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Vol I No. 10

The Thirty-Nine Articles and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States

by
Benjamin Crosby

What role did the Articles of Religion play in the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States? The most common answer you will hear to this question, whether in popular accounts of its history, from pulpits, or even in some seminary classrooms, is ‘Not much’. The common story goes something like this: when the Episcopal Church became independent after the Revolutionary War, the new church rooted its identity in its liturgy and polity and allowed the role of the Articles of Religion to wane. To be sure, the fledgling Episcopal Church did eventually adopt its own version of the Church of England’s articles, but it waited until 1801 to do so and removed the requirement that clergy subscribe to it. This late adoption is indicative, the story goes, of the church’s general attitude toward the Articles: they were never important. Thus, for example, the entry on the Articles in Don Armentrout and Robert Slocum’s An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church (which is also available on the Episcopal Church’s website) includes only two dismissive sentences on the American use of the Articles of Religion: ‘The Episcopal Church has never required subscription to the Articles. They now appear in a section called “Historical Documents” in the back of the BCP’.1Don Armentrout and Robert Slocum (eds), An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church (Church Publishing, 2000), p. 519. There is no treatment of the Articles of Religion in two of the three best-known current histories of the Episcopal Church – David Holmes’ A Brief History of the Episcopal Church and David Hein and Gardiner Shattuck’s The Episcopalians. It is not hard to get the sense that the Articles never really mattered.

Unfortunately, no matter how popular this view of the Articles in Episcopal Church history may be – and no matter how useful to those who are uncomfortable with the Articles – it is also wrong. In fact, the early Episcopal Church spent a good deal of time thinking about how to articulate its doctrine and ultimately adopted a light revision of the English Articles to be the definitive statement of the Episcopal Church’s theology. While it is true that subscription to them was not explicitly required as it was in England, Episcopal clergy were considered bound by them in their preaching and teaching. This is how the Articles were understood, by both their advocates and their enemies, well into the twentieth century. It’s to this story that I now turn.

Establishing the doctrine of the independent, newly formed Episcopal Church via revised Articles of Religion was not an afterthought. Rather, it was an object of great concern to the leaders of the new church. William White, the Episcopal Church’s first presiding bishop, described the post-Revolutionary situation as ‘very embarrassing in regard to the standard of [the Episcopal Church’s] doctrinal profession’, for several political aspects of the English Articles were evidently no longer in effect, leaving the church without a clear confession.2W. White, in B.F. DeCosta (ed), Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, (E.P. Dutton & Co, 1880), p. 212. The first attempt to solve this problem was thoroughgoing revision. In 1785, a rather dramatically revised set of articles was proposed along with the proposed prayer book at the General Convention. The proposed prayer book, however, was rejected by English bishops for its radicalism and a more moderate book was approved in 1789. At that convention, White later recalled, the Articles were discussed – but he found, to his surprise, that Bishop Seabury, the only other bishop at that convention, opposed the adoption of any articles of faith, on the grounds that the liturgy itself was sufficient as a doctrinal standard.3Ibid. The problem of determining the church’s doctrine continued to be discussed over the next several General Conventions; White’s 1792 arguments that it was necessary to have orthodoxy determined ‘by a rule, issuing from the public authority of the Church’ and that the Articles were, of possible confessions, ‘better than any other, likely to be obtained under present circumstances’ were typical of him.4White, Memoirs, 192. However, continued disagreements prevented any decision from being made about the church’s doctrine until after Seabury’s death. In 1799, a group of deputies proposed a comprehensive revision along the lines of the 1785 attempt. These were not considered during the convention itself but were printed in its journal and evidently caused something of a firestorm. As White put it, the proposal was ‘beneficial’ only in ‘showing the improbability of agreement in a new form, and its thus contributing to the recognizing of the old Articles’.5Ibid.,214. General Convention finally acted on the Articles in 1801, essentially agreeing with White’s consistently-made proposal. The English Articles were ‘established’ with the necessary changes to the political articles and a deletion of the reference to the Athanasian Creed.6Journal of General Convention (The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestan Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1801), p. 206. The idea (so popular now in contemporary circles due to the success of Lionel Mitchell’s Praying Shapes Believing) that the liturgy itself provides a sufficient doctrinal statement was found wanting. Instead, some 15 years of debate driven by the church’s need to establish its doctrine – a need asserted with particular conviction by White – were settled by the establishment of the American Articles of Religion.

But what did it mean that the Articles were ‘established’? It is true that the clergy were not required to subscribe to the Articles. But we should not make too much of this. In 1804, a proposed canon requiring subscription was rejected, but the grounds of this rejection are important: the canon was rejected because, in the mind of the Convention, ‘a sufficient subscription to the articles is already required by the 7th article of the constitution’, in which the ordinand vowed to uphold the doctrine of the Episcopal Church.7Journal of General Convention (1804), 221. White had already made this argument against specific subscription to the Articles back in 1792 when he emphasized that they could best function as ‘articles of peace’ by being subscribed to as the church’s doctrine rather than explicitly.8White,Memoirs,193. That is, the subscription to the church’s doctrine meant subscription to the Articles. It is not unreasonable to see this as a loosening of the requirement in the English canons that ordinands subscribe to the Articles ex animo. But this does not mean that the Articles were not seen as authoritative. Rather, they were held to be doctrinally definitive – and to be patient of a broad interpretation, especially on the questions of salvation that divided Protestants. When a handbook on the Articles for was selected for the Course of Ecclesiastical Studies – the standard reading list for those seeking holy orders adopted in 1804 by the Episcopal Church – the Restoration Bishop Gilbert Burnet’s Exposition, which took exactly this view, was chosen. However, even this comprehensive understanding of the Articles had its limits. At the 1844 General Convention, amid controversy about early Tractarianism centered around General Theological Seminary, the Articles (along with the Prayer Book) were reaffirmed as the doctrine of the Episcopal Church. Visitors were appointed to ask the seminary professors ‘What [is taught] concerning the obligation of a clergyman of this Church to be conformed in doctrine to the 39 Articles in their literal and grammatical sense, as well as concerning any liberty of reservation?’9Journal of General Convention (1844),232. The Articles were unambiguously the doctrine of the church, which clergy were to uphold.

And the Articles were not just for clergy. The pastoral letters sent out by the bishops to be read from parochial pulpits following meetings of the General Convention show that the Articles were seen as definitive for all Episcopalians. Let me describe a few of these letters: the 1808 letter provides a brief history of the Episcopal Church and describes a need for an ‘explicit declaration’ of the church’s ‘profession of Christian doctrine’ that was fulfilled in the adoption of the Articles.10A Pastoral Letter to the Members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, from the House of Bishops of Said Church, Assembled in General Convention at Baltimore, May 1808 (T&J Swords, 1808). The 1820 and 1823 letters reference the Articles in clarifying certain doctrinal questions.11A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church from the Bishops of the Same, Assembled in Convention in the City of Philadelphia, This 24th Day of May, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty (S. Potter & Co., 1820); A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and the Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, from the Bishops of the Same, Assembled in General Convention, in St. Peter’s Church, in the City Philadelphia, May, A.D. 1823 (T&J Swords, 1823). The 1826 one apologizes for ‘a sameness’ in the content of the pastoral letters; they have been repetitive, the letter says, ‘so far as concerns a persevering adherence to the pure and holy religion of the Gospel; and, as explanatory of it, to the doctrines of our Church, as set forth in her articles; to her services, as seen in her Book of Common Prayer; and to the illustrating of both in a holy life and conversation.’12A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and the Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, From the Bishops of the Same, Assembled in General Convention, in the City of Philadelphia, on the 14th of November, in the Year of Our Lord 1826 (T&J Swords, 1826). This is worth dwelling upon for a moment. The bishops called the people to adhere to the Gospel. And how does the church call people to that adherence? According to the bishops, they do so by calling people to the Episcopal Church’s formal explanation of the Gospel, namely to its doctrine, worship, and ‘holy life and conversation’ (discipline, essentially). Just as the source for the Episcopal Church’s worship is the Prayer Book, the source for its doctrine is … the Articles.

We have good evidence that it wasn’t just the bishops and delegates gathered together at General Convention who understood the Articles defined the Episcopal Church’s doctrine. Robert Prichard’s The Nature of Salvation argues convincingly that both high- and low-church Episcopalians’ views on the key doctrines of salvation and assurance were normed by the Articles throughout the nineteenth century (unsurprisingly, Prichard’s A History of the Episcopal Church is the one standard history that gives the Articles their due). He attributes the decline of their importance to the rise of the Oxford Movement. It is worth noting, however, that the view that the Articles were authoritative persisted longer than one might think. For example, in his rather cheekily named Tract XCI of 1907 the influential liberal catholic theologian William Reed Huntington argued that the Articles needed to be officially consigned to ‘honoured and dignified retirement.’13W. Reed Huntington, Tract No. XCI: The Articles of Religion from an American Point of View (A.G. Sherwood & Co, 1907). He believed this was important because the Articles had ‘in some sense … binding force upon the consciences of our clergy’ – and this was, in his view, a problem.14Ibid. That is, writing in the early twentieth century from a perspective opposed to the Articles, Huntington took for granted that they were the statement of Episcopal Church doctrine, and he wished to change that. Ultimately, the church never did – at least not formally.

What happened instead was a gradual process of erasure and forgetting. References to the Articles in the canons were gradually removed. There was even an attempt to end the practice of printing the Articles with the Prayer Book in the process leading up to the 1928 revision, although this was foiled by popular protest. The Prayer Book (1979) saw them consigned to a section given the odd name ‘Historical Documents’ suggesting an ambiguity regarding their status. The 1997 General Convention saw the creation of a new definition of doctrine for the purposes of clergy discipline that does not mention the Articles at all, focusing instead on the Creeds and the Book of Common Prayer. This means the Episcopal Church – without formally repudiating its Articles – simply sidelined them and endorsed Seabury’s proposal that the liturgy provided a sufficient doctrinal standard. Thus, without ever reversing the 1801 establishment of the Articles, the Episcopal Church effectively erased them.

Now, at this point, you might be wondering ‘So what?’ Granted that the Articles of Religion were broadly seen as authoritative in the early life of the Episcopal Church, what does this mean for Episcopalians today, especially given that they have long since been neglected? There are at least three conclusions to draw from this story.

First, it should make us question how we use the past in making positive arguments for what our identity is or should be. It is important to rely upon the most careful and responsible accounts of the past in debates and discussions about life today – and I worry we too often use convenient but oversimplified narratives. For example, it is simply inaccurate to assert – as so often has been done – that the Articles of Religion were always irrelevant in the Episcopal Church, and we should stop doing so. This is, I hasten to add, not only an Episcopalian problem; I’ve written about the same problem in narrating the place of the Articles in the history of the Anglican Church of Canada.15B. Crosby, ‘Yes, the Articles of Religion Functioned as a Confession’, Draw Near With Faith (Substack, 2024). Now, let me be clear: admitting this history does not necessarily mean that the Articles should also be important or central to Episcopal identity today. There is nothing stopping the Anglo-Catholic or theological liberal from saying ‘Yes, the Articles used to be a norm in our theology and this was a mistake’. But for the sake of historical accuracy – or, to put it in more theological terms, for the sake of not bearing false witness against our fellow members of the body of Christ – it is incumbent upon us to describe our past as correctly as we can, even when such a construal is inconvenient. Gaslighting is ungodly.

Second, the story of the Articles’ erasure raises questions about how to handle discussions about Episcopal Church identity, teaching, and practice. It is troubling that rather than having the open debate about the place of the Articles which William Reed Huntington called for the politically savvy found it more expedient to quietly marginalize them. I do not doubt the church’s canonical authority to do this – but I do question the wisdom of so doing. It is possible, of course, such a debate would have had much the same result as their gradual erasure did, with the Articles being displaced from any normalizing role in the life of the Episcopal Church. But particularly for questions of such import as the church’s doctrine, which clergy of the Episcopal Church still vow to uphold, it is worth having these discussions as openly and transparently as possible.

Third and finally, particularly when history turns out to be otherwise than we imagined, we should be alert to opportunities to learn from the past. Our forebears in the faith were nourished by a Christianity grounded in the Articles (along with the Book of Common Prayer and Ordinal); this was how they came to know and trust the love of God for them in Christ Jesus. It is worth being curious about what exactly they found compelling or exciting about this account of the Gospel and open to transformation as a result of that inquiry. This is exactly what happened to me. As I have written elsewhere, I have found myself convinced by the account of Christianity given in the Articles (alongside the other Anglican formularies).16B. Crosby, ‘For Anglican Reconfessionalization’, Draw Near With Faith (Substack, 2021). In my own preaching and teaching, I seek to set forth the Christianity of the formularies, an irenic Augustinian Protestantism that emphasizes the absolute gratuity of God’s saving grace and guides us in responding to that free gift of salvation with an ordered life of prayer, worship, and love of neighbor. Clearly such a view is not the majority report in the Episcopal Church at the moment. But I hope that recognizing that such a view once was standard – once fired the imaginations and fed the souls of our ecclesial ancestors – might encourage more people to see it as a viable option now as well.

Footnotes

  • 1
    Don Armentrout and Robert Slocum (eds), An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church (Church Publishing, 2000), p. 519.
  • 2
    W. White, in B.F. DeCosta (ed), Memoirs of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, (E.P. Dutton & Co, 1880), p. 212.
  • 3
    Ibid.
  • 4
    White, Memoirs, 192.
  • 5
    Ibid.,214.
  • 6
    Journal of General Convention (The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestan Episcopal Church in the United States of America, 1801), p. 206.
  • 7
    Journal of General Convention (1804), 221.
  • 8
    White,Memoirs,193.
  • 9
    Journal of General Convention (1844),232.
  • 10
    A Pastoral Letter to the Members of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, from the House of Bishops of Said Church, Assembled in General Convention at Baltimore, May 1808 (T&J Swords, 1808).
  • 11
    A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church from the Bishops of the Same, Assembled in Convention in the City of Philadelphia, This 24th Day of May, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty (S. Potter & Co., 1820); A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and the Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, from the Bishops of the Same, Assembled in General Convention, in St. Peter’s Church, in the City Philadelphia, May, A.D. 1823 (T&J Swords, 1823).
  • 12
    A Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and the Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, From the Bishops of the Same, Assembled in General Convention, in the City of Philadelphia, on the 14th of November, in the Year of Our Lord 1826 (T&J Swords, 1826).
  • 13
    W. Reed Huntington, Tract No. XCI: The Articles of Religion from an American Point of View (A.G. Sherwood & Co, 1907).
  • 14
    Ibid.
  • 15
    B. Crosby, ‘Yes, the Articles of Religion Functioned as a Confession’, Draw Near With Faith (Substack, 2024).
  • 16
    B. Crosby, ‘For Anglican Reconfessionalization’, Draw Near With Faith (Substack, 2021).
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