Episcopalians & Liberal Anglicans: What do these Scriptures mean to you?

[Albion]

Well, I guess that is my point. Orthodox Christians don't really do that at all. We don't. Anglicans do.

I'm not convinced that we do. And the mention of N. T. Wright here certainly was not in that category IMHO. Indeed, it's hard to imagine that what he might say could change the direction of Anglicanism, even if it's more open to change on some matters than Orthodoxy. I feel, from what you've written, that the differences in approach are really not that great.

 

[Padres1969]

There are none. None of the women mentioned in either chapter are identified as (what we know as) clergy.



Now you're into highly speculative items and well outside the time frame of the Apostolic Church. You might as well be trying to "prove" something by pointing to "Pope Joan."

You don't consider a deacon such as Phoebe was to be a member of the clergy?

 

[Jesus4Madrid]

But here's the thing, Jesus4Madrid; does it leave any room for the Orthodox to ever decide that in fact, you have been wrong about something?

Not necessarily arguing women's ordination, here, but anything; is there a way for the Orthodox to reach consensus that a change of some sort is, in fact, necessary?

Great, existential question.

The idea that the entire Church would be wrong about something would seem to contradict Christ's teaching that the Church was his body (I Cor 12) and his bride and that he would leave us an Advocate that would lead us to the truth (Jn 15), and that the gates of Hades would not prevail against it (Mt 18). If Christ loved the Church as a husband loves his wife (Eph 5), then He would not allow it to fall into error. The Church preserved the Apostolic faith in the face of virulent heresies such as Arianism.

Not only does Scripture seem to teach this but the Fathers believed it. See, for example, what St. Irenaeus writes in the Second Century:

"As I have already observed, the Church, having received this preaching and this faith, although scattered throughout the whole world, yet, as if occupying but one house, carefully preserves it. She also believes these points [of doctrine] just as if she had but one soul, and one and the same heart, and she proclaims them, and teaches them, and hands them down, with perfect harmony, as if she possessed only one mouth. For, although the languages of the world are dissimilar, yet the import of the tradition is one and the same."(Against Heresies I.10.2).

 

[Jesus4Madrid]

I'm not convinced that we do. And the mention of N. T. Wright here certainly was not in that category IMHO. Indeed, it's hard to imagine that what he might say could change the direction of Anglicanism, even if it's more open to change on some matters than Orthodoxy. I feel, from what you've written, that the differences in approach are really not that great.

Would that it were so.

 

[Albion]

You don't consider a deacon such as Phoebe was to be a member of the clergy?

Phoebe was a deaconess.

 

[SteveCaruso]

Phoebe was a deaconess.

Yes, that's how gendered languages work.

The question though is: Did that originally indicate a distinction in role, or was that a later innovation? The Biblical accounts don't resolve it unambiguously.

And these other historical examples indicate that others in the early centuries may have seen things differently than your position. As I expressed in my earlier post, early Christian practice in this regards was not as clear cut as either side on this issue would like it to be. It's messy.

 

[Shane R]

Who's to say that the earliest practice is the ideal? I realize that argument cuts both ways - until we see that by and large, ordained women were unknown for eighteen centuries. So, we are back to the tradition leg of our three-legged stool: the one most Anglicans are the least comfortable with.

 

[SteveCaruso]

Well, that is the thing. How can one weight Tradition and Reason equally?

There are parts of our Tradition that we really don't want to revisit when it comes to gender roles (the Book of Homilies, anyone?) and we do not wish to discount conflicting examples entirely (as it would betray Reason).

Where *is* the middle way here?

 

[Feuerbach]

I personally think if we're going to insist on defining Anglicanism with the three-legged stool (which I think is a mistake) we ought to at least recognize that Hooker did not rank the three equally, nor did John Keble in his introduction to Hooker even as he elevated "tradition."

 

[SteveCaruso]

It is tradition to use the illustration of the three legged stool, so I fear that the idea that it is a "mistake" is a bit at odds with itself.

And there are plenty of other early Anglican thinkers who emphasized one leg of the stool more than the others. There is a diversity of opinions.

I'm asking where the middle ground lies.

 

[Padres1969]

I personally think if we're going to insist on defining Anglicanism with the three-legged stool (which I think is a mistake) we ought to at least recognize that Hooker did not rank the three equally, nor did John Keble in his introduction to Hooker even as he elevated "tradition."

See I've had the three legged stool explained to me as being a milk stool (ie: one leg is longer) the long leg being scripture. That it's reason and tradition that balance themselves out in light of scripture.

 

[Feuerbach]

I didn't mean to derail the thread, but the Three-legged stool is not a symbol that Hooker meant, nor is it part of the revival that took place in the 19th-century. Likewise, it is not a symbol that our Protestant, [Roman] Catholic, or Orthodox friends would agree with us on. In short, it's only tradition if you count something only some Anglicans use and isn't very old as tradition. When Hooker uses the word tradition he often means it negatively and reason is usually applied to how a reasonable person would read the Scriptures in light of church practice and canon law. When tradition was elevated by the Tractarians, their point was that tradition is a viable source [as opposed to the Evangelical 'scripture alone wing], not that it somehow came even close to Scripture.

To put it another way, if the three legged stool model of Anglicanism is really as core to Anglican identity as described these days, why is there so little evidence of it in the Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer?

 

[Padres1969]

I didn't mean to derail the thread, but the Three-legged stool is not a symbol that Hooker meant, nor is it part of the revival that took place in the 19th-century. Likewise, it is not a symbol that our Protestant, [Roman] Catholic, or Orthodox friends would agree with us on. In short, it's only tradition if you count something only some Anglicans use and isn't very old as tradition. When Hooker uses the word tradition he often means it negatively and reason is usually applied to how a reasonable person would read the Scriptures in light of church practice and canon law. When tradition was elevated by the Tractarians, their point was that tradition is a viable source [as opposed to the Evangelical 'scripture alone wing], not that it somehow came even close to Scripture.

To put it another way, if the three legged stool model of Anglicanism is really as core to Anglican identity as described these days, why is there so little evidence of it in the Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer?

It's not expressly stated as such in the Articles and BCP. but Anglicanism since the Elizabethan Settlement has always been a sort of balancing act between Protestant/Reformed ideals and Catholic ideals. I've always thought of the stool as being an extension or form of expression of that balancing act that's typified Anglicanism since nearly the beginning.

 

[SteveCaruso]

Additionally, if we want to use the Articles and the BCP as the sole yardsticks of Anglicanism, we must also acknowledge that those two things represented big breaks with established tradition, as well. They were, in their very essence, reforms.

 

[CanadianAnglican]

While the language of the Articles is decidedly borrowing from the continental Reformers, I'm curious which doctrines you would suggest are significant breaks from the beliefs of the early Church?

 

[SteveCaruso]

Well, where a number of them are more "in response" to contemporary theological controversies, and that there is a certain amount of "wiggle room" embodied in them as well (or both; one can hardly say that, for example, infant baptism was an early Christian practice, but at the same time as the Articles assert it is not an invalid practice), I by and large don't believe that there are significant breaks. They were an effort at reformation towards something closer to the early church from the current Catholic and growing Protestant practices, but are a reformation nonetheless.

With that in mind, the crux of the matter then still hinges upon an understanding early church tradition. Even a strict reading of the Articles does not preclude the idea of women in the clergy (unless one also insists that Christ only died for the sins of men, not women [Article 2]; only men, not women, will be judged at the Resurrection [Article 4]; women are still bound by the Law of Moses, since it does not "bind Christian men" [Article 7]; etc. etc. etc. ).