by Demophilus
This passage from an article on rumblings in the Anglican Communion caught my attention:
In the conservatives' official statement, they said they "do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the archbishop of Canterbury." They also called the current setup for the communion, with the archbishop of Canterbury at its center, "a colonial structure."
One of my general rules about life and politics is that when conservatives ape the arguments of the left they really are indicating their own desperation and intellectual bankruptcy. Resorting to calling the Anglican Communion "a colonial structure" just doesn't make much sense. Having a structure of authority (such as it is) which gives pride of place, a first among equals status, to the historic center of Anglicanism -- the very place this distinctive form of Christianity comes from -- is due less to the dominating spirit of the English than simple contingency. Of course there were connections between imperialism and missionary work -- but the Africans aren't complaining about being brought Christianity. To not go through Canterbury would be, simply, to no longer be Anglican. There is a historical relationship between a certain place and a certain way of worshiping the Christian God, and the identity of "Anglican" is bound up with that relationship. Like all identities it is contingent. You can complain about it but it is what it is. Put differently, "conservative" Anglicans are complaining about what it means to be Anglican more than anything else. No one is forcing them to stay in communion with Canterbury, but they must accept that communion with Canterbury is the basic principle of being Anglican. What they don't have the right to do is unilaterally redefine their terms -- which is what they are doing. This is less about "colonialism" than about rejecting the historical development of a particular faith. Their gripe is with Anglicanism itself, not the malevolence of Rowan Williams.
I've always thought Eliot understood a real conservative truth, in "Little Gidding," when he wrote
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
I won't go into a lengthy exegesis here, but it would be fair to say one of the great themes of the poem is the intersection of the timeless and the timely, the historical; the way some truth that transcends particularity can be nonetheless approached through the particular. It at least partly is a celebration of the contingent, that something bound by time, place, and circumstance draws us to a truth that in some way is universal. To be Anglican is to believe that the particularity of a faith born on a middling island somehow captures something true, something essential about eternity, something that is valid beyond the borders of England.
This is what the "conservative" Anglicans reject. In this, they are deeply un-conservative. They would do well to remember that truth, such as it is, can only be mediated by a tradition; indeed, that a people without history -- even fundamentalist Christians -- are not redeemed from time. What they are seeking is something altogether different from Anglicanism. Which is fine, but they could at least be honest about it.
Yes, Anglicanism means Canterbury and whatnot. Meant. But if the Africans, in the name of Anglicanism, do something else loudly and charismatically enough to capture people's mindshare, then that will be Anglicanism. They don't need "the right". What would "the right" do for them, anyway?
Posted by: Senescent | July 11, 2008 at 02:52 PM
What the Africans do outside the authority of "Canterbury" would no more be Anglicanism than what Anglicans do outside the structure of "Rome" is Catholicism. That being said, fundamentalism with nice robes and liturgy could be very attractive to a lot of people, in and out of the global south.
Posted by: William Burns | July 12, 2008 at 09:29 AM
So what role do the 39 Articles play?
Posted by: Mark | July 17, 2008 at 01:52 PM
i have to say i disagree strongly with he point despite this being a blog i want. I thik the colonial point was silly and after all who cares? I think it was just designed to point out to the liberals they're a bunch of dead or dying whites in a way not really germane to the argument at least from a conservative point of view.
However I really don't see how the Archbishop of Canterbury point holds. Firstly there is a logical point if say a nuclear attack wiped the island of Britian clean of human life but didn't affect the rest of the world-is the argument seriously the Anglican Communion would no longer exist?
The Archbishop of Canterbury has never been a minny pope. Indeed for a large part of the Church of England's history he lacked any substantial power in York-his the most senior prelate his no more the head or defining feature of the Church of England or the Anglican Communion that the Duke of Norfolk is the British Aristocracy both would survive with the (tragic) loss of their most senior member. historically the crown had a lot more author8ty but the Colseno affair showed one could be Anglican without being under the Crown (and really American independence before that)
Moreover this doesn’t seem to make sense from the point of history. There was an Archbishop of Canterbury under Mary Tudor does that mean he was "anglican" no! he sent people to their deaths for affirming the beliefs of the church of England!
This is an attempt to define Anglicanism in terms of confessions. Anglican institutions are those which affirm the confessions of the Church of England- the 39 articles as Mark says but also the ordinal and book of common prayer (the original two). This seems a reasonable definition-it's how most religious institutions define themselves after all. Just as with any other denomination save the RC's one bishop does not define the whole denomination¬!
That is not to say the bishop is not part of it-as indeed there is no suggestion in the GAFCON comments they believe or want to get rid of the Archbishop. Merely he doesn't define the whole denomination!
Posted by: anglican | July 21, 2008 at 07:50 PM
i have to say i disagree strongly with he point despite this being a blog i want. I thik the colonial point was silly and after all who cares? I think it was just designed to point out to the liberals they're a bunch of dead or dying whites in a way not really germane to the argument at least from a conservative point of view.
However I really don't see how the Archbishop of Canterbury point holds. Firstly there is a logical point if say a nuclear attack wiped the island of Britian clean of human life but didn't affect the rest of the world-is the argument seriously the Anglican Communion would no longer exist?
The Archbishop of Canterbury has never been a minny pope. Indeed for a large part of the Church of England's history he lacked any substantial power in York-his the most senior prelate his no more the head or defining feature of the Church of England or the Anglican Communion that the Duke of Norfolk is the British Aristocracy both would survive with the (tragic) loss of their most senior member. historically the crown had a lot more author8ty but the Colseno affair showed one could be Anglican without being under the Crown (and really American independence before that)
Moreover this doesn’t seem to make sense from the point of history. There was an Archbishop of Canterbury under Mary Tudor does that mean he was "anglican" no! he sent people to their deaths for affirming the beliefs of the church of England!
This is an attempt to define Anglicanism in terms of confessions. Anglican institutions are those which affirm the confessions of the Church of England- the 39 articles as Mark says but also the ordinal and book of common prayer (the original two). This seems a reasonable definition-it's how most religious institutions define themselves after all. Just as with any other denomination save the RC's one bishop does not define the whole denomination¬!
That is not to say the bishop is not part of it-as indeed there is no suggestion in the GAFCON comments they believe or want to get rid of the Archbishop. Merely he doesn't define the whole denomination!
Posted by: anglican | July 21, 2008 at 07:50 PM