Thirty-Nine Articles - Thirty-Nine Articles (1563)

Thirty-Nine Articles (1563)

The Thirty-Nine Articles were not intended as a complete statement of the Christian faith, but of the position of the Church of England in relation to the Roman Catholic Church and dissident Protestants. The Articles argue against some Anabaptist positions such as the holding of goods in common and the necessity of believer's baptism. The motivation for their production and enactment was the absence of a general consensus on matters of faith following the separation with Rome. There was a concern that dissenters who wanted the reforms to go much further (for example, to abolish hierarchies of bishops) would increase in influence. Wishing to pursue Elizabeth I's agenda of establishing a national church that would maintain the indigenous apostolic faith and incorporate some of the insights of Protestantism, the Articles were intended to incorporate a balance of theology and doctrine. This allowed them to appeal to the broadest domestic opinion, Catholic and otherwise. In this sense, the Articles are a revealing window into the ethos and character of Anglicanism, in particular in the way the document works to navigate a via media, or "middle path," between the beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church and of the English Puritans, thus lending the Church of England a mainstream Reformed air. The "via media" was expressed so adroitly in the Articles that some Anglican scholars have labeled their content as an early example of the idea that the doctrine of Anglicanism is one of "Reformed Catholicism".