The Draft Preface to the Proposed ACNA Rite of Confirmation: An Evaluation

By Robin G. Jordan

“At that moment the fingers of a man’s hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the king’s palace wall next to the lampstand. As the king watched the hand that was writing, his face turned pale, and his thoughts so terrified him that his hip joints shook and his knees knocked together.” Daniel 5:5-7, HCSB

At its January meeting in sunny Orlando, Florida, the site of Disney World, the Anglican Church in North America’s College of Bishops endorsed the draft preface for the ACNA rite of Confirmation, proposed by the Bishops Review Committee. The draft preface is further proof of the strong Anglo-Catholic-philo-Orthodox leanings of the College of Bishops.

The GAFCON Theological Resource Group document, The Way, the Truth, and the Life: Theological Resources for a Pilgrimage to a Global Anglican Future, identifies Anglo-Catholicism along with liberalism as undermining the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies in the Anglican Church since the nineteenth century. Like Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and liberalism, Anglo-Catholicism does not fully accept the Holy Scriptures as the canon or functional rule of Christian faith and life. Consequently, to use the words of the Anglican Church in North America's own J. I. Packer, their Christian profession, however sincere, is thereby flawed."

The draft preface claims that Confirmation is evident in the Scriptures on the basis on Acts 8:14-17, 19:6. The preface of rite of Confirmation in the ill-fated 1928 Proposed English Prayer Book made a similar claim. The English Parliament twice rejected the book due to its strong Anglo-Catholic tone. With this claim the draft preface implies that Confirmation is a biblical ordinance, a view of Confirmation that J.I. Packer has described as a “medieval mistake” along with the view that Confirmation is a sacrament.

Note how the draft preface, having asserted that “Anglicanism require a public and personal profession of the Faith from every adult believer in Jesus Christ,” proceeds to negate that view of Confirmation in the next sentence and the second paragraph.

In its second paragraph the draft preface infers that Confirmation is a sacrament:

In Confirmation, God, through the bishop’s prayer for daily increase in the Holy Spirit, strengthens the believer for Christian life in the service of Christ and his kingdom.

Note the similarity between this statement and a statement describing the eucharistic celebration in the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law:

899 §1. The eucharistic celebration is the action of Christ himself and the Church. In it, Christ the Lord, through the ministry of the priest, offers himself, substantially present under the species of bread and wine, to God the Father and gives himself as spiritual food to the faithful united with his offering.

Compare the second paragraph of the draft preface with Canon 879 in the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law.

The sacrament of confirmation strengthens the baptized and obliges them more firmly to be witnesses of Christ by word and deed and to spread and defend the faith. It imprints a character, enriches by the gift of the Holy Spirit the baptized continuing on the path of Christian initiation, and binds them more perfectly to the Church.

And Section 1285 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Baptism, the Eucharist, and the sacrament of Confirmation together constitute the "sacraments of Christian initiation," whose unity must be safeguarded. It must be explained to the faithful that the reception of the sacrament of Confirmation is necessary for the completion of baptismal grace. For "by the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptized] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed."

And Sections 1302, 1303, 1304,and 1305 of the same document:

1302 It is evident from its celebration that the effect of the sacrament of Confirmation is the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost.

1303 From this fact, Confirmation brings an increase and deepening of baptismal grace:

- it roots us more deeply in the divine filiation which makes us cry,"Abba! Father!";
- it unites us more firmly to Christ;
- it increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us;
- it renders our bond with the Church more perfect;
- it gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ, to confess the name of Christ boldly, and never to be ashamed of the Cross:

Recall then that you have received the spiritual seal, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of right judgment and courage, the spirit of knowledge and reverence, the spirit of holy fear in God's presence. Guard what you have received. God the Father has marked you with his sign; Christ the Lord has confirmed you and has placed his pledge, the Spirit, in your hearts.

1304 Like Baptism which it completes, Confirmation is given only once, for it too imprints on the soul an indelible spiritual mark, the "character," which is the sign that Jesus Christ has marked a Christian with the seal of his Spirit by clothing him with power from on high so that he may be his witness.

1305 This "character" perfects the common priesthood of the faithful, received in Baptism, and "the confirmed person receives the power to profess faith in Christ publicly and as it were officially (quasi ex officio)."

1316 Confirmation perfects Baptismal grace; it is the sacrament which gives the Holy Spirit in order to root us more deeply in the divine filiation, incorporate us more firmly into Christ, strengthen our bond with the Church, associate us more closely with her mission, and help us bear witness to the Christian faith in words accompanied by deeds.

Note that Section 1315 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church infers that Confirmation is a biblical ordinance, as does the first paragraph of the draft preface.

1315 "Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit; for it had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8:14-17)

By its choice of language the second paragraph of the draft preface implies that the Holy Spirit is given at Confirmation, which conflicts with the claim of To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism that the Holy Spirit is given at Baptism. It reveals a tendency in the ACNA’s rite of Confirmation to cling to the Anglo-Catholic view that Christian initiation is a two-stage process and Confirmation is the sacrament by which the Holy Spirit is conferred.

For an indepth examination of the development of the rite of Confirmation, the English Reformers’ rejection of the rite as both a biblical ordinance and a sacrament, and the Anglo-Catholic movement’s efforts to reintroduce the pre-Reformation medieval Catholic view of the rite into the Anglican Church and to promote other erroneous beliefs about the rite, see my article, “An Anglican Prayer Book (2008): The Catechism and the Order of Confirmation.”

It would be helpful to state here what the two earliest Anglican formularies say about Confirmation--first, the Book of Homilies and then the Articles of Religion.

Of common prayer and sacraments in common tongue

And, although there are retained by the order of the Church of England, besides these two, certain other rites and ceremonies about the Institution of Ministers in the Church, Matrimony, Confirmation of children by examining them of their knowledge in the Articles of the Faith and joining thereto the prayers of the Church for them, and likewise for Visitation of the Sick; yet no man ought to take these for Sacraments in such signification and meaning as the Sacrament of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are, but either for godly states of life, necessary in Christ’s Church, and therefore worthy to be set forth by public action and solemnity by the ministry of the Church , or else judged to be such ordinances as may make for the instruction, comfort, and edification of Christ’s Church.

In this passage the term "ordinances" is used in the sense of prescribed usages, practices, or ceremonies. In the rite of Confirmation those who have been examined in regards to their knowledge of the Christian faith receive the “the prayers of the Church,” not the bishop. The bishop serves as the tongue of the local church—“the congregation of faithful men,” and as representative of the larger Church.

XXV. Of the Sacraments

Those five commonly called Sacraments, that is to say, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and extreme Unction, are not to be counted for Sacraments of the Gospel, being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the Apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures; but yet have not like nature of Sacraments with Baptism, and the Lord's Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained of God.

Confirmation is not“a sacrament of the Church.” It is not a lesser sacrament or even a "sacramental rite." It is a rite that has “in part developed from a false understanding of apostolic practice” as the late Philip Edgcumbe Hughes put it. Or as I have already mentioned, the notion that Confirmation is a biblical ordinance and a sacrament is in Packer’s words “a medieval mistake.”

For those who may be unfamiliar with Philip Edgcumbe Hughes and his works, Hughes was an evangelical Anglican Bible scholar and theologian and editor of the Church Society’s journal, The Churchman. Among his books are Theology of the English Reformers; Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians: The English Text with Introduction, Exposition and Notes; A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews; Faith and Works: Cranmer and Hooker on Justification; and The Book of the Revelation: A Commentary. Among his articles are The Doctrine of Justification as Taught by the English Reformers (Churchman 76/3 1962), Preaching, Homilies, and Prophesyings in Sixteenth Century England (Churchman 89/1 1975), and The Reformers' View of Inspiration (Churchman 111/4 1997).

The draft preface, like everything that the College of Bishops has endorsed to date shows not only bishops’ evident partiality toward unreformed Catholicism but also their negligible commitment to genuine Biblical Christianity and authentic historic Anglicanism. It also contributes to the growing body of evidence that the bishops are not willing to make room in the Anglican Church in North America for clergy and congregations that are not Anglo-Catholic or philo-Orthodox in their opinions. They are intent upon excluding from that denomination congregations and clergy who adhere wholeheartedly to the teaching of the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Anglican formularies and who desire to maintain the Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical character of the Anglican Church, which is based on Scripture and is expressed in the Anglican formularies. Whatever they are guarding, it is not the apostolic faith that the New Testament writers and the English Reformers sought to preserve and pass on to future generations.

While my assessment may sound harsh to some ears, I do not believe that I am making an unfair assessment in suggesting that evangelical Anglicans committed to defending and upholding the Protestant and Reformed principles of the Anglican Church, based on Scripture and articulated in the Anglican formularies, are engaging in delusional thinking if they believe that they can affect change in the Anglican Church in North America. The handwriting is on the wall.  None of the rites and services that the College of Bishops has endorsed to date contain provisions such as alternative texts, services, and rites and rubrics permitting omission of unacceptable practices, which would make these rites and services more palatable to conservative evangelicals. The rites and services clearly favor the doctrine and practices of Anglo-Catholic-philo-Orthodox element in the denomination and those who hold similar opinions. The catechism that the College of Bishops also endorsed conflicts with the teaching of the Scriptures and doctrine of the Anglican formularies in a number of key areas, teaches an unreformed form of Catholicism, and permits the teaching of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox doctrine. The catechism does not extend a similar license to the teaching of Protestant and Reformed doctrine.

A pressing need exists in North America for a second alternative province to the Anglican Church of Canada and The Episcopal Church, a province that, unlike the Anglican Church in North America, is wholehearted in its adherence to the teaching of the Scriptures and the doctrine of the Anglican formularies and is unreserved in its commitment to the Anglican Church’s Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical heritage. What better way to start the new year than to take the first steps to making this second alternative province a reality. Rather than funding Archbishop Foley Beach’s overseas junkets to promote the Anglican Church in North America, a better investment would be the establishment of a new North American Anglican province that is faithful to the Bible and the English Reformation.