By Robin G. Jordan
Appeals to church unity ring hollow when they amount to accommodating
the one wing of the Anglican Church in North America to which its leadership is
giving preferential treatment and to denying the validity of the concerns of
the ACNA’s other wings. The latest service of Holy Communion and the Daily
Office Lectionary are further evidence of the preferential treatment given ACNA’s
Catholic Revivalists.
It is clear from the ACNA’s Ordinal, its Catechism, and its
2019 Proposed Prayer Book that the ACNA does not treat as full partners in the
province Anglicans who “uphold and maintain the faith of the Church expressed
in the Holy Bible, the Anglican Formularies, and the Jerusalem Declaration.” Ample
space is given to the unreformed Catholic teaching and practices of the
Catholic Revivalist wing of the ACNA in the ACNA formularies but negligible
room is made for the Protestant/reformed catholic teaching and practices of the
convictional Anglican wing. While the presence of convictional Anglicans is
tolerated—at least for the time being—their doctrinal beliefs and worship
principles are not—certainly not to the extent that they enjoy official standing
in the ACNA.
Part of the problem is the form of governance that the
framers of the ACNA constitution and canons created. Part of the problem is how
it has come to operate in practice. It incorporates features of the
ecclesiastical system of the Roman Catholic Church and political system of the
former Soviet Union. These features permit a special interest group to hold
onto the place of power in the jurisdiction indefinitely once it has occupied
that place. They enable this group to control the legislative process from
start to finish and to determine who is appointed to critical task forces and
committees. They allow the same group to determine the teaching and practices
of the jurisdiction.
These features also prevent any inside strategy to reform
the ACNA from succeeding. For any dissident group to introduce meaningful
reforms related to the jurisdiction’s teaching and practices, it would have to
first capture the place of power and reform the jurisdiction’s form of
governance. The system, however, is designed to keep that from happening. The
only changes that may be introduced are the changes favored by the special
interest group occupying the place of power.
In such a system what leverage a dissident group may apply is
limited to refusing to cooperate with the special interest group and to go
along with its decisions, refusing to provide it with money to implement those
decisions, and ultimately withdrawing from the ACNA. To exercise this kind of
leverage such a group must be willing to suffer the consequences of its
opposition to the special interest group. The special interest group will seek
to turn public opinion against the dissident group, to portray it as disloyal
and divisive, and to take disciplinary action against individual members of the
dissident group. The special interest group will also seek to co-opt the
weakest members of the dissident group and to isolate its strongest members.
By the application of this kind of leverage the dissident
group may be able to exact
concessions from the special interest group. To effectively apply this kind of
leverage, a dissident group needs to organize itself and form a shadow
alternative province within the ACNA. The prospect of losing a sizable chunk of
the ACNA membership—clergy and congregations—to a second alternative North
American Anglican province is more likely to induce the special interest group
to make concessions than the prospect of losing a trickle of individual clergy
and congregations to other jurisdiction and denominations.
On the other hand, the special interest group may be glad to
see the dissident group go. For this reason the dissident group needs to be prepared
in advance to formally establish itself as second alternative North American
Anglican province. The formation of an alternative shadow province is a
necessary step toward this end.
At this stage I believe that ACNA members should be encouraged
to share with the ACNA leadership their concerns related to the direction in
which it is taking the ACNA doctrinally and liturgically. I personally do not
believe that the ACNA leadership will respond to their concerns. It has been
unresponsive to date. At the same time ACNA members should be allowed an
opportunity to seek a change in direction, working through official channels. If
the ACNA leadership does nothing, makes promises and fails to follow through on
them, or makes only cosmetic changes, these members are more likely to support stronger
measures at a future date. They will have experienced for themselves how intractable
and even duplicitous, the ACNA leadership can be.
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