The Anglican Church in North America - five years after GAFCON 2008

By Robin G. Jordan

The Anglican Church in North America has, in a space of five years, emerged as a politically and socially conservative version of The Episcopal Church. While the ACNA has distanced its from the more radical forms of liberal theology seen in TEC, the ACNA has not entirely abandoned liberal theology. This is particularly evident in the ACNA “theological lens,” the ACNA ordinal, and the ACNA eucharistic rites.

In the Anglican Church in North America Anglo-Catholicism is enjoying something of a resurgence. Before radical liberalism displaced it, Anglo-Catholicism was one of two dominant theological streams in The Episcopal Church. The other dominant theological stream was moderate liberalism. Both theological streams are discernible in the ACNA. Both Anglo-Catholicism and liberalism, Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, GAFCON’s official commentary on the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration, identifies as the two major challenges to the authority of the Anglican formularies and the Bible in the Anglican Communion in our time.

In their choice of language the ACNA Fundamental Declarations equivocate in their acceptance of the authority of the Anglican formularies. The ACNA ordinal and the ACNA eucharistic rites are modeled on that of the 1928 and 1979 TEC Prayer Books. Both Prayer Books evidence Anglo-Catholic and liberal influence. In some ways the ACNA ordinal and the ACNA eucharistic rites are more radical than the 1928 and 1979 TEC Prayer Books in the changes they introduce in the ordination and communion services.

Even though its bishops and other clergy played a major role in radical liberalism’s ascendency in The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church in North America gives its clergy, particularly its bishops, a large role in the governance of the church at all levels. The participation of the laity in the discussion and determination of major policy issues is limited. The College of Bishops has over the past 4 years usurped the authority of the Provincial Council to a large extent and supplanted the Council as the ACNA’s principal decision-making body. The Council is the official governing body of the province.

By its own reports the Anglican Church in North America is committed to the spread of the gospel and the planting of new churches. It is unclear, however, which gospel the ACNA is committed to spreading. More than one gospel is preached and taught in the ACNA. It is also unclear as to what extent ACNA congregations and clergy are committed to the province’s church planting vision. Observers both in and outside the ACNA point out to the small number of networks of congregations and clergy in the ACNA, which are active in evangelizing the unchurched and enfolding them in new churches.

The Anglican Church in North America is sponsoring a number of regional church planting conferences. Ostensibly this strategy is intended to facilitate attendance at church planting conferences, placing such conferences closer to local congregations and their clergy. What is notable about these conferences is their emphasis upon the practice of hiving-off the nucleus of a new church from an existing church as the standard and therefore preferred approach to planting a new church.

The practice of hiving-off a new church’s nucleus from an existing church has its drawbacks. It limits church planting to the fringes of areas where there are existing churches. The gospel is spread by a slow process of colonization. This practice also produces new churches that are clones of the church from which the nucleus was hived-off. Such new churches suffer from the problems and weakness of the church which provided their nucleus. If the church providing the nucleus of the new church is perpetuating false teaching so will the new church.

Attendees at ACNA regional church planting conferences must pay not only for the conference itself but also for the workshops they attend at the conference. A more cost-effective method and one which would reach a larger segment of the Anglican Church in North America would be to offer webinars and webcasts on evangelism and church planting.

The ACNA’s present approach does not suggest that the province is really serious about mobilizing its congregations and clergy in the service of the gospel. It is reminiscent of what was TEC’s approach in the past.

In its church planting efforts the Anglican Church in North America is also largely targeting population segments that have historically formed the traditional constituencies of The Episcopal Church.

One is prompted to wonder why the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans continues to support the Anglican Church in North America as the ACNA appears to be on a different page from the GFCA. Could it be that the GFCA is too embarrassed to admit that the ACNA is not what it hoped would emerge as a new province in North America? Could it be that the GFCA relies too heavily upon the reports of the ACNA hierarchy as to what is going on in that ecclesial body? What do you think?

Also see
The Nairobi Conference and Its Impact on the Anglican Church in North America
The Nairobi Communiqué and Commitment: How really serious is the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans?