Our Anglican Heritage, Second Edition

Can an Ancient Church be a Church of the Future?

John W. Howe, Sam Pascoe

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9781608994892
  9781498212717
• eBook ISBN:
  9781621892458
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

--What is Anglicanism and how is it distinctive? --Where did it come from and where is it ? --Which beliefs, values, and practices stand at the heart of this important, global Communion? --How can its rich heritage help it move into the future? This book is an essential guide to the Anglican tradition for anyone who has ever wondered what Anglicanism-the largest Protestant denomination in the world-is all about. Now fully updated and significantly revised, this second edition of Our Anglican Heritage gives voice to the strong and vibrant evangelical roots of Anglican Christianity. Events at the start of the twenty-first century have threatened to tear the Communion apart. The authors of this book, both Episcopal clergy, each responded to the crisis in different ways. One, a bishop, chose to stay in the Episcopal Church. The other chose to lead his congregation out of the Episcopal Church and into another Anglican Province. This book is a reflection of the strong faith and heritage they still share, and a recommitment to the biblical principles that still undergird and enliven Anglicanism.

1

An Ancient Church

The Historic Roots of the Church in England

The rise of Christianity from a persecuted sect to a global religion is a remarkable story of guts, faith, chance, politics and Providence.1

BBC, History of England

There is a bumper sticker which reads “Don’t believe everything you think.” Not bad advice. For example, many otherwise well-informed people believe the Church of England was an ecclesiastical convenience, created in the sixteenth century by England’s infamous King Henry VIII solely to legitimate his notorious and shameful divorce(s) and remarriage(s). Actually, the Church of England has a rich biblical, historic, and theological heritage that goes back almost to the time of Jesus. Yet, the colorful story of Henry VIII’s interventions raises a legitimate question: How was it that the Church in England, a wonderful and mighty work of God, found itself in a situation which seemed to require a ruthless and rascally king to restore it? How has this church grown from these humble—some would say humiliating—beginnings to become part of the third largest Christian body in the world (the Anglican Communion, after Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy)? The story of how God established, nurtured, renewed, and empowered his Church in England is one of history’s greatest and most enduring dramas.

The restoration and reformation of the Church in England in the sixteenth century hinged on a great truth, that it was—and still is—possible for a church to be catholic2 without being Roman Catholic. At its core, the English Reformation was an effort to maintain the church’s catholic (or “universal”) heritage while at the same time reasserting its independence from the Roman Catholic Church.

The English Reformation was just as much a protest against the confusion and corruption of the medieval Church as were the other Protestant movements in Europe. Like their Christian brothers and sisters on the continent, British reformers were self-consciously trying to return their church to its historic and biblical roots. Unlike their continental counterparts, the English Reformation mixed politics with religion in a way that was more overt than the similar movements in Germany, Switzerland and the rest of Europe.

How did Christianity come to England in the first place? And why does a great deal of human history turn on the answer?

The Historic Roots of the Church in England

When was the Christian gospel first proclaimed in Britain? No one knows for sure. We do know that there was a church in England long before there was a Church of England—in fact, there was a church in England before there was an “England.”3 Popular folklore told stories of Saint Paul, Joseph of Arimathea,4 and even Jesus himself visiting the British Isles during the first century. As William Blake wrote:

And did those feet, in ancient times,

Walk upon England’s mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

A more accurate answer, perhaps, is that Roman soldiers or merchants with dealings in the Holy Land brought back the good news that God had become man in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. We do know that long before the Nicene Creed was adopted as the expression of catholic faith in 325, a vigorous Christianity had sprung up throughout southern Britain. Three bishops from this area attended the first meeting of Christian bishops in the Western Roman Empire at the Synod of Arles (314) in what is now southern France. This indicates that the Christian Church was well established in England at least by the beginning of the fourth century.

The Roman Church Steps onto English Soil and into English History

Tradition tells us that in the late sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great witnessed a slave auction in Rome. He saw some young, fair-haired boys being sold into slavery. He asked one of his associates who they were. He was told they were Angles. “They look like angels to me,” he punned. As a result of his encounter, he developed a burden for these fair people from far away. In 597, he sent one of his assistants, a librarian named Augustine,5 from Rome as a missionary/emissary to the people in southern England to introduce them to Roman-style Christianity. The irony, of course, is that by this time, Celtic Christians, as they were called, were already sending their own missionaries to the non-Christian people on the European continent. These Celtic missionaries ventured as far afield as Germany and Switzerland.

The Celtic Church

The enduring interest in Celtic culture and spirituality both highlights and side-steps the vibrant and vital contribution these early Christians made to the life of the Church. The faith and courage of St. Patrick’s missionary efforts to what was then a heathen6 country still serve as a model for the entire Church. The stirring hymn known to us as St. Patrick’s Breastplate7 reminds us of the spiritual vitality it took to be a missionary in those dangerous days.

Many historians believe that the Celtic church developed in relative isolation from European and Roman influences. If this is true, it may help account for its distinctly rigorous temperament. It was much more egalitarian than the hierarchical church that developed on the continent under the shadow of the hierarchical Roman Empire. The European church took its form from the Empire’s elegant but complex governmental structure. Celtic Christianity was more “earthy,” more conscious of humanity’s place as part of creation and less focused on the role of humans as temporal lords over it. It was also focused on the authority of local monks and monasteries as compared to the European model which focused authority in a more rigid “chain of command” and which often looked to distant rulers who occupied ecclesiastical offices.

The English Church Aligns Itself with the Church in Rome

Through the efforts of Augustine and his followers, European influence within the British church grew. British allegiance to the Roman style and structure was formalized at the Synod of Whitby in the seventh century (664). Even so, many local customs had become firmly established in English faith and practice. For instance, due to the distances involved and the dangers of travel in the ancient world, British kings were given great power in ecclesiastical matters.8 Even after all of present-day England was united under one king, British monarchs retained the right to approve all ecclesiastical appointments and forbade the removal of English court cases to Rome. This established an important precedent which foreshadowed later developments in the relationship between English Christians and their continental brothers and sisters. Thus, from the beginning, a certain tension between conformity and independence characterized English Christianity. The very fact that the island kingdom was commonly called by its Anglo-Saxon name, England, and not its Roman name, Britain, speaks to this point. So also does the fact that the English language is more Germanic (following its Anglo-Saxon roots) than what have come to be called “romance languages,” which tended to follow the Roman/Latin roots of French, Spanish, and Italian.

Thus, the Church in England is historic, apostolic, catholic, and unique.

• It is historic because it can trace its heritage back to the first century.
• It is apostolic because its birth was directly tied to the life, ministry, and teachings of the earliest apostles and because, from the very beginning, English Christians embraced the challenge of reaching others with the good news of Jesus.
• It is catholic because it self-consciously and intentionally sees itself as part of the whole body of Christ.
• Finally, the Anglican Church is unique because its special geography and its providential connection to the nation of England continues to give it global influence and reach.

The Medieval Church

Despite its reputation for labyrinthian bureaucracy, corrupt curates, and ineffective popes, the medieval church was not an evil church. The church’s emphasis on hierarchy and ritual, the constant attempts of faithful men and women to hold those structures accountable to biblical standards, its on-again–off-again relations with the many “secular” structures with which it had to contend, all these things (and others as well) actually made possible the modern, Western civilization which we take for granted today.9

However, in coping with the oppressive conditions in which it found itself during what history now calls the “dark ages,” the church allowed itself to fall into certain patterns and practices which sowed the seeds of its own destruction.

To make a long, complex, and fascinating story short and simple (and perhaps somewhat less interesting), during the thousand years between the Synod of Arles (314) and the fourteenth century, the city of Rome had taken a central role in governing the “small c” catholic church. In its purest, original Greek form, the word catholic is ...

Table of contents

• Title
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 An Ancient Church: The Historic Roots of the Church in England
• 2 A Reformed Church: The Beginnings of the Reformation
• 3 A Protestant Church: The Break with the Roman Church
• 4 A Biblical Church: The Elizabethan Settlement
• 5 A Worshiping Church: The Book of Common Prayer
• 6 A Sacramental Church: Sacred Acts and Actions: Baptism
• 7 A Sacramental Church: Sacred Acts and Actions: Holy Communion
• 8 A Confessing Church: The Articles of Religion
• 9 An Evangelical Church: The Great Missionary Expansion
• 10 An Orderly Church: The Ministers of the Church Are Laity, Deacons, Priests, and Bishops
• 11 A Catholic Church: The Worldwide Anglican Communion
• 12 A Church on the Fault Lines: The Episcopal Church in America
• 13 A Church That Honors Women in Ministry: Debates on the Ordination of Women
• 14 A Church That Seeks Grace and Truth: Debates on Same-Sex Relationships
• 15 What Lies Ahead? A Future Filled with Possibilities
• Appendix A: "A Serious Argument against the Ordination of Women to the Priesthood and the Episcopate," by the Right Reverend John Rodgers
• Appendix B: Clergy Clothing
• Appendix C: The Ecumenical Councils of the Church
• Appendix D: The Text of "St. Patrick"s Breastplate?
• Appendix E: Key People in the Founding of Anglicanism
• Appendix F: Timeline of Anglicanism
• Glossary
• Bibliography