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Bishop John Rodgers - Anglican Pathfinder
ESSENTIAL TRUTHS FOR CHRISTIANS: A Commentary on the Anglican Thirty-Nine Articles and an Introduction to Systematic Theology. Classical Anglican Press, $24.95 paperback, $49.95 hardcover.
Reviewed by Charles Raven
http://anglicanspread.org/tracker-subscription/
April 13, 2011
With the publication of his new book, orthodox Anglicans are doubly indebted to Bishop John Rodgers. In January 2000, along with Chuck Murphy, he was consecrated as a founding bishop of the Anglican Mission in America, a bold stroke which galvanised the struggle against false teaching in the Anglican Communion. The subsequent emergence of GAFCON, the Jerusalem Declaration and the Anglican Church in North America have vindicated that action and now, after many years' work, Bishop John has produced a book which will be truly essential for all those committed to rebuilding global Anglicanism as a confessing Communion with a confident and clear witness to the gospel.
The Jerusalem Declaration articulates the key commitments of confessing Anglicanism and in clause 4 it is affirmed that 'We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God's Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today'. Unfortunately, at least in the Churches of the West, the Articles, are commonly regarded as merely historical whatever their formal status, but 'Essential Truths', following Gerald Bray's excellent but briefer survey The Faith we Confess: An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles (London: Latimer Trust, 2009) will go a long way to rectify this confessional deficit.
Bishop John writes in his introduction 'there is a pervasive ignorance of our Anglican Reformation heritage on the part of many in active leadership in Anglican Churches today. This condition makes it crucial to provide a book that can be read or referred to easily in the midst of busy lives.' I believe he has achieved his aim admirably.
Firstly, the accessibility of his style does not compromise depth. For example, when discussing the sequence of the Articles he sets out a fundamental insight about revelation rediscovered by Karl Barth with admirable simplicity. The logic of beginning with the nature of God rather than the knowledge of God is because 'we know different things differently. How we know anything depends in no small measure on the nature of that which is known. For example, we know a person differently than we know a rock. In the same way, how we know God will depend greatly on Who God is, on the kind of God He is, and on what He has done "for us men and our salvation."
Secondly, this book is an impressive exercise in Anglican systematic theology, with each Article analysed by using a logical progression through four sections: a) Explanation, based on a breakdown of the Articles key teaching points b) Biblical Foundations are demonstrated with extensive quotations from Scripture, rooting everything back in Scripture c) False Teachings Denied and Objections Answered - this section is especially helpful in bring a patristic and historical and apologetic perspective to bear d) Implications in which the teaching of the Article is applied, followed by a brief conclusion.
This systematic approach enables the reader to see how the whole structure of Anglican teaching hangs together in a way which gloriously combines a humble respect for our forbears in the faith yet never at the expense of the great doctrines of grace. And system is always subservient to Scripture; for instance Bishop John acknowledges that in the Trinity and in questions of human agency and divine sovereignty we come up against the limits of intellect, but nonetheless the mystery is entailed by the coherence of the biblical narrative as a whole.
This orderliness and clarity is more than a matter of style - it reflects the conviction that God does speak clearly through the inspired Scriptures. In marked contrast, the theological writing of Archbishop Rowan Williams typically betrays a persistent suspicion of systematisation because for him, revelation is much more slippery, lying behind the words of Scripture rather than within them, as I have demonstrated in my own 'Shadow Gospel: Rowan Williams and the Anglican Communion Crisis' (London: Latimer Trust, 2010).
As the Anglican Communion goes through a period of profound change, I am sure that 'Essential Truths' will have a powerful impact on the emerging 'new wineskin' in ways that we cannot yet see, but this book would have radical consequences immediately if its lessons were taken to heart.
For instance, Bishop John's discussion of the marks of the visible Church of Article 19 argues persuasively that godly discipline is an implicit third mark of the Church alongside preaching of the 'pure word of God' and the place where the 'sacraments be duly ministered' . In support of this he quotes from the Homily for Whitsunday as follows: 'The true church is a universal congregation or fellowship of God's faithful and elect people, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone. And it hath three notes or marks, whereby it is known: Pure and sound doctrine; the sacraments ministered according to Christ's holy institution; And the right use of ecclesiastical discipline'.
This is not to bring in an extraneous or lesser authority because Article 35 specifically commends the Homilies as 'godly and wholesome doctrine'. As John Rodgers observes 'Not all groups named "church" truly qualify for the name they claim the right to bear'.
Applying this principle to the current state of affairs in the Anglican Communion, it is clear, for example, that the inclusion of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada in the Dublin Primates' Meeting implicitly ignored all three marks of Article 19 as those are 'Churches' which promote a false gospel of humanistic inclusion, discipline the orthodox rather than the heterodox and increasingly open the Lord's Table to the unbaptised. Those Primates who absented themselves as a matter of principle were following the only course open to them because their presence would have endorsed institutions that according Article 19 no longer qualify as Churches.
However 'Essential Truths' is about much more than its capacity to unglue false unity. It is a rich resource for firming up hearts and minds of laity and clergy alike as we address the task the GAFCON movement initiated in 2008 of reshaping the Anglican Communion. In his conclusion, Bishop John reflects that 'these Articles are remarkable, in that they are "Catholic and Reformed." Anglicanism stands along side the other Catholic Churches, the Orthodox Churches of the East and the Roman Catholic Church of the West, in keeping all the wisdom into which the Holy Spirit had led the Church prior to the great Reformation of the 16th Century. There are no strange innovations, no errant subtractions, and no unnecessary or odd additions, just a due appreciation of the Fathers, the Ecumenical Creeds and the Ecumenical Councils of the undivided Church, except where they contradicted Scripture or required things not required by sound exegesis of Scripture.
We might add that compared to the other great Communions of East and West, Anglicanism is yet young, a mere 450 years or so old; 'Essential Truths' increases our confidence that despite the dwindling gathering power of its dysfunctional Western governance, it will yet fulfil its promise.
END
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