An Introduction to The Anglican Tradition

An Introduction to the Anglican Tradition
Last updated 9/2023
Duration: 2h 10m | .MP4 1280×720, 30 fps(r) | AAC, 44100 Hz, 2ch | 750 MB

Its Origins, Development, and Old Ideas for its Future

What you’ll learn
– The factors which led to the Anglican Reformation
– A history of Anglican Prayer Book Tradition
– The Origins of the Anglican Communion
– The workings of the Anglican Communion and Tradition
– The missiology of Roland Allen and the future of the Anglican Tradition

Requirements
– None

Description
The course provides and introduction the Anglican Church, its origins, growth and current shape.

Whilst it is common to hear the Church of England described as originating in Henry VIII’s wish for a divorce, this is simplistic in the extreme. Certainly, the politics of the era intrude, not least because of the potential for annulments which were granted by Rome, as well as the cash-grab which Henry then executed on monasteries and the like. However, intellectual currents (the university network and its flow of ideas via wandering scholars), the rejection of clericalism, the critique of medieval practices such as the selling of indulgences, and the concomitant push to make Scriptures available in vernacular languages all provided a theological push for reform which would lead to the fracturing of Western Christendom into a number of theological traditions: Reformed, Anabaptist, Lutheran, Unitarian and Anglican. Additionally, the technological advance of the Gutenberg Press which allowed for the mass printing of books, pamphlets and woodcuts enabled the popularisation and dissemination of these ideas.

In this perfect storm of intellectual innovation, politics and technological advance, the Anglican church emerges.

It spreads its theology, liturgy and ethics through the development of the Book of Common Prayer which provides a neat and accessible handbook. As it used to be said, "If you want to know what Anglican theology and life is like, read the Book of Common Prayer."

That Communion then has to address the question of how independent churches with shared, but not identical traditions , might function as a global entity. Which leads to a discussion of the Instruments of Communion which hold together the Anglican Communion today, but are ly stretched to breaking point by the intractability of both progressives and conservatives within the communion.

What lies ahead? Well, we might do much worse than look to the reflections of Roland Allen, whose writings were deeply unpopular on first publication in 1912, but who ly seems to offer models of how a sustainable Anglican Church might thrive and flourish by celebrating its diversity and trusting more strongly in the movement of the Holy Spirit.

Who this course is for:
– Those wishing an Introduction to the Anglican Church and its Theology
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