by Adam Linton » October 25th, 2005, 12:34 am
Arthur,
My own perspective is this:
Where Christ is, there the church surely will be. That is, Christ is the guarantee of the church. But I would also say that one cannot affirm the reverse with the same level of certainty. It is possible, sadly but inevitably, in earthly experience, to have church without Christ. I am not being down on the church (I have a fairly "high" ecclesiology). My point would be that Jesus is -- and remains -- Lord, even in dogmatic theology.
[As a side note to this, I am remembering Feodor Dostoevsky's "Grand Inquisitor" from The Brothers Karamazov, as well as Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood.]
Regards.
Adam L.
P.S. As as Episcopal priest, I would certainly say that praying the Rosary (in its various forms) is within the sphere of Anglican piety. We comprehend a range of different Christian pieties, both those seen as more characteristically "Protestant," as well as as "Catholic." Increasingly, as well, one finds among us the practice of the Jesus Prayer, as known in the Eastern Orthodox experience.
P.P.S. And last, all Christian communities that I know of would admit one into fellowship who only had a day to live.
we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream