On the Articles

The Sunday called Sexagesima

O LORD God, who seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do: Mercifully grant that by thy power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion have been referenced several times on this blog, because ultimately they are a key component of Anglicanism. They are not a confessional statement. Unlike continental Protestant reformers who drafted catechetical statements of belief, with supporting scriptural citations. These statements, while in ways being an anti-Roman Catholic statement in suggesting that the Roman Catholics were not following Biblical doctrine, were ultimately about positive statements of belief to help define the adherents of that particular denomination in contrast to other Christian groups, Roman Catholics and other Protestants, that surrounded them. In England, however, there tended to be less plurality, with the Church of England being the established and only Church in England until the instability of the English Civil War, and the establishment of the principles of religious toleration. With the back and forth, particularly during the earlier years of the English Reformation with the reign of Queen Mary I, there was also a practical need to establish, in positive and negative statements, how the Church of England differed from traditional Roman Catholic doctrine. With so much back and forth, some clergy were confused as to what they were to be promoting from the pulpit.

Many Anglicans today discount the Articles as mere historical documents, from a time and place so far removed from our own as to be inapplicable to modern life. Many of those same arguments are made about the authority of Holy Scripture by non-Christians. Anglican priests once were required to subscribe to the Articles upon their ordination, but are no longer required to do so directly, however in the Ecclesiastical Province of Canada, of which the Diocese of Calgary is a part, deacons and priests are required to swear an Oath of Assent prior to ordination reading as follows:

I, A.B. do solemnly make the following declaration: I assent to the Solemn Declaration adopted by the first General Synod in 1893 (as printed in the Book of Common Prayer), and to the Book of Common Prayer, and of the ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; I believe the doctrine of the Anglican Church of Canada as therein set forth to be agreeable to the Word of God; and in Public Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, I will use the form in the said book prescribed and none other, except so far as shall be ordered by lawful authority.

In a similar way, the Canons of the Anglican Church of Canada include the Articles through the same form of the Solemn Declaration in limiting the authority of General Synod to legislate only within the parameters of the Declaration.

While most Anglicans may no longer be familiar with the Thirty-nine Articles (they are not printed in the Book of Alternative Services, for instance), the reality is that they remain relevant, and ostensibly priests and deacons still subscribe to them in certain ways and they still have a limiting influence on the parameters of what the General Synod itself may legislate.

While it is true that modern Canada is quite different from the era in which the Articles were formulated (Canada itself did not exist then!), that does not in and of itself make the Articles irrelevant. The same faithful interpretation and application of Holy Scripture is needed to seek to continue to apply the Thirty-nine Articles to our faith today as we seek to live out our Anglican heritage in a world far removed from 17th century England. To quote JI Packer, “I believe that facing and dialoguing with the Thirty-nine Articles will help Anglicans to re-learn and re-apply some basic Biblical truths to which Anglican identity is bound up.”

Gerald Bray argues that the three traditional Anglican Formularies each sought to articulate the foundations of Anglicanism. The Articles of Religion articulate its doctrine. The Prayer Book articulates its devotional life. The Ordinal articulates its discipline, discussing the role and responsibilities of ordained clergy. Today, however, some of these foundations have shifted. In Canada, for instance, the Ordinal and Prayer Book are rarely consulted, cited or viewed as normative or even necessarily authoritative, having been supplanted by the modern Book of Alternative Services, with increasing pressure today for further revisions. It makes it much easier for those who seek to reshape the foundations of Canadian Anglicanism to suggest that The Book of Common Prayer 1662 and Ordinal are no longer authoritative because they can point to successors. It is much harder to do that in the case of the Articles—the doctrines of the Church—because there has been no modern alternative to the Articles of Religion presented or authorized in any of the other prayer book revisions that have occurred or which are slated to occur.

Broadly speaking the Articles are organized in three ways. The first section deals with fundamental Christian dogmas: the Trinity, the divinity and humanity of Christ, etc. These are Catholic beliefs, and beliefs on which Anglican Catholicity hinges. The largest section deals with areas in which the Church of England differed from Rome. In some cases, such as the rejection of Transubstantiation, this remains an issue of Catholicity, in other ways this also speaks to certain secondary matters which may or may not be particular to Anglicanism, and more often show the influence of the Continental Reformers. The final, smaller, section deals with issues particular to the Church of England especially and its relationship to the state and English society more generally. These Articles, however, still remain broadly applicable outside of England and help to understand the way in which the Church of England and Anglican Christians were viewed to relate to state and society more broadly.

The heart of the Articles, in describing the doctrines and values of the Church, is that it allows Anglican Christians to hold conviction in their beliefs. In an age when there is a muddling of what Christians believe, the Articles hold the answer. In an age when Christians are being challenged from secular beliefs and changing societal mores, the Articles are a firm foundation which Anglicans can study, learn and inwardly digest, affirming what their beliefs are.

They remain a way of grounding faith in the Truth they proclaim, in an age when many Christians are tempted to simply float between whatever sounds comfortable. The desire to make our faith comfortable is made possible when there is no firm foundation of faith. A person can enter into an Anglican parish, worship there, be baptised there, receive the Eucharist there and die there without ever having Anglican beliefs explained to them. There is nothing in the main service book used in Canada, the BAS, to explain what all of those beliefs are. Recapturing the strength of the doctrinal foundations from the Articles is one clear way of grounding the faith of Anglicans throughout the world.

The next few weeks will begin a series exploring the meaning of each of the Articles, in an effort to provide a modern and practical understanding of what we as Anglicans have historically, and ought to continue, to profess.