A Brief Chat with Bishop Iker

http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/14176/

[Stand Firm] 12 Jul 2008-- This morning I had the opportunity to ask Fort Worth Bishop Jack Iker a few questions.

Some Anglo-Catholics have deep misgivings about GAFCON, particularly its emphasis on the 39 Articles and the 1662 Prayer Book. They are wondering if there is going to be any place for them in this new coalition, and if it will be one where they are merely tolerated. What do you say to people who are suspicious of GAFCON's accommodations of Anglo-Catholics?

Bishop Iker: GAFCON has a definite evangelical flavor about it, and this has been so from the very beginning with the selection of the planning group. However, the leadership of the movement is committed to being sensitive to the needs of Anglo-Catholics in the formation of the province in North America that is now underway. As a minority group in the Communion, Anglo-Catholics have often been ignored, ridiculed or criticized, and it is understandable that many of us have certain misgivings about the future of the GAFCON movement based upon past realities. That being said, while it is clear that there is no future in The Episcopal Church for traditional Anglo-Catholics, there will be a secure, respected place for us in the province being birthed. Our theological perspective and liturgical practices will be permitted, protected and honored. Our succession of catholic bishops will be secured.

It is important to remember that the direction of the province that is envisioned will be under the Common Cause Partnership, and for this reason, we must look primarily to the wording of Theological Statement agreed upon by Common Cause some time ago. There are some slight differences in wording and emphasis in that document from the final statement that came out of the Jerusalem meeting. Suffice it to say that Anglo-Catholics in the future will continue to regard the 1662 Prayer Book, the 39 Articles, liturgical practices, and the Councils of the patristic church just as the Oxford Movement did under Pusey, Keble, and Newman, our fathers in the faith.

One of the factors that contributed to the present state of the Episcopal Church is that the denomination departed from the Biblical and Reformation theology of the 1663 Book of Common Prayer with the adoption of the 1928 Prayer Book and ignored the the Biblical and Reformation theology of the Thirty-Nine Articles thereafter. At the time the 1928 Prayer Book was adopted, there was a movement in the Episcopal Church to abolish the Articles. At the 1925 General Convention the Anglo-Catholic leadership of the Episcopal Church introduced a resolution doing away with the Articles. This resolution was adopted by the 1925 General Convention but was quietly dropped at the 1928 General Convention with the adoption of the 1928 Prayer Book. The 1928 Prayer Book incorporated a number of features of the Medieval service books and was decidedly at odds with both the doctrine of the Articles and the 1662 Prayer Book.

What Bishop Iker fails to mention is that Newman sought to reinterpret the Thirty-Nine Articles in Tract 90. He was unsuccessful and became a Roman Catholic. Since then Anglo-Catholics have either embraced Newman's fanciful reinterpretation of the Articles or have called for the abolition of the Articles. The later Tractarians sought to substitute the 1662 Prayer Book for the Articles since they were able to reinterpret the 1662 Prayer Book in "a Catholic sense."

The Common Cause Theological Statement is weak on the Thirty Nine Articles and the 1662 Prayer Book as the standards for doctrine and worship in the Common Cause Partnership. In practice these two historical formularies of Anglicanism are largely ignored. This bodes ill for the Common Cause Partnership. A North American province that does not give a prominent place to the doctrine of the Articles and the 1662 Prayer Book with its strong emphasis upon Scripture as the supreme and final authority in all matters of faith and practice can expect to find itself on the same path as the Episcopal Church in a few years.