Is the ACNA really GAFCON in North America?

By Robin G. Jordan

In a post on the American Anglican Council Face Book home page on April 28, 2011, Robert Lundy, AAC Communications Officer, made the following statement: “The GAFCON Primates have recognized the ACNA and its Archbishop. If there were any substantive issues and disagreement between ACNA and GAFCON, the Primates wouldn't have taken these steps.”

Is that really the case? Or was the GAFCON Primates’ recognition of the ACNA motivated largely by political expediency? The Common Cause Partnership had formed the ACNA in response to the Primates’ call for a new “orthodox” Anglican province, a call which had all the earmarks of having been prompted by the CCP. The Primates were not in a position to say, “No, that is not what we had in mind.” They had little choice but endorse the ACNA or play into the hands of the liberals. Or so they feared, a fear which has kept evangelical leaders outside North America who are not happy with developments in the ACNA from criticizing the Anglican province wannabe.

In an interview with Greg Griffith of Stand Firm on June 11, 2008, Bishop Jack Iker made this statement:

GAFCON has a definite evangelical flavor about it, and this has been so from the very beginning with the selection of the planning group. However, the leadership of the movement is committed to being sensitive to the needs of Anglo-Catholics in the formation of the province in North America that is now underway. As a minority group in the Communion, Anglo-Catholics have often been ignored, ridiculed or criticized, and it is understandable that many of us have certain misgivings about the future of the GAFCON movement based upon past realities. That being said, while it is clear that there is no future in The Episcopal Church for traditional Anglo-Catholics, there will be a secure, respected place for us in the province being birthed. Our theological perspective and liturgical practices will be permitted, protected and honored. Our succession of Catholic bishops will be secured.

Bishop Iker went on to say:

It is important to remember that the direction of the province that is envisioned will be under the Common Cause Partnership, and for this reason, we must look primarily to the wording of Theological Statement agreed upon by Common Cause some time ago. There are some slight differences in wording and emphasis in that document from the final statement that came out of the Jerusalem meeting. Suffice it to say that Anglo-Catholics in the future will continue to regard the 1662 Prayer Book, the 39 Articles, liturgical practices, and the Councils of the patristic church just as the Oxford Movement did under Pusey, Keble, and Newman, our fathers in the faith.

Bishop Iker then drew attention to what would become clauses 5, 6, and 7 of the Fundamental Declarations of the Anglican Church in North America:

Here are a few quotes from the Common Cause Partnership Theological Statement that deserve careful comparison with the relevant parallel parts of the final Statement on the Global Anglican Future.

"5. Concerning the seven Councils of the undivided Church, we affirm the teaching of the first four Councils and the Christological clarifications of the fifth, sixth and seventh Councils, in so far as they are agreeable to the Holy Scriptures.

6. We receive The Book of Common Prayer as set forth by the Church of England in 1662, together with the Ordinal attached to the same, as a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline, and, with the Books which7. We receive the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1562, taken in their literal and grammatical sense, as expressing the Anglican response to certain doctrinal issues controverted at that time, and as expressing the fundamental principles of authentic Anglican belief."

A careful comparative reading of the two similar documents will be illuminating. I would conclude with the following quote from the Common Cause Theological Statement….

Bishop Iker then quoted the following two paragraphs from the Common Cause Theological Statements.

"The Anglican Communion," Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher wrote, "has no peculiar thought, practice, creed or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning." It may licitly teach as necessary for salvation nothing but what is read in the Holy Scriptures as God's Word written or may be proved thereby. It therefore embraces and affirms such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the Scriptures, and thus to be counted apostolic. The Church has no authority to innovate: it is obliged continually, and particularly in times of renewal or reformation, to return to "the faith once delivered to the saints."

To be an Anglican, then, is not to embrace a distinct version of Christianity but a distinct way of being a "Mere Christian," at the same time evangelical, apostolic, catholic, reformed, and Spirit-filled."

This is where we are headed with Common Cause, and Anglo-Catholics can joyfully and confidently be a part of the same.

These two paragraphs were not adopted as a part of the ACNA Fundamental Declarations. However, they are posted on the ACNA website as if they are part of those declarations.

Bishop Iker’s comments in this interview suggest a willingness on the part of the GAFCON Primates to overlook substantive issues and disagreements between the ACNA and GAFCON for political reasons.

In his article, “The ACNA Constitution: In Line with the Covenant,” Ephraim Radner makes several telling observations. First in regards to clauses 6 and 7 of the Fundamental Declarations he notes:

The identification of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and Ordinal, and the Thirty-Nine Articles as “standards” and “principles” has struck some as overly and perhaps impossibly precise. After all, have not Anglicans, through the Lambeth Conference now over 100 years ago, made formal the lack of explicitness with which these formularies are to be held as standards for all Anglicans. at least as it determines Communion-related “Anglican” identity? Yet we note the care with which the Constitution has cloaked these standards with a certain indefiniteness: “We receive the Book of Common Prayer…as a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline” and as “the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship”; “we receive the Thirty-Nine Articles…, as expressing the Anglican response to certain doctrinal issues controverted at that time, and as expressing fundamental principles…”

Radner further notes:

The clear implication is that there may be other legitimate “standards”, and that the BCP of 1662 is rather one among many.… Furthermore, a “tradition of worship” is itself a loose referent and already indicates an acceptance that the BCPs of the Reformation and post-Reformation are no longer in explicit use among many Anglicans. Finally, it is hardly constrictive, let alone historically odd, that the Thirty-Nine Articles would be received as holding doctrine appropriate to its time of composition, that continues to express certain “principles” that cohere with “authentic Anglicanism”. For the Constitution does not claim that the Articles articulate necessarily all such principles, exhaustively, or straightforwardly (since “principles” can only be gleaned from historical records aimed at local moments and controversies), nor that all “authentic Anglicanism” is bound by them in any exhaustive way.

This observation stands in pointed contrast to that of the GAFCON Theological Resource Group, which in its commentary on the Jerusalem Declaration, Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, emphasizes that adherence to the Thirty-Nine Articles “is constitutive of Anglican identity.”

Radner goes on to note the difference in the Constitution’s language from the Jerusalem Declaration (Clause 3) regarding the Thirty-Nine Articles “as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today”. For the GAFCON Theological Resource Group’s exposition of this clause, readers are referred to Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, pages 35-40. The Constitution’s language, Radner notes, is less explicit than that of the Jerusalem Declaration and evidences “a move toward indefiniteness…, one that is clearly by design.”

Radner also notes:

The Constitution “affirms” the GAFCON Jerusalem Declaration (1.10), but such “affirmation” is itself general and necessarily loose in its meaning.

While the ACNA may have adopted indefinite language regarding the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles in clauses 6 and 7 of the Fundamental Declarations, it did not adopt such language regarding the historic episcopate in clause 3 of the Fundamental Declarations. It sided with the Tractarians and the Anglo-Catholic ideologues on the question of whether bishops are essential to the Church rather than taking a position of neutrality on an issue that historically has divided Anglicans.

Between the adoption of the provisional constitution and canons of the ACNA and the drafting of the final constitution and canons the ACNA’s affirmation of the Jerusalem Declaration was dropped from the Fundamental Declarations in Article I of the Constitution where it had formed clause 8 of the Fundamental Declarations. It was added to the Preamble of the Constitution where it simply serves as a part of the explanation for the establishment of the ACNA. Its relocation reduced it from general to token in nature.

An examination of the constitutions and canons of a number of GAFCON member provinces reveals that they contain no provision that is the equivalent of clause 3 of the Fundamental Declarations of the ACNA’s Constitution. At most they affirm the threefold ministry of bishop, presbyter, and deacon as the norm for Anglicans. They, however, avoid the divisive issue of whether bishops are of the esse, or essence, of the Church.

The same provinces, with the exception of the Anglican Churches of Kenya and Rwanda, adopt very straightforward language in their affirmation of the doctrine of the historic Anglican formularies. At the same time they reserve the right to adopt supplemental doctrinal statements. Their position regarding the Thirty-Nine Articles is consistent with the position of the Jerusalem Declaration laid out in Clause 4 of that document. In its commentary on the Jerusalem Declaration the GAFCON Theological Group points to our attention:

They have long been recognized as the doctrinal standard of Anglicanism, alongside the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal.

The Anglican Church of Kenya accepts the “doctrine, sacraments, and discipline of the Church” as they are set forth in the Book of Common Prayer (1662) and the Ordinal (1661). It, however, make no mention of the Thirty-Nine Articles in its constitution and canons.

The Anglican Church of Rwanda in its constitution affirms the doctrine of all three historic Anglican formularies but qualifies its reception of the Thirty-Nine Articles with these words, “as adapted through the ages.” An examination of the canons of the Anglican Church of Rwanda is very revealing. The Anglican Church of Rwanda has not only adopted the language, norms, and principles of the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law but also its doctrine. A number of the provisions of its canons affirm the dogmas of the Council of Trent and reject the doctrines of the Thirty-Nine Articles. The Rwandan constitution and canons were largely the work of AMiA Canon Kevin Donlan, a former Roman Catholic priest who studied canon law at Cardiff University. Donlan was also a member of the CCP Governance Task Force that drafted the ACNA Constitution and Canons. The ACNA Canons, like the Rwandan canons, show the influence of the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law.

The GAFCON Primates have not uttered a peep about the Rwandan canons’ repudiation of the doctrines of the Thirty-Nine Articles and their espousal of the dogmas of the Council of Trent. It challenges all credulity that this major departure from “the long-recognized doctrinal standard of Anglicanism” has escaped the attention of the GAFCON Primates. A more credible explanation is that they are choosing to overlook it for political expediency’s sake.

In their “Response to the offer of an Apostolic Constitution to Anglicans” the GAFCON Primates made the claim that the Pope’s offer “reflects the same commitment to the historic apostolic faith, moral teaching and global mission that we proclaimed in the Jerusalem Declaration on the Global Anglican Future….” This statement may be interpreted one of two ways. As the Church Society Council in its letter to the GAFCON Primates stated, “authentic, historic Anglicanism, does not agree with Roman Catholicism on fundamental truths and in particular on the nature of authority and the means of salvation.” The GAFCON Primates must either be following in the steps of the ecumenical movement and the Catholic and Evangelicals Together movement “in misrepresenting Anglican teaching and in using ambiguous language in pursuing structural rather than confessional unity” or their statement was motivated by political expediency. In either case, in their treatment of disparate theologies as if there was no disagreement between them, they are not proving themselves to be the arbiters and champions of Anglican orthodoxy that Anglicans in the northern hemisphere have been led to believe that they are

Is the ACNA really GAFCON in North America? I would suggest that this question has two answers. If we are speaking in terms of the ACNA fully representing the tenets outlined in the Jerusalem Declaration and explained in Being Faithful, the answer is “no.” If we are speaking in terms of the ACNA reflecting the permissive attitude that permits an Anglican province that affirms the dogmas of the Council of Trent to claim to be “orthodox” along with Anglican provinces that affirm the doctrines of the Thirty-Nine Articles, interpreted in their plain and intended sense, then the answer is “yes.”

However, this permissive attitude goes only so far and in a particular direction. The ACNA comprehends Anglo-Catholics and those willing to accept or tolerate Anglo-Catholic doctrine on the apostolic succession, episcopacy, ordination, and the sacraments. But it does not comprehend those who uphold the teaching of the English Reformers and classical Anglicanism on these issues.

The ACNA has erected a special non-geographic diocese for traditionalist Anglo-Catholics associated with Forward in Faith in North America. It has done nothing for conservative evangelicals desiring to preserve the Protestant and Reformed character of authentic historic Anglicanism: It has shown no inclination to give them a judicatory of their own or to exempt them from the subscription requirements of the ACNA Constitution and Canons that force them to declare unreserved adherence to doctrines that are, from a historical Anglican perspective, contrary to the teaching of Scripture. Article VI of the Thirty-Nine Articles, which the Jerusalem Declaration upholds as authoritative for Anglicans today as God’s Word is authoritative, deriving their authority from God’s Word, states: ”Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.” As long as the ACNA takes this attitude toward conservative evangelicals in North America, Anglicans in and outside of North America who are committed to the doctrine of the historic Anglican formularies should think twice about recognizing the ACNA as GAFCON in North America.