How many Episcopalians even know of the doctrine of faith? Episcopalian preachers do not preach doctrine.

I meant—doctrine of justification.

I appreciate the tone of this article. However, the article contains two false assertions which destroys its force.

1. Classical Anglicanism does not hold that authority derives from Scripture alone. The historic and practical formulary is Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.

2. The Bible itself says that we are justified by works and not by faith alone. (James 2:17 “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” and also James 2:24 “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” See also the parable of the sheep and goats and all other parables dealing with judgment.)

On the basis of these flawed arguments we can say that Rev. Allen’s reported areguments do not represent Anglicanism in a clasical form, nor do the reported arguments present a truly biblical understanding of justification.

Assuming accuracy in the reporting, could these arguments of Rev. Allen be contributing factors for why he was invited to follow his conscience to a denomination which shared his views?

Episcopalianism historically is ‘a deep freezer of latitudinarian moralism’ (which one can understand the liberals trying to get away from) in a shell of credal orthodoxy and Catholic-sounding church names and clergy titles.

Anyway…

This article had much potential to teach those who didn’t know about why American Anglicans aren’t interested in the Pope’s offer. Anglo-Papalism is almost exclusively English.

A central issue—one of the issues that keeps an Anglican from becoming a Catholic in the first place—has to do with where the authority of the church comes from.

Exactly! But then the article misses the mark.

Protestants, even nuanced ones like classic Anglicans, believe in ‘the authority of scripture’ as transmitted through private judgement. (Tradition and reason - conforming yourself to reality as both Catholics and classic Anglicans believe - are subordinated to that in Hooker’s mythical three-legged stool.) The church is a sort of add-on to the individual believers that has no authority. (Or in the Tudor way that is the historic Anglican way, the state tells the church what to do.) Catholics believe in an infallible church that transmits tradition (literally a passing down, paradosis, traditio) which includes scripture; the magisterium is just the name of our holy mother the church’s teaching function.

Young Fogey (#4)

I don’t think James DeKoven, Charles Grafton or even Charles Brent can honestly be accused of upholding a “shell of credal orthodoxy.”

After all, the on-again, off-again relationship between Anglicanism and Eastern Orthodoxy suggests that many of those Anglicans who actually thought about it (and how many ordinary Catholics reflect on the theological implications of magisterial authority) at the very least respected the implications of the Vincentian Canon in articulating the limits of private judgment.

But doesn’t DeKoven’s life prove the point? He was turned down twice to become a bishop because the deep-freezer Protestants didn’t want his short-of-Catholic belief in the Real Presence. That and the relationship you name has been more off than on: the Non-Jurors baulked at conversion because they were too Protestant. Orthodoxy doesn’t test the limits of the Vincentian Canon; it lives it.

Yes, the Church’s authority comes from the Scripture which was inspired by the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit continues to guide the Church in her dynamic witness to the Word of Scripture through the magisterium where the Holy Spirit is still operative and has the final word.  Infallibility (a vey poor word, pneumatic guidance would have been better) resides in the HOly Spirit Who continues to guide the Church who, if she truly be the Bride of Christ, cannot be separated from her Head (Christ).

If Fr. Allen’s description of the differences between Anglican and Roman Catholic belief is accurate (and I don’t believe it is) then I guess that makes me a Roman Catholic, because I certainly don’t fit his description of Anglican, and I find little with which to find fault in what he says Roman Catholics believe.

The doctrine of justification has resulted in an agreement between the Lutherans and Catholics.  Do Anglicans embrace this agreement or is justifications still an impediment to full communion?

The spotless Bride of Christ has yet to appear. The visible Bride of Christ, if indeed that is what the visible Church is, has grieved the Holy Spirit and played the harlot all too many times. Thank God we are under Grace.

But the excuse for the Anglican schism wasn’t justification (indeed a non-issue between Rome and Lutheranism) but rejecting the Pope’s jurisdiction. Since then both an Archbishop of Canterbury (I forget how exactly; I think it was sometime last century) and a presiding bishop have exercised universal jurisdiction in their national churches (Dr Schori sacking what was left of San Joaquin’s still-Episcopal standing committee, which was waiting on protocol, to set up her rump diocese there).

We broke with the Catholics at the Council of Lourdes over our right to come to church with wet hair, which we’ve since abolished.

- Ned Flanders on the origin of Reformed Presbo-Lutheranism

But again, this Trinitarian grace is bestowed to the Church through the HOly Spirit who continuously cleanses the Bride of Christ of the sin commited by her members/

Riciotti (#9),

With regard to your question about the epoch-making agreement between many top Lutheran and Catholic scholars, the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, issued in 1999, I don’t believe there has been any FORMAL response by Anglican provinces or the Instruments of Unity (Lambeth, ACC, etc.), although the official Anglican-Roman Catholic international dialogue (ARCIC) has produced a less significant statement that weakly approximates the JDDJ.  Many Anglicans with catholic sympathies, like myself, find the historic JDDJ agreement very promising and congenial (even though it still glosses over some key differences).  But needless to say, a great many Anglicans view the JDDJ (if they’ve even heard about it) with grave suspicion as unacceptably compromising the crucial Reformation principle of sola fide.  It appears, for example, that the ultra-Protestant Archdiocese of Sydney is determined to out Luther the Lutherans in standing up for that central Reformation principle that the great Reformer insisted is “the article by which the church stands or falls.”

As always, there is no consensus among Anglicans regarding justification (just like there isn’t about anything else).  And alas, I’m afraid Br_er Rabbit is right.  The doctrine of justification just isn’t preached or taught in the vast majority of TEC congregations, or even conservative Anglican ones.  And that’s a shame. 

But to be fair, that’s not just an Anglican problem.  I seriously doubt that sola fide preached in most Lutheran, Presbyterian, or Methodist churches today either.  We live in an antidogmatic era, and even the confessional denominations that used to champion that Protestant doctrine have largely succombed to the relativist cultural zeitgeist.

David Handy+

Let’s just speculate about the invitation for a moment. I believe the current Pope and previous Pope were faithful to Christ and to the traditions of their church.  This can be a centripetal strength of the Roman Church. The Roman Church looks stable, benevolent and welcoming.However, what happens if Benedict were to die or step down and be replaced by a despot. What then?

No problem, Dcn Dale. Just wait him out for the next 30 years and there’ll be another one. Nothing will push the Roman church to loosen up more than 30 years of a despot.

#15. Br_er Rabbit,
Do you think the Magisterium serves as a gyroscope that helps guide the church and protect it against straying off course? Anglicans don’t have a magisterium but we do have traditions codified in the BCP. The presiding bishop of TEC recently said essentially that what they are doing now is what they believe. There is an interesting disconnect from tradition and a sense that behavior determines belief. Belief then becomes a rationalization for practice rather than rationale for practice.

#16 Dcn Dale, to misquote somebody, the BCP has no armies.

Codification without enforcement is a waste of paper pulp. Yes, we need a magisterium. If we are to be a Catholic church, that magisterium needs to be composed of bishops.

Simple, right? Wrong. If we took a subset of the current crop of TEC bishops and made them the magisterium, there would not be one whit of change in the slide of the church into heresy.

I fear that if TEC, ACoC, Mexico, Brazil, Scotland, South Africa, (did I miss anyone?), oh yes, and possibly the CoE are to be the exemplars, then Anglicanism has failed. That is to say, the “big tent,” “broad church,” “via media,” etc. concept of Anglicanism is over with. Our big tent allowed the world to enter in and corrupt us.

On the other hand, Anglicanism in Nigeria is a thriving success. But, arguably, they hardly serve as a model for “big tent” Anglicanism.

I mean to say, whatever group of Bishops we start with, we are likely to go in a Protestant direction, a Sacramentalist direction, or even an Inclusionist direction.

The one hope I hold out for the Anglican Experiment right now is ACNA. They are doing their best to hold the Protestant and Sacramentalist tensions in balance and re-constitute the via media once espuosed by a certain Queen.

My own communion, born of the convergence movement, is trying to do the same thing. But no one has ever heard of us, and we were shut out of the ACNA process. I grant that some of the things we do, do not look like Anglicanism to traditionalists.

So what is the answer? Do you have any suggestions?

17. Br_er Rabbit,
Interesting thoughts. I’m on my way to a Diocesan Council meeting and will reply after the meeting and my nap.