The Reformation ain't over...
Monday, November 12, 2007
... at least not if the conversation over at Ben Witherington's blog is any indication.
Prof. Witherington's post is about the recent illicit ordination of two women to the Roman Catholic priesthood in St. Louis (for a story on that, see here). But the conversation immediately turned to the subject of ecclesial authority - with Prof. Witherington taking a very Protestant ad fontes and sola scriptura approach to church history and Scripture, and several respondents (led by the mysterious and passionately Catholic "Aelfwine") appealing to the principle of the magisterial authority of the RCC.
Around here at Duke, you will occasionally here folks drop the comment that "the Reformation is over," as if there's nothing left to argue about and all we need to do is realize that we are all part of one catholic tradition. Now I'll admit that I hold the authority of the tradition in much higher esteem than your typical Protestant (which is just to say that I am a Wesleyan), but I could never go all the way to the RCC's understanding of the Magisterium. Papal jurisdiction as we see it today is the result of real historical developments - developments that hinge on accidents of history - and thus claims of its absolute and providential sovereignty over the whole church are gross overreaches of the early church's conciliar understanding of authority (not to mention the 19th-century dogmatic assertion of papal infallibility when speaking ex cathedra).
In addition, the claims that medieval doctrines (e.g., the transubstantiation of the Communion host and claims about Mary such as the immaculate conception, perpetual virginity, and bodily assumption) should be considered to have dogmatic authority even when they are either extra-biblical or even contra-biblical is an overreaching of authority as well as, in come cases, bad theology on the part of Rome.
So no, the Reformation is not over. And it is worth saying that it's not just the Protestants who've still got a legitimate argument against Rome. Neither the Orthodox nor the Coptic faiths are willing to accept the primacy of Peter in the way Rome asserts, particularly with some of the doctrinal baggage that comes along with it. As for us Methodists, I'm glad we've got someone as eloquent as Prof. Witherington to make our case.
Prof. Witherington's post is about the recent illicit ordination of two women to the Roman Catholic priesthood in St. Louis (for a story on that, see here). But the conversation immediately turned to the subject of ecclesial authority - with Prof. Witherington taking a very Protestant ad fontes and sola scriptura approach to church history and Scripture, and several respondents (led by the mysterious and passionately Catholic "Aelfwine") appealing to the principle of the magisterial authority of the RCC.
Around here at Duke, you will occasionally here folks drop the comment that "the Reformation is over," as if there's nothing left to argue about and all we need to do is realize that we are all part of one catholic tradition. Now I'll admit that I hold the authority of the tradition in much higher esteem than your typical Protestant (which is just to say that I am a Wesleyan), but I could never go all the way to the RCC's understanding of the Magisterium. Papal jurisdiction as we see it today is the result of real historical developments - developments that hinge on accidents of history - and thus claims of its absolute and providential sovereignty over the whole church are gross overreaches of the early church's conciliar understanding of authority (not to mention the 19th-century dogmatic assertion of papal infallibility when speaking ex cathedra).
In addition, the claims that medieval doctrines (e.g., the transubstantiation of the Communion host and claims about Mary such as the immaculate conception, perpetual virginity, and bodily assumption) should be considered to have dogmatic authority even when they are either extra-biblical or even contra-biblical is an overreaching of authority as well as, in come cases, bad theology on the part of Rome.
So no, the Reformation is not over. And it is worth saying that it's not just the Protestants who've still got a legitimate argument against Rome. Neither the Orthodox nor the Coptic faiths are willing to accept the primacy of Peter in the way Rome asserts, particularly with some of the doctrinal baggage that comes along with it. As for us Methodists, I'm glad we've got someone as eloquent as Prof. Witherington to make our case.
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 9:00 PM
7 Comments:
"Now I'll admit that I hold the authority of the tradition in much higher esteem than your typical Protestant (which is just to say that I am a Wesleyan)"
Amen! I've been arguing frequently that we UMs need to recover this aspect of our heritage. Rather than just giving lip service to the Tradition in the Discipline, I'd like to hear more sermons or Bible studies that actually appeal to common liturgy and especially that quote the Fathers - who Wesley called:
"the most authentic commentators on Scripture, as being both nearest the fountain, and eminently endued with that Spirit by whom all Scripture was given. It will be easily percieved that I speak cheifly of those who wrote before the Council of Nicea. But who would not likewise desire to have some aquaintance with those that followed them: with St. Chrysostom, Basil, Jerome, Augustine, and, above all...Ephraim Syrus?" (WJW, x, 484)
But you are right that Rome has actually departed from true Catholicity in those issues where all the rest of Christianity - Orthodoxy, Oriental, and Protestant have always disagreed with Rome. On these issues there simply is not a catholic/ecumenical consensus, and Rome should consider them secondary at best (rather than infallible dogmas thanks to Vatican I).
Andrew, I agree with you and Witherington on your basic points but quibble on two:
First, why is it so important that these women be ROMAN CATHOLIC priests? Why not simply become Anglican or open Protestants? They are, after all, protesting the RCC. The RCC has every right to excommunicate them. If a UM Elder said, "I won't baptize babies - EVER. I theologically disagree with it," then I'd say his church authorities have the right to reprimand him. If he won't budge, he gets the boot. I get the whole "change from within," but why not change from "within" by being outside like Protestants. We're all in the catholic Church, just not the Catholic Church.
Second, not even the best Protestant who venerates the tradition can accept the sort of "ordination" these women received. They were "ordained" by a FORMER NUN. Not even a bishop of another communion! If I called up an Anglican bishop to ordain me a Methodist Elder, it would never fly in either communion.
You can find a follow up to this story in the St Louis Post-Dispatch:
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/69CC71BB98EB0E908625739200179D8A?OpenDocument
In England, at the Methodist Conference at Leeds in July of 1784, Wesley (an Anglican priest) himself ordained Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey as elders, appointing them to go, along with a group of itinerant preachers to America. Wesley then ordained Thomas Coke (who was already an ordained Anglican priest) to go as superintendent of the American church. He gave Coke instructions to also ordain Francis Asbury as co-superintendent.
UCM-
You have a point, but it's one I've never liked. :)
I would ask what Wesley's intention was in what he was doing. Did he see himself ordaining someone into Anglican orders, or specifically into a new communion - Methodist Episcopal? I think it makes a difference.
I think that Wesley knew that what he was doing would lead to a new church. It's part of the reason Charles was so upset with him. John believed that he had the authority to ordain them because he believed that priests and bishops were of the same order and that the difference between the two was a matter of function. I also believe that his decision was ultimately made for him because of a shortage of priests after the Revolutionary War to administer the sacraments and because the priests that were there still had a very negative attitude toward Methodists.
St. Jerome mentions in a letter (Letter CXLVI, NPNF2, vol. 6, p.288) that in previous times in the city of Alexandria a new bishop was often selected and consecrated by the presbyters there. That episcopal line was accepted as legit by the Catholic/Orthodox church at large as a valid apostolic succession. Jerome himself argued that this showed that presbyters could in theory exercise episcopal power, that they were of the same order. John Wesley followed this same line of thought as it had been elaborated by some English thinkers, especially Peter King and Edward Stillingfleet (I think Cranmer himself may have advocated a similar position). All this to speculate, he may have actually convinced himself that the clergy orders he was giving to the Methodist Episcopal Church would be seen as valid apostolic succession by the Anglicans, because, as he saw it, they were valid. But the consensus of Anglicanism as a whole never moved in this direction.
To piggyback on the comments of some others:
There were some Reformation-era Anglicans (Daniel, it may have been Cranmer, but I'm not sure) who saw the very issue of Apostolic Succession not as some quasi-magical laying on of hands in one unbroken chain from Peter to the present (which is a dubious claim anyway), but rather as the faithful handing on of apostolic doctrine.
Wesley did, in fact, know that he was ordaining Coke, Whatcoat, and Vasey, for service in a new ecclesiastical communion (although he expected that communion to remain in "connexion" with him). There is a short, wonderful little letter that he sent over with Coke when he went over to America in 1784. I don't have it at hand or I would quote it. But it clearly alludes to the national nature of the Church of England, where the clergy - as a matter of course - swore allegiance to the head of the Church of England (the reigning monarch). It was an ecclesiastical impossibility for American Methodists to remain Anglicans (as, indeed, it was impossible for Anglicans to remain Anglican, which is what led to the formation of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America, forerunner of today's Episcopalians). Thus Wesley was making a necessary provision for ministry in a context in which a new polity was inevitable.
Wesley was also a duly ordained priest of the Church of England, whereas it seems as if these women were ordained by someone with no ecclesiastical authority at all. Though that does not get around the fact that he was only a functional, rather than duly consecrated, bishop.
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