Welcome to the Anglican International, a continuing exploration in Reformed Irenicism. I plan to write about church history, liturgy, select theology, relevant socio-political matters, pastoral-devotional interests, and to give occasional comment on current events in the broader Christian world.
Whoa whoa whoa! The Anglican International? What happened to The Calvinist International?
The Calvinist International was a website that I operated for around a decade and which played a role in the founding of the Davenant Institute. Many other folks wrote with me on TCI, some of whom are still writing for Davenant projects today. A few years ago, the site began experiencing consistent technical problems, and I didn’t have the time and energy to continue managing it myself. The content has been preserved, and we will be reprinting some of it in the future.
Why don’t you just relaunch the old site?
I dunno. It just sort of feels like its time has passed. Some of the original writers have moved in different directions. Some of our ideas have more fully developed now and can be articulated better by way of a semi-fresh start. I also think my ecclesiology has changed enough to warrant a slightly different approach.
Maybe one day I will put the old site up in a static form.
Are you at least going to repost your series on the Federal Vision?
Yes. I get emails asking about this all of the time. I plan to put all of that material out again, but I want to touch it up a bit and make it better.
So are you just going to be all super-duper Anglicany now?
No, not really. I’m still not a huge fan of Anglicanism as an ism. Gerald Bray makes the point, in his book Anglicanism: A Reformed Catholic Tradition, that the name Anglicanism is something of a 19th-century creation. Before that, the term Anglican simply meant English. (The American expression very decidedly chose against using a variation of “English” in its church name, choosing instead to be called The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States.) It continues to be an ambiguous name, often concealing any number of misunderstandings and substantial disagreements under a sort of unifying aesthetic and personality disposition. I myself am still entirely Reformed in theology and even “Evangelical” in many ways.
But I have become an Anglican minister. During that process, I also discovered aspects of Anglican history and tradition of which I had been largely unaware. Stephen Hampton’s work on “Reformed Conformity” has been huge for me. I always had a strong appreciation for Bishop John Davenant, and now I have a much better understanding of where he fits on the Reformation spectrum. Additionally, I have enjoyed getting to know the Evangelical Anglicans of the 18th and 19th century, particularly some of the American churchmen of that sort.
I have also come to love the lectionary in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. I have recorded podcast episodes about that, and I hope to continue to talk and write about it in the future. Plus, any work I do on that automatically doubles as my local sermon preparation.
So, I will be writing about Anglican stuff, for sure. But I don’t think this means that Anglicanism is some isolated or insulated topic that doesn’t interact with my other interests. It is not a retreat away from theology or politics into some sort of “high church” bubble. I also have no intention of only writing about Anglican stuff. But in the busy and noisy world of online discourse, you do sort of have to have a particular lane or angle. “Anglican” makes sense and keeps me from wandering too far off from my day job.
Isn’t “Anglican International” an oxymoron?
Yeah, sort of. That was always the problem with Anglicanism. It gave the impression of a singular global church united under an episcopal network. It aped Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, and in its worst expressions, it explicitly tried to ally with those groups and distance itself from other Protestant bodies. I always rejected that construct, and I still do.
But you could think of a different sort of Anglican internationalism. Rather than a singular ministerial hierarchy, you can think of it as a federation of national churches (or churches which aspire to be national churches). These national churches, known as provinces, are united with one another in that they have a common heritage and confession of faith, and that their bishops meet together somewhat regularly for shared ministerial work. But these churches are not subordinated to certain other churches, nor do they stand in need of the other churches for their existential validity. Each national expression can make certain changes to their ceremonies and other “non-essential” matters. The name “Anglican isn’t great, because these churches no longer have to be English. But it seems to the name that has stuck, and so we’ll use it for now.
Beyond abstract theory, this also happens to be the reality in global Anglicanism at the moment. As the Church of England and the Episcopal Church have moved away from their historic doctrines and have compromised on the gospel and basic Christian morality, churches from other nations, but who have an Anglican heritage, have come to the rescue of the orthodox minority in the United States, England, and other western nations. These global Anglican churches have sent missionary bishops and assisted in the creation of new provinces dedicated to historic orthodoxy. This movement can be seen in GAFCON and the GSFA. We are currently witnessing the creation of a new Anglican order, and now is the time for interested parties to join in, in the hopes of helping to set a new foundation.
There’s even one more level to this conversation. The classic Book of Common Prayer is the 1662 edition. This continues to be the canonically authoritative BCP for England. It is the book identified by GAFCON as the global standard. And it is by far the Prayerbook most faithful to the Protestant Reformation. Recently the 1662 BCP has been edited for an international church audience (rather than a specifically English one), and this is the edition of the Prayerbook that my own church uses. It bears the name “International edition.” You could say that branding and promoting an “international” Anglicanism is a highly practical interest of mine.
So where do you stand on Presbyterianism now?
Some of my best friends are Presbyterian!
I think most people know that I was always an eclectic and eccentric sort of Presbyterian. I had to always explain and qualify things, and I think I fit in a lot better in the classical Anglican genre. But I do still think that Presbyterians have a place of eminence in American church history. Historically, they dominated the academic landscape. There are no Anglican seminaries with the legacy of Old Princeton, and though there are more Episcopalian champions than I had previously understood, they still don’t rise to the level of a Charles Hodge or even B.B. Warfield. America, unlike England, has always had a multi-denominational polity. Within that sort of a environment, the Presbyterians and Anglican/Episcopalians ought to be natural cousins and allies.
To get even more specific, the PCA is currently more significant than the ACNA to the broader American church ecosystem. They have a tighter organization and clearer identity. Plus, there are also just a lot more PCA congregations than ACNA congregations. So, while I have some important differences with Presbyterianism, especially as an intellectual system, you gotta respect them. I am still a friend to the Presbyterian people. In fact, I’m probably a better friend to them now that I am an Anglican than I was as a bad Presbyterian.
How about Calvinism? Are you still a Calvinist?
Yes. Of course. I mean, it depends on what you think that means. But sure.
Even when we launched The Calvinist International, we knew full well that “Calvinist” was a tricky word that had a lot of problematic meanings. Ironically, if you run into someone who is really excited to talk about “Calvinism” today, they are probably going to be a Baptist. The better word really is “Reformed.” At TCI, we even ran a piece by Mark Jones called “Against Calvinism.” But I also think the word still has some helpful value, and so I won’t run away from it. I recently wrote an essay on this over at the Logos website. You can see more of my thoughts there.
So what’s Anglicanism then?
Oh man, that’s going to take too long. Check back in once I get a few more posts under my belt.