A Guide to the True Anglican Way

By Robin G. Jordan

When I was a boy in England, one of my favorite activities was to cycle the English country lanes and visit the English country churches. I lived in Suffolk, in East Anglia, which is known as Seely Suffolk, or Holy Suffolk, because of its many churches. A good number of these churches had originally been chantries, endowed for the offering of masses for the departed souls of those who built them. In those days it was not uncommon to find at crossroads and forks a white-painted wooden fingerpost, or signpost, its fingers pointing to which village each lane led. The country folk who lived down these lanes did not need them but to small boy on a bicycle they were a great help.

English folklore attributes to the fairies or to local practical jokers the practice of turning the fingerposts so that they would point in the wrong directions and the unwary traveler would lose his way. The fairies would also create lights in the distance that travelers might mistake for a friendly cottage window and then led them out onto an open moor or more treacherously into a bog.



In World War II the British painted over the names of the villages on the fingerposts in the event the Germans invaded their island home or they removed the signposts altogether. The thinking was that the advancing Germans might become lost in the maze of English country roads and their advance delayed. The Germans would do the same thing in the Battle of the Bulge to confuse the Allied troops and to slow their advance.

The English Reformers left to posterity a roadmap and fingerposts to guide future generations of pilgrims along the Anglican Way, to use the phrase the late Peter Toon popularized. This roadmap and fingerposts consisted of the greater formularies—the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal. They include the lesser formularies—the two Books of Homilies, Alexander Nowell’s A Catechism, and the proposed Canons of 1571 and the Canons of 1604. These formularies enunciate the teaching of the reformed Church of England and authentic historic Anglicanism. The English Reformers also bequeathed their writings to those who came after them.



The North American Church has, in its two hundred odd year history, wandered far from the Anglican Way. While the North American Church may wish to describe the path that it has taken as the Anglican Way, when the map of authentic historic Anglicanism is laid out and examined, its departure from the Anglican Way is only too apparent. It has taken a number of wrong turnings and each such turning has led it farther from the Anglican Way. It has refused to consult the roadmap the English Reformers left to guide it. It has deliberately paid no attention to the fingerposts pointing to the Anglican Way

In the North American Church we generally hear one of two arguments made to justify ignoring or minimizing the teaching of authentic historic Anglicanism. The first argument is that the church has moved forward since the Reformation and is more enlightened, more broad-minded, more diverse, more tolerant, etc. The theory of the Anglican via media in one of its variant forms may be brought up to bolster this argument.

This argument took its most extreme form in the twentieth century. It was argued that Anglicanism and the Anglican Church are constantly changing and evolving. Authentic Anglicanism is the Anglicanism of the movement—whatever the Anglican Church at a particular time and in a particular place takes as Anglicanism. It has not set definition and no fixed doctrinal standard—not even the Bible. This argument reflects the influence of nineteenth century Darwinism, F. W. Maurice’s theory of the Anglican via media, liberalism, and post-modernism.

This argument is usually made to support a doctrine or principle that the English Reformers would have regarded as not consonant with the Scriptures, to give more weight to a particular church tradition or consensus than the teaching of canonical Scripture, or rationalize a contemporary ecclesiastical fad or a pet notion. More often than not it is a combination of all three reasons.

This argument, however, is spurious. The English Reformers were some of the brightest and best-educated men of their time. They were far more knowledgeable of Scripture and the Patristic writings than many modern scholars. They were trained in the use of logic and reason. They were skilled in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin. Those who argue that the Reformers are much inferior to modern scholars, reveal their own prejudices rather than the Reformers’ shortcomings. Their Bible scholarship has withstood the test of time.

This argument has not been confined to one particular group. The Oxford and Anglo-Catholic movements of the nineteenth century, the liberal movement of the twentieth century, and the Ancient-Future or Convergence movement of the twenty-first century has used the argument in pressing their own claims. Even Anglicans who do not identify with these movements in making this argument in support of a personal leaning often reveal their influence.

The second argument that we are apt to hear is likely to be a variant of the argument that the Roman Catholic detractors of the reformed Church of England made at the time of the Reformation and have made ever since. The reformed Church of England broke with the teaching of the Church of Rome and therefore cannot be regarded as apostolic and catholic in its teaching. A contemporary variant is that the Reformed Church of England also lost continuity with the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Churches in its rejection of key beliefs of these churches and therefore cannot be seen as apostolic and catholic in its teaching. Those who make this argument claim that that the Church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Churches represent the true apostolic and catholic faith. If the Anglican Church is to be truly apostolic and catholic, the continuity of the Anglican Church with Western and Eastern Catholicism interrupted at the Reformation must be restored.

The Tractarians and the Anglo-Catholics were strong proponents of this argument in the nineteenth century. Their spiritual heirs have continued to press this claim in the twenty-first century. A new group that makes the same argument is the adherents of the Ancient-Future or Convergence movement. They are likely to argue that the Church of England at the Reformation departed from the ancient faith of the Church and they are restoring that faith. This group may be described as “the new Anglo-Catholics.” The Ancient-Future or Convergence movement is an outgrowth of the charismatic movement. It initially embraced Pentecostal theology in relation to its thinking regarding the work of the Holy Spirit but now tends to identify with Eastern Orthodox doctrine. A number of early charismatic leaders in the Church of England like Michael Harper have ended up in one of the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

The English Reformers rejected the claims of the Church of Rome and the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Churches that they represent the true apostolic and catholic faith. When the teaching of these Churches is measured and tested by the reference of biblical teaching, it is quite evident that their teaching has become corrupted by error and is not trustworthy. It certainly does not merit the claim of being truly apostolic and catholic. Even in New Testament times false teaching flourished in the Church. The antiquity of a doctrine is no guarantee that it is faithful to the teaching of the apostles. The Patristic writers were not infallible nor were the vanished churches of antiquity, much less the Church of Rome or the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Churches that have succeeded them.



In the twenty-first century we find the latest addition to the North American Church—the Anglican Church in North America--well off the beaten track of authentic historic Anglicanism, following a will-o’-the-wisp’ light that lures it farther and farther from the true Anglican Way. For those who do not wish to pursue the ignus fatuus of the Anglican Church in North America they still have the roadmap that the English Reformers left for them. It may be dusty from disuse but it is still a trustworthy guide. The fingerposts may be overgrown but they too still point the way. It is the way of the Bible and the gospel, of faith and repentance, of godliness and holiness. Many generations of pilgrims have trod the Anglican Way. They have not regretted their choice.