I seem to be in a habit of suggesting links to other websites rather than posting anything original. But in my defense, I must say that Bishop Peter Robinson’s short essay on Prayer Book Catholicism is excellent and educational. Being an Englishman, Bishop Robinson is well situated to explain the largely English phenomenon of Prayer-Book Catholicism to North Americans. Please find the essay here: http://anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/2010/03/prayer-book-catholicism.html
For additional Anglican deliciousness from Bishop Robinson, as well as more information about the man himself, I also highly recommend his blog. Bishop Robinson is one of a handful of clerics maintaining a strong internet witness to classical Anglicanism. His blog can be found here: http://theoldhighchurchman.blogspot.com/
While highly agreeing with Death Bredon, let me also point out that before TEO’s long slike into apostasy, there were numerous prayer book Catholic parishes in the United States. Indeed in the diocese in which I was raised and entered Anglicanism, it was the predominant form of churchmanship. In the very far West of the state there were two missal parishes with Nashotah House priests but the rule for most of the parishes was what you would find recommended in Dearmer and the Alcuin Club’s books with the single exception of the English Use liturgical colours, but we even had three parishes of which I know that followed that. But those were the parishes of the most theologically and historically astute priests in the diocese.
The marvelous part was that before the beginning of the so-called Civil Rights Movement and Prayer Book Revision, the diocese was growing so rapidly that the demographers gave Anglicanism a chance at becoming the dominant faith of the state in a place which originally been a Baptist stronghold.
If carrying the ancient Catholic faith to those who believe themselves to be Christians who who know little or nothing of what that meant in the first four centuries of the Church is important to us, I strongly believe that the Continuum has to adopt the Prayer Book Catholic model. Yes, there is growth among a select few of the missal parishes, but nothing like we might expect if those priests and their bishops actually believed in the superiority of classical Anglicanism and acted upon same. Instead, they are unable to see that the tragedy of the the ACA/TAC’s planned departure for the Church of Rome precisely when it is being discovered that the present pope is neck deep in the pedophilia scandal and sinking fast is going to taint them as well because of their only too plain attachment to Roman liturigics and ceremonial. They do not seem to understand in the least that they are telling both their own people and those outside the Church that Rome is better than we are and that is something which I do not for a single moment believe.
Excellent points.
And, I might add that, in North America, Prayer-Book Catholicism is an even more directly the successor of Old High Churchmanship and the Caroline Divines than generally has been the case in England.
As I see it, the few continuum parishes that are distinctively Prayer Book Catholic carry on the life and work of the Church quite apart from any interconnection they might have with other Prayer Book catholic parishes. Grow they might; but without the solidarity that comes from belonging to a community of parishes with a common identity, such growth isn’t likely spread beyond the boundaries of each individual parish.
I realize that within a group like the ACC, it’s constitutions and canons notwithstanding, there are varieties of churchmanship. And I have heard that in some parts of the country, ACC parishes of Prayer Book catholic tendencies tend to be the rule rather than the exception. But lacking any formal organ of cohesivness-a Prayer Book catholic Missionary bishop, for example- it’s difficult too see how Prayer Book catholicism will catch fire.
Of course the last thing you want to do is to construct a subcommunion within an established diocese. So I am at a loss to conceptualize how a Prayer Book catholic renassaince could be fostered within a predominantly Anglo-Catholic church. I will say, however, that the Anglican Church of Canada, with its many problems, seems , nonethyeless to have a fairly robust tradition of Prayer Book catholicism; at least it does if the material at the Canadian PBS is any indication.
Btw, thanks, BP Lee, for pointing me to Walter Hilton. Up til now, he has only been a name to me. So I will need to acquaint myself with his writings. Do you have any titles to recommend?
Mark,
I believe that you have put your hand on a key problem with the preservation of proper Anglicanism in North America. And that problem is that most parishes within shouting distance of classical Anglicanism are part of jurisdictions in which mere Anglicanism is not now, or has generally not been, the norm. This is a problem because, as you aptly point out, where orthodoxy is merely optional, it is quite difficult to succor and nourish.
Personally, I would like to see the unity of traditional, non-Puritan, Prayer-Book Anglicanism enhanced first by the establishment and growth of vibrant Anglican Preservation Society, which would bridge across jurisdictional lines, much in the way that the Society for the Holy Cross (SSC) does for Anglo-Catholics. Perhaps, the key tenets of society would be subscription to the Creeds, the Councils, the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal, and the Articles of Religion.
For reading Hilton there is the one book, The Ladder of Perfection, that I believe every Anglican ought to know. Unfortunately you will have to look for it on a site like Abebooks.com but it is worth finding that copy. I would also recommend that you tuck the anonymously written The Cloud of Unknowing into your list of books that you have to read at some point or another. As far as I am concerned they are the most useful of the books written by the mystics of fourteenth century England. By themselves or taken together with Langland’s The Vision of Piers the Plowman, they all but demand a liturgy which ordinary people could understand instead of the mystery of a Latin liturgy.
But on the other point, I actually believe that if prayer book Catholic and Anglican use parishes banded together as Anglo-papalist missal parishes do, (and that even across the lines of ACC, APCK, UEC and APA) they would strengthen both themselves and the cause of a positive and not self hating Anglicanism. In England, it was the English use churchmen who founded many of the great Catholic parishes that were later captured by the missal using Anglo-Papists. That caused a very subtle shift in the type of people they attracted from heterosexual and family oriented to homosexually tinged singles. I will admit the later generally have more free money, but they don’t tend to produce the next generation of churchmen.
H Lee Poteet,
What to do you think about a pan-jurisdictional para-church “Anglican Preservation Society” that would be open to clergy and laymen alike and based on subscription to traditional and unadulterated translations and editions of the Scriptures, the Creeds, the Councils, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal, as well as the Articles of Religion? Perhaps a quarterly journal designed to educate North American Churchman about the historical doctrine and worship of “mere Anglicanism” would also be in order, as well as an annual pilgrimage to an English-Use, Payer-Book church for fellowship and liturgical education.
Since the late Doctor Paul Faunch who kept the Anglican Society in England a going thing until his death was my very dear friend, I could not more agree with Death’s suggestion. If you made it a society of priests and laymen, a sort of third order devotional society with a name something like The Company of SS. Gilbert of Sempringham and Nicholas Farrer, you could span the Reformation itself and point to the only successful founder of an English order than included both men and women and a post Reformation family community that attempted to keep and grow the faith in a troubled society. I like the word ‘company’ but its Latin roots mean ‘with bread’ as “in the night in which he was betrayed. . .”
Actually with Bishop Cosin I believe the Book of Common Prayer itself is a rule of life as much as it is a liturgy. It is a via in much the same way the regula benedicti is and with a great deal of the same spirit.
What think ye?
Death and Bishop Lee,
Both of you have hit pay dirt. I have been commiserating with a priest friend of mine for some time about just such an endeavour, but I have the feeling that he doesn’t have the requisite time to see it through.
I especially like the idea of a society that is devotional
(rather like the SSC, but including laymen as well as clergy)and educational. That would mean that all members would agree to submit themselves to a prescribed rule (which, at the very least, would require daily worship, using the Cranmerian Prayer Book office, and attendance at Eucharist on all Sundays and holy days of obligation).
Inaugurating something akin to the Atlantic Theological Conference (a annual, classically Anglican theological seminar in Canada, featuring lectures, MP, Evensong and Choral Eucharist, according to the Canadian BCP, 1962) would be a laudable future goal. Perhaps, a different Eucharist from the classical Prayer Book editions could be used for different years?
Do high Church Reformed fit in here? By that, I mean historic Prayerbook with moderate ceremonial.
And what do you mean by “moderate ceremonial?” The prayer book ideal as Bishop Cosin expressed it was that of the Council of Nicea, i.e., “Let the ancient customs prevail.” But, of course, that is a little difficult if you don’t know what the ancient customs are.
The truth, however, is that the ceremonial of the ancient church would be what most of us would think of as moderate. There were bows but no genuflections. Clergy and laity crossed themselves at various times in the celebration but if you did or did not as a layman was your own business, a matter of personal devotion. The Ornaments Rubric replies that the items in use in the English Church in the year before the first Book of Common Prayer were to continue to be in use as were the clerical habits and vestments appropriate to the celebration, but they could be simple or elaborate according to the wealth of the parish.
So it might help, Charles, if you were to be more exact in your vision of “moderate ceremonial.”
Hi Charles,
I think our ancestors provided an answer in Art 34.
“It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word. Whosoever, through his private judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, (that others may fear to do the like,) as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the Magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of the weak brethren.”
I would read this as a sort of inverse understanding of the Genevan regulative principle. Where Geneva would say that no ceremony or worship may be done UNLESS explicitly commanded by Biblical warrant, Canterbury would reply that no ceremony or worship is innately bad UNLESS proscribed by Biblical warrant. HOWEVER, we are not free to change the liturgy if it would create discord in the wider church-perhaps a direct rebuke to the Genevans in England at the time.
It is still sad that this issue could not have been more happily resolved at the Savoy conference.
Also, dear Charles and Richard, even most ceremony, otherwise considered ‘adiaphora’, was not subject to private judgement or change but followed the principle of preservation/suspension by convocation/collegiality as well as catholic principle. See Hooker’s four precepts for some overarching guidelines: http://anglicanrose.wordpress.com/2009/07/13/hookers-precepts/
That said you might notice the principles themselves are scriptural or deduced from the same.
Bp. Lee, what would be the “low version” of vestments according to the Ornament rubric, say, for Morning prayer vs. Mass. Does Anglican Mass have low and high versions? Must there be a chasuble? Would surplice and cope suffice? Could a minister get away with black gown only for a daily office? I think I know the answer, but for clarification would like to get your opinion.
Mr. Baker,
Thanks for visiting. I hope everyone would feel welcome to visit us as often as you like!
I believe that most of the posters here are loyal to what might be called “formulary” Anglicanism–such as the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal, the Articles of Religion. Thus, I think we are “high church” in that our feelings run “high” in support of the classical Anglican formularies; most of us would be loathe to claim what generally passes for Anglo-Catholicism. Also, I think we are also “reformed” in the sense that we follow the English Church in rejecting the numerous innovations of the medieval Latin church and that which was reaffirmed by Roman Catholicism at the Council of Trent. But, all of us, I believe, would be wary of claiming the term “Reformed” in the full-fledged sense of confessional Lutheranism or Calvinism, as the import of Articles of Religion as commonly understand from the time of their ratification until after the so-called Glorious Revolution. Lastly, I believe that we all would embrace the adjective “Catholic” in the primitive sense that we strive to hold to the understanding of the Faith “approved by the consentient mind and voice of the most early Fathers” and in resistance to all forms of Gnosticism.
Gentlemen,
I inadvertently deleted a comment while doing some housekeeping editing. As a consequence, I intentionally delete two brief replies to the comment for sake of the over coherence of the thread. Sorry!
No problem, Death! While interesting, they were hardly that world shaking or pertinent.
On the other hand, I would like to commend your excellent reply to Mr. Baker. It was so precisely to the point that it could hardly have been stated better. And that is exactly why I am looking forward to you adding something of your own to the blog in the very near future.
+L
Brethren,
Allow me to speak off topic a bit. I returned yesterday from 5 days of committee meetings for the REC. Unfortunately, I have nothing to report as to FACA; the two days of bishops meetings were devoted entirely to matters concerning the ACNA ( Bp. Grundorf, I should add was in attendance for these).
The FACA meetings are slated for sometime in June, and it highly unlikely that Abps Haverland, Reber or Provence will be attending.
I also learned that Metropolitan Jonah will be meeting with the ACNA bishops at Bp. Sutton’s parish, Church of the Holy Communion, Dallas, Tx.. Talks will commence there with the service of solemn Evensong. After several days, the meetings will move to the local Orthodox cathedral, where the proceedings will begin with Vespers. This ought to yield some exceedingly interesting statements.
By the way, I would still like to know what Charles Baker considers moderate ceremonial. I suspect that it would be very much what we would think of as “old high church.”
I believe that one must understand what is the origin of one’s Prayer Book. For Americans, we received our Prayer Book via the Scottish Episcopal Church. Seabury was consecrated by the Scottish Church on the condition that the “new” American Church would use the Scottish Prayer of Consecration. The Scottish Prayer Book was based on the English 1549 and not the 1662, therefore, more catholic. The REC uses a Prayer Book which is based on the 1662. This could explain why the “Continuing Anglican Church in America has problems “fitting in” with the Southern Cone or, for that matter, ACNA. By the way, the Prayer of Consecration in the 1662 would not be considered valid by any Eastern Orthodox Church. The 1979 Book of Alternative Services is theologically flawed and not considered a valid Prayer Book by any in the Continuing Anglican Church movement.
I have recently learned how to find blogsites and to post comments. Dinosaurs learn very slowly
My situation is that of isolation. Where I live has nothing really accessable that I could tolerate. I’ve long since had my fill of missal religion and the Abomination of the Philistines. So, perforce, I remain at home, using my BCP and Bible, listening to read services on the Internet, and music CDs.
Yes, I do prefer the BCP of 1662, but tolerate the US ’28 despite its weaknesses. Over the years, I’ve collected and studies the various expositions of the 39, etc. Yes, I’ve written on that subject. I also learn from the Homilies. As with many of you, More & Cross, ‘Anglicanism’, is a great favourite, I also read on other matters. For example, I’m now re-reading Arthur lowndes, ‘Vindication of Anglican Orders’ I’m doing this because of the forthcoming Tiberian hydrophilia; an endeavour to determine just why the TAC/ACA is doing this and to know what they’re getting into.
I like the idea of an association that could help those of us in isolation and to recover those that have long since abandoned hope of finding a church home free of missal religion and the other unAnglican tendencies.
Pray for us out here in the wilderness, please. There are lots more of us than we realise.
In +,
Benton
Mr. Marder,
Welcome to the Beach Party. Please visit as oft as you like!
Having in mind your love for the 1662 BCP, please allow me to especially recommend for your edification the “Comfortable Words Diary” of one our members. You can find the Diary at:
http://www.comfortablewords.com/comwords/diary/
For those who would like to worship using a Prayer Book based on the 16652 Book of Common Prayer and are living in the UK, may I suggest you attend a church which is a member of the Free Church of England. They are in communion with the Reformed Episcopal Church (USA). There Prayer Book is very faithful to the 1662.