Talking Points for Opponents of the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book

By Robin G. Jordan

Here are eight talking points that you might want to use to draw attention to the shortcomings of the 2019 proposed ACNA Prayer Book. All of these talking points accurately describe the proposed book.

• The doctrine and practices of the proposed book conflict with the teaching of the Holy Scriptures or are incompatible with its teaching.


• The proposed book’s rites and services do not embody authentic historic Anglicanism.


• The proposed book’s rites and services do not meet the doctrinal and worship standards of the historical Anglican formularies.


• The proposed book favors the doctrine and practices of the Anglo-Catholic/Catholic Revivalist school of thought over those of the other theological schools of thought represented in the Anglican Church in North America.


• The proposed book’s rites and services are not simple enough, flexible enough, and adaptable enough for the North American mission field.


• The proposed book contains no alternatives services (e.g., Common Worship’s A Service of the Word; Common Prayer: Resources for Gospel-Shaped Gatherings’ Services of the Word and Prayer) for the use of congregations for whom the Daily Offices and Holy Communion do not meet their needs.


• The proposed book is biased in favor of congregations that have a conventional worship setting.


• The use of the proposed book has not been authorized by a canon adopted by the Provincial Council and ratified by the Provincial Assembly.

To effectively use these talking points, you will need to familiarize yourself with examples of these shortcomings from the proposed book. I have pointed out a number of these examples in my articles on the proposed book.

A search of Anglicans Ablaze, using the phrase, “2019 proposed ACNA prayer book,” produced these results.

Why the Prayer Book the ACNA Adopts Matters—Part 1
Why the Prayer Book the ACNA Adopts Matters—Part 2
It’s Time to Talk Prayer Book
The Key to Mission-Shaped Worship—Simplicity
“Did Ya Catch Anythin’?” The 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book and the Mission of the Church
The Doctrine of the Proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book: A Recap 

This article has links to all five previous articles in the “Doctrine of the Proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book” series. The last article in the series contains several links to previous articles on the proposed ACNA ordinal that I have written.

Why Was the Roman Position for the Epiclesis Adopted in the ACNA Eucharist Prayers?
How to Respond to the Proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book
When Did the ACNA Adopt a Canon Authorizing a Prayer Book for the Province?
A Prayer Book for the Whole Province
What Is Wrong with the Proposed 2019 ACNA Prayer Book?
A New Year, a New Prayer Book
Anglican Spirituality: Liturgy
Prayer Book Revision in the Anglican Church in North America: An Evangelical View
Prayer Book Revision in the Anglican Church in North America Revisited
Proposed ACNA Prayer Book Already in Need of Extensive Revision
Anglican Network in Canada's Trial Service of Holy Communion Marks Its First Year of Use This Coming Easter 

The trial service has been removed from the ANiC website. To my knowledge it has not been incorporated into the final draft of the proposed book.

Task Force Chairman Reports on Progress toward Completion of ACNA Prayer Book
The ACNA Doctrinal Statement on Blessed Oils and Their Use: An Evaluation

Searches of Anglicans Ablaze, using “Texts for Common Prayer” and “the ACNA’s theological lens” should produce earlier articles dating back as far as the initial work of the Common Prayer and Liturgy Task Force on the proposed book.

While I was conducting this search, I was also taking note of observations and remarks in the comment sections of these articles. One person asked why the ACNA needs to compile its own Prayer Book when the province is using a number of existing Prayer Books. He also thought that it was premature for the ACNA to compile its own Prayer Book since it was still in the process of forming an identity.

The answer is fairly simple. In Catholic churches the church’s canons, its liturgical books, its catechism, and the formal doctrinal statements of its primate or college of bishops determine the doctrine and practices of the church. The ACNA’s College of Bishops has rejected the normative standards of doctrine and practice of an Anglican church—the Bible (through their Catholic interpretation of its teaching, which gives far more weight to church tradition), the classical Anglican Prayer Book and the annexed Ordinal, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and the Homilies (through their rejection of the Articles). It is eager to replace these standards with those of a Catholic church.

The College of Bishops is also intent on shaping the identity of the province rather than allowing the province to develop its own identity. The identity that it is seeking to impose on the province is a Catholic one.

“How can I say that what is happening is the entire College of Bishops’ doing?” Readers may ask.

Except for the public disagreement over women’s ordination, I have seen no evidence of disagreement between the members of the College of Bishops over the direction of the province. If such disagreement exists, it is being kept out of the public eye.

One picks up hints here and there but except in the one area that I have identified, the College of Bishops is doing a good job of presenting to the ACNA rank and file that it is united on the Catholic direction of the province.

In the very early days of the ACNA Bishop Jack Iker made what amounted to a veiled threat to walk out of the inaugural meeting of the Provincial Council and to take the other Anglo-Catholic delegates with him, if the Council made any significant changes to the provisions of the ACNA’s fundamental declarations. The Anglo-Catholic wing of the ACNA may (and I cannot say for certain) be holding a similar threat over the other bishops in the College of Bishops if they do not fall in line with its demands.

The alternative explanation is that the other bishops have been co-opted to support the Anglo-Catholic wing’s agenda in some other way. It simply may be that they themselves have never been exposed to genuine Anglicanism, much less embraced it, so that they cannot distinguish faux Anglicanism from the real thing.

They may have bought into the fanciful notion that ACNA represents an early phase of the future church in which disparate theological traditions have merged into one single united tradition.

From this writer’s perspective that single united tradition strongly resembles unreformed Catholicism to the point that the two are indistinguishable. To my mind such a notion is a Trojan horse. Rather than restoring unity to the church, it will return the church to the error and superstition of the past.

In any event the other bishops do not appear to be standing up for authentic historic Anglicanism in the College of Bishops. No minority reports. No public statements disavowing the actions of the College of Bishops. NADA. Nothing.

The lack of any perceivable opposition to the present direction of the ACNA from its top leaders leaves the ordinary ACNA’ers little choice but take action on their own—protest against the adoption of the 2019 proposed ACNA Prayer Book; refuse to buy it; refuse to use it; call for a moratorium on its adoption, sale, and use; and ultimately vote against it with their feet.

I personally would prefer to see the College of Bishops withdraw its endorsement of the proposed book and the Provincial Council defer any action on authorizing its use. But I fear that those who want to force the province into a Catholic mold are not going to pass up any opportunity to do so. They will use all their influence to impose a Catholic catechism and a Catholic service book on the province. Their agenda is their first priority, not the creation of an ecclesiastical environment in which all conservative Anglican theological schools of thought can flourish and in which reaching the spiritually lost with the Gospel is the number one priority.