It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one or utterly alike; for at all times they have been diverse, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's word.
So - there is here envisaged a liturgical flexibility. Modifications can and should be made for the customs of the place. Christians do not meet according to a rigidly fixed pattern, or aping the historical dress and customs of a time gone by. But the principle is normative, not regulative: that is, freedom is allowed insofar as it is constrained by God's word, rather than it being dictated lock stock and barrel by it. Indeed, the last sentence of the article is this:
Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying.
So: have confirmation, or don't have confirmation (for example).
But the middle section of the article reads:
Whosoever through his private judgement willingly and purposely doth openly break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant to the word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly that other may fear to do the like, as he that offendeth against common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the magistrate, and woundeth the conscience of the weak brethren.
That is: even though there is a freedom for individual national churches to change the style (for want of a better word) of their services - and indeed they ought to do so - it is also most definitely NOT a matter of private judgement. It is not a matter of the local clergy varying the practices without authorisation and/or consultation. Why is that? Because of the weak consciences of the faithful and because the authority so set up is undermined by the practice.
Notice that, while on the one hand there is not a whiff that the agreed liturgical practice is soteriologically significant, or that it can't be varied or even radically changed, this is not in tension with the importance of maintaining church order. In a lot of discussions about church practices that I hear, this subtlety is not expressed. Church order is the way in which each church or fellowship of churches puts into practice the kind of teaching we receive from Paul in 1 Corinthians 8-14. It does not substitute for that teaching: it expresses it, for ''God is not a God of chaos but of peace." The church's observance of ordered corporate worship is a reflection of the character of God himself. (Ordered doesn't mean 'formal', by the way, or not relaxed, or inauthentic. It just means that things are done in the meeting are consistent with the purpose of mutual edification.)
Note that that the sacraments are practiced is certainly not optional as far as the Articles are concerned - because these were rites not instituted by man's authority, but by the Lord (see Articles 25-31). It is hard to see how anyone could possibly argue that the sacraments themselves are optional, or merely 'helpful', and remain Anglican in any meaningful sense. But how the sacraments might be practiced may indeed be varied on the condition that this is not a matter of private judgement - because of the kind of troubling disorder that reflects badly on the God whose name we seek to honour. (I hasten to add that the Articles certainly don't make this a free for all. Those practices which communicate an essentially Roman Catholic view of the Supper it does not endorse: elevating the host, carrying it about and so on. All of these are flagrantly ignored in much Anglican practice I have to say. The history of the Oxford movement involved, bizarrely, a good deal of disregard for church order in the name of ... church order.)
Let me summarise: you can have an agreed on church order, and take that order seriously, without suggesting that observance of that order is somehow a matter of salvation, or a work that we think accrues some kind of merit for us. And you shouldn't just break from church order just because it suits you, without proper regard for the fellowship of churches in which you operate. And churches should be innovate and liberating in allowing various ways in which order can be expressed, too.
Right?
8 comments:
It seems to me that the 'or' is the crux... 'Every particular or national Church'. If it's linking terms that are synonymous (for the purposes of this article, anyway), then yes, I agree.
But the Articles as a whole are pretty sympathetic to using 'church' primarily for the local congregation, secondly for the church militant, and only faintly for the denomination.
ie VI: the church militant
XIX: the local church (indeed, I'd be prepared to argue that the second paragraph deliberately downgrades the Roman church from a denomination!)
XXIII: is interesting because it reads a whole lot more like a presbyterian system than an episcopally-minded denomination...
XXIV: the local church
XXVI: I'll concede this as more likely a denominational use
...I could go on, but that's probably enough to ask: does Art 34 really argue against local clergy varying the practices without authorisation and/or consultation?
I know there's a question of authorial intent, of course, which is probably in favour of what you suggest, but I guess I wonder why 'particular' was included in the last paragraph if the article was meant for purely denominational matters...
Don't be thrown by the word 'congregation'. It doesn't mean what we mean by 'congregation': it refers in this context to the National church.
I think the word 'particular' allows for different geographical arrangements, for example, the city-state/cantons of Swizterland could not be said to have 'national' churches, but still they had hegemony over their own affairs.
As it happens, the Eucharistic practise variously extant which in my time as a Tractarian I found hardest to square with our formularies was that of non-consumptive Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament (certain manual acts, on the other hand, seem more amenable to charitable interpretations.)
Having said that, I'm curious whether the hymn Pange Lingua can be more fitting if moved from the above non-consumptive context to that of a Lord's Supper service.
Hey Michael
your summary of the rules seems correct,
so:
As someone who has been asked to leave an Anglican church because I wanted to continue to overhaul a few traditions which the clergy-man of the day was trying to reinstate...
And given that i've been thinking a lot this week about the non-violent movement which changed Berlin...
How can the church, which is organised geographically and hierarchically, whose leaders are culturally not representative of its members, which is necessarily conservative and inclusive... how can it encourage diversity as our communities become less geographical and hierarchical?
And given that the Anglican church in Australia is barely in agreement about the rites it ordains, what's the chances of a non-violent popular uprising to bring down the walls?
...depends whether 'order' means 'hierarchy' or not. I sometimes feel as if there is a confusion of the two. The opposite of hierarchical and self-serving power is not anarchy - it is order, right?
Not saying it is done well, as you point out.
Right?
Right! Preaching to the choir here.
I guess one issue this raises is how to go about reforming traditions and ceremonies. I assume that constructive criticism or advocating change does not openly break the traditions and ceremonies of the Church, that a break only occurs where there is a change in practice, rather than a discussion about practices. And so am I right to assume that it is fine to suggest changes to confirmation or to advocate a reform of clerical attire, but such protest ought to be in word rather than in deed until the whole church has made up its mind?
As for particular vs national: is Sydney a particular church, or part of a national one? I am not asking which we would prefer to be, simply what the grounds for reading the article one way or another might be.
Michael, I'm very interested in this and similar threads, as you can imagine. However, I think that Sydney Anglicans have to be very carefully about applying the letter of Articles that were drafted in a very different historical and social context.
Your readers must not forget that the Prayer Book itself was written to reduce the number of variations in use simply throughout England at the time (which were not really that many!) There is a definite 'agenda' here that there should be literally one, common, use, which would thereby bring everyone into a single, doctrinal, framework. ('Denomination' does not come into it - this means 'across the nation'.)
This, however, reflected an undoubtedly authoritarian view of the nature of reform. It is very different, for example, from the position taken by Martin Luther.
Personally, I think this is a case where the Articles rather over-egg the pudding, requiring something (absolute conformity to a 'common' prayer book), which is neither itself Scriptural nor necessary to good, reformed, order.
It is helpful to conceive of the Articles in terms of 'priorities' rather than 'boundaries'. Here, we may, I think, question the 'letter' of the Article from the prior Anglican commitment to Scripture. At the same time, we must honour the principle, that it sets boundaries to liturgical innovation and forbids, as you rightly observe, mere 'private judgement' in this regard.
Hope this helps!
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