The Life, Times and Witness of The Rt. Rev. C. FitzSimons Allison

Bishop C. FitzSimons Allison: At 99 A Living Anglican Legend

Bishop FitzSimons Allison is now in his 99th year. His mind, though not as quick as when I interviewed him in 2022, - "The Lion in Winter" (Allison was 95) - remains profoundly alert to the times in which we live. He is a living witness to nearly the entire arc of the modern Anglican crisis — from the pre-revisionist Episcopal Church through the Singapore consecrations to the founding of the ACNA. Very few people alive can speak to that history from personal experience.

AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

By David W. Virtue, DD | www.virtueonline.org  | June 20, 2026

Early Life and Formation

Christopher FitzSimons Allison was born on March 5, 1927, in Columbia, South Carolina, the son of James Richard Allison and Susan Milliken FitzSimons. He attended the University of the South at Sewanee, though his studies were interrupted by service in the United States Army during World War II. He was discharged and returned to complete his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949. He then earned a B.Div. from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1952 and a D.Phil. from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1956. He married Martha Allston Parker on June 10, 1950.

Academic Career

Ordained deacon in June 1952 and priested in May 1953, Allison went on to become one of the Episcopal Church's most respected patristic scholars and Anglican historians. Following his Oxford doctorate, he served as associate professor of church history at the University of the South, Sewanee, from 1956 to 1967, and then as professor of church history at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria from 1967 to 1975.

Parish Ministry and the Diocese of South Carolina

He then served for five years as rector of Grace Episcopal Church in New York City — one of the most prominent evangelical Anglican parishes in the country — before being called to lead the Diocese of South Carolina. He was elected at a special meeting of the Diocesan Convention on May 17, 1980, and consecrated Bishop Coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina in a service attended by approximately 2,500 people at the Gaillard Auditorium in Charleston. The Rt. Rev. John M. Allin, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, served as chief consecrator. He became diocesan bishop in 1982 and served until his retirement in 1990.

The Breaking Point: "Apostasy"

A defining moment came during an Episcopal House of Bishops meeting at Kanuga, North Carolina, in his final year as bishop. The topic was "Why are we dysfunctional?" Allison named what he saw openly: Episcopal priests and seminary professors were proclaiming their faith in an ancient, erotic, divine spirit "older and greater" than the God of the Bible. He called it by its ancient name: apostasy. Other bishops expressed no difficulty with clergy testing the outer boundaries of Christian doctrine. After that confrontation, Allison returned to his pew and declined to receive communion with the assembled House of Bishops. It was a quiet, prophetic act.

The Singapore Consecrations (2000)

In 2000, Allison participated in the Singapore consecrations of two American priests — Charles Murphy and John Rodgers — as bishops serving parishes opposed to the ordination of openly homosexual clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions. While in retirement, he also took several actions that violated Episcopal canons, including celebrating the Eucharist with congregations that had departed or been forced out of the denomination. These actions were controversial within the Episcopal Church, though widely welcomed by those in the emerging orthodox Anglican movement.

Joining the ACNA (2022)

In 2022, Allison formally notified Presiding Bishop Michael Curry that he had been received into the Anglican Church in North America — a body recognized as valid by Anglican bishops across Africa, Asia, and the Global South, though not by the Archbishop of Canterbury or TEC's leadership. For many years, Allison and his wife Martha had attended Prince George Winyah Church in Georgetown, South Carolina — a parish founded in 1721 whose present sanctuary was built in 1755, which departed the U.S. Episcopal Church in 2012 with the rest of the conservative Diocese of South Carolina.

Theological Writings

Allison is a prolific and theologically important author. His works include Fear, Love, & Worship (1962), The Rise of Moralism (1966), Guilt, Anger, and God (1972), The Cruelty of Heresy (1994), and Trust in an Age of Arrogance (2009).

His most scholarly work, The Rise of Moralism, traces how the early Anglican divines — Hooker, Andrewes, Donne, and Davenant — maintained the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith, while later Caroline divines such as Jeremy Taylor and Richard Baxter shifted toward a theology whose generating principle was morality. Allison argues this drift led directly to eighteenth-century Deism and twentieth-century secularism. The Cruelty of Heresy remains one of the finest accessible defenses of classical Christian orthodoxy produced by any Anglican bishop in the modern era.

Trust in an Age of Arrogance, his final and many consider his best volume, was later selected as one of the top 100 Christian classics by Dr. Bob Yost in A Literary Bucket List for the Thoughtful Christ-Follower — placed alongside Augustine, Dante, Thomas à Kempis, Luther, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, John Stott, Solzhenitsyn, Charles Colson, and Tim Keller.

THE INTERVIEW

VOL: Your Oxford D.Phil. and The Rise of Moralism were enormously revelatory works. Do you see the same drift from grace to moralism playing out today in progressive Episcopal theology?

ALLISON: Yes. At that time when things were unravelling, Bishop Alex Dickson of West Tennessee was a grand and courageous companion through those years. He believed and was committed to the gospel as we watched it unfold together.

VOL: What was it actually like in that Kanuga room when you said "apostasy" — and then sat alone in the pew?

ALLISON: A certain sadness about the worldliness of the church at that time.

VOL: What is your read on whether the ACNA has consolidated the realignment, or whether the fractures — women's ordination, GAFCON versus the GSFA — threaten its future?

ALLISON: I think they will threaten its future.

VOL: At 99, what do you most want orthodox Anglicans to understand — something you fear they may be missing?

ALLISON: The doctrine of justification by faith.

VOL: What was achieved at Pawleys Island following the Singapore consecrations?

ALLISON: There has been astonishing growth at Pawleys Island. One man I recall is Thomas "T" Brown, a disciple of Chuck Murphy. He was an excellent preacher and witness to the gospel to hundreds of people through his classes. He served as Assistant Rector at All Saints Church in Pawleys Island, and later became Rector of St. Paul's Anglican Church in Greenville, which grew fabulously.

VOL: Do you believe The Cruelty of Heresy has proven prophetic — that the heresies you catalogued in 1994 are now the operating theology of TEC's leadership?

ALLISON: Yes, I do. It has been sad to watch it all decline.

VOL: You wrote in Trust in an Age of Arrogance that Western culture has dethroned God and installed the self as the final measure of truth, morality, and meaning — what you treat as the essence of arrogance. Drawing on C.S. Lewis's image of "God in the Dock," you frame this self-centeredness as the root of personal and social breakdown, fueling everything from broken marriages to war and genocide. You read the Sadducees as stand-ins for today's secularists, who deny eternal accountability, and the Pharisees as stand-ins for religious moralists who reduce God to the size of their own self-righteousness. Has anything changed in seventeen years?

ALLISON: Not much.

VOL: What do you make of the current generation of Anglican theologians? Who gives you hope?

ALLISON: My good friend Canon Chuck Collins.

VOL: What was your relationship with the great evangelical Anglican scholars of your era — men like John Stott, J.I. Packer, and Michael Green?

ALLISON: I had a deep relationship with them. I shared their theology and their commitment to Scripture.

VOL: Who is your favorite theologian or church historian?

ALLISON: Richard Hooker. He stands with Andrewes, Donne, and Davenant. Classical Anglicans such as Hooker and Ussher were united in affirming that in justification, Christ's righteousness is imputed to the believer — the believer contributes nothing to his own righteousness.

VOL: Trinity Anglican Seminary Dean Bryan Hollon is reshaping the institution through a combination of institutional renewal, liturgical imagination, and strategic partnerships — and the evidence from recent reporting shows that his leadership is unusually creative and ambitious. Do you agree?

ALLISON: I think he is the best Dean the seminary could have hired at a time when seminaries, even conservative ones are closing with many deans not knowing how to meet the new challenges of our age.

VOL: Did you know or have contact with C.S. Lewis during your Oxford years, 1953 to 1956? He was still very much active at Oxford then.

ALLISON: Yes, I knew him. He moved from Oxford to Cambridge during that period. He was deeply committed to the catholic creeds and the Reformation. I did not correspond with him personally, but I heard him speak on several occasions.

VOL: Do you believe the 2003 consecration of Gene Robinson was the terminal moment for The Episcopal Church — or had the institution already died theologically decades earlier?

ALLISON: The Episcopal Church died theologically long before Robinson's consecration. That event was simply a blatant exercise in self-righteousness.

VOL: What do you make of Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe's leadership and TEC's accelerating numerical collapse?

ALLISON: The Lord is not blessing his departure from Scripture and from the solid ground of biblical doctrine.

VOL: Do you have regrets about actions taken — or not taken — during your episcopal tenure that might have better prepared the diocese for what followed?

ALLISON: I was grateful for such leaders as Bishop Alex Dickson and Bishop John Rodgers as the changes were taking place.

VOL: GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans represent the numerical and theological majority of the Communion. Do you see them as the future of Anglicanism?

ALLISON: GAFCON and the GSFA are the future of the Anglican Communion. Our prayers are with them as they navigate what lies ahead.

VOL: Canterbury has not recognized the ACNA. Does that recognition matter — theologically, practically, historically?

ALLISON: Not so long as the American Presiding Bishop recognizes the woman Archbishop of Canterbury.

VOL: How do you assess the ACNA's trajectory in the aftermath of Archbishop Steve Wood's removal from office?

ALLISON: It will be very difficult to survive as a truly Christian witness.

VOL: After nearly a century of life and decades of institutional conflict, where do you find spiritual sustenance and joy?

ALLISON: There are still many faithful believers, and I find hope in their continued commitment to our historic faith.

VOL: Is there anything you wish you had said publicly that you held back?

ALLISON: Yes. I was a little late in proclaiming the historic faith.

VOL: What do you want your epitaph to be — as a bishop, a theologian, a churchman?

ALLISON: I am afraid I cannot look back without regret at our failure to maintain the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

VOL: Looking at the whole of Anglican history — Cranmer, the Elizabethan settlement, the evangelical revival, the Oxford Movement, the twentieth-century collapse — where did Anglicanism go most fundamentally wrong? And is there a path back?

ALLISON: We have followed the devices and desires of ourselves rather than the clear and principled gospel of our church. But I do believe that all is not lost. We can still flourish — with leaders such as Bishop Chip Edgar.

VOL: You have been married to your beloved Martha for 76 years. What is the secret of a long and faithful marriage?

ALLISON: A commitment to love and loyalty — to and for my spouse.

VOL: Thank you, Bishop Allison. God willing, I will return next year when you turn 100.

Legacy

At 99 years of age, Bishop Allison stands as one of the last living links to the pre-revisionist Episcopal Church — a churchman formed by Oxford scholarship, shaped by evangelical Anglican theology, and tested by decades of institutional conflict. His quiet refusal of communion at Kanuga, his bold presence in Singapore, and his formal departure from TEC trace the entire arc of the Anglican realignment. His theological writings remain essential reading for orthodox Anglicans on both sides of the Atlantic.

FOOTNOTE

Bishop Allison's book Trust in an Age of Arrogance was selected as one of the top 100 Christian classics by Dr. Bob Yost in A Literary Bucket List for the Thoughtful Christ-Follower — a volume that includes Augustine of Hippo, Dante Alighieri, Thomas à Kempis, Martin Luther, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, John Stott, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Charles Colson, and Tim Keller, among others.