Seven Reasons Why None of the Continuing Anglican Churches Are a Suitable Candidate for a Third US Anglican Province

By Robin G Jordan

I have for a long time held the opinion that none of the raft of US Continuing Anglican jurisdictions are a suitable candidate for an alternative province to the Episcopal Church USA or the Anglican Church in North America. A recent experience reinforced this opinion. It was a reminder that none of these jurisdictions are really equipped to take on that responsibility. I am not suggesting that the United States does not need a third Anglican province, only that the existing Continuing Anglican jurisdictions are not suitable candidates for that province.

Among the reasons that none of these jurisdictions are a suitable candidate for such a province is that not one of them is thoroughly committed to confessional Anglicanism or Reformed Anglicanism. One or two of them may claim that they are committed to confession Anglicanism or Reformed Anglicanism, but the evidence does not support their claim. Jurisdictional leaders may lean in that direction, but local churches do not.

Several jurisdictions make no pretense of adhering to the doctrinal and worship principles of the Articles of Religion of 1571, historic Anglicanism’s confession of faith. They stand squarely in the tradition of the nineteenth century Catholic Revival and it is with Oxford Movement and the Ritualists of that century that they identify. They make no bones about it. This they claim represents a genuine Anglican identity. If they display any regard for the Articles of Religion, it is for a Oxford Movement-influenced interpretation of the Articles in a Catholic sense. These jurisdictions use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and various editions of the Anglican Missal and a few have issued specific guidelines for the worship of their churches.

A second reason that I do believe that none of the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions are a suitable candidate for an alternative province is that they lack numbers and resources. Most of their churches are relatively small. They serve a tiny segment of the population. What may be described as their base is aging and shrinking. They are not reaching and engaging the newer generations in sufficient numbers to replace deceased and incapacitated members and arrest their decline, much less to reverse that decline and become a powerhouse in reaching and engaging the younger generations.

A third reason that I believe that none of this raft of jurisdictions are a suitable candidate for an alternative province is that they do not have the right kind of leadership that one or more of these jurisdictions need to form an alternative province. This is not a criticism of these jurisdictions’ existing leaders. They are doing the best that they can to lead their respective jurisdictions within the constraints of their circumstances and the extent of their vision.

Forming a new province that will be viable on the North American mission field, however, requires leaders that are not just mission-minded, important as that is, they must be passionate about mission, have a razor-sharp focus on mission, must be able to generate enthusiasm for mission in existing clergy and congregations, and must be able to attract and inspire a new generation of clergy who share their excitement for mission. By mission I mean reaching and engaging the unchurched, the under-churched, and the de-churched and enfolding them into vibrant new churches; launching and growing new networks of churches; and forming longtime churchgoers as well as new believers into disciples who are capable of reaching and engaging others and forming them into disciple-making followers of Jesus. This requires leaders who are dynamic in their thinking, who are open to change, and who are flexible in their approach, leaders who have a lot of energy and the freedom to do what they need to do.

This leads to the fifth reason that I believe that none of the existing jurisdictions are a suitable candidate for an alternative province. They look to the past and not to the present and the future. They are bound by tradition and preference—traditional and customary practices that do not serve the Church well in the twenty-first century and personal preferences of clergy and congregations, which are serious obstacles to the Church’s fulfillment of its central task of spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth and making disciples of all people groups. The greatest barrier that we face in reaching and engaging the newer generations is not the younger generations themselves but the folks already in our churches—members of the clergy and members of the congregation.

The North American Anglican Church has too many stalled churches. They have become refuges from the changing world around them. They welcome only folks like themselves. They have few if any connections with their communities. They live in an era that is long gone and will never return.

Church members are not living their lives to God’s glory. They are inward-looking. They are more concerned with maintaining their level of comfort and not allowing new people or new ideas to disturb them.

Anyone who has read Thom Rainer’s Autopsy of a Deceased Church recognizes that these churches exhibit the characteristics of a declining or dying church. When the COVID-19 pandemic abates, we may discover many of these churches have closed their doors for good.

The late Peter Toon published an article, “Causing Traditional Churches to Grow,” originally titled, “Worship Simply, Engage in Mission Joyfully: How to Grow a Traditional Church,” in the first decade of this century. While I do not agree with everything that Dr. Toon wrote in the article, the observations and recommendations that he made were not far off the mark and if they had been heeded would have given some traditional Anglican churches a new lease on life. Several recommendations that he made are recommendations that we now read in the church revitalization literature and hear on church revitalization podcasts. They are steps that a declining church needs to take if it wishes to turn around.

Dr. Toon also recognized that his observations and recommendations would not benefit any church whose clergy and congregation did not have the inclination to make use of them. Regrettably, things have not changed much from the time that Dr. Toon wrote the article. Many churches in the North American Anglican Church have too much invested in keep things the way they are, even if it means a slow death by attrition.

As the senior warden of a small traditional Anglican church explained to me, the handful of people who formed the congregation of his church wanted to come to the church on a Sunday; quietly worship together, using the liturgy of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer; fellowship for a short while over coffee, doughnuts, cake, and other sweets after the service, and then go their separate ways. They had no interest in doing anything else. At the time none of the members lived in the community and they had no connection to it. The community was simply the location of their church building. From what I have observed, they are not an isolated case.

A jurisdiction largely made up of congregations like this one is not a suitable candidate for an alternative province. To be a suitable candidate for an alternative province, it needs to have significantly more growing, vibrant churches than it does such chapel congregations.

I describe them as "chapel congregations" because they resemble the congregation of a private chapel where small religious services are held. In some ways they are similar to the congregations of the Recusant household chapels before Catholic emancipation in the United Kingdom in the eighteenth and nineteenth century and those of of the Royalist household chapels during the Great Rebellion in the seventeenth century.

The growing, vibrant churches that should form the largest number of churches in an alternative province need to be multiplying church leaders and church members who are outward-looking and on fire for the gospel, the kind of Anglicans that are the namesake of this blog--“Anglicans Ablaze.” An alternative province, if it is going to flourish, needs substantial numbers of these churches, church leaders, and church members, folks who testify to Jesus with their words and their lives. It does not need more local chapters of the Dead Anglicans Society.

Now I recognize that chaplaincy congregations have a place in a jurisdiction or province. However, they can be a serious drag on a jurisdiction or province when they form the lion’s share of the congregations in that jurisdiction or province.

I also make a distinction between chaplaincy congregations and micro-churches. Both are small—even tiny. Chaplaincies focus on the spiritual needs of their members. Micro-churches look beyond themselves and engage their communities. They seek to show and share the love of Jesus. Jesus for the members of micro-churches is their Lord, not someone whom they call Lord. They shape their lives around his teaching and example. They want others to know Jesus and to follow him. They witness to him with both their words and their deeds.

Ritualism may be defined as “the regular observance or practice of ritual, especially when excessive or without regard to its function.” It may be further defined as “a traditional or fixed way of behaving.” When we read or hear the word, “ritualism,” we may envision priests in elaborate vestments; genuflecting and kissing the altar, elevating the consecrated Host, and other ceremonies; and bevies of servers in white albs and with processional crosses, candles, and incense. Ritualism, however, can be as simple as coming to church every week and reading the same service from The Book of Common Prayer. What we are doing is performing the same ritual week after week.

When performing the ritual at our weekly gathering becomes the focus of that gathering as is the case in many Anglican churches, we are engaging in ritualism. We may embellish the ritual with two or three hymns and a sermon, but performing the ritual is the primary focus. The hymns and the sermon become a part of the ritual.

This is what has become worship in many Anglican churches—the performance of a ritual. For some people, the performance of the ritual is meaningful. It reinforces and strengthens the bonds between the congregants.

For others, especially visitors and newcomers, however, it is not. It does not accomplish what worship should accomplish—focus our hearts and minds on God and our relationship with God and transform our lives, particularly our relationship with others. Every service of public worship does not have to give a big nudge in that direction, but it should give a nudge.

For followers of Jesus our relationship with God is inseparably tied to our relationship with others. When Jesus repeated the words that God spoke through the prophet Hosea, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” he is summing up in that brief phrase how our relationship to God is connected to our relationship to others.

The performance of a ritual that our worship has become may not turn us Godward or otherward. We may come away from our weekly gathering feeling that we have done our duty to God and earned merit with him. The Pharisees had come to think along the same lines. As Jesus pointed to their attention, however, their hearts were far from God.

This is one of the dangers of Prayer Book worship and it is one of the reasons that US Anglican churches have not seen a lot of life transformation. It attracts people who like their lives the way that they are and who are adverse to changes in their lives, particular the radical changes that Jesus calls upon his disciples to make. One can feel like one is honoring God while settling for what is a watered-down form of discipleship.

It is not confined to Prayer Book worship and may be observed in the churches that do not use a service book. Prayer Book worship, however, is fairly susceptible to it. It is prevalent in the US Continuing Anglican jurisdictions as well as the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church in North America. Its prevalence in the US Continuing Anglican jurisdictions is the sixth reason that I believe that none of the jurisdictions are a suitable candidate for an alternative province.

It is not the kind of worship that energizes clergy and congregations for mission. Where it is prevalent, the jurisdiction will have a lackluster record of gospel growth. Gospel growth is conversion growth. It is the kind of growth that occurs when nonbelievers not only believe in Jesus and trust in him for their salvation, but they also become functional disciples, living their lives in accordance with Jesus’s teaching and example and reproducing themselves.

It takes a different type of worship to motivate churches for mission. It is the kind of worship that sets clergy and congregations on fire for the gospel. It may be liturgical in form, but it is animated by the Holy Spirit.

I am not talking about charismatic or Pentecostal worship with its expectation of miracles and its exercise of the sign gifts. I am talking about worship from the heart, worship into which the minister and the people enter fully and without reservation. They are not performing a familiar ritual. They enthusiastically praise God with “hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs.” They encourage each other and build up each other’s faith. A visitor will feel the power and presence of God in their singing. They listen attentively to the reading of the Scriptures and their exposition in the sermon. When they pray, the visitor will sense their excitement that something is about to happen, something that is good. When they go forward for the communion, they go forward joyfully, songs of praise on their lips, a people going to meet their Lord. It is the kind of worship that sends the congregation back into the world, invigorated, strengthened, and eager to love and serve their Lord, to live their lives to the glory of God.

With this kind of worship enthusing its churches, a jurisdiction should not have much difficulty in mobilizing its churches to reach and engage the unreached and unengaged segments of the US population and plant new churches. Their enthusiasm will also be contagious. It will spread from the members of these churches to those around them—friends, neighbors, relatives, co-workers, fellow students, and other people that they encounter in their everyday lives.

A final reason that I believe that none of the raft of US Continuing Anglican jurisdictions are a suitable candidate for a third US Anglican province is related to the mindset that I gave as the fifth reason why I do believe none of these jurisdictions are a suitable candidate for a third US Anglican province. If churches are to be effective in carrying out the Great Commission in twenty-first century North America, they need tools designed for this century and not handed down from the previous century or more than three centuries ago and designed for a different time.

Some Continuing Anglican clergy are coming to this realization. Others, however, when the ineffectiveness of these earlier tools in the twenty-first century is drawn to their attention double down on maintaining that they are still effective. They, however, are not able to produce any data to support this contention but fall back on anecdotal evidence. This evidence is typical drawn from a tiny segment of the population but is over-generalized to the larger population and used to dispute the need for newer and more effective tools. Their inability or unwillingness to recognize the need for such tools to further the Church’s mission is serious barrier to reaching and engaging the younger generations.

Many Continuing Anglican jurisdictions have constitutions and canons that drastically limit what Bible translations and service books that may be used in their churches. Some local Continuing Anglican churches limit in their articles of incorporation or bylaws what Bible translation and service book, which may be used in their public services of worship. 

The history of the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions explains in part this resistance to the development and use of new and more effective tools designed for the twenty-first century mission field. Several jurisdictions were formed in reaction to Prayer Book revision as well as women’s ordination in the Episcopal Church USA. 

Since that time the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions have tended to attract individuals who are seeking to escape the cultural and social changes in the United States. As one Continuing Anglican priest with whom I am acquainted declared during the coffee hour at a local Continuing Anglican church, “we don’t like change.” Almost all the members of the congregation who were present nodded their heads or murmured in agreement to his remark.

Whether we like it, the world is changing. NASA just landed the Perseverance rover on Mars. We cannot be faithful to our Lord and carry out the Great Commission while isolating ourselves in our own little bubbles from the rest of the world. Jesus did not commission us to go and make disciples of people like ourselves, people who look like us, live like us, speak like us, and have the same values as ourselves. He commanded the first disciples and future generations of his followers to go and make disciples of all people groups—people not like ourselves, people who do not look like us, live like us, speak like us, or share our vales. He did not tell us that we could fish only for people who like our favorite translation of the Bible or our favorite Book of Common Prayer. He made no such stipulations. We cannot twist his words to our liking and be his faithful disciples.

These seven reasons are why I believe that none of the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions are a suitable candidate for a third US Anglican province. Does the United States need a third province? I believe that is does. I also believe that it needs to be built on a more solid foundation than the Episcopal Church USA, the Anglican Church in North America, and the Continuing Anglican Churches are. It needs to be built on Jesus himself, the Holy Scriptures, and the Articles of Religion. They offer the firmest foundation upon which we should build. It will not be a foundation of sticks and straw.

Photo Credit: St. Jude's Anglican Church, Tucson, Arizona