This journal of thought and opinion among the Continuum clergy/laity has been founded with the conviction that God has placed a treasure within the repository of American Anglicanism. It is our peculiar possession, both a gift specifically to us, but also placed under our stewardship for use by the whole Body of Christ. For within the ranks of the Church there is no place for private ownership, no dark little corner where we are permitted, like children, the selfish enjoyment of good things that were intended by our Heavenly Father for the use of all of His family.
This treasure is the consequence of a number of fascinating strands of material that comprise our spiritual DNA.
We are Anglicans, and are therefore identified directly in a host of ways with the historic Church. Although we are living in an age of religious displacement, where direct connections to the past are at best often obscure or not even evident, we are able to easily trace our ancestry, our family tree. The names, faces, and locations that comprise our past are readily accessible. So sure is that lineage, and so accurate the record keeping, we can follow our genealogy back two millennia and beyond. The line of our patrimony that precedes the Reformation, and is subsequent to the early church, is clear and definite. Our claims to an ancient heritage are irrefutable. It is impossible to sufficiently underscore the value of such a assertion in times that are by their inherent nature so utterly disconnected from the past.
“Anglican” also implies being in unique possession of the spirit of England: the parish concept of shepherd/priest and flock bound together in family love; a merriment of life that never takes self too seriously; a democracy of heart that humbles the haughty and lifts the marginalized to meet before God on the same level; an instinctive advocacy of “those who in this transitory life, are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity” (BCP p. 74).
We are Traditional, and therefore recognize that the best road into the future is often one which takes us into the past. As our Lord said, “...no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better’ ” (Luke 5:39). In an age of religious accommodation, when all the world bows to the felt needs of the consumer, we affirm that traditional worship, which mines the gold from the great riches of the church’s past, calls the modern believer out of the mundane and familiar to a holy place beyond himself. Rather than bringing God down to man, it brings man up to God.
We are American. We share in all of the willingness to venture out, independence of spirit, exuberance, and determination that characterize the best of all that is American. We are not bound to a crown, nor dependent upon state approval or funding for our continuance, nor are we so fearful of change that we are incapable of employing it to the advancement of the Gospel and the good of the church.
We are also Biblical, in that we recognize that Holy Scripture remains that standard by which all human conduct will ultimately be judged. We look to it, rather than those “doctrines which are the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9) to which the world is allegiant. We have found in the Bible that unimpeachable anchor of life for which all men long. But the Bible needs a context of interpretation and actuation.
And so we are also a Church. This is no tautology. The New Testament church is a grand edifice, filled with invisible graces that include a defined hierarchy, with each level responsible for a specific duty, offices given “...for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12). Only within this clearly defined and conscientiously maintained structure can the mystical Body of Christ function with the full range of spiritual gifts which it has been promised. Although we cannot claim yet that we have completely actualized this biblical model, we at least have the forms in place for its eventual realization.
Lastly, we are citizens of the 21st century. Post-modern, post-Christian, post-everything America seems a strange place to find what many might call the anachronism of the Continuum. But we as Anglican Christians are just as much full participants in this culture as are our non-Anglican peers, though we are never to love it (1 John 2:15). It is precisely because of what we are: vitally connected to the past, but earnestly engaged with the present, that we are as much players on the field of today as any other group vying for influence and effect. Even if we have been declared heading for extinction, we live on. We belong precisely where we are! “This was the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes” (Ps. 118:23).
What are the implications? In spite of our small size and seeming inconsequentiality, we are in a position to provide riches to both the world and the church. We are not held in the sway of the Reformation, living in the shadow of a schism which, for all the good that has been wrought, has left in its wake the virtually insurmountable prejudices that characterize the attitudes of both sides of that conflict, even until the present. As a via media, a middle way, we are vested with a mantle of irenicism that brings a very special blessing, for “blessed are the peacemakers” (Matt. 5:9a). Absent any agenda to promote, we may well possess a clear-sightedness urgently needed in an age when so many “wander from sea to sea. and from norht to east; running to and fro, seeking the word of the Lord, but not finding it” (Amos 8:12).
The following articles are intended only to provide the barest of beginnings to a discussion that it is hoped will flourish and greatly expand.
The Anglican Clarion Call invites our clergy/laity to dig deeply into the store of wealth bequeathed upon us, and to find ways to put it into the words, so that we can share it with each other, with the church, and with the world at large.
