By Robin G Jordan
The second Anglican Church in North America is following in
the footsteps of the first Anglican Church in North America—Anglo-Catholic
ideologues occupying the place of power, entrenching their views, and excluding
those who do not agree with them. This development points to the unhealthy
state of North American Anglicanism. Disconnected from the Biblical and
Reformation doctrines and convictions of the reformed Anglican Church, it
gravitates toward extremes—liberalism in the Episcopal Church and Anglo-Catholicism
in the Anglican Church in North America. Only an embattled group of clergy and
congregations in North America are sticking faithfully to the genuine Anglican
Way.
The late Peter Toon popularized the phrase, “Anglican Way”
in his writings. The Common Cause Partnership appropriated the phrase and used
it in the coalition’s theological statement. The coalition identified what it
considered were seven elements that characterized the Anglican Way. It would
make acceptance of these elements requirements for membership in the coalition
and subsequently the Anglican Church in North America.
Dr. Toon would criticize the original draft and the final
version of the Common Cause Partnership’s theological statement. Among his criticisms
of the final version was that it included a commitment to a doctrine of the
episcopate that put “a particular spin to the 1662 Ordinal” and prohibited "the comprehensiveness that has always been part of the genius of the
Anglican Way." It excluded “most Anglicans
worldwide today,” he pointed out, and excluded “the millions of
evangelical Anglicans who have been faithful Anglicans over the generations.”
[1]
Dr. Toon argued that in order to have “a new, orthodox
Anglican province on American soil,” “it must be set solidly on the rock of Scripture as the primary Formulary
and then on the historic Anglican Formularies as a secondary foundation and
guarantor of a truly Anglican identity.” [2]
The genuine Anglican Way, as Dr. Toon would point out, did
not, like the nineteenth century Protestant Episcopal Church, and I would add
the twenty-first Anglican Church in North America, outlaw the bene esse view of the episcopate. [3 ] In
this view the office of bishop is recognized as ancient and allowed by
Scripture and even beneficial to the well-being of the Church but not essential
to its existence. The same view takes the position that apostolic succession is
not a succession of bishops but in the words of Bishop John Jewell, “a
succession of doctrine.” A bishop is not a successor to the apostles due to his
consecration or pedigree but because of his faithfulness to apostolic teaching.
Dr. Toon would further point out that no Anglican province
was bound by the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral unless the document was adopted
by a synod of the province. While the Lambeth Conference might have endorsed
the document, it was not binding upon the provinces of the Anglican Communion.
The Lambeth Conference was a conference of bishops, not a synod of bishops, and
could make only recommendations to the Communion’s provinces. [4 ]
Dr. Toon believed that Canon A5 of the Church of England
provided a more than adequate doctrinal foundation for a new, orthodox Anglican
province in North America.
“The doctrine of the Church of England is grounded in the holy Scriptures, and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal.”
This canon, Dr. Toon would point out, shows that the
Anglican Way is fundamentally “a
particular way of reading, interpreting and receiving the truths of Holy
Scripture as the Word of God written.” [5 ]
Dr. Toon maintained that if one wished to discern what were
the principle characteristics of the Anglican Way, one should examine the
historic Anglican formularies, including the two Books of Homilies. When these
characteristics were compared with what the Common Cause Partnership considered
to characterize the Anglican Way, there was a notable disparity. [6 ]
With the Statement
on the Global Anglican Future the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans would
recognize the words of Canon 5A as expressing the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism—what defines
core Anglican identity.
Three years before the formation of the Anglican Church in
North America Dr. Toon recognized the lack of a commitment among the leaders of
the Common Cause Partnership to the kind of comprehensiveness that is itself a distinctive
characteristic of the Anglican Way. The past nine years have shown that Dr.
Toon’s observations were prophetic. In doctrinal statement after doctrinal
statement those who occupied the place of power in the Common Cause Partnership
and now occupying that position in the Anglican Church in North America have
moved that denomination further and further away from the genuine Anglican Way
in the direction of unreformed Catholicism.
While the genuine Anglican Way permits a degree of High
Churchmanship, it holds in common with great Protestant Reformers of the
sixteenth century that the Scriptures are “sufficient to govern all believers
in matters of faith and practice and that the scriptures teach that
justification is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ.” It stresses
“a robust federal, or covenant theology” and holds that “man's will is wholly
bound in sin,” and that “only the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit” can “give
the faith that results in justification. [7] It recognizes only two sacraments that
have a visible sign or ceremony commanded by God—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
The five other rites that the Roman Catholic Church receives as sacraments—confirmation,
absolution, matrimony, ordination, and anointing of the sick and dying with
oil, the genuine Anglican Way recognize as in part developments from “a false
understanding of apostolic practice” and in part representations of “states of
life allowed in the Scriptures.” [8]
From its endorsement of a radical revision of the Ordinal to the recent statement
on blessed oils and their use the Anglican Church in North America’s College of
Bishop has shown an unwillingness to comprehend in the denomination the
Biblical and Reformation doctrines and convictions of the genuine Anglican Way.
It has made a laughingstock of the evangelical Anglicans who gave their support
to the denomination, showing that it has no respect for what they believe.
Endnotes:
[2] Peter Toon, “The Articles of Religion - One of the Formularies of the Anglican
Way”
[4] Ibid.
[5] PeterToon, “Proposed Doctrine for the Network. Can It Be Improved? YES, Very Much So.”July 17, 2006
[6] Ibid.
[8] The 39 Articles: A Re-statement by Philip E. Hughes ©1988
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