Along with the scriptures which we believe to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, Anglican
Christianity, trusting that the same Spirit continues to move in the Church, looks to a broader foundation in the tradition of the Church,
particularly the first five centuries.
Tradition is not the dead weight of the past but rather the momentum of past Spirit-led faithfulness giving us direction and propelling us forward.
“One canon
reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general
councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that period – the
centuries that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of
our faith.”
– Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Opuscula Quaedam Posthuma Lanceloti Andrewes, Episcopi Wintoniensi
– Richard Hooker (1554-1600), Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
“[N]o man can
set a better state of the question between Scripture and tradition, than Hooker
doth. His words are these: ‘The Scripture is the ground of our belief; the
authority of man (that is the name he gives to tradition) is the key which
openeth the door of entrance into the knowledge of the Scripture.’ . . . [W]e
resolve our faith into Scripture as the ground; and we will never deny that
tradition is the key that lets us in.”
– William Laud (1573-1645), A Relation of the Conference between William Laud and Mr. Fisher the Jesuit
“[Anglican
Christianity] is conspicuously orthodox on the great fundamentals of the
Trinity and the Incarnation. [Anglicanism] accepts the ecumenical councils as
criteria of heresy.”
– Charles Gore (1852-1932), Roman Catholic Claims
“Traditions themselves embody dimensions of conflict and ambiguity, and a quest for tradition should never be confused with a return to past conventions of a straightforward kind. Tradition is rather a quest for rich and fertile soil, for grounding, for a profound basis for discipleship, for something that is more adequate and abiding than the shifting sands of fashion. To be outside all traditions is, as Alasdair MacIntyre has argued, is to be intellectually and morally destitute.”
– Kenneth Leech (1939-2015), The Eye of the Storm, Living Spiritually in the Real World
The real development of theology is rather the process in which the Church, standing firm in her old truths, enters into the apprehension of the new social and intellectual movements of each age: and because 'the truth makes her free' is able to assimilate all new material, to welcome and give its place to all new knowledge, to throw herself into the sanctification of each new social order, bringing forth out of her treasures things new and old, and shewing again and again her power of witnessing under changed conditions to the catholic capacity of her faith and life.”
– Charles Gore (1853-1932), Lux Mundi, Preface
“The Church has also met the different phases of the world's attack by adaptations in her discipline, in changes in her worship, and by forging new spiritual weapons of her own. . .
It has been asked whether St. Vincent's rule applies to Practice as well as Doctrine. It is applicable only to doctrine and to such practices as involve doctrine. St. Vincent says, ‘which ancient consent of the holy Fathers is with great care to be investigated and followed by us, not in all the lesser questions of the Divine Law, but only or at any rate principally in the Rule of Faith’ [i.e., the Creed] . . .
We have ventured to add to Vincent's rule one further test: the practical one of Christian Experience. What, we may ask ourselves, does the Christian Experience or Christian Consciousness bear witness to in any matter?
It is certainly a very useful test, to some minds more powerful than any other, and it may by God's blessing help to draw all schools of Churchmen closer together. This, we may remark if our Church is to fulfil its noble mission, is the thing pre-eminently to be labored for by us all today.
Now there are those whose natural conservative tendency of mind leads them with St. Vincent to make their appeal to Holy Scripture and the Authority of the Church. There are others who naturally turn more to the practical results of Christianity as seen in conduct and character, and rest their belief on the approval of Reason and Conscience and the certification of truth by the Voice within. Then there are our Evangelical brethren who, while loyal to the Prayer Book, make the Word the lantern to their feet, and the indwelling Holy Spirit its interpreter. But I trust we may see that these three modes are not exclusive of one another, but may walk as friends peacefully together, lending to each other a mutual support. May they make a three-fold cord, the less easily broken because the strands somewhat differ.”
– Charles Grafton (1830-1912), Catholicity and the Vincentian Rule
[The Vincentian Rule’ was proposed by Vincent of Lerins in the 5th-century to distinguish Catholic truth from heresy, asserting that true doctrine is that which has been believed “everywhere, always, and by all”]
“Movement, not stability, is the law of the Christian life, and of God's self-revelation in history. This is a fact important to realize at the outset; for our instinct is often to stay put, and to envisage change with distrust and dread; while the fundamental method of the Church is to keep us steadily . . . in the light of a great expectation. The first thing she does with us is to turn us to face the future.”
– Vida Dutton Scudder (1861-1954), Social Teachings of the Christian Year
“Those who cling to tradition and fear all novelty in God’s relation with his world, deny the creative activity of the Holy Spirit, and forget that what is now tradition was once innovation: the real Christian is always a revolutionary, belongs to a new race, has been given a new name and a new song. God is with the future. The supernatural virtue of Hope blesses and supports every experiment made for the glory of His Name and the good of souls: and even when violence and horror seem to overwhelm us, discerns the secret movement of the Spirit inciting to sacrifice . . . In the Church, too, this process of renovation from within, this fresh invasion of Reality must constantly be repeated if she is to prevent the ever-present danger of stagnation. She is not a stagnant institution but the living Body of Christ―the nucleus of the Kingdom, in this world. Thus loyalty to her supernatural calling will mean flexibility to it pressures and demands and also a constant adjustment to that changing world to which she brings the unchanging gifts. But only in so far as her life is based on prayer and self-offering will she distinguish rightly between these implicits of her vocation and the suggestions of impatience or self-will.”
– Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), Abba
“Theology looks to the Christian past not for models for simple imitation but for a way to complicate one’s sense of the possibilities for present Christian expression and action. It looks to the past not to restrict and cramp what might be said in the present but to break out of the narrowness of a contemporary sense of the realistic.”
– Kathryn Tanner (1957 - ), How My Mind Has Changed: Christian Claims, Christian Century, February 23, 2010
“We are seeking a tradition that is open to the disturbing challenges from which renewal of life can come. Spiritual life stands always in need of interrogation by the word of God, of self-scrutiny and perpetual *metanoia*. It is a tradition that is never ‘at ease in Zion’ but always restless, always struggling. It is a tradition of pilgrims and sojourners who are never fully at home in this world., never adjusted to the values and norms of any given order, but always seeking to be a community of contradiction and dissent, of scandal and prophetic testimony. It is a rebel tradition, a tradition of sojourners in quest of a better city.”
– Kenneth Leech (1939-2015), The Eye of the Storm, Living Spiritually in the Real World
For honesty’s sake, I must acknowledge that even some who I identify as Liberal Catholic Anglicans have been suspicious of the idea of the adaptation of tradition. See, Percy Dearmer here and C. S. Lewis here. Much as I respect each of them, I do not think tradition has been of can be simply static. And, in the view of some, each of those three departed from some aspect of the tradition. A lot depends on what counts as Tradition vs traditions. More on Charles Gores take on faithful development can be found here,
– Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626), Opuscula Quaedam Posthuma Lanceloti Andrewes, Episcopi Wintoniensi
[Certain Posthumous Minor Works of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester]
– Richard Hooker (1554-1600), Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
– William Laud (1573-1645), A Relation of the Conference between William Laud and Mr. Fisher the Jesuit
– Charles Gore (1852-1932), Roman Catholic Claims
“The authority of the collective society, the ‘rule of faith,’ is meant to nourish and quicken, not to crush, individuality. Each individual Christian owes the profoundest deference to the common tradition. Thus to ‘keep the traditions’ is at all times, and not least in Scripture, a common Christian exhortation. But this common tradition is not meant to be a merely external law. It is meant to pass by the ordinary processes of education into the individual consciousness, and there, because it represents truth, to impart freedom.”
– Charles Gore (1852-1932), The Holy Spirit and Inspiration in Lux Mundi
“In truth I
believe that the most radical voice in our contemporary world is tradition, the
Scripture and Doctrinal tradition of the Church. These are the radical
un-making of our world of the everyday.”
– Katherine Sonderegger (1950 - ), from a May 7, 2015 interview with Fortress Press acquisitions editor Michael Gibson upon the publishing of Systematic Theology: Volume 1, The Doctrine of God
– Katherine Sonderegger (1950 - ), from a May 7, 2015 interview with Fortress Press acquisitions editor Michael Gibson upon the publishing of Systematic Theology: Volume 1, The Doctrine of God
Traditional,
not traditionalist
We engage the tradition of the church not as a problem to be overcome, but a community across time to which we belong and with which it is possible to dialogue. We might not be bound to a simple repetition of the past in all things. Tradition is not simply static. The Church needs to engage in careful, prayerful, patient discernment to avoid and resist unfaithful deviation. The basic dogma of the Church is set. But there is adaptation and development in some matters of practice. Still, we will seek continuity with the Apostles and the communion of saints who encourage us as we run the race in our time.
“Traditions themselves embody dimensions of conflict and ambiguity, and a quest for tradition should never be confused with a return to past conventions of a straightforward kind. Tradition is rather a quest for rich and fertile soil, for grounding, for a profound basis for discipleship, for something that is more adequate and abiding than the shifting sands of fashion. To be outside all traditions is, as Alasdair MacIntyre has argued, is to be intellectually and morally destitute.”
– Kenneth Leech (1939-2015), The Eye of the Storm, Living Spiritually in the Real World
The real development of theology is rather the process in which the Church, standing firm in her old truths, enters into the apprehension of the new social and intellectual movements of each age: and because 'the truth makes her free' is able to assimilate all new material, to welcome and give its place to all new knowledge, to throw herself into the sanctification of each new social order, bringing forth out of her treasures things new and old, and shewing again and again her power of witnessing under changed conditions to the catholic capacity of her faith and life.”
– Charles Gore (1853-1932), Lux Mundi, Preface
“The Church has also met the different phases of the world's attack by adaptations in her discipline, in changes in her worship, and by forging new spiritual weapons of her own. . .
It has been asked whether St. Vincent's rule applies to Practice as well as Doctrine. It is applicable only to doctrine and to such practices as involve doctrine. St. Vincent says, ‘which ancient consent of the holy Fathers is with great care to be investigated and followed by us, not in all the lesser questions of the Divine Law, but only or at any rate principally in the Rule of Faith’ [i.e., the Creed] . . .
We have ventured to add to Vincent's rule one further test: the practical one of Christian Experience. What, we may ask ourselves, does the Christian Experience or Christian Consciousness bear witness to in any matter?
It is certainly a very useful test, to some minds more powerful than any other, and it may by God's blessing help to draw all schools of Churchmen closer together. This, we may remark if our Church is to fulfil its noble mission, is the thing pre-eminently to be labored for by us all today.
Now there are those whose natural conservative tendency of mind leads them with St. Vincent to make their appeal to Holy Scripture and the Authority of the Church. There are others who naturally turn more to the practical results of Christianity as seen in conduct and character, and rest their belief on the approval of Reason and Conscience and the certification of truth by the Voice within. Then there are our Evangelical brethren who, while loyal to the Prayer Book, make the Word the lantern to their feet, and the indwelling Holy Spirit its interpreter. But I trust we may see that these three modes are not exclusive of one another, but may walk as friends peacefully together, lending to each other a mutual support. May they make a three-fold cord, the less easily broken because the strands somewhat differ.”
– Charles Grafton (1830-1912), Catholicity and the Vincentian Rule
[The Vincentian Rule’ was proposed by Vincent of Lerins in the 5th-century to distinguish Catholic truth from heresy, asserting that true doctrine is that which has been believed “everywhere, always, and by all”]
“Movement, not stability, is the law of the Christian life, and of God's self-revelation in history. This is a fact important to realize at the outset; for our instinct is often to stay put, and to envisage change with distrust and dread; while the fundamental method of the Church is to keep us steadily . . . in the light of a great expectation. The first thing she does with us is to turn us to face the future.”
– Vida Dutton Scudder (1861-1954), Social Teachings of the Christian Year
“Those who cling to tradition and fear all novelty in God’s relation with his world, deny the creative activity of the Holy Spirit, and forget that what is now tradition was once innovation: the real Christian is always a revolutionary, belongs to a new race, has been given a new name and a new song. God is with the future. The supernatural virtue of Hope blesses and supports every experiment made for the glory of His Name and the good of souls: and even when violence and horror seem to overwhelm us, discerns the secret movement of the Spirit inciting to sacrifice . . . In the Church, too, this process of renovation from within, this fresh invasion of Reality must constantly be repeated if she is to prevent the ever-present danger of stagnation. She is not a stagnant institution but the living Body of Christ―the nucleus of the Kingdom, in this world. Thus loyalty to her supernatural calling will mean flexibility to it pressures and demands and also a constant adjustment to that changing world to which she brings the unchanging gifts. But only in so far as her life is based on prayer and self-offering will she distinguish rightly between these implicits of her vocation and the suggestions of impatience or self-will.”
– Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), Abba
“Theology looks to the Christian past not for models for simple imitation but for a way to complicate one’s sense of the possibilities for present Christian expression and action. It looks to the past not to restrict and cramp what might be said in the present but to break out of the narrowness of a contemporary sense of the realistic.”
– Kathryn Tanner (1957 - ), How My Mind Has Changed: Christian Claims, Christian Century, February 23, 2010
“We are seeking a tradition that is open to the disturbing challenges from which renewal of life can come. Spiritual life stands always in need of interrogation by the word of God, of self-scrutiny and perpetual *metanoia*. It is a tradition that is never ‘at ease in Zion’ but always restless, always struggling. It is a tradition of pilgrims and sojourners who are never fully at home in this world., never adjusted to the values and norms of any given order, but always seeking to be a community of contradiction and dissent, of scandal and prophetic testimony. It is a rebel tradition, a tradition of sojourners in quest of a better city.”
– Kenneth Leech (1939-2015), The Eye of the Storm, Living Spiritually in the Real World
For honesty’s sake, I must acknowledge that even some who I identify as Liberal Catholic Anglicans have been suspicious of the idea of the adaptation of tradition. See, Percy Dearmer here and C. S. Lewis here. Much as I respect each of them, I do not think tradition has been of can be simply static. And, in the view of some, each of those three departed from some aspect of the tradition. A lot depends on what counts as Tradition vs traditions. More on Charles Gores take on faithful development can be found here,
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