The right, good old way
A couple of weeks ago, I visited Little Gidding. Not for the first time, and not, I hope, for the last, either. But it was the first time I had been in about five years, so it was good to be back.
A long time before, back in 1993, at the dawn of the popular internet, I wrote a piece about a visit to Little Gidding for an Anglican email list. (You can read a copy of that piece here.) At that time Little Gidding was the home of a small community, as well as a wider group of Friends, but in the intervening years the community disbanded and there was some dispute over the future ownership of the community buildings. But now the dispute has been settled, the Friends of Little Gidding have been reconstituted, new wardens installed in Ferrar House, and the ministry of hospitality continues.
So, on a lovely Sunday afternoon we headed up the A14, across the A1, turning off at Leighton Bromswold (to pay homage to George Herbert) and on to Little Gidding. The ‘dull facade’ looked almost beautiful in the late afternoon sun, the noticeboard (new since our last visit) slightly detracting from the composition. Inside, the sun shone brightly through the clear glass and the stained glass of the windows, and the old familiar place looked just the same. This is the place where the Ferrar family, led by Deacon Nicholas, came to say their prayers, morning and evening each day, the centre of their spiritual life. This is the place, hallowed by their community, where ‘prayer has been valid’, this is the place closest to us, now and in England.
Nicholas Ferrar lived in a time of increasing prosperity, with the foundations being laid for the later British commercial and imperial greatness. Ferrar himself came from a wealthy mercantile family, involved in foreign trade and the settlement of English colonies in North America.
It was also a time of religious turmoil in England. Just five years before his birth an attempted invasion by a foreign power aiming to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I and her protestant government had been foiled by a combination of the heroics of Sir Francis Drake and the stormy weather. When Ferrar was 12 a conspiracy to blow up the Houses of Parliament and to kill the king and his government was only narrowly averted, thanks to careful intelligence and leaks from the inside. And not long after his death England erupted into civil war.
Ferrar’s response to this, like that of his contemporary George Herbert, was to live a quiet and godly life. He abandoned the pursuit of worldly wealth and status for a life of prayer and contemplation, in a community of family and other associates. But this was not escapism. Rather, it was an engagement in real life, an engagement with ordinary people and their everyday concerns, as a teacher, as a healer (Ferrar had studied medicine at Cambridge, Padua and Leipzig), as a counsellor. He and his community were consulted by the poor, by the politically active, and by the great and the good — right up to the king himself.
Although Nicholas Ferrar died in his 40s on 4 December 1637 and his community survived only another decade before it was ransacked by the victorious Puritans, and dissolved a further decade later at the death of Nicholas’s eldest brother John, his example still shines as a beacon of sanity in a complex and sometimes frightening world. A life of caring for ordinary people, of ministering to their needs, physical, intellectual and spiritual, a life of quiet, undemonstrative prayer and study, is one that we would all do well to emulate. ‘It is the right, good old way you are in,’ Nicholas Ferrar said to his brother, shortly before he died; ‘keep in it.’
1 CommentMary: Hope and Grace in Christ
The Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, a group originally set up by Archbishop Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI, and re-established by Archbishop Robert Runcie and Pope John Paul II has published its latest report Mary: Hope and Grace in Christ.
The publication was celebrated on Monday in Seattle by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Seattle, Alexander Brunett, and the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia, Peter Carnley.
ACNS has placed a summary introduction to the report by the Revd Canon Donald Bolen, Roman Catholic Co-Secretary of ARCIC on its website.
Update 20 May
The Church Times has published a lengthy article by Rachel Boulding summarising the document: Anglicans and Roman Catholics reach agreement about the Virgin Mary
Roman diary, part 2
Bishop John Flack, Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative to the Holy See wrote earlier about his time in Rome during the death and funeral of Pope John Paul II. Now he writes again, this time about the election and inauguration of Pope Benedict XVI, the comings and goings of Anglican dignitaries, and shaking hands with the new pope.
Read on…
0 CommentsPope Benedict to work for Christian unity
In his first sermon as pope, Benedict XVI has said that he intends to work tirelessly for Christian unity, suggesting that ‘concrete gestures’ are needed. He also sent greetings to the representatives of other ‘Churches and ecclesial communities’
He said that he…
assumes as his primary commitment that of working tirelessly towards the reconstitution of the full and visible unity of all Christ’s followers. This is his ambition, this is his compelling duty. He is aware that to do so, expressions of good feelings are not enough. Concrete gestures are required to penetrate souls and move consciences, encouraging everyone to that interior conversion which is the basis for all progress on the road of ecumenism.
Theological dialogue is necessary. A profound examination of the historical reasons behind past choices is also indispensable. But even more urgent is that ‘purification of memory,’ which was so often evoked by John Paul II, and which alone can dispose souls to welcome the full truth of Christ. It is before Him, supreme Judge of all living things, that each of us must stand, in the awareness that one day we must explain to Him what we did and what we did not do for the great good that is the full and visible unity of all His disciples.
The current Successor of Peter feels himself to be personally implicated in this question and is disposed to do all in his power to promote the fundamental cause of ecumenism. In the wake of his predecessors, he is fully determined to cultivate any initiative that may seem appropriate to promote contact and agreement with representatives from the various Churches and ecclesial communities. Indeed, on this occasion too, he sends them his most cordial greetings in Christ, the one Lord of all.
The full sermon (in English translation from the spoken Latin) is available ‘below the fold’…
10 CommentsConclave stories
Today’s news is all about the preparations for the Conclave which begins at 4.30pm Italian time today (2.30pm GMT). If the cardinals decide to hold a vote this evening then it is possible that white smoke will be seen over the Sistine Chapel later today. News stories include
- the BBC: Mass begins new pontiff election
- The Times: Cardinals prepare to enter conclave with special Mass; How a new pope is elected; Progressive cardinals try to block Ratzinger
- the Guardian Cardinals start choosing new pope
- the Telegraph: Conclave meets to elect new pope
Update
Fulcrum has published an article by Oliver O’Donovan on Pope John-Paul II
Roman election
The election process to fill the vacancy in Rome begins today. The Conclave will meet for mass and the doors will be locked and they will be left alone to their deliberations.
Geza Vermes writes in the Telegraph, Let’s hope Vatican politics do not hinder the Holy Spirit in which he hopes for a more liberal, thoughtful Roman Catholic Church, less wedded to dogma and closer to Vermes’s view of Jesus of Nazareth:
To judge both the legacy of John Paul II and the problems facing the new papacy, there should be one sure criterion – the teaching of Jesus. Is conservative Catholicism based on the gospel?
It would be presumptuous for an outsider to offer advice to the conclave, but may he be allowed a dream? In this dream, the new Pope is urged by God to revitalise Catholicism from within by concentrating on the authentic gospel of Jesus, on the message conveyed by him to his disciples, and not on the doctrine about Jesus developed by St Paul and two millennia of Christianity. This is a simple and moving message, which Jesus formulated in his own language for his simple Galilean audience, about God, the heavenly Father, the dignity of all human beings as children of God, a life turned into worship by total trust, an overwhelming sense of urgency to do one’s duty without delaying tactics, a sanctification of the here and now, and, yes, the love of God through the love of one’s neighbour.
If made prominent, and not concealed under verbiage about sex, rituals, mass canonisation of saints and Mary worship, the authentic gospel would concentrate on the true essence of religion, an existential relationship between man and man, and man and God.
4 CommentsReconstructed with the tools of 21st-century historical and biblical scholarship, and perceived by 21st-century minds in 21st-century circumstances, it would appeal to thinking people all over the world, who have left the Church in droves, and feed a genuine ecumenical spirit among religious groups outside Catholicism.
Choral Evensong at Armagh
Canon Michael Kennedy has sent us this full report on the service of Evensong which was held in Armagh Cathedral on Tuesday at the second day of the Primates’ Meeting:
A service of Choral Evensong was held in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, on Tuesday 22 February 2005 to mark the visit of the primates of the Anglican Communion at which the preacher was the Archbishop of Canterbury…
2 CommentsPrimates' Meeting — first comments
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Frank Griswold, has issued this statement about the communiqué:
“The primates of the Anglican Communion and Moderators of the United Churches have just completed their work on the attached communiqué which gives some sense of our meeting this week in Northern Ireland. These days have not been easy for any of us and the communiqué reflects a great deal of prayer and the strong desire to find a way forward as a Communion in the midst of deep differences which have been brought into sharp relief around the subject of homosexuality.
“Clearly, all parts of the communiqué will not please everyone. It is important to keep in mind that it was written with a view to making room for a wide variety of perspectives. I continue to have faith and confidence in the many ways in which the mystery of communion is lived among us, and am grateful that bonds of understanding and affection to bind us together and call us to an ever deeper and more costly living out of the reconciliation brought about by Jesus through the Cross. Again this week it was revealed that so much more unites us than divides us.”
“The Presiding Bishop will make a further comment tomorrow.”
0 CommentsPrimates' Meeting — communique
The Primates, meeting in Northern Ireland, have issued this communiqué
The main points seem to be:
- the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are invited to ‘voluntarily withdraw their members from the Anglican Consultative Council for the period leading up to the next Lambeth Conference.’
- that the Archbishop of Canterbury ensure that adequate pastoral provision be made for those in the USA or Canada in ‘serious theological dispute’ with their bishop, or province; meanwhile the primates will not initiate or encourage extra-provincial arrangements
- that the Americans and Canadians attend a ‘hearing’ in Nottingham in June 2005 to explain their actions
- that there should be a process of dialogue, and all are invited to take part in that dialogue (implying that there has not been a dialogue so far)
- that there be a moratorium on same-sex blessings and bishops ‘living in a sexual relationship outside Christian marriage’
'Bush is back'
‘Bush is back’ — Brian Draper at LICC writes about this week’s news from the USA.
Bush is back. And many Christians are rejoicing. The president’s thinking is driven both by a theology of personal morality, and the conviction that he and his country can act globally and unilaterally, on God’s behalf, for good.
Yet any Christian who worries — as many do — about the past and future consequences of this combination is now faced with a choice.
Either they surrender to the sense of disempowerment that swept both coasts of America and much of the world on Wednesday. Or, more positively, they seize the opportunity to ensure that practical theology is not monopolised by the Religious Right for the next four years.
Continue reading at LICC to see Draper’s response to President Bush’s re-election.
2 CommentsRochester Report on women bishops published
Women Bishops in the Church of England? (GS 1557, the Rochester report) is released today. You can download all 785 kB and 302 pages of it here. There’s also a four-page (and 230 kB) Reader’s Guide
Addition the official Church of England press release about this report can be found here.
0 CommentsAfrican bishops comment
ACNS carries a statement from the meeting of Anglican bishops in Africa.
The bishops welcome the Windsor Report, but they explicitly do not express any regret for the actions of some of then in ministering to congregations in other dioceses:
However, we reject the moral equivalence drawn between those who have initiated the crisis and those of us in the Global South who have responded to cries for help from beleaguered friends. To call on us to “express regret” and reassert our commitment to the Communion is offensive in light of our earlier statements. If the Episcopal Church USA had not willfully “torn the fabric of our communion at its deepest level” our actions would not have been necessary.
The statement concludes:
0 CommentsWe are committed to the future life of the Anglican Communion, one that is rooted in truth and charity, and faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Homo floresiensis
Writing about the news, this week, of the discovery of a previously unknown human species, dubbed Homo floresiensis, Desmond Morris includes this provocative comment:
[T]he existence of Mini-Man should destroy religion, but I can already hear the fanatics claiming that he has been put on earth by the Devil simply to test our faith.
This seems to me to be something of a non sequitur, but presumably Morris is referring to the more fundamentalist versions of religious faith, and whether his inclusion of all religion in the comment is deliberate or accidental, it is surely the case that the existence of other human species is something that most Christians have almost taken for granted over the last hundred or so years.
As Morris notes, the intriguing question is whether the newly-discover species would be able to communicate with us in a spoken language:
When it comes down to it, being able to talk is really what defines humanity
and Christians should have little problem with that either. Speech enables us to communicate; speech enables us to think and to apply our brains to complex problem-solving; speech enables us to tell the truth and to lie, to influence and mislead. In short, it is language which separates us from other creatures — in this world, creatures which can speak are creatures which have, in the parable of the book of Genesis, fallen.
Scientific discoveries such as this should indeed be another nail in the coffin of fundamentalist religion, but sadly I suspect that those who deny the possibility of evolution will deny the logic of this discovery too.
That we should accept and even welcome the obvious conclusions about our ancestry does not seem a big thing to me. The message of kingdom of God, proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth, is neither strengthened nor weakened by such news — it is true regardless.
Update 1 November
Morris’s article referred to above has drawn a lot of comment on the BBC website. The BBC has also published this response by David Wilkinson, lecturer in theology and science at Durham University, and council member of the Evangelical Alliance
5 Commentsmeeting of African bishops
This week sees a meeting of African Anglican bishops in Nigeria.
The BBC provides a preview of the meeting.
The Scotsman has a PA report under the headline African Anglicans May Breakaway in Gay Row
From Nigeria, Lagos’s Daily Champion also has a preview, Africa’s Anglican Bishops’ Meeting Starts ‘Morrow…
Due principally to the threat from homosexual-ism among their Western brethren, Anglican bishops in Africa seeking to eke out a separate identity for themselves, converge on Lagos tomorrow for a continental conference on burning issues in the church.
Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, is quoted as saying:
“We send our men to theological school abroad but we have discovered that there are a lot of unwholesome things that happen,”
Akinola, who was flanked by the church’s primates in Uganda, South Africa, Kenya and some Southern African countries disclosed that the African bishops will fashion out ways by setting up a theological educational centre to help train her clerics.
“We will come up with the road map for the development of African Theological Centres of Excellence that are accessible and affordable with comprehensive and realistic curricula,” he remarked.
The Daily Champion report also says:
Only recently Rev. Akinola demanded an unreserved apology from the 50 bishops in the church who attended Robinson’s ordination.
However, Robinson’s ordination was a fall-out of the 2002 Lamberth conference in the USA which formally approved of gay ordination.
though perhaps this is the sort of inaccuracy which any journalist might fall into.
3 Comments'Fireproofing the House'
N T Wright, Bishop of Durham, was a member of the Eames Commission which wrote the Windsor report. In an interview Anglican Report is ‘Fireproofing the House’ by Douglas LeBlanc in Christianity Today he talks about how the Commission went about its work, what happened behind the scenes, whether the report should have been tougher, and why it’s critical of some conservative bishops. Finally he discusses his ‘best case scenario’ for the Anglican Communion.
0 Comments[We’re] working out what it means to be the Anglican Communion for the 21st century. We’re looking way ahead of current crises and we’re saying we’d like to set up and see a framework which will enable us to be faithful, wise Anglicans in communion with one another in 20 years’ time, in a way which will mean we don’t have to have this kind of crisis again. It’s hugely expensive getting all the people together and having all the extra meetings.
the Church press gets in on the act
Friday’s Church of England Newspaper, already available on its website, has plenty of coverage in its news section, with summaries of the report itself, and how it has been received by various groups.
There is comment from Andrew Carey, who gives his opinion on the likely sucess of the Eames Commission.
And don’t miss Ruth Gledhill’s comments starting with her experience of trying to ask ECUSA PB Frank Griswold a question.
2 Commentsthe next step: please read the report before acting
The Primates Standing Committee has issued a statement in which they explain what they hope will be the next step, following publication of the Windsor Report. The meat of the statement is the creation of a sub-committee of Primates to try and ensure that everyone reads the report:
We welcome this report as a comprehensive presentation of the tradition and practice of the Anglican Communion. There is much in this report which is challenging, but it points us in a sound direction for the resolution of current tensions. It is an invitation to the entire Communion to reflect on our life together. We are conscious of the concerns of those groups whose expectations have not been met, but we are very encouraged by the broad welcome and support that the report has received from many throughout the Communion.
and
4 CommentsWe have established a Reception Reference Group … which will be charged with receiving and co-ordinating initial responses to the Windsor Report in preparation for the Primates’ Meeting [in February 2005] … We hope that all the Provinces of the Anglican Communion … will join in a conversation with this reception group. In particular, the Reception Reference Group will wish to engage as much as possible with the 78 million members of our forty-four churches, and will explore ways of doing this effectively.
Thumbs down from Nigeria
ACNS has published a statement from the Archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola. You need to read this short statement in full, but here are some brief extracts:
After an initial reading it is clear to me that the report falls far short of the prescription needed for this current crisis. It fails to confront the reality that a small, economically privileged group of people has sought to subvert the Christian faith and impose their new and false doctrine on the wider community of faithful believers.
and
We have been asked to express regret for our actions and “affirm our desire to remain in the Communion”. How patronizing! We will not be intimidated. In the absence of any signs of repentance and reform from those who have torn the fabric of our Communion, and while there is continuing oppression of those who uphold the Faith, we cannot forsake our duty to provide care and protection for those who cry out for our help.
The Times reports this under the headline Archbishop tells US Anglicans to repent
Meanwhile, the print edition of today’s Daily Telegraph reports that Archbishop Akinola has flown back to Nigeria instead of staying in London to attend a meeting of the Primates Standing Committee in London. He is reported to have told Lambeth Palace that he was too busy preparing for a meeting of African Anglicans to stay in London. This story does not seem to appear in the online editions of today’s papers.
9 CommentsMorning news
After the rush of yesterday, and now that people have had a chance to read the report we hope to see some slightly more considered comment.
But real understanding will take a little longer. As The Archbishop of Canterbury comments:
I hope that everyone with the well being of our Communion at heart will now take time to study the report — and to pray and reflect upon its proposals which, as the Commission has made clear, offer neither easy nor simple solutions to real and demanding challenges. If we are serious about meeting those challenges, as I know we are, then we have to do all we can to continue to travel this road together.
That is what we intend to do, and as usual we will continue to point to a range of other commentators, as well as adding our thoughts.
Other coverage this morning includes:
- The Times carries a piece by Bishop John Spong: The literal-minded are triumphing, including this sample:
The Anglican Communion had a relatively minor crisis as new consciousness about homosexuality struggled to be born in the face of ancient prejudice. This commission has taken this minor crisis and turned it into a major revolution that will move Anglicanism toward the literal-mindedness that now threatens not just Christianity, but religious systems all over the world.
- In a Leading article Divisions still remain the Guardian comments that:
Dr Robin Eames, charged with averting schism in the Anglican Communion, has come up with a new liturgical gesture. The primates and churches who have split the communion are to apologise to one another – but with their fingers crossed.
- The Guardian has several other reports in its special report.
The prospects that the report would find a compromise for the 78 million-strong worldwide communion looked bleak last night as factions began to digest its findings. One senior primate told the Guardian: “It’s very, very black, very grim. We are hell-bent on division. It’s all down to the grace of Almighty God now.”
- The Independent meanwhile has US church snubs call to halt promotion of homosexual priests, a headline which seems to be based on the “expression of regret” by ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold.
- A leading article in the same paper, however, is headlined The church should value tolerance over its own unity.
Robin Eames may see his commission’s report into the Church’s stance on homosexuality as part of the Anglican Communion’s “pilgrimage towards healing and reconciliation”, but it is unlikely that the two opposing sides in this ill-tempered dispute will share that optimism. And it is unlikely that yesterday’s report will prevent hostilities flaring up again, since it fails to address the fundamental issues behind this crisis of Anglicanism.
- Jonathan Petre in the Daily Telegraph reports that Church faces split as report fails to heal gays row and the companion piece An argument that masks a wider schism.
- In the Church Times Bill Bowder writes Eames unveils rescue plan for Anglican unity.
the Network has 'strong concerns'
The Anglican Communion Network and American Anglican Council, groupings of conservative Episcopalians in the USA, have expressed their ‘strong concerns’ that the report calls ‘only for the Episcopal Church USA to “express regret”’ and that it fails ‘to recommend direct discipline of ECUSA’. They cannot support ‘unity at the expense of truth’.
Read their statement here.
0 Comments