Why Biblically Faithful North American Anglicans Need a Province of Their Own

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