A New Model for a New Province

By Robin G. Jordan

The news of the unveiling of the constitution of the new Anglican Church in North America the first week in December has generated a great deal of excitement and a lot of speculation on the Internet. From different sources I have gleaned two conflicting accounts of what is going to happen in Wheaton, Illinois, at the Common Cause Partnership Council meeting on December 3. The first is that the draft constitution for the new province will be made public after the CCP Council has received it. It will remain a draft for up to a year until it is ratified, during which time public comment will be invited. The second is that if the CCP Council approves the draft constitution, it will no longer be a draft constitution. It will be the constitution for the new province. It then will be sent to each Common Cause Partner to ratify. They can ratify it and become a constituent judicatory in the new Anglican Church in North America or they can decline to ratify it in which case they will not be included the new province. Both accounts come from within the Common Cause Partnership, from individuals in a position to know what is going on.

While it may be rather late to be proposing a model for the new province, one model the Common Cause Partnership Council might want to consider for the new province is a modification of the Australian model for an Anglican province. [1] In this modification of the Australian model the constituent judicatories of the new Anglican Church in North America would be non-geographical. They would be based primarily upon theological affinity. In practice this means that a particular region or locality of the United States or Canada might have two or more judicatories of the new province represented in it—one confessional, one Anglo-Catholic, and so on. Existing and newly formed or admitted judicatories would be free to plant new churches and to organize new networks of churches throughout the entire territory of the new province.

While the new province might initially consist of the four breakaway Episcopal dioceses and Common Cause Partners, existing and newly formed churches in the new province would be free to network together and to form new judicatories in the province. Existing networks of churches and newly formed networks of churches outside the province seeking admission to the new province would not be required to amalgamate or merge with an existing judicatory in order to gain admission to the province. They would be admitted as a new judicatory if they so desired. Clergy and congregations would be free to transfer from one judicatory to another without any loss of pension contributions or property.

The constituent judicatories of the new Anglican Church in North America would be relatively autonomous in such matters as liturgy, doctrinal and worship standards, ordination of women, and the like. This autonomy would make room for the significant differences between the theological schools of thought represented in the new province. For example, confessional evangelicals have a different understanding of the Eucharist than Anglo-Catholics. Practices like reservation and extended communion are not acceptable to confessional evangelicals nor is a liturgy that gives expression to the idea that the Eucharist is in some way a sacrifice.
The new province would not have a strong central authority. The locus of power would be a network of judicatory-to-judicatory relationships. A number of critical decisions of the provincial General Synod would require the ratification of a majority of all the judicatories. Individual judicatories would be given the liberty of choosing not to apply a provincial canon in a number of cases. For example, a judicatory would, if it chooses, be able not to use the common liturgy that the new province develops and to adopt an existing liturgy (e.g. 1662 or 1928 BCP) or a liturgy that it develops itself. The primate of the new Anglican Church in North America would also serve as the bishop of a constituent judicatory.

This modification of the Australian model for an Anglican province would enable the theologically disparate group of Anglicans and Episcopalians—Anglo-Catholics, charismatic evangelicals, and confessional evangelicals—that has become disaffected from the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church over these provinces’ theological and moral innovations, to coexist more or less peacefully in the new Anglican Church in North America. It would give the different theological schools of thought represented in the new province freedom to plant new churches and organize new networks of churches across the United States and Canada. It would also make the new province more representative of global Anglicanism.

I hope that the CCP Council has the foresight and wisdom to adopt a model for the new Anglican Church in North America, which is flexible enough for the world’s seventh largest mission field and the world’s largest English-speaking mission field—a model which makes ample room in the new province for new networks of churches and does not limit the new province to the four breakaway Episcopal dioceses and the Common Cause Partners. We will find out whether it does on December 3.

Endnotes:
[1] In What’s Up Down Under? Dale Rye describes the Australian model of an Anglican province and discusses the unique history of the Anglican Church in Australia that produced that model. I have adapted the model to North America.