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A friend and teacher of mine, a TEC priest and academic, in conversation recently called me "an Anglican theologian" (a lovely compliment indeed) as opposed to themself, who has primarily studied Barth
For them I fit in with people like Paul Avis. I must admit, though, I have no idea what it would mean to be an Anglican who is a theologian and not consider yourself an "Anglican theologian." And in this lies a central paradox in modern Anglican identity
I'm not trying to dunk on them here, cause it has been my experience that this is a widely shared assumption, though few people ever articulate it as explicitly as this. But even if you were a Lutheran theologian who studied Thomas (like Lindbeck), you are still Lutheran
I've tried to really get to the bottom of this for years but I can't seem to understand how this has occurred. My best theory right now is that a) we don't really read historic Anglican theologians, and b) we teach our history in a particularly odd way
It's almost as if we teach our own history by way of pleasant observations: "oh and at this time there were the Cambridge Platonists; and later there were Evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics...etc" There isn't what I would call a sense of obligation to the history
I feel we could easily course correct this by simply centering Hooker instead of Calvin; Or treating Donne's sermons with a similar attitude that Lutherans treat Luther's To the Christian Nobility..., On the Babylonian Captivity..., & On the Freedom of a Christian
Or in a different context, teach systematic theology using Sonderegger, Tanner, & Coakley as base texts, without asking all the time "what makes them specifically Anglican?" Just...study with your own church's teachers
Broke: Tradition as identical repetition
Woke: Tradition as post-liberal linguistic mastery
Bespoke: Tradition as knowing how to go on from Rodin
Woke: Tradition as post-liberal linguistic mastery
Bespoke: Tradition as knowing how to go on from Rodin
