New North American Anglican Province Draws Praise, Criticism

News Analysis

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
12/14/2008

The formation of a Biblically-based Anglican Province on North American soil as an alternative to The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada– the first such division in 400 years in the US - is drawing both praise and criticism.

Episcopal Church leaders, clearly angered that anybody would challenge their ecclesiastical turf, issued a statement saying that proponents of a new Anglican province in North America could face a years-long process for gaining official recognition by the rest of the Anglican Communion despite claiming to have God and history on their side.

They cited Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' response to the Common Cause Partnership's (CCP) December 3rd actions. There are "legislative procedures" to follow in such instances.

"There are clear guidelines set out in the Anglican Consultative Council Reports, notably ACC 10 in 1996 (resolution 12), detailing the steps necessary for the amendments of existing provincial constitutions and the creation of new provinces," the statement said. "Once begun, any of these processes will take years to complete...it has not yet begun."

However, it should be pointed out that this was not the case when the Diocese of Hong Kong decided to break into three dioceses and seek independence. The Anglican Communion pushed it through in 1996 with such great haste that it got the attention of the ultra liberal companion Diocese of Newark who put up a resolution at its own convention saying the structural proposals were a fait accompli without proper review. The revisionist Episcopal diocese accused the diocese of failing to disclose an audit of the huge Bishops Discretionary Fund in Hong Kong. It was passed anyway.

So why the long delay then to recognize a new North American Anglican Province? Simple. The Archbishop of Canterbury does not want to upset US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and TEC's check book which is keeping the Anglican Consultative Council Office (ACC) from imploding. 60% of its budget is paid for by TEC. One does not bite the hand that feeds one. The use of "territory" and "cross boundary" arguments is also a smokescreen for the growing hatred and increasing marginalization of orthodox Anglicans in the Communion, a marginalization that was played like a violin by former Secretary General to the ACC, Canon John Peterson. Also, the ACC elevated itself from being just a Consultative Council to the Anglican Communion Office thus making itself, without vote, the fourth instrument of unity.

According to reports out of London, when the five orthodox Anglican primates met in summit talks with Dr. Rowan Williams, they were pretty brutal in their dismissal of the Common Cause initiative. Orthodox Anglican primates, representing the majority of the membership of the Anglican Communion, held no holds barred, knock down talks that achieved little in the way of resolving the crisis - a crisis brought about by the consecration of an avowed homosexual priest to the episcopacy - V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

"The five GAFCON primates from Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Southern Cone had travelled from afar bore gifts of frank discussion, gold-standard Christianity and little in the way of mirth. They were there to mark a new birth in the North, a province," said another observer. They got nothing. The five primates met with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the cathedral. They prayed, started talking at 10am, prayed, had lunch, prayed, carried on talking, prayed again and finished mid-afternoon. Discussions were pretty frank. They went over everything, from Lambeth 1:10, through 2003 to the present day. No-one blinked.

Nigerian Primate Peter Akinola apparently questioned the London-based ACC's process, asking "Why is England still considered the center of the universe?" Indeed.

The truth is the Anglican Communion is in a post-colonial phase wherein the titular head of The Anglican Communion has virtually no power, except persuasion. His own constituency, the Church of England is virtually irrelevant to the vast majority of the British, as is the American Episcopal Church. On any given Sunday, The Church of England has about 880,000 church-going Anglicans while The Episcopal Church has 727,000 practicing Episcopalians. Both are declining. The Communion itself can only boast 55 million, not the much vaunted 78 million - a figure regularly used by the secular media. The provinces of Nigeria and Uganda, by contrast, have more than 30 million practicing Anglicans between them.

But a number of Anglican primates including the primate of the Middle East, The Most Rev. Mouneer Anis, and the primate of South East Asia, The Most Rev. John Chew, have signaled they will officially recognize the new Anglican province. In addition, senior bishops in the Church of England and The Episcopal Church, as well as bishops from other provinces from around the world have also indicated their support for the establishment of the new province.

Mouneer Anis will host the Primates Meeting, one of the four official Anglican "instruments of unity", as the primates meet together for the first time in two years in Alexandria, Egypt (Jan. 31-Feb. 5).

So what's ahead for a deeply divided Episcopal Church and increasingly fractured Anglican Communion?

First, The Episcopal Church will continue to lose market share while the breakaway groups, now operating under one umbrella, but yet to be fully ratified till June 2009, will continue to grow by leaps and bounds. Already they lay claim to 700 churches with more than 100,000 members in eleven groups and jurisdictions that includes evangelicals, charismatics and Anglo-Catholics, all of whom use different prayer books, liturgies and ordination standards. (One blog maintains that the true figure is closer to 644.)

Their claim is that the gospel they preach demands changed lives, while the liberal version is "come as you are, stay as you are" - a gospel of inclusion - which makes it only marginally set apart from The Gong Show with a liturgy but with decidedly less humor.

While the new Anglican branch will face several significant hurdles, it is not without considerable support from several quarters. It opened its doors with four dioceses and support from a number of Global South Primates, including all the GAFCON primates, who represent the vast majority of church-going Anglicans, no mean feat when you consider that TEC is fast becoming the Enron of Christendom.

"Work done today marks five years of labor in attempts to get together," said Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, who will lead the new church and, in time, be consecrated as its new archbishop and primate. "We have come together to form a province that could be part of the Anglican world."

It will not be smooth sailing to gain recognition from two-thirds of Anglican archbishops and their provinces, but one should bear in mind that 22 of them have declared themselves to be in "impaired" or "broken communion" with TEC. Even if the Archbishop of Canterbury does not recognize ACNA, it changes nothing. The new church will grow while the old church dies. That too, is a given.

CANA Bishop Martyn Minns, a leader in the Common Cause Partnership, estimates that nearly a dozen primates will support the new province, about half the number it needs for recognition.

Some conservative commentators are not so sanguine about a new province. The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, a leading North American conservative Episcopal theologian living in Toronto, Canada, argues that the obstacles are nearly insurmountable. He says the new grouping will not embrace all or even most traditional Anglicans in North America. "The Communion Partners group within TEC, comprises 13 dioceses as a whole, and a host of parishes and their rectors, whose total Sunday membership is upwards of 300,000 and they will not be a part of the new grouping." He says litigation will continue and not all the primates will recognize it. It will be another cause for division, he says. He also states it will strengthen the position of TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. "They will move forward as continuing and undisciplined members of the Communion. All of this will merely hasten the demise of our common life, even among Global South churches themselves."

Nashotah House president and Dean, Robert S. Munday disagrees. He says liberals instigated the lawsuits not the orthodox. "Litigation is a sad spectacle. But we need to remember who started the litigation and who continues to pursue it. The martyrdoms in the reign of Bloody Mary were a sad spectacle, too. But this is like blaming the Reformers for that spectacle." Munday admits that a new Province will not, for various reasons, be able to include all traditional Anglicans in North America, but how does that constitute a reason not to do it?

Munday asks why former Episcopalians, who want to remain faithful Anglicans, cannot constitute an Anglican Province that seeks to be in Communion with as many other Anglican provinces as will recognize them? Indeed.

"God willing, this new Province may well come to embrace all or most orthodox Anglicans if it proves to be a preferable alternative. It will also be of tremendous benefit and a fulfillment of Christ's high-priestly prayer if this new Province can succeed in uniting the members of an Anglican diaspora that stretches back to the separation of the Reformed Episcopal Church in 1873. How is this not a good thing?"

Munday argues that Radner's criticism that diverse bodies whose theology and ecclesiology taken together is incoherent, is itself incoherent. "The diversity in theology is notably less than that which has brought the Anglican Communion into crisis. If Anglicanism has held together for nearly five hundred years, a Province united in its commitment to the authority of Scripture and Gospel-centered mission and ministry will have even less trouble doing so; and it may, in fact, succeed in healing some of the theological divisions that have troubled Anglicanism in the past."

Munday argues that if GAFCON can embrace Sydney evangelicals and Society of the Holy Cross Anglo-Catholics, then it can embrace the diversity among those who are included in the proposed North American Province which is far less than that. "To see this situation as "incoherence" and "a burden [that it is not] prudent to assume" strikes me as being either phenomenally nearsighted or timid to the point of paralysis."

Munday further argues that the creation of a new province means that the orthodox can look after themselves, so "border crossing" for episcopal oversight by overseas bishops and primates can cease. It also means the orthodox can be treated as equals in a dialogue intended to resolve the crisis of authority in Anglicanism, says Munday.

What it also means is that a new orthodox Anglican cohesiveness can now challenge The Episcopal Church. In so doing, it will gain enormous credibility in the culture and can hold its head high with orthodox liturgical groups like the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, orthodox Presbyterians, Western Rite Orthodox churches, and many more.

In time, as The Episcopal Church fades into the sunset, this new entity's voice will only grow stronger to the point that the Primates can no longer ignore them and their constituency. No wonder then that TEC fears this realization which is the main reason why they are working so hard to prevent the establishment and recognition of a new North American Province.

Writes Munday, "The best way to preserve the unity of the Anglican Communion is to allow the American church to divide (which is happening anyway, whether anyone likes it or not) and to recognize two North American provinces. Some overseas provinces will relate to one of the North American provinces more than the other."

The Rev. Ian Douglas, a liberal missiologist from the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, says that gaining the approval of more primates may prove difficult. "What happens in one province could set a precedent and come back to their own (province). Such a province bodes ill for the denomination's future. Those who have been quick to separate themselves out in the past have that as part of their operational DNA," he said.

David L. Holmes a professor of religious history at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, VA, said, "My hunch would be that this new Anglican denomination will persist over the years. We cannot predict the future."

It is no surprise then that a number of liberal Episcopal bishops are angry to the point of downright nastiness at the establishment of this new province.

Two representative voices from the HOB are John Chane, Bishop of Washington and Tennessee Bishop John Bauerschmidt.

In an article, Chane demeaned any idea of a new province saying it represents only about 5 percent of the size of the Episcopal Church and that its chances of recognition are dim. He said Mrs. Jefferts Schori, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the majority of the primates will not recognize it.

In truth, the figure is closer to 10 percent, not five. The new body claims 700 parishes. TEC has just over 7,000 parishes. ACNA claims 100,000 (ASA) members. TEC has just a little over 700,000 (ASA).

Said Chane, "We face our share of problems in the Episcopal Church, but wholesale defections to a movement committed to denying gay and lesbian Christians the birthright of their baptism is not one of them." Of course, the issue has nothing to do with "birthright". It has everything to do with a behavior specifically condemned in scripture to the point that it will deny one entry into God's kingdom. At that point, TEC's failing kingdom won't be worth all its remaining endowment money.

Chane, "What Duncan and Minns propose - that Duncan become the Archbishop of a newly minted non-geographical province with the support of GAFCON primates such as Peter Akinola of Nigeria and Henry Orombi of Uganda - is a rejection of the respectful diversity and generous orthodoxy that defines the Communion."

What GENEROUS ORTHODOXY are we talking about? "The 12 Theses of John Shelby Spong", the ecclesiastical enforcement of Women's Ordination, or the enforcement on orthodox bishops of same-sex unions once it has been cleared through GC2009? This "generous orthodoxy" doesn't allow ordinands from the Ambridge-based Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry into liberal Episcopal dioceses including Chane's own diocese, which hasn't allowed a straight white evangelical male in its ranks for more than 20 years... (A recent exception was the Rev. Dr. Paul Zahl, but even he has his own Bishop Ed Salmon.)

The Rt Rev'd John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee, took a different tack wondering aloud about the status of this church, and its intention to seek recognition as a province of the Anglican Communion. "A basic principal of catholic Christianity is that it is not self-authenticating; its credentials cannot be established by the mere assertion of them. Christian faith looks to authorities, as well: the Scriptures, principally, but also Creeds and Councils that articulate them reasonably and traditionally, and all of which communicate the Gospel and act as a standard by which faith is recognized and acknowledged."

That's odd. This province formed precisely because TEC could not affirm the authority of the Scriptures, does not believe in the "faith once delivered", and has substituted faith with sexual inclusivity and a very perverse theological diversity.

He said this new church must recognize that membership in the Anglican Communion is not something claimed unilaterally or seized by force. "Sharp elbows may be useful in any number of contexts, but are hardly edifying or effective in this one. A request to be admitted as a province must be approved by the Primates' Meeting and then acted upon by the Anglican Consultative Council, two of the Instruments of Communion that have developed within Anglicanism to help bring coherence to its life. The constituent bodies of the Anglican Church in North America are not known for a willingness to pay much heed to any of the Instruments of Communion. It is even doubtful that they are much interested in any authentication that looks to the existing structures of the world-wide Communion. Their witness is predicated on a self-proclaimed unwillingness to wait for these structures to work."

This begs the question why it is that TEC has kicked The Windsor Report in the teeth, does not want a Covenant that demands it fall in line with the rest of the communion, and is in impaired communion with 22 provinces because of the outrageous ecclesiastical act of ordaining a non-celibate homosexual priest to the episcopacy.

CONCLUSION

What can we conclude then from the formation of this new orthodox Anglican denomination?

* First of all, the "inside strategy" much ballyhooed for so long has failed. It is over. The consciences of those remaining loyal orthodox dioceses like South Carolina, Dallas, Albany and Central Florida will be put to the ultimate test if and when a General Convention mandates a diocese MUST ordain non-celibate gay and lesbian priests and MUST perform same-sex marriage acts.

* Border crossings will cease. They will be unnecessary. Truth be told, they were only a temporary arrangement until such a new province could be formed. In June of 2009, the deal will be sealed in St. Vincent's cathedral in Ft. Worth, Texas.

* There will be no reason for the other provinces of the Communion to be impaired in their relationships with one another or with Canterbury. Many will acknowledge and be in communion with ACNA, whether Jefferts Schori likes it or not.

* The largest provinces in the communion like Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda will acknowledge and recognize ACNA, There is nothing anyone can do about it.

* Bishop Duncan has made it clear that if the Archbishop of Canterbury does not recognize the new province, (he may ignore it rather than affirm its presence), and the Anglican Consultative Council will not recognize it and two-thirds of the Primates will not recognize it, then that's their problem. ACNA is a done deal, get used to it.

* This past week, delegates to the Anglican Communion Network's fifth annual council meeting in Overland Park, KS, passed a resolution to begin turning over the financial and administrative support of their breakaway group to the new province. This will take approximately six months, at the end of which the creation of the Anglican Church in North America will be complete and the Anglican Communion Network (ACN) -- which has been home to hundreds of congregations that broke from The Episcopal Church - will cease operation. "He (God) has used it and us to create a Biblical, missionary and united Anglican province-in-waiting here in North America. We are deeply thankful to Him and to all who have supported its work," said Bishop Duncan.

* Liberal Anglican provinces will continue to wither and die as they have no sustainable gospel upon which to make churches grow. (See my story on ASA figures here http://tinyurl.com/5zkxsg). A church whose message is indistinguishable from the world and the prevailing culture will ultimately die.

* If Canterbury still does not recognize the new North American Province, it will eventually (and sooner rather than later) force some Global South provinces to end their relationship with Canterbury, and the Communion will be lost. This is an unlikely scenario at the present time, but one should not rule it out. What happens in Alexandria, Egypt, in February among the Primates could be a kairos moment for the communion. We shall see.

END