WHAT IT MEANS TO BE AN ANGLICAN TODAY

By The Rev. Grant S. Carey
Trinity Cathedral, Sacramento, California

One expression sometimes used to describe Anglicans is "a peculiar people" in the sense that we are not easy to define. Are we protestant or catholic? Are we evangelical or liberal or conservative? It is difficult for people who are not involved in the life of an Anglican Church Community to comprehend exactly where and who we are because, in a sense, we are all of the above.

The Protestant Reformation that rocked the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries affected the Church in England but didn't define it. The English Church does not trace it origin to Henry VIII but to the first missionaries to Britain early in the Second Century. There is evidence that Christian communities were founded in Southern Britain by tin traders from the Middle East, perhaps from Palestine itself. Later, the Faith was practiced by some of the Roman colonists who inhabited the island until the Fifth Century.

It was from Britain that Patrick, a young Christian, was captured and sold as a slave in Ireland and who, years later, played a key role in the Christianization of that land.

In the Seventh Century, the Church in Britain accepted the authority of Rome and its benefits in unifying the Church, but in later years, the Papacy became a burden, and during the reign of Henry VIII, for political reasons, the Church in England declared itself to be independent of foreign bishops.

While little seemed to change at first (the Mass was still in Latin, and the same bishops and priests continued in office) after Henry's death "The English Reformation" began with the creation of the first Book of Common Prayer in the year 1549. It was this book and its successors that defined the Anglican spirit or "ethos" which has prevailed throughout the subsequent periods of political and religious unrest. Elizabeth I steered a course of moderation which characterizes Anglicanism today -- "The Via Media" -- or "The Middle Way."

Extremism, whether catholic or protestant, was not condoned; there were to be no binding formularies except the historic Creeds as recited from the Prayer Book. And there were to be "No windows into men's souls."

As the Anglican Church developed and grew in England (even when suppressed by the Puritan Civil War led by Oliver Cromwell), the church's theological position was one of openness, its theology shaped by common prayer rather than by rigid confessions or pronouncements.

When the English Nation became an Empire, so did the Anglican Church spread . first to the American Colonies and the West Indies, then into such far away places as India, Australia and Africa, becoming what today is known as "The Anglican Communion" -- indigenous churches comprising more than 70 million people of all races and colors and languages.

What holds us together under the leadership of the Archbishop of Canterbury is our common prayer and worship and a willingness to be "a peculiar people" in the world -- both catholic and protestant, conservative and liberal, and, most of all, open to the work of God's Holy Spirit.