Through a Glass Darkly--Part 3

By Robin G. Jordan

A second major trend in North America warranting our examination is the tendency to regard as normative for Anglicans the doctrines and practices historically associated with the Tractarians and their Anglo-Catholic successors who in fact represent only one school of thought in Anglicanism. This may be accounted for by the growth and spread of Anglo-Catholic – Romanist influence in the Episcopal Church in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and the disappearance of classical Anglican evangelicalism from that church by 1900. I touched upon this trend in the previous article in this series.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the term “Romanism,” it generally refers to the adoption or the promotion of the adoption of Roman Catholic beliefs and/or practices. An individual may adopt or promote such beliefs and practices without embracing the papal system and espousing the theory of Papal Supremacy.

In the nineteenth century the Romeward movement in the Church of England sought corporate reunion with the Church of Rome. Its guiding principle was to encourage members of the Church of England, whether clergy and laity, to adopt more or less Roman Catholic doctrines and practices and to remain within her fold for the purpose of “Catholicizing” her and making her respectable enough for the Pope to accept her in the passage of time. Pope Benedict’s proposal for an apostolic constitution for Anglicans in the form of a personal ordinariate is proof of the failure of the Romeward movement since this proposal essentially requires individual succession to Rome. If Anglicans wish to be reconciled with the Church of Rome, they must become Roman Catholics.

We see a continued effort to Romanize the Anglican Church for a variety of reasons. Among these reasons is the mistaken notion that that in Romanizing the Church those championing Roman Catholic beliefs and practices believe that they are making the Church more Catholic. Some advocates of Roman Catholic doctrine and practice may cling to the old vision of the nineteenth century Romeward movement. Eventually the Pope will accept their branch of the Anglican Church or their particular jurisdiction as “Catholic” enough for reunion with Rome. They will not need to relinquish their orders and to put aside their wives. They will not have to undergo catechesis as if they were not truly Catholics, retraining as if they were not truly Catholic priests, and lengthy probation as if they were newcomers to pastoral ministry.

We see efforts to export Anglo-Catholic - Romanist influence to the global South provinces in the twenty-first century. The various activities of Canon Kevin Donlan aimed at promoting Anglo-Catholicism - Romanism in Rwanda and the other African churches as well as in the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Mission were noted in the previous article in this series. Donlan has secured appointment to the global South Theological Formation and Education Task Force. This places him a highly strategic position to disseminate his ideas among the African churches and to influence their thinking. The Anglo-Catholic bishops came back from the GAFCON Conference, expressing dissatisfaction with the Jerusalem Declaration. Donlan himself was a critic of a number of its provisions. He has worked assiduously since that time to undermine and weaken the evangelical influence in GAFCON and the global South provinces. When he served on the GAFCON Theological Resource Group, he was a strong proponent of the view of apostolic succession and the episcopate that historically has been associated with Anglo-Catholicism, Romanism, and other forms of Western Catholicism.

The alleged wide diversity of doctrine and practice in the Anglo-Catholic wing of the North American Anglican community does not weaken the historic association of that wing with Romanism. Those who claim such diversity in Anglo-Catholicism in North America need to produce more than anecdotal evidence to support their claim. Anglo-Catholicism has never been totally homogenous and some variance in belief and practice is not surprising. The mainstream of the Anglo-Catholic movement in North America has historically evidenced Romanist leanings. The onus to demonstrate conclusively that the greater number of North American Anglo-Catholics have abandoned these leanings to the point that they can no longer be characterized as adopting or promoting the adoption of Roman Catholic doctrines and practices rests on those making such a claim. A few anecdotes concerning individual Anglo-Catholics who do not accept this or that Roman Catholic doctrine or practice is not sufficient proof.

Their argument is reminiscent of that of a young man whom I encountered in my local public library. Dan Brown’s books and PBS had greatly influenced his thinking concerning the early age of the Gnostic Gospels. He insisted that they had been written within 40 years of Christ’s death and the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had been written a hundred years later. He became very belligerent when I pointed to his attention that the mainstream of Bible scholarship did not support his contention, dating the writing of the Gnostic Gospels to a much later period. He demanded that I prove to his satisfaction that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John had been written at an earlier date, setting himself up as judge of the evidence. He had never heard of the principle of onus probandi, that is, the obligation to prove rests on the opponent of the orthodox or established. When I declined his invitation to a debate, which he wanted to conduct in the library parking lot and which sounded more like a challenge to a fistfight, he became extremely insulting, revealing his true intent.

This young man’s views on the Gnostic Gospels points to another major trend in North America. There exists a large body of erroneous information that a number of popular writers along with radicals on the fringe of Bible scholarship are promoting as the latest findings in the field. A growing number of people including Anglicans and other Christians are accepting this information uncritically. They are not taking the time to investigate its validity. They display a preference for speculation over solid research.

A fourth major trend in North America is the tendency to gloze over critical differences between Protestantism, Catholicism, and Pentecostalism. Gillis Harp drew attention to this tendency in his Mandate article, “Navigating the Three Streams.” (Those who have not yet read Dr. Harp’s article will find it time well spent.) Noting that the differences between the “three streams”… “are not all simple differences of emphasis” but that “some actually constitute opposed positions based upon very different readings of the Bible,” Doctor Harp goes on to write:

Two of the three streams, for instance, reject the classical Pentecostal teaching about a postconversion baptism of the Holy Spirit or the normative practice of Glossolalia and prophecy. Two of the three have historically repudiated the Roman Catholic understanding of the ordained ministry as sacerdotal, and would have a very different view of the nature and number of the sacraments. And, despite measured progress in ecumenical dialogue since the 1950s, one of the three does not understand justification as primarily the gracious imputation of Christ’s righteousness to individual believers received through faith alone. These are not peripheral matters. Wishful thinking about a tidy Hegelian historical synthesis of the three streams will not erase the contradictions. As Philip E. Hughes once wrote about dialogue between Roman Catholics and Anglicans during the early 1970s, “to resort to fine-sounding but ambivalent terminology is to paper over the cracks and then to call attention to the attractiveness of the wallpaper.”

Doctor Harp draws attention to four other trends of particular significance in the same article. The first of these trends is the highly problematic way in which some advocates of the three streams approach handle Scripture in order to affect a synthesis between the disparate theologies of Protestantism, Catholicism, and Pentecostalism. After noting that these advocates of the three streams approach lift verses out of their original context, he further writes:

Some have extended certain metaphors in the Bible, applying them in ways incompatible with their plain sense. A few leaders of the Charismatic renewal have viewed such fanciful applications of certain Biblical passages as genuinely prophetic.

Passages are detached from their historical context in the development of a kind of argument that not only far-fetched but also not theological or exegetical. This is a serious misuse of Scripture.

The second trend of these trends is the romanticization of the early Church. Dr. Harp notes the disregard of an important principle adopted by the English Reformers in their reading of the early Church fathers and incorporated into the canons of the Church of England: the Patristic writings, like all human thought, must be submitted to the Scriptures. The teaching of the Patristic writers is to be given deference only in so far as they are agreeable to the Scriptures. The authority of their teaching is, like that of the Thirty-Nine Articles, derived from the authority of the Scripture. Despite their antiquity they have no authority of their own. Dr. Harp further notes that adherence to Patristic teaching is at the same time highly selective.

The third of these trends a number of the champions of the three streams approach are followers of the works of the late Robert Webber. As a consequence they have absorbed his particular biases toward two twentieth century theologians Dom Gregory Dix and Gustaf Aulen whose work defenders of classical Anglicanism should view with skepticism. Webber in his numerous books generally ignores the Reformation, focusing much greater attention on the first five centuries of Church history. Webber rarely sides with the Reformers against the Patristic positions on key issues. Dix strongly influenced Webber’s view of the Eucharist and Aulen his view of the atonement.

The fourth of these trends is the tendency of the spokesmen of the three streams approach to attribute the distortions or errors of nineteenth and twentieth century evangelicals to the sixteenth century Reformers. There is a definite bias against the English Reformation that is not openly acknowledged.

Dr. Harp makes a very important observation:

If this is the path of the new Anglican movement in North America then it distorts and caricatures the position of the Anglican Reformers. The theological divide of the Reformation is happily not in some respects as wide as it once was; for that fact we can all be grateful. Nevertheless, it is important to confront its central Biblical and theological questions head-on and without fudging the remaining differences. Since the three streams theology is rooted more in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries than in the sixteenth, it is important to note how it shares in the Pietistic tendency to allow subjective (inward) experience to trump propositional (external) truth. Yet classical Anglicanism holds both together while affirming the supremacy of “God’s Word written.” Also, if through its putatively Anglo-Catholic stream, the three streams approach now adopts select medieval traditions along with Pentecostal experience, one might logically wonder whether what we are seeing here is actually mostly contemporary American culture.

In other words, we are seeing a manifestation of cafeteria Christianity with its highly selective approach to belief and practice.

If we use as indicators the web sites of the Anglican Church in North America and Anglican Mission, the websites of their respective congregations, and the public statements of their leaders, the influence of three streams theology in some form is widespread in these two bodies. There is frequent reference to the three Ss of the three streams—Sacraments, Scripture, and the Holy Spirit. Both Chairman-Primatial Vicar Chuck Murphy and Archbishop-Primate Bob Duncan have used three streams terminology in their sermons and addresses.

We have so far identified eight major trends that can be reasonably expected to affect the future of historic Anglicanism in North America. Three additional trends of like significance are the amorphous character of what passes as evangelicalism in the North American Anglican community, the splintering of the more conservative evangelical groups within that community, and the lack of strong voice in North America in support of authentic historic Anglicanism. We will examine these trends in the next article in this series.