Not Confessional!
This may not bother anyone else, but it bothers me. There’s something on our website for the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) that I don’t think belongs there. It’s Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher’s quote under the heading: “What is Anglicanism?” Fisher was the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1945 to 1961. I suppose the quote gets plenty of traffic since there’s a thriving industry these days around the confusion over Anglican identity. Lots of people are wondering what this church believes. Here’s the quote (what do you think?):
“The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ’s Church from the beginning. It may licitly teach as necessary for salvation nothing but what is read in the Holy Scriptures as God’s Word written or may be proved thereby. It therefore embraces and affirms such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the Scriptures, and thus to be counted apostolic. The Church has no authority to innovate: it is obliged continually, and particularly in times of renewal or reformation, to return to ‘the faith once delivered to the saints.’”
At best, this seems like “the Bible is my creed” bumpersticker simplicity that harms and does not help our understanding of Anglicanism. Who would feel an evangelical tug to a church that advertises itself as having no peculiar thought? It’s hardly better than what William James wrote about the Church of England: “Never were incompatibles so happily yoked together…Anglicanism remains obese and round and comfortable and decent with this world’s deficiencies, without one acute note in it whole life or history.” Stating that we believe the Bible and the faith of the ancient church isn’t wrong, of course, but failure to mention Anglican’s formularies is really a glaring mistake and misleading. It’s like most church mission statements that say the same thing as every other church, whether they be Anglican, Baptist or Presbyterian. At a time when the ACNA is struggling to keep its head above water in the sea of confusion about Anglican identity, I wonder why it’s even there. It serves as an eraser statement to all that came before it on the ACNA website, the seven elements characteristic of the Anglican Way that are listed, including: Scripture, sacraments, bishops, the Book of Common Prayer 1662, and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion. Then comes Fisher saying (in effect): “You can ignore the other things that were just listed as if historic Anglicanism hasn’t stood on the Bible and ancient consensual Christianity as spelled out plainly in its historic formularies” (my paraphrase, and what I believe the newcomer to Anglicanism will see if they tun in to our website).
I suppose his point is that we are not a confessional church like Lutherans who have the Augsburg Confession and Presbyterians with their Westminster Confessions. But this is really a pernicious lie. In fact we are confessional and we have been from the beginning.
Thomas Cranmer wrote the Articles of Religion at the same time as the other great Protestant confessions with the same purpose in mind. The 1571 (and final) version of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion succinctly states their purpose: “For the avoiding of diversities of opinions and for the establishing of Consent touching true religion.” While it is clear that the Articles speak to sixteenth century issues in the Church of England, they are much broader in scope and more comprehensive with their attention to such core Christian doctrines as the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and the authority of Holy Scripture. By addressing many matters — controversial and noncontroversial to the times — the Articles show themselves to be the church’s confession. Since the Parliamentary Act of Uniformity that established the Articles in 1571, all clergy ordained in the Church of England have been required to subscribe to the Articles as an authoritative statement of Anglican beliefs. Moreover, in many parts of the Anglican Communion today subscription is still required of ordinands, as the Articles “bear witness to the faith revealed in Scripture and set forth in the catholic creeds” (Church of England Canon C 15). William White, the first Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, made sure the Thirty-nine Articles were adopted as our confession. Episcopalians did not require subscription as did the Church of England because the Articles were included in the Constitution of the church, and everyone who was ordained vowed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Church (including its Constitution). The neglect of The Articles is one of the great tragedies of modern Anglicanism.
So what is an Article, and how are they organized? An Article is simply an official position statement on an important doctrinal matter based on the teaching of Holy Scripture. The Thirty-nine Articles are organized and divided into three sections: the catholic (as in “universal”), the Protestant, and the Anglican. Articles 1-8, the catholic Articles, define and describe what is to be believed by all Christians everywhere and in every age. Articles 9-34 are the Protestant Articles that describe how Anglicanism is distinctly Protestant and not Roman Catholic. The last ones (Articles 35-39) are the Anglican Articles, describing aspects of Anglicanism that are distinctive from other parts of Protestantism. As Gerald Bray explains in The Faith We Confess: “Understood in this way, the Thirty-nine Articles have a logical and harmonious symmetry, starting with the universal and going on progressively to what is more particular, first to the protestant world in general and then to the specific circumstances of the Church of England.” The Articles have doctrinal authority today because they are recognized as Anglicans’ key doctrinal statement. At the General Convention of 1801, the fledgling Episcopal Church adopted the Articles as its theological standard. The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) Constitution and Canons states: “We receive the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571, taken in their literal and grammatical sense, as expressing the Anglican response to certain doctrinal issues controverted at that time, and as expressing fundamental principles of authentic Anglican belief.” The Jerusalem Declaration (Gafcon, 2008) states that “We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.”
Those who want to know what Anglicans believe will find little help or guidance in Geoffrey Fisher’s quote. It is coffee-hour banter that throws water on our Anglican distinctives. Someone doesn’t need to look beyond the recognized Anglican formularies (The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the two books of Anglican Homilies) that all affirm our belief in the Bible as our highest authority and our high regard for its interpretation throughout the centuries (tradition). If you want to know what Anglicans believe about Scripture, predestination, transubstantiation, and whether or not the sacrament’s efficacy depends on the holiness of their minister, it’s right there in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion.