Foundation Course in Christian Spirituality and Spiritual Direction:
‘The Anglican Tradition’ – March 17th, 2004.
I Definitions
The imaginative course of which this evening is a small part is a real delight to be part of; and in looking back over the subjects covered since the beginning of last October, I find myself asking the question, ‘where does the Anglican bit fit in?’ It is a good question, because Anglicanism has become a much more self-aware (and perhaps at times self-conscious) element in the whole Christian picture than it has been. There are good reasons. One is that there is an inner sense that Anglicanism has something creative to offer, and those who either call themselves Anglicans, or who study Anglicanism, do well to take careful note of this fact. Another is that, as in any other age, there may be groups within Anglicanism who are here because we are a convenient pool to fish in! I sometimes want to ask three tendencies with our family who on earth they think they are, but am (usually, but not always) too polite to say so aloud; we are not the Roman Catholic Church, we are not a Free Church, nor are we something vague and moralistic that jumps on the latest politically correct bandwagon.
So what does the Anglican flavour, tendency, package amount to? When Geoffrey Rowell, Rowan Williams and I got together late in 1997 to start thinking about what eventually became ‘Love’s Redeeming Work’, we were clear about a number of things. First of all, Anglicanism links prayer and belief perhaps more closely than any other Christian community. That is why, for example, a new priest in the first public declaration at their licensing promises to use only the authorized forms of service. Now however they actually interpret that undertaking, whether at the time, or in subsequent liturgical practice, it is a bold statement. Our doctrine is not worked out in a ‘Confession of Faith’, as in Presbyterianism, nor is it articulated in a central magisterium, as in Roman Catholicism. That is why we have rather fiercer and more public rows about liturgical change: the words etch themselves into the consciousness of people, because it is part of our identity, and then some people come along and want to change things. It’s a creative tension that didn’t just surface with the Prayer Book Society: it’s part of our history, our culture. One of the projects I am involved with at the moment is trying to put together a small book for enquiring adults on what it is to be an Anglican, and we are working on three foundation texts: the Lord’s Prayer (the art of praying), the Apostles’ Creed (the art of believing), and the Beatitudes (the art of living). The three, of course, flow in and out of each other; each has a praying-believing-living aspect, and, indeed, the earliest known commentator on the Lord’s Prayer, Tertullian, in early third-century North Africa, described it as ‘a summary of the gospel’.
All this means that no Anglican can study ‘spirituality’ in a separate compartment from everything else: it is inextricably linked to authorised prayer, historic creeds, and comprehensive formulations about the demands of Christian discipleship, which are likely to include more specific texts like the Ten Commandments as well. And because Anglicanism emerged historically at a specific stage in Christian history, it has inevitably fed on the great traditions, as they are now (perhaps a bit schematically) seen as the Desert Fathers, the Celtic tradition (which perhaps needs more closer definition nowadays than any other), as well as Orthodoxy, and the Benedictine, Franciscan and Ignatian traditions. From the very beginnings of Anglican tradition in the sixteenth century, our great praying theologians like Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrewes fed on many of these. Andrewes was strongly influenced by the Greek Fathers, such as Basil the Great. The Benedictine tradition was always stronger in England than elsewhere in the Middle Ages because, for example, more of our Cathedrals were Benedictine Abbeys than any other country; Franciscan piety seeped through into the popular mind, through their preaching and apostolic life; and many Puritans consciously (and unconsciously) absorbed some of the piety of Post-Reformation Catholicism, with its strongly pictorial approach to praying meditating. So we feed on other traditions – what’s new? But it’s the ‘how’ that needs to be underlined: at our worst, we appear to be a chaotic DIY group, prelatical congregationalists, we’re sometimes called, who like to have bishops around, to complain about, but who underneath cherish the autonomy of any group that comes forward! At our best, we come through with rather more consistent colours. Three stand out strongly.
The first is reticence. By that I don’t mean not saying anything, but the virtue referred to in the Rule of St Benedict that is sometimes mistranslated as ‘silence’ but is actually ‘taciturnitas’, being taciturn; saying enough, but not overdoing it. In prayer, doctrine, and living, we have a tradition of not defining every single detail which can be infuriating, but can also be the mark of a kind of humility that has the courage to suspend judgement. That is not to say that all our praying is vague, our doctrinal formulations unadventurous, or our moral teaching woolly. But reticence means at the end of the day leaving things be, and not trying to say everything. When I was a boy, the only specifics in the eucharistic intercession were the names of the bishop and monarch, together with a silence for the sick, who were occasionally mentioned beforehand; that was, admittedly, too reticent. But nowadays we want to say everything publicly. It can become overwhelming, and for the visitor, very exclusive and inward-looking. Let a little go a long way; let the general words resonate their specifics – which don’t need to be spelt out all the time.
And that brings me to the second characteristic, to which I’ve already alluded: Anglicanism’s genius in having a close relationship between public worship and popular devotion. If you look at some of the writings of the classical Anglican divines, you will see the way they hold the words of the Prayer Book as central, and expand around them devotional material that explains and enriches them, like Thomas Wilson, who was Bishop of Sodor and Man in the early eighteenth century. We have always kept these together, and there are signs of it continuing in our own day with all these books of prayers, and the material available in connection with the Liturgical Year and the Calendar. It means having a stable form of public worship that doesn’t change all the time, but has a framework on ethos, which can nonetheless adapt to different contexts. Each day I read a short extract from an anthology fashioned from writers across the centuries which I invariably find nourishing, and their connection with the time and season, and with the rhythms of the year, is central. This gives Anglicanism a literary focus that is inescapable; and in an increasingly visual culture, I have every confidence that new ways will emerge of making the tradition more accessible than it sometimes is.
Thirdly, Anglicanism is self-critical. We do like to wash our dirty linen in public! But there is a good side to that, because at least we are seen to be debating things openly and honestly. There never has been a time when the Church was free from controversy, and whenever the lid has been put firmly on dissent, an explosion later on causes more harm than would a careful handling of the conflict at an earlier stage. Self-criticism, however, is not the same as that negative dumbing down of who we are and stand for. Anglicanism emerged because the existing structures of the Catholic Church were seen to be inadequate, debate stifled, to say nothing of public worship not being ‘understanded of the people’ and the laity effectively excluded from the running of the Church. A spirituality that is self-critical is not about apologizing for itself; it is, instead ready to learn from mistakes, whether these are exaggerations, omissions, or else what other Christians have that we do not.
II Some Examples
I want now to try to put some flesh on these observations; and I should like to do so by using the four KAIROS stages about which, if you have not heard already, you jolly well will now! But this is not just because I made a conscious decision last year to mention KAIROS in as many different contexts as possible. The KAIROS cycle starts with the experience of new questions, then explores the resources of our tradition, and reflects on our social context, and only then dares to move towards action, reconstruction; this seems to me to be a profoundly Anglican way of going about things. In 1936, Archbishop Michael Ramsey, then a Tutor at Lincoln Theological College, wrote a ground-breaking book called ‘The Gospel and the Catholic Church’ in which he spelt out a way of looking at the Church, and of being a Christian, that looks primarily at the death and resurrection of Christ – a book which also embodies what I have just described as Anglicanism’s reticence, its relationship between worship and popular devotion, and its capacity for self-criticism. To view our calling as disciples in terms of facing new questions, of taking stock of the resources of our tradition, of seeing in a new way the context in which we have been placed, and then going on to make new plans – this embodies some of the implications of what Michael Ramsey was trying to get across at a critical time in the nation’s and the Church’s life.
So who shall I choose for each of these stages? ‘Experiencing Fresh Questions’ makes me think of Richard Hooker (1544-1600). Hooker is sometimes regarded as one of the founders of Anglicanism. He came into the limelight as Master of the Temple Church, London, towards the end of Elizabeth I’s reign when he had a strongly Protestant colleague, Walter Travers, who preached a more radical Reformation than had happened. His main work, the ‘The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity’, appeared in 1594 and 1598, the remaining parts being published posthumously. What he is trying to do is respond to the new questions faced by the Church in as constructive a way as possible. He saw the dangers of over-institutionalising the Church, as well as internalizing it to the point of becoming a collection of like-minded consumers. Discipleship for him meant being part of a community, with a shared form of worship (he loyally defended the Prayer Book against stout Genevan criticisms), and a fundamental sense of the coherence of the created order. A key-quotation from him expresses his theology of redemption: ‘God hath deified our nature, though not by turning it to himself, yet by making it his inseparable habitation.’ (Laws V.54.5 (1598)) In those words, he walks a careful tension between identifying us with God and isolating us from him: God doesn’t make us into himself, but comes to dwell in us – inseparably. There is an indelible mark which God has made on the human race through the work of Christ. Hooker faces new questions not by recycling tired language, but by using a fresh approach altogether that sounds both deeply traditional and highly modern.
‘Exploring the resources of the tradition’ makes me think of Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667), a royalist chaplain in the Civil War, who went into internal exile during the Commonwealth, during which time he wrote the majority of his works, only to emerge as a Bishop in Ireland at the Restoration. Taylor was writing at a particularly difficult time, because theological differences were closely allied to politics: Prayer Book and King, Puritan Directory and Commonwealth, to put it at its sharpest. The result was the need to defend and explain what tradition was for, and why one used it at all – a similar need today, because people are not prepared to accept the ‘this is how we’ve always done it’ reason in any walk of life. One of his most popular works was ‘The Rules and Exercises of Holy Living’, which was published in 1650, and which has been reprinted frequently since then: if you ever come across it in a second hand bookshop, I strongly recommend you to buy it for the few pounds it will cost. Near the start there is a section on the use of time which does justice to today’s filofax culture! Taylor is both critical and confident about standing within a living tradition, and he will use many different sources, ancient and less ancient Christian, as well as from outside. Moving through the Christians virtues, and the practicalities of life (including the business world), Taylor ends by writing about the eucharist, in those days received less frequently than today, and often with careful preparation. There are some real nuggets, like what he says about the eucharist as a sacrifice, a really hot dispute in those days, polarized between Catholics who ‘re-offered’ Christ, and Protestants who, so it seemed, thought only of a ‘mere memorial’. Taylor uses the full resources of the tradition by saying that ‘This sacrifice…..began on earth, but was to last and be officiated in heaven, where he sits perpetually representing and exhibiting to the Father that great and effective sacrifice which he offered on the cross to eternal and never-failing purpose.’ (Holy Living, IV.X.3) Here we have a theologian who refuses to turn back on the great tradition of seeing the eucharist as shot-through with sacrificial overtones, and yet who is able to safeguard the uniqueness and the eternal nature of Calvary.
As we turn now to the third stage, ‘reflecting on our context’, we meet Hannah More (1745-1833), a literary figure who, after contact with David Garrick and Dr Johnson, befriended prominent Evangelicals like John Newton and Samuel Wilberforce, the anti-slavery campaigner. She pioneered Sunday Schools, and wrote ‘Village Politics’ in 1792, against the French Revolution. Her chief attribute was the way she wrote about morality and faith, at a time when Anglicanism was being criticised for accommodating too easily to the spirit of the age. But she did not draw her lines exclusively; there is a strong hint of compassion in even her most challenging writings. In 1813 appeared her ‘Christian Morals’, in which she firmly championed an equal place for the heart and the head, when there were those who wanted the head to reign supreme. (I sometimes wonder whether today’s Christianity is often the reverse; if you say you think something, it is often perceived to be very second class next to what you feel!) ‘A religion that is all brain, and no heart, is not the religion of the Gospel’, she maintains: ‘shall a fervent rhetoric be admired in one orator, when pleading for the freedom of men, and reprobated in another, when pleading for their salvation?’ (Christian Morals, Vol. II, pp.82, 85). Hannah More’s spirituality is what we call today ‘holistic’; head and heart, individual and social. They all belong together, and once they fall apart, the coherence of our praying, our believing, our living, disintegrates.
We now come to the critical stage of action, of reconstruction. We can have few better people than William Temple (1881-1844), the last person to occupy the See of Canterbury who, like Rowan Williams, is a palpably holy man, an outstanding intellect, and a national figure. Temple’s father, Frederick, was Archbishop at the time of Edward VII, and the young son struggled with his faith in the way that is often true of clergy offspring, only to come crashing through with an originality and freshness that far outstripped his more conventional father. Temple saw life whole; he understood political systems; he pioneered independent governance for the Church, educational reform in the nation, and engaged with the secular thought of the age. Like many people who grew up sensing the cooler public attitude towards the Church, Temple had the imagination to see society’s weaknesses, as well as the way the Church seems to have a genius for throwing away good opportunities in the interests of self-preservation. In his wartime book, ‘Citizen and Churchman’, Temple asserts the need for a holiness that engages with the world. ‘The detachment to which the Church is called, but which Churchmen have seldom attained, is not a hermit-like withdrawal from the world; on the contrary it is the way by which the Church may most influence the world. For the way to spiritual power over the world lies through worship and sanctification’ (Citizen and Churchman, 1941, p.100)
III Conclusion
Although the four aspects overlap, they are nonetheless distinct. To have the courage to face the (sometimes scary) new questions that we are experiencing, to have the faith to explore tradition’s resources critically, to have the humility to accept and reflect on our context instead of pretending it is something else, or somewhere else, and to have the hope that enables us to engage in reconstruction, and own up to the fact that some of the things we do and say may have to be superseded by something else – all these are the marks of the faithful Christian in any age. The challenge is to realise that God is God regardless of who we are and where we are, and that our prayerful, thoughtful discipleship is a small part of his work of redemption, whatever the time and place. All of which brings me back to those three features of Anglican theology, and therefore its spirituality – the capacity to be reticent, and not try to say everything on every occasion; the capacity to be confident about worship’s centrality, and its inseparable link with popular devotion; and the capacity to be self-critical, and to see all our forms and structures as provisional. These are worth cherishing, in our quest for a spirituality that is vibrant, realistic, and God-centred.
+ Kenneth Portsmouth
