The Anglican Church in North America: A Bus Heading for the Precipice

By Robin G. Jordan

In his recent interview with Jacob Stubbs ACNA Archbishop Foley Beech equated Anglican confessionalism with the recitation of the Creeds. In making that statement, he expressed what may be described as a revisionist reinterpretation of Anglican confessionalism. Anglicanism is confessional because the Church of England adopted a Reformed confession of faith—the Articles of Religion of 1571, also known as the Thirty-Nine Articles. While the Thirty-Nine Articles are the shortest Reformed confession of faith, the Articles are nonetheless such a confession like the French Confession of Faith of 1559. As Richard Begbie points to our attention in The Anglican Faith: A Layman’s Guide (1993), the Creeds are not a complete statement of the truth. They “are not so much a statement of what we are to believe as what to believe on such doctrines as are included in them.”

The Thirty-Nine Articles sets out the positions of historic Anglicanism on a number of key issues. These issues are not just relevant to the Church in the sixteenth century, they are relevant to the Church today. The argument that the Church has moved on since the sixteenth century is intended to befuddle and confuse Anglicans and to persuade them that it is acceptable to adopt positions on such issues, which are different from those of the Articles.

The two groups who are likely to make this argument are Anglo-Catholics and liberals. Anglo-Catholics do not like the Articles because they are in their estimation too Protestant and Reformed. Liberals do not like them because they consider them too orthodox. Basically the two groups do not like the Articles for the same reason: the Articles do not countenance their particular beliefs and practices.

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group identifies Anglo-Catholicism and liberalism as the two major challenges to the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies today. Both Anglo-Catholics and liberals champion the idea of a “continuously developing Anglican tradition.” This evolving Anglican tradition naturally gives a prominent place to their own beliefs and practices and their championing of it is entirely self-serving.

Those who subscribe to “three-streams, one river” theology also embrace the idea of a “continuously developing Anglican tradition.” The evolution of the Anglican tradition that they champion replaces the via media model of the Anglican Church of the nineteenth and twentieth century with a new model in which the Anglican Church is portrayed as convergence of three disparate theological streams—Catholic, Evangelical, and Pentecostal, and a reconstruction of the pre-Great Schism Church of the eleventh century. This new model reduces evangelicalism to an emphasis upon the Scriptures and Pentecostalism to an emphasis upon the Holy Spirit and gives a central place to the beliefs and practices of Eastern Orthodoxy and pre-Reformation, post-Tridentian Roman Catholicism. It may be described as Anglo-Catholicism in a new guise.

The old Anglo-Catholicism, liberalism, and the new Anglo-Catholicism all collide head on with the doctrine of the Thirty-Nine Articles and ultimately with the teaching of the Scriptures. The proposed canons of the Church of England of 1571 maintain that without any doubt the Thirty-Nine Articles “are gathered out of the holy books of the old, and new Testament, and in all points agree with the heavenly doctrine contained in them.” Canon A2 of the present day canons of the Church of England states: “The Thirty-nine Articles are agreeable to the Word of God and may be assented unto with a good conscience by all members of the Church of England.”

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group in The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future (2008) states:

“While honouring the Creeds, Anglican orthodoxy also upholds the substance of the Protestant confessions, recognizing that they contain key insights into the truth of the gospel. In particular, it offers the Articles of Religion as an abiding contribution to the wider Christian church, and claims them as normative for its members.”

The 2008 GAFCON Conference in the Jerusalem Declaration states: “We uphold the Thirty-Nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s word and authoritative for Anglicans today.”

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group in Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today (2009) draw to our attention that the Thirty-Nine Articles “have long been recognized as the doctrinal standard of Anglicanism, alongside the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal.” It goes on to emphasize, “The authority of the Articles comes from their agreement with the teaching of Scripture.” It further emphasizes, “…acceptance of their authority is constitutive of Anglican identity.”

In North America we find old and new Anglo-Catholics in the Anglican Church in North America joining with liberals in the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church in their rejection of the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles. The Fundamental Declarations of the Anglican Church in North America equivocate in their acceptance of the Articles’ authority. To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism and Texts for Common Prayer, to which the ACNA College of Bishops has given its endorsement, are a repudiation of their authority and by extension the authority of the Scriptures. If the Articles are normative for Anglicans and form a critical element of Anglican identity, the GAFCON Primates were premature in recognizing the Anglican Church in North America as “a genuine expression of Anglicanism.”

One is forced to ask by what standard—the Thirty-Nine Articles? Or by the broader standard of the 1958 Lambeth Conference, which substituted the acceptance of the Creeds, a common structure for the Holy Eucharist, and the historic episcopate for the doctrine of The Book of Common Prayer of 1662 as a unifying principle for the Anglican Church and made no mention of the Articles. By this standard, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church could be viewed as “Anglican.” Even the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church can be considered to meet these criteria. They accepts the Creeds on paper, share a common structure for the Holy Eucharist, and retain the historic episcopate, albeit “locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.”

In their Letter of Commendation in the Introduction to To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism the bishops of the Anglican Church in North America maintain that the ACNA’s adherence to the Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888 is an adequate basis for the denomination’s claim to being Anglican. The Lambeth Quadrilateral was conceived as a foundation for re-union with the Roman Catholic Church, not as an outline of the essentials of Anglican identity. The Episcopal Church has made a similar claim. Under the four articles of the Lambeth Quadrilateral the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church could also be viewed as “Anglican.” The need for a more nuanced basis for Anglican identity, however, prompted the development of the Anglican Communion Covenant as well as the Jerusalem Declaration.

As Gillis J. Harp, professor of history at Garden City College, observed a number of years ago, Anglicanism in North America will not be on the road to recovery until it restores the Thirty-Nine Articles to their rightful place in the faith and life of the Anglican Church in Canada and the United States. As long as it fails to recognize the Articles for what they are—“a faithful testimony to the teaching of Scripture,” which excludes “erroneous beliefs and practices and gives “a distinct shape to Anglican Christianity,” it will continue on its present destructive course. In the Anglican Church in North America a new driver may have taken the wheel but the bus is stilling heading for the precipice.

In the same interview Archbishop Beech describes To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism as “missional.” “Missional” has become something of a buzzword in the twenty-first century. Its meaning varies with whoever is using it. From his statements Beech views the catechism as “missional” on the basis of Part I of that document. Part I takes a synergistic Arminian view of God and salvation and its presuppositions are not consistent with the faithful witness of the Articles to what the Scriptures teach. See Does the New ACNA Catechism Teach a Synergistic Arminian View of God and Salvation?

 From a Biblical and Reformed view Part I of To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism represents a questionable depiction of the way of salvation. For those who do not accept its presuppositions, Part I is far from “missional.”

As one examines To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism, one encounters repeated departures from the teaching of the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Anglican formularies or distortions of the same teaching and doctrine. One is prompted to ask how a catechism that repeatedly puts forward as the teaching of the Anglican Church what historic Anglicanism has viewed as false teaching serves the mission of a purportedly Anglican Church?

One also encounters sections of the catechism that permit those using the catechism to instruct inquirers in the unreformed Catholic beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. The same license is not extended to those who wish to instruct inquirers in the Protestant and Reformed beliefs of historic Anglicanism. Here again one is prompted to ask how a catechism that allows such teaching serves the mission of a purportedly Anglican Church?

The answer to both questions, of course, is that it does not.

In the interview Archbishop Beech identifies himself as an evangelical. He also claims that the Anglican Reformers and the late John Stott influenced his thinking. However, his promotion of To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism and Texts for Common Prayer belie these statements. The doctrine of both documents is clearly at odds with what the Anglican Reformers and John Stott believed in a number of critical areas. As my grandparents were fond of saying, “Actions speak louder than words.” One can say all kinds of things but if one’s actions do not line up with one’s words, what one says means nothing.

The actions of the ACNA College of Bishops have been speaking very loudly.  What its actions are saying is that the ACNA bishops reject Point 4 of the Jerusalem Declaration and other key points. In rejecting these points, they are rejecting GAFCON and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.

I am under no misapprehension that any of the GAFCON Primates read this blog. However, if any do, I would urge them to reconsider their recognition of the Anglican Church in North America and support a new initiative to establish an alternative jurisdiction to the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church, a jurisdiction which fully accepts the authority of the Scriptures and the Anglican formularies.

The Anglican Church in North America may not be kept from going over the edge of the cliff. North American Anglicanism does not have to plunge into the ravine with it.

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