Cradle or Creedal?: Week of June 10 - YouTube

What's wrong with this presentation by Canon Phil Ashley of the American Anglican Council?  The clue here is that Ashley says that "the creeds are the basis for the Thirty-nine Articles."  This is misleading since the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion is itself a "creed".  The Thirty-nine Articles flesh out the soteriological issues of the English Reformation and the doctrines of the sacraments and the congregation as an assembly of faithful men where the sacraments are rightly and duly administered and the Gospel is rightly preached.  (Article 19).  Unfortunately, the American Anglican Council and the Anglican Church in North America are predominately Anglo-Catholic and do not accept the five solas of the Protestant Reformation, nor do they abide by the plain meaning of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion.  In fact, they follow the revisionist view of the Articles as they were reinterpreted by the Tractarians.  Such a reading of the Articles is a dissimulation of their true meaning and their true intent since they were not intended as a via media between the Papists and the Puritans.  

Rather, the Anglican Formularies (Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the First and Second Book of Homilies, and the Ordinal) were intended to uphold the English understanding of the Protestant Reformation.  The Articles serve to interpret the 1662 BCP and not the other way around.  Also, there are elements of Lutheranism in regards to the doctrine of justification by faith alone and the law/gospel distinction.  Yet there are strong indicators of Cranmer's affection for Reformed theology in his more Zwinglian teaching on the sacraments and his Calvinist understanding of soteriology in Articles 9-18.  

In short, the "good" canon above is an angel of light who is out to lead people astray.  (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).  While all churches have creeds--including Baptists--it does not follow that only the ecumenical creeds are "fundamental" to saving faith.  No, I would argue that the five solas of the Reformation are likewise essential doctrine.  The Thirty-nine Articles have Scripture as their basis and not the ecumenical creeds.  Scripture alone is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice.

Cradle or Creedal?: Week of June 10 - YouTube