Tuesday's Catch: 'The Nones Are Everywhere Now' And More

The Nones Are Everywhere Now
Secularization is absolutely happening in densely populated places, but it’s also common in smaller towns, too. Even in rural America, the nones make up a quarter of the population.

How to Reach People Who Work on Sundays
Thom discusses the often-overlooked mission field of Sunday workers—and how churches can rethink schedules and structures to engage them.

Why Some Churches Plateau at 70 (and Stay There)
Thom examines the common attendance ceiling of around 70 and the leadership, structure, and mindset issues that keep churches from breaking through.

Surprising Misunderstandings About Church Turnarounds
A church won’t go where you want it to go. It will go where the dynamic relationship between God and the people takes it.

Gen Z Sees Something About AI That Pastors Are Missing!
Most pastors are asking how to use AI. Gen Z is asking what AI is going to do to them.

And that gap is a pastoral problem.

Matt Chandler on the Death of Secularism
Matt Chandler doesn't pull punches. The lead pastor of The Village Church joins me to talk about why wearing a cape doesn't help anyone, the death of secularism, and why the church is all wood and no fire. Matt also opens up about the moment he almost quit, what Spurgeon taught him about suffering, and why he stopped neglecting the Holy Spirit.

US megachurches report strong rebound from pandemic
Most American megachurches have rebounded well from the COVID-19 pandemic as more than 80% reported they are flourishing, according to a new report by Hartford Institute for Religion Research.

The study examined responses from 331 mostly Protestant congregations with 2,000 or more people attending in-person worship services on a typical weekend, which meets the traditional definition of a megachurch.

Americans value freedom but there are differences on what it means
America’s 250th birthday prompted researchers at Navigator to ask Americans how they define America, patriotism and what our country should aspire to.

The result was 82% of Americans across all generations saying they believe freedom is an extremely important value, with 74% claiming rights are also extremely valuable.

However, as the survey found nuances in the answers given by different demographics and generational groups.

Opinion: 3 views on Donald Trump held by American Christians
There is a divide among Christians in the United States about how to respond to the urgency of our present crisis.

Leaving aside for a moment those who claim the name of Christ but gleefully support an immoral president doing immoral things that result in death and destruction, the remainder of U.S. Christianity generally falls into two camps: Those loudly screaming that the house is on fire and those trying to keep the peace and pray for this cup to pass from us.

Catholic legal aid group for immigrants nears collapse as US withholds funds
The El Paso Diocese-run nonprofit is one of the largest providers of legal services for unaccompanied children. It says the US is defying a court order.

The conservative Christian women turning moral urgency into political power
Katie Gaddini, a visiting scholar at Stanford University, spoke to RNS about the women she profiles in her new book, "Esther's Army."

Anti-Christian incidents double in Israel
Anti-Christian incidents in Israel have nearly doubled in the last three months, according to the Religious Freedom Data Centre (RFDC).

Is Marriage a Prerequisite for Ministry?
In a day when half the population isn’t married, how does the church do ministry from a biblical leadership model rooted in marriage?

7 Surprising Traits of Highly Effective Church Leaders
These traits are so simple you might be tempted to dismiss them. Don’t. They’re part of what makes each of these leaders effective in their own world, and there’s nothing stopping you from putting them to work in yours.

7 Impractical Leadership Principles That Work
The most practical route and the wisest route are not the same thing. Here are seven leadership habits that slow you down, cost you comfort, and pay off anyway.

5 Powerful Ways to Pray for Your Pastor Every Day
Prayer is the most powerful force in the world; it is truly life changing.

It’s the only thing that is not weakened, threatened, or hindered by other powers, challenging circumstances, cultural norms, or financial persuasion.

What songs do you sing?
There’s a series of important questions around what songs you sing on a Sunday: their theology and how well it coheres with the church’s, their singability by this particular congregation, song choices that best encourage and inspire expressions of praise, and what songs fit the moment or ‘stage’ of the morning you’ve reached.

The church that I attend, at its early service, largely uses worship songs from Bethel, Hillsong, and Elevation. They are popular with the pastor, the worship leader, and the band. The early service boasts a larger attendance than the more traditional later service with its organ and piano music, choir anthems, and hymns. However, the lyrics of a number of these songs contain verses that are not biblical or theologically sound. These verses could be rewritten to correct these defects but whoever selects the songs does not appear to notice the defects or is not troubled by them.

'Bare beating' is 'unequivocally rude' but extremely common
Have you ever been trapped on a train car with someone watching TikToks from their phone without headphones? Or seated on a plane by a passenger blasting music? Or even stuck in a doctor’s office waiting room as a fellow patient broadcasts radio commentary on a sports stream?

If so, you’ve experienced what some call “bare beating.” This term refers to the act of playing music, videos, podcasts or other audio out loud in public without headphones ― essentially treating shared space like a personal living room.

A number of churches have had noise complaints filed against them with the police and the local authorities for treating their surrounding neighborhood like it was a part of their worship space with their loud music. Bare beating is not, however, an effective form of evangelism.

10 Things Every New Christian Should Know in Year One
The first year of faith goes best when a new Christian anchors on ten things: God’s love comes first, relationship matters more than religion, grace does the growing, love comes before conversion attempts, unity with other believers is non negotiable, Jesus stays the center of everything, God wants the whole life not just Sunday morning, prayer and scripture become daily rhythms, and every new believer needs a mentor walking ahead of them.

Here is what that looks like in practice.

10 Marks of a Mature Christian 

...If physical and emotional maturity have recognizable markers, so does spiritual maturity. So what are they?

Let’s start with what spiritual maturity is not.

Image Credit: Trinity Episcopal Church, Fulton KY

The Conundrum of Anglican Identity

By Robin G. Jordan

A perennial issue in the Anglican Church is what is the real identity of the Anglican Church. Is it Protestant? Is Its Catholic? Is it a “middle way” between Protestantism and Catholicism? Or as a popular view in the Anglican Church in North America maintains, is it a convergence of Catholicism, evangelicalism, and Pentecostalism? Let’s take a brief look at the history of the Anglican Church and what it tells us about Anglican Church’s identity?

Long before Great Britain was invaded and occupied by the Roman legions, traders from the ancient Mediterranean world had visited its shores and traded with its inhabitants. In all likelihood Christianity made its way to what would become England and Wales over these trade routes from Spain and North Africa during the earliest days of Christianity. An indigenous church was eventually established.

A British delegation attended the Council of Arles in 314. This delegation included three bishops, a presbyter, and a deacon. At this time a number of churches existed within the sphere of influence of the Western Roman Empire—churches that had their own doctrines and practices. What influence the bishop of Rome had over these churches was to large extent derived from his position as bishop of the church in the capitol of the Western Roman Empire. It was not the kind of relationship that he would have with the churches in Europe and the British Isles in later times. Since most of the inhabitants of Great Britain at that time were Celts, this indigenous church may be described as the Celtic Church.

The Celtic Church flourished in what would become England and Wales until the invasion of the pagan Low German tribes—the Angles, the Saxons, the Jutes, and the Frisians—at the beginning of the fifth century. It would evangelize Ireland—what would prove an important step of the re-evangelization of England and the evangelization of Scotland after this invasion. The Low German tribes established several independent kingdoms which were gradually Christianized. Augustine’s much touted mission to one of the Saxon kingdoms played a very small role in this process.

Anglo-Saxon Church found the practices of the Church of Rome more congenial than those of the Celtic Church. The Church of Rome was more worldly. Bishops were not expected to take a vow of poverty. They might own lands and thralls. The Roman rite was not as prolix as the Celtic rite. The Anglo-Saxon Church would increasingly fall under the influence of the Church of Rome and the authority of the Bishop of Rome. The Norman conquest of England would reinforce the authority of the pope in England.

From the Norman conquest to the English Reformation the relationship of the English Church with the pope had its ups and downs. The English were willing to recognize the primacy of the pope in ecclesiastical affairs as long as he did not interfere in their domestic affairs. The profligacy of the clergy, monks and nuns; the leniency of the church courts toward clergy and religious who committed crimes; the appointment of foreign bishops, the meddling of the pope in English politics, and a number of other issues would cause the English people to become increasingly resentful toward the pope. One of the reasons that the English nobles forced King John to sign the Magna Carta was that he had sworn fealty to the pope as his feudal lord.

In the sixteenth century John Wycliffe who is recognized as an important precursor to Protestantism would attack the privileged status of the clergy, monasticism, and papal authority in England. He recognized the Bible as the sole authority in matters of faith and practice and was involved in efforts to translate the Bible into English. He sparked the Lollard movement, a proto-Protestant movement whose adherents were derisively referred to as “Bible men.” Wycliffe’s writings would greatly influence the Bohemian reformer and martyr, Jan Hus, whose own writings would influence Martin Luther.

While Henry VIII broke with the pope over his refusal to annual Henry’s marriage to his first wife, he was a staunch Roman Catholic. Although he had himself declared supreme head of the English Church, he permitted very few reforms in the English Church. He did authorize the translation of the Great Litany into English and subsequently allowed the translation of the Bible into English. What is noteworthy is that his only son, Edward VI, was instructed by Protestant tutors. The English Reformation did not begin in earnest until his death.

The English Reformation went through an Edwardian phase and an Elizabethan phase. The Edwardian phase was interrupted by the untimely death of the young King Edward VI from tuberculosis and the ascension of his staunch Roman Catholic older sister Mary. Mary sought to stamp out Protestantism in her realm. But the testimonies of the common people martyred for their Protestant faith showed that it has taken deep roots in the hearts of a large segment of the English population.

Mary’s reign was short-lived. Upon her death from an ovarian tumor her younger sister Elizabeth would ascend the English throne.

Elizabeth had been raised a Protestant. During her reign the English Reformation would make immense strides. The religious settlement that was reached during Elizabeth’s long reign would shape the Church of England and her daughter churches well into the nineteenth century and continues to shape the Anglican Church to this day where it is honored.

At the heart of the Elizabethan Settlement are three formularies—the Book of Common Prayer of 1559, essentially the Edward VI’s Prayer Book of 1552; the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of 1571, based upon the Forty-Two Articles of 1553; and the two Books of Homilies, those written during Edward VI’s reign and those written in Elizabeth’s reign. They form its doctrinal core, a core which is both Protestant and Reformed.

One may sometimes hear or read the claim that the Elizabethan Settlement was a compromise between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. An argument which is made in support of this claim is that the Church of England retained a number of pre-Reformation practices and the retention of these practices is evidence of unreformed Catholic tradition within historic Anglicanism.

Among these practices the use of a fixed liturgy incorporating pre-Reformation elements and episcopacy are singled out as proof of such a tradition. But those making this argument fail to mention that a number of the continental reformed churches (and not just the Lutheran churches) used fixed liturgies that incorporated these elements (e.g., the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed). Continental reformed theologians such as Heinrich Bullinger and John Calvin were not entirely opposed to the government of the church by bishops.

The bishops of the reformed Church of England were state functionaries. Their election required the authorization of the Queen as the supreme governor of the English Church and the Queen herself was their sole nominator. The ecclesiastical government of the Church of England was modeled upon that of the Swiss reformed churches, the exception being the Church of Geneva. In these churches the magistrates of the Swiss city-state of a church appointed the pastors of the church and the pastors, in turn, served as the conscience of the magistrate. In the case of the reformed Church of England the Queen replaced the magistrate of the Swiss city-state.

The reformed Church of England also enjoyed the recognition of the continental reformed churches as a Protestant and Reformed church. This fact is often obscured by the conflicts between the two reformed parties within the English Church. One party was satisfied with the reforms that had been made during Elizabeth’s reign. The other party, however, wanted to move the English Church further in the direction of the Church of Geneva in its practices and governance. Both parties were Protestant and Reformed in their doctrine. The Genevan party wanted to make changes in the liturgy of the English Church and to replace the Erastian form of governance with a presbyterian form of governance. Among its aims was to establish a theocracy in England.

The reign of Charles I saw the emergence of a Protestant High Church party in the Church of England. The emergence of this party can be attributed to a reaction to the bareness of the worship that the English Church had inherited from the Elizabethan period and what were perceived as the extreme views of the presbyterian wing of the English Church. Other factors that contributed to its emergence was a fascination with the Patristic writers and what were believed to be the practices of the primitive Church. The Caroline High Churchmen were also characterized by a penchant for ritualism. This party, like Charles himself, embraced the doctrine of the divine right of kings. As a consequence it would enjoy the royal favor and patronage. Under the leadership of Archbishop William Laud the Caroline High Churchmen would make a number of changes in the worship and architecture of the English Church. These changes, however, were not popular with the common people. They met with strong opposition from the successors to the Genevan party.

The Caroline High Churchmen were influenced by the writings of Hugo Grotius, a disciple of Jacob Arminius. The result was the introduction of Arminianism into English Protestantism. But as in the case of English Protestantism, it would acquire a distinct character of its own. At the same time the Caroline High Churchmen, with a few notable exceptions, subscribed to the Articles of Religion. While their critics accused them of papalism, they were anti-Roman Catholic as their defense of the Church of England during their exile on the continent in the wake of Charles’ execution would prove. Only a very small number of Caroline High Churchmen would become Roman Catholics during that time.

I do not believe that we can dismiss the desire to be part of something new, something different, as a factor which caused younger clergy to gravitate toward what is sometimes referred to as Laudianism. This factor may also account for why subsequent generations of Anglican clergy have gravitated toward Anglo-Catholicism, theological liberalism, Pentecostalism, and more recently “three streams, one river” theology.

The most lasting impact that the Caroline High Churchmen have upon historic Anglicanism was the Restoration Ordinal and Book of Common Prayer, the Ordinal of 1661 and the Book of Common Prayer of 1662. The Restoration bishops who revised the Ordinal and the Prayer Book were for the most part Laudians. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer, however, is a very conservative revision of the 1559 Prayer Book. It forms together with the 1661 Ordinal, the Articles of Religion, and the two Books of Homilies the historic formularies of the Anglican Church.

The Arminianism of the Caroline High Churchmen, however, would not replace the Reformed theology of the Elizabethan Settlement as the dominant theology of the Church of England. Reformed bishops and theologians would maintain a robust presence in the English Church following the Restoration and ably defended the Articles of Religion, historic Anglicanism’s confession of faith, from an Arminian reinterpretation. In 1688 the Coronation Oath Act settled the question of what is the official faith of the Church of England. It is not just Protestant, it is also Reformed.

From where then did the unreformed Catholic wing of the Anglican Church come? The wing has its roots in the Oxford movement of the early nineteenth century. This movement would give birth to the Romeward movement and the Ritualist movement. These two movements tended to overlap. The Romeward movement sought to remake the Anglican Church into the spitting image of the Roman Catholic Church in hopes that the Bishop of Rome would recognize Anglican orders and welcome the Anglican Church back into the Roman fold. The Ritualist movement not only revived doctrines and practices that the Anglican Church had rejected at the time of the Reformation but also introduced doctrines and practices that originated in the Roman Catholic Church from the Counter Reformation on.

In the Church of England these doctrines and practices were prohibited by law. However, the clergy of Protestant Episcopal Church were faced no such prohibitions. What is now known as the Anglo-Catholic movement would rapidly gain ground in that church. Its growing influence would eventually cause a split in the Protestant Episcopal Church. Conservative evangelicals would leave the church. With their departure the church’s once influential evangelical wing would disappear.

Theological liberalism would make inroads into the two dominant movements in the Protestant Episcopal Church—the Anglo-Catholic movement and the Broad Church movement—from the late nineteenth century on. Its influence, while not pronounced, is discernible in the 1928 Prayer Book.

The charismatic movement did not become an influence in the Anglican Church until the 1960s and 1970s. The 1990s would see an influx of charismatic Christians into the Episcopal Church largely from non-denominational churches. By then the Episcopal Church, uncertain of its identity had dropped “Protestant” from its name. These charismatic Christians were attracted by the Episcopal Church’s worship practices and its 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The emergence of “three streams, one river” theology can be traced to the 1990s.

These movements have tended to overshadow the basic identity of the Anglican Church—Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical. To describe the Anglican Church as a branch of Christianity in which Catholicism, evangelicalism, and Pentecostalism have converged does not accurately describe historic Anglicanism. Its central theological tradition is Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical as are its historic formularies. While the Anglo-Catholic movement, the liberal movement, and the charismatic movement may be a dominant influence in a number of its provinces, they are essentially outliers even though they may have gained acceptance in these provinces.

What we see in today’s Anglican Church is the tendency of a segment of the church to treat Anglicanism as if it is Play Doh which can be molded into whatever shape is pleasing to that segment. This tendency is not new. The Arminians sought to reinterpret the Articles of Religion as upholding their beliefs in the seventeenth century. Anglo-Catholics, following in the footsteps of Henry Newman, sought to give the Articles an unreformed Catholic spin in the nineteenth century. These schools of thought were seeking to establish in this manner genuine Anglican credentials for themselves. They were not satisfied to be viewed as latecomers to the table but rather as having had a seat at the table from the very beginning. Indeed, they wanted to be viewed as the only ones who had a rightful place at the table. Everyone else were interlopers.

To accurately describe historic Anglicanism Protestantism, Reformed theology, and evangelicalism of the classical variety must be given a central place in that description. They cannot be pushed to the side or relegated to the role of one theological stream among several traditions represented in Anglicanism. There is room in Anglicanism for differences in secondary matters provided those differences are compatible with Scripture and the historic formularies. Any article, lecture, podcast, or video that does not give a central place to Protestantism, Reformed theology, and evangelicalism in its description of Anglicanism, however, is not providing an accurate description of the Anglican Way. If those who produced the article, lecture, podcast, or video are not comfortable with their centrality, they may need to weigh whether the Anglican Church is the right church for them. I am not suggesting that they leave. Rather I am suggesting that they reappraise their view of the Anglican Church and come to terms with its rich Protestant, Reformed, and evangelical heritage.

Anglicans Ablaze Shares Its Take on the New CANA Diocese Initiative

By Robin G. Jordan

I welcome the Rt. Rev. Felix Orji’s new diocese initiative establishing a diocese-in-formation that will uphold the Biblical, Protestant, and Reformed principles of the Anglican Church and will offer a home for North American Anglicans who are faithful to these principles. I have recognized the need for such an ecclesial body in North America since the Common Cause Partnership days of the Anglican Church in North America when it became evident that the province-in-formation, like the two provinces to which it was supposed to provide an alternative would espouse a form of doctrine and practice that departed from authentic historic Anglicanism on key issues, leaving North America bereft of a genuine Anglican presence and witness.

While some networks of churches and individual pastors and congregations in the new province remained faithful to the Holy Scriptures and the historic Anglican formularies, those charting the future course of the new province had something entirely different in mind—a “new settlement” as the ACNA’s first Archbishop Robert Duncan described it—a settlement which was essentially a repudiation of the Elizabethan Settlement, the classical Anglican formularies, authentic historic Anglicanism, and ultimately Biblical Christianity. While the leaders of the new province might be using the same words as the leaders of GAFCON, they were speaking a different language.

The character of this “new settlement” became increasingly clear with the publication of the ACNA’s draft ordinal, its proposed catechism, its trial services, and more recently The Book of Common Prayer 2019. It would be a synthesis of doctrine and practices taken from the late medieval Catholic Church and borrowed from modern-day Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Intermixed with these conservative theological streams would be a stream of liberal or progressive Catholicism in the form of the ordination of women to the diaconate and the presbyterate. The result would be a form of affirming Catholicism which did not go as far as affirming the normalization of homosexuality in the church and society. In other words, the Anglican Church in North America would embody the theological confusion that has beset the Anglican Church since the 1958 Lambeth Conference and earlier.

While the 2008 Global Anglican Future Conference sought to call the Anglican Church back to the Bible, the classical Anglican formularies, and authentic historic Anglicanism with the issuance of the Jerusalem Declaration and Statement and the subsequent publication of the GAFCON Theological Resource Group’s Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today, the leaders of the new province were not listening. Indeed they had their fingers in their ears.

The new CANA diocese-in-formation will face a number of challenges. Among these challenges I have identified six that I believe that it is essential for the new CANA archdeaconry to meet.

1. The first challenge is that while one segment of the Anglican Church in North America will welcome the establishment of the new CANA archdeaconry, another segment will view the new network of churches as invading its turf. This segment of the ACNA, however, has no leg to stand on. Both the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church view the ACNA as invading their turf. Furthermore the Holy Scriptures do not recognize the idea that a particular church has exclusive rights to a particular territory. Rather the Holy Scriptures teach that the whole vineyard is the Lord’s. He may dispatch workers into the vineyard wherever and whenever he pleases.

The whole vineyard is the Lord’s. He may dispatch workers into the vineyard wherever and whenever he pleases.

2. The second challenge will be planting new churches and strengthen existing ones. The fields are ripe for harvest and the new diocese-in-formation is a part of God’s answer to our prayers asking him to send more workers into the harvest. The first five years of the new archdeaconry will be a critical time for planting new churches. The first five years of these new churches will also be a critical time for them to plant new churches. If a church network or a church does not plant one or more new churches within its first five years, it is not likely to plant any new churches later on.

3. The third challenge will be establishing a workable leadership pipeline for recruiting, training, credentialing, and deploying pastors and other leaders. Church networks and churches need a steady supply of leaders to grow. They cannot wait for ministerial candidates to complete a one-year internship and a three-year seminary training program. To be effective in meeting the new archdeaconry’s need for more leaders, its leadership pipeline will need to include options for training leaders at the local church level while they are engaged in ministry and mission. It will also need to include ongoing opportunities for leadership development and formation.

4. The fourth challenge will be balancing what would be ideal with what is realistic. This is a major challenge to any new organization—ecclesiastical or otherwise. The implementation of some ideas which may be very good ideas will need to be postponed until the new archdeaconry has become a diocese. They are not practicable during the early stages of a diocese-in-formation. The initial phase will need to focus on planting new churches and strengthen existing ones and producing leaders who can go immediately to work in the Lord’s vineyard.

5. The fifth challenge will be countering the public perception of Anglicanism in North America, which has been shaped by the Catholic Revivalist false narrative. North America has proven fertile ground for revisionist reinterpretations of Anglicanism for the past 186 years. Catholic Revivalism is one of the oldest of these revisionist reinterpretations of Anglicanism and it has left its mark on what ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan describes as “American Anglicanism.” The new CANA archdeaconry can expect the modern-day proponents of Catholic Revivalism and those who are sympathetic to their views to question the authenticity of its Anglican theological credentials and to promote themselves as the only true representatives of Anglicanism as their nineteenth century predecessors did. It will need to be prepared to respond with reasoned arguments and writings.

6. The sixth challenge will be to balance the different interpretations of what it means to be Reformed and Anglican. I have generally tried to avoid the term “Reformed Anglican” in my own articles since it implies the existence of other legitimate forms of Anglicanism. In my view authentic historic Anglicanism is the only legitimate form of Anglicanism and it is Biblical, Protestant, and Reformed. While I can see the need for the new diocese-in-formation to distinguish its doctrine and practices from those of the various revisionist reinterpretations of Anglicanism, in identifying itself as “Reformed Anglican,” it has inadvertently strengthened the view that Anglicanism exists in more than one form. In identifying itself as “Reformed Anglican,” the new archdeaconry creates an unnecessary dichotomization between “Reformed” and “Anglican.” Genuine Anglicanism is Reformed. It is not only reformed in the sense of having its doctrine and practices reformed in accordance with the Holy Scriptures but it is also Reformed in the sense of sharing a common theology with the sixteenth century magisterial Reformed Churches of Switzerland and southern Germany, particularly the Church of Zurich and the Church of Heidelberg.

One group that recognizes the Biblical, Protestant and Reformed character of authentic historic Anglicanism is satisfied with what J. I. Packer describes as the “evangelical comprehensiveness” of the Thirty-Nine Articles and the broad latitude it permits on secondary matters. Another group that recognizes the Biblical, Protestant, and Reformed character of authentic historic Anglicanism wants to supplement or replace the Thirty-Nine Articles with the Westminster Confession and impose greater uniformity in secondary matters. If the new archdeaconry is to experience significant growth, it will require the cooperation of both groups. Disputes over the Westminster Confession and the secondary matters could effectively scuttle the new diocese-in-formation.

Among the attractions that historic Anglicanism holds for pastors of conservative Presbyterian and Reformed churches is the freedom it permits on secondary matters. It is a major part of its appeal. If the new archdeacon is to flourish, it must be faithful to the tradition that it represents.

Despite these challenges I believe that the new CANA diocese-in-formation has a bright future ahead of it. I am excited that the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) recognized the need for such an ecclesial body in North America and responded to that need.

For readers who wish to learn more about the new archdeaconry, please contact the Rev. Richard LePage at pastor@ReformationAnglicanChurch.org or (207) 894-0177 or the Rev Jonathan Smith at jonathan.smith@redeemerorl.org or (321) 356-9472.

The Doctrine of the Lord’s Supper in the ACNA’s Catechism: What It Is and Where It Came From - REVISED AND UPDATED

This article is a companion article to my two-part article, “The Lord’s Supper Explained: The Historical Anglican View of the Sacrament”—Part 1 and Part 2.

By Robin G. Jordan

While searching the Internet for 1962 Revised Catechism of the Church of England, I ran across an article, entitled "The Revised Catechism," that J. I. Packer had written for the Church Society’s quarterly journal Churchman in 1961. In the article Packer critiques the then proposed Revised Catechism. The article is fascinating reading.

Packer concludes early in the article that the Commission that the Archbishops set up "to consider the revision of the Church Catechism in order that its scope may be enlarged and its language made more suitable for present conditions," when it came to enlarging the scope of the Church Catechism, was faced with an impossible task due to the state of the Church of England at the time. Packer goes on to delineate two principles for deciding what a catechism should, and should not, contain.

The first principle is that “a catechism should limit itself to Christian essentials.” The purpose of the catechumenate, he notes, is “to inculcate ‘mere Christianity’.” “It is theologically improper,” he concludes, “for catechisms to include more than the minimum that is thought necessary for a healthy adult faith. Non-essentials have no place in them.” It is also wrong to use catechisms “for the purposes of denominational propaganda.” The only justification for putting “denominational distinctives” into a catechism is that “knowledge of these things is ordinarily necessary for salvation-in other words, that they are, in fact, part of the Gospel.” Packer further notes:

But nothing that cannot be defended as being part of the Gospel has any right of entry into a catechism. Catechisms exist to set out the bare essentials of catholic Christianity, and if they go beyond these it is not a virtue, but a defect. It would be theologically wrong to enlarge the scope of any catechism beyond the realm of that knowledge which is necessary for the spiritual health and safety of the individual Christian.

This has an important corollary for Anglicans. Historic Anglicanism rests on the principle that "Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation" (Article VI). It follows, therefore, that in any catechism that is fit for Anglicans to use every assertion will admit of Scripture proof.

All the Reformation Catechisms, including the Church of England’s, Packer points out, were compiled on the principle that “every part of the catechism must be capable of proof by Holy Scripture.” This principle is the only one that is open to Anglicans. He concludes:

…any part of a catechism for the Church of England which could not be proved by Holy Scripture would, by Anglican standards, have no business to be there; for what cannot be proved by Scripture cannot be necessary to salvation, and doctrines, however true, and facts, however interesting, that are not necessary to salvation have no place in rightly constructed catechisms.

The second principle “for determining the proper contents of a Catechism,” which Packer delineates, is that “the Catechism should limit itself to Christian essentials as professed and understood by the Church which is to use it.

Packer goes on to point out that a “properly-ordered catechumenate” in which “the contents of that Church's Catechism are faithfully and thoroughly taught” can exercise a tremendous influence upon the younger generations, decisively shaping their faith.

The following points Packer makes especially caught my attention due to their particular relevance to the Anglican Church in North America.

A Church's Catechism is its official manual of instruction for those who would become adult communicants. As such, it has a confessional significance. It has the status of what the Church of Scotland calls a "subordinate standard " ; that is, it is a normative exposition of the faith of the church that uses it second only in authority to that Church's Creed, or Confession. It is thus a foundational document in any Church's life. It is, or should be, the basic form in which the growing child meets that Church's faith.

Packer then cites a passage from Principles of Prayer Book Revision, which shows the doctrinal importance of the Catechism.

Changes in the Catechism are of considerable moment for two reasons : first, because it provides the priest with a syllabus of what he is required to teach candidates for Confirmation, whether children or adults, and, though he may supplement the syllabus, he cannot omit anything which it contains; secondly, because it can be appealed to as an authoritative interpretation of the faith of the Church (p. 59) [Emphasis added].

Packer concludes:

It is clear, then, that a Church's Catechism is a document of major importance. It is clear, too, that the effect of altering a Church's Catechism will be (assuming that its catechumenate is well ordered) to alter its faith within a couple of generations [Emphasis added]. What you strike out of the Catechism, you absolve the clergy from teaching and the laity from learning. When you add fresh matter to the Catechism, you thereby charge the clergy to present it, and the laity to receive it, as vital to the health and safety of the Christian soul. The Catechism must not therefore, be changed irresponsibly; changes in the Catechism have the most far-reaching consequences. For the Catechism is, for teaching purposes, the archetypal, fundamental, and normative presentation of the Church's faith.

Packer draws three equally relevant conclusions:

But if this is true, three things clearly follow.

First, it follows that the teaching of any Church's Catechism must be wholly in line with the teaching of its official confession of faith, and of any other subordinate standards that it may have; otherwise the effect of the Catechism will be to throw that Church into disorder on the theological level.

Second, it follows that any Church's Catechism must command the assent of that Church as a whole, and especially of the clergy as a whole; otherwise it will not be regularly and universally used, and that Church will, in consequence, be thrown into disorder on the pastoral level.

Third, it follows that the contents of a Church's Catechism must not be made a party issue. The essentials which the Catechism contains must be essentials agreed upon by all parties. There is no place in the Catechism for unrepresentative minority views or party lines; otherwise the Catechism, instead of standing as an agreed platform of Church teaching, becomes itself a bone of contention and a cause of further division within the Church.

Now, therefore, we can see why it is simply impossible to revise the Catechism satisfactorily with the Church of England in its present state.

In the first place, there is not sufficient agreement about Christian essentials. Those who hold that a particular doctrine of the Church, and of its ministers and ministrations, is part of the Gospel, would think the Prayer Book Catechism defective for not covering these topics, and would not be content with any Catechism that did not deal with them. Those, however, who take a different view would object on principle to the inclusion of much that the former group would think indispensable, and would object in detail to much that the former group would want said on these themes.

Then, in the second place, there is not sufficient contentment with, and loyalty to, the doctrine defined in the Articles, embodied in the Prayer Book, and expounded in the Homilies, concerning grace, the Church, the ministry, and the sacraments.

Some would demand that any new Catechism move away from this doctrine; indeed, the hope of moving away from it all along the line is a main reason why some are pressing for Prayer Book revision at the present time.

Others, however, would argue, on grounds equally of truth, of principle, and of expediency, that it would be disastrous for the Church of England to authorize any forms of worship or instruction which cut loose from the historic Anglican position, and would demand that all Prayer Book revision be confessionally controlled, lest the Church of England condemn itself to a life of everlasting theological schizophrenia.

With minds in the Church of England thus divided, it is clearly impossible for a new Catechism that will give general satisfaction to be produced at present. However much or little approval the existing Prayer Book Catechism commands, it seems certain that any new Catechism will command less. And a Catechism that has not gained the approval of the whole Church would be, as we saw, a liability, not an asset, in the Church's life.*

Packer notes that the Commission in revising the Church’s Catechism appears to have relied upon “the compromise formula and the principle of something for everybody.” “The result,” he points out, “is a document that at certain points is out of step with the Articles, the Prayer Book, the Homilies, and the central Anglican theological tradition.”

Packer then goes on to examine the proposed revised catechism in detail. His critique of specific parts of that catechism is consistent with what he has written in Keep in Step with the Spirit, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Belief, Growing in Christ, and other works.

The views that Packer expresses in this article contrast sharply with the assertion that he makes in the Introduction to To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism, that is, its contents are agreeable to all legitimate Anglican theological schools of thought. Packer’s critique of the specific parts of the Church of England’s 1962 Revised Catechism is applicable to a large extent to To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism as are the paragraphs of his article, which we have just examined. Together, they belie his assertion.

As we shall see, like the Church of England’s 1962 Revised Catechism, To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism “at certain points is out of step with the Articles, the Prayer Book, the Homilies, and the central Anglican theological tradition.” One of these points is the section on the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

As Packer emphasizes in his article, "the teaching of any Church's Catechism must be wholly in line with the teaching of its official confession of faith, and of any other subordinate standards that it may have." The Anglican Church in North America, however, has no confession of faith. Its Fundamental Declarations equivocate in their acceptance of the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and dilute the authority of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. They infer the existence of other doctrinal standards to which the ACNA looks but do not identify these standards, much in the way John Henry Newman did in his exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. In the ACNA its proposed catechism, it is second only to the three Catholic Creeds. I refer to the catechism as proposed because while it boasts an impressive list of editors, contributors, and consultants and has the endorsement of the College of Bishops, it has never been officially adopted by the ACNA. The Provincial Council has not approved a canon authorizing its use nor has the Provincial Assembly ratified such a canon.

When we interpret the Prayer Book Catechism, we must do so in accordance with the teaching of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, which provide the doctrinal standards by which the Prayer Book must be interpreted. In the case of the proposed ACNA catechism, however, we must look to this amorphous body of doctrine that the Fundamental Declarations do not identify. To determine its identity, we must search for internal clues within the catechism itself and in this search Packer’s article is an invaluable guide.

To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism takes the question, “What is the inward part, or thing signified?” and its answer from the Prayer Book Catechism and changes the wording. This altered wording is not needed to make the question and answer more understandable to a speaker of modern English. It appears to be intended to modify the doctrine of the question and answer and to transform the question and answer into an affirmation of the Real Objective Presence in the consecrated elements.

112. What is the inward and spiritual thing signified?

The spiritual thing signified is the body and blood of Christ, which are truly taken and received in the Lord’s Supper by faith. (1 Corinthians 10:16-18; 11:27; John 6:52-56)

As can be seen the question and answer only superficially resemble that question and answer in the Prayer Book Catechism. As well as being awkwardly worded, they are open to interpretation as affirming the Real Objective Presence in the consecrated elements. As I pointed out earlier, those interpreting this question and answer are not under any constraint to apply the doctrinal standards of the Articles in their interpretation. They are free to look to the doctrinal standards of their own choosing—the Holy Tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the writings of the Medieval Schoolmen, the Decrees of the Council of Trent, John Wesley’s abridgment of Daniel Brevint’s The Christian Sacrament and Sacrifice, and so forth.

The Scripture references cited are favorites with those who maintain that Christ is substantively present in the consecrated elements. They interpret Paul as speaking literally in 1 Corinthians 10:16-18 and 1 Corinthians 11:27. They interpret Jesus as speaking literally in John 6:52-56, rather than figuratively as in the other “I am” discourses in John’s Gospel. In their interpretation of the passages in question they are relying on tradition and not solid exegesis of the text. The way they interpret these passages, however, are not the only way that the passages can be interpreted.

The context of the two passages in 1 Corinthians points to Paul’s use of figurative language in these passages. He is referring to Christ’s suffering and death. In Matthew 26:29 Jesus, after having referred to the contents of the cup as “my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins,” refers to the cup’s contents as wine. Those who choose to interpret his words literally also choose to overlook this passage.

Paul was a former Pharisee and was intimately acquainted with the Passover meal and its traditions. He would have understood Jesus to have been speaking figuratively. In John’s narrative the “I am the Bread of Life” discourse follows the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, which the Synoptic Gospels place well before the Last Supper and Jesus’ institution of the Lord’s Supper. Having begun the “I am the Bread of Life” speaking figuratively, it is unlikely that Jesus would have suddenly switched to speaking literally as those who espouse the doctrine of the Real Objective Presence would have us believe.

Several other clues point to the body of doctrine to which those who drafted this section of the proposed ACNA would have us look in interpreting the meaning this question and answer.

113. What benefits do you receive through partaking of this sacrament?

As my body is nourished by the bread and wine, I receive the strengthening and refreshing of my soul by the body and blood of Christ; and I receive the strengthening and refreshing of the love and unity I share with fellow Christians, with whom I am united in the one Body of Christ. (1662 Catechism)

The Prayer Book Catechism states:

Question. What are the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby?

Answer. The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the Bread and Wine.

It echoes the sentiments expressed in Nowell’s Middle Catechism:

Master. What is the heavenly part and matter removed from outward senses?

Scholar. The body and blood of Christ, which are given, taken, eaten, and drunken of the faithful, in the Lord’s Supper ;  only after a heavenly and spiritual manner, but yet verily, and indeed.  In so much, that as the bread nourisheth our bodies, so Christ’s body hath most singular force spiritually by faith to feed our souls.  And as with Wine men’s hearts are cheered, and their strengths confirmed, so with his blood our souls are relieved and refreshed through faith :  which is the mean whereby the body and blood of Christ are received in the Supper.  For Christ as surely maketh them that believe in him, partakers of his body and blood, as they surely know that they have received the bread and wine with their mouths and stomachs.  And it is also a gauge of our Immortality, and a pledge of our Resurrection.

While the proposed ACNA catechism attributes it to the Prayer Book Catechism, we find nothing along the lines of receiving “the strengthening and refreshing of the love and unity I share with fellow Christians, with whom I am united in the one Body of Christ” in that catechism. We do, however, find similar sentiments in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the sections “What Is This Sacrament Called”  and “The Paschal Banquet.”

After Vatican II a number of popular works explaining Roman Catholic eucharistic theology were published. These works emphasized that the faithful’s sharing of the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist gave tangible expression to the Mystical Body of Christ. It is not only strengthened their union with Christ but also with each other. If it was the intention of the drafters of this question and answer to express this doctrine, they did not do a good job of it.

While the Lord’s Supper may serve as a visible sign of our unity in Christ, it is the Holy Spirit that unites us to Christ and to each other and knits us into the Body of Christ.

To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism contains a question and answer in the Holy Communion section of that catechism, the equivalent of which I have not found in any other revised Anglican catechism that I have examined.

115. What is expected of you when you have shared in Holy Communion?

Having been renewed in my union with Christ and his people through sharing in the Supper, I should continue to live in holiness, avoiding sin, showing love and forgiveness to all, and serving others in gratitude.

The closest thing that I have to this question and answer is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church in the section “The Paschal Banquet.”  The sentiments expressed in the answer to this question are reminiscent of what the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls the “fruits of the Holy Communion”

However, what unites us to Christ and with our fellow Christians is the Holy Spirit, as I previously noted. Showing gratitude to God’s for his mercies; pursuing holiness; practicing godliness and shunning sin; loving and respecting others, forgiving them, and treating them as we would be treated; and serving Christ in our fellow human beings are what are normally expected from a disciple of Christ not as a response to the Eucharist but as a response to Christ himself and to his suffering and death on the cross for our salvation. They are things that we are able to do because the Holy Spirit has given us the good will to do them and continues to work with us once we have been given that good will (Article X).

The section of the proposed ACNA catechism dealing with what it describes as the “other sacraments” is an important clue to this body of doctrine’s identity.

116. Are there other sacraments?

Other rites and institutions commonly called sacraments include confirmation, absolution, ordination, marriage, and anointing of the sick. These are sometimes called the sacraments of the Church.

117. How do these differ from the sacraments of the Gospel?

They are not commanded by Christ as necessary for salvation, but arise from the practice of the apostles and the early Church, or are states of life blessed by God from creation. God clearly uses them as means of grace.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church as “the sacraments of the Church.” Anglo-Catholics who embrace the Roman Catholic Church’s sacramental system sometimes refer to confirmation, absolution, ordination, matrimony, and the anointing of the sick as the “lesser sacraments.”

The only purported Anglican document that I have examined and which refers to these rites as “the sacraments of the Church,” was the work of Canon Kevin Donlon, a former Episcopal priest who is an ex-Roman Catholic and who has studied Roman Catholic canon law. It was the new set of canons which he had prepared for the Anglican Church of Rwanda.

Into this set of canons Donlon had not only incorporated Roman Catholic governing principles but also Roman Catholic doctrine. A number of sections of the canons were taken almost word for word from the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church. They included the canon governing the relationship between the Archbishop of Rwanda and the “Primatial Vicar” overseeing the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA). It was taken from the section of the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church governing the relationship between the Pope and the archbishop of a province of the Roman Catholic Church.

The Anglican Church of Rwanda has roots in the Anglican Evangelical Revival; the Church Missionary Society, an offshoot of the Anglican evangelical movement; and the East African Revival, an important renewal movement within Protestant evangelical Christianity in East Africa. For the Rwandan Anglican Church to adopt a set of canons that was so strongly influenced by Roman Catholicism was highly unusual. 

From what I have been able to piece together, when then Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini presented the revised canons to the Rwandan House of Bishops, he claimed that their adoption would enable the AMiA to revise its charter, which he further claimed was in need of revision. 

Among the results of their adoption was that they gave the late Chuck Murphy as “Primatial Vicar” authority over the AMiA, which was second only to the Archbishop as the chief bishop of the Rwandan Anglican Church, and which included approving all candidates for missionary bishop in the AMiA before the names were submitted to the Rwandan House of Bishops for final approval. They also made Bishop Murphy solely accountable to the Rwandan Archbishop. 

Murphy would later break with the Rwandan Anglican Church when the new Archbishop began to exercise his authority over the AMiA.

The revised canons not only changed the doctrine of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, they also changed the doctrine of the AMiA. Under their provisions and the new AMiA charter, the AMiA was required to adhere to the doctrine of the Rwandan Anglican Church of which it was an extraterritorial missionary district. With the adoption of the revised canons and the new charter that doctrine became Roman Catholic!

At the time Donlon was a priest of the AMiA and served as Canon of Ecclesiastical and Ecumenical Affairs for the AMiA advising former Rwandan Archbishop Kolini as well as to the late Bishop Chuck Murphy. In that capacity he was a corresponding member of the Global South Anglican Theological Formation and Education Task Force on Anglican Catechism in Outline. He also served on the GAFCON Theological Resource Group that drafted Being Faithful: The Shape of Historic Anglicanism Today. He was known for his pronounced Anglo-Catholic views and his vigorous championing of a Catholic identity for the Anglican Church.

In addition Donlon served as the AMiA representative on the Common Cause Governance Task Force that drafted the constitution and canons of the Anglican Church in North America and may have influenced its adoption of material from the Code of Canon Law of the Catholic Church. From what I gather, he took an active part in the task force’s deliberations, making suggestions and raising objections. He is credited with thwarting a number of proposals to bring the Fundamental Declarations more in line with historic Anglicanism.

At one point Donlon was promoting what he claimed was a new approach to ecclesiastical organization which was generating excitement among the African bishops.

Donlon is co-author of “Appendix 4. Guiding Principles of This Catechism” of To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism.

A 2012 Anglican Rose article, "Catholic International," identifies Canon Kevin Donlon as one of the New Tractarians, a group of clergy that includes Bishop Keith Ackerman, Canon Arthur Middleton, and Bishop Ray Sutton, that are promoting a new Oxford movement within the Anglican Church and are seeking not only to move the Anglican Church in North America but also Global Anglican Future Conference and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans in a more unreformed Catholic direction.

In a Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Belief J I Packer explains that it was a medieval mistake to classify the rites of confirmation, absolution, ordination, marriage, and anointing of the sick as sacraments. In his article “The Revised Catechism,” at which we took a look earlier, Packer suggests that the passages dealing with what the Church of England’s then proposed revised catechism calls “other ministries of grace” and what the proposed ACNA catechism calls “the sacraments of the church” should be dropped from the catechism. He bluntly states that the notion that these rites “convey a special grace ex opere operato is without warrant in Anglican theology-not to mention the Bible!” He poses three questions:

Can it be held that the knowledge of these five "ministries of grace" is in any way essential to salvation ? Can the things that are said, in particular, about Confirmation, and matrimony, and absolution, be proved from Scripture? Can any warrant or sanction for them be found in existing Anglican formularies, or in the main stream of the Anglican theological tradition?

He concludes that the answer to all three questions is “no” and therefore the rites should be removed from the catechism.

What troubled Packer was not just the wording of the passages dealing with these rites but their departure from “historic Anglican teaching.” They amounted to what he calls “party-lines.” They also represented what he describes as “the habit of mind which takes its cue from Rome and aims to keep step with Rome wherever possible” This habit of mind, while it was found in the Church of England, Packer maintained, was not authentically Anglican.

Much of what Packer wrote in 1961 is applicable to passages dealing with the “other sacraments” or “the sacraments of the church” in the proposed ACNA catechism. The wording is different. The historical context has changed. The Anglican Ordinariate has siphoned off those who wanted to walk in lockstep with Rome.

The Anglican Church in North America, however, contains an element that, while it is not attracted to the Roman Catholic Church, is attracted to Roman Catholic doctrine and practices. This same element has the Catholicization of the Anglican Church as its aim.

In The Thirty-Nine Articles: A Restatement the late Philip Edgcumbe Hughes explains that the rites of confirmation, absolution, ordination, marriage, and anointing of the sick “have in part developed from a false understanding of apostolic practice and in part represent states of life allowed in the Scriptures.” This is the historical Anglican view of these rites. The answer to Question 117, on the other hand, is what Packer calls a “party-line.”

Questions and answers 122 -127 are related to what the proposed ACNA catechism refers to as sacrament of ordination and the three-fold ministries of deacon, priest, and bishop. In his critique of the Church of England’s 1962 Revised Catechism Packer questions the need for the equivalent of these questions and answers in that catechism.

Such instruction could only be held essential if this organizational structure were itself essential to the being of the Church, as such, so that where this threefold ministry could not be recognized the Church must be judged non-existent, and the conclusion drawn that there are no valid or efficacious Eucharists there. Knowledge about the threefold ministry would then be "saving knowledge " in the strict sense, for valid sacraments are generally necessary to salvation ; but is this the historic Anglican view? Can it be proved by Scripture, which " containeth all things necessary to salvation " ? The answer is no in both cases. It is true that a vocal minority in the Church of England today holds this opinion in some form, but it does not seem right to give space in the Revised Catechism to a matter whose presence there could only be justified if this minority view were accepted as being Scriptural and normatively Anglican. This section leaves the impression that the ministry is the Church for all practical purposes….

Their inclusion points to a particular body of doctrines related to the gospel sacraments and the “other sacraments,” as the proposed ACNA catechism describes them, and not just ordination. This body of doctrine, as should be clear by now, is that of the Roman Catholic Church. Their inclusion is not warranted as Packer points out unless they relate to something necessary to salvation. What they relate to has historically been viewed by the Roman Catholic Church in that light but not by Scripture or the reformed Anglican Church. The Roman Catholic Church maintains that uninterrupted succession of bishops leading back to the apostles is necessary for the validity of the sacraments and that the sacraments play an important role in our salvation and sanctification but only a one segment of the Anglican Church influenced by the theology of the Roman Catholic Church subscribe to that view. This segment also subscribe to the doctrine of the Real Objective Presence in the consecrated bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist.

The influence of the same body of doctrine is also evident in the proposed ACNA Book of Common Prayer, bringing these two would-be standards of the Anglican Church in North America into line with each other. As with the proposed Prayer Book, To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism may not always openly teach a particular doctrine. However, it points to that doctrine and permits its teaching. When all the elements of these two proposed standards are taken into consideration, their slant is decidely toward unreformed Catholicism, the Catholicism of the Roman Catholic Church and to a lesser extent of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Intentional or not they are geared to undoing the effects of the Protestant Reformation in the Anglican Church.

*In 2011 the Church of England's House of Bishops, taking note of the success of Alpha and Christianity Explored commissioned a new discipleship course to replace the 1962 Revised Catechism. This discipleship course was prepared by Bishop of Chelmsford Steven Croft and three other co-authors, Stephen Cotrell, Paula Gooder, and Robert Atwell, and is entitled The Pilgrim's Way A Guide to the Christian Faith. The course consists of four sets of lessons build around the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Beatitudes. It was launched in 2017.

A Prayer Book for Whom? The Challenges of a Common Liturgy—Part 1

By Robin G. Jordan

“Common Liturgy” is a term with multiple meanings. It can refer to the collection of rites and services typically found in a modern Anglican service book. It can also just refer to a particular liturgy—the service that the 1662 Book of Common Prayer refers to as “The Order for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion” or simply “The Communion.”

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines “common” as “belonging to or shared by two or more individuals or groups.” It defines “liturgy” as “a fixed set of ceremonies, words, etc., that are used during public worship in a religion,” “ eucharistic rite,” “or “ a rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship” The English word “liturgy” is a conflation of two Greek words and literally means “the work of the people.” It related to English word “laity,” which is derived from one of these Greek words—laos.

Among the implications of these definitions of the term “common liturgy” is that it must, whether a rite or body of rites, be owned and accepted by the entire denomination. It cannot be a rite or body of rites preferred by one ecclesiastical party in the denomination, embodying its theology, and imposed upon the other groups in the denomination. In that case, while it may be the official liturgy of the denomination, it is by no means the common liturgy of the denomination. It must enjoy widespread ownership and acceptance.

This challenge is one of several major challenges that face a working group commissioned to develop rites and services for a denomination. It is also one of the reasons that such a working group should include representatives from all schools of thought and interested groups in the denomination and separate panels representing each such school and group should be established to review each draft, provide feedback, propose changes, and even demand a new draft.

The ideas of denominational leaders for a particular rite or service should not be given preference over any other ideas. Additional safeguards should be implemented to keep any one group or individual from unduly influencing the process for developing rites and services for the denomination.

One of the weaknesses of the ACNA process for developing a liturgy and a Prayer Book is that the Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force is too willing to incorporate the suggestions of individual bishops which in all likelihood represent the personal preferences of the bishop in question and do not take into consideration how these suggested changes affect the doctrine of the rite or the rite’s usability on the North American mission field.

The development of a common liturgy can be even more challenging when the schools of thought in the denomination hold sharply divergent views on key issues such as the number of sacraments and the presence of Christ in the eucharistic species.

When faced with this particular challenge, a basic approach is to develop a rite or rites that are plain vanilla. Each rite is the simplest, most basic version of the rite possible—no adornments, no special features.

Texts or wording that are controversial or have historically divided members of the denomination or the global community of churches of which it is part are avoided. Texts or wording that are deliberately ambivalent and open to multiple interpretations may be used in their place.

Any embellishments are not printed in the rite itself but in a section at the end of the rite and are purely optional. Additional notes for the conduct of the rite are printed in this section.

It may also be necessary to provide alternate texts and alternate rites, give clergy permission to make minor alterations in the rites and services, and even to permit judicatories to develop their own rites and services. The Anglican Church of Australia has adopted all three approaches.

But is the result a common liturgy? In reality it may be the closest thing to a common liturgy that the Anglican Church of Australia in its particular circumstances can achieve. Indeed the Anglican Church of Australia has three common liturgies—The Book of Common Prayer (1662), An Australian Prayer Book (1978), and A Prayer Book for Australia (1995). The last two books are authorized for use together with the Prayer Book. The Anglican Church of Australia is a loose federation of formerly independent dioceses with separate ties to the Church of England. (The constitution of the Anglican Church of Australia would have been a good model for the constitution of the Anglican Church in North America.)

Of the 23 dioceses forming the Anglican Church of Australia’s five province and one extraterritorial diocese, only two—Ballarat and Sydney—have produced liturgies of their own. The Ballarat liturgy was produced during the episcopate of Anglo-Catholic Bishop David Silk who retired in 2003. Silk did not consider the three books Catholic enough. In 2010 Silk announced his intention to convert to Roman Catholicism. I was not able to ascertain whether Ballarat has continued to use this liturgy since Silk’s retirement.

Sydney adopted Common Prayer: Resources for Gospel Shaped Gatherings, the latest revision of its liturgy in 2012. Common Prayer: Resources for Gospel Shaped Gatherings replaced Sunday Services: A Contemporary Liturgical Resource, adopted in 2001. Sydney’s Diocesan Doctrinal Commission took issue with the doctrine of A Prayer Book for Australia, resulting in the development of Sunday Services: A Contemporary Liturgical Resource.

How the Anglican Church of Australia has sought to meet the need for a common liturgy in that church is preferable to what the Anglican Church in North America is attempting to do—impose Procrustean standards on the worship of the churches in the denomination, forcing it into the same mold both liturgically and doctrinally irrespective of the particular circumstances of a church or its theological leanings.

Another challenge facing a working group tasked with developing a common liturgy for a denomination is what material it should use from existing service books and which books. Top considerations in the choice of this material should be the elegance of its language, its biblical orthodox and theological soundness, its suitability for twenty-first century congregations and twenty-first century contexts, and the need to strike a balance between the old and the new, the familiar and the unfamiliar.

Evaluations of this material should be weighed against the evaluators’ past history and their liturgical and doctrinal proclivities evidenced in this history. In other words, the evaluation of the material should itself be evaluated. Too often criticism of a particular liturgy or a particular liturgical element boils down to it not fitting the critic’s notions of an ideal liturgy or liturgical element.

A case in point may be Arnold Klukas’ “Contemporary Anglican Prayer Books 1928-2009,” in which he examines the divergence of the more recent Anglican service books from “classical standards.” Klukas is a Professor of Liturgy at Nashotah House and a member of the ACNA Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force. From what I gather he has played a leading role in the rites and services that task force has drafted to date. An article published in 2001 revealed that he displayed a marked preference for the older liturgies in his parish ministry. This preference may color his evaluation of more recent Anglican service books and their contents.

What is noticeable about the rites and services that the ACNA Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force has so far produced is they do not appear to stray far from the source books listed in “The Unmaking of the Classical Anglican Prayer Book.” The ordinal, for example, is an adaptation of the 1928 Ordinal, adopting rubrics from the 1549 Ordinal and features from the 1979 Ordinal. They appear to do very little borrowing from the larger corpus of Anglican service books, old and new. One might say that they suffer from liturgical inbreeding.

The ACNA Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force has not attempted to integrate the rites and services of that denomination into the broader stream of Anglican liturgies. The task force has taken little advantage of the wealth of liturgical material produced in and outside of North America in the twentieth century and during the past fourteen years.

The rites and services that the ACNA Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force has so far produced are classifiable as representing a Anglo-Catholic offshoot of the American Prayer Book tradition but lacking the comprehensiveness of the 1789 and 1892 American Prayer Books, which permitted the omission of the signing of the cross on the forehead of the newly baptized and provided alternative wording at the laying on of hands in the ordination of a presbyter, modest concessions to evangelical sensibilities. Rather the task force has incorporated into these services and rites doctrine and liturgical usages historically associated with an advanced form of Anglo-Catholicism. The only thing missing is the invocation and veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints.

What is also noticeable about these rites and services is that they incorporate very little if any material from the Canadian Prayer Book tradition or the Reformed Episcopal Prayer Book tradition. Both traditions at one time displayed a strong evangelical influence. The Reformed Episcopal Church has no representative on the ACNA Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force and the Anglican Network in Canada’s representative is an Anglo-Catholic.

A third challenge that faces a working group entrusted with the development of a common liturgy for a denomination is the context in which the rite or body of rites will be used. The kind of service book that an older denomination with a large number of established churches and a small number of new churches will need will be entirely different from the kind of service book a young denomination with a small number of established churches and a large number of new churches will need.

In the twentieth century we saw the emergence of the house church movement and the formation of house church networks. In the twenty-first century we are seeing the emergence of the mobile church movement—"church in a box." New churches are not the only churches meeting in a wide-range of unconventional settings. Established churches are selling their buildings and renting facilities. They have found that becoming a mobile church has transformed their ministry. They have not only expanded their population base and seen corresponding increases in worship attendance, church membership, and giving but also have increased their impact upon the community.

The context of worship has changed dramatically from what it was in the mid-twentieth century. Yet the ACNA Prayer Book and Common Liturgy Task Force is producing rites and services not for the twenty-first century Church but for the mid-twentieth century Church. Worship context does not appear to enter into its thinking. The task force is developing rites and services for a Church that is largely a product of its imagination.

Worship context, however, is a critical factor in the twenty-first century. Rising real estate values, a slow economy, and tighter zoning laws increase the likelihood that a large number of congregations may not own a building and worship in a conventional setting. These are the realities of the North American mission field. A number of congregations have bought or constructed buildings that they could not afford and have lost these buildings to bank foreclosure. The best some congregations can hope for is to rent a large house or storefront and modify it into a worship center provided their landlord permits such modification and they do not run afoul of local zoning laws.

In upcoming articles in this series we will look at how a working group commissioned with the development of a common liturgy for a denomination can meet this challenge and other challenges that it faces. 

An Australian Prayer Book (1978) is online in PDF format. Copyright information is available at Broughton Publishing.“Members of the Anglican Communion and churches of other denominations are welcome to make print or electronic copies of An Australian Prayer Book, in whole or in part for liturgical or church purposes, free of charge provided they are attentive to the integrity of the text, that copies are not made available for sale and that the source of the extract is appropriately acknowledged e.g. title and page number." A Prayer Book for Australia Full Edition (1995) is available from Australian Church Resources. Amazon no longer stocks the soft-cover edition. Copyright information is also available from Broughton Publishing.

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Why Isn’t the Anglican Church in North America More Comprehensive?

By Robin G. Jordan

Those who claim that there is no single way to be Anglican are displaying the influence of Anglo-Catholicism and liberalism. Both Anglo-Catholicism and liberalism have sought to expand the boundaries of Anglican comprehensiveness beyond those set by the Thirty-Nine Articles. According to one liberal view Anglicanism embraces anything and everything that a church identifying itself as Anglican believes or practices. All the church needs is some kind of historical connection with the Church of England and the recognition of the See of Canterbury.

While the eighteenth century latitudinarians may have been the first to assert that Anglican comprehensiveness is broader than its sixteenth century limits, the nineteenth century Anglo-Catholics were the most aggressive in pressing beyond those limits. They were intent on carving out a space for themselves in the Anglican Church. However, they were not satisfied to be one church party or faction among many. Their ultimate goal was to take over the entire church.

Their vision in the nineteenth century was to so Catholicize the Church of England that the Pope would readmit the English Church to the Roman fold. Their vision is still to Catholicize the Anglican Church. The Pope Leo XIII’ declaration of the invalidity of Anglican orders in 1896 and more recently Pope Benedict XVI’s creation of the Anglican Ordinariate have forced Anglo-Catholics to abandon the hope of reunification with Rome. In place of that vision they have settled for making Edward Bouverie Pusey’s theory of Anglicanism as a third great branch of Catholicism a reality.

In the second half of the twentieth century Anglo-Catholics found allies in the adherents of the convergence and Ancient Future worship renewal movements. The convergence movement began as a movement among evangelical and charismatic churches in the United States to blend charismatic worship with liturgies from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and other sources. The Ancient Future worship renewal movement is a particular expression of the convergence movement that has encouraged evangelical and charismatic churches to incorporate liturgical forms and other traditional practices into their worship. The convergence movement would lead to the formation of the so-called “convergence communions.” Convergence theology has strongly influenced the Anglican Mission in the Americas and the Anglican Church in the North America.

One of the developments in the convergence/Ancient Future worship renewal movement is a growing receptivity toward Catholic doctrine, order, and practice. While supposedly bring together the three streams of Catholicism, evangelicalism, and Pentecostalism into one river, the Catholic stream has proven to be the strongest current in the river. This stream is not the reformed catholicism of historic Anglicanism but the unreformed Catholicism of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.

The Catholic stream is so strong that what is happening in churches in which the influence of the convergence/Ancient Future worship renewal movement is the strongest may be described as a Catholic resurgence. Among the characteristics of the convergence/Ancient Future worship renewal movement is a rather naïve, romantic view of the early and medieval Churches, a penchant for antiquarianism, and an aversion to the Reformation. These same characteristics marked the Anglo-Catholic movement and the Catholic revival in the nineteenth century.

Adherents of the convergence/Ancient Future worship renewal movement claim what they perceive as the bringing together of the Catholic, evangelical, and Pentecostal traditions is the work of the Holy Spirit. One of the implications of this claim is that the Reformation was not the work of the Holy Spirit. Historically evangelicals have understood the Reformation to be the Holy Spirit’s work and have traced the roots of evangelicalism to the Reformation and its recovery of the Bible and the gospel. This may explain in part the redefinition of evangelical and evangelicalism in convergence circles and their claims of the existence of “Ancient Evangelicals.” Evangelicalism is reduced to an emphasis on the Bible and evangelism.

Adherents of the convergence movement are not the only ones who claim that the Holy Spirit is at work in their movement. So do liberals. The nineteenth century Anglo-Catholics also believed that the Holy Spirit was at work in their movement.

A part of the appeal of convergence theology to North American Anglicans is its claim that the convergence of the Catholic, evangelical, and Pentecostal traditions the Holy Spirit is bringing about is taking place in the  the Anglican Church in North America and the concomitant belief that the leaders and members of the ACNA are particularly anointed by God. As well as meeting a need for meaning in people’s lives, these beliefs also appeal to a common human weakness—pride. North Americans in the United States have also long viewed themselves as set apart by God for greatness: They have in their own estimation a special destiny to fulfill.

What is emerging in the  Anglican Church in North America is a synthesis of Pusey’s theory of Anglicanism as the third great branch of Catholic Christianity and convergence theology’s notion of one river in which flows three streams. The two views complement each other in a number of ways.

How do these developments have any bearing upon comprehensiveness in the Anglican Church in North America? They are actually very pertinent to why the ACNA is not more comprehensive than it is.

Anglo-Catholics have a history of demanding room for their theological tradition in the Anglican Church while at the same time refusing to make room for other theological traditions. In the nineteenth century they tried to drive the evangelicals out of the Church of England. Through their intransigence in response to the plea of conservative evangelicals for modest revisions in the American Prayer Book they forced these evangelicals out of the Episcopal Church.

For Anglo-Catholics, as for liberals, tolerance is a one-way street. You can travel down it only in one direction. They expect, even demand to be tolerated but are quite intolerant themselves. They expect others to compromise but are unwilling themselves to compromise. Where they do compromise, it is on matters that are not of great importance to them.

Anglo-Catholics favor the kind of comprehensiveness, if it can be called that, which provides ample room for their beliefs and practices but affords very little room for the beliefs and practices of other theological traditions, which are not compatible with theirs. It calls for the acceptance or tolerance of Anglo-Catholic views and the dismissal of incompatible views. It is essentially saying that Anglo-Catholic views should be recognized over the views of other traditions because Anglo-Catholic views are right and the views of other traditions are wrong. It is not really comprehensiveness.

Those who adhere to convergence theology display similar attitudes to Anglo-Catholics. They expect tolerance of their views but they are intolerant of views not in agreement with theirs. They are persuaded that the Holy Spirit is uniquely at work in themselves and that they are fulfilling a divine mission. Those who do not agree with them are either spiritually unenlightened or blind or they are deliberately opposing God. Convergentists suffer from all the shortcomings of the Corinthian pneumatics even though they as individuals may not have experienced the baptism or release of the Holy Spirit and may not practice the sign gifts such as speaking in tongues.

Like Anglo-Catholics, convergentists believe that their views should be accepted or tolerated because they are right and those who do not share their views are wrong. Tolerance of their views includes not putting up an argument, staying silent, and going along with whatever they say or do.

In their tendency to ignore or minimize the differences between the Catholic, evangelical, and Pentecostal traditions, adherents of convergence theology overlook the fact the Catholic and evangelical traditions represent not only conflicting interpretations of Scripture but disparate views of the Bible and revelation. As I previously noted, they take a reductionist view of evangelicals and evangelicalism. The end result is that unreformed Catholicism tends to dominate their theological outlook as well as their piety and practice.

A notable trend in convergentist circles is to equate the Pentecostal tradition that is converging with the Catholic and evangelical traditions in the Anglican Church in North America with Eastern Orthodoxy and its pneumatology, and not with the twentieth century Pentecostalism and the charismatic and third-wave movements. Those who take this view appear to be trying to redefine the Pentecostal tradition and provide it with Catholic credentials. Twentieth century Pentecostalism has its roots in the holiness movement and Wesleyanism and ultimately the Reformation and Protestantism.

Adherents of convergence theology favor the same kind of comprehensiveness as Anglo-Catholics. It would make plenty of room for themselves and those who have similar beliefs and practices to theirs but would give very little space to those who do not. The latter group would be required to go along with the beliefs and practices of the other two groups. As I noted earlier, it is not really comprehensiveness.

You may have noted that I do not refer to convergentists as charismatics. The convergence movement is an outgrowth of the charismatic movement. However, those who subscribe to convergence theology are not all charismatics. They may have a continualist view of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and they may have adopted the more free-flowing style of worship associated with charismatic churches. But they may not themselves have experienced the baptism or release of the Holy Spirit. They also may not practice the sign gifts. They do exhibit the tendency to view themselves as a spiritual elite, a tendency that marred the charismatic movement.

The limits of historic Anglican comprehensiveness are defined by the Thirty-Nine Articles. As J. I. Packer points out in The Thirty-Nine Articles: Their Place and Use Today, doctrinal requirements are kept down to the minimum and the maximum of flexibility and variety are allowed on secondary matters:

The Articles are in this sense minimal (they are the shortest of the Reformation confessions.) But they are meant to ensure that all Anglican clergy, whatever their views on other matters, should unite in teaching an Augustian doctrine of sin and a Reformed doctrine of justification and grace – should, in other words, unite in proclaiming what the Reformers took to be the New Testament gospel.

Within these limits, High Church Protestantism flourished alongside evangelicalism in the Church of England.

The “evangelical comprehensiveness” to which the Thirty-Nine Articles sets the boundaries is too restrictive to the tastes of Anglo-Catholics, convergentists, and liberals. They prefer a comprehensiveness the limits of which they themselves define and which benefits them the most. It is not inclusive of Anglicans faithful to the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine and liturgical usages of the Anglican formularies. It leaves out those who from perspective of the Anglican formularies are genuinely Anglican.

The situation in the Anglican Church in North America in the early twenty-first century parallels that in the Episcopal Church in the early twentieth century. Anglo-Catholic elements in the Episcopal Church joined with Broad Church elements in that province to remove the Thirty-Nine Articles from the back of the American Prayer Book and to produce the retrograde 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Traditionalist Anglo-Catholics in the ACNA have joined with convergentists—the new Anglo-Catholics—in the ACNA to produce an ordinal and eucharistic rites that also can be described as moving backward—returning to the beliefs and practices of unreformed Catholicism.

This partnership also produced the Common Cause Theological Statement which would be adopted as the Fundamental Declarations of the ACNA—a document that equivocates in its acceptance of the authority of the Thirty-Nine Articles; includes the Medieval Sarum Missal, the partially-reformed 1549 Prayer Book, and the retrograde1637 Scottish Prayer Book in its standard of worship; and takes an Anglo-Catholic position on the necessity of the episcopate to the existence of the Church. The Fundamental Declarations effectively bars from the ACNA faithful Anglicans who are firm in their adherence to the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine of the Anglican formularies and are unwilling to compromise their beliefs.

The canons of the Anglican Church in North America also contain doctrine, both stated and implied, over which Anglicans historically have been divided. The Thirty-Nine Articles reject the Roman Catholic sacramental system but the ACNA canons accept it.

For those who were paying attention, a number of then Bishop Robert Duncan’s speeches were red flags warning them of what lay ahead. In the days before the most recent Lambeth Conference Bishop Duncan dismissed the Elizabethan Settlement as being no longer relevant to the contemporary Anglican Church and talked about the need for a “new settlement.”  The Anglican formularies—the Thirty-Nine Articles, the two Books of Homilies, and even the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the 1662 Ordinal—are an integral part of the Elizabethan Settlement.  The 1662 Prayer Book and the 1661 Ordinal are essentially the Prayer Book and Ordinal of the Elizabethan Settlement.  In later speeches he spoke about the need for regression in a time of crisis, for turning back the clock to an earlier time in the faith and life of the Church.

I personally question the genuineness of the Anglican identity of the Anglican Church in North America for the reasons I have outlined in this article. I do not believe that the ACNA can be viewed as Anglican because one group of faithful Anglicans who adhere to the teaching of the Bible and the doctrine of the Anglican formularies are presently maintaining a tenuous existence in that body. They are making compromises which eventually will lead to the erosion of their Anglican identity. The ACNA has not made any major changes to accommodate them.

The existence of this group of Anglicans in the Anglican Church in North America is not an indication that the ACNA is comprehensive in a true sense of the word.  It might be described as an accident. Some might describe it as providential but they are more optimistic than I am. The preponderance of evidence, when weighed, leads me to conclude that the days of this group of Anglicans are numbered. Those who exercise the most influence in the ACNA’s doctrinal and liturgical commissions and its College of Bishops are moving the ACNA in the direction of unreformed Catholicism. They are not making room for this group of Anglicans and their beliefs and practices. This group of Anglicans will, with the adoption of the ACNA Prayer Book and Catechism, be expected to conform more closely to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the ACNA. If they are unwilling to do so, they will be given the option to leave.

This kind of exclusion is exactly what happened to the same group of Anglicans in the Episcopal Church. They could privately hold to whatever beliefs they liked. However, they could not publicly practice their beliefs or pass them on to others. It is the kind of exclusion that should prompt the intervention of the Global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. For reasons to which I am not privy the GFCA cannot bring itself to take such action.  The world once more will be treated to the spectacle of Anglicans suffering persecution in a purportedly Anglican church for being Anglican.

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