Of course Laud was playing games with the articles- that is certainly how his Calvinist opponents saw it. And anyone who puts a cross on the altar is indeed playing games with the articles.
And again, I agree over the last 100 years we've all gradually stopped reciting the Athanasian Creed, but apart from its last line where it seems to preclude God from being merciful to those who are in error, what else is there actually to disagree with? Or is it just that last line which is the issue?
I must say I rather like the Athanasian Creed, but I have heard people say this particular part does not appeal:
Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that discussions between Non-Juror Anglicans and the Orthodox and Non-Juror Anglicans (Jurors?) and the Orthodox foundered over the veneration of images and the invocation of the Saints.
Sorry but disagreement doesn't excuse the patronising attitude, @Enoch and neither does it excuse taking my post completely out of context. Did I say anywhere that the Anglican church was not Protestant? No. Did I say that Anglicanism had a Marian flavour prior to the Oxford Movement? Also no. All I said was that Lutherans seem to hold together a certain degree of Marian devotion with a sense of being Protestant better than Anglicans prone to Marian devotion seem to, and that early Reformers held Mary in higher esteem than many modern Protestants. That's it. I made no statement on whether or not Anglicans who deny being Protestant were *correct*, simply that they exist, which is undeniable. I haven't noticed the equivalent within high church Lutherans, that's all I was commenting on. I was pointing out the phenomenon, not saying how right or wrong it was.
Anglo-Catholics say they are not Protestants for various reasons, the Henrician Anglican church is one of them. I was not saying that they are correct!
Yes, we know ACs don't consider themselves Protestant, and there lies the rub. They are operating within a church that largely believes itself to be Protestant or whose founding documents assumed such a trajectory.
As I've said, the Anglican communion has been shaped more by Elizabeth 1st than Henry VIII.
Anglo-Catholicism can be a bit too 'fussy' and arch for me, but I hold a soft spot for it - but in my conversations with the spikiest of spikes I come away with the impression that they want their cake and eat it.
Rome has bent over backwards to accommodate them. 'Look, you can continue to officiate, you can bring your wives ...'
Yet they still stay put and still entertain this fond delusion that they can influence the rest of the Anglican church to their way of thinking ...
My apologies @Pomona if you feel I'm being patronising. It's just that I get a bit irritated when people talk about the CofE's history and traditions but project into the past what they'd like to see and ignore completely how it actually was - whether one likes what was there or not - between the Restoration in 1660 and Keble's Oxford Sermon in 1833. It's the difference between symbolic history ('myth' in its theological sense) and the real past. That period is as much a part of our history as any other. Remember also, that the Tractarians were controversial, their effect was not instantaneous and there's quite a lot in Keble's sermon that few would now agree with. One of the things that prompted it was state meddling in the Church of Ireland.
Whether Anglo-Catholics like it or not, if there is a Protestant/Catholic divide in Christianity west of the Adriatic, historically and as it is at the moment, the Church of England, despite any 'Catholic' features it might have, is on the Protestant side of any such line. The very notion that Anglo-Catholics should expect to have their tender consciences assuaged, e.g. over ordination of women, rather than be told they've got to accept it because their two Archbishops do, does itself demonstrate a deeply Protestant way of thinking.
I’m not familiar with any AC at this point who are upset over women being ordained. I don’t know if that’s more common in the CoE or not, but in the Episcopal Church no one is yelling about that.
Furthermore, the RCC is itself shockingly Protestant in many ways. The Protestant theologian Stanley Hauerwas wrote an article last year or the year before noting that the Church has capitulated on most of the original demands of the Protestant Reformers. There are even quiet RCC theologians who mumble against the Real Presence.
I believe that when AC claim to not be Protestant, they are relying on the old via media and suggesting that Protestantism and Catholicism represent two kinds of traditions. They throw their weight behind the Catholic tradition, with all that entails.
As far as Roman outreaches to the AC go, that reached its heyday under Benedict. The current administration isn’t doing much (not that they should, or even that there’s anything else they can do.) Most of the AC I know don’t swim the Tiber because of the social policies the Church advocates for, and the intensely hierarchical schema of the RCC. A few don’t go because they don’t like how watered down all of RCC liturgy is now, they feel. Mixed bag, really.
Isn't it time that we realised that the tribal divisions into Protestant and Catholic camps are simply 'tribal'. Of course the Catholic Church has adopted many of the ideas of the early Protestant Reformers - liturgy in language of the people, frequent communion and baptism in the midst of the community - some of these are ,of course, not accepted by many of those who call themselves Protestant - well depending on what sort of Protestant one is.
The RC church is, at a high administrative level, a very conservative body and the arguments of the 16th century are mirrored today in the new arguments about sexuality and the place of women in the hierarchical structures of the Church, where the RC church takes refuge in what was considered as acceptable in the past,just as it did in the 16th century..
Personally I don't mind what a person calls themselves although I can easily recognise who is in full communion with the Roman pontiff and who is not.
@ECraigR generalising from your experience to the whole Anglo-Catholic tradition is wrong. There is in England a distinctive minority in the CofE who see the ordination of women against Catholic tradition. There are even among them those who are open about being Protestant. I know one priest in that tradition who quotes the Shorter Westminister Catechism from the pulpit. It is for such folk a tradition that is not either/or but both/and.
As to real presence, why would Roman Catholics not murmur against it, it is quite often a shorthand for distinguishing John Calvin's position from that of Huldrych Zwingli.
@Jengie Jon I wasn’t trying to generalize to the whole Anglo-Catholic tradition. I believe I specifically ended by noting that it’s a mixed bag. Lot’s of different opinions in there, as there is in all of Anglicanism.
@ECraigR, although in in the last century or so, via media has often been spoken of, and advocated as, being in between Catholic and Protestant and even eclectic as to which bits one can borrow from either, I understand it was originally invoked to mean a middle path between Luther and Calvin, neither wholly with one or the other.
I agree with you that since Vatican II the RCC has become, as you put it "shockingly Protestant", thereby throwing both Anglo-Catholics and rabid Prods into horrified confusion.
Real presence and transubstantiation aren't quite the same thing. If you're a Prod you are not required to believe that nothing happens to the bread and wine. (You probably are if you're a rabid Prod of the sort I've just mentioned). It's quite possible to believe in real presence without having to be convinced by the Thomas distinction between substance and accidents as being the explanation and without having to believe that the Eucharist is an independent re-offering of Jesus's sacrifice of himself on the cross or that the Eucharist is a sacrifice capable of being offered on behalf of others.
You’re correct. I misspoke with the real presence and transubstantiation. Apologies.
I wasn’t aware of the history of via media but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. It’s also not totally applicable to ACs as a line between RC and Prods (good shortening) because of how much the RC has reformed. Really, many ACs are navigating between pre-Vatican II RC and generic Prod practice. I can be somewhat uncomfortable with it sometimes, since it tends towards debates no one is having. But, there are faults with everything.
Speaking as an RC I have to say that high church clergy who have joined the Ordinariate are seen (by some) as equally queer fish as they must have seemed to Anglicans. The Masses I have attended celebrated by Ordinariate clergy seemed to have all the right words, but somehow missed the spirit.... trying desperately to avoid the term "performance."
Personally I hope they all get absorbed into mainstream Catholicism after the present generation - if they decide to remain. Plenty of us are suspicious of the misogynistic undercurrent that seems to accompany objections to the ordination of women. These undercurrents really dont need new blood.
About eucharistic theologising - best to say that the presence is real, but a mystery. Literally God knows, all else is conjecture.
Oh, I really hope I havent given offence, I know this area is full of traps for the unwary.
As an Anglo-Catholic in the room I can gladly affirm that we don’t consider ourselves Protestant—at least no one I know who identifies as AC does!
Protestant in the narrow sense, certainly (as in not regarding the Bishop of Rome as superior in authority to all other bishops, or something like that).
This was taught in our "ultra-ritualist" A-C parish some time ago...let me look it up...
Protestant in the narrow sense, certainly (as in not regarding the Bishop of Rome as superior in authority to all other bishops, or something like that).
Not all who reject the superiority of the Bishop of Rome are Protestants. In narrow or fat senses, or any other senses. Even if you count my Church as Protestant (which would be folly), It would be historically inane to insist the Tewahedo Church was Protestant.
Blessed John Mason Neale’s sermon parsing the label “Protestant”, and explaining why the Church of England has never been Protestant, is delightfully snarky even if the argument is... questionable.
Protestant is of course a hugely complex term, especially in the contemporary era. And, although I sympathize greatly with those AC who don’t identify as Protestant (and am one of them) we are of course all shaped by the Protestants. Specifically, moving as Catholic in a Church that historically derives from Protestantism and which did for a long time define itself within the mainstream Protestant tradition, it is expected that ACs would by osmosis absorb a lot of Protestant ideas. Sometimes I think it’s all silly.
But to return to OP, I used to use the Anglican rosary, until it began to feel too...protestant. So now I use the good old Dominican Rosary.
But to return to OP, I used to use the Anglican rosary, until it began to feel too...protestant. So now I use the good old Dominican Rosary.
Same here. To me, the beads should just help one keep track of prayers one has memorized. With the Anglican Rosary, I needed one of the several booklets to know what prayers to say when. Although I guess this can be true for various users of either rosary. I suppose if I memorized a set of prayers for the Anglican Rosary I'd find it much more useful. But I give the nod to the Dominican for widespread use and longer tradition.
That said, I'm glad there's also an Anglican one, and it's interesting.
Yes, I ended up doing a mix of hail Marys and Jesus prayers on it, which was nice but I felt the pull to just go full Dominican. I agree that the rosary is primarily a means for keeping track of prayers, although I do keep one in my pocket that I cling to when I’m dealing with a particularly annoying life event.
The only thing against the Dominican rosary are the mysteries, which I’ll admit I still don’t have totally memorized for some reason.
With the Anglican Rosary, I needed one of the several booklets to know what prayers to say when.
Really? I know there are various versions of the prayers that can be prayed (as is the case with a rosary, the chaplet of the Divine Mercy being an example of an alternative). But the version for the Anglican prayer beads I’ve always used has prayers I already knew—the Gloria Patri, the Trisagion and the Jesus Prayer.
I am afraid the beads thing does not work well with me because my brain tends to start opening too many windows when I am occupied with a repetitive task. If the idea behind the use of the Rosary is to facilitate contemplative prayer then for me something like the Monastic Diurnal and doses of lectio divina is more effective. Quite a lot of it is repetition, but there is enough variety that I have a lot less trouble with squirrels and shiny stuff.
I am afraid the beads thing does not work well with me because my brain tends to start opening too many windows when I am occupied with a repetitive task. If the idea behind the use of the Rosary is to facilitate contemplative prayer then for me something like the Monastic Diurnal and doses of lectio divina is more effective. Quite a lot of it is repetition, but there is enough variety that I have a lot less trouble with squirrels and shiny stuff.
That’s fair. Lectio Divina is a very valuable contemplative practice.
To me, the beads should just help one keep track of prayers one has memorized. With the Anglican Rosary, I needed one of the several booklets to know what prayers to say when. Although I guess this can be true for various users of either rosary. I suppose if I memorized a set of prayers for the Anglican Rosary I'd find it much more useful. But I give the nod to the Dominican for widespread use and longer tradition.
Or you could get an Orthodox prayer rope (chotki) and say the same prayer on each knot.
Comments
edit: changed quote to BCP version
I seem to recall reading somewhere that discussions between Non-Juror Anglicans and the Orthodox and Non-Juror Anglicans (Jurors?) and the Orthodox foundered over the veneration of images and the invocation of the Saints.
Anglo-Catholics say they are not Protestants for various reasons, the Henrician Anglican church is one of them. I was not saying that they are correct!
As I've said, the Anglican communion has been shaped more by Elizabeth 1st than Henry VIII.
Anglo-Catholicism can be a bit too 'fussy' and arch for me, but I hold a soft spot for it - but in my conversations with the spikiest of spikes I come away with the impression that they want their cake and eat it.
Rome has bent over backwards to accommodate them. 'Look, you can continue to officiate, you can bring your wives ...'
Yet they still stay put and still entertain this fond delusion that they can influence the rest of the Anglican church to their way of thinking ...
Whether Anglo-Catholics like it or not, if there is a Protestant/Catholic divide in Christianity west of the Adriatic, historically and as it is at the moment, the Church of England, despite any 'Catholic' features it might have, is on the Protestant side of any such line. The very notion that Anglo-Catholics should expect to have their tender consciences assuaged, e.g. over ordination of women, rather than be told they've got to accept it because their two Archbishops do, does itself demonstrate a deeply Protestant way of thinking.
Furthermore, the RCC is itself shockingly Protestant in many ways. The Protestant theologian Stanley Hauerwas wrote an article last year or the year before noting that the Church has capitulated on most of the original demands of the Protestant Reformers. There are even quiet RCC theologians who mumble against the Real Presence.
I believe that when AC claim to not be Protestant, they are relying on the old via media and suggesting that Protestantism and Catholicism represent two kinds of traditions. They throw their weight behind the Catholic tradition, with all that entails.
As far as Roman outreaches to the AC go, that reached its heyday under Benedict. The current administration isn’t doing much (not that they should, or even that there’s anything else they can do.) Most of the AC I know don’t swim the Tiber because of the social policies the Church advocates for, and the intensely hierarchical schema of the RCC. A few don’t go because they don’t like how watered down all of RCC liturgy is now, they feel. Mixed bag, really.
The RC church is, at a high administrative level, a very conservative body and the arguments of the 16th century are mirrored today in the new arguments about sexuality and the place of women in the hierarchical structures of the Church, where the RC church takes refuge in what was considered as acceptable in the past,just as it did in the 16th century..
Personally I don't mind what a person calls themselves although I can easily recognise who is in full communion with the Roman pontiff and who is not.
As to real presence, why would Roman Catholics not murmur against it, it is quite often a shorthand for distinguishing John Calvin's position from that of Huldrych Zwingli.
I agree with you that since Vatican II the RCC has become, as you put it "shockingly Protestant", thereby throwing both Anglo-Catholics and rabid Prods into horrified confusion.
Real presence and transubstantiation aren't quite the same thing. If you're a Prod you are not required to believe that nothing happens to the bread and wine. (You probably are if you're a rabid Prod of the sort I've just mentioned). It's quite possible to believe in real presence without having to be convinced by the Thomas distinction between substance and accidents as being the explanation and without having to believe that the Eucharist is an independent re-offering of Jesus's sacrifice of himself on the cross or that the Eucharist is a sacrifice capable of being offered on behalf of others.
I wasn’t aware of the history of via media but I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. It’s also not totally applicable to ACs as a line between RC and Prods (good shortening) because of how much the RC has reformed. Really, many ACs are navigating between pre-Vatican II RC and generic Prod practice. I can be somewhat uncomfortable with it sometimes, since it tends towards debates no one is having. But, there are faults with everything.
Personally I hope they all get absorbed into mainstream Catholicism after the present generation - if they decide to remain. Plenty of us are suspicious of the misogynistic undercurrent that seems to accompany objections to the ordination of women. These undercurrents really dont need new blood.
About eucharistic theologising - best to say that the presence is real, but a mystery. Literally God knows, all else is conjecture.
Oh, I really hope I havent given offence, I know this area is full of traps for the unwary.
Protestant in the narrow sense, certainly (as in not regarding the Bishop of Rome as superior in authority to all other bishops, or something like that).
This was taught in our "ultra-ritualist" A-C parish some time ago...let me look it up...
Not all who reject the superiority of the Bishop of Rome are Protestants. In narrow or fat senses, or any other senses. Even if you count my Church as Protestant (which would be folly), It would be historically inane to insist the Tewahedo Church was Protestant.
But to return to OP, I used to use the Anglican rosary, until it began to feel too...protestant. So now I use the good old Dominican Rosary.
Same here. To me, the beads should just help one keep track of prayers one has memorized. With the Anglican Rosary, I needed one of the several booklets to know what prayers to say when. Although I guess this can be true for various users of either rosary. I suppose if I memorized a set of prayers for the Anglican Rosary I'd find it much more useful. But I give the nod to the Dominican for widespread use and longer tradition.
That said, I'm glad there's also an Anglican one, and it's interesting.
The only thing against the Dominican rosary are the mysteries, which I’ll admit I still don’t have totally memorized for some reason.
That’s fair. Lectio Divina is a very valuable contemplative practice.
Or you could get an Orthodox prayer rope (chotki) and say the same prayer on each knot.