Weeds in the Wheat: Revisionism in the North American Anglican Church

By Robin G. Jordan

Revisionism is rife in the North American Anglican Church. It is not confined to the liberal wing of the Church, in the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church in the USA. Revisionism is a common occurrence in the Anglican Church in North America, the Anglican Mission in Americas, and the Continuing Anglican Churches. It takes a variety of forms. Those who espouse revisionist views typically claim that their views represent not just a theological stream in Anglicanism but the mainstream of Anglican thought.

Among the more common forms of revisionism in the North American Anglican Church is the claim that Anglicanism is creedal, not confessional. Those who espouse this view deny that the Thirty-Nine Articles are a confession of faith, much less, the Anglican Church’s confession of faith. Yet ample, conclusive evidence exists that since its adoption the Thirty-Nine Articles has for the reformed Church of England and other Anglican provinces served as their confession of faith.

Schools of thought would subsequently emerge that reinterpreted the Articles in a manner other than their plain, natural, and intended sense. For example, John Henry Newman’s Tract 90 would reinterpret the Articles in a Roman direction. The nineteenth century Ritualists would call for the abolition of the Articles. The nineteenth century Broad Churchmen would ignore them.

The arguments mustered in support of the contention that Anglicanism is creedal, not confessional, when closely examined, boil down to various rationalizations for denying the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles for contemporary Anglicans. Those who make these arguments seek to diminish greatly, if not eliminate entirely, the Protestant character of authentic historic Anglicanism. Their position is typically associated with an ideology that is Catholic and unreformed. It may be a fanciful interpretation of Catholic faith, order, and practice before the Great Schism of the eleventh century. It may incorporate post-Great Schism Western Catholic elements and even post-Tridentian Roman Catholic elements. It may take a reductionist view of evangelicalism.

The Global Anglican Future Conference and The Jerusalem Declaration does not support the claim that Anglicanism is creedal, not confessional. The Way, the Truth, and the Life, prepared by the GAFCON Theological Resource Team, is critical of this anti-confessional stance:

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. As long as this unwillingness remains, there is little hope for an effective Covenant within the Anglican Communion. (Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p. 91)

The Fundamental Declarations of the Anglican Church in North America, on the other hand, treat the Thirty-Nine Articles as a historical background informing the Church’s life and witness:

We receive the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571, taken in their literal and grammatical sense, as expressing the Anglican response to certain doctrinal issues controverted at that time, and as expressing fundamental principles of authentic Anglican belief. (Article I.7, The Constitution and Canons of the Anglican Church in North America)

Article I.7 expresses a quite different view of this foundational document of historic Anglicanism than The Jerusalem Declaration:

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 (Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p. 6)

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group in their commentary upon Clause 4, while acknowledging that the Thirty-Nine Articles is not as comprehensive statement of Christian faith as some other Reformation confessions, draws to our attention that the Articles “have long been recognized as the doctrinal standard of Anglicanism, alongside the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal.” (Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p. 35)

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group goes on to stress that the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles comes from their agreement with the teaching of the Scriptures and “acceptance of their authority is constitutive of Anglican identity.” (Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p. 35)

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group points to our attention the existence of a correlation between Anglican churches that have dispensed with assent to the Thirty-Nine Articles, “presenting them as mere ‘historic documents’ or relics of the past” and those which “have abandoned historic doctrinal and moral standards.” (Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p. 36) It must be noted that the Episcopal Church, while it adopted a revision of the Articles, never gave regulatory force to them. Episcopal clergy were not required to assent to the Articles. The claim that Anglicanism is creedal, not confessional, serves to perpetuate this attitude toward the Articles’ authority and the problems associated with it.

The differences between the Anglican Church in North America’s Fundamental Declarations, particularly Article I.3,5, 6 and 7, and The Jerusalem Declaration and the requirement that all judicatories, congregations, clergy, and ministry partners of the ACNA must unreservedly subscribe to the Fundamental Declarations have put those within the ACNA who hold to the tenets of Anglican orthodoxy articulated in The Jerusalem Declaration, in a difficult position. The Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic, formerly the Anglican District of Virginia, and a member of the Church of Nigeria’s Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), sought a way around this problem by adopting the Fundamental Declarations and receiving and affirming the GAFCON Statement and The Jerusalem Declaration. But there is considerable difference between taking as one’s own—adopting—and welcoming and stating as a thing to be fact or avering a thing to be so—receiving and affirming. This is the position in which the Constitution and Canons of the ACNA puts those who truly stand with GAFCON and The Jerusalem Declaration on key issues.

In the words of the GAFCON Theological Resource Group, “The Jerusalem Declaration calls the Anglican church back to the Articles as being a faithful testimony to the teaching of Scripture, excluding erroneous beliefs and practices and giving a distinct shape to Anglican Christianity.” (Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p. 36) Article I.7 and the negative attitude toward the Articles’ authority evident in the Anglican Church in North America present serious obstacles to the ACNA responding to this call.

To date the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic is the only ACNA judicatory to receive and affirm the GAFCON Statement and The Jerusalem Declaration. The model ACNA diocesan constitution that has been given to dioceses in formation does not even contain the suggestion that those drafting a constitution for a diocese in formation might want to consider doing so. This itself is very revealing of the attitude within the ACNA toward GAFCON and The Jerusalem Declaration.

The ACNA may be a participant in GAFCON but one should not construe from its participation that the ACNA supports everything for which GAFCON and The Jerusalem Declaration stand. The evidence points to the ACNA’s participation in GAFCON as being primarily motivated by expediency.

The ACNA has set its feet on the same path as the Episcopal Church took in the nineteenth century. The Episcopal Church never fully accepted the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles, preferring to give more heed to those who maintained that the Church did not need a confession of faith. It had the Creeds and the Prayer Book. 200 years later we see where that path took the Episcopal Church. Replacing a synodical form of ecclesiastical governance with prelacy will not keep the ACNA from going down that path, especially when the bishops are leading the way.