Branching out all over

Having returned to Facebook (for who knows how long), I had to "unfriend" an orthodox priest last night on the grounds of his unpleasant accusations against the ACC. Apparently, I am not in the Church, "Branch Theory" is wrong, and the ACC is a vagans sect with no interest in communion with the Orthodox Church. I really do want to give myself a break from polemics and arguing with people who don't actually want to listen.

"Ah hypocrite!" you say, "you're the one constantly sniping at the CofE. You're just getting what you give out." There may be an element of truth in that - I am very fallible and prone to all kinds of human vices. However, as I said in a comment in a previous post, I belong to the ACC who, while institutionally young, is seeking to preserve the Catholic Faith and is part of the legitimate continuation of that faith from which the CofE has jettisoned itself. Until it succumbed to the incipient Liberalism and Modernism, the Church of England was the Catholic and Orthodox Church in this country.

I agree that it did inherit some elements of Protestantism at the Reformation: it is that Protestantism that allowed the "Enlightenment" to happen with its acceptance of the type of Liberal Criticism (which is also fuelled by a form of cultural Marxist Critical Theory). However, that Protestantism has not compromised the Sacraments however much Rome might complain. The Book of Common Prayer lends itself very well to the doctrine of the Early Church with the possible exception of the filioque and a typical Western over-dependence on St Augustine of Hippo: even then, these can be understood in a thoroughly Patristic manner via St Maximus the Confessor and St Vincent of Lerins in their roles of clarification and putting the brakes on. However, I do believe that the Book of Common Prayer of 1662 does require augmentation. The Thirty-Nine Articles do admit, via the Homilies, of the rejection of the Second Council of Nicaea. This is problematic with the Anglican Catholic understanding of the Catholic Faith being present in the Seven Oecumenical Councils. This is why we first take the authoritative version of the Book of Common Prayer to be that of 1549 with the Ordinal of 1550 (slightly clarified to reduce the confusion about the intention) and then subordinate it to the doctrine of the Early Church, precisely because it was always meant to be conformed to the Early Church, that was the whole idea. The 1549 does not possess the Articles which, in my mind, is a good thing.

Hold on, has the Book of Common Prayer been given a Patristic reading in the Anglican Church? Yes, clearly. One needs only to look at Hooker, Jewell, Taylor, Andrewes, Ken, Donne, and the Caroline Divines to see that, yes the thought of the Church Fathers is present within the Church of England. Contrary to whatever many modern historians, the Church of Rome and the Church of the East may say, there is plenty of cultural evidence to see that the Church of England has been the Church in this country from the earliest times which may, if some sources are to be believed, predate the existence of the Church in Rome.

The Church of Rome and the Church of the East don't want us to see that and will bring up the facts that we sided with Rome in 1054 and the Protestants in the 16th Century to form a new church. However, let us just hold back here a minute. What do they mean by "new church"? What do they mean when they say that the Church of England began in the 16th Century?

What they mean is that in the 1500s, the Church of England changed the Catholic Faith. Given the mention of the great Anglicans above who have been admired by the Churches of Rome and the East, I really do doubt this. I will say that the big failing of the Church of England was to make the Settlement by which Protestants were given the same housing and which has led to the fragmentation of the CofE into evangelical, catholic, liberal and broad wings: a fragmentation which I predict will be formally recognised as the CofE breaks up institutionally in the not too distant future. The Settlement produced a political peace, certainly, but produced a confusion that Rome and the East find hard to comprehend.

There is a lot of scholarship to say why the Church of England always possessed the Catholic Faith and why we in the Continuing Anglican movement have preserved it when the Lambeth Communion failed to do so. I mean this, there is a LOT of scholarship.

So what about the Eastern accusations of us being vagans, uninterested in dialogue with the East, and believing in Branch Theory?

First, yes, we are small, but we have a system of bishops, a constitution, a set of canons, regular synods, and, most importantly of all, the Catholic Faith. We aren't wandering about at all because we are focussed on what the Church has always taught, everywhere. No, we are not in communion with any of the original five patriarchates, but then that is a problem of our history. It isn't as if Rome and the East haven't had their splinters and squabbles, even recently.

Why are we "uninterested in dialogue" with the East? We have to answer, "for the same reason we are not in dialogue with Rome." Both the East and Rome want us to convert. Conversion means a one-sided statement to say that we got things wrong and the other side didn't. It might sound prideful to say it, but we believe we haven't got things wrong for the same reason that they believe they haven't got things wrong. If we believed that we were wrong - we would change. Just because they are bigger does not make the truth any different: if numbers of the living mattered, I am convinced that both Rome and the East would now believe in the same-sex marriage of women priests. If they examine our Anglican Catholic theology closely, they will see that it is the same faith as the Early Church which they hold so dear.

This gives us a justification for the "Branch theory" which neither Rome  nor the East will admit because if they do, their dogma of "we get to say who's in the Church" falls flat. If they admit to Branch theory, then they cannot reject each other as they so do.

We hold the Branch theory on a position of charity because we are prepared to believe that both Rome and the East both are true to the Catholic Faith found in the Primitive Church. We are prepared for dialogue with these Churches on the basis of that faith, not on numbers and not on the behaviour of people with whom we have been in communion and are not now. If we were less charitable, we too would be labelling Rome and the East as schismatic and heretic and thus make any form of rapprochement impossible.

As Anglican Catholics, we do seek unity with like-minded Christians but not at the expense of what we believe. The recent happenings in Atlanta show that we are committed to talking with those who are like-minded and want to heal the rifts of history without requiring each other to admit that they were wrong and we were right. It is interesting to note from pictures of the Joint Synod Mass, the liturgical colour was purple and all those clergy from all jurisdictions wore it. We do and will enter into dialogue, but not if the other party seek our conversion from a faith that we believe is the same as theirs, for to do so would deny Our Lord Christ's work with us and that we would never do.

Personally, a visibly reunited and reconciled Catholic Church would be a dream come true. I love my Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox friends and know that, while we have our differences, we have respect that our positions require unification at the level of the Holy Ghost Who, I believe, operates still within all the branches of this tree. However, I really don't want to hear the same, tired old polemics from those who want to demonstrate their (false) doctrinal superiority over us in their claim to be the One True Church. If you want to engage with us, do so in humility and charity and we will do the same.

And what of the modernists and liberals? What about dialogue with them? Does the ACC have a doctrinal superiority over them? Am I being hypocritical in my desire to see Rome, East, and (Continuing) Anglican as being the only branches of the tree?

Again, we have to go back to the Catholic Faith. Rome, East and Orthodox Anglicans hold to the doctrine of the Primitive Church - that is each of our claims, and each of us will demonstrate it. However, the modernist and liberals hold to a source of faith greater than the Primitive Church - it's called progress by which they reinterpret or condemn that which the Church has always held to be true. They claim this moral superiority over us; they accuse us of being backward, retrograde, politically incorrect and uncharitable based upon this new morality which does not have its basis in the very tenets of Christianity except eisegetically. If they are a branch of the tree, then it is a branch that has cut itself off from the very substance that it grew from.

Are the branches of the tree doctrinally superior to modernists and liberals? That's not actually the question. The question really is, is the Christianity of moderns and liberals the same as that of the Primitive Church? Rome, East and Orthodox Anglican will say theirs is and demonstrate it. Moderns and liberals will show why theirs is superior.

This is why it is too early to dialogue with the modernist church, but, if their theology is always of the present age, then it will probably always be too early.