On the Articles: Article XXIII

The Eighth Sunday after Trinity

O GOD, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth: We humbly beseech thee to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us those things which be profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

XXIII. Of Ministering in the Congregation
It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.

The question of the leadership of the Church has been one contested for many years. In the time of the Reformation, it was continental reformers that decried the rights of the bishops and of Rome indirectly to appoint and control the clerics who ministered to the local parish. Local control was sought developed into numerous different models of church governance seen today among various protestant denominations. All had one thing in common: they rejected the Biblical pattern of Apostolic succession.

From the replacement of Judas’s office in Acts of the Apostles (1. 20-26) by St Matthias to the appointment of Titus and Timothy, and the calling of the first deacons, there has been a clear establishment in Scripture of the Apostolic succession, the laying on of hands

Although the three-fold order of ministry existed, at different times and at different places, the method of selecting a leader differed. Even into the fourth century, bishops were sometimes chosen by the laity by popular vote, while in other places the secular authority of the king of prince would be able to select who would become bishop. These ambiguities were used by the protestant reformers to argue in favour of their congregational models in which a congregation could call any person to minister for them.

By the time of the English Reformation, however, the Apostolic Succession had been firmly established. While there was room to differ in some of the manner of selecting of bishops, priests were ordained exclusively by bishops in apostolic succession for particular purposes, and to be priested you would first be ordained and serve as a deacon, which had a different role than the priest. The reformers explicitly preserve this practice in this article.

Whereas in a protestant church, if a minister was needed, any member could be called and effectively begin preaching and ministering the next day, in Anglicanism, there was a much longer period of discernment which ultimately required the authority of the bishop to ordain the person for their duty. It was never an accepted practice in Anglicanism, as Article XXIII makes clear, to allow any member of the laity to begin preaching or administering the sacraments.

Interestingly it has only been in recent years, since the Roman Catholic Vatican II Council, that there has been a general loosening of this provision. Roman Catholics, facing shortages, authorized the use of extraordinary lay administrants of the sacrament, lay people who could, in the absence of the necessary number of priests, help to administer, though not consecrate, the blessed sacrament. Following this, many other churches, including Anglican jurisdictions around the world, took this as a signal that they too could loosen the rules, such that deacons and lay people began to be permitted to preach with the authorization of the bishop, and lay people similarly began to be permitted to serve at the altar in new ways as well.

Interestingly, it seems to have been an accident of history in Canada, at least, that saw the diaconate fall into disuse. Due to that, many of the roles of deacons have been taken up by the laity, who only now are beginning to discover the number of lay people who may well have been called to serve as deacons.

In either case, the requirements of Article XXIII are still being fulfilled. The first sentence of the Article states that no one may preach or administer the sacraments unless duly authorized. At the time of its writing this meant that the process of ordination needed to be followed based on the ordinal, one of the other three Anglican Formularies, while today it remains consistent for a bishop to duly authorize lay people to administer those functions as lay people.

While modern practices show that this article is consistent with allowing some level of lay participation, without commenting on the degree to which lay participation in certain roles is desirable, it suggests a strong concern for the apostolic succession.

Apostolic succession is important not simply in terms of the practice of laying on of hands, and the ability to point to the bishop that consecrated your bishop who ordained you, but points to the transmission of the faith delivered once to the Apostles. Going back to Article XIX, the limitation of the preaching and administration of sacraments is not simply to clericalize the Church, but because it ensures that the pure word of God will be preached when those who are permitted to preach have been properly educated, tried and tested before they are so authorized.

This Article speaks to the issue of authority in the Church, and how the people can have confidence in the person that is preaching, and that what they are preaching is true and that the sacraments they are administering are indeed sacraments. This was of particular concern at the time of the English Reformation when there was concern over what was being preached, and particularly in light of the fact that among protestants almost anyone seemed to able to do anything, so whether or not that person truly was ordained.

In modern times, there are again concerns over legitimacy. As Christianity continues to fragment over issues of doctrine, it is always a helpful reminder that the goal of priests is to preserve the apostolic teaching. When someone is preaching, they have been authorized by a bishop in apostolic succession to do so, and their teaching is expected to be in accord with that tradition. At a time when that is not always the case, this Article serves as a reminder of what Anglicans ought to be doing.

On Cultural Incarnation

The Second Sunday after Easter

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an example of godly life: Give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that his inestimable benefit, and also daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

As we continue in the season of Eastertide, many of the readings focus on the life of the early church as depicted in the Acts of the Apostles. In these readings from Acts, we hear how the disciples lived a life of faith together, shared all things in common and supported one another. This unity is supported by Scripture, where St Paul exhorts Euodia and Syntyche from the church in Philippi to, “agree in the Lord,” (Phil 4. 2). David’s Psalm 133 describes with vivid imagery the blessings and joy of unity.

It is not too long, though, before we hear of the reaction against the perseverance of the Christian faithful, and the growth of Christianity in the early Jewish communities. The circumcision controversy begins. Jewish leaders say that belief in Christ is acceptable, but only so long as you continued to follow the Law. When Christianity spreads to the gentiles, the majority of Christians were previously Jewish and elements of their culture create disunity as the early Christians struggle over the question of whether or not gentiles must be circumcised, a matter settled by a Council at Jerusalem which set the model for later ecumenical councils to define and resolve doctrinal disputes within the Church.

The picture painted in Acts, is broadly speaking one of an incarnational faith. Christianity incarnated into the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. And so too does it incarnate in the cultures in which its faithful operate. Modern psychology shows that the language we speak, and the culture we come from, shapes how we think and perceive the world.

Speaking historically, some doctrinal differences in the Christian East and Christian West were the result of differences in how theological concepts were rendered into Greek in the East and Latin in the West. In some cases, ultimately the same meaning was generally meant, but due to the language differences, the rendering and way the theology was perceived by the other culture was sufficiently different to cause disunity. While there are other issues at play, in many ways the filioque is the same understanding of God’s nature presented from two diametrically opposed cultural understandings. The nature of Christ as judge in the West and divine physician in the East, similarly highlights how both can hold orthodox understandings, but which have been shaped to different perspectives by the culture in which they are practiced.

It should come as no surprise, then, when division arises in the church. The extreme unity found in the earliest chapters of Acts is rooted in both cultural unity and in the physical witness of Christ Jesus. This was the age of the Apostles and disciples who had witnessed Christ’s miracles in person. And yet, division still came among them. If unity is to be found in Christ, then surely it is understandable that today, some manner of disunity would ultimately arise, at the very least because of the fact that Christianity has now spread to all cultures.

This should come as no shock. In the East, the Eastern Orthodox Church is divided by culture: Greek, Russian, Serbian, etc. In the West, there is obviously the divide between Canterbury and Rome, but also within the Roman Catholic Church some practices diverge rooted in culture, as much as some Roman Catholics might claim otherwise.

There is good reason for this. God calls us into relationship with him: oneness with him. Not sameness with him. Sameness is the preserve of equality, while oneness is the preserve of unity. We are not meant to be equal with God, nor are we equal with each other. St Paul illustrates this well in his first epistle to the Corinthians:

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. (1 Cor 7-11)

There are two key points to this passage. First, “each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” This is unity. This is oneness. All receive gifts of the Spirit, for a unified purpose. Second, he lists how some receive the gift of wisdom, others knowledge, others healing, etc. There is not equality, each is given the gifts they need to fulfil God’s purpose.

In much the same way, the incarnational nature of the church in distinct cultures is not necessarily equal. One tradition of Christians may emphasize the healing power of the Holy Spirit, while others may focus on the atoning power of Christ’s passion and resurrection. There is not equality, necessarily, in these incarnations of the church, or even necessarily fullness, but there is some degree of unity.

True unity is to be found when the four marks of unity are followed: the canon of Holy Scripture; the authoritative transmission of God’s word for humanity; the faith of the early church as articulated in the creeds and councils of the church, the order of ministry, passed down in apostolic succession and finally the sacramental life of the church, found chiefly in the sacraments of Holy Baptism and the Eucharist.

Just like Euodia and Syntyche, where something, in this case, culture, divides the church, we must continue to follow St Paul’s advice to, “agree in the Lord,” for it is in God that our unity is found, not in compromise. Compromise is the road to equality, limiting and hemming in our faith in order to reduce the avenues for confrontation and conflict.

It is a great irony that if the sacraments are discarded (mere ordinances), as is the order of ministry (priesthood of all believers), the creeds and councils (generally in more anti-Catholic fuelled settings where anything of the historic church is viewed with suspicion) while retaining only the canon of Scripture (often with its own brand of sola scriptura and distinctive interpretation) there is some form of equality to be found (compare some of the constitutions and confessions of various protestant denominations) but in that, unity, oneness in Christ, has been lost.

Christianity incarnates differently in different cultures. Different rites or Churchmanships, different language to describe the same truths, and in some case a different emphasis on part of God’s nature. This does not detract from true unity, unity described in the Acts of the Apostles. What causes disunity is when the goal of sameness between humans is confused with oneness with God.

On the Essentials

The Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity

LORD we pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Harvest Thanksgiving

O ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who crownest the year with thy goodness, and hast given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season: Give us grateful hearts, that we may unfeignedly thank thee for all thy loving-kindness, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

There is a maxim, often mis-attributed to St Augustine of Hippo, which reads in its original Latin in necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas. It is usually rendered into English along these lines of, “in the essentials, unity; in the non-essentials, diversity; in all things, charity.” The question, then, becomes what is essential?

For Anglicans, it might be confusing. We have the Book of Common Prayer, ordinal and 39 Articles as our formularies. They define the practice of Anglican tradition, but are they essential to the Christian faith itself? Clearly not. The Lambeth Quadrilateral is in fact the document which defines the essentials for Anglicans, but in reference not merely to the Anglican tradition, but the Christian tradition as a whole.

The Lambeth Quadrilateral was a resolution of the 1888 Lambeth Conference, an international gathering of Bishops from throughout the Anglican Communion, made in response to the 1886 declaration of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America which included the following in its preamble:

we do hereby affirm that the Christian unity...can be restored only by the return of all Christian communions to the principles of unity exemplified by the undivided Catholic Church during the first ages of its existence; which principles we believe to be the substantial deposit of Christian Faith and Order committed by Christ and his Apostles to the Church unto the end of the world, and therefore incapable of compromise or surrender by those who have been ordained to be its stewards and trustees for the common and equal benefit of all men.

The full declaration of the American bishops was not adopted at the Lambeth Conference, however the four key points were adopted, declaring that the Anglican Communion would continue to affirm the historic faith of the undivided Catholic Church, and in doing so identified four specific areas.

First and foremost, the Lambeth Quadrilateral affirms the one canon of Holy Scripture as the ultimate standard of faith, and to quote Article VI of the Articles of Religion, the Quadrilateral affirms that Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation. While the canon of Scripture was not fixed in the Apostolic Age, primarily because most of what would become the New Testament was not committed to writing until near the end of the Apostolic Age, yet still Scripture was recognized as containing the revealed Truth of God, and the New Testament faithfully reproduced the faith of the Apostles and the Truth revealed by Christ during his ministry. The placement of the Scripture in the Quadrilateral again itself affirms Prima Scriptura which demands that Holy Scripture be held as the standard by which the faith, order and practice of the Church is measured.

Next, the Lambeth Quadrilateral affirmed the Catholic creeds, specifically the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed as faithfully articulating the doctrines of the Catholic Church, and to quote the Quadrilateral itself, "as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith." A key characteristic of the Catholic Church was that it held one faith, articulated in the Creeds and councils accepted both east and west. The Apostle's creed as the symbol of baptism, and the Nicene creed as a necessary articulation of orthodoxy in relation to the Christological controversies of the early Church. These creeds form the definition of orthodox Christianity precisely because they were accepted by the Catholic Church during the age of the fathers.

Third, the Quadrilateral affirms the two Sacraments of the Gospel. The sacramental life of the Catholic Church was universally held. One baptism, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and being born to new life, followed by the Supper of the Lord ministered, in the words of the Quadrilateral, with, "unfailing use of Christ's words of Institution," used to nourish Christians in their new lives in Christ. The Quadrilateral in no way rejects the Sacraments of the Church, but again merely reflects that the two Sacraments of the Gospel were the only two Sacraments universally received by the east and west, while other Sacraments of the Church have been received only in certain places and at certain times.

Finally, the Quadrilateral ends by affirming the importance of the Historic Episcopate and the three-fold order of ministry through bishops, priests and deacons. Implicit in this is the importance of Apostolic Succession, the idea that the authority of ordained ministers is derived from their following in the Apostolic commission. It is a further reminder that the Anglican Churches do not claim their own ministry. There is no such thing as an Anglican Priest, but rather a priest in the Catholic Church who ministers in the Anglican tradition.

Taken together, these are an affirmation of the faith, order and practice of the Catholic Church by which Christian unity may be affirmed. When any controversy arises in a given tradition, it must be reviewed in the context of these universal standards.

For instance, throughout history there have been controversies over issues such as how many altar candles may be present on the altar during Holy Communion. In order to determine if the issue is essential, the question asked is, first and foremost, is it addressed in Scripture? Then, is it addressed in the Creeds? Third, does it affect the administration of the Sacraments of the Gospel? Finally, does it affect the understanding of Apostolic Succession and the Apostolic ministry? If not, it is not an essential matter and there is room for diversity. In the case of altar candles, it is not a matter addressed in Scripture or the creeds. It doesn’t impact the Sacraments of the Gospel and neither does it impact the Apostolic ministry. Whether it be none, two or six, there is room for diversity on the number of altar candles as they are not essential to the faith.

This example may seem somewhat flippant, however it would equally apply to many of the controversies that cause major schisms these days, namely the ordination of women and proposed changes to the sacrament of Holy Matrimony to allow for the blessing of same-sex marriages.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsay was a strong proponent of Quadrilateral as a model for ecumenical reunion, particularly with the Eastern Orthodox Church. He had made significant progress in developing understanding on the basis of the Quadrilateral and the idea of the Anglican Communion as maintaining the Catholic faith, order and practice of the patristic Church. He had made significant progress in clearing the way on major issues; however, as is recorded in his personal journal, he was woken up in the middle of the night in 1976 and informed that the General Convention of the Episcopal Church of the United States had authorized the ordination of women as priests. He immediately began to weep, recognizing that the Anglican Communion had surrendered its claim to Catholicity over the issue, and had ended the immediate prospects for ecumenical reunion with the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The official status of the Lambeth Quadrilateral has come into question in some national Provinces in the Anglican Communion, however in the traditional view of Anglicanism, the Lambeth Quadrilateral remains an important document which records a defining characteristic of Anglicanism, which is to say that it seeks a return to the faith, order and traditions of the patristic Catholic Church, and its authority to determine doctrine is derived from that formula.