Life Under the Big Top

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

"Historically, the Anglican Church came from a split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1400s," Adams conceded "But afterwards it became a big tent church ... open to a wide variety of theologies, and we think that's good and we'd like it to remain that way."

The preceding statement comes from an AFP interview with Neil Adams, a spokesman for Bishop Michael Ingham (“Anglican bishops break with Canadian church over gay row,” AFP, November 22, 2007). AFP was interviewing him regarding Bishop Ingham’s reaction to the announcement of the establishment of a parallel Anglican church in Canada under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Gregory Venables and the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. Two things struck me about this statement. The first thing was its historical inaccuracy. The First Act of Supremacy (26 Henry 8, c. 1) that ended Papal jurisdiction over the Church of England and declared Henry VIII “the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England” was adopted by the English Parliament in 1534, formalizing a rift between King Henry and the Bishop of Rome over his request for a annulment of his marriage to his older brother’s wife, Catherine of Aragorn, who had failed to produce a male heir for him. Under pressure from the Holy Roman Emperor, Catherine’s uncle, Pope Leo X had refused to grant Henry’s request. The Holy Roman Emperor had threatened to invade the Papal States with his army.

The second thing was its repetition of a widely-used liberal talking point, that is, the Anglican Church is a big tent under the canopy of which there is ample room for a wide range of diverse beliefs—like the big top at the circus but not with one ring or three but many rings. This view is not surprising, coming as it does from the spokesman of Bishop Ingham. Ingham is known for his advocacy of pluralism. He wrote a book titled Mansions of the Spirit, in which he, like Presiding Bishop Katharine Schori and her predecessor, Bishop Frank Griswold, asserts that there are other pathways to God beside Jesus Christ.

If Adams gave the AFP reporter inaccurate information about the English Church’s break with Rome, is what he said about the comprehensiveness of the Anglican Church also inaccurate? If we examine the history of the Anglican Church, we will discover that the comprehensiveness of the Anglican Church has never been as "generous" as liberals would lead us to believe. Liberals in the Anglican Church of Canada, The Episcopal Church, and other provinces of the Anglican Communion are promoting this view of the Anglican Church in order to gain wider acceptance for beliefs and practices that Christianity and Anglicanism have historically rejected as unbiblical, heretical, and immoral, but which they themselves have embraced. What being “open to a wide variety of theologies” really means is being open to these beliefs and practices or at least not actively opposing them.

Those who have experienced life under the “big top” of the liberal dominated church will tell you that there is room for you as long as you do not insist upon practicing what you believe. You can hold orthodox beliefs provided that you do not insist that your beliefs are right and try to convince others of the rightness of your beliefs. All beliefs, you will be told, are personal viewpoints and therefore equal. However, when it comes to matters of practice, you are expected to acquiesce to what liberals believe, to defer to the liberal viewpoint. If you do not, subtle and not so subtle pressure is placed upon you to conform. Diversity of opinion is tolerated as long as it remains just that—opinion. The generous comprehensiveness of the liberal-dominated church is not really generous at all.