Category: Anglican issues

Anglican issues, Events, Prayer Book Society

The Prayer Book Society of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island

The following notes were included in the Order of Service for the Choral Evensong held this afternoon in commemoration of The Rev’d Dr. Robert Crouse and sponsored by The Prayer Book Society of Canada, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island Branch.

St. Michael and All Angels
Choral Evensong
St. Mary’s, Crousetown
4:00pm Sunday, September 29th, 2013

Weyden, Last Judgment 1450The Prayer Book Society of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island welcomes you to the first of this season’s anchor events. This is the First Annual Choral Evensong commemorating the Rev’d Dr. Robert Crouse.

On Sunday, January 26th, 2014 (Epiphany III), the Society will sponsor a Choral Evensong at the University of King’s College Chapel, Halifax, followed by a reception in the Senior Common Room.

The Society is pleased to sponsor the annual Lenten Quiet Day to be held at King’s-Edgehill School, Windsor, Nova Scotia on Saturday, March 8th from 9:00am-4:00pm on the theme of Lent and Original Sin, led by Rev’d David Curry.

The Society is committed to celebrating the deep prayerfulness and the rich spiritual understanding of the Prayer Book tradition that speaks so powerfully to the complexities of our contemporary church and world.

The Society is most grateful for the gracious hospitality of Fr. Oliver Osmond and the Parishes of Petite Riviere and New Dublin in allowing the Society to hold this service at St. Mary’s, Crousetown, the Church which evokes so much of the spirit and legacy of Fr. Crouse.

[…]

Rev’d Dr. Robert Darwin Crouse

The Rev’d Dr. Robert Crouse spent a life-time of dedicated service to God as a teacher, a scholar, and a priest. A noted Patristic and Medieval scholar, his passion was Dante. Through his patient and passionate commitment to the texts of our spiritual and intellectual tradition, he instilled a deep love of learning in generations upon generations of students. Acknowledged as “the conscience of the Canadian Church,” he constantly and consistently reminded the church of the spiritual integrity of the Common Prayer tradition and its fundamental importance for our Christian identity. We may say of Dr. Crouse what Dante said of St. Luke, that he is the “scriba mansuetudinis Christi,” the scribe of the gentleness of Christ, a gentleness which is firm and resolute on the high things of God, the things which are our joy and delight, the things, too, which are embodied in the spiritual riches of The Book of Common Prayer. Through it we may learn what Dante showed us and what Fr. Crouse taught us: that we are “soul[s] made apt for worshipping.”

The Rev’d Dr. Thomas Curran teaches at the University of King’s College and Dalhousie University. He is the past president of the Prayer Book Society of Nova Scotia and PEI. We are most grateful for his wisdom and guidance over many years and for being the preacher at this special commemorative service.

Nico Weltmeyer is the Organ Scholar at the Chapel of the University of King’s College, Halifax

The Rev’d Fr. David Curry is the Rector of Christ Church, Windsor, and Chaplain, English, History and Philosophy Teacher at King’s-Edgehill School. For many years he has been one of the Vice-Presidents of the Prayer Book Society of Canada and is now also President of the Prayer Book Society of Nova Scotia and PEI.

Artwork: Rogier Van Der Weyden, Last Judgment, c. 1445-50, Beaune, France.

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Anglican issues, Prayer Book Society, Sermons

“How readest thou?”: Address to the Prayer Book Society of Canada

“How readest thou?”

Christ crucified, Lancelot Andrewes tells us in a marvellous sermon is “liber charitatis, the book of love, opened to us” to read. How do we read?

It is a pressing contemporary question. How do we read? There has been a virtual explosion of books about the marvel and the miracle of reading and about what reading means in the digital age. There is, in fact, a considerable climate of anxiety about books and reading. Does it mean the end of books? Does it mean the end of reading, itself? In the technological changes of the digital world, do the changes to reading mean changes to our thinking?

There is, for example, Alberto Manguel’s classic, History of Reading (1996), not to mention his A Reader on Reading (2010) and a collection of other writings. There is Maryanne Wolf’s remarkable and prescient book, Proust and the Squid (2008), Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (2010), Christopher Hedges The Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2007), Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardises Our Future (2008) – no prizes for guessing where he is coming from! There is the digital cheerleader, Clay Shirky, with Cognitive Surplus (2010) and, soon to come, Hello Avatar: Rise of the Networked Generation (2011).

There are the scholarly reflections of such figures as Anthony Grafton with his Worlds Made by Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West (2009), and Ann Blair’s Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information Before the Modern Age (2010). And just as recently, there is Alan Jacobs useful overview and balanced reflection in his The Pleasures of Reading in An Age of Distraction (2011), who opens us out to a larger world past and present about the how, the what, and the why of reading. As he notes about Harold Bloom’s How to Read and Why (2000), it should really have been called ‘What to Read and What to Think about It’. There is always, it seems, a moral, even dogmatic, imperative that slips into the consideration of reading. And, finally, to end this eclectic romp about books about books and reading, Amazon alerted me just the other day about a book just released by Umberto Eco and Jean-Claude Carrière, entitled This is Not the End of the Book (2011)! I suspect that this is not “the end of the matter”, though I think the wisdom of Ecclesiastes will indeed be born out, namely that “of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.”

It might seem that along with the question, “how do we read?”, there is the equally important question, “what do we read?” To be sure. Yet, this may be one of those rare moments where the how sheds light on the what, the means upon the purpose. At the very least, it opens to view the necessary interrelation between how we read and what we read.

And what about worship and prayer? What about the reading of The Book of Common Prayer? How readest thou?

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Anglican issues, Statements and other writings

The Politics of Confusion?

I have been asked about the decisions of the recent Synod of the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island as reported in the media. I can only offer the following observations in what is an attempt to explain what seems to be rather confusing.

The Politics of Confusion?
Some Reflections on the Recent Decisions
of the Diocesan Synod of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island

Truth, it is often said, is the first casualty of war. More often than not, there is simply confusion. In the ‘sex-wars’ within the Anglican Communion, confusion reigns supreme. The recent Synod of the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island provides a case in point.

The Synod discussed and debated a number of motions regarding the issue of same-sex blessings. The four motions were, one might say, aggressive in their zeal for providing some sort of arrangement, blessing, marriage, or otherwise for same-sex couples. Most remarkable is the degree of confusion about the word, ‘marriage’.

The motions included keeping a roster of parishes and clergy “amenable to the blessing of same-sex civilly married couples”; providing a liturgy for “blessing covenanted or committed unions outside marriage”; requiring clergy to “cease acting as agents of the civil government in performing marriages until such time as the clergy of the Diocese may officiate at the marriage of all legally eligible persons”; and a motion that, on the one hand, called for the Bishop’s Pastoral Letter on Human Sexuality (2010) to become an Episcopal guideline, while, on the other hand, seeming to advocate the principle of local option.

Overall the motions are, well, intriguing, ranging from the blessings for those already civilly married, as if the Church were to bless whatever the state has allowed, to forcing parishes and priests to declare themselves on this matter as if such things lay within the purview of either. Not to mention the idea of the clergy going on strike and refusing to marry anybody until everybody in the Church is compliant with what the state has determined are legal marriages. Once again, in this view the church is seen as subservient to the state and not independent.

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Anglican issues, Statements and other writings

Rector’s Annual Report, 2010

Click here to download the Rector’s Annual Report for 2010 (pdf document).

The Rector’s Annual Reports for 2003 through 2009 can be accessed via this page.

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Anglican issues, Statements and other writings, Theology

Fr. David Curry on the Anglican Loyalist Experience

Fr David Curry recently delivered an address at Trinity Church, Saint John, New Brunswick, on the occasion of the 225th anniversary of the City of Saint John. His topic was “Beyond Nostalgia: Theological Aspects of the Anglican Loyalist Experience”. The full text is available for download as a pdf document; here are two brief excerpts:

The Anglican Loyalist story is a way of recovering the grand and great narrative of the Christian story, what [David Bentley] Hart calls “the Christian revolution.” Getting the Christian story right, means overcoming all the false forms of that story, the distortions and misunderstandings about the history of Christianity, particularly, in relation to the account of modernity and contemporary culture. It means getting beyond our nostalgia for some particular aspects of our history, the shards and fragments to which we cling so desperately, in order to embrace a deeper nostalgia, a longing for the absolute, for God, which underlies, shapes and informs the Anglican Loyalist story.
[…]
It is in the context of the larger Christian story that we can begin to understand the Anglican Loyalist experience here in the Maritimes. Our endeavour will be to identify certain predominant features of the Loyalists. They are: the sense of Divine Providence as undergirding the commitment to peace, order and good government; the intrinsic connection between public worship and public service; the commitment to a learned ministry and to education; and idea of the Churches as sacramental presences contributing to the sanctity and the civility of common life. Underlying these themes is the necessity and importance of the stable liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer, the spiritual manifesto of the Anglican Loyalist experience.

Click here to download the address as a pdf document.

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Anglican issues, Statements and other writings

Fr. David Curry discusses the proposed Anglican Covenant

The Anglican Essentials Blog contained the following opinion piece from The Anglican Journal, which sparked some discussion to which I contributed. I have included the opinion piece, as the Anglican Essentials Blog frames it, and, then, have offered an edited version of my comments. This is for your interest, in the build-up to General Synod in Halifax in early June 2010.

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Anglican issues

Motions passed at Annual Parish Meeting

Several motions were presented at today’s Annual Meeting of the Parish of Christ Church, Windsor, including two motions, posted below, that may be of interest to Anglicans beyond our Parish.  Both of these motions passed unanimously.

Motion # 4

Preamble:  Parishes have been asked to send to the Diocese [of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island] a parochial Mission Statement. The following expresses the intent and purpose for the continuing existence of the Parish, captures the intent and purpose of the Covenant in Ministry between the Rector and Parish, and establishes the principles that define an Anglican identity and witness.

Re: Mission Statement of the Parish of Christ Church:

To be a visible witness, in the community of Windsor and beyond, to the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as faithful stewards of the mysteries of God in Christ and in his body, the Church, according to the principles of our Anglican spiritual identity expressed in the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal, the Thirty-nine Articles and the Solemn Declaration of 1893.

Motion # 5

Preamble: In the current distresses of the Anglican Communion and in the attempts to find a mechanism to hold the communion together, the Archbishop of Canterbury has sponsored an ‘Anglican Communion Covenant’.  The Covenant is attached in Appendix # 2 [and is posted online here].  The motion affirms the ‘Anglican Communion Covenant’ as consistent with the understanding of our identity, polity and life that the Parish has articulated from time-to-time as well as signaling our continued commitment tot eh Anglican Communion via the Archbishop of Canterbury regardless of the actions of local and national synods.

Re: Endorsement of the ‘Anglican Communion Covenant’

The Parish of Christ Church endorses the Archbishop of Canterbury’s ‘Anglican Communion Covenant’ as a mechanism for maintaining the unity of the Anglican Communion, in accord with the foundational principles of our Anglican identity expressed in the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal, and the Thirty-nine Articles and as consistent with the Solemn Declaration of 1893 in Canada.

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Anglican issues, Statements and other writings

Rector’s Annual Report, 2009

Click here to download the Rector’s Annual Report for 2009 (pdf document).

The Rector’s Annual Reports for 2003 through 2008 can be accessed via this page.

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Anglican issues, Statements and other writings

On the Roman Covenant

In October Pope Benedict issued an Apostolic Constitution entitled Anglicanorum Coetibus dealing with the reception into the Roman Catholic Church of various Anglican groups and individuals. I have been asked about my views on this matter. Here is an article recently published in The Anglican Planet (TAP), for your interest. DC

On the recent Vatican statement (yeah, that one)

By David Curry

Pope Benedict and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan WilliamsCLEAR AND PRECISE, gracious and considerate, Pope Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus is, not surprisingly, a very Roman document. Juridical in its tone and approach, it is very firmly set within the established norms of Canon Law in the post-Tridentine Roman Catholic Church.

It makes, as the Vatican press release says, “a new provision” in response “to the many requests … from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful … who wish to enter into full visible communion with the Catholic Church.” The document is a clear and precise statement about that pastoral response.

It is not really an “ecumenical” document. It is not about a further development in the relationships between various constituent ecclesiological communities, along the lines of the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission, for instance. And with respect to the question as to why the Archbishop of Canterbury was not consulted, why should he be about Anglican groups who are seeking accommodation within the Roman Catholic Church?

In other words, the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, along with its Complementary Norms, is an in-house response of the Roman See to Anglicans who have already embraced “the Roman Covenant,” to coin a phrase, out of dismay and disillusionment with the episcopal and synodical developments within the Anglican Communion which have compromised and betrayed “the Anglican Covenant.” “The Catechism of the Catholic Church is the authoritative expression of the Catholic Faith professed by members of the Ordinariate”(I.5). Not the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal* and the Thirty-nine Articles. This provision is for Anglicans who have become thoroughly disillusioned with Anglicanism. Sad but true. And not without reason.

It is gracious and considerate, to an extent. (more…)

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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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