George Washington and the first Thanksgiving proclamation

In his first year as the first President of the United States, George Washington signed a proclamation appointing a day of ‘General Thanksgiving’.  He signed it on October 3, 1789, and decreed that this day of thanksgiving would take place on Thursday, November 26 of that year.

Archiving Early America tells us:

While there were Thanksgiving observances in America both before and after Washington’s proclamation, this represents the first to be so designated by the new national government.

After their first harvest, the colonists of the Plymouth Plantation held a celebration of food and feasting in the fall of 1621. Indian chiefs Massassoit, Squanto and Samoset joined in the celebration with ninety of their men in the three-day event.

The first recorded Thanksgiving observance was held on June 29, 1671 at Charlestown, Massachusetts by proclamation of the town’s governing council.

During the 1700s, it was common practice for individual colonies to observe days of thanksgiving throughout each year. A Thanksgiving Day two hundred years ago was a day set aside for prayer and fasting, not a day marked by plentiful food and drink as is today’s custom. Later in the 18th century each of the states periodically would designate a day of thanksgiving in honor of a military victory, an adoption of a state constitution or an exceptionally bountiful crop.

Such a Thanksgiving Day celebration celebration was held in December of 1777 by the colonies nationwide, commemorating the surrender of British General Burgoyne at Saratoga. 

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln changed the day of Thanksgiving to the fourth Tuesday of November.  In 1939, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt moved it to the third Thursday of November, to extend the Christmas shopping season and stimulate the economy.  In 1941, he changed the date to the fourth Thursday of November, where it is today.

The full text of President Washington’s Proclamation of General Thanksgiving appeared in the Massachusetts Centinel of October 14, 1789.  Thanks again to Archiving Early America, you can view it in full on their site or read it below.  Note the number of times God is mentioned and how it reads like a prayer.  I hope that you will see fit to share it with your family on this blessed day:

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me ‘to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness:’

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of thefe States to the fervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our fincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the fignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpofitions of His providence in the courfe and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have fince enjoyed;– for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;– for the civil and religious liberty with which we are bleffed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;– and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleafed to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in moft humbly offering our prayers and fupplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other tranfgreffions;– to enable us all, whether in publick or private ftations, to perform our feveral and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a bleffing to all the people by conftantly being a Government of wife, juft, and conftitutional laws, difcreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially fuch as have shewn kindnefs unto us); and to blefs them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increafe of fcience among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal profperity as he alone knows to be beft.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

Some of us will gather together in changing circumstances, but let’s remember and be thankful for the blessings that God has bestowed on us.  Let us also pray that the grace of the Holy Spirit transforms ungodly situations, whether personal or corporate. 

Wherever you as an American or American-to-be are reading this, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

The Thanksgiving story seasoned with Calvinism

To present the Thanksgiving story and disregard the Calvinism that ran through the mindset of Governor Bradford and the early settlers in Massachusetts in 1621 would be a grave error.  Not for nothing were they called Puritans!  Would there have been a Thanksgiving story to tell without the Calvinists?  I don’t think so.  You’ll see why below.

Yet, here’s what most kids in the US have been learning about this public holiday for at least a generation. Excerpts follow from ‘The Real Story of Thanksgiving’,  November 21, 2007:

… the Pilgrims came over, and they were just overwhelmed; they were swamped; they had no clue where they were; they had no clue how to feed themselves; they had to clue how to protect themselves; they had no idea how to stay warm; they had no idea how to do anything.  They were just typical, dumb … people fleeing some other place they couldn’t manage to live in.  And then, out of the woods came the … Indians, who had great compassion … and they befriended us … and Thanksgiving is where we give thanks to the Indians.

Of course the rest of the Thanksgiving story is that after the Indians saved the white people, who, after all, did what?  They brought syphilis, sexually transmitted diseases, gonorrhea — as had one high school health teacher pronounced it — racism, bigotry, homophobia, all these things… 

The truth in that account is the value of the Indians’ friendship and skills; conversely, the STDs didn’t come from the Pilgrim Fathers.  That was further south in non-Puritan or non-English settlements (e.g. Virginia, other parts of the New World) where there was much depravity and sadness because of ungodly actions by certain Europeans.  But, back to Thanksgiving and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. And, let’s not forget that John Calvin — whose theology formed the basis of Puritan belief — said that we must recognise common grace in all people. We are all here to accomplish good.  

So, here’s what happened as I learned it – back in the last century (same source link as above):

On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from? From the Bible …

The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their example. And, because of the biblical precedents set forth in Scripture, they never doubted that their experiment would work. But this was no pleasure cruise, friends. The journey to the New World was a long and arduous one. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford’s detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness. There were no friends to greet them, he wrote. There were no houses to shelter them. There were no inns where they could refresh themselves. And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims — including Bradford’s own wife — died of either starvation, sickness, or exposure.

When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats. Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments. 

The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well.

Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives.

He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace. … Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn’t work! …

What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation!  But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years — trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it — the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild’s history lesson.

Here’s what he wrote: ‘The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years…that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing — as if they were wiser than God.’

‘For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense…that was thought injustice.’

So what did Bradford’s community try next? … Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products… ‘This had very good success,’ wrote Bradford, ‘for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.’

In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves … So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians.

‘The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the “Great Puritan Migration”.’

So the Pilgrims decided to thank God for all of their good fortune.  And that’s Thanksgiving.  And read George Washington’s first Thanksgiving address and count the number of times God is mentioned and how many times he’s thanked.  None of this is taught today.  It should be.

This post is going out the day before Thanksgiving so that you have time to share it with your children or grandchildren.  I hope that your preparations are going well, and I pray that you have a very happy Thanksgiving.

Tomorrow: The first Thanksgiving proclamation — from George Washington

Bibles for children

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. – Proverbs 1:7

The other day, Gabriella had another excellent post, this time on children’s Bibles.  In ‘Not meant for a child?‘ she described her first Bible.  From the scent of the paper to the memorable illustrations to the truly fantastic stories about a mysterious God — yes, I, too, remember my own quite well. 

Childhood is a perfect time to give a Bible to a young person.  Even if they don’t fully understand all the content immediately, they will appreciate, with a parent’s help, that God is omnipotent, omniscient and sovereign.  Please don’t wait to introduce your child or grandchild to the Lord through Holy Scripture.   Remember the well-known Jesuit maxim:

Give me the child till the age of seven and I will show you the man.    

That means a child’s formation is nearly complete by that age.  If he hasn’t learnt his prayers, attended church services or is familiar with Bible stories by then, you’ve lost the best opportunity you’ve ever had to educate him as a Christian.  I haven’t mentioned Baptism, because it goes without saying that that comes first. 

Some parents are concerned about their children being able to handle violence in the Bible or comprehend the God they cannot see.  Yet, if you are a responsible, loving Christian, you will help the young ones in your family know and love Him and His Son Jesus Christ.  

Some parents are reluctant to start their children on the Bible too early.  They fear that some of the stories in the Old Testament may be too violent.  Personally, compared with newspaper and television reports of depraved violence, especially against children, I don’t understand this rationale.  The Bible is God’s Word, and this is where parents need to help guide their children in discernment. They need to explain that God punishes those who are unfaithful to Him.

Yes, children should have decent Bible translations.  However, to help get those under the age of 8 acquainted with the Good Book, why not try Uncle Arthur’s stories?  Arthur Maxwell was a Londoner who moved to the United States as a young man.  He is well known for his Bible stories written for young people.  Having read these for hours at a time growing up, I would describe him as the Children’s Apostle.  I reckon that no man has done more to foster faith in American youngsters than the late Mr Maxwell, about whom you can read more here.  I would like to think that God reserved a special place in Heaven for him.  The stories are pitched just right.  They explain, not frighten.  Yet, they instil awe of God.  A word of warning — they aren’t cheap, but they never were.  Click here for the list of Maxwell’s books.  

But, maybe Uncle Arthur is too passé.  If so, you might be interested in reading this review of Bible comics (perish the thought).  I would advise against, but it’s your choice.

As far as church is concerned, please buy your children a few small, inexpensive books with prayers for young children.  Catholics may wish to buy an illustrated pocket-sized children’s Missal which explains the Order of Mass in easy-to-read prose.   When they get older, most denominations have smaller catechisms or confessions of faith for children to memorise. 

Drawing on my own experience, my mother spent quite a lot of time with me teaching me Catholic prayers and helping me recite my catechism.  My Protestant friends’ parents spent time reading them the Bible and teaching them about their faith.  There is a lot to be said for nourishing young minds at an early age.  Please don’t miss out on this opportunity with your child or grandchild.  You only get one chance.  So do they.

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. – Psalm 103:13

N.B.: Neither Churchmouse nor Churchmouse Campanologist has any commercial interest in the items discussed on this blog.

Act in haste, repent at leisure

Some of you will have heard that before at home or at school.  ‘Actions have consequences’.  That’s another.

Today’s post is about what sometimes happens when we do things before we should.  Yes, this is about sex. 

With the Christmas party season just around the corner, the temptation will be there to have that extra glass of wine or spirits.  And, once relaxed, we may turn to more carnal pleasures. 

So often we are unprepared for what happens next.  Sometimes, a woman finds herself with child and thinks she can just have an abortion.  But many people don’t know how quickly young life starts to look recognisable.  That ’lump of cells’ is starting to take shape.  Inside of a few weeks, limbs are forming.  A head looks like a head.  Hands and feet are tiny, yet visible.     

A lot of teens and adults have no idea how soon this development takes place in the womb.  Abortion appears to be the easy option. 

If you have children of both sexes who are of high school or college age, please make sure they see this film.  Yes, it’s graphic, so you’ll probably want to view it alone before showing them.  Had a similar film been available when my classmates and I were teens, it would have really put sexual congress in perspective.  Not all of us approached it so casually, but some did.  And for a few of them, there were grave consequences indeed. 

The film comes from Catholic Online.  Click here to watch.  It’s a short, sharp shock. 

And, there’s more, surprisingly, from the New York Times, which carried a feature in October about a pro-life campaigner and theology professor who photographed fetal remains.  Many people will be surprised to see what some of these aborted fetuses look like.

And, finally, Priests for Life has a page of links showing what fetuses look like at various trimesters.  Hardly a ‘handful of cells’.  

Many people are living in ignorance about abortion.  Where I live the clergy have decided that if you’ve given it enough thought, you can go and have an abortion.  This, sadly, includes a Catholic priest.  Every pastor, vicar and lay minister should have these photos printed out in colour and placed in a discreet booklet.  Then, at the appropriate moment, he can show the booklet to anyone who comes to him for advice on abortion.  I reckon they would be gobsmacked. 

‘Only a handful of cells’, as Cass Sunstein, Obama’s regulatory czar says?  My foot.  This is the guy who also said (same link):

A full-grown horse or dog, is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old.

This misleading ’rhetoric’ is shameful.  These folks just want us to live in ignorance.  Well, it’s time to wise up, rise up and educate ourselves.

Forbidden Bible verses: Ephesians 5:1-21

How many people have heard a sermon in their Catholic or mainline Protestant church about the first part of Ephesians 5?  It’s controversial and, for this reason, qualifies as a Forbidden Bible passage.  Let’s have a look. 

Today’s reading comes from the New International Version (NIV).  You can view past posts of Forbidden Bible Verses here.

Ephesians 5

 ¹Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children ²and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

 ³But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. ⁴Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. ⁵For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a man is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. ⁶Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient. ⁷Therefore do not be partners with them.

 ⁸For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light ⁹(for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) ¹⁰and find out what pleases the Lord. ¹¹Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. ¹²For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. ¹³But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, ¹⁴for it is light that makes everything visible. This is why it is said:
   ”Wake up, O sleeper,
      rise from the dead,
   and Christ will shine on you.”

 ¹⁵Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. ¹⁷Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. ¹⁸Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. ¹⁹Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, ²⁰always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 ²¹Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

 

Chapter 5 of Ephesians is a continuation of the previous chapter.  (Note the use of ‘therefore’ in the first verse.)  Paul describes more Christian behaviours which the new converts need to adopt in order to more fully live in Christ.  He reminds them of the selfless sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and exhorts them to remember that, making their lives worthy of God.  The ‘life of love’ Paul refers to in verse 2, is not easy.  As we read the subsequent verses we note the many proscriptions on base appetites.  Then as now, these were commonplace and encouraged.  We are to respect ourselves and others in purity, always remembering Christ’s divine love for us.  

Paul lists the sins of which Christians must avoid in verses 3 through 7.  He says ‘not even a hint’ – so, no suggestion at all, no furtive gestures or words made in the direction of these sins.  Lust and greed pollute our bodies, minds and souls.  They are unworthy of God, our Creator.  Furthermore, we are not to employ obscene gestures or speech.  Nor are we to talk idly;  words just for the sake of talking lead to gossip, innuendo and slander.  Paul asks the Ephesians — and us — to put those energies into thanksgiving unto God.  Even if we are not doing so audibly, we should be grateful to God for redeeming us through the blood of His Son.  No one steeped in sins of immorality, impurity and greed will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  Such people are idolaters — they worship their sins because they cannot give them up.  In verse 6, he cautions the Ephesians not to be deceived by false teachers — and even we can fall prey to them — who say that serious sin is acceptable and that God will overlook it.  Paul says such transgressions anger God and He will punish the disobedience.  Verse 7 tells us to avoid such charlatans and ignore what they say.  When Paul says to expose ‘fruitless deeds of darkness’ in verse 11, he is asking us to instruct ourselves and others about sin, so as to avoid it.  In verse 12, he says we are never to discuss sin.  Yet, when we know what to avoid thanks to walking in the light of the Son, we can see clearly.  We are no longer timidly trying to find our way in the shadows.  And staying in those shadows can only lead to temptation and transgression. 

Paul signals the way forward in verses 8 – 14: ‘Live as children of light’.  Just as children imitate what they see, Paul asks us to imitate the goodness of Christ.  Yet, one can only understand that Christlike example if one has been saved through the truth and righteousness of the Gospel message.  And when one is conscious of being saved, one walks in blamelessness.  When we are dead to (not ‘in’) sin, we will wake up from our imperfect slumber and walk in the light of Christ.  Are we still sleeping? Are we stumbling around in the dark?  Are we calling ourselves Christians but engaging in sin?  It is possible.

In verse 15, Paul exhorts us to live in wisdom, as one who walks in the light.  His warning to the Ephesians that ‘the days are evil’ in verse 16 also holds true for us.  We are surrounded by temptation.  All of it is rationalised as being ‘healthful’, ‘fun’ and ‘liberating’.  We see sin marketed and packaged beautifully every time we open a magazine or watch television.  And the targets of that marketing are becoming younger all the time.  Thirty years ago, such messages targeted adults.  Now they also target children.  Anyone who has committed a serious sin of which he has repented will tell you it may be enjoyable at the time, but it brings sorrow and heartache later.  Those who repent will understand what the Lord’s will is and they will seek to obey it more and more every day (verse 17).  Paul tells us to stop getting drunk and depressed in verse 18 and replace that with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as fortitude and piety.  When we are Spirit-filled, we will be inclined to glorify God and tell others of His wonder through psalms and song (verse 19).  Even if we are silent, we should carry a song of praise and thanksgiving in our hearts to God in Jesus’s name (verse 20).           

Finally, Paul instructs us to look for Christ in our fellow Christians.  We are called to submit to each other imitating the love that the Lord showed for us (verse 21).

You can read more here.

Can we — should we — transform the world?

Over the past year, some Christians — particularly in America — have been wondering if they should have a guidebook, a godly version of Rules for Radicals, by which to live and transform the world.  Proponents of this idea say that it would beat the progressives at their own game and help revive Christianity in a postmodern world.

Many mainstream Protestants would disagree.  They come from a ‘two-kingdom’ tradition, whereby there is a civil kingdom in this world which the Lord oversees with common grace and a heavenly kingdom in the world to come.  This idea started with Augustine of Hippo in The City of God.  Augustine wrote this work in reaction to the shock the Romans experienced after the sacking of the Goths in 410.  ‘How could this have happened?’ they said.  ‘If only we had been better devotees of the Roman gods.’  Augustine stated that this was where Christianity provided a better answer: even if earthly rule turned out to be chaotic or endangered, the kingdom of God (heaven) would ultimately triumph.  

Nearly 1000 years later, the Reformers revisited doctors of the early Church, principally Augustine.  Both Calvin and Luther borrowed heavily from him, especially with regard to the ‘two-kingdom’ idea.  Calvinists, in particular, pushed hard for religious liberties in Geneva, London and Amsterdam.  They were joined by Quakers and deists. This carried over across the Atlantic, influencing even the founding fathers of the United States.  In ‘Response to Questions about the Two Kingdoms’, Dr Michael Horton, the J. Gresham Machen professor of apologetics and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California), host of The White Horse Inn national radio broadcast, and editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation magazine, says:

Trained under Presbyterian stalwart John Witherspoon (a signer of the Declaration of Independence), James Madison used two kingdoms arguments for his case. In fact, he surveyed history to argue that the church itself is healthiest when it is least dependent on state sponsorship and support.

Horton explains how ‘two kingdoms’ gained credibility among Protestants:

Clearly, Luther drew the lines between the two kingdoms in clear, bold colors, but so did Calvin—and both did so especially over against the radical Anabaptists who were trying to take over cities in the name of Christ’s millennial kingdom! Calvin wrote explicitly of the ‘two kingdoms’: both under the reign of the risen and ascended Christ, but ‘in different ways’; one, by common grace and the moral law inscribed on the conscience and the other by saving grace and the gospel. Neither Lutherans nor Calvinists have been consistent in working out their theory, but the two-kingdoms doctrine has a substantial body of reflection throughout the whole history of the church.

Until Christ comes again in glory, the Holy Spirit infuses God’s world with ‘common grace’ which benefits all men — no matter what their faith or lack thereof – wherever they are in the world.  Although there appear to us to be exceptions (just watch the news!), generally speaking, we refer to concepts and conduct almost all of us share, such as ’common decency’.  This would be an example of common grace.  We work together to help — or at least not to harm — each other in this life.  (I’ve included qualifiers because a small number of people, for whatever reason, do not or cannot respect these norms of natural law.)  We also enjoy a type of common grace in appreciating God’s creation in all its natural beauty.  Should I describe a breathtaking sunset here in the UK, a reader in Ghana may read the post understanding the beauty of that sunset.   That reader may choose to send in a comment which acknowledges that experience.  Immediately, we have a common bond as humans.

Of course, in today’s activist world, many detractors of Christianity do not believe we are ‘doing enough’ to combat the world’s ills and see that the ‘two kingdom’ notion is partially responsible.  Conversely, Christians see that political and social action groups are all over the place with secular rules promoting their agenda for a better, transformed world involving conformity which may not meet with universal approval.  What to do?  Do we try to replicate God’s kingdom to earth?  Should we?

Horton says no.  He reminds us that (emphasis mine throughout):

Surely, if ever in this present age, we were to expect a total transformation of the kingdoms of this age into the kingdom of Christ, it would have been in Christ’s earthly ministry. Yet he just preaches the gospel, forgives sins, heals the sick, and marches toward the cross.

Nor do we find a blueprint in the New Testament Epistles for a Christian economic or political system, a Christian theory of art or science, or a plan for universal hygiene. The commands are simply to live godly lives in the present, as parents, children, spouses, employers, and employees, caring for the needs of the saints, participating regularly in the public assembly of Christ’s body, and to pray for our rulers.

Whilst Horton acknowledges that individuals such as William Wilberforce helped transform our societies (in this case, working hard to abolish the slave trade in the 19th century), we are called by God and His Son to work within our own sphere of influence.  So, for most of us, that means being good spouses, friends, parents, employees and volunteers.  The command does not involve setting the world on fire in the secular world or try to devise a heaven on earth.  Horton adds:

We will still need government and private sector relief agencies, but it would make a big difference in society if Christians spent more time in their ordinary vocations … and fulfilling their calling at work with remarkable skill and dedication.

Furthermore, non-Christians are as likely to be numbered among the great heroes, too. Calvin speaks eloquently of the Spirit’s work in common grace of bringing truth, goodness, and beauty in earthly matters to the world through pagans, benefiting us all. It would be ‘ingratitude toward the Spirit’ he says, if we were to ignore these gifts. So in these acts of love and service to our neighbours, Christians are not alone. It is due to God’s common grace, but the church is not a common grace institution. It is not the Rotary Club, UNICEF, or a political action group. The visible church is God’s means of bringing his saving grace to the ends of the earth.

To the pastor who exhorts his congregation to do otherwise would be to miss:

several important biblical points: We’re in the in-between time right now. Not only are the secular kingdoms still secular (though we still participate in them); we ourselves are still simultaneously justified and sinful. We are not ourselves transformed enough (glorified) to agree upon what a transformed world would look like in all the details, much less to implement it perfectly. Imagine an international, evangelical Christian congress where a plan for transforming the world were to be designed. How long would it take before fights broke out?

I’ve been in Christian conferences where theologians, ethicists, and pastors presented their imperatives for a new world order and Christian economists in the room hardly knew where to begin enumerating the factual confusion and incoherence, much less the wisdom, of their arguments. In this in-between time, even a non-Christian economist or hospice worker who cares about people will be more of a genuine neighbor to a sufferer than a lot of busy Christians with big plans that are impractical or uninformed.

Horton encourages us to work along side others in secular volunteer work.  Conversely, he also advises congregations and pastors against turning church into a party political broadcast:

Pastors aren’t authorized to create their own blueprint for transformation, but are servants of the Word. Where Scripture has clearly spoken, he must speak. Where it is silent, he must keep his personal opinions and perhaps even learned conclusions to himself. Of course, pastors are called to preach the whole council of God: not only the gospel, but the law—including its third use (to guide Christian obedience). That’s enough to occupy our prayerful action in the world, without piling up commands that God never gave. We’re never called to transform the world (or even our neighborhood). We’re never called even to bring millions to Jesus Christ.

One day, this kingdom will extend to every aspect of worldly existence. There will be no tyrants, no pain, no disease, no injustice, no poverty, no idolatry, no oppression. The kingdoms of this world will be made the kingdom of our God and of his Christ and he will reign forever. For now, however, Jesus is gathering guests for his feast, forgiving, justifying, calling, renewing, sanctifying, and sending them out to bring others to the swelling hall. Christ’s reign in grace (through the Great Commission) is a parenthesis in God’s plan. His reign in glory, commencing with his return in judgment and final conquest of the whole earth, will be everlasting.

Horton concludes:

We are not building a kingdom, but receiving one (Heb 12:28). Even our lives in the world, in our callings, in our witness to our neighbors, is not bringing the future of Christ’s consummated kingdom into the present. Rather, it is God’s means of extending his reign in grace, while we wait expectantly for his return in glory.

So, let us contend and defend our faith by showing a good example and helping the people with whom we come in contact every day.  That’s it?  Putting it into practice takes a lot of work.    　

　

A convert’s message to Anglo-Catholics

On Wednesday, Churchmouse Campanologist featured the better part of an essay by Brother Stephen, O. Cist., a former Anglo-Catholic who became a Roman Catholic and joined the Cistercian Order.

Today, we look at his advice to Anglo-Catholics thinking of converting to the Roman Catholic faith.  He wrote his essay, ‘So who are these Anglicans with nuns?‘ on June 16, 2009 — four months before Pope Benedict XVI extended his invitation to Anglicans to join the Roman Catholic faith.

He advises Anglo-Catholics to consider the following during their period of discernment (highlights mine):

When friends who are still Anglican ask me about crossing the Tiber, I tell them to come if they have fallen in love with the church but not to come to Rome merely as a refuge from the storms of Anglicanism. Conversion should be a running to, not a running from. Nor will I say that the grass is always impossibly verdant on this side of the Tiber. Many an Anglican has converted only to revert because he or she found life in Rome less congenial than was expected…

If you have come to believe what the Roman Catholic Church says about herself, come! Our Lord sent out his disciples without scrip, bread, or money and said that even he himself did not have a place to lay his head. If you believe that Rome is where the fullness of the Catholic faith is to be found, you may need to be willing to leave behind old friends, Anglican Chant, real albs, and excerpts from this week’s New York Review of Books tucked into Sunday sermons.

He cautions that to many Roman Catholics, all converts are alike.  Perhaps another way of saying this is that they don’t consider where you’ve come from as long as you are there.  However, the convert will most likely be unable to share his previous Christian life with new friends: 

A-Cs also should be prepared for the fact that few Roman Catholics have ever heard of Anglo-Catholicism, priests included. People in your new parish will be glad you’ve come, but Anglo-Catholics, Adventists, and American Baptists are all pretty much the same to most cradle Roman Catholics. At first I was quite put off by the general obliviousness. I felt that I had agonized over this momentous decision to sign up with a church that looks so good on paper and, so often, so bad in practice, and no one appreciated my great and noble sacrifice. Poor, poor me! (The lesson in humility alone has probably been worth the trip.) 

Then, there are the liturgical differences:

At times after your conversion, you will find yourself feeling like the Israelites in the desert remembering the melons of Egypt and at other times you may well feel like Ruth, a resident alien in a strange land. At some point you will attend a mass with a homily, music, or liturgical idiom so terrible that you will wish you could be Samson in the temple of Dagon because you are so furious that these people don’t seem to appreciate what they’ve been given.

And RCIA (I noted similarly in an earlier post — no grasp of church history!):

You stand every chance of being theologically patronized by an RCIA instructor who couldn’t put Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas in order on a timeline and who doesn’t seem to be aware that there were some other pretty cool councils before Vatican II. Before your first year is out, you will meet at least one neocon who believes that the whole of the faith is contained in his own highly selective reading of the encyclicals of John Paul II.

And busy priests, unlike the Anglican vicar or Episcopal rector who knows everyone by name and makes time for a chat:

Chances are the pastor in your new parish has 2,000 souls to care for instead of the 200 you are used to and won’t have the same time to look after your every need.

But, overall, Br Stephen’s move has worked well for him:

Since being received, I have hung my hat with the Novus Ordo, nicely done, with few complaints. My conversion was theological and I’m finding what I came looking for as well as having a fair number of pleasant surprises. I have been to confession more times in a year than I did in 20 as an Anglo-Catholic. The reality of the universality of the Church still fills me with wonder as I try to get my mind around being in communion with more than one billion people. My parish and its priests are exemplary. I have received grace up on grace.

Paris was worth a Mass. Peace of mind is worth even the occasional folk Mass.

He lists several resources at the end of his essay, so, if you are Anglo-Catholic and would like to deepen your investigation as part of the discernment process, please click here.

My final sermonette on boycotting the CHD

Before I begin this piece, I would like to thank Gabriella for circulating some of my CHD links and Mary Ann Kreitzer who sent in the short CHD investigative video reproduced here.  I would especially like to thank American Catholic, Blithe Spirit – the Blog and Catholic Citizens of Illinois for picking up a few of my posts and publicising them. And to those readers who stopped by to read and/or circulate these posts, I am most grateful.  God bless you all.

However, this message is intended for every Catholic in the US who might be ignoring or denying the gravity of the situation …

Churchmouse Campanologist is (finally) through sermonising about the CHD. Not just this year, but forever. (Unless, of course, the USCCB terminates this programme, in which case I shall write a valedictory post.) If, as an American Catholic, you choose not to boycott this collection which takes place this weekend, November 21-22, 2009, then you really have nothing to complain about in future.

What do I mean? 

- For a start, you shouldn’t be complaining about activist organisations encouraging family planning and abortion.  Chances are you helped to fund these with your CHD contributions.

- Neither should you complain about left-wing couplings of parish churches and secular organisations.  After all, you dropped money in the CHD collection basket.  That money is financing those operations.

- And when your grandparents’ parish church closes, you might as well admit that you had a role to play in that, too.  Your CHD donations go not to Catholic churches or schools but to secular organisations.

‘Oh, but we must obey our bishop!’  Any bishop worth his salt wouldn’t have a CHD collection in his diocese.  If this is your bishop, then may the Lord bless him richly in this world and the next.  And say a prayer of thanksgiving that he is shepherding you. 

‘Gee, these posts are always so anti-Catholic.’  They’re not anti-Catholic — they’re trying to help you to save an ailing Church.  If I didn’t care about the Catholic Church’s future in the US, I certainly wouldn’t have spent all these hours researching and writing about it — for you. 

‘So, what do I do?’  Please take whatever money you were going to give to the CHD and donate it directly to a Catholic institution of your choice, whether that be a church, school or charity.

Fine.  I know some of you would prefer to drool over sacerdotal bloggers talking about action movies.  Believe me, I’ve seen it when my CHD posts get circulated to Catholic sites.  We anti-CHD people might as well be whistling in the wind.  But, that’s okay — someday, you can explain to your grandchildren how you personally helped to reduce the Church in the US to an amalgam of progressivism and sin by obeying your bishop in giving to the CHD. 

This may be your last chance this year to investigate the CHD before the collection takes place.  You may do so by clicking here.  Thank you for your time.

The complex world of the Anglo-Catholics

How can I set the tone for this post?  Perhaps by giving you a question to answer when you meet one: Are they ANGLO-Catholics or Anglo-CATHOLICS? And, will they stay on the Thames or cross the Tiber? Well, it depends. 

For my source, meet (or renew your acquaintance with) Br. Stephen of the Order of the Cistercians.  Brother Stephen was a cradle Anglo-Catholic until he was received into the Roman Catholic Church a few years ago.  He is dedicating his life to God through the Cistercian Order.

The following is a summary of his highly informative post dated June 16, 2009, ‘So who are these Anglicans with nuns?‘   Don’t miss the pictures, either.  (The Anglo-Catholic priest on the left is from Christ Church, Winnetka, Illinois, north of Chicago.) I hope he will excuse my putting his essay into a Q&A format.

We should note that Br Stephen was not unhappy being an Anglican:

I have very happy memories of my life as an Anglo-Catholic and believe that tradition led me to where I am today. Anglicanism gave me more gifts than I could count and I do not believe that there are any people in the world who enjoy the practice of their faith more. On the other hand, by the time I left Anglicanism, I was one of those who was attached to the Roman Rite and Roman Catholic theology… If the Holy See wants to make a way for many of my old friends to come home and bring some of our better heirlooms with them then that is great by me, but I, like thousands of others, found my way home without special inducements and will probably be content where I am.

However, he acknowledges:

Even most Anglo-Catholics have deep doctrinal disagreements with Rome. Progressive or affirming Anglo-Catholics, who numerically represent at least half of the Anglo-Catholic party, often position themselves as an alternative to what they see as Rome’s conservatism on doctrinal and social issues.

How many are we talking about worldwide?

Traditionalist Anglo-Catholicism is a very small movement. The entire Episcopal Church in the US counts only 2.6 million members with an average Sunday attendance of around 750,000. Within that number, some single digit percentage of Episcopalians identify themselves as Anglo-Catholic, half of whom identify as liturgical modernists and/or social progressives…

The Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, the largest traditionalist catholic diocese in the Episcopal Church, counted only 14,000 members in the year 2000, about the size of five average Roman Catholic parishes. Outside of a few areas of concentration in the dioceses of Fort Worth, Quincy, and San Joaquin, Anglo-Catholics are thinly scattered across the Episcopal Church and among many Continuing Churches.

Are there any who swam the Thames, so to speak?

In fact, many Anglo-Catholics are ex-Roman Catholics who crossed the Channel because they disagreed with Roman Catholic doctrine or wanted to escape the post-Vatican II Church for both liberal and conservative reasons.

How Catholic are Anglo-Catholics?

Among traditional Anglo-Catholics, you will find those who believe in 3, 4, 7, 19, 20, and 21 councils as well as those who believe that no council taught infallibly. It is safe to say that traditional Anglo-Catholics generally believe in via media, 3 to 7 ecumenical councils, and lay government. Most traditional A-Cs get from a little to very queasy at the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, and any form of devotion that is too ’sentimental’. Many hold an idea of the real presence that owes as much to Luther as to Trent. A confessional in the back of the church is often considered to be an important symbol, but few consider it necessary to be a regular penitent.

Tell me more.

Essayist Florence King spoke well to another aspect of the Anglican mindset when she wrote, ‘I don’t care about church and state so long as the church and stateliness go hand in hand.’ Traditional Roman Catholics hoping for reinforcements need to understand that traditional Anglo-Catholics are conservative compared to other Anglicans, but that is s a very different proposition than the ideological and social agenda held by many traditionalist Roman Catholics. Many, probably most, traditional Anglo-Catholics have no objection to things like women in the diaconate, contraception, remarriage, or suitably discreet same-sex relationships. There are certainly Anglo-Catholics who support the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life and who are vexed by the Robinson consecration, but these are generally not the parishes whose photos make their way around the Catholic blog circuit … The folks who agree with Catholic social teaching are more likely to be liturgically low-key modern rite people.

Oh.  So how many might convert?

At this point it is probably clear that liturgical altitude is not the same sort of index of theological belief among Anglicans that it is among Roman Catholics. Having two sacristies full of tat is no indication that members of a parish are putting on their trunks to swim the Tiber and head out on to the battlefield of the culture wars … Politically conservative Roman Catholics should also be aware that Anglo-Catholicism has a strong historic tie to Christian Socialism from the days when priests in the US and UK worked in some of the poorest missions. That relationship is not so strong as it once was–a pity to my mind since social witness was a hallmark of the early movement–but do not be surprised to find that politics runs a broad spectrum among Anglo-Catholics.

Explain Anglo-Catholic worship, please.

I believe that it is fair to say that I never saw two parishes where Mass was said in the same way. In the US, some use the 1928 Prayer Book, some the 1979, and others the Anglican Service Book. In the UK, you will find the 1662, Common Worship, and varying degrees of interpolation from the 1970 Missal. In both countries you will also find the missal parishes, which use the Anglican, American, or English Missals in their various editions with their various options. As a visual study, catholic leaning Anglicans range from those who concelebrate Mass in modern language versus populum in cassock alb and stole to Anglo-Papalist shrines where the English Missal, silent canon, pre ’55 Holy Week, and folded chasubles in Lent are the norm. In between there is every variant that could be imagined with occasional hat tips to the Orthodox.

Gee, that’s a lot of variation.

Anglo-Catholicism is a tradition where lay people own lots of theological and liturgical books and where parish priests are usually trying to balance one resident liturgist’s preferences against those of another. Battle lines are drawn by when and how you cross yourself at Mass and whether you kneel for the Sanctus or wait for the beginning of the canon. Liturgy is often just short of blood sport and many a toast has been raised to a Roman Use victory over the Sarumites of a parish and vice versa. This lay aspect of Anglo-Catholic liturgical practice often appears bizarre and unseemly to Roman Catholics, but to many Anglicans it is mother’s milk. I have often joked with friends that I became a devotee of the traditional Roman Rite because I am now too old and lazy to make stuff up.

My goodness.  It sounds complicated.

Creating any one liturgical book or uniate fold that could encompass all of these Anglo-Catholicisms is a virtually impossible task. Among the good, devout, and intelligent people you will find across the Anglo-Catholic spectrum, there is scant agreement on which parts of the Anglican patrimony should be cherished and preserved and which parts should be trimmed away …  The liturgical traditions of individual parishes and priests are matters of pride, heated debate, and wickedly funny anecdotes.

Back to an earlier point — how many would like to become Roman Catholics?

With God, all things are possible, but I do not believe that there are thousands of Anglo-Catholics wanting to hop on the Barque of Peter if only they could bring their traditions with them. Though there are certainly exceptions, my experience has been that Anglicans who feel drawn to Rome are not that interested in Anglican worship and those who are interested in Anglican worship are not in theological agreement with Rome.

Tell me more about their history, particularly how the Oxford Movement ended up manifesting itself in such ornate liturgical displays.

For early Anglo-Catholics, liturgy was often an important form of witness and resistance whereby the externals of worship became a theological rebuke to the Protestant theology of the majority. Anglo-Catholics believed that Anglicans had maintained valid orders and sacraments and that the sacraments should be performed with the dignity befitting their reality rather than the simpler forms that accompanied a memorialist understanding. An altar cross, candles, and vestments were powerful signs of the sacramental faith that a parish held. Early Anglo-Catholic priests defied English court orders and went to jail for using vestments. In a side altar at the Church of the Advent in Boston you can still see a simple gilt cross that so offended the Bishop of Massachusetts that he refused to return until it was removed. The externals of the liturgy became an important part of Anglo-Catholic identity and a way for a parish to clearly stake out its theological ground. In places, this remains so up to the present day. A visit to Sunday Eucharist at a middle-of-the-road Episcopal parish may tell the observer very little about what that community believes but a similar visit to one of the great Anglo-Catholic shrine parishes leaves no doubt that these are people who believe that in this place heaven tangibly breaks through to earth.

Gee, that just sounds so, well, trad Catholic!  Are you sure they won’t swim the Tiber?

Anglo-Catholics stay where they are for the theological reasons touched on earlier as well as various practical and cultural reasons that include attachment to parishes built by their ancestors, the odd person’s lingering penchant for the perceived social respectability of being an Episcopalian, an aversion to Roman Catholic aesthetics, or simply from the knowledge that Anglo-Catholics can have their liturgical cake and a Protestant congregation’s freedom too in the unsettled times we live in.

What do you mean by ‘Protestant congregation’s freedom’?

As long as an Episcopal parish sends its annual check to diocesan headquarters and lets the bishop visit once a year or so, few ECUSA or continuing bishops care which liturgical books you have on the altar or even whether you’re offering the occasional Latin Mass. If you are an Episcopal priest, you are getting a quite decent living with little interference from higher up. If you are an active layperson, you are in a tradition that has well-established ways to use your gifts. In general, you can do pretty much as you please provided it is done discreetly and in good taste. Unless you have come to believe the Roman Catholic Church’s claims about itself, life in the average Anglo-Catholic parish remains reasonably pleasant even with all of the hysteria swirling in the headlines.

But, I’ve been reading otherwise.

I think this seeming lack of alarm at the present state of the Episcopal Church can be another of the hardest realities for Roman Catholics to grasp about Anglo-Catholics. Alarmist bloggers are not representative of most of the people in the pews. When asked about the crisis of the week, the thinking of most A-Cs would probably go something like this:

Why should we leave over a woman primate, the Windsor Report or [fill in the blank]? … Why should we go now? Sure a few folks made the lemming run over all of those things, but history shows we’ve done just fine. We’ve always been an embattled minority and we’ve hung in there bearing witness to the vision of a restored catholicism in the Anglican Communion and we’ll keep going. We may be pushed out of ECUSA into the Continuum or we may have to call in foreign prelates for a while, but that’s exactly what the English A-Cs had to do a century ago and they held tough and weathered the storm and we will too. Anglican is who we are and Anglican is what we’ll stay.

Reinforcing this general tendency to stay put are all of the beliefs that many Anglo-Catholics have about Roman Catholics. Anyone thinking of going to Rome will be given graphic stories of pantsuit nuns preaching liberation theology, liturgical dancing, bad plaster statues, and how you will always be an outsider treated with suspicion. The waffling A-C will also be reminded of some less sensational things that are hard for many of us: lay pope is not a viable career path in Rome as it is in Canterbury; chances are slim that you will be in a place where you will hear daily Evening Prayer again; and that you may never again find the same bonhomie you have had in the small, plucky world of Anglo-Catholicism.

Any regrets from your own perspective?

Are there things I miss about Anglicanism? Certainly! Anglicans of most theological stripes worship with sobriety, dignity and care. I am amazed that even low and broad church Anglicans who do not believe in the real presence celebrate the sacraments with a degree of reverence that I rarely see in the Catholic Church. 450 years of worship in English has left Anglicanism with a great gift for crafting liturgical prose and a rich treasury of sacred music. I still stumble over the words of the 1970 Missal and the Liturgy of the Hours. I miss the friendliness, sense of community, and well-stocked bar that you find in most Anglo-Catholic parishes. (Stories of the ‘Frozen Chosen’ are greatly exaggerated.) Most of all I miss the regular public celebration of the Office, which is, to my mind, Anglicanism’s distinct glory.

Thank you, Br Stephen.

So, outward appearances notwithstanding, not all Anglo-Catholics are alike.  Indeed, they inhabit a complex, nuanced world — one which defies stereotypes.

Friday: Br Stephen’s advice to Anglicans considering crossing the Tiber — don’t miss it

Introducing the Anglo-Catholic world to Roman Catholics

If you aren’t sure what Anglo-Catholics are all about, you’re about to discover who they are.  This isn’t intended for Anglicans as much as it is for Roman Catholics and other Christians who wonder what this world is all about.

Today’s post is a bit of a pictorial by way of a gentle introduction.  I hope the churches profiled below will not mind my having borrowed their photographs, which are too good to miss.

Church of the Advent, Boston, MA:

Note not only the vestments but the traditional altar.  I went to a few Masses here many years ago.  If you’re in Boston or live nearby, it’s definitely worth a visit.

From the website (link above):

Worship at the Church of the Advent reflects our foundation in the tradition of the ‘Oxford Movement’. Beginning in the 1830s, several Church of England clergy, in reaction to what they perceived as the laxity and spiritual lifelessness the Church in their day, started a renewal which came to be known as the Oxford Movement (because most of them were associated with Oxford University). They advocated a restoration of the pattern of Catholic worship, devotion, and spirituality which originated in ancient times but was lost during the Reformation. The recoveries included an ornate liturgy, private confession, devotions addressed to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and monastic orders, as well as the use of the name ‘Mass’ for the service of the Eucharist …

In addition to ceremonial recoveries, scholars of the Oxford Movement also led a rediscovery of classical Catholic theology, which included an elevated view of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, in which we believe Christ to be really present to us in the sacramental bread and wine – His Body and Blood. From a Catholic viewpoint, worshipping Christ present in the Sacrament of the Eucharist is an experience so profound that words become inadequate and ceremonial gestures, such as the Sign of the Cross and genuflections, serve to express some of what we cannot put into speech.

St Michael and All Saints Church, Edinburgh:

From the website (link above):

As adherents to the Anglo-Catholic tradition, incense, bells and music play an integral part in our worship and the ritual and beauty of the liturgy is an important aid to our worship …

On the first Sunday of each month we also have a service of Choral Evensong and Benediction at 6.30 pm. Evensong is a traditional service, with readings and prayers, psalm, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis and anthem sung by the choir. It is followed seamlessly by the service of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, when we rejoice in the Lord’s continuing presentation of himself to the world …

St Mary of the Angels, Los Angeles, CA:

From the website (link above):

From her earliest days, St. Mary’s has enjoyed the full Anglo-Catholic heritage of worship and belief. Employing the Book of Common Prayer for the daily and occasional offices and the Anglican Missal for the celebration of the Mass, Fr. Neal Dodd, our first rector, set the tone for our worship which remains today.

To some, that heritage means ’smells and bells’ — incense, beautiful vestments, and intricate ceremonial.  At High Mass or Solemn Evensong, we do cloud the church with incense, the vestments of the clergy and, in fact, all things connected with our worship, are as beautiful as our skills and pocketbooks allow.  The ceremonial that embodies our worship and the music which accompanies it, are rich and old.  It has the scent of eternity.  That’s what we believe worship should be.

Worship isn’t about us.  It’s not meant to make us feel good about ourselves, or even to feel good about God.  Its purpose isn’t to make us ‘feel’ anything.  Worship is directed not toward us, but towards God.  Catholic worship is what the Church of God does to show her love for her Lord. 

Other points to note, as taken from a short and highly readable essay by Bruce E Ford entitled ‘What is an Anglo-Catholic parish?‘ for the Grace Church in Newark, NJ, website:

That the Church of England was not denomination, founded at the Reformation, but the selfsame branch of the Catholic Church planted by missionaries from Rome and Ireland in the sixth century.

That Christ’s promise to lead his disciples into all truth was addressed to the whole Church, not to any single branch of it, and that the only authoritative teaching was that which had been accepted throughout the Church before the break between East and West in 1054.

That although the Church of England, reacting to increasingly extravagant claims about papal authority for which Catholic tradition provided little support, had declared its independence from Rome in the sixteenth century, it had not cut itself off from communion with the Church of Rome, but that schism had occurred only in 1570 when Pope Pius V had excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I.  

That the Book of Common Prayer ought not necessarily to be interpreted as its compilers intended, but according to the tradition of the Catholic Church.

The essay goes on to explain:

Because Anglo-Catholics view the Church as an extension of the incarnation, they have historically felt impelled to attend in Jesus’ Name to ‘the homeless, the hungry, the desolate, and the oppressed’.  In America, where in the nineteenth century Episcopal churches derived most of their income from rental of pews, Anglo-Catholic parishes were among the first to abandon it, opening the way for all to join in their worship. 

A long-standing Anglo-Catholic friend confirms this.  So, despite the impressive, traditional vestments, the Anglo-Catholics have been and continue to be the ones doing much of the hard graft in urban Anglican missions. 

And:

Anglo-Catholics recognize that authoritative Catholic teaching about many matters does not exist. They confidently affirm that Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament, but they regard all attempts to say how he is present as mere speculation.  They confidently affirm the virginal conception of Jesus; but while some believe that the Virgin Mary was immaculately conceived and that she was bodily assumed into heaven, others do not.  Popes in recent times have proclaimed both the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and the doctrine of the Bodily Assumption of Mary to be dogma, even  though theologians have debated the about both doctrines for centuries without reaching consensus. Anglo-Catholics regard papal proclamations on unsettled questions not as Catholic teaching but as examples of blatant Roman sectarianism.

Many Anglo-Catholics would nod their heads upon reading that statement.  

Tomorrow: The many facets of Anglo-Catholicism