Raising a Home Place

By Robin G. Jordan

In western Kentucky where I live, in the Land between the Lakes, is the Home Place, a replica of the homesteads that the earlier pioneers who settled the Jackson Purchase built. It has a house and outbuildings, a garden, and fields. It is a favorite of the tourists who visit the Land between the Lakes in the summer. The early pioneers came to Kentucky from Virginia, crossing the Appalachian Mountains through the Cumberland Gap. They were looking for a place where they might start a new life. This part of Kentucky was at one time dotted with small family homesteads. One generation after another would farm the land. Times have changed. The family farm is becoming a thing of the past. The old home places are disappearing one by one. This may be a part of the fascination that the Home Place holds for visitors to the Land between the Lakes. It is not only a window to the past but also it symbolizes something for which many people yearn--a place where the family has lived for generations—a fixed point of reference in our ever-changing world, a place that generations of family members have called home.

In my article, “No Place to Call Home,” I drew attention to the predicament of traditional Anglican evangelical congregations that form in Canada or the United States. They must become independent or compromise their convictions and affiliate with an Anglican body that does not fully share their beliefs and values. North America has no Anglican body that upholds the historic Anglican formularies; maintains the Protestant and Reformed character of historic Anglicanism; affirms the teaching of the English Reformers on such matters as Holy Scripture, justification, the sacraments, and ministry; and uses a Prayer Book that is consonant in doctrine and liturgical usage with the classical Anglican Prayer Book of 1662. Traditional Anglican evangelical congregations are at a real disadvantage as far as preserving their theological identity and producing more congregations that share their theological outlook if they are not a part of a judicatory that also shares the same theological outlook. This includes congregations that decide to become independent.

In the past evangelicals in the Church of England have organized pastoral aid societies, or home missionary societies, through which they were able to help and support each other. They also established trusts that acquired the patronage to parishes, enabling the trustees to always nominate evangelical clergy as the pastors of these churches. Where a diocese had an Anglo-Catholic bishop or a bishop who otherwise was not friendly to evangelicals, they planted independent evangelical churches. In Scotland they established a loose network of licensed chapels. These congregations were known as the English Episcopal Chapels. They used the English Prayer Book and called English evangelical ministers. They were not subject to the Scottish Bishops. The primary reason for their establishment was theological. The Scottish Episcopal Church was High Church and Anglo-Catholic. English evangelicals found in the Scottish Prayer Book a great deal that was objectionable.

As long as evangelicals in the Church of England had bishops who were willing to ordain evangelicals as ministers and to license them for ministry in their dioceses, these strategies worked for them. However, they cannot rely on such strategies today. The number of bishops willing to ordain and license evangelical ministers is decreasing. In time evangelicals may have no bishop who may be willing to ordain them, much less license them.

The same strategies have limited application in North America. Traditional evangelical congregations and clergy might benefit from establishing their own pastoral aid organization. But in the Anglican Mission that places a high value on organizational loyalty such an organization would eventually be viewed as a competitive organizational structure and therefore a threat to the effective operation of the Anglican Mission, which relies to a large extent on this organizational loyalty for its effective operation.

A pastoral aid organization might not be viewed as much as a threat to the effective operation of the Anglican Church in North America but one cannot say that with any certainty. Over time the involvement of a congregation and its clergy in such an organization might lead to questioning of their loyalty to the ACNA and would result in pressuring of the congregation and its clergy to disassociate themselves from the organization.

Neither the Anglican Mission nor the Anglican Church in North American can be expected to look positively upon the establishment of new churches that are independent of their respective organizational structures. The new churches would face the same problems as traditional evangelical congregations that upon forming become independent. An evangelical pastoral aid organization might address some of these problems but it would not resolve all of them.

These two strategies would not by themselves fully address the problems of preserving a traditional Anglican evangelical identity and producing more congregations and clergy committed to authentic historic Anglicanism. Over time the establishment of a number of independent evangelical churches with no real connection to historic Anglicanism might exacerbate the problem.

At issue here is not just the preservation of a theological identity or the multiplication of congregations and clergy standing in a particular ecclesiastical tradition. It is the transmission of the New Testament gospel and the apostolic faith as the English Reformers understood them.

For historic Anglicanism and traditional Anglican evangelicalism apostolic succession is not a succession of bishops but a succession of doctrine. This demands that not only congregations and clergy are taught sound doctrine but also that they teach sound doctrine. It also demands a succession of teachers, ordained and non-ordained, who are sound in their doctrine along with structures which ensure that their teaching is indeed sound. This is where a judicatory plays a critical role. This is also where both the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church have failed and where the Anglican Mission and the Anglican Church in North America fall short.

If traditional Anglican evangelicals and other Anglicans who are committed to authentic historic Anglicanism have any plans to organize a non-geographic diocese or sub-provincial jurisdiction within the Anglican Church in North America, the time is now. The window of opportunity to erect such a diocese or sub-provincial jurisdiction is closing. If it indeed closes and they have done nothing or their efforts met with opposition from ACNA leaders, they can expect to find themselves in an environment in which it will become increasingly more difficult to teach sound doctrine, to maintain their theological identity, and to transmit the same to others.

What is involved here is not a petty dispute over secondary matters—over candles, vestments, and the like. Anglican’s Protestant and Reformed heritage is at great risk of being lost to posterity. With it will vanish the New Testament gospel and the apostolic faith as the English Reformers understood them.

If ACNA leaders are not willing to agree to the establishment of a non-geographic diocese or sub-provincial jurisdiction for traditional Anglican evangelicals and other Anglicans committed to authentic historic Anglicanism, this needs to be brought out into the open so that Anglicans committed to authentic historic Anglicanism outside North America can see where the ACNA stands. If ACNA leaders are not willing to a agree to a protocol waiving the application of objectionable doctrinal provisions of the constitution and canons to such a judicatory as was done for the Anglican Mission, this also needs to be made public. Silence in this matter does a great disservice to those who are seeking to determine what should be their next course of action.

Whatever they may believe, traditional Anglican evangelicals and other Anglicans committed to authentic historic Anglicanism—to “the true gospel” and “the Protestant Reformed religion” of the 1688 Coronation Act—cannot hope to maintain a witness to their faith and to pass it on to another generation scattered throughout the Anglican Mission, the Anglican Church in North America, and other jurisdictions, Anglican and non-Anglican, without organizing themselves. No present organization that recognizes the existence of the problems identified in this article, much less appreciate their nature, extent and seriousness, exists in North America.

An organization committed to the promotion of authentic historic Anglicanism would be no panacea but it could further raise awareness of problems and bring people together to work on solutions. It could develop and disseminate educational and training materials and resources. It could establish and administer grant-in-aid and scholarship programs for qualified individuals preparing on a part or full time basis for licensed or ordained ministry in an approved residential program, non-residential program, distance-learning program, correspondence course program, or program of independent study. It could develop and implement strategies such as apprenticeship programs, conferences, in-service training programs, internship programs, mentoring programs, seminars, study groups, and work shops for preparing qualified individuals for licensed or ordained ministry.

An organization committed to promoting authentic historic Anglicanism could foster the use of the classical Anglican Prayer Book—The Book of Common Prayer of 1662—wherever and whenever its use is practicable. It could develop and recommend guidelines for the revision of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and develop and recommend specific proposals for the revision of the 1662 Prayer Book. It could develop and disseminate alternative rites and forms of service in the language of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and good contemporary liturgical English for use together with the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which are consonant to Scripture, which conform to the biblical and Reformation teaching of the 1662 Prayer Book, and which in liturgical matters show due regard to the continued use of the Prayer Book and its continuance as the standard of the Anglican worship and prayer. It could develop and recommend guidelines for Anglican churches that have adopted local patterns of worship and develop and disseminate worship resources for such churches.

An organization committed to the promotion of authentic historic Anglicanism could also lay the foundation for a convocation of churches committed to authentic historic Anglicanism within which congregations that are not a part of an existing Anglican body and which wish to form a voluntary association of churches for common mission, mutual support and aid, and the recruitment, training, and oversight of clergy and other gospel workers might unite. Congregations and clergy that are a part of an existing Anglican body might over time find reason to migrate to this convocation as it become apparent to them that authentic historic Anglicanism had no future in that body. If the convocation was to prove itself effective in planting new churches as well as to show growth through the transfer of churches from other Anglican bodies and the affiliation of independent churches, it might shift the equation in North America. It might even lead evangelicals outside of North America to question the global South Primates endorsement of the ACNA as “a genuine expression of Anglicanism” and look to the convocation as the true expression of authentic historic Anglicanism in North America.

An organization committed to promoting authentic historic Anglicanism could network with other groups and organizations outside of North America that share its aims. Between them they could plausibly bring about a renaissance of authentic historic Anglicanism. It is time to think big in the service of the kingdom and for the glory of God, to not allow the limits of our imaginations to become an obstacle to what we can accomplish to further the cause of the gospel. God has a way of giving the wherewithal—the money or the other means needed—to those who seek to honor him with their audacity.

On the frontier in the pioneer days neighbors would come from miles around to help a new family to raise a home place. It would be a community undertaking even though the members of that community might be widely scattered. In western Kentucky they call this neighborliness—the willingness to lend a neighbor a helping hand. We need to recover this old-fashioned value in our day and time. Those who share a commitment to authentic historic Anglicanism need to start thinking of themselves as a community. While they may not be close to each other, they are neighbors. They can lend each other a helping hand. Together they can raise a home place. They can raise many home places. They can raise a home place for folks like themselves. It is something to think about, and when we have done thinking, to do something about.