A Vision of a Biblically Faithful, Mission-Oriented Anglican Province in North America

By Robin G. Jordan

I first came to the realization that North America needed a new Anglican province back in 1990s. The unchurched population in Canada and the United States was growing. New churches were needed. The response to the call for a Decade of Evangelism in the Episcopal Church was far from enthusiastic. The Diocese of Louisiana had a new bishop and he had announced a new church planting initiative in the diocese. The reaction of one church in my deanery was to beg the bishop not to start any new works in its area. Its leaders feared not only losing newcomers to a new church but also its existing members.

I had read an article by a Canadian church planter who advocated planting new churches in the shadow of existing ones. New churches were more successful in reaching unchurched population segments in the community than existing ones. A new work started in the shadow of an existing church could have a positive effect upon the existing church, prompting it to become more evangelistic.

I thought to myself if this could be done on a local scale, why not across the entire United States? A number of the African provinces were experiencing explosive growth. A new biblically faithful, mission-oriented Anglican province might experience similar growth in North America. What stood out about these African provinces from my reading was that they were not only more evangelistic than the Episcopal Church, but they were more evangelical. They also made use of lay people—readers and catechists—in starting and pastoring new works.

Over the past ten years I have formed a vision of how I would like to see a new province take shape in North America.

1. The new province would be authentically Anglican. It would return to the faith and practice of the classical Anglican formularies—the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal, and the Homilies. It would reverse the movement away from the formularies that has characterized the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church in the United States particularly in the past 50 odd years. Whatever their position on secondary matters, all clergy and congregations would be expected to subscribe ex animo to the position that the essence of gospel teaching is salvation by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone.

2. The Book of Common Prayer in use would combine the traditional language services of the classical Anglican Prayer Book with contemporary language versions of the same services. The State Prayers, the Litany, and the General Intercession would reflect the political situation in North America.

3. The new province and the judicatories and churches forming the new province would be wholeheartedly committed to spreading the gospel, reaching and evangelizing the unchurched, enfolding new believers into churches, and equipping them for a life of discipleship and ministry. Their principal goal would be the fulfillment of Christ’s Great Commission—making disciples of all people groups—in North America and the world.

Few churches would be content to sit on the sidelines while other churches engaged in gospel ministry. Rare would be the church that had not planted a new church or sponsored a new church plant. Evangelism and church planting would be a part of the DNA of most churches of the new province.

4. The new province would be constituted as a voluntary association of Anglican churches banded together for mission, deriving its authority from the churches comprising it. Churches uniting with the new province would own their own property and would be free to withdraw from the new province. Churches planted by the new province would be recognized as autonomous entities in union with the new province, deriving their authority directly from Christ as the head of His Church, capable of owning their own property, and at liberty to disaffiliate themselves from the new province should they choose to do so.

5. The structure of the new province would be based upon the synod model. A provincial synod would be the highest authority in the province. A provincial executive council would carry on the work of the provincial synod between its sessions.

6. Episcopal authority would be clearly defined and limited. Constitutionalism and the rule of law would be valued and respected.

7. Certain characteristics would distinguish the new province’s churches. Churches would be centered on the gospel. They would be organized around a simple and understandable process for moving seekers to new believers to committed functional disciples of Jesus Christ. Bivocational pastors, lay ministry teams and lay pastors would minister alongside of full-time, fully credentialed resident pastors.

8. The new province would be organized into affinity networks as well as regional judicatories. The aim would be to eliminate or reduce the barriers that keep clergy and congregations whose beliefs and practices differ in non-essentials from cooperating and working with each other to advance the cause of the gospel. Throughout the new province there would be recognition that no church or group of churches has a monopoly upon a particular section of God’s vineyard.

The shape that the Anglican Church in North America and its ministry partner, the Anglican Mission in the Americas, have taken has been very disappointing. They have not shown a strong commitment to the values embodied in the foregoing vision of a new biblically faithful, mission-oriented Anglican province in Canada and the United States. There has been no genuine recovery of the classical Anglican formularies in the ACNA and the AMiA.

Despite its doctrinal and theological defects 1979 Book of Common Prayer is widely used in the ACNA and the AMiA, as is The Hymnal 1982. An Anglican Prayer Book, produced by the AMiA and the Prayer Book Society, went further than the 1928 American Prayer Book and the 1962 Canadian Prayer Book in its departure from the doctrine and liturgical usages of the 1662 Prayer Book. The new ACNA ordinal also departs significantly from the Prayer Book Ordinal, sanctioning beliefs and practices that historic Anglicanism rejects.

The jury is still out on the extent to which the ACNA and the AMiA are oriented to mission. Some ACNA and AMiA churches are quite active in the areas of evangelism and church planting. Others have been in existence for a number of years but have not started or supported a new work.

Under the leadership of Archbishop Robert Duncan the ACNA has been moving toward a more prelatical model of provincial structure in practice if not on paper. Except for ratifying canons and constitutional amendments the ACNA Provincial Assembly has no role in the government of the ACNA. It resembles one of the consultative bodies that the Pope may convene in the Roman Catholic Church. The ACNA canons incorporate doctrine, language, principles, and norms from the canons of the Anglican Church of Rwanda. The Rwandan canons are the work of an American, an Episcopal turned AMiA priest, and a former Roman Catholic, and are heavily indebted to the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law.

The Archbishop’s Cabinet has increasingly been usurping the role of the Provincial Council and its Executive Committee. The Archbishop’s Cabinet was created by Archbishop Duncan. Its creation is not authorized by canon and is unconstitutional, as was Duncan’s creation of the office of Dean of the Province and his appointment of his close friend, Bishop Don Harvey, to that office.

The structure of the AMiA is based upon the prelatical model both on paper and in practice. The AMiA is a missionary jurisdiction of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, which with its new canons adopted a Roman prelatical model for the structure of the entire province. It also adopted the dogmas of the Council of Trent as the official doctrine of the province.

The majority of the churches in the ACNA and the AMiA appear to be fairly conventional, organized around a weekly celebration of the Eucharist and the ministry of a priest. They are barely distinguishable from their counterparts in the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church.

There is a discernable movement in the ACNA toward organizing that body into geographic dioceses. The AMiA’s church planting networks are largely regionally based.

Well, you might say, you cannot have everything your way. You should be happy that North America has in the ACNA and the AMiA the beginnings of an orthodox province.

But does it?

How are the ACNA and the AMiA “orthodox”? Is “orthodox” an accurate description of two bodies in which disparate theologies of salvation and justification are tolerated and more than one gospel is proclaimed.

Look at what comes with this kind of “orthodoxy.” Unfettered prelacy. The revival of Medieval Catholic beliefs and practices that historic Anglicanism rejects. Sacerdotalism.

Some of us were looking for a renewal of authentic Anglicanism in North America. Instead we are invited to trade one evil for another. Having not fully thrown off the shackles of liberalism, the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Mission in the Americas are binding themselves with the chains of unreformed Catholicism.

I am prompted to wonder aloud, “Who is getting the best of this bargain?” “If people are not hearing the true gospel, if they are not trusting in Christ for their salvation, if they are not growing to maturity as followers of Jesus Christ, who gains the most from it?” Think about it.