Saturday, October 11, 2014

A Sad Day for Reformed Anglicanism in North America


By Robin G. Jordan

On the Anglican Ink website George Conger reports that seven Global South primates have declared the Anglican Church in North America to be Anglican and its primate to be an archbishop of the Anglican Communion. The seven primates either attended the investiture of the new ACNA archbishop or sent representatives to that investiture. The same primates offer no basis for this declaration. They list no specific objective criteria by which they came to this conclusion.

Two of these primates are the chairman and the vice-chairman of GAFCON. One of them chaired the GAFCON Theological Resource Group that drafted the Jerusalem Declaration and its official GAFCON commentary, Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today. Most, if not all, of the provinces of these primates are signatories to the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration.

In the Jerusalem Declaration the participants in the 2008 Global Anglican Future Conference solemnly declare fourteen “tenets of orthodoxy” that they maintain as underpinning Anglican identity. These “tenets of orthodoxy” include upholding "the Thirty-Nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God's Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today." In Being Faithful the GAFCON Theological Group reiterates that the Church is not free to expound one passage of Scripture so that it disagrees with another (Article 20). It points out that the Thirty-Nine Articles together with the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal are “the doctrinal standard of Anglicanism.”  It further points out that acceptance of the Articles’ authority “is constitutive of Anglican identity.”


In its constitution the Anglicans Church in North America relegates its affirmation of the Jerusalem Declaration to its preface where the affirmation is purely incidental to narrative of why the ACNA was formed and is not binding upon the consciences of ACNA congregations and clergy. This includes upholding "the Thirty-Nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God's Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today" In its fundamental declarations the ACNA equivocates in its acceptance of the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles and recognizes other unidentified doctrinal standards beside the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal.

The Anglican Church in North America does not in practice fully accepts the Scriptures as a canon or functioning rule for the Christian faith and life. Nor does it conform to the doctrine of what Dr. Mark Thompson, principal of Moore College, Sydney, in a recent article described as the "confessional formularies" of historic Anglicanism. The "confessional formularies" include the two Books of Homilies, as well as the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal. The ACNA expound one passage of Scripture so that it disagrees with another and treats the Thirty-Nine Articles as a historical document with which it can do what it pleases. This is quite evident from the doctrinal statements that the denomination has produced to date--its fundamental declarations, its canons, Texts for Common Prayer, To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism, and its proposed rites for the admission of catechumens, baptism, and confirmation.

The ACNA ordination rites alter the preface of the Ordinal and dilute the Ordinal’s requirement that candidates for the diaconate must "unfeignedly believe all the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament." They mandate or permit the use of practices that are associated with doctrines rejected by the Anglican Reformers and inconsistent with teaching of the Scriptures and the doctrine of the “confessional formularies.”

The ACNA trial services of Holy Communion contain liturgical elements that teach two doctrines of eucharistic sacrifice-- the 1958 Lambeth doctrine along with the older pre-Reformation - post Tridentian Roman Catholic doctrine.  Both doctrines conflict with the doctrine of the Thirty-Nine Articles. The same services also contain liturgical elements that teach the medieval doctrine of transubstantiation—another doctrine that conflicts with the doctrine of the Articles.

The ACNA catechism in a number of places misrepresents the doctrinal positions of the Articles, the Prayer Book, and the Ordinal or ignores them entirely. Among the doctrinal positions the ACNA catechism takes is an Arminian position on salvation--faith precedes regeneration--instead of a Reformed position--regeneration precedes faith. It also adopts an unreformed Catholic position on the sacraments, recognizing seven sacraments, not two. It permits the teaching of a Roman Catholic view of justification. The ACNA proposed rite for admission of catechumens infers that we are saved not by faith but by baptism. The ACNA proposed baptism rite contradicts the ACNA catechism and ties regeneration to baptism. The ACNA catechism and proposed confirmation rite teach that confirmation is a sacrament.

The Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa, formerly the Church of England in South Africa, fully accepts the Scriptures as a canon or functioning rule for the Christian faith and life. REACH South Africa unequivocally recognizes the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal as its doctrinal and worship standard. It requires subscription to the Articles not only by its clergy but also lay church leaders. It has bishops as well as presbyters and deacons. Yet the same group of primates has not to my knowledge extended their recognition to that ecclesial body. Why not?

If anything, REACH South Africa has a much stronger claim to being Anglican than the ACNA. It evidences a much greater degree of continuity in doctrine and practice with the Anglican Reformers, the Elizabethan Settlement, and classical Anglicanism than does the ACNA.

The seven Global South primates have essentially done what Archbishop Justin Welby recently did—made themselves the arbiters of who and what is Anglican and claimed their recognition to be the determining factor for Anglican identity. This is a retreat from the position of the Jerusalem Declaration and Being Faithful.  It is also a retreat from the earlier GACON document, The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future, which identifies Anglo-Catholicism as a major challenge to the authority of the Scriptures and the “confessional formularies” in the Anglican Church along with liberalism. They have reduced the determination of who and what is Anglican to a purely subjective judgment—basically a political decision.  

Their declaration offers no incentive to the Anglican Church in North America to make room in that ecclesial body for Anglicans who are faithful to the teaching of the Scriptures and the doctrine of the “confessional formularies” and who are Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical in their theological outlook. It does, however, offer encouragement to those seeking to impose a single identity on the ACNA—a unreformed Catholic identity, not a reformed Anglican one.

See also
Thoughts on the Investiture of the New ACNA Archbishop
The Latest Round in the Debate over Anglican Identity
Australian Diocese's Recognition of the ACNA Premature

3 comments:

Galletta said...

I saw your comment over at Anglican Ink as well as your post on your blog. Just curious, on what basis you make your conclusion that ACNA is not Anglican. I would like details not just your random musings.
SC Blu Cat Lady

Robin G. Jordan said...

Galleta,

I have written a number of articles examining the ACNA's constitution, its canons, its ordinal, its trial services, its catechism, and its proposed rites for admission of catechumens, baptism, and confirmation. If you want details, you'll need to read those articles which are archived on my blog site.

What you characterize as "random musings" are based upon an extensive study of these doctrinal statements, as well as Anglicanism' "confessional formularies," the Jerusalem Declaration, Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, and The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future.

Searching the blog site by my byline, "Robin G. Jordan" should produce all the articles I've written to date although they will not be in chronological order. You can narrow the search by following my byline with the year. You can pull up articles for an entire year in that way. They will not, however, be in chronological order. I launched the blog in November 2004.

Alternately you can search by specific document, for example, To Be .A Christian: An Anglican Catechism.You will also find articles on the topics of Anglican identity, confessional Anglicanism, and related topics.

I also recommend Gillis Harp's "Recovering Confessional Anglicanism," Phillip Jensen's "Why Anglican" and Mark Thompson's "Who and What Is Anglican." All three articles are online.

One of the issues that the Jerusalem Declaration was supposed to address was the question of Anglican identity. See the introduction to the fourteen points of the declaration. Each point lists a tenet of orthodox that the GAFCON Theological Resource Group identified as underpinning Anglican identity.

For the sake of clarity the GAFCON Theological Resource Group produced Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today. This was to prevent various groups from coming up with their own interpretation of the Jerusalem Declaration at variance with what the GAFCON Theological Resource Group is saying in the declaration.

The Jerusalem Declaration, Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today., and The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future take the position that Anglicanism is confessional. At the heart of the Confessing Anglican movement is the call to return to the Scriptures and the "confessional formularies."

Having agreed upon the confessional nature of Anglicanism, the GAFCON primates appear to have backpedaled. This is why I asked both in my comment on Anglican Ink and in my post, what criteria did the GAFCON primates use to declare the ACNA Anglican and its primate an archbishop of the Anglican Communion. It was not the criteria laid out in these three documents.

A careful examination of the doctrinal statements the ACNA has produced to date show that the ACNA does not meet these criteria. (Cont'd)

Robin G. Jordan said...

I believe that it is fair to ask on what basis did the GAFCON Primates made their determination. Just as Justin Welby's recognition is an inadequate way of defining who and what is Anglican so is the GAFCON Primates' recognition. There needs to be some kind of objective criteria involved in the determination.

Much of the confusion over Anglican identity is attributable to the Anglo-Catholic movement in the nineteenth century and the liberal movement in the twentieth century. The nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement sought to change the identity of the Anglican Church. The twentieth century liberal movement promoted the idea of the Anglican Church as a broad-minded, permissive kind of church that embraces a wide diversity of opinion and creed and whose provinces are bound together only by a past connection with the Church of England and communion with the See of Canterbury.

If the GAFCON primates have backpedaled, then we are back at square one and the two GAFCON conferences were a waste of time.