The Struggle for the Soul of the Anglican Church

Gathering all the clergy and congregations that desire to preserve the Protestant, Reformed, and Evangelical character of the Anglican Church into one jurisdiction may be the only realistic option to secure a future for historic Anglicanism in North America. It has been 186 years since the first Tract for the Times was published. I think that Anglicans who adhere to the Protestant and Reformed principles of the Anglican Church based on the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles, to use the words of the Anglican Church League, should by now realize that they cannot inhabit the same ecclesial body with those who have been actively seeking to change the identity of the Anglican Church since the nineteenth century and with those who are wittingly or unwittingly aiding their efforts in this century.

The inability of these theological schools of thought to coexist in the same jurisdiction should be evident from what happened in England, the United States, and South Africa in the nineteenth century, in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century and what has happened in the United States in the last nineteen years. What has been going on has been a struggle for the soul of the Anglican Church.

There have been lulls in the fighting but it would be naïve to conclude from these lulls that there has been an armistice, or truce, much less that the struggle has ended. Two new fronts opened in the twenty-first century, the first in the Anglican Mission in America and the second in the Anglican Church in North America. Anglo-Catholics in both ecclesial bodies have worked to move these two bodies in a more Catholic direction. Those whom one might have expected to uphold historic Anglicanism have often cooperated with them. The only thing that accounts for this development is that the ideas which ancient-future movement has been propagating have influenced their thinking.

The ancient-future movement has developed beyond the stage of an organized effort of charismatic and evangelical pastors to promote a common interest in ancient liturgy and ritualism. Like the nineteen century Anglo-Catholic movement it has become an entry point for Catholic beliefs and practices into the Anglican Church. The two movements may have different rationales for their existence but both movements are undermining the Protestant, Reformed, and Evangelical character of the Anglican Church.

The ancient-future movement has other similarities with the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement. The ancient-future movement describes itself as a renewal movement as did the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement. It describes itself as a response to the stagnation of the Anglican Church and as a force for the unification of the larger Church as did the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement. It claims as did the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement that it is opposed to liberalism in the Anglican Church. It further claims as did the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement that the changes that it is introducing into the worship of the Anglican Church are attracting people to the Anglican Church. All of these assertions, like those of the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement, however, should be viewed with skepticism. Both nineteenth century and contemporary scholars have shown that the claims of the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement had no substance. They simply provided the movement with a rationale for its existence. Rather than renewing the Anglican Church, the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholic movement did irreparable harm to the Anglican Church, eroding its doctrinal foundation, opening a floodgate to Catholic doctrine and practices, and causing a period of theological uncertainty and confusion that has lasted to this day.

I have misgivings about urging this course of action in light of what has happened to the Reformed Episcopal Church in the United States and the Free Church of England in the United Kingdom. Unless a jurisdiction is vigilant, doctrine and practices that conflict with the Bible and the historic Anglican formularies or are incompatible with them can creep into a jurisdiction, causing it to move in a direction away from historic Anglicanism. Both jurisdictions have experienced significant theological drift since they were founded. They no longer represent the evangelical principles of their founders. As they have absorbed disaffected Episcopalians in the case of the Reformed Episcopal Church and disaffected Anglicans in the case of the Free Church of England, their character has changed.

Since the late twentieth century the Reformed Episcopal Church has been experiencing a Catholic revival of its own, spearheaded by a new generation of leaders in that jurisdiction, leaders who have reinterpreted the history of the jurisdiction and the evangelical principles of its founders to support their revisionist views. Rather than moving the Reformed Episcopal Church into the mainstream of Anglicanism as these leaders claim, this development has moved the jurisdiction away from the teaching of the Bible, the doctrinal and worship principles of the historic Anglican formularies, and the central Anglican theological tradition.

The Free Church of England would experience a split in 2003 over the direction in which it was moving. In recent years the Free Church of England has moved in what is described as an “Evangelical Catholic” direction. William August Muhlenberg, a nineteenth century Episcopal priest, who was influenced by the Oxford movement and held views that have been compared with those of the Tractarian leaders of John Henry Newman and Edward Bouverie Pusey, coined the term “Evangelical Catholic.”

The alternatives, however, do not look any better. Anglicans who adhere to the Protestant and Reformed principles of the Anglican Church based on the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles can remain scattered throughout the Anglican Church in North America in a theological environment that is far from friendly to these principles and which can be expected to grow less friendly as the ACNA’s catechism, To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism, and its proposed Prayer Book influence the beliefs and practices of other ACNA’ers. They can struggle to maintain a viable genuine Anglican presence and witness in the ACNA and North America. But the odds will be stacked against them.

They can migrate to friendlier dioceses, affiliating with those who are tolerant of Anglicans who adhere to these principles and whose governance documents make provision for extraterritorial clergy and congregations.

Dioceses like jurisdictions can change with the passage of time. A new bishop may not be as friendly toward Anglicans who hold such principles as his predecessor. He may expect and even demand conformity to the doctrine of the catechism and the proposed Prayer Book. The present ACNA canons give the ordinary of the diocese authority to determine what service books may be used in his diocese. He may withdraw permission to use whatever service book these Anglicans are using and insist that they use the ACNA’s proposed Prayer Book. We have seen this sort of thing happen in the Episcopal Church when a liberal bishop replaced a conservative one.

The ACNA’s canons anticipate the province taking a more active role in determining what may go into the governance documents of the several dioceses and what must be omitted. The province could block from migrating to a friendlier diocese clergy and congregations who find themselves in a hostile theological environment in their present diocese. If it is successful in imposing a Catholic catechism and a Catholic service book on the province, the Catholic wing of the province may be emboldened to force greater conformity to Catholic doctrine, order, and practice in the province. It may intensify its efforts in the struggle for the soul of the Anglican Church.

Despite what has been happening in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada, what happened in the Continuing Anglican movement in the 1970s, and what happened earlier in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the nineteenth century, the ACNA’s constitution contains no safeguards to protect Anglicans who adhere to the Protestant and Reformed principles of the Anglican Church and who become involved in legitimate theological disputes with their bishop from punitive measures that their bishop might take against them. All they can do is withdraw from the Anglican Church in North America. They may not be able to take their property with them since the ACNA’s constitution recognizes the rights to property of existing dioceses that affiliate with the province.

The biggest obstacle to gathering all the clergy and congregations that desire to preserve the Protestant, Reformed, and Evangelical character of the Anglican Church into one jurisdiction is fatigue. A number of clergy and congregations are exhausted from the fight to retain property, the search for an adequate meeting place, and the challenges of being a houseless church in twenty-first century North America. If they were part of the Anglican Mission in America, they remember the hostility that was directed at them when the AMiA chose to become a mission partner of the Anglican Church in North America rather than be fully integrated into the province. They remember the pressure to return that they experienced from friends in the ACNA. This experience may in part account for why ACNA leaders who are former members of the AMiA are willing to bend over backwards to show their loyalty to the ACNA even though it may be against their own best interests and the best interests of those under their oversight. Rather than go through this ordeal again they choose to believe that things are not as bad in the ACNA as some people claim that they are and to dismiss what these people say as panic-mongering.

ACNA’ers, however, need to ask themselves, “Was being a part of a Catholic church, what they signed up for when they joined the Anglican Church in North America?” “Or was it to be a part of a genuine Anglican presence and witness in North America?” The two are not the same.

The Anglican Church in North America can define the “Anglican Way” whichever way it likes. But unless it is the same path that the English Reformers took, it is NOT the Anglican Way. It is a revisionist reinterpretation of the Anglican tradition. While it might not be quite as unorthodox as the Episcopal Church’s revisionist reinterpretation of the Anglican tradition, it is a revisionist reinterpretation nonetheless. There is no hiding from it.

Jesus posed the question, “What father would give his hungry child a stone if the child asked for bread, a serpent if the child asked for a fish.” But the Anglican Church in North America is doing exactly that. The ACNA is offering something else for the real thing.

The original purpose of the ACNA was to provide North America with a province that was, to borrow a phrase from the Anglican Network in Canada, Biblically faithful, genuinely Anglican, and gospel-sharing. This was the ostensible intent of its formation. It may not have been the intent of a number of its leaders behind closed doors. But that was what the public was led to believe.

Ten years later that is not what the Anglican Church in North America is. It is not what the ACNA is on its way to becoming. Parts of the province may fit this description but not the province as a whole. Those who had a different vision for the province high-jacked its vision even before it was organized. Their vision of the province is a province that embodies and promotes Catholic doctrine, order, and practice. After a temporary lull in the fighting the struggle for the soul of the Anglican Church has begun again.