St. John Henry Newman discovered, after much study, prayer. and pain, that the Anglo-Catholic, or Tractarian, concept of the Anglican Church as a via media between Catholicism and Protestantism, was ultimately a house built on sand, without foundation. There is still a small minority within that communion that advances the thesis. But with both female clergy, and now a woman occupying the throne of St. Augustine in Canterbury, that embattled band is like King Cnut vainly attempting to hold back the waves of the ocean.
An old joke, perhaps a little unkind, saw that the famous “middle way” was actually the ultimate fudge, an “on the one hand this, on the other hand,” that resulted in a position of perpetual fence-sitting, both extremely painful and rather embarrassing.
There is, however, a position much needed today in our discourse, certainly on that which used to be called the “printed page,” which is neither fence-sitting, nor a vain attempt to keep all sides happy by adopting an anemic position.
Hilaire Belloc, the greatest exponent since Jonathan Swift of the specialized form of writing known as the “essay,” wrote many essays with “On” in the title. He might write “On Cheese, On Laughter,”
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