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Table of Contents Christ Church in the Anglican Tradition Christ Church in the Anglican Tradition Christ Church looks forward to the 21st century. Christ Church of Columbus, Ohio has achieved twenty-five years of spiritual growth in devotion to the Lord’s Name, and that is an accomplishment we must all praise and meditate upon. As an integral part of Christ’s universal Church and of the Anglican Tradition, where is the life at Christ Church taking us? How will we fulfill Our Lord’s mission for the Church in the volatile and challenging world we live in? As a parish in the Episcopal Missionary Church, as a living presence of the Anglican Tradition in central Ohio, what is Christ Church and who are we as its parishioners? This paper is a brief attempt to explore what we might learn from the lessons of our history and tradition and identify the challenges we face now and in the future. It will be this and the future generations of members of Christ Church that will take the next, brave steps in reaching out, with the help of God’s almighty power and through the loving care and protection of His Church, and keep alive the vibrant and vital message that enriches the traditional Faith. Celt, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman. If we Anglicans had a modern-day photo album of our magnificent history, it would have to start in Roman Britannia. We began with what Rome left behind. Anglicans point with pride to the early Church in Britain. Shrouded in legend and mystery, the beginnings of Christianity on the island of Britain are linked to the presence and departure of the Roman legions. History and archaeology give us tantalizing clues, but so little can be known with certainty about the Christian community in the province of Britannia. As across the Empire, this little community grew through times of persecution and peril. A photograph of a church of the time would show little difference with the homes of the people. When the Saxons and other barbarian tribes invaded, the Christians, as with the other Britons, struggled often in vain to protect their lives, their homes, and their faith. They were swept back, it seems, and the Church had to take root in a new soil and reap a new harvest. Perhaps our next page of photographs would be portraits of Saints David, Patrick, and Columba. As we enter the ages called dark, the Church’s link with the continent is broken, and from a scholar’s point of view, the light of the Church seems to dim. But, God raised great saints in the Celtic lands to nurture the Faith anew. David in Wales, Patrick for Ireland, and Columba in Scotland are but three, who began the process of growth and spiritual development among believers and pagans alike. The monastic model, protective and preserving, was an important key in desperate times. Raiders from land and sea continued to threaten to extinguish the Faith and destroy the community of believers. Faith, prayer, fasting, and the sacramental life sustained these pioneering Christians--as is done today. A church and community faced with violence and darkness confronted its enemy and had the inner strength to spread the message--building on the ruins and glorifying God through its industry. May we have such strength and remember the challenges they faced and be encouraged by them. Would we, then, have a photograph of a large group assembled in front of a church? Would they all be smiling or would they be grimly serious and stare at us across the ages from the Synod of Whitby? For when the connection to the continent was restored however tenuously, it was not an altogether happy meeting of brethren. Over time, differences had appeared in the community of God’s people--little differences in many cases, but this was a time when the smallest variation could be eyed with suspicion as being an indicator of a deeper and more sinister heretical deviation. The Synod of Whitby ended with an outer conformance to the measuring-stick of Rome. This sort of disciplining would continue for centuries to come. The local practices in England as elsewhere in Christendom would resist total subjugation despite Rome’s increasing authority--provided by bishops and abbots more and more derived from non-English peoples. These problems and differences would brood under the surface for centuries. Then, there would certainly be an official photo and press release of Augustine becoming the first Archbishop of Canterbury. He and his immediate successors would do much to re-Christianize the island ultimately subduing the fiercest pagans and putting increasing pressures on the Celtic churches and monasteries. Perhaps, we would receive a picture from a traveling monastic in the Holy Land to add to our album? An attached letter might tell us of Byzantium’s answer to the question of how ecclesiastical authority works. In the East, the Empire had not fallen, and built on its framework, a different model had been established. A Christian emperor sat on a throne he openly declared to be sharing with Jesus Christ. Here, Church and State were closely entwined, and the authority of the Church was an arm of the Emperor. Despite heresies and iconoclasm, this model would endure through the centuries standing in contrast to the other theocracy being formulated in Rome where the Church and kings of the West often stood poles apart and with strikingly different agendas. When William and the Norman lords conquered England, the power of the Roman Church would grow even greater, and the division of secular and ecclesiastical authority would broaden. The Normans would have their own men at the Sees of Canterbury and York. And the cathedrals would be raised in those places and Durham and Glochester and across the island. We would certainly have photographs of these magnificent houses of God and point with pride at how high their towers rise above the landscape. But, despite the excitement, we know the Church is not the buildings however magnificent they may be. And we in the Continuing Church had to revisit that lesson when we had to find new homes for ourselves not so long ago. A picture taken by a crime reporter and added to our photo album might show us the evidence at Canterbury that Archbishop then Saint Thomas a Beckett and his king had learned to their sorrow that Thomas’s assuming responsibility in the spiritual world would necessitate answering to a different Master and require that their conflicting priorities would result in a war between two friends. The Tudor Revolution; Cavaliers and Roundheads. The next photograph would occupy an entire page in our album. It would be a magnificent full-length image of King Henry VIII, Protector, Founder, Critic, and Realist. Henry had been named the Defender of the Faith, a title still held by his successors. But he had been given this honor by the Bishop of Rome. It cannot be assumed that he ever took this title lightly. Another loyalty waged in his heart: in his desperate response to assure the nation had the security of dynastic succession—no reasonable Englishman wanted another War of Roses--he acted repeatedly to ensure that the Church in England would move in harmony for the security of the people. The death of long-standing monastic establishments and the destruction of many Medieval institutions may be mourned, but Henry’s reaffirmation of a Church for England and of England held great promise and opened the door to building a nurturing and sustaining body within the universal Church. By its very nature this Continuing Church would engender Christian love, compassion, intellectual growth, and piety of a nature unique and compelling—a truly English expression of the Lord’s Presence. Henry’s desire for a stabilizing dynastic succession broke Rome’s hold on England in more ways than one. And although under his son, England would gravitate toward the Protestant faith of the continent and under one daughter, England would re-embrace Rome, the course was set to follow another way. The photographs of these difficult times would find Catholic and Protestant Englishmen facing the fire in public squares and require their courage to the death for what they held to be God’s truth. We would not miss the opportunity to take a candid photograph of Archbishop Cranmer in his study at Lambeth. He was truly the Spiritual Arm of the Crown, Reformer, and Reluctant Martyr. The spiritual descendent of Augustine of Canterbury, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer would leave us a lasting legacy of liturgical richness. The English Bible and Book of Common Prayer would be twin pillars of strength for the Church of England and her children churches around the world. Himself a reformer who struggled to determine a personal, right understanding of Christian doctrine all his life, Archbishop Cranmer refined our understanding of the Church and through careful and determined prayer and action, he came to define an understanding of the sacramental life and a spirituality both temperate and reasonable. We know and believe that his careful study, translation, and compilation should not be easily cast aside nor taken lightly. The expression on Queen Elizabeth I’s face in the next picture is perhaps a bit quizzical as though she were somewhat amused at us. Through the lessons of her brother’s and elder sister’s reigns, Elizabeth knew that extremism would not breed unity for her people or the Church. Always struggling to serve the security of her people as had her father, she would guide the Church along a path which inevitably evolved a Via Media, a middle way, and seek to include as many as possible of the faithful and devoted Englishmen in a mode of common worship which did nothing to violate their own privately held understandings and sensitivities, which as is the nature of men, were not without variation. (There is perhaps necessarily some tension then in how we pray together and our own secret devotions.) In our Anglican family album, the face-to-face confrontational pictures of King Charles I and Cromwell depict England struggling through extreme swings of the pendulum yet again. When a consensus or a period of relative tolerance is broken by authority’s hand, the Via Media suffers. Under the Stuarts the Church of Rome would again feel encouraged to intrude. Under Cromwell, the Protestant churches of the continent would gain influence. England’s Civil War, Cavaliers and Roundheads, tore at the heart of the people and the church. A familiar picture this: the Parliament Building. William and Mary come to the throne, and Parliament now sets the course. Never to be discounted, the people’s voice would be heard when the Lord Protector died. The Glorious Revolution would stabilize further the direction and purpose achieved by the Tudors. The Anglican Tradition was now an institution and vehicle of the British Empire and its participation on the world stage. The Challenges of Philosophy, Science, Economy, and Psychology. Ah, here is a picture of an early settlment in Virginia. Cranmer’s Holy Communion is peformed in a log cabin. So, how has the world changed since the Anglican Tradition was firmly established and brought to America’s shores by early colonists? What new contestants does the Faith contend with? In several important ways the Anglican Tradition shares the challenge of several major new intellectual forces with all of the churches in Christendom and beyond. Each of these challenges shake the ancient and Medieval framework of the Church. Each Christian today must make some sort of decision about how he or she views them. Here is a portrait of John Locke. Philosophy had been a child of Greece and then become a servant of the Church in its Medieval form. With the coming of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, philosophy took an increasingly independent path. This world, not the next became its focus. Whether systemic or analytical in approach, philosophers urged new ways of thinking, new axioms of understanding, and the rejection of ideas not vindicated by logic, reason, and evidence. Is man truly the measure of all things? How could faith be justified and defended in a world of ideas which no longer held to basic tenets of understanding and perception that characterized the thinking of the Church and its people? Philosophers like Descartes and Spinoza, and Locke—are their thoughts to be adopted by Christians? The next page features pictures of a landscape and a seascape: a man under a tree and a ship in the Pacific, Sir Isaac Newton and Darwin. They seem to epitomize what science can interpolate and extrapolate. Though a devoted Christian and amateur theologian, Newton’s universe is a natural extension of the reasoning of philosophy and the discoveries of science. The times seem to say that there are laws which even God obeys in the clockwork that is His universe. And Darwin would say the same in the domain of life itself--measuring diversity with principles of adaptation and evolution. Where is God in this picture? Is he the clockmaker? Does he manipulate the genes and mutate His creation? How will the Christian deal with this challenge? A picture of Adam Smith in his marketplace is next. A few memorabilia are glued to the page--pounds and shillings and pence. The marketplace is an old ‘compeller’ with a new transfusion of meaning. And perhaps this is a meaning that is closer to home than the one to be found in the Church? The treasures of this world certainly seem more tangible and more compelling than treasures in heaven that one must squint to see. And how about that “rainy day” that is always coming? Surely we must put aside something for that? Then to complete the collage we have a picture taken somewhat out of focus to give it a dreamlike quality. With Freud, we learn that we can improve our lives and ease the guilt that is inside us all if we just have the right someone to talk to. Someone to bring analysis and dissection to our very psyches. Prayer is all right in its way, but if one has serious problems…well. God can only do so much for you. That’s why we have counselors and therapy and drugs. By the way, the pastor should really be certified, or he should refer his parishoners to an expert in these matters, shouldn’t he? These challenges which enter the stage throughout the later history of the Church are very much with us today. Christ Church and its parishoners have no choice but to recognize their inherent contention with traditional teachings of the Church. Is contest or compromise the answer? Can they all safely be ignored as being outside the purview of our spiritual life? The Protestant Episcopal Church. A portrait of Samuel Seabury graces our album. The Church of England in the United States of America had several challenges to face after the Revolution. Clearly, prayers for the reigning monarch of England were out of place, but what else needed to change in the Book of Common Prayer? And, critically, how can one maintain Apostolic Succession given the dearth of bishops after the Revolution. In a most strange twist of fate, the answer came not from England, but from Scotland. Without the assistance to Samuel Seabury from that quarter, the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States might have followed a very different path. As years passed, the Church had to try and define itself among the more Protestant churches—Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist. How “Protestant” would this Church be in a nation largely very Protestant? How influential would the professions of Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli be? (Certainly Archbishop Cranmer had meditated on precisely that question.) In the end, the Protestant nature of the Church was defined on the basis of the Tudor Compromise and the church in the United States theologically followed Canterbury’s lead. A picture of the flag of the United States of America is at the top of the next page of our album. How American would this Protestant Episcopal Church be? And did we see ourselves, in some fashion, as the American church? A number of the Founding Fathers had been members. The Church was very influential often including the most illustrious of the young nation’s important personages. Episcopalians fought on both sides in the American Civil War and yet remained a united church. The Protestant Episcopal Church was crucially influenced by the Oxford Movement in the middle years of the nineteenth century. Later, those in the fold who despaired at what appeared to be the death of evangelicalism in the church broke away and became the Reformed Episcopal Church in 1873 and remain separated brethren to this day. The Elizabethan Church was meant to be as inclusive as possible. The Church of England included members across the wide spectrum of Low Church, Broad Church, and High Church. This was reflected in the American Church as well. The Via Media was nearly as wide, it seemed as, the gulf between Rome and the Protestant world. Could so many and varying practices, tied together by the Book of Common Prayer, remain one church or would some standard be imposed which would shatter the consensus? Our photo album includes a newspaper clipping here. In 1960, the Protestant Episcopal Church dropped its first name. The emphasis had come to be on the catholicity of the Church, rather than resistance to the Pope of Rome and objection to Medieval accretions on the Faith. These were heady times; times for change after long years of pondering courses of action and often standing by the formulas of Archbishop Cranmer. The discarding of the title “Protestant” seemed to be only the beginning. Liturgical reform and theological reform were in the wind in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond. This could not have been felt more than in the Church’s seminaries. Movements for civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights and more all demanded the attention of faculty, seminarians, clergy, and laity. What should the answer to these secular initiatives be in the Church’s thoughts and actions? The Continuing Church is Proclaimed Another newspaper clipping marks a milestone even in the Anglican Tradition. In the end the Compromise that had largely held the Protestant Episcopal Church together failed. There was little tolerance for those who cherished the old forms so closely linked to the Compromise and the Via Media—in the minds of the reformers. How could there be? Surely, they thought, if the Church shows only half-hearted support for the prevailing currents of change in the nation, the people would gravitate to where the response was more vibrant and alive. In Vatican II and its execution, the Church of Rome had demonstrated the “correct” way to reform a catholic body. Drastic course correction necessarily called for drastic execution it seemed. In St. Louis in 1977, those who felt their Church had abandoned them and the way that the Church had traditionally navigated amidst the shoals of dissension gathered together to decide what must be preserved. The need for a steadfast continuation of Church government, liturgical practice, and tradition was heralded. Preserving the male clergy was very much on the minds of the framers of the Affirmation. There were still model Churches in the Anglican Communion including Canterbury that demonstrated the wisdom of this path. Then, one must ask, why is there no united Continuing Anglican Church today? The fragmentation of this “Spirit of St. Louis” is not a story we need to belabor. No united Anglican, traditional body arose. The personal leadership of individual bishops and other organizers, who had taken the bold step of formalizing a rejection of the unacceptable course of the Episcopal Church, were perhaps too strongly relied upon. Splintering brought about by a special dedication to the leading lights of a movement has been all too common a situation in church history. One group of traditional Anglicans knows little about the progress of our brother Anglicans of the other groups though we differ little in liturgical practice, doctrine, and Faith. This is a great challenge to our future. We have empty pages to fill in our photo album of the Anglican Tradition. We are called to fill them more beautifully than ever before. That is the mission Christ gave His Church, and he expects our best efforts now and into the future. Challenges of Today: the Role of Women and the Family, the Permanence of Tradition, and the Apostolic Tradition. The sexual revolution, if we can call it that, has left a serious problem of definition for men and women alike. The pill has made women “people of choice” in an unprecedented way as has legalized abortion. Christians are asked is your God pro-life or pro-choice? His Love makes it clear how dear life is to Him in that “every hair on our head is numbered.” It is also at the heart of the story of Salvation that we are all “people of choice” indeed, defining our relationship to God in our thoughts, words, and deeds. In this way we believe, we are defining our hope of eternal life. Women and men find that attempting to live as Christians today is a walk both fragile and precarious. Like fish in a lake whose surface is covered with fishermen, we must be constantly watchful for the hook in the lure, for temptation and sin. Though these words seem so out-of-style today, the reality is there waiting at every door and on every web page. Paganism, Witchcraft, and Nature Worship. Surprise beyond surprise, after centuries, we find paganism, witchcraft, and nature worship growing in nations once called Christian. “Apostacy” is never heard in these politically correct times, of course. These movements are growing and attracting many new converts in the United States and elsewhere. Perhaps there is one very important lesson the rise of these movements brings to the traditional Christian. The history of the early Church now has renewed meaning and relevance to our times. History is not dull that touches our present so frighteningly. “And because inquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Matthew 24:12) There is a new community to testify before in the United States—the neo-pagans of many sects. The missionary effort to these neighbors is a remarkable opportunity to wear the sandals of the apostles and disciples today. The Waning of the Nuclear Family. How long has it been since dad was positively portrayed in television and other media in a traditional setting of father, mother, and children? Why is it that the good father is not more often seen? We are led to believe because he isn’t all that common a figure. The little family group of father, mother, and children is certainly less common now. Does such a family really not work? Are fathers really such dark figures as we now see on the news and in the movie, or is there something inherently iconoclastic about the media and other elements in our society? Who do we respect today—priests? bishops? lawyers? businessmen? teachers? politicians? doctors? fathers? mothers? What upbuilds us and strengthens us today—faith? prayer? friends? family? The families of this country, of Columbus, Ohio, are what they are, but.it seems clear the institution of family needs repair and support. Who or what will provide it? How enduring are the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, the King James Version of the Bible, and the 1940 Hymnal? Do our children understand them? Do we educate our children on why they have special value? Is it enough for them just to hear the words, recite the Creed, and sing the hymns? Do the parents understand enough about these document of our faith to tell others about them? Is reform inevitable? Will we repeat the actions of the hierarchy of the Episcopal Church if we attempt it? How knowledgeable are we Anglicans with our Apostolic Faith? The Affirmation of St. Louis commits us to it, but what do we know enough about it? What doctrine and beliefs constitute the foundation of an Apostolic Faith? Our responsibility is to learn it and live it. On this our twenty-fifth anniversary, Christ Church Anglican can point with pride to our resolute and determined staying of the course. The road started hard and uneven and continues to be a challenge. We have never been able to relax, be content, nor lapse into self-satisfaction. The dedicated membership, the active laity, and the devoted clergy have preserved the Faith as we know it and must live it. On this anniversary we re-commit ourselves to the enduring faith that began in Roman Britain and walked with the saints, the brave bishops and martyrs of all times, the dedicated monarchs and clergy, the colonists and pioneers, and those who recognized that merely yielding to the passion of chasing what is attractively contemporary is not the path of Salvation. It is also vital that we look ahead and provide a vision for the future of Christ Church.and our part in the Anglican/Traditional Episcopal faith. In Christ Church, the Flame can not and will not be hidden, and “it giveth light unto all that are in the house.” (Matthew 5:15) |
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