#Anglicanism

[apenitentialprayer]

why do anglicans still exist like their entire church is built on the fact that some guy wanted a male heir. or do anglicans believe that this isn't rly why their church came about

Okay, I do love clowning on my Anglican friends, but there are a few angles (da dum tss) that we can look at in terms of why the Anglican Church is a distinctive tradition.

Theologically, the Anglican Church might have started off as "Catholic without the Pope," so to speak; the Anglican Church was essentially Gallican in nature, meaning that the head of the church wasn't the seniormost bishop, but the head of the state. But even if it started off simply being in schism with the Roman Church, it didn't take very long before Reformed theology started entering the Church through the efforts of Anne Bolelyn, Thomas Cromwell, and especially Edward VI. There were preceding documents, but the Thirty-Nine articles passed by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571 helped to solidify a distinctively Anglican identity.

But it's a little more than that, too, because in addition to this Protestantization of the Anglican Church, there have also been movements within to.... "Latinize" might be the wrong word, but to bring back some traditional Catholic elements. We see this, for example, in the Oxford movement of the 1830s; many of its members would end up converting to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, but those who remained behind started the Anglo-Catholic movement which still has a strong presence. (My girlfriend goes to an Anglo-Catholic parish, and our city has at least three other ones).

This kind of dual accommodation of Reformed and Catholic theological ideas has created a unique situation for the Anglican Church; Bishop J. Neil Alexander tries to articulate this by distinguishing the Anglican Church as a "pragmatic church," in contradistinction with "confessional churches" (Catholic & Lutheran, which focus on creeds and councils) and "experiential churches" (Baptist and other groups whose memberships require a born-again moment):

What, then, does it mean to be pragmatic? It means that within the generous capacity of the Episcopal [American Anglican] Church, we do not always agree on matters of biblical interpretation or theological definition. It means that we have all gotten here by way of hundreds of different and often unique experiences of God's presence in our lives. It means that those things which other churches depend to hold themselves together will never be a central feature of our common life. We find our life together driven by our willingness to stand together at the table of God's gracious hospitality. […] That, I believe, is the pragmatism at the heart of what it means to be an Episcopalian. We are a variegated tapestry of theology and experience, and we are all the richer for it. But no level of theological agreement or experiential commonality will ever be the basis on which Episcopalians will live together well. What is possible is that we will be pragmatic —we will keep our differences in perspective— and we will recognize that ultimately nothing will divide those who are willing to stand together before God's altar to sing, to pray, and to receive the gift of God's eternity.

Now, this is a very fascinating situation, because it means that the Anglican Church has a lot of diversity in religious thought and doctrinal opinion. On an official level, that means you will have bishops aligning with different theological orientations working side by side — and, in theory, the office of Archbishop of Canterbury is supposed to alternate between Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical holders. On a more personal level, I have found that the Episcopal clergy who I interact with have varying spiritualities and theologies; one priest I know has Catholic sympathies that are so strong that he was referred to as "the Papist" in seminary, while another clergymember I know doesn't think Confession is necessary and is ambivalent about her parish's practice of Eucharistic Adoration. And they work at the same church.

Liturgically, they are also distinctive. The current bedrock of Anglican prayer is the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which is clearly inspired by Benedictine spirituality, but with continuing liturgical revision and innovation that kind of fits with the 'pragmatic church' mindset explained above. Some Anglican parishes even preserve pre-Tridentine traditions (remember, they split before the Council of Trent), like the Sarum Use.

The Anglican Church has had a developing liturgical patrimony for the past five centuries; one of the reasons why the Catholic Church created the Anglican Ordinariate was because it recognized that fact, and wanted former members of the Anglican Church to be able to preserve their traditions even after re-entering communion with Rome.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, like, the Anglican Church may have started off as a more-or-less Catholic particular church that was in schism with Rome, a schism orchestrated by a king who wanted fuller control over the Church in his country, but the Anglican Church has had five centuries of development. And, as much as I like to clown on my Anglican friends, I can definitely see why the Anglican communion has a deep appeal.

[yak-leather-whips]

My sincerest apologies to the single person who had been using the quanglicanism tag to refer to the intersectional faith of quaker anglicans for flooding your tag with conspiracy theories about a time quangle from a DND show about fantasy high schoolers

[orthodoxadventure]

Our reasoning brain is weak, and our tongue is weaker still. It is easier to measure the entire sea with a tiny cup than to grasp God's ineffable greatness with the human mind.

-- Saint Basil the Great

[stormsbreadth]

booty shorts with 'the bishop of rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm' written on the arse

[eternal-echoes]

[byzantine-nectarine]

From an ancient homily for Holy Saturday:

The Lord's Descent Into The Underworld (attributed to Saint Epiphanius of Salamis) Something strange is happening - there is a great silence on earth today, a great silence and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and He has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and Hell trembles with fear. He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, He has gone to free from sorrow the captives Adam and Eve, He who is both God and the Son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the Cross, the weapon that had won Him the victory. At the sight of Him Adam, the first man He had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone, “My Lord be with you all.” Christ answered him, “And with your spirit.” He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying, “Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. “I am your God, who for your sake have become your son. Out of love for you and for your descendants I now by My own authority command all who are held in bondage to come forth, all who are in darkness to be enlightened, all who are sleeping to arise. I order you, O sleeper, to awake. I did not create you to be held a prisoner in Hell. Rise from the dead, for I am the Life of the dead. Rise up, work of My hands, you who were created in My image. Rise, let us leave this place, for you are in Me and I am in you; together we form only one person and we cannot be separated. “For your sake I, your God, became your son; I, the Lord, took the form of a slave; I, whose home is above the heavens, descended to the earth and beneath the earth. For your sake, for the sake of man, I became like a man without help, free among the dead. For the sake of you, who left a garden, I was betrayed to the Jews in a garden, and I was crucified in a garden. “See on my face the spittle I received in order to restore to you the life I once breathed into you. See there the marks of the blows I received in order to refashion your warped nature in My image. On My back see the marks of the scourging I endured to remove the burden of sin that weighs upon your back. See My hands, nailed firmly to a tree, for you who once wickedly stretched out your hand to a tree. “I slept on the Cross and a sword pierced My side for you who slept in Paradise and brought forth Eve from your side. My side has healed the pain in yours. My sleep will rouse you from your sleep in Hell. The sword that pierced Me has sheathed the sword that was turned against you. “Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly Paradise. I will not restore you to that Paradise, but I will enthrone you in Heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am Life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God. The throne formed by cherubim awaits you, its bearers swift and eager. The Bridal Chamber is adorned, the banquet is ready, the eternal dwelling places are prepared, the treasure houses of all good things lie open. The Kingdom of Heaven has been prepared for you from all eternity."

[horizon-verizon]

Anne Boleyn wasn’t exactly a Protestant as is often said but she was a Reformist. She still held on to some of the Catholic beliefs such as the doctrine of transubstantiation but rejected papal authority, promoted erastianism and worked on getting the Bible translated into vernacular English so the common people of England could read it and understand it (The Bible was released shortly after her death, with the dedication page hastily changed to Queen Jane’s name). She wanted to purify the Catholic church of things she saw as abuses (such as the extreme wealth of the Catholic Church, and excessive accumulation of wealth in general, selling salvation — literally!) and superstitions. She’s the one who introduced Henry VIII to the idea of becoming Head of the Church of England by giving him a book written by William Tyndale, Obedience of a Christian Man, with certain passages marked by the impression of her fingernail. It was a bold move because the book was banned and had been seized by the Church when they found it in her possession. Anne asked Henry to get it back for her and read it. (Anne’s brother, George Boleyn, smuggled banned religious texts for her, purchasing them on his travels to the Continent.)

Anne sheltered religious dissidents. She saved the life of the French reformer Nicolas Bourbon as she had appealed to the French royal family to spare his life as a favor to the English Queen. Nicolas Bourbon would later refer to Anne as “the queen whom God loves.” She restored Richard Herman to the membership of the English Society of Merchants, from which Cardinal Wolsey had expelled him for his involvement in translating the New Testament into English. Anne also offered safe passage to England to French humanist reformers. She paid for scholarships so Reformist scholars could attend the universities. (Many of them stayed after they graduated to teach the next generation and spread Reformist ideas.) She personally selected six of the nine bishops appointed during her reign. She was extremely charitable and generous and sew shirts for the poor. When monasteries were dissolved, Anne advocated the redistribution of their resources and wanted to use the money to fund educational programs and other charitable causes. On the other hand, Thomas Cromwell, Henry’s chief minister, wanted to transfer these funds to the king’s coffers.

In short, religious issues were the primary focus of the work she did during her reign. Her goal for the advancement of a more tolerant religious point of view was unusual in an age that favored rigid religious practice. It’s one of the reasons she was so deeply unpopular — she was seeding “heresy” in so many areas. Eustace Chapuys, the Imperial ambassador in England, regularly complained to his home government of “the concubine” being “the cause and nurse of the spread of Lutheranism in this country”. They were right to be alarmed; Anne Boleyn’s work helped lay the foundations of the Anglican church. It would later be expanded upon by Queen Kateryn Parr, who appointed two of Anne’s scholarship students to be the tutors of Edward VI, the first Protestant monarch.

Wow. Yeah, this is displays a lot more devotion to a certain mission and a desire to change a society or a generosity that some people tried to say Alicent displays--which was never actually spelled out or claimed even in F&B, btw!--as reason for them to believe that Alicent was a good Queen or just a good person. The whole Queens-as-leads-of-charity-and-alms thing. Can't find the post.

[sunstar706]

Hear me out: Bucky Barnes is 100% not Jewish.

I’ve been doing a lot of scrolling on Tumblr/Ao3 the past few days looking for other people’s opinions on the nitty gritty of Bucky Barnes’ background, and realized- a lot (a *lot*) of people headcanon him as Jewish, which I find really interesting. Judaism, on the whole, is an extremely interesting subject, as the only non-universalizing Abrahamic faith, the only ethnic Abrahamic faith, and the oldest Abrahamic faith (making it one of the oldest monotheistic religions ever to exist).

Let me present to you my speculation on Bucky’s religious background. First of all, we know Steve is Catholic. Just getting that out of the way.

Am I a geography and demography nerd? Yes, yes I am. And I also have a strange hyperfixation on names. That’s why this stood out to me immediately.

James Buchanan Barnes, born March 10, 1917, into a poor family in Brooklyn, New York.

James is a really ambiguous name, with versions in pretty much every Indo-European language, as far as I know. It’s the number one baby boy name in the United States of all time, beating out the second place name (Robert) by over 300,000. Honestly, this name tells me nothing. Moving on.

Buchanan. It’s Scottish. That says a lot. It was fairly common at the time for the eldest sons middle name to be the mothers maiden name, so we can safely say that Winnifred Barnes (née Buchanan) was most likely Scottish.

Now, this is where we get historical, and also where speculation starts. As many Outlander fans will know, things went south for Catholics in Scotland after the battle of Culloden Moor and the Jacobite rebellion, however… The Roman Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy was reestablished in Scotland in 1878. Catholic emancipation occurred in 1829, and there was a revival of Papism in Scotland, along with an influx of Irish Catholic immigrants coming in (especially with the potato famine starting in the 1840s in Ireland), so, while Catholicism isn’t as popular in Scotland today (approximately 15% of modern Scots are Catholic), when Winnie was born (likely somewhere between 1897 and 1900, I usually put it at 1899) there would have been a good number of Catholics in Scotland. There’s a really good chance she was Catholic.

Now. Barnes. If there was ever an extremely English surname, it was Barnes. It’s pretty hard to provide reasonable evidence that George Barnes was not English, so, let’s run with that. While England today has high percentages of Islam, Hinduism, and even reasonable amounts of Sikhism and Buddhism, it was… very Christian back in the day. In fact, the only really established non-Christian religion in England was Judaism (England contained approximately 60000 Jews in 1880, a number which rose to 300000 by 1914. However, please consider that the majority of these people were fresh immigrants escaping anti-semitism in Eastern and Northern Europe, who would not have had the surname ‘Barnes’). Delving further into English Christianity- they were Anglican, pretty much.

Guess what? Protestants (ex. Anglicans like George) and Catholics (like Winnie) don’t like each other. While marriage between Protestants and Catholics wasn’t illegal in the uk at the time, it is extremely unlikely their families would have approved. So, Winnie and George moved to NYC. (Actually, this is how my very own great-great-grandparents ended up in New Zealand).

So, where does James Buchanan Barnes lie on the religion side of things? I can tell you The chances that he’s Jewish are very low. I’d say he’s probably Catholic, even if just to blend in- New York is extremely Catholic, even today. He could be Anglican. After all the shit Hydra put him through, he’s might’ve given up on religion all together. Or maybe he converted to Buddhism. A lot of people do that (Buddhism is the third largest universalizing religion on earth). I’m kidding, don’t take that seriously, he’s not a Buddhist.

I think he’s Catholic.

But hey, nothings concrete. I’ve read some really great stories where he’s Jewish. I’ve read great stories where he’s Catholic.

-Ranger616

[achilleanfemme]

In 2023, Let's Remember that Jesus Was a Poor Man

I’ve been thinking alot about this picture lately that I first came across online probably 4 or 5 years ago, you can view it at the start of this blog post. It’s a black and white photo of a mule drawn covered wagon. Painted on the wagon cover is the phrase, “Don’t laugh folks, Jesus was a poor man.” This picture was taken in 1968 as part of The Mule Train. The Mule Train was a train of mule drawn wagons that rode together from Marks, Mississippi, one of the poorest areas in all of the USA at the time, to Washington DC as an act of protest to highlight the need for poor people, especially poor children, to have their basic needs met. The Mule Train was part of the original Poor People’s Campaign which Martin Luther King Jr. was a leader in before he died. Marks was populated predominantly by poor Black sharecroppers who were descendents of enslaved people, which was no accident either. Disproportionate Black poverty was and is a feature of US racial capitalist society, which was built by enslaved Black people, and became prosperous by the total theft of value generated by their labor while living in bondage. Much like Southern Black people in the USA in 1968, Jesus too lived under constant state repression and under oppressive social regimes as a Palestinian Jew living under Roman Imperial occupation.

I love the implication of the claim that this wagon makes. The idea that the God of the universe became human and lived, walked, worked, loved, ate, cried, laughed, and died amongst us is earth-shatteringly profound. Yet, when this Creator of everything that was, is, or will be became a human-being, God chose not to be born into a wealthy, aristocratic family. God chose to become a poor man living under occupation. Therefore, how our societies and economies treat poor people is reflective of how our societies and economies would treat God if God became human in our day. 

At my lovely Episcopal church in Dallas last night, sitting in the pew, participating in our lovely Lessons and Carols liturgy that we always do the first Sunday after Christmas, I heard this passage, John 1:1-14, like I’d heard it for the first time. In this passage, the author of the text refers to God as “the Word” and “The Light” which are common Biblical titles for God. I, however, couldn’t escape this idea of “what if these titles, the Word and the Light, were replaced with the phrase “the Poor Man”? After all, our Mule Train drivers named Jesus as a poor man. How might we hear this passage differently in our time? In this place?” 

Therefore, I invite you to read this New Revised Poor Man edition of John 1:1-14 below, adapted from the Common English Bible. I took the liberty of abandoning this motif a few times for clarity.

John 1:1-14 - Common English Bible

In the beginning was the Poor Man

    and the Poor Man was with God

    and the Poor Man was God.

The Poor Man was with God in the beginning.

Everything came into being through the Poor Man,

    and without the Poor Man

    nothing came into being.

What came into being

    through the Poor Man was life,

    and the life was the light for all people.

The Poor Man shines in the darkness,

    and the darkness doesn’t extinguish the Poor Man.

A man named John was sent from God. He came as a witness to testify concerning the Poor Man, so that through him everyone would believe in the Poor Man. He himself wasn’t the Poor Man, but his mission was to testify concerning the Poor Man.

The true Poor Man that shines on all people

    was coming into the world.

The Poor Man was in the world,

    and the world came into being through the Poor Man,

        but the world didn’t recognize the Poor Man.

The Poor Man came to his own people,

    and his own people didn’t welcome him.

But those who did welcome him,

        those who believed in his name,

    he authorized to become God’s children,

        born not from blood

        nor from human desire or passion,

        but born from God.

The Poor Man became flesh

    and made his home among us.

We have seen his glory,

    glory like that of a father’s only son,

        full of grace and truth.

When I read this adapted passage, the first thing that it reminds me of are two verses from John 12:7-8 CEB:

““Leave her alone,” Jesus replied. “It was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial. You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

This passage comes from an absolute favorite Gospel story of mine, the raising of Lazarus followed by the story of Mary and Martha and the perfume. In the story, following Jesus’ miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus, Mary, Martha, Judas Iscariot, and Jesus share a meal together in Mary, Martha, and Lazarus’ home. In the story, while Martha is serving the table, Mary gets up and pours a very expensive bottle of perfume (worth a year’s wages) over Jesus’ head, anointing him, and then wipes his feet with her hair. The others are outraged by this act, but Jesus understands it as a holy sign of devotion from his dedicated follower, Mary, who seems to know that Jesus is quickly approaching his death. 

When Jesus says “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me” it sounds kind of dismissive of the plight of the poor. However, if you are familiar with the full text of the Gospels and Jesus’ work and ministry then you understand that Jesus cares more for the poor and the outcast than any other group in ancient Palestinian society. 

If we interpret John 12:7-8 through the lens of Jesus being the Poor Man then the verses take on an entirely different meaning. If Jesus is leaving his humanly and earthly life, but the poor are staying, that means that Jesus is staying, embodied in the lives of the poor. It follows that, if we want to know how to best worship God on this side of the eschaton then we need look no further than the homeless person on the side of the street asking for money. We need look no further than the single mother working 70 hours a week to keep her children fed and housed. We need look no further than the Central American refugees at our southern border fleeing persecution and immiseration, seeking a better life in the USA. 

The Poor Man, the Peasant King, is with us everyday. Jesus lives in our hearts but he also lives in the places furthest out of the eyes of mainstream society, where poor and working people struggle to meet their basic needs under the oppressive thumb of a patriarchal, nativist, racial capitalist world system. As we enter into 2023, let us boldly worship God by working towards making a world where all unjust systems and institutions are torn down and the world is remade for the perpetual worship of our Creator, meaning a world where all poor people are fed, cared for, loved, and free.

[high-quality-tiktoks]

Atheists like fries

[apenitentialprayer]

Also, I can't believe I have to come to the defense of the fricking Church of England, but people are really whining over the fact that the Archbishop of York said that addressing God as "Father" might be hard for those who have been abused by fathers? People are making it sound like he suggested we edit the prayer or something, but the fullest quotation I can find from his General Synod address was:

I know the word 'father' can be problematic for those whose experience of earthly fathers has been destructive and abusive, and for all of us who have labored rather too much from an oppressively patriarchal grip on life

Like, oh no....... he has a measure of sympathy for those whose only tangible experience of fatherhood was bad? Am I missing something?

[beloved-of-john]

This book arrived today!

And thus begins my journey to learn more about the saints! Thank you to @kingreyroi for recommending it to me :)

[orthodoxadventure]

The act of faith is a constant dialogue with doubt.

Bishop J.A.T Robinson

[candela888]

Largest religion in Europe by region (not including atheism/irreligion)

[stormsbreadth]

dispatches from vicar school: the student body are in desperate need of blessed chalk but there is very little to be found so we're just trading dms to try and adequately distribute the two (2) pieces that we've found in order to scrawl 20+C+M+B+24 over every lintel in the building

[anglocatholicboyo]

My icon i wrote of the Magdalene was blessed at Mass this morning, in the orthodox fashion (or as close as one can get in the Western rite) - the vicar slipped it under the corporal, and the elements were consecrated upon it.

Deo gratias!