The need for romantic Anglicanism

These tendencies I dub the "romantic" and the "classical".  One can briefly sum up the difference between them by saying that the former sees Wordsworth's "feeling intellect" as lying at the heart of theology, while the latter sees the role of an entirely "objective reason" as vital for theological practice - John Milbank, 'The New Divide: Romantic versus Classical Orthodoxy', Modern Theology, January 2010.

While Milbank's description of what he terms 'romantic orthodoxy' addresses a rather different context, I am wondering if it can have some significance for Anglican renewal.  The 'orthodoxy' is here taken as read, a necessary affirmation of the Augustinian faith and sacramental order of the Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion.  But what of the 'romantic' aspect?

Milbank elaborates on this by referring to "the passions, the imagination, art, ethos etc".  To take words from a recent post on the North American Anglican:

the Historic Formularies are inescapable. However, to reiterate: this is simply not enough.

Now, yes, the response offered in that post to "not enough" is rather different from what is being proposed here, but the key point might be that invoking the Historic Formularies alone is something akin to the 'classical orthodoxy' identified by Milbank, a stance he goes on to critique as "cold ... ill-lubricated".  What is needed alongside this, what prevents it being cold and ill-lubricated, are "the passions, the imagination, art, ethos".

Which brings us to the reference to Wordsworth and "feeling intellect".  In 1822 Wordsworth published The Ecclesiastical Sonnets, a poetic celebration of the Church of England and its place in national life and culture.  In the sonnet celebrating the 'Pastoral Character' of the English Church, referring to "A genial hearth, a hospitable board, And a refined rusticity" of the parsonage, we get a sense of the Anglican ethos lauded by Wordsworth. Similarly, in 'Rural Ceremony', we are told that "The spirit of Laud is pleased in heaven's pure clime, And Hooker's voice the spectacle approves", echoing the Book of Sports, and a High Church populism embedded in communal custom and tradition.  When the British state is praised in 'Congratulation' for its support for the ecclesia Anglicana, the description of the British Constitution seems to also reflect the ethos of Anglicanism, "balancing herself between Licence and slavish order".

Here is a romantic Anglicanism, in which we are touched by "the passions, the imagination, art, ethos" of parish, liturgy, history, place.  A similar vision is seen, of course, in The Christian Year (1827), as Keble makes explicit in the 'Advertisement':

that soothing tendency in the Prayer Book, which it is the chief purpose of these pages to exhibit.

Thus, in 'Holy Communion', Keble states:

Who can express the soothing charm,
To feel thy kind upholding arm,

My mother Church?

'Sunday Next Before Advent' evokes "The gale that stirs th' autumnal trees' in "the decaying year ... ere Advent dawn".  'Visitation and Communion of the Sick' captures the gentle comfort and reassurance of the rite:

I came again: the place was bright 
"With something of celestial light"
A simple Altar by the bed 
For high Communion meetly spread, 
Chalice, and plate, and snowy vest. 
We ate and drank: then calmly blest, 
All mourners, one with dying breath, 
We sate and talked of Jesus' death.

Such romantic Anglicanism - what Keble in the Assize Sermon described as "amity" flowing from "historical recollections, associations, and precedents, of the most engaging and ennobling cast" - finds expression in innumerable ways.  In the wood of the parish pews; in the Prayer Book handed down from my father; in trees around the parish church; in memorials to parishioners who fell in the Great War; in the gentle but reverend familiarity of a parson at the beginning of Mattins, "Dearly beloved brethren ..."; in the Comfortable Words, heard kneeling, amidst the quiet at early morning Communion; in candles, holly, and Nine Lessons and Carols; in that cycle of the liturgical year described by Wordsworth, "As through a zodiac, moves the ritual year"; in the respectful reserve rightly exercised in commemorating the departed, mindful of memory and loss, "thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear"; in the quiet, enchanting beauty of Choral Evensong, to "lighten our darkness"; in the modesty and decency of surplice and stole.

... the Historic Formularies are inescapable. However, to reiterate: this is simply not enough.

All this might be rejected as sentimental.  The order of sentiment, emotion, and affections, however, is part of what it is to be human, essential for flourishing relationships, an integral part of allegiance, devotion, and attentiveness.  An unromantic Anglicanism, dismissive of "the passions, the imagination, art, ethos", will be an Anglicanism incapable of nurturing the affections, of taking root in the heart, of sustaining commitment to parish and to prayer over a life-time.

In a recent Church Times article addressing the ability of college chapels - with a "humane ... High Church witness" - in Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham to attract and sustain a worshipping community of thousands, Andrew Davison said of the college chapels:

[they] represent something magnificently Anglican: they are thoughtful, liturgical, concerned about the whole person, communitarian, and deeply addressed towards God.

To be "concerned about the whole person" is also to address the affections, to take root in the order of sentiment, to embody a "magnificently Anglican" vision which speaks unto and attracts the heart, rooted in the loves and sentiment associated with place, civic community, and history. 

In other words, an Anglicanism unembarrassed about its romantic character, joyously fostering sentiment and affection for the experience of the Anglican way.