Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The Destructive Influence of Tract 90


The Oxford Movement began in 1833 with the infamous sermon, "National Apostasy," offered by Keble in response to the reduction of Irish archbishoprcis by Parliament. Eight years later, one of the defining documents of the Movement was published. In 1841, the tract, "Remarks on Certain Passages in the Thirty-Nine Articles," or "Tract 90" was published by John Henry Newman. This was by far the most controversial of the Tracts because within its pages, Newman contended that the theological statements in the Articles, "were not directed against the authorized creed of Roman Catholics, but only against popular errors and exaggerations" (Wikipedia article). This tract broke the ties between Hackney divines and other High Churchmen with Newman.

However destructive and controversial this tract was in 1841, it is much more so today. For, in 1841, clergy and laity knew that Newman's ideas were innovative and contrary to the clear teaching of the Church of England and the Holy Scriptures. Nowadays, most Anglican parishioners have never heard of much less actually read the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion. The folly of Tract 90 is that it tries to reconcile two conflicting views of the Christian faith and what the catholic faith actualy is. Newman throws around the word "Catholic" throughout all of his writings, when in fact, he is referring to Romanism. The Reformation was not about abandoning the catholic faith, but restoring the Church to the purity of that faith. "[T]he Reformation debate was not one between self-designated Catholics and Protestants; it was a debate about where the Catholic Church was to be found" (Rowan Williams), as Archbishop Williams describes in this quote, the Reformation was not a debate between "CAtholics" and "Protestants" but between two groups of people who equally claimed the title "catholic" for their view of the Church (obviously, I'd say that the Protestant side was right or else I'd be Roman). The Roman defined the "catholic faith" as the faith as it had been given to the Church by Christ and written about in Scriptures, and developed through Tradition. To be a part of the faith, one must be in communion with a valid bishop ordained by bishops in communion with the See of Rome. Protestants meanwhile said that the catholic faith was the faith, "once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 1:3) this excluded medieval accretions to the faith. "The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same" (Article XIX).

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11 comments:

George said...

Robin,

I was going to reply on your other post. However, this is a fitting place as well.

First, you only read the first part of my post. I didn't contend anything in terms of Hooker. I actually said Scripture is supreme. And Tradition and Reason separate from scripture you end up like ECUSA.

Second, Hooker is grabbed by both sides. Hooker is truly reformed and fully catholic. This is the beauty of Hooker as an Anglican.

Third, I agree Tract 90 presents a very difficult position for most Anglo-Catholics. However, you can't seem separate Anglo-Catholics from Romanism. I think you should read the writings I posted. It may enlighten your understanding of the heirs the Anglo-Catholic movement.

Robin G. Jordan said...

George,

You did make reference to the notion of Scripture, reason, and tradition as a three-legged stool, a concept that is erroneously attributed to Hooker. When I write a response to a comment, I generally write it with othe readers in mind. This concept has been promoted in two forms. The major difference between them is how tradition is ranked. In making reference to the three-legged stool you provided an opportunity for me to point out the erroneous nature of the concept to other readers.

The "supremacy" of Scripture means different things to different people. Some folks claim to recognize the supremacy of Scripture while at the same time asserting that that Scripture must be interpreted by "Holy Tradition," and there is no disagreement between "Holy Tradition" and Scripture. "Holy Tradition" in infallible. In this was they elevate "Holy Tradition" and Church as the interpreter of "Holy Tradition" above Scripture while maintaining that Scripture is supreme. The Protestant and the historic Anglican position is that all thought, including "Holy Tradition" must be submitted to Scripture, Scripture and "Holy Tradition" do and can disagree. "Holy Tradition" is not infallible," and where they do disagree, "Holy Tradition" must give away, or yield, to Scripture.

The Tractarians tried to claim Hooker's support for their views. They selectively quoted his writings when a fuller reading of his works would have shown that Hooker did not support their views at all. They did the same thing with Jewel. They were notorious among their contemporaries for this practice and their contemporaries repeatedly took them to task for the practice.

Does Hooker agree with both sides? A careful reading of his works shows that he does not. Hooker, however, wrote copiously so it is not too difficult to find passages to take out of context and to use to support views that he did not support. (Cont'd)

Robin G. Jordan said...

I recognize that "Anglo-Catholics" are not a homogenous group. At the same time Anglo-Catholics who do not accept pre-Reformation Medieval and post-Tridentian doctrine and practice and seek to cause others to accept this doctrine and practice form a decided minority among Anglo-Catholics. A "Romanist" is someone who accepts such doctrines and practices and seeks to cause others to accept them. To be a Romanist a person does not need to accept the doctrines of papal supremacy and infallibility nor does he have to accept all the post-Tridentian innovatons. In the later case he might be described as a "Medievalist-Romanist." Romanism was a strong influence in the Protestant Episcopal Church from the 1830s on. It shaped what may be described as traditionalist Anglo-Catholicism in that denomination and now found in the Continuum, the Anglican Church in North America, and the Anglican Mission. It also shaped what Les Fairfield calls Catholic Modernism, Paul Zahl contemporary Episcopalism. and others affirming or liberal Catholicism in the contemporary Episcopal Church.

The revival of pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic doctrines and practies and the introduction of post-Tridentian Roman Catholic innovations in the nineteenth and twentieth century exposed Anglicans to thinking that is antithetical and antigonistic to the English Reformation and classical Anglicanism. It promoted attitudes in Episcopalians that made them vulnerable to liberalism and modernism. They were taught to accept the teaching of the Church and not question it and defer on matters of doctrine and practice to the clergy. The use of private judgment was discouraged. When they themselves noted the disparity between Scripture and Church teaching, they were told that they were wrong. There was no disparity. What Scripture, reason, and the Holy Spirit led them to recognize as error, they were told was sound. They learned to accomodate false teaching. Those who could not in good conscience do so left the Episcopal Church.

The fact is I understand Anglo-Catholic ideology better than you may think. I do not believe that the problem is one of misunderstanding which Anglo-Catholics may wish to portray it as such. The problem is that Anglo-Catholics have been influenced by a Counter-Reformation-anti-Reformation movement in the Anglican Church and their views in a number of key areas are not consonant with historic Anglicanism, which is Protestant, Reformed, evangelical, and catholic.

George said...

Robin,

I didn't question your knowledge of Anglo-Catholics. I suggested you might want to expand upon your reading. This is way I mentioned CB Moss. He addresses the issues you raise about " pre-Reformation Medieval and post-Tridentian doctrine and practice".

Also, a lot of how you express your understanding of Anglo-Catholics misrepresents them.

Here is excerpt of the link I attached. Again, I suggest you read it fully.


CB Moss - English Catholicism:
http://anglicanhistory.org/cbmoss/as1931.html

"we must take steps to meet our opponents in a region where hitherto they have had all their own way. There is a large number of people whose interest in religion is not doctrinal but devotional and mystical. These people have very little to satisfy their needs but what is Roman or pseudo-Roman. The use of foreign devotional books, even more than foreign ceremonial, gives people a Counter-Reformation background. I have, for instance, read an otherwise admirable book on mental prayer, written by a member of an Anglican Religious Order. The author's whole mind and doctrinal background was entirely Romanist: of the books which he recommended, and said every priest should possess, about eighty-five per cent, were post-Tridentine Roman, to about eight per cent. pre-Reformation, and seven per cent. Anglican. Great numbers of our more devout people are given, or buy for themselves, devotional books which are either frankly Roman, or if Anglican, teach Roman doctrine. One most popular book, with a circulation of hundreds of thousands, teaches explicitly the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which is not only quite meaningless to the modern theologian, but which our Eastern and Old Catholic friends condemn as formally heretical."

Robin G. Jordan said...

George,

I have copied all of CB Moss' writings posted on the Project Canterbury web site and created a Word file for future reading. I have also downloaded PDF files of his The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Dogmatic Theology and his The Church of England and the Seventh Council. I will add Moss' writing to my "To read list" and read them when I have an opportunity. I have a number of books and articles in the queue.

Robin G. Jordan said...

George,

I read a good part of Moss' article, "English Catholicism." What he presents in that article is a revisionist view of Anglican Church history and of Romanism. The latter he limits to those who promote the post-Tridentian innovations of the Roman Catholic Church. He also offers a revisionist view of the Oxford Movement. The Evangelicals and the Protestant High Churchmen who opposed the Oxford Movement would not agree with his reinterpretation of the Oxford Movement, Romanism, and Anglican Church history.

I also looked at an article on his eucharistic theology. This enabled me to place him. His writings influenced the view of the Real Presence that the Episcopal Church would adopt in the 1960s and 1970s; they also influenced the 1958 Lambeth Conference's modified doctrine of Eucharistic Sacrifice, which teaches that Christ's sacrificial activity is ongoing and the Church participates in this activity through its celebration of the Eucharist. Both doctrines are given expression in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer.

Moss'interpretation of Scripture is to a large extent conjectural. Like Newman and Pusey, Moss' interpretation of the Articles and the Prayer Book Catechism is ahistorical. He is selective in his use of words and phrases from the Articles and the Prayer Book Catechism so that they appear to support his views. However, if the entire passage or document is read, it does not support his views.

Moss also endorses the Lux Mundi essays. This would makes him a liberal Catholic.

Thank you for drawing Moss to my attention. His eucharistic theology is why the Declaration on Kneeling in the Reformed Episcopal BCP and its Modern Language Version do not prevent Anglo-Catholics using those two books from holding a moderate doctrine of the Real Presence. The Declaration on Kneeling did not prevent Moss and English Anglo-Catholics using the 1662 BCP from holding such a doctrine.

George said...

Robin,

I still recommend reading The Christian Faith: An Introduction to Dogmatic Theology. It is interesting book. I will give a piece of advise from experience don't read it in or before going to bed.

Also, I haven't read much of Lux Mundi just excerpts. I am looking for pdf's of the essays. I will have to read them. I am going to be honest I only have a broad understanding about liberal Catholics.

I will also read the remainder of Hooker's ecclesiastical Polity. Again this book I discovered is not bedtime reading. It has taking me a lot longer to get through than most books I have read.

I found your review of the REC Contemporary Language interesting. I am surprised at some of the revisions. The REC in the past few years has accepted alot of Anglo-Catholic churches that use the '28 prayer book. It seems as though they are trying to merge their original theology with that of Anglo-Catholics.

Robin G. Jordan said...

George,

I certainly plan to read Moss's The Christian Faith because he and other members of his particular school of thought in Anglo-Cathoicism would influence thinking regarding Eucharistic Sacrifice and Real Presence in twentieth century. I had planned to post the following addition to my last post but you responded to it before I could.

C. B. Moss represents a school of thought in Anglo-Catholicism that sought to appropriate the English Reformation for the Anglo-Catholic movement rather than reject it altogether. They went about this appropriation in a number of the ways. They made selective use of the writings of John Jewel and Richard Hooker. They engaged in historical revisionism, reinterpreting Anglican Church history in such a way that it supported their claims. In their writings they made preposterous assertions like the English Reformation was Catholic until the Calvinists hijacked it--a claim that Moss makes in "English Catholicism." They redfined terms like "Counter-Reformation" and "Romanism." They also sought to appropriate the seventeenth century Caroline divines as their spiritual forebears. Their object was to claim continuity with the English Reformation and the Caroline divines, to back their outrageous claim that Anglo-Catholicism was the true faith of the Church of England, and to support their utterly absurd and fantastical claim that those who held to "the Protestant, Reformed religion established by law" were the successors to interlopers and usurpers.

Moss and others tried to dodge the thorny problems of the doctrines of Eucharistic Sacrifice and Real Presence by redefining these doctrines in such a way that they did not run afoul of the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Declaration on Kneeling in the 1662 BCP. They also like Newman claimed that the Articles were directed at popular misconceptions of these doctrines. In their reinterpretation of the Articles and the Prayer Book they did not take into consideration factors such as historical context of these formularies (including the theological climate of the time), the intent of the authors of these formularies, and the theological views of their authors expressed in their writings.


What they tried to do was to show that their theological views and liturgical practices not only were agreeable to the formularies of the Church of England but also that their interpretaion of these formularies was the correct interpretation. This clearly was not the case but they did raise a number of important questions. Do the Articles permit belief in the idea of the Eucharist as a sacrifice? Do the Articles and the Prayer Book allow belief in the notion of Christ's presence in the eucharistic elements? (Cont'd)

Robin G. Jordan said...

I do not believe what we are seeing is the REC as trying to merge its original theology with Anglo-Catholic theology. The clergy who subscribe to the original theology are a decided minority in the contemporary REC if there are any remaining in the REC. What we are seeing is the emergence of a more Anglo-Catholic theology as the dominant theology among the REC clergy. This is the culmination of a process that has been going on for a number of years and has been facilitated by the current REC bishops. The 1930 REC Prayer Book shows the influence of the 1928 BCP.

Apparently the 2003 REC Prayer Book, when it was first introduced, was presented as essentially being the 1662 BCP. While it does contain texts and rubrics from the 1662 BCP, my analysis shows that the dominant influence in the 2003 REC Prayer Book is the 1928 BCP. At the time of its introduction the 2003 REC Prayer Book was obviously misrepresented, presumably to reduce objections to its use. So far my analysis shows that it contains very few texts from its predecessors.

I am not surprised by its misrepresentation. I have had one REC bishop lie to me, saying that I had contacted the wrong person, that he could not pass on my proposal for an alternative ACNA constitution to the other REC bishops. He was not only the right person but he was also one of the REC representatives upon the Common Cause Governance Task Force. So I do not put it past the REC leadership lying to their own people.

George said...

Robin,

Just thought in talking about all of this. It might be good idea to include an appendix or dictionary of terms you use on the side of your blog. Because phrases like Eucharist Sacrifice, Romanist and Real Presence can mean different things to people. Seeing as you use these terms a lot.

As you and i may define Catholic differently beyond "universal".

Robin G. Jordan said...

George,

What might be more informative would be one or more articles upon how different groups in and outside the Anglican and Episcopal Churches have used the terms "eucharistic sacrifice" and "Real Presence," and how their understanding of eucharistic sacrifice and eucharistic presence has affected their understanding of salvation. So would an article that takes a historical approach to the the use of the term "Romanism." So many worthwhile articles to write and so little time to do it in.