The Rt. Rev. Charles Grafton (1830-1912), the 2nd Bishop of Fond du Lac, described himself as “Evangelical at heart while in belief, liberal Catholics.” I like that and am happy to describe myself in those terms. Each of the historic dioceses of Wisconsin have roots in the catholic Anglican tradition going back to Bishop Jackson Kemper’s embrace of a “Reformed Catholic” church.
This is also more or less the position of other Anglican worthies of the 20th century: Francis Hall, Charles Gore, Evelyn Underhill, William Temple, Vida Dutton Scudder, C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, Dorothy Sayers, Austin Farrer, E. L. Mascall, Michael Ramsey, Desmond Tutu, and Kenneth Leech. We might add contemporary folk like John Milbank, Stanley Hauerwas, Sarah Coakley, and Rowan Williams. Though there are differences among them, each of these of these is fundamentally Catholic in orientation while also being informed by some Liberal and Evangelical approaches to faith.
What might it look like for us to be Catholic Anglicans in the 21st century? Can we be “Evangelical at heart while in belief, liberal Catholics”?
Catholic
Church, the Body of Christ:
We understand the divine-human drama to be centered not on the individual but on the community of the Church. While not strictly a matter of either/or, it does matter where we put the emphasis. By the Holy Spirit, God calls us into community where we learn to love one another as God loves us and empowers us to bear that love in the world. We learn to see our solidarity with all people and the rest of creation. As the body of Christ the Church is, in a mystical sense, an extension of the Incarnation. In, with, and under that community, the Holy Spirit moves like an electric current empowering the Church to make our “life together a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, that unity may overcome estrangement, forgiveness heal guilt, and joy conquer despair” (BCP, p. 429). We seek to live together in anticipation of the Kingdom of God and the restoration of all things. We embrace the mission of the Church “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (BCP, p. 855).
We will recognize the Church as central to the mission of God in the world, bearing witness to, and seeking to live in anticipation of, the Kingdom of God. It is the body of Christ and contrary to the rampant individualism of our age we will affirm that the fullness of our personal relationship with Jesus depends on our being members of that body. And that wherever people are on their spiritual journey that journey finds its clearest direction in baptism and as members of the Church. The Church is the community established by Jesus to bear witness to the reconciliation and healing of human brokenness. As such it is not insular but rather the place where we learn to see our solidarity with all people and the rest of creation.
Being Catholic Anglicans also means recognizing and celebrating that the church is not bound by time or place. For us that means that we are not just members of congregations, dioceses, or national churches, but members of the Anglican Communion.
The Church is essential. But we have no illusions of it being anything other than a treasure-bearing clay jar (2 Corinthians 4:7). We recognize that the Church has not always embodied well the love and peace of Christ. And we repent.
We acknowledge that the Church is not a closed circle but must remain open in humility to seeing what the Holy Spirit is doing elsewhere in the world. The Holy Spirit is not limited to the Church, of course. It blows where it will. But wherever else it blows, we can count on it blowing through the baptized community that is the Church.
Worship:
We place worship, particularly, the Eucharist, at the center of our lives. When we are baptized into Christ, we are made a member of his body, the Church. As the body of Christ, the Church is called to witness to and be a sign and foretaste of the kingdom of God. The central sign and practice of this body is the Eucharist. In the Eucharist, the body of Christ, the Church, is nourished by the body of Christ in the bread and wine. We remember what God has done in Christ and anticipate God’s restoration of all things in Christ. And we participate in Christ and are nourished by his body and blood. The Church is thus a Eucharistic community living in remembrance and anticipation, nourished by its participation in Christ along the way. But, partaking of the body of Christ in the Eucharist also entails judgment. Is the community – and its members – living eucharistically as the body of Christ?
Sacramental:
We embrace the centrality of the sacraments in the life of the Church and their transforming power. This is particularly true of the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Eucharist by which Christians are formed. We embrace the sacramental life of the Church. We believe in the potency of Baptism and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
We also understand that sacramentality is not only something about what happens to the consecrated Bread and Wine or the water of baptism, important as they are. We learn through our involvement with the Sacraments to see the whole of creation and one another sacramentally as potential means of God’s grace.
The Christian vision is that all creation and every human being is sacramental. The universe, including all humanity, is a vast interlocking web of glory, charged with the grandeur of God. All things participate in and manifest God. Not just grand vistas and glorious sunsets, but every tree, plant, and animal. And especially each human being along with the whole human community. Creation vibrates with God who is in, with, and under it all, sustaining and cherishing everything. The stuff of creation, like some bread and wine, can bear the Presence of God. Jesus came to heal the damage done to all of this by sin and to restore our ability to see all of creation, including every human being, with God’s delight.
Apostolic Tradition:
The Baptismal Covenant calls us to “continue in the apostles’ teaching.” We embrace a robust and unapologetic affirmation of the classic creedal faith of the Church. Anglican Christianity, trusting that the Holy Spirit continues to move in the Church, looks to the tradition of the Church for guidance, particularly the first five centuries. Tradition is not the dead weight of the past but rather the momentum of centuries of Spirit-led faithfulness giving us direction and propelling us forward.
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 are not be bound to a simple repetition of the past in all things. Tradition is not 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 in communion with the Saints who encourage us as we run the race in our time.
Though not universally the case, we have by and large come to embrace and celebrate women in ordained ministry and tend to be more affirming of those of the LGBTQ community.
Practices:
We seek to cultivate a catholic ethos that will open our hearts and lives to the movement of the Holy Spirit and enable us to resist the spiritually corrosive effects of secularism and consumerism. We seek to reclaim classic practices disciplines that open our lives to God’s mercy and delight? Practices such as: Daily Prayer and devotion, Spiritual Direction, Confession, Regular Fasts, Observance of Holy Days, Sabbath, Commemoration of the Saints, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, etc.
Comprehensive:
A truly catholic Anglican Christianity is characterized by what Rowan Williams calls a “passionate patience” that is reticent to declare too handily exactly how God is to be defined or to presume too easily to know what God desires in all instances. It is a tradition that does not avoid issues of sin, guilt, repentance, and judgement. And as we have seen in earlier posts, it takes seriously the beliefs of the Church and the call to discipleship and holiness. But Anglicans are more likely to start with grace rather than shame or fear. Ours is a tradition that rejoices in God’s grace revealed in Jesus Christ, and from that embraces spiritual disciplines that enable us to live more fully in that grace. As Charles Williams says of Christianity generally, the Anglican tradition embraces an understanding of the faith characterized by generosity and “largesse”.
Our tradition does not look back only to the early and medieval church for wisdom. We are also a church shaped by the insights of the Protestant Reformation We seek to be comprehensive and catholic enough to embrace the wisdom from various Christian traditions – and even wisdom from non-Christian traditions when it is compatible with the creeds.
Liberal
Generous:
We seek to be liberal in its purest sense – a spirit of generosity which makes space for the broadest diversity of views possible within the context of creedal Christian faith. As Chareles Williams wrote, “[Christian doctrine] is a largesse of spirit―courtesy, generosity, humility, charity” (The Figure of Beatrice).
Social Justice:
We seek to be generous toward the poor and oppressed. While not beholden to a particular political or economic ideology, program, or party, we are committed to being on the side of human rights and the uplift of all humanity – particularly the poor the vulnerable, the marginalized, and the forgotten. We might well disagree on the means to such ends and our liberality will include honoring such disagreement.
Receptive to Scientific Discovery and Wisdom Discerned from Creation:
We embrace the intended goodness of creation recognizing all of creation as the object of God’s delight showing forth God’s glory. Confident of the truth revealed in scripture, interpreted by the tradition. and summarized in the creeds, we also avail ourselves of whatever creation reveals about itself and thus about its Maker and about us as part of creation. We do not fear that new learning is a threat to Christian faith even if it might sometimes compel us to take a new look at aspects of the face. We accept the evidence that creation includes a process of evolution and that creation – including humanity – exhibits a surprising and extravagant diversity.
Humility:
Liberality was not based on an attempt to accommodate secularism or appease Christianity’s cultured despisers. Rather, it was rooted in deep humility. And humility is a fundamental Christian virtue. As Rowan Williams has written, “There is in the Anglican identity a strong element of awareness of the tragic, of the dark night and the frustration of theory and order by the strangeness of God's work . . . the result is a mixture of poetry, reticence, humility before mystery, local loyalties and painful self scrutinies” (Anglican Identities, p. 6).
Evangelical
Prima Scriptura:
We are committed to engaging with scripture together. We understand the scriptures to be “the word of God because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible” (BCP, 853). “We understand the meaning of the Bible by the help of the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church in the true interpretation of the Scriptures” (BCP, 853-854). We can recognize that the Bible is not the only means by which God reveals himself to us. We are more prima scriptura than sola scriptura. We look to the Bible first in order to know the mind and character of God, to understand the world and our place in it. We do not do so uncritically or by imposing theories of what kind of book it must be. We expect the Sprit to speak to us through the scriptures, but we do not think that mean it must be read in a wooden, literalistic way.
Joy in the Gospel:
We rejoice in the Christian gospel, the good news of redemption in Jesus Christ. We seek to embody a humble, generous, and hospitable spirit full of confidence in the hope of the gospel. We desire to fall in love again (and again) with the One who first loved us and demonstrated that love in the Incarnation and on the cross.
Sharing the Good News:
We are confidence that we have Good News to share. And that people outside (as well as inside) the Church need to hear that Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, continues to transform lives and will transform the world. Archbishop William Temple defined evangelism this way, “Evangelism is the presentation of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit in such ways that persons may be led to believe in Him as Savior and follow Him as Lord within the fellowship of His Church.”
Conclusion
An Anglican Catholic expression of Christianity that is Evangelical at heart while in belief, liberal Catholic is authentically and unapologetically Christian, while embracing humility, generosity, expansiveness, and adaptability. An Anglican Catholic expression of Christianity that is Evangelical at heart while in belief, liberal Catholic is authentically and unapologetically Christian, while embracing humility, generosity, expansiveness, and adaptability. It is committed to worshiping the triune God in the beauty of holiness and in the pursuit of personal holiness, to holy community as the body of Christ, and to being a leavening presence of the peaceable kingdom of God in the world. I think it is a faithful expression of Christian faith.
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