The Shape of American Anglicanism

“Episcopalians are Catholics who flunked Latin….”

By Robin G. Jordan

I glanced over the articles in the Anglican Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic compilation booklet “Why Anglicanism?” The views that I read in them did not change my assessment of the Anglican Church in North America or its ministry partner, the Anglican Mission in America.

Bishop David Bena’s description of an Anglican in America as “kind of like a biblically conservative Episcopalian” in the introduction to “Why Anglicanism?” fits the former Episcopalians in the United States, who now call themselves as Anglicans. It does not accurately describe Anglicans outside of the United States. The former American Episcopalians, turned Anglicans, stand in a different tradition from most Anglicans.

The Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA was the first Anglican province to separate from the Church of England and become independent. It has a different Prayer Book tradition from most Anglican provinces. It has never fully accepted the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles, which it adopted in a revised version in 1801 but to which it never required clerical subscription. It broke into two churches during the American Civil War, one in the northern United States and the other in the southern Confederate States. In 1873 a part of the evangelical wing of the Protestant Episcopal Church succeeded from the denomination and formed the Reformed Episcopal Church, which went on to establish branches in Canada, the United Kingdom, Northern Europe, and South America. After 1873 traditional Anglican evangelicalism ceased to play a significant role in the church and by 1900 disappeared altogether. The two movements that would influence the Protestant Episcopal Church during the closing decades of the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth century would be the Ritualist Movement, later known as the Anglo-Catholic Movement, and the Broad Church Movement. From the beginning of the twentieth century modernism would increasingly make inroads into the Protestant Episcopal Church, influencing both the Anglo-Catholics and the Broad Churchmen.

The Continuing Anglican Churches, the Anglican Mission in America, and the Anglican Church in North America are offshoots of the Protestant Episcopal Church, having broken away from that denomination, the Continuing Anglican Churches and the Anglican Mission in America in the second half of the twentieth century and the Anglican Church in North America in the opening decade of the twenty-first century. They stand in the same tradition as the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Anglican Network in Canada has thrown in its lot with the Anglican Church in North America but it stands in a different tradition. The Canadian Church, however, has been influenced by its neighbor to the south.

What have characterized the American Church are not only its own Prayer Book tradition but also the non-confessional character of what passes for Anglicanism in that church, which might be more accurately described as “Episcopalianism.” As offshoots of the former Protestant Episcopal Church the Continuing Anglican Church, the Anglican Mission in America, and the Anglican Church in North America share these characteristics. The Anglo-Catholic strand of Episcopalianism is most evident in the Continuing Anglican Churches while the Broad Church strand is flourishing in the Anglican Mission in America and the Anglican Church in North America albeit the Anglo-Catholic strand is also represented in these jurisdictions.

Those who are described as “evangelicals” in the Anglican Mission in America and the Anglican Church in North America are more Broad Church than evangelical in the traditional Anglican sense. They do not exhibit the distinctives that characterize traditional Anglican evangelicalism. They are more apt to be Arminian than Reformed in doctrine. They make wide use of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. They are open to wearing eucharistic vestments like chasubles and stoles. They are tolerant and even accepting of Anglo-Catholic beliefs and practices that traditional Anglican evangelicalism rejects on firm scriptural grounds. The influence of the charismatic renewal movement is seen in their trust of “the unitive power of shared feeling and expression.” Their theology may be described as “loose, erratic, and naïve.” Their “tolerance of variations” suggests a fragile “commitment to given truth in Scripture.” They also show the influence of the Ancient-Future movement, which emphasizes piety and practice over doctrine.

Bishop Bena’s observation in his essay that “every Anglican Church holds to, or is supposed to hold to…the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, locally adapted” and “is as close to a ‘Confession’ as we get” deserves comment. While the Thirty-Nine Articles are not as comprehensive statement of Christian doctrine as other Reformed confessions, the Articles are the reformed Church of England’s confession of faith. In the words of Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, the GAFCON Theological Resource Group’s commentary on the Jerusalem Declaration, “they have long been recognized as the doctrinal standard of Anglicanism, alongside the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal,” the latter being a reference to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the 1661 Ordinal, which comprise the historic formularies of the reformed Church of England and global Anglicanism. “Acceptance of their authority,” Being Faithful stresses, “is constitutive of Anglican identity.”

The only Anglican province that has “locally adapted” the Thirty-Nine Articles is the Episcopal Church, which adopted its own revised version of the Articles in 1801. The Reformed Episcopal Church adopted the Thirty-Five Articles in 1874. They were an adaptation of the 1801 Episcopal Church’s version of the Articles. Other Anglican provinces have not adapted the Articles. Rather they have adopted them as is, if they adopted them at all, and then reserved the right to interpret them (Nigeria) or to issue supplemental doctrinal statements (Uganda). So Bishop Bena’s observation is not entirely accurate.

I have examined the place of the Thirty-Nine Articles in the American Church elsewhere. None of the Anglican bodies in the United States fully accept the authority of the Articles. Most of these view them as a relic of the past. In the one or two bodies in which they have formal authority, they are neglected as living formularies.

Bishop Bena’s observation that every Anglican Church uses “a Book of Common Prayer styled from the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer, with some adaptations” also caught my attention. This is an understatement. As far as the American Church is concerned, the 1662 Prayer Book was used in the Colonial Church. The first Prayer Book that the newly formed Protestant Episcopal Church adopted, however, contained significant deviations from the 1662 Prayer Book and subsequent revisions of the American Prayer Book have removed it further and further from the 1662 Prayer Book in doctrine and liturgical usages. “Some adaptations” does not accurately describe these changes.

The most widely used Prayer Book in the Continuing Anglican Churches is the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. The American Missal is also widely used in the Continuum. Both contain liturgical elements that give expression to the doctrines of the objective presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements and of the eucharist as a repetition of Christ’s sacrifice or addition to it albeit they are more muted in the 1928 Prayer Book than the American Missal. This sets the two service books at variance with the doctrine of the historic Anglican formularies—the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. The most widely used Prayer Book in the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Mission in the Americas is the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. As I have written elsewhere, the 1979 Prayer Book gives expression to the doctrines of the objective presence of Christ in the eucharistic elements and of the eucharist as a participation in Christ’s sacrifice, and is at variance with the doctrine of the historic Anglican formularies. The Outline of Faith (Catechism) in the 1979 Prayer Book is Pelagian in its emphases and the Thirty-Nine Articles are relegated to the historical documents section as a relic of the past. The Reformed Episcopal Church, which is a founding entity of the Anglican Church in North America, has its own Prayer Book, which gives expression to doctrines of eucharistic presence and sacrifice that are also at variance with the doctrine of these formularies. The Anglican Mission in America has also produced a Prayer Book that suffers from the same defect. All of these Prayer Books stand in the Scottish-American Prayer Book tradition.

In his paper “Ten Elements of Historic Anglicanism” retired Australian bishop Paul Burnet makes a very important point. Liturgy is used in historic Anglicanism not aesthetically—for the sake of art, but theologically—for the sake of truth, “in order to retain the Bible, the catholic creeds and the reformed confessions at the centre of the church’s faith and witness.” Historic Anglicanism “uses liturgy for the sake of the laity, to protect the congregation from the whims of the minister and to provide for the voice of the congregation to be heard articulating the faith, and not just the voice of the preacher.”

Contrast Bishop Burnet’s point with Archbishop Robert Duncan’s mandate to the ACNA Prayer Book and Common Worship Task Force to produce a Prayer Book so attractive that people will want to use it. Attractiveness—aesthetics—is more important than doctrinal soundness in Archbishop Duncan’s mind.

The American Prayer Book in its several revisions has not done a good job of keeping possession of the teaching of the Bible and the Reformation in the American Church. The four latest service books that have been produced in the American Church—the 2003 Reformed Episcopal Book of Common Prayer and its 2011 modern language version, An Anglican Prayer Book (2008), and the 2011 Book of Common Prayer—all fail at that task. Duncan’s mandate does not suggest that the ACNA Prayer Book, when it is made public, will be successful either.

Bishop Bena also identifies “five sacramental acts”—“Healing, Confession, Confirmation, Matrimony, and Holy Orders (Ordination)”—which every Anglican Church practice. However, the identification of these actions as “sacramental acts” is the view of only school of thought in Anglicanism and runs counter to the Thirty-Nine Articles’ rejection of these actions as lesser sacraments. This view is also found in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, which is not known for its adherence to the doctrine of historic Anglicanism.

Bishop Bena also claims that the Roman Catholic doctrine of Apostolic Succession, “whereby all our deacons, priests, and bishops are in the Apostolic line dating back from the original Apostles,” is a historical mooring of Anglicanism, which is far from the truth. The English Reformer flatly rejected this doctrine. Here again the Roman Catholic doctrine of Apostolic Succession is the view of only one school of thought in Anglicanism. Anglicans who stand in continuity with the English Reformers regard true Apostolic Succession as a succession of doctrine, not a line of bishops. Bishops who do not teach what the Apostles clearly taught as recorded in the New Testament are not by any stretch of the imagination successors to the Apostles!

Bishop Bena at several points refers to Wikipedia in his essay. The Wikipedia article on Anglicanism reflects an Anglo-Catholic interpretation of Anglicanism, and is highly inaccurate.

I think that it is significant that the study questions that accompany “Why Anglicanism?” ask, “Are you familiar with the Thirty-Nine Articles? Are there any with which you are not comfortable?” They point to the unfamiliarity and discomfort of Anglicans in America with the Articles, which the Jerusalem Declaration uphold as “containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.” The Anglican Insights Study Guide should also have asked, “How do you react to the Jerusalem Declaration’s upholding of the Thirty-Nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s word and as authoritative for Anglicans today? How might the Thirty-Nine Articles be given a more central place in the life and teaching of your church, your diocese, and the Anglican Church in North America?”

Conspicuously absent from the study questions are any questions related to one of the main doctrines of historic Anglicanism and the essence of the teaching of the gospel—salvation by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone. This doctrine is one of the historical moorings of Anglicanism.

As each piece is fitted into the puzzle, a clear outline of American Anglicanism is emerging. The compilation booklet “Why Anglicanism?” is another piece in the puzzle. American Anglicanism has been clearly influenced by the Anglo-Catholic and Broad Church past of the American Church. The modern day Anglo-Catholic element in American Anglicanism is busily seeking to shape not only the present of American and global Anglicanism but also their future. The modern day Broad Church element is all too eager to compromise and accommodate upon matters of doctrine, order, and practice. What is missing from the picture is any significant commitment to the doctrine of the historic Anglican formularies and to historic Anglicanism.