Ecclesia Anglicana et ego Pt. II
Embracing Anglicanism
In my previous post I explored the desire to discover an authentic English expression of the orthodox and catholic faith. I mentioned two possible approaches to this inquiry, explored the approach (broadly speaking) of my Roman Catholic and Orthodox brethren and explained why I have found it less than satisfactory. Now I’d like to turn to the second approach, the ‘reformed catholic’ approach, which acknowledges the corruptions and excesses of earlier times and the legitimacy and necessity of the project of reform embarked upon by Archbishop Cranmer and co., yet preserves as treasures the ancient polity, sacred liturgy and piety of catholic Christendom, especially the unique patrimony of the English Church.
The Church of England
The first evangelists arrived in what would come to be known as England in the earliest centuries of the Church, converting the Britons and other celtic peoples indigenous to the British Isles. Despite their relative seclusion on an island to the far north of the known world, bishops from this fledgling insular church attended councils and engaged with their brethren across the Roman empire, while celtic missionaries founded monasteries and churches far and wide, even venturing across the English channel in their evangelical zeal.
The Church faced setbacks in Britain as the fifth and sixth centuries saw the arrival of Germanic tribes who colonised much of what would be England, but as the sixth century drew to a close Pope Gregory the Great sent a mission to evangelise these pagan settlers, who were by that time known as the Anglo-Saxons. In 597 the leader of this mission, a priest-monk named Augustine, arrived in Kent and set up shop in Canterbury. Upon his arrival, Augustine and his brethren, themselves accustomed to the Roman rite as they had experienced it in Italy and formed in the Benedictine monastic office, found a part pagan, part Christian land divided into small kingdoms. Celtic monasticism was still thriving in Wales, Northumbria and Scotland, and there were British bishops and itinerant clergymen serving the people in pockets throughout England. The church structure which grew out of Augustine’s mission and the lines of succession he established (with the help of British and Gallican bishops) would go on to play a pivotal role in the eventual unification of the Saxon kingdoms and the birth of the English nation.
Through a series of synods, the Church of England was formed, under the leadership of successive archbishops of Canterbury and York, developing her own unique piety and distinctive theological tradition and liturgical uses, drawing on the celtic, Roman, Benedictine and Gallican streams from which she emerged.
At this time England accepted Roman jurisdiction, about that there can be no doubt. But it would be a mistake to think that issues only emerged between Canterbury and Rome in the fifteen hundreds; on the contrary, the English Church inherited a certain separateness and a mistrust for Roman authority from her insular forebears, and from the earliest days of the Anglo-Saxon conversion relations could be rocky. Indeed, as the papacy grew in power and influence post- Great Schism, more and more points of contention emerged – Archbishop Lanfrac of Canterbury’s reluctance to enforce priestly celibacy in the eleventh century, moves by the English kings of the fourteenth century to disentangle the kingdom from Rome both legally and financially, and the disdain of certain English clergy for the doctrine of transubstantiation in the same era can all be cited.
This is the backdrop to the English reformation. As Gerald McDermott has put it:
‘[W]hen in the sixteenth century King Henry VIII made noises about separating the English Church from Rome, this was a radical step, to be sure. But it was also in keeping with a long-standing English skepticism toward Roman authority.’1
English Reformed Catholicism
While it is true that King Henry’s desire for a divorce due to the perceived need for a male heir to avoid further civil wars (as had plagued England prior to his father’s rise) and concerns as to the lawfulness of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon (his brother’s widow) precipitated the schism between Canterbury and Rome, the project of reforming the Church of England began in earnest only after his death in 1547.
Though a liturgical overhaul had proven difficult under Henry (who was something of a liturgical aficionado and fond of the Roman rite), his son Edward, a committed protestant, was eager to see the liturgy reformed. In January 1549 the Act of Uniformity was passed by Parliament, gaining royal assent a couple of months later. The Act paved the way for the bloated late-medieval Roman rite to be replaced across the country by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s first Book of Common Prayer on Whitsunday of that same year. In 1550 an ordinal was added to the prayer book, and in 1552 the BCP underwent a major revision to bring the English services further into line with the theology and practice of Cranmer’s counterparts on the continent.
However, in 1553 Edward died and was succeeded by his sister, Mary, who briefly returned the English Church to full communion with Rome, restored the Roman rite throughout England and banned the BCP. Queen Mary’s rule was notoriously fraught with conflict, but upon her death and the accession of Elizabeth I to the throne, England broke with Rome once again and the 1552 prayer book was republished with a handful of minor revisions. This BCP 1559 (predecessor to the present 1662 version) was the service book of the English Church for almost a century. With it came the ‘Elizabethan settlement’, under which arrangement the Church of England regained its independence from papal jurisdiction yet ministers enjoyed greater freedom in the areas of liturgy and theology than they had under King Edward.
The Church of England had her vernacular liturgy, her historic creeds and sufficient liturgical uniformity to ensure the populus were acquainted with the Scriptures and Christian orthodoxy, but she was also preserved from the extremities of Reformed theology and practice and the sacramental disintegration which tends to follow in churches embracing the errors of Calvinism or Zwinglian memorialism.2 The vision of a church reformed yet preserving her ancient polity and remaining firmly rooted in catholic tradition was finally unfolding. The errors and excesses of medieval Latin theology were corrected, not traded in for new and innovative confessions, as has so often been the case at other times and places since the Reformation. The liturgy was neither gutted nor abolished, but translated and gradually reformed to convey Christian truth with both clarity and beauty. What followed was a renaissance in English theology and patristic studies.
John Cosin (1594-1672), Bishop of Durham, explains the English approach to religion, which has been termed ‘reformed catholicism’, thus:
‘The two Testaments which, by God’s appointment, constitute the one Canon of Scripture, are our unbroken and unchanging rule of religion and faith in the English Church. For the plain words of Holy Scripture contain everything that appertains to faith and practice.
‘After Scripture we hold as authorities the three Creeds, the first four Councils, the first five Centuries, and the consentient line of Catholic Fathers during that period. For the original faith once delivered to the Saints is set forth in them pure and undefiled without human corruptions or novelties.
‘Finally, we acknowledge such of the theology of later times as is not inconsistent with this primitive doctrine.’3
This approach to the faith is neither primitivist nor progressive, but sifts tradition and theological and doctrinal developments with an eye for the corpus of patristic and conciliar texts of the early Church, above all judging in light of the Scriptures.
The Situation Today
Of course, the English Church today looks very different. Women masquerade as clergy and even bishops, and few of the true bishops remaining are the kind of courageous, orthodox shepherds our times demand. Heaps of money are thrown away on salaries for HR administrators and diversity officers while many parishes struggle to survive, and there is a push towards low cost ‘worship communities’ (house churches) which will not only be less of a burden on the ever-growing bureaucracy, but will also render the Church less visible in and less able to serve local communities. The great benefit of established churches in better times is that civic life is informed by spiritual considerations, but the ever-present danger lies in the possibility of a reversal in which worldly powers come to exercise influence over church life. Sad to say, a dispassionate look at the state of things today reveals just such a reversal to have occurred in relations between the Church of England and the British state.
Furthermore, problems exist elsewhere in the west, where Anglican churches are not established. Just the other day Marian Budde, Episcopal ‘bishop’ of Washington DC, took the opportunity at an ecumenical prayer service (which featured a reading from the Quran) to ask newly inaugurated President Trump to have mercy upon ‘gay, lesbian and transgender children’, whatever that means. At a moment when the Episcopal Church had the opportunity to bless the incoming administration and proclaim the Gospel to world leaders, instead a political radical in clerical fancy dress was given a soapbox from which to virtue signal and share her heterodox worldview.
Nevertheless, the Anglican way, I have found, is alive and well. The threefold rule of life – the daily office, regular Communion and continual personal devotion – remains the blueprint for Christian living for over 100 million Anglicans worldwide, many of them holding out in western churches. I’m very glad to have adopted it as my rule and to have discovered a Christian tradition which can be both an authentically English expression in defiance of modern trends towards ritual and theological conformity in the wider Church, and also unashamedly catholic in the face of modern fundamentalisms (be they biblical, papal or neo-patristic) on the one hand and creeping nondenominational indifferentism on the other.
Final Thoughts
For many of my friends and acquaintances, this pursuit of the Anglican way will be both unexpected and perplexing. Nobody is more surprised than me, let me tell you! But there it is: I am convinced that traditional Anglicanism is a true and orthodox, authentically English and faithfully patristic expression of the holy catholic faith. So, having no animosity towards my brothers and sisters in the Roman Catholic Church, nor anything but love for my Orthodox friends, and having even warmed in my feelings towards Reformed Christians in the course of my Reformation research, I am returning to the tradition of my fathers and embracing Anglicanism.
It’s taken a while to write this, but it’s a relief to have it out of my system. It always takes a while to settle into a new church setting and liturgical rhythm, but I thank God for guiding me to a solid and welcoming parish with a good and faithful priest whose encouragement and guidance have been indispensable as I grapple with these difficult and frequently controversial matters. Hopefully now I can get back to writing more regularly.
Glory to God!
Gerald McDermott, Deep Anglicanism, p. 29.
The theology of the Articles of Religion is undeniably opposed to Calvinism on many and varied issues, for example, the rejection of double predestination in Article XVII, or Article XXIII’s affirmation of priests’ God given authority to forgive sins. Likewise, the Zwinglian teaching that the Eucharist is a mere memorial of the sacrifice of Christ is rejected in Article XXVIII, which states that ‘to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.’
John Cosin, The Religion, Discipline and Rites of the Church of England, Ch. I.