tree_and_leaf | (no subject)

"High Church" and "Anglo-Catholic" - synonyms or not?

No, or at least, not exactly. Anglo-Catholics are, at least in Anglican terms (the Orthodox are always going to be higher than you) as High Church as it gets, but there are plenty of high church Anglicans who wouldn't call themselves Anglo-Catholics.

Defining Anglo-Catholicism is harder than it used to be, largely due to the issue of the ordination of women, and the willingness of the media to buy the claims of some 'traditionalist' Anglo-Catholics (i.e. the opponents of women's ordination) that Anglo-Catholics, by definition, are opposed to it. This is not in fact the case.

There's been some attempts to use the term 'liberal catholics' for Anglo-Catholics who are in favour of the ordination of women, but I personally dislike the term, partly because 'liberal' in a theological context has a lot of baggage (and might be taken as implying you don't believe in many doctrines that I would wish to affirm), but mostly because it's been used so loosely that it really is synonymous with 'high church', though you're much more likely to hear "Shine Jesus shine" or "Be Still for the Glory of the Lord" at a church that calls itself liberal catholic.

The other problem with definition is that people tend to think that Anglo-Catholic, or indeed high-church, is primarily a statement about worship style. Of course it's true that Anglo-Catholic worship is characterised by a love of bells, smells, tat, and elaborate liturgy, but the most important elements are doctrinal (Keble or Pusey didn't give a damn about chasubles, after all): a strong commitment to episcopacy as vital to being a church (this goes for high church people too), the centrality of the Eucharist, Eucharistic devotions such as Benediction and a belief in transubstantiation or its modern cousin transignification, use and promotion of the sacrament of reconciliation (better known as confession), and so on. There also tends to be a suspicion or outright dislike of penal substitution combined with a strong devotion to the Passion (usually the Christus Victor theory is preferred). Anglo-Catholics can also be distinguished by their love of Mary - it's quite usual for Anglo-Catholic High Masses (always referred to as such) to conclude with the recitation of the Angelus, often centred on a staute or image of Mary - and often by prayers to other saints, which you wouldn't get among the merely high church. Prayer for the dead is also perfectly normal (though high church people will also often do this).

Anglo-Catholics are a bit of a peculiar subculture, even within the church, though they seem to produce a disproportionate number of young, often very bright, vocations to the priesthood, though it's fair to say that other sections of the church are usually better at youth work. On the other hand, it seems to appeal to a lot of students.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This is one thing that confused me since you mentioned it the other day. Transubstantiation, really? The full-on Monty?

Not consubstantiation instead?

Ironically, despite my subsequent issues with Roman Catholicism and the loss of pretty much all my faith in a superior deity (I retain enough to be agnostic, but the only way I could believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing god is one who is in fact running a lab experiment with us and is a good enough scientist not to interfere), transubstantiation was my main issue. (Which led to a domestic WWIII when I was 15/16.)

I could reconcile a presence in the Host with belief, but the actual transformation? I could not cope with that. It seemed blasphemous to me. One of the things I liked about Anglicanism was that I thought the theology was that the Presence was there, but it wasn't full-on transubstantiation. In other words, it was consubstantiaion.

(Please delete this if I've upset or offended you).

Speaking entirely personally and only for myself -- I think where things went wrong was the attempt to describe the nature of Real Presence in quasi-scientific terms. I would say, without hesitation, that I subscribe to the doctrine of the Real Presence. I sometimes use the word "transubstantiation" and speak of the distinction between substance and accidents, because I find that vocabulary sometimes useful in describing something which is ultimately too mysterious to capture fully in language; to me, the vocabulary of transubstantiation captures the idea that the Sacrament is fully the Body of Christ while also remaining fully bread. It may be that the vocabulary of consubstantiation captures that better for you (it feels a little too weak for me, most of the time; but it's not a bad vocabulary at all). The Orthodox, of course, have never used either vocabulary and simply held to Real Presence Not Otherwise Specified, which may be wise.

I think the most normative Anglican position is actually "Thou are here, we ask not how." Lancelot Andrewes, Jeremy Taylor etc will be quite definite about Real Presence, but also quite definite that it is a mistake to try to define too precisely the nature of that Real Presence ... very like the Orthodox, in fact, as classic Anglicanism often is.

It took me forever to get back to this comment, but not because I was upset/ offended.

The Anglican position is carefully vague: it boils down to a requirement that you believe in the Real Presence, i.e. that Christ is really there in some sense, but that no one is obliged to sign up to a particular interpretation. (Despite the Thirty-Nine Articles).

Actually em_h has described my feelings on the matter pretty well; I quite like the way Schillebeekx reformulated what happens as transignification, but that has the same problem of being dependent on a particular academic vocabulary. It also has the problem that hardly anyone knows what you're talking about unless you explain the doctrine to them, so it's not much use as vocabulary for dealing with a mystery.

My difficulty with consubstantiation is, as em_h says, the vocabulary feels a bit weak to me.

Why blasphemous?