By Robin G. Jordan
Catholic Revivalism takes two forms in the Anglican Church
in North America—Anglo-Catholicism and convergence theology. Anglo-Catholicism
has its roots in the Oxford Movement and the nineteenth century Catholic
Revival in the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the
USA. Convergence theology is the beliefs and thinking connected with the
convergence movement, a movement that was an outgrowth of the charismatic,
ecumenical, and liturgical movements in the second half of the twentieth century.
It led to what may be described as a Catholic Revival in a number of
charismatic and evangelical denominations.
Among the developments that have characterized the
convergence movement is an increasing openness to and acceptance of not just
unreformed Catholic practices but also unreformed Catholic teaching. This is
the most evident in the convergence denominations that were an offshoot of the
convergence movement. What began as a a penchant for liturgy among evangelicals
and charismatics in non-liturgical denominations would morph into a form of
Catholic Revivalism.
What the convergence movement describes as a blending
together or merging of “three major streams of thought and practice” was in
actuality a shift away from Protestantism in the direction of unreformed
Catholicism. It was claimed that the integration of these three streams was needed
for the church “to be truly catholic in its faith and practice.” It was further
claimed that the convergence movement was a work of the Holy Spirit. These claims
and similar arguments were used to justify and rationalize this shift in theological
outlook.
What was a watershed moment in this transition was the
formation of the Charismatic Episcopal Church in the early 1990s. Its leaders
would adopt an unreformed Catholic view of apostolic succession as a particular
succession of bishops and seek re-ordination.
While the newly-formed denomination initially used the Episcopal
Church’s 1979 Book of Common Prayer, its liturgy increasingly began to resemble
the liturgy from the Roman Missal.
The Charismatic Episcopal Church was not the first
convergence denomination to embrace an unreformed Catholic view of apostolic
succession. In the late 1980s a large segment of the Evangelical Orthodox
Church would join the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North
America for this reason.
Both forms of Catholic Revivalism share a negative view of
the Reformation and a common vision of the Church reconstructed upon the model
of the supposedly undivided Church of the early High Middle Ages – before the
East-West Schism in the eleventh century. Both are openly at variance with
authentic historic Anglicanism.
The adherents of these two forms of Catholic Revivalism evidence
a similar approach to the Bible. They display a tendency to inject their own ideas into the text, making it mean whatever they want.
The adherents of these two forms of Catholic Revivalism promote
their respective movements as movements of spiritual renewal. They seek to
replace genuine Anglicanism with their own reinterpretation of the tradition.
The College of Bishops, the real nexus of power in the
Anglican Church in North America, is dominated by adherents of these two forms
of Catholic Revivalism. This has been evident in the actions of the College of
Bishops to date.
Adherents of convergence theology in the Anglican Church in
North America are far less homogeneous in their thinking and practice than
adherents of Anglo-Catholicism. With the ACNA Catechism and the ACNA Prayer
Book the College of Bishops are creating the kind of the environment in the
Anglican Church in North America that will reduce the diversity in that
wing of the denomination, resulting in greater homogeneity in thinking and practice.
Anglicans who are faithful to the Bible and the Anglican
formularies and stand in the Anglican Church’s Reformation heritage are not the
only endangered species in the Anglican Church in North America. Adherents of convergence
theology who also identify themselves as charismatic or evangelical will have
difficulty in maintaining that identity. The latitude of thought and practice
that they presently enjoy will disappear.
They, like the first group of Anglicans, need to recognize that
those occupying the place of power in the Anglican Church in North America are
set upon forcing the jurisdiction into a particular mold. They too need to take
steps to keep themselves from being pushed into extinction.
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