Time to Face Up to the Truth

By Robin G. Jordan

Supporters of GAFCON outside of North America will admit privately that the Anglican Church in North America is not what they hoped for but they are unwilling to criticize the ACNA publicly. There is no justification for their silence. Some reasons they offer for their reluctance to say anything might have been credible at one time but they are no longer so. Other reasons demonstrate that they have not investigated the current situation in North America for themselves and are relying upon the reports of the ACNA regarding that situation.

One reason that is given for withholding criticism of the Anglican Church in North America is that the ACNA is starting new congregations and growing numerically. The Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church, on the other hand, are loosing members and consolidating and closing churches. New churches and numerical growth are treated as if they tip the scales in any discussion of the problems of the Anglican Church in North America. They are spoken of as if they are the only things that matter.

While new churches and numerical growth may be desirable, they are meaningless if the new churches are not gospel churches and the numerical growth does not involve gospel growth. The constitution and canons of the Anglican Church in North America, the web sites on the Internet, contact with collaterals, and more recently the new ordinal indicate that a large number of these churches are not gospel churches and the numerical growth to a large extent does not involve gospel growth. The Anglican Church in North America may be ahead of The Episcopal Church in the numbers game but the signs are that the Anglican Church in North America is not much better off than The Episcopal Church in the crucial area of gospel ministry.

The English Reformers adopted the Thirty-Nine Articles as a way of safeguarding the truth of the gospel. The gospel had been lost to the English Church during the Middle Ages. They sought to prevent that from happening again. Very few churches in the Anglican Church in North America, to use the words of the Jerusalem Declaration, “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 constitution and canons of the Anglican Church in North America give the Prayer Book and the Articles only a token place as standards of Anglican teaching. There are indications of a movement within the Anglican Church in North America to dispense with the classical doctrinal and liturgical formularies altogether.

The College of Bishops’ approval of the new ordinal with its revival of ceremonies and ornaments connected to pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic beliefs and practices that displaced the New Testament gospel point to the bishops themselves as leading this movement. Rather than driving away and banishing erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s word and the practices associated with them, they are welcoming them and facilitating their spread.

GAFCON supporters outside of North America have a biblical obligation to make the leaders of the Anglican Church in North America aware of the harmful nature of what they are doing. As watchmen on the city walls they have a duty to give warning of approaching danger. As Christians they are constrained to draw the wanderers’ attention to their errors. Saying nothing will not bring those who wander from the truth back from their wandering. Rather silence is interpreted as tacit acceptance and even approval.

As long as no one says anything, the Anglican Church in North America will continue in its present direction. While it might not heed a shot across its bow and an order to put about, its failure to do so would be definite proof that it truly does not represent GAFCON and historic Anglicanism in North America and the GAFCON primates have put their trust in the wrong people. This may be what really lies behind the silence of GAFCON supporters outside of North America. If they broke their silence, they might have to face up to the truth.