Anglicanism's relationship with its Reformation heritage represents a tension. It looks to the Reformation as the movement from which an English Church, independent of papal authority, was inaugurated. At the same time, it refuses to be labelled as a “church of the Reformation”, pointing to its continuity with a much longer history of Christian practice in Britain. The growth of the Anglican Communion and current controversies over church order, the interpretation of scripture and the exercise of authority make Anglican identity difficult to define. Identity would once have been sought in liturgy, but the view that liturgy completely enshrines Anglican doctrine has been convincingly put to rest by scholarship since the 1970s. This paper argues that the liturgical legacy of the Reformation (especially use of the vernacular, concern for the orderly reading and interpretation of scripture, and attention given to the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist) offers categories that can help to form possible approaches to the current crisis of Anglican identity.
According to Roger Wagner the defining feature of modernism is the relentless urge to create something new. Wagner is also quoted as saying, 'Much more formidable than the problem of finding an artistic language is the problem of finding a forum in which to speak'. There are occasional insights into the process of commissioning, for example in the work of Walter Hussey who did so much to reconnect the Church with the visual arts -'the last great patron of art in the Church of England', according to Kenneth Clark. No-one in this period has been greater but the finality of that comment does not stand up now. As Harries acknowledges, the likes of Tom Devonshire Jones have done much to make the vibrant contemporary scene. This is so striking that it makes some of the work in the earlier chapters on the modernist movement feel dated, though as a history it does work as a piece.It is striking that some artists have church as their primary context, such as Peter Ball, a prolific sculptor in our churches and cathedrals, and the highly esteemed stained glass artist Tom Denny whom Harries quotes but whose work does not feature. Denny gets almost the last word:A lot of the things we are interested in are not generally esteemed in the contemporary art world . . . What we are interested in is not being irreverent but reverent; not 'referencing things ', but 'being' things. (p. 156
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