Through a Glass Darkly--Part 2

By Robin G. Jordan

What then are the trends to which I refer in the first article in this series and what do they import for conservative Anglican evangelicals like myself? What other developments may impact the future of Anglicanism in North America?

A major trend that warrants our examination may be summed up in five words--Power from the top down.

This view of ecclesiastical authority may be traced to the Church of Rome and papacy. Each level of an ecclesiastical hierarchy derived its authority from the level above it and ultimately from the Pope in the case of the Roman Catholic Church or from the Primate of the Anglican Church of Rwanda through his North American representative—the Primatial Vicar—in the case of the Anglican Mission.

The Tractarians and their Anglo-Catholic successors promoted this view of ecclesiastical authority in the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the nineteenth century. In their view the authority of bishops and the episcopate is derived from the apostles through a particular succession of bishops and the tactual transmission of grace by the imposition of hands. In the second half of the nineteenth century the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Protestant Episcopal Church would promote the view that the limitations that the national and diocesan constitutions and canons imposed on episcopal authority were voluntary on the part of the episcopate. What authority that the clergy and laity exercised in the general convention, diocesan convention, and the vestry was delegated to them by the bishops. The bishops could withdraw not only the voluntary restrictions to their authority and the authority delegated to the clergy and the laity if they so desired to do so, and could govern the church without the advice or consent of the clergy and laity.

This view of ecclesiastical authority conflicts with the constitutional view of ecclesiastical authority that was embodied in the original constitution of the Protestant Episcopal Church. In this view, which Bishop William White championed, the authority of bishops and the episcopate is derived from the authority of the voluntary association of congregations forming a diocese. Their authority is in turn derived from Christ himself. This view was in part a reaction to the abuse of power and arbitrariness in governance associated with post-Constantine prelacy in the Church of England.

A third view of ecclesiastic authority is embodied in the constitution of the Church of England. In this view the authority of the bishops and episcopate is derived from the Crown. Bishops are not only overseers or superintendents of the Church of England, they are also ministers of the Crown. They perform State functions as well as ecclesiastical functions.

The Anglo-Catholic view of ecclesiastical authority is embodied in the canonical charter of the Anglican Mission. The authority of the Primatial Vicar is derived from the authority of the Primate of the Anglican Church of Rwanda. The authority of the Missionary Bishops and the canons is derived from the Primatial Vicar. The authority of the Network Leaders is derived from a particular Missionary Bishop. The clergy and laity have no role in the governance of the Anglican Mission except that the primatial Vicar may convene a College of Presbyters to advise him on certain matters if he feels the need. Its authority is derived from the Primatial Vicar. The Anglican Mission’s canonical charter makes no provision for a similar consultative body composed of representatives of the laity. The resemblance of the Anglican Mission to a Roman Catholic archdiocese or diocese is striking and unavoidable. Except where the Anglican Mission borrows structures from corporate America, the organization of the Anglican Mission is based upon Roman Catholic models. The so-called “African” structures are in reality taken from these two sources.

The Anglican Mission’s canonical charter is the work of Canon Kevin Donlan, a former Roman Catholic priest, who studied canon law at Cardiff University. Donlan played an instrumental role in the drafting of the constitution and canons of the Anglican Church of Rwanda. These two documents, like the Anglican Mission’s canonical charter, embody doctrine, language, norms, and principles taken from the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law. The Rwandan canons also incorporate disciplinary provisions taken from the canons of the Episcopal Church as revised in 1976. Donlan served as a member of the GAFCON Theological Resource Group and the Common Cause Governance Task Force. The latter drafted the constitution and canons of the Anglican Church in North America. These two documents also embody doctrine, language, norms, and principles taken from the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law.

Donlan presently serves on the Global South Anglican Theological Formation and Education Task Force. He has authored a proposal for the revamping of Anglican ecclesiology, which has Rwandan backing. See “Rwandan Revamp of Anglican Ecclesiology.” If this proposal is anything like Donlan’s work to date, it draws heavily upon Roman Catholic doctrine, norms, and principles. As a Canon of the Anglican Mission Donlan reports directly to Chuck Murphy. Murphy’s support of Donlan’s initiatives do to not appear to be theological (albeit Murphy endorsed An Anglican Prayer Book, 2008, which is much more Catholic in doctrine and liturgical usages than the three Prayer Books upon which it is based.) Rather Donlan’s initiatives strengthen his position of authority and leadership in the Anglican Mission, expand the influence of the Anglican Mission, and enhance his own prestige as well as that of the Anglican Mission. I am not conversant with the internal politics of the Anglican Mission to the point of knowing whether Murphy is grooming Donlan as his successor when he eventually retires. Donlan is known to be extremely “Anglo-Catholic” in his views. He appears to aspire to stamp not only the Anglican Mission with an “Anglo-Catholic” character but also the global South Anglican community. Due to the influence of traditional African society upon the African provinces, these churches tend to have a strong authoritarian and hierarchical bent. They are consequently attracted to Roman Catholic models of ecclesiastical organization and governance. Donlan’s ideas are likely to find wide support in the African churches.

The Anglican Mission is not the only parachurch organization that has been affected by this view of ecclesiastical authority. This view of the authority of bishops and the episcopate has been used in the Episcopal Church to bolster diocesan claims to the property of breakaway churches as well as to justify arbitrary disciplinary actions against clergy. In the same view the parish is a creature of the diocese rather than the diocese the creature of a group of associated parishes. Clergy, while the parish may hire them, are viewed as ultimately serving at the bishop’s pleasure. More recently, it has been used to rationalize the position that dioceses themselves are creatures of the national church and therefore the national church has an interest in any property that a diocese holds in trust for a parish or mission. The most recent development is the use of this view to justify the expansion of the authority of the Presiding Bishop.

The trend toward a more centralized, more hierarchical, and more authoritarian form of ecclesiastical organization and governance is not confined to the Anglican Mission and the Episcopal Church. It has been evident in the Continuing Anglican Churches since the 1970s and is now evident in the fledgling Anglican Church in North America. This particular trend has been one of the major causes of fracturing in the Continuum.

A number of factors account for this particular tendency in the Anglican Church in North America. I have identified four such factors.

1. Impatience and dissatisfaction among the leaders of the Common Cause Partnership with the slowness and unpredictability of the deliberative process in synodical meetings. They desired a decision-making process over which they had more control and through which they could exercise more discretionary judgment. In drafting a constitution and canons for a new North American province they were not interested in establishing rules and procedures for the organization and governance of that body as they were in establishing a mandate for themselves to govern the body as they saw fit. Constitutionalism and the rule of law are not values that they hold highly or principles by which they see a strong need to operate. Getting things done is seen as more important than how things are done.

It was this kind of thinking, coupled with the threat of Bolshevism, that enabled Benito Mussolini and the Fascists in Italy, Adolph Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, and Francisco Franco and the Phalangists in Spain to rise the power in the 1930s. The conditions that exist today in and outside the North American Anglican community parallel those that existed in these countries during the 1930s—economic and social dislocation, an ideological threat in form of modernism, pluralism, and radical liberalism, and the failure of existing institutions to adequately deal with the ideological threat, as well as the effects of economic and social dislocation. Archbishop Bob Duncan has spoken of regression as an appropriate reaction to a crisis. This theme was a common one in the 1930s. Authoritarianism was seen as a suitable response to the challenges of a changing world.

Because they initially produce results, authoritarian approaches hold an appeal to those who are results-oriented. The Nazis made the trains run on time. They are apt to downplay or overlook the downside of these approaches. The Nazis used their improved train service to ship the Jews to extermination camps.

I am not suggesting a moral equivalency between the authoritarianism of the Nazi regime in Germany and the authoritarianism of the Anglican Mission in North America. However, we can learn important lessons from such a regime that can be applied to organizational structure and governance of a parachurch organizations like the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Mission. If we pay attention to the mistakes of the past, we have a better chance of avoiding them.

2. A tendency to blame the laity for the liberal drift of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church and to ignore or minimize the role of the bishops and other clergy in this drift. This is manifest in the limited role given to the laity in decision-making in the Anglican Church in North America except at the parish or congregational level where limiting the laity’s role might provoke a rebellion in form of reduced giving and eventually loss of members. The Provincial Assembly, which contains the largest number of laypersons, has no authority beyond approving or rejecting changes to the constitution and the canons and making recommendations to the Provincial Council and the College of Bishops. The Provincial Council has shown a strong inclination to avoid the review of its decisions by the Provincial Assembly by not enacting any new canons even though the kinds of decisions that it is making require the enactment of such legislation, for example, the creation of the office of dean of the province and the authorization of the archbishop of the province’s appointment of the provincial dean.

3. The influence of the Anglican Mission and the architect of its canonical charter and the canons and constitution of the Anglican Church of Rwanda upon the Anglican Church in North America’s constitution and canons. A number of provisions were adopted by the Common Cause Governance Task Force and the Common Cause Leadership Council to accommodate the Anglican Mission, which was the largest Common Cause Partner and which was operating under the constitution and canons of the Anglican Church of Rwanda. However, as I have noted, Kevin Donlan, a former Roman Catholic priest now with the Anglican Mission, played an instrumental role in the drafting of the Rwandan constitution and canons and served on the Common Cause Governance Task Force. Anglican Mission Chairman and Primatial Vicar also served on the same task force. This means that the Anglican Mission exercised a degree of influence in the drafting of the constitution and canons of the Anglican Church in North America disproportionate to the size of its delegation on the Common Cause Governance Task Force. The description of the ministry of a bishop, the minimum age requirement and other qualifications of a bishop, and the preferred mode of selecting bishops are taken from the Rwandan canons and show the extent of the Anglican Mission’s influence upon the canons. It also raises questions in regards to a number of statements that Phil Ashey, the chief operating officer of the American Anglican Council, made on the Internet and in the Report of the Work of the Governance Task Force. Ashey was either ill informed for a member of the task force or he was not straightforward in his statements. He attributed the preferred mode of episcopal selection incorrectly to the Church of Uganda, not the Anglican Church of Rwanda and the Roman Catholic Church. He denied any partisanship in the constitution and canons when the latter contain provisions taken from two highly partisan documents—the canons of the Anglican Church of Rwanda and the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law. The constitution, when compared with the constitution of other Anglican provinces, is by no means non-partisan.

4. A tendency to allow ecclesiology and theology historically associated with the Tractarian and Anglo-Catholic movements to serve as the default ecclesiology and theology of the Anglican Church in North America as if that ecclesiology and theology is normative for Anglicans. There is a decided reluctance to recognize the existence of other legitimate schools of thought in Anglicanism or to acknowledge the discontinuity between this school of thought and classical Anglicanism.

We do find at the diocesan level in the Anglican Church in North America what may be described as a counter-trend. There is a tendency to adopt the William White model of the diocese as a voluntary association of autonomous congregations, with the bishop deriving his authority from the authority of the associated congregations, and sharing governance of the diocese with a synod and other bodies composed of clergy and lay representatives. In at least one diocese the eligibility for the office of bishop is restricted to the active clergy of the diocese and the bishop’s term of office is limited to seven years. I would have expected this model to have been the most common due to the large role that bishops played in the developments that created a need for a new North American province in the first place. However, the level of denial in regards to their contribution is quite high.

Tension between the advocates of the two models of church organization and governance is likely to develop over a period of time. How this tension is resolved will affect the future direction of the Anglican Church in North America, and will in turn affect the future direction of North American Anglicanism.

A province that is a voluntary association of self-governing dioceses that in turn are voluntary associations of autonomous congregations is an important part of the North American Anglican heritage. Both the Anglican Church of Australia and the Province of the Anglican Church of the Province of the Southern Cone of America offer models that if they were adapted to North America would be a major step toward saving such an important part of our heritage from oblivion. If the Anglican Church in North America or the other existing Anglican bodies in North America do not have the will to preserve this essential part of the North American Anglican heritage, then the time may have come for North American Anglicans who value their heritage to form a new province in which it will not be allowed to vanish into oblivion.