What is Anglicanism? Responding to M. H. Turner

When I was confirmed into the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA), the presiding Bishop gave a short sermon on the virtues of “mere Christianity.” I cannot remember if he used those words exactly. But I do remember him stating, with startling vigor for an Anglican Bishop, that we should desire that people become Christians not Anglicans. His point, of course, was fidelity to Jesus Christ far outstrips in importance fidelity to Canterbury or GAFCON. But as a prospective confirmand awaiting my anointing, I was conflicted. “Yes,” I rebutted in my head, “but shouldn’t I be committed to the Anglican church? Don’t I think, by my very decision to be confirmed, that Anglicanism is a preferable, perhaps the best, expression of Christianity? If so, shouldn’t I want people—everyone—to become Anglican?” There’s no zeal like a convert, after all.

The conflict I felt from the front pew during that confirmation service is the subject of MH Turner’s article, Why is Anglicanism a Gateway to Catholicism? Turner’s piece was originally published in April 2020, when it received some attention in internet-Anglican circles. Shortly after publication, Paul Owen responded at Mere Orthodoxy and Candice Gage responded at the North American Anglican. Many ideas are bandied about in all three pieces that I found some combination of interesting, right, and wrong.

Since we’re all good Anglicans here, let’s start with my points of agreement with Turner. One of Turner’s main points is simply that Anglicanism needs to be a something. He borrows language from C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, in which Lewis likens “mere Christianity” to a hallway. But we prefer rooms, with their creature comforts, to hallways. If Anglicanism is nothing more than a hallway, then Anglicans can hardly be surprised if Christians make their homes in cozier spaces, even if Anglicanism gets them into the house. He proposes a vision of Anglicanism as a Reformation tradition. In continuity with that tradition, Anglicans should emphasize Scripture, prayer, and singing songs. All of this is quite sensible.

At several points, however, Turner overstates his case. As Owen’s response to Turner aptly shows, for example, historical Anglicanism is considerably friendlier to “ceremony” than Turner lets on. Gage, too, finds a pressure point when she argues Turner oversimplifies why Christians move to Rome. But for my small contribution to this discussion, I want to focus on two points that are really, to my mind, the same point: the extent to which it is appropriate or prudent to describe Anglicanism as a “via media” or “mere Christianity.”

Reformational Christianity, the Via Media, and the Catholic Church

Though it is widely described as such, Turner makes the provocative claim that Anglicanism as a “via media” (or “middle way”) between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism “only lives on in potted histories for Anglican rookies.” Ironically, a main subject of Turner’s post, John Henry Newman, argued for Anglicanism as a via media. As did, more recently, the Catholic theologian R. R. Reno.^[1] But, for fear of making Turner’s point by citing only Roman Catholics, several Anglicans are comfortable with the language, too—to skim a few examples off the top, Lyle W. Dorsett,^[2] Mark D. Haverland,^[3] and Paul Avis.^[4] I suppose Turner could wave these Anglican scholars away as “Anglican rookies,” but it strikes me as a better—and far more charitable—way forward to ask: what do we mean by via media and are there ways it accurately describes Anglicanism?  

Partly to Turner’s point, even those comfortable with the via media language are careful to define it and mark the boundaries under which it’s appropriate. Turner is probably right to reject via media as a description of Anglicanism tout court. But, even so, via media language is illuminative. Consider just one plausible rendering of Anglicanism as via media: Anglicanism is a middle way between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism because it (A) accepts the basic Protestant critique of certain Roman distortions in a desire to “return to the sources” of Scripture and the early church but (B) unlike other Protestants, accepts the Catholic heritage of an historic, apostolic episcopate and other extrabiblical practices and views. It is difficult to imagine, from historical or contemporary Anglicanism, a reasonable denial of (A) or (B). For both political and theological reasons, the English Reformation took a different shape than its continental counterparts. Of course—as Turner and Owen pick up on—how Anglicanism embodies its “Reformed” or “Catholic” heritage depends a great deal on its embodied expression in time and place. But it’s neither unreasonable nor inappropriate to see the Anglican heritage as pulling from both Catholic and Reformational traditions in a way you typically don’t find in other expressions of Reformational Christianity.

That brings us to this business of Reformational Christianity. Turner is right that Anglicanism should embrace its Reformational heritage. But it’s worth asking: what is that heritage and how does the English church adopt it? Defining a Reformational church is not an easy task. Notice, for example, how I prefer the idiosyncratic “Reformational” moniker to “Protestant” or “Reformed.” Protestant is, for several reasons, a poor label in most cases, not least because it purports to define a group only by what they’re against rather than what they’re for. If that wasn’t enough, defining who counts as “Protestant” strikes me as a practically impossible task, which is all well and good because it’s also a practically pointless one. For what possible reason could we care to define a group that includes your local megachurch pastor, the Amish, John Piper, Creflo Dollar, Unitarians, Rowan Williams, and Fred Phelps? Even if we were so inclined, the title is completely unhinged from its historical context, which was not, as many believe, as a “protest” against Roman Catholicism, but a protest against the Diet of Speyer (1529) that infringed on religious liberty. I avoid the alternative “Reformed” for the predictable reason that it is too closely aligned with John Calvin and his theological progeny.

What, then, is a Reformational church? Simply, it is a church that draws its heritage from the Reformation by adhering to the core theological principles of the Reformation.^[5] The core principles I have in mind are the familiar ones: (1) an emphasis on Scripture as the “norming norm”; (2) resistance against theological innovation; (3) an emphasis on God’s activity in salvation; and (4) a de-emphasis on the church as a source of authority.^[6] Even within Reformational circles, how these principles are understood and adopted varies greatly. How Cranmer understood (1) and (4), for example, is different than Zwingli. But there is a more basic and fundamental principle that defines the Reformation: the late medieval Roman Church had gone wrong and needed significant reformation. Smuggled into this claim is the radical legacy of the Reformation: that we could, on the basis of Scripture and the earlier Christian tradition, call the institutional church “wrong.”

This Reformational legacy is so radical because few Christians, on either side, seem to appreciate just how wide is the Tiber. I sometimes hear traditionally minded Christians say something like, “I’d become Roman Catholic if it weren’t for the Papacy and Marian Dogmas”—as if a little more Scriptural or Patristic evidence would convince them Rome gets it right. But this seems to miss the point entirely. The basic divide between Rome and the Reformation is the issue of authority.

The key question is not “what is true?” but “who decides what is true?” Roman Catholic apologetics that seek to prove the Papacy from Scripture have already lost. To allow your interpretation of Scripture priority to determine what is true in advance of any declarations of the church is to be a Reformational Christian. To swim the Tiber into the arms of Rome is to allow the Roman Church to determine the proper interpretation of Scripture and, therefore, what you believe. The latter course has its appeal for traditionally-minded Christians, not least for its stability and simplicity. But it’s important to see that the difference is primarily not a matter of what you believe, but how.^[7]

All this is relevant, I think, because it shows Anglicanism is firmly on the side of Reformation Christianity. While it’s unfair to say Anglicanism only exists because Henry VIII wanted a divorce—akin to saying the American Revolution only happened because colonists wanted cheaper tea—that hinge event shows clearly enough Canterbury’s break from Rome. Turner is surely right, then, to say Anglicanism should be counted as Reformational. But when we see the driving force of the Reformation as a break from Rome on the question of authority and not, for example, the Solas or justification by faith, it should reorient our vision of what it means to be a Reformational church.

Yes, Anglicanism is Reformational, but that tells us relatively little about where she ultimately settles. Anglicanism is unquestionably Reformational, but the key question is how she is Reformational. Just as surely as the Anglican church is a Reformational church, how the Reformational principles are unleashed in England are different than how they’re released on the continent. At least one way she stands out is as a kind of via media: not necessarily as a tertium quid between Rome and Reformed, but as a Reformational church with a catholic vision. Though not the only way, perhaps one appropriate way to describe that catholic vision is the pursuit of “mere Christianity.”

Merely Mere Christianity?

The Reformation’s criticism of the medieval church could very well be cheekily summarized as the medieval church was no longer catholic enough. The Roman church today retains the title “Catholic,” though—if we’re being pedantically literally—it is quite obviously no longer so. “Catholic,” after all, simply means “universal.” Vincent of Lérins, in c. 434 AD, famously said, “in the catholic church itself, all possible care must be taken, that we hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, by all. For that is truly and in the strictest sense catholic, which, as the name itself and the reason of the thing declare, comprehends all universally.” As a strict principle, “universality” is as impossible to uphold as it is undesirable. Arius was a priest, after all. But whatever questions it raises about the reach of universality, the so-called Vincentian Canon presents a worthy vision apparently present in the earliest church: a vision of a catholicity (universality) that directs orthodoxy (right-belief). Among others, that was one way the early church settled theological disputes: this is what the church has universally believed. That the early church came to be known as “catholic” is itself evidence of the worthiness of this vision. It is not without problems. True catholicity is a foggy vision to pursue, but to climb mountains you sometimes have to fight your way through the clouds.

The Reformers (rightly, in my view) perceived that the medieval church was drifting from catholicity. The many abuses of the church aside, what was once theological speculation became dogma. The great caricature of the Reformation is that it was anti-traditional, but the early Reformers are saturated in the Patristics as well as Scripture.^[8] Their criticisms of the medieval church were not only that they’d departed from Scripture, but they’d departed from the early church, too. The extent to which, contra Rome, the Reformation as a whole embodied catholicity is not my concern. What is my concern is how the Anglicans did it. They did it, first, in their hesitation not to throw the baby out with the bath water. While Anglicans followed their continental counterparts in the basic criticisms of Rome, they were often not as radical. Owen’s response to Turner addresses this point.

But Anglicanism is, perhaps, at its most catholic (ironically) in Article VI of the 39 Articles, which reads: “Holy Scripture containeth 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.” While skimming this article, one is tempted to “chalk another one up for sola Scriptura” and move on. Indeed, in the tradition of Sola Scriptura, the Article says Holy Scripture contains all that’s necessary for salvation. That’s different, of course, than what many Sola Scriptura strawmen imply: that Scripture without the aid of tradition teaches us everything about God and the church. In addition to an implicit criticism of an unwritten apostolic tradition found only through Rome,^[9] Article VI sets the boundaries of what beliefs could be required as salvific. Notably, the Article ensures that none of Anglicanism’s Articles of Religion—not even Article VI itself!—are required for salvific faith in Jesus Christ.

Article VI is undoubtedly Reformational: it takes aim at Rome’s tendency to pile up beliefs as necessary for allegiance to the church, the vessel of salvation. But Article VI also secures some degree of catholicity by putting boundaries on which beliefs the institutional church can deem salvific. The immaculate conception of Mary, for example, may be a worthy doctrine but it cannot be a salvific one. Therein lies a strength of Anglicanism: they tether essential beliefs to Scripture, a book Christians have universally recognized as divinely inspired. But here, too, one finds a potential weakness: the tent becomes so large as to be taken by the wind. While the Articles define beliefs necessary for salvation this way, Anglicanism does chart a distinct confession. The 39 Articles say the Creeds, for example, “ought thoroughly to be believed and received” (Article VIII). And the church, though she can err, has authority within the bounds set by Scripture (Article XX). Organized around the beliefs outlined in the Articles and the practices received in the Book of Common Prayer, Anglicanism is a something. It is simply not true that Anglicanism is void of beliefs or that there is no distinctive Anglican doctrine and practice.^[10] 

But one of the distinctive features of Anglicanism is it is sufficiently broad to encompass a wide variety of Christian practices and beliefs. Article VI, at least, ensures a wide net of belief within Christianity. But we see this, too, in the Articles’ definition of the church: “The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same” (Article XIX). According to Anglicanism, the local church, simply, is a congregation of the faithful organized around word and table. With such a vision of church, it creates an environment where Christians with vastly different beliefs can worship alongside each other. We need not over-romanticize this, since it brings great challenges, too—not least in the current political environment in North America. But it nonetheless tries (and sometimes fails) to embody a vision of an institutional church unified around the essentials while allowing liberty in non-essentials.^[11] 

After C. S. Lewis, we tend to call such a vision “mere Christianity.” But Turner has taken aim at this title as descriptive of Anglicanism. In at least one sense, I’m happy to agree with Turner: “mere Christianity” is an unsuitable description of Anglicanism insofar as it strips Anglicanism of anything distinctive or its Reformational heritage. Following Lewis’s presentation of “mere Christianity” as a hallway, Turner worries “if modern Anglicanism presents itself as the hallway, it is celebrating its own irrelevance.” Fair enough. But I wonder if Turner, and before him Lewis, should consider another possibility: the extent to which “mere Christianity” can describe a room, too. In theory and practice, Anglicanism tries to unify around primary beliefs and tolerate differences of opinion around secondary beliefs. We see this not least in Article VI, but also in many of Anglicanism’s greatest defenders, the Book of Common Prayer, and, especially, in many contemporary expressions of this tradition. In Anglican churches today, you’ll find Wesleyans and Calvinists, paedobaptists and immersionists, high-church aesthetes and low-church charismatics, worshiping side-by-side. Of course, the Anglican Communion fractures, too, and any vision of a church uniting around “mere Christianity” immediately invites questions about what counts as mere Christianity (and what doesn’t).

We might also wonder whether a vision of Anglicanism as embracing a “mere Christianity” is desirable—and for many of the reasons Turner gives. But the point is such a vision need not merely be a hallway. It is something. There is, that is, in Anglicanism a vision of Christian participation embodied in an institutional, confessional church community. But by emphasizing essential, unifying beliefs and practices, organized around the historic Christian practices of word and table, Anglicanism effectively invites its parishioners into a kind of “mere Christianity.”

For his part, Lewis described himself as an ordinary layman of the church of England, neither especially high or low nor especially anything else. In describing himself, he was describing his church. We often overlook the fact that, although Lewis produced Mere Christianity, the Anglican church produced him first. He, and Turner, are no doubt right to point out the dangers of becoming a mere “hallway.” It is something of which Anglicanism is perhaps especially in danger. It’s a point I’m happy to cede to Turner. But in our warranted hand-wringing over (legitimate) worries about Anglicanism reducing to a hallway, we should not lose sight of the opportunities afforded by this merely Christian vision, too. There’s something natural but also profoundly un-Christian about grouping ourselves according to our aesthetic preferences or our Scriptural interpretation on secondary issues. Some issues, no doubt, warrant institutional separation.

But if we are, as Paul describes us, the body of Christ united by the power of the Spirit, the bar for separation should be higher than it is presently. If, as Anglicans think, ferociously high-church catholics and charismatically low-church evangelicals will worship together in heaven, why not on earth as it is in heaven? Can we not make a room large enough to suit us all? We might need blueprints for expansion. It might require knocking down some walls. But I see no reason why this vision of unity cannot draw, and keep, Christians seeking to worship in a historic, orthodox tradition. It drew me and keeps me.

I realize how this must sound: I am the naïve, bright-eyed optimist proposing a mushy ecumenism, charging us to dissolve our confessional differences, join hands, sing “kumbaya,” and wait for Jesus. I do not mean to downplay denominational differences, nor diminish our confessions. Anglicanism, too, is confessional and is a different expression of Christianity than other denominations. But built into Anglicanism’s confession is a vision of a denomination that places “mere Christianity” above and before its own confession. Anglicanism’s confession is as robust as many denominations, but, in theory, it doesn’t allow its own vision to obscure a broader and more beautiful vision of Christians united around essentials. In this vision, Anglicanism is unique in its appeal to an apostolic episcopate but in a refusal to dub itself the “one true unbroken church.” Therein lies a core tenet of Anglicanism that should attract and keep Christians looking for a more historic form of worship: it is humble enough to live in the messiness of modernity and Christian pluralism—in which “one true church” claims, however “historic,” are awfully hard bullets to bite—without compromising the historic, traditional form of the church many Reformational churches discarded. While we should be sensitive to the worries Turner raises, these visions of Anglicanism as via media and “mere Christianity” are visions worth pursuing.

I have, of course, only been describing a vision. An idea. A picture of what Anglicanism could be or aspires to be. Troublingly, Anglicanism so often fails to live up to this vision. Anglicanism has shown its ability to splinter with the best of ‘em. Anglican churches are often unfaithful to Scripture or the tradition she received. Simply, even if Anglicanism is a beautiful ideal, it fails to attain it. Few churches do. The “body of Christ” is too often unworthy of the name. But, at the end of the day, the church isn’t an ideal. I’ve often wondered whether Reformational Christians who leap to Rome or the East are in fact chasing a church that exists only as an idea: the unbroken, faithful expression that perfectly and uniquely preserves the teachings of the apostles. As much as I wish such a church existed, I do not believe it does. In pursuit of this idea, many Christians regrettably enter an ecclesial fortress that keeps friends and family out: sharing the Eucharist is what makes us one body, says Paul.

That is not to say that a vision of church, even when imperfectly pursued, is unhelpful. Visions, or ideas, for what the church can or should not only provide a target at which any individual church can aim, but provide some clarity for denominational drifters. But the church must never be seen as merely, or even principally, an idea or vision. The body of Christ is, after all, tangible. The church is a faithful congregation where the word is preached and the sacraments are received. In my Anglican church, I receive both. Alongside brothers and sisters—all baptized Christians—with whom I may disagree about theology and politics, I hear God’s word plainly taught and I receive Christ’s Body, broken for me, and Blood, poured out for me. When I do, I’m reminded that God’s grace is for us all. If this isn’t enough to draw us in and keep us, what is? If you’re looking for something else, perhaps you’re looking for the wrong thing.  

Footnotes