The Heritage Anglican Network: A Clear Flowing Stream

Robin Jordan said:

One concept that have [sic] been used to justify the befouling of the stream is the theory of the Anglican Church as a via media, or middle path. Tractarian, later Roman Catholic John Henry Newman first proposed this theory in the nineteenth century. Tractarian Edward Bouvrie Pusey would modify it and former Unitarian and one-time Tractarian Frederick Maurice would popularize it. In his theory Newman postulated that the Anglican Church was a middle path between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. In Newman’s theory the path was actually dead center between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism but veered toward Roman Catholicism. Later Newman would reject the concept of the Anglican Church as via media as untenable, and would convert to Roman Catholicism. The Our Lady of Walsingham Personal Ordinariate in England and Wales has adopted Newman as its patron saint. In Pusey’s modification of Newman’s theory the Anglican Church was a separate branch of Catholic Christianity alongside of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. Maurice’s concept of the Anglican Church as a via media was more dynamic and future-oriented than Newman’s and Pusey’s. Maurice saw the Anglican Church as changing and evolving, moving progressively toward being a Church that would incorporate the best elements of the different traditions in Christianity. The Anglican Church would be the church of the future. Of the three theories, Maurice’s would grab the popular imagination.

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