Anglicanism

As I am thinking through this project it is becoming more clear that to answer the question of what it is to be a Canadian Anglican there needs to be some thought given as to what it means to be an Anglican. Of course that is not as easy to answer as you might think. It is sort of like the old puzzle, "what is love?" Everybody knows what it is, but it is notoriously difficult to define.

At the minimalist end one could think of Anglicanism as a shared heritage dating back to either the Elizabethan settlement or even to the first stirrings of Christianity in the British Isles. Most people would say that it is at least a bit more than that. At the maximalist end people argue that Anglicanism is a theological method based on various configurations of Scripture, Tradition and Reason. But this leads to difficult conversations about what exactly what reason is and even tradition is notoriously controversial. So while there may be truth to this it is not exacting.

I would like to explore this concept in this blog by looking out for articles and news items that reflect. To step out a bit I think of Anglicanism in terms such as this: I see it as something of an historical experiment which created (unwillingly) a bit tent Christianity which holds together several different forms of Christian belief and which focuses more on liturgy as its vehicle for articulating belief rather than confessional statements.