I am not convinced that Sacraments are effectual at imparting grace. The Anglican Catechism says: 121. What is a sacrament? A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. God gives us the sign as a means by which we receive that grace and as a tangible assurance that we do in fact receive it. (Genesis 17:1– 21; John 6:53–58; Romans 2:25–29; 1 Corinthians 10:16; 1662 Catechism) I certainly accept the definition of a sacrament: an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. But when I looked up the provided references, it seemed to me that none of them provided substantive support for the proposition. I believe that the signs of baptism and communion signify the deposit of grace that already has been given to the recipient when he previously came to faith in Jesus Christ. The Catechism appears to state that baptism or communion are an instrumental means by which God gives us the grace. Who can explain, with written evidence (preferably Scripture but I'll consider whatever you can quote), why a sacrament is an effectual means of impartation?
I'm looking for best evidence. Today I went through all Bible references to "grace" and couldn't find a connection to effectual signs. I also thumbed through the Westminster Confession, thinking maybe the Presbyterians would have something helpful, but nope. With at least two priests and one priest's spouse on the forum, surely there's someone who knows where this concept, of sacraments as an effectual impartation of grace, came from?
Perhaps it comes from the Anglican understanding of Sacrament described in the first paragraph of Article 25 of the Articles of Religion: "Sacraments ordained of Christ be not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession, but rather they be certain sure witnesses, and effectual signs of grace, and God's good will towards us, by the which he doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our Faith in him."
Hi Rexlion. I found this in one of my favourite books. It quotes quite a lot of Calvin's thoughts on the matter, from the Reformed point of view, and The Anglo-catholic point of view is SUPPOSED to be Reformed Roman Catholic, not actual Roman dogmas. There is no doubt that both the Word and the sacraments confirm our faith by presenting to our notice the good will of our heavenly Father towards us; and in this knowledge consists the assurance of our faith and reposes all its force. The Spirit also confirms our faith in that He impresses on our hearts this assurance in order to render it effective. Meanwhile, the Father of lights has no difficulty in illuminating our souls by means of the sacraments, just as He is able to illuminate our bodily eyes by the rays of the sun .... In the water and by the blood we have the witness of our cleansing and redemption; and the Holy Spirit, who is the principal witness, assures us certainly of this testimony, causes us to believe, understand, and recognise it; for otherwise it is impossible for us to comprehend it." Here, then, is the reason why the Holy Spirit is as intimately linked to the sacraments, as to the Word. The conditions surrounding the efficacy of the sacraments. The sacraments are not efficacious as means of grace - that is to say, they are not signs and seals of the covenant of grace - except, (as far as adults are concerned), for those who receive them with faith. The sacraments can exercise a natural influence upon others than believers in presenting the truth and in stirring up feeling, but their saving or sanctifying influence is experienced only by believers, for whom alone they become means in God's hands whereby the invisible benefits of His grace are signified and sealed (Mk. 16:16; Acts 8:36-38; Acts 9:11, Acts 9:17 f; Acts 10:34; Rom. 4:11, and Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16; Eph. 5:26). In His Word and in His sacraments our heavenly Father offers His mercy, His good will, and His grace to us all. But this grace is only accepted by those who receive this Word and these sacraments with an assured faith. Experience shows that today a very large number of men reject this grace; and similarly in the days of His first coming Christ was offered and presented by the Father to all, so that all might be saved, but He was not recognised and received by all. How do the sacraments strengthen our faith ? - in the same way as our eyes see when the light of the sun shines and our ears hear when a voice is uttered.' But to what purpose does the light shine for us to see, if our eyes are blind? To what purpose is a voice uttered, if our ears are deaf? Now, our eyes and ears possess naturally the faculty of seeing and hearing. But it is not so with our souls which, if they are to hear plainly what the Word says and to see clearly what the sacraments represent, must be given spiritual sight and hearing. This particular grace is precisely that which is given by the Holy Spirit; and this is the reason why, apart from the action of the Holy Spirit, the sacraments - like the Word - have not the least efficacy." " All those who bring to the sacred table of Christ a pure faith, as though a vessel, truly receive that to which the signs there testify, namely, that the body and blood of Jesus Christ serve as food and drink for the soul no less than do bread and wine for the body. Thus we hold that the water, though a frail element, does not fail to testify to us truly of the internal washing of our soul by the blood of Jesus Christ, and that the bread and the wine which are given to us in the Lord's Supper truly provide us with spiritual nourishment, inasmuch as they show, as it were visibly, that the flesh of Christ is our food and His blood our drink." A sacrament received without faith confers nothing more than the Word heard without faith: neither the one nor the other is of value except by virtue of the promise which they contain, and both the hearer of the Word and the recipient of the sacraments receive nothing other than that which they accept by faith. The assurance of salvation depends on participating in the sacraments-as though justification were thereby communicated to us - no more than it does upon the hearing of the Word, but it depends upon it no less.In the one case, as in the other, the justification of redemption is found neither in the words taken by themselves, nor in the sacraments taken by themselves : it is found only in Jesus Christ , who communicates it to us at the same time by the preaching of the Gospel and by the confirmation which the sacraments bring to the Word. It is important to beware of certain errors, and this is why we also affirm negatively that the sacraments do not possess in themselves any particular power nor any original efficacy. The sacraments are not the efficient cause of the beneficent effects which they produce. Their efficiency, their efficacy, does not reside in the elements - in the water employed at baptism or in the bread and the wine of the Lord's Supper. No more is it in the sacramental action, nor in the distribution or the reception of the consecrated elements. Nor yet does the efficiency of the sacraments reside in the person through whom they are administered, nor does it proceed from the position or office of him (or her) who administers them. The minister does not by virtue of his (or her) position wield any supernatural power by which they render the sacraments efficacious. No more does their efficiency depend on the character of the administrant before God, nor on his (or her) intention, that is to say, his (or her) resolve to render the sacrament efficacious. The man (or woman) who administers the sacraments is not a performer of miracles. The Apostles and others were formerly granted a supernatural power of which they were bound to make use for the purpose of producing its legitimate effects; but it is not the same with ministers of the Church in the administration of the sacraments! (Cf. Westminster. Confession., 27:3; 2nd Helv. Confession., 19:11; Art. 26 of the Church of England). Calvin expresses himself admirably on this subject of the efficacy of the sacraments: "We recognise three graces of God," he says. "For, firstly, our Lord teaches and instructs us by His Word; secondly, He confirms us by His sacraments; and thirdly, He illumines our understanding by the light of His Holy Spirit and gives both Word and sacraments an entrance into our hearts, for otherwise they would only strike against our ears and appear before our eyes, but would by no means penetrate and move us inwardly. . .. The sacraments produce their effect only when the internal Master of souls adds to them His power by which alone hearts are pierced and affections touched so that an entrance into them is given to the sacraments. If He is missing, the sacraments can convey no more to our spirits than the light of the sun to blind eyes or a voice sounding on deaf ears. That is why I make the distinction between the Spirit and the sacraments whereby I recognise that the power resides in the Spirit, while nothing else is left to the sacraments except that they are instruments which the Lord uses towards us - instruments, moreover, which without the operation of the Spirit are useless and empty: nevertheless, they are full of efficacy when the Spirit is active within. ... To the end that the Word may not fall in vain upon the ears, nor the sacraments be presented in vain to the eyes, the Spirit declares that it is God who there speaks to us and softens the hardness of our hearts in order to prepare them for the obedience which is due to His Word. Then He transmits both His words and His sacraments to the ears of the spirit." .
Your difficulty in finding anything relevant in scripture is caused by the fact that 'sacraments' didn't really get talked or written about in Apostolic times when the Bible was being written, so they are simply not mentioned. The word 'sacrament (Lat. sacramentum) in its technical theological sense, when used to describe certain rites of the Christian faith, belongs to the period of the elaboration of doctrine much later than the New Testament. The Vulgate in some places thus renders Gk. mysterion (Eph. 5:32; Col. 1:27; 1 Tim.3:16; Rev. 1:20; Rev. 17:7), which was, however, more copmmonly rendered mysterium (Mystery). In early ecclesiastical usage sacramentum was used in a wide sense of any ritual observance or sacred thing. In everyday usage the word had been applied in two ways: (1) as a pledge or security deposited in public keeping by the parties in a lawsuit and forfeited to a sacred purpose. (2) as the oath taken by a Roman soldier to the emperor, and thence to any oath. These ideas later combined to produce the concept of a sacred rite which wwas a pledge or token, the receipt of which involved an oath of loyalty, and this led in time to the limitation of the word 'sacrament' to the two major rites of divine institution, Baptism and the Lord's Supper. The wider use continued for many centuries. Hogo of St Victor (12th Cent) can speak of as many as thirty sacraments, but Peter Lombard in the same period estimated seven as the bumber. The latter estimation is officially accepted by the Roman Church. Can't really help you trace the origins of the concept that 'sacraments', particularly wine and wafers, have the 'power', in themselves to 'impart grace'. That concept seems alive and well in the RC and other un-reformed churches, and even as ignorant superstion in some members of many others, though it seems medievilly superstitions and rather 'mysterious' nay even 'magical' to me. The Reformed have a far more sophisticated and spiritual view of the sacrament's efficiency and efficacy, but only when accompanied by 'faith' within the recipient. And the faith is faith and trust in Christ himself, and his gift of Grace, not mere belief in the nature, or change thereof, of the sacramental wafer or wine, produced through the priest. .
Thanks for that, Tiffy. I was doing some researching and came across that info about the use of sacramentum. One page said, the Latin word “Sacramentum” is a Church Latin “loan-translation” of the Greek word mysterion. I downloaded the Vulgate into eSword and found where that Greek word mysterion is twice translated into the Latin mysterio, and six times the Vulgate translates it as sacramentum. It seems very odd, since mysterion (Greek) does not have a meaning of either a pledge/security or an oath (the two meanings behind the Latin word choice in those six instances. Since they had a perfectly good Latin word, mysterio, why did they use something else? And did the choice of the word sacramentum influence the thinking of those Latin-reading clergymen in a way that affected their theology? Or was it the other way around: did their theology influence the word choice? The passage which seems most telling to me is: Eph 5:31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. Eph 5:32 This is a great sacramentum: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. If the word mysterio had been used to replace the Greek mysterion, one would read it as saying that the joining of two individuals as "one flesh" is a great mystery (which seems extremely apropos); but when that joining is called a great sacramentum, it's obvious grounds for Rome's inclusion of Matrimony in their grouping of (7) Sacraments. I have just discovered that Tertullian (called 'the father of Latin Christianity' by some) wrote "Against Marcion" in Latin and referred to Sacraments. One such statement is in Book 4, Ch. 34: "...ad sacramentum baptismatis et eucharistiae..." This was probably written in the early 3rd Century. I'm just meandering and thinking. Not really making any particular point with all of this.
One way of moving productively forward from here then might be to discuss the differences and dissimilarities between THE WORD and THE SACRAMENTS. In my previous posts I have intimated that there is a very close analogy, according to Reformed doctrine, between the Word and the sacraments as means of grace, yet there are none the less, certain differences between them. With your permission, I could outline the 5 major differences, (with regard to saving grace), that Calvin pointed out, according to Peirre Ch. Marcel. They will, I think, make clear that the Anglican communion should firmly remain in the school of Reformed theology and praxis, and that current trends in Anglo-catholicism stands it in danger of drifting or even deliberately careering down the slippery religiosity slope, into traditionalist, un-apostolic, Roman Catholic 'mysterious sacramentalist imaginings'. .
OK. This is point (a) - It's quite long. There are another 4 points to go - (b to e), but this'll do to go on with: POINTS OF DISSIMILARITY BETWEEN THE WORD AND THE SACRAMENTS Though, as we have seen, there exists, according to Reformed doctrine, a very close analogy between the Word and the sacraments as means of grace, yet there are, none the less, certain differences between them which we shall now briefly describe. (a) Word and sacraments differ in their necessity The Word is indispensable to salvation, but the sacraments are not. The sacraments, in fact, are subordinated to the Word: they are signs of the content of the Word, and seals which God adds to His testimony; they are, as Calvin says, columns or pillars of our faith, helps which accompany the Word and are joined to it. The Word, therefore, is definitely something apart from the sacraments, but the sacraments apart from the Word are nothing: apart from it they have neither value nor power. The sacraments are nothing less than, but nothing more than, a visible Word. All the benefits of redemption come to us from the Word and only through faith, but there is not a single benefit which can be received through the sacraments alone, apart from the Word and without faith. It is for this reason that the preaching of the Word should precede the administration of the sacraments in order to teach us and bring to our knowledge the significance of the visible sign. The words which are called" sacramental" are nothing other than a summary preaching of the promise of the Gospel, which ought to be proclaimed by the minister with force and clarity so that believers may be brought to the end for which the sign was prescribed. The Word is thus indispensable to salvation, whereas the sacraments are not. In affirming this, Reformed theologians are conscious that their teaching is founded upon Scripture in which the following emphases are constantly found : 1. The free and spiritual character of the Gospel in which God does not link His grace to the use of certain external forms (cf. Jn. 4:21-23; Lk. 18:14; etc.). 2. The fact that faith alone is the instrumental cause of salvation (cf. Jn. 5:24; Jn. 6:29; Acts 16:31). 3· The fact that, as far as adults are concerned, the sacraments do not produce faith but presuppose it, and are only administered when faith is present (cf. Acts 2:41; Acts 16:14-15; Acts 16:30-33; 1 Cor. 11: 23-32; etc.). 4· The fact that some have been truly saved without the use of sacraments, for example, believers before the time of Abraham and the penitent thief on the cross. Sins can be forgiven and the soul regenerated and saved without ever having received a sacrament. According to the Reformed view of a sacrament, sacraments are not means necessary for salvation. The necessity of means is in general an absolute necessity, a condition sine qua non. In this sense, food is a vital necessity for the body, light is necessary for the use of sight, the Word for the exercise of faith. In our opinion, the sacraments possess a necessity of precept. It is a duty to make use of them, but they are not means necessary for salvation. One can be saved without them. The benefits which they signify, and of which they are the organs of signification for sealing and applying them to believers, do not depend on their use in such a way that these benefits cannot be received apart from them. (Cf. F.- J. Leonhardt, op. cit., pp. 44, 62, 65; K. Barth, op. cit., pp. 23-25). Christ, however, has ordered His disciples to baptise all those who are received as members of His Church, and He has required that His disciples should regularly commemorate His death by the celebration of the Lord's supper; thus His people find themselves under a compelling moral obligation to obey these commandments of His. But it may happen that the exercise of this duty is counteracted by external circumstances (such as the great distances which separate Christians in some sparsely populated territories) which hinder the obedience even of those who are disposed and desire to practise their Saviour's injunction. Even where obedience is not opposed by external circumstances the observance of these commands may be neglected through ignorance or through scruples of conscience which are unjustifiable. We believe that if such people possess faith through the Word alone their salvation is in no way compromised. It is not the privation but the contempt of the sacraments which renders us culpable before God. Let us not forget that we are not spirits, but sensible and earthly creatures who cannot understand spiritual things otherwise than by sensible forms; nor that God has instituted the sacraments in order that, by gazing upon signs, we might acquire a better notion of His benefits and be more firmly assured of His promises, and thus sustained and strengthened in our faith. No one can neglect the use of the sacraments deliberately without exposing himself to grave spiritual consequences. ( Cf. Irish Art., para. 88.) The believer has no right to rely upon the operation of grace apart from the conditions upon which the promise of help has been made, and these conditions are: the hearing of the Word and the participation of the sacraments. It is for this reason that the faithful Christian, even at the cost of the greatest sacrifices, will go to hear the Word preached and will partake of the Lord's supper. In dispensing with these, excuses valid before God will alone be admissible. .
Pierre-Charles Marcel (1910-1992) Interesting. I hope you have been able to copy & paste, and were not reduced to typing it out.
Let me see if I have this correctly. If I receive the Eucharist with the belief that it is a sign confirming my right-standing with God through faith in Christ, then the Eucharist I received was an effectual sign, because it had the effect of confirming that I am in Christ and Christ is in me. Yes?
I think that is the reasoning. The theory seems to be that God himself has personally instituted sacraments of water, bread and wine to confirm to our physical senses what God has supplied to our spiritual souls. God has graciously done this for the believing soul to accommodate our natural disinclination to operate completely 'in the spirit'. So the sacrament appeals to our physical senses in the way the Spirit appeals to our spirit. (At least, that is the way I understand the concept of how the sacraments enhance in us appreciation and assurance of God's grace toward us individually). Do this in remembrance of Me, in effect, means "Recall what I have done for you Chris/Christine/whoever, by name." .
(b) Word and sacraments differ in their extent The Word is spread throughout the whole world, while the sacraments are only administered to those who are in the visible Church. To those who are not within the Church the sacraments mean nothing. (c) Word and sacraments differ in their object The object of the Word is to engender and strengthen faith, while the sacraments contribute only to its strengthening. "The sacraments," says Calvin, " do not fail to confirm Scripture and to render it more certain and more authentic, when they are added to it .... The promise is sealed by the sacraments, since it is plain that where promises are concerned the one is confirmed by the other. For that which is the most evident is the most suitable for assuring our faith. Now, the sacraments convey to us the clearest promises and, compared with the Word, have this peculiarity, that they represent to us the promises in a lifelike form, as though in a picture .... The sacraments, as we have already remarked, are to us from God's side just what messengers of good news are from man's side - not for the purpose of conferring grace upon us, but only for announcing and exhibiting the things which are given to us by God's liberality: they are a pledge which ratifies these gifts to us. " .
(d) Word and sacraments differ in their external form, in that manner in which they present the same Christ to us In a certain sense the Word itself is a sign and seal-a sign which attracts and holds our attention to the thing which it presents and explains, and a seal which ratifies that which exists in the true reality, although (or rather, because) this reality still remains in certain respects external to ourselves. This is generally true of every word, but it is very particularly true of the Word of God: he who does not believe it makes God a liar (1 Jn. 5:10), while, on the contrary, the believer, having been sealed in the truth of the Word, by the Word itself, gives his seal, in accepting its testimony, that God is true (Jn. 3:33). Word and sacraments present Christ and His blessings to us by means of the senses which God has given man, but by means of different senses. The Word signifies Christ to us and seals Him to us by the sense of hearing, whereas the sacraments do this by the sense of sight, in association with smell, taste, and touch. The sacraments are a visible Word, a mirror. "We can also use other similitudes," says Calvin, ,. for plainly describing the sacraments, as by calling them pillars of our faith. For just as a building stands and is supported on its foundation and is made more secure and firm by the adding of pillars underneath, so also our faith rests and is supported on the Word of God, as on its foundation; but when the sacraments are added to it they act like pillars, on which it rests more firmly and by which it is still further strengthened." The bringing into play of these new senses brings to light a further difference in the manner in which Christ is presented to us. Apart from occasions when the Word is directly proclaimed to a single person in a private conversation, which is the exception, the Word preached is always addressed to a group of persons, sometimes even to a crowd. It is the privilege of the Word which is apprehended by hearing to be addressed to a community. But the individual is then taken in the mass, and one knows with what difficulty each separate person appropriates to himself the words spoken and the promises made. Frequently the hearer considers that the words are addressed to the mass, and not to himself: " Good sermon, but ... it's for the others! It's too strong for me, it's too good; I'm not worthy of it I It's not for me personally, etc .... " In other words, he escapes from the Word. He does not realise that he himself is singled out; he does not know, or does not wish to know, that he himself is the object of God's love and mercy. Who has not passed through this experience? It is now that the sacrament intervenes. The sacraments, the visible Word, are addressed to each one taken separately, to each one for himself. They individualise and make the Word concrete for each one. Each one receives the promise for himself; each one is personally marked out by God as the object, the precise addressee of the promises and of salvation. In the sacraments God engages in a solemn private conversation with each one. It is truly a special interview" face to face" : " To thee, here present, I promise, I give, I convey, I confirm .... Take, receive, believe, ... thou personally." Through the sacraments God lays His hand on each one, so that it is impossible to escape and impossible to say that the Word is addressed to others. The visible Word besieges the man who receives it, that very man at that very moment. God offers everything to him, and it behoves him to lay hold of every thing for himself. We discover here once more the truth of what we have already emphasised, namely, that Christ is the central content of the sacraments. .
(e) The sacraments renew in a concrete manner the covenant between believers and God as though being the seal of their eternal election. They strengthen believers in the communion of Christ, draw them into fellowship with each other, separate them from the world, and testify to angels and to men that they are the people of God, the Church of Christ, the communion of the saints. They signify to us that which God requires from us. Consequently, the sacraments place those who receive them under the obligation of serving God; they commit them, pledge them. They set the recipients apart as witnesses of God before men ... The sacraments are the signs and the marks of our profession, so that by these marks we testify that we belong to the people of God and we profess to be Christians." (Reformed Catechism, para. .5-4.) " The sacraments have been given (to the people of the Old Testament as to the people of the New Testament) as signs and recognisances of the grace and promises of God in recalling to them His great blessings, and for separating the faithful from all the other religions of the world; briefly, to be received spiritually by faith, and to bind to the Church those who receive them and to admonish them. of their duly." ('2nd Helv. Conf., 19. 5; cf. also ibid., 19. 1; Art. 25 of the Ch. of England; Westm. Conf., 27. 1; Genev. Conf., para. 14; Calvin, Insu., 4. 14. 1. 19.) The words we have here emphasised are very important and the idea will be further developed when we deal with the subject of baptism. In order to mark out the characteristic features of Reformed theology as distinct from the Romish doctrine of the sacraments (or any other doctrine), it is most important to maintain, on the one hand, the resemblances and, on the other, the differences which we have just defined between the Word and the sacraments. He who assigns to the sacraments a special and particular action of grace, different from that which the Word performs, divides Christ and His blessings, sunders the unity of the covenant of grace, introduces a materialistic concept of grace, elevates the sacraments into an autonomous institution in opposition and superior to the Word, upsets the relation existing between Scripture and the Church, makes the sacrament absolutely necessary for salvation, and places the believer in a position of dependence on the minister, the priest, or the pastor. For this reason Reformed theologians did not and do not cease to emphasise and re-emphasise constantly the true relationship between the Word and the sacraments, as assigned by Scripture, namely, that, as signs and as seals, the sacraments are subordinate to the Word, and that Word and sacraments have the common object of exhibiting to us that the only foundation of our redemption is to believe in the sacrifice which Christ offered for us on the cross. In consequence the Reformed confessions of faith affirm this indissoluble connection between the Word and the sacraments. .
Romans 6 is one of my favorite go-to texts for explaining sacramental efficacy: "Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life." If we take the prepositional phrase which I highlighted seriously, then it's really quite clear that baptism is an effective instrument, and not merely an echo of something already done in secret. With that in mind we can then understand the import of other verses such as Galatians 3:27 "For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ." If baptism is indeed when we "put on" Christ, then we can also see the several "clothed with Christ" references as having a baptismal component. As for the Eucharist, I suppose folks can argue all they want about what "participation" means in 1 Corinthians 11, and our Lord's words in John 6, but if the sacramental nature of Baptism is clear enough, surely that should open the mind to understanding the eucharistic passages as well.
Evangelicals don’t like the idea of sacraments because they think it makes the Church a mediator between Jesus and the individual.
Yes. This is one of the great misunderstandings of our time. Of course the church is an intermediary, it is the body of Christ. The man Abraham birthed the nation of Israel. After the book Genesis the rest of the OT is concerned with the nation, with the exception of the Book of Ruth and a few of the minor prophets who were preaching to other nations. The ark prefigures the Church: "in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, wherein few, that is to say, eight souls, were saved by water." And if one reads the NT as if it is a love letter written to him individually, or any of the other nonsense approaches in vogue at present that individualize the material, they are missing the message. The material, with the exception of a couple of minor epistles, was not written to individuals but to churches: "John, to the seven churches which are in Asia. . ." And to those who would cite 1 Timothy 2:5 and make an argument about one Mediator, of course there's one mediator and the church is his very body. The whole point of the epistle is "so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." St. Paul's ecclesiology is much higher than he gets credit for.
Agreed. It seems to be a combination of: Exclusively juridical understanding of redemption, Minimalist ecclesiology, and Belief that a unique, personal conversion experience is necessary. One would think that adherence to some form of sacramental soteriology would be non-negotiable for self-described Anglicans, just as it is for Lutherans. That's certainly been the case in every Episcopal parish I've ever attended. We're almost 200 years removed from the Gorham Controversy. It just seems a bit odd to see such things debated here on a supposedly "Anglican" site today as if these have remained genuinely open questions in the Anglican tradition.