The Rector’s Reflections

The Lambeth Quadrilateral Revisited!

Those who are acquainted with me are aware that I doggedly (stubbornly) hold to the idea that there are absolutes in life that do not change! This is not an easy position to defend today because we live in a world dominated by relativism. The modern world is characterized by uncertainty and ambiguity. The sociologist Peter Berger has observed that individuals must have answers and a meaningful order to live by. He notes further that when people lose the stability of externally-based (societal or institutional) truth in their lives, they then turn inward for subjective answers. Hence we have the fact that beliefs and values today are grounded in personal experience. Therefore in our highly individual and subjective society, it is extremely difficult to convince people to listen to any authority other than their own needs and wants. They have been taught to do so. I have been thinking about this subject recently because I am in the process of teaching confirmation to some young people. The course I have put together is entitled “Christian Essentials.” It reflects my belief that there are absolutes or “essentials” in the Christian faith which are not open to compromise. Again, this is not an easy position to adopt because we find ourselves living in an age when everything seems to be up for debate and compromise, even the doctrines of the church. It wasn’t always this way in the Episcopal Church. Hopefully, most Episcopalians are familiar with what is called the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral 1886- 1888. During the latter half of the 19th century (1850-1900), there was a great deal of sincere concern in the Episcopal Church and other mainline Protestant denominations about reunion. The deep denominational divisions in Christianity were an embarrassment. A priest in named William Reed Huntington conceived the idea of distilling out the essentials of the Episcopal heritage on which reunion should be based. In other words, the Episcopal Church should desire to be inclusive, but it should also have some standards or essentials which would have to be there if reunion were to be a possibility. Huntington presented his ideas in a book, The Church Idea, published in 1870. In his book, he articulated the following four-fold explication of what he considered to be church essentials:

1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the revealed Word of God. 2. The as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith. 3. The two Sacraments, - and the Supper of the Lord, - ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him. 4. The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.

When these four “essentials” were adopted by the American House of Bishops in 1886, it is interesting to read the justification given at that time. They stated that Christian unity was only possible by returning to “the principles of unity exemplified by the undivided during the first ages of its existence; which principles we believe to be the substantial deposit of Christian Faith and Order [italics mine] committed by Christ and his Apostles to the Church . . ., and therefore incapable of compromise or surrender by those who have been ordained to be its stewards and trustees . . .” (BCP, p. 877) This makes for interesting reading but I have to say that I don’t hear much talk these days about a sacred deposit of faith received by the church which should not be compromised! It seems to me to be of extremely importance to look at these four “essential” elements and to assess them in the light of practice today. In other words, are these still the essentials elements which must be present if we are to call a church a church? Let’s consider for a moment these four ingredients. We can make the observation rather quickly that there is a rather significant difference between the first three and the fourth. If we have questions about the canon of scripture or the apostolic preaching as expressed in the creeds or the two Gospel sacraments, we can easily go to the things themselves to examine them and make judgments about their validity. The apostolic ministry or the Episcopate is something quite different. In the first place the appearance of this office of ministry as expressed in role and function has changed considerable over the almost 2,000 year history of the church. Bishops today, at least in the Episcopal Church, seem rather distant from the pastoral ministry with which they have been charged and their office has assumed a decidedly administrative appearance. Some today have gone so far as to describe Bishops as CEO’s of their dioceses. Another observation which needs to be made is that the first three elements of the quadrilateral have been entrusted to the care and protection of the fourth, the historic episcopate. This is the essential relationship within the body of the quadrilateral! The Bishops at their ordination are entrusted (commissioned) with the canonical scriptures, the content of the creeds and the dominical sacraments and admonished “to guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church. . .” The implication would seem to be that the witness of the first three elements of the quadrilateral promoted by the fourth element, the episcopacy, builds and unifies the church. Is this happening? Is the church being built and unified through the conjoined elements of the quadrilateral?