Talk:Anglicanism/Archive 3

This is an archive of past discussions about Anglicanism, for the period January 2007 – September 2007.
Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Roman Catholic bias in Liturgy_of_the_hours and renaming proposal

Please see Talk:Liturgy_of_the_hours#Requested_move for details. --Espoo 10:27, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Comments needed

I am involved in a discussion with another editor at the article on Talk:George Washington and religion and need someone who is familiar with Anglican theology and dogma (and especially that of the late 1700s) to comment. Here is the discussion in brief... the article talks about the fact (well documented) that George Washington was not a communicant (ie was never seen to take communion) and would often leave devine services before communion. Given the context of the article, it is implied that this indicates he was a Deist. I question this implication ... I think that it might indicate that he was a "Low Church" Anglican. I do understand that I can not add such information to the article - as my personal conclusions would constitute Original Research. But I would like confirmation of whether my thinking is on the right track or not. Unfortunately, I do not know enough about the Church of England at the time, especially the different attitudes of High and Low Church, to know one way or the other. I tried an RFC, but that is being removed as there is not an actual dispute going on (I guess I am trying to find out if there IS something to dispute). I hope someone here can help set me straight. Blueboar 19:41, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Pacifism

It seems that the information I wrote relating to pacifism was deleted again, so it has been restored once more. With respect to Revd McKenzie, for something that is "hardly a major issue", the fact that many of the most prominent Anglican intellectuals of the 1930s and onwards have been involved in the movement, not to mention the likes of Revd Dick Sheppard, the most famous churchman of his day, launching the secular Peace Pledge Union, shows that it is an issue of concern to may Anglicans. Anyway, as the "Social Issues" subsection now contain discussions of other issues of importance, so it is a legitimate inclusion to balance this article. David Le Sage, 6 February, 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.138.16.150 (talk) 06:16, 6 February 2007 (UTC).

I don't know what other editors think, but to me three paragraphs on one aspect of Anglican social theology seems overboard - especially since there are only three other paragraphs which together cover all the rest of Anglican social concerns. "Balance" is precisely the reason why the bulk of the material that was there was excised. I would like to hear the contributions of other editors, however, before going in with pruning shears once again. Fishhead64 06:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer authors expand the other sections relating to social theology so that a broad coverage of all of these is supplied. Thanks, D. Le Sage.

Prominent Anglicans?

This section is going to be never-ending, most of the most notable British figures in the last 300 years could be described as prominent Anglicans. If their Anglicanism had some direct relevance to their prominence I could understand listing them but some are red-linked which imply no prominence of any sort and others are not really notable for their Anglicanism, e.g. Kate Winslet. If we have to have a list like this, can't it be a separate List of prominent Anglicans? Dabbler 14:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

These things tend to grow like topsy, unfortunately. I'm for excising it entirely - there's already a Category:Anglicans, after all. Instead of "Notable Anglicans," "Notable Anglican Theologians" might be more appropriate. Fishhead64 17:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm the person who expanded this list. Initially, there were only four people on there, so I thought it worthy of expansion. I was working from some other information I had. I tend to agree with the cuts made, as, for instance, there is nothing explicitly Anglican about the film work of Winslet or Myles. I have added Yonge, Rossetti and a couple of others once more, however. Yonge and Rosetti were both explicitly Anglican in their works of literature, so I think they are worthy of inclusion. The change to "Important Anglican Thinkers" was probably a suitable alteration of heading. Thanks to whoever did that. D. Le Sage

Please add four tildes (~~~~) to the end of your comments so we know who is posting them. Thanks! Fishhead64 23:54, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, that's why I added back Watts: his fame rests on his religious contribution. I certainly think a list is legitimate, although a separate article might make sense. I excised George Carey and Rowan Williams. They're both ABCs who have done nothing remarkable. Unless the list includes every ABC since Cranmer, I don't see why they should be there. Carlo 23:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Well Williams, at least, is an important Anglican thinker. I think he should be restored. If Ramsey, Temple, and Wright are there, he should be there, too. Fishhead64 23:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I take the point about "Prominent Anglicans". Politicians, for example, are liable to develop a "deep religious faith". However, I've added (or tried to add) two novelists whose Anglican faith comes across in their work: PD James and Barbara Pym, even though they're not theologians as such. I also tried, without success, to delete John Bunyan on the grounds that he was a Baptist. Incidentally, what do people think about adding Sir John Betjeman to the list? His Anglicanism was less deep than that of TS Eliot, but it comes across in his verse.Millbanks 22:03, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Protestants?

Greetings. I am not too familiar with Anglicanism, so I am hoping for some feedback from some editors with a better understanding of how to classify the Anglican Communion. Specifically, there is a section in the article on Pope Benedict XVI discussing his interaction with other religions. One section is his relationship with various protestant faiths. There was comment on his meeting with Rowan Williams. However, at least one editor believes that it needs to be under a separate "anglican" section, apart from "protestant". I tried to look into this, and got conflicting information... different sources classify Anglicans as anything from protestants to reformed catholics with protestant influences. Do Anglicans consider themselves protestants? Is there an "official" position on this? Any feedback would be welcomed! --Anietor 17:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

They consider themselves a distinct branch of Christianity, a via media between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, a movement that is both Catholic and Reformed (Protestant). So, yes, it should be in a different section, and this article can be cited as a reference, since that is what it says. Fishhead64 00:10, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I continue to be confused why, although editors allow the article to say that Anglicanism is seen by some as "Protestant", they qualify this as "without a prominent leader, like ... Calvin ...". Calvin was not a founder (like Luther or Wesley), he was not the singular national spokesman for the Protestant church (like Knox). In this way, Calvin is not more "prominent" than Cranmer, only Cranmer was the archbishop of Canterbury, and the author of the seminal Book of Common Prayer. Even so, the introduction continues enshrine the assertion by omission, that Cranmer did not practically embody the Anglican turmoil that comes of not wanting to put away either, Catholicism or the Protestant Reform. — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 19:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Low Church Anglicans certainly consider themselves to be Protestant, and nobody would have doubted Anglicanism's status as a Protestant domination from the time of Elizabeth I to that of Victoria. john k 06:16, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Unlike Calvin or Luther, both of whom have Protestant denominations or theologies named after them and can be considered to be prominent leaders or originators of a strand of Protestantism, Anglicanism evolved over a period of years under the influence of a number of different leaders and theologians, none of whom were considered to be as important as Calvin or Luther were. Although it started nominally under Cranmer, the eventual codification of the Thirty Nine Articles was only completed years after his burning at the stake. Cranmer although very influential in the development of the Anglican liturgy is not seen as a seminal figure in the way that Calvin and Luther are. So calling Anglicanism "Cranmerism" for exanmple was never an option. At various periods in their history Anglicans have trended towards a more Protestant outlook and at other times Catholic outlooks have come to the fore, but usually both tendencies have been accommodated within the broader church. The current situation is that many Anglican churches are probably closer to Catholic practice and consider themselves as Reformed Catholics, though there are some churches which still tend to consider themselves as Protestants and retain more Protestant practices. Not much help I am afraid! Dabbler 20:27, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to say that Anglicanism is Cranmerism; but for those who would point to its Protestant character and history, the mark of the Oxford martyrs, and Cranmer above all, is indelible. Am I wrong to think so? — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 22:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

It is indelible for all Anglicans, I would hope. I just don't think it's indistinguishable. Anglican theology and, perhaps just as importantly, the Anglican ethos, was several centuries in the making before Cranmer came on the scene. Cranmer is a very big fish, yet still exists in the context of the life-giving water that forms the current which is Anglicanism. Fishhead64 23:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but when Cranmer came on the scene, something "Reformed" came in with him and remained there when he was gone, and developed from there. Isn't that so? Anyway, I shouldn't pursue this further. I'm sure I've been well-understood. — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 23:58, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes and yes :) Fishhead64 01:00, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

I would argue that Anglicanism is nothing more than "English Catholicism." While we protested the abuses of Rome, we really didn't protest the doctrines or the practices with very few exceptions (papacy being the one chiefly on my mind). We kept the others: tri-order clergyhood, Apostolic Succession, Sacraments, True Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, Complete Canon, etc. It should be noted that the 39 Articles of Religion were never meant to be read literally nor were they the first Articles and furthermore, nor were they around for most of Anglican history. Therefore, if by Protestant you mean we protest certain doctrines that the Pope declared ex cathedrally or those that their church declared, yes, we are Protestants. Yet we are most certainly not Protestants in the "classic" sense of Lutherans, Moravians, Calvinists, or Anabaptists. Valer 01:16, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I know that this is the Anglo-Catholic party line, but I don't think it's historically defensible. The doctrine of the Real Presence found in the 39 Articles is indistinguishable from that held by Calvin, Bucer, and other folks on the more sacramental end of the Reformed tradition. Lutherans find it to be insufficiently Catholic! I know that it can be interpreted in a more Catholic direction, but that is not generally how it was interpreted at the time. Richard Hooker's "virtualism" expands on the Articles and further demonstrates the basically Reformed nature of Elizabethan Anglicanism. No one in the Elizabethan era doubted that Anglicanism was Protestant. Indeed, it was somewhere in between Lutheranism and Calvinism. The "Canon" was not complete at all--it explicitly and systematically excluded language of sacrifice and placed anything remotely referring to sacrifice in the post-communion thanksgiving. As for the Articles not being "around for much of Anglican history"--this begs the question. The question is whether Anglicanism became Protestant in the 16th century. Obviously the Articles were not around before that, and the Ecclesia Anglicana was not Protestant before that--no church was! But the Articles were adopted as a statement of the faith of the Church of England, they were printed in the BCP, and ordinands were required to subscribe to them (and still are in England, I believe). Your position is held only by Anglo-Catholics--other Anglicans disagree with it and non-Anglicans who study the subject almost never find it persuasive. It should therefore not be made the basis for a wikipedia article. The Church of England described itself as Protestant and was universally regarded as Protestant in the sixteenth century. This was not seriously challenged until the 19th century, although some of the extreme high-church folks in the 17th century spoke of Anglicanism as an expression of the faith of the undivided Church. Contarini 21:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the Church of England was once happy to describe itself as 'protestant' because at that time it was still understood that the opposite of 'protestant' was 'papist' rather thean 'Catholic'. The American Church was able to call itself 'protestant' in the eighteenth century for that reason, but the word had to be dropped in the 20th century because by that time most people were understanding it to be the opposite of 'catholic'. I understand that in some parishes it has been found desirable to use the word 'universal' instead of 'catholick' in the creeds because of that change of meaning. Nennius, 9/4/07

Contarini points out that "It should therefore not be made the basis for a wikipedia article." This is true, but it CANNOT be completely removed from the article or you will be losing a POV held by a great many, granted - not all, Anglicans. The Protestant forces behind the English Reformation peaked for a time in the minority of Edward VI and then were impotent for decades. To be a "real" Contiental protestant in England between the Death of Edward VI and the onset of the Civil Wars was to be unhappy with your church. SECisek 22:42, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. The Church of Elizabeth and James I was clearly protestant, and was probably doctrinally closer to Calvinism than to Lutheranism (although it was organizationally still quite conservative). Laudianism was a brief bump along the road and, at any rate, is not considered by any serious scholars to have very much in common with the views of the Oxford Movement in the 19th century. The idea of Anglicanism as a middle way between Catholicism and Protestantism pretty much appears for the first time with Newman, et al, in the mid 19th-century, and never actually becomes a unanimous opinion within the Church. This idea should, of course, be represented in the article, but it shouldn't be backdated to an earlier period. The idea of the Church of England as not protestant appears at Oxford in the 1830s. Prior to that, the CoE was always seen as a protestant church. The only possible exception would be in the period of Charles I and Laud, and I think even there the temptation to equate Laudianism with Tractarianism needs to be strongly resisted. The CoE of James I may not have met the standards of the most vigorously protestant elements, but it's worth noting that most of these were still actually inside the Church until the Civil War. I don't see how one can imagine the CoE steering a middle course between, one the one hand, Catholics who refused to participate in it and were clearly seen as belonging to an alien religion; and, on the other hand, the more strongly protestant elements within the Church itself, who were actually holding ecclesiastical offices within the Church, and so forth. Again, this idea of the CoE as a middle way between Protestantism and Catholicism dates from the 19th century. (Note also Swift's A Tale of a Tub; in that one, the Church of England is represented by "Martin" (i.e. Luther), and thus the presentation is that the Church is not a middle way between Protestantism and Catholicism, but, along with Lutheranism, between Calvinism and Catholicism - and Swift, of course, wrote after most of the more vigorous protestants had already left the established church. The situation in the pre-Civil War period actually leaves the Church more protestant, even, I think, during Laud's time. john k 06:16, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Although the idea of Anglicanism as a "via media" goes all the way back to Richard Hooker David Underdown 09:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure - the idea of the CoE (I wouldn't like to use the term "Anglicanism" for the 17th century) as a middle way between Catholicism and more extreme forms of protestantism goes back a long way. But the idea of what exactly it was that was to the left of the established Church shifted over time. It was certainly not envisioned to be "protestantism" as a whole until Anglo-Catholicism appeared in the 19th century.

Gay bishop embarassing?

I am wondering why this is such a concerted effort to ensure that the ordination of a gay bishop not be mentioned in a headline? This is the crucial issue which has led to the current crisis in the AC. The recent Communique only discussed three points with regard to the crisis:

1. Ordination of gay bishops 2. Same sex unions 3. provincial boundaries

So, one cannot avoid mention of gay bishops in the headline.129.74.165.42

Anglicans like a bit of decorum. Tabloid headlines are best left to a certain class of argument. Lets all take a deep breath and speak nicely to each other. And - quite parenthetically 129.74.165.42 - you spelled embarrassing incorrectly. It is spelled with a double r and a double s: not (sic)"embarassing". Now, how embarrassing is that! Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 14:19, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

And it's not even an issue of decorum. The sensationalistic headline proposed by you, 129.74.165.42, seems to carry more of an agenda than any you accuse others of having. It's a great head-turner, but belongs in the National Enquirer, not Wikipedia. It's also overly simplisitic and misleading. I would think that if you really are sincere about wanting to include an issue that, while embarrassing, is still relevant and worthy of inclusion, you would want to do it in a professional and accurate manner. --Anietor 15:33, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Your comments are great for leveling charges, but you have not made a case for the exlusion of gay ordinaton from the headlines. Saying that this is an issue of decorum or that it is biased is really not an argument. Please tell me how the present crisis is NOT about the ordination of a gay bishop.129.74.165.42 15:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, here's a response: It has very little if nothing to do with Anglicanism, which is a movement within Christianity. It merits discussion in the article Anglican Communion, and indeed it is discussed there. Focusing on it as a matter of such great import is an example of recentism: We do not live in exceptional times as Anglicans. There have been schisms and extra-provincial meddlings since the seventeenth century, when the Puritans left the Church of England and Archbishop of Canterbury William Laud was meddling in the Scottish Episcopal Church. Fishhead64 17:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Anglo-American Methodism?

Surely calling methodism an "Anglo-American" movement is inaccurate. It was established in Britain long before it crossed that Atlantic and the article implies that Wesley personally took it there.Further the American revolution may have prompted a break away for American methodists, but hardly for the whole movement. Epeeist smudge 11:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Anglicanism COTM

The Anglicanism Collaboration of the Month for April was late in being designated, due to my Lenten and Paschal wikibreak. It is Anglican views of homosexuality, always a favourite topic. Please consider reviewing the article, and helping in its assessment and improvement. Thanks! Fishhead64 02:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Intercommunion with Roman Catholic Church

The article lays down the official "letter of the law". But I have known various Roman Catholics take communion in Anglican churches, and to the best of my knowledge they have not been censured as a result. On three occasions, as an Anglican, I have asked an RC priest if I could receive communion at the service where he was the celebrant, and on each occasion the answer was yes. Millbanks 22:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Most, if not all, Anglican churches are happy to let any baptised Christian (sorry Salvation Army) take communion and so your Roman Catholic friends would not have been censured if the priest knew. As for your experiences in a Roman Catholic church, that was against their doctrine unless you were in extremis or there was no Anglican alternative available. Sometimes for pastoral reasons a priest may go against the letter of the law however. I have never asked for nor received communion in a RC church when I have attended as I had no wish to put the priest in a position of deciding to turn me away or break his rules. Dabbler 00:53, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Some Catholic priests operate a policy of official ignorance: they won't refuse you communion even if they happen to know that you are an Anglican, but if you formally ask, they might feel that formally they have to say no. There are also circumstances in which a priest may have discretion, e.g. when hosting an ecumenical event within a restricted context such as a University chaplaincy. My policy as a non-Catholic is to go for communion unless (a) the exclusivity of communion has been specifically announced by the priest (which happened at the last Catholic funeral I went to), or (b) there are Catholic laypeople present who know I am not a Catholic and would be offended by my action. I'd be surprised if there aren't some strict Catholic priests who would censure members of their flock for taking Anglican communion, but lay Catholics who are prepared to take Anglican communion probably either go to a church with a more relaxed attitude, or just keep it quiet. Myopic Bookworm 10:22, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

This discussion is moot as this needs to be cited to be legit: "In practice, however, there is a certain amount of illicit inter-communion in both directions, although this is forbidden by the Pope and the Second Vatican Council, which regarded Anglicans with favour but not as a church, merely as an 'ecclesial body'."

As pointed out above it, is impossible to be in "both directions" since no anglican church would turn away a spiritual prepared, Baptised Christian. Intercommunion can only be illicit in one direction in this case.

"It happened to a friend of mine" is not a proper cite. SECisek 22:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

A better way of saying this might be that the Anglican Church (at least ECUSA) is in communion with all churches that practice Baptism (one way communion). However, the opposite is NOT true, as some of those churches do not find themselves in communion with the ECUSA or Anglican Church, such as the Roman Catholic church, which explicitly states under what exceptions an Anglican can receive communion, which is otherwise denied. Only if both sides are in communion with the other are the churches in Full Communion. For a non-Anglican example, the communion situation between the Eastern Othodox church and the Roman Catholic church is an example of such one-way communion. 207.132.147.88 12:53, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Calvin and Edward VI

Why do people keep saying that Calvin influenced the Edwardian Church? What is the evidence please? MacCulloch denies that he had any influence at that time, but his hour had come in 1558. See MacCulloch TRHistS 2005, p. 92.

Bibliography

Could not the bibliography be expanded to include the works mentioned in the footnotes? As it stands the bibliography is fairly bland . Frederick Jones

They probably ought to be integrated one way or the other. We probably don't actually need the Bibliography section at all if full information is given for each reference, and all references should use the various "cite" templates or none at all. If the books in the Bibliography are not actually being used to support specific points, why are they listed at all (as oppsoed to any others that could be chosen)? David Underdown 07:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with you that all which are not used to support specific points should be eliminated. As it is they all seem to support a specific interpretation of Anglicanism, ignoring Evangelicals and the Protestant inheritance of Cranmer and the Reformers, and also any critical scrutiny ie Cross rather than Nichols. I would love to be proved wrong. Frederick Jones Why not eliminate them?

Perhaps the process of dealing with the bibliography could start by deleting all those which lack dates and publication details? Frederick Jones

References

Dear Mr Underdown, Thank you for your latest note, but I fear that I am not very efficient and find your style of refernce rather odd. I will try. Incidentally Fr Nichols talks of Uniate Churches of which some people have heard, not particular churches.I think if you asked the TAC they would say they aspired to uniate status. Frederick Jones ps The reference you require for the footnote is www.anglicanuse.org/Anglican_Uniatism.pdf

The referencing may seem odd, but it does mean that everything gets formatted the same and makes for a more consistent look to things. It seems even odder to have a mixture of styles. On the use of Uniate or not, see Eastern Catholic Churches#The term "Uniate", it seems that it is now a usage deprecated within the Roman Catholic Church (in its broadest sense), in favour of the usage "Particular Churches". Thanks for the updated link, David Underdown 16:31, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Anglican Thinkers

Inclusion of Gladstone who wrote extensively on religion, as also did Lord Halifax the President of the ECU later the Church Union. Inclusion of Attlee like Tutu a religious politician.

If Newman is included then so should John Wesley and perhaps Charles Wesley . Sorry I looked again,they are there. But since Newman expressed his opinion on the C of E by leaving it why is he there at all? The Wesleys could claim they were forced out. Would the former Anglican Archdeacon H.E. Manning, later Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster not merit inclusion in the list ? Cardinal Newman is there.

Newman wrote briliantly about the C of E until he, like the Wesleys, felt forced out by matters of conscious. Manning, I support, but wont add him myself. The list is long enough already. SECisek 22:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to note that according to Wikipedia policy a good article is broad in its coverage, focused without going into unnecessary details - see Wikipedia:What is a good article. Perhaps the top 5 "Anglican Thinkers" would suffice. Sorry if I'm putting a damper on the fun of finding and arguing over the merits of another Anglican thinker. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 00:18, 5 July 2007

If writing brilliantly about the C of E is to be the criterion then perhaps Ronald Knox and FW Faber should be included, not to mention John Jewel or Thomas Cartwright. They are of considerably more substance than many included. I would support a cull. The top five with a strict definition of 'thinkers' would seem a sensible solution.Frederick Jones.

I agree and boldly culled the list. What do you all think. No Newman, no Wesley, just the top 5 Anglican "thinkers". What do you all think?

SECisek 23:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I support you strongly but with one doubt. Why not John Jewel instead of John Donne.? Jewel wrote what Mandell Creighton calls 'the first methodical statement of the position of the C of E against the Church of Rome, and the groundwork of all subsequent controversy.'

Perhaps five is not enough - we now have no names after the 17th Century which seems a little misleading. I think we need to show that Anglican thought has continued since then... David Underdown 09:19, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair play, I thought that when I made the edit.

SECisek 09:22, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, no one is ever going to agree on who the top ten are, much less the top five. Unfortunately, these lists tend to grow like topsy as a result. Perhaps the list should be done away with entirely, since both this and other articles (e.g. Anglican doctrine and English Reformation) touch on the major ones with appropriate links. fishhead64 04:30, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree.SECisek 09:28, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Frederick Jones

Catholic versua Roman Catholic

I see somebody has altered Catholic to Roman Catholic throughout. As this is not an Anglican but a general encyclopedia could not these alterations be deleted to what is general usage, and which accords with what over 1000000000 people call their church ? As Newman put it quoting St Augustine 'Securus judicat orbis terrarum'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.105.225.140 (talk • contribs) 21:06, 11 July 2007

Ahhh, the interminable Roman Catholic vs Catholic name debate. This debate is much like a zombie: the living dead that can never be slayed yet is never alive (i.e. very little merit). Please see Talk:Roman Catholic Church/Archive 7 for the 2006 debate. The usage of Roman Catholic is not incorrect especially from the vantage point of Anglicans who view themselves as Catholic. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 22:52, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

"Roman Catholic" is the correct, usage here and everywhere. My church is unique (and I was going to bring this up as a seperate issue) in that it is the only single service Joint Anglican (ECUSA) and Roman Catholic church in the United States (Church of the Holy Apostles ARC, Virginia Beach, Virginia). It's a member of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond and the Episcopal Church USA Diocese of Southern Virginia (in a way, the oldest Anglican Diocese in North America, although in fact, it's an offshoot (the older part) of the seperation of the Diocese of Virginia, which is the oldest in full point). The Roman Catholic church identifies itself as Roman Catholic in all literature, designations, etc., even down into the full name of the church, where the "RC" in "ARC" means Roman Catholic. My understanding is that a similar Lutheran-Roman Catholic church exists in the mid-west of the United States, which is the only LRC church in the US. 207.132.147.88 12:28, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The above is very hot on assertion ,weak on evidence . As for' here and everywhere 'I suggest trying asking anyone in the street the way to the nearest Catholic Church? The sample given is too small to be of any value. I was under the impression that Wikipedia was not written from the standpoint of American Anglicans who thought of themselves as catholic, but from a general viewpoint. Incidentally I was wrong about statistics, 2,173,183,400 regard their church as the Catholic Church. Of the 81,231,000 Anglicans how many regard their church as Protestant, nowadays probably the majority? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frederick jones (talk • contribs) 16:51, 12 July 2007

Since the Church in Rome was originally part of the Church as founded in ancient times, but was not the ONLY part (the Church of Antioch lays claim as being the oldest Episcopate), it was always identified as such during the meetings between the respectice church patriarchs (such as, for example, during the Council of Nicea). In fact, the Nicean creed, as written, specifically forces the Roman Catholic Church to be the ROMAN Catholic Church, as it was adopted by all of the churchs, and refered in the phrase "one Holy, catholic, and apostolic church" to the church in GENERAL, the UNIVERSAL (the definition of catholic) church; anything else would have excluded the other patriarchs. There are MANY examples of catholic churches that are NOT the Roman Catholic Church, and do not follow the Roman Catholic precepts, but are in full communion never the less with the Roman Catholic Church, are acknowledged to be catholic, but do not accept Papal primacy and authority (which seems to be your requirement for "Catholic"), including some of the remains of the ancient Church of Antioch (although some of those remains DO acknowledge Papal primacy). You, and many others, fail to pay attention to what, exactly, the definitions ARE of the words you bandy. The fact that what amounts to slang usage has equated catholic with Roman Catholic over the years is not "proof" that the correct term is the slang; it's proof that you aren't being formal enough in your language usage. Roman Catholic is and always HAS been the correct term, here, and everywhere. It's even more important when you're in a discussion where the term is used correctly by others in an inclusive manner. 207.132.147.88 14:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, usage is determined by context, in Anglican articles, the Catholic church is known as Roman Catholic because that is what Anglicans call it to differentiate it from the catholic church of which they are part. The Catholic church uses the name Roman Catholic when dealing with other churches e.g. the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission or ARCIC. Wassupwestcoast has provided numerous references and support for that positioon above. Dabbler 17:08, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Context does not justify correcting the words of Cardinal Ratzinger in his conversation with Dr Rowell. Read the article,it is cited.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Frederick jones (talk • contribs) 18:07, 12 July 2007

It was not a correction of Ratzinger's words but those of Rowell which I have revised to avoid direct copying of a copyright article. Dabbler 18:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

In any case why correct the polite Dr Rowell? Is there indeed an issue of copyright? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frederick jones (talk • contribs)

Recent edits by 24.183.239.101 have attempted to restart this fire. 24.183.239.101 has no talk page and no edits apart from attempts at restarting RCC vs CC edit wars. The IP likely belongs either to a troll or a sock puppet.

I will continue to revert these edits until the time comes that a valid reason for leaving them is presented. The latest edit took two sentences, the first presenting Anglican POV, followed by a sentance containing the Roman POV and changed the first sentence to also reflect the Roman POV at the expense of the Anglican. I reverted this edit as it makes no effort at maintaining NPOV. This is Wikipedia at its worst I am sorry to say. -- SECisek 21:39, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

The text was clearly more NPOV before you reverted it. It said Anglicans maintain that bishops of the church are members of the historic episcopate, .... The next sentence is The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches do not recognize the validity of Anglican ordinations .... Your change biases the text toward one view over the other by stating one as fact and the other as an alternate view. 24.183.239.101 22:19, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Remember that this article is about Anglicanism and not a critique. It is self-evident the Bishops are Anglican and this is the view of the Anglican church: it says so in the previous sentence. A neutral POV does not mean that we negate the subject the article is about. For every statement we do not need to say: Anglicans maintain, Anglicans say, Anglicans claim, Anglicans understand, Anglicans maintain, Anglicans suppose, Anglicans allege, or Anglicans purport, etc. All of these fall in the gambit of weasel words because in an article about Anglicanism, one expects to be presented with the views and understanding of the ideas or doctrines of Anglicanism. This article must not be a panegyric to Anglicanism nor should any article in Wikipedia be a paean to its subject. Wiki articles must not be propaganda. But ... in an argument ad absurdum, should the Anglicanism article carefully counter balance every point of argument with the Roman Catholic counter-argument, and the Roman Catholic article were to do the same, then - logically - the two articles would be functionally equivalent. That is, argument A vs. counter argument B is equivalent to argument B vs. counter argument A. Then to extend the argument, one could make the Roman Catholic and Anglicanism articles equivalent to the Protestantism article, and thence to every article in the pantheon of all religions where every article would feature nothing but all the possible arguments and counter arguments in all the combinatorial majesty known to logic. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 01:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I was not attempting to make arguments with my edit. I am familiar with the Wikipedia admonition to avoid weasel words, but I see similar verbiage in similar contexts; e.g. in the same article: Anglicans traditionally date the origins of their Church to ... In both cases (my edit and this example), the position of the Anglican Church is given, and in both cases that position is not commonly accepted outside of the Anglican community. It is a fact that the Anglican Church promulgates these beliefs, but the beliefs themselves are not commonly accepted as facts. --24.183.239.101 04:16, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you will also introduce "NPOV", as you call it, into the Roman Catholic Church article. It states

(The Church)traces its origins to the original Christian community founded by Jesus Christ and spread by the Twelve Apostles, in particular Saint Peter.

According to your suggestion here this should read "(The Church) CLAIMS to trace its origins..."

We know who claims this, it doesn't need to be changed. Look at the subject of the article. Ditto here. It is a fact that the Roman Church promulgates this belief, but the belief itself is not universally accepted as fact. -- SECisek 20:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Mention of Ecumenical Churches?

I'm throwing this out there for discussion. Should explicitly Ecumenical churches (Joint Churches) be mentioned in the Ecumenism sections? I am aware of a number of these types of churches. For example, my own personal church (Church of the Holy Apostles Anglican/Roman Catholic, Virginia Beach, Virginia) is the only known Anglican/Roman Catholic church in the US (and perhaps in the world), being a parish in both the ECUSA Diocese of Southern Virginia, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Richmond (#582 on the RC Parish list for Richmond). I know of a number of joint Anglican/Lutheran churches since the Call to Common Mission statement was signed in the US. Is it valuable or useful to mention some of these other churches in context of the ecumenical movement of the Anglican (explicitly, in this case, the ECUSA, but obviously expandable to ALL Anglican) communions of some of the noteworthy examples in this context? These churches are unique in terms of their liturgy (having to blend the ECUSA Book of Common Prayer and other faith expressions similar liturgies) and have always required special arrangments between respective Bishops; HA has required the blessings of three different Popes (Paul VII, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI; John Paul I did not live long enough for the matter to come up and letters to be pushed back down to the diocesen), for example, even beyond local diocesean approval and the acknowledgement of the ECUSA presiding bishop. As a trivia point, HA-ARC is one of only two Roman Catholic churches in the world with the official title of Co-Pastor for the Rector (the other being a joint Lutheran/Roman Catholic church) 207.132.147.88 12:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Interesting point, there are a number of examples in England and Wales (see Local Ecumenical Partnership), those involving Anglicans are all partnerships with Methodists I think (there are also Methodist/URC examples, but no Anglican/URC ones that I know of). There are a few buildings shared between Anglican/RC churches (Church of the Holy Spirit Bretton, Peterborough) but I'm not sure how much there is by way of shared servies there. Perhaps the most famous in England is Christ the Cornerstone, Milton Keynes. There seems to be RC involvement in this, although there are separate RC masses as well as "Ecumenical Eucharists". The Anglican St Albans Cathedral also allows a number of other christian groups to provide services there (including RC masses), see [1]. Much hospital and prison chaplaincy is also carried out on some sort of ecumenical basis. David Underdown 13:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Anglican/United Reformed Church partnerships do exist in the UK: there is one in Gloucester diocese, though at present it retains both buildings. I think it would be worth mentioning briefly the existence of joint churches in the Ecumenism section. Myopic Bookworm 17:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

As an addendum, I need to emphasize that this is NOT the same situation as Anglo-Catholic churches. Holy Apostles has a SINGLE service, in a single space, with both priest officiating. Coincidentally, in the ECUSA Diocese of Southern Virginia (and only a mere 30 minutes drive, very close for US standards) is St. Brides, which IS Anglo-Catholic, see [2]. Anglo-Catholic are in the Anglican Communion, but are not formally recognized by Rome. 207.132.147.88 14:07, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The "but" in that sentence is a bit odd. No church in the Anglican Communion is recognized by Rome, and the supreme authority of the Pope is not formally accepted by any Anglican church, whether of the Anglo-Catholic tradition or otherwise. I believe there are churches in the US which have accepted papal authority while continuing to use Anglican liturgy, but they have ceased to be Anglican churches.

Holy Apostles sounds fascinating. Has it ever had a service involving a female Anglican priest? I imagine that might cause some difficulty. Myopic Bookworm 17:47, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The Diocese of Southern Virginia was (until a few years ago) one of the only Diocese with a female BISHOP (Bishop Suffragen), Bishop Carol Gallagher. She has served as Bishop, occasionally. However, in specific.... The Reverend Gwen Mudd is a retired Episcopal minister who moved to Virginia Beach about two years ago, and joined Holy Apostles as a MEMBER at that time (she's retired, remember). However, she was received into the Diocese (and as such, was allowed to be a practicing priest in the Diocese). As such, in the most recent year and a half, whenenver the current Episcopal priest, Father David Lasalle is not able to officiate, Reverend Gwen steps in and serves as the supply priest. Purely as trivia, the first time I was a Lay Eucharistic Minister, she was the Episcopal officiant. There has never been, however, a female priest who was called to be a full-time Co-Pastor. 207.132.147.88 14:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

This should be included in the main article but we'd first have to define the general idea of joint worship. Purely from my own experience - a datum of one - I can identify these Anglican relationships.

Anglican church rents space to another church. I know of an Anglican church and Roman Catholic church sharing a building for 17 years with the Anglicans being the landlord.
Anglican church is part of an ecumenical centre. I know of two types. In one type, the centre is much like a shopping plazza where the various churches share one physical building but maintain separate spaces and, possibly, separate entrances. In newly constructed communities this seems to be the case. The other type consists of a common hall or space which is occupied on a schedule by various churches much like basketball, badminton and volleyball players will share a community gym. This seems to be the model for university and hospital worship spaces.
Anglican church shares a church building and worship space with another church on a fortnightly rotation. One Sunday, the service is Anglican. Next Sunday, the service is of the other church. The congregation can be almost identical on each Sunday so that it is the leaders and style that change. This usually occurs in small and remote communities but I know of a city example.
Anglican church is home to a minister or priest of a different church who will lead the occasional service. I know of an example where a Lutheran street priest is based out of an Anglican church.
Anglican and another church hold joint services every Sunday lead by a leader from both churches to a mixed congregation.

There might be other ecumenical models. My categorization is only to generate some ideas of how to incorporate the concept into the main article. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 19:54, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The Church of the Holy Apostles ARC, Virgina Beach, is an example of number 5 (a solitary example, AFAIK, and AFA many representatives of the Roman Catholic diocese know, at least in so far as Roman Catholicism; I do know of a few joint Lutheran-Episcopal churches that have grown up since Call to Common Mission). As you discussed, though, some of these are trivial to find examples of. Most military churches, for example will fall into a slightly different version of example number 2 or 3, with a shared building but different services at different times. Bill Ward 14:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by W.E.Ward.III (talk • contribs).

Actually, that's beginning to sound like the core of an article on Ecumenical churches, since there seems to be nothing that obliges such arrangements to includes an Anglican congregation. Though I guess Roman Catholics are less likely to cooperate directly with non-episcopal churches, I know of a URC which hosted a quite separate Metropolitan Community Church congregation. Myopic Bookworm 10:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

There's already the (not brilliant) Local Ecumenical Partnership article I referred to above which could be improved. David Underdown 10:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

That article seems to be specific to the movement in the UK and Wales only; it would be an excellent link down article in a bigger article, but I don't see how it would be able to be expanded or rewritten to cover ecumenism in the US, Australia, Germany, etc. If this does not belong in the article about Anglicanism as a whole (as was suggested) since it could be expanded to include LA, LRC, LU, AUM, UMRC, etc, combinations, then that article wouldn't be able to serve as a basis; it would still be a good link, though. Bill Ward 16:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by W.E.Ward.III (talk • contribs).

As an addendum, I thought about going back and resigning all of my previous posts (I'm 207.132...), but I'll leave it like that after all; however, since I now have created an account, my posts will show up signed (no anonymity for me; I stand by what I say). Bill Ward 20:45, 17 July 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by W.E.Ward.III (talk • contribs).

Catholic and Reformed?

I am a little puzzled as to when the 'real concern to make the institution as hospitable as possible to people of different theologial inclinations'was shown. Was it during the time of Elizabeth, when the Puritans, no less Anglican than Parker, were given such a hard time? Was it during the time of Archbishop Laud? Was it in 1662 ? or during the time of Wesley? Was it when the Bishops pronounced on Tract 90? It seems to me a rather questionable contention and I would welcome some supporting evidence from English history. I can see it as coming about by accident because the C of E is a state church, but I am puzzled about the 'real concern'. FJ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Frederick jones (talk • contribs) 10:01, 16 July 2007

Latitudinarianism apparently dates back to the seventeenth century. But it wasn't always the dominant trend. john k 04:53, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Distinctions from the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches

I want to throw this out as a discussion item. I can see arguements, each way, to making this change and to NOT making it.

I think this section should be edited (strawman arguement) to read something like this (I've used italics to show the significant differences):

Anglicanism varies from the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches in the following ways:

Clergy are allowed to marry.[15] This could be seen as a reversion to early church practices prior to the 10th century that allowed priests to marry.
Ordination of women in some dioceses.
In some provinces the Eucharist is open to all baptized Christians.
The collegiate structure of the church in contrast with Roman Catholic centralization. This could also be interpreted as a return to ancient traditions dating from the first and second century.
The loose structure of the Anglican Communion. Unlike the pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury has no authority outside his province but is regarded as "first among equals" among bishops in the Anglican Communion. This again could be intrepreted as a return to the early church structure as well, particularly as the church existed prior to the Council of Nicea.

Ok, the strawman arguement is that the practices listed here that differentiate the Anglican church from the Roman Catholic church were not theological differences, but were differences in the actual running of the church (sorry, I'm not expressing that right). The early Church supported most of the same practices (even allowing Eucharist to all baptized Christians was part of the absolute earliest days of the church) except for Ordination of Women. While there are a number of other issues, none of these are theological dogma.

Of course, the contrary arguement starts with "But that's potentially POV" and then proceeds to "Never-the-less, they are still differences in how the churchs operate TODAY."

Comments? Bill Ward 01:59, 18 July 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by W.E.Ward.III (talk • contribs).

Just to note that according to Wikipedia policy a good article is broad in its coverage, focused without going into unnecessary details - see Wikipedia:What is a good article. I think in this case, keeping it simple means keeping it descriptive and avoiding the "why". One problem might be finding acceptable sources as to the "why" of these differences, especially when these statements are partially unsourced in their present form. There must be a contemporary and reliable text book we could use as a general source for the "Distinctions" sections. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 03:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Then would a valid NEW article be worthwhile that details some of the early Church practices that have gone out of favor, or practices that happened since (for example, the practice of being able to buy indulgences is no longer practiced in the Roman Catholic church, but was one of the points of contention during the earliest part of the Protestant Reformation)? The links could be made to MANY different churches and church practices.... although suddenly, that seems to be a huge article. Might help some of the more narrowly focused folks realize just how closely related many of these precepts are, though.... Bill Ward 22:37, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

It is intensely dubious to add all this "this is really just a return to the practices of the early Church" business - it's apologetics, not explanation, and the historical reasons for these various differences between Canterbury and Rome are only partially to do with desires to return to the early Church. Beyond that, both the distinctions sections are terrible. As noted, they generally apply to practices, and not to doctrine. In doctrine, the official position of the CoE is pretty standard-issue protestant, and differs from Catholicism in all the ways you'd expect - denial of transubstantiation, salvation through faith alone (more or less), even predestination. Beyond that, the supposed "differences from many protestant groups" are completely worthless, as almost any of the supposed features of Anglicanism that distinguish it from "protestantism" can be found in some protestant group or other. Lutheran and Reformed (and, I think, Methodist, although I'm not sure) churches all perform infant baptism, for instance, and my understanding is that most would drink wine rather than grape juice. The established Scandinavian churches have a diocesan structure, and so, I believe, do some methodist groups. Women are ordained by many mainline protestant groups. Also note that the so called differences with "Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy" include things which are, in fact, not actually differences between Anglicanism and eastern Orthodoxy - the latter, notably, allows married priests, which the article doesn't note. And so forth. I'd just assume take it all out, unless we can have an actually decent discussion of this. john k 05:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

As for the original point, the word "Strawman" was always there... I'm asking if it's something that should be considered, not necessarily promoting that it should be in the article, per se. As for the rest.... I agree that many of the differences between groups can be found here or there in other groups. That's what I'm asking about with the strawman. However, in a bigger way, the question could also be "Should we mention the REAL differences between these groups (the Theological ones)? Bill Ward 19:09, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Slight Correction under "Roman Catholic Church"

In addition, progress has not been helped by the Second Vatican Council declaring that the Anglican Church, along with other Protestant denominations, is not a church at all but a mere "ecclesial community" saying that "Among those in which some Catholic traditions and institutions continue to exist, the Anglican Communion occupies a special place".

Ok, (from an admittedly Anglo-Catholic Universalist leaning Episcopalian) there is something just WRONG with that sentence. It's POV, not because it MENTIONS RC point of view, but because of the aside, ", along with other Protestant denominations", which has absolutely NOTHING to do with Anglicanism/Roman Catholicism. My POV is that Anglicanism IS Catholic, not Protestant, but even official dogma of Anglicanism talks about the Via Media, the middle way (discussed elsewhere in the article). At worst, you can't lump Anglicanism as Catholic OR Protestant in that case. The entire arguement can be skirted around by simply removing the aside, however, which also removes data that has nothing to do with the subject. Therefore, can we remove that snippet? I have no issues with the rest, even though it's RC POV, because it specifically is DESCRIBING the RC POV of Anglicanism vis-a-vis Vatican II's official statements. Bill Ward 02:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by W.E.Ward.III (talk • contribs).

Since no one had objected, I went ahead and made that change. Bill Ward 22:49, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Anglicanism was considered protestant for most of its history, up until the Oxford Movement got going. The via media was not between protestantism and catholicism, but between catholicism and particular extreme forms of protestant (notably non-episcopal variants of Calvinism). The official doctrine of the Church of England, as expressed in the Thirty-nine Articles, is pretty close to orthodox Calvinism. Organizationally and liturgically the CoE has always been more conservative than most protestant groups, but doctrinally there's not much space there. The whole political crisis of the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century was explicitly conceived as being about preserving the "protestant succession" - which makes little sense if we don't view the Church of England as protestant. The argument that the Church of England is "Catholic" runs into problems when we consider that the English, er, Catholic James II and his son were unacceptable rulers, but that a Dutch Calvinist and a German Lutheran were perfectly acceptable. Beyond that, even since the Oxford Movement, there has continued to be a reasonably strong Low Church tradition. Our articles on Anglicanism ought to respect the fact that everybody in the world except for Anglo-Catholics views Anglicanism as being, broadly speaking, protestant. This includes Catholics, other protestants, non-religious people, and a significant portion of practicing Anglicans. The term "protestant" is generally used to refer to churches that arose out of the Reformation, and that have some historical connection to the teachings of Luther and/or Calvin. This is pretty indisputably true for the Church of England, in spite of its rather odd origins. The Elizabethan settlement essentially merged Calvinist doctrine with more conservative organization and liturgy. But the Calvinist doctrine was still there. It's also worth noting that the early seventeenth century sees indisputably Calvinist protestant puritans still within the established Church. The same cannot be said for Catholics. The early eighteenth century sees rather committed protestants like John Wesley only parting with the established church reluctantly. The idea that Anglicanism is "Catholic and not protestant", so far as I can tell, can only be sustained if one understands completely idiosyncratic meanings to both words, meanings that, for the most part, are only understood by Anglo-Catholics. Obviously "catholic" originally meant "universal," and there are some parts of the doctrine of most mainstream christian groups (notably the Nicene creed) which talk about "one catholic and apostolic church." But "Catholic" with a capital "C" means "in communion with the Church of Rome" to just about everyone besides Anglo-Catholics. If we are to accept Anglicanism as "Catholic," I don't see how we can deny the "catholicism" of any group that accepts the Nicene Creed and has some theoretical belief in a universal church - this would include Lutherans, Reformed churches, and Methodists, at least, as well as the various eastern churches. And I'm not sure I even fully understand what Anglo-Catholics mean when they say "protestant" - I can't think of any definition of protestant which could include both Lutherans and Calvinists, but exclude the Church of England, which is doctrinally somewhere between Lutheranism and Calvinism, but probably closer to Calvinism. (And the existence of bishops and so forth is hardly unique to Anglicanism, either - the state churches of Scandinavia have bishops, notably). This whole line of argument is basically a lot of special pleading and jargon. john k 08:07, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

While you may be right historically, I find that nowadays in my experience the Anglo-Catholic view of the question is a far more dominant tendency in the church now than it was even fifty years ago. Most modern Anglicans would b hard pressed to find more similarities with Calvin than the Pope. The 39 Articles are pretty well forgotten and ignored. Dabbler 17:27, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Anglo-Catholics do seem to be more dominant, but I don't see how that should be dispositive. The general ignoring of the Thirty-Nine Articles has more to do with the fact that doctrine, as such, tends to be downplayed, doesn't it - that's as much Broad Church as it is High Church, isn't it? The Thirty-Nine Articles are, nonetheless, the official doctrine of, at least, the Church of England, and are, nonetheless, rather Calvinistic. And none of this changes the fact that everyone except Anglo-Catholics (including what is at least a substantial minority of Anglicans themselves) would agree that the term "protestant" is appropriate. Even beyond that, I still don't see how one could come up with a consistent definition of "protestantism" which could include the Church of Sweden and exclude the entire Anglican Communion. And Low Church Anglicans certainly would see themselves as closer to Calvin than to the Pope. Certainly nobody seems to disagree that the Church of Ireland is protestant? The basic issue isn't that the term "protestant" is incorrect, it's that Anglo-Catholics don't like it, because they feel it has certain connotations they don't like. I don't want to deny the existence of Anglo-Catholicism, but I think it needs t o be put into a proper context, and that its interpretations of things can't be allowed to dominate this article, or others. In particular, it can't be allowed to force us to use tortuous and idiosyncratic language which is misleading to those who don't already understand the way Anglo-Catholics use various terminology. In the broadest sense, Anglicanism is protestant - it's a western church which broke with Rome during the Reformation, and which adopted doctrines and, to some extent, practices which were derived from the influence of continental reformers, particularly (after 1559) from Calvin. As such, it is acceptable to call it protestant in some contexts, and certainly "Anglicans" shouldn't be distinguished from "Protestants" as though the t wo are mutually exclusive. If you look at the OED entry for "Protestant," you'll discover that 150 years ago the term was used in precisely the opposite sense - "protestant" meant supporters of the established church, as opposed to both "Catholics" and "dissenters." The term "Protestant," at any rate, has no clear doctrinal meaning. It certainly doesn't imply adherence to some particular belief, the way "Reformed" implies adherence to Calvin. The objection to the use of "protestant" to refer to Anglicanism annoys me because it seems to be entirely based on a rejection of history, and on the creation of a fictional history of the Church of England. We can use the term "protestant" in broad, non-specific contexts while at the same time explaining why many present-day Anglicans reject it. And we should certainly use it in historical contexts, especially since "Anglican" is actually kind of weird and anachronistic before at least the 18th century, if not even later. john k 18:25, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

No one can seriously doubt the essentially "catholic" nature of the Church of England during Henry VIII's time; only the top level (non-English) layer of leadership and monasticism were removed from what had been the presence of the Roman Catholic Church for a millenia. During Elizabeth's time, with Calvinism rising, there is quite a bit of truth that parts of Calvinism were pulled into CoE's teachings (which is actually why Elizabeth was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church); however, she was attempting to "Big Tent" all of Christianity in England into the CoE to prevent civil unrest. That didn't work, in the end, of course, since during Charles I's reign, that compromise boiled up when in a real sense, the Calvinist elements of the CoE went to war with the Catholic elements of the CoE; ultimately, the Catholic elements won, with the restoration of Charles II. In the U.S., an analogue arguement exists in our own history. Were we a "Free Country" before the US Civil War ended Slavery? If so, than it can be argued that the CoE never STOPPED being Catholic; it just took a bit of an arguement to sort it out. Even more, the timing is almost about right, as well; in each case, about three generations before open hostility and warefare. Whoever said history doesn't repeat itself (if you know where to look). Bill Ward 19:16, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is really pretty unconvincing. Firstly, the way you use the term "Catholic" has pretty much no meaning. Certainly the Restoration Church bore a lot more in common with the Elizabethan Church than it did with the Henrician one, and the post-Revolution Church even more so. And it is much too broad to call the Presbyterian and Independent elements within the parliamentary grouping "Calvinist." There were many people in the CoE who were doctrinally Calvinistic while also being in favor of episcopacy. To confuse the two issues is a big problem. I'll also note the fascinating fact that erastianism is not even mentioned in this article. Repeating a dubious Anglo-Catholic view of the history of the 16th and 17th century over and over again doesn't make it any more true. To say that Laud, et al, represent 'Catholic' elements of the Church of England has some truth to it, maybe, but it is much more an instance of pulling the disputes which Newman was engaged in backwards into an earlier time in which they don't really apply. The Church of England has of course always considered itself "Catholic," but so has every other Nicene Church - certainly every other established church has pretensions to universality. And there is absolutely nothing about episcopacy as such which is "Catholic," except in Anglo-Catholic usage. We should use "Catholic" the way the majority of the world uses it, not the way a single faction of a single, rather numerically small, religious group does. This article should explicate Anglo-Catholic ideas, not advocate them. john k 00:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I posted this else where but I bring it here, as well: john k wrote: "For most of the world, "Catholic" means "in communion with Rome + maybe some of those groups which split from Rome as a result of Vatican I and Vatican II."

This definition is not the only defintion accepted in wikipedia. I wikififed the word Catholic above. Click on it and see where it takes you. Your definition just launches the unending RCC versus CC debate.

What is more, some groups defined as not "Protestant" in your definition, e.g., the Old Catholics, would completely disagree with any assertion that Anglicans are not Catholics, too. At the death of Henry VIII, the Church was Catholic in every way minus the Religious Orders and the Pope. Attempts to "Protestant-ize" the Church resulted in the Civil Wars which saw the defeat and near destruction of the Catholic movement in what would become Great Britian and the eventual Catholic triumph at the Restoration.

Why does everyone keep talking about Henry VIII? The main points of what the Church of England was to be weren't really settled until the Elizabethan Settlement, which was quite distinctly protestant. Referring to Laudianism as "the Catholic movement" is confusing and misleading, given that there were, and always have been, actual Roman Catholics in England. Was it the "Catholic" Bishop Compton who decided to expel James II and set the Calvinist William III on the throne? If we have to use "Roman Catholic" to refer to Catholics, at the very least we can avoid using "Catholic" to refer to the High Church tendency of the CoE, in all its rather various forms.

You say it would be seeing Laud through the eyes of Newman to call him Catholic. Laud had his head chopped off for something! That thing was the anti-Catholic sentiment that was rising in Parlament at the time the Civil Wars

Of course Laud had his head chopped off for something. The argument over which he got his head chopped off, though, was not the same argument that Newman was having with the Low Churchmen in 1830. Beyond that, what got Laud killed was his commitment to re-ritualization of the Church and Arminianism, which was seen by the more Puritan elements as being the beginning of a return to Rome. But describing this as "Catholic" is either a) to take those Puritans at their word on Laud's crypto-Papism; or b) to use a very specific Anglo-Catholic vocabulary to describe a time prior to the development of that vocabulary. Use of "Catholic" in this sense is entirely bizarre. Of course Laud and other members of the CoE referred to themselves as "Catholic." But this was all on the basis of "one catholic and apostolic church" in the creed. The same creed was held to by Lutherans, by continental Calvinists, and by Scottish presbyterians. All also held in a real sense to a concept of a universal church, and all tended to describe Roman Catholics as "Papists." The only way Laud can be described as a "Catholic" in distinction to all these clearly protestant groups that also held to the Nicene Creed is if we use a very specifically Anglo-Catholic definition of Catholic. This definition can perhaps be used for High Church Anglicans after the Oxford Movement, but why would we want to? "High Church Anglican" works much better, in that it is a term with an actual clear meaning that we all understand. For the earlier period, the terminology is more confused, but referring to Laud as a "Catholic" is only misleading. I'm perfectly fine with using "Roman Catholic" for "Papists". But if we have to do that, how can we then go on and call Laud, or whoever, a "Catholic"? The term "Catholic" has apparently been banned to refer to the group that almost everyone in the world calls Catholic, but somehow approved to refer to High Church Anglicans. This is outreageous and ridiculous. john k 06:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

John, as a Anglo-Catholic who goes to a (unique???) church that is both Roman Catholic and Anglican (Episcopalian), I will say right now that under no circumstances would I ever consider a Roman Catholic to not be a Catholic... but I also expect that Anglicans would also be recognized as catholic, too. The fact the Roman Catholic church has long had significant debates within itself over whether or not the Anglican church was "catholic" should go a significant way to dissuading anyone otherwise. Bill Ward 13:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Can "Protestant" be used to describe Anglicans? In some historical senses perhaps. A "Protestant dynastic marriage" or a "Protestant alliance" could be correct with proper context. In a religious sense, Protestant should almost never be used. Care should be used to avoid the term Protestant to mean Anglican, particularly without proper context. Roman Catholic and some Evangelicals both often demand that Anglicanism be classified as Protestant, both for their own reasons. This is inaccurate and can even be offensive. "Protestant" as it is typicaly used here on WP has more to do with religious ideology then it does with 16th century origins.

I could go on - and I will if forced to do so - but the RCC versus CC debate, which this is just another version of, is growing VERY tired at this point. Please, let's live with the existing conventions and get on with editing articles. I have been trying to get somebody to copy edit my rewrite of Thomas Cranmerin the hopes of seeing it go GA. I would be so happy if just half of the people fighting these pointless and endless fights about "Roman Catholic Church" and "Anglican" versus "Catholic Church" and "Protestant" would go and look at it. -- SECisek 21:13, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a pointless fight. There is a consistent and considerable POV problem with all articles on subjects of interest to Anglo-Catholics. Your description of the history of the Church of England is actively misleading and has largely been discredited by the most recent historiography, and it permeates all articles on these subjects. This is a serious substantive issue, which is made worse by the lack of conceptual clarity in the way terms are used. The Church of England has been around for more than 450 years now as a distinct entity, and it has a complicated history. Understanding that history is not helped by inserting a minority partisan POV into the subject. There is pretty much no reason to ever use the term "Catholic" to refer to elements within the Church of England, as you repeatedly do. Probably for the earliest period, the term "Conservative" should be used. For the middle period, "Laudian" or (especially from the 17th century on) "High Church," and for the later period, "High Church" or "Anglo-Catholic." As to Protestantism, so far as I can tell nobody objected to the use of "Protestant" to refer to the Church of England or the Church of Ireland or the Episcopal Church in Scotland or the one in the US until the Oxford Movement. As such, it should be perfectly appropriate to use that term until then. I don't really understand why Anglo-Catholics so object to "Protestant," a term which has no clear ideological meaning at all, but embrace "Reformed," a term which is generally associated specifically with Calvinist theology. Up until Newman, et al, started to get all pissy about being called Protestants (a pissiness that they, for the most part, ultimately solved by actually becoming real live Papists), the term was, so far as I can tell, generally accepted as a vague catch-all term for all the non-"Papist" western churches. There is no specific ideological meaning beyond that, and never really has been - it has always included Lutherans as well as Calvinists, notably. No useful purpose is served by all this terminological confusion. john k 06:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

john k wrote: "Your description of the history of the Church of England is actively misleading..."

My description? Cite me an example of an edit I made that was misleading. I haven't even been editing Anglican articles as of late as I am trying to fact-proof & cite articles concerning ancient and medieval heretics.

There are a number of Low Church POV editors who actively balance any Anglo-Catholic POV, such as User:Frederick jones and a number of editors, Roman, Protestant, and none of the above, who actively work the Anglicanism project, some do so with such dogged insistance over minor points that I suspect some are in fact sock puppets for legit users.

Yes, I jumped from Henry VIII to the Civil War. Again, this fight is over old ground. I don't feel like fighting about John Whitgift or Elizabeth's hatred of the Puritians, or "No Bishop, no King", or the match of Charles I with Henrietta Maria. I just spent the better of the last month trying to get somebody to acknowledge that Cardinal Pole wasn't the last Archbishop of Canterbury and I am burnt on this. Again Catholic means something here at Wikipedia. This was determined by lengthy debate, compromise, and consenseus. People will be unhappy with the definition, but that is how it is - somebody will always be unhappy when there is controversy.

If the use of Catholic is what is confusing, I point you to Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Controversial_names. Please note the quote: "However, rather than debating controversial names, please consider other ways to improve Wikipedia."

That is what I hope to continue doing. -- SECisek 14:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

GA quick fail

I am quick-failing this article because it lacks the appropriate inline citations. See WP:RS, WP:V and WP:CITE. See WP:GA? for the GA criteria. Awadewit | talk 18:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to GA review Anglicanism. The point you made will help when I and others work on it. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 18:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I will correct this ASAP to the best of my ability. More over the article is quite LONG and probably need more sub articles. Renom at month's end! -- SECisek 10:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Anglican communion and ecumenism

Created and moved text to Anglican communion and ecumenism that was appropriate there. This was under the sub-headings "Ecumenical relations" at Anglican Communion and "Ecumenism" at Anglicanism. Some of it was an exact duplicate. Some of it was oddly contradictory. Best to have all the info at one page to make best use of time and effort. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 12:27, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I added back a stub. We should have SOMETHING here. -- SECisek 06:31, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I meant to do write a bit of introductory text. Your text is good. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 12:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Origins and Edit

The very start of the article seems to have been the subject of a curious edit. I quote..."encapsulate those Christian's (sic) whose doctrine.....(etc.) have their origins in the English Reformation". The misused apostrophe (now deleted) seems to indicate a fairly unscholarly hand, as is also evidenced by the subsequent wording. Anglican beliefs, doctrines, etc. were influenced by the Reformation, but do not "originate" from there. They go back to St Augustine, indeed further back, to the early Church and Christ and the Apostles. Would someone more learned than me be able to correct this? If not, I'll have a go. Millbanks 13:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Please have a go!...yes, you have detected a fairly unscholarly hand. The whole lead needs to be written in way that will satisfy Wikipedia:Lead section so that we have a hope of passing the Good Article Criteria. Thanks for helping. As you can see I've added some place holder text for things that should be in the article but I'm not really able to go much further. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 13:48, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Killed the old lead and replaced with a stub new one that will grow with the article. -- SECisek 06:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks. Millbanks 07:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. A fresh start on the lead is the best approach. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 12:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Photo

The celtic cross dwarfed the text it was supposed to illustrate, I swaped a smaller pic. Also, can we find a Jesus picture that looks a little more, well, Anglican? A Van Dyck or something? -- SECisek 06:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Your photo editing is good. Your selection for the cross and Jesus pictures are more sensible. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 12:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

For the history page

...but not really important here:

However her active persecution of ordinary folk as heretics, and her marriage to Philip II made her unpopular and damaged the reputation of Roman Catholicism in England, especially retrospectively.^[1] Under Queen Elizabeth I the English church reestablished Protestant theology, indeed throughout Europe it was regarded as yet another Protestant Church, although no longer in the vanguard as it had been in 1552. ^[2] Elizabeth followed her sister's policy of religious persecution and executed a number of Roman Catholics during her reign.^[3] They were 185 in total, of whom 125 were priests, 1 an unordained friar, and 59 lay people, 3 of them women. Rather than being burned to death, the priests were usually tortured, hanged, disembollowed, and quartered.^[4]

The numbers and all just aren't important to this subject. -- SECisek 01:26, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

As of

This is useful: Wikipedia:As of. Another explanation can be found here:Another option.

If you suspect that a fact in an article will become significantly out of date in years to come and want to ensure that people will update it, include a link of the form

[[As of yyyy]] or [[As of Mmmmm yyyy]]

with the year of validity in place of yyyy and the month (first letter capitalized) in place of Mmmmm.

and

"As of" links make it easy to find such articles in the future by using the "what links here" feature.

Granted, it is a bit clumsy. I've put an "As of" near the Rowan Williams. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 03:37, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

One worry

I am a little worried that we are adding a lot of facts to this arcticle with out citations. If we want this to have a shot at GA at the end of the month, we are going to have to start citing the existing material, and making citations when we make additions. The article looks considerably better then it did a week ago, just start thinking about how we are going to cite this all. -- SECisek 23:43, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I think we should add the cites nearer the end of the month because of the inconvient ref tagging system Wiki uses. It is really difficult to do standard editing and proof reading / copy editing with the extraneous tag text. I find it is a real time killer. Best to settle on the text first, then litter it with cites. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 23:56, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Fair play, let's all just try not to add anything now that we can't cite later, even if we know it to be correct. -- SECisek 00:02, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

This brings up the "over citation" that seems to be plaquing Wikipedia. In the Real World, one normally does not cite common knowledge - in the broad sense - and only those points that are surprising, contentious or novel would be sourced. But, I'm growing to suspect that the statment "The sun rises in the east and sets in the west" would now have to be sourced. In the Angicanism article, a great deal of it would not be sourced in the Real World - for example the publication date of the King James Bible or the death date of Charles I - but I think we will have to go that route. I suggest that we use a good recent popular text (printed) for all the trivial cites - ay Oxford Encyclopedia of Christianity ISBN 0195223934 - or something like it. Probably would actually need three such sources because of some FA and GA reviewers obsession over one or two sources being used extensively. Anyway, much of the text is not surprising, contentious or novel and could be cited from a standard text book. We should also avoid "statistics" because that brings out the quibblers. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 00:38, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

As the month draws to a close, the article is now 84 kb and yet still has only 27 citations. The article is much improved, but would probably not pass GA with out more cites. Help me with this. -- SECisek 10:14, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll be working on this over the next few days. Hopefully it will be constructive work. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 12:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Anglican defined

The definition of an Anglican is not for the benefit of Anglicans or insiders. Wikipedia is meant for every one. A definition must state the obvious even if it is unremarkable to an Anglican, it isn't to everyone. Please read Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles. For example:

Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia. People who read Wikipedia have different backgrounds, education and worldviews. Make your article accessible and understandable for as many readers as possible. Assume readers are reading the article to learn. It is possible the reader knows nothing about the subject: the article needs to fully explain the subject.

Avoid using jargon whenever possible.

Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 12:13, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

There is however already a link to Christian Church at the start of the section, so I didn't think User:Anglicanus's edit was so bad. The idea of the via media is so ingrained it's better to mention the term up front, even if introducing it a little more gently. David Underdown 12:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

On further thinking, much of that section should probably be simply moved to the lead, which at the moment is a one-liner, which is no where near matching up to WP:LEAD. David Underdown 12:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

The re-wording is much better. I see what you mean by the link in the details tag ... and yet why would we not include Christian in an explicit manner in the definition of Anglican? Wikipedia articles are supposed to provide an overview of a topic and avoid unnecessary detail. Surely the most sweeping bird's-eye-view of Anglicanism is that it is Christian. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 12:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely with your thinking on the Lead. A compact version of it could appear there. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 12:28, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Whilst I do not want to be contentious I need to say that this whole article - and this section in particular - is very inadequately written in both style and content. It is riddled with arguable generalisations and some of it comes across as pietistic. Compared to other articles on Anglicanism it is very unscholarly and unworthy of inclusion. Here endeth the lesson! Anglicanus 15:45, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Anglicanus, I agree but the only people writing this article is us. That is, Wikipedia editors like you and me. Yes it needs vast improvement. Yes, it needs sources. Please be bold - be very bold. Although compared to much of the other articles on Anglicanism ... I disagree in that it is no worse but ought to be much better. It is why I took the initiative and made the article the Anglican Collaboration for the Month of August. There is still a day to go! Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 19:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Amen to both of you. -- SECisek 19:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

The Synod of Whitby

Somebody suggested that Whitby was a submission of the Church in England to Roman authority. Not so: the Synod of Whitby was simply one of many councils held concerning the proper calculation of Easter throughout Latin Christendom in the Early Middle Ages. (see C. W. Jones introductory text to his edition of Bedae Opera de Temproibus (Cambridge, Mass., 1946) pp. 55-104.) It addressed only the issue of Easter calculation and the proper monastic tonsure, (Patrick Wormald, ‘Bede and the ‘Church of the English’, in The Times of Bede, p. 210.) and concerned only the part of the English Church that answered to the See of Lindisfarne (Patrick Wormald, ‘Bede and the ‘Church of the English’, in The Times of Bede, p. 210.) – that is, it was a Northumbrian affair. (Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England, p. 108.) -- SECisek 00:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Worship section

The worship section has become a dump for a wide range of overt or covert critiques of the Anglican Church (not just worship) from a Catholic or Protestant POV. If I get the time I'll try and sort some of it out. For instance, this is hardly the place to discuss infant baptism. The section is also awkward in trying to look at Anglican worship separately from a Protestant POV (for which high church services are strange, but not low church ones) and then from a Roman Catholic POV (for which the opposite broadly applies). I suggest that Anglican worship should be described neutrally as it is, not primarily in terms of how it might or might not look to someone of another Church. Myopic Bookworm 13:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I was never comfortable with this additional section. Please be bold. -- SECisek 05:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Historical Nitpick?

"The first Anglican church in the Americas was built at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607"

As a person who lives in that area of Virginia, has participated in the 400th Anniversary service for that event, and who is a BIG fan of Jamestown as a whole, I'd love for this statement to be true; it's not, though.

The first Anglican church in the Americas was built at Manteo, in North Carolina (which was at the time still called Virginia), in 1587. Historically, it's called The Lost Colony because it literally disappeared during the years when England was preoccupied by the Spanish Armada, sometime between 1587 and 1590. For folks in Great Britain, this would be Sir Walter Raleigh's colony. Jamestown was the first permanent SUCCESSFUL colony, and led directly to the eventual formation of the United States (the folks who talk about the pilgrims, the Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, etc., need not apply; that was all twenty years later, and the Pilgrims were originally supposed to be sailing to Jamestown). I'll grant that the church in Jamestown is the oldest Anglican church still used, in whole or part, though, but even that wouldn't be the 1607 church, but would be the 1613 brick church (the 1639 church was built on top of the 1613 church after it was damaged). Bill Ward 13:22, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I've done my best to add this info to Episcopal Church in the United States of America#The English Church in British North America (1497-1775). All who have a better grasp of North American church history than me will find my text replete with gaffs. Please improve it :-) Cheers! Wassupwestcoast 05:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

^ In her reign of under 4 years, 283 people had been burned for heresy]], nearly five times the number in the previous 100 years — see e.g. Ridley, Jasper (1987). Elizabeth I. Constable. ISBN 0094692106..
^ MacCulloch, Diarmaid (2005). "Putting the English Reformation on the Map". Trans. RHist S. XV. CUP: 75–95.
^ http://www.britainexpress.com/History/Edward_Mary_and_Elizabeth.htm
^ Watkin, EI (1957). Roman Catholicism in England from the Reformation to 1950. OUP. p. 33.

[1] In her reign of under 4 years, 283 people had been burned for heresy]], nearly five times the number in the previous 100 years — see e.g. Ridley, Jasper (1987). Elizabeth I. Constable. ISBN 0094692106..

[2] MacCulloch, Diarmaid (2005). "Putting the English Reformation on the Map". Trans. RHist S. XV. CUP: 75–95.

[3] ttp://www.britainexpress.com/History/Edward_Mary_and_Elizabeth.htm

[4] Watkin, EI (1957). Roman Catholicism in England from the Reformation to 1950. OUP. p. 33.

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