A Spring Ramble on the Anglican Way

By Robin G.Jordan

There is a lot of confusion in this century as to the character of authentic Anglicanism. Before the nineteenth century members of the reformed Anglican Church had a far better idea about what the reformed Anglican Church believed than they do today. In the nineteenth century the Oxford movement would muddy the waters. The Anglican Church has not recovered from the confusion that the Oxford movement created. The Oxford movement has modern-day proponents who are set on perpetuating that confusion in a new generation.

The proponents of the “three streams, one river” view of the Anglican Church have added to the confusion in more recent times. The concept of three streams flowing into one river is a useful topology for describing the Anglican Church in the last half of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twentieth century but as a prescription for how the Anglican Church should be, it is highly problematic. It fosters a distorted view of what the Anglican Church and what it stands for.

The late Peter Toon popularized the term “the Anglican Way” to describe historic Anglicanism. However, others have appropriated the term to describe a form of beliefs and practices that at its best only remotely resembles historic Anglicanism.

“The Anglican Way” is still useful description for historic Anglicanism if it is separated from all the false ideas to which it has been applied.

First of all, the Anglican Way is not a compromise between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. The English Reformers were uncompromising in their rejection of Roman Catholics. So were the Caroline High Churchmen who have sometimes been misrepresented as sympathetic to Roman Catholicism by their contemporaries and later generations due to their proclivity for a ritualistic style of their worship and their emphasis upon the sacraments and episcopacy. While a number of the Caroline High Churchmen embraced Arminianism, the Church of England was Reformed in its formularies and is to this day.

At the time of the Glorious Revolution the English Parliament adopted the Coronation Oath Act which required the monarchs of England to uphold "the true Profession of the Gospel and the Protestant Reformed Religion Established by Law.” With this act the English Parliament recognized the established Church of England not just as Protestant but also as Reformed.

When Tractarians like John Henry Newman claimed that the beliefs and practices of the Church of England were a compromise between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism and Edward Bouvrie Pusey claimed that its beliefs and practices comprised a third branch of Catholicism, they were expressing opinions that were just that, opinions—views that were not based upon fact. The Oxford movement’s propaganda machine would repeat these opinions over and over again in books, pamphlets, and lectures until a segment of the Church of England came to believe that they were indeed based upon fact.

Adolph Hitler wrote about the “Big Lie” in Mein Kampf. It is a lie that is repeated over and over again until even those who are telling the lie come to believe it. It takes on a life of its own so that those perpetuating the lie no longer need to put any energy into spreading it. As we have been learning in this age of digital media and “fake news,” people will believe something because they want to believe it, because it fits with their existing perceptions, which may or may not be accurate, and not because it is factual or true.

Secondly, the Anglican Church is not an ecumenical experiment. The English Reformers had serious problems with the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. They did not believe that Roman Catholic beliefs and practices were apostolic or catholic. They found no support for these beliefs and practices in the Bible.

While the Non-Jurors flirted with Eastern Orthodoxy in the seventeenth and eighteenth century and the Church of England and the Episcopal Church made overtures to Eastern Orthodox Church in the first half of the twentieth century, these initiatives encountered the same barrier each time. From an Eastern Orthodox perspective Anglicans were heretics. Adopting a handful of Eastern Orthodox practices was not going to alter this perception.

In some ways these practices may have enriched the worship of the Anglican Church, for example, the practices of reciting the Gloria Patri after the entire portion of psalms in the morning office and of including the Gloria in excelsis among the canticles of the morning office. But in other ways, these practices did not. The invocation of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the communion elements in the eucharistic prayer, while it is not prohibited by Scripture, nonetheless conflicts or is incompatible with biblical practice. In the Bible the descant of the Holy Spirit is invoked upon people, not inanimate objects such as water or bread and wine.

While the Holy Spirit is not a new phenomenon, the Pentecostal, charismatic, and the Third Wave, or Vineyard, movements are. While they focused attention on the person of the Holy Spirit and the manifestations of the Holy Spirit at a time when the work of the Holy Spirit was largely overlooked in a number of churches, they also brought with them their own share of problems. Thoughtful Pentecostal theologians questioned the claims of some leading Pentecostals and drew attention to non-biblical, non-Christian sources of these claims. They also pointed to the problematic ways that many Pentecostals handled Scripture. Charismatic Anglican leaders like the late David Watson urged those caught up in the charismatic movement to subject all special revelations to Scripture. The Holy Spirit was not going contradict the Scriptures that he inspired. While these three movements have matured to some extent, the problems have not gone away.

In the third place, the Anglican Church is not modeling clay that can be shaped and reshaped by each new generation. It is not, as someone put it, whatever those who identify themselves as Anglicans believe and practice at a particular point in time. The person who made this comment was not a liberal Episcopalian but a conservative ACNA’er. His comment prompted me to wonder whether he had though through the full implications of what he was saying. The same argument could be used to justify the beliefs and practices of liberal Episcopalians as it could be used to justify those of conservative ACNA’ers.

What then is the Anglican Way? As ramblers who walk the country paths in England and hikers who walk the outdoor trails in Canada and the United States know, these paths and trails have markers that inform ramblers and hikers that they are on the right path or trail. These markers are pretty important. In the Canada and the United States if the hiker ignores the markers, they can lose their way and find themselves in dangerous, life-threatening situations.

The Anglican Way has four such markers. They are the Bible, the creeds, the Thirty-Nine Articles (1571) and the Book of Common Prayer (1662), and the threefold ministry of deacon, presbyter, and bishop.

Historically Anglicans have believed that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that it contains everything that is necessary to salvation. They have also believed that it is the only source of Christian doctrine. They have further believed that it is the final authority in matters of faith and practice. If a doctrine cannot be genuinely supported from the Scriptures, it has no place in the Anglican Church. If a practice conflicts or is incompatible with the Scriptures, it also has no place in the Anglican Church.

Anglicans have believed that the teaching of the historic creeds—the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds—is grounded in the Scriptures and forms the substance of the Christian faith.

Anglicans have believed that the principles of the historic Anglicanism’s confession of faith—the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1571—are also grounded in the Scriptures and augment the teaching of the historic creeds. They have believed that the doctrine contained in The Book of Common Prayer of 1662 is agreeable to the Scriptures and the form of worship contained in the book does not conflict or is incompatible with the Scriptures. They have also believed that the rites of the Ordinal that is annexed to The Book of Common Prayer also do not conflict with or is incompatible with the Scriptures and those ordained according to its rites are lawfully ordained and should be viewed as being such by others and themselves. They have recognized and accepted the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal as the longstanding standard of doctrine and worship for Anglicans.

At the time of the Protestant Reformation the Anglican Church would retain the office of bishop as well as the offices of presbyter and deacon. The Anglican Church did not conflate the offices of presbyter and bishop into the single office of pastor as did the European Reformed Churches and the Lutheran Churches. The Anglican Church’s retention of the episcopal office was not done out of the belief that bishops were indispensible. It was a pragmatic decision. The same pragmaticism is embodied in Thomas Cranmer’s dictum:

But now as concerning those persons, which peradventure will be offended, for that some of the old Ceremonies are retained still: If they consider that without some Ceremonies it is not possible to keep any Order, or quiet Discipline in the Church, they shall easily perceive just cause to reform their judgements. And if they think much, that any of the old do remain, and would rather have all devised anew: then such men granting some Ceremonies convenient to be had, surely where the old may be well used, there they cannot reasonably reprove the old only for their age, without bewraying of their own folly. For in such a case they ought rather to have reverence unto them for their antiquity, if they will declare themselves to be more studious of unity and concord, than of innovations and new-fangleness, which (as much as may be with the true setting forth of Christ's Religion) is always to be eschewed.

As John Jewell wrote, the office of bishop was “ancient and allowable.” It was a longstanding practice of the Church but more importantly it was not forbidden by the Scriptures. It did not conflict with or was incompatible with biblical practice since the antecedents of the episcopal office were found in the New Testament.

The English Reformers recognized the validity of the orders and sacraments of the European Reformed Churches as did the Caroline High Churchmen. The Restoration bishops' insistence upon episcopal ordination was largely a reaction to those who maintained that a presbyterial form of church government and presbyterial ordination were divinely-instituted and therefore were the only valid form of church government and the only valid form of ordination. .The English Reformers had taken the position that no particular form of church government is prescribed in the Scriptures and the Anglican Ordinal contained all things necessary to the ordination of clergy and contained nothing which of itself superstitious and ungodly. The English Reformers did not as did the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement, which followed hard on the heels of the Oxford movement, unchurch every church that did not have bishops.

“What about the sacraments?” readers may ask. The Thirty-Nine Articles and the Prayer Book Catechism lay out the historic Anglican position on sacraments. They recognized only two sacraments—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper—as ordained by Christ. The Thirty-Nine Articles describe confirmation, penance, ordination, marriage, and extreme unction as corruptions of apostolic practice or states of life. The Homilies, which the Articles commend for their godly and wholesome doctrine, take a pragmatic view of confirmation, ordination, marriage, and “visitation of the sick” but not a sacramental one. They are to be retained for their usefulness and not out of the belief that they are means of grace.

Those who identify themselves as Anglicans and keep to the path or trail marked by these guide posts are walking the genuine Anglican Way. The Anglican Way permits a large measure of freedom in secondary matters. Where it does curtail the walker’s freedom, it is like a sign that says, “Keep to the trail.” It is there not to spoil the enjoyment of the walker but to ensure his safety, to warn him away from the ravine hidden by underbrush or a favorite sunning place of the wood’s more dangerous inhabitants.