Blow the Trumpet Through the Land

By Robin G. Jordan

The Anglican Church in North America loudly proclaims its theological diversity but that diversity does not represent genuine diverseness. ACNA tolerance of diversity certainly does not include radical liberalism. It especially does not extend to traditional conservative evangelicalism. It embraces only those groups that are willing to accept or accommodate the partisan ecclesiology and theology of the ACNA constitution and canons. This boils downs to not openly rejecting unreformed Catholic doctrine, order, piety, and practice, and at least going along with them if not regarding them with favor, It is a lop-sided tolerance at best, skewed to treat unreformed Catholicism with partiality.

From the perspective of the Roman Catholic hierarchy an unreformed Catholic Anglican Church would be more amenable to embracing the authority of the Pope. Witting or otherwise, a new Oxford movement would be a useful partner inside the Anglican Church. With the help of such a partners papacy and papalism might be restored in the Anglican Church and the ecclesia Anglicana returned to the bosom of Mother Church.

Heritage Anglicans, those who conscientiously seek to uphold and maintain the Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical character of the Anglican Church, should not be surprised if a leader of Forward in Faith North America (FIFNA), an organization that is committed to promoting the spread of traditional Anglo-Catholicism in North America should call for a new Oxford movement. The Oxford movement established a beachhead for unreformed Catholicism in the Anglican Church. The hope of those calling for a new Oxford movement is that through the influence of that movement unreformed Catholicism will capture more ground in the Anglican Church especially in North America, carving out a larger territory for itself.



In favoring unreformed Catholicism the constitution and canons of the ACNA plays into the hands of those calling for a new Oxford movement, both Roman Catholic and Anglo-Catholic. This should not surprise heritage Anglicans either. Anglo-Catholics and those open to unreformed Catholicism compiled these two documents under the leadership of an Anglo-Catholic bishop who now is the Archbishop of the ACNA. Anglo-Catholics on the Common Cause Leadership Council and the ACNA Provincial Council have worked hard to prevent any change in these documents that might affect their partial treatment of unreformed Catholicism. They blocked an attempt at the Bedford Provincial Council meeting to amend the language of the fundamental declarations to make them neutral, not aligned with any particular school of thought. Any change in the wording and emphases of the fundamental declarations might have made room for conservative evangelicals in the ACNA without forcing them to compromise their beliefs. Their presence would have complicated matters for Anglo-Catholics as they could be expected to press for a central place for the Anglican formularies in the teaching and life of the ACNA and for other changes in the ACNA and to resist Anglo-Catholic efforts to move the ACNA further in an unreformed Catholic direction.

The existing language of the fundamental declarations not only denies positions of leadership in the ACNA to the more conservative of the evangelicals but it keeps them out of the ACNA altogether. It particularly stops them from uniting with more moderate evangelicals in the ACNA and forming conservative evangelical sub-provincial jurisdictions and judicatories in the ACNA and thereby becoming an obstacle to Anglo-Catholic aspirations. As long as conservative evangelicals have scruples and tender consciences Anglo-Catholics can count upon the fundamental declarations to serve a prophylactic to traditional conservative evangelicalism in the ACNA. Anglo-Catholics pushed conservative evangelicals out of the Protestant Episcopal Church. They have no plans to welcome them to the Anglican Church in North America.

While many in the ACNA reacted with alarm to the decision of the Anglican Mission to remain a part of the Anglican Church of Rwanda and to accept the role of a ministry partner with the ACNA rather than that of a constituent part of the ACNA, traditionalist Anglo-Catholic leaders saw this turn of events as an opportunity to further the cause of unreformed Catholicism in the ACNA. While the Anglican Mission is often mistakenly seen as evangelical and low church, it is in actuality Convergentist as can be seen from even a quick perusal of the Summer 2010 Edition of its quarterly magazine Wave. Convergentism blends together Catholic, evangelical, and Pentecostal piety and practice and does not press doctrine. The Anglican Mission has its own Anglo-Catholic wing, which exercises a degree of influence in the Anglican Mission disproportionate to its size. The Anglican Mission’s canonical charter and the canons of the Rwandan Church under which it operates reflect the influence of the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law in doctrine, language, norms, and principles. The Anglican Mission has in turn greatly influenced the constitution and canons of the ACNA. The Anglo-Catholic wing in the Anglican Mission is not only responsible for the policy of US Anglican Mission against the ordination of women priests but also greatly influenced the two service books that the Anglican Mission has produced in the past five years. In the most recent service book—An Anglican Prayer Book (2008), the translation of the traditional American, English, and Canada rites into contemporary language was used to introduce other changes into these rites, moving them in a more unreformed Catholic direction. The Anglican Mission’s decision to remain a part of the Rwandan Church removed a potential rival to the leadership of more traditionalist Anglo-Catholic leaders in the ACNA. The Anglican Mission exercised considerable influence in the ACNA due to its financial support and size. Traditionalist Anglo-Catholic leaders no longer must reckon with the Anglican Mission’s influence.



At the same time traditionalist Anglo-Catholic leaders see a very real possibility that the Anglican Mission’s own Anglo-Catholic wing may eventually move that body in a more unreformed Catholic direction. Even though the Anglican Mission’s Solemn Declaration of Principles affirms the Anglican formularies and adopts them as the Anglican Mission’s standards of faith and worship, it contains provisions recognizing and tolerating Anglo-Catholic and Pentecostal practices and piety. In the production of its two service books it ignored the requirement of the Solemn Declaration of Principles that all alternative rites and forms used in the Anglican Mission must conform to the doctrine of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. From what I gather, although the clergy of the Anglican Mission meet annually to reaffirm their commitment to the Solemn Declaration of Principles, few of them in practice adhere to the doctrine of the Anglican formularies.

For conservative evangelicals Bishop Ackerman’s call for a new Oxford Movement signals the beginning of a time of greater intolerance to traditional conservative evangelicalism in the ACNA. Conservative evangelicals who became involved in the ACNA at the Common Cause Partnership stage with the hope that they could work within the new body to restore the Anglican formularies to a central place in its teaching and life have a deep furrow to plough in very rocky soil—with a wooden plough share and no horses, mules, or oxen to pull the plow. They face a formidable task. It brings to mind the old proverbial saying, “It is ill sitting at Rome and striving with the Pope.” How much they can accomplish in such a climate remains to be seen.

Those congregations and clergy in the ACNA, which are committed to upholding and maintaining the Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical character of Anglicanism, need to join with like minded clergy and congregations in the Anglican Mission to form a united front against any resurgence of unreformed Catholicism in both bodies. They need to ally themselves with conservative evangelicals outside of these bodies in and outside of North America. Conservative evangelicals in Australia, Ireland, South Africa, South America, and the United Kingdom need to open their eyes to what is happening in the ACNA and not be so unqualified in their support of that body. Rather they need to extend their support to their fellow conservative evangelicals in North America, in and outside of the ACNA and the Anglican Mission. What is needed in the Anglican Church is not a new Oxford movement but a heritage Anglican movement grounded in the teaching of the Bible and the Reformation and committed to the preservation and propagation of confessional Anglicanism. It is time to blow the trumpet through the land, to sound the clarion to warn evangelicals of the coming sword and to summon them to fight for what they believe