A Call for a Thorough Reappraisal of the Direction of the Anglican Church in North America

By Robin G. Jordan

In A Free Lutheran Church Declaration of Faith Part III – Church Polity states, “Scripture does not command or forbid any particular organization for fellowship of congregations.” This view is not particular to Lutherans. It was also shared by the sixteenth century Anglican Reformers and the nineteenth century Episcopal Bishop William White. Bishop White was the architect of the original constitution of the Episcopal Church

Most Anglicans and Episcopalians in the United States have a distorted view of Anglican ecclesiology due to the influence of the Anglo-Catholic movement in the American Church. They have been sold the idea that bishops are essential to the Church and they form a superior order to presbyters, vested by God with supreme authority over the Church as the successors to the apostles. This view of bishops, however, was not the view of the English Reformers, the Elizabethan divines, or even the Caroline High Churchmen. The English Reformers found no warrant for one particular order or form of ecclesiastical polity in the Scriptures as did the Elizabethan divines. They rejected the claims of both the episcopalians and presbyterians. The Caroline High Churchmen, while holding that God had bestowed upon the reformed Church of England the grace of episcopacy, nonetheless refused to de-church the continental reformed churches because they lacked bishops. They recognized the orders and sacraments of the continental reformed churches.

The Thirty-Nine Articles, while recognizing the threefold ministry of deacon, presbyter, and bishop as normative for the reformed Church of England does not impose that norm upon other churches. Article 19 identifies as the marks of the visible Church of Christ a gathering of believing people, the preaching of the pure word of God, and the administration of the sacraments with due order and discipline as ordained by Christ. Article 26 implies and the Homily on the Coming Down of the Holy Ghost for Whit-Sunday recognizes a fourth mark—the exercise of church discipline. Article 23 does not require ordination, episcopal or otherwise, for those ministering in the congregation, only that they have been selected and called to this work by men entrusted with public authority in the Church to call and send ministers into the Lord’s vineyard. In the reformed Church of England the men entrusted with this authority were the bishops who were officers of the Crown. In the continental reformed churches with the exception of the Church of Geneva, they were the city magistrates. Both reformed Church of England and the continental reformed churches, exclusive of Geneva, adopted the same model of church government. In the reformed Church of England the magistrate was the Queen who was the supreme governor of the English church. The bishops were functionaries nominated by the Queen, subordinate to her, and serving at her pleasure. When Archbishop Edmund Grindle defied the Queen, she sequestered him in his palace and appointed royal commissioners to perform all his duties with the exception of preaching, administration of the sacraments, and ordinations. Other rebellious bishops she stripped of their office and imprisoned in the Fleet.

Prelacy or prelatical episcopacy—the view that bishops are the sole governors of the Church and that they derive their authority from the apostles—was promoted by a number of Anglo-Catholic bishops in the Episcopal Church in the nineteenth century. This included the view that whatever authority the diocesan convention and the diocesan standing committee exercised was delegated by the diocesan bishop and might be withdrawn by him as the ordinary of the diocese. Whatever limitations the diocesan canons imposed upon his authority were voluntary. He could disregard these limitations with impunity.

This view was a significant departure from the theory of church government upon which the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church were based. In this theory the Episcopal Church was a voluntary association of churches organized into state conventions and a national convention. The authority of these conventions was derived from the churches forming them. Bishops were officers of the state conventions whose functions and powers were defined by the constitution and canons of their respective state conventions.

The history of the Continuing Anglican Movement in its early years was marked by tension between those who were loyalist Anglican in their beliefs and supported a synodical form of church government with bishops sharing the governance of the church with clergy and laity and those who did not regard the reformed catholicism of Anglicanism to be Catholic enough and supported a prelatical form of church government in which the bishops governed the church. This tension lay behind the fragmentation of the Continuum during this period.

In the Anglican Church in North America we are witnessing the emergence of a similar tension. The Anglo-Catholic wing of the Anglican Church in North America and those who have been influenced by their views are not satisfied with the existing governing structures of the ACNA at the provincial level but have been introducing changes in these structures without making corresponding changes in the governing documents of the ACNA. The present Archbishop of the ACNA created the office of Dean of the Province, a position for which the ACNA governing documents do not make any provision. The ACNA governing documents also do not give authority to the Archbishop to create such a position or recognize this authority as inherent in his office. Archbishop Robert Duncan would his long-time friend Bishop Don Harvey to the newly created position. Archbishop Duncan has also appointed a provincial missioner and a provincial canon, two positions for which the ACNA governing documents also do not make any provision. Here again the ACNA governing documents do not give authority to the Archbishop to create such a position or recognize this authority as inherent in his office. Duncan has also created an Archbishop’s Cabinet, a governance structure that is found in the Roman Catholic Church and for which the ACNA governing documents do not make any provision. He has made appointments to this Cabinet, which has taken over the functions of the Executive Committee of the Provincial Council. More recently the College of Bishops under Duncan’s leadership have wrongfully assumed the authority of the Provincial Council to approve an ordinal for use in the ACNA. The ACNA governing documents do not recognize the College of Bishops as having this authority, only the Provincial Council. The ACNA governing documents do give the bishops the authority to individually approve the services used in their own dioceses but the ACNA governing documents do not give them authority to collectively approve services for use in the entire province. The latter authority the ACNA governing documents give to the Provincial Council.

The same group of ACNA leaders, which introduced these unconstitutional and uncanonical changes in the governance of the Anglican Church in North America at the provincial level or which permitted the introduction of such changes, are responsible for promoting an attitude of synodophobia in the ACNA. Synodophobia is an irrational fear of representative legislative assemblies composed of clergy and laity. The address that Archbishop-elect Duncan made to the inaugural Provincial Assembly in Bedford, Texas, at which the present ACNA constitution and canons were ratified, was characterized by an appeal to this fear. The neutering of the Provincial Assembly in the ACNA governing documents was an outgrowth of the synodophobia of the Common Cause leaders who drafted these documents.

The Provincial Assembly is modeled upon the Anglican Mission’s annual Winter Conference, which plays no role in the governance of the Anglican Mission. The Provincial Assembly has no authority beyond ratifying changes to the ACNA governing documents. Only the Provincial Council can initiate such changes. The Provincial Council has so far avoided the convening of the Provincial Assembly and kept this more representative body out of the decision-making process by the simple expedient of not adopting any constitutional amendments or new canons even though a number of changes in the governance of the ACNA that it has approved or to which it has acquiesced require the adoption of constitutional amendments and new canons.

As the recent disclosures involving the Anglican Church of Rwanda and the Anglican Mission have revealed, the form of governance of the Anglican Mission is modeled upon that of the Roman Catholic Church with a single bishop at the top of a centralized hierarchy and all levels of this hierarchy, including the other bishops, deriving their authority ultimately from this bishop. Canon Kevin Donlon who drafted the Anglican Church of Rwanda’s present canons and the Anglican Mission’s present Canonical Charter for Ministry drew heavily upon the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law. Canon Donlon also served on Common Cause Governance Task Force that drafted the ACNA governing documents, as did Bishop Chuck Murphy, the present head of the Anglican Mission. The ACNA governing documents also incorporate doctrine, language, norms, and principles from the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law.

I have in the past been criticized for questioning the Anglican identity of the Anglican Church in North America on the basis of its weak commitment to the Anglican formularies and the Roman Catholic doctrine expressed or implied in its canons. But if one looks at developments in the ACNA since its formation as well as its governing documents, it gives every sign of being on the same path as the Anglican Mission. Among the developments to which I allude is the model diocesan constitution and canons that the ACNA Governance Task Force has produced for the use of dioceses in formation in the process of drafting their own governing documents and the advice that representatives of the ACNA Governance Task Force have given to the bodies undertaking this work. Both the documents and the representatives encourage dioceses in formation to relinquish authority over diocesan matters to the Archbishop. The ACNA constitution and canons do not recognize the Archbishop to be a metropolitan with metropolitical jurisdiction over the province and even if the Archbishop was a metropolitan, the recommended provisions go beyond the authority that a metropolitan typically exercises and represent a gross violation of diocesan autonomy. The ACNA canons already give the Archbishop authority over diocesan matters that represent an infringement of the traditional prerogatives of diocesan bishops.

One argument that is put forward in support of expanding the authority of bishops and archbishops is that it strengthens their ability to defend the faith. But the fallacy of this argument has been demonstrated by what is happening in the Anglican Church in North America and what has happened in the Anglican Mission. The Anglican Church in North America and its leaders can hardly be described as unwavering in their support of the Anglican formularies, which are the longstanding doctrinal standard of Anglicanism. I have already noted the weak commitment of the ACNA to these formularies and the presence of Roman Catholic doctrine, explicit and implicit, in the ACNA canons. In its approval of the new ACNA ordinal this past summer the College of Bishops allowed the optional use of ceremonies and ornaments that are closely connected to doctrines and practices of the pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic Church and the post-Tridentian Roman Catholic Church, which the English Reformers rejected on solid biblical grounds at the Reformation. Even in permitting the optional use of these ceremonies and ornaments the College of Bishops gave countenance to the doctrines and practices with which they are closely connected. It failed to drive away false and strange doctrine and related practices that are contrary to God’s word and privately and publicly to call upon and encourage others to do likewise.

Those who champion prelatical episcopacy in the Anglican Church in North America are actively working to give more power to the same body. This prompts the question, “For what purpose?” It is certainly not to uphold the teaching of Scripture and the Anglican formularies. The time has come for a thorough reappraisal of the direction in which the present leaders of the ACNA are taking that body—doctrinally and structurally. If one tries the doctrine of the ACNA against the Anglican formularies and The Jerusalem Declaration, it falls short of these doctrinal standards. If one compares its governance against Anglican practice, the ACNA at the provincial level and in some areas at the intermediate level misses the mark too. While the governance structures of Anglican provinces are varied, they do exhibit common patterns. The only form of governance that bears a family resemblance to that of the ACNA is that of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, and as the recent disclosures have revealed, its form of governance is modeled upon that of the Roman Catholic Church. Yes, it is time for a thorough reappraisal of the direction in which its present leaders are taking the ACNA.