I know I would like to belong to a church like this….
3) A priesthood understood as physicians of the soul whose work is to guide others to theosis.
Such a great point – thank you for offering this. You further illustrate the complexity of the question and terms. I know many high churchmen, as you fleshed out the term, that are hardly ritualists.
I do find it interesting that the Holy Spirit raised up renewal movements throughout the history of God’s people, in the Old Testament time and in the church. Consider the Desert Fathers, Benedictine communities, Franciscans, the 14th century New Devotion movement, the 16th century Reformation,William Law, George Herbert, Little Gidding, the Wesley brothers and Whitfield, the effect of Pietism, Charles Simeon, William Augustus Muhlenberg, the work of Cursillo, Evelyn Underhill, the Charismatic renewal from the 1970’s and others too numerous to mention in a brief post. It appears that their is a pattern of such divine interventions by the Lord. All of them were sent to address periods of deep decline in faith and holiness. Spiritual theology is replete with such examples. I pray that this new movement could be one of those.
I completely agree with your thesis, Robert.+ Of course, the complexion of this new movement would be very different because of the presence of female clergy, but something tells me that there are more than a few of us women who are concerned about the issues you’ve raised and see the need for a renewal movement in TEC.
Recently, I found a reference to an ancient feast, long time lapsed–The Conversion of St. Augustine, on May 4. The revival of this feast day might help fit into a new Oxford Movement. FYI.
Faith, hope, and charity – i.e., “love” – are the Christian virtues. “Mission” can’t come before “faith” in the first place; in the second: I can do political and social action without ever coming to church at all – but I can’t find faith anywhere except through a religious/spiritual organization. The church exists to help real people through and by faith.
In my case – I’m not alone, either – the life of faith is actually quite necessary for me to keep in balance and alive. And if the church can’t help individuals – its own members and others – who need help, what’s the point? What’s the point of doing “mission” work if people don’t feel welcomed and loved in the parish? The greatest of these, said the Apostle, is charity – i.e. “love”; without it we are just sounding brass and clanging cymbals. This kind of love isn’t easy, of course – but then, the spiritual life really is rigorous. That’s a good thing; this is the real adventure of life, and we’re not even emphasizing it.
But that’s the real stuff, right there – and it’s not always easy, but often quite difficult. And it’s an entree into the exhilarating unknown; what could be better and more fascinating than that? I think we should be talking much more about it, personally….
(And the movement into the unknown – and the spiritual rearrangement that makes this possible and desirable – is exactly why worship needs to have a set pattern. When you let go of things – when the supports get kicked out from under your conception of self and from under your ego – you need the regularity of the liturgy and the Great Church Year to lean on.
C.S. Lewis talked about acquiring “the habit of worship”; he said we can make no progress in the practice of prayer if it’s always changing. Every year, I experience Pentecost (or Advent, or Ash Wednesday) differently, precisely because the liturgy itself doesn’t change. I change, instead, and see the feast day from a different angle. I experience something new and (hopefully) deeper each year.
Tom Oden is a good example of the revival of orthodox faith. He was formerly a standard liberal Methodist theologian, and now is the publisher of the wonderful Patristic Bible ckommentary quotation series and related books. He also wrote several good books on the bankruptcy of liberal theology and the recovery of historic and Biblical classical Christian faith. Robert Webber also had a lot of impact with his Ancient/Future series.
I think there are two related movements — one mostly American, another mostly British, one more focused on Scripture another on philosophy and the Sacraments — that are actually fulfilling the academic side of this call, namely Post-liberalism and Radical Orthodoxy.
I would say that what these need are the kinds of on-the-ground practices for discipleship and holiness that you addressed above. For that, I’m afraid, we’ll have to wait out the generation now in charge of our most of our institutions.
Just look to the Pentecost hymn, to see the Pearl of Great Price that the church has to offer!
And clothe me round, the while my﻿ path illuming.
The church offers a way to attain the things people long deepest for, in other words. If nobody knows this, we’re truly not communicating….
Imagine being “clothed in glorious light” that “illumines” the path before you – and experiencing Grace that passes understanding! That’s what we can offer; not for nothing, but it’s the promise.
The church offers a way to attain the things for which human beings people long most deeply, in other words. This is its value; this is what it’s for. If nobody knows this, we’re truly not communicating very well.
So I vote for Pentecost as the Feast Day of the new movement – and it should be a deeply mystical one, IMO…..
Really good comment, bls. May I quote you?
Sure. Here’s a lovely recording of Down Ampney, BTW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6HPKL1wOVXk#!
Amen and amen! I would also add that we need an Anglo-Catholics Socialist movement. Surely what has helped to augment the slide into individualism, skepticism, etc. is a rampant capitalist ontology. The great Anglo-Catholic slum priests understood this.
1. The full use and appreciation of the charisms of all three orders: bishop, priest AND deacon.
May I add to the list of offerings from this movement?
1. The full use and appreciation of the charisms of all three orders: bishop, priest, AND deacon.
It will need to be free of the trappings of and stand as an alternative to the ever-expanding, ever-tightening-down of the plutocratic corporatist consumerist fear-mongering imperialist draconian surveillance detaining torturing liquidating monstrous juggernaut of state terror and control.
Early Christianity grew by leaps and bounds as they stood up to and did not quail or rescind faith or restrain their charity or give up their gatherings and worship in the treasonous name of their Lord and Savior, Jesus. All this in the face of proven loss of everything, including torture and death. The people of the Roman Empire took note and saw that the Christians we’re not afraid of what the Roman Imperial apparatus would do to them. Because of this, the obligatory terror and quailing and falling back into one’s miserable lot, was called into question and replaced by blessed assurance and courage. Everyone saw this and the Roman Terror State was brought to its knees as fear slipped out their hands. The Empire had to co-op the Church or the Empire was doomed. From this historical point we are obliged to be critically-thinking consumers of the “received tradition.” We are responsible for weeding out the corruptions of co-option by empire, particularly just war rationales, and subsequent substitutionary atonement theologies. For a 1,000 years Christianity was a pacifist religion with no depictions of a Crucified Lord.
Then came the cult of the Crucified Christ, where all Jesus apparently could do was die, imperial Christendom, the Crusades, the Age of Discovery, Colonialism, etc. If your theology can take that onboard and bring us patristic catholic Christianity that takes risks, and is radically accepting of people, à la Galatian Chapter 3, concluding, “24 Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. 27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” then there’s likely to be something there.
Just like rejecting slavery and rejecting the restriction of rights for women, we must stand by our charism toward accepting all the baptized into ministry, lay, ordained and consecrated, as well as providing means to sanctify human love in family regardless of orientation.
If you can do that then I’m in. If not it is a vain Pharisaic FAIL.
Wow-so Jesus was Che Guevara? I had no idea. Just like I had no idea