I don't seem to be Anglican 'enough' for this commentator?

Discussion in 'Faith, Devotion & Formation' started by zimkhitha, Jun 8, 2016.

  1. zimkhitha

    zimkhitha Active Member

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    I picked this (quote below) from a commentor on Facebook and it seemed quite radical to me. I'd appreciate it if you can throw your thoughts into the mix.


    "Anglicanism is protestant and Reformed.
    We are not to invoke saints or have images.
    We do not believe in transubstantiation, purgatory or the mass.

    We hold to a spiritual presence as the reformers did, such as calvin and knox.

    I can see if you are talking about anglo catholics. But historic, authentic Anglicanism is none of those things.
    Please read the 39 articles and the book of homilies with the 1662 bcp. They are our confessions of faith."


    He is referring to authentic Anglicanism which sounds disconnected from the early Apostolic Church. I also understand the 39 articles not to be a confession of the faith but a document that offered clarity about the faith. It is also news to me that we do not believe in the "mass" - although I' m not quite sure what that means.

    I have no education in theology at all BUT always wonder why Anglicans quote Calvin, who in my understanding seemed to have left the church "as we understand it" to be?

    As an Anglo Catholic I will prefer not to talk at all about saints. I just believe there are excesses as well as acceptable behaviors when it comes to the communion of saints.
     
  2. Spherelink

    Spherelink Active Member

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    from what I have seen in my daily discourse and on this forum there are many kinds of people drawn to Anglicanism... There are some who are proud and refuse to shed the original perspective they held prior to becoming Anglican. Thus ex-RCs import all kinds of tridentine perspectives; this is most visible in the Ordinariate folks who pray to the saints and hold venerations for Mary. On the flip side there are post-evangelical folks who believe the church started in the sixteenth century and assume Anglicanism shares their views.

    These two types of folks like to battle each other without realizing that Anglicanism is its own thing, neither Roman Catholic nor what we currently understand to be Evangelical...

    Most Reformers were not what we'd call Evangelicals. Luther referred to the divine service as Mass for example. And while I do not, and our tradition prefers to call it the Divine Service, it doesn't matter what it's called as long as it is a sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving, not the romish doctrine of sacrifice of Christ by the Priest to God. That is what the romans consider to be 'the mass' and since they have so many millions of followers their meaning becomes normative, and can anyone imagine a worse doctrine of the mass than theirs?

    So to sum up there are valid reasons for avoiding certain Roman practices many of which are unhelpful and sometimes can be outright blasphemous. But we should also avoid 'intemperate' fresh Anglican converts who haven't fully submitted themselves to the mind of the Church, as your aggressive Facebook poster seems to be
     
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  3. Mark

    Mark Well-Known Member Anglican

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    Your face book friend seems more Presbyterian than Anglican.

    The Anglican Church is Catholic. Just not Roman.
    The Anglican Church is not protestant like the continental reformers. Or at least the way they have developed.

    Anglican are not confessional. We are Creedal. Anglicans have not written any Confessions of Faith. The Puritans
    who hijacked the Church, kill a King and generally destroyed everything that did not fit their very narrow world view
    wrote confessions of faith. Romans write confessions, call catechism. These are strict laws that cover every aspect of life.

    So your friend saying Anglicans are confessional......does not know what is Anglicanism.

    We do not hold to a spiritual presence as the reformers like calvin and knox did. They limited God by saying the Spiritual Presence is only
    there if the person who is receiving believes. To them God can not act unless they believe. Flys in the face of the teaching of Jesus and St Paul
    as Scripture tells us. That is not Anglicanism nor Catholicism as practiced by the early church or the church in Britain.

    Also, the 39 Articles are not binding on any Anglican other than clergy in the CoE. From my understanding.

    The 39 Articles has an article XIX Of the Church. Seems Churches can commit error. So is Anglicanism in error for some beliefs. Can the church
    be in error for holding to the beliefs your friend espouses. Is what he believes in line with Church teaching from the beginning? St Vincent of Lerin;s
    creed as to what is catholic and dogmatic? Or is it something newly created and vainly believed.
    The 39 Articles were written, re-written, added to and taken away from over the years. As it fit the theology of those in power.

    Remember, it is the Romish teachings on the Mass, Saints, Purgatory etc the articles reject. Not the Orthodox teachings held by the Church for
    2000 years.

    I remember Rev Dr Albert Mohler, a calvinistic Southern Baptist in charge of a Baptist Seminary once said. When someone converts to Calvinism, we should lock them up until they gain their senses and understand what being a Calvinist means. He said it because converts to calvinism usually go overboard and half cock as they only have a small understanding of Calvinism.

    It happens with any converts. Look at newly convert Anglicans to Romanism. They can be rabid in their speech and actions.


    I am an Anglo-Catholic. I believe in Real Presence, asking the Saints to pray for us and Purgatory. Just not as Rome wrongly teaches. I think when
    we try to explain the mysteries of out faith is when we start getting into error.

    In Christ

    Fr. Mark
     
  4. Christina

    Christina Active Member

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    It is because of quotes like this that many are confused about what Anglican teaching is. Some evangelical Anglican Churches may, indeed, teach all or some of what this person says. My early experiences of belonging to an evangelical Anglican Church bears this out. Anglo Catholicism is more in tune with the teachings of the early Church and the teachings of the early (historic) Anglican Church in my view.
     
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  5. zimkhitha

    zimkhitha Active Member

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    Thanks for the responses. It is my understanding as well that Anglicanism is not as puritan as the poster tried to paint it as.

    I also like what Spherelink pointed out : that there are those who speak about the Anglican Church as a church that started in the 16th century. Such line of thinking immediately seperates one from the mind of the early and undivided church.

    I also believe in most of the things the poster has labelled as unAnglican, only that I try and seek the mind of the early church regarding those things, and not look up to Rome or 16th century writings.
     
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  6. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    If you went to mass the week before Henry VIII declared the separation, and then went to Mass the following week, what would you notice? Same Priest, Same Vestments, Same Liturgy, different lections.

    The point being that the separation was not a doctrinal split, however it happened in the midst of and ongoing theological discussion in Europe. There is no doubt that Anglican Theology and Liturgy has been impacted by the reformers, however the Church did not abandon its catholic heritage, but endeavoured to steereth the middle way.

    As Anglicans we are not particularly a membership Church, we are a church for all sorts and conditions of folk. We have no creeds save the creeds of the Church Catholic and Apostolic. We have always been a bit of a melting pot, which is part of why we have been so good for the theology of the whole Church for the last few hundred years. Vatican II - love it or hate it - was significantly influenced by JHN.

    As Anglicans we try to be True to Christ, True to the people, Definite in Mission, Strong in service, and committed in Theology. Some Anglicans seems close to Geneva, and some rather closer to Constantinople, the challenge for us is to have a enough stretch to encompass the faithful.
     
  7. rakovsky

    rakovsky Active Member

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    Anglicanism is not necessarily Protestant.
    It is not "Reformed".
    Anglicanism believes in the mass.
    Many Anglican theologians have come to opposite conclusions on what Articles 28-29 says about the Eucharistic presence.
    TEC website suggests it teaches Receptionism, while Bicknell said that it taught the real presence in the bread.
     
  8. rakovsky

    rakovsky Active Member

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    Anglo Catholicism does a good job focusing on the early church fathers.

    On the other hand, in the early, 16th c. Anglican Church, Bp. Cheyney was excommunicated because he opposed Article 29 as he considered it to contradict the real presence in the bread. Article 28 explicitly rejects Transubstantiation.
     
  9. anglican74

    anglican74 Well-Known Member Anglican

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    I'm just poking my head in this thread and see rakovsky causing ruckus again. @rakovsky you're not an Anglican. Don't tell us who we are or what we believe. I've already addressed your slanders against Anglican eucharistic theology.
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2016
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  10. rakovsky

    rakovsky Active Member

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    What I have done in the message above is to answer Zimkhitha by saying whom Anglicans (collectively) say they are or what they believe.
    Let me know if you disagree with any of the statements I made.

    Is Anglicanism Catholic or Reformed?
    Greg Goebel June 11, 2015 Anglicanism 5 Comments
    Most American evangelicals experience a church world that is either protestant/reformed or catholic. You have to be one or the other. For many ‘catholic’ means “Roman Catholic”; ‘reformed’ means “calvinist”; ‘Protestant’ means “Not Roman Catholic.” The Orthodox churches are kind of silently off to the side in most of these schemes.

    Anglicanism, however, had a unique history that wreaks havoc on these neat labelling systems.
    http://anglicanpastor.com/is-anglicanism-catholic-or-reformed/

    • Anglicanism: Protestant or Catholic?
    • It cannot be said, however, that the Anglican tra-dition as a whole intended to break with the greater Catholic tradition with regard to the ministerial hier-archy and its functions: the undeniable break with Rome did not mean a break with catholicity, but rather a desire for reform of the Church from within...
    • This became most apparent during the reign ofQueen Elizabeth I, who was looking for amodusvivendiwith the papacy and who personally inclinedtoward an Anglo-Catholicism.... This intermediateposition was characteristic of Anglicanism in its sub-sequent history as well.... It does not seem thereforein keeping with reality to label the Anglican ChurchasProtestant.
    • http://stpaulsparish.org/education/documents/protestant_or_catholic.pdf
     
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  11. Madeline

    Madeline Well-Known Member

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    Please excuse me if this is a bit off topic, but I'd just like to mention that I love Fr. Mark's statement,

    I think when we try to explain the mysteries of our faith is when we start getting into error.
    For me, anyway, I treasure the mysteries of our faith. Our discussion of transubstantiation is one of them, the Trinity is another. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't discuss them; we can just keep in mind that some things we can't expect to address correctly with our limited human understanding.

    Now, back to our topic...
     
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  12. Christina

    Christina Active Member

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    I think my point was that you cannot easily say what Anglicans collectively believe, other than, I hope, the Creeds. The Articles of Faith for instance can be interpreted in different ways. With regards individual Anglicans, certainly in the UK some modern day Anglicans regard themselves as Protestant (I did when I belonged to an Evangelical Anglican Church), others do not. If you asked a range of belief questions to a mixed group of low, broad and high Church members you would be likely to get a mixed bag of answers - some of which might seem to contradict each other.

    Interestingly, I haven't come across Churches that talk about being Reformed Churches in the UK. Sure there will be Churches with a Calvinist view, but I haven't heard them termed Reformed Churches in the UK.
     
  13. Phoenix

    Phoenix Moderator Staff Member Anglican

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    It may help the discussion to take a look at our page discussing historic Anglican norms for orthodoxy and the explanation for the "Anglican badge" you may see on some members here:
    http://forums.anglican.net/pages/orthodoxy/

    It may also be illuminating to look at the original thread which fueled the creation of the Anglican badge. There we discuss the modern crisis of Anglican identity and the return to the historic norms:
    http://forums.anglican.net/threads/anglican-forums-reformation-advent-2014.1257/

    In particularly you may enjoy the Formulary Polemic (http://forums.anglican.net/threads/anglican-forums-reformation-advent-2014.1257/#post-19453) which discusses the ways in which various camps within the Church have abused the formularies.
     
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  14. rakovsky

    rakovsky Active Member

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    This is why I wrote:
    "Anglicanism is not necessarily Protestant.
     
  15. Christina

    Christina Active Member

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    I think I would say that Anglicanism isn't Protestant, but that some Anglicans regard themselves as Protestant.
     
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  16. Christina

    Christina Active Member

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    Thanks, I will look those up.
     
  17. rakovsky

    rakovsky Active Member

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    What city in England do you live in, may I ask, Christina?