Continuing to roll with thoughts about true church, best church, infiltrators in the church, basis or bases for communion and so forth ...
One challenge with focusing on being "true church" is that a logical consequence is that other churches are "false churches" or, perhaps more accurately "not-actually-churches-because-there-is-only-one-church-and-that-is-the-true-church". A number of Catholic Tweeters on X are certainly meeting that challenge with zest and joy e.g. cheerfully repeating the mantra that Anglican orders are null and void, for everyone and especially for women who dare to take up roles such as, oh, I don't know, Archbishop of Canterbury, or pouring scorn on all things "Protestant." But others, I sense, are caught between joy in being in the one true church and the agony of not wishing to deem fine Lutherans, Anglicans etc as unfit for heaven.
While an advantage of taking the "best church" approach is avoiding that challenge above, even "best church" people can end up looking askance at members of less than the best churches.
Driving to one of our parishes recently, a familiar route on a Sunday morning taking me past a well-attended Open Brethren assembly, I got to thinking as follows.
Perhaps the important thing to focus on is the fullness of the church, by which I mean the church grows into the fullness or completeness of what is intended to be in Christ, and Christ continues to fill the church, more and more, with his fullness. Ephesians offers these thoughts on the fullness of Christ in and for the church:
"And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all." (Ephesians 1:22-23)
"... the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God." (Ephesians 2:19c - 22)
"I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:18-19)
Can we say of any church, "Ah, that one has reached the fullness captured in these visionary texts?"
I think not. We all fall short, we are all provisional approximations to the fullness of the church envisioned in Ephesians (and in, say, John 17, 1 Corinthians 12-14, 1 Peter, Revelation 4-5). But, every church has something working well within it. Every church has an aspect of the fullness of the church which we can learn from. Here it might be depth of fellowship, there it might be perfection in liturgy, across the town a church may have the best (most devout, most beautiful, most God-honouring) music, and in some places of oppression, there lies the bravest and most faitful church.
Etc.
Rather than look askance at other churches as "false" or "not the best", what if we said, with ecclesiastical humility, "What can I receive from this church? What can I learn?"
46 comments:
When we're just talking about standard denominational/theological differences then I'm all for what you've written, +Peter. I've said before that I'm ashamed of the superiority that seemed to be "felt" (even when not explicit) in the evangelicalism that I grew up in.
What bothers me is that there seems to have been a lack of discernment *across* denominational differences in modern religious history, a blindness to the incursion of hostile actors supposedly concerned about "faithfulness" but in reality inflicting political violence on the Body of Christ and leaving severed limbs in their wake. In their holy purity crusade they've demeaned people of colour, women and girls, and LGBTQ people. And now we're seeing the fruits of that in America and the fruit is putrid. The people damaged and demeaned by these bad actors *warned* about the spread of the rot and what would happen, but were viewed with suspicion, indifference, and sidelined.
And this became particularly clear to me this morning, reading an essay written in the wake of the gerrymandering of Memphis in Tennessee - where (if ADU readers aren't aware) - the city with a majority Black population has been carved up into three different districts to dilute the Black vote. The Republican supermajority in Tennessee were able to do this because of the recent Supreme Court ruling that allows partisan gerrymandering (which is, essentially, allowing a Trojan horse for racist gerrymandering). I've worked hard to get my head around these recent events and I hope I've got the gist of that about right - by all means look into it yourselves!
Back to the essay - I encourage you to read it for yourselves and reflect on what the writer is saying - as I will be continuing to reflect myself. There are many gems I could quote but I'll go for a short paragraph that speaks of the gerrymandered map for Memphis:
"The map makes a confession. So can the church by refusing to abide by the lines, by listening to the silenced, and by bearing witness to the risen Christ who crosses boundaries to make a people his own."
But please, read the entire essay and not just the small paragraph I've shared!
https://keithljohnson.substack.com/p/the-body-of-christ-gerrymandered
I found an explanation of gerrymandering on the BrennanCenter website. Apparently it is common in USA and has been used by both Democrats and Republicans. However since 2020 there have been attempts to control it via the Supreme Court and Congress but without much success. With more technology, it is easier to manipulate the electoral system, sadly.
Hi Moya, gerrymandering - yes it's true it's been used by both parties and no doubt tech makes it much easier to do. What's happening now though, is extremely aggressive. You may recall that Trump pressured Texas to re-draw their boundaries to give him 5 extra seats because he's twitchy about the upcoming Mid-terms - despite it not yet being time to do redistricting (States usually do this every 10 years after the Census). Understandably this rattled Democrats who started taking actions of their own to offset the anticipated losses - as one thing I read said - "when the battle is for control of the country, restraint feels like self-sabotage".
Also, I knew Dems had tried to do something about gerrymandering but I couldn't find the details - until just now - "In 2021, Democrats tried and failed to pass the For the People Act, a bill that would have limited partisan gerrymandering nationwide and implemented non-partisan redistricting commissions in every state. But Republican senators blocked the bill."
And now the mostly right-wing Supreme Court has done this ruling that makes it way easier to neutralise the Black (mostly Democrat) vote - thereby unleashing a new wave of aggressive gerrymandering in Republican-controlled States.
So yes, both sides can do it but it's the Trump/Maga side who are really pushing this, terrified of losing all the "gains" they've made (for themselves) and perhaps also terrified of facing justice, and there's also "religious" anxiety over losing "Christendom" or "Western civilization" (which I interpret as their need for power, status and influence in the social order).
My info about the For the People Act came from:
https://time.com/7309565/americas-gerrymandering-problem-fix/
I have read Keith’s article thank you. It was enlightening and makes what is wrong with the current US gerrymandering very clear.
We have to be sure we are not limiting or dividing the body of Christ here too. That’s where holding to the value of the three Tikanga counts.
Thanks, too, for your additional comment.
+Peter, folk have probably heard of how NZer Everlee Wihongi who's lived in the USA since she was 6yo and is now in her 30s has been taken into the ICE detention system - initially in California but now transferred to Arizona. I wondered if I may leave some links as follows? - it's a story worth knowing and it's NOT about "lying" about marijuana. It's almost unbelievable to learn about the circumstances that led to her incredibly unfortunate detention.
This podcast discussion (28-April) from David Farrier is the best backgrounder. David also talks with Everlee's mother. Interesting back story, the mother also talks about Everlees experience of being in detention and what it's like for her and them, and the challenges.
(skip the first 9 minutes)
https://nzpod.co.nz/podcast/flightless-bird/ice-kidnaps-a-kiwi
*
Two RNZ links (both today) that bring us right up-to-date:
article:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/595003/everlee-wihongi-transferred-to-state-with-tougher-immigration-rules-lawyer-says
Her lawyer Marc Christopher talking with Guyon Espiner
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/middayreport/audio/2019034825/everlee-wihongi-s-lawyer-speaks-out-over-her-ice-detention
Thanks, Peter.
This approach is often called "Receptive Ecumenism": striving for Christian unity by focusing on what we can learn and receive with integrity from others.
I first encountered this approach (more than half a century ago now!) through the vision of Taizé. Some may be interested in my more recent writing on Receptive Ecumenism here:
https://liturgy.co.nz/monasticism-ecumenism-synodality
and
https://liturgy.co.nz/unity-begins-with-the-right-question
Blessings
Bosco
Thanks Bosco
I cannot see how there is any ecumenical way forward which is not "receptive ecumenicalism".
The arrogance that we [insert church name] are the true church extends to all churches that claim, explicitly or otherwise, to embody and represent God, Jesus, or the Spirit in the world - as if miracles, sacraments, the divine saving presence etc don't regularly occur outside the church, outside religion. The ocean of grace has many shores.
Leonardo Boff ends his glorious little book, Christianity in a Nutshell, with a strident critique of Christianity's main "reductionisms" (Boff is Catholic, and his critique is mainly of the Roman church, but apply beyond too)....
One of these critiques, relevant for our discussion here is:
"Instead of extending the dream of Jesus, the reign of God, it proclaims the church, outside of which there is no salvation, often in alliance with the powerful, and away from the poor and oppressed."
Sorry folks, big Leonardo Boff quote:
"Christianity as a whole will have significance only under two conditions: if all churches mutually recognize one another as bearers of the message of Jesus, with none of them raising the claim of being exclusive and exceptional, and out of this "perichoresis" [truly trinitarian model of community and power] of the churches engage in dialogue with the world religions and accept one another as spiritual paths where the Spirit is present and at work.
....The second condition is that Christianity be demythologized, de- Westernized, and de-patriarchalized, and become organized in networks of communities that dialogue with, and become incarnate in, local cultures, mutually accept one another, and together form the great spiritual path that joins together with other spiritual and religious paths of humankind. All will feed the sacred flame of the presence of the Trinity-God in the heart of each person...".
Specifically and locally, in terms of the second, I think of the three tikinga model of the Anglican Church / Te Hahi Mihinare.
Update on Everlee Wihongi
She is now located at a facility in Arizona. The good news is that it's known where she is. The bad news is, it's a pretty bad facility even by their standards.
The update is from David Farrier:
https://www.webworm.co/everleeupdate/
Brother Clodovis has grown a bit tired of Leonardo's 1960s diet.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
This is Leo (Boff) in 2013. And, excitingly, we are moving towards this horizon already, and I am pleased to see the Anglican church making strides in its own way. And what's the alternative? A return to the monarchical True Church? The True Catholic Church, or the True Reformed Church, outside of which there is no salvation, or just crumbs? God the Creator as the Almighty Monarchical Father, with very little room, nothing really, for an actual Trinity-God of loving community? Jesus as the philosophical body of Nicene Christianity, which never really mentions how he lived his life, much less how or why he died? (BTW my petition to replace the Nicene Creed with the Sermon on the Mount is still collecting signatures). More monarchical absolutist arrogant philosophical Christianity which would be unrecognizable, perhaps even enraging, to the Carpenter's Son?
Think it's Clodovis who is more trapped in the sixties. I imagine you're referring to his letter to South American Catholic Bishops, published in First Things, complaining that liberation theology is "social issues, social issues, social issues". Clodovis has clearly not read his brother's more recent words which discuss the Cosmos and fundamental theology - e.g. the lack of a true trinitarian understanding and practice of God in classical Western theology - as much, or more so, than urgent and important social questions.
I like Boff!
You mean Clodovis? The examples of Romulus and Remus, Cain and Abel, and Jacob and Esau suggest it is better to keep out of family quarrels.
With more Protestants than Catholics in church of a Sunday in Brazil, some bishops need a wake up call.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Anyway, a blessed Ascension Day to all. May the coronation of our Lord's earthly mission remind us all, amidst all the failures and evils of atheist politics and the false dawns of revolution, of the heavenly goal of our lives.
Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do
believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have
ascended into the heavens, so we may also in heart and mind
thither ascend, and with him continually dwell; who liveth
and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world
without end. Amen.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
I find the brothers Boff interesting with their divergent views!
Enjoyed reading this, if anyone's interested:
Cardinal Arizmendi: With Clodovis or with Leonardo Boff?
---Should the Church focus more on prayer or social issues?
Cardinal Felipe Arizmendi , Bishop Emeritus of San Cristóbal de Las Casas and head of the Doctrine of the Faith at the Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM) , offers Exaudi readers his weekly article. (24-July-25)
https://exaudi.org/cardinal-arizmendi-with-clodovis-or-with-leonardo-boff/
So horrific. So brutal.
Happy Ascension day (belated), brother.
Thanks Liz.
My friend, who teaches poetry at university, and I are both convinced that poets get better as they age. This might be a defense against our own rapid aging, but I wonder if it's true for theologians too. A sense of maturing faith, of integration, having walked the extreme corners of the labyrinth and included those knowledge of distant corners while keeping sight of the centre and circumference.
I'm most drawn to the books Leonardo Boff has most recently written (I actually can't read too much theology at once, otherwise I wake in the night thinking of the Trinity etc and get no sleep!). His "Christianity in a Nutshell" is only 120 pages long. He describes it as his "swan song". It contains essence of Christianity as he sees it as an almost eight year old man who has spent his life studying and writing theology.
The first thirty pages are called "Christianity and Mystery" and creates a new language for our origins, weaving our knowledge of the cosmos with the essence of the Christian story. It's breath-taking. He often calls God "Mystery", not an empty inscrutable Mystery, but one that is extremely full, constantly brimming over with life and love.
For sure, there is the strong imprint of liberation theology here - Jesus as a peasant, God as liberator of the poor and oppressed, the Jesus of history being followed and exemplified in the humble lives of many anonymous Christians and more so than reflected in eccesiastical theology. His book is dedicated to his father - "for him the gospel was life, and life was service to others, to the poorest."
Sometimes I do think liberation theology can become too political and leave out the life of prayer. But after reading Boff's mature, wise, radically trinitarian, very Jesus-centred theology, it is hard to go back to praying to the magisterial Almighty Father, who has very little room for sharing power with his son, let alone the Spirit who fills the universe with life and presence.
Nor it is easy to go back to Jesus as "Christokrator....having the sceptre in one hand, the world in the other". But it is possible to return in prayer to the suffering servant who dreamed of a new sort of "kingdom", and was raised to life by the Spirit who continues to bring life and is life in our extraordinary, suffering, God-soaked world.
The brothers Boff need to work together as the two great commandments tell us!
I remember a quote I found from St Teresa of Avila: ‘We cannot know whether we love God or not, though we may have strong reasons for it, but we can certainly know whether we love our neighbour or not!’
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the life we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
...And the Church does not seem to be wanted
In country or in suburb; and in the town
Only for important weddings.
T.S. Eliot (the mature Eliot), from The Rock.
In terms of *the fullness of the church* in our present, hyper-digital age, the trick for Anglicanism, it seems to me, is to not castrate itself in the face of "demythologization, de-Westernization", and "de-patriarchalization", but not to defend itself regressively either.
To take its place as another stream - a peculiarly, proudly English one - in the great river of Christianity and God, another tikanga alongside others - reforming traditions in light of our founder and according to the guidance of the Spirit, without "stripping the altars" entirely (again).
Well, that's my low church Anglo-Catholic preference! What fullness of church do others want to see, preserve?
I had to laugh at "low church Anglo-Catholic preference!" - which I assume to be humor - if I'm wrong my defense is that I lack fluency in Mainline language :)
Things would have a lot better if the British had colonized Brazil instead of the Portuguese. Most of the pathologies of Brazil - horrific slavery until the 1880s, voodoo, widespread illiteracy, communism, militarism, extremes of poverty and wealth, latifundias, insecurity of the poor, political corruption etc - could have been avoided or at least ameliorated if British democracy, justice and liberties had been transplanted there instead of a hierarchical Portuguese aristocracy. Most of the pains of Latin America are due to the fact that Iberian authoritarianism was established there instead of free institutions that encouraged peaceful progress and the rule of law. Liberation theology is part of this pathology, reflecting the fatal attraction of Marxism to those angered by the injustices of that social order. But one set of mistakes is not corrected by a different set. That there are now millions of Pentecostalists in Brazil should have set people thinking again. John Paul II understood this, so did Benedict XVI.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Hi William
Just checking your comment above re Brazil etc.
Are you saying that it would have been better if Brazil had been colonized by British Anglicans and Presbyterians than what happened which was colonization by Catholic Portugese?
Is there a relationship between Catholic oppression of the poor and Catholic reaction to oppression of the poor (i.e. liberation theology)?
Hello, Peter,
On your first question, yes, it probably would have become a more peaceful and equal society because the hard-won British institutions of liberty, an independent judiciary, the Bill of Rights, security of property, habeas corpus etc would have produced something nearer to the political order of North America. French Catholic Quebeckers lived happily and prosperously under British rule, and millions of Catholic Irish and Italians prospered in the United States and their churches and institutions flourished. The westward expansion of the United States (through the railroads, the Homestead Act and the creative capitalist spirit) set the country onto greatness (as well as conflict with Mexico and the Native Americans of the Plains). Imagine if California had remained a Mexican territory. (Perhaps it is becoming that again.)
The United States' grievous mistake was to institute slavery in their Constitution instead of extirpating the evil. Britain took the wiser path of removing slavery by law, whereas the United States was doomed to civil war, and it still faces the consequences of that tragedy. Incidentally, the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1833 was wonderful for New Zealand, because slavery was endemic in NZ prior to 1840 (and in the Chathams, until they were recovered in the 1860s).
On the second question, there was no 'Catholic oppression of the poor' but a failure to live up the standards of a Bartolomeo de Las Casas. (Edward Feser's little book 'All One In Christ' is a good introduction to this subject.) Transplanting hierarchical Iberian ways into the New World certainly made some very rich but it also created a complex and divided mestizo society with institutions prone to violence. The Latin Americans threw off Iberian control two centuries ago but revolutionary (and often anti-clerical) politics dominated too much, instead of steady development based on expanding civil rights, education, property rights and home ownership.
Catholic theology is not the same as Catholic political thought, not least in the 19th century when nationalism and liberalism were allied with radical anti-Catholicism and anti-clericalism in France, Italy and Germany. And the Papacy's support for the Old and Young Pretenders in the first half of the 18th century was very unwise. John Paul II understood that the Church playing politics was a wrong turning in its sacred mission and a distortion of its teaching.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Gosh, if only the world was conquered by the British Empire then converted to Teutonic Roman Catholicism. Something like that? Gosh, you really love empires.
Hi Liz,
Yes it's a joke and a serious position! I do need something extra to supplement my simple Quaker diet.
I'm a sensualist when it comes to religion: I encounter Christ soaked in the material world - from frankincense to garden fruit trees - much like the sparkling, everyday images that shine out from your blog.
But then high church theology strikes me as ridiculous at times, too - such a long way from the Carpenter's Son. Can you imagine anyone more lowly than the suffering servant, anything more lowly than being born in a manger, healing with spit and mud, the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount?
Why shouldn't we have our spiced wine and candle shrines to Mary? Just make them in reach of the average person, please. And don't tell us too much what they mean: let us discover that for ourselves with God.
Where are you up to in your journey? It seems the Anglican Church is both a fascination and a hope yet also a disappointment, a horror, and something quite 'other' at times too.
More Anglican "fullness":
O Light invisible we praise Thee!
Too bright for mortal vision.
O Greater Light, we praise Thee for the less;
The eastern light our spires touch at morning.
The light that slants on our Western doors at evening.
The twilight over stagnant pools at batflight,
Moon light and star light, owl and moth light,
Glow-worm glowlight on a grassblade.
O Light Invisible, we worship Thee!
- T.S. Eliot, Choruses from The Rock
Wow Mark, thanks for these beautiful contributions! I LOVE what you've shared. My journey? Somewhat confused. You summed it up perfectly in your last line where you asked the question!
Mark knows that 'imperium' simply meand 'rule' or 'command'. It's what human beings have done from the beginning. Human history is nothing other than the rise and fall of empires, from the Hittites to Microsoft. The only question is whether the empire has been benign and advanced human freedom and wellbeing or has been harmful. The British empire was certainly anong the better empires in recent centuries: imagine if the Congo had been British rather than Belgian. Had New Zealand become French, as it nearly did, I suspect it would still be a DOM of France, like New Caledonia, and the status of Maori no better than the native New Caledonians. The British also created modern India, a nation that shouldn't exist on paper. Trying to live without the institutions of constraining power didn't work out well for the Moriori.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Hi William
My point about the British/Anglican v European/Catholic hypotheses re alternative histories, is that there might be something in Catholic polity [strongly hierarchical] which combines with French/Spanish/Belgian culture to form colonies with ills, some (as you note above) very long term ills?
Theology matters re everyday human life. Much as I admire many things about Eastern Orthodoxy, I object to its monarchical approach to the Trinity, becausse that approach underlines its own form of “Patriarch down” hierarchy, and seems to sit well with imperialism and dictatorships, one of which today, Russia,involves intense collusion between church and state against an unloved neighbour, Ukraine (even as Ukraine has an Orthodox church (or two!).
Dear William,
How does Jesus' dream - the reign of God - fit in with the 'imperium' in your view?
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
- Wallace Stevens (born Lutheran, secular for much his life, interested in Catholicism, converted to the Catholic Church on his death bed)
Mark,
There is no "dream" of Jesus in Scripture. Talk of 'dreams' is the political rhetoric of Romantic poets and Jungian mythographers, co-opted by liberal Protestants who no longer believe in the Resurrection but lack the courage of a Lloyd Geering (or Gearloose, as I used to call him - as well as his good fortune to have lived in New Zealand instead of North Korea. Ya want communism? I'll give ya communism! )The Kingdom of God is a fact and a promise to be fulfilled at the Parousia, not a projection of the human subconscious or an emotional political meme intended to bypass human reason. Hebrews 11 gives the backstory.
Pet bonum
William Greenhalgh
Peter, my knowledge of Eastern Orthodoxy is pretty limited but I think it's a bit of a reach (and an academic's game) to blame the illiberalism of those countries on the Cappadocian model of the Trinity. Eastern Orthodoxy is not just Russia, it is Greece and the Balkans, and for most of their history, those lands were under Turkish Muslim oppression. The survival of the Church in those lands was the primary concern - something that didn't happen in most of North Africa outside Egypt (and only just in Egypt, where being a Christian is still a costly thing, thanks to the Muslim Brotherhood). Orthodoxy preserved national identities and languages (just as Catholicism did in Poland). A fitful democracy only got going in the latter part of the 19th century, and that was almost destroyed in the wars of the 20th century and totalitarian politics. So I think the story is a bit more complex than the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers. I don't think medieval western Europe was a particularly liberal place, despite the daily repetition of the filioque clause.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
William, after half a century of lively debates here, I thought I spotted you preparing to say something positive about Anglicanism. Something about the way in which the order of the British Empire - it's respect for law and rights, it's relative tolerance (relative is the operative word, here) - reflects something virtuous in terms of the English genius, the Anglican Spirit even.
"...Anglican orders are null and void, for everyone and especially for women who dare to take up roles..." (from +Peter's main post)
Some ADU readers may be interested to read this new post by David Roseberry about the situation with ACNA and women's ordination. In addition to the essay, the comment section's also worth a look.
https://davidroseberry.substack.com/p/womens-ordination-the-elephant-in
Mark: I've taught a little English history and read rather more. If you know 17th century English (and Scottish) history, then you - a self-described Quaker - will know that Anglicanism was not particularly tolerant, neither to Roman Catholics nor to Nonconformists. Why do you think William Penn went to America? And the Mayflower Pilgrims before him? In the run of events which led to the English Civil War (or more accurately called the Wars of the Three Kingdoms), Charles I persecuted Puritans (themselves Anglicans), English Nonconformists and Scottish Presbyterians. After the Restoration the Cavalier Anglican Parliament expelled Puritan ministers and persecuted Nonconformists like John Bunyan and others through imprisonment and the Five Mile Act. It was the Catholic James II who introduced a measure of religious tolerance, as a political strategy, and the Bill of Rights 1689 codified personal freedoms in a remarkable way. Nevertheless, Test acts for Oxford and Cambridge remained until the 19th century. So I do not think the Church of England itself was particularly tolerant, at least in its hierarchical manifestations. Nevertheless, as Voltaire noted, 18th century Britain was seen as a freer and more tolerant kingdom than the kingdoms in Europe, not least because its composite character meant that religious conformity did not exist throughout the realm, with Methodism in Cornwall and Wales, and Presbyterianism in Scotland and Ireland challenging Anglican hegemony. So the 18th century saw the evolution of Parliamentary democracy and the gradual diminution of the power of the monarchy (a process begun in 1688). This contrasted sharply with the drift toward absolutism on the Continent. And one must always bear in mind the essential role Evangelicals played in the abolition of slavery and in general social reform.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
I think that tolerance and latitude in the Anglican Church is a real thing, though it is something has evolved over time, through struggle and strife, and continues to do so.
You're right that in the first few hundred years, non-Anglicans were viciously persecuted. Quakers set up a whole new "ecclesiological" structure - "Meeting for Sufferings" - to keep track of Friends who were imprisoned for refusing to conform with the established religion, many of whom died in jail.
3-5,000 died in the English reformation, the majority of whom were Catholic. In contrast, between 7 to 17 million people died in Continental Europe during the Reformation and wars of religion. The numbers are shocking and depressing, but the contrast is also remarkable.
It wasn't too long before tolerance become more fully realized: Quakers stopped being imprisoned for not paying tithes or refusing to take oaths in the courts. A little later, they were permitted to attend universities and stand for Parliament, as were Catholics. Absolute monarchy was beheaded and going forward England adopted a democratically limited form of royal "power".
It's obvious that Anglican theology has always sought to steer a broad course, a via media between extremes. What part did it play in the development of English liberal democracy? Well, I can say that New Zealand would never had a Treaty for Māori - a covenant that limits , supposedly, the power of the state vis a vis iwi Māori - had it not been for evangelical Anglicans (and some evangelical Quakers too).
I do think creating new structures like the two integrity approach to LGBTQ issues, and the three tikanga system, show Anglican tolerance and latitude at its best, and continuing to be a vital tradition - it's willingness to disperse power and adapt to local realities, while maintaining a relational communion.
"...willingness to disperse power and adapt to local realities, while maintaining a relational communion."
I love where you got to with that comment, Mark. I read what I thought was a wonderful essay today, it's by a man and written directly to men - but my evangelical background meant I got a lot from it too. If you get a chance, would you take a look? (I'd love to hear anyone else's thoughts too!)
The Men Are Coming Back.
But Which Gospel Will We Hand Them?
https://danieljsadlier.substack.com/p/the-return-of-men-to-church-might
Thank you Liz. That's a very interesting article and great to see an American engaging with "the return of men to church this way."
It touches on a lot we've been talking about in this thread, doesn't it! His Jesus is very harmonious with the Jesus of liberation theology - but not, I think, because Sadlier has necessarily read Boff, Gutierrez etc., but more because the Jesus of the Gospels, the Beatitudes etc is just like that - a poor Christ, a suffering servant.
And yes, I loved the bit where he writes:
"The Beatitudes are not soft spirituality.
They are resistance training against empire."
I wasn't so sure of Sadlier's reading of how the first disciples were attracted to following Jesus and parallels to now. He writes:
"The first men who followed Jesus were not drawn by dreams of foot washing and enemy love. They came looking for a King who might crush Rome, restore power, and place them near the center of the coming Kingdom. Jesus did not reject them for arriving with mixed motives. But neither did He leave those motives untouched."
My gut sense is they were attracted by the divine energy within Jesus himself, the way he encountered them with his charisma, being full of the Spirit, and what it stirred in their hearts and souls; whereas Sadlier emphasized *their* motives, *their* needs, and how they projected these onto Jesus. Which must have been the case, too.
Likewise for men coming back to church. I sometimes attend a very high Anglo-Catholic Church in the city. And there you *can* see young men turning up in greater numbers. I'm sure they come out of their own needs. One young man I know comes for human connection and parental connection (having tragically lost both his parents quite recently). I see him getting a good "fathering" experience at the church.
It seems that young men are turning up in greater numbers to Catholic and Pentecostal style churches. I think Peter has noted and written about this in the Anglican Diocese here. But as well as their hunger for connection, I wonder if they're also getting a more palpable experience of the divine, the "supernatural", in these style of churches.
The young men who turn up to Quakers are very different from the men Sadlier focusses on. Their "disorientation" is rather different. They don't come, I think, with a sense of having lost their rightful place in the world, seeking to regain it perhaps. They accept the loss of the old world but find the new world extremely overwhelming and dizzying. They are eager converts to the Semon on the Mount but are already suffering from the burnout that happens when one lives in such a way without a sufficient inner counterweight. For these men, perhaps, and undoubtedly I am one in some way, perhaps other parts of our tradition are more nourishing and needful than the Beatitudes. Perhaps we more need to hear of spit and mud, Jesus upending tables, the kingdom of heaven within, being born again of the Spirit. That is, we need to find - or be encountered by - a deeper anchoring within our self, a self-affirming spirituality, to counterbalance our empathic, sensitive tendencies, our proclivity to compassion fatigue and burnout in this overwhelming, hyper-modern world.
Appreciating this conversation!
In response, Peter, to your concern that a monarchical approach to the Trinity leads to imperialism and dictatorships, I think that risks reading political categories back into fourth-century theology. For the Orthodox, the “monarchy of the Father” does not mean authoritarian hierarchy, but simply that the Father is the single source within the Trinity - not “more powerful” or “more divine” than the Son or Spirit.
John Zizioulas repeatedly argued that the monarchy of the Father safeguards both unity and the full personal distinctiveness of the Son and Spirit, within a communion of equal persons. The Cappadocians also stress perichoresis - the mutual indwelling and coinherence of the divine persons - which cuts against any notion of domination or subordination.
Likewise, Kallistos Ware notes that many Orthodox actually see the Filioque as tending toward excessive centralization, because it obscures the Spirit’s distinct hypostatic origin. So the Orthodox concern is less about hierarchy than about preserving relational communion and personal distinction within the Trinity.
Easter Season blessings
Bosco
At risk of over simplifying things - time is short this morning - I appreciate that the Cappadocians etc did not set out to embolden emperors and dictators, but I do wonder if there is a long term effect on human politics from an emphasis on monarchical Trinity.
Going up the thread a little way, sure, the Church of England has not always been tolerant, but it has managed to work its way through to a tolerant position on various matters, and, in my view, in large part, that is founded on/begins with the early "middle of the road" positions being taken by Cranmer (1549 >> 1552) and Hooker (staring down Puritans, finding good in Catholics), assisted, of course, by Elizabeth 1 not wishing to look into men's souls etc. Further, something in the CofE has been comfortable with expansion of toleration through past centuries: no one in the CofE wants to go back to restricting enrolment at Oxbridge etc. But, hey, the CofE is a very bad church in all kinds of Christian eyes because its toleration is judged weakness ...
If Peter "wonders" whether Cappadocian Trinitarianism promotes Centralised Totalitarianism, let him set down the historical evidence. For my part, I haven't really seen how the daily repetition of the filioque clause stopped Henry VIII (the father of Anglicanism) from being a monstrous tyrant (David Starkey's judgment), nor did it restrain the Sun King in France and the Ancien Regime, nor the Spanish Inquisition (ah, wasn't expecting that). Remember that it was in Christchurch during the war that a youngish assimilated Austrian Jew (from a nonbelieving Lutheran family) wrote "The Open Society and its Enemies" and I don't recall Karl Popper having a lot to say about the Cappadocians; for him, the villains were Plato and Hegel, and another nonbelieving Lutheran Jew, Karl Marx. If Popper had had fewer blind spots, he might have grasped that it is atheism that underlies historicist totalitarianism - there is not a lot of theology, for example, in the Chinese Communist Party.
On the second matter that Peter discusses, remember that the Puritans were themselves members of the Church of England and remained so until the Grand Ejection in 1662 when the Church of England expelled thousands of them from their jobs and homes and then under the Five Mile Act banned Nonconformist ministers from living near their congregations- obviously to break their congregations. Not very "tolerant", I would have thought. It was the crisis of 1688 that caused the change in attitude towards Nonconformists (but not Catholics, who threatened the Elizabethan Settlement).
Finally, Peter falls into that familiar error of confusing 'tolerance' with 'affirmation'. To tolerate means to put up with things we don't like and judge wrong because the alternative could be more harmful in the meantime. It is something you may do as a pastoral measure, but always with end of reformation in mind. For example, you tolerate baptising African polygamists for the spiritual sake of their wives and children - but never to Institute polygamy in the Church. It's for the same reason that we tolerate certain behaviour from certain children but not from others.
By contrast, when liberal western Anglicans "bless" same-sex relationships, they are not "tolerating" human weakness, they are affirming as good what the Bible calls sin and destroying the nature of Christian marriage. Global South Anglicans understand this very well.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
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