9 Things You Should Really Know About Anglicanism - UPDATED

1. Since the arrival of Christianity in Britain in the 3rd century, British Christianity has had a distinct flavor and independence of spirit, and was frequently in tension with Roman Catholicism. The Britons were evangelized by Irish missionary monks, and it wasn’t until the 7th century that the Roman church established its authority over Christianity in the British Isles, at the Synod of Whitby. But tensions continued until the 16th century.

2. The break with Rome in the 16th century had political causes, but also saw the emergence of an evangelical theology. The Church of England was not just a church of protest against the pope’s authority and his interference in English affairs. It was also a church that adopted a distinctly evangelical theology. The English Reformation cannot be reduced to the marital strife of Henry VIII.

3. Anglicanism is Reformed. The theology of the founding documents of the Anglican church—the Book of Homilies, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion—expresses a theology in keeping with the Reformed theology of the Swiss and South German Reformation. It is neither Lutheran, nor simply Calvinist, though it resonates with many of Calvin’s thoughts. Read More

I am re-posting this article by Michael Jensen as it is one of the most accurate descriptions of historic Anglicanism that I have come across on the Internet. There is too much misinformation about Anglicanism circulating on the Internet, for example Gerald R. McDermott's recent Crossway article, "10 Things You Should Know about Anglicanism." McDermott is the director of the Beeson Divinity School's Anglican Studies Program which prepares candidates for ordination in the Anglican Church in North America. In his article McDermott promotes the long-debunked myth that Anglicanism is a via media, "a 'middle way' between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism." The basis for McDermott's claim is the Church of England's retention of pre-Reformation liturgical forms of worship and episcopacy. This claim, however, founders on two rocks. The first is that the Church of England was not the only Reformed church to retain such forms. A number of the Swiss Reformed churches also did. The second rock is that while a number of continental Reformed churches conflated the offices of presbyter and bishop into the single office of pastor, leading sixteenth century Reformed theologians like Heinrich Bullinger and John Calvin were not entirely adverse to the retention of the office of bishop. McDermott also promotes a misrepresentation of the Thirty-Nine Articles' doctrinal position on the sacraments, a misrepresentation of their doctrinal position that is found in the ACNA's revised catechism, To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism. According to McDermott and the ACNA's revised catechism, there are "the five 'sacraments of the church'—confirmation, Holy Orders, marriage, absolution, and healing of the sick," in addition to the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. The Thirty-Nine Articles refer to these rites as "commonly-called sacraments." But it is clear that neither the Articles nor the two Books of Homilies which expand upon the doctrinal positions of the Articles regard such rites as sacraments but rather as corruptions of apostolic practice or states of life allowed in Scripture. The term "sacraments of the church" is borrowed from the canons and catechism of the Roman Catholic Church. Without specifically stating it, McDermott is inferring  that the Anglican Church retained the Roman Catholic sacramental system after Edward VI and Elizabeth I reasserted the ancient independence of the English Church from the See of Rome. Such an inference is far from the truth and reflects an Anglo-Catholic revisionist reinterpretation of English Church history and Anglican sacramental theology. McDermott also claims that all Anglicans subscribe to the same view of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper wherein fact there are a number of different schools of thought in the Anglican Church where the sacrament of the Lord's Supper is concerned.