By Robin G. Jordan
One of the reasons that I posted the articles on the papacy
and the Reformation was to draw attention to the differences that separate Roman
Catholics and Protestants. Similar differences separate those who identify
themselves as Anglican but whose theology is largely Roman Catholic and
Anglicans who adhere to the Biblical and Reformation doctrines and principles
of the Anglican formularies, including the two Books of Homilies.
Contrary to what Wikipedia may assert, the theology of
Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was not a via
media between Lutheranism and Calvinism. Based upon his mature thinking
Cranmer may be ranked among the sixteenth century Reformed theologians along
with Martin Bucer, Henry Bullinger, John Calvin, Peter Vermigli, and Ulrich
Zwingli. While Cranmer consulted the Augsburg Confession in drafting the Forty-Two Articles, he only used wording
from the Augsburg Confession where Lutheranism and early Reformed theology
agree. It is therefore inaccurate to claim on this basis that Cranmer
subscribed to Lutheran views.
Nor is Historic Anglicanism a via media between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism—a view first
propounded and later rejected by the Oxford movement leader John Henry Newman.
Various Anglo-Catholic writers would subsequently try to read this view back into
the works of earlier Anglican theologians like John Jewel and Richard Hooker.
However, this view originated with Newman who at the time was trying to
reconcile the Protestantism of Historic Anglicanism with his own increasingly
Roman Catholic beliefs. Newman would eventually abandon the Church of England
and become a Roman Catholic.
The nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement as it would
come to be known would seek to change the identity of the Anglican Church from
Protestant to Roman Catholic. While its original purpose was to bring about the
reunification of the Anglican Church with the Roman Catholic Church, that
movement has in more recent times substituted as its goal the reshaping of the
Anglican Church along the lines of the purportedly undivided Church of the
early High Middle Ages before the East-West schism, which it views as the
golden age of Christianity. While some elements in the contemporary
Anglo-Catholic movement lean toward Eastern Orthodoxy, the movement has for a
large part a Roman Catholic flavor.
In the twentieth century in the United States the
Anglo-Catholic movement formed an alliance with the Broad Church movement. While
they were stymied in their attempt to remove the Thirty-Nine Articles from the
American Prayer Book, they were successful in introducing a number of
far-reaching and radical changes in that Prayer Book. These changes would bring
the American Prayer Book closer in its teaching and practices to Roman
Catholicism.
In the twenty-first century in the United States the
Anglo-Catholic movement has formed a new alliance with what is variously
described as the Ancient-Future, Worship Renewal, or Convergence movement. The result of that alliance to date is the Anglican
Church in North America, Texts for Common
Prayer, and To Be a Christian: An
Anglican Catechism. The Biblical and Reformation doctrines and principles
of the Anglican formularies have been thrust side for teaching and practices
barely distinguishable from that of the Roman Catholic Church and to a lesser
degree the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Clergy and congregations in the Anglican Church in North
America that fully accept the authority of the Bible and the Anglican
formularies occupy a very precarious position in that jurisdiction. While their
beliefs and convictions are agreeable to the Holy Scriptures, they do not enjoy
official standing in the jurisdiction.
In the excitement of a visit from a popular pope, it is not
only possible to lose sight of the differences between Protestants and Roman
Catholics but also to forget the plight of these Anglicans. They need the
support of Anglicans who like them are faithful to the Bible and the Anglican
formularies. They also need a separate province of their own—either as a part
of the Anglican Church in North America but with its own doctrinal foundation,
governing documents, bishops, synodical form of government, Prayer Book, and
catechism, or independent of that jurisdiction. As the pressure for
consolidation of the Anglican Church in North America into a smaller number of geographically-based
dioceses grows, their position will become even more precarious.
No comments:
Post a Comment