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After the Church of England broke from Rome in 1534, it needed to define what it uniquely believed. Conservatives, like King Henry VIII, wanted a church whose faith was Catholic in essentials. Many academics, particularly at Cambridge, wanted reforms that were clearly Protestant. How could these theological concerns be reconciled or balanced?

What eventually emerged was something in between, a theology that has come to characterize worldwide Anglicanism. In large part, this was the judicious work of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, a pastoral theologian who had a genius for what we now know as the “middle way.”

The document that most clearly articulates this middle way is called the Thirty-Nine Articles; these have become the foundation of Anglican theology. They are a statement of faith based on Cranmer’s Forty-Two Articles, and it can be reasonably claimed that Cranmer is the father of modern Anglicanism.

As early as 1535, agents of the king were negotiating with German Lutherans, who wanted the Church of England to subscribe to the Augsburg Confession of 1530. After months of deliberation, negotiations were broken off.

At the same time, Cranmer was busy working on a shorter statement of faith, known as the Ten Articles of 1536, which served as the basis of faith for the Church of England for the next few years. Out of them came a commentary, generally known today as the Bishops’ Book (1537), which explained the main points of the Christian faith, including the Ten Articles, to ordinary members of the Church of England.

In the Ten Articles, Lutheran influence is felt in many places. In Article 5, on justification, for example, Cranmer states, “Sinners attain this justification by contrition and faith joined with charity … not as though our contrition or faith, or any works proceeding thereof, can worthily merit or deserve to obtain the said justification, for the only mercy and grace of the Father, promised freely unto us for his Son’s sake, Jesus Christ, and the merits of his blood and passion, be the only sufficient and worthy causes thereof.”

On the other hand, Catholic practices like the veneration of images, the cult of the saints, and prayers for the dead were reaffirmed. And Article 4, on the Lord’s Supper, can be interpreted in either a Lutheran or a Catholic view of Christ’s presence in Communion.

This middle road took a turn toward Rome in the late 1530s, when the king decided the Church of England had gone too far in Luther’s direction. In 1539, Parliament passed an act that set out six points of traditional Catholic doctrine that Henry wanted the church to maintain. One of these articles clearly reaffirmed the medieval doctrine of transubstantiation—that the bread and wine become in substance the body and blood of Christ. Another rejected clerical marriage. Though the act did not expressly contradict the Ten Articles, its spirit was decidedly Catholic.

In 1543, Cranmer suffered a further reversal of his Lutheran sympathies when the king issued his own commentary on the church’s faith, the King’s Book, which was notably more Catholic in tone and an attempt to counteract the Bishops’ Book.

It was not until Henry died, in 1547, that Cranmer was free to develop his doctrinal ideas, but then there were pressing problems that demanded his attention—for one, reordering the church’s worship.

It wasn’t until 1553 that he was able to devote himself to a new statement of faith, consisting of forty-two articles. These articles, though, officially lasted only six months because Catholic Queen Mary I ascended the throne.

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