The Thirty-Nine Articles – A Test of Faith

By Robin G. Jordan

Most former Episcopalians who have migrated to the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Mission in the Americas would have been content to remain in the Episcopal Church if the liberal wing of that denomination had not become so radicalized and forced its agenda on the rest of the church. The Episcopal Church was their home. Its liturgy was their liturgy; its traditions were their traditions. Its history was their history. The changes that the radicalized liberal wing would introduce into the denomination would cause a major dislocation in their lives. It is a dislocation from which they have not fully recovered. It is also a dislocation that makes them particularly vulnerable to the mechanizations of those who wish to move those who left the Episcopal Church in the direction of another extreme.

In the early part of the twentieth century the twentieth century the two dominant theological streams in the Episcopal Church were Anglo-Catholic and Broad Church. Most Episcopalians fell somewhere in between. The charismatic movement added a new dimension to the life of the church in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There was also a brief evangelical revival during the same period. Prayer Book revision and women’s ordination prompted the exodus of one group of Episcopalians in the 1970s and the formation of the Continuum, a shifting kaleidoscope of small predominantly Anglo-Catholic jurisdictions. The ecumenical movement, the liturgical movement, the New Age movement, and the Ancient-Future movement would also affect the Episcopal Church.

In the opening decade of the twenty-first century the consecration of a practicing homosexual as an Episcopal bishop and the election of a woman presiding bishop with heterodox theological views would expose major fault lines in the Episcopal Church. First whole congregations and then entire dioceses withdrew from the denomination. The Common Cause Partnership was formed. Global South Anglican provinces sympathetic to the groups forming this coalition were urged to recognize the coalition as a new orthodox Anglican province in North America. The Global Anglican Future Conference was organized. GAFCON endorsed the Jerusalem Declaration—a statement of the tenets of orthodoxy that its endorsers believed underpinned their Anglican identity. The GAFCON Primates also called for the formation of a new orthodox North American Anglican province. On cue the Common Cause Partnership reorganized itself into the Anglican Church in North America. The GAFCON Primates in turn recognized the ACNA as “a genuine expression of Anglicanism” and the only legitimate Anglican province in North America.

The Common Cause Partnership, now the ACNA, would hit a major bump in the road. The Anglican Mission in the Americas decided against full integration into the new province, choosing to retain its existing organization and structure. Various reasons were given for this decision. The Anglican Mission was in part loathe to dismantle its church planting networks and to release the congregations and fellowships forming them to the ACNA, which was not showing itself as effective as the Anglican Mission in starting new churches and reaching the unchurched. Anglican Mission Chairman Chuck Murphy, having gathered the reins of power into his hands, was also unwilling to relinquish them to Archbishop Robert Duncan. This suggests a lack of confidence in Duncan’s leadership ability on Murphy’s part.

A number of disturbing trends have evidenced themselves in the Anglican Church in North America. The first trend is that the ACNA is not fully committed to the Jerusalem Declaration. This is evident in its constitution and canons, in the statements of its leaders, and most recently in its new ordinal.

The second trend is the low regard its top leaders, particularly Archbishop Duncan, display for constitutionalism and the rule of law. Duncan appears to see the governing documents of the Anglican Church in North America as a mandate for the top ACNA leaders to do what they please. There is a significant lack of transparency, openness, and accountability in upper echelons of the ACNA.

The third and related trend is ACNA top leaders’ preference for an extreme form of episcopacy, which resembles the prelatical form of governance seen in the Roman Catholic Church than the synodalism seen in the Anglican Church. In the past this form of episcopacy has resulted in the abuse of episcopal authority. Synods of godly clergy and laity are needed as a check and balance against episcopal tyranny and folly. The Roman Catholic Church’s hierarchy’s mishandling of the rampant sexual and physical abuse of children by clergy and religious in that denomination points to one of the dangers inherent in prelacy. The role that bishops played in the spread of liberalism in the Episcopal Church should also be a warning against vesting too much authority in too few hands.

A fourth trend is the failure of the Anglican Church in North America in its governing documents and now its ordinal to recognize Reformed-Evangelicalism as a legitimate school of thought in Anglicanism. The principles of this school of thought are more in line with the historic Anglican formularies and classical Anglicanism than any other school of thought in Anglicanism. Reformed-Evangelicalism is strongly represented in the Anglican Church outside of North America. The ACNA, however, has adopted a narrow provincial view that represents the Episcopal Church background of a large segment of its clergy and its members. This background helps to explain its weak commitment to the Jerusalem Declaration.

Like the Episcopal Church from which it broke away, the Anglican Church in North America appears only too ready to go its own way. This willingness may explain a fifth trend that is increasingly becoming evident. Like the Episcopal Church the ACNA shows a proclivity to turn its back upon the classical doctrinal and liturgical formularies.

Not only should Anglicans outside of North America be concerned about this proclivity but so should Anglicans in North America, particularly those in the Anglican Church in North America. One of the reasons that the Episcopal Church has succumbed to liberalism to such a great extent is that the Thirty-Nine Articles, in their revised American form, never had regulatory force in the Episcopal Church. The Articles were not accepted as a standard of Anglican teaching in the Episcopal Church. Consequently the Episcopal Church was particularly vulnerable to theological drift. In calling for the recovery of the classical doctrinal and liturgical formularies GAFCON recognizes that they collectively form an important measuring stick against which the orthodoxy of an Anglican province can be measured.

Restoring the Thirty-Nine Articles, interpreted in their plain, natural, and intended sense, to a central place in the life and teaching of the church is a critical reform that the Anglican Church in North America has yet to undertake. There are those in the church’s leadership who resist doing so, maintaining that the Quadrilateral is an adequate definition of Anglican orthodoxy.

A similar view was taken in the Episcopal Church in the early nineteenth century. The result was that Episcopal clergy were not required to formally subscribe to the Articles. For Episcopalians the Articles would never be a living formulary. We see the consequences of this decision playing out not only in the Episcopal Church but also in the Anglican Church in North America.

Acceptance of the authority of the Articles, Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, the GAFCON Theological Group’s official commentary on the Jerusalem Declaration, stresses, “is constitutive of Anglican identity.” The Articles give expression to the Anglican understanding of the gospel. Without the gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ, which lies at the heart of the apostolic message, Anglicanism is bereft of meaning and purpose. Anglicans may disagree on a host of secondary matters but the gospel is one matter upon which they must agree.

One of the major functions of the Articles is to safeguard the truth of the gospel. In twenty-first century North America in which theological pluralism is rife, this function is more critical than ever. The New Testament recognizes only one gospel and strongly condemns those who proclaim a different gospel. It is not sufficient to speak in generalities like “proclaiming the transforming love of Jesus” or making vague references to “the unchanging gospel.” Everyone sharing the gospel—from the pulpit on Sunday mornings or in the kitchen over coffee on Monday morning—must have the same understanding of the gospel and it must be an understanding that is faithful to the New Testament. The implication is that catechetical instruction in the doctrine of the Articles and the Anglican understanding of the gospel contained in them must be an integral part of the teaching ministry in all churches in the Anglican Church in North America, large and small.

The Anglican understanding of the sacraments, of Baptism and the Supper of the Lord, flows out of the Anglican understanding of the gospel. In an upcoming article I will be examining the relationship between the gospel and the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. This relationship is helpful in understanding why the Thirty-Nine Articles do not regard the rites of confirmation, penance, marriage, extreme unction, and orders to be sacraments.