Recovering Our Protestant Heritage

By Robin G. Jordan

I was born in England and baptized in the Church of England. I attended Church of England parish churches in my early childhood. I attended a Protestant Episcopal Church parish church in my teen years. I drifted away from the Protestant Episcopal Church in university and by the time I returned in the mid-1980s, the Protestant Episcopal Church had dropped the “Protestant” from its name and had become simply the Episcopal Church.

Being labeled “Protestant” had become an embarrassment to Episcopalians—at least to those who called themselves or others called “Anglo-Catholics.” Identifying your church as “Protestant” had also come to be seen as unnecessarily emphasizing the divisions of Christianity in the new age of ecumenism.

To me, dropping the “Protestant” from the church’s name seemed odd. I had always thought of myself as a Protestant and I had always thought of my church as a Protestant church. The moderate High Churchiness that my family found in the local Episcopal parish church we regarded as an American peculiarity. It did not alter our perceptions of the Episcopal Church as a Protestant church. As far as I can remember, the minister and the congregation thought of themselves as Protestants.

In my small corner of the world the “Catholics” attended St. Peter’s in Covington, St. Jane de Chantelle in Abita Springs, and Our Lady of the Lake in Mandeville. Their children attended parochial school if they could afford it. The boys went on to St. Paul’s High School and the girls to St. Scholastica Academy. Protestant Episcopalians attended Christ Church in Covington and sent their children to public school. Indeed the congregation included a number of public school teachers, principles, and supervisors.

I had a friend in junior high school who was a Roman Catholic, and I attended Mass at St. Jane de Chantelle’s on at least one occasion with him. The Latin service, the high altar, the crucifixes, the statues of the Virgin Mary and other saints, the banks of flickering votive candles, and the font of holy water at the door reinforced my perceptions of the Episcopal Church as Protestant.

Our service was from the Book of Common Prayer and in English. The holy table was an elaborately carved wooden table but it was a table. The minister might wear vestments on Communion Sundays twice a month but he wore a “decent surplice with sleeves” on other Sundays. When communion was distributed, the wafer was placed in the communicant’s hand, not on his tongue. People might bow their heads toward the holy table on entering the church or at the mention of the name of Jesus but no one crossed themselves or genuflected.

Hindsight, as they say, is better than foresight. Looking back to the time when “Protestant” dropped from the name of the Episcopal Church, biblical was also dropped from its stance. It did not vanish suddenly. Its disappearance had been a long, drawn out process.

The erosion of the Episcopal Church’s biblical stance had begun in the nineteenth century. The Oxford Tractarian movement and the Ritualist movement had emphasized “Church tradition” over the Bible. The Bible was too difficult for ordinary people to understand, it was claimed. Consequently, the study of its doctrines should be reserved only for the more spiritually mature—those who had evidenced their spiritual maturity in their attendance of the Mass and their performance of good works—and then should be conducted under the supervision and tutelage of a priest who was himself well versed in how the Church interpreted and understood the Bible. Liberalism and modernism would further stress that the Bible did not belong in the hands of ordinary people. Episcopalians become more and more Bible-illiterate, and the Episcopal Church became less and less biblical in its stance.

The 1928 Book of Common Prayer would contribute to the disappearance of the Protestant and biblical stance of the Episcopal Church, as would its successor, the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Both Prayer Books would countenance doctrines and practices that may be described not only as un-Protestant but also as unbiblical. The 1928 Prayer Book diluted the penitential language of the American Prayer Book, restored a number of practices associated with the doctrines of the sacrifices of Masses and Transubstantiation, permitted the anointing of the dying—Extreme Unction, and incorporated prayers for the dead. It emphasized the priestly blessing of the water in the font in the Baptismal Service and treated Confirmation as a sacrament in everything but name.

I must admit that I am amazed and even flabbergasted that a number of churchmen who identify themselves as Low Church and Protestant continue to use the book. At the same time I do understand how people can grow attached to a particular Prayer Book. The 1928 Prayer Book does have its strengths. But the book is, from a doctrinal point of view, a mess! If I was looking for a Prayer Book that was Protestant and biblical in tone, the 1928 Prayer Book would not be my first choice.

The 1979 Prayer Book takes its users even further along the path away from Protestantism and the Bible. Its catechism is rankly Pelagian! It contributed to the disappearance of Morning Prayer as the main service on Sunday morning. Morning Prayer, with its Psalms, Scripture readings, canticles, prayers, hymns, and a sermon, was a bulwark of Protestantism and the Bible in the Episcopal Church. The Mass, renamed the Holy Eucharist, has not served the cause of Protestantism and the Bible as did Morning Prayer.

The 1928 Prayer Book and 1979 Prayer Book are the two most-commonly used Prayer Books in Anglican and Episcopal parish churches in the United States. The late Peter Toon edited An Anglican Prayer Book (2008), which is used in some Anglican parish churches. However, this book takes the congregations using it deeper into the morass of Anglo-Catholicism instead of back to the sunlit uplands of the classic Anglican Prayer Book, The Book of Common Prayer of 1662. It was a great disappointment to this writer.

Peter could have provided the North American Church with modern English versions of the 1662 Prayer Book services that would have greatly served the cause of Anglicanism in North America—reinforced its Protestant and Reformed character. However, he was too enamored of the 1928 Prayer Book and its English counterpart—the 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book. An Anglican Prayer Book (2008) embodies his own personal theology, not the doctrine of the classic Anglican Prayer Book.

For some congregations and clergy the road upon which the 1928 Prayer Book, with the help of the American Missal, or the 1979 Prayer Book has taken them is the Romeward road. There is an old saying that all roads lead to Rome. It dates from the days of Imperial Rome when all roads did indeed lead to the Rome, the centre of the Roman Empire. Those who use these two Prayer Books have a strong likelihood of setting their feet upon one of these roads. These days it might, of course, take a sudden turn and lead to Antioch, Constantinople, Belgrade, or Moscow. But it is not a path that is going to lead back to the Protestant and biblical stance of the reformed Church of England.

At the point I believe that it would be useful cite again the preface of A Protestant Dictionary that I cited in my previous article, “Battering for Baubles.” It clarifies the meaning of Protestantism.

As the word “Protestant,” which occurs in the title of this work, is often misrepresented, a few remarks respecting its meaning may be useful. “Protestant” and “Catholic” are terms which, when rightly understood, are not conflicting. True Protestantism holds firmly the truths set forth in the Creeds of the Apostolic Church, and protests only against unscriptural additions made to the Primitive Faith. Protestantism is the reaffirmation of that Faith combined with a distinct protest against those errors of doctrine, ritual, and practice which were brought, as St. Peter says, ”privily” into the Church of Christ (2 Pet. ii. 2), but which were accepted as “Church teaching” in medieval times, and are still too prevalent. The word Protestantism stands for the return to Primitive and Apostolic Christianity. It is the reassertion of “the faith once for all delivered unto the saints” (Jude3). When Protestantism is negative in its declaration, it is only to preserve and accentuate some truth which is being perverted. Like the great “Ten Words,” as the Jews were wont to term “the Ten Commandments,” truths sometimes appear to be simply negations, when in reality they are very far from having that character, as our Lord’s summary of the Law (Matt. xxii. 36-40) abundantly proves.

I realize that a number of my readers may not share my enthusiasm for the recovery of the Protestant face of Anglicanism in North America. They do not believe as I do that it would be a good thing. They may argue that the Anglican Church has evolved since the sixteenth and seventeenth century, has moved forward. This brings to mind a conversation between Gumpas, his Sufficiency, the Governor of the Lone Islands, and the young King Caspian in C. S. Lewis’ The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

”But that would be putting the clock back,” gasped the governor. “Have you no idea of progress, of development.”
“I have seen them both in an egg,” said Caspian. “We call it ‘Going Bad’ in Narnia….”

What some regard as forward thinking and progressive may be quite harmful. The Anglican Church has undergone a number of changes. Some may have been harmless and even beneficial. Others have severed the Church from its roots in the Bible and the Protestant Reformation and have done untold damage to the Church.

Anglicanism has reached a major crossroads. The fingers of the signpost point in a number of directions. Some congregations and clergy are hotfooting it down the road to Rome. Others are standing at the foot of the signpost, considering which direction they should take. A few have wandered down a road without giving any thought to where it may take them.

I for one am perfectly happy to amble along the hedge-lined quiet English country lane of classical Anglicanism, flanked on either side by green meadows where sheep safely graze, fields that are white with the ripening corn, and the occasional farmyard where pigs grunt in their sties and cattle low from their sheds. Small birds and animals rustle in the hedges, wildflowers grow along the roadside, and farm horses lean over their gates in hopes you might have an apple or lump of sugar for them. I urge others to join me. I do not believe that they will regret it.

Historic Anglicanism may not be as glamorous as a number of the modern forms of evangelicalism but it is evangelical. It maintains that salvation by grace by faith is the essence of Gospel teaching. It may not go far enough to some Reformed minds yet it is Reformed. Our salvation, classical Anglicanism holds, is God’s doing. If we play a part in it, that part is God’s doing, and not our own. It is above all else God’s gift and not something we can earn or merit.

Historic Anglicanism has a Protestant face and is eminently biblical. It reaffirms the Primitive Faith of the Apostolic Church and rejects and disowns those innovations in doctrine and worship that have come to deface or overlay that Faith. If a doctrine cannot be found in Scripture or proved from Scripture, it cannot be required as an article of faith or taught as essential for our salvation. One place in Scripture may not be so expounded as to be contradictory to another. Only a ritual or practice that is not inconsistent with Scripture is deemed to be allowable.

The Anglican Church particularly in North America and in the British Isles has reached a stage where it would greatly benefit from rediscovering, in some cases, discovering for the first time, its Protestant heritage, and reclaiming that heritage. In taking possession again of its Protestant heritage the Anglican Church would also be giving the Bible back its central place in its life and teaching.

I would go as far as saying that the time is ripe for us to reclaim our Protestant heritage as the first congregations and clergy go clattering off to Rome. For almost one hundred and eighty years the Romeward Movement has created a muddle in the Church of England and her daughter provinces.

A number of the congregations that are leaving with their clergy are indeed fruit trees that have been planted in the wrong orchard. Transplanted to a Roman orchard they are likely to flourish. Some, however, I expect, will not find the soil or the climate in the Church of Rome to their liking. They are High-Anglican but not Roman. They may come to regret taking the road to Rome.

Be that as it may, the time has arrived to repossess the Protestant heritage of Anglicanism. We need to bring it down from the attic, dust it off, and claim it for ourselves. It is, after all, our inheritance, our patrimony. Like a number of family heirlooms that have been relegated to the attic, it is much more precious than those who relegated it to the attic could have possibly imagined.