What is a Reformed Anglican?

Anyone living in North Texas knows how hard our water is due to all the limestone in our substrata. It leaves lots of calcium carbonate buildup. Imagine a man built a fine shower of in-laid marble (you can guess where this idea came to me). But for some reason the man never cleaned the shower. As time went on the crud built up thicker and thicker until the original marble was obscured by the accretions of years of neglect.

This is analogous to the situation of the apostolic tradition in the Christian church. The doctrine taught by Jesus and passed to the apostles became covered over with centuries of cultural compromise and doctrinal accretions. By the 15th century, the beauty and power of the original work was completely buried. The Reformation was an attempt to remove the hard-caked layers of stone-cold tradition to restore the glory of the original. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and Cranmer did one thing above all others: the Reformers put church tradition in its proper place, not as equal to Scripture, but as subservient to Holy Writ. Neither did they invoke reason as a separate channel of revelation, but to take captive to Christ every thought (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Roman Catholics and many Episcopalians often justify their disregard for the clear teaching of Scripture by invoking the traditions of the early church (worship of saints, prayers to Mary, justification by works, etc.). "This practice goes all the way back to the first and second century," the priests tell us. That may be so, but you can't read the New Testament without becoming aware of the many warnings to the earliest believers from the Apostles that there are lots of evil practices loose in the early church (2 Peter 3, Jude, and many more from Paul). Citing ancient traditions accepted by some bishop or another does not make a practice orthodox if it plainly contradicts Scripture.

So as a Reformed Anglican, I place myself in the 500 year tradition of those who have sought to make the Church and our reason accountable to the Word of God. The Reformers called this doctrine "Sola Scriptura" (the Scriptures alone). This is clearly expressed in Article VI of the 39 Articles (the constitution and creed of Reformed Anglicanism):

Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith.

So let whatever tradition or pronouncement that is refuted by the clear Word of God be regarded by us as so much soap scum that needs cleansed by the washing of the pure water of the Word (Ephesians 5:26) and as the accretion of hard-hearted faithlessness chiseled away by convicting grace.