Jun 1, 2026 · 59 min · 12 segments
In this podcast, I trace how miracle accounts provide support for Anglican Branch Theory. I hope this is helpful to you!
It's a distinctively Anglican theory, and I subscribe to it.
I actually do think it's right.
It was first articulated with clarity by William Palmer, one of our theologians in the 19th century.
There were two William Palmers of the Oxford movement actually, uh, funny enough.
One of them converted, but the other one wrote two books called The Errors of Romanism and A Treatise on the Church of Christ, which remain classics for us, for many of us to this day.
That was the claim that the Anglicans were making, and then you get people like Henry Hammond or Bishop Joseph Hall or indeed even Richard Hooker, who argues that some form of episcopal succession or minimally presbyterial succession is needed in order to continue on the branches of the Catholic Church along with doctrinal orthodoxy, along with the possibility, right, that one might be saved through whatever light remains in a given communion.
William Palmer gives this clarity in Treatise on the Church of Christ, where he argues for famously branch theory of the Church.
For the longest time, I myself had written it off as the claim that the three branches of the Catholic Church were Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism.
And of course, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy do not consider Anglicans in any sense part of the Catholic Church.
But it's actually a much more nuanced theory than I had originally thought.
It's rather that the Catholic Church subsists in the order of bishops, priests, and deacons through time that maintain enough light in their communions for people to be saved, and therefore there are multiple branches through which one might be saved.
Now, you might adjudicate those branches on the basis of a criteria that V- Vernon Staley formulates and furnishes for us.
They are justly excluded from the Catholic Church, with justice being in accordance with the norms and dictates and implications of the apostolic teaching.
Schism within happens when two sides excommunicate each other, but neither side is actually necessarily more in conformity with the apostolic teaching.
They might be operating based off of misunderstanding each other rather than a full understanding of each other.
This is what many of us would contend happened in, uh, the Great Schism in 1054 AD, that whereas the East was correct that Rome had usurped power in unilaterally adding the Filioque, we also affirm that the Filioque is nevertheless true.
It is not a heresy.
And for that reason, two sides then are both bearing blame.
You can't really impugn one or the other squarely, and therefore this counts as a schism within rather than a schism from the Catholic Church.
It's a distinctively Anglican theory, and I subscribe to it.
I actually do think it's right.
It was first articulated with clarity by William Palmer, one of our theologians in the 19th century.
There were two William Palmers of the Oxford movement actually, uh, funny enough.
One of them converted, but the other one wrote two books called The Errors of Romanism and A Treatise on the Church of Christ, which remain classics for us, for many of us to this day.
That was the claim that the Anglicans were making, and then you get people like Henry Hammond or Bishop Joseph Hall or indeed even Richard Hooker, who argues that some form of episcopal succession or minimally presbyterial succession is needed in order to continue on the branches of the Catholic Church along with doctrinal orthodoxy, along with the possibility, right, that one might be saved through whatever light remains in a given communion.
William Palmer gives this clarity in Treatise on the Church of Christ, where he argues for famously branch theory of the Church.
For the longest time, I myself had written it off as the claim that the three branches of the Catholic Church were Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism.
And of course, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy do not consider Anglicans in any sense part of the Catholic Church.
But it's actually a much more nuanced theory than I had originally thought.
It's rather that the Catholic Church subsists in the order of bishops, priests, and deacons through time that maintain enough light in their communions for people to be saved, and therefore there are multiple branches through which one might be saved.
Now, you might adjudicate those branches on the basis of a criteria that V- Vernon Staley formulates and furnishes for us.
They are justly excluded from the Catholic Church, with justice being in accordance with the norms and dictates and implications of the apostolic teaching.
Schism within happens when two sides excommunicate each other, but neither side is actually necessarily more in conformity with the apostolic teaching.
They might be operating based off of misunderstanding each other rather than a full understanding of each other.
This is what many of us would contend happened in, uh, the Great Schism in 1054 AD, that whereas the East was correct that Rome had usurped power in unilaterally adding the Filioque, we also affirm that the Filioque is nevertheless true.
It is not a heresy.
And for that reason, two sides then are both bearing blame.
You can't really impugn one or the other squarely, and therefore this counts as a schism within rather than a schism from the Catholic Church.
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