'The Church is a visible society, laws of polity it cannot want': a Hookerian case for renewing the role of Canon Law
Have you likewise a book of the Sermons, or Homilies ... and a book of the Constitutions or Canons Ecclesiastical? - John Cosin, Articles of Inquiry during his primary visitation of the Diocese of Durham, 1662.
It is worthy of note that Restoration bishops, after "the late unhappy confusions", drew attention to the Canons as one of the mechanisms of restoring the common life and order of the ecclesia Anglicana and ecclesia Hibernia. The Canons of 1604 (in Ireland, the Canons of 1634), rather than the revised Canons of 1641, were authorised by Parliament, wisely ensuring that settled canon law - untouched by the controversies associated with the Laudian overreach of 1641 - would shape the common life of the restored Churches.
These historic Canons are examples of what it is to "keep the mean between two extremes" (to use words from the 1662 Preface), avoiding both "too much stiffness" in seeking to codify all aspects of the Church's life, and "too much easiness" in over-extending the principle that "Laws cannot prescribe the fullness of ecclesial life, ministry and mission", as rightly stated in The Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion (by the Anglican Communion Legal Advisers' Network). While laws indeed cannot prescribe the fullness of ecclesial life, it yet remains the case that "A church needs within it laws to order, and so facilitate, its public life and to regulate its own affairs for the common good".
This is a matter of the deep theological meaning and significance. Canon Law both recognises and protects the Church's life as an ecclesiastical polity: that is, as a visible body, called into a common life, in which there are duties, obligations, and rights. An absence of Canon Law would be a profound devaluing of this visible life and polity, confusing the Church's invisible existence with the visible. The invisible Church does not require Canon Law because, as Hooker states, it cannot "be sensibly discerned by any man" (LEP III.1.2). The visible does require Canon Law precisely because it is a visible polity:
But as the Church is a visible society and body politic, laws of polity it cannot want (III.11.14).
There is, of course, little risk in contemporary Anglican discourse of "too much stiffness" when it comes to understanding and applying Common Law. There is, however, a grave risk of "too much easiness" in dismissing Canon Law, of assuming that the life of a Church which desires to be 'simpler, humbler, bolder' (to use the motto of A Vision for the Church of England in the 2020s) does not require anything as institutional as "laws of polity". Indeed, when 'simpler' is used to suggest "there might be too much bureaucracy", it does not take a great leap of the imagination - or cynicism - to believe that 'simpler' could easily be used as justification for greater centralisation and more 'effective' means for implementing decisions, rejecting the checks and balances provided by Canon Law.
Against this background it has been reassuring to read two calls for a greater recognition of the importance of Canon Law on the excellent blog All Things Lawful and Honest. Angela Tilby stated:
I never thought I would be in a position of arguing for Canon Law to be part of ministerial training. But that is because the importance of adhering to Canon Law was not something ordinands needed to be taught. It was simply absorbed by observation and practice. The theology behind it was implicit ... It is law as freedom from bullying and sectarianism, law as authenticity and order. Canon Law is what enables the Church’s ministry to take place.
In a recent post, Bishop Stephen Conway urged likewise:
Part of the current crisis and world events also show us how human fracturing is growing. This is why we need the rule of law which can be developed by legitimate authority. This applies to the Church and its laws, too. I used to abhor the way that Roman Catholic seminarians were taught sacramental theology and ecclesiology through the matrix of canon law. Now I see its merits ... Canon law is the sinew of the Church’s doctrine and ecclesiology which protects us and keep us whole.
These calls should be a rallying cry for those committed to how Anglicanism has classically embodied, nurtured, and valued the common life of the Church: and it is rather difficult to reconcile the "mixed ecology" and "diverse smorgasbord" of A Vision for the Church of England in the 2020s with this commitment to common prayer and common life. A step towards renewing this commitment would be to confidently and more fully integrate contemporary Canon Law into theological thinking and teaching, pastoral practice, and the life of parishes.
Until the publication of BCP 2004, the various editions of the Church of Ireland BCP since disestablishment included the Canons. It was a way of ensuring that clergy and laity understood that the common life they shared within this Church was governed by law, sustained by duties and obligations, and included rights which safeguarded participation in that common life. Restoring this practice, of course, would be impractical, but the principle should be renewed. Canon Law is a vital part of our common life in Anglican Churches, without which - as Angela Tilby rightly warns - lies a future defined by a sectarianism fundamentally alien to the Anglican tradition, a sectarianism which confuses the Church invisible with the Church visible.
We need a renewed role for Canon Law because as Hooker declared, "oversights ... neither few nor light" are committed "for lack of diligent observing the difference ... between the Church of God mystical and visible" (III.1.9).
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