To George Carey, Archbishop and Anglican
This brief restatement of neglected and forgotten truths is by kind permission dedicated
In inviting you to accept
the dedication of this little book, and your acceptance of the invitation,
attention was drawn to the fact that, though old friends, we do not agree upon everything! However we
do agree in our common commitment to Anglican Christianity, which the book is
designed to explain and commend. The book is sometimes outspoken on the other
side of contemporary questions from the side which you are thought to favour
(though more often, perhaps,
on the same side). After 14 years, the book has now been updated for a new
readership.
With prayerful good
wishes,
Yours as ever,
Roger Beckwith.
1. What is the Church of England?
The people of
In 449, after the
withdrawal of the Romans, the invasion of
Because Augustine's
mission had been sent directly from
1.2. The Middle Age and the Need for Reform
The periodic tensions
between popes and kings after the Norman Conquest were not, of course, always the
fault of the pope. The king was
sometimes equally or more to blame, and if the pope had always been upholding spiritual values against
worldly-minded kings, the history of
The condition of the
church had indeed become deplorable. The monasteries, which had long set the
standard in godliness, were now largely infected by idleness and luxury, the
outcome of their great wealth. The bishops, who likewise enjoyed
extensive earthly possessions, were frequently preoccupied with
affairs of state. Many of the theologians had overlaid and perverted
the gospel
with unbiblical speculations. Ignorance, avarice and unchastity were rampant
among the clergy, and sometimes, when they committed crimes, they were protected
by 'privilege of clergy' from being called to account. The laity, who had neither the Bible in
English nor services in English, were, for lack of sound instruction and good
example, the victims of gross superstition. It would be foolish to suppose that, in a
period which
continued to produce the wonderful churches, cathedrals and abbeys of which we
are the heirs, devotion to God was dead, but it was undoubtedly very sick. Despite
the efforts of mediaeval
reformers like John Wycliffe, New Testament Christianity
was now confused with grievous error in the popular mind.
1.3.
Henry VIII and the Breach with
When the formal breach
with
At the same time, the
incident is disgraceful not only to Henry but also to the papacy. Not very long
before, one of the popes had permitted the King of Castile to take a second
wife because his first was childless; and the main reason why Henry was now
refused an annulment was probably that his wife was related to the Emperor
Charles V, whom the pope (Clement VII, a man of weak character) was afraid to
offend.
1.4. Edward VI and the Doctrinal Reformation
Much more important
than any of these considerations, however, is the fact that the
contemporary reform of doctrine and practice, since known as the Protestant
Reformation, took place in many parts of Europe and not simply in the British
Isles; and
everywhere it took place there was a breach with
Indeed, despite the
breach with
One of the best known
sights in
But fashion, as so often, is a poor guide. The three
bishops died for the truths of the Reformation. And, without idolizing
the sixteenth-century
Reformers, it has to be said that the two chief points for which they contended were two of the fundamental truths of Christianity, which had not
been formally denied in the mediaeval church but had been fatally obscured.
The first of these
truths is the doctrine of revelation. It teaches that God has revealed himself
uniquely through Jesus Christ, and through the prophets and apostles who bear
witness to Christ, and that the permanent written form of his
revelation is Scripture.
So, if you are
concerned to know what God has revealed, you cannot be satisfied
simply to know what has been handed down from generation to generation by tradition,
or what contemporary bishops and theologians declare. You may and should go on
to ask, but is this
what the Bible teaches?
The Reformers did go on
to ask this, and in many cases it cost them their lives. They discovered that
the teaching of Christ and the apostles had become corrupted as it had been handed down. They discovered
that much of what contemporary theologians and bishops were teaching - even,
much of what the Bishop of Rome was teaching - was different from what the
Bible teaches.
But when they called for such teaching to be corrected by the Bible, they were
not thanked for it but condemned.
The second of the great
truths of the Reformation is the doctrine of salvation. It teaches that man is not
justified in God's sight by his own efforts but by God himself. Nor is he justified by what God
does in him, but by what God has
already done for him,
through Jesus Christ, in whom we must place our trust. Christ on the
cross has paid the just penalty for our sins, so that, by repenting of them and
putting our faith in Christ, we may be acquitted of them, and thus saved.
Even the reception of sacraments and the doing of good works are
no substitute
for faith in Christ, our only Saviour. Without faith sacraments are not
efficacious, and good works only result from the repentance which accompanies faith.
Here, as the Reformers
saw, was the most important matter on which tradition had gone astray - on which the Bible taught one thing and most church
leaders of the day taught another. But here again the Reformers were not thanked
for pointing the fact out. On the contrary, their own teaching, on
justification by grace through faith, was caricatured and condemned.
Of course, the doctrine
of revelation and the doctrine of justification by faith were not the only truths which the
Reformers
were concerned to reaffirm. On the basis of Holy Scripture (applied with
the aid of reason), they attempted a comprehensive reform of whatever was amiss
in church life. In
However, what the
Reformers maintained in this connection was far from being unrelated
to the two great truths of the Reformation. The doctrine of revelation was the basis on which they attempted to get
back to biblical teaching about the sacrament; and, as to the doctrine of salvation, Cranmer's Communion service
(substantially that of the 1662 Prayer Book) 
has been well described
by Gregory Dix as 'the only effective attempt ever made to give liturgical
expression to the doctrine of
justification by faith alone'.
Of course, the truths
which the Reformers reasserted were not new. They were based on the Bible
and were well understood in the early church. Nor had they been wholly forgotten
during the Middle Ages, although, in so far as they were remembered,
they had
tended to become minority views. The Reformers were by no means without debts to
the mediaeval theology in which they had been trained, though they viewed it
through the medium of the Greek learning of the Renaissance (and especially
through the medium of the Greek New Testament). They thus reformed
it, using the new
learning in the service of faith.
Moral reform was
introduced into the Church of Rome as well, though doctrinal reform continued
to be resisted there, and the Bible and the services remained for another 400 years (though happily no longer) in Latin.
1.5. The Elizabethan Settlement
The persecution which
engulfed Cranmer and his fellow-Reformers, though severe, was
short-lived. With the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558, the work of
the Reformers was progressively restored, in a slightly modified form. The
settlement that was made left much of the ancient constitution of the Church of
England unchanged, but with certain significant developments, due
to the Reformation.
The monarch was now
unambiguously the supreme governor of the national church, without any
half-acknowledged allegiance to the Bishop of Rome. The formularies of faith
were now the ancient creeds, supplemented only by the documents in which the Reformers had
formulated the great biblical truths of the Reformation, namely the 39 Articles (based on
Cranmer's 42 Articles) and the doctrinal
parts of Cranmer's Prayer Book, notably
the Catechism. This Prayer Book was now the liturgy of the Church of England: it was in the English
language, and was fully conformed to
the teaching of the Bible. At the heart of the life of the Church of England,
however, stood the Bible itself - the
English Bible, as translated by Tyndale and Coverdale, now regularly read in the services of the church.
The Elizabethan
Settlement defined permanently the character of Anglicanism. The constitution
of the Church of England has never been changed since, but only modified in detail.
The monarch remains the
supreme governor, though now as a constitutional,
not an absolute, monarch: and in 1688 it was made explicit (after the attempt of James II to do so) that the monarch
could never renounce that supremacy, by again submitting himself and his church to the Bishop of Rome. The
formularies of faith remain what they were, and in the new Canons and Declaration of Assent, introduced in the 1960s and
1970s, they are specified as the Creeds, the 39 Articles and the Book of Common Prayer, these being recognised as faithful
expressions of the teaching of the
Bible. For worship, the standard liturgy remains the Book of Common Prayer, according to its 1662 revision: the widely used services of Common Worship are in fact only a permitted alternative to the Book of Common Prayer, and they are not among the formularies of faith. The English Bible of Tyndale and Coverdale has been several times
revised - in 1611 (the Authorized Version), in 1881-94 (the Revised Version)
and in 1952 (the Revised Standard
Version) - and many independent translations have recently been added; but the
old translation, especially in its 1611 form, continues to hold its own in popular
esteem.
The permanence of the
Elizabethan Settlement is symbolised by the fact that Richard Hooker, the most
eminent of Elizabethan theologians and the classical expositor and defender of
that settlement, is generally recognised as the greatest and
most characteristic
Anglican theologian of any period. All subsequent
schools of thought in the church like to claim him as their own and are content
to defer to his views.
The subsequent schools
of thought that have arisen in the Church of England have placed particular emphasis
on different aspects of historic Anglicanism, in reaction to a perceived or
supposed neglect of those aspects. The Caroline High Churchmen of
the 17th
century and the Anglo-Catholics of the 19th century emphasised the traditional features of Anglicanism. The
Latitudinarians
of the 17th century and the Broad Churchmen or Liberals of the 19th century
emphasised the rational moderation of Anglicanism. The
Puritans of the 17th century and the Evangelicals of the 18th century emphasised
the biblical basis of Anglicanism. All
these emphases reflected real features of the Elizabethan Settlement and of the
theology of Hooker, though the subsequent schools of thought developed them in new,
and not always
defensible, ways.
In historic Anglicanism,
as represented by Hooker, tradition and reason are subordinate to the authority
of the Bible: to emphasise their authority at the expense of the Bible is therefore a distortion.
The Reformers corrected mediaeval tradition by the Bible, so Anglicans have no business to
try to restore
mediaeval tradition in disregard of the Bible, as Anglo-Catholics have
sometimes tried to do. The Reformers also emphasised the mysterious and miraculous
character of the biblical gospel as beyond the reach of reason, so
Anglicans have no business to use reason as an argument against
elements of the biblical faith, as has been sometimes done by Liberals. On the
other hand, to interpret the authority of the Bible as leaving no place for tradition or reason is
likewise a distortion; and so is a theoretical emphasis on biblical authority
which masks an actual neglect of parts of biblical teaching (e.g. on the
importance of the sacraments). These are matters in which Puritans and
Evangelicals have sometimes erred.
Like the
other churches of the Reformation, the Church of England has been more
profoundly influenced in its later history by the Enlightenment of the 17th and
18th centuries than by any other development. The Enlightenment was an
intellectual movement as significant as the 15th century Renaissance, and
attempted to bring all things under the scrutiny of reason. Modern scientific
enquiry is one of its fruits, and the historical approach to the Bible is
another.
Unhappily,
the men of the Enlightenment often failed to realise that reason has any
limits, and, when they applied reason to Christianity, were apt to dismiss its mysterious
features as simply irrational, forgetting that man is not the measure of God.
David Hume’s denial of the credibility of miracles as being contrary to the
‘laws of nature’, is a good example. His argument, propounded in the 18th
century, has influenced philosophical and theological thinking to this
day. The schools of thought which have
since arisen in the church have represented moderate or extreme expressions of
Enlightenment thinking, or else reactions against it. The Latitudinarian school
of the 17th century and the
The
centuries since the Elizabethan Settlement have seen not only the development
of different schools of thought in the Church of England, but also the spread
of Anglicanism (with its schools of thought) from the British Isles throughout
the
Some of the churches of the Anglican
Communion, however, especially in
Since the national and regional churches of
the Anglican Communion are self-governing, central bodies such as the Lambeth
Conference can offer them nothing stronger than advice. This is healthy, so
long as they each regulate their life in the light of a clear apprehension of
historic Anglican principles, and with a firm determination always to honour
those principles. That voluntary bodies should today have to be set up in some
of the Anglican churches, to uphold and defend the principles which the church
itself ought to be upholding and defending, is a warning sign which needs to be
seriously heeded. Otherwise we may soon find ourselves in a situation where
some churches which historically belong to the Anglican Communion can no longer
be regarded as members of it, because in important respects they have ceased to
be Anglican, and have even perhaps ceased to be Christian. However, the
constitution of the Anglican Communion, with which it provided itself at the
1930 Lambeth Conference, offers a remedy (of which some of the Third World
provinces have already availed themselves), whereby, in extreme circumstances,
orthodox provinces are entitled to excommunicate unorthodox.
2. What does the Church of England stand for?
What
the Church of England stands for can be clearly discerned in its historic
constitution. It is based upon eight principles. These are not party points, though different
parties have emphasised one or another of them. They follow directly from the
history and ecclesiastical law of the Church of England. Moderate members of all parties have in the
past acknowledged them, and in the present confusions of the Church of England
could do much to help by acknowledging them again, in a more united, emphatic
and balanced way.
These
eight principles are partly principles of belief and partly principles of
practice. On these principles the Church of England was originally founded, or
re-founded at the Reformation, and it is these which chiefly link it with, or
distinguish it from, other Christian churches. On the most important of the
eight principles, the central place that it gives to the Bible, the Church of
England is at one with the reformed churches of mainland Europe and the Free
Churches of
In an
ecumenical age like the present, the distinguishing features of Anglicanism can
only be advocated with great modesty. We must, of course, be ready to listen to
those Christians who differ from us. Yet, as we shall see, the eight principles
of the Church of England are all very defensible, and there is no reason to be
ashamed of any of them. The danger today is not so much that Anglicans should
boast arrogantly about them as that they should lose all confidence in them and
even all conception of them. Yet they are very far from being matters of
indifference. Each of them stems from a serious decision taken in the past, for
the good of the church, on an issue which had to be decided. The decision taken
is not always beyond question, but the necessity of taking a decision is. Each
principle can be considered individually on its merits, but they ought also to
be considered in relation to each other, for there is a consistency about them,
derived from the ideal of a reformed catholic Christianity — the eighth and
last of the principles listed below.
These
principles, having widely commended themselves to the people, as well as the
Church of England, were carried by the colonial expansion of its people and the
missionary expansion of its church to all parts of what is now the
English-speaking world. Beyond those boundaries they are, of course, less
widely accepted, though even there the reformed catholic principle makes the
common ground with other churches as great as it could be. Real ecumenical
progress calls for a clear grasp of where such common ground lies, but it also
calls for an equally clear grasp of where the ground is not as yet common.
This
clarity is something which the Anglican Church needs for its own good, as well
as for its relations with other churches.
It cannot build up its people in the faith without knowing what it
stands for. It cannot engage in the missionary outreach to lapsed Christians
and non-Christians, to which it is called by our Lord’s Great Commission,
without knowing what it stands for. Few things would be more helpful at this
juncture than a clergy which clearly grasped the principles of their church and
clearly expounded them to others, especially if there were bishops, and
archbishops, capable of giving a definite and convinced lead to the clergy in
the teaching task.
First of
all, then, the Church of England is:
The Scriptures are
regularly read, in an orderly fashion, and in English, in the course of the
appointed services. It is said that no church in Christendom carries this out as
fully as the Church of England. Again, Scripture is normative in Anglican
teaching, as the supreme standard of belief and behaviour (Articles 6, 20, 32,
39).
Yet it
may be wondered how one can say this, at a time when the effects of generations
of sceptical biblical criticism are becoming so apparent, in blatant denials of
Christian truths and moral standards from within the church (the Anglican
church no less than any other). One can only say it because it is the true
standpoint of our church, to which we must make every effort to return. The
modern historical approach to the understanding of the Bible is something to
which we all owe a debt, but it has regularly been linked in practice with a
sceptical approach to the content of the Bible. Stemming from the seventeenth
and eighteenth century Enlightenment, modern biblical criticism has habitually
confused reason with rationalism. This is a muddle which it is imperative for
theologians to disentangle, and Anglican theologians, in loyalty to the
scriptural foundations of their church, should take a leading part in the task.
2.2 A
The Church of
England is a church that uses confessions of faith to express the teaching of
the Bible. This means that it a confessional church - something which is often
denied, but in the teeth of the facts. Even the laity are required to accept
the catholic creeds as conditions of being baptised and confirmed and partaking
of holy communion. The catholic creeds, handed down to us by the early Fathers,
concentrate on teaching about the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation of our Lord
Jesus Christ; but the 39 Articles (to which the church’s authorised teachers
are required to assent) add teaching on three other important areas of biblical
theology, namely Revelation, Salvation and the Sacraments.
The
assault by David Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham, on the teaching of the
creeds, was a sign of the times, but so was the rebuff given to his attitude by
the General Synod. The Church of England has not yet surrendered to scepticism.
Even the House of Bishops, despite its embarrassment, was required by the other
houses of the Synod to declare its hand, which it at least began to do in its
report The Nature of Christian Belief
(Church House Publishing, 1986). The 39 Articles are in a more vulnerable
position than the creeds, because Liberals have tended to object to their
biblicism and Anglo-Catholics to their Protestantism, yet they are acknowledged
afresh in the new Canons and the new Declaration of Assent, and a respect for
them seems to be growing in unexpected quarters. One of the most encouraging
phenomena of our day is the positive attitude to the Reformation beginning to
be taken by Anglo-Catholics, especially in North America, and this includes a
real appreciation of the 39 Articles (see particularly The Thirty-Nine Articles, ed. G. Richmond Bridge, Charlottetown: St
Peter Publications, 1990).
Set
forms of corporate prayer are called liturgies, and the Church of England is a
liturgical church in that it values and uses such set forms for its public
services. It does not despise freer forms, whether of the traditional Nonconformist
or the recent charismatic kind, but it considers that informal prayer-meetings
are a more appropriate setting for them. It denies the charge sometimes
levelled against liturgical prayer that it is unspiritual: rather, it considers
that where liturgical prayer is deliberately biblical, well tested by time and
used in a spirit of devotion, it is spiritual and edifying in the highest
degree. It is also particularly suited to permanent and universal themes,
whereas free prayer is more suited to occasional and individual ones. Being in set form, liturgy can unite
worshippers across time and space.
The 1662
Book of Common Prayer, though now bearing some marks of its age, is a liturgy
of the biblical and edifying sort valued by the Church of England, and is a
masterpiece of its kind. How far the services of Common Worship come up to such a standard is a matter of opinion.
Though authorised on the assumption that it is faithful to the teaching of the
older formularies, Common Worship is
certainly not so deliberately biblical, and in two respects it manifests an
anti-liturgical tendency, that is, a tendency away from worship in a set form.
One is that it is revolutionary rather than evolutionary in its starting-point,
not revising the existing liturgy but substituting for it a selection of
ancient sources, which it imitates in a new idiom of English. The other is
that, while introducing greater variety and flexibility, suitable to an age of
universal literacy like the present, it carries this to an excess which makes
congregational worship difficult. The anti—liturgical tendency reached a
climax in the Liturgical Commission’s
report Patterns for Worship (Church
House Publishing, 1989), even inviting each congregation to make up its own
services for each occasion, which in practice could hardly lead to anything but
an abandonment of liturgy altogether. It will be surprising if these strange
policies do not lead sooner or later to a reaction in favour of a modest
revision of the Book of Common Prayer, which ought to have been the policy from
the beginning. In the meantime, however, the result has been a virtual
abandonment of liturgy by some congregations (especially, it seems, Evangelical
ones).
The
Church of England can be called a covenantal church because it emphasises God’s
covenant with his people, which is a covenant not simply with individuals but
with families — first with the family of Abraham, Israel, and then with gentile
families adopted into the family of Abraham, especially since the coming of
Christ. The Church of England therefore practises the baptism of infants, not
just adults, but requires of those infants personal reaffirmation of the
Christian commitment at the years of discretion, in confirmation. In this way
it acknowledges both the priority of God’s grace, and the necessity of the
individual response of faith, and attempts to combine the values of Baptist
practice with those of historic Christianity.
The new
Canons of the Church of England encourage the clergy to ensure that the parents
of infants brought for baptism are instructed, and allow the baptism to be
delayed for this purpose. They do not, however, allow it to be refused, and it
is difficult to see how this can be justified theologically either, since the
responsibility for the baptism of an infant (like that for the circumcision of
an infant) rests on the family.
Baptismal rigorism is therefore not something which the Church of
England encourages.
The
proposal of the Knaresborough report Communion before Confirmation? (C.I.O., 1985) to
move back to the Roman Catholic age of childhood for first communion, while
postponing confirmation to a later age than at present, would probably have the
effect of not just changing the order of events but of making confirmation seem
pointless. It was neglect of confirmation which led Archbishop Peckham in the
thirteenth century to restore the order which we now observe. Even so, adequate
instruction proved impracticable in early childhood, so the Reformers deferred
confirmation and first communion until the years of discretion. To ignore the
lessons of history now, and to reverse these two decisions, would be very
unwise, and it is therefore not surprising that the Knaresborough proposals,
though now a permitted alternative, have been adopted only in a minority
of parishes. Everyone is concerned about lapsed
communicants, but the adoption of these proposals would seem likely to add to
their number, not to reduce it.
As
everyone knows, the Church of England is an episcopal church. It values
bishops, as an ancient and well tried form of ministry, agreeable to Scripture (though
not actually required by Scripture). It believes that they originated before
the end of the apostolic age, when the presbyter-bishop of the New Testament
developed out of one office into two. Both the presbyter (or priest) and bishop
are viewed by the Prayer Book Ordinal in the New Testament way, as primarily
pastors and teachers, though as also having a further important responsibility,
in the administration of the sacraments.
It
follows that bishops are not just long-range administrators, which the size of
dioceses has tended to make them. If they are to exercise their true role as
teachers and pastors, towards the laity as well as the clergy, some reduction
in the size of dioceses is probably now urgent. We do not want a top-heavy
church, or a proliferation of bureaucracy, but we do want real rather than
nominal episcopacy.
The
proposal to admit women as bishops would be a more obvious denial of the
headship of the man, taught by the New Testament (especially St Paul), than
their current admission as presbyters; but since the office of presbyter-bishop
was originally one, and is still one in concept, both proposals really stand or
fall together. The ministry of women is vital, but it is at least questionable
whether the ordination of women as presbyters and bishops is necessarily
involved in it at all. The introduction of women presbyters and bishops has
regularly proved divisive, whereas the lay and diaconal ministry of women has
proved fruitful without being controversial.
The Church of England is parochial in that it
consists wholly of parishes. It is not content with ‘gathered congregations’,
wherever they can readily be formed, but divides up the whole country geographically,
on a territorial basis, and attempts to form congregations and to provide
evangelism and pastoral care in every area - ‘to bring the gospel to every
man’s door’. If used in a generous and not grudging spirit, the parish system
can be a valuable aid to any new venture
of evangelism.
In practice at least, the parish is the basic unit of Anglican
church life, to which the diocese is accessory (not vice versa). Whether this
will change if dioceses are reduced in size remains to be seen, but the parish
will probably continue to be the normal sphere for both clerical and lay
ministry.
The viability of the parish is threatened at present by shortage
of clergy and money, and by the ‘pastoral reorganization’ resulting, through
which numbers of parishes are put under the nominal care of one pastor, or a
‘team-ministry’ is substituted for fully parochial oversight. The undeveloped
state of lay ministry makes the situation worse. The independence of parishes
and their clergy is also endangered by the frequency of ‘suspensions of
presentation’, whereby the parish is put in the care of a temporary
priest-in-charge, appointed by the bishop and not by the normal patrons. It is
in these matters that the long-range administration of the modern diocese tends
to be seen at its worst, with insufficient local knowledge, superficial
‘consultation’, and money mainly calling the tune.
What is actually needed is, first, a determined appeal to the
church for more clergy and for the money to support them, such as Archbishop
Coggan issued in the 1970s, and, secondly, better teaching, and training in
ministry, for clergy and laity alike.
2.7 A National, Established Church
The territorial character of the English parish,
and the geographical coverage of the whole country by the parochial system, is
made possible by the fact that the Church of England is a national, established
church. It is because of the establishment that most people in England still
regard themselves as ‘C of E’, and though this may often mean little to them,
it provides the church with one of its greatest opportunities at the local
level, giving access to homes. A further effect is that occasional churchgoers
expect the ministrations of the parish church to be available to them; but we
ought not to be grudging about this, since the Church of England has always
worked on the charitable presumption that people’s professions as Christians
are sincere. If they have little
understanding, we should instruct them, not exclude them.
The establishment affects the life of the church at national
level also. The crowning of the monarch in a church service, which perhaps
occurs in no other country today but
Establishment means that the church is in a partnership with the
state, acknowledging that ‘the powers that be are ordained of God’ (Rom 13:1),
and seeking to work in the utmost harmony with them, though without
compromising the gospel message.
Anomalies in church-state relations can arise from various causes, such
as the emergence of rival denominations (and today of rival religions), or a
decline in churchgoing, or the promotion of secular legislation. Anomalies are
a fact of earthly existence, though certainly we must do our best to minimise
them. Judged by the number who regularly attend church on Sundays, or even
receive the sacrament at major festivals, the Church of England no longer looks
like a national church. Yet it still
marries about a third of the couples married in
A final result might be to ease present tensions between
Parliament and the General Synod. The role of Parliament in church legislation
is sometimes resented in synodical circles, but experience shows that the
General Synod needs a second chamber, to provide a second opinion, as much as
the House of Commons does; and this is a need which Parliament supplies. The crown appointment of dignitaries is also
frequently criticised, because of the participation of the prime minister, who
could be of any religion or none; but, now that the initiative lies with a
church committee (the Crown Nominations Commission), it is difficult to fault
it in principle, however much it might be improved in practice. While the
General Synod and Parliament vie with each other for power, there is bound to
be tension; but if the gospel were back at the centre of national consciousness
(and at the centre of church consciousness as well), harmony would become
possible, and artificial grievances would cease to attract attention. God grant
that it may happen soon!
2.8 A Reformed Catholic Church
What gives consistency to the other seven
principles, and sums them up, is the fact that the Church of England is a
reformed catholic church. The Church of England is reformed in its emphasis on
the Bible, in its 39 Articles, in its vernacular worship, and in its
recognition of the royal supremacy in its government. But it is also catholic,
in that it retains the ancient common heritage of Christendom, in a biblical
form. The Church of England acknowledges the role of the church in interpreting
the Bible correctly (Article 20), and uses the ancient catholic creeds as
examples of such true interpretation. It maintains, as its practice, liturgical
worship, infant baptism, episcopal ministry, parochial organization and
national establishment, all handed down from antiquity. The Anglican Reformers
valued this edifying heritage, well tested over the centuries, and rejected the
idea of starting everything afresh, with the unnecessary controversy and
practical mistakes which such a course would inevitably lead to. Instead they simply used the standard of
Scripture, applied by reason, to correct whatever needed correcting in the
church’s inherited forms.
The Church of England therefore aims, and claims, to be catholic
not sectarian. It does not need to make concessions to Roman Catholicism, of the sort sometimes called for by ecumenical
commissions, in order to become catholic.
Such concessions, while supposedly making it more catholic, would in
reality cause it to be no longer reformed. Conversely, it does not need to
divest itself of all that it has inherited from antiquity, in order to make
itself more reformed. In doing this, it would cease to be the church of the
people, and so would become sectarian rather than catholic. Already there are
moves in a sectarian direction among us, from various quarters. They need to be countered, not indulged.
This, then, in the Church
of England, and what it stands for. Is
it not a church that we should be thankful to belong to, proud to commend to
others, and bold to defend against its enemies, whether from without or from
within?