Would a third province undercut the ecclesiology of the Church of England?

In an open letter responding to a statement from the conservative ‘Alliance’ grouping in the Church of England the Bishop of Oxford has declared that the creation of a conservative third province in the Church of England, as proposed by the Alliance, would be something that ‘undercuts the very essence of Anglican ecclesiology.’

In this article I shall set out the ecclesiology of the Church of England and then ask whether, in the light of this evidence, the bishop’s claim is true.

The Church of England is the historic Church of the English people

Contrary to a popular misconception, the Church of England did not come into existence at the time of the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. We can see this, for example, from the fact that the Venerable Bede, writing in the eighth century, refers to the Ecclesia Anglicana, the ‘Church of the English people.’

This Church was formed in the seventh century as a combination of three streams of Christianity, the remnants of the Romano-British church which had a history going back to the first century, the mission from Rome led by St Augustine of Canterbury which began in 597 when he landed in The Isle of Thanet and began to evangelize the kingdom of Kent and the Celtic tradition coming down from Scotland and associated with figures such as St Aidan and St Cuthbert.

The ‘Church of England’ is simply the modern name for Bede’s ‘Church of the English people,’ Britian’s oldest continuously existing institution.

The Church of England is a Church with a clear set of core beliefs

At the Reformation, the Church of England repudiated the authority of the Pope and reformed its theology and practice in line under the influence of the mainstream Protestant reformation. When challenged that it had therefore become a heretical church, the theologians of the Church of England replied by arguing that the Church of England still held to the basic principles of faith and practice that the Church as a whole had always held.

The classic example of this sort of argument is the Apology of the Church of England published by the Bishop of Salisbury, John Jewel, in 1562, a work which is generally forgotten today, but which laid the groundwork for subsequent defences of the position of the Church of England.

In this work Jewel responds to the charge that those in the Church of England are ‘heretics’ who ‘have nothing to do, either with Christ, nor with the church of God’ by setting out that ‘faith wherein we stand.’

He begins by stating that the Church of England believes in the Trinity:

‘We believe that there is one certain Nature and divine Power, which we call God; and that the same is divided into three equal Persons, into the Father, into the Son and into the Holy Ghost; and that they all be of one power, of one eternity and one Godhead; and of one substance.’

He then moves on to the person of Christ. He first of all declares that:

‘We believe that Jesus Christ, the only Son of the eternal Father (as long before it was determined before all beginnings), when the fulness of time was come, did take of that blessed and pure Virgin both flesh and all the nature of man.’

He then adds:

‘We believe that for our sakes He died, and was buried, descended into hell, the third day by the power of His Godhead returned to life, and rose again; and that the fortieth day after His resurrection, whiles His disciples beheld and looked upon Him, He ascended into heaven to fulfil all things, and did place in majesty and glory the self-same body wherewith He was born, wherein He lived on earth….From that place also we believe that Christ shall come again to execute that general judgment, as well of them whom He shall then find alive in the body as of them that be already dead.’

After that he turns to the Holy Spirit, writing that the Church England believes: ‘that it is His property to mollify and soften the hardness of man’s heart’ and that ‘he doth give men light, and guide them unto the knowledge of God; to all way of truth; to newness of the whole life; and to everlasting hope of salvation.’

Having looked at what the Church of England believes about the Trinity, Christ and the Holy Spirit, Jewel then turns to what it believes about the Church, stating that it believes that there is ‘one Church of God, and that the same is not shut up (as in times past among the Jews) into some one corner or kingdom, but that it is catholic and universal, and dispersed throughout the whole world.’ Furthermore, he adds: ‘we believe that there be divers degrees of ministers in the Church; whereof some be deacons, some priests, some bishops; to whom is committed the office to instruct the people, and the whole charge and setting forth of religion.’

Next, Jewel explains that those in the Church of England:

‘…. receive and embrace all the canonical Scriptures, both of the Old and New Testament, giving thanks to our God, who hath raised up unto us that light which we might ever have before our eyes, lest either by the subtlety of man, or by the snares of the devil, we should be carried away to errors and lies. Also, that these be the heavenly voices, whereby God hath opened unto us His will: and that only in them man’s heart can have settled rest; that in them be abundantly and fully comprehended all things, whatsoever be needful for our salvation.’

Jewel goes on to say that the Church of England holds that there are two sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. The former is, he says, ‘a Sacrament of the remission of sins, and of that washing, which we have in the blood of Christ.’ The latter is ‘is a Sacrament; that is to wit, an evident token of the body and blood of Christ’ by means of which ‘Christ Himself, being the true bread of eternal life, is so presently given unto us as that by faith we verily receive his body and his blood.’

Furthermore, the Church of England believes in justification by faith in the sense that:

‘We say also, that every person is born in sin, and leadeth his life in sin: that nobody is able truly to say his heart is clean: that the most righteous person is but an unprofitable servant: that the law of God is perfect, and requireth of us perfect and full obedience: that we are able by no means to fulfil that law in this worldly life: that there is no one mortal creature which can be justified by his own deserts in God’s sight: and therefore that our only succour and refuge is to fly to the mercy of our Father by Jesu Christ, and assuredly to persuade our minds that He is the obtainer of forgiveness for our sins; and that by His blood all our spots of sin be washed clean.’

However, the Church of England does not say that justification by faith means:

‘…. men ought to live loosely and dissolutely: nor that it is enough for a Christian to be baptised only and to believe: as though there were nothing else required at his hand. For true faith is lively, and can in no wise be idle. Thus therefore teach we the people, that God hath called us, not to follow riot and wantonness, but, as St. Paul saith, “unto good works, to walk in them.’

Finally, Jewel notes that the Church of England holds, ‘that this our self-same flesh wherein we live, although it die, and come to dust, yet at the last day it shall return again to life, by the means of Christ’s Spirit which dwelleth in us.’

The beliefs set out by Jewel remain the basis of the faith and practice of the Church of England. They are reflected in the theology found in Thirty-Nine Articles of 1571 and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and Ordinal, the three ‘historic formularies’ which are normative for Church of England’s theology, liturgy and view of Christian ministry. To put it simply, the Church of England is a church which holds these basic beliefs and reflects them in its practice.

The Church of England is a Church with a clear historic pattern of church organisation

The Church of England has a clear pattern of church organisation, which it has maintained for over a thousand years. It has two provinces, Canterbury and York, each of which has its own Archbishop, and which governs itself by means of a Convocation of bishops and clergy and an attendant House of Laity. The two provinces are subdivided into dioceses overseen by bishops, which are in turn divided into archdeaconries overseen by archdeacons, and parishes overseen by the parochial clergy. Each diocese has a cathedral, which is the mother church of the diocese, is the place where the bishop has their official seat or ‘throne’, and is the setting for formal diocesan services such as ordinations.

In ecclesiological terms, the two provinces of the Church of England are churches in their own right because they have their own archbishops and are self-governing. Therefore the Church of England is, strictly speaking, a federation of two churches linked by a joint legislative body, the General Synod, in which the Convocations and Houses of Laity of the two provinces meet to make decisions about matter of common concern and to enact joint laws in the form of measures and canons.

A third province would not undermine the Church of England’s ecclesiology.

A conservative third province in the Church of England, established to provide a space within the Church of England where the Church’s historic teaching that marriage is between one and one woman – and the only legitimate place for sexual activity is within marriage thus defined – would be permanently maintained, would not depart from any of the elements of the Church of England’s ecclesiology set out above.

It would still form part of the historic Church of England. It would still adhere to the basic Christian beliefs set out by Jewel and reflected in the historic formularies. It would still uphold the Church of England’s historic pattern of Church organisation and would take part in the meetings of General Synod. What would be different about it would be its willingness to use the powers of self-government which the two existing provinces already possess, to legally safeguard the Church of England’s traditional teaching on marriage and sexual ethics.

The Bishop of Oxford is thus simply wrong.