By Robin G. Jordan
The latest exchange between AMiA Chairman Chuck Murphy and ACNA Archbishop Bob Duncan is attracting a lot of attention in the blogosphere. To some folks the spectacle of a pair of brawling bishops is as entertaining as the WWE SmackDown.
The present tensions between Chairman Murphy and Archbishop Duncan are hardly surprising. They are, after all human beings. No human being is free from the inclination to evil (Article 9) and sometimes the evil have chief authority in the church (Article 26).
Both men have problems with power sharing. Both evidence poor judgment. Both, like the ancient kings of Israel and Judea, have surrounded themselves with advisors who tell them what they want to hear. Both display a tendency to blame others when things go awry. If anything the tensions between these two men are a reminder of the fallibility of leaders as well as our common fallenness.
What we hear, read, and view in the media is to a large extent posturing. Both Chairman Murphy and Archbishop Duncan are trying to win sympathy for their respective causes and to poison minds against each other’s cause. They are playing to particular audiences within their organizations as well as to the larger Anglican community. We also see individuals and groups lining up behind one or the other, taking their part in this falling-out.
One criticism that Archbishop Duncan’ supporters level at Chairman Murphy and the Anglican Mission in the Americas is that the Anglican Mission is not sufficiently Anglican, echoing Duncan’s own remarks. The same criticism can also be leveled at the Anglican Church in North America. Its leaders, including Duncan himself, champion “three streams, one river” ideology as “classically Anglican,” as do Murphy and Anglican Mission leaders. “Three streams, one river” ideology, however, is neither classical nor Anglican. It is contemporary with origins in Pentecostalism.
Both organizations also show the influence of Anglo-Catholicism, which the GAFCON Theological Resource Group in The Way, the Truth, and the Life, identifies with liberalism as a major challenge to the rule of Scripture and the historic formularies in the Anglican Church (Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, pp. 96-97).
Both organizations do not fully accept the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles. The GAFCON Resource Group in Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today identifies acceptance of the Articles’ authority as “constitutive of Anglican identity” (Being Faithful, p. 35). Both organizations fall into the category of a part of the Anglican Church in which an unwillingness to bind itself to confessional formulae, such as the Thirty-Nine Articles, has grown up (Being Faithful, p. 91).
The Anglican Church in North America presently enjoys the recognition of the GAFCON Primates while the Anglican Mission in Americas has yet to find a new sponsoring Anglican province. It is upon this basis that Archbishop Duncan and the folks in the ACNA would like to claim that the ACNA is more Anglican than the AMIA. But that would be like claiming that the Episcopal Church is Anglican because it enjoys the recognition of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Statement on the Global Anglican Future rejects such a determination of Anglican identity (Being Faithful, p. 5).
2008 Global Anglican Future Conference produced The Jerusalem Declaration and incorporated it into the Statement on the Global Anglican Future. “The Jerusalem Declaration sets out 14 tenets of orthodox Anglican belief. Its purpose is to define Anglican identity for contemporary Anglicans, in a way which is faithful to Scripture and to the Anglican formularies” (Being Faithful, p. 147).
The GAFCON Primates’ recognition of the ACNA is not certification of its Anglican identity based upon its subscription to The Jerusalem Declaration. The ACNA has in its governing documents and its leaders’ statements shown that it does not share this confession. The GAFCON Primates recognize the ACNA because for reasons of their own they find it to be expedient.
This argle-bargle between Murphy and Duncan points to one conclusion. The two leaders need to step down as the heads of their respective organizations, and their closest advisors with them. They need to make way for fresh leadership in the AMiA and the ACNA.
You said “Three streams, one river” ideology, however, is neither classical nor Anglican. It is contemporary with origins in Pentecostalism.”
ReplyDeleteTo a degree I agree Three Streams is not classical, but I would suggest that it is a valid movement within Anglicanism. There has in Church history been a number of renewal movements which have existed because of weakness which developed. The Charismatic movement within much of the Church is such a renewal movement. It is important to note, that the Charismatic movement appears in many denominations including the Roman Catholics. Three Streams is a means by which the charismatic movement stays true to Scripture and Holy Tradition.
I agree that the more or less formal development of Three Streams is a new thing. Nevertheless, keeping the various elements in balance is in keeping with the idea of being Anglican. I think it a mistake to define being Anglican as snapshot of 1662, no church is static and all churches develop over time.
Three Streams is a movement, whether or not it becomes a fixture in Anglicanism like the Anglo-Catholics remains to be seen, but to my thinking it has the possibility of becoming a fixture.
Three Streams to my thinking is the proper way to be inclusive. It is both true to Scripture and Tradition. It allows for but does not require the “charismatic gifts.” Is it a perfect balance? I would suggest nothing can be, but it is an honest attempt.
I suggest neither the Anglo-Catholics and Evangelicals have an exclusive claim on the term Classical Anglican.
Scott+
Scott,
ReplyDeleteBased upon my own studies I would not classify the nineteenth century Tractarians and Ritualists and the Anglo-Catholic ideologues who succeeded them as “classically Anglican.” They are not as they would like to claim the successors of the sixteenth century divines, John Jewel and Richard Hooker, or the seventeenth century Caroline High Churchmen. There is a substantial body of reliable scholarship from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century and the first decade of this century showing the spuriousness of this claim.
Reformed Evangelicals in the Church of England and other Anglican provinces, on the other hand, can validly lay claim to continuity with the English Reformers in the sixteenth and seventeenth century and the conforming Reformed wing of the English Church after the Restoration. As Stephen Hamilton has shown in his Oxford monogram, Anti-Arminians: The Anglican Reformed Tradition from Charles II to George I, the Reformed theological tradition continued to flourish in the Church of England during the late Stuart period.
“…keeping the various elements in balance is in keeping with the idea of being Anglican. I think it a mistake to define being Anglican as snapshot of 1662, no church is static and all churches develop over time….”
Let’s take a look at these two statements. In the first statement you are propounding a THEORY of what is constitutive of being Anglican. It is not a theory to which all Anglicans subscribe or which they hold as true. It is one of a number of opinions as to the nature and character of Anglicanism. It is also NOT an opinion that the English Reformers held but is a later development. It was popular in the Episcopal Church in the last century. You, however, are treating it as a given, a proposition that all Anglicans accepts. This is far from the case. (Cont'd)
Your second statement puts you at odds with GAFCON, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, and The Jerusalem Declaration, which are calling the Anglican Church back to the Anglican formularies, the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1571, The Book of Common Prayer of 1662, and the Ordinal of 1661. These three formularies enjoy wide recognition as the doctrinal standard of Anglicanism. The GAFCON Theological Resource Group draws attention to this fact in Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today.
ReplyDeleteLiberals as well as Anglo-Catholics have used the argument “no church is static and all churches develop over time” to justify their introduction of changes in the doctrine, order, and practice of the church. The liberals have particularly made use of the notion of an evolving church, a concept that they borrowed from the Anglo-Catholics and Newman’s ideas of “development.” This is one of the reasons that the GAFCON Theological Resource Group identifies both Anglo-Catholicism and liberalism as major challenges to the rule of Scripture and the Anglican formularies in the Anglican Church. This argument was also popular in the Episcopal Church in the twentieth century and was used to justify the ordination of women and practicing homosexuals and the blessing of homosexual liaisons. It is worthy of note that Church of Rome has used a similar argument to justify its departures from teaching of Scripture.
My point is that this argument is flawed. Certainly changes do occur in the church but such changes are NOT always and invariably positive developments. Indeed, they may represent serious erosion of Scriptural teaching. The need for reform of the church did not end in the sixteenth century. Because of the tendency of Christians to turn back to error, the church is in constant need of reforming.
Based upon my own studies I would classify the Ancient-Future or Convergence Movement (also known as the Worship Renewal Movement) as a continuation of the Catholic Revival that began in the nineteenth century. Its default position on a number of key issues is Anglo-Catholic, not evangelical or Pentecostal. For this reason and a number of other reasons I would strongly disagree with your assertion that it is the proper way to be inclusive. (Cont'd)
The best use of the three-streams topology that I have encountered so far is found in The Way, the Truth, and the Life (see below). The GAFCON Theological Resource Group’s use of the three-streams topology is quite different from how the topology is used here in the United States. It for one thing does not equate that topology with the teaching of a particular movement and uses it as a descriptive model, not a prescriptive model.
ReplyDelete“Evangelical. Anglican orthodoxy is, first and foremost, evangelical. The Gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ – preached, believed and defended, is at the heart of the apostolic message….
Catholic. Secondly, Anglican orthodoxy is catholic, in the sense that it is universal, applicable to all mankind….Anglican orthodoxy is catholic in that it values the catholic creeds and the ecumenical Councils of the early Church, recognizing that these have provided a ‘rule of faith’ that is derived from Scripture. While honouring the creeds, Anglican orthodoxy also upholds the substance of the Protestant confessions, recognizing that they contain key insights into the truth of the Gospel. In particular, it offers the Articles of Religion as an abiding contribution to the wider Christian church, and claims them as normative for its members….
Charismatic. ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you’ (Acts 1:8). The Christian church from its very beginning is a charismatic church, waiting on God the Holy Spirit and ministering His gifts. While Anglicans have at times dismissed the manifestations of the Spirit as ‘enthusiasm’, and excluded movements like Methodism which sought to promote spiritual holiness, true Anglican orthodoxy recognizes that the presence and power of the Holy Spirit are essential to its life and mission….”