Month: February 2007

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Growing Together in Unity and Mission

65. The Gospel is only fully understood in the Church. Godâ??s revelation has been entrusted to a community, which means that the whole people of God has the responsibility for discerning and communicating Godâ??s Word. Within the â??symphonyâ?? of the whole people of God, everyone has a part to play – those with the ministry of oversight, the theologians and all the people of God.

66. Bishops have a vital role in the process of discernment, bearing a special responsibility for promoting truth and discerning error and for preserving and promoting communion; but this is never exercised apart from the whole body of the faithful. The interaction of bishop and people in this exercise of discernment and teaching is a safeguard of Christian life and fidelity. Discernment involves both heeding and sifting in order to assist the people of God in understanding, articulating and applying their faith. The bishopâ??s
authority necessarily includes responsibility for making and implementing the decisions that are required for the sake of koinonia.

67. At ordination, bishops receive not only responsibility for their local church but also a share in collegial responsibility for the wider community. â??Bishops meet together collegially, not as individuals but as those who have authority within and for the synodal life of the local churches … When bishops take counsel together they seek both to discern and to articulate the sensus fidelium as it is
present in the local church and in the wider communion of churches.â?? â??The duty of maintaining the Church in truth is one of the essential functions of the episcopal college â?¦ The exercise of this teaching authority requires that what it teaches be faithful to Holy Scripture and consistent with apostolic Tradition.â?? â??The challenge and responsibility for those with authority within the Church is so to exercise their ministry that they promote the unity of the whole Church in faith and life in a way that enriches rather than diminishes the legitimate diversity of local churches.â??

Growing Together in Unity and Mission An Agreed Statement by the International Anglicanâ??Roman Catholic
Commission for Unity and Mission

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These texts which await further study and reflection – Benedict & Canterbury

COMMON DECLARATION OF POPE BENEDICT XVI AND THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY HIS GRACE ROWAN WILLIAMS

Forty years ago, our predecessors, Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey, met together in this city sanctified by the ministry and the blood of the Apostles Peter and Paul. They began a new journey of reconciliation based on the Gospels and the ancient common traditions. Centuries of estrangement between Anglicans and Catholics were replaced by a new desire for partnership and co-operation, as the real but incomplete communion we share was rediscovered and affirmed. Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Ramsey undertook at that time to establish a dialogue in which matters which had been divisive in the past might be addressed from a fresh perspective with truth and love.

Since that meeting, the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion have entered into a process of fruitful dialogue, which has been marked by the discovery of significant elements of shared faith and a desire to give expression, through joint prayer, witness and service, to that which we hold in common. Over thirty-five years, the Anglican – Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) has produced a number of important documents which seek to articulate the faith we share. In the ten years since the most recent Common Declaration was signed by the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the second phase of ARCIC has completed its mandate, with the publication of the documents The Gift of Authority (1999) and Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ (2005). We are grateful to the theologians who have prayed and worked together in the preparation of these texts, which await further study and reflection.

True ecumenism goes beyond theological dialogue; it touches our spiritual lives and our common witness. As our dialogue has developed, many Catholics and Anglicans have found in each other a love for Christ which invites us into practical co-operation and service. This fellowship in the service of Christ, experienced by many of our communities around the world, adds a further impetus to our relationship. The International Anglican – Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM) has been engaged in an exploration of the appropriate ways in which our shared mission to proclaim new life in Christ to the world can be advanced and nurtured. Their report, which sets out both a summary of the central conclusions of ARCIC and makes proposals for growing together in mission and witness, has recently been completed and submitted for review to the Anglican Communion Office and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, and we express our gratitude for their work.

Common Declaration of Pope Benedict XVI and the Archbishop of Canterbury His Grace Rowan Williams

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Intercessory prayer – Bonhoeffer

All Christians have their own circle of those who have requested them to intercede on their behalf, or people for whom for various reasons they know they have been called upon to pray. First of all, this circle will include those with whom they must live every day. With this we have advanced to the point at which we hear the heartbeat of all Christian life together. A Christian community either lives by the intercessory prayers of its members for one another or the community will be destroyed. I can no longer condemn or hate other Christians for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble they cause me. In intercessory prayer the face that may have been strange and intolerable to me is transformed into the face of one for whom Christ died, the face of a pardoned sinner. That is a blessed discovery for the Christian who is beginning to offer intercessory prayer for others. As far as we are concerned, there in no dislike, no personal tension, no disunity or strife, that cannot be overcome by intercessory prayer. Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the community must enter every day.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together 89

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The secularity of the state does not mean the secularisation of society

The first symptom is Europe’s refusal to mention its Judeo-Christian roots in the Preamble to the European Constitutional Treaty, which, following the French and Dutch referendums, has now failed. The title itself is revealing of an ambiguity. A Treaty is not a Constitution and a Constitution cannot be a Treaty. The European Constitutional Treaty is something in between, a document hanging in lim­bo with no precise form, despite its more than 400 pages, running from major principles to the most analytic norms.

Regarding Europe’s cultural and spiritual origins, the Treaty adopts two slightly different formulations which were accepted after a long debate and many quarrels. One states that “the peoples of Europe…[are] conscious of its spiritual and moral heritage.” The other refers to the “cultural, religious and humanistic heritage of Europe.” It is patent that both statements are extremely poor and reticent, because neither of them defines exactly what heritage and what religion Europe stems from. The question then is: Can Europe unify economically, socially, and politically if it lacks the strength even to mention that Judeo-Christian religion without which it would not even exist? My answer is: No, it cannot.

The second symptom of the European crisis is the antecedent of the first. What role is played by religion in European society? After the wars of religion, Europe slowly attained the separation be­tween State and Church. This separation—which actually stems from the Gospels—is a civil achieve­ment of which we should be proud but about which we should not be confused. It refers to polit­ical institutions and their mutual relations, not to personal dimensions and their autonomy of expres­sion. In other words, the separation between State and Church, sets limits to the legislation of them both, in the sense that one is forbidden to pass norms over the domain of the other, but it does not imply that religion must be expelled from social life, or that it should be considered only a private affair. In still other words, the secularity of the state, which is a juridical regime, does not imply the sec­ularism of the society, which is an ideological phi­losophy. It is one thing to separate State and Church; it is quite a different thing to separate reli­gion from the lives of the people.

This is however what is happening in Europe. Today, religion is not allowed to express itself in public. As a consequence, religion cannot nourish our civil customs, provide a spiritual ground for our societies, or act in support of our public rules and behavior. And, of course, once the links with the religious tradition are severed, the allegiance to the very same values which are the core of our living together starts losing its strength and gets weaker and weaker.

Marcello Pera Europe, America and the Continental Drift

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There should be in England a Catholic faculty for theology

We can still, I think, register disquiet that so little is done by collaboration among Catholics themselves in settings where there is taken for granted a Catholic liturgical and spiritual ambience, and a general consensus about the elements which should enter into a Catholic systematics – a suitable philosophical preamble, linked in some way to the ontological concerns that are central for Catholic thought; the Scriptures regarded as an inspired body of literature; the monuments of Tradition that Catholic theologians have customarily consulted in their scanning of Scripture; the rôle of the magisterium in the making of doctrine and the refraction of its teaching in the lives of the faithful.

There should be in England a Catholic faculty for theology and its ancillary and related disciplines, a faculty serving the mission of the entire Church (not least of the episcopate), contextualised in a setting of liturgical and spiritual effort (it would be ideal to have a contemplative monastery, whether of women or of men, using the paradigm Latin liturgy of the Western Church, at its heart), and articulating a theological doctrine which the Church herself would not disown.

Karl Rahner asked that the theology of the next century be at once missionary and mystagogical. To render what Catholic theologians and scholars have already achieved since the Second Vatican Council even more fruitful for the Church in England in the next century some setting more conducive to such mission and mystagogy-in a word, some more ecclesial setting should be provided. This will not of course guarantee that people will write great theology; but it will provide, insofar as human ingenuity under grace can, the conditions in which a more comprehensive Catholic theology could optimally be produced.

Aidan Nichols OP Catholic Theology in Britain: the Scene since Vatican II part I & part II

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The Church is necessary for the sake of the gospel

If Anglican evangelicals take the path forged by so many Dissenters before them, not least among them John and Charles Wesley, it will eventually result only in the endless multiplication of denominational factions, just like the Baptists, Congregationalists, and Methodists—not to mention the Plymouth Brethren and the Independents—of centuries past. The Reformation logic of faction leads only to more faction, and as the dismal present status of various denominational entities attests, it does not even necessarily lead to orthodox Christianity. An evangelical exodus would also almost assuredly tip the numerical balance among those who remain with Canterbury to theological liberalism, thus dooming those Christians for whom catholic church order is essential to a sorry fate.

The present hope is that Anglican evangelicals will realize that not only is the gospel necessary for the sake of the Church, but also that the Church is necessary for the sake of the gospel. Historically, evangelicals have not troubled themselves very much with ecclesiology, assuming that the teaching of Scripture is plain, and that the Church is essentially a group of like-minded Christians who band together in fellowship to share the gospel. Unfortunately, the problem with this has always been that people think that Scripture plainly supports all kinds of things, thus leading to a never-ending plethora of denominations. Christ’s body on earth is therefore increasingly fractured and broken, Christian witness is damaged, and our Lord’s prayer that we all may be one recedes ever further into the past.

It is here where the wisdom of the third Anglican group, the catholics, absolutely must be heard this week in Tanzania. These Anglicans, represented best by Rowan Williams and the American theologian Ephraim Radner, believe just as strongly as the evangelicals in the bedrock truths of Christianity, but also think that the Church itself is an essential part of God’s plan for us to discern truth. Being Reformation Christians, Anglican catholics know that sometimes the Church can be wrong, thus needing always to test herself by the standard of Scripture. But they point out that while Scripture itself may be clear, we Christians are sinful and perverse, so that we stand in need of the whole body of Christ to discover God’s will for his Church.

The hope of Anglican catholics, then, for today’s meeting is that Anglicans of all stripes will commit to live in unity under the authority of Scripture, prayerfully seeking the mind of Christ together as the body of Christ. While firmly supporting disciplinary action against the Episcopal Church, Anglican catholics hope to do so within the proper bounds of life together in ecclesial communion. One may hope that Anglican evangelicals will realize that the Gospel is served best in no other way.

Jordan Hylden Anglican Storm Clouds

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The Vocation and Formation of Theologians 2

The vocation to the Theologian to reflect, to study, to teach, and to write is placed within the mission of the Church, as one of service to it. Examining the British context for theological work, the document discusses Government policy in higher education in relation to the often vulnerable and difficult entrustment of the theologian to truth.

The vocation of the theologian is brought more sharply into focus through a reflection on the situation of the universities in England and Wales. Catholic involvement in Higher Education institutions and Universities is discussed in the context of their participation in the secular system. Both as institutions and individual theologians, we must engage with whatever understanding of education underlies Government policy; and in our own context the proliferation of university places, the diversity of the types of courses and institutions associated with university work, and the tendency to emphasise the role of universities in terms of building economic strength, are forces with which we have to reckon. The paper addresses philosophical and theological concerns about the role and purpose of the university in human social life. Central to this is the question of what truth has become in a postmodern context, and what the Church’s response can unfold.

We consider the Catholic theological voice as it emerges in our context. In particular, the place of the lay theologian, and to the most commonly ecumenical, ‘lay’, or secular contexts in which Catholic theologians of all states of life are working. The setting of the secular university is challenging and rigorous, often isolating when Christian theologians seek to respond as part of the Church’s missio ad Gentes. Spiritual formation, and the fostering of communion is imperative, in cooperation with the Church’s pastors and those called to form and teach the people of God. We therefore discuss the character of pedagogy and its disciplines in relation to secular and Christian practice.

Summary of Proposals

1. The calling of a colloquium to debate the discussion proposed in this document, under the direction of the Committee for Theology of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

2. As part of this colloquium, the setting out of specific proposals to strengthen the collaboration between the Bishops and theologians at national and local level. These should concentrate, not on activism – the setting up of committees and so forth – but on the means by which loving and fruitful bonds, rooted in the life of the Church and its prayer, should be founded and nurtured between those called to teach and study and those whose task it is to ensure the proper education and formation of the People of God.

3. A discussion of the means by which lay theologians in particular may be formed, and nourished in their formation.

4. That there be initiated a continuing dialogue between the Bishops, the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain and other interested groups around the issues of the Church’s missio ad gentes as it takes place in the universities and other institutes of higher education.

5. The bonds between those who teach theology in our seminaries and Catholic theologians who teach in universities should be strengthened.

6. A discussion of the concrete means by which the Church may contribute to the discussion of the meaning of education in national life, through publications, and contributions to national forums.

The Vocation and Formation of Theologians and the Teaching Office of the Bishop in the British Context – A Discussion Sponsored by the Society of St. Catherine of Siena (large PDF)

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Oswald Bayer

Just seen the bibliography of Oswald Bayer at Wiki.de and remembered what a colossus Bayer is.

He is Professor Emeritus at Tübingen, a Lutheran, but more than that, he is a Luther – really shocking evangelical power, wielded with very great intellectual sophistication and gentleness. His line is that the Reformation is much more modern than ‘modernity’ will ever be. He has lots in common with Jüngel, but more spiritual authority (ludicrous, to say so, but…). I’ll translate some of his titles:

• Promise: Luther’s Reformation Turn

• Creation as Address: Towards a Hermeneutic of creation

• Living Word: Reformation and Modernity in Conflict

• Freedom as Response: Theological Ethics

• Contemporaries in Confrontation: Johann Georg Hamann as Radical Enlightener

• God as Author: Theological Poetics

• Reason is Speech (or discourse/conversation): Hamann’s demolition of Kant ‘critique’)

Hamann is one of Germany’s least explored Christian theologians. He was a contemporary, friend yet crushing opponent of Kant, with much in common with Kierkegaard and Coleridge.

Oswald Bayer would be the perfect subject for a PhD on Christian theological hermeneutics.

WHICH AMBITIOUS PUBLISHER IS GOING TO BE THE FIRST TO TRANSLATE BAYER’S WORK?

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Faith and reason links

Dear Ealing students

Here are some links to Cardinal Ratzinger – Pope Benedict – on faith and reason, secularity and the public square

On Europe’s Crisis of Culture

At Regensburg Faith, Reason and the University (Three Stages in the Program of De-Hellenization) and responses

We’ll be covering some of the issues set out in chapters 4 and 6 of Fides et Ratio

And see also George Weigel On Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures

Sandro Magister Habemus Papam

and see the articles at Ignatius Insight

On Christian worship see

The Theology of the Liturgy

How should we worship?

To the priests of Albano Diocese

You can see my summary of our very own Archbishop of Canterbury on faith and the public square

See also Secularism, Faith and Freedom at the pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Rome

and see the other Rowan Williams links on this blog

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No Lack of Love – the Fulcrum sermons of Oliver O'Donovan 2

If churches do not really need each other or owe each other anything, the Church is a voluntary association, and each congregation just a club of individuals. But this is not how it is. The Church is created by God – baptism is the act of God – and the baptism of each Christian is a gift of God to all of us. Similarly, through the eucharist each church participates in the whole Church. By this baptism into eucharistic participation in the whole Body of Christ, the communion of the church is renewed. This communion is an entity of love, and as such it is a union and a unity. It is love made visible, for the world to see. The faithfulness and mutual subordination of all Christians, and of each congregation to every other, is Christ’s act, sustained so the world can wonder at it.

Each church (and each Christian) participates in the whole Body of Christ by receiving from, and giving to, each other part of the Body of Christ. Each part owes every other part no less than everything. The whole Church, and each part of it, owes all others all the gifts it receives from Christ, whether gifts of instruction, formation and discipline.

If this is so the whole Anglican communion has to ask the innovating churches to help us to show us how to receive what they have proposed. They have to help us see how their act is an act of love. They need to give us the instruction and discipline (and receive from us the instruction and discipline) that makes us one communion.

We can all offer the Church new ways of being Christian, of course. But we have to argue for them and persuade others of their rightness. This involves showing that they are not utterly new, but that they stem from the existing corpus of Christian self-understanding in some way. They are not so much innovations as re-interpretations. The church that is proposing a new interpretation has to argue that it is the proper evangelical interpretation of Christian teaching for the particular circumstances in the particular part of the world to which this particular part of the Church is called to be a witness.

It must be the very basic presumption of all Christians that, because we belong to Christ, we belong to one another and must desire to travel together and stay in step with one another. The Communion must communicate. We owe an account of our action to every part of the Church. We must always explain what we are doing and seek to persuade others of its rightness. But for a part of the Anglican church – the part we may call liberal – this no longer seems obvious. Now this is a problem.

No Lack of Love – the Fulcrum sermons of Oliver O’Donovan