In 1945, Michael Ramsey, a future Archbishop of Canterbury, attempted to answer the thorny question of what, precisely, comprises Anglican theology. He described it not as a synthesized system of thought but rather as “a method, a use, a direction.” This description of Anglicanism as a sort of process reflects that Anglicanism is more comfortable with raising questions and signaling ambiguities than providing detailed speculative theology. An Anglican theological method, in so far as it has a use or direction, often features two elements, comprehensiveness and provisionality.
Anglican comprehensiveness arises from the ecclesiological identity of the Church of England. As an established national church, it has endeavored to be as inclusive of its members as possible, respecting diversity of expression regarding liturgical forms, scriptural interpretation, and doctrinal articulations. The ideal of comprehensiveness can be expressed in terms of a minimalist theology to gain maximal adherence, as reflected in the Book of Common Prayer and Articles of Religion.
The rise of religious toleration propelled Anglicanism to a stance of theological provisionality. This is most clearly expressed in the development of the Anglican Communion as an instrument of unity amid the emerging global Anglican churches, especially in the era of decolonialism. This disposition of theological provisionality in Anglicanism holds that doctrinal articulations aspire to express the truth of the Christian gospel but will inevitably arrive at incomplete expressions of it, given the gap between divine perfection and human finitude. Finitude and provisionality are a mark of the church for Anglicans, even if not at the same creedal status as “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.”
Anglican theological method, as typified in comprehensiveness and provisionality, reveals a useful compatibility with comparative theological methods and approaches. This paper will elicit how provisionality and comprehensiveness themselves are elements that one can draw out of an Anglican theological method and find operative within how comparative theology is done in contemporary contexts.
To illustrate comprehensives and provisionality as elements of an Anglican approach to comparative theology, this paper will turn to an example of what might be described as the “old comparative theology” in the work of Richard Hooker. The foundational theologian of Anglicanism, Hooker in his Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity consistently engages with Jewish topics, examples, and literature in a way that evinces dispositions of comprehensiveness and provisionality. This is most notable in how Hooker writes frequently of the “church of Israel” or the “church of the Jews.” Here Hooker is not claiming that this church is like the Christian church. Nor is he ignorant of what happens in synagogues, as evinced in his writings. Rather, in this phrase Hooker affirmed the Reformed sensibility of continuity between Israel and the Christian church. For Hooker, the church proper (the assembly of people called into relationship with God) consists of the time prior to and after the coming of Christ. Hooker uses the history of Israel to illustrate this truth, arguing that the history of Israel itself shows how God “kindly and lovingly embraces his faithful children” (Laws 3.1.8). Even if these children are not fully conformed to the Christian revelation, as Hooker understood it, God’s grace pre-exists the Christianchurch and might even be present outside it still. Hooker drew this argument to his present context. Against the claims of some that only the recent reformations of the sixteenth century had established God’s true church, Hooker used Israel’s history to show the continued existence of God’s church even amid great scandal and sin. Extending the reality of a faithful church existing since the time of ancient Israel allowed Hooker to argue for the existence of this church not only amid Protestants but also to admit the possibility of the preservation of the true church within the Protestant claims concerning errors in the doctrines and practice of the Church of Rome.
By thinking with the continuity of God’s presence with Jews prior to Christ, and by conceptualizing the collective assembly of Jews after Christ as a church, Hooker developed an open ecclesiological framework by which to categorize and conceptualize the diverse manifestations of people organizing themselves into bodies to worship God and be guided by God’s laws and decrees. If God’s church abides even as Israel worships the Golden Calf or Baal, then also God’s church abides not only in England but also in Rome. God’s church abides not only in the ideal forms of worship and polity but even when the forms of the church are manifested in less than ideal circumstances.
Here then are the two modes of comprehensiveness and provisionality at play. Hooker conceptualizes a comprehensive ecclesiological framework that does not limit divine activity or favor exclusively within the boundaries of his religious community. God’s activity extends across the boundaries of the perceived opponents of the Protestant Christian faith of the sixteenth century, to both Jews and Catholics (admittedly, Hooker never extends this to Muslims or the indigenous people of non-Christian lands). In making such space for other religious communities to be conceptualized as churches, Hooker also gives voice to a sense of provisionality. The knowledge and true worship of God might be best articulated for Hooker within a Protestant context, but that does not preclude the possibility of God also being known and worshiped elsewhere. While this at first seems to extend a kind of provisionality towards non-Christian and non-Protestant communities, it also suggests a form of provisionality for Hooker’s own church. Indeed, Hooker never argues that his Church of England has arrived at the fullness of truth, only that its current form of polity, theology, and worship is most apt for that context.
Thinking comparatively across religious tradition amplifies the core Anglican notions of comprehensiveness and provisionality. The concluding section of this paper will argue, in conversation with Clooney and Cornille, that these approaches are congruent with comparative theology, which also approaches the encounter with religious others with dispositions and assumptions that resonate with these two core markers of Anglican theological method.
Anglican theological method, as represented in the concepts of comprehensiveness and provisionality, reveals a useful compatibility with comparative theological methods and approaches. This paper will show how provisionality and comprehensiveness are constituent elements of Anglican theological method by examining Richard Hooker’s extension of the category of church to Jewish and Roman Catholic context. This analysis will illustrate how comprehensiveness and provisionality resonates with comparative theological methods in contemporary contexts.