Talk:Anglican Eucharistic theology

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	Anglicanism Portal Anglican Eucharistic theology is part of WikiProject Anglicanism, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
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Article Grading: The following comments were left by the quality and importance raters: (edit · refresh) Needs referencing per WP:CITE, then could be an excellent article! GA candidate? PMJ 16:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
WikiProject Anglicanism To-do:

This is largely a consolidation of the Anglican sections at Real Presence and Eucharistic theologies contrasted. Please add to it. Carolynparrishfan 14:58, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Done! Phew. Fishhead64 21:06, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't this article come down to "Whatever some Anglicans believe about the Eucharist is flatly denied by other Anglicans, and so there is really no Anglican Eucharistic theology"? 212.205.246.227 20:06, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe it is called "Anglican comprehensiveness." There is actually broad agreement. In fact, the article attempts (I hope) to convey the view that there is a vast middle ground of consensus encompassing the views of consubstantiation and sacramental union. The transubstantiationist and exclusively memorialist perspectives are decidedly minority ones. Fishhead64 20:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I would query this claim of broad agreement on a number of grounds. First, no disrespect to you as a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada, but the Anglican Communion is a very large worldwide body without a magisterium to give official statements of Anglican theology and I find it very unlikely that any one contributor to Wikipedia would have experience of Anglicanism in all its guises across the world to speak with any authority in this regard. Most of us don't know what's *really* going on in the Anglican church in other parts of our own country (especially if we're from large countries such as Australia, Canada or the USA), let alone on other continents where Anglicans come from a vastly different cultural (and linguistic) backgrounds. A Canadian Anglican is unlikely to know what Anglicans in Nigeria, Brazil, the Congo, the West Indies etc etc etc actually think about the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist or vestments or whether it's properly called an 'altar' or 'the Lord's Table'. Your consensus may in fact only be one of White Anglophone Anglicans. Secondly, I would even doubt a consensus of white Anglophone Anglicans. Your so-called consensus may dominate in the USA and Canada (and even then I'm not so sure), but I strongly doubt that this is the case in the Anglican Church of Australia and the Church of England. Taking my native Australia as an example, the article (as does Wikipedia in general) tends to dismiss the views of Sydney Anglicans (and implicitly of like-minded evangelical Anglicans elsewhere) as aberrant and peripheral. Yet Sydney Diocese is numerically the largest diocese in Australia. On any given Sunday there are more Anglicans in church in Sydney than the rest of Australia combined. What does that do to your so-called consensus? Sydney Anglicans -- and hence a majority of church-going Australian Anglicans -- would reject Sacramental union/ consubstantiation in favour of a Calvinist or Zwinglian view. And the situation is not too dissimiliar in other parts of the Anglican world such as the Church of England. Although Liberals and Anglo-Catholics may dominate Synod and Diocesan appointments, as far as 'bums on seats' in church go, Low Church Evangelicals who (in all likelihood -- I haven't bothered to take a survey!) hold views contrary to your so-called consensus of sacramental union/ consubstantiation outnumber its adherents.

Moreover, I sympathise with the comment above about the article coming down to there being no Anglican Eucharistic theology. That is not to say that there isn't an Anglican Eucharistic theology, but merely that the Article doesn't present it. Any treatment of "Anglican Eucharistic Theology" necessarily has to expound official Anglican sources such as the 39 Articles and the BCP in light of historical controversy (eg the Reformation, Puritanism, Rationalism, the Oxford Movement etc) and how differnt parties within Anglicanism view these sources differently. This Article describes a range of eucharistic theologies and practices found within Anglicanism but doesn't adequately expound upon official Anglican sources. Low Church Anglicans (well at least those of a conservative Evangelical bent) would say that the 39 Articles and the BCP were clear and binding and forbid many Anglo-Catholic eucharistic practices (such as reservation, adoration, vestments, belief in the corporal presence etc), denouncing them as idolatry even. Most Anglo-Catholics on the other hand would suggest that the 39 Articles and the BCP are not so clear in their denunciation of these practices or say that these documents stem from the time of the Reformation and the Church has moved on from then. This sounds a lot like "Whatever some Anglicans believe about the Eucharist is flatly denied by other Anglicans" to me. Apodeictic 00:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Contents 1 WikiProject Anglicanism 2 Deleted link 3 Good article 4 High-Church Bias

[edit] WikiProject Anglicanism

A new WikiProject focussing on Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion has just been initiated: WikiProject Anglicanism. Our goal is to improve and expand Anglican-reltaed articles. If anyone (Anglican or non-Anglican) is interested, read over the project page and consider signing up. Cheers! Fishhead64 06:43, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted link

Hmmmm. A cursory glance at the eBook from New Zealand (which was removed as adspam) suggests to me that it may in fact be a useful companion to the Eucharistic liturgy. Carolynparrishfan 14:05, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Good article

This is a very nice article! I'd like to nominate it as a Good article, but first it needs inline citations of sources. Angr 18:06, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] High-Church Bias

I think the article is a good start at a very difficult subject, but it still has a strong feel of anti Low-Church bias to me. Granted, this subject is notoriously difficult to write upon briefly without expressing bias, but a number of points need to be made here:

1. Transubstantiation. The statement that "Anglicans and Roman Catholics declared" substantial agreement is at best vague and at worst highly tendentious. To the unknowing reader this would suggest that the Anglican Communion and the Church of Rome reached agreement when nothing could be further from the truth. A very few Anglicans and Roman Catholics who made up ARCIC may have declared that, but the views of ARCIC are hardly representative of official Anglican (or Roman Catholic for that matter) doctrine. By its very nature ARCIC is inhabited by Anglo-Catholics sympathetic to reunion with Rome and anything it says has to be read in light of this and understood to represent Anglo-Catholicic views rather than broadly Anglican views.

2. Memorialism. This section lumps together Zwinglian and Calvinistic views of the Lord's Supper. These theologies are actually very different and it is not correct to describe a Calvinistic theology of the Lord's Supper as 'memorialist'. In fact elsewhere (in the introduction) the article attempts to do this by stating that most Low Church Anglicans believe in the Real Presence but that it is not carnal, which would tend to include Calvinists. Also, the discussion of rejection of reservation and adoration of the sacrament under this head is somewhat puzzling (an instance of High Church bias?) given that the 39 Articles and the rubrics to the Order for Holy Communion in the 1662 BCP arguably forbid these practices. In other words, while memorialists (and Calvinists!) may in fact reject reservation and adoration of the sacrament, this still leaves the question of whether the Articles (specifically Article 28) and the rubrics to the Order for Holy Communion forbid these practices. As presently written the article suggests that objection to reservation and adoration is merely a memorialist quibble, when in fact official Anglican sources are directly on point (although no doubt controversial in their application given the diversity of views in practice!)

3. Consubstantiation or Sacramental Union. From my comments above, I would doubt that there is such a 'consensus' position within Anglicanism. Secondly, a clear majority preference for a particular theology or practice is not entirely relevant. If the 39 Articles and the BCP espouse A (and not B) and a majority of Anglicans believes B (and not A), then our so-called consensus (A not B) is nothing more than a majority of Anglicans holding an inauthentically Anglican theology. In other words the majority of Anglicans believing A does not make A authentic Anglican theology. Thirdly, I'm not sure you can claim Cranmer in support of consubstantiation/ sacramental union. In fact I would argue that Cranmer's 'Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ' (along with the 39 Articles and the 1662 Order for HC along with the rubrics) basically rejects any bodily presence of Christ at the Eucharist. The Black Rubric denies the Lutheran doctrine of ubiquity stating that Christ's body is in heaven and that is "against the truth of Christ's natural Body to be at one time in more places than one."

In the Preface to his Defence, Cranmer states (page xii, c, of the 1999 Berith Publications reprint of the 1907 edition): "Moreover, when I say and repeat many times in my book, that the body of Christ is present in them that worthily receive the sacrament; lest any man should mistake my words, and think that I mean, that although Christ be not corporally in the outward visible signs, yet he is corporally in the persons that duly receive them, this is to advertise the reader, that I mean no such thing; but my meaning is, that the force, the grace, the virtue and benefit of Christ's body that was crucified for us, and of his blood that was shed for us, be really and effectually present with all them that duly receive the sacraments: but all this I understand of his spiritual presence, of the which he saith 'I will be with you until the world's end;' and, 'wheresoever two or three be gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them;' and, 'he that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him.' Nor no more truly is he corporally or really present in the due ministration of the Lord's Supper, than he is in the due ministration of baptism; [that is to say, in both spiritually by grace. And whersoever in the scripture it is said that Christ, God, or the Holy Ghost is in any man, the same is understood spiritually by grace.]"

Admittedly there is some doubt about the bracketed passage at the end of the quotation. My edition brackets it and footnotes it as only being found in the edition of 1580. But even without this gloss I think the impetus is clear. Jesus is no more corporally present in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper than he is corporally present in the sacrament of baptism -- i.e. he is in no way corporally present in the Lord's Supper. Cranmer is hardly a support for sacramental union/ consubstantiation.

4. Customary of the Rite. The word 'altar' frequently appears here yet this word is not once found in the Prayer Book of 1662. The Prayer Book refers to the Lord's Table (or the Table of the Lord). While High Church Anglicans may like to offer the 'sacrifice' of the 'mass' at an 'altar', Anglicans of a more Reformed persuasion 'partake of' the Lord's Supper (a 'fellowship meal') at 'the Lord's Table'. I find the use of the word 'altar' problematic throughout, but particularly when used in relation to Low Church practice. Most theologically informed Low Church Anglicans would object to the use of the word 'altar'.

5. References. The reference works cited tend to be from a high-church camp. Maybe we could expand the list to make it less narrow in its churchmanship.

6. Nowhere does the article attempt to expound the teaching of the 39 Articles and the Prayer Book on the Eucharist. All it does is outline some of the divergent theological views and practices of Anglican parties. Readers may be interested in knowing why these difference exist and how to go about judging whether the various positions are true to Scripture, the 39 Articles and the Book of Common Prayer. Apodeictic 00:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)