Looking Ahead to the New ACNA Catechism

By Robin G. Jordan

Google “ACNA Catechism” and your search will produce very little. The most recent article on the ACNA Catechism is one by Michael Heidt. It reports that the final draft of the catechism has been submitted to the ACNA College of Bishops for approval at their meeting in January 2014. Two paragraphs in this article caught my attention:

When asked by VOL if the proposed catechism is a "catholic document," Nelson replied that it was and felt that it represented a coming together of Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic teaching. "We are witnessing a vast amount of convergence. For example, I talked to an ACNA bishop who identifies himself as an Evangelical. For him, the Eucharist was central."

As a reflection of this perceived convergence between different schools of traditional Anglicanism, evangelical and catholic, Nelson thought the new catechism "intentionally avoided Reformation era arguments." However, this isn't at the expense of doctrine, claimed Nelson. "The weakness of previous versions (of the catechism) was a neglect of doctrinal content. We worked hard to shore that up."

Add to this statement that the draft ACNA Catechism is modeled on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, consists of 300 questions and answers, and has the support of Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholic leaning bishops in the ACNA, and you have some idea of what the catechism will be like.

As Gillis Harp and others have pointed out, those who talk in terms of convergence of doctrine are taking an oversimplified description of the mid-twentieth century Western Church and turning it into “a prescriptive theological ideal.” They are glossing over the significant theological differences between "opposed positions based upon different readings of Scripture." To achieve this kind of doctrinal synthesis, they mishandle Scripture. They are prone to “a simplistic and romantic view of the early church.” They are also prone to misunderstand the Protestant Reformation, to be cursory in summarizing it, to move quickly past it, or to ignore it altogether. They “mistakenly attribute the errors or distortions of nineteenth or twentieth-century evangelicals to the sixteenth century Reformers.” They also distort and caricature the position of the Anglican Reformers. (See Gillis Harp’s article, Navigating the “Three Streams” - Some Second Thoughts about a Popular Typology).

What is often described as doctrinal convergence upon close examination turns out to be accommodation to the Anglo-Catholic position on a key issue or acceptance of that position.

In my Google search I did come across a report on the June 2013 meeting of the ACNA College of Bishops and Provincial Council in which it was claimed that the ACNA Catechism was posted on the ACNA website’s resource page. The report was on Paul Hewitt’s Diocese of the Holy Cross website. The Diocese of the Holy Cross is affiliated with Forward in Faith and the Anglican Federation. I searched the ACNA website and found nothing. If it ever was posted on the resource page, it was quickly removed.

The Anglican Church in North America, however, is not likely to post the catechism on its website before the College of Bishops approves it. The ACNA kept its “theological lens,” ordinal, and eucharistic rites under wraps until the College of Bishops approved them. This reduced the likelihood of any group marshalling opposition to their approval. By the time these documents were made public, they were more or less a fait accompli.

Conservative evangelicals can anticipate that the ACNA Catechism, like the ACNA “theological lens,” ordinal, and eucharistic rites, will be Anglo-Catholic and moderately liberal in theology. The ACNA College of Bishops have yet to show themselves as being capable of guarding the gospel.