faith of our fathers T
he word ‘mind’ is used here
in a secific sense. It is used in the way in which the early
Christian Fathers used it in their theology, to refer to the mindset or outlook, the Orthodox mind of the Church. Te ataining of this mind is a mater of pracising the correct faith (orthodoxia) in the correct manner (orthopraxia). Tis mind refers to the completely
self-sacrificial trust and faith in religious and moral truths, an unshakeable certainty about the truth of the Faith for all time and the pracice of Orthodox Anglican worship, piety and behaviour. Tis mind is vested in the Anglican understanding of Scripture, tradition and reason, against all heresies and schisms of all times. Tis mind is also termed the ‘mind of the Church’ and thus ‘the mind of Christ’.
A cause of the crisis Te loss of this mind today underlies
not only the general ignorance of and antipathy towards the true spirit and pracice of Classical Anglicanism and the widespread success of the modernist and politically
correct
Arthur Middleton explains why we must recapture the lost Anglican mind in order to overcome ignorance of the true spirit of Anglicanism
agendas in the Anglican Communion. Te hysteria surrounding Gareth Bennet’s Crockford’s Preface
in a person from the way in which he lives, and from the relationship which he has with God. But if the mind, and here we think more widely than reason or the intellectual and mean the spiritual faculty, is illuminated, it has the Holy Spirit within it, so that the whole mind is a mind of the Spirit and, of course, a mind of the Church and the mind of Christ. When we seak of having an
in
1987 caused many to miss its most important point. In a section entitled ‘A Teology in Retreat’, he pinpointed the crisis within Anglicanism as being fundamentally theological and stemming from a deliberate rejection of this balanced synthesis, the Anglican mind which is a distinctive Anglican theological method. Te development of an Orthodox
Anglican mindset, so essential in our day when there are so few who propagate it, or even recognize the biblical-patristic ethos of the Anglican mind, cannot take place apart from orthodox Anglican worship, piety and behaviour. Michael Ramsey would say that we do our theology to the sound of church bells, or in other words from inside an ecclesial context. Acquiring an Anglican mind does
not mean collecting a head full of ‘Anglican quotes’. Rather it refers to the
transformation of the whole person, resulting in one’s gradual participation in the heavenly vision. In the biblical- patristic understanding it means the whole turn of mind which prevails
Anglican mind we mean chiefly that our mind is the mind of Christ, as the Apostle Paul says, or at least that we accept the experience of the saints and have communion with them. Tis is the way of the life of the Anglican Tradition and the way of life of Christ’s life.
Te Anglican mind is expressed
by the dogmas of the Church in the Creeds and Councils, and in the Book of Common Prayer, because, on the one hand, the dogmas express the life which the Church has and the revelation which the saints have received, and on the other hand, they lead God’s people in Christ to unity and communion with God.
An unchanging message Te clergy are not supposed to
preach their private opinions. Tey are commissioned and ordained in the Church precisely to preach the Word of God. Tis gives them some fixed terms of reference – namely, the Gosel of Jesus Christ – and they are commited to this sole and perennial message. Te Word of God must be presented
with conviction and command the allegiance of every new generation and every particular group. It may be restated in new categories, if the circumstances require. But above all, the identity of the message must be preserved. Tey are to preach the same Gosel that was delivered and must not introduce instead any ‘strange gosel’ that is idiosyncratic. Te Word of God cannot be easily
‘By popular demand.’ 10 ■ newdirections ■ July 2010
adjusted or accommodated to the fleeting customs and atitudes of any particular age, including our own time. Sadly, today, we are oſten inclined to measure the Word of God by our own stature, instead of checking our mind by the stature of Christ. Te ‘modern mind’ also stands under the judgment of the Word of God.
ND
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