A Case for the Reform of the Episcopate in the Anglican Church in North America

At the bottom of this article I have added links to two earlier articles that I wrote on the topic of the episcopate in the Anglican Church in North America--one around the time of the formation of the ACNA and the other a year later. They offer insight into the origins of the ACNA's second method of choosing bishops and its drawbacks.  

By Robin G. Jordan

The purpose of this article is to put into perspective certain developments in the Anglican Church in North America and to show that these developments are an unjustifiable departure from historic Anglicanism. They represent a reversion to the unreformed Catholicism that prompted the reformation of the English Church in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This reformation would result in the recognition of the Church of England as a Reformed Church albeit distinct in a number of ways. Historic Anglicanism which was shaped during this period would be Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical in character.

From the nineteenth century on the Anglo-Catholic movement has, for reasons that will be touched upon in this article, under the guise of being a reform movement, striven to undo the English Reformation and to change the identity of the Anglican Church.

The particular focus of this article will be the episcopate—the office of bishop. The Anglo-Catholic view of that office as articulated by its nineteenth century proponents and more recently by the formularies of the Anglican Church in North America contrasts sharply with historic Anglicanism’s two recognized schools of thought on the subject.

At the time of the Reformation the English Reformers retained the offices of deacon, presbyter, and bishop because these offices were found in a primitive form in the New Testament. They recognized that the title of presbyter and bishop were interchangeable in the New Testament and the office of presbyter and office of bishop were essentially the same office. The main difference that had grown up between the two offices in post-apostolic times was one of dignity and rank.

The English Reformers also concluded that the New Testament prescribed no particular form of church polity and therefore they had no reason to follow the example of the other Reformed Churches and to conflate the offices of presbyter and bishop into the office of pastor. The retention of the office of bishop would set the Church of England apart from the other Reformed Churches but not entirely. John Calvin accepted the retention of that office under certain circumstances. He wrote favorably of the office in a letter to the King of Poland. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion (IV.v.11) Calvin writes, "There still remain bishops and rectors of parishes; and I wish that they would contend for the maintenance of their office. I would willingly grant that they have a pious and excellent office if they would discharge it..." A number of Reformed Churches such as the French and Scottish Churches adopted the office of superintendant which is similar to that of bishop.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer viewed bishops as officers of the Crown, subject to the English monarch as the supreme temporal head of the English Church. While his views have been dismissed as Erastian, they are not entirely without ancient precedent. Erastianism is a doctrine which maintains that “the state is superior to the church in ecclesiastical matters.” The Roman Emperor Constantine called the First Council of Nicaea in 325. This Council produced the statement of the Christian faith known as the Nicene Creed. The emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire took an active role in the temporal and spiritual affairs of the Eastern Church, including the selection of its bishops. Later princes also play a similar role in their domains.

The Reformation came to the city-state of Zurich in 1519. In Zurich the magistrates of the city-state chose the pastors of the Reformed Church; the pastors in turn served as the conscience of the magistracy. This is the model of church government that was adopted for the Reformed Church of England with the English Monarch and Parliament replacing the magistracy. Benchmark Anglican divine Richard Hooker would defend secular supremacy over ecclesiastical affairs in his magnum opus, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Hooker also recognized that a church might depose its bench of bishops and replace them with new bishops.

Elizabeth I took her role as the Church of England’s supreme temporal governor quite seriously as would later English monarchs. She was no titular leader as is her present day namesake. When Archbishop of Canterbury Edmund Grindal refused to obey the queen and suppress the practice of "prophesying," or meeting for the discussion of the Bible and theology, which the more Puritan of the Church of England’s clergy had adopted, Elizabeth suspended the archbishop from 1577 to 1582. She appointed royal commissioners to perform all but his spiritual functions. While she eventually revoked his suspension, Grindal died as he was preparing to resign as Archbishop.

Elizabeth’s objection to these gatherings was that they might be used to spread sedition and become the focal points of opposition to her reign. She had not forgotten John Knox’s The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women in which he attacked women monarchs and argued that rule by women was contrary to the Bible. While Knox’s polemic was not specifically directed at Elizabeth, she perceived it as an attack on her legitimacy as the ruler of England and supreme temporal governor of the English Church. She came to suspect the more Puritan of the English clergy of entertaining the same opinion as Knox. This suspicion and their expressed desire to establish a theocracy in England along the lines of the Genevan theocracy resulted in her viewing them as a threat to her reign as Queen of England.

The Erastian principle was not limited to the Church of Zurich and the Church of England. The  Peace of Augusburg of 1555 permitted the state princes of the Holy Roman Empire to choose Lutheranism or Roman Catholicism as the religion of their domain, effectively recognizing their authority over ecclesiastical matters in their sphere of influence. Until recently the canons of the Roman Catholic Church recognized the right of certain monarchs and other rulers to nominate the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in their domains.

John Whitgift who succeeded Edmund Grindal as the Archbishop of Canterbury vigorously defended episcopacy and the Book of Common Prayer against its critics in the Church of England. Archbishop Whitgift who was a Calvinist and authored the Calvinist Lambeth Articles shared Elizabeth I’s dislike of the more Puritan of the Church of England’s clergy. They not only maintained that the New Testament prescribed Presbyterian form of church government, that is, the government of the church by pastors and elders, as the sole form of church polity, but also took the extreme view that church polity was a primary issue and not a secondary one. In his defense of an episcopal form of church government Archbishop Whitgift articulated what may be regarded as the position of historic Anglicanism.

That any one kind of government is so necessary that without it the church cannot be saved, or that it may not be altered into some other kind thought to be more expedient, I utterly deny; and the reasons that move me so to do be these: The first is, because I find no one certain and perfect kind of government prescribed or commanded in the scriptures to the church of Christ; which no doubt should have been done, if it had been a matter necessary unto the salvation of the church. Secondly, because the essential notes of the church be these only; the true preaching of the word of God, and the right administration of the sacraments ; . . . So that, notwithstanding government, or some kind of government, may be a part of the church, touching the outward form and perfection of it, yet is it not such a part of the essence and being, but that it may be the church of Christ without this or that kind of government, and therefore the kind of government of the church is not necessary unto salvation.

While Archbishop Whitgift was a strong champion of episcopacy, he refused to unchurch non-episcopal churches.

The tension between those who favored the establishment of a theocracy in the Church of England like that of the Church of Geneva and those who favored the retention of royal supremacy and the episcopate would increase during the reign of James I and would come to a head during the reign of Charles I. James who, while he was a strong Calvinist, had no liking for those who wanted to move the Church of England closer to the Church of Geneva in polity. He had taken a dislike to the Scottish Presbyterian ministers while he was King of Scotland.

Charles I who did not share his father’s religious views did share his father’s dislike of the more extreme wing of the Puritan movement in the Church of England—those who objected to the use of the Book of Common Prayer and wanted to reshape the Church of England along the lines of the Church of Geneva. They met his requests for money from Parliament with demands for further church reform. He adopted a policy of appointing bishops who subscribed to his belief in the divine rights of kings and a corresponding belief in the divine rights of bishops. He chose bishops who were Arminian in their theological outlook and shared his preferences and tastes in church ornaments and worship style.

His appointments would expand the conflict over church polity into a conflict over doctrine, church ornaments, worship style, and church polity. His appointment of William Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury and Laud’s use of harsh measures against those who opposed the ecclesiastical reforms that Laud sought to impose upon the Church of England resulted in the outbreak of civil war.

Until the reign of Charles I England had been spared the horrors of the religious wars that had embroiled the European nations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Unlike the European religious wars, the English Civil War was not a conflict between Catholics and Protestants or even between Anglicans and Puritans as some church historians may wish us to believe. It was a conflict between English Churchmen over the direction of the English Church. The Puritans are as much a part of our Anglican heritage as the Caroline High Churchmen.

During the English Civil War the Book of Common Prayer and the office of bishop would be abolished. The English Civil War would end with the arrest of Charles I, his trial, and his execution. Archbishop Laud would suffer the same fate. A short-lived Commonwealth with Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector would replace the English monarchy.

The Commonwealth would not survive Cromwell’s death. Charles II who was in exile in France with his mother and younger brother was invited to ascend the English throne as his father’s successor. The Book of Common Prayer and the episcopate were restored along with the English monarchy and royal supremacy.

The Restoration bishops were, for the most part, Caroline High Churchmen. They had a high view of the episcopal office and they objected to the longstanding view in the Church of England that the principal difference between the office of presbyter and the office of bishop was one of dignity and rank; otherwise, they were the same office. They claimed albeit without Scriptural warrant that a difference of grace separated the two offices and they incorporated this doctrine into the Forms for Making, Ordering, and Consecrating Deacons, Priests, and Bishops of 1661. The Ordinal that had been in used in the Church of England for almost 100 years did not make such a distinction. Their alteration of the Ordinal was largely a reaction to what were then recent events as was their insistence upon the episcopal ordination of the clergy.

The Restoration bishops themselves had not rejected the validity of the orders and sacraments of the European Reformed Churches while in exile following the death of Charles I. John Cosin had regularly received communion from the hands of a French Huguenot minister. Even Archbishop Laud had not denied their validity.

From the first two centuries of the Reformed Church of England would emerge two schools of thought on the episcopate. Both schools have a place in historic Anglicanism. One may be described as the Evangelical school of thought and the other as the Old High Church school of thought. Both view the office of bishop as being desirable where it can be had but do not consider it necessary for the existence of the Church. As did the early Reformers the Evangelical school of thought sees no difference between the office of presbyter and the office of bishop other than a difference of dignity and rank. The Old High Church school of thought, while recognizing this difference, recognizes a second difference between the two offices—a difference of grace. While the 1661 Ordinal reflects this view, when it is interpreted in accordance with the Thirty-Nine Articles, it does not exclude the view of the Evangelical school of thought, which is embodied in the 1550, 1552, and 1559 Ordinals.

In their article, “Parish is the Basic Unit of the Church in American Anglicanism,” Tim Smith and George Conger show that in the newly-established United States the parish was the basic organizational unit of the Protestant Episcopal Church and not the diocese. The parishes in a state were organized into state conventions and the state conventions were organized into a national convention. The parishes derived their authority from Christ as the head of his Church. The state convention derived its authority from the parishes constituting it and the national convention in turn derived its authority from the state conventions constituting it.

In Bishop William White’s original conception of this convention system bishops were the presbyter elected to preside at the meetings of the state conventions and to perform such other duties as might be delegated to him. The presiding bishop was the senior most bishop by election and consecration. The bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church were initially given a veto over the decisions of the national convention but later this veto was revoked.

The adoption of the Constitution of the United States in 1787 resulted in the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in the former British colonies. During colonial times the colonial legislatures and the parish vestries had managed the temporal affairs of the colonial church. The convention system would take the place of the colonial legislatures in the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Only Bishop Samuel Seabury and the Connecticut churchmen favored an episcopal system of church government. Bishop Seabury was a High Churchman. During the War for Independence he had sided with the British and served as a chaplain to the British Army.

The Protestant Episcopal Church’s convention system, while it was influenced by the political system of the fledgling republic, also harkened back to a proposal, “The Reduction of Episcopacy unto the Form of Synodical Government, Received in the Ancient Church,” that Archbishop of Amargh James Usher had made in 1641 in an attempt to prevent the conflict over church government that would divide the English people. Archbishop Usher’s proposal forms the basis of the synodical form of church government found in almost all Anglican provinces, except for the Anglican Church in North America. It also hearkens back to the form of church government in the city-state of Zurich. Archbishop Usher’s proposal would have given the clergy a significant role in the government of the church and the form of church government at Zurich gave the laity a significant role. The magistrates of Zurich were laymen. The Church of England’s adaptation of the form of church government at Zurich also gave the laity a significant role. The English monarch was a layman. The English parliament was largely comprised of laymen. The parish vestries governing the Protestant Episcopal Church at the local level and state conventions and the national conventions governing the church at the state and national levels were composed of clergy and laymen. Rather than being an innovation the convention system was a natural development of proposed and existing ecclesiastical governing principles.

As for the Protestant Episcopal Church’s method of electing and confirming bishops, it had ancient precedent. In the early church the presbyters of a church elected a one of their number as bishop and presented the bishop-elect to the laity for their assent. If the laity gave their assent, the presbyters invited the bishops of the other churches in the region to consecrate him. If they turned up for the consecration, it was viewed as confirmation of the election. The method the Protestant Episcopal Church adopted for electing and confirming the church’s bishops is an adaptation of this ancient method of choosing bishops.

The eighteenth century English method of electing and confirming bishops of the Church of England also evolved from the same method. The English monarch issued a writ for the election of a new bishop and nominated a candidate for the vacant see. The chapter of the cathedral then elected the nominee. At the consecration of the new bishop-elect he was presented to the congregation for its assent. If no one raised any objection to his consecration, he was consecrated a bishop.

In the nineteenth century the Anglo-Catholic movement would cause turmoil in the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church. It resurrected a set of doctrines that the English Reformers had rejected in the sixteenth century. Its proponents insisted that episcopal ordination was essential to a valid ministry. They taught that Christ had given an exclusive ministerial commission to the twelve apostles and they in turn delegated this commission to bishops. The bishops who received the commission from the apostles transmitted it to others in due succession. They also taught that no legitimate ministry could possibly exist apart from the officers who could trace their authority through this line of bishops.

In their disputations with the Roman Catholic critics of the Reformed Church of England the English Reformers had contended that the office of apostle was distinct from that of bishop. The apostles had been itinerant, preaching the gospel, discipling new converts, planting new churches, and strengthen existing churches. Bishops, on the other hand, had a settled ministry, overseeing and upbuilding the church in one place. More importantly they had contended that “the true succession of the apostles lay in the faithful handing down of their teaching.” For the English Reformers apostolic succession was a “succession of doctrine,” not a succession of bishops. This view of apostolic succession was that of not only the European Reformed Churches but also the Lutheran Churches. The English Reformers also recognized the validity of the orders and sacraments of the Lutheran Churches as well as the European Reformed Churches.

The Anglo-Catholic movement taught that when a bishop was consecrated, the imposition of hands (and anointing with holy oil of the bishop’s forehead) imparted to him a special grace without which he would be unable to consecrate other bishops, to ordain presbyters, or to make deacons. When a bishop laid his hands on candidate for the priesthood (and anointed his hands with holy oil), the bishop imparted to him a special grace without which he would not be able to consecrate the water in the baptismal font, enthusing it with the power to regenerate the human soul and cleanse it from sin, and to consecrate the bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist, confecting them in the Body and Blood of Christ. Without the sacraments there could be no union with Christ and without any union with Christ there could be no salvation.

The English Reformers had rejected such views and the associated practices of anointing the hands of a priest and the forehead of a bishop with holy oil on the basis that they were unscriptural. They found no support for the practice of blessing oil in the Holy Scriptures, much less for anointing a priest’s hands and a bishop’s forehead with it.

The Anglo-Catholic movement maintained that Christ had appointed bishops to be the successors to the apostles but also to be the governors of the church. Other clergy had no authority of their own but derived their authority from the bishop. The diocese’s standing committee, its diocesan convention, its boards and committees, and its vestries also had no authority of their own but derived their authority from the bishops.

As I previously noted, the English Reformers concluded from their study of the Holy Scriptures that the New Testament did not prescribe any particular form of church government. They retained episcopacy because they believed that it was very ancient and desirable form of church government. They concluded that it was not contrary to Scripture and they saw no reason to abandon it. It was also the form of church government to which they were accustomed.

In the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church the Anglo-Catholic movement met with stiff opposition from the two churches’ Evangelicals. While the Church of England’s Evangelicals had limited success in preventing the spread of Anglo-Catholic practices and ideas in its two provinces, the Protestant Episcopal Church’s Evangelicals did not. An Evangelical proposal to stem the “creeping ritualism and Anglo-Catholic doctrine” that was making its way into the Protestant Episcopal Church was defeated in the 1871 General Convention. Its defeat revealed how strong the Anglo-Catholic movement had become in the Protestant Episcopal Church. In a test of their growing strength Anglo-Catholic delegates passed a canon that prohibited pulpit exchanges, ministry exchanges, and any other form of cooperation between clergy of the Protestant Episcopal Church and clergy who were not episcopally-ordained on the grounds such clergy had no legitimate ministry. The passage of this canon was one of a series of events that led to the exodus of conservative Evangelical Episcopalians from the Protestant Episcopal Church and the formation of the Reformed Episcopal Church.

The sermon that Bishop George David Cummins preached at the opening of the third General Council of the Reformed Episcopal Church should give readers a good idea of how the founders of the Reformed Episcopal Church regarded the Anglo-Catholic movement’s views on bishops, episcopacy, and apostolic succession. It also shows how the views of the present leaders of Reformed Episcopal Church differ from those of its founders.

The views of the Anglo-Catholic movement were shaped by those of the Roman Catholic Church. Among the aims of the Anglo-Catholic movement in the nineteenth century was to make the Church of England and her daughter churches so much like the Roman Catholic Church that the pope would recognize the Anglican Church as thoroughly Catholic, recognize her orders and sacraments, and readmit her to the bosom of the Church of Rome.

The dream of reunion, however, died with the Pope Benedict XVI’s issuance of Anglicanorum coetibus authorizing the creation of Anglican Ordinariates in 2009. No matter how hard they tried to be Catholic, the Church of Rome was not going to take Anglo-Catholics in except on its own terms.

As early as 2008 if not earlier Anglo-Catholics looking to the future concluded that their best option was to create their own Catholic Church. The pressing need for a parallel province in North America offered a tantalizing opportunity. If they positioned themselves in the right places early in the game, they could influence the outcome.

The Common Cause Roundtable was one of those places. It produced the Common Cause Theological Statement which would determine the direction of what would become the Anglican Church in North America.

The Common Cause Governance Task Force was another such place. It would draft the constitution and canons of the new province.

The Catechism Task Force and the Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force were two more such places. Among the best ways of keeping a new province on the course that you have set for it are through its catechism and through its service book.

The most important place of all, however, was the College of Bishops. There what influence they exercised would carry more weight than anywhere else.

While the Anglo-Catholics in the Anglican Church in North America may have not gotten everything that they may have wanted, they still have gotten a sweet deal. There is no two ways about.

The Fundamental Declarations affirm the Anglo-Catholic view that bishops are of the essence of the church. The constitution authorizes two methods of choosing bishops—election by the diocese and confirmation by the College of Bishops or nomination by the diocese and appointment by the College of Bishops. Either way whatever faction has the most influence in the College of Bishops determines who sits on the province’s episcopal bench. The constitution prohibits women bishops. The description of episcopal ministry in the canons comes from the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church

The canons urge dioceses to adopt the second method of choosing bishops, stating that it is the “preferred” method. The canons do not require the College of Bishops to choose one of the two nominees. The College can reject nominees until the diocese presents the name of a nominee that is acceptable. The canons do not prohibit the College from nominating and appointing its own candidate. The guidelines for admission of a diocese to the ACNA do not mention the first method of choosing a bishop. They direct the network of clergy and churches seeking admission to the ACNA to nominate two candidates for the office of bishop.

At the time the constitution and canons of the Anglican Church in North America were drafted, this particular method of choosing bishops was attributed to one of the African Anglican provinces. While it may have come from one of those provinces, it did not originate in that province. It originated in the Roman Catholic Church. It is based upon the papal method for choosing new bishops but with the College of Bishops replacing the pope. In that system various dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church submit the names of nominees to the pope who then chooses the new bishop. The pope is not required to choose from these nominees and he may have his own personal short list of candidates.

As Joseph O’Callaghan points out in his 2015 article, “The current method of selecting bishops runs contrary to church tradition,” in the National Catholic Reporter, “papal appointment is contrary to the church's centuries-long tradition of the election of bishops by the clergy and people of the diocese.” He goes on to cite one of the early popes:

Pope Leo I the Great emphatically affirmed that right when he declared: "The one who is to preside over all should be elected by all." He added: "When the election of the chief priest is being considered, the one whom the unanimous consent of the clergy and people demands should be preferred. ... No one who is unwanted and unasked for should be ordained, lest the city despise or hate a bishop whom they did not choose."

The right of the clergy and people of the diocese to choose their bishops is hallowed by usage from the earliest times by canons enacted by church councils and by repeated papal affirmation.

Later on his article O’Callaghan notes that in 1970 Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, “joined Hans Küng and other members of the Catholic theological faculty at the University of Tübingen in proposing an eight-year term for bishops.” “If bishops can be required to resign at 75,” he concludes, “there is no reason why they cannot be elected for a limited number of years.”

O’Callaghan makes a good point. I have studied a number of the governing documents of the dioceses of the Anglican Church of Australia. One of these governing documents has a provision requiring period reviews of a bishop’s performance by the diocesan synod. After each review the diocesan synod votes on extending the bishop’s term of office. If a review is unfavorable and the synod does not extend his term of office, the bishop must resign. As it is presently set up the College of Bishops is turning into an old boys’ club whose members choose new members based upon their loyalty to the College and their acceptance of doctrine and practices that the existing members favor. There is little room for fresh ideas.

I hope that no one has missed the irony of a Roman Catholic writing favorably of the method of episcopal election that the Anglican Church has preserved but which the Anglican Church in North America wants to jettison for a method that comes with its own share of problems. I have studied a number of methods for choosing bishops and the method that ACNA’s canons champion is far from the best method.

The archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America is chosen the same way that the Roman Catholic Church chooses the pope and the Eastern Orthodox Churches a patriarch. The only thing that was missing from Archbishop Foley Beach’s election was the white smoke announcing the election of a new pope. All the bishops must swear their obedience to the new archbishop who is not even a metropolitan with metropolitical authority under the provisions of the constitution and canons. He is a presiding bishop with a fancy title and some limited appointive powers. The whole thing may be described as a study in pretentiousness.

The ACNA’s catechism devotes an entire section to ordination and the threefold ministry of deacon, priest, and bishop. If we apply J. I. Packer’s criteria to this section, what the catechism is asserting is that knowledge of its contents is “ordinarily necessary for salvation-in other words, that they are, in fact, part of the Gospel.” While Anglo-Catholics make this claim, it is not one that the English Reformers would recognize.

The ACNA’s ordinal changes the language to the preface of the 1661 Ordinal so that it is only open to an Anglo-Catholic interpretation. It permits candidates for ordination to prostrate themselves before the altar, a practice that the English Reformers rejected due to its long association with the medieval Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass. It allows the bishop to anoint the hands of the hands of newly-ordained priests with blessed oil, a practice with similar associations. It also permits the delivery of a chalice (with a paten nestled in it and may be a little wine in the chalice and a host on the paten) to the newly-ordained priest, a practice that Archbishop Cranmer dropped from the 1552 reformed Ordinal, recognizing its long association with the medieval Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass. Rather the newly-ordained presbyter would be given only a copy of the Holy Bible, a reminder that as a presbyter of a Reformed Church, he was first and foremost a minister of God’s Word.

In addition the ordinal permits the consecration of a bishop with all the pomp and ceremony associated with the consecration of a Roman Catholic bishop, including the anointing of the bishop’s forehead with blessed oil. If poor Cranmer had not been burned at the stake and his ashes scattered to the wind, he would be spinning in his grave.

None of these departures from historic Anglican beliefs and practices can be justified on scriptural grounds or otherwise. They represent a failure on the part of the ACNA’s top leaders to be faithful to the Holy Scriptures and the English Reformation. They point to the urgent need for reform in the Anglican Church of North America, reform that will bring the doctrine and practices of the ACNA as a province into line with the Bible, the historic Anglican formularies, and the “central Anglican theological tradition.” North America already has two provinces that have departed from these standards. It does not need a third.

Also See:
The Episcopate in the Anglican Church in North America
Proposals for the Reform of the Anglican Church in North America: The Episcopate