Articles
On this page you will find links to
articles which the editors recommend.
The Monastic Quality of Anglicanism
This anonymous article, found on the website of the
Anglican Use Society, offers valuable insight into the relationship between
monasticism and the development and practice of Anglican spirituality.
The Benedictine Spirit in
Anglicanism
"Can the Benedictine spirit even inspire and characterize a Church as such,
indeed an entire communion of Churches? Several Anglican theologians
respond affirmatively in reference to their own Communion. This article
proposes to examine this thesis and to offer some Roman Catholic reflections
about its ecumenical implications in general and some Benedictine thoughts about
its challenge specifically to the Benedictine world." Dom Robert Hale, OSB,
served for a time as the Prior of a joint Roman Catholic (Camaldolese
Benedictine)/Anglican (Order of the Holy Cross) monastery in Berkeley,
California.
What is Anglican
Theology?
Published in 1945, this article by Michael Ramsey,
then Bishop of Durham, later the one hundredth Archbishop of Canterbury, is as
timely today as it was then, setting forth briefly, but cogently, the
distinctiveness of the Anglican approach to theology. His explanation of
the three-legged stool of Scripture, tradition, and reason, and his comments on
the meaning of Anglican comprehensiveness offer a helpful corrective to common
misunderstandings of these ideas.
Moral Theology the Anglican
Way
In this short article, a parish priest summarizes one of the singular
characteristics of Anglicanism, its via media approach to moral theology.
Sin:
A Reflection from an Anglican Perspective
Moral theology is inseparable from ascetical theology. Both are about
growth in holiness. The writer of this article reflects on sin from the
perspective of the essential document of Anglicanism, The Book of Common Prayer.
Anglican Devotion -
The Hymnal
The standard rule for Anglicans is the epigram
lex orandi, lex credendi. Loosely translated, this means we believe
what we pray. In other words, the content of our faith is to be found in
the way we worship. However, worship includes hymns--as St. Augustine
said, "he who sings, prays twice." In this article, Arthur Middleton
examines the connection between Anglican hymnody and belief.
"Complete in the Beauty of Holiness": Anglican Identity and Aesthetics
In spite of, or perhaps in response to, the efforts
of English reformers to destroy the aesthetic heritage of the English Church,
post-Reformation Anglicans have exercised a particular care for both ancient and
new places of worship and their furnishings. A lecture by Bruce Russell
examines the relationship between Anglican identity and the design, form, and
workmanship employed in church architecture and the implements of worship.
"The High, the Deep, and the Domestic": Anglican Verse and the Voice of
God's People
In a lecture delivered at Wycliffe College, Toronto, Edith Humphrey
discusses some characteristic themes of "the Anglican heritage of song and
verse—a heritage that encompasses the whole of human experience, from the high,
to the deep, to the characteristically domestic."
The Daily Office: Sharing God's Work of Creation
The retired Dean of Nashotah House, traditionally
known as the catholic seminary of the Episcopal Church in the US, reflects on
the meaning of the Daily Office in Anglican spirituality.