Evangelical and Anglican?

If Sydney Anglicans identify somewhat with the Puritans, especially of the Elizabethan era, it is also the case that they identify very strongly with the ‘Evangelical’ movement of the eighteenth century. The first chaplains of the colony were evangelicals and sponsored by the circle of Charles Simeon, one of the leading evangelicals of the Church of England. Like the Puritan movement, this was a movement that began within but subsequently exceeded the bounds of the Church of England. The established church proved too limiting for many and also sought to persecute and expel the proponents of evangelicalism. And yet, there is no doubt that evangelicalism has played and continues to play a major part in the history and ethos of Anglicanism. As Turnbull says, ‘…Anglican Evangelicalism is a manifestation of the Christian faith which gives fullness of expression to the core foundational beliefs of both Anglican and Evangelical Christian traditions’.

Most commonly, the Evangelical movement is thought to have begun in the eighteenth century with the conversion of John Wesley (1703-1791) in 1738. Labelled ‘enthusiasts’ by their opponents in the Church of England, the evangelicals were treated with a great deal of hostility and found difficulty in obtaining livings. This ‘enthusiasm’, though it seemed crass to some of their co-religionists, was representative of an extraordinary reawakening of ardent faith. It was also a judgement that the assumption that mere membership in the Church of England was sufficient for Christian identity was deeply flawed. It was after all a direct reaction against the dryness, formalism and rationalism that characterised much of early eighteenth century established Christianity. A Christianity without a heart for God was clearly deficient. The evangelical movement lead to missionary zeal and social reform on a grand scale; evangelicals formed societies and co-operated trans-denominationally. They wrote hymns that are still sung today. John Wesley and George Whitfield (1714-1770) become famous as open-air preachers. Like the Puritans, it is has to be said that the evangelicals oftentimes inhabited the fringes of the institutional church. They seemed less interested in ecclesiastical preferment and more concerned with missionary work. They were often directly persecuted by the authorities.
The term ‘evangelical’ itself is contested territory, both as a historical description and as a identifier for contemporary Christians. My purpose here is not to become entangled in this debate, but simply to show with broad brush strokes that evangelicalism and Anglicanism overlap considerably. Anglicanism is a great denominational home for evangelicalism, but it is not the only one. Likewise, evangelicalism has made and continues to make a considerable contribution to Anglicanism. The British historian David Bebbington’s description of evangelicalism is the best known and most widely used and will be sufficient to frame our discussion here. Bebbington speaks of ‘a quadrilateral of priorities’ – namely, conversionism, activism, Biblicism and crucicentricism.

Evangelicals are conversionist in that they proclaim the necessity of personal transformation in response to the gospel of grace. They preach to the heart, appealing for repentance of sin and turning to God in dependence. Their gospel is highly individualist in this sense – it is not sufficient for true Christian faith merely to be in possession of membership in a church grouping. Evangelicals are also, as Bebbington speaks of them, activist. They expected the evangelical conversion to result in a transformation of life. This meant that the believer was expected to be busy in the process of moral renewal and in seeking the conversion and moral renewal of others. The activism characteristic of evangelicals resulted in evangelistic mission but also in programmes for social welfare on a large scale. Evangelicals such as William Wilberforce and the Earl of Shaftesbury become bywords for the activist streak within evangelicalism.
Evangelicals have always been people of the Bible. Like their Reformation forebears, they have taken Scripture as the supreme authority for Christian life and for doctrine. The centrality of preaching for evangelicals is evidence of what this means in practice. As well as being Biblicist, the evangelical is also crucicentric – which means that central place is given to the atoning work of Christ on the cross. Christ is an exemplary figure and a moral teacher, but he is first and foremost the saviour who died for sin.

In bringing Anglicanism and evangelicalism together, Anglican Evangelicals have mostly but not exclusively subscribed to a form of moderate Calvinism. This description would apply to the faith of two of the greatest of evangelical Anglicans, Charles Simeon (1759-1836) and Bishop J.C. Ryle (1816-1900). They appealed for their identity within Anglicanism to the Protestant and Reformed nature of the Anglican settlements of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. However, they did not insist on the rigorous application of Reformed doctrine, especially over the extent of the atonement. Just as Article 17 is quite a restrained account of predestination, so Anglican Evangelicals have certainly asserted but not overemphasised this teaching. Most often co-operation in evangelism and fellowship with non-Calvinist evangelicals overrode concerns about absolute purity of doctrine. Even if the effects of the atonement were to be applied only to the elect, the preaching of the gospel was to be to all.

This ethos is perhaps where tension with the institutional framework of Anglicanism most often surfaces. More often than not, evangelicals have felt themselves excluded from the positions of power within the Anglican churches of the West. Their priority has always been the preaching of the gospel and not the maintenance of the institutional church. Their ecclesiology – and they most certainly do have an ecclesiology – does not tend to recognise the bureaucratic side of the denomination as ‘church’. If the institution inhibits the preaching of the gospel, then there is no question where compromise has to be made. For other Anglicans with a more hierarchical view this seems like schismatic behaviour.

As the Oxford movement grew in influence in the middle part of the nineteenth century, the evangelicals insisted on the Protestantism of the Church of England, often to the point of legal controversy. The most celebrated – or notorious, depending on your point of view - of these incidents was the ‘Gorham case’ of 1846-7. Evangelical clergyman Charles Gorham clashed with his Tractarian bishop Henry Phillpotts over the critical issue of infant baptism. Gorham, taking the evangelical position, asserted that baptism did not necessarily effect regeneration. After all, evangelicals believed in repentance and conversion. Phillpotts pointed to the wording of the Book of Common Prayer which seems to refer to the child as regenerate; and wanted to refuse him a post in his diocese as a man of unsound doctrine. The precedent set by the case could have made the position of every evangelical clergyman in England uncertain to say the least. The case made its way as far as the non-ecclesiastical Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which finally found for Gorham. What this meant was that the place of evangelicals within the Church of England was secured. Their interpretation of the formularies was certainly permitted, if not entirely endorsed.

In Sydney there is an entire diocese in a major city which is run by evangelicals. This breaks with the usual experience of evangelicals as having almost no institutional leverage and in having to live within diocesan structures which are liberal-Catholic in flavour. The evangelical behaviours which have irritated non-evangelical Anglicans historically are magnified in the case of Sydney. The unusual dominance of evangelicals in the diocesan structure of Sydney diocese means that Sydney does look strange to Anglicans who are accustomed to liberal-Catholic hegemony – and ecclesiology - elsewhere. Liberal-Catholics expect to be in charge of things. But they would be mistaken in calling evangelicalism ‘unAnglican’, for the moderate Calvinist evangelical outlook of Sydney with its missionary activism and its Biblicism and with its emphasis on the atoning blood of Jesus Christ as a sacrifice for sins is utterly consistent with the evangelical Anglican tradition that has had an unbroken presence in the Church of England for nearly three centuries. The English evangelical Anglican Alister McGrath has written:

My concern is simply to insist that evangelicalism is, historically and theologically, a legitimate and respectable option within Anglicanism. At no point is evangelicalism inconsistent with any of the Thirty-Nine Articles, the only document apart from Scripture, the creeds and the Prayer Book, regarded as authoritative for Anglicans.

It has not only been my intention to show here that Sydney’s evangelical Anglicans have a legitimate place within Anglicanism. History shows that the evangelicalism held so dear by Sydney’s Anglicans arose from and was to a great extent nurtured by Anglicanism. The Anglican operating system was not always strictly compatible with the evangelical software, but at many points it actually helped -and helps - it to run better.