"But Are They Bible Christians?"

How the Anglican Church in North America Is Creating Obstacles to Its Own Growth  - Part 2

By Robin G. Jordan

Millenials are more likely than any other generation use their smart phones during church services to check the factual assertions that pastors make in their sermons. The pastor who makes frequent factual mistakes in his sermons quickly loses his credibility with this particular audience.

Millenial fact checking is not limited to sermons. Millenials are also more likely to research the assertions that denominations and their judicatories and congregations make on their websites as well as those that writers who represent a particular school of thought or special interest group in the denomination make in articles and other documents on the Internet.

Those who takes the time to research what a proponent of a particular view is claiming to be Anglican has a good chance of discovering that the claim is only one of a number of views held by Anglicans. It may be a view over which Anglicans themselves have been strongly divided. They are also likely to discover that Anglicans do not agree on the “orthodoxy” of the particular view.

Where the classic Anglican formularies are understood in their received sense, in the way that the Anglican Church understood them before the nineteenth century Tractarian movement and the Tractarians’ reinterpretation of the formularies in a “Catholic sense,” a particular view may be regarded as an innovation or corruption that is inconsistent with the Bible. Where weight is given to what the pre-Reformation Medieval Catholic Church believed, the same views may be regarded as thoroughly “orthodox.” Tractarian-turned-Roman Catholic John Henry Newman’s theory of doctrinal development may be used to explain away or rationalize any inconsistency with the Bible.

A province-in-formation like the Anglican Church in North America that is not open and truthful about the doctrinal differences that divide Anglicans on key issues runs the same risk as the pastor does not check his facts in preparing his sermon. The pastor is likely to raise a credibility barrier that will discourage people who visit his church from returning. The church may over time gain a reputation as a church that does not value the truth. The church’s public image will suffer and keep people away.

The doctrinal divide to which I am referring is the one that separates those who identify themselves as Anglican and who are Reformed or otherwise Protestant in their beliefs from those who identify themselves as Anglican and who are unreformed Catholic in their beliefs. The two groups of self-identified Anglicans interpret the Bible differently. They have divergent and even diametrically-opposed views on revelation, salvation, the sacraments, and other important issues.

Beginning with the constitution and canons that were adopted in 2009, the Anglican Church in North America has raised a number of doctrinal barriers that effectively prevent Christians who are Reformed or otherwise Protestant in their beliefs from becoming a part of the ACNA and maintaining and propagating their beliefs in the ACNA. These doctrinal barriers have another effect: they also keep such Christians who are already a part of the ACNA from maintaining and propagating their beliefs in that body and discourage them from remaining in the ACNA.

These doctrinal barriers act like a filter: they block what is perceived as undesirable element from entering the ACNA or remaining in the ACNA. This element is Protestant beliefs. This includes the Reformed doctrinal views articulated in the classic Anglican formularies and held by Anglicans in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, and elsewhere. The gifts, money, skills, and other resources of the people holding these beliefs may be welcome but not their beliefs. 

The same barriers convey the message that the ACNA is designed for people who are unreformed Catholic in their beliefs or open to unreformed Catholic beliefs. The province-in-formation has no room for people who are Protestant in their convictions. Only people who are willing to abandon those convictions are welcome.

As recognition of the ACNA’s intolerance of Protestants, Protestant Christianity, and evangelicalism becomes more widespread, it can be expected to impede the growth of the ACNA’s population base. If the ACNA leaders who adopted unreformed Catholic doctrine and practice are banking upon attracting people to the ACNA with this doctrine and practice, they may have miscalculated.

The Roman Catholic Church has not experienced significant growth in the United States since the late 1950s. The Roman Catholic Church is only growing in areas of the country where the Roman Catholic population is growing, more specifically the part of the Roman Catholic population that has not dropped out of that denomination over the sexual abuse scandals of the past few years and continues to regularly attend Mass and send children to parochial schools. In other areas of the country the Roman Catholic Church is consolidating or closing parishes and parochial schools. For the small trickle of high-profile evangelicals who have entered the Roman Catholic Church, a much larger torrent of Roman Catholics are leaving that denomination for evangelical churches.

The unreformed Catholic beliefs of the Continuing Anglican Churches have failed to help those bodies expand their population base. Their population bases are shrinking and they are shrinking with their population bases.

The Pentecostal denomination that is experiencing the most growth in the United States is basically Protestant and evangelical in its beliefs. This denomination is attracting a large number of Millenials. As missiologist Ed Stetzer has reported on his blog, only a tiny segment of the Millenial population is attracted to traditional, liturgical churches. He plans to publish his research.

I am curious whether Stetzer’s research shows what is attracting this segment—the ambience of these churches, their doctrine, their continuity with the past, or a combination of these factors. Its ambience has primarily attracted people to the Episcopal Church. Its ambience enabled the Episcopal Church to survive a major doctrinal shift that cost the denomination members, congregations, and dioceses. However, its ambience has not helped the denomination to recoup its losses, much less expand its population base.

The evidence suggests that ACNA leaders’ adoption of unreformed Catholic doctrine and practice has little to do with being outward-focused. Rather they appear to be playing favorites, indulging the preferences of special interest groups in the ACNA when they should have displayed non-preferential treatment.  They are clearly showing favoritism toward a particular segment of the ACNA. For example, the trial eucharistic rites and the catechism permit the teaching of Roman Catholic doctrine. They do not extend a similar license to the teaching of Reformed doctrine. This display of favoritism, of partisanship, itself creates an obstacle to the ACNA’s expansion of its population base.

At the present time the ACNA has a number of churches that identify themselves as Protestant and evangelical on their websites. They appear to be churches whose clergy and congregations are Reformed or otherwise Protestant in their beliefs. They also appear to be actively working to expand the ACNA’s population base. However, with each new doctrinal statement adopted by denominational leaders, it must become increasingly clear to these churches that their efforts on behalf of the denomination are not appreciated. They are expected to abandon their convictions and embrace the denomination’s official unreformed Catholic teaching. The new congregations they start are also expected to accept this teaching. Their incentive to plant what they believe are biblically orthodox, gospel-centered churches is evaporating. 

The clergy of these churches have friends outside of the Anglican Church in North America—clergy in other denominations, seminarians training for gospel ministry in these denominations, and young men discerning a call to gospel ministry. A number of people in this group, while they may not be acquainted with the clergy of a particular church are acquainted with its ministry. They are Reformed or otherwise Protestant in their beliefs. They are also attracted to liturgical forms of service that embody their beliefs. This group of gospel workers and future gospel workers may have gifts and skills that the ACNA needs to expand its population base. With each new doctrinal statement adopted by ACNA leaders, their incentive to become a part of the ACNA is also evaporating.

In the South Protestantism and evangelicalism have shaped popular perceptions of Roman Catholics. While the piety of individual Roman Catholics may be admired, the Christian profession of Roman Catholics as members of a particular denomination is viewed as flawed. Roman Catholics are seen as not fully accepting the teaching of the Bible in matters of faith and practice.

Episcopalians, like Roman Catholics, were not perceived as being genuine “Bible Christians” even before the ascendency of liberalism in the Episcopal Church. In a number of beliefs and practices the Episcopal Church too closely resembled the Roman Catholic Church.

In parts of the South such as Kentucky the Episcopal Church was strongly influenced by the nineteenth century Catholic Revival. Here in western Kentucky Episcopal churches are found only in communities that have a Roman Catholic church. The one exception has a Roman Catholic church in a neighboring community.

Episcopalians may attend Mass at the Roman Catholic church on occasion or have family members and relatives who regularly attend Mass at the Roman Catholic church. Roman Catholics form roughly 2% of the population in western Kentucky, Episcopalians less than 1%. Continuing Anglicans form an even tinier segment of the population.

One of the reasons Continuing Anglicans in western Kentucky have not succeeded in expanding their population base is they are also perceived as not being genuine “Bible Christians.” A visit to the one active Continuing Anglican church in the region supports that perception

The unreformed Catholic beliefs and practices that ACNA leaders are mandating or permitting in the Anglican Church in North America can be expected to foster a similar perception of Anglicans in that body not only in the South but also in other regions of the United States. They will not be looked on as being genuine “Bible Christians,” even those who are. While the unreformed Catholic beliefs and practices may attract a small number of people, they can be expected to keep a much larger group of people away.

The public image of the Anglican Church in North America as a denomination that is unreformed Catholic in doctrine and practice is going to hamper the ministry of ACNA churches that are Protestant and evangelical and which somehow manage to retain this identity in the face of pressure from the denomination and the judicatory to conform to the denomination’s official unreformed Catholic teaching. They will be confronted with similar public image problems to those that confront conservative Episcopal churches in a liberal denomination. These challenges will be particularly pronounced in regions like western Kentucky in which the religious ethos of the region is Protestant and evangelical and has shaped even the unchurched population’s views of what is authentic biblically-orthodox Christianity. 

The adoption of unreformed Catholic teaching by ACNA leaders as the denomination’s official teaching may be making the Anglo-Catholic-philo-Orthodox wing of the ACNA happy. However, its adoption is raising one barrier after another to the expansion of the population base of the Anglican Church in North America and to the maintenance of the denomination’s healthy, long-term growth. The ACNA will enjoy an initial growth spurt and then plateau. This may satisfy the Anglo-Catholic-philo-Orthodox wing of the ACNA. But it should not satisfy ACNA clergy and congregations with a serious commitment to the spread of the biblical gospel to the entire world and the making of disciples of all people groups. Only an expanding population base and healthy, long-term growth will enable the Anglican Church in North America to fulfill these dominical imperatives.

See also
How the Anglican Church in North America Is Creating Obstacles to Its Own Growth  - Part 1