The Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper in the ACNA’s Catechism: What It Is and Where It Came From - REVISED AND UPDATED

This article is a companion article to my two-part article, “The Lord’s Supper Explained: The Historical Anglican View of the Sacrament”—Part 1 and Part 2.

By Robin G. Jordan

While searching the Internet for 1962 Revised Catechism of the Church of England, I ran across an article, entitled "The Revised Catechism," that J. I. Packer had written for the Church Society’s quarterly journal Churchman in 1961. In the article Packer critiques the then proposed Revised Catechism. The article is fascinating reading.

Packer concludes early in the article that the Commission that the Archbishops set up "to consider the revision of the Church Catechism in order that its scope may be enlarged and its language made more suitable for present conditions," when it came to enlarging the scope of the Church Catechism, was faced with an impossible task due to the state of the Church of England at the time. Packer goes on to delineate two principles for deciding what a catechism should, and should not, contain.

The first principle is that “a catechism should limit itself to Christian essentials.” The purpose of the catechumenate, he notes, is “to inculcate ‘mere Christianity’.” “It is theologically improper,” he concludes, “for catechisms to include more than the minimum that is thought necessary for a healthy adult faith. Non-essentials have no place in them.” It is also wrong to use catechisms “for the purposes of denominational propaganda.” The only justification for putting “denominational distinctives” into a catechism is that “knowledge of these things is ordinarily necessary for salvation-in other words, that they are, in fact, part of the Gospel.” Packer further notes:

But nothing that cannot be defended as being part of the Gospel has any right of entry into a catechism. Catechisms exist to set out the bare essentials of catholic Christianity, and if they go beyond these it is not a virtue, but a defect. It would be theologically wrong to enlarge the scope of any catechism beyond the realm of that knowledge which is necessary for the spiritual health and safety of the individual Christian.

This has an important corollary for Anglicans. Historic Anglicanism rests on the principle that "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation" (Article VI). It follows, therefore, that in any catechism that is fit for Anglicans to use every assertion will admit of Scripture proof.

All the Reformation Catechisms, including the Church of England’s, Packer points out, were compiled on the principle that “every part of the catechism must be capable of proof by Holy Scripture.” This principle is the only one that is open to Anglicans. He concludes:

…any part of a catechism for the Church of England which could not be proved by Holy Scripture would, by Anglican standards, have no business to be there; for what cannot be proved by Scripture cannot be necessary to salvation, and doctrines, however true, and facts, however interesting, that are not necessary to salvation have no place in rightly constructed catechisms.

The second principle “for determining the proper contents of a Catechism,” which Packer delineates, is that “the Catechism should limit itself to Christian essentials as professed and understood by the Church which is to use it.

Packer goes on to point out that a “properly-ordered catechumenate” in which “the contents of that Church's Catechism are faithfully and thoroughly taught” can exercise a tremendous influence upon the younger generations, decisively shaping their faith.

The following points Packer makes especially caught my attention due to their particular relevance to the Anglican Church in North America.

A Church's Catechism is its official manual of instruction for those who would become adult communicants. As such, it has a confessional significance. It has the status of what the Church of Scotland calls a "subordinate standard " ; that is, it is a normative exposition of the faith of the church that uses it second only in authority to that Church's Creed, or Confession. It is thus a foundational document in any Church's life. It is, or should be, the basic form in which the growing child meets that Church's faith.

Packer then cites a passage from Principles of Prayer Book Revision, which shows the doctrinal importance of the Catechism.

Changes in the Catechism are of considerable moment for two reasons : first, because it provides the priest with a syllabus of what he is required to teach candidates for Confirmation, whether children or adults, and, though he may supplement the syllabus, he cannot omit anything which it contains; secondly, because it can be appealed to as an authoritative interpretation of the faith of the Church (p. 59) [Emphasis added].

Packer concludes:

It is clear, then, that a Church's Catechism is a document of major importance. It is clear, too, that the effect of altering a Church's Catechism will be (assuming that its catechumenate is well ordered) to alter its faith within a couple of generations [Emphasis added]. What you strike out of the Catechism, you absolve the clergy from teaching and the laity from learning. When you add fresh matter to the Catechism, you thereby charge the clergy to present it, and the laity to receive it, as vital to the health and safety of the Christian soul. The Catechism must not therefore, be changed irresponsibly; changes in the Catechism have the most far-reaching consequences. For the Catechism is, for teaching purposes, the archetypal, fundamental, and normative presentation of the Church's faith.

Packer draws three equally relevant conclusions:

But if this is true, three things clearly follow.

First, it follows that the teaching of any Church's Catechism must be wholly in line with the teaching of its official confession of faith, and of any other subordinate standards that it may have; otherwise the effect of the Catechism will be to throw that Church into disorder on the theological level.

Second, it follows that any Church's Catechism must command the assent of that Church as a whole, and especially of the clergy as a whole; otherwise it will not be regularly and universally used, and that Church will, in consequence, be thrown into disorder on the pastoral level.

Third, it follows that the contents of a Church's Catechism must not be made a party issue. The essentials which the Catechism contains must be essentials agreed upon by all parties. There is no place in the Catechism for unrepresentative minority views or party lines; otherwise the Catechism, instead of standing as an agreed platform of Church teaching, becomes itself a bone of contention and a cause of further division within the Church.

Now, therefore, we can see why it is simply impossible to revise the Catechism satisfactorily with the Church of England in its present state.

In the first place, there is not sufficient agreement about Christian essentials. Those who hold that a particular doctrine of the Church, and of its ministers and ministrations, is part of the Gospel, would think the Prayer Book Catechism defective for not covering these topics, and would not be content with any Catechism that did not deal with them. Those, however, who take a different view would object on principle to the inclusion of much that the former group would think indispensable, and would object in detail to much that the former group would want said on these themes.

Then, in the second place, there is not sufficient contentment with, and loyalty to, the doctrine defined in the Articles, embodied in the Prayer Book, and expounded in the Homilies, concerning grace, the Church, the ministry, and the sacraments.

Some would demand that any new Catechism move away from this doctrine; indeed, the hope of moving away from it all along the line is a main reason why some are pressing for Prayer Book revision at the present time.

Others, however, would argue, on grounds equally of truth, of principle, and of expediency, that it would be disastrous for the Church of England to authorize any forms of worship or instruction which cut loose from the historic Anglican position, and would demand that all Prayer Book revision be confessionally controlled, lest the Church of England condemn itself to a life of everlasting theological schizophrenia.

With minds in the Church of England thus divided, it is clearly impossible for a new Catechism that will give general satisfaction to be produced at present. However much or little approval the existing Prayer Book Catechism commands, it seems certain that any new Catechism will command less. And a Catechism that has not gained the approval of the whole Church would be, as we saw, a liability, not an asset, in the Church's life.*

Packer notes that the Commission in revising the Church’s Catechism appears to have relied upon “the compromise formula and the principle of something for everybody.” “The result,” he points out, “is a document that at certain points is out of step with the Articles, the Prayer Book, the Homilies, and the central Anglican theological tradition.”

Packer then goes on to examine the proposed revised catechism in detail. His critique of specific parts of that catechism is consistent with what he has written in Keep in Step with the Spirit, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Belief, Growing in Christ, and other works.

The views that Packer expresses in this article contrast sharply with the assertion that he makes in the Introduction to To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism, that is, its contents are agreeable to all legitimate Anglican theological schools of thought. Packer’s critique of the specific parts of the Church of England’s 1962 Revised Catechism is applicable to a large extent to To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism as are the paragraphs of his article, which we have just examined. Together, they belie his assertion.

As we shall see, like the Church of England’s 1962 Revised Catechism, To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism “at certain points is out of step with the Articles, the Prayer Book, the Homilies, and the central Anglican theological tradition.” One of these points is the section on the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

As Packer emphasizes in his article, "the teaching of any Church's Catechism must be wholly in line with the teaching of its official confession of faith, and of any other subordinate standards that it may have." The Anglican Church in North America, however, has no confession of faith. Its Fundamental Declarations equivocate in their acceptance of the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and dilute the authority of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. They infer the existence of other doctrinal standards to which the ACNA looks but do not identify these standards, much in the way John Henry Newman did in his exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. In the ACNA its proposed catechism, it is second only to the three Catholic Creeds. I refer to the catechism as proposed because while it boasts an impressive list of editors, contributors, and consultants and has the endorsement of the College of Bishops, it has never been officially adopted by the ACNA. The Provincial Council has not approved a canon authorizing its use nor has the Provincial Assembly ratified such a canon.

When we interpret the Prayer Book Catechism, we must do so in accordance with the teaching of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, which provide the doctrinal standards by which the Prayer Book must be interpreted. In the case of the proposed ACNA catechism, however, we must look to this amorphous body of doctrine that the Fundamental Declarations do not identify. To determine its identity, we must search for internal clues within the catechism itself and in this search Packer’s article is an invaluable guide.

To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism takes the question, “What is the inward part, or thing signified?” and its answer from the Prayer Book Catechism and changes the wording. This altered wording is not needed to make the question and answer more understandable to a speaker of modern English. It appears to be intended to modify the doctrine of the question and answer and to transform the question and answer into an affirmation of the Real Objective Presence in the consecrated elements.

112. What is the inward and spiritual thing signified?

The spiritual thing signified is the body and blood of Christ, which are truly taken and received in the Lord’s Supper by faith. (1 Corinthians 10:16-18; 11:27; John 6:52-56)

As can be seen the question and answer only superficially resemble that question and answer in the Prayer Book Catechism. As well as being awkwardly worded, they are open to interpretation as affirming the Real Objective Presence in the consecrated elements. As I pointed out earlier, those interpreting this question and answer are not under any constraint to apply the doctrinal standards of the Articles in their interpretation. They are free to look to the doctrinal standards of their own choosing—the Holy Tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the writings of the Medieval Schoolmen, the Decrees of the Council of Trent, John Wesley’s abridgment of Daniel Brevint’s The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice, and so forth.

The Scripture references cited are favorites with those who maintain that Christ is substantively present in the consecrated elements. They interpret Paul as speaking literally in 1 Corinthians 10:16-18 and 1 Corinthians 11:27. They interpret Jesus as speaking literally in John 6:52-56, rather than figuratively as in the other “I am” discourses in John’s Gospel. In their interpretation of the passages in question they are relying on tradition and not solid exegesis of the text. The way they interpret these passages, however, are not the only way that the passages can be interpreted.

The context of the two passages in 1 Corinthians points to Paul’s use of figurative language in these passages. He is referring to Christ’s suffering and death. In Matthew 26:29 Jesus, after having referred to the contents of the cup as “my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,” refers to the cup’s contents as wine. Those who choose to interpret his words literally also choose to overlook this passage.

Paul was a former Pharisee and was intimately acquainted with the Passover meal and its traditions. He would have understood Jesus to have been speaking figuratively. In John’s narrative the “I am the Bread of Life” discourse follows the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, which the Synoptic Gospels place well before the Last Supper and Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper. Having begun the “I am the Bread of Life” speaking figuratively, it is unlikely that Jesus would have suddenly switched to speaking literally as those who espouse the doctrine of the Real Objective Presence would have us believe.

Several other clues point to the body of doctrine to which those who drafted this section of the proposed ACNA would have us look in interpreting the meaning this question and answer.

113. What benefits do you receive through partaking of this sacrament?

As my body is nourished by the bread and wine, I receive the strengthening and refreshing of my soul by the body and blood of Christ; and I receive the strengthening and refreshing of the love and unity I share with fellow Christians, with whom I am united in the one Body of Christ. (1662 Catechism)

The Prayer Book Catechism states:

Question. What are the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby?

Answer. The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the Bread and Wine.

It echoes the sentiments expressed in Nowell’s Middle Catechism:

Master. What is the heavenly part and matter removed from outward senses?

Scholar. The body and blood of Christ, which are given, taken, eaten, and drunken of the faithful, in the Lord’s Supper ;  only after a heavenly and spiritual manner, but yet verily, and indeed.  In so much, that as the bread nourisheth our bodies, so Christ’s body hath most singular force spiritually by faith to feed our souls.  And as with Wine men’s hearts are cheered, and their strengths confirmed, so with his blood our souls are relieved and refreshed through faith :  which is the mean whereby the body and blood of Christ are received in the Supper.  For Christ as surely maketh them that believe in him, partakers of his body and blood, as they surely know that they have received the bread and wine with their mouths and stomachs.  And it is also a gauge of our Immortality, and a pledge of our Resurrection.

While the proposed ACNA catechism attributes it to the Prayer Book Catechism, we find nothing along the lines of receiving “the strengthening and refreshing of the love and unity I share with fellow Christians, with whom I am united in the one Body of Christ” in that catechism. We do, however, find similar sentiments in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the sections “What Is This Sacrament Called”  and “The Paschal Banquet.”

After Vatican II a number of popular works explaining Roman Catholic eucharistic theology were published. These works emphasized that the faithful’s sharing of the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist gave tangible expression to the Mystical Body of Christ. It is not only strengthened their union with Christ but also with each other. If it was the intention of the drafters of this question and answer to express this doctrine, they did not do a good job of it.

While the Lord’s Supper may serve as a visible sign of our unity in Christ, it is the Holy Spirit that unites us to Christ and to each other and knits us into the Body of Christ.

To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism contains a question and answer in the Holy Communion section of that catechism, the equivalent of which I have not found in any other revised Anglican catechism that I have examined.

115. What is expected of you when you have shared in Holy Communion?

Having been renewed in my union with Christ and his people through sharing in the Supper, I should continue to live in holiness, avoiding sin, showing love and forgiveness to all, and serving others in gratitude.

The closest thing that I have to this question and answer is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the section “The Paschal Banquet.”  The sentiments expressed in the answer to this question are reminiscent of what the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls the “fruits of the Holy Communion”

However, what unites us to Christ and with our fellow Christians is the Holy Spirit, as I previously noted. Showing gratitude to God’s for his mercies; pursuing holiness; practicing godliness and shunning sin; loving and respecting others, forgiving them, and treating them as we would be treated; and serving Christ in our fellow human beings are what are normally expected from a disciple of Christ not as a response to the Eucharist but as a response to Christ himself and to his suffering and death on the cross for our salvation. They are things that we are able to do because the Holy Spirit has given us the good will to do them and continues to work with us once we have been given that good will (Article X).

The section of the proposed ACNA catechism dealing with what it describes as the “other sacraments” is an important clue to this body of doctrine’s identity.

116. Are there other sacraments?

Other rites and institutions commonly called sacraments include confirmation, absolution, ordination, marriage, and anointing of the sick. These are sometimes called the sacraments of the Church.

117. How do these differ from the sacraments of the Gospel?

They are not commanded by Christ as necessary for salvation, but arise from the practice of the apostles and the early Church, or are states of life blessed by God from creation. God clearly uses them as means of grace.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church as “the sacraments of the Church.” Anglo-Catholics who embrace the Roman Catholic Church’s sacramental system sometimes refer to confirmation, absolution, ordination, matrimony, and the anointing of the sick as the “lesser sacraments.”

The only purported Anglican document that I have examined and which refers to these rites as “the sacraments of the Church,” was the work of Canon Kevin Donlon, a former Episcopal priest who is an ex-Roman Catholic and who has studied Roman Catholic canon law. It was the new set of canons which he had prepared for the Anglican Church of Rwanda.

Into this set of canons Donlon had not only incorporated Roman Catholic governing principles but also Roman Catholic doctrine. A number of sections of the canons were taken almost word for word from the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church. They included the canon governing the relationship between the Archbishop of Rwanda and the “Primatial Vicar” overseeing the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA). It was taken from the section of the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church governing the relationship between the Pope and the archbishop of a province of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Anglican Church of Rwanda has roots in the Anglican Evangelical Revival; the Church Missionary Society, an offshoot of the Anglican evangelical movement; and the East African Revival, an important renewal movement within Protestant evangelical Christianity in East Africa. For the Rwandan Anglican Church to adopt a set of canons that was so strongly influenced by Roman Catholicism was highly unusual. 

From what I have been able to piece together, when then Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini presented the revised canons to the Rwandan House of Bishops, he claimed that their adoption would enable the AMiA to revise its charter, which he further claimed was in need of revision. 

Among the results of their adoption was that they gave the late Chuck Murphy as “Primatial Vicar” authority over the AMiA, which was second only to the Archbishop as the chief bishop of the Rwandan Anglican Church, and which included approving all candidates for missionary bishop in the AMiA before the names were submitted to the Rwandan House of Bishops for final approval. They also made Bishop Murphy solely accountable to the Rwandan Archbishop. 

Murphy would later break with the Rwandan Anglican Church when the new Archbishop began to exercise his authority over the AMiA.

The revised canons not only changed the doctrine of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, they also changed the doctrine of the AMiA. Under their provisions and the new AMiA charter, the AMiA was required to adhere to the doctrine of the Rwandan Anglican Church of which it was an extraterritorial missionary district. With the adoption of the revised canons and the new charter that doctrine became Roman Catholic!

At the time Donlon was a priest of the AMiA and served as Canon of Ecclesiastical and Ecumenical Affairs for the AMiA advising former Rwandan Archbishop Kolini as well as to the late Bishop Chuck Murphy. In that capacity he was a corresponding member of the Global South Anglican Theological Formation and Education Task Force on Anglican Catechism in Outline. He also served on the GAFCON Theological Resource Group that drafted Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today. He was known for his pronounced Anglo-Catholic views and his vigorous championing of a Catholic identity for the Anglican Church.

In addition Donlon served as the AMiA representative on the Common Cause Governance Task Force that drafted the constitution and canons of the Anglican Church in North America and may have influenced its adoption of material from the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church. From what I gather, he took an active part in the task force’s deliberations, making suggestions and raising objections. He is credited with thwarting a number of proposals to bring the Fundamental Declarations more in line with historic Anglicanism.

At one point Donlon was promoting what he claimed was a new approach to ecclesiastical organization which was generating excitement among the African bishops.

Donlon is co-author of “Appendix 4. Guiding Principles of This Catechism” of To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism.

A 2012 Anglican Rose article, "Catholic International," identifies Canon Kevin Donlon as one of the New Tractarians, a group of clergy that includes Bishop Keith Ackerman, Canon Arthur Middleton, and Bishop Ray Sutton, that are promoting a new Oxford movement within the Anglican Church and are seeking not only to move the Anglican Church in North America but also Global Anglican Future Conference and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in a more unreformed Catholic direction.

In a Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Belief J I Packer explains that it was a medieval mistake to classify the rites of confirmation, absolution, ordination, marriage, and anointing of the sick as sacraments. In his article “The Revised Catechism,” at which we took a look earlier, Packer suggests that the passages dealing with what the Church of England’s then proposed revised catechism calls “other ministries of grace” and what the proposed ACNA catechism calls “the sacraments of the church” should be dropped from the catechism. He bluntly states that the notion that these rites “convey a special grace ex opere operato is without warrant in Anglican theology-not to mention the Bible!” He poses three questions:

Can it be held that the knowledge of these five "ministries of grace" is in any way essential to salvation ? Can the things that are said, in particular, about Confirmation, and matrimony, and absolution, be proved from Scripture? Can any warrant or sanction for them be found in existing Anglican formularies, or in the main stream of the Anglican theological tradition?

He concludes that the answer to all three questions is “no” and therefore the rites should be removed from the catechism.

What troubled Packer was not just the wording of the passages dealing with these rites but their departure from “historic Anglican teaching.” They amounted to what he calls “party-lines.” They also represented what he describes as “the habit of mind which takes its cue from Rome and aims to keep step with Rome wherever possible” This habit of mind, while it was found in the Church of England, Packer maintained, was not authentically Anglican.

Much of what Packer wrote in 1961 is applicable to passages dealing with the “other sacraments” or “the sacraments of the church” in the proposed ACNA catechism. The wording is different. The historical context has changed. The Anglican Ordinariate has siphoned off those who wanted to walk in lockstep with Rome.

The Anglican Church in North America, however, contains an element that, while it is not attracted to the Roman Catholic Church, is attracted to Roman Catholic doctrine and practices. This same element has the Catholicization of the Anglican Church as its aim.

In The Thirty-Nine Articles: A Restatement the late Philip Edgcumbe Hughes explains that the rites of confirmation, absolution, ordination, marriage, and anointing of the sick “have in part developed from a false understanding of apostolic practice and in part represent states of life allowed in the Scriptures.” This is the historical Anglican view of these rites. The answer to Question 117, on the other hand, is what Packer calls a “party-line.”

Questions and answers 122 -127 are related to what the proposed ACNA catechism refers to as sacrament of ordination and the three-fold ministries of deacon, priest, and bishop. In his critique of the Church of England’s 1962 Revised Catechism Packer questions the need for the equivalent of these questions and answers in that catechism.

Such instruction could only be held essential if this organizational structure were itself essential to the being of the Church, as such, so that where this threefold ministry could not be recognized the Church must be judged non-existent, and the conclusion drawn that there are no valid or efficacious Eucharists there. Knowledge about the threefold ministry would then be "saving knowledge " in the strict sense, for valid sacraments are generally necessary to salvation ; but is this the historic Anglican view? Can it be proved by Scripture, which " containeth all things necessary to salvation " ? The answer is no in both cases. It is true that a vocal minority in the Church of England today holds this opinion in some form, but it does not seem right to give space in the Revised Catechism to a matter whose presence there could only be justified if this minority view were accepted as being Scriptural and normatively Anglican. This section leaves the impression that the ministry is the Church for all practical purposes….

Their inclusion points to a particular body of doctrines related to the gospel sacraments and the “other sacraments,” as the proposed ACNA catechism describes them, and not just ordination. This body of doctrine, as should be clear by now, is that of the Roman Catholic Church. Their inclusion is not warranted as Packer points out unless they relate to something necessary to salvation. What they relate to has historically been viewed by the Roman Catholic Church in that light but not by Scripture or the reformed Anglican Church. The Roman Catholic Church maintains that uninterrupted succession of bishops leading back to the apostles is necessary for the validity of the sacraments and that the sacraments play an important role in our salvation and sanctification but only a one segment of the Anglican Church influenced by the theology of the Roman Catholic Church subscribe to that view. This segment also subscribe to the doctrine of the Real Objective Presence in the consecrated bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist.

The influence of the same body of doctrine is also evident in the proposed ACNA Book of Common Prayer, bringing these two would-be standards of the Anglican Church in North America into line with each other. As with the proposed Prayer Book, To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism may not always openly teach a particular doctrine. However, it points to that doctrine and permits its teaching. When all the elements of these two proposed standards are taken into consideration, their slant is decidely toward unreformed Catholicism, the Catholicism of the Roman Catholic Church and to a lesser extent of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Intentional or not they are geared to undoing the effects of the Protestant Reformation in the Anglican Church.

*In 2011 the Church of England's House of Bishops, taking note of the success of Alpha and Christianity Explored commissioned a new discipleship course to replace the 1962 Revised Catechism. This discipleship course was prepared by Bishop of Chelmsford Steven Croft and three other co-authors, Stephen Cotrell, Paula Gooder, and Robert Atwell, and is entitled The Pilgrim's Way A Guide to the Christian Faith. The course consists of four sets of lessons build around the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Beatitudes. It was launched in 2017.