Moving Forward Together: The Next Step - Part 4

The ACNA Canons: Worship and the Administration of the Sacraments

By Robin G. Jordan

In this fourth article in the series “Moving Forward Together: The Next Step” I examine the provisions of Title II of the canons of the Anglican Church in North America and how they may affect the proposed PEARUSA sub-jurisdiction. These provisions relate to worship and the administration of the sacraments. I had originally intended to look at Titles II and III in a single article but upon further examination of the two titles concluded that a separate article for each title was warranted.

Canon II.1 leaves to solely to the discretion of “the Bishop with jurisdiction” which translations of the Bible may be used in services of public worship in the Anglican Church in North America. This means that the bishop overseeing a grouping of congregations and their clergy can require them to use translations of the Bible that may be unacceptable to them due to the quality of the translation, the use of gender-inclusive language, and so forth. Canon II.1 does not provide any safeguards from the abuse of episcopal authority in this area such as a list of authorized Bible translations that may be used throughout the province. It is noteworthy that it does not require that the Bible translations used should be in English or another language understood by the congregation (e.g. Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, etc.).

The first sentence of Canon II.2.1 reiterates Article I.6 of the ACNA constitution:

The Book of Common Prayer as set forth by the Church of England in 1662, together with the Ordinal attached to the same, are received as a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline, and, with the Books which preceded it, as the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship.

As Ephraim Radner and others have observed, Article I.6 recognizes the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as “a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline,” with the inference that other standards exist for North American Anglicans and may be more authoritative for them than the 1662 Prayer Book. The guiding principles for the development of a Prayer Book for use in the Anglican Church in North America articulated in the Initial Report of the Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Taskforce of the Anglican Church in North America take this position. The report treats the semi-reformed 1549 Prayer Book and the retrograde 1928 American Prayer Book as authoritative standards for North American Anglicans, including Canadian Anglicans. Article I.6 does not identify which books preceding the 1662 Prayer Book form “the standard for the Anglican tradition of worship.” Keith Acker and others have interpreted these books to include the pre-Reformation Medieval service books, an interpretation to which Article I.6 is open due to its wording. With the ACNA Ordinal the Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Taskforce and the College of Bishops have adopted this interpretation of Article I.6. The ACNA Ordinal permits a number of Medieval practices that the English Reformers rejected on solid biblical grounds in the sixteenth century and thereby countenances the doctrines associated with these practices, including the doctrines of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the mass. The ACNA Ordinal contains no disclaimer to the effect that the Anglican Church in North America does not attach any particular doctrinal significance to the practices and that the practices are not to be understood as implying any doctrines other than those contained in the formularies of the ACNA.

The second sentence of Canon II.2.1 permits the use of “all authorized Books of Common Prayer of the originating jurisdictions” until the adoption of a Book of Common Prayer for use in the Anglican Church in North America. With the adoption of this Prayer Book, permission to use any other Prayer Book will cease. All congregations and clergy of the Anglican Church in North America will be expected to use the Prayer Book irrespective of whether they agree with its doctrine and liturgical usages. Clergy will be expected to teach its doctrine and the doctrine of the catechism contained in it.

Canon II.2.2 identifies as “the responsibility of the Bishop with jurisdiction to ensure that the forms used in Public Worship and the Administration of the Sacraments be in accordance with Anglican Faith and Order and that nothing be established that is contrary to the Word of God as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. As used in the ACNA canons, “Bishop with jurisdiction” is a reference to the bishop overseeing a particular grouping of congregations and their clergy in the Anglican Church in North America. The provisions of Canon II.2.2, as they are presently worded, apply to the individual bishops in the College of Bishops within the diocese or other judicatory that they oversee, not to the College of Bishops collectively for the entire province. Nowhere in the ACNA canons do we find any provision entrusting to the College of Bishops the authorization of liturgies for use in the Anglican Church in North America. We do, however, find a provision in Article V.3 of the ACNA constitution stating, “The Provincial Council, subject to ratification by the Provincial Assembly, has power to make canons ordering our common life in respect to the following matters… 3. Common Worship….” Since the Provincial Council has not by canon delegated to the College of Bishops the authorization of liturgies for use in the Anglican Church in North America, the College of Bishops’ recent authorization of an ordinal for use in the ACNA is usurpation of powers not granted to that body by the ACNA constitution and canons and raises questions regarding the legality of the use of the ordinal. While the College of Bishops should have a role in the development and authorization of liturgies for use in the Anglican Church in North America, final approval of such liturgies should be the decision of the Provincial Assembly.

Canon II.3 does not make allowance for congregations in which the principal service of public worship is on a day other than Sunday due to the circumstances of the congregation.

Canon II.4.1.2 suggests that baptism is incomplete without confirmation, a view over which Anglicans have historically been divided.

Canon II.4. 2 does not specify to which Book of Common Prayer and Church Catechism it refers. The 1928 and 1979 American Prayer Books, which are presently authorized for use in the Anglican Church in North America, differ in their teaching from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which is also authorized for use in the ACNA. The same holds true for the catechism or instructional offices in these three Prayer Books.

Canon II.4.3 permits the admission of baptized young children to the Holy Communion in the Anglican Church in North America. It also permits “members in good standing of other branches of Christ’s Church, who have been baptized, with water, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” to receive the sacrament of Holy Communion, noting, “The qualifications concerning rightly and worthily receiving the Supper of the Lord with faith are provided in Article XXVIII of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.” It fails to take note of the words of the Invitation to Communion in the 1662 Communion Office, the rubric at the conclusion of 1662 Confirmation Service, and the words of Article XXIX with their emphasis upon the presence of repentance and a vital faith as being absolutely essential to partaking in Christ both in the case of baptized young children and members in good standing of other branches of Christ’s Church. This failure points to an Anglo-Catholic ex opere operato view of the sacrament of the Holy Communion, another view over which Anglicans have historically been divided. The Thirty-Nine Articles, while they affirm infant baptism, do not affirm the communion of baptized young children, in whom repentance and a vital faith is absent.

Canon II.6 states:

Lay persons may be appointed to assist the Clergy in various tasks of worship to further the ministry of the Word and Sacrament.

It takes the view that liturgical ministers such as lectors, leaders of the Prayers of the People, lay eucharistic ministers, are not ministers of the worshiping assembly but assistants to the clergy. The view of “lay worship ministry” articulated in Canon II.6 denigrates the role of the worshiping assembly and ultimately the priesthood of all believers. It reflects an Anglo-Catholic sacerdotal view of Christian ministry, a view that magnifies the role of the clergy at the expense of the people of God and over which Anglicans have historically been divided.

Canon II.7.1 adopts the Anglo-Catholic position that matrimony is a sacrament, a position that the Thirty-Nine Articles, when interpreted in their plain, natural, and intended sense, do not support, and over which Anglicans have historically been divided.

Under the provisions of the ACNA canons congregations and clergy affiliating with the Anglican Church in North America are bound to “conform to the Doctrine, Discipline and Worship of Christ as this Church has received them.” This means that they must embrace and teach the Anglo-Catholic doctrinal positions stated or implied in the ACNA canons. For evangelical congregations and clergy that uphold the classic Anglican formularies and historic Anglicanism and are Protestant and Reformed in doctrine and practice, it entails sacrificing their convictions. As we shall see in my article on Title IV of the ACNA canons, clergy who do not subscribe without reservation to the stated and implicit doctrine of the ACNA governing documents are liable to presentation, trial, and deprivation. The Anglican Church in North America is not truly comprehensive in the sense that Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals are able to co-exist in the same church on equal terms. It does not recognize the existence of a legitimate divergence of opinion between Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals in a number of key areas. Rather it aligns itself with Anglo-Catholic positions in these areas. It makes room only for Anglo-Catholics and those open to Anglo-Catholic doctrine and practice.