Planting the Right Seed

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

One of the secrets of a successful garden is to plant the right seed in the right soil.

Anglo-Catholicism, while it was the only flower that was planted in the Diocese of Kentucky for more than a century, was a flower that did not grow well in Kentucky soil. It was introduced in Kentucky in the 1830s but did not adapt to the soil or flourished in it. Where it did grow was in the cities and commercial centers of the diocese and then in a small upper middle class segment of the population.

Anglo-Catholicism comes in several varieties (See David Mill’s Catholic Online article, "Transcending Anglicanism"). It is the offspring of the nineteenth century Tractarian movement that was essentially a Counter-Reformation movement in the Church of England and its daughter churches. The Tractarians were sympathetic toward the Church of Rome and reintroduced many so-called "catholic" beliefs and practices into the Anglican Church that the English Reformers had rejected as unscriptural. These beliefs and practices include the doctrines of the sacrifice of the Mass and of transubstantiation and the practices of venerating the saints—including our Lord’s mother—and praying to them and of auricular confession.

The Tractarians taught in contradiction to the New Testament that the clergy were intermediaries between God and humankind and that sacramental grace, not faith in Christ, is essential to salvation. Their detachment of authority from Scripture would have tremendous ramifications for Anglicanism in the 20th and 21st centuries. They also created a great deal of confusion regarding Anglican identity that lasts to this day.

In the 1960s a hybrid—High Church Liberalism—began to appear in Kentucky gardens. It had the outward appearance of Anglo-Catholicism from the root of which it had sprung and was easily mistaken for the parent flower. Wherever it was allowed to grow, it choked out the parent flower. By early 21st century it had displaced Anglo-Catholicism in the gardens of the diocese.

The parent flower is now only found in a few tiny plots, struggling to survive. These plots comprise a handful of "Continuing Anglican" churches scattered throughout the diocese.

Neither Anglo-Catholicism nor its offspring High Church Liberalism are suited to the Kentucky soil. High Church Liberalism is not doing any better than Anglo-Catholicism in the Diocese of Kentucky. It simply took over the gardens in which Anglo-Catholicism had once grown. In a number of cases its appearance presaged the death of the garden.

Some hope to take the parent flower from the few tiny plots where it barely survives and reintroduce the plant in Kentucky. They dream of a day when it will grow again in the gardens where it formerly grew. However, like all exotic flowers, it is a flower for the few.

Evangelical Anglicanism may be more suited to Kentucky soil. Anglicanism is in the final analysis a Protestant movement. The English Reformers sought to free the Church of England from all the innovations in doctrine and worship that had overgrown the primitive Christian faith in both the Eastern and Western Churches in fifteen centuries and to return the English Church to its New Testament and apostolic roots. Evangelical Anglicans are the heirs to the English Reformation. They are Protestant and Reformed in their views (if not always their practices).

A large segment of Kentucky’s unchurched population comes from a conservative Protestant background. In the region of Kentucky in which I live, the westernmost part of the state and the Diocese of Kentucky, the three dominant church groups are the Baptists, the Churches of Christ, and the United Methodists. The Cumberland Presbyterians and the Pentecostals also have sizable representations in the region. The region’s demographic make-up suggest that a fellowship of believing Christians committed to an Evangelical and Anglican expression of the Christian faith, flexible in its approach to worship, and sensitive to the region’s culture might flourish in the region.

Evangelical Anglicanism may be just the right seed to plant in Kentucky soil.