Called Back to the Thirty-Nine Articles

Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today - A Commentary on the Jerusalem Declaration, Clause 4: The doctrine of the Church

We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.

1. The Thirty-nine Articles
The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (1571), a slight revision of Thomas Cranmer’s Forty-two Articles of 1553, were designed ‘for the avoiding of diversities of opinions’ and not as a comprehensive statement of Christian doctrine in the manner of some other Reformation ‘confessions’. They have long been recognised as the doctrinal standard of Anglicanism, alongside the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal.

The Clause should not be interpreted to suggest an equivalence of the authority of the Articles with the authority of the Bible. The authority of the Articles comes from their agreement with the teaching of Scripture. The Articles themselves insist that ‘whatsoever is not read therein [i.e. in Scripture], nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.’ (Article VI). The Articles make no attempt to bind the Christian mind or conscience more tightly than Scripture does on matters of doctrine and Christian living. However, acceptance of their authority is constitutive of Anglican identity.

Historically, assent to the Articles was a prerequisite for ordination throughout the Anglican world. The earliest Anglican canons insist that this assent should be given ‘willingly and from the heart’. In recent years, some member churches of the Anglican Communion have dispensed with assent to the Articles, presenting them as mere ‘historical documents’ or relics of the past. Not coincidentally, these same churches include the ones which have abandoned historic doctrinal and moral standards. For other churches, the Articles have formal authority but they have been neglected as a living formulary. The Jerusalem Declaration calls the Anglican church back to the Articles as being a faithful testimony to the teaching of Scripture, excluding erroneous beliefs and practices and giving a distinctive shape to Anglican Christianity. Some of the Articles are intended as expressions of central biblical teaching, held in common with other churches of the Reformation. Though they were written in the midst of sixteenth century debates about Christian doctrine, the Articles remaincritically important for the church today. Articles dealing with the
nature of God, for example, and with the authority of Scripture and the way of salvation, come into this category. Other Articles,however, are specific to the established English church and must be expressed differently in other contexts. The Articles do not address all the urgent issues of our day, but they do offer first principles and a framework for approaching the Bible which enable us to grapple with new questions and new challenges.

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