A good discussion below got me thinking again about the whole issue of denominationalism. I used t be a branch theorist–an ecclesiology much pilloried over at Pontificator and other sites. That’s the theory that the Great Tradition of the church essentially branched into three recognized ecclesial forms all maintaining the marks of the church, canon, creed, and apostolic succession: The Orthodox, the Catholic, and the Anglican. I no longer hold to that and have stepped back from it to return to my Lutheran understanding of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Here’s a bit from the Large Catechism:

The Creed denominates the holy Christian Church,
communionem sanctorum, a communion of saints; for both
expressions, taken together, are identical. But formerly
the one [the second] expression was not there, and it has
been poorly and unintelligibly translated into German
eine Gemeinschaft der Heiligen, a communion of saints. If
it is to be rendered plainly, it must be expressed quite
differently in the German idiom; for the word ecclesia
properly means in German eine Versammlung, an assembly.
But we are accustomed to the word church, by which the
simple do not understand an assembled multitude, but the
consecrated house or building, although the house ought
not to be called a church, except only for the reason
that the multitude assembles there. For we who assemble
there make and choose for ourselves a particular place,
and give a name to the house according to the assembly.

Thus the word Kirche (church) means really nothing else
than a common assembly and is not German by idiom, but
Greek (as is also the word ecclesia); for in their own
language they call it kyria, as in Latin it is called
curia. Therefore in genuine German, in our mother-tongue,
it ought to be called a Christian congregation or
assembly (eine christliche Gemeinde oder Sammlung), or,
best of all and most clearly, holy Christendom (eine
heilige Christenheit).

So also the word communio, which is added, ought not to
be rendered communion (Gemeinschaft), but congregation
(Gemeinde). And it is nothing else than an interpretation
or explanation by which some one meant to explain what
the Christian Church is. This our people, who understood
neither Latin nor German, have rendered Gemeinschaft der
Heiligen (communion of saints), although no German
language speaks thus, nor understands it thus. But to
speak correct German, it ought to be eine Gemeinde der
Heiligen (a congregation of saints), that is, a
congregation made up purely of saints, or, to speak yet
more plainly, eine heilige Gemeinde, a holy congregation.
I say this in order that the words Gemeinschaft der
Heiligen (communion of saints) may be understood, because
the expression has become so established by custom that
it cannot well be eradicated, and it is treated almost as
heresy if one should attempt to change a word.

But this is the meaning and substance of this addition: I
believe that there is upon earth a little holy group and
congregation of pure saints, under one head, even Christ,
called together by the Holy Ghost in one faith, one mind,
and understanding, with manifold gifts, yet agreeing in
love, without sects or schisms. I am also a part and
member of the same a sharer and joint owner of all the
goods it possesses, brought to it and incorporated into
it by the Holy Ghost by having heard and continuing to
hear the Word of God, which is the beginning of entering
it. For formerly, before we had attained to this, we were
altogether of the devil, knowing nothing of God and of
Christ. Thus, until the last day, the Holy Ghost abides
with the holy congregation or Christendom, by means of
which He fetches us to Christ and which He employs to
teach and preach to us the Word, whereby He works and
promotes sanctification, causing it [this community]
daily to grow and become strong in the faith and its
fruits which He produces.

We further believe that in this Christian Church we have
forgiveness of sin, which is wrought through the holy
Sacraments and Absolution, moreover, through all manner
of consolatory promises of the entire Gospel. Therefore,
whatever is to be preached concerning the Sacraments
belongs here, and, in short, the whole Gospel and all the
offices of Christianity, which also must be preached and
taught without ceasing. For although the grace of God is
secured through Christ, and sanctification is wrought by
the Holy Ghost through the Word of God in the unity of
the Christian Church, yet on account of our flesh which
we bear about with us we are never without sin.

Everything, therefore, in the Christian Church is ordered
to the end that we shall daily obtain there nothing but
the forgiveness of sin through the Word and signs, to
comfort and encourage our consciences as long as we live
here. Thus, although we have sins, the [grace of the]
Holy Ghost does not allow them to injure us, because we
are in the Christian Church, where there is nothing but
[continuous, uninterrupted] forgiveness of sin, both in
that God forgives us, and in that we forgive, bear with,
and help each other.

But outside of this Christian Church, where the Gospel is
not, there is no forgiveness, as also there can be no
holiness [sanctification]. Therefore all who seek and
wish to merit holiness [sanctification], not through the
Gospel and forgiveness of sin, but by their works, have
expelled and severed themselves [from this Church].

I don’t agree with all of this–especially his reading on the communion of the saints. What I do take away from it is the notion that the true One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is a body of believers who are the true Body of Christ who cut across all communion and denomination lines. This is the collection of people who truly are joined to Christ in love, not limited by human rules. And, of course, we don’t know who they are but–to my mind–authoritative claims on who’s in and who’s out seem certainly not to match with what the gospels reveal of Jesus.

Anyway, In the previous discussion, I made a tongue-in-cheek comment that nobody jumped on. I’d like to bring it to the fore:

I don’t believe that Jesus’s comment [“that they all may be one”]necessarily means that denominations shouldn’t exist… I know that flies in the face of protestant ecumenical interpretations of the last hundred years, however, Since I believe that the Spirit is at work in the divided Church I have to belive that the division is for some good. I think that the good is that various denominations help remind one another of aspects that other traditions have minimized. We need Lutherans to remind us of justification by grace; we need Methodists to remind us of a Spirit-filled call to holiness; we need Episcopalians to properly pair wine and cheese.

Do you agree? Do denominations serve a holy purpose or are they only signs of human sin? Do Anglicans in general and Episcopalians in particular have anything distinctive to offer the Body of Christ besides really good wine and cheese parties?

I asked M this and she replied without hesitation–“Of course: Benedictine spirituality.” I had to laugh; we have a one-track mind. I do think that one of the things that the Anglican Church has preserved is a Benedictine form of spirituality adopted for the lay condition. *Both* the Offices and the Mass have an important place in our tradition and learning and the literary arts–key aspects of Benedictine culture–have traditionally informed the Anglican way of being.

There’s no doubt that Christianity across denominations is going through a huge upheaval right now because of postmodernism, postcolonialism, the Internet, and a host of other factors. This would seem to be a really good time to seize hold of a strong organizing principle, especially as our churches seem to be looking for a path and a stable identity. How about this one for ECUSA?

What is this? How could this happen? What does this mean about and for Lutheran and Methodist Eucharistic and sacramental theologies? I only know 2 Methodists who have a eucharistic theology remotely close to a Lutheran one; one comments here, the other is his teacher. Seriously, people, I’m all for people getting together but this move towards church unity through fuzzy/misleading theology has got to stop…

This looked very interesting. I respect Dr. Seitz work–the little I’ve heard of it. This is clearly fragmentary but I fifnd myself in a different place from where I think he’s going because there’s a turn he doesn’t quite make (or that I don’t make in going where he says I go…)

I take as my starting point James Sanders’ work Torah and Canon as a starting point for thinking about how the Old and New Testaments fit together. Sanders basically argues that the Prophets, Wisdom, the other stuff is essentially reflection upon the Torah. Even the historical materials are theological documents that parse things different ways based on theological perspectives. The NT, then, is reflection upon the Torah in light of the person of Jesus Christ–the fulfillment (personification?) of the Torah. I don’t remember Sanders advocating, and in my appropriation of his work I do not see that the notion of “development” is a useful one. For one thing, dating plays havoc with any notion of linear “development”. Yeah, NT is reflection of a different order–that’s ’cause something really big happened to make it go that way!

I think that Dr. Seitz sets up unnecessary binaries here. There is an us and a them. But it’s not really that easy. My biggest issue with this reporting of his words (not his complete words or complete thought because I don’t know them for certain) is that he does not state how “orthodox” Bible-believers work with contradictory statements and entire lines of thought within the Scriptures. (After all, that’s why alternate ideas were floated…) Why is the notion of different/alternate reflections upon the same formative material and experiences so threatening? How can you look at 1 & 2 Kings, then at 1 & 2 Chronicles and not see that there wrestling with the same stuff but in fundamentally different ways for different reasons–most of which are theological? It goes back to the gospels–do we go back to clumsy attempts at harmonization or do we recognize that we have four different accounts utilizing interdependent sources? What is he advocated here? Thoughts?

On Homer…

The Odyssey is such a terrific book. If you haven’t read it recently, please do. The Robert Fitzgerald translation, please.

The *only* flaw with it is that it doesn’t end; it just stops.

Hecatombs here, there, and everywhere. Is our God as real to us as what Homer portrays?

My most substantive thought is that here we have one of the great epics of history constantly underlining and underscoring one of the primary virtues of civilized people, one of the primary virtues of the Old Testament, one of the primary virtues of the New Testament, definitely one of the prime virtues of the Benedictine tradition…do you know what I’m talking about?

Hospitality. Hospitality is absolutely central to the plot of the Odyssey. I would argue that both in liberal and conservative, Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical circles, this is one of the least understood and practiced of the virtues. And I don’t just mean the constantly used yet ambiguous defined “inclusion” either. I mean good old-fashioned Homeric style, Abrahamic, Johannine, and Matthean style hospitality. The kind that would take an absolute nobody who washed up on the freakin’ shore and outfit a boat to take them wherever in the Aegean they needed to go kind of hospitality. A hospitality that gives cold water and receives people into their communties kind of hospitality. I’m not talking about some loosey-goosey permissiveness here, I mean honest-to-God hospitality.

I sure know that I don’t do it and I’m not sure how I’d go about starting but…damn. What if we did?

Well–duh!

After analyzing Ælfric’s kerygma, I’ll make a few statements. It basically comes down to two main concepts, one from God’s side, one from ours. The divine initiative is alysednysse, redemption. This is how God acts; this is who Jesus is. Now, this ain’t justification by faith through grace. Instead, redemption for Ælfric is God’s act that makes it possible for us to attain our salvation. How? Well, that’s the other concept: gehyrsumnysse–obedience. This is our response. God created humanity to dwell with him and the angels because of the disobedience of the tenth angelic host, now the demonic order. Despite a really low bar, humanity failed through the devil’s deceptions. In being obedient to the devil rather than God, we swore allegiance to the wrong overlord and are now getting hell for it. Literally. God’s redemptive acts zero everything out. We can start again. Thus, we must determine our true overlord–God or the Devil–and act accordingly.

For Ælfric, worship, faith, and obedience are all tied up in a big package together. In a moving passage on the foundation of idolatry he portrays humanity falling on its knees before the demon-possessed idols and crying out: “You are our gods and we set our faith and hope/trust in you!” Simultaneously, he is giving us a picture of idolatrous worship and of the oath-taking service between an Anglo-Saxon retainer and his lord. Worship is allegiance. Allegiance is obedience.

The last post got me thinking about this so I thought I’d share…

Interestingly enough, the modern study of Old English (quick note: the language is Old English, the culture is Anglo-Saxon; people don’t speak Anglo-Saxon) was kicked off by the English Reformation. One of the topoi used to justify the Reformation was the restoration of the Ecclesia Anglicana defined as the “authentic” English church before its corruption by Romish and Papistical practices. The way these apologists handled it was by looking at Ælfric’s sermons… In fact, the very first OE text ever *printed* on the printing press was Catholic Homily 2.15, one of Ælfric’s sermons for Easter where he speaks in some detail about the Eucharist. This was done to prove that the “authentic” English Church didn’t buy into “that transubstantiation crap”… That was less than the last word on the subject, though, scholars, church historians and others have been arguing ever since then about the true meaning of the sermon. (Fr. Former Priest among them, Anastasia…) Here’s the bottom line. There were two guys, Radbertus and Ratramnus, Catholics claim the first as teaching proto-transubstantiation, Calvinists claim the second as teaching a purely symbolic understanding–both wings are over-reaching in my book. Anyway, Ælfric deftly merges the two, using the arguments from Ratramnus but the illustrations from Radbertus. So does he support it or not? Well, he certainly supports a literal Real Presence but doesn’t seem much to care about precise definitions of how it happens.

My realization is these apologist who appealed to Ælfric unknowingly did something rather interesting. First, they strengthened the Benedictine character and heritage of the emerging Anglican church (always a good thing in my book). Second, in arguing from Ælfric, they lept back to a pre-scholastic period. The true, formal, and proper definition of transubstantiation comes with Scholasticism and wasn’t formalized until that great scholastic century, the 13th (4th Lateran Council, 1215). Thus, these apologists were essentially advocating an Anglicanism heartily informed by *early* medieval Catholicism rather than *high* medieval Catholicism. I’m likin’ the way they were thinkin’… ;-)

As I’ve said before on this blog, the Western Christian Tradition can’t be reduced to a single big ‘T’ Tradition. There are strands; there are periods. You learn a lot about any liturgical enthusiast by considering what century they want to model off of and why. For instance, the Ritualists and Anglo-Catholics take the 14/15th centuries as their model. They essentially want to pretend as if the Reformation didn’t happened. The most recent liturgical renewal movement prefered the 4th century. They want to go back to the earliest complete sources and wipe out the intervening 16 hundred years. This line of thought adds fuel to MY fire…maybe an early medieval, more Benedictine, less Scholastic, style hearkens most clearly to the intent of at least one section of the Anglican Reformers. Hmmm. I’m going to have to look into that a bit more…

Found here. Hat-tip to Dr. Nokes.

In reponse to bls’s comment–here’s some real early medieval theology for ya! It’s a chunk of chapter 2 wherein I collect from several sources the fundamental narrative that Aelfric works from. My working title for this file is “Aelfric’s Kerygma.” Enjoy…

Ælfric constantly returns to a core narrative of redemption throughout his homilies and other writings. While the content of this narrative is implicit inhis works, he explicitly presents it in four texts: the first sermon of the first book of the Catholic Homilies (CH I.1) where it is most clearly and directly defined, the Letter to Sigeweard (Sige) where it is interwoven with the whole history of Israel, and the Letter to Wulfgeat (Wulf) and the second Letter to Wulfstan (2Lup) where it appears in summary.
The heart of the narrative is the story of the creeds: The Holy Trinity, one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is eternal and pre-existent. [CH I.1.6-9, 17-21; Sige.30-44; Wulf] The Trinity–primarily through the Father and the Son–created the world, all things seen and unseen. [CH I.1.9-13, 21; Sige.28-34; Wulf] The Holy Spirit holds all things in life and forgives those who truly repent [Sige.40-44; Wulf].
In the process of creation, God created ten angel hosts. [CH I.1.22-26; Sige.51-54; Wulf] The tenth host, led by Lucifer, rebelled against God on account of Lucifer’s pride [CH I.1.29-43; Sige.67-101; Wulf] and were cast from heaven. [CH I.1.43-45; Sige.101-105] This host exists now as the demonic order. [CH I.1.26-27, 34-39, 57-62; Sige.105-107; Wulf] In order to replace this host, [CH I.1.62-64; Sige.113-116] God created humanity–first Adam, then Eve–and placed them in the garden, [CH I.1.64-73, 86-94; Sige.108-113; Wulf] presenting the tree in the center of the garden as a test of obedience and loyalty–the loyalty that Satan and his host lacked. [CH I.1.74-83; Sige.116-117] Through the devil’s trickery Eve was deceived [CH I.1.125-139; Sige.117-118; Wulf] and humanity disobeyed God’s command, [CH I.1.139-142; Sige.118-119; Wulf] receiving dismisal from the garden and death as a consequence. [CH I.1.142-154; Sige.119-120; Wulf]
From Adam came Noah who had three sons; [CH I.1.181-190; Sige.158-161] after God led them through the flood, [CH I.1.191-202; Sige.150-156, 195-197] the eldest of the sons, Shem was the ancestor of the Hebrews [CH I.1.222-231; Sige.239-241] whom God rescued from Egypt [CH I.1.232; Sige.325-359] and to whom the Law was given. [CH I.1.232; Sige.366-370]
From the Hebrew people God chose the Blessed Virgin Mary [CH I.1.236-241; Sige.891-892; Wulf] from whom Jesus was born incarnate by the Holy Spirit. [CH I.1.241-245; Wulf] Jesus performed a great many miracles that the people might believe that he was the Son of God. [CH I.1.253-261; Sige.900, 913-917] He taught that humanity must believe rightly in God, be baptized, and demonstrate faith with good works. [CH I.1.261-264] Fundamentally, though, he came for the redemption of humanity. [CH I.1.245-246, 270-273; Sige.918; Wulf] The devil used Judas to incite the Jews to kill Jesus [CH I.1.265-275] and he was crucified. [CH I.1.275-276; Sige.917-918; Wulf] After the crucifixion he was buried [CH I.1.276-277; Wulf] and descended into hell where he conquered the devil [CH I.1.277-278; Wulf] and freed Adam, Eve, and their descendants. [CH I.1.278-280; Wulf] He arose from the dead on the third day [CH I.1.280-281; Sige.918-919; Wulf] and rejoined his disciples, teaching them that they must go throughout the earth, teaching and baptizing. [CH I.1.281-284] On the fortieth day he ascended bodily into heaven and was seated at the right hand of the Father. [CH I.1.284-287; Sige.919-920; Wulf] He will come at the end of time on the clouds with great power and will raise all souls that they may be judged. [CH I.1.287-291; Sige.920-921; Wulf] The wicked will be cast into eternal fire; the righteous he will bring into the heavenly kingdom. [CH I.1.291-293; Sige.922; Wulf]

Things are proceeding well:
* M will be deaconing at our parish in Philly. Yay! It’s not a job, but at least she’ll be able to do some of the things that she’s called to do.
* We’ve been a little concerned with all the marketing, all the ads, all the Sanata/Frosty/Rudolph movies that Lil’ G may be unclear on the true meaning of Christmas. Not to worry. When we asked her what Christams is about at the dinner table a few nights ago she sang Happy Birthday to Jesus–then proceeded to blow out the Advent wreath…
* Chapter two has fit together with a big clunk. Not only do I now know all of the consitutent parts, I now know exactly how they fit together. Short form: The early medievals considered Scritpure to be eschatological epic. That is, it is a grand narrative of Christ’s battle against the devil for the redemption of humanity. Everything gets fit into this pattern. The exegetical tools are those of the literary arts becsause they allow the patterns of the redemption story to be found in isolated pericopes and the OT. The liturgical year too is a variant of this eschatological epic especially as it begins–in most early medieval kalendars–with Christmas (the birth of the hero) and ends with Advent (his triumphant return at the great Day of Judgement).
* Transit strike. Not so bad; I walk about 40-odd blocks and don’t get in terribly later than I usually do. It’s fun to whine about it though! ;-) I have no sympathy for the union. I only get a 3% cost of living increase and have to pay a hell of a lot more than 1% for basic benefits. My salary’s fairly comparable too but I have to have quite a bit more schooling (which, let’s not forget, costs money and still has to be paid back) to do my job. Oh well. We’re hoofin’ it for the foreseeable future.