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Editor’s note: We are posting occasional additional posts on the 39 Articles of Religion and the related history of the Book of Common Prayer, now that our blog series has ended.

by Tanner Moore

What is the Black Rubric?

Concisely put, the Black Rubric is, “A 19th-cent. name [sic] for the ‘Declaration on Kneeling’ printed at the end of the Holy Communion Service in the Book of Common Prayer. It was inserted in the Book of 1552 without Parliamentary authority. When rubrics came to be printed in red, the fact that the ‘Declaration’ was not a rubric was indicated by printing it in black.”[1] What lay at the heart of the issue of the Black Rubric is the amount of reverence, and right posture gave when receiving Holy Communion. The debate is twofold, what is the proper position when receiving Holy Communion, and the question of whether kneeling when receiving the Eucharist implies adoration of the elements of bread and wine. Before we proceed further, it is essential to read the Black Rubric in its original printing in the 1552 Book of Common Prayer.

The text of the Black Rubric states,

Although no ordre can be so perfectlye devised, but it may be of some, eyther for theyr    ignoraunce and infermitie, or els of malice and obstinacie, misconstrued, depraved, and       interpreted in a wrong part: And yet because brotherly charitie willeth, that so much as             conveniently may be, offences shoulde be taken awaye: therefore we willing to doe the      same. Whereas it is ordeyned in the booke of common prayer, in the administracion of      the Lord’s Supper, that the Communicants knelyng shoulde receyve the holye         Communion. whiche thynge beyng well mente, for a sygnificacion of the humble and      gratefull acknowledgyng of the benefites of Chryst, geven unto the woorthye receyver,                  and to avoyde the prophanacion and dysordre, which about the holy Communion myght              els ensue: Leste yet the same kneelyng myght be thought or taken otherwyse, we dooe   declare that it is not ment thereby, that any adoracion is doone, or oughte to bee doone,       eyther unto the Sacramentall bread or wyne there bodily receyved, or unto anye reall and            essencial presence there beeyng of Christ’s naturall fleshe and bloude. For as    concernynge the Sacramentall bread and wyne, they remayne styll in theyr verye naturall             substaunces, and therefore may not be adored, for that were Idolatrye to be abhorred of   all faythfull christians. And as concernynge the naturall body and blood of our saviour          Christ, they are in heaven and not here. For it is agaynst the trueth of Christes true           natural bodye, to be in moe places then in one, at one tyme.[2] 

Before I proceed further, it is essential to note the term ‘rubric’ here means an instruction to follow. This stands in contrast to the modern usage of the word, such as a grading rubric. Most Anglican/Episcopal parishes still kneel when receiving Communion. This supplemental shows the origins, development, and modern usage of the Black Rubric.

The History of the Black Rubric

The origins of the Black Rubric lie in a debate in the 1552 Council deciding the details of the second edition of the Book of Common Prayer. The first Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) primarily authored the first edition of the Book of Common Prayer three years prior in 1549. The council of thirty-two persons designated to oversee the prayer book was theologians of various theological leanings, from more Roman Catholic leanings of Thomas Cranmer to more Reformed leanings of John Knox (1513-1572). Historian A. G. Dickens in his seminal work The English Reformation notes that just months before the intended publication of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer John Knox gave a sermon before King Edward VI (1537-1553), the firstborn son of Henry VIII (1491-1547), against the insertion of the rubric on kneeling. Cranmer refused to make the change to the rubric. During the early stages of the printing of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer, the council inserted the rubric into the prayer book, ensuring the reception of Holy Communion by kneeling.[3]

The controversy over kneeling comes from the English Reformers dealing with the concept of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Early Church of England formularies believed that Christ is present in the elements of bread and wine. These articles are the precursor to the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and show the working out of the faith of the early Church of England. The first attempt at a concise formulary is the Ten Articles of Religion, first published in 1534.  Article 4 states that, “That the body and blood of Christ are really present in the elements of the eucharist.”[4].  Two years later, in 1536, the articles are shortened to Six Articles, with the Eucharistic position stating,

“First, that in the most blessed Sacrament of the Altar, by the strength and efficacy of Christ’s mighty word, it being spoken by the priest, is present really, under the form of bread and wine, the natural body and blood of Our Saviour Jesu Christ, conceived of the Virgin Mary, and that after the consecration there remaineth no substance of bread and wine, nor any other substance but the substance of Christ, God and man;”[5]

This expanded eucharistic position seeks to explain how Christ is present in the bread and wine. The words “under the form” is from the work of Medieval Catholic theologian Peter Lombard (1100-1160). Lombard states that, “Similarly, ‘he [Christ] is in heaven insofar as he is man’ “namely visibly: but invisibly he is on the altar, because he does not appear in human form, but is veiled by the form of bread and wine.”[6]

After Edward VI’s death in 1552, Henry VIII’s eldest daughter Mary I (1516-1558) became Queen of England. Mary returned England to the Roman Catholic Church and removed the Book of Common Prayer from public worshipaltogether. After Mary I’s death in 1558 her sister Elizabeth I (1533-1603) became Queen of England and in the same year restored England to the Church of England/Anglicanism. Theological compromise is the key theme of Elizabeth I’s reign. Elizabeth I’s 1558 Act of Uniformity restored the Book of Common Prayer as the service book used in England. However, this prayer book was neither the 1549 nor the 1552 versions. Instead, the 1559 Prayer Book established during the reign of Elizabeth I is a mixture of both prayer books, blending elements of the Catholic and Protestant aspects of both books, respectively. However, the Black Rubric is omitted entirely from the 1559 text. While there is not much known about the meeting that removed the Black Rubric from the 1559 version, A. G. Dickens argues that this removal allowed “a certain latitude of eucharistic belief.”[7] This latitude meant that communicants could believe kneeling was or was not a proper act of devotion to God when receiving the Eucharist. After the removal of the Black Rubric in 1559, Black Rubric would not exist in the Book of Common Prayer for over 100 years until the 1662 Book of Common Prayer under Charles II (1630-1685).

In 1563, during the reign of Elizabeth I, the Church of England published the Forty-Two Articles of Religion, further clarifying their positions of faith. Article XXIX “Of the Lord’s Supper” states the new Eucharistic position of the Church of England.[8] Regarding the presence and elements, the Article states “with faith receive the same, the bread which we break, is a communion of the body of Christ. Likewise, the cup of blessing is a Communion of the blood of Christ.”[9] The change is now that what is received is the communion of the body and blood of Christ. This is further emphasized regarding transubstantiation, the article states “Transubstantiation, or the change of the substance of bread and wine into the substance of Christ’s body and blood cannot be proved by holy writ, but is repugnant to the plain words of Scripture, and has given occasion to many superstitions.”[10] This article reflects the first rejection of transubstantiation in the Articles of Religion.  The argument goes further beyond rejecting the transubstantiation of the elements, but also that Christ cannot be in one time in multiple places, as that “a faithful man ought not, either to believe or openly to confess the real and bodily presence (as they term it) of Christ’s flesh and Blood in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.”

The final authoritative act clarifying the position of Anglican Eucharistic doctrine is the Thirty-Nine Articles, still in use today. Article XXVIII reverts to a view of the real presence. The opening paragraph states that “the Bread which we break is a partaking of the Body of Christ; and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ. “[11] This is a change from the partaking of the “communion” to the partaking of Christ himself. While there still remains a section on transubstantiation, there is now a section clarifying the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This section states, “The Body of Christ is given, taken and eaten in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith.”[12] The position of partaking of Christ in faith is the position of the Church of England. What exactly this means and what posture a communicant should receive Christ in faith was still a matter of contention in the decades to come.

Charles II became king of England in 1660 and the Act of Uniformity 1662 ordered the Book of Common Prayer again to be the standard usage within the Church of England. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer came about after much deliberation between Presbyterians and Anglicans in the 1661 Savoy Conference.[13] As with the 1552 Black Rubric, the 1662 states that in kneeling, “thereby no adoration is intended.”[14] The 1662 uses similar language to the 1552 regarding no adoration of the bread and wine, and the bread and wine remain bread and wine, while “the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven.”[15] The 1662 Book of Common Prayer remains the official version of the Book of Common Prayer used by the Church of England, with the Black Rubric still in its original place.

The Black Rubric Today

 While the 1662 Book of Common Prayer remains the version of The Book of Common Prayer used in the Church of England today, there are two different prominent prayer books used in America: the 1928 and 1979 versions.  The 1928 and 1979 Book of Common Prayer used by The Episcopal Church and other Continuing Anglican jurisdictions do not contain the Black Rubric. However, this does not mean that these editions did away with kneeling. The rubric for Holy Communion in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer states that the minister(s) give communion “to the People also in order, into their hands, all devoutly kneeling.”[16] This is keeping with the 1662 Book of Common Prayer that states, “and, after that to the people also in order, into their hands, all meekly kneeling.”[17] The 1979 Book of Common Prayer does not prescribe kneeling for the communicants, stating “The ministers receive the Sacrament in both kinds, and then immediately deliver it to the people. The minister gives the Bread and the Cup to the communicants with these words.”[18] Thus, different versions of the Book of Common Prayer use the tradition of the Black Rubric in different ways.

Conclusion

The history of the Black Rubric is a debate over the right belief given to God during the service of Holy Communion through the reception of the Eucharist. Many Episcopal/Anglican churches still use the practice of kneeling as the communicant receives the bread and wine. Whether one receives the Sacrament kneeling or standing, it is important to remember the words before the service of Holy Communion, to “repent you truly for your sins past; have a lively and steadfast faith in Christ our Saviour; amend your lives, and be in perfect charity with all men; so shall ye be meet partakers of those holy mysteries.”[19]

The Rev. Tanner Moore is an Anglican deacon and a PhD student in history at Purdue University.

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[1] The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, “Black Rubric,” Accessed July 11, 2019. https://wwwoxfordreferencecom.ezproxy.lib.purdue.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780199659623.001.0001/acref-9780199659623-e-720.

[2] ******This is the original language. I figured I would insert the black rubric in its original 1552 form as various versions of the Book of Common Prayer do not contain the original Black Rubric. I can modernize the spelling if you like to make it easier to read if you would like.

The Book of Common Prayer, “The Order for the Administracion of the Lordes Supper, or Holye Communion,” http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1552/Communion_1552.htm

[3] A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation, Second Edition. (University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1974). 278.

[4] Thomas Cranmer, Ten Articles of Religion, 1534. 4.

[5] Thomas Cranmer, Six Articles of Religion, 1539. 2.

[6] Peter Lombard, The Sentences. Book 4, Distinction X, ch. 2., 4.

[7] Ibid., 359.

[8] For a much more detailed analysis on this change, I recommend Torrance Kirby’s article “Lay Supremacy: Reform of the canon law of England from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I (1529–1571)”

[9] Church of England, Forty-Two Articles of Religion, 1553. XXIX.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Church of England, Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, 1571. XXVIII.

[12] Ibid.

[13] John Spurr, The Restoration Church of England. (New Haven and London, Yale University Press. 1991) 40.

[14] The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, “The Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion,” Accessed July 12, 2019. http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1662/HC.pdf.

[15] The 1662  Book of Common Prayer, “The Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion,” Accessed July 12, 2019.  http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1662/HC.pdf..

[16] The 1928  Book of Common Prayer, “The Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion,” Accessed July 12, 2019.  http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1928/HC.htm.

[17] The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, “The Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion,” Accessed July 12, 2019. http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1662/HC.pdf.

[18] The 1979 Book of Common Prayer, “The Holy Eucharist,” Accessed July 12, 2019. http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/euchr1.pdf.

[19] The 1928  Book of Common Prayer, “The Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, or Holy Communion,” Accessed July 12, 2019. http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1928/HC.htm.

As we confess that vain and rash Swearing is forbidden Christian men by our Lord Jesus Christ, and James his Apostle, so we judge, that Christian Religion doth not prohibit, but that a man may swear when the Magistrate requireth, in a cause of faith and charity, so it be done according to the Prophet’s teaching in justice, judgment, and truth.

by Edward Watson

Article 39 gets scant attention in the commentaries (surely the pinnacle and climax of the whole, that to which we have been building towards all along…). For the most it’s merely noted that the article asserts the propriety of Christians swearing oaths in secular court, appeals to Matthew 5:33-37 and James 5:12 notwithstanding. And it is sometimes asserted that this was to contradict Anabaptist extremism, which made Christian participation in secular legal matters a bit difficult.

Despite the sparseness of the commentary I’ve been able to find, however, there are several weighty theological mechanisms at work here. I’m going to briefly outline three of them—namely, the mode of exegesis; assumptions regarding the relationship between Christian Religion and magistrate; and Christian responsibility to any given legal apparatus—then end by suggesting how this might inform contemporary practice.

Exegesis

Article 39 exemplifies the long-standing Christian practice of complicating simple Bible prescriptions in light of complicated times. Matthew 5:33-37 is pretty unequivocal: 

you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You should not swear falsely but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let you word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one.

This does not leave a lot left to swear by, and one can safely assume that Jesus’ exhaustiveness is supposed to indicate a total proscription. James 5:12, meanwhile, is equally stern. James concludes his invocation to remain patient and steadfast in suffering by imploring “above all, my beloved, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your ‘Yes’ be yes and your ‘No’ be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.”

In both cases, then, swearing any oath for any reason by any thing is prohibited. In the one case, any oath comes from the Devil. On the other, it brings the swearer under condemnation. Nonetheless, the law of the land require oaths to be sworn for the magistrate to do their work—legal systems require the ritualization of performative utterances to reify their otherwise intangible powers. And since the Church of England is committed to the law of the land, there must be a way of allowing this. 

This should not be read simplistically as subordinating the biblical interpretation to extra-biblical concerns. After all, the state itself and its laws were often seen as a Biblically grounded good (c.f. William Tyndale’s The Obedience of a Christian Man, for example). And rather than overtly prioritizing the secular court over God’s Word, the article reads the Bible with itself to carve out room a qualification. It does not deny the import of these passages, but sets them against Jeremiah 4:2—”if you swear ‘as the Lord lives!’ in truth, in justice, and in uprightness, then nations shall be blessed by God, and by God they shall boast”—so that a principled exception is thrown into relief. 

This passage thus illuminates a pattern of exegesis whereby practical concerns influence how different biblical passages are set and weighed against each other to articulate a coherent principle which cannot be derived from either in isolation. That is, it illuminates the mechanisms behind how the unity of the Scriptural witness is articulated. Irrespective of whether these mechanisms should be at work—and there are times when they give rise to death-dealing versions of faith—it is more or less undeniable that Biblical exegesis has always been inflected by the ultimate concerns of the day. As such, it is also true that these concerns have given rise to the drawing of different relations, the different weighting of different related passages, and so to different ‘wholes’ constituted by the same raw material. The Bible is not and can never be just ‘one’ totality. And which totality it is can never be independent of what most concerns those trying to read it faithfully, whether these concerns are in keeping with the Christian witness or not.

Christian Religion and Magistrate

The dynamics between political and Christian faithfulness driving this exegesis are given concrete form in the relationship between ‘Christian Religion’ and ‘the Magistrate.’ It is not to much to say that there is some kind of Two Cities picture at work, as the City of God negotiates with the strictures of 16th century London. It is also probably possible to paint some sort of ‘Christ and/over/above/below/within/against culture’ picture within Article 39. 

It is more interesting here to focus on the granular relations within this particular relationship, however, than a more abstract picture—not least because this lends more meat to the exegetical principles at work. We have the Magistrate ‘requiring,’ a term with multiple resonances. On the one hand, to say ‘I require’ can be a veiled command; one might call to mind, for example, the frontispiece of British passports, stating with an all too imperial confidence that ‘her Britannic Majesty’s Secretary of State requests and requires’ that the bearer be allowed free passage. On the other, it can be a term of real need; I require food, friendship, grace, and my requiring is not articulated from a position of strength. Then we have the Christian religion, which does not ‘prohibit,’ but which allows, that this act be done according to the Prophet’s teaching. 

The implication, of course, is that such prohibition is the province of this religion—that if the magistrate gets what they require, it is because the Christian religion allows it. And in this implication, in the interplay of requirement and prohibition, each term is folded over in its ambiguity. The ‘requirement’ of the law may well be that of the British passport. After all, the application of this law is the exercise of sovereignty. The court is not just a place where justice is meted out, but the space through which power is made manifest and immanent in punishment and reward. But the paradox of this sovereignty is that once it ceases to be performed—once the oath is no longer taken—then it ceases to be power. For all its might, in light of which it can require whatever it asks of anyone, it requires that what it asks be given if it is to maintain this might. The Christian religion, oddly enough, can deny this requirement. It will not—it does not prohibit, but allows. But it has this power to prohibit, which is not itself subject to the double-sided nature of the Magistrate’s requirement.

The folds of this implication now offer a different illumination of the exegetical tension. It is entirely possible, perhaps plausible, that the practical concern is driving exegetical necessity—we must be able to swear oaths in court, therefore the Bible must be interpreted in this way. Insofar as this is true, the presumption of the Christian religion to ‘prohibit’ is a feint, more than anything. The cleric would never deny the requirement of the magistrate. Even if this was the reality, however, the feint can take on the substance of a different intention. Because now that what might have been necessary has in fact been allowed, then the memorialization of that necessity inscribed a different order of power. The prohibition need not just be a matter of saving face: whatever Christian reads this article and assents to swear an oath in court now no longer does so on the basis of obeisance to an imperial requirement, but in condescension to a needful one. 

In an odd way, that is, the potential bending of the Biblical witness to meet the magistrate’s requirement means that the the magistrates power may itself have now been bent out of shape. Because the possibility of denying this requirement now shows the paucity and fragility of the law. Of course, there is a sense in which this fragility can seem a matter of wordplay—the power of the state is a real power, and it can crush those who resist it. This claim should also not be taken to mean that the magistrate serves no real purpose; it is good that there be justice, and the law can and should be an instrument of this justice. But even if the law can uphold itself with violence, and especially if in its injustice it shows itself to be of the evil one, it still hovers over a void. And even when the Bible is bent to permit the papering of this void, this bending can still bear witness to the void behind the magistrate contrasted to the fullness of God’s power.

The Christian and Law

A final consequence of this bending—perhaps the climax of the Article themselves!—is the condition inserted into the magistrate’s realm. The Christian religion does not prohibit the swearing of oaths here; the stern asceticism of the mount compromises with the requirement of the court. But this is only if that oath is made ‘according to the Prophet’s teaching, in justice, judgement, and truth.’ 

Again, it is entirely possible that these words are a rationalization rather than a reordering of reasons. But whatever their intent, the requirement of the magistrate is rendered contingent upon the faithfulness and charity of the cause at hand. The Christian Religion does not prohibit the swearing of oaths under these conditions—and should these conditions be absent, Christians are prohibited from meeting the magistrate’s requirement. The apparent compromise between Scripture and legal authority can thus be read as an appropriation of that authority. And if it can be read this way, then the Christian has no responsibility to the law in and of itself, but only insofar as the law is responsible to justice. Or, in other words, Article 39 is a veiled argument for the claim that every Christian should consider themselves “Chaotic Good.”

To summarize: there is always an encounter between Christian faith and the faithfulness required by secular power. The demands of this latter faithfulness always inflect how the raw material of Christian faith is interpreted, and so the whole it is seen to be. This can have disastrous effects, such as when the core principles of that faith are rendered  subservient to death-dealing powers. In this particular case, however, the encounter between Christian Religion and Magistrate does not merely qualify Jesus’ words to meet secular necessity (though it may indeed do just this). It also shows that even if this necessity is more psychologically entrenched, the requirement which grounds that necessity is characterized by an ambiguity which in turn bears witness to that power’s groundlessness. And it shows that even in stretching the words of Christ to allow this necessity, these words perform a displacement of their own. For not only is the void behind worldly power borne witness to—the conditions of obedience, of oath swearing, ultimately deny that power, and prohibit the Christian from obeying it apart from the cause of faith and charity.

Edward Watson is a student at Yale Divinity School, studying for an MAR in Theology.

The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same; as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability.

by Josh Davis

Many make the mistake of assuming that Article 38 is primarily concerned with opposing Anabaptist theology and practice. This is an understandable conclusion, since Anabaptists are mentioned. But the role of Anabaptism in the article is intended more to be prejudicial to the more fundamental matter in question, which is land and the private property rights to its use. Article 38 appears in both Cranmer’s Forty-Two Articles (1552), written under Edward VI, and Matthew Parker’s Thirty-Nine Articles (1563), written under Elizabeth, and the wording is identical. Consequently, whether leaning toward Calvinism with Cranmer or comprehensiveness under Elizabeth, the Church’s support for these class privileges was incontestable. As R. H. Tawney wrote of the sixteenth-century England and the Tudors specifically:

The age is a commercial one in the sense that much attention is given by Governments from the reign of Henry VII. onwards to fostering the conditions which promote trade and industry.…no one who looks at the Statutes, or the Acts of the Privy Council, or the Domestic State Papers for the reigns of Henry VII., Henry VIII., and Elizabeth, can fail to realise that much of the time of Governments is occupied with devising measures which are intended to hasten industrial and commercial development. There is a settled habit of mind with regard to these matters which is quite conscious of its ends, though its means may often be ill-chosen. Every one is agreed that the encouragement of trade is the duty of the Prince.[1]

Though most readers of Thirty-Nine Articles will be more familiar with the theological and historical controversies that informed them, the importance of Article 38 cannot be appreciated apart from an awareness of English economic history. Ancient laws and customs of common property were a cornerstone of English agrarian social relations prior to the sixteenth century, and these laws began to be overturned in the sixteenth century by the rising merchant classes, devastating rural villages and revolutionizing the English economy and ultimately all of Europe’s as well. Article Thirty-Eight is most remarkable for the unequivocal stand it takes in favor of private property over against traditional land use rights, and for deploying ecclesial authority to associate those rights with heresy, religious innovation, and aberrant “enthusiasm.” [2]

What is it that is being presented as a religious aberration? It was rare for Anabaptist groups to prohibit personal ownership. Most groups maintained a “kitchen-sack” from which members’ needs were secured out of the surplus of the personal goods of other members.[3] Since the article upholds the centrality of giving “liberally” to the poor according to one’s ability, it’s the practice of holding communal rights to the use of personal property when needed that is denounced.

Historians characterize these transformations in English agriculture as revolutionary, a wholesale and “complete transformation of the most basic human relations and practices, a rupture in age-old patterns of human interaction with nature.”[4] For centuries, agrarian peasants in England relied on legal regulations of land rights and use that sustained their villages, preserved the land, ensured agricultural produce was equitably distributed, and that the community’s most vulnerable members were cared for. As Wood writes, “[i]n England, there were many such practices and customs. There existed common lands, on which members of the community might have grazing rights or the right to collect firewood, and there were various other kinds of use rights on private land, such as the right to collect the leavings of the harvest during specified periods of the year.”[5]

By the sixteenth century, though, England’s economy had developed some strikingly unique ways, compared to its European contemporaries. The English monarchy was much more centralized than European states like France. England did not have a fragmented legal, military, and aristocratic powers, all of whom insisted on autonomy and privileges distinct from the crown. These different powers derived their privileges from the monarch, and that power was concentrated in the control of land. In France, for example, landed aristocrats had military and legal power at their disposal, which they used to coerce rents from the serfs who farmed their lands. Because this was not the case in England, the English aristocracy were inordinately dependent on the efficiency and productivity of its farming tenants. It relied on innovative, nonmilitary means of coercion to compel tenants to improve their lands.

The most effective and sustainable way to do so was by establishing a bidding market for access to productive land. Since advantage in these markets was given to the most productive tenants, the agrarian communal life itself was fractured as members competed for access to land. As more productive farmers were given yet more land access, inefficient and unproductive tenants were turned into beggars and vagabonds. This competition led to new farming techniques and technologies and led to a completely unique for of social relations in England, based on these new labor and land markets. In fact, everything, even social reproduction, became dependent on markets. Social life was compelled by “imperatives of competition, accumulation, and profit-maximization, and hence a constant systemic need to develop the productive forces.”[6]

In order for lands to be improved in these ways, the customs that agricultural production had to be eliminated. And the most effective way of doing this was through land enclosures. An enclosure of communal property was “not simply a physical fencing of land but the extinction of common and customary use rights on which many people depended for their livelihood.”[7] The first important enclosures occurred throughout the sixteenth century, as landed aristocrats drove tenants from their lands, which in most instances became sheep farms. The sheep on these farms were raised as commodities, that is, not for the use value of their meat and wool, but specifically to produce wool for textile markets. Not only were enclosures vitiating ancient rights as common lands were privatized, but agricultural products and animals themselves were valued for what they could be exchanged for, not as useful in themselves.

It is vital to recognize that enclosures were not simply removing fallow lands from possible cultivation, but these acts destroyed people’s homes and caused a massive increase in homelessness and poverty. Enclosures were the way that landed aristocrats dispossessed their tenants, eliminating their direct access to productive land, and forced them into a competitive labor market where they had to accept a wage for their labor. The numbers of agricultural workers grew because of enclosures, but none of these workers possessed what they needed to reproduce themselves. Where the social relationship between lord and tenant had previously been an objective, transparent form of domination, it was now hidden beneath the impersonal demands of the market, or what Marx so skillfully described as “a material relation between people and a social relation between things.”[8]

The transformation of the whole social order, based on these labor markets, happened in sudden, destructive, and radical ways throughout the sixteenth century. Riots protesting enclosures were common during the sixteenth century, and protests continued into the seventeenth, but by the time of the Glorious Revolution in 1688, the rights of the landholding classes had been consolidated that the defense of common land rights was virtually eliminated.[9]

Given the important role that the Thirty-Nine Articles played in the English Reformation and in establishing the ethos of the Church of England, one must not underestimate the place of Article 38 in supporting this upheaval in English social relations or in the support it lent to sustaining private property, wage labor, and market competition in the centuries that followed. It is not just that Article 38 sullies the traditions that preserved English agricultural life up to the sixteenth century by associating arguments in their favor with Anabaptism and heresy, but it promotes a social vision and understanding or property that was radically innovative in its time but which is taken for granted by us today. Indeed, so much is this the case that it can be difficult even to see that private property is not intrinsic to human nature.

Regardless of what conclusions one draws about the ethical obligations Christians have with respect to common property, there can be no plausible justification for private property as it here defended by Article 38, “as touching the right, title, and possession” of “[t]he riches and goods of Christians.” When defended according to these terms, it is impossible to uphold Paul’s definition of the Christian community as the Body of Christ. As Hegel so poignantly noted, the claim that private property is a universal, rational imperative for humans, as Kant did, is riven by contradictions. After all, property is only private when it is not universal. The significance of private property right is that it grants the privilege of excepting something from the common whole. But the exception cannot also be the rule; the relative cannot be absolute, the conditioned cannot be unconditioned, the contingent cannot be necessary. And thus, Hegel concludes, while it may appear on its face that violating the sanctity of private property is immoral, in fact, what is truly immoral is the attempt to universalize the obligation not to violate private property.[10] Doing so violates the proper order, attempts to derive the universal and absolute from the relative and contingent, rather than vice versa.

Put in more concrete terms, if we follow the directive of Article 38 that “riches and goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same,” then we can no longer speak of the role that a Christian, as a member of the Body of Christ, plays in that Body—“The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you”; “Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor. 12:21; 27)—but must instead attempt to make the extraordinary claim that what binds Christians together as members of Christ is that we are all exceptions to him. Ensnared by this contradiction, political, economic, ecclesial, and theological reasoning is deformed. It becomes, simply, irrational and ideological. The issue here is not simply an error in thought or reason (theological or otherwise), but a malfunction of social life. The universal demand to honor private property rights is not only fundamentally irrational and ideological, but the destruction of the very possibility of the common good.

But the most salient and vital point to make here is that Article 38 is, albeit unwittingly, idolatrous. It elevates a relative part of the world to the absolute. The social world of private property distorts our understanding of the natural world, and forges with its hands a god to preside over this disordered world, always bearing done on us, compelling our devotion and sacrifices: Capitalism.

Josh Davis is the Dean of the Alabama Integrative Ministry School (AIMS). He has previously taught at the General Theological Seminary. Most recently, he is the editor of Misrecognitions: Gillian Rose and the Task of Political Theology. He is also the co-editor with Douglas Harink of Apocalyptic and the Future of Theology. 

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[1] R. H. Tawney. “The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century,” 177ff.

[2] Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, 37.

[3] Karl Kautsky, Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation, 163–65.

[4] Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism, 95.

[5] Wood, The Origin of Capitalism, 107.

[6] Ibid., 97.

[7] Wood, The Origin of Capitalism, 108.

[8] Karl Marx, Capital, ch 1

[9] Wood, The Origin of Capitalism, 108.

[10] Hegel, Natural Law, 77ff.

The Power of the Civil Magistrate extendeth to all men, as well Clergy as Laity, in all things temporal; but hath no authority in things purely spiritual. And we hold it to be the duty of all men who are professors of the Gospel, to pay respectful obedience to the Civil Authority, regularly and legitimately constituted.

The original 1571, 1662 text of this Article reads as follows: “The King’s Majesty hath the chief power in this Realm of England, and other his Dominions, unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not, nor ought to be, subject to any foreign Jurisdiction. Where we attribute to the King’s Majesty the chief government, by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended; we give not our Princes the ministering either of God’s Word, or of the Sacraments, the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testify; but that only prerogative, which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself; that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil-doers.

The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this Realm of England.

The Laws of the Realm may punish Christian men with death, for heinous and grievous 
offences.

It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and serve in the wars.”

by the Rev. David Peters

Guns are only mentioned once in the Book of Common Prayer (1979), here in the bolded portion of Article 37. “It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and serve in the wars.” I think of this often since I live in Texas, a state that is an “open carry” state, where gun ownership is often justified for keeping the government in check as it is for home defense. 

“To be equipped like a basic infantry soldier” is how a friend of mine interprets the 2nd Amendment of the Bill of Rights. However we interpret the 2nd Amendment, we can be sure that our interpretation will stir great controversy whenever we proclaim it.  

Both Article 37 and the 2nd Amendment were both born in the crucible of the Revolutionary War. In fact, Article 37 was entirely deleted by William White, our first Presiding Bishop in 1801 at the gathering that adopted our current Articles. On September 12th in Trenton, New Jersey, we passed the following resolution:

“The Articles to stand as in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, with the following alterations and omissions, viz……..The 37th Article to be omitted, and the following substituted in its place: Art. XXXVII. Of the Power of the Civil Magistrate. ‘The power of the civil magistrate extendeth to all men, as well Clergy as Laity, in all things temporal; but hath no authority in things purely spiritual. And we hold it to be the duty of all men who are professors of the gospel, to pay respectful obedience to the civil authority, regularly and legitimately constituted.’”

Article 37 was so English, so ill-fitted to the new American nation, that it was deleted in its entirety. It is in the deleted portions of Article 37 that guns are mentioned. “It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and serve in the wars.” These words are still printed in italics in the 1979 book, clearly showing that this sentence is a vestige of an earlier tradition. That the Articles are called “Historical Documents” places these deleted, italicized Articles as being even less in force for current Episcopalians. 

And yet, as I read the “new” article alongside the original English article, I am struck by how timely this discussion is in both Church and civil circles. 

Want to stir up a hot debate on Twitter? Tweet that you think the American flag should be placed in the Nave. Want to get even hotter? State that you think every Christian should, as a duty to protect their neighbor, carry a concealed weapon. And wait, there’s more—should a Christian serve in the military? Should a Christian president order a nuclear strike on North Korea if they fire a nuclear missile at one of our allies? 

That William White deleted this article, in its entirety, fits well with what I’ve read about the national mood at the end of the Revolutionary War. White had endured the war, while serving as the long-time rector of Christ Church in Philadelphia. He owned no enslaved people, and his letter about George Washington’s aversion to taking communion is our only source on the matter. He was chaplain to the Continental Congress, and the first Bishop consecrated in London by the official Church of England bishops. He ordained most of the priests following the war, and his writings on how the new Protestant Episcopal Church should be structured won the day at the first General Convention. 

If George Washington is the father of America, William White is the father of The Episcopal Church. Therefore, it is little surprise his rewrite of Article 37 was adopted as the new theology of how our Church relates to the Government. 

Article 37 needed to be deleted. Just read it. It’s a complex argument that involves the throne of England, and the complex relationship between the “prince” and the church authorities that was in constant tension during the medieval and early modern period. It’s amazing it is as short as it is, given all the incidents that happened over the years between Church and Crown. We remember that the murder of Thomas Becket in his cathedral was over a dispute about civil authorities’ jurisdiction over the clergy. 

But America didn’t have a king, a crown, or a prince. We didn’t have anything close to what England had in the way of a class of state-church clergy either. All we had was this fledgeling, divisive Congress and a man named George Washington who held it all together. As I read the history of this time, I can see how the Constitution set the tone for Article 37. Two years before the General Convention of 1801 the 2nd Amendment was ratified: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This is in sharp contrast to the corresponding statement in the original, English 37th Article, “It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and serve in the wars.” George Washington’s Continental Army didn’t work this way. The Continental Army was a collection of state militias and volunteers, that Washington eventually turned into a more unified fighting force. That weapons could only be worn during war was absurd in a post-war American military situation, as the threat of British Invasion loomed, not to mention the Spanish threat. Add to this the Americans’ rapid expansion west, thus provoking Native American resistance.  Guns were also used to prevent enslaved people from escaping or revolting. The Haitian Revolution shocked early Americans, and they doubled down on their abusive and racist policies of subjugating the thousands of enslaved people they “owned.” The legacy of slavery still looms large in our current discussion of gun rights. 

The idea that anyone in America needed permission from the Magistrate to “bear arms” or “wear weapons” was absurd at this time. In medieval and early modern England, however, weapons were regulated in the extreme. It was absurd that commoners would be encouraged to be seen with a weapon. War was an activity that flowed from the throne, to the nobility, and on down to the army that was drawn from the commoners of the realm. It was a communal activity, regulated by all the institutions that both exploited and protected the weak. Waging war and bearing arms was not an individual right in England. But, in the new world, it was, at least for white, Christian men. 

The emphasis in the new 37th Article is on the equality of laypersons and clergy persons. In the Medieval period, there were separate laws for numerous orders of clergy and another for everyone else. Many of the civil-church controversies revolved around this issue. The new 37th Article makes it clear all the laws apply to everyone, whether ordained or not. This fit well with the new Constitution which forbids recognizing titles of nobility and other trappings of the old world. In America, everyone was equal under the law—an early principle that eventually led to women and non-whites being included in this number. 

The authority of civil government over all things temporal, but not spiritual, is significant. In our contemporary world, I think often about this difference. The rector who asserts that they are not responsible for the building—“things temporal”—but only for the liturgy may survive for a while, but eventually these two spheres blur. But all spheres blur eventually—the domestic and civic, the church and state, the personal and the professional. Can any of us keep a rigid line between them?

But this is the point of Article 37. There is a line between the temporal and the spiritual. While it is not clear where this line always is, it is there. I find this question being asked, often implicitly, in all our current controversies. The debates around human sexuality, war, and economics are a struggle to find just where this line is. When I read the the Gospels and the rest of the  New Testament, it often seems like there isn’t any clear line. So much of our thinking about where this line is comes out of our post-Constantinian imagination. The notion of a Christian nation has taken a long time to sort out and we have not arrived at a settled opinion yet. Perhaps Article 37, in its simplicity, helps us sort this out a bit. 

The line, at least for the writers of Article 37, hinges on civil quthority  “regularly and legitimately constituted.” This is a key phrase for early Americans that harks back to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It may even go further back, to the Magna Carta and English parliamentary thought. That the government should be constituted by the people is a groundbreaking assertion in the US Constitution. In fact, “legitimately constituted” makes it clear what kind of government should be obeyed in things temporal. For early Americans and early Episcopalians alike, it was believed there was always a time to disobey the civil authorities. This was the argument of the Declaration of Independence. The continual neglect of the government justified revolt and rebellion. Unfortunately, the civil authorities rarely consent to such disobedience. The sad legacy of democracy is cyclical revolution in many places around the world. The tragic legacy of our own Civil War still lingers in popular imagination and national politics. 

The point I take from Article 37 is that there is always a tension between the authority of the Church and the authority of our  community. Our Anglican heritage tells us we should participate in both, always praying, guessing, and discerning what is spiritual and what is temporal. This is hard for congregations to do, especially in a post-Trump world where airing our grievances against Trump or siding with him are major dividing points in our common life. It is in the coffee hour that these themes often emerge, if not in sermons. Can Article 37 help us sort out how we as parish-based Christians relate to the divisive politics today? I think it can. 

The vagueness of Article 37 should give us hope for our Church. Can any of us decide the definitive line between the temporal and the spiritual? Can any of us decide that for a group of a hundred, a thousand, or a million? It is telling that our current Presiding Bishop has spent more time with the Royal Family in England than with the President’s family in DC or Mar-A-Lago. Even bishops must discern this line between the temporal and the spiritual, and they need our fervent prayers as they do this. 

So take heart, Christian. Anglicans have been working on this difficulty for a long time, and it has never been completely ironed out in a way that is transferable from nation to nation. The fact that this article was deleted in its entirety should tell us something about how we are all influenced by the political culture we inhabit. Article 37 makes it clear we should try, as best we can, to live as “professors of the Gospel.” There really is good news, and this good news can be professed by each of us, so that our whole society can continue to discern things temporal from things spiritual. 

David W. Peters is the author of three books, Death Letter: God, Sex, and War,Post-Traumatic God,and Christ Walk Crushed with Anna Courie. He is the host of two podcasts,  Dear Padre  and a serial podcast about moral injury and penance, The Ermenfrid Penitential. David serves as the vicar of www.saintjoans.org, a new church plant in the Diocese of Texas. 

“XXXVI. Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers.

The Book of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops, and Ordering of Priests and Deacons, lately set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth, and confirmed at the same time by authority of Parliament, doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering: neither hath it any thing, that of itself is superstitious and ungodly. And therefore whosoever are consecrated or ordered according to the Rites of that Book, since the second year of the forenamed King Edward unto this time, or hereafter shall be consecrated or ordered according to the same Rites; we decree all such to be rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordered.”

The 36^th Article, which has served as a source of much controversy over the last four centuries, chiefly concerns itself with the validity of the 1550 Ordinal. It has three key points – that it contains all things necessary to consecration/ordination, that it has nothing which of itself is superstitious and ungodly, and that all who are consecrated/ordained according to the book are rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated/ordained. These three points can be easily shown to defend the Ordinal against three different parties present in 16^th century England, namely the Roman Catholic Church, the Presbyterian party, and the Dissenters.

The first point, that the Ordinal contains all things necessary to consecration or ordination, aims to combat the claims that the Ordinal has a “defect of form and intention” compared to such liturgies as found in the Roman Pontifical. While broadly similar to the Roman rite in the use of a long consecratory prayer, the Veni, creator Spiritus, and the calling down of the Holy Spirit, the Edwardian Ordinal does represent a departure from the medieval Western tradition. Rather than focusing on “offering Christ for the quick and the dead, to have Remission of pain or guilt,” as the 31^st Article would put it, it suggests that the role of a priest is to firstly, preach the word of God, and secondly to minister the holy Sacraments. This is a severe difference from the Roman Rite, which suggests that “a priest’s duties are to offer sacrifice, to bless, to govern, to preach, and to baptize.” The essential form of the sacrament in the English Ordinal is essentially the prayer that Christ himself used in the upper room, when he appeared to the disciples and sent them – “Receive the Holy Ghost, whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven: and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained.”  To this is added a petition that the priest may be a faithful dispenser of the word of God and of his holy Sacraments. In no portion of this Ordinal is the priest ever suggested to offer a sacrifice in the same way a Roman priest would. The same is true of the Ordinal in the Apostolic Constitutions – presbyters are ordained to “assist and govern [God’s] people with a pure heart,” not to offer a sacrifice.

The Roman Pontifical has a quite different prayer – “Almighty Father, we pray that you bestow on these servants of yours the dignity of the priesthood. Renew in their hearts the spirit of holiness, so that they may be steadfast in this second degree of the priestly office received from you, O God, and by their own lives suggest a rule of life to others.” This demonstrates the second major Roman objection to the English Ordinal – the lack of explicit reference to the priesthood or presbyterate in the essential form of the rite. The same is true, also, of the consecration of Bishops, for which the essential prayer is “Take the Holy Ghost, and remember that thou stir up the grace of God, which is in thee, by imposition of hands: for God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and love, and of soberness.” A common thread appears in the English Ordinal that is only incidentally present in the Roman form, namely, a description of the essential duty of bishops and priests. For priests, it is the remission of sins, for bishops, the imposition of hands. The Roman form naturally includes the duties of the priest throughout the text, but the essential form of the rite only includes a passing reference to “suggesting a rule of life to others.” The prayer for ordination as found in Book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions shows itself as an ancestor of the Edwardian Ordinal, with the essential form being as follows – “Now look down also upon this your servant, who is put into the presbytery by the vote and determination of the whole clergy; and replenish him with the Spirit of grace and counsel, to assist and govern your people with a pure heart, in the same manner as you looked down upon your chosen people, and commanded Moses to choose elders, whom you filled with Your Spirit.” The second clause orders the new presbyter to “assist and govern” just as God does for us. This is a strong assertion of an essential aspect of the presbyteral ministry, though it is different than that which is found in the English Ordinal. It should be noted that the Apostolic Constitutions does maintain the explicit reference to the office to which the individual is ordered, and even to the manner of their choosing. The English Ordinal does, however, in the longer form of the ordering prayer, refer to the ordinands as “ministers,” while the Apostolic Constitutions only refer to it in what can be called the essential form. In either case, the ministry and explicit duties are imposed by the Holy Ghost in all three forms, Roman, English, and Apostolic. This imposition of duties by the Spirit is, without a doubt, the necessary form of the ordination.

The second point, that the Ordinal has nothing which of itself is superstitious and ungodly, aims to combat the claims that the Ordinal, or specifically the ceremonial directions contained therein, are contrary to the word of God or ritualistic. The rubrics in question from the 1550 Ordinal are as follows –

Bishops

After the Gospel and Creed ended, first the elected Bishop having upon him a Surplice and Cope shall be presented by two Bishops (being also in surplices and copes, and having their pastoral staffs[1] in their hands) unto the Archbishop of that Province, or to some other Bishop appointed by his commission.

Then the Archbishop shall lay the Bible upon his neck, saying.

Then shall the Archbishop put into his hand the pastoral staff, saying…

Priests

And then the Archdeacon shalt present unto the Bishop, all them that shall receive the order of Priesthood that day, every of them having upon him a plain Alb.

The Bishop shall deliver to every one of them, the Bible in the one hand, and the Chalice or cup with the bread, in the other hand, and saying…

Deacons

After the exhortation ended, the Archdeacon, or his deputy, shall present such as come to be admitted to the Bishop every one of them, that are presented, having upon him a plain Alb.

The primary objection to these ceremonial rubrics is the elevation of the minister (whether they be deacon, priest, or bishop) over the laity. This sentiment isn’t expressed solely by the Continental party in the Reformation-era English Church. In fact, an early example can be found in a letter from Pope Celestine I[2], in which he argues against the adoption of new clerical dress by the churches of Gaul, saying “[Bishops[3]] must be distinguished from the common people and the rest by our learning, and not by our clothes; by our mode of life, and not by our costume; by purity of mind, and not by elegance of dress. For if we begin to busy ourselves with novelties, we shall tread under foot the traditions handed down to us from the fathers in order to make room for worthless superstitions.”[4]

This last sentence is key to our understanding of the use of vestments and other ritual in the 1550 Ordinal – they are not novelties. They do not represent a break with the catholic tradition found in England prior to the Reformation in the same way that a black academic gown worn by the minister at Communion might. Ultimately, as the First Prayer Book puts it, the goal of Cranmer and by extension Matthew Parker is to maintain the “Godly and decent order of the ancient fathers.” This practice, hearkening back to the ancient Church, reflects a far more utilitarian use for vestments than that of the Roman Church, or in many ways, the modern Anglican church. The deliberate choice of an alb contrary to a surplice, or the delivery of chalices and scripture contrary to the delivery of a pastoral staff, serve not to create theological differences, but merely to ensure godly order in the church, and remind the ordinand of their duties.

It should be noted that at the time of the Thirty-Nine Articles’ adoption (1571), all of the aforementioned ceremonial rubrics had been removed from the Ordinal. However, Parker’s Advertisements require that at a minimum, all ministers saying public prayers “shall wear a comely surplice with sleeves,” and that in cathedral or collegiate churches “the principal minister shall use a cope with gospeller and epistoler agreeably.” While this does not restore all the manual acts found in the 1550 Ordinal, basic vestments were required, and the delivery of the Bible was maintained. The change in rubrics reveals even more clearly the principle behind Anglican vestments and ritual – the maintenance of godly order. Quite contrary to the claims that surplices and copes are ‘popish rags’ with superstitious meaning, they reflect the desire of St. Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, saying “Let all things be done decently and in order.”

The third point, that all who are consecrated/ordained according to the Ordinal are rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated/ordained, aims to combat not a claim, but rather, the Non-conformist/Dissenting Party found in 16^th/17^th century England. This point is not so much a theological proposition as it is an enforcement of English law. The At the ordering of priests and deacons, as well as the consecration of bishops, the 1559 Ordinal mandated that the following oath be sworn:

I A. B. do utterly testify and declare in my conscience that the Queen’s highness is the only supreme Governour of this Realm and of all other her highness’ dominions and countries, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes: as temporal, and that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate, hath or ought to have any jurisdiction, power, superiority, preeminence or authority ecclesiastical or spiritual within this realm, and therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all foreign jurisdictions, powers, superiorities, and authorities, and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear faith and true allegiance to the Queen’s highness, her heirs and lawful successors, and to my power shall assist and defend all jurisdictions, privileges, preeminences, and authorities granted or belonging to the Queen’s highness, her heirs and successors, or united and annexed to the imperial Crown of this realm, so help me God, and the contents of this book.

This oath is truncated compared to that found in the 1550 Ordinal, which presupposes that the main opponent to the royal supremacy would be the Bishop of Rome. In the post-Reformation era, this oath allowed the monarch to maintain ceremonies, polities, doctrines, and other various ecclesiastical issues which would have been gotten rid of had it been a decision made by the church herself. Abp. Parker used this idea of the royal supremacy in his Advertisements, so as to claim the backing of the Crown. The strict legality of Anglican ordinations/consecrations by English law can be contrasted with the ordination of dissenters, non-conformists, and later in the history of English religion, the non-jurors. All these parties presumed to ordain and consecrate without the permission of the established government.

However, Article 19 states that “the visible Church of Christ is a Congregation of Faithful men, in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly Ministered, according to Christ’s Ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.” This would, according to some, vindicate those who establish themselves outside of the established church. In order to combat this, the final clause of Article 36 is necessary.

These three key points establish the basis for episcopal polity in the reformed English Church, as well as protect conservative elements of ritual and ceremonial and the established church. It can be argued that this is one of the most “catholic” or “orthodox” of the articles, insofar as it ensures both a catholic form of government and a catholic form of worship. The near-Erastian implications of the third clause, however, leave the appellation of this article subject to debate. Perhaps through further study, we may find some greater truth or understanding of our theology through this Article and the Ordinal it rests on.

Jacob Hootman is a lay reader at St. Laurence Anglican Church in Southlake, Texas. He also serves as a member of the Liturgy and Worship Task Force of the Anglican Church in North America.

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[1] This, no doubt, refers to the crozier.

[2] 422-432 AD

[3] The Latin word used is “sacerdotes.” It should be taken here to mean Bishop, as Celestine is writing to the bishops of Gaul.

[4] Epistle IV, to the bishops of the provinces of Vienne and Narbonne (Labbé and Cossart and Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova Collectio, Florence, 1762; t. iv, col. 431).

The Second Book of Homilies, the several titles whereof we have joined under this Article, doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the former Book of Homilies, which were set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth; and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.

by Dr. Francis Young

Of those Articles of Religion that are most at risk of being accused of obsolescence, Article 35 on the Books of Homilies is surely a foremost candidate. The Article enjoins ministers to read the sermons from the Second Book of Homilies, published in its final form in 1571 and largely authored by the great Elizabethan Anglican apologist John Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury (1522–71). The Homilies are, in theory, the only book that stands alongside the Scriptures and the various versions of The Book of Common Prayer as a normative articulation of Anglican doctrine, yet the Homilies are so little known today that many Anglicans will never have heard of them. Indeed, a modern edition of the First and Second Books of Homilies was not even available until 2006.

Before considering the historical context of the Homilies, it is worth noting the ambiguous language of Article 35, which is phrased in such a way that it does not necessarily make the reading of the Homilies compulsory. The Article endorses the Homilies, which ‘contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine, and necessary for these times’; yet the Article does not ‘command’, but rather ‘judge[s] them to be read in Churches’. While the Article is explicit in its endorsement of Bishop Jewel’s Second Book of Homilies (even listing every one of the Homilies by name), its endorsement of the First Book of Homilies (1547), largely authored by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in the reign of Edward VI, is less clear. The Article compares the Second Book of Homilies with the First Book, which was necessary in the time of Edward VI just as the Second Book is necessary in the reign of Elizabeth, but there is no clear statement that the First Book remained relevant or appropriate after the Elizabethan Settlement. Is the Article saying that Jewel’s Homilies are relevant to the present as Cranmer’s were to the past, or that Jewel’s Homilies ought to be added to a deposit of faith already represented by Cranmer’s Homilies? As it stands, Article 35 cannot be read definitively as an endorsement of both Books of Homilies, but only as an explicit endorsement of the Second Book of Homilies.

The Books of Homilies served three main purposes. Firstly, the sermons within them articulated Anglican doctrine, especially Anglican positions in ecclesiology and soteriology, in much more detail than The Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles. Secondly, the sermons served as an accessible theological resource that underpinned the preaching of the clergy at a time when little distinctively Anglican theological writing yet existed, and the writings of the Continental Reformers were both hard to obtain and written in Latin. And thirdly, the Homilies could be read in place of a sermon by clergy (and, in some parishes, lay readers) who did not hold a licence to preach. It was this third purpose of the Homilies that was the most important, because licences to preach were strictly controlled by the Elizabethan bishops and issued sparingly. Some bishops regarded preaching as a specialist ministry, which should be confined to university-educated clergy or even doctors of divinity holding senior positions within the diocese, such as the cathedral clergy. At best, preaching licences were confined to incumbents in priest’s orders (bearing in mind that, before 1661, not all incumbents were in priest’s orders); the curates, perpetual curates and chaplains who were often responsible for the day-to-day running of the parish church rarely held a licence to preach.

The result of this was that readings from the Books of Homilies would have been a weekly experience for a large proportion of Elizabethan parishioners – a fact that enraged Puritans, who frequently railed against the bishops for limiting preaching licences, and against ‘non-preaching parsons’ for declining to preach anyway, with or without a licence. The Books of Homilies were thus a flashpoint in the conflict between Puritans and more willing conformists that simmered within the Church of England between the 1570s and the 1640s and eventually tore it apart. The role of the Homilies as sermon-substitutes is also a key reason why they became largely obsolete from the later seventeenth century onwards, as bishops became less cautious in their licensing of preachers. With the advent of toleration for nonconformists after the Revolution of 1688, the bishops became less concerned about controlling the preaching of Anglican clergy and more focussed on the preaching of Anglican orthodoxy in the first place. The Homilies faded into the background, a theological mainstay of an earlier age of universally-enforced religious conformity.

In contrast to the First Book of Homilies, which focussed on issues of systematic theology that characteristically preoccupied the Reformation theologians of the sixteenth century (Scripture, justification and the relationship between faith and works), the themes of the 21 sermons of the Second Book of Homilies are more practical. Homilies 1 and 2 address the importance of maintaining and correctly using the church building; Homilies 4–6 and 20–21 deal with moral conduct; Homilies 7–9 are about prayer. Homilies 12–14 and 17 are seasonally specific to Christmas, Passiontide, Easter and Rogationtide. The remaining Homilies tackle almsgiving (Homily 11), worthy reception of the Sacrament (Homily 15), the gifts of the Holy Spirit (Homily 16) and marriage (Homily 18). The Second Book of Homilies makes up for the potential shortcomings of the highly doctrinal First Book by recognising the importance of the material environment of the worshipper, the practicalities of worship, the seasonal life of the church, and the role of the church in moral exhortation and the policing of mores.

What, then, should we make of the continuing presence of an Article of Religion enjoining the use of the Book of Homilies? By contemporary homiletic standards, the Elizabethan homilies are surely unusable. Some are extremely lengthy (such as the notorious Homily 2, ‘Against Peril of Idolatry’) and the frequent appeals to the authority of the Church Fathers would sound strange in most modern sermons. Furthermore, the importance of the lectionary in the contemporary Anglican church makes it difficult to see where some of the themes of the Homilies would fit into the liturgical year. In some cases, the language used against other Christians, especially Roman Catholics, is inappropriate to the modern world – not to mention the difficulty that a contemporary congregation would experience in accessing early modern English.

No-one, therefore, would (or should) consider using the Books of Homilies for one of their original purposes – namely, reading them out in place of a sermon to the congregation. However, as we have seen, acting as substitute sermons was only one of the original purposes of the Homilies. The Homilies were also a compendium of Anglican doctrine and a theological resource for clergy writing sermons. In these two respects the Homilies remain as important as they ever were. They present the theology of the Church of England as it existed at a point when the clergy of the Established Church clearly understood themselves as part of the nascent Reformed tradition, but with distinctively English emphases and approaches in both doctrine and practice. Furthermore, the Homilies are a valuable reminder of the significance that not only Scripture, but also the Fathers of the Church, held for early Anglicans. Unlike other famous Anglican works such as John Jewel’s Apology for the Church of England and Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, the Homilies were not written as polemic for a learned academic audience, but rather for the common people: the man or woman in the pew. While the Homilies expected a rather longer attention span than we might find in a contemporary congregation, they cannot be written off as nothing more than excessively complex theological articulations thrust in the ears of ordinary folk, because the concerns they address are down-to-earth, pressing, and real.

The existence of the Homilies may trouble some Anglicans who cleave to the position that Anglican theology is defined solely by liturgy. This was not the intention of Cranmer and Jewel, who wanted to flesh out Anglican theology in as much detail as possible. On the other hand, the Homilies resemble the Articles in their adoption of nuanced theological positions and their continual insistence, especially in Jewel’s Second Book, on theological restraint (‘moderation’ is a somewhat misleading word to use in a sixteenth-century context of vehemently held religious views on all sides). The Homilies are simultaneously uncompromising and measured in tone; theologically comprehensive, yet straightforward; learned, yet practical (especially in the Second Book).

What can Anglicans do to reclaim and rediscover the Homilies? Editions of the Books of Homilies are now widely available, including a critical edition by Gerald Bray that shows the influence of the Homilies of 1547 on a set of Catholic homilies authored by Bishop Edmund Bonner in 1555 during Mary I’s reign, and the subsequent influence of those Catholic homilies on the Second Book of Homilies. What is needed next, perhaps, is an edition of the Homilies in modern English that will be accessible to the average contemporary parishioner – so that the Homilies can regain their position alongside The Book of Common Prayer as normative articulations of traditional Anglican theology and practice, a rich resource for the Anglican Communion that embodies the roots of Anglican faith.

Francis Young is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Reader in the Church of England. He is the author of 12 books including Inferior Office? A History of Deacons in the Church of England (2015) and A History of Anglican Exorcism (2018). He blogs at https://drfrancisyoung.com

by the Rev. Laurie Brock

Article 35, along with the other Articles of Religion, was adopted at the 1801 Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States, but Article 35 had a qualification added to its adoption. In modern parlance, the Convention agreed with the substance of the Article, but passed a resolution asking a task force to be convened to address the points of Article 35 with which many deputies and bishops disagreed, mainly, that the Books of Homilies had references to the constitution and laws of England that weren’t applicable to the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. 

218 years later, no task force has produced a revised Book of Homilies. 

Yet in a changing church, one where fewer clergy walk the path of a three-year seminary degree, where more clergy are serving congregations in a part-time or volunteer capacity, where some congregations are truly living a shared ministry of leadership between laity and clergy ministry, including the ministry of preaching, and where generations of those coming into the Christian community of the Episcopal Church have little or no familiarity of the Christian tradition, perhaps a conversation with our Anglican past and its insight about homilies, their importance, and their value in forming Christians is due a revisit. The original intent of the Books of Homilies, how they were needed and used in the Anglican Church and, by extension, the Episcopal Church, and the changing nature of the church makes the qualification added to the original passage of Article 35 as relevant as ever. 

Article 35 (Of the Homilies) states:

The Second Book of Homilies, the several titles whereof we have joined under this Article, doth contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the former Book of Homilies, which were set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth; and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.

Of the Names of the Homilies

1  Of the right Use of the Church.

2  Against Peril of Idolatry.

3  Of repairing and keeping clean of Churches.

4  Of good Works:  first of Fasting.

5  Against Gluttony and Drunkenness.

6  Against Excess of Apparel.

7  Of Prayer.

8  Of the Place and Time of Prayer.

9  That Common Prayers and Sacraments ought to be ministered in a known tongue.

10  Of the reverend Estimation of God’s Word.

11  Of Alms-doing.

12  Of the Nativity of Christ.

13  Of the Passion of Christ.

14  Of the Resurrection of Christ.

15  Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ.

16  Of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost.

17  For the Rogation-days.

18  Of the State of Matrimony.

19  Of Repentance.

20  Against Idleness.

21  Against Rebellion.

[This Article is received in this Church, so far as it declares the Book of Homilies to be an explication of Christian doctrine, and instructive in piety and morals. But all references to the constitution and laws of England are considered as inapplicable to the circumstances of this Church; which also suspends the order for the reading of said Homilies in churches, until a revision of them may be conveniently made, for the clearing of them, as well from obsolete words and phrases, as from the local references.]

The Books of Homilies were born from a Convocation of mostly-English bishops gathered in 1542. These bishops recognized the importance to educate both clergy and laity in the reformed tradition of the church, the Holy Scriptures, and the theology of Christianity and the sacraments. In the birthing of an expression of Christianity that celebrated the sacraments in the native languages of worshippers and that opened the Holy Scriptures to clergy and laity, Thomas Cranmer and other reformers recognized many clergy needed guidance in their homilies, as  the homily in the service was a focused time of formation and education on matters of import in the Christian faith. A letter from one bishop rather bluntly explains that they “agreed to make certain homilies for stay of such errors as were then by ignorant preachers sparkled among the people.” 

Preaching has its foundations in apostolic biblical account of the first followers of Jesus sharing the Good News by word and example. In the patristic period of the church, writings share of the reading of Holy Scripture, followed by admonitions and instruction to aid early Christians as they followed the teachings of Jesus. With Constantine’s official recognition of the Christian church, preaching was soon shaped by the Greek rhetorical proficiencies of the age. This was the age of the homiletical masterpieces of Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil the Great, and John Chrysostom (Chrysostom’s Easter Homily is, in this preacher’s opinion, one of the finest sermons ever preached). The homily became a tool of teaching and a reminder that worship included insight, formation, and learning. Settled in the context of prayer, praise, and communion, homilies informed the faithful of theology, spoke against the latest heresies of the church, and provided a conversation with the people and God about how Christians expressed and practiced their belief in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

Preaching continued to be influenced by the shifts and changes in Christianity. Various councils and correspondence reflect the growth of itinerant preachers from the monastic tradition and the concerns thereof; the concern that those preaching were too excited about their own personality and celebrity to preach well the Gospel of Christ; and the reality that many clergy were adept at celebrating the sacraments, but were woefully incompetent to preach an adequate homily. 

These concerns wax and wane for several centuries, and the newly-established Anglican Church gave Cranmer and his fellow church leaders the power not only to refocus the homily as a tool for instruction for Christians within the setting of worship, but also the ability to assist local parish priests (and no doubt a few bishops) as they used the homily teach accurate theology in the Anglican tradition. Thus, the first Book of Homilies was produced. 

The demand for the first Book of Homilies, published during the reign of Edward VI, was high, although in some congregations there were clergy who could not read the homilies because they were illiterate and other clergy who would not read the homilies because of their opposition towards church reforms. A second Book of Homilies was published under Elizabeth I, and the titles of the sermons are those listed in the current embodiment of Article 35.

These titles are homilies that help craft a foundational faith in the Anglican tradition. They address matters of prayer, of how we understand scripture, and of the Nativity and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ and other major feasts and fasts. They address issues of the sacramental understanding of time in the liturgical calendar, of common and well-experienced sins, and of the care and keeping of the holy space that is the church. 

The sermons in the Books of Homilies reflected Cranmer’s commitment to sound teaching in the language of the people. The sermons were rooted in Holy Scripture and the writings of the church fathers. They encouraged Christians to read, learn, and inwardly digest Holy Scripture, to pray regularly, and to engage in a true and lively faith. They informed church leaders, both lay and ordained, of church history, patristic theology, the heresies of the church, and the practices of the Roman Catholic church with which the Anglican church and, more broadly, the reformed tradition, disagreed (and even on some occasion, agreed). These collections of sermons were considered, along with the Book of Common Prayer and the Articles of Religion, as foundational Anglican theology. These sermons were appointed to be read on Sundays and on Holy Days.

These sermons explained doctrine. The gave context to Anglican theology and were a vehicle to share this theology during the Holy Eucharist with the gathered faithful. As John Henry Newman wrote, “The second Book of Homilies…doth contain a godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the former Book of Homilies. Now, observe, this Article does not speak of every statement made in them, but of the ‘doctrine.’ It speaks of the view or cast, or body of doctrine contained in them.” 

These Books of Homilies were a way to give shape to the vision of our Anglican/Episcopal faith. There were not merely TED talks about self-improvement, personal enlightenment, or motivational chats that could be live-tweeted; they were about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as understood by the Church. The Books of Homilies addressed the complex and humble aspects of our faith, reaching back into the ancient wisdom and forward into growing insight. They were and still are significant contributions of the substance of Christian faith. 

The Episcopal Church endorsed the content of the homilies, but did not endorse reading the homilies themselves until they could be updated. I wonder, then, if that time has come. The internet provides countless options for sermons and homilies, many posted by Episcopal clergy. The Episcopal Church itself has homilies available for laity and clergy to use on Sundays and Holy Days. We certainly recognize the need for homilies to be preached.

But what about the content of them? Cranmer wasn’t only concerned that a homily be preached, but that the content of the homily assisted Christians in their discipleship and what constituted Christian discipleship–studying the Holy Scriptures, engaging in the daily practice of prayer, and knowing what our faith is and why our faith is expressed in this particular way and how we live that faith in Jesus. Cranmer wanted Christians to know what they believed, why they believed, and how that belief was to be lived in daily life. 

For the early church straight through to our modern time, homilies aren’t simply a way to fill the space between the readings from the Bible and the Nicene Creed; they are a way we instruct, teach, challenge, and inform Christians. 

Too often, preaching is heavily focused on style over substance. We practice voice projection and learn how stories from everyday life can make our homilies more entertaining (a word – they don’t). Some of these techniques can be learned. Others can’t. We can all learn to enunciate, to allow our personal voice to be present, and to ground our homilies in scripture. But our Anglican tradition, even our Christian tradition, is deeply rooted in substantial homilies. 

Homilies aren’t entertainment; they are the Word of God preached. 

Some people have a charism for preaching homilies with a style that is clearly of the Spirit. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. certainly has what I would identify as a gift for preaching. But the substance of what he says is equally, if not more, important. He preaches the substance of the Gospel, just as John Chrysostom and Sojourner Truth did. That substance is why, even today, we can stand in a pulpit and read their words in our own voices and still hear the deep echo of God’s love speak to us from across the ages. The substance of their holy words is why we still share their words. 

As our church again faces a reality that not every worshipping community has a full-time priest (although a full-time priest certainly doesn’t guarantee a homily grounded in the theology and prayer of the Episcopal Church) or even a priest at all.  More and more people coming to hear the Good News of Jesus have little to no knowledge of the Christian faith. Might these realities call us to revisit the hope of our General Convention from over two centuries ago and take seriously the need to have a resource of homilies that contain a godly and wholesome Doctrine, necessary for these times, that can be read in Churches by the Ministers, both laity and clergy, diligently and distinctly, so they may be understood by the people?

Might we revisit the homilies of our ancestors and let the substance of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit wash over us and drench us in the what, whys, and hows of our Episcopal faith? Might we, in this new age of the Church, remember the value of substantial homilies that, along with prayer and sacrament, speak of God?

The Rev. Laurie Brock serves as rector of the St. Michael the Archangel Episcopal Church in Lexington, Kentucky. She blogs at revlauriebrock.com, and has authored and contributed to several books, most recently Horses Speak of God (Paraclete Press). She has written for Forward Day by Day and is a Lent Madness Celebrity Blogger, both from Forward Movement. When she’s not sharing the message of the importance of preaching, she’s riding her American Saddlebred Nina or walking her rescue pup Evie.

It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word. Whosoever, through his private judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and be ordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, (that others may fear to do the like,) as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the Magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of the weak brethren.

Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained only by man’s authority, so that all things be done to edifying.

by Dan Joslyn-Siematkoski

What is Anglicanism? Defining the essential aspects of Anglicanism has always been a contentious enterprise. To be Anglican is to be part of a tradition that both has a stable set of qualities and yet also avoids simple reductions. The thirty-fourth article of the Articles of Religion help us see why this is so. This article underlines that the essence of belief has to do with the basics of Christian doctrine. Ceremonies and traditions can be good and edifying but will always have an incidental quality to them, especially given the reality of diverse national practices. Any effort to define Anglicanism according to what is incidental will always lead to multiple definitions of it given the differing cultural expressions of Anglicanism. This insight allows us to think of the Episcopal Church and other expressions of Anglicanism as a synthesis of local contexts and core Christian commitments expressed within a specific denominational heritage.

Article 34 has two key points. First, it lays out a classic Protestant Reformation principle that because of diverse national contexts, not all ceremonies or traditions need to look the same in every place. The key barometer is whether they are in accord with Scripture and do not contradict it. This too is classically Protestant in tone. But once a church has established a tradition or ceremony, it cannot be lightly violated by any individual. This might both violate the authority of those entities that approved this ceremony or tradition and it might harm the conscience of other Christians.

This first point reveals a great deal about the Protestant Reformation context in which this article was composed. It takes aim at Roman Catholicism and its insistence on a universal norm of practice, ceremonies and traditions. Many Protestant appealed to a wide variety of church practices in areas outside of Western Europe, especially in Eastern Orthodox lands, to show that uniformity of worship could vary from place to place. While insisting on national diversity of worship, the Church of England argued that within its own context of England, there should be one clear, uniform mode of worship in its ceremonies and traditions. Here is the influence of royal supremacy, the oversight of the Church of England by the monarch. If the monarch, Parliament, and church synods decreed that surplices ought to be worn in worship or that communion ought to be administered with the people kneeling, then no variance from this should occur. While surplices and kneeling were not commanded in Scripture, neither did they violate its teachings and so ought to be followed.

The other major point of this article is a reaffirmation of the right of every national church to establish its own ceremonies and rites for the sake of edifying those in worship. This insight is a key aspect of Richard Hooker’s argument against some Puritans. Wearing a surplice for clergy or using the sign of the cross at baptism were repugnant in other Reformed contexts like Geneva. Hooker’s argument in his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity is that what is good for Geneva is not necessarily so for England. What the church and magistrate commands for England is appropriate for English Christians in so far as these practices might be edifying.

While the Thirty-Nine Articles were composed for the established Church of England, this thirty-fourth article proved vital for the development of the Anglican Communion. As the Church of England spread globally and as colonial churches gained their own independence over the centuries, the idea that the worship of any local church ought to reflect appropriately the culture in which it was located became a guiding principle of liturgical and other ecclesial practices. Writing a century ago in his commentary on the Articles of Religion, E. J. Bicknell observed, “What was natural and seemly in the Middle Ages may be merely quaint today. What is supremely edifying in Honolulu may be grotesque in London: what is the worthy embodiment of English reverence and devotion, may be utterly meaningless in Timbuctoo” (A Theological Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 377). Setting aside the paternalism of Bicknell’s language, this view represents the gift of latitude towards custom and traditions contained in this article. What is fitting in one place may not be in another. Careful discernment is needed to ensure that practices are not followed due to cultural imperialism or misplaced nostalgia for past practices.

A generation on the other side of the liturgical renewal movement, we can see the fruit the perspective inherent in this article has born throughout the Anglican Communion. While Anglican worship has core similarities wherever one goes, cultural practices also deeply inform it. This is as true for the Episcopal Church as anywhere else. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer in very real ways reflects fundamental aspects of the American culture in which it was shaped. Its rubrics permit for a wide range of customs and forms of celebration while retaining the core structures of Anglican worship.

At the same time, the 1979 book was composed for a largely white church in a time when the country was still perceived as predominantly white. One of the overarching questions for the future of the Episcopal Church is how its worship will reflect the cultural diversity of the contemporary church. While statistics show the church is over 80% white, it exists in the United States where the population will be moving over the next two decades towards a majority-minority demographic. Moreover, the Episcopal Church is not only located in the United States but includes many churches in the Caribbean and Latin America. The largest diocese numerically in the Episcopal Church is Haiti.

Article 34 argues that diverse practices are appropriate for diverse nations. But it assumes that each nation will be uniform in practice. The situation in the Episcopal Church reveals a vastly different social reality. Beyond the wide range of ethnic and racial differences, there is also the reality of Christian diversity with multiple expressions of worship and devotional practices. What then is appropriate for customs and traditions in the Episcopal Church and how does this inform our own Anglican identity?

This past October, Seminary of the Southwest where I teach hosted a conference on Latino identity in the Episcopal Church. A common theme was what it meant to be Anglican without being Anglo. How is can Anglican traditions be expressed without reverting to customs and traditions that have no cultural resonance for diverse communities? One speaker passionately spoke of Article 34 as the Anglican principle that allows for non-white communities to develop their own customs that both reflect their cultures and do the work of edifying people in worship. For this person, the path for faithfully living as a Latino Episcopalian ran through Article 34.

I argue that a more conscientious use of the principles of Article 34 can help many parts of the Episcopal Church to reflect on how their worship and practices can be expressed in ways that edify in a wide range of cultural contexts. The Episcopal Church typically feels like a church designed aesthetically for wealthy white city-dwellers and country club suburbanites. But we all know that very few members of the Episcopal Church are as wealthy or elite as our reputation implies. Our days of cultural dominance are over. And so we must ask who we are for. If the answer is all people, then how does our worship reflect that? There was a time in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when the Episcopal Church had vibrant rural ministries. It went unabashedly into the coal mines of Appalachia and frontier settlements of the Plains. It was convinced it had forms of worship that could be adapted to meet the needs of diverse local populations. We are at a similar time when we can lean on Article 34 to give ourselves the confidence to go to rural Americans, to youth and their digital cultures, to diverse immigrant communities and to investigate what an Anglican way of being Christian looks like for them in the Episcopal Church. 

This way of being church will also look different from this article’s vision of a national church with uniformity of customs and traditions. The context of the Episcopal Church requires a greater level of tolerance for internal diversity of practices. The focus of unity in Anglicanism is not specific customs and traditions. Anglicanism is not defined by liturgical colors or eucharistic ceremonials. Rather it is defined as a way of faithfully following the triune God revealed to us by Jesus Christ through our patterns of ordered worship, episcopal leadership, and theological formulations. In other words, to be Anglican is first to be Christian and to express the beliefs found in the first eight of the Thirty-Nine Articles. The exercise of the authority of bishops in the Episcopal Church differs from its expression in other parts of the Anglican Communion. Eucharist practice in East Africa and New Zealand have different manifestations. An Anglican theological synthesis in Scotland and India vary. Customs and traditions may differ as Article 34 tells us. But the essence of faithfully following those customs and traditions for the sake of being edified and growing in Christ abides. 

The Rev. Dan Joslyn-Siemiatkoski, Ph.D. is the Duncalf-Villavoso Professor Church History at Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, TX.  He works in the fields of Jewish-Christian relations, Anglican studies, and comparative theology. He is the author of The More Torah, The More Light: A Christian Commentary on Mishnah Avot and Christian Memories of the Maccabean Martyrs. You can follow him on Twitter @danjoslynsiem.

It is not necessary that the Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word. Whosoever, through his private judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and beordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, (that others may fear to do the like,) as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the Magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of the weak brethren.

Every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained only by man’s authority, so that all things be done to edifying. [1]

by the Rev. Benjamin Garren

We will not receive the new service, because it is but like a Christmas game; but we will have our old service of matins, mass, even-song, and procession in Latin, as it was before. And so we the Cornish men, whereof certain of us understand no English, utterly refuse this new English.

                                                            -‘Rebels’ in Devon complaining to Cranmer^[2].

The Archbishop was not amused. That some backwater cleric had the audacity to name his Magnum Opus, the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, to be nothing more than a puerile prank, a Christmas Game. With full expectation of conformity to the new BCP, Thomas Cranmer wrote back “If this be a sufficient cause for Cornwall to refuse the English service, because some of you understand none English, a much greater cause have they, both of Cornwall and Devonshire, to refuse the late service; forasmuch as fewer of them know the Latin tongue than they of Cornwall the English tongue.”^[3]

In the various myths Anglicans tell ourselves about our beloved liturgy we leave out the fact that many subjects of Edward VI did not speak English. That for many the transition to the English BCP was a move from a familiar esoteric liturgy to an unfamiliar yet equally esoteric liturgy. The nascent Anglican Church, on the British Isles themselves, did not afford secondary language groups the luxury to worship in their vernacular tongues. All were expected to use the English Liturgy, regardless of their knowledge of English. The horror of this elimination of language, and by extension culture, would only intensify with the expansion of the English Empire, where eventually aboriginal youth would be kidnapped, beaten if they used their native tongues, and forced to demurely pray in the, supposedly, inherently efficacious English tongue.

This is the foretaste and aftertaste of how liturgy would be twisted into a mechanism of enforcing authority that marks the major flaw of the 34^thArticle of Religion. Especially the addendum sentence at the end, “every particular or national Church hath authority to ordain, change, and abolish, Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained only by man’s authority, so that all things be done to edifying,”^[4] weds liturgy to worldly power and the creation and maintenance of such. Our prayer life, thusly, becomes mired in mammon when it should be the mechanism of freedom from such in Christ. 

That, ultimately, the 1549 BCP was a mechanism by which Cranmer shifted authority from Rome to Canterbury and by extension a mechanism of erasing non-English language and culture from the realms subservient to the English monarch. A trend that would simply grow over time and with prayer book reform. As enslaved African Americans were corralled into balconies to observe their abusers at worship amidst the walls and roofs erected by means of their own black labor, as two-spirit Indigenous Americans were forced to use either the term male or the term female for their gender identity, as persons of color, women, and LGBTQ+ individuals struggled to name and find themselves in a liturgy that expected their subjugation, inferiority, and erasure… the pervasiveness and stench of this mire of mammon grew foul.

This flaw eventually became the principal means by which marginalized groups sought their freedom in Christ Jesus. It became their means to reform the church and thus it perpetuates itself within our current conversations regarding liturgical reform. Various factions of the church fight to control the principal mechanism by which authority in the church is dictated. If we, for instance, have a liturgy for validating a transgender individuals’ existence then we have given a mechanism to the authority of modern medical and mental health science and validated such as worthwhile. ^[5] The removal of the question “Will you… respect the dignity of every human being?” from the Baptismal Rite is a mechanism of stripping authority from those philosophies that value the inherent dignity of every human being.^[6]

Now, for the basic safety of the individuals in the pews, I prefer to have a liturgy that is a mechanism for an authority that seeks to respect the basic dignity of gender expansive and transgender individuals, and other historically oppressed and marginalized groups  than one that seeks to adhere to a concept of Christianity that instead takes up historically allowed forms of oppression and marginalization. It would be a much greater witness, however, to Scripture if members of the Body of Christ did not have to struggle for centuries to gain the capacity to readily and freely proclaim Christ Crucified. We should not, as Dr. Jenny Te Paa Daniel asks of us, need to be exploring “the present populist impressions about worship and liturgy with particular reference to the New Zealand Prayer Book and to ask whether or not the supposedly redemptive postcolonial reality formally constitutionally established by the church in Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia in 1992, is real or illusory.”^[7]

The reason being that if we had been fully living into our Christian Identity historically then there would not have been a sinful colonial reality from which we would now be seeking out a redemptive postcolonial reality. If Thomas Cranmer had taken the liturgical concerns of the ‘rebels’ in Devon seriously, instead of using the 1549 BCP as a machination to exert his authority and that of the crown, a very different Anglicanism would have developed. What if Cranmer had valued the idea that those who speak Cornish should pray in Cornish and the same be said for those whose primary tongue was Scots, Welsh, Gaelic, etc.? What if we were to begin to live into this concept of liturgy in the here and now?

To be very clear what I am not suggesting is that this certain parish should be free to maintain that people of color should be restricted to a vertigo-instilling balcony, or that this diocese should be free to only allow individuals assigned male at birth to be priests, or that there be a network of parishes that reject the American Academy of Pediatrics statements regarding what constitutes the abuse of LGBTQ+ children and youth… which is sadly a somewhat apt description of the predicament we currently find ourselves in and which many would rejoice to have. What I am suggesting, instead, is that we stop allowing our liturgy to be a mechanism by which we exert authority, that the various forms of supremacist ideologies that have used liturgy as such a mechanism, sexism, heterosexism, racism, cisism, ableism, classism, etc., must be called out. That our liturgical process be one that casts down the mighty from their thrones and forces each individual to question the ways in which they are mighty.

That instead of only reacting after centuries of abuse when the screams of the oppressed finally have impact upon our souls—as we have in our slow inclusion of people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ individuals in the formation and practice of liturgy—we become a church that proactively seeks to be transformed by the proclamation of Christ Crucified from members of the Body of Christ that are dynamically different than ourselves. That we move from using liturgy as a mechanism of authority and move towards a liturgical life that values autonomy, and even spontaneity, an idea that is markedly different from valuing chaos and bad art.^[8]

To do this we can affirm the majority of the 34^thArticle. The first sentence of the article can, generally, stand: “It is not necessary that the Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversity of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s Word”.^[9]The only major correction I would make here is to replace ‘countries, times, and men’s manners’ with ‘contexts, times, and culture’. Our liturgical life should be grounded in scripture and be an expression of our devotion to scripture amidst the context, time, and culture of the community gathered. We should expect diversity in tradition and ceremony amidst that. We should expect to find comfort, and be challenged, by that diversity.

The second sentence of the article, and the only one left to consider, is also generally solid. “Whosoever, through his private judgment, willingly and purposely, doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church, which be not repugnant to the Word of God, and beordained and approved by common authority, ought to be rebuked openly, (that others may fear to do the like,) as he that offendeth against the common order of the Church, and hurteth the authority of the Magistrate, and woundeth the consciences of the weak brethren.”^[10] I have emphasized “through his private judgement” as it is, in my mind, the core of the sentence. This is a prohibition against a priest-in-charge unilaterally doing whatever they please outside of relationship with both the greater church and also the community they serve. It is about penalizing a priest for using liturgy as a mechanism to flex their own authority, and generally pander to their ego.

What happens then if we update the 34^thArticle with all the above in mind. Noting that liturgy should not be a mechanism of maintaining authority, especially unjust authority, in the world; that liturgy is going to be diverse across contexts, times, and cultures; and that individual priest should not be going about whatever they please to the detriment of both the greater church and the community they serve… my take would be the following:

It is not necessary that the liturgical traditions and ceremonies be in all places one, utterly alike. The liturgy of the church has always been diverse. It changes according to the diversity of contexts, times, and cultures as various communities express their relationship to God’s Word. Whenever a priest, through private judgement, willingly and purposefully breaks the traditions and ceremonies of the church, they should face rebuke. The liturgical tradition and ceremony of a community should be discerned amidst relationship with the greater church, respect the role of the Liturgical Ordinary, and never abuse the marginalized of society.    

On a practical level this means that the vast majority of our worship communities are going to use the pre-discerned liturgy approved by our General Conventions, the 1979 BCP et al. It means that priest-in-charge simply doing whatever they desire and subjugating their communities to such should face rebuke and censure. It also means that there is not a one-size-fits-all liturgy that is going to work in all times and in all places and that we, the greater church, need to make space for and assist communities in creating what will work for them.

The last concept above is the one that consistently receives pushback. At the idea of it we all become Cranmer fuming at those ‘rebels’ in Devon who have the audacity to not validate our expectations. We want to name the traditions and ceremonies of the liturgy as we have experienced them to be inherently efficacious and a sure unchanging foundation; we want to rest amidst an unquestionable authority. Instead we need to be entering into the difficult process of building mutual relationships across communities that have the autonomy to discern their calls amidst the greater church, to know that we might enter into an Episcopal Church and have our expectations disrupted, that, almost spontaneously, the Holy Spirit might ask us to deepen our relationship with God by encountering something unexpected.

It takes a bit of faith that there is a core to our liturgical traditions and ceremonies that are worthwhile and will stand the tests that any context, time, or culture can place before them. It takes a bit of trust in our fellow Christians to be truly leading authentic lives in Christ Jesus and in ourselves to be transformed by their witness to a deeper love of self, other, and God. It takes us checking our need to be an authority and the various privileges we use as props for our sense of self… it takes a discipleship to something beyond our control. If we can shift there, however, our capacity to hear each other Proclaim Christ Crucified, value every member of the Body of Christ, and delve into the Love of God, will, in my mind, exponentially increase.

The Rev. Benjamin Garren is the chaplain for Arizona Episcopal Campus Ministries in Tucson.

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^[1]Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer. (1979). Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church. New York: Church Hymnal. Page 874.

^[2]Cranmer, T., & Cox, J. E. (1846). Miscellaneous writings and letters of Thomas Cranmer. Cambridge: University Press. Page 179

^[3]Cranmer, T., & Cox, J. E. (1846). Miscellaneous writings and letters of Thomas Cranmer. Cambridge: University Press. Page 180

^[4]Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer. (1979). Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church New York: Church Hymnal. Page 874.

^[5]The Book of Occasional Services. (2018). New York: Church Hymnal. Page 120

^[6]Texts for Common Prayer 2018. (2018). Anglican House Pub. Page 165

^[7]P Kwok, P. (2016). Postcolonial practice of ministry: Leadership, liturgy, and interfaith engagement. Lanham: Lexington Books. Page 120.

^[8]I am playing here with Gramsci’s theories of discipline: Gramsci, A., Hobsbawm, E. J., & Forgacs, D. (2000). The Gramsci reader: Selected writings 1916-1935. New York: New York University Press. Page 32

^[9]Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer. (1979). Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church. New York: Church Hymnal. Page 874.

^[10]Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer. (1979). Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and Other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church. New York: Church Hymnal. Page 874.

THAT person which by open denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the unity of the Church, and excommunicated, ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful, as an Heathen and Publican, until he be openly reconciled by penance, and received into the Church by a Judge that hath authority thereunto.

by the Rev. Sam McNally-Cross

The Anglican Church, it is sometimes said, is the soft option. The choice for those that cannot handle the rigours of the Religion of Roman Catholicism and therefore secrete themselves in the flabby, pale confines of this peculiar English Church (although now with an international reach) – but the Articles of Religion, those thirty nine assertions, decrees, rules, if you will, show that this Church is anything but soft, flabby and undemanding. Perhaps none more so than Article 33 detailing how one must deal with excommunicate persons. 

There is not found within this, or the other Articles, an exhaustive list of those acts which might render someone excommunicate. This Article informs how they must be dealt with but not how they have got to that state in the first place. In order to find the answer to this, we must do some further digging: A rubric at the beginning of the Service of Holy Communion in the Book of Common Prayer brings out a ‘lesser excommunication’ – for those that are in ‘malicious and open contention with his neighbours, or other grave and open sin without repentance’  – the noted emphasis on the need for repentance is again found in the text of this Article – ‘until he be openly reconciled by penance’.

Excommunication, therefore, is not a power bestowed upon the priest as leverage for his own convictions but to draw the excommunicant back into the Body of Christ, through repentance. 

Interestingly, unlike the Roman Catholic Church, there seem to have been very few formal and notable excommunications in the Anglian Church. A quick search online provides no more than eight examples, and the reasons given shed further light onto what purpose this Article serves.

John Blakiston in the 1600s was excommunicated, he was noted to be a fervent supporter of the Puritans and an anti-Episcopalian, but the final straw came when his name appeared as one of the signatories of the fifty-nine that condemned King Charles the Martyr to death. Regicide seems an appropriate reason for excommunication alone, but his campaigning against the Church of England cannot of gone unnoticed.

Robert Cushman, the famed instigator of the Mayflower Voyage to the New World was excommunicated three times before his departure. Firstly, because he had not attended his parish church. Only upon proving that he was not being edified within said church was his excommunication lifted. Secondly, he was excommunicated for pasting up libellous tracts about the doctrines of the Church of England; he was absolved later at his request (suggesting repentance) but then, finally, was informed upon by his brother-in-law that he held views about predestination that were contrary to the doctrine of the Church. 

Oliver Heywood and Henry Wilkinson both broke the Uniformity Act by refusing to use the Book of Common Prayer and were excommunicated, Lord George Gordon refused to bear witness in an ecclesiastical trial at the order of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Quiney, the husband of Judith Shakespeare, William’s daughter, didn’t obtain the correct license to marry and was briefly excommunicated. Victorian photographer Francis Meadow Sutcliffe produced a photograph called ‘Water Rats’ which featured naked children playing in a boat – he was excommunicated for displaying it as it was thought it would ‘corrupt.’

The reasons for these excommunications are varied – from the serious participation in the deliberate murder of a monarch to the failure to obtain a correct document for a marriage. Some seem never to have been lifted, others have on several occasions, but for all cases the underlying reason is church order and discipline. 

The Christian faith is a daily journey toward God, to reconciling with and through Christ, the Church as His body is both the framework and the provider of the means for that to occur. As Article 19 states:

‘in the which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.’

It is therefore most important that the Church be preserved, as far as humanly possible, from false teaching and from those beliefs and acts that, given time to grow, would manifest dissent and undermine all that the church holds to be true. What, then, of the seemingly petty instances where Lord Gordon does not do as the Archbishop asks or Quiney neglects to obtain a correct license? When I read these words my mind turns, as it often does, to The Rule of S. Benedict. In Chapter five ‘monastic obedience’ the Holy Father writes;

‘If obedience is given with a bad will and with murmuring not only in words but even in bitterness of heart, then even though the command may be externally fulfilled it will not be accepted by God, for he can see the resistance in the heart of the murmurer’

Benedict understood that this hardness of heart would infect the brothers of the community and make it impossible to govern, but, more seriously, impossible to progress spiritually, producing, as it would, bad soil for the growth of faith. How much more then does open dissent against those in authority, false teaching, or failure to adhere to conduct becoming of a member of that body going to damage the whole? 

For those in authority, that wield the power of excommucation, the considerations have to be two-fold. Firstly, the person in wilful rebellion needs to be corrected and brought back into the fold, that there are so few notable cases of excommunication in the Anglican Church suggests that this is used sparingly, a last resort, a final attempt to draw the poison out through repentance and allow a swift return to the Church. After all the soul of the individual is at stake, and the minister of the Church will be held accountable for those in his care on the day of judgement. 

Secondly, there is a responsibility to the wider congregation, locally and universally, to protect them from error and to promote to them all that is good, right and true. But we are all members of that body and it does not fall solely to the ministers to protect others – granted that they take a lion’s share of the responsibility, through their conduct, through the way they engage with and live out their faith, through teaching, preaching the word and administering the sacraments mainly, and through excommunication when necessary as we have discussed – but the Article says that the individual excommunicated;

‘ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful, as an Heathen and Publican, until he be openly reconciled by penance,’

There is a degree to which each faithful member of the Church is to regard those who have erred with such severity that excommunication has occurred as heathen, outside of the ranks of the Christian Church or a Publican. That latter word has, evidently, changed meaning – as we are not required to have an especially dim view of an innkeeper by virtue of their occupation – but the word in Greek, transliterated, is telones, a gatherer of taxes or tolls. 

Through the New Testament we see these men (for they always were men) as examples of those who are distinctly lacking in any virtue. They are despised by the Jews, partly because of their occupation in the employ of the Romans, but mainly because they are considered for the most part cheats, liars and thieves, taking more than the tax required to line their own pocket. So this Article says that we are to have an especially dim view of those who are excommunicated. This has lead to some Christian and Pseudo-Christian groups partaking in a practice of shunning: completely cutting off those who are excommunicated, out of Church, out of mind. Even when it is your own family members. 

I don’t see that instruction in this Article, either implicitly or explicitly. The phrasing ‘ought to be taken’ suggests perhaps a cool regard, a suspicion, a wariness that these individuals have acted in ways that are contrary to faith or hold beliefs that are outside of the scope of the doctrine of the Church. Be cautious of what they say, lest they lead you on the wrong path also. 

The reason I do not read this as an inference of the practice of shunning is because of one particular word, ‘until’: ‘Until he be openly reconciled by penance,’ the Article says. Excommunication is not to be a permanent state (unless, of course, the individual refuses to be reconciled) but a journey back down the path wrongly taken, back to the fork in the road and a change of direction. During the process of excommunication it is right to be wary of said individuals for the preservation of our own soul and the good of the community at large, but it is not a severing of contact. The door remains, not just unlocked but ajar, ready to be pushed open by the penitent that they may be welcomed warmly back in as the prodigal son returning from the pig farm.

Finally, this repentance must be done ‘openly.’ When someone is excommunicate it is because their actions have a wider effect. It is not simply a matter between their own soul and God, else that could and would be dealt with by confession, by absolutions and by the grace of the sacrament. Excommunication acknowledges a break down in the Body of Christ, a wounding by one individual to the larger group, by one faction upon the whole. So the repentance must be openly shown, not for the purposes of shame or to heap guilt upon guilt but to restore the fractures that were the result of the actions that brought excommunication. 

It is not just the individual that grows through excommunication, it is the whole church, as they too are given the opportunity to show true forgiveness, just as God does and just as we have all experienced from Him in our daily lives. 

The Rev. Sam McNally-Cross is an Anglican Priest in the Church of England, serving in the Diocese of London. Particular research interests in Christian Spirituality, Monastic Life and Monastic Spirituality. An author of poems found at: https://liturgicalpoetry.wordpress.com and currently working on a commentary of The Rule of St Benedict: https://stonycliffsrockbadgers.wordpress.com