The Anglican Church in North America—an Alternative Jurisdiction Gone Awry

By Robin G. Jordan

As early as the last decade of the twentieth century if not earlier a growing number of people began to recognize the need for an alternative jurisdiction to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada in North America. Neither jurisdiction fully accepted the authority of the Scripture and the Anglican formularies, the Episcopal Church in part due to its particular history and both jurisdictions in part due to the influence of liberalism and Anglo-Catholicism.

The Episcopal Church from its 1789 Prayer Book on had deviated increasingly from the doctrine and liturgical usages of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. While the Episcopal Church had adopted the doctrinal provisions of the 1571 Articles of Religion in its 1804 revision of the Articles, it had not required clerical subscription to these provisions, leaving acceptance of the Articles’ authority to the consciences of individual clergy.

The Anglican Church of Canada from its 1958 Prayer Book on had also deviated from the 1662 Prayer Book’s doctrine and liturgical usages. The changes that the 1958 revision introduced into the Canadian Prayer Book showed that the bulk of Canadian Anglicans no longer took the Solemn Declaration of 1893 with any seriousness.

The so-called Decade of Evangelism revealed that neither jurisdiction had an appetite for church planting and evangelism. Many clergy and congregations in the Episcopal Church treated the Decade of Evangelism as a joke.

1999 saw the launching of the Anglican Mission in America. While initially committing itself to the full acceptance of the authority of the Scriptures and the Anglican formularies and the formation of a Missionary Anglican Province in North America in its Solemn Declaration and Proposed Constitution of 1999, it became all too evident by 2006 that this commitment was a paper one. What might have developed into an alternative jurisdiction to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada was derailed by the human failings of its leaders and the machinations of its Anglo-Catholic wing.

With the adoption of the Common Cause Theological Statement in 2007 the Common Cause Partnership, which would became the Anglican Church in North America, displayed clear partisan leanings. These leaning became even more evident with the Common Cause Leadership Council’s adoption of a provisional constitution and canons for the Anglican Church in North America in 2008. Those who called for a clearer affirmation of the Anglican formularies as the ACNA’s standard of doctrine and worship and other changes in the ACNA Fundamental Declarations were wrongfully accused of wanting to exclude Anglo-Catholics from the new jurisdiction.

A growing body of evidence, however, shows that Anglo-Catholics and those who share their views are ones who are seeking to exclude from the ACNA all Anglicans who faithfully adhere to the protestant and reformed principles of the Anglican Church based on the Scriptures and set out in her formularies. This body of evidence includes To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism and Texts for Common Prayer, both of which have been endorsed by the ACNA College of Bishops. Both documents show conclusively that the Anglican Church in North America does not fully accept the authority of the Scriptures and the Anglican formularies.

The same body of evidence points to the continuing need for an alternative jurisdiction to the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, an alternative jurisdiction that does fully accept the authority of the Scriptures and the Anglican formularies and is whole-heartedly committed to fulfilling the Great Commission in North America and beyond.