I grew up in conservative, evangelical Bible churches. They were old school, Dallas Seminary Dispensational, non-charismatic Bible churches. I grew up with expository Bible preaching, Vacation Bible School, Sunday School, Bible verse memorization and “sword drills” (used to love them!). They were not quite fundamentalist churches, but sometimes close. In them, I learned the Bible. I also learned and came to believe that it was the Word of God written, that God spoke to me through it, and that I was to submit my life under it.

My formal theological education continued in these same type of schools: Moody Bible Institute, Arizona College of the Bible and Western Conservative Baptist Seminary/Phoenix Seminary (Phoenix Seminary broke away from Western after my first year and I completed my M.Div. at Phoenix…which is now broader in its theological views then when I was there, no loner strictly dispensational, but still in the conservative Evangelical camp). I write all of this not to disparage my upbringing in any way, but that you might have an understanding of how this fits into my Anglican journey.

It was only after I completed my theological education in 1996, that I turned to really studying Church History. History is my first love. I wanted to know where I came from. This was the one area that was really lacking in education. I had one 4 hour Church History survey class in my 96 hour M.Div. and none for my B.A. in the Bible. So I began reading. And as I wrote about in my other posts on my Canterbury Trail (#1 and #2), I started worshipping at liturgical churches, the first being a Lutheran one. A little later I was exposed to Anglicanism.

I bought my first Book of Common Prayer in 2001. It was the 1979 Episcopal Church’s, but it was a start. Since I was not worshipping at an Anglican Church, I did all my study in isolation. What I found in the back of the Prayer Book were “The 39 Articles of Religion.” I didn’t know at the time that the Episcopal Church put them under the heading of “Historical Documents” for a reason. No, I read them and read them so more. And as part of my journey, found myself agreeing with the theology of the 39 Articles. I thought to myself, if this is what the Anglican Church believes, then I’m an Anglican.

The “39 Articles” are simply that, 39 short Articles of belief. They were first written by Archbishop Thomas Cramner around 1552 as 42 Articles, and then revised to their completed form in 1571 under the direction of Archbishop Matthew Parker. The Church of England mandated assent to them by all clergy, stating:

No man hereafter shall either print or preach, to draw the Article aside any way, but shall submit to it in the plain and Full meaning thereof: and shall not put his own sense or comment to be the meaning of the Article, but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense.

So what’s the big deal about the Articles? First off they are committed to the conviction that the Bible is the Word of God and the Final Authority in all matters of Faith and Practice.

Article 6 is titled “Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.” It states:

HOLY Scriptures containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.

Article 8 is about the Three Creeds of Christianity. It states:

THE three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius’ Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles’ Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed; for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.

I emphasized that last line because it clearly states that the Creeds are to true only because they agree with Scripture.

Articles 19, 20 and 21 are all about the Church and how it derives it’s authority.

19. Of the Church.THE visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in 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. As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.

Article 19 states that the visible church is one where the “pure word of God is preached” and mentions the both the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic church have made errors. How have the erred? That is what the next two Articles address.

20. Of the Authority of the Church. THE Church hath power to decree rites or ceremonies and authority in controversies of faith; and yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything contrary to God’s word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another. Wherefore, although the Church be a witness and a keeper of Holy Writ: yet, as it ought not to decree anything against the same, so besides the same ought it not to enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.

21. Of the authority of General Councils. GENERAL Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of princes. And when they be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and word of God, they may err and sometime have erred, even in things pertaining to God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture.

These are just a sampling from the Articles, but the sampling is all related to the Bible and its place in the Church. The Articles affirm that the Church is under the authority of the Bible,  the written Word of God. This is the same Evangelical conviction that I was born, raised, educated with and still believe today. I discovered that I could be Evangelical and Anglican.

As I continued in my journey, I was connecting other dots as well. Some of those dots were people that I had no idea were Anglican that I had been exposed to most of my life. Of course I knew that C. S. Lewis was Anglican, but John Stott, J.I. Packer, and John Newton who wrote “Amazing Grace”? That blew my mind. Stott’s book on the Cross of Christ and his commentary on Romans were as soundly Evangelical and committed to Justification by Faith as anything that I’d ever read. I was feeling strong confirmation that I was supposed to become Anglican. Just wasn’t sure when, or even how.

Those came together in the summer of 2005 with the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA). I should finish that story up in another post, but I’ll tie this piece together. As I looked into AMiA, I found that all clergy in AMiA have to annually sign on to the “Solemn Declaration of Principles” which includes this statement about the “39 Articles”

This Church subscribes to the teaching of the 39 Articles of Religion of the Church of England. These are to be interpreted, as ordered in the Declaration which prefaces them in the English Book of Common Prayer, “in the full and plain meaning thereof” and “in the literal and grammatical sense.”

This, amongst several other reasons, was why I knew I had found a home in the AMiA.

I’m going to finish this post with a quote from the recent biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxax (Bonhoeffer), which is excellent. It is a powerful statement on the Bible. Bonhoeffer was in the midst of the modernist movement that denied that the Bible was any sort of special revelation or divine book. He, under Karl Barth’s influence, rejected that and came to believe that God speaks to us in the Bible. And they are not just words, but the words of the the one who loves us, if we receive Him and them in repentance and faith. As an Evangelical Anglican, I believe this too. This is from a letter that Bonhoeffer wrote in 1936:

First of all I will confess quite simply–I believe that the Bible alone is the answer to all our questions, and that we need only to ask repeatedly and a little humbly, in order to receive this answer. One cannot simply read the Bible, like other books. One must be prepared really to enquire of it. Only thus will it reveal itself. Only if we expect from it the ultimate answer, shall we receive it. That is because in the Bible God speaks to us(emphasis mine). And one cannot simply think about God in one’s own strength, one has to enquire of him. Only if we seek him, will he answer us…we do not grasp the words of someone we love by taking them to bits, but by simply receiving them, so that for days they go on lingering in our minds, simply because they are the words of a person we love; and just as these words reveal more and more of the person who said them as we go on…so it will be with the words of the Bible. Only if we venture into the words of the Bible. as though in them this God were speaking to us who loves us (emphasis mine) and does not will to leave us along with our questions, only so shall we learn to rejoice in the Bible…(Bonhoeffer p. 136).

Shane+