By Robin G. Jordan
If the growth figures for the Anglican Church in North
America that Archbishop Robert Duncan reported in his Address on the State of the
Church are compared with the growth figures for the combined populations of the
United States and Canada, one is faced with the painful realization that the
ACNA is a very small denomination with a very small population base. While its
growth is not utterly dismal, it is far from stellar - whatever Archbishop Duncan
said in the address. One must not forget that while Duncan was the Archbishop
of the Anglican Church in North America, it was part of his job to portray the
ACNA in the best possible light and to encourage support of the denomination in
and outside of the ACNA, throughout North America and beyond. Having played a
leading role in its formation, he also has a vested interest in presenting the
ACNA as a growing, successful venture.
Although Duncan has turned over the office of Archbishop to a
successor, it remains to be seen whether he will fully relinquish the role of
lead bishop that he established while he occupied that position in the ACNA
hierarchy. From what I have seen he has already positioned himself to continue
to influence the direction of the ACNA as a member of the College of Bishops,
the Provincial Council, and the Governance Task Force.
Archbishop Foley Beach finds himself in the unenviable
position of a senior pastor whose predecessor is a member of the church, which he
has been called to lead, and continues to exercise substantial influence with
the other church leaders. Whether Beach will be able to move out of Duncan’s
shadow and lead the ACNA in a new direction is anyone’s guess. Relocating
denominational headquarters to Georgia may be a wise move on Beach’s part.
The Episcopal Church in the USA, the Anglican Church of
Canada, the Reformed Episcopal Church, the Orthodox Anglican Church/Anglican
Orthodox Church, and the Continuing Anglicans Churches all have relatively small
population bases. (A population base is the segment of the population that provides support for a denomination.) They were unable to successfully expand their population bases.
The successful expansion of a denomination’s population base is vital to its
maintenance of healthy, long-term growth. In turn, the maintenance of healthy,
long-term growth is essential to the further expansion of its population base.
The Episcopal Church, the Reformed Episcopal Church, and the
Orthodox Anglican/Anglican Orthodox Church would spread beyond the borders of
the United States but this kind of expansion did not involve an expansion of
population base. The latter entails not only expanding geographically but also
expanding across the whole cultural, ethnic, linguistic, racial, and
social-economic spectrum of the general population.
Like new judicatories and new congregations, new
denominations may enjoy an initial growth spurt. They then plateau and
eventually decline. They create obstacles to their own growth. They are uninterested
or unwilling to move past these self-imposed barriers and off the plateau. They
may in time come to recognize these barriers for what they are. They may also
discover that they have missed a critical window of opportunity and they are
unable to move past them. They have locked themselves into a trajectory that
leads only downward.
Among the obstacles that the Episcopal Church and the
Continuing Anglican Churches created for themselves was they became elitist and
exclusionary in their orientation. They became denominations designed to appeal
to a particular kind of people.
The Episcopal Church’s elitist, exclusionary orientation is
traceable to the influence of the Catholic Revival upon the High Church party
in that denomination in the nineteenth century. While the denomination had
exhibited elitist, exclusionary tendencies before the Catholic Revival, they
would bloom under its influence.
Manifestations of the nineteenth century Episcopal Church’s
elitist, exclusionary orientation included the insistence that bishops and
episcopacy were essential to the church; the refusal to recognize the ordination
of clergy of denominations without bishops; and a ban on the fraternization of
Episcopal clergy with the clergy of such denominations. They also included the
rejection of Evangelical proposals for the revision of the Prayer Book, and the
dismissing of the Muhlenberg Memorial. The latter was a proposal submitted to the House of Bishops that would have opened a wider door for admission to the gospel ministry in the Episcopal Church. It urged the House of Bishops to permit the ordination of men from other Christian bodies without requiring them to surrender all the liberty in public worship to which they were accustomed.
The same period in Episcopal Church history would see the
secession of Bishop George David Cummins and conservative Evangelicals from the
Episcopal Church and their formation of the Reformed Episcopal Church over the truculence
of the High Church party and its attacks on Evangelical beliefs and practices.
By the first half of the twentieth century the elitist,
exclusionary orientation of the Episcopal Church had led the denomination to
develop an anti-Evangelical identity and to reject anything and everything
associated with Evangelicalism. The Episcopal Church’s distaste for evangelism
can be traced to this development.
The radical inclusivism of the twenty-first century
Episcopal Church is actually a manifestation of the denomination’s elitist,
exclusionary orientation. The Episcopal Church has become a denomination for
liberal elites with a particular view of homosexuality and the place of
homosexuals in the Church. Conservative Episcopalians who do not accept this
view have been marginalized. Those who retain a biblical view of homosexuality
are prevented from practicing what they believe or teaching it. Even privately
holding such a view is identified as harmful and dangerous. Individuals who do
so are vilified as bigoted and homophobic.
Prayer Book revision and women’s ordination would prompt an
exodus of Episcopalians unhappy with these changes from the Episcopal Church in
the 1970s. This exodus resulted in the abortive formation of the first Anglican
Church in North America. The original ACNA was short-lived and quickly
fragmented into a number of smaller Continuing Anglican Churches. The clergy
and congregations that comprised this exodus were principally divided into two
groups—those who were content with the Protestant nature of Anglicanism and
those who wanted to make Anglicanism more Catholic. The second group would win
the struggle for ideological dominance. The outcome was a multiplication of
tiny denominations and a corresponding multiplication of barriers to growth.
Among these obstacles was an elitist, exclusionary orientation.
What happened in the Episcopal Church and the Continuing
Anglican Churches is relevant to the Anglican Church in North America. The ACNA
shows clear signs of following the footsteps of these denominations. Like these denominations, the ACNA exhibits
elitist, exclusionary tendencies. They were evident during the Common Cause
Partnership phase of the ACNA. They have become increasingly more pronounced
over the past five years.
The elitist, exclusionary orientation of the Anglican Church
in North America is primarily discernible in five areas—doctrine, governance,
worship, clergy, and discipline. This orientation is not limited to these
areas. It is evident in other areas of the life and ministry of the
denomination. It presents a major obstacle to the expansion of the
denomination’s population base as do specific barriers in these five areas.
In this article series we will examine the ways that the
Anglican Church in North America is hampering its own growth. We will also take
a look at how the ACNA might eliminate or reduce these self-imposed growth
barriers.
1 comment:
Good observations. It is curious how elitism, liberalism, homosexuality, sacramentalism, and ceremony go together in the liberal episcopalian churches and the Roman Catholic church. Part of it is "camp"--- the unbeliever happily accepts the fancy dress with tongue in cheek about the purpose behind it. Part of it is the appeal to works rather than faith--- you don't have to give up your sin, because you just do extra ceremony to compensate. And part of it is the elitist aspect of both homosexuality and liberalism--- pretend superiority to ordinary people, who value family, nation, and tradition, and are not in the gnostically enlightened group of secret insiders.
A true Christian can value ceremony, and can be an elitist outside of church, but must recognize how these things make his church tempting for evil people and be extra vigilant. The Papacy at least knows about this, though it is at war with itself on the subject.
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