The Reformation has been the butt of jokes in parts of our church for some time now. For the last fifty or 50 years these jokes and the critical view of the Reformation they express have been growing in intensity and in popularity. It seems every time one picks up an Anglican Church publication there is someone writing about "getting beyond the divisions of the Reformation". There is a general feeling that somehow the theology of the Reformation is the big problem with our church, that, if we could just get past it, we could enter some kind of ecclesiastical utopia where all our divisions would be healed and we would go from strength to strength in our ecclesial family.
Is this a realistic view of our 'problem' as a church? Is it right to point to one era in our history, or to one group which attempts to uphold the teachings of that era, and lay on it the blame for the general malaise of our institution? Yes and no. No, it is no one time period in our history or group within our church that can be singled out as "the problem".
Our problems go much deeper and wider than that. But "yes" it is right to focus on the debates of the Reformation period, and those who would reopen our consideration of them, as touching something fundamental to our identity as Anglican Christians. Our church's problem with the Reformation is a symptom of our loss of vision. Perhaps a serious look at our reformed catholic heritage might help correct our sight in the dark concluding years of this millennium.
Our church's
problem with
the Reformation
is a symptom
of our
loss of vision.
"The end of the Middle Ages can be variously regarded as a break-down, a break-up, or a break-through." So writes Charles Williams in his book Descent of the Dove. One might say just the same about the Reformation. It was a break- down in the unity of the western church, a break-up of Europe into separate religious and political units, and a break-through in the spiritual life of the western world. Whichever view one holds the Reformation was certainly a watershed in the history of the world. From the intellectual, political, theological and social activity of the renaissance a new order emerged. The ecclesiastical and political maps of the western world were changed radically and almost beyond recognition.
An Overview
What happened, and what are we to make of the Reformation almost five hundred years after it first shook the world? We all know the negative side of the Reformation. The Church was split into many different parts. National churches and confessing churches emerged where before there had existed the one Holy Roman Church. Christians took up arms against Christians. Ignorance and animosity spread like wild-fire and the evangelistic zeal of Christendom seemed to be turned in upon itself in a fierce and accelerating ecclesiastical civil war.
We all know the shame and sorrow which the Reformation brought to the Christian world, and the grief it must have caused our Lord. We all know about the break-down and the break up. But there was also a very important positive side which has been rather badly overlooked for the past few hundred years, and that is the breakthrough that occurred.
The Reformation did bring with it a break-down in the visible unity of the Church and a break-up of the Christian western world, but it also provided the beginnings of a possible break-through in the Christian debate over matters of the faith. It forced the different parties to write down what they thought was essential about the Christian Faith.
If we look at what they wrote we find that they all put forth a similar view of classical Christianity in the relation between God and man. Where they differ they differ on the authority of the Church and the means by which God's grace is given to us: what we might call secondary matters of the faith. They do not differ either on the need for salvation or the way in which God has provided salvation in His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Many Christians (including many Anglicans) look upon the Reformation as a terrible and unnecessary occurrence. Many today seem to want to pretend that it never took place and think that we can return to unity by purging the last vestiges of the Reformation from our theology and liturgy. But this is confused and wishful thinking. The Reformation did happen and it did matter. It affected and shaped the faith of the Church of England. If we ignore the Reformation we ignore what it is to be an Anglican Christian.
What happened at the time of the Reformation was that the various schools of theology and spirituality that had previously existed together (though not always in harmony) within the Western Church, became separated. From the later Middle Ages on one school had come to dominate, with its centre in the papacy. With the Renaissance the various schools of thought began to assert their independence. At the Reformation these schools were split apart and institutionalized. They became separate church bodies. The bodies continued to contain within themselves certain elements of the other schools, but by and large they were shaped by a particular view of theology.
This meant that instead of the various schools being able to carry on debate within a unified Church, these schools became separate churches, setting themselves up in opposition to one another. The result was that instead of dialogue the schools (now churches) could only shout at one another across what had become denominational lines.
All of the different schools claimed to represent biblical Christianity, and all of them claimed the Apostle Paul and St. Augustine of Hippo as their intellectual fathers. And, to a large degree, they were all correct in these claims. The good part about the division of the western church was that the major theological positions held by each church would now have to be dealt with. The positions now existed as institutions. It would now be impossible for the most powerful party in the Church simply to silence the dissenters.
The schools, sadly but naturally, defined themselves against one another, so that their adherents could know exactly what their members did and did not believe, in relation to other schools. None would have wanted to be seen as setting up a new church. They were merely making clear what had become unclear in the Church's teaching.
The Lutheran school defined itself in the Augsburg Confession of 1530, and tried to be as inoffensive as possible to the catholic party. (Many continental and Scandinavian parts of the Church became adherents of this school.) The Calvinist party found their unifying principles in John Calvin's brilliant Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536) and did not really define themselves until the Helvetic Confession of 1566 and the Westminster Confession of 1645, stressing heavily the sovereignty and freedom of God.
The Church of England, being uneasy with any one definition of the continental parties, opted for a Book of Common Prayer. Her leaders were rightly afraid that the confessions would exclude other valid expressions of the faith. Choosing a system of worship over a confession of faith was an attempt to unite Calvinist, Roman and Lutheran adherents in England under one church body without forcing any to give up on the essential teachings of their particular schools. The Thirty- Nine Articles of Religion set out this English middle ground (via media) and were printed with the Book of Common Prayer to form a complete and definitive confession of the faith and worship of the English Church.
The Prayer Book became and has remained a unique and remarkable meeting ground for differing theological schools, containing Catholic order, a Calvinist approach to grace and a Lutheran response to grace. (For a more complete outline of the historical reasons for the development of our Prayer Book see the Prefaces, BCP pp.715-21.) The Roman school, in the meantime, assembled themselves at the Council of Trent (1545-63) and issued the definitive defense of their position in what was to launch the Counter-Reformation.
The Prayer Book
became...
a unique
and remarkable
meeting ground
for differing
theological schools
The Zwinglian school did not have a confession as such but generally agreed on a series of treatises or positions and focused upon a more congregationalist approach to questions of theology and church order. The Anabaptists, stressing the necessity of believer's baptism, communal ownership of property etc. succeeded in being denounced by all of the above parties as putting themselves outside even the widest definition of the Catholic Faith (although, one must add, not all those calling them selves baptists can be considered anabaptists).
If we look briefly at the way these different schools explained themselves to one another we can begin to see the similarities between them.
John Calvin, in the preface to his two volume (four book) work, Institutes of the Christian Religion, sets out the reason for writing. He tells Francis, King of the French, "my intention was only to furnish a kind of rudiments, by which those who fee] some interest in religion might be trained to true godliness" (i.e., it is to be an introduction for beginners in the Christian religion. It makes one doubt who, if any, ever got beyond the beginners stage in the faith!).
His work is divided into four parts:
1. Of the Knowledge of God the Creator. (How we know Him)
2. Of the Knowledge of God the Redeemer, in Christ, as first manifested to the fathers under the Law and thereafter to us under the Gospel. (How we know Him through Christ)
3. The Mode of Obtaining the Grace of Christ. The benefits it confers, and the effects resulting from it. (How He gives us His Grace)
4. Of the external means or helps by which God allures us into fellowship with Christ, and keeps us in it. (How the Church keeps us in Grace)
The Lutherans, in their Augsburg Confession, do basically the same thing. Their Confession was made up of twenty eight articles of varying length that cover the same territory as the Calvinists. Along with the Confession was usually attached an explanation (Apologia) by Philip Melanchthon. The first twenty one were on the teaching of the faith that did not change with the Reformation (I. On God, II. On Original Sin, III. On The Son of God, IV. On Redemption, V, VI. On our Relation to God through His Word, and VII-XXI. On our Relation to Christ through the Church and the World.).
The last seven were articles concerning abuses that had been reformed in the Church (On the Marriage of Priests, the Mass, Confession, Monastic Vows, Physical and Spiritual Nourishment, and on Spiritual Authority). In other words, the Lutheran churches began with (1) God, then with (2) our relation to God through Christ, then (3) with our relation to Christ through the means of Grace given to His Church and only then (4) with the Abuses of the means of grace that had crept in to the Church.
The Roman Catholic Church was doing the same thing again during the various sessions of the Council of Trent. At Session IV the relation of the Church to the Creeds, Scripture and Tradition was established. Then Original Sin (V) and Justification and Merit (VI) were dealt with. This was followed by a ruling on the Sacraments (VII) which repudiated the reformers' doctrines.
A revolt against Charles V postponed the Council and when it reconvened much of the desire for accommodating the reforming party had been lost and the Jesuits were a force to be reckoned with. The result was much stronger and more extreme statements regarding the Eucharist (including formal denial of the chalice to the laity), Purgatory, Invocation of the Saints, veneration of relics and images and Indulgences.
The same pattern was followed as with the Calvinists arid Lutherans. First the doctrine of God was defined, (2) then our relation to God through Christ, then (3) the Church and lastly (4) the specific, developed secondary teachings of the Church.
The Church of England,
like the Romanists
retained
the catholic order
of the Church,
but like the Lutherans,
came up with
a series of
Articles of Religion.
The Church of England, like the Romanists retained the catholic order of the Church, but like the Lutherans, came up with a series of Articles of Religion. In 1571 the number was finalized at Thirty-Nine.
They may be divided into the same four parts as we have seen before. The first five articles deal with God the Holy Trinity, then (2) with our relation to Him through His revealed Word in Christ, then (3) our relation to Christ through His Church and finally (4) special regulations governing members of the English Church.
In each of these major schools of reformation thought we can see the same movement, structure and object. They all began with God as He is in Himself, move to our need and His revelation of Himself in Jesus Christ, then to Christ's Body the Church and her authority to rule the household of faith, and finally to particular points of interest which arise from their understanding of the primary matters of the faith.
All of the churches (the schools) agreed with each other in holding the classical and western Christian understandings of God, Christ, 3-in and redemption, the Bible as the revealed Word of God, and the Church as the Body of Christ and channel of grace. Where they differed was in their interpretation of the means of grace (how the Sacraments work), the authority of the Church and the way that authority may be discerned and exercised. In other words, they have all of the essential Christian teachings in common and disagreed only on how these teachings are to be applied in the life of the Church.
Because her theology and worship were contained within a book of common prayer, the Church of England guaranteed that the debates of the Reformation would stay alive, so long as the worship of the English Church was retained. (Is the Anglican clergyman a "minister" of the gospel or a "priest" of God? That lively and potentially helpful debate is preserved for our edification in every major service of the BCP!).
It is not only interesting but instructive to note where the major Christian bodies have the most difficulty within their own ranks. If Christian families disagree, not with each other but within themselves, where is this most noticeable?
Calvinists normally fight about theology, rather than liturgy, and when there is a disagreement over the faith a new church is formed. Lutherans disagree about matters of piety and the way we ought to express our faith in the world, and so foster many different schools of pietism. Romanists tend to focus on the magisterium of the church as preserving catholic faith and order, and so struggles often centre on the powers of the papacy and appointments. And Anglicans argue most over worship and our proper response to the catholic faith in the way we approach God.
Anglicans argue most
over worship
and our
proper response
to the catholic faith
in the way
we approach God.
These are natural areas of tension within each of our traditions and we should not expect it to be otherwise. Each tradition has a great contribution to make towards the life of the Church and also undergoes the greatest suffering for its particular gifts, so that it might be offered to Christ in His Church universal.
So where does that leave us now? We have the remnants of these confessing bodies, the old theological schools, still with us today in the various churches. Unfortunately, the theological debate between the different positions in the Church that triggered the Reformation did not continue once the formal breaks were made. Each body sought to build up and solidify its kingdom and the links between the members of the Body became weak or non-existent.
The Situation Today
Since the 19th century there has been renewed interest in discussions between the different parts of the Church Body. Unfortunately, again, it seems that the only real interest is in uniting the institutions (as monarchs used to forge alliances by marrying their children to one another) rather than in resuming any substantial theological conversations between Christians. Much of the ecumenical movement sees the differences between Christians as being the source of disunity rather than the potential enrichment of the whole Church. There has been a full-scale assault on the confessional documents in all of the churches. It is these documents that make us unique schools of Christian thought within the universal Church. In every church there has been an ongoing and concentrated effort to remove these documents that obstruct our corporate unity.
Thus Roman Catholic theologians are heard openly to attack Tridentine theology, Lutherans to ridicule the Augsburg Confession and Anglicans to dismiss the Book of Common Prayer in the name of Christian unity. Traditional Christians in every church are dismayed. Have the churches gone mad? Have we forgotten what we believe?
In a way, that is exactly what has happened. The churches have worked hard for the past one hundred and fifty years (or so) to forget what we believe, or at least, to forget what makes us unique as member churches of the Body of Christ. But does a case of general, self-induced amnesia, actually help the Church towards unity? I would suggest that our busy work in jettisoning the confessional foundations of our churches is having, and will continue to have, an extremely negative effect upon the Church, especially upon the dream of corporate reunion.
If we, as churches (or schools of thought) forget who we are or what we were saying, we can hardly be surprised if we cease to function effectively as a whole, or if the world or even other Christians are not interested in listening to us. By cutting ourselves off from our spiritual roots we are not overcoming the problem of our visible divisions which came about at the Reformation, we are compounding it.
The Way Out of our Malaise
The only way out of this dilemma is for us all, as Christians within distinct schools of thought (i.e., denominations), to work hard at remembering who we are. Anglicans cannot be Christians without being Anglican Christians, just as I cannot be "me" without including all of the various intellectual, physical and spiritual gifts and limitations that make me "me". If I try to be someone else I will only confuse myself and be confusing to others. We all know of persons who are "trying to find themselves". Few of us would consider them happy, stable or enviable. If our churches really want to "find themselves" they can do no better than to go back to their foundational documents. For Anglicans this means returning home to our traditional Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion. If we do not start there as a church there is little hope of us going any further. If we are truly interested in participating in the ecumenical debate then we must do so as Anglican Christians and not simply generic Christians.
We must return to the theological bargaining table but when we return we must have a recognizable face, and our face must be Anglican, or we should have no seat at the table. We cannot wade into the ecumenical debate and try to represent some other Christian position than our own, for others can represent themselves better than we can. (The failed ARCIC talks are a good example of what happens when committees fail to represent their true positions to one another. There is an illusion of unity but nothing can really happen).
For Anglicans this
means returning home
to our traditional
Book of Common Prayer
and the Articles of Religion.
If we do not start there
as a church
there is little hope
of us
going any further.
We are not generic people. We are, each one of us, unique, particular, individuals. So too must the churches offer their particular gifts and limitations to the Lord and one another in honesty. This is exactly what I see the purpose of this Society to be: we must be about both the preserving of our tradition and the education of our church in its own history. The Prayer Book Society is the memory of a terribly forgetful church.
We must return to the spirit of the Reformation before the institutional divisions became fossilized, but while the theological divisions were still fresh and heated! We must relearn the virtues of humility and patience and trust in Cod's providence. We must recover the sense of our own calling as individuals and as Christ's Body, and not covet or try to parrot others' gifts. We will all be stronger and better for our own weaknesses if they force us to recognize one another's strengths.
The Opportunity of the Present Day
I believe that we, as Christians at the end of the twentieth century, have been given a most wonderful opportunity to enter once again into true theological debate with Christians of differing theological schools. Now is not the time for more breast- beating about the failures of the past. The Reformation was not just an unfortunate mistake. We do not need to throw out our confessional documents but rather return to them, so that we can better understand ourselves and our relation to the whole Church of God. We are in a precarious situation. If we attempt only superficial kinds of reform (as in uniting our ecclesiastical hierarchies) we shall fail and be seen by all to fail miserably. Now is the time for us to cling fiercely to Christ and to teach our people to do the same, to confess our faults and accept our callings, whatever they might be.
Then we have our Lord's own promise that He will be with us until the end of the world, and that the gates of hell themselves will not prevail against us. The Prayer Book Society, over its short history, has played a very important role in doing just this for our church. We must continue to do this. We must continue to take our people up to the higher ground of theological debate. This is not the activity of disloyal or divisive churchmen, it is the necessary work of all those who love Christ and His Church and seek to unite all His diverse and imperfect followers. This Society has made a good start but there is much work to be done.
With the current break up of the institutional churches we have the opportunity to pick up the debate where it was left off, (hopefully having learnt something in the intervening 450 years!) and, freed from the husks of the old denominationalism, seek our spiritual union together in Christ. We may just find, if we once again take seriously those old, tried and trusty, confessional documents, that they will breathe new life and vigour into our tired churches and the fresh spirit of the faith once delivered to the saints will equip us for the call to present the gospel afresh to our day and age.
Fr. John Paul Westin was born in an Anglican Rectory, and grew up in several Canadian Provinces as well as Jamaica. A graduate of Wycliffe College, he went on from there to the Parishes of Petite Riviere and New Dublin, Nova Scotia; St. John the Evangelist, Montreal, and now serves as assistant priest in the Lutheran Church of Sweden in Gotenborg, under the Porvoo Agreement between Anglican and Lutheran Churches.
His wife Carolyn is past president of the National Prayer Book Society of Canada, and the NS & PEI Branch. Fr. & Mrs. Westin also started the Canadian St. Michael's Youth Conference in 1987. They have three children.
