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Chris Findley’s piece (Why) Are Priests and the Liturgy Necessary for Holy Communion? is an interesting exploration of the topic, but it’s also (for me at least) an illustration of some of the weaknesses of the way Anglicans “do theology.”  Perhaps it’s too much to ask in one internet piece (which need to be brief and to the point) but I’d like to point out some of the things that Findley manages to dodge in his presentation.

Why are Priests Really Necessary?

We’ll start with the central question of the piece.  He responds as follows:

The short answer is because the charge of conducting the sacraments is an apostolic charge for the care of the Church.

That leaves the serious questions unanswered.  We know that Our Lord himself instituted the Holy Communion and Paul is a witness that this was continued in the New Testament church, and Findley underscores that.  Although, as Findley notes, the institution was done with the disciples (soon to be apostles, Judas excepted,) does this really restrict its celebration to the priests? Citing the 2019 Book of Common Prayer expresses the way Anglicans are supposed to understand the role without really justifying it.

The problem is that there isn’t a unity in Anglicanism either on whether their bishops are successors to the Apostles or whether their priestly role in the Eucharist is a sacrificing one.  You can get Anglicans to blow their stack (and I have) for suggesting that Anglican bishops are successors to the Apostles, and my guess is that Findley would rather avoid that kind of unpleasantness.  Those who object to the successor idea generally tie the issue of successors to the issue of the role of the priest.  But there’s no reason to do this.  In fact, the whole idea of a sacrificing priesthood–one which is borrowed from Roman Catholicism–is patently unBiblical, as I noted here.  But again you can get into trouble in some circles for saying that.

Why Do We Have a Liturgy?

One would think that anyone who would “join up” with an Anglican church would accept the liturgy as a given, but that’s not always the case these days.  I think the simple answer to this question is “why not?”  In other words, why is it superior for some person in skinny jeans (to say nothing of the cheap polyester suits we had to endure in the 1970’s) to get up and ad-lib it to celebrate the sacred mysteries?  The advantage of the liturgy is that it insures (if the liturgy is properly constructed) that all of the theological and penitential bases are covered.  The liturgy should express what the Holy Communion is all about and how one should prepare oneself to receive it.  Some emphasize the aesthetic superiority of liturgical worship, but focusing on that at the expense of theological integrity is a big reason the Anglican/Episcopal world is in the mess it’s in these days.

Why Is It a Sacrament?

In the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, a sacrament is defined as “an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.”  The whole concept of sacramental theology is controversial in some circles, who believe that grace is infused (if they use that terminology) only when someone received Christ by faith.  The Baptists and others like them have traditionally referred to those things that Anglicans call sacraments as ordinances, just to underscore the difference.  (Why, in a Reformed context, people who are absolutely elected and persevere need any kind of additional grace is another issue.)  However, I think that sacramental theology is justified provided that the necessary preparatory prerequisites are fulfilled, and I’ve discussed this both relating to Baptism and the Holy Communion.  Whether the church has the authority to dispense this is another subject that Findley asserts without really showing whether it’s true or not, but that again is tied up with the nature of the church and the apostolic succession.

What is the Holy Communion?

This is the biggest dodge of all; Findley concentrates on the effect of the Eucharist at the expense of its nature.  I’ll not bore everyone with my thoughts on this subject; Anglicanism has been all over the map on this subject, it is still the subject of extensive (and sometimes heated) debate.  Like the apostolic succession, the nature of the Eucharist brings up too much unpleasantness.  Another interesting topic which, Lord willing, I plan to take up down the road is the relationship of the faith of the church to the nature of the Eucharist.  But that, people, is another post.

 

 

 

The ANCA’s 2019 Book of Common Prayer is just starting its first full liturgical year, and the ACNA has thoughtfully put out this guide to same for this year.  You can download the Sunday, Holy Day, and Commemoration Lectionary, Year A ~ 2019–2020: The Anglican Church in North America, The Book of Common Prayer (2019) here.

A few comments are in order:

• The ANCA opted for a three-year lectionary, denoted “A,” “B” and “C” in the same manner as the Roman Catholics do.  It’s also worth nothing that the ACNA’s “Year A” and the RCC’s “Year A” are the same, even though the readings are different.
• I always loved Anglican/Episcopal calendars with the vestment colours in them, but I wish that the ACNA would lose the use of blue during Advent in place of purple.  Blue is the colour of the Lodge; purple did fine for Advent until recently.
• They have included readings from “The Apocrypha,” which should raise some eyebrows here and there.
• I’ll save my cranky thoughts on the period between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday for a later post.  I think that RCC, TEC and ACNA have botched this.

It seems that I gravitate towards following the “loose cannons” on the Anglican warship.  In the past those included David Moyer (who ultimately did the right thing,) John Hepworth, Chuck Murphy, and later Tory Baucum, Truro Anglican’s rector until this happened:

The Rev. Dr. Tory Baucum, rector of Truro Anglican Church since 2007 has resigned, renouncing his orders in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). He will be received into the Roman Catholic Church in 2020.

A fact-finding investigation will examine a number of grievances alleged in the treatment of Truro staff and congregants by Baucum.

“In the ‘me-too’ environment we find ourselves in, we want to be clear that none of the grievances alleged are sexual in nature. The grievances presented include numerous and broad complaints from staff about workplace mistreatment, and questionable treatment of congregants,” said a church spokesman.

I think we’ve got another case of “ego inflatable to any size,” but I think I should explain my interest in this subject.  It comes primarily from working at the denominational level.

Like so many Christian “traditions,” people in the church I’m a part of now were taught to reverence their clergy, and in many cases ascribe qualities to them which are the stuff of hagiography but not reality.  Don’t get me wrong, we had and have many fine men and women in ministry who work sacrificially to pastor their flocks or conduct other ministries.  But we also have those who, leaving behind Our Lord’s call to servant leadership, prefer to lord over the Gentiles.  This is flatly contrary to what Jesus came to teach and charge his ministers–and laity–to live.

Unfortunately–and this is especially true in times of ecclesiastical upheaval–it’s easy for those who do lord over the Gentiles to rise to prominence.  That tendency is true across the liberal/conservative divide and in the many “traditions” we have.  It’s at the core of many of the falls we see in ministry these days.  The Anglican/Episcopal world is not immune to this, much of its own past propaganda notwithstanding.

At this point I am not sure whether Baucum will enter the Ordinariate or be laicized like David Moyer.  Either way, that brings up something else: the main attraction of Roman Catholicism these days is that of authority, although the current Occupant of St. Peter’s see is the loosest cannon of all!  It makes sense that one who wants to “lord over the Gentiles” would gravitate towards the RCC, although unless you are much higher up than Baucum will be you’ll learn humility pretty quickly.

The best system is one where the laity, the people of God and the church themselves, are able to counterweight their clergy in a reasonable fashion.  It looks like that’s what happened at Truro and now Baucum will have to find a place–if it’s out there–to exercise his lordship somewhere else.

One of the more interesting items on this blog (some don’t think there are any, but I digress) is the McPherson-Bogard Debate, between one of the most important figures in early modern Pentecost and one of the most illustrious representatives of fundamental Baptist belief and practice.  The fact that the Pentecostals were represented by a woman does relate to the current topic, but that’s for another post.

In those days the two disputants got into a church with a crowd and went at it.  Today in the Anglican/Episcopal world two or more get on a blog or blogs and produce extended pieces which many won’t understand and hopefully won’t degenerate into a food fight.  Mercifully the recent debate between Emily McGowin on the one side and Lee Nelson and Blake Johnson on the other didn’t do that.  It concerns the possibility of ordaining women to the priesthood or not, a debate that has continued in the Anglican Church in North America since its founding.

It’s easier to start with the rejoinder: at the risk of oversimplification, Nelson and Johnson state that, since Christ was male, it is necessary for a male to represent him at the altar, thus women cannot do this task.  This is familiar to any one who has moved in the Roman Catholic world.  The problem with this is that it presupposes an unbiblical ecclesiology.  It requires that the celebrant, as a priest, represent Christ at the altar, and thus be empowered to effect the transformation of the elements as Our Lord did at the Last Supper and Paul enjoined us to continue in the Eucharist.  That in turn leads to the whole concept of the Mass as a present sacrifice, which I deal with elsewhere.

At the risk of being repetitious and otiose, let me remind my readers of the following:

Again, new Levitical priests are continually being appointed, because death prevents their remaining in office; but Jesus remains for all time, and therefore the priesthood that he holds is never liable to pass to another. And that is why he is able to save perfectly those who come to God through him, living for ever, as he does, to intercede of their behalf. This was the High Priest that we needed–holy, innocent, spotless, withdrawn from sinners, exalted above the highest Heaven, one who has no need to offer sacrifices daily as those High Priests have, first for their own sins, and then for those of the People. For this he did once and for all, when he offered himself as the sacrifice. The Law appoints as High Priests men who are liable to infirmity, but the words of God’s oath, which was later than the Law, name the Son as, for all time, the perfect Priest. (Hebrews 7:23-28 TCNT)

We don’t need a priest representing God any more.  We have one perfect priest, Jesus Christ.  We may appoint someone to represent us before him when we gather together, but Our Lord needs neither representative nor substitute.  I’ve debated this subject in the past and you can read that here and here.

Once that is posited, Nelson’s and Johnson’s case collapses.  That doesn’t entirely solve the issue, and it brings another one to light: the whole nature of the church.  When the ACNA was started I noted that there were two major issues of division that remained unresolved: WO (this one) and the Reformed-Anglo-Catholic divide.  The two are related;  McGowin actually touches on this issue in her response but doesn’t really pursue it.  In American feminism the custom is to superimpose postmodern ideas of equality on existing structures without considering the merits of those structures to start with, and the result is cognitive dissonance.  The same problem applies to same-sex civil marriage: it never occurred to anyone to debate whether civil marriage was working for heterosexuals before extending the franchise to same-sex couples.

Anglicanism is metastable in its ecclesiology; it started out by combining a Reformed (how Reformed it is depends on whether you equate Reformed with Calvinist or not) theology and an episcopal church structure.  The Anglo-Catholics called their bluff and today we have a “communion” which doesn’t have a unified ecclesiology.  That’s the source of many of Anglicanisms problems today, and it’s going to take more than GAFCON or a covenant to ultimately resolve them.