Anglican Eucharistic Theology

I've discovered an excellent site entitled Anglican Eucharistic Theology, run by Revd Dr Brian Douglas, Residentiary Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Newcastle, New South Wales (Australia) which does just what it says on the tin. It sets out to provide "access to some of the experience or phenomena of the Anglican Eucharistic Tradition through the presentation of case studies" from Cranmer through to Paul Zahl, with some philosophical and liturgical articles besides.

In the 20th and 21st Century section, as well as great studies on Evelyn Underhill and Michael Ramsey, there's a long and (as far as I am qualified to judge) representative article on Rowan Williams. The following passage will give you a feel of the quality of the work here, as well as being a good example of why I'm so fond of our present Archbishop as a theologian:

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In his 2002 book entitled Resurrection. Interpreting the Easter Gospel, Williams also discusses the Eucharist. Here he argues that the Eucharist is not simply a fellowship meal but a meal where “the wounded body and the shed blood are inescapably present” such that “we do not eucharistically remember a distant meal in Jerusalem, nor even a distant death: we are made ‘present to ourselves’ as people complicit in the betrayal and death of Jesus and yet still called and accepted, still ‘companions’ of Christ in the strict sense – those who break bread with him. The Eucharist recapitulates the Supper, the betrayal and the cross, but it does so as an Easter feast” (Williams, 2002: 34) where “the Church’s life is a perpetual Easter, and its mission the ‘universalising’ of Easter” (Williams, 2002: 35). The Eucharist then is spoken of in a realist way in which the Easter event is instantiated (universalised) in the celebration. It is really in this broadened sense of realism in the Eucharist that Williams addresses what he calls “the extremes of internalisation (the Eucharist as illustration of a doctrinal point) and depersonalisation (the Eucharist as the confection of a life-giving substance) are equally inadequate” (Williams, 2002: 51). The Eucharist is clearly more than either of these extremes which functions as “a human activity radically open to the creative activity of God in Jesus” which allows “the source-event, the mystery of cross and resurrection, to become present again, and so opens itself to the rich resource of that event” (Williams, 2002: 52). This suggests that the Eucharist is more than mere memory of a past and completed event, but is rather the place where the ‘source-event’ becomes present again, with all its power present in the Eucharist. Clearly this is anamnesis, used in the moderate realist sense so often found in Anglican eucharist theology. But on what basis does Williams see this as operating? He makes the point that: “If Jesus’ ministry had communicated to the apostles the possibility of human flesh carrying divine meaning, God being ‘enacted’ in the acts of man, the resurrection seals this discovery, vindicates and completes it” then “we speak of Jesus’ acts as bearing divine weight” (Williams, 2002: 98). But can
this mean that Williams is speaking in the fleshy sense of immoderate realism? This appears not to be so since he says:

“If we say that Jesus in his ministry ‘embodies’ the grace of God, we do not and cannot mean that the grace of God is identifiable with Jesus’ material and biological constitution. We are, rather, asserting that grace takes tangible form in what Jesus (as a material being) says and does in the world of material being. If we are to say of Jesus that he is God’s ‘body’ in the world, we must at once make it clear that we mean the life, the history, of Jesus, what he makes, the relations he sets up. It is absurd to think here of ‘body’ and ‘embodiment’ referring simply to Jesus’ physicality, although this is the necessary identifying centre for speaking of his acts and effects. Put in another way, it is not simply Jesus’ bare presence that is ‘gracious’, but Jesus present – as he most characteristically is – in words and deeds that make grace concrete, that create healing, forgiveness and fellowship.” (Williams, 2002: 99).

What Williams is speaking of here “is a paradigm instance of ‘embodied’ grace” (Williams, 2002: 99) which he explains as being:

“The means by which God is met is a transaction which perceptibly changes the prevailing human state of affairs so that the victims become guests, receivers of gifts. Thus the
shared table is the natural and indispensable extension of the ‘embodiment’ of grace in Jesus’ person: embodiment takes effect in the acts of the person.” (Williams, 2002: 99).'

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What I love about Williams is that however dense the theological expression, the sense of mystery, of Williams' own awe at what God does, just shines through the text. You can sense the Archbishop's goose-bumps in every sentence...