A Vision for a New Anglican Church for North America: Foundational Principles

By Robin G. Jordan

My experience is that if an organization’s leaders do not make needed changes within a reasonable length of time after the need for those changes has been brought to their attention, harping upon them is not going to accomplish anything. The next step is to establish a new organization that incorporates the needed changes. In the case of the Anglican Church in North America it means starting an alternative Anglican church that upholds and maintains the Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical character of the Anglican Church and in which the government of the church is shared by the entire church, clergy and laity together, at all levels. In this series I seek to envision this new church.

In the Latimer Briefing, “The Church of England: What It Is, and What It Stands For” Roger Beckwith identifies eight principles, in part principles of belief and in part principles of practice upon which the Church of England “was originally founded, or re-founded at the Reformation.” It is these principles that “chiefly link” the Church of England “with, or distinguishes it from other Christian churches. Any new Anglican Church established to reach North America should, in order to stand in continuity with the reformed Church of England, be founded on seven of these principles. It must be biblical, confessional, liturgical, covenantal, episcopal, parochial, and reformed catholic.

Biblical. Being biblical goes beyond the regular reading of the Scriptures “in an orderly fashion, and in English, in the course of the appointed services.” It means recognizing Scripture as normative in Anglican teaching as the supreme rule of faith and practice. In both the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church the services include the regular reading of the Scriptures. It is claimed upon this basis that these two churches are biblical. However, the newer lectionaries used in both churches, in their selection and editing of Scripture passages to be read, tend to support the unbiblical theological and moral teaching of these two churches. The great doctrines of the Bible are not adequately represented in the Scripture passages found in these lectionaries. In the same churches the Scriptures are not seen as authoritative because they are God-breathed and have an intrinsic authority of their own. They are regarded as no more inspired than a play or poem of William Shakespeare. They have only the authority that humans give them.

Confessional. In his Latimer Briefing “The Church of England: What It Is, and What It Stands For” Roger Beckwith explains how the Church of England is a confessional church—something that he notes is often denied even “in the teeth of the facts.” Being a confessional church has not been quite the case of The Episcopal Church. While it adopted in 1801 its own version of the Thirty-Nine Articles adapted to the political realities of the infant United States, it did not require its authorized teachers to assent to its doctrine. This is also true of the Anglican Church in North America. Its fundamental declarations do not view the Articles as a confession of faith. To stand in continuity with the reformed Church of England’s confessionalism, in any new Anglican Church established to reach North America the Articles must be a living formulary. They must be as authoritative today as they were in the sixteenth century. Its authoritative teachers must not only “unfeignedly” accept the teaching of the catholic creeds about the Trinity and the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, they must also likewise receive as true the Articles’ “teaching on three other important areas of biblical theology, namely Revelation, Salvation and the Sacraments.”

Liturgical. Any new Anglican Church seeking to stand in continuity with the reformed Church of England will appreciate the value of set forms of corporate prayer. Its liturgy will be a modest revision of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, adapted to the culture of North America and incorporating some needed changes such as those suggested by Roger Beckwith in his Latimer Briefing, “Praying with Understanding: Explanations of Words and Passages in the Book of Common Prayer” and John Cheeseman in his 1982 Cross+Way article, “Time to Take off the Blinkers—Doctrinal Deficiencies in The Book of Common Prayer.” While it would introduce greater variety and flexibility, it would not carry this to excess, thereby making congregational worship easier.

Why not the 1928 Book of Common Prayer? Or the 1962 Canadian Prayer Book? As Beckwith notes in “The Church of England: What It Is, and What It Stands For,” “the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, though now bearing some marks of its age, is a liturgy of the biblical and edifying sort valued by the Church of England, and is a masterpiece of its kind.” In Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today the GAFCON Theological Resource Group makes the point that “the 1662 Prayer Book provides a standard by which other liturgies may be tested and measured.” With the 1661 Ordinal, the 1662 Prayer Book is a historic Anglican formulary, recognized by a substantial number of the Church of England’s daughter churches as well as the Church of England itself. Both the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and the 1962 Canadian Prayer Book, while they adopt the language of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and to some degree its shape and forms of service, differ significantly in their theology from the 1662 Prayer Book. Both service books, for example, give liturgical expression to the doctrine of “the sacrifices of the Masses,” a doctrine that the Anglican Reformers rejected at the time of the Reformation and which the Thirty-Nine Articles describes as “blasphemous fables, and dangerous deceits.”

Covenantal. In “The Church of England: What It Is, and What It Stands For,” Beckwith explains why the Church of England can be called a covenantal church.

“…it emphasises God’s covenant with his people, which is a covenant not simply with individuals but with families — first with the family of Abraham, Israel, and then with gentile families adopted into the family of Abraham, especially since the coming of Christ. The Church of England therefore practises the baptism of infants, not just adults, but requires of those infants personal reaffirmation of the Christian commitment at the years of discretion, in confirmation. In this way it acknowledges both the priority of God’s grace, and the necessity of the individual response of faith, and attempts to combine the values of Baptist practice with those of historic Christianity.”

Any new Anglican church seeking to stand in the continuity with the reformed Church of England will wish to restore the practice of the Reformers of deferring confirmation and first communion to the age of discretion. Confirmation provides those baptized as infants to profess their own personal faith in Jesus Christ before the church and to receive the prayers of the church. The Prayer Book Catechism contains the question, “What is required of them who come to the Lord’s Supper?” It gives this answer, “To examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins, stedfastly purposing to lead a new life; have a lively faith in God’s mercy through Christ, with thankful remembrance of his death; and be in charity with all men.”

The rubric at the end of the Confirmation Service states, “And there shall none be admitted to the holy Communion, until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed.” Only those who, upon hearing the Gospel, have repented and believed, should be admitted to the Lord’s Table.

Article 28 emphasizes that only “to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith, receive” the Supper of the Lord” the Bread is a partaking of the Body of Christ and likewise the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ.” It further stresses:

“The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the means whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith.”

Article 29, like the Prayer Book Catechism, lays stress on the need for repentance as well as faith. “The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Saints Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in no wise are they are partakers of Christ….”

Episcopal. There is a lot of misunderstanding as to what should be the proper role of bishops in the church. In The Episcopal Church bishops have largely become administrators. In the Anglican Church in North America one school of thought takes the position that the government of the church should be vested in the bishops of the church. A frequently heard argument made by members of this school is that strong bishops will prevent a repeat of what happened in The Episcopal Church from happening in the Anglican Church in North America. They, however, overlook the part that the Episcopal bishops have played in the developments in The Episcopal Church. In the largest judicatory of the Anglican Church in North America, the Anglican Mission, the bishops govern the judicatory and the clergy and laity have no share in its government.

In the 1661 Ordinal the role of the bishop is primarily that of teacher and pastor. To free a bishop to exercise his true role, smaller judicatories are critical. So is a form of church government in which the government of the church is vested in the entire church, clergy and laity together.

Parochial. A sixth principle upon which the reformed Church of England was founded was the parochial principle. Beckwith explains:

“The Church of England is parochial in that it consists wholly of parishes. It is not content with ‘gathered congregations’,wherever they can readily be formed, but divides up the whole country geographically, on a territorial basis, and attempts to form congregations and to provide evangelism and pastoral care in every area - ‘to bring the gospel to every man’s door’. If used in a generous and not grudging spirit, the parish system can be a valuable aid to any new venture of evangelism.”

He goes on to note, “In practice at least, the parish is the basic unit of Anglican church life, to which the diocese is accessory (not vice versa).” He then touches on the challenges facing the parish system in twenty-first century England.

The view that the diocese, or judicatory, is ancillary to the parish and not the other way around, was that of Bishop William White, the architect of the original constitution of The Episcopal Church. In this view the purpose of the diocese is to support the ministry of the parish. Compare this view with that which prevails in The Episcopal Church in the twenty-first century, and which sees the parish as a creature of the diocese and the diocese as a creature of the national church. The view that the parish is a creature of the diocese is also quite evident in the Anglican Church in North America and is embodied in its canon on property ownership which permits dioceses to hold local church property in trust and take church property into trust with the written consent of the local congregation using it.

Dividing North America into parishes and establishing a congregation in each parish may not be practicable. However, the goal of bringing the Gospel to every man’s door should be the goal of any new Anglican Church established to reach North America and planting new churches in as many areas as possible should be one of its objectives to achieve that goal.

The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in North America have tended to focus their church planting efforts on those areas where new congregations can easily be established. Consequently the newer congregations of both churches are largely concentrated in the same areas—the newer suburban and urban residential areas—and targeted at the same population segment—affluent, educated, middle class and professional. Reaching rural areas, small towns, and older suburban and urban residential areas is left to other denominations. The Episcopal Church has not done well in these areas and the Anglican Church in North America has shown a tendency to avoid them, apparently upon the basis of the experience of The Episcopal Church.

The challenges that face the Church of England in the United Kingdom are to a large extent the same challenges that face a new Anglican Church in Canada and the United States. They include “a shortage of clergy and money” and “the undeveloped state of lay ministry.” To meet these challenges a new Anglican church may need to make a greater use of bivocational ministers—non-stipendiary ministers engaged in secular employment to support their ministry—and of lay readers trained and licensed to preach and teach. It may need to help congregations assume greater responsibility for the pastoral care of their members and of the members of their communities. Instead of sending those called to ministry away to a seminary for three years, it may need to offer high quality teaching and training in ministry, to clergy and laity, locally and over the Internet.

In the twentieth century Associated Parishes, the liturgical renewal movement, and the 1979 Book of Common Prayer were responsible for the disappearance of Morning Prayer as the main service on Sunday morning in most Episcopal parishes. The Holy Eucharist was emphasized as the central act of Christian worship not only on Sundays but all occasions. Among the results was the spread of the Anglo-Catholic doctrine that “Jesus is present in the sacrament of holy communion in greater measurer than in other types of services,” along with the corresponding belief that “churchgoers receive more from holy communion than can be provided by the Word.”

This development contributed to the decline in preaching in the Episcopal Church. The length of sermons decreased and the quality of preaching deteriorated. The Episcopal Church was already feeling the effects of skeptical biblical criticism: a skeptical approach to the content of the Bible characterized a growing number of sermons. The notion that churchgoers benefit more from receiving communion than hearing the Word become one more thing to undermine the place of the Bible in the Episcopal Church.

With the emphasis on the Holy Eucharist as the central act of Christian worship came a revival of interest in ritualism—eucharistic vestments, stoles, elaborate ceremonial, incense, and the like. Episcopalians were offered “sensuous worship,” a wafer, and a sip of wine instead of the nourishment of the Word. “Faith comes by hearing” the Word and without faith the wafer is a wafer and the sip of wine is a sip of wine. They are not a partaking in the Body and Blood of Christ.

The emphasis upon the centrality of the Holy Eucharist created another problem. Weekly communion became the measure of being a real church. If a congregation did not have a priest and did not celebrate the Holy Eucharist every week, it was not a real church. Congregations that had everything that they need to worship God, to spread the Gospel, to transform lives, and to impact their communities did not think of themselves as real churches because they are unable to have weekly celebrations of the Eucharist. This idea accompanied Episcopalians when they migrated from The Episcopal Church to the Anglican Church in North America and influences the thinking of that church.

While frequent and regular communion is desirable, it is not essential. What matters is that “the pure Word of God is preached,” and the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are “duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.” The preaching of the pure Word of God was at the heart of Jesus’ own ministry and the ministry of the apostles. It should be at the heart of the ministry of a new Anglican Church established to reach North America. Lay readers, lay catechists, lay evangelists, and deacons can do this gospel work as much as presbyters and bishops. This is not to denigrate the place of the sacraments in the life of a Christian church but to put them in perspective—as God’s Word made visible. “Faith comes by hearing” the Word. Only after we hear the Word and come to have faith, will the sacraments be able to accomplish their work—to enliven, strengthen, and confirm our faith in God.

To be a real church, a congregation does not need a weekly celebration of the Eucharist. What it does need is preachers, teachers, and other gospel workers to open the Word of God to its members and outsiders and to help them apply its truths and principles to their lives. These preachers, teachers and other gospel workers do not have to be seminary-educated or ordained but they do need to be called by God. This realization may not only help congregations to overcome the unrealistic and crippling expectation of weekly Eucharist celebrations but also a new Anglican Church to establish new congregations where they can not so readily be formed.

Reformed Catholic. There is a lot of confusion about what the term “Reformed Catholic” means. Anglo-Catholics have taken over this term to describe their form of Catholicism that is far from reformed. Anglicans and Episcopalians who view Anglicanism as a via media between Catholicism and Protestantism use the same term to describe this middle path. Neither use of this term is what Beckwith identifies as the eighth principle upon which the Church of England was re-founded. He writes:

“The Church of England is reformed in its emphasis on the Bible, in its 39 Articles, in its vernacular worship, and in its recognition of the royal supremacy in its government. But it is also catholic, in that it retains the ancient common heritage of Christendom, in a biblical form. The Church of England acknowledges the role of the church in interpreting the Bible correctly (Article 20), and uses the ancient catholic creeds as examples of such true interpretation. It maintains, as its practice, liturgical worship, infant baptism, episcopal ministry, parochial organization and national establishment, all handed down from antiquity. The Anglican Reformers valued this edifying heritage, well tested over the centuries, and rejected the idea of starting everything afresh, with the unnecessary controversy and practical mistakes which such a course would inevitably lead to. Instead they simply used the standard of Scripture, applied by reason, to correct whatever needed correcting in the church’s inherited forms.”

He goes onto emphasizes that the Church of England does not need to make concessions to Roman Catholicism in order to become catholic.

The base of a new Anglican Church seeking to stand in continuity with the reformed Church of England should be laid on the same principle.

Biblical, confessional, liturgical, covenantal, episcopal, parochial, and reformed catholic—they are the distinguishing characteristics of the Church of England and should be the marks of any new North American Anglican Church that genuinely stands in continuity with the reformed Church of England.

What I have offered so far is a rather broad vision of a new Anglican Church for North America. In future articles I will refine that vision.