The Latest Round in the Debate over Anglican Identity

By Robin G. Jordan

In a recent article, “Who or what defines the Anglican Communion?” the Rev. Dr. Mark Thompson, the Principal of Moore Theological College and a canon of St Andrews Cathedral, Sydney, makes two important points. He writes:

Anglican identity is fundamentally a matter of certain theological commitments, anchored ultimately in the authority of Scripture as God’s word written (Article 20), together with an agreement to operate with a common pattern of church government (the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons). The Anglican Church has always been confessional in nature, as witnessed by the history of subscription to the Articles, which began in the time of Cranmer and continues around the world today.

He further writes:

This does not mean that every genuinely Anglican province must express itself in both form and content in an identical way to every other province. There is room for cultural diversity and appropriate modification of the way we do things in order to communicate the gospel more effectively in our own particular context. The 39 Articles themselves envisage this: ‘It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, or utterly alike; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men’s manners, so that nothing be ordained against God’s word’ (Article 34). But it does mean that any genuine unity we have is a unity of confession and the practice of discipleship first and foremost, not an institutional unity. It cannot and must not be confused with appropriate respect given to an ancient office in the Church of England.

He goes on to note that while the GAFCON Primates recognized that the Anglican Church in North America was “a genuine expression of Anglicanism” in 2009, “there has been increasing occasion for comment in the years since.” The latter qualifies as an understatement in regard to developments in the ACNA in the last five years.

The GAFCON Primates did not explain the basis of their 2009 determination that the ACNA was “a genuine expression of Anglicanism.” It certainly was not on the basis of the ACNA’s faithfulness  “to the confessional formularies (the 39 Articles and the books of Homilies, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal)” or obedience “to the Scriptures in matters of theology and Christian discipleship.”  The ACNA fell short of this standard in 2009 and continues to fall far short of this standard today.

Essentially the GAFCON Primates did what Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby is accused doing: They appointed themselves as arbiter of who is Anglican and who is not. Communion with the sees of these Primates, however, is no better as a defining factor for Anglican identity than communion with the see of Canterbury. It is also not one of the defining factors for Anglican identity that the GAFCON Primates affirmed in the 2008 Jerusalem Declaration and is not consistent with the thinking behind that declaration.

As Dr.Thompson observes, the churches making up the ACNA “are very largely refugees from the Episcopal Church (TEC) and its liberal and extraordinarily litigious Presiding Bishop (Ms Katherine Jefferts Schori).” They, however, brought certain attitudes toward “the confessional formularies” with them from TEC and these attitudes dominate the thinking in the ACNA's official doctrinal statements to date. Their views of the nature of Anglicanism do not line up with Dr. Thompson’s own views. They are either reject the claim that Anglicanism is confessional or they, like Archbishop Foley Beech, view Anglicanism as confessional on the basis of its acceptance of the Catholic creeds. In neither case do they regard the doctrine of the Thirty-Nine Articles and Anglicanism’s other confessional formularies as authoritative for Anglicans in the twenty-first century as they were for Anglicans in previous centuries.

Unreformed Catholic doctrine in one form or another is so pervasive in the Anglican Church in North America, a more accurate description of the ACNA is that it is an independent Catholic denomination, rather than an Anglican jurisdiction. Only a few congregations and a small number of clergy are from a reformed Anglican perspective “faithful to the confessional formularies… and obedient to the Scriptures in matters of theology and Christian discipleship.” They are as I have noted elsewhere an anomaly. What they teach, while it is consistent with the Scriptures and the formularies, conflicts with the official doctrine of the ACNA. The latter itself is at odds with the Scriptures' teaching and the formularies' doctrine.

The presence of these congregations and clergy in the ACNA, however, is not sufficient reason to view the denomination as “genuinely Anglican.” How long they are able to maintain their precarious existence in that denomination remains to be seen. The ACNA has made no movement toward making room for the confessional Anglicanism of these congregations and clergy. It has, however, extended great liberty of belief and practice to those are unreformed Catholic in their theological views.