Thanksgiving for Anglicanism in the True North
Firstly, Canada has its roots in the establishment of an Anglican polity, an alternative to the Lockean Republic to the south. George Grant said of this polity created by the United Empire Loyalists:
If Lockean liberalism is the conservatism of the English-speaking peoples, what was there in British conservatism that was not present in the bourgeois thought of Hamilton and Madison? If there was nothing, then the acts of the Loyalists are deprived of all moral significance. Many of the American Tories were Anglicans and knew well that in opposing the revolution they were opposing Locke. They appealed to the older political philosophy of Richard Hooker.
We might, as Grant did so famously and eloquently, lament the passing of this political order, but it can remain a source of inspiration, an embodiment of an Anglican vision of human flourishing and the common good. As Ron Dart notes, it was bishops such as John Strachan, Charles Inglis, and Robert Machray who articulated the "Canadian High Tory way", in which institutions, place, and culture were caught up with and sanctified by, as Inglis put it in a visitation address, "rational and sound religion".
Mindful of our contemporary political and cultural context, in which any meaningful account of a shared life and the common good appears absent, it is perhaps time to reconsider what Dart terms "the time-tried Anglican path that engages the larger cultural, political and public spheres, hence the magisterial-kingdom aspect of Anglicanism", a path seen in the Anglican polity established in the True North.
Secondly, the 1893 Solemn Declaration of the Church of England in the Dominion of Canada stands as an excellent expression of Anglicanism, "received and set forth" in the Book of Common Prayer, Ordinal, and Articles of Religion. Amidst much incoherence within contemporary Anglicanism, it is essential that we are constantly and consistently recalled to these founding sources and that, in the words of the Solemn Declaration, we commit to "transmit the same unimpaired to our posterity".
It is not that a document like the Solemn Declaration can - or should - prevent theological debate and development, but that it centres us on core affirmations (the sufficiency of Scripture, creedal orthodoxy, apostolic orders) and foundational documents which embody and give meaning to these affirmations within the Anglican tradition. In the words of David Curry, "the Solemn Declaration is remarkable for the tenor of its reasonableness and for the modesty of its quiet insistence upon the essentials".
The Solemn Declaration of the Anglican Church of Canada therefore sets before contemporary Anglicanism a potential path out of incoherence, a path into a generous yet radical orthodoxy, a deeply patristic, Reformed Catholic Augustinian theological centre.
Thirdly, Canadian Anglicanism has nurtured an attractive expression of what Nockles terms a "native High Church" tradition. A legacy of Charles Inglis and his articulation of the Old High Church tradition, deeply rooted in parish and place, particularly evident in the Maritime provinces, and given contemporary expression in, for example, the Atlantic Theological Conference. As one commentator has stated regarded the Maritimes, this "home-grown High Anglicanism" was "earthy and hearty and sought to integrate the whole life of small fishing and farming communities into the life of the Church".
Fourthly, the Canadian 1962 Book of Common Prayer represents the last significant liturgical revision within North Atlantic Anglicanism which maintained the Prayer Book tradition and the shape of Common Prayer. As such, it is a reminder that the Prayer Book tradition can organically evolve, while retaining both key texts and fundamental shape. What is more, the 1962 BCP - emerging as it did before the innovation of the three-year lectionary - retained the historic one-year Eucharistic lectionary, now increasingly recognised as possessing virtues lost by the three-year cycle, not the least of which is the gift of repetitiveness, grounding us year by year in an ordered reading of Scripture, allowing the Church to encounter, as Gavin Dunbar states, "the mystery of the gospel in a very focussed, doctrinally coherent way".
Finally, from the Confederation Poets to Marya Fiamengo, Canadian Anglicanism has nurtured that poetic sensibility and expression which has traditionally characterised Anglicanism. Bentley refers to Anglicanism being "a continual and formative presence" for the Confederation Poets, while Ron Dart says of Fiamengo that she "stands in the Anglican line and lineage of a George Herbert or John Donne. She is not as prolific as them, but the themes she explores are the same". Milbank states that a poetic "radically conservative celebration of the mystical significance" of nature and place is part of "the coherence of the Anglican legacy".
Blown bare of leaves
the spare boughs raised
speak silent praise
praise silence endlessly - Marya Fiamengo, 'The Patience Tree' in Patience after Compline.
In addition to writing Lament for a Nation, George Grant could also have written a lament for Canadian Anglicanism. A progressive embarrassment with the "magisterial-kingdom aspect of Anglicanism" has inevitably led to Anglicanism choosing to abandon its historic role in Canadian society, a rejection of a key aspect of the Anglican communitarian legacy described by John Milbank as "the unity of faith and embodied life". Alongside this, a theological incoherence arising from the bland 60's liberalism seen in Pierre Berton's The Comfortable Pew (1965) - a book commissioned by the Anglican Church of Canada and loathed by Grant - displaced the native High Church tradition, profoundly weakening Canadian Anglican witness.
O MOST merciful Father, we humbly thank thee for all thy gifts so freely bestowed upon us; for life and health and safety; for power to work and leisure to rest; for all that is beautiful in creation and in the lives of men; but above all we thank thee for our spiritual mercies in Christ Jesus our Lord; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever - collect for Thanksgiving Day, Canadian BCP 1962,
Thanks for a great article. We Canadian Anglicans appreciate the attention. Although most of the church doesn't use the 1962 Prayer Book, which is a great shame, the Thanksgiving services (Harvest Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Day) and their Anglican-agrarian vision are still alive and well in some parts. I, a seminarian in the Diocese of Nova Scotia and PEI, just returned from a college chaplaincy Thanksgiving trip. Forty young people lived in unheated, off-the-grid cabins for three days, paddling across the lake every morning to attend Matins and Holy Communion at a rural church which now stands empty most Sundays, which was a few decades ago home to another notable Canadian Anglican writer, Ernest Buckler. Everyone sung Merbecke's mass setting from memory, and Thanksgiving hymns in unaccompanied harmony. Nowhere and no time else do I so feel the vitality and earthiness of our Anglican tradition. Again, many thanks.
ReplyDeleteWhat a delightful comment - thank you! And what a glorious account of a Thanksgiving trip. It is so heartening to hear of such a vital and vibrant expression of Canadian Anglicanism. Thank you, too, for the reference to Ernest Buckler (now added to my reading list). Blessings for your time in seminary and preparation for Holy Orders.
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