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The Diversity of ‘Classical’ Anglicanism Those who have studied Anglicanism closely know that Anglican history shows several broad strains of tradition, all of which can plausibly claim to be classically Anglican in that they have a long pedigree within the Church of England and her daughter Churches. Yet no one of these strands can claim to be Anglicanism in an exclusive sense if that claim means to imply that most Anglicans in fact historically held to that particular strand. Furthermore, these strands were and are often mutually contradictory and hostile. Nevertheless, classically the various parties within Anglicanism were united by at least two important factors. ...

Restoring Unity–First Steps Beginning in June a number of Continuing Church leaders have met three times: in Victoria, British Columbia, in West Palm Beach, Florida, and in Brockton, Massachusetts. The bishops involved include the leaders of the three Churches that are in full communion with each other and whose first bishops were consecrated in 1978 in Denver (the ACC, the Anglican Province of Christ the King [APCK], and the United Episcopal Church in North America [UECNA]), but also include three bodies with which we are not yet in full communion: the Anglican Church in America (ACA), the Anglican Province in America (APA), and the Diocese of the Holy Cross (DHC). ...

The Gospel Imperative The Church of Jesus Christ is 「One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic.」 Whilst on earth its unity, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity are imperfect, all ecclesiastical jurisdictions within the Apostolic Tradition acknowledge the Gospel imperative towards unity which springs from our Lord’s High Priestly Prayer recorded in St. John’s Gospel, in particular: 「I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them, and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.」 (John 17:20-23). ...

Churches and Denominations A ‘Church’ is a body of Christians gathered around a bishop in the Apostolic Succession and faith in a given geographical area. A true Church requires a true bishop, Christians, and a particular territory. ‘Churches’ are simply a multiplicity of these individual, local Churches. In the course of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, almost all of the Protestants lost the Apostolic Succession. Even in Protestant bodies that have officials called ‘bishops’, such as the United Methodists and Evangelical Lutherans in the United States, there is no historic Succession of bishops but only the name or title. There is no doubt that they contain many good and devout Christians and that they believe much that is good and true. However, since they have abandoned or lost the Apostolic Succession and much else that characterizes the Catholic faith in its fullness, these bodies are not Churches in the full sense, but more properly called ‘denominations.’ ...

The Nature of the Church The Anglican Catholic Church is a Church. The Church is the Body of Christ, his sacramental extension and presence in human history in the world. As the Body of Christ the Church does what Jesus Christ originally did in his incarnate Person: it teaches and heals the world, it reveals the Father’s will and his nature of love, and it gathers a company of disciples to worship the glorious Trinity. The Church as the gathered company of all faithful people is centered in the revealed word of God, in prayer and the sacramental system, and in her bishops, whose ministry is the constitutive element that makes a mere human organization be the organic, sacramental, transcending, saving Presence of God in the world. ...

The Four Last Things ‘Eschatology’, from the Greek word eschaton (‘end’, ‘final thing’, ‘last thing’), is the branch of theology which considers the final things. The Four Last things are death, judgement, heaven, and hell. Death and judgement are the lot of all human beings. Heaven or hell is the final destiny of every individual. The relation of the judgement of the individual soul to Christ’s return in glory is not entirely clear. It appears from Scripture that the Second Coming of Christ (the parousia) precedes the judgement. Most the­ologians, however, distinguish the particular judgement of the individ­ual at death from the general resurrection and judgement of the dead at the end. A few theologians (‘full preterists’) argue that all biblical texts about the end were fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem in the first century. It is, however, neither necessary nor wise to attempt to settle finally all of these matters in one particular manner. ...

Origins of the Church The Christian Church began with the Holy Apostles. The word apostle means 「one who is sent forth」, and is the name used in the Church for those twelve disciples specially chosen by Christ Himself. They are called apostles because Our Lord instructed them to go forth and proclaim the Gospel and to establish the Church in all the world. ...

The Revisionist Impact One of the more important trends of late in anti-Anglican apologetics by Roman Catholics has been to utilise recent 「revisionist」 historical scholarship on the English Reformation. The immediate aim has been to show that the Church of England that emerged from the Elizabethan Settlement was utterly Protestant and not in theological continuity with either any pre-Reformation Catholicism or the Caroline Divines and the succeeding 「High Church」 tradition. ...

The Influence of Modernism In the course of the Eighteenth Century the Protestant and Catholic tendencies within the Church of England were joined by a third force that flowed from the skepticism of the Enlightenment. At first the Enlightenment produced English Latitudinarianism, a movement that accepted some clear Biblical fundamentals in doctrine but that argued for latitude and liberty in most matters. Gradually, as Biblical authority was subjected to a corrosive influence by the Broad Church and Modernist movements, the accepted fundamentals grew fewer and fewer in number. The result was a theological minimalism which sapped the strength of the Church of England and its daughter churches throughout the world. By the 1970s global Anglicanism was in crisis, as it moved away from the catholic and apostolic faith and towards a kind of liberal theism that was heavily influenced by secular culture. ...

A Question of Identity To ask about the Catholic identity of 「Anglicanism」 or 「Anglo-Catholicism」, as is often done, is to ask the wrong question. These two words correspond to abstractions, strictly speaking. What matters primarily is whether Anglican Churches are or have been Catholic, and to what extent. A secondary question is whether those persons known as Anglo-Catholics are in fact faithful Catholics. The answer to the first will give the answer to the second. ...