Some of you, I’m sure, are already aware of Dr. Robert Crouse’s lecture at Regent College in 2002 called “The Essence of Anglicanism.” I have read it again and I want to enlarge briefly on his comments toward the end regarding our need to understand ourselves as moderns before we are able to interact with understanding, insight, and accuracy with the Anglican tradition and the Catholic church as a whole.
It is easy enough to demonstrate from history that the Anglican Church is a particular tradition of the Catholic Church, which tradition is embodied in the Book of Common Prayer, the XXXIX Articles, and the Ordinal. Packer does a good job of this in his book “The Thirty-Nine Articles.” It is not, as Crouse reminds us, merely an agreement with the early Councils. If that were all it was, then there would be no reason for any differentiation between the Anglican Church and the Roman and Orthodox Churches – of course, there are Anglicans who pretty well work as if there was indeed no differentiation. We have had a problem from the beginning, however, in how these, our Formularies, are to be interpreted. That is where we have to be self-critical, as Crouse reminds us, so as to be able to tell the difference between what some Anglicans want to believe and what Anglicans, in the historic tradition, should believe.
As we are now in an environment of enthusiasm – and also grief – among “orthodox” Episcopalians regarding a new Province for the USA, we who are already talking with each other across various lines of shallow divisions are finding ourselves differing on the definition of Anglicanism. My observations have lead me to believe that the reason lies mainly in how long American Episcopalianism has been without the depth of Biblical exposition that was her tradition in centuries past. It also lies in our being affected, in varying degrees, by modernism. This is where Crouse’s few lines come into play.
Let us take the issue of women’s ordination as an example - a very important one. As we believers seek to understand where Anglicanism should stand on the issue, we recognise that we must seek the mind of God in the Holy Scriptures. We are not Anglicans at all if we do not do so. Our problem is our cultural assumptions that colour how we read the Scriptures and thus read the Prayer Book and Ordinal. We are going to get nowhere in this debate until we stop and first try to critically understand how our culture developed its current climate regarding the role of women in society in general. We have to examine the attacks made against traditional western society by American academia for generations, which attacks have consequently spilled over into our churches. Were they right or wrong? Once we have delineated how we got to where we are today on “women’s issues,” and we have pinpointed the philosophical ideas which underlay these issues, then we get out our Bibles and we critique these ideas. For example, is patriarchy biblical or unbiblical? Is hierarchy biblical or unbiblical? Was the French Revolution a good thing or a bad thing?, and so forth. It will only be after we have critically evaluated our cultural assumptions that we will then be able to find common ground from which to understand how the Formularies are to be rightly interpreted. As Francis Schaeffer reminded us, our main problem in society today is not the tit-for-tat arguments floating around but our differences in world-view.
Frankly, I think the Anglicanism that needs renewing is not the Anglicanism of the pre-hippie era but the Anglicanism of the Reformation fathers. We must get back to our roots. We cannot do that, however, unless we see again what was right about their world-view. In all fairness, though, were I to engage in such a discussion as outlined above, I would have to enter into it with a willingness to be proven wrong. If we are to succeed in such study, it’s going to be a real challenge for our spiritual character all around.
My thoughts here obviously only touch the areas where Protestants differ due to the effects of modernism. Even before the 18th century, there was debate regarding the Anglican Church and Roman tradition; that's in another vein.
One more item related to Crouse’s speech. He was spot on about what constitutes real, authoritative Apostolic Succession. It is the handing down of the Faith once delivered to the saints. It is a spiritual authority, not a bureaucratic authority. He is no bishop with apostolic authority who denies the Christian Faith. This is also the position of my bishops.
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