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Glorious Companions – History of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion Some Preliminary Notes When did the Church in England begin? legend has beginnings in the first century; possibly brought by Roman soldiers Tertullian (c. 200): parts of Britain, inaccessible to the Romans, have been “conquered by Christ” 597 mission of Augustine of Canterbury When did “Anglicanism” and an “Anglican Communion” begin? first English chaplains serving abroad in the 17th century? consecration of Samuel Seabury in 1784? first Lambeth Conference in 1867? To understand worldwide Anglicanism, one must begin with realization that the English Reformation was not about conversion but obedience. i.e. not about doctrine, but authority Church in England evolved greatly, and in changing directions over the years and centuries since the Reformation. Much of that change was due to the need to adapt to different lands, cultures and was of governing. Church in America severed ties with England at the time of the Revolution; the king was the focus of authority; now what? Churches in other nations developed with different forms of government, different views of authority, therefore with different forms of “Church” The idea of a national church, acting independently of others, has remained at the heart of Anglicanism. The challenge of independence, of autonomy, while maintaining interdependence, is still the great challenge of Anglicanism Religious Establishment in Early America The first place in the Americas on which England focused was Virginia. The settlement on Roanoke Island (now part of North Carolina) was named “Virginia” in honor of Elizabeth, the “Virgin Queen.” In 1607 when the first lasting English settlement was established, it was called “Jamestown” in honor of James I who had chartered the Virginia Company to establish an English settlement in the Chesapeake region of North America. Religious practices were mandated by Parliament for the Virginia Company: they were to have Sunday morning worship, Page 1 of 18 6/25/20171 Sunday afternoon catechism study, and daily Morning and Evening Prayer; clergy were to preach on Sundays and Wednesdays. Members of other church groups from England soon followed. The Puritans who landed at Plymouth Rock were actually trying to sail to Virginia. Religious practices in the New World developed in different directions. Because of their distance from England, the colonists made other changes. During the 1630s in Virginia, rectors, who previously had been appointed by legislatures, were now being chosen by vestries. They also developed a system by which vestries could work through the legislatures to dismiss a rector, when there were serious conflicts. Under Charles I (1625-1649), many more religious groups emigrated to America, settling in what was the Massachusetts Bay colony, including what would become parts of Connecticut and New Hampshire. Other forms of “church” grew there, especially congregational structures. Colonists coming to Virginia tended to come from England’s north and west, while those settling in New England were mostly from East Anglia. Each brought its own form of church to the colonies. Free from direct English control, the differences became magnified. Some Baptists, who disagreed both with the New England form of church and with the Virginia form of Church, moved to Rhode Island and settled there. At the same time, Charles issued a charter for Roman Catholics to settle in Maryland, although they remained a minority there. After the Restoration, Charles II (1660-1685) issued a proclamation granting a charter to William Penn, a Quaker, for Pennsylvania. Many Presbyterians emigrated to New York and New Jersey, where neither the Congregationalists nor the Episcopal party held influence. In 1684, Charles II made Massachusetts a royal colony, putting it under direct royal control. James Stuart became the proprietor of New York; and, when he became James II (1685-1688), it too was under royal control. William and Mary (1689-1702) made Maryland a royal colony as well. Among other effects of this designation was the fact that the monarchs then had greater control in establishing the place of the Church of England in those places. William and Mary were successful in working through governors to make the C of E the official church in Maryland and South Carolina, and they had limited success in New York. Later monarchs would accomplish the same thing in Georgia and North Carolina. There continued to be some dissatisfaction with this arrangement, especially in Georgia and North Carolina; some folks had moved there in the first place because of their dissatisfaction with the same arrangement in Virginia and South Carolina. Congregationalists, Presbyterians and other non-Anglicans prevented this situation from occurring in the colonies north of Maryland. Queen Anne did, however, use the resources at her disposal to establish the first Anglican churches in some of the northern colonies. Page 2 of 18 6/25/20172 The Congregational Church became the established church in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. In 1706, clergy from New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania petitioned Queen Anne (1702 – 1714) to appoint bishops for the colonies. She decided to grant their request, but died before any were actually appointed. George I (1714 – 1727) knew very little about the English Church, or even the English language, so he allowed his Prime Minister to appoint bishops and allowed Parliament to decide other religious issues. In 1718, clergy from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland petitioned the English bishops to appoint a bishop for the colonies. The church in Rhode Island worked through a visitor, the philosopher George Berkeley, in hopes of getting a bishop. None were successful. English clergyman Thomas Bray helped establish 44 SPCK libraries in America, intending them to help educate the clergy and to help convince non-Anglicans of the reasonableness of Anglicanism. In 1701, he participated in establishing the SPG (Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts), which began to send missionaries to the colonies. The Great Awakening George Whitefield, along with John and Charles Wesley, led The Great Awakening (17401776). Other forms of church grew and prospered. In general, Anglicans came to oppose the Great Awakening (TGA), Baptists supported it, and Presbyterians and Congregationalists split into competing factions. During the 1760s and 1770s, some Anglicans embraced a modified form of TGA. They continued to hold to apostolic succession and a set liturgy, but also began to preach in a sentimentalist style and to advocate adult conversion. The movement enhanced the role of women and of blacks in the church. It led also to a renewed call for an American bishop. Those C of E churches that were influenced most by TGA were designed, or redesigned, to place a large pulpit in front, sometimes even obscuring the altar. They also began using recently composed hymns, such as those by the Wesleys. Other churches resisted these hymns and instead focused on biblical based texts and older canticles like the Te Deum. After the Revolution, the new Episcopal Church would gradually come to accept as a whole the singing of hymns. Conventions would authorize hymnals in 1789 (27 texts), 1808 (57 texts) and 1826 (212 texts. 14 of those in the 1826 Hymnal were by Charles Wesley. Page 3 of 18 6/25/20173 The Revolutionary War Three organizations, formed in the mid-1700s, were critical in the formation of the Episcopal Church after the Revolution: a convocation of the clergy of Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, a convocation of the clergy of the southern colonies, and the Society for the Relief of Orphans and Widows of Clergymen (formed by the clergy of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware). Churches began to choose between one side and another. In general, the Anglican churches chose the wrong side. Charles Inglis, who would later become bishop for Nova Scotia, was one of the leaders of the loyalist cause. He proudly proclaimed that most Anglican clergy were opposed to the Revolution. This was true, especially in the north. By the end of the war, there were only four active clergymen in Massachusetts, one in New Hampshire and none in Rhode Island. Connecticut, however, retained almost 20. In the south, there was more support for the revolutionaries. In Maryland 1/3 of the clergy supported the revolutionaries, and in South Carolina, ¾ did. In Virginia, vestries served as communications offices for the Revolution, and most clergy supported the cause. About half of the clergy in North Carolina were supportive of the effort. The churches in Georgia, however, took a stance that was more like that in New England. In the middle colonies, loyalties varied. Organization of the Episcopal Church following the Revolution The leadership came from the middle colonies, who were accustomed to religious pluralism. Especially influential were the two clergy conferences and the Society for Relief of Orphans and Widows of Clergymen. By 1783, the church in Maryland had adopted the name “the Protestant Episcopal Church”, distinguishing itself from the RC Church in Maryland and from those English churches which rejected the office of bishop. They planned a state convention that would exercise the authority for the church. William White (b. 1748) was educated and ordained in England. He served as Assistant to the Rector at the United Parish of Christ Church and St. Peter’s in Philadelphia. After the Rector of the church departed with the British, the Continental Congress appointed White as Rector. He was related by marriage to some of the leading revolutionaries and served as Chaplain to the Continental Congress. On August 8, 1782, he published The Case of the Episcopal Churches in the United States Considered. In it, he proposed that other states adopt Maryland’s practice of holding “general vestries” that would choose presiding clergy for the churches. They would perform many of the functions of bishops until the new nation had its own bishops. The presiding clergy and elected lay representatives would meet together on a district level and, every three years, on a national level. At all levels, presiding clergy, other clergy and lay Page 4 of 18 6/25/20174 representatives would participate together. Representatives from several of the states met in a General Convention in 1784, 1785 and 1786. Clergy from Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island objected to White’s plan, asserting that it did not give a sufficiently prominent role to bishops. Some of them met in 1783 and nominated two New York clergymen for the office of bishop. One of them declined. The other, Samuel Seabury, accepted. He had been a British loyalist during the War and had served as a chaplain to English forces. He sailed to England but was refused consecration because he could no longer take the oath of loyalty to the king. Traveling north to Scotland, he was consecrated there on November 14, 1784, by three nonjuring bishops. He signed a concordat with the Scottish Church, in which it recognized the Church in America and in which Samuel Seabury agreed to try to incorporate the Scottish rite into the Communion service. The consecration prayer in the new American Prayer Book would be based on the 1549 BCP rather than the 1552 which served as the basis for the English 1662 BCP. Returning to America, Seabury at first refused to attend the ongoing General Conventions in the south. Instead he called for clergy-alone convocations in the north. He began using the title “Bishop of All America.” The Conventions in the south began to move toward greater similarity with the Protestant churches in the north. Seabury and those with him in the north headed in the opposite direction, seeking to distinguish themselves further from the Congregationalists and taking a higherChurch position. Meanwhile, after the 1783 Treaty of Paris, John Wesley who had been a strong opponent of the War and a supporter of the loyalists, began calling together meetings of the Methodist supporters. They established their own ordinations, Prayer book etc. By 1787, American Episcopalians had effectively established three denominations: a middle and southern states’ church with English lines of consecration and a representative convention of both clergy and lay delegates a New England Church, directed by a bishop with Scottish ordination and governed through a clergy-only convocation and a Methodist-Episcopal Church with a form of government drafted by John Wesley. Reconciliation with the Methodist-Episcopal faction would never take place. The other two groups were hostile to each other and kept their distance. The leaders in the middle and southern states had supported the Revolution; those in Connecticut had been loyalists (Seabury not only had served as a chaplain to British forces, but drew maps for them and even now was receiving a pension from England.) The New England clergy disliked the southern clergy who had given lay people an equal role in making decisions for the church; and the southern clergy Page 5 of 18 6/25/20175 questioned whether the style of authority that Seabury used in New England was compatible with the new democracy. From July through September of 1789, the first General Convention of the entire Episcopal Church met in Philadelphia. Bishop Samuel Provoost, a bitter enemy of Seabury’s, was unable to attend. (Provoost, along with William White, had been consecrated in England in 1786.) Provoost, from New Jersey, had been perhaps the only member of the clergy in his state to support the patriots. White used Provoost’s absence to make some concessions to Seabury in order to heal the division. There would be a separate House of Bishops which would have veto power; a 4/5 vote of the Deputies would be necessary to override the veto (in 1808, this was raised to a full veto). The participation of lay deputies in diocesan Conventions was made optional. The Convention adopted the 1789 BCP. 1789 BCP: `The day after Samuel Seabury was consecrated in 1784, he signed a concordat in which he promised to try to get the American Church to model its Prayer Book after the Scottish one. When Seabury met with the clergy in Massachusetts and Connecticut, there is no evidence that he even mentioned the concordat. The people seemed to have wanted to keep the familiar 1662 Prayer Book, but with the changes made necessary by the new political situation. In 1786, the southern states’ Convention adopted a Prayer Book which was basically the 1662, with some changes because of the new political situation and some at the request of the Latitudinarians. The one major change was a proposal to place the Collects, Epistles and Gospels after the Communion, a reflection of Scottish usage at the time. The book was not well-received. A move in the south to accept the proposed northern book of Samuel Seabury was likewise rejected. Thomas Claggett, who was to become Bishop of Maryland, declared, “the people of this congregation (I mean ye Church’s real Friends, ye communicants) universally disapprove of ye new Book.” The southern states met in Convention on July 28, 1789, and renounced any intention of using their new book. This opened the way for a reconciliation with the north. The first General Convention of the Episcopal Church met in Philadelphia on September 29, 1789. There were two houses: the House of Bishops (Seabury and White, because Provoost was absent) and the House of Deputies, including representatives from Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, as well as the southern states. Negotiations on the new BCP continued for ten days. The major change from the 1662 book was in the Prayer of Consecration, which now reflected the Scottish usage. It bore the title The Book of Common Prayer, and the Administration of the Sacraments, and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America: Together with the Psalter, or Psalms of David. (The 1979 book uses Page 6 of 18 6/25/20176 the same title, but omits word “Protestant” and the words “in the United States of America”) The bishops of New York and New Jersey authorized special services for July 4, but these were not included in the Prayer Book. Events were too recent and still too divisive. In 1790 James Madison (a cousin of the president by the same name, and President of William and Mary) was consecrated in England as Bishop of Virginia, bringing the number of Englishconsecrated bishops to three, along with Seabury. The combined English-heritage and Scottishheritage bishops then continued consecrating new bishops for the new country. The new nation now had an Anglican church, but that church was exhausted by the struggles of its birth. Its presence in North Carolina was weak; NC did not send a delegation to General Convention until 1817. In Georgia, only one congregation (Christ Church in Savannah) remained active; GA did not sent representatives to General Convention until 1823. The church was in great need of a new generation of leaders. Evangelicalism and Anglo-Catholicism Mark Chapman (p. 58) discusses the formation of church parties, which he distinguishes from earlier movements within the C of E. He says, “What characterized the modern church party was its clamor for an authority and an identity that was distinct from the wider church and nation, and where partisan identity was sometimes as important, or even more important, than ecclesiastical identity.” This developed during a time when being a church member began to be seen as requiring more of a commitment than simply being an Englishman. The two dominant movements, leading to a “party spirit”, were Evangelicalism and Anglo-Catholicism. Evangelicalism “was marked by a form of religious authenticity based on the security of a personal religious experience as a mark of authenticity.” Taking inspiration from the leaders of The Great Awakening of the 18th century, and especially from the Wesleys and others within the Anglican tradition, they began working for changes in the church. In reaction to the image of humanity presented by the Enlightenment, Evangelicals viewed people as fallen and depraved, and in need of salvation. Accepting Christ as Savior was the only way. Among the prominent leaders of Evangelicalism were John Venn, William Wilberforce and Hannah More. They gathered at Clapham and became known as “the Clapham Sect.” They pushed for social changes, as well as changes of interior attitudes. Wilberforce, as an MP, is best known for his work in helping to abolish slavery in the UK. They used creative ways, both in Parliament and in society itself, to continue pushing for Abolition. Moorman (pp. 320-321) mentions that they would, for example, invite people to dinner; as the guests ate, they would Page 7 of 18 6/25/20177 find written at the bottom of their soup bowls the words “Abolish all slavery.” They also distributed fliers with a picture of a black man and the simple caption “A man and a brother.” In 1833, Parliament abolished all slavery throughout the British Empire. Several members of the Evangelical movement established “The Society for the Suppression of Vice” which worked for changes in laws on the local level as well. The Evangelicals came to make more and more of a clear distinction between those who were on the inside and those who were on the outside. “Are you saved?” “Conversion soon became the test of Evangelical belonging; testifying and witnessing to a change of heart, and allowing this change of heart to control one’s whole life, dominated Evangelical piety; the chief object of preaching was to win over converts.” (Chapman, p. 62) Some of the Evangelicals, led by Charles Simeon, founded the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1799. It began work in parts of Africa and in India. They brought an Evangelical approach to faith and the Church which sometimes contrasted with that promoted by the SPG. The CMS established Sierra Leone as a home for slaves who had been freed. The Church in England was in great need of reform by the 1820s, but people differed on what form those reforms should take. It was seen a corrupt and greedy with little or no concern for ordinary people and especially for the poor. According to Moorman (p. 330), “Bishops were burned in effigy, the palace at Bristol was destroyed by the mob, and crowds cheered when a speaker proposed that Canterbury Cathedral should be turned into stables for the cavalry. Politicians kept telling the Church that she must put her own house in order, and implied that unless she did so it would be done for her by others. But little was done; for, while some clamored for reform, others saw the Church a bulwark against revolution and chaos and were afraid to start on reforms which might lead further than what was anticipated.” The Evangelicals began to work for reform from within the Church. Chapman, pp. 65-66: “Many Evangelicals in the first years of the 19th century began to interpret Scripture in terms of the supposed prediction of the end-times. A revolutionary age led many to read their own times using the Book of Revelation as a guide.” Evangelical leader Henry Venn spoke of the Bible as the “infallible word of God”; yet true fundamentalism with an attempted literal reading of the Bible did not arise until the late 19th century. Literal inerrancy became the hallmark of the newspaper The Record, and it eventually became the dominant form of Evangelicalism. As the years went by, some of the more prominent Evangelicals began to seek and assert more and more power in the Church and, where possible, in the government. As Chapman points out (p. 67), they began to show open hostility to anyone who did not give, what they perceived to be, sufficient support for their particular points of view. They became virulently anti-Roman Page 8 of 18 6/25/20178 and insisted that the first duty of clergy was to protect the Church from anything that, in their minds, even vaguely resembled Romanism. By the 20th century, the Evangelicals had adopted a fortress-like mentality, one which continued through most of the century. During the 1960s, however, there came a split in adherents of the movement. Some of them continued to retreat into their fortresses, clinging to ultraconservative view on such topics as the interpretation of scripture, the ordination of women and homosexuality. Many others, however, tried to end their isolation and to bring a more moderate form of Evangelicalism into the mainstream of the C of E. One of their number, George Carey, even served as Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991-2003. During the 19th century, there arose another important movement in the C of E which was often diametrically opposed to Evangelicalism. It became know as Anglo-Catholicism. It found its beginnings in the Oxford Movement. Like Evangelicalism, Anglo-Catholicism began as a response to a crisis of authority. Evangelicalism began to focus on the authority of the individual, converted heart and on a particular interpretation of scripture. Anglo-Catholicism focused instead on the Church as a visible, ordered society. Like so many other movements before it, the Oxford Movement began in response to a change in society and in government. Parliament and other parts of the government began to include more and more dissenters and Roman Catholics, yet it continued to decide issue concerning the C of E. Chapman (pp. 76-77) cites the move to consolidate the sees in Ireland. John Henry Newman traced the beginning of the Oxford Movement to the July 14, 1833, sermon of John Keble in which he spoke of a “National Apostasy.” It emphasized the independence of the Church, and focused its attention on the ordained ministry and the sacraments. (Keble was a Professor of Poetry who specialized in the Caroline Divines and had done extensive study of the writings of Richard Hooker.) Founded primarily by historians, like Newman, it emphasized the need to study the Church Fathers and other writings reflecting early Church tradition. It asserted that the undivided Church of the first few centuries provided the timeless example of authentic Christianity. It allowed for a broader approach to the interpretation of scripture than that taken by the Evangelicals, calling the Church once again to a reliance on scripture, tradition and reason. Newman began publishing a series of “Tracts for the Times” which gave the Movement the name “Tractarianism.” He was later joined in his efforts by Richard Froude and Edward Pusey. The series began to emphasize the Church of England as the “Via Media.” They criticized the Evangelicals emphasis on the necessity of an adult conversion, showing that this was not the teaching of the early Church nor of the leaders of the Reformation. Page 9 of 18 6/25/20179 Keble insisted that, because of apostolic succession, the C of E was “the only church in the realm which has a right to be quite sure that she has the Lord’s Body to give to his people.” Participants in the movement focused on the unique role of bishops as the successors to the apostles in leading the Church. They saw the state as essentially betraying the Church, and asserted the need for the Church to defend itself and to exercise authority over itself. In the late 1830s, the movement’s work began to have a significant effect on the Church’s liturgy and architecture. It emphasized a move away from some of the rather plain styles that had been favored by the Calvinists and, later, by the Evangelicals, and toward a richer style of architecture and worship alike. The altars and chancel areas were elevated and more highly decorated. Rented pews and special places of seating were removed and were replaced with simple pews that were used by all members of the congregation. All were to be given a full view of the altar. Baptismal fonts were moved to the west end of the nave. Organs began to replace parish bands. Edward Pusey became the leader of the Movement and led a revival of the liturgy. Adherents of the movement began using liturgical vestments and, in a then-controversial move that was subsequently taken to court, began placing candles on the altars and using flowers to decorate it. There was also a heated controversy over the movement’s use of “S.” instead of “St.” before the names of saints: a practice that was strongly denounced by the Evangelicals. Chapman (p. 84) quotes Lord Shaftsbury, an Evangelical leader in Parliament as declaring indignantly about worship in one Anglo-Catholic church: “In outward form and ritual, it is the worship of Jupiter and Juno. [It was] such a scene of theatrical gymnastics, and signing, screaming, genuflections, and strange movements of the priests, their backs almost always to the people, as I never saw before even in a Roman temple… The communicants went up to the tune of soft music, as though it had been a melodrama, and one was astonished, at the close, that there was no fall of the curtain.” Anglo-Catholic churches were condemned and taken to court for the use of incense, for the use of wafers for bread, for mixing water with the wine during the Eucharist, and for the crime of “excessive kneeling.” The Episcopal Church, in its 1844 General Convention, debated a resolution condemning the Oxford Movement. The Evangelicals, who then dominated and who continued to insist on the necessity of an adult conversion experience, were up in arms against it. Nine dioceses, including the Diocese of Ohio (there was as yet no Diocese of Southern Ohio), voted in favor of the resolution; 12 voted against it; and six were split. Bishop Philander Chase warned against the “dreadful perversions” of Rome that he thought were part of the Movement. In the end, a watered-down resolution was adopted; the convention was unwilling to rule against the Movement. Many of the bishops were in favor of the strong emphasis on the episcopacy found in the Tracts. In the House of Deputies, the Evangelicals likewise found that they did not have the votes to dominate. Page 10 of 18 6/25/201710 In succeeding years, the battles continued, especially during the elections and confirmations of bishops. The Civil War temporarily interrupted the struggles between the two parties; but after the War, with the southern Church (which tended to be more Evangelical) weakened, the Evangelical movement lost some of its influence. In 1873, a small group of Evangelicals separated to form the Reformed Episcopal Church. In England the Cambridge Camden Society, led by liturgist and musician John Mason Neale, began a reform of the Church’s liturgy and introduced greater ceremony into the worship of both groups, most of whom began to refer to themselves at Evangelical Catholics and AngloCatholics. (Pritchard, pp. 148-9, mentions a tour of English churches that shocked the Society members: “When.. their tours revealed pews that faced away from the altar, chancels that had been closed off, and even a senior warden who climbed upon an altar to open windows during a worship service, they began to campaign for liturgical reform.” Some of their actions set off violent opposition, such as the Exeter surplice riots of 1840. In America, Presiding Bishop John Henry Hopkins (1865-1868) wrote liturgical manuals that allowed for the use of cassocks and surplices, bishops robes, stoles etc. Even influential Evangelical Catholics, like William Augustus Muhlenberg approved of the daily celebration of Morning and Evening Prayer and the weekly celebration of the Eucharist; he also founded a boys’ choir at the Church of the Holy Communion in New York City. The Episcopal Church began to incorporate aspects of both Evangelicalism and Anglo-Catholicism into its life and to begin focusing on ecumenical discussions. In subsequent years, Anglo-Catholicism evolved more extensively in a few places, with the use of certain ritual practices becoming identified as a mark of belonging to the movement. Religious orders of women were permitted for the first time since the Reformation. The so-called “Broad-Churchmen” of the late 19th century sought to accept and incorporate aspects of both Evangelicalism and Anglo-Catholicism into the life of the Church. They tried to refocus people’s attention away from the often trivial issues that divided them and toward the central mission of the Church. They went on to encourage a critical reading of the scriptures, echoing a movement which was beginning in Germany and which would transform mainline Christianity during the coming century. During the 20th century, Anglo-Catholicism split into different groups, just as Evangelicalism had done. Some went to greater extremes in practice. Many elements of Anglo-Catholic worship however, became part of the Anglican mainstream and are widely accepted today as part of Anglican life and worship. One great leader of the movement at the turn of the (19th-20th) century was Percy Dearmer, a liturgist and musician. He published in 1899 The Parson’s Handbook, which became accepted as the authoritative liturgical book for the English Church. He also chose Ralph Vaughan Page 11 of 18 6/25/201711 Williams to work with him on the English Hymnal which incorporated music from the English folk tradition. The Anglo-Catholic movement also came to include a strong emphasis on social involvement. Frank Weston, the Bishop of Zanzibar, declared (Chapman, p. 92): “You cannot claim to worship Jesus in the tabernacle if you do not pity Jesus in the slum… It is folly; it is madness, to suppose that you can worship Jesus in the sacrament and Jesus on the throne of glory when you are sweating Him in the bodies and souls of his children.” Over the years, Anglo-Catholicism has become part of the Anglican Communion and Episcopal Church mainstream. Archbishops of Canterbury Michael Ramsey (1961-1974), Robert Runcie 1980-1991) and Rowan Williams (2003-?) all came from an Anglo-Catholic background, but embraced its open form rather than its more closed variety. The Anglican Communion Henry VIII had been declared “Supreme Head of the Church” in England. The 1559 Act of Supremacy, at the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth I, changed the title to “Supreme Governor” of both Church and State. Over the centuries, however, that authority had been modified. This was especially true following the revolution and the Commonwealth of 16491659, when Parliament gained more and more authority over both Church and State. As a result, the Church came increasingly under lay control, even though the bishops had a constitutional right to sit in the House of Lords. The church in Scotland had long exercised a large degree of independence from the church in England. For years, there had been an unusual blend of both Anglicanism and Presbyterianism in the land. But it was with the accession to the throne of William III and Mary II (1689) that a more formal break came. The bishops in Scotland refused to swear allegiance to the new rulers (“non-jurors”). Their church came to recognize the authority neither of the Crown nor of Parliament, and so had to struggle with the locus of authority for itself. The loyalty of the Scottish Church was suspect for years in the eyes of the English, and bishops there were not officially tolerated until 1712. Many of the clergy in Scotland supported those who rejected the claim to the British throne of the House of Hanover, and instead asserted that the descendants of James (the House of Stuart) were the rightful rulers. Some of them participated in the Jacobian rebellion in 1745. Afterwards, Scottish clergy were not permitted to officiate at worship until 1792, when the last claimant in the House of Stuart had died. Even after that, Scottish clergy were not permitted to Page 12 of 18 6/25/201712 hold church positions in England. The churches in England and Scotland were not in any real sense in Communion with one another during those years. As the C of E began to spread beyond England, the conflicts that had taken place in the mother country manifested themselves in conflicts within other Anglican churches. The other churches also had to struggle once again with the fundamental question of authority that had been at the heart of the initial English Reformation. These struggles were faced first by the churches in Scotland and America, but then had to be addressed in the wider world. William Grant Broughton and a Communion of Autonomous Churches During a visit to England, Bishop William Grant Broughton of Australia came under the influence of the Oxford Movement and began to work for the independence of the churches from the government and from the Church of England. In 1850, he called the bishops of Australasia to Sydney, and they established a synodical form of government for the church which left no power to the Crown. He then called for the SPG to organize a meeting of the Anglican bishops of Africa and Canada to draft a joint declaration establishing their independence as well. He discussed the idea with the bishops of South Africa and received their support. He himself agreed to serve as Chair, but died before the meeting could take place. His proposals, however, were adopted by many dioceses and provinces and a new form of Anglicanism emerged: one of a communion of autonomous churches joined together by a shared history and tradition. The model came to be followed, not only in lands distant from England, but even in the Church in Ireland, which formally cut its ties to the state in 1871. The Growth of Anglicanism The Bishop of London was responsible for English churches overseas. In 1840 Bishop of London, Charles Blomfield called for the establishment of churches, led by bishops, throughout the British Empire. To accomplish that goal, he and others began the next year The Colonial Bishoprics Fund. By 1853, it had set up and established 15 dioceses around the Empire. The CBF was supported by the SPG. Opposition came from the CMS, who insisted that the goal of missionary work should be to raise up native church leaders first, before bishops became involved. Part of their goal was apparently to ensure that control over the ventures was maintained by the Society, not be the bishops in the new churches themselves. The CMS led a series of missionary efforts in Africa, working from a base in Sierra Leone. When English missionaries became ill, the CMS began focusing on developing a group of native clergy. A leader among them was Samuel Adjai Crowther, who was ordained in 1843 and in 1864 became the first black African bishop in the Anglican Communion. He established the first mission station in the Niger Delta in 1845. Page 13 of 18 6/25/201713 Despite the stated intent of developing a native church, the CMS insisted that the churches develop along European patterns, and it sought to maintain control of the churches and the missionary efforts. Other missionaries followed in various parts of Africa. Some died of illness; others were killed at the orders of local leaders. Still others were resistant to submitting to the leadership of black African church leaders. By the mid-19th century, the influence of the Tractarians was making itself felt in the churches of Africa, and bishops began to take on a greater role in leading missionary efforts. Bishops in South Africa found themselves in conflict with each other over doctrine, in particular over the way that God might be working also in the lives of the non-Christians there. The Church there held its first Provincial Synod in 1870 as “The Church of the Province of Southern Africa.” At the Provincial Synod of September 8-9, 2006, it officially changed its name to “The Anglican Church of Southern Africa.” (It currently includes 25 dioceses in six different countries and is led by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane.) Conflicts over jurisdiction in some of the newer churches (see. Chapman, pp. 112-2) came to include American bishops as well as English bishops. They brought to the fore a need for interAnglican cooperation and dialogue. With means of transportation becoming faster, bishops began attending conferences in other places. Around the time of the SPG’s 150 th anniversary celebration in 1851, the term “Anglican Communion” began to be used. In 1865, the Canadian bishops formally requested the Archbishop of Canterbury to call for a synod of all colonial bishops. In time the bishops of the independent churches of Scotland and America came to be included as well. Archbishop of Canterbury Charles Thomas Longley formally convened the First Lambeth Conference in September 1867. The Archbishop of York refused to attend, concerned that the Queen and Parliament might use the occasion to try to exercise authority over church matters. 76 bishops from around the world attended. The gathering issued an encyclical letter to all the Anglican churches as well as to other Christian churches. As Chapman points out (p. 114), the gathering established a pattern for future gatherings and for the Anglican Communion as a whole. Issues of concern were discussed and debated, but no attempt at any sort of legislative action was taken. The Archbishop of Canterbury chaired the meeting, but did not attempt to exercise any authority over the member churches. His role was that of primus inter pares. Due at least in part to historical circumstances, the gathering was one of bishops only. This tended to enhance the role of bishops. At the same time, the assembly called for the Page 14 of 18 6/25/201714 establishment of synods in all of the churches, thereby providing support for the involvement of all orders in the life and leadership of the church. The authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury was limited to that of a moral authority. Provincial autonomy became a central hallmark of Anglicanism. The various national churches remained independent of one another. As Chapman observes (p. 115): “Meeting every 10 years has served as much to highlight differences as to emphasize similarities.” With the globalization of Anglicanism, a major question that persists is the search for some common understanding of authority and of Anglicanism’s identity. Bishop George Augustus Selwyn of New Zealand addressed the 1871 General Convention of the Episcopal Church and spoke about the need for some form of central authority that was compatible with its heritage of autonomous provinces. He told those assembled (Chapman, p. 116), “May we not hope that some central authority, elected and obeyed by every member of every branch of the whole Anglican communion, may be appointed to exercise this power of controlling inordinate self-will, and zeal not tempered with discretion: saying to the too hasty minds, who claim as lawful, things which are not expedient, ‘Thus far shalt thou go, and no further’?” The second Lambeth Conference met in 1878 with the express intent of working out principles for “maintaining union among various churches of the Anglican Communion.” The focus of its proceedings, however, tended to focus, not on the establishment of a central authority, but on the independence of the member churches. In his opening address, Archbishop of Canterbury Archibald Campbell Tait focused on the autonomy of the churches and the toleration of diversity. The Conference recommended that “the duly certified action of every national or particular Church… in the exercise of its own discipline, should be respected by all the other Churches, and by their individual members… Every ecclesiastical province… should be held responsible for its own decisions in the exercise of… discipline.” During the third Lambeth Conference in 1888, Bishop Samuel Crowther of Nigeria brought to the assembly’s attention the issue of polygamy in his own land. By the 1960s, the report from the Church in Nigeria was that “probably there is not a single Nigerian in a position of leadership in the denomination who has not been disciplined at some time for marital irregularities.” That practice continued to be an issue up to the Lambeth Conference of 1988. The compromise recommendation was that those Nigerian men who practice polygamy may be baptized and confirmed, along with their wives and children, as long as they promise not to marry again. The conference affirmed the practice of provincial autonomy. For Archbishop of Canterbury Edward White Benson, who presided at that 3rd Lambeth Conference, “Unity is not the first scene, but the last triumph of Christianity and man. Christ himself could not Page 15 of 18 6/25/201715 create unity in His Church. He could pray for it, and his prayer most movingly teaches us to work for it. On earth it is not a gift, but a growth.” That same Lambeth Conference of 1888 adopted also the “Chicago Lambeth Quadrilateral” as the basis for Anglicanism’s ecumenical discussions. It had been prepared primarily by William Reed Huntington, Rector of Grace Church in New York City and President of the House of Deputies during the 1886 General Convention, and was adopted by the House of Bishops during that Convention. It established as the “essentials” of Anglicanism (BCP, pp. 876-7): 1) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as ‘containing all things necessary to salvation’, and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith. 2) The Apostles’ Creed, as the baptismal symbol, and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith. 3) The two sacraments ordained by Christ himself – Baptism and the Supper of the Lord – ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution, and of the elements ordained by him. 4) The historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration, to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his Church. The Instruments of Unity In addition to the historic role of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lambeth Conferences, two newer “Instruments of Unity” developed within the Anglican Communion during the 20th century: The Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting. At the 1968 Lambeth Conference, participants decided to establish an Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). Its purpose was to provide an ongoing forum for discussing matters of concern to the entire Communion between Lambeth Conferences. Its charter (Chapman, pp. 132-3) was to advise on “inter-Anglican, provincial, and diocesan relationships, including the division of provinces”; to develop agreed mission policies and to share resources; to ensure collaboration with other churches; to advise on proposals for future union negotiations; and “to advise on problems in inter-Anglican communication and to help in the dissemination of Anglican and ecumenical information.” The ACC consists of a bishop, priest and lay person from the larger provinces, and of a bishop plus either a priest of lay person from smaller provinces. Its authority and its relationship to the other three Instruments of Unity have never been clearly defined. In 1978 Archbishop of Canterbury Donald Coggan established the Primates Meeting: a gathering of all the Primates (which had replaced the term “Metropolitans”) and Presiding Bishops from all Anglican provinces. Its stated purpose was to provide an opportunity for “leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation.” In reality, it became anything but leisurely, Page 16 of 18 6/25/201716 becoming a place of often heated debate. Another problem with the arrangement was that each national church was to have only one representative. This meant that important leaders, such as the Archbishop of York, were not included. The Ordination of Women The precise role of the Instruments of Unity has never been determined, nor has there been an agreement among the provinces on some basic principles relating to authority and autonomy. Following the issue of polygamy, the Communion needed to deal also with the subject of the ordination of women. In June 1943, the bishop of Hong Kong had given permission to Deaconess Florence Lei Tim-Oi (picture on Chapman, p. 135) to preside at the Eucharist. In January 1944 he ordained her to the priesthood. The Lambeth Conference of 1948 would not allow other women to be ordained. The Episcopal Church’s 1970 General Convention allowed women to be ordained as deacons. In July 1974, 11 women in Philadelphia were ordained to the priesthood “irregularly” by two retired bishops and by one resigned bishop. The 1976 General Convention voted to allow the ordination of women as bishops and priests, as well as deacons. Three dioceses in the Episcopal Church still refuse to ordain women. In 1992, the Church of England decided to ordain women to the priesthood. Several hundred priests resigned their posts in protest, and the C of E allowed parishes who objected to women priests to petition for “extended Episcopal oversight” by a bishop who did not ordain women. Currently, nearly half the provinces in the Anglican Communion allow for the ordination of women. The 1988 Lambeth Conference emphasized the importance of listening to one another in the ongoing disagreement over the ordination of women. It resolved that “each province respect the decision and attitudes of other provinces in the ordination or consecration of women to the episcopate, without such respect necessarily indicating acceptance of the principles involved, maintaining the highest possible degree of communion with the provinces which differ.” The ordination of Barbara Harris as Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts and of Penny Jameson as diocesan Bishop of Dunedin, New Zealand, proved to be more contentious. 11 women bishops attended the 1998 Lambeth Conference, and some of the dissenting bishops refused to recognize them as bishops or to associate with them. Same-Sex Unions The 1998 Lambeth Conference addressed also the topic of homosexuality. A briefing paper called for the Conference not to take a vote on the subject, but to encourage continued Page 17 of 18 6/25/201717 discussion, acknowledging the fact that the bishops were not of one mind. Nine bishops, however, pushed for an outright rejection of the possibility of ordaining persons in same-sex relationships or of blessing same-sex unions. The report simply reaffirmed the 1988 Lambeth Conference’s declaration that sexuality is “intended by God to find its rightful and full expression between one man and one woman in the covenant of marriage.” With third-world bishops asserting newly-found power, the resolution included a statement that “homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture.” For the first time, a Lambeth Conference was being used, not as a forum for prayer and discussion, but as a decision-making body. In 2003 the Diocese of New Hampshire elected Gene Robinson as bishop. That decision was confirmed by that year’s General Convention, setting off a storm of controversy. The Convention effectively decided that a diocese had a right to choose its own bishop, even though their decision would provoke protest from other members of the Communion. The Diocese of New Westminster in the Anglican Church of Canada likewise approved a rite for blessing samesex unions. At a special meeting of the Primates in October of that same year, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams called together a commission to deal with the crisis. It was headed by the Primate of Ireland, Archbishop Robin Eames, who had headed a similar commission that had dealt with the issue of the ordination of women. The Commission issued the Windsor Report in October 2004. The Report identified the current crisis as the latest manifestation of a deeper crisis in the Communion and in the wider Church, and it identified the central issue as a lack of a clearly defined structure of authority in Anglicanism. Anglican Covenant The Windsor Report suggested the establishment of an Anglican Covenant as a way of providing a statement of unity and of dealing with divisive actions on the part of any of the Communion members. The attempt to create such a Covenant is currently in process. The latest version of a proposed Covenant is the St. Andrew’s Draft, released in February 2008. It is scheduled to be discussed at the summer 2008 Lambeth Conference. Page 18 of 18 6/25/201718