POLL: Does Anglicanism consider the Eucharistic food itself to really be or have Christ's body?

Have you read this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglican_eucharistic_theology

 

Christina, I meant the mainstream Anglican churches, but I get your point.

 

Yes.

 

In the UK, mainstream Anglican Churches are generally considered to be those in the Anglican Communion - is those Anglican Churches in Communion with Canterbury - so in the US that would only be TEC. These Anglican Churches come together to meet and discuss issues of faith and would be a body that the EO could dialogue with concerning unity. However, as previously pointed out the Communiin has moved away from EO belief by allowing, for instance, female ordination. Also the Churches within the communion range from low Church, seeing the bread and wine as symbols only, to Anglo Catholics believing in the real presence of Christ in the bread and wine. Some Continuing Anglican Churches may now hold more traditionally Anglican beliefs than Churches in the Anglican Communion, but they are not all united. Which of the many Anglican Churches in the US would you call mainstream? All of them? How would the EO attempt to unite with the myriad of Anglican Churches in existence?

 

So that basically should tell you that not all Anglicans believe the same thing concerning the real presence in the bread and the wine. That there are a variety of interpretations and that Anglicanism is not dogmatic about this.

 

I sympathize with you and would like it to be as you do that "all Anglicans believe the same" to that effect.
However, I have to recognize reality beyond my preferences. For a long time I simply had assumed that Anglicans believed the same as Lutherans on the question until last year I asserted this elsewhere and was repudiated by an Anglican who portrayed the Articles as supporting his POV. In relating this to you, I am not myself asserting an interpretation of what the Articles teach.

 

Yes, except for the last phrase you wrote- For conservative Anglicans or for clergy of the COE, are the Articles a set of teachings that must be assented to?

 

No, I don't believe they do have to be assented to any more. - at least not in the Anglican Communion. I found something on that the other day - will see if I can locate it again.

 

See this: http://churchsociety.org/issues_new/doctrine/39a/history/iss_doctrine_39A_history_subscription.asp
Since 1975, in the Church of England, the assent has been vague and weak in relation to the articles.

 

Also see this BBC article and, more interestingly, the comments that come after it - particularly the one from Fr Christopher Smith.

 

No I didn't. Hah!

My only point was that Receptionism isn't a statement on real presence, since both sides believe in it.

Because it doesn't matter what the mode of the real presence is.

 

The canon the essay quotes says clergy have to assert their loyalty to this inheritance of faith, ie the Articles, as their inspiration and guidance from God.

 

CWJ asserted "The bread I am given and I receive is His body, the Wine I am given and I receive is His blood", and that he hoped all Anglicans accept this.

Your message above asserts that both sides- those who consider the bread to actually be or have His body and the Receptionists like Cranmer who deny this - both believe in "the real presence".
By "real presence" therefore you do not mean a real presence in bread.

My first question to you would be if "Receptionists" are the "side" who denies the presence of Jesus in the bread itself, what would the name be for the other "side" or teaching of the objective, real presence in the bread? Isn't the name for the teaching of that side- the "real presence"?

Isn't the "mode" you refer to above actually an important issue for CWJ, when he hopes all Anglicans accept that the body is objectively in bread and physically eaten, ie swallowed with a physical mouth?

 

The historic Anglican side? Not to be flippant but that's the only answer I have, because its the only position consistent with the Articles, where the Lords Body is both "given" and "taken", and not simply taken as the Receptionists say. Their position was a late innovation which again in recent times has lost prominence again.

The Lord's Body given and received in the heavenly manner is the Anglican position.

Why must it be physical to be objectively present?

it sounds to me like we want to assert the reality without proving into the specifics. You keep bringing up metaphysics and such.

 

Cranmer's position was Receptionist/Virtualist, that is, he denied the real presence as being in the bread.
Considering that there are opposing interpretations of the Articles on this point and that Cranmer was a Receptionist/Virtualist, can it really be said that a "direct, objective presence in bread itself" is the one Anglican position on the topic?
Cranmer wrote:
"They say that Christ is corporally under or in the form of bread and wine; we say that Christ is not there, neither physically nor spiritually."
SOURCE: JOHN HOWE, "OUR ANGLICAN HERITAGE", SECOND EDITION.

Secondly, more broadly, considering that the Christian community is divided on the question, what is an objective title for the RC/EO/Lutheran/Anglo-Catholic/"Oxford movement" teaching on the question, other than simply calling it "the Anglican position"? Because if one does choose to speak of "the Anglican side" and "the Receptionist side", the title itself creates dissension, with the Receptionist Anglicans disputing the very title, whereas scholars want a simple title that both sides can agree on.

That is why scholars have commonly spoken of two views: "The real presence" (ie in bread) and "Receptionism", although there are a few other variants that are also disputed like "Consubstantiation" and "Virtualism".

Bishop Guest's intention was that by stating "given", he taught the real presence in bread in the Articles.

However, bear in mind that "spiritual eating" and "physical eating" with the mouth are not the same thing and that "spiritual eating" is taken to mean not "eating" by the mouth. Perhaps the same thing is true when one teaches that the "giving" is "only spiritual" too?

Please note that Cranmer, who did not believe there was a spiritual presence in bread, wrote:

As we know from his previous quote, Cranmer taught that the "eating" was not "corporally" with the mouth, but only "spiritually", ie. as belief itself.
In the quote above, Cranmer asserts the same kind of thing about the "giving", that it was not given corporally (as a corpus or body), but "spiritually" and "effectually".

As you suggest, it does not have to be present in normal physical form to be objectively present in the bread, just as Jesus' body did not have to be physical when it went through the door in John 20.

But if it is objectively present in the bread (eg. in spirit form), then is it not eaten physically, in the sense of chewing with a physical mouth, because it is in the physical bread that is chewed? Mustn't a process of physical chewing with a mouth be involved?

For example, Revd. Brett Cane asks in Instructed Eucharist, published by the Diocese of Montreal:

Revd Cane's own answer is what Anglican scholars call Virtualism, that is, Jesus' body is not actually present in the bread, but the bread has the same effect or "virtue" because it is a "vehicle" or "means" for "spiritual eating", ie believing or communion.

In other words, Rev Cane asks if the elements are Jesus' body that is literally eaten or if they are merely symbolic and his answer is that they are not only symbolic but rather they are bread that is also a "means of encounter".

 

Have a look at this, particularly the comments after the article, especially the one by Fr Christopher Smith.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4273377.stm
"We have never been required to subscribe to them and since 1975 have been required only to acknowledge that they are part of the 'historic formularies' of the Church of England" etc.

 

There is no memorialist member church in the AC (but there are a few memorialist Anglicans).

 

IMHO not even the majority of faithful, committed churchgoers deal with such special theological problems. They just want to meet Christ in the Eucharist.

 

He claims that, but if you look at what you cited to me earlier:

The current declaration says the COE bears witness to truth in the Articles, and that clergy affirm loyalty to this inheritance, ie the Articles "as your inspiration and guidance under God".

That means loyalty to the rules that teach all those issues listed in the BBC page you pointed to.
Ii wonder if it would be an issue for American democrats to affirm the part about monarchism, or how that is to be interpreted?

 

There do appear to be some memorialist Anglican Churches in the AC (in communion with Canterbury) in the UK - some low evangelical Anglican Churches.