Via Media Podcast, Episode #40 The Future of Orthodox Anglicanism: Reformed Catholic Barbara Gauthier April 2, 2020 Announcer: The Institute of Anglican Studies at Beeson Divinity School welcomes you to Via Media, a podcast exploring the religious and theological worlds from an Anglican perspective. Here is your host Gerald McDermott. McDermott: Welcome to Via Media. This week we�re going to do the first of a two-part series on a new book that has come out titled, �The Future of Orthodox Anglicanism,� published by Crossway last month, in February. We will be interviewing two of the contributors to this book. The first person I�m thrilled to be talking to today is Barbara Gauthier. Many of our listeners know Barbara from the phenomenal news service that she sends out biweekly called Anglican News, where she gives us her summaries of developments all over the Anglican world, plus other kinds of developments related to faith and culture. If you don�t get this to your email I really recommend that you run, not walk, to your cell phone or your laptop and write an email. This is what you have to do in order to get it. Write an email to Barbara at bgauthier@greenhousemovement.com. So, Barbara holds a PhD in French from Vanderbilt University in Nashville. Over the last 16 years she has taught Latin Classical, and Koinia Greek at the Greenhouse Co-School in Wheaton, Illinois. She�s married to her husband Stephen, whom we�ve had on Via Media, who�s the canon theologian for the ACNA Diocese of the Upper Midwest. And Barbara is an Anglican theologian herself. She spends time mentoring women, she conducts a women�s weekly bible study, she�s taught seminars on Irenaeus and other early Church Fathers. She and Stephen have three grown sons, a god son, and two grandsons. She�s been known, I�ve heard from a birdie, to give knitting advice to those who find themselves in a tangle. ha ha. Barbara, welcome to Via Media. Great to have you here today. Gauthier: Thank you. McDermott: Now, Barbara, you have a terrific chapter, I would say, in this book �The Future of Orthodox Anglicanism,� by the way, as long as our listeners are at their cell phones, and perhaps you�ve got a little bit more time on your hands now that we�re in this pandemic and a lot of us are working from home, I would really encourage you to order a copy of this book, �The Future of Orthodox Anglicanism,� published by Crossway. The editor is some guy named McDermott. Barbara has got a wonderful chapter in here that is titled, �A Journalist and Theologian: Reformed Catholicism.� So, in this chapter, Barbara, you summarize the responses by various reformers to the problems of the late Medieval Church. Can you tell us how the English reformers responded to the problems of the late Medieval Church? Gauthier: At the beginning of the 16th century the Western Church was seriously in need of reform, and everybody agreed that something needed to be done. But there was very little agreement on the best way to accomplish that reform. First of all, where had things begun to go astray? What should be removed? To what extent? How could the Church be set on the right path? CS Lewis summed it up pretty accurately, talking about addition problems: �A sum could be put right but only be going back to find the error and working it afresh from that point. Never by simply going on.� Obviously the solution was not simply going on, but going back and finding where the error had occurred. But that was the problem, because no one could agree exactly where that problem had occurred and how far should they go back to correct the error. Do you correct the abuse? Do you correct the error that caused the abuse? Do you correct the problem with the doctrine underneath it that caused the error that caused the abuse? How far back do you go? Well, Martin Luther and many of the later reformers were convinced that what had happened was the authority of apostolic scripture had been neglected by the Catholic Church and it needed to be restored because it was the heart of the gospel; that salvation is the gift of God by grace through faith through Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. So, everyone insisted that there was the importance of scripture as the bedrock for our Christian faith. But the problem was that they developed very different ideas of what that would look like. Luther settled on justification by faith alone. Calvin chose to focus more on the sovereignty of God emphasized in the Old Testament, emphasizing the community of faith. The Anabaptists, Zwingli and Menno Simons, they chose to emphasize individual salvation, believer�s baptism � there was no creed and no authority of scripture, no authority of tradition, but only the authority of scripture was to be followed. So, these caused a diverge in very different ways. The Anglican reformers were a bit different. What they had decided was that the best way to go forward was to go back to the Ancient Church, to the tradition of the Church that had been established by the Early Apostolic Fathers in the first centuries of the Church. There was no single figure in Anglicanism at its foundation that would stamp the system and name on everyone who followed him. So, we don�t have any �Cranmerians,� there are no �Ridleyians,� or �Jewelists,� or �Hookerites� to stand alongside Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians, Mennonites. There is no single theological figure at the heart of the reformation in England. But they all shared this common vision, Gerry. They welcomed that new emphasis on scripture as the ultimate authority and the basis for Christian faith and doctrine, but they still continued to embrace what had been part of the Church�s understanding of practice, the practice of scripture through the liturgy and prayers from the Ancient Church. The desire was to maintain that entire deposit of the apostolic faith that was apparent in that Early Church. To keep the apostolic truths that were in the Catholic faith and practice, such as sacraments, liturgy, ordination, apostolic succession, but also to restore the apostolic truths that had been neglected. That would include scripture, personal faith, and an emphasis on individual holy living. The idea was that by examining this faith and practice of the Early Church we could discern more carefully the proper balance of what is the emphasis of scriptural faith and how is that balanced with the apostolic practice in the liturgies and the life of the Church? McDermott: So, the authority of scripture, personal faith based on justification, liturgy and sacraments of the Early Church ... Barbara, how do you see these things coming out in Thomas Cranmer�s first two editions, or his only two editions of the Book of Common Prayer in 1549 and 1552. Gauthier: Well, in his preface to the first book he emphasizes scripture. Everything has to be constant with scripture. Scripture is the foundation of everything. Therefore, what he did is he went back to the liturgies that the Church had received, and he renewed and revised them by correcting them with holy scripture so that it would be fully consonant with what the scriptures actually said. So that we would not only be reading scripture, which he insisted it had to be read continually by the clergy but also read to the people so they would fully understand in their own language, not in Latin, so that the Church would not only be reading scripture, but also learning to pray it as well. So, he kept all of the creeds, the liturgies for holy baptism, confirmation, communion, and the ordinal, which is for ordination, those were brought forth into the new prayer book, but revised according to holy scripture to reflect scripture more accurately in what it was proclaiming. McDermott: By the later 16th century, you write, there was a challenge to this Anglican approach that Thomas Cranmer started, and the challenge came from the Puritans and Puritanism. What was Puritanism? In what way was it challenging this new Anglican approach, Barbara? Gauthier: Well, the Puritans had the same basic approach as the Anglican reformers that scripture was the essence of the faith and everything had to be consonant and based on scripture. But they saw a purer demonstration of that by establishing the Church on scripture alone and anything that was not expressly commanded in scripture had to be rejected. Therefore, the Church needed to be stripped of anything that was not purely scriptural and was not consonant with what they felt the Church should be doing. It had to lose all of its Catholic content and be replaced simply by scripture. McDermott: Right. So, now you write about Richard Hooker, who writes against the Puritan challenge at the end of the 16th century. How did he respond to the Puritan challenge that seemed to want a proof text for everything? Gauthier: Well, he took five volumes to do it, so it�s pretty extensive. But he wanted to tell the Puritans that every item of worship or practice does not need to be explicitly mentioned in scripture. He acknowledged, as the Puritans did, that scripture is indeed the authority, the supreme authority for the Church, but he also recognized the importance of the catholic tradition of the Early Church. Because their practices embodied the interpretation of that same scripture that they had read together under the authority of the whole Church. Vincent of L�rins is frequently mentioned as sort of the very first Anglican. He, in the fifth century, was a monk who was concerned about how do we discern what is true Christianity from all of the various heresies that were floating around. And he came up with something very simple that�s since known as the Vincentian Canon. Essentially, it�s what the Church has always believed everywhere, in all places, by everyone. That is the basis of the faith. So, Hooker acknowledged that there was an importance to Anglican tradition, because it interpreted the same scripture is read together under the authority of the whole church for the Church at large. McDermott: Okay, you described his approach, Barbara, as being reformed and catholic. What do those terms mean when you use them in that way to describe Hooker�s approach? Gauthier: Well, this is sort of the Anglican paradox. It�s neither Roman Catholic, but it�s also not fully reformed protestant either. But yet at the same time it�s what we call both reformed and catholic. So, essentially what the reformed Catholicism that the Anglican Church seems to exhibit is to embrace the fullness of God�s truth as revealed in scripture, but as it has been received in that apostolic deposit of faith, and the practice of the undivided Church of these first five centuries. The 39 Articles show this interweaving of reformed and catholic elements. Because what it does, it rejects the extremes of both the Roman understanding of Catholicism, but also the reformed understanding of how the Church should work. For example, you had this interesting interweaving in the same article of both elements. In Article 25 you have a very catholic understanding of the sacraments articulated; that they are effectual signs of grace by which God doth work invisibly in us. But then it�s qualified with a reformed emphasis that the sacraments are to receive by faith. So, they�re effectual signs of God�s working, but they�re received by faith both together there. Then another interesting combination is on scripture. This is Article 6, holy scripture is received ... they receive all the books of holy scripture, but they also, for the basis of doctrine, but they also received as well the catholic deuterocanonical books that the rest of the reformers had rejected as being not necessary for salvation as the other canonical books were, but to be used and beneficial for the example of life and the instruction of manners ... sort of working I would think like the CS Lewis of their time. How do we apply scripture? What is helpful in learning how to live as a Christian? So, they rejected those for doctrine, but they kept them because they were very good instructional material for learning to live the Christian life in a godly and holy way. In Article 20, the articles define the Church as a congregation of the faithful, where the pure word of God is preached and the sacraments are duly administered according to Christ�s ordinances. So, you have the pure word of God, but also the continuing sacraments of the Church administered according to the way Christ had ordained them in scripture. So, you�ve got those two together there as well. McDermott: Okay. Right. This reformed catholic approach that you have described as being taught by Richard Hooker and being reflected in the Anglican tradition � how do you see this in Anglican liturgy? Gauthier: Well, the first thing is a little broader than that, this reformed Catholicism is in the two great legacies that Anglicanism has given the wider Church. First, is the King James Bible, which was the Early Church�s apostolic witness to Christ and salvation. And then the other was the prayer book, Cranmer�s prayer book, which was the Church�s translation of the liturgies and sacraments and holy orders of apostolic practice. Both of these together. And you see this in the liturgy because it reflects this integration of scripture and apostolic practice. In our Anglican tradition you have faith and prayer, belief and worship are inseparately united in our liturgy because scripture and sacrament are woven inextricably together according to what we call Lex orandi, lex credendi, which means how we are to pray is how we are to believe. This is that living expression of the profound union we have between what we pray and what we believe. It embodies and gives voice to holy scripture in daily life and practice for the Church as a whole, but also for individual Anglicans. It�s how we are formed and transformed by scripture, because Cranmer thought we needed to be praying scripture in order to fully digest it, so to speak. Because how we pray shapes what we believe. Through the liturgy that is so packed with scripture, I think there have been some estimates that the prayer book contains ... 80 to 85 percent of it is taken directly from scripture. And through this liturgy in the prayer book the Holy Spirit can weave all of these scriptural truths together into the very fabric of our inmost being, so they become, as you said, not just read, mark, and learn, but also inwardly digested. McDermott: Yes, that�s that beautiful Cranmarian phrase from one of his collects, his most famous collects. Many protestants, including Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, take the approach to their own church, perhaps we could say as follows, that our church is the one true church to the exclusion of all the others. Now, is this the approach that Anglicans take or should take? Gauthier: No, actually it�s one of the charisms of Anglicanism. It has never claimed to be the one true Church to the exclusion of all the others. We regard ourselves as merely the part of the one Holy catholic and Apostolic Church that was brought to England and planted there and was spread from there throughout the world through the agency of the British Empire of all things. So, it has an openness to other traditions. For example, its being both reformed and catholic, it is able to hold hands and partner in fellowship with liturgical churches, but also with evangelical churches, and even charismatic churches because we have something in common with all of these and can actually perhaps serve as a nucleus for bringing these different denominations together and healing what we call the divisions in the Body of Christ. As one of the goals of Anglicanism is being perhaps a template for allowing the churches to come together. McDermott: Now, that�s very interesting. Anglicanism as a template, perhaps a center ... did you use that word? Center? No. Gauthier: Yeah, kind of the nucleus for- McDermott: A nucleus, that�s right. Now, you do make a provocative claim in your chapter related to what you just said. Where you say that both Rome and Geneva are moving toward what could be called an Anglican center. Could you defend that proposition? Or explain that proposition? Gauthier: Yeah, what we seem to be seeing is this convergence that�s going on. In the protestant world, for centuries, the King James Bible has been the standard and revised standard, and once even the English Standard Version has come out of that. It has been the standard throughout the protestant world. Also, portions of the Book of Common Prayer have been widely used in English speaking protestant circles. People will pick and choose, wow, I really like this, let�s bring this in. And so you get these interesting combinations of Baptists beginning to incorporate the Prayer of Humble Access in their Holy Communion services. We have more and more churches, at least in our area, evangelical churches, that are adding Ash Wednesday services- McDermott: Oh, yes. Gauthier: ... to their common life together as a church. So, you�re seeing them picking up these different sacramental expressions from Anglicanism and becoming more liturgical in spite of themselves sometimes, it seems. Then on the other hand, in the 1960s you could say that the Anglican Reformation arrived in Rome, because they accepted pretty much everything that the Anglican reformers were working towards, such as the liturgy being in the vernacular, in the language actually understood of the people who knew. Liturgies that were reformed based on these early patristic models, just as Cranmer had done. Communion of both kinds, and a renewed emphasis on the authority of scripture. Pope Benedict sent out a 2010 cyclical that stressed the incorporation of scripture into the life of the Church. That close connection between scripture and liturgy. It actually directed clergy to teach and preach scripture and call for bible-based catechism and encouraging all Catholics to be involved in adult bible studies. McDermott: Yeah. So, I guess those are some very interesting ways in which both the reformed and other kinds of protestants and also Rome itself perhaps are moving in various ways to an Anglican nucleus or an Anglican center. Now, some of my protestant friends, I don�t know about yours, Barbara, complain about us Anglicans as being more interested in smells and bells and the frills of a particular kind of worship service than in reaching the lost, in doing any real serious mission. When you look at the history of Anglicanism, would you say that Anglicans have done any serious mission? Gauthier: Well, wherever the British Empire went it took the Church of England with it. Now, to be fair, these were mostly chaplaincies established from the ex pats so that they could continue to worship in the traditional Anglican English way. But in the wake of the British Empire there were missionaries that followed. George Whitfield and John Wesley went to the British colonies in America. We have the Church Missionary Society that went to Africa and Asia a century later. And they began to work among the indigenous peoples, the non Anglicans, the non English in those areas. Through their efforts the Anglicanism began to take root among these indigenous populations. Then when the British colonies gained their independence in the 1960s, the Anglican Churches established there began to move towards becoming fully indigenous churches rooted in the culture of the people there. So, the Anglican Churches in Africa became indigenously African. We had an African American pastor here, Michael Wright, who is working with us in Anglicanism bringing the gospel more deeply into some of the underserved areas of Chicago. He went to Kenya on a mission and came back stating that he was amazed that the Anglican Church as authentically African. Which historically is just so wrong on so many different levels, but in a way it was true, because what he saw was Christianity expressed in a completely African context. He said, we want this. There is a movement now in the United States from historically, you might call missionary Baptist protestant African American congregations wanting to move more into Anglicanism and to learn to be rooted into the historic traditions of the Church. McDermott: So, it sounds like that�s your answer to the critics who have called Anglicanism historically as a perfect example of religious nationalism, or monoculturalism. Where the English in a very chauvinistic way have simply imposed their religious culture on these various different cultures, such as in Africa and in Asia and Latin America. Right? You would say that that�s not a particularly accurate reading of Anglican history? Gauthier: Well, in a way it is, but in a way it isn�t. The Anglican Church is now moved onto all continents and is being planted and rooted in many different races and nationalities. In fact, Anglo-Saxons are now a rather small minority within the total Anglican population of the world. Probably accounting for less than 20%. 80% would be non European, non Anglican English speaking peoples. But yet the thing is what has happened is that these indigenous churches � can you be Anglican without being English? That�s a critical question. McDermott: Right. Gauthier: What is happening is that these indigenous churches are realizing that they have within themselves the spiritual treasures of Anglicanism that are actually able to transcend cultural differences, and may even be able to unite the Church across cultural differences. Archbishop Henry Orombi had some very interesting things to say on this. Because that spiritual treasure of the reformers, he says, that�s founded on scripture, connected directly to the Ancient Church is now being fully inculturated in what we call the Global South. Here�s what he said, he said, �from Thomas Cranmer to Richard Hooker to the 1998 Lambeth Conference, the authority of holy scripture has always held a central and foundational role in Anglican identity. This is true for the Anglican Church in Uganda.� Then he goes on to talk about the apostolic practice. He says, �as bishops are successors to the apostles, so our focus in Uganda through the historical episcopate is on apostolic faith and ministry. A bishop is the ongoing presence and voice of the apostles. He is our link to the Early Church. And this link between bishop and apostolicity gives Anglicans our trans cultural identity.� So, you don�t have to be English to be Anglican. McDermott: Right. I must admit that I saw this when in the summer of 2018 I went to Jos Nigeria to teach at Bishop Ben Quashie�s seminary in Jos. I was impressed by how Anglican these Nigerians are, but also how African they are. It is a beautiful expression of African culture in an Anglican way. Finally, Barbara, and this will be the last question. We�re running out of time. We�ve been talking about the Anglican past and Anglican tradition and scripture and history. How do you see the future of Anglicanism? Gauthier: I think it�s interesting, the Anglican�s communion is finding itself right now at the very epicenter of this global Christian realignment that�s going on. And the shift of apostolic Christianity from what you might call the dying established churches of Europe and North America to these vibrant apostolic Christian leadership of Africa and the Global South. I love what Archbishop Orombi claimed. It was back in 2007, right before the beginning of GAFCON, is the younger churches of the Anglican Christianity will shape what it means to be Anglican. They have now begun meeting together. You have the Global South Anglicans, you have GAFCON, which is Global Anglican Futures, working together and they�re fully committed to be with each other for the renewal and restoration of the Anglican communion. This is in accordance with the same scriptural and Anglican principal set forth by the reformers that are now have been transplanted and are flourishing in the Global South in these younger churches, which include younger churches in the north, such as the Anglican Church in North America. Which find far more connection with their African, South American, and Asian Christian brothers and sisters than they do with what we would consider the Western Church. And the protestant para church organization, Campus Crusade for Christ, is now partnering with the Anglican Church of North America and the Anglican Church of Kenya to plant Anglican-friendly churches on every campus, of every college, in North America and Kenya. This is now an expanded partnership with Rwanda, Kenya, Nigeria � with them supplying the Jesus film to take into rural areas of these African countries where the Anglican Church is actively planting churches and the Jesus film is helping evangelize and bring Africans to Christ and into the Anglican Church. I think the future of Anglicanism is not only to strengthen the faith of these historic churches, as they�re doing here in North America, but also to bear witness to the world by proclaiming Christ to the nations. This is a forward-looking movement in Anglicanism for the renewal of the entire Anglican communion and of Christianity in general. It seems to me that we Anglicans in the present have already been given everything we need for the future to do the work we�ve been given to do and we can do it tougher as one, across cultures, and across national boundaries, for the healing and building up of the Church and for the redemption of the world. This is an exciting future, I�m thinking. I�m just excited to see what�s going to happen next. McDermott: Well, Barbara, thank you very much for being with us. You�re a journalist, you�re an Anglican theologian, and I just really appreciate your insight. Once again, Barbara has written a chapter called �Reformed Catholicism� in the new book, �The Future of Orthodox Anglicanism.� It came out in February, from Crossway. We encourage all of our listeners to go to Amazon or somewhere else and order this book, especially if you have more time at home in these months during this pandemic. In the meantime, thank you for joining us at Via Media. Gauthier: Thank you. Announcer: You've been listening to Via Media with host Gerald McDermott, the director of The Institute of Anglican Study Studies at Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. The Institute of Anglican Studies trains men and women for Anglican ministry, and seeks to educate the public in the riches of the Anglican tradition. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Via Media.