I've been thinking a bit lately about the different streams within Anglicanism, particularly in light of the Roman Church's new outreach to some traditional Anglo-Catholics. I think it's hard to understand the way that the varying segments of Anglicanism function together from the outside, particularly in today's world.

Since the Anglican Reformation, there have always been different schools of thought within Anglicanism. The Anglican tradition is a big tent tradition, so to speak. That's not entirely by design. The whole birth of the streams or "parties" within Anglicanism was precipitated by internal divisions in which some Anglicans felt that the Reformation on the continent had gone too far and others that it hadn't yet gone far enough. What ultimately united them was a sense that it was better to be church together than apart. But what made that possible was a recognition, ever so slowly realized, that we can see Church in each other, that however different our expression of Church may be it is founded upon the same set of essential Christian principles.

What are these streams? I was always taught that the three great streams of the Anglican tradition were the High Church, Low Church, and Broad Church (sometimes caricatured as 'high and crazy, low and lazy, broad and hazy'). Out of these three arise the more modern categories of Anglo-Catholic, Evangelical, and Liberal. And if that was the extent of it, we could probably figure out a peaceful way to co-exist and to work towards greater unity from our varied starting points. Naturally, things are never that easy.

It's not exactly right to say that an Anglo-Catholic and a High Churchman are the same thing. They both share a great deal in common, but they're not exactly the same. They both believe that the Church is essentially catholic, and thus they share a "high" view of the Church, but the High Churchman may be appalled by some of the "papist" practicies of the Anglo-Catholic. And the Anglo-Catholic may think the High Churchman quite daft for being willing to enter into ecumenical dialogue with Lutherans and Methodists and other potentially unworthy associates. One could draw similar distinctions between the Low Churchman and the Evangelical, or between the Broad Churchman and the Liberal. These groups seem to evolve out of each other, and yet like in biological evolution there is a long and enduring overlap period in which it's not at all certain just which group will survive and what characteristics of the former group will be brought along with it.

To make matters even muddier, each stream also has its own sub-streams. Within the Evangelical stream there are charistmatics, calvinists, contemporary evangelicals, and anglo-lutherans, all of whom have a great deal of theological difference between them. And don't even get me started on the varrying and ever expanding list of Anglo-Catholic distinctives. About the only thing that an Anglo-Papalist and an Affirming Catholic have in common is a penchant for festive garments!

Some would argue that this division (for it's a bit dishonest to really call it "diversity," as if we planned it that way) is a source of strength, that we gain wisdom from having many voices at the table. Others argue quite persuasively that this is Anglicanism's Achilles heel, that we are a tradition without any real content into which anything and everything can be projected, creating in the end a mish-mash that equals exactly nothing.

Personally, I think that Anglican comprehensiveness is a great gift to the Church, but I fear that our modern debates within Anglicanism are leading us into becoming the mish-mash that our critics describe. Diversity of viewpoints in the Church can be a good thing, up to a point, but only if it isn't an end unto itself. It's good that there are catholics and evangelicals and liberals in the Church only so long as the Church exists liminally as a broken, unfinished project, so long as we recognize that our true nature lies in a unity that we have not yet fully realized or lived into. If that is the case, then the good that Anglicanism does is to create a space in the Church in which evangelicals and catholics and liberals and however many others can come together and seek the truth, discerning together in the hope and with the understanding that there is something essential about each that needs to be teased out in order for the Church to truly be whole, to truly be Catholic. There's something the Evangelical has that the Anglo-Catholic needs, and vice versa. And what we already share in common as essential (the creeds, the scriptures, the two great sacraments, and the historic episcopate) provides a center from which we can see the fullness of the Church breaking into our midst.

But in much inter-Anglican conversation today, as in much ecumenical and inter-faith conversation, the position is taken that diversity of streams is a good thing because the differences between the streams are insignificant. Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics should get along because whether or not you invoke the Blessed Virgin or believe in justification by faith alone are minor details. It's absurd, and yet it's our default. This kind of false reasoning is what leads so many people in our society to gravitate towards people like Eckhart Tolle and other new age, feel good religious figures. In denying our very real differences, we deny the very possibility of there being a truth that is objective. We water our theology down to the point that it's nothing more than a habit or a personal taste. We do this for the sake of creating unity, but instead we simply create ennui. If there's no real difference between the streams other than personal taste, then what's the point of even having a conversation?

GK Chesterton summed this whole modus operandi up a hundred years ago when he wrote the following:

It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to
another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in
their theory of the universe.  That was done very frequently in the
last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its
object.  But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and
unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of
saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done
universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great
revolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; the
doctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the
Fall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day.
Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much
of a restraint. We will have no generalizations... A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion
on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter.  He
may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that
strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion,
and be lost. Everything matters--except everything.

Anglicanism allows a great deal of latitude in non-essential matters, not for the sake of ever expanding definitions but for the sake of creating a Church that is ever deepening in its understanding of the Truth. Whatever stream we swim in, we must do so with the certain knowledge that some of the things we hold dear may be proven to be less than godly, even while some of the things we most ridicule in the next stream over turn out to be holy and worthwhile after all. But we must never compromise the Truth for the sake of getting along. To do that is not only to misrepresent the genious of Anglicanism but to seriously damage the witness of the whole Church to the world.