The Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion

Many thanks for the excellent conversation - I find it most illuminating and fascinating! These meagre thoughts have emerged as I have read your correspondence:

1. It is true that Anglo-Catholics (who are, after all, simply sons of the Church of England who seek to be faithful to the full doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Anglican Communion as received from the Apostles and Fathers) have never questioned the established form of the Thirty-Nine Articles nor have they sought to revise them. The original vision of the Oxford Movement was nothing less than the full implementation of the liturgy and doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer and the Articles practiced in the light of the Church's 2,000 year-old Tradition. Real Anglo-Catholics, as opposed to Anglo-Papalists (who are not representative of the original intention of the Oxford Movement or the Catholic Revival), have always acknowledged that the XXXIX Articles are authoritative for the Churches of the Anglican Tradition. We simply say that the Articles must be subject to the authority of Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Tradition of the ancient and undivided Catholic Church of the first millennium. Please note that nowhere in my own writings have I ever questioned that the Articles have authority for Anglicans, God forbid; the Articles do have authority, but not to the extent of a Creed or protestant confession.

2. Anglicans are, strictly speaking, not adherents of sola scriptura; they never have been - that phrase is never found in the Prayer Book or the Articles. We profess regarding the Holy Scriptures what the Holy Catholic Church of the ages has ever held - Scriptura continet omnia - Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation. That is the teaching of the Articles and the Ordinal. By its very nature and hermeneutic, Anglicanism is a Church that interprets Scripture through the lens of the Church and her Tradition: 'the Church to teach; the Bible to prove.' Why? Because all Churches interpret Scripture. Holy Scripture is never read or applied in a vacuum. All Churches have and use a tradition. All Churches interpret Scripture through a tradition of some kind. And if we are to have a tradition, which we must by necessity, then let us have one that originates from Our Lord, the Apostles, the Fathers, the Councils, and the primitive Catholic Church, not one solely contrived in the heat of theological controversy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

3. And this may be my most curious comment: the seeming use of the Articles of Religion as a Creed or dogmatic standard, irreformable, inalterable, and binding upon all in its literal sense, is surprisingly Roman, that is to say, it utilises, invokes, and enshrines the Articles in a way methodologically identical with that by which Rome uses the Magisterium, the teaching office of the Papacy. Not to be too crass about it, but it appears that the Articles of Religion have become, at least for some, a 'paper Pope.' The Articles were certainly never designed to be used in such a strictly dogmatic and creedal fashion. Blessed King Charles I, Martyr for the Church of England, imposed His Majesty's Declaration as the preface to the Articles in order to eliminate a puritan or calvinist interpretation of the Articles. One must consider the historical context and origin of such texts as the Articles before regarding them as statements which, at least in the minds of some, are held to be of a nature like that of a papal dogmatic pronouncement. I am sure no one wants to say that the Articles are infallible proclamations of de fidei dogma ex cathedra. And yet the tone of some statements, or at least an interpretation of them, seems to come dangerously close to this idea. Articles of Religion, yes. Articles of Peace, yes. Articles of Unity for a comprehensive Church, yes. Articles of dogmatic Faith, absolutely not.Thank you for considering these thoughts. I appreciate your charity and kindness.