Letter to the faithful on the Notification sent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi

All true. And there is much to admire in the original Puritans. Not all of them became Separatists. Many remained in the Church of England, and practiced, albeit with some reservations, yet nevertheless in good faith.

 

A Christian religion without theology is nothing more than superstition. Paul's letter to the Romans is a theological treatise as much as it is anything; you can say the same for the epistle to the Hebrews. If you do not understand the nature of the God you worship -- his nature, his being, his works, his ultimate goals -- then why would you worship this being at all? Theology often comes after conversion, to be sure...but it must appear, else the faith will either gutter and die or spin off into a thousand fruitless directions. The whole history of American Christianity is the story of how bad (or absent) theology leads churches astray. (The abominable "prosperity Gospel" is one of the very worst things Americans have ever bequeathed the world, and it is burning like wildfire through Africa and Asia as we speak.)

 

J. I. Packer was pretty much a neo-Puritan in theology. Even John Stott was fond of the Puritan writers, though his evangelicalism wasn't very Puritan itself (he was an annihilationist, among other things). But I think it is through Packer's teaching, preaching, and writing that neo-Puritan ideas still live on in the Anglican church.

 

To be clear, I understood you to be asking whether Anglicanism possessed its own theological system. Of course, every religious community has its own ways of speaking about God, and this (at least) is true of Anglicanism no less than any other church or sect.

 

If you mean a fully rationalized, in-detail work laying out all the particulars, then no, Anglicans do not have the equivalent of Aquinas' Summa Theologica, Calvin's Institutes, or Barth's Church Dogmatics. Anglicans have the Bible; they also have their BCP, which functions more or less as a theological statement. The BCP contains the creeds and confessions, the ordinal, the litany, and (at least in the ACNA BCP) the founding documents of the Province (the Jerusalem Declaration). To affirm that book is to affirm the theology in it. And it does have a coherent, fully-fleshed-out, Anglican theology.

Bible, BCP, and the Catechism: these are the fundamentals of Anglicanism. Other things can profitably be read, of course, but nothing more is necessary.

 

I'm more inclined to say that "neo-puritan" thoughts live on in the Anglican church independently of Packer, but Packer's writings certainly lend support to them.

Puritanism was early evangelicalism, and (as you know) Packer explains the tensions between evangelicalism (advanced by the Puritans) and establishmentarianism (advanced by the Caroline divines, but also a distinguishing feature of the RCC).

 

Interesting question. I have to think on this one awhile. I am one subject away from a graduate degree in Theology and I still wonder about things. LOL

Maybe I just like things to be simple. The Catechism of the RC Church just seems so rigid. I loved the Summa, although perhaps just in an intellectual way.

I can agree with the Creed and make baptismal promises, but having seen so many differing opinions in the Early Church, and throughout the centuries, I just wonder why things can't return to basics and be less institutionalised.

 

Every age has been a heretical and wicked age. It's just the types of heresy and wickedness which constantly war for supremacy in the world and in the church, which is in the world, but various members of the visible part of it not of the world. Matt. 16:4. Matt. 12:34-39. John 17:14-16. Matt.13:23-30.
.

 

Are you asking that about the churches on the cusp on Progressive Christianity or agnostic universalism? I can't imagine what a theology would look like for those groups.

 

This is a good opportunity to bring this discussion back around to Speaker Pelosi and her troubles with the Roman Catholic church. In this particular drama, you see a politician being pulled in two different directions by two different faiths. Pelosi's brand of leftism is no less a religious faith than the Christianity she claims; and it's clear that her heart belongs to the leftist religion and not the Roman Catholic church. If you want to see what the systematic theology of the left-liberal church is, you see it on display on the daily: radical personal autonomy in carnal matters, but rigid conformity in matters of philosophy and public conduct; no conception of (or concern for) past tradition or future consequences -- everything occurs in the eternal present; a conviction that everything -- literally everything -- is relative, a product of social convention and temporal and physical exigencies. "Good" and "evil" are not a thing in any absolute sense; there is only an endless struggle for power between the oppressors and the oppressed. (And the definition of "oppressor" and "oppressed" is likewise fluid and changes from day to day.) This religion has holy books, saints (George Floyd is the most recent inductee into the leftist calendar of saints), sacraments (abortion is a major one -- if you doubt it, just look at the performative hysteria that will erupt when and if Roe is overturned), sins, and sacrifices (abortion again). What this religion does not offer is salvation, forgiveness, or redemption. Apostates may never be fully accepted back into the fold.

You are witnessing, in real time, the development of a secular religion that echoes the rise of Marxism in the 19th and 20th centuries. As Christianity recedes, and Marxism collapses under the weight of its own failures, this is what is rushing in to fill the void. But don't make the mistake of thinking that this movement is amorphous or spontaneous. It is actually very systematic (and I would argue deliberately constructed, if you take the men of the Frankfurt School as the founding Fathers of this particular religion).

 

I think you might be projecting some of your own ideas here. I am not saying I know what Pelosi's thoughts are on this matter, but as a woman I can tell you that it is perfectly possible to be pro choice without seeing it as a religion. I hold many views that people on here might see as being 'liberal' or 'leftest' when they are simply my opinions. But to a person of more conservative opinions, it appears to be some of 'religion'? Good and evil do exist in my belief system and I do enjoy holy books and sacraments etc that are Christian.

To me, this kind of tarring all persons who are pro choice with the same brush seems counter-productive in any dialogue. It also smacks of a personal attack on Pelosi, disguised as an intellectual argument, which really doesn't forward the more conservative point of view in any positive way.

I am not saying that there aren't more secular religions developing, but really, is it necessary to present your argument as fact using emotional triggers, rather than simply stating your point of view. Neither you nor I know what is in Speaker Pelosi's soul - only God does.

 

Matt. 7:16-20 gives you the answer.

The usual paraphrase of this passage is, "By their works ye shall know them."

James extends this idea in James 1:22-25:

In other words, to follow Christ is to behave as Christ (as nearly as we sinners are able) and follow Christ's commands. Pelosi's disobedience is plain to the world, not just to God. She may be a hearer of the word, but she does not do as the word commands.

And the notion that Christians cannot call out such misbehavior is nonsense, and not Biblically-grounded. See the words of our Lord in Matt. 18:15-17:

 

I was proposing the question more generally, without intending to imply a negative answer.

Anglicans, unlike Lutherans and Reformed, have their own theological terms (first-order theology), but not a unique and agreed upon set of theological concepts (second-order theology) to which those terms necessarily refer, and historically this is by deliberate design.

In terms of comparative religion, the insistence upon a uniform second-order theology is the exception rather than the rule. Eastern Orthodoxy has no second-order theology. Orthodox Judaism has many competing schools of thought, as does Roman Catholicism. Sunni Islam recognizes at least 3 different theological systems as valid. And so on. Anglicanism is certainly not unique in not having a singular, second-order theology. The question then becomes, what particular problem(s) would be solved by Anglicanism having one?

 

There is no biblical justification for Roman Catholic teaching on abortion. The sole dogmatic basis for their position is the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, an absolute cluster of idle speculation if ever there was one. Given the lack of biblical statements on the subject, and given that what the Scriptures do say tend to point in the opposite direction, as Judaism has always recognized, to say that Speaker Pelosi “does not do as the word commands” is a serious stretch.

 

And I've already explained to you that this is not Roman Catholic doctrine, but essential Christian doctrine. Otherwise, you violate the person of Jesus Christ as an unborn infant of the Virgin Mary, who was fully a Person and still fully God even at the moment of conception by the Holy Spirit. If this is true of Christ as Very Man, then it is true of all human beings.

EDIT:
Consider Luke 1:26-38. Mary is affirmed a virgin in that passage.

 

And I’ve already explained to you that the Scriptures don’t actually say that, nor were they understood to have said that by the Church’s most eminent teachers for the vast majority of the history of the Church. I’m committed to upholding the Anglican standard here, and sound exegesis, not Roman Catholic speculation and superstition.

The Scriptures themselves do not teach Greek-style body/soul dualism, and the later Church, which accepted such dualism, considered it an acceptable theological opinion that a fetus wasn’t “ensouled” until quickening (which can be as late as 25 weeks).

EDIT: The Luke passage does not actually say what you want it to say:

• No definition of personhood;
• No statement of the fact or the moment of ensoulment;
• No statement of the moment of Incarnation itself.
• The overall thrust of the passage points toward birth being the defining moment, in accordance with biblical teaching and the traditional Jewish understanding of that teaching.

 

I forgot to add: as to Immaculate Conception (the idea that Mary was without sin herself) is a non-issue in this context. She was chosen by God as the mother of Jesus Christ, so her bona fides are beyond reproach in any earthly sense. I think the Roman Catholic veneration of Mary goes beyond what is theologically allowable, but the doctrine of Immaculate Conception should not come to bear on this issue even if one is a Roman Catholic.

Except in all the places it does do exactly that, such as in the passage in Luke I quoted above. An Angel of God told Mary that she would bear the Son of God. This was not a promise, but a certain assurance. Jesus as the Son of God was certain to enter the world as the Son of Mary; it was the Father's will, and the Father's will cannot be subverted. Thus Christ's incarnation was in some sense a fait accompli from the foundations of the world. Christ was a Person before the Incarnation; he was Very Man at the moment of conception. Both soma and pneuma, bound in one being, from that point and forever afterward. We are not of a dual nature as Jesus was -- we are not God. But we do have a duality of both body and spirit, and retain both of those things everlastingly.

Consider Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:12-20, where he assures us of our resurrection in the body:

We are not souls only, nor bodies only, but both inextricably twined together. As is our Lord, Jesus Christ, who retains his incarnate physical body still.

 

Of course it bears on it. It is the only dogmatic basis for their incoherent teaching of conception-personhood. Until that dogma was defined in 1854, there was no official Christian teaching anywhere in the world that original sin was imputed - and therefore that the unborn subject was a moral person - from the moment of conception. It was about as anti-traditional a dogma as it was possible to define at that time.

 

Christ must have been a Person at conception, because he was a Person before the Incarnation. His nature as God is eternal and immutable. Yet if he was Very Man at the incarnation, this personhood of Christ cannot be unique -- it must be shared by all people. It cannot be otherwise if we accept the true humanity of Christ. To assert otherwise is to fall prey to the Nestorian heresy (or Docetism).

 

Regrettably (and I hate to say this), you have accidentally put your finger on a flaw in your argument. The flaw is, Jesus is a 'special case' since He preexisted the incarnation. Whereas human beings do not preexist conception as Jesus did. (Sorry!)