What is Anglicanism? Some say that it is distinguished by its tradition of ecclesiology and liturgy, that is based on the Bible - succession of the early church [emphasis mine]. This, I believe, is correct, but how shall God prevent this rich tradition from being abused and split into thousands of pieces like that of Protestantism? How shall we (God working through us of course) guard ourselves from becoming apostate? Is it time to examine ourselves through our very history in order to determine our next step? Should we consider unifying under Rome somehow?
I recently had someone test me on my knowledge of the Anglican Church. This person asked me when I thought the Anglican Church began. I said that it began in the 6thcentury. This man was practically irate about my answer! He said that the Anglican Church started in the second century. I should have been more clear stating that it officially began in the sixth/early seventh century. We were looking at the Anglican Church from two totally different perspectives. To me, the Anglican Church is a tradition. But it is a tradition under an authority. It is not just something great that was discovered and can be used by anyone that finds it interesting. No, this tradition is based on what God began with the early Church and carried on through the bishops to our day. I am of course referring to apostolic succession, but I am referring to a succession from an established authority.
There are two authorities that we can chose from when seeking to find the root of the Anglican Church. The first is the Roman Bishop Gregory the Great. He sent Augustine on a missionary journey to England in the year 597, to evangelize the Angles people, hence the name. Augustine and the Benedictine monks were successful in ministering to these people at Canterbury and began instituting a form of Benedictine liturgy. Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 601.
It would be foolish and outright arrogant to deny the proposition that the missionary work of Augustine sprouted the Anglican Church. The Church at Canterbury, today, is considered the mother church of all Anglicanism. It is the Cathedral of the Anglican Communion and it is considered the leading authority over all Anglican Churches (although this is beginning to change, due to its falling away to liberalism).
The questions arises as to whether Rome still has, or every truly had jurisdiction over the Church of England. But the name itself, “Church of England” is that of Roman decent. It is Roman theology that claimed a Church to its geography. We know that the liturgy, for the most part, is from Rome (it is the Celtic flavor, though, that gives Anglican liturgy its marvelous thrust), and that the doctrine of the Anglican Church was no different from Rome’s prior to the Reformation and the Reign of Henry VIII. Papal authority increased within the Anglican Church up until the Reign of Henry VIII when Henry declared The Act of Royal Supremacy (1534), where all authority was stripped from the Bishop of Roman and given to the King. It gets rather complicated from here. Some claim Henry was just in what he did due to the Bishop of Rome not mending his ethical dilemma, yet others claim that because Henry was such an unethical man his ethical dilemma not being mended by the Bishop of Rome, as well as the dilemma not being a true “dilemma” was no justification to order the Act of Royal Supremacy.
Let’s just say that the Bishop of Rome was wrong in what he did (or did not do), and Henry had to do what he did in order to escape his dilemma and save the people of England from catastrophe. Let’s say that all this has passed and the people of England are now truly free by this Act of Royal Supremacy. Does the authority of the Church return to the Roman Bishop?
Henry the VIII was a defender of Roman theology, once attacking Reformed theology by writing his Defence of the Seven Sacraments. The Bishop of Rome then gave him the title of “Defender of the Faith.” So it is relatively clear that Henry was not after a theological reformation that of which eventually happened within the Anglican Church.
It so happened to be that the now Archbishop Cranmer was ripe for Reformation theology, and so were many others within the Anglican Church. And so Henry’s rebellion from Rome grew a very sturdy backbone: the Reformation. So there was some happenstance or even “divine providence” happening here with the Anglican Church. New doctrine was flooding in while the Church was being torn from Rome.
Some Church records show that there were British bishops present in England as early as the second century. But there is little to no known record that the successors of these bishops were in any opposition to the Roman doctrines or authority that they were submitting under. In fact, the early British bishops initially submitted to Rome when the Bishop of Rome decreed through the Council of Aries that the date of Easter be changed.
Even if it can be shown that there was disagreement about changing the date of Easter and even some of the other doctrines proposed by Rome, one would be hard pressed to completely reject the authority that Rome was given over England; especially considering the work of Augustine and the Benedictine monks.
Now that Canterbury is fallen, which governing authority shall be in charge of the Anglican Church? Should Rome have jurisdiction over the Anglican Church? Or was the missionary work of Rome simply a stepping stone to something greater?
I really do not see anything greater being done in the Anglican Church. I see more splits as a result of unionizing with semi-conservatives and even full blown liberals, all in the name of “we are against homosexuality.” But homosexuality is only a symptom of the problems within the Anglican Church (England and America). To join, for instance, with Anglicans that prescribe to ordination of women is to travel the same disastrous road again!
Some would say that we need no authority except that of medieval documents and the Canon of Scripture. But this would mean the complete dismantling of the Anglican faith as a Catholic and Creedal faith. This would mean that Anglicanism, because it is founded under apostolic succession, is finished, and that only an Anglican type of liturgy would remian…and eventually dissolve like every other Reformation liturgy has.
I think the choice is clear. I think we must return to our roots and become an “Anglican Rite” under the authority of those that first formed us, returning to one of the earliest forms that we know of.