Across the River and into the Trees

A 1993 essay by the late Fr. William Ralston, Rector of St. John’s from 1974 to 1999.

There has always been a yearning among some Anglicans for the great Roman communion. The odor of sanctity, the weight and depth of her spiritual life, the richness of her monuments in art and music, the calm authority of her teaching: all this has tempted more than one choice Anglican spirit to “swim the Tiber” and locate himself within the Pope’s household. John Henry (Cardinal) Newman is the most famous of these pilgrims to Rome. When he decided that Anglicanism was not and could not be his way, he planted unease and doubt in many Anglo­Catholics, whose minds and hearts have not been content to this very day.

I remember reading, back in seminary, Karl Adam’s The Spirit of Catholicism. It is the best apologia for the Roman Church that could be made. It impressed me mightily. The Roman Church was then immersed in the process of deciding whether or not the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary should be elevated from the status of doctrine (authoritative teaching) to that of dogma (essential to Christian faith and salvation). Karl Adam wrote an article. He argued that there was no necessity for such a proclamation; that there was no satisfactory scriptural basis for it; and that there was no authentic patristic tradition to support it. Reason, scripture, and tradition concurred that while this devout belief could be held by Christians, it should not be defined as essential to their faith – that is, a dogma equivalent to those of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement. However, in the last paragraphs of his essay, Adam concluded that if the Pope, in his infallible wisdom as arbiter of faith and doctrine, should be pleased to announce this dogma, he would realize that the gap between our understanding and the essential truth of the faith had been closed by a direct action of the Holy Spirit, and he would submit. This “iced” the warmth and susceptibility created by his superb book, and closed for me once for all any thought of crossing that river. There are too many trees over there. I have no idea of being more lost in the haunted wood than I am already.

And we should realize, with both contrition and humility, that Rome has no interest in us, except to absorb and transform our particular way of attempting Christianity within her own vast organisms. The relative lack of tension between us is a gracious fact, considering the warfare of old; and it is pleasant to recognize each other and sign concordats and use each other’s parish halls. But we are not acceptable to them as we are, and never will be. It is not simply the ordination of women, which has, to be sure, made a lot of us feel unacceptable even to ourselves. Who on earth would desire communion with a distracted, pixilated Church like ours?

But even at our best, the Roman Church could not receive us, nor could we without qualifications affirm her. If we have altered the apostolic faith and ministry by diminution, so has she by unwarranted additions. Is it not a heresy of the apostolic faith to hold that all ministerial sacraments devolve on the Church through the single source of the Pope? Is it not remarkable arrogance to add within the last century and a half not one, but three universal dogmas to the substance of Christian faith?

I admire the Roman Church most truly, and I think the present Pope [at the time of writing, this was John Paul II] is a great spiritual leader for all Christians in the world. I can affirm this gladly. But I do not want to be part of it, except as all Christians are part of the single Body of Christ. No one has a monopoly on Him. It is not just a matter of re-ordination, or “certification” or some sort of conditional acceptance. We might work out a scheme of reception which would be both dignified and respectful.

It is instead a matter of remaining within a tradition of Christianity peculiar and special to all English-speaking Christians, which, even in its particularity, has shown itself able to be translated into dozens of other languages and cultures throughout the world. During all the years we have defended the Prayer Book tradition it has been not only the effort to keep the substance of the faith entire, but also the substance of our language. Words mean what they say, and it is very evident that the language of the older Prayer Books had to be shattered before the Episcopal Church could be led astray.

It is here that it becomes clear to me that “across the river and into the trees” is not a live option. Our own part of the Christian family is in terrible disorder. It remains well-organized at certain levels, and one wishes it were not, since the organization is in process of pulverizing the Bible, the tradition, and common sense.

But these are our troubles, in our own part of the Universal Church. No Christian Church in the West (the Orthodox are a special case) will ever be the same again. What sorts of realignments will take place we cannot yet see. But I know one thing. It makes no sense to me whatsoever to tum my back on my own language and the culture it represents and articulates. I belong to the Church of Alfred, Chaucer, and Margaret; of Cranmer, Elizabeth, and Hooker; of Shakespeare, Donne, and Herrick; of Andrewes, Jeremy Taylor, and William Law; of Samuel Johnson, Jane Austen, and Coleridge; of the whole company of saints and martyrs of our own communion, in England and the Americas and all over the world. This is a goodly fellowship and it is native to us. We offer it to the rest of Christendom but first of all to our Lord, hoping to be received with and within it.

But it is up to us to maintain it as well as offer it. We work to find, in the Episcopal Church if it is possible, but certainly in some form of Anglican Fellowship, a way to continue to practice our religion and nourish our souls in the way we have inherited and love. The only river I care to cross is Jordan’s narrow stream. – WHR