It has long been said that the Anglican Church of Australia has allowed two different (ecclesial) cultures to cohabit the same institution and allowed both to call themselves ‘Anglican’. It might be more apt to say in the present that there are at least three or four (if not more) different cultures active within the national Church.
This is not necessarily a problem in itself. As we look around Australia and beyond, the Anglican Communion has become a home for many people with a variety of cultures and ecclesial expressions. However, we are presented with a question: ‘How do we discern what makes us all Anglican?’ Once we pare back the dispensable traits of these ecclesial structures, what are the core things that all Anglicans could say are true of their identity? What things might be considered necessary to being an ‘Anglican Christian’ and what things are secondary to that?
Anglicans in the present are not the first to ask such questions. What is essential to Christian identity has been a perennial question for ‘Anglicans’ since the time of the English Reformation (if not well before that). One figure in our history who might provide an answer to these questions is William Reed Huntingdon. An American Episcopalian priest in the late 19th Century, Huntingdon has had a significant influence on Anglicans globally while also being a relatively unknown figure to most Anglicans.
In 1870, Huntingdon published a book called "The Church Idea". This book was itself the result of years of reflection given in sermons and addresses Huntingdon had delivered across the United States. After years of civil war, Huntingdon saw the vocation of Anglicanism as one that could bring Christian denominations across the United States together into one fold. He envisaged a Pan-Protestant national Church. However, upon what core principles would such a church be founded? What were the indispensable traits of being Christian once you whittled it all down and dispensed with what might be considered optional? "The Church Idea" articulates what Huntingdon believed these core features of Christian identity are and have been since the earliest times of the Church. This he called the ’Anglican Principle’. This Principle contained four indispensable parts:
1. The Holy Scriptures as the Word of God
2. The Primitive Creeds as the Rule of Faith (i.e. Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian creeds)
3. The two Sacraments ordained by Christ himself (Baptism and the Eucharist)
4. The Episcopate as the keystone of governmental unity
This ‘Anglican Principle’, Huntingdon argued, was separate from any cultural accidents and could be held as the common elements for all Christians, everywhere and for all time, no matter who you were or what opinions you had on any number of matters. For Huntingdon in particular, this ecumenical vision of a national American church justified the separation of Anglicanism from ideas of ‘Englishness’. As such, a national American church did not necessitate ivy-covered village churches transplanted from the English countryside with surplices, choristers and prebendaries (as nice as many people might believe those things might be). Huntingdon’s vision of a core ‘Anglican Principle’ meant that Christians could inhabit their nation and culture missionally and give proper cultural expression to their faith, without confusing these things with what was core to being a Christian.
As history shows, Huntingdon’s vision of a Pan-Protestant church for the United States did not materialise. However, in 1886, at a meeting in Chicago of the General Convention of the American Episcopal Church, the house of bishops accepted the above four points, this ‘Quadrilateral’, as key to Christian reunion. Then in 1888, at the third Lambeth Conference, bishops from around the nascent Anglican Communion affirmed a version of the Quadrilateral as key articles of Anglican identity. As such Huntingdon’s four points became known as the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral and we upheld as the key features of what it meant to be Anglican. Would Anglicans across Australia be able to say the same? Can we look at these four points and recognise them as fundamental to our own Christian life and identity?
Today, we can see each of the four points of the Quadrilateral expressed within the Fundamental Declarations of the Constitution of the Anglican Church of Australia. Those first three sections of the Constitution are the unchangeable and non-negotiable parts of that document. They are core to how we believe Anglicanism is and should be expressed in Australia and for all time. However, I recognise that the Constitution is a relatively unknown document to most Australian Anglicans (and some are probably surprised to hear that such a document exists). However, as we move forward into the future as Australian Anglicans, Huntingdon’s Quadrilateral could continue to be a key way that we recognise our common Anglican identity in this country. It is at once a fairly comprehensive and yet very simple view of what faithful Christian identity looks like. It allows for a great scope of differences on other matters because it knows what really counts. We can vary in worship styles, in opinions, in interpretations, in governance mechanisms – because we know what matters.
A bishop once described Anglican identity to me as big sheep paddock. Yes, he said, there are boundaries on that paddock but there is a huge amount of space to move around. The problem, he went on to say, is that most Anglicans spend a lot of time looking at the fence for one reason or another.
For unfortunate reasons, any discussion of Anglican identity continues to be a contested space – much as it has been for the last five hundred years. However, Huntingdon’s vision of essential Christian identity might be applicable in the present and give us a way forward for the future. Within our current debates, if we could come to a broader, more comprehensive appreciation of what it means to be Anglican, we might find less heat in our conversations (without letting go of our convictions or consciences). I know that I am not alone in this thought. I pray that we can allow for difference and persevere in the hope that God will not only bless our common ministry but forgive the mistakes we each and all make. We can do so in the knowledge that what makes me Christian are the same things that make you Christian.
The points of Huntingdon’s Quadrilateral direct us to what unites us in Christ – Creeds, Scriptures, Sacraments, Ministry. Huntingdon’s ‘Anglican Principle’ is the first thing for Christians because it is based on our essential relationship with Jesus Christ. The Creeds articulate the essentials of our faith in Christ. The sacraments given by Christ convey the grace of Christ to us. The scriptures speak the words of Christ to us today. The ministry of the Church (and its leadership) calls us into the fellowship of Christ and brings us together as His disciples.
Things fall apart when we do not accept that Jesus Christ is our common Lord and Saviour. Things fall apart, when we stop recognising Christ in each other. When He becomes ‘my Jesus’ and not yours, there is no common Christian identity for Anglicans. When my actions please Him, but I fundamentally believe that yours do not, there can be no fellowship between us. When in our heart-of-hearts we can no longer recognise each other as Christians, then our unity in Christ falls apart and perhaps more than that. Perhaps, we lose sight of Christ as well. Our fellowship falls apart because love is no more. When Christians stop loving each other as Christ loves us, then...
The Reverend Dr Luke Hopkins is the College Chaplain of Trinity College Melbourne and Adjunct Lecturer in Anglican Ecclesiology for Trinity College Theological School, University of Divinity.
A version of this article was first published in the July edition of The Melbourne Anglican in 2023.
