Wanted: A GAFCON Personal Ordinariate for Conservative Evangelicals

By Robin G. Jordan

In a recent article Internet commentator David Virtue suggested that the Global Anglican Future Conference might want to create a personal ordinariate for Anglican evangelicals in the United Kingdom. I would like to suggest that GAFCON create such an ordinariate in the United States. A number of evangelicals of my acquaintance do not believe that the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Mission in the Americas are doing a very good job of passing on the Protestant and Reformed heritage of the Church of England here in the United States. As I pointed to the attention of readers in my article,"Turning Point," a number of them are ready to throw up their hands in exasperation and to walk away from the Anglican Church and Anglicanism altogether.

While I can see why they might want to distance themselves from some developments in the North American Anglican Church, I do not agree with their complete rejection of the Anglican Church and Anglicanism. What they are really rejecting is a particular wing of the Anglican Church and their own misconceptions of Anglicanism. To quote an old saw, “they are tipping the baby out with the bath water.”

I am old enough to remember galvanized iron bathtubs and bath nights. The bathtub was filled with kettles of hot water or hot water from a copper or geyser. I suspect that few, if any, of my readers are familiar with a copper or a geyser. However, both were used in an earlier time to heat large quantities of water. The heated water might be drawn off or ladled out of the copper. It was drawn off from a geyser. Coal or wood was used to heat water in a copper; gas in a geyser. I lived in a number of houses that did not have hot and cold running water. If we were lucky, we had a standpipe with a faucet near the front gate that we shared with the neighbors. Otherwise, we dropped a bucket into a rainwater cistern or pumped water up from a well by hand.

Several people might use the same bathwater. More hot water might be added as the bathwater cooled or was sloshed out of the tub. When everyone was bathed, the bathwater was tipped down the drain, into a ditch, or simply onto the ground. Leaving the baby in the bathtub after bathing him was bad enough. Tipping him out with the bathwater was even worse. If the water was tipped down a drain, he might become wedged in the drain. Old-fashioned drains had wide openings. If the water was tipped into a ditch or onto the ground, he might be washed away altogether with the water. In any event the baby might not only be seriously injured but also never be seen again.

Anyone who has always had hot and cold running water and good plumbing is not likely to have a full appreciation of this saying. Basically it says that those “tipping the baby out with the bathwater” are throwing away the good with the bad. It is also a comment on the state of mind of those doing the tipping and the intentionality of their action.

No mother or other caregiver would under ordinary circumstances leave a baby in the bathwater so that he would be tipped out with the water. She would bathe the baby, dry him, powder him, dress him in a fresh diaper or clothes or both, and put him to bed. She would not leave him in the bathwater in which babies have been known to drown even in a small amount of water. If she had for some reason left the baby in the bathwater, she would hardly fail to notice the baby when she tipped out the water. The implication of this saying is that the tipping out of the baby with the bathwater was a deliberate act. The mother or other caregiver wanted to be rid of the baby. The baby was not accidentally tipped out in the process of emptying the bathtub.

Some babies do not like water or being bathed. They cry and thrash around. Some mothers and other caregivers are easily frustrated and angered. The louder the baby screams and the more he struggles, the more frustrated and angrier the mother or caregiver grows. In a rage the mother or caregiver might dump out the bathwater and the shrieking baby.

A second implication of this saying is that those who did the tipping did not have the good judgment to remove the baby from the bathwater before tipping out the water. The mother or other caregiver was so thoughtless that she left the baby in the bathtub while emptying it. Whoever undertook the task of bathing the infant was not the right person to have charge of a baby. A busy mother might give the task of bathing the infant to one or more of the baby’s older siblings while she took care of her other chores. I can see in my mind’s eye two small girls overturning a galvanized tub to empty it with their baby brother still in it. The tub was too heavy for one of them to overturn it while the other holds their baby brother. The two girls have no intention of harming their baby brother. It is the best solution with which they have come up to the problem of emptying the tub. I can see the baby brother’s wide eyes as he goes sloshing out with the water and hear his alarmed cries as he lands on the hard ground.

Those who are prepared to walk away from the Anglican Church and Anglicanism are so exasperated with developments in the North American Anglican Church that their exasperation colors their thinking. What has exacerbated matters is that most Anglican evangelicals outside of North America have ignored the plight of their more conservative brethren in North America, they have showed no concern for them, and they have offered no support to them. Conservative evangelicals have been left to fend for themselves as best as they can.

Most Anglican evangelicals outside of North America fail to recognize that the Anglican Church in North America and its ministry partner, the Anglican Mission in the Americas, are not the “umbrella church” for conservatives that they may be presented as at meetings outside of North America. The ACNA has a constitution and canons that favors the doctrinal positions and ecclesiastical practices of one conservative school of thought over those of the others. Members of this school of thought are entertaining accepting the Pope’s offer and becoming Roman Catholics in a personal ordinariate for former Anglicans!

The AMiA is the missionary arm of an African province with a constitution and canons that incorporates Roman Catholic doctrine, language, norms, and principles. Its foundational documents infer that no disparity exists between the teaching of the Thirty-Nine Articles and that of the Council of Trent!

Those wishing to participate in these ecclesial bodies must compromise or swallow their theological convictions. This is not a very reasonable demand when their convictions are the teaching of the three historic Anglican formularies and the English Reformers, that is, the teaching of authentic historic Anglicanism! Something is very wrong here!

The failure of Anglican evangelicals outside of North America to see that something is wrong, or if they do, their failure to acknowledge it and to call it to the attention to the global South Primates, to the Fellowship of Confession Anglicans, and to their fellow evangelicals is undermining classical Anglican evangelicalism in North America and enfeebling the already weak conservative evangelical wing of the North American Anglican Church. This leads conservative evangelicals in North America to conclude that they have no friends outside of North America. Conservative evangelicals outside of North America are too weak to muster any support for them. Or they are thoroughly bamboozled by the ACNA and the AMiA. Genuine evangelicalism has no future in the Anglican Church and Anglicanism. Indeed they may be antithetical to real evangelicalism.

The latter is, of course, a matter of perception. Right now a number of things are reinforcing this perception or perhaps more accurately failing to reinforce a different perception of the Anglican Church and Anglicanism.

The ACNA, if the reaction of its members on the Internet is any gauge of the attitudes prevailing in this ecclesial body, have adopted a “dog-in-the-manger” attitude toward any proposals that might move the ACNA toward a more genuinely Anglican form of comprehensiveness, which is based upon full recognition of the three Anglican formularies as the historic doctrinal standard for Anglicans and the existence of more than one school of thought on such key issues as apostolic succession, episcopacy, ordination, and the sacraments in Anglicanism. A manger is an eating trough for horses in a stable or cattle in a cowshed. Hay or other fodder is put in the manager for horses or cattle. A farm dog may jump into the manger and with his barking and snapping may keep the horses or cattle from their food. The dog may have no use for the manger other than as a place for a nap. Having appropriated the manger for his own use, he prevents its rightful use—an eating trough for the horses or cattle. Members of the ACNA are not willing to make room for those who fully uphold the teaching of three historic Anglican formularies and the English Reformers—a group that rightly should have a place in any ecclesial body that calls itself Anglican and which claims to represent authentic historic Anglicanism. They should not be forced to compromise or swallow their theological convictions, as is the case if they want to participate in the ACNA.

When one makes a comparison of the constitution and canons of the ACNA and the constitutions and canons of the global South provinces that intervened on the behalf of North American Anglicans and Episcopalians caught up in serious theological disputes with their bishops, the constitutions and canons of these provinces are much more straightforward in their affirmation of the historic Anglican doctrinal standard than the constitution and canons of the ACNA. The language of these documents does not align them with one particular school of thought. The notable exception is the Anglican Church of Rwanda. As I have noted elsewhere, the same former Roman Catholic priest that was involved in the drafting the ACNA constitution and canons was involved in the drafting of the Anglican Church of Rwanda constitution and canons and the AMiA canonical charter.

Both the ACNA and the AMiA, or the Anglican Mission, as it calls itself nowadays, show the influence of the Anglo-Catholic and Broad Church movements of the nineteenth century and the liturgical, charismatic, and Ancient-Future, or convergence, movements of the twentieth century. The last movement is also known as the Worship Renewal movement and affected a number of denominations, as did the liturgical and charismatic movements. The original nuclei of both the ACNA and the AMiA came from Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church, which were themselves influenced by these movements. The Episcopal Church lost its conservative evangelical wing in the nineteenth century. While the denomination enjoyed a brief revival of classical Anglican evangelicalism in the opening decades of the second half of the twentieth century, the liturgical, charismatic, and Ancient-Future movements would overshadow and eclipse this revival. The movement to recover the Protestant and Reformed heritage of the Church of England in The Episcopal Church was shunted to a siding, uncoupled from the engine, and left there.

For those unfamiliar with these terms they come from the days of the railroad. A siding is a sidetrack—a short railroad track that runs parallel to the main track onto which passenger coaches or freight cars are shunted, or diverted, until they are needed. To couple and uncouple refers to the linking or connecting of passenger coaches or freight cars to each other and to the engine. The engine is the locomotive engine, the steam, diesel or electric engine for pulling or pushing trains.

Being sidetracked is like landing at an airport to take second connecting flight to your destination to discover that all flights to that destination have been cancelled indefinitely. You cannot book a seat on another plane with another airline because all airlines have discontinued air service to your destination.

Sitting in the siding is a train full of passengers that is going nowhere. Scattered up and down the main track are passengers waiting for a train that will never come. Scattered across the country and the world are passengers who are stranded by the indefinite cancellation of all flights to their destination.

None of these people can go back home. They no longer have a home to go back to. The solution to this problem is to couple a new engine to the sidetracked train and pull it onto the main line to continue the journey that was interrupted. An airline can restore service to the destination to which all flights were indefinitely cancelled.

GAFCON and the global South Primates have unwittingly contributed to the present situation in North America. GAFCON and the global South Primates gave their unqualified recognition and support to the ACNA, stating that the ACNA represented a genuine expression of Anglicanism. Such recognition and support appeared to be more motivated by the politics of the liberal West-conservative global South split than a careful appraisal of the ACNA constitution and canons and its positions on key issues.

The Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus (Groups of Anglicans) and the formation of personal ordinariates for former Anglicans in the Roman Catholic Church and the Dublin Primates Meeting have changed the equation. Both have reduced the need for the maintenance of the appearance of a united front between those at the opposite ends of the Anglo-Catholic-evangelical spectrum.

If anything is likely to cause the unraveling of this fragile alliance, it is the formation of the personal ordinariates. Anglo-Catholics must decide where their future lies—in the Anglican Church or in the Roman Catholic Church. They must ask and answer some tough questions. For example, why are they promoting Roman Catholic doctrines and practices in the Anglican Church when Pope Benedict XVI has created a fast track by which they can become Roman Catholics and have their own non-geographic diocese for former Anglicans in the Roman Catholic Church? What are they hoping to accomplish?

They do face some difficult choices. Anglicanorum coetibus is something of a two edged sword. It cuts both ways.

As far as who is going to control the levers of power and thereby to determine the future of the Anglican Communion, the liberal West emerged the victor at the Dublin Primates Meeting. However, the Anglican Communion faces very poor future if most of the world’s Anglicans are not a part of it. The liberal West’s victory may prove a Pyrrhic one. Pyrrhus won a victory at Asculum but his victory was as bad as a defeat.

The dream of the nineteenth century Romanward Movement is dead. Pope Benedict has with Anglicanorum coetibus clearly stated that if you are Anglican and you want to become united with the Church of Rome, you must become a Roman Catholic. You must convert to Roman Catholicism, submit to the Pope, and be received into the Roman Catholic Church.

The Anglican Church can achieve nothing by becoming more Roman. As Roger T. Beckwith reminds us, we only become less reformed. The time has come to pull or push the train of the Protestant and Reformed heritage of the Church of England out of the siding and onto the main track, couple the two powerful engines of the Bible and the Reformation to the train, and send it speeding on its way. It needs to make up for lost time. There are passengers waiting.