THE
P RTAL
September 2016
Page 10
Thoughts on Newman
Newman
and Authority
Dr Stephen Morgan
Having examined
Newman and Authority I have come to the conclusion that: “If the ‘idea’ is
Christ the Incarnate Word, then there is a canon against which doctrinal development can be tested: if
the ‘idea’ is secular magistracy as the Supreme Governor – be it Crown, Parliament or the Courts – then all
things become possible, even the redefinition of humanity itself in the face of gender-theory, reproductive
convenience and an anthropology that denies the value of the unborn.”
One of the abiding myths of Anglicanism is that of
it lacking a truly precise theology. The glory of the
Anglican Communion, we are often told, lies precisely
in its ability to accommodate widely varying – even
apparently contradictory and mutually exclusive –
theological positions.
(Doors of Mercy in Anglican Cathedrals, Article XXII
notwithstanding, anyone?) or by whom, as with who
gets to decide. It is, in fact, concerned with the great
question of political history: who gets to decide? Who
is sovereign?
The scales fell only gradually from Newman’s eyes.
This, the historical apologists tell us, was born in It began with the Irish Temporalities Bill in 1833
the need, first of Elizabeth I and then later, after the and ended with the craven episcopal charges ranged
Civil War and the treasonous, aristocratic Whig-Coup against Tract XC, but when they fell, he could see with
of 1688, to hold together a single church for a single crystal clarity what the problem was.
nation. It is, of course, a fiction and an unhistorical
fiction at that. Anglicanism, both in England and in
He realised that the Church of England was quite as
her former colonies, has, from its first, been marked precise as Rome or Constantinople, but that the object
by an almost slavish adherence to a very precise (and of that precision was different. If ecclesial sovereignty,
ruthlessly implemented) theology; it is simp