austinbond:
I was wondering, as the ecclesiastical community of England split away from the Church, how do they view the RCC’s validity? Do they believe they are the One Church or do they believe to share in the apostolic succession? Furthermore, how can they believe a “church” founded on a sin most rapturously condemned by Jesus could be valid? Thank you for your answers, it’s always a pleasure to hear from y’all.
First of all, I’m not sure that Our Lord experienced “rapture” in the act of condemning any sin. I would rather think that He experienced sorrow.
Second, Anglicanism is not founded on divorce (presumably the sin you have in mind). While the term “divorce” was often used in the 16th century without careful distinctions being made, Henry in fact sought an annulment on the grounds that his marriage was invalid. The indissolubility of marriage was not a matter of principle between Anglicanism and Catholicism. Indeed, Henry’s actions were no more than the proximate cause for the first phase of the schism. After all, England was reunited to Rome under Mary and the schism was not finalized until the time of Elizabeth, for reasons that were not unrelated to Henry’s “divorce” (since Elizabeth was the daughter of Anne Boleyn), but had grown far beyond that initial question.
The Church of England in fact did not remarry divorced people until very recently, and it continues to be very reluctant to do so (this is not the case in the Episcopal Church in the United States). A case could be made that its position is at least as conservative as that of the Catholic Church (at least in Western countries where annulments are relatively common). Divorce is simply a red herring. We are as tired of hearing “why is your church founded on divorce” as you are tired of “why do you worship statues?”
Insofar as Anglicanism is founded on any sin or error, it is founded on the doctrine of independent national churches and consequently of royal supremacy over the Church. Given that 16th-century monarchy was seen as a sacred institution along the lines of OT kingship or Byzantine autocracy, this is not as horrendous as it sounds in modern ears. (The idea was that a Christian nation formed a local embodiment of the People of God whether seen as a civil or as a religious community.) But it was a disastrous mistake and we are still suffering for it.
Now to your main question: Anglicans have never claimed to be the One Church. Under Edward and Elizabeth (the first two genuinely Protestant monarchs, since Henry was rather hard to classify) the Church of England was clearly part of the international Protestant community, and came to align itself specifically with the Reformed. The group now known as “Puritans” wanted to make that alignment closer by further reforming English worship and polity to bring it in line with Continental Reformed churches such as Calvin’s Geneva. This led to a reaction in the early 17th century, and hence to the creation of something called “Anglicanism” that was allegedly a distinct form of Christianity, different from Reformed and Lutheran Protestantism on the one hand and “Romanism” on the other. From the 17th century on, “high church” Anglicans saw apostolic succession of bishops as necessary for a particular church to be fully a part of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Since these Anglicans still rejected “Rome,” their view amounted in practice to claiming that Anglicanism was at the very least the fullest and purest embodiment of the Church (the closest we have ever come to claiming to be the “One Church”). High-Church Anglicans did make some overtures toward the Orthodox, but this never got very far.
However, many Anglicans continued to reject this view and to see themselves as part of the broader Protestant community. In the 19th century this conflict deepened with the Evangelical revivals on the one hand (which made Evangelical Anglicans see themselves as part of an interdenominational Protestant movement) and the “Oxford Movement” on the other. The Oxford Anglo-Catholics (such as Newman before his reconciliation with Rome) saw the Catholic Church as divided into three “branches”: “Roman Catholicism,” Eastern Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism. While this never became
the Anglican view, it did have a huge impact on Anglicanism, and many Anglicans continue to think this today.
I hope this helps answer your questions.
Edwin
