"Canterburyism"

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

I have serious difficulties with the claim of the “Canterburyists” that communion with the See of Canterbury is essential to an Anglican identity. Indeed “Canterburyists” would make recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury the primary requirement for being “Anglican”.

1. Anglicans have historically rejected the argument of Roman Catholics that in order to be a “Catholic,” one must be in communion with the Pope. Having rejected communion with the See of Rome as essential to a Catholic identity, how can “Canterburyists” make the same argument for an Anglican identity, that is in order to be an Anglican one must be in communion with a particular bishop, with the Archbishop of Canterbury. If the first argument is not valid, the second argument is not valid. To insist that it is valid, is to ignore the law of contradiction.

2. One can be faithful to the Protestant and Reformed faith of the Church of England, believing that all that is essential to one’s salvation is found in the Bible and nothing contrary to the Bible is allowed. Between things plainly commanded and things explicitly forbidden there seems to be room for things indifferent. One can subscribe wholeheartedly to the Biblical doctrine and principles of the classical Anglican formularies – the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion of 1571 and the Book of Common Prayer of 1662. One can be baptized and confirmed in accordance with the rites of the Anglican Prayer Book and ordained in accordance with the rites of the Anglican Ordinal. One can be steeped in the theology of the English Reformers and the benchmark Anglican divines; one can be intimate with the classics of Anglican spirituality. One can recite the prescribed Psalms and read the appointed lessons and prayers at the canonical hours of 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM every day. One can evidence every mark that has historically set Anglicans apart from members of other traditions. Yet by the logic of the “Canterburyists,” one is not a true Anglican if one does not belong to a province that is in communion with the See of Canterbury.

On the other hand, one can espouse the heresy of Origenism, the belief that all men are saved, a belief that the original Forty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1552 declared “pernicious.” One can embrace the other beliefs of the extremists that the English Reformers loosely described as “Anabaptists” and who represented one of the two extremes between which the Reformers charted the course of the Anglican via media. These beliefs include that Jesus is not divine, just a great religious teacher or prophet; Christians are not bound by the moral law; personal revelations from God supercede the Holy Scriptures; and the duty of all Christians is to establish God’s Kingdom on earth through economic, political, social reform and even armed revolution and violence. One can hold the belief that the 16th century Romanists and Papists held, that the present Church has progressed since the times of the New Testament and the first six centuries of Christianity and therefore is more mature than the primitive Church. The teaching of the present Church trumps the teaching not only of the primitive Church but also the Bible. The Romanists and the Papists represented the other extreme that the English Reformers sought to avoid. One can embrace all kinds of unorthodox beliefs and outright heresies. One can walk the serpentine ways of the labyrinth, the great icon of the Mistress of the Beasts, the ancient European goddess of fertility and death, believing that treading its twisting paths brings one closer to the divine. One can practice sorcery, consult the dead, read one’s future in the stars, and pour out libations and offer cakes to the Queen of Heaven. Yet by the logic of the “Canterbury Anglicans,” if one belongs to a province in communion with Canterbury, one is an authentic Anglican.

3. As the Rev. Guy Hawtins points to his readers’ attention in his treatise on the English Church, Ecclesia Anglicana, Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, did not establish the English Church in 597 AD. Far from it. When Augustine and his monks arrived in Kent, a small Saxon kingdom in southern England, it was the one part of the British Isles that was still for the most part heathen. There was a Christian presence in Kent – priests and monks from Gaul (modern day France) who ministered to Queen Bertha, a Christian princess from Gaul, who was the consort of the Kentish king. The king gave Augustine and his companions an existing church building for their use. This building had been constructed by the British Christians, not the Gallicans. The West and North of the British Isles were for the large part Christian. The indigenous British Church – commonly called the Celtic Church, while it had suffered some reversals with the Anglo-Saxon invasion of the British Isles was enjoying a resurgence. It had established an extensive network of missions throughout the rest of Britain. This Church we now call the Church of England.

Claims that Augustine of Canterbury was the first Primate of Britain, Hawtins points to our attention are also empty. Britain already had its own Primate – the Archbishop of Carleon, the successor to Saint David, the patron saint of Wales, who had died some 20 years before the arrival of Augustine’s mission. The British Isles also boasted 120 bishops and hundred of priests, monks, and nuns.

If Augustine did not establish the English Church and he was not the first British primate, then what did he do. Augustine established a foothold for Romanism and Papalism in the British Isles. Despite his instructions from Pope Gregory the Great he showed no respect for the indigenous British Church. He offended the British bishops, refusing to stand to greet them after having arranged a meeting with them, and treating them as his inferiors and expecting their submission.

Romanism gradually spread from the See of Canterbury to the rest of the British Isles. The process was not fully completed until the 11th century. Papal authority, however, did not fare as well as the Romanist influence. The Saxons and the Danes and subsequently the Normans refused to recognize the jurisdiction of foreign bishops. The Pope was a foreign bishop.

Pope Gregory did not consecrate Augustine a British bishop. Rather he asked one of the bishops of Gaul – whose see was closest to Britain – to consecrate Augustine as a personal favor. The Gallican bishop was reluctant to consecrate Augustine. He appears to have questioned his own authority to perform such a consecration. He kept Augustine waiting for a very long time before he with great reluctance acceded to Gregory’s importuning. Gregory did eventually send a pallium to Augustine, recognizing him as “Rome’s man” and his see in Kent as “Rome’s territory,” once Augustine had established himself at the court of the Kentish king. The first Archbishop of Canterbury to be consecrated by a Pope was Theodore.

The basis of Canterbury’s preeminence in the English Church then is that it was the earliest Saxon see that was nominally under the jurisdiction of the Roman pontiff. It certainly does not justify assigning preeminence to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Anglican Communion.

4. The Reformed Church of England inherited its provinces and dioceses from the pre-Reformation Medieval Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury would continue to enjoy pre-eminence in the Reformed English Church as he had in the pre-Reformation Medieval Church. The English Reformers did not see any need to do away with the existing episcopal hierarchy in England. Under the Act of Supremacy, however, the English monarch was the supreme governor of the English Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury was subordinate to the English monarch. The jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome over the English Church was rejected.

From the 16th century on the Archbishop of Canterbury has been a state functionary as much as a leading bishop. He sat with the other bishops in the House of Lords, the second chamber of the English Parliament. Archbishop Whitgift was a member of the Privy Council of Queen Elizabeth I. The Queen in Council selected new bishops and translated bishops to new dioceses. The Queen in Council also appointed commissions to investigate troublesome bishops and to depose them. Elizabeth sequestered Archbishop Grindal over his refusal to enforce her policy and appointed commissioners to perform his state functions. She was considering removing him when he died.

While Gordon Brown has proposed a number of reforms, the Archbishop of Canterbury is presently appointed by the English Prime Minister. His appointment has more to do with English politics than the needs of the Anglican Communion. As in the case of the present Archbishop his theological outlook may be totally at odds with that of most of the Communion.

5. The Archbishop of Canterbury did not play a significant role in the expansion of the Church of England beyond the British Isles. The Bishop of London played that role. The Bishop of London had oversight of overseas chaplains and missionaries. The Bishop of London was the one to whom the British colonies sent candidates for ordination.

The Archbishop of Canterbury became the titular head of the Anglican Communion principally by default. Most of what are now autonomous provinces were the Church of England in a particular colonial possession of the British Empire. The pre-eminence of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the former churches of the English colonial empire is more a survival of English colonialism than anything else.

In the 21st century it makes no sense to continue to give preeminence to the metropolitan of a shrinking province because it was the first Saxon see nominally under the Pope’s jurisdiction in a Church that asserted its independence from the See of Rome in the 16th century. A President of the Anglican Communion, elected by the Primates for a set term, could, acting in consultation with his fellow Primates, perform all of the Anglican Communion functions of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Communion Presidency could be rotated among the Primates.

One suspects that liberal and revisionist Episcopalians would not be ardent “Canterburyists,” as they are for the moment, and would be less insistent that communion with the See of Canterbury is essential to being Anglican if the present Archbishop of Canterbury was not so weak and showed an inclination to discipline The Episcopal Church. For many liberal and revisionist Episcopalians, belonging to a province which at the present time is in communion with the See of Canterbury is the only basis upon which they can claim to be Anglicans.

Under the influence of Anglo-Catholicism in the 19th century and liberalism and modernism in the 20th century The Episcopal Church has drifted away from the Anglican via media. As the Rev. Dr. Paul Zahl, former dean of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, observes in his article The Crisis in the Episcopal Church, the present synthesis of Anglo-Catholic, liberal and modernist elements in The Episcopal Church is more accurately described as “contemporary Episcopalianism” than Anglicanism. It is arguably the antithesis of the Anglican via media. Contemporary Episcopalians are arguably at best nominal Anglicans.