(This post is part of a series on the 39 articles of the Church of England)
Sometimes, blogging through the articles, I find myself at one where there is very little to say. This is one such.
XXXVI. Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers
The Book of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops, and Ordering of Priests and Deacons, lately set forth in the tine of Edward the Sixth, and confirmed at the same time by authority of Parliament, doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering: neither hath it any thing, that of itself is superstitious and ungodly. And therefore whosoever are consecrated or ordered according to the Rites of that Book, since the second year of the forenamed King Edward unto this time, or hereafter shall be consecrated or ordered according to the same Rites; we decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordered.
What we can see in this article is perhaps the clearest statement of Anglicanism as a via media present in the articles. On the one hand it wishes to maintain against Rome that the ordinal contains “all things necessary” for ordaining men to the historic threefold ministry of the Church. On the other it wishes to maintain against Geneva (the Puritans) that there is nothing “superstitious and ungodly” in the rites provided.
The stubbornness with which Anglicans have clung to the threefold ministry (intensified after the Interregnum) has then and now been a cause of surprise and suspicion to many Protestants, but more than most aspects of the English Reformation has shaped and determined what is involved in the Anglican claim to be Catholic as well as Reformed. Looked at from Rome, the most baffling aspect of this retention of the orders (or at least the same names and claims for them) is the combining of episcopacy with giving the Crown-in-Parliament a role in the lay governance of the Church. Noticeably (and for the first time in the articles) the lay authority of Parliament is noted as confirming the proper validity of the Church’s holy orders.
This role of Crown-in-Parliament has been in all sorts of ways theologically problematic, even when considered as a form of lay participation in church governance. It is hard to produce a particularly strong scriptural, traditional or reasonable case for such involvement of the secular authority. Yet at the time of the articles it was not only a palpable element in constructing and reconstructing the English settlement, it was also in practice the fundamental means by which the via media was established, maintained and enforced.
As the role of Crown-in-Parliament has become increasingly formal and vestigial in England, and most Anglicans world-wide exist in provinces where it has no role at all, it is also observably true that the via media is increasingly hard to maintain. I cannot regret the slow passing of this theological oddity that gave secular power a role in the governance of the Church, although I certainly regret some of the many consequences of its passing.
While I think there have been some outstanding contributions towards an Anglican ecclesiology – most notably Michael Ramsey’s The Gospel and the Catholic Church (out of print)– this article reveals as much as any that underpinning all of Anglicanism’s more recent crises is a fundamental ecclesiological weakness, bound up with what has arguably been its greatest pragmatic strength.
11 responses so far ↓
1 Peter Kirk // Dec 18, 2007 at 12:11 am
There are some interesting things in this article, which you have not commented on:
I note two things in this paragraph:
1. The language is entirely gender generic. There is not even a doubtfully generic “man” or “he”. The implication of this is that WOMEN who “are consecrated or ordered according to the Rites of that Book” are “rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordered”. This implies that those, for example Forward in Faith I think, who deny the validity of ordination of women are denying this Article.
2. This Article is also contradicted by Rowan Williams’ Advent letter. Rowan wrote:
But these people, and for that matter Gene Robinson (as bishop), if as I presume the ordinations were carried out according to the official Ordinal, are according to this Article “rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordered”, and there is no question of their ordinations having to be “legitimised by the Communion overall”.
2 doug // Dec 18, 2007 at 12:39 am
Almost certainly these ordinations were carried out by other rites: in Gene Robinson’s case by the TEC 1979 BCP, and in the case of e.g. those recently consecrated by Peter Akinola, according to the rites of the Church of Nigeria. That is not a comment on their validity, merely a factual observation. I am not sure how many current bishops were consecrated by the BCP ordinal referred to in this article: but I imagine it is almost none.
3 Stephen (aka Q) // Dec 18, 2007 at 1:58 am
That’s quite a closing sentence:
Underpinning all of Anglicanism’s more recent crises is a fundamental ecclesiological weakness, bound up with what has arguably been its greatest pragmatic strength.
If you were inclined to unpack that a bit, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. I take it that you don’t think secular government should have an oversight role in the Church. By “ecclesiological weakness”, do you refer to the vacuum which results because the Crown doesn’t fulfill the role originally envisioned for it? What would you substitute in place of the Crown — an Anglican papacy? (I presume not.)
I’m not entirely sure what you’re referring to in the phrase “its greatest pragmatic strength”, either.
4 doug // Dec 18, 2007 at 10:17 am
Stephen, I’m afraid you may have to wait for a while. The “weakness” is essentially an insufficiently worked out account of authority. The “pragmatic strength” is the readiness to embrace anyone who self-identifies with the Church.
5 Peter Kirk // Dec 18, 2007 at 6:46 pm
Doug, technically you may be right about the precise ordination services. It didn’t stop the Bishop of Chelmsford appealing to the rubric of the Edwardine Ordinal to justify his refusal to ordain Richard Wood. In practice, surely, modern ordination services are understood to be equivalent to the Edwardine Ordinal.
So you accept that women are validly ordained at least if this is done according to the Edwardine Ordinal?
6 doug // Dec 18, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Peter, where did you get the idea that I don’t accept women are validly ordained? Are you perchance stereotyping me? (And getting it wrong)
7 Peter Kirk // Dec 19, 2007 at 12:11 am
Sorry, Doug, my mistake. Perhaps I should ask the same question about those who really do deny the possibility of the ordination of women. That’s right, they don’t oppose it, they say it cannot be done. But this Article says otherwise.
8 doug // Dec 19, 2007 at 12:19 am
Now that would be an interesting question, especially to members of Church Society and Reform who (unlike Forward in Faith - or as I have been know to unkindly characterise it, Backwards in Bigotry) explicitly claim to be defending the base of the C of E in these Articles.
9 Peter Kirk // Dec 19, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Indeed, but do the Church Society and Reform claim that it is impossible to ordain women, or only that it is wrong to do so? Actually I think Reform accepts ordination of women as long as they remain in suitably submitted roles e.g. curates but not incumbents - but I may need to be corrected on that.
10 Peter Kirk // Dec 19, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Anglican Mainstream has posted an article by a Canadian conservative making the same point as I was trying to make in a previous comment about the extra-territorial ordinations in Canada, and by analogy in the USA, being valid, even if they go against official jurisdictions.
11 doug // Dec 19, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I suspect this is an argument which will go nowhere fast. The question mark over some of these ordinations comes I think from the argument that they are appointments of bishops to split the church, and therefore not appointments with the intent to consecrate bishops for the church. Bishops are not meant to be inter-continental episcopal missiles. I, however, was not mounting any particular argument over specific appointments, rather observing that an inadequate account of ecclesial authority goes back to the articles, and is not simply a recent development. (And this lack lies at the heart of the current problems)
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