Via Media

Discussion in 'Church History' started by Peteprint, Feb 6, 2014.

  1. Peteprint

    Peteprint Well-Known Member Anglican

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    What is your take on it? I tend to agree with the via media construct? While arguably a majority of Anglican writers have been what could be considered Protestant, there are enough leaning towards the Catholic perspective that it is difficult to say without qualification that Anglicanism is Protestant.
     
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  2. Elizabethan Churchman

    Elizabethan Churchman Active Member

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    I wouldn't put a dichotomy between "Protestantism" and "Catholicism." As McGrath points out, Protestantism is a big tent. So long as you subscribe to the Five Solas, then you are a "Protestant." However, too often Protestants, in their zeal against Roman Catholicism, go off in anti-Visible Church and anti-Sacramental ditches. While that does protect them from Roman Catholic excess, it also leads to Anabaptist and relativist theology.

    To me, Catholicism is about a high view of the Church and Her Sacraments. High views of the Church and Sacraments are perfectly compatible with Protestantism, as long as they don't involve infallibility of the Church or ex opere operato sacramental views.
     
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  3. The Hackney Hub

    The Hackney Hub Well-Known Member

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    The via media construct is a poor one, considering its author left Anglicanism for Romanism (Newman). Anglicanism is a Protestant Church with historically High and Low interpretations. Elizabethan Churchman brings up the crucial point of distinguishing between catholicism and Romanism.
     
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  4. Lowly Layman

    Lowly Layman Well-Known Member

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    That's an ad hominem argument. Newman's departure has no bearing on the merit of "via media" as a standard for Amglicanism. Are you prepared to discount the merit of Cranmer's contributions to Anglicanism because he had at one been allied with the church of Rome and later recanted his works on the English reformation? The phrase is accurate (or not) based on how well it captures Anglican ethos
     
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  5. Elizabethan Churchman

    Elizabethan Churchman Active Member

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    I think it depends on how the idea is used. Newman and subsequent Anglo-Catholic writers have used the via media as an interpretive scheme for the history of Anglicanism. Using it in that way is anachronistic at best and totally wrong-headed at worst. However, I do think you can say that overtime Anglicanism has become a middle way between vapid revivalist Evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism because the Catholic forces within the Church of England were much stronger than within Presbyterian and Reformed Churches.

    This also depends on geography to some extent: Northern United States Protestants have tended to retain more High Church traditions because the Baptists have not been as influential there as in the South. Southern Protestants are more influenced by Baptist theology since the Baptists have been much more influential there than the North.

    I agree. However, I'm just not sure how Low Church views can sustain Anglicanism in the United States' context. There really isn't much reason to become or remain a Low Church Anglican in the United States (and I'm willing to bet Canada) other than tradition or an emotional attachment to Albion, not that either of those is a bad thing, just not something that provides much rational justification for an independent North American Anglican Church. It seems to me that the only place Low Church Anglicanism can really thrive is somewhere with an Established Church or where it is the only viable option, like some African countries. The main reason we even have an Anglican Church here is because the High Churchmen were committed to episcopacy. Otherwise, it's easy to imagine the United States Anglican Church dissolving into Congregational denominations while retaining a Book of Common Prayer, maybe eventually being a constituent part of the modern United Church of Christ.

    It also commits the genetic fallacy. Just because an idea comes from a bad source does not make it wrong itself.
     
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  6. The Hackney Hub

    The Hackney Hub Well-Known Member

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    Newman himself discredited the theory; read his later works. Your comparison to Cranmer is a faulty one and a bad comparison. Where do you see a via media being proposed in Articles 19, 22, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, or 32?

    I would also like to see where the via media is espoused in Homilies Book 1 1, 3, 4, 5, or Book 2 2 or 9 (to start). Page number and paragraph will do.
     
  7. Elizabethan Churchman

    Elizabethan Churchman Active Member

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    The Anglo-Catholic via media theory is bunk, on that I think we both agree. However, you did use a faulty argument to justify your objection (i.e., Newman's apostasy into Romanism).

    Personally, I can't speak for Lowly Layman, I'm just using the term or idea to express the fact that Anglicanism doesn't throw away her Catholic heritage as hastily as other Protestants might (save Lutheranism perhaps). That's the way many Anglicans use the term at an ordinary level. They're not necessarily thinking about the 19th Century Anglo-Catholic theory of some kind of half-baked middle way scheme that Anglicans have supposedly pursued.
     
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  8. Spherelink

    Spherelink Active Member

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    Where did he do that?
    ;

    I think he is arguing against the future or prior actions of a person having bearing on the validity of their present opinion.

    We're all on the same side here. What's the need to get aggressive?
     
  9. The Hackney Hub

    The Hackney Hub Well-Known Member

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    I'm not referring to his conversion to Rome as the reason for the invalidity of his via media theory but his own writings in which he discredits the theory. I believe it is in his Apologia. If the theoretician who proposes a theory cannot abide by it, it should be questioned. Newman's conversion brings suspicion to his theory. History and his own writings confirm these suspicions.
     
  10. The Hackney Hub

    The Hackney Hub Well-Known Member

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    Plenty of folks are comfortable with liturgical and episcopal Protestantism, without ascribing necessity to these things. Really, there isn't much of a theological gap between High and Low Church Anglicanism, in their historical varieties. The real issues had to do with the level of comprehension that the national church should extend to Dissenting people. It's really a question of emphasis. Only a handful of theologians held to the esse view, all Anglicans were committed to the episcopacy, just not the necessity of it.
     
  11. The Hackney Hub

    The Hackney Hub Well-Known Member

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    Really, though, it's not useful to talk about High and low Church anymore, since there are hardly any real High Church folks around.
     
  12. Elizabethan Churchman

    Elizabethan Churchman Active Member

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    How were we supposed to know that when said that Newman's theory was wrong "considering its author left Anglicanism for Rome"? That sounds an awful lot like you are dismissing the theory on the basis of his later conversion. That even leaks into your somewhat better argument (i.e., his later rejection of the via media approach). His later argument, from what I understand at least, is that there is no middle ground between Roman Catholicism and the sort of sola scriptura where it's just you and your Bible under the tree without any regard to the wider community and tradition of the Church. In other words, you cannot accept Protestant doctrine without throwing away the Catholic Church and Her historic faith. Of course, you and I as Protestants would reject such bogus reasoning or such interpretations of sola scriptura.

    However, what's the greater danger today? Are we more likely to say other Protestant Churches are not really Churches because they happen to lack mitres or to throw away the importance of the historic faith of the Church and her Catholic order? Despite the prevalence of Anglo-Catholicism amongst Continuing and realignment folks, the greater danger seems to me to throw away our historic Catholic faith than our Protestantism. Anglo-Catholicism is not exactly a thriving movement in Anglicanism these days: Why beat a dead horse? It's like the Evangelical New Testament scholars who spend more time beating up fringe versions of King James Onlyism, as if that's some kind of massive threat to orthodoxy, than defending the text of the New Testament against rank heretics and non-believers.

    There is no massive movement of people from Evangelicalism to Romanism, despite what Called to Communion would have unsuspecting Millenial idealists believe. There is a massive movement towards relativistic feel-good religion with only the loosest commitment to the traditional doctrines of Christianity. I'm not talking about mainline liberalism necessarily, but more Postmodernism and Postliberalism. Even liturgical revival is mostly associated with Emergent folks' unnatural affinity for lace and the smell of incense than any sort of commitment to Common Prayer and Worship. Evangelicalism has become so vapid that popular conservatives welcome rank non-Trinitarian heretics like T.D. Jakes into their meetings. Try explaining the importance of the Athanasian Creed to the ordinary Evangelical these days: You might as well try to convince Richard Dawkins that the Earth is 6,000 years old. Any movement towards unreformed catholicism is a reaction to that sort of empty, tradition-less, unreasoning "Evangelicalism," not because Anglo-Catholics are putting forward bunk theories about a via media.

    I know that was a bit of a rant, but it does reflect my thoughts and feelings about the state of Christianity and Evangelicalism in the U.S.A.
     
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  13. The Hackney Hub

    The Hackney Hub Well-Known Member

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    I serve in a predominately Anglo-Catholic diocese and most of my experience of Anglicanism leads me to see the enduring and growing influence of Anglo-Catholicism. I can't really share your attitude towards it.
     
  14. Elizabethan Churchman

    Elizabethan Churchman Active Member

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    I'm just not sure you can say its influence is "growing." Yes, it's there. Yes, it has a faulty understanding of the nature of Anglicanism: But growing? I'm not really sure you can say that. Anglo-Catholicism appears to be on the defensive against the overwhelming weight of Church historical scholarship and liberalism. Of course, conservative Evangelicals in Anglicanism can also be said to be on the defensive for different reasons.

    I'm also putting Anglicanism in the context of other traditions, not within itself. Defining Anglicanism as opposed to faulty understandings within the tradition is different than defining her opposed to other traditions (Catholic or Protestant). Promoting Anglicanism to other Protestants I emphasize the "Catholic" teachings of the Book of Common Prayer and the Elizabethan Settlement while pointing out that Anglicanism is clearly Protestant. Against Roman Catholics, I primarily defend the Five Solas while still pointing out Anglicanism is an expression of the historic Catholic faith.

    All I'm saying is that defending the Catholic heritage is more important right now, in the broader picture, than defending the Protestant nature of Anglicanism. The Catholic heritage is more at risk in the broader context of the American Church. That might not be the case in your diocese, but I'm talking about the broader American Christian Church, not particular dioceses, or even just the Anglican subculture within the American Christian Church.
     
    Last edited: Feb 7, 2014
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  15. Spherelink

    Spherelink Active Member

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    I think the via media has merit. Depends on how you define it. What's the passage from the Apologia on this?
     
  16. Spherelink

    Spherelink Active Member

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    The Anglicanorum Coetius has proven to be a colossal failure.
     
  17. Elizabethan Churchman

    Elizabethan Churchman Active Member

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    Exactly. The only large movement towards Romanism and Eastern Orthodoxy is among intellectual uber-conservatives: Not exactly a large group of people in the age of relativism. Now, I think they go too far in abandoning the Reformation, but I do empathize with their sentiments in regard to the emptiness of modern evangelicalism and that Neo-Puritanism is not the correct answer (I also empathize to some extent with Neo-Puritans).

    I think the answer is dig out the old creeds and catechisms and reaffirm our Reformed Catholic heritage, not to join the modern assault against authority, particularly Church and religious authority. According to the modern Evangelical, the greatest threat to Jesus is "religion." Just a couple weeks ago, a college friend, who is now a "pastor" at the ripe old age of 21, claimed the greatest threat to his "spiritual walk" was the temptation to "serve the Church and not God" and to be distracted by Churchgoers problems, as if to serve the Church and Her suffering members is not to serve God. When he gave this advice, everyone was acting like this was some kind of profound wisdom being handed down. I really wish I were making that up, but I'm not.

    Whatever the case, High views of the institutional Church is not a threat to the average modern person's psyche.

    @The Hackney Hub

    I'm not claiming you're wrong necessarily, I'm just saying that Anglo-Catholicism and esse views of episcopacy (neither of which I believe, though I do hold to divine right episcopacy) are not the greatest threat in modern Christianity. They might be an issue in your diocese, and I absolutely support addressing those sorts of faulty views when they are advocated for. I'm just saying that on the ground for many of us the extreme opposite is the main problem.
     
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  18. Spherelink

    Spherelink Active Member

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    I'm with ya all the way. The institutional evangelicals (if there ever was a contradiction) are making the church out to be the enemy, when the church is the one thing standing between the world and atheism. And high churchism is not a problem. We need to combat the equivocation some make between Romanism and high churchism, when in the Anglican context running to Rome would be a manifestation of a low regard for our church institutions. High churchism in our case demands a strong rejection of the Roman bells and whistles.
     
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  19. seagull

    seagull Active Member

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    In contrast, the Church in Wales, traditionally a largely "nonconformist" country, is fairly high church, whilst the Church of Ireland, situated in a largely Roman Catholic island, is low church and refers to itself as Protestant.
     
  20. Elizabethan Churchman

    Elizabethan Churchman Active Member

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    Interesting point. You could also bring the Scottish Episcopalian Church's tendency towards High Churchmanship even though surrounded by Presbyterians. Might be a difference based on the history of establishment on the British Isles. In the United States, denominations have cooperated with each other from a relatively early point in history, but establishment encouraged the Anglican Churches to do their own thing in Britain. In the U.S., that might have had a moderating influence on theology across denominations, while in Britain there might have been pressure to exaggerate difference from the prevailing popular winds, or, in the case of Ireland at least, identify with fellow Protestants.