Aren't labels sticky?

So what are you?

Dare I make the assumption that you are a human being reading this?
Dare I make the assumption that you understand English?

If I may, then I can reasonably conclude that you are an English-understanding human being. Already I've managed to label you, a noun qualified by an adjective.

We seem to get ourselves in a tizzy about just what we mean by the various labels we use to describe ourselves, or others, or organisations. The adjectives and nouns give us a set of conditions that we have satisfied in order to bear those very adjectives and nouns. In order to be described as red, you have to reflect a certain wavelength of light. In order to be described as soft, you have to have a yielding quality either physically or emotionally.

Clearly concrete labels such as "red" or "soft" can be verified via direct experience (except if you are colour-blind or eating school mashed potato). It's when we come to attribute abstract labels to things, organisations or people that the most disagreement occurs.

In the circles in which I find myself (and I make it clear that I am not a philosopher, nor a student of philosophy), the word "Anglican" appears to cause a lot of bitter dispute among those who would call themselves such. Smiliarly the words "Catholic" and "Orthodox".

It is the connotations that these epithets carry with them that cause the most distress. These days I feel increasingly reluctant to call myself Anglican, and this is due to the circumstances in which I live. To be called an Anglican by my friends who know me is fine: they understand that I have some affinity with the Historical Ecclesia Anglicana, that my genealogy is deeply English, though I am sure that I have some Viking or Norman blood from centuries past. However, ask anyone in the street what Anglican means and they will say "Church of England", and there begins my objection. I no longer consider myself a member of the Church of England as it is now, but as of one who rests in it with a deep affection. I believe myself to still be Anglican in the same way that Albion and Ed and Frs. Kirby and Hart do on the Continuum blog, but I do not adhere to the practices nor the doctrine of the Church of England where they diverge from the Catholic Faith. (If I get kicked out of the CofE as a result of saying this, then actually this will make my life easier!)

Now, we could all get bogged down in semantics and historical pedantries as to what Anglicanism actually is. Was Anglicanism invented at the Reformation, at the Synod of Witby, or when the first Christian set foot on the British Isles, or was it with the first Christianised Angle in Germany? There seems to be some consensus that it is something to do with Blighty and her rather convoluted history. However, as soon as we get into the idea of what it is to be British, then we find ourselves "us"ing and "them"ing. Are Americans Anglicans? Can there truly be an Anglican Centre in Rome? In trying to define ourselves we start to try and split ourselves off from other people, and that is something which is easy to do, but utterly against the Will of God. Labels applied too rigidly afford us only the selfishness of ever-approaching solitude

Well then, perhaps Anglicanism is something to do with the Office, or Anglican Use Liturgies? Wouldn't that depend on your opinion of what the Anglican Church is, and when it started? The BCP was a product of the Reformation; priot that it was all Roman Catholic, and yet even that had an English twist to it with the Sarum Liturgies, prior even to that the Celtic Use. So we're back to comparing genealogies and who is or isn't Anglican - practices that St Paul condemened to his disciples Timothy and Titus (I Timothy i.14 and Titus iii.9).

In short there are always senses in which the word "Anglicanism" does and doesn't apply. So Perhaps for Anglicanism its a case of Louis Armstrong's maxim: "if you gotta ask, you'll never know." Could we really get away with "If it doesn't feel English, then it isn't Anglican"?

I think if we quibble about what Anglicanism is, then we miss a very big point. Surely it is better to be a Christian rather than have our exact identity pinned down according to the way we conduct our Divine Liturgy and Divine Office. Even then we quibble about who is a Christian and who isn't . There are many who call themselves Christians who say and do things that are manifestly not Christian ideals - that in itself doesn't stop a person from being a Christian since we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. It's what we believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that is important. Jesus is Lord. If we cannot say that and mean it then there is a doubt on our Christianity.

Perhaps the only True Christians are the saints.

What do I mean by that? Well perhaps True Christianity is something to which we aspire, we may call ourselves Christians, but if at the end we are not recognised by Christ, then how can we have truly been Christians?

There will be a schism in the Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexuality, and there will be a schism in the Church of England over trying to get women into the Episcopacy. Who will be allowed to keep the title Anglican? To be honest, I don't care. I am an Anglo-Papalist: by that I mean I am a Roman Catholic barred from Communion with the Holy See by an accident of History finding a dwelling place within the Anglican Church. Both the Holy See and the Church of England mean a great deal to me, even if one of them is going off the rails into darkness and the other is fighting an encroaching plague of relativism and modernism.

That is what I believe myself to be, but until God tells me who I am, then I shall just have to labour under this misapprehension. However, I earnestly pray that one day I may be honoured by God with the title "Christian".