Did You Know Your Bishop Has a Magic 8 Ball on His Desk?

By Robin G. Jordan

The folks in the Anglican Church in North America rely inordinately upon the judgment of their leaders. I have observed this tendency both in clergy and laity. This is to a large part attributable to the emergence of an ecclesiastical culture in that body which encourages the laity to defer to the judgment of the clergy and the clergy in turn to the judgment of clergy of higher rank.

A major contributor to this development is the long history of clericalism in American Anglicanism. Clericalism has characterized American Anglicanism for more than two hundred years. Clericalism is the policy of maintaining or increasing the power and influence of a religious hierarchy.

The origin of clericalism in American Anglicanism can be traced to Bishop Samuel Seabury and the Connecticut High Churchmen. Clericalism came to full flower in the American Church in the nineteenth century due to the influence of Tractarianism and the Catholic Revival.

The Tractarians promoted a number of Roman Catholic beliefs in the American Church. They not only fostered divisions between ordained church leaders and their lay followers but also notions of church leadership as “an internal and cloistered body that answers only to itself.”

In American Anglicanism clericalism has gone hand in hand with sacerdotalism—the religious belief that emphasizes the powers of priests as essential mediators between God and humankind. This belief imbues the clergy with supernatural powers. These powers, it is believed, are imparted to them at ordination and set them apart from ordinary human beings.

Among the beliefs in American Anglicanism engendered by clericalism is the belief that the judgment of the clergy is superior to that of the laity not only because of their seminary training but also due to the special graces they receive at their ordination and in the case of bishops at their consecration. The Tractarians’ promotion of the Roman Catholic belief that Scripture must be interpreted in light of Church tradition, the Holy Spirit guided the development of Church tradition, and the Spirit guides the clergy as the primary interpreters of Church tradition has contributed to this belief.

Clericalism would receive a boost in the twentieth century with the charismatic renewal movement. This may come as a surprise to those who associate the charismatic renewal movement with openness to the gifts of the Holy Spirit in all members of Christ’s Body.

The idea that gifts of the clergy, particularly the gift of episcopes, or oversight, however, are superior to those of the laity has gained currency among charismatic Anglicans in North America. This is particularly the case among Anglo-Catholics but it is not confined solely to that particular group.

The charismatic renewal movement also produced the shepherding (or discipleship) movement with its misuses of authority and what former shepherding movement leader Bob Mumford describes as an "unhealthy submission resulting in perverse and unbiblical obedience to human leaders." Elements of shepherding teaching are discernible in the teaching of a number of bishops and other pastors in the AMiA, PEARUSA, and the ACNA.

We also find in American Anglicanism the Roman Catholic belief that bishops are the successors to the apostles by virtue of the imposition of episcopal hands at their consecration. The ACNA canons incorporate provisions of the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law (1983), which teach this belief. The new ACNA ordinal permits the Roman Catholic practice of the anointing of a new bishop’s head, a practice associated with the Roman Catholic doctrine of tactual or sacerdotal succession.

A companion belief is that presbyters are representatives of the bishop rather than ministers of the Gospel in their own right and act on behalf of the bishop through the authority delegated to them. The two beliefs invest bishops and presbyters as their stand-ins with the authority of the apostles.

The inordinate reliance of folks in the ACNA upon their leaders’ judgment prevents them from developing their own skill in discerning. It keeps them from growing to spiritual maturity as fully-functioning disciples of Jesus Christ. This infantilization of the members of the church in turn impedes the growth of the church at the local congregational, judicatorial, and denominational levels.

The infantilization of their church members may account for the failure of the Continuing Anglican Churches to grow and thrive. Rather than seeing themselves as missionaries and leaders charged with the task of spreading the gospel, their church members were encouraged to view themselves as consumers of services that the priest provided in the roles of chaplain and dispenser of sacramental grace to the congregation. Organized around the leadership and sacramental ministry of a priest, Continuing Anglican congregations tend to disintegrate when their priest accepts a new cure, retires, or dies. As death and infirmity depletes the ranks of aging congregations, one church after another has closed, unable to afford the compensation package even of a part-time, non-resident priest.

Individuals whose trust in their leaders’ judgment exceeds reasonable limits are extremely vulnerable to abuse, deliberate deception, and exploitation. They can easily be led in the wrong direction or into a mistaken action or belief. They are also apt to be completely devastated when their trust is proven to be misplaced. This can have an extremely negative impact upon the local congregation and can greatly harm its ministry and mission. Ultimately it can cause serious damage to the judicatory and the denomination.

A related development is the tendency to invest ACNA leaders with something that comes very close to infallibility. They are not viewed as being capable of error or being liable to mislead, deceive, or disappoint. This is, at the present stage, more an individual tendency than a collective one. However, it is not a healthy development. It is attributable in part to the desire for certainty and the confusion of authoritative leadership with infallibility and in part to the Roman Catholic belief in the infallibility of the church and the church authorities. The Tractarian movement introduced the latter belief into American Anglicanism in the nineteenth century.

Any notion of infallibility other than the inerrancy of the Scriptures has no place in Anglicanism. Church leaders, whatever the level, whether clergy or lay, are fallible human beings with an inborn capacity for making mistakes.

The magic 8 ball on the bishop's desk could be nothing more than a paper weight. But then....