A hundred years before, when William, Prince of Orange, came to the British Throne, and the Stuarts were banished, the Scottish Bishops refused to conform to the new regime, but remained loyal to King James. They were accordingly deprived from their sees, their places were given to Presbyterians, and the Presbyterian was constituted by law the established Church of Scotland. The deprived Bishops, hated equally by Scottish Presbyterians for their Churchmanship and by English Churchmen for their politics, met in secret for divine service, and perpetuated the episcopate by secret, but well authenticated, consecrations. They were only a few, and were persecuted bitterly, but they were ardent and true Churchmen, and perpetuated the old Scottish Liturgy, which was very similar to the first Prayer Book of King Edward VI. in England.
Persecuted Anglicans and by the sufferance of the Church of England? The idea of it!
He's A Better Man Than I
*Christopher has some great thoughts at Bending the Rule about our idolatry of catholicity, our various complexes about persecution and rescue that draw us from the way of Christ, and a nice shot about our general failure of imagination that I couldn't make without a bitter spirit. He can make it as someone who lives creatively in the shadow of the Great Traditions of the Body of Christ. He and C are very much like those who the Evangelist John writes about in the Gospel for today, "Those who live by the truth come to the light so that it may be clearly seen that God is in all they do."
There a few observations I want to make on his piece without cluttering up his comments box. The continual accusation of the reasserters against the reappraisers is that "they change the meanings of words." Initially, when I read *Christopher's description of catholicity, I first saw the merit in this. But then it occurred to me: what is catholicity anyway? For the Fathers I've read it seems to be the idea that the first order matters of Christian life are held in common by communities that differ greatly as to lower order matters. But that in the end, they are obligated to treat changes in first order matters together through the mutual consultation of their bishops looking charitably to the general practice of the church in the past. It began as a survival mechanism in the days of persecution, when you never could guarantee going from town to another that the underground community of Christianoi believed in a soteriologically effectual Christ. For that's what Christology is. It is the business of intellectually constructing a Christ whose soteriological efficacy we understand out of the faith we have in a Christ who is soteriologically effective no matter our intellectual deficiencies or subtleties. Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again! None of this changes if we believe Christ is the ground hamburger of our being, but we are certainly foolish (or perhaps over-wise) if we do believe so.
But the ancient model of catholicity has failed. If you're a Roman Catholic, you don't think so, because you have been conditioned to see Rome, her rites, and her doctrine as "universal." Unlike the account of Tacitus about the Christians and the Great Fire, Rome has become the place to which all justifying and sanctifying things of the world are drawn. But laid upon the ground of the ancient model of catholicity is the assumption that the mystical Body of Christ does not exist outside the Catholic Church. All other communities (except perhaps the Eastern Orthodox churches) are "ecclesial communities" not Eucharistic communities in which Christ is really present. To this day, I hear some Catholic commenters on Anglican blogs say that Anglicans shouldn't care about "catholicity," since Anglican orders aren't valid anyway, since it would take some gyrations of history to make them so. Of course, I don't believe this. I won't tell you why, but I am reasonably certain that the Eucharistic community extends well beyond the Roman Catholic Church.
But moreover, I cannot imagine the ancient catholicity to be workable in our present state of affairs. Who could imagine a meeting dominated by Eastern bishops and their agenda (though assented to by Rome) settling the doctrinal agenda of the Roman Catholic Church in this day and age? Who could imagine an Italian spending time in Coptic monasteries in order to establish a new religious order in Italy? But then again, who could imagine that a Swiss Protestant could found a religious order of both Catholics and Protestants from all the corners of the Earth? Could Calvin? Taize is more a model for catholicity in our time than Rome. This is best exemplified in her music, which began in French and Latin with French and Latin modes rooted in both the high and folk Mass traditions of France and Germany. But now each time a new brother with a charism for music is incorporated into that community, the music of the community becomes a little bit Xhosa or Cantonese.
At ILEOS, I have the opportunity to hear a great variety of Christian music from Africa. In my opinion, a new chant tradition, at least as rich as the Galician, is arising in South Africa from the churches of Natal, the Transvaal, and the Transkei. And the gifts of the Christian world are not given in music alone. From Australia and New Zealand, we soon may see signs of a theological awakening that may provide new insight into the relation between the Kingdom of God and the created order. These are a few examples of the catholicity of the church being lived out in the midst of globalization. And while I suspect I may see a day in which Nigerians sing American worship songs and I sing the Magnificat to the work songs of the Reef mines, it is all to the good.
For if we believe Christ took on the fullness of our humanity, each one of us has seen only a small measure of the Incarnate Christ. And most of all, we look to the time when there shall be before the Throne of the God and the Lamb a great multitude that cannot be counted: a kingdom of priests from every tribe, language, and nation to serve our God. Of course, if we ever discover aliens (as Father de Leuuw recently joked), our understanding of catholicity may need to be more expansive.
For in the end, our mimesis of Christ must be as wide and broad and long as our limitations will allow. For the One who came among us to die for our salvation is the same One "through Him all things were made." Any sort of catholicity that thinks it can say (even with reference to the Scriptures) that something in this world cannot and never under any circumstances can be of Him through whom all things were made may need to search the Scriptures more.
But as we seek to receive Christ widely in one another and the cosmos of his design (to be Plotinian about it), we do risk seeing ourselves as the firstfruits of the Kingdom. We cannot. We must seek continuity with our forefathers and foremothers in the Body who pray for us before the Throne. We must think on them with charity. We must acknowledge their critiques. And we must treat them to be as alive as they actually are. They must both argue and be critiqued. For the Scriptures suggest that we will come to judgment before them as well as before Christ. And by receiving them into the fullness of the Eucharistic community (as is their desert), our catholicity will be complete.
Quae Cantuaria et Hierusalem?
"Just look around the blogosphere from left to right, conservative to liberal, traditional to evangelical. We are obsessed with trauma and drama, with our unity and image, our wrongs and our rites, and we're intent on feeding the fire. We watch every move of Canterbury for a pronouncement, as if we had a Pope, and in so doing we betray the complexity of our catholic ecclesiology (which emulates fourth century locality as Fr. Haller, OBG repeatedly points out to no avail) and our own power. We offer tit for tat for our various disagreements fueling the practice of discourse at the expense of common prayer, the only practice that has held us together in our broad tent, and worse, at the expense of practices of neighbour care. "
I feel so very convicted by this, not because I really have some sort of papal ecclesiology (I will admit that the Archbishop of Canterbury is referred to around the Monastery as "Patriarch of the North") but because I realize just how attached I am to Anglican as a label. My attachment began as a familial one. If you go back far enough on both sides of the family, we have been Episcopalians or Anglicans. (There's many Roman Catholics, too, including one amazing collateral connection among the Maryknolls, asleep in the Lord now). I can't say they were spectacular Anglicans. I descend from New England slaveholders and a convicted arsonist. Camassia recently cited a piece by Maggie Gallagher about "crunchy cons" who become Maronites, because they do not have a tradition of their own. Gallagher alternately criticizes them and pities them for treating religion as just another consumer good.
I don't have that problem. My mother was good enough to insist I be raised as something, and my father was good enough to take the opportunity of my birth to find a TEC parish in his new environs. I was raised on critiquing the sermon, moaning about Morning Prayer instead of Eucharist, and enduring politely nasty church politics.
And yet I would say that I have made my tradition my own. At a certain point, there was no compulsion to continue in it, and it would be ridiculous to say that there could have been any compulsion during the last four years. And I confess that I have been an Anglican Communion wonk for a long time. When I was about eight, I wanted to go to Cambridge to study theology. These days, I'd settle for a postdoc. I've had fellow parishioners from the Church of South India. "Exiles" from Sydney and expats from Southern Africa are becoming friends. There's an Australian archdeacon (really more of a rural dean) who I remember in my prayers every once in a while. And a Nigerian priest in Ohio sends me some very useful e-mail once in a while. Apparently, he and his bishop have been working to help out some churches in Nigeria with funds and sweat equity. The Communion is not just a deeply flawed institution to me; it represents a lot of people in various corners of the Earth with whom I would like to serve and worship every once in a while. Anglican identity helps make strangers friends.
But why look to Canterbury? *Christopher is right. Our unity is founded on common prayer and local episcopal government by men with "magic hands" rather than any other idealization from some "pristine" era. TEC was founded by a man of positively presbyterian leanings. But there's just something about the Chair of St. Augustine that can turn a royal patsy into the king's leading critic or mold a wily intellectual into an audacious martyr. For an Anglican, Canterbury itself feels like home , especially when people are celebrating the Tridentine Mass in the crypt. [Random comment from radicalfeministpoet at Jake's place.] And English prelates in general feel like home. Christians ultimately are Jews who found their Messiah in a most alarming and beautiful manner. And so the shadow of the Temple's loss still lies heavy on our hearts. By creating institutions like Rome and Canterbury, we seek to consecrate new Temples and new high priests. But *Christopher is right. We cannot go too far with this. Our lives ought to be an ikon of the Temple in heaven and our High Priest ought to be Christ.
There is a story the monks tell on the Feast of St. Augustine of Canterbury,
When Augustine came to Britain, there were Christians among the Celts in Wales and the Westcountry and in the North among both Dal Riada and the Picts, the latter having been evangelized by Columba. Some wise monk in Wales, perhaps an Irishman and student of St. Finnian, advised the bishops of Wales, "Go to this Roman bishop and greet him in Christ as a brother. But see how he greets you. If he stands and embraces you, you will have no trouble from him. But if he does not greet you as a brother and sits in your presence, then this island will be rent not only between the Saxons and you in kingship but soon also in Christ. So some of the bishops went to Augustine and greeted him in Christ. And he did not greet them likewise but sat down and began to question them.
Until next time, the Holy Brothers pray that since we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Christ, we might be bold enough to go before the throne of grace and obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need
3 comments:
It would seem to me that we continue to not be clear what is first order--the Creeds, and what is derivative second and even third order. As the late Cardinal Hume pointed out, matters of sexuality are third order matters. This from a beloved Benedictine RC leader. Marriage, and the like are first derivative always of Christ's relationship to the Church/God's relationship to Creation and are second derivative further of God's relationship to the person (for we are all married to Christ--monasticism shows us this aspect), so only as they show forth that relationship can we see their value.
We are however elevating third order matters to the first order and in so doing are problematizing theology as a starting point at all as we replace it with anthropologies (oft, but not always, heterosexual) which must be "stretchable" in any good orthodox account. When I read St. Maximos, a favorite of mine, and he recounts that our original existence was non-gendered and desired only God who is all in all, and that he reconciled our beginning with our end, I find the inbetween far more, shall we say complex and flexible.
Perhaps by peeling away these matters from the midst of our assembly altogether, we might get clear that our Eucharist is first order, being our very participation in that marriage feast proleptically or as foretaste, that I sleep with another man while unsettling and even wrong to some should not keep us from partaking together and that excommunication of any should be very very carefully undertaken. I would say that if anything merited excommunication it would be persecution or torture of another in the Body.
From the standpoint of the mystical theology, I see what you mean. But when I delve into the nitty-gritty carnal world of 1st century Corinth etc., it's fairly clear to me that sex is supposed to be important to the Body if only because we are supposed to be a foretaste of a community that shall be corporeal rather than carnal (St. Maximos works well here), and so we are instructed not to wallow in the carnal. The slanderous rhetoric of some conservative exegetes very cleverly recognizes this dynamic. And yet when some Christians brag that they have the best sex, no one asks whether this is the kind of thing we should be trumpeting over the heathen.
Of course, I'm fairly sure that persecution or torture of another in the Body certainly trumps any sort of consensual sex concern. The Summary of the Law chiefly forbids idolatry and murder, all else are derivatives and commentary.
But the hierarchy is adhered to by the Apostle insofar as his reasoning proceeds from the higher level concerns of the mystical theology to the lower. He takes derivatives in the theological calculus. He does not integrate. But we are integrating (and you say as much). Possibly because if some people started talking too much about the Eucharist, their power bloc might break up. vide P.M. Zahl and L. Harding.
Of course, sexual matters are not immaterial, and it is clear that in 1 century Corinth the types of behavior shown seems to be inching toward the Oneida Community in some aspect, inching toward the carnal rather than the corporeal. In a sense, we could say they were turning inward--away from the Body and persuing their own pleasure without respect for how desire should be bridled toward uplift of others.
I'm not quite sure that is the same thing as dealing with a same sex or opposite sex couple who have bound themselves to ascecis, including in their sex lives. I think of a Roman Catholic lesbian couple who are good friends of ours, who have been together for nearly 30 years, who run an elder home together, who volunteer time with art ministries with the mentally ill, and are the epitomy of loving toward one another but moreso toward others. One recently said to me, we don't have sex much anymore, but it doesn't matter, we love one another and our lives are rich with others. That's what I hope C and I could become.
The sexual relationships going on in Corinth were clearly sliding in such a direction that they built up the carnal rather than the corporeal. And as you rightly point out heterosexual marriages or homosexual unions can tend this direction today when we brag about our having good sex, or making sex our raison d'etre, rather than humbly apply ourselves to the upbuilding of the Body as a representative unit (the military aspect here is very appealing in a non-violent way) in the Body. Sex then is always considered in light of holy relationship in such instances.
What troubles me is that contra our greatest theologians, Ss. Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximos, we've come to conclude that gender and orientation are finally eschatological rather than signs of our still on pilgrimage (to not simply say we're fallen, but to admit with St. Irenaeus and St. Nyssa that we're changing toward the All in All), toward the All in All, which is corporeal but which bounded sexual relationships can be a sign of. In the end, we will find ourselves caught up in the All in All interstitched to and interpenetrated by one another (that is what being a person is to use ++Tutu's approach which is really the Fathers' Trinitarian approach) irrespective of our gender and orientation. And that is the first order that must question are tendency toward homologies, toward hardening of these matters (including sex) as Ultimate.
The first order matters must always judge derivative matters as always pointing to/partaking in and failing to do so. Being derivative, not integrative and therefore allowing that other derivations are possible. I'm troubled that we seem to have integrated heterosexual marriage to the point that there is not longer a consideration that this sign is partial and broken and fails even in the best of marriages to show forth that which it participates in. In other words, I can say with St. Augustine, we've lost a sense of SIN on the matter.
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