The Doctrine of the Proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book: Part 3

By Robin G. Jordan

A third good place to look for clues to the doctrine of a Prayer Book is The Order for the Visitation of the Sick and the Communion of the Sick or its equivalent. In the proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book it is the section which begins with explanatory preface titled “Concerning the Rites of Healing.” I have reproduced that preface below:

Reconciliation of Penitents, Ministry to the Sick, Communion of the Sick

Healing was central to the ministry of Jesus, our incarnate Lord. Healing is central to the ministry of the Church, the Body of Christ. Spoken prayer, anointing with oil, and the laying on of hands are the principal outward means employed by the Church for its ministry to those whose health is in any way impaired. The rite of Reconciliation and the reception of Holy Communion are also gifts through which healing takes place.

All Christians are called to be agents of healing. Nevertheless, the regular forms of healing ministry set forth in this prayer book are expected to be coordinated and ordered under the authority of the Diocesan Bishop and the priest having spiritual charge. Some aspects of healing ministry, most notably absolution and formal blessings, are reserved to bishops and priests. The use of holy oils (healing and exorcism), like the ministries of which they are a sign, may be extended to lay ministers by the bishop and priest having pastoral jurisdiction. Similarly, lay persons may be trained and authorized to carry the consecrated elements of Christ’s Body and Blood to the sick (or those otherwise confined or kept away from regular celebrations of the Holy Communion) under provisions set forward by the Ordinary.

Because physical, emotional, and spiritual healing are often interrelated, it is particularly appropriate to encourage confession, reconciliation, and forgiveness in the context of ministry to the sick. The content of a confession is not normally a matter of subsequent discussion. The secrecy of a confession is morally binding for the confessor and is not to be broken.

These rites are foundational to the many ways that the Church ministers to those who suffer in body, mind, or spirit.

While this explanation is not as elaborate as the explanations in the Code of Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church and the Catechism of the Catholic Church and it does not use the terms “penance” or “unction,” what the preface is referring to is these two sacraments in the Roman Catholic sacramental system.

The preface is followed by three forms, one for use when a priest hears the confession of the sick person and then absolves him from his sins, one for use when anointing a sick person with “holy oil,” and one for use when administering the consecrated elements to a sick person from the reserved sacrament. All three forms are evidence of how far the proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book deviates from the classical Anglican Prayer Book—The Book of Common Prayer of 1662—in doctrine and liturgical usages.

In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer the Order for the Visitation of the Sick is a form for use when visiting a sick person in his home. It is essentially a collection of prayers. In the nineteenth century the language of the following rubric and the following absolution became a cause of controversy.

Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with any weighty matter. After which confession, the Priest shall absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this sort.

OUR Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to his Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive thee thine offences: And by his authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Based upon the language of the rubric and the absolution Anglo-Catholics claimed that the 1662 Prayer Book affirmed the practice of priestly absolution. Evangelicals responded that such an interpretation of the language of the rubric and the absolution conflicted with the received interpretation of their language, that is, the priest himself was not absolving the sick person from his sins but declaring God’s forgiveness, the English Reformers’ view of absolution, or the remission of sins.

Anglo-Catholics also interpreted the following passage from the First Exhortation as affirmation of the practices of auricular confession and priestly absolution:

And because it is requisite, that no man should come to the holy Communion, but with a full trust in God's mercy, and with a quiet conscience; therefore if there be any of you, who by this means cannot quiet his own conscience herein, but requireth further comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or to some other discreet and learned Minister of God's Word, and open his grief; that by the ministry of God's holy Word he may receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience, and avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness.

Evangelicals pointed out that the Anglo-Catholic interpretation of the passage conflicted with a plain reading of the text. The Exhortation did not direct all who desired to receive the sacrament to confess their sins to a priest and to receive his absolution. Rather it encouraged those who were unable to quieten their conscience to turn to a minister of God’s Word for comfort or counsel. Whatever absolution that such individuals might receive was from “the ministry of God’s holy Word,” from hearing God’s promises of forgiveness to those who genuinely repented of their sins. It was not from a priest. The proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book incorporates the First Exhortation into its eucharistic rites but the language of the text has been changed to affirm the practice of priestly absolution. The altered text is further evidence of the unreformed Catholic doctrinal leanings of the proposed book.

The proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book substitutes a form for the administration of the sacrament of penance and a form for the administration of the sacrament of unction for the Order for the Visitation of the Sick. The emphasis of the Order for the Visitation of the Sick is prayer for the sick and takes its cue from James 5:14-15:

Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him [my emphasis], anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven [my emphasis].

The practice of anointing the sick with olive oil was a common one in the ancient Near East as it was in the ancient Mediterranean world. It is not the focus of these two verses. Prayer is. Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglo-Catholics justify their practice of anointing the sick and dying with “holy oil” on the basis to the reference to anointing with oil in the same two verses. “Holy oil” is oil that has been blessed by a bishop or a priest. It is what the Roman Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law describes as a “sacramental.”

The oil to which James alludes in this passage, however, was common olive oil, the kind that both Jews and Gentiles used in their lamps and for a variety of other purposes. Athletes, for example, anointed themselves with oil before competitions. The unreformed Catholic misinterpretation of James 5:14 is an example of how “sacred tradition” is given greater weight than the Holy Scriptures themselves in unreformed Catholic circles.

For a discussion of the position of the ACNA’s College of Bishops on “holy oil” and how their position conflicts with that of the English Reformers, see my article, “The ACNA Doctrinal Statement on Blessed Oils and Their Use: An Evaluation .”

Anointing with oil, laying on of hands, praying with uplifted hands, and other practices described in the Bible have enjoyed something of a comeback due to the charismatic movement of the twentieth century. The Roman Catholic Church was quick to interpret these practices according to its own sacramental theology and to incorporate the charismatic movement into the Church. Charismatics outside of the Roman Catholic Church, however, embraced a different theology associated with these practices. This theology is allied to classical Pentecostal theology. Charismatic Anglicans have been influenced by both theologies. The convergence movement tried to amalgamate the two theologies but the end result was a decided movement in the direction of Roman Catholic sacramentalism. What is discernible in the proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book is not only the influence of the Catholic Revival movement but also the convergence movement.

Anointing someone who is sick does not require “holy oil” blessed by a bishop or a priest or expensive perfumed oil bought at a local Christian bookstore. Good quality olive oil suffices—the extra-virgin, stone-pressed oil you can buy at better supermarkets.

Before you rush off to the nearest Whole Foods, however, I recommend that you read James 5:16:

Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

Unconfessed sin is a serious barrier to prayer. James is not telling us to confess to a priest but to each other, to our fellow Christians. Our prayer are more likely to benefit others if no unrepented acts of rebellion stands between us and God and we are living our lives in obedience to his will.

In the 1662 Prayer Book the Common of the Sick is a shortened form of the Order of Ministration of the Holy Communion for use in the home of a sick person. This form contains a very important statement of the 1662 Prayer Book’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, as does the Declaration on Kneeling, which is printed after the 1662 Order of Ministration of the Holy Communion.

But if a man, either by reason of extremity of sickness, or for want of warning in due time to the Curate, or for lack of company to receive with him, or by any other just impediment, do not receive the Sacrament of Christ's Body and Blood: the Curate shall instruct him that if he do truly repent him of his sins, and stedfastly believe that Jesus Christ hath suffered death upon the Cross for him, and shed his Blood for his redemption, earnestly remembering the benefits he hath thereby, and giving him hearty thanks therefore; he doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his soul's health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his mouth.

This doctrine is consistent with the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper articulated in the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion:

The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten, in the Supper, only after an heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is Faith.” (Article XXVIII)

The omission of this statement from the proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book is a major departure from the 1662 Prayer Book as is the substitution of communion of the sick person from the reserved sacrament for a home celebration of the Holy Communion at which the sick person, if he is able, receives the sacrament. They are further evidence that the doctrine of the proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book is unreformed Catholic and not reformed Anglican.

The more one explores the proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book, the more one finds evidence of its unreformed Catholic doctrinal leanings. Like To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism, it gives people who are not familiar with the reformed Anglicanism a false idea of what Anglicans have believed and practiced.

While searching the internet for images for my previous article, “The Doctrine of the Proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book: Part 2,” I came across a blog that was enthusiastically promoting the catechism as an accurate statement of Anglican beliefs. Anyone who has studied historical Anglican doctrine and practices knows that that is far from the truth.

The catechism articulates the beliefs of a wing of the Anglican Church that has never been comfortable with its reformed doctrine and practices and prefers those of the Roman Catholic Church and other unreformed Catholic bodies. In the nineteenth century this wing sought to bring the Anglican Church back into the orbit of Rome. In this century it is seeking to recreate in the Anglican Church an imaginary golden age of the Church. Its loyalties lie not with the English Reformation and reformed Anglicanism but with unreformed Catholicism, as it interprets those forms of doctrine and practice.

Historically this wing has included elements who have not been satisfied to share the Anglican Church with other theological schools of thought but have asserted that they alone represents the true faith of the Anglican Church and have sought to push these schools of thought out of the Church. In this regard they are not unlike their Tractarian predecessors who falsely claimed not only that they were the only remaining High Churchmen but also they were the only true Churchmen. While they have tried to claim John Jewel, Richard Hooker, Lancelot Andrews, the Caroline High Churchmen, and even Thomas Cranmer as their antecedents, their actual connection to the Anglican Church is an ambiguous one. The nineteenth century critics of their Tractarian predecessors regarded the Oxford movement as having its roots not in the Church of England but in the Church of Rome. The departure of John Henry Newman and other Tractarians to Rome would confirm this impression.

What is happening in the Anglican Church in North America is analogous in a number of ways to an unscrupulous group of investors engineering a takeover of a long-established food company, installing their own board of directors, and selling inferior food products under the company’s brand name. The recipes, ingredients, and the quality of the products is not that of the products that the company sold in the past. The longtime customers of the company notice the difference. They know that they are being ripped off. But new customers do not. Because of the brand they think that they are buying what the company always sold. The new customers may acquire a taste for the inferior food products sold under the company’s brand name but that does not make the actions of the investors or the board of directors any less unscrupulous. They are still misleading the public.

What the Anglican Church in North America is offering in its proposed formularies is not authentic historic Anglicanism. It is faux Anglicanism. It is not the real thing.

The predicament that ACNA’ers who are fully committed to remaining faithful to the Bible and the historic Anglican formularies face is analogous to going to the supermarket and purchasing your favorite brand of baked beans. When you get home and open the can, you discover that it is mislabeled. While the label may read “baked beans,” the can contains squash*. However you doctor it, you cannot transform squash into baked beans. Squash is squash. Now you can eat the squash. Anyone for squash on toast? But it is not going to meet your nutritional needs as would have the baked beans. If you had planned the baked beans as the principal dish of your meal, you are out of luck.  ACNA’ers who are fully committed to remaining faithful to the Bible and the historic Anglican formularies have their fight cut out for them. You can survive on a diet of baked beans but not on a diet of squash.

*For British readers, vegetable marrow.

Related Articles:
How to Respond to the Proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book
The Doctrine of the Proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book: Part 2
The Doctrine of the Proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book: Part  1