In July 1977 a group of Evangelical Anglicans addressed an Open Letter to the bishops of the Anglican communion. The Letter has recently been published together with a lengthy commentary, somewhat in the style of the Anglican/Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) Agreements, in the general reception of which this is intended as a significant intervention. This document invites attention from Catholics, not merely on tactical grounds, because of the large number of Anglicans with a Protestant cast of mind who must be respected and accommodated in any reconciliation between Canterbury and Rome, but also because of the intrinsic importance of the theological questions that the authors raise.

The tenor of the Open Letter may be judged by the Preface: “Some speak as if with the appearance of the three ARCIC Agreements the main theological discussions are already over, and we can all now move on to arranging the nuts and bolts of intercommunion with Roman Catholics and union eventually. This shows how intoxicating is the strong wine of ecumenical bonhomie, and how churchmen, like motorists, can have their heads grow muzzy while feeling that their judgment was never better. Let it be said here, with emphasis, that the signatories think that the discussions which history will see as the main ones have hardly yet begun” (my italics). Evangelicals find themselves badly under-represented in ARCIC, and they consider that the Agreements so far reached on the eucharist, the ministry, and authority, do little to show that Catholics have yet “fully assimilated the doctrinal clarifications which came out of the Reformation conflict”. That the Reformation made Christian doctrine clearer, and that the Anglican communion ‘stands in the Reformation tradition”, are affirmations that are certainly often neutralised by ecumenists.