By Robin G. Jordan
The leaders of the Anglican Church in North America and the
Anglican Mission
recently held a meeting
in Atlanta, Georgia “to take steps toward personal reconciliation.” The meeting
concluded with the issuance of a
joint statement.
This meeting in all likelihoods heralds the Anglican Church
in North America’s eventual absorption of the Anglican Mission along with the
PEAR-USA. The absorption of the “Mission” will bolster the number of churches
in the ACNA but not substantially. By last report the AMiA has only fifty
churches. It will not reverse the ACNA’s movement away from Biblical Anglicanism
but will contribute to that movement. The AMiA, like the ACNA, has been
strongly influenced by Catholic Revivalist – Convergentist thinking.
In the joint statement the ACNA and AMiA leaders who
attended the meeting were very free in their use of the term “Biblical” in
their description of the ACNA. By the standards of the Bible itself, the English
Reformers, and historic Anglicanism the unreformed Catholic teaching and
practices that are mandated or sanctioned in the ACNA’s formularies such as its
canons, its ordinal, its catechism, its proposed rites of Admission of
Catechumens, Baptism, Confirmation, and the Holy Eucharist, and its position statement
on Blessed Oils are far from Biblical.
The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion uses phrases like
“contrary to the God’s Word written,”
“ground upon no warranty of Scripture,” “repugnant to the Word of God,” “
repugnant to the plain words of Scripture,” “blasphemous fables,” “dangerous
deceits” and the like in relation to such teaching and practices. The Ordinal
of 1662 refers to such teaching as “erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to
God’s Word” and enjoins bishops to banish and drive away such teaching and to
privately and publicly call upon and encourage others to do the same.
In their joint statement the ACNA and AMiA leaders bandy around such words as
“united” and “missional” when the Anglican Church in North America is far from
united and missional as it is far from Biblical. For example, the different
groups that form the ACNA are not of one mind on the issue of the ordination of
women. They are not in agreement over the place of the Bible and the historic Anglican
formularies in the life of the denomination or the unreformed Catholic teaching
and practices mandated or sanctioned in the ACNA’s own formularies.
Only some ACNA churches are reaching and engaging the
unchurched population groups in their respective communities. Only some are
going out of their way to take the gospel to the lost. Others are doing
nothing.
To claim that the Anglican Church in North America is
“united,” “Biblical,” and “missional” when it falls short in all three areas is
to break the Ninth Commandment and to bear false witness. Bearing false witness
includes claiming as true what is untrue or half-true. Such claims are a form
of deceit and deceitfulness does not come from God. It is the work of a corrupt
human heart. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, not a spirit of deception.
Such claims cannot be justified. It would have been much
better to have limited the joint statement to the admission that both
organizations had made mistakes, and to the acknowledgment that the two
organizations were committing themselves to improving their relationship with
each other.
It is unfortunate that whoever drafted the statement could
not resist the temptation to turn it into a propaganda piece. By doing so, the
drafters of the statement cast a shadow on the meeting, raising questions about
its real intent. Was the meeting a serious attempt at personal reconciliation
or just a show for the respective organizations and their supporters?
In regards to the Anglican Mission it must be pointed out
that the AMiA had drifted considerably from its original commitment to the
teaching of the Bible and the doctrinal and worship principles of the historic
Anglican formularies at the time of former AMiA Chairman Chuck Murphy’s break
with Rwanda and its consequent split into PEAR-USA and the “Mission.” An
Anglican Prayer Book published in 2008 and endorsed by AMiA’s then senior most bishops contains significant departures from the teaching of the Bible
and the principles of the Anglican formularies.
Kevin Francis Donlan, an AMiA priest who served as a special adviser to former Rwandan
Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini, drafted a set of new canons for the Anglican Church
of Rwanda, which are Roman Catholic in their doctrine and governing principles. This included a section which was modeled on the canons of the Roman Catholic Church defining the relationship of the Pope and a
Roman Catholic Archbishop and which gave the AMiA Chairman as Primatial Vicar complete authority over the AMiA in the absence of the Rwandan Primate and made the Primatial Vicar solely accountable to the Rwandan Primate. The Primatial Vicar's authority included approving the candidates that
the Council of Missionary Bishops submitted to the Rwandan House of Bishops for
election as bishops of the AMiA. Donlan drew up a new charter for the AMiA based upon the revised Rwandan canons, which Kolini had promoted in the Rwandan House of Bishops as needed in order for the AMiA to amended its charter. Murphy broke with the Anglican Church of Rwanda when its new Archbishop, Onesphore Rawje, requested that Murphy give him an accounting of funds that the AMiA had given directly to various Rwandan individuals and organizations rather than through the Anglican Church of Rwanda.
Donlan was a part of the American delegation
to the first GAFCON Conference, which questioned the confessional nature of
Anglicanism. He participated in the GAFCON Resource Group Meetings in Lagos, Oxford, Jerusalem and Uganda in which he championed a number of unreformed Catholic positions. He had a hand in the drafting of the ACNA
canons, which explains in part why they contain a number of provisions adapted
from the Code of Canon Law of the Roman
Catholic Church. He was also responsible for drafting the AMiA’s most recent
governing documents. He is a frequent speaker at FIFNA gatherings and shares its commitment to the promotion of unreformed Catholic faith, order, and practice in the North American Anglican Church.The influence that he has been able to exert in the ACNA and
the AMiA is one of a number of factors that cast doubt upon their commitment to Biblical teaching and historic Anglicanism.
Planting new churches and developing new leaders, for which
the joint statement commends the AMiA, is meaningless if the new leaders and
new churches do not fully accept the Bible as their rule of faith and life, do
not wholeheartedly subscribe to the doctrinal and worship principles of the historic
Anglican formularies, do not genuinely respect the Reformation heritage of the
Anglican Church, and do not faithfully share the New Testament gospel. Occupying
a central place in the historic Anglican formularies and the Anglican Church’s
Reformation heritage is the Bible and the gospel. Where a robust commitment to historic
Anglican formularies and the Anglican Church’s Reformation heritage is found in
the Anglican Church, one is also likely to find a robust commitment to Biblical
teaching and gospel sharing. They go hand in hand.
The joint statement contains an agreement to say only
positive things about each other and each other’s organization. Compliance with
this agreement will create a false appearance of unity and is a form of
deception. The Bible does not teach that we should speak positively about each
other all of the time, ignoring or glozing over each other’s departures from Biblical teaching. The Bible teaches that we should speak the truth in love, always
mindful of our own failings and faults and our own need for repentance and the renovating
power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Bible calls us to give warning of
threatening danger and to turn back from the error of their way those who stray
from the truth. We are to admonish and reprove each other as well as to encourage
and strengthen each other. It would have been far better if the joint statement
had contained an agreement to refrain from unwarranted criticism of each other and
each other’s organization and to observe biblical principles and Christian
charity in their dealings with each other and each other’s organization.
This meeting is one
of a number of recent developments that point to the pressing need for a genuine
Biblically faithful, orthodox Anglican alternative to the Anglican Church in
North America, as well as to the Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church
of Canada. As the ACNA attracts more supposedly Anglican entities that are
unreformed Catholic in their leanings, Anglicans who are a part of the ACNA but
are faithful to the Bible and the Anglican formularies and stand in the
Anglican Church’s Reformation heritage are going to experience greater
difficulty in maintaining their theological identity particularly as their
beliefs and practices have no official standing in the denomination. Such
Anglicans need to act now to form a genuine Biblically faithful, orthodox
Anglican province in North America. Not only is their future at stake but so is the
truth of the gospel.
