The Ties That Bind What Held Anglicanism Together Before the First Lambeth Conference?

¹An earlier form of this paper was given by the author at a colloquium on ‘The Sources of Anglican Theological Authority for the Oxford Movement’ hosted by the Church of the Advent, Boston, MA, on 28 Sept. 2024.I approach the question, ‘What are the sources of theological authority for Anglicans?’ from an oblique angle in this paper. Before Archbishop of Canterbury Charles Thomas Longley invited the then 144 bishops recognized as Anglican to a conference at Lambeth Palace in 1867, before there were any recognized instruments of unity for the Anglican Communion, or indeed before ‘Anglican Communion’ was first used to designate an international family of churches whose clergy and laity recognized each other as, in some sense, belonging to each other, what were the ties that bound them? Whatever it was that these believers recognized as uniting them was also, to some extent (at least), recognized as authoritative among them. In other words, these were those things they believed themselves bound to believe and to do – that is, the doctrine