Foundation Stones: Responsible, Synodical Church Government

By Robin G. Jordan

In a previous article, “Anglican Mission: God’s Church under Construction” I drew attention to four essential foundation stones upon which a new orthodox North American Anglican province must be built: They are:

1. A strong commitment to the Scriptures;
2. A strong commitment to the classic formularies;
3. A strong commitment to the Great Commission; and
4. A strong commitment to responsible, synodical church government

Without these foundation stones forming its base any structure established to serve as a new orthodox North American Anglican province is going to collapse. All four foundation stones are needed to support it. In this article I examine the fourth foundation stone—a strong commitment to responsible, synodical church government.

The Bible does not prescribe or prohibit any particular organization for fellowship of congregations. It does, however, lay down certain principles that we would be wise to incorporate into such an organization.

The New Testament not only emphasizes that we must give an accounting to God for everything we have said and done but we are also accountable in this life to the church—to the assembly of believers or to a subdivision of it.

We see this accountability in practice in the report Peter gives to the church in Acts 11:1-18. A sense of being accountable to others is seen in Paul’s address to the Ephesian elders before his departure to Jerusalem (Acts 20:17-28) and his report to James and all the elders upon his arrival in Jerusalem (Acts 21: 18-20).

Whatever organization we form, its leaders should be responsible. They should be liable to be called to account, answerable in clearly defined manners to the church. Responsible leaders and responsible government are not autocratic. Their authority is not unrestricted. They are morally accountable for their actions.

The New Testament stresses that the officers of the church should be capable of rational conduct, should be of good repute, and should be apparently trustworthy (Acts 6:3; 1 Timothy 3:1-13). It is these characteristics that make for responsible leadership. While it does not specifically appear in New Testament lists of desirable qualities in church officers, a sense of being accountable to others is seen in the New Testament from the preceding examples as a desirable quality in those in a position of influence or leadership in the church.

A synod is a deliberative assembly. It may consist of laypersons as well as clergypersons. In a synodical form of church government deliberative assemblies of clergy and laity play a large role in the discussion and determination of major issues affecting the church. Among the New Testament examples of a synod are the Jerusalem Council that sent a letter to the Gentile believers.

Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.” (Acts 15:22-29 ESV)

With this council the early disciples were following an established Jewish practice. Earlier in Acts 4:5-6 we read how the rulers and elders and the scribes gathered together in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family, to examine Peter and John and to decide how they should deal with these two apostles. We read later in Acts 6:1-6 how the apostles summoned the full number of disciples and instructed this gathering to select seven men from amongst themselves to care for the needs of the widows of the Hellenists.

Underlying the synodical principle is the recognition that the same Spirit is given to the whole church (1 Corinthians 12:4). To each member of the church is given the manifestation of the Spirit—some form of the Spirit’s working—for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:7) The Body of Christ is interdependent. One member cannot do without another (1 Corinthians 12:14-26). The Homily Concerning the Coming Down of the Holy Ghost for Whit Sunday affirms these New Testament teachings against the claim of the Roman Catholic Church that God has granted the Bishop of Rome a special gift of the Holy Spirit that sets him apart from other men. In its repudiation of this claim the homily also does not recognize the Anglo-Catholic claim that bishops have received a special grace from the Holy Spirit and the government of the Christian community is solely their concern.

If we look at the history of the Church of England from the Reformation on, we see put into practice the belief that God is working in the entire church, not just in the bishops and the clergy. The reigning Monarch, the Privy Council, and Parliament as well as both houses of Convocation were involved in the making of major decisions that affected the English Church. Bishops were elected by the cathedral chapter of the diocese but the diocese’s cathedral chapter elected whomever the reigning Monarch nominated. Bishops were, under English law, functionaries of the State and servants of the Crown. The model of church government used in the Church of England, while more complicated than that of the continental Reformed Churches, was based upon the same model. This model recognized God to be at work in the Christian magistrate, and guiding him in his government of the Christian community. The Christian magistrate appointed pastors to care for the flock and in turn the pastors served as the conscience of the Christian magistrate. Synodical church government not only has a basis in the New Testament but also in the Reformation. The underlying principle is that the government of the Christian community under God rightly belongs to the whole church, clergy and laity together. It is not the exclusive province of bishops.

The Church of Geneva adopted a different model of church government from the other continental Reformed Churches. Its model, like that of the Roman Catholic Church, vested the government of the church and the state in the clergy and subordinated civil authorities to the church authorities. The pastors governed the Church of Geneva. They also chose the magistrates of the city and governed the city through them. The sixteen and seventeenth century presbyterians in the Church of England sought to establish a similar theocracy in England. They would provoke a strong reaction from the royalists who would assert the divine right of bishops alongside the divine right of kings. The party of the King would become the party of the bishops.

The position of the English Reformers and classical Anglicanism, however, is that the Church of Christ is not limited to one particular order or form of ecclesiastical polity. It rejects the exclusive claim of both episcopalians and presbyterians.

We do not find in the Anglican Church in North America, its ministry partner, the Anglican Mission, or the Continuing Anglican Churches a strong commitment to responsible, synodical church government. But this is not the only essential foundation stone missing in these ecclesial bodies. So are the other three indispensable foundation stones needed to form the base of a new orthodox Anglican province in North America. Without these four foundation stones the necessary groundwork for such a province will be absent and any structure built without it will collapse. We have only to look at the Anglican Church of Canada, the Episcopal Church, and a number of the Continuing Anglican Churches. It may take more than two hundred years or just a few decades to collapse but it will collapse.

The Episcopal Church is collapsing due to its weak commitment to the Scriptures, the Anglican formularies, and the Great Commission that has become more pronounced in recent years. It had the mechanisms to require accountability from its leaders but failed to use them, not only in this century and the twentieth century but also in the previous century.

The older the Anglican Church in North America grows the more difficult it will be to replace its poor foundation. The time to provide it with a strong base formed from the four foundation stones is now. Building upon a poor foundation only hides it from view. It does not strengthen it or keep it from crumbling. It does not prevent it from giving way and the whole structure erected upon it collapsing. A poor foundation is not something that can be fixed later. It is not something that can be postponed to another day. It demands immediate attention. Indeed it should have taken care of more than three years ago!