The only justification for what follows is that I was asked to write it by a friend and parishioner who wanted my comments on an article by Fr. Charles Erlandson:

https://www.facebook.com/561704043/posts/10160953464999044/

Fr. Charles is a scholar whom I respect and something of an expert on this matter; I most certainly am not. I write as an ordinary priest, neither particularly Reformed nor particularly Anglo-Catholic. I write, as readers will see, with the firm conviction that along with the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, the Anglican Church is part of the one holy catholic and Apostolic Church. It is my home, and I love it. And now to the question at hand: Is the Anglicanism Catholic or Protestant?

In the early twentieth-century, physicists pondered the nature of light: is light comprised of particles or waves? The understanding was that particles and waves are fundamental different and mutually exclusive: either/or but not both/and.

The problem was that light exhibited characteristics of both particles and waves — not at the same time, but at different times based upon the nature of the experiment it was subjected to. In other words, it was (and is) possible to design an experiment that proves categorically that light is comprised of particles. It was (and is) equally possible to design an experiment that proves just as surely that light is comprised of waves. Light simply is what it is, but we can make it demonstrate one characteristic and not another by the questions we ask and the experiments we perform. Ultimately, physicists began to speak of a wave-particle duality as the true nature of light and even of other quantum phenomena.

That brings us to Anglicanism and the question at hand: is Anglicanism Catholic or Protestant? First, I must disambiguate the question because language is crucial here. “Catholic” as used in the question would imply to most readers “Roman Catholic” and not catholic in its true sense as meaning “of the whole” or “universal.” So, to be clear, I will contrast Protestant with Roman and not Protestant with catholic. The question then becomes: is Anglicanism Roman or Protestant?

I will give my answer first, and then explain it. Analogous to light, Anglicanism is a Protestant-Roman duality. We can force it to appear as one or the other by the questions we ask and the data we consider; but in reality it simply is what it is regardless of what we “force” it to be. My contention is that Anglicanism is more than either Protestant or Roman; it is catholic in the true sense of the word. We claim that at every service of Holy Communion when we recite the Nicene Creed:

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church (BCP 2019, p. 109).

We claim that at every service of the Daily Office when we recite the Apostles’ Creed:

I believe in…the holy catholic Church (BCP 2019, p. 20).

It is important that we don’t say “We believe in one holy Protestant Church” or “We believe in one holy Roman Church.” Catholic is prior to and more fundamental than either Protestant or Roman. Catholic pertains to the faith once delivered to the saints — to all the saints: those essential elements of faith and practice that we share and not those things that separate us. I describe it this way: along with the Orthodox Church and the Roman Church, the Anglican Church is the bearer of the Great Tradition that began at Pentecost, that developed and spread through the work of the Apostles, that is expressed in Scripture and Creeds and Councils and Liturgy, that was nurtured and preserved by the Church Fathers and the faithful of every generation, and that has been preserved to this day.

If you ask me where that Great Tradition may be found, I would answer along with the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral that these are the essential marks of the Catholic Church:

1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the revealed Word of God.
2. The Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian Faith.
3. The two Sacraments, — Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, — ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him.
4. The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church (BCP 1979, p. 877).

There are many nuances and subtleties to be worked out, and the devil is in the details, as they say. But these are marks of the catholic Church, and Anglicanism possesses them.

So, is Anglicanism Protestant or Roman? It is something more primitive and more fundamental; it is catholic. Now, if this seems to you like begging the question, fair enough. Let’s plunge in a bit further.

Imagine we could submit a “genetic” sample of Anglicanism to a religious genealogy site, a 23 and Me for the Church. What would the results be? Prior to the English Reformation Parliament (1529-1536) our nearest relative would be the Roman Church — all the way back to the Synod of Whitby (664) when King Oswiu of Northumbria brought the proto-English church under the auspices of Rome. Prior to that time, both Celtic and Roman practices co-existed. But, keep in mind that the Great Schism between East (Orthodox) and West (Roman) — the fracturing of the catholic Church — did not occur until 1024. This means that, from the beginning, the English Church was part of the catholic church and remained so even when it adopted Roman practices. The English Church was catholic before and after it became Roman. So, we trace our lineage through the Roman Church back to the united catholic Church. That is our ecclesiastical DNA, if you will.

But, families break apart or intermarry; I’m not certain which is the best metaphor. England broke with Rome and intermarried with other Protestant groups in the 16th century. And, the English Church began to define itself in contradistinction to the Roman Church. That is the essence of many of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion — a polemic against “Romish” and “papist” doctrines and practices. Read most generously — and I think correctly — the English Church retained the essentials of the catholic Church while rejecting some unfaithful medieval accretions of the Roman Church. Now, here is a statement that will get me in trouble and may be used against me; but I nonetheless believe it to be true. In rejecting the excesses of the Roman Church, the English Church embraced some of the excesses of the Protestant Church. That is what reform movements typically do: move from one extreme to another. Then, it takes generations to evaluate and moderate, to recognize that we may have lost the baby with the bath in some instances. And that explains the “muddle” of Anglicanism — why some Anglicans out-reform Luther and Calvin and why some claim we are the Roman Church just without the Pope. That is why I insist that the truth of Anglicanism lies deeper: we are catholic, through the heritage of the Roman Church, and recalled to true catholicism by the Protestant Reformers. It is a difficult “bi-racial” identity; we would have to check OTHER on a form and neither ROMAN nor PROTESTANT.

This answer will likely satisfy no one; some days it does not satisfy me. But, it is the best I have to offer and I have made my peace with it — mostly.