The Gospel Imperiled in North America

Beyond Liberalism's Challenge to the Authority of the Bible and the Anglican Formularies

By Robin G. Jordan

In the nineteenth century Tractarian Movement leader Edward Bouvrie Pusey propound the theory that Anglicanism (as he understood it) comprised the third great branch of Catholicism. In his theory Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism comprised the other two great branches of the Catholic tradition. To support his theory Pusey distorted and misrepresented the history of the Christian Church in the British Isles. Pusey would fall into the trap of believing his own theory as would his followers. Critics of Pusey’s views labeled them “Puseyism” and his followers “Puseyites.”

John Henry Newman, Tractrian Movement leader and Pusey’s predecessor, concluded that the theory of Anglicanism as a third great branch of Catholicism was untenable. He recognized that the main Catholic tradition in the British Isles since the Anglo-Saxon conquest of the British Isles was Roman. It would supplant the earlier Catholicism of the indigenous Celtic Church, which, like the Gallican Church in France and the Roman Church in Italy, was a branch of the Western Church. This is one of the reasons that he would convert to Roman Catholicism.

Pusey’s theory may be described as a form of cognitive distortion which enabled him and his followers to stay in the Church of England instead of following Newman into the Roman Catholic Church. It has its proponents in the Anglican Church in North America as it had in the Episcopal Church.

Since the sixteenth century the Church of England has been a Protestant Church. The Church of England became a Protestant Church with the death of Henry VIII and the reforms of his son Edward VI. Henry VIII had abolished papal authority over the English Church during his reign and reasserted the ancient independence of the Church in the British Isles. However, he had permitted very few reforms. After a brief hiatus during the reign of Edward VI’s older sister Mary the Church of England would again become a Protestant Church upon the ascension of Mary’s younger sister Elizabeth to the English throne. The Royal Coronation Oath Act laid to rest any doubts as to the character of the Church of England in 1688. It was Protestant and Reformed.

The English Reformation did more than rid the English Church of late Medieval abuses and provide the English people with a Bible and a liturgy in a language that they understood. It restored the Bible to its rightful place as the final authority in all matters of faith and practice. Church tradition would be submitted to Scripture. It would no longer be used as a lens through which Scripture was viewed and interpreted, thereby taking the place of Scripture in such matters. Most importantly, it led to the recovery of the gospel of justification by faith alone in Christ lone so long lost to the English Church. The Thirty-Nine Articles would be adopted to keep the gospel from being lost again.

In the United States and Canada, in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada and more recently in the Continuing Anglican Churches and the Anglican Church in North America, Anglo-Catholics have promoted the theory that the Anglican Church is Catholic. Contemporary Anglo-Catholics include those who views have been shaped by the twentieth century Convergence and Ancient Future worship renewal movements, as well as those whose views have been shaped by the nineteenth century Tractarian and Ritualist movements. North Americans in these churches have bought into this theory to such extent that they erroneously view themselves as Catholics and are uncomfortable with the label “Protestant.”

Despite the efforts of Anglo-Catholics to change its identity, the Anglican Church is essentially a Protestant Church. The Jerusalem Statement and Declaration affirms the Protestant Reformed character of authentic historic Anglicanism. Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today,the official GAFCON Theological Resource Group commentary on the Jerusalem Statement and Declaration, asserts that acceptance of the authority of the Protestant Reformed Thirty-Nine Articles is “constitutive of Anglican identity.”

This explains in part the unwillingness of Anglo-Catholics to make room for conservative Evangelicals and their beliefs and practices in the Anglican Church in North America. Conservative Evangelicals represent a threat to the illusion that Anglo-Catholics seek to maintain—the illusion that the Anglican Church is Catholic. Conservative Evangelicals, after all, stand more than any group of Anglicans in continuity with the English Reformers and adhere more than any such group to the doctrine of the Anglican formularies. Make room for conservative Evangelicals and the illusion that Anglo-Catholics have created and struggle to maintain will come crashing down. To keep them out Anglo-Catholics pushed the adoption of a constitution and a set of canons that would be objectionable to the more conscientious and more conservative of the Evangelicals. To shore up the illusion they pushed the adoption of an ordinal and eucharistic rites that are more Catholic in their theology and liturgical usages than any previous ordinal and eucharistic rites in North America, except perhaps for the ordinals and eucharistic rites used in the Anglo-Catholic Continuing Anglican Churches.

With the theory that the Anglican Church is Catholic, Anglo-Catholics have promoted all kinds of doctrines and practices that the English Reformers rejected at the time of the Reformation on Scriptural grounds or which, if they originated in more recent times, are inconsistent with the Bible and the Anglican formularies. The nineteenth century Ritualists, for example, introduced nineteenth century Roman Catholic doctrines and practices into their dioceses and parishes in the Church of England. They made the spurious claim that if the English Reformation had not occurred, these doctrines and practices would be the doctrines and practices of the English Church. It was their intention to so Catholicize the Church of England that the Pope would recognize their orders and readmit the Church of England to the Roman fold. They even secretly underwent re-ordination after the Pope declared Anglican orders invalid.

What was recovered at the English Reformation is in very real danger of being lost again in North American Anglicanism. As a result of the kinds of doctrines and practices that Anglo-Catholics have promoted the gospel has become forgotten or unknown in a number of churches. In its place “a different gospel” is preached and taught.

A number of Evangelicals were a part of the Common Cause Partnership and became a part of the Anglican Church in North America at its formation. These Evangelicals at first resisted and then acquiesced to the objectionable provisions of the constitution and canons, thinking that they might over time introduce changes in these documents. A number of Evngelicals have become a part of the Anglican Church in North America under protocols between the ACNA and two global South Anglican provinces—Nigeria and Rwanda. These two groups find themselves in a difficult situation. They increasingly find themselves put in the position of further compromising their Evangelical beliefs and practices. They are faced with an uncertain future. They have no assurance that the work that they have done to further the gospel will not at a later date be undone by an Anglo-Catholic bishop or priest. The Anglo-Catholics are also doing whatever they can to make it difficult to retain an Evangelical identity and maintain an Evangelical ministry in the Anglican Church in North America. This is exactly what the liberals did and continue to do in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

With the Nairobi Communiqué and Commitment the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans shifted its focus from North America to the British Isles. This shift, while necessitated by developments in the Church of England, is premature. The challenge to the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies and with this challenge the need for intervention in North America has not gone away. This has taken a new form in the Anglican Church in North America. This new form is really an old one—Anglo-Catholicism. It was the main challenge to the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies in the Episcopal Church until liberalism supplanted it. If the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is serious about guarding the gospel, it cannot ignore this development.