The Thirty-nine Articles provide the only secure anchor for an authentic Anglican identity. This is after all the foundational doctrinal statement of the reformed church of England, drafted by the reforming bishops, endorsed by the lay members of the church in parliament, and situated as the touchstone of Anglican theology and practice ever since. Whatever other categories, principles or documents may be presented as integral to the heart of Anglicanism, the simple fact is that the Articles tell Anglicans who they are.
The Articles were never intended to be exhaustive. They are not a comprehensive systematic theology, an Anglican answer to Calvin's Institutes or Melanchthon's Loci Communes. Nevertheless, they do provide the contours of Anglican polity, Anglican practice, and the Anglican commitment to biblical doctrine. They do not claim to be the final authority — that final authority was and is Scripture itself, the word of God written (Article 20) — but they do have a subsidiary authority. Insofar as they are in fact a faithful expression of biblical truth, they rightfully test all contemporary claims to the Anglican inheritance.
One of the freshest and most exciting developments in recent Anglican theology is a return to a serious and respectful study of the Articles. A number of studies have been published in the past few years and are about to be published over the next year or so, all of which seek to expound the doctrine of the Articles as a powerful force in the renewal of Anglican identity worldwide. The Articles do not present us with a moribund theology, one bound irretrievably to discredited epistemological and ontological commitments. Here is a lively confession of trust in Christ which still has the capacity to challenge us to greater fidelity to God's self-revelation in Christ and through the inspired Scriptures. Here is an antidote to fearful, sloppy thinking. The failure of courage that has characterised so much Anglican theology in the last two centuries — as one conviction after another has been surrendered in the doomed attempt to win favour with the world around us — need not determine the future. The 39 Articles are once again the cutting edge!
However, not all references to the 39 Articles today take them seriously on their own terms. Current attempts to revive Newman's interpretation of the Articles lack integrity today just as they did in Newman's time (even he could not sustain it in the long run). Attempts to read an Arminian theology into them, when plainly this is at best anachronistic and at worst a reading of them that is determinedly 'against the grain', must also fail. The suggestion that they are an historical document locked into the debates and concerns of the sixteenth century but without any real relevance to the twenty-first, fails to account for (1) the express intent of the authors; (2) the reaffirmation of the Articles in 1662, one hundred and ten years after they were drafted, when very different circumstances prevailed. The current Archbishop of Canterbury, who at one time assented to the Articles at his own ordination, has recently stated that the differences between Rome and the Anglican Communion — even the controversial ones such women's ordination and the acceptance of homosexuality — are merely secondary matters that ought not delay continued ecumenical advance, simply reaffirms his highly intelligent muddle-headedness.
Are the Articles open to revision? In principle the answer must be 'yes', since they claim to be completely dependent for their authority on the teaching of Scripture. If it can be shown that at one point or other they contradict the teaching of Scripture, then the Articles must give way to Scripture. But the Articles must not be bent to any contemporary ecclesiastical, political or social agenda. They stand over against contemporary theologizing as a check on our hubris and idiosyncracies and as a challenge to our own blind spots. It would need an extraordinary consensus, and a clear demonstration that the changes were drawing us closer to the teaching of Scripture and not further from it, if there was any any substantial revision today.
What is more, as legal argument in the nineteenth century established beyond doubt, the Articles interpret the Book of Common Prayer and not the other way around. Liturgical practice must flow out of theological conviction, not vice versa. Some of the official pronouncements from such bodies as the highly politicised Anglican Communion Office continue to peddle the argument that our theology is derived from the Book of Common Prayer or from the Ordinal. Of course these too are our foundational documents, alongside the 39 Articles. But each of these has a particular function, and the doctrinal standard is the 39 Articles. A failure to recognise this has brought in its wake a host of problems.
The need of the moment is for the obfuscation of the establishment to be replaced by the clarity, boldness and rich edification of Anglicanism's foundational doctrinal statement. This can only result in the future health of this ailing denomination, as Christ crucified, risen and regnant takes his proper place amongst us, which will always be demonstrated by a thoroughgoing submission to the word by which he rules.
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