why do anglicans still exist like their entire church is built on the fact that some guy wanted a male heir. or do anglicans believe that this isn't rly why their church came about
Okay, I do love clowning on my Anglican friends, but there are a few angles (da dum tss) that we can look at in terms of why the Anglican Church is a distinctive tradition.
Theologically, the Anglican Church might have started off as "Catholic without the Pope," so to speak; the Anglican Church was essentially Gallican in nature, meaning that the head of the church wasn't the seniormost bishop, but the head of the state. But even if it started off simply being in schism with the Roman Church, it didn't take very long before Reformed theology started entering the Church through the efforts of Anne Bolelyn, Thomas Cromwell, and especially Edward VI. There were preceding documents, but the Thirty-Nine articles passed by Queen Elizabeth I in 1571 helped to solidify a distinctively Anglican identity.
But it's a little more than that, too, because in addition to this Protestantization of the Anglican Church, there have also been movements within to.... "Latinize" might be the wrong word, but to bring back some traditional Catholic elements. We see this, for example, in the Oxford movement of the 1830s; many of its members would end up converting to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, but those who remained behind started the Anglo-Catholic movement which still has a strong presence. (My girlfriend goes to an Anglo-Catholic parish, and our city has at least three other ones).
This kind of dual accommodation of Reformed and Catholic theological ideas has created a unique situation for the Anglican Church; Bishop J. Neil Alexander tries to articulate this by distinguishing the Anglican Church as a "pragmatic church," in contradistinction with "confessional churches" (Catholic & Lutheran, which focus on creeds and councils) and "experiential churches" (Baptist and other groups whose memberships require a born-again moment):
What, then, does it mean to be pragmatic? It means that within the generous capacity of the Episcopal [American Anglican] Church, we do not always agree on matters of biblical interpretation or theological definition. It means that we have all gotten here by way of hundreds of different and often unique experiences of God's presence in our lives. It means that those things which other churches depend to hold themselves together will never be a central feature of our common life. We find our life together driven by our willingness to stand together at the table of God's gracious hospitality.
[…]
That, I believe, is the pragmatism at the heart of what it means to be an Episcopalian. We are a variegated tapestry of theology and experience, and we are all the richer for it. But no level of theological agreement or experiential commonality will ever be the basis on which Episcopalians will live together well. What is possible is that we will be pragmatic —we will keep our differences in perspective— and we will recognize that ultimately nothing will divide those who are willing to stand together before God's altar to sing, to pray, and to receive the gift of God's eternity.
Now, this is a very fascinating situation, because it means that the Anglican Church has a lot of diversity in religious thought and doctrinal opinion. On an official level, that means you will have bishops aligning with different theological orientations working side by side — and, in theory, the office of Archbishop of Canterbury is supposed to alternate between Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical holders. On a more personal level, I have found that the Episcopal clergy who I interact with have varying spiritualities and theologies; one priest I know has Catholic sympathies that are so strong that he was referred to as "the Papist" in seminary, while another clergymember I know doesn't think Confession is necessary and is ambivalent about her parish's practice of Eucharistic Adoration. And they work at the same church.
Liturgically, they are also distinctive. The current bedrock of Anglican prayer is the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which is clearly inspired by Benedictine spirituality, but with continuing liturgical revision and innovation that kind of fits with the 'pragmatic church' mindset explained above. Some Anglican parishes even preserve pre-Tridentine traditions (remember, they split before the Council of Trent), like the Sarum Use.
The Anglican Church has had a developing liturgical patrimony for the past five centuries; one of the reasons why the Catholic Church created the Anglican Ordinariate was because it recognized that fact, and wanted former members of the Anglican Church to be able to preserve their traditions even after re-entering communion with Rome.
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So, like, the Anglican Church may have started off as a more-or-less Catholic particular church that was in schism with Rome, a schism orchestrated by a king who wanted fuller control over the Church in his country, the Anglican Church has had five centuries of development. And, as much as I like to clown on my Anglican friends, I can definitely see why the Anglican communion has a deep appeal.
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