Author: Douglas Knight

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What is ‘common’ needs to be nurtured

Amongst the papers prepared for the Church of England General Synod in July (220&) is the very considerable GS 1651 Transforming Worship: Report of the Liturgical Commission (large Word doc), made available online by Thinking Anglicans.

The Liturgical Commission reviews the vast range of initiatives and says something cautiously encouraging about almost everything. But is this what we want the Liturgical Commission to do? Don’t we want it to give us some direction, and so to be prescriptive?

It description of the situation as our worship book ‘Common Worship’ is met by the profusion of ‘emergent’, ‘liquid church’ and ‘fresh expressions’ is a marvel of understatement.

6.2.4 In a climate of considerable liturgical diversity, what is ‘common’ (in Common Worship) needs continually to be nurtured, embraced and celebrated. This need arises from loyalty to the Anglican style of worship, respect for those structures and texts which have been formed with the consent of the whole Church, and a shared sense of identity and fellowship in our common calling to serve the nation

6.5.3 It is also important to note that the relatively informal liturgies associated with Fresh Expressions, or categorized as ‘alternative worship’, require of those who are to lead them a higher degree of liturgical and theological preparation than more ‘traditional’ liturgies that follow a set pattern. This is true in both senses of the word ‘preparation’: they require a better grasp of liturgical issues, and they demand more homework.

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Amy

Pope Benedict has, in his Wednesday General Audiences, been giving brief addresses on the leadership of early Christianity. He began last year with the Apostles. Such things naturally lend themselves to be collected in book form, and a couple of months ago, OSV obtained rights to publish an edition of Apostles in the US (a British version has already been published).

As the editor was working his way through the text (cleaning up footnotes, clarifying puzzling translations, etc), it occurred to me that this would lend itself to the needs of an adult religious ed program. It’s short, the chapters are relatively brief, and of course, it’s Pope Benedict writing, so the content is rich and clearly presented, with at least one thought-provoking, made-for-reflection sentence on every page.

So, I opened my big mouth, and here I am with one more project to do before the end of the month.

Anyone who does religious ed in a parish setting – consider this. There will be twelve sessions, each with questions for study and questions for reflection, as well as opening and closing prayers.

I really believe in what Pope Benedict is doing – he is a master catechist, he understands the problems and challenges of the way of discipleship, of the way of simply being human, and he brings all of that into what he writes.

Amy Welborn

And here are those Wednesday General Audiences – (backwards from June) on Athanasius, Eusebius, Cyprian, Tertullian, Origen, Irenaeus…

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Unknown faith

Christianity is politics done slowly. It is politics with memory and imagination, that understands the past as resource from which a future may perhaps come into being constructed. It is the politics of the promise of God.

It is a deep-seated assumption of the tradition as we have inherited it that the past is gone and has no further impact on us. But the past does not disappear. It is still entirely with us. It is just that we have no awareness of it. This is the nominalism (we are entirely to free to make up names for things, after which they will be what we have named them), or the voluntarism (things are what we will them to be) or antinomianism (there is no law or tradition or givens for us to come to terms with) of the Western tradition. We do not see it as a tradition, that is as somthing passed to us, or see it as one tradition, but instead see it simply as everything, our field of view being filled by it.

The Western tradition is a kind of forgetfulness. We are not at in charge of the machine we have inherited. The machine wants to give us the impression that we are entirely in charge: it does not even tell us that we are astride a machine. It wants us to believe that we are entirely free agents, able to choose what to do just as impulsively and unconstrainedly as children. We are up on the bridge of an ocean liner, throwing the wheel this way and that, unaware that the ship is only able to react very slowly, so each of our instructions cancels out the previous one, while the great ship of the Western intellectual tradition ploughs on.

But Christianity allows us to see that the Western intellectual tradition – ‘modernity’ – is one tradition, because Christianity is another tradition. Christianity is a distinct tradition because the world is unable to absorb the church so that the distinction between disappears.

The Western tradition think it knows Christianity and has seen through it. But Christianity is preserved as a tradition, and as an alternative to the Western tradition, by the freedom of God. It is God who keeps Christianity out of our reach, this unknown, ungraspable mystery, which alone secures for us the possibility of a future.

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Ecclesia in Europa

This loss of Christian memory is accompanied by a kind of fear of the future. Tomorrow is often presented as something bleak and uncertain. The future is viewed more with dread than with desire. Among the troubling indications of this are the inner emptiness that grips many people and the loss of meaning in life. The signs and fruits of this existential anguish include, in particular, the diminishing number of births, the decline in the number of vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and the difficulty, if not the outright refusal, to make lifelong commitments, including marriage.

We find ourselves before a widespread existential fragmentation. A feeling of loneliness is prevalent; divisions and conflicts are on the rise. Among other symptoms of this state of affairs, Europe is presently witnessing the grave phenomenon of family crises and the weakening of the very concept of the family, the continuation or resurfacing of ethnic conflicts, the re-emergence of racism, interreligious tensions, a selfishness that closes individuals and groups in upon themselves, a growing overall lack of concern for ethics and an obsessive concern for personal interests and privileges. To many observers the current process of globalization, rather than leading towards the greater unity of the human race, risks being dominated by an approach that would marginalize the less powerful and increase the number of poor in the world.

In connection with the spread of individualism, we see an increased weakening of interpersonal solidarity: while charitable institutions continue to carry out praiseworthy work, one notes a decline in the sense of solidarity, with the result that many people, while not lacking material necessities, feel increasingly alone, left to themselves without structures of affection and support.

At the root of this loss of hope is an attempt to promote a vision of man apart from God and apart from Christ. This sort of thinking has led to man being considered as â??the absolute centre of reality, a view which makes him occupy â?? falsely â?? the place of God and which forgets that it is not man who creates God, but rather God who creates man. Forgetfulness of God led to the abandonment of manâ??. It is therefore â??no wonder that in this context a vast field has opened for the unrestrained development of nihilism in philosophy, of relativism in values and morality, and of pragmatism â?? and even a cynical hedonism â?? in daily lifeâ??. European culture gives the impression of â??silent apostasyâ?? on the part of people who have all that they need and who live as if God does not exist.

This is the context for those attempts, including the most recent ones, to present European culture with no reference to the contribution of the Christian religion which marked its historical development and its universal diffusion. We are witnessing the emergence of a new culture, largely influenced by the mass media, whose content and character are often in conflict with the Gospel and the dignity of the human person. This culture is also marked by an widespread and growing religious agnosticism, connected to a more profound moral and legal relativism rooted in confusion regarding the truth about man as the basis of the inalienable rights of all human beings. At times the signs of a weakening of hope are evident in disturbing forms of what might be called a â??culture of deathâ??.

John Paul II Ecclesia in Europa 1.8-9

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Aberdeen faculty

Scott Prather at Swords to Plowshares introduces the Aberdeen theology faculty. They look like a good team, young fresh and energetic, all publishing, with the emphasis on dogmatics, which I think makes this department unique in the UK.

My first question:

What sort of ecclesiology does all this evangelical dogmatics result in? It looks to me as though ecclesiology is regarded as the concern of just one member of this faculty. Evangelicals do have an ecclesiology, don’t they? Since there is a fair input from the German theological scene, I hope that there is at least a nodding relationship with Lutheran ecclesiology, by which I mean Luther, not Bonhoeffer. I appreciate that the Anglican/Episcopalian church is not in particularly good shape in Scotland, but then this is where a faculty like this could make a difference, isn’t it?

Second question:

How can we replicate this faculty a little further south in the UK? You have heard of church plants – how about a faculty plant? I know another city a little further down that North Sea coast that could do with some dogmatic theology, and London is its name.

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Christian and Muslim Perspectives

I think the idea of a globalisation of solidarity is wonderful, and I am glad to say that CAFOD, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, has set in train a project called Live Simply, designed to help people live in solidarity with the poor. It has often struck me that Islam asks of its followers a similar commitment to solidarity with the poor. This seems clear in the idea of having a banking system that works in accordance with the basic principles of Islam. My thought is not that I should open an Islamic bank account, but rather that it may be time for Christian and Muslim economists to put their heads together to see what we can learn from each other in the sphere of genuine commitment to solidarity with the poor. Looking at the newspapers or the television news sometimes makes me shudder at the fate of so many people in the world who live in such a shocking state. But I feel uncomfortable and guilty if I cannot react. I do what I can; I imagine we all do, but I have a feeling that, together, we could do so much more.

A second thing we could undertake together to improve the state of tomorrowâ??s world for our children is to work for genuine freedom of religion. I have already mentioned that many British Muslims feel misrepresented or at least misunderstood in our media and in public opinion. You are not the only ones, but unfortunately in the present moment much more is being said about Islam than about Christianity or other religions. More than this, there are times when we may all feel that we are not exactly muzzled or silenced, but we are most certainly not free to express our deeply held convictions, sometimes simply for reasons linked to so-called â??political correctnessâ??. I think there are ways we can work with those who form public opinion to solve many of these problems, and I am certain that we should do this together.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor Christian and Muslim Perspectives on Inter-religious Dialogue

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Speaking from the Church

Among Catholic bishops, and among religious leaders in all communities, nobody has been more outspoken in this debate than Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles. Last year he received widespread media attention when he declared that he would engage in civil disobedience rather than comply with a law requiring him to report illegal immigrants, and he directed priests and other church workers to follow his lead. Many expressed admiration for his bold, even prophetic, stance, while others charged him with grandstanding, pointing out that nobody was suggesting that IDs should be checked at Mass or food kitchens.

More recently, Cardinal Mahony offered a comprehensive account of the Churchâ??s position on comprehensive immigration reform at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. He very specifically and repeatedly asserted that he was setting forth â??the underpinnings of the position of the Catholic Church on immigration reform legislation.â?? His lecture is sprinkled with expressions such as â??the church leadership argues that . . .â??; â??the Church maintains that . . .â??; and â??the Churchâ??s position is . . .â?? We are clearly given to understand that he is not merely expressing his own views or speaking in his capacity as the archbishop of Los Angeles but is speaking for the Catholic Church.

Richard John Neuhaus Who speaks for the Church?

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Christian University

Andy Goodliff has posted on The promise of a Christian university –

Christian University? You have got to wonder where he gets these ideas from. Andy posts a handy list of titles then, as these bloggers do, asks for more ideas.

Obviously his list includes Bristol’s finest, Gavin D’Costa Theology in the Public Square: Church, Academy and Nation

and the forthcoming Stanley Hauerwas The State of the University: Academic Knowledges and the Knowledge of God

Then what? Well, how about these?

Michael J. Buckley The Catholic University as Promise and Project

John C. Sommerville The Decline of the Secular University: Why the Academy Needs Religion

George M. Marsden The Soul of the American university and his earlier The outrageous idea of Christian Scholarship

Robert Benne Quality with Soul: How Six Premier Colleges and Universities Keep Faith with Their Religious Traditions. The six are Calvin, Wheaton, St. Olaf, Valparaiso, Baylor, and Notre Dame. Hum, not too many Catholic colleges there.

and of course the massive James T. Burtchaell The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches

Then the greatest analysis of the whole project of the university, Alasdair MacIntyre Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopaedia, Genealogy, and Tradition

Then on the wider faith-and-public-square issue there is the recent Ratzinger-Habermas dialogue of course Joseph Ratzinger The Dialectics of Secularization: On Reason and Religion

But, wait a minute, the very first thing that should be on this list is the magisterial Ex Corde Ecclesia – the Apostolic Constitution of John Paul II on Catholic Universities

BORN FROM THE HEART of the Church, a Catholic University is located in that course of tradition which may be traced back to the very origin of the University as an institution. It has always been recognized as an incomparable centre of creativity and dissemination of knowledge for the good of humanity. By vocation, the Universitas magistrorum et scholarium is dedicated to research, to teaching and to the education of students who freely associate with their teachers in a common love of knowledge. With every other University it shares that gaudium de veritate, so precious to Saint Augustine, which is that joy of searching for, discovering and communicating truth in every field of knowledge. A Catholic University’s privileged task is “to unite existentially by intellectual effort two orders of reality that too frequently tend to be placed in opposition as though they were antithetical: the search for truth, and the certainty of already knowing the fount of truth”.

Ah, at last. In the long run, it is not just the Christian university, it is not just the Catholic university, it is the university that is born from the heart of the Church.

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Partakers of Christ and partakers of God

In the De Decretis Athanasius argues against the opinion he had heard Eusebius express that the Son alone participates in the Father while we participate in the Son. If that were so, we would then be the Son’s sons. Rather, we are sons of the same Father as the Son is, our sonship being granted to us in accordance with our virtue, so that some sit on the twelve thrones, while others occupy lower places. Yet in a deeper sense the Son does participate in the Father. In the Contra Arianos Athanasius equates participation in the Father with the Father’s begetting. But since the essence of God cannot be divided, his begetting the Son means that he communicates himself wholly to the Son. When men partake of God, they therefore partake of the Son, ‘for that which is partaken of the Father is the Son’. Thus when men are said to ‘participate in the divine nature’, it means that the Son communicates himself to them.

This dynamic participation in the Logos is only possible because of the Incarnation and indeed is dependent specifically upon a Logos-sarx christology. When the Logos assumed a human body, he became the subject by the communicatio idiomatum of what the body experienced. ‘For what the human body of the Logos suffered, this the Logos, being united to the body, ascribed to himself in order that we might be enabled to participate in the godhead of the Logos’. By participating in the deified humanity of the Logos we participate in his impassible divinity, because the flesh has been endowed with divinity, just as the divinity has been endowed with humanity. Athanasius is silent about the soul, which in Origen plays an important part in mediating between the Logos and the flesh. In Athanasius’ view, because the Incarnation has transferred our nature to the Logos, we participate in the divine nature simply by participating in the humanity of the Logos.

Our participation in the Logos is made possible by the Spirit: ‘for through the Spirit we are all called partakers of God’. That is to say, we participate in the Son through baptism. The Spirit is the chrism and the seal with which the Logos anoints and seals us, making us, as it were, the fragrance of Christ. Another way of putting it is to say that the Son is life-in-itself, the Spirit is life-giving and the faithful are life-endowed. It is because the Spirit is divine that he is able to make us ‘partakers of the divine nature’, that is, of Christ, for the divine nature is not impersonal. Through the Spirit we become ‘partakers of Christ and partakers of God’.

Norman Russell Partakers of the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4) in the Byzantine Tradition

And have you seen Norman Russell The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition ?

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Not to separate precipitously

At the very least, then, the Lambeth Conference is like a council in that its purpose from the beginning has been to confront divisive issues with both truth and charity, engaged through the work of the Holy Spirit, and so nourishing and preserving unity in the midst of division. Thus, to insist that agreement be present before meeting – and despite previous meetings! – is simply to void the purpose of the meeting in the first place. Further, to separate precipitously from a body that no longer resembles Christian truth and practice as one understands them, or that seems incapable to upholding them, is to foreclose on the pneumatic promises of providence that call us into council in the first place.

The above points do not entail the conclusion that discipline cannot or should not be imposed on those who persist in an alien way or who scandalize by their behavior. I, like many others, believe such discipline is in fact required. Still, such alien and scandalous life should be confronted rather than avoided by absenting oneself from an encounter in the Lord and refusing the obligation to hold to account in the power of the Lord. The primary point behind all this is that Christians have been given a divine narrative and vocation that insists upon engaged suffering as a means of witness, rather than upon departure and beginning anew as a means of protest and self-protection. Thus, the prophets (eg Jeremiah) and Christ suffer among their people. They do not leave them to form another people.

Ephraim Radner Lambeth Can Be What It Wants To Be