Dr. Toon's Restrictions on the Usage of "Anglican"

Commenatry by Robin G. Jordan

The Thirty-Nine Articles do not presuppose what Dr. Toon asserts in his essay, "'Anglican' has a restricted usage -- it has been inflated!"? With the exception of one reference to the Churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome and to "every particular or national church" in Article 34, the "church" referred to in the Articles is to the visible church of Christ, a congregation of believers in which the pure word of God is preached and the sacraments are rightly administered. "Peculiar church" is a reference to the reformed Churches of the Continent, which were not national or provincial nor were they divided in dioceses with bishops. In the case of the Reformed Churches they usually were confined to a particular city and the adjacent countryside and were governed by the pastors as in the case of Geneva or governed by the town magistrates as in the case of Frankfurt and Basil. In the case of the Lutheran churches they were confined to a particular principality and the local ruler played a role in the appointment of pastors and the government of the church. In his interpretation of the Articles Dr. Toon fails to take note of the historical context and the compilers’ intention, which should always be considered in their interpretation. What Article 34 does is claim for the English State the liberty to organize the English Church and freely grants the same liberty to Geneva, Frankfurt, Basil, and Saxony. It does not presuppose a particular form of organization.

Article 36 affirms that the Ordinal of Edward VI contains all things necessary to the consecration of archbishops and bishops and ordering of priests and deacons. The Thirty-Nine Articles, however, make no mention of dioceses. Bishop John Jewel and the Tudor Reformers saw no reason not to retain archbishops and bishops in the reformed English Church because they were as a form of Church government "ancient and allowable." But they did not consider episcopacy a divine institution nor did they un-church those reformed Churches that adopted a different form of Church government, as did the Anglo-Catholics of the nineteenth century.
There were of necessity no particular or national churches in primitive times, and up to the sixteenth century the only major division was that of East and West. The urgent needs of the Reformation required the severance of local churches from Rome. Reforms were implemented wherever and whenever conditions permitted. In some cases these conditions existed in a city or large town; in other cases, they existed in a principality or kingdom. The result was a number of reformed Churches.

In the sixteenth century western Europe was divided between reformed Churches, Lutheran or Reformed, and the Church of Rome. In a given locality one found either a reformed Church or the Roman Church but not both. Denominationalism as we know it had not yet come into existence.

Article 34 says, "It is not necessary that traditions and ceremonies be in all places one or utterly alike; for at all times they have been diverse, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's word." It goes on to say, "Every particular or national Church has authority to ordain, change, and abolish ceremonies or rites of the Church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying." Even considering its sixteenth century context and the compilers’ intent, the literal-grammatical meaning of this article will not support any to claim to exclusive jurisdiction in the United States on the part of The Episcopal Church or in the Dominion of Canada on the part of the Anglican Church of Canada, only the liberty of these churches to adopt their own ceremonies and rites and to alter or do away with them.

Where do "the Formularies acknowledge other jurisdictions or branches of Christianity (e.g., Roman Catholic and Lutheran) as existing in parallel with the Anglican National Church or Denomination"? Dr. Toon needs to identify which "Formularies" that he is referring to and quote the texts that he believes support his assertion. He also needs to show where these "Formularies" do not suggest that more than one Anglican jurisdiction can exist in a specific geographic territory. He must prove the truth of what he is asserting.

As with his claims regarding the "Formularies" he needs to substantiate his assertions about the efforts of the Lambeth Conferences to eliminate "parallel and competitive jurisdictions". Anglican Mission in America produced a paper a number of years ago showing that jurisdictional overlap in the Anglican Communion is much more extensive than Dr. Toon admits in his essay.
Classical Anglicanism has historically subjected tradition to Scripture. Scripture contains no passage that prescribes that there must be only one church in a given geographic territory nor does it contain any passage that prohibits more than one church in a given geographic territory. The existence of a practice in the early church does not make it mandatory for all times and places. Scripture prescribes what practices are mandatory. Descriptive passages are not used to command a practice. If there is not clear evidence in a descriptive passage that the author was establishing a precedence, the church is not bound to adopt a practice.

It becomes increasingly evident from the more one reads Dr. Toon’s essay that it is not the Anglican Formularies that are speaking but Dr. Toon. What Dr. Toon is presenting are his interpretation of Anglicanism, his views upon whether another Anglican church can establish itself on a geographic territory where an Anglican church already exists, and his views upon church unity.

Dr. Toon claims that wherever the Church of England spread abroad, it sought to produce a geographical Church, which occupied a territory and divided the territory into dioceses. Church history does not quite support this contention. In some parts of the world, from the eighteenth century on, one finds an effort to organize Colonial churches along the lines of the Church in England. But this was not the pattern before then. Moreover, how the Anglican Church may have organized itself in the past is a very weak basis for the claim that a geographic-based church and the diocesan system are normative for the Anglican Church in all places and for all times. The Church of England inherited the diocesan system from the Pre-Reformation English Church. Its retention of the system had more to do with political, social, and economic stability and the relationship of the Church with the State than they did with any notion it was integral to the identity of the English Church.

Territoriality is not, as Dr. Toon asserts, essential to a biblically faithful authentically Anglican way of following Jesus and being the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. This leads to what is the crux of the essay—the assertion that the See of Canterbury is the primary see of the Church of England and of the provinces of the Anglican Communion. In his previous essay "Canterbury-the See of, and Anglican Unity," Dr. Toon sought to tie Anglican identity to communion with the See of Canterbury, arguing those not in communion with Canterbury are not genuinely Anglican. Now he adds another condition—only those who are members of the Anglican church first established in a given geographic territory, with formal links to Canterbury, are Anglicans. We have heard this argument before but it came from the liberals in The Episcopal Church. It would appear that Dr. Toon has decided to join his voice to their chorus.

Dr. Toon neglects to mention that Archbishop Archibald Tate was initially reluctant to call a pan-Anglican Conference because he did not believe that he had the authority to do so. He saw his authority as extending only to those churches for which he was the metropolitan. Archbishop Tate did not take Dr. Toon’s view that Canterbury was the primary see of the Communion Churches.

Dr. Toon goes on to offer his own interpretation of the recent history of The Episcopal Church. He dismisses as insignificant the departure of conservative Evangelicals from the Episcopal Church in 1873, a departure that left the denomination without an ecclesiastical party firmly committed to, in the words of Bishop J. C, Ryle, "the Protestant and reformed faith of the Church of England." The Evangelicals who remained a part of the Episcopal Church became Broad Church Liberals. He bewails the fact that the conservative Anglo-Catholics that left the Episcopal Church over women’s ordination and prayer book revision in 1977 have "only minimal relationship to her (the Church of England’s) Reformed Catholic Formularies." He fails to acknowledge that the 1928 Book of Common Prayer that he has been championing as a "classical Anglican Prayer Book" for a number of years is one of the reasons for this minimal relationship. He downplays the growing recreancy of the Episcopal Church and its contribution to the current exodus from the denomination. Like a number of liberal commentators in the Episcopal Church he focuses upon the presenting issues of the blessing of same gender unions and the ordination of persons involved in these unions. He makes a number of assertions that are very misleading. While some involved in this exodus use the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, others do not. It is totally inaccurate, however, to describe those who do use the 1979 Prayer Book as cherishing that book. They see a need for services in contemporary English and until a satisfactory alternative to the 1979 book is produced have no other choice but use it. The problem with 1928 Book of Common Prayer is not only does the traditional language put off newcomers but also the 1928 Prayer Book gives no more expression to the biblical and reformation theology of the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer than does the 1979 book. While some involved in the exodus support women’s ordination; others do not. While some have been influenced by the charismatic renewal movement; others have not. Those involved in the exodus are simply not as homogenous as Dr. Toon presents them. While some do embrace "an experiential form of evangelical Christianity," this description does not accurately describe all who have been fleeing an apostate and heretical Episcopal Church in recent years.

What appears to disturb Dr. Toon is the attitude of those involved in the Common Cause Partnership toward the See of Canterbury. However, he does not attempt to explore what underlies that attitude or to understand it. He does not consider that they may have good reason to distrust the present Archbishop of Canterbury and view the See of Canterbury as irrelevant in the future of global Anglicanism. He sees no precedent for a group of autonomous Anglican entities agreeing to work together to form a new Province while retaining their own structures. Yet if one looks at the history of the Episcopal Church, it began as a group of former colonial churches that organized themselves into a loose confederation. At the same time this development does not need have a previous case to justify it. The Reformation had no precedent in the history of Christianity. Neither did, as far as that goes, the formation of the Episcopal Church.

What John Hooper, John Jewel, William Whitaker, and the other Tudor defenders of Reformed Anglicanism emphasized was not communion with a particular see or a particular form of ecclesiastical structure but continuity of faith and doctrine. As long as the Common Cause Partnership teach and maintain the apostolic faith as set forth in the Creeds, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and the Book of Common Prayer and Ordinal of 1662, we have no cause to deny that they are indeed Anglican!