|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: English Anglicanism and Cultural Identity - or when's it time to stop holding on?
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
I think this is purgatorial (I want to keep off DHs, but it might conceivably be All Souls....)
Seems to me that Anglicanism is bound up with naional consciousness in a way it isn't in other countries - I mean it's the default position to be CofE (in as much it's the default position when having any religion at all).
Which makes it all rather difficult when considering the competing claims of religions. For example, I agree with FiF on the DHs, but also that the CofE is THE church in England. However, I'm increasingly inclined to believe that there is no future for "my" camp outwith the Roman Catholic church, and would be received tomorrow, were it not for the fact that it feels like giving up on hundreds of years of history, and the church of my birth.
So, I suppose my question is to what extent one can (specifically within England) play off the two competing tensions? The RC view would of course be that the future of one's immortal soul should tip the balance, but it feels more culturally complex than that. Otherwise the Ordinariate wuld have been a given for many more people as soon as it was announced.
I do think if I wasn't English it would be easier to just change horses to the RC church?
I think I've just about cut through all the confusion in my own head to get to those questions, but I'm interested in what others think.
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
|
Posted
Anglicanism is much more than the C of E, and does not have the cultural baggage you attribute to it outside that particular branch. And by and large, the issues which excite FinF have been left in the past in many other Provinces.
[ 29. January 2014, 09:46: Message edited by: Gee D ]
--------------------
Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Callan
Shipmate
# 525
|
Posted
Ahem, in the event that Simon loses the plot completely and decides to set up a dedicated board for conservative Anglo-Catholics to bitch about how the Church of England has been going to the dogs since forever*, All Souls would be a most apposite name for it. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
*There is, of course, a school of thought which holds that the old Mystery Worship board fulfilled much the same function. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
--------------------
How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
Anglicanism is much more than the C of E, and does not have the cultural baggage you attribute to it outside that particular branch. And by and large, the issues which excite FinF have been left in the past in many other Provinces.
That's exactly what I'm trying to get at. I completely agree with you, hence the thread title specifically being "English Anglicanism" and not Anglicanism per se.
It's also not about having a bitchfest about the direction of the CofE. I'm struggling with the very intertwined tangle in England of culture and faith, and looking for other thoughts which might make the way forward a bit clearer.
So, in England, how can people/do others untangle/pick the relationship between religious heritage and cultural heritage?
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
Oh and in my op, I did mean All Saints. Sorry...
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
|
Posted
As God lays on our hearts where we should worship at any time, I think a lot of prayer, with discernment by reason and consultation with others called to spiritual direction (who are neutral / liberal / open-minded denominationally), is the way forward.
It is good to know what influences us in our decision-making, and to be able to override it if necessary so that we put God first. God calls some into each of the denominations: some into and out of the Roman catholic church, others into and out of the English catholic church, yet others into and out of the 'Protestant' churches.
--------------------
Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
|
Posted
betjemaniac
So you're saying that your branch of the CofE doesn't have a future, so you'd be in the RCC if that didn't mean abandoning what you feel to be your 'English' religious heritage?
I can't exactly see how your problem can be solved. Why would the CofE seek to abandon its national connections so as to make it easier for you and others to leave?? And, what would abandoning these national connections actually entail? Are you thinking of disestablishment?
IMO the CofE's status will eventually be reevaluated, but not exactly for the reasons you have in mind....
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
I agree ... that the CofE is THE church in England.
So are we Nonconformist Christians not to be counted as part of the Church? Or, for that matter, as properly English?
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
|
Posted
Perhaps what is necessary is to rather literally think outside the box. First off, imagine the CofE no longer the Church-as-by-law-established (already a near meaningless concept in reality), and then imagine it not even being the National Church (as the CofS). You might settle for thinking of it as an historic foundational Church that happens to own a lot of ancient and venerable properties, the oldest of which it inherited by political accident from the Roman hierarchy, and that has also mid-wifed some signficant Christian denominations in the country, of which Methodism is perhaps the iconic example, but which itself no longer really occupies a unique place in the actual faith-life of tne nation; rather a denomination and sect amongst many, Christian and non-Christian.
It's hard to make these acknowledgements to reality, and various things do argue against the perspective I've just articulated. Yet, if we look at the actual realities on the ground, I think this perspective is justified.
The CofE is a good place for one's Christian journey, and I have been happy to call one of its parish churches, especially, home when living and visiting in the green and pleasant land these past twenty years. But objectively, it and the whole CofE are rather insignificant to the majority of the population, I'm afraid. How special is that?
Having said all this, while in America there might always be the slight chance that a geographical move or other developments could see me skipping out on the Episcopal Church in favour of a parish of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, in England I would never contemplate being anywhere but the CofE. Does that completely undercut the argument I've made? At a rational level I don't think so; but it does seem to witness to all the irrational, sentimental and nostalgic elements that contribute to one's personal identifications with social institutions.
[ 29. January 2014, 12:58: Message edited by: Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras ]
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
fabula rasa
Shipmate
# 11436
|
Posted
betjemaniac, I have two thoughts.
The first is that while we English Anglicans see the CofE as linking us back to our national history, it is equally valid for Roman Catholics to make the same claim. After all, the English church was Roman for a millennium, and the Roman church didn't just die--for the past 500 years it has maintained itself, in a huge number of ways, as (an admittedly niche) part of English life. It's a story of long, proud struggle, and I think that it is time that Anglicans recognised that. (It was interesting that when Richard III's bones were found, and the squabbling started about where and how they might be buried, one of the representations was that of course he was a member of the Roman church and should be buried according to its rites.)
The second observation I would make is that in 2014 there is only one important sense in which we are an Anglican country: we still have an Established church, which is looked to to provide the ritual and ceremonial in our national life. In no other sense does the CofE play a major part in what it means to be English today.
If a sense of cultural Englishness is important to you in church life, I think that you're on equally solid ground with the Romans. The only significant argument to the contrary, in my view, is in DH territory: that the RCC is much further away from English norms on matters around gender and sexuality.
Posts: 465 | From: scepter'd isle | Registered: May 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
I agree ... that the CofE is THE church in England.
So are we Nonconformist Christians not to be counted as part of the Church? Or, for that matter, as properly English?
You are welcome at the Church of England's Eucharist table, you have the right to be married by a CofE priest and to have your child or yourself baptized in a CofE parish.
So yes, the Church of England is THE church for all English Christians, whether or not they choose to participate or not.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
betjemaniac
So you're saying that your branch of the CofE doesn't have a future, so you'd be in the RCC if that didn't mean abandoning what you feel to be your 'English' religious heritage?
I can't exactly see how your problem can be solved. Why would the CofE seek to abandon its national connections so as to make it easier for you and others to leave?? And, what would abandoning these national connections actually entail? Are you thinking of disestablishment?
IMO the CofE's status will eventually be reevaluated, but not exactly for the reasons you have in mind....
Pretty well yes to your first question. No to everything else you've written because where you write "I can't exactly see how your problem can be solved" - *that* is the problem I'm trying to discuss, not disestblishment, or the CofE decoupling itself from the state.
More a question of how the public-school upper middle class worshipper (to indulge in pejoratives for a second) for whom the CofE and the state are intrinsically linked both in national identity and self-identity, goes about decoupling themselves (emphatically NOT the CofE) from one part of that (the religious one not the state one obviously) because there is an intrinsic disconnect in what they believe religiously, and what the CofE is believes.
Which is a problem which I think is restricted to England, because of the CofE's role in national history, and with which I'm currently wrestling. The backwoods shire Tories essentially having to denounce their own right arm. I appreciate some people change denomination without all this, which is why I'm specifically interested in the socio-cultural-class baggage of English anglicanism, and how it's navigated away from by individuals who have that baggage.
FWIW I think Raptor Eye gets it, and their reply is helpful.
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
betjemaniac
... Why would the CofE seek to abandon its national connections so as to make it easier for you and others to leave?? ....
And why also should the CofE reshape itself to fit your requirements if that makes others feel they have no place there?
The CofE isn't a church for Anglicans. It's a church for Christians. It happens to think it's way is the best household within which English people can be Christians. I accept there may be some people who find that statement irritating. It doesn't need to provide a place where unbelievers, pagans, heathens, Dawkinsists, Moslems etc should feel at home, but it should be a place where Christians and those that aspire to be, can grow in their faith.
--------------------
Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
Which makes it all rather difficult when considering the competing claims of religions. For example, I agree with FiF on the DHs, but also that the CofE is THE church in England. However, I'm increasingly inclined to believe that there is no future for "my" camp outwith the Roman Catholic church, and would be received tomorrow, were it not for the fact that it feels like giving up on hundreds of years of history, and the church of my birth.
The difference is that in CofE, you are free to share DH positions with the RCC and remain a welcome member of the church. The CofE allows for a wide diversity of beliefs and worship practices.
In the RCC one is expected to assent to the authority of the church, which goes to a much finer detail on social issues than the CofE does.
If you are sure that RCC is THE church (as they define it, which also means their authority to interpret Scripture and tradition) then you should cross the river and join them. But simply thinking certain things about DH's doesn't seem to me sufficient. There are lots of churches (even within the Anglican Communion) whose beliefs on DH issues are identical to the RCC's.
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
I agree ... that the CofE is THE church in England.
So are we Nonconformist Christians not to be counted as part of the Church? Or, for that matter, as properly English?
No, that's absolutely not what I'm saying. I hope my reply to Svitlana upthread makes it a bit clearer what I'm actually driving at.
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
betjemaniac
... Why would the CofE seek to abandon its national connections so as to make it easier for you and others to leave?? ....
And why also should the CofE reshape itself to fit your requirements if that makes others feel they have no place there?
The CofE isn't a church for Anglicans. It's a church for Christians. It happens to think it's way is the best household within which English people can be Christians. I accept there may be some people who find that statement irritating. It doesn't need to provide a place where unbelievers, pagans, heathens, Dawkinsists, Moslems etc should feel at home, but it should be a place where Christians and those that aspire to be, can grow in their faith.
By the same token, the CofE doesn't need to reshape itself to fit the aspirations of one party in the Church. I would personally find it more congenial if the CofE would all become high side of MOTR to nosebleed AffCath, but that would leave all the Lowies and Evos (as well as the FinF types) without a Church. The CofE is nothing if not comprehensive, regardless of what else it is or isn't; and it doesn't really have the option of forcing a house-style or theological position as does the mostly MOTR-highish TEC.
[ 29. January 2014, 13:12: Message edited by: Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras ]
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
I agree ... that the CofE is THE church in England.
So are we Nonconformist Christians not to be counted as part of the Church? Or, for that matter, as properly English?
No, that's absolutely not what I'm saying. I hope my reply to Svitlana upthread makes it a bit clearer what I'm actually driving at.
Thank you. I actually did realise what you meant, which very much resonates with my upbringing (although I am only 1st generation English). It was just that your use of language seemed to imply something else, as well.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
You are welcome at the Church of England's Eucharist table, you have the right to be married by a CofE priest and to have your child or yourself baptized in a CofE parish.
So yes, the Church of England is THE church for all English Christians, whether or not they choose to participate or not.
All other Churches would equally welcoming (I hope) except that no-one has the right to be baptised or married in them. Indeed, we would regard the former, in particular, to be an unsupportable confusion between Church and State.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
|
Posted
posted by Enoch quote:
The CofE isn't a church for Anglicans. It's a church for Christians. It happens to think it's way is the best household within which English people can be Christians. I accept there may be some people who find that statement irritating. It doesn't need to provide a place where unbelievers, pagans, heathens, Dawkinsists, Moslems etc should feel at home, but it should be a place where Christians and those that aspire to be, can grow in their faith.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
--------------------
Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
betjemaniac
... Why would the CofE seek to abandon its national connections so as to make it easier for you and others to leave?? ....
And why also should the CofE reshape itself to fit your requirements if that makes others feel they have no place there?
I'm not sure how this comment follows on from what I said. I don't expect the CofE to 'reshape itself to fit' my 'requirements'.
FWIW, I don't consider myself to be 'in the CofE', although I worship in CofE churches fairly often these days. I wasn't raised in the CofE, and don't see myself as having a CofE identity. I talk about the CofE here because it's an institution that most of us have some awareness and experience of, but I don't know what I could contribute to the CofE other than my bum on a pew. I ought to be offering more than that, so eventually I'll have to move on.
quote:
The CofE isn't a church for Anglicans. It's a church for Christians. It happens to think it's way is the best household within which English people can be Christians.
But to be practical, the CofE wouldn't be able to cope if all the country's other Christians decided to make use of its services. It wouldn't be able to accommodate all their clergy (whose standards of training might not be acceptable). Someone like betjemaniac probably wouldn't appreciate the even greater decline in the influence of Anglo-Catholicism that would inevitably follow if all of England's Protestants expected the CofE to cater to their needs. (I don't know how things would work out if the Catholics all came in too!)
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
See, I just have no attachment to the CoE at that level. It's the church I belong to because in England at least, it's the only one that fits my theology. Were I in the US though, for example, I would happily jump ship to the ELCA.
I am deeply uncomfortable with tying Anglicanism up with English identity in a state-sanctioned way, if nothing else because it has historically been Bad News Indeed for my fellow Christians in Nonconformist churches and the RCC.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
Most of the Anglicans here are of Ukrainian, German and Indian (First Nations) background. Probably only Ľ or ⅓ of us have any connection to England or the UK. On church advertising, it's not uncommon to see things like "a family (or community) church in the Anglican tradition", with the Anglican part being the form of liturgy at full extent. I didn't realize this fully until recently, that we don't have the cultural connection at all that the UK people experience.
Here also you can bet on perogies and jellied salad at potlucks.
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Hairy Biker
Shipmate
# 12086
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
it feels like giving up on hundreds of years of history
But didn't the C of E give up 1500 years of RC history when it broke away from Rome? I would see it as going back to the roots of your faith - an older and more mature tradition.
--------------------
there [are] four important things in life: religion, love, art and science. At their best, they’re all just tools to help you find a path through the darkness. None of them really work that well, but they help.
Damien Hirst
Posts: 683 | From: This Sceptred Isle | Registered: Nov 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hairy Biker:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
it feels like giving up on hundreds of years of history
But didn't the C of E give up 1500 years of RC history when it broke away from Rome? I would see it as going back to the roots of your faith - an older and more mature tradition.
Mature tradition? Hmmm. Old fashioned, non-progressive and old timey maybe, considering all of the social issues. Rome just stopped speaking Latin at church a blink in time ago.
--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
|
Posted
I think it ties in with a particular view of 'Englishness' which not all English people share ...
Take the Church in Wales, for instance, part of the Anglican Communion. At one time the Anglicans were regarded as something of an 'outsiders' church - for the squirearchy and the comers-in or the indigenous Welsh who wanted to 'better' themselves ...
The non-conformist churches tended to have a more distinct Welsh identity.
Now, however, with the decline of nonconformity - particularly in rural areas, the Church in Wales is becoming quite a haven for Welsh speakers and people interested in their Welsh heritage ...
So the situation in Wales is very different to the situation in England. I'd also suggest that it is very different in London and other large cities where the CofE is increasingly becoming an increasingly immigrant/ethnic minority church ...
I know your point about English identity and Anglicanism wasn't intended to undermine the claims to English identity among the nonconformists - but I can understand Baptist Trainfan's point. Only today, in an article comprising old news-cuttings and snippets from the Liverpool Mercury I came across a letter signed by 12 nonconformist ministers in Birkenhead in the late 19th century complaining about a particular vicar's attitude.
This vicar - or bishop as they satirically referred to him - considered everyone resident in his parish to be the fitting subjects of his ministrations - even if they belonged to one or other of the 'dissenting' congregations. It was a cogent and well argued letter - the vicar was talking about building a mission hall half-a-mile down the road to minister to people who didn't walk the half mile up the hill to his church - whilst ignoring the fact that there was a nonconformist mission hall (supported by various of the dissenting groups) under construction just across the road from the spot he had in mind ...
I've come across a kind of True Blue, Tory type of Englishman who seem to regard Catholics as not quite as English as other English people ...
As if somehow they take on Italian, Polish or Irish blood as soon as they receive the Host ...
To an extent I can understand the view of the Roman Catholic church as somehow alien ... but it's only seen as alien because of 500 years of Protestant propaganda.
The Orthodox feel a lot more 'foreign' - other than the various 'convert parishes' but even there you'll find eccles cakes and bakewell pudding alongside exotic creamy Greek and Russian cakes.
I know, I had some smeared all over the back of my jacket because of the crush at an Easter vigil a few years back.
--------------------
Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Aravis
Shipmate
# 13824
|
Posted
Lots of people feel affiliated to the culture of one church while finding that their beliefs are closer to that of another church. We have a very elderly lady in our congregation who believes strongly in the moral and ethical stance of the Quakers, and appreciates the intellectual level of the conversations she has after their meetings, but if she goes there all the time she misses hymns, sermons, and large numbers of small children. So she simply divides her time between the two churches and everyone is happy.
If you are seriously considering the RCC I would suggest you find a Catholic church to attend at least some of the time as an observer. If you feel it will meet your needs in most respects, convert to RCC but find an Anglican cathedral where you can use evensong for a non-sacramental cultural hit of Englishness when you need it.
Posts: 689 | From: S Wales | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think it ties in with a particular view of 'Englishness' which not all English people share ...
That's a bit of English understatement! I'd imagine that only a tiny fraction of the English share it. Maybe one or two percent.
And it also ties in with a view of Anglicanism that not all the Church of England shares. I'd be surprised if a tenth of us do.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
I think it ties in with a particular view of 'Englishness' which not all English people share ...
That's a bit of English understatement! I'd imagine that only a tiny fraction of the English share it. Maybe one or two percent.
And it also ties in with a view of Anglicanism that not all the Church of England shares. I'd be surprised if a tenth of us do.
Hence my appeal to crowd sourcing...
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
Thanks for all the replies btw, some useful food for thought...
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
Gamaliel - not just propaganda against the RCC but actual persecution. Laws against Catholics were kept even when those against Nonconformists were relaxed.
I do think the OP's vision of England is barely recognisable to most people in England, and I don't think that's a bad thing. Barely anyone lives in St Mary Mead with everyone going to old-fashioned Matins on a Sunday (probably nobody in fact). Betjemaniac, if you sincerely believe in what the RCC teaches and that it is the true church, join. Roman Catholicism is every bit as English as Anglicanism, it has just out of state matters for political reasons. There are many of us in the CoE who wish that could do the same.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Barely anyone lives in St Mary Mead with everyone going to old-fashioned Matins on a Sunday (probably nobody in fact).
Not many, but we are out there. I can think of a village up the road where everyone is a tenant and the squire bangs on their front windows with a riding crop on a Sunday if he thnks not enough people are in church. That is within 60 miles of London and other shipmates in the area will know exactly where I mean...
They also have a clause in their tenancies that says their curtains will be open by a certain time in the morning...
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
|
Posted
betjemaniac - I'd just endorse the suggestions from Aravis and Jade Constable. If you really do feel that the Catholic church's claims concerning itself are true then you need to motor on down there pronto.
All I would add on my own behalf is that I understand a reticence due to walking away from a lifetime's membership of the church that you grew up in. I don't think the CofE of your imaginings has been with us for decades to be honest. But even though I don't share your reasons for discomfiture, many here share a sense of unrest for a variety of reasons, and I don't exclude myself from that. I'm sure most here wish you well in your deliberations.
--------------------
Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Barely anyone lives in St Mary Mead with everyone going to old-fashioned Matins on a Sunday (probably nobody in fact).
Not many, but we are out there. I can think of a village up the road where everyone is a tenant and the squire bangs on their front windows with a riding crop on a Sunday if he thnks not enough people are in church. That is within 60 miles of London and other shipmates in the area will know exactly where I mean...
They also have a clause in their tenancies that says their curtains will be open by a certain time in the morning...
Seriously? Is it a living museum? Feudalism is certainly something that should have died out, even when it hasn't.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Feudalism is certainly something that should have died out, even when it hasn't.
Feudalism is alive and well. Most of it is based on capital rather than land these days, but the principles are much the same. Of course the old fashioned landed sort is still in evidence up here. Getting the estate (that owns 95%+ of the island) to do anything is... difficult.
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Barely anyone lives in St Mary Mead with everyone going to old-fashioned Matins on a Sunday (probably nobody in fact).
Not many, but we are out there. I can think of a village up the road where everyone is a tenant and the squire bangs on their front windows with a riding crop on a Sunday if he thnks not enough people are in church. That is within 60 miles of London and other shipmates in the area will know exactly where I mean...
They also have a clause in their tenancies that says their curtains will be open by a certain time in the morning...
Seriously? Is it a living museum? Feudalism is certainly something that should have died out, even when it hasn't.
No, it's a real village with real people, and to be quite honest that one's one of the more acceptable faces of feudalism in the locality. Others are far worse. It's also on your doorstep. Rural Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire (in particular; notwithstanding the Chipping Norton end of things) are a real 1950s time-warp as soon as you get off the main roads.
And if you really want to see estates functioning like it's 1897, get up to Northumberland or Invernesshire/Perthshire.
It doesn't affect many people granted, but for some of us this really is the 1950s but with internet )with all the easy, lazy cultural/religious assumptions that would imply.
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
|
Posted
To be brutally frank, I think you could find people with your kind of Brideshead Revisited attitudes in the RC. I've met some.
I once met an otherwise lovely RC priest who couldn't stand the kind of popular Irish Catholicism to which it had been his lot to encounter/minister to and far preferred the aristocratic Catholicism of the old 'recusant' families ...
I think you'd find some parts of the RC Church in the UK to be home from home, quite frankly ...
Other parts of it would send you fleeing back to Much Bynding In The Marsh as soon as you can say 'Yoiks! Tally-ho!'
--------------------
Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
To be brutally frank, I think you could find people with your kind of Brideshead Revisited attitudes in the RC. I've met some.
I once met an otherwise lovely RC priest who couldn't stand the kind of popular Irish Catholicism to which it had been his lot to encounter/minister to and far preferred the aristocratic Catholicism of the old 'recusant' families ...
I think you'd find some parts of the RC Church in the UK to be home from home, quite frankly ...
Other parts of it would send you fleeing back to Much Bynding In The Marsh as soon as you can say 'Yoiks! Tally-ho!'
Ouch, although I think you've spectacularly got hold of the wrong end of the stick and proceeded to beat around the bush with it.
Brideshead doesn't come into it at all, unless you were making a very nice point about the attitudes of Charles Ryder's father, or more possibly Rex Mottram. It's nothing to do with recusant families or a wistfulness for England's cathoilc past.
If we're going to bandy Waugh analogies then it's probably far more related to the hot-housed reflexive anti-catholic attitudes of Mr Brown in Vile Bodies, or Virginia's outburst to Guy in Officers and Gentlemen.
What I'm trying desperately to do is square my understanding of faith with the fact that actually coming-out (and I do use that term intentionally), would lead to familial warfare on a grand scale. In all seriousness. I think becoming a Roman Catholic would be earth-shattering for me.
Which has nothing to do with quails' eggs, and everything to do with the mass being the mass being the mass, whether it's a folk thing in an inner-city, or full on tridentine in an oratory. At the moment, the only way I can square the circle is a mixture of branch theory and saepius officio, which is why I'm trying to stay off the branch theory and stick to purely cultural, as that is the root of where my particular problem lies.
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
sorry, hit add reply rather than preview post by accident. I meant "trying to stay off dead horses" not branch theory, and do I need to explain saepius officio, or is that well known on here? It was the CofE response to Leo XIII's pronouncement on Anglican orders in case anyone asks about the latin.
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
|
Posted
Fair enough, betjemaniac, I'm just teasing you.
You'll have to admit, with a Churchill/Union Jack avatar you are making something of a target for yourself ...
Seriously, I share your pain ... I can understand the tumult and the mixed emotions.
I know people who have crossed either the Tiber or the Bosphorus and both will say that they feel as if they have 'come home'.
I must admit, in many ways I'm more drawn towards Orthodoxy than Rome - but that might simply be residual Protestant prejudice on my part.
But I can see the appeal. The RCs here are lovely. I join them for lectio divina during Lent.
Rome, of course, is more 'innovative' than Constantinople and I've met Vatican II refugees over among the Orthodox.
In many ways, Roman Catholicism feels far more 'Protestant' to me than Orthodoxy does - I'm sure you wouldn't find it as much of a cultural shift as you imagine it might be.
The Orthodox, of course, see both the RCs and the Protestants as two sides of the same Western coin - the same bad penny ...
I can imagine plenty of Anglican converts to Rome not finding it quite 'Catholic' enough for their tastes ...
I'm not saying that applies in your case, in fact, I'm sure it wouldn't.
All these things are tricky. If we wanted to be strictly historical about these things then the 'Western Patriarch' would be the one to turn to rather than the various Orthodox jurisdictions.
I'm not sure where I fit. Probably not anywhere.
--------------------
Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
seekingsister
Shipmate
# 17707
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
What I'm trying desperately to do is square my understanding of faith with the fact that actually coming-out (and I do use that term intentionally), would lead to familial warfare on a grand scale. In all seriousness. I think becoming a Roman Catholic would be earth-shattering for me.
OK - this is a completely different situation than the one that you initially presented. It seems this is less an issue of letting go of an English identity, and more about your family specifically. And by using the term "coming out" it sounds much more like you are basically an RC at heart but are faking it in an Anglo-Catholic church to the best of your ability. In which case you should be honest with yourself and the people around you and just join the church you want to.
Are you sure that it is as extreme as you describe? Have you broached the issue and been told it would be a major meltdown for the family if you decided to join the RCC?
Posts: 1371 | From: London | Registered: May 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by seekingsister:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
What I'm trying desperately to do is square my understanding of faith with the fact that actually coming-out (and I do use that term intentionally), would lead to familial warfare on a grand scale. In all seriousness. I think becoming a Roman Catholic would be earth-shattering for me.
OK - this is a completely different situation than the one that you initially presented. It seems this is less an issue of letting go of an English identity, and more about your family specifically.
No, it's an issue within the family (and friends) *because* of the identity and everything in the first post. I was trying to discuss it without having to bring my own circumstances into it. I realise that the behaviour patterns of the rural hunting set/squirearchy (Gamaliel was closer in his jest than he might have guessed) are fairly small stuff these days and outside the experience of most people, but for those brought up in them, and entirely surrounded by them, they're as rigid and unbending as they ever were.
The fact that I need to do it is exactly why I was asking in the first post how one decouples culture from faith successfully *when* or *in the circumstances* that one should need to? I'm entirely aware it's not and never will be an issue for most people. To be honest I'm actually finding parts of the Northern Ireland thread quite helpful at the moment as that seems more applicable.
--------------------
And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
| IP: Logged
|
|
Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
|
Posted
ISTM that the OP is really about far more fundamental issues of assertion of personal autonomy in the face of anticipated disapproval and rejection, as opposed to what most people would identify as the merely cultural (or "cultural" in the popular sense).
It thus seems to me that much of what I and others have had to say is fairly irrelevant to the true issues at hand. The bottom line is that if one doesn't believe the Eucharist celebrated at Anglican altars to be the true Eucharist instituted at the behest of OL&SJC, but contrariwise believes the Eucharist celebrated in full visible communion with the chair of St Peter to be true and complete, one - if one is a serious Christian - must leave the Anglicans to their defective rites and come into communion with the Bishop of Rome. And that despite all opposition that one may encounter. In such a situation, issues of cultural identity are the problem of those others - family and friends - who would disapprove one's assertion of autonomy and conscience.
Moreover, making the excursion across the Tiber doesn't prevent one from attending the life passages of one's friends and family celebrated in the Anglican Church: marriages, baptisms, etc.
Being authentic always comes with a price, I think, though sometimes the price and the length of the payments is not as daunting as one may initially have thought.
[ 30. January 2014, 12:22: Message edited by: Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras ]
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged
|
|
Forthview
Shipmate
# 12376
|
Posted
For me as a Catholic (Roman) the days of talking about the non validity of Anglican eucharists are long,long past.However it is clear that Anglican bishops,priests and deacons have not been commissioned to serve in that wider,much wider (Roman) Catholic church.It doesn't make their service and their 'services' any less valid for their parishioners and those who are in communion with their bishops.
Just as the UK (mainly England) tends not to see itself as a part of Europe,though technically a member of the European Union,there is a certain insularity and anglocentric outlook on the part of the CofE.Some Anglicans (not all) would say that the CofE is the national Catholic church,but it does not see itself as bound in any way to act in concert with the wider Catholic church and certainly NOT obliged to take any orders from untrustworthy foreigners.It is the same with the European Union.
This is a cultural thing and religion should more be a cultual thing.Nevertheless for many people culture plays an important part.
Posts: 3444 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
I suspect that most Anglicans, both in England and elsewhere, would not switch to RC if they found themselves unable to continue with their Anglican church, but be more likely to go to another Protestant denomination.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
|
Posted
...but, unless they were used to a particularly evangelical flavour of church, would find themselves in very unfamiliar surroundings. Whereas in the RCC (leaving aside certain mariological and similar devotions, which don't feature highly in the average RC parish mass) they would at least be in recognisable surroundings if not 'at home'.
Most anglican parish churches, even today, are centred on the Sunday eucharist in a way that few if any non-Anglican Protestant churches are.
(Having said that, I suspect that Ken may be generally right, because of the residual anti-catholicism present in the English mindset, or at least because there appears a much greater gulf between the RCC and others than amongst the others)
[ 30. January 2014, 16:44: Message edited by: Angloid ]
--------------------
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
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Barely anyone lives in St Mary Mead with everyone going to old-fashioned Matins on a Sunday (probably nobody in fact).
Not many, but we are out there. I can think of a village up the road where everyone is a tenant and the squire bangs on their front windows with a riding crop on a Sunday if he thnks not enough people are in church. That is within 60 miles of London and other shipmates in the area will know exactly where I mean...
They also have a clause in their tenancies that says their curtains will be open by a certain time in the morning...
Seriously? Is it a living museum? Feudalism is certainly something that should have died out, even when it hasn't.
No, it's a real village with real people, and to be quite honest that one's one of the more acceptable faces of feudalism in the locality. Others are far worse. It's also on your doorstep. Rural Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire (in particular; notwithstanding the Chipping Norton end of things) are a real 1950s time-warp as soon as you get off the main roads.
And if you really want to see estates functioning like it's 1897, get up to Northumberland or Invernesshire/Perthshire.
It doesn't affect many people granted, but for some of us this really is the 1950s but with internet )with all the easy, lazy cultural/religious assumptions that would imply.
Ahh, but given my lack of car (and the train line serving Northampton going via Milton Keynes and Euston when it goes east and avoiding most of Northamptonshire) I tend to go west into Birmingham (and then to Manchester quite often) or into London. Sometimes Milton Keynes for shopping. I don't intentionally go into the country a lot...
In any case, my instinct would be to live somewhere else and cross the Tiber (or even cross the Tiber regardless) - which isn't very helpful for you, sorry.
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
|
Posted
Betjemaniac isn't most Anglicans, ken.
The more I see of evangelical Anglicanism, the more I realise that a lot of evangelical Anglicans aren't actually from Anglican backgrounds originally. The clergy are, but many in the pews come from Brethren, Baptist or independent church backgrounds and have ended up in the Anglican church for some reason or other - mostly to do with the availability of youth-work or some other reason to do with the meeting of particular 'needs'.
So it's easy to see how these people would end up in one or other of any number of Protestant denominations if they found it impossible to remain in the CofE for whatever reason.
--------------------
Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Anglicans aren't actually from Anglican backgrounds originally. The clergy are, but many in the pews come from Brethren, Baptist or independent church backgrounds and have ended up in the Anglican church for some reason or other.
I agree. For many Christians under the age of (say) 50, they will go to whatever church they like - irrespective of how they were brought up. This is specially true of Protestants of course.
"Brand loyalty" has largely died ... it used to be that Baptists etc. living in the country would travel 20 miles to go to the "right" church, that is no longer the case. Now folk say "I go to the Methodist Church" rather than "I am a Methodist".
(This has huge issues for supporting denominational structures and initiatives, but that's another story).
[ 30. January 2014, 17:40: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged
|
|
Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Betjemaniac isn't most Anglicans, ken.
The more I see of evangelical Anglicanism, the more I realise that a lot of evangelical Anglicans aren't actually from Anglican backgrounds originally. The clergy are, but many in the pews come from Brethren, Baptist or independent church backgrounds and have ended up in the Anglican church for some reason or other - mostly to do with the availability of youth-work or some other reason to do with the meeting of particular 'needs'.
So it's easy to see how these people would end up in one or other of any number of Protestant denominations if they found it impossible to remain in the CofE for whatever reason.
That's certainly my experience of evangelical Anglicans.
If the CoE disappeared tomorrow, I'd say char-evos would go Vineyard or NFI or maybe Elim, con-evos would go to an independent evo church or more conservative Baptist places, MOTR would inevitably go Methodist or maybe URC, FiFs would obviously go to the RCC. No idea where the AffCaths could go (this has been an issue for me).
--------------------
Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
|
Posted
betjemaniac - have you considered Gamaliel's suggestion of the Orthodox Church? I believe Oxford is quite a hub of Orthodoxy in the UK and you may be within striking distance. Might family not have such a knee-jerk reaction to swimming the Bosphorus as the Tiber?
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
