How does the Anglican Church in North America really view the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans?

By Robin G. Jordan

In "Why I Ran to Confessionalism" Todd Pruit explains why he abandoned “big tent” evangelicalism for confessionalism. “A church, he points out, “needs more than a statement of faith that encompasses mere Christianity.” He goes on to give three reasons why he fled to a confessional church and denomination:

1. Only confessionalism is able to adequately guard a church’s doctrine….

2. Only confessionalism is able to adequately guard a church’s unity….

3. Confessionalism is properly aspirational….

Pruit points out that a confession of faith that “properly summarizes Scripture” equips “the church with not only a tool for instruction but a buttress against error.”

He writes:

Without a clear confession of faith a church will a) be ruled by whoever has the most influential voice or b) break into various camps holding mutually exclusive positions on important matters. What it will not have is durable unity.

He acknowledges an insight that he gained from Carl Trueman’s book, The Creedal Imperative:

Confessions of faith are not first and foremost defensive. Rather they represent the aspirations the church holds for its members.

He goes on to quote Truman:

[Confessions of faith] represent that which the church aspires to teach its members…If a church has a six-point creed or confession, she essentially communicates to her people that these six things, and only these, are important. Everything else is so minor that it forms no part of its identity….

Historic Anglicanism has its own confession of faith—the Articles of Religion of 1571, also known as the Thirty-Nine Articles. The Articles of Religion were intended to guard not only the doctrine of the Reformed Church of England but also the truth of the gospel itself. The Articles were further intended to guard the English Church’s unity. They were what the Church of England aspired would be the faith of its members.

The Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans believes that the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines their core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in the words of Canon A5 of the Church of England’s canons:

The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers nd Councils of the Church as are agreeable to said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is found in the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal.

The Book of Common Prayer referred to in Canon A5 is the 1662 Prayer Book and the Ordinal, the 1661 Ordinal. With the Thirty-Nine Articles and the two Books of Homilies, which the Articles commend, they form the historic formularies of the Church of England and its daughter churches.

The Jerusalem Statement and Declaration, adopted at the Jerusalem Conference in 2008 and reaffirmed at the Nairobi Conference this year, declares:

We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.

Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, the official GAFCON Theological Resource Group commentary on the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration, acknowledges that the Thirty-Nine Articles “have long been recognized as the doctrinal standard of Anglicanism, alongside the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal,” again a reference to the 1662 Prayer Book and the 1661 Ordinal. It points out:

The authority of the Articles comes from their agreement with the teaching of Scripture.

It goes on to point out that “acceptance of their authority is constitutive of Anglican identity.”

“The Jerusalem Declaration,” it further points out, “calls the Anglican Church back to the Articles as being a faithful testimony to the teaching of Scripture, excluding erroneous beliefs and practices and giving a distinctive shape to Anglican Christianity.”

While the Episcopal Church adopted its own version of the Thirty-Nine Articles, it never required its clergy to subscribe to these Articles. Episcopal clergy were not in any way bound to accept their doctrine.

In the 1920s the two dominant theological schools of thought in the Episcopal Church, the Anglo-Catholics and the Broad Churchmen, worked together to remove the Articles from the American Prayer Book. The movement would lose its steam with the adoption of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, which in its doctrine and usages conflicts with the Articles.

With the adoption of the 1979 Prayer Book the Episcopal Church would relegate the Articles to the historic documents section of that Prayer Book.

The Anglican Church in North America displays the same attitude toward the Thirty-Nine Articles as the Episcopal Church. The ACNA views the Articles as a relic of the past.

The Anglican Church in North America's constitution and canons use the language of equivocation in their acceptance of the authority of the Articles. The ACNA’s liturgical commission has produced a”theological lens” to guide its work, an ordinal, and eucharistic rites that show for this commission the Articles are not authoritative in the least. ACNA’s College of Bishops not only approved the three documents but also had input into their development.

The leaders of the Anglican Church in North America, like the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Wellby, it would appear, number the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans as one voice among many and dismiss its theological imperatives.