By Robin G. Jordan
Archbishop Bob Duncan likes to portray the Anglican Church in North
America as a healthy young church. But is it?
If you use formal acceptance of the authority of the Bible and
the Anglican formularies and actual adherence to the teaching of the Bible and
the doctrine of the formularies as measures of the theological health of the
Anglican Church in North America, the ACNA is not a very healthy church. A
substantial number of the ACNA’s bishops and other clergy and its congregations
were exposed to the pernicious effects of the theological environment in the
Episcopal Church. They have not recovered from these effects. Indeed they are
recreating in the ACNA the same kind of theological environment.
At the present moment this environment may be free from the
more radical teaching that characterizes the theological environment in the
Episcopal Church. This makes it an even more dangerous environment because the
absence of this teaching lulls people in believing that it is a safe
environment. Quite to the contrary it is not safe at all.
The reluctance of perceptive church leaders to say anything,
much less do anything, is not helping. It is making the theological environment
in the Anglican Church in North America even more dangerous.
I have observed in the laity and even in the clergy in the
Anglican Church in North America a naïve trust in their leaders. This kind of trust contributed to the
present state of affairs in the Episcopal Church.
Church leaders are human. They are fallible. They make
mistakes. It is unwise and foolish to set them on a pedestal.
The English Reformers rejected the claim that the Bishop of
Rome had a special gift of the Holy Spirit. See An
homily concerning the coming down of the Holy Ghost for Whitsunday. Those
who claim that bishops have a special gift of the Holy Spirit are making a
claim that has no real basis in the Scriptures. Bishops are capable of making
errors in judgment and do make such errors. The Holy Spirit does not give to
them any greater powers of discernment than He gives to the rest of us.
The theological environment in the Anglican Church in North
America would have been healthier if the Common Cause Partnership had made a
serious commitment to acceptance of the authority of the Bible and the formularies
and to adherence to their teaching and insisted upon a similar commitment in
the constitution and canons of the new Anglican province in North America. This
would have provided the ACNA with a better foundation.
The failure of the Common Cause Roundtable and the Common
Cause Leadership Council to lay that kind of foundation shows a lack of such a
commitment in those who made up these bodies. A number of these individuals now
hold positions of leadership in the ACNA.
12 comments:
Moreover, ACNA is not growing like the leadership claims. I maintain an updated page on statistics on my blog and ACNA has lost six or so parishes since October.
Robin
FYI Both the Jerusalem Declaration and the 39 Articles are linked on the ACNA website contrary to what you have posited
Jordan,
The problem that the ACNA has been experiencing with congregations submitting their annual reports suggested to me that a number of congregations were reluctant to report these statistics because they were not growing.
As I see it, the ACNA is not going to experience genuine growth, spiritual as well as numerical, unless it makes a serious commitment to the proclamation of the New Testament gospel and undertake other much-needed reforms.
Where, David?
I checked the website before I made that statement. They were not prominently displayed on the Theology or Governance page or wherever else one might expect to find them. Please elucidate where in particular these links may be found on the website.
Even if the ACNA has links to the Jerusalem Declaration and the 39 Articles, it is no indication of the ACNA's commitment to these faith statements. The preponderance of evidence supports my observations that the ACNA's affirmation of the Jerusalem Declaration is cosmetic. The ACNA does not "uphold the 39 Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God's word and authoritative for Anglicans today."
The existence of links to the Jerusalem Declaration and the 39 Articles on the ACNA website also does not negate the validity of my assessment of the ACNA or weaken my credibility.
The link for the Jerusalem Declaration is found in the About section
The link for the 39 Articles is found in the Theology section
I was not and am not challenging your credibility just the fact concerning the links.
Your research and writing is thorough and fully Reformed, the conclusions you draw however in my opinion are not warranted. Perhaps the selection of the next Archbishop in June will allay your concerns.
David,
Whoever is in charge of the website needs to make the links more noticeable. I had to run my cursor down both pages to find them. They were not noticeable at a glance. I bold my links so that readers do not miss them. While I am not color-blind, some of my readers are.
I do not believe that a change in Archbishop would allay my concerns. Bob Duncan is not the only one making decisions in the ACNA. Some of the decisions that he made, he would not have been able to make if the College of Bishops had chosen not to go along with him.
If you have been reading my articles, I believe that you are aware that my concerns involve more than the leadership of one particular individual. They include the doctrine of the ACNA, its organizational structure, its organizational culture, its special interest groups, its disciplinary canons, and a wide range of issues. Bob Duncan's retirement and the selection of his successor will not necessarily lead to the major reforms needed in all these critical areas. The ACNA has a number of groups that have an investment in keeping things the way they are.
Consequently I do believe that my conclusions are warranted.
Thank you for telling me where to exactly find the links.
So, to which Anglican body in the United States would the author, or those in agreement with him, direct a worshiper? If the favored group does not have a local option, what do you recommend? The Episcopal Church? Some non-Anglican option?
Jim,
Denominations are like restaurant chains. In my area I may find a restaurant in a particular chain with great ambiance, food, and service. I may go on a trip and stop at another restaurant in the chain and discover to my disappointment the ambiance, food, and service are terrible.
A restaurant chain that has a good reputation and wants to maintain it, establishes standards for the entire chain and then takes steps to ensure that the restaurants in the chain maintain these standards. Customers may not find great ambiance, food, and service at every restaurant but they won't be disappointed.
As with restaurants, you may have to visit a number of churches until you find the right one. Here are some of things that I look for in a church:
Does the church give a central place to Bible?
Does the pastor preach the New Testament gospel?
Is the pastor sound in his exegesis of Scripture?
Is the church friendly and welcoming?
Does the church make a genuine effort to live lives befitting the gospel?
Does the church have small groups?
Are there opportunities for ministry?
Does the church help folks to grow as disciples of Jesus Christ? Does it help them to discover and develop their gifts?
Is the church impacting the community? Is it making a impact beyond the community?
Is the church making a serious effort to engage and reach unengaged,unreached people groups?
Is it involved in planting new churches?
Thanks, Robin, for the comment.
I am not actually looking for a local church with which to worship. I am grateful to God to find myself in a ACNA church, and it certainly hits all of the pointers you mention.
Your article states that the ACNA is, "a sick denomination." It seems to me to imply that all ACNA churches are beyond the pail of your own orthodoxy and a believer should go somewhere else. I am just curious as to where you think that might be?
From your response, and your list of criteria, I conclude that you would have a believer go to any other church, besides an ACNA church, that fits your criteria. Is that correct? Do you believe there are ANY valid Anglican options in the US or do you reject them all?
Jim,
The problem that a church that accepts the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies and adheres to the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine of the formularies faces in the Anglican Church in North America is the same problem that it would face if it was in The Episcopal Church.
Its clergy are forced to compromise their beliefs if they want to be licensed in the ACNA or TEC. The extent to which they must compromise their beliefs in the ACNA depends in part on the denomination and in part on the judicatory—the diocese or network in the ACNA in which they are seeking to be licensed. In TEC it depends largely on the diocese but that may change in the near future.
The ACNA’s Fundamental Declarations equivocate on accepting the authority of the Anglican formularies and take a partisan view of bishops over which Anglicans historically have been divided. The ACNA’s canons also take partisan views on a number of matters. They too are views over which Anglicans historically have been divided. For example, the canons refer to marriage as a sacrament; the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer refer to marriage as a state of life.
The ACNA’s ordinal makes a change in the preface of the 1662 Ordinal that reflects a partisan interpretation of the preface. It adds optional elements that express a partisan view of ordination, here again one over which Anglicans historically have been divided. It makes other alterations and additions that are departures from the doctrine and practices of the 1662 Ordinal. The 1662 Ordinal is an Anglican formulary along with the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Together they form the longstanding doctrinal standard of Anglicanism.
Texts for Common Prayer takes partisan doctrinal positions over which Anglicans historically have been divided.
The bishop of the diocese or network from whom the clergy are seeking to be licensed will take his own position on key issues and he will expect the clergy in his diocese or network to conform to this position.
In TEC clergy are expected to conform to the doctrine of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The bishop of the diocese will expect the clergy in his diocese to conform to his positions on key issues. The extent to which a bishop will require conformity in the ACNA and TEC will vary with the individual bishop.
The bishop of the diocese or network in the ACNA or the diocese in TEC may license a member of the clergy with the intention of converting the member of the clergy to the prevailing theology in his judicatory. The bishop will actively seek in various ways to influence and changes the views of that member of the clergy. If the member of the clergy is fresh out of seminary and newly ordained, the bishop pair him with a senior clergy member whose views the bishop trusts and who will mentor the new deacon or priest.
A member of the clergy must interact with the other clergy in the diocese or network in which he is licensed. They will exert all kinds of pressures on him to adopt the prevailing theology of the diocese or network and marginalize him if he does not. He also will need their cooperation on certain matters and they are likely to influence and change his views through cooperating with him or withholding their cooperation. If he is a vicar, he is dependent upon the diocesan synod or network council or diocesan convention for money. They can influence how the synod, council, or convention votes.
The clergy of a church that accepts the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies and adheres to the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine of the formularies have no guarantee that all the work they did in the church and the community will survive them. The bishop of the judicatory in the ACNA and TEC must be consulted in all appointments of clergy to a church—senior pastors, assistant pastors, and associate pastors. The bishop may refuse to approve the senior pastor that the church board calls or assistant pastors and associate pastors that the senior pastor hires. He may refuse to license them.
A church that accepts the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies and adheres to the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine of the formularies faces other challenges. The church may have difficulty calling a new senior pastor who shares the theological views of its present senior pastor. If the church is a mission, the bishop may make its continued support dependent upon its acceptance of a vicar who shares the theological views of the bishop. The bishop himself may meddle in the affairs of the church. The bishop decides who may attend seminary and what seminary they may attend. The bishop must also approve all new church plants.
Does the ACNA have any churches that accepts the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies and adheres to the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine of the formularies? At the present time the ACNA does have a number of such churches. However, the ACNA is moving in a direction that will make the above-described challenges even greater. I am not optimistic about the future of these churches in the ACNA. The theological environment in the ACNA is not one in which they can expect to flourish.
I have advocated that these churches network with each other and with similar churches outside of the ACNA. I also have urged the formation of an ecclesial network or body that is committed to the fulfillment of the great commission, accepts the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies, adheres to the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine of the formularies, and is not a part of the ACNA. When it became obvious to individual churches that they had no future in the ACNA, they could migrate to that network or body. I see that time coming in the not too distant future.
Do I recommend that someone join an ACNA church or seek licensing in the ACNA? At the present time I would recommend that they took a close look at the church they were considering joining and the diocese or network of which it is a part before they joined the church. If they are seeking to be licensed in the ACNA, I would recommend that they carefully study the diocese or network in which they are seeking to be licensed before seeking to be licensed in that diocese or network. In either case they will have to consider how much they would be compromising what they believe and whether they would be comfortable with compromising their beliefs to this extent. I would make the same recommendations if they were considering joining a church in any denomination or seeking to be licensed in any denomination.
I do offer this caveat. If they do go ahead and join the church or seek to be licensed, they should be prepared for two things to happen. They will over time abandon their convictions, adopt the prevailing theology of the ACNA, and become assimilated into that ecclesial body. Or they will be forced to leave the ACNA to protect their theological integrity. They are not going to be able to maintain their present beliefs in the ACNA.
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