By Robin G. Jordan
Bishop Katherine Jefferts
Schori’s theological views come as no surprise. Nor does the harsh response
from conservative quarters to her views. From a doctrinal standpoint the
Presiding Bishop is heterodox at best.
While you are not likely to
hear anyone in the Anglican Church in North America equating salvation with
diversity, you are likely to hear an
association made between salvation and the sacraments and good works. This
association, however, is no more Biblical than Bishop Schori’s equation of
salvation with diversity.
The Articles of Religion, also
known as the Thirty-Nine Articles, historic Anglicanism’s confession of faith,
reflect the Biblical and Reformation view of salvation. We are saved by grace
alone by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone.
In its choice of language the
Fundamental Declarations of the Anglican Church in North America evade acknowledging
and recognizing the full authority of the Articles of Religion as Anglicanism’s
confession of faith. When the Jerusalem Declaration and Statement were drafted,
members of the North American delegation questioned the central place that
these documents give to the Thirty-Nine Articles. The constitution of the
Anglican Church in North America relegates its affirmation of the Jerusalem
Declaration and Statement to its preamble where the affirmation forms a part of
the narrative describing the founding of the ACNA and is open to interpretation
as not being binding upon that ecclesiastical body.
The evasive language of the
Anglican Church in North America’s Fundamental Declarations in relation to the
Thirty-Nine Articles can be attributed to two influences in the ACNA—Anglo-Catholicism
and liberalism. These two influences have dominated North American Anglicanism—particularly
in the United States but also in Canada—since the nineteenth century. The
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, while it adopted a revision
of the Thirty-Nine Articles, did not require its clergy to subscribe to this
revision of the Articles.
Anglo-Catholicism is manifest in two forms in the
Anglican Church in North America—in traditional Anglo-Catholicism with its
roots in the nineteenth century Tractarian Movement and Roman Catholicism and
in “three streams, one river” ideology with its roots in the twentieth century
Ancient Future/Convergence Movement. In the Ancient Future/Convergence Movement the Catholic stream flows the strongest
and its waters dilute the waters of the evangelical and Pentecostal streams. Indeed
they are little more than gentle eddies near the banks of the river. The
Ancient Future/Convergence Movement might be more accurately described as the
Catholic Resurgence.
Even those who identify themselves as “evangelicals” in
the Anglican Church in North America have been strongly influenced by
Anglo-Catholic doctrine and practice.
Anglo-Catholic clergy and congregations are flourishing in the Reformed Episcopal Church, which was established in a
reaction to the growing influence and spread of Tractarianism in the nineteenth
century and to what was seen as incipient Roman Catholic theology in the 1789
Book of Common Prayer. The Reformed Episcopal Church is a founding entity of
the Anglican Church in North America and a sub-province of that ecclesiastical
body.
While we tend to associate liberalism with the Episcopal
Church, liberalism is present in the Anglican Church in North America. In the
Anglican Church in North America liberalism primarily takes the form of what an
earlier generation would have described as Broad Church views. One of its
manifestations is the tolerance of Anglo-Catholic doctrine and practice.
In The Way, the
Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global
Anglican Future the GAFCON Theological Resource Group, chaired by Nigerian
Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, identifies two major challenges to the rule of the plain
sense of Scripture and the classic formularies in Anglicanism. (The Way, the Truth, and the Life was written
as a handbook to serve as a theological introduction and definition for GAFCON.)
These two challenges are Anglo-Catholicism and liberalism.
If GAFCON and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans were
launched in response to the challenges of Anglo-Catholicism and liberalism to
the authority of Scripture and the classic formularies, one is prompted to ask why
GAFCON and the FCA have not been bolder in confronting them in the Anglican
Church in North America. If Anglican Church in North America was intended to
restore the authority of Scripture and the classic formularies to North American
Anglicanism and to provide an authentic Anglican alternative to the Episcopal
Church, it has been a abysmal failure. While some may argue that the Anglican
Church in North America is planting new churches and growing while the
Episcopal Church is not, its church planting efforts and growth deserve—no,
require closer scrutiny. What kind of churches is the ACNA planting? At what population
segments are these churches targeted? What gospel are they proclaiming? What
kind of growth are they experiencing—transfer growth, conversion growth? One is
also prompted to ask whether the supporters of the Anglican Church in North
America outside of the United States and Canada are confusing social
conservatism with Anglican orthodoxy.
There is mounting evidence that the Anglican Church in
North America is moving in a more Anglo-Catholic direction and away from the
rule of the plain sense of Scripture and the classic formularies. This evidence
is found in its governing documents, its Ordinal, and the actions and statements
of its leaders, and, I suspect, will in time be found in its Catechism and its Prayer
Book. There is also a movement within the Anglican Church in North America to
move not only that ecclesiastical body in a more Anglo-Catholic direction but
also GAFCON, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, and the Global South
Anglican Churches. The Episcopal Church has tried to export its brand of
liberalism to the Global South. This particular movement seeks to export its
brand of Anglo-Catholicism. Both represent threats to the authority of Scripture
and the classic formularies in global Anglicanism.
There is a clear need for the establishment of a
Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church in North America, a church that upholds the
Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical character of the Anglican Church as well
as fully supports the authority of Scripture and the classic formularies against
the challenges of Anglo-Catholicism and liberalism, a church that is wholeheartedly
committed to proclaiming the gospel to all segments of the population in the
United States and Canada and to planting gospel-centered churches throughout North
America, a church whose primary focus is reaching and evangelizing the lost,
discipling them, and enfolding them into new churches, not being bigger than
the Episcopal Church. The time has come to launch REACH North America.
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