Catholic Revivalism in the Anglican Church in North America

By Robin G. Jordan

In Divided We Stand: A History of the Continuing Anglican Movement Douglas Bess refers to Fraser Baron’s analysis of the divisions in the Continuing Anglican Movement of the 1970s. Baron identified two major groups in that Movement—the “Anglican Loyalists” and the “Catholic Revivalists.” (p. 137) The first group was proud of their Anglican heritage and believed that classical Anglicanism was genuinely Catholic. The second group was not really comfortable with their Anglican heritage and “gave the appearance of being rather impatiently headed in another direction.” (p. 137) They were opposed to the classical Anglican position because they did not believe that it was fully Catholic. They regarded classical Anglicanism as too Protestant in character and sought to revive what they maintained was the Catholicism of the undivided Church of the eleventh century. We see the same two groups in the Anglican Church in North America and the tension that existed between these groups in the Continuing Anglican Movement is present but is more muted.

A popular explanation for the muting of this tension is that is the work of the Holy Spirit. An alternative explanation is that the influence of the charismatic movement and its rather fragile commitment to given truth in Scripture has contributed to a greater tolerance of variations. As J. I. Packer notes in Keeping in Step with the Spirit, the charismatic movement “fights no battle for purity of doctrine, trusting instead in the unitive power of shared feeling and expressions.” (p. 172) An offshoot of the charismatic movement is the Ancient-Future movement, which has shown a proclivity toward Catholic Revivalism along with a naïve view of the Early and Medieval Churches and antipathy toward the Protestant Reformation. The Ancient-Future movement with its “three streams” theology has influenced thinking in both the ACNA and its ministry partner, the Anglican Mission in America.

The doctrinal bias reflected in the ACNA governing documents and its new Ordinal is Catholic Revivalist, mixed with post-Great Schism Western Catholic elements. The new ACNA Ordinal also evidences the same doctrinal bias.

The influence of Catholic Revivalist ideology in the ACNA goes a long way toward explaining why the ACNA fundamental declarations not only differ from The Jerusalem Declaration in language and emphasis but also in substance. The Jerusalem Declaration is Anglican Loyalist in tone, as are the GAFCON documents, The Way, the Truth, and the Life and Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today. The Jerusalem Declaration states emphatically: “We uphold the Thirty-Nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.” The Way, the Truth, and the Life stresses that the Anglican Church is a “confessional institution.” Being Faithful: The Shape of Anglicanism Today emphasizes that acceptance of the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles is “constitutive of Anglican identity.”

The ACNA governing documents also lean toward the ecclesiological views of the Catholic Revivalist school of thought, as does the new ACNA Ordinal. The Catholic Revivalists stress post-Constantine prelacy—the rule of bishops.

Anglican Loyalists, while they value bishops as spiritual leaders, emphasize the governance of the Church as a shared responsibility of the Church as a whole, by both clergy and laity together, and not exclusively by bishops. In the reformed Church of England the reigning Monarch was the supreme governor of the Church. The bishops were Crown appointees. Their authority was limited by canons adopted by Convocation, approved by the Parliament, and assented to by the Crown, as well as by Acts of Parliament to which the Crown had given royal assent. In the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA the bishop of a diocese was elected by a convention of clergy and laity and shared the governance of the diocese with the convention. The denomination was governed by a general convention in which the bishops, clergy, and laity were represented.

During the nineteenth century High Church Episcopalians influenced by the Oxford Tractarian movement and the ritualistic movement would claim all authority was derived from the bishop, including the authority of the diocesan convention, and the bishop’s relinquishment of authority to the diocesan standing committee and the diocesan convention was purely voluntary and might be withdraw by the bishop at any time. It was further asserted that parishes were creatures of the diocese. The diocese had previously been regarded as a voluntary association of parishes that derived its authority from its constituent parishes, which derived their authority directly from Christ.

In most Anglican provinces and dioceses around the world bishops share the governance of the church at the provincial and diocesan level with the clergy and the laity. One exception may be the Anglican Church of Rwanda, which adopted a new set of canons heavily indebted to the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law and reduced the participation of the clergy and laity in the church’s governance to a consultative role as in the Roman Catholic Church. The new Rwandan canons were the work of an AMiA priest, a former Roman Catholic, who was also involved in the drafting of the ACNA canons.

Catholic Revivalist thinking is evident in the form of governance of the Anglican Church in North America particularly at the provincial level. The ACNA constitution and canons concentrate considerable authority in the hands of the Provincial Council and its Executive Committee. Increasingly, the Archbishop’s Cabinet has usurped the authority of these two bodies. The Provincial Council is also failing to make decisions on matters that rightly belong within its sphere of authority and deferring to the judgment of the College of Bishops on these matters.

Provincial Assemblies in the Anglican Church generally have legislative powers. The ACNA Provincial Assembly, on the other hand, resembles some of the bodies found in the Roman Catholic Church. They have extremely limited powers. The ACNA Provincial Assembly is empowered only to ratify amendments to the constitution and canons. Otherwise, its functions are purely consultative. The Provincial Assembly cannot initiate legislation or amend it. The Provincial Council has made a number of major decisions without enacting any formal legislation that would have required the ratification of the Provincial Assembly. The Provincial Council has essentially cut the Provincial Assembly out of the decision-making loop.

Catholic Revivalist thinking may account for why the ACNA constitution and canons is significantly lacking in accountability mechanisms as well as safeguards and checks and balances. The disciplinary canons in particular suffer from a lack of procedural safeguards.

Catholic Revivalist thinking may also account for why the ACNA top leadership pays very little attention to the provisions of the constitution and canons and evidence little respect for constitutionalism and the rule of law. They treat the constitution and the canons as a mandate to do what they think is fit.

A Catholic Revivalist mindset helps to explain why the ACNA top leadership has not been open and transparent in how they operate. The provisional governing documents of the ACNA were made public only after they were adopted. Interested parties were given a very brief period of time to scrutinize the draft constitution and canons and to submit comments and suggestions. The ACNA top leadership typically does not make a proposal public until after it has been approved or implemented when it is too late for opposition to develop to them. As a consequence a vital form of accountability is missing from the process.

A Catholic Revivalist mindset helps explains why ACNA top leadership has limited lay participation in discussion and decision-making regarding major issues. Task forces made up of members of the ACNA top leadership and individuals approved by the top leadership submit proposals to the Archbishop’s Cabinet which if it approves the proposals implements them or passes them along to the Provincial Council for approval and subsequent implementation. This process is extra-constitutional. The Archbishop’s Cabinet is Archbishop Duncan’s creation and has no official standing in the ACNA under the provisions of its governing documents.

In some cases such as the Ordinal the proposal is passed along to the College of Bishops for approval. The College of Bishops has no authority to approve an Ordinal or other forms of service under the provisions of the ACNA constitution and canons.

A Catholic Revivalist mindset also helps to explain the authoritarian proclivities of the ACNA top leadership.

The influence of Catholic Revivalist ideology has affected the understanding of what it means to be “evangelical” in the ACNA. Historically this term has referred to the Protestant school of thought that maintains salvation by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone (opposed to sacraments and works) is the essence of gospel teaching. Being “evangelical” in the ACNA is broadly defined as emphasizing evangelism and Scripture. This is a reductionist view of evangelicalism.

The emergence of Catholic Revivalism as the dominant ideology in the Anglican Church in North America throws its Anglican identity into question. It casts doubt on the status of the ACNA as a biblically faithful orthodox Anglican province in North America. It points to the continued unmet need for such a province in Canada and the United States and its territories, a province that upholds the classical formularies and maintains the Protestant, reformed, and evangelical character of the Anglican Church.