"A journey of thousand miles begins with a single step" - Laozi
By Robin G. Jordan
Any movement for the formation of a second province within
the Anglican Church in North America, a province whose doctrinal foundation is
firmly grounded in the Holy Scriptures and the Anglican formularies and which
has its own constitution, canons, ordinal, service book, catechism, bishops,
and synodical government, will face a number of obstacles. The biggest hurdle
that its proponents must overcome is themselves and their own hesitancy.
However, unless they seize the initiative, nothing is going to happen.
The Anglo-Catholic - philo-Orthodox leaders who presently
occupy the place of power in the Anglican Church in North America have no
motivation to introduce the kind of reforms that would officially make room in the
denomination for an Evangelical – low-church wing committed to the Protestant
and Reformed doctrine and principles of the Anglican formularies, reforms in
the doctrinal foundation of the denomination, its organizational structure and
form of government, its ordinal, service book, and catechism. They are not
under any external or internal pressure to undertake such reforms. They see no
benefit for themselves in reforms of this type.
Any movement for a second province in the Anglican Church in
North America will face opposition. There are always those who have an
investment in the status quo and are not open to any kind of change, even
change that over the long haul will greatly benefit the denomination. However,
it will be the kind of opposition that is not likely to generate sympathy for
those who oppose the second province movement.
The Anglo-Catholic – philo-Orthodox wing of the Anglican
Church in North America is selfishly seeking to impose upon the denomination
the teaching and practices that it espouses rather than pursuing a policy of
comprehension which generously provides space for all schools of Anglican
thought represented in the denomination. It has put in place an organizational
structure and form of government which enables it to do so. Taking steps to
suppress a movement that seeks to gain official standing in the denomination
for what the English Reformers and generations of Anglicans have believed and
valued and still believe and value and
to establish a more synodical form of government is not going to generate
sympathy from Evangelicals in the provinces and dioceses of the Anglican
Communion and in Anglican entities outside of the Communion.
What I anticipate is that those opposing the movement will
initially seek to marshal opinion in and outside the Anglican Church in North America against the movement,
labeling its proponents as divisive and calling for denominational unity. What
will go unsaid is that such unity will require embracing unreformed Catholic
teaching and practices and an organizational structure and form of government
that is closer to that of a sub-unit of the Roman Catholic Church than it is to
a province of the Anglican Communion, an organizational structure and form of
government which permits one ecclesiastic party to dominate the system at all
levels, determining official doctrine, vetting or approving who may be seated
on the episcopal bench, and otherwise shaping the denomination to its liking. The
specter of liberalism may be raised, accompanied by a call for renewed
solidarity against this bogeyman.
If the opponents of the second province movement take more
aggressive steps to suppress the movement, they are going to draw unwanted
attention to themselves and their motivations.
The similarity between the movement’s opponents and the Episcopal Church’s
oppressive leaders will not escape the astute observer.
What I am not expecting is a frank admission from opponents
of the movement that they themselves are responsible for the state of affairs
in the Anglican Church in North America. What they fear most is that control of
the denomination will slip from their grasp.
I also anticipate that a second province movement and the
opposition that it faces will dispel a lot of the illusions that members of the
Anglican Church in North America and outsiders have in regards to the
denomination. Their disappearance will enable ACNA members and outsiders to make
an honest assessment of the denomination’s doctrinal foundation, organizational
structure, form of government, ordinal, service book, and catechism and their
undeniable partisan character. They will
be confronted with the incontrovertible fact that one wing of the denomination,
whatever its reasons, is seeking to impose its agenda on the rest of the
denomination to the point of marginalizing the denomination’s other wings. This is occurring in a denomination that
was formed in response to the exclusion that the different groups comprising
the denomination experienced in the Episcopal Church, a denomination which
was to provide an environment in which all the excluded groups could flourish and
in which the narrow interests of one group would not dominate their common life and ministry.
Among the benefits of the formation within the Anglican
Church in North America of a second province of the type that I have been
describing is that it would be a major step toward the creation of such an
environment.
A second benefit of its formation would be, as I pointed out
in yesterday’s article, that it would secure a future for the Evangelical-
low-church wing of the denomination (and I would add, for other marginalized
groups in the denomination as well) and would provide a boost to their church
planting and evangelism efforts.
A third benefit would be that it would make the Anglican
Church in North America more attractive to Evangelicals and other Protestant
Christians who, while drawn to the Anglican Prayer Book tradition and liturgical
forms of worship, are turned off by the denomination’s doctrine, organizational
structure, and form of government. The Anglican Church in North America could
greatly benefit from an inflow of such Christians, congregations and clergy, particularly
those who have church planting and evangelism in their DNA.
Right now orthodox Anglicans of any stripe other than
Anglo-Catholic – philo-Orthodox are part of the Anglican Church in North
America purely on sufferance. Their beliefs and values have no official
standing in the denomination. The doctrinal statements that the College of
Bishops has endorsed to date make this perfectly clear. They countenance only
unreformed Catholic teaching and practices. They do not show toleration, much
less approval of any other teaching or practices. The formation of a second
province within the Anglican Church in North America, a province whose
doctrinal foundation is firmly grounded in the Holy Scriptures and the Anglican
formularies and which has its own constitution, canons, ordinal, service book,
catechism, bishops, and synodical government, would remedy this situation.
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