THINKING ALOUD, not speaking the last word! And expecting some tough responses!
In terms of historical sequence, The Book of Common Prayer with The Ordinal existed and were fully approved and in use before The Articles of Religion were officially accepted by Queen Elizabeth I until 1571. So one could say that Reformed Catholicism as the Religion of the Church of England and the Anglican Way did exist and can exist without the Articles as its Confession of Faith. And anglo-catholic missionary societies took this position when they established churches abroad in the late 19th century and early 20th, for they listed in the constitutions only two Formularies, the BCP and the Ordinal, and did not mention the Articles.
However, if one does a careful study of the explicit and implicit doctrine of the BCP of 1662 and then of the official national editions of the same BCP in Canada (1962) and the USA (1789 & 1928) one will certainly find exactly the same positive doctrine as is found in the Articles concerning the identity of God as the Holy Trinity, the Person and Work of Christ, human sin and salvation, justification by faith, the two dominical Sacraments and so on. What is obviously not so explicit in the BCP as in the Articles is the rejection of medieval Roman doctrine and practice. However, in the BCP there is no trace of the medieval Roman or the Tridentine dogma/doctrine concerning the Eucharist or salvation in Christ that is rejected by the Articles. And did not Gregory Dix (of The Shape of the Liturgy fame) claim that the BCP Order for Holy Communion was a near perfect embodiment of the doctrine of justification by faith in a Service?
The ways in which those who have been called anglo-catholics and who reject the Articles as a Formulary (and confine them to the status of a historical document from the 16th century) have been able to remain in the Anglican Way are several – e.g., by omitting the Articles from the Constitution and local editions of the BCP; by using the modern R C Missal (as many in FinF of England do) and justifying their rejection of the Articles and use of the Missal on the basis of a future union with the Roman See [what shall be, they say, justifies what is]; by adding to the BCP from the Tridentine Missal those sections which contain the doctrine specifically rejected by the Articles, and producing the Anglican Missal[s] as the Altar Book (as anglo-catholics in the Continuing Churches of the USA and in a few parishes of the ECUSA do); and by expounding the Articles in such a way as to permit Catholic practice today when the plain sense appears to ordinary folks to forbid it (we recall that Newman tried to do this and realized it was really an impossible task!).
It may be recalled that one of the reasons why anglo-catholics in the ECUSA were excited about the 1979 Prayer Book was that it seemed to give them what they had been asking for in terms of “catholic services” (howbeit, as they later came to realize, injected with a liberal theology and allowing female ordination!) and that it relegated the Articles to an appendix printed in small type and called a historical document.
The Formulary of the ECUSA is right now the 1979 prayer book, with its Catechism and its Ordination services. This is indeed a “liberal Catholic” Formulary in terms of its theology and as such it is neither in conformity to the Reformed Catholic doctrine of the Articles nor the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Anglican/American Missal used by anglo-catholics in the ECUSA before and after 1979 and in the Continuing Churches from 1977. This “liberal theology” has progressed rapidly (see, e.g., the official Enriching our Worship and will be even more advanced in the next “Prayer Book” of the ECUSA due this decade).
But back to the Articles and the classic BCP.
The Church of Nigeria, the largest Church in the Anglican Family, has recently nailed its flag to the mast in terms of commitment to both the BCP & Articles. Other African provinces are in agreement. On the other side of things, the FinF in the UK seems to be clearly resolved to come under the pastoral care of the Bishop of Rome, as also does the Traditional Anglican Communion and various Continuing jurisdictions.
This leaves the possibility of a reduced Anglican Family, which if (and it is a big if) it can shed its extreme liberal wings in the West/North is all set to be able to unite on the basis of the Formularies once again, a doctrinal unity with comprehensiveness of ritual, music and local expressions.
However, uniting on the basis of the Formularies means uniting on a minimum of Two and a maximum of THREE, if the few provinces that have not the Articles in their Constitutions are to have a true place. Not to have the Articles may be taken to mean that they are high-church or mildly anglo-catholic in doctrine and practice and do not want in any way to state they are opposed to the Roman Catholic Church, especially in its post Vatican II form.
There seems to be a space and opportunity in the world today for the kind of dynamic, biblically-based Reformed Catholicism that is the Anglican Way – with its Two or Three Formularies! There is also a larger place for a renewed Roman Catholicism in the world, especially where it holds Bible and Missal with Breviary together (and which anglo-catholics of the Anglican Way have joined)! But there seems to be little or no future for the progressive liberalism of the ECUSA General Convention and leadership!
(For 12 major expositions of the Articles on one CD in Adobe for $20.00 please visit www.anglicanmarketplace.com or call 1 800 727 1928. These include both high church and low church books by well-known leaders in the Anglican Way.)
Peter Toon, October 5, 2005 thomascranmer2000@yahoo.com
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