Anglicanism at a Crossroads
By Mouneer Anis and Gerald McDermott, First Things.
Orthodox Anglicans have something to cheer in this otherwise dismal year. On Ash Wednesday 2023, Anglican leaders in the Global South rejected Canterbury’s decision to bless same-sex unions. They declared they are “no longer able to recognize the present Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rt Hon and Revd Justin Welby, as the ‘first among equals’ Leader of the global Communion.” And in April of this past year, another gathering of Anglican leaders joined this departure from Canterbury. In total, 85 percent of the Anglican Communion is determined to “reset the Communion on its biblical foundations.” As progressive Anglicanism in the Global North continues to decline, orthodox Anglicanism in the Global South is booming. There are more Anglicans in church on Sunday morning in Nigeria alone, for instance, than in all of North America and Great Britain combined. Yet amidst this energy, there are worrying signs.
Global South Anglican leaders opposed to same-sex marriage are preparing to bind themselves with a document that rests on ambiguous theological foundations. Their bishops will gather in June 2024 to review and reaffirm the “Cairo Covenant,” first written in 2019 to “strengthen Global South identity, [establish doctrine] in keeping with orthodox faith . . . and establish conciliar structures [that hold] each other accountable to a common dogmatic and liturgical tradition.” The new covenantal structure is a vast improvement over Canterbury’s regime because it provides for genuine doctrinal accountability. But there are parts of the document that may contradict traditional Anglicanism, and need further review.
The problem is that the Cairo Covenant uses the language of sola scriptura without sufficient qualification. The term sola scriptura suggests that the Bible by itself can ensure orthodoxy without the guidance of the historic Church. The Covenant defines sola scriptura as “the Scriptures’ authority over the Church,” which itself is “a creature of the divine Word.” Yet as students of church history know, the Church produced the Bible and protected it against heretical interpretations at ecumenical councils like Nicaea. So while the divine Word guided the Church as it protected the Bible, the Bible was a “creature” of the Church—not the other way around.
Athanasius, for example, recognized the critical role of church tradition in his battle against Arianism. Arius argued from the Bible alone (using such verses as Jesus’s statement “The Father is greater than I”) that Christ is more than a man but less than fully God. In his epistle to the African bishops, Athanasius insisted that proper biblical interpretation requires “the sound Faith which Christ gave us, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers, who met at Nicaea from all this world of ours, have handed down” (emphasis added). The Fathers at Nicaea taught that Christ is homoousios—of the same nature (as the Father). Athanasius pointed out that while this Greek word is not in the Bible, its concept is, and we need the Church’s tradition to teach us this.
The Anglican reformers of the sixteenth century also saw the need for the ecumenical councils and creeds to interpret the Bible properly. Bishop John Jewel wrote in his Apology of the Church of England that the English reformation was “confirmed by the words of Christ, by the writings of the apostles, by the testimonies of the Catholic fathers, and by the examples of many ages.” When Anglican bishops approved the Thirty-Nine Articles in 1571, they declared in canon law that preachers were not to assert anything different from Scripture or “what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected from this selfsame doctrine.” They added that the Articles “in all respects agree with” the Fathers and ancient bishops.
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