Does the ACNA Have an Official Catechism and Prayer Book?

By Robin G. Jordan

Is To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism the official catechism of the Anglican Church in North America? Is The Book of Common Prayer 2019 the official prayer book of the ACNA? Whatever the College of Bishops may be telling ACNA’ers, the answer to these questions is “no.”

Under the existing provisions of the Anglican Church in North America’s constitution and canons the College of Bishops does not have authority to authorize a catechism or service book for use in the province. The College of Bishops can endorse a catechism or service book. It can endorse a brand of sneakers or a baseball team. So can you and I. The bishops’ endorsement may carry more weight with some ACNA’ers than ours. But it is the same kind of endorsement.

The bishops can recommend the drafting of a canon to authorize the use of a catechism or service book in the province to the Governance task Force, something that you and I cannot do. Only the recommendations of the upper echelons of the province will receive any attention from the Governance Task Force, not those of the rank and file.

Individual bishops can permit the use of a service book in their respective dioceses. Only the Provincial Council can enact a canon authorizing the use of a catechism or service book province-wide. Before such a canon can go into effect, however, it must first be ratified by the Provincial Assembly.

Right now the College of Bishops appears to be attempting an end run around the province’s constitution and canons in its efforts to palm To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism and The Book of Common Prayer 2019 off on the province. Their introduction of the two formularies is unwarrantable. While the province’s canons created a Catechism Task Force and a Prayer Book and Liturgy Task Force, they say nothing about whatever these task forces propose automatically becoming the catechism and the prayer book of the province if the College of Bishops endorses them, nothing at all.

Perhaps the College of Bishops has a surprise or two up its sleeve and has quietly recommended a canon authorizing the use of the proposed catechism and service book to the Governance Task Force. If the College of Bishops has taken that step, we can expect the canon’s enactment and ratification to be carefully orchestrated—no painstaking section-by-section scrutiny of the two formularies and little debate.

The College of Bishops has got a lot riding on the two formularies They provide the doctrinal core of the “new settlement” that the College of Bishops is seeking to foist upon the province. This “new settlement” would replace the Elizabethan Settlement which has shaped authentic historic Anglicanism. The “new settlement” would give the province a Catholic identity, Catholic doctrine, a Catholic ecclesiology, and Catholic practices. It would also give the College of Bishops much more power over the affairs of the province. It would effectively turn the Anglican Church in North America into a clone of the Catholic Church—sans the pope, clerical celibacy, an all-male priesthood, and the child abuse scandal.

Until the provincial Council enacts and the Provincial Assembly ratifies a canon authorizing their use in the province, To Be a Christian: An Anglican catechism and The Book of Common Prayer 2019 are not the official catechism and prayer book of the province. They are just one of several catechisms and prayer books that ACNA’ers can use. The do not have any official standing.

The Anglican Church in North America’s constitution and canons establish the provincial Council as the governing body of the province, not the College of Bishops. They entrust the Provincial Council with the power to make canons on a wide variety of matters, including the doctrine, worship, and discipline of the province. What the College of Bishops is attempting to do is to arrogate to itself the authority that these governance documents give to the Provincial Council. The College of Bishops’ actions are arguably an attempted contravention of the province’s constitution and an attempted violation of its canons. If the College of Bishops succeeds in palming To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism and The Book of Common Prayer 2019 off on the the province, its actions cease to be attempted. They become an actual contravention of the constitution and a violation of the canons. But will the College of Bishops file charges against itself and put itself on trial? Not likely.

The Anglican Church in North America needs a new constitution and a new set of canons, which clearly define and limit the authority of the College of Bishops and establish workable safeguards against its abuse of that authority. The College of Bishops has gotten out of hand and needs to be reined in. It is leading the Anglican Church in North America away from authentic historic Anglicanism into superstition and error.

What the Anglican Church in North America also needs is a second reformation to counter the revival of unreformed Catholicism in the province, a reformation that would restore the Holy Scriptures and the historic Anglican formularies to their rightful place in the doctrinal foundation of the province. After all, the ACNA is supposed to be an Anglican province, not a Catholic one.

Genuine Anglicanism and unreformed Catholicism are diametrically opposed to each other. The fanciful notion which one encounters in the Episcopal Church that a province can be both Protestant and Catholic has no more substance than the equally fanciful notions that Anglicanism is a via media between Protestantism and Catholicism, a hybrid of Protestantism and Catholicism, or a merging of Evangelicalism, Catholicism, and Pentecostalism. As Michael Jensen points to our attention in his 2015 Gospel Coalition article,  “9 Things You Should Really Know About Anglicanism,” genuine Anglicanism is Protestant and Reformed. There are no two ways about it.

If the Anglican Church in North America continues to move in the direction that its present College of Bishops is taking it, the province will be no more Anglican than a moon pie. If you are not familiar with a moon pie, it is a sweet Southern snack. It is made from two round graham crackers, with marshmallow sandwiched between them and covered with chocolate. Moon pies are very Southern, very American, and not in the least bit Anglican.