Why a Second Alternative North American Anglican Province Is a Strategic Must

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.