Field guide to Anglican churchmanship

I say there are four competing Anglicanisms and of course as no two churchmen are exactly alike you can break that down further into sub-groups.

As a Central Church friend reminded me years ago they often are overlooked.

Anyway I see it thus:

1. Anglo-Catholic
a. Anglo-Papalist - Tridentine
b. Anglo-Papalist - Modern (a peculiarly English breed of cat, he uses the Novus Ordo, the current RC services)
c. Prayer Book Catholic
d. The modern version of Prayer Book Catholic, not papalist and using the Anglican prayer book that's the standard where he is (Common Worship, US 1979 BCP, etc.)
e. Anglo-Orthodox. Rare as hen's teeth, more so than Tridentine ACs, but they're out there. Also, 1c and 1d often see themselves as 'Western Orthodox' analogues to the Eastern Orthodox.

2. Central
a. High Central - almost Catholic, strongly resembling 1c or 1d, but doesn't believe in a complete change in the elements (denies transubstantiation for example)
b. Middle of the road
c. Low Central - happy-clappy, possibly charismatic but believes in apostolic succession and is not a Calvinist

Also, these come in old-school and modern versions, the latter accepting women clergy.

3. Evangelical
a. Old-school conservative Evo - Calvinist, Presbyterians with Prayer Books
b. Modern, a bit like 2c but they believe apostolic succession is optional

Again, some accept women clergy and some don't.

4. Broad
a. Still credally Christian
i. Affirming Catholic: former ACs who accept women clergy, accept practising homosexuality or both
ii. Former Central Churchmen who've signed off on the gay thing
iii. Open Evangelical: former Evos who are on board with the gay thing
b. Non-Christian/apostate
i. Atheists
ii. Agnostics
iii. Neo-pagans

4a (i) and 4b can be very high-church in practice as 4b believes in nothing therefore everything and so has no problem with Catholic externals.

As far as I can tell the gay issue is what holds Broad Churchmen together, 4a siding with apostates against other Christians over it.

4 runs the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada now and I imagine the formerly AC Province of South Africa as well. Evos of various kinds run parts of the Church of England (otherwise a Broad shop), the Anglican Church in Australia and many/most of the Third World provinces and dioceses.

ACs and Central Churchmen (bitterly ironic as the Centrals really are classic Anglicans) are being pushed out of First World Anglicanism, the ACs making a second home in the Continuing movement, largely American, and the Centrals in new arrangements under Third World Anglican bishops.

I wonder how long it will be before the coalition of Christians and ex-Christians in the Broad camp falls apart.

Orthodoxy of course is very appealing to many Anglo-Catholics and high Central Churchmen, especially ACs of the non-papal persuasion as Orthodoxy is essentially an Eastern version of everything they already believe. But it's even more wrenching than going over to Rome - the Orthodox believe you were never really baptised or confirmed. If they're nice they'll accept you economically 'filling in' the grace that may have been missing in those sacraments in the first place. Even if one loves the Byzantine Rite and Eastern European cultures most people don't like being told their native tradition is crap and/or they weren't really Christian all those years. More on all that.

Oh, well. There never was supposed to be an Anglican Communion anyway - it was an accident that happened because of the British Empire, with which it's roughly co-terminous even today. Even with the Henrician schism and Elizabethan settlement the Anglican Church was simply supposed to be the part of the one Church of God that happened to be in England.

And now, like the empire 50 years ago, it's breaking up. Maybe there'll be 'two-tier' membership like dominions and republics in the Commonwealth. FWIW.

- 17th August 2006