Un-Protestant and Un-English: Anglicanism and the 1920 Lambeth Conference ‘Appeal to All Christian People’

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which the 1920 Lambeth Conference ‘Appeal to All Christian People’ affected the development of Anglicanism. It sees the inclusive catholicity of the Appeal as the culmination of a long process of the ‘un-Protestantizing’ and ‘un-Englishing’ of Anglicanism. After describing the main thrust of the Appeal in its historical context, it goes on to outline ‘Lambeth Anglicanism’ as a form of catholicity before comparing it to the Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888. It surveys a number of important milestones in the process, firstly, of un-Protestantizing Anglicanism, using the example of the concept of the via media with case studies of the Irish High Churchmen, Alexander Knox and John Jebb, as well as the Tractarians. Secondly, it describes the process of un-Englishing Anglicanism, using the example of William Reed Huntington’s ‘American Catholicity’, as well the forms of national catholicism that developed after the First Vatican Council of 1870. It concludes by suggesting that Anglicanism developed as a form of Christian life in response to revolutions and wars, taking on a quite different form from the state Protestantism that emerged from the English Reformation. The after-effects of the redefinition of Anglicanism continue to affect the Anglican Communion to this day.