Anglicanism, Evangelicalism, and the Anglican Church in North America

By Robin G. Jordan

Note: The following description of the state of Anglicanism and evangelicalism in the Anglican Church in North America began as a comment written in response to Dr. Mark Thompson's series, "What does it mean to be Anglican?" However, it proved too long a comment so I am posting it here and emailing a copy to Dr. Thompson.

The use of the terms “Protestant” and “Protestantism” are not particularly encouraged in the ACNA. Anglicans, we are told, are not Protestants. They are “Reformed Catholics.” Anglicanism is not a form of Protestantism. It is a form of “Reformed Catholicism.” The late Peter Toon revived the terms “Reformed Catholic” and “Reformed Catholicism” and popularized them. The Caroline divines and the Non-Jurors had originally used these terms. The Scottish Episcopal Church had experimented with the use of “Reformed Catholic” in the nineteenth century but abandoned it in favor of “Protestant Episcopal.” To the Scots “Reformed Catholic” was too close to “Roman Catholic.”

To understand current developments in the ACNA, it is helpful to put them in historical perspective.

The General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church adopted a revision of the Thirty-Nine Articles in 1801 and ordered that the revised Articles should be bound up with the Book of Common Prayer in all future editions. The Articles had their opponents in the Protestant Episcopal Church from the outset. In 1799 the following resolution was brought to the floor of the General Convention: "Resolved, That the articles of our faith and religion as founded on the Holy Scriptures are sufficiently declared in our Creeds and our Liturgy as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer, established for the use of this Church, and that further articles do not appear necessary." The House of Bishops voted against the resolution. The Bishops favored adopting the Articles. When the revised Articles were adopted in 1801, the clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church, however, were not required to formally subscribe to the Articles, as were the clergy of the Church of England. What binding force upon belief that they might carry was left to the conscience of the individual.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries we encounter criticism of the Thirty-Nine Articles from two quarters of the Protestant Episcopal Church—the Anglo-Catholics and the Broad Church liberals. Among the criticisms of the Articles were that they were foreign to the genius of the Church of England. “The adoption of such a detailed system of theology was contrary to her history and traditions.” Or the Articles were no longer relevant for today and represented “a watermark of a previous tide.” The latter view of the Articles crops up in a modified form in the Common Cause Theological Statement now embedded in Article I of the ACNA Constitution.

The Anglo-Catholics and the Broad Church liberals disliked the Thirty-Nine Articles because they did not support their beliefs and practices. While Broad Church liberals pointedly refused to take notice of the Articles, Anglo-Catholics, following the example of John Henry Newman, reinterpreted them. E. J. Bicknell’s The Thirty Nine Articles, which drew upon Newman’s fanciful ahistorical reinterpretation of the Articles, exercised a broad influence in North America. Gillis J. Harp attributes the widespread ignorance of Episcopalians of the Articles and their Reformation heritage to the influence of Anglo-Catholicism in the Protestant Episcopal Church.

In the nineteenth century the Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England agitated for the abolition of the Thirty-Nine Articles. They were not successful. In the Protestant Episcopal Church they had much greater success. In 1925 the General Convention under the denomination’s then Anglo-Catholic leadership passed a resolution dropping the Articles from the Prayer Book. They, however, were eventually thwarted by the Constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

As I previously noted, the Anglo-Catholics were not the only school of thought in the Protestant Episcopal Church that were opposed to the Thirty-Nine Articles. So were the Broad Church liberals. The views of the two schools increasingly converged and influenced each other. Their views of the Articles continue to exercise influence upon how a large segment of the ACNA sees the Articles. An influential self-identified “evangelical” and “Calvinist” in the ACNA informed me that the Church had outgrown the sixteenth century theological views expressed in the Articles. Contemporary Anglicans have a different understanding of the issues addressed in the Articles.

In 1976 and 1979 the General Convention voted to relegate the Articles to the historical documents section of the new Prayer Book. The official position of the Episcopal Church was that the Articles were a thing of the past. By this time “Protestant” had been dropped from the Episcopal Church’s name.

In the newly formed ACNA the position of the Thirty-Nine Articles is not much better. The Articles are presented as belong to the past but containing some principles of genuine Anglicanism. Newman’s reinterpretation of the Articles in a Roman direction is established as normative for the ACNA.

The problem with the ACNA is not so much that Anglo-Catholics dominate the organization as it is that many of those who define themselves as “evangelicals” sit very loosely to the Protestant and evangelical beliefs and principles that historically have distinguished classical evangelical Anglicanism. In Guarding the Holy Fire Roger Steer asserts that “traditional evangelical Anglicanism” disappeared from the Protestant Episcopal Church by 1900. Former Bishop of South Carolina C. FitzSimmon Allison drew to the attention of the late Urban T. Holmes in a personal communication that there were at that time few genuine evangelicals in the Episcopal Church and that those who called themselves “evangelicals” were “liberal low churchmen.” Terry Holmes himself noted in the essay in which he refers to this observation that “English Evangelicalism” has never gained much acceptance in the United States. The essay was published in 1981. Most of what passes for “evangelicalism” in the ACNA may owe more to contemporary popular evangelicalism in North America and the charismatic renewal movement in the 1970s than to classical evangelical Anglicanism.

The ACNA does have a number of pastors who studied in Reformed seminaries or who were Reformed pastors before they were reordained in the ACNA. The ACNA also has a couple of influential theologians, J. I. Packer and Bishop John Rodgers, known for their classical Reformed theology. However, the opinions of Packer and Rodgers are now suspect for the recent positions that they have taken.

“Evangelicalism” in the ACNA has sunk to such a low state that a pastor who takes an Anglo-Catholic position on a number of key issues that divide Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals can represent himself as an “evangelical” and others will defend his description of himself.

The Trinity Episcopal for Ministry contributed to the revival of evangelicalism in the Episcopal Church in the 1970s. In recent years TESM, however, has focused upon helping its students to develop what TESM describes as a “Biblical theology,” whether they are Anglo-Catholic, charismatic, evangelical, or “mere Christian.” In his description of an evangelical Anglican identity its present dean names Lancelot Andrews who is hardly a sterling example of classical evangelical Anglicanism.

The 1662 Book of Common Prayer as an Anglican formulary does not fare any better in the ACNA. In the seven clause of the Common Cause Theological Statement the 1662 Prayer Book is identified as “a” doctrinal and disciplinary standard for Anglicans—one of a number of standards that Anglicans recognize. It forms only a part of the worship standard for Anglicans “with the Books which preceded it.” The latter are not identified. The clause itself is open to interpretation as including the 1637 Scottish Liturgy and the pre-Reformation medieval service books. The resulting standard is very nebulous.

The first American Prayer Book of 1789 was something of a paradox. Its compilers adopted many rationalistic changes or simplifications. They dropped the Benedictus from Morning Prayer and the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis from Evening Prayer and replaced them with psalms. Yet at the same time they adopted the eucharistic liturgy of the Scottish Non-Jurors, a rite that had no previous basis in the popular practice of Anglicans in North America. With the 1789 Prayer Book the American Prayer Book began to diverge from the 1662 Prayer Book in its theology, a divergence that became more pronounced with each addition to the American Prayer Book and particularly with the 1928 Prayer Book, the first major revision of the American Prayer Book. The office for the institution of incumbents that was added to the American Prayer Book in 1804 expressed a “High Anglican view of holy orders” that the Ordinal did not articulate. The service was studded with words and phrases that did not appear elsewhere in the American Prayer Book; for example, presbyter, sacerdotal relation, rector, rails of the altar, apostolic succession, and holy eucharist. It reflected a desire to revive the Caroline and Nonjuror heritage of Anglicanism. The 1892 Prayer Book restored the Prayer Book canticles. What few other changes that it introduced were far less significant than the far-reaching and even radical changes that the 1928 Prayer Book made in the American Prayer Book. These changes reflected the American taste for variety, greater emphasis on the Church Year, and preoccupation with medieval tradition. The 1928 Prayer Book represented a “drastic repudiation of post-reformation standards.” With its adoption Episcopalians in the United States “unhesitatingly parted company with conservative Anglicans in other lands.” What many people do not realize was that the 1928 Prayer Book was not only more Anglo-Catholic than its predecessors in its theology but it was also more liberal. This is the Prayer Book that the late Peter Toon and the Prayer Book Society promoted as the classic Anglican Prayer Book, not the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. While proponents of the 1928 Prayer Book will not admit it, the 1928 Prayer Book paved the way for the 1979 Prayer Book, setting a precedent with its extensive changes.

The 1928 Prayer Book is far from a local adaptation of the 1662 Prayer Book as it has sometimes been portrayed. The Protestant Episcopal Church developed its own Prayer Book tradition and that tradition has been imported into the ACNA where the two most commonly used service books are the 1928 and 1979 Prayer Books.

In 2005 the Reformed Episcopal Church, a Common Cause Partner and founding entity of the ACNA adopted a new Prayer Book. This book was purportedly based upon the 1662 Prayer Book. The book, however, incorporates so much material from the 1928 Prayer Book that its theology departs significantly from that of the 1662 Prayer Book. The Solemn Declaration of the Anglican Mission in the Americas states that all alternative rites and forms adopted by the AMiA must conform to the doctrine of the 1662 Prayer Book. In 2006 AMiA and the Prayer Book Society jointly published a service book for trial use in AMiA congregations. The services in the book were described as contemporary English forms of the services of the 1662 Prayer Book. However, they owed more to the 1928 Prayer Book than to the 1662. In 2008 the AMiA and the Prayer Book Society jointly published a second service book for the use of AMiA congregations and other Anglicans. The compilers of this book dropped any pretense that its services were from the 1662 Prayer Book. Neither book, however, meets the AMiA’s own doctrinal standards. More recently Forward in Faith North America adopted a resolution urging its member congregations to use the 1549 and 1928 Prayer Books and the missals developed for use with these two service books.

The Initial Report of the ACNA Task Force on the Prayer Book and Common Worship has not been circulated openly or widely but rather has been released to only select individuals. This is not surprising for the ACNA that did not make public its provisional constitution and canons until they were adopted and only gave interested parties a fortnight to make suggestions and comments regarding proposed amendments to the provisional constitution and a proposed set of canons.

In addition giving a token place at best to the Anglican formularies, the ACNA constitution takes the Anglo-Catholic position that the “historic episcopate” is an essential part of the Church. In 1886 the Anglo-Catholic dominated House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church adopted the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral that took a similar position. The ACNA Canons contain language highly suggestive of Anglo-Catholic views of apostolic succession, ordination, and the sacraments. The ACNA Canons require unreserved subscription to the seven clauses of the Common Cause Theological Statement embedded in Article 1 of the ACNA Constitution as condition of membership, recognition as a diocese or diocese-in-formation, partnership in ministry, ordination, licensure, and election to the episcopate.

In the ACNA Constitution the affirmation of the Jerusalem Declaration is relegated to the Preface. It is no longer included in the ACNA’s definition of Anglican orthodoxy, which are now limited to the seven clauses of the Common Cause Theological Statement. More recently Philip Ashey, Chief Operating Officer of the American Anglican Council, a Common Cause Partner and a founding entity of the ACNA, announced that Archbishop Peter Jensen had charged the AAC with the formation of a Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in North America. As Ashey envisioned the FCA in North America, it would function as a “ministry partner” of the ACNA—principally as an auxiliary of the ACNA in areas without an ACNA presence. Under the provisions of the ACNA Canons to become a ministry partner of the ACNA an entity must subscribe without reservation to the ACNA Fundamental Declarations (the Common Cause Theological Statement). Ashey’s vision of the FCA is not that of the Global Anglican Future Conference Statement or the GAFCON Theological Resource Group as set forth in Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today.

In the ACNA conservative evangelicals are viewed in some quarters as a disruptive “fringe element.” Their exclusion from the ACNA is regarded as essential to peace and unity within the ACNA. They are portrayed as “ultra-Protestants” and “hyper-Calvinists”—even the more moderate conservative evangelicals.

Members of the ACNA who are conservative evangelicals keep a low profile. Those with whom I am acquainted became members of the ACNA when the jurisdiction to which they belonged joined with the other Common Cause Partners to form the ACNA. They are not particularly happy with the theological direction in which the ACNA is moving but remain a part of the ACNA for pragmatic reasons. Some hope that the ACNA can be reformed from within; others see no viable alternative to the ACNA.