By Robin G. Jordan
“He who hesitates is
lost.” John Addison, 1712
At the present time those occupying the place of power in
the Anglican Church in North America face no discernible opposition in their
effort to establish a form of unreformed Catholicism as the official doctrine
of the denomination. The seeming lack of any pushback is difficult to explain.
Theologically the Anglican Church in North America is not a
homogeneous body. A number of biblically faithful orthodox Anglicans who
identify themselves as evangelical in tradition and who are committed to the
doctrine and principles of the Anglican formularies joined the Anglican Church
in North America in its Common Cause Partnership stage or shortly after its
formation. A survey of ACNA church websites reveals that a number of ACNA
churches maintain that authentic historic Anglicanism is Protestant and claim
the doctrine and principles of the Anglican formularies as their own. During
the days of the Common Cause Partnership and since the ACNA’s formation I
have had contact with these Anglicans—both clergy and laity.
What those occupying the place of power in the Anglican
Church in North America are signaling to this group of biblically faithful
orthodox Anglican is that their days are numbered in the ACNA. They are being
served notice that they can either accept or tolerate the unreformed Catholic
teaching and practices that these leaders have incorporated into the
denomination’s ordinal, eucharistic rites, catechism, baptismal rite, and
confirmation rite or find another denomination. Once the ACNA Prayer Book which
is now in preparation is formally approved, they will no longer be able to
maintain a genuine Anglican identity in the denomination. They will be expected
like everyone else in the denomination to conform to the doctrine contained in
that book. Their present doctrinal views and related practices will have no
standing in the denomination.
What we may be seeing in the Anglican Church in North
America is a phenomenon similar to that which occurred in Serbia during the
1990s. Serbians supported President Slobodan Milošević when he came under fire
because he was their leader. They did not necessarily countenance the war
crimes of which he was accused. ACNA clergy and congregations may be supporting
their bishops because the bishops are theirs. They do not necessarily agree
with what they are doing.
Unlike Milošević those occupying the place of power in the
Anglican Church in North America are not embattled. The days of the Anglican
Communion Network and the Common Cause Partnership are past. The denomination
just celebrated its sixth year in its existence.
Only a handful of the ACNA’s bishops at most are involved in
ongoing litigation with the Episcopal Church. Otherwise, the Episcopal Church
takes no interest in the Anglican Church in North America. Local Episcopal
clergy and congregations are more concerned with their own struggle for
survival than they are with problem-making for the ACNA.
What we may be seeing is the result of a mindset that
members of the Anglican Church in North America acquired during the days of the
Anglican Communion Network and the Common Cause Partnership. It continues to
influence their interpretations of situations and their response to situations.
During that time period solidarity in the face of persecution even at the
expense of theological differences was the order of the day.
Another possible explanation for the lack of opposition to
the ACNA’s Anglo-Catholic-philo-Orthodox bishops is that a large segment of the
Anglican Church in North America has decidedly unbiblical view of bishops.
Rather than endowing one bishop with the property of being infallible (e.g. the
Pope), they are endowing the entire ACNA episcopate with this property. This
possibility is even more alarming than the first possibility. The offices of
presbyter and bishop evolved from that of elder-overseer in the New Testament
Church and nowhere do we read in the New Testament that those who held this New
Testament office were infallible. The New Testament also does not make the
claim of infallibility for the apostles themselves. They were capable of error
and did err.
On occasion I hear from those who claim that the Anglican
Church in North America is in such a state of flux that it is too soon to say
what is the theological direction of the denomination. This claim is used to
discount the problematic nature of developments in the denomination. I do not see in the denomination the kind of
continuous change that they claim is occurring and I believe that those who
make this claim are engaging in a form of denial. Their discounting of the problematic
nature of developments in the denomination points to this conclusion. Generally people who are engaging in this
form of denial are dismissing the identification of a particular development as
a problem. Having discounted the existence of a problem, they see no need to
take action.
What I do see is a
group of ideologues, to use an idiomatic expression, striking while the iron is
hot, acting on an opportunity promptly while favorable conditions exist. This
group of ideologues presently occupies the place of power in the denomination
and is taking advantage of its position to entrench its ideology in the
denomination.
The same thing happened in a number of the Continuing
Anglican jurisdictions into which the first Anglican Church in North America
fragmented in the 1970s. Those whom Douglas Bess describes as “Anglican Loyalists”
in his history of the Continuing Anglican Movement in North America
underestimated the strength of the convictions of those whom Bess describes as “Catholic
Revivalists.” The “Anglican Loyalists” believed that the Anglican Church was
sufficiently catholic. The “Catholic Revivalists,” on the other hand, believed
that the Anglican Church was not Catholic enough. Whenever they occupied the
place of power in a jurisdiction, they undertook to make it more Catholic. They
proved themselves very successful at occupying the place of power in a number
of jurisdictions. The result is that the larger part of the Continuing Anglican
jurisdictions are unreformed Catholic in their teaching and practices, not
Anglican.
What the “Catholic Revivalists” were not very successful at
doing was propagating the gospel, evangelizing the lost, planting new churches,
and expanding the population base of the jurisdictions in which they occupied
the place of power. The results we now see today in the form of shrinking
jurisdictions and declining and dying congregations. Having occupied the place
of power in the second Anglican Church in North America, the ACNA’s equivalent of
the “Catholic Revivalists” will in all likelihood lead that denomination down
the same path.
My primary concern is not the future of the Anglican Church
in North America but the future of authentic historic Anglicanism in the United
States and Canada—the “Protestant Reformed religion” of the English
Reformation, the Elizabethan Settlement, the Anglican formularies, and the
Coronation Oath Act. What those occupying the place of power in the Anglican
Church in North America are institutionalizing in the denomination is not
authentic historic Anglicanism—the faith and practices of the reformed Church
of England—but what Douglas Bess describes as “an extreme form of Anglo-Catholicism.”
They are transforming the Anglican Church in North America into a miniature version
of the Roman Catholic Church sans the Pope—hardly a sterling example of
biblical Christianity, much less authentic historic Anglicanism.
What may be deterring opposition to the Catholicization of
the Anglican Church in North America is the apparent unanimity of the College
of Bishops in their endorsement of the ordinal, the eucharistic rites, the
catechism, and the other doctrinal statements that have been produced in the
Anglican Church in North America to date. If any bishop is dissenting from
these decisions, we are not hearing about it. The lack of openness and
transparency in the College of Bishops has been a long-standing problem in the
Anglican Church in North America, a problem that goes back to the Common Cause
Partnership days.
The constitution of the Anglican Church in North America
makes service as a visible sign and expression of church unity a part of the
work of the College of Bishops. Under the circumstances I would not be
surprised if the College of Bishops has developed a culture that stifles open
dissent. Very early in the life of the denomination Anglo-Catholic members of
the provisional Provincial Council cut off further debate on any changes to the
denomination’s fundamental declarations by essentially threatening a walkout.
Members of the College of Bishops may vote in support of decisions with which
they do not agree in order to avoid any appearance of disunity in the College
of Bishops. They also may not want to be seen by their fellow bishops as troublemakers
and not team players. As in other bodies of this type going along with what
others want to do is an operative dynamic. Those who do not are apt to be
ostracized and marginalized. The solidarity mindset that I mentioned earlier in
this article may also come into play.
If the seeming unanimity of the College of Bishops is acting
as a deterrent to opposition to its Catholicization of the Anglican Church in
North America, this dynamic points to an excessive dependence upon the
leadership of a bishop. If those who disagree with what the College of Bishops
is doing are waiting for a sympathetic bishop to step forward and lead them,
they may wait until it is too late to do anything. I am not suggesting that a
sympathetic bishop does not exist. But I do not believe that the dynamics
operative in the Anglican Church in North America and its College of Bishops
permit such a bishop to lead opposition to the College of Bishop’s Catholicization
of the denomination. Others must step forward and take the lead.
If we examine the history of the evangelical movement in the
Anglican Church, it is not a movement in which bishops played a leading role. A
number of evangelical leaders did become bishops but its leadership has not
been confined to the episcopate. Most of its leaders have not been bishops.
They have been presbyters or lay persons.
Looking to a bishop for leadership may reflect the influence
of the Episcopal Church—a denomination in which bishops have played a prominent
role since the 1830s and earlier. The House of Bishops at one time could veto
decisions of the General Convention.
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