The Catholic Resurgence in the Anglican Church in North America

By Robin G. Jordan

Historically the Thirty Nine Articles serve four functions. First, they are meant to establish the theological identity of the Anglican Church. They were drawn up to support the Anglican Church’s claim to be “a true apostolic church, teaching and maintaining the doctrine of the apostles.” Second, the Articles are intended to make the truth of the gospel safe—to protect the gospel from being lost to the church again as it was lost to the church during the centuries leading up to the Reformation. Third, they are meant to protect the church from false teaching. They are also meant to provide doctrinal standards for the interpretation of the Prayer Book. Fourth, they are meant to set the boundaries of the comprehensiveness of the Anglican Church.

Those who question the relevance of the Thirty-Nine Articles to the contemporary Anglican Church and dismiss the Articles as a relic of the past typically subscribe to doctrines and practices that are outside the boundaries of the comprehensiveness that the Articles set. The arguments they make against accepting the authority of the Articles are entirely self-serving. The Articles represent a major obstacle to their aspirations. They are far from disinterested parties.

If they cannot persuade the rest of the church to accept their claims that the Thirty-Nine Articles are no longer authoritative for Anglicans today, they may adopt the stratagem of interpreting the Articles in a way that disconnects them from their historical context and the intent of their authors. The Articles are claimed to sanction doctrines and practices that they do not sanction. This reinterpretation of the Articles has the effect of weakening their authority.

If they establish a large enough following in the church, its existence will also serve to weaken the authority of the Articles. Acceptance of their authority will become a cause for controversy, which will also have that effect.

Wherever the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles has been eroded (or, in the case of the Episcopal Church, never accepted), the Anglican Church has exchanged its theological identity for something else; the gospel has been obscured and even lost again; and false teaching has flourished. The limits of historic Anglican comprehensiveness have been ignored.

In the twenty-first century the major challenge to the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles comes from three quarters. The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future identifies two direction from which this challenge is coming—Anglo-Catholicism and liberalism. Since the second half of the twentieth century a major challenge to the authority of the Articles has been coming from a third direction—the theology of the convergence movement.

The theology of the convergence movement suffers the same weaknesses as the theology of the charismatic movement of which the convergence movement is an offshoot. In Keeping in Step with the Spirit J. I. Packer points out these weaknesses:

Charimatic theology by comparison looks loose, erratic, and naïve, and the movement’s tolerance of variations. Particular when these are backed by “prophecies” received through prayer, suggests a commitment to given truth in Scripture that is altogether too fragile.

In “Navigating the Three Streams: Some Second Thoughts about a Popular Typology” and “Revisiting the Three Streams” Gillis Harp has drawn attention to the problematic way in which leaders in the convergence movement interpret the Scriptures.

The emphasis of the convergence movement upon piety and practice over theological reflection mirrors the charismatic movement’s interest in the reanimation of inherited doctrinal and devotional traditions. An outgrowth of this development is a fascination with the early and Medieval churches which does not take into account that a number of the doctrines and practices of these churches have no real basis in the Scriptures. Unreformed Catholic doctrine and practice has come to increasingly dominate the thinking of the convergence movement.

The convergence movement also displays an aversion to the Reformation and Reformation theology. This may be attributed to the Reformation’s emphasis upon the primacy of the authority of the Bible as God’s Word written in matters of faith and practice; the submission of all thought, including prophecies, or special revelations, from the Holy Spirit, to the Scriptures; the use of Scripture and reason in the interpretation of Scripture; and the importance of the purity of doctrine and the consequent need for precision and care in its explication.

At the Reformation the Reformed Churches also rejected a substantial number of the practices and associated beliefs to which those connected with the convergence movement are attracted. The Reformed Churches rejected these practices and beliefs because they were not found in Scripture or they were not agreeable to Scripture. In embracing these practices and beliefs, those connected with the convergence movement give more weight to church tradition than Scripture.

The influence of convergence theology is quite evident in the Anglican Church in North America as is the influence of Anglo-Catholic theology. Their influence is discernible in ACNA’s Fundamental Declarations, its canons, its “theological lens,” its ordinal, and its trial eucharistic rites.

Compare what the ACNA’s Fundamental Declarations say about the Thirty-Nine Articles with what the Jerusalem Declaration says. The Fundamental Declarations identifies “seven elements as characteristic of the Anglican Way, and essential for membership.” It identifies the Articles as one of these elements:

We receive the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571, taken in their literal and grammatical sense, as expressing the Anglican response to certain doctrinal issues controverted at that time, and as expressing fundamental principles of authentic Anglican belief.

Anglo-Catholics were quick to see in the Fundamental Declarations’ use of the phrase “…taken in their literal and grammatical sense…” affirmation of John Henry Newman’s reinterpretation of the Thirty-Nine Articles in a Romeward direction. Newman contended that this phrase in the Royal Declaration of Charles I prefixed to the Articles “relieves us from the necessity of making the known opinions of the framers a comment upon the text.” In interpreting the Articles we are free to disregard the original historical context and the original authorial intent.

The phrase “…expressing the Anglican response to certain doctrinal issues controverted at that time…” implies that these doctrinal issues are no longer the focus of theological dispute and have since the sixteenth century been settled. The resolution of these past controversies was not necessarily in favor of the positions taken in the Articles.

The phrase, “…expressing fundamental principles of authentic Anglican belief…” was originally “expressing the fundamental principles of authentic Anglican belief…” but “the” was dropped. Its omission changes the entire meaning of the phrase. The phrase infers that what are contained in the Articles are only some principles of authentic Anglican belief. Others exist outside of the Articles. Where these principles may be found is not identified.

With its particular choice of language the Fundamental Declarations evade any actual acceptance of the authority of the Thirty-Articles, effectively dismissing the Articles as a relic of the past. The Articles are noticeably missing from the Anglican Church in North America’s website.

The Jerusalem Declaration, on the other hand, declares the acceptance of the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles as one of the tenets of orthodoxy underpinning Anglican identity:

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

As Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today points out, the Thirty-Nine Articles are authoritative because they are in agreement with the Scriptures. The authority of the Articles is not the equivalent of the authority of the Scriptures. It is the authority of the Scriptures. Acceptance of the authority of the Articles forms an essential part of Anglican identity.

The failure of the Anglican Church in North America to genuinely accept the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles is one of a number of critical differences between the ACNA and the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. With the passage of time these differences will become more evident to Anglicans outside of North America.

The Episcopal Church has never accepted the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles. While it adopted a revision of the Articles in 1801, it never required clerical subscription to these revised Articles. Anglo-Catholic and Broad Church elements in the Episcopal Church sought to remove the Articles from the back of the American Prayer Book in the 1920s. The Articles were relegated to the historical section of the American Prayer Book in the 1970s. The attitudes of the Episcopal Church toward the Articles have helped to shape the attitudes of the present leaders of the Anglican Church in North America toward Anglicanism’ confession of faith. They are for the most part former Episcopalians.

The presence of these attitudes toward the Thirty-Nine Articles in the Anglican Church in North America; the lack of familiarity, respect, and approval for the doctrine and liturgical usages of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the 1661 Ordinal in the ACNA, and the degree to which Anglo-Catholic theology and convergence theology are prevalent in the ACNA go a long way in explaining why the ACNA has produced an ordinal and trial eucharistic rites that are not consistent with the Bible and the Anglican formularies. Rather they give expression to unreformed Catholic doctrine and sanction practices associated with this doctrine. What is being lost in this resurgence of unreformed Catholicism in the ACNA is the gospel and a faith and worship firmly grounded in the Word of God—Anglicanism’s true patrimony.