way I try to continue to believe is a feature rather than a bug. There comes a point, however, at which containing rank contradictions becomes too much, too essential a split to be survivable. It's a matter of discernment, but at the moment the idea of discerning whether this point has been reached seems to have been excluded entirely.
I s'pose what I meant is similar to what Chrisstiles was saying. They were more than happy to let other people to do the hard work of navigating the vessel provided they could continue to fish from it.
Yes and one could envisage a scenario in which they had taken the episcopacy and Synod a lot more seriously and run a Federalist Society like strategy inside the CofE. The problem for them is that being aggressively low church and loving the social cachet that comes with being part of the state church runs somewhat counter to that strategy.
With existential threats to the world in general appearing new every morning (or so it sometimes seems), there's a lot of people pretending to be ostriches.
This constant preoccupation with sexuality is, frankly, tedious, and I'm glad that I no longer have any part in the equally tedious arguments for and against...
I'm a liberal catholic and not an atheist, but I'm not a priest. I'm also a gay man. I'm not sure how I'm supposed not to take an interest in the issue of sexuality for as long as people want to exclude me on those grounds.
Liberal as in "liberal theology" a la Don Cupitt, John Shelby Spong, or Richard Holloway; or (like me) theologically orthodox but socially liberal? The former was who I was clumsily aiming at.
I vary, from time to time. I'm more conservative than Cupitt or Holloway at their most non-literalist, but I'm certainly not a literalist about a great many things. Ultimately, to my mind, all religion is a metaphor which we believe is an accurate reflection of ultimate reality. Which bits are accurate and how far they are indeed accurate is the definition of faith.
And yes, socially liberal, based on the perception of Christianity as having emptied morals - i.e. the definition of abstract principles, into ethics rooted in individual people and situations. But then, for me, that is the natural outworking of the Incarnation. God emptied himself into creation, and so creation is where we find his reality.
I think we need to add into the equation the report that two recent attempts to appoint new bishops (Ely and Carlisle) have ended in deadlock. The suggestion has been made that in both cases it was because Con Evos on the appointment panel refused to countenance someone who didn't meet their requirements regarding sexual matters. It certainly feels as if the ConEvo faction in the C of E is trying to dictate to the rest.
I'm a liberal catholic and not an atheist, but I'm not a priest. I'm also a gay man. I'm not sure how I'm supposed not to take an interest in the issue of sexuality for as long as people want to exclude me on those grounds.
Yes, I sympathise (FWIW). As I said, I'm glad that, as a straight man, I'm out of it now, but I do appreciate that it's hard for those still inside, so to speak.
I feel almost like an addict, in that the sacrament of the eucharist is fundamental to my understanding of how life works. Not taking communion feels like not breathing, almost - I'm just not quite sure how that works. Also, I feel like my faith needs a community in which to happen, and it needs to be a community which can receive me as I am. So there we are.
Double-posting to say that I was trying in my previous two posts to say how my position about inclusion comes from my theology and my life of faith, and not just from my experience of my sexuality, though all of these each other.
I think we need to add into the equation the report that two recent attempts to appoint new bishops (Ely and Carlisle) have ended in deadlock. The suggestion has been made that in both cases it was because Con Evos on the appointment panel refused to countenance someone who didn't meet their requirements regarding sexual matters. It certainly feels as if the ConEvo faction in the C of E is trying to dictate to the rest.
I am old enough to remember the feeling in the 60s/70s among ConEvos that they had no voice in the CofE against the prevailing Anglo-Catholic and "South Bank" factions. Times have changed!
...
The Church of England is multifarious, in a way I try to continue to believe is a feature rather than a bug. There comes a point, however, at which containing rank contradictions becomes too much, too essential a split to be survivable. It's a matter of discernment, but at the moment the idea of discerning whether this point has been reached seems to have been excluded entirely.
"Unity" is pretty high up the list of core principles and doctrines of the CofE. Much effort is devoted to preserving it.
I think we need to add into the equation the report that two recent attempts to appoint new bishops (Ely and Carlisle) have ended in deadlock. The suggestion has been made that in both cases it was because Con Evos on the appointment panel refused to countenance someone who didn't meet their requirements regarding sexual matters. It certainly feels as if the ConEvo faction in the C of E is trying to dictate to the rest.
Interesting. It led me to wonder if (the) conservative evangelicals recognise Charles R as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England (and maybe Defender of the Faith).
I feel almost like an addict, in that the sacrament of the eucharist is fundamental to my understanding of how life works. Not taking communion feels like not breathing, almost - I'm just not quite sure how that works. Also, I feel like my faith needs a community in which to happen, and it needs to be a community which can receive me as I am. So there we are.
Unity is one of those canards which needs shooting. The interpolation of the disquisition on unity into John's gospel is one of the most baleful editorial decisions in the whole of the gospels, because it has led to many centuries of injustice, and of minorities holding the rest of the church to ransom. Occasionally, this has been on the "right" side, but overwhelmingly it has led to outcomes such as the total paralysis of Rowan Williams's archiepiscopate.
The amount of bigotry and bile which has been tolerated in the name of unity is one of the sins of which hierarchs will be called to repent. And probably one of the most shocking. Justice has been totally sacrificed in the name of the unity of an institution which, contrary to its most cherished assumption, is not coterminous with the kingdom of God.
I think most Christian churches would consider the Kingdom of God to extend beyond their own constituency, even the Big C Big T Churches.
I can't say I've ever noticed anyone within the Anglican Communion, of whatever persuasion, opine that their Church is coterminous with the Kingdom of God in its entirety.
Perhaps I've missed something.
Some Anglicans certainly assume that they should be the 'default' option, just as the Conservative Party can have an 'entitled' view of itself as the 'Party of Government.'
That's part of the Establishment legacy, of course and it can even be found in a residual form in disestablished Anglican Churches such as The Church in Wales.
That kind of tendency isn't unique to Anglicans of course. There are parallels elsewhere.
On the issue of conservative evangelicals and the monarchy, I get the impression that most would be moderately royalist (with some exceptions) and would simply cough politely and look the other way if you mentioned the King as Supreme Governor.
They'd say, 'Christ is the Head of the Church,' and change the subject to something more congenial.
Ask them about 'Charles, King and Martyr' and they'd either look at you daft (as we'd say in South Wales) or roll their eyes wearily.
I'd agree that diversity is a feature not a bug within the Anglican Communion and it's proven remarkably elastic for many, many years considering all the pressures, tensions and tugs in different directions.
I think the tendency to confuse the institution of the church with the kingdom of God is endemic to nearly all churches, and indeed probably to all institutions, if re-expressed in culturally appropriate ways. My particular difficulty with it in church terms is that it increases the power of clericalism, though again that is common to all those who derive both their power and their identity from the institution with which they identify, especially if that institution confers certain powers and status on them.
To me, a *church* is a body of believers (a miserable company of poor, perishing, sinners, as one 19thC Kentish evangelist put it!) which expresses its faith in social justice (as per Matthew 25 and lots of other bits of the Bible), and also carries out the two commands of Jesus - *Do this in remembrance of me*, and *go and baptise...*.
Unity is one of those canards which needs shooting. The interpolation of the disquisition on unity into John's gospel is one of the most baleful editorial decisions in the whole of the gospels, because it has led to many centuries of injustice, and of minorities holding the rest of the church to ransom. Occasionally, this has been on the "right" side, but overwhelmingly it has led to outcomes such as the total paralysis of Rowan Williams's archiepiscopate.
The amount of bigotry and bile which has been tolerated in the name of unity is one of the sins of which hierarchs will be called to repent. And probably one of the most shocking. Justice has been totally sacrificed in the name of the unity of an institution which, contrary to its most cherished assumption, is not coterminous with the kingdom of God.
This helped crystalise several thoughts, including of Rowan William's time at the helm.
In my experience, "prayer for unity" often comes with an ambiguous subtext. "Don't rock the boat", "don't be different". And occasionally straightforward emotional blackmail.
Unity is one of those canards which needs shooting. The interpolation of the disquisition on unity into John's gospel is one of the most baleful editorial decisions in the whole of the gospels, because it has led to many centuries of injustice, and of minorities holding the rest of the church to ransom. Occasionally, this has been on the "right" side, but overwhelmingly it has led to outcomes such as the total paralysis of Rowan Williams's archiepiscopate.
The amount of bigotry and bile which has been tolerated in the name of unity is one of the sins of which hierarchs will be called to repent. And probably one of the most shocking. Justice has been totally sacrificed in the name of the unity of an institution which, contrary to its most cherished assumption, is not coterminous with the kingdom of God.
This helped crystalise several thoughts, including of Rowan William's time at the helm.
In my experience, "prayer for unity" often comes with an ambiguous subtext. "Don't rock the boat", "don't be different". And occasionally straightforward emotional blackmail.
I think the emotional blackmail, when present, is pretty clearly stated upfront. To me "unity" means you don't try to divide the church over disagreements, you don't seek to "purify" the church by excluding others. You can argue, even strongly, for your view, and you can swim the river of your choosing to join others who share your view, but you accept in doing so that you can't take assets with you.
There is a corollary to this - or something like one. The point is that the church - in whatever form - is on a pilgrimage towards God. The assumption that it must remain in one place forever is fundamentally unsound. It can move, and those who stay where they are are the element breaking away.
Another thing which is definitely a matter of discernment, and therefore about which different opinions will necessarily exist, but I do feel very strongly that the last person standing shouldn't always be the one to dictate the pace.
Unity is one of those canards which needs shooting. The interpolation of the disquisition on unity into John's gospel is one of the most baleful editorial decisions in the whole of the gospels, because it has led to many centuries of injustice, and of minorities holding the rest of the church to ransom.
Is the discourse on unity in John’s gospel itself the problem, I wonder? Or rather is it abuse of what we find in John, as noted by @pease, that’s the problem?:
In my experience, "prayer for unity" often comes with an ambiguous subtext. "Don't rock the boat", "don't be different". And occasionally straightforward emotional blackmail.
I think the Belhar Confession, which came from the context of apartheid and the resulting segregation of churches, is instructive. According to the Belhar Confession, unity is
both a gift and an obligation for the church of Jesus Christ; that through the working of God’s Spirit it is a binding force, yet simultaneously a reality which must be earnestly pursued and sought: one which the people of God must continually be built up to attain.
After a discussion of what that unity involves and looks like, the confession continues:
Therefore, we reject any doctrine
which absolutizes either natural diversity or the sinful separation of people in such a way that this absolutization hinders or breaks the visible and active unity of the church, or even leads to the establishment of a separate church formation;
which professes that this spiritual unity is truly being maintained in the bond of peace while believers of the same confession are in effect alienated from one another for the sake of diversity and in despair of reconciliation;
which denies that a refusal earnestly to pursue this visible unity as a priceless gift is sin;
which explicitly or implicitly maintains that descent or any other human or social factor should be a consideration in determining membership of the church.
The confession also says:
We believe
that God has revealed God’s self as the one who wishes to bring about justice and true peace among people;
that God, in a world full of injustice and enmity, is in a special way the God of the destitute, the poor and the wronged; . . .
that the church as the possession of God must stand where the Lord stands, namely against injustice and with the wronged;
that in following Christ the church must witness against all the powerful and privileged who selfishly seek their own interests and thus control and harm others.
Therefore, we reject any ideology
which would legitimate forms of injustice and any doctrine which is unwilling to resist such an ideology in the name of the gospel.
The full English text of the Belhar Confession can be found here. It is worth a read.
There is a corollary to this - or something like one. The point is that the church - in whatever form - is on a pilgrimage towards God. The assumption that it must remain in one place forever is fundamentally unsound. It can move, and those who stay where they are are the element breaking away.
Another thing which is definitely a matter of discernment, and therefore about which different opinions will necessarily exist, but I do feel very strongly that the last person standing shouldn't always be the one to dictate the pace.
Hmm - I read this with agreement but really?
So when the Methodists wandered off it was the CofE that broke away? Or those who left more recently for the Ordinariate?
For avoidance of doubt on this issue I agree with you, but seeking to present one side as the break away and the other as on the pilgrimage towards God strikes me as deeply problematic
For avoidance of doubt on this issue I agree with you, but seeking to present one side as the break away and the other as on the pilgrimage towards God strikes me as deeply problematic
I think you're reading an "always" into @ThunderBunk 's words that isn't there.
Everyone is on a pilgrimage towards God, one way or another, as far as I can see. My point is more that, in some cases, the choice to stay behind can be the schismatic one - it isn't a given that those wishing to move are the schismatics.
For avoidance of doubt on this issue I agree with you, but seeking to present one side as the break away and the other as on the pilgrimage towards God strikes me as deeply problematic
I think you're reading an "always" into @ThunderBunk 's words that isn't there.
Fair, although they’ve got ‘assumption’ and ‘can’ in consecutive sentences.
Another way of looking at it is it’s only when you’ve got the ‘last person standing’ that you can take a view on who is right. And even then not always accurately!
Everyone is on a pilgrimage towards God, one way or another, as far as I can see. My point is more that, in some cases, the choice to stay behind can be the schismatic one - it isn't a given that those wishing to move are the schismatics.
It can be, sure, but those who “stay behind” often claim to be cleaving to the faith as they received it, and to be eschewing unnecessary movement.
Comments
Linked to this is the increasingly common assertion that only they are 'orthodox' and that those who disagree with them are not (which logically means that all dissenters are heretics). The definition of 'orthodox Christianity' now seems to hinge on sexual matters more than beliefs about God, Jesus Christ or the Holy Spirit.
It's particularly egregious when they can manage to swallow their huge disagreements over the ordination of women and tolerate different views on divorce. The claim that these tepid prayers of blessing are beyond the pail is just not credible. It speaks to power play rather than theological conviction: this is the issue where they think they have enough support to throw their weight around.
Eh. This is a strange complaint running alongside the one that they are too doctrinaire. I can find plenty to critique, but this isn't it imo.
I think inconsistency and performative outrage are both fair criticisms.
Alternatively what's happened is that regardless of their original positions on both those issues they have - in actual practice - shifted a fair way.
If your complaint is that they are - instead - trying to have both their cake and eat it .. well I give you the Anglican Church.
What they're demanding goes beyond even that, though: they're demanding an entirely separate province. The flying bishops are at least under the authority of the Archbishop of the province.
Well, they are and they aren't. In some ways it's just another round of evangelicals in an episocopal church failing to believe in the episcopacy.
https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/ceec-commissions-overseers/
https://ceec.info/ceec-commissions-first-set-of-overseers/
Yes but, and I was very much of that wing at the time, the Trad Catholics did demand a third province*, the alternative episcopal oversight was what they *settled* for.
To that extent, this feels like first shots rather than 'take it or leave it' - though I'm not a conservative evangelical so don't know if it's right to feel that or not.
*In fact, IIRC they demanded it twice - 1992 at the time of women's ordination, and then again at the time of women's ability to become bishops (2014? ish?)
I no longer go to church, although (if asked) I guess I might still class myself as a fairly High Church Anglican, but I'm probably not missing anything.
But I think it's fair to point out that the conservative evangelical wing of the CofE (and Anglican Communion more generally) is no more monolithic than any other segment or faction.
Someone observed to me the other day that all Anglo-Catholics were Tories, simply because those he'd met were. He was surprised when I pointed out that I knew clergy and laity from that tradition who certainly weren't.
But caveats aside, I do see both glorious and inglorious inconsistencies across Anglicanism in all its forms, not just on these issues but almost anything and everything else.
How the heck anyone can reconcile all the anomalies/inconsistencies call them what you will, is beyond me.
It seems to me that plenty of people at one 'end' or the other would be happier (relatively) somewhere else - be it Rome, Constantinople, Geneva...
Disestablishment might help to some extent but I think it goes deeper than that.
Anglicanism was (is?) a great experiment and it may have more to bring out of the test-tube yet.
I may be simplistic but I've for a long time wondered why some Anglicans don't hive off to independent fellowships of one form or other or cross the Bosphorus or Tiber.
But then, I can't imagine what the Anglicans would look like if they only had a MOtR or 'broad church' wing as it were.
I'm Anglo Catholic and am definitely not a Tory. What I am concerned about is attempts to use sexuality as a demarcation line, or worse, a push for GAFCON influence/oversight.
For con-evos the line has been that the CofE is a "good boat to fish from" which was ok while they were content to get on with fishing. Now they're intent on grabbing the tiller it's more of a problem. For conservative ACs there is the issue that Roman and Eastern bishops will treat the oath of canonical obedience as something actually to be followed and the priests can't just do what they like, as has rather become the norm in the CofE. And for all parties (including the remaining handful of actual liberals/atheists) there is the pressing practical issue of buildings, stipends and pensions, with which the CofE remains well supplied.
This constant preoccupation with sexuality is, frankly, tedious, and I'm glad that I no longer have any part in the equally tedious arguments for and against...
Sure. I get all that but I'm not so sure the conservative evangelicals want to 'grab the tiller' in the sense of wanting to steer the entire ship for the entire voyage, so much as, as they see it, preventing it from running aground.
But yes, clergy doing their own thing has been an issue for sometime irrespective of issues of sexuality. I attended a very impressive but ecclesialogically inconsistent Anglo-Catholic service recently where the incumbent prayed for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Welsh bishops (it was in Wales) and the Ecumenical Patriarch (but not the Pope).
The liturgy itself seemed a strange hybrid of his own devising which contained very little I recognised from other Anglo-Catholic services I've attended. It was quite something. But I don't know what it was.
ETA: and they can be inspected on the CEEC site and various other places, including blogs, as far as the eye can see, or stomach can stand. My stomach's capacity is the limiting factor in my case.
But more broadly, and I'm not necessarily referring to sexuality issues here, it strikes me that both the evangelical (in its conservative and charismatic forms) and Anglo-Catholic wings (in all the variety we find there) can veer towards control-freakery.
I was stopped from leading the intercessions in the 11am service in an evangelical parish because I did so in 'too traditional' a way. I was allowed to do it at the 9am service with the oldies.
At the other end of the spectrum I've known clergy enforce particular liturgical actions with almost military precision to the extent you'd imagine those who didn't conform to face firing squads at dawn.
Liberal as in "liberal theology" a la Don Cupitt, John Shelby Spong, or Richard Holloway; or (like me) theologically orthodox but socially liberal? The former was who I was clumsily aiming at.
The Church of England is multifarious, in a way I try to continue to believe is a feature rather than a bug. There comes a point, however, at which containing rank contradictions becomes too much, too essential a split to be survivable. It's a matter of discernment, but at the moment the idea of discerning whether this point has been reached seems to have been excluded entirely.
Yes and one could envisage a scenario in which they had taken the episcopacy and Synod a lot more seriously and run a Federalist Society like strategy inside the CofE. The problem for them is that being aggressively low church and loving the social cachet that comes with being part of the state church runs somewhat counter to that strategy.
Couldn't agree more.
I vary, from time to time. I'm more conservative than Cupitt or Holloway at their most non-literalist, but I'm certainly not a literalist about a great many things. Ultimately, to my mind, all religion is a metaphor which we believe is an accurate reflection of ultimate reality. Which bits are accurate and how far they are indeed accurate is the definition of faith.
And yes, socially liberal, based on the perception of Christianity as having emptied morals - i.e. the definition of abstract principles, into ethics rooted in individual people and situations. But then, for me, that is the natural outworking of the Incarnation. God emptied himself into creation, and so creation is where we find his reality.
Yes, I sympathise (FWIW). As I said, I'm glad that, as a straight man, I'm out of it now, but I do appreciate that it's hard for those still inside, so to speak.
I am old enough to remember the feeling in the 60s/70s among ConEvos that they had no voice in the CofE against the prevailing Anglo-Catholic and "South Bank" factions. Times have changed!
This thread is largely about subjects that are usually reserved for Epiphanies.
Consequently, Epiphanies guidelines will be applied as long as it remains in Purgatory.
Hostly beret off
la vie en rouge, Purgatory host
"Unity" is pretty high up the list of core principles and doctrines of the CofE. Much effort is devoted to preserving it.
Interesting. It led me to wonder if (the) conservative evangelicals recognise Charles R as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England (and maybe Defender of the Faith).
Thanks for this - I find it thought-provoking.
The amount of bigotry and bile which has been tolerated in the name of unity is one of the sins of which hierarchs will be called to repent. And probably one of the most shocking. Justice has been totally sacrificed in the name of the unity of an institution which, contrary to its most cherished assumption, is not coterminous with the kingdom of God.
I can't say I've ever noticed anyone within the Anglican Communion, of whatever persuasion, opine that their Church is coterminous with the Kingdom of God in its entirety.
Perhaps I've missed something.
Some Anglicans certainly assume that they should be the 'default' option, just as the Conservative Party can have an 'entitled' view of itself as the 'Party of Government.'
That's part of the Establishment legacy, of course and it can even be found in a residual form in disestablished Anglican Churches such as The Church in Wales.
That kind of tendency isn't unique to Anglicans of course. There are parallels elsewhere.
On the issue of conservative evangelicals and the monarchy, I get the impression that most would be moderately royalist (with some exceptions) and would simply cough politely and look the other way if you mentioned the King as Supreme Governor.
They'd say, 'Christ is the Head of the Church,' and change the subject to something more congenial.
Ask them about 'Charles, King and Martyr' and they'd either look at you daft (as we'd say in South Wales) or roll their eyes wearily.
I'd agree that diversity is a feature not a bug within the Anglican Communion and it's proven remarkably elastic for many, many years considering all the pressures, tensions and tugs in different directions.
How much longer it can do so is a moot point.
Quite how they do all this is mere detail...
In my experience, "prayer for unity" often comes with an ambiguous subtext. "Don't rock the boat", "don't be different". And occasionally straightforward emotional blackmail.
I think the emotional blackmail, when present, is pretty clearly stated upfront. To me "unity" means you don't try to divide the church over disagreements, you don't seek to "purify" the church by excluding others. You can argue, even strongly, for your view, and you can swim the river of your choosing to join others who share your view, but you accept in doing so that you can't take assets with you.
Another thing which is definitely a matter of discernment, and therefore about which different opinions will necessarily exist, but I do feel very strongly that the last person standing shouldn't always be the one to dictate the pace.
I think the Belhar Confession, which came from the context of apartheid and the resulting segregation of churches, is instructive. According to the Belhar Confession, unity is
After a discussion of what that unity involves and looks like, the confession continues:
The confession also says:
The full English text of the Belhar Confession can be found here. It is worth a read.
Hmm - I read this with agreement but really?
So when the Methodists wandered off it was the CofE that broke away? Or those who left more recently for the Ordinariate?
Or is it blunt majoritarianism?
I think you're reading an "always" into @ThunderBunk 's words that isn't there.
Fair, although they’ve got ‘assumption’ and ‘can’ in consecutive sentences.
Another way of looking at it is it’s only when you’ve got the ‘last person standing’ that you can take a view on who is right. And even then not always accurately!
It can be, sure, but those who “stay behind” often claim to be cleaving to the faith as they received it, and to be eschewing unnecessary movement.