Reshaping the Anglican Church for Mission in the Third Millenium (Part 1)

By Robin G. Jordan

While a number of North American jurisdictions claim to be Anglican, none of these jurisdictions uphold the doctrine of the historic Anglican formularies or preserve the historic Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical character of the Anglican Church. What is found in these jurisdictions is, to a large extent, not historic Anglicanism but a form of independent Catholicism, which is not far removed from the unreformed Catholicism of the Roman Catholic Church.

This development is attributable to the Tractarian and Ritualist movements of the nineteenth century that deliberately sought to undo the reforms that the sixteenth century Protestant Reformers had made in the Anglican Church. These two movements endeavored to revive the doctrines and practices of the pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic Church and to introduce the innovations of the post-Tridentian Roman Catholic Church into the Anglican Church. They worked to make the Anglican Church as Roman Catholic as possible.

The driving force behind their Romanization of the Anglican Church was the belief that if the Anglican Church adopted Roman Catholic doctrines and practices and became indistinguishable from the Roman Catholic Church, the Pope would readmit the Anglican Church back into the Roman fold. Those they could not convert to their Romanist principles, they tried to drive out of the Anglican Church.

Pope Benedict XVI’s issuance of Anglicanorum coetibus and its Complimentary Norms in Novemeber 2009 was more than a shot across the bow of the Romeward movement. It hit the Romeward movement right at the waterline, and the Romeward movement has been taking water since then. It revealed the Romeward movement’s dream of the Anglican Church reunited with the Roman Catholic Church to be the mirage that it is—an illusionary image that Anglo-Catholics and liberal ecumenists have been pursuing to the detriment of the Anglican Church. They have done untold damage to the Anglican Church and repairing the damage may take generations, if it can be repaired at all.

While the coveted recognition as a uniate body within the Roman Catholic Church is beyond the reach of Anglo-Catholics, this development has not discouraged those for whom becoming Roman Catholic under the provisions of Anglicanorum coetibus and its Complimentary Norms is not an option, from continuing to pursue the agenda of Romanizing the Anglican Church, in particular the newer Anglican bodies that have broken away from the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church in the United States, and the global South Anglican provinces that were established in the second half of the twentieth century.

A number of factors explain the championing of pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic and post-Tridentian Roman Catholic doctrines and practices in the Anglican Church. For some Anglo-Catholics reunion with Rome has so long been their objective that they cling to the hope that some future Pope may go a step further than Benedict XVI, recognize the orders of Anglo-Catholics like themselves, and give Anglo-Catholics in the Anglican Church the uniate status in the Church of Rome that they desire. Others see an authoritarian system like that of the Church of Rome as the best response to the uncertainties of the twenty-first century. A third group sees an authoritarian system modeled upon that of the Roman Catholic Church as a way to achieve their personal ambitions and to expand their personal influence and power. A fourth group has bought into the mistaken notion that adopting and spreading pre-Reformation Medieval and post-Tridentian Roman Catholic beliefs and practices makes the Anglican Church more catholic. They desire to convert more people groups to what they believe to be genuine catholic Christianity. A fifth group believes that in accepting such beliefs and practices they are helping to reunite a divided Church.

These doctrines and practices form a significant hindrance to the salvation of those who espouse them. Richard Hooker is often quoted as maintaining that Roman Catholics are not beyond hope of salvation. While Hooker did not entirely exclude the possibility that a Roman Catholic might come to a saving faith in the Roman Catholic Church, he also recognized that Roman Catholic beliefs and practices formed a serious obstacle to that possibility and greatly reduced their odds of coming to such faith. The nineteenth century Tractarians and Ritualists and their Anglo-Catholic successors have tended to be selective in their citing of Hooker, misrepresenting what he wrote. They did the same thing with his mentor and patron, Bishop John Jewel.

These doctrines and practices substitute for the teaching of the New Testament, the teaching of so-called “Holy Tradition,” a body of teaching that diverges from the teaching of Scripture but which Anglo-Catholics and Roman-Catholics maintain does not contradict what Scripture teaches on the basis of the spurious argument that “Holy Tradition” cannot contradict Holy Scripture. If “Holy Tradition” appears to differ from Scripture, the person who sees a divergence between the two is misinterpreting Scripture. “Holy Tradition,” they claim, is infallible, as is the Church as the interpreter of “Holy Tradition.” The Anglo-Catholic and Roman Catholic concept of “Holy Tradition” elevates the authority of the Church and “Holy Tradition” above the authority of the Bible. It stands in sharp contrast to Christ’s own teaching regarding the authority of Scripture and the apostles’ recognition of the New Testament as Scripture. It also conflicts with the central place the early post-Apostolic Church gave to Scripture in the life and teaching of the Church.

Among the beliefs that “Holy Tradition” upholds is the inadequacy of the Holy Scriptures and the need for a supplementary body of teaching like itself; the insufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for the sins of the world and the need for the representation or reiteration of Christ’s sacrifice in the Eucharist for the remission of the sins of the living and the dead; the ability of a priest to make Christ present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist through reciting the Words of Institution and then to extinguish Christ by consuming the bread and wine, thereby putting Christ to death again; the existence of an intermediary state in which the dead atone for their sins before their admission to Heaven; the need for intermediaries between man and God particularly for a priesthood to make intercessions and offerings to God, the need to confess one’s sins to a priest and to receive absolution from the priest, and the ability of a priest to absolve the sins of the dying and the dead. None of these teachings is found in Scripture or may be proved from Scripture. Indeed they are incompatible with the teaching of Scripture.

Among the practices that “Holy Tradition” countenances are communicating with the dead and seeking favors from them; worshiping images; venerating the bones, hair, and teeth of the dead; making offerings to the dead in various forms; blessing inanimate objects; invoking the Holy Spirit upon such objects; elevating and reserving the consecrated bread of the Lord’s Supper for adoration; exposing the bread in special containers and carrying it about in processions for the same purpose. None of these practices are sanctioned by Scripture. As in the case of the aforementioned doctrines they are contradictory to what Scripture teaches.

Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholics would dismiss these objections, on the grounds of the infallibility of “Holy Tradition” and the Church. Belief in the infallibility of “Holy Tradition” and the Church is the primary reason why the beliefs and practices that Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholics share constitute a serious hindrance to their salvation. This belief encases false teaching in a protective armor of inerrancy. The same false teaching denies to Anglo-Catholics and Roman Catholics the life-giving gospel of grace.

These doctrines and practices form the constituent parts of the false religion that would replace Primitive and Apostolic Christianity in the Middle Ages. They comprise the sacerdotal and sacramental system of the Medieval Catholic Church and its present day manifestations—the contemporary Roman Catholic Church and the various Anglo-Catholic, Independent Catholic, and Old Catholic bodies.

The Protestant Reformers recognized pre-Reformation Medieval Catholicism and post-Tridentian Roman Catholicism for what it is—a false religion. They sought to free the Anglican Church from its corrupting influence and to return the Anglican Church to the Primitive and Apostolic Christian Faith. While they did their best to reform the Anglican Church and to safeguard it against further corruption, they also recognized the process of reform was an ongoing one. Each generation would have to defend the Anglican Church against those who would try to corrupt the Church with their false teaching.

False teaching does not declare itself. It assumes many guises. It may ride piggyback on seemingly innocent practices. This is how the false religion of the pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic Church and the post-Tridentian Roman Catholic Church would come to replace authentic historic Anglicanism in a number of parishes in the Anglican Church of Canada and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America in the nineteenth century. These practices, their proponents argued, were to brightened and enliven the worship of the Anglican Church. But it soon became quite evident that their proponents had a larger agenda than making Anglican worship brighter and livelier. They were seeking to turn back the clock and to return the Anglican Church to the Middle Ages.

Wherever pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic and post-Tridentian Roman Catholic doctrines and practices continues to influence the life and teaching of the Anglican Church, they also represent a serious obstacle to the Anglican Church’s fulfillment of the mission that Christ has given to His Church. This mission is to go into the world and to proclaim the gospel to the whole creation, making disciples of all people groups, baptizing them, and instructing them in what Christ himself taught. The Anglican Church cannot fulfill this mission if the gospel that its clergy are preaching is not the true gospel but “a different gospel.” Wherever pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic and post-Tridentian Roman Catholic doctrines and practices exercise a continuing influence upon the Anglican Church’s life and teaching, “a different gospel” is indeed preached. It is not the gospel of grace and therefore it is not the gospel that Christ commissioned His Church to proclaim to the furthest corners of the earth. It is a false gospel. It proclaims another Jesus than the one the apostles and the early post-Apostolic Church proclaimed. It is a Jesus whose death on the cross at Cavalry was not sufficient for the sins of the world and whose sacrifice a priest must re-offer every day at a celebration of the Mass.

This is not the only reason why these doctrines and practices constitute a major barrier to the Anglican Church’s fulfillment of the Great Commission. In the second article in this series, “Reshaping the Anglican Church for Mission in the Third Millennium.” I will take a further look at how else they severely hamper the Anglican Church from carrying out the mission that Christ has entrusted to His Church.