I Fought the Articles and the Articles... (Oops, Rant).

If there's any meme I worry about in Broad Church Episcopalianism these days, it is, "We are not a confessional church." It worries me not because I think it is completely false and to be resisted unto death. No, I worry about it because I'm really concerned someone thinks we are a confessional church. Moreover, I want to know what they say the confession is.

This issue came to the fore of my mind for two reasons. First, recently, Father Haller gently reproved me on the point of marriage being a sure means of grace. He cited the relevant Article of Religion (One of the famous 39) on the Sacraments, which clarified his point and disturbed me as to the obedience of the Church of England to Historic Faith and Order, if even reaffirmer bishops thought this was OK. Second, Melancthon in the Lutheran blogosphere felt he could not join some sort of Lutheran group blogging effort because the blog superusers required that all bloggers make (and he felt could not make) a quia affirmation to the Lutheran confessions collected in the Book of Concord . Such an affirmation would mean in the words of everything I read that Melancthon believed the Book of Concord to be "true exposition of the Word of God." ( In toto , we would presume.)

A quatenus affirmation is usually opposed to a quia affirmation. This affirmation consists in believing, professing, and teaching the doctrine of the Book of Concord insofar as it properly expounds the Word of God. As you might guess, most Lutheran theologians regard quatenus affirmations as ridiculous and coverts for heresy, and I am forced to agree. There are alternatives. But most of these seem to fall into the category of "I think the Book of Concord has some bad points, so let's create loopholes in this affirmation business, so folks can fly under the radar."

Another alternative is the Melancthon affirmation, named after the professor at Wittenberg and protege of Luther who gives the aforementioned blogger his name. Melancthon attested to one of the Lutheran confessional documents with some additions of his own, explaining his reservations about complete rejection of papal authority. Now there is a good argument that The Book of Concord itself contradicts such affirmations by stating the belief that any departure from its doctrine could be responsible for civil and ecclesiastical confusion and strife. Thus, no one really can go around openly picking and choosing either. The Melancthon affirmation doesn't seem to be felicitous for concord.

So why shouldn't Anglicans be confessional? Well, let us inquire into the nature of the confessions of a confessional church. All of the Reformation-era confessions seem to be based on one idea. Everyone who calls themselves Christians but the confessors active (or confessors potential) are not really Christians and merely subsist bodily. In order to justify schism from the Church of Rome, which claimed to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, the confessors needed to assert the true doctrine of the church, which certainly wasn't the doctrine of the Church of Rome. The 39 Articles, at least, explicitly state the Church of Rome "has erred" not only in ceremony but also in faith. The confessions effectively and often expressly anathematize all who do not believe as they do. Provided that these churches profess the Apostles' Creed, there only can be one justification for these confessions. They are new conciliar documents. They hold the same authority (for those who confess them) as the doctrinal statements of councils. Moreover, by demanding a quia affirmation to them, the confessional churches give them the potentially dogmatic authority of ecumenical councils or even the Creeds, depending on the degree of infallibility that is assigned to them.

A confessional church then as far as it believes in its confession and the infallibility of that confession sees itself as the only legitimate successor of the Body of Christ at the Last Supper and the Pentecostal Theophany. It is alone the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.

A confessional church is not the same as a creedal church. A creedal church merely professes certain creeds as "right expositions of the Word of God." Note the identity between Word of God and Christ is especially correct here, because the creeds are ultimately Christological in view. They provide the explanation of history and cosmic order necessary to comprehend the efficacy of salvation through Jesus Christ. If I can give a quia affirmation to the Apostle's Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed, I believe I am a member of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church along with all others who profess those creeds. I should have respect for Holy Tradition, but I think this is included in the Creeds. But here the Roman Catholics would exclude me by certain doctrines. The Eastern Orthodox would exclude me as well. The confessional churches, if they were honest, would exclude me from their body because I did not confess their confessions. The Roman Catholic Church is likewise a Reformed church in that view. Her post-Reformation doctrine (and some of her pre-Reformation doctrine) is filled with infallible pronouncements necessary for the concord of that body. Some call that a deposit of faith. The Orthodox claim a deposit of faith as well, but their doctrines at least seem more antique.

But are any of these objects really infallible? From what I understand of Roman Catholic and Orthodox dogma (these infallible [or nearly so] doctrines) and the confessions of the churches in the view of their most conservative adherents, they seem to be. They have become ahistorical artifacts. Since they act as a documentary yoke of the Church into one Body that never dies, the unity of the Body through the centuries requires that they be unaltered. Hence, when folks say the Church has taught such and such, I think that the ultimate merit of such and such is how it binds the communion of saints. And if it doesn't bind the communion of saints, it may be modified insofar as the modifications do not create division among the communion of saints. And by the communion of saints, I mean the invisible one in the Heavenly City more than the wheat and weeds of the worlds.

Pardon me. I write in outlines more than solid arguments. But my end is this. The Anglican Church should not be a confessional church but a creedal one, because we ought to recognize that we are part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, not the whole thing. Any church that makes doctrine that is infallible and immutable beyond the Creeds (and perhaps the doctrinal conclusions of the Ecumenical Councils) is saying that it is the One True Church. I know Catholic and Orthodox triumphalists. Perhaps I could find Lutheran and Presbyterian triumphalists, but I refuse to be an Anglican triumphalist.

Of course, many Anglicans these days would find it hard making a quia affirmation to the Creeds. At this point, I am willing to make only one compromise. Will you affirm that the Creeds are true/proper expositions of the Word of God/ worthy of earnest belief, profession, and teaching insofar as they as propositions surpass the limitations of human problematization. I.e., the Ascension as expressed works best in a three-tiered universe, but Jesus still ascended from a mountain in Galilee, disappeared from human perception, and "sits at the right hand" (whatever that means) of God the Father? However we interpret the Creeds, I am fairly sure we should not contradict the soteriological assumptions of the Nicene Fathers even if we need to suspend certain elements of their worldview. Frankly, I would prefer to profess the Creeds fairly literally and not be surprised if I need to invert the cosmic order through Nicene Father glasses to see what is going on when " tuba mirum spargens sonum per sepulchra regionum." So convinced I am at the subsistence of the universe through God, I have no problem making exceptions for the central dogma of physics, as long as I am not claiming miracles are happening in my laboratory.

All right. I took on far too many beefs in that last paragraph. I'm just not too happy with the Mission Statement business I've seen in a lot of churches. Yesterday, I seriously considered swimming the Tiber or the Bosporus if things get too bad. And then I would turn into some cross between Dorothy Day and the present Pope, because I couldn't do anything else.

What I really wanted to discuss was the Articles of Religion, a possible Anglican Confession...

The Articles of Religion

One of the resolutions of last General Convention asked that Episcopalians tell their faith stories (to one another and to the world preferably). Thinking back to the beginnings of my own faith journey, I remember bits and pieces, many of them quite embarassing. I really hope my children don't have a bout with Pelagianism in their preteens.

That aside, one of my earliest memories ever is of church. I think I can date it to about my fifth year. I am lying under the pew bench of an actual pew in a colonial church of great significance in the early history of (P)ECUSA. I'm not really interested in what is going on above me. It's summer. I have no Sunday School. It's probably the sermon. I'm bored. There are three types of books in the pew. One is the 1982 Hymnal . I like that book. It has songs in it that I love to sing. My father has this wonderful tenor voice which likes singing deep Welsh hymns. Hyfrodol... I also like the 1982 Hymnal, because it is as old as I am. Another book was the Bible. I liked the Bible. I especially liked Numbers, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. I must have been fascinated with leprosy and pollution in general. I was 4 years old and obsessed with the purity laws. Folks, I don't understand it either. The third book in the pew is the Book of Common Prayer. For years, I was convinced it came out in 1982 like the Hymnal . Perhaps at this age, I also had seen a 1928 BCP . I certainly would know one well (and the 1940 Hymnal ) by the age of 8 or so.

What I liked most about the BCP was the stuff at the back, especially the 39 Articles. People often ask me, "What kind of child were you?" I try not to answer that my favorite authors at the age of 4 or 5 were Beverly Cleary, C.S. Lewis, St. Athanasius, and Thomas Cranmer, but in some sense, this might have been true. Thus, when I think about the Articles of Religion, I do not think of them immediately as historical artifacts but as childhood friends. Thus, I often go back to them to see how much of them I still believe are worthy of being considered pure doctrine and which others are of a temporally local and spatially civil nature and ought to be discarded. My explication of them probably should be one by one. So while I still mull over this difficult theology project, I will discuss one Article per day and see whether the Articles would make a suitable confession for a confessional Anglican Church. Eventually, I may find myself getting to the issue of lay presidency in Sydney, which may light the blogosphere on fire over the next month.

Until next time, the Holy Brothers wish you and all of your relatives conviction of Original Sin and of the lusting of the flesh that always has the nature of sin.