I am just not going to get a post I am working on finished this week. So, why not point you in the direction of a finished post, a challenging post, an inspiring post, a very Anglican post?
Mark Clavier writes here on "Formed for Faithfulness: Recovering the Anglican Way of Life."
15 comments:
Thanks, +Peter, for Mark Clavier’s very thoughtful post. It puts me in mind of a book by Eugene Peterson that I am searching for: ‘A Long Obedience in the Same Direction’.
I read this morning of Peter’s brave declaration that he would never disown Jesus, ‘And all the disciples said the same’! Some humility and self-awareness needed for us all.
Happy New Year, +Peter! Thanks for sharing the article, it's a good read although not being "Anglican" I feel a slight sense of alienation. I wondered how much of that UK content applies in our NZ context (or, what perhaps doesn't?). I wonder what stood out for you?
"Ministry can begin to feel less like building up the Body of Christ and more like keeping an ageing body on life-support."
That was interesting to me. I guess as an outsider I find Anglicanism off-putting because Anglicans seem fixated on what is "Anglican", and being "Anglican". Maybe some of the forms of being "Anglican" are now out-dated and maintaining some things unnecessarily actually *might* constitute sustaining "an ageing body on life-support"!
So I wonder if it's time to remove the "life-support" and focus much more on building up the Body of Christ. I'm imagining something less "Anglican" and more friendly to non-Anglicans. I've not gone to an Anglican service yet where I've managed to find the right place in the right book (or document) to fully follow and participate in a Sunday service. To add insult to injury I get the feeling Anglicans are dismissive about such struggles!
Hello Elizabeth
A constant challenge in the Anglican church is momentum from people within it, perhaps having spent a significant and very formative portion of their lives in another denomination, to make the Anglican church something more like the Baptist or Pentecostal or Catholic or ... etc church they are comfortable with. Therefore I think it reasonable and even urgent that Anglicans spend some time and effort on working on what makes us distinctive. There is, also, the significant question of what it means to be Anglican in an ever changing world (a kind of question I see Baptists, Pentecostals, Catholics etc also asking of their own churches).
That is a different question to the question of whether Anglican churches are doing their best to ensure that Anglican worship is accessible to all who turn up to any given service ... and there is no great justification these days (e.g. with large screens and laptops relatively affordable; photocopiers very reliable etc) for the verbal content of our services not to be seamlessly presented to the congregation rather than relying on a prayer book and several bookmarks and switching back and forth from that page to this page and back again!
Thanks +Peter. I was taken by surprise re the "constant challenge" sentence - I had no idea. I take your point. Thanks!
A cousin is visiting and expressed a wish to attend the local Anglican Cathedral. I offered to go with him and was intrigued what it would feel like after many months away.
The longer version (it is long) of my experience is on my blog:
https://www.tumblingages.co.nz/blog-2/a-brief-return-to-traditional-modern-christianity
I didn't have a great experience. Yes, I am a convinced Quaker. But I don't believe it is God's will for all Christians to be Quakers.
There is an intimacy I encounter in reading the NZ Book of Prayer, an intimacy with scripture and tradition, an appreciation for the beauty of the English language and both its limit and capacity for taking us to the place where our spirit meets God's, and a generosity in allowing each person the freedom for encountering God in their own time and space, which, for me at least, represents the very best of Anglicanism. And then there are those aspects I find so hard to get past - its stiffness, formality, its costume and hierarchy, and, above all, being drowned in words.
I think pointing to formation as a focus (as opposed to statistics/numbers or the needed work in keeping a parish operational) is a refreshing take, albeit I am well aware of the struggle to keep churches going that often deflects people’s reserves away from the main game. As +Peter will know this is the case in my own Church, however, in it all God still works.
It seems to be my default position, however, that when God works it is not to do with particular ways of worship whether it be liturgy or how prayers are said or what songs are sung. As I have come to see it through my journey (acknowledging others have had their own journey) at the core of seeing a church ‘alive’ whether it be small or large seems to me indexed to the heart attitude of those there towards God.
I really don’t ask myself what it means to be an Anglican, only what it means to be a Christian in this day and age, although all the churches I have been a part of have been Anglican. In the Anglican tradition I value most the emphasis on scripture and having communion regularly. I did grow up in the Anglican Church never knowing what the gifts of the spirit were and how they operated within the context of a church and/or our personal lives. I didn’t begin to read the Bible for myself until after I had attended an Alpha course in my mid-late 20s. I am comfortable in nearly every service I attend of different denominations so long as the content is biblically sound - actually if I have a desire to receive personal prayer I will intentionally visit a different church as that is a part of the services where I am at present.
One thing I have observed is that people in congregations are reluctant to talk about their faith to other people in their lives or offer prayer etc. I suspect this is because many people in NZ who are in the older demographic formed their faith when most of the population was considered ‘christian’ so it was simply not ‘a thing’ to do so, within society it was more about which denomination you belonged to rather than whether or not you were a christian. Even now a person down the street will talk to me about ‘our church’ and they attend once a year. I had to navigate sharing things of faith when I owned my own faith as an adult. My generation and younger often have a negative attitude towards Christianity, so simply saying when I was asked by people at work on a Monday morning what I did in the weekend, saying that I went to church was my act of being brave. Incrementally I have got braver!!
I refuse to be drawn into ‘competitions’ with Christians I am friend regarding how ‘we’ do this better or what constitutes the right way to do church, unless it’s a wider conversion regarding theological differences, because I think it’s a bit like the early Christian’s arguing whether to follow Apollos or Paul or… etc and Christ is not divided; if the hearts of those leading a church are genuinely worship in spirit and in truth, in whatsoever they do then I believe God will work through them.
Not wanting to be a complete downer in terms of Anglicanism, I also took my cousin to some beautiful country Anglican churches while he has been here.
We camped at Peel Forest for a week and it rained everyday. We were most grateful for little visits out in the warmth and dry of the car. Including a visit to St Thomas, Woodbury, with its interesting use of light flooding down from a tower above the altar, and a surprising contemporary stained glass window of the Canterbury norwester' at the back. The church is beautifully kept - clearly loved and treasured, including an impressive, glossy holly hedge that surrounds the tree-filled property. It's off the main road but SO worth a visit if you're in the Geraldine area.
And of course, the very special Church of the Holy Innocents at Mount Peel Station. Again, so beautifully kept and loved. The whole property, it's situation looking down to the Rangitata...My daughter ignored the landscape, however, and spent our entire time there playing with the Christmas figurines that were still left on on the baptismal font.
Liz, you must go and take your camera:
https://geraldineanglicans.com/churches/
These churches are clearly loved, have housed so many births, lives, and deaths, and have echoed to the sound of common prayer, simply said. That's the greatest treasure to me about Anglicanism: that it has housed communities, lives. Its localism. Being woven in to the particularly history of an area and people. And the treasure of the English language: or how Anglicanism turns scripture, poetry, and bloated monastic 'hours' into the rhythm of beautiful, daily prayer - holy sentences.
My ideal Anglican service isn't a cathedral evensong - clearly - but a simple NZ Prayer book service in a small, country church. With freedom to sit or stand as one likes, wear a hat or not, and plenty of silence between the words!
Hugely enjoyed reading the personal writing from commenters on this page, and now I've found Mark's left another.. thanks Mark! It's a long time ago, pre-earthquake, since I've been into the beautiful Mt Peel environs but I would adore the opportunity to visit again! Thanks for leaving the link, lovely and interesting page.
In 1950, Gerald Bullet, a wonderful mid-century English writer and poet, wrote a book of essays called The English Mystics. I have just been reading his essay on George Fox, in which he quotes Richard Hooker, perhaps the most famous, foundational, Anglican theologian:
"Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of his name, yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is, neither can know him, and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, when we confess that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach. He is above, and we upon earth; therefore it behoveth our words to be wary and few." (Richard Hooker, Ecclesiastical Polity, quoted in Bullet, The English Mystics, p.90).
Once again, Hooker is arguing for balance and moderation; specifically, here, a balance of word and silence (presumably in both theology and common worship).
Although Hooker goes on to affirm union with God as the ultimate goal of Christian practice, these affirmations were never interpreted and developed, as far as I know, and have experienced in churches, in the sense of a true Anglican mysticism.
In Anglicanism, it appears to me, silence is more a recognition of the limits of reason to comprehend God. Or an aesthetic complement to word and music: a void that allows the notes of the hymn (or scripture reading ) to reverberate and sound.
And it is indeed these things. But spiritually, it is more. Much more. For mystics, silence and stillness are the gateway through which we pass from the negative to the positive - a gateway into the direct experience and presence of God.
Silence as spiritual practice is a simple method that Christians can learn and practice, as the Quaker way shows, without needing to 'go East' or to 'Rome'. There is an English form of mysticism. There are many English forms in fact. You don't have to become a Buddhist or a Cistercian.
Even if Anglican forms of silence don't go "all the way", silence is silence. Intellectual and aesthetic silence proves an opening into deeper, richer forms. God is faster than we think and bigger than these little distinctions I am making. God is all in all.
In practice, all Anglicans are mystics, aren't they? 'Anonymously' or otherwise.
I would be very happy to see more appreciation for silence within Anglicanism, on Anglican terms, such as Hooker outlines above. I also think it would help make Anglicanism more approachable to many newcomers who might otherwise find it's many rules, words, and rites overwhelming and opaque.
Thanks for the conversation and spur to reflect further, here. It has helped me form a more positive appreciation of Anglicanism following my recent evensong disappointment;
https://www.tumblingages.co.nz/blog-2/anglicanism-and-silence-a-postscript-to-evensong
What you've shared I find really valuable Mark, I'm grateful. The Hooker quote is great too. I've just read a post by Parker J. Palmer that touched me deeply, about Quaker non-violence and personal anger in the face of the evil MAGA stuff. He's so honest and it really struck a chord with me.
I appreciate this might be seen as changing topic but for me it's about what would I be looking for in a Christian gathering when there's such obvious evil and violence and suffering in the world? And my initial thoughts, as yet undeveloped, are that we need (and perhaps crave) periods of silence and stillness and discernment. This affords opportunity to offer up to the great Almighty our confusion, our mixed feelings of anger and concern, our fears for the "other" and for ourselves. Not to purge ourselves of anger - because I believe this anger is justified - but to bring it before God and plead for light to illuminate the way ahead.
Parker's post is so worth a read and one paragraph isn't sufficient but I'm selecting this one:
"But when I get angry about the way people with power and wealth treat folks who must scramble daily simply to stay alive, it feels as if I have tapped into a vital stream of life—a stream that connects us to each other in the web of being, the ecosystem of all life. What hurts one of us hurts all of us, and feeling the hurt viscerally reassures me that I’m still in the web, holding and being held."
This expresses so well how I feel (but I would've been lost trying to find the right words).
What's an Angry Old Quaker to Do?
--there may be snow on the roof, but there's a fire in the furnace--
https://parkerjpalmer.substack.com/p/whats-an-angry-old-quaker-to-do
Whenever I am tempted to think that I am righteous and The Other is evil, that is the time I should re-read Wilfrid Owen's 'Strange Meeting'.
Thanks for the link, Liz...Elizabeth? Really enjoyed reading that and will share it further. It's a lovely intro to Quakerism and also good to hear and connect with 'the other America' that has to live with Trump, ICE, etc each day.
After the shooting of Renee Goode, we had a Quaker spontaneously join our meeting by Zoom from Minneapolis - I'm not sure how or why. The Spirit is very strange sometimes. It was very moving to hear her reality first hand. She read out a beautiful prayer for peace which made me think: there is so much blood being spilled on 'the holy mountain' right now. So much blood and sorrow. And yet there's a deep serenity too that that is the Eternal Presence with us until the end of time. And somehow we must be both grieving and angry and rooted in the Presence and the Light at the same time. So that we call still function as human beings and as Christians in the sense of the Gospel - forgiveness, mercy, love for enemies. And so we can outlast the madness of Trump and of these times.
I've been warning about the far-right in the US here at ADU since way back; my response to 'Anonymous' is that in the New Testament we're instructed to look at the "fruit" - if you pay attention to the suffering and violence caused by ICE in Minneapolis the "fruit" is clearly evil.
In Matt 7:15-20 Jesus says, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."
ICE recruitment videos glorify violence while quoting Bible verses, and claim to be doing God's Work. As Jesus followers we absolutely must resist this blasphemous evil and name it for what it is.
From an American Substack post I read earlier today: "What is happening in the principled resistance to ICE in MN is becoming known around the world. It is so important for the global community and this country to remember who it is and can, frankly, become as it learns from the resistance to ICE."
I'm not alone in recognising evil fruit for what it is. Hundreds of clergy showed up in Minneapolis to join with the massive protest there, and over 100 of them were arrested.
I also note that Bishop Mariann Budde (who did the "mercy" sermon in DC) is from Minnesota and was present in Minneapolis during the protest - she addressed the clergy at a gathering.
Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37. intensive care nurse, Veterans Administration.
Latest victim killed in the street by ICE.
“He cared about people deeply and he was very upset with what was happening in Minneapolis and throughout the United States with ICE, as millions of other people are upset,” said Michael Pretti, Alex’s father. “He felt that doing the protesting was a way to express that, you know, his care for others.”
https://apnews.com/live/minneapolis-ice-shooting-updates-1-24-2026
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