Confessing the Faith: Protestant Articles of Religion
Editor’s Note: This is the eighth in a series of articles by Dr. Stephen Noll, titled “The Jerusalem Declaration: A Personal Commentary.” Dr. Noll draws on decades of experience in the GAFCON movement, especially his role as Secretary of the Statement group that drafted the Jerusalem Declaration and its accompanying Statement.
In the previous essay, I examined the development of doctrine, especially as it pertains to the Councils and Creeds of the first five centuries. In this essay, I’ll turn to a second period of doctrinal ferment, which is directly relevant to historic Anglicanism: the Reformation of the 16th century and the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of the Church of England. Clause 4 of the Jerusalem Declaration states:
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4. 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.
Clause 4 moves us one thousand years forward from the end of the patristic era. The early modern period was a time of institutional crisis in Europe, along with the recovery of the classical past. J.I. Packer comments,
creedal and confessional statements emerge at times of crisis in church life, when it seems that, unless the apostolic faith is clarified afresh, error will simply overwhelm it.
In this context, the three historic Protestant bodies (Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican) all claimed to be heirs of the “one holy catholic and apostolic church” of the creeds and councils, over against Rome’s distortions of the faith. But even while respecting the patristic tradition, the Reformers viewed it as merely “ministerial.” Their return to the magisterial authority of the Bible (ad fontes) resulted in a “reformulation” of Christian doctrine similar to that of the patristic period.
Cranmer and the Articles of Religion
The primary author of the Articles of Religion was Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, who embraced Reformation doctrine while navigating the tumultuous years of Henry VIII’s break with Rome. Upon the accession of Edward VI in 1547, Cranmer began revising the formularies of the Church of England: the Forty-two Articles in 1553; the Prayer Books and Ordinals in 1549/1550 and 1552; and canon law in 1553 (but not adopted). After Cranmer’s death and the accession of Elizabeth I, the Church of England adopted the Thirty-nine Articles in 1571. Having been suspended during the English Civil War, the Articles were restored in 1662 under Charles II as the normative confession of the Church of England.
Divisions of the Articles
Gerald Bray divides the Articles into the Catholic doctrines (Articles 1-8), the Protestant doctrines (Articles 9-34), and the Anglican doctrines (Articles 35-37). This schema works, I think, for Articles 1-5, as they generally repeat the teaching of the Creeds on the Trinity and the Person and work of Jesus Christ.
Articles 6-8, however, part ways with Rome’s exclusive claims by placing the Bible—Old and New Testaments—above tradition and the magisterium of the pope. Even the Creeds are authoritative because “they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture” (Article 6). The Articles apply the same Scripture principle to the early church, stating that “the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred, not only in their living and manner of Ceremonies, but also in matters of Faith” (Article 19), and that General Councils “may err and sometimes have erred” (Article 21).
Articles 9-18 turn to the heartbeat of the Protestant Reformation: Martin Luther’s insight into St. Paul’s gospel of the righteousness of God revealed through faith and faith alone (Rom 1:17). This article “on which the church stands or falls” brings with it attendant doctrines of original sin, bondage of the will, justification by faith, works proceeding from faith, and predestination and election. While all these doctrines have roots in Catholic teaching, the Reformers spelled out their implications in a series of confessions and catechisms: the Heidelberg Catechism (Lutheran), the Westminster Confession (Reformed), and the Articles of Religion (Anglican). In turn, the Roman Catholic Church convened the Council of Trent and denied and denounced all these confessions.
Cranmer’s Doctrine of the Church
With regard to the doctrine of the church, Article 19 reads:
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.
Oliver O’Donovan notes “the disappearance of the invisible church in this definition,” but this omission seems to me to be intentional. The true catholic church is the assembly of God’s elect in heaven, the church triumphant (Heb 12:23). The visible church, on the other hand, is found on earth, divided by tradition and history but united by biblical preaching and administration of dominical sacraments. The reformed ecclesia Anglicana (ecclesia translated here as “congregation”) of the faithful in the British Isles is one national church among other Protestant churches in Europe. In contrast to historic sees—and with specific reference to the claim of papal primacy—Bishop John Jewell claims for the Church of England:
We have searched out the Holy Bible, which we are sure cannot deceive, one sure form of religion, and have returned again unto the primitive church of the ancient fathers and apostles, that is to say, to the first ground and beginning of things, as unto the very foundations and head-springs of Christ’s church.
The Articles in the Global Anglican Communion
Returning now to the Jerusalem Declaration, clause 4, in what way is this Protestant reformulation authoritative 450 years later for a Global Anglican Communion? J.I. Packer, writing twenty-five years before the first GAFCON, observes:
The Thirty-nine Articles are framed so directly in terms of the sixteenth-century controversy in England that the provinces of the Anglican communion that began to emerge overseas nearly three centuries later could hardly have been expected to take them over as their own confession of faith. Nor in fact have they done so in any practical way.
Packer’s characterization may be somewhat exaggerated. It is true that the Lambeth Conferences have placed less emphasis on the Articles, and a minority of the Global South Provinces include them in their constitutions; none require subscription to them, nor do they seem to be taught in detail in theological colleges. I recall a lecture on the Articles by Ashley Null at Uganda Christian University, in which his Ugandan Respondent dismissed the Articles as a remnant of colonialism. While this latter view was extreme, I do think the Articles suffered from neglect in many Global South churches.
Restoring the Articles’ Authority
It is therefore significant that the Global South Fellowship (Cairo Covenant §1.1a) and the Gafcon movement have both restored the Articles to a place of authority. In its exposition of the Jerusalem Declaration, the Gafcon Theological Group writes:
Though they were written in the midst of sixteenth-century debates about Christian doctrine, the Articles remain critically important for the church today. Articles dealing with the nature of God, for example, and with the authority of Scripture and the way of salvation, come into this category. Other Articles, however, are specific to the established English church and must be expressed differently in other contexts. The Articles do not address all the urgent issues of our day, but they do offer first principles and a framework for approaching the Bible which enable us to grapple with new questions and new challenges.
Some may see the reaffirmation of the Protestant reformulation of doctrine as having a partisan tilt toward Evangelicals. I would argue that, taken together, clauses 3 and 4 accurately locate contemporary orthodox Anglicanism. The Reformation formularies are set at the midpoint of our catholic history. It is necessary to plant that central tent-pole before we address the canopy of Anglican ecclesiology, especially how it stretches across a communion of churches.
The Streams of Anglican Identity
It is noteworthy that Anglo-Catholics and charismatics have been participants in the Gafcon movement from the beginning and were present at the Gafcon assemblies. The pre-Conference booklet for GAFCON II in Nairobi, titled The Truth Shall Set You Free, contained three essays addressing these “streams” of Anglican identity.
Ashley Null, in expounding “Sixteenth Century Anglican Ecclesiology,” notes:
The constant refrain in the Book of Homilies, the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles that the Bible contained all things necessary for salvation” is the “prescient principle that enabled the Elizabethan national church, with its own rich cultural heritage and history of specific insights into the apostolic faith, to evolve into a truly worldwide Communion that seeks to proclaim a common gospel through a myriad of culturally appropriate prayer books and practices.
pg. 72
Arthur Middleton, writing on “The Anglican Mind in Caroline and Tractarian Thought,” said:
Michael Ramsey claimed that the Anglican Church does not see the Evangelical and the Catholic views as alternatives, but in the Scriptural sense where both elements are one. This ethos has enabled the Anglican Communion to look not for a synthesis but rather for a symbiosis, a growing together in a living whole of the sundered Christian traditions and with humility seek to promote it.
pg. 98
Finally, Colin Reed, expounding the conference theme of “GAFCON and the East African Revival,” notes the influence of the “Keswick” movement on African leaders of the Revival:
They were committed to teaching and living out a life of total commitment to God through Christ. Holiness of life was their aim, the victory over sin and temptation. Full surrender was their catch-cry. The missionary movement was deeply influenced by this and most of the missionaries had accepted its intense spirituality. [pages 124-25]
Purists may scowl at what seems like a shotgun marriage of these three streams mentioned in the first GAFCON book, The Way, the Truth, and the Life. In response, I would appeal to two further traits of Anglican identity: openness to the mind of Christ— that the truth will set us free—and trust in the promise of the Spirit, who will guide the church into all truth. We shall pursue this balance of unity in diversity, with special reference to Article 34 “Of the Traditions of the Church,” when we come to Clauses 11-13.
Communion Polity and Catechesis
The most obviously obsolete of the Thirty-nine Articles are those that deal with the Established Church in England, especially Article 38, which deals with “the Queen’s majesty.” The larger question is whether a confession shaped for a national church can serve an international communion of churches.
I am bold to suggest that the Jerusalem Declaration represents a development of doctrine and discipline, a reformulation as it were, of the catholic and Protestant faith in the Anglican tradition in the context of a worldwide communion of churches in the 21st century.
But how can we communicate this reformulation in a reordered Communion? Given the foundational place of the Jerusalem Declaration, catechesis will be an important vehicle of this resetting. Cranmer sought to indigenize the teaching of the Articles through a Book of Homilies for clergy and parishes, and a catechism for children preparing for confirmation. I would like to suggest the recent Anglican Catechism, To Be a Christian, developed by the Anglican Church in North America, as such a vehicle.
To Be a Christian is an adult catechism in a question-and-answer format with references to Scripture, the Early Church, the Thirty-nine Articles, the classic Book of Common Prayer and hymnody, the Lambeth Quadrilateral, and the Jerusalem Declaration. It is available in print and as an app for phones.
To Be a Christian has been approved by the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches. If the Global Anglican Communion were to adopt such a catechism, it could supplement it with a brief catechism of the Jerusalem Declaration itself.
References
J. I. Packer and R.T. Beckwith, The Thirty-nine Articles: Their Place and Use Today (Latimer Trust, 2006 [1984])
Oliver O’Donovan, On the Thirty Nine Articles: A Conversation with Tudor Christianity (Paternoster Press, 1986)
Gerald Bray, The Faith We Confess: An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles (Latimer Trust, 2009)
GAFCON Theological Resource Group, Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today (Latimer Trust, 2009)
Charles Raven, ed., The Truth Shall Set You Free: Global Anglicans in the 21st Century (Latimer Trust, 2013)
To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism (Crossway, 2020; Anglican House Publishers, 2026)
Photo by John Theodor from Getty Images, courtesy of Canva. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
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