Further Thoughts on the State of Anglicanism in North America

By Robin G. Jordan

Some readers may feel that I am too hard on American Anglicanism in my assessment in “Bad to the Bone: An Appraisal of American Anglicanism.” I believe that it is reasonably accurate. The North American Church lost its way long before Bishop Peter Ingham, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, Bishop Gene Robinson, and Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori came on the scene. What I observe in the leadership of the Anglican Church in North America is a movement to turn back the clock to time when the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church were not quite so radical as they are today and to make a few changes. I do not see any concerted effort to truly reform the North American Church. What changes have been made are likely exacerbate the problems that I have identified in my article rather than remedy them. One of the greatest obstacles to reforming the North American Church may be its present leaders—in the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Mission as well as the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church.

In The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future the GAFCON Theological Resource Team identifies two challenges to the authority of Scripture and the classical Anglican formularies in the Anglican Church. The first is unreformed Catholicism; the second is liberalism. (Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p. 97) In the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Mission the first challenge is the most pronounced. This is true even though Anglo-Catholics may not be the largest group in these two bodies. It can be attributed in part to the influence of the charismatic movement. As J. I. Packer puts it:

The charismatic movement…fights no battles for purity of doctrine, trusting instead in the unitative power of shared feelings and expressions…the movement’s toleration of variations…suggests a commitment to given truth in Scripture that is altogether fragile. (J. I. Packer, Keep in Step with the Spirit, pp. 172-173)

It is a major weakness of “three streams” theology that is widely found in the Anglican Church in North America and the Anglican Mission, and enjoys a measure of official recognition in the two bodies. “Three streams” theology is also takes a naïve view of the Patristic writers and the Medieval Catholic Church and displays an unacknowledged antipathy toward the Protestant Reformation.

For a number of years I was a Troop Committee Member and a Troop Chaplain with the Boy Scouts. A part of the year was devoted to hiking trails of increasing length and ruggedness in preparation for hiking the backcountry trails at the Philmont Scout Ranch. Except when learning to orient themselves in the woods and on other types of terrain, using the sun, the stars, a compass, and maps, Scouts are taught to stick to the trail and not wander away from it and become lost.

Occasionally one of the more inexperienced Scouts will leave the trail, thinking that he can cut across country to where he sees the trail in the distance. The lucky ones quickly discover that there is a reason that the trail does not go in the direction that they have chosen.

American Anglicanism is like the rebellious boy whose attitude is that no one can tell him what to do. They can try but he is not going to listen. He is not only likely to end up endangering himself but also his fellow Scouts with whom he is hiking. Instead of keeping to the trail, he heads off in a direction of his own choosing. He may persuade a number of the younger and less experienced boys to go with him. Having departed from the trail, he refuses to return to it even though it is in clear view. He may change directions but he will not admit that he is wrong and go back to the trail.

Most Boy Scouts have the good sense to keep to the trail particularly in unfamiliar terrain. Rarely does a Scout Master have to call parents to tell them that their son is missing, injured, or dead. Most Scout leaders are very safety-conscious, the boys themselves as well as adult leaders. While the boys are trained how to respond to emergencies on a hike, it is training that they would prefer not to use. No one wants to attend the funeral of a fellow Scout.

Those who wander off the trail generally are not thinking about their own safety or the safety of others. Those who depart from the authentic Anglican Way are not thinking about the harm they are doing to themselves and to the Anglican Church. They are likely to think what they are doing is a great thing. They are recovering the Catholic heritage of the Anglican Church. They are making the Church more Catholic.

What they forget is that God was at work in the Protestant Reformation. He was behind the rediscovery of the gospel in the sixteenth century in the British Isles as well as the European Continent. The Protestant Reformation was in essence a spiritual movement flowing from that rediscovery. The English Reformers saw themselves first and foremost as “gospel men.” One of the principal functions of the Thirty-Nine Articles was to safeguard the truth of the gospel and to prevent it from being lost again. The 1552 Book of Common Prayer upon which the 1662 Prayer Book is based gives liturgical expression to the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith. The celebration of the Holy Communion is a visual proclamation of the gospel. The Prayer Book Ordinal emphasizes the role of deacons, presbyters, and bishops as ministers of the gospel.

What they fail to realize is that when they depart from the reformed catholic faith of the Anglican Way, they are undoing what God has done. God prompted men like Thomas Cranmer and Matthew Parker to reform the Church in England. These men did not take the reform of the English Church upon themselves. It was God who was working in them, both to will and work for his good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).