The Episcopal Church and the Lambeth Quadrilateral

Tucked away on page 876 of the Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer, following the thirty-nine Articles of Religion, there is printed a document that I believe you will not find in any other prayer book in the Anglican Communion. It is “The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral 1886, 1888”.

Originally devised and adopted by the US House of Bishops in 1886, its four points were intended as principles that would form the basis of negotiation towards Christian unity with other church bodies. Their document was discussed and debated at the Lambeth Conference of Bishops two years later, where the following slightly revised articles adopted:

(a) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as “containing all things necessary to salvation”, and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.
(b) The Apostles’ Creed, as the baptismal symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.
(c) The two sacraments ordained by Christ himself—Baptism and the Supper of the Lord—ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of institution, and of the elements ordained by him.
(d) The historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his church.

Moving the clock forward one hundred twenty years, imagine if that same Episcopal Church in the United States, the very body from which the Quadrilateral arose, were applying for unity with the Anglican Communion. How would it fare?

In relation to the first article, the Episcopal Church no longer regards the Holy Scriptures as “the rule and ultimate standard of faith”, much less “the revealed Word of God” (the words proposed originally by the US House of Bishops in 1886). The now disgraced Bishop John Bennison has often been quoted as saying, “We (the church) wrote the Bible and we can rewrite it.” At the time he was saying nothing new, but simply voicing a proposition widely assumed in the Episcopal Church. At many points the Bible is being “reinterpreted” in ways that are contrary to its own meaning. In other cases it is being rejected altogether in favor of the findings of contemporary sociologists and psychologists.

As for the creeds, the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds are no longer accepted as “sufficient” (i.e., the minimum) statements of the Christian faith. John Spong, retired bishop of New Jersey has refuted virtually every article of the creeds, without ever being censured or even challenged by any of the official bodies of the Episcopal Church. Our own bishop contends that to be a Christian it is necessary only to believe in the Trinity and the incarnation. What about Jesus’ death on the cross for our salvation? What about his resurrection from the dead? How can any system of belief that does not include them (much less the other teachings embraced by the creeds) be called “sufficient”?

With respect to the two sacraments, there is increasing momentum in the Episcopal Church (again virtually unchallenged) to offer the bread and wine of the Eucharist to all, regardless of whether they have been baptized or shown any other evidence of Christian faith. This popular trend, which is becoming widespread in the name of “radical inclusivity”, robs both sacraments of their meaning.

Finally, the American church’s lack of commitment to the historic episcopate became evident in 2003, when a partnered gay man was consecrated as a bishop. It cannot be argued that this was merely a local adaptation. This act was entirely without warrant biblically, historically or ecumenically, as the firestorm that has come upon the Episcopal Church from both inside and outside the Anglican Communion gives ample evidence. Yet the Episcopal Church defends its action aggressively as a “prophetic” matter, with the arrogant expectation that the rest of the church will follow along in due time.

Thus the Episcopal Church has repeatedly demonstrated by its own actions that it is not a part of any recognizable historic Anglicanism. This has been reinforced by its staunch refusal to live by the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, to follow in any serious way the gracious recommendations of the Windsor Report, or to heed the repeated calls of the Primates of the Communion to draw back from its rebellious path.