Each of the individual things that make up who we are come together to form our identity. Sometimes these things might appear to be contradictory. For example... how can one be a priest and a husband? Those two things seem to be contradictory, which is why I think that example is such a great picture of the contradiction that is Anglicanism.
We established that Anglicanism is Catholic, but it's also protestant at the same time. How does that work? Isn't that a contradiction? In short... no.. it's not! In fact, one could argue that one can only be protestant if one is also Catholic. But that's a discussion for another day.
As previously stated, the English Reformation was not the spontaneous formation of a new church, but rather the reorganization of a previously existing church. Our church has its roots firmly grounded in the undivided church of the apostles and their successors the early church fathers. But we are also a church that has clearly protested the excesses of the medieval Roman Church. It is for this reason that we are both Catholic and Protestant.
We firmly believe in Justification by faith alone, we reject transubstantiation, the Roman doctrines of purgatory, indulgences, and the invocation of the saints. We have married clergy and believe that Christ is our only mediator to God. We are thoroughly protestant.
But our brand of protestantism is our own. There is no question that we have had outside influences, but Anglicanism is Anglicanism. We aren't English Calvinists or Lutherans as some may like to suggest. We are our own people with our own ideas. Independent thinkers, who may converse with other protestants, but draw our own conclusions.
For example, it is frequently argued that Anglicanism is calvinistic because Archbishop Cranmer had a Calvinistic understanding of the eucharist. Did he though? Or was his view of the eucharist just simply the view held by scripture and the patristic teachings of the early church? Calvin and Cranmer's similarities are incidental. They came to the same conclusions not because one copied from another, but because the scriptures were opened up to them and they did the hard work of exegeting the word for themselves opposed to being told what to believe by a corrupt Pope.
Anglicanism is actually distinct from its Continental cousins (Calvinism, Lutheranism, and Zwinglianism). We, unlike our cousins, maintain a valid episcopacy in apostolic succession with the apostles. We do not believe in double predestination and tend to have a higher view of the sacraments then most (with some very notable exceptions). Not to mention the fact that our liturgy is the best protestant liturgy that there is. Hands down!
Now there have been times in the history of our church in which the protestant has been emphasized over the catholic and visa versa. One example would be during the reign of King Henry's son, King Edward VI. However, both of those seemingly conflicting identities are a significant part of who we are as a church and there is, in reality, no conflict at all. That is unless someone makes these things a conflict, which seems to often be the case to my frustration. But instead of putting our Catholicism against our protestantism a healthy Anglicanism embraces the two in harmony. To borrow an Idea from Pope St. John Paul II, we must breath with both our lungs.
We will come back to that later!
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