Catholicity (or, What’s a Church For?)

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If the Episcopal Church were to be expelled from the Anglican Communion, would we cease to be part of the Church Catholic — and should we care? Personally I’m not especially concerned about that possibility. I suppose being able to call yourself part of the "universal church" is nice; assuming, of course, that one can be so, merely by saying so.

But even so, catholicity strikes me as a distinctly secondary
virtue for a church. To this pew-sitter, it’s far more important that a church provide
a community where people can help each other to do some things that — just maybe — might have some significance in their lives, such as:

worshipping God, and seeking a better
understanding of him and his universe;
wanting the best for our neighbor, no matter what his / her tribe;
supporting each other in raising our kids (where applicable) and in otherwise getting through life;
acknowledging that we don’t know it all, and that what we think we know, we often don’t;
in general, trying to be good “construction workers”
in God’s on-going project of creation.

—————————-

I’m starting to question whether catholicity is
in fact a good thing in the first place, at least when it comes to ideas about God. Dictionaries usually define catholicity as referring to, for example, "the quality of being universal; existing everywhere." If we don’t really know
what’s going on — and let’s face it, with God we really don’t — then so-called universal beliefs aren’t what we want. It seems to me that truth (or Truth) is
best served when people have:

lots of different ideas and practices, at least to start out with;
an eagerness to find out more about the way things really are, as opposed to the way we imagine (or wish) them to be; and
a willingness to listen to each other, and to face the facts — or, as the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, an openness to the truth, no matter what the truth turns out to be.

Humanity’s experience suggests that when these three are present, truth eventually emerges.

So maybe when it comes to God, catholicity isn’t such a good thing after all.

Comments

16 responses to “Catholicity (or, What’s a Church For?)”

2005-07-21

joe from oc

Very sad – yet you are completely in sync with the Zeitgeist and with the current vision of the ecusa establishment. Just like so many deists of another revolutionary age and the progressivists/post-modernists of our day, you are in reality denying that God is God, and that He can break through the veil, and truly communicate to us that which He wants to communicate. Your religion is one of individuals pursuing their own versions of the truth without an actual foundation that would allow them to discern that what they are really after is the truth, and not simply affirmation, or the validation of choices made strictly for the purpose of fulfilling desire. How does it feel to embrace a religion that is the perfect counterpart to modern American corporate, advertising-driven culture?
One thing comes to mind that you might be willing to consider:
What has in fact distinguished the Anglican tradition from the rest of Western Christianity, until recent times, is that it’s foundation and various other key movements that have defined it have been very much opposed to the spirit of the times. The English Reformation rejected the scholasticism of Lutheranism and the Reformed traditions, and beginning in the late 16th century did to some degree, seek to sift through and synthesize medieval Catholic, Reformed/Lutheran, patristic and Eastern Orthodox concepts of spirituality and ecclesiology. It did so however, in a traditional framework of catholicity (Hooker, Andrewes, Taylor, Herbert) that both enhanced and received guidance from, the vision and theology of the Prayer book. This continued through an age when the rest of Europe was embracing dogmatisms of one form or another. In a limited way, this demonstrates one great value of catholicity: when their is opression of one form or another, or when the culture is slavishly following intellectual or social trends, catholicity awakens us to the need to look back across the ages, or look out over the earth, to societies and cultures very different from our own, and receive wisdom from great saints who give us a differentiated perspective on the Faith and the will of God that challenges our current paradigms, opening our eyes to the patterns of reasoning that would lead us to compromise what cannot be compromised without great cost to our souls. Forgive me if I sound at all condescending, but I would be greatly disturbed if you could not see that the vision of these brilliant Christian minds, who really represent the core of Anglican theology, is not imbued throughout with a heavy dose of orthodox catholic faith and spirituality.
I could offer you much more of the dynamic counter-trends of the Anglican tradition through the 18th and 19th century. But beyond that, it must be said that this distinctive and poetic quality of Anglicanism starts to break down only as we get about a third of the way through the “American Century”, and episcopalianism starts to exert a constant and powerful influence over the theological method of the Communion. Literary lights from England strongly resist the cold modernism emanating from the United States, but the domination of mainline seminaries by men who have been persuaded that various philosophical notions masquerading as science have redefined reality is too far advanced.
From the very start, episcopalians have tended to cut themselves off from eachother and from the mother church, and the ecusa establishment continues that custom. Thus, we have no shared vision, and no desire to develop common interpretations of canons and traditional authorities. Thus, lawlessness rules the day. Would not a pursuit of catholicity, rather than political ideology and sectarian agendae, be the cure to our confusion?

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2005-07-21

Simeon

Should we care ? I can’t see why. This “membership in the AC” thing usually seems to get trotted out by one side or the other only when it helps them “spin” some issue to their benefit. Otherwise, congregationalism rules 😉
And that gentle, thoughtful, “Via Media” sort of Church of England doesn’t really exist anyomore. They’re up to their collars in problems caused by their own conservatives (of both evangelical and Anglo-Catholic stripes) and those of the Third World.
I’m actually much more interested in a Communion between churches like the ECUSA, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Scottish Episcopal Church and the mainstream of the CoE than this AC dominated by the likes of +Akinola, +Gomez and their ilk.

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2005-07-22

bls

If the Anglican tradition can at all times be distinguished in some robust way from other versions of Western Christianity, as averred by the first poster – then what’s “catholic” about it?

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2005-07-22

bls

To answer the question, though: I would like to remain “catholic” with Christianity – if it in fact ever demonstrated any of the qualities D.C. enumerates above. Different ideas and practices, interest in truth, and desire for discussion and exchange of ideas with others.
But that’s not what’s happening at all, today. Instead, the Vatican has accrued unprecendented power to itself and suppresses any such discussions and/or practices. Much of Protestantism is fundamentalist and totally inward-turned. “Truth” is the very last thing on anyone’s mind, it appears.
I’m far more interested in speaking with the unchurched, and in new baptisms, than I am in remaining “catholic” with groups that don’t appear to understand the meaning of the word.

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2005-07-22

bls

(Let’s not forget, after all, that it’s Herr Ratzinger himself who declares that he’d prefer a smaller church comprised only of people who hold to “proper” theology, i.e., ideas that conform with his.
Let’s take him at his word, why don’t we, and start a new – and truly catholic – Church?)

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2005-07-22

joe from oc

bls:
Your question is a good one, though the context in which you ask it is something of a theoretical vacuum. The Anglican tradition has revealed its catholicity in a variety of ways over the centuries. That it consistently distinguished itself from virtually all other major Western Christian traditions, prior to the 1930s, by not falling in line with various intellectual and social movements, is an indication of a strong catholicity that is able to receive from the wisdom of ages past as well as from current scholarship and advances in knowledge. Until the last 30 years, we were the great bridge church because we understood and applied the foundational thought of early Church, and also learned how to used modern tools to speak thoughtfully to differences between Christian bodies across language and cultural barriers. This evidence of our catholicity must not be misunderstood as catholicity itself, however. The very natural ways that we have received guidance and wisdom from, and provided advice and wisdom to, classical orthodox Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox, is also very good evidence of catholicity, but not catholicity itself.
Even in our capitulation to modernism and rationalism/individualism in the Western nations during the 20th century, the Anglican Communion was the fastest growing of all major Christian bodies in the rest of the world. This growth has occurred among both evangelical and catholic-minded Anglicans. We are a body that is becoming more and more universal, and will continue to do so. And this has been accomplished not by men and women who want a pluralism of doctrine, but by missionaries and other leaders who have offered only the historic faith and liturgies, and the ancient wisdom that accompanies them. More evidence of catholicity, I think.
There is a fundamental problem with DC’s definition of catholicity that I will not go into depth on at this point. First, it does not attempt to incorporate any Eastern Orthodox perspectives on catholicity. Secondly, it does not come anywhere near St. Vincent of Lerins famous dictum of “that which has been believed everywhere, from the beginning by all (in the Church).” St. Vincent was looking for guideposts to help Christians evaluate whether thinkers and teachers were staying withing particular parameters in new theological frameworks or teachings they were advocating. DC’s version of catholicity is nearly the inverse of this classical definition because he is doing what virtually all theological liberals/progressivists do today – he is adjusting the definition to fit within the ideology of radical inclusivity.
That you seem to be willing to dispense with part of the gift of catholicity is very disturbing. I say part of the gift because in the Rite One liturgy you will still have some threads of the great worship traditions that Cramner kept connected to even as he sought to force the liturgy to be a vehicle for a couple of Reformation doctrinal emphases. And if, if your bishops are somehow faithful to the Trinitarian and Christological teachings of the first 4 Ecumenical Councils, you will have at least some shred of catholicity (according to Augustinian tradition anyway). But just as the Anglican Communion is actually starting to act as a worldwide Communion, and the Western churches are being forced to move beyond their traditional categories of thought, especially on economic questions, ecusa progressivists and post-moderns are circling the wagons and working hard to protect their very young intellectual traditions – an actual opportunity for you to participate in aspects of catholicity as you define them, yet you reject that opportunity.
What I find most disturbing is that Anglican liberals/progressivists who used to preach diversity at every level, and greater racial inclusion above all else, are prepared to settle for being a very white, very Americanized, ideologically narrow and insular denomination just to get what they want in matters of sexuality, and to be rid of those horrid “fundamentalist” evangelicals. So you will be free to call this concept catholicity because you believe that you operate with “openness” on difficult doctrinal questions, but by the tone of your posts, you are really not open to anything that is deeply traditional, and as such your catholicity is your own modern invention, and therefore not catholic at all.

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2005-07-22

joe from oc

Correction –
Regarding my comments on DC’s definition of catholicity (last sentence of the 3rd paragraph), I should have written:
DC’s definition of catholicity is virtually the inverse of this classical definition because it attempts to relativize the concept and force it to apply to strictly the rational/intellectual plane. He attempts to delegitimize it by judging it as virtually all theological liberals/progressivists judge all doctrine today – according to the universal barometer of the ideology of radical inclusivity. (St. Vincent of Lerins did not mean “believed” as we do today, as intellectual assent, but as inclusive of practice, beliefs, and worship – what the Body of Christ does as it lives out the Faith. He was not attempting to force strict conformity to a standard, but instead offering a tool to help determine if what a teacher was putting forward was acceptable or not by whether it could fit within the universal tradition).

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2005-07-22

bls

To be honest, Joe, I just don’t care about this anymore. I’ve had enough. I can’t quite understand your puzzlement, though; would you be dying to join with people who regard you as lower than animals – and don’t hesitate to say so in the international press? Would you want to be part of an organization whose fondest hope is to get rid of you?
Well, I don’t. We got the message, loud and clear, and we understand exactly what you’re saying. So why is everybody shocked when we take you at your word? We know people think we’re relativists and heretics and apostates. Fine. We get it. So we’ll just be going along, then. Like I said, there are many millions of people out there who have no church home at all. I’m much more interested in them than I am in trying to convince people who so obviously disdain us of anything.
We’re all sick of all of it, I think. We just want the pain to stop now, and if it means walking away, I think lots of us look forward to that.

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2005-07-22

bls

I’d also like to add that my parish is quite diverse – racially, by nationality, by generation, etc. – and so are many others in my area. I don’t think it’s at all necessary to sell out to anti-gay bigotry in order to achieve diversity. Thank God.
As I said, there are millions of unchurched people of all sorts and conditions, all over the world, and my interest is mainly in them.

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2005-07-23

Scotus

>> Secondly, it does not come anywhere near St. Vincent of Lerins famous dictum of “that which has been believed everywhere, from the beginning by all (in the Church).” St. Vincent was looking for guideposts to help Christians evaluate whether thinkers and teachers were staying withing particular parameters in new theological frameworks or teachings they were advocating. DC’s version of catholicity is nearly the inverse of this classical definition because he is doing what virtually all theological liberals/progressivists do today – he is adjusting the definition to fit within the ideology of radical inclusivity. << I'm always a bit bemused (and sometimes even amused) when St. Vincent's "that which has been believed everywhere, from the beginning by all" gets cited without any sense of irony -- the irony being, of course, that both St. Vincent and those who deploy his definition implicitly tack on a footnote to the effect of: "...once one subtracts out the voice and vote of heretics." In other words, this is a perfect example of circular reasoning. It's worth reminding oneself that, in their day, Arians, Montanists, Sabellians, Monarchists, Nestorians, Christian Gnostics, etc etc, were all considered to be properly within the Church -- until they were thrown out, that is. (In fact, for a couple of centuries, the majority of Christians in the world were Arians, thanks to the Germanic tribes preferring that flavor of Chistianity.) Great diversity in actual Christian belief (among both laity and clergy) has *always* existed, even when suppressed by the state and/or ecclesiastical institutions; St. Vincent's appeal to "that which has been believed everywhere, from the beginning by all" is an appeal to a wished-for fiction that can only be delineated by tacking on implied exclusions from the Body of Christ -- exclusions that were not at all self-evident to all who were involved in the thick of the many theological struggles throughout the history of Christianity. Just as the victors get to write history, so too the ecclesiastical victors (e.g., study the unseemly state-enforced sausage-making that was the Council of Nicaea) get to define "heresy" and "orthodoxy," and then St. Vincent's formula can be safely applied backwards in time, for only then can all those folks with dissenting or divergent views be disregarded since, y'know, they just don't count in the "everywhere, from the beginning, by all" part, and never did -- notwithstanding what it may have looked like to them and their contemporaries back in the day.

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2005-07-23

joe

The Church cannot be a harmony of discords; it cannot be a numerical sum of Orthodox, Latins, and Protestants. It is nothing if it is not perfect inward harmony of creed and outward harmony of expression (not withstanding local differences in the rite). The question is, not whether Latins and Protestants have erred so fatally as to deprive individuals of salvation, which seems to be often the subject of debate; — surely a narrow and unworthy one, inasmuch as it throws a suspicion on the mercy of the Almighty. The question is whether they have the truth, and whether they have retained the ecclesiastical tradition unimpaired. If they have not, where is the possibility of unity?
Now permit me to add some observations not only on your letters, but on your book (which I have received with the greatest gratitude and perused with unmixed pleasure), and on all the mode of action of those Anglicans who seem, and are indeed, nearest to us. You would show that all our doctrine is yours, and indeed, at first sight, you seem quite right. Many bishops and divines of your communion are and have been quite orthodox. But what of it? Their opinion is only an individual opinion, it is not the Faith of the Community.
Ussher is almost a complete Calvinist; but yet he, no less than those bishops who give expression to Orthodox convictions, belongs to the Anglican Church. We may, and do, sympathise with the individuals; we cannot and dare not sympathise with a community which interpolates the Symbol and doubts her right to that interpolation, or which gives communion to those who declare the Bread and Wine of the High Sacrifice to be mere bread and wine, as well as to those who declare it to be the Body and Blood of Christ. This for an example — and I could find hundreds more — but I go further.
Suppose an impossibility — suppose all the Anglicans be quite orthodox; suppose their Creed and Faith quite concordant with ours; the mode and process by which that creed is or has been attained is a Protestant one; a simple logical act of the understanding, by which the tradition and writings of the Fathers have been distilled to something very near Truth. If we admit this, all is lost, and Rationalism is the supreme judge of every question. Protestantism, most reverend sir, is the admission of an unknown [quantity] to be sought by reason; and that unknown [quantity] changes the whole equation to an unknown quantity, even though every other datum be as clear and as positive as possible. Do not, I pray, nourish the hope of finding Christian truth without stepping out of the former Protestant circle. It is an illogical hope; it is a remnant of that pride which thought itself able and wished to judge and decide by itself without the Spiritual Communion of heavenly grace and Christian love.
Were you to find all the truth, you would have found nothing; for we alone can give you that without which all would be vain — the assurance of truth.
– Alexei Khomiakov to the then-Anglican William Palmer (1846)

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2005-07-23

bls

Hmmmm. I think maybe it’s seriously past time for somebody to write an Anglican apologetics. People seem to think we’re making a big mistake – rather than a conscious choice.
How about you, Scotist, since it’s very definitely beyond me?
😉
(Really, I think this would be a good idea. I keep trying to articulate it myself, but I really don’t have the background. I think the Anglican Church has particular attributes not found elsewhere – or else avoids certain things that are, elsewhere, in unfortunate oversupply – and I wish somebody smart and educated in these matters would write it all up.)

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2005-07-23

bls

(I actually agree, in many ways, with the first poster about the “distinguishing characteristics” of Anglicanism. It didn’t go to make his point, but it can help make ours.
And I think Anglicanism is really almost perfectly-configured for the 21st Century Church: ancient traditions, plus a willingness to deal with modernity in a reasonable way. Wouldn’t it be great to belong to something like this? Wouldn’t it be great to actually build on the tradition, rather than watching it harden into stone? Wouldn’t it be nice to use our “discerning hearts,” the ones we ask God for in baptism, to actually discern? Isn’t it nice to hear Rowan Williams ask questions, rather than issue edicts?)

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2005-07-23

Scotus

>> How about you, Scotist, << bls, I'm not sure if that was directed to me, but I'm Scotus, not Scotist -- by whom I assume you mean "Anglican Scotist," who I don't think has posted on this thread. I am not he, but based on what I've read at his blog, he would certainly be in a position to help articulate an Anglican apologetics -- at least, from the liberal / progressive / "revisionist" etc. perspective of the tradition. Cheers,

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2005-07-23

bls

Oops – sorry. Reading quickly, I thought you were he.
A case of mistaken screen-name identity. Sorry again….

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2005-07-25

Simeon

In response to bls’ post, which concluded, “We’re all sick of all of it, I think. We just want the pain to stop now, and if it means walking away, I think lots of us look forward to that.”
I’d stand up and holler, “Preach it, Sister!” if I weren’t one of those quiet, bookish Episcopalians 😉

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