The Direction of the ACNA and the Need for an Independent FCA in North America

By Robin G. Jordan

“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.”

The preceding words of Bishop Jack Iker from an interview he gave on July 11, 2008 ran through my head as I was reading Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, the GAFCON Theological Resource Group’s exposition of the Jerusalem Statement. Bishop Iker describes the differences in wording and emphasis between the Common Cause Theological Statement and the Jerusalem Declaration as “slight.” But is that really the case?

A comparison of the two statements points to substantial differences between them. The GAFCON Theological Resource Group’s exposition of the Jerusalem Statement removes any doubt about these differences.

The ACNA was formed as a response to the GAFCON Primates’ call for a new province in North America. The Jerusalem Declaration set forth what GAFCON recognizes as the basic tenets of Anglican orthodoxy. One might expect that the ACNA would receive and affirm the Jerusalem Declaration as its definition of Anglican orthodoxy. However, the ACNA in embedding the Common Cause Theological Statement in Article I of its constitution made that statement its definition of orthodox Anglican belief and practice. The ACNA relegated its affirmation of the Jerusalem Declaration to the Preface of the constitution.

The Common Cause Theological Statement lays considerable emphasis upon the “historic episcopate,” which it describes as “an inherent part of the apostolic faith and practice, and therefore as integral to the fullness and unity of the Body of Christ.” We find nothing like clause 3 of the Common Cause Theological Statement in the Jerusalem Declaration nor in the GAFCON Theological Resource Group’s exposition of that declaration. Indeed such notions fall into what the Theological Resource Group identifies as secondary matters and adophora.

The Common Cause Theological Statement takes a different view of the first seven general councils of the undivided Church from that of the Jerusalem Declaration. The Jerusalem Declaration only mentions the first four—those which the GAFCON Theological Resource Group notes deserve a special place of honor because “at these Councils…debates about the teaching of Scripture on God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit were settled in a way which has been embraced by Christians from all traditions in all generations.” It further notes that there are some exceptions such as the Monophysite churches of the East that have never accepted the Definition of Chalcedon. [Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p. 33]

The Common Cause Theological Statement does not give as large a place to the Anglican formularies, to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, the 1661 Ordinal annexed to it, and the Thirty Nine Articles of 1571, as does the Jerusalem Declaration. 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. On the other hand, the Jerusalem Declaration upholds the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as “a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.” The reason that 1662 Prayer Book remains such a standard, the GAFCON Theological Resource Group stresses, is “because the principles it embodies are fundamentally theological and biblical.” The liturgies of the 1662 Prayer Book enable those taking part in them “to think in true and biblical ways about God and about their life as his people.” [Ibid., p. 47] The Theological Resource Group goes on to point to the reader’s attention:

“Translation and local adaptation are not just contemporary responses to our own needs—they are envisioned in the Book of Common Prayer itself.”[Ibid.]

After giving a example of a change that is not in continuity with the Book of Common Prayer and one that is, the Theological Resource Group draws attention to a second key principle of revision, that of mutual accountability within the Anglican Communion. They stress:

“The further removed a proposed liturgy may be from the 1662 Prayer Book, the more important it is that it should be the subject of widespread evaluation throughout the Communion.” [Ibid.]

The place that the Jerusalem Declaration gives to the 1662 Prayer Book is not the place that a number of the Common Cause Partners forming the ACNA give to the classic Anglican Prayer Book. The REC adopted a new Prayer Book in 2005, purportedly based upon the 1662 Prayer Book. However, it incorporates so much material from the 1928 Prayer Book that its theology departs significantly from that of the 1662 Prayer Book. The AMiA’s Solemn Declaration of Principles states that all alternative rites and forms adopted by the AMiA must conform to the doctrine of the 1662 Prayer Book. The AMiA has produced two service books for the use of its congregations. Both books fail to meet this requirement. More recently FIFNA 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 Common Cause Theological Statement’s position on the Thirty-Nine Articles is that while the Articles may contain some authentic Anglican principles, they essentially belong to the sixteenth century. The Common Cause Theological Statement adopts as the norm for the interpretation of the Articles John Henry Newman’s nineteenth century reinterpretation of the Articles “in a Roman direction.” [The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Global Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future, p. 97] In contrast to clause 7 of the Common Cause Theological Statement, clause 4 of the Jerusalem Declaration states, “We uphold the Thirty-Nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.”

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group, after noting that the Articles, alongside the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal, have long been recognized as the doctrinal standard of Anglicanism, stress:

“The Clause should not be interpreted to suggest an equivalence of the authority of the Articles with the authority of the Scripture. The authority of the Articles comes from their agreement with the teaching of the Scripture….The Articles make no attempt to bind the Christian mind or conscience more tightly than Scripture does on matters of doctrine and Christian living. However, acceptance of their authority is constitutive of Anglican identity (my emphasis).” [Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p. 35]

The Theological Resource Group further draws to the reader’s attention:

“In recent years, some member churches of the Anglican Communion have dispensed with assent to the Articles, presenting them as mere ‘historical documents’ or relics of the past. Not coincidentally, these same churches include the ones which have abandoned historic doctrinal and moral standards. For other churches, the Articles have formal authority but they have been neglected as a living formulary. The Jerusalem Declaration calls the Anglican church back to the Articles as being a faithful testimony to the teaching of Scripture, excluding erroneous beliefs and practices and giving a distinctive shape to Anglican Christianity (my emphasis). [Ibid., p. 36]

Anglo-Catholic reinterpretation and even outright rejection of the Thirty-Nine Articles is not particularly surprising since the Oxford Movement was a counter-Reformation movement. However, a number of ACNA clergy and members who identify themselves as “evangelical” take the position that the English Reformers were wrong on a wide range of issues. The Articles are portrayed as outdated and irrelevant to the twenty-first century Church. Conservative Evangelicals like myself who hold to the biblical and Reformation theology of the Anglican formularies are dismissed as a “fringe element.”

With the exception of the representatives of the REC and the APA, the participants in the Common Cause Round Table that drew up the Common Cause Theological Statement came from a TEC/PECUSA background. The PECUSA, while it had adopted a revision of the Articles had never required clerical assent to its provisions. In 1925 Anglo-Catholics and Broad Church liberals joined together in an attempt to remove the Articles from the American Prayer Book but were thwarted by the PECUSA constitution. The Articles were relegated to the historical documents section of the American Prayer Book with the adoption of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The REC at the time the Common Cause Theological Statement was drawn up had long drifted from the Protestant and Evangelical principles of its founders. The APA is a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic ecclesial body. It would subsequently drop out of the Common Cause Partnership.

The considerable differences between the Common Cause Theological Statement and the Jerusalem Declaration and the remarks of ACNA leaders like Bishop Iker indicate that the direction that the Common Cause Partnership envisions for the ACNA is not the same as the direction of GAFCON and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. Some North American Anglicans may argue that the ACNA is an independent organization and may therefore chart its own course. This, however, is the argument that TEC and the ACoC have been making. It is their disregard for their fellow Anglicans that has in part been the cause of the crisis that has torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion.

The substantial differences between the Common Cause Theological Statement and the Jerusalem Declaration point to the need for the formation of a Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in North America that is independent of, and not subordinate to, the ACNA. In Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, the GAFCON Theological Resource Group define the nature of a “Confessing” Fellowship:

“The Fellowship has the character of a renewal movement. Like other renewal movements, the Fellowship intends to work within the global Anglican Communion. The Statement makes it clear that the Fellowship ‘is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion,’ and it does not claim to be the sole representative of true Anglicanism.” [Ibid., p. 37]

The Theological Resource Group goes on to explain:

“The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is ‘confessing’ in the sense of confessing the gospel, the faith of Christ crucified. It is confessional in the sense of affirming, as authoritative, the rule of faith found in the historic Creeds and Councils, and in the classic formularies of the Church of England—the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Prayer Book and the Ordinal—all of which claim to be in accordance with Scripture, and all of which may be ‘proved’ by Scripture. The Jerusalem Declaration is itself confessional in form, with brief statements of principle and half of its clauses referring to existing authorities. [Ibid., pp. 37-38]

The Jerusalem Declaration is further identified as the basis of governance for the Fellowship, deriving its authority from its conformity with the teaching of Scripture. [Ibid., p. 38]

In Phil Ashey’s recent announcement of the formation of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in North America, however, the FCANA was presented as functioning as an auxiliary to the ACNA, and subscribing without reservation to the Common Cause Theological Statement—a vision far removed from that of the GAFCON Statement.

Note: All page references are from Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, A Commentary on the Jerusalem Declaration; supplemented by The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Global Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future; prepared by the Theological Resource Group of the Global Anglican Future Conference; edited by Nicholas Okoh, Vinay Samuel, and Chris Sugden, and published by The Latimer Trust. The book is available from Amazon.com on the Internet at: http://www.amazon.com/Being-Faithful-Nicholas-Dikeriehi-Okoh/dp/0946307997/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255123036&sr=1-4