Forum Thread
"Goddard 2 Goddard"

Jeremy -- I'm not sure I follow your argument here.  We could simply say that we believe the Bible and leave it at that.  But as soon as we affirm the formularies and note that they belong to a particular time and place aren't we more or less committed to transmitting them, i.e. to interpreting them afresh?  Of course we can't 'capture' the essence of biblical faith in a set of statements, but as with early creeds we set up certain boundaries, if you like, don't we? 

It is of course true that the law of prayer establishes the law of belief, in the sense that the liturgy is a source of theology, and even embedded in it.  But to what is the liturgy accountable?  We can say, like Zizioulas, that there's nothing outside it, we shouldn't abstract a confession from it.  That's precisely his problem.  Presumably the liturgy needs to be accountable to something, as the reformers demonstrated: the RC mass and other forms of lex orandi were ultimately accountable to a tradition of belief under Scripture.  I agree that the 39 Articles are unique in the family of Protestant confessions, but Reformed folk recognize it as a Reformed confession of faith, even if it's much more succinct.  It's spirit is close to Bullinger's II Helvetic, which was widely received in the Reformed churches of eastern Europe and I think serves as a remarkable starting point for confessional reflection. 

What more do we need to believe?  The Montreal Declaration attempts to set certain boundaries in matters of sexual ethics which our formularies don't address, so according to its framers we need to believe that the Bible does not mislead us when it sets forth heterosexual marriage as the only context for sexual intercourse.  Packer/Beckwith supplementary article One tries to clarify what we mean when we affirm Article One of the 39 Articles, insisting against a process-oriented theology that God is 'independent of the world He has made', etc.  I don't know about you, but my basic theological training took place in a context where process thought/panentheism and ecofeminism was in fashion, and I welcome this sort of clarification as representing a re-affirmation of the classical priority of God's transcendence at a time when it is severly contested. 

Thanks, Simon.  I take your point about Luther, and shouldn't have assumed that you're inclined to blame our individualism, insofar as it has a real downside, on the Protestant Reformation.  Some do tend to do that, hence my knee-jerk reaction.   My apologies.

It will be interesting to see where the Goddard 2 Goddard discussion goes.  There is common ground, as you'd expect in an initial friendly exchange, and the tone sets a good model for dialogue.  I witnessed the Stott - Spong debate some years ago in Vancouver, and the reason that the Stottites and the Spongites left just the way they entered that Cathedral is that the two were like ships passing in the dark, unable to find a common hermeneutic.  Of course Spong was quite a radical, so I wouldn't want to draw too close a parallel here.  It was said that the only thing he wasn't eager to thoroughly revise was the historic episcopate. 

On the link between mysticism and individualism, here's how I'd connect the dots:  mysticism encourages a direct, immediate experience of God by trying to bypass human instruments (like language itself, the Bible, the church, etc.), or at least a tendency to get beyond them or set them aside ultimately (so the Scriptures, for instance, become an 'alphabet' we use intially until they are so engraved in our hearts that we don't need the external Word -- in my own readings I've found this in the writings of, e.g. Juan de Valdes, a 16th century evangelical Catholic, although he's not unique).  Once instruments are bypassed in principle, we're left with individuals and their 'private' experience of God -- or at any rate one they imagine to be private.  What's odd is that mystics tend to be comfortable with religion as it is (K. Barth wrote that mysticism 'leaves religion in peace'), so the more obvious friend of mysticism would apparently not be individualism at all, but formal, 'collective' religion.  Hence your question, perhaps?  But Eastern Orthodoxy is an interesting case here: it's known to offer a mystical way of Christianity, but is very formalistic.  As I study the tradition, though, there's an impulse at the 'higher levels' of spiritual discipline to get beyond the images which are venerated, even though these would not seem to be things you'd want to get beyond, since in the right context they mediate the divine life and energies.  I can only assume that the immediatist impulse is there too. 

Steve, a the risk of taking the thread in a weird direction, I'd be interested to see how you make the connection between mysticism and individualism. My comment about the Reformation was that Luther's conscience marked a particular watershed in the role of the individual in interpreting the Christian faith, one that has had immense benefits to the cause of the Gospel but which, evidenced by the fragmentary nature of Protestantism, has had significant harm. I'm not blaming Luther or Protestantism, I'm simply stating what is a widely-held view of the downside of what happened.

With respect to this particular thread, it is interesting to note both Goddards appealing in some way to both individual conscience and to the catholicity of the Church in support of their view. I guess that means, while disagreeing, they share a common ground on which there is scope to build and certainly no grounds for damaging the church with further division.

I posted my comment before I saw Simon's, so let me affirm his remark that for many Anglicans the Articles mean what we want them to mean, while asking whether we should blame our individualism on the Protestant Reformation as such.  I find it in mysticism more precisely and fundamentally, since it's precisely immediatism (viz Church and sacraments, authority, etc.) and individualsm that the confessional traditions work against. 

Thanks for your question, Jeremy.   Here's where I must confess my limitations since I'm fairly new in England, and my experience is mainly in the Anglican Church of Canada.  In the Canadian BCP I can't find His Majesty's Declaration, but rather a 'Solemn Declaration' (1893) to 'by the help of God to hold and maintain the Doctrine, Sacraments, and Discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded in his Holy Word, and as the Church of England hath received and set for the same in the [BCP, etc.] . . . and in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion; and to transmit the same unimpaired to our posterity". 

So I don't know whether His Majesty's Decl. is intended to put an end to theological explorations, as you put it.  I would hope that as a subordinate (and by definition fallible) standard of doctrine the Articles could be seen today as something to be transmitted 'unimpaired' in the sense of applying them to new contexts (especially cross-cultural) and to issues that arise, while safeguarding the substance of what they affirm.  So in their own study J.I. Packer and R. Beckwith offer, as I recall, supplementary articles, arguing that while the 39 Articles are not to be superseded they still have to be carried forward.

My understanding, at least from the Canadian side of things, would be that the 39 Articles were very much, in the past at least, something to be believed, and to be commended as a faithful summary of Biblical doctrine.  A confessionalism that confuses our summaries of doctrine with Scripture itself should worry us, of course.  But can we ever do without them?  You say our assent has to do with affirming that they testified to the gospel in their context, which is of course true.  But can't we say a little more than that?  In our various Anglican traditions and networks we already summarize Biblical doctrine in various ways, explicitly or implicitly, sometimes carrying forward the Articles' basic concern and sometimes clearly not.  So all I'm calling for, particulary if/when the dust settles after current disputes, is a serious engagement with them as we do the work of putting together a formal testimony of Anglican essential beliefs today. 

Now that common testimony may very well be unrealistic in our current state, but the fact that here and there covenants and testimonies are being produced suggests that we can't really do without them.  If we take doctrine seriously we can't afford to ignore them, at any rate, no matter who puts them together.

The BCP makes it clear that the C of E has always baptisec infants. Indeed insisted upon it.   THAT is how inclusive and diverse our national Church is !  O f course to be confirmed you must at least be able to recite the Pater Noster in the vulgar tonge--and if possible know the Ten C's and the Catechism .

Pretty inclusive I'd say. Our offical liturgy and rule of faith.

Use this thread to comment on and discuss "Goddard 2 Goddard" - a frank exchange of views between Andrew Goddard (Fulcrum) and Giles Goddard (InclusiveChurch).