The Identity of Anglicanism: Essentials of Anglican Ecclesiology 9780567660558, 9780567032034

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his book is intended to provide some essential resources for the study of Anglican ecclesiology. I believe that I detect a growing appetite, indeed a thirst, for a deeper knowledge of the theology that is concerned with the Church – not as an inward-looking obsession, a retreat from the world and all its demands, but as part of an overall framework that sets the Church within the mission of God in the world. (The journal Ecclesiology, with which I am involved, published by Brill, is another attempt to respond to this demand.) While several earlier commentators saw the twentieth century as the century of the Church, this ecclesiological focus is becoming intensified as we move deeper into the twenty-first century. It has touched all the major Christian traditions, including Anglicanism. It seems that the ecclesiological renaissance began within the Orthodox tradition, especially among Russian theologians in exile after the Communist revolution, and generated the particular expression known as eucharistic ecclesiology (which is discussed in one of the following chapters). The renaissance spread to the Roman Catholic Church and flourished before, during and after the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Anglicans began to catch up with this development in the 1970s, but we still have a very long way to go. Serious attention to the distinctive understanding of the Church – its nature, mission and unity – has been stimulated for Anglicans over the past 30 years both by ecumenical engagement and theological dialogue, on the one hand, and by the internal tensions of the worldwide Anglican Communion over women priests and bishops and issues in human sexuality, on the other. Among Methodists, a missiological ecclesiology is booming in the USA, and there are indications that British Methodism is stirring ecclesiologically. Protestant study of the Church on mainland Europe has been fostered by the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe (Leuenberg Church Fellowship). Pentecostals (among the fastest-growing of all all Christian groups) are becoming more Church-conscious, as they grow in strength and confidence and find themselves invited to take their place at the ecumenical table. The study document The Nature and Mission of the

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Church, produced by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, is intended to stimulate ecumenical discussion and debate, which may lead to the formation of a stronger ecumenical consensus in ecclesiology. This study complements my basic introduction The Anglican Understanding of the Church.1 It is more substantial and is pitched at a rather more demanding academic level than that ‘primer’. It also provides a companion to my substantial study Anglicanism and the Christian Church: Theological Resources in Historical Perspective, which I completely revised and expanded a few years ago.2 The present book can be seen as the analytical counterpart to the broadly historical account in that work. I do not claim that this book covers all the essentials of Anglican ecclesiology. There are several important areas that I have not covered here, except in passing, because I have tackled them recently elsewhere. I have not dealt with Anglican doctrines of the mission and ministry of the Church, because I have treated that topic in A Ministry Shaped by Mission.3 And I have touched only briefly on the conciliar character of Anglican polity because I included a discussion of that subject in Beyond the Reformation? Authority, Primacy and Unity in the Conciliar Tradition.4 The approaches to the visible unity of the Church that are typical of modern Anglicanism are not covered either, because I hope to include that topic in a study of contested issues in ecumenical theology before long. And the major questions of authority in doctrine and practice for Anglicans remain a challenge to be taken up when time permits. However, these issues are not completely absent here; they are touched on to varying degrees. I have drawn on my contributions to various collections over the past ten years, but all the material has been revised – sometimes extensively rewritten – to bring it up to date, to minimize duplication and to allow me more mature second thoughts. The structure of the text in the following chapters does not necessarily correspond to the structure of material in the originals. These original sources and any required permissions are acknowledged at the start of the various chapters. I need to disclaim any intention to speak formally on behalf of the Council for Christian Unity of the Church of England or to represent the views of the General Synod, except where this is documented in the text. I am most grateful to Mrs Caroline Kim for compiling the index. Paul Avis April 2007

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Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

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London: SPCK, 2000. 2nd edn, London and New York: T&T Clark, 2002. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005. London and New York: T&T Clark, 2006.

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Abbreviations and Glossary

ACC ARC ARCIC

Anglican Consultative Council Anglican–Roman Catholic Committee Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission Alternative Service Book 1980 Book of Common Prayer (1662) Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry: Lima Statement (1982) Anglican prayer-book which supplanted ASB Catholic Truth Society consultative body at interparish level consultative–legislative body of diocese Episcopal Church of the USA Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (Richard Hooker) The Eucharist: Sacrament of Unity deliberative–legislative body of Church of England, comprising bishops, clergy and laity; meets normally twice yearly communion/fellowship ten-yearly meetings of Anglican bishops and archbishops broad church tradition Lumen Gentium Vatican II dogmatic constitution on the Church critical catholic Anglican stance associated with Charles Gore, founder of the Community of the Resurrection

ASB BCP BEM Common Worship CTS deanery synod diocesan synod ECUSA EKD ELCA EP ESU General Synod koinonia Lambeth Conferences Latitudinarianism LG liberal catholicism

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Abbreviations and Glossary

Meissen Common Statement OBOB Oxford Movement PCC Porvoo Common Statement PS UR

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agreement between Church of England and EKD (1991) One Bread, One Body (RC teaching document on the Eucharist) movement begun in 1830s by Keble, Pusey and Newman parochial church council Lutheran–Anglican agreement in northern Europe (1996) Parker Society edn of The Works of the English Reformers (Cambridge, 1840) Unitatis Redintegratio Vatican II decree on ecumenism

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wo friends of mine, whom I knew through my parish ministry, were visiting the USA on business. They were entertained with typical American hospitality in the home of a customer. On Sunday morning their hosts explained that they usually went to church. Would their guests care to join them? Yes, they replied, they went to church too. ‘We’re Episcopalians’, the host family explained. ‘How about you?’ ‘Oh, we’re Church of England’, they replied. ‘That’s all right’, was the response, ‘we may be different religions, but I guess we both worship the same God.’ Clearly neither party had heard of the Anglican Communion – that worldwide fellowship of self-governing but interdependent churches that share a broad tradition of theology, worship and spirituality, and have a common focus in the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury and in the Lambeth Conference of all the bishops. An uninstructed attitude towards Anglicanism and the Anglican Communion is not uncommon. In the recent past, a lack of seriousness about the Anglican tradition and Anglican ecclesiology has weakened our theological education and undermined our ecumenical involvement. I sometimes wonder if Anglicans have faith in Anglicanism and whether they really want a future for the Anglican Communion. There are many challenges to the future of the Anglican Communion: particularly challenges raised by the inculturation of the Christian message, with its threat to the coherent identity of the Anglican tradition in theology, ethics and liturgy; and the question of authority and provincial autonomy, which has been intensified recently by the issues of women priests and bishops and homosexuality.

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The provisionality of Anglicanism Anglican spokesmen (and they have consistently been spokesmen) have adopted the strange habit of talking down the future of Anglicanism. They have stressed its provisional nature and spoken of its need to find itself assimilated into the wider Church. They seem to have difficulty in finding a rationale for the existence of Anglicanism. The tendency is not confined to the Church of England. The US bishop Stephen Bayne, the first executive officer of the Anglican Communion, claimed 40 years ago: ‘The vocation of Anglicanism is, ultimately, to disappear. That is its vocation precisely because Anglicanism does not believe in itself but it believes only in the catholic Church of Christ; therefore it is for ever restless until it finds a place in that body.’2 I find this statement, which one can find replicated in various official documents, rather disturbing. What Stephen Bayne asserts of the Anglican Communion is no more and no less true of the Anglican Communion than it is of any part of the Church catholic. The one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that we confess in the Nicene–Constantinopolitan Creed cannot be reduced to an empirical entity: it cannot be located geographically and it is not sociologically identifiable. I say this not because I think that the catholic Church is an invisible, ethereal and intangible entity that cannot come down to earth – on the contrary, the catholic Church is thoroughly incarnational and is by its nature a visible society – but because the Christian Church in the world is divided and fragmented. Its participation in catholicity is partial and incomplete. It can only aspire to a catholicity that remains ultimately eschatological – that is to say, it will be fulfilled when God’s plan of salvation is perfected beyond this life. All parts of the Christian Church, large and small, not just Anglicanism, stand in this position of incompleteness and fragmentation vis-à-vis the catholic Church of the Creed. There is no already existing empirical ‘body’, as Bayne put it, within which Anglicanism seeks a home, except the universal Church. According to Bayne, Anglicanism does not believe in itself but only in the catholic (i.e. the universal) Church. But what is unique to Anglicanism in that? I hope that no branch of the Christian Church believes in itself rather than in the catholic Church of Christ. But that trust is called into question when some great communions (namely the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches) tend to identify their empirical communions with the Church catholic tout court. Both the Roman and the Orthodox churches have traditionally held that their churches are identical with the catholic Church, without remainder. Thankfully, in Rome since

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Vatican II and among the Orthodox also, there are the beginnings of a relativization of these absolute claims. As is well known, the Second Vatican Council, in its constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium [LG]), used the subtle phrase ‘subsists in’ for the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Christ. This enabled the Council to give a degree of recognition – albeit muted and qualified – to ecclesial bodies outside the Roman Catholic Church. The unique Church of Christ which in the Creed we avow as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, constituted and organised in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops in union with that successor, though many elements of sanctification and of truth can be found outside of her visible structure. These elements, however, as gifts properly belonging to the Church of Christ, possess an inner dynamism toward catholic unity.3 Since Vatican II, the phrase ‘subsists in’ has continued to intrigue and perplex interpreters. It is not part of our task here to pin down the meaning of this elusive and nuanced expression. It obviously needs to be taken in conjunction with the Council’s constitution on ecumenism, Unitatis Redintegratio (UR), which in fact further relativizes traditional exclusive Roman claims. Suffice it to say here that the subsistit in formula at least rules out any suggestion that the Roman Catholic Church identifies itself with the Church of Christ entirely and without remainder. The Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) points out that ‘the Second Vatican Council, while teaching that the Church of God subsists in the Roman Catholic Church, rejected the position that the Church of God is co-extensive with the Roman Catholic Church and is exclusively embodied in that Church’. However, I have reservations about the conclusion that ARCIC derives from this. It goes on to say that Vatican II ‘allows it to be said that a church out of communion with the Roman see may lack nothing from the viewpoint of the Roman Catholic Church except that it does not belong to the visible manifestation of full Christian communion which is maintained in the Roman Catholic Church’.4 In a sense this is true: ecclesial communities (Vatican II is equivocal about calling them churches) that are separated from Rome possess all the attributes of church life that they can possess in separation from Rome and from each other. That is merely a truism – though it is equally true that from a non-Roman Catholic point of view the Roman Catholic Church lacks a degree of fullness that union with those churches would provide. However, it is not apparent that the Roman Catholic Church is able to admit that its own

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fullness of Christian communion is lacking or impaired through its separation from other Christian churches. In the Roman Catholic understanding, the attributes of church life that churches separated from the Roman communion still retain do not include ‘fullness of unity’, the sacrament of orders and ‘the genuine and total reality of the Eucharistic mystery’. Those are not trivial omissions from what Vatican II allows to churches that are not in communion with Rome.5 Similarly, there are voices among the Orthodox who are asking: Granted that the unchanging teaching and tradition of our Church is that the Orthodox churches do indeed constitute the Church of Christ, what does this imply for our assessment of other ecclesial bodies? Does it require us to say that they are nothing, and if it does not require us to say that, what are they? How should we evaluate the theological status of the degree of ecclesial reality that they evidently possess? As participants in the Faith and Order movement since 1927, and as founder members of the World Council of Churches in 1948, the Orthodox could hardly avoid this question, but it seems to have been intensified for them by recent ecumenical dialogue.6 While these two great communions are beginning to moderate their traditional exclusive claims just perceptibly, Anglicans have never officially made any such claim. Since the Reformers, and the work of Richard Hooker at the end of the sixteenth century, Anglicans have acknowledged that, while their churches certainly belong to the one Church of Christ, they are only a part, portion or branch of the whole catholic Church. Thus Anglicans can do what no loyal, dyed-in-the-wool Roman Catholic or Orthodox can do, and that is to place Rome and the Orthodox, together with Lutherans, Reformed, Methodists, Old Catholics and all other Christians who have an ecclesiology of the Church as a visible society transcending the local congregation and exerting a degree of authority over it, on the same footing with their own Anglican Church, as fragments of the whole, acknowledging that all are victims of disunity, all share in the responsibility for schism, and all are called to work for the healing of the wounds of the body of Christ. When Archbishop Robert Runcie formally opened the 1988 Lambeth Conference, welcoming the bishops of the Anglican Communion who had responded to his invitation, he rightly stressed that ‘we must never make the survival of the Anglican Communion an end in itself’. He correctly pointed out that the churches of the Anglican Communion ‘have never claimed to be more than a part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’. Archbishop Runcie then went on, however, to make the further claim that ‘Anglicanism has a radically provisional character which we must never allow to be obscured.’7 How should we interpret this assertion about the provisionality of Anglicanism?

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If Archbishop Runcie meant that the Anglican Communion, like all communions of the Christian Church, is partial and incomplete, and is diminished by not being in full communion with all its sister churches, and that, like all communions of the Christian Church, it is highly provisional in relation to the eschatologically perfect Church of the Creed, then his statement must command our complete assent. If, however, he was implying that Anglicanism is peculiarly provisional, that it is somehow more provisional than other manifestations of the Christian Church, that it is Anglicanism’s forte, so to speak, to be provisional in a way that other churches are not provisional, then I would disagree. Our great need as Anglicans at the present time is, I believe, to have confidence in our Anglican ecclesiology, our Anglican tradition and our Anglican Communion. We need the assurance that Anglicanism is an estimable expression of the Christian Church; that it has all the resources, by the grace of God, to meet the pastoral and spiritual needs of its members; that it has the authority to call to its ministry those whom it believes the Holy Spirit is calling and to bestow on them the authority of the Church; and, moreover, that it has much to offer the greater and more complete communion, for which we hope and work and pray. The canons of the Church of England claim precisely this for the Anglican Church in England when they affirm that the Church of England ‘belongs to the true and apostolic Church of Christ’, and go on to insist that ‘no member thereof shall be at liberty to maintain or hold the contrary’ (canon A1). All Anglicans throughout the Communion surely need to be convinced, with regard to their own church, of the truth of what this canon affirms with regard to the Church of England. Stephen Sykes has lamented the chronic proclivity of English Anglicans to run down their own church and has traced this morbid tendency to the ‘deeply ingrained . . . cultural habit of self-denigration’ on the part of the English educated elite.8 Anglicans in leadership should combat this downward drag. Parish clergy need the assurance that they are part of an institution that is worth its salt, if they are to give of their best. It is not helpful to tell them that the Church that has called, trained and ordained them is provisional. If we want to evoke loyalty to the common cause, if we want to avoid producing alienated parochial clergy who are disillusioned with the institutional church, if we want to encourage the clergy to participate willingly in ministerial assessment and development programmes, then we must help them to believe in their church. We should, from time to time and with a good conscience, celebrate its achievements under God through the centuries. Bishops need this loyalty to the worth of Anglicanism and a due sense of the authority and integrity of the whole Anglican body to protect them

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from their besetting sin, which is to act as benevolent pragmatists, who decide policy (in so far as it is in their hands to do so) by measuring the competing pressures upon them and then striking a balance, rather than by reference to proven principles of Anglican (reformed catholic) ecclesiology. Our bishops need this assurance particularly as those who are called to be stewards of the tradition and guardians of the faith. Lay people also need to be thoroughly convinced of the abiding value of Anglicanism when, as now, they are being asked to work harder, to give more generously, and to take on greater responsibilities. Motivation comes when they have the assurance that all this is for the sake of the church they love, a church that is worthy of the sacrifices that they are being asked to make. Such a church is not appropriately designated ‘provisional’, unless in the same breath this is being said of all churches. Finally, Anglican theologians need faith in their tradition to prevent them becoming irresponsibly eclectic, freelance theological pundits, but instead to practise what Karl Rahner called ‘theology in the bosom of the Church’. Our representatives who take part in ecumenical dialogues need this assurance that there is a definite and distinct Anglican ecclesiology, one that has abiding validity. These theologians will have it only if they have a sense of gratitude to their communion and if they feel nourished by its tradition of theology and liturgy. They will only have it too if they are steeped in the writings of the great formative theologians of Anglicanism, among whom Richard Hooker is, by common consent, supreme. Having entered that necessary caveat against careless talk about the provisionality of Anglicanism, I am now, I hope, in a position to speak much more positively about the true provisionality of each and every one of the plurality of Christian churches that exists. But I want to be clear that the provisonality of the churches is a theological, not a sociological judgement. It is not related to their respective numbers, their relative antiquity or their diverse cultural character. As Duquoc puts it in Provisional Churches, ‘the claim that the churches are provisional does not arise so much out of a purely sociological analysis of the variations between them, as out of a quest for their mystical or eschatological goal’.9 He explains: The provisional denotes the fact that the churches are historical and therefore mortal; it is not a pejorative judgement, suggesting a lack of value. The provisional denotes the condition of innovation, of continual creation, of presence in changing situations: it is opposed to a stubborn concern to stop the moment, the mobility of forms or the mortality of relationships.10 A manifesto from the Groupe des Dombes (a seminar of French Protestants and Roman Catholics that has met annually at the Cistercian

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Abbey of Les Dombes near Lyon since 1937, and which has often set the pace for ecumenical progress) has some helpful things to say about provisionality. For the Conversion of the Churches (WCC, 1993) examines the concepts of identity and conversion in the Church.11 It distinguishes three levels of identity and conversion. First, there is our basic Christian identity, the orientation of personal faith to Jesus Christ. Clearly this demands continual conversion to God. Second, there is ecclesial identity, our fundamental belonging to the Christian Church. This calls for continual conversion to conform to the nature of the Church of Jesus Christ. Finally, there is confessional identity, the historically constructed self-understanding that each church has evolved over against other churches. Conversion in this dimension requires that all churches recognize that they are confessional bodies, so relativizing themselves vis-à-vis the one Church of Christ. For ‘no confessional Church can be identified as it stands with the Church of Jesus Christ’. The Groupe des Dombes makes a useful distinction between ‘confessional identity’, the healthy recognition that one belongs to an historical church, an essential prerequisite of any meaningful ecumenical dialogue, on the one hand, and ‘confessionalism’, a hardening of confessional identity into a defensive attitude of self-justification, on the other. Divisive confessional stances call for radical conversion of confessional identity. Because confessional identity has been created through separation, polemics and anathemas, it lacks ecclesial integrity and requires this integrity to be made up by continual conversion to God and the Church of God. It is a remarkable insight of the document that it points out that the strength and distinctiveness of a church’s confessional identity is also the source of its greatest temptation. For Protestants, it is suggested, the strength of their confessional identity lies in spontaneous obedience to the gospel, but its weakness springs from lack of attention to structures of visible continuity. For Roman Catholics, the strength of their confessional identity is found in their grasp of the Church as a visible society, but the weakness arises from the tendency to try to construct institutional guarantees at the expense of the freedom of the Spirit. (Regrettably, the Groupe did not address the question of the strengths and weaknesses of Anglican confessional identity, in so far as it exists, but I shall say something about that shortly.) In fact, as the ecumenical dialogues show, Protestant churches are already sensitive to the need to provide for visible continuity. The Roman Catholic Church is here challenged to accept that it is a confessional church, like every other. It is called to conversion to the one Church of Jesus Christ. It needs to seek healing and fullness through communion with other churches. For the Conversion of the Churches helps us to see a way in which we can affirm an authentic confessional identity for Anglicanism, while at

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the same time acknowledging the provisionality of this identity through continual conversion to God who is the ultimate author of the Church and the judge of all the separated churches.

Anglican confessional identity Let us now turn to the question of Anglican confessional identity in the restricted and provisional sense in which we are happy to allow the use of this term. What is the content of Anglican confessional identity? What are the spirit and forms of Anglicanism? What exactly is this expression of the Christian Church that we call Anglicanism? The 1930 Lambeth Conference defined the Anglican Communion in a way that still seems useful (Resolutions 48 and 49):12 The Anglican Communion is a fellowship, within the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, of those duly constituted dioceses, provinces, or regional Churches in communion with the see of Canterbury, which have the following characteristics in common: (a) they uphold and propagate the catholic and apostolic faith and order as they are generally set forth in the Book of Common Prayer as authorized in their several churches; (b) they are particular or national churches, and as such, promote within each of their territories a national expression of Christian faith, life and worship; and (c) they are bound together not by a central legislative and executive authority but by mutual loyalty sustained by the common counsel of the bishops in conference. This definition, which carries the authority of the Lambeth Conference, suggests several aspects of the Anglican Communion that are worth underlining: 1. It is not incidental that the Anglican Communion describes itself as a communion. Its shared experience is one of fellowship. By adopting from its early days the designation of a communion, and by striving to maintain its communion through thick and thin, Anglicanism seems well placed to contribute to the current discussion of koinonia within ecumenical theology. 2. The Anglican Communion belongs to the Christian Church. Its ecclesiology is founded on the principle that there is more than one church that is catholic; that there are, therefore, non-Roman churches that are catholic; and that the existence of the Anglican Communion – far from being a negation of the credal doctrine of the unity, catholicity and apostolicity of the Church – is in fact an instantiation of it.

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3. The faith and order of the Anglican Communion are held to be those that are characteristic of the Christian Church. They are set out in certain authoritative formularies, particularly the Book of Common Prayer (which is probably intended here to include the Thirty-nine Articles and the Ordinal). It is acknowledged that the Book of Common Prayer has been both accepted and adapted throughout the Communion. 4. Anglicanism acknowledges a providential ordering of distinct cultures and national destinies within which this common faith and order are expressed. The Anglican Communion is not geared to centralization or uniformity. Its origins should not be reduced to Western imperialism and colonialism. On the contrary, a principle of inculturation resides at the heart of the Anglican approach, however slow and reluctant Anglicans may have been to implement it in practice. 5. The Anglican Communion has a common focus in the office of the Archbishop of the the most ancient metropolitical see. The practical test of membership (the Communion’s ‘bottom line’) is being in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. 6. However, neither the Archbishop of Canterbury nor the Lambeth Conference is given the authority to rule the Communion. The common counsel of bishops, meeting in the Lambeth Conference, is intended to guide the life of the Communion. Its bonds are therefore those of mutual loyalty and committed fellowship. I would want to add one more characteristic of the Anglican Communion to those given by the Lambeth Conference of 1930. The conciliar nature of Anglicanism is certainly implicit in the Lambeth 1930 statement, but is not made explicit either there or in most discussions of Anglicanism. The Anglican Communion, with its Lambeth Conference, its Anglican Consultative Council, its Primates’ Meeting and its structures of synodical government at local, diocesan and provincial or national levels, is a striking example of conciliar ecclesiology. It perpetuates the conciliar ideal as it was developed in the two centuries immediately preceding the Reformation, at a time when the Western Church was disfigured by corruption and fragmented by division within the papacy itself. The conciliar movement aimed to reform the Church, expunge heresy and unite the Church by healing the breach within the papacy. It attempted this by calling together bishops, lay rulers and theologians in a free general council that would ultimately be above the popes. Representative and constitutional governance was its guiding principle. The monarchical form of the papacy was its antagonist. Its triumph was the Council of Constance 1414–17. Though the conciliar movement was outmanoeuvred by the pope at the Council of Basel, its ideals continued to inspire reforming movements and were appealed to by both the continental and the English Reformers in the following century.

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These ideals have come to fruition in modern Anglicanism. Though Anglicanism lacks a universal primate on the model of the papacy and does not accept the infallibility of general councils, it implements the conciliar principle of representative government in which all estates of the Church can make their voices heard and in which the bishops remain the guardians of doctrine and worship. The synodical system is often criticized. In particular, it is accused of aping parliament. But what its critics seem largely unaware of is the fact that the rationale for conciliar government stems from the pre-Reformation Church, that it was ecclesiologists and canon lawyers who argued the case for representative structures, and that, if anything, it is parliament that has copied the conciliar procedures of the Christian Church. Ecclesiastical and secular forms of representative government developed in dialogue. There are many observers of Anglicanism, in more authoritarian and less tolerant churches, who would give their eyeteeth to be allowed to debate freely the major theological and ethical issues that Anglican synods have debated in recent years. Let us now take a closer look at the distinctive faith and order of Anglicanism, which as the Lambeth Conference of 1930 claimed, Anglicans regard as catholic and apostolic. Here I must ask my readers in the Anglican Communion at large for their understanding if I illustrate these aspects mainly from the formularies of the Church of England, as the formularies best known to me. In the case of the Book of Common Prayer, together with the Thirty-nine Articles and the Ordinal, these historic formularies of the Church of England tend to have a special position in world Anglicanism as a paradigm of faith and order (as Lambeth 1930 recognized).

Anglican faith Our starting-point in considering Anglican faith might well be the Preface to the Declaration of Assent (canon C15) which is read whenever a bishop, priest or deacon is admitted to their ministry in the Church of England (a number of other churches of the Anglican Communion have a similar statement). I choose this not because I regard it as definitive for the whole Communion, but as a convenient and succinct account of Anglican confessional identity.13 The Church of England is part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church worshipping the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It professes the faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures

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and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation. Led by the Holy Spirit, it has borne witness to Christian truth in its historic formularies, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. Several observations can be made on this statement. 1. First and foremost, Anglicans insist that their churches belong to the one Church of Christ that we affirm in the creeds. As I have already mentioned, the Church of England’s canons make it illegal for any member (in practice, any clerical member) to deny this. By putting the matter in this way – by using the term ‘part’ (the Episcopal Church of the USA uses ‘portion’ in the preface to its Ordination Rites) – Anglicans show that they do not unchurch other communions or pass judgement on their ministries. It is not a function of Anglican self-definition to assert that Anglicanism alone constitutes the Church of Christ. Rather it is implicit in Anglican selfdefinition to allow that other churches also are parts or portions of the Church of Christ. This surely places Anglican ecclesiology within an overall ecumenical perspective. 2. Anglicans take their stand, where their faith is concerned, on the unity and trinitarian identity of God, disclosed to us in Holy Scripture as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Though more is said about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity in the Thirty-nine Articles, neither there nor here is there any speculative theology of the godhead. There is affirmation, but not speculation. 3. This faith is said to be ‘uniquely revealed’ in the Holy Scriptures. Here the Scriptures are accorded the status of the vehicle of revelation. But neither here nor in the Articles is there any theory of revelation or of biblical inspiration. The Articles state that ‘Holy Scripture containeth all things necesary to salvation’ and this is echoed in the Chicago–Lambeth Quadrilateral (1886–88) which upholds the Scriptures as ‘the rule and ultimate standard of faith’. Anglican formularies do not recognize the Scriptures as a source of binding precepts and precedents which should determine the worship or polity of the Church. Reason and tradition also have their part to play. 4. The faith that is revealed in the Scriptures is also ‘set forth’ in the creeds that are received by the whole Church, that is, the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene–Constantinopolitan Creed, which are recited at the daily office and at the Eucharist respectively. There is a significant distinction between the function of Scripture, which is to reveal, and the function of the creeds, which is to ‘set forth’, that is to say, to manifest, exemplify or expose. The Articles commend the creeds on the grounds that ‘they may be

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proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture’. The Articles do not discuss the teaching status of the Fathers, though they invoke Jerome and Augustine of Hippo in their support. But the defenders of the English Reformation, such as John Jewel, took their stand on Scripture and the primitive Church. The canons of the Church of England claim that its doctrine is ‘grounded in the Holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures’ (canon A5). 5. It belongs, furthermore, to the Church’s calling to proclaim this faith – and not just to proclaim it, but to proclaim it afresh in each generation. This seems to be a mandate for some reinterpretation, re-expression and making the faith relevant – provided, of course, that this exercise, imperative as it is, remains faithful to the Scriptures and the creeds. I note with pleasure that the rite of ordination of a bishop in the Episcopal Church of the USA calls upon him or her to ‘proclaim and interpret the Gospel of Christ’. 6. Furthermore, Anglicans believe that they have been led by the Holy Spirit to ‘bear witness’ to Christian truth in their historic formularies. They do not claim to have plumbed the depths of Christian truth, or to have stated it exhaustively, but to have genuinely witnessed or testified to it. I detect here a further gradation in the claims that are being made. These formularies are not being placed on a par with Scripture or the creeds. Christian truth is said to be revealed in Scripture, set forth in the creeds, proclaimed by the Church and witnessed to in the formularies. I must confess that I find that a very satisfying set of distinctions. I have been expounding the Church of England’s Preface to the Declaration of Assent. After the reading of this Preface, the candidates for the orders of bishop, priest or deacon make the Declaration of Assent. They are required to affirm their loyalty to this inheritance of faith as their inspiration and guidance under God in bringing the truth of Christ to their generation and in making him known to those in their care. These words will repay closer study. First, we notice that the truth that is drawn from Scripture, the creeds and the historic formularies is described as an ‘inheritance of faith’. This seems an apt expression: it implies something substantial and valuable coming down to us from the past, from our history, something that we thankfully receive, yet with a sense that there remains something for us to do in making it our own. Second, what is demanded of us in relation to this inheritance is ‘loyalty’. Now loyalty is a moral quality and an expression of character. It is the product of ethical nurture and disciplined conformity to truth. Our response to the inheritance of faith is thus evoked in a personal and

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relational mode. It is something rather different from the unquestioning acceptance of a teaching or ruling that is given purely on authority. Third, this inheritance serves to provide ‘inspiration and guidance’. This is, again, a very different matter from subscribing passively to dogmas or blindly obeying a set of rules. Inspiration and guidance, like loyalty, belong to the realm of the moral and spiritual quest and lay upon us a responsibility to make the truth our own – while at the same time shaping and resourcing our response. Altogether, the nuances in the Preface and the Declaration seem to give reasonable scope for interpretation and exploration, provided that our fundamental loyalty to the inheritance of Scripture, creeds and historic formularies is not eroded. The ideal here expressed seems to call for some such phrase as ‘dynamic orthodoxy’, where equal weight is placed on both halves of the equation. This concept represents an orthodoxy of intention, schooled in the inheritance of faith, yet open to new understandings in the light of the context within which the faith is to be proclaimed and applied; an orthodoxy that is not static, or lifeless, or merely reiterated again and again, regardless of whether anyone is responding, but one that is full of vitality and manoeuvrability and which has the flexibility to make contact with the diverse contexts of our pluralistic world. As Louis Weil puts it: ‘The eternal gospel is not preserved through a rigid adherence to the familiar rites and phrases, but rather in allowing it to speak from its centre, the experience of the paschal mystery in the lives of Christians today.’14

Anglican order Now let us consider, more briefly, Anglican ‘confessional’ identity as it is expressed in the Anglican understanding of Church order: that is to say, in the structures of ministry and government, the polity, of Anglicanism. Once again we find that what is claimed is intentionally limited and that there is a remarkable restraint in statements of Anglican order. The Lambeth Quadrilateral spoke simply of ‘the historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his Church’. There is no theory here as to why the historic episcopate is needed and no judgement on churches that lack it. There is no suggestion that the apostolicity of the ministry might be invalidated by the impact of the vicissitudes of history on the sequence of transmitted authority, nor is there any blueprint for a uniform model of episcopal structure. Adaptation to local needs is affirmed. As Louis Weil puts it, the episcopate emerged in the late sixteenth century as a fundamental characteristic of the Anglican understanding of the Church;

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yet subsequent Anglican reflection on the episcopate has not defined the nature of that ministry in sharply exclusive terms that would deny an authentic ministry to non-episcopal churches. For, in Anglicanism, ‘what is distinctive is not necessarily divisive’.15 The canons of the Church of England make a curiously minimalist claim for the 1662 ordinal, asserting only that it is ‘not repugnant to the Word of God’ (canon A 4). But that rather negative way of putting it does not mean that the Church of England (in this case) has any doubts about its authority to ordain or about the validity of the orders of those duly ordained by this instrument. On the contrary, it insists that they are lawfully ordained and ‘ought to be accounted, both by themselves and others, to be truly bishops, priests or deacons’. The 1662 ordinal was confident that the threefold ministry went back to the Apostles themselves. But the Alternative Service Book 1980 and the Common Worship ordinal – reflecting the fact that biblical and patristic studies since the seventeenth century have shown the situation in the Early Church to have been much more fluid and diverse than was supposed then – content themselves with the attenuated statement: ‘The Church of England maintains the historic threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons.’ The only justification or rationale for the threefold ministry that is implied here is that it is ‘historic’, which seems excessively minimalist even for Anglicans! Considerably more is claimed in international ecumenical agreements involving Anglicans, such as the ARCIC report on ministry and ordination and even in God’s Reign and Our Unity, the report of the international Anglican–Reformed dialogue (1984). The 1979 Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church of the USA makes a stronger claim, observing that ‘from the Apostles’ time, there have been different ministries within the Church’, and claiming that the threefold order dates from ‘the time of the New Testament’. The Prayer Book of the Church in Wales rather astutely refers the origins of the threefold ministry to a point somewhere in the first two centuries! On this matter, Anglican practice is actually stronger than Anglican theory. The Book of Common Prayer 1662 states that no man shall be suffered to exercise any diaconal, priestly or episcopal function in the Church of England without episcopal ordination, and the American Prayer Book of 1979 lays it down that no one may exercise those three offices unless they have been ordained ‘with the laying on of hands by bishops who are themselves duly qualified to confer holy orders’. But the Alternative Service Book 1980 of the Church of England calmly stated that ministers of that Church ‘are ordained by bishops according to authorized forms of service, with prayer and the laying on of hands’. Why have Anglicans invariably insisted on episcopal ordination since

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1662? Whatever theological motives we may attribute to individual Anglican divines, I am convinced that Anglicans generally have held to episcopal ordination in historic succession because they have regarded it as an aspect of the catholicity and apostolicity of the Church. It is a feature of Anglican ecclesiology that Anglicans share with the major historic communions of the Christian Church – Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Old Catholic and some Lutheran churches. It does not imply an adverse judgement on the ministries of other churches, but remains a firm internal requirement of Anglicanism and part of its distinctive polity. Anglicans believe (for reasons that we shall consider in a later chapter) that episcopacy is meant to serve the apostolicity and catholicity of the Church. It is the primitive order; it has been maintained by the oldest and largest churches of Christendom; there is an ecumenical consensus that it has a secure place in the pattern of the full visible unity or full visible communion that we seek.

Affirmation and restraint I discern in the Anglican tradition, and find inscribed in its formularies, a pleasing combination of two principles: affirmation and restraint. It is these two qualities, not in isolation or separation but in combination and interaction, that, I suggest, are typically Anglican. They infuse the ‘confessional’ identity of Anglicanism, in the realms of both faith and order. In his Afterword to the vast anthology of Anglican spiritual writing Love’s Redeeming Work, David Hope (then Archbishop of York) wrote: ‘There is a holy reticence in Anglicanism’s soul which can be tantalising, not only for those on the inside. But it can cut through doctrinal and moral controversy by recourse to paradox, and (on occasion) the humility to suspend judgement.’16 In the sphere of Anglican faith, the historic formularies are not claimed to be the last word in systematic theology, but are simply said to be ‘agreeable to the Word of God’. The central truths of the Christian faith are roundly affirmed, but without going beyond what is revealed. It is a practical not a speculative faith. Anglicans are invited to rehearse their faith primarily in liturgical and doxological form. Clergy are required to adhere to tradition through loyalty, respect and gratitude, rather than through juridical intimidation. In the sphere of order, Anglicanism maintains the sufficiency of its ministries and sacraments. Their justification is not that they rest on some God-given guarantee, but that they are ministries and sacraments of the Church of Christ – and that is enough. The historic threefold ministry is upheld in a beautifully downbeat phrase as ‘not repugnant to the Word of

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God’, and no theory of this ministry is countenanced that would unchurch other bodies. It is a practical, not a speculative order, one attuned to pastoral care, rather than to maintaining a hierarchical and authoritarian structure of doctrine and discipline. Anglican faith and order are clearly central to Anglican ‘confessional’ identity in the sense of confessional identity (to be distinguished from ‘confessionalism’) worked out by the Groupe des Dombes in For the Conversion of the Churches. I have been suggesting that the faith and order of Anglicanism is marked by a combination and balance of affirmation and restraint. In their exercise of restraint, the seminal Anglican formularies, such as the Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and the classical Ordinal, together with the doctrinal parts of canon law, conspicuously avoid giving hostages to fanaticism, fundamentalism or dogmatism. The spirit of restraint inhibits these affirmations from becoming instruments of ideological oppression or of exclusivism. But in their character as affirmation they are equally inhospitable to relativism, indifferentism and mere pragmatism. They do not convey the impression that a believing grasp of the truth of the Christian faith and life is either unattainable or of secondary importance. These formularies reveal a church or communion quietly confident of its catholicity and apostolicity. If we can recover that godly but modest confidence for ourselves, we shall indeed be keeping faith with Anglicanism.

Notes 1. Material in this chapter appeared in R. Hannaford (ed.), The Future of Anglicanism (Leominster: Gracewing, 1996). 2. From Power to Partnership (London: Church House, 1991), p. 113. 3. LG I.8: W.M. Abbott (ed.), The Documents of Vatican II (London and Dublin: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), p. 23. A ruling on the interpretation of subsistit in was given by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in ‘Responses to some questions regarding certain aspects of the doctrine of the Church’ on 10 July 2007. 4. ARCIC, The Final Report (London: SPCK/Catholic Truth Society, 1982), pp. 86f. 5. UR III.22: Abbott (ed.), Documents, p. 364. 6. See further: P. Avis, Christians in Communion (London: Geoffrey Chapman– Mowbray; Minneapolis, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), Ch. 3. 7. The Truth Shall Make You Free: The Lambeth Conference 1988 (London: Anglican Consultative Council, 1988), p. 13. 8. S.W. Sykes, ‘Odi et Amo: Loving and Hating Anglicanism’, in M.L. Dutton and P.T. Gray (eds), One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism: Studies in Christian

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9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

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Ecclesiality and Ecumenism in Honor of J. Robert Wright (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), p. 195. C. Duquoc, Provisional Churches (London: SCM Press, 1986), p. 90. Ibid., p. 91. Groupe des Dombes, For the Conversion of the Churches (Geneva: WCC, 1993). R. Coleman (ed.), Resolutions of the Twelve Lambeth Conferences 1867–1988 (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1992), pp. 83ff. For the origins of this text see C. Podmore, Aspects of Anglican Identity (London: Church House, 2005), Ch. 4. L. Weil, in S. Sykes, J. Booty and J. Knight (eds), The Study of Anglicanism, 2nd edn (London: SPCK, 1998), pp. 67–8. Ibid., p. 56. D. Hope in G. Rowell, K. Stevenson and R. Williams (eds), Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 762.

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II

What is Anglicanism?1

W

hat is ‘Anglicanism’? How should we identify it on the spectrum of Christian traditions? Anglicanism may be defined as the faith, practice and spirit of the churches of the Anglican Communion. More precisely, we can identify Anglicanism by its doctrine, order and worship: that is to say, what Anglicans believe and teach, how their churches are structured and organized, how they use liturgies and sacraments. These are three central and interlocking areas of Anglican life, the importance of which no one would deny. But we could tackle this task in more than one way. We could, for example, look at Anglicanism phenomenologically and try to describe what we see – a challenging descriptive task but not a particularly enlightening one. A merely phenomenological approach would not be adequate to the demands of a rigorous, critical ecclesiology. It could not go beyond appearances and perceptions. We need a more profound method: Anglicanism (like all the major expressions of the Christian Church) needs to be understood ecclesiologically – by means of a theological analysis of how it understands the nature and mission of the Church. This is to add analysis and critique to mere description. So if we apply what Paul Ricoeur called a hermeneutic of suspicion to our rather bland, descriptive, phenomenological definition, the first suspicious question would be: Is the faith, practice and spirit of the churches of the Anglican Communion merely a product of the accidents of history, a legitimization, for reasons of expediency, of the way things have happened to turn out? And the next question would be: Is the faith, practice and spirit of Anglicanism therefore destined to be dissolved into its constituent elements by equally contingent and irrational historical forces in the future? Or is Anglicanism possibly the embodiment of some genuine ecclesiological

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truth, insight or principle, with some degree of abiding relevance and with something of value to offer to the whole Church? To sharpen the question further: Is Anglicanism merely the legacy of aggressive Anglo-Saxon imperialism, or is it able to take its stand on, and find its justification in, the essence of Christianity, the Christian gospel? The ambiguity of posing the dilemma of Anglican ecclesiology in this way is brought out in William Temple’s remark that nowhere was the Reformation accomplished with so little assertion of abstract principles as in England. We can agree with Temple that the English Reformation, at least under Henry and Elizabeth, was primarily a political rather than a theological movement and that it consequently tied the Church of England to dogmatic definitions less than it did churches elsewhere.2 However, it remains the case that the political, social and cultural context can provide only the occasion for a church to exist and can contribute to the shaping of its outward form. It cannot provide the definition of church or its raison d’être.

The terms ‘Anglican’ and ‘Anglicanism’ Like the terms ‘Catholic’ and ‘Protestant’, the terms ‘Anglican’ and ‘Anglicanism’ present what the theological polemic of the past used to call ‘a nose of wax’ – something that could be shaped arbitrarily to suit various ideological requirements. Certainly the concept of Anglicanism offers a fieldday for tendentious interpretations and definitions. It is not controversial, however, that these terms derive etymologically from the Latin Anglicanus = English. The term Ecclesia Anglorum (‘the church of the English people’) goes back to Gregory the Great who used it in his letters to Augustine of Canterbury early in the seventh century. The phrase Ecclesia Angliae (‘the Church of England’) is found in Anselm at the end of the eleventh century and the first decade of the twelfth. The expression ecclesia Anglicana was commonly used from the middle of the twelfth century – for example in Thomas à Becket’s correspondence and in the historian John of Salisbury – and was translated as ‘Church of England’. Anglicana ecclesia occurs in Magna Carta (1215) in the statement: Quod Anglicana ecclesia libera sit (‘that the English church shall be free’).3 The expression ‘Church of England’ at this time simply referred to a geographical entity (sometimes including Wales), the two provinces of the Western Church situated in England (cf. Anglicana provincia). Similarly, Ecclesia Gallicana carried no ideological overtones for the Church in France, such as would be developed in ‘Gallicanism’, an assertion of the rights of the French church over against the papacy, from the Counter-Reformation

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onwards. Furthermore, ecclesia Anglicana looked to the papacy for protection from royal control and sought the freedom from royal interference that would enable it to render obedience to the pope. Magna Carta, contrary to the interpretation beloved of later Anglican Protestants and popularizing Whig historians, was recognizing the liberty of the English church from royal interference, not liberty from papal control. At the Reformation, the precedent of Magna Carta was invoked and reinterpreted (in fact reversed) to emphasize the claim of the reformed English church to independence from foreign (i.e. papal) jurisdiction. In times past, as ‘divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles’ testified, the English church had enjoyed a primitive freedom and independence latterly curtailed by the usurpations of the Bishop of Rome. Thus the act of 1534 confirming the Royal Supremacy spoke of the sovereign (Henry VIII) as ‘the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia’.4 John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, entitled his defence of the English Reformation Apologia Ecclesia Anglicanae. In Richard Hooker, who conducted his argument in the vernacular from the outset, this phrase became ‘the Church of England’. The term ‘Anglican’ first appears in the mid-seventeenth century, but in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it began to shed its national connotations and to refer more specifically to a distinct theological position. Thus Edmund Burke mentions Catholics, Anglicans and Calvinists as three ecclesiastical communities; Thomas Babbington Macaulay refers to Anglican doctrine and discipline, and Gladstone defends Anglican orders. The ground was prepared by this development for the adoption of the title ‘Anglican’ for the colonial churches which looked both pastorally and canonically to Canterbury. But ultimately a term was at hand to describe the family of churches of the emerging Anglican Communion even when they had become legally emancipated from the mother church in England. ‘Anglianisme’ is found as a pejorative term in a Roman Catholic pamphlet in 1616.5 The French form anglicanisme occurs, presumably by analogy with gallicanisme, in Lamennais in 1817. ‘Anglicanism’ was employed by Newman, who by this time was repelled by the nationalistic aspects of English religion, in 1837. The extreme wing of the Tractarians condemned moderate high churchmen as ‘mere Anglicans’. For them ‘Anglican’ was a pejorative term. The first Lambeth Conference was referring to the ‘Anglican Communion’ in 1867 (the term having first appeared in 1847).6 However, Anglicanism as an ecclesiological concept is a preoccupation of a later generation, when the provinces’ ties to the mother Church of England had been much weakened, pluralism of religious expression was becoming acute, and the social and political aspects of religious belief and practice were beginning to grip the attention of theologians. The situation

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was then ripe for the common faith and life of the diverse churches of the Anglican Communion to be evaluated as a religious type, or tradition, or system (though Anglicanism is not very systematic) – in fact as an ideology (the term is not necessarily pejorative here), by analogy with Catholicism, capitalism, Marxism, and so on. The present concern with Anglican identity and integrity stems from the application to Christianity generally and Anglicanism in particular of theological analysis informed by the methods of ideological criticism which have been applied to such conceptual and social structures as the Enlightenment and Marxism. The inevitably corrosive effects of this critique have been felt throughout the Christian Church and in all departments of Christian theology, not merely in ecclesiology.7 If we wished to avoid these unpleasant effects, the study of Anglicanism would have to be uncoupled from the discipline of ecclesiology, which has been shaped by critical thought, where rigorous theological scrutiny is the order of the day. Anglicanism would then be completely free to develop unhampered by any critical theological assessment. Free rein would then be given to individuals and groups to operate in pursuit of their ends by direct political manipulation, untrammelled by theological principles which attempt to ground the existence of the Church in the person, destiny and intention of Jesus Christ. Then we would witness the naked pursuit of self-interest, power and prestige, and the blatant gratification of unreconstructed psychological fantasies. This would, of course, be nothing new! But the answer to our initial question, whether Anglicanism merely expresses and protects the interests of specific groups, or whether it can claim also to be the embodiment of genuine theological principle, would be abundantly clear. Although criticism is sometimes hard to take, I doubt whether most Anglicans, in this case, would wish their church to escape the searching scrutiny of a critical ecclesiology.

Anglican apologetic The claims that Anglicans over the centuries have made for their church have not been articulated, needless to say, in a supposedly timeless realm of abstract truths but in response to the challenge or threat of the moment – over against the Roman Catholic Church, or the Puritans, or modern science, or ecumenism, or the feminist movement, or the chronic pluralism of the modern world. In responding to these challenges or threats, Anglicans have singled out various aspects of the Anglican synthesis that have seemed to be relevant. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Anglicans defended their

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continuity with the pre-Reformation Church, rebutted charges of schism and refuted the claims of the papacy. Thus they emphasized the catholicity of the Church of England, as a church that lacked no essential part of catholic faith and order. At the same time, however, they had to contend with the threat from the extreme Protestants, or Puritans, who maintained that reform had not gone far enough and that the Church of England was no true church. In response to this internal challenge, such apologists as Whitgift and Hooker upheld the fully reformed character of the Church of England as worthy to stand beside the best reformed churches in Christendom. In these battles, the weapons of controversy were those of biblical and historical scholarship – and in the case of Hooker, at least, a grasp of the first principles of law. (This is not to say that Anglican scholarship was never deployed tendentiously or the evidence never distorted.) The Church of England took its stand on the new humanist learning of the Renaissance and on the accumulated erudition of the seventeenth century. The appeal to sound learning was, therefore, a significant factor in Anglican apologetic from the Reformation onwards. Furthermore, this appeal was imbued with a certain philosophical and ethical spirit, marked by moderation in argument, caution in the claims that were made, pragmatism and a grasp of what was possible, the philosophical idea of probality, and a sense of the limits of human speculation. In the hands of Hooker, Locke and Butler, arguments characterized by these modest but by no means ubiquitous qualities, were not merely ineffectual literary gestures, as some might suppose, but devastating cumulative arguments that successfully defended the Anglican theological method against its enemies, both within and without. In the second half of the nineteenth century Anglican thought began to grapple – not without trauma – with developments in the modern worldview: biblical criticism, evolutionary theory and immanental philosophy. The appeal to sound learning entered a new phase with the symposium Lux Mundi, edited by Charles Gore, in 1889. The aim of the contributors, mainly Oxford Anglo-Catholic clerics, was ‘ “to succour a distressed faith” by endeavouring to bring the Christian creed into its right relation to the modern growth of knowledge, scientific, historical and critical, and to modern problems of politics and ethics’.8 In the twentieth century Anglican apologetic began to respond to the vision of the emerging ecumenical movement, and the claim began to be heard that the combination of catholic, reformed and scholarly factors in Anglicanism qualified it to serve as a paradigm of Christian unity. The Anglo-Catholic document Catholicity (1947) suggested that Anglicanism’s success in holding together living principles, that in other traditions had been torn asunder, opened the way for ‘the Church of England [sic] to be a

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school of synthesis over a wider field than any other church in Christendom’. Anglicanism, it was claimed, had maintained a special witness to the Christian tradition in its fullness: ‘The history of Anglican theology shows that it possesses a power of construction which has made for synthesis rather than for division.’9 The claim that Anglicanism possesses a unique gift for fostering synthesis between Christian traditions will be greeted with amused incredulity by some of our ecumenical partners and is not generally supported by the internal experience of Anglican churches. The domestic traditions of churchmanship, the so-called ecclesiastical parties – high, low and broad, as they once were; now catholic, evangelical and liberal – seem to have largely gone their own way, taking care to reinforce their prejudices all along the line through party patronage of livings, partisan theological colleges and tame newspapers and journals. There are signs that this polarization has moderated considerably in the Church of England, but until recently internal Anglican ecumenism has been minimal. Compromise may have occurred, but not synthesis. The disruption of the fellowship within the Communion in the first decade of the twenty-first century, over the issue of homosexuality, is powerful evidence of a continued lack of mutual understanding and mutual respect. But if theological convergence, mutual receptivity and eventual synthesis is the goal, then how is it to be achieved? Synthesis may be achieved explicitly through theological work: research, dialogue, argument and reconstruction. Or it may be effected tacitly through the emergence of new symbols in leadership, worship, spirituality and mission that bridge divisions and help to heal old conflicts. As far as the symbolic life of the Church is concerned, we are largely at the mercy of the framers of liturgy and the extent of their awareness of the dynamic nature of symbolism as an integral living tradition, with a life of its own that can indeed be fostered, shaped, renewed and reborn, but not contrived. Greater respect for hallowed symbols, and the fostering of true creativity, will help to bring about synthesis and integration (though not without conflict) at the tacit level of the symbolic life of religious community.10 Meanwhile, however, there is much that we can do to enhance theological awareness and enquiry. Theologies that are ideologically dubious and critically incoherent may be discredited – even if not completely banished from the scene – by criticism and education. In this way theological obstacles to the realization of at least one aspect of the Anglican vocation – the openness to new knowledge – may be demolished. Finally, the feminist movement – as momentous a revolution, perhaps, as the Reformation or the Enlightenment – presents a serious challenge to the Anglican understanding of the Church. Once again, it is secular knowledge – in this case the contributions of psychology, sociology and human

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biology – that compel us to reassess our assumptions as to gender identity that underlie virtually every aspect of Christian doctrine, including the doctrine of God, christology and ecclesiology. By engaging with relevant non-theological disciplines, theology may be brought into line with what we believe to be true about the human world. But once again we have to admit that we do not have the same control over the subliminal archetypal projections and images that pervade our perception of the realm of gender identity. It is these unacknowledged, unreconstructed psychological inhibitions that often present the most intractable obstacles to the progress of Anglican thought in dialogue with contemporary knowledge and insight. Inadequate explicit theologies, which are often so implausible that their true status as the rationalization and legitimization of psycho-social factors is concealed from no one, are easier to deal with. The profound questions raised by the feminist movement constitute a challenge to Anglicanism’s appeal to sound learning, its method of drawing on all the resources of truth and understanding, its intellectual catholicity.

Anglican self-definition One approach to the question of the identity of Anglicanism is to look at various formulations of Anglican self-definition through the centuries, bearing in mind the particular circumstances in which they were made and the audiences to which they were addressed. Anglican exercises in self-definition fall broadly into two categories: first, those that focus on the material ingredients of the Anglican synthesis – in short, what is drawn from the sources of Scripture, tradition and reason – and, second, those that claim a distinctive method, ethos or praxis for the Anglican way. The first is about content; the second is about spirit. Those interpreters of Anglicanism who fall into the first category (appealing to a distinctive content) hark back to the formation of Anglicanism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Between the English Reformation and the Oxford Movement there was a definite consensus as to the identity of Anglicanism as a reformed church, confessing with all the Reformers the supreme authority of Scripture, justification by faith, the legitimate role of the laity (embodied in the sovereign and parliament) in the government of the Church, and a particular national and regional identity. Those who belong in the second category of Anglican self-definition – the appeal to a somewhat elusive ethos – belong to the period since the Oxford Movement. The radical Tractarians (the radicals being only one strand of the Oxford movement, but the most vociferous and influential) successfully challenged the prevailing consensus by repudiating much of the legacy of

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the Reformation. The Church of England, according to the Tractarians, derived its claims, its authority and its integrity from its apostolic foundation through the historic episcopal succession, rather than from the dynamic event of the preaching of the gospel (as Luther would have said), or from the sanction of the state (as the more Erastian Protestants were content to accept).11 The established consensus which with whatever variations of emphasis and reservations on the part of individuals upheld the broadly Protestant character of the Church of England, and to which all parties of churchmanship subscribed, was effectively shattered. The Protestant elements in Anglicanism – on the whole detached now from the high ecclesiology of the high church tradition and from the liberality of the Latitudinarian or broad church tradition – became the special preserve of evangelicals. Appeal could now be made, where Anglican self-definition was concerned, only to a consensus that remained elusive, a matter of ethos and approach, tacit rather than explicit, an unwritten understanding between members of a common fellowship.12 To define the identity of Anglicanism in this way is certainly to make a virtue of necessity. The notion of a tacit consensus residing in a common ethos is a post factum accommodation to the demise of doctrinal accord within the Church. To say that, however, is by no means to reject the concept of a tacit consensus subsisting in the realm of praxis, but simply to make it abundantly clear that what we are talking about is not a supposed timeless essence of Anglicanism, but a conceptual construction, a pragmatic adjustment to the facts of history.

The Anglican synthesis Now let me bring forward at this stage some witnesses to Anglican selfdefinition – first as to the threefold composition of the Anglican synthesis. King James I of England (VI of Scotland) may speak for Jacobean Anglicanism. ‘I am such a CATHOLIC CHRISTIAN’, he declared in 1609, as believeth the three Creeds, that of the Apostles, that of the Council of Nice [Nicaea], that of Athanasius . . . And I believe them in that sense as the ancient Fathers and Councils that made them did understand them . . . I reverence and admit the Four First General Councils as Catholic and Orthodox . . . As for the Scriptures, no man doubteth I will believe them.13 King James mentions the Scriptures last, not as the least important, but because their paramount authority was not contested. The Thirty-nine

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Articles had already affirmed: ‘Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation’ (Article VI). Implicit in the Articles is the notion of primary and secondary truths, things necessary to salvation and things indifferent – or, to use the terminology of the Second Vatican Council, a hierarchy of truths. The creeds themselves are acknowledged to derive their authority from the fact that ‘they may be proved by most certain warrants of holy Scripture’ (Article VIII). The same asymmetry between Scripture and tradition is exhibited in the Church of England’s canons: ‘The doctrine of the Church of England is grounded in the holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures’ (canon A 5). This combination of Scripture and tradition, with Scripture in the dominant position, constitutes Anglicanism’s reformed Catholicism – though that is not the full formula, for the role of reason, in its appeal to sources of knowledge and truth outside Scripture and tradition, though needing to be reconciled with them, requires to be added. When, in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, it became necessary to stretch the fabric of the Anglican synthesis to accommodate the findings of biblical scholarship, scientific discoveries and immanental metaphysical worldviews that were influenced by Hegelianism, this reformed catholicism became transmuted into ‘liberal catholicism’ – and of this development Charles Gore (1853–1932) was the outstanding exponent. Not that Gore intended in any way to play down the scriptural component in Anglican theological method. ‘The character of the Anglican Church’, he wrote, ‘has been from the first that of combining steadfast adherence to the structure and chief formulas of the Church Catholic with the “return to Scripture” which was the central religious motive of the Reformation.’ Anglicanism, therefore, according to Gore, bears witness to a scriptural catholicism, ‘a Catholicism in which Scripture is enthroned in the highest place of controlling authority in the Church’. But, Gore went on to point out, the revival of learning at the Renaissance had introduced a third participant in the Anglican synthesis, the appeal to scholarship: It is the glory of the Anglican Church that at the Reformation she repudiated neither the ancient structure of Catholicism, nor the new and freer movement. Upon the ancient structure – the creeds, the canon, the hierarchy, the sacraments – she retained her hold while she opened her arms to the new learning, the new appeal to Scripture, the freedom of historical criticism and the duty of private judgement. In 1889, at the beginning of his public career as a national figure, Gore affirmed not only the reformed but also the liberal character of Anglican catholicism: ‘a Catholicism . . . which is scriptural and represents the whole

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of Scripture; which is rational and can court the light of all genuine enquiry; which is free to deal with the new problems and wants of a new time’. At the height of his influence, as Bishop of Oxford in 1914, Gore reiterated this position. Anglicanism has stood since the Reformation for a ‘liberal or scriptural Catholicism’ in which Scripture constitutes ‘the sole final testing ground of dogmatic requirement’. The characteristically selfassured and autocratic way in which Gore attempted to freeze this synthesis in order to prevent further development – in particular to inhibit eucharistic intercommunion with non-episcopalians, critical positions that went beyond those of Lux Mundi (1889), and unauthorized liturgical innovation – is not our concern here. But in his threefold appeal to catholic, Reformation and scholarly components, Gore is representative of classical Anglican selfdefinition.14 This conception of the Anglican synthesis was endorsed in a report (drafted by William Temple) submitted to the Lambeth Conference of 1930: Our special characteristic and, as we believe, our peculiar contribution to the universal Church, arises from the fact that, owing to historic circumstances, we have been enabled to combine in our one fellowship the traditional faith and order of the Catholic Church with that immediacy of approach to God through Christ to which the evangelical churches especially bear witness, and freedom of intellectual enquiry, whereby the correlation of the Christian revelation and advancing knowledge is constantly effected. Anglican apologists have sung the same song until recently. In 1965 Archbishop Michael Ramsey, writing for a Roman Catholic audience, played down the liberal ingredient in the Anglican synthesis but stressed its reformed catholicity. ‘Our church has two aspects’, Ramsey explained: On the one hand we claim to be a church possessing Catholic tradition and continuity from the ancient Church, and our Catholic tradition and continuity includes the belief in the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament; the order of episcopacy and priesthood, including the power of priestly absolution. We possess various institutions belonging to Catholic Christendom like monastic orders for men and women. Nevertheless, Archbishop Ramsey went on: Our Anglican tradition has another aspect as well. We are a church which has been through the Reformation, and values many experiences derived from the Reformation, for instance the open Bible: great importance is attached to the authority of the holy Scriptures, and to

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The Identity of Anglicanism personal conviction and conversion through the work of the Holy Spirit.15

Let me add a few words of assessment at this point. To describe Anglicanism as a synthesis of catholic, reformed and liberal elements is correct, but it does not get us particularly far; it is not sufficient to bring out the distinctive character of Anglicanism. Bilateral dialogue with the churches of the Reformation has made Anglicans more aware of the extent to which these churches also appeal to the undivided Church and to the classical doctrines of patristic Christianity. And the Reformation churches are not short of sound learning or spiritual liberty. Furthermore, the process of reform within the Roman Catholic Church, initiated by the Second Vatican Council, while it by no means completely neutralizes Anglican objections to Roman Catholic claims, goes some way towards muting the traditional anti-Roman stance of Anglican apologetic. The common ground achieved in the area of doctrine by the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), while it is not beyond criticism and still lacks the full endorsement of the Vatican, nevertheless mitigates further the aspect of Anglican apologetic that has served traditionally to distinguish Anglican identity from Rome. All shades of Anglican churchmanship can be found subscribing to the view that the Anglican faith is both catholic and reformed, and at the same time hospitable to intellectual enquiry. But the conclusions that they draw from this commitment are rather different. To some, this threefold appeal will mean ordaining women; to others, not on any account doing so. To some, it will follow that there is no theological obstacle to full intercommunion with non-episcopal Protestants; to others, no such conclusion follows. To some, it will entail adopting a tolerant attitude to doctrinal radicals within the Church; to others, this would be a betrayal. This paradoxical situation might well lead us to ask whether the distinctiveness of Anglicanism lies not in the ingredients – which are not unique to Anglicanism – but in the nature of the mixture.

The essence of Anglicanism Is Anglicanism then ultimately a spirit, an ethos, a method of approach, an attitude of mind? If the ‘static’, content-based view of the Anglican synthesis that we have been considering represents an attempt at a via media, a balancing act between various factors, achieved by compromise and mutual concessions, the more mystical view of the Anglican synthesis sees it as an attempt to reconcile opposites and to transcend conflicts. If the first stands

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for ‘the love of balance, restraint, moderation, measure’ (P.E. More), the second invokes vision, passion and risk. The first is conservative in tendency, the second progressive; the former defensive, the latter innovatory. As Michael Ramsey wrote, Anglican theology is not a system or a confession, but ‘a method, a use and a direction’.16 Though in Anglicanism appeal is made (not least by Ramsey himself) to the gospel, the catholic Church and sound learning, these do not run side by side, as it were, but are fused creatively, reacting upon one another, modifying one another and generating new combinations. Ramsey’s The Gospel and the Catholic Church is a notable attempt to achieve this.17 Both Ramsey and Alec Vidler found such an approach in the thought of F.D. Maurice, with his insistence on digging beneath competing systems to discover the living principles which they at the same time systematized and distorted. It was inconceivable to Maurice that those principles, born of encounter with ‘the divine order’, could be ultimately incompatible.18 Thus Vidler too insists that what is distinctive of Anglicanism is not a theological system but a vocation: Anglican theology is true to its genius when it is seeking to reconcile opposed systems, rejecting them as exclusive systems, but showing that the principle for which each stands has its place within the total orbit of Christian truth, and in the long run is secure only within that orbit or . . . when it is held in tension with other apparently opposed, but really complementary principles.19 In his study of seventeenth-century Anglicanism, H.R. McAdoo claimed to detect this reconciling method at work. Drawing attention to the ‘polarity or quality of living tension’ which he regarded as ‘an overall characteristic of Anglican theological method’, McAdoo held up the Caroline divines (together with the ‘Holy Party’ who produced Lux Mundi) as its most authentic exponents. Of this approach, from Hooker onwards, he wrote: Beneath the surface was the feeling for the via media which was not in its essence compromise or an intellectual expedient but a quality of thinking, an approach in which elements usually regarded as mutually exclusive were seen to be in fact complementary. These things were held in a living tension, not in order to walk the tightrope of compromise, but because they were seen to be mutually illuminating and to fertilize each other. Scripture and tradition, revelation and human reason, ‘credal orthodoxy and liberty in non-essentials, the appeal to antiquity and the welcome to new knowledge, the historic continuity of the Church and the freedom of national churches’ – all were held together to form the distinctive spirit of Anglican theology. The question of whether this is not a rather idealized

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picture of what was going on in Anglican internecine strife and theological polemic in the seventeenth century detracts somewhat from the attractiveness of McAdoo’s thesis, but does not negate it as a vision or ideal of Anglican theology.20 Something similar was advocated at the 1930 Lambeth Conference. The conference committee set out, without specifying doctrines, the ‘ideals for which the Church of England [sic] has always stood’. These ideals are not unique: ‘they are the ideals of the Church of Christ. Prominent among them are an open Bible, a pastoral priesthood, a common worship, a standard of conduct consistent with that worship and a fearless love of truth’.21 Here it is the qualifying adjectives that are significant. Let us look at each of them a little more closely. The Bible is open: available, unchained, not subjected to control and binding interpretation by ecclesiastical authority. The pre-eminent place accorded to Holy Scripture in the Anglican formularies is no mere lipservice, but is matched by the freedom enjoyed by Anglican laity since the Reformation to read and to study the Bible in the vernacular and to arrive at their own convictions and to express them (within certain political constraints in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). There is no equivalent in Anglicanism of the requirement of the Roman Catholic Church that the faithful should accept the teaching of the magisterium with unquestioning submission. If that liberty becomes a cloak for licence, for rampant private interpretation and for treating the Church’s teaching with disdain, it is an abuse. But if it means that Anglicans are encouraged to make a discernment of the truth, to form their convictions in the light of conscience and to seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit, paying due heed to the teachings of authority, but owning it for themselves, then it is healthy. The priesthood is pastoral: neither a separate caste, closer to God than the rest and serving to restrict the spiritual privileges of the people of God; nor a didactic, scribal, rabbinic, judicatory order that lays down the law as to belief and practice and is entrusted with the duty of policing its enforcement. It is certainly a priesthood – it has authoritative, sacramental and even mediatorial functions (provided that these are understood as related to the priestly character of the people of God who are baptized into Christ’s priestly office) – but a priesthood that involves all the gentleness, the attention to human needs, the listening ear and the solidarity in our human condition, of the true pastor. Worship is common: that is to say, not performed by a vicarious priesthood on behalf of a liturgically unqualified laity, but shared by the whole priestly body of the Church whose comprehending participation (to use a phrase employed by Stephen Sykes) is vital. As Vatican II acknowledged, it is the community that celebrates the sacraments, under the presidency of its

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pastors.22 Moreover, under the parochial system, where it is properly realized, worship is the common prayer of a given community, one that already exists for other, secular purposes, not of a self-selecting elite. The nature of Anglican common worship, where it reflects the catholicity or comprehensiveness of ‘all sorts and conditions’ of humankind, constantly militates against all sectarian tendencies. Finally, Anglicanism’s love of the truth is (or should be) fearless. The scholarly pursuit of truth and the conscientious witness to it are safeguarded in Anglicanism. I am aware of the irony of citing this particular note of the essence of Anglicanism in the light of Stephen Sykes’s criticisms of Anglican comprehensiveness as being marked, not by a fearless love of the truth, but by a deliberate fudging of theological issues, a gambit that appeals to an unrestricted comprehensiveness as a let-out for lazy minds trying to prop up a decadent church.23 However, I think it is defensible to claim that Anglicanism has put a special value on scholarly integrity and has permitted a remarkable breadth of theological opinion to flourish within its borders. The Anglican ideal, as set out in these points, is certainly a noble one, though one that remains to be fully attained. It appears to focus on a particular view of the role of authority in the sphere of religion. Anglicanism still appeals to Scripture, tradition and reason, but it does so in the acknowledged context of modernity. As a result, these three sources or criteria are combined in a dynamic way in order to serve as mutual qualifiers, checks and balances, not merely to restrict and to relativize each other but also to generate innovative thinking in dialogue with the Church’s cultural and ideological context. The result is a muted – some would say emasculated – notion of authority, but it is one that is eminently suited to the modern human condition. The question of the distinctiveness of Anglicanism is a legitimate and necessary one, but it must never become our prime concern. The problem of identity is one that troubles both individuals and institutions, including churches, but to become obsessed by it would be neurotic. Identity is not an end in itself, but it is a corollary of integrity. While Stephen Sykes has argued that there is no integrity without identity,24 I would prefer to put the equation the other way round. A distinctive identity does not necessarily guarantee integrity. While identity can be contrived by all sorts of dubious means, including the manipulation of people’s perceptions by charismatic leaders and by the public relations industry, there is no shortcut to integrity. We should not fret about Anglican identity: pursue integrity and identity will take care of itself. Anglicanism exists. Its various political, social and cultural parameters, with all their compromises, are given. We should not

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lose sleep over them them. Every church is burdened with something of the same. The vocation of Anglicanism must be to proclaim the gospel of Christ within those parameters, appealing, in the quest for a contemporary application of Christian truth, to all valid sources of information and insight, but without chasing the whims of fashion, and to spend itself in the service of Christ for the redemption of humanity. Michael Ramsey wrote, 70 years ago: While the Anglican Church is vindicated by its place in history, with a strikingly balanced witness to gospel and Church and sound learning, its greater vindication lies in its pointing through its own history to something of which it is a fragment. Its credentials are its incompleteness, with the tension and travail in its soul. It is clumsy and untidy, it baffles neatness and logic. For it is sent not to commend itself as ‘the best type of Christianity’, but by its very brokenness to point to the universal Church wherein all have died.25

The vocation of Anglicanism Anglicanism aspires to be a catholic faith. Its roots go deep into Christian antiquity and secure continuity of faith and order, worship and witness, from the Apostles. The sixteenth-century Reformers appealed to the antiquity of the British church, an autonomous church that long antedated the mission of St Augustine of Canterbury in 597. The claim was made (for example, by Archbishop Parker under Elizabeth) that the English episcopate derived from the visit of Joseph of Arimathea. Jewel insisted that the Church of England had departed, not from the catholic Church, but from the errors of Rome. Whitgift pointed out that the Church of England was ‘reformed’ not ‘transformed’ because ‘we retain whatsoever we find to be good, refuse or reform that which is evil’.26 In a later generation, Charles Gore believed that Anglicanism could offer catholicism without Roman centralization and authoritarianism. Archbishop of York Cyril Garbett affirmed: ‘Uncompromisingly the Church of England is the Catholic Church in this land, set free from subjection to the Church of Rome.’27 The catholicity of Anglicanism rests on its continuity of worship (employing, as it characteristically has done, ancient forms purged of medieval accretions), and of pastoral care (in the parishes and parish churches whose origins, in Britain, go back to time immemorial). Anglican catholicity rests also on the retention of the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons in the historic succession. Above all, the Catholic character of Anglicanism is revealed in its adherence to the Scriptures, the creeds and the

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general councils of the undivided Church (officially, the first four), which give the Church its christological and trinitarian doctrines. The catholicity of Anglican faith is further evidenced by the fact that it acknowledges the authority of the Church (and of a particular church) to adjudicate in disputed matters of faith, provided that it does so in harmony with Scripture (Article XX). In appealing to the authority of the Church gathered in council, Anglicanism shows itself to belong to the conciliar, as opposed to the monarchical tradition of Catholicism. Anglicanism aspires to be a reformed faith. The essentially reformed character of Anglicanism is evidenced above all in the place that it gives to Holy Scripture as the norm by which all other sources of Christian truth are evaluated. It was by the touchstone of Scripture that the Reformers rejected aspects of medieval Roman Catholicism: the universal jurisdiction of the pope; the sacerdotal office of the priesthood and the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass for the living and the departed; withholding the cup from the laity; transubstantiation which ‘overthroweth the nature of a sacrament’ (Article XXVIII); the liturgy in a tongue that excluded the people from meaningful participation; compulsory clerical celibacy; mandatory sacramental confession; purgatory and the treasury of merits; the cultus and mediatory role of the saints; and the downgrading of the lay vocation in the world compared to the religious life. Correspondingly, it was on the authority of Scripture, as they read it, that the Reformers upheld a number of Reformation tenets. The role of the magistrate in the oversight of the Church harked back to the godly prince of the Old Testament. They appealed to Scriptures (incontrovertibly) for their doctrine of justification – by faith alone without merit accruing to good works – and insisted on this doctrine, furthermore, as the criterion of a standing or falling church (as Luther put it). Anglicanism aspires to be a reasonable faith. Its tradition of offering hospitality to scholarly enquiry predates the Reformation; many a scholar persecuted by intolerant regimes has found sanctuary in the Church of England over the centuries. Anglicanism can sustain criticism of its claims and beliefs as few churches can. It is amazingly tolerant of the clash of opinion within its own ranks. Provided that outward forms are observed – and these are not to be despised as a mere charade: they are actually the symbolic expression of the Church’s most fundamental convictions – it is satisfied. A principle of spiritual liberty gradually emerged from the power struggles of Anglican history. Anglicanism is irrevocably committed to what Jeremy Taylor in the seventeenth century called liberty of prophesying. If, as Karl Popper insisted, rationality essentially consists in openness to rational criticism, Anglicanism may fairly claim to be a reasonable and indeed rational faith.

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Bishop Wand claimed: ‘On the evidence of friend and critic alike, the three most obvious features of Anglicanism are tolerance, restraint and learning.’28 Though I would be happier if he had felt able to claim that the three salient features of Anglicanism were faith, hope and charity, Wand’s trinity is not to be sniffed at. Garbett called the Church of England ‘the most liberal-minded church in the world’, adding: ‘Perhaps we may say it is the most charitable of all churches.’ That sounds better, for the greatest of Christian virtues is charity. The tolerance and restraint that gave scope to sound learning were not the products of an enlightened ideal of individual liberty and of the supremacy of conscience. It would be anachronistic to look for that in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. They were an expression of the cold compromises of Tudor statecraft (in Hensley Henson’s memorable phrase). But this policy looked like moderation. It had the appearance of tempering the excesses of ecclesiastical authority and it could be reinterpreted into a principle of spiritual liberty. It was largely for reasons of political expediency that Elizabeth declined to make windows into men’s hearts and minds, but that policy of restraint and non-intervention eventually came to acquire theological validity as the expression of a principle of religious reticence. Thus the reality of political manipulation could become transposed into the rhetoric of spiritual liberty. And why not? As Vico and Freud have taught us, some of our highest aspirations have their historical or evolutionary origins in basic earthly and fleshly needs. As Hensley Henson pointed out, against Mandell Creighton’s rather rosy reading of the role of sound learning in the English Reformation, what emerged from this process by the end of the seventeenth century was not merely an appeal to sound learning in general, but an acceptance of the function of criticism in particular: ‘a frank acceptance of sound learning as competent to revise the current tradition, both by interpreting afresh the sacred text, and by certifying through independent research the true verdict of Christian antiquity’.29 The claims of learning implied the right of criticism, which in turn rested on a principle of spiritual liberty. For all its lack of definition, its pragmatism, muddle and inconsistency, its hospitality to lost causes and unreconstructed prejudice, its apathy and inertia, Anglicanism has offered a home and an environment that is congenial to the fearless pursuit of truth, without let or hindrance by an ideologically motivated ecclesiastical authority whose primary aim is not to seek ‘the truth as it is in Jesus’, but to defend the structures that give some individuals power over the souls of others. As Hensley Henson put it: The doctrinal incoherence of the Church of England, though it is unquestionably perplexing, practically embarrassing and not infrequently

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actually scandalous, has its roots in something far more respectable than an indolent acquiescence in undiscipline [sic] or a reprehensible indifference to truth. It reflects the reluctance of considering and responsible English churchmen to thrust the rough hand of authority into the sphere of religious opinion. Not an indifference to truth but a juster perception of the conditions under which truth must be sought and defended, leads them to shrink from discouraging individual efforts to discover a solution of the problem which now confronts, in various measures of urgency, every section of the Christian Church, namely how to reconcile the theological tradition expressed in creeds and immutable in theory, sacrosanct by time, and the ever-growing knowledge of mankind.30 Anglicanism is committed historically to a distinctive approach to the question of authority. Its sources of authority, dispersed as they are through many channels, are both mutually restricting and mutually illuminating. In the modern intellectual situation this is beneficial since it inhibits the rash enunciation of dogma, the overconfident articulation of absolutes and the heavy-handed exercise of ecclesiastical authority. Though all these might bring a temporary sense of satisfaction to all those of us who are frustrated by the dilemmas of contemporary Christianity, they are likely to prove, as they have in some of our sister churches, a millstone around our necks. The vocation of Anglicanism, then, it may be said, is to create the climate of spiritual liberty in which individuals may bear witness to the truth as they see it, submitting themselves to the criticism of their peers without fear of ecclesiastical censorship. However, the indispensable condition of this liberty is continued participation in the worshipping life of the Church and profession of the fundamental baptismal faith (and in the case of the clergy, canonical obedience to the bishop). This discipline helps to curb rampant individualism and ensures that individual thinkers remain embedded in the tradition that has nurtured them. I would certainly wish to add that any celebration of the spiritual liberty of an Anglican must go hand-in-hand with a stronger and more respectful attention to the Anglican theological heritage, so that we learn to work more explicitly with the resources that have made us what we are, and do not indulge the fantasy that we can sit light to them or despise them. On this interpretation, the distinctive identity of Anglicanism is located in the sphere of theological method, in the understanding of authority that informs it, and in the way that authority is exercised. So, in the end, I seem to have come down on the side of those interpreters who have held that what is distinctive about Anglicanism lies not in its substantive affirmations, the content of its teaching, but in its method, spirit or approach to Christian

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faith and life. But, the distinction begins to break down, for what I have been saying about authority actually amounts to a distinctive belief or set of beliefs. And, as will shortly become clear in this book, I do not subscribe to the school of thought that holds that Anglicanism has no particular doctrines of its own. Let it not be thought that this theological identity of Anglicanism is intended in an elitist sense, as though only ‘professional’ theologians could receive the full benefit of being an Anglican. Every thinking Christian, lay or ordained, is engaged continuously in doing theology, in the true sense of reflecting on the things of God, whether in the liturgy and private prayer, Bible study and reading, or in taking part in the governance of the Church at parochial or synodical level, or in dealing with the mundane necessities of life or engaging in its more creative enjoyments. As Anglicans we are, I believe, spiritually and intellectually privileged. Our tradition is a rich and noble one. Our resources of theology and spirituality, if not munificent, are at least ample. If at the present time we deserve to be chastised for our failure to grapple rigorously with Christian truth, that indicates a departure from our tradition, a decline, and one that we must try to remedy.

Notes 1. Material in this chapter appeared in S. Sykes, J. Booty and J. Knight (eds), The Study of Anglicanism, 2nd edn (London: SPCK, 1998) and is used with permission. 2. F.A. Iremonger, William Temple (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948), p. 487. 3. Z.N. Brooke, The English Church and the Papacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931), pp. 10–20. J.R. Wright, ‘Anglicanism, Ecclesia Anglicana, and Anglican: An Essay on Terminology’, in Sykes et al. (eds), Study of Anglicanism, pp. 477–81. 4. G.R. Elton (ed.), The Tudor Constitution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), p. 355. 5. A. Milton, Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 379. 6. C. Podmore, Aspects of Anglican Identity (London: Church House, 2005), pp. 26–41 (‘The Anglican Communion: Idea, name and identity’), esp. pp. 33–7. A.R. Vidler, Essays in Liberality (London: SCM Press, 1957), p. 157n. A.M.G. Stephenson, Anglicanism and the Lambeth Conferences (London: SPCK, 1978), pp. 7f. 7. See P. Avis, Faith in the Fires of Criticism: Christianity in Modern Thought (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1995; repr. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2006).

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8. C. Gore (ed.), Lux Mundi 10th edn (London: John Murray, 1904), Preface. 9. Catholicity: A Study in the Conflict of Christian Traditions in the West, being a report presented to His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury (London: Dacre Press, 1947), p. 49. 10. See P. Avis, God and the Creative Imagination: Metaphor, Symbol and Myth in Religion and Theology (London: Routledge, 1999). 11. See further, P. Avis, Anglicanism and the Christian Church: Theological Resources in Historical Perspective, 2nd edn (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2002), part 3. 12. Cf. J. McManners, ‘The Individual in the Church of England’, in Doctrine Commission of the Church of England, Believing in the Church (London: SPCK, 1981), esp. pp. 222ff. 13. P.E. More and F.L. Cross (eds), Anglicanism: The Thought and Practice of the Church of England, Illustrated from the Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century (London: SPCK, 1935), p. 3. 14. C. Gore, Dissertations on Subjects Connected with the Incarnation, 2nd edn (London: John Murray, 1896), p. 196; Catholicism and Roman Catholicism (London: Mowbray, 1923), p. 48; Orders and Unity (London: Mowbray, 1909), pp. 198ff.; The Mission of the Church (London: John Murray, 1892), pp. 36f.; The Basis of Anglican Fellowship in Faith and Organization (London: Mowbray, 1914), pp. 4f; J. Carpenter, Gore: A Study in Liberal Catholicism (London: Faith Press, 1960), pp. 42ff. 15. The preceding quotations are from M. Fouyas, Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 86f. 16. A.M. Ramsey, ‘What is Anglican Theology?’, Theology, 48 (1945): 2. 17. A.M. Ramsey, The Gospel and the Catholic Church (London: Longmans, Green, 1936). 18. For an introduction to Maurice’s theological method, see J. Morris, F.D. Maurice and the Crisis of Christian Authority (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). For Maurice’s ecclesiology see also Avis, Anglicanism and the Christian Church, Ch. 14. 19. Vidler, Essays in Liberality, pp. 166f. 20. H. McAdoo, The Spirit of Anglicanism (London: A. & C. Black, 1965), pp. 321f. 21. P.H.E. Thomas, ‘The Lambeth Conferences and the Development of Anglican Ecclesiology 1867–1978’, PhD diss., Dept of Theology, University of Durham, 1982, p. 82. 22. LG 11: W.M. Abbot (ed.), The Documents of Vatican II (London and Dublin: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), p. 28. 23. S.W. Sykes, The Integrity of Anglicanism (Oxford: Mowbray, 1978). 24. S.W. Sykes, The Identity of Christianity (London: SPCK, 1984). 25. Ramsey, The Gospel and the Catholic Church, p. 220. 26. Parker Society, The Works of the English Reformers (Cambridge, 1840): J. Whitgift, 1. p. 3; J. Jewel 3, p. 79. 27. C. Garbett, The Claims of the Church of England (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1947), p. 28.

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28. J.W.C. Wand, Anglicanism in History and Today (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1961), pp. 241, 28. 29. H.H. Henson, The Church of England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939), p. 59. 30. Ibid., p. 108.

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III

The Distinctiveness of Anglicanism1

U

ntil recently, Anglicans tended to make a virtue of their supposed lack of distinctiveness. Apologists for Anglicanism insisted that Anglicanism claimed no special doctrines of its own. For Bishop Stephen Neill, for example, what was distinctive about Anglicanism was simply its spirit or ethos – something that had to be experienced in order to be known. Similarly, Michael Ramsey, answering the question ‘What is Anglican Theology?’ insisted that there was no distinctive Anglican body of doctrine, though there was an Anglican theological method, usage and direction. Archbishop Henry McAdoo stated: ‘There is no specifically Anglican corpus of doctrine.’ Clearly, there is a weighty school of Anglican thought, perhaps even a consensus, that Anglicanism puts forward no particular teachings of its own.2 Anglicans have tended to play down the claim that there is a distinctive set of Anglican beliefs, including beliefs about the Church. Apologists for Anglicanism apparently felt that they needed to deny that Anglicanism entailed any special doctrines in order to assert its catholicity. Their aim was to show that Anglicanism was not some sort of ecclesiological aberration but rather an authentic expression of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Anglicanism was assumed to be an undifferentiated expression of Christianity, ‘mere Christianity’ in C.S. Lewis’s famous phrase. The Church of England was catholicism in the English context (though not usually exclusively so) and other Anglican churches likewise in their own contexts. It is not that this view is wrong. Anglicanism does aim to conform to the canons of the early, undivided Church. It is orthodox in faith by the standards of the early ecumenical councils. It is catholic in its order by the

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standards of the post-apostolic Church. It identifies itself with what the Church believes and does. It does not wish to be different in fundamental doctrine or basic practice. The question of Anglican distinctiveness arises, however, precisely when we ask: What is the body that makes these claims and what right has it to make them? In answering that question, we find ourselves articulating a distinctive Anglican ecclesiology. Anglicans who adopted what Stephen Sykes has dubbed ‘the no special doctrines’ stance could not avoid the question why, if there was nothing special about Anglican beliefs and Anglicans merely professed what the whole Church held, Anglicans were not in communion with either the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox churches, the two oldest and largest Christian families. Denying that Anglicanism had any ecclesial distinctiveness, that it had doctrines of its own, made it impossible to answer this question, except in terms of the sheer perversity of one party or the other in persisting in a state of separation. This tactic – what we might call the fallacy of misplaced modesty – has been exploded in more recent writing. Stephen Sykes, in particular, has shown that Anglicanism needs to set out its ecclesiological credentials, not in tension with its claims to catholicity, but precisely in order to assert that catholicity, to show how it claims its place among the commonwealth of churches in the oecumene. Sykes has pointed out the self-contradictory character of the ‘no special doctrines’ school: simply in order to make this claim about itself, Anglicanism must at least have a special doctrine of the Church – and, of course, it evidently does have a distinctive ecclesiology, which can be articulated. Bishop Sykes himself has done much to outline the distinctive structure of Anglican ecclesiology.3 And it is above all in the area of ecclesiology that this has to be done. It bears repeating that Anglicans do not want to set up special interpretations of the catholic faith, the dogmas of the Holy Trinity or of christology agreed by the early ecumenical councils, or in any sense to ‘monkey with the creed’ (in Hilaire Belloc’s memorable phrase). They would shrink from any such suggestion. As far as these foundational beliefs of Christianity are concerned, Anglicans take their stand on the teaching of Scripture and of the early ecumenical councils. But it is precisely when it comes to ecclesiology that Anglicanism inevitably has to be different. Anglican ecclesiology is the activity in which the churches of the Anglican Communion engage when they explain what they are as churches. To deny the distinctiveness of Anglicanism at this point is futile: it is to saw off the branch on which you are sitting.

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Faith and order In fact, there are distinctive Anglican tenets in ecclesiology with regard to both faith and order. Faith is concerned with beliefs, with doctrine, and Anglicanism believes and teaches certain distinctive things about the Church. Order is concerned with practice, with structure, with ministry, with authority, and Anglicanism is distinctive in these areas too. In reality, however, faith and order cannot be held apart in ecclesiology. They go hand in hand. Faith is reflected in life. Order is grounded in theology. These are not two dimensions of the Church’s life that can be analysed separately. They are a seamless whole. The exponents of Anglicanism of the ‘no special doctrines’ school would probably not have denied that Anglicanism exhibits certain distinctive traits in the sphere of order. Where they went wrong was in attempting to detach order from doctrine, as though the outward ordering of the Church, its structures of ministry and oversight, were not an ecclesiological matter and did not reflect its essential nature and purpose.4 Colin Podmore has suggested that Stephen Sykes and I protest too much.5 He asks whether the distinctive features that we have called attention to actually invalidate what Neill, Ramsey and McAdoo affirmed. These features, Podmore suggests, are the exception that proves the rule. He surely has a point. Anglicanism upholds the catholic faith. That is the first thing that needs to be said. The distinguished scholars quoted above were of course well aware of the distinctive traits that Anglicanism exhibits in ecclesiology, but they still insisted that Anglicanism has no special body of confessional beliefs. How one evaluates the arguments partly depends on where one locates ecclesiology in the ‘hierarchy of truths’. To say that Anglicanism does have special doctrines in the area of ecclesiology, which are not the same as those of the Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox churches or the historic Protestant churches, is not a trivial point. However, there is yet more to be said. Sykes’s argument, which I endorse, does not completely dispose of the question of the distinctiveness of Anglicanism. When such interpreters as Neill, Ramsey and McAdoo disclaimed any distinctive Anglican doctrine, they believed that they stood faithfully in the tradition of the first apologists for the reformed English Church. Here they had a strong point. Again and again the Anglican Reformers, and their successors in the later sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries insisted that the English church made no new doctrines but simply and faithfully upheld the teaching of Scripture, the creeds and the councils of the undivided Church. So do Sykes’s strictures against the proponents of the ‘no special doctrines’ interpretation of

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Anglicanism apply also to its founding fathers? That would be paradoxical and, indeed, rather embarrassing. What was the Reformers’ stance on this question? When the English Reformers disclaimed any intention of promulgating new doctrines this did not mean that they did not have an argument over doctrine with the Church of Rome. The Reformation was an argument and a conflict about doctrine as well as about some less explicitly theological matters. The Reformers held that the Church of Rome erred in several areas of doctrine. While the christological and trinitarian dogmas were largely untouched, controversy raged in the areas of soteriology and ecclesiology. Issues concerning salvation, the sacraments, the ministry and authority were the storm centres of Reformation controversy. Voluminous writings of individual theologians on both sides, together with the confessional documents of the Protestants and the decrees and anathemas of the Council of Trent, testify to the reality of the doctrinal disputes in the sixteenth century. Thus it was not Rome (or the radical Reformation of the Anabaptists and Spiritualists, for that matter) from which the Reformers claimed not to be departing. It was the pure apostolic teaching of the undivided Church that they insisted they would never renounce. The disclaiming of a distinctive Anglican theological position was made not vis-à-vis other churches, but vis-à-vis the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, with its foundation in the witness of the Apostles and prophets, to which the Reformers claimed to have returned. If Anglicans have consistently disclaimed any intention to innovate in matters of faith, what has been their position in the sphere of order? Have they seen themselves as making any changes in the matter of holy order: sacraments, worship, ministry and church government? Clearly, the Reformation brought about changes in the sphere of Church order. While the threefold ministry in historical continuity was preserved, Anglican bishops were cut loose from the jurisdiction of the pope and instead were made subject to the authority of the sovereign as supreme governor on earth of Christ’s Church. The medieval sacramental system was radically simplified. The sacraments were reduced from seven to the two dominical sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The necessity of sacramental confession (penance) and confirmation (chrism) for salvation was denied. The liturgy was reformed to purge the sacramental action of propitiatory sacrificial connotations. The liturgy and the Scriptures were made available in the vernacular and the people were encouraged – within politically motivated limits – to participate in worship and Bible reading. The laity was given a role in the government of the Church through parliament which, under the sovereign and subject to the teaching of the Scriptures and the ancient councils, had authority in the area of doctrine and worship.

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However, in all these matters, the Reformers and their successors believed that they were restoring the pattern of the doctrinally pure primitive Church. In the light of later research, in which the seventeenth century made great strides, this claim could not always be substantiated. Further study of the early Church did not support Protestant rejection of prayers for the departed, a non-sacrificial interpretation of the Eucharist, and the calling to the religious life, for example. But when Anglicans insisted that they were not innovating in faith or order, they patently did not mean that the English Church was lacking in all distinctive features. They did not mean that their Church was indistinguishable from the unreformed Church of Rome or from the Anabaptists and other radicals of the Reformation. Plainly, the English Church was distinctive vis-à-vis these bodies. The English Reformers were simply stating their intention not to depart from the fellowship of the Apostles and the early Fathers. The logic of Reformation entailed an assertion of difference from Rome but identity with the primitive Church. Certain theological axioms made up a coherent Anglican position in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (taking the development of the Anglican platform overall in this period): the paramount authority of holy Scripture, as containing all things necessary to be believed for salvation, and the consequent distinction between things necessary to salvation and ‘things indifferent’ (adiaphora); an appeal to the consensus of antiquity (the voice of the Fathers) in support of scriptural interpretation; the role and rights of the laity in worship and church government; the emphasis on fundamental articles of faith as constituting sufficient conditions for communion; the appeal to humanistic learning in bringing to light the authentic texts of the Scriptures and the Fathers and to reason in interpreting them; the discriminating attitude taken to both the Roman Catholic Church (not denying Rome to be a church, though grievously corrupted) and the continental churches of the Reformation (acknowledging an affinity with them, refusing to unchurch them for their lack of episcopacy, but regarding them as lacking in perfection because of that).6 In what sense are these positions distinctively Anglican? Supposing they can be paralleled elsewhere? What if they come to be more widely accepted – even to contribute to an ecumenical consensus? The fact is, of course, that these principles are found abundantly elsewhere in both ancient and modern times. They were not invented by Anglicans, or even, in some cases, by German and Swiss Reformers, in the sixteenth century. For example, the primacy of Scripture as containing all things necessary to salvation stems from Augustine and is familiar in medieval theology. Appeal to the Fathers; the dignity and scope of reason; the Church as interpreter of Scripture; the role of the laity in church governance; even the concept of

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fundamental articles (ipsa fundamenta fidei: St Augustine’s phrase) – all these are incontestably catholic, part of the rich common heritage of Christendom.7 They are not uniquely Anglican and no one in their right mind would claim that they were. When we have acknowledged the catholicity of these Anglican principles, however, what have we actually done? Have we in any way undermined the distinctiveness of Anglicanism? Not at all. We have simply confirmed and corroborated what the Anglican Reformers, and later Anglican divines themselves, insisted on. Their case was precisely that the position of the reformed English Church constituted a recovery of catholic patristic theology. The Reformation, not only in England but in Germany and Switzerland too, was precisely a return to Scripture and antiquity – ‘to restore the face of the catholic Church’, as Calvin put it. Of course, the various Reformers had somewhat differing ideas of what the authentic face of the undivided Church looked like. For the radicals of the Reformation, it was necessary to go back to apostolic simplicity, for corruption and error had entered the Church (according to the more extreme version of this belief) after the death of the last Apostle, and certainly no later than the conversion of Constantine. For the Reformers of Switzerland and their disciples, the early English puritans, the face of the true Church was simple, serious and austere. For Luther and the Anglican Reformers, restoring the face of the Church was consistent with retaining many of the features of medieval Christendom: vestments, liturgical forms, the episcopate and other traditions – provided that salvation was not made dependent on them and that consciences were not burdened by them. Their notion of adiaphora (things that do not make a difference to salvation) enabled them to maintain that faithfulness to the primitive Church was not compromised by such flexibility in externals. So when Anglicans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and in more modern times, have disclaimed all distinctiveness of faith and order, they have intended to do so not to play down their differences from the Roman Catholic Church but to assert their continuity with the early Church and their aspirations to what they regarded as true catholicity, with its principles of the paramount authority of Scripture and the interpretative role of antiquity. By claiming catholicity, they were affirming the integrity of their Church and its right and duty to reform itself. In earlier times the distinctiveness of Anglicanism (though not in any sense its uniqueness) could be found in certain principles of Reformation theology – understood to be a repristinization of the teaching of Scripture and antiquity. While this gave distinctiveness over against Rome, it constituted significant common ground with the continental Reformation churches, Lutheran and Reformed.

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But what happens when those very theological principles, principles that defined the Reformation, begin to be accepted by the communion over against which they were first defined, the Roman Catholic Church, and thus become part of an ecumenical consensus? What price the distinctiveness of Anglicanism then? This question has been sharpened by Avery Dulles in The Catholicity of the Church, where he explores the extent of convergence between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant traditions.8 Admitting the excessive stress on uniformity and the tendency to centralization in traditional Catholicism, Dulles points out that the Second Vatican Council attempted to prevent such distortions by insisting on the collegiality of bishops, the integrity of regional and local churches and the principle of inculturation. The Council also, as Dulles points out, embraced the Protestant principle of Ecclesia semper reformanda and acknowledged the reality of sin within the Church.9 It also abandoned any claim to have a monopoly of saving grace and recognized that grace could be received apart from the sacramental and hierarchical structures of the Roman Catholic Church. The Council restored the centrality of Scripture, encouraged the full participation of the laity in worship (speaking of the ‘priesthood of every Christian believer’), and acknowledged the supremacy of conscience and the right to freedom of enquiry, thought and expression within the Church. In these and other ways, Vatican II seemed to take to heart many of the most crucial criticisms of the Protestant Reformers.10 Correspondingly, Dulles continues, the Protestant churches have evidently been prepared to listen to and learn from Roman Catholic critiques of their own traditions. At the beginning of the twentieth century Baron Friedrich von Hügel had spoken of a recovery of Catholic values in the Protestant churches, and this movement of reconstruction has continued and intensified since then. It is no longer safe to say, as many Roman Catholics did at the turn of the century, that Protestants neglect the importance of creation and nature, that they care nothing for sanctification, that they ignore the symbolic aspects of the liturgy and the sacraments, that they reject orderly succession in the ministry or that they are content to see themselves as merely national or linguistic Christian groupings.11 Where does this process of convergence and gathering consensus leave the cherished hope of unity between Roman Catholics and Protestants? Dulles is under no illusion that this can be easily or speedily attained. Protestants, according to Dulles, insist on a free and immediate relation to God through Christ and the gospel. For them the sacramental structures of the Church, its authority and discipline, are at best inessential and at worst a hindrance to the free flow of the Spirit. On the other hand, ‘Roman Catholicism, committed to the principle of visible and symbolic mediation,

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is convinced that any Church lacking the full sacramental, hierarchical and dogmatic structures, including the papacy as defined at the two Vatican councils, is institutionally deficient.’ Dulles concludes: ‘Both positions cannot simultaneously be true. Thus the differences between these two major types of Christianity, at the present time, involve contradictions. Full unity cannot be achieved by convergence alone but only by conversion.’12 In the meantime, however, as Dulles suggests, each ‘ecclesial body’ (a neutral term that puts the Roman Catholic and other churches on an equal footing, without prejudging the ecclesial status of churches not in communion with Rome) must both give and receive the greatest measure of enrichment and correction possible through dialogue with the other, and thus grow in Christian truth and love. As we do so, he points out, it may be that the Lord of the Church will enable us to perceive new possibilities and ways of overcoming barriers that at present seem insuperable.13 The adequacy of this ecclesiological typology is questionable. According to Dulles, as we have noted, Protestants insist on an immediate and unimpaired communion with God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, which is not dependent on the Church’s system of sacraments, authority and discipline, while for Roman Catholics, communion with God is mediated through a divine society with its sacraments, teaching authority and pastoral supervision. For Dulles, this is the great divide between Roman Catholic and Protestant that makes all hopes of early reconciliation and unity illusory. In reality, the Lutheran, Reformed and Methodist traditions (leaving aside Anglicanism for the moment) have just as high a view of the sacraments and their role as mediating communion with God as the Roman Catholic tradition does, though expressed with different conceptual tools and models to some extent. The churches shaped by the Reformation are not given over to rampant individualism, as Dulles implies, but do indeed acknowledge, in their various ways, that the Church is a visible divine society, manifested as both the local community, where Christ is present through word and sacrament, and the universal body, united through synodical structures. What Protestants do not accept is that the divine society of the Church should be centralized in a virtual ecclesiastical monarchy (as the Roman Church has become over the past millennium), the fountainhead from which all authority and sacramental grace must flow. Protestants and Anglicans insist that there is a direct relationship, not only between the believer and Christ, but also between the whole body of the Church as a communion (koinonia, communio) and its divine source and head. Although, for churches shaped by the Reformation, the essential reality of the Church is to be discovered in the local community where the word of God is preached, the sacraments are administered and pastoral care is exercised, they are not

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locked into local autonomy or isolationism. Protestants have a conciliar conception of the Church, whereby particular churches are enabled to confer, consult, defer to one another and take united action where desirable. Lutherans and Reformed subsist in synods and Methodists in conference. Earlier Anglican divines regarded Lutheran superintendents (even when not incorporated through ordination into the historic episcopate) as equivalent to bishops.14 If Dulles’ rule of thumb for distinguishing Roman Catholic and Reformation conceptions of the Church is unfair to historic Protestant bodies, how does it relate to Anglicanism? It might seem that Anglicanism falls on both sides of Dulles’ equation. It not only insists on the individual’s access to and communion with God through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit (in the doctrine of justification by grace through faith, for example: Article XI), but it also unequivocally affirms the God-given nature of the Church as a divine society embracing heaven and earth (the Church triumphant and the Church militant), with its threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons in historical continuity of ordinations and its sacramental ministrations that mediate the salvific presence of God through earthly elements of water in baptism, and bread and wine in the Eucharist. Anglicanism is both episcopal and conciliar. It is indeed the concept of a divine society with sacramental means of grace that is the mark of catholicism, but this criterion does not exclude the historic churches of the Reformation. The concept of a divine society needs to be more carefully differentiated into a conciliar model of that society and a monarchical model. Protestants, together on this score with Anglicans, are wedded to an ecclesiology that is centred on the free and unconstrained coming together of particular and local churches in communion and council. Their interpretation of the Church as a divine society plays down those elements of centralized authority and discipline that are invoked by Dulles, and sets greater store by private spiritual discernment and individual conscience. They do not have the same confidence in the competence of the Church to legislate correctly (not to say infallibly) for all aspects of faith and morals. Here they are heirs of the conciliar movement of the two centuries immediately preceding the Reformation. Like the exponents of that movement, which found expression in the councils of Pisa, Constance and Basel in the first half of the fifteenth century, they are adamant in their opposition to a centralized, monarchical interpretation of the divine society.15

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Anglican distinctiveness We can now return to the specific question of the distinctiveness of Anglicanism in an age of ecumenical convergence when some, though by no means all, of the polemical stances of the Reformers have been rendered academic by the process of reform within the Roman Catholic Church. The distinctiveness of Anglicanism can be evaluated using the three criteria of creed, code and cult.

Creed In the strict sense of creed, Anglicanism makes no distinctive claims. This is the truth in the ‘no special doctrines’ argument. The Thirty-nine Articles affirm the authority of the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene–Constantinopolitan Creed and the so-called Athanasian Creed (the Quicunque Vult). However, they significantly subject them to a higher authority when they state that they ‘ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture’ (Article VIII). In turn, the authority of Scripture is affirmed, but in a specific sense, as containing all things necessary to be believed for salvation, with the corollary that nothing can be required as an ‘article of the Faith’ unless it may be ‘read therein’ or ‘proved thereby’ (Article VI). Canon A5 of the Church of England states: ‘The doctrine of the Church of England is grounded in the holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures.’ This canon, by its astute use of the words ‘grounded’ and ‘agreeable to’ succeeds admirably in asserting the authority of Scripture and antiquity, whilst giving a wide berth to biblical literalism and fundamentalism. This balanced position is borne out in the Church of England’s Common Worship ordinal, where those about to be ordained deacons, priests or bishops affirm that they accept the holy Scriptures ‘as revealing all things necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ’ and that they will teach ‘the doctrine of Christ as the Church of England has received it’. Similarly, in the Preface to the Declaration of Assent it is stated that the Church of England ‘professes the faith uniquely revealed in the holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds’ – though it adds the significant rider: ‘which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation’. What pointers to the distinctiveness of Anglicanism emerge from the formularies of the Church of England as witnesses to the historic Anglican position?

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1. Anglicans profess the orthodox trinitarian and christological faith of the whole Church. 2. Anglicans acknowledge that they receive that faith from the Church on the authority of the Bible and the creeds. 3. Anglicans confess that the creeds derive their authority from Scripture, directly or indirectly. 4. Anglicans insist that the Scriptures themselves are primarily concerned with teaching the way of salvation, rather than, say, prescribing for every detail of worship and practice. 5. Anglicans recognize that the Church’s inheritance from Scripture and tradition requires interpretation and application in a manner relevant to changing circumstances. 6. Anglicans deplore innovation in the area of the fundamental credenda of the Christian faith. The picture here is of a fundamental orthodoxy that is not legalistic and that concentrates on essentials. It is critical and dynamic and calls for the exercise of discernment on the part of the faithful. In summary, we might say that Anglicanism (at least as far as the Church of England’s formularies may be regarded as representative) does not see itself as distinctive in creed. Its distinctiveness emerges, however, in the sphere of authority, in the ways that beliefs are defined, legitimated, interpreted and maintained. Anglicanism may be described as an expression of dynamic orthodoxy.

Code If Anglican distinctiveness is not to be found in the material content of credal faith (though there is something characteristic in the way that the substance of belief is maintained within the Anglican perspective on authority), perhaps that distinctiveness may be identified in the sphere of code. Code refers to the Church’s accepted way of doing things, its rules for worship and ministry. Code is expressed in canon law, rubrics and explanatory and clarificatory statements made on authority. Code may also be expressed tacitly in what is left unsaid, the point at which the Church’s teaching office decides to call a halt, the exercise of reticence and restraint. Thus code may qualify and even relativize creed. One example is the Anglican understanding of the historic threefold ministry. The Preface to the ordinal of 1662 confidently asserts: ‘It is evident unto all men diligently reading Holy Scripture and ancient Authors, that from the Apostles’ time there have been these orders of ministers in Christ’s Church; Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.’ The ordinal goes on to insist on the need for ministers to be called, tried, examined and found to have the

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required qualities for ordination. No one may presume to take upon himself this office, but must be approved and admitted by lawful authority with public prayer and the imposition of hands. The Common Worship ordinal (like the Alternative Service Book 1980 is less confident that the threefold ministry was unambiguously present in the New Testament and the Fathers: it is described simply as ‘historic’. Ministers are ordained by bishops, according to authorized forms of service, with prayer and the laying-on of hands. Bishops shall be ordained by at least three other bishops, one of whom shall be the archbishop of the province or his deputy. Canon law provides the authority for these rules. What does this tell us about code in Anglicanism? First, the historic threefold ministry is upheld. Second, the principle of transmitted authority for ministry is insisted on. Third, this authority is given publicly and with the biblical and traditional sign of the imposition of hands. Thus historical continuity and corporate solidarity are affirmed. But we look in vain, here or in the Thirty-nine Articles, for any specific theological rationale for the historic episcopate, such as the particular doctrine of apostolic succession that the Tractarians promoted, which had the effect of unchurching nonepiscopal communions, denying them the means of grace and making their salvation uncertain. That is one area where the silence of the formularies is eloquent. Another example is the Anglican teaching on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. The Thirty-nine Articles and the liturgy assume a real communion with and participation in Christ in the Eucharist, but they draw back from any attempt to pin this down to a particular philosophical theory of the relation of the earthly elements of bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ. Article XXVIII rules out extreme views on both sides. On the one hand, the Lord’s Supper is no mere sign of the mutual love of Christians (an extreme radical Protestant view). On the other hand, the concept of transubstantiation, which maintains that the bread is no longer really bread nor the wine wine, is rejected, as contrary to Scripture and to the nature of a sacrament (in which the natural, earthly reality of the sign is preserved while becoming the vehicle of the divine). On the question of reception, the Articles affirm a real participation in or ‘partaking of’ Christ and stress that this cannot be impaired by any unworthiness in the minister of the sacrament. But they balance this objective presence by stating that the Body of Christ is ‘given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner’ through faith, so that ‘the Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth’ the sacrament, do not partake of Christ, but instead eat and drink judgement on themselves (Article XXVIII). The Articles are limited in their aims, marred by a polemical animus

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in some cases, and selective in the topics that they address. They are far from being an Anglican systematic theology. Yet, as we have seen with regard to the threefold ministry and the Eucharist, these Anglican formularies commend themselves by their balance and restraint. They are significant for what they leave out, as well as for what they put in. The nineteenthcentury High Church Anglican ecclesiastical historian R.W. Dixon claimed that the Articles were superior to both continental Protestant confessions and the anathema-encrusted pronouncements of the Council of Trent: ‘They dogmatise without arguing’, he wrote; ‘they affirm without offering proof; they deal neither in expostulation nor rebuke. They are not apologetic. Completeness of form is their character.’16 By completeness of form, Dixon meant, I believe, a certain quality of restraint and discipline, balance and coherence; a reluctance to go beyond what was necessary and a readiness to leave much undefined and in the realm of private judgement provided that certain vital parameters were observed. It would seem that in code, as well as in creed, a certain approach to authority contributes to the distinctiveness of Anglicanism.

Cult The process of liturgical revision and the creation of contemporary liturgical texts, since the mid-twentieth century, is common to all main Western ecclesial traditions and has had the effect of radically blurring the differences between them. The switch to the vernacular in the Roman Catholic Church, following Vatican II, has removed yet another traditional note of Anglican distinctiveness vis-à-vis the Roman Catholic Church. The decline of the traditional Anglican services of Matins and Evensong, that go back to Cranmer’s reforms in the mid-sixteenth century, has removed another liturgical landmark. Anglicanism does not any longer stand out by virtue of its liturgical cultus. Bishop David Stancliffe has written of Anglican liturgy that it has an ‘integrated feel’, which ‘has its origins in the union of heart and mind, of word and sacrament, of text and ceremonial’. He continues: ‘Our worship is earthed in a theology which is incarnational, and a sacramentality which is organic and affirmative . . . Our liturgy is ordered, not regimented, and it is related to how we think and how we live.’ Anglican liturgy, like Anglican life, Stancliffe concludes, is marked by an inclusive unity rather than an exclusive uniformity, and it is this inclusive quality which gives it its capacity for growth.17 The remarkable flourishing of inculturated liturgies in the churches of the Anglican Communion throughout the world is perhaps attributable to this integrated, organic, incarnational approach. The Anglican approach to authority affirms the autonomy in communion of member

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Churches and their distinct cultural traditions, but it situates this within a fellowship grounded in a common tradition that makes possible mutual learning and spiritual enrichment. Anglicans in Africa, the Far East and Latin America are adapting their tradition to the riches of their indigenous cultures.18 Let us explore the question of inculturation of liturgy and spirituality a little further. Anglicanism, which spread across the globe on the back of imperial expansion, has often failed abysmally to respect the integrity of local cultures, and has attempted to import English or American ways of worship, dress, architecture, styles of leadership, and ecclesiastical titles – frequently with ludicrous results – as though Christianity and Western culture were synonymous. Today we repent of this arrogance. We are able to adopt a more critical stance towards our own culture and recognize that, just as the gospel has become inculturated in our traditions over the centuries, so it must become inculturated wherever it is planted, and bring forth fruit appropriate to that soil and climate.19 However, it would be foolish to pretend that the blame for the failure of inculturation – for the Westernization of Christianity in the non-Western world – is entirely one-sided. Developing countries have welcomed, on the whole, the technological sophistication and unnatural lifestyle of Westerners. They have coveted their machines, copied their clothes and emulated their habits. Some cultural imperialism in the developing world has been self-inflicted. Even today Anglican provinces that have long since become critical of the conventional notion of missionaries, have gladly come under the sway of the Western charismatic movement as represented by such agencies as the American Full Gospel Businessmen’s Association. It is a striking paradox that while the record of much missionary endeavour has been crassly insensitive to the receiving culture, the theology of the Church of England in the nineteenth century provided a very positive rationale for inculturation. Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Arnold were among the first to show that the Christian Church must allow itself to be shaped by new social forces. Frederick Denison Maurice gave unrivalled expression in his theology to the universality of Christ’s Kingdom. Bishop Colenso in southern Africa stressed Christ’s presence in the indigenous culture, adopted tribal customs and baptized polygamists. Henry Venn devised the goal of a self-supporting Church. The contributors to the Anglo-Catholic symposium Lux Mundi (1889), edited by Charles Gore, recognized a preparation in history for the Incarnation. Roland Allen claimed that the universal gospel must affirm local and particular characteristics. William Temple (d. 1944) envisaged the Church as bringing to fulfilment the aspirations to fellowship and community that were latent in humanity’s striving. Hensley Henson, Bishop of Durham (d. 1947) pointed

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to Christianity’s ‘unique genius of assimilation’ and ‘amazing power of adaptation to circumstance’. Anglican liberal catholicism, represented above all by Charles Gore and William Temple, believed that the truth of Christianity was vindicated by its capacity to respond creatively to its environment, and it is this perspective that was most congenial to American Episcopalians in the nineteenth century.20 However, the principles of Anglican liberal catholicism that emphasize the receptive, assimilative and adaptive potential of Christianity, and appear therefore to provide a matrix for the concept of inculturation, were generally opposed by the traditional catholic principles that stemmed from Tractarianism. The High Church missionary movement, defending its apostolic heritage, required conformity to the tradition as it had received it, and in effect attempted to transplant intact the Church of England to other shores. Edward Bouverie Pusey, for example, stressed that the Church must cultivate a life distinct from that of its environment, drawing nourishment from alternative cultural sources within its own tradition, in order to resist the influence of modernity and democracy. Gladstone came to believe that the Church should be liberated from the shackles of the state, in order to prosecute its missionary task in the full integrity of its orders and sacraments. Bishop Frank Weston in Zanzibar held the Church aloof from local culture and attempted to root it instead in its apostolic sacramental life. However inimical to inculturation this approach was, it also militated against an imperialistic notion of mission which saw the expansion of the Church as the arm of national exploitation. The Church of England was galvanized for mission, not as a department of the imperial civil service but as an apostolic community, spearheaded by missionary bishops. The legacy of the Oxford Movement was generally hostile to inculturation. Evangelical missions, on the other hand, tended to be both more sympathetic to the aims of the establishment and more hospitable to indigenization. It is ironic that it is the decline of confidence in the central paradigms of Western culture that has generated a new humility towards the indigenous cultures of formerly colonial lands. Our postmodern situation is marked by diversity, fragmentation, plurality and transitoriness. We have been made aware that all beliefs and practices are culturally relative. We no longer assume that our particular theology is supracultural or universally valid. Christians in developing nations do not always share that relativistic assumption. Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect someone engaged in rescuing their cultural heritage from the near oblivion brought about by cultural imperialism to adopt a robustly critical stance towards it. This observation suggests the hidden snare in the philosophy of inculturation: can we remain critical and discriminating in relation to our culture, so that we do not baptize practices (such as those that involve the mutilation of the human body –

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female ‘circumcision’, or genital mutilation, being probably the most notorious example) simply because they are sanctioned by the culture and claimed to have social utility? The principle of inculturation obviously cannot endorse uncritical acceptance of the totality of a culture. I sense a degree of reluctance to grasp this nettle – a muted protest at a manifest evil – in some recent documentation.21 The principle of inculturation is, however, secure. It is the principle of the Incarnation itself. As the York (1989) statement on inculturation ‘Down to Earth Worship’ affirmed, the Incarnation is God’s self-inculturation in the world. David Bosch has written: ‘The Christian faith never exists except as translated into a culture.’ Bosch quotes P. Casaldaliga: ‘The univeral word only speaks dialect.’ 22 Contemporary Anglicanism has taken such sentiments to heart. The 1988 Lambeth Conference encouraged liturgical inculturation with certain safeguards. While drawing on the spiritual resources mediated to us by our tradition, it stated, ‘the liturgy must at the same time give authentic expression to the common life in Christ of the people of God present at each particular gathering, in whatever generation, and in whatever country and culture’. Appealing to Article XXXIV, which gives freedom to particular or national churches to practise diversity of traditions, ceremonies and rites that are of merely human authority, the conference report continues: The Church has to worship incarnationally, separated from the world by the offence of the Cross, but not by any alien character of its culture. We affirm expressions of true local creativity within the life of the worshipping local community which well up from within the people in response to the stirrings of the Spirit. Finally, the 1988 Lambeth Conference formally resolved that ‘each Province should be free, subject to essential universal Anglican norms of worship, and to a valuing of traditional liturgical materials, to seek that expression of worship which is appropriate to its Christian people in their cultural context’.23 Once again we can see that a particular approach to authority is the key to understanding the distinctiveness of Anglicanism in the sphere of ‘cult’. Affirmation of fundamental principles goes hand-in-hand with freedom in non-essentials, the practice of subsidiarity and respect for local cultural traditions. But there is a sting in the tail: what are the limits of inculturated diversity, and how can we be critical of indigenous culture without appearing patronizing or paternalistic? The 1988 report did not spell out what the ‘essential universal Anglican norms of worship’ are, but common universal principles are vital for a worldwide communion. The wisdom of Bosch’s remark about the implicit restraints on untrammelled

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inculturation – ‘While acting locally, we have to think globally’24 – will become apparent when we look at developments in North American Anglicanism. Both the local and the universal are necessary for catholicity. What structures exist to enable Anglicans to think globally, and how adequate are they? What are the bonds, in addition to those of affection, that lend cohesion and coherence to the Anglican Communion? This question leads us into the next chapter.

Notes 1. Material in this chapter appeared in C. Podmore (ed.), Community, Unity, Communion: Essays in Honour of Mary Tanner (London: Church House, 1998). 2. S. Neill, Anglicanism (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1958); A.M. Ramsey, ‘What is Anglican Theology?’, Theology, 48 (1945): 2–6; H.R. McAdoo, The Spirit of Anglicanism (London: Black, 1965), p. 1. 3. S.W. Sykes, Unashamed Anglicanism (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1995), Ch. 6. 4. Rowan Williams has written: ‘It is not true that there is no distinctive Anglican doctrine’: Anglican Identities (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2004), p. 1. 5. C. Podmore, Aspects of Anglican Identity (London: Church House, 2005), pp. 38–9. 6. For substantiation and elaboration of these points see P. Avis, Anglicanism and the Christian Church: Theological Resources in Historical Perspective, 2nd edn (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2002). 7. See Y.M.-J. Congar, Tradition and Traditions (London: Burns & Oates, 1966). 8. A. Dulles, The Catholicity of the Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985). 9. See further on this point P. Avis, Beyond the Reformation? Authority, Primacy and Unity in the Conciliar Tradition (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2006), Ch. 13, esp. pp. 200–3. 10. Dulles, The Catholicity of the Church, pp. 158–63. 11. Ibid., p. 165. 12. Ibid., p. 166. 13. Ibid. 14. See, on this point, R. Newton Flew and R.E. Davies (eds), The Catholicity of Protestantism (London: Lutterworth Press, 1950). 15. For the emergence of the conciliar movement and its influence on the Reformation and the subsequent Protestant and Anglican traditions see Avis, Beyond the Reformation?. 16. R.W. Dixon, History of the Church of England from the Abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction (London: 1878), Vol. 5, pp. 394–5. See further N. Doe, The Legal Framework of the Church of England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997),

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17. 18.

19.

20.

21.

22. 23.

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The Identity of Anglicanism who observes that in the Church of England ‘matters of faith, doctrine and liturgy are delicate: whilst the law protects the church’s doctrinal and liturgical inheritance, it affords ample scope for conscionable intellectual freedom with respect to faith and doctrine and for experimentation in liturgical development’ (p. 502). For further discussion of the characteristics of affirmation and restraint, see ‘Keeping Faith with Anglicanism’, Ch. 1 in this volume. D. Stancliffe in K. Stevenson and B. Spinks (eds), The Identity of Anglican Worship (London: Mowbray; Harrisburg, PA and Wilton, CT: Morehouse, 1991), p. 132. See J.S. Pobee, ‘Non-Anglo Saxon Anglicanism’, in S.W. Sykes, J. Booty and J. Knight (eds), The Study of Anglicanism (2nd edn, London: SPCK; Minneapolis, MI: Fortress Press, 1998), pp. 446–59. The 1930 Lambeth Conference defined the Anglican Communion as a fellowship of ‘particular or national Churches [which] promote within each of their territories a national expression of Christian faith, life and worship’ (Resolutions 48 and 49: R. Coleman (ed.), Resolutions of the Twelve Lambeth Conferences 1867–1988 (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1992), pp. 83ff. On inculturation see: D. Bosch, Transforming Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991), pp. 420–32, 447–57; S.B. Bevans and R.P. Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2004); P. Turner and F. Segundo (eds), Crossroads are for Meeting (Sewanee, TS: SPCK-USA, 1986); R. Schreiter, Constructing Local Theologies (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1985); D.R. Holeton (ed.), Liturgical Inculturation in the Anglican Communion (Nottingham: Grove Liturgical Studies, 1990); P. Tovey, Inculturation: The Eucharist in Africa (Nottingham: Grove Liturgical Studies, 1988); Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa, ‘African Culture and Anglican Liturgy – the report of the Kanamai Consultation 1993’ (Nottingham: Grove Books, 1993). For an evangelical perspective, see D.J. Hesselgrave and E. Rommen, Contextualization: Meanings, Methods and Models (Leicester: Apollos, 1989). For a Roman Catholic approach, see A. Shorter, Toward a Theology of Inculturation (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1988). See as background to this paragraph and the next: W. Sachs, The Transformation of Anglicanism: from State Church to Global Communion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Also, on the growth of the Anglican Communion, W.M. Jacob, The Making of the Anglican Church Worldwide (London: SPCK, 1997). See ‘African Culture and Anglican Liturgy’, p. 11, where the practice of male circumcision is said to be ‘neutral’, and clitoridectomy is said to have social value, although it inflicts damage on a woman’s body and soul for the rest of her life. The report concludes tamely: ‘The reasons for such a practice need reviewing so that a proper teaching is given to the Christians with a view to end the practice.’ Bosch, Transforming Mission, pp. 447, 453. The Truth Shall Make You Free (London: Anglican Consultative Council, 1988), pp. 67, 232.

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24. Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 457. For discussion of the adequacy of Anglican instruments of conciliarity and collegiality see S. Platten, Augustine’s Legacy: Authority and Leadership in the Anglican Communion (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1997); The Windsor Report (London: Anglican Communion Office, 2004) and Avis, Beyond the Reformation?, pp. 164–78.

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IV

The Identity of the Anglican Communion1

T

he Anglican Communion, as a family of churches, made a bad start to the twenty-first century. Dissension among Anglicans appears to call into question the cohesion of the Communion. Certain actions (discussed towards the end of this chapter) by North American Anglicans, regarding same-sex relationships, while they have been warmly welcomed by some, have caused, at the least, troubled hearts and, at the most, anger and outrage among other Anglicans. So what sort of ecclesiastical entity is the Anglican Communion? Is it a worldwide church, as is sometimes assumed, and if not, what is it? The aim of this chapter is to introduce the Anglican Communion, to explain how it works and to set it in the context of its ecumenical relationships. As we look at the identity of the Communion, the identity of Anglicanism as a tradition of ecclesiology will come more clearly into focus. The churches of the Anglican Communion need a rationale for their existence. That rationale exists and comprises the essentials of Anglican ecclesiology.

The Anglican Communion But where should we look to find this distinctive ecclesiology? Where is it located in an authoritative or definitive way? At this point we immediately come up against the particular character of Anglicanism. Anglicanism is embodied in 40 or so (the number is not static: it goes up and could go down) national or regional churches around the world. These churches are often called provinces, though some of them (like the Church of England with its two provinces of Canterbury and York) are made up of more than

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one province.2 The Communion totals approximately 75 million souls. About 25 million of these are attributed to the Church of England on the basis of its ‘baptismal membership’ – which everyone knows to be a shaky basis for assessing the strength of a church. However, the Church of England is certainly not the only church in the world to have a substantial nominal allegiance. So the Anglican Communion is about the same size as the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), but larger than the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and slightly smaller than the family of churches that make up the World Methodist Council. Of course, the Anglican Communion is tiny compared with the Roman Catholic Church, which has more than a billion ‘members’, and small even in comparison with the Orthodox family of churches (about 200 million). No single one of the Anglican churches or provinces – and certainly not the Church of England – claims to be the definitive expression of Anglicanism. There is too much diversity in Anglicanism for that. The Anglican churches do not necessarily have the same statements of doctrine. There are variations in their structure. They also vary in their relation to the state, the Church of England being the only one that is established in the strong sense of the word.3 The Anglican Communion is not a global church. That is because it is not a church at all – it is not formally constituted as a church – though it has ecclesial characteristics. It is important to stress this because Anglicanism is often slackly referred to as a church, not least by the media who love to say that this ‘church’ is about to ‘split’ (a nice short, sharp word for a headline), but also by some who should know better. If the events that have taken place within the Anglican Communion in the first years of the twenty-first century had indeed taken place within a church, that church would be in a parlous condition; in fact it would be in a state of internal schism. But the point is that the Anglican Communion is not a church and is therefore not in schism. Its nature and constitution are such that this cannot be the case. It has no central governing authority or corporate discipline or unified canon law (though it does have global structures of conciliarity and the potential of a core Anglican canon law is currently being explored).4 What is it then? The phrase ‘The Anglican Communion of churches’ indicates the slightly elusive reality of Anglicanism. It is a family of churches, all of which are self-governing (autonomous), while being united with each other in fellowship or communion (koinonia). This means that their autonomy is certainly not either the first word or the last word to be said about them. At least as important is the fact that they exist in a relationship of spiritual and pastoral interdependence. There is a state of symbiosis between Anglican churches that is grounded in two factors. The first factor contributing to the symbiosis of Anglican churches is

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its common tradition. This is threefold, being expressed in liturgy, spirituality and theology.5 The liturgical tradition derives from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (BCP), which was universally reflected in Anglican liturgies until recently and is still a powerful, though sometimes unacknowledged, influence (see below for comment on Anglican worship). The BCP is regarded by many Anglicans as unparalleled in the chaste beauty of its elevated language. It is a simplified, reformed liturgy drawn largely from ancient sources but touched with the liturgical genius of Thomas Cranmer and imbued with a down-to-earth pastoral wisdom. The tradition of spirituality stems substantially, but by no means exclusively from Caroline divinity, the flowering of Anglican spiritual writing during the reign of Charles I, but in fact throughout the seventeenth century. Its great exponents include Lancelot Andrewes, George Herbert, Thomas Traherne and Jeremy Taylor. Their spiritual writings have enjoyed something of a renaissance in recent years. The biblical, sacramental and practical character of Anglican spirituality reflects the seminal influence of Richard Hooker (d. 1600). Perhaps the greatest influence on Anglican spirituality is the BCP itself. The Anglican tradition of theology is linked to liturgy and closely allied to spirituality. At its best it is a lived, prayed and applied theology. While Anglicanism has not excelled in systematic theology, it has a distinguished record in biblical, historical and, to some extent, philosophical theology. In the Anglican practice of theology, Scripture, tradition and reason have their allotted places and are held in a particular balance and relationship, just as they are in the BCP and in the classical Anglican divines. The Bible is the primary source of Christian theology for Anglicans and, in showing the way of salvation, does not need to be supplemented by tradition. Even the creeds are to be believed because they are firmly grounded in Scripture. But, in the Anglican understanding, the Bible does not lay down a blueprint for the Church’s outward ordering or polity. In that area the witness of the post-apostolic period is to be followed, though nothing is to be required that is contrary to Scripture. The ecclesiological canons of the Church of England rather remarkably understate their claims in this respect, insisting merely that the outward polity of that church is ‘not repugnant’ to the teaching of Scripture. Both Scripture and tradition are interpreted by means of reason, which is understood, not in the spirit of the Enlightenment, as an individualistic and analytical instrument, but in a cultural, sapiential sense, as the light of God diffused, albeit imperfectly, through human knowledge and experience and to be exercised humbly, collectively and prayerfully. The second factor that holds Anglican churches in a relationship of

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symbiosis is made up of the ‘instruments of the Communion’. These are fourfold.6 First there is the Lambeth Conference of all the bishops (or at least all the diocesan bishops) of the Communion, together with bishops of ‘churches in communion’ with the Anglican Communion, who come together at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The first Lambeth Conference was held in 1867 and the most recent in 1998. The next is due to be held in the summer of 2008. They take place at ten-yearly intervals, and so far have always been held in England (first at Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and more recently at Canterbury itself, on the campus of the University of Kent). The Lambeth Conference is not the governing body of the Anglican Communion; it is precisely a conference. The bishops come together to confer with one another, to share their experiences, problems and insights. Although the Lambeth Conference has tended to pass numerous resolutions, these have only moral and pastoral authority in the Communion; they are not legally binding on the member churches or provinces until they have been adopted (if at all) by the General Synods of those provinces. Since the 1998 Lambeth Conference, the Communion has faced the unprecedented situation of some provinces or their bishops publicly repudiating, by word or deed, particular resolutions of the Lambeth Conference. However, the moral and pastoral authority of the Anglican episcopate should be quite sufficient for any faithful Anglican and for any provincial synod of the Communion. The resolutions may not always be perfectly expressed, they may not get the balance of various elements quite right and they may need to be revisited at a later date, but they should never be dismissed out of hand. The second instrument of the Communion is the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). This is an elective, representative body made up of laity, clergy and bishops. The ACC meets normally once every two or three years and acts as the standing committee of the Communion. It will reflect on major issues, especially matters concerned with mission and with the cohesion of the Communion. Like the Lambeth Conference itself, it does not have any legislative or juridical authority. The ACC may meet in any part of the world. The third instrument is the Primates’ Meeting. The Primates are the metropolitans, or senior archbishops of the Communion. They are gathered by the Archbishop of Canterbury roughly annually to discuss together issues affecting the life of the Communion. Recently there have been pressures for the Primates’ Meeting to take a higher profile and to give clearer leadership to the Communion. The Primates may meet anywhere in the world. The fourth instrument of the Communion is the office and ministry of the Archbishop of Canterbury itself. In order to understand Anglicanism,

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we must grasp this unique role. Canterbury is the first metropolitan see (seat of the bishop or archbishop) of the Church of England and therefore of the Anglican Communion, founded by St Augustine of Canterbury in 597. The litmus-test of membership of the Anglican Communion is to be in communion with the See of Canterbury. Of course, this cannot be the only condition for membership of the Communion. A common faith and order; a shared tradition of theology, liturgy and spirituality; and participation in the instruments of the Communion are also involved. But it is the ultimate criterion. And it is the Archbishop of Canterbury himself who decides (obviously, in practice, on theological and legal advice) whether he is in communion with a given church or a given archbishop or bishop. As we have seen, it is the Archbishop who invites the Anglican bishops from around the world to participate in two of the four instruments of the Communion: the Lambeth Conference and the Primates’ Meeting. It can be, and occasionally has been, exercised negatively, though that is a largely untried mechanism for regulating issues of communion among Anglicans. It will be apparent, then, that there is a real, though muted, universal primacy in Anglicanism, located in the pastoral office of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is spiritual and pastoral in character and its authority is almost entirely of a moral nature. It is devoid of juridical power. It is a ministry of presidency, carrying a power of invitation to participate in the consultative instruments of the Communion. As such, it carries a faint echo of the Roman Catholic ecclesiological principle of ‘hierarchical communion’ with the college of bishops and the head of that college, the Pope, though without the element of implicit obedience that Roman Catholic bishops owe to the Pope. It is a distortion of the truth to allege that The Windsor Report advocates that the Archbishop of Canterbury should become an Anglican pope, with some kind of universal jurisdiction. Two of these four instruments – the ACC and the Primates’ Meeting – are comparatively recent developments. But the essential character of the Communion has been articulated by various Lambeth Conferences. It is worth recapping here on these essentials. The Conference of 1930, for example, stated that the Anglican Communion is indeed ‘a fellowship’, made up of properly constituted dioceses, provinces or regional churches that (a) are in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and (b) share certain characteristics. These characteristics are: (1) that they maintain ‘the catholic and apostolic faith’ in the tradition of the BCP; (2) that they are ‘particular or national churches’ ministering within a given territory and there promoting a inculturated expression of the Christian faith, appropriate to that nation’s history and experience; (3) that they are bound together not by a central juridical authority but ‘by mutual loyalty sustained by the common counsel of the bishops in conference’.7

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Other relationships The Anglican Communion is in communion with several other families of churches: the Old Catholic churches of the Union of Utrecht, mostly in Europe, through the Bonn Agreement of 1930–31; the Mar Thoma Church of South India; the Philippine Independent Church; and two small churches of the Iberian peninsular. An important litmus-test of being ‘in communion’ is the interchangeability of episcopally ordained ministers. In addition, member churches of the Communion have entered into communion with other churches (see further below). Episcopalians and Lutherans have achieved ‘full communion’ in the USA and in Canada. The four British and Irish Anglican churches are now in communion with most Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches (through the Porvoo Agreement). While it remains an anomaly that regional agreements for ecclesial communion have not become universalized, such is the nature of the Anglican Communion that there is no automatic transitivity of relationship between the provinces. The picture of how Anglicans view other churches would not be complete without some reference to agreements that fall short of communion but are seen as a stage on the way to it. The Episcopal–Lutheran agreement in the USA (Called to Common Mission/Concordat) had several intermediate stages over a period of decades before ‘full communion’ was attained in 2001. Similarly, the Church of England has recently entered into agreements that fall short of ecclesial communion with interchangeability of ministers with a number of other churches: with the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (through the Meissen Agreement); with the Moravian Church in England (through the Fetter Lane Agreement); with the French Lutheran and Reformed Churches (though the Reuilly Agreement); and with the British Methodist Church (through the Anglican–Methodist Covenant of 2003). These relationships are premised on agreement in the apostolic faith and on the shared goal of the full visible unity of Christ’s Church. They are seen as comprising a significant local step towards that ultimate goal. They involve mutual acknowledgement of one another as churches and a commitment to work towards ecclesial communion including the interchangeability of ministries. But this depends on agreement, which has not yet been attained in these particular cases, on the theology and practice of episcopal oversight, including ordination.8 A common Anglican ecclesiology can be discerned in all these agreements, as well as elsewhere. But, as the 1930 Lambeth Conference recognized, this ecclesiology is embodied, inculturated and worked out in specific contexts which lend a particular colouring to it and mark it out as distinctive,

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perhaps unique. It follows that there is an element within Anglican ecclesiology that cannot simply be transposed to a different context. Anglicanism is very different in Scotland, Myanmar, the Diocese of Sydney, or the Southern Cone of South America. And they are all different to English Anglicanism! To some extent, the same must be true of other communions that are not global, centralized churches, as are the Roman Catholic Church and the Moravian Church, to take the two extremes, the one a thousand times larger than the other. And even the Roman Catholic Church wrestles with the tension between uniformity dictated by the centre and inculturation generated by the pressure of diverse cultural contexts. To take a specific example of a contextualized agreement: the Porvoo Agreement is largely between national (in some cases ‘established’) churches with historic sees that (with the exception of Lutheran and Anglican chaplaincies) are in geographically separate territories, most of which have their own languages. The national extension and established or semi-established status of most of the Nordic Lutheran churches means that they are perhaps slightly more relaxed about their confessional Lutheran identity than are some other Lutheran churches around the world. The Porvoo relationship is described as ‘visible unity’ and is seen as a stage on the way to the ultimate goal of the ‘full visible unity’ of Christ’s Church (as portrayed, for example, in the classic statements of the New Delhi and Canberra assemblies of the WCC).9 These are aspects of the Porvoo approach that cannot be transposed to North America. The context of Called to Common Mission is markedly different: the two churches share a common territory; there are no historic sees; neither church is established by law; there is only one language; and there is a strong confessional identity among the Lutherans that has to be respected. The result is a model of ‘full communion’ that would not make a great deal of sense in northern Europe, where there is greater sensitivity to the anomaly of parallel episcopal jurisdictions when these exist in a relationship of full communion.10

How Anglicans see themselves and others Anglicans believe that they belong to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ. But they do not believe that they are the only ones who so belong. The Anglican churches claim their rightful place in the one Church. But they do not believe that they are the only ones with a rightful claim. The way that Anglicans see themselves is not exclusive. This balanced position tends to be put in various ways which can be illustrated from the official statements of the Church of England.

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First, the canons of the Church of England (A1) insist that it ‘belongs to the true and apostolic Church of Christ’. Second, the Preface to the Declaration of Assent states that the Church of England ‘is part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’ (canon C15). The recent ecumenical agreements that the Church of England has entered into include the acknowledgement or recognition of ‘one another’s churches as churches belonging to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ’ (Meissen Agreement between the Church of England and the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland [EKD]). Thus Anglican churches see themselves not as the Church in any exclusive sense, but as a church within the one Church. This needs a bit of explaining. How do Anglicans justify this position? As a smallish body in world terms, and one that is not in communion (in the full or strict sense of the term) with either the Roman Catholic or the Orthodox churches, Anglicans cannot plausibly define themselves as ‘catholic’ in an unqualified way. Of course, they believe that they are catholic, but also that there is more to say. The fact that their churches are not recognized as catholic by the largest church to bear that name – in particular that Anglican ministerial orders are held to be null and void and that Roman Catholics are not allowed to receive Holy Communion at Anglican services – is a source of deep and enduring humiliation and embarrassment to some Anglicans, especially in ecumenical situations. For according to the patristic witness, which is so vital to Anglican historical self-consciousness, to be catholic is to be Christian.11 On the other hand, Anglicans have excellent relations with many of the churches that were decisively shaped by the Reformation, and have entered into relationships of varying degrees of communion with Lutheran churches (notably the agreement for ‘full communion’ between the Episcopal Church of the USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 2001, mentioned above). But it is important to note that Anglicans only do this when those Lutheran churches either already have, or are willing to adopt ‘catholic order’, i.e. the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons in visible historical continuity (the historic episcopal succession, for short). Anglicans treasure visible historical continuity. They do not believe that the Church of England originated at the Reformation. They maintain that it stands in unbroken continuity with the Catholic Church of the West and, beyond that, with the ancient undivided Church of the Apostles, the Fathers, the martyrs and the bishops in their historic sees. So, although Anglicans generally did not disdain the name of Protestant for their churches until the Oxford Movement brought a greater consciousness of catholic continuity in the mid-nineteenth century, Anglicans today tend not to define themselves as churches of the Reformation in an unqualified way.

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If Anglicanism cannot be defined in an unqualified way as either catholic or reformed, how should it be described? Anglicans consistently define themselves as both catholic and reformed. On the one hand, they affirm the ecumenical creeds of the early Church and continue the threefold ministry of bishops, priests (presbyters) and deacons from patristic times. They have never held that the outward ordering of the Church requires chapter and verse in the Bible, but acknowledge the authority of the early post-apostolic tradition in this area. Their worship gives a central place to the Eucharist or Holy Communion but maintains a balance and complementarity of word and sacrament. Anglicans maintain, therefore, that they uphold all the essentials of catholicity. But, on the other hand, Anglicanism has been permanently shaped in crucial ways by the Reformation. It affirms the centrality of Scripture (made available to the people in their own language) and maintains that nothing needs to be added to the explicit teaching of Scripture in order to show the way of salvation (Article VI of the Thirty-nine Articles). It upholds justification by grace through faith and the sharing of all baptized believers in the royal priesthood of Christ. Its ordained ministers are free to marry and it ordains women as deacons and priests (and in some provinces as bishops). While certainly not advocating a free-for-all in faith, Anglicanism has recognized the claims of conscience and the duty of Christians to arrive at personal conviction of the truth. Anglicanism therefore bears the essential marks of reformed Christianity. However, the qualifiers ‘catholic’ and ‘Reformed’ are not adequate on their own to delineate the character of Anglicanism. Something needs to be added about the intellectual climate and ethos of Anglicanism as it has developed during the past five centuries. Anglicanism generally has been deeply influenced by the intellectual currents of modernity. It has been hospitable – but always after a protracted, violent struggle – to the contributions of the seminal intellectual movements of Western culture: the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the scientific revolution and the rise of the various human and social sciences. Particularly in its English-speaking expressions, Anglicanism is responsive to cultural trends in the arts, especially literature. It is, on the whole, a tolerant faith, willing to give fairly generous scope to theological exploration, on the part of its clergy as well as its laity, in dialogue with non-theological academic disciplines. In this respect, Anglicanism is a reasonable faith also: that is to say, a faith that is open to reason, to exploration and to debate. The interaction of catholic, reformed and ‘reasonable’ aspects of Anglicanism can be seen in its attitude to its ‘historic formularies’. These vary from one province or church to another, but they generally derive from three common sources: the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of

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Common Prayer, 1662, and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons in its form of 1662. As the Church of England’s Preface to the Declaration of Assent makes clear, these are regarded as an ‘inheritance of faith’, sources of inspiration and guidance, especially for the clergy and licensed lay ministers. There is, however, an acknowledgement that the faith of the Church, as the Church of England has received it, needs to be expressed afresh in each generation. The historic formularies are, of course, subordinate in authority to the Bible and to the creeds and in fact are intended to help Anglicans to interpret Scripture and the witness of the early Church. The formularies are complemented by the canons of each church, which usually include some important ecclesiological material.

Structures of ministry and government The churches of the Anglican Communion maintain the historic threefold ordained ministry. That is to say, they ordain bishops, priests (or presbyters) and deacons in conformity with the practice of the primitive Church. The Preface to the Ordinal in the BCP makes the rather risky claim that there have been these three orders in the Church since the times of the Apostles. Anglicans today may tend to be unnecessarily defensive about this claim. The basic forms of the threefold ministry can certainly be traced back to the apostolic age. But they underwent further development in the period that followed. In a rather paradoxical and unresolved way, ministerial order is seen as both single (there is and can be only one holy order, for order must by definition be single) and threefold (there are three ministries or orders within it). Like others within the ecumenical movement, Anglicans have employed and developed the concept of representative ministry. But this is not deployed in a merely ‘democratic’ sense, as though the authority for ordained ministry were delegated by the faithful to certain spokespersons. The ordained are seen as representing both Christ and his body, the Church, in their ministry of word, sacrament and pastoral care. They cannot represent the body without being related to the head of the body; and they cannot represent the head without being related to the whole body, for (as the Reformers continually insisted) Christ cannot be without his people and his flock cannot be without their shepherd. In that respect, holy order is said to be a sacramental or ecclesial sign of Christ’s presence and work in and through the Church. Ordination is sequential or incremental, so that one is always ordained to the diaconate first and the presbyterate next. According to the canons of the Church of England (canon C 1.2) a person ordained to any order can

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never lose the character of that order. This suggests that the distinctive nature of the diaconate is carried into the presbyterate and that of each of these into the episcopate. The episcopate gathers up and affirms inclusively the ministry of the deacon and of the presbyter.12 It is widely recognized that the integrity of the diaconate is weakened when it is seen as simply a transitional stage or stepping-stone on the way to the priesthood. The distinctive diaconate flourishes in several churches of the Communion and is particularly strong in the Episcopal Church of the USA. The Church of England is currently considering a ‘renewed’ or distinctive diaconate, as a ‘go-between’ ministry, linking the eucharistic heart of the Church’s life with its dispersed mission in the world. Recent research into the classical and New Testament uses of diakonia, especially in the work of John N. Collins, has brought out its meaning as commissioned, authoritative agency. In this sense, the diaconate becomes fundamental to all ordained ministry and constitutes a sacramental focus for the commissioning, the apostolic mission, of the whole Church. This understanding will no doubt have implications for how the transitional diaconate itself is viewed and practised.13 Anglicanism strongly affirms the ministry of lay people on the basis of the royal priesthood of baptized believers. The laity play leading roles in the life and governance of the Church at every level, from the parish to national synods. The particular forms of lay involvement in ministry will vary across the Communion. In the Church of England, for example, churchwardens and Readers are associated with the bishop in their lay ministry. Lay ministries that are locally, rather than nationally, accredited include lay pastoral assistants and evangelists. In Anglicanism bishops have oversight of all aspects of accredited ministry, lay and ordained.14

Anglican worship In Anglicanism there is a close connection between worship and belief. The ancient saying Lex orandi lex credendi (‘The rule of worship is the rule of belief’) is recognized in the Anglican tradition. The Book of Common Prayer is one of the historic formularies of the Church of England, and liturgy has a comparably authoritative place in the polity of the other provinces. Worship in the Church of England has been conducted comprehensively in the vernacular since 1549, according to one of the fundamental principles of the Reformation, and is liturgical, using a range of authorized forms from the Book of Common Prayer (1662) to Common Worship (2000). Traditionally, Anglican worship revolves around Morning and Evening Prayer (Mattins and Evensong) and the Eucharist or Holy Communion.

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Other forms of service, such as family services, may be authorized by the bishop from time to time. In some Anglican churches in practice, there is considerable local discretion about the form of service to be used. Only priests and bishops may preside at the Eucharist, though deacons, Readers and others assist. The Diocese of Sydney, Australia, has been considering non-presbyteral presidency at the Eucharist and, if this is eventually approved, it will constitute a serious anomaly within the shared faith and common order that hold the Communion in unity. It will also have major ecumenical implications, especially for relations with the Roman Catholic church and with the Orthodox churches. The Diocese of Sydney does not feel much of an affinity with those two traditions. The House of Bishops of the Church of England, in its report Eucharistic Presidency, has affirmed the link between presidency at the Eucharist and pastoral leadership or oversight in the community.15 But of course, the position adopted by the Church of England carries no intrinsic authority for any other Anglican province. Clergy, Readers, choirs and other assistants robe in cassock and surplice, especially for non-eucharistic services; eucharistic vestments are widely used. In Anglican worship, words, music, colour, decoration, sacred imagery, movement (and sometimes incense) are all used to glorify God and uplift the worshipper. There is a balance and complementarity of word and sacrament, as befits a church that is both catholic and reformed. Modern Anglicanism is both episcopal and synodical in its governance. It has always been episcopal, of course, but representative government began in some Anglican provinces in the latter part of the nineteenth century and reached the Church of England in 1919, finally being expressed in the establishment of the General Synod in 1970. It embodies the conciliar principles of constitutional authority, representation and consent that stem from the pre-Reformation conciliar movement. The Anglican Reformers had a great deal to say about the proper role of councils in the polity of the Church. The architects of Anglican ecclesiology at the end of the sixteenth century, Richard Hooker and Richard Field, were opposed to absolutism in both Church and state, and were exponents of conciliar thought. Lay people, clergy and bishops have particular responsibilities in the way that these principles are worked out at every level of the Church’s life. In the Church of England, for example, parochial church councils (PCCs) are the very local form of church government. Elected annually by all those baptized worshippers who enter their names on the parish electoral roll (this may include those who are also members of other churches), the PCC shares responsibility with the incumbent (rector, vicar) and churchwardens (the latter also being elected annually, but in theory by a wider parish

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constituency) for church life within the parish, including the church building, parish finances, worship and mission. All parishes are represented by elected lay persons on the deanery synod which has a largely consultative and supportive role and is not directly part of the legislative process of the Church of England. These deanery synod representatives form the electoral college for lay representatives on the diocesan Synod and General Synod. These are made up of houses of laity, clergy and bishops. Bishops have special, but not exclusive responsibility for matters of faith and order, including doctrine, ministry and worship. The House of Bishops consults together frequently on matters that are not confined to synodical business and acts collegially.16 In other churches of the Communion, provincial synods have an important role. For example, in the Episcopal Church of the USA, considerations of geography dictate that the General Convention should meet only every three years. Meanwhile, diocesan and provincial synods of the Episcopal Church meet more frequently. Anglican synodical (conciliar) structures are constitutional bodies. That is to say, the scope and limits of the responsibilities and authority of every constituent part is laid down. Although this can lend itself to apparently labyrinthine procedures that appear to ape parliamentary processes, it does in fact guard against autocracy by a system of checks and balances. As the 1948 Lambeth Conference showed, Anglicans are sensitive to the threat of ‘spiritual tyranny’ and see authority operating in a dispersed mode before it can come into focus and its decisions be implemented. Moreover, those who are uncomfortable about the resemblances between synodical and parliamentary procedures should be aware that both expressions of representative government have developed from the common stock of medieval political thought. In the Church of England, for example, the system of checks and balances comes into play particularly when controversial issues are being considered. New developments in the life of the Church, such as the liturgical provisions of Common Worship or the ordination of women to the priesthood or the episcopate, require a two-thirds majority in each of the houses of the General Synod voting separately. Diocesan synods are consulted about certain issues and they in turn may consult the deanery synods and parishes. The General Synod is elected for a period of five years and is inaugurated in the presence of the Queen, the Supreme Governor (though without executive authority) of the established Church of England. It meets at least twice a year for a period of days. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York are its presidents, but it is chaired by a panel that includes lay people. The General Synod includes ecumenical representatives who are nonvoting members, and it welcomes official guests from other partner churches.

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Mission The picture that many Protestants and evangelicals have of Anglicanism is of a spiritually rather inert church, dedicated to the maintenance of the status quo through a steady round of pastoral duties. In reality, however, modern Anglicanism is highly mission-conscious. However, that mission is envisaged in a broad sense as the cutting edge of the Church’s life as that life is manifested in worship, preaching, teaching, pastoral care and compassionate service. Anglican faith is personal but not private, and Anglicans are normally committed to involvement in the local community and in civil society at large. Anglicanism does not lend itself to the gathered church model but to the ‘church in the community’ type of ecclesiology.17 Although the Church of England is the only fully established Anglican church, Anglicans generally look favourably on a working relationship with the state, provided the apostolic authority of the Church is not infringed.18 Its position as the established (that is to say, legally and constitutionally recognized) Church means that the Church of England is committed to a nationwide pastoral ministry, to full involvement in civil society and to making a contribution to the public discussion of issues that have moral and spiritual implications. One indicator of this is the fact that 26 bishops currently sit in the House of Lords. This national ministry is carried out on a territorial basis, through the dioceses and the parochial system. The aim of this approach is to bring the ministry of the word, the administration of the sacraments and the provision of pastoral care within reach of all parishioners. This territorial ministry is complemented by extensive sector ministries (chaplaincies) on an institutional basis. The weakening of local attachments through social and economic mobility makes these sector ministries particularly important at the present time.19 Other Anglican provinces also are made up of parishes grouped into dioceses, but the sense of territorial identity and responsibility is sometimes less strong and congregations tend to be more eclectic (as indeed they are in some parishes of the Church of England). The catholic character of Anglicanism means that ‘grace’ and ‘nature’ – what we are through redemption and how we are created originally – are not opposed. There is a strong doctrine of both original and actual sin in the Thirty-nine Articles, but the Calvinist doctrine of ‘total depravity’ is not part of Anglicanism today, if indeed it ever was. The goodness of God in the natural rhythms of life is affirmed and the stages on life’s way can be sanctified liturgically. The ‘occasional offices’ are particularly important in the Anglican pastoral mission in the community. Baptisms, marriages and funerals, as rites of passage, bring the clergy and those who assist them into

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contact with many parishioners who are not regular churchgoers. These pastoral contacts are valued by the Church as opportunities for Christian instruction, for leading individuals towards a further stage of Christian initiation, or simply for building up an understanding and trust that may bear fruit in the future.20 Confirmation is a rite of passage of a sacramental nature and is understood to be a means of grace within the total process of Christian initiation and a source of strengthening by the Holy Spirit for Christian discipleship. The minister of confirmation is always the bishop as the ‘chief pastor’ of all within his diocese and ‘their father in God’. However, Anglicans appear to recognize Roman Catholic and Orthodox confirmation (in the case of the Orthodox, chrismation) even though the minister of confirmation in these traditions is normally a priest. In recent agreements between Anglicans and Lutherans (who practise confirmation by pastors), such as Porvoo and Called to Common Mission, membership has been made interchangeable, without the requirement for episcopal confirmation. Shaped as it is by the rites of passage and by the Christian year with its liturgical rhythms, both festivals and penitential seasons, the ethos of Anglican spirituality is that of pilgrimage. It has an eschatological dimension – moving forward step by step in trustful discipleship into God’s future. At the same time, Anglican spirituality is generally world-affirming, though at its best in a prophetically dialectical manner. It is comfortable with marriage, daily work, life in the community, participation in civil society and in political processes. Of course, Anglicans are sometimes slow to see the relevance of their faith to everyday life and, like other Christians, struggle to reconcile spirit and body, the individual and the community, time and eternity. But the incarnational, sacramental spirit of Anglican spirituality is conducive in principle to the integration of these.

Anglican ecumenism The Anglican Communion has contributed some outstanding leaders to the ecumenical movement: Charles Brent, Charles Gore, William Temple, George Bell, Oliver Tomkins, Mary Tanner (all but the first of these being from the Church of England). It has played a leading role in the Faith and Order movement up to the present. Since 1920, when the Lambeth Conference issued its Appeal to All Christian People, the Lambeth Conferences have consistently reaffirmed Anglican commitment to the ecumenical enterprise. For example, Anglicans in the USA, Australia, central southern Africa, as well as in Britain and Ireland, have been assiduous, not just in theological dialogue, like the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, but

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also in developing and implementing agreements with other churches with the intention of building on these in the future. The ecumenical canons of the Church of England (B 43 and B 44) are a signal example of ecumenical good intentions. They set out a breadth of possibilities for local relationships and for local ecumenical partnerships specifically, while remaining ‘the ecumenism of exception’ that will one day, in God’s good time, be overtaken by new relationships of visible unity. Like other Christian world communions, the Anglican Communion is involved in a wide range of ecumenical dialogues. Some are well established and highly productive (such as the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission [ARCIC]) and the international theological dialogue with the Orthodox churches). Others are new and rather tentative (such as the international forum with the Baptist World Alliance, 2000–5).21 Some global dialogues have resulted in agreed statements. In addition to those of ARCIC, the report of the Anglican–Reformed International Dialogue God’s Reign and Our Unity (1984) and the Anglican–Lutheran Niagara Report (1988) are notable. The status of ARCIC documents is ambiguous since the broad welcome given by the Anglican Communion to the early statements on ministry and Eucharist was matched by cool diffidence on the part of the Vatican.22 One of the most fruitful active partnerships today is that between Anglicans and Lutherans. In many parts of the world – Western Europe, North America, central southern Africa, Australia – Anglicans and Lutherans are gravitating towards each other. There are no ecumenical agreements between Anglicans and Lutherans at the universal level, though there are theological statements, forged in global dialogue, that act as midwives to regional or national agreements, notably the Niagara Report. There are several relationships between Anglicans and Lutherans at the regional level. These fall into two types: those that represent a stage on the way to visible unity and those that bring about such unity (albeit as a stage on the way to a broader full visible unity).

Stages to visible unity The Meissen Agreement between the Church of England (not the other British and Irish Anglican churches in this case) and the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland (this church is not purely Lutheran but includes Reformed and united churches also) was signed in 1991. It has become the paradigm of the Church of England’s method of seeking unity by stages. It sets out the agreed goal of the full visible unity of Christ’s Church on the basis of a shared faith and a common order. It moves towards the declaration

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consisting of mutual acknowledgement of the authenticity of ministries, sacraments and oversight, together with mutual commitment to practical collaboration and further theological work on outstanding issues. Meissen does not bring about the integration or interchangeability of ministries because it does not include full agreement on episcopal oversight, including episcopal ordination. The Reuilly Agreement between the British and Irish Anglican churches and the French Lutheran and Reformed churches was signed in 2001 and is modelled on Meissen. The French Protestant churches expressed interest in becoming part of the Meissen Agreement. However, they are already in table and pulpit fellowship with the EKD through the Leuenberg Agreement. The Anglican churches believe that to have integrity, an agreement must be the result of a theological dialogue in which the issues of faith and order are fully worked through together. The Reuilly Agreement actually refines the theological concepts, such as acknowledgement and commitment, that are involved in this type of agreement.

Agreements for communion/full communion Called to Common Mission (the revised version of the Concordat), signed at Epiphany 2001 between the Episcopal Church of the USA (ECUSA) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is the flagship of agreements that bring about ‘full communion’. This approach is based on the international Anglican–Lutheran Cold Ash formula of 1983, whereby churches seek to enter into full communicatio in sacris, including interchangeable ministries, while retaining their separate identity and structures of oversight. The Cold Ash approach is a classical example of the model of ‘unity in reconciled diversity’ in ecumenism. Called to Common Mission brings this state of affairs about through a mutual commitment to episcopal ordination in historical succession (though there are a small number of exceptions on the part of the Lutherans being explored at the time of writing). The full authenticity of each other’s ministries is signalled by immediate interchangeability of presbyters in principle. To make this possible, ECUSA has agreed to suspend for the time being the requirement of the Preface to the Anglican Ordinal of 1662 for episcopal ordination. For its part, the ELCA has waived the requirement for ministers to subscribe to the Augsburg Confession. The ELCA and ECUSA will remain autonomous churches with a common ministry, linked in fellowship and consultation. The anomaly of parallel structures of oversight, within a common territory and in a relationship of full communion, does not appear to be regarded as a serious unresolved issue by the two churches.

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The Waterloo Declaration between the Anglican Church of Canada and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada was signed in July 2001 and broadly follows the Concordat/Called to Common Mission approach. It too implements the Cold Ash formula. Unlike the USA model, however, the Canadians do not appear to have agreed a legal mechanism for integration of ministries, perhaps because they do not need one. There is a strong element of pragmatism, of ‘Let’s work it out as we go along’, in Waterloo. The Porvoo Agreement (signed 1996) between the British and Irish Anglican churches and the Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches (excluding Denmark and Latvia who so far have not signed Porvoo) is a major regional agreement involving Lutherans and Anglicans. It goes beyond Meissen and Reuilly in being an agreement for communion (the Church of England, at least, tends not to use the expression ‘full communion’, presumably because it seems to imply that communion cannot become ever more full). Porvoo has a distinctive theology of apostolicity, drawing on the Faith and Order Lima text Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (1982) and the Niagara Report. This theology of apostolicity enables the Porvoo Common Statement to recognize that all the participating churches have preserved the historic episcopate, in spite of some presbyteral consecrations of bishops in the sixteenth century. Porvoo recognizes historical and sociological common ground between the participating churches and as such is strongly contextual. The relationship within the communion of Porvoo churches is comparable to that within the Anglican Communion itself: there is interchangeability of ministries (with restrictions), together with various forms of interaction in the conciliar structures of the churches; an increasingly shared life through twinnings of parishes, dioceses and cathedrals and a mutually enriched fellowship. The Porvoo churches exist (with the exception of chaplaincies and ethnic congregations) in geographically separate territories, speaking various different languages, so the parallel jurisdictions – though an ecclesiological anomaly – are not a serious scandal. In spite of these ecumenical successes, Anglican churches tend to fall between two stools when it comes to actually uniting, in a visible and organic way, with other churches. In theology and history they have much in common with the churches of the Reformation – who therefore tend to expect unity with Anglicans to be easier than it is. In Church order (for example, in the insistence of the Lambeth Quadrilateral on the historic episcopate) they stand close to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches – who therefore find it hard to understand Anglican doctrinal rapport with the Reformation tradition. The Church of England’s

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own track-record shows it to be rather a risky partner in an ecumenical courtship. The current ecumenical policy of the Church of England (which, needless to say, does not carry any automatic implications for the rest of the Anglican Communion, though it is actually shared by a number of Anglican provinces) is realistic about these difficulties. It seeks to progress steadily towards the ultimate goal of full visible unity by a series of agreed steps or stages so that issues can be dealt with sequentially and when, as sometimes happens, this proves difficult, the ground already gained is not lost but rather consolidated for the future. The Church of England has been committed to a policy of all-round and every-level ecumenism. This ecumenical policy is primarily motivated not by pragmatism or sentiment but by a disciplined theological vision. The vision is shaped and encouraged by the foretaste of full visible unity that is granted to us in our experience of fellowship and collaboration in many areas of ecumenical life. At the end of the day, it is the experience of fellowship – the gift of koinonia and the desire to share it more widely through mission – that is the driving force of the ecumenical movement.

The future of the Anglican Communion The Anglican Communion was thrown into turmoil by two decisions in the early years of the twenty-first century: the authorizing of public blessings of same-sex relationships by the Diocese of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada; and the election and subsequently the confirmation of election by the General Convention – against the pleas and warnings of the Anglican Primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury – of a priest, living with a partner of the same sex, as Bishop of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church of the USA. The situation was exacerbated by a few bishops elsewhere in the Communion, who offered pastoral oversight and protection to parishes in ECUSA that could not accept this decision. The Communion’s response resulted in The Windsor Report (2004) and a process around the implementation of the recommendations that is still being worked through. The Lambeth Conference of 2008 will be a milestone, though perhaps not a watershed, in the journey that the Communion must make towards a renewed viability. In the debate about the healing of communion and the restoration of unity it is easy to put all the blame on ECUSA or to make the gay bishop (Gene Robinson) the ‘fall guy’ for the failings of the Communion. A significant example of an attack on ECUSA and its dominant liberal culture is The Fate of Communion by Ephraim Radner and Philip Turner.23 In this book,

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two of ECUSA’s leading theologians turn on their own church. They accuse it of selling out to the privatized, consumerist, autonomous individualism of Western culture and of exchanging the apostolic gospel, with its logic of sin and judgement, salvation and redemption, for an ideology of radical, unqualified inclusivism. All persons, whatever their state of life, are to be accepted into the fellowship and ministry of the Church. Even Holy Communion – against the law of the Church – is sometimes knowingly offered to the unbaptized, for no one must be excluded. In the eyes of the authors, ECUSA has become merely the liturgical option in the spectrum of liberal American ‘denominational boutiques’. Liberalism believes that the historic institutions and structures of the Christian Church are human artefacts that can be remodelled at will – the Church made them, so the Church can remake them. As the example of ECUSA shows, serious theological reflection is not a prerequisite. Such a church claims to act with ‘naked autonomy’ and believes it can do what it wills, without significant constraints. Catholicism, on the other hand, takes those institutions seriously as givens, moulded by the action of the Holy Spirit in history, and seeks to work within them. Time is a grace given us by God to seek harmony and unity. Time and wisdom go together. Rash actions are intrinsically uncatholic. So far, the authors’ diagnosis. Positively, the authors offer a prescription for the churches of the Communion to live together in ‘mutual subjection’, the submission of the part to the whole and of the present moment to the trajectory of catholic tradition. This pathway involves recovering the principles of conciliarity, as expounded by the fifteenth-century conciliar thinkers and perpetuated in their own way by the Reformers. The conciliar tradition has been foundational for Anglicanism.24 Embracing this tradition involves spiritual formation through immersion in Scripture, thorough theological investigation, wide consultation and seeking the consent of the whole Church over time before committing to potentially contentious decisions. Notwithstanding my broad sympathy for this prescription, I gib at the phrase ‘global church’ (which is found not only in the title, but also in the text) for the Anglican Communion. As I have already pointed out, the Communion is not constituted as a church, but as a family or fellowship of self-governing but interrelated churches. It is important to insist on this point because if what has happened in the Communion had happened to a church, then that church would have suffered serious disruption, amounting to internal schism. But the biblical imperative of Christian unity means that particular churches must negotiate their differences and seek to attain the highest possible degree of visible communion. It seems clear that ECUSA believed – in defiance of the evidence – that what it was doing in the consecration of Gene Robinson was a local matter.

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Apparently, it did not occur to the leadership of ECUSA or its General Convention that this action would be regarded as extremely provocative by some, seriously offensive, an act of spiritual dereliction, even of apostasy. It gave ECUSA little pause for thought that the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox churches and the evangelical churches and movements would be scandalized, at least at the official level. They were not deterred by the consideration that a bishop is a focus of unity and a member of a wider episcopal college, and as such must be acceptable to the whole body of the Church. Such insularity and wilfulness is not a mark of a catholic mind, or even of an ecumenical spirit and does not savour of Christian charity (agape). There are various ways of ministering pastorally to those of a same-sex orientation and of assuring them that they are valued members of the Church, without acting in a high-profile and provocative way that sears the conscience of others and divides the Church. ECUSA did not have to take this step: no one has a right to be a bishop and no diocese has a right to a particular candidate for episcopacy when the interests of the wider Church are at stake. There was no compulsion for the Episcopal Church to act as it did. But, once a breach has been created, how hard it is to heal it. However, the fault lies not only with ECUSA – who could, to some extent justifiably complain that they had been condemned for not keeping rules (of consultation and restraint) of which they were not aware and which had, up to a point, been invented after the event – but also with the constitution of the Anglican Communion. The Anglican family professes to be a communion, but behaves more like a federation. It has structures for consultation and for making recommendations, but not for mutual accountability. The deficit of protocols providing for what Radner and Turner call ‘mutual submission’ is now being addressed in the form of the project to identify a core canon law in the various codes of canon law of the provinces and, on that basis, to devise a ‘covenant’ that will bind the provinces to take account of one another when contemplating potentially divisive actions. ‘Communion’ has not been lost, though it has been seriously impaired (as much by those bishops who have taken uncanonical steps to offer oversight within other dioceses as by those who have precipated the crisis by provocative actions). The Church of England is still ‘in communion’ with the Anglican Church of Canada and with the Episcopal Church. Severance of communion with those provinces by the Church of England unilaterally is not in prospect. One rash action does not deserve another. Time for reflection and room for manoeuvre are needed while new protocols for enhancing mutual responsibility are prepared and offered for consideration by the provinces. The ‘communion’ that expresses the relationship of Anglican churches one to another is precious and is worth fighting for.

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Notes 1. Material in this chapter appeared in my contribution to P. Avis (ed.), The Christian Church: An Introduction to the Major Traditions (London: SPCK, 2002). 2. For the historical development of the Anglican Communion see W.M. Jacob, The Making of the Anglican Church Worldwide (London: SPCK, 1997) and W. Sachs, The Transformation of Anglicanism: From State Church to Global Communion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). A complementary perspective is provided by K. Ward, A History of Global Anglicanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 3. See P. Avis, Church, State and Establishment (London: SPCK, 2001). 4. See N. Doe, Canon Law in the Anglican Communion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998) and the summary, with references, in P. Avis, Beyond the Reformation? Authority, Primacy and Unity in the Conciliar Tradition (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2006), pp. 172–3. 5. See further the relevant chapters in S. Sykes, J. Booty and J. Knight (eds), The Study of Anglicanism, 2nd edn (London: SPCK, 1998). 6. See The Windsor Report (London: Anglican Communion Office, 2004). 7. See further Ch. 1. 8. The Meissen Agreement (London: Council for Christian Unity, 1992). Anglican–Moravian Conversations: The Fetter Lane Common Statement, etc. (London: Council for Christian Unity, 1996). Called to Witness and Service: The Reuilly Common Statement, etc. (London: Church House, 1999). The Anglican–Methodist Covenant: The Report of the Formal Conversations between the Methodist Church and the Church of England (London: Methodist Publishing House and Church House, 2001). 9. Together in Mission and Ministry: The Porvoo Common Statement, etc. (London: Church House, 1993). 10. Called to Common Mission (Chicago, IL: ELCA, 1998). 11. Cf. the report of the House of Bishops of the Church of England, The Eucharist: Sacrament of Unity (London, Church House, 2001). 12. See J.R. Wright, ‘Sequential or Cumulative Orders vs. Direct Ordination’, Anglican Theological Review, 75.2 (1993): 246–51. 13. See For Such a Time as This: A Renewed Diaconate in the Church of England (London: Church House, 2001) and The Mission and Ministry of the Whole Church (London: General Synod of the Church of England, 2007). 14. See further P. Avis, A Ministry Shaped by Mission (London and New York: T&;T Clark, 2005). 15. Eucharistic Presidency (London: Church House, 1997). 16. See the report of the House of Bishops of the Church of England, Bishops in Communion (London: Church House, 2000). 17. For this way of putting it see B. Kaye, A Church Without Walls: Being Anglican in Australia (Victoria: Dove, 1995). 18. See Avis, Church, State and Establishment.

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19. See G. LeGood (ed.), Chaplaincy: The Church’s Sector Ministries (London: Cassell, 1999), including P. Avis, ‘Towards a Theology of Sector Ministry’. 20. See P. Avis, A Church Drawing Near: Spirituality and Mission in a PostChristian Culture (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2003). 21. See the report of the international conversations between the Anglican Communion and the Baptist World Alliance, Conversations Around the World (London: Anglican Communion Office, 2005). 22. Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission, The Final Report (London: Catholic Truth Society/SPCK, 1982). 23. E. Radner and P. Turner, The Fate of Communion: The Agony of Anglicanism and the Future of a Global Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006). 24. I argue for the same general thesis in Beyond the Reformation?

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V

Anglicanism and Eucharistic Ecclesiology1

I

f it is true that, in Henri de Lubac’s celebrated equation, ‘the Eucharist makes the Church’ and ‘the Church makes the Eucharist’,2 what a church believes, teaches and practises about the Eucharist is crucial to its ecclesiology. Eucharist and ecclesiology are brought into their closest connection in that particular school of ecclesiology known as ‘eucharistic ecclesiology’. This approach derives from a strand of modern Orthodox theology, pioneered by Nikolai Afanasiev and most powerfully represented today by John Zizioulas. It was adopted and developed by a number of Roman Catholic theologians, including Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), and some Old Catholic theologians. But is the Anglican understanding of the Church an expression of ‘eucharistic ecclesiology’? Or, to put it a little less ambitiously: Is eucharistic ecclesiology substantially present within Anglican theology, as it is within Roman Catholic and Orthodox theology? If the answer to those questions turns out to be: ‘Yes – the Anglican understanding of the Church is indeed a form of eucharistic ecclesiology, at least to a significant extent’, we will have an immediate rapport with some of the most creative forms of modern Roman Catholic and Orthodox ecclesiologies. If we have that basic rapport, we will know that we are standing on substantial common ground ecclesiologically, and this will give grounds for hope that historic differences between the Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican traditions are capable of being at least partially resolved. An affirmative answer to our question will also help to confirm the existing relationship of communion between the churches of the Anglican Communion and the Old Catholic churches of the Union of Utrecht, because a number of Old Catholic theologians have been deeply influenced

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by eucharistic ecclesiology as it has been expounded by Roman Catholic and Orthodox scholars and have contributed to the development of this approach.3 I have not yet said what ‘eucharistic ecclesiology’ means, and I am going to defer that question for the time being because there are some preliminaries to be considered first. The method of this chapter, in approaching the question of an Anglican eucharistic ecclesiology, is first to offer some commentary on the presence in Anglican ecclesiology of the related concepts of catholicity and apostolicity, and of trinitarian and eucharistic themes. Taken together, these make up the substantive content of eucharistic ecclesiology. There is no need to ask whether these four themes are present in the Anglican tradition: an understanding of the Church that did not include these four aspects, in some way, would not be credible. You could not have an ecclesiology that had nothing positive to say about catholicity and apostolicity, or that did not ground the Church’s existence in the life of the Holy Trinity, or that did not allow itself to be shaped by reflection on the Church’s celebration of the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist. So let us not ask such redundant questions as: Does Anglican ecclesiology have a sense of catholicity? Or: Is Anglican ecclesiology informed by the doctrine of the Holy Trinity? That goes without saying. It would be demeaning to Anglicans to ask these questions. What we need to ask is: How are the themes of catholicity and apostolicity, of trinitarianism and the Eucharist, articulated in Anglican ecclesiology?

A preliminary comment This analysis is not easy for Anglicans to undertake, because they have an innate reluctance to parade their deepest convictions of faith. Anglicans (not only in England) are diffident about making claims for their portion of the Christian Church and its tradition. They have an aversion to asserting a distinct ecclesial identity. Anglicans generally are allergic to making comparisons with other churches and to flaunting what they have. They find the sort of claims that are sometimes made by other churches – claims to enjoy a fullness that others lack – rather distasteful. Over the centuries, Anglicans (with exceptions, of course) have tended to take the line that other churches stand or fall to their own Master, and have not intended to pass judgement on other churches. On the other hand, we should not overlook the fact that, when other churches have seemed to pass judgement on them, as in the papal bull Apostolicae Curae, 1896, which condemned Anglican holy orders, Anglicans have responded robustly and cogently. For all Christians, it is probably hard to talk up the most vital

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constitutive elements of your own church. It is like being asked to describe what makes home ‘home’ or to analyse why you love your mother. As Anglicans, we live and move and have our being in a church whose life and worship is felt intuitively to be catholic and apostolic, trinitarian and eucharistic, even though it has many weaknesses. It is not easy to stand back and to hold up to examination a church to which we are so close.

Catholic and reformed The churches of the Anglican Communion regard themselves as both catholic and reformed. The terms ‘Reformed catholic’, ‘Protestant catholic’ and ‘catholic Protestant’ have been deployed in controversy.4 Anglicans would never give up the word ‘catholic’: to be a catholic Christian is to belong to the visible community of the faithful, united in the confession of the apostolic faith and in the celebration of the sacraments and ordered under the care of its pastors, extended through history and throughout the world. Anglicans have sometimes seen themselves as a bridge communion between Protestantism on the one hand and Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy on the other. There is an element of pretension and even of fantasy in this aspiration to be a bridge church: Anglicans are not the only Christians to see themselves in that way. But it reflects the fact that Anglicans look with a sense of recognition and of belonging both to the Roman Catholic Church and to the churches of the Reformation. Anglican ecumenical policy is twin-track. In truth, Anglicans feel pulled both ways and cannot wholly commit themselves in either direction. Perhaps they are like the donkey in the fable who, faced with two apparently equally delicious bundles of hay, could not make up his mind which one to eat and so starved to death (and perhaps that parable applies to others, as well as to Anglicans . . .). The relationship between Anglicanism and Protestantism is not straightforward. There is a built-in tension. On the one hand, Anglicanism was decisively shaped by the Reformation. The Anglican Reformers were strongly influenced (though not uncritically) by the continental Reformers, who generally were more creative than they were themselves. From the midsixteenth century Anglicanism has been marked by the key features of the Protestant Reformation: justification by grace, received through faith; an open Bible and an emphasis on the ministry of the word; liturgy in the vernacular with the participation of the laity; a (usually) married, pastoral ministry integrated with the community; Holy Communion administered in both kinds; the involvement of the laity in church governance, whether in the form of the sovereign, parliament, local lay officers or (for

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the past century and more) various forms of representative or synodical government. Calvinism (its doctrines of grace, not its Presbyterian polity) was the prevailing theology during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I (i.e. the second half of the sixteenth and the first quarter of the seventeenth centuries). After the Civil War and Commonwealth periods, in the midseventeenth century, Lutheranism became the most favoured Protestant communion for the next 150 years. Historically Anglicans saw the Church of England as a sister church of the Lutheran and Reformed churches on the Continent until the late eighteenth century.5 On the other hand, Anglicans have always insisted on the catholicity of their church. The Anglican Reformers (like the continental Reformers) were clear that they were not setting up a new church. They were seeking to reform the one Church that went back to the Apostles, the Fathers, the early martyrs and the Celtic missionaries. The first Christians in Britain probably came with the Roman invaders. It was known that the British church was represented at early councils. The ancient structures of the Catholic Church survived the upheavals of the Reformation: the threefold ministry was maintained, with episcopal succession in the ancient sees; several medieval practices were reformed, not abolished; and traditional symbols including some vestments, the sign of the cross and the ring in marriage were retained. The high church tradition within Anglicanism kept alive a sense of catholic continuity – though this was not achieved at the expense of a sense of affinity with the Reformation inheritance (until the radical phase of the Oxford Movement taught Anglicans to be prejudiced against the Reformation). A series of abortive private initiatives attempted to build bridges with the Roman Catholic Church abroad. Religious orders were restored in the second half of the nineteenth century. Although in very modern times some Anglicans have become coy about the word Protestant, they have unequivocally affirmed that Anglicanism is not only catholic but also reformed. It has sometimes been suggested (e.g. by the Whig historian Thomas Babbington Macaulay) that the Church of England combined Calvinist Articles of Religion with a Roman Catholic (or ‘popish’) liturgy.6 While her doctrinal standards would have met with the approval of Calvin or John Knox, claims Macaulay, her Prayer Book, derived from ancient breviaries, ‘are such that Cardinal Fisher or Cardinal Pole might have heartily joined in them’. Similarly with the ministry: while Rome maintained the doctrine of apostolic succession and many Protestants rejected episcopacy altogether, the Anglican Reformers retained bishops without making episcopacy of the esse of the Church. Also with regard to the sacraments: though repudiating transubstantiation and the adoration of the consecrated elements, the

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Church of England, nevertheless, ‘to the disgust of the Puritan, required her children to receive the memorials of divine love meekly kneeling upon their knees’. And ‘though sacramental confession was no longer obligatory, she gently invited the dying penitent to confess his sins to a divine, and empowered her ministers to soothe the departing soul by an absolution, which breathes the very spirit of the old religion’. Though it has a certain initial attraction, Macaulay’s antithesis between the doctrines and the liturgies of the Reformed English Church is highly questionable on several grounds. First, if the Articles did express a Calvinist doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, that would in no way be a low or uncatholic view, and certainly not a reductionist one. Calvin is second to no one in stating a real communion of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament: he is adamant that the reality is always joined to the sign; in receiving the bread, we receive the body.7 Second, it is highly implausible to suggest that the Holy Communion service in the Book of Common Prayer (1662) would have been acceptable to such pre-Tridentine Roman Catholics as Fisher and Pole, if they had known it.8 Third, Macaulay’s dichotomy is false as a generalization. The Thirty-nine Articles cover a wide range of contentious issues that are not specific to Calvinism; they take a moderate, almost noncommittal, position on the doctrine of predestination. Their clearest echo of a Reformation formulary is of the Lutheran Augsburg Confession (on the marks of the visible Church: Article XIX; cf. Confessio Augustana VII). On the other hand, as we have noted, the Book of Common Prayer (1662) is clearly shaped by Protestant sensitivities. Finally, what Macaulay is sketching is not actually a compromise between two antithetical traditions, but a spirit of restraint, balance and moderation that is indeed characteristic of much in the Anglican heritage.9

Sources of eucharistic theology in Anglicanism Official Anglican doctrine regarding the Eucharist, as far as the Church of England is concerned, is not extensive and is dispersed in a number of sources. First, there are what the Preface to the Declaration of Assent (canon C 15) calls the ‘historic formularies’: the Book of Common Prayer, 1662 (BCP); the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (1571); and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests and Deacons (1550/1662). The third of these is not particularly relevant to the study of eucharistic theology, though it is significant that ordination always takes place in context of the service of Holy Communion and that only an episcopally ordained bishop or priest may preside at a eucharistic celebration of the Church of England. Although the Church of England’s formularies are not binding on the other churches of the

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Anglican Communion, they have generally been adopted or assimilated into the polities of those churches, so that there is a recognizably common Anglican theological position on the Eucharist. Beyond these formularies, there is no substantial body of ‘confessional’ material. For Anglicans, there is no substantial body of official confessional material, of a discursive, analytical nature, where doctrine is elaborated, as there is for Roman Catholics in Denzinger and for Lutherans in the Book of Concord. This means that what Anglicans believe about the Eucharist is stated minimally and indirectly. The fullest statement is, therefore, the rite for Holy Communion of the BCP, but this is, of course, expressed in liturgical and doxological language, not in doctrinal definitions. So we may say that Anglicans confess their faith with regard to the Eucharist in an oblique way according to the principle Lex orandi lex credendi: the rule of praying is the rule of believing. Of course, this principle is not unique to Anglicanism. This fairly sparse official material is supplemented by the writings of those Anglican divines who are generally regarded as classical exponents of Anglican theology: from Thomas Cranmer and John Jewel in the middle decades of the sixteenth century, through Richard Hooker at the turn of the sixteenth century, to Daniel Waterland in the first half of the eighteenth century – but they do not speak with one voice on all questions concerning the Eucharist. More recently, the teachings of the Lambeth Conferences of all Anglican bishops of the worldwide Anglican Communion, have had moral and pastoral authority for the Communion. The ecumenical agreements that have been approved in principle by the Communion (or, for English Anglicans, by the Church of England’s General Synod) have a degree of authority. Particularly important among these agreed statements is the statement (1971) and elucidation (1979) on ‘Eucharistic Doctrine’ produced by the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), which was deemed ‘consonant in substance with the faith of Anglicans’ by General Synod in 1986 and by the Lambeth Conference in 1988.10 For the Church of England, the report of the first Doctrine Commission Doctrine in the Church of England (1938), which has a substantial section on the sacraments, remains worth consulting. The most recent Church of England statement is the House of Bishops’ teaching document, The Eucharist, Sacrament of Unity (2001), which we shall look at shortly. The common statements that have led to the ecumenical agreements that General Synod has entered into often have sections on the Eucharist and these have a degree of authority for the Church of England (e.g. Fetter Lane, Porvoo, Reuilly and the Anglican–Methodist Covenant).

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The Eucharist in formative Anglicanism It is hardly disputed that modern Anglicanism has a rich and full doctrine of the Eucharist, one with a strong sense of the real presence of Christ and with a proper understanding of the eucharistic sacrifice. The groundwork of this theology was laid down, not by Thomas Cranmer, but in the teaching of a succession of theologians in the period of a century and a half between Hooker and Waterland. It is obviously not possible to tell this story here.11 Beyond this formative process of development, modern Anglican liturgies have been shaped by patristic scholarship and ecumenical liturgical research, through the liturgical movement, that was not fully available to earlier generations. So the definitive Anglican eucharistic theology is not in question. However, because the BCP and the Thirty-nine Articles comprise two of the three ‘historic formularies’ of the Church of England, what I think needs to be established here is whether the Anglican Reformers themselves had a ‘good enough’ doctrine of the Eucharist and whether the 1662 rite contains the essentials of a Eucharist – in other words whether modern Anglican eucharistic theology stands in continuity with that of the Reformation period. Given that Article XIX of the Thirty-nine Articles lays down that one of the marks of the visible Church is that the sacraments are rightly administered, this issue must remain a concern for Anglicans. Many instructed Anglicans are conscious of the inadequacies of the rite for the administration of the Lord’s Supper in the 1552 Prayer Book. They know that the 1549 book was more traditional, that the 1559 edition retrieved some of that tradition and that in 1662 the revisers made further changes in the direction of a catholic eucharistic rite. But, as the saying goes, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. For all the excellence of his language, there is no evading the deficiencies of Cranmer’s 1552 rite (which remains the basis of 1662). Chapter 16 of Dom Gregory Dix’s, The Shape of the Liturgy,12 though obviously tendentious and polemical, remains a catalyst for the study of Cranmer’s eucharistic thought. Dix presents a jaundiced account of the eucharistic theology of the Reformers generally, advancing the incredible idea that the theologies of Luther and Calvin were inimical to a sacramental understanding of Christianity, and summing up Cranmer’s doctrine as: ‘The bread had nothing to do with the Body’ (pp. 633, 674). However, Dix’s account of Cranmer is sufficiently damning to make Anglicans pretty uncomfortable. The eucharistic theology of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) is contested territory. There are questions of consistency as well as of interpretation. Reading Cranmer makes one wonder how far he really understood the issues and whether sometimes he even knew his own mind. So our

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understanding must remain provisional. However, what we can say with some assurance is that the English Reformers generally did not simply reproduce what Luther, Calvin or Zwingli said about the Lord’s Supper. Instead, it has been argued (convincingly to my mind) that the English Reformers retrieved a strand of patristic theology (the ‘symbolic-realist’ approach) that derived from St Augustine.13 In the late medieval period, the ‘symbolic-realist’ interpretation of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist was the main viable alternative to the more thoroughgoing realism (or theory of identity) of St Ambrose that was the source of the theological trajectory that led eventually to the promulgation of the doctrine of transubstantiation at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. The Augustinian tradition of sacramental theology was at the same time realist and symbolist. The unity between the sign (signum – the elements) and the reality signified (res sacramenti – the presence of Christ) was effected by the power of the Holy Spirit in fulfilment of Christ’s promise: ‘This is my body.’ Augustine’s interest in scriptural signs, especially those of St John’s Gospel, and in the sign character of language, was the basis of the development of a symbolic-realist interpretation of the efficacy of the sacraments. For Augustine, a sacrament was not merely a signpost, pointing away from itself to something else. The sign participates in the reality that it signifies. There are not two components (the sign and what is signified), but three components in play (the active subject that is at work in the act of signification, the sign itself and the reference – what is signified). So we can say that this particular sign theory is personal, relational and dynamic. The emphasis on the subject who effects the connection between the sign and the thing signified lends itself to seeing the Holy Spirit as the active subject of sacramental signification.14 This Augustinian approach chimed in with the Reformation stress on faith and the word, and with the eschatological tension between the present experience of the Church, which is a constant struggle with sin and evil, and her true existence as a spotless dove in the sight of God. The reappropriation of St Augustine’s approach to the Eucharist was part-and-parcel of the overall re-reception of Augustine at the Reformation. To say that is not, of course, to forget the massive influence of St Augustine on medieval theology, not least on St Thomas Aquinas himself. However, Augustine was the Father par excellence who spoke to the Reformers’ condition and experience in the early sixteenth century, the one who plumbed the depths of human frailty and perversity and who took the measure of the heights of divine sovereignty and the breadth of divine grace. Because the gift of God in Holy Communion calls for faith and elicits faith, this Augustinian symbolic-realist position is sometimes mistaken for ‘receptionism’, that is, the idea that Christ’s presence in the sacrament is

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entirely conditional on the faith of the communicant, that he is present only to faith. I agree with some interpreters of Cranmer’s eucharistic theology that he veered too close to receptionism.15 And even Richard Hooker insisted that the presence of Christ was located in the believing recipient of the sacrament (see below). However, to interpret their doctrine as merely receptionist would be an unfortunate misreading of the Reformers generally. It is incompatible with their deepest theological convictions. The Reformers would have been the last to make the efficacy of the sacrament dependent on human effort, on human works that are meant somehow to trigger God’s grace. The givenness, the objectivity and the sovereignty of grace were their master themes. For the Reformers the unity between sign (the consecrated elements) and reality (Christ’s vivifying presence) in the sacrament was reflected in two ways: first, by the unity between the Christian and Christ in the act of communion; and second, by the unity between all Christians in the fellowship of the Church. Thus there was unity and communion in the body of Christ – where body is taken in a twofold (but ultimately unified) sense: his glorified body in heaven and his body the Church in earth (but not confined to this world). The theme of communio had been rediscovered by Luther after its eclipse in the medieval period. For Luther, Christ is intimately present among his people through word and sacrament and gives himself to them through the means he has appointed (both the bread and the cup in the mass), to be received by faith with thanksgiving. Because he is truly present in self-giving grace, this communion, the Reformers insisted, should be celebrated frequently. Here there is certainly realism: there is true communion because there is the true body and blood of Christ. But it is a realism shot through with a sense of the imperfection of all earthly means to embody and hold the transcendent power of God. There is no material conversion of the bread and wine into the body and blood, no transubstantiation: the language of the Reformers is ‘in, with, under and through’. What we have instead is a dynamic sense of movement from God to humankind and from humankind to God, rather than any attempt to capture and hold the sacrifice of Calvary. Cranmer’s eucharistic theology evolved through two editions of the Prayer Book (1549 and 1552) and beyond.16 It appears that he moved from an inherited medieval scholastic transubstantiationism, through a briefer Lutheran phase, in which he preferred to speak of the ‘true’ rather than the ‘real’ presence, to a position influenced by Bucer and close to Calvin in which there is an effectual but spiritual communion in Christ’s body and blood. The rather Augustinian-sounding term ‘effectual signification’, that Cranmer himself uses, seems an apt designation for his final position. In

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1551 he says: ‘Christ’s body and blood be given to us in deed, yet not corporally and carnally, but spiritually and effectually.’17 What are the main lines of Cranmer’s thought with regard to the presence of Christ in the sacrament? First, he insists that Christ’s glorified body is in heaven and, therefore, cannot be present in a physical, corporeal way in the sacrament.18 Second, he is clear that the grace of God is undivided and that it is the same grace that is given in the Word as in the sacraments and the same grace and presence in the Lord’s Supper as in baptism. Moreover, the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament partook of Christ by faith, just as we do.19 Third, he equates the ‘real presence’ of Christ with one particular conceptual construction of that, the idea of transubstantiation, and therefore believes that he has to deny the real presence, but this is partly a semantic issue: he insists on a presence that is real, though spiritual, and received by means of the elements: as we outwardly and visibly receive the bread and wine, we are inwardly and invisibly fed with the body and blood of Christ.20 Above all, Cranmer is emphatic that there is a real or true communication and participation of the Christian in Christ in the sacrament: ‘It is my constant faith and belief that we receive Christ in the sacrament verily and truly.’21 His strength is that he finds Christ’s presence in the whole sacramental action or performance. What would have lent Cranmer’s eucharistic theology greater coherence is a stronger emphasis on the power of the Holy Spirit, annihilating the ‘distance’ between heaven and earth and uniting Christ and the faithful in the sacrament, as we find in John Calvin and Peter Martyr.22 What is clear is that, while there are elements in his writings that tend towards receptionism – he plays up faith as the means of receiving Christ – Cranmer is far from being a ‘Zwinglian’ in the stereotypical (and historically incorrect sense) sense of a mere memorialist: the Eucharist for Cranmer is definitely a great deal more than an act of human recollection of Calvary: it is a means of grace and an act of God.23 The word ‘effectual’, reiterated by Cranmer, resonates with the Thirty-nine Articles – Cranmer was, of course, primarily responsible for the earlier form of the present Articles. They state that the sacraments are ‘effectual signs of grace’. Baptism is described as an instrumental sign. The Eucharist is ‘a partaking of the Body of Christ’. After repudiating transubstantiation because ‘it overthroweth the nature of a sacrament’ (by not allowing the natural substance, e.g. bread, to be the vehicle of divine presence, but replacing it), the Articles affirm that ‘the Body of Christ is received and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner’ by means of faith. The ‘wicked’ are not partakers of Christ in the sacrament since it must be received ‘rightly, worthily and with faith’.24 It is significant

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that the language of instrumentality and effectualness is prominent in Richard Hooker.25 As a parish priest, Richard Hooker (1554–1600) would have used the Prayer Book in the 1559 edition – a combination or compromise between Cranmer’s two Prayer Books (the words of administration of the sacrament from the two books, each suggesting a different theological emphasis, are combined). Hooker sets out in the Fifth Book of his Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (EP) an understanding of the Eucharist that is assured, restrained, profoundly devotional and not signed up to any party. First Hooker deplores rash speculation about the holy mysteries and throwing around theological arguments. He urges his quarrelsome contemporaries to ‘meditate with silence what we have by the sacrament, and less to dispute of the manner how’.26 Theological restraint and a practical rather than a speculative approach to the holy mysteries have continued to be typical of Anglicanism. Second, Hooker insists that the sacraments ‘really give what they promise, and are what they signify’, because the work of the Holy Spirit, which is ‘the necessary inward cause’ of grace, is by divine institution inseparably connected to ‘the necessary outward means’, the sacrament itself. The sacraments are, therefore, Hooker affirms, ‘means effectual whereby God when we take the sacraments delivereth into our hands that grace available unto eternal life, which grace the sacraments represent or signify’.27 Clearly in Hooker’s case, speculative restraint is no barrier to positive affirmation of revealed truth. Third, in addressing the question of the manner of Christ’s presence in the sacrament, Hooker rejects both the Roman and the Lutheran attempts to posit a corporal presence of Christ in the elements, transubstantiation and consubstantiation respectively. This concern, not the advocating of naked receptionism, is the meaning of Hooker’s assertion that ‘The real presence of Christ’s most blessed body and blood is not therefore to be sought for in the sacrament [i.e. elements], but in the worthy receiver of the sacrament’ (V, lxvii, 6). He articulates instead a position that is close to the Augustinian symbolic realism of the English Reformers: ‘this hallowed food, through concurrence of divine power, is in verity and truth, unto faithful receivers, instrumentally a cause of that mystical participation . . . that is to them and in them’ Christ’s body (V, lxii, 12). The true mystical participation, conjunction and union that is between Christ and the Christian – this is Hooker’s great theme and his characteristic language – begins in baptism and is strengthened in the Eucharist. This mystical fellowship with Christ is the birthright and the calling of every Christian according to Anglicanism. The price that the Reformers paid for the recovery of the neglected

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vital aspect of eucharistic theology, communio, was the partial eclipse of the sacrificial dimension of the eucharistic action.28 I deliberately say ‘partial eclipse’ because the sense of eucharistic sacrifice is not entirely absent from the Reformers. To put it another way, it is present in a muted and attenuated form. It is present, even in that minimal way, simply because it is inseparable and inextricable from the Eucharist: you cannot have the Eucharist if you evacuate it of sacrificial ideas. On any reckoning, whether theological or anthropological, the eucharistic event belongs within the thought-world of sacrifice.29 Cranmer makes a firm distinction between propiatory and eucharistic sacrifice. The first is confined to Christ’s death on the cross and can never be repeated. However, Christ’s death is not locked in the past; it is a living reality before the face of God: ‘by that sufficient offering, made only at that time he is a daily intercessor for us to his Father for ever’.30 The second is made by Christians in all their acts of praise, but particularly in the Holy Communion. ‘Another kind of sacrifice there is which doth not reconcile us to God, but is made of them that be reconciled by Christ, to testify our duties unto God, and to show ourselves thankful unto him. And therefore they be called sacrifices of laud, praise, and thanksgiving.’31 All the works that Christian people perform to the glory of God comprise the sacrifices of the Church, ‘smelling sweetly before God’.32 But this great sacrifice of obedience and charity comes to a focused expression in the Lord’s Supper when Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice is commemorated: let us with all devotion, with whole heart and mind, and with all obedience to God’s will, come unto the heavenly supper of Christ, thanking him only for propitiation of our sins. In which holy communion the act of the minister and others be all of one sort, none propitiatory, but all of lauds and thanksgiving.33 The integration of Calvary and the Eucharist is brought out in this extended quotation: The priest should declare the death and passion of Christ, and all the people should look upon the cross in the mount of Calvary, and see Christ there hanging, and the blood flowing out of his side into their wounds to heal all their sores; and the priest and people all together should laud and thank instantly the chirurgeon [surgeon] and physician of their souls. And this is the priest’s and people’s sacrifice, not to be propitiators for sin, but . . . to worship continually in mystery that which was but once offered for the price of sin.’34 The BCP 1662 rite of Holy Communion retains the elements of oblation to God and offering of oneself in union with Christ’s once-for-all offering

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of himself, albeit in a form that is firmly subordinate to the reception of communion. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York pointed this out forcefully in their riposte (Saepius Officio) to the papal bull Apostolicae Curae of 1896 which condemned Anglican orders and therefore Anglican celebrations of the Eucharist as ‘absolutely null and utterly void’. ‘We truly teach the doctrine of Eucharistic sacrifice’, the Archbishops asserted. We continue a perpetual memory of the precious death of Christ, who is our advocate with the Father and the propitiation for our sins, according to his precept, until his coming again. For first we offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving; then next we plead and represent before the Father the sacrifice of the Cross, and by it we confidently entreat remission of sins and all other benefits of the Lord’s Passion for all the whole Church; and lastly we offer the sacrifice of ourselves to the Creator of all things which we have already signified by the oblation of his creatures.35 ‘This whole action’, the Archbishops concluded, ‘in which the people has necessarily to take its part with the Priest, we are accustomed to call the Eucharistic sacrifice.’36 It is a mistake to assume that the Reformers and the 1662 rite lack the dimension of eucharistic sacrifice. What they do lack, however, is any overt and explicit presenting or setting forth or pleading of the sacrifice of Calvary before the Father’s throne of grace, such as we find in modern liturgies and many eucharistic hymns (one of the best known being William Bright’s ‘And now, O Father, mindful of the love’, with its lines beginning, ‘Look, Father, look on his anointed face . . .’). Hooker’s patron Bishop John Jewel said of the sacrificial aspect of the Eucharist that the sacrifice once offered on the Cross ‘is revived, and freshly laid out before our eyes, in the ministration of the holy mysteries’, and that in this sense, ‘we offer up Christ, that is to say, an example, a commemoration, a remembrance’. But the ‘unbloody sacrifice’ in the Eucharist is properly a sacrifice of prayer, praise and thanksgiving.37 Although it is perhaps not as prominent and as explicit as one might wish, the eucharistic sacrifice is retained by the Anglican Reformers and is present in the BCP rite. Of course, Cranmer’s personal views are not and never have been the doctrine of the Church of England. But the earliest Anglican eucharistic theology, as we find it in Cranmer and Hooker, though far from perfect, is sufficient – ‘good enough’. The later Anglican divines, who forged the classical Anglican theology of the Eucharist, did not start from scratch in developing a more adequate theology, but built on reliable foundations. The modern Anglican liturgies stand in continuity with this whole process. They

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are patently both catholic and evangelical – in continuity with the Reformation’s concerns, but in touch too with broader patristic and ecumenical sources.

The Eucharist in recent Anglican discussion We have established, I trust, that the Church of England’s foundational eucharistic texts speak of a real and true presence of Christ in the Eucharist, of a genuine union and communion of the Christian with Christ in the sacrament and of a real communication of Christ’s body and blood to the receiver; and moreover, that vestiges of a notion of eucharistic sacrifice can be identified in the classic rite: we now turn to a contemporary restatement of the Church of England’s eucharistic doctrine. The bishops of the Church of England have restated some aspects of Anglican eucharistic doctrine in The Eucharist: Sacrament of Unity (ESU).38 This was prompted (I could say provoked) by a statement of the Roman Catholic Bishops’ conferences of Britain and Ireland One Bread One Body (OBOB).39 In issuing One Bread, One Body in 1998 the Roman Catholic Bishops’ conferences of England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland – with model ecumenical courtesy – invited responses from ecumenical partners. As well as providing an attractive exposition of the theology of the Eucharist in the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, the document reiterates that church’s restrictive rules for sharing Holy Communion with nonRoman Catholics. In essence, the Anglican bishops agreed with the theology of OBOB, but objected to some of the assumptions made about Anglicanism and strongly disagreed with the implications of the theology for eucharistic discipline. They did not dissent from the theology, but they disputed the consequences drawn from it. The Anglican bishops find little to disagree with in the actual eucharistic theology of OBOB. Point by point, they affirm this theology. They set out the teaching of the Church of England, standing within the worldwide Anglican Communion, on the Eucharist, drawing on the official teaching and liturgies of the Church of England, especially the Book of Common Prayer (1662) and the new rites of Common Worship, and the ecumenical agreements that have received formal approval. Neither the doctrine of the real presence nor the doctrine of the eucharistic sacrifice are at issue here. Anglicans do not believe that they hold an essentially different eucharistic doctrine to that held by Roman Catholics. Provided Anglicans are allowed to express these doctrines in ways that suit their tradition, its language and concepts, remarkable ecumenical convergence can be discerned. The House of Bishops particularly

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endorses five major affirmations of the eucharistic theology set out in OBOB. 1. The sacramental identification of the Eucharist with the one full and sufficient sacrifice of Christ (OBOB 30). An identification that is effected sacramentally makes the essential connection between the Eucharist and the death of Christ, while completely precluding any suggestion of a repetition of Calvary. This sacramental identification is strongly affirmed in the BCP: ‘who made there (by his one oblation of himself once offered) a full perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world; and did institute, and in his holy Gospel command us to continue, a perpetual memory of that his precious death . . .’. It is equally affirmed in recent Anglican liturgies and in the received work of ARCIC, which speaks of us being drawn into the movement of his self-offering. 2. The teaching that in the Eucharist Christians are united sacramentally through the Holy Spirit with Christ’s perfect self-offering or sacrifice to the Father (OBOB 34). Clearly when in the Eucharist we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice in thankful response to the sacrifice of Christ for us, we do this not in our own strength or merits, for (as the BCP says) we are unworthy to offer any sacrifice to God. We are enabled to do this solely because he unites us with himself in his perfect offering to the Father – an offering or oblation that consecrated his whole life and ministry to the Father’s saving purpose and culminated in the Cross. Our self-offering is held within his. We have nothing to offer outside of his perfect and sufficient sacrifice. Both his sacrifice and our response receive sacramental expression in the Eucharist. This theme is strongly present in both the BCP (cf. first post-communion prayer: ‘. . . mercifully to accept this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving . . . and here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee . . . through Jesus Christ our Lord . . .’) and in modern Anglican liturgies, as well as in the pioneering work of ARCIC. 3. The understanding of a sacrament as an ‘instrumental sign’, in the context of faith, of divine grace (OBOB 16). Clearly the language of sign and symbol is inevitable with reference to the sacraments, but it should be taken as having a qualified realist intention, not in a reductionist sense. The Reformers intended no less. The sacraments effect what they signify, and are means of grace, provided that the grace that is offered is not rejected. Anglican formularies (as we have seen), while stressing the vital role of faith, are clear about the effect of the sacraments, by virtue of the promises of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. 4. The affirmation that in the Eucharist there is a true, real and personal communion of the Christian with Christ (OBOB 50). This is, of course, the sine qua non of eucharistic theology and is a truth that probably

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all historic traditions of the Church affirm. Without any shadow of doubt, the Anglican formularies and liturgical texts, as well as Anglican writers, ancient and modern, affirm a real union, communion and participation in Christ, in his body and blood. The Prayer of Humble Access of the BCP, for example, employs the Johannine image of indwelling, but far from ‘spiritualizing’ this and making it ethereal, it refers in strongly physical language to the sanctifying of our bodies as well as of our souls. Hooker, as we have already noted, typically uses the language of incorporation, participation, indwelling, ‘mystical conjunction’ and mystical nuptial union. 5. The sense that in the Eucharist Christians are in communion with the saints and the faithful departed (OBOB, 36). This awareness of a communion that is much wider than the present generation and spans this world and the next is indeed essential to an understanding of the Eucharist. It is also fundamental to Anglican eucharistic theology. Although the BCP does not provide for the invocation of the saints, and its doctrine of sanctorum communio is attenuated by comparison with some other liturgies, the truth of the communion of saints is nevertheless firmly present. The Prayer for the Church Militant blesses God ‘for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear’ and prays for ‘grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom’. The Sanctus is prefaced with the words: ‘Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious name . . .’ And the collect for All Saints Day addresses ‘God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son . . .’ In a series of statements spanning more than a century – from the response that the Archbishops of Canterbury and York made to Apostolicae Curae, to the approved ARCIC reports on ministry and Eucharist, to the recent statement on the Eucharist as the sacrament of unity – Anglican authorities have attempted to give ‘doctrinal assurances’ to the Roman Catholic Church. In the past few years, the House of Bishops of the Church of England has also published Apostolicity and Succession, May They All Be One (their response to Ut Unum Sint) and Bishops in Communion.40 Anglicans are bound to wonder whether their considered statements are taken seriously by Rome. The House of Bishops challenges two major assumptions about Anglicanism made in OBOB by their Roman Catholic counterparts. The bishops’ comments cast further light on the Anglican understanding of the Church as a communion (koinonia). 1. We do not recognize, the Church of England’s bishops say, the description of the Anglican churches as one of those ‘Christian communities rooted in the Reformation’ (OBOB 41, 117). Though the Church of England was significantly shaped by the Reformation, it traces its origins

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back to the beginnings of Christianity in England and affirms its continuity with the Church of the Apostles and Fathers. The churches of the Anglican Communion belong to the one holy catholic and apostolic Church of Christ, reformed at the Reformation (though not, of course, only then). It is not particularly characteristic of Anglicanism to proclaim its credentials or to make comparisons with other churches. The Church of England simply states that it ‘belongs to the true and apostolic Church of Christ’ (canon A 1) and that it is ‘part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’ (canon C 15: Preface to the Declaration of Assent). 2. A further major stumbling-block, according to the Church of England’s House of Bishops, is the view, adopted in OBOB, of the deficiency (‘lack of validity’) of Anglican orders and consequently of Anglican Eucharists (OBOB 41). We are, say the bishops, fully aware of the precedents for this stance in Apostolicae Curae, in the teaching of Vatican II and, most recently, in the official commentary on Ad tuendam fidem. In the Porvoo Common Statement, the British and Irish Anglican churches and Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches have reached agreement on a richer understanding of the apostolicity of the Church’s ordained ministry, thanks to the groundbreaking work of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry and the Anglican–Lutheran Niagara Report.41 Anglicans remain unconvinced by the arguments of Apostolicae Curae and by the deduction made in the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church that Anglican Eucharists lack the fullness of the means of salvation which are claimed for the Roman Catholic Church (OBOB, 41) because they have ‘not retained’ (in a sense that is not fully specified here or in Vatican II) ‘the authentic and full reality of the eucharistic mystery’ (OBOB 91).42 While warmly endorsing the eucharistic theology of OBOB, the Church of England bishops take issue with the Roman Catholic Church’s rules for eucharistic sharing that appear to be applied more rigorously as a result of One Bread One Body. The rules entail that Anglicans (and nonRoman Catholic Christians of other traditions, of course) may not receive Holy Communion at a Eucharist celebrated in a Roman Catholic church, except in ‘exceptional or unique’ circumstances. Moreover, there are no circumstances whatsoever in which the Roman Catholic faithful may receive Holy Communion from Anglican clergy. In their Foreword to ESU, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York described this discipline as ‘hurtful and unhelpful’. In the body of the report, the bishops say: It is scarcely surprising that, given their repudiation of the Roman Catholic rejection of the validity of Anglican orders, they should find the ban on Roman Catholics receiving Communion at Anglican Eucharists, even in the most exceptional circumstances, an ecumenical,

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‘An ecumenical, theological and pastoral affront’: why these strong words? It is not that Anglicans think that communion should be unconditional; the Anglican bishops do not advocate promiscuous, unconditional communicating between Christians. Anglicans do not practise what the Free Churches sometimes call ‘an open table’, nor do they invite ‘all who love the Lord’ to come and share the Lord’s Supper. The bishops actually endorse in principle the conditions that One Bread One Body lays down for receiving the sacrament – first, manifesting Catholic faith and, second, being in communion with the Catholic Church – but they endorse these principles with an element of interpretation, concerned with a broader understanding of catholicity than the one that is operative in OBOB. With regard to the condition of manifesting catholic faith, the Anglican bishops question the appropriateness of strict doctrinal tests for lay people regarding eucharistic doctrine. They point to the tacit ways in which the faithful give their assent to the faith of the Church concerning the Eucharist through the fact of their active participation in the liturgy. The bishops ask: is not this enough? With regard to the condition of catholic communion, the bishops affirm the connection between sacramental and ecclesial communion, pointing out that, in the Anglican understanding, the Eucharist brings us into communion with the Holy Trinity and with ‘all who stand before you in heaven and earth’, all local churches and their bishops, together with the faithful departed. Again they ask: is not this enough? The bishops make a case for eucharistic sharing before full ecclesial communion is achieved: . . . we do not believe that eucharistic communion should be reserved for the end point of unity already achieved between separated churches. The unity in the Body of Christ brought about by baptism, calls for further expression or realisation in the Eucharist before this ultimate point is reached. The Eucharist is one of God’s greatest gifts to the Church and is given to build up the Body of Christ. We endorse the ecumenical insight that ‘the Eucharist makes the Church’. We must confess that we find it difficult to understand the logic that is current in official Roman Catholic teaching about the Eucharist – that, because the Eucharist is a prime source of the unity of the Church and a means of building it up, eucharistic communion

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must be reserved for full ecclesial communion, visibly and structurally expressed.44 The Church of England, like other Anglican churches, invites baptized communicants of other Christian, trinitarian churches, who are in good standing with their own churches, to receive Holy Communion at Anglican Eucharists. In this matter, however, Anglicans should not attempt to claim any moral high-ground. It was only in the late 1960s and early 1970s that Anglicans themselves arrived at their present policy. Ironically, this policy development reflected the deep ecumenical understanding of koinonia, and its grounding in baptism, that was given such impetus by the Second Vatican Council. In other words, it was a subtle shift in ecclesiology that made possible a more hospitable policy on admission to communion. Subsequent discussion, through the English Anglican–Roman Catholic Committee (ARC), has homed in on the differences in ecclesiology between the Anglican churches and the Roman Catholic Church. Roman Catholic colleagues on English ARC have suggested that the fundamental difference between Anglicans and Roman Catholics – one that underlies ESU as a whole – is the understanding of the nature of the Church. The Roman Catholic teaching, they explain, is that the one Church is already visibly realized in one community, in all its essentials, and in that sense is complete. Although it is complete, it is not perfect, but is marked by personal and institutional sin and the internal divisions that are the consequence of sin. It is also wounded and impoverished by the fact that many baptized Christians are separated from it. It is further suggested by Roman Catholics on English ARC that the ecclesiology of Anglicanism and of other traditions that have been ‘shaped by the Reformation’ is rather different in that, for them, the one Church of Christ does not subsist completely in any one community. Rather it ‘subsists’ authentically in several different traditions all belonging with equal claim to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ. In principle, all of them may be recognized as true churches. The response concludes by suggesting that, for churches in these traditions, ecumenism is a common search for a visible unity that as yet does not exist anywhere. This Roman Catholic challenge invites several comments from an Anglican point of view. First let us note the Anglican understanding of the Church set out in ESU: For Anglicans, the Catholic Church consists of all those local churches throughout the world who share the Catholic faith (understood as expressed in the ecumenical creeds) and the Catholic sacraments (understood as primarily the dominical sacraments of baptism and

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The Identity of Anglicanism the Eucharist), served by the apostolic ministry of oversight. For Anglicans, the Catholic Church is the Body of Christ constituted by word and sacrament as they are duly and properly ministered in every place and throughout history. This is the sense in which the BCP uses the expressions ‘Catholic Church’ (in the prayer ‘For all Conditions of men’) or ‘universal Church’ (in the Prayer for the Church Militant). The Church is said to be ‘the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people’ (BCP second post-communion prayer) and is said to be made up of ‘all who profess and call themselves Christians’ (BCP prayer ‘For all Conditions of men’). Anglicans have consistently recognised all those who have been baptised with water in the name of the Holy Trinity as members of the Catholic Church (significantly in the 1920 Lambeth Conference’s ‘Appeal to all Christian People’ for the unity of the Church).45

We could make the following points, arising from this statement, about the Anglican understanding of the Church: 1. The one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ is both an empirical reality in the world and an object of faith, affirmed in the Creed. As such it transcends its empirical manifestation, while being concretely expressed in it. 2. The one Church is not to be identified, exclusively and without remainder, with any one Christian community in the world, not Anglican, not Roman Catholic, but includes various ‘churches’. 3. The Church of England and other Anglican churches believe that they are ‘part of’ or ‘belong to’ the one Church and that they stand in visible continuity with the Church of the Apostles and Fathers. 4. As far as Anglicans are concerned, the Roman Catholic Church also ‘belongs to’ and is part of the one Church – a very large part of it. The same is true of the Eastern churches. It is also possible for Anglicans to affirm the same of certain Protestant churches on the basis of carefully worked through agreements on faith and order (the Meissen Agreement with the Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, the Fetter Lane Agreement with the Moravians, the Reuilly Agreement with the French Lutheran and Reformed Churches and the Anglican–Methodist Covenant for England). 5. A ‘true church’ is defined in the Reformation tradition as a church where salvation is available to be received through the God-given means of grace. It is primarily identified by the marks of the true preaching of the word and the right administration of the sacraments. There is also broad ecumenical consensus that an apostolic ministry of oversight (episkope) is also necessary for the continuity and unity of the Church. However, a true church is certainly not a perfect church, one with no shortcomings.

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6. Communion with a universal primate is not a necessary mark of a true church for Anglicans. Nevertheless, as the House of Bishops’ reply to Ut Unum Sint, May They All Be One, puts it: we have no difficulty in accepting the need for all churches to be in visible communion with each other, nor with the ancient understanding that the Church of Rome and the Bishop of Rome have a particular responsibility for expressing and safeguarding the unity of the Church . . . Anglicans are thus by no means opposed to the principle and practice of a personal ministry at the world level in the service of unity.46 This Anglican approach to ecclesiology is not relativistic. It does not imply that all parts of the Church are of equal ecclesial validity in the sense of conforming equally closely to the apostolic pattern of faith and order. To be specific, Anglicans generally insist that the threefold ministry in historic succession is necessary for the ultimate full visible unity of the Christian Church, though it is not necessary in order for Anglicans to acknowledge the ecclesial authenticity of other particular churches.47 It would not be correct, therefore, to suggest that, as far as Anglicans are concerned, visible unity does not at present exist and remains entirely a future goal. The unity of the universal visible Church exists to the extent that a number of conditions are fulfilled between two or more churches: confessing in common the apostolic faith; recognizing the validity of each other’s baptisms; sharing in one Eucharist on the basis of an agreed theology and a common ministry; and forms of conciliarity – mutual consultation and mutual accountability in oversight. The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, notably in Vatican II and in Ut Unum Sint seems to recognize that communion is a graduated reality and may exist in a partial and imperfect form. As ESU points out (p. 12), Anglicans also operate with a graduated understanding of koinonia: communion may be shared to a greater or lesser degree; there are steps and stages towards fuller communion. This resonates with the point made earlier in this article about the progressive appropriation of salvation through the means of grace, particularly the sacraments. It seems to follow that if there are degrees of church communion there should also be degrees of sharing in the Eucharist. If the Eucharist makes the Church, as Henri de Lubac notably has taught us, it also makes the unity of the Church. Eucharistic sharing should, therefore, be allowed to play its part, to an appropriate extent, in the growing communion between churches that are not yet in full ecclesial communion.48

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Eucharistic ecclesiology in Anglicanism? After these rather extensive preliminaries, let us turn to the question of whether Anglicanism is an instantiation of, or is at least hospitable to, ‘eucharistic ecclesiology’. When we think of ‘eucharistic ecclesiology’, we think mainly of Nikolai Afanasieff and John Zizioulas in Orthodoxy and of Henri de Lubac and the early Joseph Ratzinger in the Roman Catholic Church.49 The doctrine of the mystical body of Christ is common to the Eastern and Western patristic traditions and is our shared inheritance. There are also scholars in other traditions who seem to have an affinity to eucharistic ecclesiology, though this has to be adapted, in some cases, to a non-episcopal polity, for example Geoffrey Wainwright from the British Methodist Church. But what about Anglicans? Some twentieth-century Anglican theologians were moving along the same lines as these Orthodox and Roman Catholic scholars: they were on a trajectory that pointed towards a full eucharistic ecclesiology. Charles Gore (bishop successively of Worcester, Birmingham and Oxford; d. 1932) was steeped in the Eastern as well as the Western Fathers: he had read his way through the lot. Gore’s writings, taken together, on the Incarnation, the Eucharist and the Church (The Incarnation of the Son of God, 1891; The Body of Christ, 1901; The Holy Spirit and the Church, 1924)50 cumulatively amount to something close to eucharistic ecclesiology. The Church is the extension or continuation of the Incarnation. The order of the Church reflects its nature as a divine–human mystery. The episcopate is divinely ordained and necessary for the validity of the Church’s ministry and sacraments.51 In his work on the theology of the Eucharist, more than a century ago, Gore expressed his aspiration to expound a catholic doctrine of the sacrament: the main object of this book is to set the specifically Anglican teaching of our formularies on a larger background, by going back behind the Reformation and the middle age upon the ancient catholic teaching and upon the Bible. I seek to elaborate the eucharistic doctrine in what I think is the truest and completest form. I have to admit that Anglican standards are in certain respects defective and even misleading when taken by themselves . . . But after all the Anglican Church does not claim to stand by itself. It refers back behind itself to the ancient and catholic church. Thus I am most thankful to believe that it admits a great deal which it does not, in its present formularies, explicitly teach.52 Michael Ramsey (Bishop of Durham, Archbishop of York, Archbishop

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of Canterbury) owed an immense debt to Gore, whom he revered, but Ramsey benefited from the rediscovery of the Reformation and drew out its catholicity of intention in The Gospel and the Catholic Church (1936) which forged a creative synthesis of biblical and patristic theology, liturgical studies and Reformation insights. He promoted an Anglican reformed catholicism in continuity with both the Oxford Movement and the Reformers. Ramsey was not a eucharistic totalist and was, for example, critical of the parish communion movement for narrowing the Church’s appeal to the people. Eucharistic ecclesiology is not fully developed in Ramsey, but the foundations are there.53 Lionel Thornton of the Community of the Resurrection, Mirfield, the author of The Common Life in the Body of Christ (1942),54 was a pioneer of the theology of koinonia, mainly in terms of biblical theology. The fullness of Christ is received in the Church, his body. Thornton develops a realist doctrine of the mystical body: ‘We are members of that body that was nailed to the Cross, laid in the tomb and raised to life on the third day’ (p. 298). It is that body that we are united with in baptism and receive in Holy Communion. In Confirmation: Its Place in the Baptismal Mystery, Thornton developed a high view of the sacramental ministry of the bishop in Christian initiation.55 There are adherents of eucharistic ecclesiology in the Church of England today (Rowan Williams, John Hind) and, no doubt, in other provinces of the Communion. Speaking more personally, in conclusion, I have to say that I feel a strong theological affinity with Zizioulas’s approach. Being as Communion helped to inspire my early essay in koinonia theology, Christians in Communion.56 The beautifully symmetrical theology of Eucharist, Bishop, Church is meat and drink to me and has helped to shape my recent study of conciliar ecclesiology in historical perspective.57 I regard eucharistic ecclesiology as one of the most creative developments in Christian theology in the last half-century. However, in appropriating the insights of eucharistic ecclesiology, I find myself wanting to modify it in certain, mainly complementary, ways. My own way of appropriating eucharistic ecclesiology, in an Anglican context, would attempt to adjust its balance in two ways. First, I would seek to balance the Eucharist with baptism, setting the two dominical sacraments side by side as twin controlling sacramental foci of the Church. The significance of the truth that the Eucharist presupposes baptism and that baptism contains a theological dynamic and momentum that leads to the Eucharist needs to be developed. It is generally reckoned to be underdeveloped in Orthodoxy. In official Roman Catholic theology the momentum of our common baptism is not followed through; its implications are not fully brought out and allowed to shape ecumenical policy to

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the extent that they could be. Baptism is immersion into the body of Christ, in union with his death and resurrection, and it is a eucharistic body. The logic of the whole process, the cursus, of Christian initiation should inform and shape our ecclesiology (as I suggest in the next chapter). So I would advocate a eucharistic ecclesiology in which baptism, within the complete process of Christian initiation, has a more prominent role. Second, I would want to balance the sacraments with the proclaimed word. I would emphasize that the Word of God, the proclamation of the biblical revelation, is integral to the sacraments. The Eucharist proclaims the Lord’s death until he comes (1 Corinthians 11.26). It is the word that gives the sacraments their ‘form’ and makes them more than anthropological rituals, in truth constituting them as as sacraments of the gospel. So I would have a more kerygmatic eucharistic ecclesiology. Finally, I would want to give the whole approach more of a missiological thrust in terms of evangelization. The eucharistically constituted Church should be outward-looking and oriented towards mission. I would see baptism and the Eucharist both as instruments of mission, as they set forth God’s redemptive action in Christ, and as goals of mission, because evangelization must necessarily be geared towards, and lead to, initiation into Christ, into the Church as the body of Christ. Here I believe that I would be in tune with the teachings of Vatican II and Paul VI’s Evangelii nuntiandi (1975), and I would be giving eucharistic ecclesiology more of a cutting edge.58

Notes 1. Some material in this chapter appeared in the Bulletin of the Centro Pro Unione, Autumn 2006, and is also used in U. von Arx, P. Avis and M. Ploeger (eds), Towards Further Convergence: Anglican and Old Catholic Ecclesiologies (papers of the Anglican–Old Catholic Theologians’ Conference, Leeds, 29 August–2 September 2005, supplement to Internationalen Kirchlichen Zeitschrift, 96 (2006): 28–45). 2. H. de Lubac, Meditation sur l’église, 3rd edn (Paris: Aubier, 1954), pp. 123ff. 3. For an introduction to Old Catholic eucharistic ecclesiology see M. Ploeger, ‘Catholicity, Apostolicity, the Trinity and the Eucharist in Old Catholic Ecclesiology’, in von Arx, Avis and Ploeger (eds), Towards Further Convergence. 4. For the last of these terms see J. Cosin, The Works of the Rt Reverend Father in God John Cosin, Lord Bishop of Durham, (ed.) J. Sanson, 5 vols (Oxford: Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, 1843–55), Vol. 4, p. 167. The dynamics of usage of these and similar terms in the early seventeenth century are explored with a wealth of reference in A. Milton, Catholic and Reformed: The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant Thought, 1600–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).

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5. See further P. Avis, Anglicanism and the Christian Church, 2nd edn (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2002). 6. T.B. Macaulay, History of England (London: J.M. Dent, Everyman, 1906), Vol. 1, p. 47. 7. See, e.g., J. Calvin, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, ed. D.W and T.F. Torrance, trans. J.W. Fraser (Edinburgh: The Saint Andrew Press, 1960), pp. 203–5, 244–8. 8. See R. Rex, The Theology of John Fisher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), Ch. 8. 9. See further P. Avis, Ecumenical Theology and the Elusiveness of Doctrine (London: SPCK; Cambridge, MA: Cowley Press [Truth Beyond Words], 1986), pp. 116–25. 10. ARCIC, The Final Report (London: Catholic Truth Society/SPCK, 1982). 11. See D. Stone, The History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (2 vols, London: Longmans, 1909), Vol. 2; C.W. Dugmore, Eucharistic Doctrine in England from Hooker to Waterland: Being the Norrisian prize essay in the University of Cambridge for the year 1940 (London: SPCK, 1942); K. Stevenson, Covenant of Grace Renewed: A Vision of the Eucharist in the Seventeenth Century (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1994). Texts in P.E. More and F.L. Cross (eds), Anglicanism: The Thought and Practice of the Church of England, Illustrated from the Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century (London: SPCK, 1935), pp. 457–510; G. Rowell, K. Stevenson, R. Williams (eds), Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), passim. 12. 2nd edn (London: Dacre Press, 1945). 13. C.W. Dugmore, The Mass and the English Reformers (London: Macmillan, 1958). Dugmore’s thesis was contested by T.M. Parker in a major review in the Journal of Theological Studies, new series, 12 (1961): 132–46. Parker’s sympathies appear to have been with Dix. 14. For an introduction to the issues in Augustine’s sign theory of language see R.A. Markus, Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996), especially the seminal article, reprinted as Ch. 3: ‘Augustine on Signs’. For an exposition of critical and symbolic realism in language and literature see P. Avis, God and the Creative Imagination: Metaphor, Symbol and Myth in Religion and Theology (London: Routledge, 1999). 15. G. Bromiley, Thomas Cranmer: Theologian (London: Lutterworth Press, 1956), p. 76: ‘The stress on reception obviously carries with it a danger of subjectivisation which Cranmer does not wholly escape.’ 16. See also Stone, History, Vol. 2, pp. 125–47; C.C. Richardson, Zwingli and Cranmer on the Eucharist (Evanston, IL: Seabury Western Theological Seminary, 1949); P.N. Brooks, Thomas Cranmer’s Doctrine of the Eucharist (2nd edn, London: Macmillan, 1992). The major texts are in T. Cranmer, Works, Vol. 1 (Parker Society [PS], Cambridge University Press, 1844). The continuous text of the Defense of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament

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17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

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The Identity of Anglicanism of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ (1550) is found in H. Jenkyns (ed.), Remains of Thomas Cranmer (Oxford: The University Press, 1833), pp. 275–463. Cited by D. MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 616; cf. pp. 180ff., 392f., 614f. Cranmer, PS, 1, p. 47: ‘although Christ in his human nature, substantially, corporally, naturally, and sensibly, be present with his Father in heaven, yet sacramentally and spiritually he is here present’. Cranmer, PS, 1, pp. 3 (1541 Preface to An Answer), 11, 75–8. In baptism and Holy Communion we receive ‘Christ himself, whole body and soul, manhood and Godhead, unto everlasting life’, ibid., p. 25. Ibid., pp. 6, 66 and passim. ‘Christ’s flesh and blood be in the sacramentally not carnally and corporally’ (p. 87). Ibid., p. 88. For Martyr see J.C. McLelland, The Visible Words of God (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1957). Cranmer comes close to this in PS, 1, pp. 235–6 (cf. p. 336): ‘spiritually in heart ascend up and feed upon him where he sitteth in his high throne of glory with his Father’ (citing St John Chrysostom): Brooks, Thomas Cranmer’s Doctrine of the Eucharist, p. 102. Though ‘Zwingian’, notoriously, was Dix’s verdict: see The Shape of the Liturgy, esp. p. 656. However, there is some force in Dix’s claim. Richardson demonstrates verbal correspondences between Cranmer and Zwingli, concluding that Cranmer’s eucharistic thought ‘moved within the basic framework of Zwingli’s opinions’ (Zwingli and Cranmer, p. 48). Bromiley comments: ‘He does not give sufficient concretion to the sacramental representation. It tends to become a mental or emotional recollection evoked by the sacramental symbols’, Cranmer, p. 88. Hooker feared that Zwingli’s (and Oecolampadius’s) influence would ‘bring it to pass that men should account of this sacrament but only as of a shadow, destitute, empty and void of Christ’. In R. Hooker, Works, ed. W. Speed Hill, et al., 6 vols (London: Folger Library Edition, 1977–98), Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (EP) V, lxvii, 2: Keble (ed.), 2, p. 349. (Note references to EP are by book, chapter and section.) Articles XXV, XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX. EP V, lxvii, 5, 12: Keble, ed., 2, p. 352, 359. For the ecclesiology of Hooker and a galaxy of Church of England scholar-bishops see P. Avis, Anglicanism and the Christian Church, 2nd edn (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2002). EP, V, lxvii, 3. EP V, lx, 1; V, lvii, 5. Y. Brilioth, Eucharistic Faith and Practice Evangelical and Catholic (London: SPCK, 1930); F. Clark, Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation (London: Newman Press and Darton, Longman & Todd, 1960); G. Aulén, Eucharist and Sacrifice (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1958), Part 2; W.R. Crockett, Eucharist: Symbol of Transformation (New York: Pueblo, 1989); C. Cocksworth, Evangelical Eucharistic Thought in the Church of England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

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29. Cf. S.W. Sykes (ed.), Sacrifice and Redemption: Durham Essays in Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 30. Cranmer, PS, 1, p. 88. 31. Ibid., p. 346. 32. Ibid., p. 88. Cranmer’s distinction between propitiatory and eucharistic sacrifice follows closely Melanchthon in The Apology of the Augsbury Confession, Art. XXIV, ‘The Mass’; see T.G. Tappert, Evangelical (ed.), The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelic Lutheran Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959), pp. 252–8. 33. Ibid., p. 362. 34. Ibid., p. 359. 35. C. Hill and E. Yarnold (eds), Anglican Orders: The Documents in the Debate (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1997), pp. 292–3. 36. Ibid., p. 293. 37. J. Jewel, Works, Parker Society, edn, 1, p. 167; 2, pp. 729, 734f. 38. The Eucharist: Sacrament of Unity (London: Church House, 2001), cited by kind permission of the publishers. 39. One Bread One Body (London: Catholic Truth Society; Dublin: Veritas Press, 1998). 40. Apostolicity and Succession (London: Church House, 1994); May They All Be One: A Response of the House of Bishops of the Church of England to Ut Unum Sint (London: Church House, 1997); Bishops in Communion: Collegiality in the Service of the Koinonia of the Church (London: Church House, 2000). 41. Commitment to Mission and Ministry: The Porvoo Common Statement, etc. (London: Church House, 1992); Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1982); The Niagara Report of the Anglican– Lutheran Consultation on Episcope 1987 (London: Church House, 1988). 42. Second Vatican Council, LG, para. 22. 43. Foreword to ESU, 34. 44. Ibid. 45. ESU, p. 39. 46. May They All Be One (London: Church House, 1997), pp. 48, 44. 47. For a recent example of this approach see An Anglican–Methodist Covenant: Report of the Formal Conversations between the Methodist Church of Great Britain and the Church of England (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing House; London: Church House, 2002). 48. H. de Lubac, Méditation sur l’Église, 3rd edn (Paris: Aubier, 1954), pp. 123ff.; Catholicism (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1949), p. 35: ‘As the sacraments are the means of salvation, they should be understood as instruments of unity.’ 49. See P. McPartlan, The Eucharist Makes the Church: Henri de Lubac and John Zizioulas in Dialogue (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1993; new edn., Fairfax, VA: Eastern Christian Publications, 2006). 50. The Incarnation of the Son of God (London: John Murray, 1891); The Body of

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51.

52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

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The Identity of Anglicanism Christ (London: John Murray, 1901); The Holy Spirit and the Church (London: John Murray, 1924). I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Charles Gore; it was published in an abbreviated form as Gore: Construction and Conflict (Worthing: Churchman Publishing, 1988). See also, especially for these aspects of Gore’s thought, James Carpenter, Gore: A Study in Liberal Catholic Thought (London: Faith Press, 1960). Charles Gore, The Body of Christ (London: John Murray, 1901), p. vii. A.M. Ramsey, The Gospel and the Catholic Church (London: Longmans, 1936). 3rd edn (London: Dacre Press, 1950). London: Dacre Press, 1954. London: Geoffrey Chapman/Mowbrays, 1990. Beyond the Reformation? Authority, Primacy and Unity in the Conciliar Tradition (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2006). See further P. Avis, A Ministry Shaped by Mission (London: T&T Clark, 2005).

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VI

Anglicanism and Baptismal Ecclesiology Anglican ecclesiology as baptismal ecclesiology?

I

n baptism we are born anew into Christ and begin the life of grace within the Church. Baptism is the foundation of Christian initiation for the individual believer. But baptism cannot be the foundation of the Christian life for the individual unless it is also, in some sense, the foundation of the Church itself, the source of its life. The Church is given birth by the sacrament of baptism, because that sacrament is what unites the Church to the baptism of Christ, which symbolizes the paschal mystery of cross and resurrection. So it must be right to apply to baptism what (as we have seen in the previous chapter) de Lubac and Zizioulas have said about the Eucharist. If ‘the Eucharist makes the Church’, so does baptism. ‘Baptism makes the Church.’ It would be a seriously defective ecclesiology that was not baptismal as well as eucharistic. The Second Vatican Council comes close to this idea when it says: ‘When in the womb of the baptismal font [the Holy Spirit] begets to a new life those who believe in Christ, He gathers them into the one People of God which is “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people” (1 Pet. 2.9).’1 But the Vatican Council also takes us deeper, into the origins of the Church in the paschal mystery. When the body of Jesus on the cross was pierced with a Roman soldier’s spear, blood and water flowed forth. The Fourth Evangelist draws special attention to this and vouches for its truth (Jn 19.34–35).2 However, as Lindars says, the interpretation of this passage is ‘one of the most intractable problems of the whole Gospel’.3 Whatever else the stream flowing from Christ’s side signifies (including

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perhaps allusions to the river of life flowing from the Temple of God in Ezekiel 47.1–12 and Revelation 22.1–2), it almost certainly points to baptism, the sacrament of rebirth from above, by water and the Spirit, that Jesus had explained to Nicodemus in John 3. John also represents Jesus, standing in the midst of the Temple, as saying: ‘as the scripture has said, “Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” Now this he said about the Spirit . . .’ (Jn 7.37–39). Believing that John intends us to see this saying as pointing forward to 19.34, I take the subject as Jesus himself, not the believer. The evidence allows us to do this, and on balance I think that it requires it, but this interpretation goes against the trend of most English translations.4 It is in the light of this baptismal imagery that we should understand the insight of St Augustine, paraphrased by the Second Vatican Council: ‘For it was from the side of Christ as He slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth the wondrous sacrament which is the whole Church.’5 The Church as sacrament is born from baptism as sacrament. But the blood that also flowed from Christ’s side undoubtedly points to the Eucharist and the need for the believer sacramentally to ‘drink his blood’ (John 6.52–56). The early Fathers see a parallel between the fashioning of Eve out of Adam’s side and the birth of the Church from the wounded side of the Crucified. Augustine says that by taking a rib from the side of the sleeping man, ‘the Creator must have intended . . . a prophecy of Christ and his Church’. Adam’s sleep stood for Christ’s death. We recognize the blood and water, says Augustine, as ‘the sacraments by which the Church is built up’.6 The Prayer of Humble Access in the Book of Common Prayer (1662) joins the themes of water and blood, baptism and Eucharist, body and spirit: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us. In the sacrament of baptism, stemming from the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, the event that prefigured and in fact initiated the trajectory of his suffering, death and resurrection, the Church itself – collectively and corporately – is born. And, if baptism is foundational to the Church as a reality, surely it must be foundational to the theological discipline that studies and expounds the nature of the Church: ecclesiology. As a matter of fact Anglican ecclesiology has been warmly receptive to an understanding of the Church in which baptism is given a pivotal place. While Anglican theologians have stressed, with the Reformers generally, that the Church has no authority to add to the biblical conditions of salvation, they have acknowledged, precisely on biblical grounds, that baptism is

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normally necessary to salvation. A succession of Anglican thinkers, including F.D. Maurice in England and William Reed Huntington in the USA, has insisted that what unites to Christ is all that is necessary to unite us, sacramentally, to each other. It is on this basis that Anglicans, while insisting that a ministry constituted in the historic episcopate was necessary for full visible communion, nevertheless have consistently refused to deny the reality of non-episcopal ministries and sacraments. The boldest Anglican unity initiative, the Lambeth Appeal to All Christian People of 1920, from which many journeys towards unity have flowed, was explicitly addressed to all the baptized faithful throughout the world. It was on the same basis that the Lambeth Conference of 1968 encouraged provinces to welcome to Holy Communion baptized communicants of other churches. Anglican ecclesiology would find it intolerable to recognize the baptisms of non-Anglican Christians while not recognizing the implications of this for eucharistic fellowship. Baptism and the Eucharist cannot be held apart and cannot be played off one against the other; baptism is into the eucharistic community, which is first of all a baptismal community. There is indeed a sense in which the Anglican doctrine of the Church comprises a baptismal ecclesiology.7

Baptism in Anglican doctrine Anglicanism is a tradition of the Church that aspires to be both catholic and reformed. While no Anglican would dispute the fact that Anglican identity has been permanently shaped by the Reformation, interpreters of Anglicanism also stress the many elements of continuity with the pre-Reformation Western Church and the gradual recovery of catholic emphases between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. One of these more catholic emphases was on the incarnational character of the Church: its grounding in history, in time and space. Some theologians went as far as to describe the Church – a visible society continuing through the centuries – as the extension of the Incarnation. A corollary of this emphasis was a view of the sacraments of the Church as a means of participation in the divine life, made present in the Church. This development, which is sometimes seen as a corrective to the Reformation, was actually a recovery of what the Reformers and those who immediately succeeded them believed and taught about the sacraments. Thomas Cranmer and other English Reformers, influenced particularly by Luther and Bucer, had reshaped the late medieval baptismal liturgy to emphasize the forgiveness of sins, union with Christ and incorporation into the Christian community. Baptism became a public rite of a covenantal nature, pledging the infant to Christ and to the Church.8

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The Identity of Anglicanism The main official sources for the Anglican doctrine of baptism are: •

• • •

The services ‘Public Baptism of Infants’, ‘The Ministration of Private Baptism of Children in Houses’ and ‘The Ministration of Baptism to such as are of riper years, and able to answer for themselves’ in the Book of Common Prayer (1662). The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (especially Articles XXV– XXVII). The current liturgies of the churches of the Anglican Communion (the Church of England’s contemporary liturgy is contained in Common Worship). The relevant canons (for the Church of England B 21–28).

In Anglican doctrine there are three formal conditions for a valid baptism: 1. that water be applied to a previously unbaptized candidate (baptism is therefore unrepeatable); 2. that the trinitarian formula, ‘In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’, be used as this is taking place; 3. that the minister performs the sacrament with the intention of doing what the Church does, that is to say conforming his or her own understanding, which may be deficient or defective, to that of the Church in its teaching office. In the light of the official sources mentioned above we can attempt to summarize the Anglican doctrine regarding baptism in the following concise theses: 1. Baptism is, as the Thirty-nine Articles insist, an ‘effectual’ means of grace and has an ‘instrumental’ relation to the action of the Holy Spirit. The Anglican doctrine of baptism is philosophically realist (the sacrament is not a human theatrical gesture but truly effects what it signifies). 2. Baptism is the sacrament of rebirth or regeneration by the Holy Spirit through which the gift of the Spirit is received.9 3. Baptism is appropriately administered to infants within the visible Church and to adults on repentance and profession of faith. 4. Baptism is performed by an ordained minister (bishop, priest or deacon, in that order of preference), but may be administered by a lay person in an emergency. 5. Baptism is administered by dipping, pouring or total immersion. 6. Baptism is the foundation sacrament of Christian initiation, which also includes catechesis, liturgical profession of faith and the confirmation of the Holy Spirit with the laying-on of hands by

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7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13.

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the bishop, participation in the Eucharist and reception of Holy Communion. (This point is elaborated below.) Baptism is celebrated in the context of faith: that of the candidate in the case of those who are of age; always that of the celebrating community and of the sponsors or godparents. Baptism is the sacrament of membership of the body of Christ (though not into any particular denomination) and is therefore both ontological and relational. Baptism, as the foundational act of Christian initiation (which is consummated in the Eucharist) is an essential precondition for receiving Holy Communion. Baptism is accompanied by signing with the cross on the forehead to identify the candidate with the death and resurrection of Christ. Baptism requires a human response of faith and committed discipleship and can be appropriated and entered into throughout one’s life. ‘Baptism represents the totality of the Christian life, and we live our way into it assisted by all the available means of grace.’10 Baptism is theologically eschatological: that is to say, its meaning and effect are only partially realized in this life, and will be perfectly fulfilled in heaven. Modern Anglicanism follows the ecumenical consensus in seeing baptism as the necessary but not sufficient condition for Christian ministry, because all ministry is Christ’s ministry in and through his body, the Church.11 Together with the Trinitarian faith that is confessed in baptism and is integral to it, baptism is the foundation of Christian unity: as the Second Vatican Council put it, baptism constitutes a sacramental bond of unity between all who have been reborn through it.12

Baptism and confirmation The Western Christian tradition has seen Christian initiation as a process that begins with baptism, proceeds through confirmation, and is completed in Holy Communion (participation in the Eucharist and first communion). Initiation as a process is the doctrine reflected in the liturgies and teaching of the Roman Catholic Church and is instantiated in the rites of the Church of England, from the Book of Common Prayer to Common Worship. The recent notion that ‘baptism is complete Christian initiation’ – having no need of confirmation or even of first communion to complete initiation – finds

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no support in the doctrine or rites of the Western Church, in either its Roman or its Anglican expressions. However, what this unofficial deviation helpfully points to is the importance of baptism as the foundational sacrament, one that can never be repeated and does not need to be completed. But it pays an unnecessarily high price for this truth. It has to regard confirmation as a non-sacramental act and struggles to find a role for it. It has to hold that one can be completely initiated into the body of Christ short of participating in the Eucharist, which is a bizarre idea.13 If we hold, with the official teaching of the Western Church, that baptism can be complete as baptism, while not complete initiation into the life of grace in the Church, we help to make sense of confirmation. Notwithstanding, confirmation continues to perplex the churches. However, amid much uncertainty and hesitation within the churches about the meaning of confirmation, certain truths can be affirmed from an Anglican perspective: • •

•

•

•

•

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Confirmation takes its place within the process of Christian initiation and therefore presupposes both baptism and instruction in the faith (catechesis). Confirmation is a means of grace: the Holy Spirit is at work, strengthening the candidate to withstand temptation, to follow Christ more ardently, to serve him in the Church and to witness boldly in the world. Confirmation appropriately includes public affirmation of our baptism and renewal of the baptism promises, but it is primarily an act of the Holy Spirit, when a gift or gifts are received, not a human act of witness Confirmation is, however, not necessary for salvation, as baptism normally is – but there are many valuable and necessary gifts (such as knowledge of the Bible, liturgical worship, good pastoral care) that are not strictly necessary for salvation: that does not devalue them. Confirmation is grounded in the example of the Apostles, especially in the Acts (‘after the example of thy holy Apostles’: Book of Common Prayer (1662) confirmation service); the fact that the narratives do not offer a unified and consistent picture of apostolic practice does not negate the importance of this precedent. Confirmation is not closely connected to church membership, in either an ecclesiological or a denominational sense: membership of the Church, the body of Christ, is given in baptism; and it would distort confirmation to identify it with denominational membership, for those churches for whom that notion is important (the Church of England does not have that concept, being interested

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simply in maximizing participation and fostering committed discipleship). Confirmation is appropriately a precondition of receiving Holy Communion – not in an absolute sense, for canonically it is enough to be ‘desirous’ of being confirmed; however, the communion of children who are not yet confirmed can be accommodated within the overall process of initiation, though it puts some strain on the logic of the process.

The significance of initiation for ecclesiology If, as I proposed at the beginning of this chapter, we should see baptism as the source or foundation of the Church, and if baptism belongs within a total process of Christian initiation, it would seem to make sense for our ecclesiology to reflect not only the theological import of baptism, but that of the whole cursus or sequence of initiation. And so it does: 1. (Corresponding to the action and drama of baptism) The Church is the body of Christ that has died and risen again. In him all have died that all might live to God (2 Cor. 5.14–15). Michael Ramsey commented: ‘To say this is to describe the Church of God.’14 2. (Corresponding to the instruction that forms an essential component of initiation) The Church is a teaching church, instilling in those who belong to it the truths of the faith (didache) through catechesis, preaching, meditation, theological reflection and other forms and media. It ‘continues in the Apostles’ doctrine’ (Acts 2.42). 3. (Corresponding to the public, liturgical confession of faith that is a vital ingredient of initiation) The Church is a confessing Church, giving public testimony to its faith in Christ and upholding his sovereignty and lordship in the world by working for his kingdom in every form of discipleship and ministry. 4. (Corresponding to the strengthening of the Spirit in confirmation) The Church is a Spirit-endued and Spirit-empowered church. It is the Church of Pentecost as well as of Calvary. Its existence reflects not only its identity with Jesus of Nazareth when he descended into the waters of baptism at the Jordan, but also with the Christ on whom the Spirit fell when he came up from the waters. 5. The Church is a church gathered in the Eucharist, where its true nature as the body of Christ, its unity and its mission are most clearly seen. But that is only possible because as a body it has first died and risen with Christ, so that in the Eucharist it is not celebrating something external to its own life: ‘The fact of Christ includes the fact of the Church’ (Ramsey).15

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A baptismal ecclesiology is needed alongside a eucharistic ecclesiology because baptism and the Eucharist are the two foundational and generative moments in the Church’s life. They should not be played off, one against another, in ecclesiology, as though they were alternative approaches, but they need to be brought together in an ecclesiology that reflects and embodies the unified totality of Christian initiation that begins in baptism and is completed in the Eucharist. The Church that the discipline of ecclesiology describes, critiques and defends will reflect the various facets of Christian initiation. But it will reflect them not as a contrived construction imposed on the materials but fundamentally because that is what the Church is and because ecclesiology can only honour the Church’s God-given nature and seek, albeit hesitantly and inadequately, to expound and reflect it.

Notes 1. Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church (Ad Gentes 15): W.M. Abbott (ed.), The Documents of Vatican II (London and Dublin: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), pp. 601–2. 2. 1 John 5.6,8 is clearly related to this text, but (as Barrett comments), unfortunately does little to explain it: C.K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John (London: SPCK, 1955), p. 462. 3. B. Lindars, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, New Century Bible Commentary; London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1972), p. 298. 4. E.C. Hoskyns (ed. F.N. Davey), The Fourth Gospel, 2nd edn (London: Faber & Faber, 1947) has a useful discussion: pp. 320–24. We do not have to reject one interpretation and embrace the other: there is scriptural support for both; we simply have to decide which is the primary and which the secondary reference here. Lindars argues that it is a mistake to see the fulfilment of 7.37–39 in the flow of blood and water: it is fulfilled in 20.22, Jesus breathing the Spirit on the disciples. But, once again, surely we do not have to choose between the two references (Lindars, Gospel of John, p. 587). 5. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: Sacrosanctum concilium, 5: Abbott (ed.), Documents, p. 140. 6. Augustine, City of God, trans. H. Bettenson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972), p. 1057 (XXII, 17). There are summaries of patristic interpretations in B.F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St John (London: John Murray, 1903 [1881]), pp. 284–6, and Hoskyns, Fourth Gospel, pp. 534–5. 7. See further on this theme P. Avis, Anglicanism and the Christian Church: Theological Resources in Historical Perspective, rev. edn (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2002), pp. 348–54; S. Sykes, ‘Foundations of an Anglican Ecclesiology’, Unashamed Anglicanism (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1995), Ch. 7. 8. G.W. Bromiley, Baptism and the Anglican Reformers (London: Lutterworth

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9. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

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Press, 1953); J.W. Riggs, Baptism in the Reformed Tradition (Louisville, KT, and London: John Knox Press, 2002). R. Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Book V, lvi–lxvi. G.W.H. Lampe, The Seal of the Spirit (London: Longmans, 1951). Sykes, ‘Foundations’, p. 134. P. Avis, A Ministry Shaped by Mission (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2005). Unitatis Redintegratio, 22. See also M. Root and R. Saarinen, Baptism and the Unity of the Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1998); D. Heller, ‘Baptism – the Basis of Church Unity? The Question of Baptism in Faith and Order’, Ecumenical Review, 50.4 (1998): 480–90; W. Kasper, ‘Ecclesiological and Ecumenical Implications of Baptism’, Ecumenical Review, 52 (2000): 526–41; Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches, Eighth Report (Geneva: WCC, 2005), pp. 45–72: ‘Ecclesiological and Ecumenical Implications of a Common Baptism: A JWG Study’; C. Davey, ‘The Ecclesial Significance of Baptism According to Anglican Ecumenical Documents’, One in Christ, 28.2 (1992): 131–42. See further P. Avis, ‘Is Baptism Complete Sacramental Initiation?’, Theology, forthcoming. A.M. Ramsey, The Gospel and the Catholic Church (London: Longmans, Green, 1936), p. 27; see the whole passage. Ibid., p. 34.

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or many people in the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion at the beginning of the twenty-first century it is as natural as the sky is blue that women should be deacons, priests and bishops. For such people, it is axiomatic that women should enjoy equality of ministry in the Church with men. Though a considerable number of Anglicans have taken some time to adjust to this idea, since it first became a topic of general debate several decades ago, the experience of seeing women deacons and priests going about their ministry in the parish or cathedral or in chaplaincy contexts has defused the issue for them and now they cannot imagine what all the fuss was about. They cannot imagine a church without women clergy. We might be forgiven for wondering, however, how many Anglicans would be able to give a reasoned theological defence of this major change in the way that their Church orders its ministry. We might suspect that the familiar (but actually threadbare) Anglican approach of benevolent pragmatism, rather than theological principle, is primarily responsible for the widespread acceptance of women’s priestly ministry. But benevolent pragmatism, if that is indeed the prevailing attitude, is not nearly enough to justify women deacons, priests and bishops. The majority, who have no problem with the ordination of women, remain aware that there is a substantial minority of Anglicans who are deeply upset about this development. They are, I trust, naturally predisposed to regard those in the minority as Christians of sincerity and goodwill, but they may not be at all sure why these people should find the ordination of women misguided and damaging. They may be tempted, therefore, to dismiss this opposition as based on irrational feelings – prejudice, misogyny and blind conservatism – and consider it unworthy of a considered response. I believe that we

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should resist that temptation. I am convinced that we should take reasoned objections to women’s priesthood at their strongest and that we should continue to make out a convincing case, grounded in theological principles, for the ordination of women by the churches of the Anglican Communion. In fact I would argue that one entirely appropriate avenue of approach to this question – that grounded in the imperative of continual reform in the Church – reveals something central about the identity of Anglicanism.

Making the case This approach seems to me to be all the more necessary because, in my view, the Church of England for one by no means did all that it could to facilitate a theologically informed and balanced discussion leading up to the decision. While that Church took plenty of time formally to consider the issues (about 18 years on the narrowest interpretation) and conducted the debate through all the appropriate synodical channels at every level of the Church’s conciliar life, from parochial church councils to the General Synod, it made insufficient effort, in my view, to provide the theological and educational resources to enable its members to arrive at an informed, reflective and balanced decision. The House of Bishops published several reports, the last of these being a useful compendium of arguments for and against.2 But the Doctrine Commission was not put to work on any doctrinal implications; the Faith and Order Advisory Group was not consulted about the ecclesiological and ecumenical aspects; and the General Synod did not take the opportunity to set up a commission of all the talents that could have examined the theological, ecumenical and pastoral arguments for and against in a definitive way in the light of preparatory work done by these specialist bodies. When the legislation was finally put by the House of Bishops to General Synod in November 1992 it was not done in a manner calculated to allay the misgivings of conservatives. The least that was required was a substantial presentation marked by a sensitive awareness of the objections and a basic theological seriousness that none could gainsay, even if they remained unconvinced.3 In the case of the ordination of women to the episcopate, on the other hand, substantial theological resources were provided in the form of the ‘Rochester Report’, Women Bishops in the Church of England?, the report of a working party of the House of Bishops,4 but even here the process of follow-through has been half-hearted, though at the time of writing there is still much to play for.

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Ongoing dialogue The lack of a full and rigorous discussion of the theological issues, on the part of the Church of England officially, at the time of the decision to admit women to the presbyterate, reinforces the need for a continued period of ‘open reception’, discernment and dialogue, as provided for in the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993, with its arrangements for extended episcopal care for those opposed in conscience. Some Anglicans, especially women priests, are worried by the term ‘open reception’. They are dismayed at the implication that we cannot be sure whether it is right for the Church to ordain women to the priesthood. However, I believe that some degree of provisionality – not about the orders of individual women deacons or priests, but about the rightness of the synodical decision that made this possible – is inevitable when we consider this step in a broader ecumenical perspective. The fact that the two largest and most ancient communions that hold to the threefold order in historical succession, as do the Church of England and all the churches of the Anglican Communion, do not accept that women can be priests must give pause for thought. Objectively considered, this division in the mind of Christendom must concern all catholic-minded Anglicans. That does not mean that I am not personally fully convinced that the Church of England and other provinces of the Communion have done the right thing. It simple means that churches should consider one another in their theological reflection and the decisions and actions that follow from that and be willing to learn from one another: they should seek to do their theology in the face of the Church catholic and not in isolation. The reception of the Reformation took 400 years, and at the end of that time many of Luther’s most crucial reforms (though by no means all) were accepted in the Roman Catholic Church at Vatican II. Anglican theology is not comfortable with the notion of logical certainty. Sufficient moral certainty to guide our steps is held out to us, as the best we can expect, by a string of Anglican thinkers from Richard Hooker, through Locke, Butler, Keble and Gladstone. Joseph Butler classically taught in the eighteenth century that ‘probability is the guide of life’ and that ‘doubt is ever our portion in this life’. We cannot be objectively sure of many things in the Christian faith – not even that the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospels were actually spoken by him or that the terms employed by the early ecumenical councils and embodied in the creeds to define his deity and humanity were the best ones. The truth cannot be discerned all at once in any area of faith. It takes time and prayer and faithfulness and dialogue. I am personally convinced that through a process

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of discernment the truth that women are called to be priests will grow brighter and stronger. But that is obviously not how a good many thoughtful people, who remain opposed, see it. So during this period of reception, outstanding questions remain to be resolved, the continuing reservations and objections of the minority remain to be weighed and answered, and the anxieties of some remain to be allayed, if possible. Some veteran campaigners for women’s ordination believe that the time for dialogue with the opposition has passed and that to go on talking will achieve little. My own experience of engaging over a good many years with thoughtful opponents of women’s ordination convinces me that continued dialogue is essential. It can clarify what is and what is not intended in one another’s positions, correct misunderstandings, introduce individuals to arguments that they may not have considered and give reassurance, especially to laity and young clergy. A new generation of laity, ordinands and clergy requires and deserves to have the issues explored afresh.

The main objections There seem to be four main theological objections to the ordination of women by the Anglican churches: 1. The argument from the authority of tradition: tradition on this fundamental matter of holy order confines the priesthood to males and this tradition cannot be changed. 2. The argument from the limitations of authority in a divided Christian Church: only the whole Church has the authority to act in a fundamental matter; therefore, when Anglican churches ordain women as priests or bishops they exceed their authority. 3. The ecumenical damage argument: such unilateral action is damaging to ecumenical relations with those churches that share with Anglicans an episcopal polity but oppose women’s priesthood (the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches). 4. The argument from the supposed liberal agenda of proponents of the ordination of omen: women priests are the thin end of the feminist wedge which will undermine orthodox faith and order. These are the arguments that carry weight with catholic-minded Anglicans. But there is also the argument from the patriarchal interpretation of ‘headship’, which is favoured by some conservative evangelicals. The ‘headship’ argument connects with the presupposition found in traditional Catholic theology (in St Thomas Aquinas, for example) that women are unfitted by nature to bear authority. For most reflecting Christians, that

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argument proves too much as it carries unacceptable consequences for the authority of women in the state and in civil society at large. It is not discussed further here since it really belongs within a milieu rather different from that of catholic Anglicanism.5 I find each of these objections worthy of serious consideration. As a longstanding active supporter of women’s priesthood, I do not find them conclusive, but I believe that they need to be fully addressed. I am not one of those who believe that the question of the ordination of women priests by the Church of England is ‘an open and shut case’, even though that does not lead me to have any doubts about the real priestly ministry of ordained women. So let us look briefly at each of these objections in turn before we consider the implications, for our Church and its ministry, of the fact that the Church of England, like some other provinces of the Anglican Communion, has – like it or not – ordained women priests and has set out on a path that will eventually lead to women bishops too.

1. The argument from unchanging tradition There is a virtually unwavering tradition of the Church that women cannot be admitted to holy orders, for the priesthood is confined to males. I am not personally particularly impressed by fragments of evidence from the patristic or early medieval periods that may suggest the existence of some women clergy then. Even if substantiated, such cases would simply remain the exceptions that proved the rule. For some who remain unconvinced about the ordination of women, this tradition of male-only clergy is so impressive in its antiquity and unanimity that it outweighs changes in the social position of women, considerations of rights and justice and the question of women’s complementary gifts. They regard all these as pragmatic arguments that cannot counter the decisive authority of tradition. This is the official Roman Catholic position, expressed in the statement of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Inter Insigniores in 1976. The Vatican acknowledged that it was dealing with an issue that classical theology had hardly touched upon, but nevertheless claimed that ‘the Catholic Church has never felt that priestly or episcopal ordination can be validly conferred on women’.6 The CDF’s verdict that ‘the Church, in fidelity to the example of the Lord, does not consider herself authorized to admit women to priestly ordination’ was based therefore not on explicit teaching in the past, but on the witness of the Church’s practice which, it claimed, has a ‘normative character’. There is, the CDF stated, an ‘unbroken tradition throughout the history of the Church Universal in the East and in the West’.7

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Other, subsidiary, arguments are deployed in Inter Insigniores – particularly the claim that, just as there is a ‘natural resemblance’ between the element of bread and the body of Christ and the element of wine and the blood of Christ, so too there must be a ‘natural resemblance’ between Christ and the minister of the Eucharist, and that Christ’s maleness as the man Jesus of Nazareth, even in his glorified state in heaven, rather than the human nature that he assumed in the Incarnation, is what counts as natural resemblance. But these tactics seem to have been played down in more recent statements. They are, of course, highly contestable and would not exclude women deacons, who do not, of course, preside at the Eucharist. These arguments seem to give theological hostages to fortune. The fundamental – and comparatively invulnerable – argument of Inter Insigniores, the one derived from the witness of unvarying tradition, has been reiterated in subsequent papal statements where it is linked to the notion of the divine constitution of the Church – a blueprint laid down by Jesus Christ when he called twelve men and constituted them an apostolic college with Peter at their head – a familiar theme of Roman Catholic ecclesiology, given conciliar definition most recently in Lumen Gentium of Vatican II. In a letter to all Roman Catholic bishops on 13 May 1994, Pope John Paul II stated: ‘I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgement is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.’ As is well known, with these words the Pope formally put an end to all debate on this issue within the Roman obedience. The Pope’s judgement was intended to be received with unquestioning loyalty as an irreformable (i.e. practically infallible) teaching of the Church. It is interesting to observe this moratorium on discussion being somewhat eroded in practice under Pope Benedict XVI. We do not tend to find ‘traditionalist’ Anglicans coming out with these arguments from the authority of tradition. The argument from the apostolic constitution of the Church, laid down by Jesus Christ, as understood by Rome, proves too much for Anglicans, as it entails buying the papacy with its claim to universal rule over the Church (universal ordinary and immediate jurisdiction), since the ministry of Peter is seen as the linchpin of the apostolic college. Indeed, many Anglicans are open to the idea that there were sociocultural reasons why Jesus chose only men as his apostles and would not be convinced by the Vatican’s argument in Inter Insigniores that non-theological factors should be excluded on the grounds that in other respects Jesus and Paul challenged social conventions. Furthermore, many Anglicans, I suspect, would not be swayed in principle by an argument based solely on the authority of tradition. Tradition alone is not decisive in Anglican theological method. Anglicans would be wary of appearing to absolutize tradition. In Anglicanism, tradition is

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subject to Scripture and interpreted by reason. Without a central magisterium, beyond which there is no appeal, to decide what strands of the bewilderingly diverse Christian traditions are definitive and binding, tradition presents more questions than answers. As Hans Küng brought out in his discussion of papal infallibility, the Roman Catholic Church’s ban on all artificial methods of birth control in Humanae Vitae (1968) also rests on the authority of unanimous tradition, and Anglicans do not generally accept that conclusion.8 There is in fact a close parallel between the Vatican’s arguments against women priests and those against artificial methods of birth control. As Henry McAdoo, former Archbishop of Dublin and one of our greatest authorities on the Anglican theological tradition, pointed out, tradition is not only the Church remembering, but also the Church interpreting. In his discussion of the ordination of women in relation to tradition, McAdoo draws on the celebrated Anglican divines of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – John Jewel and Richard Hooker, William Laud and Henry Hammond, Richard Stillingfleet and William Wake, among others – to show that, for Anglicans, tradition has weight, but not finality; that it guides our interpretation of Scripture, but is itself subject to Scripture; that it is not self-authenticating but requires evaluation. Above all, McAdoo insists that tradition should not be absolutized. Conservative traditionalism is as dangerous as fundamentalist biblicism or arrogant rationalism. Both Scripture and tradition demand a hermeneutic, a method of interpretation. McAdoo argues that right interpretation is achieved through the ‘authenticating interplay’ that can be set up between the historical revelation given once for all supremely in Jesus Christ and reflected in Scripture, on the one hand, and the life of the Church in its mission carried out in diverse situations. So change is inevitable but continuity is essential. There are, then, specific limits to the authority of tradition in Anglicanism which make any appeal to the authority of unanimous tradition tout court inappropriate. In any case, the Vatican’s insistence that unanimous tradition cannot be altered should be taken with a polite pinch of salt. The Roman Catholic Church does not really believe that major changes to tradition are impossible. After all, it was Rome that put the filioque (the phrase ‘and from the Son’) in the Creed with disastrous ecumenical consequences – finally alienating the Eastern churches who hold to the original form of that creed – and imposed the requirement of clerical celibacy. Perhaps that is another reason why the Roman line seems to have shifted slightly of late, from the authority of tradition as such to the narrower argument from tradition, the apostolic constitution of the Church by Jesus Christ. Finally, Anglicans in general cannot make any sense of the idea that

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any theological question could be foreclosed by Church authorities, in the way that Pope John Paul II attempted to stifle discussion of the ordination of women. Anglicans cannot accept that any issue is ‘off-limits’ for discussion. Anglicans prize their freedom of enquiry and debate in which radical and dissenting voices can gain a hearing. They will not want to silence the lone prophetic voice, for fear of quenching the Spirit.

2. The argument that only the whole Church has the authority to act The argument from the limitations of authority in a divided church is perhaps the most common reservation expressed by catholic-minded Anglicans who are not necessarily opposed to women priests under all circumstances: that is to say, they are not impossibilists. They argue that the threefold order in historical succession belongs to the heritage of the whole Church, therefore no single part of the Church has the authority to alter it. (This differs from the official Roman Catholic position that the Church simply has no authority to change the exclusive tradition of male priests.) First let us readily admit that it would have been vastly preferable for the Church of England to have ordained women with the support of an ecumenical consensus. The claim that a radical departure from universal tradition demands universal agreement has a certain initial plausibility. But the notion of ecumenical consensus – so attractive in theory – is deeply problematic in practice. I would claim that the step taken by Anglican churches in ordaining women has the degree of ecumenical consent that can be reasonably expected in a divided church. I invite consideration of the following points. The Roman Catholic Church has made it clear that it does not regard itself as ‘authorized’ to make this change to tradition. If Rome has insisted that there are no circumstances in which it could be right to ordain women priests (intentionally or not, the Pope did not say deacons), the appeal to an ecumenical consensus is not just an argument for delay, but a somewhat disingenuous argument for delay sine die. Though in recent times there have been some women deacons in the Orthodox churches, and this is now being encouraged in some parts of Orthodoxy, and moreover, there have been some Orthodox of the diaspora, such as the late Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) who have been in favour of women priests, the Orthodox have generally been as hostile as the Roman Catholic Church towards the decisions by Anglican churches to ordain women. Within Orthodoxy patriarchy prevails and there still linger oppressive traditions about the ‘uncleanness’ of menstruating women who may be present at the celebration of the Eucharist. Belief in the immutable nature of tradition is at the very core of Orthodox ecclesial identity. It is difficult to

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foresee circumstances in which it would become possible for the Orthodox to welcome women priests.9 In relation to the Orthodox too, Anglican appeals to the emergence of an ecumenical consensus smacks of special pleading. In a divided Christian Church there is at present no machinery in existence for the churches even to consult together on fundamental questions of faith and order, let alone to take decisions or to act together. Sometimes it is wistfully suggested that an ecumenical council could adjudicate on this issue, but that is just a dream. An ecumenical council presupposes unity in faith and in oversight: it is an expression of ecclesial communion (koinonia) and presupposes all-round eucharistic communion. There can certainly be expressions of conciliarity – of discernment, consultation and decision-making – between separated churches, provided that they recognize each other as churches of Christ. Sadly, even that modest condition does not pertain between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches on the one hand and the Anglican Communion of churches on the other. While the churches remain tragically divided they must perforce act ‘unilaterally’. What that pejorative term means in practice is that each particular church must act responsibly, in accordance with its conscience, and through its structures of conciliarity and decision-making, in fulfilment of its mission. Churches have always acted unilaterally and they still do, rightly or wrongly. The Roman Catholic Church has acted unilaterally in recent times in all of its dogmatic formulations, from papal infallibility and the Marian dogmas to Humanae Vitae on ‘artificial’ methods of birth control, and recent pronouncements on sexual ethics. What is sauce for the goose is surely sauce for the gander. There is a final irony in Anglicans condemning any ‘unilateral’ action per se. In the sixteenth century, the English Church acted on its sole authority (though broadly in concert with the continental Reformers) in bringing in a reform of belief, worship and Christian life within its borders. It did this in defiance of the popes, who for centuries had frustrated the reform of the Church for which Europe had been crying out. Reform was judged to be imperative if the consciences of Christian people were not to be further harmed. The position today over women deacons, priests and bishops is, I believe, closely analogous. It is the conscience of the Church (or at least of a substantial majority within the Church) that has compelled a similar unilateral action. I see the ordination of women as a reform of the ministry that is comparable to the reforms that were carried out in the sixteenth century. The churches that were shaped by the Reformation insisted that a particular Church has the authority to reform itself without tarrying for Rome, when vital matters of principle were at stake. That is the very raison d’être of Anglicanism. It is implied in the logic of the Reformation itself. At

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that time the structure of the ministry was modified in the light of a deeper understanding of what was and what was not required by the gospel, by Scripture and by primitive tradition. The jurisdiction of the Pope was removed; clergy were permitted to marry; the minor orders were abolished. Just as the sixteenth-century English church acted in accord with the continental Lutheran and Reformed churches, so the Church of England today has acted in accord with many sister churches of the Anglican Communion. The precedent of the Reformation does not, of course, justify the particular decision regarding women priests, which has to be assessed on its merits, but it does, I think, establish the principle that unilateral action is sometimes justified. It certainly shows that Anglicans cannot condemn unilateral action as such without condemning their own standing ground as Anglicans. What scope do churches have for making changes in their outward order? The Thirty-nine Articles recognize that particular churches have authority in rites and ceremonies and in controversies of faith in matters that have been ordained by human authority (Articles XX and XXXIV). McAdoo argued that Richard Hooker, the prime architect of Anglican ecclesiology, recognized the authority of particular churches to make changes in the received order of the Church, if the circumstances had changed, since for Hooker the universal Church subsists only in particular churches so that when a particular church acts, that is the Church acting – the only way it can act.10 McAdoo’s interpretation is not uncontested, and it seems to me that we cannot be certain of the correct interpretation of Hooker at this point. However, it seems highly probable that he believed with the mainstream Reformers, both continental and English, that particular or national churches had the authority and the duty to reform themselves and order their affairs according to their lights and that this power included changes in the sphere of order, though not of doctrine. It is sometimes claimed that the ordination of women is a doctrinal matter and that Anglicans have made a new doctrine by saying that women can be priests and bishops (for reasons that largely elude me, deacons are not seen by most opponents of women priests as doctrinally significant). I do not believe that the ordination of women, in itself, is a doctrinal matter. Whatever some may say, it seems that there is no received doctrinal position, conveyed to us by tradition, that maleness is intrinsically necessary to the ordained priesthood. There is no credal or conciliar issue at stake here. Doctrinal change is not involved in the action of a church that has decided to remove the bar to women being ordained. No Christian church claims the authority to articulate new doctrines. The Church of England would not have proceeded in this matter if it had believed that it was innovating in doctrine. But the interpretation and application of doctrine to practice is

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going on all the time. As the Preface to the Church of England’s Declaration of Assent points out, the historic faith must be interpreted afresh in each generation. It is that process of interpretation and application that is involved here. It is not a question of faith, but of order, and even then it is not a challenge to the received principles of holy order. Churches that have the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons in historical succession do not believe that they have the right to tamper with that. Anglicanism is committed to the historic threefold ministry and certainly does not wish to undermine it. The ordination of women is not a fundamental change in the received ordering of the Christian ministry, but simply a reform of practice in the sphere of order. The historic threefold ministry is surely capacious enough to incorporate women who have passed through the same process of calling, testing, training and commissioning as men. Even the Roman Catholic Church clearly believes that the Church can and should, when necessary, reform the structure of its ministry. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) abolished some minor orders, just as the Reformers did. It also revised its teaching about the episcopate and its collegiate structure, making the bishop the paradigm of ordained ministry and its full embodiment, and developing a theology of the diocese as the local church.11 Similarly, the Eastern churches have become more open in recent years to the possibility of admitting (or possibly readmitting) women to the diaconate. There is nothing controversial about particular churches or communions of churches making changes in the structure of their ministry. Church order is not fossilized.

3. The argument from ecumenical relations What we might call ‘the ecumenical damage argument’ is a subdivision of the ‘only the whole Church can decide’ approach. After nearly a century of the ecumenical movement, in which separated churches have grown in mutual respect, understanding and affection, and have made considerable progress in overcoming doctrinal differences through ecumenical dialogue, is it responsible to jeopardize this achievement? Why put the roadblock of the ordination of women in the path of further convergence? Why create this gratuitous affront to Rome and the Orthodox? This is a pragmatic response, but certainly not to be despised for that. This argument has weight since both Rome and the Orthodox have made it clear that the ordination of women by the Church of England has created a fresh obstacle to further convergence (as the exchange of letters between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope on this point makes abundantly clear).12 Without in any way discounting the strong convictions in play here, Anglicans might point out that this stance is not completely

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logical. Even allowing for the fact that actions taken by the Church of England may have a particular impact, it remains the case that dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church (through the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission [ARCIC]), and with the Orthodox churches (in the Anglican–Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Commission), is not conducted by the Church of England alone, but by the whole Anglican Communion which already had women priests and even women bishops before 1992. It is interesting that in 2006, just as the Church of England was proceeding to make it possible for women to be bishops and the Episcopal Church had elected the first woman primate of the Anglican Communion, the third phase of ARCIC was agreed between the Anglican Communion and the Vatican and a major agreed statement of the Anglican–Orthodox dialogue was approved for publication. The ecumenical damage argument also, in my view, is lacking in realism. It betrays the familiar Anglican rose-tinted view of the Roman and Eastern traditions. There is an inveterate tendency among some Anglicans to imagine that the grass is greener on the other side of the ecumenical divide. The unpalatable truth is, however, that neither of these great communions even properly recognizes the Church of England as a Christian church, with authentic ministries and sacraments. The Roman Catholic and Eastern churches are not being prevented from embracing the churches of the Anglican Communion as sister churches by their ordination of women as priests and bishops. Rome holds that Anglicanism lacks the fullness of the means of salvation. It believes that the Eucharist celebrated by the Anglican clergy is defective. It is not about to recognize even the orders of Anglican male priests. While the Second Vatican Council did acknowledge ‘a real though imperfect communion’ established with non-Roman Christians through baptism, the Orthodox have never committed themselves to any formal evaluation of the ecclesial status of the Anglican churches as a whole. To put the issue in that way reinforces the need for the Church of England to uphold its position as a true and apostolic church of Christ that, therefore, does indeed have authentic ministries and sacraments and, moreover, has sufficient authority within itself to make canonical provision to ordain whomsoever it responsibly judges to be fit subjects for ordination.

4. The argument from the ‘liberal agenda’ Some Anglican objectors to women’s priesthood claim to see it as a capitulation to a radical liberal agenda, along with such supposedly liberal shibboleths as approval of homosexuality, theological relativism, political correctness, etc. Their suspicions are not entirely without foundation! As Mark Chaves has shown in Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in

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Religious Organizations,13 campaigns for the ordination of women have usually been a response to cultural and social pressures, one way of responding to post-Enlightenment liberalism, an ideological gesture. The book actually challenges both proponents and opponents of the ordination of women, and its findings provide both constituencies with much food for thought. Research, combining church history with organizational theory, into the roles allotted to women in a hundred American denominations (particularly biblicist and sacramentalist ones) during the past hundred years produces some highly paradoxical conclusions that are of wider relevance. Generally they demonstrate that support for or opposition towards women’s ministry is not governed chiefly by theological principles but tends to be ruled by non-theological factors, and in particular by an overall stance vis-à-vis modern progressive liberalism. Chaves’ research shows, for example, that the opening-up of ministerial office to women is not generally directly related to a shortage of male clergy, and therefore to pastoral requirements, but if anything, quite the reverse. Similarly, the number of women studying theology and offering themselves for ordination is not related to whether or not their church encourages this. Moreover, the extent to which women function ministerially is not a direct reflection of the place formally allowed them by a church: function and office are ‘decoupled’ (as can be seen, I suggest, in the case of women pastoral assistants and chaplains in the Roman Catholic Church who are equivalent to deacons in most respects). Chaves believes that the symbolic significance of women’s ordination, as signalling an overall stance vis-à-vis liberal values, far exceeds the practical difference it makes in the life of a church. He shows that the likelihood of a church ordaining women can be predicted sociologically, being related to its degree of decentralization: the distribution of power (its centralization or dispersal) is a function of the strength of patriarchy, which liberalism is committed to overthrowing. Even when a decision to ordain women has been taken by a church, that does not mean that all positions are automatically open to them: their ordination is a gesture towards liberalism, not a root and branch reform of church structures. The same piece of research suggests that conflicts about women’s ordination are not actually about women as such – opposition to women priests should not be attributed to sheer misogyny – but about the issue of gender differences and similarities. There is a small industry researching this, but there remains enormous personal psychological and sociological investment in the views that people hold on gender identity. Conservatives tend to maximize gender dualism, stereotypes and clear boundaries, while liberals tend to favour gender complementarity or psychological androgyny (a technical term that refers not to bisexuality or physical hermaphroditism

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but to the idea that personality characteristics belong to a common humanity rather than to one sex),14 on the other. The issue of gender equality has served as a litmus-test of a church’s attitude towards liberal modernity, how it defines itself in the modern world. Only in the first wave of the women’s movement at the beginning of the twentieth century, in the struggle for women’s suffrage, Chaves points out, did gender equality become attached to the liberal agenda of individual human rights. The stance adopted by conservative churches – Protestantbiblicist or Catholic-sacramental – towards women ministers functioned as a way of constructing organizational identity and cohesion over against liberal modernity. It signalled commitment to a particular supposedly static institutional world that was defined in opposition to modernity. This interpretation is borne out by the fact that militant opposition to gender equality in the realm of the sacred spans religions and cultures, being found in Islam and Judaism, for example, as well as in Christianity. In legitimating this response to liberal ideology, both Protestantbiblicist and Catholic-sacramentalist churches appealed to infallible divine authority. Protestants tended to appeal to the authority of Scripture interpreted without benefit of modern historico-critical methods, while catholics invoked the authority of tradition interpreted by the magisterium (Pope and bishops). Since the general principle of gender equality and human rights is universally acknowledged by Western churches (nowhere more so than by the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican II), divine authority has to be invoked in order to make an exception of women’s ordination. Chaves adduces evidence both theological and sociological to show that this exception is illogical and incoherent. But strangely that turns out to be not a victory for campaigners for women priests! Their agenda also is shown in this work to have been more a response to a liberal environment outside the Church, in order to demonstrate liberal credentials to a society concerned about human rights, than one grounded in either theology or pastoral needs. Now that modernity is giving way to postmodernity – arguably an intensification of the self-critical, reflexive, subversive dynamic of modernity15 – the argument needs to move on. As the progressive liberal agenda fades, a new challenge is taking its place. Postmodernism, the cultural vanguard of postmodernity, presents a major threat to all forms of Christian coherence. It is corrosive of the principles of tradition, doctrine, community and authority that belong to the trust deeds of the Church. Church people are notoriously prone to fighting the battles of yesterday. The ordination of women is not about individual human rights – ordination cannot be a right for any anyone – but about realizing the fullness of Christ in all the baptized members of his body. By the same token, there is a much more urgent task

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facing conservatives than a misguided opposition to women priests. The credibility and integrity of the Christian faith, as a coherent body of belief and practice, is not damaged but rather enhanced by ordaining women. But it is seriously threatened by the postmodern dissolution of culture and community. None of us wants to be found barking up the wrong tree. Some see the ordination of women as the thin end of a liberal agenda based on feminist theology, as though that were enough to condemn it. Feminist theology does indeed expose and critique all forms of sexism, patriarchy and androcentrism in the Christian tradition, including the Bible – and there is plenty of material there for them to work on. But those who condemn feminist theology and all its works often fail to distinguish between Christian and post-Christian forms of feminist theology. There are many Christian theologians – too numerous to mention by name – working loyally within the community of the Church, both women and men, whose thinking has been shaped by this critique and who might, therefore, perhaps be described as feminist theologians. But there are others – the postChristian feminist theologians such as Mary Daly and Daphne Hampson – who are alienated from the Christian Church, its beliefs, worship and ministry. They believe that Christianity is so indelibly sexist that it is irredeemable. It cannot reform itself by purging out its sexism without becoming a different religion or, more likely, self-destructing. They therefore have little interest now in the ordination of women, perhaps viewing it from afar with ironic amusement.16 Though I am one of those who believes that the contribution of Christian feminist theology ought to be taken extremely seriously (and have tried to engage with it myself)17 I do not regard the ordination of women as bound up with individual human rights, or self-expression and selffulfilment or a sceptical relativism with regard to theological truth (all presumably items on an authentically liberal agenda), as some of its opponents appear to do, but rather as arising out of a profound respect for the doctrine of holy order – as a reform and enlargement of catholic order within a renewed tradition. To summarize the discussion so far: there are four main objections to the ordination of women priests and bishops by those Anglican provinces that have so far taken this step, including the Church of England. (1) Fundamental tradition cannot change. In reply to this argument put forward particularly by the Vatican, I agree that doctrine cannot change in its substance, but I claim that the outward order of the Church, which involves the application of doctrine to practice, needs to be reformed from time to time. (2) Only the whole Church can act on a fundamental matter of holy order. I note that this is not readily compatible with (1) and in reply I insist on the authority of particular churches to act in good faith in the absence

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of ecumenical instruments for decision-making at a universal level. (3) The Church of England’s unilateral action is damaging to ecumenical relations. I deeply regret this consequence, but I point out that global ecumenical relations are with the whole Anglican Communion, not just the Church of England. (4) Women priests are part of a liberal agenda, including militant feminism, that has designs on the whole gamut of Christian beliefs. In reply, I point to evidence that attitudes to women’s ordination have indeed been shaped as a reaction, positive or negative, to liberalism, and that too often the emancipation of women in the Church has been a nominal gesture as a way of claiming politically correct credentials, rather than a substantial, far-reaching reform. As far as feminist theology is concerned, we should distinguish between Christian and post-Christian forms and consider its critique of sexism and patriarchy in the Christian tradition, including Scripture, on its merits. Ultimately, however, the ordination of women to the priesthood is an ecclesiological matter which must be justified in terms of the fullness of Christ in all the baptized members of his body. Because Anglicanism is a reformed as well as a catholic expression of the Christian Church, it knows that theological arguments that make a case for the reform of the ministry need to be considered candidly and on their merits, and that they cannot simply be vetoed by the weight of tradition. Anglicanism is ‘catholic and reformed’ and the imperative of reform applies to the structure of the ordained ministry, as much as to other areas of the Church’s life.

Notes 1. Material in this chapter appeared in P. Avis, Anglican Orders and the Priesting of Women (London: Darton, Longman & Todd/Affirming Catholicism, 1999). 2. The Ordination of Women to the Priesthood (London: General Synod of the Church of England, 1988 [GS 829]). 3. Cf. G. Kirk, ‘The Language of “Lite” Religion: Episcopacy and Apostolicity in Contemporary Anglicanism’ in J. Broadhurst (ed.), Quo Vaditis: The State Churches of Northern Europe (Leominster: Gracewing, 1996), pp. 66–95. 4. London: Church House, 2004. 5. Those interested in pursuing this argument could look at Ruth Edwards, The Case for Women’s Ministry (London, SPCK, 1989) and Mary Hayter, The New Eve in Christ (London: SPCK, 1987). See also A. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; Carlisle: Paternoster Press, 2000), pp. 812–48. 6. A. Flannery (ed.), Vatican Council II: More Post-Conciliar Documents (New York: Costello Publishing, 1982), pp. 332f. 7. Ibid., pp. 332, 338.

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8. H. Kung, Infallible? (London: Collins/Fontana, 1972). 9. See now the discussion in the report of the Anglican–Orthodox International Dialogue, The Church of the Triune God (London: Anglican Communion Office, 2006). 10. H. McAdoo, Anglicans and Tradition and the Ordination of Women (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1997). R. Hooker, Works, ed. J. Keble (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1845), 3, p. 164: Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, VII.v.8. 11. See K.B. Osborne, Priesthood: A History of the Ordained Ministry in the Roman Catholic Church (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1988), Ch. 11. 12. The correspondence is published as an appendix to R. Eames (ed.), Report of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Commission on Communion and Women in the Episcopate (London: Church House, 1989). Cardinal Walter Kasper reinforced the point, with regard to women in the episcopate, when he addressed the bishops of the Church of England in 2006. 13. M. Chaves, Ordaining Women: Culture and Conflict in Religious Organizations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997). 14. See P. Avis, Eros and the Sacred (London: SPCK, 1989), Chs 3 and 4. 15. See P. Avis, A Church Drawing Near: Spirituality and Mission in a PostChristian Culture (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2003), Ch. 4. 16. M. Daly, Beyond God the Father (London: The Women’s Press, 1986); D. Hampson, Theology and Feminism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990). 17. See Avis, Eros and the Sacred.

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VIII

I

Anglican Orders: From Apostolicae Curae to Women Bishops1

t was a black day for ecumenical understanding and for hopes of Christian unity when on 13 September 1896 the papal bull Apostolicae Curae condemned Anglican orders as ‘absolutely null and utterly void’.2 That is to say: Anglican priests were not priests and Anglican bishops were not bishops; the Archbishop of Canterbury was a layman masquerading as a prelate. In attacking Anglican orders, Leo XIII’s bull undermined the means of grace provided in the Church of England and its sister Anglican churches and thereby negated their claim to be regarded as true Christian churches. Without a real ordained priesthood, Anglicanism could have no real sacraments and so could not provide the way of salvation. The bull attempted to take away the very raison d’être of Anglicanism. At the time the papal bull was seen as a gratuitous insult to Anglicans and it still rankles deeply more than a century later. The Roman Catholic Church still officially maintains the position set out in Apostolicae Curae (notwithstanding a number of friendly gestures that point in a different direction). Neither the agreements achieved in ecumenical dialogue between the two communions by the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), especially on the matters of ordination and ministry and the nature of the Eucharist,3 nor the modern eucharistic texts and revised ordinals of the Church of England and other provinces of the Anglican Communion, in which the emphases should be more acceptable to Rome, have led the Roman Catholic Church to revise its judgement. However, the fact that Apostolicae Curae elicited a devastating rejoinder from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, in which all its weaknesses and flaws were exposed, means that its original promulgation was a

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signally unfortunate and regrettable step, not only for the Anglican churches, but also for the Roman Catholic Church. Once this nuclear-tipped missile had been launched, there was no calling it back. Today, however, questions are raised about Anglican orders, not only from outside, but from within the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion: the orders of women priests and bishops are not treated as real and authentic by some Anglicans and are sometimes alleged to be ‘doubtful’. Just over a century ago it was supposed doctrinal inadequacies regarding the eucharistic sacrifice and the nature of priesthood (defects of ‘intention’ and ‘form’) in the Anglican ordinal that were the grounds of the Vatican’s condemnation (not, as is sometimes assumed, any supposed lack of ‘pedigree’ in the historical succession of episcopal ordinations). In spite of the fact that the expert scholarly opinions that the Pope had consulted were not of one mind and brought out various subtleties that needed to be considered, the papal verdict was unequivocal. The Pope argued that the Anglican ordinal of 1662 (like those of 1550 and 1552) lacked any clear reference to the priestly power to consecrate and offer sacrifice. Moreover, he claimed that all such references had been deliberately removed. The ‘native character and spirit’ of the ordinal was allegedly unmasked as blatantly uncatholic. Anglicans did not ordain with the objective intention to do what the Church does in making priests. The papal argument was and still is vulnerable to criticism: particularly to accusations of inconsistency, illogicality and inaccuracy. The Anglican reply was not slow to exploit these. Roman Catholic scholars have tended to decline to defend the more specific claims of Apostolicae Curae, but have regarded its general indictment of the ‘native character and spirit’ of the Anglican ordinal as the bull’s strongest plank.4 At the present juncture, however, the point of contention is the authority claimed by the churches of the Anglican Communion to ordain women to the diaconate, the priesthood and the episcopate. The authority of a church to ordain is inextricably related to its integrity as a Christian church. It is precisely this connection between holy order and the standing of the church that ordains that I hope to explore now, drawing on the arguments that raged around Apostolicae Curae as a defining moment in Anglican– Roman Catholic relations and a point of disjunction that remains unresolved and unhealed. The papal decree, which dashed all hopes of rapprochement between the Anglican and Roman Catholic communions for three-quarters of a century, is well known if not notorious, but the remarkable reply (Saepius Officio), issued by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York on the advice of the most learned bishops of the Church of England of the time, is

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little known. It was pointedly addressed, like the original bull, to ‘the whole body of bishops of the catholic Church [cases original]’, meaning the universal college of bishops, not just the Roman Catholic episcopate. The text of the Anglican reply was drafted by John Wordsworth, Bishop of Salisbury, a consummate Latinist, who had researched the matter of Anglican orders with a view to vindicating them in ecumenical overtures to the Swedish Lutherans and the Dutch Old Catholics (who had both needed to be convinced that the Church of England maintained ‘the Apostolic Succession’).5 Wordsworth consulted William Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford, the most erudite and prolific British medieval historian of his time. Stubbs was now within five years of the end of his life and, though he felt deeply indignant about the bull, replied to Wordsworth that he was reluctant to engage in controversy and so break the habit of a lifetime. But his comments reveal a sharp insight into the weaknesses of the bull.6 Stubbs had been aware that a judgement on Anglican orders was being prepared in Rome. Before the bull was published he had pointed out to the clergy of his diocese that the Church of England had not submitted the question to Rome and, in any case, did ‘not regard her as qualified to speak for the Church universal’. ‘We take our stand’, Stubbs went on, ‘so far as our mission and position in the Church Catholic and in the National Church are concerned, on the fact that our Master sent them that sent us, that we have a mission, a succession, and a solemn historical title to our Orders.’ It was ‘an absurdity, as well as a profanation, for the Roman Church or any other Church to determine, or to pretend to a right to determine, whether He in whom we have believed accepts our ordinations, hears our prayers, is present in our sacraments, or turns away from the cry of His people who call upon Him’.7 A more central role in the preparation of the response was played by Mandell Creighton, then Bishop of Peterborough, later of London, who was renowned for having written a multi-volume history of the papacy while he was parish priest of Embleton in the north-east of England, and on the strength of that had been elected Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Cambridge. Creighton had initiated the idea of a refutation and (he said) had been acting ‘as the Archbishop’s secretary for this matter’. His translation to London prevented him from playing a larger part. Creighton believed that the Anglican response should ‘expose the ignorance’ and deflate the ‘pretentiousness’ of the Roman protagonists. He found the arguments of Apostolicae Curae ‘creaking and lumbering’.8 The draft text of the Responsio reached the Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward Benson, on the day before he died. (He was, at the time, the guest of Gladstone at Hawarden Castle in North Wales.) Benson was an extremely learned, astute and perceptive Archbishop. Like most churchmen

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of his time he was a virulent critic of the papacy and held a one-sided view of the English Reformation. His longing for the reunion of Christendom took just as much account of the Eastern churches and the non-episcopal Protestant churches as it did of the Roman Catholic Church. Before the débâcle of 1996 Benson wrote to Lord Halifax, the indefatigable AngloCatholic layman who tended to take a very rose-tinted view of Rome and of the prospects for reunion: ‘If they did acknowledge our Orders, it would not alter our view of our position . . . their coming to a sensible and historical standpoint . . . would not settle the Roman controversy.’ The Church of England would be no nearer to reunion with Rome than the Orthodox churches were (whose orders were recognized by Rome).9 Benson was highly suspicious of Rome’s motives in initiating the review of Anglican orders. If he had taken a further hand in revising the Anglican reply it would have been even more devastating than it was. He earlier privately expressed the view that the Pope’s business was to eat dust and ashes.10 Benson’s initial response, left in draft at his death, insisted that the Church of England had a much more scholarly approach to the matter than Rome had. Anglican researches had shown that our Holy Orders are identical with those of the whole Catholic Church. They are in origin, continuity, matter, form, intention, and all that belongs to them, identical accordingly with those of the Church of Rome, except in the one modern point of subjection to the Pope, on which point at the Reformation we deliberately resumed our ancient concurrence with the whole Catholic world besides.11 Benson’s successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Temple (1821–1902), took it upon himself (in Wordsworth’s words) to ‘eradicate every trace of bitterness’,12 or (as he put it himself) ‘cut out all the thunder’.13 Actually, Temple had not been unduly perturbed by the bull, being himself entirely ‘convinced that the Church of England was unquestionably preferable to any other manifestation of Christianity’.14 In his ecclesiology Temple stood in the old pre-Tractarian mainstream high church tradition. He personally contributed material on the controversial areas of eucharistic sacrifice and the form of a sacrament to the response. Under Temple’s supervision, the Church of England’s reply to this lethal challenge to its own ecclesial integrity, its very existence, was robust, dignified and cool, while nevertheless addressing the Pope in fraternal and charitable terms. The reply accurately pointed out that the bull ‘aimed at overthrowing our whole position as a Church’. Significantly, the reply agreed with the Pope that matter, form and intention were vital in sacramental actions, but went on to claim that the Anglican ordinal met these requirements in every respect. The Archbishops stated the Anglican doctrine of priesthood and of

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eucharistic sacrifice in a biblical and evangelical spirit, and in accord with the Book of Common Prayer.15 The Archbishops claimed that the Anglican ordinal was actually superior to the Roman one, because it more clearly reflected Christ’s intentions and the practice of the universal Church. They showed with crushing effect that the papal doctrine of what was required in holy order was an innovation, and argued ad hominem that ‘in overthrowing our orders, he overthrows all his own, and pronounces sentence on his own Church’.16 They forthrightly defended the Reformation and the right and duty of particular churches to reform themselves: He who interprets the articles of our Church by mere conjecture and takes it upon himself to issue a new decree as to what is necessary in the form of Order, condemning our lawful bishops in their government of the Church in the XVIth century by a standard which they never knew, is entering on a slippery and dangerous path. The liberty of national Churches to reform their own rites may not thus be removed at the pleasure of Rome.17 Thankfully, the tone of ecumenical discourse is now very different. Courtesy, charity and genuine respect and friendship between Anglican and Roman Catholic Church leaders has replaced the hostile, defensive and admonitory style of a century ago. The valuable work of the Anglican– Roman Catholic International Commission has achieved a genuine consensus on key ecclesiological issues. As Henry Chadwick has pointed out, ARCIC has had ‘the unintended side-effect of destroying the central argument of Apostolicae Curae, viz. that Roman Catholics and Anglicans are committed to essentially different beliefs about the eucharistic presence and sacrifice and consequently about the nature and office of ministerial priesthood’.18 Yet some of the issues that were at stake then remain unresolved. Apostolicae Curae has not been retracted. It still has its full force and effect. The fact that the Roman Catholic Church has condemned the decision of the Church of England and of other Churches of the Anglican Communion to ordain women to the priesthood, and has warned of the dire consequences for relations between the two communions if the Church of England proceeds to ordain women as bishops, has highlighted the reality that Rome does not accept the orders of Anglican male priests either. The ordination of women by the Church of England, within the already given context of the unresolved argument with Rome over Anglican orders, raises two particular questions. We could call them the question of apostolicity and the question of catholicity. The first question, the question of apostolicity, concerns the standing

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of the Church of England (and by implication the standing of those other churches of the Anglican Communion that have ordained women priests or bishops) as an authentic part, portion or branch of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. The issue can be put like this: is a church, claiming to have the threefold ministry of bishops, priests and deacons in historical succession and believing that it shares this with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches, still a true and apostolic church of Christ when it has effected a change in the apostolic ministry by ordaining women priests – a change, moreover, that those other two great communions vehemently condemn? The second question, that of catholicity, concerns the security and authenticity of the holy orders of those women who have been ordained to the priesthood in the Church of England (and in other Anglican churches). The issue can be put like this: are the holy orders of women priests, ordained in the Church of England and sister churches of the Anglican Communion, real and authentic holy orders, ministries of the Christian Church, or are Anglican women priests merely pretending to be priests or presbyters, deceiving themselves and some of us?

Is a church that ordains women a true church (the question of apostolicity)? It is necessarily entailed in being a member of any Christian church that you believe that church to be truly a church. If you ceased to believe that, you would go elsewhere. The authoritative formularies of the Church of England affirm, in the very first of the canons, that the Church of England, established according to the laws of this realm under the Queen’s Majesty, belongs to the true and apostolic Church of Christ; and, as our duty to the said Church of England requires, we do constitute and ordain that no member thereof shall be at liberty to maintain or hold the contrary. (canon A1) It may seem superfluous for a church to insist that it is an expression of the Church and officious for the Church of England to claim to police the views of its members (which must here mean the clergy, since the laity [with the exception of Readers and churchwardens] are not readily subject to discipline). But it is actually vital for every church to profess that it sees itself as an expression of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ. Recent ecumenical theology has helped us to see both how fundamental the apostolicity of the Church is and how this fundamental attribute

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must be predicated of the whole Church of Christ. The apostolicity of the Church refers to its origin and its mission and links the two together. The Church is both grounded in the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ and perpetuates that witness. Apostolicity is concerned with the authenticity of the Church. It confronts the question of whether the Church is true to its God-given purpose. The Church is called to perpetuate the mission that Jesus Christ received from the Father and entrusted to the Apostles in the dynamic of the Holy Spirit. In his high priestly Prayer, Jesus says, ‘As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world’ (Jn 17.18). But the key text is John 20.21: Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ Here we find several themes powerfully combined together: the risen Christ’s blessing of peace upon the disciples, the abiding prints of his passion that will mark for ever the mission of the Church, the sending forth in his name in union with the Father’s purpose, the authority to absolve and the power of the Spirit that will make all this possible. Modern biblical interpretation tends to take this ‘apostling’ of the first Christians to apply not just to the twelve but to the whole body. John simply calls them the disciples and they appear to include the women who brought the first news of the resurrection. Those gathered behind locked doors are the representative Church, the Church in embryo, the faithful remnant. Hoskyns’ and Davey’s commentary is still worth hearing: The controversy whether the commission is given to the Church as a whole or to the apostles is irrelevant. There is no distinction here between the Church and the ministry; both completely overlap. The evangelist records the birth of the Church as the organism of the spirit [sic] of God, and the origin of the authority of the ministry. Both are inaugurated together . . . The Christian community was, at its inception, a community of Apostles [sic].19 The theological axiom of the apostolicity of the whole people of God was well stated in Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (BEM), the Lima statement of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, in 1982:

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The Identity of Anglicanism In the Creed, the Church confesses itself to be apostolic. The Church lives in continuity with the apostles and their proclamation. The same Lord who sent the apostles continues to be present in the Church. The Spirit keeps the Church in the apostolic tradition until the fulfilment of history in the kingdom of God. Apostolic tradition in the Church means continuity in the permanent characteristics of the Church of the apostles: witness to the apostolic faith, proclamation and fresh interpretation of the Gospel, celebration of baptism and the eucharist, the transmission of ministerial responsibilities, communion in prayer, love, joy and suffering, service to the sick and the needy, unity among the local churches and sharing the gifts which the Lord has given to each.20

The Lima statement goes on directly to ground succession in ministry in the continuity of the whole Church. ‘The primary manifestation of apostolic succession is to be found in the apostolic tradition of the Church as a whole. The succession is an expression of the permanence and, therefore, of the continuity of Christ’s own mission in which the Church participates.’21 Thus succession of ordinations is one of the ways in which the apostolicity that resides in the whole body of the Church and permeates its entire life is expressed. It neither creates nor guarantees that apostolicity but is an effectual sign of it. It follows that to challenge the apostolicity of ordinations in a church is to challenge the apostolicity of that church. Conversely, to recognize a church as an apostolic church of Christ carries with it recognition of its ministry as an expression and instrument of that apostolicity. The logic of apostolicity, as set out by BEM, is followed in the Meissen and Porvoo common statements in Europe and the Called to Common Mission and Waterloo declarations in North America. This generous and hospitable understanding of the apostolicity of the whole body of the Church and of the apostolicity of the ordained ministry as an expression of this has been the key that has opened a number of ecumenical doors. There is irony in the fact that, while a number of churches worldwide are moving to a mutual acknowledgement of their apostolicity – as mutual recognition is distinguished from structural reconciliation as a prior stage in the quest for unity – some opponents of the ordination of women have challenged the fundamental integrity of the Church of England (or of other Anglican churches) as part of the Church of Christ. They maintain that the priesting of women is such a grievous error that it has called into question the apostolicity of their church, making it no longer a true church. By extrapolation, of course, they say the same of all other churches of the Anglican Communion that have ordained women. This argument was deployed in the General Synod debate of November 1992 on the legislation to make possible the ordination of women priests. Many who hold this view

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have already left the Church of England; others are threatening to do so over the issue of women bishops. Were they/are they right to do so? I am reluctantly driven to the conclusion that anyone who has reached this definite position – who believes that their church has forfeited its apostolicity – cannot be expected to remain there. It would not be right to put moral pressure on them to stay in the teeth of this conviction. They are the ones who should feel free, in all conscience, to depart in search of a church about whose apostolicity and authenticity as a true church they are assured. But I would add two caveats to this admission. First, of course, I believe they are mistaken in thinking that the Church of England has compromised its apostolicity. Needless to say, I do not accept their premise that ordaining women as priests or bishops has this effect. But I think they are right to set such store by the credal marks of the Church and to see that these have implications for the Church’s ministry. They have simply drawn the wrong conclusion. One could almost say that they have done the wrong thing for the right reason. Second, I want to insist that they are the only ones who would be justified in taking that step. Separation from and breaking communion (koinonia) with those with whom we are already in communion cannot be justified on lesser grounds. A study of the grounds of separation in the New Testament suggests that it is justified only when the fundamental baptismal faith is denied. Only what cuts us off from communion with Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be allowed to cut us off sacramentally from one another.22 As Henry Chadwick has put it: ‘To refuse or to withdraw from participation in the sacrament, through which the unity of the Church is effected as a concrete reality, is an exquisitely painful denial of everything we understand to be the Lord’s intention for his people.’23 Joseph Ratzinger underlined the point when he said: ‘The unity among themselves of the communities that celebrate the eucharist is not an external accessory for eucharistic ecclesiology but its inmost condition.’24 We grieve at the departure of those who deny the apostolicity of our Church and we question the logic that leads to that step, but we respect the conscience that commands it. However, in order to take that step, such individuals would have to convince themselves and their church, I suggest, on one crucial point. They would have to justify theologically the highly paradoxical position that the Church of England and large tracts of the Anglican Communion had forfeited apostolicity in the very act of practising it, that is to say, by ‘apostling’, commissioning or ordaining certain persons whom it judged fit candidates for that apostling. That reflection does not in itself, of course, justify the ordination of women, nor does it entail that the Church can never abuse its apostolic authority by ordaining unfit persons; but it does, I believe, effectively transfer the onus of proof to those who

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claim that the Church’s apostolicity has been forfeited, or at least irreparably damaged, in this way. It would appear to be not at all an easy task to claim that a Church whose apostolic credentials had survived many vicissitudes (separation from the Roman see, unilateral changes of doctrine and worship, abandonment of the centuries-old rule of clerical celibacy, erastianism, nepotism, timeserving clergy, unorthodox bishops, neglect of the Eucharist, persecution of Dissenters – including Roman Catholics) then had ceased, by a single action undertaken in good faith, to be a true church. That position divorces the ministry from the Church with a vengeance and fragments the reality of apostolicity. The paradox is intensified when we recall that the Church of England itself, at the time of the Reformation, refused to condemn the Church of Rome as no true church for all its appalling faults, errors and corruptions.

How secure are the orders of women priests (the question of catholicity)? One objection to the ordination of women as deacons, priests and bishops by Anglican churches that (as I have said) I take entirely seriously is that a part of the Church lacks the authority to make a change in the ministry which belongs to the whole Church. Issues concerning parts and wholes of the Church are issues of catholicity. Catholicity I take to have to do with the universality and therefore the completeness or fullness of the Church. A unilateral decision in an area where the Church should act in an undivided way damages the catholicity of the Church. This is a difficulty that perhaps exercises particularly those who remain Anglicans – who do not believe that the ordination of women priests was an act of self-destruction on the part of Anglican churches – but who cannot accept the orders of those women priests and who therefore feel compelled to boycott their ministry of word and sacrament. There is a paradox in this position also: it suggests that one can accept the apostolic authority of a given church but reject the way in which it has canonically exercised that apostolicity. The canons of the Church of England intensify the difficulty for those with scruples about the priesting of women when they assert that those who are ‘made, ordained, or consecrated bishops, priests, or deacons, according to the said Ordinal, are lawfully made, ordained, or consecrated, and ought to be accounted, both by themselves and others, to be truly bishops, priests, or deacons’ (canon A4). While, strictly speaking, this canon refers only to those ordained by means of the 1550–1662 ordinal, it undoubtedly reflects the Church of England’s abiding intention that its orders should be regarded as secure.

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However, the Church of England’s Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod (1993) gave conscientious objectors to women priests the right to decline to receive the exercise of the ministry of women lawfully priested under the ordinal. The legislation of 1992 had already written into it the possibility of parishes declining the ministry of women priests and it allowed for the possibility of ‘no-go’ dioceses on the decision of the bishop. Thus the Act of Synod itself is not to blame for the situation where the priestly ministry of women may be lawfully declined. It might be argued that the Act of Synod qualifies the full force of canon A4, though others might question whether an Act of Synod has sufficient constitutional authority to do this. In practice, however, it certainly blunts the bold affirmation of the canons as to the genuineness of Anglican orders. One might well question whether, in the light of Apostolicae Curae, the Church of England was wise to introduce any note of equivocation or uncertainty into its historic defence of its orders. In allowing the genuineness (I am trying to avoid the legal term ‘validity’ as much as possible) of the priestly ordination of women to be questioned by implication, by making formal provision for individuals to decline to receive their ministrations, has not the Church of England given hostages to fortune? Few will deny, I think, that there is an element of ambiguity here. Be that as it may, a person who remained uneasy about women priests and bishops, but did not regard this step as so heinous as to negate the apostolicity of the Church of England and so render it no true church, so causing them to depart elsewhere, might care to consider the following argument. If the Church of England does indeed remain an apostolic church, then it certainly has the authority to ordain whomsoever it deems fit subjects for holy orders. The orders that it bestows on its female ordinands are the same orders that it bestows on its male ordinands. Women priests have exactly the same assurance as their male colleagues that in their case the Church is doing what it has the authority to do. Ordination is ultimately God’s action, performed through the Church. It is God who makes priests (or other ministers) by the power of the Holy Spirit. Though ministers are not self-appointing, there is a sense in which the Church is merely acknowledging the prevenient act of the Holy Spirit in calling a person to a particular ministry and bestowing the necessary gifts on them. Those who ordain intend to do what the Church does. The Council of Florence declared in 1439: ‘All the sacraments are effected by three elements, namely by material things as the matter, by words as the form, and by the person of the minister conferring the sacrament with the intention of doing what the Church does.’ Where that has indeed been the intention, performed in good faith, it is not easy to see how the result can be gainsaid. That is the line Anglicans take against the Roman Catholic Church over the ordination of male

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priests. The same logic should be applied to the ordination of women priests. However, some opponents of women priests take the line that, while the orders of Anglican male clergy are securely catholic and apostolic because they are recognized by parts of the Church beyond the Anglican Communion, the orders of women clergy are of ‘doubtful validity’ because they are not so recognized. Let us look more closely at this tactic. The churches that have recognized the validity of the orders of Anglican (male) clergy are (apart from the Reformation and post-Reformation Protestant churches, which are not considered relevant at this point by the proponents of the argument we are considering) the Old Catholic churches of the Union of Utrecht and some Orthodox churches, including the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Since the Old Catholic churches now ordain women, let us confine ourselves to the Orthodox.25 Orthodox recognition, where it has been forthcoming, seems to have been confined to the conditional acceptance of Anglican orders and is given in reply to the question: If an Anglican priest converts to Orthodoxy, should he be (re)ordained? That question points to the hypothetical character of Orthodox recognition of Anglican orders, though even as such it is certainly to be welcomed and esteemed. Zernov states26 that, until the mid-nineteenth century, Orthodox hierarchs treated Anglican clergy as having the same orders as the Roman Church. Apostolicae Curae prompted Orthodox theologians to study the subject; they were divided in their conclusions. In 1922 Melitus, Patriarch of Constantinople, supported by his synod, declared that Anglican orders possessed the same validity as those of the Roman, Old Catholic and Armenian churches. His lead was followed by Jerusalem, Cyprus, Alexandria and Romania in the 1920s and 1930s. This process of gradual recognition was halted by a consultation of autocephalous churches held in Moscow in 1948 which challenged Anglicans to say whether they regarded ordination as a sacrament. Writing in 1961, Zernov concluded that the present Orthodox attitude was one of suspended judgement. In spite of further dampening of relations, due to the ordination of women priests and bishops in the Anglican Communion, that still appears to be the position. However, the Orthodox do not recognize any Christian church, other than their own, as the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. It is incompatible with Orthodox ecclesiology to acknowledge any other church as catholic and apostolic. The Orthodox are not in communion with Anglicans and do not recognize any degrees of ‘intercommunion’ short of unity in faith and unity in the bishop, that is to say, unity in Orthodoxy. Some do not even recognize Anglican baptisms, let alone their holy orders. The Orthodox have repeatedly declined to make a public judgement on the recognition of non-Orthodox baptisms, even Roman Catholic baptisms (Greek

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Orthodox sometimes rebaptize Roman Catholics). Thus Orthodoxy has not reciprocated the Second Vatican Council’s recognition, in its Decree on Ecumenism, of the validity of Orthodox sacraments.27 How meaningful is it to claim that some Orthodox churches recognize Anglican orders (and that this recognition should not be jeopardized by ordaining women), when they do not even recognize the Church of England as a church within which those orders are exercised? It seems a rather tenuous argument that opposes women’s ordination on the basis of Orthodox support for Anglican (male) orders. We ought surely to face the fact that it is the Church of England alone, though as part of the Anglican Communion, that bestows ordination on its clergy, male and female alike. Sometimes the admission of women to the priesthood and the episcopate by Anglican churches is opposed on the grounds that it makes Roman Catholic acceptance of Anglican orders impossible. This gambit is supported by the exchange of letters between Archbishop Robert Runcie and Pope John Paul II in 1988, when the Pope warned that this development would create a grave obstacle to closer relations between the two communions, and by the address of Cardinal Kasper to the bishops of the Church of England in 2006, who reinforced the point. But there is much more at stake for the Roman Catholic Church than the ordination of women. It is ultimately because Anglicans are not within the Roman obedience and therefore not in communion with the Pope, through whom all hierarchical and sacramental power flows, that, like other separated churches, it is regarded as deficient in the grace of orders and therefore in the power to celebrate the Eucharist. Vatican II’s decree on ecumenism (Unitatis Redintegratio [UR]) recognizes that baptism ‘constitutes a sacramental bond of unity’ between all the baptized. But baptism in itself, it claims, is not sufficient. It is, says the decree, ‘only a beginning, a point of departure, for it is wholly directed toward the acquiring of fullness of life in Christ’. It is orientated towards ‘a complete incorporation into the system of salvation’ intended by Christ (UR 22).28 It is because separated ‘ecclesial communities’ are not incorporated into that ‘system’ that they lack sacramental fullness. The constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium [LG]) corroborates this when it says: ‘They are fully incorporated into the society of the Church who, possessing the Spirit of Christ, accept her entire system and all the means of salvation given to her, and through union with her visible structure are joined to Christ, who rules her through the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops. This joining is effected by the bonds of professed faith, of the sacraments, of ecclesiastical government, and of communion’ (LG 14).29 The emphasis is on rule, government, obedience and unity of structure. That is the background to the Second Vatican Council’s view of the orders of separated communities (other than the Orthodox, of course, who

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constitute a special case: their orders and celebrations of the Eucharist are recognized, but they still fall short of the fullness of unity that comes from communion with the Pope). The decree on ecumenism pronounces: ‘The ecclesial communities separated from us lack that fullness of unity with us which should flow from baptism, and we believe that especially because of the lack of the sacrament of orders they have not preserved the genuine and total reality of the Eucharistic mystery’ (UR 22).30 It is not merely a question of the technical validity of ordinations, or even of agreement on the doctrines of the priesthood and Eucharist. It is ultimately a question of obedience to the claims of the papacy – as was repeatedly pointed out by Mandell Creighton at the time of Apostolicae Curae.31 As Henry Chadwick has argued, it seems highly unlikely that Rome would give a form of recognition to Anglican ministries and sacraments that would give succour to any notion of the Anglican Communion as ‘an alternative and rival Catholicism’.32 The Vatican does not recognize the distinction that is proving so useful in much ecumenical work, between recognition of one another as true churches, with authentic ministries and sacraments, on the one hand, and reconciliation with one another in some degree of visible unity that would entail the interchangeability of ministries, on the other. Both Rome and the Orthodox find this distinction invidious. The report of the 1987 meeting at Bari of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church significantly stated: ‘Communion is possible only between those Churches which have faith, priesthood and the sacraments in common’(21). ‘Communion in faith and communion in the sacraments’, it affirmed, ‘are not two distinct realities. They are two aspects of a single reality’ (36).33 For both Rome and Orthodoxy, unity in faith is not something that can be agreed as a restricted agenda separate from acceptance of the distinctive claims of those churches. Faith is precisely ‘the obedience of faith’. So it seems, frankly, as things stand, wishful thinking to imagine that the question of Anglican orders could be settled in isolation from the question of Anglican acceptance of the claims of the papacy, including the definitive, binding authority of the magisterium and the universal, immediate and ordinary jurisdiction of the papacy over all local churches throughout the world. It seems that the genuineness or ‘validity’ (if we must use that word) of Anglican orders will have to be decided for a good while to come on the basis of Anglican rather than Roman Catholic claims. What then is the status of the orders of Anglican women priests? As will be clear by now, I find the suggestion that the orders of women priests are ‘of doubtful validity’ because they are not accepted by the largest and most ancient Christian churches, while the orders of male priests are valid in spite of not being accepted by those churches, far too paradoxical. If the

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Church of England and the other churches of the Anglican Communion, being parts or portions of the catholic and apostolic Church of Christ, have in the exercise of that catholic and apostolic authority, admitted women to holy orders, then it is to be hoped that all of us will in due course be able to accept them. It remains a defensible position to hold that these Anglican churches have ‘jumped the gun’ ecumenically, but this cannot undo what the Church has done. What the Church of England has done in the case of women priests is identical with what it has done in the case of male priests. To echo the logic of Saepius Officio, those who go so far as to deny the reality of the orders of women priests actually undermine their own. To summarize: as we continue to evaluate, in ‘an open process of reception’, the Church of England’s decision to ordain women to the priesthood and its intention to ordain women to the episcopate, two questions arise. They both concern Anglican orders which are not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church. First, one might ask whether a church that makes a change in the received structure of holy order, which is acknowledged as an aspect of the Church’s essential apostolicity, thereby damages its apostolicity. How can we know whether such a church is a true Christian church? The answer offered is that apostolicity should be understood in the light of recent ecumenical theology where it is postulated of the whole ongoing life of the Church, lived in intended continuity with the Apostles. The commissioning or ‘apostling’ of ministers is one expression of this essential apostolicity. The catholicity of orders follows from the catholicity of a church. Second, one might ask whether the ordination to the priesthood that women have received is certain or in fact doubtful. How do we know whether their orders are secure? The answer proposed involves eliminating the tactic of adducing support from other churches that have the threefold ministry in historical succession but reject Anglican orders, as building on sand, and taking entirely seriously the claims of Anglican ecclesiology. The assurance that they give with respect to the orders of Anglican male priests and bishops, they give equally with respect to Anglican women priests and bishops.

Notes 1. Some material in this chapter appeared in P. Avis, Anglican Orders and the Priesting of Women (London: Darton, Longman & Todd/Affirming Catholicism, 1999). 2. Anglican Orders (English): The Bull of His Holiness Leo XIII, September 13, 1896, and the Answer of the Archbishops of England, March 29, 1897 (London:

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3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

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18. H. Chadwick, Tradition and Exploration (Norwich: The Canterbury Press, 1994), p. 92. 19. E.C. Hoskyns and F.N. Davey, The Fourth Gospel, 2nd edn (London: Faber & Faber, 1947), pp. 545–6. 20. Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (Geneva: WCC, 1982), p. 28 (M34). 21. Ibid., 35, pp. 28f. 22. See further P. Avis, Christians in Communion (London: Geoffrey Chapman Mowbray; Collegeville : Liturgical Press, 1990), Ch. 5. 23. Chadwick, Tradition and Exploration, p. 89. 24. J. Ratzinger, Church, Ecumenism and Politics (Slough: St Paul Publications, 1988), p. 11. 25. G. Limouris, Orthodox Visions of Ecumenism (Geneva: WCC, 1994); E.R. Hardy (ed.), Orthodox Statements on Anglican Orders (New York: 1946); M. Fouyas, Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 99–106. 26. N. Zernov, Orthodox Encounter (London: James Clarke, 1961), Appendix B, ‘Anglican Orders and the Orthodox Church’. 27. E. Lanne, ‘Catholic–Orthodox Dialogue: In Search of a New Direction’, One in Christ, 21.1 (1985): 19–30, at p. 26. 28. W.M. Abbott (ed.), The Documents of Vatican II (London and Dublin: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), p. 364. 29. Ibid., p. 33. 30. Ibid., p. 364. 31. Creighton, Life, Vol. 2, pp. 177–83. 32. H. Chadwick, Tradition and Exploration, p. 91. 33. ‘Faith, Sacraments and the Unity of the Church’ (Bari Statement of the Roman Catholic–Orthodox International Commission), One in Christ, 23.4 (1987): 330–40.

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IX

Anglican Ecclesiology in the Twenty-first Century

I

n the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Anglican Communion appears to be racked by internal argument and conflict. If the media are to be believed, Anglicans spend all their time and energy attacking each other, while the Archbishop of Canterbury struggles to prevent bad blood becoming actual schism. The word ‘split’ is seldom absent from any headline or news report on the Anglican Communion – which the media love to call ‘the Anglican Church’. The presenting issues of these divisions are issues of sexual ethics and gender roles – specifically, homosexuality and women bishops. The issue of homosexuality is the more intense, raising strong emotions, for and against. Is it acceptable for Christians to be practising homosexuals? Can they say, ‘God has made us this way’? Can civil partnerships be formally blessed by the Church? Is a same-sex relationship a bar to ordination? This volley of questions was posed for Anglicans in the sharpest possible way by the consecration of a priest in an active gay relationship as a bishop of the Episcopal Church of the USA in 2003. But the issue of women in the episcopate goes very deep too, raising the same sort of questions – of value, justice and equality – that Christians have by and large got sorted out in the context of secular society, but seem to struggle laboriously to apply to the Church in any consistent way. However, these presenting issues are actually symptoms of deeper questions concerning Anglican identity. They touch on Anglican identity overall: What sort of church are we and what are our core principles and values? How do we relate to the Roman Catholic Church, the mother church of the West, and to the Reformation, for both have shaped what we are today? And they impinge on questions of authority in particular. How should important questions be answered and how can disagreements about

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them be resolved? Who has the right to decide? Once again, we see that the matter of authority lies at the heart of Anglican identity: Anglican distinctiveness is bound up with a particular approach to authority. Is it that distinctive approach that has brought us to the present impasse, thus revealing its inadequacy all along? Or does that approach in fact harbour the resources to enable us to weather the storm and to emerge from it a stronger and more coherent communion of churches? I would not stop there, as though these dilemmas were unique to Anglicanism. One could go deeper and say that underlying the issues of Anglican identity (What sort of church are we and what are our core principles and values?) is the whole problematic of the identity of Christianity in the modern world and its relationship to the prevailing culture in any particular context – a set of fundamental theological questions that has stretched the best theologians for the past 200 years. Anglicans, like other kinds of Christian, wrestle with this. Like other Christians, they generally do not know the answers. Unlike some Christians, however, whose room for manoeuvre is severely restricted by central authority, they have some scope to proceed by trial and error, with all the accompanying possibilities of making mistakes or at least getting things out of balance. A recent analysis of the problems caused to the Anglican Communion by actions of the Episcopal Church suggests that ‘the Achilles’ heel’ of the Episcopal Church and its downfall (and perhaps that of Anglicanism in general) has been ‘a penchant for over-adaptation to its environing culture’.1 That is, at bottom, a question of authority, a contest between the claims of culture and the claims of the gospel. But who is to adjudicate between them? The first thing to say about the phenomenon of the Anglican Communion at the start of the twenty-first century is that this conflictual situation does not imply that the Anglican Communion is dysfunctional or that it is about to disintegrate. There is much more to being an Anglican and to membership of the Communion than the rows that catch the headlines. The rich tradition of theology, spirituality and liturgy that belongs to Anglicanism continues to be explored. There is still a great deal of interaction, of a positive kind, across the Communion. All the member churches/provinces are still ‘in communion’ with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Conflict and argument are not usually unhealthy; they are not a sign of ecclesiological pathology. In fact we could say that the ‘normal’ state of the Christian Church is to be seething with argument and controversy. That is a more convincing sign of authenticity than the deathly hush of enforced unanimity that we find in some other churches. They have their pain and anguish too, but it is borne, often silently, by those who are the victims of systems of censorship and punishment. Conflict has always been endemic in Christianity, even from New Testament times, and Anglicanism is not an

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exception or a special case.2 The fact that Anglicanism is racked by disagreements is a sure sign – to put it slightly provocatively – that it is positioned at the heart of Christianity. It can reassure us that Anglicanism belongs where it has always claimed to belong, in the mainstream of the Christian Church. Christians have always struggled to interpret the Bible and to apply its teaching to their current problems; it has never been a straightforward matter, however simple those who thought that they knew the answers tried to make it seem. Christians through the ages have also wrestled with the question of the authority of tradition – in all its diversity. The Bible and tradition do not explicitly address some of the challenges that the Church faces today in their current form and do not always answer the questions that we need to ask (though there are always some voices insisting that answers – generally negative ones – can be read off straightforwardly from the Bible or the unvarying practice of the Church). However, that is not the Anglican way. Anglicans revere Scripture and honour tradition, but they also take seriously what biblical criticism, historical scholarship and the human and social sciences have to say about the nature of the world, human society and human nature. Moreover, they believe in free and fair discussion, argument and debate and are averse to curtailing these by an arbitrary act of authority from on high: by and large censorship is not in the Anglican vocabulary. They could not make sense of the idea that they were not to talk about a pressing subject of the day. Anglicans are sustained through these intellectual and pastoral travails by the conviction that the truth will prevail, if only we ‘listen to the Spirit’ and maintain the bonds of charity and communion through conciliar consultation – which means keeping talking to each other while aiming for the highest degree of communion that is possible between groups that have deep disagreements on grounds of conscience. Although conflict and argument are not pathological in themselves, there is something badly wrong when the topics of argument get out of proportion. While the world around us seems to drift further and further from the Christian Church into an arid secularism and seems incapable of rising to the challenges of environmental degradation, global warming, HIV–Aids, global terror networks, overpopulation, hunger, disease and natural disasters, Anglicans seem to spend a disproportionate quantity of time and energy arguing among themselves about whether women can be priests or bishops and whether or not homosexuality can be accepted. In the New Testament there are simply no priests or clergy as we know them (though of course there are pastors) and homosexuality was not an understood form of permanent or innate sexual identity (though homosexual activity was familiar). The appeal to unvarying tradition on such questions

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is largely an argument from silence. Genuine Anglican efforts to organize for mission and to rethink evangelism for our times are often eclipsed by public agonizing over matters that public opinion in the West appears now to take in its stride. The New Testament is gripped by the urgency of spreading the gospel of Christ, hastening the coming of God’s kingdom and glorifying God in all that we do. Anglicans should have a bad conscience about squandering large quantities of energy on internal squabbles while God yearns to redeem the world. People looking on – sometimes rather wistfully – from the sidelines draw their own conclusions about the relevance of the gospel to the problems of the world.3

The modesty of Anglican ecclesiology Anglican ecclesiology is modest – not in the sense that it does not make robust and sometimes rather grandiose claims for itself (for example, the ‘branch’ theory of the Church, associated with the Tractarians, that set Anglicanism alongside the Roman Catholic and Eastern churches, or more recently, the claim to be a bridge between Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions) – but in the sense that it does not have grand intellectual pretensions. The quantum of official Anglican doctrine of the Church is limited. This limitation is probably true of Anglican doctrine as a whole: its character is to say what is necessary to keep the faithful on the road to salvation, and little more. Although it has had its share of metaphysicians (the Cambridge Platonists, Bishop Berkeley, William Temple, A.E. Taylor), Anglicanism is not essentially a speculative faith: it does not erect conceptual superstructures. It is a pastoral and practical creed, and to that extent, it is pragmatic in character. It is concerned with what works in the Christian life and in the life of the community; it is focused on doing the job. Also, Anglicanism is not a confessional faith, as Lutheranism is, with its considerable body of official doctrine, including polemics, gathered together in The Book of Concord. Anglicans do not have the confessional consciousness that marks many Lutherans; although they may well feel that the Church of England was guided and preserved by the providence of God, they do not usually celebrate its being raised up by God to bear unique witness to certain truths that had become obscured by corruption and ignorance, in the way that has been typical of Lutherans. Similarly, Anglicanism does not have the distinctive combination of a rather inflexible scholastic official theology and an unchallengeable magisterium that the Roman Catholic Church has. Authority in Anglicanism can always be questioned – repeat, always. The legacy of the past is not systematized or codified, as in Denzinger’s compendium of Roman Catholic doctrinal formulations, but is allowed to remain

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occasional, untidy and incomplete. Anglican theology presupposes the common tradition of the churches up to the sixteenth century and incorporates that legacy as part of its inheritance of faith. Richard Hooker and many seventeenth-century divines are entirely unselfconscious in their use of the scholastic theologians. Their work rests upon that remarkable corpus. They evince no sense of its being on the other side of a watershed. They are in no way simply expositors of the sixteenth-century Reformers. Hooker regarded St Thomas Aquinas as ‘the greatest amongst the Schoole divines’.4 As that auspicious precedent indicates, Anglicanism is open and receptive to what can be learned from other traditions: it draws particularly on Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Lutheran insights and resources. At times in the past, Reformed theology, in the tradition of John Calvin, was a major source and remains a permanent influence. This inheritance can be appealed to selectively, as well as synthetically, as it suits the needs of the moment. Anglicanism is frankly eclectic and is unlikely (in a rather disarming way) to deny it. Of course, other traditions are probably equally eclectic, but they may be reluctant to admit this. A second way in which Anglican ecclesiology is modest is that it does not make exclusive claims for itself. While the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have traditionally seen themselves as the true Church and have denied others the status of ‘church’ in the proper sense of the word (as the Roman Catholic Church has recently done in Dominus Iesus [2000]) and in ‘Responses to some questions regarding certain aspects of the doctrine of the Church’ [2007], Anglicanism has never made such a claim. In England it has seen itself as the original Catholic Church in the land, in continuity with the medieval and patristic Church. In the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Church of England recognized the Lutheran and Reformed churches on the mainland of Europe as sister churches and saw itself as part of the Protestant or Reformation family of churches – though not at the expense of being the Catholic Church in England. As we have seen at greater length earlier in this book, in more recent times, some Anglicans have spoken of the provisionality of Anglicanism. They have described it as incomplete, temporary and destined to lose itself in a greater whole. This sounds rather noble and altruistic until we ask whether there are, in fact, any extant expressions of the Church that should not be regarded as provisional but as final and permanent. Surely, no church, even the largest, can claim to be definitive. In a divided Christian Church, there cannot be any church that is not provisional. They are all called into question by the existence of others. To deny this would be to embrace an ecumenical theology of ‘return’, implying that there is one church to which all others should revert. That would imply that they are all provisional, except one, the supposed ‘mother’ church. Anglicans would say

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that all churches are provisional in the light of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church that we confess in the Creed. This means that those who affirm that the churches of the Anglican Communion are merely provisional churches are absolutely right – but it needs to be spelled out that this is said in the context of a fragmented universal Church where there is no church that is not provisional when seen in an eschatological perspective. These forms of theological modesty – the compact tool-kit of doctrines about the Church, the eschewing of any exclusive claims and the confession of provisionality – help to give Anglican ecclesiology its distinctive character. But they are, of course, connected. It is precisely because Anglicanism does not believe that it is the only true church and is able to affirm that it is a provisional expression of the Church of Christ that it needs only a small quantity of specific doctrine, even on the subject of the Church: the rest is a common inheritance. This brings us to the vexed question of whether Anglicanism has any special doctrines of its own. To recap briefly on what we have discussed earlier, some distinguished modern interpreters of Anglicanism and apologists for it have insisted that Anglicanism has no special doctrines of its own. After frequent repetition, this has become unquestioned orthodoxy for many Anglicans. However, this apparently humble and disarming assumption needs further analysis. It goes without saying that the Anglican churches embrace the credal orthodoxy of the formative centuries of the Church with regard to trinitarian and christological doctrine. The authority of the general councils that produced these doctrines is acknowledged by Anglicans. The Nicene– Constantinopolitan Creed is rehearsed in the Eucharist that is celebrated in Anglican churches. Is there any church that does not accept the ecumenical creeds, but manufactures its own? So far, then, what Stephen Sykes has branded the no special doctrines’ gambit is a statement of the obvious, a platitude.5 It is integral to the self-definition of any church that it should identify itself with the doctrines articulated by the early Church, because all churches see themselves as existing in visible continuity with the early Church. All churches would disown with horror any suggestion that they might manufacture novel doctrines of their own. Even when churches appear to innovate (by ordaining women, for example), they appeal to biblical and traditional precedents and principles, as far as possible, in an attempt to show that what may appear to be an innovation is simply a development of what is latent in Christianity but has lacked the opportunity to be realized. The no special doctrines’ or ‘no doctrines of our own’ mantra serves a purpose: it is symbolic of the intention of Anglicanism to be Catholic, to assert its claim to belong to the mainstream, to be part of the whole; it is saying, we are not like a schismatic sect, an aberration, we believe what the Church believes.

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Nevertheless, the no special doctrines’ claim is a fallacy. The divided state of Christendom decrees that every church should have at least one doctrine of its own – a doctrine of the Church (ecclesiology) that legitimates its own existence and affirms its integrity. While some churches continue to challenge (at least by implication) the right of other churches to exist, those latter churches will find it necessary to articulate a doctrine of the Church that provides a place and a justification for their existence. The Anglican Communion cannot exist on the basis of Roman Catholic ecclesiology: that ecclesiology denies Anglicanism’s ecclesial integrity. Anglicanism must have its own ecclesiology, and of course it does. That does not mean that the Anglican doctrine of the Church stands apart from all other ecclesiologies, that it is self-sufficient. It would be surprising if Anglican ecclesiology did not overlap extensively with other churches’ doctrines. In the eyes of faith there is only one Church and because all the separated churches confess that fact and all orientate themselves towards it, they are bound to share extensive common ground when it comes to describing the Church. To a significant extent, there is a general or ecumenical doctrine of the Church: specific ecclesiologies are derived from that general ecclesiology as it is expressed in diverse historical, political, social and cultural contexts. The existence of distinctive ecclesiologies does not call into question the existence of a Christian doctrine of the Church, but rather affirms it.

The diversity of Anglicanism and the problem of selectivity Because Anglicanism is neither confessional nor scholastic and lacks a strong magisterium (teaching office), any appeal to authoritative Anglican texts must be qualified. It would be problematic to claim that certain texts or writers were ‘typical’ or ‘representative’ of Anglicanism. There is a serious methodological issue here: one that arises from several empirical factors that relate to the intellectual richness, the historical scope and the geographical extent of Anglicanism. The first ‘empirical’ factor is that it is misleading to begin with the sixteenth century. Anglicans do not believe that their church originated with the Reformation and in this belief they are justified. A church would not be catholic and apostolic if it simply had been brought into being by a decision of Henry VIII or Elizabeth I. It is in the bones of Anglicans that they belong to a church that is continuous with the medieval church in the West and that goes back to the Apostles and early Fathers. As A.M. Allchin has written, it has always been part of the ‘basic definition’ of an Anglican that ‘an Anglican is one who does not and will not recognise that his Church

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begins at the time of the [sixteenth-century] schism’, and that that church ‘goes back in unbroken continuity into [the] period before the Roman legions left’.6 For Anglicans, the Reformation meant (and means), negatively, the repudiation of the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome within England and of several errors and corruptions of the medieval church. Positively, it meant (and means) the renewal of the church’s life, worship and ministry by a return to the wellsprings of Christian doctrine and practice in the Greek New Testament and the writings of the early Fathers in the original languages. It did not (and does not) mean that a new church was born in the sixteenth century or that a line was drawn in the sand at that point, separating an ‘old’ church from a ‘new’ one. There was massive continuity as well as substantial discontinuity.7 While at a popular level, the ‘popish’ past was often violently repudiated,8 more considering minds, such as John Jewel (Bishop of Salisbury 1560–71) and Richard Hooker, knew that the integrity of the Church of England depended on its maintaining its visible continuity with the Church through the ages, running back through the immediately preceding late medieval Church to the early Fathers, bishops and martyrs. In reality, the reformed Church of England was formed, by addition or subtraction, from what it had inherited from the medieval Church. The Scriptures continued to be the final court of appeal and were (eventually) made available in the vernacular. The creeds were untouched (the Filioque of the Latin West being retained). The reformed liturgies were largely adaptations of medieval forms, and were written in the vernacular. The structure of parishes within dioceses remained. The round of parochial ministration continued through all the upheavals. Uniquely in Europe, the cathedrals remained as the mother church of the diocese, the seat of the bishop, with their own foundation, and more cathedrals were created. The Convocations of the Clergy still met, though they were now answerable to the king rather than to the Pope. Large amounts of canon law were carried over. The first point to be made about the identity of Anglican ecclesiology can be put in paradoxical form like this: it did not begin with Anglicanism (the concept is, in any case, an anachronism before the second half of the seventeenth century). The second ‘empirical’ factor that contributes to the problem of selectivity in Anglicanism is that no single period of Anglican history is definitive, such as to serve as a paradigm of Anglican ecclesiology. The ‘historic formularies’ of the Church of England have shaped all churches of the Anglican Communion, while being adapted or revised in various ways by them. The Articles of Religion developed over an extended period in the sixteenth century, while the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal underwent a series of revisions for more than a century and then reached

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their final, classical form in 1662, when the climate was rather different after the suppression and then the restoration of the Church of England at the time of the English Civil War and the ensuing Commonwealth. But we cannot stop there: Anglicanism has been continuously evolving and modern Anglican theology (and specifically ecclesiology) have been shaped by a number of subsequent developments, including the eighteenth-century high church movement, Tractarianism and Anglo-Catholicism, the broad church tendency, evangelicalism, the ecumenical movement, Protestant biblical theology and Vatican II. Anglicanism is a continuous story: we cannot freeze-frame it at any particular point and say, ‘This is definitive Anglicanism.’ It is still developing, in interaction with various cultures and with other Christian traditions. The third empirical factor is that Anglicanism is a global phenomenon, existing in every part of the world. So we cannot take the Church of England alone as adequately representative of Anglicanism. Of course, the historic official texts from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the writings of the British and Irish divines of the period before the emergence of the worldwide communion, constitute a common inheritance. But Anglican theology has been developing its different emphases in various parts of the Communion, with the Episcopal Church of the USA making a particularly significant contribution. The churches or provinces that make up the Communion are constitutionally self-governing (autonomous), but spiritually and pastorally interdependent. The global spread of Anglicanism, into a Communion of nominally around 75 million persons, makes it highly tendentious to select from the Anglican tradition. Nevertheless, there are ample theological resources that are sufficiently authoritative to give Anglican ecclesiology a coherent identity. I would like to stress the words ‘sufficiently authoritative’: probably not one of these sources possesses an unchallengeable, knock-down authority; each should be seen in the context of others and, above all, each should be brought to the bar of Scripture as the supreme norm of faith. The principal sources (indicative rather than definitive texts) that are relevant to the ecclesiology of Anglicanism, are as follows. •

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The ‘historic formularies’: the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, 1662 and the classic Ordinal (1550/ 1662). Although the provinces of the Communion are not bound to these and have adapted or archived them and produced their own doctrinal statements and liturgies, these historic formularies have shaped Anglican ecclesiology and are firmly lodged in the Anglican memory. They continue, officially or unofficially, to function as a touchstone of authentic Anglicanism.

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The ecclesiological teachings of the Lambeth Conferences since 1867. Though these are not binding in a juridical sense on the provinces, they carry the authority of the collective episcopate of the Communion. They are a treasury of good theology and particularly of ecclesiology. The report of the Church of England’s Doctrine Commission Doctrine in the Church of England (1938) deals extensively with the nature of the Church, the ministry and the sacraments.9 The statements produced in recent years by the Church of England’s House of Bishops set out the ecclesiological principles and policy that guide the Church of England in its ecumenical discussions: Apostolicity and Succession (1994), May They All Be One (1997), Bishops in Communion (2000) and The Eucharist: Sacrament of Unity (2001).10 Some other provinces of the Communion will have similar reports to turn to. The agreed statements of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) in its first phase on ‘Ministry and Ordination’ and ‘The Eucharist’ have been acknowledged by the Lambeth Conference (and, as far as the Church of England is concerned, by the General Synod) as ‘consonant in substance with the faith of Anglicans’. The first statement of ARCIC II, Church as Communion (1991), is also an indicative text, though its status is rather uncertain.11 The Dublin Agreed Statement (1984) of the international Anglican–Orthodox dialogue is an indicator of the broad affinity between Anglicanism and the Eastern churches: they both subsist as a family and communion of self-governing churches, without a central jurisdiction like that of the Roman Catholic Church.12 The Lima Statement of the Faith and Order Commission of the WCC, Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (1982), has been judged by Anglicans to reflect the faith of the church through the ages.13 The famous statement on visible unity of the WCC Faith and Order Commission at the New Delhi Assembly in 1961 has been frequently invoked by Anglicans and has been, in effect, a benchmark for Anglican ecumenism. The fabric of visible unity is constituted when all in each place are in visible communion with all in every place. The Canberra statement of 1991 augments that of New Delhi: its sketch of visible unity has been echoed by Anglicans and their ecumenical partners in dialogue as they have looked for a common confession of the apostolic faith, a common baptism and Eucharist, a single ordained ministry and shared structures of oversight and decision-making.

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The Porvoo Common Statement is the theological basis of an agreement that brought the British and Irish Anglican churches into communion with a number of Nordic and Baltic Lutheran churches in 1996: as such it has a place among the ecclesiological texts that are authoritative for English Anglicans.14 By the same token, Called to Common Mission, which brought the Episcopal Church of the USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America into ‘full communion’ in 2001, when seen in conjunction with the decades of work that led up to its predecessor The Concordat, provides an ecclesiological resource for Episcopalians. There is a useful section on the Anglican Church in More and Cross’s anthology of seventeenth-century Anglican writing Anglicanism (1935) – though the unparalleled achievement of Richard Hooker is thinly represented (perhaps because Hooker wrote at the end of the sixteenth century).15 Love’s Redeeming Work (ed. G. Rowell, K. Stevenson and R. Williams) contains numerous relevant entries on the Anglican Church, from the sixteenth century to the present, from the perspective of spirituality.16

Orientations, anchor-points 17 In addition to this substantial range of authoritative sources, we can identify certain anchor-points for Anglican ecclesiology. These give an orientation, a compass-bearing to Anglican reflection on the Church.

(a) The credal dimensions of the Church Anglicanism aspires to embody the four credal dimensions of the Church: one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Anglicans locate these not mainly in the empirical realm (Roman Catholics and Orthodox teaching tends to emphasize the degree to which the eschatological perfection of the Church is already realized on earth), nor mainly in the eschatological future, beyond this life (some Protestant churches play down the visible expression of unity, stressing the unity of the spirit and looking to the eschaton for its visible manifestation), but straddling both. Unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity are already instantiated in the life of the Church. It has a real unity through faith and baptism, where these are mutually acknowledged, and through the collegiality of its pastors, where there is the mutual recognition and interchangeability of ministries. Nevertheless, unity is imperfect: the Church is currently fragmented; division has marked the Church since the

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beginning. The Church enjoys a real holiness through the Word and sacraments and its members and ministers are called to lives of charity and chastity, but all Christians fall short, lapse into sin and need to be forgiven and restored. In the same way, the Church, as an institution, can become the instrument of injustice or oppression, even to its own members. The catholicity of the Church is already apparent in the wholeness (the literal meaning of ‘catholic’: kat’holon) of its life and teaching. Each particular expression of the Church must relate to and be conformed to the whole. The Church already answers to the needs and aspirations of diverse human communities. Nevertheless, there are always some who feel excluded – if the Church does not rise to the challenge of welcoming them then its catholicity is compromised. The apostolicity of the Church is intrinsic: it is founded on the mission and message of the Apostles. But this is also an imperative: the Church is called to be faithful to the Apostles’ teaching (Acts 2.42) and to carry forward their mission in the present time and within the contemporary culture. In all this, the Church as an institution is far from perfect and continually falls short of its calling. But the Christian virtue of hope sees the Church in the light of God’s purposes and God’s promises that these purposes will one day be fulfilled. It is a libel to say that Anglicans do not believe that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church currently exists. No one who was acquainted with Anglican liturgies and the writings of Anglican divines could think this. Anglicans believe that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church is made up of the local communities gathered by their bishops and other pastors in the unity of the faith and of the sacraments. It is true that this church transcends the empirical church of any one time: it includes those of the faithful who have died and those who will live in the future. In that respect, it is known only to God. However, as well as affirming the Church as the mystical Body of Christ, Anglicans acknowledge a universal Church – a visible, structured and ordered community persisting through history – of the faithful, the baptized. But they do not confuse the two aspects of the one Church: they need to be distinguished, at least conceptually. The Church is always greater and more perfect than our chequered and ambiguous experience of it.

(b) The Reformation notes of the Church In the late Middle Ages it became difficult for many Christians to see the mystical church in the institutional church.18 The worldliness, corruption and ignorance of many clergy meant that the way of salvation was far from clear. But it was essential to belong to the Church, to receive its sacraments, in order to be saved. The Reformation cry, ‘How can I find a gracious God?’ was matched by the search for the authentic Church: ‘Where can I find the

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true Church?’ The Reformers responded with the doctrine of the notae ecclesiae.19 The notes or marks of the true Church were, according to Luther and Calvin, the preaching of the Word of God and the administration of the sacraments. Article XIX of the Thirty-nine Articles echoes the Lutheran Augsburg Confession Article VII in stating that the visible Church is to be found wherever the Word is truly preached and the sacraments are rightly administered. The next generation of Reformers added the third note of discipline, the effective regulation and policing of Christian behaviour, and this is reflected also in the insistence of later Anglican divines that the Church cannot be without its pastors and the ministry of oversight. For the Reformers, the notes were the sign of where salvation was to be had: the means of salvation were the gospel of justification by grace through faith, rediscovered at that time, and the sacraments of the gospel (baptism, the Lord’s Supper administered in both kinds and not the ‘sacrifice’ of the mass, and, for the early Luther, penance or sacramental confession). But, in the form that they were stated by the Reformers, the notes are of limited value today (and were never completely satisfactory), because churches disagree over the interpretation of the Word of God and have differing baptismal and eucharistic disciplines. Nevertheless, for Anglicans, the notae ecclesiae put down a marker about what is essential ecclesiologically: they underpin what Anglicans regard as the irreducible minimum of what makes the Church the Church. That is to say, the Church is constituted by Word and sacrament, ministered by its pastors.

(c) The conciliar tradition The distinctive polity of the churches of the Anglican Communion reflects the influence of the conciliar movement of the late medieval period and of the continuing conciliar tradition to which it gave rise.20 In an attempt to heal the divisions within the Western Church, from the papacy downwards (the papacy had fragmented in 1378), the conciliarists appealed to the whole Church to take responsibility. They invoked the principles of constitutionality (the scope and limits of authority structures should be laid down), representation (the whole Church can take responsibility through representative structures) and consent (laws should not ride roughshod over those to whom they apply but require their acquiescence), together with the classical principles of epieikeia (flexibility and moderation in applying rules) and aequitas (equity or fairness in the administration of the law). These conciliar principles helped to shape the Reformation, though they were inevitably distorted by it. From the Reformers they passed into the bloodstream of the reformed churches and have come to fruition in modern times. This conciliar background means that the character of Anglican

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polity is not hierarchical but holistic. Bishops have a particular, but not exclusive, responsibility for doctrine, liturgy and ministry, but they need to seek the consent of the people of God through synodical deliberation. The exercise of authority in Anglicanism is not legalistic and seldom threatens; it tends to be negotiated and to appeal to the individual’s conscience and the common good of the Church. Current traumas within the Communion produced The Windsor Report, which has encouraged Anglicans to pay more attention to these conciliar strands in their inheritance.21

(d) The threefold ministry The threefold ministry of bishops, priests (or presbyters) and deacons is frankly a non-negotiable platform of Anglicanism in ecumenical conversations. Anglicans are wedded to the threefold order of ministry. They believe that it is primitive – virtually apostolic – and that it will be the ministry of any great united church of the future. There was no suggestion in the English Reformation that the episcopate should be bypassed or abolished, and the historic succession of consecrations was preserved. The dropping of the minor orders left the threefold ministry more clearly revealed. In 1662 the requirement for episcopal ordination became statutory and the distinction between bishop and priest was clarified. The diaconate has always been an ordained ministry, though in practice it was regarded as an apprenticeship to the priesthood. Those who remained longer in deacons orders usually did so for pragmatic reasons such as retaining a college fellowship. Until recently, the diaconate lacked a cogent rationale beyond the dubious rhetoric of ‘servanthood’. The work of J.N. Collins in the 1990s on the meanings of the diakon- words in classical and New Testament Greek, which brought out the root meaning of mandated or commissioned responsible agency, began to percolate through to the churches and to contribute to the developing theology of the diaconate. The Lambeth Quadrilateral insists on the historic episcopate (presupposing the threefold ministry) as one of the minimum conditions for reunion, but Anglicans have recognized the authenticity of the ministries of oversight (episkope) in non-episcopal churches and have never unchurched them for their lack of episcopacy.22

How Anglicans understand the Church What, then, do Anglicans mean by the Church? ‘The Church’, for Anglicans, refers primarily to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, the Church confessed in the Nicene–Constantinopolitan Creed. Anglicans believe that they belong to the one Church of Christ. But they recognize that

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other, non-Anglican Christians, as individuals, also belong by virtue of faith and baptism to the Church. They also recognize that other Christian bodies corporately belong to that Church. They affirm that each Anglican church, subsisting within the Anglican Communion, is itself truly a church, but they do not pretend that the Anglican churches comprise the Church without remainder. Anglicans have used, therefore, the terms ‘part’, ‘portion’ or ‘branch’ to describe both their own and other churches. Anglicans maintain that the doctrine, worship, ministry, sacraments and polity of their churches are those of the Church of Christ and they believe that these are blessed by the Holy Spirit. Anglican churches resolutely affirm their catholicity and apostolicity and their standing as true churches of Christ. Anglicans are deeply offended when the catholic and apostolic credentials of their church are questioned or impugned (for example by the Roman Catholic Church’s condemnation of Anglican orders in 1896). They hold that the designation ‘catholic’ fully belongs to their church and in the Creed, of course, they affirm as an article of faith that the Church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. While they resolutely uphold the ecclesial standing of their church, Anglicans confess that, like all branches of the Christian Church, without exception, Anglicanism is provisional and incomplete in the light of the Church that is confessed in the creeds as one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Anglicans believe that these credal attributes of the Church will be fully revealed only eschatologically, when God’s saving purpose is fulfilled in the end-time. This belief entails the important admission that the fragmentation of the Church into various parts or branches is not its definitive state, or what God wills for it. Here Anglicans are, in effect, saying: ‘We are the Church. You also are the Church. But neither of us is the Church in its fullness.’ This acknowledgement of the incompleteness of one’s own church and recognition of the ecclesial reality of other churches contributes to the commitment to the quest for Christian unity. Anglicans believe that the Church on earth is united with the Church in heaven in the communion of the saints (sanctorum communio). They speak of ‘the Church Militant here in earth’ and the Church triumphant in heaven. They worship God together with ‘Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven’. Anglicans acknowledge that the Church of Christ on earth is manifested in particular contexts and at various ‘levels’, from the universal to the very local: they are all manifestations of the Church. First, there is the universal Church, the Church Catholic. It is both one and many. It is simultaneously united and divided. Though outwardly divided in some important ways, it remains inwardly united in several crucial respects. The universal Church consists of all Christians united to Christ in

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the Holy Spirit, fundamentally through faith and baptism, and ordered in their various communities under the apostolic ministry of word, sacrament and pastoral oversight. Anglicans unequivocally recognize their essential fellowship with all the baptized, whatever their Christian tradition or denominational allegiance may be. The Book of Common Prayer (1662) speaks of Christians as ‘very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people’. This is usually taken to mean those who have confessed the faith in baptism. Second, there are provinces (sometimes made up of more than one ‘province’!). Many provinces are national churches. The significance that Anglicans give to provinces derives from ancient catholic usage, where dioceses are gathered into provinces under a metropolitan (usually an archbishop). Third, there is the church of the diocese, which is often an area with a shared history and common sense of identity. The diocesan bishop exercises an apostolic ministry of pastoral oversight among the faithful of the diocese as their chief pastor and father in God. He usually shares his episkope with suffragan bishops and also consults with the clergy and representative lay people, through the diocesan synod and the bishop’s council, in his task of leading and governing the diocese. The bishop is also canonically the president of the diocese as a eucharistic community and the principal minister of the sacraments. The bishop is, therefore, the president of the eucharistic celebration of the Christian community. However, he (or she in some Anglican provinces) shares the cure of souls and eucharistic presidency with the clergy of the diocese in a collegial manner, while retaining the ultimate responsibility under God. In Anglicanism, the diocese, as the community united in its bishop and as the bishop’s sphere of ministry, is regarded ecclesiologically as the ‘local church’. It is the locus or sphere of the bishop’s oversight and of the bishop’s collegial ministry with the presbyterate, assisted by the deacons, in every place. Fourth, there is the parish, the most local level of the Church (though not ‘the local church’) and the smallest unit of the Church to have ecclesial significance for Anglicans. In the established, territorial Church of England it is the geographical parish, rather than the worshipping community itself, that is recognized. The church of the parish consists of a community of the baptized, together with ‘catechumens’ (enquirers receiving instruction leading to baptism and confirmation). It normally gathers in one place, the parish church, for worship, teaching and fellowship. Anglicans do not think of the gathered congregation as the fundamental unit of the Church, but of the diocese as the local church, comprising all the parishes within which the clergy exercise a ministry of word, sacrament and pastoral care that is commissioned and overseen by the bishop. The parish is authentically an

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expression of the Church, just as the universal, provincial/national and diocesan structures are manifestations of the Church. The ‘fresh expressions’ of church, in which the Church of England is investing its resources and its hopes, relate to both diocese and parish. Though this category covers a multitude of initiatives of various kinds, generally speaking fresh expressions come under the direct oversight of the bishop, rather than of the parish priest (incumbent). They may have a parallel life to that of the parish church and be independent of it to all intents and purposes, and they may overlap parish boundaries. But they still take place within a diocese and within the parishes that make up the diocese. The two most fundamental manifestations of the Church are the universal Church and the local Church (diocese): provinces and parishes are dependent on these, but that does not mean that they are not themselves ecclesial realities. The universal and local (diocesan) expressions of the Church are essential and interdependent; the provincial and parochial expressions are in a sense contingent and not essential. The existence of the Church, at any of these levels, can be identified, as the Thirty-nine Articles suggest, wherever the Word of God is preached and the sacraments of baptism and Holy Communion (Eucharist) are celebrated and administered, according to Christ’s institution, by those who are given authority to do so, for these indicate that Christ is present with his people in the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Article XIX).

Conclusion: the Anglican experiment A suspicious reading of Anglicanism sees it as a political expedient of the sixteenth century, to serve Henry VIII’s dynastic and national ambitions (though there was a good deal more, theologically, to Henry’s policy than that)23 – and therefore as lacking in integrity and doomed to disintegrate eventually under the pressure of internal contradictions. A more generous interpretation sees it as a distinctive inculturated expression of the Western form of the Church Catholic, shaped by the conciliar and reforming movements of the late Middle Ages and early modern period, to which sources the constitutional settlements under Henry and Elizabeth were subservient. Anglicanism does indeed attempt to hold together elements that are opposed in other traditions – though not without strain. It defines itself as catholic and reformed; orthodox in doctrine yet open to change in its application. Its polity is both episcopal (and its bishops have real authority) and synodical – an unusual combination in a church that has maintained the historic episcopate. It acknowledges an ecumenical council as the highest

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authority in the Church, but is not opposed in principle to a universal primacy and virtually never has been. It confesses the paramount authority of Scripture, but reveres tradition and hearkens to the voice of culture and science. It tries to be neither centralized nor fragmented, neither authoritarian nor anarchic. It is comprehensive without being relativistic. This interesting experiment has endured and evolved for nearly five centuries: in spite of the present difficulties, I believe that it is worth persevering with.

Notes 1. E. Radner and P. Turner, The Fate of Communion: The Agony of Anglicanism and the Future of a Global Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), p. 2. 2. Cf. S.W. Sykes, The Identity of Christianity (London: SPCK, 1984). 3. See P. Avis, A Church Drawing Near: Spirituality and Mission in a Post-Christian Culture (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2003). 4. Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, III.9.2: The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker, ed. W. Speed Hill (Cambridge, MA: The Folger Library), Vol. 1, p. 236. 5. S.W. Sykes, Unashamed Anglicanism (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1995). 6. A.M. Allchin, ‘Orthodox and Anglican: An Uneasy but Enduring Relationship’, in P.M. Doll (ed.), Anglicanism and Orthodoxy: 300 Years after the ‘Greek College’ in Oxford (Oxford, Bern: Peter Lang, 2006), p. 333. 7. For discussion of continuity and discontinuity, with particular reference to the relationship between the conciliar and reforming movements of the late medieval period and their perpetuation through the Reformation, see P. Avis, Beyond the Reformation: Authority, Primacy and Unity in the Conciliar Tradition (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2006), passim and esp. Introduction and pp. 196–200. 8. The often extreme popular reaction against the recent (Roman Catholic) past is brought out in N. Jones, The English Reformation: Religion and Cultural Adaptation (Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002). 9. Doctrine in the Church of England: The Report of the Commission on Christian Doctrine appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1922 (London: SPCK, 1938). The report was reissued in 1982 with a useful introduction by G.W.H. Lampe. 10. All published by Church House, London. 11. Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission, The Final Report (London: SPCK/CTS, 1982). 12. Anglican–Orthodox Dialogue: The Dublin Agreed Statement (London: SPCK, 1984). This also reproduces the Moscow Agreed Statement of 1976. The major statement of the dialogue that took place between 1989 and 2006, The Church of the Triune God (London: Anglican Communion Office, 2006), will no doubt

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13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

The Identity of Anglicanism need to be added to the list when it has undergone a process of reception within the Anglican Communion. Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry (Geneva: WCC, 1982). Together in Mission and Ministry: The Porvoo Common Statement with Essays on Church and Ministry in Northern Europe (London: Church House, 1992). P.E. More and F.L. Cross (eds), Anglicanism: The Thought and Practice of the Church of England Illustrated from the Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century (London: SPCK, 1935). See n. 3. Cf. J.R. Wright, ‘Prolegomena to a Study of Anglican Ecclesiology’, in D.S. Armentrout (ed.), This Sacred History: Anglican Reflections for John Booty (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1990), pp. 243–56; Sykes, Unashamed Anglicanism, Ch. 7: ‘Foundations of an Anglican Ecclesiology’. For the tension between the mystical and the institutional dimensions of the Church in this period and during the Reformation, see P. Avis, Beyond the Reformation? For an exposition of this concept in the Reformers, see P. Avis, The Church in the Theology of the Reformers (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1982; repr. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2003). See Avis, Beyond the Reformation?, passim. See The Windsor Report (London: Anglican Communion Office, 2004). Cf. P. Avis, ‘The Revision of the Ordinal in the Church of England 1550–2005’, Ecclesiology, 1 (2005): pp. 95–110; A Ministry Shaped by Mission (London

and New York: T&T Clark, 2005); J.N. Collins, Diakonia: Reinterpreting the Ancient Sources (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

23. Robustly defended in G.W. Bernard, The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005).

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t first glance the question of the place of Jesus Christ in the Anglican tradition of theology and spirituality looks like a non-question. To very many Anglicans in the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion it would be like asking what Jesus has got to do with life, the universe and everything! The question is either rather pointless or else impossible to answer within finite limits. Anglicans would say that for them, as for other Christians, Jesus Christ is presupposed in their belief, worship and behaviour. However, that assumption should not go unchallenged. The things that we take for granted are sometimes the very things that need to be probed and scrutinized. This caution is borne out by the historic formularies of the Church of England, that have helped to shape Anglican ecclesial identity throughout the Communion. Neither the Book of Common Prayer (1662) – for all its Cranmerian glories – nor the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion offer much mileage for a distinctive Anglican perspective on Jesus of Nazareth. The striking words of the Litany, that evoke all that Jesus underwent as man for the salvation of humankind, are drawn from the Latin of the Anglo-Saxon Church: By the mystery of thy holy Incarnation; by thy holy Nativity and Circumcision; by thy Baptism, Fasting and Temptation . . . By thine Agony and bloody Sweat; by thy Cross and Passion; by thy precious Death and Burial; by thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost, Good Lord deliver us.

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Where is Jesus in the study of Anglicanism? Our scepticism is reinforced if we consider what some standard works on Anglicanism have to say about Jesus Christ. Surprisingly, they have said very little. The classic anthology of seventeenth-century Anglican writing devotes a mere 14 pages, out of more than 800, to the person of Jesus Christ.2 It does not include anything about his actual earthly ministry or his saving death. Had they been challenged about this, the editors would probably have replied that Anglicanism did not have anything distinctive to say about those matters: it shared the faith of the universal Church. But that argument could prove to be the thin end of a rather major wedge. In its beliefs, worship, structures and spirituality Anglicanism has much in common with other traditions of the Christian Church. That does not mean that Anglicanism does not have a distinctive slant on all these things. Our question here is whether it has a distinctive perspective on the person of Jesus Christ and his significance for Christian faith. A recent anthology, on the theme of the Anglican quest for holiness, that covers the period from the beginning of the Reformation to the end of the twentieth century, is more rewarding.3 It includes several gems of intimate devotion to the figure of Jesus Christ. John Newton’s hymn ‘How sweet the name of Jesus sounds’ reminds us that personal devotion to Jesus is authentic to Anglicanism, just as it is to other Christian traditions. William Law speaks of the Christian’s calling to share the spirit and temper of Jesus’s life and actions, ‘to walk as he walked’. Henry Scott Holland proclaims Jesus Christ as ‘the crown and sum of humanity’. The American Episcopalian William Porcher DuBose writes: ‘Jesus Christ is to me, not a name, nor a memory or tradition, nor an idea or sentiment, nor a personification, but a living and personal reality, presence and power.’ A.H. Stanton reminds Anglicans that theirs is ‘the religion of a personal Saviour’ and George Body points out that the Church’s worship is ‘the worship of the Incarnate God, the man Christ Jesus’. Others tell of the daily companionship, the unfailing friendship of Jesus Christ. But even so, these examples represent a tiny fraction of all that is included in a volume of 800 pages. A widely used introduction to Anglicanism by several contributors, The Study of Anglicanism, contains one indexed reference to Jesus Christ and one to christology, both in the same chapter. Louis Weil’s contribution ‘The Gospel in Anglicanism’ addresses implicitly the significance of Jesus Christ for faith. But it does seem rather extraordinary that the study of Anglicanism should not lead us in any overt way to the study of Jesus Christ.4 In the Anglican theologian John Macquarrie’s standard work Jesus

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Christ in Modern Thought, Anglican theologians, with the exception of Charles Gore and John A.T. Robinson, are conspicuous by their absence. While Macquarrie himself made an estimable contribution, in this book and elsewhere, the gap that remains is at least partly understandable.5 Since Lionel Thornton’s The Incarnate Lord (1928)6 there appears to have been no Anglican treatment of christology comparable to the major treatises that have emerged from other Christian traditions, such as W. Pannenberg’s Jesus – God and Man, E. Schillebeeckx’s exhaustive two-volume treatment Jesus and Christ or even W. Kasper’s serviceable study Jesus the Christ.7 The second volume of N.T. Wright’s magnum opus on Christian origins tackles the question of Jesus in the synoptic gospels, but quite properly does not attempt to move beyond New Testament study to theological construction.8 A further disappointment is that a general survey, Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture, by Jaroslav Pelikan (1985), contains only minimal references to Anglican writers. Shakespeare is mentioned in passing (if we may take him as speaking from within Elizabethan, Protestant English religion – there has been much speculation about whether he was not, at heart, a Roman Catholic), as are T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden. Charles Wesley and a selection of his more than 6,000 hymns are there (though a founder of the Methodist movement, he was never anything other than a loyal son of the Church of England). Pelikan also makes the arresting observation that ‘as respect for the organised church has declined, reverence for Jesus has grown’ (somehow the Church and Jesus have become divorced in popular perception). But by his account, the Anglican tradition has contributed little to turn our attention to Jesus. At this point in our enquiry, two questions begin to become rather insistent. Is it the case, as the volumes mentioned above might suggest, that Anglicans have paid little attention to the founder of their religion? Or is it the case that, although Anglicans may have paid as much attention to Jesus Christ as anyone else has, this attention not been thought worth recording or retrieving? In order to answer these questions, it would be necessary to make a thorough historical survey of the literature written by Anglican theologians and to immerse oneself in the dusty tomes consigned to oblivion in cathedral and university libraries (these would include numerous precritical lives of Jesus, going back to Jeremy Taylor in the mid-seventeenth century). This exercise is obviously quite impossible for our present purposes. It would also take us well beyond our brief to attempt to chart the contributions made by a galaxy of Anglican New Testament scholars to the historical study of the texts that speak of Jesus and to their correct interpretation. There are, however, three areas, other than strict historico-critical study, that we may single out where the significance of Jesus for faith has been explored by Anglican writers. These comprise first, the various

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attempts to develop a Christ-centred or christomorphic metaphysic; second, the tradition of theological reflection on the real humanity of Jesus of Nazareth; and third, the doctrine of the atonement, centred on the saving work of Christ.

The quest for meaning, or the longing for redemption? There is a distinguished tradition, in modern Anglican theology, of philosophical reflection on the Incarnation, the discursive elaboration of a worldview of which the Incarnation is the central focus. This tradition was influenced by the metaphysical confidence associated with philosophical idealism (in its personalist rather than absolute, Hegelian form). The keynote is struck in Westcott’s Christus Consummator (1886), which begins with Plato’s vision of reality and shows how it is fulfilled in Christ. The Incarnation completes nature and reconciles the contraries of modern thought.9 The exemplar of this genre is the collection Lux Mundi (1889), in which Gore and his associates set out to bring the Christian faith, as it had been received from the Fathers of the Church, into a closer relationship with modern thought.10 Gore dedicated his life to this quest. His late works Belief in Christ and The Philosophy of the Good Life are an impressive advocacy of the place of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word of God, within a coherent worldview that brings together the insights of natural theology and the claims of divine revelation in Scripture, interpreted by means of a moderately historical-critical method.11 The flowering of the metaphysical approach is seen in William Temple (successively Archbishop of York and of Canterbury; d. 1944). Temple’s early writings, though breathing a spirit of Christian devotion, brashly assumed that Jesus Christ came merely to put the finishing touches to what Plato had already taught. His mature work, especially Mens Creatrix and Christus Veritas, offered a more sober, though still speculative approach to a Christ-centred worldview.12 One of the latest flourishings of the Anglican christocentric metaphysic was Charles Raven’s Gifford Lectures, Natural Religion and Christian Theology.13 There was a perceptible shift, between the two world wars, from a focus on the search for a coherent meaning in the universe and seeing the person of Jesus Christ as the fulfilment of human aspirations and development, to a more tensive view of history and culture in which he is seen as bringing challenge and judgement into the world. This movement of the centre of theological gravity is seen in Gore, for whom the biblical prophetic voice, from the eighth century bc through John the Baptist to Jesus himself, became ever more significant as a form of divine revelation. It is found in the

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Anglican layman A.E. Taylor’s impressive Gifford Lectures of 1930, which take the reality of history more seriously than might have been the case half a century earlier.14 The scholar who most consistently reshaped Anglican theology to a more christological as well as prophetic mould was Sir Edwyn Hoskyns. Profoundly influenced by the early Karl Barth’s dialectical theology, Hoskyns translated into English the 2nd edition of Barth’s portentous commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. In his contribution on the gospels to Essays Catholic and Critical (1926) and more fully in The Riddle of the New Testament (1931) Hoskyns argued that the New Testament had been shaped primarily by Jesus’s own interpretation of his mission and destiny. His cross and resurrection were the pivot of salvation history. Hoskyn’s commentary on St John is still well worth reading after 60 years. Hoskyns reclaimed the New Testament literature, particularly the gospels, from the liberal humanitarian and Hegelian evolutionary schools of theology and brought out the element of eschatological tension between the inauguration of the Kingdom of God in the ministry of Jesus and its incomplete fulfilment in history. His Cambridge Sermons (1938) strike an unusual note with their eschatological themes of sin, judgement and redemption. Hoskyns reclaimed the language of the New Testament as the language of the Church. The title of Hoskyns’ theological remains Crucifixion–Resurrection sums up the distinctive twist that he gave to Anglican theology and christology.15 However, Hoskyns was not alone in his Christ-centred ecclesiology at this time. In 1936 the future Archbishop of York and then Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, published The Gospel and the Catholic Church which saw the Church as founded on the paschal mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection. Ramsey was deeply influenced by the mid-nineteenth-century theologian F.D. Maurice, who had a knack of getting down to theological brass-tacks and played a part in the rehabilitation of Reformation theology against the Tractarian (Oxford Movement) attack on the Reformers. Ramsey appealed to Luther’s theology of the cross and insisted, as Luther himself had done, that the Church stands or falls by its faithfulness to the gospel of grace. Ramsey united this concern with the impetus of the movement of liturgical renewal and showed how the Church both participates in Christ and shows forth his death and resurrection to the world through sacramental worship and in the structure of its ministry (particularly the episcopate).16 The theme of prophetic judgement and therefore of christocentrism comes to urgent expression in Temple’s introduction to the first report of the Church of England’s Doctrine Commission, Doctrine in the Church of England (1938), where he acknowledges the inadequacy of the christocentric metaphysic that had preoccupied Anglican scholars during his lifetime,

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in the face of the totalitarian threat to the democracies and the need ‘to sound the prophetic note’ in a theology of redemption.17

Reflecting on the humanity of Jesus Theological reflection on the gospels, in the context of the whole New Testament, is of course as old as Christianity itself. At times it has been hamstrung by failure to do full justice to the true humanity of Jesus. In the modern period, Robert Wilberforce’s The Doctrine of the Incarnation stands out as an attempt to do precisely this, to address the theological significance of the humanity of Jesus (he is presented as the pattern of humanity) without falling into the rationalist reductionism that sees him as merely human.18 Though published half a century later in 1896, Ottley’s treatise on the Incarnation belongs to the same broad genre. It is biblical, historical and devotional; it believes with the Fathers and with the later Church. In this work, the development of Christian doctrine ends with the sixteenth century – the Reformers and Hooker; the German giants of the nineteenth century, such as Schleiermacher, Hermann and Ritschl, are not part of the picture. Within this framework of credal orthodoxy, Ottley expounds the true humanity of Jesus Christ: the perfections and limitations of his manhood, his real, albeit sinless, temptations and his physical, mental and spiritual development.19 Once we cross the watershed of the historical-critical method of biblical study, F.J.A. Hort’s Hulsean Lectures for 1871, The Way, the Truth the Life, are a distinguished exposition of the tradition of the imitation of Christ that is both philosophical and ethical.20 Yet an even more radical product of the historical approach was even then changing the way Anglicans thought about Jesus. A revolution began with the publication, anonymously, in 1865 of Ecce Homo by Sir John Seeley.21 It offered an attractive presentation of Jesus in his real humanity as a moral reformer. Though its intention was doubtfully orthodox, Ecce Homo came as a revelation to many orthodox Anglicans. It opened their eyes, as never before, to the Jesus of the synoptic gospels portrayed in his authentic humanity. For Gore, faithfulness to the humanity of ‘the figure of the Gospels’ became a benchmark of theological integrity that had doctrinal consequences. Gore explored these in his essay in Lux Mundi, in his Bampton Lectures of 1891 on the Incarnation and in his Dissertations on the same theme.22 The main consequence of the human limitation of Jesus’s knowledge (the absence of omniscience) was that the Incarnation must have entailed some discarding of the divine attributes of the eternal Word, the divine Son. This ‘kenotic’ (from the New Testament

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Greek kenosis – emptying) theory of the Incarnation, though it could appeal not only to the evidence of the Gospels but also to St Paul’s hymn in Philippians 2, was regarded by conservative high churchmen, such as H.P. Liddon, as heterodox. Steady, balanced work, combining biblical, historical and philosophical methods, on the person and place of Jesus Christ was undertaken between the wars by such Anglican theologians as Oliver Quick, notably in Doctrines of the Creed, and by Leonard Hodgson, notably in And Was Made Man.23 Mainstream Anglican theologians and apologists though they both were, neither of them merely reproduced an uncritical orthodoxy. Both Quick and Hodgson accepted that the Incarnation entailed a genuinely human limitation on Jesus’ knowledge and both acknowledged that the belief in the virginal conception of Jesus involved serious difficulties. Theological reflection on the humanity of Jesus recurred at the time of the Modernist movement in the Church of England. At the Modern Churchmen’s Conference in 1921 J.F. Bethune-Baker argued that christology should begin with what is known (we know that Jesus was a man) and proceed from that to what is unknown (in what sense he was also divine). The method of that hammer of Modernists, Charles Gore, was to work both inductively (from the exegesis of Scripture, the evidence of history, the discoveries of science and the arguments of philosophy) and deductively (through a critical examination of the teaching of the Church) simultaneously – Jesus Christ always being in the centre. The method of E.L. Mascall, whose early doctrinal works still repay study and who draws on Gore as well as on earlier Anglican divines, such as Hooker and Robert Wilberforce, is, it must be said, largely deductive, philosophical and dogmatic – though the focus remains on Jesus Christ.24 Some of the old arguments were reworked in the 1960s and are gathered together in Christ, Faith and History. This mainly Anglican collection includes a debate between J.A.T. Robinson and S.W. Sykes about the humanity of Jesus. Sykes attacks the assumption that to affirm the humanity of Jesus is a perfectly straightforward and uncomplicated matter. On the contrary, he claims, the humanity of Jesus must be considered theologically, just as his divinity must be, in the light of the unity of his person.25 In Jesus Christ in Modern Thought, Macquarrie addresses the humanity of Jesus (as well as his divinity). From a starting-point in common human experience we can see Jesus as the one in whom the human potential for transcendence comes so close to the life of God that it can be said to have become ‘deified’. Macquarrie demurs at the inevitable charge of adoptionism and Pelagianism. He believes that the humanity of Jesus is the proper starting-point for method in christology, though he insists that it is only half of the equation. It provokes us to ask where God is in all this. With

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DuBose, Macquarrie affirms that, as the representative human being, Jesus reveals the truth about humanity and in so doing points us to God.

Jesus and the atonement in modern Anglicanism A collateral enterprise of Anglican theology, with links to christology and the critical study of the New Testament, is the study of the atonement, particularly of the redemptive significance of the death of Jesus. Not uniquely but nevertheless characteristically, modern Anglican theologians have been drawn back repeatedly to wrestle with this question. Often they have believed that they were liberating the Church from views that obscured the real Jesus, the servant and agent of God’s unfathomable love. Benjamin Jowett’s mid-nineteenth-century essay on the atonement begins with an outburst of moral revulsion against juridical, substitutionary doctrines of atonement. Jowett insists that the death of Jesus should not be abstracted from his life and ministry: ‘Christ died for us in no other sense than he lived or rose again for us.’ Redemption is effected through our identification and communion with the living Christ.26 Jowett’s protest had been anticipated by F.D. Maurice. In his Theological Essays (1853) Maurice presented the atonement as an act of divine self-giving. In Jesus, God offered himself for the sins of the world. In him, divine love and human suffering were brought together. Maurice’s The Doctrine of Sacrifice (1854) vindicated this stance against criticism. Maurice claimed to be recovering the reality of God’s loving work of salvation from the fog of human error. We are not delivered, Maurice proclaimed, from any threat emanating from God, but from dark and slavish notions, arising from our own fears, that we have projected on to God. The atonement was accomplished by Christ’s solidarity, sympathy and self-identification with sinners even unto death. Maurice’s passion and profundity in speaking of Christ’s saving work in carrying out the loving will of the Father is difficult to match.27 R.C. Moberly’s Atonement and Personality (1901) reinterpreted the death of Christ in the tradition of Abelardian exemplarism but without falling into a subjectivizing of the atonement (rather he over-objectified it by not doing justice to the necessity of the appropriate human response to make atonement effective). Moberly gave fresh acknowledgement to the personhood of Jesus and to the personal appropriation of the atonement by developing the idea of the representative role of Jesus as both human and divine. Moberly stresses the solidarity of Christ with all humanity, but his grounds for this sound principle are comparatively weak, being based on a perception of the vicariousness of all human existence and on the patristic

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(specifically Irenaean) theory of recapitulation. Jesus perfectly expressed both God’s just purpose and the human act of penitence. Jesus ‘confessed the Father’ by being the definitive revelation of God to the world, and he confessed the sins of humankind as ‘the perfect penitent’. Moberly’s doctrine over-emphasized the objectivity of the work of Christ, but it escaped from mechanical transaction models of the atonement by emphasizing the real dynamic relation between Jesus and humanity through creation and recreation, but his notion of ‘the perfect penitent’ did not find acceptance.28 Hastings Rashdall’s The Idea of Atonement in Christian Theology (1919) was a major restatement of the Abelardian or exemplarist view of the atonement. Rashdall had already savaged Moberly’s logic in a major review (1902). His method in this treatise is to start from the teaching of Jesus in the gospels: did he teach that atonement would come only through his own death? Rashdall’s is a simplistic interpretation of that teaching; he overlooks the eschatological, dramatic and sacrificial elements. For him, all that needs to change is the human heart: repentance alone is needed to enter the kingdom of God’s forgiveness. God is compassionately and sufferingly involved in the world and seeks the transformation of human attitudes into conformity with the divine. For all his salutary controlling focus on the words and deeds of Jesus, Rashdall ends up by downplaying the suffering Saviour from the gospel picture, together with the sacraments and discipleship within the community of Christ’s body. In Christus Veritas, already mentioned, William Temple developed a slightly tougher version of the moral-influence theory. In the suffering of Jesus on the cross, we see both what sin costs God and the strength of God’s loving purpose to restore us to communion with himself. Temple’s approach is also reflected in the report Doctrine in the Church of England.29 The 1995 report of the Doctrine Commission of the Church of England, The Mystery of Salvation, dwells on the vicarious or representativesacrificial interpretation of the death of Jesus, linking it with twentiethcentury insights into the compassionate solidarity of God with human suffering, seen supremely in the incarnate Jesus Christ, but it does not come down on the side of any single model of the atonement.30

Conclusion At the outset of this brief enquiry the question was raised of whether Anglicanism has been deficient in giving theological attention to the person of Jesus. It was suspected that if Anglicans were accused of neglecting the founder, source and inspiration of their faith, they would reply that he is presupposed in all they do and say. These suspicions were confirmed by a

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glance at some major resource and reference works. The chapter then looked more closely – though inevitably selectively – at three themes in which the person of Jesus Christ must figure extensively: attempts to set him at the heart of the quest for meaning, to develop a christocentric metaphysic; reflection on the true humanity of Jesus; and accounts of the saving work of Christ, the atonement. At the end of this admittedly rather cursory consideration of the place of Jesus Christ in Anglicanism, I am driven to the conclusion that, although Anglicans are probably second to none in their personal devotion to Jesus, the Anglican theological enterprise would definitely benefit from becoming more explicitly focused on Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour of the world and Lord of the Church.

Notes 1. Material in this chapter appeared in my article ‘Anglicanism’ in J.L. Houlden, (ed.), Jesus in History, Thought and Culture: An Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara, CA.: ABC–CLIO, 2003). 2. P.E. More and F.L. Cross (eds), Anglicanism: The Thought and Practice of the Church of England, Illustrated from the Religious Literature of the Seventeenth Century (London: SPCK, 1935). 3. G. Rowell, K. Stevenson, R. Williams (eds), Love’s Redeeming Work: The Anglican Quest for Holiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 4. L. Weil, ‘The Gospel in Anglicanism’, in S.W. Sykes, J. Booty and J. Knight (eds), The Study of Anglicanism, 2nd edn (London: SPCK; Minneapolis, MI: Fortress Press, 1998). 5. J. Macquarrie, Jesus Christ in Modern Thought (London: SCM Press; Philadelphia, PA: Trinity Press International, 1990). See also his Principles of Christian Theology, 2nd edn (London: SCM Press, 1977). J.A.T. Robinson, Jesus: The Human Face of God (London: SCM Press, 1973). Macquarrie judged this to be ‘the most important book on christology to appear in Britain since Baillie’s God Was in Christ, a quarter of a century earlier’ (Macquarrie, Jesus Christ, p. 333). For Gore see below. 6. L. Thornton CR, The Incarnate Lord (London: Longmans, Green, 1928). 7. W. Pannenberg, Jesus God and Man (London: SCM Press, 1968). E. Schillebeeckx, Jesus: An Experiment in Christology (London: Collins; New York: Crossroad, 1979); Christ: The Christian Experience in the Modern World (London: Collins; New York: Crossroad, 1980). These volumes, together with Church: The Human Story of God (London: SCM Press; New York: Crossroad, 1990), which has substantial sections on christology, have been described by Macquarrie as ‘perhaps the most detailed study of the person of Jesus Christ to have appeared in the twentieth century’ (Macquarrie, Jesus Christ, p. 308). W. Kasper, Jesus the Christ (London: Burns & Oates; New York: Paulist Press, 1976).

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8. N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996). A work that deserves mention for its persuasive theological construction, making good use of personalist philosophical concepts, is Adrian Thatcher, Truly a Person, Truly God (London: SPCK, 1989), praised by Macquarrie in the blurb. 9. B.F. Westcott, Christus Consummator (London: Macmillan, 1886). 10. C. Gore (ed.), Lux Mundi: A Series of Studies in the Religion of the Incarnation (London: John Murray, 1889). 11. C. Gore, Belief in Christ (Vol. 2 of The Reconstruction of Belief) (London: John Murray, 1922); The Philosophy of the Good Life (London: John Murray, 1930). On Gore, see J. Carpenter, Gore: A Study in Liberal Catholicism (London: Faith Press, 1960) and P. Avis, Gore: Construction and Conflict (Worthing: Churchman Publishing, 1988). 12. W. Temple, Mens Creatrix (London: Macmillan, 1917); Christus Veritas (London: Macmillan, 1924). 13. C. Raven, Natural Religion and Christian Theology, 2 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), esp. Vol. 2, Experience and Interpretation. 14. A.E. Taylor, The Faith of a Moralist, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1951). 15. E.C. Hoskyns, ‘The Christ of the Synoptic Gospels’, in E.G. Selwyn (ed.), Essays Catholic and Critical (London: SPCK, 1926); (with N. Davey) The Riddle of the New Testament (London: Faber & Faber, 1931), The Fourth Gospel, 2nd edn (London: Faber & Faber, 1947) and Crucifixion–Resurrection: The Pattern of the Theology and Ethics of the New Testament (London: SPCK, 1981); Cambridge Sermons (London: SPCK, 1938). 16. A.M. Ramsey, The Gospel and the Catholic Church (London: Longmans, Green, 1936). 17. Doctrine in the Church of England (London: SPCK, 1938; repr. with intro. by G.W.H. Lampe, 1982). 18. R. Wilberforce, The Doctrine of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ in its Relation to Mankind and to the Church, 3rd edn (London: John Murray, 1850). 19. R.L. Ottley, The Doctrine of the Incarnation, 4th edn (London: Methuen, 1908). 20. F.J.A. Hort, The Way the Truth the Life, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1894). 21. J. Seeley, Ecce Homo (London: Macmillan, 1865). 22. C. Gore, The Incarnation of the Son of God (London: John Murray, 1892); Dissertations on Subjects Connected with the Incarnation, 2nd edn (London: John Murray, 1896). 23. O.C. Quick, Doctrines of the Creeds (London: Nisbet, 1938). L. Hodgson, And Was Made Man: An Introduction to the Study of the Gospels (London: Longmans, Green, 1928). 24. See especially E.L. Mascall, Christ, the Christian and the Church: A Study of the Incarnation and its Consequences (London: Longmans, Green, 1946). 25. S.W. Sykes and J.P. Clayton (eds), Christ, Faith and History: Cambridge Studies in Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972). 26. B. Jowett, ‘Essay on Atonement and Satisfaction’ (1855) in Theological Essays (London: Henry Frowde, 1906; 2nd edn first published 1859), p. 260.

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27. F.D. Maurice, Theological Essays (London: James Clarke, 1957); The Doctrine of Sacrifice, new edn (London: Macmillan, 1879). 28. R.C. Moberly, Atonement and Personality (London: John Murray, 1901). 29. See further on the above theologians and their context P. Avis, ‘The Atonement’, in G. Wainwright (ed.), Keeping the Faith: Essays to Mark the Centenary of Lux Mundi (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press Allison Park, PA: Pickwick Publications, 1988). 30. Doctrine Commission of the Church of England, The Mystery of Salvation (London: Church House, 1995).

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Anglicanism in Memory and Hope1 We have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream. (Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Preface, 1, i.)

O

ver the centuries, the diocese of Exeter (my diocese since my ordination to the diaconate in 1975) and the county of Devon (my home) have given the Church of England three of its greatest theologians. In chronological order they are John Jewel, Richard Hooker and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The first two made their major contribution in the second half of the sixteenth century, the last in the first half of the nineteenth. The first was a bishop, the second a priest and the third a layman. This trinity of divines gives me my starting-point for a reflection on Anglicanism in memory and hope, in tradition and mission, on the need to conserve the past and to build for the future. By his writing and preaching Jewel consolidated the Anglican settlement at its fragile birth under the young Elizabeth I. A generation later Hooker feared for the Church of England at the hands of radical reformers within and helped to secure its future. Coleridge made trial of his age (as Newman put it) and set the Church on a fresh course of intellectual and imaginative renewal at a time when searching minds (such as Thomas Arnold) believed that it was finished. The emergence, at the time when they were sorely needed, of Jewel, Hooker and Coleridge (among many others, of course), suggests that theological leadership is raised up in due season. I mention Coleridge first before reverting to the sixteenth century and then doing a hop, a skip and a jump to the present.

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Coleridge was born at Ottery St Mary in 1772 and died at Highgate in 1834. His father had been schoolmaster of the market town of South Molton (where I served as assistant curate in an extensive team ministry in the late 1970s), tucked under the edge of Exmoor. Coleridge senior went on to become vicar and headmaster at Ottery St Mary, east of Exeter, and this is where Samuel Taylor spent his early boyhood, in the valley of the River Otter. Though best known as a poet, critic and philosopher, Coleridge wrote on a range of theological issues, from Church and state to the inspiration of Scripture. He was immersed in the Anglican divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and championed Martin Luther and the Reformation. The vindication of the Reformation by Julius Hare, F.D. Maurice and others in the mid-nineteenth century, as a riposte to the later Oxford Movement’s dismissal of the Reformers, stems from Coleridge’s inspiration. His theological insights are to be found also in Aids to Reflection and in his marginalia to earlier writers. Much of Coleridge’s output has not yet been ‘received’ by Anglicans, absorbed into the theological bloodstream by a process of critical engagement, though he has influenced theological method.2 Nevertheless, just as Hooker is our greatest theologian among the clergy, Coleridge must surely rank as the Church of England’s greatest lay theologian, a much more creative, searching and scintillating thinker than, for example, Gladstone, another contender as the leading lay theologian of the Church of England.3 John Jewel was born at Berrynarbour in North Devon in 1522 and died in 1571. He achieved recognition by a series of polemical sermons of which the first and the last were preached at St Paul’s Cross in the City of London at the beginning of Elizabeth I’s reign in 1559–60. Jewel’s intervention at this point was critical. Elizabeth’s hold on the realm was fragile and her personal position was vulnerable. The constitutional religious settlement was balanced on a knife-edge. All but two of the serving bishops declined to support the shift to moderate Protestantism. Jewel transformed the situation by turning a defensive theological posture, directed against continuing Roman Catholic claims, into a theological offensive. In the St Paul’s Cross sermons he enumerated 27 medieval beliefs and practices, mostly concerned with the Eucharist, and offered to convert to Rome forthwith if it could be proved that any one of these could claim support from Scripture, from the Fathers or from the early councils. Jewel’s backers (Archbishop Parker and the court) held their breath, fearing that he had overreached himself. But Jewel’s challenge was not met. He was rewarded for his defence of the reformed faith with the bishopric of Salisbury and proved to be an excellent bishop.4 Jewel followed up his preaching triumph with the first major defence of the English Reformation and of the reformed English Church. The

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Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1562) was little longer than a tract, but it made up in strategic importance what it lacked in length. Then, as though to show that he was not to be dismissed as an author merely of homiletic fireworks and slim volumes, Jewel responded at multivolume length to criticisms of the Apologia from Stephen Harding, a Roman Catholic and former Canon of Salisbury. Jewel’s Defensio Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae was a theological blockbuster if ever there was one. With massive learning and enormous polemical skill Jewel succeeded time and again in manoeuvering his opponents into appearing directly to contradict the theological authority of the Fathers. No wonder that the Apology, later translated by Lady Bacon, was considered by Archbishop Parker worthy to be chained up in every church to settle parish-pump theological arguments and that he wanted it appended to the Articles of Religion. Jewel provided the first sustained vindication of Anglican ecclesiology. Hooker considered him ‘the worthiest divine that Christendom hath bred for the space of some hundreds of years’.5 Richard Hooker was born at Heavitree, now a suburb of Exeter, but then a separate village, in 1554 and died in 1600 at Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury. In his Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity Hooker provided the most accomplished and profound interpretation of ‘Anglicanism’ (the term is still anachronistic at this stage; say rather, of the reformed English Church) ever given. He is the primary architect of an enduring Anglican ecclesiology – an idea of the Church of England that is neither torn from its pre-Reformation roots nor a muted echo of the continental Reformers.6 Well might Izaak Walton claim: ‘he that praises Richard Hooker, praises God, who hath given such gifts to men’.7 On the Cathedral Green at Exeter stands a statue of Hooker, seated and holding a volume of what is presumably his great work (with other volumes at his feet). He looks much older than the 46 years that were his allotted span, ground down with arduous study, no doubt! He is bearded, grave and venerable. (In local legend this was thought to be the statue of a bishop and the cathedral bookstall still sells Christmas cards of ‘Bishop Hooker and the Snowball Fight’.) Until a few years ago, the statue was unprotected and attracted graffiti from the passing trade of the city centre. Hooker was accessible – and vandalized. The Dean and Chapter took steps to remedy this: they fenced him in and planted a hedge of prickly thornbushes around him. Now he was inviolable – but perhaps a little more remote. I take that as a parable of how we are prone to treat our Anglican heritage. Either we ignore and neglect our tradition, as though it had nothing relevant to offer us today, or we idealize and romanticize it, put it on a pedestal, fence it round as holy ground, and make it remote and

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unusable. What we find difficult to do, it seems, is to indwell that tradition, wrestle with it and let it pervade and shape our minds. We are not good today at ‘receiving’ (to use the term that is now indispensable in ecumenical theology) the resources of the tradition – diverse, contradictory and sometimes wrongheaded though they may be. If intellectual progress is made within what Alastair MacIntyre calls ‘tradition-constituted enquiry’, we Anglicans are not in a position to make much headway.8 The theological imagination must inhabit the past life of the Church, as well as the Scriptures and the creative, nodal points of contemporary culture. Scripture, tradition and reason must be brought into conversation. Ultimately, they must come together and co-inhere in an integrated working of authority in theology and Church. The Communion of the Saints, an article of the Creed, has a backward, tradition-constituted reference as well as a forward, eschatological one. Echoing Edmund Burke’s words about society when revolutionaries set out to draw a line after the past, we may say that the communion (koinonia) of the Church ‘is a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born’.9 The past is largely a lost world to most Anglicans, in spite of the liturgical calendar and all its commemorations. Our backs are turned to it. But as Simone Weil says in The Need for Roots: It would be useless to turn one’s back on the past in order simply to concentrate on the future. It is a dangerous illusion to believe that such a thing is even possible. The opposition of future to past or past to future is absurd. The future brings us nothing, gives us nothing; it is we who in order to build it have to give it everything, our very life. But to be able to give, one has to possess; and we possess no other life, no other living sap, than the treasures stored up from the past and digested, assimilated and created afresh by us. Of all the human soul’s needs, none is more vital than this one of the past.10 No one – but no one – can enrich Anglican theology more than Hooker himself, as he has done continuously for four centuries. Of course, Hooker is no more a timeless theologian than any other mortal can be. In spite of his assumed air of moral and theological superiority, he was actually deeply implicated in the cut-and-thrust of polemic himself.11 He was so accomplished at it that it barely shows. But Hooker wears amazingly well. He still has so much to offer us. His writings can still inspire and inform our reflection and prayer. We need more of his unwavering, passionately cool, cultured, profoundly rooted spirituality. He can help us to know who we are as a church and as a communion. Hooker is our theological contemporary in the quest for true Anglican identity in the ecumenical

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context. It would be almost redemptive if more of us immersed ourselves in Hooker, unworthy even to blow the dust off his wonderful writings though we are! This enduring quality of Hooker’s thought almost certainly has something to do with his own theological method – specifically the way that his argumentation soars above the theological squabbles of the day and takes every issue back to first principles. W. Speed Hill, the general editor of the Folger Library edition of Hooker’s works, suggests that ‘this sense of his church’s continuity with its own past is reinforced by Hooker’s reluctance to cite from contemporary English advocates of conformity, such as Thomas Bilson, John Bridges, Matthew Sutcliffe, John Whitgift and Richard Bancroft, whose treatises he must have been familiar with’.12 When Hooker was appointed Master of the Temple at the age of 34, he found a rather formidable junior colleague already in residence. Walter Travers, a militant Calvinist and Presbyterian, was Lecturer (an independently financed assistant curate) for the evening sermon. Disappointed at not himself being appointed Master, Travers engaged in a running challenge to Hooker’s position and his theology. The battle of the sermons began.13 Travers had already received Presbyterian ordination at Antwerp and subsequently refused episcopal ordination in the Church of England. Sacked by Archbishop Whitgift from his Readership at the Temple, Travers was allowed to retain his stipend and lodgings there. With their master still much in evidence, Travers’ disciples made Hooker’s life a misery. Though the dispute between Hooker and Travers at the Temple was initially about such doctrines as justification and predestination, it turned inevitably in the direction of Church order, the shape of the Church and its ministry, and so prompted Hooker’s life’s work. Writing to Archbishop Whitgift to request a quiet country living, one that would take him away from strife with his presbyterian adversaries at the Temple Church, Hooker confessed that the controversy there had prompted him to begin ‘a treatise, in which I intend a justification of the Laws of our Ecclesiastical Polity’. The biographer of Walter Travers, Hooker’s opponent, comments: ‘Thus, what began as an answer to a silenced Presbyterian preacher, eventually became an answer to all who have ever questioned the orthodoxy and catholicity of the Church of England.’14 Hooker gave ecclesiological shape to the reformed English church. While wholeheartedly sharing in the Reformation’s rediscovery of the free, unmerited grace of God in Jesus Christ, he vindicated the Church of England’s continuity with the Church of the Middle Ages and the early Fathers. It must be significant for Anglicanism that the writings of its greatest divine are concerned, almost without exception, with the nature of the Christian Church. Hooker points us to the Church, and through the

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Church, to Christ. For him, the life of the Church – its teaching of the faith and study of the Scriptures; its offering of prayer and worship; its sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist; its pastoral care and concern for its people – is the life of grace, through which we participate in the divine source of strength, joy and holiness. Hooker’s polemic was not aimed, as Jewel’s was, at the Roman Catholic challenge to Anglicanism. It was directed at a different target: the Puritan threat to the liturgy and polity of the Church of England which, Hooker believed, was in danger of passing away like a dream. He begins his Preface to the Ecclesiastical Polity with these words of foreboding and resistance: Though for no other cause, yet for this; that posterity may know we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream, there shall be for men’s information extant thus much concerning the present state of the Church of God established amongst us, and their careful endeavour which would have upheld the same.15 To counter this threat, Hooker fights by fair means and foul, and the Puritans were unable to refute his arguments. Even more than Jewel, Hooker was virtually unanswerable. ‘The Christian Letter’ put out in 1599 by anonymous reformists in response to Hooker’s first five books was little more than carping and spluttering. But it struck home when it parodied Hooker’s fears, stated in his Preface, that the Church of England would pass away as in a dream. ‘When men dream they are asleep, and while men sleep, the enemie [i.e. Hooker] soweth tares . . . Therefore wise men [i.e. the Puritans] through silence permit nothing to pass away as in a dream.’16 Hooker’s marginal comments on the ‘Christian Letter’ show that he was deeply riled, his patience tried beyond endurance. Hooker knew that the reformed English Church was fragile; it was at serious risk from enemies within and without. He was afraid that the Church of England, a church both catholic and reformed, had no future. It was a real possibility. The Elizabethan Church survived, however, thanks not only to the theological justification provided by Hooker but also to the ruthlessness of Archbishops Whitgift and Bancroft in crushing opposition by brutal state power and thus ensuring a period of relative calm. The quarter century that followed Hooker’s death in 1600 has sometimes been regarded as a golden age of the Church of England. Its scholarly achievements have never been in doubt: the adage clerus britannicus stupor mundi refers to this period. But recently the Jacobean Church has been singled out by historians for its pastoral strength. Kenneth Fincham17 scotches the common caricature of the Jacobean bishops as a pack of time-serving careerists who cared little for their spiritual responsibilities. In the period of

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political stability under James I (VI of Scotland) pastoring and preaching were renewed. Of course, Hooker’s premonitions of disaster were only deferred, and came home to roost during the Civil Wars. Many despaired of the Church of England and indeed of Christian civilization. Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland, one of the most brilliant lay theologians that the Church of England has ever had, courted death with a broken heart at the second battle of Newbury and perished at the age of 34.18 After the parliamentarian victory in the Civil War, the Church of England as we know it was demolished. Empirical Anglicanism was destroyed: the Prayer Book was proscribed; the Christian year was scrapped; the episcopate was banned; the supreme sacred symbol of the Church, the King, was executed and Archbishop Laud before him. An Anglican writer, looking back on the seventeenth century, said that the Church of England had been ‘crucified between two thieves’: the Puritans and the papists. But during those hidden years of Anglicanism – that are only now being adequately researched (particularly by Judith Maltby) – theologians such as Hammond and liturgists such as Cosin were preparing for the day when Church and monarchy would be restored, as they were in 1660, and the Book of Common Prayer could be reimposed, as it was of course, in 1662. Hooker was not the only Anglican luminary to fear for the future of his Church. In every generation, it seems, his forebodings have been echoed by some of the most gifted and perceptive of Anglican divines. Joseph Butler, author of probably the most subtle of all Anglican works of Christian apologetic, The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed (1736), as Bishop of Bristol, is said to have declined the see of Canterbury in 1747. He believed it was ‘too late to try to support a falling Church’. Even if this refusal is apocryphal, it is of a piece with the well-known words of the ‘Advertisement’ prefixed to the first edition of the Analogy: It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much a subject of inquiry; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be fictitious. And accordingly they treat it, as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment; and nothing remained, but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of reprisals, for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world.19 In his first charge (1751) to the clergy of the diocese of Durham, to which he had been translated from Bristol, Butler picked up the theme. He began his charge by ‘lamenting . . . the general decay of religion in this nation, which is now observed by everyone, and has been for some time the

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complaint of all serious persons’ and ‘is more and more wearing out the minds of men’. The number of professed unbelievers was increasing, as was their boldness – a ‘zeal against every thing [sic] that is good and sacred amongst us’. However (Butler continued), whatever efforts are directed against the Christian faith, we should never despair of it. Christ promised to be with his Church until the end of the world and warned that many would fall away as the last times approached. Butler exhorted his clergy: ‘Your standing business, and what requires your constant attention, is with the body of the people; to revive in them the spirit of religion which is so much declining.’20 Though Butler took a dim view of what he saw as the ‘enthusiasm’ (i.e. fanaticism) of the leaders of Methodism, his concern and theirs was the same. Fears for the Church of England were never far from the surface towards the end of the seventeenth century and in the first decades of the eighteenth. ‘The Church in danger’ was an overused but not unwarranted slogan. The Church of England was widely thought to be buckling under the onslaught of Dissenters, deists, Unitarians and other enemies of the established Church, not least the heterodox within her own clerical ranks. In his Letter to a Convocation Man (1697) the high church agitator Francis Atterbury, later Bishop of Rochester, painted a desperate picture of an age when such a settled contempt of Religion and the Priesthood have prevailed everywhere; when heresies of all kinds; when Scepticism, Deism and Atheism it self [sic] over-run us like a Deluge . . . when the Trinity has been as openly denied by some . . . when all Mysteries of Religion have been decried as Impositions of Men’s Understandings . . .21 How little Butler and his contemporaries foresaw the resurgence of various streams of vital Anglican religion that were already springing up within the Church of England: the interacting evangelical revival and Methodist movement, and the high church revival, pastoral, theological and sacramental, that a time of comparative political stability fostered.22 Moving into the next century, we find Thomas Arnold, the broad church headmaster of Rugby, despairing of the Church of England at the time of the First Reform Bill in 1832. Troubled by the violent agricultural disturbances, and possessed of a sense of the impending dissolution of the old order, Arnold accepted that constitutional change was inevitable. He supported the moral and educational aspects of reform rather than the political agenda. But where, he wondered, would reform on secular, Enlightenment, utilitarian principles end? There was a danger of arriving at a secular constitution, like that of America, where no religion was recognized and there was no state-sponsored Christian education. In these

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circumstances one could not commend the Church by invoking ‘our glorious constitution’ or our ‘pure and apostolical Church’, as was the manner of some. Arnold knew that working people (on the land and in the burgeoning industrial towns) had no respect for either. Therefore, ‘one must take the higher ground’, not trying to preserve institutions for their own sake, but upholding the eternal principles that they both embody and distort. Arnold’s oft-quoted verdict was: ‘The Church, as it now stands, no human power can save.’23 Even Arnold could not foresee the strength and energy of Victorian religion, invigorated by the evangelical revival and the Oxford Movement. At home it generated societies, missions, schools, church building, theological colleges, theological controversy, a hunger for published sermons, huge increases in the numbers of parochial clergy, and even devout Anglican prime ministers (e.g. Gladstone and Salisbury).24 Overseas it produced a consecrated missionary movement and the incipient Anglican Communion.25

Reflections In these rather selective examples, drawn at a venture from four centuries, there is a pattern of threat giving rise to despair, followed by unforeseen spiritual renewal generating fresh energies and new theological and institutional paths for English Anglicanism. Does this pattern suggest anything to us today? It is not difficult to see parallels. Various indications of decline – numerical and financial – have been with us for some time. The established Church is comparatively marginalized in civil society. Its bishops and clergy are often derided, though not as virulently as in the past. Secular ideology seems to dictate public policy and sometimes rides roughshod over Christian consciences. The Church of England is affected by the paradox of decline in institutional religion, on the one hand, and the burgeoning of various forms of spiritual searching outside of official channels, as it were. Our own ecclesiastical history teaches us not to be despondent. The prophets of doom, however reluctantly so – Hooker, Falkland, Butler, Atterbury and Arnold – misread the signs of the times. Let us not make the same mistake. The undeniable inroads of secularization (the diminishing impact of the Church on public life) should not blind us to the fact of real spiritual hunger and receptivity around us. That is particularly evident in the way that cathedrals and the greater churches draw thousands every week to their sources of spiritual refreshment. Pluralism (the recognition by law of a plurality of faith communities) should not deceive us into assuming that the role of a national church is passé. The great national shrines, Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral, acquire an almost sacramental

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significance, as vessels of God’s grace in Christ at times of national mourning and national celebration. The Church of England still feeds the multitude with the bread of life, at least episodically. The strategy must be to expand and sustain this pastoral provision week by week in every community of the land. No one is taking this national mission away from us. Few are telling us we are not wanted. But the traditional Anglican mode of mission – a profoundly pastoral one – can go by default. It can be lost through lack of vision, courage and energy. There is little enforced marginalization; mainly voluntary exile from the heart of nation’s life. Edward Norman’s book Secularisation, though cast as a bitter diatribe against the modern Church of England, contains a central message that should not be overlooked: the marginalization of the Church is largely self-inflicted. The Christian faith has not been rejected. But the message of redemption has been muted and the cutting edge of mission has been blunted. Most people probably believe that the Church stands for a form of sentimental welfare humanitarianism.26 We should not be reconciling ourselves to decline, to a ‘bit part’ in national life, but praying and working for the renewal of the Church that will generate fresh energies for mission. Revival, an awakening among the people, not internal exile, may lie ahead if we are ready for it. Hooker shows us a Church among the people and for the people. Now we need, I believe, to transpose Hooker’s vision of a Church wedded to the nation to our own situation, one that is marked by secularization and pluralism. The Church of England’s missionary commitment to the community cannot any longer be on the basis of state-enforced religious uniformity or an Anglican religious monopoly (those have been destroyed centuries ago). It must find its ground in an understanding of mission and ministry – ministry in the cause of mission – that will give it a rapport with individuals, households and communities, especially at the symbolic milestones of life, the rites of passage that the Church sanctifies through her occasional offices. That engagement at the level of personal, familial and communal faith provides the platform and spiritual power-base, the ecclesial credibility in fact, for the Church’s simultaneous mission in terms of civil society, as an institution among institutions, and for its engagement with the state (an equally missiological issue). So let us turn to the question: How can the Church, responding in the spirit of Richard Hooker, strengthen its links with the population and respond to the spiritual longing and questioning that we find all around us?27 In a society undergoing secularization, we need to take the persistence – indeed the resurgence – of the sense of the sacred in our culture seriously. As a church we need to address both the public forum of social policy and

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the private forum of individual conviction and personal religious experience. We should demonstrate that we value, indeed prize, the ordinary parochial way of being a Christian, where the life of the Church and the life of the local community interpenetrate. We need to make it clear that we do not restrict our appreciation of religious experience to our own particular fold, but recognize the grace of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit working beyond the political structures of the Church. Thus we can help individuals to make the essential connection between their most deeply cherished moments and the unique gospel entrusted to the Christian Church. In a society that is being secularized, the Church should speak boldly to the conscience of the nation by enunciating moral and religious principles that are in danger of being overlooked or eclipsed. But it should speak at the same time to the heart of the individual who has an awareness of a sacred realm and experiences intimations of the reality of God, but who has not yet identified these glimmerings with the gospel of Christ. If mission is understood in this way, in the pastoral mode – as the leading edge of the ministry of word, sacrament and pastoral care – it must be offered on as broad a front as possible, through a multiplicity of points of access: sacred persons (clergy and other representative ministers); sacred places (parish churches and chapels; churchyards and crematoria chapels; quiet rooms in secular institutions, etc.); and sacred occasions (not only Sunday worship, but on every occasion that is significant for the values of the community, in season and out) and through the new experimental versions of all these, known as ‘fresh expressions of church’. The Church must take the risk of exposing its gifts of grace all along the boundary with an increasingly secular society. Deeply implicated in the structures of community and civil society, in a way that I am sure Hooker would approve, it needs to be perceived as welcoming the spiritual aspirations of individuals, couples and families, of communities, organizations, institutions and societies. Not condemning them for their shortcomings, but if anything erring on the side of charitable presumption, giving the benefit of the doubt, not breaking the bruised reed or quenching the smouldering flax. The Church vindicates its place in society when it is seen to be committed to nurturing the wholeness of human beings, strengthening the bonds of family and community and deploying its pastoral resources where the volume of human need is greatest. This focus on mission and evangelization is precisely the place where I would wish to conclude this book on essentials of Anglican ecclesiology.

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Notes 1. Some material in this chapter appeared in my contribution to M. Percy and S. Lowe (eds), The Character of Wisdom: Essays in Honour of Wesley Carr (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004) and is used here with permission. 2. E.g. D.W. Hardy, God’s Ways with the World: Thinking and Practising Christian Faith (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996); Finding the Church (London: SCM Press, 2001); P. Avis, Ecumenical Theology and the Elusiveness of Doctrine (London: SPCK; Cambridge, MA: Cowley Press [Truth Beyond Words], 1986); The Methods of Modern Theology (Basingstoke: Marshall Pickering, 1986); God and the Creative Imagination: Metaphor, Symbol and Myth in Religion and Theology (London: Routledge, 1999). The influence of Coleridge on theological method can also be seen in Colin Gunton’s writings, though he was not an Anglican. 3. S.T. Coleridge, Collected Works (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972–). On Coleridge and the Reformation, see P. Avis, Anglicanism and the Christian Church: Theological Resources in Historical Perspective, rev. edn (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2002), pp. 265–71. For Coleridge’s views on Church and state see P. Avis, Church, State and Establishment (London: SPCK, 2001), pp. 50–51. Both of these contain sections on Gladstone’s ecclesiology. 4. See J.E. Booty, John Jewel as Apologist of the Church of England (London: SPCK, 1963). W.M. Southgate, John Jewel and the Problem of Doctrinal Authority (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962). Gary Jenkins, John Jewel and the English Church: The Dilemmas of an Erastian Reformer (Aldershot and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006) should be used with great discrimination: although it contains much useful material, its overall animus is to debunk and discredit Jewel and it contains factual errors. See my article review: P. Avis, ‘John Jewel: Anglicanism’s Bane or Blessing?’, Ecclesiology, 4.2 (2008). 5. Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, II, vi, 4: Works, ed. John Keble (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1845), Vol. 2, p. 314. 6. On Hooker’s ecclesiology see P. Avis, Anglicanism, pp. 31–51. For his view of Church and state see Avis, Church, State and Establishment, pp. 45–7. 7. I. Walton, The Lives of John Donne, Sir Henry Wootton, Richard Hooker and Robert Sanderson (London: Oxford University Press, 1927), p. 220. 8. A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (London: Duckworth, 1981). An admirable attempt to retrieve considerable swathes of the English Anglican tradition of spirituality is G. Rowell, K. Stevenson and R. Williams (eds), Love’s Redeeming Work (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). On the idea of reception of the tradition see P. Avis (ed.), Discerning the Truth of Change in the Church: Reception, Communion and the Ordination of Women (Edinburgh and London: T&T Clark/Continuum, 2003).

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9. E. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (London: Everyman/J.M. Dent, 1910), p. 93. 10. S. Weil, The Need for Roots, trans. A. Wills (London: Routledge, 1952), p. 51. 11. See the discussion of Hooker’s rhetoric and polemic in W.P. Haugaard, ‘The Preface’, The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker, ed. W. Speed Hill, Vol. 6, part 1 (Binghampton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies), pp. 72–80. 12. W. Speed Hill, in A.S. McGrade (ed.), Richard Hooker and the Construction of Christian Community (Tempe, AZ: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 165, 1997), p. 16. However, it is apparent that contemporary sources underlie, strongly in places, Hooker’s argument. 13. See W.P. Haugaard, ‘The Hooker–Travers Controversy’, The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker, ed. W. Speed Hill, 5 vols (Cambridge, MA: Folger Library, 1977–93), Vol. V, supplement I, pp. 264–9. 14. S.J. Knox, Walter Travers: Paragon of Elizabethan Puritanism (London: Methuen, 1962), p. 88. 15. R. Hooker, Works, ed. J. Keble (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1835), Vol. 1, p. 125 (Preface to Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, 1, i). 16. Folger Library edn, Vol. 1, p. 6. 17. K. Fincham, Prelate as Pastor: The Episcopate of James I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). 18. On Falkland, see Avis, Anglicanism, pp. 85–8. 19. J. Butler, The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature (London: George Bell, 1889), p. 37. 20. J. Butler, A Charge Delivered to the Clergy at the Primary Visitation of the Diocese of Durham (Durham: I. Lane, 1751), pp. 5–6, 11. 21. F. Atterbury, A Letter to a Convocation Man. Concerning the Rights, Powers and Privileges of that Body (London, 1697), p. 2. On Atterbury and the high church platform generally see Avis, Anglicanism, pp. 77–81, 131–56. 22. On the mainstream high church revival, far less well known than the evangelical and Methodist movements, see F.C. Mather, High Church Prophet: Bishop Samuel Horsley (1733–1806) and the Caroline Tradition in the Later Georgian Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); P.B. Nockles, The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship 1760–1857 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 23. A.P. Stanley, Life of Arnold (London: Ward Lock, 1891), p. 184. See further for Arnold on the Church: Avis, Anglicanism, pp. 271–8 and for his views of the national church, Avis, Church, State and Establishment, pp. 54–6. 24. On the institutional aspects of the nineteenth-century religious revival see A. Burns, The Diocesan Revival in the Church of England c.1800–1870 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999). See D. Bebbington, The Mind of Gladstone: Religion, Homer and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) and A. Roberts, Salisbury: Victorian Titan (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999). 25. On the global impact of Anglicanism see W. Sachs, The Transformation of Anglicanism: From State Church to Global Communion (Cambridge:

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Cambridge University Press, 1993); W.M. Jacob, The Making of the Anglican Church Worldwide (London: SPCK, 1997); K. Ward, A History of Global Anglicanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 26. E. Norman, Secularisation (London: Continuum, 2002). 27. The approach outlined in these final paragraphs is treated in P. Avis, A Church Drawing Near: Spirituality and Mission in a Post-Christian Culture (London and New York: T&T Clark, 2003).

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Abbot, W.M. 16, n.3, n.5; 37, n.22; 116, n.1; 151, n.28 Abelard, P. 178–9 Afanasief, N. 81, 102 Allchin, A.M. 158, 169, n.6 Allen, R. 52 Ambrose, Bishop, St 88 American Full Gospel Businessmen’s Association 52 Andrewes, L., Bishop 60 Anglican Consultative Council 16, n.7 Anglican – Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) 3, 14, 28, 73, 129, 135, 139, 161 Aquinas, T. St 88, 121, 156 Arnold, T. 52, 183, 190–1 Arx, U. von 104, n.1, n.3 Atterbury, F., Bishop 190–1, 195, n.21 Auden, W.H. 173 Augustine of Hippo, Bishop, St 12, 43, 44, 57, n.21; 88, 105, 110, 116, n.6 Augustine of Canterbury, Bishop, St 19, 32, 62 Aulén, G., Bishop 106, n.28 Avis, P. 16, n.6; 36, n.7; 37, n.10, n.11, n.18; 55, n.6, n.15; 57, n.24; 79, n.1, n.3, n.4, n.14, n.18; 80, n.19, n.20; 104, n.1, n.3; 105, n.5, n.9, n.14; 106, n.25; 108, n.58; 116, n.7; 117, n.11, n.13; 133, n.1; 134, n.14, n.15, n.17; 149, n.1; 151, n.22; 169, n.3, n.6; 170, n.18, n.19, n.20, n.22; 181, n.11; 182,

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n.29; 194, n.2, n.3, n.4, n.6, n.8, n.18, n.21, n.23, n.27; 195–6 Bacon, Lady 185 Baillie, D.M. 180, n.5 Bancroft, R., Bishop 187–8 Barrett, C.K. 116, n.2 Barth, K. 175 Bayne, S. 2 Bebbington, D. 195, n.24 Becket, Thomas à, Archbishop, St 19 Bell, G., Bishop 72, 195 Belloc, H. 40 Benedict XVI, Pope (Ratzinger, J.) 81, 102, 123, 143, 151, n.24 Benson, A.C. 150, n.9 Benson, E., Archbishop 137–8 Berkeley, G., Bishop 155 Bernard, G.W. 170, n.23 Bethune-Baker, J.F. 177 Bevans, S.B. 56, n.19 Bilson, T. 187 Bloom, A., Metropolitan 125 Body, G. 172 Booty, J.E. 17, n.14; 36, n.1; 56, n.18; 79, n.5; 180, n.4; 194, n.4 Bosch, D. 54, 56, n.19, n.22; 57, n.24 Boulding, M.C. 150, n.2 Brent, C., Bishop 72 Bridges, J. 187 Bright, W. 93, Brilioth, Y., Archbishop 106, n.28 Bromiley, G.W. 105, n.15; 106, 116, n.8

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Index of Names

Brooke, Z.N. 36, n.3 Brookes, P.N. 105, n.16 Bucer. M. 89, 111 Burke, E. 20, 186, 195, n.1 Burns, A. 195, n.24 Butler, J., Bishop 22, 120, 195, n.19

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Denzinger, H. 86, 155 Dix, G., Dom 87, 105–6 Dixon, R.W. 51, 55, n.16 Doe, N. 55, n.16; 79, n.4 Doll, P.M. 169, n.6 Donne, J. 194, n.7 Dubose, W.P. 172, 178 Dugmore, C.W. 105, n.11, n.13 Dulles, A., Cardinal 45–7, 55, n.10 Duquoc, C. 6, 16, n.9 Dutton, M.L. 16, n.8

Calvin, J. 44, 84–5, 87–90, 104, n.7; 156, 164 Carpenter, J. 37, n.14; 107, n.51; 181, n.11 Carr, W. 194, n.1 Cary, L., Lord Falkland 189, 191 Casaldaliga, P. 54 Chadwick, H. 139, 143, 148, 151, n.18, n.23, n.32 Charles I, King 60 Chaves, M. 129–31, 134, n.13 Christ, Jesus 7, 12, 21, 34, 45–8, 50, 54, 67, 89, 90–6, 104, 106, 109–11, 113–16, 117, 120, 123–4, 126, 133, 139, 141, 147, 150, n.2; 151, n.33; 155, 166, 168, 171–82 passim 187–8, 190, 192 Clark, F. 106, n.28; 150, n.4 Clayton, J.P. 181, n.25 Coleman, R. 17, n.12 Colenso, J.W., Bishop 52 Coleridge, S.T. 52, 183–4, 194, n.3 Collins, J.N 68, 165, 170, n.22 Congar, Y.M.-J., Cardinal 55 Constantine I, Emperor 44 Cosin, J., Bishop 104, n.4, 189 Cranmer, T., Archbishop 60, 86–7, 89–93, 105, n.15, n.16; 106, n.18, n.19, n.23, n.30; 111 Creighton, L. 150, n.8, n.31 Creighton, M., Bishop 34, 137, 148, 151 Crockett, W.R. 106, n.28 Cross, F.L. 37, n.13; 105, n.11; 162, 170, n.15; 180, n.2

Garbett, C., Archbishop 32, 34, 37, n.27 Gladstone, W.E., Prime Minister 20, 53, 120, 137, 184, 191, 194, n.3 Gore, C., Bishop 22, 26, 27, 32, 37, n.8, n.14; 52–3, 72, 102–3, 107, 108, n.52; 173–4, 176–7, 181, n.10, n.11, n.22 Gray, P.T. 16 Greenacre, R. 150, n.2 Gregory I (the Great), Pope, St 19 Groupe des Dombes 6, n.11; 16–17

Daly, M. 132, 134, n.16 Davey, C. 117, n.12; 141 Davey, F.N. 151, n.19 Davies, R.E. 55, n.14

Halifax (C.L.W. Wood), Lord 138 Hammond, H. 124, 189 Hampson, D. 132, 134, n.16 Hannaford, R. 16, n.1

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Eames, R., Archbishop 134, n.12 Edwards, R. 133, n.5 Eliot, T.S. 173 Elizabeth I, Queen 19, 32, 34, 84, 158, 168, 183, 184 Elizabeth II, Queen 70, 140 Elton, G.R. 36, n.4 Field, R. 69 Fincham, K. 188, 195, n.17 Fisher, J., Cardinal, St 84–5, 105, n.8 Flannery, A. 133, n.6 Flew, R.N. 55, n.14 Fouyas, M., Bishop 37, n.15, n.16; 151, n.25 Franklin, R.W. 150, n.2 Fraser, J.W. 105, n.7 Freud, S. 34

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Index of Names Harding, S. 185 Hardy, D.W. 194, n.2 Hardy, E.R. 151, n.25 Hare, J. 184 Haugaard, W.P. 195, n.11, n.13 Heller, D. 117 Henry VIII, King 19–20, 158, 168, 170, n.23 Henson, H.H., Bishop 34, 38, n.29, 52 Herbert, G. 60 Herrmann, W. 176 Hesselgrave, D.J. 56, n.19 Hill, C., Bishop 107, n.35; 150, n.2, n.15 Hill, W.S. 106, n.23; 169, n.4; 187, 195, n.11, n.12, n.13 Hinchliffe, P. 150, n.14 Hind, J., Bishop 103 Hodgson, L. 177 Holeton, D.R. 56, n.19 Holland, H.S. 172 Holy Spirit 5, 10, 11, 30, 45–7, 72, 88, 91, 95, 109–10, 112, 114–16, 141–3, 145, 154, 166–8, 193 Hooker, R. 4, 6, 20, 22, 29, 60, 69, 86–7, 89, 91, 93, 96, 105–6, n.23; 117, n.8; 120, 124, 127, 134, n.10; 156, 159, 162, 169, n.4; 171, 176–7, 183–9, 191–3, 194, n.5, n.7, n.12, n.13, n.15; 195, n.11 Hope, D., Archbishop 15, 17, n.16 Horsley, S., Bishop 195, n.22 Hort, F.J.A. 176, 181, n.20 Hoskyns, E.C., Sir 116, n.4, n.6; 141, 151, n.19; 175, 181, n.15 Houlden, J.L 180, n.1 Hügel, F. von 45 Hughes, J.J. 150, n.2 Huntington, W.R., Bishop 111 Hutton, W.H. 150, n.6 Iremonger, F.A. 36, n.2 Jacob, W.M. 56, n.20; 79, n.1; 196, n.25 James I of England (VI of Scotland), King 25, 84, 189 Jenkins, G. 194

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199

Jenkyns, H. 106, n.16 Jerome, St 12 Jesus see Christ, Jesus Jewel, J., Bishop 12, 20, 37, n.26; 86, 93, 107, n.37; 124, 159, 183–5, 188, 194, n.4 John, Apostle, St 110, 116, n.2; 141, 175 John Paul II, Pope 123, 125, 147 John of Salisbury 19 Jones, N. 169, n.8 Joseph of Arimathea, St 32 Jowett, B. 178, 181, n.26 Kasper, W., Cardinal 117, n.12; 134, n.12; 147, 173, 180, n.7 Kaye, B. 79, n.17 Keble, J. 106, n. 23, n.25; 120, 134, 194, n.5; 195, n.15 Kirk, G. 133, n.3 Knight, J. 17, n.14; 36, n.1; 56, n.18; 79, n.5; 180, n.4 Knox, J. 84, 195, n.14 Küng, H. 123, 134, n.8 Lampe, G.W.H. 117, n.9; 169, n.9; 181, n.17 Lane, I. 195 Lanne, E. 151, n.27 Laud, W., Archbishop 124, 189 Law, W. 172 LeGood, G. 80, n.19 Leo XIII, Pope 135, 149, n.2; 150 Lewis, C.S. 39 Liddon, H.P. 177 Limouris, G. 151, n.25 Lindars, B., SSF 109, 116, n.3 Locke, J. 22, 120 Lowe, S. 194, n.1 Lubac, H. de, Cardinal 81, 101–2, 104, n.2; 107, n.48, n.49; 109 Luther, M. 44, 87–9, 111, 164, 175, 184 Macaulay, T.B. 20, 84–5, 105, n.6 MacCulloch, D. 106, n.17 MacIntyre, A. 186, 194, n.8

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Index of Names

Macquarrie, J. 172–3, 177–8, 180, n.5, n.7; 181 Maltby J. 189 Markus, R.A. 105, n.14 Martyr, P. 90, 106, n.22 Mascall, E.L. 177, 181, n.24 Mather, F.C. 195, n.22 Maurice, F.D. 29, 37, n.18; 52, 111, 175, 178, 182, n.27; 184 Melitus, Patriarch of Constantinople 146 McAdoo, H. R., Archbishop 29–30, 37, n.20; 39, 41, 55, n.2; 124, 127, 134, n.10 McGrade, A.S. 195, n.12 McLelland, J.C. 106, n.22 McManners, J. 37, n.12 McPartlan, P. 107, n.49 Milton, A. 36, n.5; 104, n.4 Moberley, R.C. 178–9, 182, n.28 More, P.E. 29, 37, n.13; 105, n.11; 162, 170, n.15; 180, n.2 Morris, J. 37, n.18 Muddiman, J. 150, n.2 Neill, S., Bishop 39, 41, 55, n.2 Newman, J.H., Cardinal 183 Nicodemus 110 Nockles, P.B. 195, n.22 Norman, E. 192, 196, n.26 Osborne, K.B. 134, n.11 Ottley, R.L. 176, 181, n.19 Pannenberg, W. 173, 180, n.7 Parker, M., Archbishop 32, 184–5 Parker, T.M. 105 Paul, St 123, 177 Paul VI, Pope 104 Pelikan, J. 173 Percy, M. 194, n.1 Peter, St 3, 123 Plato 174 Platten, S., Bishop 57, n.24 Ploeger, M. 104, n.1, n.3 Pobee, J.S. 56, n.18

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Podmore, C. 17, n.13; 36, n.6; 41, 55, n.1, n.5 Pole, R., Cardinal 84–5 Popper, K. 33 Pusey, E.B. 53 Quick, O.C. 177, 181, n.23 Radner, E. 76, 78, 80, n.23; 169, n.1 Rahner, K. 6 Ramsey, A.M., Archbishop 27, 29, 32, 37, 37, n.16, n.17, n.25; 39, 41, 55, n.2; 102–3, 108, n.53; 115, 117, 117, n.14; 175, 181, n.16 Rashdall, H. 179 Ratzinger, J. see Benedict XVI Pope Raven, C. 174, 181, n.13 Rex, R. 105, n.8 Richardson, C.C. 105, n.16; 106 Ricoeur, P. 18 Riggs, J.W. 117, n.8 Ritschl, A. 176 Roberts, A. 195, n.24 Robinson, G., Bishop 76–7 Robinson, J.A.T., Bishop 173, 177, 180, n.5 Rommen, E. 56, n.19 Root, M. 117, n.12 Rowell, G., Bishop 17, n.16; 105, n.11; 162, 180, n.3; 194, n.8 Runcie, R., Archbishop 4–5, 147 Saarinnen, R. 117, n.12 Sachs, W. 56, n.20; 79, n.2; 195, n.25 Sanderson, R., Bishop 194, n.7 Sandford, E.G. 150, n.5, n.12 Sanson, J. 104, n.4 Schillebeeckx, E. 173, 180, n.7 Schleiermacher, F.D.E. 176 Schreiter, R. 56, n.19 Schroeder, R.P. 56, n.19 Seeley, J. Sir 176, 181, n.21 Segundo, F. 56, n.19 Selwyn, E.G. 181 Shorter, A. 56, n.19 Southgate, W.M. 194

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Index of Names Spinks, B. 56, n.17 Stancliffe, D., Bishop 51, 56, n.17 Stanley, A.P. 195, n.23 Stanton, A.H. 172 Stephenson, A.M.G. 36, n.6 Stevenson, K., Bishop 17, n.16; 56, n.17; 105, n.11; 162, 180, n.3; 194, n.8 Stillingfleet, R., Bishop 123 Stone, D. 105, n.11; n.16 Stubbs, W., Bishop 137, 150, n.7 Sutcliffe, M. 187 Sykes, S.W., Bishop 5, 16, n.8; 17, n.14; 31, 36, n.1, n.3; 37, n.23, n.24; 40–1, 55–6, 56, n.18; 79, n.5; 106, n.29; 116, n.7; 117, n.10; 150, n.2; 157, 169, n.2; n.5; 177, 180, n.4; 181, n.25 Tanner, M. 55, n.1; 72 Tavard, G.H. 150, n.2 Taylor, A.E. 155, 175, 181, n.14 Taylor, J., Bishop 33, 60, 173 Temple, F., Archbishop 138, 150, n.5, n.12, n.14 Temple, W., Archbishop 19, 27, 36, n.2; 52–3, 72, 155, 174–5, 179, 181, n.12 Thatcher, A. 181, n.8 Thiselton, A.C. 133, n.5 Thomas, P.H.E. 37, n.21 Thornton, L., CR 103, 173, 180, n.6 Tomkins, O., Bishop 72 Torrance, D.W. 105, n.7 Torrance, T.F. 105, n.7 Tovey, P. 56, n.19 Traherne, T. 60 Travers, W. 187 Turner, P. 56, n.19; 80, n.23; 169, n.1

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Venn, H. 52 Vico, G.-B. 34 Vidler, A.R. 29, 36, n.6; 37, n.19 Wainwright, G. 102, 182, n.29 Wake, W., Archbishop 124 Walton, I. 185, 194, n.7 Wand, J.W.C., Bishop 34, 38, n.28 Ward, K. 79, n.2; 196, n.25 Waterland, D. 86–7, 105 Watson, E.W. 150, n.5 Weil, L. 13, 17, n.14; 172, 180, n.4 Weil, S. 186, 195, n.10 Wesley, C. 173 Westcott, B.F., Bishop 116, n.6; 174, 181, n.9 Weston, F., Bishop 53 Whitgift, J., Archbishop 22, 32, 37, n.26; 187–8 Wilberforce, R. 176–7, 181, n.18 Williams, R., Archbishop 17, n.16; 55, n.4; 103, 105, n.11; 162, 180, n.3; 194, n.8 Wills, A. 195, n.10 Wootton, H., Sir 194, n.7 Wordsworth, J., Bishop 137–8, 150, n.5 Wright, J.R. 16, n.8; 36, n.3; 79, n.12; 170, n.17 Wright, N.T. 173, 181, n.8 Yarnold, E., SJ 107, n.35; 150, n.2, n.15 Zernov, N. 146, 151, n.26 Zizioulas, J., Metropolitan 81, 102–3, 107, n.49; 109 Zwingli, H. 88, 90, 105–6