Thinking Anglicans

Reform, Anglican Mainstream and the Society of St Augustine

Readers of the article by John Richardson linked earlier today, on Why has Reform failed? may wish to follow his argument further and also read Why Resolution C is still the issue for REFORM.

He concludes (emphasis added):

I wonder, though, whether our Evangelical leadership has actually grasped this point? My impression is that whilst they have rallied to the ‘cause’ of proper provision, they have not grasped the small print of what this would mean in practical terms — basically that they will have to do in a few years time what they have resolutely not done for the last decade and a half.

Meanwhile, watch this space. It is where the equivalent of the Society for St Wilfred and St Hilda will soon emerge. No prizes, but is that Canterbury or Hippo?

An examination of the internet records for http://www.saintaugustinesociety.org shows that it is registered to Chris Sugden at Anglican Mainstream.

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junius
junius
13 years ago

Why has Reform failed? Because it is entirely out of step and out of sympathy with the Church of England. It took a stance which was to a large extent rejected by the real reformers of the 16th and 17th centuries, who rejected the extreme reforms of Calvin and Zwingli and who framed a settlement and a set of Articles and a book of liturgy which hedged that about with checks and balances. The via media which the huge majority of the English people loved so well tolerated such extreme at its edges, it never wanted to embrace it as… Read more »

Perry Butler
Perry Butler
13 years ago

Nice to see St Augustine wearing mitre and chasuble.

susan hedges
susan hedges
13 years ago

Er, a Tiffany window that resides in Florida.

Jonathan Jennings
Jonathan Jennings
13 years ago

If you look at the graphic on the holding page of the St Augustine Society, it’s more likely to be St Augustine of Hippo, as he does not have a pallium or a model of Canterbury Cathedral, the usual symbols surrounding ‘our’ St Augustine.

It could be that ‘hippo’ is a deliberate choice though …

http://www.poetry-archive.com/e/the_hippopotamus.html

Lapinbizarre
Lapinbizarre
13 years ago

The Canon Dr naming his society for the man who brought the Church of Rome to Albion’s shore?

chenier1
chenier1
13 years ago

Grant me Resolutions A, B and C, but not yet?

Laurence C.
Laurence C.
13 years ago

I hope the St. Augustine Society is as successful as the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans – about which, since the hullabaloo of its launch, we have heard nothing.

Father Ron Smith
13 years ago

John Richardson’s understanding of the ‘Reform’ movement in the C.of E. as not cognisant of the importance of episcopsl oversight – in favour of leadership within the local congregation – can only be described as outright *Congregationalism* This would go well with the current Sydney diocesan thinking on the use of deacons as able to preside at the Eucharistic Celebration. If Reform indeed sees it’s mission as similar to that of Archbishop Jensen of Sydney, which seems to disregard the traditional understanding of sacerdotal ministry and espicope, then its adherents might better be employed in mission under a name which… Read more »

Father Ron Smith
13 years ago

“Ed Tomlinson said…

“I would rather boil my own head than live under this dire Code of Practice.

For that reason I am out

Roll on the Ordinariate.”

Robert Ian Williams
Robert Ian Williams
13 years ago

It is obviously St Augustine of Canterbury as he is wearing a pallium. Mitres in that style were not around when St Augustine of Hippo was around. He is not your St Augustine… he was a fervent Romanist! Sugden does not believe in the real presence, the sacrifice of the Mass,baptismal regeneration, prayers for the dead, intercession of the Saints, the Papacy etc.. St Augustine believed in all of these…as did St Augustine of Hippo. What an impertinence to take a Catholic Saint to represent an Evangelical Anglican group who do not hide their Protestantism and glory in Cranmer. Cranmer… Read more »

Wilf
Wilf
13 years ago

Junius’ comment at the top gets to the heart of the matter. Over the centuries what we might now call the very conservative evangelical stream, with a broadly Calvinistic stance has placed its understanding of the nature of the Church of England as being on the way to a more clearly protestant ordering. You can see this in the antics of the Church Association and Lord Shaftesbury in the 19thC. These days they talk in terms of 1552 being the defining pinnacle of Anglicanism and talk wistfully about what Cranmer might have done if he lived. However, history is against… Read more »

Jonathan Jennings
Jonathan Jennings
13 years ago

‘mitres in that style were not around …’ No, but they were when the window was made; we do not know what the artist had in mind. It may indeed be a pallium (I was wrong), but that proves nothing conclusively. And by the time the window was made, chasubles would have been so decorated. The weightier evidence is that the searches for images and Ikons of Augustine of Hippo have him almost invariably reading a book (as in Confessions) or some other of his texts, whereas images of Augustine of Canterbury almost invariably have him with Canterbury Cathedral. And… Read more »

Simon Sarmiento
13 years ago

The image comes from the Lightner Museum in St Augustine, Florida.
http://www.lightnermuseum.org/

The weight of internet evidence suggests that this place was named, by Spanish settlers, after St Augustine of Hippo.

The local RC diocese of the same name seems to think so, anyway.
http://www.dosafl.com/NavLanding.asp?ID=188

Laurence Roberts
Laurence Roberts
13 years ago

Reading the Ugley vicar (and ‘Cranmer’s Curate’) it is hard to believe Evangelicals are in such disarray and can agree on so little –apart from being agin gays (but even there they are not of one mind). I also read the FiF and SWSSH have fallen out. I cannot understand why such co-religionists cannot agree and pull together, in accord with their deepest convictions. Seems sad. Btw Why not pronounce SWSSH “Soosh” as in Rwanda (“Roo-anda”) and many Welsh words wrth gwrs / of course, where the letter ‘w’ is often vowellic, either long or short ‘oo’ / ‘u’ sound,… Read more »

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