laudable Practice

They seemed to him to be in an entirely different tone from any of the prayers of the Church of England. They were, in his opinion, far too political, far too polemical, for too epigrammatical. They had nothing, as it seemed to him, of that chastened devotion which the Liturgy of the Church of England had derived in the earliest times of the Christian Church. Words from the then Bishop of Oxford's speech in the 1858 House of Lords debate on ' Political Services of the Church of England ' - that is, the 1662 state services - may seem like an odd place to begin to reflect on the place of Remembrance Sunday services in Anglican piety.  The Bishop's critique of the state services, however, does have relevance. Consider some of the language used in those services: cruel and bloody men ... violent and blood-thirsty men ... sons of Belial ( 30th January );  ungodly and cruel men ... deceitful and wicked men ( 29th May );  Popish treachery ... hellish malice of Popish conspir...

The announcement that the Right Reverend Dr Bonnie Perry is to be the guest preacher at the forthcoming Changing Attitude Ireland annual Pride service, to be held in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, signifies a deeply concerning departure from the historic faith and established discipline of the Church of Ireland. So begins a statement from ' First Things ', a coalition of conservative evangelical and charismatic organisations in the Church of Ireland. It is, to say the least, a rather odd statement.   To begin with, as the statement notes, the service in question is annual.  What has caused it to be a matter of such controversy this year? Is it because the preacher is a bishop in the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States? No. It is because the preacher has solemnised same-sex marriages? No. It is because the preacher is gay? No. We are told that the cause of the controversy is quite specific: Although the cathedral has hosted similar services in previous year...

Let me begin this post with an assumption that will be rejected by some readers of laudable Practice , but affirmed by other readers. Observing Pride is an understandable aspect of the public ministry of TEC.  On previous occasions , I have rather robustly called for TEC to be much more aware and respectful of the social conservatism of the Red states and regions in which it ministers. A failure to do so risks TEC declining yet further into the irrelevance of progressive sectarianism.  At the same time, TEC also obviously ministers in deep Blue states and metropolitan areas - and is the only Mainline Protestant tradition in which a majority of its members vote Democrat .* With Pride now an established civic commemoration, particularly in such contexts, there is a case for TEC affirming those aspects of Pride - the dignity of gay men and lesbian women, their contribution to civic life, and their place in the church's life - which cohere with a Christian moral vision. (I will n...

It is bad enough that the Netflix drama 'Adolescence' is  driving government policy in the United Kingdom. To have it also proposed as a reason to determine the Church of England's approach to holy orders was, however, rather unexpected. The drama - note, not a documentary, despite the views of the Prime Minister - was invoked by the Area Bishop of Croydon, Dr Rosemarie Mallett, launching a campaign by the pressure group Women And The Church (WATCH) to repeal the Church of England's provisions for those opposed to the ordination of women. Most strikingly, the Bishop urged that the ordination of women should be understood as a means of pursuing a progressive agenda in the culture wars: I think in honesty we also thought that as society changed and as views became more open-minded among growing numbers of younger men and women, the culture of the Church would change like the culture of the wider society. No one really saw that there was an underlying trend even then, g...

On this Gunpowder Plot Day, words from a 5th November 1691 sermon by John Sharp, Archbishop of York, on the text of Romans 10:2, "For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge". In our own age of bitter culture wars and heightened partisanship in Church and State (and mindful that today, of course, is the presidential election in the United States), Sharp points us to the Gunpowder Treason as an unfortunately resonant example of zeal "not according to knowledge", destructive of "true Religion" and "Publick peace". Against this, we are to be marked by a right and true zeal "agreeable to the Spirit and Temper of our great Lord and Master Christ": I wish this mark of right Zeal, that it ought to be according to knowledge, were more considered. For it seems not often to be thought on by those that are most zealous in their way, of what perswasion soever they be. This same business of Knowledge, is a th...

The very finest words in the Church of Ireland's modest Prayer Book revision of 1878 are to be found in the closing paragraph of the Preface : And now, if some shall complain that these changes are not enough, and that we should have taken this opportunity of making this Book as perfect in all respects as they think it might be made, or if others shall say that these changes have been unnecessary or excessive, and that what was already excellent has been impaired by doing that which, in their opinion, might well have been left undone, let them, on the one side and the other, consider that men's judgements of perfection are very various, and that what is imperfect, with peace, is often better than what is otherwise more excellent, without it. I first encountered these words as a precocious teenager, sitting in the parish church before Sunday Morning Prayer, and browsing through the Prayer Book, bought as a Confirmation present and carried with me each Sunday, as was then normal ...

I am a friend of The Episcopal Church. Admittedly, I am a rather odd friend. I much prefer the title PECUSA (retained, we should remember, in the opening line of TEC's Constitution ). When someone mentions TEC my thoughts can drift to William White and John Henry Hobart; to Anglican order taking root in the early decades of the Great Republic; to the significant Episcopalian civic and cultural presence enduring into the second half of the 20th century. More immediately, I think with gratitude of those Episcopal congregations in which I have worshipped, in Cape Cod, in Maine, in New York City, in Washington DC. And I think also of those Episcopalians with whom I have become acquainted online, some of whom share my Old High predilections for Sunday Morning Prayer, the surplice, and churches like Old Trinity, Dorchester , Maryland. When TEC is mentioned, what I do not think about are Bishops Pike or Spong. As you might expect, I am definitively with Rowan Williams on this: say the C...

The May Day holiday - a gentle but joyous celebration of Spring - is now a yearly opportunity for laudable Practice to reflect on the correspondence between Prayer Book piety and the quiet, plain, sober interior of a Georgian parish church. This year the church is Old St. Stephen's, Whitby, Yorkshire : it provides our setting for Matins on a Sunday morning in Spring. For an accompanying text to guide our thoughts, we turn to Timothy Puller's 1677 work The Moderation of the Church of England . Puller was priested in 1664. His work rejoices in the latitude of the Church of England, seeing therein a reflection of the "mild Oeconomy of the Gospel": Which cannot but afford a rare and serious pleasure as well as use; as it must be very delightful to behold any imitation of the Divine Wisdom, which hath made all things in number, weight, and measure; which governs the World and all his Creatures, according to unsearchable measures of Righteousness and Equity, who dispenseth...

There are also obvious reasons why a Christian should never attend a gay wedding. Many wedding liturgies, including that of the Book of Common Prayer, require the officiant to ask early in the service if anyone present knows any reason why the couple should not be joined together in matrimony. A Christian is at that point obliged to speak up ... Of course, that applies beyond the issue of gay marriage. A marriage involving somebody who has not divorced a previous spouse for biblical reasons involves that person entering into an adulterous relationship. No Christian should knowingly attend such a ceremony either. Thus did Carl Trueman recently declare in First Things . It is rather odd that a conservative Presbyterian should invoke the Book of Common Prayer, rejected by the Presbyterian tradition when its representatives embraced schism rather than conformity in 1662. This, however, might explain why Trueman badly misinterprets the robustly Anglican 1662 rite.   To begin w...

To mark Richard Hooker Day, words from the Lawes (III.9.2). Amidst the violent bitterness of Reformation controversies, Hooker- who opened and concluded the Preface to the Lawes by invoking "the God of peace" -  called the ecclesia Anglicana from "distempered affections" which distorted reflection, discernment, and judgement. In our own time of angry, embittered, divisive ecclesial and civic culture wars, with their hyper-partisanship, Hooker's call has a new resonance: at such times as we are to deliberate for ourselves, the freer our minds are from all distempered affections, the sounder and better is our judgment. When we are in a fretting mood at the church of Rome, and with that angry disposition enter into any cogitation of the orders and rites of our church; taking particular survey of them, we are sure to have always one eye fixed upon the countenance of our enemies, and according to the blithe or heavy aspect thereof, our other eye sheweth some other...

To mark this Charles Inglis Day (and mindful that Canadian Anglican friends commemorate Inglis on 12th August), words from his Charge delivered to the clergy of the Diocese of Nova Scotia, at his primary visitation in 1788: With respect to those who are not of our communion, a candid, brotherly and respectful behaviour should be observed towards them, as indeed it should to all mankind. We may be firmly attached to our principles, without illiberality, or a spirit of malevolence to others; and if it be possible, as much as lieth in us, we should live peaceably with all men. It is truly painful and mortifying to see a furious Bigot, pretending a zeal for the Gospel; yet wholly destitute of that temper required by the Gospel, and ignorant of the two first and principal lessons taught by it, Humility and Benevolence. Perhaps he tramples on every dictate of truth and moral rectitude, as well as of charity, that he may serve the contracted system which he has adopted. Such men - and alas! ...