Tuesday, September 24, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

It is September 24th, 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Hey, let’s talk about the Anglicans! (And not like, behind their backs… ooh, we got a reformation because the king wanted a divorce!… no, it’s complicated, but we love them… s/o to Drew Harrah, my brother-in-law and Anglican priest with his family in Arizona) 

Let me give you a quick primer if this isn’t your world: the “Anglicans” are from the Church of England- a creation of the English Crown during the 16th century Reformation when King Henry VIII refused to defer to the authority of the Pope in Rome regarding the annulment of his marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon (it was a mess). The Theology of the Anglican Church- developed in large part by the likes of Thomas Cranmer and his circle- would try to follow a middle way between the Roman Catholic Churches and that of the Continental Reformation.  The Crown would negotiate its authority over the church, both in England and beyond, in the following centuries. The Archbishop of Canterbury has historically been the head, however ceremonial in some parts, and is the administrative head of the Church of England. Ok.

Now, if you have an Anglican friend (or you yourself are either of the domestic or imported variety), you will need to forgive them if they get a little jumpy around the term “Lambeth.” Sure, you’ve heard of the Lambeth Walk (a dance that a 17-year-old me had to try and learn to audition for the lead in “Me and My Girl”), and you might know that “Lambeth” is to the Archbishop of Canterbury as is Downing Street for the Prime Minister or the White House for the President.

But since September 24th, this day, in 1867, it has been the byword for meetings, controversies, and resolutions in the Anglican Church. The 19th century had been rough for the church in England (as elsewhere across Europe). As the Crown continued to expand across the globe so too did the church with a distinct location in the name. 1843 saw the walking out of one-third of Scottish ministers in the Anglican communion to form the Free Church of Scotland. John Henry Newman and the Tractarians famously argued for a high church and Catholic approach until Newman famously jumped ship for the Roman Church.

As the communion buckled under its geography and theological diversity, a bishop named John Colenso in South Africa threatened (to some) to break the camels back with his skeptical positions on parts of the Old Testament. While non-English jurisdictions were given autonomy, it was argued that this was heresy and needed to be weeded out at the root. And so the Archbishop of Canterbury called a meeting of worldwide Bishops to his residence at Lambeth. The Colenso case was trickier than it may have appeared, and not many international Bishops attended, but it set the model for a global conference every ten years for the broader Anglican communion to discuss controversial topics.

From Biblical authority and church autonomy that marked the first meeting, which began on this day in 1867, the meeting has made news for its debates on biblical authority, colonialism, war, contraception, the ordination of women, and most recently, human sexuality. While the Lambeth conference in 1998 attempted to walk a middle ground, such a path soon evaporated after the 2008 Conference.

But rather than note the strife that seems to follow the Lambeth Conference, we might also highlight the so-called “Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral”- an approach to understanding the fundamentals of Anglicanism drafted in Chicago and then affirmed at the 3rd Lambeth Conference. It states that the Anglican Church rests on the authority of:

The Holy Scriptures- as necessary to Salvation, the creeds, (at least) the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and the historicity of the line of Bishops holding authority over the church.

While these four foundations can be debated among Christians, we are always done a service when one church body defines itself in the interest of larger inter-denominational conversations.

So, happy Lambeth Day. The conference that has done so much to mark the modern Anglican church began on this day in 1867.

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and the Psalms, a song of Ascent from Psalm 128:

Blessed are all who fear the Lord,
    who walk in obedience to him.

You will eat the fruit of your labor;

    blessings and prosperity will be yours.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine

    within your house;


your children will be like olive shoots

    around your table.

Yes, this will be the blessing

    for the man who fears the Lord.

May the Lord bless you from Zion;

    may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem

    all the days of your life.

May you live to see your children’s children—

    peace be on Israel.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 24th of September 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who was wondering, so I’ll tell him- it’s like an exaggerated strut in 4/4 time, often with thumbs in suspenders (and ours ended with a simple jazz box). He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man rested and back in God’s timezone, the Best Coast- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.