Picking up and toweling off the babies thrown out with the [Catholic] bathwater
What if instead of discarding church tradition, we reordered it?
My post about stumbling into Anglicanism received zero hearts and zero comments (though a few friends texted me with kind remarks and that is even better). In spite of lacking reader enthusiasm, I’m back anyway to gush about all the ways that this tradition is impacting my faith practice and my life. Ultimately, I write here for my own sake. The thoughts have to go somewhere. I like to write.
And I like Anglicanism.
Apart from its embarrassing origin story (Yeah, King Henry the XII and his string of horrifically abusive marriages and flippant divorces. I know. It’s hard to swallow).
By God’s grace, even the worst of sinners end up playing a part in the unfolding of God’s redemptive purposes. Even, I suppose, a certain former and re-elected president. Ooof. That’s a little painful.
But here’s the thing for me: I’m of the opinion that the protestant reformation saw lots of dirty, nasty stuff swirling around in the Roman Catholic church and rightly assessed that some housekeeping was in order. But I also think it’s quite possible that lots of proverbial babies were tossed out with the also proverbial babies. The reformers had a bit of a “burn it all down” energy to their actions, didn’t they? Most revolutions —- can we call the reformation a religious revolution — do. There’s some inevitable pendulum swing whenever anyone tries to correct anything, and the reformers were no exception. They got really into discarding things, they gutted the whole house down to the studs. (Perhaps “Reformer” is a misnomer and they ought to have just said “let’s start over”? 😬)
I’m mixing metaphors. I always do this.
But back to the proverbial babies and their bathwater. Here’s a short sampling of babies I want to scoop up, dry off, and have a tender look at, now that their filthy bathwater is gone.
Mary
Sacraments (as opposed to mere symbols)
Liturgy
Confession
Prayer books
Saints
Weekly eucharist
Icons
Church tradition
Entire books of the Bible
The church calendar
Purgatory (??!?!)
Why did the reformers leave all of this behind, decrying them as whatever sort of abomination, distraction, or heresy with which each is now associated?
If you’re super reformed, don’t answer that question. I do actually have a basic understanding of the reasons behind much of those decisions, but again, I think maybe we did some pendulum-swinging here.
The Anglican Church (aka the Church of England), despite its shady beginnings and enmeshment with the State (the latter of which endures to this day in the UK), seems to have retained most of the aforementioned babies.
All of them still have a place here. We (what’s happening to me?! I now say “we” in relationship to Anglicans?!1) relate to them differently than Roman Catholics or the Eastern Orthodox do, and we’re still firmly (albeit barely, according to my brother) protestant, but these things have been retained and redeemed.
Rightly ordered.
“Rightly ordered” is one of my favorite phrases, applicable to many areas. I see that YHWH is concerned above all else with our heart’s posture concerning Him. We can’t miss that theme in either testament. In my own life, I’ve experienced time and time again His gentle correction, sometimes via the hard medium of removal of something cherished from my life, leading me to re-order my heart’s affections properly. So that He is back at the center. So that all the rest is rightly ordered beneath and around YHWH.
When it comes to these aspects of the ancient church that protestant reformers discarded, it seems to me — and I am not a church historian, so correct me if I’m wrong — that the Anglicans took a different approach. Instead of discarding them, they retained and re-ordered them.
Please enjoy my probably infantile explanation of the place of each of these in the Anglican tradition below.
Mary gets to stay and she's more revered than I’ve experienced in other protestant circles, but we are cautious not to elevate her to a position of divinity. I’m beginning a study group with some other women from my church on Mary, exploring what it might be like to take a fresh look at her through the eyes of the early church and Christ himself, open to the revelations and gifts the Lord might have to offer us through her. I’m looking forward to this process, and appreciate that there are days on which she is celebrated distinctly. I have so much more I could say on this, but not here or now.
Baptism and eucharist are not merely symbols, they’re sacraments and we’ll keep it that way, but salvation doesn’t hinge on them and they won’t be rote actions we go through to guarantee our ticket to heaven. Also, fewer things are Sacraments in the Anglican church. But most protestants have done away with them.
Confession — renamed Reconciliation — has a place in the life of the believer because to “unburden one’s soul” (as our priest puts it) to a confessor who will embody the already-true and declared sentiment of the Father that you’re forgiven is vital for health and freedom (James 5:16), not because the priest has magic powers to erase sin. And we certainly don’t have to buy him off to offer this to us.
The Eucharist remains central and occurs every single Sunday when the church gathers. The fellowship of the Lord’s table is a means of grace to all who partake and keeps Christ in focus as the source and reason for our worship. He’s present in a special way in this sacrament, but we don’t go so far as to say it has been transubstantiated into his body and blood. And we don’t walk away from partaking in the elements freshly washed of ours sins and assured for the next little while that if we were to die, hell wouldn’t be our destination.
Icons - ok, I’ll admit I don’t know what Anglicans officially do with these. They don’t show up in our parish much. But I’m personally intrigued to explore this more. While protestants removed them for fear of improper elevation of those objects to idols, I sense that Anglicans may retain more openness to their rightly ordered place, while not labeling them as sacred objects to be venerated.
Church tradition (and reason) is considered alongside scripture when determining teachings, worship, and right living. Not to the extent of a papacy, certainly, but it does get some voice here in Anglicanism. The words and prayers of the early church fathers and the declarations of the creeds are included in the Book of Common Prayer.2
Prayer books are one of the first things you’ll notice when you enter an Anglican place of worship. That little book contains the liturgy used during Sunday mass, but also “daily offices” for morning, midday, evening, and nighttime prayer and a lectionary that is essentially a read-the-bible-in-a-year plan. The Book of Common Prayer is composed almost entirely of scripture-derived (or word-for-word scripture) liturgies, interspersed with gorgeously scripted “collects”, antiphons, creeds, and prayers that appeal to the poet in me. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel on the programming of a Sunday service, devise clever new sermon series, or fumble around with routines for our daily prayer life at home. It’s all there. The work has been done; we just follow it. The freedom that comes with that and the ground it has prepared for fresh encounters with Christ has surprised and delighted me. I would have strongly poo-pooed scripted prayers earlier in my life and thought they stifled the Spirit! Any tradition can become merely rote and legalistic, especially if delivered in a language the people couldn’t understand (ahem, looking at you, Rome), so Anglicans kept the liturgy and prayer books but made them accessible to the people.
Saints have feast days (but not so many of them as our Catholic and Eastern Orthodox counterparts) and on those days we’ll remember their example and be encouraged by it, remembering the great cloud of witnesses that are part of the Church Triumphant who together with us worship the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But we don’t look to them for miraculous signs or as intercessors.
What about the “extra books” of the Bible? The Apocrypha! 3 Anglicans — like Catholics — have kept much of the Apocrypha in their Bibles and in the rotation of readings in the lectionary, though we don’t have as many as the Eastern Orthodox. These books have been sort of “demoted” to a lower status than canonized scriptures, but we still utilize them as useful for instruction and examples of godly living. It’s been refreshing to explore these “forbidden” books about which I had been curious but scared without anxiety.
The church calendar is a marvel I had been living completely out of touch with in my (more-)protestant life. Having an awareness of its ebb and flow and observing each phase within it is akin to what our priest calls “rehearsing the gospel.” I’m not sure what abuses of this practice might have led to protestants all but abandoning its use (save for Easter and the Advent-Christmas conflation), but being introduced to it and learning to live in its rhythms in the context of a church community striving to do likewise has been very lifegiving.
Purgatory — I have no idea what Anglicans believe about this yet, but this is something I want to explore. Haha.
Spending time with each of these pieces of Church teaching and tradition has been a source of joy and renewal for me. I feel more connected to the early church as I’ve given them some room to integrate with and inform with my faith. The “generous orthodoxy” of the Middle Way4 that is Anglicanism has made ample space to do that work, and I’m so grateful for that. It feels like coming home.
Again, I’m very new to this tradition. Only time will tell whether one day I’ll look back at this as my far-distant “Anglican era” long since outgrown and replaced with some other era. But at this time, this is where God has put me to show me his face, and with open hands, I step forward to receive it for the gift that it is.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning is now and evermore shall be. World without end. Amen.
It turns out that the only conditions for membership in an Anglican parish are attendance and giving. I didn’t know this before I started attending and giving, but it means we are members. Belonging is so simple here. So “we” it shall be.
When I first started questioning the holy grail of “solo scriptura” last year I felt a little crazy and dangerous, but I now cannot unsee the value of the “three-legged stool” the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are sitting on. The Anglicans have three legs, too, but scripture is “prima”. See https://www.patheos.com/blogs/northamptonseminar/2017/10/28/anglicans-mean-sola-scriptura/
https://www.evidenceunseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/who-accepts-the-apocrypha.jpg
Anglicanism is known as the via media (The Middle Road) because it quite literally finds a third way between Catholicism/Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_media
I enjoy reading these types of stories. Thanks for sharing.
We are theological migrants, or whatever you could call it, from various evangelical and reformed traditions into conservative Lutheranism. Lutheranism is another type of middle way, though it seems to have historically struggled in America to retain its heritage alongside the broader Protestant culture. However, the Lutheran confessions were so beautiful when I read them and realized what I had been missing out on! For what it’s worth, Lutherans retain much of what you say Anglicans do, as well as the salvific nature of Sacraments. Along with those Reformation Solas.
Anyway, I’ll say a prayer for you and your husband on the journey! I’m not too familiar with Anglicanism but am thankful for those who seek to honor Christian tradition in our worship.
I’m always happy to hear that someone from a more evangelical background is taking another look at Mary, the saints, purgatory, etc. I’m very much Catholic, but have good friends who are part of the Anglican Ordinariate in the Catholic Church, which is basically a special rite within the larger Church that maintains both unity with Rome and the uniqueness of the Anglican liturgical tradition. It was created in the early 2000s for Anglican congregations that decided to all become Catholic at the same time. Anywho, I think there is so much beauty in the language of that liturgy and the Book of Common Prayer! Many blessings to you and your family as you follow the Lord where he leads.