Evangelical or Reformation Anglican?
Words and meanings change over time. “Evangelical,” for example, was the term used for sixteenth century English Protestants, but it has been kicked around so much that today almost any Christian who reads the Bible will slap it on their website. Pentecostals, Anglo-catholics (Evangelical Catholics), three-streamers, and seminaries who self-identify as evangelical are often very separated from it’s original context and meaning. It once meant viewing Scripture as primary over every other authority (sola Scriptura), but in some circles it has become one part, a subordinate part, of tradition and experience. Being evangelical originally meant a commitment to justification by grace through faith alone, but today it includes those who would give a larger voice to “our decision for Christ” and the priority of repentance and obedience for salvation. It used to mean a commitment to universal priesthood (of all believers) and to the succession of apostolic teaching (2 Tim 2:2), but today it is also held by those who anoint hands at ordinations infusing them with magical powers, and to a tactile apostolic succession that imparts a priestly character that is traceable back to St. Peter who was the original priestly character. Evangelicals originally had differing views of “real presence” in the sacrament, but they were in agreement about the necessity of a faithful appropriation of the grace offered in Holy Communion - today in Anglicanism 101 classes across America, the word is that Jesus is corporeally located in the consecrated bread and wine, waiting on an altar to be adored and/or consumed.
Evangelical may be the big circle of what is going on in Anglicanism today, but the smaller circle in its middle is “Reformation Anglican” and this is what informs me about what I believe as an Anglican Christian. Reformation Anglicanism anchors me to the unmoveable ground of the English Reformation, and the historic Edwardian and Elizabethan formularies that have traditionally defined what Anglicans believe. It holds me to a certain understanding of Scripture, justification, ministry, and the sacraments, while still allowing for a generous view of adiaphora (matters of which honest Christians may disagree).
The modern inclination is to stroll through our five hundred year history (really two-thousand years!) picking and choosing from the buffet of different movements, trends, and theological aberrations to fit our personal tastes. But that road always leads to disaster. The church that stands for nothing will fall for anything, and this explains the dramatic decline of the Episcopal Church and the theological confusion in the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), and other churches that have moved away from the unyielding topography of historic Anglicanism. This question is always before Anglicans and Episcopalians: if our tradition is not defined and guarded by traditional Anglican formularies as confirmed over our history, then where does innovation stop?
To learn more about Reformation Anglicanism we recommend Ashley Null and John Yates III, Reformation Anglicanism (especially the last chapter, “A Manifesto for Reformation Anglicanism”). And consider the resources on the website of the Center for Reformation Anglicanism. Theology matters because God matters, and what is in question is the Christ-centered gospel that is challenged in the moralistic self-help messages that occupy pulpits in many Episcopal and Anglican churches today.