Are You a Heritage Anglican? Then You’ll Want to Read this Article

By Robin G. Jordan

I ran across the phrase “heritage Anglican” in one of J. I. Packer’s articles or books. Packer used this phrase and another one to describe himself. Whether that description fits Packer today may be open to question. But it did fit him at the time. If I remember correctly, it was one of his earlier works.

In Reformed circles Packer lost credibility after he endorsed Catholics and Evangelicals Together in 1994. Reformed theologians like Michael Horton and R. C. Sproul have objected to its claims of theological agreement between Catholics and Evangelicals. They point to the fundamental division between Catholics and Evangelicals over the doctrine of sola fide, a doctrine which is distinctive of evangelical theology. The Roman Catholic Church condemned this doctrine at the Council of Trent and has never withdrawn its condemnation of the doctrine.

In serving as general editor of To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism and writing its introduction, Packer has lent the weight of his name to a document that teaches a blend of Arminianism and unreformed Catholicism and which permits the teaching of Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic doctrine. It is clearly at odds with the views that he has expounded in earlier works like Knowing God (1973), Growing in Christ (1977), Keep in Step with the Spirit (1984) and Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs (1993) or even later works such as Knowing Christianity (1995) and Truth & Power: The Place of Scripture in the Christian Life (1996).

Packer has also not publicly voiced any objections to the course that ACNA leaders have set for the denomination—away from the safe, well-marked channel of reformed Anglicanism onto the rocks and shoals of unreformed Catholicism. His contribution to To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism and his silence on the present direction of the ACNA  have further damaged his credibility.

What is dangerous about Packer’s silence is that it leads some reformed Anglicans in the ACNA into mistakenly believing that they have nothing to worry about. The reality is that they are in a very tight situation and they have good cause for concern. Packer has become something of a Judas goat. In stockyards, a Judas goat at one time led sheep to slaughter, while its own life was spared.

Packer’s seeming acquiescence to the direction in which ACNA leaders are taking the denomination should not discourage us from using the phrase “heritage Anglican” to describe those who are reformed Anglican. It is particularly apt in emphasizing that reformed Anglicans who are faithful to their convictions are the bearers of the real patrimony of the Anglican Church—its protestant, reformed, and evangelical character and its protestant and reformed principles based on the Scriptures and set out in the classical Anglican formularies.

I know from my contacts in the Anglican Church in North America, the denomination has an undetermined number of heritage Anglicans. They became a part of what would become the ACNA during the days of the Common Cause Partnership or later with their network of churches.

I am not going to say before the unreformed Catholic direction of the denomination became clear. The indications of the direction that ACNA leaders were taking the denomination were evident even then to those who paid attention to them.

At the time it may not have been clear to heritage Anglicans how sweeping ACNA leaders’ policy of exclusion of reformed Anglicanism would be. The ACNA bishops in their endorsement of the ACNA ordinal, catechism, and trial services of Morning and Evening Prayer and Holy Communion have left no doubt that this policy of exclusion extends to all areas of life and ministry in the denomination.

Heritage Anglicans have not so far voiced any objections to this policy of exclusion. Nor have they to my knowledge taken any steps to organize themselves in the event that they and their churches are forced to withdraw from the Anglican Church in North America. This suggests that they do not fully appreciate the seriousness of their predicament.

They may be clinging to the hope that the ACNA bishops will not rigorously enforce this policy of exclusion and they can maintain a marginal existence in the denomination.

Nothing in the constitution of the Anglican Church in North America guarantees heritage Anglicans the freedom to practice their protestant and reformed principles and to defend and propagate them. It contains no exemption for them from the use of a catechism and a liturgy or Prayer Book that does not uphold these principles.

If the form of unreformed Catholicism evident in To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism and Texts for Common Prayer is formally adopted as the official doctrine of the Anglican Church in North America, I do not see how heritage Anglicans can maintain even a precarious existence in the denomination.

I do not believe that heritage Anglican clergy are the Vicar of Bray type of clergy shifting like a weathercock with the wind that blows the strongest, placing ecclesiastical office before their convictions. Of course, I may be wrong. If that is indeed the case, then the state of North American Anglicanism is direr than I had thought.

The preponderance of evidence shows that the ACNA College of Bishops does not want heritage Anglicans in the Anglican Church in North America. The ACNA bishops have made no effort to show reformed Anglicans that they are welcome in the ACNA and that they have a place at the table. Rather the ACNA bishops have gone out of their way to show heritage Anglicans the door.

Having shown heritage Anglicans the door, the next step that the ACNA College of Bishops can be expected to take is to put a boot to their backsides and push them through it.