What is Anglicanism?
The Anglican Church has about 85 million members in 39 Provinces across 165 countries. The average Anglican, as the current Archbishop of Canterbury often says, is not someone from the UK, but a 30-year-old woman in Africa who is earning under $1 a day.
It is a family of Churches, a fellowship or communion of Churches, which grew out of the Church of England, with shared saints, linked histories, theology, worship and a shared relationship to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
So what is Anglicanism? What does it mean to be an Anglican?
BEING PART OF THE ONE CATHOLIC CHURCH
There is a continuity with the past- A maintenance of the three-fold order of bishops, priests and deacons. An unbroken link through time and space with the apostles, and a very early ordering of the Church.
- Confession of the historic creeds: Apostles, Nicene and Athanasian
- Celebration of the sacraments: and particularly Baptism and Holy Communion
- Use of liturgy, rites and prayers which reach back to the very beginning of the Christian period
- Buildings: some Church buildings in England are about 1400 years old
- Saints: both the saints of the Church, and also national saints – St Alban, Venerable Bede, St Hilda – and more local saints often only remembered in church names: eg. St Botolph, St Wulfstan
The conflict between the Pope and the King
The break with Rome was a rejection of Papal authority on English soil. It was not a rejection of the faith of the Catholic church or of the saints of the Catholic Church. It was the culmination of a long conflict between papal jurisdiction and royal jurisdiction
1170: Conflict between Henry II and Church over who had authority over clergy who committed crimes led to the murder of Thomas a BecketSo when Henry VIII wants his divorce, and the Pope is politically unable to give him a divorce, Henry decides to take all authority into his own hands
1353: Statute of Praemunire declared that the King’s subjects could not be tried ‘out of the realm’ or appeal to a court ‘out of the realm’
1393: A statute stated that the Pope had caused the laws of the realm ‘to be defeated and avoided at his will, in perpetual destruction of the sovereignty of the King’
1532: Act in Restraint of Appeals:
‘This realm of England is an empire .. governed by one supreme head and king .. instituted and furnished by the goodness and sufferance of Almighty God, with plenary whole and entire power, pre-eminence, authority, prerogative and jurisdiction to render and yield all justice and final determination to all manner of folk in all causes’.
1534: the Act of Supremacy declared that the king was ‘the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England’.1534: Henry determines to appoint the Bishops
‘We thought that the clergy of our realm had been our subjects wholly. But now we have well perceived that they be half our subjects, yea and scarce our subjects. For all the prelates at their consecration make an oath to the pope clean contrary to the oath they make to us, so that they seem his subjects and not ours’.
Again, this was nothing new. Usually episcopal appointments had been a question of negotiation between the papacy and the crown, but the crown took upon itself the right to appoint.
1173, Henry II writes to the canons of Winchester Cathedral, ‘I order you to hold a free election, but nevertheless, I forbid you to elect anyone except Richard my clerk, the archdeacon of Poitiers’
1351: Statute of Provisors, repealed in 1390, forbade the pope to ‘provide’ a candidate to any appointmentThe situation has little changed, although power passed from the Crown to Parliament and the Prime Minister. However, in July 2007, the Prime Minister of the day, Gordon Brown stated that he was giving up his right to choose a particular person for the post of a bishop from the two names given to him by the Crown Appointments Commission. Instead he would simply accept a single name that was given to him.
BEING PART OF A LOCAL/NATIONAL CHURCH
The Church of England for all people- Conviction that the Church was for all people. Anybody who was not a member was potentially guilty of treason. Penalties ranged from execution, imprisonment and fines.
Whitgift (Archbishop 1583-1604), applied significant pressure to Puritans. Many were deprived, some imprisoned and a few executed.
Archbishop Laud was even more aggressive in his persecution of Puritans. In 1630, Alexander Leighton, who wrote Zion’s Pleas against Prelacy, was fined £10000, imprisoned for life, but first whipped, had his nose slit, was branded on face by SS (sower of sedition) and had his ears cut off.
- Conviction that worship should be in the common tongue. In 1544 some prayers, including the litany, were permitted in the common language. In 1549 the first fully English prayer book was published.
- Conviction that the national/regional church has the authority to introduce ‘traditions’, ‘ceremonies and rites’, provided that these innovations do not contravene God’s Word and are introduced to build up God’s people.
Article XXXIV.The [state] Church in England.
It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word.
Whosoever, through his private judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, (that others may fear to do the like,) as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the Magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of the weak brethren.
Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained only by man's authority, so that all things be done to edifying.
In 1662 with the restoration of the monarchy after the commonwealth, and the accession of Charles II, over 1700 puritan ministers in the Church of England were deprived, mainly because they could not accept the need for episcopal ordination.
However, the Toleration act of 1689 recognised that there could not only be one Church in England, and gave legal recognition to Protestant groups outside the Church of England. Persecutions of puritans continued, but gradually lessened.
(Roman Catholics were not given equal civic rights until 1829, with passing of Roman Catholic Relief act)
Today in the Church of England:
The Queen is head of State and supreme governor of the Church. For the time being the State still plays a role in the appointment of bishops (through representatives on the Crown Appointments commission), some bishops sit in the House of Lords, there are prayers before the beginning of parliamentary sessions, and some civic events are marked by church services.
BEING PART OF A REFORMED CHURCH
The Church of England has been shaped by the convictions rediscovered at the Reformation, expressed in the 42 Articles of Religion (1553) reduced to 39 in 1571, the homilies of 1547 and 1571, and in the Prayer book of 1662 (preceded by the Prayer books of 1549, 1552, 1559)A look at three convictions
1. The bible
“Article VI. Of the Sufficiency of the holy Scriptures for salvation. Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation”Archbishop Cranmer was convinced that if the people are allowed to read the Bible then it would change their lives.
- from 1540 an open bible in the common language was placed in each church
- the Church of England lectionary: “In no other church anywhere is the bible read in public worship so regularly, with such order, and at such length, as in the Anglican fellowship of Churches.” Stephen Neil.
2. Justification by faith
“Article XI. Of the justification of Man. We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith, and not for our own works or deservings”3. On Holy Communion:
“Article XXVIII. Of the Lord's Supper.Anglican teaching on Holy Communion
The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another, but rather it is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive the same, the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.
Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ; but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath given occasion to many superstitions.
The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper, is Faith.
The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.”
a) Emphasis on the once and for all time all sufficient sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.
b) Conviction that the receiving of the bread and wine is a spiritual receiving of Christ – clarified in the words used at the distribution of communion in the 1662 prayer book:
This was a combination of the words in the 1549 prayer book: ‘The body of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for you preserve your body and soul unto everlasting life’, and the more (Zwinglian) words used in the 1552 prayer book: ‘Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving’. In the 1559 and 1662 prayer books, the two sets of words were combined.c) Linking of consecration and reception into a single act
d) Rejection of transubstantiation, and removal of language of ‘accident’ and ‘substance’ when speaking of presence of Christ in communion
e) Denial that the presence of Christ is a local presence
It was for these teachings, and their rejection of the doctrines of purgatory and indulgences that Archbishop Cranmer, and Bishops Latimer and Ridley were burnt at the stake (1555).
How far would the reformers go?
There was a constant battle over vestments (the surplice) and the need for the episcopacy.
Many Reformers wanted the Church of England to go much further than it did, but Queen Elizabeth I, needing to hold her kingdom together after the reformation of Edward VI's reign and counter reformation of Mary's reign, tried to draw the competing factions together in the 1559 prayer book.
“By 1593 the Church of England had shown plainly that it would not walk in the ways either of Geneva or of Rome. This is the origin of the famous Via Media, the middle way, of the Church of England…Anglicanism is a very positive form of Christian belief; it affirms that it teaches the whole of Catholic faith, free from the distortions, the exaggerations, the over-definitions both of the Protestant left wing and of the right wing of Tridentine Catholicism. Its challenge can be summed up in the phrases, ‘Show us anything clearly set forth in Holy Scripture that we do not teach, and we will teach it; show us anything in our teaching and practice that is plainly contrary to Holy Scripture, and we will abandon it.” (Stephen Neill, Anglicanism p. 119)During the Commonwealth period (1649-1660), under Oliver Cromwell, with the defeat of the monarchy and the ascendency of the Puritans, episcopacy was abolished and the prayer book was declared illegal.
However, with the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, the bishops, prayer book (of 1559) and vestments were reinstated. In 1662 the prayer book was revised, introducing a few 'catholic' elements (for example, the blessing of the water at baptism), but in principal holding fast to the theology expressed in the 1559 prayer book.
Declarations of assent
Up to 1865 in England, any ordained minister was required to state,
‘I assent to the 39 articles and to the Book of Common Prayer and the ordering of Bishops, priests and deacons. I believe the doctrine of the Church of England as therein set forth to be agreeable to the Word of God’.A new formula was introduced in 1865 with the wording:
I A B do solemnly make the following declaration:Since 1975, Church of England ministers state
I assent to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion...
I believe the doctrine of the United Church of England and Ireland, as therein set forth, to be agreeable to the Word of God...
“The Church of England is part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation. Led by the Holy Spirit, it has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. In the declaration you are about to make, will you affirm your loyalty to this inheritance of faith as your inspiration and guidance under God in bringing the grace and truth of Christ to this generation and making Him known to those in your care?
Declaration of Assent
I, A B, do so affirm, and accordingly declare my belief in the faith which is revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds and to which the historic formularies of the Church of England bear witness; and in public prayer and administration of the sacraments, I will use only the forms of service which are authorized or allowed by Canon.”
BEING PART OF A MISSIONARY CHURCH
An overseas mission that grew initially with chaplains going to serve the communities who lived overseas as part of the colonial expansion. Initially they focussed on the English-speaking communities, but in time began to reach out to the local populations.Formation of missionary societies: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (1701) and the Church Missionary Society (1799)
The Church of England, as a rule, never sought to proselytise where other national Christian churches already existed.
In the last 40 years there has been a movement within the Church of England from a maintenance model of ministry to a mission model of ministry. There is a recognition that the people in England need to hear the gospel.
BEING PART OF A GLOBAL CHURCH: THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION (‘FELLOWSHIP’)
Today there are Anglican communities in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, West Indies, throughout the African continent, India, Japan, Korea, South America.There is a presence in Jerusalem, the Middle East, the far East. There are also Anglican chaplaincies in Europe
The Anglican communion is a family of Churches – with inter-connecting histories, shared saints, theology, worship and a shared relationship with the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop of Canterbury is 'primus inter pares' (first among equals) but has no jurisdiction over other Provinces. The Archbishop of Canterbury can only invite bishops to gather together for Lambeth conferences.
At the Lambeth conference in 1920, people accepted the Lambeth Quadrilateral as the theological basis of Anglican unity
Lambeth Quadrilateral
- Acceptance of Holy Scripture as containing all things necessary for salvation’
- Nicene creed as the sufficient statement of the faith
- Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion as instituted by Christ himself
- The Historic episcopate locally adapted to the needs of various regions and peoples
BEING PART OF A FAITHFUL AND GENEROUS CHURCH
The Church, after the turmoil of the reformation, the counter-reformation of Mary’s reign and the civil war, seeks to be as generous as possible. It sought to avoid the excesses of medieval Catholicism and of the extreme puritans.Some significant Anglican theologians:
John Jewel (1522-1571). Apologia Ecclesia Anglicana. He takes his stand on scripture and the primitive church of the first six centuries. His accusation is that the Popes are the innovators and that there is no evidence in early church history for the supremacy of the Pope, or some of the later innovations.
Richard Hooker (1554-1600). Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. He discusses the Order of the Church and argues for the freedom for regional churches within the fellowship of the one Church. The basis of his argument is the Word of God, found in Scripture but also in the established order/laws and traditions.
His main opposition is the Puritan extreme. He accepts what is given as good, provided it is not forbidden in scripture, and if it builds up people in their faith. For instance, church music is helpful because it can move the emotions. We need to trust the sovereignty of God who works through time. He defends episcopacy, because this has been the pattern of church government from the beginning, and although it is not commanded in scripture, there is nothing in scripture which proscribes episcopacy as practised in the Church of England.
Lancelot Andrewes (1555-1626). He was a strong defender of episcopacy, but he writes, “Even if our order be admitted to be of divine authority it does not follow that without it there can be no salvation, or that without it a church cannot stand. Only a blind man could fail to see churches standing without it. Only a man of iron could deny that salvation is to be found within them”.
He is most well known for his Preces Privatae, his personal prayers and devotions
Cambridge Platonists (Period between 1630-1670): Convinced of compatibility between reason and faith. Benjamin Whichcote, ‘God is the most knowable of any thing in the world’ (Patrides, 1969, p.58).
S Neil, ‘They loved the constitution of the Church, and the liturgy, and could well live under them; but they did not think it unlawful to live under another form’. They became known as Latitudinarians, and they are the forerunners of the low church, and then broad church traditions. They focussed on pluralism, diversity of opinion and diffusion of clerical power.
A CLASSIC UNDERSTANDING OF THE THREE MAIN TRADITIONS
Anglo-Catholics – emphasis on the visible church, sacraments and apostolic succession. Find their roots in the tradition of Laud (who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633 and was executed in 1645) with his emphasis on the continuity between the Church of England and the ancient Church. Reshaped and given new impetus by the Oxford Movement in the 1830’s (John Henry Newman, 1802-1890)Evangelicals – emphasis on the authority of Scripture, preaching, justification by faith and personal conversion. Find roots in reformers and puritans, but leaders like Charles Simeon (1759-1836) were also influenced by John Wesley (1703-1791) and the Methodist movement. The evangelical movement did make some significant political difference, the most well known examples of which were the anti-slavery work of William Wilberforce, and the working condition reforms introduced by Lord Shaftsbury, both members of the evangelical 'Clapham sect'.
Liberals – emphasis on faithfulness to reason. 'Reason' is, of course, also important for those who wish to be faithful to tradition and scripture. It all depends on the assumptions that we make at the beginning, and the focus of the liberal tradition is the humanity of Jesus, and his moral commandments as presented in the gospels. There have been recent times, in the name of reason, when the divinity of Christ, his resurrection and the eternal have been denied. They have a commitment to justice, to inclusion and to social and political action to promote God’s Kingdom.
THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND TODAY
There are many encouraging signs in the Church of England today.Yes, we do live in a society that is increasingly materialist, atheist and which is opposed to any form of institutionalised religion. We face significant new moral issues raised by the remarkable developments in the fields of artificial intelligence and genetics. We are divided on major issues such as human sexuality, how we respond to people of other faiths and prayers for the dead. Church attendance is continuing to fall, although it does seem that the decline is being halted, and in some areas there is now growth.
But as Christian believers take their faith more seriously, so new churches are being planted and new Christian communities formed. The numbers of people offering for ministry are increasing. People are meeting with God, and as they encounter God, some of the old party labels are becoming less significant. Evangelicals are discovering the power of the Eucharist. Those who consider themselves more catholic are running Alpha courses and bible studies. In many communities, Christian believers from different churches and traditions are working together on projects to run food banks, football clubs, town or street pastors, projects that offer support to the homeless, unemployed or those in debt.
And specifically, as members of the Church of England we are united by:
- a common legacy which has at its heart the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but which has been shaped by our own national history, culture and language.
- a faith as expressed in the historic creeds
- our buildings and particularly our cathedrals
- our willingness to listen to scripture, and to recognise its authority, even if we disagree as to how to interpret it.
- our baptism (and our desire to live our baptism)
- our shared experience of receiving communion according to the rites of either the Book of Common Prayer or of Common Worship.
- our sense that a historic episcopacy means that there is some sort of connection with Christ and his people through time and space in our confirmations and ordinations.
- the fact that our ministers make oaths of allegiance and obedience to their bishop
- And for many there is the common experience of (at the least) praying morning prayer with its daily bible readings
For further Reading
SC Neill, Anglicanism
Rowan Williams, Anglican Identities
https://www.churchofengland.org/more/media-centre/church-england-glance/history-church-england
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