If we are to know a tree by its fruits what does that say for the Episcopal Church that people are leaving in droves?
It is mayhap not my place to opine on this, but as it bothers me I will say my bit: My first thought is that this is more or less hand in hand with the general abandoning of the church in the West and especially Europe. It's not that there's anything wrong with Anglicanism per se, but more that, at least where I live, most folks are atheists and have little time for any form of religion. It's that the whole idea has become obsolete to many and it is infuriatingly hard to converse with such people. A second thought is that traditional church dogma is socially conservative and as everyone is well aware, this goes against the new grain. I've noticed young folks have an uptake in religion, but only ones that already conform to their new morality, such as feminism, gender radicalism, homosexuality etc., and it's like two tiers destroying traditional Christendom - the nonbelievers who don't care and the new religious folks who actively want to change the church (and synagogue, mosque, et al.) I spoke to a vicar recently and he said the traditional service is about the same as it always was, but the modern service with guitars and tambourines has grown. There's a direct threat from the hardcore, Pentecostal evangelical types to the traditional Anglican roots. It upset me, honestly.
People are leaving Christianity in droves, my friend. That one part of the ship may be further underwater than another doesn’t change the fact that the whole ship is sinking. The only parts of Christianity that appear to be growing ( for now) - the free-church entertainment-as-worship prosperity-gospel evangelicals - are for all intents and purposes an entirely different religion.
With respect, I really don’t want to go through this whole debate again. We’ve debated the subject to death already on other threads. What the issue basically comes down to is a difference of opinion regarding the role of precedents. Such debates are often murky without the benefit of hindsight, and if it were perfectly clear what the correct rule should be, there wouldn’t be such vigorous debates over it. How individuals, congregations, and whole communions carry out the Great Commission is for them to decide. Time will tell which approach is best (assuming there’s only one right way).
But one branch of Christianity is shrinking faster than others and that are the more liberal denominations
I’m not sure what that has to do with the fruit/tree analogy. Gambling and prostitution have been growth industries since the beginning of civilization. That doesn’t mean they’re better activities than their negations.
I don’t want to take over the thread with this one topic, so I’ll only say this here. The issue of spiritual headship hinges on far more than prior precedents. Even if there were no prior precedents, we’d have to say no to WO from here on out. Think about it: the ancient classical world (which I love otherwise) was jam-packed with female priestesses. Women serving sacred functions. A good 50% or more! of all ancient sacred functions were served by women (eg. there was no male equivalent to the Vestal Virgins). So by what right did our lord and savior choose only men to hand on his sacred ministry? He was surrounded with so many holy women, many later venerated as saints. But the men he choose, even while famous, could be hardly said to be holy, I’m speaking of Peter here. So our lord, in a culture saturated with women “at the altar” chooses to unceremoniously be exclusive in his pickings, and choose mostly unworthy pudgy / balding men who were aggressively unimpressive. Those who don’t oppose WO have never been able to give a satisfactory explanation for that. The explanation the Church gave throughout history is this. Masculinity and femininity are not just biological/mammalian historical accidents: they’re metaphysical, and even eschatological. God is a He. Christ is a He. Holy Ghost is a He. Man was forlorn through the actions of Adam, not Eve, although she was more in the wrong. But her actions did not matter, because she was not in charge. And to redeem against him, a second Man had to be born (not a second Eve). The choices the men made decided the choices of the women, like the choices of a husband decide for the whole household. Further, within this patriarchal eschatology, God directed only men to be chosen into his Aaronic priesthood. Ponder that — the little nation of Israel surrounded with Semitic empires filled with women priests, is told that only the men can serve him. God established the OT spiritual patriarchy. Then when God was incarnated, he unceremoniously elected pudgy and mediocre men over holy women, as the only suitable carriers of his spiritual kingship. Then his apostles in a categorical way forbade females from even be heard in the church, let alone carry spiritual kingship. And only then, after all that, the church was powerless but to follow this intimidating eschatological instruction for the next 2000 years. And when they stopped, marvel that, they quickly abandoned the gospel as well.
Simple if you want to shrink your denomination the fastest and make it irrelevant just liberalize it. That is the fruit of the liberal denominations rapid extinction. I don't say that with any joy or meaness as some of the people closest to me are Episcopalians but it does seem to be the truth
The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. Also, it’s a little disingenuous for former Episcopalians who left TEC (and have since filed lawsuits over church property) to then point fingers back at us and ask why our membership has been dropping and why we’re in financial trouble. The spirit of schism among those who left was as much a part of the problem as anything else.
Those numbers have. continued to drop even in the parishes who stayed. Those who left had the choice of remaining faithful to Biblical sexual morality and other issues or remain in the TEC. So they left. I was not a cradle Episcopal though.
Oh I didn’t mean to imply that you were. I agree with you about the need to maintain traditional sexual morality but we’re just talking about WO here. I don’t see those issues as connected.
The Anglican Church is in communion with some other protestant churches. Others it has strong ecumenical relationships with, such as the Methodist and Presbyterian churches. The closeness of this relationship varies country-to-country / province-to-province. I think the Anglican Church ought to be considered apart for the 'rest of Protestantism' insofar as you can group them all together as a religious blob, because it certainly stands apart with the most exceptions and differences. That being said, it's still a protestant church by definition, and its followers are all protestants. A protestant church is simply a Western Church that rejects papal supremacy. That makes the Anglican Communion protestant, but perhaps worth categorising as its own unique thing for clarity. I don't think the Anglican Church is particularly close to the Roman Catholic Church in the ways Roman Catholics would consider important. But likewise, I would say optically it's about as close to the RCC as it is to the Lutheran Church or other protestant denominations. I'm probably a bit 'closer' to the RCC than the average Anglican, given I attend an Anglo-Catholic parish, but I would never describe myself as being "close". The Anglican Church sees tradition as an important aspect of faith, worth preserving, although not necessary for salvation. Scripture contains all that is necessary, but many other things are still good. Tradition is good. An analogy often used is that of the "three legs of the church". Consider a stool with three legs. The Anglican Church sits atop the stool. The three legs are scripture, tradition and reason. If you neglect one of the legs (e.g. the leg becomes short) the stool will become unbalanced and topple over. So you ought to spend a good amount of focus on scripture, because obviously that's where we look to find Truth, but if you neglect tradition, or neglect your own/others capacity for reason then you might find the church/your faith topples over. It's a good thing. I'm a High Church Anglican. I think there's a lot of value in that form of worship, it personally gels well with me. I think strong ecumenical dialogues with all of our Christian family is important. Most Anglicans believe we are just one branch of the Church, the RCC and OC churches being other, also valid, catholic branches. It's entirely possible they have proper aspects of the faith we error in that we can learn from them. Naturally we also believe we have plenty to teach them. Failing any sharing of theology, it's just good to be friends with and work with your religious neighbours. On paper it's repugnant. XXII. Of Purgatory. The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration, as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God. ~ Thirty-Nine Articles Of Religion In reality I don't think many of the faithful genuinely and authentically invoke the saints anyway. Most Anglicans I know don't really think about it, why bother wondering if you can pray to the saints or not when we know for certain you can skip the mailroom and speak directly to Christ? I assume you mean the Holy Communion? It's a sacrament. We can be confident in Christs presence at the Eucharist. We do not literally eat Christ's body, nor literally drink Christ's blood. It's a metaphor for faith. Transubstantiation is silly. Outside of that I just think its a good idea to gather every Sunday. There's a story I like to quote often that explains this well. A young parishioner goes to see his rector one day in the rectory. He sits with him by the fireplace and they watch the flames lick the firewood, brightly humming with light-filled embers. The parishioner says to the rector he thinks he can get as much out of church at home reading the lectionary and doesn't see the need to keep coming each week to listen to other people read the verses for him. The rector silently nods, and without saying anything in response grabs a poker and takes a log out of the fire, laying it on the cobble floor. Together they watch as the logs bright embers slowly fade, bit by bit. After watching the log for some time, and when the embers are almost entirely dulled, the rector picks up the poker again and casts the log back into the flame. Immediately the log bursts into flame again, the embers burning just as brightly and furiously as before. Naturally the fireplace is the parish/community. Together they keep each others faith burning. That, if nothing else, is a reason to consider the Lord's Supper important. As far as I know there is no official doctrine. You can get an insight on the diverse views on atonement within this forum in this thread. Depends which province. Most say it is fine. Some say it is not. As with most things, the Anglican Communion allows scope for a fierce diversity of opinion, and encourages respectful internal debate, so we can through that process use reason to discern truth. My opinion is that a women can do the job just as well as a man can. My parish has a female rector, and it seems even if that is improper, by our fruits it would appear the church was built on rock not sand so far. I'm unconvinced 1 Timothy 2 is a binding rule for all churches, and I think the bible has plenty of examples of female prophets and church leaders that offer suitable evidence for the validity of some women to guide God's flock.
I'll give my Puritan-adjacent "Presbyterian-Rite Anglican" answers: Anglicanism should be understood as the English equivalent to the continental Reformation, somewhere between the Genevan and Wittenberg reformation. If Anglicanism should be a via media, it should be between Calvinism and Lutheranism. Tradition is the means by which we approach and read scripture, as there is no such thing as a neutral point of view, as post-modern critique has shown us. As such, I would say that my reading of scripture is pre-modern typology but justified by post-modern reasoning. Personally I prefer Low Church worship style, having been raised Presbyterian, but I have no opposition to High Church practices so long as scriptural precedent can be found (which it normally can). Much of High Church Anglicanism isn't as friendly to Rome as you might think, though indeed many seek reabsorption at some point. As someone who would be best classed as "extremely anti-Roman" then I can say I'm not happy at all with attempts to reconcile with Rome. As for the East, it has its own issues, for instance its reliance on icons to a higher degree even than Rome, but I am far more open to dialogue with them, and pray that the patriarchs one day recognise Anglicanism as the true Western Orthodoxy. It is absent from the Anglican formularies and condemned in Article XXII, and since no good grounds have been shown to me to demonstrate that Article XXII was in error on this matter, I must therefore hold that the growth of prayer to (departed) saints and Marian devotion is a corruption in the Anglican tradition that should be rooted out by faithful bishops. In communion the human body of Christ remains in heaven and so we are, in a spiritual manner, in our eating of the elements on earth, raised into heaven to feast upon the very flesh of Jesus. Penal Substitutionary Atonement with a healthy dose of Christus Victor and incarnational theology, with a scepticism towards overly aggressive understandings of Limited Atonement though not a necessary disagreement with Limited Atonement as held to by the early Reformed. This is I believe a general outline of the view of traditional Anglicanism and of myself, but many "Anglicans" are now so liberal that they see little if any need for an atonement at all. This is still a disputed matter within and between Anglican provinces. In my opinion, the answer is clear, the ordination of women is not only undesirable but impossible. There are legitimate ministries and church vocations that can and should be performed by women. As such I would like the lay order of Deaconess, as exercised in the Reformed Episcopal Church (North America) to be replicated in all other provinces.
Just to be clear, none of the Anglican divines had said this. Even up until the 19th century no one has said this. It emerged for the first time as a talking point in certain niche circles in the late 20th century, around the 1970s. The person is asking what the Anglican divines, what the tradition has said of itself; not what some people have said about it in the 1970s. The other things you said I’m entirely onboard with (except post-modern reasoning; in the Anglican tradition, classical reasoning is the only valid form of reasoning).
"It hath been the wisdom of the Church of England, ever since the first compiling of her Publick Liturgy, to keep the mean between two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and too much easiness in admitting any variation from it." ~ 1662 Book of Common Prayer The idea of the Anglican Church as being a middle way is not new. It's in our foundations. It's in our earliest prayer book. It's in our church DNA. As for the actual use of the term via media I'm not sure. Pre-Newman at the least, possibly pre-19th Century. Not that the term "middle way" really matters, we've used 'broad', 'comprehensive', 'mean between two extremes' for longer and it all means the same thing. The modern definition of via media comes from the 1948 Lambeth Conference, not from the 1970s, wherever you got that from. The idea that the Anglican Church is comprehensive wasn't novel to that conference, the church was pushed internally by increasing orthodox/liberal division to come up with a formal definition of what it means to be comprehensive. It was not contentious that the church was comprehensive, it just meant different things to different people and it was important to agree what we meant when we said it. Perhaps what you mean by "around the 1970s" is this statement from 1968 (although I'm not sure I'd agree the consensus of a body of every Anglican bishop from around the globe is 'niche'): Comprehensiveness is an attitude of mind which Anglicans have learned from the thought provoking controversies of their history. ... Comprehensiveness demands agreement on fundamentals, while tolerating disagreement on matters in which Christians may differ without feeling the necessity of breaking communion. In the mind of an Anglican, comprehensiveness is not compromise. Nor is it to bargain one truth for another. It is not a sophisticated word for syncretism. Rather it implies that the apprehension of truth is a growing thing: we only gradually succeed in "knowing the truth." It has been the tradition of Anglicanism to contain within one body both Protestant and Catholic elements. But there is a continuing search for the whole truth in which these elements will find complete reconciliation. Comprehensiveness implies a willingness to allow liberty of interpretation, with a certain slowness in arresting or restraining exploratory thinking. We tend to applaud the wisdom of the rabbi Gamaliel's dictum that if a thing is not of God it will not last very long (Acts 5.38-9). Moreover we are alarmed by the sad experience of too hasty condemnation in the past (as in the case of Galileo). For we believe that in leading us into the truth the Holy Spirit may have some surprises in store for us in the future as he has had in the past. ~ Lambeth 1968 That statement above was not novel to 1968. It was largely an extension of the William Temple's statements on via media when he was Archbishop of York and then later as Archbishop of Canterbury, as well as earlier Lambeth conferences. Again those statements were not novel in their time, it was just the first time bishops gathered together to argue about what it really meant when people said the Anglican Church was broad or a 'middle way'. It's also well recorded in the earliest forms of secular theological academia - that is it was so intrinsic to our identity that it was observable by those outside of the Anglican Church. You can see papers from the 1940's of non-Anglicans describing the Anglican Communion as an "ecumenical movement in and of itself" and "Anglicanism functions like an atom. There are various elements moving in relation to each other, exerting force and influence on each other, keeping each other in balance and on track".
There is no right or wrong answer to this question. Some Anglicans would class the Anglican Church as Protestant and others as not. I fall into the latter camp. The Anglican Church was meant to be the Catholic Church reformed. I am not close to the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) even though I am an Anglo-Catholic. I find a number of things the RCC believes to be things I cannot agree with. The Anglican Church is definitely not sola scriptura. In Anglicanism we have the Scripture, Tradition and reason. Ultimately, though, Scripture is the final arbiter. Well, as a High Anglican I'm bound to have a very high opinion of them. I think dialoguing with the RCC and Eastern Orthodox churches (EOCs) is probably of no value. Since the C of E and most of the Anglican Communion ordains women we can never have union with these churches or even recognition of our holy orders. Plus many Anglican churches now believe that homosexual sex is acceptable and are allowing two people of the same sex to marry. We continually push ourselves away from the RCC and EOCs. Like many things in Anglicanism it varies. Some object to it and others accept it. I have no problem with showing honour to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints and no problem with asking for their intercesions. I believe that we do not simply consume wheat bread and wine made from grapes. I firmly believe that when I receive Holy Communion I am actually receiving the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Pass. I would have to do some research to discover the C of E's official view on this matter. Possibly not a lack of knowledge I should be owning up to. The majority of the Anglican churches allow women to be ordained to all three orders: bishop, priest and deacon. Most have ordained women to all three orders. That tells you what the modern Anglican Church says. I believe the Church is wrong and has acted ultra vires. In other words, not only should this not have been done I don't believe the Church has the authority to change Holy Orders in this way.
A couple of things. First, I think you're conflating the idea of 'via media' with the idea of being comprehensive. That the Anglican tradition has meant to be comprehensive is indisputable, nor has anything I said touched on that. But comprehension is a different concept from 'via media', which is a specific strategy of identifying one's location in relation to some extremes. While the liturgy itself may be seen as a medium between several options, that says nothing of Anglican doctrine. You won't be able to find that the divines tried to find a medium between Roman doctrines and the Puritan doctrines (or even more egregiously, between Geneva and Wittenberg). There wasn't anything of the kind. On some doctrines they sided with the extremes of the Reformation (disqualifying sacred tradition from being revelation). On other doctrines they sided with the extremes of church tradition, against the Puritans (descent into hell; no divorce; yes confession/absolution; yes deuterocanonical books, etc). What then is the unifying theological method, that would explain how the divines guided their choices, and which extremes they adopted in each case? They tell us themselves: the doctrine of scripture and of the church fathers. So that's what they sought to be 'extremist' about: they sought to be 'fundamentalist patristics'. Everything which departed from the church fathers they were willing to die for. And did die for. So that's their theological method: not an average between certain modern camps, but a single-minded adherence to the ancient doctrine. And since the ancient church was also extremely comprehensive, they adopted the principle of wide comprehension as well, rather than the principle of excessive specification. First I want to note that your 1948 is exactly on point. Via media is not at all traceable to the divines themselves. We can categorize it definitively as one of the innovations of the 20th century. And second, the point about 1970s was specifically with regard to a via media between Geneva and Wittenberg, which was a novel idea formulated among English and Sydney evangelicals over the course of the 1970s-1990s.
As you can see, @Elmo , Anglicans are a fairly diverse bunch, and Anglicanism is broad enough to accept and include much of that diversity. A few dip their toes into things that may be somewhat heterodox, and the church talks it over. The thing is, we know that our Lord is merciful. He does not require perfect theological understanding for salvation (if He did require it, I doubt anyone would have ever made the cut!) We all trust in Him for grace, strength, and wisdom, for without His gracious aid no worthiness would be found in any of us. It is the greatest miracle of all that God imputes His own righteousness to us who believe in Him!
This seems like a mischaracterisation of what most people mean when they use the term middle way. It doesn't mean Anglican doctrine cannot hold a view at an extreme (e.g. no divorce). But it does mean we exist between two extremes of an extreme focus on tradition and church precedent like the RCC, and an extreme of an exclusive focus on scripture like some Protestant/Reformed churches. You yourself say "via media is a specific strategy of identifying one's location in relation to some extremes". The 1662 Book of Common Prayer says "It hath been the wisdom of the Church of England, ever since the first compiling of her Publick Liturgy, to keep the mean between two extremes". Just because the term via media wasn't used yet in 1662 doesn't mean the idea wasn't already widely held. And just because it took them just under 300 years to define what they meant by existing between two extremes doesn't mean it was new to that period. Anglicanism exists between two extremes today and always has. Ah I see, I misunderstood. Yes, that idea is certainly modern.