The Quadrilateral and the Undivided Church

I am grateful and intensely thankful for the recent very fine comments on Faith and Life regarding the need for the spirit of Christian charity and forbearance to prevail in our conversation and in our work together. Continual self-examination and repentance are certainly a prerequisite in the theological exercise, and I pray that we all take to heart the words of Saint Paul that we are to 'speak the truth with love.' Although we may harbour serious disagreements and differences, which we hold undoubtedly with the most profound and most sincere conviction and passion, I believe that we all love the Lord Jesus Christ and each other as brothers, for otherwise there would really be no point in our ongoing conversation at all. We are (or should be) committed to the vision of a united Church, of a united communion and fellowship with Christ and each other. It must be so, for the Lord Himself intends that supreme reality for us as he prays for us in S. John 17. Anything, including theological models and paradigms, can indeed become an idol if it replaces Our Blessed Saviour as the centre and King of hearts. Theology without faith, hope, love, and prayer is a tool of the devil. Let us continue to serve one another in love and seek each other's good as we individually and corporately seek to glorify our merciful Redeemer and extend His kingdom.

The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral is the essential meeting-ground and starting-point for all orthodox Anglicans. I agree that it is absolutely necessary that we share the vision of the Great Church articulated in that seminal document of ecumenical ecclesiology and theology. But if I may be so bold as to say it, I should hope as well that we may, together as a united Church, grow more deeply into the heart of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ in her sacred Tradition and begin to share, not only the essentials of the Quadrilateral (which are absolutely needful), but the plene esse of the Church located in the Faith of the ancient and Undivided Church, the first millennium Church to which I refer so often. We must start with the Quadrilateral and rightfully so. But let us not end there. May it be our prayer and our goal that we grow together in unity and communion, into a deeper grasp and application of the life of the Church we have inherited from the earliest ages. We all know, or should know from past experience, that there can be no lasting unity in the Church without Dogmatic Unity, unity of doctrine as well as unity of charity and purpose. I am not afraid to say it, although it touches on something very dear to our hearts - the Anglican experiment we love so much, in this regard, may need to be revisited and re-evaluated. Any Church that lacks basic agreement on matters of Faith is most likely doomed to terrible internal strife and, ultimately, discord and dissolution. Such a truth is not a matter of creating a Church out of our minds or culture, or of reproducing a Church in our own image. It is not even about finding or making a perfect Church. It is about recovering the fullness of the Christian Faith and living under it in obedience. At a minimum, it is about obedience to a common standard, in which we agree to accept basic ideas and beliefs in common so that we may live together in peace. I am not recommending that we jettison the Elizabethan Settlement, but I am suggesting we may need to re-examine what that Settlement means and what its limits are or are not. There are no easy answers, but there is great potential and vital work to be done. And we must do this thing together, as brothers. May we endeavour to grow together into the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace manifested in the unity of Tradition and Faith that comes to us from Christ and the Apostles.

What was the vision of dogmatic unity in the Undivided Church? Please allow me to share a quote with you that sums up that Faith of the earliest Church very neatly. I pray that we can all someday aspire to this vision:

'The doctrine of the Great Church, as it stood on the eve of 1054, includes, first of all, the main fabric of Trinitarian and Christological dogma, including, of course, the beliefs in our Lord's virginal Birth, bodily Resurrection, and Ascension into Heaven; the presuppositions of Christian soteriology known as the doctrines of the Fall and Original Sin; belief in Christ's Atoning Death as objectively bringing within our reach that salvation which we could never have earned for ourselves; the doctrines of the Sacraments as the means of grace, of the Real Presence and the Eucharistic Sacrifice; of the grace of Orders and the necessity of the episcopal succession from the Apostles; of the Church's absolving power in Penance; of Confirmation and Unction; of the Communion of Saints; and of the last things, Heaven and Hell, and the intermediate state, and the Last Judgement.'

-1920 Anglo-Catholic Congress

May the Lord bless and keep us all and more powerfully bind us in His love.