Anglicanism: basic principles and present day realities

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Anglicanism: basic principles and present day realities

O.S. Ihnatyeva

This article is devoted to the research of modern Anglicanism, analyzed in the context of historical and cultural phenomena of Reformation, stages of its evolution and its peculiarities in cult and in dogma. The reconstruction of the main dogmatic principles content of this religious trend are accomplished, the ritual practice and the institutional principles of the Anglican Church specificity, the peculiarities of its functioning in English socio-cultural and multidenominational area and in the context of interchurch dialogue in contemporary Christianity are revealed. The author stressed that the Anglican Church in England occupies a leading place, executing the functions of state church of this country and taking part in social activity. On the basis of the literary sources analysis the attempt to investigate the peculiarities of the

Formulation of the problem. Today, the Church of England plays an active and a vital role in the life of the nation, proclaiming the Christian gospel in words and actions and providing services of Christian worship and praise. The Anglican tradition is a continuing response to God in particular circumstances and is a dynamic force. Anglicanism is a breakaway from Roman Catholicism and different from the continental Reformation churches. The Reformation legislation of Henry VIII and Edward VI is startling in the English environment for the absolute claims it makes in both the political and religious aspects of society.

Perhaps due to its location and strong native traditions, Christianity in England has often moved in somewhat different directions - different from Rome in the early centuries, and then different from the churches arising out of the Reformation. The result was a Church of England that resisted some of the continental Protestant tendencies from the 16th century on but also distanced itself from Roman Catholicism or tendencies in that direction. Anglicanism was the compromise, which was doubtlessly easier to understand when the choices were simpler. For this is now only one of the major religions of England and more so the United Kingdom, while itself becoming one of the major religions of numerous African, Asian, and American countries that were once part of the British empire, including the Episcopal Church in the United States. Thus, to understand Anglicanism, it is necessary to shift the emphasis from the clearer and more familiar formative period to the intriguing and less-known developments of the past centuries.

Analysis of the recent research and publications. The problem of Anglicanism as historical and cultural phenomena is investigated in researches of famous scientists such as M. Jensen, B. Kaye, P. Lake, S. Lucas, D. MacCulloch, P. Marshall, A. McGrath, A. Nichols, S. Ollard, Pettegree, J. Robinson, A. Stephenson, P. Welsby and others. It should be noted that M. Jensen provides a unique insider's view into the convictional world of Sydney Anglicanism. He responds to a number of the common misunderstandings about Sydney Anglicanism and challenges Sydney Anglicans to see themselves as making a positive contribution to the wider church and to the city they inhabit.

Goals. The article is aimed to clarify the place of Anglicanism in existing religious diversity as well as the state of religiosity of this country's people and their religious preference and to analyze the foundations upon which the community faith is based on and some sense of the dynamics that shape that faith. The main purpose of this article is not to describe a history of worldwide Anglicanism, but to give an introduction to world Anglicanism and to set out a way of understanding world Anglicanism as it confronts the twenty-first century.

The main material. The Church of England can be understood as perhaps the purest form of the late medieval church ideal surviving after the Reformation. The Church of England is the officially established Christian Church in England, the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the oldest among the communion's thirty-eight independent national and regional churches.

Since the arrival of Christianity in Britain in the third century, British Christianity has had a distinct flavor and independence of spirit, and was frequently in tension with Roman Catholicism. The break with Rome in the sixteenth century had political causes, but also saw the emergence of an evangelical theology.

We should admit that the Church of England was reformed in a different way from many of its continental counterparts. At least at the beginning, the question of political authority came before theology: influenced by a group of advisers, including many church leaders, King Henry VIII came to believe that the Pope had usurped the authority which was rightfully his. The theory was simple: all authority both temporal and spiritual ultimately resided in the King under God. The circumstances surrounding the assertion of Royal Supremacy over the church are well known. The King desired a male heir. Since Katherine had been married to Henry's brother Arthur, this would have had the effect of nullifying his marriage. At the beginning of the 1530s, Henry began to assert his authority over the church. He asked convocation (the church's parliament) to acknowledge him as “sole protector and supreme head of the English Church”. It is a well known fact that the King had been acknowledged as the “singular protector, supreme lord” and even “supreme head of the Church of England”. In this period of rapid change, it would be wrong to say that the people conceded to reforms willingly: for the most part, there was reluctant acquiescence. This meant that under God the King commanded absolute obedience and total control over the church; the King was absolute in his own domains and his courts could decide on matters both sacred and secular. To all intents and purposes, the King had become the Pope of England [8]. anglicanism word christian

The theology of the founding documents of the Anglican church - the Book of Homilies, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion - expresses a theology in keeping with the Reformed theology of the Swiss and South German Reformation. It is neither Lutheran, nor simply Calvinist, though it resonates with many of Calvin's thoughts.

In order to understand this Christian community we need to have some understanding of the difference between Anglicanism and the Church of England. What is clear is that the Church of England is not the same thing as “Anglicanism”. Anglicanism exists across the world in many different forms. The kind of independence from the state which was forced on a reluctant Church of England by various acts of parliament was embraced enthusiastically elsewhere.

It should be mentioned that the term “Anglicanism” was used by J. H. Newman in 1838 in distinction to “Protestantism”. Later, he wrote: “Anglicanism claimed to hold that the Church of England was nothing else than a continuation in this country of that one Church of which in old times Athanasius and Augustine were members” [5, p, 36]. Sometimes the term was equivalent to Anglo-Catholicism or English Catholicism. More recently, it has simply been used to indicate that type of Christianity which owes its origins to the Church of England.

One of the most important problems in Anglicanism continues to be the search for authority. Some overseas churches tried out something like the English model with a unified vision of church and state under political control; but hardly any of these worked. For these churches, and for those many churches in the Anglican Communion that never enjoyed the benefits of establishment, there was a need to locate an alternative source of authority. While churches might have owed their origins to the Church of England, they were forced by their particular political circumstances to adopt new constitutions and forms of authority. Many began to enjoy the benefits of independence. In this way, Anglicanism became very different from the Church of England [1].

Things had changed completely from the mid-nineteenth century, when the whole task was to “civilize” and “educate”. As Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, remarked in 1853, the vocation of the British people was to leave as the impress of their intercourse with inferior nations, marks of moral teaching and religious training, to have made a nation of children see what it was to be men - to have trained mankind in the habits of truth, morality and justice, instead of leaving them in the imbecility of falsehood and perpetual childhood; and above all, to have been instrumental in communicating to them, not by fierce aggression and superior power - but by gentle persuasion, that moral superiority, that greatest gift bestowed by God upon ourselves, true faith in His word and true belief in the revelation of His Son. When the “children” grow up, however, they might have much to teach their educators. Through the twentieth century many became conscious of the effects of colonialism on the churches. We should admit that William Temple, who became one of the greatest of the modern archbishops of Canterbury, noted that the church would change through its contact with different cultures. In any society the “Church cannot be more than a limited distance ahead of the society in which its members live” [6].

In 1904, Anglicanism across the world was a phenomenon dominated by white male Europeans and settlers of European origins. The British Empire, the largest the world had ever known, covered 11000000 square miles. The English Church had spread out into the colonies and the new self-governing dominions. “Anglicanism” developed as the churches in different parts of the world developed new ways of co-existing with the political authorities, sometimes quite different from the model provided by the settlement in the mother country. Nevertheless, these churches were still primarily European and transferred a way of looking at the world and of understanding God through European eyes. Almost all of the higher clergy were European or American. So, at the end of the nineteenth century Anglicanism was still primarily an English phenomenon [3].

The Church of England understands itself to be both Catholic and Reformed: Catholic in that it views itself as a part of the universal church of Jesus Christ in unbroken continuity with the early apostolic and later medieval church. This is expressed in its strong emphasis on the teachings of the early Church Fathers, in particular as formalized in the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian creeds. Reformed to the extent that it has been shaped by some of the doctrinal and institutional principles of the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation. The more Reformed character finds expression in the Thirty-Nine Articles of religion, established as part of the settlement of religion under Queen Elizabeth I. The customs and liturgy of the Church of England, as expressed in the Book of Common Prayer, are based on pre-Reformation traditions but have been influenced by Reformation liturgical and doctrinal principles.

Justification by faith alone is at the heart of Anglican soteriology. In its liturgy, its view of the sacraments, in its founding documents, and in the mind of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the Church of England holds that works do not save and cannot save a person. Only the blood of Jesus Christ is effective to save.

Scripture is the supreme authority in Anglicanism. Article VI, “Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation”, puts it this way: “Holy Scriptures contained all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation” [7, p. 24].

In Anglicanism, Scripture alone is supreme as the saving Word of God. Reason and tradition play an auxiliary role. This was the view of divines like Thomas Cranmer and Richard Hooker. There is a popular myth that Anglicanism views reason, tradition, and Scripture as a three-legged stool of authorities, but it is quite false.

In Anglican thought, the sacraments are “effectual signs” received by faith. For Anglicans, the sacraments - the Lord's Supper and baptism - do not convey grace in an automatic sense, or by a grace adhering to the objects used in them.

The Anglican liturgy - best encapsulated in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer - is designed to soak the congregation in the Scriptures, and to remind them of the priority of grace in the Christian life. There is grace on every page - it is not only the heart of Anglican theology, it is the heart of Anglican spirituality.

It should be noted that Anglicanism is a missionary faith, and has sponsored global missions since the eighteenth century. The sending and funding of missionaries to the far reaches of the globe to preach the gospel has been a constant feature of Anglican life, although this has happened through the various voluntary mission agencies as much as through official channels [7].

What is obvious is that something profound is happening to Anglicanism on a global level. It is possible to see Anglicanism as a kind of global brand with a quality control office based in Lambeth, the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury. A global market requires a consistent and reliable commodity: in Anglicanism's case, and according to one of the most popular versions of Anglican identity, this might be a via media between too much of one thing (Protestantism) and too much of the other (Catholicism). Anglican churches are different. The reason for this is partly historical. To defend their separation from Rome, the founding fathers of the Church of England relied on a doctrine of provincial autonomy. To understand Anglicanism is to wrestle with globalization, with ecclesiastical and political independence. Global Anglicanism is more

African and Asian than it is English and American. The center of contemporary Anglicanism is found in places like Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya. In these places there are burgeoning Anglican churches, and a great deal of evangelism and church planting. There are strong Anglican churches too in Asia and elsewhere. Noticeably, where liberal theology has become dominant in Anglicanism - mainly in the “first world” - Anglicanism is rapidly shrinking, and is possibly only a generation from its demise [7].

The General Synod confirmed in 1992 that women were able to become priests but in the 22 years following - helped by parliamentary exemptions from equality laws - they were still not allowed to become bishops. By 1994, 1500 women deacons had been ordained as priests. In 2005 a motion to dismantle legal obstacles to the introduction of women bishops was approved by the Synod and by 2011 only two of the 44 English dioceses had not approved draft legislation on the issue. However there was huge disappointment when in 2012 the legislation failed. Just six votes cast by lay members of the Synod were all that stood in the way of women becoming bishops. Then Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said that the Church of England “lost a measure of credibility” that day. But the Church's official law-making body finally voted in favour of female bishops in July last year, prompting cheers both inside and outside the chamber. As a result the wording of Canon 33 was changed to read: “a man or a woman may be consecrated to the office of bishop”. Reverend Libby Lane was chosen in December 2014 as the first woman to be ordained as a bishop. The Church of England has appointed Rev. Libby Lane as the first female bishop, ending centuries of male leadership of the Church and coming 20 years after women were allowed to become priests [4].

The Church of England in 2015 face the challenge of calling one another afresh to follow Christ in the face of a global, secularized, materialistic culture, often experienced as a desert for the soul. The Church of England wants to draw on the deep wisdom of the past but also to apply ourselves afresh to an authentic and Anglican understanding of discipleship for the twenty first century.

Our investigations have led us to the conclusion that everything about the Church of England has changed: its theology, its ritual, its relationship with the state and with the people. Only its parish and diocesan structures remained largely intact. Although different aspects moved at varying speeds, and it is probably better to talk of reformations in the plural, it is undeniable that in the 16th century England experienced a thorough-going reformation.

Yet in the last 50 years or so, Anglicanism has changed beyond recognition. While the Church of England might still claim to be the largest of the Anglican churches, with stated figures of 26000000, this is little more than wishful thinking. There is no such thing as membership of the Church of England - fewer than a million attend church regularly and a similar number are registered on the electoral rolls of parish churches. The Church of England became a voluntary organization in which there was no longer any sense of external compulsion; it changed from being the religion of the English to being simply one denomination among others, though always one with certain privileges.

Literature

1. Buchanan C. Historical Dictionary of Anglicanism / C. Buchanan. - The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland, Toronto, Oxford, 2006. - 243 p.

2. Chandler A. The Church of England in the Twentieth Century / A. Chandler. - UK.: Boydell Press, Woolbridge, 2006. - 528 p.

3. Chapman M. Anglicanism. A Very Short Introduction / M. Chapman. - Oxford University Press Inc., New York, 2006. - 157 p.

4. Church of England's first female bishop named as Libby Lane [Електронний ресурс]. - Режим доступу: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/17/first-female-bishop-named-libby-lane-church-of-england-women. - Назва з екрану.

5. Cobbett, W. History of the Protestant Reformation in England / W. Cobbett. - London: TAN Books, 2010. - 406 p.

6. Compendium Of The Social Doctrine Of The Church [Електронний ресурс]. - Режим доступу: http://www.slideshare.net/chitoA/compendium-of-the-social-doctrine-of-the-church. - Назва з екрану.

7. Jensen M. Sydney Anglicanism: An Apology / M. Jensen. - Kindle edition, 2012. - 194 p.

8. Kaye B. An Introduction to World Anglicanism / B. Kaye. - Cambridge University Press, 2008. - 276 p.

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