Great Tradition Anglicanism
Below is the bulk of a comment I left a few days ago on Confessing Reader's blog a couple of days ago. I thought it appropriate to use for the first posting of substance on Selva Oscura.
"I perceive a desire for a form of catholic Christianity which longs to receive the insights of a variety of strands of the Great Tradition, whether found in Barth or Von Balthasar, Maximus the Confessor or Augustine, C.S. Lewis or Flannery O’Connor, or… well the list could continue for some time. (And we all have read large quantities of Newbignin and now Tom Wright.) We are synthetic rather than purely analytical and are wary of any absolute system that will insist that a John Wesley or a John Owen can simply be disregarded. We have drunk enough F.D. Maurice to expect that the final correlation of all these voices will be eschatological, and therefore can live with some tensions in our theological outlook.
Nevertheless, we are also wary of a boundary-less comprehensiveness as exhibited by the theological left and seek a conciliar based scriptural and creedal discernment of the limits of ecclesial teaching and practice.
We believe in the call to the concrete and historical unity of the Church and apostolic orders. We are embarrassed that we used to subscribe to the Branch theory and suspect that either Rome or Orthodoxy is the real embodiment of that historical unity, but also believe that a robust Great Tradition Anglicanism may just be Balaam’s Ass, reminding Rome or Constantinople (as well as the Protestants) of a generous catholic orthodoxy that is their deep inheritance.
We have made common cause with our Anglo-catholic and Evangelical/Renewed friends in Anglicanism, but find either direction left to its own to lead into a theological cul-de-sac.
Does anyone else recognize themselves in this, or is it just me?"
"I perceive a desire for a form of catholic Christianity which longs to receive the insights of a variety of strands of the Great Tradition, whether found in Barth or Von Balthasar, Maximus the Confessor or Augustine, C.S. Lewis or Flannery O’Connor, or… well the list could continue for some time. (And we all have read large quantities of Newbignin and now Tom Wright.) We are synthetic rather than purely analytical and are wary of any absolute system that will insist that a John Wesley or a John Owen can simply be disregarded. We have drunk enough F.D. Maurice to expect that the final correlation of all these voices will be eschatological, and therefore can live with some tensions in our theological outlook.
Nevertheless, we are also wary of a boundary-less comprehensiveness as exhibited by the theological left and seek a conciliar based scriptural and creedal discernment of the limits of ecclesial teaching and practice.
We believe in the call to the concrete and historical unity of the Church and apostolic orders. We are embarrassed that we used to subscribe to the Branch theory and suspect that either Rome or Orthodoxy is the real embodiment of that historical unity, but also believe that a robust Great Tradition Anglicanism may just be Balaam’s Ass, reminding Rome or Constantinople (as well as the Protestants) of a generous catholic orthodoxy that is their deep inheritance.
We have made common cause with our Anglo-catholic and Evangelical/Renewed friends in Anglicanism, but find either direction left to its own to lead into a theological cul-de-sac.
Does anyone else recognize themselves in this, or is it just me?"
posted by peregrinator at 9:21 AM
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