In Case You Were Wondering...

By Robin G. Jordan

A number of readers have asked me why I am not presently involved an Anglican church. They have also asked me why I am not well disposed toward the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) or the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA). In case you were wondering too, here is my answer to these two perennial questions.

Why I am not presently involved an Anglican church. I live in the westernmost part of Kentucky, in the Jackson Purchase, also known as the Four Rivers Region. In this part of Kentucky Baptist, Church of Christ, and Methodist churches are ubiquitous. Cumberland Presbyterian churches and Pentecostal churches are also common. There are as of last count five Episcopal churches and three Continuing Anglican churches. The Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky is fairly liberal. Ted Gulick was its bishop until he retired.

The Continuing Anglican church with which I am most familiar is affiliated with the Anglican Church in America (ACA). Its congregation and priest were, when I last visited them, weighing the option of accepting Pope Benedict’s offer and joining the US ordinate if and when it is formed. They are friendly, hospitable folks. However, we are on a different page when it comes to doctrine and worship. The other two Continuing Anglican churches were originally a part of the ACA church. They were originally one church. But they split after they broke away from the ACA church, which was not an ACA church at the time. From what I know about these two churches, we have little in common.

I have visited all five Episcopal churches, including the church that meets only once a month. The developments in the Episcopal Church during the past 10 years have cost them members. When I first began visiting the region 30 years ago, it had six Episcopal churches. Those who attend the remaining five churches are political and social liberals or they are longtime Episcopalians who have a strong attachment to the church that they attend. One middle-aged woman told me that she had been the accompanist at her church since she was 12 years of age. Her family was Baptist. She, however, became an Episcopalian. While the worship of these churches reflects the influence of the Anglo-Catholic movement, the doctrine is liberal.

The Episcopal church in which I was involved in Louisiana for 15 years initially was fairly conservative from a theological standpoint. The pastor was a moderate Anglo-Catholic. During the first 10 years of the church’s existence a large segment of the congregation was evangelical or charismatic, reflecting the make-up of the original nucleus of the congregation. The church would eventually experience a split and lose almost a third of its member households, which included most of those who had pioneered the church or become members of the church during its first 10 years. After the split the church became increasingly more Anglo-Catholic and liberal in its composition.

The closest ACNA church is a two-hour drive from where I live. The closet AMiA church is a three-hour drive. I have visited both churches. A former pastor of the parish church of my youth is a pastoral associate at the AMiA church.

Why I am not well-disposed to the ACNA and the AMiA. When I first moved to the region, I entertained the idea of starting an Anglican fellowship in Murray. I went as far as completing a survey of the community’s potential as the site for a new Anglican church. I considered using the AMiA’s trial services until I had an opportunity to examine them. An Anglican Prayer Book (2008) was an even greater disappointment. My dealings with the AMiA concerning the trial services and Bishops Chuck Murphy and John Rodger’s endorsement of An Anglican Prayer Book (2008) further contributed to my growing disillusionment with the AMiA. The heavy indebtedness of the Anglican Church of Rwanda’s canons to the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law and the involvement of an AMiA priest in the drafting of that document were the clincher.

For those who have not read my biography I first became involved with the AMiA in 2000. My open support for the AMiA and my association with an AMiA church planter newly arrived in the community would prompt my former pastor to demand my resignation as senior lay reader of the parish. I had helped to plant the church and I had ministered in the church for 15 years.

I was involved in an unsuccessful AMiA church plant in Louisiana. The failure of this church plant started me on a quest to gain more practical experience in church planting.

Before I moved to Kentucky, I was involved in four more church plants. The United Methodist and the Southern Baptist church plants were successful. The Assembly of God church plant reorganized. The Episcopal church plant is struggling to survive, having fallen victim to the fall out from the Gene Robinson consecration. At the time the post-Hurricane Katrina housing situation in Louisiana gave me few options but relocate to Kentucky, I was in the early stages of gathering a core group for a second attempt at an AMiA church plant in the area of Louisiana in which I lived.

My disaffection from the leaders of the ACNA began with the adoption of the Common Cause Theological Statement. I was expecting a straightforward affirmation of the historic Anglican formularies. The Common Cause Leadership Council’s adoption of the provisional constitution and canons of the ACNA without a period of public comment did not better dispose me toward the Common Cause leadership.

I put together a proposal for alternative constitution to encourage public debate of the provisions of the provisional constitution. I attempted to submit this proposal to all the Common Cause bishops. This experience provided me with some valuable insights into the leadership of the future ACNA. One bishop lied to me. Another bishop demanded to know who I was and who had authorized the drafting of an alternative constitution. Both bishops were members of the Common Cause Governance Task Force. A number of bishops never acknowledged receipt of my proposal. A number of bishops, I discovered, did not bother to make themselves accessible to those who might be seeking to come under their jurisdiction.

I had no illusions that the proposal would be adopted. My objective was to highlight the weaknesses of the provisional canons and constitutions and to direct attention to possible alternatives. I offered a number of solutions to potential areas of tension such as women’s ordination.

I also submitted to the Common Cause Governance Task Force a number of proposals for revision of the draft constitution and canons as did a Common Cause group with whom I was in communication. None of our major proposals relating to the fundamental declarations were adopted; a number of errors in the draft governing documents to which we drew attention, however, were corrected.

The public debate of the provisions of the draft constitution and canons on the Internet prompted an article written by Bishop John Rodgers and calling upon evangelicals to support the two documents. In that article Rodgers stated that fundamental declarations in the draft constitution could not be changed. He claimed that if the two documents were not adopted, there would be no new province in North America. Since that time Rodger’s article has been taken off the Internet.

In the course of that debate one of the members of the Governance Task Force would make statements that were not accurate or true. He would maintain the fundamental declarations were not partisan when it was clearly evident to a number of people that they were biased in favor of an Anglo-Catholic position on a number of key issues. He would subsequently write an introduction to a report on the work of the Governance Task Force that glozed over the draft governing documents' problem areas.

The public debate of the provisions of the draft constitution and canons did elicit a clarification of the provisions relating to the election of bishops. A spokesman of the Common Cause Governance Task Force stated that groups of churches seeking recognition as an ACNA diocese were free to elect their own bishop. This was not the impression that the directions to the application for recognition gave and the directions were never corrected.

My articles drawing attention to the problem areas in the proposed ACNA governing documents eventually prompted one or more members of the ACNA leadership or other persons of influence in the ACNA to pressure an Internet commentator who had been posting my articles on his website into not posting any more of them. It was too close to the pending ratification of the two documents.

When I submitted articles to Anglican Mainstream, Chris Sugden declined to publish them, stating that Anglican Mainstream supported the ACNA. I also submitted articles to the Anglican Church League but I never heard back from the ACL editor. No one appeared to want to publish anything that detracted from the positive image of the ACNA that they had created for their readers.

My analysis of the draft canons would reveal the influence of the Rwandan canons and through the Rwandan canons the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law upon the doctrine, language, norms, and principles of the canons. The same AMiA priest who drafted the Rwandan canons would serve on the Common Cause Governance Task Force. A number of provisions were incorporated into the canons to accommodate the AMiA, including the minimum age of bishops. My analysis of the draft canons would also reveal that the disciplinary provisions were devoid of procedural safeguards. They also infringed upon the autonomy of the diocese and the long-recognized rights of diocesan bishops in disciplinary matters and permitted the archbishop to meddle in the affairs of the diocese.

At the Bedford Provincial Council meeting the bishop of the Common Cause group with whom I had been in communication raised the issue of changing the fundamental declarations to make them less partisan and more comprehensive. The Anglo-Catholic Provincial Council members objected to any major change in the fundamental declarations, arguing that it would cause the alliance between Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals to unravel. At the subsequent Provincial Assembly meeting then Archbishop-Elect Bob Duncan in his address to the delegates spoke dismissively of the deliberative process, equating those who wished to scrutinize the provisions of the two documents and to debate their merits with the Israelites who wished to return to Egypt. He would limit debate on the provisions of the two documents and would not allow any amendments from the floor. He would require an up or down vote on each provision. He would not permit the proceedings to run into the following day. At the same time he permitted frequent interruptions of the proceedings. At one point he urged to the delegates to finish their ratification of the canons as there were speakers waiting to address them. A number of delegates stated afterwards that they were not happy with the provisions of the two documents but ratified them out of fear there would be no new North American province if they did not ratify them.

Since their ratification the ACNA leaders have largely ignored the provisions of the ACNA constitution and canons, treating them as a mandate to do what they see fit. Archbishop Duncan has appointed a dean of the province, a provincial archdeacon, and a provincial canon—offices for which the ACNA governing documents make no provision, much less authorize the archbishop to fill. Duncan has also assembled an Archbishop’s Cabinet, an administrative body seen in Roman Catholic archdioceses and for which the ACNA governing documents also make no provision. The ACNA leadership has generally evidenced little openness and transparency in the way they conduct the affairs of the wannabe province. They have shown a tendency to not go public with a proposal until it has already been carried out and it is too late for interested parties to object to the proposal. They have displayed no sense of accountability. The ACNA governing documents are themselves noticeably lacking in accountability mechanisms.

I am troubled by the mindset of those who see no wrong in what the ACNA leaders are doing. They are too willing to explain away or justify what are highly questionable actions. They seem to forget that the ACNA leaders are supposed to be Christian leaders and Christian leaders are expected to operate by higher standards than business leaders. They are expected to be “wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ.” The organizational culture that is developing in the ACNA does not portend well for the future of the wannabe province.

It is unclear what gospel is preached and taught in ACNA churches. The ACNA in its fundamental declarations does not fully accept the authority of Thirty-Nine Articles, one of the functions of which is to safeguard the truth of the gospel. A major concern of the English Reformers was that the gospel that had been lost during the Middle Ages would not be lost again. ACNA clergy and lay leaders are not required to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles. The new ACNA ordinal permits ceremonies and ornaments that historically have been associated with beliefs and practices that the Thirty-Nine Articles and historic Anglicanism reject. The ACNA College of Bishops’ authorization of the use of this ordinal shows their willingness to tolerate variations in the gospel in the ACNA. The term for this willingness is “theological inclusivism,” which is a only a step or two away from the theological pluralism seen in the Episcopal Church. It suggests a fragile commitment to given truth in Scripture.

At the same time the bishops of the ACNA are not open to genuine Anglican comprehensiveness to which the Thirty-Nine Articles set bounds. They are unwilling to modify the language of the fundamental declarations to strengthen the historical Anglican formularies as the doctrinal standard in the ACNA, to give the 1662 Book of Common Prayer its rightful place as “a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer,” and to recognize the existence of more than one legitimate school of thought on the episcopate in Anglicanism.

In The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future, the GAFCON Theological Resource Group makes an important point regarding the struggle over theological pluralism in the Church.

The Anglican Church has always been a confessional institution, but its confession does not seek to be comprehensive on every issue, or to foreclose discussion. Over the last two hundred years, however, an unwillingness has grown up, in some parts of the Church, to bind itself to confessional formulae, such as the Thirty-nine Articles. Instead, there has been a strong move towards a more general affirmation of the Thirty-nine Articles, accepting them as a historical background which informs our life and witness, but not as a test of faith.

This tendency is quite evident in both the ACNA and the AMiA.

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group further points out, “Liberal Anglican leaders and theologians insist, in their rhetoric, upon the comprehensiveness of the Church, but in reality they have problems with a comprehensiveness that includes the orthodox.” In the case of the ACNA its leaders have problems with a comprehensiveness that includes conservative evangelicals and other Anglicans who uphold the historic Anglican formularies and stands in continuity with the English Reformers and the Protestant Reformed Church of England in doctrine and practice. The ACNA constitution and canons entrenches Anglo-Catholic views in a number of key areas and excludes those who disagree. The new ACNA ordinal does the same thing.

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group also points out:

The liberals focus on shared worship, shared work and shared experience, but not on shared faith. In contrast, the New Testament concept of fellowship is anchored in a common faith and a common mind (Phil. 2:1-2; John 1:1-3).

A similar focus is observable in the ACNA and the AMiA. The charismatic movement “fights no battles for purity of doctrine, trusting in the unitative power of shared feelings and expression” (J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit, Revell, 1984, 1994, p. 172). The Ancient-Future movement stresses practice and piety over doctrine. The only group that gives any attention to dogmatics are the Anglo-Catholics. They are perfectly willing to fill the doctrinal vacuum created by the looseness, irregularity, and naivety of charismatic theology. They are equally as glad to take advantage of convergence theology’s glozing over of divergent opinions on primary matters.

The ACNA and the AMiA, in their own way, are not far behind the Episcopal Church.

I hope that this article gives readers a better understanding of why I am not presently involved in an Anglican church and why I am not well disposed toward the ACNA and the AMiA. I also hope that it will help them understand why I have become increasingly convinced of the need for an Anglican body in North America, which truly represents authentic historic Anglicanism and which upholds the historic Anglican formularies and stands in continuity with the English Reformers and the Protestant Reformed Church of England in doctrine and practice. At the present time no such entity exists. The ACNA and the AMiA, which were supposed to form together an alternative North American province to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, show no signs of moving in that direction. Rather they display every sign of moving away from it.