Tag: Anglicanism

Welcoming the new vicar: institutions, collations and inductions

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Featured, Liturgy7 Comments

I have three clergy friends who are soon to move to new parishes, and have been preparing for their services of welcome. The ecclesiastical nomenclature of these services is complex: one friend is having a collation and induction, another a licensing and installation, and the third an institution and induction. As I am a college chaplain, it has been a while since I have had these done to me, but, as a patron’s representative, I have been involved in a fair few of these services in recent years.

Wigs and seals and tippets and chimeres: thus shall we be known!

The service of welcome for a new vicar, rector or what-have-you is a fairly recent phenomenon, growing to near universal popularity through the 20th century. Before we did public ceremonies, these were fairly private acts of canon law. The twofold naming — an X and Y — is down to the separate admission of the candidate to the spiritualities and temporalities of the benefice.

  • The spiritualities include the responsibility to perform divine service, occasional offices, preach, teach and hold the cure of souls (pastoral care). As the diocesan bishop is chief pastor of the diocese, admission to the spiritualities is given by them or their commissary (often an area, suffragan or assistant bishop, but can be any cleric).
  • The temporalities are the actual legal possession of the benefice as property. In the past this would mean tithes, fees and glebe, but is now a more limited right to manage the property and control the benefice. Nowadays there are many more posts that are ‘incumbent status’ rather than actual incumbencies, usually attracting the name Priest in Charge or Team Vicar, which are exercised by licence rather than right, and the legal possession of the temporalities is lacking.

There are three terms used to describe the handing over of the spiritualities of a benefice: licensing, institution and collation.

  • All beneficed clergy are licensed to their cure of souls, but the term ‘licensing‘ is properly used for the formal admission of Priests in Charge, Team Vicars and others of ‘incumbent status’. The bishop or their commissary grants the spiritualities in a licence that sets out their responsibilities and the limitation to their term.
  • Many Vicars or Rectors who are actual incumbents will instead receive a Deed of Institution, which is effectively the same as a licence, but unlimited in term. Here is the complicated bit! The patron or patrons of the benefice are given permission to present the chosen candidate to the benefice, the bishop then admits the candidate to the benefice and institutes them. Thus, institution is the final step in this ruritanian appointments process over which the bishop has two vetoes: they may veto the patron or patrons’ choice of candidate, and they may refuse to admit (although it is unlawful for a bishop to veto Crown presentations, they may still refuse to admit the candidate). The admission is technically the bishop’s right to examine the candidate before institution (patrons can appeal against a bishop refusing to admit a candidate, and the legal process differs depending on whether or not the bishop cites doctrinal grounds for refusing to admit). If the patron or patrons fail to present a candidate (it used to be within 6 months of vacancy of benefice, but that cannot surely still hold true), the bishop then has the right to collate a candidate, then that right goes to the archbishop if the benefice is still vacant, and ultimately to the Crown. With our modern system of job interviews, the interview panel, which often includes the patron or patrons, makes a decision to nominate a particular candidate, and the patronal presentation and episcopal admission are expected to follow suit.
  • Wherever the bishop is sole patron, rather than presenting to themselves, the system is streamlined into what is called a collation, which merges the presentation, admission and institution into one. If the bishop is one patron among others, the full process has to take place.

It used to be the case that all licensing, institutions and collations happened at the bishop’s chapel or wherever the bishop happened to be. As we have so many bishops today, a bishop comes to the parish church to do these things. If a patron is at the service, they will make a ceremonial presentation. Then the candidate will make oaths and declarations, to which the bishop or commissary will assent to admit them. Then the candidate kneels before the seated bishop or commissary, who reads the licence or deed of institution or collation over them, while the candidate holds the seal attached to it.

How many rings of the bell is enough?

The admission to the temporalities is quite simple after all of that. If one is instituted or collated, the temporalitites are given in the form of an induction. If one is merely licensed, then there are no associated legal property rights. The term ‘installation‘ is used to describe the purely symbolic act of placing a new pastor in their stall, and is used to fill the position where an induction would otherwise happen. Even then, some ceremonies are described as ‘institution, induction and installation’, even though the latter can be seen as a non-essential part of any induction. The bishop issues a mandate of induction usually to the archdeacon to induct the candidate that they have instituted or collated. Often the rural or area dean receives the mandate instead of the archdeacon, if the latter is unavailable, and some dioceses have ancient rights about who may induct whom.

The core of the induction is an act of property transfer, a business deal, which is carried out by the mediaeval practice of the livery of seisin: the property is transferred by passing it, or an object representing it, from the hand of the giver to the hand of the receiver in front of witnesses. At its minimum, this means that the archdeacon or some other places the candidate’s hand on the latch of the church door or the key in the lock while the churchwardens witness. Induction, therefore, has to happen at the church (and only one church is necessary in multi-parish benefices, as the property is legally bundled together so that possession of a symbolic part is possession of the whole), and induction actually happens outside of the church, at the door, whence the incumbent is inducted into the building.

The induction has accrued a number of other symbolic actions. The archdeacon’s dainty taking of the incumbent’s hand on a step dance around the interior of the church is a most delightful custom. The new incumbent’s tolling of the church bell was originally to inform the parishioners habemus vicarium (‘the vicar’s here’), as they were not present at the church for the induction. All sorts of superstitions are associated with this tolling, thinking it indicates how vigorous the incumbent will be in mission or for how long they will stay. Lancelot Andrewes had the tradition of getting new incumbents to write on the back of their mandate of induction the following: accepi clavem, intravi solus, oravi, tetigi sacra, pulsavi campanas — ‘I received the key, I entered alone, I prayed, I touched the sacred things, I tolled the bells’. I do find something romantic in this practice of the new incumbent going alone into the church to pray, touch and toll. It is unclear precisely what is meant by tetigi sacra, whether it is the touching of the consecration points of the church, or the more likely touching of the font and altar, symbolizing sacramental responsibility. However this tangendum (‘touchy feely’) is the origin of the archidiaconal waltz and the crackerjack game of seeing how many baptismal ewers, chalices and Bibles the new incumbent can hold, symbolic of the pressures of ordained ministry, to which the addition of the rite of installation, taking of one’s seat, must come as a relief.

Accepi clavem, intravi solus, oravi, tetigi sacra, pulsavi campanas

I received the key, I entered alone, I prayed, I touched the sacred things, I tolled the bells

Lancelot Andrewes

When most parishioners took no part in these ceremonies, the reading in of the new incumbent on the first Sunday (or at least within a certain fixed period) was the point at which they received their pastor. This is the formal reading of declarations, and I think at one time included the incumbent’s recitation of the 39 Articles to prove how legit they were. While a much curtailed reading in still occurs, it is a hangover from the time when all the other things were done semi-privately. The practice of the new incumbent giving notices, which include a declaration of the next Sunday’s times of service, at the end of their service of welcome appears to be a descendent of promising the archdeacon or rural dean that they will read themselves in on the Sunday.

Old picture of the author wearing Anglican choir habit.

A spotter’s guide to Evensong

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Featured, Liturgy23 Comments

Evensong is a peculiar Anglican creature. It is the liturgy that has become the most distinctively Anglican and has become a treasured bulwark of tradition. This article is a little, geeky exploration of what is Evensong and its sub-species.

The word ‘Evensong’ is first documented by the OED in the Old English of the Canons of Ælfric (c. 1000) as æfen-sang. Until the Reformation, this English word was used to describe the office of Vespers, the seventh of the round of eight daily offices, said just before sunset.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer produced two drafts of how the reformed Church of England should pray each day. The first, more radical plan was to consolidate the eight offices down to two. When, eventually, Henry Tudor junior died, Cranmer was free to produce the first Book of Common Prayer, published 1549. Its two daily offices were named ‘Matins’ and ‘Evensong’ (the former being the name of the first of the pre-Reformation offices, which also had the colourful Old English name uht-sang, which persisted as ‘Oughtensong’ in Middle English). With Cranmer’s revised Prayer Book of 1552, the quaint (or poetic) names of the two offices were officially replaced with the more robust (or prosaic) ‘Morning and Evening Prayer’. Yet the old names continued to live on, to the extent that it is rather daft to speak of ‘Choral Evening Prayer’.

Because of the pressures on Sunday mornings, especially with the restoration of the Parish Eucharist as the main Sunday mid-morning service, major celebrations of Matins have become rather few and far between. However, in twilight isolation Evensong has remained strong. In the nineteenth century, the ‘Fully Choral Service’ became a sign of aspirational excellence in neo-gothic, middle-class churches, aping cathedrals with their processions and besurpliced choirs. I believe that movement has skewed our understanding of  Evensong to assume that only a proper Choral Evensong will do, when we have forgotten how to do a good — liturgically and musically — Evensong that is suited to a church that cannot really cope with the demanding choral repertoire.

What about those sub-species?

Continue reading “A spotter’s guide to Evensong” →

Let us pray the collect

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Featured, Liturgy1 Comment

The collect (stress on the first syllable: KOL-ekt) is a traditional, formal short prayer of Western Christianity. The Latin missal simply calls it oratio (‘prayer’). However, the Gregorian Sacramentary has oratio ad collectam, and then, in two places, simply collecta. In the earlier Gallican use, the term is first collectio, before becoming collecta. The term remained in popular use among churchgoers while missals chose oratio. Perhaps it is no surprise that the Book of Common Prayer chose the popular vernacular name ‘collect’, but more surprising that the new translation of the Catholic missal has opted for ‘collect’ where its predecessor had a prosaic ‘opening prayer’. The collects of the Church of England and the Catholic Church preserve many old Latin models.

The structure of collects are widely discussed and well known — being

  1. invocation, e.g. Almighty God
  2. divine attribute (qui–clause), e.g. unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid
  3. petition, e.g. cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit
  4. consequence (ut-clause), e.g. that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name
  5. doxology, e.g. through Christ our Lord

The major division of the collect is between clauses 1–2 and 3–4, often marked with a semicolon. In collects for saints, the second clause says something about the saint in question rather than describing a divine attribute. Rather wonderfully, this shows the holy life as a glimpse of divine revelation. Most collects address God the Father, and so the doxology (which is often not written out in full) declares that our prayer is made through (per) Christ (or ‘the same’ Christ if he is mentioned in the body of the collect), and may add the unity of the Holy Spirit too.

Some have remarked that the quality of the collect is frame for our petitionary prayer which should flow from an understanding of God’s nature. It is a snapshot of how lex orandi models lex credendi, or, put another way, how doctrine should feed into our spiritual life.

At the eucharist, the praying of the collect concludes the gathering rite, the first part of the liturgy, and thus heralds the Bible readings. The placing of collects for Sundays and holy days together with the epistles and gospels in the Book of Common Prayer (which makes sense, because one reads the collect, epistle and gospel in order) has led to some Anglicans, particularly evangelicals, to desire collects that reflect the readings or themes of the day. I think this is wrong, seeing as the collects are designed succinctly to draw divine qualities into our daily lives, and so belong to our gathering and preparation rather than an introduction to the readings. The gathering rite at its simplest (and ‘tis a joy to be simple) has just a liturgical greeting (The Lord be with you) and a collect, although prayers of penitence usually occur between the two.

The Catholic Church developed a series of other collect-like presidential prayers: the prayer over the gifts and the post-communion prayer. Common Worship has fully embraced post-communion prayers, gathering them with the collects proper, and it suggests some ‘prayers at the preparation of the table’ that cover some elements of the traditional offertory prayers.

In daily prayer, the collect comes at the end of the intercession. In the Book of Common Prayer, three collects (or four during Advent and Lent) follow the preces toward the formal conclusion of matins and evensong. Common Worship has followed the modern practice of retaining just one collect where a series of such had previously been used. However, its structural framework means that an unchanging ‘opening prayer’ is also used.

Let us pray, and its praxis

Modern liturgical sensibility around the collect can be summarised

  1. The bidding ‘Let us pray’ (oremus) is important
  2. The use of silence between bidding and collect is important
  3. The collect should be prayed deliberately: it is important
  4. The congregational ‘Amen’ is important

It has taken fifteen years of ministry for me to begin to internalise and practise this. It is not as simple as it sounds. I might bid ‘Let us pray’, but it was as if I were saying ‘I shall now read a prayer out of the book’. There is still the problem that some hear those words as a direction to get on their knees, but there are some relics of an instruction flectamus genua for the silence with levate for the collect. Knowing that oremus could be expanded into a more fullsome bidding, I would sometimes select a bon mot from the collect and say something like ‘Let us pray that God might cleanse our hearts that we may worship him’. It was a good idea, but it ended up like a liturgical wink: ‘see what I did there? I can read ahead!’

The silence proved a problem too. How long should it be? If it were too long, people would fidget, or think that I had forgotten the book of collects. The fundamental problem with my praxis was that is was superficial, skin-deep. The bidding, even if it be the simple ‘Let us pray’, should convey a call to deep, heartfelt prayer. As Romans 8.26–27 has it

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8.26–27

If the bidding can convey the merest sense of those verses, then the silence just works. The bidding then is not an introduction to the collect, but to the silence. The collect then is a voicing of an aspect of the heartfelt silent prayer. A good trigger that works for me is a simple bidding like ‘Let us pray deeply’ or ‘From the depths of our hearts, let us pray’. Words alone are not enough; as a priest I need to model this deep prayer. I must not be looking at the book or looking around, but I must pray with bowed head. Whether the silence is ten or twenty seconds, or more, does not matter, as quantity of silence is replaced by quality. In a church full of people who want to be led in prayer, this works well. However, at weddings, funerals and baptisms, among those who may not be regular churchgoers, and who may not be focused mainly on spiritual things, the collect becomes transformative. There is a witty saying when people see me in a cassock — ‘Say one for me’ — and this is ‘Say one with me: it’s deep within you, and you want to pray’.

The orans gesture.

The celebrant faces the people squarely during all this in modern rites. Hands are folded for the bidding and silence. The arms are raised to the orans position for praying the collect. At the doxology, the hands are folded once more. The orans position is somewhat Y-shaped. The hands are raised upward, but no higher than the shoulder. The expansion of the gesture should be determined by whatever looks natural (not too tight and Tridentine, not too large and theatrical) and by the space (it can be larger at a high altar, smaller in cosy chapel).

Bosco Peters’s Thoughts

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Liturgy3 Comments

If you are interested in Anglican liturgy, or indeed liturgy generally, you may have already come across Bosco Peters’s video talk Some Thoughts on Liturgy. It is a thought-provoking paper on how we, as Christian ministers, use liturgy, and understand liturgy.

Bosco Peters begins by describing liturgy as a language. Indeed a linguist’s approach to its ‘grammar’ and ‘vocabulary’ might bear fruit, particularly when we distinguish between the prescriptive and descriptive methodologies — between what one should do and what one actually does. The analogy is good, but Bosco Peters immediately points out the major misunderstanding that is likely to occur: that, when we think of liturgy as language, we think it is all about words. Thus, he heads that train of thought off at the pass

So let’s be clear: The basic building blocks of liturgy are actions and gestures and people and space and symbols and signs and vesture and music and silence and movement and – yes – and words. Jesus said do this to remember me. Do this. And we turn his command into “read pages 404 to 429 out loud to remember me”. In lots of places, we come together for an hour or so on Sundays and read lots of lovely poetic stuff to each other, and sing four bits of poetry – and many of us give the impression that that’s liturgy.

This is what captured the imagination of commentators on the Anglican Communion LinkedIn group where I posted the video. An ECUSA priest spoke of a desire to share this video on a training day with fellow clergy. She added

This is the first time someone has supported my desire to be rid of ‘reading’ the liturgy instead of participating in it…body, mind, heart, spirit, gesture, Amens, over time becoming a Body of Christ which celebrates ‘by heart and body’ Reading the words gets in the way of prayer, of ‘inwardly digesting’.

Perhaps there is something of the Reformation in the wordiness and bookishness of many a liturgical approach. Yet, to be fair, the mediaeval catholic concept of ex opere operato treats the liturgy as a mutterance without social context that simply does the grace. I think our liturgical formation is perhaps better than it was in the past. Modern liturgies with their variations and choices demand our attention to certain details. Yet still, our churches publish liturgies and their rubrics in books, not videos, and thus emphasize the literary quality over the physical instances of liturgy. Even so, we would practice, hesitate, and even consider ourselves unworthy if we were tasked with an intricate poem to recite to maximum effect. Yet we do not treat each collect and eucharistic prayer with such sensitivity. Perhaps we cannot do so: it would impair our ability to function. An incarnational theology of the liturgy is simple: the Word became flesh, and so the literary must become performative action. We note that the Word does not cease to be the Word, but yet is outwardly transformed. The liturgy is performative action rather than performed action, as the latter points to the liturgical action as the drama, whereas the former shows that the action makes that drama in us, and in heaven.

Another commentator, from England, wrote

All to often reading is seen to be the norm. One of the brethren told me that he saw no point in liturgical “training days” because “all you have to do is open the book and read.” Liturgical formation of both clergy and congregations is weak. Clergy training in liturgy is so often history and no praxis: “They will pick it up from their training incumbents.” Liturgy is action, action, action; something that has so often become lost. The liturgy is also where many members of the church do theology together; they may not realise it but they are formed by the liturgy (by a sort of osmosis). that is why liturgical formation of worship leaders is so important.

I have heard similar comments about a local Anglican theological college, where experimenting with liturgy is encouraged above training, with the effect that bad habits are continued and showcased as the norm. I had a great training incumbent who taught me good liturgical practice and principles — and he is now a canon precentor — but we cannot expect every training incumbent to provide this.

Bosco Peters describes how environment, against our default formation, actually trumps words

But changing the environment, or changing our actions, I think often can have even more impact than changing the words.

Think of how differently the same words of a confession can be experienced in two different services. You can imagine one service with just a few people and they are kneeling spread around a large building. Now imagine another community where the people are all standing close together, and they are using the same words, and they are singing them. One is about being conscious of personal sinfulness – the other, with exactly the same words, is about a sense of community and maybe is experienced more as an acknowledgement of the communal
responsibility we all share for evil in the world.

Many of us get so caught up in thinking that changing the words is what will change the liturgy. But I’m emphasising that most of liturgy isn’t the words at all.

He goes on to describe how we treat liturgy like a foreign language, and we fail to progress to fluency. If it is foreign to us, we rely on the phrase book, struggle to produce a chain of awkward syllables, that, when they manage to get the message across, we feel are adequate. Perhaps one of the most valuable, simple liturgical education I received was a list of the prayers I have to learn off by heart. It is a cornerstone of catholic liturgical formation, and sounds oh-so trad, and yet it can lead to a deep internalising and naturalising of basic elements of liturgy.

I disagree with some things that Bosco Peters says, of course. Liturgical debate can be so factious that we often end up disagreeing with ourselves! I would point out that the concept of register in language has great validity to our discussion: liturgy need not model the register of everyday social interaction, and, perhaps, should not.

One thing that I take away from this talk is Bosco Peters’s insistence on uncluttered liturgy and the use of silence before the collect. These are things I know and do, but his description of the “deep silent prayer” before the collect, reminded me of this important dimension. I all too often consider how long I can hold the silence, and not how deep we can take it. Perhaps it takes little more than a good bidding to pray deeply, while modelling to our fellow worshippers one who takes this opportunity for deep prayer. As he says, “There’s the basic framework for gathering: greeting; singing; deep silent prayer”.

Watch Bosco Peters’s Some Thoughts on Liturgy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu36pFEYK6w]

I am inspired; thank you. This article, thus, kicks off a series off liturgy bits.

The Anglican tradition of daily prayer, and a year of praying the Roman Office

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Featured, Liturgy6 Comments

Prayer, Rosary, Book of Common Prayer 001
Image by bhsher via Flickr

I have spent the last year praying my daily prayers from the Roman Office with my parish. Over the years I have used a number of Anglican office books, from the Book of Common Prayer, the Alternative Service Book, Celebrating Common Prayer and Common Worship: Daily Prayer. The traditional Anglican approach to ordering daily prayer might be summed up in the word from the introduction to the Book of Common Prayer

Moreover, the number and hardness of the Rules called the Pie, and the manifold changings of the Service, was the cause, that to turn the Book only was so hard and intricate a matter, that many times there was more business to find out what should be read, than to read it when it was found out.

For Anglicans then, daily prayer has been governed by the aesthetic of the simple; if this is the daily work of the clergy, then it should be likened unto the ploughing of furrows and not bookish cleverness. Of course, traditional Anglican daily prayer can be a thing of great beauty when Solemn Matins (if such a thing still be done) or Evensong is accompanied by a robed choir: simple, yet sublime. The Alternative Service Book 1980 followed this principle of simplicity, but in its updated ‘committee prose’ the business of prayer felt more like it needed to be moved and seconded rather than Amen-ed! The times I prayed the ASB are mostly blanked out as bad memory. Into this spiritual desert we welcomed Celebrating Common Prayer almost lasciviously! Being built through the experience of Anglican Franciscans of the Society of St Francis (SSF) it was tested at the prayer desk. It encouraged Anglicans to think about the occasional Midday or Night Prayer (Compline). It gave us prayer that, while remaining fixed in its shape, moved with the seasons of the liturgical year and flavoured them appropriately with joy or sorrow, hope or conviction. This formed the basis of Common Worship: Daily Prayer, the current standard for the Church of England’s office. E’en so, the Anglican method has always been to take two or three books to the prayer desk: prayer book and Bible, and now the lectionary that reminds us of saints to celebrate and which psalms and readings to use. We Anglicans are not good at knowing our own tradition, so it seems necessary to offer this here as and aide mémoire.

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To fast too furious?

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Christianity, Featured, IslamLeave a comment

Iftar (berbuka puasa)
Iftar (berbuka puasa or fast breaking) at Mesjid Raya al-Mansun (Mansun's Great Mosque) in Medan, Sumatera.

A blessed Ramadan to all!

Depending on which authority you follow, based on the observation of the first crescent of the new moon, the holy Islamic month of Ramadan began either last Wednesday or Thursday. This month of months is set apart by fasting.

Islamic practice is to refrain, during the daylight hours of the month of Ramadan, from consuming any food, drink, tobacco, and having sex. On the positive side, Muslims are encouraged to pray, give charitably and think on God more during the fast.

As the Islamic calendar is based solely on lunar phases without regard to tropical seasons, the months slowly move through the seasons each year. Ramadan falling in August means, in the northern hemisphere, around fifteen hours without food or water each day for around 29/30 days. (Mehdi Hasan has written some basic FAQs on Ramadan for New Statesman.)

As an Anglican I’m fascinated by the Islamic fast. The practice of fasting in Anglicanism is in a shabby state. For most it consists of ‘giving up’ something for the forty days of Lent, usually chocolate. It is not exactly taxing. Apart from the giving up of things, we do encourage Lent courses as a way of getting some positive spiritual input, but we have to admit that it’s all quite slim. The Roman Catholic Church has always been more legalistic when it comes to fasting, setting out what can and can’t be eaten, and how much. However, the history of Catholic pronouncements on fasting shows a steady rolling back of strictures. In contrast, Eastern Christianity has retained a more robust idea of fasting: animal products and alcohol are not consumed during fasts, making one a vegan teetotaler.

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Revisiting why I’m an Anglican

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Anglicanism, Featured2 Comments

Ten months ago I posted on why I’m an Anglican. That article struck some people as somewhat negative, and I especially like this reflection on what I wrote by Pradusz. The background for that article was partly thinking on those I know who were raised in the Church of England but have converted to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. For them, the ministry of women was a stumbling block, but I could also trace a deeper sense of turning away from the everyday normality of Anglicanism in English religion to something more exotic, challenging and full of the certainty of tradition. For those converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, old-fashioned orientalism was often part of the allure, and I hope the Orthodox quickly put them straight on that account. Likewise, I’ve known Anglicans convert to charismatic house churches for the certainty that comes from a certain type of biblical interpretation and emotionally charged worship. For me, Anglicanism is part of cherishing who I am, rather than trying to be something different. I wanted to emphasize the Kierkegaardian way in which the historical reasons for our life choices are often different from the interpretations we put on them. For the majority of people in this world, their religious conviction was chosen for them, by their parents and society at large. I wanted to embrace the religion that chose me, rather than applauding the concept that the grass always has to be greener in someone else’s field.

Celebrating the religion that chose me is important because I can find good reasons to question Anglican religious history. The Church of England has always been associated with English state power, and the global Anglican Communion owes its existence to British imperialism and colonialism. I am horrified at how most Anglicans seem unaware of this history, but realise that ignorance of them is part of the reason why Anglicanism is trying and failing to deal with its internal fault lines.

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Why I’m an Anglican

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Anglicanism, Featured10 Comments

The main reason why I’m an Anglican is because I’m English, and being C of E is like a national default (at least it used to be, in the days before opting out of organised religion became the new default). That’s it, mundane and simple. As with so many things in life, the original reason for a decision is often pretty mundane. The reasoning and calculated arguments are added later. This is partly a natural evaluation that we do, but it is also an attempt not to look too stupid. We can go to great lengths to justify all sorts of decisions that, in truth, originated by whim of circumstance. Sometimes it’s liberating to be honest about our reasons. I chose my theological college because they served a nice cheeseboard when I visited, and I couldn’t afford the time or train fare to look elsewhere.

This is not to say that the later reasoning is a cover up. It can be, but it is still important to justify why we are where we are. I find this reasoning increasingly important as I find very good reasons not to be Anglican. I hate the Church of England’s ties with Establishment — Elizabeth Windsor as ‘Supreme Governor’, bishops sitting in the House of Lords, and the general societal superiority this tends to create (varieties of exceptionalism and classism). I hate its history of collusion with British empire building. I hate its lack of courage and self-knowledge and the blinkered pettiness it breeds. Continue reading “Why I’m an Anglican” →

The Anglican Communion as imagined community

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Frank Turner, Professor of History at Yale, has a wonderfully insightful article on the Anglican Communion at Episcopal Café. His thesis is that a group of Anglicans, mainly bishops, have sought to shape the various independent Anglican provinces into a global ecclesiastical community over the past two decades.

Turner calls Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined communities into play here. The bare bones of Anderson’s theory is that a nation is a socially constructed community based on various presumptions of shared attributes: language, religion, skin colour, culture &c. The question it raises is why do I cheer on an athlete, whom I have never met and with whom I have little in common, at the Olympics just because her uniform says she is British? The question it raises is why it is considered a high ideal to die for ‘queen and country’.

Of course, social constructs are not unreal, but they are perceived realities: nationality is no absolute thing. It is fascinating seeing a ‘nation’ being built over the last score of years, but understanding the Anglican Communion as imagined community does much to help us understand the pressures it is under at this time.

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