Responses to the faith we confess

Last Edited: Wed Dec 31 00:10:40 UTC 2025

After my last post in a series of blogposts where I've been exploring the 39 articles from an Anglo-Catholic perspective, I decided to give the Reformed Evangelical Church an opportunity to speak. In pursuit of this I'll be reading a book in the Anglican Foundations series called

The Faith we confess

This book offered several questions for reflection at the end of the text, so I decided to do this instead of doing a traditional review

Responses

Note: I don't have the energy to type out each question, so I'm just providing

Intro

The intro doesn't have questions but I wanted to comment on this.

The historic formularies were designed by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556)
to give the English Church a solid grounding in the three fundamental areas of
its life – doctrine, devotion and discipline. The Articles provided its doctrinal framework, the Prayer Book settled the pattern of its devotional life and the Ordinal outlined what was expected of the clergy, whose role was the key to the church’s discipline.

Already I'm inclined to profusely disagree. Foundational to the Anglican church, as I understand it, is the Book of Common prayer. The phrase "Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi" is something I've heard applied to Anglicanism which means "The law of prayer, is the law of belief," In other words, we believe based on what we pray. We do NOT start with doctrine and develop prayers from it. Instead, we are a living church, in continuity with churches from the very beginning, and we inherit prayers from which we get our doctrine. The Trinity, after all, is not something easily borne out of a historical-critical exegesis of the Bible. It is a doctrine the early church developed and handed down to us that doctrinally explains her prayers.

So no. The 39 articles are not a "Its doctrinal framework". The Prayer Book is.

Article 1: Of Faith in the Holy Trinity

• Can God suffer, and if so, in what sense?

Yes God can suffer (given that Jesus is God), and it is in an anthropomorphic sense. God is not exclusively anthropomorphic though, so it is not the totality of divine being, but a sense that he is able to take on by His power.

Article 2: Of the Word or Son of God, which was made Very Man

• Did Jesus die for every sin ever committed by anybody?

Yes.

Article 3: Of the going down of Christ into Hell

• In what sense is hell a place? What does it mean to 'go down' to hell?
• Does eternal punishment necessarily involve eternal torment?
• Why do people today find it so hard to believe in the existence of hell?

These three I'll treat as a group. As I mentioned at the end of my blogpost where I wrote about Bicknell's treatement of the Articles , I don't have a firm doctrine of hell or the afterlife. I grew up believing in some kind of Eternal Conscious Torment doctrine (ECT), but I've heard great arguments for annihilationism and some kind of universalism too. I think a nice line from this book is "Whether these images are figurative or literal does not really matter, because the true horror is to be cut off from the Lord for ever." Again, given my universalist leanings, I'm willing to quibble with this, but I appreciate the author's restraint and general tenor about hell.

Article 4: The Resurrection of Christ

• Can somebody who rejects the bodily resurrection of Christ be a Christian?

I think not, honestly. In my opinion Christ being in some real sense divine and resurrecting from the dead for the sins of all mankind is the essence of the Gospel.

Article 5: Of the Holy Ghost

• What difference does it make to believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son as well as from the Father?

I'm of the opinion that, while this is a very important issue, it's not one which makes much difference. I'm usually in favor of dropping it from the Creed in the interest of ecumenism and because it wasn't originally in the creed, but I'm quite drawn to the idea that it should be included because Charismatic movements can go so far with theology around the holy spirit that they ignore the Son altogether.

Article 6: Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation

Sometimes a particular belief or practice will be justified by an appeal to
one of the apocryphal books, as happens with prayers for the dead, which is
apparently based on 2 Maccabees 12. Needless to say, Anglicans cannot accept
such ‘evidence’ and so prayers for the dead have no legitimate place in our
doctrine or worship.

I disagree with this. The Deuterocanonical books cannot be used to establish new doctrine whole-cloth, but they are certainly 'evidence' for the Anglican. Furthermore, I'd like to defend prayers for the dead with a little example:

Suppose you hear that a loved one is in a car accident, so you immediately pray for them. Later, you hear that they died instantly in that car crash. So here's a question: was it in error to pray for your loved one? I think not. It is a prayer for a dead person.

• If somebody discovered a new letter written by one of the apostles, would wehave to put it in the new testament?

No. The canon is something we receive from the church's use. Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi. If the church wasn't using this Apostle's letter, it was not canonical. We find no need to resolve disputes between local provinces of the Church (where indeed the Ethiopian church is welcome to have its expanded canon), unless it is imposed on others or becomes cause for strife. In this case, the Church might convene and issue a decree such as the one in our articles.

I'll caveat this slightly by saying that it might reach something of a para-canonical status where it is widely read and used to settle disputes between doctrine, but not to prove new doctrine.

Article 7: The Old Testament

• How should we interpret the Old Testament law in a Christian context?
• Can Jews be saved without becoming Christian?

I'll treat these two together.

One thing I disliked about this chapter is how it placed several interpretive frameworks at war with each other. It takes Rejection (marcionite), Allegorical, Covenental, Old Jewish, Contemporary Jewish, and Scientific hermeneutics and puts them at war with one another. Quite frankly, the only one we must reject outright is Rejection. I think even the Scientific readings have interesting things to say about the text, although I do find them inferior and incapable of a true spiritual worldview.

I think the best interpretation of the Old Testament is Christological. This is sometimes allegorical, sometimes prophetic, and sometimes covenental. I think we can even accept certain Jewish readings and commentaries with the commentary that this isn't the last word on the subject. Judaism is unique among religions because Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism, but Judaism has taken a unique path in its development to the contemporary world of "Judaisms" far more diverse than the "Judaisms" of the ancient world, so it's worth giving its contemporary expressions a fresh look w.r.t. this question.

In summary, There isn't necessarily "one sole interpretation" of any given verse and there are paths to holiness in a multitude of interpretations. If you disagree with this I'll posit:

1. A person is able to reach holiness through the various translations available today.
2. All translation is interpretation.
3. Translations and therefore interpretations differ.
4. Multiple interpretations of a given verse can be paths to holiness.

Article 8: The Three Creeds

• Will somebody go to hell simply because they do not believe the creeds?

No. The creeds developed later to put words to the established mind of the church as exemplified by her prayers and practices (lex orandi, lex credendi). I do not believe that all of the people mentioned in Acts would be "believe" the creeds because they did not exist yet. I don't believe they're going to hell.

Article 9: Of Original, or Birth Sin

A doctrine whose Calvinistic interpretation (total depravity) I don't think I can hold to. Again, putting a pin in this to come back to later.

The questions were really uninteresting though lol.

Article 10: Of free will

Uninteresting questions again.

Need to circle back to free will too ngl.

Article 11: Of the Justification of Man

If salvation depended on our works, the holiest people would be the ones least
assured of having obtained it! That is a nonsensical position, of course, but it
helps us to see why justification by faith alone is such an important doctrine.

This first is wrong because I firmly believe than many of the holiest people are indeed least assured of having obtained it! I don't see what's nonsensical about this idea because it implies that the holiest people are simultaneously deeply assured and confident in their own holiness. I believe there is a deep holiness in not thinking too highly of one's own holiness. Ergo, the holiest people may indeed be the least assured of their salvation. They maybe the least assured of their own holiness in the first place because they are the most assured of our personal limitations, blind spots, and potential self deception in assessing ones own holiness.

Without it we would never know if we were saved or not, and our relationship
with God would be rooted in fear rather than in faith, hope and love.

I don't believe that knowledge of ones own salvation is what roots our relationship with God. The author is asserting that knowledge of ones own salvation roots our relationship with God in faith, hope, and love. If we can have knowledge of our salvation, what need is there for faith? We know that we are saved and don't therefore require faith anymore. We know that we are saved rather than hoping for our salvation and the salvation of the world. I'll give the author love though.

Assurance of one's own salvation is something of an individual pastoral assertion. If indeed all good works are wrought by the Grace of God and it is a good thing to worship, pray to, and love, and have faith in him, then for some, and certainly myself it does not matter if we have assurance of salvation. The works we do and our worship, prayers, love, and faith are by the Grace of God whether we think of it in that way or not. Some Christians may be predisposed to a neuroticism that can only be resolved by an assurance of their own personal salvation to which I think Reformed theology is a good salve.

Either way, it applied to individuals rather than to groups and modern
theories to the contrary notwithstanding, this approach still seems to be the
one that is most faithful to the meaning of the Biblical text.

Let's get serious for a second and think about what we just read. I'll first assert that every single word in the Bible was written by a person with a far lesser understanding of themselves as an "individual" than we do today. This quote is absurd on its face, right? "The individualistic approach is most faithful to the meaning of a largely non-individualistic text."

I'm not claiming that the author is dumb since I think there's an easy to reach good-faith understanding which is that because we're an individualistic society, we have to explain it on those terms which is therefore a faithful approach to the Biblical text (especially when communicating to modern people). I do think that this good faith reading is still a bit wrong because I believe that Christian life is in its fullest when understood as a member of a Church, Family, City, Country, and World wherein we live as a church and usually with our families there, we serve our communities directly around us in our cities, and modern circumstances have us living in Countries which also has an intrinsic tie to our understanding of the "World" and thus everyone in it.

Article 12: Of Good Works

I have some quibbles with a lot of the author's phrasing. Perhaps it's the (careless) use of Calvinist or otherwise theological jargon, but I feel like I'm stopped every paragraph saying "No, you're wrong, you're directly contradicting the bible in a very subtle way." Take this statement:

Perhaps they went too far in some cases, virtually abolishing fasting, for
example, even though it is a practice recommended in the New Testament, but
their motive for doing so is understandable in the circumstances.

I'm open to being wrong on this one, but I would take fasting as way more than recommended but commanded by Jesus himself in saying in Matthew 9 (ESV) that "The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast." and earlier in Matthew 6 (ESV) "And when you fast..." In both of these statements, it's true that fasting is not commanded, but that's because, like praying and giving alms just a few verses prior in Matthew 6, it's plainly assumed to be a practice Christians will be doing. Far more than a recommendation, if you're not fasting you're not living in the way Jesus assumed you'd be living.

Love must come before legalism, even if it leads to suffering because of it.
That is what Jesus did and that is what he expects of his followers also.

Amen.

Article 13: Of Works before Justification

To call this chapter horrific would be an understatement. It starts off by saying that good works done by the nonbeliever "may be well-intentioned and beneficial to the recipients...but have no value in his eyes." Then, it concludes the chapter by saying that the unbeliever's "whole approach is deeply rooted in selfishness and pride." Which is it, selfish and prideful motivations, or good intentions?

Then, it steps up this clear distaste for unbelievers with ideas like, "The unbeliever on the other hand, does what he thinks he can manage without undue strain or sacrifice." Is this true? ALL unbelievers necessarily do things without a sense of strain or sacrifice? Seriously?

The author seems to think so little of unbelievers that it's hard to call this a loving outlook. In my opinion we're to do unto others as we would have done to ourselves. This even extends to motivations where we should rather assume the best in peoples' motivations for their actions instead of ascribing to them an entire psychology.

Finally on the question of selfishness. Is it not also selfish to be doing things because of your own personal conviction in your salvation? All you've done, if this author is correct, this moves self congratulations from a system you've decided for yourself to patting yourself on the back because you're "elect" and doing things after.

Perhaps the system of morality is poorly explained in this passage, or maybe i'm misunderstanding things. But this interpretation at least is bad.

Article 14: Of Works of Supererogation

This one was like a page. I don't think I believe in works of Supererogation.

Article 15: Of Christ alone without Sin

Not much to talk about here

Article 16: Of Sin after Baptism

I agree

Article 17: Of Predestination and Election

Need to do more thinking on this.

Article 18: Of Obtaining Salvation, only by the Name of Christ

I've already spoken that I don't have firm ideas about the questions related to life after death.

A further complication here is that although we must tell the adherents of other
religions that they are worshipping false gods, (or in the case of Jews, worshipping
the true God in the wrong way,) it is seldom people of those faiths who get most
upset by this. After all, they think the same about us and often see no reason
why we should not be just as honest about our claims as they are about theirs.

I completely agree with this lol. Certain people have this disease that comes over when they have to disagree with someone in even the most minor point.

Article 19: Of the Church

• How important is correct doctrine for the life of the church?

I would say it's important, but correct living is more important.

Article 20: Of the Authority of the Church

Instead of talking about what authority the church holds, the author just talked about Women's ordination for a page and posed rhetorical questions.

Article 21: Of the Authority of General Councils

I agree that it's possible for general councils to err.

Article 22: Of purgatory

I agree with the broad strokes of the condemned doctrines here.

• Do we go straight to heaven when we die or is there an intermediate state before the final judgment?

Impossible to say with certainty

Article 23: Of ministering in the Congregation

I agree with the broad strokes of what's in here. One of the things I like about Anglicanism is the "Good vs Best" distinctions that people have made when arguing about Presbyterial vs Congregational vs Episcopal polity.

Article 24: Of speaking in the Congregation in such a Tongue as the People understandeth

• Should each language-group in the world have its own church?

In theory, no, but it's very practical

Article 25: Of the Sacraments

• Can a person be a Christian without being baptised or receiving the Lord's Supper?

Like, yeah, but again "Good vs Best". Unless you're under threat of martyrdom or otherwise unable, you really should be baptised and receive the eucharist.

Article 26: Of the Unworthiness of the Ministers, which hinder not the Effect of the Sacraments

• If an evangelist loses his faith, are those who came to Christ under his ministry truly converted?

Yes.

Article 27: Of Baptism

• Should a person who was baptised in infancy be re-baptised on profession of faith as an adult?

No.

Article 28: Of the Lord's Supper

• Should Christians who are not members of our church be allowed to receive communion?”

Yes.

Article 29: Of the Wicked which do not eat the Body of Christ in the Use of the Lord’s Supper

• Should differences in the way we understand communion be a barrier to welcoming people from other churches at the Lord’s table?

No.

Article 30: Of Both Kinds

None of the questions are interesting.

Article 31: Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Cross

One big issue with this book is really exemplified in this chapter where the author has shoehorned an explanation of Total Depravity and of Limited Atonement, and another defense of Calvinistic predestination while discussing this particular article. Sure, these doctrines can be seen as logically connected to the article, but it's a distraction that the author even admits with a line saying,

The article does not go into this in any detail, but concentrates instead
on the Roman Catholic theology of the mass.

Time and time again, the articles intentionally stop just short of a full and complete articulation of a Reformed Calvinist viewpoint. Sure, it is the view of Cranmer, but Cranmer is not the final word on Anglican theology and practice.

• Is it better to think of holy communion as a fellowship meal shared by Christians to celebrate their redemption rather than as a reminder of Christ’s death on our behalf?

This is a bit of a false dichotomy because redemption is directly tied to Christ's death on our behalf.

Article 32: Of the Marriage of Priests

• Is it right to expect higher standards of behaviour from the clergy than from ordinary Christians?

Yes.

This chapter was very interesting because he seems to prefer clerical celibacy? It's not a take I expected from him, and certainly not one I have, but still a very interesting one.

Article 33: Of excommunicate Persons, how they are to be avoided

Right out of the blue, he inserts his opinion on homosexuality. It's fascinating because he hasn't held a stance one way or the other on women's ordination or on gay marriage until now where he inserts a very definitive statement.

Bishops who tolerate homosexual practice for example, or who openly deny orthodox beliefs should certainly be shunned in this way and the point be made that such behaviour is not acceptable to the godly.

• On what grounds should a church exclude a person from membership?

Denial of the Gospel. Clergy should be held to much stricter

Article 34: Of Traditions of the Church

I'm a radical article 34-ist. I love seeing how Christian art and themes are adapted to local traditions and understandings. So long as the gospel remains in tact, I'm in full favor of local communities (not necessarily individuals) adapting things to their circumstances. Of course there will be a certain kind of syncretism which should be snuffed out when it appears, but determining what practices actually are syncretic is a process that should be a long and thoughtful project done in collaboration with one local community and the rest of the church.

Article 35: Of Homilies

• Are sermons the most effective way of teaching Christian doctrine today?

I think probably tiktok and short form video is a way forward for Christian evangelism that is under-developed today.

Arricle 36: Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers

One of my least favorite chapters so far. He seems to be implying lay presidency of the Eucharist is preferable. Of course, I would make allowances for this in select cases, but ultimately

Article 37: Of the Civil Magistrates

• Should church leaders take sides in political debates?

Absolutely yes.

Article 38: Of Christian Men’s Goods, which are not common

• How much of our income should we give to the church

No exact number like the evangelical "10%" rule, but certainly whatever amount you give, give it joyfully.

Article 39: Of a Christian Man's Oath

Nothing interesting in this chapter.