Anglicanism - Protestant, Catholic, or Hybrid? REVISED AND UPDATED

By Robin G. Jordan

This week I came across an old Gospel Coalition article which maintained that Anglicanism is often seen as a hybrid between Protestantism and Catholicism. To someone who has studied the history of Christianity in the British Isles and the impact of the Protestant Reformation upon the English Church, such view, if it is not a deliberate misrepresentation of historic Anglicanism, appears to be the result of superficial grasp of English Church history. I also came across Paul Barnet’s article, “Ten Elements of Historic Anglicanism,” which had posted in 2011 and which I reposted yesterday. If anything can be gathered from Bishop Barnet’s article is that historic Anglicanism is not a hybrid between Protestantism and Catholicism. But I thought that might be worthwhile to explore how such misconceptions originate.

We do not know when Christianity first came to the British Isles. It in all likelihood followed the trade routes that linked the British Isles to the ancient Mediterranean world—from Spain and North Africa. Celtic Christianity shows the influence of Eastern Christianity but at the same time is distinct from that branch of Christianity. We do know that British bishops attended the Council of Arles in the second century Anno Domine.

Roman Christianity would not become an influence in the British Isles until the Low German tribes—the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians—had invaded the British Isles and converted to Christianity. The invaders found Roman Christianity less demanding and worldlier than Celtic Christianity. As the influence of Roman Christianity grew, the influence of Celtic Christianity declined but did not disappear altogether. The Celtic Church would maintain an independent existence from the Roman Church until the eleventh century.

What became England after the invasion of the Low German tribes maintained an uneasy relationship with the Church of Roman until the sixteenth century. The English were willing to recognize the primacy of the Pope over the English Church as long as he did not meddle in their political affairs. Over time they grew to resent the Pope’s appointment of foreign bishops to English bishoprics as well as the Pope’s support of England’s enemies and his siphoning of money from England to serve his temporal ambitions. Among the events that prompted the English barons to force King John to sign the Magna Carta was that he swore fealty to the Pope as a feudal overlord and became the feudal vassal of the Pope. The Pope’s denial of Henry VIII’s petition for an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragorn was the last straw.

Henry VIII declared himself the supreme head of the Church of England in 1531. The Act of Supremacy of 1533 recognized the supremacy of the English king over the English Church and required the English nobility to swear an oath in which they recognized the king’s supremacy. Henry VIII took this step in consultation with his Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer and other scholars who found precedence for the English king’s assumption of supreme authority over the English Church in the relationship of earlier princes with the churches in their principalities, particular in what had been the territory of the former Eastern Roman Empire.

By 1536 Henry VIII had completely severed the Church of England from the Church of Rome and the authority of the Pope, disbanded the monasteries, seized their assets, and made the Church of England the established church in England with himself as its temporal head.

Henry VIII did not form a new church, as a number of writers erroneously assert in articles on the internet, showing their ignorance of the history of the Church in the British Isles or a willingness to distort its history for their own purposes. In severing the English Church from the Church of Rome and papal authority, Henry VIII reasserted the ancient independence of the Church in the British Isles from Rome and the Pope.

While the Celtic Church and the early Anglo-Saxon Church tended to view the Bishop of Rome as primus inter pares, the Celtic monks gave this advice to those who were considering a pilgrimage to Rome. “You won’t find Christ in Rome unless you take him with you.” Rome was not the holy place which many who had never been to Rome thought that the city was. Its reputation was overblown. The connection of the Roman Church’s succession of bishops to the apostle Peter was mythical. On the other, the connection of the Celtic Church’s succession of bishops to the apostle John had a historical basis.

The only reforms that were introduced into the English Church during the reign of Henry VIII were the translation of the Bible, the Great Litany, and the Order of Communion into English. Henry VIII, while he may have broken with the Pope, was a staunch Catholic. He believed in such medieval Catholic doctrines as the sacrifice of the Mass and transubstantiation. A number of early Protestants were arrested, tried for heresy, condemned, and burned at the stake during his reign.

The Protestant Reformation made very little gains in the English Church until the short-lived reign of Henry VIII’s only surviving son, the godly prince Edward VI. Among the most important developments of his reign, as far as historic Anglicanism is concerned, was the publication of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, the 1552 Ordinal, the Forty-two Articles, the first Book of Homilies, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ. The 1552 Prayer Book and the Defense reflect Cranmer’s mature thinking. While Anglo-Catholic historians argue that Cranmer was influenced by Martin Bucer, Peter Martyr Virmigli, and others, the 1552 Prayer Book, the Defense, and other writings establish him as an important Reformed theologian in his own right, along with Henrich Bullinger and John Calvin.

In 1553 Edward VI died from tuberculosis and his older sister Mary ascended the English throne. Mary was a staunch Catholic. She abolished Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy, reunited the Church of England with the Church of Rome, and re-established papal authority in England. Among the important developments affecting historic Anglicanism during her reign was the arrest, trial, and burning of a number of English Protestants as heretics and the flight of a number of English Protestants to the continent. Those who were unable to flee went into hiding. Among those burned at the stake were leading Protestant figures such as Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, and John Hooper. However, many who were condemned were ordinary men, women, and children, showing that a large segment of the population had become Protestant during Edward VI’s short reign.

Of the English Protestants who fled to the Continent, some took refuge in Geneva and others took refuge in Zurich. From these two groups would emerge what would become the two faces of English Protestantism. Both were reformed in their theological outlook. Where they differed was in their ideas of how the English Church should be reformed and governed. These two groups are sometimes described as the forerunners of the Puritans and the Anglicans but such a categorization of the two groups is an oversimplification.

The reign of Elizabeth I who succeeded Mary on the English throne was critical in the shaping of historic Anglicanism. Elizabeth quickly realized that her political fortunes as queen of England lay with the Protestants and not the Catholics. She reestablished royal supremacy over the English Church and once more severed the English Church from the Church of Rome and abolished papal authority in England. The 1552 Prayer Book, with a few minor revisions, was adopted as the prayer book of the Elizabethan Church. Other reforms were implemented. Altars were replaced with communion tables. Statues, crucifixes, holy water stoups, and reliquaries were removed and destroyed. Church interiors were white-washed. The singing of metrical psalms before and after services and before and after sermons was authorized. A second Book of Homilies was published. Clergy who were not licensed to preach were required to read a portion of a homily in place of a sermon every Sunday. In 1571 the Thirty-Nine Articles, which were derived from the Forty-Two Articles, received the royal assent. By the end of Elizabeth’s reign the English Church was thoroughly Protestant.

Some historians suggest that Elizabeth was a crypto-Catholic based upon the fact that Elizabeth had a silver crucifix in her chapel, her chaplains wore eucharistic vestments, and she reputedly said these words when questioned on her beliefs on the Eucharist in Mary's reign:

Christ was the word that spake it.
He took the bread and break it;
And what his words did make it
That I believe and take it.

However, she would removed the crucifix from her chapel on the advice of her counselors and would forbid her chaplains from wearing eucharistic vestments and using an elaborate ceremonial traditionally associated with the Mass when they began to use this ceremonial.  She rebuked one of her chaplains when he replaced her plain service book with a new service book with images cut into the cover.

Elizabeth had also been educated as a Protestant. She had a close relationship with Catherine Parr, Henry VIII's sixth wife, who, while raised a Catholic, became a Protestant and developed strong reformed views.

Elizabeth's older sister Mary despised her Protestant half-sister. Her father, Henry VIII, had cast aside her mother, Catherine of Aragorn, for his mistress Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth’s mother. When Mary became queen of England, she saw Elizababeth as a threat to her throne. Under the provisions of Henry VIII's Act of Succession Elizabeth became the “second person” in England: She would succeed to the English throne in the event Mary died childless.

In 1554, the Protestant Wyatt’s Rebellion, which sought to place Elizabeth on the throne, gave Mary the pretext to imprison Elizabeth in the Tower of London, where her mother Anne Boleyn and the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey had been beheaded. Elizabeth was held in the Tower of London for three weeks and then was banished for nearly a year before Mary pardoned her.

During Mary's reign Elizabeth had no choice but be circumspect in what she said. Her very survival was at stake.

These historians also argue that the Elizabethans took a more realist view of the eucharistic presence because the Declaration on Kneeling was omitted from the 1559 Prayer Book. However, the evidence does not support this conclusion. While the Declaration on Kneeling was dropped from the book, it continued to influence the Elizabethan understanding of the eucharistic presence.

What these historians are trying to do is to establish the existence of a Catholic wing in the Elizabethan Church. Their intention is to prove that the Church of England has had an uninterrupted Catholic presence since the Protestant Reformation and that the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholics and their modern-day counterparts represent a continuation of that presence even if they must twist the historical facts in order to do so. They have resorted to the selective citation of the writings of John Jewel, Richard Hooker, and others.

During Elizabeth I’s reign England did have Catholics. They were the Recusants who hid Jesuit priests in their homes. These priests had been smuggled into the country. If they were caught, they were tried and executed under Elizabeth’s anti-Recusancy laws. These laws required everyone to attend the services of the Protestant Church of England or pay a fine, suffer imprisonment, or worse. While we may view the treatment of these priests as harsh—they were hung, drawn, and quartered, the Pope had declared early in Elizabeth’s reign that any Catholic who killed Elizabeth would not be guilty of murder. The Pope had also declared that any Catholic monarch who invaded England and deposed Elizabeth could have the English throne. Elizabeth viewed these priests as agents of a foreign power that was seeking to overthrow her. She took an equally as dim view of anyone who helped them. Her measures, which are brutally repressive by today’s standards, were designed to discourage rebellion and maintain the stability of her kingdom.

During the closing years of Elizabeth I’s reign Calvinism would become an increasingly stronger influence in English Protestantism. The Reformed theology of Henrich Bullinger began to lose influence, in part because of the position Bullinger took in the vestarian controversy, siding with Archbishop Matthew Parker and the bishops who favored the use of the surplice and cope against the Puritan pastors who wanted to do away with the wearing of any kind of vestment altogether.

James I, who successed Elizabeth to the throne, was a Scot, a Protestant and a Calvinist. However, he had no sympathy for his fellow Scots who were Presbyterians. James commissioned a new translation of the Bible, which we know as the “Authorized Version” or the “King James Bible.” He authorized several minor revisions to the 1559 Prayer Book, chiefly the requirement that ordained ministers should administer the sacrament of baptism in private houses as well as churches and a section on the sacraments in the Prayer Book catechism. James himself was a prolific writer. Among his works are a treatise on demonology and witchcraft, several commentaries on the Old Testament, and a defense of the divine right of kings. James was vociferous in his condemnation of the Arminian Dutch Remonstrants and sent representatives to the Council of Dort convened to respond to their Remonstrance against Calvin’s theology.

James I was succeeded by his second son Charles I. Charles married a Roman Catholic princess and permitted the celebration of the Roman Catholic Mass in her chapel. This did not endear him to his subjects. Like his father, Charles believed in the divine right of kings. However, he did not share his father’s religious convictions. Charles took a dislike to the Puritans and their strong Calvinist beliefs, in part because they dominated Parliament and would not give him money for his wars without strings attached.

Charles adopted the practice of appointing to vacant bishoprics clergy who were Arminian in their beliefs and High Church in their practices. Arminianism is historically a school of Reformed theology that diverges from Calvinism on a number of major points. Jacobus Armenius was a student of Theodore Beza, John Calvin’s successor at Geneva, and his views are a reaction to Beza’s.

The writings of Hugo Grotus—a follower of Jacobus Arminius, Lancelot Andrewes—a friend of Grotus’, John Overall, and others would influence a new generation of clergy who shared Charles’ dislike of the Puritans and their strong Calvinist beliefs. They also shared his dislike of the austerity that had characterized the worship and ornamentation of the English Church during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.

As Jordan Lavendar draws to our attention in his article, “Traditional High Churchmanship in the Anglican Tradition,” the label “Arminian” requires some qualification when applied to the Caroline High Churchmen. What may be described as “English Arminianism” had its own distinctives.

While beliefs and practices of the Caroline High Churchmen have been described as the “Catholic Reaction,” this description is really not an accurate one. They did revive a number of practices that they believed were practices of the early Church. See Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical (1640) and reintroduced a number of church ornaments that had been banned during the reigns of Edward Vi and Elizabeth I They did not read the Patristic writers as critically as had John Jewel and the Elizabethan divines. They also gave more weight to the opinions of the Patristic writers than had the Patristic writers themselves.

The Caroline High Churchmen, however, identified with Protestantism. They viewed the English Church as a reformed church. John Cosin, William Laud, and others recognized the orders of the French and Swiss reformed churches. They generally accepted the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles, to which they gave an Arminian interpretation. They also were strongly opposed to Roman Catholicism and defended the Anglican Church against its Roman Catholic critics. The few exceptions would convert to Roman Catholicism while in exile on the Continent during the Interregnum.

Where the Caroline High Churchmen's views are agreeable to Scripture and conform to the historic Anglican formularies or clearly fall into the realm of non-essential matters on which Anglicans may hold disparate opinions, these views may be regarded to be a part of historic Anglicanism. The Restoration bishops who produced the 1662 revision of the Book of Common Prayer were for a large part Caroline High Churchmen.

The Caroline High Churchmen did not comprise a movement within the Anglican Church. They are more accurately classified as a school of thought. While they enjoyed royal patronage and introduced a number of changes in the worship and ornaments of English cathedrals and parish churches, they did not enjoy wide-spread, popular support. During the reign of Charles I and the Interregnum the larger part of English people were Calvinist and Puritan.

When citing the views of the Caroline High Churchmen, it is important to remember that their thinking evolved over time. For example, John Cosin initially leaned toward a sacramental understanding of confirmation and then shifted to a more catechetical understanding.

While a number of clergy were ejected from their livings for refusing to conform to the 1662 Prayer Book, the Church of England retained a robust Reformed wing that defended her formularies against those who argued that they were Arminian in doctrine and principles. Reformed theology would remain the dominant theology of the English Church for the remainder of the seventeenth century.

The post-Restoration period, however, did see the emergence of Latitudinarianism, which would overshadow Reformed theology in the eighteenth century but not entirely eclipse it. The eighteenth century Evangelical Revival saw not only a renewal of Reformed theology in the English Church but also the emergence of Evangelical Armininism.

As for the claim that Anglo-Catholics are the successors of the Caroline High Churchmen, an examination of the writings of the Caroline High Churchmen and the writings of the nineteenth century Tractarians and Ritualists, the predecessors of today’s Anglo-Catholics, shows that this claim has no substance. The nineteenth century critics of the Tractarians and Ritualists proved the falseness of this claim as have a number of more recent writers. This, however, does not prevent Anglo-Catholic writers from continuing to make the claim.

The view that Anglicanism is a hybrid between Protestantism and Catholicism can be traced to the Tractarian movement, to a series of tracts, entitled “Via Media,” which were written by John Henry Newman and published in 1834. In these tracts Newman claims that Tractarian movement was along the lines of the early Anglican divines such as Richard Hooker. He examines the Elizabethan Settlement and reinterpreted it as a compromise between the Protestant Reformation and Roman Catholicism. He also justifies ignoring the intended meaning of the Thirty-Nine Articles and reinterpreting them in a Catholic sense. Newman would later reject this view of the Anglican Church and his Catholic reinterpretation of the Thirty-Nine Articles and convert to Roman Catholicism. Edward Bouvrie Pusey and other Tractarians would continue to promote this view of the Anglican Church, adding to it. It would eventually develop into the view that Anglicanism is a hybrid of Protestantism and Catholicism.

The Ritualist movement which followed closely on the heels of the Tractarian movement would perpetuate this view with its illegal introduction of pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic and post-Tridentian Roman Catholic beliefs and practices into the Church of England. The Ritualist movement would rapidly gain ground in the Protestant Episcopal Church, which had not legal restraints against the introduction of such beliefs and practices. Evangelical Episcopalians would belatedly introduce a measure in General Convention establishing such restraints but by then the Ritualists were a dominant influence in that body. The Ritualists would flex their muscles by rejecting an Evangelical proposal to revise the American Prayer Book to add an alternative service of baptism or alternative wording to the baptismal service. They also banned Evangelical Episcopalians from associating with other Evangelicals outside the Protestant Episcopal Church on the grounds that their churches were not true churches as they did not have bishops and the apostolic succession. Conservative Evangelical Episcopalians would leave the Protestant Episcopal Church and form the Reformed Episcopal Church. More liberal Evangelical Episcopalians would become Broad Churchmen. By 1900 the Protestant Episcopal Church would have no Evangelical wing.

Two more recent movements that have given further impetus to this view of the Anglican Church are the liturgical movement and the ancient-future church movement. Both movements have created interest in beliefs and practices that are supposed to be those of the early Church but often include those of the medieval Catholic Church, the modern Roman Catholic Church, and the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Churches.

Among the outcomes of these movements are far greater weight is given to the rule of antiquity and the so-called ecumenical consensus in the determination of the appropriateness of questionable beliefs and practices than the rule of scripture and the Anglican Church’s reformed heritage. In their enthusiasm to introduce such beliefs and practices into their churches, the proponents of these movements have ignored or minimized the inconsistency of these beliefs and practices with the longstanding doctrine and principles of the ecclesiastical traditions to which their churches belong. The unreformed Catholic doctrine of Christ’s real, substantive presence in the consecrated elements has been revived in a number of Anglican provinces, and various notions of eucharistic sacrifice that conflict with the doctrine and principles of the Thirty-Nine Articles have been incorporated into their eucharistic prayers. The propagation of such beliefs and practices fosters and reinforces the false impression that Anglicanism is a Protestant-Roman Catholic hybrid.

Historic Anglicanism, confessional Anglicanism, or “old Anglicanism,” as Federick Meyrick put it, is very much in danger of being overshadowed by this erroneous view of Anglicanism, particularly in the Anglican Church in North America in which a form of unreformed Catholicism has been substituted for historic Anglicanism in its constitution, canons, catechism, and proposed service book. Bishops and other representatives of conservative Anglican provinces can gather in solemn assembly and proclaim their faithfulness to the Bible and the historic Anglican formularies as much as they want. If they, however, continue to acquiesce to this overshadowing of historic Anglicanism as they have done so far, they are wasting their breath (and their province’s money).

It would greatly support the recovery of historic Anglicanism in North American if the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans got its priorities straight and threw its support behind North American Anglicans who are genuinely faithful to biblical Christianity and historic Anglicanism rather than a province whose formularies embody a form of unreformed Catholicism and create a false impression of Anglicanism of its own. While the task of shifting its support to these North American Anglicans may prove formidable due to the complex relationships between the different groups forming the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, it would be an important step toward the establishment of a genuine Anglican presence and witness in North America.