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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Is the Church of England Doomed?
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Cosmo
Shipmate
# 117
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Posted
THIS IS NOT AN 'ALL EVANGELICALS ARE STUPID@ THREAD. OK?
On the MW Board (on which I am occasionally known to post) there is a thread asking for liturgical suggestions for a particular church. As a gentle tangent I have bemoaned the fact (as it seems to me) that the Church of England is rapidly slipping from a sacramental, episcopal church with dignified, recognisible liturgy into a pentecostal, non-sacramental congregationalist sect where liturgy is seen as 'whatever you fancy is OK because none of it has any instrinsic worth or meaning' and where the ordained ministry means a commissioned ministry leader who does what the congregation tell him to do.
I also suggested that in twenty years time the only places left with recognisibly 'Anglican' liturgy will be the old cathedrals (the new ones will all be Alphaised by then - look at Coventry already) and a few city centre shrine parishes with an ingrained tradition like All Saints Margaret St.
As a result I have been accused of living in a 'High Church ghetto' and 'ploughing a sad and lonely furrow'.
What do others think? Is the Church of England in its present form doomed? Does it matter? What will the Church look like in twenty years time?
THIS IS NOT AN 'ALL EVANGELICALS ARE STUPID' THREAD. OK?
Cosmo
[ 03. September 2003, 21:36: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
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Captain Caveman
Shipmate
# 3980
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Posted
Any movement or organisation will survive as long as there are people wanting or willing to participate in it. I'm sure that there will always be people who value the same things you do about the CofE and so they will never die out completely. However, the trend you are bemoaning would seem to indicate that these people are becoming fewer.
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"Take this shirt
Polyester white trash made in nowhere
Take this shirt and make it clean" - U2
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Spong
Ship's coffee grinder
# 1518
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo:
I also suggested that in twenty years time the only places left with recognisibly 'Anglican' liturgy will be the old cathedrals (the new ones will all be Alphaised by then - look at Coventry already) and a few city centre shrine parishes with an ingrained tradition like All Saints Margaret St.
But you don't mean a recongnisably Anglican liturgy. What you mean is a high Anglo-Catholic liturgy, which to most ears and eyes will look and sound more Roman Catholic than Anglican.
There is a family of Anglican liturgy. Its heart is in the 1662 BCP, but it has developed since then, each communion standing on the shoulders of the others - or perhaps more appositely each communion leap-frogging the others. Common Worship seems to me to very accurately reflect where that Anglican 'lex orandi' has got to at present - an emphasis on structural commonality rather than commonality of words, but with well-loved texts playing a major part, and the option of a traditional language service that is closer to the roots of 1662.
Within that family, the Anglican Missal type of service is an outermost branch. Whether or not it's strictly legal is another question not to be rehashed here ![[Wink]](wink.gif) but to me it's a shoot from the lower branches, close to the roots but going off in a direction that the rest of the communion's liturgy has not.
Whether it will fade and die is a matter of opinion. But if it does, 'Anglican' liturgy will not have disappeared, because Anglican liturgy is delineated by the way that liturgy within the communion as a whole has developed.
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Spong
The needs of our neighbours are the needs of the whole human family. Let's respond just as we do when our immediate family is in need or trouble. Rowan Williams
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
If by the question "is the Church of England doomed?" you mean, "Is it doomed to end up being entirely 'low' church?" I would say, maybe, but probably not, as long as - as Captain Caveman says - there are people who want to retain the way they do things on the Ang-Cath side of things.
It may surprise you to know, Cosmo, that I would be sad if Anglo-Catholicism were to die out entirely, inasmuch as its loss would mean that we have one less flavour of church for people to be part of, and one less way for people to encounter Christ.
Personally speaking, while I am an Evangelical, I don't like the preponderance of the insincere Spring Harvest-style service that is beginning to become the mainstream across the protestant churches - it's not just becoming the Anglican mainstream, and it's not just the Anglo-Catholic movement that is under threat. So yes, your concerns are justified.
But back to Anglo-Catholicism: Cosmo, I'd be interested to know if the appointment of ++Rowan was a good or bad thing for the future of Catholics in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. Could he stem the tide?
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Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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Cosmo
Shipmate
# 117
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spong:
quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo:
I also suggested that in twenty years time the only places left with recognisibly 'Anglican' liturgy will be the old cathedrals (the new ones will all be Alphaised by then - look at Coventry already) and a few city centre shrine parishes with an ingrained tradition like All Saints Margaret St.
But you don't mean a recongnisably Anglican liturgy. What you mean is a high Anglo-Catholic liturgy, which to most ears and eyes will look and sound more Roman Catholic than Anglican.
Frankly, this sort of reply shows more ignorance than knowledge. To accuse cathedral worship of looking and sounding Roman Catholic rather than Anglican is simply rubbish. Neither is a parish such as All Saints Margaret St an 'Anglican Missal' (by which do you mean 'English Missal' - there are two sorts you know?) parish but a parish that uses Common Worship a damn sight more than most other Anglican parishes which seem to think 'the ASB is still good enough for us' or 'I'm not using any of that liturgy rubbish - an Informal Family Service is best for us'.
So no I don't mean is Anglo-Catholicism doomed in the Church of England. I mean is the authentic rationale of the Church of England as a sacramental, episcopal and, yes, catholic church with dignified liturgy being overtaken by a Church that sees itself as anti-Catholic (or rather anti-Roman), congregationalist, anti-sacramental and anti-liturgical, be that liturgy expressed in the form of the High Mass, Choral Evensong, Said Mattins or Common Worship Order One (Comtemporary Language)?
This thread isn't meant to be about the end of High Anglican liturgy but more about the end of classical Anglicanism.
Cosmo
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Cosmo
Shipmate
# 117
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Milkman of Human Kindness:
Cosmo, I'd be interested to know if the appointment of ++Rowan was a good or bad thing for the future of Catholics in the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. Could he stem the tide?
Please forgive the double post but I forgot to reply to this question.
Whilst I wholeheartedly applaud the elevation of Rowan Williams to Canterbury I fear one man cannot stem a tide. Until the church at large and the bishops at large (as perhaps has begun with the actions of the Bishop of Oxford concerning St Helen's Bishopsgate) are willing to stand up to these conservative evangelical protestant congregations who think (wrongly) they are the true form of Anglicanism and until bishops stop running scared of these churches and their supposed numerical strength and, more importantly, financial muscle then I fear the Church of England will slip more and more towards the Diocese of Sydney model.
Cosmo
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Oscar the Grouch
Adopted Cascadian
# 1916
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo:
Frankly, this sort of reply shows more ignorance than knowledge.
Frankly, your reply shows more ill-tempered prejudice than knowledge.
I know Spong and that he knows what he is talking about. His reply was a careful and considered contribution to the question you asked. It deserved more than this.
quote:
This thread isn't meant to be about the end of High Anglican liturgy but more about the end of classical Anglicanism.
But the problem lies in your thread title and OP - where you clearly equate "Anglicanism" with your particular brand of it. Spong is quite right to point out that Anglicanism is far broader than that.
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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu
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Orb
Eye eye Cap'n!
# 3256
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Posted
What is the worst that can happen?
Cathedrals - they'll be around.
Christians - so will they (hopefully).
Liturgy - reformulated to actually be representative of the wide range of Anglican belief, but wholly unitary.
Sacraments - they better ALWAYS be there!
I don't get this kind of thread. The church (small C) has survived this long. Surely we have faith it will last longer because LOADS of people believe in its ministry.
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“You cannot buy the revolution. You cannot make the revolution. You can only be the revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.” Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
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RevAndy
Apprentice
# 4017
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Posted
I don't think the Church of England is doomed, I do think it is changing. For the last twenty to thirty years the Evangelical movement within the CofE, and Anglicanism world wide, has been growing. The Diocese of Sydney and large parts of the Communion in Africa are now very evangelical. In England the largest, and richest, churches tend to be from this end of the candle.
Change always causes pain and fear. Many people are very dismissive of some of the positive things the Evangelicals are doing - I don't like Alpha and prefer Emmaus - but where are the liberals and Catholics in the CofE when it comes to evangelism?
One of the things I think the CofE could, because of its history, be good at is about showing a lively and vibrant expression of the Faith in a way which does not become sectarian. Sadly the "action" at the moment seems to be with the Evangelicals who have made one particularly narrow view of human sexuality their touchstone of orthodoxy.
Andy
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Fr Cuthbert
Shipmate
# 3953
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Posted
I hope we can avoid personal invective.
I think 'Cosmo' makes some interesting and thoughtful remarks. It does seem to me that we are in time of liturgical free for all. Some people may clutch for guides be it to Roman Missals, English Missals, Church family Worship books, Patterns for Worship - but ultimately it seems most things are OK. English Missal I guess has just as much authority as Family Worship.
A priest friend of mine in England said now virtually any liturgy is permissible as a 'Service of the Word' and actually the official rules allow for most 'reasonable' things at the Eucharist.
I remeber a time when most Anglican churches used the same Eucharistic prayer (Prayer Book). Yes style varied, but there was more uniformity in words then (the same lectionary was generally used).
In this context those of us of an older generation are a little bewildered by the pick and choose mentality - found in all traditions. I too fear that what many would call, "traditional anglican liturgy," will become more and more rare.
Cuthbert
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Fr Cuthbert
Shipmate
# 3953
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Posted
A further thought.
As an observer, and not a member of the C of E (yes - there are is a Church beyond the C of E some list members may like to note! ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) ) - I think this extraordinary multiplication of ministry quite maddening, and confusing. Some intials I have come across are NSM, LOM, MSE, PD ....
All it seems to me to suggest is, sadly, a lowering in professional standards in the ministry of the church. Recently I talked to someone who had been ordained, was in a full time job (teaching) and went to weekly, but didn't do much. Why spend so much money on training such peopel? Why not spend more money on getting more laity?
One sign of panic in the Cof E seems to be revealed by 'If in doubt ordain it - even though we won't know what to do with the mnister, and it costs thousands to train....' and 'lets create more managers and lets have more forms to fill in for statistical purposes....'
Those to me show signs that maybe, just maybe, the C of E is exploring a pathway to the caverns of doom at present
Cuthbert
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Cosmo
Shipmate
# 117
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Smart Alex:
But the problem lies in your thread title and OP - where you clearly equate "Anglicanism" with your particular brand of it. Spong is quite right to point out that Anglicanism is far broader than that.
For the last time.
I am not writing here as some kind of Anglo-Papalist who has no concept of anything else in the Church of England than Solemn Pontifical High Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary with Procession of the Relic of the True Cross, Solemn Benediction and Novena to the Sacred Heart (fun tho' that would be).
I'm talking about the classical doctrine of Anglicanism here not just about some people using a guitar or a powerpoint presentation in their services.
I'm talking about the preservation of the Sacraments in an age when Archbishop Jensen believes that 'sacramentalism is the enemy of faith' and, to my certain knowledge, thinks infant baptism in the Anglican tradition is 'an abomination'. There are scores of churches throughout the country (and their numbers growing all the time) that now have no communion service except once a month at 8am and who forbid their fonts to children unless their parents are 'bible-believing Christians'; none of which is classically Anglican.
I'm talking about the preservation of episcopacy and the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons in an age when a great splodge of the Church of England doesn't believe in ordination or priesthood, thinks that ministers are 'commissioned' by a congregation, accepts lay presidency at the altar and follows a congregationalist model of church life; none of which is classically Anglican.
I'm talking about the preservation of reason in the Church of England rather than the moving towards a 'Jesmond' model of belief where we question the theory of evolution and refuse to allow our children to go to schools which are staffed by 'unsound' teachers or only send them to schools where they can be beaten because 'the Bible tells us so'.
And yes, I am talking about the preservation of a recognisible form of Anglican liturgical standard. Maybe some people do think the mass at All Saints Margaret St looks like a Roman Catholic church (although they obviously haven't been in a RC church recently because all their services now look like pretty middle-of-the-road Anglicanism without the sense of style) but then how many people would go to Holy Trinity Brompton or St Mary Bryanston Sq or Jesmond Parish Church or Christ Church Clifton or scores of other churches and think they were in an Anglican church? For some reason All Saints is thought to be 'wrong' (despite that church's intense Anglicanism) becuase it follows a catholic form of spirituality and the liturgical practice that naturally stems from that spirituality whilst all these other places (despite their oft-expressed contempt for the structure, liturgy, collegiality and doctrine of the Church of England) are thought to be highly succesful and a model for us all to follow.
We are treading along a path which, if we continue to follow it, will lead to the alteration of the entire substance of the Church of England into something it never has been. Is that what we really want? Do we really want the Church of England to follow the Sydney model because that is what is happening right now and growing apace.
Once again, this isn't about High Church Liturgy. This is about classical Anglican doctrine and ecclesiology (not just the Anglo-Catholic portion of it) and the way it is being destroyed.
Cosmo
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John Donne
Renaissance Man
# 220
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Posted
I believe the death knell for classical Anglicanism started with the dispensing with of the Book of Common Prayer. Our prayer book was the one thing all Anglicans had in common. There is room in the interpretation of our Articles to accomodate the spectrum of Evangelical and Catholic theologies and all churchmanships could coexist with a clear conscience under them.
The proliferation of provincial prayerbooks is loathsome to me. As is the contempt many people have for the authority of their Bishops. That's where I lay the blame.
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Merseymike
Shipmate
# 3022
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Posted
I value most if not all of what you value, Cosmo, and I think if the direction you fear does take place, then the CofE will become little more than a minority sect even more than it has already become.
However, I am less pessimistic. What goes around comes around. Andy is right though (hello Andy - remember me?) - the liberal/catholic sides of the Church just haven't got their act together in terms of communicating what they have to offer. I think it would help if they stopped being so woolly and sitting on the fence, and recognised that being liberal and inclusive does not have to mean never making any clear statements, on matters such as sexuality, as well as the value of liturgy and episcopal ecclesiology. I hope that day will be coming soon. Seems to me that the hardliners on the evangelical wing may be forcing the issue and will make people finally speak out.
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Christianity is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be experienced
Posts: 3360 | From: Walked the plank | Registered: Jul 2002
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Fr Cuthbert
Shipmate
# 3953
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Posted
I support Cosmo very strongly in his views on this thread, and look forward to a careful discussion of them!
Cuthbert
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Dave Walker
Contributing Editor
# 14
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Posted
quote:
Icarus Coot:
I believe the death knell for classical Anglicanism started with the dispensing with of the Book of Common Prayer. Our prayer book was the one thing all Anglicans had in common.
Can I just check I've understood this. If we all used the Book of Common Prayer in our services the Anglican Church would be growing and healthy, but because we don't it's dying. Please correct me if I've got myself confused here.
Dave
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Cartoon blog / @davewalker
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Sola Scriptura
Shipmate
# 2229
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spong:
quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo:
I also suggested that in twenty years time the only places left with recognisibly 'Anglican' liturgy will be the old cathedrals (the new ones will all be Alphaised by then - look at Coventry already) and a few city centre shrine parishes with an ingrained tradition like All Saints Margaret St.
But you don't mean a recongnisably Anglican liturgy. What you mean is a high Anglo-Catholic liturgy, which to most ears and eyes will look and sound more Roman Catholic than Anglican.
There is a family of Anglican liturgy. Its heart is in the 1662 BCP, but it has developed since then, each communion standing on the shoulders of the others - or perhaps more appositely each communion leap-frogging the others. Common Worship seems to me to very accurately reflect where that Anglican 'lex orandi' has got to at present - an emphasis on structural commonality rather than commonality of words, but with well-loved texts playing a major part, and the option of a traditional language service that is closer to the roots of 1662.
Within that family, the Anglican Missal type of service is an outermost branch. Whether or not it's strictly legal is another question not to be rehashed here but to me it's a shoot from the lower branches, close to the roots but going off in a direction that the rest of the communion's liturgy has not.
Whether it will fade and die is a matter of opinion. But if it does, 'Anglican' liturgy will not have disappeared, because Anglican liturgy is delineated by the way that liturgy within the communion as a whole has developed.
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Used to be Gunner.
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Sola Scriptura
Shipmate
# 2229
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Posted
The only option I have is to trust in God and pray that the CofE will return from its desire for self-destruction. But if it continues many will not have a home within it. There will be the ones who can't abide the Top-tappin', hand-clappin' mind numbing forms of services which pander to the lowest common denominator ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif) . And if one can find a decent Anglo-catholic church can we cope with priests mincing around the altar regarding their "preformance" as vital and ignoring the gifts and talents which God has given to all the laity? ![[Confused]](confused.gif) ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
The choices may not be so stark but the danger signals are there. ![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
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Used to be Gunner.
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John Donne
Renaissance Man
# 220
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by W:
quote:
Icarus Coot:
I believe the death knell for classical Anglicanism started with the dispensing with of the Book of Common Prayer. Our prayer book was the one thing all Anglicans had in common.
Can I just check I've understood this. If we all used the Book of Common Prayer in our services the Anglican Church would be growing and healthy, but because we don't it's dying. Please correct me if I've got myself confused here.
No, that's not what I said, my view is that the Book of Common Prayer is the quintessence of classical Anglicanism which is what I'm talking about. BCP was one of the things that made us recognisably Anglican. No longer having a common prayer book (the BCP in ancient/modern language it doesn't matter) removes a strong and unifying aspect of Anglicanism. Whatever has replaced classical Anglicanism may be vigorous or not, and who knows what shape the Church would be in if it had retained the BCP as its primary prayerbook, but I am not commenting on those points. The growth and healthiness of the replacement will depend on its own merits.
Perhaps I should have been more overt, I was commenting on Cosmo's point: quote:
This thread isn't meant to be about the end of High Anglican liturgy but more about the end of classical Anglicanism.
I should have put it in plainer words. Classical Anglicanism is already dead. It died with the proliferation of provincial prayerbooks. And what's left of it will have the life choked out of it by the contempt that the more congregational elements in the Communion have for their Bishops.
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Fr Cuthbert
Shipmate
# 3953
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Posted
I think the more congregational style churches in Anglicanism, which pay little attention to bishops, are more often found in large towns and cities.
Gunner's stark alternatives - clapping evangelicals, or mincing Anglo-Catholics, also, I believe, are more found in large towns and cities.
Sometimes I feel we can forget the valuable contribution of small rural congregations who often have a more generous approach to questions of churchmanship, and often a greater loyalty to tradition. So many anglican parishes, at least in the UK, are rural.
Cuthbert
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Fr Cuthbert:
So many anglican parishes, at least in the UK, are rural.
But so many Anglicans, at least in the UK, are urban.
Greater London alone caounts for about 18% of all churchgoers in England, a proportion that is rising fast. It'll soon be 25% (and most of them will be black)
Once upon a time - not very long ago, a couple of decades perhaps - chruch attendance was grater in the country than the town. Not the case now.
The kind of white, middle-class, rural, church you seem to want has died because the white, middle-class, rural people no longer go to church.
And I doubt if the reasons for that ara anything to do with liturgy. The people who aren't gong to church don't have the faintest idea what the liturgical differences between this, that, and the other strand of Anglicanism are.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo:
I also suggested that in twenty years time the only places left with recognisibly 'Anglican' liturgy will be the old cathedrals (the new ones will all be Alphaised by then - look at Coventry already) and a few city centre shrine parishes with an ingrained tradition like All Saints Margaret St.
As others have said, the real Anglican liturgy was the Morning & Evening Prayer services of the Book of Common Prayer. That ws the regular diet of almost all Church of England congregations for centuries.
The anglo-Catholics broke ranks first, back in the 19th century, then some of the more liberal churches, and finally the Evangelicals abandoned that sort of worship in my own adult memory. As recently as the late 1970s the normal Sunday service in most Evangelical churches was the old service.
Parish Communion is a great idea. but it isn't traditionally Anglican. And I suspect that All Saints St Margaret St, isn't really either.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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The Black Labrador
Shipmate
# 3098
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo:
quote:
Originally posted by Smart Alex:
But the problem lies in your thread title and OP - where you clearly equate "Anglicanism" with your particular brand of it. Spong is quite right to point out that Anglicanism is far broader than that.
For the last time.
I am not writing here as some kind of Anglo-Papalist who has no concept of anything else in the Church of England than Solemn Pontifical High Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary with Procession of the Relic of the True Cross, Solemn Benediction and Novena to the Sacred Heart (fun tho' that would be).
I'm talking about the classical doctrine of Anglicanism here not just about some people using a guitar or a powerpoint presentation in their services.
I'm talking about the preservation of the Sacraments in an age when Archbishop Jensen believes that 'sacramentalism is the enemy of faith' and, to my certain knowledge, thinks infant baptism in the Anglican tradition is 'an abomination'. There are scores of churches throughout the country (and their numbers growing all the time) that now have no communion service except once a month at 8am and who forbid their fonts to children unless their parents are 'bible-believing Christians'; none of which is classically Anglican.
I'm talking about the preservation of episcopacy and the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons in an age when a great splodge of the Church of England doesn't believe in ordination or priesthood, thinks that ministers are 'commissioned' by a congregation, accepts lay presidency at the altar and follows a congregationalist model of church life; none of which is classically Anglican.
I'm talking about the preservation of reason in the Church of England rather than the moving towards a 'Jesmond' model of belief where we question the theory of evolution and refuse to allow our children to go to schools which are staffed by 'unsound' teachers or only send them to schools where they can be beaten because 'the Bible tells us so'.
And yes, I am talking about the preservation of a recognisible form of Anglican liturgical standard. Maybe some people do think the mass at All Saints Margaret St looks like a Roman Catholic church (although they obviously haven't been in a RC church recently because all their services now look like pretty middle-of-the-road Anglicanism without the sense of style) but then how many people would go to Holy Trinity Brompton or St Mary Bryanston Sq or Jesmond Parish Church or Christ Church Clifton or scores of other churches and think they were in an Anglican church? For some reason All Saints is thought to be 'wrong' (despite that church's intense Anglicanism) becuase it follows a catholic form of spirituality and the liturgical practice that naturally stems from that spirituality whilst all these other places (despite their oft-expressed contempt for the structure, liturgy, collegiality and doctrine of the Church of England) are thought to be highly succesful and a model for us all to follow.
We are treading along a path which, if we continue to follow it, will lead to the alteration of the entire substance of the Church of England into something it never has been. Is that what we really want? Do we really want the Church of England to follow the Sydney model because that is what is happening right now and growing apace.
Once again, this isn't about High Church Liturgy. This is about classical Anglican doctrine and ecclesiology (not just the Anglo-Catholic portion of it) and the way it is being destroyed.
Cosmo
I wish you wouldn't equate Jensen/Reform with evangelical Anglicans - they are no more representative of evangelical Anglicans any more than BCP fundamentalists are representative of Anglo-Catholics. And as for the suggestion that more than a tiny number of Anglican evangelicals are creationist fruitcakes...
You seem to define Anglicanism in terms of tradition/liturgy rather than beliefs. But traditions and liturgies change. The churches which offer the traditional liturgies and practices you hanker after are the ones which are declining most. I won't pretend that evaneglicalism is booming but it's in a better state than any other tradition in the C of E.
Most evangelical churches hold fairly at least one communion service on a Sunday. I was part of St.Mary's Bryanston Square (before it moved there) and one of the main Sunday services was always communion.
As for baptism, most evangelical Anglicans do perform infant baptisms, although they don't emphasise the importance of it and are happy for parents to leave the decision to the child later if they wish. I thought the BCP required priests to prepare the parents for infant baptism, insistence on church attendance for a period or going on an Alpha course is entirely consistent with this.
You're referring to the cultural form Anglicanism took in a different era which is now dying. To survive Anglican churches need to find their place in the current era. Nothing that the HTB's of this world do is inconsistent with the C of E doctrine. It's a matter of their presentation and emphasis.
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Arrietty
Ship's borrower
# 45
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Posted
Cosmo
Could you provide details of the alpha-isation of Coventry Cathedral please?
I am sure someone as vehemently against ignorance as you could not possibly be making wild assertions based on nothing but prejudice!
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i-church
Online Mission and Ministry
Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Cosmo,
Maybe its fate is to survive only in the United States, where I've never attended an Episcopal Church that didn't use the BCP. I hadn't realized the ASB was growing so prevalent. Bleah.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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adso
Shipmate
# 2895
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Posted
Wales doesn't still use BCP much, but otherwise it's still fairly trad. It's the first I've heard of any Anglican churches relegating the Eucharist to an occasional slot or refusing to baptise babies.
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os justi meditabitur sapientiam, et lingua eius loquetur judicium. lex dei eius in corde ipsius, et non supplantabuntur gressus eius. alleluia.
Posts: 688 | From: pays de galles | Registered: Jun 2002
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Stephen
Shipmate
# 40
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Posted
Indeed,I would suspect that Fr.Cosmo would fully approve of the Welsh BCP,although there is also a modern language version (not too dissimilar from CW) in use
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Best Wishes
Stephen
'Be still,then, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations and I will be exalted in the earth' Ps46 v10
Posts: 3954 | From: Alto C Clef Country | Registered: May 2001
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Cosmo
Shipmate
# 117
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arrietty:
Cosmo
Could you provide details of the alpha-isation of Coventry Cathedral please?
I am sure someone as vehemently against ignorance as you could not possibly be making wild assertions based on nothing but prejudice!
The Dean of Coventry, John Irvine, was previously Vicar of St Barnabas Addison Road and, when at HTB, was one of the prime devisers and exponents of the Alpha Course. In addition he has appointed a fellow Alpha-ite as a Residentiary Canon (his name escapes me but I am sure I could find it out if you really want) to be responsible for the furtherance of Alpha in the cathedral. He has already introduced a service on Sunday Evenings called 'Cathedral Praise' based squarely on the HTB student and young people market and in the HTB 'Alpha' style. He has also hosted a large Alpha Conference at the Cathedral and sent a big press release out associating himself with the event etc etc etc.
Rumour reaches me that parents are thinking of removing their children from the choir as they are concerned at the potential downgrading of the music (two boys have already gone to Westminster Abbey) although that, I grant you, is hearsay evidence. I do know that HTB is very keen to try to get another friendly soul as the new Dean of Sheffield Cathedral and try to influence it that way.
That's the sort of thing I mean.
Cosmo
Posts: 2375 | Registered: May 2001
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
I'm fully behind Cosmo and Icarus Coot on this thread. One the Church of England followed certain rules. If an anglocatholic was in Canturbury, an evangelical was in York. Everyone used the Prayer Book, some with some additional usage, but that was the way in which a broad church could maintain some semblance of unity. Now we have Common Worship in which every church in the land could make a different service every week of the year. How is that in any way "common"?
The English Missal, which I love has a long pedigree behind it. The BCP is the bedrock of the Anglican faith. We are in danger of losing these gems to the modernists who understand nothing about the ordering of churches, advise clergy to wear shell suits to celebrate the Eucharist and deplore sacramental language such as "eat the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ and drink His blood," on the grounds that it's cannibalistic.
The idea of a Third Province has been received with an open mind by ++Rowan. I believe that if it comes about, it will be the only refuge for Continuing Anglicanism within this land, and the rest of the C of E will follow an increasingly protestant agenda.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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Genie
Shipmate
# 3282
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Posted
What, precisely is wrong with the ASB? We use it every week in our "white, middle class, rural" parish. (My fiance and I are the only ones who don't fit this stereotype, and that's only because we're 'middle-class with no money') Holy Communion is provided every Sunday at the early service, and fortnightly at the main service. Our worship is fairly simple and without 'smells and bells', as befits the simplicity of our church and it's thousand year tradition, yet there is a richness within the melodious tones of our canadian vicar and the unobtrusive rituals of the servers that never fails to warm my heart on a cold Sunday morning. The elements are processed down the aisle by whoever turned up first to grab them - there are no requirements for waving incense or wearing robes - anyone and everyone is welcome to take part. Once a month the children bake bread in Sunday school for use at communion the following week, and we use that instead of wafers.
Ours is a parish where the elderly ladies dress in their best for church, and sit stiffly in the ancient wooden pews, wrapped in hand-knitted hats and scarves, gloved hands tucked demurely around their miniature leather-bound bibles. Conversation centres around the Women's Institute, the Bellringers Guild and the catering team. Here, the English stiff-upper-lip reigns supreme, and yet there is genuine warmth and love in the way they catch your eye from the opposite end of the church. People smile with their souls rather than hugging each other with insincere abandon.
This, to me, is what it truly means to be Anglican.
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Alleluia, Christ is risen!
Posts: 762 | From: Cambridge | Registered: Sep 2002
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
quote:
Classical Anglicanism is already dead. It died with the proliferation of provincial prayerbooks.
No - classical Anglicanism died when the attempt to restrain doctrinal innovation was foiled in the famous church court case in the middle of the 19th century. After that anything could be preached by an incumbent in the fairly certain knowledge that the bishop would ignore it. Once the core doctrines been marginalised, the liturgical collapse was merely outward and visible sign...
It is however important to notice that the organs of the 19th century replaced the previous source of music in a church - the local 'band'. As such the arrival of guitars in church is probably a restoration of an earlier tradition (as is clearing out pews!!) rather than clearly a sign of decline.
Which indeed goes to the core question of what is 'classical Anglicanism' - Cramner, Latimer and Ridley? Hooker? Laud?, the Unitarians of 18th century, the Evangelicals of the 19th - or only a certain Anglo Catholic strand which can barely establish its roots before the Oxford movement?
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
Posts: 5018 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Feb 2002
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH:
Now we have Common Worship in which every church in the land could make a different service every week of the year. How is that in any way "common"?
It's "common" in that we are all worshipping the same God
quote:
We are in danger of losing these gems to the modernists who understand nothing about the ordering of churches,
Some presumably do understand about the ordering of churches; they just disagree about how it should be done, and maybe pick out different bits of tradition to affirm. Why are you dissing them? What makes you think they understand less then someone who wants to stick with one particular way of setting things out?
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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Spong
Ship's coffee grinder
# 1518
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Posted
Umm Genie, I hope you DON'T use the ASB, because unless you've got special permission it's no longer authorised. It's been replaced by Common Worship.
Cosmo, if I have carried into this thread some of the annoyance I felt with your irrelevant response to the question actually posed on the 'Changing Worship' thread, then I apologise; and I also apologise for Anglican and not English Missal (engage brain before putting fingers to keyboard).
But if the question is really 'are we going to maintain Anglican liturgy as expressed in Common Worship Order 1' then yes I'm sure we are. I really don't see any signs of that melting away.
And I think you misunderstand me sometimes. I've spent the last hour persuading a worship group that, yes, there IS a good reason why you have to have an Affirmation of Faith in a Service of the Word, and no you CAN'T just have some prayers that vaguely refer to being sorry, you do have to have an authorised confession (though it can be a kyrie form). I take time and effort over liturgy: I'm sure it isn't the sort of liturgy that you would like but it is an honest and prayerful attempt to use the richness of Common Worship.
My point, as Smart Alex kindly highlighted when coming to my rescue, is that anyone with knowledge of your posts on MW is aware that your definition of 'good' liturgy is generally highly restrictive. If you are not being that restrictive, then I don't really think we have too much of a problem, and I'm on your side if you want to enforce the rubrics of Common Worship...
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Spong
The needs of our neighbours are the needs of the whole human family. Let's respond just as we do when our immediate family is in need or trouble. Rowan Williams
Posts: 2173 | From: South-East UK | Registered: Oct 2001
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
Genie,
I like the sound of your church.
I also like the ASB; it was the first CofE liturgy I learned by heart, since i'm an economic migrant to England.
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
daisymay
churches are built on an east/west axis with the font at the west and the altar against the east wall as part of the mystical progression of the soul. The east is where the lux mundi breaks in upon our awareness. The neophite enters at the west from the dark, and passes through the waters of baptism, to begin the lifelong journey towards the light of God, symbolically arriving from the east. It is for this reason that the congregation should face east.
The priest, when reading scripture or preaching a homily is facing the people, but when he leads the people towards the light in prayer and especially in the Consecration of the Bread of Wine, he should be leading them Godward towards the light. One kneels in humble submission at the altar rail, before the throne of God and receives the Body and Blood of our Lord, a veritable heavenly banquet where the veil between earth and heaven is at its thinnest and the Church Militand and the Church Triumphant are in full communion. One arises from Communion in unity with Christ in His resurrection from the dead.
That's a brief outline of the significence of ordering, which has been sundered by the modernisers.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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daisymay
St Elmo's Fire
# 1480
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Posted
PaulTH,
Other people have ordered churches differently at different times throughout the history of the church in England.
For example, receiving communion used to be an act of observation by the congregation because only the priests and religious received. So no necessity for the congregation to have a communion rail to receive at. Perhaps necessary, like a rood screen, to fence the congregation off.Then later on, many received standing, and quite a few churches are going back to this. So, no necessity for a communion rail.
The celebrant facing east is also not the only ancient way; some english churches had the celebration central in the nave, - north side, sometimes. So people who are now reordering churches may be working on a different but equally valid tradition.
I'm not trying to avoid this discussion, because I think it's interesting and important as we all get shifted around and have to allow for other's ideas, but I'm off to bed now..
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London
Flickr fotos
Posts: 11224 | From: London - originally Dundee, Blairgowrie etc... | Registered: Oct 2001
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Arrietty
Ship's borrower
# 45
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Posted
[SLIGHT TANGENT]
quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo:
The Dean of Coventry, John Irvine, was previously Vicar of St Barnabas Addison Road and, when at HTB, was one of the prime devisers and exponents of the Alpha Course.
Oh dear, I admit that's looking bad......
quote:
In addition he has appointed a fellow Alpha-ite as a Residentiary Canon
Gasp! Arrgh! That looks pretty damning quote:
(his name escapes me but I am sure I could find it out if you really want)
No, probably best leave it as it is. To be branded an 'Alpha-ite' (whatever that is) might verge on libel for all I know.
quote:
to be responsible for the furtherance of Alpha in the cathedral.
Was that in the job description?
quote:
He
Who???? quote:
has already introduced a service on Sunday Evenings called 'Cathedral Praise' based squarely on the HTB student and young people market and in the HTB 'Alpha' style.
Oh, you mean the Dean. Terrible. Why didn't he just subvert an exisiting service instead of starting a new one? quote:
He has also hosted a large Alpha Conference at the Cathedral and sent a big press release out associating himself with the event
I agree, I do so much prefer not to know who is responsible for an event. I am sure his association with Alpha came as a very unwelcome surprise to the Bishop and the Cathedral.
quote:
etc etc etc.
You mean there's more? Do tell!
quote:
Rumour reaches me that parents are thinking of removing their children from the choir as they are concerned at the potential downgrading of the music (two boys have already gone to Westminster Abbey)
Yes, and it's so blatant the Cathedral are even pretending to be pleased with the boys' achievement on the cathedral website quote:
although that, I grant you, is hearsay evidence.
Evidence of what?
quote:
I do know that HTB is very keen to try to get another friendly soul as the new Dean of Sheffield Cathedral and try to influence it that way.
Well, that's it then. Person the lifeboats.
quote:
That's the sort of thing I mean.
And very scary it is too.
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif) ![[Eek!]](eek.gif) ![[Paranoid]](graemlins/paranoid.gif)
[/SLIGHT TANGENT]
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i-church
Online Mission and Ministry
Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001
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Merseymike
Shipmate
# 3022
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Posted
Nevertheless, it is an example of a formerly 'high church' Cathedral beine transformed into something quite different. I gather that the gay members of the congregation who attended are no longer welcomed or affirmed by this new Dean ( I have been told that by someone who used to go there and has now left - not someone I know, but during an onl;ine conversation)
It all depends on what you think about Alpha and the direction in which this Cathedral is going. Personally, I don't like it,but thats because I don't relate to that sort of theology
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Christianity is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be experienced
Posts: 3360 | From: Walked the plank | Registered: Jul 2002
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Xavierite
Shipmate
# 2575
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Posted
I'm curious: how does one go about "affirming" a practising homosexual?
Posts: 2307 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Dear JL,
You go to their windows, play guitars, and applaud appreciatively. You may also throw flowers.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Arrietty
Ship's borrower
# 45
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Merseymike:
Nevertheless, it is an example of a formerly 'high church' Cathedral beine transformed into something quite different.
a) It was never high as Cathderals go. Processions and very occasional smells and bells - all of which still happen.
b) The only change to liturgy came with Common Worship at the 10.30 am service instead of the Coventry Eucharist, a strange hybrid, which brought it more in line with the rest of the C of E. This happened before the appointment of the new Dean.
quote:
Originally posted by Merseymike:
I gather that the gay members of the congregation who attended are no longer welcomed or affirmed by this new Dean ( I have been told that by someone who used to go there and has now left - not someone I know, but during an onl;ine conversation)
It depends who you speak to. No doubt people were worried given the reputation of that sort of church-person ship regarding homosexuality. However I have not heard of anyone with a role a Coventry Cathedral losing it since the arrival of the new Dean. This is not to say people without a role have not left because they felt uncomfortable of course.
quote:
Originally posted by Merseymike:
It all depends on what you think about Alpha and the direction in which this Cathedral is going. Personally, I don't like it,but thats because I don't relate to that sort of theology
Well I wouldn't like it if it was as Cosmo has described, but when you look at what Cosmo is saying there is nothing concrete to dislike. If you look on the website they are still having all the same services, they still have a robed choir singing traditional music, they still have evensong etc etc.
I agree that the distinctive nature of the C of E will be at risk if we get do-it-yourself liturgy, I am just challenging Cosmos's assertions re Coventry purely on accuracy as I think it is detrimental to the argument to throw around hearsay as facts. I do know people at Coventry and I haven't heard that any of the normal services have been 'alpha-ised'.
Obviously if you know someone who has left because they felt unacceptable that is bad for any church, however that is not the issue Cosmo was raising.
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i-church
Online Mission and Ministry
Posts: 6634 | From: Coventry, UK | Registered: May 2001
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FCB
Hillbilly Thomist
# 1495
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Icarus Coot:
I believe the death knell for classical Anglicanism started with the dispensing with of the Book of Common Prayer. Our prayer book was the one thing all Anglicans had in common. . . The proliferation of provincial prayerbooks is loathsome to me.
If this is true, then it all began to fall apart in 1789, with the introduction of the first American Prayerbook.
FCB
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Agent of the Inquisition since 1982.
Posts: 2928 | From: that city in "The Wire" | Registered: Oct 2001
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Hooker's Trick
Admin Emeritus and Guardian of the Gin
# 89
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo:
I mean is the authentic rationale of the Church of England as a sacramental, episcopal and, yes, catholic church with dignified liturgy
Does it change the argument if we posit a sacramental, episcopal and PROTESTANT church with a dignified liturgy? Although I would argue that classical Anglicanism is neither protestant nor catholic, some people would make the argument that "classical" Anglicanism is sacramental and episcopal and yet protestant, and the most classical and most Anglican of all classical Anglican services is Choral Evensong.
quote:
being overtaken by a Church that sees itself as anti-Catholic (or rather anti-Roman), congregationalist, anti-sacramental and anti-liturgical,
One imagines that one could use at least some of these terms to describe the C18 Church of England.
One might also wonder if the late Evangelical Bishop Knox, looking at his two sons, both of whom became Anglo-Catholics and one of whom famously poped, might have wondered in the 1920s whether or not the Evangelical Church of England was doomed to going down a road of Romish superstition?
My point is that the complexion of the Church of England is a diverse and mutable thing. Evangelicalism wasn't invented by Wesley and there were High Church Anglicans before Pusey. One of Anglicanism's signal characteristics has been holding opposites in tension, and this not without some anxiety.
Furthermore, could we not make the argument that "classical Anglicanism" is really just a different way of saying "Cathedral Anglicanism", and rest assured that Cathedrals are something we will always have with us?
quote:
Ian S asserteth The churches which offer the traditional liturgies and practices you hanker after are the ones which are declining most.
Not necessarily. The Episcopal Church of the United States of the America, the Anglican client on these shores, is not declining but modestly growing. And the ECUSA is overwhelmingly traditional and liturgical.
Posts: 6735 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Spong:
Umm Genie, I hope you DON'T use the ASB, because unless you've got special permission it's no longer authorised. It's been replaced by Common Worship.
We use ASB. And I doubt if anyone thought of asking permission.
Right now we are 7 months into an iterregnum, and no-one has done anything about thr liturgy we use for the best part of a year. PCC just mumble when I suggest anything. All terribly dull.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daisymay:
[QB]The celebrant facing east is also not the only ancient way; some english churches had the celebration central in the nave, - north side, sometimes. So people who are now reordering churches may be working on a different but equally valid tradition.
[QB]
Central is arguably the distinctive Anglican way of doing it, preferred IIRC, by Cranmer.
I think I've only experienced it twice - both times in poorly attended evening services where the congregation sat in choir stalls with the table between them.
I think one of them was in Malvern Abbey - about as traditionally Anglican an occasion as one could hope for.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
The Church of England has fudged the issue of whether it is catholic or protestant since it's inception. Henry VIII though seeking, for necessity a breach with Rome was as catholic as it gets in his worship. Cranmer was a closet protestant who came always further out until he was cut off by Mary Tudor.
In this era, the reckoning is upon the church. Are you catholic or are you protestant? The unity with which the diverse factions have wrestled for 150 years is about to explode. Over the ecclesiological issue of women Bishops. The Church of England as we know it is doomed. It is always nudging towards protestantism and liberalism. There are those members who find this intolerable and can only remain if adequate safeguards can be made for their views.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH:
The Church of England has fudged the issue of whether it is catholic or protestant since it's inception.
Not it hasn't. It has always claimed to be both - they aren't mutually exclusive.
We all say the creed, we all claim to be a part of the one, holy, catholic church.
The idea that the CofE is not protestant would have been unheard of for the first 300 years after the reformation, and since then is the divisive party slogan of a small minority of Anglo-Catholics (i.e. not even most ACs) who not only see the CofE as the continuation of the pre-Reformation church in England (which we all do, because except maybe a few ultra-montane RCs), and not only want to restore or reinvent some ritual (which I suppose all ACs do) but also see Anglicanism as the only valid or genuine or serious expression of Christianity in England - which few Anglicans would stretch to.
We had a whole thread on this a few months back. It's just a fact that to most people in England (well, most of the few who ever let such ideas cross their mind) the idea that the CofE is not porotestant would just be silly. They use the word "catholic" to mean Rome. When a stanger walks into aan Anglican (or Methodist) church and hears us use that word in the Creeds they find it confusing. Even slightly embarrasing. "Why do you say that?"
And it is slightly ingenuous to talk of a trent towards protestantism and liberalism, as you know perfectly well that the majority of CofE churches of a liberal persuasion actually have a mildly "high" type of service, and have had for at least 50 years. Probably mostly AffCath these days.
Even within the narrow confines of Anglo-Catholicism (though there's a lot of it about on the Ship) what you say only makes sense if you were to exclude AffCath types from being "really" catholic.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
Well said Ken - your post arrived just as I was going to reply to PaulTH and you said it so much better. Is it a record (for me or anyone) being able to agree with Ken and Cosmo on the same subject? 'Protestant' is a naughty word to many anglo-catholics, and I have to admit to frequently disowning the label. But as a (not particularly hairy) lefty like ++Rowan I rejoice to be regarded as a dissident, nonconformist, etc etc, so there's no logical reason to dislike it. As long as I can be a catholic too. And those of us catholics who welcome women priests and bishops, are relaxed about modern liturgy (as long as it is basically structured and sacramental) resent being treated as beyond the pale by self-styled traditionalists.
Cosmo I think is making the perfectly valid point that whatever one's liturgical preferences (and I can take a bit of the gin-lace-and English Missal now and again, and even Family Worship when I'm in a good mood) to be an anglican is to be part of a tradition which is catholic, liberal (in the sense of open to reason and reluctant to condemn) and of course protestant in the sense that we are not subordinate to papal authority.
Non-sacramental, non-liturgical American-influenced evangelicalism is rapidly taking over large swathes of the Cof E. The question is not, is this authentic christianity?, but, is this consistent with the anglican tradition? If it is not, these are the people who should be forming the 'third province', and not those of us who belong to the mainstream.
'Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living' (Jaroslav Pelikan - Emergence of the Catholic Tradition)
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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