According to the ACNA’s Provincial Meeting Journal, the most recent draft liturgies reduce the filioque to a footnote. Joel Wilhelm does an admirable job (as usual) of summarizing:Read the rest here.
ACNA’s Provincial Meeting Journal is out and it shows ACNA talking out of both sides of its mouth on the filioque, a doctrine central to all of Western Christendom. The draft liturgies in this document contain a Nicene Creed that reads:
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father.
The footnote to this reads:
The filioque clause “and the Son” may be added here. It is not included in the text above for ecumenical purposes, in accordance with the 1978 Lambeth Conference, though the ACNA does not disagree with the theology of the filioque.
HT: Dr. Tighe
Let's see. They don't doctrinally affirm the first seven Ecumenical Councils. (We can leave #s 8 & 9 aside for now.) They permit and to some degree embrace Calvinism. And they claim to ordain women. But they want us to know that they are thinking about dropping the Filioque.
Sorry guys. You are still Protestants.
Now, Now. Don't go letting perfect be the enemy of good.
ReplyDeleteAnd the 39 Articles...
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, does anybody know why Art. 19 mentions Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch and Rome but not Moscow or Constantinople?
The Old Catholic Churches of the Utretch Union omit the filioque from the Creed but still are in full communion with all the churches of the Anglican Communion, and that omission does not make them less Western. Furthermore, Christ himself tells us that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father in John 15:26.
ReplyDeleteThe chitter chatter over this at Stand Firm (an Anglo-Calvinist stronghold) is rather amusing.
ReplyDeleteNikolaus
Nikolaus, I find the chatter there not to be amusing, but rather distressing. Somedays I think I should stop reading Stand Firm altogether.
ReplyDeleteAgreed Anam...it's not "amusing" in a positive sense. It's revealing to major themes (at least). The first is ignorance over the filioque issue. The second is the chaos that exists even among conservative Anglicans (of which I am one...for now).
ReplyDeleteAs a friend wrote to me about Stand Firm:
ReplyDeleteIt does seem strange to argue that the "theological coherence" of the ACNA depends on the Filioque. All doctrinal formulas are revisable, except the Articles. Such is the faith of a sect. So much for having no faith but the faith of the undivided church.
Given the origins of Anglicanism with it's Act of Uniformity, would you expect any different from them today?
ReplyDelete