By Robin G. Jordan
“Put not your trust in
princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his
breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that very day his plans perish. Blessed
is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his
God….” Psalm 146: 3-5 ESVUI
I personally cannot see why the GAFCON Primates continue to support
an ecclesial organization like the Anglican Church in North America when a
growing body of evidence shows that a plurality of its leaders are working to
undermine GAFCON’s efforts to return the Anglican Church to the Bible and its
historic formularies—not just in North America but around the world. The
development of To Be A Christian: An
Anglican Catechism with its unreformed Catholic teaching for use in
provinces of the Anglican Communion as well as the Anglican Church in North
America is evidence their intentions as is former ACNA Archbishop Robert
Duncan’s championing of what he describes as a “new settlement.” The recent
participation of ACNA leaders in the International Congress of Catholic
Anglicans, a gathering for strengthening Anglo-Catholic influence in the
Anglican Church, points to the same conclusion.
This group of ACNA leaders is not interested in following
the lead of Global South primates and bishops but aspires to take the lead
itself, an aspiration it shares with the leaders of the Episcopal Church. Both
groups of leaders espouse ideologies that have undercut the authority of the
Bible and the historic formularies in the Anglican Church in the United States
and elsewhere. The principal difference between the two ideologies is one
ostensibly holds to the faith of catholic creeds and to a largely biblical view
of marriage and human sexuality. Its view of marriage is not entirely biblical
as it maintains that marriage is a sacrament, not a state of life allowed in
Scripture (Article 25).
The GAFCON Primates may view the Anglo-Catholic ideology of
a plurality of ACNA leaders as the lesser of two evils. But this still does not
fully explain their continued support of an ecclesial organization in which a
large segment of its leadership is opposed to GAFCON’s aims and which is
denying official standing to the beliefs and convictions of orthodox Anglicans in
that organization who are faithful to the Bible and loyal to the historic formularies.
It does not make sense.
One possible explanation that a South American bishop
pointed to my attention in regard to a different matter altogether is that
bishops tend to listen only to bishops. This particular tendency makes them
vulnerable to deception. Primates and bishops from the Global South have given
credence to the assurances of American bishops in the past only to discover
that these bishops were telling them what they knew was complete false. The
same bishops had equivocation and perfidy refined to an art but the primates
and bishops from the Global South were taking them at their word rather
recognizing them for the brazen liars that they were. The bishops in question
had no qualms about telling the primates and bishops from the Global South what
they wanted to hear and then returning home and telling their own people
something entirely different.
The GAFCON Primates may be looking at the Anglican Church in
North America through the filter of their relationships with individual bishops
in the ACNA rather than objectively. Instead of looking at the ACNA through
such a filter, they need to undertake a thorough investigation of the ACNA
particularly its exclusion of orthodox Anglicans faithful to the Bible and
loyal to the historic formularies. If their fellow primates are unwilling to
join them in such an investigation, individual primates may need to undertake
it on their own.
The evidence is there to support the contention that this
particular group of ACNA leaders is not making even a cosmetic effort to
comprehend in the Anglican Church in North America the beliefs and convictions
of orthodox Anglicans in the ACNA who are faithful to the Bible and loyal to
the historic formularies. Rather they are pursuing a policy of exclusion. This
can be seen from the unreformed Catholic doctrine and practices that
characterize the ordination, eucharistic, baptismal, and confirmation rites
that the College of Bishops has endorsed to date as well as the unreformed
Catholic doctrinal views that characterize To
Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism, which the College of Bishops has
also endorsed.
While the bishops as a whole may not be at the present time actively
preventing individuals with those beliefs and convictions from ministering in
the ACNA, what the College of Bishops is doing in the long haul will have this
effect. This is not to say that cases in which an ACNA bishop has denied
ordination to a candidate or licensure to a member of the clergy on the basis
of their holding of these beliefs and convictions are not surfacing from time
to time. These cases show that some bishops are taking a more aggressive
stance.
Under the provisions of the ACNA canons all clergy and
congregations will be required to use the ACNA Prayer Book and conform to its
doctrine and liturgical usages once it is formally authorized for use in the
ACNA. The ACNA canons do not provide clergy and congregations with any other
alternatives. In all likelihood To Be a
Christian: An Anglican Catechism will be incorporated into the final
version of the ACNA Prayer Book. Clergy and congregations will face the choice
of conforming or finding another denominational home. They will have no other
options unless they create them before the formal authorization of the final
version of the ACNA Prayer Book.
A second possibility is that the GAFCON Primates realize
what is happening in the Anglican Church in North America—that the ACNA is
emerging as something other than a model of what GAFCON stands for—and they are
too embarrassed by this development to acknowledge it, having played a role in
the ACNA’s formation and having recognized the ACNA as “a genuine expression of
Anglicanism.” Acknowledging the development means also admitting that they made
a mistake in supporting the Common Cause Partnership’s formation of the ACNA
and recognizing the new denomination. It also might mean providing liberals
with ammunition to use against GAFCON.
A third possible explanation is the GAFCON primates do not
feel in a position to criticize developments in the Anglican Church in North
America because their own provinces do not fully accept what GAFCON stands for.
For example, the Anglican Church of Kenya recognizes only the 1662 Book of
Common Prayer as its authoritative doctrinal and worship standard. In its
revised catechism the Anglican Church of Kenya describes confirmation as “a
ministry by which, through prayer with the laying on hands by the bishop, the
Holy Spirit is received to complete what he began in Baptism and to give
strength for the Christian service and witness.” It describes ordination as
“the ministry in which, through prayer with the laying on of hands, our Lord
Jesus Christ gives the grace of the Holy Spirit, and authority, to those who
are being made bishops, priests or deacons.” This is essentially the position
of The Code of Canon Law of the Roman
Catholic Church and The Catechism of the
Catholic Church except that these documents describe confirmation and
ordination as sacraments, not ministries. The Anglican Church of Kenya’s
revised catechism goes on to describe absolution and healing in sacramental
terms in language very similar to the same documents. It basically teaches all
four rites are sacraments without labeling them as sacraments. Its teaching is
hardly an affirmation of what the Jerusalem Declaration identifies as a tenet
of Anglican orthodoxy, that is, the Thirty-Nine Articles contain the true doctrine
of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and are as authoritative for Anglicans
today. From the standpoint of the Thirty-Nine Articles such rites are not sacraments and have
“developed from a false understanding of apostolic practice.”
All three possibilities may be to a certain extent true. The
clergy and congregations whose beliefs and convictions are being denied
official standing in the ACNA can draw no comfort from this likelihood. They
are being left to face their exclusion from the ACNA alone. If the GAFCON
Primates are willing to abandon to exclusion orthodox North American Anglicans
who are faithful to the Bible and loyal to the historic formularies, who else
might they turn their backs on?
The Old Testament tells us that the people of Israel, when
they put their trust in foreign allies rather than God, they suffered defeat
after defeat and eventually were forced into exile. The Old Testament also
tells us that when they put their trust in God, they were victorious against
overwhelming odds. It further tells us that while God sometimes performed
miracles on their behalf, the greatest miracles that he performed were through
their own actions when they were at their weakest.
If anything can be learned from what the Old Testament tells
us, it is that orthodox North American Anglicans who are faithful to the Bible
and loyal to the historic formularies should not look for outside intervention in
response to their plight or passively wait for a miracle but should put their
trust in God and act.
Whatever they do should flow out of a desire to please God—to
spread the gospel and make disciples. Any enclave that they form within the
ACNA or alternative province that they form outside the ACNA should be devoted
to these ends. Christ himself has promised to be with those who obey his
command to go and make disciples of every nation.
We may never know what is immobilizing the GAFCON Primates and
preventing them from intervening on the behalf of orthodox Anglicans in the
Anglican Church in North America who are faithful to the Bible and loyal to the
historic formularies but whose beliefs and convictions are being denied official
standing in the ACNA. They simply may not regard it as a serious enough problem
to merit their attention, which, if true, speaks volumes about their actual
commitment to the stated aims of the GAFCON movement.
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