A Renewed Call for a Convocation of Confessional Anglicans in the ACNA

By Robin G. Jordan

The Anglican Church in North America does not really welcome Anglican Christians who identify themselves as Protestant and who espouse Biblical Christianity and historic Anglicanism. The ACNA does not offer them an environment in which they can flourish and pass on their faith to the younger generations. The question is, “What can be done about it?”

One option is to establish a distinct jurisdiction for these Anglican Christians within the Anglican Church in North America. The drawback is that any organization affiliated with the ACNA is subject to its governance documents. The organization must accept the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the ACNA. One possible way around this obstacle is to organize a distinct jurisdiction within the province but not seek official recognition from the province. If the jurisdiction is large enough, it may be able to negotiate a special protocol with the province exempting it from a number of the requirements for recognition.

A second option is to establish a distinct jurisdiction for these Anglican Christians outside of the Anglican Church in North America—a second alternative province in North America. The second province might cooperate with the ACNA in areas of common interest but the two provinces would be independent of each other. The second province would have its own governance documents, fundamental declarations, synods, judicatories, bishops, catechism, and service books. As I have previously pointed to the attention of Anglican Ablaze readers, disaffected Lutherans have formed several Lutheran ecclesial bodies. These bodies reflect different emphases in Lutheranism. I have also posted links to articles documenting the trend away from denominations to smaller networks of churches and away from hierarchical organizations to flatter ones. The digital age has had a strong impact on the way ecclesial bodies are organized in the twenty-first century. The ACNA in the way it is structured is something of an anachronism.

A third option is to establish a distinct jurisdiction within the Anglican Church in North America and one outside the ACNA. The two ecclesial bodies would maintain close relations. Clergy and congregations involved in the church network within the ACNA would be able to migrate to the network outside the ACNA. The existence of a second province might serve as a check on the ambitions of certain ACNA leaders since unwise decisions on their part might prompt an exodus to the second province. The Anglican Church of Canada, the Continuing Anglican Jurisdictions, and the Episcopal Church represent no serious threat to the ACNA. All of these ecclesial bodies are in various stages of decline. On the other hand, a thriving second province would be another story entirely. It might encourage the ACNA to undertake much needed reforms to retain disaffected clergy and congregations.

Would the formation a second province weaken the Anglican Church in North America? If the ACNA is set on a course that leads the province away from Biblical Christianity and historic Anglicanism, whether a second province would weaken the ACNA is of no importance. What is important is the strengthening of Biblical Christianity and historic Anglicanism in the North American Anglican Church. At the provincial level the ACNA is doing nothing toward that end. Rather it has been putting into effect a series of steps that erode the doctrinal foundation of historic Anglicanism—the Holy Scriptures and the historic Anglican formularies. These steps have also weakened Biblical Christianity in the North American Anglican Church. The weakening of the ACNA should be the least of our concerns. Considering the direction that the province is moving a strong ACNA is not in the best interest of Biblical Christianity and historic Anglicanism.

As the seventeenth century Anglican poet-priest George Herbert recorded in Outlandish Proverbs (1640) “He that makes his bed ill, lies there.” This is an early version of a proverb that I frequently heard as a boy, “As you make your bed, so you must lie upon it.” For the past 10 years ACNA leaders have had every opportunity to develop and implement a generous policy of recognizing divergent opinions in the province. Instead they chosen to adopt a policy of favoring the views of one party in the province whose members are Anglo-Catholic-philo-Orthodox in their theological outlook or open to Catholic doctrine, ecclesiology, and practice. If this policy should prove to have negative consequences, it is their own fault. They must live with these consequences.

One thing that I learned as a social worker is that we do not help someone when we rescue him from the consequences of his poor judgment. He will not learn from his mistakes and keep repeating them. In order to make genuine and lasting changes in his life, he may have to suffer the consequences of his poor judgment to the fullest.

It is quite obvious that the ACNA leaders who are influencing the present direction of the province consider of little importance Anglican Christians who identify themselves as Protestants and espouse Biblical Christianity and historical Anglicanism. They receive little consideration in the plans which these leaders have made for the province. This oversight may eventually work against the success of these plans. Whether or not it does, the same Anglican Christians have no reason to be loyal to leaders who discount their importance, or to an organization that they lead. These leaders show no loyalty to them. These leaders should not be surprised if they make plans of their own. Loyalty is a reciprocal relationship. A leader who does not show loyalty to those whom he is leading does not merit their loyalty.

This is an issue with which disaffected Episcopalians wrestled in the days leading up to the formation of the Anglican Church in North America. They concluded that they had no obligation to be loyal to the Episcopal Church when its leaders were marginalizing them. The same thing is happening in the ACNA. It may not have reached as dramatic a stage as it would in the Episcopal Church but it is still the same thing. Those who were marginalized in the Episcopal Church, having formed their own province, are now marginalizing a portion of that province. They appear to have learned nothing from their experience in the Episcopal Church other than how to marginalize their fellow ACNA’ers. I do not believe that they have any insight into what they are doing. They are preoccupied with pursuing their vision of the ACNA.

At this stage Anglican Christians who identify themselves as Protestants and who espouse Biblical Christianity and historic Anglicanism need to be taking care of themselves and not the Anglican Church in North America. They need to be forming their own networks of churches and taking other appropriate steps to preserve their doctrinal and worship heritage and to fulfill the Great Commission.

When an ecclesiastical organization does not want a particular group of Christians, it makes no sense for the group to remain a part of that organization, hoping to win the approval of the organization, only to have the organization exploit the group for money and to pad its stats. The group is like a woman who stays in an abusive relationship, hoping that her boyfriend or husband will change. She may bend over backwards to please the abusive boyfriend or husband, only to have him remain the way that he is and abuse her over and over again. She is taking care of the boyfriend or husband and not herself. The healthy decision is to take care of herself and break off the relationship with the abusive boyfriend or husband.

For Anglican Christians who identify themselves as Protestants and who espouse Biblical Christianity and historic Anglicanism, the healthy decision in the long run will be to take care of themselves, form a distinct jurisdiction outside the Anglican Church in North America, and to make a gracious exit from that ecclesial body. In any event it is in their best interest at the present time to form a distinct jurisdiction within the ACNA—a convocation of confessional Anglicans.

What is a confessional Anglican? A confessional Anglican recognizes the Holy Scriptures as the final authority in matters of faith and practice. A confessional Anglican subscribes to the principles of doctrine and worship set forth in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles. As Dr. Mark Thomas, the principal of Moore College, Sydney, Australia, and former president of the Anglican Church League, points to our attention, the Thirty-Nine Articles form “the doctrinal core of the Anglican expression of corporate Christianity.” He writes:

Put alongside the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal, and with due acknowledgement that the Articles themselves commend the two books of homilies, what we have here is the bedrock of authentic Anglicanism

By forming such a convocation Anglican Christians who identify themselves as Protestants and who espouse Biblical Christianity and historic Anglicanism will be taking a major step to advance the cause of Biblical Christianity and historic Anglicanism in North America. While they may face hardship and criticism, I do not believe that they will regret taking this step.