What is the Church of England? Some serious theology about Anglicans and the Church of England

A UNIQUE CHURCH, CATHOLIC AND REFORMED

“I commend you because you remember me in everything and
maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you”.
(1 Cor 11:2)

God’s Good News doesn’t drop in our hearts out of the sky.  It comes to us through the worship and practice of a particular Christian tradition.  Anglicans come to God through being Anglicans.  The way we understand the Bible, and the way we think about the sacraments, our prayer books, our views on ethical issues and theology, our views on who has authority in the church, all these things are Anglican.

Most of the time we don’t recognise how important this is.  Of all the denominations we are perhaps the most diverse.  Our Church contains Christians more radical than many protestant denominations, and others more catholic than the Roman Catholics.  Some say that this is our special gift to the world-wide church, to hold together all the different ways of worshipping God in one body of Christians. During the Reformation in England, our ancestors in the faith made a conscious decision not to wipe away the good things of the past, nor to ignore the good things of the Reformation.  So we find ourselves today a church both Catholic and Reformed.

As if this were not enough diversity, Anglicans have also always placed a high value on scholarship and learning.  We have been eager to explore the new insights which an intelligent reflection on Scripture and history can offer.

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.
-Charles Gore, (1853-1932), Bishop of Oxford

WORSHIP – PRAISE BEYOND UNDERSTANDING

For Anglicans, worship comes first. It comes before thinking, before discipleship, before outreach, before everything. It is in worship that Christians are “transformed by the renewal of their minds”, and come to see what is “good and acceptable and perfect” to God. Without worship, Christians are nothing.

To worship is to quicken the conscience by the Holiness of God
To feed the mind with the Truth of God
To purge the imagination by the Beauty of God,
To devote the will to the Purpose of God.
    - William Temple, (1881-1944), Archbishop of Canterbury.

The actual shape of this worship in the Anglican Church varies enormously. In some churches, it is done with overhead projectors, choruses, altar calls and personal testimonies; in others it is a highly formal activity, with vestments, incense, bells and chanting. In most, it is somewhere in between. But whatever outward shape it takes, Anglican worship always holds two contrasting truths about God together. It is a joyous celebration of God’s presence with God’s people, and also coming into the presence of a transcendent and majestic Creator, a time of awe and reverence.

In worship we begin to speak and praise God with one voice. We are moulded into one Body. The Anglican Church has never had a declaration of key doctrinal beliefs that we have to assent to, like the Westminster confession for Methodists, or the Augsburg confession for Lutherans. Until very recently, our Church has been held together all over the world by using a single book for worship, The Book of Common Prayer (1662). Anglicans have found their unity in shared worship, not shared doctrinal statements. (Some might say this is just as well, as no two Anglicans believe the same things!).

Worship is the school room of the church. As we gather, God is forming us into a people who know their bible.We are not only learning about these things, we are learning to live them. We might know in our heads that we are forgiven, but because our hearts are stubborn, God gives us the liturgy to teach us week after week through confession and absolution that we are indeed forgiven. We might know in our heads that we are one Body, but by the greeting of the peace, God forces us to do more than know it, God forces us to do it. In worship we are learning to be what we are.

Worship is the hospital of the Church. After a week’s hard discipleship we are all a little injured and sick. In worship God binds up our wounds, wipes the slate clean and charges us up for the week ahead. In the early church, Christians spoken of communion as food for the journey. One early theologian, Ignatius of Antioch, called Holy Communion, ‘the medicine of immortality’ for just the reason.

Lastly, and worship is a mystery. When Christians come to worship, they are coming to know God personally, to share in a “peace which passes all understanding”. We are acknowledging a great Anglican truth.

There is in the things of God to those which practice them a deliciousness that makes us love them, and that love admits us into God’s cabinet, and strangely clarifies the understanding by the purification of the heart. For when our reason is raised up by the Spirit of Christ, it is turned quickly into experience; when our faith relies upon the principles of Christ, it is changed into vision. And so long as we know God only in the ways of man, by contentious learning, by arguing and dispute, we see nothing but the shadow of Him, and in that shadow meet with many dark appearances, little certainty, and much conjecture. But when we know Him with the eyes of holiness, and the intuition of gracious experience, with a quiet spirit and the peace of enjoyment, then we shall hear what we never heard and see what our eyes never saw; then the mysteries of godliness shall be opened unto us, and clear as the windows of the morning - Jeremy Taylor, (1617-1667), Anglican divine

BAPTISM-FROM DEATH TO LIFE

Perhaps nothing in the Anglican Church has undergone as much change in recent years as our attitudes to baptism. Once upon a time a baby was brought to baptism, perhaps at a private ceremony without involvement of the normal congregation. The baby then perhaps never appeared in Church again until their wedding, or in some cases until their funeral. Or the baby might remain, and come week after week, but was not a full member, as they couldn’t receive communion until they were confirmed. Only after confirmation, did the person enter into the fullness of their baptismal heritage. All of this has changed, or is changing.

These days the baptism is most likely to occur that the main eucharist of the day. The congregation have an active part to play, as they are the gathered community in a post-Christendom world, who will welcome and nurture this child. Increasingly, the person baptised will be an adult, as a smaller percentage of people are baptised as infants. The child, or person, baptised is more likely to experience the full privileges of membership in the Body of Christ, being allowed to take communion before they are confirmed, often at a quite early age. They are more likely to be encouraged into ministry as soon as they are able. Many modern baptism services follow an ancient tradition of including a ‘covenant’ or bargain between God and the newly baptised person, in which they promise to make responsible use of the gifts imparted to them God.

DOING THEOLOGY - THINKING ABOUT GOD

Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. (1 Pet 3:15)

All Christians are theologians, in the sense that every Christian thinks about God, and tries to bring their life and experience into conversation with God’s word in scripture and our tradition. Anglican theology displays the same diversity as its worship, or teaching on baptism, but generally Anglican thinking about God has followed the guidelines first laid down by the sixteenth century Anglican writer, Richard Hooker (1554-1600). His book, On the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (1593), was the first substantial piece of systematic Anglican writing, and he has had a huge influence on all who have come after.

He believed that we ought to proceed by consulting, and balancing, the testimony of Scripture, tradition and reason. None of these could be understood apart from the other two. In order to understand the Scripture, we need reason (a mind that can read and think) and tradition (an awareness of what previous generations thought it meant). All these are interconnected; and this scheme is sometimes called ‘Hooker’s three-legged stool’. If you remove any one leg, the whole thing falls over. At the Lambeth conference in 1988, the assembly of bishops added a fourth leg to the stool-the experience of the people of God.

This four-legged stool is represented in the graphic on this page. It suggests the way in which Anglicans, who balance all four sources of revelation, differ from those who do not. Fundamentalists claim to rely only on Scripture (although in fact they rely strongly on a particular tradition of interpretation as well). Philosophers rely only on reason; some Christians think that academic theologians belong up here as well. Traditionalists, refuse to accept any change from the church’s traditional position on things like the ordination of women, or liturgy. Anglicans differ from each other, and may call themselves catholic or evangelical, conservative or liberal. They might rely more on one source or another, but they all remain within the safety fence created by these four sources.

Lastly, Most Anglicans retain a healthy awareness that Christ is the Truth, not our words. Because we don’t yet possess the truth, but are moving towards it, we must consider that our own positions could be wrong, or that, as the church learns more of God, old positions need to give way to new insights. This is not a new idea: “human language can no more contain the fullness of God than the palm of a human hand can contain the fullness of the sea”- wrote S. Gregory of Nyssa in the 4th century.

THE EUCHARIST – GOD’S FEAST FOR HIS PEOPLE

The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ?
The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? (1 Cor 10:16)
Along with baptism, sharing the body and blood of Christ, “a sacrament of our redemption by Christ’s blood”, is one of the two “Sacraments of the Gospel” recognised by The Book of Common Prayer. In the Anglican Church this act of worship goes by many names. In some churches it is called, ‘Holy Communion’ to stress the meeting of God with his people-the ‘communion’ between them-which occurs in our worship. This was the name Thomas Cranmer choose for the Book of Common Prayer. In other churches it is called the ‘Mass’, perhaps from the Latin verb,  mittere, ‘to send out’ used in the dismissal, emphasising the ministry of all God’s people , who are ‘sent out’ to be disciples in the world. In some Churches it is called ‘The Lord’s Supper’, a reminder that it is celebrated in obedience to Christ’s command to ‘do this in memory of me’. In others, it is called the ‘Eucharist’, from the Greek verb, ‘ eucharisto,  ‘I give thanks’, a celebration of God’s presence with his people, now and throughout history, which brings us blessings in abundance. All these names are useful reminders of the many things that happen in this meal.

Some churches have expended a lot of energy and stirred up grievous disputes trying to determine exactly what happens in the eucharist. Roman Catholics teach, or used to teach, that the bread and the wine are changed invisibly but effectually (their outward appears remains the same, but in their inner substance they are changed). This is called ‘Transubstantiation’. Others, free church for the most part, are trenchant in their belief that the eucharist is only a memorial, a remembering of what Christ did at the Last Supper. The bread and wine are visual aids but nothing more. Mainstream Anglicans have always been wary of entering into this debate, which produces more heat than light. Instead they have regarded it as more important that it happens, than how it happens. They have been content with a statement attributed to Queen Elizabeth I:
‘Twas God the word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it;
And what the word did make it,
That I believe and take it.
  - Elizabeth I (1533-1603)

In their shape, our contemporary eucharists fall into two parts, divided by the Greeting of the peace. The first half is sometimes called the Ministry of the Word; the second part the Ministry of the Sacrament. This is unfortunate, as the Ministry of the Word, especially the Gospel reading is a sacramental event (an outward and visible sign of an inner and spiritual truth-Christ’s presence amongst his people), and the sacrament proclaims God’s sacrificial love and grace as clearly as the gospel. Nevertheless, the first part of the service is taken from the Jewish service of worship, which contains the same rhythm of readings, psalms, hymns and prayers. It takes the shape of a dialogue between God and us, his people, as we enter a conversation, alternately hearing from God’s word, responding ourselves with hymns and psalms, then hearing God again. It often concludes with the confession and absolution, the most intimate of conversations, saying sorry and being forgiven. This new unity between us and God spills over into community as we celebrate together the peace we share. Then the Ministry of the Sacrament takes us into particularly Christian territory, where we offer bread, wine, our monetary offerings and ourselves, “our souls and bodies, as a living sacrifice” to festival of thanksgiving and celebration, which culminates in the act of communion itself.

As a meal, this act of communion, echoes the many different meals in Scripture, as well as the Last Supper. It is a fore-taste of the heavenly banquet of God’s elect (Isa 38:10-20), and thus a pledge of our redemption. It is an echo of the feeding of the multitude stories in the Gospels, in which Jesus takes compassion us, and as our Shepherd, feeds his flock. It is an enactment of the meals Jesus ate with sinners and outcasts, a meal of inclusion and justice in which all find a place, dramatising by their presence, God’s gracious acceptance of all creation.

Author: adapted from The Rev’d Dr. Timothy Gaden