I originally posted this article on Tuesday. I have made some changes and I am reposting it.
By Robin G. Jordan
Readers familiar with J.K. Rowlings’ seven fantasy stories chronicling the adventures of the young wizard Harry Potter will recall how Harry’s unpleasant Muggle relatives, the Dursleys, in his early life hide his true heritage from him. They make him sleep in a cupboard under the stairs as well as drudge for them. The Dursleys do not conceal from Harry that his presence in their home is unwanted and unwelcome.
Reformed Evangelicals at best occupy a space on the margin of the Anglican Church in North America. Like Harry they are not treated as a full member of the family. They must tolerate or accept the same kind of rejection that Harry is forced to endure.
Rather than taking a neutral position on a number of key issues that historically have divided Anglo-Catholics and Reformed Evangelicals, the constitution, canons, and the so-called “theological lens” of the Anglican Church in North America align the doctrine of the church with the position of Anglo-Catholicism/Roman Catholicism on these issues. What the GAFCON Resource Group in The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future identifies as “faithful expressions of the teaching of Scripture, which provides the standard for Anglican theology and practice”—the Thirty Nine Articles of 1571 and the Book of Common Prayer in its 1552 and 1662 versions—receive short shrift (Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p. 85).
The new Ordinal of the Anglican Church in North America alters the preface of the classical Anglican Ordinal. It does not require blanket belief in the canonical books of the Old Testament and the New Testament, as does the classical Ordinal. It mandates or permits a number of practices that the English Reformers rejected on solid Biblical grounds and thereby sanctions the unreformed Catholic doctrines associated with these practices. They include the doctrine of the sacrifice of the Mass and the doctrine of Transubstantiation. The new ACNA Ordinal introduces other significant changes in the classical Ordinal. The new ACNA Ordinal, while making substantial allowances for the beliefs and practices of Anglo-Catholics, does not make any corresponding allowances for the beliefs and practices of Reformed Evangelicals. For example, the presentation of a chalice to the newly-ordained presbyter could have been made optional.
The two Orders for the Administration of the Holy Communion used at the 2012 Provincial Assembly of the Anglican Church in North America show the influence of the retrograde 1928 American Prayer Book and the twentieth century ecumenical and liturgical movements. They incorporate elements from the pre-Reformation medieval service books as well as the semi-reformed 1549 Prayer Book. They show very little if any sensitivity to the longstanding concerns of Reformed Evangelicals related to the service of Holy Communion. They give far more attention to the preoccupations of Anglo-Catholics and Convergentists. (For readers unfamiliar with the term “Convergentists,” it refers to the adherents of the Convergence Movement.)
Whether they are willing to admit it, all Reformed Evangelicals who are presently involved in the Anglican Church in North America are making serious concessions to Anglo-Catholic/Roman Catholic teaching. The same level of indulgence, however, is not extended to Anglican Reformed doctrine. Within the Anglican Church in North America a movement is discernible to make the Anglican Church in North America more unreformed Catholic in its beliefs, order, and practices and to entrench Anglo-Catholicism as the predominant if not the sole theological influence in that body.
The present situation in the Anglican Church in North America is not far different from that in the Episcopal Church USA. In the Episcopal Church conservative Episcopalians are expected to make concessions to liberal teaching. At the same time liberal Episcopalians show a marked unwillingness to tolerate conservative doctrine and are engaged in a concerted effort to make the church even more liberal. The GAFCON Theological Resource Group draws attention to this situation in The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future: “Liberal Anglican leaders and theologians insist, in their rhetoric, upon the comprehensiveness of the Church, but in reality they have problems with a comprehensiveness that includes the orthodox” (Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, p. 91). Anglo-Catholics and Convergentists likewise have problems with the inclusion of Reformed Evangelicals in the Anglican Church in North America.
Forward In Faith North America President Bishop Keith Ackerman is reported to believe that “Anglo-Catholicism must become a movement rather than a party, and that Evangelicals are needed in that movement.” A movement is “a series of organized activities working toward an objective also: an organized effort to promote or attain an end.” Anglo-Catholicism has fitted this description since its inception with the publication of the Tracts for the Times in the nineteenth century. Forward in Faith North America is a part of that effort with making the Anglican Church in North America more unreformed Catholic in doctrine, order, and practice among other things as its end.
Clearly Bishop Ackerman cannot be referring to Reformed Evangelicals but to the self-identified “Evangelicals” in the ACNA. The latter have been influenced by the Convergence Movement and are open to unreformed Catholic doctrine, order, and practice. As Prof. Gillis Harp note in his article, “Navigating the Three Streams: Some Second Thoughts about a Popular Typology,” the champions of the Convergence Movement’s “three streams-one river” ideology evidence a bias against the English Reformation and “distort and caricature the position of the Anglican Reformers.”
The differences between the Anglo-Catholic tradition and the Anglican Reformed tradition are not simply differences of emphasis. As Harp points out, “some constitute opposed positions based upon very different readings of the Bible.” These differences are not peripheral matters.
Anglo-Catholics recognize that they and Reformed Evangelicals have disparate views on a number of key issues. This explains to a large extent why they do not want or welcome the presence of Reformed Evangelicals in the Anglican Church in North America. The problems that Convergentists have with the inclusion of Reformed Evangelicals are more complicated. The paucity of Reformed Evangelical support for their views may be a major contributing factor.
Whether the Anglican Church in North America is ready to become a province of the Anglican Communion or even enjoy recognition of the GAFCON Primates is highly debatable as long as the ACNA is unwilling to assign Reformed Evangelicals more than a marginal space in that body. The GAFCON Primates may be reluctant to admit that they acted precipitously in recognizing the ACNA. Reformed Evangelicals outside the ACNA and outside North America, however, should give serious thought to qualifying their support of the ACNA.
Read also:
Navigating the Three Streams: Some Second Thoughts about a Popular Typology
4 comments:
I think you are correct having been at the blunt of a recent sharp view imposed on me that I did not agree with. The old views are not welcome...sad to say!
David,
I see a number of things happening:
1. The Anglo-Catholics are seeking to gain the hegemony in the Anglican Church in North America, which they formerly enjoyed in the Episcopal Church.
2. They also do not believe that historic Anglicanism is “Catholic” enough and want to move the ACNA in a more “Catholic” direction. This happened in the Continuing Anglican Movement in the 1970s and 1980s. Their major criticism of The Jerusalem Declaration is that it, like historic Anglicanism, is not sufficiently “Catholic.” They express the hope that it eventually will be superseded by an entirely “Catholic” document. Their ultimate aim is to move not just the ACNA but the whole Anglican Communion—at least its conservative wing—in a more “Catholic” direction.
3. The Catholic Revival that began with the Tractarian Movement did not end in the early twentieth century. It entered a new phase with the ecumenical and liturgical movements providing the impetus. The Ancient Future/Convergence/Worship Renewal Movement is the driving force behind a new phase of the Catholic Revival. It began in the late twentieth century and has continued into the twenty-first century. The folks involved in that movement may be described as the “new” Anglo-Catholics as opposed to the “old” Anglo-Catholics whose origins are traceable to the nineteenth century Tractarian and Ritualist Movements.
Anglo-Catholics view Reformed Evangelicals as a major obstacle to their aspirations.
I do not believe that Reformed Evangelicals outside North America have caught on yet to what is happening.
My experience is that Anglo-Catholics are quick to accuse Reformed Evangelicals of seeking to impose their views upon the ACNA and the larger Anglican community but they in reality are the ones who are working assiduously toward that end. They accuse Reformed Evangelicals of doing what they themselves are doing.
Without major reforms in the ACNA Reformed Evangelicals who desire to remain Anglican have no other alternative but form a separate jurisdiction.
Robin, you wrote, "They accuse Reformed Evangelicals of doing what they themselves are doing." That is the Alinsky tactic. The anglo-catholics are in good company. But then the anglo-catholics have been using dissimulation and outright lies since "Saint" John Henry Newman.
Thank you Robin for your insights.
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