There are a couple of things that the Rev. Andrew Brashier’s verbiose treatment of the subject left out.
The first concerns the whole “Patristic revival” that brought things such as the Apostolic Canons back into view. He’s right that it was a background for both the Novus Ordo Missae and that dreadful 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Traditionalists of all stripes will be unenthusiastic about such a reminiscence, and those traditionalists are key to the second point. It’s worth noting that another canon that came back into view was that of the Mass, as I noted in my series on the subject.
The second point is simple: the canons aren’t worth much unless the bishops are prepared to enforce them, especially on points of “faith and morals” to use the Catholic expression. I’ll repeat my piece on James Pike; when the Episcopal Church lost its nerve on disciplining him, the end of real Christianity in that venerable institution had its beginning:
In holding his lecture in West Palm Beach, Pike was invading what was for him “enemy territory.” In an article in the July 2006 issue of Chronicles magazine, author Tom Landess reminded us of the following:
In 1966, a group led by Henry I. Louttit, bishop of the Central Archdeanery of South Florida, demanded that Pike be tried for heresy.
John Hines, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, met with Louttit and a small delegation in New York and told them he had polled key figures in the mass media, who had declared unanimously that a heresy trial would severely, disastrously damage the Church’s image.
Most of the bishops agreed. The Bishop of New York expressed the feelings of the majority: “Of all the methods of dealing with Bishop Pike’s views, the very worst is surely a heresy trial! Whatever the result, the good name of the church will be greatly injured.”
Hines asked Louttit and his cohorts to allow an ad hoc committee to address the problem more informally, less visibly. Louttit reluctantly agreed. Members of the committee met, engaged in a great deal of hand-wringing, and came back with a report that said in part:
It is the opinion that this proposed trial would not solve the problem presented to the church by this minister, but in fact would be detrimental to the church’s mission and witness…This heresy trial would be widely viewed as a “throw back” to centuries when the law in church and state sought to repress and penalize unacceptable opinions…it would spread abroad a “repressive image” of the church and suggest to many that we were more concerned with traditional propositions about God than with the faith as the response of the whole man to God.
At Wheeling, West Virginia, the House of Bishops adopted this statement by an overwhelming vote, though they also agreed to “censure” Bishop Pike – a small, dry bone tossed to Christian orthodoxy. In the above passage, two phrases — “acceptable opinions” and “repressive image” – revealed what was really going on.
Henry Louttit was a frightful bore from the pulpit, but he was right: it was heresy, and frankly it still is. People such as Pike detonated the jerk to the left that caused the Episcopal Church to lose a third of its membership in the 1970’s. Once again the Pharaohs on the left are making their move and once again God’s children are forced into exodus. But now there is a Promised Land.
But it will only be a promised land if it is lead by the likes of Moses and Joshua, and we’ll find out next week if the ACNA will put such people at the helm.
Positive Infinity 