Stanley Hauerwas on Anglicanism

I’ve been reading Stanley Hauerwas, “Which Church? What Unity? Or, an Attempt to Say What I May Think about the Future of Christian Unity,” Pro Ecclesia 22.3 (2013): 263-80. In the article, Hauerwas basically explains why for a guy who harps on about the church a lot that he hasn’t spoken much about ecumenism. But along the way he says a few things about Anglicanism that stands out:

“I am an enthusiastic participant in a church, but I have never been particularly concerned with denominational identity. At least I have seldom sought to participate in church life beyond the local parish. I am a Congregationalist with Catholic sensibilities. Which probably explains how I ended up in a Episcopal church” (266).

“Anglicanism is the name for the ongoing attempt to enact the interdependent character of churches in a manner that, in Kaye’s words, accomplishes ‘Catholicity without Leviathan'” (275). [NB from MB, I should add that in some cases Anglicanism can be like Protestantism without the Reformation or like Catholicity without Nicea].

“Anabaptists and Anglicans are seldom thought to share a common ecclesiology, but Kaye and Yoder have very similar understandings of the Catholic character of the church. I have often described my ecclesial identity to be that of a ‘high church Mennonite’ – to be sure, a descriptor originally designed to confuse my critics. But in light of the account of the catholic character of the church Yoder and Kaye provide, I hope my self-designation can be understood as a viable future for the church” (278-79)