The Allure of the Dangerous, the Allure of the Deadly: The Need for a Second Alternative Province in North America—Part 3

By Robin G. Jordan

If the Anglican Church in North America is to take up the mantle of representing genuine Anglicanism in Canada, Mexico, and the United States and their overseas territories, it must genuinely embody what it claims to represent. It must fully embrace the doctrinal foundation of the Anglican Church—the Holy Scriptures and the historic Anglican formularies.

This, I realize, is an impossible task for the ACNA’s present leadership. Too many of those who occupy positions of influence in the province are enamored with the poisonous plants growing in its garden. After all, they are the ones who planted them. They have already expressed the intent to encourage other provinces to grow them too.

In this regard these leaders are no different than the leaders of the Episcopal Church who at every opportunity seek to export their particular brand of Anglicanism, if it can be called Anglicanism, to other provinces.

If a number of Anglican provinces outside of North America were not raising poisonous plants of their own, I would be inclined to view the North American Anglican Church as a forcing bed or hotbed for harmful beliefs and practices. It produces more than its share of them.

In North America the poisonous plants have taken over not only the garden but the fields. They are like the darnel, or cockle, the farmer’s enemy sowed in his fields. They have been sown so thickly that they are choking what the wheat has been sown. Even if the darnel is separated from the wheat at harvest time, the wheat harvest would be a poor one.

In ancient times a farmer who fields became infested with darnel might be forced to burn his fields. Even if he was able to salvage a part of his wheat crop, he and his family would have little to eat to the next harvest. Faced with starvation, they might have to eat the “seed corn” and then sell the land. The farmer and his family might then be forced to work as day laborers or to sell themselves into slavery.

If an enemy deliberately sowed darnel in the farmer’s fields as in the parable of the wheat and the tares, the wealthy landowner who bought the land and then employed or bought the farmer and his family might be the very enemy who sowed darnel in the farmer’s fields. It was his design from the very beginning.

If you are not familiar with darnel, it is a very poisonous weed. It resembles wheat until it matures. It has deep roots. If you uproot it, you are likely to uproot any wheat growing near it. If it seeds earlier than the wheat and sows itself in the field, the farmer will be forced to contend with it more than one year in a row.

Darnel was a real problem for farmers until harvesting machinery was developed that could separate darnel seeds from wheat seeds.

While it is impossible to protect a wheat field entirely from darnel infestation, it is possible to protect a wheat field from an enemy deliberately sowing darnel in the field. A farmer can also take steps to make sure the wheat that he sows is relatively darnel-free.

This is one of the purposes of the Thirty-Nine Articles in the Anglican Church. It is to protect the Anglican Church from harmful beliefs and practices. To fulfill this purpose, the doctrine and principles embodied in the Articles must be enforced. It is not enough to require that clergy subscribe to the Articles as important as clerical subscription to the Articles is.

The farmer can also plant the wheat in fields in which have largely been free from darnel. This may entail plowing new fields and then planting them.

The ecclesiastical equivalent is to form a new province composed of networks of existing and new churches that are fully committed to biblical Christianity and historic Anglicanism and are comparatively free from the harmful beliefs and practices that are being encouraged to take root and to bear fruit in the Anglican Church in North America.

What I hope is that Anglicans who are fully committed to remaining genuinely Anglican will give serious thought to forming such a province. They will not become so enthralled by the poisonous blossoms growing in the Anglican Church in North America that they will abandon the genuine Anglican Way for what may be the broad highway to perdition. It is also my hope that they do not come to regret holding back and doing nothing. They do not choose to let an opportunity to establish a genuine Anglican presence and witness in North America slip from their hands.

Also See:
The Allure of the Dangerous, the Allure of the Deadly: Harmful Beliefs and Practices in the Anglican Church—Part 1
The Allure of the Dangerous, the Allure of the Deadly: But What about Bishops?—Part 2

If you are not familiar with the flowers in the photos that I posted with my last three articles, the flowers in the first photo are oleander; the second photo, yellow aconite; and the third photo, monkshood, or blue aconite. All three plants are deadly poisonous. Pretty, aren't they?