Chapter One: Anglican Identity and Christian Traditions

The sections in Chapter One are:

• Tradition and Traditions
• Anglican Recovery of the Early Church
• Modern Anglican Identity

My highlights from Chapter One:

• Liturgy, orthodoxy, monasticism, and scripture were all “invented” during these centuries.
• In their search for a catholic and reformed church independent of Rome at the Reformation, Anglicans went back not only to scripture, but to these earliest centuries of the church. Here the reformers found a model for liturgy in the language of the people, a learned and pastoral theology, and the shared authority of councils.
• Anglicans affirmed the priority and authority of scripture, but also recognized the continuing role of the community itself as the guardian and interpreter of scripture. They embraced both scripture and tradition: traditions not explicitly sanctioned in scripture could still be maintained.
• Even when we speak of “apostolic tradition”—the teachings of Jesus that were preached through the earliest missionaries or apostles—we are talking not of a single uniform formula, but of a collection of beliefs and practices. It is a coherent and recognizable collection, but it is not monolithic.
• Ancient Christians thus looked to consistency rather than uniformity in order to define saving belief, both orally and in scripture.... Whereas uniformity requires enforcement, consistency demands discernment.
• When Christians fell into theological disputes, which they seemed to do so much of the time in these small early communities, intense reflection on scripture, interpretation, custom, and practice would take place. Often, there was no clear guidance to be found in scripture or tradition, so theologians had to create interpretations based on exegesis and reason.
• Christian tradition reflected through the prism of history is not a single white light, but a whole spectrum of colors.
• Using the linguistic and historical tools of humanistic scholarship, Anglican apologists studied the early centuries in order to validate their Reformation principles of theological independence, liturgy in the language of the people, and common access to scripture.
• Obedience to scripture through the lens of learning and early church tradition became the foundation of Anglican identity during the Reformation.
• Thus reforming Anglicans embraced those church practices and traditions of the early and medieval church that did not directly contradict scripture, and that made sense in light of the needs and local traditions of an independent English church.
• The early centuries of the church were of critical importance for Anglican liturgical reform. For Thomas Cranmer, the ancient church offered better liturgical models than medieval devotions and practices. Thus, he and the other Anglican reformers believed the Bible and liturgy should be in the vernacular, and accessible to all the people.
• Wishing to include a broad spectrum of Reformation theology in a single prayer book, Cranmer created devotional language that acknowledged, if not encouraged, more than one interpretation.
• The Book of Common Prayer represented a liturgical compromise for a state church, but its development was also a profound theological step. Unity could contain diversity.
• Anchored in the authority of an ancient church that embraced both tradition and scholarship, Anglicans of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries could affirm a broad tradition that avoided fundamentalism and affirmed modern historical criticism of the Bible. The present Anglican diversity of Anglo-Catholics, evangelicals, and liberals reflects this mixed inheritance.
• he Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888, found in the Historical Documents section of The Book of Common Prayer, cites the authority of scripture, the witness of the ancient creeds, the sacraments of baptism and eucharist, and the historic episcopate as the basis for Christian unity (BCP 876-877).
• Studies of ancient liturgy also underlay the Liturgical Renewal movement of the twentieth century which sought to restore many of the theological and liturgical understandings of prayer and the sacraments from the early church.
• We are rooted in a common apostolic tradition, yet are torn by conflicting interpretations. In spite of this, the Anglican model of national autonomy in ecclesiastical communion offers at least an opportunity for us to move together as one church into the next century. In this way we offer to other Christians a model of honest debate, faithful discernment, and catholic unity which, ironically, is both deeply ancient and radically new.
• At the Reformation Anglican reformers looked back to the early church for a model of catholicity that acknowledged national autonomy.... Liberty from dogmatic authority as well as veneration of the past has therefore been integral to the Anglican use of tradition since that time. From the Reformation to the present day, scripture and tradition have been lived out in dialogue with critical thinking.

Questions for Discussion:

1. Everyone who studies history is attracted to some periods more than others. In your own view of the history of the church, are some periods more important than others? Which ones, and why?

2. This chapter talks about the appeal that the early church has traditionally held for Anglicans. Which traditions we have inherited from the early church are particularly important to you as an Anglican?

3. Much attention has been focused on diversity and inclusivity in the church today. Lyman notes that “the ‘unity in multiplicity’ of the ancient church offered an authoritative model” for Anglicanism at the time of the Reformation. In what ways do you think that is still true today?

Lyman, Rebecca. Early Christian Traditions (New Church's Teaching Series) (pp. 175-176). Cowley Publications. Kindle Edition.