Act of Conscience versus Act of Supremacy

Thomas More, Henry VIII, and the Future of Anglicanism

by Fr. Van McCalister

On July 6, 1535 Sir Thomas More was beheaded because he was unwilling to agree with the conscience of King Henry VIII, as enforced by the Act of Supremacy, since the King's conscience opposed the Conscience of the Church, as More understood it.

The 1534 Act of Supremacy declared, in part:

Be it enacted by authority of this present Parliament that the King our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia, and shall have and enjoy annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm as well the title and style thereof, as all honours, dignities, preeminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits and commodities, to the said dignity of supreme head of the same Church belonging and appertaining.

Thomas More defended his refusal to sign the oath acceding to Parliament's Act of Supremacy because:

• The Act of Supremacy contravened God's Law.
• English subjects could not be removed from the corps (ie. body) of Christianity by an act of parliament.
• That corps is represented by the General Councils of the Church (over king and pope).

Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Audley ruled against More stating, “if the Act of Parliament be not of unlawful, then the indictment is not in my Conscience invalid.” In other words, with some obvious sarcasm, if the acts of Parliament were valid, than the verdict stood. The audacity of Audley: we want it to be so, and so it is. Audley ignored the entire point of More's argument, which was that neither the acts of Parliament, nor the King could overrule the corps of Faith, as held by the Conscience of the Church.

When More defended his inability to defy conscience, it was not in defense of an arbitrary personal conscience but the conscience of the Church, which was proclaimed and protected by the Councils of the Church. More did not elevate the Councils of the Church above Holy Scripture, but saw them as the guardians against the whims of individuals. It may be that Sir Thomas viewed the “Corps of the Church” as protected by the Councils of the Church with the Pope presiding, or at least that the pope was the instrument of unity. And from that perspective, it must seem odd and historically impossible to defend Anglicanism. But the goal here is not so much to defend Anglicanism, as it is ancient Christianity and the inheritors of the Faith. Thomas was defending his faith as a Roman Catholic because he believed the Roman Catholic Church represented the root of Christianity. It is his defense of the root of Christianity, and his argument against those who would arbitrarily claim that root for themselves alone, to which we appeal.

Thomas More's act of conscience is still relevant today on at least two points: (1) as we view his argument from the knowledge that the Catholic Faith predates Roman catholicsm, and Anglican catholicism. (2) National expressions of catholicism are subordinate to the apostolic catholicism of the New Testament and Early Church, from which we receive the corps.

Contemporary Anglicans would do well to follow More's example. We rely too much on a sense of individual personal conscience, without first exploring and submitting to the conscience of the Church. North American Anglicans did well to recognize that the leadership of The Episcopal Church and the Church of Canada abandoned the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church, and reoriented themselves back toward their Anglican roots where the authority of Holy Scripture is honored.

However, this reorientation is incomplete and confused. Some are reorienting themselves to the Reformation Movement with particular respect to Thomas Cranmer. Some are reorienting themselves toward the Roman Catholic Church. Some are orienting themselves toward a form of Evangelical non-denominationalism. Some are finding their identity in the Global South – so long as it doesn't require too much submission. And, some look to 1662 or 1928 as their defining ethos. Others look to Canon Law to define who they are.

Even as we endeavor to re-embrace a genuine and orthodox Anglicanism, we are struggling with our identity. We are so accustomed to being western individuals that we struggle to be authentically Catholic. In other words, submission to our ancient catholic corporate identity does not come naturally to us. We value Apostolic Succession in our catechisms but have difficulty honoring it in actual practice.

There is much that we can learn from all of the post-reformation expressions of Christianity. However, these are not our roots if we are a Catholic Church. Our catholic legacy did not begin with the Reformation Movement, but with Pentecost, and the Apostles, and was carried to us by the faithful Church Fathers. This is evident as we read the history of the Church in the British Isles from the Third Century onward, as well as from the writings of so many of the Anglican Divines, who constantly referred back to the Church Fathers as the source of Anglicanism.

Anglicanism is not the illegitimate child of Henry VIII. It is not the invention of Archbishop Cranmer. Anglicanism is no longer ethnocentric and imperialist. Anglicanism is not a pale reflection of Roman Catholicism, as though there never was an undivided Church.

The primary emphasis of Anglicans in North America over the past several years has been to re-establish Biblical orthodoxy, which must be our first concern. This led to a variety of Anglicans, with different identities, banding together for the sake orthodoxy – but not always unity. While agreeing on Biblical orthodoxy, numerous debates have ensued over the Instruments of Unity and other Anglican distinctives. Discussions and meetings about canons and covenants still occupy a considerable amount of attention throughout the Anglican Communion.

It is going to be extremely difficult to overcome these differences (if not impossible) until we come to an agreement on who we are and what our lineage is. If we continue under the mistaken identity that our patrimony is Henry VIII, Thomas Cranmer and the Reformation Movement, then we will be hopelessly embroiled in all the personal conscience issues that those embody. If, however, we recognize, as did Thomas More and the Anglican Divines, that our identity and lineage is to be found in the corporate conscience of the Fathers and Councils of the Church, we will find an appropriate standard through which we can find catholic unity, not only for ourselves, but also with the Churches of Rome and Constantinople.

Anglicans may be pleased to look back at the Act of Supremacy and see a moment of liberation and so find our identity as a distinct entity. And, it was a moment where the Church in England began a process of re-discovering her ancient Catholic roots, but it is not helpful to corporate Christianity to view that as our “birthdate”. It is helpful when we look through that moment and other historical moments as lenses through which we view the real birth of the Church at Pentecost. But to give the Act of Supremacy and King Henry the VIIIth, any more value than that, is not all that different from recognizing the illegitimate authority of The Episcopal Church and the Church of Canada. Henry never had the authority to redefine the Corps of the Church, nor do we.

. . . And, therefore, since all Christendom is one corps, I cannot perceive how any member therof may, without consent of the body, depart from the common head. And then if we may not lawfully leave it by ourself, I cannot perceive, but if the thing were a treating in a General Council, what the question would avail, whether the primacy were instituted immediately by God, or ordained by the Church.

As for the general councils assembled lawfully, I never could perceive but that in the declaration of the truths it is believed to be standen to; the authority thereof ought to be taken for undoubtable, or else were there in nothing no certainty, but through Christendom upon every man's affectionate reason, all things might be brought from day to day to continual ruffle and confusion, from which by the general councils, the spirit of God assisting, every such council well assembled keepeth and ever shall keep the corps of his Catholic Church. (Thomas More to Thomas Cromwell – March 5, 1534)

Note: The historical references are from lectures by Prof. Dale Hoak of Wm and Mary College; The Last Letters of Thomas More, Letter 5 “To Thomas Cromwell, Chelsea, 5 March 1534.” Edited by Alvaro de Silva, and Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More,.by Thomas Edward Bridgett

This article originally published: December 20, 2011 (Revised July 25, 2016)

Early Church Catholics

Someone visiting to inquire about our church recently asked me, “Are you Catholic?” I replied, “Yes, but we are not Roman Catholic.” The inquirer’s face turned quizzical – as faces generally do during that exchange. Sincerely, I was not being obtuse. We are Anglicans, but we are also Catholics, along with our brothers and sisters in the Roman and Orthodox churches. We all track our lineage in an unbroken succession of ordinations and confirmations through the laying on of hands back to the Apostles themselves. And, we understand our origins as a Church to be rooted in the Biblical, Apostolic and Patristic Faith which has been faithfully preserved and carried into the present.

There was a time when I thought that if I was going to belong to the real church – and by that I meant the church that is closest in belief and practice to the New Testament church – I would have to become Roman Catholic. As I wrestled with that question, I came to see that Anglicanism had a unique and less complicated correspondence to the Early Church than any other denomination I knew. I realized God placed me right where I needed to be, and I no longer viewed Rome as having sole possession of Catholic Christianity. I know for many Christians that relationship to the Early Church is not very important, but for me it has always been an important value. Certainly the most important aspect of being a Christian is the quality of our relationship with Jesus. Do we know Him as our Savior, or not? Everything else pales in comparison.

Even so, the way in which Christians relate to Jesus and worship Him is also very important. I have always thought that those closest in history to Christ and the Apostles, had the most intimate understanding and experience of worship – and they practiced liturgical and sacramental worship. Therefore, as an Anglican priest, I study and practice my ministry, not so much from a denominational perspective but more and more from a desire to be grounded in the Faith and practices of the Scriptures, Apostles and Early Church. Fortunately, that is a perspective shared by my bishop and many other Anglicans. I just wish more people had the opportunity to experience it, but it requires effort. Isn't that typical of the best things?

Therefore, consider one of the best treasures of this catholicism: the collected writings of the Church Fathers, many of which were re-discovered and translated from Greek into English by British scholars in the nineteenth century. Probably due more to the English style of the translations in the nineteenth century, rather than the original authors, these writings can be laborious reading. But here is an excerpt from the writings of Hilary, the fourth century bishop of Poitiers, which I have paraphrased to give a flavour of what they have to offer Twenty-first century Christians:

The words that we use to speak of the things of God must not be used in a simple human and worldly sense, nor should a sloppy interpretation which is corrupted by strange external sources be forced from the soundness of heavenly words by any abusive and pigheaded preaching. Let us read what is written, let us understand what we read, and then fulfill the demands of a mature faith. For unless we have been taught by Him as to what we say about the reality of Christ’s nature within us, our words are foolish and disrespectful. For He Himself says, my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. [John 6.55, 56 - ESV] As to the truth of the flesh and blood there is no room left for doubt. For now both from the declaration of the Lord Himself and our own faith, it is truly flesh and truly blood. And when these are eaten and drunk, bring into reality that both we are in Christ and Christ is in us. Is this not true? Yet they who affirm that Christ Jesus is not truly God are welcome to find it false. He Himself therefore is in us through the flesh and we in Him, while together with Him our own selves are in God. [Bishop Hilary of Poitiers: On the Trinity, Book VIII.14 – AD 367]

I did not present this particular quote to be a “stick in the eye” to those who do not believe in the Sacraments or the Real Presence, but because it is such a reverent and lucid exposition of an early bishop's understanding of Jesus' words in John 6, and to encourage those not familiar with the Church Fathers to explore their many treasures.

Hypernikomen+

Apostolic Succession

One of the defining features of being a member of one of the catholic churches (Orthodox, Roman & Anglican) is Apostolic Succession.  As I understand it, Apostolic Succession IS the defining principle of being Catholic.  It is not so, if you only understand Apostolic Succession as the lineage of bishops over the centuries who have had hands laid upon them in unbroken succession since the first apostles.  That in itself, is a remarkable fact, but it is what was conveyed upon them through the laying on of hands that makes this great ancient tradition the defining feature of what it means to be a Catholic within Apostolic Succession.  A man who is consecrated as a bishop receives much more than just hands laid upon him; he receives the authority of the Church through the action of the Holy Spirit.  The bishops of the Church who are consecrating their brother are praying for the Holy Spirit to set him aside for a unique and holy work because they believe that Christ Himself has called the ordinand to carry on the ministry of the Universal Church by means of the Holy Spirit and the Apostolic Tradition.  This holy work that the bishop is called to carry on is not a new work, nor a new truth, nor a new church; it is the Faith once received by the apostles who conveyed it into the future by the command of Christ and the laying on of hands.

Apostolic Succession is not merely a romantic historic anchronism of the old liturgical churches - it is the very fiber of the Church.  Apostolic Succession is the conduit for ensuring that the Faith received by Jesus' disciples is the same faith that is taught today.  We would not have Bibles in our homes and churches without Apostolic Succession.  Jesus entrusted his teaching to the Apostles, who entrusted it to their disciples, who entrusted it to the first bishops of the Church, who carried it through the many decades of martyrdom and persecution until the point that the Church as a whole had the opportunity to codify it into a unified body of writings which we now call Holy Scripture, or the Bible.  Even the new non-denominational churches who no longer have the corporate memory of the Church, are the blessed beneficiaries of this fact.

I am so awed by this, that I have made it a point to mention in a number of my sermons, that "I do not have permission to preach anything new."  The responsiblity of both the clergy and the laity is to know the difference between the Faith once delivered to the Apostles and something new.  The clergy must study and preach the Received Faith, and the laity must search the Scriptures to see if the preaching is true.  When this is done faithfully and energetically by both clergy and laity, our Faith is transferred to the next generation and we are fullfilling the Great Commission.  Conversely, when we hear bishops and priests teaching a "new tradition" that is different than the recieved Faith, we know that something is not right.  Those bishops and priests may have recieved the laying on of hands within the human lineage of Apostolic Succession but they are not following the commission that they vowed to keep when they were ordained.  Apostolic Succession without the Received Faith is empty. It is a lifeless shell.  In fact, Apostolic Succession without the Received Faith is NOT a true succession. It is a masquarade.  In the parable of the two sons (Matthew 21.28-32),  Jesus made it clear that it was the son who finally went as his father bid him, who did the will of his father, not the one who said he would go and then did not obey.

A bishop vested in cope and mitre, who holds a crozier, and wears a brilliant ring with the seal of the diocese is a very imposing figure.  But only the one who protects and conveys the Faith once Received - the Good News of Jesus - only that bishop is bearing witness to the full measure of Apostolic Succession.