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Insight I
The embarrassment of history? Restoring proper confidence in our Anglican past
By Brian Crowe
In a recent article (Church Times, 18th April), the historian, J.C.D. Clark, suggested a failure of Anglican confidence in our heritage, coinciding with a Roman Catholic cultural and intellectual renaissance in Britain. In Ireland, a renewed interest in the Scots-Irish heritage has found expression in a Presbyterian narrative of democratic individualism. By contrast, there is the appearance of embarrassment in Anglicanism over our history. We appear to have been on the ‘wrong’ side of history, allied against the causes of progress or - what is worse - the values of the Kingdom of God.
Anglicanism’s historical experience has been overwhelmingly defined by the Church of England’s status over the centuries as an established Church. Establishment - Christendom - brought an intimate relationship with the powers of this world. There is an overwhelming suspicion amongst 21st century Christians that Christendom compromised the Church of Jesus Christ. But not only was establishment a common experience for Churches throughout Europe before and after the Reformation, it allowed national Churches to shape national cultures in a distinctive Christian manner. The theologian, Oliver O’Donovan, has articulated the theological rationale behind Christendom. Christendom was, says O’Donovan, "the logical conclusion of [the Church’s] confidence in mission." Establishment, whatever its flaws, was a testimony to the acceptance by rulers and societies of the public truth of the Christian proclamation.
Linked with the experience of establishment is the shame of Anglican repression of other Christian traditions. Anglicanism, however, was not always the persecutor. One of the providential consequences of the various dynastic struggles afflicting British history throughout the 17th and 18th centuries was that, at various times, Anglicans experienced exclusion and persecution - English and Irish Anglicans during the1640s and 1650s, the Non Jurors after the Revolution of 1688, Scottish Episcopalians throughout the 18th century and American Anglicans (particularly in the northern colonies) who found themselves on the losing side in 1776. The history of Anglicanism is marred by the sin of repression - and redeemed by the pain of periodic exclusion.
Anglicanism, like Lutheranism, embraced the two historical realities that calamitously divided European civilisation in the 16th century. The first was the tradition of the Latin Church, stretching back to before the fall of Rome. The second was the Reformation. Anglicanism was subjected to the suspicion from both Reformed and Roman sources (and later historians) that the personalities and priorities of monarchs rather than theological truth determined this settlement. However, the ability both to attend to the Catholic tradition and heed the Reformation protest made Anglicanism a compelling theological narrative during the controversies of the Reformation era. In the words of a recent study of the early 17th century Anglican priest and poet, John Donne: "He ... discovered that the Reformed Church gave him ample room for the Catholic habits of mind and devotion his upbringing instilled."
Against the individualism and democratic spirit of Presbyterianism and the universal values of the Roman tradition, both invoked against the power of the state, historic Anglicanism can be too easily portrayed as the ecclesiastical wing of monarchy and aristocracy. Perhaps this is most evident when considering the classic Anglican teaching of passive obedience and non-resistance. The Homily against Disobedience and wilful Rebellion, issued during the reign of Elizabeth I, declared: "Let all good subjects avoid and flee rebellion, as the greatest of all mischiefs, and embrace due obedience to God and our prince, as the greatest of all virtues, that we may escape all evils and miseries that do follow rebellion." Five centuries later, no language more foreign to contemporary political discourse could be found. But those of us who have endured the consequences of civil disorder might just have a greater understanding of what led the generations shaped by the memories of England’s bitter constitutional and dynastic conflicts to praise civil stability as "the greatest of all virtues". Respecting established authority in order to avoid the bitterness of civil conflict can indeed be a virtue.
While the Anglican tradition has had examples of heroic sanctity and martyrdom, it is striking that those who sought to renew the Church often faced Anglican opposition - Baxter, the Wesleys, Newman. But perhaps the exemplars of the godliness of the Anglican tradition are not to be found in confrontation and crisis. Perhaps they are to be found in less dramatic, more ‘ordinary’, circumstances. Samuel Johnson and C.S. Lewis are two such exemplars. Johnson, the 18th century man of letters, is described by the Roman Catholic historian, Eamon Duffy, as "the greatest and wisest of all the saints of Anglicanism". Lewis was the premier Christian apologist of the 20th century. While their witness was in less dramatic circumstances than those faced by Baxter, the Wesleys and Newman, it has proved no less enduring.
Anglicans need not be embarrassed.
Yes, ours is a fallen history - like every other historical narrative. But it also hassigns of grace, sometimes in what are for the 21st century Christian the most unexpected places.
Dr Brian Crowe is a parishioner of Christ Church, Lisburn, Diocese of Connor,
and the Ulster Unionist Party’s Head of Policy. This article expresses his personal views.
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