The Platipodinous Nature of Anglo-Catholicism

It is not often that I have found myself placed in the company of a duck-billed platypus, but such a social association was clearly implied by some recent exchanges among young theologians discussing Anglo-Catholicism’s place in the wider Anglican economy.

Just to be clear, the duck-billed platypus is a most interesting beast, having features not commonly combined. Thus it has a bill that is highly suggestive of that found in ducks, while it is also a mammal, yet it lays eggs. Then again, it is the sole living representative that remains to us, or as the scientists would say, is a  “monotypic taxon,”of its wider family group known as the Ornithorhynchidae. (It is also uniquely able to use electromagnetic senses to discern prey in murky waters and has literal venomous ankle spurs on its rear feet). 

I can further say that we have actually met socially, in a manner of speaking, in the context of the London Zoological Society, more commonly known simply as the London Zoo, of which I was many years ago elected a Fellow (I was interested in pursuing zoology as a possible career before taking up philosophical theology, but that is by the way). 

All of which is by way preface to exploring what might be meant by the charge of being a veritable duck-billed platypus among Anglicans. The implication seemed to be that one is some sort of curious relic, with features quixotically combined from unlike and ill-matched sources. A touch of Arminianism here, a splash of colorful and ornate liturgy there, amidst the reek, not merely of incense but of sulpherous perfusions emanating, in the end, from Rome itself. 

In a spirit of mischief I suppose one might be tempted first to reply: “So..?”

But more seriously, there are two root charges implied in all this. First, that Anglo-Catholicism is some kind of invasive incursion upon an earlier and purer Anglicanism; and secondly, that it involves a repudiation of key distinctives of Anglicanism as it emerged from the its Reformation purity and the influence of Calvinism in particular. Thus, it is argued, in what began with such eminent worthies as Andrewes, Laud, and Taylor ended up opening the way to decadence of Latitudinarianism and then, through the creative ingenuity of such as John Henry Newman, ultimately to liberalism and the “anything goes” of modernity – so long as it is upheld with “good taste.”   

Perhaps the most telling point here is the implicit argument that, by stretching the boundaries of what was acceptable – through such manoeuvres as highly ingenious interpretations of the Thirty-nine Articles – Anglo-Catholics have made it harder, in the end, to draw lines as to what is in fact unacceptable for Anglicanism altogether.

All of this both misrepresents history and invites a sad misunderstanding of Anglo-Catholic claims, which remain resolutely particular and Anglican, all while also discerning and expressing continuity with the faith of the wider Western Church going back to our patristic roots and Bible itself. 

As Anglicans, our Prayer Book heritage and formularies provide us with a particular perspective and resources. As Pusey reminded us* in reviving the debate stirred up by Tract 90. : “so far from relaxing the meaning of the Articles, (it) gives them greater stringency, and lays us under a deeper obligation ; since now we are bound to receive them not only on the authority of our immediate mother, but of her, ‘the Jerusalem from above,’ who is the common ‘mother of us all.'” – which is the wider Western Church. 

Our faith is not thus simply a matter of sentiment and still less of mere aesthetics, important dimensions though these may be, but also of belief and truth claims. This makes it highly fitting that over the coming year, which is the 1700th anniversary of the first Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325, we shall as a parish be looking in a number of ways at that creed and its role in shaping the faith that it is ours. 

While the image of a duck-billed platypus is ultimately rather more distracting than helpful – it is worth recalling that the species of the Platipodes comprise just one branch in a family with three others (the Echidna) and it has certainly proved enduring – since the first known specimen dates back 100,000 years….

The Rev. Canon Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff
Rector