Two developments in the Anglican Church in North America pose a serious threat to the future of biblical Anglicanism in North America. They are the Catholic Revivalist bias of the ACNA’s formularies and the movement within the ACNA to consolidate the province into a small number of geographic-based dioceses.
While making ample room for the teaching and practices of
unreformed Catholicism in its formularies, the Anglican Church in North America
gives negligible space to the teaching and practices of biblical Anglicanism.
In its canons the ACNA withdraws authorization of the use of the various Anglican
service books presently in use in the province with the final approval of the
2019 Proposed Prayer Book currently in preparation. The canons make no provision for the
continued use of traditional languge Prayer Books such as the 1662 Book of
Prayer, the 1928 American Prayer Book, the 1962 Canadian Prayer Book, and the 2005
Reformed Episcopal Church’s Prayer Book. Nor do the canons make any provision
for the continued use of any of the contemporary language service books
presently used in the ACNA, such as The
Book of Common Prayer (1979), the Book
of Alternative Services (1985), and Our
Modern Services (2002, 2003).
An examination of all the rites and services that the
Anglican Church in North America has produced for use in the 2019 Proposed
Prayer Book shows that they are unreformed Catholic in their doctrine and
ceremonial. Adherents of biblical Anglicanism will be denied the use of
contemporary language liturgies that in their doctrine and ceremonial are consistent
with the Holy Scriptures, Anglican Formularies and the Anglican Church’s Protestant
Reformed heritage.
Since To Be a
Christian: An Anglican Catechism will in all likelihood be incorporated
into the 2019 Proposed Prayer Book, adherents of biblical Anglicanism will also
be forced to use in the instruction of adults and children a catechism that is,
like the rites and services of the 2019 Proposed Prayer Book, unreformed
Catholic in its doctrine, taking as it does positions on key issues, which
conflict with those of biblical Anglicanism. Among these positions is that faith
precedes regeneration in the order of salvation; that the Holy Spirit proceeds
from the Father (and not the Father and the Son)—a view associated not only with Eastern
Orthodoxy but also Nestorianism; that confirmation, ordination, absolution,
matrimony, and the anointing of the sick and dying are sacraments along with
baptism and the Lord’s Supper; and that the sacraments, in particular the Lord’s
Supper, play a key role in the process of sanctification whereby our imperfect
human nature is gradually replaced by Christ’s perfect divine nature, a process
also known as divinization.
The movement within the Anglican Church in North America to
consolidate the province into a handful of geographic-based dioceses increases
the likelihood of the further marginalization of adherents of biblical
Anglicanism in the ACNA. Without any official standing for their beliefs and
principles in the ACNA’s formularies, they are likely to find themselves an
excluded minority in most if not all of the province’s dioceses, subject to increasing
pressure to conform to the unreformed Catholic culture of the province. Those
who resist assimilation—who refuse to compromise their beliefs and principles—can
expect to be treated as pariahs in the dioceses in which they find themselves.
Some readers may feel that I am painting a too bleak a
picture of the prospects for biblical Anglicanism in the Anglican Church in
North America, even indulging in panic-mongering. Based on the history of the
US Episcopal Church, the North American Continuing Anglican Churches, and the
global Anglican Church, I believe, however, that this description of what the
future holds in store for North American adherents of biblical Anglicanism is
an accurate one. The ACNA does not evidence the kinds of conditions in which
biblical Anglicanism flourishes. The final adoption of the 2019 Proposed Prayer
Book and the movement within the ACNA to consolidate the province into a small
number of geographic-based dioceses will further reduce the likelihood of
biblical Anglicanism’s flourishing in the ACNA.
I cannot overemphasize the need for the adherents of
biblical Anglicanism to take concrete steps to secure a future for themselves
and what they believe—either within the Anglican Church in North America or
outside it. The window of opportunity is narrowing.
The more settled clergy and congregations become in their
present situation, the less likely they are to take the necessary steps. There
will always be those who will discourage them from doing so, who will maintain
that their concerns are unwarranted. Their future in the ACNA will be a bright
and rosy one. These individuals may have ulterior motives. Or they may be whistling past the graveyard, ignoring a bad situation and hoping for a good outcome.
Without the freedom to develop and adopt rites and services and
resources for the instruction of adults and children consistent with the Holy
Scriptures, the Anglican Formularies, and the Anglican Church’s Protestant
Reformed heritage and the freedom to organize themselves into affinity networks,
groupings of clergy and congregations that share a common theology, common values, and a common
vision, the adherents of biblical Anglicanism in the Anglican Church in North
America can indeed look forward to a bleak future in the ACNA.
Also see
Time to Think Out of the Box: Ecclesiastical Organization and Mission in the Twenty-First Century
Also see
Time to Think Out of the Box: Ecclesiastical Organization and Mission in the Twenty-First Century
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