William Witt Responds

Here.  His comment is quoted here in full.  My reply follows:

Deacon Little,

I actually do visit your blog from time to time. It does seem that I am your favorite example of everything that is wrong with the ACNA, and that's fine with me. I do find myself frustrated with your tendency to pin me on a board like the proverbial butterfly to which you've nicely attached a "label."

I did write that I was a "Reformation Christian," but I would never have added the adjective "mere"or say that we are under no obligation to "prayerfully consider" the admonitions of Rome, Orthodoxy, and Anglicans who consider Anglicanism a branch of the Catholic Church -- although with Michael Ramsey I consider the "three branch theory" to be a kind of trumphalist apology for schism. (Ramsey also came to affirm women's ordination.)

My understanding of what it means for Anglicanism to be a "Reformation" Church can be found here:

http://willgwitt.org/anglicanism/evangelical-or-catholic/

"Reformation Anglicanism thus saw itself as in continuity with the Catholic Church, and a reforming movement in the Catholic Church, but certainly not as rejection of genuine Catholicism."

"If I were asked to identify my churchmanship, I would call myself a “catholic evangelical” or a “Reforming Catholic,” in the tradition of movements like the Mercersburg Theology, Jenson and Braaten’s Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology, or figures like Thomas F. Torrance. If I am an Evangelical, I am an ecumenical Evangelical, who understands the Reformation as a reforming movement in the Western Catholic Church. If am an Anglo-Catholic, I am a post-Vatican II Anglican catholic, who understands catholicism as ressourcement, not as retrenchment. If asked to choose between an evangelical and a catholic understanding of the Reformation, I would refuse that choice as a false dilemma."

And here:

http://willgwitt.org/what_is_anglican_theology/

"I would suggest that Anglican theology can be understood as “Reformed Catholicism” or “Catholic Evangelicalism.”

Even on the issue of women's ordination, where I know you find my views not simply mistaken, but heretical, I affirm my position because I I am convinced a case can be made on theological grounds that are not only Evangelical, but also Catholic.

Grace and Peace,
William G. Witt

Greetings, Dr. Witt, and thanks for the opportunity to address your points in this new post.

First, there is no need for you to take what I write so about your beliefs so seriously, for in fact I do not view you as the key “example of everything that is wrong with the ACNA.”  Yes, because of your visibility and influence in the ACNA I do highlight what I believe to be the error of your spirited and much-quoted defense of women’s ordination, but be assured that I am not singling you out personally.  You are but one of many voices clamoring for retention of the unfortunate innovation, and it is that phenomenon – the widespread support for this unbiblical and uncatholic practice found not only in the ACNA but the wider Anglican Communion – that continues to draw the ire of those of us on the side of apostolic and Catholic tradition. 

Moreover, I don’t believe that the practice of women’s ordination itself constitutes “everything that is wrong with the ACNA”.  There are other issues that stick in my craw about the Realignment and “orthodox” provinces in the Communion:  the inability of many of their clergy (especially millennials) to think systematically and historically about theology and politics; their influential “three-streams” orientation, which I have come to believe is both incoherent and un-Anglican; their willingness to abide un-Anglican practices in the Evangelical wing such as lay presidency at the Eucharist and the rejection of infant baptism; the rampant charismania/liturgical bacchanalia, and the unfortunate phenomenon, noted by such prominent Anglicans as Canon Arthur Middleton and Martin Thornton, of the “divorce between scholarship and pastoral practice from which Anglicanism still suffers” (Thornton, English Spirituality), that is, an inordinate emphasis on “Ph.D Anglicanism.”

It is true that you did not use the adjective “mere” when you spoke of “Reformation Christians,”, but let’s take a look at what you actually did say:

The long and short of it is, I am highly in favor of ecumenism (with Rome and Orthodoxy). At the same time, I think that the only proper way for ecumenical relations to move forward is that those of us who are Reformation Christians need to recognize that there are reasons that we are not Roman Catholics or Orthodox, and that progress can only take place if ecumenical discussion is a two-way street.

Now, when you say that being “Reformation Christians” means that” there are reasons “we are not Roman Catholics or Orthodox”, that is an implicit approval of not being in communion with them, notwithstanding your being “in favor of ecumenism”.  I think that is a very unfortunate, uncatholic, and let me add – dangerous – implication to make.  Anglican relations with the Orthodox were so good at the beginning of the 20^th century that, had it not been for the Anglican Communion’s radical embrace of women’s ordination, which of course was rooted in deeper theological pathology, it may well have been in communion with the Orthodox by now.

What’s more, you Evangelical Anglicans aren’t the only “Reformation Christians” around.  Reformation principles, as variously understood and implemented by the “Reformation Christians” who embrace them, has led to all manner of deviation from Catholic faith and practice, both “conservative” and radical.  The problem with “Reformation Christianity”, as amply proved by its history, is that its principles provide no real anchor.  Throw Enlightenment ideologies into the mix and “Reformation Christianity” becomes even more unstable.  And that’s precisely what we have in Anglicanism, both in its liberal and “conservative” varieties.  At the end of the day, departure from Catholic faith and practice is the result of rebellion (the liberal variety) or rebellion masked as reform (the “conservative” variety).  In point of fact, while "Reformation Anglicanism (and later Anglican divinity – EP). . . saw itself as in continuity with the Catholic Church", its Reformational, and later, radical, principles put it on a trajectory away from continuity with the Catholic Church.  The embrace of women’s ordination in the Anglican Communion is a key example, but by no means the only one.  As I strenuously argue here at OJC and elsewhere, modern Anglicans need to come to grips with whether or not they truly do adhere to the classical Anglican belief that the Church of England and her progeny constitute nothing less than the Catholic Church and that what that communion of churches believes is the faith of the apostles and Church Fathers.  There is only one way to be "in continuity with the Catholic Church," and that is, in fact, to be in continuity with it, especially with respect to an issue that has such deep and profound triadological and christological connections.  And as Canon Middleton argues, we can't find continuity with it on our own terms.  We have to find it in terms with our proven conformity, in faith and practice, to the mind of the Fathers.

It’s clear that you are “convinced a case (for WO) can be made on theological grounds that are not only Evangelical, but also Catholic.”  But Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and traditional Anglicanism – in short, the vast majority of Catholic Christianity - is not convinced of your claim to catholicity, just as many Evangelical Protestants are not convinced by your case on biblical and Protestant theological grounds.  Your case has been examined and answered by both Evangelical and Catholic theologians.  There is really nothing to do now except go our respective ways, your side unwilling to let go of your innovation and my side defending apostolic and Catholic faith and practice, which is why I believe ACNA will eventually fracture over this issue.

Or if it doesn't, it should.

Pax,

Embryo Parson

Comments

[AnAwkwardAardvark]

No need to accept this post but minor grammar mistake. You meant Oriental Orthodoxy but typed Orientation Orthodoxy.

Good posts lately and glad to see you active.

[Embryo Parson]

Oops, thanks.

[The Haunted Bookman]

EP,

Your kindness toward Mr. Witt is laudable but seemingly unwarranted. If WO isn't Christological heresy I don't know what is. There will be ignorant Christians who affirm this detritus, but then there are a class of men called "wolves" who disturb the peace and purity of the Church. Either way, it's an ideology rotted at the root, twice dead. The sooner Anglicans collectively denounce it in such forceful terms the better off we will be (you've been doing a splendid job holding the line -- thank you!)

[Embryo Parson]

Whether he wants to believe it or not, I continue to respect Dr. Witt as a theologian. I respect Torrance and Wright and theologians as well. All three of them, however, are in serious error with respect to this issue. And I mean serious.