Year: 2009

Anglican issues, Statements and other writings, Theology

The Primacy of Doctrine

The Rev’d David Curry delivered this address to the Open Door Conference (organised by Anglican Essentials Canada), Toronto, in June 2005.

The Primacy of Doctrine

“How came we ashore”, asks Miranda in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, having heard the litany of betrayal and deceit that exiled her and her father from Milan. “By Providence divine”, replies Prospero, himself the victim of the machinations of others but also aware of his own neglect of what belonged to his ducal office. Well, we have just heard powerfully and prophetically from David Short about the litany of betrayal and deceit, confusion and disarray, that brings us to this conference and this moment.

But I want to suggest that there is a wonderful providence, too, that brings us ashore, that brings us to this moment, a wonderful providence that is at work in the Anglican Communion. And it is not about who shouts the loudest, not about who holds the power cards, not about who has title and who has not. No. It is about the recovery of the doctrinal mind of the Anglican Communion. And if we are not part of that, make no mistake, we are nothing and nothing worth.

Doctrine, not praxis, though doctrine should shape and measure our actions. Doctrine, not process thinking, though doctrine should guide and direct our thinking. Doctrine, yeah! Just what you came to hear about, right? “These are a few of your favourite things” (I’ve always wanted to sing in Roy Thompson Hall!) But whether this is something which is your favourite thing or not, doctrine is the unum necessarium, the one thing necessary, without which we are nothing and nothing worth. The wonderful providence at work in the Anglican Communion is about the possibility of thinking again what belongs to our true and collective identity in the body of Christ. But we have to think it.

If we do not keep before us, front and centre, the teaching of the Church, the teaching which we have received through the witness of the Scriptures faithfully transmitted down through the centuries by the power of the Spirit in the ordered life of the Church, then we are nothing. If we do not hold ourselves accountable to the doctrines that define us, then we become the betrayers of Christ and his Church.

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Sermons

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

“No-one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son who is in the
bosom of the Father; he has made him known”

We meet together in the glory of the revealed God, the glory of the Trinity. All our beginnings and all our endings have their place of meeting in the Trinity. It is, we may say, the one thing essential. No Trinity, no Christianity. “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’, except by the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor.12.3). To say “Jesus is Lord” is to make a Trinitarian statement.

Essential Christianity is Trinitarian. What do I mean? That the doctrine of the Trinity is essential to Christian identity, corporately and individually. You are baptized in the Name of the Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. At Holy Communion, we participate in nothing less than the Son’s Thanksgiving to the Father in the Spirit. Our liturgy is full of the Trinity. And yet, we have the greatest difficulty about the essentials of the Christian Faith. The doctrine of the Trinity is what gives coherence and meaning to the things which are to be believed, the credenda, the things which we say in the Creed, first of all, and then the things which follow from them which belong to the moral and political order of the Church’s life and which shape the agenda, the things that are to be done in our practical lives. Essential things shape action without being reduced to particular issues and agendas.

The problem for the Anglican Communion lies in this confusion.  You see, there are endless numbers of things about which we might have quite legitimate but different opinions. About those things there can be no insistence, no coercion. They cannot be made the essential things of our Anglican and Christian identity. The doctrine of the Trinity, on the other hand, is essential. It is one of the non-negotiables of the Christian Faith. The result of the most intense reflection upon the Scriptures and human experience imaginable, it is at the heart of the consensus fidelium, the consensus of the faith, which we receive. It is not ours to re-invent, re-image or re-define. It is the mystery into which we can only enter and discover the rich fullness of its power and truth.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 8-14 June 2009

Tuesday, June 9th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:30pm Parish Council Meeting

Wednesday, June 10th Eve of St Barnabas
7:00pm Holy Communion

Saturday, June 13th
9:00am Encaenia Service at King’s-Edgehill School
10:15am Graduation Ceremonies at King’s-Edgehill School

Sunday, June 14th, Trinity I
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30 pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

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Prayers and liturgy

Trinity Sunday

Masaccio, The Holy TrinityThe collect for today, the Octave Day of Pentecost, commonly called Trinity Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity: We beseech thee, that this holy faith may evermore be our defence against all adversities; who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.

For the Epistle: Revelation 4:1-11
The Gospel: St John 3:1-15

Artwork: Masaccio, The Holy Trinity with the Virgin, St. John and Two Donors, c. 1427. Fresco, Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Boniface

Saint BonifaceThe collect for today, the Feast of St Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton  (c. 675 – 754), Bishop, Apostle of Germany, Martyr (source):

O God our redeemer,
who didst call thy servant Boniface
to preach the gospel among the German people
and to build up thy Church in holiness:
grant that we may hold fast in our hearts
that faith which he taught with his words
and sealed with his blood,
and profess it in lives dedicated to thy Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

For the Epistle: Acts 20:17-28
The Gospel: St Luke 24:44-53

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Justin Martyr

St Justin MartyrThe collect for today, the Feast of St Justin (c. 100 – 165), Philosopher, Apologist, Martyr at Rome (source):

O God our redeemer,
who through the folly of the cross
didst teach thy martyr Justin
the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ:
free us, we beseech thee, from every kind of error,
that we, like him, may be firmly grounded in the faith,
and make thy name known to all peoples;
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 Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1:18-30
The Gospel: St Luke 12:1-8

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of Pentecost

“There came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind … and there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire”

These are wonderful words which capture the Pentecostal experience. More importantly, they are wonderful words which carry us into the mystery of Pentecost itself and into its meaning. They are about something more, though surely not less, than what the experience suggests. The language here is that of metaphor in the form of simile, a sound “as of a rushing mighty wind,” things that appear and are seen, “cloven tongues, like as of fire.” Pentecost, is seems, is all theatre, son et lumière, sound and light. But what a show, what a spectacle!

The language is powerful and instructive. The Holy Spirit, of course, is not wind and fire. Plenty of that about, of course; Synod is over but a provincial election is still underway! And, of course, you may say, there are the usual Rector’s ramblings! All wind, no doubt.

Yet, wind and fire are signs that point us to the presence and truth of the spiritual reality of God. The most elusive things of the natural world, wind and fire, tangible and yet not so tangible – after all, who can see the wind, who can touch the fire? – are used to signify to us the transcendent reality of God precisely in the moment of God’s intimate engagement with our humanity.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 1-7 June 2009

Monday, June 1st, Monday after Pentecost
10:30am Holy Communion

Tuesday, June 2nd, Tuesday after Pentecost
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion

Wednesday, June 3rd, Ember Wednesday
7:00pm Holy Communion

Thursday, June 4th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors- Drop-In
7:30pm Annual General Meeting, West Hants Historical Society (at the Museum)

Friday, June 5th, Ember Friday
10:30am Holy Communion

Sunday, June 7th, Trinity Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion (with Interpreter for the Deaf)
2:30pm ‘Kirkin’ O the Tartans’ – Covenanters’ Church, Grand Pré (Fr. Curry preaching)

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Prayers and liturgy

The Day of Pentecost

Titian, Descent of the Holy GhostThe collects for today, The Day of Pentecost, being the fiftieth day after Easter, commonly called Whit-Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

O God, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon thy disciples in Jerusalem: Grant that we who celebrate before thee the Feast of Pentecost may continue thine for ever, and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit, until we come to thine eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

For the Epistle: Acts 2:1-11
The Gospel: St John 14:15-27

Artwork: Titian (Tiziano Vecelli), The Descent of the Holy Ghost, c. 1545. Oil on canvas, Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, Venice.

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Statements and other writings

Christ Church Chronicles, Trinity 2009

The Trinity 2009 issue of the parish newsletter, Christ Church Chronicles, can be downloaded here as a pdf document.  (Previous issues can be downloaded via this page.)

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