By Robin G. Jordan
If we look at the early history of the Christian Church, we
find that the early Church responded to false teachers by disfellowshipping
them from the local Christian community and ostracizing them. It responded to
false teaching by spreading biblical teaching, planting new Christian
communities that were biblically orthodox in what they held and taught, and recognizing
and support existing biblically orthodox Christian communities.
Due to the nature of the Anglican Communion, member provinces
that “uphold and maintain the faith of the Church as expressed in the Holy
Bible, the Anglican Formularies and the Jerusalem Declaration” have no way of
disciplining member provinces that depart from the Anglican Church’s historic
faith. They can follow the example of the early Church and disfellowship
themselves from the straying province and shun its leaders. This is what the
provinces and dioceses affiliated with GAFCON and the Global Fellowship of Confessing
Anglicans have done to date in the case of The Episcopal Church (TEC) and the
Anglican Church of Canada. They, however, have been hesitant in taking the next
step which is to spread biblical teaching, to plant new biblically orthodox
Christian communities, and to support existing ones. This may attributed in part
to the accusation of boundary crossing that has been leveled at these provinces
and dioceses in the past and a lack of resources to effectively carry out this
step. But disfellowshipping and ostracizing a rogue province is not going to be
effective unless the next step is taken.
The leaders of the provinces and dioceses affiliated with GAFCON
and the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans have taken a different
approach. They have supported the formation of an alternative province in North
America by various groups disaffected from TEC and the Anglican Church of
Canada on the assumption that this alternative North American province would
act as their proxy in spreading biblical teaching, planting new biblically
orthodox Christian communities, and supporting existing ones.
This approach, however, is not working. Their supposed proxy—the
Anglican Church in North America—has itself departed from “the faith of the Church
as expressed in the Holy Bible, the Anglican Formularies and the Jerusalem
Declaration.” It has adopted an exclusionary policy toward the teaching and
practices of North American Anglicans who are faithful to the Bible and the
Anglican Formularies and who uphold and maintain the Anglican Church’s historic faith.
The faith the ACNA officially upholds and maintains is
almost indistinguishable from the unreformed Catholic faith of the Roman
Catholic Church and bears little resemblance to the Protestant Reformed faith
of the Anglican Church. The two faiths accept the teaching of the Creeds but deviate
from each other in a number of key areas, which include revelation, salvation,
and the sacraments. They espouse two entirely different gospels–one a gospel of
sacraments and works and the other a gospel of justification by grace alone
through faith alone in Christ alone. The ACNA has proven not to be the agent of
the renewal of biblical Anglicanism in North America that these leaders had
hope that it would be.
As long as the leaders of the provinces and dioceses
affiliated with GAFCON and the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans are
reluctant to admit the failure of their approach and respond to the false
teaching in TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada by spreading biblical
teaching, planting new biblically orthodox Christian communities, supporting
existing ones, and in other ways promoting the renewal of biblical Anglicanism
in North America, their disfellowshipping of TEC and the Anglican Church of
Canada will bear no fruit.
One way that the same leaders can promote the renewal of biblical
Anglicanism in North America is to back the formation of a second alternative
North American Anglican province, one that fully accepts the teaching of the Bible,
the Anglican Formularies, and the Jerusalem Declaration and conforms its doctrines
and practices to that teaching. Its formation may cause the ACNA to reconsider
its exclusionary policy toward the teaching and
practices of North American Anglicans who are faithful to the Bible and the
Anglican Formularies and who uphold and maintain the Anglican Church’s historic faith; and to make other much needed reforms. On the other hand, the ACNA may prove
intransigent. In that eventuality North America Anglicans will still have one
province that is genuinely committed to the renewal of biblical Anglicanism.
A second alternative North American Anglican province, which
“upholds and maintains the faith of the Church as expressed in the Holy Bible,
the Anglican Formularies and the Jerusalem Declaration,” will have distinct advantage
over the ACNA in spreading the gospel, evangelizing the lost, and planting new
churches. Unlike the ACNA the second alternative North American province will
be free to reach and engage a much wider segment of the unchurched population,
unencumbered by the ritualism, sacerdotalism, and sacramentalism that have become
marks of the Catholic Revivalist influence in the ACNA. This three “isms” along
with the form of governance in the ACNA and the ecclesiology behind it work
against the laity in that jurisdiction fully realizing their God-given role as
leaders, ministers, and missionaries of the Church.
As my grandmother used to say, a wise house wife never put all
her eggs in one basket. If she drops the basket, she loses all the eggs.
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