does not run around suspending the predictable course of nature, but that there is more to God’s creation than that for which our intellectual constructs can account.
Radical Protestantism and its expectation that the presence of the Holy Spirit is evident in unusual phenomena, such as speaking in tongues, finds its adherents within Anglicanism from time to time. We have no need to repudiate this. After all, Julian of Norwich, for one, exhibited some fairly unusual behavior. Our tendency is to look for a natural cause for such phenomena, not because we do not believe God speaks to us in this way, but because we believe that God makes himself known and is known in the ordinary routine of life. The Carmelite mystic, Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), who came to know God in the kitchen, is someone whom we can appreciate more than Simon Stylites (c. 340-459) sitting on a pillar for forty years.
Taken too far, of course, this fondness for the ordinary can make us very dull. Unless we enter into the world of the left hand, we will end up like a theological Scrooge (a character typical of English literature). The mystery of the ordinary will be dismissed with a “bah” and a “humbug.” There is a perversity within us to carry the metaphor along, which produced in Puritan times the town crier, wandering the streets of the village on the night of December 24, calling, “No Christmas tonight.” It is not that we should reduce our transcendent to the ordinary routine. It is that for the sensible consciousness the extraordinary shines through the ordinary.
Thirdly, the consciousness of Anglicanism is dominantly feminine. In medieval times England was known as the “land of Mary.” The devotions that developed about the Mother of Jesus have always found a receptive home in the British Isles. This should not be too surprising in a country which counts among its greatest monarchs several queens. There is something peculiarly compatible between a feminine consciousness — be it in a man or woman — and the Anglican outlook. This is another way of speaking of the sensibility of Anglicanism, but one that will lead to some distinguishing characteristics discussed later in this book.
We often speak of Anglican “comprehensiveness.” If this is a way of making relativism palatable or a means of accommodating all shades of opinion with no regard for truth, then it needs to be rejected. If by comprehensive we mean the priority of a dialectic quest over precision and immediate closure, then we are speaking of the Anglican consciousness at its best. This sense of a community of thought as opposed to a well-defined, definitive position, is what is meant by a feminine consciousness. This is why Anglicanism has never been a confessional church, as in the case of Lutheranism and Presbyterianism. It is the reason that while Puritanism, Latitudinarianism, Evangelicalism, Ultramontanism, Modernism and American Protestantism (i.e., a kind of banal “practical religion”) have all been embraced by some Anglicans, none of them have been capable of comprehending the Anglican experience. They are all ultimately out of place.
A particular danger of the feminine religious consciousness is that it becomes dotty, what the dictionary defines as “amiably eccentric.” In the 1980 movie “10,” the role of the priest was obviously that of an Anglican. His insincere grin, his huge dog, the flatulent, ancient housekeeper, his inane conversation, the grossly lighted portrait of himself in vestments and his terrible music were all a caricature of the dotty Anglican. It is the same genre as the novels of Anthony Trollope.
Feminine consciousness possesses a darkness, as well as a light, and it is this which protects itself against amiable eccentricity. It is helpful to keep in mind that Mother of God was the person who held both the infant at Bethlehem and the crucified body of the dead Savior. The angels and demons inhabit the awareness of reality, and herein lies the ability to speak to people in the very depths of their souls. The Puritan Richard Baxter (1615-1691) reminded us that “Christ leads us through no darker rooms than he has gone before,” and if we are not aware of those dark rooms we are missing the point. Julian put it this way. “For our sin is so foul and so horrible that our Lord in his courtesy will not reveal it to us except by the light of his mercy.”
The form of our consciousness obviously shapes what we make of our experience. This initial chapter has far-reaching implications, therefore, for the rest of this book the reader needs to carry the awareness of this particular outlook with him or her as the exploration proceeds in the subsequent chapters. It will enable, explicitly or implicitly, much to come clear.
Chapter Two
Authority in the Church
One of the fundamental questions people ask as they seek to understand their experience is: “Is what I think it is true?” If I say that the earth revolves about the sun rather than the other way around, I can rightly be asked how I know that is true. In this case, I would appeal to scientific observation, requiring hypothesis, experimentation and proof. This would be my authority. Not everyone has the time to test every statement as to its truth, and furthermore, not every claim to truth is subject to scientific verification. There is no way that by sense observation, for example, I can prove that it is wrong to tell a lie. I have to appeal to another kind of authority.
This leads to the question of religious authority. How do I know what people say God is like is true? What is my authority? The Roman Catholic Church for most of its history has been refining the idea that when the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, speaks ex cathedra (literally “from his chair” or “throne”) on matters of faith and morals he is infallible. This was finally defined at the First Vatican Council in 1869-1870. Classical Protestantism — i.e., Lutheranism and the Reformed tradition — has taught from the sixteenth century that the individual reading his Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit. Radical Protestantism has relied more on the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit. These three positions are answers to the question: What is my authority?
None of these positions represent the answer of the Anglican Communion, although all three can find representation among us. For the classical Anglican point of view on authority we can turn to the enigmatic figure of Richard Hooker (1554-1600).
Hooker was reared near Exeter in England and was spotted early as a bright young man. He studied at Oxford, was ordained, and spent most of his life preaching and writing. Apparently he was not the kind of person that stood out in a crowd and he probably made a dull dinner partner. Isaac Walton even averred that his wife, Joan Churchman, was rather dowdy. Hooker himself was appointed to several livings — i.e., received the income of a parish as vicar — but never occupied them, staying rather in the London area or near Canterbury in order to serve the controversial needs of the Church of England.
No matter what his personality might have been, Hooker was the supreme apologist for the Elizabethan settlement. Briefly, the Elizabethan settlement refers to the principles by which Anglicanism was established independent of the Pope. Anglicanism does not think of itself as “founded” by Henry VIII (1491-1547) or even by Elizabeth I (1533-1603). As Hooker did, we think of the Church of England as the Catholic Church in England, separated from Roman jurisdiction when Elizabeth I became queen in 1558. Elizabeth followed her half-sister, Mary (1516-1558) who had restored the Church of England to Roman rule after their half-brother, Edward VI’s death. The question that faced Richard Hooker was to state clearly what that meant for the Church in England to be separate from Rome.
Hooker answered this question in a running controversy with those persons in England committed to the Reformed tradition, of which John Calvin (1509-1564) was the progenitor. Calvin was the most astute theologian of the continental reformers. He shaped a theology and church polity which was clear and appealing to sixteenth century northern Europeans, including many Englishmen. His followers in England were known as the Puritans, the same people who settled in Massachusetts. Our problem as American Anglicans is that our culture holds the Puritans as heroes. To the Church of England they were defectors and even sometimes heretics.
This conflict in points of view is illustrated by the story a bishop of my acquaintance recounts. His
