Do You Really Want To Become a Part of the Anglican Church in North America?

By Robin G. Jordan

Here is a summary of the reasons why I personally would not lead a church into Anglican Church in North America as a pastor or support such a move as a member of the congregation. They are divided into two categories—structural and doctrinal.

Structural

1. The last judicatory organized on the basis of affinity in the ACNA recognized by the Provincial Council was the Missionary Diocese of All Saints. It was established for congregations affiliated with Forward in Faith North America, a traditionalist Anglo-Catholic organization that is committed to the promotion of “Catholic doctrine, order, and practice” in the Anglican Church and is spearheading a “new Oxford movement” in those Anglican provinces where it has branches. The Missionary Diocese of All Saints requires its clergy to be members of FIFNA. The Diocese of the Holy Spirit, one of the few remaining affinity-based judicatories in the ACNA, was dissolved.

The trend in the ACNA is to encourage the formation of geographic-based judicatories with all the problems that such judicatories present. Churches and groups of churches in a particular region are expected to affiliate with the existing judicatory in that region. This means that there is a strong possibility that they may end up in a judicatory with which they are mismatched.

2. The present Archbishop of the ACNA has shown a persistent disregard for the provincial constitution and canons. For example, he has created the offices of provincial archdeacon, provincial canon, and provincial dean and made appointments to these offices, which under the provisions of the provincial constitution and canons he has no authority to do. He has also established an Archbishop’s Cabinet, modeled upon a similar body found in Roman Catholic archdioceses, and made appointments to this body, which under the provisions of the provincial constitution and canons he also has no authority to do.

3. The provincial canons give powers to the Archbishop of the ACNA that other Anglican provinces do not give even to the metropolitan of the province and which represent a significant departure from Anglican practice. They permit the Archbishop to overrule a diocesan bishop’ suspension of clergy under his jurisdiction, require a diocesan bishop to obtain the permission of the Archbishop and the Executive Committee to reduce or terminate the sentence that the diocesan bishop imposed upon a member of the clergy under his jurisdiction, and require the College of Bishops to obtain his permission to reduce or terminate the sentence that the College of Bishops imposed upon one of its members.

4. The ACNA canons promote the practice of the College of Bishops’ election of the bishops of a diocese over that of the diocesan synod’s election of its bishops. If a diocese adopts this practice and adopts the provisions of the model diocesan canons governing nominations for the position of diocesan bishop, coadjutor bishop, and suffragan bishop, the diocese effectively surrenders the choice of its bishops to the College of Bishops since the College of Bishops can repeatedly turn down a diocese’ nominees until it finds one to its liking.

5. The College of Bishops has assumed powers that the provincial constitution and canons do not vest in that body. This includes authorizing an Ordinal, which under the provisions of the provincial constitution and canons it has no authority to authorize.

6. The ACNA Governance Taskforce discourages groups of churches seeking recognition as ACNA judicatories from incorporating provisions in their governing documents that are not prohibited by the ACNA constitution and canons such as mandatory retirement ages and other forms of term limits for bishops.

7. The ACNA Governance Taskforce developed model diocesan constitution and model diocesan canons that give a very limited role in the governance of the diocese to the diocesan synod, relinquish powers to the province that dioceses are not required to yield under the provincial constitution and canons, and thereby reduce the autonomy of the diocese. These model diocesan governing documents also permit the Archbishop of the ACNA to meddle in parochial matters.

8. The provincial constitution and canons do not prohibit dioceses from taking the property of congregations in trust, only the province.

9. The ACNA has no proper Provincial Synod. The governing body of the province is supposed to be the Provincial Council but the Archbishop’s Cabinet and the College of Bishops have been usurping its powers.

10. The Provincial Assembly has an extremely limited role in the governance of the province: it ratifies changes in the provincial constitution and canons and makes recommendations. In practice, the Assembly is bypassed on most important matters.

11. The way that the ACNA is structured at the provincial level reveals a basic distrust of lay participation in the discussion and determination of major issues.

12. Under the provisions of the provincial canons the Archbishop of the ACNA appoints the prosecutor and legal advisor to the court for the trial of bishops. He appoints the judges, prosecutor, and legal advisor for the court of extraordinary jurisdiction. This court tries clergy canonically resident in other provinces and clergy of dioceses that do not possess a trial court. His appointive powers in relation to these courts enable him to influence the outcome of hearings in them.

13. Basic procedural safeguards necessary to guarantee a fair and impartial hearing are conspicuously absent from the disciplinary canons of the ACNA.

Doctrinal

14. The fundamental declarations of the province do not fully accept the classical formularies as Anglicanism’ long-recognized doctrinal standard. They take a position on the historical episcopate over which Anglicans are divided, favoring the Anglo-Catholic side of the issue over the evangelical. The fundamental declarations adopt a nebulous standard for worship and prayer, which is open to interpretation as including the pre-Reformation medieval service books.

15. The provincial canons incorporate doctrine, language, norms, and principles from the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law (1983). They establish the minimum age requirement of Roman Catholic bishops as that of ACNA bishops and take Roman Catholic doctrinal positions on apostolic succession, ordination, and the sacraments.

16. The provincial constitution relegates its affirmation of The Jerusalem Statement to its preface where it is purely incidental to the preface’s explanation of the establishment of the province.

17. The ACNA College of Bishops has approved a “theological lens” to guide the ACNA Prayerbook and Common Liturgy Taskforce in its creation of a Prayer Book for use in the ACNA, which favoring an Anglo-Catholic interpretation of Anglican Church history, the character of Anglicanism, and the development of the Book of Common Prayer and Anglican worship. This “theological lens” contains only passing reference to the Thirty-Nine Articles, elevates tradition to the same level as Scripture, and treats the 1549 and 1928 Prayer Books as if they are Anglican formularies. It views the 1928 Book of Common Prayer as a continuation of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which is far from the case as a comparison of their doctrine will show.

18. The ACNA Ordinal sanctions doctrines and practices that the English Reformers rejected on solid biblical grounds in the sixteenth century. Among the doctrines it sanctions are the doctrines of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass.

19. The present Archbishop of the ACNA has endorsed this Ordinal and has used the Roman Catholic ceremonies permitted by its rubrics in his consecration of new bishops, for example, anointing the head of new bishops with oil of chrism.

20. All candidates for ordination, all clergy, all new congregations leaders, all new dioceses, and all ministry partner organizations are required to unreservedly subscribe to the provincial constitution and canons.

21. The ACNA “theological lens” does not contain a statement that affirms in no uncertain terms salvation by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone as the essence of Gospel teaching. Rather it contains references to salvation by faith, which are open to a Roman Catholic interpretation.

22. In a number of churches in the ACNA “a different gospel” from the New Testament Gospel is preached.

I realize that some folks do not share my qualms about the ACNA. They feel that if they become a part of the ACNA, they can make changes. I am not convinced that they can.

If they are evangelicals like myself, committed to the authority of the Scriptures and the Anglican formularies, the fulfillment of the Great Commission, and the establishment and maintenance of responsible, synodical church government, I believe that, if they do not compromise their principles, they are going to find themselves assigned to a marginal space in the ACNA and eventually pushed to the periphery and then out of the ACNA. This is why I advocate the formation of a North American convocation of Anglican evangelical churches.

The formation of such a convocation does not rule out the possibility of merger with the ACNA at a later date when the churches forming the convocation may be in a better position to negotiate a merger agreement with the ACNA in which the ACNA is required to make concessions in such critical areas as confirmation of the election of bishops, doctrine, governance, worship, etc. Any church or group of churches joining the ACNA at the present time will be doing so on its terms. For evangelicals committed to the authority of the Scriptures and the Anglican formularies, the fulfillment of the Great Commission, and the establishment and maintenance of responsible, synodical church government these terms are far from favorable.