Recently, The Gospel Coalition put out an article encouraging Anglicans to stay true to our “confessional” heritage. The article, written by Dr. Gillis Harp, argues that we should adhere more firmly to the 39 Articles. Amen! But then he goes on to argue that the following five practices stray from historic Anglicanism:

1.) Reserving and Venerating the Sacrament of Communion

2.) Expanding the Number of Sacraments

3.) Praying for the dead

4.) Affirming Apostolic Succession

In this post and in a forthcoming video on my channel, I will respond to each point.

1.) Venerating and Reserving the Sacrament is a good and holy thing

Now, before I argue for this point, please don’t misunderstand me: I am not claiming that doing so is necessary or obligatory. We do not see any obligation laid on God’s people to venerate the sacrament. However, I’m arguing that it is a good, right, and holy thing to do.

Harp rightly points out that Article 28 stipulates that the Lord’s supper was not by Christ’s ordinance to be reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped. And this is true: it wasn’t by Christ’s ordinance to be reserved–hence why it’s not an obligation for the people of God to do so given historic Anglicanism. Now, I know Anglo-Catholics might disagree with this, but so be it: if you hold to the articles, you cannot say that reserving the sacrament is an obligation for the churches.

But neither do the articles exclude doing so. The reason why it’s a good thing to venerate the Eucharist owes to our theology of the Eucharist: the elements are consecrated as a true participation in the real body and blood of Christ. They are, therefore, the body and blood in a heavenly and mysterious manner. Now, with the articles, we should affirm that the bread and wine themselves remain; qua bread and wine, they remain bread and wine. However, they are consecrated and worked on by the Spirit such that, via the elements, one really and truly participates in the body and blood of Christ (Article 28) after a heavenly manner by faith.

Now, if the bread and wine are sacramentally joined to the body and blood, such that one receives the latter when they receive the former, why in the world would we not see the bread and wine as icons through which we see the Lord Jesus Christ? The veneration of the elements, like the veneration of icons, consists in due contemplation of the reality they mediate: the body and blood of Christ. Hence, veneration is a good practice.

2.) Expanding the Number of Sacraments

Harp also rejects the distinction, common in many Anglican circles today (including my own), between the Sacraments of the Church and the Sacraments of the Gospel. The latter, high church Anglicans like myself would say, refer to those sacraments instituted by Christ as normally necessary to the obtaining and preservation of our salvation. They are given to all Christians for eternal life.

The other 5 sacraments (e.g. confirmation, ordination, marriage, absolution, and the anointing of the sick) were all still given by Christ. A sacrament is a visible means of an invisible grace, instituted by Christ for the good of his people. But these 5 sacraments are not necessary to our salvation, but are beneficial nevertheless (and this, of course, is where we would depart from Rome on absolution; we see absolution as good, sacramentally and effectively conveying forgiveness, but not necessary to obtain forgiveness). Confirmation is the only sacrament here arguably not directly instituted either by Christ or his apostles, but it is the visible reification of Christ’s command to make disciples and his institution of church discipline–it’s the way the church, over time, has learned to extend the opportunity to each person to make the faith their own. We’d also argue that each of these sacraments of the church were instituted by Christ or the apostles. So the sacraments of the Gospel were directly and entirely instituted by Christ and are (normally) necessary to salvation. The sacraments of the church were instituted by Christ or the apostles, and are not necessary for all Christians (e.g. not all Christians will be married, and most won’t be ordained).

3.) Praying for the dead

Harp argues we should reject prayer for the dead because it opens the door to Purgatory. But there was a specific issue at hand in the rejection of purgatory: namely, Rome’s doctrine of retributive satisfaction through temporal punishments inflicted on purgatory, and temporary separation from Christ therein.

But that there is post-mortem cleansing is not addressed at all by the articles. In fact, it makes a great deal of theological sense to suppose that there is post-mortem cleansing. Now, I think this happens in the presence of Christ; Christ does not need to separate himself from us to cleanse us. But nevertheless, we will see our sin in Christ’s presence–both in the intermediate state when we day, and at final judgment when God raises us from the dead and renews all things. Hence, if we grieve at all for our sin (and feel the pains of repentance) prior to glorification, then that’s a form of post-mortem cleansing.

What we specifically reject, as Anglicans, is the notion that God must exact punishment on us in Purgatory via temporal punishments to satisfy the temporal debt of punishment (and while some Roman Catholics either are not aware of this dimension of the teaching on purgatory or gloss over it, this was explicitly taught at Trent (see my admittedly low-quality-phone-recorded video on purgatory here).)

Therefore, we can engage prayers for the dead in the following way. We can pray that the dead in Christ might more fully rest and experience his peace; that’s a prayer for their sanctification in Christ’s presence. We can also ask the saints for their prayers.

4.) Affirming Apostolic Succession

While it’s true that the Protestant Reformers in England didn’t think the episcopacy was necessary to the form of the church, Richard Hooker explicitly argues that it’s the most prudent form. Further, given that Anglicans have always rejected any notion of self-ordination, even the original Protestant reformers held that a legitimate minister must at least receive holy orders from an ordained presbyter. In this sense, Presbyterial succession was a minimum.

But while Harp bashes the Oxford movement as a “revolution”, I think we can understand some of it as a growth and a positive corrective to some of the over-corrections of the Reformation. The episcopate was divinely instituted by Christ through the apostles, as Ignatius of Antioch attests to. Ignatius sat at the feet of St. John, so one would have to claim that he’s lying (as were all of the other bishops contemporary with Ignatius, who never dispute him on this point) in his teaching in the apostolicity of the episcopate. The bishop was consecrated (not ordained, properly speaking) as the chief priest among the priests. This was, interestingly, also Aquinas’s understanding:

Further, the Divine ministries should be more orderly than human ministries. Now the order of human ministries requires that in each office there should be one person to preside, just as a general is placed over soldiers. Therefore there should also be appointed over priests one who is the chief priest, and this is the bishop. Therefore the episcopal should be above the priestly power.

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Hence, even if some of our formularies thought the episcopate was optional, the Oxford movement–at its best rather than its excesses–helped Anglicans hold firmly to the faith once for all delivered to the saints by Christ through his prophets and apostles. Included in this deposit of faith is the institution of the office of the bishop, as the unifying principle authority in a given jurisdiction (dioceses). Since it came from the apostles, we are not at liberty to dispense with it or view it as anything less than obligatory for the church Christ came to establish in the midst of the world.