But Is It Anglican?

What We Say and How We Say It Matters

By Robin G. Jordan

In 2014 I wrote a series of articles on To Be A Christian: An Anglican Catechism. They may be found on the Heritage Anglicans blog. They show how choice of language can be very revealing into the doctrine of a catechism. For example, Protestant theology views grace in terms of God’s goodwill and mercy shown to us and his divine influence exercised in our lives. Catholic theology, while accepting this view of grace, also views grace as something that may be infused into human beings through the sacraments—in particular the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. The Catholic refers to this kind of grace as “sanctifying grace.” It imparts not only spiritual life to the soul but also holiness without which the soul may not enter heaven. This view of grace is found in To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism in a muted form.

In 2015 I wrote an article series on the theological leanings of the various doctrinal statements of the Anglican Church in North America. This included an article on the ACNA’s catechism, “The ACNA Catechism: A Tool for Instruction? Or a Tool for Indoctrination?” which examines the positions that the catechism takes on key issues over which Anglicans have historically been divided.

I recently reread the catechism and it confirmed my initial observation that to properly understand what the catechism is teaching or in a number of cases permitting to be taught, one must pay close attention to the wording of each set of questions and answers in the catechism—what is said, what is omitted, and what is inferred—and to the questions and answers in the other sections of the catechism. One also benefits from a familiarity with the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion; their original intended meaning; the Prayer Book Catechism; the source of its section on the sacraments, Alexander Nowell’s Larger Catechism; and The Catechism of the Catholic Church, as well as the Scriptural references cited in the catechism and how these passages have been interpreted and misinterpreted.

Although To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism comes with an impressive list of editors and consultants and the endorsement of the ACNA’s College of Bishops, it would be a mistake to conclude from this list and this endorsement that catechism is faithful to the teaching of the Scripture and the doctrine and principles of the Anglican formularies. A careful examination of the catechism shows that it deviates from the doctrinal foundation of the Anglican Church in a number of areas. Rather than being a doctrinal statement on which all legitimate schools of theological thought can agree, it incorporates a number of partisan positions—sometimes in the questions and answers, sometimes in the omissions and inferences, and sometimes in the interpretation of the referenced Scripture and Anglican formularies.

To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism is one of the longest, if not the longest, of the more recent Anglican catechisms. It shows the influence of the Episcopal Church's An Outline of the Faith and the Roman Catholic Church's The Catechism of the Catholic Church. I believe that a comparison of To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism with the three catechisms that helped to shape historic Anglicanism and with later catechisms in the reformed Anglican tradition will show that To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism is not genuinely representative of historic Anglicanism.