When Silence Is not Golden

By Robin G. Jordan

The questions that I have raised on Anglicans Ablaze in regards to the recognition of CEEC Bishop Derek Jones as a bishop of the ACNA are far from unreasonable or out of order. They are questions that a reasonable person who is concerned about how decisions are made in the ACNA and the basis of those decisions would ask. They are questions for such a person to reasonably expect an answer.

I am willing to give the College of Bishops the benefit of the doubt and charitably not attribute their reticence to a exulted, high opinion of themselves as two of my readers have suggested—one who is a member of TEC and no friend of the ACNA and the other who is a supporter of the ACNA and the CEEC. It is beneath the College of Bishops, these two readers suggest, to respond to the impertinence of a lowly blogger like myself, who has the temerity to ask for an explanation of the basis for one of their decisions. Who am I that I expect them to take notice of me, much less answer my questions? What was interesting is that the TEC member used his own name; the ACNA-CEEC supporter a pseudonym. He was hiding behind a false name.

One gains the impression from talking with ACNA members that their bishops expect them to blindly obey them. Whether their bishops actually expect blind obedience from them I cannot say for certain but that is certainly what these ACNA members appear to believe. The same ACNA members expect outsiders like myself to see their bishops in the same light as they do and are insulted when we see their bishops for what they are—fallible men like ourselves who may not always be ruled by the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. They are capable of exercising poor judgment and making mistakes. As the Thirty-Nine Articles remind us, bishops, like other men, are of their own nature inclined to evil, and this infection of nature remains even in the regenerate (Article IX). They need accountability mechanisms to protect them from their own folly as well as their flocks from their tyranny. Bloggers who ask questions and call for answers is an important way of holding ACNA leaders accountable for their decisions especially when the ACNA constitution and canons is singularly lacking in accountability mechanisms. Internet commentators who wink an eye, who put their support of the ACNA before the truth, and who say nothing, are doing the ACNA and its leadership a disservice.

As long as the ACNA leadership does not have to fear an outcry and loss of support, it will go about doing things as it presently does them. The way it presently does things is highly problematic. It treats the constitution and canons as a mandate to do what it pleases. It displays contempt for constitutionality and the rule of law—important safeguards against abuse of power and arbitrariness in governance. It is not open and transparent in what it does. Decisions are withheld from the ACNA membership at the time they are made.

Full public disclosure of the basis for College of Bishop decisions is a critical accountability mechanism. The ACNA membership should be demanding such disclosure from its bishops. They should also be demanding the creation and implementation of other critical accountability mechanisms. One of these mechanisms is certainly greater openness and transparency. The ACNA membership should be able to protest irresponsible and unwise decisions as soon as they are made. Unless these accountability mechanisms are put into place, ACNA members are going to wake up one morning in the not too distant future and find themselves in another Episcopal Church. The ACNA is moving rapidly in that direction.

Since the Nigerian House of Bishops must approve Bishop Mimm’s appointment of Bishop Jones as a suffragan bishop of CANA, I imagine that the College of Bishops and the CEEC are waiting with abated breath the outcome of this historic decision. Indeed it will be historic. Approval of the appointment by the Nigerian House of Bishops means recognition of the CEEC ministerial orders by that body. If the Nigerian House of Bishops approves the appointment, it will be ignoring Resolution 54 of the 1958 Lambeth Conference at which the assembled bishops of Anglican Communion expressed the mind of the Communion in stating that they could not recognize the churches of the episcopi vagantes bishops and the orders of their ministers. The CEEC bishops who consecrated Bishop Jones come from the same lineage. While one of their lines of succession may have at one time included Protestant Episcopal and Reformed Episcopal bishops, it subsequently became intermixed with episcopi vagantes lines of succession. These lines included at least one disreputable character whose consecration is of questionable validity.

The College of Bishops may be hoping that the intercommunion agreement that the Church of Nigeria and the Reformed Episcopal Church signed will cause the Nigerian House of Bishops to not pay close attention to the validity of Bishop Jones’ orders. However, Bishop Jones does not have Reformed Episcopal Church orders. He has CEEC orders. Acceptance of Bishop Jones’ orders entails repudiation of Resolution 54 and the mind of the Communion. One can only speculate what the College of Bishops will gain from such a decision. The CEEC, however, will gain coveted recognition for its ministerial orders and itself. With the Nigerian House of Bishops’ rejection of Resolution 54 the Anglican Communion will lurch one step closer to dissolution.

I do not think that many people fully appreciate the implications of the College of Bishops’ recognition of Bishop Jones or the Nigerian House of Bishops’ approval of his appointment. A number of them would like to dismiss these developments as inconsequential. However, they are not. They involve a shifting in relationships that have both short-term and long-term consequences for North American and global Anglicanism. We will see these consequences worked out in coming years.

As a heritage Anglican I am concerned about the consequences for confessional Anglicanism, for the faith of the reformed Church of England and its formularies, and for the evangelical, Protestant and Reformed heritage of Anglicanism. Support for Bishop Jones’ recognition comes from the Anglo-Catholic and Convergence wings of the ACNA. The Anglo-Catholic wing has raised no protest against his orders. One of my readers may have been speaking for that wing when he asserted that Bishop Jones’ orders were Catholic and that was all that mattered. This may have been a reference to the claim that CEEC lineage includes the Old Catholic line of succession.

Anglo-Catholicism is a counter-Reformation movement and is no friend of confessional Anglicanism, the faith of the reformed Church of England and its formularies, and Anglicanism’s evangelical, Protestant, and Reformed heritage. Convergentism is a blending together of Catholic, evangelical, and Pentecostal piety and practice and does not press doctrine. The Reformation—in Europe and in England—plays little if any role in its thinking. Its attachment to classical Anglicanism and Reformation Christianity is at best tenuous. These two schools of thought dominate the ACNA. One implication of Bishop Jones’ recognition is closer relations between the ACNA and independent Catholic and Convergence ecclesial bodies and the possible merger of these bodies with the ACNA. The result would be a nominally “Anglican” body that is more Catholic and Convergent than genuinely Anglican.

The possibility of such a merger points more than ever to the pressing need for confessional Anglicans within the ACNA to unite together to preserve their identity and their heritage. It also points to the pressing need for confessional Anglicans outside the ACNA to do the same thing. Both groups need to network with each other and with confessional Anglicans outside of North America. The future of genuine Anglicanism—of Anglicanism grounded in the Bible and the Reformation—is at stake