In every period of the Church's history there have been controversies. That is often seen as a bad thing - even at times as a failure of the Church to live up to her calling. I don't think the evil is in controversy - or even, if you will, argument. Genuine disagreement between Christians can be a creative force in the Church if it is properly channelled, and if charity - love for God and for each other - directs us. Sometimes Christians lose sight of this and argue the right thing for the wrong reason. The bitterness of their rancor sours the sweetness of their logic, and this invariably produces sterile results. In all controversies it is pre-eminently charity, which unfailingly leads us towards the Truth, "which is in Jesus." St. Paul tells us that "charity never faileth: but

In our day, a great issue faces the Church. It asks a simple question but every attempt to answer that question shows what a great chasm can exist between "easiness" and "simplicity." The question is: "what is the Church?" Theologians have filled libraries trying to answer this simple question and controversies have raged for centuries over it. Excommunications have thundered between Rome and Constantinople, between Antioch and Alexandria, between Geneva and Zurich, and even come out of little Athens, Georgia, all concerned with this simple question. In an attempt to answer it, numerous groups have claimed to be the "true" Church and insisted with equal vigor that nobody else was part of it. The Roman Catholic Church, the various Eastern Orthodox Churches and a host of Protestant sects - all of these claim to be "the One True Church."

Lambeth Quadrilateral

Anglicanism stresses something different. I don't know any Anglican who makes the claim that we are "the true Church." Some people, who seem to have a need to be able to make such a claim, see this as Anglicanism's Fatal Flaw, but traditionally Anglicans make no claims to exclusivity. We look for certain "signs" which tell us that the essential Faith - that "once delivered to the saints" - is preserved and practiced. Originally proposed by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 1886, a set of principles was adopted by the Lambeth Conference of 1888 (the Lambeth Conference is an international gathering of bishops invited every 10 years to Lambeth Palace by the Archbishop of Canterbury to discuss matters of Faith). Since then these necessary "signs" have been known as the "Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral" or simply "the Lambeth Quadrilateral."

These necessary signs of the Faith are:

1. the canonical Scriptures;
2. the dominical Sacraments;
3. the Apostolic Succession; and
4. the historic Creeds.

Where these are present, Anglicans have said, there are the essentials of Catholicism.

The Prayer Book itself, however, both asks and answers our question. The answer points us in a different direction than others have taken. "What is the Church?," the Book of Common Prayer asks on page 290. "The Church" it answers "is the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head and all baptized people are members." There is nothing about submitting to the authority of the Bishop of Rome (or the Archbishop of Canterbury, for that matter) or accepting some peculiar Protestant doctrine. The basis of your membership in the Church is sacramental. You are a Catholic because you are baptized. You are not a Catholic because you believe in the Virgin Birth of our Lord or because you come to Mass on Sunday, or because your family has "always" been Episcopalian - Catholics are born, not from the womb, but from the font. Our baptism doesn't make those of us who are Catholics better than people who aren't baptized, but it does make us different. You are different than those who have not been baptized, because you are, as the Prayer Book teaches, "a member of Christ, a child of God, and in inheritor of the kingdom of Heaven."

Sacramental Essence

Anglicanism, then, holds that the Church is not in its essence institutional, but sacramental. The Church itself is a Sacrament - in fact, it is the Sacrament of the Lord Jesus' continual Presence in the world. The Oxford Fathers in the last century spoke of the Church in a wonderful way. To them, the Church was "the extension of the Incarnation." Christ continues present in the world in us, His Body - the Church. The Lord Jesus continues to act in the world through us, His members.

The Catholic Church, however, is not simply an accumulation of individuals, even of baptized ones. We are one Body united to Christ Who is our Head. And because we, who are His members, live in specific places and at specific times, so the Lord, in His Church, is in specific places and specific times with us. When we pray at Mass, "it is very meet and right ... that we should, at all times and in all places" worship the Lord, that means that it is meet and right that we should do so at this time and in this place. Our Faith is sacramental because God acts, not generically, but specifically. God doesn't love "humanity" - "humanity" is our concept. God loves human beings individually and specifically. The Church from the beginning has experienced the "tension" of her Catholicity. She claims to be universal or ("kath-holon - it's the original form of "catholic") "according to the whole" - "at all times and in all places." But Christ is also present "when two or three are gathered." The Catholic Church comprises all of us everywhere "baptized into the Lord Jesus" and at the same time the Catholic Church comprises all of us here, where we are, "baptized in the Name." Near the end of the first century St. Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, was condemned to death by the Romans. He wrote letters of greeting to the various churches as he passed along the way from Antioch "to wrestle with the beasts at Rome." He was especially concerned with two things: combating an early heresy called Docetism (as I said, we've been quarrelling since the beginning) and urging unity in the churches. He saw the bishop, especially the bishop gathered with his people for the Eucharist, as the fullest expression of the Church's unity. Remembering that in those days a bishop was "rector" of each parish, consider the implications of this sentence from St. Ignatius' letter to the Church at Smyrna:

"Where the bishop appears [for the Eucharistic celebration], there let the people gather; just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church."

The Mass we celebrate on Sunday at our parish Church is the whole of the Catholic Church celebrating the Mass. Where we gather, you and I, as people and priest, Jesus Christ is with us, and where He is, there is His Body, His Catholic Church.

The Lord Jesus is not with us because of the beautiful music, or the glorious vestments or our splendid building. The Lord Jesus Christ comes because you and I come bringing bread, wine and needy hearts. I still use the word "obligation" about our duty to come to Mass every Sunday with reluctance, because, given such a Lord, how is it that we can stay away?

A Living Community

What is the Church? The Church is a living community, grounded in Christ, born in Baptism, which gathers with its Lord to celebrate His Presence. The most perfect expression of the Church here on earth is priest and people gathered to offer the great Sacrifice of the Mass. The Church is a worshiping community. The community to which we belong and with which we worship transcends the limitations of time and space that bind us to this "valley of tears." The words from the liturgy, "therefore with Angels and Archangels and all the company of heaven we laud and magnify Thy glorious name" call to mind one of the greatest portraits of the Church ever painted:

"After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands: and cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb." (Revelation 7.9,10)

Who are these heavenly worshippers? They are us. We are the Church.