A Gospel-Shaped North American Province

By Robin G. Jordan

During the twentieth century traditional Anglo-Catholicism which had been a major school of thought in the Episcopal Church was overshadowed by what Les Fairfield, professor of Church history at the Trinity School for Ministry from 1976 to 2006, calls “Catholic Modernism” – a blending of unreformed Catholicism with modernism—“a movement toward modifying traditional beliefs in accordance with modern ideas.”

While emphasizing the centrality of the sacraments and retaining traditional Catholic worship practices, “Catholic Modernism” takes a modernist view of the Bible and a liberal, or progressive, approach to its interpretation. It has become unwaveringly liberal in its commitment to inclusivity, supporting the full inclusion of all individuals in the life and ministry of the church irregardless of their gender or sexual orientation. Since the 1980s it has championed the ordination of non-celibate LGBT individuals and the development and authorization of same sex marriage rites.

While Anglo-Catholic traditionalists will deny the existence of any connection between the Anglo-Catholic movement and Catholic Modernism, it may be viewed as an offshoot of the Anglo-Catholic movement. The influence of the Anglo-Catholic movement upon Catholic Modernism is evident not only in the central place that it gives to the sacraments and its retention of traditional Catholic worship practices but also in its application of Newman’s theory of doctrinal development. A number of what its critics view as innovations are justified by the use of Newman’s argument that they are “the natural and beneficial consequences of reason working on the original revealed truth to draw out consequences that were not obvious at first.”

Catholic Modernism also takes a similar position to Anglo-Catholicism in regards to the interpretation of the Bible, that is, the Bible is too complex for the average layperson to understand on his own and therefore he must rely on the Church to interpret the Bible for him.

The similarity of their positions explains the ease with which Catholic Modernism has displaced Anglo-Catholicism in the Episcopal Church. Both discourage the laity to think for themselves and to let the clergy do the thinking for them. As long as the ambiance of the Episcopal Church went unchanged, most laity did not notice the shift in doctrine. Only as practice became more radical did some laypeople begin to take notice of what else was happening in the Episcopal Church.

The upheavals that the Episcopal Church experienced in the 1970s and the opening decade of this century were caused by changes in practice—the revision of the Prayer Book and the ordination of women in the 1970s and the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals, the blessing of same sex unions, and the consecration of an openly gay bishop in more recent times.

With the formation of the Anglican Church in North America the remaining Anglo-Catholic traditionalists were able to move from beneath the shadow of Catholic Modernism. In the ACNA they are pursuing a longstanding aim of the Anglo-Catholic movement—to replace the Protestant identity of the Anglican Church with a Catholic one. This is evident from the Theological Statement of the Common Cause Partnership that established the ACNA; the Solemn Declarations of the ACNA’s constitution; a number of provisions of the ACNA’s canons; To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism, the catechism that the ACNA’s College of Bishops has endorsed; and the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book, the service book of which the College of Bishops has also publicly expressed its approval.

In this regard this group of traditionalist Anglo-Catholics is no different from the group of Anglo-Catholic traditionalists who broke with the Episcopal Church over Prayer Book revision and women’s ordination in the 1970s. Both groups do not view historic Anglicanism as sufficiently Catholic and have sought to move the Anglican Church in what they consider a more Catholic direction. While their motives have changed from their nineteenth century predecessors, their aims have not. Changing the theological identity of the Anglican Church has always been one of these aims.

The predicament of North American Anglicans who are committed to remaining faithful to the Bible and to historic Anglican beliefs and practices is that the Anglican Church of Canada, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in North America are hostile environments for them. By historic Anglican beliefs and practices I am referring those beliefs and practices that conform with the doctrine and principles embodied in the historic Anglican formularies—The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571, The Book of Common Prayer of 1662, and the Forms for Ordering and Consecrating Deacons, Priests, and Bishops of 1661—and the two Books of Homilies commended by the Articles for their godly and wholesome teaching, necessary for the times. In several instances the doctrine of the Articles is taught more fully in one of the Homilies.

The Anglican Church of Canada, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in North America are moving away from historic Anglicanism but in different directions. All three conceal their divergence from historic Anglicanism behind the trappings of Catholic worship.

In his book Converting Christians to Christ: Evangelizing the Church (1990) Episcopal priest Rob Smith notes that the primary attraction of the Episcopal Church has been its ambiance. This particular ambiance can not only attract people from other traditions but also mask doctrinal shifts as I have previously noted.

The Anglican Church in North America to a large part is an offshoot of the Episcopal Church and shares its ambiance. As well as containing various groups that broke with the Episcopal Church, the ACNA also contains more recent converts to the same ambiance. They include individuals who have been influenced by the worship renewal movement and the related Ancient-Future Church movement. These two movements emphasize the importance of forms of worship and downplay the importance of doctrine—a criticism often leveled at the late Robert Webber who was a prominent figure in these two movements until his death.

An idea that has influenced these two movements is the notion that if disparate traditions adopt the same patterns of worship, they can occupy the same ecclesiastical body. This idea harkens back to one of the recommendations of the 1958 Lambeth Conference, which was that a common structure of the Holy Communion service should form the basis of Anglican unity. As events have shown since that time, the 1958 Lambeth Conference’s recommendation is a very flimsy basis for Anglican unity. The same idea also ignores the confessional nature of historic Anglicanism.

At the same time this idea holds a certain appeal to those who subscribe to the notion that what is emerging in the Anglican Church in North America is a synthesis of the three main theological streams of Christianity—Catholicism, evangelicalism, and Pentecostalism. They are flowing together as one river. This synthesis, if it really can be described as such a fusion of ideas, bears a very strong resemblance to unreformed Catholicism that two are for the most part indistinguishable.

The reality is that this kind of thinking creates a doctrinal vacuum, a vacuum which the most opportunistic school of thought will fill with its own doctrine. This is what is happening in the Anglican Church in North America. We hear little complaint from the laity since this school of thought is not tampering with the ambiance to which they are attracted or to which they are accustomed. It is not engaging in any alarming practices that may draw their attention.

Just as an army can move under the cover of a smoke screen, this school of thought is moving under the cover of a particular ambiance. It is also able to take advantage of the biblical and theological illiteracy of American Christians.

Former Archbishop Robert Duncan’s charge to the Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force to make the ACNA’s rites and services as appealing to people as possible is very telling. It suggests that Bishop Duncan recognized the preoccupation of ACNA’ers with forms of worship and ambiance. In his charge he makes no mention of making these rites and services doctrinally sound and genuinely Anglican. The emphasis is upon their attractiveness.

However, this preoccupation with the outward forms of rites and services and the atmosphere of the church makes ACNA’ers highly vulnerable. This is one of the lessons that we can learn from what happened in the Episcopal Church. If the worship does not appear to be too different from what they are accustomed and the atmosphere of the church has not changed greatly, Episcopalians and ACNA’ers are apt to be oblivious to gradual or subtle changes in doctrine. I am not so naïve to believe that those introducing such changes are not aware of this tendency and do not exploit it.

Since Anglo-Catholics have found a place in the sun in the Anglican Church in North America, they are not going to let go of this position of advantage. Rather they are going to press home their advantage. They have natural allies in other ACNA’ers who dismiss the English Reformation and look to the pre-Reformation medieval and earlier Church for inspiration and direction. The conditions are ripe for an Anglo-Catholic resurgence. From their perspective they would be foolish not to make the best of this opportunity.

North American Anglicans who are committed to remaining faithful to the Bible and to historic Anglican beliefs and practices need to face up to reality. Maintaining a genuine Anglican presence and witness in the Anglican Church in North America may be an appealing idea but from a historical perspective it has nil chance of success. Once a movement reaches critical mass and gains momentum it is unstoppable until it has run its course. At most they can do is to create an enclave for themselves and use it as a base from which they can attempt to regain lost territory. Such an enclave would be easier to establish outside the ACNA than within the province since its formularies are designed to discourage any other school thought beside Catholic Revivalism from flourishing.

At the same time they need to learn from the lessons of the Free Church of England and the Reformed Episcopal Church. Both enclaves were formed outside the province from which they broke away. One lacked evangelistic vigor while the other quickly lost that vigor. Both would become inward-looking. Both have fallen prey to the same infection from which they sought to quarantine themselves due to leaders who are not committed to the evangelical principles of their founders and who have redefined these principles to bring them in line with their own aspirations.

For example, George David Cummins who founded the Reformed Episcopal Church is now touted as a disciple of William Augustus Muhlenberg, a self-identified “Evangelical Catholic,” who was an early proponent of the Social Gospel movement and whose doctrinal views have been compared to those of the Tractarian Edward Bouverie Pusey. They have also been described as paralleling those of John Henry Newman. Muhlenberg was initially sympathetic to the Ritualist movement. George David Cummins, on the other hand, was a conservative Evangelical who vigorously opposed the spread of Tractarianism and Ritualism in the Protestant Episcopal Church. He would eventually break with the Protestant Episcopal Church over the growth and spread of their influence in that body.

In creating an enclave for North American Anglicans who are committed to remaining faithful to the Bible and to historic Anglican beliefs and practices such Anglicans would not be just protecting historic Anglicanism. They also would be safeguarding the truth of the gospel. This alone is sufficient reason for the creation of such an enclave. It would be a terrible thing to see the gospel lost in the North American Anglican Church as it was lost in the medieval Catholic Church. I would not want to see that happen on my watch. I would hope that North American Anglicans who are committed to remaining faithful to the Bible and to historic Anglican beliefs and practices would not want to see it happen on theirs.

One thing about which historic Anglicanism is very insistent is that all Anglicans must be in agreement on the gospel. They can have different customs and forms of worship provided that they do not conflict with the Word of God. But they must proclaim the same gospel. They cannot add to the gospel or take away from the gospel. They cannot adopt doctrine or practices which, if not openly, by inference proclaim a different gospel. The gospel sets the boundaries of Anglican comprehensiveness. It is our ultimate touchstone.