Looking for a Ship

But where is Hobbes?

Is anyone  genuinely tired of being derided as an Anglo-Papalist or even modestly sneered at for being an Anglo-Catholic-you know, those evil folks lately characterized as trying to “unreform the church”? (See e.g. “The Old High Churchman Blog)  Is there a place in Anglicanism for the non-Calvinist?

My old friend Fr. Victor Novak wrote an article over at the Virtue website entitled  “CATHOLICISM, CALVINISM AND THE THIRTY-NINE ARTICLES”. (As always, a thoughtful article even though I am not a 39 Articles man myself.) He was bitterly attacked by the Calvinists, including those who are purported members of the Anglican Catholic…that would be CATHOLIC…Church.  (You know one of those that claims to flow from the Affirmation of St. Louis.)
It is, in my view, time for Anglo-Catholics to boldly self-define and band together, or pack it in for other (not necessarily greener) pastures.  I am not willing to make the jump yet, but I have been (and may be) darned close.  So, I will never condemn those swimming East or West. Yet, here we are are in communion with, or actually members of, bodies of folks who are vociferously antithetical to “7&7” or any other kind of Catholicism.

We have a presenting issue-one that is beyond missals, Ritual Notes, Fortescue, Dearmer and the lot.  There is a marked challenge to the logic of our existence even from those who claim to be in communion with us or worse, members of our various sadly-splintered and increasingly diminished bodies.

Shall we engage the question of raison d’etre, or continue to whistle (something Palestrina-like, of course) past the graveyard?  Dare I say it is time for a chorus of “Stand Up for Jesus” and some gathering of the Catholic flock for serious discussion and reflection? As we near 40 years since the Affirmation, is it now time to throw down, forgive and realign: Anglo-Catholics joining as one?  Or, are we simply playing until we at last wink out?

Just a small fire starter on an hot August night!