Thread: Why the CofE isn't Protestant Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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On the Mother Teresa thread, beginning about here, a tangent about the CofE, and therefore Anglicanism and Episcopalianism, is truly Protestant.
The Protestant Reformation began with a protest of doctrine. The English reformation began with a power struggle.
This answer on Quora, sums it up nicely:
quote:
Depends a great deal on what you mean by “Protestant”.
Many people use it to simply mean “any church that broke with Rome out of protest”. I disagree with that definition, since it would include the Orthodox, who quite clearly are not Protestant. It is, however, commonly used that way even within Anglicanism, so on that basis, Anglicanism is indeed Protestant.
A more precise definition would be “any church understanding itself to be a break with the Catholic past and/or a restoration of the primitive Church, with a confessional text as its doctrinal foundation”. The Lutherans would be the classic example of this (Confessio Augustana).
<snip>
Thus I would place Anglicans .... into a separate category of “Reformed Catholic”, not Protestant.
edited to fit within the quoting rules, the missing bits enforce the point
A horse does not become a zebra merely because the rider changes. Even should the horse later develop a few light stripes and a mohawk.
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on
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I grew up in the Protestant Episcopal Church. I have no idea when or why the word "protestant" was ditched. Some people protest to me that it is not protestant, but it used to proclaim itself protestant. Oh well.
Posted by Teekeey Misha (# 18604) on
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The Church of England describes itself as "reformed", "catholic" and "protestant" if that helps!
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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Anglicanism is an interesting case because its Reformation happened in two stages.
For essentially personal reasons, Henry VIII decided to break with Rome; however he did so while remaining 'Catholic' in pretty much every respect except accepting the authority of the Pope. Remember that the 'Fid Def' 'Defender of the Faith' which our monarchs still claim was awarded to Henry for defending a Catholic doctrine against Luther.
There then followed some ups and downs. Edward VI was briefly king and with his Archbishop of Canterbury turned the CofE into a basically Protestant body though still with Catholic style Bishops. After Edward's death older sister Mary tried but failed to reinstate the RCC. Then Elizabeth became Queen and followed her mother's Protestantism.
The result was a Church with a Protestant creed (the '39 Articles') but much superficial external resemblance still to the RCC. Elizabeth wanted a body which was independent of Rome but she didn't want to follow the keener Reformers who eventually became Presbyterians and Cromwell's Independents (Congregationalists, now URC), and other Puritans.
Over subsequent centuries again there were variations with different monarchs, a few wanting Rome back, and allowing a more RCC like church, others still trying to follow Elizabeth's 'Middle Way'. From mid-19th C, with English Catholics 'emancipated', there was the move that eventually became the 'Anglo-Catholic/High-Church' movement - many of whom ended up going the whole hog and back to Rome.
Practical result - a Church with a Protestant statement of belief, which until recently at least ministers were theoretically required to adhere to, but with Catholic-like and Liberal wings. Evangelicals try to keep it Bible-believing, Anglo-Catholics seem to get more and more Catholic over time, and the Liberals continue to sabotage it by scrapping more and more of the biblical bits.
Is it Protestant? It was meant to be by Elizabeth, albeit moderate rather than Puritan - it's ended up msomething of an unholy mess with no clear stance on anything....
Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on
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Didn't Elizabeth I drive a 'via media' coach and horses through the whole thing, to please nobody, and then impose it on the people? Only later were other denominations allowed to practice, afaik.
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on
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So if Anglicans are not Protestant, where and when did Methodists become Protestant? ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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Our Supreme Governor had to swear an oath to confirm that she is a faithful Protestant ...
Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on
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Hmm. Legally, the Church of England is protestant. Here's the 1953 coronation oath (lightly adapted from the 1688 Coronation Oath Act) quote:
Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law?
Ironically of course some think the CofE was incompletely reformed, some in the Reformed tradition will not acknowledge the CofE as reformed, and the Roman Catholics don't think it's Catholic.
[ 13. September 2016, 19:00: Message edited by: BroJames ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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By heavens, Steve Langton has posted something I actually agree with. I need to go and lie down.
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
So if Anglicans are not Protestant, where and when did Methodists become Protestant?
Would everyone agree that they are? Deeply RC friend of mine once surprised me by saying 'Methodists? Oh, they have the Mass.' ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The Protestant Reformation began with a protest of doctrine. The English reformation began with a power struggle.
This is a bit of a false dichotomy. It is possible that none of the Lutheran princes who signed the protestation at the second Diet of Speyer were doing so as part of a power struggle. But I doubt it.
Meanwhile, in England Cranmer was apparently convinced of Protestant or Reformation doctrine before Henry threw over Rome.
quote:
quote:
Depends a great deal on what you mean by “Protestant”.
Many people use it to simply mean “any church that broke with Rome out of protest”.
A more precise definition would be “any church understanding itself to be a break with the Catholic past and/or a restoration of the primitive Church, with a confessional text as its doctrinal foundation”. The Lutherans would be the classic example of this (Confessio Augustana).
<snip>
Your source here is engaged in a bit of tactical redefinition. Firstly, he says 'many people' (citation needed) would give one definition which is clearly overly broad. (*) Then he gives a second definition, which is overly narrow.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives:
2a quote:
A member or adherent of any of the Christian churches or bodies which repudiated the papal authority, and separated or were severed from the Roman communion in the Reformation of the 16th cent., and of any of the bodies of Christians descended from them; (now also more generally) a member of any Western Christian church outside the Roman communion.
Which excludes the Eastern Orthodox, and also Le Febvrists.
Where your source is getting the 'confessional text as its doctrinal foundation' bit from, I do not know: it looks like a purely ad hoc stipulation.
Appeals to the primitive church are of no definitional use here, since all parties at the time claimed to be consonant with the practices of the primitive church.
Confusing matters, some early 16th century writers apparently used 'Protestant' specifically to mean 'Lutheran,' excluding Reformed (Zwinglians, Calvinists, et al). In that sense, the CofE is not Protestant, but neither is the Church of Scotland, nor the Baptists. The OED also gives examples of late 16th century and 17th century uses where 'Protestant' means 'member of the Church of England as opposed to nonconformists or puritans'.
The claim that the CofE is not Protestant is a polemical claim first made by the Oxford Movement in the 19th century. It has no merits beyond its use in the internal theological politics of the 19th century Church of England.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Didn't Elizabeth I drive a 'via media' coach and horses through the whole thing, to please nobody, and then impose it on the people? Only later were other denominations allowed to practice, afaik.
I'm a bit wary here and I'll try to limit myself to this one post on an aspect I deliberately left out initially. Yes, most of the Protestant denominations initially followed the RCC/Orthodox thing of being the state religion, only now of individual nations like England rather than of a wider empire and the states the empire later broke down into.
Yes, Elizabeth imposed her church on everybody and there were penalties for not conforming. That state of affairs carried on for a long time, interrupted by the Civil War. After the Civil War Puritans were pushed out of the CofE by the Act of Uniformity and non-conformists continued to be persecuted. There was a brief period of toleration under James II which was less about general religious freedom and more about James' desire to grant more freedom to Catholics.
After James the more positively Protestant King William thought it politic to grant toleration to other Protestants, though still with some restrictions. Catholics were not too severely persecuted but were only legally emancipated in the 19th C.
So yes, the CofE was Protestant but also very much 'Constantinian'. I will now leave that aspect alone....
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The Protestant Reformation began with a protest of doctrine. The English reformation began with a power struggle.
This is a bit of a false dichotomy. It is possible that none of the Lutheran princes who signed the protestation at the second Diet of Speyer were doing so as part of a power struggle. But I doubt it.
Not at all. Nearly every, if not every, early Protestant split had a power component. But not, only a power component. This is the case with Henry. Yes, there were anti-Rome sentiments, this is what helped the Protestant Reformation. Luther was not the first to think there were problems. It was probably inevitable that someone in the temporal vicinity would have done the same as he, his spark found plenty of fuel. It is also possible that this would have happened in England as well. But that is not what actually happened.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The Oxford English Dictionary gives:
Remind me where the OED is written? The answer is part of the problem, IMO. England, and by extension the rest of the UK, is strongly vested in an anti-Rome predisposition. This is pervasive to the point that it influences thought at a subconscious level.*
IOW, identity is a larger factor than is often admitted.
*Though it has greatly lessened in modern times, it is a factor.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
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I think we can reasonably accept that the CofE considers itself Protestant. Does it follow, however, that other churches in the Anglican communion are likewise Protestant?
Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on
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My totally unhelpful thought on this matter:
Any time someone tells you that Episcopalians or Anglicans "believe" or "are" one thing, they are making shit up. They may not realize that they are making shit up, but they are. Because I defy you to find one thing (down to basic stuff like the historical existence of a Rabbi we know as Jesus) that all Anglicans or Episcopalians believe or agree on.
But this seems like a fun discussion, so carry on...
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I think we can reasonably accept that the CofE considers itself Protestant.
Self-definition isn't inherently accurate. Joshua Norton proclaimed himself Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. He, in fact, was neither of those.
No, I am not saying that Anglicans are mentally impaired. It is a hyperbolic example. And I just love that story.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The Protestant Reformation began with a protest of doctrine. The English reformation began with a power struggle.
This is a bit of a false dichotomy. It is possible that none of the Lutheran princes who signed the protestation at the second Diet of Speyer were doing so as part of a power struggle. But I doubt it.
Not at all. Nearly every, if not every, early Protestant split had a power component. But not, only a power component. This is the case with Henry. Yes, there were anti-Rome sentiments, this is what helped the Protestant Reformation. Luther was not the first to think there were problems. It was probably inevitable that someone in the temporal vicinity would have done the same as he, his spark found plenty of fuel. It is also possible that this would have happened in England as well. But that is not what actually happened.
It is true that Henry would almost certainly have stuck on the Roman Catholic side if he'd had children. That is, however, not sufficient to make the Church of England not Protestant. It is equally true that Henry would almost certainly not have been able to leave Rome if the Protestant Reformation wasn't in progress. Henry was not the only personality involved: he needed people like Cranmer who were more committed theologically.
In any case, the changes to Church of England liturgy and practice under Edward (and others) are relevant. The horse-zebra metaphor is here misleading. (Frankly, almost all metaphors of the form 'animal a can't turn into animal b', are problematic.)
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The Oxford English Dictionary gives:
Remind me where the OED is written? The answer is part of the problem, IMO. England, and by extension the rest of the UK, is strongly vested in an anti-Rome predisposition. This is pervasive to the point that it influences thought at a subconscious level.
IOW, identity is a larger factor than is often admitted.
Remind me where the Church of England is the established church?
The above may all be true, but that doesn't mean that 'Protestant' has some real true meaning unaffected by anti-Rome predisposition which the anti-Rome predisposition conceals.
There isn't a valid non-polemical meaning of the word 'Protestant' that covers the Church of Scotland but not the Church of England.
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Not at all. Nearly every, if not every, early Protestant split had a power component. But not, only a power component. This is the case with Henry. Yes, there were anti-Rome sentiments, this is what helped the Protestant Reformation. Luther was not the first to think there were problems. It was probably inevitable that someone in the temporal vicinity would have done the same as he, his spark found plenty of fuel. It is also possible that this would have happened in England as well. But that is not what actually happened.
Phillip of Hesse, anyone?
English Reformers had a choice between a corrupt Church and a corrupt King who intended to reform the Church. And Henry, for all his faults, thought of the Reformation as something that happened when The King and The Parliament got together and asserted themselves, as the people who got to speak for England. For that matter Thomas More, and the Catholic martyrs of this period, died to insist that Pope Clement VII ought to be able to dictate and define Christianity. There isn't a Church, or ecclesiastical community, which isn't a combination of idealism, corruption and ambition.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Before you go away and lie down, mr cheesy, allow me to alleviate your dizziness by pointing out where Steve Langton's summary is inaccurate.
He's broadly on the money with the history, but I don't think he's right that Anglo-Catholicism is becoming increasingly 'Catholic'.
It seems to me that Oxford Movement style Anglo-Catholicism has had its day - at least here in the UK. It holds out in some beleaguered enclaves but it's certainly not on the rise. The more catholic-lite liberal catholic thing seems more prevalent and can appear more like Quakerism but with a better line in moderate ceremonial.
One could argue that much of Roman Catholicism has become more 'Protestant' in feel too.
Other than that, Steve Langton sums things up reasonably well but there are implicit value-judgements and polemics there too.
Which is inevitable given where he's coming from.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Furthermore, being Constantinian does not make one any more or less Protestant. It fits with the Treaty of Westphalia and to this member of the CofE, the Church of Sweden always looks far more erastian than even the CofE in 1750.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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I suspect the assertion that it was all down to Henry's power struggles and an ego that would eventually be mirrored in the size of his belly are a grave over simplification of what really occurred. I know it is taught that way in school (or at least, was once), but even a basic reading today would suggest something altogether more nuanced with all manner of outside influences and interior faith wrangles at play. Henry certainly helped with its settlement and expansion, but his life and actions speak more of his ego than any great spiritual awakening. But perhaps I misjudge him.
In any case, it is factually so, both Protestant and Catholic even though neither of those terms specifically suit in all aspects. I've heard some attempt a rephrasing by suggesting 'Catholic and reformed', but I still think that falls into the same pitfalls. It's not 'Protestant' in the Continental zeal they experienced and in merry old England the counterparts were the dissenters. While I think Elizabeth was actually intelligent enough to understand all of the nuances, time would not be entirely kind to Anglicanism. Even a short time after she exits stage left you run into battles of making it more Protestant and then more Catholic and then more Protestant again, all mixed up with politics, paranoia and doctrinal squabbles. Today we are in an altogether more interesting place. Not a good place, but interesting, in respect of the fact we appear not to know what the hell we are at all anymore. I regularly meet Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, Elims, Shakers, Quakers and fundamentalists of all shapes, sizes and colours who all seem to quite genuinely call themsleves 'Anglicans/Episcopalians'. It never ceases to amaze and I can't quite work our when it happened that the Anglican Communion went from a Protestant possibly Catholic (or the other way about or both) to a just about anything church. I think eventually we'll just dissolve like an aspirin in water.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Second post
Oh, and I forgot. There's another definitive way of spotting who's a Protestant and who isn't. Members of both the CofI and the various sorts of Presbyterians are all Orange. Members of the RCC are Green.
Lilbuddha, who you are most likely to get blown up by, when and for what, is pretty conclusive.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Second post
Oh, and I forgot. There's another definitive way of spotting who's a Protestant and who isn't. Members of both the CofI and the various sorts of Presbyterians are all Orange. Members of the RCC are Green.
Lilbuddha, who you are most likely to get blown up by, when and for what, is pretty conclusive.
The enemy of your enemy makes for strange bedfellows.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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Posted by Enoch:
quote:
Second post
Oh, and I forgot. There's another definitive way of spotting who's a Protestant and who isn't. Members of both the CofI and the various sorts of Presbyterians are all Orange. Members of the RCC are Green.
Lilbuddha, who you are most likely to get blown up by, when and for what, is pretty conclusive.
I hope to God that's a trolling post or a misjudged and poor attempt at a joke. The other possibility doesn't reveal your best side.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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by Fletcher Christian;
quote:
In any case, it is factually so, both Protestant and Catholic
There is an ambiguity here in the word 'Catholic'. Even we Anabaptists repeat a creed which in most versions includes the word 'Catholic' from a time when it referred not to one 'denomination' but to the idea of the church being 'kata holos'/universal. Use of the word 'Catholic' in Anglican contexts often carries that meaning rather than necessarily Roman Catholic.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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One could argue, Fletcher Christian, that as most, if not all, non-conformist or dissenting groups in the UK originally had Anglican roots - even if at a few steps removed - then it shouldn't be surprising to find such tendencies across the Anglican spectrum.
The breadth of Anglicanism is at once a strength and a weakness.
It does seem, though, that large swathes of Anglicanism aren't recognisably Anglican any more.
When did that happen?
Back in the day, even the most evangelical of Anglican churches 'felt' Anglican in some way. Now they just feel like some kind of mush.
But then, I think evangelicalism has largely lost its way more generally. Large swathes of it have descended to Hillsongs-esque dumbed-downery.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Fletcher Christian is an Anglican cleric, Steven Langton. Church of Ireland. I think he'll have s pretty good idea what Anglicans mean when they recite the Creed.
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
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Debates about Queen Elizabeth I's churchmanship are always fun, because people invariably read a meaning when we might have no idea for her preferences. Anglo-catholics/High church Anglicans cite her preference for crucifixes on the altar, but that could simply be her aesthetic preference and not necessary a "high church thing". Low church Anglicans cite the apocryphal story about her walking out of a Mass when the priest elevated the Host, but for all we know, she might have just had to get a breath of fresh air.
Perhaps what lesson is Anglicans don't tend to read systematic theology into everything they do. That distinguishes them certainly from some Protestant churches.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Fletcher Christian is an Anglican cleric, Steven Langton. Church of Ireland. I think he'll have s pretty good idea what Anglicans mean when they recite the Creed.
OK, sorry Fletcher. But others in the conversation might not have realised, of course....
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Fletcher, obviously (I hope), that was my poor attempt at wit, but there is an underlying point.
Words get their meanings from how they are used. One can only define Protestant or Catholic to mean something different from how either is usually used by Humpty Dumpty or 'no true Scotsman' type arguments. If a broad brush linguistic paintbrush colours some Orange and others Green, it is a bit of a nonsense for people whom normal use of language calls Protestant or Catholic to claim that somehow the way the language is used, may apply to everyone else but doesn't apply to them.
One can campaign to persuade people that some of the assumptions they may make from those categorisations are either wrong or should change, but one can't say that words don't mean how they are usually used.
That is so just as much for Anglicans who claim they aren't Protestants as it does to editing a Wikipedia entry to imply that Protestant is redefined so that it only really includes Lutherans.
[ 14. September 2016, 08:42: Message edited by: Enoch ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Fletcher Christian is an Anglican cleric, Steven Langton. Church of Ireland. I think he'll have s pretty good idea what Anglicans mean when they recite the Creed.
*sniggers at the idea that Anglicans have any kind of shared understanding of what they mean when they recite the creeds*
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Low church Anglicans cite the apocryphal story about her walking out of a Mass when the priest elevated the Host, but for all we know, she might have just had to get a breath of fresh air.
It might have been warm in the church, and she had a mild case of pneumonia.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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Posted by Enoch:
quote:
One can campaign to persuade people that some of the assumptions they may make from those categorisations are either wrong or should change, but one can't say that words don't mean how they are usually used.
Personally I'd like to live in a world where religious and racial stereotyped language just isn't used and accepted. Unfortunately, you've made it plain and clear you think otherwise.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Fletcher Christian is an Anglican cleric, Steven Langton. Church of Ireland. I think he'll have s pretty good idea what Anglicans mean when they recite the Creed.
*sniggers at the idea that Anglicans have any kind of shared understanding of what they mean when they recite the creeds*
Yes, but they will have an idea of what they're 'supposed' to mean ...
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
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Thank you, lilBuddha, for starting this thread; I began discussion on the Theresa thread but was too idle to begin a new one. Like many here I can't get my head round a definition of Protestantism that excludes the CoE. In addition, the article you quoted in the OP, seem to me to be fundamentally flawed. quote:
Depends a great deal on what you mean by “Protestant”.
Many people use it to simply mean “any church that broke with Rome out of protest”. I disagree with that definition, since it would include the Orthodox, who quite clearly are not Protestant.
Surely Rome broke from the rest of the early Church, in asserting the primacy of the Pope over the other great sees?
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Thank you, lilBuddha, for starting this thread; I began discussion on the Theresa thread but was too idle to begin a new one. Like many here I can't get my head round a definition of Protestantism that excludes the CoE. In addition, the article you quoted in the OP, seem to me to be fundamentally flawed. quote:
Depends a great deal on what you mean by “Protestant”.
Many people use it to simply mean “any church that broke with Rome out of protest”. I disagree with that definition, since it would include the Orthodox, who quite clearly are not Protestant.
Surely Rome broke from the rest of the early Church, in asserting the primacy of the Pope over the other great sees?
Strictly speaking 'Protestant' refers to a formal 'Protest' (or in our terms "Act of Witness") which was produced by a group of I think mostly German Lutheran Reformation leaders at an early date in the Reformation. From this 'Protestant' rapidly became a generic word for the Reformation movement and was used by the CofE to describe itself.
I don't know whether Elizabeth I would necessarily have accepted every word of the "Protest", but guess she would have been in general agreement with it and not averse to describing her church settlement in those terms.
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on
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Coming a bit late, just to comment on Fletcher Christian's quote:
"But then, I think evangelicalism has largely lost its way more generally. Large swathes of it have descended to Hillsongs-esque dumbed-downery."
Judging by the truly (negatively) awesome spectacle of the American evangelical sect's embrace of Donald Trump as a Christian, be thankful that your worst complaint is Hillsong-type music.
Do you have any version of Franklin Graham or Dr. James Dobson somewhere in the UK?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Meanwhile, in England Cranmer was apparently convinced of Protestant or Reformation doctrine before Henry threw over Rome.
That Cranmer had Protestant leanings is a bit of a so what? Henry needed legitimacy for his separation from the RCC and Cranmer gave him that.
Henry and Elizabeth were more concerned with power, looting RCC holdings in Britain and keeping church taxes, evinced by the relatively limited change during their lifetimes.
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Surely Rome broke from the rest of the early Church, in asserting the primacy of the Pope over the other great sees?
I think stating it that way perhaps betrays a bias. ISTM, the most objective way to describe that would be a splintering rather than anyone group breaking away.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
I don't know whether Elizabeth I would necessarily have accepted every word of the "Protest", but guess she would have been in general agreement with it and not averse to describing her church settlement in those terms.
IMO, more projection than history.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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I don't think any historian would define Protestant as "a group that broke from Rome." It has definitely to do with the Reformers, Calvin, Luther, Zwingli, those guys. Anybody who "broke" from Rome before then, whatever you want to say about them, weren't Protestants. Nor were all who came later Protestants -- the "Old Catholics" (1870) aren't Protestants either.
lilBuddha, the church did not "splinter" in 1054. It split neatly and cleanly into two pieces.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
lilBuddha, the church did not "splinter" in 1054. It split neatly and cleanly into two pieces.
Fair enough, just thought the 'broke away' thing off-base. If RA was being serious.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
lilBuddha, the church did not "splinter" in 1054. It split neatly and cleanly into two pieces.
Having previously split between the Western and Eastern churches on the one hand, and the various Oriental churches on the other, not very cleanly or neatly here.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
:
Posted by Horseman Bree:
Coming a bit late, just to comment on Fletcher Christian's
quote:
"But then, I think evangelicalism has largely lost its way more generally. Large swathes of it have descended to Hillsongs-esque dumbed-downery."
Judging by the truly (negatively) awesome spectacle of the American evangelical sect's embrace of Donald Trump as a Christian, be thankful that your worst complaint is Hillsong-type music.
Do you have any version of Franklin Graham or Dr. James Dobson somewhere in the UK?
It wasn't me sir; honest!
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Meanwhile, in England Cranmer was apparently convinced of Protestant or Reformation doctrine before Henry threw over Rome.
That Cranmer had Protestant leanings is a bit of a so what? Henry needed legitimacy for his separation from the RCC and Cranmer gave him that.
Henry and Elizabeth were more concerned with power, looting RCC holdings in Britain and keeping church taxes, evinced by the relatively limited change during their lifetimes.
That may be true of Henry (I think more precisely he allowed himself to be persuaded of whatever doctrines suited him); Elizabeth could have decided a Spanish alliance was worth a mass.
More importantly, I don't see why the motives of Henry and Elizabeth matter more than Cranmer's actual liturgies. That would be a genetic fallacy. It is the liturgy and practice and theology, and yes the self-definition, that decide what a religion is.
I return to the definitional point: what non-ad hoc definition is there that makes the Church of Scotland or the Methodists or the Baptists protestant, but not the Church of England?
Posted by american piskie (# 593) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I return to the definitional point: what non-ad hoc definition is there that makes the Church of Scotland or the Methodists or the Baptists protestant, but not the Church of England?
Not all words are well-defined in themselves. Contexts matter.
The line taken my "my" sort of member of the C of S was that the C of S was not protestant, sitting around waiting for a General Council or whatever to answer The Protest; but was Reformed as we had got up off our knees and sorted things out for ourselves, thank you.
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I return to the definitional point: what non-ad hoc definition is there that makes the Church of Scotland or the Methodists or the Baptists protestant, but not the Church of England?
Do you think that's because the Anglican setup is very much glancing towards Rome (of course to a greater or lesser extent supported by individual Anglicans) and does see things like Apostolic succession and being part of the Catholic church as important..
..whereas the "true" Protestants disposed of all that nonsense and went off on their own with nay a backward glance at Rome.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by lilBuddha;
quote:
IMO, more projection than history.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
lilBuddha, the church did not "splinter" in 1054. It split neatly and cleanly into two pieces.
Fair enough, just thought the 'broke away' thing off-base. If RA was being serious.
Serious, if a little mischievous at the same time. It seems to me that the Orthodox have by far the greatest continuity with the early Church, and that the Great Schism came about because Rome introduced innovations that the rest of the Church could not accept.
However, one thing this thread has amply demonstrated is that we all read History through our own preconceptions. lilBuddah, please tell me what reasons you have for thinking that Elizabeth I would have been unhappy with the Protest, or the term Protestant.
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
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Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Henry and Elizabeth were more concerned with power, looting RCC holdings in Britain and keeping church taxes, evinced by the relatively limited change during their lifetimes.
Henry, perhaps, but Elizabeth was raised as an 'evangelical' (16th Century England does not compute to modern England or Germany) which is to say a moderate Protestant and, therefore, followed such a course when she became Queen. She may well have been more moderate, than the actually existing Elizabethan settlement, but when she became Queen the people who were prepared to support her and work for her were somewhat more Reformed and were radicalised, in many cases, by exile in Switzerland during her sister's reign. Everything we know about her indicates that her protestantism was sincere. Why should it not be? Many of protestants who have ever existed have been protestants because that is the religion they were brought up in. Elizabeth was one of them, her brief flirtation with Catholicism under Mary was a result of the possibility that she would lose her head. It's entirely likely that she disagreed with it to start with and resented it subsequently.
In 1558 she could have surprised people, and declared as a Catholic and kept many of Mary's ministers in situ. There would have been advantages to this course of action. But she didn't. It's not as if she could not have ruled as an absolutist monarch as a result of this. I deduce, therefore, that she was loyal to the religion of her upbringing rather than embracing it from pure calculation.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
More importantly, I don't see why the motives of Henry and Elizabeth matter more than Cranmer's actual liturgies.
Because they created and maintained a separation. Cranmer was more instrument than inspiration. That he changed less than we would have seemed to want is more telling than that he changed some things.
quote:
It is the liturgy and practice and theology, and yes the self-definition, that decide what a religion is.
And by all this,* the CofE is Catholic. It is not without reason that one of the easiest sectarian shifts for a priest is between Anglican/Episcopal and RCC.
quote:
I return to the definitional point: what non-ad hoc definition is there that makes the Church of Scotland or the Methodists or the Baptists protestant, but not the Church of England?
I'll not claim to be an expert on Christian sectarianism. I've a passing familiarity with the CofE, the RCC and the Kirk.
Speaking of which, the Scottish Reformation began with a Reformer, not a male-heir obsessive. It reformed. The CofE initially did an ownership swap, it did not change shape initially. Not greatly thereafter.
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
by lilBuddha;
quote:
IMO, more projection than history.
You are projecting your interpretation of her motives.
As am I. However, I have no horse in this race. It is not part of my identity for the result to swing in either direction.
*Though it party self-defines as Protestant. Self-definition is only relevant as far as it matches reality. I could maintain that I am a successful Robert Wadlow impersonator, but a quick glance would challenge that.
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Didn't Elizabeth I drive a 'via media' coach and horses through the whole thing, to please nobody, and then impose it on the people? Only later were other denominations allowed to practice, afaik.
NB that the Via Media was intended to be between Wittenberg and Geneva, not Catholicism & Protestantism. In other words, the Via Media as envisioned by Elizabeth was incontrovertibly Protestant, the Church of England seen as an institution capable of comprehending a broad spectrum of Reformed identity while excluding Roman Catholicism and Anabaptism.
Posted by fausto (# 13737) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
it's ended up msomething of an unholy mess with no clear stance on anything....
Or perhaps it would be better described as a holy mess?
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Do you think that's because the Anglican setup is very much glancing towards Rome (of course to a greater or lesser extent supported by individual Anglicans) and does see things like Apostolic succession and being part of the Catholic church as important..
..whereas the "true" Protestants disposed of all that nonsense and went off on their own with nay a backward glance at Rome.
The Scandinavian Lutheran churches practice the doctrine of apostolic succession of bishops. And I assume all Christian churches that use the Nicene Creed consider themselves catholic.
I don't think it was until the 19th century that 'Rome does things this way' became important to any Anglicans. Even then, an imagined medieval Rome was always more important than what the Roman Catholic parish down the road was doing.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
it's ended up something of an unholy mess with no clear stance on anything....
Or perhaps it would be better described as a holy mess?
"Holy mess" is something of a contradiction in terms ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Fr Weber:
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Didn't Elizabeth I drive a 'via media' coach and horses through the whole thing, to please nobody, and then impose it on the people? Only later were other denominations allowed to practice, afaik.
NB that the Via Media was intended to be between Wittenberg and Geneva, not Catholicism & Protestantism. In other words, the Via Media as envisioned by Elizabeth was incontrovertibly Protestant, the Church of England seen as an institution capable of comprehending a broad spectrum of Reformed identity while excluding Roman Catholicism and Anabaptism.
Via media means the middle way, which make you Buddhist. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Seriously though, it is a 'best of both worlds' kind of approach.
Elizabeth was incontrovertibly not RCC. That is the only real incontrovertible.
Again, it is that English Christian identity is so tied to being free from Rome that this is such a strong perception.
Anabaptists were anathema because of their anti-state beliefs.
[ 15. September 2016, 18:48: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by mr cheesy (# 3330) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Anabaptists were anathema because of their anti-state beliefs.
According to the 39 Articles it was because of their tendency to share property and belief in rebaptising those who had already received the Anglican sacrament of baptism.
But I think that it is also true that various texts around at the time in England were lumping various groups under the umbrella of "anabaptists".
Posted by ThunderBunk (# 15579) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
it's ended up something of an unholy mess with no clear stance on anything....
Or perhaps it would be better described as a holy mess?
"Holy mess" is something of a contradiction in terms
Far from it. It's the only truly available state this side of the coming of the Kingdom of God.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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by mr cheesy;
quote:
According to the 39 Articles it was because of their tendency to share property and belief in rebaptising those who had already received the Anglican sacrament of baptism. But I think that it is also true that various texts around at the time in England were lumping various groups under the umbrella of "anabaptists".
Courtesy of the actually non-typical Anabaptists of Munster, there was a perception that Anabaptists not merely wished to share property among themselves but would wish to coercively redistribute everybody's property. But the Munsterites were so untypical that they actually believed in effectively a state church, and warfare on its behalf and so on.
'Anti-state' is a bit of an overstatement. Anabaptists are anti State Church. This of course did not suit Elizabeth and other Reformers who were still following the state church pattern set by the Roman imperial church and its RCC/Orthodox successor bodies.
The issue of rebaptism is largely about the state-church thing. Over and above any other arguments about 'infant baptism' or 'paedo-baptism' it has the benefit for the state that everybody gets declared in their infant baptism to be a Christian and so the state itself is coherently if nominally 'Christian'.
Believer's baptism threatens that by saying that people get a choice in religion and may choose against what the state wants. In effect, Anabaptists are saying that to be a Christian is to be 'born again' spiritually rather than just born simultaneously into state and church from infancy.
And yes it is true that in Tudor times lots of slightly different groups would be lumped together as Anabaptists - apart from anything else their illegal status made it difficult to get together and become a fully coherent movement. The common factor would be that 'rebaptism' - though of course in the Anabaptists' own eyes, they were actually not rebaptising but doing a proper baptism for the first time.
Also note that up till quite recently 'Anabaptist' included what we'd now call 'Baptists' - for example John Bunyan would be referred to as an 'Anabaptist'. Also 'Anabaptist' like 'Methodist' was a name originating with the opponents of Anabaptists.
In modern terms 'Anabaptism' has been adopted by the tradition stemming from continental European groups like the Mennonites and Amish, and also by modern people inspired by them.
The difference is essentially that the continentals grew up 'in the shadow of' Munster, and had very much realised that the religious state was a bad idea. And in turn were generally pacifist as well.
The UK 'Baptists' and their American and later worldwide missionary derivatives were involved in the UK 'Puritan' movement and the English Civil War which the Puritans temporarily won under Cromwell. Consequently UK Baptists (while varying!) can be somewhat more ambivalent about the state and church business - or at least the broader idea of a 'Christian country' - and are often not pacifists - especially US Southern Baptists who can be very 'hawkish'.
Anabaptist has proved a useful term to distinguish the UK tradition from the continental tradition.
In most things Anabaptists (and UK 'Baptists) are basically 'Protestant' - for instance, the UK's 'Particular Baptist' Confession is an only slightly altered version of the Presbyterians' "Westminster Confession". The differences are largely about the "Believer's Baptism" (more neatly 'credo-baptism' in contrast to 'paedo-baptism'), about church government (more democratic) and about the link to the state. On a Purg thread a bit ago I found I was able to assent to a surprisingly large number of those '39 Articles'.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
More importantly, I don't see why the motives of Henry and Elizabeth matter more than Cranmer's actual liturgies.
Because they created and maintained a separation. Cranmer was more instrument than inspiration. That he changed less than we would have seemed to want is more telling than that he changed some things.
Again, the motives behind the separation are not nearly as important as the separation.
You keep omitting Edward's reign, which is when most of the changes happened.
quote:
quote:
It is the liturgy and practice and theology, and yes the self-definition, that decide what a religion is.
And by all this,* the CofE is Catholic. It is not without reason that one of the easiest sectarian shifts for a priest is between Anglican/Episcopal and RCC.
We're not arguing about whether the C of E is catholic, but whether it's protestant. (Most indisputably protestant churches think the two are compatible.)
Are you thinking of the modern liturgy (Common Worship / ASB) here? Or are you thinking of the Book of Common Prayer?
It's only within my lifetime that the Book of Common Prayer ceased to be the standard form of the Eucharist in the Church of England. The Book of Common Prayer is far less ecumenical in its liturgy than the modern orders of service.
Most of what we now consider middle of the road Chuch of England ritual practice (eucharistic vestments, communion at an altar at the head of the congregation with an altar rail, the use of wafers, candles on the altar, etc) were 19th century innovations and intensely controversial. (Priests were prosecuted.) See wikipedia.
Likewise, for most of the history of the Church of England, the official theology was the distinctly Calvinistic 39 articles. (See especially 6, 10-14 and 17 arguably Calvinistic, 19 and 23 (more in what is pointedly not said), not to mention 21, 22, 25, and so on.)
Until the 19th century the C of E did not have celibate religious orders. It did not have relics. It did not have official invocations of the saints (not even Mary). It did not have auricular confession.
Lutherans would have been at home. Roman Catholics decidedly not.
quote:
quote:
I return to the definitional point: what non-ad hoc definition is there that makes the Church of Scotland or the Methodists or the Baptists protestant, but not the Church of England?
I'll not claim to be an expert on Christian sectarianism. I've a passing familiarity with the CofE, the RCC and the Kirk.
Speaking of which, the Scottish Reformation began with a Reformer, not a male-heir obsessive. It reformed. The CofE initially did an ownership swap, it did not change shape initially. Not greatly thereafter.
I think that if I argue that whales are mammals not fish, I should have more than passing familiarity with whales, mammals, and fish.
quote:
Though it party self-defines as Protestant. Self-definition is only relevant as far as it matches reality. I could maintain that I am a successful Robert Wadlow impersonator, but a quick glance would challenge that.
Some things depend on whether other people accept you as such. You can't be Emperor of the United States of America unless other people recognise your claim. Some things depend on physical attributes. You can't be the tallest man in the world unless you have the physical height to back it up. Other things do largely depend on self-definition (for instance, if someone self-defines as bisexual then assuming they are using the word in a standard manner they are bisexual). Being Protestant is one of those latter cases.
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Anabaptists were anathema because of their anti-state beliefs.
And because of their rejection of episcopacy (and indeed, ordination). And because of their disbelief in the Real Presence. And because of their heterodox views on baptism. Etc.
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
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++ Geoffrey Fisher in conversation (in Latin) with some Spanish RC seminarians who had clearly never heard of the Archbishop of Canterbury, c1960:
Seminarians: Are you a Catholic?
++F: Not what you mean by Catholic.
Seminarians: Are you then a Protestant?
++F: Not what you mean by Protestant.
That'll do for me. As a good Anglican, I don't push too much for precise definitions if I don't have to.
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on
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I was taught that the CofE isn't protestant because, as referred to above, the Church IN England (and other territories then ruled by England c 1538) didn't break-away from Rome: rather the monarch was excommunicated (effectively thrown out by Rome) and, because he was monarch, his subjects were also denied the sacraments, etc.
In other words the CofE (and CinW, for that matter) are catholic churches.
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
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The Elizabethan divines would certainly have claimed catholicity for the Church of England. But they would also have affirmed a Protestant identity.
The two terms aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. The Lutherans and Calvinists alike considered their churches to be Catholicism sans the medieval dross.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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by Dafyd;
quote:
I think that if I argue that whales are mammals not fish, I should have more than passing familiarity with whales, mammals, and fish.
You are here into a slight problem with definitions; they can even change over time. It happened with whales - until quite late on they were considered 'fish' simply by being water-animals. As of course were shellfish. Then scientists/taxonomists decided a changed definition - though whalers continued for a long time to call their targets 'fish' anyway.
A similar thing recently happened with planets. Over the years, 'planet' originally meant 'wandering objects' in the sky as opposed to the 'fixed stars' which with the instruments of the day appeared fixed. By that definition, the Sun and Moon were both planets and the supposedly fixed Earth (this is the Ptolemaic pre-Copernican scheme, remember) was not a planet.
Post-Copernicus, this changed; The sun was no longer a planet - though of course it still appeared to 'wander' from our perspective. The Moon also was no longer a planet but a satellite, and Jupiter and other planets eventually were known to also have satellites. And of course, the Earth was redefined as a planet....
Then 'asteroids' were discovered, mostly small lumps of rock but a few big enough to be forced spherical by their own gravity...
More recently a further re-definition has taken place, with planets now limited to the larger ones out to Neptune, but no longer including the latest discovery Pluto. I think it's right that a big enough body discovered in the far outer Solar System could still be regarded as a planet, but the smaller ones, Pluto, some of the larger bodies in the 'Asteroid Belt' between Mars and Jupiter, and some more recent finds out around or beyond Neptune in the 'Kuiper Belt' are designated 'dwarf planets'; they're basically the spherical ones. Lumpier ones still count as asteroids, sometimes the outer ones are called Kuiper Belt objects.
Terminology can shift. The things the terminology is about don't shift in themselves, but can be regarded differently as knowledge advances.
'Protestant' is a kind of 'timebound' thing with a fairly definite meaning. Initially just about the original 'Protest' but then more widely the Reformation movement in general. As far as I can see, the original CofE does fit that definition and was intended to fit it. The later CofE has changed in various ways, and not consistently but by varying in different parts of the body. Some parts of the CofE are now more-or-less 'Catholic' in the sense of moving towards RCC-like practices and ideas; other parts are 'Liberal' moving towards being less and less biblical. And there are other factions, and factions which are, say 'Liberal-Catholic' or whatever.
In the history between the Reformation and more recent times there have been various shifts and changes. I think all you can confidently say is that the CofE was founded as Protestant of the national state church variety, and has varied from time to time since in various ways. What it is now is nothing very consistent at all and the unifying 'establishment' is possibly now a handicap....
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I'll not claim to be an expert on Christian sectarianism. I've a passing familiarity with the CofE, the RCC and the Kirk.
I think that if I argue that whales are mammals not fish, I should have more than passing familiarity with whales, mammals, and fish.
Sorry - that comes over with more asperity than I meant. Nevertheless, I do think you are focussing on things - the motives of the founders - that are not essential to the term 'Protestant', and not really dealing with the reasons the terms are used or considered important.
Having said that, I should say why I consider it important. 'The Church of England isn't really Protestant' is usually said by members of my tradition (Anglo-Catholicism) as a way of sneering at those denominations who are undoubtedly Protestants. It's usually a form of Church of England snobbery. As such, I think it's something that should be called out.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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From 1558 until at least 1660, and really 1689, the aspiration was that the Church of England would encompass everyone. Until 1642 it did except for recalcitrant Papists, who were also regarded as traitors. The Puritan aspiration was not to split, but to force the rest into their mould, as they tried from 1649-1660.
It was only that in the aftermath of the Restoration when a hard core of religious ex-Parliamentarians would not fit in, that dissent in a Protestant rather than Catholic direction starts to appear.
In an era when religion, the state and the zeitgeist were all mixed up, anabaptists were regarded by everyone else as much the same as many people regard anarchists today.
Fr Weber's comment "that the Via Media was intended to be between Wittenberg and Geneva, not Catholicism & Protestantism", is I think bang on. So is Dafyd's statement that much of modern CofE practice that, Lilbuddha, you seem to think makes the CofE 'not-Protestant' was unknown until the mid/late C19 and very controversial when ritualists started to try to introduce it.
There are ways in which the historical precedent for some features of Common Worship is the Directory for Public Worship that was imposed during the Interregnum.
I am slightly curious Lilbuddha as to with which province of the Anglican Communion you are really most familiar or why you want to argue that the CofE is not Protestant. Whether one likes it or not, it is and it is an affectation to claim otherwise.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
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It would be quite funny if it was The Holy Catholic Church of Japan.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Again, the motives behind the separation are not nearly as important as the separation.
Nope. As mentioned prior, that definition would include some very definitely not Protestant groups.
quote:
Other things do largely depend on self-definition (for instance, if someone self-defines as bisexual then assuming they are using the word in a standard manner they are bisexual). Being Protestant is one of those latter cases.
It is an issue for Dead Horses to tell you how this is wrong, but it is.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Having said that, I should say why I consider it important. 'The Church of England isn't really Protestant' is usually said by members of my tradition (Anglo-Catholicism) as a way of sneering at those denominations who are undoubtedly Protestants. It's usually a form of Church of England snobbery. As such, I think it's something that should be called out.
That snobbery certainly dose not include me. I am not a massive fan of such behaviour.
I might be accurately described as arrogant, but not as a snob.
Well, maybe a food snob...
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I am slightly curious Lilbuddha as to with which province of the Anglican Communion you are really most familiar
Irrelevant, there is quite a bit of internal variation. Same among admitted Catholic sects. Not interested in the extremes, it is the general ideology and practice that my observation is based on.
quote:
or why you want to argue that the CofE is not Protestant.
Because of the human tendency to label things as we want them to be instead of how they are. We do our beliefs no good by denying the less savoury elements. And because it has been an enjoyable discussion.
quote:
Whether one likes it or not, it is and it is an affectation to claim otherwise.
I do hope you realise that this statement is as valid in reverse as it is the way you state it.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
lilBuddha, the church did not "splinter" in 1054. It split neatly and cleanly into two pieces.
Having previously split between the Western and Eastern churches on the one hand, and the various Oriental churches on the other, not very cleanly or neatly here.
Given that the myophysite splits were hundreds of years before, and therefore irrelevant to the cleanness of the 1054 split, what about the latter would cause you to say that? It was a neat break of one Patriarchate from the other four. No patriarchates were split, each went entirely one way or the other. There were no splinters that went a third way. As schisms go, I challenge you to name three that were cleaner.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
quote:
Originally posted by fausto:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
it's ended up something of an unholy mess with no clear stance on anything....
Or perhaps it would be better described as a holy mess?
"Holy mess" is something of a contradiction in terms
So you're saying your DM doesn't allow Chaotic Good?
Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on
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I guess Steve Langton plays a different game.
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
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I'm not much knowledgeable about Richard Hooker, but I remember his argument defending the episcopate was quintessentially Via Media, in the sense that he rejected both the Roman argument that Christ established the hierarchy and such is inviolable and the Puritan argument that the episcopate was an unscriptural deviation.
Hooker if I remember correctly, argued that church structure was a matter of reason and the episcopate, at least in England, provided for good and decent order. As such it was permissible for the Church to hold onto the episcopate.
Anglicanism, at least in Hooker's fashion, IMHO provides that some issues are not to be solved by a literalist appeal to Scripture, or by a literalist appeal to Church tradition. Some issues, the church can discern carefully using its critical reason and good judgment.
It's this understanding that I think explains why the Anglican Church changes, sometimes drastically over time. From the stern and dry services of the 17th and 18th centuries to the florid Anglo-catholic liturgies and the enthusiastic services of the evangelicals, the church can simply say that some things that used to work, don't work anymore, and that things we used to believe, we don't believe anymore. If I was an Anglican triumphalist, I would say that Anglicans are one of the few who actually admit that this is how they operate. Unlike the stereotypical Roman Catholic who pretends that the Church never changes or the stereotypical Evangelical who insists that all their beliefs and practices come from the Bible.
Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
lilBuddha, the church did not "splinter" in 1054. It split neatly and cleanly into two pieces.
Having previously split between the Western and Eastern churches on the one hand, and the various Oriental churches on the other, not very cleanly or neatly here.
Given that the myophysite splits were hundreds of years before, and therefore irrelevant to the cleanness of the 1054 split, what about the latter would cause you to say that? It was a neat break of one Patriarchate from the other four. No patriarchates were split, each went entirely one way or the other. There were no splinters that went a third way. As schisms go, I challenge you to name three that were cleaner.
What you're now saying is what I did - and your earlier post ignored the divisions that arose at Chalcedon.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
To muddy the waters for Steve Langton further, whilst in practice it is probably safe to say that many nominal or less informed/well-catechised Christians in what he would define as 'Constantinian' settings would assume that being 'born into' an ostensibly Christian country and baptised as such were pretty much coterminous - it isn't the case that paedo-baptists aren't aware of nuances or consider it all a 'done deal' by any means ...
There is the issue - whether implicit or explicit - of 'baptismal regeneration' within paedo-baptist settings and I'm not sure many credo-baptists fully take into account the strength of this belief among many traditional paedo-baptists for whom it is more than a simple outward ceremony - sprinkle ... sprinkle ... sprinkle (or dunk, dunk, dunk in terms of Orthodox paedo-baptism) and then that's it ...
I was once party to a conversation between an Anglican vicar (a former Baptist minister) and an Orthodox priest about this very issue and both were expressing disappointment and frustration at the attitudes shown by lay-people presenting their kids for baptism/christening. The Anglican guy was horrified to receive a letter from a parishioner saying, 'Thank you for making my son a Christian ...' whereas the Orthodox priest had been horrified at the christening of a Romanian child where the family had whisked the infant out of his arms and began to coo over it before he'd even finished the prayers and completed the ceremony ...
Now, one could argue that this is proof positive for adopting a credo-baptist position. Be that as it may, what it does indicate - at least on the part of the priests - that they were taking the whole thing very seriously and didn't simply expect some magic pixie-dust to be involved ...
I've heard Orthodox priests and lay-people declare 'God has no grandchildren' just as firmly as evangelicals might and also to assert that no-one is actually born Orthodox but has to 'become' such and to own and adopt the faith for themselves.
I'm sure many (most?) RCs and Anglicans would say the same. Sure, it doesn't have that clear-cut tantar-tara moment you get within evangelicalism - and yes, I've been 'done twice' if we want to put it that way - once as an infant and then as a 19 year old earnest evangelical ...
I've long since given up trying to work out which one was valid or invalid or even to speculate unduly about it all ... the key issue is that I've been baptised in the name of the Holy Trinity and affirmed that faith since - I hope - in word and deed. I've not been confirmed though ... which is something I would do if I were to go in a more 'High Church' direction - but for the moment it's not something that crops up particularly ...
Anyhow, that's a tangent and this thread is not about me but about how Catholic or otherwise the CofE is.
To an extent, I agree with those who say that those Anglicans who self-identify as 'Catholics' in the more sacramental sense - rather than in the way that Calvinists and other more Reformed Christians might - are being somewhat sniffy and snobbish. But I don't think it can be boiled down entirely to that. These people genuinely believe in the Real Presence - in a way that isn't apparent for all Anglican evangelicals despite the relatively 'high' understanding of the eucharist within Anglicanism traditionally (and I don't mean ritualistically necessarily) ... and also have a 'high' view of the sacraments - including those that weren't necessarily part of the Anglican landscape in the 17th and 18th centuries.
So this necessarily puts them in an awkward position both with RCS and Orthodox - who wouldn't see them as 'catholic' enough - and with evangelical or MoTR Anglicans who'd see them as being over-the-top ...
This is an issue which is never going to be resolved unless all parties adopted a very neat and binary solution - either by going over to Rome or Constantinople - or to heading in a more 'Genevan' direction.
But part of the 'genius' - if genius it is - or frustration - if frustration it is - of Anglicanism is that it refuses to pin its colours completely to any of those masts.
It's got a fairly unique position - as Diarmid MacCulloch identifies in his 'History of Christianity'.
Whether that position is sustainable longer term remains to be seen.
As Fr Weber says, the Anglican communion sees itself as both Catholic and Reformed - and that being Catholic and being Reformed aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.
Other Reformed groups don't agree. Jengie Jon (where is she?) is always telling us which groups are properly Reformed and which aren't - and she doesn't include the CofE or the Anglicans more broadly, among those that are.
The RCs and the Orthodox don't agree either. They certainly regard the Anglicans as closer - theoretically - than the various Big R Reformed groups and the descendants of the radical reformers - although I've known more than one Orthodox cleric who has told me that they feel a lot closer in many ways to the independent evangelicals than they do to the Anglo-Catholics in some respects ...
Posted by Albertus (# 13356) on
:
...and let's not get onto the kind of Anglo-Catholics whose determination to do their own thing rather than their Bishop's makes them, as someone once put it on these boards, basically Congregationalists in tat.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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Equally, for all the convoluted internal inconsistencies in the CofE and Anglicanism more broadly, I don't see how any of the more independent Protestant churches are in any less of a mess. They may not have the same kind of mess, but they'll have messy areas of their own.
I don't see any way around that, whatever one's baptismal polity or how close to the 'biblical pattern' one fondly imagines their own church to be.
As for whether the Anglicans can be considered properly 'Catholic' or properly 'Protestant' depends on where you're standing of course. If you're on t'other side of the Tiber or Bosporus, then it ain't going to look Catholic enough. If you're up on some Alp looking down on Geneva then it ain't going to look Reformed enough. If you're on the inside it'll look a bit of both.
If you're not in any of those camps then it becomes purely academic.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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by Gamaliel;
quote:
To muddy the waters for Steve Langton further, whilst in practice it is probably safe to say that many nominal or less informed/well-catechised Christians in what he would define as 'Constantinian' settings would assume that being 'born into' an ostensibly Christian country and baptised as such were pretty much coterminous - it isn't the case that paedo-baptists aren't aware of nuances or consider it all a 'done deal' by any means ...
I'm well aware of the nuances myself and while I don't think I'll ever consider ideal the baptism of someone who isn't old enough to do their own believing, the infant baptism in terms of 'covenant theology' of a child of clearly 'born again' parents who are regular church members is a good deal more acceptable than the token sprinkling of a child whose parents otherwise never see a church and have essentially 'magical' ideas of what baptism achieves.
My point was that in a 'Constantinian' setting the infant baptism achieves the kind of social unity/conformity that the state wants from the state religion. And as far as I can see that is the reason it became the regular practice in the Roman Imperial Church. Previously AIUI infant baptism seems only to have occurred (or at any rate, can only be positively identified) in cases of children unlikely to survive to 'years of discretion', and of course notoriously Constantine and others deferred baptism almost to their deathbed again through a somewhat superstitious notion of what baptism does.
The point is that if the Church is independent of the state and consists of the voluntarily born again rather than just everyone who happens to have been born in the particular state, the baptism of infants is at least clearly of those with more than nominally Christian parents and there is no confusion of that Christian basic of being personally born again.
Baptismal regeneration has always struck me as one of those things that sounds good but given that even those baptised as adults can fall away, the sheer failure of so many baptised infants to ever show any sign of practical regeneration does rather question the usefulness of it.... And surely the original basically Protestant CofE would reject it anyway...?
Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Equally, for all the convoluted internal inconsistencies in the CofE and Anglicanism more broadly, I don't see how any of the more independent Protestant churches are in any less of a mess. They may not have the same kind of mess, but they'll have messy areas of their own.
I don't see any way around that, whatever one's baptismal polity or how close to the 'biblical pattern' one fondly imagines their own church to be.
As for whether the Anglicans can be considered properly 'Catholic' or properly 'Protestant' depends on where you're standing of course. If you're on t'other side of the Tiber or Bosporus, then it ain't going to look Catholic enough. If you're up on some Alp looking down on Geneva then it ain't going to look Reformed enough. If you're on the inside it'll look a bit of both.
If you're not in any of those camps then it becomes purely academic.
Considering that mainline Presbyterians have, in modern times, downplayed some of the extremes of Calvinism (double predestination), one could argue that even Reformed denominations are not Reformed enough from a purely Calvinist perspective.
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Hooker if I remember correctly, argued that church structure was a matter of reason and the episcopate, at least in England, provided for good and decent order. As such it was permissible for the Church to hold onto the episcopate.
Not just permissible, but desirable; only not essential.
And Hooker's conception of authority in the Church was a definite hierarchy : "What Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience are due; the next whereunto, is what any man can necessarily conclude by force of Reason; after this, the voice of the church succeedeth." In this model, one appeals to Reason only if a clear answer cannot be found in Scripture, and to Tradition only if Scripture and Reason are unproductive.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
@Steve Langton, well yes ... but I wasn't aiming to start a potentially Dead Horse debate about baptismal polity - and whilst I have sympathy with your view of the 'covenantal' aspects of paedobaptism as practiced/understood by Reformed (or even Wesleyan) Protestants, I'm simply pointing out that those who hold a more sacramental view wouldn't necessarily see it in the kind of terms you appear to ascribe to them ie some kind of magic ritual that exists outwith anything else that might be said or done in terms of engagement with church and so on ...
Sure, we all know that there's a lot of nominalism around in what we might call the historic and more sacramental Churches, although, like you, I don't see credobaptism as being in any way proof against people 'falling away' as you put it.
I'm not sure how helpful it is to look for overwhelming evidence of the efficacy of baptism - however it is administered. Some people who are baptised as infants clearly do go on to own and practice faith for themselves. Lots of others don't. The same applies with people baptised as adult believers.
As I've stated before on these boards, on medieval depictions of the Last Judgement you find clergy, monks, nuns and even Cardinals and Popes on either side of the final divide ...
Some kind of Calvinist attempt to detect who is 'in' and who is 'out' - however worthily attempted - is doomed to failure as far as I can see. I've known plenty of 'clearly born-again people' who were 'regular church attenders' who have lost their faith for one reason or another. What are we saying? That they weren't really 'born again' in the first place? I don't think it's as neat and cut and dried as that.
As for Constantine being baptised on his death-bed, that wasn't ideal of course, any more than anything else he did, but it wasn't uncommon at that time.
I'm not suggesting that infant baptism and close church/state connections don't go hand-in-hand, but I would suggest that the connection isn't always as close nor as cause-and-effect-ish as you appear to suggest.
As with anything else, it's never quite that simple ...
Since when has it ever been a simple matter of discerning who has been 'clearly born again' as you put it? Heck, we even find references to 'false brethren' in the NT epistles and the Apostle Paul seems to have had a lot of hassle with people in one way or another.
As for that fella mentioned in 1 Corinthians who was apparently in an illicit relationship with a close relative - was he 'clearly born again.' He must have been baptised, one assumes. Like Simon the Sorcerer also ...
There is no 'clearly' about it. It's not as if those who are 'clearly born again' float six inches off the ground so that everyone can recognise them.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
lilBuddha, the church did not "splinter" in 1054. It split neatly and cleanly into two pieces.
Having previously split between the Western and Eastern churches on the one hand, and the various Oriental churches on the other, not very cleanly or neatly here.
Given that the myophysite splits were hundreds of years before, and therefore irrelevant to the cleanness of the 1054 split, what about the latter would cause you to say that? It was a neat break of one Patriarchate from the other four. No patriarchates were split, each went entirely one way or the other. There were no splinters that went a third way. As schisms go, I challenge you to name three that were cleaner.
What you're now saying is what I did - and your earlier post ignored the divisions that arose at Chalcedon.
My earlier part was about 1054. Chalcedon was irrelevant.
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on
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Post not part. Dammed cell phone. .
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
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quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Again, the motives behind the separation are not nearly as important as the separation.
Nope. As mentioned prior, that definition would include some very definitely not Protestant groups.
In this context, I think 'the separation' means sixteenth or early seventeenth century, and moving in a direction of nothing is to be believed as necessary for salvation that cannot be derived from the Bible (as interpreted by one or other of the magisterial Protestant reformers).
I'm still not seeing a reason to think the various points from the Thirty-Nine Articles or the differences in practice are not sufficiently important.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
It's usually a form of Church of England snobbery. As such, I think it's something that should be called out.
That snobbery certainly dose not include me. I am not a massive fan of such behaviour.
I might be accurately described as arrogant, but not as a snob.
I don't think you're personally a snob. I think you're doing the equivalent of someone who shares an innocuous-looking social media post without wondering what that 'Britain First' at the bottom means.
[ 16. September 2016, 18:35: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Again, the motives behind the separation are not nearly as important as the separation.
Nope. As mentioned prior, that definition would include some very definitely not Protestant groups.
I'm still puzzled as to which groups you refer. It can't be the Orthodox; as noted earlier Rome left them.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Again, the motives behind the separation are not nearly as important as the separation.
Nope. As mentioned prior, that definition would include some very definitely not Protestant groups.
I'm still puzzled as to which groups you refer. It can't be the Orthodox; as noted earlier Rome left them.
Old Catholics, the Liberal Catholic Church, the Augustana Catholic Church, the Apostolic Catholic Church (ACC), the Aglipayans (Philippine Independent Church), the Polish National Catholic Church of America,Maronite Catholics, Ukrainian Catholics, and Chaldean Catholics, Brazilian Catholic Apostolic Church, Chinese Patriotic, Catholic Association, Fraternité Notre-Dame, Rabelados, traditionalist Catholics in Cape Verde and I am sure there are some I've missed.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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Gamaliel
I'm not going to inflict on the thread a complete 'quote' of your last. Nor do I want this to derail onto baptism/Anabaptism.
My point was simply that an erratic practice of infant baptism, combined with the dubious practice of deferred baptism as with Constantine, seems to have been replaced not long after Theodosius by a pretty much universal practice of infant baptism. I think it's pretty much 'cause and effect', even if the reality was not always totally conscious and deliberate, that when Theodosius said "If you're in my Empire you're a Christian or else", a practice which 'nailed down' that conformity was so widely adopted in place of one which asserts non-conformity.
And again, I'm not suggesting some nosy 'Inquisitorial' attempt to establish who is in and who out. Just that the Church is meant to be voluntary and about those who choose/profess to belong, and furthermore it is international rather than national; and it's unhelpful all round if that is confused by the compulsion/totalitarianism and the nominal just-because-you're-born-here kind of church membership which Constantinianism brought in, and a continued established church which still too much encourages that kind of confusion in society. The 'everybody gets baptised into the state church as an infant' thing is part of that confusion.
Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Steve Langton:
Baptismal regeneration has always struck me as one of those things that sounds good but given that even those baptised as adults can fall away, the sheer failure of so many baptised infants to ever show any sign of practical regeneration does rather question the usefulness of it.... And surely the original basically Protestant CofE would reject it anyway...?
This doesn't follow, there are parts of protestantism that historically and currently hold to Baptismal regeneration.
There was a point in history where there was a reasonable chance that the CofE could have gone Lutheran (who also hold to baptismal regeneration).
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'm still not seeing a reason to think the various points from the Thirty-Nine Articles or the differences in practice are not sufficiently important.
The 39 are a mix of Catholic, Protestant and other POV. Separation from Rome and a less than complete agreement with Roman doctrine and practice does not make a Protestant.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I don't think you're personally a snob. I think you're doing the equivalent of someone who shares an innocuous-looking social media post without wondering what that 'Britain First' at the bottom means.
So I am ignorant, not viscous? Well done, sir.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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So, what does make a Protestant in your view, LilBuddha?
To be Protestant, does it require there to be no elements of 'catholicity' whatsoever?
I don't see how that follows.
One could argue that a belief in the Trinity is a 'Catholic' doctrine. So does that make the Protestantness of all Trinitarian Protestants questionable?
@Steve Langton, your position doesn't take into account those Christian churches that developed outside the boundaries of the Roman Empire - in Persia and so on - which also seemed to adopt a paedobaptist polity.
I'm not arguing against credo-baptism, simply pointing out that whilst I share your squeamishness at indiscriminate infant baptism, the position among the historic and more sacramental churches isn't as neat and simplistic as might appear from your perspective. The Orthodox and the Anglicans will baptise adults and I daresay the RCs do too - but that's another issue.
Coming back to the CofE, the 39 Articles are certainly more Protestant than anything else. A kind of moderate Elizabethan Calvinism. You don't meet many Anglican clergy today who fit that mould, but I've come across a few.
Posted by Callan (# 525) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I'm still not seeing a reason to think the various points from the Thirty-Nine Articles or the differences in practice are not sufficiently important.
The 39 are a mix of Catholic, Protestant and other POV. Separation from Rome and a less than complete agreement with Roman doctrine and practice does not make a Protestant.
Seriously? What, pray, are the other POV's represented? Orthodox? Chinese Nestorian? Quaker? First Church Of Jesus Christ, Aryan Nations?
And what, exactly, separates Elizabethan protestantism from the other protestantisms of 16th Century Europe? The historic episcopate? Sweden. Monarchical absolutism? Pretty much all of the protestant states which didn't derive from a victory in a civil war against Catholic rulers? Doctrinally, at least, what an Anglo-Papalist erstwhile Shipmate once described as the "49 Articles of the Book of Evil", are pretty much down the middle Reformed Christianity. Point me to an Article of Religion that a sixteenth century protestant would have objected to.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Seriously? What, pray, are the other POV's represented?
Anglican. I didn't wish to break down the Miscellaneous articles, 32-39, to see where they fit, so I lazily said "other"
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So, what does make a Protestant in your view, LilBuddha?
To have actually begun in Protest and to have subsequently Reformed.
The CofE began as a power grab. The structure otherwise remained relatively intact.
That some of you do not agree is understandable, that many of your own do is telling. Not definitely, but definitely indicative.
[ 16. September 2016, 21:05: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
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lilBuddha, you're making the mistake of viewing Catholic and Protestant as mutually exclusive categories. They're not.
If anyone was a Protestant, surely Martin Luther was. Yet a cursory perusal of his works indicate that he agreed with the Roman Catholic Church far more than he disagreed.
Likewise, the 39 Articles indicate substantial agreement with Rome on credal issues, with substantial disagreement on--wait for it--the usual Protestant distinctives.
Whether the C of E can rightly be thought of as Protestant nowadays may be an open question. But for the first 350 years of its existence, it was not.
And as far as baptismal regeneration goes, the Church of England believed in that from the beginning. You can look at the proceedings of the Savoy Conference for a very amusing summary of Puritan objections to, among other things, the BCP's theology of baptism, and the tart retorts of the prelates to those objections.
[ 16. September 2016, 21:21: Message edited by: Fr Weber ]
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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by Gamaliel;
quote:
I'm not arguing against credo-baptism, simply pointing out that whilst I share your squeamishness at indiscriminate infant baptism, the position among the historic and more sacramental churches isn't as neat and simplistic as might appear from your perspective. The Orthodox and the Anglicans will baptise adults and I daresay the RCs do too - but that's another issue.
Everybody (except I think the Salvation Army) baptises adults! After all, most converts are adults. Baptists/Anabaptists are unusual only in that some of the adults we baptise have previously been 'paedo-baptised' by churches which practice that.
For clarity, I guess I object anywhere to just having children 'done' for social reasons for families with no real church connection; I'd also worry about some Baptist churches where baptism has almost become an automatic rite for adolescents reared in the church.
My slightly bigger objection is where baptism is done somewhat automatically in a 'national' church where it is associated with the idea of a 'Christian country', even if nowadays a bit attenuated. Here and now?? Back in the day there was little doubt that the infant baptism was also associated with your place in the nation as well as in the church (or more accurately, church and nation were dubiously regarded as co-terminous) Bear in mind that even now such baptisms are part of why many Muslims still think of countries like ours as not only 'Christian' nations but as 'crusaders' who they need to fight. (they might not be too happy with a recognised secular nation either, of course)
chris stiles - I don't really want to go much further with this tangent to the main point. One thing I will say - though the various 'Protestants' have enough in common to justify use of the term, it is also the case that different groups in different countries 'settled out' at slightly different stages along the Reformation/Protestant path and so there are variations. Arguably churches accepting 'baptismal regeneration' may have settled out at a different (earlier?) stage. But still broadly Protestant. I mean, Protestant is wide enough a term to include Anabaptists as well as Anglicans, even though we (depending on your viewpoint) either went further from Rome or more consistently follow biblical teaching.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Indicative of what?
I don't see why this issue is so important to you. One could just as easily argue that the Lutheran protest became a 'lower grab' once the Princes got involved.
Yes, the CofE retained episcopacy and cathedrals and such but whilst the structure remained relatively intact the belief system didn't retain all aspects of mediaeval Catholicism.
Besides, the Archbishop of Canterbury isn't the Pope.
I'm not sure to what extent the role of the British monarchy echoed that of monarchs in RC or Orthodox countries.
But I don't think anyone is disputing that Henry VIII acted in self interest rather than a sense of 'Protest' but things didn't stop with him. The CofE as we have it now owes more to Elizabeth I than Henry VIII.
I s'pose my take would be that the Anglicans are reformed but not Reformed, catholic but not Catholic and protestant but not Protestant.
But as Callan says, there's not a lot in the 39 Articles that a mid-16th century mainstream Swedish, German or Swiss Protestant would have taken exception to.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Some Anabaptists didn't just go further from Rome but also departed from what you'd regard as biblical teaching, Steve Langton. Vast swathes of continental Anabaptism lurched into Unitarianism.
Rightly or wrongly, the Magisterial Reformers and Presbyterians and so on weren't only concerned about what they saw as the threat of social anarchy from Anabaptism but the danger of them developing what could be seen as Arian and other heretical tendencies. With reason, as the history of the various Baptist and Anabaptist groups show.
Some of the more extreme, radical Anabaptists would presumably argued that the more mainstream small o orthodox Baptists and Anabaptists also 'settled out' to use your term.
That's not to say that groups like the Independents or the Presbyterians nor even individual Anglican clergy or laity retained orthodox Trinitarian views but at least there were credal checks and balances.
Of course the Anglicans aren't as radically reformed as some other groups of a similar vintage but if you take radical reform to its logical conclusion you end up in a different place from where thee and me and any other small o orthodox Christians are.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Separation from Rome and a less than complete agreement with Roman doctrine and practice does not make a Protestant.
If we qualify 'separation from Rome' by 'in or after the sixteenth century', and 'less than complete agreement with Roman doctrine' by specifying that nothing outside the Bible is necessary to be believed for salvation, and an emphasis upon salvation by faith alone, then yes it does make a Protestant.
You've tried to claim that the Oxford English Dictionary definition might be wrong because it might be based on prejudice, but you haven't actually shown any reason to believe it's actually wrong.
[ 16. September 2016, 22:01: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
:
Posted by Callan:
quote:
Point me to an Article of Religion that a sixteenth century protestant would have objected to.
Oh, where to begin! It is often overlooked that the 39 Articles are as much (if not more) anti-Presbyterian/Puritan as they are anti-Catholic. I think they helped confirm the concept of a 'via media' but I personally still find them to be a very problematic document from both a Protestant and Catholic point of view.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So, what does make a Protestant in your view, LilBuddha?
To have actually begun in Protest and to have subsequently Reformed.
And your authority for this definition is?
(Leaving aside the ample room for tactical wriggling in the words 'Protest' and 'Reformed', which you might need to get in Calvin.)
(Leaving aside also the fact that the source you quoted in your first post does describe the Church of England as 'Reformed'.)
(Leaving aside that the Protest that Protestantism is named after is not anything Luther said, but the Protest by various Princes of the Holy Roman Empire: to whit, the Emperor had no right to determine which religion would be followed in their princedoms; they did.)
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
:
by Gamaliel;
quote:
Some Anabaptists didn't just go further from Rome but also departed from what you'd regard as biblical teaching, Steve Langton. Vast swathes of continental Anabaptism lurched into Unitarianism.
The Reformation was a pretty messy period in which lots of things were tried and many failed. Yes, just as there were points where it can be argued the Anglicans, say, didn't go far enough, there are points where it can be argued that others went way too far. I think the Trinitarian Anabaptists got it just about right; but I'm prepared to discuss that....
I'm happy here with two propositions;
Absolutely strictly and literally, 'Protestant' means those involved in that one 'Protest' document.
By popular usage, the word was extended to the wider Reformation. I think there is general agreement that it means those who saw the Bible as the primary authority over against the claims of the Papacy, as Luther did in setting the movement off. Those taking that stance went in broadly the same direction but to different extents. There is a lot of that 'Mere Christianity' common ground.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
So, what does make a Protestant in your view, LilBuddha?
To have actually begun in Protest and to have subsequently Reformed.
And your authority for this definition is?
Common sense. The reason matters. Practically speaking, the Anglican communion is between Catholic and Protestant. Why is it so important to identify as Protestant? IMO, to not be those nasty RCC.
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on
:
And that is a slippery and self-serving notion of Protestantism and a denial of the strong witness of the Church of England within Protestantism.
It is akin to saying that you were sober last night when everyone has pictures of you dancing on the tables with a bottle of whisky to your lips.
And I repeat my point that at what time did Methodism cease to be "anglican" and become protestant, because the foundation of Methodism was well after the Reformation?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
And that is a slippery and self-serving notion of Protestantism
Not sure how it is slippery. And self-serving? How am I served regardless?
quote:
and a denial of the strong witness of the Church of England within Protestantism.
You'd need to unpack this one. In my view, the CofE is a witness to the blending of Catholic and Protestant.
quote:
And I repeat my point that at what time did Methodism cease to be "anglican" and become protestant, because the foundation of Methodism was well after the Reformation?
No sure count them as Protestant.
ISTM, the term Protestant is used to describe Christians who are not Catholic or Orthodox. I think this too simplistic.
Though I do think protestant is applicable for sects that have gone on to adopt mainly Protestant principles.
I think the CofE is borderline on this criterion.
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
And I repeat my point that at what time did Methodism cease to be "anglican" and become protestant, because the foundation of Methodism was well after the Reformation?
Well, I suppose one could pick the point when Methodists started to ordain people by other means than by a Bishop in the apostolic succession.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
@Steve Langton, of course you believe the Trinitarian Anabaptists to be 'right' - otherwise you wouldn't be a Trinitarian Anabaptist ...
The issue here, of course, isn't whether the Anabaptists - Trinitarian or otherwise - are right or wrong - and the tendency among them to veer into Arianism went on much longer than the initial chaos of the Reformation - but the extent to which the Anglicans can be considered Protestant.
I think Fletcher Christian has raised an important point. The 39 Articles are a manifesto against Presbyterianism (and nascent Puritanism) as much as one against Rome and the other Churches the Anglicans believed to have 'erred' - Jerusalem, Antioch ...
So the Anglicans in the 16th century were setting their stall out against 'extreme' Catholicism (ie Rome) and also against Orthodoxy (Jerusalem and Antioch etc) as well as against 'extreme' Protestantism represented by the Presbyterians, Puritans and the Anabaptists ...
They were effectively setting themselves up as a 'third way' as it were ...
And yes, that is problematic on various scores as well as being very much 'of its time'.
The Anglicans were being awkward.
They still are. Perhaps that's the point.
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
:
Posted by LilBuddha:
quote:
You'd need to unpack this one. In my view, the CofE is a witness to the blending of Catholic and Protestant.
I can't unpack that for you but I do want to reiterate your point. Anglicanism and Episcopalianism's greatest strength (and weakness) has always existed in this fact of 'blending' as you call it. Pretty much every major religion around the world today is seeing a surge in fundamentalism, often combined with nationalism. Anglican and Episcopalian churches are not 'confessing' churches in the same way that others are but it still faces a very real challenge from a growing fundamentalism and nationalism. You can see it in terms of how the communion understands itself on a world scale. There is a growing desire for a centrality of power under the guise of 'discipline' which actually translates as 'I want everyone else to do as I do' even if the context and geography and culture is radically different. The whole concept of a world wide communion is eroding fast and there seems to be little impetus and desire to see the world wide communion as a positive thing. This represents an insular nationalism that has captured church politics in its net and for its own design. Not only that, but you can also see a growing fundamentalism in approaches to doctrine. GAFCON is an easy example; but setting that hot potato aside, for our purposes here, the issue of the doctrine of atonement is pertinent. There is a growing desire to assert penal substitutionary atonement as 'the' 'Protestant' defining doctrine. There are many reasons for this, but I do think a large part of it is about insecurities regarding identity, the desire to be of a certain camp and fix security of belief and practice, and sadly, to present a united front against the big and bad Roman Catholics who seem to be holding it together. The possible (and really quite incredible and truly relevant) witness of the Anglican communion world wide is being lost in the face of a growing fundamentalist and nationalist onslaught. There seems to be no desire to see the Anglican Communion as having a peculiar and particular witness of 'different yet in communion' as being of any relevance. If I was to reflect on it for too long I would get despairing.
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Why is it so important to identify as Protestant? IMO, to not be those nasty RCC.
If so, it's a prejudice shared by Roman Catholics. I've never (knowingly) come across a Roman Catholic who thought the C of E didn't count as Protestant.
Incidentally, if the Church of England isn't Protestant then it can't be a blend of Protestantism and Catholicism.
Posted by Ronald Binge (# 9002) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Why is it so important to identify as Protestant? IMO, to not be those nasty RCC.
If so, it's a prejudice shared by Roman Catholics. I've never (knowingly) come across a Roman Catholic who thought the C of E didn't count as Protestant.
Incidentally, if the Church of England isn't Protestant then it can't be a blend of Protestantism and Catholicism.
Well, I don't believe that Anglicanism is sine qua Protestantism. Individuals and tendencies within it are, but not as a whole. But then again I've been eyeing the Thames for a very long time.
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
and a denial of the strong witness of the Church of England within Protestantism.
You'd need to unpack this one. In my view, the CofE is a witness to the blending of Catholic and Protestant.
Quite happy to agree with this. There is no doubt that the CoE is odd. In my eyes gloriously, wonderfully, divinely odd - but definitely odd. However, surely it has to be both Catholic AND Protestant if it blends them?
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
However, surely it has to be both Catholic AND Protestant if it blends them?
nope. The CofE were never Protestant. They do have protestant interleaving, so I would say Catholic and protestant is closer.
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on
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Come now. How can you say "never Protestant" after all the evidence that has been presented here? I don't understand your reading of history at all.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Come now. How can you say "never Protestant" after all the evidence that has been presented here? I don't understand your reading of history at all.
Protestant are sects that began with doctrinal protest. The CofE did not begin this way.
protestant is a sect that has grown to adhere more to the doctrines of Protestantism than Catholicism. The CofE does meet this clearly and cleanly.
Yeah, that definition is perfect, but I do think it solid.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Anybody who "broke" from Rome before then, whatever you want to say about them, weren't Protestants.
I'd suggest it might not be quite that cut and dry. The Waldensians predate the Reformation, but once the Reformation occurred they aligned themselves with it and self-identified as Protestant, and have ever since.
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican_Brat:
Considering that mainline Presbyterians have, in modern times, downplayed some of the extremes of Calvinism (double predestination), one could argue that even Reformed denominations are not Reformed enough from a purely Calvinist perspective.
I'm not sure I'd say "downplayed." I might say re-examined, reconsidered, re-thought—which, it seems to me, is quintessentially Reformed. Semper reformanda and all that.
(And that leaves aside questions of the extent to which these extremes of Calvinism are central or peripheral to Calvin's overall theology.)
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Protestant are sects that began with doctrinal protest. The CofE did not begin this way.
protestant is a sect that has grown to adhere more to the doctrines of Protestantism than Catholicism. The CofE does meet this clearly and cleanly.
Yeah, that definition is perfect, but I do think it solid.
Is there any dictionary that makes this distinction between Protestant and protestant? I'm not sure how solid a definition it is if no one uses or recognizes it.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
Well, yes ... But that also raises the tangential question as to the extent to which subsequent generations of Calvinists remained congruent with Calvin's theology as set out in the Institutes - but then, that might be covered by the 'semper reformanda' thing.
I'm ploughing my way through the Institutes at the moment following a challenge from Jengie Jon. I may start a thread on what all the fuss is about once I have finished it. But don't hold your breath ...
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Well, yes ... But that also raises the tangential question as to the extent to which subsequent generations of Calvinists remained congruent with Calvin's theology as set out in the Institutes - but then, that might be covered by the 'semper reformanda' thing.
But in the context of the comment to which I was responding, which mentioned the possibility of not being "Reformed enough" from a Calvinist perspective, it has to be remembered that while Calvin does indeed loom large in the Reformed tradition, Reformed =/= Calvinist; Reformed includes Calvinist (in its various permutations), but is broader and not static. And Calvin is not to the Reformed tradition as Luther is to Lutheranism.
Good luck with the Institutes.
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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by Gamaliel;
quote:
I'm ploughing my way through the Institutes at the moment following a challenge from Jengie Jon. I may start a thread on what all the fuss is about once I have finished it. But don't hold your breath ...
Considering how long it takes a hyperlexic like me to get through the Institutes, I indeed won't be holding my breath! But I do submit that actually you'll find a surprising (to you) amount of it to be that 'Mere Christianity' stuff including a lot that even the RCC could agree with!
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
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No, that wouldn't be at all surprising to me, Steve Langton. It was exactly what I was expecting. I'm finding I'm nodding in agreement with Monsieur Calvin at many points whilst smiling indulgently at him on others.
The only thing I wish he'd do is hurry things along a bit - he can be tedious in some places but succinct in others.
Same as some of the Patristic and medieval writers too, of course.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The only thing I wish he'd do is hurry things along a bit - he can be tedious in some places but succinct in others.
Well, he was a lawyer, after all. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on
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I think Calvin would have liked to be succinct - but the opposition rather forced him into extensive 'having-to-nail-down-every-point'responses. There are moments when he clearly realises he is a bit 'prolix' to use his own word.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I'm sure that's the case, but let's not forget that, on one level, he was also 'the last of the medieval Scholastics.'
Which rather reinforces my point that none of us approach any of these issues outwith the influences and traditions that have gone before.
So, for instance, it's hardly surprising to find that Calvin believed the world to be about 6,000 years old and so on. Everyone else would have done the same - or more or less the same - around that time.
Some Shippies seem to think I have some kind of 'downer' on Calvin. I don't. I don't find him a barrel of laughs, but then I wasn't expecting to - nor was I expecting the Institutes to be a scintillating read. Most of the time I'm thinking to myself, 'So what's all the fuss about?'
Which also reinforces the point I keep making about the influence of Big T or small t traditions ... much of what Calvin wrote has simply become part of the 'wall-paper' of Protestantism so other than the contentious bits it's easy to think, 'Well, so what? We all know that ...' when we're reading him ...
The same applies to some Patristic material until you come across an eye-brow raising passage.
The same applies with anything else written within the broad mainstream of received small t tradition.
But this is a digression ...
Of course there are going to be 'Catholic' elements in Calvin - and that's one of the reasons why the Orthodox tend to look askance at him - they think he's way too Scholastic in a legalistic, Western sense ...
Posted by catnip (# 18638) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Protestant are sects that began with doctrinal protest. The CofE did not begin this way.
It seems that it didn't. It seems on the surface to have been an effort for a sovereign to get a divorce--and yet there had been efforts for quite some time, for example to introduce the Bible to the people in the vernacular. People were impressed with Luther's ideas; what was happening on the Continent wasn't being ignored. I don't know why Luther has been mentioned so rarely in the thread. In other words, Henry had maintained the status quo as a Catholic nation until he became frustrated in his selfish ambitions, but others were pushing change.
I think you are basing your opinion on outward appearances, especially in the Liturgy. Early on, they stripped the churches of all the Catholic excess, whitewashed the walls, took the cross off the altar and embraced the Protestant ideal. I do not see that the earliest protestant churches did immediately reinvent worship--that evolved. We modified it. The Lutherans certainly didn't.
I know I can't accept Catholic doctrine or belief and I am a cradle Piskie. I think we kept (or reintroduced) the best and lost the rest. We reason and reason is our greatest asset--we allow ambiguity, we consider everyone's doctrines and some of us, like Liberal Episcopalians have embraced and led change--ach! Reform!
The definition of what is or is not a protestant church doesn't change or morph over time. It remains the same. What made it protestant then is still profound now. Even when I was a little girl, Catholics heard the Mass in Latin. We haven't for four-hundred years.
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on
:
I think Luther hasn't been mentioned much in relation to the OP as the CofE hasn't been influenced very much by Luther himself - other than in the initial ideas he popularised in 1517 as part of what became a wider revolt ...
It is certainly the case, as chris stiles has reminded us, that things could have been different and the CofE gone down a more Lutheran route than a moderately Calvinist one ... which is what happened by the 1550s.
Ok, so there was an Arminian backlash/response to that under the Carolingian Divines ... but essentially James 1st was a kind of High Church Calvinist ('High Church' not having the kind of ritualistic connotations then as it does now).
Lots of early Anglicans were 'High and Dry' insofar as they had a 'high' view of ecclesiastical authority, but that didn't necessarily equate to a high view of ritual and ceremony.
Archbishop Laud was Arminian, certainly, but his rather cack-handed and clumsy attempts to restore what he saw as 'the beauty of holiness' certainly wasn't remotely 'Papist' in the way his opponents thought. Of course, it didn't help that Charles I was married to an RC, that simply confirmed Puritan fears that there was going to be some kind of Popish coup ...
I can see the distinction that lilBuddha is trying to make between Big P Protestant and small p protestant - as it's similar to distinctions that might be made over Big R Reformed as opposed to small r reformed ...
So the Calvinists might be seen as Big R Reformed whereas the Arminians could be categorised as small r reformed - because, as Jengie Jon has often reminded us, Arminianism is itself a subset of Reformed theology.
If lilBuddha is right and the CofE (and the Anglican communion more widely?) is small p protestant then it must surely follow that it is also small c catholic ...
So we may as well start a thread entitled, 'Why the CofE isn't Catholic ...'
Posted by Alan Cresswell (# 31) on
:
I attended a Lutheran church in Japan. And (apart from the language, being Japanese rather than English) the worship was very similar to Anglican services I've attended. Certainly, the Anglican services were much closer to Lutheran services than Church of Scotland services. Which seems to suggest the "more influenced by Reformed than Lutheran" idea isn't as simple as it sounds. Though I know historically that was the case.
I suspect that what I'm seeing is that both Anglican and Lutheran practices derived from Catholic practice with minimal changes. Whereas Reformed practice shifted the emphasis in worship quite considerably.
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
If lilBuddha is right and the CofE (and the Anglican communion more widely?) is small p protestant then it must surely follow that it is also small c catholic ...
So we may as well start a thread entitled, 'Why the CofE isn't Catholic ...'
Well, Robert Armin began by calling the CofE Protestant on the Mother Theresa thread. Though, to be honest, if he'd called them Catholic, I'd probably not have started this thread because in part:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I suspect that what I'm seeing is that both Anglican and Lutheran practices derived from Catholic practice with minimal changes. Whereas Reformed practice shifted the emphasis in worship quite considerably.
Posted by catnip (# 18638) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
[QUOTEIf lilBuddha is right and the CofE (and the Anglican communion more widely?) is small p protestant then it must surely follow that it is also small c catholic ...
So we may as well start a thread entitled, 'Why the CofE isn't Catholic ...'
Well said! We seem to be in the middle and rejected by both.
I am Episcopalian and so my views are probably influenced more by my background and I read history through that lens.
I apologize for my delay in responding here--I haven't been well.
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by catnip:
I apologize for my delay in responding here--I haven't been well.
Hope the fact that you're posting now means you're feeling better.
Posted by Russ (# 120) on
:
Seems to me that Protestantism was originally a set of ideas - associated with the names of Hus, Luther, etc
And that these reformers did genuinely want to reform the church rather than break from it.
But for political reasons, reform was resisted and breakaways happened.
So that Protestantism now also has the meaning of a system of church organisation, a system with its roots in a particular time and place.
In the first sense, there are degrees. A believer or group of believers can be mildly protestant or extremely protestant, depending on how much of that package of related ideas they've adopted.
In that sense, seems to me that the C of R might be called moderately protestant.
But in the second sense, the C of E started out as an independent-of-Rome English Catholic church and organizationally retains some ? Or much ? of that character.
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on
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Can anyone point me to any Roman Catholic document that says that to be Catholic you must ordain priest in apostolic succession?
Jengie
Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on
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Not sure what this means,Jengie.
I would claim to be Catholic,although I have never ordained anyone in apostolic succession.
Perhaps you are asking if all bishops have to be able to indicate that they are bishops in apostolic succession ? If so I would say,yes.
Obviously it cannot always be traced back to apostolic times in every single case,but it can be in many cases.
Each bishop has to have been ordained by three others representing the wider church and with a papal mandate.
Without the papal mandate,of course, I believe that it is much the same for Presbyterian ministers of the Church of Scotland who are ordained by representatives of the wider church
for service within a particular area of the wider church.
Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on
:
Should have indicated that you,Jengie, mentioned the ordaining of priests.
A Catholic priest has to be ordained by a validly ordained bishop (in apostolic succession).
The bishop (in apostolic succession) is the 'fount of sacraments' within his diocese and would determine who should be ordained a priest.
All of the faithful share in a way with the fruits of the apostolic succession.
Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on
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Jengie, this might be helpful.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Tangent alert
I've always been Protestant, but since the 23rd of June and for the first time in my life, I been beginning to wonder if the Reformation was such a good thing after all.
Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I've always been Protestant, but since the 23rd of June and for the first time in my life, I been beginning to wonder if the Reformation was such a good thing after all.
Enoch, I think some of us, myself included, are in danger of becoming Brexit obsessed! I've always been an English Catholic. Not Roman, though I went there once when it seemed the two could meet (The Ordinariate). But I'm so happy to be back in my original home. English, Catholic and somewhat reformed.
Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on
:
My reading of the above document is "We have apostolic succession because we are Catholic" not "We are Catholic because we have apostolic succession".
In other words, if the CofE can persuade the Roman Catholic Church of its Catholicity it will have no problem with recognising their bishops. The succession of itself does not apply Catholicity.
Jengie
Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on
:
Ah, but can the Roman Catholic church convince everybody else of its Catholicity? Are we really expected to believe that around the world and throughout the entire history of the church there has never been any form of interruption? I can think of a recent one in China that profoundly calls into question the central importance of apostolic succession to the Roman Catholic church, yet nobody seems that bothered.
Posted by Forthview (# 12376) on
:
Not sure what you are referring to here,F.C.
If you are referring to the Patriotic Catholic church and its bishops,they will have all been ordained validly with consecrators who are able to pass on 'apostolic succession'. They will have been ordained validly,but illicitly without a papal mandate.
Conversely the bishops in the 'underground' church will also have been ordained validly and licitly (with papal mandate)but will not bee recognised by the state authorities, much as Catholic bishops in England during penal times would not have been recognised by state authorities.
Now,of course, you may be thinking about something quite different........
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