Does It Bother You....?

By Robin G. Jordan

On Tuesday I posted an article on why denying justification is a serious error. Historically two movements within the Anglican Church have denied justification. The first movement is the Anglo-Catholic movement; the second movement is the liberal movement. Both movements do not fully accept the authority of the Bible, much less that of the historic Anglican formularies. The latter include two Books of Homilies as well as the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1571, The Book of Common Prayer of 1662, and its Ordinal.

The Anglo-Catholic movement is strongly represented in the Anglican Church in North America and the other North American Continuing Anglican jurisdictions; the liberal movement in the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church in the USA. North America has no ecclesiastical entity that identifies itself as Anglican, which fully accepts the authority of the Bible and the Anglican formularies, and which upholds the doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.  Individual clergy and congregations in all of the aforementioned self-identified Anglican Churches may do so but not these bodies as a whole.

If the premise of the article is correct—and conservative Protestants, evangelical Anglicans, and Anglican evangelicals would maintain that it is, all these Anglican Churches are in serious error. It is a troubling thought. 

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