The meaning of a name
John Shepley examines the names Anglicans call themselves, the intellectual baggage and pretensions that they carry with them, and what they can teach us about Anglican ecclesiology
T
he Church of England, Te Church in Wales, Te Scotish Episcopal Church, Te Church of Ireland, Te Anglican Church of Canada, Te Anglican Church of
Australia, Te Church of the Province of Southern Africa, Te Episcopal Church. What’s in a name? What can we learn about the ecclesiology (or lack of it) of our embatled Communion from the names Anglicans call themselves?
Claim of imperial status ‘Te Church of England’: the name might at first be thought
to be a simple translation of the medieval Latin term ‘ecclesia anglicana’. But it is both more and less than that. Inseparable from the name is Henry VIII’s claim of imperial status: England was claimed to be an Empire in the sense that it was in every way, spiritually and politically, autonomous. (Te oath sworn by bishops on their appointment, acknowledging that they receive both the spiritualities and temporalities of their office directly from the Crown, puts the mater succinctly.) Te Church of England is less than ‘ecclesia anglicana’ because she is effectively cut off from the communion of the Church Catholic; more because she, or rather the Crown, claims a unique and unparalleled sovereignty.
in Wales’? Why not ‘Te Church of Wales’? Here the definite article carries the weight. Disestablishment was effected
largely against the will of Welsh Anglicans and in response to pressure from other denominations. ‘Te Church of Wales’ might have seemed overly assertive of privilege at a time when
Anglicans were a minority of the principality’s Christians. Tey were, in fact, ‘A Church in Wales’, but the indefinite article did not match their pretensions. Claims to be authentically Welsh
the very name implies penal laws, Test Acts and all the apparatus of religious oppression
(and not a consequence of the English political hegemony), to have inherited the mantle of Dewi Sant (unlike the Romish interlopers), and so to continuity with the Church of the ages (unlike the many ‘chapels’ with roots in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) were all summed up in three leters. ‘Te Church in Wales’ expresses with simple eloquence the observable tendency of Anglicanism, when disestablished, to see itself as (and strive to become) the Church of the Establishment.
Scotland and Ireland Te history of the Scotish
Cuius regio, eius religio. Te name ‘Church of England’
carries with it the intellectual baggage of the Reformation and of early modern politics. It assumes one church in one realm. Tat makes sense only if other churches and religions are in some sense outlawed or penalized. However much the modern, ‘inclusive’ view of Anglicanism with its dogma of a comprehensive ‘Elizabethan Setlement’ may seek to deny it, the very name implies penal laws, Test Acts and all the apparatus of religious oppression.
Autonomy and sovereignty As Colin Buchanan has explained in this paper, it is from
these early modern origins that the contemporary Anglican doctrine of provincial autonomy ultimately derives. But of course there is more. With the notion of autonomy goes the concept of sovereignty. But where Church and State are formally separated, sovereignty (which was formerly used to suppress alternative bodies and opinions) can only be exercised over actual members. So, as we have seen in the United States, changes of doctrine or order result in the paradox of a sovereign church persecuting its own. ‘Sovereignty’, in these circumstances (as we will probably see in England with dissent over the ordination of women as bishops) is primarily expressed in claims to possess or retain real estate. Te name ‘Te Church of England’ expresses, at one and
the same time, the identity of Church and State and the sovereignty of the Crown in both. But what of ‘Te Church
Episcopal Church is both longer and more complex than that of Te Church in Wales. If association with the Crown and with the nation state has determined the ecclesiology of the Church of England, an adversarial relationship has affected Anglicans north of the border, where the Crown relates to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and the state has intermitently persecuted the Episcopal Church. Te name, then, asserts two things: Scotishness (= not English) and episcopacy (= not Presbyterian). As the moniker of a self- consciously minority church it has a certain rugged resilience. Te Church of Ireland has clung tenaciously to a name
calculated to give offence to the majority of the island’s inhabitants and to recall a foreign hegemony. It has also been tenacious of the real estate which is coming to have increasing importance for the self identity of other Anglican churches. What would the Church of England be without its tenure of ancient cathedrals and parish churches? To bolster its own self-image the Church of Ireland manages two cathedrals in the same city!
Two distinct meanings Te Anglican Churches of Canada and Australia have
adopted terminology which has also become popular among American ‘Continuers’.
In both cases the name indicates a
pride in and identification with the national aspirations of the former Dominions (the Anglican Church of Australia was first known as ‘Te Church of England in Australia’). It is the use of the adjective ‘Anglican’ which merits atention. It first appears in English usage around 1650, and is clearly a coinage based on the earlier ‘Gallican’. (Anglicanism is a nineteenth-century creation and probably owes a good deal
July 2010 ■ newdirections ■ 13
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