Missionary Anglicanism Redux: A New Paradigm?

The ACNA is on the move, downwards as well as upwards. In an earlier article for Covenant I looked at the overall picture. Now I want to dig deeper into the latest figures, which provide many lessons for members of both the ACNA and TEC. As the legacies of the era of Anglican realignment fade, the ACNA faces new challenges that are, in part, generational, but also reflect the influx of Christians from non-Anglican evangelical and charismatic traditions that have “grown into” Anglicanism, of which Churches for the Sake of Others’ (C4SO) Bishop Todd Hunter — with his former associations with Calvary Chapel and Vineyard — is arguably the most prominent example.

Go West Young Anglican: The Regional Picture

Unlike TEC (which has had more than a century to perfect its data collection process), the ACNA has yet to provide a clear picture of where its members live. This problem is only compounded by the plethora of overlapping ecclesiastical jurisdictions. In the state of South Carolina, for example, there are no less than three “territorial” dioceses: the Diocese of the Southeast of the Reformed Episcopal Church (organized in 1875); the Diocese of the Carolinas (organized in 2012); and the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina (which joined the ACNA in 2017). While geography is not destiny (in religion or anything else), it does inform our understanding of how churches thrive (or fail to thrive).

Just under half of the ACNA’s members are affiliated with territorial dioceses south of the Mason-Dixon line (two-thirds of them with the former TEC dioceses of South Carolina and Fort Worth) and one in five with territorial dioceses in the Northeast and Midwest. While only seven percent of the members of the ACNA’s territorial dioceses reside in the West — a region known for its secular character — more than half of the members of non-territorial dioceses (particularly C4SO) are also based in this region. When the membership and average principal service attendance for C4SO and the Rocky Mountains are included, the West accounts for 19 percent of the ACNA’s members and 23 percent of its worshippers.

Those non-territorial dioceses that trace their origins to missionary societies established under Global South auspices — notably CANA, PEARUSA and AMiA (from which C4SO descends) – and which account for roughly one-fifth of ACNA’s members and one-quarter of its active worshippers present a very real challenge to historic understandings of Anglican polity, a challenge only heightened by their ability to be fruitful and multiply. If such dioceses ultimately prove to be the tail wagging the dog, the ACNA’s center of gravity may not remain in the Southeast indefinitely. Read More

One element in the Anglican Church in North America was in a hurry to enfold all the churches in the ACNA into traditional  geographically-based dioceses. In several articles I expressed the opinion that this would not be a good move for the ACNA and would have a strong likelihood of stymieing the new province's growth. I also expressed the opinion that non-geographic affinity-based networks that brought like-minded Anglicans together in the same judicatory were the best way forward for the ACNA despite the pressure to adopt a traditional organizational structure. I further questioned the ability of the more traditional Anglo-Catholic dioceses to grow. These findings appear to support my early observations.  While the Anglican Diocese of the South may have the enjoyed a 50% increase in attendance since 2013 and has the highest commitment index in the province, it has not made negligible headway in planting new churches in Kentucky, confining itself to urban areas where the Episcopal Church has enjoyed success in the past. Its church planting strategy is very similar if not identical to that of the Episcopal Church in the late 1970s and early 1980s--essentially hiving off a part of an existing congregation to form the nucleus of a new congregation. This strategy requires that a segment of the existing congregation's attendees come from the community where the new work is to be started and it is willing to become the core group of the new congregation. It is a slow way of planting new churches. To my knowledge the Anglican Diocese of the South has planted few if any new churches in less densely populated rural areas. It would not be a model that I would adopt for the ACNA for the future. One of the factors that may account for its worship attendance and commitment index is the fact that its bishop is also the province's archbishop. This may be providing a psychological boost to the diocese.