"An unnatural war between Faith and Reason": Horsley and Anglican Enlightenment

Returning to William Bulman's idea of Anglican Enlightenment, words from a 1789 sermon by Horsley. This is a good example of the High Church tradition rejecting obscurantism, affirming the good of scientific inquiry, and celebrating a Thomist and Hookerian understanding of the gift of Reason. It is also a reminder, as Bulman insists, that Enlightenment discourse was not the preserve of Latitudinarians but was also embraced by the High Church tradition (and, indeed, throughout the 18th century, not ceasing, as Bulman suggests, early in the century), offering a conservative reading of the Enlightenment. In this case, Horsley points to "the light which philosophy and revelation may be brought to throw upon each other". The Age of Reason, then, coheres with and does not undermine the Church's proclamation:

Nothing hath been more detrimental to the dearest interests of man - to his present and his future interests, – to his present interests, by obstructing the progress of scientific discovery, and retarding that gradual improvement of his present condition which Providence hath left it to his own industry to make; to his future interests, by lessening the credit of revelation in the esteem of those who will ever lead the opinions of mankind, - nothing hath been more contrary to man’s interests both in this world and in the next, than what hath too often happened, that a spirit of piety and devotion, more animated with zeal than enlightened by knowledge in subjects of physical inquiry, hath blindly taken the side of popular error and vulgar prejudice: The consequence of which must ever be an unnatural war between Faith and Reason, - between human science and divine. Religion and Philosophy, through the indiscretion of their votaries, in appearance set at variance, form as it were their opposite parties: Persons of a religious cast are themselves deterred, and would dissuade others, from what they weakly deem an impious wisdom; while those who are smitten with the study of nature revile and ridicule a revelation which, as it is in some parts interpreted by its weak professors, would oblige them to renounce their reason and their senses, in those very subjects in which reason is the competent judge, and sense the proper organ of investigation.

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Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

1928 practices and the 1979 book: unthinking conservatism or popular piety?

Those responsible for Earth & Altar - a new blog emanating from a group within TEC - are to be congratulated for an excellent contribution to wider Anglican discussion and debate. The commitment to "an expansively conceived credal orthodoxy as fully compatible with LGBTQ inclusion, gender equality, and racial justice" is an important part of a wider retrieval of creedal orthodoxy within what we might call the post-liberal generation. It is in this spirit that I want to respond to a recent post on the site by Andrew McGowan , Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and Professor of Anglican Studies at Yale Divinity School. Against the background of another round of "ill-defined" liturgical revision in TEC, he understandably urges that a fuller reception of the 1979 BCP should occur before further reforms. In doing so, however, he takes aim at what he describes as "clinging to the ritual structures of 1928" while using the text of 1979. We ...

laudable Practice

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