The Christian Moral Life. Timothy F. Sedgwick

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СКАЧАТЬ the worshiping community offers its life, individually and together, to God. This is a matter of commendation. As the life of Jesus reaches its culmination in his commendation of himself to God, in his crucifixion and death, Jesus represents and presents to us life lived in relationship to God. The Eucharist is hence Holy Communion: dying with Christ, the worshiper is raised into relationship with God. In the Book of Common Prayer, the concern was in enabling participation in this worship and not, as Richard Hooker emphasized, in “the manner how.”⁹

      It is easy to create a romantic picture of Anglican worship. No doubt the reality of worship was often far removed from this vision of forming a holy and godly people, what I have called a practical piety grounded in the worship of God. However, the Book of Common Prayer offered a point of reference, in the book itself and in its use as the worship required by law as the public worship in England. Christian faith was a corporate, practical piety that understood the Christian life sacramentally and incarnationally. Faith is enfleshed in our daily lives. The Christian life is a matter of holiness, of living in and deepening the experience of God’s presence in our lives together. This we know and do in Christ.

      Something of this ideal of an Anglican vision of Christian faith is expressed in George Herbert’s seventeenth-century classic, The Country Parson.¹⁰ The church stood at the center of village life. On Sunday mornings the community gathered together in worship to offer to God their lives together. And what they did on Sundays was re-created every day. In the morning and evening while they worked in the fields, shops, and homes, the church bell would ring. They knew that the priest, with perhaps a few others, would be celebrating the offices of Morning and Evening Prayer. In this way they knew that their lives were held in the daily round of prayer. This was made possible because the parson was a daily part of their lives. He knew them and celebrated with them times of joy and times of sorrow. They were the church, and he was their pastor.

      English Christianity and its heirs, the Anglican and Episcopal churches throughout the world, have at their best offered this vision of Christian faith as a matter of practical piety without confusing faith with right belief. In large measure this is the result of necessity.¹¹ The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries threatened any peace as Protestant churches sought independence from the established religion of Roman Catholicism. The peace and unity of England, like those of its neighbors on the continent, were threatened. The break with Rome following Henry VIII’s annulment in 1533 left England with the question of religious alignment. The monarchy succeeding Henry VIII, that of Edward, turned towards Protestantism. In turn, his successor, Queen Mary, repealed the legislation of Edward and pressed for a Roman Catholic nation.

      It is almost impossible for us now to comprehend the conflicts over religious faith in this period of time. This is because religious faith was viewed as essential to the life of a nation. That is why one church was established by the state. Religious faith bound individuals together in interlocking sets of duties and responsibilities. Relationships were formed that extended civility, respect, and accountability in order to establish a commonwealth — literally, something of worth shared in common. A nation depended on the establishment of one religion. Religion was the soul of the nation.

      The conflict between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism was not simply a matter of religious beliefs but of the details of religious life. During the monarchy of King Edward, Protestants destroyed the stone altars and images that had adorned the churches. The celebration of holy days when particular saints were remembered and venerated was prohibited, as were the use of vestments and many symbolic actions such as making the sign of the cross or kneeling and bowing at the name of Jesus. These changes were accomplished by dismissing priests and bishops who opposed such changes and in their place appointing new, more Protestant leaders. What was done under Edward was undone by Mary, beginning with returning the more Catholic bishops to power so that they could in turn remove clergy who opposed the return to more Catholic ways. Again, these conflicts were seen as a matter of fighting for the soul of the nation. As such, Protestant reformers who did not seek sanctuary in France or some other country outside of England were imprisoned. Some were executed, including Thomas Cranmer, who had been the primary author of the first English Book of Common Prayer.

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