Anglican Spirituality

Here's an intersting link that might start us up on the Anglican side of the discussion:

http://www.stjohnadulted.org/spir_5.htm#Characterizing%20The%20Anglican%20Spirit

Especially this part:

"Anglican Spirituality has frequently been described as incarnational because it has taken this doctrine to heart to emphasize:

  • the goodness of material world and sensuality (God’s creation)

  • a sacramental view of the material world as doorway to the divine

  • a tendency at times towards the Orthodox doctrine of theosis or deification (God became human so that humans might become divine), emphasizing:

    • our participation in the life of God

    • our ultimate goal of communion with God

 

In his pamphet "A People Called Episcopalians", the Rev. Dr. John H. Westerhoff characterizes Anglican Spirituality as:

  • liturgical and biblical, rooted in common, communal, daily prayer (Morning Prayer, Noonday prayer, Evening Prayer, Compline of the Book of Common Prayer)

  • communal. Communal prayer comes before personal prayer and shapes personal prayer

  • sacramental. Anglicans view the sacraments as "outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace." Through Baptism we become participants in a community of faith. Through the Eucharist, we become participants in the life of God.

  • pastoral. Devotion to God and pastoral concern and service to our neighbors go together

  • incarnational (see above)

  • mystical. Here "mystical" is used in contradistinction to "pietism." Pietism refers to a spirituality involving an acute, immediate, life-changing experience of God, and Mystical to a spirituality involving a slow journey to union with God. "Mysticism ... sees the union with God as the end of an ascent, requiring discipline, purgation, study, emptying and patients." (Urban Holmes, in Chapter 9 "Spirituality" in What is Anglicanism, Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, 1982) (Note: this definition of "mystical" is not the definition used by all)"

More soon.

Sarah