The Catholic-Protestant Divide in the Anglican Church in North America

By Robin G. Jordan

When I surveyed the Internet for an answer to the question, “Do Catholics and Protestant preach the same gospel?” I came up with some interesting results. Several Catholic websites claimed that Catholics and Protestants did preach the same gospel. These websites also promoted ecumenism and improved relations between Catholics and Protestants.

One Catholic website, however, maintained that Protestants preached a “false gospel.” It was old school Catholic. While the ecumenical-minded Catholic websites downplayed or minimized the differences between Catholics and Protestants, the old school Catholic websites trashed Protestantism, maintaining that no salvation exists outside the Catholic Church.

The tone of the Orthodox websites was not much different from that of the old school Catholic websites. Protestants were at best confused and at worst heretics.

Most of the Protestant websites took the view that Catholics and Protestants did not preach the same gospel. A few regarded Catholics as not even Christians.

Two articles that I thought were worth sharing with Anglicans Ablaze readers are “Protestants and Catholics Use Same Terms, Different Dictionaries” and “Protestant and Catholic: What’s the Difference?” Both articles are posted on the Gospel Coalition website.

The author of the first article is Gregg R. Allison who is professor of Christian theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Among his works are Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical Assessment (Crossway, 2014).

The author of the second article is Kevin DeYoung who blogs on the Gospel Coalition website. He is senior pastor of Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, board chairman of The Gospel Coalition, and assistant professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary (Charlotte).

Dr. Allison points out in his article that while Catholics and Protestants may use the same words, they assign different meanings to them. When they talk about the gospel, they are not talking about the same thing. He enumerates the significant differences between Catholics and Protestants.

Dr. DeYoung notes that, while Catholics and Protestants get along better today than they have in the past, the divide that separates Catholics and Protestants is both wide and deep. He gives several examples.

Based upon the significant theological differences that divide Catholics and Protestants and the different meaning that they give the word “gospel,” it is not entirely unreasonable to say that they preach a “different” gospel. They may be using the same Bible narrative but drawing different conclusions from that narrative.

This is an issue with which Anglicans have wrestled since the English Reformation. It is not an issue that can be set aside out of a desire for better relations. Among the questions that it raises is whether Catholics and Protestants can realistically inhabit the same ecclesial body.

As J. I. Packer has pointed out, Anglican comprehensiveness is an “evangelical comprehensiveness.” It is circumscribed by the gospel. In other words, the gospel sets its boundaries or limits. The doctrine of the Anglican Church, Dr. Packer further points out, “is defined in the Thirty-Nine Articles, embodied in the Book of Common Prayer, and expounded in the Homilies.” This includes “what the Reformers took to be the New Testament gospel.”

Anglican comprehensiveness is not a form of theological pluralism which is based on a relativistic view of theology and in which all theological systems are equally valid (and equally invalid). This concept reflects the influence of North America’s post-modern, post-Christian culture. It is arguably an accommodation to the prevailing culture and a form of liberalism.

Anglican comprehensiveness requires a shared understanding of the gospel. While Anglicans may diverge on secondary matters, it insists that they agree on primary matters. They must hold “an Augustinian view of sin and a Reformed view of the sacraments and grace.” It rejects a cafeteria approach to doctrine. Anglicans cannot pick and choose when it comes to primary matters.

This is not what we find in the Anglican Church in North America. What we find in the ACNA is three groups that identify themselves as Anglicans. The first group has been influenced by the Anglo-Catholic movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and adheres to a form of unreformed Catholicism that is close to Roman Catholicism, if not identical with that system of beliefs and practices. This group is not entirely homogeneous. It includes a subgroup that leans toward Eastern Orthodoxy.

The first group is quite dogmatic in its views and embraces a form of Catholic Revivalism that idealizes the early high medieval Catholic Church as it was before the eleventh century schism between the East and the West. Its aim is to reshape the Anglican Church along the lines of that Church. It includes in its ranks those who champion a new Oxford or Tractarian movement. It is quite vocal in the councils of the ACNA and exercises a degree of influence disproportionate to its size. Its influence is discernible in the ACNA’s Fundamental Declarations, To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism, and the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book. Its leaders have effectively exploited the theological confusion in the ACNA, which they helped to create.

The second group consists of those whom Gerald Bray, research professor of divinity at Beeson Divinity School, describes as “charismatic open evangelical ritualists.” They are primarily ritualists who hold some evangelical views but are open to liberal ideas and Catholic beliefs and practices. They have also been influenced by Pentecostalism, the charismatic movement, or the Third Wave, or Vineyard, movement or a combination of the three. In his articles, “Navigating the Three Streams” and “Revisiting the Three Streams” Gillis Harp describes a number of characteristics that may be viewed as typifying the members of this group. Dr. Harp is a professor of history at Grove City College, Grove City, Pennsylvania. Among his works are Protestants and American Conservatism: A Short History (Oxford, scheduled for release this June) and Brahmin Prophet: Phillips Brooks and the Path of Liberal Protestantism (Rowman &  Littlefield, 2003).

I recommend Dr. Harp's lecture, "Why Are (Some) Anglicans Afraid of the Reformation," which he gave at the Trinity School for Ministry's Dean's Hour in the Fall of 2018. He clears up a number of misconceptions about Anglican identity, the Protestant Reformation, and the Anglican Church. I posted an audio recording of the lecture in today's edition of Anglicans Ablaze.

As in the case of the first group, the second group is not entirely homogeneous. It numbers in its ranks those who lean more pronouncedly in one direction than another.

The third group affirms the Protestant identity of the Anglican Church, identifies itself as Protestant, and adheres to varying degrees to the doctrine and principles of the historic Anglican formularies. It numbers in its ranks those who are Reformed in their theological outlook or who tend to lean in that direction. This group, from a historical perspective, is the group that stands the most in continuity with the English Reformers and historic Anglicanism.

The last group, I believe, occupy the most precarious position in the Anglican Church in North America due to the aggressiveness of the first group and the susceptibility of the second group to its influence. For want of a better way of putting it, the second group is also naïve in its views and lacks theological maturity. Readers may disagree but as baseball umpires say, “I call ‘em as I see ‘em.”

Those within the Anglican Church in North America are not likely to recognize the existence of problem areas in the ACNA, much less the nature, extent, and severity of these problems, until they precipitate a crisis. By then it may be too late to take the most desirable form of corrective action. A number of problems have not reached the stage at which they are amenable only to the most drastic remedies. Now is the best time to correct them.

As a conservative evangelical Anglican I have a stake in what shape the Anglican Church will take in the North America. I also know that serious problems do not remedy themselves. To effectively bring about a solution to a problem requires directing attention to the problem and keeping attention focused upon it. The most noticeable problem may be symptomatic of deeper problems that affect the entire ecclesial body. This process may entail painting an unfavorable picture of the ACNA which may arouse the defensiveness of those who are heavily invested in the ACNA. This cannot be helped.

An unhealthy response is to deny the existence of problems and to discourage the open discussion of them. We have seen what happened in the Catholic Church. Its diocesan authorities put the image and reputation of their institution before the safety and well-being of the children entrusted to their care. This may be an extreme example but it points to the dangers of failing to admit the existence of problems and of failing to dealing with them out in the open.

The Catholic Church tried to deal with its child abuse problem quietly and out of the sight of the public. The more the diocesan authorities became obsessed with secrecy, the worse the problem grew.

A healthy response is to acknowledge the existence of the problems besetting the Anglican Church in North America, bring them out into the open, and deal with them in the open.

Among the problems that need to be addressed in the Anglican Church in North America are its Fundamental Declarations, its form of church governance, its method of selecting bishops, its disciplinary canons, its catechism, and its proposed service book. If the ACNA is to represent authentic historic Anglicanism in North America, its doctrine and practices need to be brought into line with the Articles, the Prayer Book, the Homilies, and what J. I, Packer describes as “the central Anglican theological tradition.” It needs to adopt a synodical form of church governance in which bishops genuinely share authority with synods of clerical and lay delegates at the provincial and diocesan levels. The ACNA needs to leave to the several dioceses how they choose their bishops as the Anglican Church of Australia does. Its canons need to be more explicit and in the case of the disciplinary canons to offer more procedural safeguards for the accused party. Its catechism needs to reflect the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine and principles of authentic historic Anglicanism. Its service book needs to embody the same doctrine and principles and countenance only those practices that are compatible with it. This will require a massive overhaul of the ACNA from the provincial level on down.

Since such a makeover will take time and will likely experience setbacks, clergy, congregations, and dioceses comprising the third group of self-identified Anglicans in the Anglican Church in North America will need to network with each other and with sympathetic groups outside North America. They will need to form their own distinct jurisdiction within the ACNA; to establish their own leadership pipeline for clergy and other church leaders, to develop and publish their own catechism, discipleship courses, and Christian education material; to develop and publish their own service book; to plant new churches and strengthen existing churches; and take such other steps as may be necessary to establish themselves as “a province within the province.” United in a single ecclesial entity within the ACNA they will be able to negotiate with the other elements of the ACNA from a position of strength. They will be able to exercise a degree of leverage that they are not presently able to exercise due to their dispersal throughout the province.