In the thread about Tiller's church, a commenter wrote:
Erin, please consider opening a new discussion thread on this topic: Back in the Seventies and Eighties, lots of people from an evangelical background, their faith much enriched by the writings of C. S. Lewis, went into the Episcopal Church. I was one of them, even married in ECUSA. But long ago I left ECUSA for the obvious reasons of conscience and faith.
It would be interesting to hear from other "Lewis Episcopalians," those who went in thanks to Lewis's influence -- and who have stayed or, like me, left. (I left for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. I don't buy the Anglican "apostolic succession" sine-qua-non for the Sacraments. Some people do. Did they stay in ECUSA, or become Roman Catholic or Orthodox?)
I'm happy to oblige; though as another poster points out, the three options (stay in ECUSA, become RC or EO) are not, now, the only ones, as they could also join with the Anglican churches under the African Provinces. Still--any "Lewis Episcopalians" out there who'd like to chime in? Any others who joined the Episcopal church because spiritual reading or study left them dissatisfied with Evangelical Christianity?
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Apologies about getting it wrong about Lewis and Apollo. I was half-remembering something I read a long time ago.
Frankly, I'm highly sceptical that the idea that good done in the name of Baal, or Satan, is actually done in the name of Christ constitutes anything close to orthodox Christianity. Could some real theologians fill me in here?
The Aslan-related theological difficulties that come to mind are that there doesn't seem to be any trinity, or God the father (patripassianism??), and Aslan dies not because of sin, but because of disloyalty. There are numerous others, and, for anyone interested, there is a good essay on this in Ronald Hutton's "Druids, witches and King Arthur".
In the SF trilogy, the humans visit a world that is unfallen yet in our space-time continuum. How does that fit in with the fall being cosmic?
When I was Anglican, I told an evangelical vicar how much I liked Lewis, and he was horrified, and said that Lewis was a Satanist. This sort of idea is developed here: http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/homemake/cslewis.htm
Disgusted in DC: I think your comments are spot-on. I don't hear about the extreme liberalism in the CofE that seems to happen in ECUSA. Most Anglicans I know complain more about the Calvinist faction. Lewis was very much on the Anglo-Catholic wing, and that side has always had a bit of a gay feel to it - all the dressing up in beautiful clothes, and so on - maybe more camp and effeminate than physically homosexual - the "nancy vicar" was a stock joke even in the 1940s. By the standards of his age, Lewis was sympathetic to gays.
Politically, Lewis was very much a High Tory, ie. someone who believes in an ordered society, welfare provision for the poor, an aristocracy, a monarchy with some actual power, and a state church. It would have been very difficult for him to be Catholic, and thus be led to opposing the monarchy (I suppose he could have joined some quixotic Jacobite group). A lot of this is kind of linked to his doubtful nationality. He disliked Ulster Protestantism, and leant towards stressing his Irishness (like Yeats, another Irish Episcopalian), but shied away from Irish Republicanism, more because it was republican than because it was Irish - had there been a claimant to the Irish throne, he would no doubt have supported.
Jon,
The terms "liberal" or "progressive" or "conservative" have meanings beyond those to which they are put in political use.
One can be "liberal" or "progressive" or "conservative" relative to *any kind* of status quo, be it political *or* theological *or* whatever else.
In any event, all of my posts on this thread prior to the one to which you chose to respond -- in an ill-considered and ovely-emotive way -- used the terms "revisionist" and "heretic" to indicate those who perhaps should not receive a Eucharist whose presuppositions they frequently disbelieve.
The term "progressive" came in when Major Wotton used it and when I used in reply to him in the terms that a question he had posed had employed.
I'm guessing that Major Wotton used the term "progressive" because that's the term that the people I'm calling "revisionists" or "heretics" use -- correctly or incorrectly -- to describe themselves.
I think their's is an *incorrect* usage of the term "progressive," since progress would mean all of us coming *more* into line with Christian orthodoxy not *less.*
But, if any thing, I think I was doing "revisionists" or "heretics" a courtesy and not a disservice by calling them "progressives" as they would prefer to be called.
Lewis is not why I came, but he is one of the many reasons why I stay. What he saw in Anglicanism is what I still see, the possibility of bridging the divide between Evangelical and Catholic Christianity. Of course, it may not turn out to be so. Yet I've found that every time I've been tempted to swim in one direction or another, towards Rome or the East or towards something more evangelical, I've had to stop short because there simply wasn't enough of the other. And as Archbishop Ramsey said over and over again in his work, one cannot be truly catholic without being truly evangelical and vice versa. Even in the midst of the current mess in The Episcopal Church, one sees the seeds of the Anglican vision coming to fruition in Anglo-Catholics and Evangelical Anglicans who are coming together in orthodox unity. Will it continue? Who knows? But I believe in the possibility, quite simply because to not believe in it would be to not believe in the breadth of the gospel itself.
I started reading Lewis about 10 years ago. He was massively influential in awakening me to the history of the church and the larger theological conversation going on across the centuries. Like many, Lewis guided me out of a low-church evangelical past. And, like many who were uprooted from their theological traditions (shallow though they may be, they are still traditions for those that knew no other) I too was wooed to pursue the older theological traditions of the church- motivated no less by Chesterton here, whose hatred for all things akin to Puritanism and framing of the "return home" narrative of Catholics and Orthodox had a significant impact on me. In the end, however, the theological arguments raised by the Reformation as well as those unaddressed mild heresies in "popular" evangelicalism kept me in the via media of the Episcopal Church. When my local parish decided to leave the Episcopal branch of the worldwide Anglican communion I left with it, and now count myself among the silent majority of worldwide Anglicans (under Ugandan authority).
The Anglican Communion, like the Church of Rome and the Orthodox Church is filled with half-hearted believers, whose relationship with the Church is motivated by something other than the dictates of scripture. For us Anglicans that is often a theological drift that is in keeping with the "modern" scholarship of the era in which the church became a worldwide phenomenon, growing with the Pax Britania. Yes, liberal ideas are not a 20th century phenomenon! For Orthodox and Roman Catholic believers, half-hearted believers stem from "cradle to grave" unthinking loyalty to material vestiges of power and tradition. Neither, as we all know, lead to salvation. There is a lack of true Biblical faith in every tradition and, at least in America, such faithlessness is growing in every tradition in favor of comfortable and stable alternatives (politics or vestments: take your pick). Perhaps one of the things that endears me most to the Anglican church is that we are the least likely- among the traditions I have participated in- to dwell on our own purity and rightness in blissful ignorance of this fact.
I haven't joined the Episcopal Church, but I was definitely leaning that way by the end of my time in the Army. Chapel services are a little looser than church services, in that services are always in the same building, what service time you attend is up to you, and you can change it at your convenience. The "traditional liturgical" service is typically run by an Episcopalian military chaplain. The "traditional" service is usually Presbyterian or Lutheran, while the "contemporary" service is Baptist or non-denominational. Lots of military folk who attend military chapel see themselves as non-denominational.
I must say that through two tours in Iraq I found the Episcopal chaplains deeper and more able to provide support for trying times. They didn't have very many of the easy pat answers, they were more able to share darker Psalms and passages with us, the ones dealing with fear. They were more open to doubt and mystery. Which is good, because God's love can seem very much a mystery, and his Providence in doubt, when you see some of things that happen in a war zone, and when you experience deep grief and daily pressure.
I wouldn't say I was so much attracted to Episcopal teachings as I was to the attitude of Episcopal priests serving in the military, and somewhat dissatisfied with Evangelical support at the time. I find fixed prayer to be of help as it is something you can do whether you FEEL your faith or not. Because there will come times when you do not feel much of anything positive (or anything at all), and if you are relying on feeling to provide evidence of faith, you will eventually be disappointed.
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