About Speaking of God
The ways in which we speak of God in our churches emerge from the spiritual, cultural and intellectual roots of our Anglican religious heritage, combined with our own individual experiences, culture, and language. The following is a shortened version of John Westerhoff’s articulation of Anglican spirituality and temperament. What qualities listed below resonate with how you speak about God? How your congregation speaks of God? How the community around you listens?
Anglican/Episcopal Spirituality
Liturgical/Biblical:
Our spirituality is rooted in communal daily prayer (Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayers, Evening Prayer, Compline) as laid out in The Book of Common Prayer. Thus, our way of praying tends to have more formality and structure and is shaped by the Scriptures, the divine reading of Scripture and the prayerful meditation on the psalms.
Communal:
Communal prayer comes before and shapes personal prayer. Prayer is seen as an activity that connects us to God, to each other, to include the living to the dead. Communal prayer is a part of daily, weekly and yearly rhythms and both surrounds and informs community gatherings and meetings in which decisions are made.
Pastoral:
We tend to see our relationship to God as lived out and “measured” by our relationships to our true selves, other people and the natural world.
Sacramental:
We see the world, itself, as sacramental, that is, capable of mediating the grace of God. We also emphasize the two primary sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist as well as offer the other sacramental rites of confirmation, holy matrimony, reconciliation, unction, and ordination.
Incarnational:
We emphasize the incarnation, God’s entry into human life and history. Accordingly, we have an earthy spirituality that affirms the goodness of life and the created world and believe that the extraordinary is to be found in the ordinary.
Mystical:
We experience union with God as happening over time, bit by bit through a journey aided by spiritual discipline and prayer. Such a belief is consistent with the description of spiritual progress found in the mystics.
Anglican/Episcopal Temperment
Comprehensive:
We believe the truth is to be found in the tension between counter-opposites. We affirm both sacred and secular, both the material and the non-material, both the mind and the heart, both the transcendence and the intimate closeness of God.
Ambiguous:
We are not “black and white” thinkers, but instead affirm the ambiguity of experience and the value of learning to tolerate and embrace complexity and ambiguity in many aspects of human life and in the spiritual journey.
Open-minded:
We are people of a questioning faith. We search for wisdom in many places and encourage people to listen to each other and to bring their honest questions to their spiritual life.
Intuitive:
We are at home in the world of image, symbol, myth, ritual, and the arts. We are not well known for systematic theologies. Instead we are writers, poets, pastors, and musicians.
Aesthetic:
We believe that beauty is the doorway to truth and goodness and that beauty is a doorway to God.
Moderate:
We avoid extremes, believing that a godly life is one that is disciplined, balanced and temperate.
Naturalistic:
We have a reverence for nature and its rhythms. We believe in working to protect the natural world and its creatures.
Historical:
We value our historical roots and learn from a careful reflection on the past.
Political:
We believe that Christian life has political implications and that civic life is both a legitimate and important place for the Christian’s apostolate to be expressed.