Theses

The following are several theses, providing a framework for compiling the so-called Albion Papers. Our use of class meetings, love feasts, and covenant services connects certain theological and historical subjects to current-day Christian practice and Restoration. Also, at the bottom, is a short elaboration on three heads deemed important when neatly summing Anglican identity, e.g., “Protestant”, “Reformed”, “United”.  The catholic side (including the late-Henrician Reformation), which renewed the national principle, I’ve gleamed here at Anglican Rose.  

• Where there is no monarchy, the National Church idea is the residue of Royal Supremacy carried over from the Magisterial Reformation from England into Free Republics like the USA.
• In the United States, the National Church would largely compose itself with historical Dissent, and its organization would necessarily follow a voluntary principle.
• Protestant Episcopalianism was uniquely suited for the American environment and circumstances. It was ecumenical and capable of incorporating low churchmen through Articles of Peace given by the Church of England and further adapted by PECUSA. Yet, this is only part of the American settlement.
• Methodism, which is a gateway to many revivalistic sects, has a special relationship to Protestant Episcopalianism, both of which have a certain interchangeability. Each had bishops, articles of faith, and a liturgy.
• The 1785 Book of Common Prayer’s ‘Longer Preface’ stands as a commentary to both the standard American Preface, as well as to the said project above. The Longer Preface is indispensable to understanding the American Settlement, and any Episcopal Church neglectful, or ignorant, of it is impaired as a party of peace.
• The Theology behind both Short and Longer Prefaces owes itself to the Cromwellian-era, when cooperation among rival sects was explored upon the absence of the King’s Church.
• This is the English origin of Latitudinarianism, making its way to the notable 1689 ‘Liturgy of Comprehension’. Thus, the 1789 American book, including the 1928 BCP, emerged from such developments– what became Broad-Church, Centrist, or the Liberal Evangelical tradition.
• By and large, the bid to unite Protestants on broad theology failed– not due to bad theology, or poor identity, but ‘bad philanthropy’. The last breath of the American Christian Party was with its naive support for two World Wars. Even dogmatic pacifism would have been better.
• Most of our divisions are due to political and social causes, not theology per se. Politics should be the outgrowth of Christian cooperation, in “the way of truth, unity of spirit, the bond of peace, and righteousness of life”, 1928 BCP, p.19.
• Returning to a pure, total confessionalism isn’t needed. Old Broad/Latitude and its American Settlement remain sufficient, and, until the post-war era, there was no dramatic rupture with prior times as understood in the Preface, said above.
• As crisis deepens, liberal Protestant denominations will face hard financial choices. Hence, centrists will increasingly be put in the forefront. It is better to patiently position oneself as a centrist than hastily separate. But, if separation is unavoidable, backdoor relations to the mainline ought be kept and no bridge burnt.
• The centrists or broad churchmen of yesteryear are ideal– theologically liberal, socially conservative, and ecumenically optimistic. While F.D. Maurice and W.R. Hungtington are hardly exhaustive, they are important starting points and deserve study.
• The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral should be added to the 1928 BCP in the back of the book. It is the manifesto for a national plan. Also, PECUSA’s canon 36 might serve as a footnote. However, the Quad was baked into the 1928 Revision’s Second Office of Instruction, pp. 290-295. So, it’s there.
• The unity of the historical Episcopate is very important. More important is the civil power encouraging, even somewhat preferring, it.
• Yes, revivalism elevated individual experience, but it also drew many into an organized discipline. Gurneyite Quakers, Methodists, and Mormons were known for their Disciplines. Such respective monitoring systems united a large swath of American life for moral improvement and Protestant civilization.
• Revival techniques enabled postbellum social reform on a national level. Methodists and others connected their rural Camp Meetings to many urban Tabernacles. Hence, President U.S. Grant called the Methodists America’s ‘third political party’. Meanwhile, Prohibition, Suffrage, and Abolitionism steadily gained ground aside the Constitutional Amendment Movement.
• Revivalism created the Institutional Church, and it’s by Revivalism that a National Church is built. Booth’s Darkest England and the Social Services of that era deserve serious reflection. Nay, Wilson Carlile must be read. Missional colonies in the city, countryside, and abroad are needed to save the “Lost Sheep of the Episcopal Churches”.
• Not all traditions, customs, or symbols are equal. Some are deeply constitutive. Retaining the Authorized Bible, at least in devotion, is key. In this case, as well as with other liturgics, the text is greater than the act. But even small quirks count. Surely, Quaker-speak will be a sign of progress.
• British-Israelism was once prevalent among the Anglican and evangelical churches. Though it drew upon legend, BI offered a convenient motif for explaining America’s relation to England– like Manasseh to Ephraim. Even so, one might say there is a spiritual continuity between races of the Old and New Testaments. Patriarchal Blessings witness such.
• There is a folk-current, or supernatural substrate, in religion which is usually undervalued yet never extinguished– known by ghostly visitations, dreams, & wondrous healings. Hence, the King’s Evil has its part; as with the Coffin Canes of the ‘choice Seer’ (2 Ne. 3:5-16).

The following was published at Anglican Rose 2/2013. I am less impressed by the 16th c. Reformation confessions and more inspired by the Pietism or discipline that followed. England did capture a center point, and that needs to be kept, but America did better in terms of incorporating what historically came next with respect to diaspora and re-union.

Protestant: In England, Protestantism was known by the Three Articles of 1584, i.e., the Prayer Book, 39-Articles, and Supremacy. In order to unify non-conformists alongside the Anglican church, Parliamentary Acts broadened legal bounds, giving non-Anglicans some liberty with baptism and episcopacy. A Protestant national church remained an important outcome of 1688 revolution, seeking what the King’s Book earlier described, “every Christian man ought to honor, give credence, and to follow the particular church of that region so ordered wherein he is born or inhabiteth”. Later, British-descended countries retained a weakened Erastian concept by codifying certain cultural advantages among Protestants. In the USA, the ‘reduced-Anglicanism’ of the Wesleyans nigh became the national faith. Though Methodist reforms never went so far to become an entire legal Establishment, Protestant Episcopalians were willing to negotiate a national church at an early date, starting in 1785, by adopting latitudinarian proposals for the liturgy. The Quad was a genuine climax of this early sensibility.

Reformed: As a blood relative to various Christian Rulers in Denmark and Germany, the British Crown enshrined the earliest Evangelical consensus within the Church of England, namely, the Altered-Augsburg of 1541. But, upon the passing of first-generation Reformers, continental Lutherans and Calvinists were unable to maintain a doctrinal center. This left England– and for a time some German states– the last bearers of Protestant charity. The foremost concern of early Divines was returning the Church to its Ancient Order. Humanist impulse initially dampened rigid scholastic thinking, facilitating a certain confessional harmony among Continental and English doctors. But the eventual rejection of the religious framework partly owing to Luther’s death undermined future hopes for a Protestant League. The “Reformed Church of England” is not only understood by Cranmer’s work and the peculiar confessions and collegiality of this era but also purposeful seals of Royal marriage. Marriages especially point to the Palatines, Dutch, and eventually related Remonstrants. We should also keep in mind the goal of the primitive church and ‘ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda’..

United: Under the Imperial system, the “United Church existed by reason of issued Law. As Empire eroded into Commonwealth, colonial Anglicanism began to reorganize itself along synodical and republican lines. In response to this realignment, Canterbury convened colonial and missionary Anglicans in 1867, beginning decennial gatherings at Lambeth. In 1908 Lambeth Bishops described the 1662 BCP as their primary “bond of union”. But, an increasing number of Anglican Free Churches– facing challenges of non-establishment and religious pluralism– favored liturgical flexibility and variety. In the USA these ideas reached concrete form by way of the American BCP, and by the late-1920’s most Anglicans embraced the example of Protestant Episcopalians. If the proposed English book passed parliament, a standard BCP might have emerged to settle the Conference. So, “United” implies Lambeth activities & Encyclicals before 1930, especially those preparatory to BCP revision, suggestive of federal pan-Anglicanism.