The English Religious Tradition and the Genius of Anglicanism PDF
Preview The English Religious Tradition and the Genius of Anglicanism
THE ENGLISH RELIGIOUS TRADITION AND THE G E N I U S OF ANGLICANISM Edited by GEOFFREY ROWELL of Chaplain Keble College, Oxford With a Foreword by THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY IKON 375 Copyright 0 Keble College, Oxford 1992 I£ 5:;11 First published in Great Britain by IKON Productions Ltd Manor Fann House Manor Road WANTAGEOX128NE All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or tnnsmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission oft he copyright holder. ISBN: 1 871805 01 5 hardback ISBN: 1 871805 02 3 paperback Typeset by Oxuniprint, Oxford University Press Printed and bound in Great Britain by Buder and Tanner Ltd, Frome CONTENTS Foreword by the Archbishop of Canterbury 7 GEOFFREY ROWELL Introduction 9 PATRICK WoRMALD The Venerable Bede and the 'Church of the English' 13 SIR RICHARD SOUTHERN Anselm and the English Religious Tradition 33 SISTER BENEDICATA WARD Lady Julian of Norwich and her Audience: 'Mine Even-Christian' 47 ANNE HUDSON John Wyclif 65 PATRICK COLLINSON Thomas Cranmer 79 HENRY McADoo Richard Hooker 105 ELIZABETH CLARKE George Herbert's The Temple: the Genius ofA nglicanism and the Inspiration for Poetry 127 A. M. ALLCHIN Lancelot Andrewes 145 GORDON W AKEAELD John and Charles Wesley: A Tale ofTwo Brothers 165 STEPHEN PRICKETT Church and University in tI1e Life ofJ ohn Keble 195 ADRIAN HASTINGS William Temple 211 STEPHEN SYKES The Genius of Anglicanism 227 GEOFFREY ROWELL John Keble (1792-1866): A bi-centenary Sermon 243 RICHARD HARRIES A Sermon given in Commemoration oft he Founders and Benefactors of Keble College 251 Index 255 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The quotations from T. S. Eliot, For Lmalot Andrewes: Essays on Style and Ordn (London, 1928) are reproduced in thls volume with kind permission of the publishers, Faber and Faber Ltd. Foreword by THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY IN SPRING of 1992, a series ofl ectures was held in the Chapel of THE Keble College, Oxford, to celebrate the bi-centenary of the birth of John Keble, poet, priest and pastor. This book is a record of those lectures. Twelve distinguished scholars present the English religious tradition as it has come down to us through the centuries from pre-Refonnation times, and the genius of Anglicanism as reflected in the lives of those writers and teachers who served and helped to shape it. In its character and wisdom, the English religious tradition displays an underlying consistency. As an expression of the continuity inherent in English spiritual life, it is an appropriate tribute to John Keble, since his ministry was distinctively Anglican in its loyalty to the English Church and its traditions. This set ofl ectures directs us to the foundations oft hat loyalty. As the Visitor of Keble College, I am glad that they were first presented in the College dedicated to his memory, and I am delighted that, through this publication, they are now available to a wider audience. (7) GEOFFREY ROWELL Introduction ON 27 SEPTEMBER 1836,John Keble preached a notable sennon in Winchester Cathedral on 'Primitive Tradition'. Less well known than his Assize Sermon of 14 July 1833 on 'National Apostasy', it is an exposition ofo ne of the major theological themes oft he Oxford Movement. The constitutional changes of the late 1820s and early 1830s raised important questions ofi dentity for the Church ofE ng land. When Newman asked in the flI'St of the Tracts for the Times, 'On what ground do you stand, 0 presbyter of the Church· of England?', he answered with reference to the sacramental continu ity of the historic ministry of the Church expressed by the doctrine of apostolic succession. No less a concern was the living continuity off aith and practice represented by the theme ofa postolic tradition. Against rationalist re-interpretation, and the private judgement of an individualist Evangelicalism, Keble, Newman, Pusey and the other leaders of the Oxford Movement re-asserted the corporate nature of Christian faith, the normative character of the creeds which embodied the faith of the early Church, and the devotional and sacramental pattern which was an essential element in creating and maintaining Christian identity and continuity. They empha sized that the Christian faith was at one and the same time a revela tion and a mystery - a revelation to be received and a mystery to be lived out. The notes of awe, wonder, reverence and reserve, were essential characteristics of Christian believing. As Newman put it, 'Christians receive the gospel literally on their knees, and in a temper altogether different from that critical and argumentative (9) INTRODUCTION spirit which sitting and listening engender'. 1 For Keble 'in the sub stance of faith there is no such thing as improvement, discovery, evolution of new truths; none of those processes, which are the pride of human reason and knowledge'. Theology, he believed, was not 'like any human science', a subject in which every succeeding age might be expected to advance on the former'.2 He protested against 'the nominalism' of the day, 'the habit of resolving the high mysteries off aith into mere circumstances oflanguages, methods of speaking adapted to our weak understanding, but with no real counterpart in the nature ofthings'.3 The words and doctrines of the Christian tradition were, as Coleridge might have put it, 'the living educts of the Christian imagination'. As such they were to be received reverently. They were matter for prayer before they were matter for investigation. Part of the concerns of Newman and Keble were framed by their knowledge of the Fathers, and their endeavour to guard and express the apostolic faith that had been handed on to them. For Keble in particular this patristic inheritance came through the more immediate tradition of Richard Hooker and the seventeenth-cen tury Anglican divines, men such as Lancelot Andrewes, Henry Hammond, and Herbert Thorndike. It was his family tradition, and one which he believed embodied the genius of Anglicanism, though the phrase would have been alien to him. It was character istic oft he Oxford Movement that it was a 'revolution by tradition'. When Newman dedicated the Lectures on the Prophetical Office oft he Church to the venerable President of Magdalen, Martin Routh, it was with the epigraph that he had 'been reserved to report to a for getful generation what was the theology of their fathers'. Anglican identity was to be discovered by a return to roots. It was such characteristic emphases in the thought of John Keble and the other leaders of the Oxford Movement which made it appropriate to plan a series ofl ectures on 'The English Religious Tradition and the Genius ofA nglicanism' to mark the bi-centenary oft he birth ofjohn Keble. Eleven scholars were invited to speak on significant figures in the history of the Church in England; a twelfth, Stephen Sykes, the Bishop of Ely, who has written much on the identity ofA nglicanism and on some oft he contemporary is sues facing the Anglican Communion, was invited to reflect on the 'genius of Anglicanism' in the final lecture. The lecture series drew a large audience to Keble College Chapel over a term and a half, and it is good that lectures of such high quality now have a permanent form. [10] INTRODUCTION The first four lectures were devoted to the pre-Reformation church and one oft he interesting features of these lectures is that it has been possible to identify in these early figures characteristics of the Anglican ethos. With only twelve lectures the choice ofs ignifi cant figures across the centuries was not always easy, but since a se lection had to be made the choice was, it is hoped, both judicious, and appropriate to the one whose bi-centenary of birth it was. Keble himself was a poet, and it is notable that so many of those studied in these lectures were significant not only for their religious insight but also for their stature as writers. In addition to the twelve lectures collection includes two thi~ sermons preached at Fairford and at Keble College Chapel during the anniversary weekend. In their different ways they try to draw out something ofKeble's continuing importance for Christians. He himselfw rote the lines inscribed on the memorial tablet in Fairford Church - 'so glorious let thy pastors shine, that by their speaking lives the world may learn'. His was indeed a speaking life. Like Teresa ofA vila, Keble knew that humility is endless. The 'condition of complete simplicity' costs 'not less than everything'. 'Purity of heart' is indeed, as Kierkegaard reminded us, 'to will one thing'. Bless'd arc the pure in heart, For they shall sec our God, The secret of the Lord is theirs, Their soul is Christ's abode. NOTES 1 T. Cornall, ed., Ltttm and Diana ofj ohn Hmry Ntwman V, (Oxford, ~ t 981 }, p. 46. (Newman to Sir James Stephen, t 6 March 1835. 2 J. Keble, 'Primitive Tradition' in E. R. Fairweather, ed., The Oxford Move mmt (Oxford and New Yorlc, 1964), p. 86. 'b'd J l l . [111 PATRICK WORMALD The Venerable Bede and the 'Church of the English' IT that Bede should have a place in a book on 'The IS APPROPRIATE English Religious Tradition and the Genius ofA nglicanism'.1 But I do not intend to argue that Bede was a prototype of Anglican churchmanship. I shall begin by trying to show that the part he has undeniably played in the historical image of insular protest against Rome is ironic and by him entirely unintended. I will go on to argue that, in founding the history of the Church of the English, indeed of the English themselves, he did make a central (if again unintended) contribution to the eventual emergence of a of Church England. Those who created the Church ofE ngland were very far from unaware of the inspiration they could draw from · Be~. The Church ofE ngland was not the only one to seek its char ter in the earlier history ofi ts nation's Christianity. From the days of George Buchanan, supplying initial historical propaganda for the makers of the Scottish kirk, until a startlingly recent date, there was warrant for an anti-Roman, anti-episcopal and, in the nineteenth century, anti-Establishment stance in the Columban or 'Celtic' Church. Here is the peroration of a respectably learned book reprinted in 1957: 'When the Columban Church itselfp assed away, (independence) was the legacy that the Church of Columba be queathed to the Church which was to be built at the Reformation upon the ruins of the Church of Rome, and which has been com pleted in the Church ofS cotland - the most independent national Church in Christendom' .2 The idea that there was a 'Celtic Church' (13]
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