After reading Victor Novak's latest article, "Catholicism, Calvinism, and the Thirty-Nine Articles," on Virtue Online, I see a definite need to repost Prof. Gillis Harp's article, "Recovering Confessional Anglicanism".
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—thatʼs all.” (from Through the Looking Glass)
If the story of North American Anglicanism in the last generation has demonstrated anything, it is the catastrophic consequences of ignoring our Reformation formularies. Forgetting the Thirty-Nine Articles has, of course, been part of a larger assault on traditional doctrine. Relegating the Articles to the ʻHistorical Documentsʼ section of the 1979 American BCP was a small part of this shift but a revealing one nonetheless. As the costly results of a nonconfessional Anglicanism continue to work themselves out in the Episcopal Church and in the Anglican Church of Canada, orthodox Anglicans have homework to do. We need to revisit the Reformation formularies, study them afresh and work to restore them to a central place in the teaching and life of whatever orthodox body emerges from the current mess. A critical part of this study is learning how to interpret the Articles correctly in the wake of decades of misinterpretation and obfuscation.
My approach in the following essay is both descriptive (surveying quickly some of the history of interpretation) and also prescriptive, that is, arguing for what I think is the most responsible, historically-informed and fruitful way to read, understand and apply the Articles today. Read more
In response to Novak's article I left the following comment:
"In this article Victor Novak offers a revisionist reinterpretation of the Thirty-Nine Articles as in his previous article he offered a revisionist reinterpretation of the Book of Common Prayer. Despite its brevity the Thirty-Nine Articles is a Protestant confession that is early Reformed in its theology.
Anglo-Catholics historically have responded to the Articles in two ways. They have either rejected the Articles in their entirety or, like Novak and John Henry Newman before him, they have sought to reinterpret them in a "Catholic" direction.
Novak is highly selective in his citations of Anglican divines like John Jewel and Richard Hooker, taking advantage of the fact that most American Anglicans and Episcopalians are unfamiliar with their writings. A fuller reading of the works of these divines show that they do not support his claims. For example, Jewel wrote Peter Vermigli that the doctrine of the Thirty-Nine Articles did not differ from that of the continental Reformed Churches. Hooker wrote in Ecclesiastical Polity that Christ is present in the heart of the believer, not in the elements.
Novak also ignores the historical context of the Articles. Novak employs the same kind of "evasions" that Newman employs in his reinterpretation of the Articles in Tract 90 and the liberal Anglo-Catholic E.J. Bicknell in his commentary. I refer the reader to Professor Gillis Harp's excellent article, "Recovering Confessional Anglicanism," on the Internet at http://www.churchsociety.org/churchman/documents/Cman_116_3_Harp (If the link does not work, cut and paste the URL into your browser or visit the Church Society website and do a search for the article. It is still posted on that website.)
I also recommend J. I. Packer and Roger Beckwith's The Thirty-Nine Article: Their Place and Use Today and W. H. Griffith Thomas' The Principles of Theology: An Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles. The last work is on the Internet at http://www.anglicanbooksrevitalized.us/Oldies/Thirty-Nine/printheola01-3.htm.
Novak's articles come with a theological agenda--the promotion of a theory of Anglicanism in which Anglican teaching is equated with "Western Orthodoxy." In Edward Bouvrie Pusey promoted a similar theory. He claimed that the Anglican tradition was the third branch of Catholic Christianity. His critics referred to his views as "Puseyism."
In 1688 in the wake of the Glorious Revolution Parliament adopted the Coronation Oath Act which required the English monarch to subscribe to the true gospel and the "Protestant Reformed religion" of the Church of England. There was no question about the Protestant and Reformed character of the Anglican Church until the nineteenth century when the Tractarian Movement took upon itself the self-appointed task of changing the identity of the Anglican Church. Victor Novak is following in the footsteps of the Tractarians."
Actually, I find Novak's comments refreshing. For me, the 39 articles are historical, not a proof text for the definition of Anglicanism. The English Church goes beyond high church, low church, or catholic. It was all that at the time of 16th century. For me, the English Church goes all the way back to 1066 before William got his hands on it. The church then and now had its roots both latin and greek and had a character all of its own.
ReplyDeleteEdward,
ReplyDeleteWilliam invaded England in 1066 and defeated Harold in the Battle of Hastings. By that time the Saxon Church was to a large extent Romanized.
As for having "Greek" roots, that is debatable. I have done extensive reading into the origins of the Celtic Church. While there may be an Eastern connection, it is not necessarily a "Greek" connection. Christianity may have found its way to the British Isles along established trade routes from Spain, North Africa, Asia Minor, and Roman Palestine. But they were not the only way that the Christian faith came to the British Isles.
The English Reformation cannot be dismissed so airily. It shapes English Christianity to this day. The Thirty-Nine Articles of 1571 and The Book of Common Prayer of 1662, which embody Biblical and Reformation doctrine, are the official formularies not only of the Church of England but also of a number of other Anglican provinces. You may choose to dismiss the Thirty-Nine Articles as a historical document. So do liberal Episcopalians. Their motivation is that the Articles are too Scriptural in their teaching. The GAFCON Theological Resource Group in The Way, the Truth, and the Life and Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today identifies as one of the major problems facing Anglicanism the unwillingness that has grown up, in some parts of the Church, to bind itself to confessional formulae. The failure of these parts of the Church to accept the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1662 Prayer Book as standards of Anglican teaching have led to the unraveling of biblical orthodoxy in such parts of the Church.
The view that you are espousing is a modern-day version of Puseyism, which itself was a FANTASTICAL construction.
If your view becomes the dominant view in the Anglican Church in North America, it is likely to result in a parting of the ways between GAFCON and the ACNA and the withdrawal of GAFCON recognition of the ACNA. The ACNA will end up another Continuing Anglican Church.