Churchman Editorial (Autumn 2011): Come over and help us?

But the truth is that neither AMiA nor ACNA has so far established itself as a viable church, and their long-term future must remain in doubt. At the moment, the leadership of both consists of disgruntled TEC (or ex-TEC) clergy who know what they dislike about TEC but are not as clear about what they want to put in its place.

The problem is that AMiA and ACNA are both coalitions of different types of churchmanship. In theory, Evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics and charismatics are all welcome to join them but Evangelicalism (at least as this is understood in England) is weak in TEC and so its influence in AMiA and ACNA is minimal. A charismatic, ‘open Evangelical’ ritualism seems to be the dominant force, but it is hard to be sure since both AmiA and ACNA are really congregationalist churches held together in a loose framework. They all do their own thing and where there are disagreements between them the unspoken rule is that they will be tolerated. Neither group has a seminary it can call its own, nor is it clear where the next generation of bishops will come from or what they will be like. The probability is that both groups will end up like the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC), the offshoot of a late nineteenth-century division that has become a separate denomination and remained marginal to the wider Anglican scene ever since. REC started off as an Evangelical protest against liberalism but in recent years has embraced a form of Anglo-Catholicism that has only been intensified by the disgruntled TEC members who have joined it.

The precedents are not encouraging, but they are little known and generally ignored, especially outside the USA. In England there have been a number of supporters of both AmiA and ACNA, but few imitators. Now, however, their approach seems to be catching on and there have been English ordinands who have even gone to Global South countries like Kenya in search of a bishop who will lay hands on them. To read more, click here

Related article: The New Ascendancy: The Resurgence of Anglo-Catholicism in the North American Anglican Church