Nunc, do I detect an anti Jensen bias appearing continually here? I know “both Jensens” and I can assure you that they only want to serve God with all their hearts and that all there is to it.
*sigh* Ken, I was not expressing that as my personal opinion. I do know people who see what they have done as cult-like.
The same church (sorry the name escapes me, ring Phillip Jensen and he will gladly tell you I’m sure) also had as one of its celebrants a minister (whose name also escapes me) who began the anglo-catholic movement. This minister (priest) went back to the ideals and doctrine for which Cranmer died for on the stake on principal in his true Christian belief.
Mate, I’ve read sufficient material about church history to at least *know* who I am talking about. And it wasn’t one chap who initiated the Oxford Movement, but several (if you must know). John Keble, E B Pusey, JH Newman (whose translations of hymns you are all too happy to sing) are just some of those who were involved.
I don’t think that now and here is the time and place to lecture you in the details of the Oxford Movement. However, you levelled a charge against one of these Tractarians: “going back on the beliefs for which Cranmer died”. It’s more complicated than that. The CofE was experiencing a bad patch of torpor and carelessness. The Oxford Movement sought to address this, mainly through emphasising “good order” in worship and reverence for God expressed in such basic things as wearing clean cassocks (the surplice at the time was frowned upon as “Romish") and taking time to pray through the service (rather than gabbling through it). Newman (who later went all the way to Rome) was a North-facing celebrant to the end of his days (which was the practice since the Reformation, as you would know from the BCP’s rubrics).
The people involved with the Oxford Movement were actually quite conservative. What people forget is that the Movement is said to have started officially with a political statement: Keble preached a sermon (the “Assize Sermon") on the evils of the government dismantling 10 bishoprics in northern Ireland. He saw this as an attack on the spiritual authority of the church. The Oxford chaps were the first Anglicans to lobby for separation of church and state - on the grounds that the church’s spiritual authority could not and should not be superceded by temporal authority. (This in itself was symptomatic of the church at the time which had no formal courts - the Convocation had been disbanded for many years and wasnt recalled until the late 1880s, there was no such a thing as a synod, let alone any sort of administration - except that done by the bishops themselves. With the church in such a parlous state it’s no wonder the parliament took over church control.) They discussed what this authority contained in a series of 90 Tracts for the Times - some of these were sermons, some republication of devotional material, some translations of hymns etc.
They saw a continuity between the Church of England before and after the Reformation, and therefore saw that the riches of what was had not necessarily been thrown away, while the dross perhaps had. I don’t think it’s fair to say they just “threw away” what Cranmer had stood for. In any case, Cranmer’s exact position on the Eucharist changed over and over, as evidenced through his private letters and documents. It is not so easy to pin on him what the exact nature of his beliefs were. Similarly, it is not accurate to then transpose his beliefs onto the Church of England as a whole, or even onto her formularies at the time, in which he had had a hand.
The spectrum of belief in the Anglican church has never been uniform, nor was it “only in the 1830s-50s” that more catholic emphases existed. At the time of the Reformation several contemporaries of Cranmer were Anglican, yet observed rubrics others conveniently forgot. Among these was Launcelot Andrewes. Nicholas Ferrar (who was a good friend of George Herbert), and the non-jurors (those bishops and churchmen who refused to acknowledge William and Mary as monarchs because they believed in the divine right of Kings and therefore James II was still King in their eyes) were also regarded as authorities by the Tractarians - and again, they published much devotional material written by them. When the Oxford Movement began to be recognised, many high-churchmen took umbrage over the new young upstarts because they had quietly been observing these same beliefs for years.
Interestingly enough, of those who were the leading lights of the Oxford Movt., at least two had come through the tail end of evangelicalism: Newman was raised evangelical and it’s pretty clear he had some sort of conversion experience as a young chap. Several of his fellows had the same or similar experiences.
I see I have done what I said I wouldn’t do: lecture you. I did feel it necessary to point out that history is not as simple as you were making it to be, Ken, and when people are using it for their own ends it rarely is without bias, particularly when they deliberately leave large lacunae.
And, Phillip noted, it was ironic that this famous English church celebrated and believed in the famous and historical standpoints equally. This church had indeed reached a very liberal viewpoint in the present age, where either (or perhaps none) point of view was of equal standing in its eyes.
The church being an organisation of human beings, politics are rarely absent. It is entirely possible (and probable, if Philip was talking about the church I am thinking of) that both points of view are celebrated because of what they mean to the Cof E, historically and spiritually.
[BTW - liberalism is not necessarily what you portrayed it as. It is quite possible to see Cranmer and the Oxf. Movt. as important and helpful, while having totally orthodox beliefs. Liberalism is more characterised by theological point of view.]
One other thing: people often confuse the Oxford Movement with its offspring, one of which was the Ecclesiological Society. It was this group, rather than the OM which was responsible for such evils as the reintroduction of the surplice, the placing of two candlesticks on the altar, the placement of flowers in and around the church - stuff that for many years was taken for granted in all church circles. They were also responsible for the encouragment of the building of neo-gothic churches. Among what you might see as their evils, they were also responsible for the introduction of (robed) church choirs and for the system of tutelage which enabled people to sing (mainly different versions of solfege) - which from the aesthetic point of view espoused at the time was in the name of “bettering people"… (A strategy to deal with the problems of rapid expansion of the cities in the wake of the industrial revolution and the subsequent decline in country population, was to initiate community choral societies and brass bands and community orchestras. The idea was to literally “get people off the streets/out of the bars and taverns” and give them something profitable to do.). They were responsible for recovering the art of plainsong (the ancient hymns of the church) and were also directly responsible for the introduction of hymns into church services. This point is important; up til the 1840s hymns were not commonly sung in church, although metrical psalms were occasionally beaten out in the most appalling manner (from a vast number of reports). Leading lights of the Ecclesiological Society were responsible for the publication of the first edition of Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1862. From the 1850s several Ecclesiological Society adherents started to reintroduce vestments - this was in line, they claimed, with the rubrics of the 1549 BCP, and also with several documents dating from early in Elizabeth 1’s reign.
The problem is caused by the Anglican Church not following the 39 articles and not following the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The 39 Articles were a fudging compromise. You can’t expect that everyone in the Anglican Church followed them, or should follow them today. They are very much of their time, and their chief value is as a reference, not as a statement of the highest biblical truth.
Might I remind you that the 39 Articles also enshrine as not contrary to scripture the threefold order of bishops priests and deacons? They also refer to the order of priests as PRIESTS and not presbyters. If you really want to push your point home, stand up in Synod this October, and tell them all they are not following the 39 Articles: we are getting lay presidency, and there is also a move afoot to get rid of the references to “priest” and replace them with “presbyter”. I don’t see “presbyter” in the BCP or any other documents of our Anglican formularies. In fact, what the synod is going to do this year is as distinctly un-Anglican as the Diocese of Westminster or ECUSA making unilateral moves with respect to homosexuality. But I doubt the Diocese will see it that way. In fact, we know it doesnt. The only reason lay presidency didn’t get through last time was because Harry Goodhew saw the bigger picture of where Sydney stands in relation to the rest of the world. I have little doubt that the Synod will go ahead with lay presidency, and with the presbyter thing, because it is so “Elect” and so “uniquely bible-believing” that it supposedly should stand against the rest of the Anglican church of Australia, let alone the entire Anglican Communion. Oh but I forget. Anyone outside of a Sydney-evangelical point of view is not “bible-believing”, so it doesn’t matter if we sever our ties. [*snort* ]
Anglican Church not following the gospel of Jesus Christ? - in your opinion. In theirs, each person involved no doubt is following his gospel to the best of their knowledge, understanding and ability. How can you be the arbitrator of who follows and who does not follow the “gospel of Jesus Christ”? How can anyone be an arbitrator of this?
By some congregations deviations from the basics, in order to get ‘bums on seats’ and trying to please worldly or traditionalists like yourself, we have great big **** fight.
Huh? So you are blaming everyone else. Nice. Oh, and it’s not just “deviations” but “trying to please worldly [?desires?]”. And the traditionalists need to be pleased? Heaven help us. We are all equally at fault for the sheit fight, Ken. Sydney’s desire to go off on its own “biblical” tangent is just as bad as the opposite end of the spectrum pushing its own agenda.
Ken, other people who come from within other branches of the Anglican church also have an interest in where they have come from, just as you do. It’s not a matter of “pleasing” anybody. What the different groups would like is the recognition of their integrity, and their pursual of preaching the gospel in the way they know best. You evangelicals do it by preaching 40 minute sermons and cutting out music, or reducing it to almost nothing. (Did you know the cathedral choir now sings only 6 minutes of music in a service?) Others do it by getting out on the streets. Others do it by creating beauty with which the soul may be swept up into the worship of God.
The “basics” as you say, really encompass this, don’t they: the declaration of the gospel and bringing people into relationship with God. At my church we do this through a beautiful liturgy and music, as well as a balance between the liturgy of the word (readings, preaching, prayers) and the liturgy of the sacrament (which is the declaration par excellence of the gospel). It might not work for some people - my best friend, a calvinist of calvinists, is nauseated by it (but then I feel oppressed and nauseous at her church); by the same token I know countless others who have been blessed and brought back through their experience of God in our services. I would hope that the aim of all we are doing -evangelical, anglo-catholic, liberal, whoever - is precisely this meeting-with-God.
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