Isn't It Time for the Liturgy and Common Worship Task Force to Step Down?

Don’t believe everything you read on the website of the Anglican Church in North America. For example, in the Process of Reception section of the ACNA website’s Liturgy page you will find this statement:

With the exception of The Ordinal, which has been authorized and adopted, and is The Ordinal of the Province, the other materials offered in Texts for Common Prayers are “working texts” approved for use by the College of Bishops.

However, the Provincial Council has never adopted a canon recognizing the provisional ordinal in use in the Province as the official ordinal of the Anglican Church in North America. The Provincial Assembly has not ratified such a canon.

Until such a canon is adopted and ratified, the provisional ordinal is just that—a provisional ordinal, and therefore subject to addition and alteration, whatever the Liturgy and Common Worship Task Force and the College of Bishops may say.

Article V of the ACNA Constitution gives the Provincial Council power to make canons ordering the common life of the Province in respect to Common Worship. In Title II.2.2 of the ACNA Canons the Provincial Council has enacted the following provision:

It is understood that there is a diversity of uses in the Province. In order to use these rich liturgies most advantageously, it is the responsibility of the Bishop with jurisdiction to ensure that the forms used in Public Worship and the Administration of the Sacraments be in accordance with Anglican Faith and Order and that nothing be established that is contrary to the Word of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.

A “Bishop with jurisdiction” is the bishop of a diocese or network of the Anglican Church of North America. As bishop of a diocese or network he has jurisdiction in that diocese or network. His jurisdiction, however, does not extend beyond the diocese or network. As bishop of the diocese or network he is responsible for ensuring that forms of service used in the diocese or network are “in accordance with Anglican Faith and Order” and are not “contrary to the Word of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.” The Provincial Council, however, has not in this or any other canon given authority to the bishops of the province collectively in the College of Bishops to approve and authorize rites for use in the province.

It is worthy of note that the Provincial Council in Title II.2.2 does not define what constitutes “Anglican Faith and Order.” The canon’s view of the Scriptures is not that they are “the Word of God written” but contain the Word of God. This is a liberal view.

The ACNA website claims that the Anglican Church in North America “wholeheartedly” affirms the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration. In the ACNA constitution, canons, “theological lens,” and provisional ordinal, you willll find a growing body of evidence that the Anglican Church in North America’s affirmation of the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration is far from wholehearted. It is at best cosmetic—done or made for the sake of appearance. The forms of service in Texts for Common Prayer (2013), in particular the eucharistic rites, add to this body of evidence. It is increasingly clear from these documents that the Anglican Church in North America does not accept the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies. Since the College of Bishops played a major role in their development, it is also increasingly clear that the ACNA bishops themselves do not accept the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies.

As George Conger points out in his article, “ACNA keeps the filioque clause,” the Anglican Church in North America has a disproportionate number of “Anglo-Catholic and philo-Orthodox bishops and organizations” in its organizational structure. Like the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church in North America appears to be "in thrall to enthusiasts.” Special interest groups who are dedicated to a particular cause,” Conger goes on to point out, "have often been able to press their agenda onto the wider church." The special interest groups dominating the Liturgy and Common Worship Task Force and the College of Bishops appear set on moving the Anglican Church in North America away from authentic historic Anglicanism in an independent Catholic direction.

Conger further points out that theological fads, one of a number of ills that have plagued the Episcopal Church, helped to spark the creation of a third province movement. In offering a compromise solution on the filoque that allowed disparate views on the doctrine of Holy Spirit, he contends, the Anglican Church in North America has avoided falling victim to this particular ill. Here I must disagree with Conger. The ACNA leaders dropped what had become a hot potato. However, the notes in Texts for Common Prayer suggest that they have not given up on the omission of the filoque entirely.

From a conservative Evangelical perspective the forms of service that Liturgy and Common Worship Task Force has produced to date, the doctrines they express or imply, and liturgical usages they require or permit, are totally unacceptable. The doctrines and liturgical usages that predate the English Reformation are doctrines and liturgical usages that the English Reformers rejected on Scriptural grounds. Those which are more recent in origin are inconsistent with the Bible and the Anglican formularies. While accommodating Anglo-Catholic beliefs and practices in these forms of service, the task force has not made room for Evangelical beliefs and practices. The College of Bishops has not taken steps to ensure that the forms of service conform to the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine of the Anglican formularies, much less to accommodate the beliefs and practices of Evangelicals.

The Liturgy and Common Worship Task also did not consider conditions “on the ground” in the North American mission field in designing the forms of service. They lack the flexibility, adaptability, simplicity, and other essential qualities that mission-shaped churches need in the forms of service they use.

I don’t believe that it is unreasonable at this stage in the game to call for the resignation of the present Liturgy and Common Worship Task Force and the appointment of a new task force—a task force whose members hold to the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine of the Anglican formularies, are experienced in evangelism and church planting, and are committed to the furtherance of the gospel, a task force whose members are not out of touch with the North American mission field nor obsessed with the revival of pre-Reformation Medieval doctrines and liturgical usages as the present task force is. I do believe that the future of the Anglican Church in North America would be a whole lot brighter.