As we approach the feast of ‘The Blessed Virgin Mary’ in the calendar, I offer my annual repost of the exploration of whether the Assumption is actually something recognised and celebrated by the Church of England.
- What is the Assumption?
- Does the Church of England mark it?
- Should we be believe it and mark it?
Andrew Goddard writes: I was rather shocked a couple of years ago when I spotted in my Twitter feed the following tweet from the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby:
Today we mark the Feast of the #Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Like Mary, let each of us say our yes to God’s call and trust the boundless love of Jesus Christ.
It was a tweet alongside a video of his trip to Walsingham for its national pilgrimage back in May. I later discovered that this was the second tweet of the day on the subject from the Archbishop and that four hours earlier the video had been tweeted and we had been informed:
It was joyful to be at the national pilgrimage to @ShrineOLW earlier this summer. As we celebrate the #Assumption of Mary today, I pray that the example of the mother of God will draw us to Jesus afresh.
So two tweets on the same day making the same point. What was I to assume (pun intended)? I have to confess that my initial thought—given the reference to Mary saying yes to God’s call—was that the Archbishop’s twitter account must be run by a young intern who had confused the assumption with the annunciation (the biblically recorded account of Gabriel announcing she would bear Jesus, Lk 1.26–38). Or perhaps it was a recognition that many Anglicans do believe in the assumption and mark it alongside Christians of other denominations? Or was it simply a desire to highlight his recent Walsingham visit on an appropriate day in the church’s calendar but which was then inappropriately named? (August 15th is in Common Worship—but not the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, 1928 Proposed Prayer Book, or 1980 Alternative Service Book—a festival in which Anglicans celebrate the Blessed Virgin Mary).
Apart from the reference to the assumption, the verbal content of the tweets is excellent and uncontentious: Christ-centred exhortation based on the example of Mary who, because of his orthodox Christology, Archbishop Justin rightly calls “the mother of God” (theotokos). This fits with his pattern of focussing on Christ and with the theme of the Walsingham Festival this year, “Do whatever he tells you” (Mary’s words at the Cana wedding in John 2.5). As he says in the video “It’s about allowing Mary to point us to Jesus and that is for me the centre of this pilgrimage”.
But the basis on which these exhortations are made is surprising: that “we” were on that day “marking” or “celebrating” the “Feast of the Assumption”. To clarify the multiple problems it is helpful to explore three questions:
- What is the Assumption?
- Does the Church of England mark it?
- Should we be believe it and mark it?
The Assumption of Mary
The assumption of Mary refers to a belief concerning how she departed her life on earth. About this, Scripture is silent—we last see her at the start of Acts waiting for the Spirit. As late as the fourth century there was no clear church teaching about the end of her life but shortly after the Council of Ephesus in 431, the first Council to deal explicitly with Mary, this began to change. The Council, on the basis of teaching about Christ as truly God, favoured Cyril and theotokos (God-bearer) over Nestorius and Christotokos as a designation for Mary. Following this, various accounts concerning what happened to Mary began to gain prominent circulation and the event began to be marked by Christians. The “assumption” refers to the belief that Mary’s soul and body were reunited and taken to be with Christ in heaven. In the words of the 2004 Anglican-Roman Catholic (ARCIC) statement on Mary:
The feast of Mary’s ‘falling asleep’ dates from the end of the sixth century, but was influenced by legendary narratives of the end of Mary’s life already widely in circulation. In the West, the most influential of them are the Transitus Mariae. In the East the feast was known as the ‘dormition’, which implied her death but did not exclude her being taken into heaven. In the West the term used was ‘assumption’, which emphasized her being taken into heaven but did not exclude the possibility of her dying. Belief in her assumption was grounded in the promise of the resurrection of the dead and the recognition of Mary’s dignity as Theotókos and ‘Ever Virgin’, coupled with the conviction that she who had borne Life should be associated to her Son’s victory over death, and with the glorification of his Body, the Church (para 40).
This belief continued to be important in much popular piety and in formal celebrations. Tim Perry in his excellent Mary for Evangelicals (IVP, 2006, see also his The Blessed Virgin Mary with Daniel Kendall, SJ) notes that “By the eighth century, the assumption was widely and popularly believed, even if not officially approved” (p 240). Although the Reformation is usually seen as rejecting much of the church’s belief and practice in relation to Mary, the reality was slightly more complex. Many leading Reformers, for example, held not just to the biblically authorised doctrine of the virgin conception of Christ but to her perpetual virginity. Zwingli kept the Marian festivals, including the Assumption, in the city of Zurich. In this continued acceptance of the assumption, however, he was unusual, and most Anglicans rejected the assumption or held it as adiaphora. Paul Williams in his study of Mary in the Anglican tradition (in Mary: The Complete Resource edited by Tina Beattie and Sarah Jane Boss, here at p251) notes Tyndale (1494–1536) was particularly vehement:
Of what text thou provest hell, will another prove purgatory; another limbo patrum; and another the assumption of our lady: and another shall prove of the same text that an ape hath a tail….
As pertaining to our lady’s body, where it is, or where the body of Elias, of John the evangelist, and many other be, pertaineth not to us to know. One thing we are sure of, that they are where God hath laid them. If they are in hyevaen, we have never the more in Christ: if they be not there, we have never the less … as for me, I commit all such matters unto those idle bellies, which have nought else to do than to move such questions; and give them free liberty to hold what they list, as long as it hurteth not he faith, whether it be so or no:…
He also cites Whitaker (1548–95) who commented:
The papists celebrate the feast of the assumption of the blessed virgin Mary with the utmost honour, and the Rhemists in their notes on Acts 1 praise this custom exceedingly: yet Jerome, in his book to Paula and Eustochium, concerning the assumption of the blessed virgin, says that ‘what is told about the translation of her body is apocryphal’…
The place of the assumption of Mary thus marked a clear difference between Protestant (including Anglican) and Roman Catholic theology, liturgy and piety. The growth in Marian visions from the mid-19th century onwards gave added support for many Catholics to the belief of Mary’s assumption and pressure grew for it to become formal church teaching. Mary was particularly important in the spirituality and teaching of Pope Pius XII and in November 1950 in Munificentissimus Deus he officially defined the dogma (para 44):
By the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.
The following paragraph added:
Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.
It is therefore unsurprising that the 1981 ARCIC report Authority in the Church II stated:
The dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption raise a special problem for those Anglicans who do not consider that the precise definitions given by these dogmas are sufficiently supported by Scripture. For many Anglicans the teaching authority of the bishop of Rome, independent of a council, is not recommended by the fact that through it these Marian doctrines were proclaimed as dogmas binding on all the faithful. Anglicans would also ask whether, in any future union between our two Churches, they would be required to subscribe to such dogmatic statements (para. 30).
Do Anglicans mark the Assumption?
The tweets say that the Archbishop of Canterbury is joining with others (“We”) to “mark the Feast of the #Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary” and “celebrate the #Assumption of Mary today”. The problem is that there is no such marking or celebration within the Church of England and there has not been for 470 years.
August 15th is, since Common Worship, a festival in which we remember the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is also the day in which the Roman Catholic Church has the solemnity of the Assumption and the Orthodox Church marks the Dormition. This has, however, never in the post-Reformation Church of England been a celebration or marking of the assumption and in fact the festival may be celebrated on September 8th instead (when the church traditionally marks the birth of Mary).
As we have seen, Anglicans and other churches of the Reformation had significant problems with aspects of Marian piety and teaching, in particular the assumption. These theological disagreements led to changes in Anglican liturgy where in 1549 and 1552 the Calendar initially removed all Marian feasts except the Annunciation and Purification (both events mentioned in the gospels). This only changed in 1561 when, in the words of Colin Podmore, speaking at Walsingham on Mary and the Anglican Tradition:
The Calendar of 1561 is of crucial importance because it saw the return, after those brief breaks that I mentioned, of three of the Marian feasts. From 1561 onwards the Church of England again marked Our Lady’s Conception on 8 December, her Nativity on 8 September, and the Visitation on 2 July. Only the Assumption remained excluded. (Italics added).
Paul Williams similarly notes in his account of the 1561 changes that “the conspicuous continuing omission is the Assumption, which disappeared from Anglican worship in 1549”. He then adds “only partially to return in some twentieth century Anglican calendars”.
I am unclear whether any Anglican calendars actually formally celebrate the assumption on this day (I’d be surprised but am willing to be proved wrong). The connections made to it liturgically clearly vary in different provinces. Indeed, on careful scrutiny, I discovered (to my surprise) that the Church of England’s own liturgy goes quite some way to help those Anglicans who do believe in the assumption in the way it frames the liturgy for August 15th.
The Church of England collect could be read as affirming a special glorious place in heaven at present to Mary. However, it need not be read as such particularly in the light of other prayers referring to the departed in Church of England liturgy (on which more generally see here) in which we pray “according to your promises, grant us with them a share in your eternal kingdom”:
Almighty God, who didst look upon the lowliness of the Blessed Virgin Mary and didst choose her to be the mother of thy only Son: grant that we who are redeemed by his blood may share with her in the glory of thine eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
The set readings similarly include some passages which have been traditionally read in support of the assumption, several of which are used in the Roman Catholic Lectionary on August 15th:
- Psalm 132 is the Psalm for the Second Service. Its verse 8—“‘Arise, Lord, and come to your resting place, you and the ark of your might”—was often cited in Christian tradition with the ark as a type of Mary in defences of the assumption of Mary to be with her ascended son.
- Psalm 45:10–17 is the Psalm for the Principal Service. This has been read as, in the words of Pius XII in his encyclical pronouncing the dogma, describing Mary “as the Queen entering triumphantly into the royal halls of heaven and sitting at the right hand of the divine Redeemer”.
- The Old Testament reading of Isaiah 61.10, 11 also could take on new meanings in the context of belief in the assumption: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels”.
- Combined with the above texts and figural/typological hermeneutic, the New Testament lesson of Revelation 11.19–12.6, 10 opening with “Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant” would be seen as further confirmation of Mary’s heavenly presence, now alongside “her child…snatched up to God and to his throne”.
- Although Song of Solomon 2.1–7 (for the Second Service) is not as prominent as other texts from the Song in traditional attempts to defend the doctrine from Scripture (the 1950 papal encyclical refers to 3.6, 4.8 and 6.9) one can see that the words “Let him lead me to the banquet hall, and let his banner over me be love” could also easily take on new meanings once read with the woman of the Song as a type of Mary if one believes the assumption.
The Episcopal Church in the US also remembers Mary (simply as Saint Mary the Virgin: Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ) on August 15th and although it too does not speak of “the Feast of the Assumption” its collect (also used in the Scottish Episcopal Church (p 37) and in the new ACNA BCP) points even more strongly to Mary’s assumption than that in the Church of England:
O God, you have taken to yourself the blessed Virgin Mary, mother of your incarnate Son: Grant that we, who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
In short, despite the Archbishop’s tweets and a certain amount of careful ambiguity in liturgical wording and selection of readings, “we” in the Church of England do not have a Feast of the Assumption and have not had since 1549. That is because we do not believe in the doctrine of the Assumption.
Should we believe in the Assumption?
It is beyond question that a number of Anglicans do believe in the Assumption of Mary, perhaps even in the form expressed in the 1950 encyclical. This has been true not just of more catholic Anglicans such as E.L. Mascall but even of those who might be viewed as more liberal theologically such as John Macquarrie who gave a detailed biographical account (in his Mary for All Christians (T&T Clark, 2001 (2nd edn), pp. 82–96) of his journey to the place where “I have come to see the dogma of the Assumption as the expression in appropriate theological symbols of some of the most hopeful affirmations of the Christian faith”. Evangelical New Testament scholar, John Wenham, could also say at a Mariological conference at Walsingham, in a paper then published by Churchman in 1972:
Finally, I see Mary as our forerunner in heaven. I cannot quite accept the dogma of the Assumption as promulgated in 1950, but I can very nearly. I do not think that there is evidence that her earthly body saw no corruption—I find it very difficult to believe that she suddenly disappeared and that this amazing miracle was not widely known in the Early Church—but I do believe that clothed in her spiritual body, she in her full humanity was taken into heaven.
However, as already noted, the Church of England since the Reformation have never formally accepted the assumption of Mary and this has been one of the major divides with Rome (and, in some importantly different ways, with Eastern Orthodox belief). In an attempt to address this, in 2004 ARCIC produced a report on Mary and the Marian dogmas which concluded
that the teaching about Mary in the two definitions of the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception, understood within the biblical pattern of the economy of hope and grace, can be said to be consonant with the teaching of the Scriptures and the ancient common traditions (paragraph 60).
This was just one of a number of controversial claimed agreements in the document. It is important that, in the ARCIC report’s own words, “It is not an authoritative declaration by the Roman Catholic Church or by the Anglican Communion”. In fact, the Church of England’s Faith and Order Advisory Group produced a helpful set of rather critical papers in 2008 including ones from an evangelical perspective by Martin Davie (pp 49–65 and also in Anvil) and David Hilborn (pp 84–90). In February 2011, General Synod passed the following very cautious motion from the Council for Christian Unity and rejected an amendment explicitly welcoming the report:
That this Synod, affirming the aim of Anglican–Roman Catholic theological dialogue “to discover each other’s faith as it is today and to appeal to history only for enlightenment, not as a way of perpetuating past controversy” (Preface to The Final Report, 1982), and in the light of recent steps towards setting up ARCIC III:
(i) note the theological assessment of the ARCIC report Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ in the FOAG briefing paper GS 1818 as a contribution to further dialogue;
(ii) welcome exploration of how far Anglicans and Roman Catholics share a common faith and spirituality, based on the Scriptures and the early Ecumenical Councils, with regard to the Blessed Virgin Mary;
(iii) request that, in the context of the quest for closer unity between our two communions, further joint study of the issues identified in GS 1818 be undertaken – in particular, the question of the authority and status of the Roman Catholic dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary for Anglicans; and
(iv) encourage Anglicans to study the report with ecumenical colleagues and in particular, wherever possible, with their Roman Catholic neighbours.
It therefore cannot be claimed that following the ARCIC Report the Church of England has accepted the doctrine of the assumption.
For evangelicals there is certainly the need for a rediscovery of Mary’s importance after often over-reacting against the place she is given in Catholic teaching and piety. There are signs of this happening as in Timothy George’s 2007 article, Tim Perry’s book and the 2009 Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) statement on Mary taking the same title as the Walsingham Festival this year. As Perry writes, “we can and should affirm the role of God’s grace throughout Mary’s life, so that, as a result of such grace, she is indeed an example to believers and that her example precisely is her grace-enabled perseverance” (p. 285). However, that sentence from Perry begins “While immaculate conception and bodily assumption are notions closed to traditional Protestants…” and, as Davie and Hilborn point out, there are good reasons why this is so and should remain the case. Even if evangelicals need to recover a proper place for Mary in their theology, that place needs to be biblically and theologically defensible and so cannot embrace Mary’s assumption into heaven as part of the teaching of the church.
Hilborn sums up the three classic evangelical objections to the Roman Catholic teaching on the assumption: the lack of biblical authority (as illustrated above, the claimed biblical support depends on peculiar readings of particular texts into which belief in the assumption is read); its relatively late doctrinal development; and its detraction from a focus on Christ.
Davie looks at alleged biblical precedents for Mary’s assumption (as opposed to the typological and figural readings noted above) such as Elijah or Enoch but then notes that
there is nothing in the Bible to suggest that what happened to these two individuals provides a precedent for the fate of either Mary or any other Christian believer. In the New Testament the only person who enters into glory in body and soul prior to the final resurrection of the dead is Christ Himself and there is no suggestion that this will be true of anyone else… there is no general biblical pattern of especially godly people being assumed body and soul into heaven that could then apply to Mary: in the Bible itself what happened to Enoch and Elijah is seen as exceptional rather than normative.
He also highlights that while it is true that believers have been with raised with Christ already, “we shall only experience this fully at the end of time. (Rom. 8:18–25; 2 Cor. 5:1–5) and so we distort the biblical pattern if we suggest that “in Mary at least this tension has already been overcome”. Even more seriously, there is the risk that in talking of Mary’s assumption we give to her “a role that in the New Testament belongs solely to Christ. In the New Testament it is Christ and not Mary or anyone else who foreshadows what will be when the new creation is revealed”.
As the ECT statement says, applying the Church of England’s Article 6, on the sufficiency of Scripture, to the assumption:
At one level, the doctrine of Mary’s bodily assumption applies to Mary what the Bible declares to have happened to the prophets Enoch and Elijah—that she was taken into heaven, body and soul, at the end of her earthly life. In this way, Mary is believed to have anticipated what many Evangelicals refer to as the rapture of the Church at the return of Christ. Mary’s assumption presupposes a number of things that are indeed a part of our common Christian confession: the reality of heaven; the communion of saints; the overcoming of death; the resurrection of the flesh; the certain triumph of Jesus Christ over sin, hell, and the grave; belief in the literal, visible return of Christ in glory; the goodness of creation; and the unity of soul and body for all eternity. None of these biblical truths, however, requires belief in the bodily assumption of Mary, which is without biblical warrant (the vision of Revelation 12:1-6 says nothing about Mary’s body being taken into heaven) and has no basis in the early Christian tradition.
The apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus (1950), in which Pope Pius XII promulgated the dogma of the assumption, does not take a position with respect to Mary’s death, yet this is a question of some theological importance. If Mary was taken to heaven without death in the manner of Enoch and Elijah, was this because her body was incorruptible and thus not subject to the fact that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23)? On the other hand, if she actually died (without having sinned) and then was raised from the dead to heavenly glory, then her resurrection would seem to be parallel to that of Christ who alone died and rose again for our justification (Rom. 4:24-25). Both opinions are present in the apocryphal writings that form the basis of later legends (such as Christ’s surrender of the heavenly kingdom to Mary at her coronation in glory), but it seems prudent to follow here the silence of the Scriptures and the reticence of the Church Fathers of the first three centuries.
In short, there is absolutely no biblical evidence for Mary’s assumption. The biblical truths that it is claimed to be consonant with and to bring to a focus are either truths which relate uniquely to Christ or to all believers. There is nothing in Scripture to suggest that the pattern and outcome of Mary’s departure from this life was any different from that of any other faithful follower of her son. To claim there is theological rationale for distinguishing her journey from ours is, furthermore, to make a biblically unwarranted distinction which risks detracting from the unique work of the Saviour she bore. It is through Jesus’ full humanity that our human nature has been redeemed and entered into glory and it is Jesus who in his person as truly God and truly human now intercedes for us at the Father’s right hand.
Conclusion
Predictably, responses on Twitter and elsewhere showed how divided Christians remain in relation to Mary. The Archbishop’s tweets and scenes in the video delighted some and enraged others. Some responses highlighted how Christians fail to engage with each other well or respect different traditions, something Archbishop Justin consistently challenges as he urges us to disagree well. Others, presuming he sends or approves all his tweets himself (which is often not the case for high profile figures), offered their own assessments of Archbishop Justin in the light of how they already viewed him. These too were not always charitable.
The first key question, however, is simply whether the tweets were right in what they said about the assumption. They are right if the “We” refers to “some Christians” rather than “We in the Church of England” or “We Anglicans” although the terminology favours the Roman Catholic West over the Orthodox East (it would have been better for one tweet to use “Assumption” and the next to speak of “Dormition” if that was the intention). But “we” in the Church of England (and the overwhelming majority, perhaps the whole, of the Anglican Communion) have no such Feast. We do not as a church believe in what the Feast marks in other parts of the church. In suggesting otherwise, the tweets therefore significantly misrepresented Anglican doctrine and practice.
The next question is whether any of this matters. In one sense this could all be dismissed as making a mountain of an article out of a molehill of a few words in a couple of tweets. But that is to forget the significance of what appears in the name of the Archbishop of Canterbury, even on Twitter, if it touches on matters of theological controversy.
Another reason it matters is the deeper issue of different approaches to issues on which the church is divided. We cannot and should not deny that different traditions exist and that some of our divisions arise from doctrinal disagreements which are long-standing and significant. Attempts are, however, sometimes made to achieve greater Christian unity by going down that path but ultimately this undermines ecumenical endeavours. The ARCIC report on Mary failed to be received by the Church of England in large part because the Anglicans involved in it were not honest about the real differences, including on the assumption of Mary. It is therefore not surprising if some read the “We” in the tweets as suggesting that celebrating the Feast of the Assumption is part of the teaching and pattern of Church of England worship or implying such doctrinal disagreements are unreal, unsubstantial or unimportant. This understandably upsets and offends many faithful Anglicans, adding fuel to some of the already fiery disputes.
Unity among Anglicans and ecumenically is much better served by being clear about, explaining, and exploring our different beliefs and practices and then seeking to deepen mutual understanding and bonds of Christian love across our doctrinal divides. Ten years ago, Evangelicals and Catholics Together sought to follow this path in relation to Mary and their joint statement ends with these powerful words:
As brothers and sisters in Christ who are in lively communion with the saints on earth and the saints in heaven, we together pray—in words Richard John Neuhaus composed for us before he died:
Almighty and gracious God, Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who was in the fullness of time born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from whom he received our human nature by which, through his suffering, death, and glorious resurrection, he won our salvation, accept, we beseech you, our giving thanks for the witness of Mary’s faith and the courage of her obedience.
Grant to us, we pray, the faithfulness to stand with her by the cross of your Son in his redemptive suffering and the suffering of your pilgrim Church on earth. By the gift of your Spirit, increase within us a lively sense of our communion in your Son with the saints on earth and the saints in heaven. May she who is the first disciple be for us a model of faith’s response to your will in all things; may her “Let it be with me according to your word” be our constant prayer; may her “Do whatever he tells you” elicit from us a more perfect surrender of obedience to her Lord and ours.
Continue to lead us, we pray, into a more manifest unity of faith and life so that the world may believe and those whom you have chosen may, with the Blessed Virgin Mary and all the saints, rejoice forever in your glory. This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God forever and forever.
Amen.
Revd Dr Andrew Goddard is Assistant Minister, St James the Less, Pimlico, Tutor in Christian Ethics, Westminster Theological Centre (WTC) and Tutor in Ethics at Ridley Hall, Cambridge. He is a member of the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC). This article was published previously.
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‘Like Mary, let each of us say our yes to God’s call ….’
The assumption of Mary may, or may not have taken place. No reason why it shouldn’t, after all, this is what happened to Enoch and also to Elijah. Also, no reason why it should (it certainly was not recorded).
My difficulty with the former archbishop’s statement is at a different place: I don’t actually see that Mary was given any choice in the matter. Certainly, when she was informed of what the Lord was doing, she humbly and gladly accepted it and rejoiced – even though it was clear that it would lead to indescribable suffering. This whole business was brought to my mind when listening to a series of sermons on Job, where the preacher, in my opinion, got the wrong end of the stick when making the paraphrase: ‘Job, I have a task for you, which will involve indescribable suffering. Will you do it?’ and put into Job’s mouth the words, ‘Most willingly’ – which seems to me wholly wrong, since I don’t actually see Job as having any choice in the matter at all. When God did reveal Himself to Job and answered him, Job did gladly and willingly accept – but the Lord didn’t exactly give Job an opportunity to decline to be a shining example of faith in adversity. (The same, of course, is true of Mary – she willingly, humbly and gladly accepted the situation and rejoiced, but I didn’t see God, or the angel Gabriel giving her any opportunity for her to say ‘no’).
Jock writes: “The same, of course, is true of Mary – she willingly, humbly and gladly accepted the situation and rejoiced, but I didn’t see God, or the angel Gabriel giving her any opportunity for her to say ‘no’”.
Maybe it you read Greek you would see this: Luke 1.38 is pretty clear.
James – I don’t see this – in Luke 1:38 I see a willing servant submitting to the will of the Lord; in previous verses I don’t see any choice being given. Luke 1:31 ‘You will be with child’ (not ‘would you like to be with child?’) Luke 1:35 ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.’ I don’t see any choice there. In Luke 1:38 I do see a glad, humble, willing acceptance.
Worth also noting that in Matthew 12 Mary and the family think Jesus is insane and try to limit his ministry…
Canterbury Cathedral will mark the Feast of the Assumption, 15 August, with a ‘Silent Disco’ in which hundreds of aging and sagging boomers, fuelled up on prosecco or gin, will bop the night away on the tombs of saints and martyrs, and all for £32 or more.
No doubt the Dean and Canons will be on hand to hear confessions, bless ear pods and practise other traditional Anglican customs.
Playlist (to judge by previous occasion):
David Bowie [unrepentant of paedophile activity],
Madonna [encouraging virgins, hitherto blossoming gradually into glory, to sell themselves cheap; on her definition of love, ‘love’ is thereby proven],
Queen [mindless useless melody ‘We will rock you’ replaces tender Czech carol of the same name, presumably deliberately; can’t wait to brainwash eager girls so that they can cheapen themselves by being ‘take[n] home tonight’],
B*witched [‘c’est la vie’ puts obscene suggestions at a language level that schoolchildren can consume],
Spice Girls [just assume everyone has a ‘lover’ not a ‘husband’],
Britney Spears [normalises suggestive school uniforms],
Backstreet Boys [‘get yourself a bad boy’].
If it were a tenth that bad, the Dean should be sacked right now. But he doesn’t think anyone will say the obvious. Prove him wrong.
This is not a hoax. No idea at all about the spiritual realms. Get these thoughts and images into the cathedral atmosphere, is the effect. Not a good start for a cathedral.
Strategic that it is the mother cathedral.
Christopher:
Yes, that is the actual playlist issued by ‘Silent Discos’ who are running this event in the Mother Church of Anglicanism on the Feast of the Assumption.
Still what should we expect?
The Dean is in a ‘same-sex partnership’ – as was the previous Dean, although this wasn’t officially admitted.
The current Dan also festooned the walls of the crypt with cringy stick-on ‘Street Art’ produced by a ‘non-binary’ graphic designer.
And the Dean is on record as complaining that he and his homosexual partner haven’t been welcome everywhere in the Diocese.
The Cathedral got £3 million in debt as a result of the stupid lockdowns that the Church of England eagerly promoted.
So these anti-Christian ‘Silent Discos’ are ways of clawing back cash from aging boomers.
You’d almost think the Dean wants to get back at somebody.
Not keen on Britney. But the rest sounds great!
Musical quality and liking the song is the only consideration that exists.
What is the point in consecrating a building to Christian worship. burying martyrs in its floor and decorating it with Christian iconography if you turn it into a disco with strobe lights for aging boomers on booze bopping to pop songs?
Doesn’t this undermine the Catholic claim that consecrated buildings are ‘sacramental’?
Only if you put a modern chasm between the sacred and the secular.
According to PCD, then-
Being unrepentant of paedophile activity is ‘great’,
Curtailing the blossoming of virgins is ‘great’;
Equating sex and love is ‘great’;
Normalising ‘lovers’ in the place of spouses is ‘great’;
Dumbing down obscene lyrics for children’s consumption is ‘great’;
‘Getting’ ‘a bad boy’ is ‘great’;
Bringing all of this into the space where holiness is standardly pursued is ‘great’.
Eric Gill’s Stations of the Cross are great. Raping his daughter wasn’t.
I think that’s a more serious moral question than a few ‘boomers’ bopping in the nave.
Wouldn’t indulgences be more appropriate?
In the nave though not at the altar, in medieval times even trade and business was conducted in cathedral naves
Including obscene language and obeisance to anti Christian and young-person-cheapening ideologies, and similar neglectful and abusive content?
The Church of England should make no assumptions about the end of Mary’s time on earth.
It can assume that she died just as you and I will.
As an evangelical Anglican I found myself challenged as to whether I might be one of those who might need to review their theology of Mary. I hope I can appreciate her willingness and obedience without offering praise or prayer to her or any other saint. At a recent institution the Anglican bishop offered a prayer to the saints associated with the benefice and I was unable to add my Amen. I may be wrong in this but whatever the origins of the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption I have always wondered whether they have perpetuated because of a discomfort with sexual intercourse – she has to be pure doesn’t she?. That discomfort in my opinion has caused serious problems for decades if not centuries.
Catholic views of Mary have, over the centuries, progressively assigned ever more of the unique things associated with Jesus to her: perpetual virginity, authority to pass on prayers to God, sinless life, extraordinary conception, direct assumption. Today there is a push in some quarters to have her declared ‘co-redemptrix’. Push these people and they will tell you that they don’t mean co-redemptrix in the same way as Jesus, but they never say that unless they are on the defensive against people quoting the New Testament. They are liars and deceivers.
Yes, I think you are spot on there…
One writer once described Mary’s place in traditional Roman Catholic devotion, perhaps unkindly but not in my opinion inaccurately, as “demi-goddess cum anti-sex symbol”. (The RC Church appears to have got the idea from somewhere that the sexual act is intrinsically sinful and can only be justified – and probably not fully – for the purposes of procreation, which means that if Mary was sinless she can’t ever have had sex.)
I would also point out that Mary’s alleged sinlessness, her alleged bodily assumption (Elijah certainly wasn’t sinless and I don’t think they claim Enoch was either), and the propriety of invoking the intercession of the “saints in heaven”, are three completely different issues.
The outstanding takedown of the Catholic cult of Mary is by a secular feminist who went to a Catholic girls’ school, Marina Warner, in her book Alone of all her sex. There is little room for respectable married women, while men are subtly encouraged to take the virgin/whore view of women which has done terrible harm to social relations in Catholic countries.
Actually not a few Reformers, including Luther (of course) but also Calvin, subscribed to belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary.
I know. They were wrong.
Mary’s perpetual virginity is nowhere deducible from scripture and is against the normal inference from it, in particular Matthew’s words about Mary in verses 1:18 and 1:25, that Joseph “had no [carnal] knowledge of her until she bore him a son” – which although stating nothing about what happened after her pregnancy is not likely to be how Matthew would have written if the couple had remained celibate. The Magisterium appears to regard it as scandalous that a married couple had sex, whereas Paul takes the view that it is mistaken for them not to (1 Corinthians 7:5). Did Mary and Joseph have separate beds or bedrooms for the rest of their lives together? If you are told that a woman broke her leg before her wedding, and that she and her husband had no union until the plaster cast was removed, what do you suppose they did next? Abundant children are viewed throughout the Old Testament as a blessing, and Mary was blessed (Luke 1:48). The gospels refer to Jesus’ adelphoi and adelphai – ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters,’ which in John 2:12 (‘his brothers and disciples’) & 7:5 (‘even his brothers did not believe in him’) & Matt 12:47 (“your mother and brothers are outside” – “who are my brothers; these [disciples] are”) cannot mean in the spiritual sense. Catholics take these references to refer to cousins of Jesus (although there is a Greek word for that, anepsios, while kinsman is sungenis); or they postulate that Joseph was a widower with children from an earlier marriage (a claim for which there is no evidence in the Bible or any other contemporary source). Seven of the ten references to ‘his brothers’ in the gospels and Acts are in immediate connection to Mary. The exceptions are all in the passage John 7:2-10, which I have just explained cannot refer to spiritual brothers. This is as strong as the evidence can be that Mary had other children, given that there is no explicit scriptural statement. Why, if Mary’s perpetual virginity is true, did none of the gospel writers say so explicitly?
I don’t disagree with you – just saying that some ideas are so powerful in a culture it is very difficult to disagree – not least because you’d be severely punished if you disagreed. We evangelicals respect Luther and Calvin but don’t treat them as infallible.
Just about every evangelical I know is happy with the plain implication of Scripture, that Mary bore other children besides Jesus. Mark’s gospel names four brothers and unnamed ‘sisters’, from which it appears that Jesus was one of at least seven. Which raises the question of which Jesus on the Cross gave his mother into the care of the beloved disciple.
Richard Bauckham has done some interesting work on the family and relatives of Jesus, who must have had a prominent role in the church of the first generation. I think Bauckham argues somewhere that Clopas/Cleopas (John 19.25; Luke 24.18) was the uncle of Jesus and he would have been one of the names eyewitnesses the Gospel writers used.
There is something in that. But on the other hand, running away from mentions of Mary can indicate a discomfort with the incarnation. Mary and the dogmas/doctrines around Immaculate Conception are rooted in beliefs about the incarnation – i.e. that Jesus really is God in the flesh, he’s really God and he’s really human and what the implications of that are. The best defence of Immaculate Conception I ever heard was that this is what the angel meant when Mary was declared “full of grace” (not some grace, not graced, but full of grace). And we shouldn’t be surprised – if our salvation comes from union with Christ, as adopted children of God – then where does the woman who bears Christ in her womb fit in? Jesus is fully human and sinless, so what is his relationship with his mother? Jesus is fully God, so what are the implications of that? The dogma/doctrine of the assumption extends the logic – if Mary is “full of grace” etc., then her death is actually an assumption into heaven. Why would Christ allow anything else for his own mother? The Catholic Church (much like the Calvinists who disagree with them so vehemently) has a tendency towards wanting to construct tight logical theological systems. I’m more content to sit back in the mystery like the Orthodox.
Where I’m much more uncomfortable is belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity. I don’t see why that is required, other than a belief that sex is somehow inherently sinful. But that does not follow given that when I read Genesis sex features before the Fall…
I remember having a brief conversation with a Catholic about Mary and he was horrified I maintained that Jesus had actual blood brothers. He couldn’t stomach the thought due to the implication.
For a scholarly summary of the earliest traditions and manuscripts about Mary’s fate, see Stephen Shoemaker’s book Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption (2003). The texts discussed by Shoemaker are the start of the tradition behind the ‘infallible’ papal declaration of 1950 that Mary’s body – alive or immediately after her death – was taken up into heaven. None of these sources is close in date to the canonical gospels, which took pains to record everything significant about Jesus and his earthly family. Shoemaker’s later book Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion shows that the origins of the cult of Mary lay in Gnosticism: she is said to have been given esoteric salvific knowledge by Christ.
The Catholic scholar Eamon Duffy has stated that “there is, clearly, no historical evidence whatever for” Mary’s Assumption (What Catholics Believe About Mary, published by the Catholic Truth Society, 1989, p.17).
Great quotation!
The challenge for evangelicals is to honour and love the mother of our Lord, from whom he obtained his human nature, but not to go beyond what Scripture affirms or derogate from Christ’s honour and uniqueness.
The disturbing thing is that the more one knows about ancient European Greco-Roman paganism, the more it looks as if local cults to goddesses like Artemic and Athena and others have been subsumed into Christian worship. The Greco-Roman world was full of shrines to various deities (all subsumed under the ‘interpretatio Romana’); a very clear example is furnished in Chariton’s novel ‘Callirhoe’ where the local Aphrodite shrine (where the goddess appears and speaks) plays a central role in events. Shrines to the virgin goddess Athena were also very popular. It is easy to imagine that as great numbers of pagans nominally became Christians in the 4th and 5th centuries (Christianity was made the official religion of the Empire in 381), goddess-shrine worship was transferred to the Virgin Mary as the focus of intercession.
Does anybody know of any academic studies that explore this question?
The final line of The Golden Bough evokes the thoroughgoing Marianisation that brought a partial end in Europe to the anthropologist’s dream.
Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States gives an indication of local variations upon the worship of the same ‘deities’, which is a pattern looks precisely like the local variants on Mary veneration. The locality becomes almost (or at least?) as important as the deity/saint (cf. the way people speak of ‘Fatima’ or of ‘Sheba’; ‘God of Jacob’, ‘God of Bethel’).
I am not myself familiar with studies of the process, though it is part of a larger Christianisation pattern which involves usurping existing feast days, but discussed it much last year with a colleague who was interested in it.
I said ‘God of Jacob’ but ‘God of Israel’ is more apposite.
Also ‘Sheba’ is used for a different reason: that it is unthinkable that the Queen of Sheba should be so unimportant a character that we do not know her name.
When scheduled to lead intercessions at our Church of England parish,on Sunday 15th August a few years ago, our terribly evangelical Vicar blanched when I explained that – that Sunday being the festival of the Assumption of the BVM – I intended to use Mary’s devotion and example as the core for the prayers. Once partially recovered, he instructed me ‘I don’t mind you referring to Mary as the Mother of our Lord, Jesus, but PLEASE do not refer to her as Mary, the Mother of God!’. ‘Oh’, I replied…. ‘So where do you stand with Christ’s Consubstantiality and Co-eternitality? Surely, if we truly believe that Jesus was one with God, then his mother carried and gave birth to God!’. Our over-pious Evangelical was floored for an answer.
Well, he needn’t have been. She is clearly the mother of God the son, but not of God.
And this is evident from the Catholic Church’s own catechism, which clearly draws a straight line from term Theotokos to Mary being the Mother of the Church and her Assumption.
https://www.vatican.va/content/catechism/en/part_one/section_two/chapter_three/article_9/paragraph_6_mary_-_mother_of_christ%2C_mother_of_the_church.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Oh dear. Nestorianism lives…
It MIGHT – just might – be okay to call Mary the Mother of God in a discussion among theologians who are well aware that Mary was Jesus’ mother and Jesus is divine. But you try it among first-generation illiterate converts from a pagan society, as happened in Latin America 500 years ago, and you are going to get Mariolatry. Not for nothing does the New Testament call her simply the “mother of Jesus”.
I think the Council of Ephesus knew what they were doing.
Have you read up on it?
At the Council of Ephesus in 431AD Nestorius was labelled a heretic after complaining about Mary being called Theotokos (‘bearer of God,’ in contrast to scripture’s ‘mother of Jesus’ as at Acts 1:14). This led to a denial that the ‘Nestorian’ churches which spread the faith east of the borders of the Roman Empire for centuries were Christian, although they were Trinitarian and regarded Christ as both fully human and fully divine. The argument, widening from Mary as Christ’s mother, was about HOW Christ was both – an issue that scripture does not engage with. (I consider it futile to study how Jesus was both God and man, because we need first to know what unfallen man and what God are like. As the clearest view of those things comes from Christ himself, any attempt to disentangle them within him uses circular logic.)
At one point during proceedings at Ephesus both Nestorius and his main opponent, Cyril of Alexandria, were condemned, but Cyril bribed his way back into favour. Is that how to conduct theological disputes?
The Council of Ephesus triggered an explosion of devotion to Mary. I do not doubt that she looks down from heaven and weeps.
It’s called FAITH and obviously they don’t have it
Who doesn’t?
Certainly evangelicals, based as they are solely on scripture, reject the assumption of the Virgin Mary. However, the Church of England is not solely a Protestant evangelical church, instead it is a Catholic but Reformed church.
Hence Anglo Catholics within the Church of England, especially those who worship in areas like Walsingham in Norfolk or Chichester, Durham, London and Oxford dioceses do assume that Mary’s body and soul went into heavenly glory. We should therefore respect those in the C of E who wish to mark the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, as Archbishop Welby did despite himself being an evangelical not an Anglo Catholic.
That does not mean we force evangelicals to mark it though. Archbishop Mullally should certainly not follow the line of Pope Pius XII, namely that ‘that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory’ and ‘Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.’ Unlike the Roman Catholic church marking the assumption of Mary is optional for Anglicans and evangelicals can continue to ignore it
‘Based as they are solely on scripture’?
Being ‘based on’ evidence is good.
Not being ‘based on’ evidence is bad.
Where is the evidence for the Assumption of Mary?
Accounts from the likes of St Thomas that Mary’s tomb was empty after her death
Transitus Mariae (originating 3rd-4th century) and Euthymiac History (6th-8th century) have nothing to do with St Thomas (early 1st century), unless you think you can yourself write authoritatively, as an eyewitness, about what happened in the year 1726.
You say ‘the likes of St Thomas’. Were any others of the 12 disciples involved, then? (I jest.)
Do you mean the tomb of Mary in Jerusalem or the one in Ephesus? This is like discussing the two foreskins of Jesus in differing mediaeval churches.
Simon, the doctrine of the Church of England is ‘based solely on Scripture’, in the sense that Scripture is its only primary authority.
Not just on Scripture, on the Creeds and the Trinity and the Sacraments and governance and ministry by ordained bishops, priests and deacons under the King as its Supreme Governor.
As the main article suggests Pope Pius XII in any case believed Psalm 45:10–17 supported the assumption of Mary, as could Revelation 11.19–12.6.
Nope—Scripture is the final authority.
And from those texts only by twisting and misreading them.
Maybe but who interprets scripture in the C of E is key, it may not be effectively one man ie the Pope as is the case with the Vatican and who lays down that the Assumption of Mary must be marked. It is though the Bishops and Synod who decide what Scripture means in the C of E and the last Archbishop of Canterbury made clear the Assumption can be marked.
It is not like say an evangelical Baptist or Pentecostal church where no church would ever mark the Assumption of Mary. Anglo Catholic C of E churches do wish to mark it
So, Simon, if evangelical baptists do one thing and anglocatholics do another, and there is more evidence on one side, then do we prefer that side or not?
Supposing we prefer the side that more evidence is on (and you can scarcely be saying that different amounts of evidence are equal, because that would lose you the argument automatically) then why can’t we cut to the chase – examine evidence only and bypass denominational conformity as irrelevant and question-begging?
We prefer neither, the Church of England is a broad church which must include both its Anglo Catholic and evangelical wing. If you want pure Catholicism and compulsory marking of the assumption of Mary you can go off and become Roman Catholic, if you want a ban on marking assumption of Mary and pure Protestant evangelicalism you can go off and become Baptist or Pentecostal. You just want to reject the Assumption of Mary so will not take account of the likes of Psalm 45:10–17 or Revelation 11.19–12.6 in your evidence.
Simon thinks there is only one possible issue – what people ‘want’ to be true. A moment’s thought shows that there are other possibilities.
One can never honestly or truthfully say that there is only one possibility, as Simon is trying to do, until one has surveyed the spectrum of possibilities: something that he has not done in advance of his pre-emptive conclusion. And how does one ever know when one has finished doing that? Hence, we go with the people who have seen the most possibilities.
Thankfully, an accurate answer has been provided to my main question. Simon pursues pure relativism (which no philosopher will give the time of day to) and regards different amounts of evidence as all the same(!) Hence what he says about this can be disregarded.
As opposed to Christopher who wants to be true that there was definitely no assumption of Mary. Even disregarding evidence like Psalm 45:10–17 or Revelation 11.19–12.6.
In that sense you may as well be a Baptist or Pentecostal ie a purely evangelical Protestant denomination as you have no interest in what the Anglo Catholic wing of the Church of England believes at all
Belief is a matter of evidence. Belief is informed/evidenced opinion.
In any cross-denominational gathering of hundreds of Old or New Testament scholars, neither passage will be considered to be about that topic by even one participant. For proof, try to name a single Old or New Testament scholar that thinks that.
Ps 45 is a wedding psalm from 9th-8th century BC for a royal wedding in the northern kingdom. Rev 12 init is the start of a parade of signs relevant to the times of the first readers. If the woman gives birth to the son and the son is *then* caught up to God and his throne, then the woman must be somewhere else. There is no reference to Mary here, though Rev’s saturation in the OT means that it is fruitful to seek out the closest OT passage[s] which refer to labour pains of daughter Zion.
How on earth would a random anglocatholic have the tools to interpret a text from an alien culture 2000-3000 years ago without scholarly help?
Pope Pius XII and all Popes since literally believe those two passages are about the assumption of Mary. Given the Pope heads the church of over half of Christians on earth and for Roman Catholics descending via apostolic succession from St Peter as first Pope that holds rather greater weight with Catholics than what any biblical scholar who disagrees may say.
That is nothing to do with belief, which is something hard-won by research.
That is to do with being part of (or representative of) an institution that does not allow any alternative. It is either that, or you’re out of office.
You are misunderstanding what it means to believe something. You are confusing it with playing a sociological role that compels a dogmatic stance. What has that got to do with belief?
What the Pope says is the basic belief for Catholics and how he and the Vatican research and interpret the Bible sets doctrine on it for Catholics globally.
If you want to believe something else and reject the dogmatic stance of the Vatican and Pope then clearly you would be Protestant (the Orthodox church does reject the supreme authority of the Pope but does mark the Feast of the assumption of Mary as Roman Catholics do). The Church of England though is not a purely Protestant church but a Catholic but Reformed church. So the Anglo Catholics within it will continue to believe in the assumption of Mary even if Anglican evangelicals do not
If you honestly think research-based belief is anything close in value to dogma, I cannot help you.
It is a dogma that a little man inside the fridge turns the light on. It is a belief (hard won, through intense study) that e=mc squared.
Anyone who thought that these two ways of getting knowledge or information were of equal value would be running into danger of being a laughing stock. And we would have to close down all schools and universities. That is what you want?
Research/evidence based belief is research/evidence based belief. Dogma is dogma. The former is worth trillions of times more than the latter. If you doubt it, close down all the schools and universities. That is how extreme your stance is.
What have the Popes you mentioned published as research on this matter? How will their title help them?
You of course are a Protestant evangelical so dismiss what the Pope says as dogma.
Catholics however completely reject your position as they believe what the Pope says is infallible. What he says and researches on it goes globally so you can say what you say is your research based evidence refutes the assumption of Mary but they will still completely ignore you
You just don’t get it, do you?
It is all to do with the way people arrive at their position.
One lot of people investigate/research the evidence. This can take years.
Another lot of people do zero research and just obey the done thing.
You for your part say that the people who do a lot of thinking and the people who do zero thinking are equally praiseworthy!!
Do check what I have said above, because you repeatedly fail to understand the actual point I am making. Failure to understand means failure to engage in the debate.
Why are you saying I am a protestant evangelical? I am whatever the evidence leads me to. It is not necessarily that, or not necessarily always that.
Just confirm that you think dogma (zero thinking) and research (masses of thinking) are equally good.
Don’t answer some other question that you preconceive I am asking. Answer the actual question (about the topic of evidence or lack of it) that I am asking.
And you, Simon, what do you believe about it and why?
You just don’t get it, do you? Yes you don’t, you look at things only from a Protestant evangelical position.
You clearly have no interest in the basis of Catholicism which is the Pope decides on what the evidence says and the doctrine should be for the Catholic church
And you, Simon, what do you believe about it and why? I lean towards the Anglo Catholic wing of the Church of England but am not going to go out of my way to mark the assumption of Mary. If Anglo Catholics in Church of England churches in areas like Walsingham do wish to mark it though that is up to them
That doesn’t answer my question. What do you, Simon, believe about Mary and her asserted Assumption; and why?
I believe it was possible, I don’t reject it outright like you
Simon, you have this idea I classify as a ‘protestant evangelical’. Where does that idea come from?
I am an evidence man, so I only side with ‘protestant evangelical’ when the evidence is on the side of ‘protestant evangelical’. Not at other times.
You are saying everyone conforms to their dogmatic system. I am saying dogma is the problem. If one person follows dogma and the other follows research, which of the two is more thoughtful?
Scriptural-interpretation ability of C of E Bishops and the majority of C of E Synod is of course supreme in the Church of England to any scholars. If you don’t agree with that then you shouldn’t be in the C of E
Catholics believe the Pope’s own thoughtful research is by definition infallible
So, effortless and superior non researchers automatically know more than researchers, according to the Cof E. That proposition sounds (ahem) likely to be true, and to have actually broadcast that you believe such a thing.
Well, it is usually the case that people who don’t research know more than those who do, so you are on to a winner there, right?
Having said I am a Protestant evangelical, you now say I am in the C of E.
What is unimaginable to you, or so it seems, is that someone might use their brain rather than signing on the dotted line for the benefit of some self important and self proclaimed authority. And (whisper it not) that using your brain could just possibly be the better of the two options.
(Tell it not in Gath.)
So you confirm you are a non Anglican Protestant evangelical, so what the C of E believes and how it interprets scripture is not really your concern then
If you scroll back 5 comments, you will see that I denied being ‘a protestant evangelical’ just the same that I denied being of ‘C of E’.
There are millions of people who can think for themselves and do not get dictated to by any institution (the institution dictating is actually individual people dictating anyway). In your way of thinking, there are no such people. That (together with your legion misunderstandings) is why your position is so far from reflecting reality.
Presumably you are a Christian? You just believe in interpreting the meaning of the Bible yourself without input from any Pope, Bishop or Synod or General Assembly, so are basically an independent Protestant evangelical
Which is certainly better than being someone who toes the line but does not think. Why is it that you are making out that these two are equally good when one requires 1000s of hours of thinking and the other requires none? That is a mathematics where 0 equals 1000s. Who would buy that?
You’re confusing the authority of the Creeds with the authority of scripture. The latter is prime and the Creeds are built on scripture, not on a par with it. The whole development and emergence of the Creeds was a debate about scripture’s meaning…. they are totally dependant on it.
“a summary of the core truths of Scripture”. From…
“The Anglican Communion upholds the three historical Creeds as foundational statements of Christian belief:
The Apostles’ Creed
The Nicene Creed
The Athanasian Creed
Anglicans affirm these Creeds because their core tenets can be historically proven by the Holy Scripture. They are not an alternative to the Bible, but rather a summary of the core truths of Scripture, forming a tower with strong foundations for Christian doctrine.”
https://www.anglicancommunion.org/the-creeds-our-statement-of-faith/
If all scripture was unquestionable for Anglicans, there would be still no women priests, no female Archbishop, no remarriage of divorcees in its churches and no PLF as passages of the Bible can be read to oppose all of that. However it is scripture as interpreted by the Bishops and Synod and especially the Gospel of Christ that is actually paramount in the Church of England
How does the average scriptural-interpretation ability of ‘Bishops and Synod’ compare with that of accredited scholars?
It would be wonderful to breeze in effortlessly and overrule those better qualified, who had been labouring for years. But people of conscience never do that.
Scriptural-interpretation ability of C of E Bishops and the majority of C of E Synod is of course supreme in the Church of England to any scholars. If you don’t agree with that then you shouldn’t be in the C of E
Errr how can the creeds be built on Scripture when the creeds (except maybe for the Athanasian Creed) were settled before the canon of Scripture?
Because the core scriptures had long been common currency. The settling of the canon had nothing to do with the core, only with the more marginal choices.
The Book of Revelation is a “marginal” part of Scripture?
What yardstick are you using to judge that? Saying present day yardsticks are superior is not self evidently true.
Errr you’re the one judging Revelation to be a mere marginal choice. Revelation is famously one of the last, if not the last, book to be accepted into the canon. It made it onto Eusebius’s “antilegomena” list, and even Luther went on to question its place in the canon.
You said ‘you are the one judging Revelation to be marginal’ and then promptly did exactly the same yourself. Both of us are just referring to the historical record of how books were perceived .
Still struggling with comprehension I see.
Your comment shows no analysis that would enable anyone to see if you have correctly understood what I said. We agree that the canon emerged with fuzzy edges including Revelation on which a decision either way needed to be taken, so what are we disagreeing about?
Adam Bell has unfortunately reverted to his practice of raising a slightly tangential question, seeing it answered quite fairly and then making a terse ad hominen to his respondent.
Adam asked, hoew could the Scriptures be primary if the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed were settled before the (full) extent of the canon of Scripture was agreed.
But any first year theology student knows the answer to this. The core of the New Testament – the four gospels and the letters of Paul – were universally accepted in the second century in orthodox circles (i.e. not Marcionite or Gnostic) and it was on the basis of this canon with the OT that the Creeds were agreed, as anyone can see from the writings of Athanasius and the Cappadocian fathers. Doubts about the canonicity of Revelation and Jude don’t impinge here. Athanasius relied heavily on John’s Gospel in his Christological defence. Yet even here we should mention that the final form of the Nicene Creed came as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in 381, after the canon of the New Testament was defined in the west.
Similarly with the Chalcedonic Definition in 451.
Revelation was relevant to chiliastic questions (and was linked with Montanism), not to core credal questions of Christology and the Trinity.
So Christopher is correct and Adam misses the point.
Allow me to recommend as devout a Catholic as Erasmus’ 1526 satire “A pilgimage for religion’s sake” inspired by his walk from Walsingham from Cambridge. It is gloriously merciless on such customs as relic worship and the commercialisation of shrines. Here it is in English translation:
http://courses.washington.edu/hsteu402/Erasmus%20Colloquies.pdf
If soldiers brought together in a bomb crater decide to honour the king’s birthday with a toast, we’ll ok, if you think it helps. But when someone wants to toast the general’s, mother’s unknown departure date back to Blighty… well that’s another issue altogether. One asks why. Are they trying to position themselves as more loyal? What’s needed is soldiers willing to fight back to back . I think such a One has forgotten they are only temporarily in a hole. They seem to have forgotten what they are in the fight for
Has anyone mentioned the Magnificat ? I confess that I have not read through all these responses,but surely in very simple terms ,it says it all …….Mary needed a Saviour like all of us .
Magisterium! What is it? Where is it to be found in principle, authority and application?
Spot the differences Rome and Canterbury?
Is it ‘the teaching authority Christ has given to the church ?
One statement of Roman application is: ‘The church exercises it’s magisterium when it authoratively proclaims Christ’s teachings’.
There are other strands to Roman Magisterium.
But while there may be quibbles over definitions and scope to what extent does it reside in the CoE?
Is it really primarily in the teachings of Christ, in scripture? Evidence would prove otherwise.
Rome and Canterbury seem to be in the same rabbit hole with its own distinctive channels.
They share beliefs that I believe are grievous and erroneous, namely ordination ‘to the priesthood’ and episcopal oversight, which in practice depower the ministries of the unordained, and provide oversight that is actually worse than useless – it covers up rather than brings to light.
The biggest difference between Rome and Canterbury is Rome’s pernicious claim, not that isn’t wrong in its teaching (everybody believes that, or else they would change their mind), but that it CANNOT be wrong. That is an end to all discussion. It is also twaddle.
Adam Bell has unfortunately reverted to his practice of raising a slightly tangential question, seeing it answered quite fairly and then making a terse ad hominen to his respondent.
Adam asked, hoe could the Scriptures be primary if the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed were settled before the (full) extent of the canon of Scripture was agreed?
But any first year theology student knows the answer to this. The core of the New Testament – the four gospels and the letters of Paul – were universally accepted in the second century in orthodox circles (i.e. not Marcionite or Gnostic) and it was on the basis of this canon with the OT that the Creeds were agreed, as anyone can see from the writings of Athanasius and the Cappadocian fathers.
Doubts about the canonicity of Revelation and Jude don’t impinge here. Athanasius relied heavily on John’s Gospel in his Christological defence. Yet even here we should mention that the final form of the Nicene Creed came as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in 381, after the canon of the New Testament was defined in the west in the Paschal Letter of Athanasius in 367.
Similarly with the Chalcedonic Definition in 451 – long after the canon defined.
Revelation was relevant to chiliastic questions (and was linked with Montanism), not to core credal questions of Christology and the Trinity.
So Christopher is correct and Adam misses the point.
I agree with those who suggest Mariolatry appears in some sense to manifest as a continuation of pagan goddess worship.
Is it worth noting that two of the most serious issues identified by the prophets as offensive to YHWH, thus leading to the Exile, were the (so named idolatrous) worship of female pagan figures, namely the Asherah poles (carved in the form of buxom naked females), and secondly offering cakes to the Queen of Heaven ?
The former was perhaps mainly a fertility cult involving sexual immorality, the latter a female cult, women preferring to worship a female god while the men could focus on YHWH. Neither of these fit Mariolatry exactly, nonetheless it seems to take functions and status ascribed to the Risen Christ, and devolve them to a female replacement, thus depriving Christ of His due respect and functionality.
Sometimes people invest in a ruling ideology or religion that is fulfilling psychological cues.
Others give due deference to the (deduced or known) awe-evoking and gratitude-evoking Creator.
The infernal over-vague concept ‘religion’ fudges these two, which are clearly not the same.
The one that fulfils psychological cues is in danger of being self-centred and inward looking (though there den definitely be some good impulses involved). That is the opposite of the latter which is outward-looking, world-expanding, self-humbling and healthily worshipful.
Shrines and cults to female gods (Juno, Aphrodite, Athena etc) were everywhere in the Greco-Roman world, along with shrines to male gods and demi-gods. Statues were conveyed, washed, decked with flowers, offered sacrifices etc as a matter of course. Greco-Roman paganism had largely died out by c. 400 (at least in name), so it is certainly more than plausible that old practices continued under ‘Christian’ guise. The Iconoclastic controversy raged for many decades, showing that old habits die hard.