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Anglicanism, a Protestant and Reformed Confession

In his book, Richard Hooker and the Authority of Scripture, Tradition and Reason (Paternoster, 1997), Nigel Atkinson demonstrates that Richard Hooker (1554-1600), regarded by Anglicans as one of its foremost theologians, was not someone who believed that the doctrine and teaching of the Church of England was a via media between the teachings of Roman Catholicism and the Reformed teachings of Geneva. Indeed, Atkinson demonstrates that Hooker was as convinced of the Reformed doctrines of the Reformation as his Puritan opponents. This is important in that many today, following in the footsteps of John Henry Newman and John Keble, who represented the High Church Oxford Movement in the 19th century, still mistakenly believe that Anglican doctrine is a half-way house between Rome and Geneva. Though the views espoused by the Oxford Movement and kept alive in the High Church tradition are regarded by many as normative Anglicanism, the historical truth is that these views are alien intruders into the classical Anglicanism that arose in the sixteenth century. If we want to discover the definitive characteristic of Anglicanism in terms of its doctrine and teaching, then we must go back beyond the Oxford movement of the nineteenth century to the title deeds of Anglicanism that were written by the Reformers in the sixteenth century.

Evangelizing Ireland in the 21st century

Historical Context: Ireland never had a reformation! England had, and it transformed the country into a Protestant country. But Protestantism in Ireland was always associated with the ruling (and foreign) political power and was never conceived of as being truly ‘Irish’. The Gospel, preached by Protestants, was therefore always associated by the majority Roman Catholic community with something not quite Irish and regarded with great suspicion. Great attempts have been made in the last 400 years to preach the Gospel to the Irish. We think of the Bible in Irish by Bishop Bedell in the 17th century, the evangelical missions to the Irish Catholics in the 19th century (known as ‘the second reformation’), but none made lasting impressions. On the contrary, the 17th century witness was impeded by the fact that Protestantism and Puritanism were associated with Cromwell and the bloody campaigns that he waged in Ireland. Also the established Church of Ireland in the 18th and 19th centuries was associated with Penal Laws, oppressive Landlords and tithes imposed on Roman Catholics. The religion of the Protestants was far from attractive to generations of Roman Catholics in Ireland.

the gospel at gafcon

Arriving at Ben Gurion airport, Israel, in the early hours of Sunday, June 22, the first impression was of the heat – a full 20 degrees warmer than the Irish ‘summer’ we had left in Dublin some hours earlier! A party from Northern Ireland and the Republic had made the trip to Jerusalem for what will probably be remembered as one of the most historic Anglican conferences of modern times. In all, some 1300 people had travelled from around the globe to meet in the conference centre of the Renaissance hotel, Jerusalem. This number included some 300 bishops, representing around 33 million of the estimated 55 million churchgoing Anglicans worldwide. Most notable that day as we queued to register, was the sea of African faces, an indication that the centre of Anglicanism has shifted from the West to the nations of the developing world. Indeed, one of the most important of those Anglican leaders, Archbishop Peter Akinola, from Nigeria, gave the opening conference address. He pointed out why GAFCON had been called and what was hoped to be achieved through it. He explained that GAFCON had been necessitated by the present crisis within the Anglican Communion caused by ‘The Episcopal Church (TEC), and the Anglican Church of Canada, in their decision to promote homosexuality as a valid Christian lifestyle.