From a Jerusalem Hotel Room

Prayers of peace and rest for you Fr. Matt & Anne. God is doing many things right now where you are and with those to whom you will be sharing this week with. Be blessed and filled with the Holy Spirit and the knowledge that you are walking amoung and with giants of faith and not lest of all where the the King of Kings has walked taught, preached, healed, performed miracles,  and blessed the ancestors that came before the pilgrms of today who are in Jerusalem. Be in awe and take it all in, as you all are being coverd in prayer for your experiences and participation in and of a historic event this week. WOW indeed!

Shalom!

“......the call to “return” to the 39 Articles of Religion .... whether our Anglo-Catholic brothers and sisters will be able to live with that…..”

If they can live with it are they really AC? 

If we want to include ACs together with Reformed, Evangelical, Charismatics, GAFCON better come up with a new “confession”.  Also WO must be delt with.  The “new” Communion will be “inclusive ” afterall!

God bless you and yours with rest, Matt. All the important items in (#3) can be spoken of when all are rested. God bless all at GAFCON whatever their tribe within the Kingdom.

Matt+ and Anne+,
Google says fyi “1 Israeli shekel = 0.299545 U.S. dollars”...though you probably know that.

Our prayers, wishes and thanks to you and Anne for your commitment, persistence, and presence in Jerusalem at this time; allowing us vicariously to witness GAFCON. Thank you.
Blessings,
jongerber

Matt, your cost using the current exchange rate I had available would be about $88.23 for the 7 days or about $12.60 per day for the 7 days. 

I hope you have the opportunity to go to Tel Aviv and other parts of Israel while in the country and see the absolutely marvelous job the industrious citizens of Israel have done in constructing a truly modern city.  I would say more but my absolute and resolute support (and adamant opposition to our Church stand in support of the Palestinian terrorist) for my Israeli friends might show.

I anticipate good things from GAFCON my concern is can it be translated into good things at Lambeth given the restrictive parameters established by the ABC. I am extremely pessimistic about the second conference.

As an Anglo-Catholic, I have few illusions that GAFCON will provide us a secure home.  The Thirty-nine Articles are clearly anti-sacramental, as the historic Church understood sacraments.  The new re-formed Anglicanism will be driven by the GS and therefore will be relentlessly evangelical in nature, with a natural place for charismatics.  For, to put a more accurate name to it, “Sacramental Anglicans,” this will be yet another place to be “tolerated,” either graciously or grudgingly, and most likely moving from an initial graciousness to a later intransigence.  I suspect that, either in Jerusalem or later, Bps. Iker, Ackermann, Schofield, and their brothers (indeed, all of us who, because of scriptural conviction, cannot accept women’s ordination as valid or healthy for the Church) will be shown the door, we ourselves having already recognized that whatever emerges from GAFCON is not the “reformed Catholicism” we hold, but an energetic evangelical Protestantism which uses the BCP.  I hope that when that day comes, our leaving whatever emerges from GAFCON will be with tears of grief and gratitude for past faithfulness, on both sides, that we part honourably, as “separated brethren,” and mutual love for one another in the Gospel.  And then this admittedly tiny remnant of “Anglo-Catholics” or “Sacramental Anglicans” or whatever label gets pasted on us will have to decide between Rome and the East, in their Anglican provisions.  This will be a grievous loss to (faithful) world Anglicanism, but I cannot see how it will end otherwise.

Matt+, may Jesus be present with you in every step of His Holy City, may you feel, as a tangible presence, the Shekinah that illumined the City, the hills, the land, and made them Holy until He comes again.

Under the Mercy,
R. N. Wightman+

#7, rwightman+, I too am an Anglo-Catholic and share your apprehensions. But let’s not borrow trouble. Let’s wait for what comes. If the evangelicals come out of this with a safe haven, then I do not begrudge them their rescue from this shipwreck.

When I go to church, I get incensed.

If you should happen to see Kevin of Anglican TV, give us a mention of how he is doing.  He went through some serious surgery recently, and as you know that sort of trip is a killer.

rwightman+,
I share your concerns and wonder daily where my future lies—Certainly not with Rome and probably not with the East. (Heh, our only Orthodox church in my city is listed as “gay friendly” and “inclusive.”)

I will wait and see what emerges from Gafcon but methinks that there is enough moderate disgruntlement within the Episcopal church (i.e. +Geralyn Wolf and others of her standing) that the lunatics may not be running the asylum much longer. It’s going to be interesting.

Fr. Wightman,
I too struggle with many things you have mentioned above and I as well struggle with the 39 Articles. Especially #28! But, I pray daily that God will turn all of us back to the ture design of His church and not a church that is how man sees it and impliments mans idea of how to govern God’s Church!
God’s Blessings
ODC

#9 APB,
Right you are! And in case no one knows Kevin went through a horrific 3 hours in security with EL Al and it was not pleasant. He has written about the experience on his website in the blog section. He was red flagged and I pray he has no trouble coming home. Pray for Kevin as well as all who are making this pilgrimage.

Evangelicals are sacramental!  They simply do not accept the idea that the bread and wine of communion become, physically, the literal body and blood of Jesus.  He is present—but not by transubstantiation.

This is going to be a major sticking point, to put it mildly…

Let’s not borrow trouble, if it comes, it will come soon enough.  Seems to me the REC was adamant about the 39 articles, but in the years past apparently not so much.

They even “elevate” the chalice, perhaps not so high (LOL).

A place for “Anglo-Catholics”, there will be!  I truly believe it.  EVERYONE has to get over something, and that particular fence needs desparately to be mended.

Grannie Gloria in SC
An Anglo-Catholic, a believer in the “real presence”, and totally unaware of the “how”, only the what. so there.

Matt - I have made more than thirty pilgrimages to the Holy City. It is truly the center of creation and a place that never grows stale to the pilgrim. Not only is it the center of creation - but it is the stage upon which all history unfolds. I hope the Lord of the Church and all creation blesses you down to your socks.
Rick+

The “sacramental” question, I believe, is more accurately stated in what Jean Cardinal Danileu stated, that it is not a physical transformation of the elements, but rather that man’s time ceases, and at the moment of consecration of the elements we are in eternity, and it is the actual hand of Jesus Himself that gives us His Body and His Blood.  I think that can fit within what the Articles say.

#16 BrAthanasius,
Sorry! ThisAnglo-Catholic doesn’t buy that description. For me it is as Grandmother states, the Real Presence. I believe it is transformed during consecration.

I am now retired but I would describe my active ministry as Anglo-Catholic, evangelical and charismatic.  I find it sad that there has to be division amongst those who describe themselves as one or the other.  They all go together and make up the fullness of the Good News.  In my book, a future Anglican Communion that does not take into account all three is not worth the effort of putting together.  I believe God’s grace comes to us throught the Sacraments. I also believe His grace comes to us through prayer - praying for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit being one of them for it makes our Baptism and Confirmation come alive to the believer.  And we are all under the marching orders of “go and make discipels of all nations.”  In regards to the Eucharist, Jesus said the bread is His body and the wine is His blood.  What more do we need to add?  Spend your time not arguing over how that is but rather in welcoming Him into your life.

Simply ignore the liberal nay-sayers (the usual blogs and the MSM) and go on about God’s work.  Tobias and Sanballat tried to discourage and intimidate God’s people doing God’s work long ago and they were also thwarted.

Not that it matters much, But I think of myself as being VERY “Low Church,” and VERY Reformed. I consider myself to be a Five Point Calvinist; I’ve read the “Institutes,” etc.—though, I cannot claim to have a genuinely comprehensive grasp of Calvinistic or Reformmed theology. Having said this, I also have to say that I have also had an intuitive sense of the Real Presence for almost as long as I have been a selkf-conscious Christian. Like others who have commented here, I have absolutely no idea HOW it works. Nor do I particularly care to wrangle with the various theological facets of the sacraments that others marshall either in defense of any particular take on the sacraments. I just accept it as a given.

I have known a number of VERY CONSERVATIVE and thoroughly orthodox Roman Catholic priests who viewed the 39 Articles (and, specifically, Article #28) as being, at most, an awkwardly worded matter of little substantial importance, in the overall scheme of things.

Maybe it is because it has no direct bearing on their lives or their vocations—I don’t know… But, it seems to me, if such men are not unduly troubled by the Articles, than we Anglicans should not be unduly concerned either.

In my experience, Anglicans almost always get fussy about these things in ways that other catholic Christians do not. Maybe, accepting profound mysteries without worrying too much about the specific language of doctrinal statements comes easier to people raised in a branch of the Church that pretty much DEFINES ITSELF as being predicated upon things beyond our human grasp… I am just guessing here…

I know a number of people who are on the faculty at Nashotah House. Some of them (some VERY High Church types, in other words) rather LIKE the 39 Articles and think that they are terribly important.

Like Father Kennedy, I am a bit worried about the majority of Anglo-Catholics are going to feel about a new Communion that takes the Articles seriously. But I also know that my Lord (who created the universe and everything that is in it; who raises the dead; who has limitless power and limitless love for His children) is the TRUE Head of the Church. He can work all of this out, I am sure. And I am no less sure that, ultimately, He WILL work it all out.

Let me remind everybody that VERY, VERY, VERY FEW people have Anglo-Catholic credentials that are as good as Bp. Robert Duncan’s credentials. If Bp. Duncan can be relaxed about this sort of thing, than I think most Anglo-Catholics can (and shopuld) take their cues from him and his cohorts.

I’m one who agrees with Bishop Duncan, and of course, my bishop is +John-David Schofield.  I also share your views about the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion….and I consider my self an Anglo Catholic, as is my bishop.

I am a Catholic, under the Bishop of Rome, and I hope, orthodox.  I also believe that the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Christ.  But I do not believe that they become “physically” the body and blood of Christ if by “physically” you mean such that if they were analyzed in a laboratory they would contain human proteins.  That is a mistaken notion of what “transubstantiation” means.  The mistake comes, I believe, from a misunderstanding of the word “substance.”  The substance in transubstantiation is the same word, with the same meaning, as in the word consubstantial.  Current translations of the creed give this as “one in being” or “of one being.”  You don’t think this means that Jesus and the Father share a physical being, do you?  Transubstantiation means that the “being” of the bread and wine become the “being” of the body and blood of Christ.  But what is the real “being” of bread?  Is bread a complex carbohydrate? Is a star a ball of flaming gas?  As the fallen star said to Eustace in the Dawn Treader, “Even in your world, that is only what a star is made of, not what it is.”  Likewise, carbohydrates, flour, are only what bread is made of, not what it is.  What bread is, is all the meanings it has for human beings; it is the product of human labor, it is food which sustains life and averts starvation.  That is what the substance, or being of bread is, and that is what is changed into the being of Jesus giving Himself as food for our souls.  The physical stuff of bread, carbohydrates etc, is just “accidents”  of the real being of the bread, and that physical stuff remains exactly the same.  The being of the bread is now the being of Jesus, but the accidents, the stuff,  have not changed. 

So many people, when they say they don’t believe in transubstantiation,  mean that they don’t believe in a kind of alchemy in which one kind of stuff changes into another kind of stuff.  Neither does the Catholic Church.
Susan Peterson

(Heh, our only Orthodox church in my city is listed as “gay friendly” and “inclusive.”)

Teatime—
It sounds like your local Orthodox Church is either The Independent Greek Orthodox, or The Orthodox-Catholic Church.  If that’s so, they aren’t Orthodox.

Eulogos, (#22) THANK YOU so much for your wise and incisive words! As far as I am concerned, you have summarized the situation magnificently and concisely. You have also explained to me WHY a number of orthodox and patently conservative Roman Catholic priests that I know are NOT particularly concerned with the wording of Article #28… I am not sure if I have ever seen a comment from you before on SF, but, lately, I have had not had time to follow things on this site too closely. However, I sincerely hope that you will freely contribute to the discussions on this site. It seems to me that you have some VERY IMPORTANT insights to share with the folks here. Again, thank you.

As for the thirty nine articles, they were meant to be a Protestant confession which yet left as much wiggle room as possible for Catholic beliefs.  A Roman Catholic cannot, of course accept them.  But if their interpretation can be broad enough to accept, say, Tract 90,  most AngloCatholics could live with them.  To my mind it is just as hard to strain the articles and other Anglican formularies to include the Evangelical idea that baptism is not regenerative, as to strain them in a Catholic sense on other points. 
But women’s ordination is an issue not even thought of at the time of the articles. 
Catholic christianity has never done it.  The Reformers didn’t do it.  So why do it?  There is no moral imperative to do it; no one has a right to the priesthood, or to be called to ministry.  If Evangelical Anglicans are serious about wanting to keep AngloCatholics in the fold, they will give up women’s ordination.  You can’t be in communion if you can’t receive each other’s communion, and you can’t receive communion at a blasphemous simulation of the Eucharist, which is what an Anglo Catholic thinks of a Eucharist where a woman purports to celebrate.  At least this is something I can’t help feeling as a Catholic, and some Anglo-Catholics have told me they feel the same way.  It is a bit different from the Catholic women who have gone through simulated ordinations and pretend to celebrate mass,  because they are acting in open disobedience.  I recognize that Anglican women whose church told them they could be priests are faithfully trying to do as Jesus commanded us to do, after their own lights.  But if one has a Catholic idea of the priesthood and believes, not only that it is wrong, or forbidden, but that it is impossible for a woman to be a priest,  and that the presence of Christ in the sacrament is dependent on consecration by a priest,  then one could hardly go to communion when there is a female celebrant.  Again, if Evangelicals value having Anglo-Catholics as part of the new Anglicanism, they won’t insist on this.
Susan Peterson

Eulogos, Susan Peterson,  I add my thanks for your very helpful explanation of the consecration of the Eucharist.  I do not understand the ‘accidents’ part, however.  I’ll go to my big old OED.

I agree with some that we shouldn’t overdo the 39 Articles because of very legitimate Anglo-Catholic issues with it.  The creeds are safer ground.

On the other hand, remember that Henry Newman said the 39 Articles could be interpreted in an AC way.  (Of course, that didn’t go over very well at the time, but anyway . . .)

I was just about to post something like what “The Pilgrim” posted above.  There are no Orthodox churches which are “gay friendly,” in the sense meant by people who use the term.  You can’t stop people from using the words “Orthodox”  or “Catholic” either, but that doesn’t make this church Orthodox, or Catholic either, for that matter. 
Susan Peterson

Blue Narrative, post 20,
It is my impression that most Episcopalians and Anglicans are reaassured by the “Articles of Religion” which they acknowledge when they participate in Rite One or Rite Two every Sunday so I cannot understand why you anticipate division over the Thirty-nine Articles.

My 1933 Oxford Dictionary quotes (William?)Caxton - “Whan the breed is conuerted into the..body of our lord the accidentes abyden..whytness, roundenesse, and sauouer.

Substance is sort of like a noun, and accidents sort of like adjectives.  Say, house, for instance, as an idea. You know what a house is, right, just from the word house.  There is some being to the word house,  the idea of house has some substance in your mind. 
Now the house might be big, small, white, blue or brown,  Victorian, split level, or Bauhaus,  wood, brick, stone, or concrete.  All of these are “accidents” any one of which may be or not be, attached to the basic idea of house. 
Susan Peterson

I’m astounded by Anglo-Catholics who reject WO and yet were perfectly content to remain in ECUSA for decades, but now express concern about being in communion with those GS Evangelical types.

OK, so I haven’t been Anglican or AC for very long now, I admit that. OTOH, The Real Presence was for me, quite a challenge as a former Baptist. My seriously AC and SSC rector has always insisted that Real Presence is properly not defined for Anglicans. It just is, according to the Scriptures (heh, #6 being my own personal favorite Article). The Scriptures do not define (as Lutherans and Catholics do) how the bread and wine become His Body and Blood, yet He said that we must eat His body and Drink His blood.

This is not intended to “start a fight”, so much as to examine the apparant complexity of just what Anglo-Catholicism might be. You who are more emphatic about this, please explain what I am missing.

His,  Rich

This has been a very interesting and thought provoking thread.

Several comments have been especially interesting, insightful and meaningful:  #7 RWightman+, #16 BrAtnanasius, 18 David+, #20 bluenarrative and #22 eulogos.  Thanks!

With respect to the Real Presence, eulogos expresses it both very elegantly and very simply:  “I have absolutely no idea HOW it works.”  “I just accept it as a given.”  That works for me.

The Antiochian Orthodox Church is solid as a rock theologically and while all are welcome to visit, not all may commune, and “revisionist” (anti-Christ) behaviors are not tolerated.

Well, as the one who started this thread of the conversation, I’ll rejoin it now (after a fruitless trip to the car repair shop & the prospect of a $3400 bill on Monday).  I am not concerned with the Thirty-Nine Articles.  I am not concerned with understanding the “how” of the Eucharist.  I’ll go with the East, call it a “Mystery” and leave it at that.  Those are lovely (if meaningful) topics of conversation, and will go on being so.

For an Anglo-Catholic/Sacramental/Historic Christian the question comes down to an Action Item:
“Can women be validly ordained to the priesthood and consecrated to the episcopate?” 

There is a “Yes” or “No” answer to this question for each person.  Those who waffle and say “I believe No, but if you believe Yes, then your Yes is valid for you” have taken the long way round to say “Yes.”  Those Anglo-Catholics (etc.) who hold to “No. Unalterably and non-negotiably No” are the ones I have in mind, including Bishops Iker, Schofield and Ackermann.  Their dioceses (two of the three within or headed for the Southern Cone, which answers “Yes”) will find themselves ultimately at a cross-roads, and a decision to compromise or to part ways.

I know and am friends with men and women of good will, upright character, and profound Christian piety and charity, who are one side or the other of this question (some in TEC, others in AMiA, CANA, etc).  I respect those I disagree with and remain their brother in Christ, but I can no more take the sacraments from their clergy than I could from Mrs. Schori, whom I do not recognize as either a priest or a bishop.

I commend eulogos [#25] for admirably summing up the deep feelings that this question causes, but I rather doubt that the Africans (over half the total Anglican Communion) are going to backtrack on this one.  And Mr. Manley, many stayed in TEC because they would not abandon their people to the predators you see operating openly now, but who were operating covertly thirty-five years ago, when the first women were “ordained” in an act of rebellion and schism, and nothing was done, and then the rebellion was legislated through (with guarantees of safeguards for no-WO dioceses and parishes; guarantees that proved ephemeral and duplicitous), and then the guarantees were revoked (scaling 35 years into one sentence), and here we are.  For Anglo-Catholics, the issue (and agenda) of Women’s Ordination, begun in rebellion and as an act of “civil rights” is inextricably linked to the homosexual agenda, and in the US at least, this has proved to be the case.  This is not the case among our African brethren, but then they are coming to the table from the evangelical corner.

David+ [#18] is equally be to be commended for insisting that the liturgical/sacramental, the evangelical, and the charismatic streams are each and all essential to the full life of the Church.  And that the Great Commission impels us to lay aside minor differences for the sake of the Gospel itself, but this is no minor difference of church polity, but what it means to be the Church. When my non-reception of their “eucharist” silently communicates to the wife of a friend or a relative by marriage, the clear message that “I’m terribly sorry, but I do not believe that you are nor can you be what you claim to be,”  it is as painful for me as it is for them, but the truth must still be spoken, as lovingly as possible.

If Women’s Ordination is NOT redressed square on by a newly re-aligned Anglicanism, then the best that dioceses like San Joaquin, Fort Worth, and Quincey can hope for is a sort of “ghetto” status, rather like the Old-Order Mennonites or Amish, and the hope of the larger Re-alignment that eventually “this generation shall pass away” and those dioceses will reverse their “No” to a “Yes.”  The sooner the question is faced the better, so that these faithful Anglicans, shunted aside yet again, can move on to the next place that the Lord will lead them.  Their options: Rome, the East, and a constantly splintering and re-forming TAC.  None of them easy choices.  But the hour of decision will soon be upon us.

Holy God, Holy and Mighty, Holy Immortal One, have mercy upon us.
R. N. Wightman+

Perhaps it is helpful to recollect what the 39 Articles of Religion actually say about the Communion:

XXVIII. Of the Lord’s Supper.
The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves, one to another, but rather it is a sacrament of our redemption by Christ’s death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.
  Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.
  The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith.
  The Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped

I cannot see that this has to be read as incompatible with the view of Eulogos expressed at #22 and #25 above.

And, its called a “sacrament”, an outword and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace..

Grannie Gloria

#37 Pageantmaster,
That is a painful read for me! I just pain when I read that one Article!

#39 Really?  I am sorry - the whole emphasis of the Articles is on what is ‘essential’ to believe for Salvation, not to proscribe other things.  The more I have read them, the more humble and wise [on balance] I have found them and they do contain the answers to many of the ways we have gone astray as a church although I appreciate that as someone further up the candle than I am that you might feel some ‘pain’.  I really don’t mind if you want the sacrament lifted up or carried about, but I am comforted from my reading of the article that it is not essential for my salvation to have to believe in that.

PM

Where are Anglo-Catholics best going to find a home? With the consecrators of Gene Robinson? There are three groups in Anglicanism: Anglo-Catholics, evangelicals and liberal parasites. Previously, there was only the Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals, and the dynamic between these two groups was symbiotic.

Dean Munday has a must read essay about the “conflict” between a conciliar church and a confessional one (but aren’t all of his essays must reads?). See here.

The conciliarists are criticizing those that are boycotting Lambeth. I fully understand that there are good arguments to attend. (I don’t agree with them.) But the conciliarists should be criticized the same for the very public withdrawals from groups they see as too confessionalist (e.g., Ephraim+ from ACN and +Mouneer Anis from GAFCon). Unlike the cold reception that the orthodox will get at the coming mock-Lambeth, Anglo-catholics, conciliarists,...orthodox of whatever flavor would be listened to respectfully and their input and criticism highly valued.

Pageantmaster,
I don’t beleive that the 39 Articels contain anything that is necessary for my salvation and I am no more up the candle than you! However, I feel very strongly about the Eucharist. That was the ultimate love sacrifce that our Lord did for us. And I treat it seriously and I do feel that it is worthy in being lifted up. Paraded around…no! Lifted up during the consecration yes! No one on this temporal earth can or will be able to make the sacrifice Christ did for us. He gave instructions after he blessed the bread and the cup and told them, the Apostles, to do this in rememberance of Him everytime they gathered. The instruction is a continual verb that is used.
Respect, reverence, admiration, an in awe is how I see the Eucharist every time it is celebrated. That I am so unworthy of the offering but yet made worthy through His sacrifice. I could never view it in any other way that would bring it to a lower standing than what it truly really is and deserves to be.

and the Articles are absolutely clear that Holy Communion along with Baptism is a Sacrament [Article XXV]

n.b. In case it helps online copy of the 39 Articles is here

#42 ODC I agree with everything you have written here.  The 39 Articles do not contain anything necessary for our salvation but they do act as a guide to what is necessary and very clearly point to this being found in scripture [as indeed you point out in your reference to the biblical instructions by Christ for us to come to the Eucharist].  For me Christ is present at and in the Eucharist; I would say the Real Presence, although I cannot define for you how He is there, but Faith is an explanation; all I need to know is that he is and am grateful for His gift to and sacrifice for me.

#41 Dr Dr Rob Roy - someone said in another thread that Anglo-Catholics, Evangelicals and Charismatics are essential parts of Anglicanism.  I agree and continue to learn, grow and be enriched by them.  Long may this continue.

Even some liberals make me stop and think…but there are limits.

Friends, regarding assent to the 39 Articles, I invite you to look at the Statement of Identity of Nashotah House, written by myself as both Dean of Nashotah House and Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Quincy and the Rev. Canon Dr. John Heidt, Canon Theologian of the Diocese of Fort Worth.  This statement was adopted unanimously by a Board of Trustees that included Bishops Iker, Ackerman, and Schofield.  In it you will see our belief that the Apostolic faith of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures, reflected in the Creeds and the Seven Ecumenical Councils, and proclaimed in the Book of Common Prayer, including the Articles of Religion.

As I stated yesterday in a piece on my blog dealing with the confessional and conciliar identity of Anglicanism: “Can anyone imagine an orthodox Anglican future that is not grounded in the 39 Articles? If a movement is to be recognizably Anglican, it must stand in the theological tradition of historic Anglican norms.”

Anglo-Catholics will remain in a post-GAFCON orthodox Anglicanism in the same way as they have existed for centuries in a Communion defined by the Articles, including the CofE, where subscription to the Articles has been required of all ordained clergy.

Does this mean that an Anglo-Catholic sees the Articles as necessarily forbidding certain devotional practices to which some Evangelicals might object? Of course not.  But if Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals are more truly interested in being authentically Christian than in holding on to their party differences, these issues can be resolved in time.  Bishop Duncan pointed the way in his reference to “Mere Anglicanism” in his opening GAFCON address.
I share Bishop Duncan’s passion for a rapproachement between Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals.  If we are honest with ourselves, we know that these differences will no longer exist when we are in heaven with our Lord.  And if we are serious about being one, as Christ prayed that we might be one, we need to lay aside our shameful party prejudices and resolve these differences here and now.

Robert S. Munday+

Well Catholics believe that those who receive the sacrament not “rightly” still receive Christ, but receive Him to their damnation.  He is there, whether you have faith or not.  It is a fact.  And what Christ said was “This IS my body.”  Now “is” is a form of the verb “to be”  as also is “being”  (Its a participle.  That is a form of a verb.)  You might say “This be my body” (if you spoke black English. ) It is not too far from that to say “The being of this is my body.”  Which is all the doctrine of transubstantiation says. 

I think that a very physical, material idea of what transubstantiation meant had infiltrated late medieval Catholicism, thus all the stories about bleeding hosts, etc.  I think-I hope-that what the Reformers rejected was this false idea of what transubstantiation meant, not what it really means.  However the idea that Christ is only there if you have faith that He is,  (otherwise He isn’t?)  goes against my hope.  It makes His presence the result of something that we do or have.  How can He both be there for a person there with faith, and not be there for someone who comes without faith?    God, after all, exists both for those who believe in Him, and for those who don’t. 

As for the part about “The sacrament was not by Christ’s ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped,”  there are a lot of things that we do in church that were not by Christ’s ordinance as far as we can tell from scripture.  But if the sacrament is really Christ’s body and blood (and body and blood means the whole person, we aren’t nourished by parts of a dead Christ but by Himself, and that person was both human and Divine)  then it is Christ Himself, and thus Divine, and must be worshipped, which we show by lifting it up and carrying it about in processions, and genuflecting in adoration.  Jesus didn’t tell us when the bread and wine would STOP being His Body and His Blood.  As early as we know anything about it, Christians saved the consecrated bread and considered it still to be the sacrament.  They saved it to commune when they couldn’t meet for the Lord’s Supper.  Of course processions and such came later, but they were a result of dwelling in thought and meditation of what it meant that Christ is present.  I am not exactly sure why the Reformation should have been so against them.  I could guess that they felt that people were being given all the extras but not the one thing necessary.  Anyway, I think Anglo-Catholics got around this part of this article by saying,  well, no it wasn’t by Christ’s ordinance that we have processions, but then He never said not to either.  I can well imagine that Evangelicals now won’t have too much of a problem with this interpretation now,  although clearly their 16th century ancestors would have.  And if so, wouldn’t it be better to have an Articles of Religion which didn’t import those parts of 16th century controversy that no one wants to be controversial about anymore?  (Or do they? ) 

Farther than this I can’t go as a spectator from the sidelines.
Susan Peterson

I don’t know what others think about Transubstantiation but my belief is that Priests can not turn bread and wine into body and blood but I do believe that God, the Holy Trinity, can transform the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ and it seems to me that we acknowledge this in Rite One and Rite 2 of the Book of Common Prayer.

“Well Catholics believe that those who receive the sacrament not “rightly” still receive Christ, but receive Him to their damnation.”
And so does this Anglo-Catholic, but only in this sense that comes straight from scripture:

1 Cor. 11:27-34
  Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord. [28] Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. [29] For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. [30] That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. [31] But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. [32] But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.
  [33] So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another— [34] if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

and lest we forget Jesus’ own words:

John 6:53-58
  So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. [54] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. [55] For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. [56] Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. [57] As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. [58] This is the bread that came down from heaven, not as the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.”

Nowhere does Christ say that one must be Roman Catholic to receive!

Thank you, Dr. Munday.

God bless you, Dean Munday+ - we do remember that it is nothing short of a miracle that evangelcals and Anglo Catholics in the United States beat their swords into ploughshares to take up the Cross of Jesus into this battle for the Gospel - together. 

Before we take our flags and start spearing one another, we must pause and recognize that there is far more essentially crucial to the faith that draws us together as brothers and sisters in Christ, then our differences that lurk always in the shadows to tear us apart.  We must resist.

Our differences - based in the primacy of Scripture and in the liturgy of the Prayer Book - enrich the Church. It’s a mystery.  But our common place to stand is in Jesus - as we know Him through the Sriptures and in the Sacraments.  It is how we all test revelation - something we do not enjoy with our progresssive adversaries.

What a joy - what privledge is it for evangelicals and Anglo Catholics to worship along side one another with malice toward none and charity for all.  We must be resilient and diligent to keep our eyes fixed on Christ and extending the warm hand of fellowship to one another - for the glory of God.

We are reminded that the devil - being a totally non-creative being - takes pleasure in sparking and exploiting our broken parts and not in our healing and wholeness.  The Holy Spirit delights in bringing healing and salvatin through our brokenness, that we might be poured out onto all the nations in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

That Anglo Catholics and Evangelicals in the Anglica tradition are embracing one another in faith is truly the hand of God.  Let us pause before we turn our backs on the war front to engage our friends in fire, lest we be shot in the back by our adversaries.

Jesus is risen - may we be raised with Him also.

God bless you, Dean Munday - you are a gift to the Church.

bb

In particular, the call to “return” to the 39 Articles of Religion as the confessional standard for Anglican Christianity and not simply to revere them as “historical documents” is significant. The question will be whether our Anglo-Catholic brothers and sisters will be able to live with that.

If it’s the usual Calvinist reading of many “Reformed” Anglicans, then it won’t be. If it is a reading of the 39 articles which anathematizes or prohibits some of the teachings and beliefs and practices of the apostolic and patristic Church and defended by Ecumenical Councils—such as the invocation of saints, the veneration of icons, the real and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist, etc etc—then it won’t be.

For Anglocatholics, as the Affirmation of St. Louis put it, the tradition of the Church and its teachings as set forth by “the ancient catholic bishops and doctors,” and especially as defined by the Seven Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church, to the exclusion of all errors, ancient and modern—i.e. the common beliefs and practices of the Church before the schism of East and West (and well before the break of England from Rome)—are held, in second place after Scripture, to be normative, and all Anglican statements of faith and liturgical formulae must be interpreted in accordance with them.

An insistence on a “Protestant” or “Calvinist” interpretation of the 39 articles, an anathematization of pious and orthodox catholic practices (such as the intercession of the saints and the veneration of icons), and the ordination of women are, I think, the 3 fundamental theological and ecclesiastical axes which divide anglocatholics and angloprotestants—and if the angloprotestant/evangelical wing were to insist on any of these (i.e. the 39 Articles trumping the Fathers; the anathematization of traditional, orthodox, catholic practices; the acceptability of the ordination of women), then no genuine anglocatholic could, in good conscience, follow down that Protestant path.

That’s not to say it might not be a good thing to have such clarity. I’ve thought for some years now that the ultimate future of Anglican trends is three separate groups—the angloapostates of PEcUSA; the angloprotestants of much of the “evangelical” wing; and the anglocatholics of the Continuing church movement and its kin.

If a clear, “angloprotestant” statement of identity were to come out of GAFCON (or its follow-up meetings and conferences), then perhaps this would inspire the scattered and marginalized anglocatholics (and I mean the “real”, theological ones, not just those who are “high church” in liturgy) still in the various “national” jurisdictions to finally confront their incompatibility with such an angloprotestant identity and to join up with the reconsolidating Continuing church movement and the kind of norms set forth in the Affirmation.

Such clarity would be a good thing, and a welcome relief from the incoherence into which “Anglicanism” has been degenerating since, perhaps, its second generation.

pax,
LP

And God bless you, BabyBlue, for this comment: “Let us pause before we turn our backs on the war front to engage our friends in fire, lest we be shot in the back by our adversaries.”
Sometimes we seem to be straining to find reasons to fight rather than reasons to work together for the Glory of God, the Great Commission.

Some have forwarded the proposition that the only choices for Anglo-catholics is to either jump the Tiber or go Eastern Orthodox. One should be reminded that the Reformed Episcopal Church, which broke away from mainstream Episcopals over doctrinal issues, has clearly been a solid benchmark of reformed catholic Christianity since the 1870’s.  Here we have solid support for the first seven councils, the 39 articles, the 1928 or earlier book of Common Prayer, no womens ordination, no gay clergy etc., and scripture overrides all. The REC is part of Common Cause for the time being. Time will tell how GAFCON develops, but it seems that the seeds are sown for a great new reformation and a return to an earlier, kinder, devotional, worshipful scripture based Faith.

One Day Closer, I am glad you can justify your Faith through Scripture and according to the Articles of Religion you are correct.
The Articles of Religion say the following:
“VI Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.
Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so whatsoever is not read therin, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of Faith.”
I am thankful that we can freely read and justify our Faith through Scripture. The Articles of Religion proclaimed the Authority of Scripture at a time when many ordinary people were forbidden to read the Bible and were required to accept whatever the priest said or required of them, regardless of whether it was consistent with Scripture or not.
It seems to me that the Articles of Religion are important now because history is repeating itself and apostate priests are trying to lead us away from Scripture again. If we understand the Articles in their historical context we may be able to avoid repeating history by not allowing apostate priests to lead us away from God’s Word again.

Matt+, we all are remembering you, Anne, and your young ones in our prayers.  And while it is no doubt sinful on our parts, I suspect that most of us envy you in no small degree.

On the other life that this thread seems to have taken on- there may be someone on SF now and then who has made a life’s work of studying the theology behind the Real Presence and/or Transubstantiation.  I am not that one.  My limited understanding (without resort to texts) is that Transubstantiation is the Roman explanation of the process the results in the Real Presence. A metaphysical process expounded by Aquinas and the other schoolmen, that by the 16th century had developed a mythology of its own among many of the less well educated clergy and laity of the time.
  At any rate, I do not feel myself qualified to argue a particular interpretation of Article 28.  What I do feel qualified to do is to follow the likes of +Jack Iker, +Keith Ackerman, +John David Schofield and +Robert Munday.  Essentially, these men have earned my trust, and I believe their prayers for guidance are being heard, and indeed the Holy Spirit is showing them a way forward where none might appear to exist.
  I have speculated myself that this may be the last generation of real Anglo Catholics in the US, that Anglo Catholicism will give way to some new form that keeps the rites and liturgy, but accepts women’s ordination and other compromises with the western Anglican Communion.  If so, then we may be like Tolkien’s elves at the end of the third age- preparing to sail away from the Grey Havens.  Many have already sailed to Rome and the East and the Continuum (although perhaps the Continuum is more like Lorien, and may come to the aid of the Communion before all is said and done).  Some of us, though, have stayed, or returned, to fight one last battle for the soul of this church.

Thank you to Rob Roy, James Manley, and Baby Blue for your kind words.

On another note: The Articles have this to say about those who eat and drink the sacrament of the body and blood unworthily:

XXIX. Of the Wicked, which eat not the Body of Christ in the use of the Lord’s Supper.
The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ; yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ: but rather, to their condemnation, do eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing.

In response to Eulogos and One Day Closer above, I would add this clarification:  The presence of Christ in the sacrament is objectively real, but it is not substantial.  Those who come to receive the cup encounter the body and blood of Christ—they are presented with the body and blood of Christ.  But since the presence of Christ is mediated spiritually in the sacrament, they do not receive the body and blood of Christ, if they come in an unworthy manner, they receive condemnation instead (1 Cor. 11:27-34 and Article XXIX).

To several others who have commented above I would point out that the doctrine of the real presence does not equal transubstantiation.  Transubstantiation is merely one theory of how Christ is present in the sacrament.  Although this view predates Thomas Aquinas, it is based on the same definition of substance which was later undergirded by Aquinas’s adoption of Aristotelian philosophy (Thomism) and became a dogma of the Roman Church.  (If Aquinas and other medieval scholars had been Platonists instead of Aristotelians, they would have believed that heavenly ideals exist beyond earthly forms and are every bit as real as physical substance. 

Our Anglican forebears (many of whom were Neo-Platonists) were merely rejecting Transubstantiation as the explanation of how Christ is present in the sacrament (Article XXVIII).  They were not rejecting the idea of Christ being truly present in the sacrament.  Indeed they say, “the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.” 

When Article XXVIII goes on to say, “Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord… overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament...” we need to remember what a sacrament is—an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual reality. 

Christ is really present in the sacrament in the same sense that the Holy Spirit is present in the believer.  He is really and truly there, but it is a presence only God and the believer can see, not a physical presence that a surgeon could open us up and remove.

Robert S. Munday+

Dr. Munday.  I believe that you have clarified that beautifully.

Grannie Gloria and all,

I apologize for coming late to the party.  I pray that Matt and all attending the conference will be able bring some sense and stability to Anglicanism.

Grannie, in re your #14, I am a Deacon in the REC and would like to make a few things clear about the REC.  We do still adhere to the 39 Articles.  Before my ordination, I had to sign a little paper attesting to the fact that I subscribe to them, which I wholeheartedly do.

Some other facts: Neither the Chalice nor the Host is ever elevated in the traditional Roman sense.  If you wish to think that a presbyter or Bishop’s picking up of the host off the paten in order to break it is elevating it, that is your problem; it is usually picked up no more than 6 or 8 inches above the paten in order to give the celebrant sufficient room to break the bread without bumping into something. The same goes for the Chalice. When the celebrant says, “Likewise after supper He took the cup ...” he simply picks it up a few inches and then sets it back down.

And lastly, the REC does not ordain women to any office. There are deaconesses, but they are not “ordained”.  I forget the verb that is used. 

I hope this explains some things you might not know.

Blessings,  M

Thank you Robert S. Munday+
Although you and I have never met, I have great respect for you and I truly appreciate your comment and explaination above. But, for me I trust and rely soley on Jesus Christ’s words and teaching. He is infallible where man and his undertanding is very fallible. I take communion very, very seriously as I do the teachings of my Lord & Savior. He has saved my life from ruin more times than I care to give too much thought to and He has forgiven me so many times I have no clear understanding as to why! But, I am ever go grateful, thankful, and in awe of His wonderous love, grace, forgiveness, protection, guidence, and faithfulness that to give Him less of my reverence and less of my obedience to Him & His word and teaching would be to crucify Him all over again. I cannot in good conscence do that. So, I find my needs and answers in His Holy Word.
Thank you Jesus

I thank you also Dr. Munday, I am so glad that I stayed up long enough to read your explanation.

Mathematicus:
Deaconesses are commissioned, not ordained, in REC.

I hope we will give close attention to Dean Munday’s comment [#46].

I also hope that Stand Firm readers will consider supporting both Nashotah House and Trinity School for Ministry (if they do not already do so) as a tangible affirmation of the Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical strands in Anglican Christianity.
_ _ _ _ _ _

Matt: Shekel to dollar conversion is easy: divide the shekel price by 3, then subtract 10%.

(Or, if feeling contrarian, you can subtract 10% from the shekel price, then divide by 3.)

*DO NOT MISS THIS* - Do not miss the beautiful devotions, prayers and quotes from the ancient fathers and the opportunity to pray for GAFCON and for repentance, return to Jesus Christ, for the renewal/revival/restoration of the Anglican Communion HERE: http://prayer.united-anglicans.org/

Very Encouraging Quote for faithful orthodox Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Laity at GAFCON and elsewhere, from The Catholic Knight on Ruth Gledhill’s blog:

“Within the watered-down lukewarm Anglican Communion, a healthy and robust conservative Anglican majority is emerging. God bless them! They’re standing up to the tyranny of relativism, facing it down, and showing it that Jesus is Lord! In the heat of this battle, they’re courageously shouting that Christ came to forgive our sins, not condone them. It’s inspiring! It’s invigorating! May God Almighty BLESS them, for their courage brings tears to my eyes. I tell you this, we have not seen such valor among so many clergy in our lifetime. These men are heroes of the faith. I pray that Rome opens her doors wide to them, and soon, for the Catholic Church needs more men such as these.’”

Here is the link to The Catholic Knight article:  http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2008/06/anglican-rift-widens-now-church-of.html

Ireneus formula for shekel conversion: divide by 3 and then subtract 10% is a indirect way to take 30% of a number:

(S/3) x (0.90) = S x (0.30)

The current exchange rate is 0.2984.

A simpler method of taking 30% of a number is to multiply by 3 and shift the decimal…

Example 1 - shekels to dollarsSomething costs 80 shekels: multiply by 3 or 240, then shift the decimal to arrive at 24 US dollars.

Perhaps, Ireneus is thinking about going back. One has to divide by 0.30. This is the same as multiplying by 3.333 which for all practical purposes is multiplying by 3.3 which is the same is as multiplying by 3 and adding 10 percent…

Example 2 - dollars to shekelsI go into the bank with 40 big American boffos. How many shekels do I expect? 40 times 3 is 120 and add 10% or 12 and one should get 132 shekels. (One can also simply divide by 3 and shift the decimal: 40 divided by 3 is 13.3 and shift to $133.)

Bottom line:  Matt+ paid a little over $88 for wireless access for a week.  I paid $125 per week last fall in a 5-star in Cairo, so it sounds reasonable, considering where he is and the fact that he MUST HAVE the wireless.

I should add:

I’m very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
I’m very good at integral and differential calculus;
I know the scientific names of [some] beings animalculous:

You are the very model of a modern Major General!

Katherine (#70),

I’m not sure if you’re refering to robroy (#69)as that illustrious model of a modern Major General.  But as founder and Commander-in-Chief of the NRAFC, of which robroy is the pretigious president, I can happily testify that he has what it takes to the Ruler of the Queen’s Navy.

To paraphrase those great Anglican saints, Gilbert and Sullivan:

“He is an Anglican.
For he himself has said it, and it’s greatly to his credit, that he is an Anglican, that he is an Anglican.
For he might been a Lutheran, a Baptist or Presbyterian, or perhaps (shudder) a Wesleyan, or perhaps a Wesleyan.
But in spite of all temptations, to join other denominations, he remains an Anglican.  He remains an Ang-lican.”

David Handy+
So very proud of my cabinet

“A simpler method of taking 30% of a number is to multiply by 3 and shift the decimal”—-RobRoy [#67]

Elegant!

NRA #71, I assumed robroy to be quoting G&S;.  I was humming the tune!

Irenaeus #72, many years ago I had to explain to a colleague how to take 10% of a number for computing discounts.  Just move the decimal point, I said.  And he kept asking which way to move it!  Patiently I explained over and over that moving it to the right gave him a larger number than the one he started with.  And this was before the sad decline in public education.

I have enjoyed this thread tremendously—and have gained some real insight into some important matters through the discussions taking place here.

In my hoble opinion, Eulogos and Dr. Munday have made the most substantial contributions to this discussion of how Anglo-Catholics might possibly be able to accomodate themselves to the language of the 39 Articles without compromising their catholic faith.

I think that the ordination of women is, ultimately, going to prove to be a MUCH bigger problem than the Articles.

I am now a member of the Church of Rwanda. I am surprised to note that some participants in this discussion seem to be unaware of the fact that the AMiA does NOT ordain women.

As I understand it, the primary reason that a parish or diocese fleeing TEC might choose to affiliate with either the AMiA or else CANA is predicated upon how they feel about THIS issue. Like Father Kennedy, I am worried about how many Anglo-Catholics will feel about making common cause with a post-GAFCON realignment of orthodox Anglicans. But I am MUCH MORE worried about how the CANA churches are going to find a place in this new Anglican entity.

Many of the people who have fled to the AMiA have jettisoned their opinions on WO, in order to attain something much more important—fellowship with true orthodox and catholic Anglicans. That was NOT an easy thing for them to do—but Jesus never said that following Him was going to be EASY. The Lord demands of his children humility, sacrafice, and submission to His authority.

Since first visiting SF, I have probably followed (fairly closely) something like 30 or 35 different discussions that touched upon the nature of the Eucharist and the underlying theology that shapes our understanding of this powerful mystery… I may be wrong about this, but it seems to me that each of these conversations have incrementally assumed a more irenic tone, as time passes. These conversations also seem to become more in-depth and substantial, as they unfold over time. Perhaps, I am deluding myself, but here on SF I see these conversations impelling both Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics into successively deeper levels of understanding. A year ago these sorts of discussions were almost invariably punctuated with a certain measure of rancor and a fair amount two-dimensional reasoning, on both sides of the issue. Today, I think that most of us here on SF have a much more profound understanding and appreciation of each other’s respective positions. I also think that most of us have a much deeper and more vibrant appreciation for the awesome nature of the Eucharist, itself, regardless of our churchmanship… This is a GOOD thing, and it gives me much hope.

#46 very helpful post and article - many thanks Dean Munday.

Off topic: Poor wandering one.

Matt, or anyone who knows, what piece are you referring to when you mentioned “The Way, The Truth, and the Life”? Is that the piece by +Duncan, or someone else? I couldn’t find it on a search of SF. Thanks, and thank you Dean Munday for your gracious words about Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals. As someone who is very grateful for the influence of Rev. Klukas (at Nashotah), I understand why we want to bridge that gap if at all possible.

DavidSh,

Follow this link.

To the “REC Deacon” earlier on, I’m sorry if I stepped on your toes. You might want to get over taking offense quite so easily.

As for Dean Munday+, interestingly enough, I worship, and work with a third year grad of Nashotah, Jeffery Richardson, SC,  an AngloCatholic if there ever was one and it is truly a blessing, Thank you Dean Munday, and Nashotah House.

Ive been thinking about our “speculations” on the Real Presence, since the thread started in that direction. Jesus said, “I am with you ALWAYS”, yet no once can truly touch him, see him, all we can do is endeaver to “feel” him.  Does that mean he’s not there? NOPE, with us always. 

I have a bit of a “stumble” when it comes to just HOW he becomes the Eucharist.  Not too sure about the “Consecration”, because the Articles say, it doesn’t matter if the priest is unworthy.  So, I’m inclined to figure it actually becomes the “REAL PRESENCE” if it is received in that way. (belief).  Sort of like the difference in lemonade, it might be sweet, but not necessarily made with sugar.
Now, please don’t everyone jump on me at once, just trying to get a grip (forget understanding) on a mystery.  Sort of seeing through a chalice darkly.

Grannie Gloria

#79 Grandmother
Since I happen to know your Bishop really well…..having worshiped with him many times and worked Cursillo’s with him my only suggestion to you would be to make an appointment to talk with him about this mystery. You will find him to be a wealth of knowledge and understanding and you will have the best talk that you will never forget. How blessed you are. That is a resource that not many have.

Heads Up: Anglican TV starts broadcasting in 25 minutes (1 pm EST)

Thanks, James Manley - I am even more excited about this than Plano and the Pittsburgh A Hope and a Future meeting.
Wooooo!

The Lord be with you all!

“I think that the ordination of women is, ultimately, going to prove to be a MUCH bigger problem than the Articles.”

Correct.  I have prayed, and prayed, that the parties could compromise around a deaconess role. Every female ordination into a new Anglican church makes it difficult to achieve a resolution. It strikes me as selfish, in a way.

This is one of the only posts anywhere that I have seen this issue dealt with so well.  I became Roman before the Gene Robinson fiasco and the chief “negative” reason for my departure from TEC was WO.  (There were many positive factors calling me to Rome as well.) I was confronted with it when my parish hired a woman priest and I found, quite to my surprise, that I could not receive the eucharist from her.  I completely agree that from the Catholic point of view there is no negotiation here.  All who have advocated some kind of compromise, your heart is in the right place, but that is not the way churches “work”.  Yes you can disagree about it but your church has to believe, practice and teach one thing or another.  Just imagine throwing that monkey wrench into the Roman church right now!  Suddenly the magisterium says:  “Some of our membership will have women priests now, some won’t.  We’ll work out the details later.”

What will happen?  IMO If there is “peaceful cohabitation” (think Star Trek) there will simply be another split down the road.  It will be two churches trying to exist as one.  OR All those to whom this issue is critical will leave, for Rome or Orthodoxy, or TAC, and the others will slowly conform and contort and reform their thinking to leave their qualms behind.  Those who have already accepted WO will not “go back” as others have noted.

I know that this trip is a real blessing to you and your family.  Travel safely.

Fr. Munday, 
    You said the presence is “objectively real but it is not substantial.”  On the contrary, if something is “objectively real”  that is, an objectively real being,  it IS substantial. 
Substance means being.  It does not mean made of stuff, physical matter. 

You wrote, “Christ is really present in the sacrament in the same sense that the Holy Spirit is present in the believer.  He is really and truly there, but it is a presence only God and the believer can see, not a physical presence that a surgeon could open us up and remove.”  By this, you imply that the position you are rejecting, substantial presence, is “a physical presence that a surgeon could open us up and remove.” 
Again, that is not what substantial presence means.  If He is really and truly there, that is, that His being is there, then He is substantially there.  Is is a form of “to be”
Being = substance.  He IS there = His being is there = His substance is there. And it is, of course, a presence only God and the believer can see.  (God has sometimes converted unbelievers, however, by allowing them to see it.) 

As I wrote, the “substance” in “transubstantiation”  is the same “substance” as in consubstantial (in Greek, homoousian) the word in the Nicene Creed which is translated “one in being” or “of one being”.  You surely don’t think the creed is asserting that the Father and the Son are made of the same physical stuff. 

Because the word substance is used in modern science to mean physical stuff, elements and compounds,  people get very confused about this.  In the Latin philosophical vocabulary,  substance was used to translate the Greek word “ousia” which means both being and “a being.”  In the grammatical books of Aristotle, ousia was used to mean what we would call a noun, or the subject of a sentence.  You have a bare noun, a being, the subject of your sentence, say “cat” and then you heap on it adjectives, like big, black etc.  So the noun stands underneath all the attributes you heaped on it.  So the word “sub stantia” or “stands underneath”  was used to translate ousia in the grammatical books.  Then they went right on using it to translate ousia in the Physics and the Metaphysics.  This was OK so long as people knew what it meant. 

Francis Bacon(1561-1625) asserted that “substances” in the Aristotelian sense do not exist.  He called the idea of substance, or being “fantastical and ill defined.”  On the contrary, he said, “The only things in nature which really exist are individual particles acting according to fixed laws.”    When modern science, therefore, called elements and compounds “substances”  they were asserting that these, not the “being” of tree or the “being” of a cat,  underlies all reality. 

I think this is a misunderstanding about the meaning of “substance”  rather than a fundamental disagreement about the Eucharist.  It is my opinion that with the proper understanding of substance, or being,  one can make the closest approach available to human beings to an explanation for how Christ is present in the Eucharist. ( And that is what the Catholic Church says about transubstantiation-best explanation going, but) It is only an approach from afar to a great mystery.  As St. Thomas himself said “What the senses fail to fathom/let us grasp by faith’s consent.”
A simple faith that He is truly present is all that is necessary. 
Susan Peterson