The Anglican Communion…

This is not a definitive blog, but just a short statement about what I see as a few important points in the Anglican Church and Communion.

First, it is an Apostolic Church, maintaining an unbroken link with the early apostles and drawing on the apostolic faith in its teaching and worship.

It is a Biblical Church, a catholic and reformed Church. And should seek to follow its own Thirty Nine Articles, but seeking also to keep balance in both doctrine and worship, and between Word and Sacrament. In this it should have some freedom to use the historic Book of Common Prayer. (For me personally, I love also the 1926 Irish Prayer Book Psalter)

And it does follow the Creeds of Nicene (also the Council of Chalcedon) Athanasius and the Apostles Creed. And thus fully Trinitarian: One God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

There is more to to our “sacred deposit”, I just touch on the main and only lightly.

Coptic and British Orthodoxy

Here is the site for those who wish to see and read closer about the Miaphysite position today -

www.britishorthodox.org

Anglican and Orthodox dialogue

I have in fact been part of a group in the past called: Society For Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue. But that was  several years ago. My recent time and dialog with some Orthodox has been very interesting. Mostly very good! But, there are some who like all Christian groups, are simply legal, narrow minded, and just simply bigoted. But again, these kind of people exist in all forms of Christendom. So I am not picking on just the Orthodox. But they do have some very closed minded people. It is an interesting problem with the so-called religious mind. How can we reconcile this in our Christian faith? That does have some things in our belief that are not negotiable.

First, we must look and see what these are, as for some Christians they will differ obviously. But most important, and to my point, is the “spirit” we manifest in this. This is the most important in my opinion, and the reason I write these few lines.

What spirit and character do I present? The Spirit and character of Christ, even in and with my non-negotiable points and beliefs? Or the spirit and character of self and all the personal and negative elements that only “it” can manifest?  All Christians should ask these questions, and often I am afraid. 

Re. Miaphysite

The Coptic church of Alexandria still dissents from Chalcedon, holding to Cyril’s formula of the oneness of Christ’s nature as the incarnation of God the Word. This church felt that this understanding required that the creed should have stated that Christ be acknowledged “from two natures” rather than “in two natures”. Also some of the churches of Syria and Armenia follow this. However, over the past 30 years or so, the miaphysite position has been accepted in restatement of these orthodox by Pope John Paul and the RCC.

Orthodox Christianity & the Trinity

Indeed Orthodox Christianity is a face of ancient Christianity to the modern world! Perhaps the last Christian group to be hit hardest by postmodernism today!  Their doctrine of the Trinity: God who is both three and one (triune). The Father is the cause or origin of the Godhead, from whom the Son is begotten eternally and also from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally. The Holy Trinity is three, distinct, divine persons (hypostases), without overlap, or modality among them, who share one divine essence (ousia) – uncreated, immaterial and eternal. We can learn from this ancient piece of history and doctrine!

Oriental Orthodoxy, def.

The Oriental Orthodoxy, also called Old Oriental Churches, prefer the term “non Chalcedonian” or “Miaphysite”. Oriental Orthodox Churches reject the heretical Monophysite teaching of Eutyches and Nestorius as well as the Dyohysite definition of the Council of Chalcedon. The schism between Oriental Orthodoxy and the rest of the Church occurred in the 5th century.  With their Alexandrine School Of Theology, they advocated a formula that stressed the unity of the Incarnation over all other considerations.  They saw Jesus divinity as one Person, though from out comes both divine and human, but not separate.

Abba

Abba is the word for father in Aramaic. It is used in the Aramaic for intimate and familiar. Jesus used it in (Mark 14:36). When used by our Lord it denoted the most blessed relationship, the correlative of which is “son”. So in this sense, this was a very profound revelation given by our Lord!  And thus St. Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles, or Nations, uses it in revelation also to denote one of the Christian’s most intimate and profound spiritual realities. This has special significance in this fact, claiming that it presupposes a radical new conception of the relationship of man to God, through Christ. In this most intimate and familial symbolism of father-son relationship. And when used of God it denotes His relationship to His “beloved Son”, and also to those “sons” who have been begotten or brought into a new creation.

“And because you are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, “Abba, Father.” (Gal. 4: 6)

“And you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption (sonship), whereby we cry, “Abba, Father.” (Rom. 8: 15)

Thus as Christians, we have a real sonship-spirit that enables us to cry, “Abba, Father.”  Amen!

Alien Settlement

In reality, every Christian is an ‘Alien Settlement’ in a fallen world. (1 Peter 1:1) A sort of “monastic” or better hidden life, but “called”. From here, we then can serve back into the warfare of “the world”, the people or souls who have yet to escape. The Love of Christ is our only compel – 2 Cor. 5:14 (“control”). The Greek word is sunecho; also used by St. Paul in Phil. 1: 23, “being in a strait”. It is used in both places to show Paul’s great desire! Here it is for “The Love of Christ” and human souls and their spiritual escape from a fallen world. Here is St. Paul’s only compel, “Christ” and others to know Him…”Him who died and rose..on their behalf.”

“For the love of Christ controls [and compels] us, having concluded this, that one died; He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.”  (2 Cor. 5:14-15) 

Chalcedon (2 pages)

It is very interesting to note, that at the Council of Chalcedon, and from the response to the imperial summons, 500 to 600 bishops, and all Eastern, except the Roman legates and two Africans assembled at Chalcedon. And the bishop of Rome claimed for his legates the right to preside, and insisted that any act that failed to receive their approval would be invalid. After much argument from the first session, and some personal disposal (itntire first proceedings annulled). It was the emperor (Marcian?) who requested a declaration of the true faith, but the sentiment of the council was opposed to a new symbol. It contented itself with reaffirming the Nicene and Constantinopolitan creeds and the Ephesine formula of 431, and accepting, only after examination, the Christological statement contained in the Epistola Dogmatica of Leo I. Thus the council rejected both Nestorianism and Eutychiannism, and stood upon the doctrine that Christ had two natures, each perfect in itself and each distinct from the other, yet perfectly united in one person, who was at once God and man. And with this, which was formally subscribed in the presence of the emperor, the development of the Christological doctrine was completed. But not in a manner to obviate further thought and controversy, i.e. Monophysites and Monothelites.

The emperor Marcian approved the doctrinal decrees of the council and enjoined silence in regard to theological questions. And the canon was universally received in the East. (See, The Councils of Constantinople). All of course, save later the filoque.

Monophysitism, old and modern

This doctrine that in the Incarnate Christ there is only one nature, not two. Momophysitism which represents a strict form of Alexandrian Christology, covers a variety of positions, some capable of orthodox interpretations, others not. The term ’Monophysite’ was first used in the aftermath of Chalcedon to describe all those who rejected the Council’s definition that the Incarnate Christ is one Person ‘in two Natures’, and upheld, as their key formula the phrase of St. Cyril of Alexandria ‘one Incarnate Nature of the Word’. It is still sometimes used to refer to the Oriental Orthodox Churches.

Moderate Monophysitism, on the other hand teaches that in the Incarnate Christ there was ‘one Nature out of two’ (i.e. Divine and Human), a phrase which was probably once in the draft of the Chalcedonian definition. Owning to their different understanding of the meanings of the term ‘nature’, the Monophysites rejected the final form of the Chalcedonian Definition (One person in Two natures) on the grounds that it obscured the full reality of the Incarnation and appeared to them to verge on Nestorianism. In modern times, there have been renewed contacts both the Oriental Orthodox and the Orthodox Churches and the RC Church, and a large measure of agreement on Christology is reflected in the dialog from 1973 to the present.

One thing is certain, we cannot seek some kind of “deconstructing” of classic Despensationalism through the Incarnational Chalcedon. It is both not historical or really theological.