From reading this book, I found that this crisis of what it means to be Anglican isn't new. This point has been argued before during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Back then, there were tensions between the Evangelicals and the Ango-Catholics. The issue, even with framing the argument, is picking which sources you use to justify what it is the Anglican church believes. Who are the authoritative voices within the church that clearly define Anglicanism? As you move more broadly away from the Church of England where it all started, how does that authority work across different nations? The Archbishop of Canbuary is installed by the King or Queen of England. Why would those in America or Tanzinea or China even recognise that process of appointment as having any legitimate jurisdiction over them in their country?
Throughout those debates, it came to be seen that:
there were virtually no universally recognized classics or ‘normal texts’ of theology on which to base Anglican theology, apart from Scripture, the writers of the early church and the liturgical and doctrinal resources including the Articles of Religion contained in the Book of Common Prayer that reached its final form in 1662...
The past functions very differently for most Anglicans: there is no key year or key text. Instead, everything is contested. Rather than being historicized in canonical or quasi-canonical texts, Anglican theology instead emerges from a combination of text, institution, context and practice, both ecclesiastical and secular and drawn from a number of key periods
This means outside of the structure of our governance and a few scant documents, what Anglicans believe can be quite broad because those in the past have had quite broad understandings. Most of this book traces the historical process of the Anglican church and how it came to believe certain things. Even this method shows that certain time periods and what came out of those past issues and debates do have some bearing on what Anglicans believe.
As the Church of England didn't technically break away from Rome, it reformed from within, there are those who would say there is a legitimate claim that the early Church Fathers sprouted the seeds of Anglicanism. As the church reformed from parts of Catholicism, it still retained parts of it, like Bishops and set prayers. The Reformation within the English church could be seen as a corrective to Rome, of a going back to the correct Catholic faith that was initially set up by the Church Fathers.
While it was bumpy from Henry VIII and Queen Mary, it was argued that Elizabeth I set up a more stable idea of what the Church was to believe. Elizabeth wanted uniformity. She walked a balance between those who under Mary wanted to go back to Rome and the Puritians who didn't think the church reformed enough. Chapman argued that technically Anglicanism was probably starting to be defined in 1660 and settled in 1662 with the prayer book under Elizabeth.
As Elizabeth wanted stability and order, the process was that if the scriptures were unclear on some practice, then what the ruling authorities said on the matter was to be done. This of course creates tension with who gets to decide what. What about people's conscience or other readings of scripture? This right here, is probably the long-standing issue that has been going on within the Anglican Church.
During this time John Jewel wrote his Apology for the Anglican church. In this, he argued that
the Church of England was not a new church that began at the Reformation, but ‘we are come, as near as we possibly could, to the Church of the Apostles and of the old catholic bishops and fathers’. Furthermore, he contended, where Scripture was silent, the authority of the Fathers was central
Later in the 18-19th Century when that Anglican identity was trying to be defined, both sides would use Jewel's writings. The Angol-Catholics liked that he would cite the church fathers and their tradition, and the Evangelicals liked that the church fathers also sought to always use Scripter as a grid for their doctrine and practice so arrived at the same conclusions as them. This probably suggests that Jewel might be a voice worth listening to within the Anglican church.
On the 39 Articles, there was some debate as to how English they actually are. Their doctrine and ideas were copied and pasted from the continent and Lutherans would probably agree to most if not all that is said in them. But even then, their position remains a contentious issue, and it is worth noting that the laity was never told to hold to the articles.
Twice in the Anglican church, clergy dress became an issue. Scripture isn't clear on this, so there were different frameworks of thinking, and the issue is, who gets to decide arose again. Should they still look like their Catholic counterparts? What is that communication to people? Or are they redeeming the dress showing how a true (reformed) minister should look like? Who gets to say? Richard Hooker comes into the scene and tries to appeal to scripture in a reformed way (possibly contested by some?) and then like John Jewel appeals to the church fathers' way of thinking. Hooker saw that the church as a body has the authority to make decisions on matters indifferent to scripture. Hooker also waded into the issues of Church laws and common law and who had the authority over which domain. This was probably an issue in England where things were pretty tied up with the Hosue of Lords made up of Bishops. This will probably not be an issue for today. He did say that it was only the laws the church could change, not its doctrines.
As the colonies expanded, so did the Church of England. As this went worldwide, the tension to hold this denomination in place became even more tested.
Lambeth, a conference of the worldwide bishops every 10 years, would meet to express their fellowship with one another. The example of the 1867 Lambeth was an interesting case study which has some contemporary overtones.
During this time a bishop, John William Colenso saw that the native practices in Africa were to not be dismissed as contrary to the Bible and also that God's forgiveness extended to everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike. This belief caused tension among the other Bishops across the world. At the next Lambeth conference in 1867, there was pressure on the Archbishop of Canterbury to do something about this. He didn't, because he said that would be overstepping the authority of the conference. Lambeth wasn't set up to make hard and fast rules, and besides, decisions from the conference didn't carry any power to put them into practice locally. From all this "what emerged was a theology of the Anglican Communion, which was about as doctrinally and structurally weak as was possible".
At another Lambeth, in 1888 the the following Quadrilateral was agreed upon:
1st. The Holy Scriptures as the Word of God.
2nd. The Primitive Creeds as the Rule of Faith.
3rd. The two Sacraments ordained by Christ himself.
4th. The Episcopate as the key-stone of Governmental Unity
This was more or less taken from the American Episcopal Church in Chicago in 1886, meaning there was some agreement on parameters of belief. If these four points were to be the identity of Anglicanism Chapman points out:
for the first time an international definition of what constituted Anglicanism was given, but with the perhaps surprising absence of anything distinctively English including the Prayer Book or any doctrinal formulary
Overall, I thought this book was a good read. I don't know much about Mark Chapman, so I assume, as he said in this book, the Anglicanism that he paints is tainted by his own selection of history and the people he has chosen to focus on. But I did appreciate the past debates about identity that have already happened.
For those who want a codified set of beliefs and a clear picture of what Anglican theology is you would be disappointed as throughout this book, there are bits like :
Anglicans have frequently been rather less certain about what constitutes their key identity—and for many contemporary Anglicans, none of the nineteenth-century interpretations of the past seems entirely adequate
Or things like the 1938 Church of England Doctrine Commission Report is cited as saying:
There are systems of Catholic Theology and of Protestant Theology.… But there is not, and the majority of us do not desire that there should be, a system of distinctively Anglican theology. The Anglican Churches have received and hold the faith of Catholic Christendom, but they have exhibited a rich variety in methods both of approach and of interpretation
Depending on who you are this could be seen as depressing or exciting. Anglicism isn't very narrow, it holds to the Bible first and foremost, and then it should perhaps hold to the teachings of the early church. It is reformed and governed by the Episcopate. Beyond those broad lines, there is great freedom here -but that does cut another way that may cause some concern. How broad can you go with this? And more pointedly what if someone oversteps the mark? Lambeth has no power, and if the Archbishop of Canterbury is head over the church of England and not Anglicans in general, then who governs those Bishops who do not hold to the Biblical and Reformed faith?
The Anglican church seemed to have been quite an interesting experiment, and possibly quite frustrating to define. I did think Jewel and Hooker are guys to be read and understood as authoritative Anglican voices on both sides of the debate seemed to like them (and personally I think Cranmer should get a look in too).
As tensions increase, it seems people may be putting too much pressure or expectations on the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lambeth's decisions in 1998. Both don't seem to carry the power some want. At least in my Australian context, I think if someone wants to set certain parameters of belief or theology, that needs to be decided on a diocesan level. Already in the Australian Anglican Constitution, there are stipulations on how they can break away from the Church of English while still remaining Anglican. Section 6 says:
This Church will remain and be in communion with the Church of England in England and with churches in communion therewith so long as communion is consistent with the Fundamental Declarations contained in this Constitution.
In my mind, the future of the Australian Anglican Church needs to relook, reaffirm and enforce what is in their Fundamental Declarations (Section 1-3) to stay Anglican. What that consisted of will be quite broad - maybe too broad for some.
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