Have Anglicans gone Lutheran on Lord's Supper?

We have been over this before. The current state of scholarship is what it is. There was in fact a great deal of correspondence and mutual influence between the English Reformers and both Zurich and Geneva. The Church of England at the time was considered by both its prelates and the monarch to belong to the family of Reformed churches, and the official 16th century Anglican doctrines of predestination, the Church, the Scriptures, and the sacraments, line up perfectly with what their Reformed counterparts were saying on the Continent. All one has to do is line up the Confessions article by article and it’s clear as day. No serious historian disputes that today. The patristic influence is also overstated.

The primary concern of the English Reformers was to modify the worship and institutions of the Church of England to conform to the doctrine of Justification by Faith, for which their main pre-Reformation authority, aside from St. Paul, was St. Augustine in particular, not the Fathers generally, many of whose works were not widely available at the time. None of this is disputed or considered controversial by professional historians, nor should it be if one is familiar with the primary sources.

There is a particularly well written piece by an ACNA fellow that mentions many of these same points. Obviously these things aren’t unknown in the ACNA.
https://mereorthodoxy.com/anglicanism-gateway-catholicism/

I am not endorsing the Reformed view here. My point in bringing up the history, as I said above, was to note that none of the parties in the Reformation affirmed a material presence, once they had an opportunity to officially clarify their views. Rome and the Lutherans affirm different versions of an objective spiritual presence, while the Reformed (including the Anglicans) affirmed a presence in the soul of the believer. This is why the Roman Catholics and the Lutherans affirmed that nonbelievers partake of Christ in the sacrament (though unto condemnation), which the Reformed (including the Anglicans) specifically denied. There is a genuine disconnect in the Reformed view between the sign and the thing signified that does not exist in the Lutheran, Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox understanding. That the Anglicans endorsed the specifically Reformed view of the sacraments is clear from the rubrics in the rite for the Communion of the Sick, as I noted above:

The 1979 Book of Common Prayer includes essentially the same rubric, on p. 457, in the rite for the Ministration to the Sick:

The 2019 ACNA Prayer Book, p. 242, includes the same language:

The classic Reformed disconnect between the sign and the thing signified persists, hiding in plain sight in the rubrics.

There have been many Anglicans over the last two centuries who have wanted to distance themselves from any doctrinal connection with the other Reformed churches, and this motivation is understandable. The Reformed Confessions equivocate in their use of the word “spiritual” to describe Christ’s presence in the sacraments, and this incoherence over time has led to a dramatic underemphasis on the sacraments among the Reformed. I am not saying that Anglicans today are necessarily beholden to what Anglicans thought in the 16th and 17th centuries. But it is intellectually indefensible to pretend that Anglican alignment with the Continental Reformed simply didn’t happen, and that the Anglican attempts at producing coherent doctrinal statements didn’t borrow considerably from their Continental precursors. We have to be honest about the history.

 

You keep using that word, as if it has some sort of stable substance or a single meaning. Well then, can you define what "Reformed" means (as applied to the 16th century)? I have spent the last 3-4 years asking this of serious theologians and historians, who have failed to give this definition. They all keep using it, as if it means something, but when asked to define, not one of them has been able to do it. Indeed modern scholarship is coming around to the fact that "Reformed" is mostly a made up label that does not exist (in the 16th century) at all:
https://anglican.audio/2019/04/15/fh32-on-being-reformed-debates-over-a-theological-identity/

But maybe you can define it for me (specifically for the 16th century), when so many others have failed.

 

This is literally the teaching of St. Augustine. Have you read his On Christian Doctrine? This is literally what he teaches, the disconnect between the sign (signum) and the thing signified (res significata). This has nothing to do with "Reformed theology" AT ALL.

Go on, please tell me how our doctrine of predestination is "uniquely Reformed" (whatever that label even means, see above).

 

https://www.catholicsun.org/2020/05/02/what-is-a-spiritual-communion-an-explainer/
I would just like the point out that Roman's also have a view of spiritual communion that lines up with out prayer books. I am not going to get into the argument much deeper because I feel like we have all been around and around on this view.

 

The issue here comes down do, whether we trust recent scholarship or not. Does one take modern 20th century theological viewpoints, and explanations of prior history? Or does one believe that 20th century history and theology are fundamentally broken, and in use of broken/incorrect definitions, which make them fundamentally unreliable?

For example, I have heard of the term "Semper Reformanda" for as long as I have been a Christian. It is presented as one of those famed old hallowed terms, reverently coined in Latin by the Reformers in the 1500s. It turns out it was literally manufactured by Karl Barth and Otto Brunner in the 1930-50s. And they did it literally to enable doctrinal change; not some sort of conservatism.

Richard Muller, Dictionary (2nd Ed), p. 102



So how many of these "obvious" and "clear" understandings of history are just distortions of recent historians and theologians? Everything I've read of history points me in the opposite direction of the modern understandings of things.

And so with the term "Reformed". It is a word with no meaning, like oompa-loompa.

 

But in Anglicanism, and Lutheranism, Orthodoxy, you still need an ordained minister to perform the Communion rite, even absent the doctrine of Transubstantiation.

So I am not sure what’s gained by discarding the material presence. I’m not even sure you need to discard Transubstantiation to abolish the Catholic notion of a priesthood. I can well imagine a Christian sect preaching Transubstantiation, confected by lay ministers. I don’t understand how the two are necessarily linked.

 

Yes I think that if you are of the transubstantiation crowd then the Eucharist, in which you have the Word in the flesh, is similar to the Incarnation by mere fact of the accidents. And that is why Roman Catholics have Eucharistic processions, adorations, and so on.

 

One definition is:

the belief system(s) of those Protestant churches which trace their origins to the work of Reformers such as Huldrych Zwingli and John Calvin.​

Amplifying further,

Reformed theology, originating in the Swiss Reformation, developed in response both to late medieval Catholicism and Lutheranism, breaking with the latter on the issue of the nature of Christ’s presence in the Lord’s Supper. Defined confessionally by the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards, it maintains the generic Protestant emphases on the sufficiency of scripture and on justification by grace through faith, being distinctive in its approach to Christology, sacraments, certain approaches to politic and culture, and worship.
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/reformed-theology/​

The 16th century Church of England officially endorsed practically all of what were the Reformed distinctives at that time. The one exception was the retention of episcopacy, and this exception was not unique to the Church of England: the Reformed Churches of Poland and Hungary retained bishops as well. Among the distinctives, take predestination, for example. Lutheran statements on the subject explicitly denied the predestination of the damned. The Reformed statements occurred in 2 stages: the early Reformed confessions (e.g., the Belgic Confession) explicitly state a predestination to eternal life for the Elect, but are silent regarding the predestination of the damned; the later confessions (e.g., the Westminster Standards) explicitly teach both the predestination of the Elect and the damned. When we look at the Articles of Religion, Article 17, what we find is a positive statement regarding predestination of the Elect, but without the distinctively Lutheran denial of the predestination of the damned, which is similar to what one finds in the Belgic Confession and, less explicitly, in the Heidelberg Catechism.

One can go through the Articles of Religion item-by-item, and it can be clearly seen that where there was the option to adopt either a Reformed or a Lutheran distinctive, the 39 Articles consistently align with their Continental Reformed counterparts. That's not an accident. The English Reformers were actively corresponding with their counterparts in Switzerland, especially in Zurich, throughout this time. The Church of England was part of the broader family of Reformed Churches in the 16th century, and a large portion of its clergy, quite possibly the majority, were as fully Calvinistic as their Puritan and Presbyterian opponents in the 17th century. Recent Anglicans who have maintained the Reformed approach (e.g., J.I. Packer, John Stott, J.C. Ryle, etc.), were/are simply preserving the classical approach and following it to its logical conclusion. That being said, one cannot say today that Anglicanism is Reformed. Queen Elizabeth I made certain that the Calvinist tendencies present in her own day would enter a state of arrested development from a confessional standpoint, and the political and religious controversies of the 17th century made further reforms in the direction of the Zurich and Geneva, such as the proposed replacement of the medieval canon law, practically impossible as well as politically undesirable.

In summary, Anglicanism in the 16th century was Protestant generally and Reformed specifically, by its own self-understanding. Anglicanism in the 21st century is not Reformed (though echoes of its Reformed heritage remain embedded in its ethos and liturgy), and its status as a Protestant body, i.e., one committed to the classic Protestant Solas, is contested. These statements are all undeniable historical truths, supported overwhelmingly by the available evidence. I do not understand the refusal on the part of some in the ACNA here to simply accept them as such. I realize, of course, that many Anglicans want and have wanted Anglicanism to be "patristic" and "catholic", etc., and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but it is anachronistic to read people like St. Augustine as providing definitive answers to controversies that didn't exist in their own day, especially when the precise contours of their own theology remain highly contested today, and it is inappropriately selective as well as inconsistent to list the similarities between classical Anglicanism and "the Fathers" and to cite those similarities as evidence of conscious influence, but then to overlook parallels between England and the Continent and to deny that those similarities were evidence of influence, even - and especially - when we actually have abundant documentary evidence to the contrary. We have an obligation to be honest about what the history has actually been, not just what we'd wish it to be.

 

More like the word Homonym, perhaps. The Ommpa-Loompa are a quite specific tribe of fictitious chocolatiers and confectioners.

'Reformed' are any Christian Confession of Faith that is not part of the Roman Catholic or older Denominations of Christianity. In order to be reformed theology a theology has to have been reformed. i.e. changed for the better, from the theology existing before the reform. The confusing thing about this is that Reformed Theology hopes to have been a return to the true Apostolic theology before the Roman Catholic Church perverted it by the retrograding of its progressive reforms led by various Popes, Leaders and Councils, for hundreds of years, up until, and after The Reformation.
.

 

So then, does not having the very Incarnation itself, in Podunk North Dakota every Sunday, diminish what "the Incarnation" is supposed to be? Why should we celebrate that Christmas then, if the same thing substantially happens in very average circumstances?

 

Okay, so then was Martin Bucer "Reformed"? How about Peter Martyr Vermigli? Both of whom have humongous divergences from Calvin and Zwingli, with Martin Bucer for example teaching on the 4 holy orders (not 3, or 2), and both being committed Thomists (in contrast to both Zwingli and Calvin)?

By the similar token, was Jacob Arminius a Reformed? He died in 1609, and was never censured. Could one validly be an Arminian and be Reformed?

If "Reformed theology" is "defined confessionally by the Three Forms of Unity and the Westminster Standards", then that excludes the Anglican reformation by definition, since Westminster was written a hundred years later, and the Heidelberg Confession was written so late that it's irrelevant to the Anglican identity. Even the earliest of these (1561) was by many decades after the Anglican 42 articles of the 1540s; those very same articles which in 1563 were amended to even less resemble the confessions of the Continent, and cut out phrases and expressions which (began) to make their way into Continental Confessions of the 1550s and 1560s. See this article:
https://northamanglican.com/is-the-eucharistology-of-the-anglican-reformation-patristic-part-2/

Your quote reinforces what I said, that Reformed as a term was only solidified in the late 16th, mostly 17th century. This was not a term that existed when the Anglican Reformation took place. Simple.

We do not have any part of this theology in our doctrine. Just because the "Reformed" (sic) used the signs/ things signified does not mean we took it from them, because they did not originate it. Saint Augustine originated it, and most other things in our theology. Saint Augustine is our founding theologian. Not some new theologian with never-before-seen views.

 

I’ll hazard an answer, although I’m skating on thin ice by offering my unlearned speculation. Perhaps I’ll discover some new heresy by which I’ll make myself famous.

in the general sense, for all humanity, the obvious answer is no, the incarnation is not diminished. God has assumed our humanity into the godhead for all time.

for ourselves as individual human beings the Roman answer, I guess, it yes it is diminished, since the individuals living in Podunk will not be physically nourished by the Body and Blood of Jesus. They may have the spiritual nourishment, but not the physical.

In another forum, a Catholic forum, I mentioned I was considering attending an Anglican Church and one uncharitable fellow upbraided me for the choice with “have fun eating your bread and wine, hope you like hot weather”. I think that about sums it up for the Transubstantiation crowd.

 

I think you misunderstood what I said. Was probably my wording, so let me rephrase.

Doesn't the fact of having the very Incarnation itself, in Podunk North Dakota every Sunday, diminish what "the Incarnation" is supposed to be? Why should we celebrate that Christmas then, if the same thing substantially happens in very average circumstances?

 

Yes.

Yes.

It does not. There were plenty of other Reformed Confessions, besides the preeminent ones. I'm not aware of any intent on the part of the author of the article I cited to exclude those. Insofar as the drafters of the Articles of Religion consciously adopted the features peculiar to those Confessions, those Articles should be and have been considered part of the same family of Confessions, even though it is also the case that Anglicanism has since outgrown that cast.

Yes. His theology was simply Dort in reverse by anticipation, i.e., simply opposite answers to all the same questions, without adopting Lutheran distinctives. Arminians are still Reformed.

 

I wouldn’t think so. That the Incarnation has happened is itself the greatest of all miracles. That it happens weekly… daily even, in Podunk (of all places) is a testament to God’s endless generosity.

 

What made Martin Bucer Reformed? He was a signer to the Augsburg Confession until his death. Did he cite Zwingli or Calvin as his "master theologians" to whom he owed his theology, in the way in which actual 17th c. Reformed had done?

What made Vermigli Reformed? Did he cite Zwingli or Calvin as his "master theologians" to whom he owed his theology, in the way in which actual 17th c. Reformed had done?

Okay cite me some 16th century sources which cite our Articles as in the family of the "Reformed" Confessions in contrast to the Lutheran ones. I just cited to you scholarship which painstakingly showed, line by line, clause by clause, how the 39 Articles consciously moved away from the language which began to appear in Continental confessions.

Okay, cite me some prominent Reformed orthodox scholars of today who refer to Arminius as Reformed. Anyone from the Gospel Coalition, whom you cited, will work.

 

So then there was nothing special about that initial Incarnation, as compared to our mundane ones, right?

 

No I would not say anything like that. There could be no Eucharist at all without the incarnation, the passion, and resurrection. The Incarnation is unique and indispensable.

The Eucharist is is the (Romish wording here) “re-presentation” of the life of Christ on Earth and it’s culminating salvific sacrifice on the cross.

I don’t see anything particularly wrong with that Romish theology, assuming I understand it correctly, and assuming I’m communicating my meaning clearly. I also can’t fault someone for believing that the Communion is merely a memorial, that the presence is spiritual, that Christ is present in the soul of the believer. Both to me seem true and pious.

 

So what you're saying is it's only unique historically. But what it brought into the world isn't any more special than what happens in boring places and times around the world.

The difference from the Anglican view on the Eucharist is that we never conflate Christ's incarnation with the Eucharist. The two are totally different things, as the Scripture and the church fathers teach us. The incarnation is a special moment in the history of the world, which we do not permit to be made boring and quotidian by equating it with mundane events in everyday life.

It also avoids us from blasphemy, in that if Christ incarnated in the eucharist, that means that we poop out Christ when we go on the toilet. Which is what Roman theology teaches, which is why the Reformers accused Romans of blasphemy.

 

Do you accept there is a useful category of modern churches we could label as 'reformed'? E.g. the churches that literally label themselves Reformed or the churches that label themselves Calvinist and Presbyterian?

If so, then surely 16th century Reformed thought is simply the theology and philosophy of the thinkers that originated those modern Reformed churches, right?

This also shouldn't be hard to work out in the 16th century. They absolutely did use the word Reformed in their own time in a way that is useful for us today. It wasn't very long into the reformation when Luther and his adherents started using the term "Lutheran" to distinguish themselves from Calvin and his ilk, because they saw the word 'Reformed' as tainted. From the point at which Lutheran enters the lexicon, anyone who still labels themselves 'Reformed' is most probably of the Continental Reformed theology.