Category Image The Challenges of the Continuing Church


Anglicanism in the United States has been physically divided for quite a long time. As early as 1873, when the Reformed Episcopal Church was formed, the Church of England was subject to splits and divides. Things picked up steam in 1976 with the St. Louis Conference, and many more breakaway groups were formed. Somewhere along the way they became known as the "Continuing Churches", because each group declared that they were continuing the traditions of Anglicanism. The continuing churches have suffered from a couple of problems. The most obvious is a general lack of growth. The REC, which now over 130 years old, sports 13,000 members worldwide. The more significant problem, though, is that the continuing churches have undergone subsequent splintering from the original founding groups.

Stephen Cooper has written an analysis for David Virtue's site, which I think has much to commend it. In the article, he identifies one significant cause underlying the fractious nature of the "continuum" is simply power politics. No rational person can disagree with that - for similar problems can be observed in basically every religious body imaginable. The jurisdictional problem of the Orthodox Church in the U.S., although not rooted in power politics, now finds resolution challenging precisely because of power politics.

He subsequently, however, develops a thesis that the main cause, the root, if you will, of the problems of the continuum is that it has failed to maintain the "continuation" of classical Anglicanism. His proposal is that if only the Continuum would abandon both low church Evangelicalism, and Anglo-Catholicism, it would succeed and be a united group. I think it is useful to unpack his position a bit. There are really two questions at issue here. The first is, "Is the divergence of theological positions within the Continuum sufficient to prevent unity". The second, perhaps even more important question is, "Will adherence to 'classical Anglicanism' provide the unity and growth so desired?" The author, being part of the continuing Anglican groups, assumes the second as a premise. He believes that classical Anglicanism is Scriptural, and is therefore reflective of the way the Church was being ordered by the Apostles.

I can easily agree with him that holding to a uniform theological structure would give a unity to the continuum that it clearly does not have now. This is the case, as well, within the actual Episcopal Church. I have blogged on this before. However, where I might diverge from Mr. Cooper is that I think the lack of uniformity is symptomatic, not causal. That is, Anglicanism, itself, tends toward a lack of uniformity. The 39 articles, although fairly Calvinist, are still intentionally vague. As Cardinal Newman pointed out , since the original articles establish the book of homilies as the acceptable source of interpretation of Scripture, we can use them to reinterpret the articles themselves (especially where the homilies appear to conflict with the articles). Basically we are left with Scripture, and a tradition of one generation, the homilies of the 16th century. This narrow tradition allows some to lean more heavily toward an evangelical, non-sacramental worldview, without contradicting Scripture nor much of the homilies, while allowing another group to become nearly Roman while still operating within the same framework. By jettisoning the first 1000 years of Church tradition, a necessary rudder is lost and the lack of uniformity follows.

As I've pointed out before , the Episcopal Church tolerates a huge range of theological positions - often contradictory - even within the narrow range of those who consider themselves "orthodox". The continuum is the same, it just doesn't allow the far left into the picture. Will that last forever? Honestly, I doubt it.

Posted: Thursday - May 24, 2007 at 11:00 AM          

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