Anglo-Catholicism and the Ascendancy of Liberalism in The Episcopal Church

By Robin Jordan
Special to VirtueOnline
10/20/2008

For a good part of the history of The Episcopal Church, Anglo-Catholicism was dominant force in that denomination. As we shall see, it helped to pave the way for the ascendancy of liberalism in the Episcopal Church.

The Anglo-Catholic thinking that dominated The Episcopal Church for over a century originated with the Tractarian Movement in the Church of England in the nineteenth century. The Tractarian Movement was so named after the Tracts for the Times written by John Newman and the movement's other leading theologians. It was also called the Oxford Movement since the movement was centered in Oxford.

The Tractarian Movement was essentially a Counter-Reformation movement: The movement sought to undo the reforms introduced in the Church of England in the sixteenth century and to reintroduce a number of Medieval Catholic doctrines and practices that the sixteenth century English Reformers had disavowed and rejected as not consistent with the Holy Scriptures.

The second-generation of Tractarians, or Ritualists, were openly sympathetic toward the Church of Rome and introduced in their dioceses and parishes innovations in doctrine and worship that had been introduced in the Roman Catholic Church in the sixteenth century and later. They had little or no respect for the genuine Anglican tradition with its roots in the Reformation in England in the sixteenth century.

The Episcopal Church had its own High Church party at the time the Tracts for the Times began to arrive in North America in 1833. Its primary distinctive was its sacramentalism-its ascription of great importance to the sacraments. The Tractarian Movement would transform the High Church party and reshape its identity. The High Church party would embrace the Romanism and ritualism of the second-generation Tractarians and would leave a mark on The Episcopal Church that persists to this day.

The growth and increased influence of the Tractarian Movement in The Episcopal Church in the second half of the nineteenth century prompted Bishop of Kentucky George Cummins and other conservative evangelicals to leave the church in 1873 and to form the Reformed Episcopal Church. The evangelicals who did not leave The Episcopal Church were absorbed into the Broad Church Movement. Until the 1960s Anglo-Catholicism and Broad Church latitudinarianism were the principal theological streams in The Episcopal Church.

The English Reformers held that in matters of importance such as those related to salvation, the Bible is perspicuous, that is clear and lucid. Jesus himself articulates this doctrine in the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. When the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his brothers of his fate so that they might avoided it, Abraham answers that they have all they need for their salvation: they have the Scriptures. Implicit in this parable is that the Scriptures are understandable to the rich man's brothers. All they need to do is heed what they say. They do not need someone to interpret the Scriptures to them.

The English Reformers also believed that the Bible is self-interpreting. Scripture does not contradict Scripture but one passage explains another. In a number of places in the Gospels Jesus himself uses Scripture to explain Scripture. He also criticizes the Pharisees and the teachers of Law for giving more authority to their tradition than to Scripture and nullifying Scripture for the sake of their tradition.

The Tractarians denied these two important Biblical and Reformation doctrines. Like the Church of Rome, the Tractarians alleged that individuals easily misinterpret Scripture. They held that Scripture should be interpreted by tradition. The church is the guardian of tradition and therefore should interpret Scripture for the individual. The individual should not attempt to interpret Scripture for himself.

While the Tractarians did not deny that the fundamental truths of salvation are present in the Bible, they insisted that the Bible is too arcane in character for individuals to understand these truths of salvation unless the church interprets them through its tradition. The church from its possession of past tradition is nearly infallible in interpreting Scripture rightly. [Samuel Leuenberger, Archbishop Cranmer's Immortal Bequest - The Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England: An Evangelistic Liturgy, Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990, p. 232]

But tradition does not just supplement the Bible in Anglo-Catholic thinking. Since in accordance with this thinking the Bible cannot be interpreted through the Bible itself, tradition takes precedence over the Bible. Tradition supplants the Bible.

According to the thinking of the Tractarians the "unwritten verities" against which Archbishop Thomas Cranmer spoke so violently and so resolutely existed as an oral tradition before the New Testament was written down. The Tractarians not only alleged that tradition existed before Scripture and was independent of Scripture but also that "two distinct systems or words of God, one written, the other unwritten," ran parallel to each other to the present. [Leuenberger, p. 232]

Newman saw a potential for development in the Bible and the furthering of doctrine through tradition. Newman argued that since circumstances have changed in the course of time since the Bible, especially the New Testament, was written, a different application from that which was required in the early Christian period is needed. Newman used the term "development" for this change in application. Where the Bible has little to say about a particular matter that is of special interest in a particular time, the developmental process produces the doctrine to furnish the information instead of Scripture. [Leuenberger, p. 233]

Newman's thinking not only would have consequences for the Anglo-Catholic movement but also greatly influenced the development of modernistic theology. Newman's notion of development can be seen in the arguments that liberals put forward in support of blessing the relationships of committed monogamous same gender couples.

Newman and the leading theologians of the Tractarian movement maintained that Scripture has to be submitted to and ordered by the church. The English Reformers, on the other hand, held that the church has to be submitted to and ordered by Scripture.

In Tract 80 Isaac Ward argued that the deepest Christian truth should be communicated only those who were, by moral growth, able to receive it. Religious truth, Ward asserted, required a certain state of heart in order to be received. Teaching on the atonement, for example, should be kept from those who had not progressed to a life of good works. Otherwise, they would be likely to separate grace from works. Rather it should be "reserved" for those whose moral growth has prepared them to receive it. [Roger Steer, Guarding the Holy Fire: the evangelicalism of John R. W. Stott, J. I. Packer, and Alister McGrath, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1999, pp. 163-164]

Anglo-Catholicism undermined how Episcopalians view the place of the Bible in the life of a Christian. It not just weakened the authority of the Bible. It detached authority from the Bible. It made the church the supreme and final authority in matters of faith and worship. Anglo-Catholicism also produced a laity that is woefully ignorant of the Bible and the great doctrines of the Bible. I recall a late friend of mine boasting about how the clergy of Episcopal parish church that he had attended for a number of years had not encouraged the reading and study of the Bible. The only Scripture read in the church had been the Epistles and Gospels in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. What little he knew about the Bible was what the parish clergy had chosen to teach their flock. The liberals have simply built upon the foundation that conservative Anglo-Catholics erected.

The Tractarians' view of the sacraments differed from the English Reformers'. They held that Jesus is present in the sacrament of Holy Communion in greater measurer than in other types of services. The implication is that the churchgoer receives more from the Holy Communion than God's Word can provide. [Leuenberger, p. 237] The English Reformers believed that when God's Word is faithfully and prayerfully explained, God's voice is heard. The gospel sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion are God's Word made visible.

The combination of the Tractarian doctrine of "reserve" and the Tractarian doctrine of the sacraments led to the disappearance of expository Biblical preaching from The Episcopal Church. Preaching in Anglo-Catholic parishes and churches would emphasize obedience to the authority of the church, emulatation of the example of the saints, the reception of the sacraments, and the performance of good works.

The Tractarians not only introduced ritualism into the worship of The Episcopal Church, but the Anglo-Catholics also eventually changed the liturgy so that it expressed their beliefs. By the 1920s Anglo-Catholicism had gained the ascendancy in The Episcopal Church. In 1928 the General Convention adopted the first major revision of the American Book Prayer.

The 1928 Book of Common Prayer was no "gentle revision" of the American Prayer Book as its defenders have claimed since the adoption of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The changes introduced in the 1928 Prayer Book were "far-reaching and in some instances radical." Among the changes was that the 1928 revision toned down the penitential language of the American Prayer Book. It was the first American Prayer Book to introduce prayers for the departed. A number of the Proper Prefaces were rewritten, as were a number of the Collects. The opening sentence of the exhortation of the Baptismal Office "forasmuch as all men are born and conceived in sin" was struck out.

The Flood Prayer that had been a part of the Baptismal Office since the First Edwardian Prayer Book of 1549 and had emphasized God's consecration of all water for the purpose of baptism was also deleted. The Blessing of the Water in the Font was recast along the lines of the Prayer of Consecration in the Communion Service to give greater emphasis to the priest's consecration of the water. The Biblical language of the Prayer for the Baptismal Candidate was watered down.

The signing of the newly baptized with the cross upon the forehead, a practice that evangelicals view as without warrant in the Bible, to which they have long objected, and which was optional in the 1892 Office of Baptism, was made mandatory.

The Office for the Visitation of the Sick was so changed as to be barely recognizable in its new form from the form in the preceding American Prayer Books. The Biblical language of the Burial Office was diluted. In the Ordinal there was significant change in the form of the question put to the deacon concerning the Bible. Instead of being asked, "Do you unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments?" the candidate was asked "Are you persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contains all Doctrine required as necessary for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?"

The candidate was no longer required to affirm a blanket belief in the teaching of the Bible. In the Form for the Consecration of a Church or Chapel, as elsewhere in the 1928 revision, any reference to God's anger or wrath was expunged. [E. Clowes Chorley, "Chapter V: The New Prayer Book: Revision," The New American Prayer Book: Its History and Contents, New York: McMillan Company, 1929]

The 1928 Book of Common Prayer replaced the Prayer Book Catechism with two Offices of Instruction. The Second Office articulated a view of Confirmation, which has no real basis in the Bible and is not found in the classical Anglican Book of Common Prayer of 1662 or the first two American Prayer Books of 1789 and 1892.

It is a sacramental view of Confirmation that differs from the catechetical view of Confirmation that was held by the English Reformers and was given liturgical expression in these three Prayer Books. It is also a view of Confirmation over which Anglicans are sharply divided. The 1928 Prayer Book omitted the preface to the Office of Confirmation that was a feature of the 1662, 1789, and 1892 Offices of Confirmation and which emphasized the catechetical nature of Confirmation. In its far-reaching and radical changes the 1928 Prayer Book set the precedence for subsequent Prayer Book revision in the 1970s.

While it is often asserted that the 1928 Book of Common Prayer brought the American Prayer Book closer to the First Edwardian Book of Common Prayer of 1549, this assertion is only partially true. The 1928 Prayer Book reintroduced the offering of the bread and wine to God at the offertory and at the consecration of the bread and wine, two features of the Medieval service books that have strong associations with the Medieval doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass. The 1549 Prayer Book assiduously avoided anything that suggests that the Lord's Supper is a sacrifice. The 1928 Prayer of Consecration followed the model of the 1768 Scottish Non-Juror Prayer of Consecration and placed the Epiclesis after the Words of Institution and the Oblation and implores God to bless and sanctify the bread and wine with "thy Word and Holy Spirit."

In its placement of the Oblation after the Words of Institution, the 1768 Scottish Non-Juror Prayer of Consecration was patterned after the Medieval Roman Canon. The latter has no Epiclesis. In Medieval Catholic theology the bread and wine were believed to become the Body and Blood of Christ at the recitation of the Words of Institution and the priest, when he offered the bread and wine at the Oblation, was believed to be offering a sacrifice for the living and the dead.

The Scottish Non-Jurors believed that Christ offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins not on the cross but at the Last Supper. They further believed that the Words of Institution consecrated the bread and wine, which the priest then offered to God, re-offering or representing Christ's sacrifice. The Epiclesis was supplementary. In incorporating the offering of the bread and wine at the offertory and at the consecration of the bread and wine and placing the Oblation and Epiclesis after the Words of Institution the 1928 Communion Service gives liturgical expression to the doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice, which is contrary to Scripture.

The English Reformers rejected that doctrine for this reason and evangelical Anglicans continue to reject it for the same reason. On the other hand, the 1549 Canon places the Epiclesis before the Words of Institution and implores God to bless and sanctify the bread and wine with "thy holy spirite and worde." The priest is directed not to elevate the consecrated bread and wine or to show them to the people, two practices associated with the Medieval doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass. The only offering in the 1549 Canon is that of the selves, souls, and bodies of those who will be receiving Holy Communion.

The 1928 Book of Common Prayer does incorporate a number of features of the 1549 Prayer Book. However, these features had their critics. They were omitted from the 1552, 1559, 1604, 1662, 1789, and 1892 Prayer Books for good reason. For example, the 1928 Prayer Book places the Lord's Prayer and the Prayer of Humble Access immediately before the Communion.

A hymn and therefore the Agnus Dei may also be sung immediately before the Communion. Archbishop Cranmer placed the Lord's Prayer after the Communion and the Prayer of Humble Access after the Sanctus in the 1552 Prayer Book and dropped the Agnus Dei from the 1552 Book after Bishop Steven Gardiner drew to his attention that these three elements placed immediately before the Communion as they were in the 1549 Prayer Book gave liturgical expression to the Medieval doctrine of transubstantiation, the belief that at the moment of consecration the substance of the bread and wine are transmuted into the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ while retaining the appearance of bread and wine. The doctrine of transubstantiation is closely tied to the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass. Cranmer and the other English Reformers rejected both doctrines as not consistent with the Bible. This is the position of classical Anglicanism to this day.

Cranmer did not include full-blown Epiclesis in the 1552 Prayer of Consecration because it also suggested a transmutation of the substance of the bread and wine. The 1552 Prayer of Consecration has an Epiclesis in the Greek sense of "a calling upon God" but not an invocation of the Holy Spirit. The 1552 Epiclesis is a simple petition humbling beseeching God to grant that those receiving the bread and wine, according to Christ' institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his Body and Blood.

While the 1549 Book of Common Prayer was the first Prayer Book, it was intended as a transitional service book and not as a model for future Anglican service books. For the greater number of Anglicans around the world, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer is the classical Anglican Prayer Book, not the 1549 Prayer Book.

The 1662 Prayer Book is also widely recognized as comprising with the Thirty Nine Articles the standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline and on its own the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship. The 1662 Prayer Book is substantially the 1552 Prayer Book, which replaced the 1549 Prayer Book. The 1552 Prayer Book, with only three minor but significant changes, was adopted as the 1559 Prayer Book, which was "the" Prayer Book for almost 100 years.

In its introduction and use of a Prayer Book that gave liturgical expression to doctrines with no real basis in Scripture or incompatible with the teaching of the Bible, of prayers and other liturgical material from unauthorized sources like the Anglican Missal, and of practices such as auricular confession, praying to the saints, and eucharistic adoration, Anglo-Catholicism fostered in Episcopalians a wide-spread acceptance of doctrines and practices that are inconsistent with the Bible and, in turn, a pervasive disregard of the Bible as a guide for faith and worship. It encouraged a mindset that views with contempt those who affirm the authority of the Bible and give a central place to the preaching of God's Word in their worship.

This mindset is particularly contemptuous of those who remain firmly committed to Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, the historic Anglican confession of the Christian faith, Throughout the larger part of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century Anglo-Catholics, when they were not producing fanciful reinterpretations of the Thirty Nine Articles and down playing their importance, were sharply criticizing them. They disliked the Articles because the biblical and Reformation theology of the Articles did not support their own particular beliefs and practices. They were not satisfied to take no notice of the Articles as did the Broad Church latitudinarians. The widespread ignorance of Episcopalians of the Thirty Nine Articles and their Reformation heritage is largely attributable to the influence of Anglo-Catholicism in The Episcopal Church.

As J. I Packer and R. T. Beckwith point to our attention in The Thirty-Nine Articles: Their Place and Use Today (London: Latimer Trust, 2006), historically the Articles were intended to fulfill four main functions:

"First, they were meant to act as the Church of England's theological identity-card, showing what she stood for in a split and warring Christendom. As such, the Articles were intended to be a title-deed to catholic status. Catholicity and apostolicity, to our Reformers, had nothing to do with an (unproveable) ministerial succession, but were matters entirely of doctrine."

"Second, the Articles were meant to safeguard the truth of the gospel, for the good of souls, the welfare of the church itself, and the glory of God."

"Third, as their title indicated, the Articles were meant to bring unity and order in the church 'the establishing of consent touching true religion'), and this in the realms of both doctrine and discipline. They were meant to guard the pulpit as the Prayer Book guarded the reading-desk, and so, in Henson's phrase, 'protect the people from heretical parsons.' They were meant also as doctrinal standards for interpreting the Prayer Book."

"Fourth, the Articles were meant to set bounds to the comprehensiveness of the Church of England. It was always intended that the reformed Church of England should be as comprehensive as possible, and to that end the Articles were made as broad as possible." [Packer & Beckwith, pp. 67-68]

Packer and Beckwith stress that the English Reformers drew up the Articles to support their claim that the Church of England was "a true apostolical church, teaching and maintaining the doctrine of the apostles," and "to show that the English Reformation, so far from being, as Rome supposed, a lapse from catholicity and apostolicity on the part of the ecclesia Anglicana, was actually a recovery of these qualities through recovery of the authentic apostolic faith." [Packer & Beckwith, p. 67]

They go on to stress:

"The Articles were intended to ensure the gospel of justification by faith and salvation by grace, so long lost before the Reformation should not be lost to the church again." [Packer & Beckwith, p. 68]

They further emphasize that the comprehensiveness intended in the Articles is an "evangelical comprehensiveness." It is not the kind of comprehensiveness that would result if the church were declared, in the words of Bishop J. C. Ryle, " a kind of Noah's Ark, within which every kind of opinion and creed shall dwell safe and undisturbed, and the only terms of communion shall be willingness to come inside and let your neighbor alone." [Packer & Beckwith, p. 69]

The kind of comprehensiveness intended in the Articles is one "that results from keeping doctrinal requirements down to a minimum and allowing the maximum of flexibility and variety on secondary matters." [Packer & Beckwith, p. 69]

Packer and Beckwith note:

"The Articles are in this sense minimal (they are the shortest of the Reformation confessions.) But they are meant to ensure that all Anglican clergy, whatever their views on other matters, should unite in teaching an Augustine doctrine of sin and a reformed doctrine of justification and grace - should in other words, unite in proclaiming what the Reformers took to be the New Testament gospel." [Packer & Beckwith, p. 69]

The Episcopal Church adopted the Thirty-Nine Articles in 1801 with some minor revisions concerning the relationship of church and state. The clergy of The Episcopal Church were not required to formally subscribe to the Articles, as were the clergy of the Church of England. What binding force upon belief that they might carry was left to the conscience of the individual minister.

In the Church of England the Anglo-Catholics sought to do away with the Articles and to replace them with the Book of Common Prayer as the church's test of faith, as they were able to reinterpret the Prayer Book in "a Catholic sense." They were unsuccessful. In The Episcopal Church, however, in 1925 the General Convention, under Anglo-Catholic leadership, adopted a resolution abolishing the Articles.

The Constitution of The Episcopal Church required the passage of the resolution at two successive General Conventions before it was binding upon the denomination. The next General Convention adopted the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and with its adoption the resolution abolishing the Articles was quietly dropped. The Anglo-Catholics had what they wanted-a Prayer Book that was decidedly more "Catholic" in tone than its predecessors. While traditionalist Anglo-Catholics opposed prayer book revision in the 1970s, especially after the General Convention voted to retire the 1928 Prayer Book from use, they did not resist the relegation of the Articles to the historical documents section of the 1979 Prayer Book.

The "Catholic" ethos that Anglo-Catholic clergy first introduced in their parishes in the nineteenth century encourages deference to the clergy in all matters. The laity are not taught to see themselves as full members of Christ's Body, the Church, each with his own manifestation of the Holy Spirit and his own ministry from God, as taught in the New Testament, but as assistants and subordinates to the priest.

They are taught, in contradiction to what the New Testament teaches, to address the priest as "Father" and to see him as intermediary between them and God, as well as a dispenser of sacramental grace. In this kind of environment that places a great emphasis upon the authority of the clergy the laity do not develop the ability to discern true doctrine from false. Rather they learn to passively accept whatever is taught to them. As a consequence they are particularly vulnerable to false teachers and false teaching.

From the publication of the Lux Mundi essays in the late 1890s on Anglo-Catholicism along with Broad Church latitudinarianism has been a source of liberalism and modernism in The Episcopal Church. Traditionalist Anglo-Catholics would prefer to look outside their ecclesiastical tradition for the source of these "isms." They will go as far as denying that liberal Anglo-Catholics are Anglo-Catholics than face up to the fact that their theological stream shares the blame for the present state of The Episcopal Church.

Yet the liberals that they refuse to accept as their own come from parishes that historically have been Anglo-Catholic. Their thinking is to a large extent Anglo-Catholic. Their preferences in worship and church music are very similar if not identical to conservative Anglo-Catholics: they express a sentimental attachment to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and their tastes in church music run to stately traditional hymns and classical anthems and organ voluntaries. They also identify themselves as Anglo-Catholics. They represent the largest group of liberals in The Episcopal Church. Les Fairfield, former professor of Church history at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, now retired, has given a name to this development in Anglo-Catholicism-Catholic Modernism.

Conservative Anglo-Catholics in significant numbers also bolted from The Episcopal Church in the late 1970s, thinning the ranks of those taking a stand against the innovations of the liberals in the denomination.

Instead of engaging in finger pointing, traditionalist Anglo-Catholics in The Episcopal Church and the Continuing Anglican Churches need to own up to the contribution of their own theological stream to the present state of The Episcopal Church. Their ecclesiastical tradition is as responsible, if not more so, as any other tradition. They need to heed the words of Jesus and to take the pole out of their own eye before helping their brother to remove the fleck of sawdust from his eye.


---Robin Jordan lives in western Kentucky and is a confessing Anglican. His blogs include Anglicans Ablaze and Exploring An Anglican Prayer Book (2008).
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