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Notes from the 1994 Anglican Conference

October 26 - 29, Colorado Springs, Colorado

These are my notes taken during the 1994 Anglican Conference with an HP 100LX palmtop computer. I've done a little editing since the conference ended, but these notes should still be considered a "raw" writeup. My comments appear in brackets. Some are personal, but I've decided not to censor them because I'm too lazy to maintain two copies :-).

That last punctuation prompts me to say a word about a couple symbols I have used here. For those unfamiliar with computer jargon, the "smiley" is a glyph created by a colon, hyphen, and right parenthesis, like this ":-)." It is a new punctuation mark invented by users of the Internet computer network over a decade ago, chosen because it looks like a sideways smiley face. It is used to represent humorous intent after phrases which, if taken literally and at face-value, would cause undesired controversy. It is best interpreted by imagining the author smiling wryly at that point in the prose. I also used it in these notes when the audience laughed particularly loudly.

The other symbol is three underscores in brackets, like this "[___]." It is shorthand for the phrase, "I didn't catch the source of this quotation." I regret that I did not using that symbol consistently while taking notes. I did my best to use quotations only when I was certain I could capture what was said verbatim, but I know I missed using the symbol in places. So although it's safe to attribute most quotes to the speakers themselves, some were quotations they cited from different sources.

Finally, I regret that I was unable to take notes during Rt. Rev. Alpha Mohammed's lecture. It was a moving, spiritual testimony of God's work in Tanzania, and I was concentrating so hard on what he was saying that I never turned on my palmtop. I had the opportunity to meet him the next day, and I can sincerely say that I saw our Lord's face when I looked into his eyes.

Reverently Submitted,

Tim Chambers
11/2/94

10/26/94

Rev. Dr. Alister McGrath. Renew Anglican vision. Ascend above rut of everyday life. Don't borrow vision. Don't be reactive. The middle way: not mediocrity. Not "shabby" compromise, "lukewarm," avoiding offense. Put the truth to use "wherever it comes from."

Via media originated in the late 16th century under Elizabeth I. "Medieval church needed to be reformed," but needed to be preserved as anchor back to early Christian church. We must "return to our historical roots."

New Testament doesn't relay cases of church wondering what its purpose was.

Oxford, 1820. Church lost its purpose. "The Oxford Movement" -- major renewal. "Rediscover roots of faith."

Don't forget that something that has become common to us may be new to someone else. View the faith from the perspective of someone not yet a Christian.

"Affirmation of continuity." "A sense of awe in the presence of history." [___, church historian]

"The reason we are Christians...is because of the faithfulness of past generations." View it as a family tree -- discover the history to learn more about who we are. Sense of responsibility.

Contemporary significance is that denominations are losing significance. It's more important that it's a Christian church. Bad news is society doesn't see the importance of being an Anglican. Good news is [I missed this.]

Fundamentalism and liberalism. Or right and left fundamentalism. "The Fundamentals" [title of a book?] was written by missionaries in 1920s. Now characterized by arrogance and a concern for "having nothing to do with an unbelieving world." They don't have much influence in the Anglican church, but they cause concern when it appears the church isn't taking a stand. Liberalism is the greater attraction. It's about generosity. "In essentials, agreement; in nonessentials, toleration; in all things, charity." [___] One of liberalism's weaknesses is that it "depends on the faith of others, from which it chooses to dissent to varying degrees." Instead of making Christianity credible to a secular culture, liberalism has imposed secularism on Christianity. Look at Germany in the 1930s. German culture turned to the Nazis. Christianity tried to adapt, so it sympathized with the Nazis. The flaw is that culture will take a turn you don't like, such as Thatcherism in Britain :-).

So don't retreat from the world, and don't collapse into the world.

Via media also encourages different Anglicans to get along with each other.

Evangelism is the defense and proclamation of the faith in a culture that is drifting from Christianity. "Mission is the mother of all theology." Trying to explain the faith to non-Christians puts theology in context. There are three components of the faith: apologetics, evangelism, and spirituality. Anglicans are good at apologetics.

We need to be interdependent. No one has all it takes to hold the church together. Our common task is to evangelize. Recognize each others' strengths. Political analysts tell us that Northern Ireland's outbreak of peace stems from weariness of conflict.

Via media is often ridiculed. Anglicans stand in the middle of the road, and they get run over. Be neither imprisoned nor marginalized by the world.

Antonio Gramsci's definition of an organic intellectal: one who emerges naturally instead imposing authority. "They've earned our respect."

Richard Hooker: a pastoral theologian.

Bp. Butler: denied John Wesley's right to preach in his diocese.

10/27/94

Rt. Rev. Michael E. Marshall: Homily.

Will talk about three apostles. Peter (order, the churchman), Paul (evangelism), John ("radical freedom," the "radical").

No one denomination is strong enough "to convert this culture. I'm willing to go to the stake on that."

There is bird called a Jona in Galilee. Jesus makes a play on words: "Simon son of Jona." Revelation is not of flesh & blood -- it's a gift from God.

Simon = sandy. [I'm not sure if he was seriously implying an etymology or not.]

Order is not an end in itself. It is a structure that leads to freedom. Structure & spontaneity belong together.

Sacraments without the word become cultic; culture without sacraments become cerebral. You "cannot have God as your father without the church as your mother." Keep the country the mother -- it was the father in Japan and Germany during WW II.

The word, the sacraments, and the spirit. Spirit = charisma = John. Word = Paul. Sacraments = Peter.

CCC = Catholic Cardiac Condition = hardening of the arteries.

Luke's story of a woman wiping Jesus's feet with her tears. Those who forgive much, love much; those who forgive little, love little. Peter was crucified upside down because he always did get it backwards :-).

3 types of Christians: those who want the king without the kingdom, those who want the kingdom without the king, and those who pretend the church is the kingdom. Peter was the 3rd kind. We should pray for the conversion of the church.

Conference Lecture

"The credentials of Anglicanism." Requires courage to apply conscience to the faith. Not because we must do so, but because we believe it to be true. He chose to be an Anglican.

"Hold up to world, as we did during the reformation, an alternative to catholicism." These are similar times. Don't flee to either extreme. It's "difficult to get excited about the middle way." Extremes have attractive edges. Beware of millenium hysteria. "A church that cannot contain conflict has nothing to say to a world" full of conflict. South Africa is a miracle of Christian reconciliation.

A weakness of the second Vatican Conference is that it fails to expect conflict.

Lord Runcie's image: cathedral pillars look strong, but the arch is interdependent. DaVinci said an arch is a strength from two weaknesses. We are not here to avoid conflict -- redeem it.

Anglican Catholics are scriputural, sacramental, evangelical, and charismatic. G.K. Chesterton said it's no coincidence that paradox and orthodox are so closely related.

"Scratch a liberal and you'll find a fascist." They always have to be right. "The tyranny of Political Correctness."

Nine characteristics of alternative catholicism.

1. Both local and universal. Pope Gregory and Augustine (the bishop in the 5th century who came to convert the English). Augstine found Celtic Christianity already there. He wrote about adapting to it. It's "impossible to eradicate all errors in one stroke." In 6th century, [___] said to choose the best from all churches.
2. Dispersed authority. Some want to replace "Anglican" with "reformed." He doesn't. The chair of St. Augustine at Canterbury is a symbol. Subtle & elastic. [More detail, but I missed it.]
3. We take creation seriously. (Aside: Anglicans have wonderful hymns -- they teach people how to pray.) [Talk of the catholic apostolic church that ignores Christ's human nature.] But "there is a wounded man in heaven." (Aside: T.S. Elliott said, "To care, and not to care." [I don't remember the context for this remark.]) Celtic traditions -- "the greening of God." More attention to Earth as creation.
4. Ascetical versus pragmatic. Sacrament of reconciliation: "all may, some ought, none must." "It's dangerous to give black and white answers to rainbow questions." [___] Reconciliation -- those who need it most use it least. [Last night he quoted someone: "To live is to change; to be perfect is to have changed often."] "A church will never learn from its mistakes unless it is prepared to make some."
5. Structured and yet free. Liturgy is strong, but must be a place for spontaneous prayer. It's more important to know what we're doing than what to say. Renewal within the structures and outside of them. Eldad and Medad show how the Spirit works. In the Eastern Orthodox church, "a theologian is one who prays correctly."
6. Diversity within the whole. "We minimize what you must believe [and] maximize what you may believe." Not an empire or a federation. A communion. We come to the Lord's table together. "Communion is a bigger word than agreement." Organic model. Cancer is uniform. "Totalitarianism of one cell in the whole body." "Doubt is the ants in the pants of faith."

   The head is not the most important part of the body. Paul: "The head cannot say to the hand I have no need of you." Beware the mental in favor of the manual. "People who have too clean hands have rather dirty minds :-)." "It's no good looking for the perfect church. It doesn't exist. If it did, the moment you joined it, it wouldn't be perfect." [Last night he said it's "not about swallowing something, it's about following someone."]

7. Provisionality and untidiness. Don't turn the church into an idol. It is an icon. It doesn't draw attention to itself -- it points to something beyond. For example, the new, computer-generated images that require you to "look beyond" the surface to see the hidden picture. The fundamentalist gives the troops sacred cows to keep them happy. [My interpretation -- God is too big to fit in 66 books.] The scriptures are an icon. You must read between the lines. "A plague on both houses" -- believe everything or believe nothing. We always make idols out of our icons.
8. Priesthood of all believers. Not necessarily led by priests. Importance of the daily office.
9. Neither piety nor social activism. Holds together the pastoral and the prophetic. We have a proud record of caring for the needy.

---

The contemplative is the true radical in the church. He saves us from ecclesiasticals, the hardening into idols.

Anglicans are a witness to gospel, church, and learning. "Its credentials are its very incompleteness."

"The universal church, wherein all have died -- the afterlife."

---

"Without people, nothing happens; without institutions, nothing survives."

Dr. Timothy F. Sedgwick:

The Via Media forges a distinctive Christian identity, neither fundamentalistic nor liberal. Not so much protestant versus [Roman] Catholic. A way between the past and the present.

Resources are ecumenical -- it draws from protestants and Catholics.

The "Elizabethan Settlement" declared England's independence from outsiders, including the Pope. It required the use of the first BCP under threat of harsh penalty. Richard Hooker. "God is pure act which is of order." The activity of creation. Not separated; grounded in creation. You cannot focus on the will of God. Scripture cannot be the self-interpreting will of God. You must know it in partcipation with the world. Accepting God's will. "A power that orders the creation itself." Both sides threatened England.

"Tridentant Roman Catholic" concept: church is its own legitimatization of authority. Use power to blot out errors. But law is not dogma given to those in authority. It is order, discipline. "Consensus of the faithful." Participation in the order is the key, not obedience. Tied to the sacraments. Eucharist is participation in the passion.

Hooker is hard because he writes in Elizabethan prose. He wrote for political as well as theological reasons. Anglicanism is a political compromise.

Law expresses the very nature of God. A ground that mediates between the religious and the political. It moved beyond salvation through the sacraments to defining the nature of that knowledge. [Did it take authority away from God?]

Hooker responded to civil unrest of the English Reformation.

Kenneth Kirk, 1931. Within the context of disestablished religion. Not as a condition of citizenship; instead, because they choose to believe. One among many churches seeking membership; one of many Christian bodies proclaiming the Gospel. "Christianity has come into the world for two purposes: to provide a vision of God and to call people to follow that vision." "Worship lifts the soul" out of a concern with itself.

Three questions:

1. What demands shall the church makes upon its members, and by what methods shall it employ to enforce compliance?
2. What demands am I to make of myself?
3. What is the place of denunciation, self-denial? What is the place of joy? Instead of a discipline to deepen the faith, it becomes self-denial. Enjoy the world for its own sake, and lose the sense of higher purpose.

Christianity is a distinctive way of life centered in worship. The danger is it will become rigid. [We conform because we should, not because we want to?]

Formalism: "A round of religious observances and constraints."

Tension between discipline and laxity.

Rigorousness: tension between temperance and worldly desires. Asceticism is not always pious.

Kirk was concerned with how to pass on the faith; to share it. Not so much in keeping order through faith so we can live peacefully together. [I wrote that last sentence, but now it doesn't make sense to me.] Kirk was concerned about disciplines that shape Christian life. It's not defined as balancing between extremes. Rather, it is between the roots of our faith and how it is passed on through the generations. Hooker and Kirk are both trying to pass on the faith, but Hooker was trying to keep the peace. Kirk wanted to develop discipline to cultivate faith in others.

What are the resources the Anglican church is drawing on today?

Cranmer's concept of worship as offering self to God and experiencing God's sacrifice through the eucharist.

Anglicanism today can become more Christian. To "sublate," per Hegel, is to cancel something out and raise it to a higher level. We need to sublate the English origins of Anglicanism.

10/28/94

Rt. Rev. Marshall: Paul was "a little man, bandy legs, red nose, couldn't speak very well." But today we expect heroic witnesses.

Jesus didn't rise from the dead. That is a dangerous simplification. The New Testament says he died and was raised by the power of the Father. This is an example of God's strength. The task is to convert sinners. "Not to make good men and women better..." The resurrection plays out in sinners cast down whom God raises up. There is no place for vocabulary of power and success in the church. One Bible version translates one beatitude as, "Blessed are those who know their need of God." The church in other parts of the world are suffering for Christ. It can cost your life to witness.

Share the wounds of Christ.

Rt. Rev. Edward L. Salmon, Jr.:

This is one of the most exciting times for the church. Referred back to Dr. Sedgwick's theme. Hooks had [worse] problems than Kirk.

His diocese has less members overall, but more money at lower level. He will explain the strategy.

In Charleston, he can walk to eight Episcopal churches from his house.

He noted that parents follow their children today. He told a story about a family that chose a church for the Sunday School.

Growing up, his church formed an identity for his community. It was sometimes pejorative -- Baptists would complain about the Episcopalians' Shrove Tuesday Ball.

God is judging the church for provincialism. There's a price for reinventing the wheel. Not that we shouldn't draw on local or parochial strengths.

If Christians don't pull together, we'll witness against the Gospel. Structures [institutions] are changing.

We have honest, dedicated leadership in the national church, but they're having trouble responding to change.

They worked on over 400 resolutions. they are exploring how the church can influence the world.

"Systems produce what they are designed to produce."

Charleston is very parochial. He also found the diocese to be "a bundle of separate congregations." The system was running that way. So he worked to change it to the intent of the BCP. The diocese is the Body of Christ, congregations are its cells. The diocese must be concerned for the health of every cell -- the well-being of leadership.

The task of headship is to organize so you can see it.

You can identify the rise or decline of every congregation with a change in pastors. He started a leadership program. They tried it in Charleston, but it didn't work very well. So he brought it to the congregations. He tries to affect 30 people in a congregation of 150 people. Faithful leaders become owners and patriarchs instead of servants.

He negotiates salaries for rectors so the vestry can be mad at him, not the priest. He's building a rectory program. Make an investment in the parish that will serve them for a hundred years.

His diocese has 26 paid professional youth workers. More than any other diocese. They are competing with Methodists and Presbyterians [for families.]

He is changing the balance of power. This is his strategy. The diocese is the basic unit.

His next challenge is to get more Directors of Christian Education. "Spritual direction for discipleship." "A community that knows how to pass the faith on."

He has a Builders for Christ program. There's a congregation in Pineopolis in the middle of nowhere. With less than 100 pledging units, they raised $400,000 to expand. The diocese helped beyond that. [Other stories.] All exemplify the diocese working as a unit.

"Bishops & priests need to be beggars."

10/28/94

Rt. Rev. Robert A. E. Runcie -- 102nd Archbishop of Canterbury

Was Bp. Marshall's dean at Trinity.

"... so that this communion can be made real as we meet face to face."

His vicar taught him to preach to a proposition, not a theme. Not "generosity," but "it is better to give than to receive."

First proposition. The world is a more dangerous place when religious people have no time for diplomacy... and when diplomats have no place for religion.

His mother was a hairdresser on an ocean liner. He "used to finger a little rock from the [San Francisco] earthquake of the '20s."

The "slums of Liverpool needed Hitler's bombs ... to clear it away."

True tolerance streams from having convictions as well as respect for others' convictions.

Bishop in Serbia says they're fighting to get out from under the Muslims after 300 years. "Why can't the West understand that?"

Liberals believe religion is dead. His teachers in the 1940s thought so, too.

Kissinger wrote a large book about diplomacy. There was no mention of Christianity in the index.

Islamic fundamentalism is the greatest threat today.

Margaret Thatcher chose him from two names, and recommended him to the Queen. "That's how it works, you know :-)." She was "chubby, bossy, not much humor, and a keen sense for politics" when she sacked him in 1947 [for something at the university.]

She took credit for turning around the country. Trickle-down economics. She liked the entrepreneur. She read the Bible. Especially the Old Testament. "She liked the law :-)."

[Stories about her lack of compromise.]

"Archbishops did not speak, they bleated."

A friend told him after Thatcher had been in power for some time that England "is a much more prosperous country, and a much less pleasant place to live." He thinks government is to protect the weak. Thatcher thought it should reenforce the strong to give them the freedom to choose to protect the weak.

The Bible is diverse. Ethnic cleansing by Israelites in Canaan; widows and poor are heroes in the New Testament. It must be read in its entirety to make sense.

Paul tells the Galatians to grow up; grow beyond what the law says.

"We are a mixture, and God is the unity."

"One of our great claims is our unthreatening character [as Anglicans]."

Story about the Pope shaking his fist at soccer referee on TV. [Lord Runcie was implying the irony of the infallability of authority, juxtaposing the referee on the soccer field with the Pope on the Word of God.]

The Pope agreed with him in 1983 that they are of the same body of Christ, but that it is a broken body.

America has the most Jesuits, India is next.

Professional politicians, diplomats, and journalists don't think very much of Terry Waite because they don't like amateurs acting like they know more.

He's the only Westerner to get a reply from the Ayatollah to a letter he sent.

The lesson from the Holocaust is that "the world can sink back from great achievements to unimaginable barbarism."

To apply reverence to issues, one must have reverence for God.

Tanzania has communities, other congregations are collections of individuals.

"Sharing of ministry has led to the erosion of ministry." Qualities "in his day" were faith, stickability, commitment to people, willingness to live sacrificially, leaders who could inspire without being domineering. Not a manager or a charismatic noble, but a good shepherd. He hopes women priests return the church to spiritual, liturgical, and pastoral aspects.

Too many middle-aged candidates. "Priestly formation" is lacking.

He prays that leaders will be ordained.

"A prophet's pennitence is corporate as well as personal."

"If love, not fear, is to rule the world, we must have freedom."

On efective change: think big and act small.

My question: as the former head of the Church of England, what advice do you have for Americans, who Jefferson wrote should have a wall of separation between the church and state?

Answer: the Church of England has a role to uphold symbols (buildings, the "tottering" royal family) related to the country, and is being scoffed by "silliness" -- scandal.

---

Seria Ludo -- Latin for "serious stuff, but lightly."

Re. banquets [long introduction]. Lady Runcie: "Too much religion makes me go pop."

Another reference to "priestly formation."

Humorous story about a Hungarian mathematician receiving an honor at Cambridge who compared his position as High Steward (2nd to chancellor, a ceremonial role in itself) to Dan Quayle.

We don't have writers like C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers today.

He is "in the springtide of his senility :-)."

[Among other spiritual impressions, he is a symbol of dignity and respect.]

All shall be well, and all ... [I didn't get the rest of this.]

10/29/94

Rev. Dr. Julia Gatta:

"The contemplative is the most earthed person."

"The church needs people who pray." "Prayer oneth the soul to God."

"Liturgical prayer requires personal prayer to balance it and to give it depth."

Internalizing faith can compensate for a lack of theological understanding. People can internalize the "grammar of religion."

A Byzantine abbot speaking Psalm 63 "as if saying [the words] for the first time" at morning prayer."

Christian discipline includes protecting regular times for daily prayer. Clergy and lay people suffer from a lack of discipline. Laity uses the time excuse less often.

Analogy of not flossing. It's not a lack of discipline. Prayer can seem like one more burden on an already crowded schedule. We don't need more discipline. "Scheduling books [can become] ... the equivalent of a hair shirt :-)."

Rather, we need a change of heart. God is on our side. Jesus said, "Come away by yourselves and rest awhile." Obey with love. The "sabbath was made for man; not man for the sabbath." Are we God's employee, or his child -- his beloved?

"Work with and cherish the kind of body and spirit God has given us."

Be prepared to let some things go and to be criticized for our decisions. Use the gift of discernment.

Examples in the church. Hundreds of resolutions no one cares about or reads. Work by committee. We "submerge accountability for our decisions." We're "dodging God, but need some religious busy work." She related it to Jonah's attempt to escape from God.

Sometimes it's a fear of inadequacy or boredom when trying to pray that blocks us. The "experience of ineptitude is normal." But Paul writes about the Spirit's intervention. "Let prayer be brief and pure," St. Benedict. "Purification of our desire in the ground of our beseeching," T.S. Elliott.

What if prayer is inspired by God [rather than our wills]? Then it's an opportunity for healing and transforming love.

"Liturgy is a form of sacred drama."

How to find the internal silence to pray through the liturgy. Transformation. The BCP presupposes self-examination, repentance, and confession of sin. Anticipate the Eucharist "with yearning and holy joy." Corporate discipline should enable silence to prepare before the service. Avoid "the burden of being chummy." Make ten minutes of silence in the sacrosty before the liturgy. Explain why you want it. Allow silence between parts of the liturgy -- the readings, the sermon, and before Eucharist.

"Leave your watch in the sacrosty." "Do you watch the clock when you make love?"

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