If we take a short trip back in time to the beginning of the twentieth century and tour the parish churches of the Church of England, the first thing that we will notice is that a number of the ceremonies and ornaments that modern-day clergy and others assure us are thoroughly “Anglican” are found only in English parish churches where the clergy are Ritualists bent on making the Church of England like the Church of Rome even in defiance of the canons of the Church and the laws of the land. If we cross the Atlantic to the United States and tour the parish churches of the Protestant Episcopal Church, we find the same thing—Ritualists bent on making the Episcopal Church like the Roman Catholic Church. The difference between the United States and the United Kingdom is that clergy in the Episcopal Church are not required to accept the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles as clergy are in the Church of England. The Episcopal Church also has no canons regulating ceremonies and ornaments in that denomination. The Ritualists defeated a proposal in the General Convention, which would have established such regulations in the Episcopal Church in the previous century. Having left the door wide open the Episcopal Church was at the mercy of any group that could gain hegemony in the denomination and lead the denomination in whichever direction it chose. We have seen the results in the closing years of the twentieth century and the opening years of the twenty-first century.
Doctrines that are erroneous and unscriptural can ride piggyback on ceremonies and ornaments into the Anglican Church in this century as they did in the nineteenth century. They can also provide a smokescreen behind which erroneous and unscriptural doctrines can be introduced into the Anglican Church. In the nineteenth century the Ritualists frequently claimed that they were seeking to beautify the worship of the Church of England and to make it more appealing to the lower classes. Their real intention was to transform the Church of England into a facsimile of the Church of Rome and to bring the Anglican Church into the orbit of the Roman Catholic Church.
Ceremonies and ornaments make a doctrinal statement. They are not theologically-neutral. They have long-standing associations with particular doctrines and cannot be separated from these teachings.
Congregation and clergy that upholds the Thirty-Nine Articles “as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s word and as authoritative for Anglicans today,” as does the Jerusalem Declaration, will keep away from ceremonies and ornaments that are associated with doctrines and practices that the Articles reject as erroneous and unscriptural. In matters of worship the teaching of the Scriptures and the faithful testimony of the Articles to the teaching of the Scriptures will be their guide. They will adopt and apply the principle that where a ceremony or ornament in their own denomination or in another denomination is associated with such doctrines and practices, it should be avoided. They will bring how they worship into line with what they believe. There will be no discrepancies between their worship and their beliefs.
To read more, click here.
The Episcopal Church and the Church of England are rapidly making themselves irrelevant in Christianity. We can thank the anglo-catholics who decided to remake the churches into the image of Rome rather than keeping their eyes, hearts, and minds fixed on God. They had decided to worship the created things, the works of their own hands and imaginations rather than the pure Word of God. They do that which is forbidden. In the 18th century they did that which was unlawful. They cut down every tree and leveled every hill to get what they wanted. Now Satan has turned on them using their own tactics, now even the anglo-catholics have nowhere to hide.
ReplyDeleteI thank you as usual. Here is another thought. Bishops seem to gain too much power and thereby romanize at will the church. That is what has happened in the REC apparently and in other groups. The office of Bishop is problematic if that is its use. No Bishop should replace the doctrine of the Church with his own and then inflict that on the church. What is your view of the office of Bishop? What is the safeguard to keep the church pure? Look at the REC and tell me what is the root of that distress.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteAs one who as come out of the REC, I can assure you that the change of emphasis in a low church to high church has done the greatest harm to the REC. It is the dignity and importance of the bishop that is most important to its top hiearch. Much like the high church bishops in the 19th century the anglo-catholics did not pose any real threat to their sacred belief about episcopacy so they tolerated the anglo-catholics. So learned the bishops of the REC and let into the church the 1928 BCP and all the things that were forbidden by it constitution and canons. After all don't the a-c support an elevated view of the episcopacy and even believe it is necessary? This is the danger of episcopacy. REC-RIP.
Roger that Joe. I would agree that much of what is being done now is harmful to the doctrines that Bishop Cummins sacrificed for. But what led to this change was my question.
ReplyDeleteAcceptance of high church people ?
A change in the view of the office of Bishop?
What do you think?
Maybe just plain stupidity at some point.
David,
ReplyDeleteI see something more sinister. It was done deliberately. It is more about the individual thinking more of himself than he should. It was cynical. The bishops knew that the people were more loyal to the organization than to Christ. They had seen this taking place in other churches without a great loss of people, without a split, or much of a split. They violated the trust given to them, ignored the constitution and canons at will but in-forced them when it was to their advantage. Much of the early changes took place in far away and distant missions outside of the synods. Then the heresy and apostasy took over the whole church. It is a shame that people feel safe in their own parish as if the cancer from without will not affect them. Accept it long enough then it is ok.
Joe sent me a 1997 Pastoral Exhortation given by Leonard Riches and titled "This Church Adheres to Episcopacy." I plan to examinine it and a number of other documents that suggest a doctrinal shift in the REC related to episcopacy. I would hazard that this shift was one of a number of factors that account for the changes in the REC. It is like assembling a puzzle but with a number of pieces missing.
ReplyDeleteOne of judicial rulings affecting ceremonies and ornaments in the Church of England in the period preceding the publication of A Protestant Dictionary in 1904 was related to the authority of bishops. The ruling was that bishops have only the authority that the rubrics of the Prayer Book, the canons of the Church of England, and the laws of the United Kingdom in regarding to ceremonies and ornaments give them. They did not have any authority incipient in their office.
This represent a different view from the one found in the constitutions and canons of a number of dioceses of the Episcopal Church. These governing documents recognize bishops as having authority incipient in their office and describe this authority as "traditional." This points to the influence of the Ritualist movement in the Episcopal Church dating from the nineteenth century.
I would not be surprised if the same view is found among modern-day REC bishops. The Ritualists and their Anglo-Catholic successors claimed that the authority the diocesan convention and the diocesan standing committee exerised was delegated to it by the bishop of the diocese and the diocesan bishop's acceptance of any restrictions that the governing documents place upon his authority were voluntary. The constitution and canons derived their authority from the diocesan bishop and not the other way around.
This was a reversal of the view of Bishop William White, the architect of the constitution of the Episcopal Church, whose view was that the authority of a bishop is derived from the governing documents of the diocese. What authority the bishop has is delegated to him and not incipient in his office.
The Ritualists would gain the upperhand after Bishop White's death.
The 2005 REC constitution and canons contain a number of changes that suggest a shift in how the office of bishop is viewed in the REC.
Under the REC governing documents as revised by the General Council through 1983 the episcopate was recognized as an office, not an order. This is how the founders of the REC had viewed the episcopate and how the English Reformers had also viewed the episcopate. I suspect that you will find that the modern-day REC bishops view the episcopate as an order, not just an office.
ReplyDeleteThe perpetual claim that this type of ceremony or ornaments etc... "is closely associated" with an erroneous doctrine is absent of academic thought. Should we reject the Trinity doctrine? it might be closely associated with the heresy of believing in 3 Gods.
ReplyDeleteThe failure to teach what the ceremonies, ornaments mean. And how they properly express certain component of the church life.
I know Robin and I have disagreed on the idea of private confession (I am suggesting it is required), however properly understood it is avenue the church provides to confess and repent of their sin and hear the pronouncement from the priest the Absolution and the priest to give guidance and counseling. But further as Christians if another Christian comes to you with an issue with a sin. We are obligated to help them.
My purpose saying this is proper education and right use these things are not bad.
Robin,
ReplyDeletecan you elaborate briefly what you mean by the difference between an "office" and an "order"?
George,
ReplyDeleteA great deal of academic thought has gone into documenting the inseperable connection between doctrines and practices discussed in my article and the accompanying article. The doctrine of the Tinity and a belief in tritheism is not analogous to the long-standing close association of a particular doctrine or set of doctrines and a particular practice or set of practices. Your arguments do not hold water. The English Reformers well understood the doctrines and practices that they rejected as erroneous and unscripture, It is a fantasy propounded by John Henry Newman and others that they did not.
The premise of my article is quite clear: if a congregation and its clergy uphold the teaching of the Scriptures and the Thirty-Nine Articles, practices that express or infer controdictory or conflicting doctrine do not have a place in their worship.
There is a wide gap between what the 1662 Prayer Book says about confession and what the Ritualists and their Anglo-Catholic successors teach about confession. I refer you to "An Homily of Repentance and of True Reconciliation unto God," the previous articles posted on the Heritage Anglican Network web site and to Dyson Hague's The Protestantism of the Prayer Book and the Church Association Tracts on auricular confession. Since the nineteenth century it has been quite common in Anglo-Catholic circles to misinterpret what the Prayer Book says.
The Pocket Oxford Dictionary of Current English (1932) defines "order" as "grade of Christian ministry." It defines "grade" as "degree in rank...etc."; "class of things of same grade." It defines "office" as "duty, task, function;" "position with duties attached to it." The English Reformers regarded presbyters and bishops as belonging to the same order but exercising different offices or functions. See Philip Edgcumbe Hughes' Theology of the English Reformers.
Archbishop Cranmer notes in "Of Ceremonies, Why Some Be Abolished, andSome Retained," that some "are so addicted to their old customs" that they "think it a great matter of conscience to depart from a piece of the least of their Ceremonies." This is true in our time as it was in the sixteenth century. Archbishop Cranmer goes on to stress that Christ's Gospel is not a Ceremonial Law...but a Religion to serve God...in the freedom of the Spirit...." We should be "content only with those Ceremonies which do serve to a decent order and godly discipline, and such as be apt to stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty to God, by some notable and special signification, whereby he might be edified." This principle is applicable to the ornaments of the church and the ornaments of minister.
How are we edified by a priest vested in a silk chasuble, his back turned to the congregation, elevating a host with an altar boy kneeling at his feet? How does this stir up our dull minds to the remembrance of our duty to God? Where in the Scriptures is this taught?
You reference that many of the error are Medieval excesses. The Orthodox us the eastward position and their liturgy precedes the Medieval and post-Tridentian changes.
ReplyDeleteFurther one could argue that west side of the table is reserved as Christ's position at the table facing us as if we are sitting at a table with Him. So the priest/presbyter a sinner like us should be in the same position as the laity.
Incense Relevation 8:3, altar Relv 11:1, and candles Relv 1:10-13 are from references from Revelation.
George,
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough in the upper room the example that Jesus gave was all were around the table. There were those who were on each side of him. Judas was one of them. The eastern orthodox often have an iconstasis placed in such a way that the altar in in a room all by itself. It is tradition for them. But it is not the example given by our LORD.
George,
ReplyDeleteIn the early Church as J. T. Tomlinson and others have shown, the priest stood in the westward position, facing the congregation. Eastern Orthodox practice is not as early as you might like to claim. Before the Peace of Constantine the usual place of celebration for the Lord's Supper was a private home, either in a large room or a court yard with the bishop-presbter standing in the westward position. After the Peace of Constantine, when the Church began to met in public buildings like basilicas, the president at the Holy Eucharist stood in the westward position, facing the congregation. I have spent over 25 years studying church history, Christian worship, liturgy, and related subjects. To someone who has devoted as much time as I have to these subjects, your arguments are unconvincing.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church the priest consecrates the bread and wine en secreta,hidden from the profane gaze of the congregation behind an iconostasis. The doors of the iconostasis are not thrown open until after the consecration. This is not how the bread and wine were set apart for sacramental use in the early Church but is a later development.
The rubrics of the 1662 Communion Office direct the priest to stand at the north side or end of the Table. This is the historic Anglican position, not the eastward position, which the English Reformers rejected due to its close association with the Medieval Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the Mass, and the sacerdotal character of the priesthood.