COMMENTARY
On December 18, 2012, an appeal was made from the Continuing Anglican Churches to the Anglican Church in North America and Associated Churches. I believe that the appeal expressed humility, good counsel, and a heartfelt desire for unity.
I have long prayed and worked for a thoroughly orthodox Anglican Church in our land, and for corporate reunion with the Eastern Churches. A reunion of a large, thriving and growing Western Church with Eastern Christendom would have a real impact on the world and on the continued reform of the Roman Church, and pave the way for a reunited Christendom to face the onslaught of secularism and a revived and militant Islam, the re-evangelization of Europe, the British Commonwealth and North America, and the world-wide advance of the Great Commission. Our Lord’s intention was for His Church to be one, and there are sins enough on all sides that have contributed to the sorry state of Christendom today. It is our Christian duty to work for renewal, reconciliation, and reunion. There is no room for triumphalism anywhere, East or West. There is only room for an heartfelt Mea Culpa.
In the late 1970s, I left the Episcopal Church in the wake of the Minneapolis General Convention of 1976, and the great St. Louis Church Congress of 1977. I am a priest of the Anglican Church in North America, and this is the second time that I have been a member of a jurisdiction called by that name. The first time was following the St. Louis Church Congress.
As I write this I have on my desk three publications that I have taken down from one of my bookshelves. The first is the October 1977 issue of the New Oxford Review. The New Oxford Review was at the time published by the American Church Union (ACU), and (the then) Fr. Robert S. Morse was the editor. The cover headline of the October issue was, “The St. Louis Congress: The Affirmation and Addresses by Carroll E. Simcox, Robert S. Morse, Thomas G. Barnes and George W. Rutler.” Perhaps the most moving of the addresses delivered at the Congress and published in the New Oxford Review was a sermon preached on the last day of the Congress by Fr. Robert Morse called, “The Long March into the Desert.” Fr. (now Archbishop) Morse closed his sermon with, “Come with us, join us, march with us into the desert — for God calls us to Himself!” None of us knew just how long that march would be or just how lost we would become and how many wrong turns we would take in the desert, but God has been with us and I would do it all over again.
In September of 2002 there was a large Pilgrimage of Grace and Gratitude to the tomb of Blessed Charles Grafton in Fon du Lac, Wisconsin, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the great St. Louis Church Congress. On September 27th, I gave an address to the pilgrims explaining “The Fundamental Principles of the Anglican Faith.” It was a long address following the outline of The Affirmation of St. Louis, and consisting of fifteen single spaced typed pages. The address was widely circulated after the Pilgrimage, and I continue to believe in all of the principles in 2013 that I spoke of in 2002. At the Solemn Eucharist celebrated near Grafton’s tomb in St. Paul’s Cathedral, rented from the Episcopal Diocese of Fon du Lac for the occasion, Archbishop Robert S. Morse delivered for the second time his sermon preached at the St. Louis Church Congress twenty-five years earlier: The Long March into the Desert. It was a deeply moving experience.
The second publication that I have before me is the November 1977 issue of The Christian Challenge magazine. The headline reads, “The Spirit of St. Louis.” The Christian Challenge was a long running orthodox Anglican periodical published by the Foundation For Christian Theology. The editor at the time was Mrs. Dorothy A. Faber, known affectionately as “The Dragon Lady.” On page 3 of the November issue there is an address given at the St. Louis Church Congress by Mr. Perry Laukhuff, President of the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen, titled, “This ‘Extraordinary’ Congress.” The Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen sponsored the St. Louis Church Congress, and Perry Laukhuff, its president, was a classical Anglican and the moving force behind the Affirmation of St. Louis.
The third publication that I have on my desk is the Consecration booklet containing the Order of Service for the Consecration of the first bishops of the Anglican Church in North America, which took place at Augustana Lutheran Church in Denver, Colorado “on the Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, January twenty-eighth, In the year of Our Lord nineteen-hundred-seventy-eight.”
We all had such hopes and dreams in those days, but then came the first synod of the new Anglican Church in North America, and disaster. Of the four original dioceses, two ratified the proposed canons and changed the name of the Anglican Church in North America to the Anglican Catholic Church (ACC). The two dioceses that did not ratify the canons eventually became the Anglican Province of Christ the King (APCK). Tragically, that schism was only the beginning of a decades long time of troubles. Soon, one of the original bishops would split from the Anglican Catholic Church to form the United Episcopal Church of North America (UECNA). Dr. Carroll Simcox, retired editor of The Living Church magazine and a primary speaker at the St. Louis Church Congress, would eventually leave the Anglican Catholic Church for the American Episcopal Church, a small pre-St. Louis continuing Church jurisdiction organized in 1968. Perry Laukhuff would do the same. Fr. George Rutler, a featured speaker at the St. Louis Church Congress left for Rome where he now serves as a priest, and Bishop Peter Watterson, one of the four original bishops also left for Rome where he served as a priest until his death. Division after division continued until the continuum became an alphabet soup of ecclesiastical acronyms. The latest convulsion in the continuum was caused by a leadership clique in the Traditional Anglican Communion/Anglican Church in America (TAC/ACA) that tried to unite that body with Rome against the wishes and beliefs of the vast majority of clergy and members. The attempt failed, but left the TAC/ACA in tatters and trying to reconnect with classical Anglicanism after their bishops had signed the Catechism of the [Roman] Catholic Church.
There were bright spots however. The Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC) was organized in the mid-1990’s when the Missionary Diocese of the America’s of the Episcopal Church USA, under the leadership of Bishop Donald Davies and Fr. Patrick Murphy, left that body. Bishop Davies had been the Dean of Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Omaha, Nebraska, before becoming the first Episcopal Bishop of Ft. Worth, Texas, and later the first bishop of the Missionary Diocese of the America’s. Until recently he was the only actively serving Episcopal bishop to have had the courage and faith to leave that increasingly apostate body. Fr. Patrick Murphy, who would become the bishop of the EMC’s Diocese of the Holy Cross, was an exemplary pastor who had once won the Keble Award given by the American Church Union. The award had been presented to Fr. Murphy by Fr. Robert S. Morse of the ACU.
In 1997 Bishop Murphy told me that he wanted me to work to accomplish two things in addition to pastoring a local Church. The first was to help unite the continuum by bringing our jurisdiction into union with a larger Anglican body; and second, to work to bring about corporate reunion with Eastern Christendom.
Working with another priest in the cause of unity, much of the old Episcopal Missionary Church united with the Anglican Province of Christ the King, with the blessing Presiding Bishop Donald Davies. With that unity a reality, Bishop Davies retired from active ministry. I became editor of The Province, the national publication of the Anglican Province of Christ the King, and was eventually appointed Ecumenical Officer of the APCK by Archbishop Robert Morse. As Ecumenical Officer I coordinated a joint pilgrimage to the tomb of Blessed Charles Grafton in Fon du Lac, Wisconsin, with the Anglican Catholic Church and the Traditional Anglican Communion/Anglican Church in America in 2004. From my work as Ecumenical Officer I know many of the bishops, clergy and lay leaders in the Anglican continuum, and worked very hard for Anglican unity and corporate reunion.
In 2006 I was contacted as Ecumenical Officer by Bishop Ray Sutton of the Reformed Episcopal Church. He told me about the newly formed Federation of Anglican Churches in the America’s (FACA), and asked me to present the Federation to the APCK bishops and to extend to them an invitation to join. The Federation was being organized to unite the Anglican continuum, with Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Province of the Southern Cone as Primatial Patron. This was a very positive and significant new effort to unify the continuum. Unfortunately, the bishops of the Anglican Province of Christ the King declined the invitation.
In 2003 there had been a large exodus of clergy and congregations from the Anglican Province of Christ the King, with an even larger exodus in the summer of 2007. Wanting to be part of the unity movement and of a united Anglican Church in North America, my parish and I joined the Reformed Episcopal church in the summer of 2007, some five and a half years ago. Since then, we have seen a complete change in the direction of North American Anglicanism from fragmentation to a strong desire for unity. It seems that the long Good Friday is passing and we beginning to see the dawn of Easter Sunday morning.
First we had the Federation of Anglican Churches in the America’s (FACA) which was organized by the Reformed Episcopal Church to function like the old (Eastern Orthodox) Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops in America (SCOBA), bringing orthodox Anglican bishops together, jurisdictions into closer relationships, and ecclesiastical order out of chaos. This vital organization is continuing its important ministry today under the leadership of an old confrere of mine, Bishop Paul Hewett of the Diocese of the Holy Cross. Then in 2009, the Anglican Church in North America was organized, bringing together the Reformed Episcopal Church, the four dioceses that had left the Episcopal Church USA, Forward in Faith’s Missionary Diocese of All Saints, and various dioceses and jurisdictions that had taken refuge under foreign Anglican Provinces. Today, there are some 1,000 congregations and more than 100,000 churchmen united in the Anglican Church in North America and its Ministry Partners.
In 2012 the Anglican continuum in North America was found in two branches. The first, and by far the largest, is the Anglican Church in North America and its Ministry Partners, which is already larger than twelve of the thirty-eight provinces of the Anglican Communion and is growing rapidly. The other is commonly described as the St. Louis Continuum. Within the St. Louis Continuum we have the three jurisdictions that have their roots in the St. Louis Church Congress of 1977: the Anglican Catholic Church is the largest with more than a hundred congregations in North America; the Anglican Province of Christ the King is next with approximately 42 congregations in North America; and then the United Episcopal Church with approximately 23 congregations in North America. Also generally considered part of that movement is the Anglican Church in America with approximately 70 congregations in North America.
In addition to what is commonly described as the St. Louis Continuum, there is the Diocese of the Holy Cross and the Anglican Province of America. Both of these jurisdictions are well led, with capable clergy and growing congregations. The Diocese of the Holy Cross consists of approximately 21 congregations in North America, is member of FACA, is led by FACA president Bishop Paul Hewett, and all of its congregations are also members of Forward in Faith North America. The Anglican Province of America consists of around 60 congregations in North America, is led by Archbishop Walter Grundorf, is a member of FACA, and is a sister jurisdiction of the Reformed Episcopal Church. APA and REC clergy share a joint Pension Fund, altars, and may freely transfer from one jurisdiction to the other. Outside of these jurisdictions there are a handful of smaller and insignificant bodies, as well as many tiny vagante groups. It seems that the Anglican Church in America (ACA) and the Anglican Province of America (APA) are currently in the process of working toward organic unity with one another, which is another very positive development.
On December 18, 2012, an appeal was issued from five continuing Anglican jurisdictions to the Anglican Church in North America and Associated Churches. This appeal was signed by FACA president and Bishop of the Diocese of the Holy Cross, The Rt. Rev. Paul Hewett; The Most Rev. Walter Grundorf, primate of the Anglican Province of America; The Most Rev. Brian Marsh, primate of the Anglican Church in America; The Most Rev. Mark Haverland, primate of the Anglican Catholic Church; and the Most Rev. Peter Robinson, primate of the United Episcopal Church of North America.
I believe that the Appeal exhibited humility, with these bishops confessing that “We recognize that the Continuing Church has failed to present a united front, has failed to grow as we should, and in general has failed to present an attractive alternative to the growing heresy and absurdity of the Episcopal Church.” At the same time, these bishops rightly affirmed that they have kept the faith under very difficult circumstances: “However, we also note that against furious opposition, and often against obstacles set up by those who later formed ACNA, we have built hundreds of congregations in North America, many of which are thriving.” The Appeal offers good counsel to the Anglican Church in North America that must be taken seriously: “We urge you to heed the call of Metropolitan Jonah, whose concerns we share. Anglicanism in North America cannot be both united and orthodox on a partially revolutionized basis. We call upon you to repudiate firmly any claim to alter doctrine or order against the consensus of the Catholic and Orthodox world. We call upon you to embrace the classical Prayer Book tradition.”
The following is the Appeal as issued by these five bishops and their jurisdictions:
An Appeal from the Continuing Anglican Churches to the ACNA and Associated Churches
The Continuing Anglican Church movement began with the Congress of Saint Louis in 1977. The Anglican Church in North America was born in 2010. Between these two ecclesial movements there are points of contact, but there also is a great gulf fixed.
In regard to points of contact, both of the entities concerned are movements composed of a number of imperfectly united ecclesial jurisdictions rather than perfectly united dioceses or Churches. Both understand themselves to be Anglican and to relate in positive ways to a common history and shared theological and cultural influences.
Both understand themselves to have left former Church homes as an act of fidelity to the teaching of Scripture and in the face of grave aberrations in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.
Both are challenged by the need to present the gospel in compelling and attractive ways to an increasingly secular and indifferent Western society.
The gulf between us concerns mostly the changes accepted in the Episcopal Church (and the Canadian Church) between the mid-1970s and 2010. Those of us who left the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada in the 1970s did so due to the adoption in those years of the ordination of women to the priesthood by General Convention (1976) and General Synod (1975).
More generally, in the roughly 30 years between the Congress of Saint Louis and ACNA's formation, the people who eventually formed ACNA lived in ecclesial bodies which increasingly abandoned elements of classical Anglicanism.
The precipitating cause of the founding of the ACNA was TEC's abandonment of orthodox Christian teaching concerning homosexuality. But prior to 2010 many of those now in ACNA accepted liturgies and prayer books with few connections to classical Anglican worship and accepted female deacons, priests, and bishops contrary to the mind of all Anglicans prior to the mid-20th century.
One of our number, in an earlier letter to Archbishop Duncan of ACNA, wrote in regard to these matters as follows: The notion that women can receive the sacrament of Holy Orders in any of its three parts constitutes, in our view, a revolutionary and false claim: a claim false in itself; a claim destructive of the common ministry that once united Anglicans; and, finally, a claim productive of an even broader and worse consequence.
That worse consequence is the claim that Anglicans have authority to alter important matters of faith and order against a clear consensus in the central tradition of Catholic and Orthodox Christendom.
Once such a claim is made it may be pressed into service to alter any matter of faith or morals. The revolution devours its children. Many of the clergy represented at GAFCON and now joining the ACNA seem to us to accept the flawed premise and its revolutionary claim in one matter while seeking to resist the application of the premise in the matter of homosexuality.
This position seems to us to be internally inconsistent and impossible to sustain successfully over time. All Continuing Anglicans accept this analysis. We note that ACNA has not abandoned the putative ordination of women and that this issue deeply divides the dioceses which compose ACNA.
While we recognize that the Churches through history and today are free to adopt a variety of liturgical forms, as they are not free to accept the ordination of women, yet we also agree that any sound Anglican body today needs to relate more positively to the classical Books of Common Prayer than is the case in many ACNA dioceses.
Many in ACNA effectively accept elements of the revolution since the 1970s. If orthodox Anglicanism in North America is again to unite, then it can only do so on the basis of the pre-1976 state of the Church, without women clergy and with classically Anglican liturgies.
We recognize that the Continuing Church has failed to present a united front, has failed to grow as we should, and in general has failed to present an attractive alternative to the growing heresy and absurdity of the Episcopal Church.
However, we also note that against furious opposition, and often against obstacles set up by those who later formed ACNA, we have built hundreds of congregations in North America, many of which are thriving.
We have established works of mercy, publications ministries, and international missions, and we have trained and ordained a new generation of able clergy.
The Continuing Churches are said to be riven by constant conflicts and to be increasingly divided. This is not true. Those of us who are undersigned below represent the great bulk of the Continuing Church. We have among ourselves cordial relations.
We cooperate on many levels and have at least as great a level of communion as that which exists amongst the disparate groups of ACNA.
Our tendency is towards greater unity and cooperation, whereas we observe within ACNA a tendency, just beneath the surface, to divide along the fault line we have identified above (between many in ACNA and classical Anglicanism). We have no wish to deny or to minimize our own failures or divisions.
But our divisions are largely matters amenable to improvement.
The divisions facing ACNA are fundamental and essential.
We call upon ACNA to heed our call to return to your classical Anglican roots.
We commend to your prayerful attention the Affirmation of Saint Louis, which we firmly believe provides a sound basis for a renewed and fulfilled Anglicanism on our continent.
We urge you to heed the call of Metropolitan Jonah, whose concerns we share. Anglicanism in North America cannot be both united and orthodox on a partially revolutionized basis.
We call upon you to repudiate firmly any claim to alter doctrine or order against the consensus of the Catholic and Orthodox world. We call upon you to embrace the classical Prayer Book tradition.
The 30 years between our formation in 1977 and yours in 2010 were years of sharp decline in TEC numbers and of growing aberrations in all areas of Church life.
We call upon you to look upon all the works of those years with a much more critical eye, and to join us in returning to the doctrine, worship, and orders that preceded the intervening decades.
Yours in Christ,
The Right Reverend Paul Hewett, SSC
Diocese of the Holy Cross
The Most Reverend Walter Grundorf
Anglican Province of America
The Most Reverend Brian Marsh
Anglican Church in America
The Most Reverend Mark Haverland
Anglican Catholic Church
The Most Reverend Peter D. Robinson
United Episcopal Church of North America
The Continuing Anglican Church movement began with the Congress of Saint Louis in 1977. The Anglican Church in North America was born in 2010. Between these two ecclesial movements there are points of contact, but there also is a great gulf fixed.
In regard to points of contact, both of the entities concerned are movements composed of a number of imperfectly united ecclesial jurisdictions rather than perfectly united dioceses or Churches. Both understand themselves to be Anglican and to relate in positive ways to a common history and shared theological and cultural influences.
Both understand themselves to have left former Church homes as an act of fidelity to the teaching of Scripture and in the face of grave aberrations in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.
Both are challenged by the need to present the gospel in compelling and attractive ways to an increasingly secular and indifferent Western society.
The gulf between us concerns mostly the changes accepted in the Episcopal Church (and the Canadian Church) between the mid-1970s and 2010. Those of us who left the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada in the 1970s did so due to the adoption in those years of the ordination of women to the priesthood by General Convention (1976) and General Synod (1975).
More generally, in the roughly 30 years between the Congress of Saint Louis and ACNA's formation, the people who eventually formed ACNA lived in ecclesial bodies which increasingly abandoned elements of classical Anglicanism.
The precipitating cause of the founding of the ACNA was TEC's abandonment of orthodox Christian teaching concerning homosexuality. But prior to 2010 many of those now in ACNA accepted liturgies and prayer books with few connections to classical Anglican worship and accepted female deacons, priests, and bishops contrary to the mind of all Anglicans prior to the mid-20th century.
One of our number, in an earlier letter to Archbishop Duncan of ACNA, wrote in regard to these matters as follows: The notion that women can receive the sacrament of Holy Orders in any of its three parts constitutes, in our view, a revolutionary and false claim: a claim false in itself; a claim destructive of the common ministry that once united Anglicans; and, finally, a claim productive of an even broader and worse consequence.
That worse consequence is the claim that Anglicans have authority to alter important matters of faith and order against a clear consensus in the central tradition of Catholic and Orthodox Christendom.
Once such a claim is made it may be pressed into service to alter any matter of faith or morals. The revolution devours its children. Many of the clergy represented at GAFCON and now joining the ACNA seem to us to accept the flawed premise and its revolutionary claim in one matter while seeking to resist the application of the premise in the matter of homosexuality.
This position seems to us to be internally inconsistent and impossible to sustain successfully over time. All Continuing Anglicans accept this analysis. We note that ACNA has not abandoned the putative ordination of women and that this issue deeply divides the dioceses which compose ACNA.
While we recognize that the Churches through history and today are free to adopt a variety of liturgical forms, as they are not free to accept the ordination of women, yet we also agree that any sound Anglican body today needs to relate more positively to the classical Books of Common Prayer than is the case in many ACNA dioceses.
Many in ACNA effectively accept elements of the revolution since the 1970s. If orthodox Anglicanism in North America is again to unite, then it can only do so on the basis of the pre-1976 state of the Church, without women clergy and with classically Anglican liturgies.
We recognize that the Continuing Church has failed to present a united front, has failed to grow as we should, and in general has failed to present an attractive alternative to the growing heresy and absurdity of the Episcopal Church.
However, we also note that against furious opposition, and often against obstacles set up by those who later formed ACNA, we have built hundreds of congregations in North America, many of which are thriving.
We have established works of mercy, publications ministries, and international missions, and we have trained and ordained a new generation of able clergy.
The Continuing Churches are said to be riven by constant conflicts and to be increasingly divided. This is not true. Those of us who are undersigned below represent the great bulk of the Continuing Church. We have among ourselves cordial relations.
We cooperate on many levels and have at least as great a level of communion as that which exists amongst the disparate groups of ACNA.
Our tendency is towards greater unity and cooperation, whereas we observe within ACNA a tendency, just beneath the surface, to divide along the fault line we have identified above (between many in ACNA and classical Anglicanism). We have no wish to deny or to minimize our own failures or divisions.
But our divisions are largely matters amenable to improvement.
The divisions facing ACNA are fundamental and essential.
We call upon ACNA to heed our call to return to your classical Anglican roots.
We commend to your prayerful attention the Affirmation of Saint Louis, which we firmly believe provides a sound basis for a renewed and fulfilled Anglicanism on our continent.
We urge you to heed the call of Metropolitan Jonah, whose concerns we share. Anglicanism in North America cannot be both united and orthodox on a partially revolutionized basis.
We call upon you to repudiate firmly any claim to alter doctrine or order against the consensus of the Catholic and Orthodox world. We call upon you to embrace the classical Prayer Book tradition.
The 30 years between our formation in 1977 and yours in 2010 were years of sharp decline in TEC numbers and of growing aberrations in all areas of Church life.
We call upon you to look upon all the works of those years with a much more critical eye, and to join us in returning to the doctrine, worship, and orders that preceded the intervening decades.
Yours in Christ,
The Right Reverend Paul Hewett, SSC
Diocese of the Holy Cross
The Most Reverend Walter Grundorf
Anglican Province of America
The Most Reverend Brian Marsh
Anglican Church in America
The Most Reverend Mark Haverland
Anglican Catholic Church
The Most Reverend Peter D. Robinson
United Episcopal Church of North America
RESPONSE
I want to thank Bishops Hewett, Grundorf, Marsh, Haverland and Robinson for their honest appeal and good counsel, and to invite them to join us in the ongoing work of Anglican renewal and restoration both in North America and throughout the Anglican Communion.
There are two ways that this can be done. The first is to formally join the Anglican Church in North America as a federated jurisdiction. This would not mean dissolving your present jurisdiction, but merely entering a federated relationship with others. The Reformed Episcopal Church has done this, making it a jurisdiction of the Anglican Church in North America without giving up its autonomy, and leaving it free to join a new jurisdiction or resume independent status should the ACNA not become fully orthodox. This would also give the bishops of your jurisdictions a seat, voice and vote in the College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America. Such an increase in orthodox bishops would speed our work. Reformation and restoration is never easy, and the Ark of Salvation needs pullers at the oars, not merely cheerleaders on the shore.
There is no need to fear that you would have to be in anything but impaired communion with those who have not yet fully recovered their orthodoxy. No bishop that does not uphold Catholic Order would ever be allowed to serve at the altar of Holy Cross parish, and I would never receive the sacraments from such a person, and there are many thousands of churchmen in the ACNA that feel the same way. We have made our voices loud and clear, and our calls for renewal and restoration are bearing fruit. We are winning.
The problem with the Anglican Church in North America is not the same as that of The Episcopal Church. In the Episcopal Church the issue is apostasy. The historic Faith has been knowingly rejected. Within the Anglican Church in North America it is a teaching issue. Thousands who are members of the Anglican Church in North America have a sense of the Faith and want to be faithful Anglicans, but have never seen it modeled or really experienced classical Anglicanism. They have grown up seeing women in collars and may have never experienced worship according to the historic Book of Common Prayer. They need love, careful teaching, and time to work things out in their minds, not condemnation and rejection. Even St. Athanasius worked with the Semi-Arians to defeat the Arians. And the result? The triumph of the Nicene Faith. The Arians were defeated and the Semi-Arians were won to orthodoxy. If we are unwilling to reach out to, teach and win, what might be described as semi-Anglicans, is there any point in even talking about reaching the unchurched?
The Second way that the Archbishops, Bishops and jurisdictions that have signed the appeal can participate in the renewal and restoration of Anglicanism in North America and world-wide — if they are as yet unwilling to become constituent jurisdictions of the Anglican Church in North America - is to join the Federation of Anglican Churches in the America’s (FACA). The Diocese of the Holy Cross, the Anglican Province of America and the Anglican Church in America are already members. I invite the Anglican Catholic Church and the United Episcopal Church of North America to join as well. As FACA members, your jurisdictions will be Ministry Partners with the Anglican Church in North America. As such, you could have your parishes listed on the on-line ACNA parish directory (the ACA still needs to request to be listed), and would be invited to participate as fully in the work of the ACNA as you feel comfortable with. I think that you would find such ministries as the Anglican Relief and Development Fund (ARDF) and Anglicans for Life, just to name two, worthy of your support. You would also be linked to GAFCON and the 70+% of the Anglican Communion that is essentially orthodox, and could have a part in the upcoming GAFCON II meeting in Nairobi, Kenya and the ongoing restoration of world-wide Anglicanism. As Ministry Partners your bishops would not be voting members of the ACNA College of Bishops, but as FACA members you would be represented in that College by FACA president Bishop Paul Hewett.
Exciting things are happening in the Anglican Church in North America and throughout the Anglican Communion. The ACNA has developed warm and growing ecumenical relationships with Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Polish National Catholic Church and Confessional Lutheranism. Archbishop Robert Duncan and Bishop Ray Sutton were recently in Rome where they met with Pope Benedict. They were even honored by being seated with the Pope during a public audience. Our relations with Eastern Orthodoxy are even warmer and are growing, and the retirement of Archbishop Jonah will have no adverse effect. Sixteen years ago I was asked by Bishop Patrick Murphy to work for corporate reunion with Eastern Christendom, and I am very excited about the progress being made.
In the first three years of its existence the ACNA has seen more ecumenical progress made with the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod then the LCMS has made with any other Church in its history. The two Churches have already agreed to joint work in areas of corporal works of mercy, seminary exchanges and the sharing of church buildings. Ecumenical meetings between the Anglican Church in North America and the Polish National Catholic Church have already begun, and ACNA bishops are going to be meeting regularly with the bishops of the PNCC. Both sides want to restore the full communion that was ended after the Minneapolis General Convention in 1976, and it seems certain that this will be accomplished just as soon as women’s “ordination” is ended in the Anglican Church in North America.
The “ordination” of women is on the way out in the Anglican Church in North America, and will end. The Reformed Episcopal Church, which is the largest constituent jurisdiction of the Anglican Church in North America, does not ordain women to any Order and does not license women lay readers. The same can be said of many other dioceses and jurisdictions.
The GAFCON Primates Council has called for a study of Women’s Ordination, and is in the process of organizing a theological committee from the various national Churches. Calls for an end to women’s “ordination” in North America are also being heard. The ACNA has formed a committee to study the issue. It is led by an REC bishop and will include input from our ecumenical partners. What do you think Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Polish National Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod are going to say about women’s ordination?
You may have already heard that Bishop Jack Iker of Ft. Worth has ended the “ordination” of women deacons in his diocese. In his January 3rd digest David Virtue (www.virtueonline.org) reports, “The Diocese of Ft. Worth has announced it will no longer ordain women to the Diaconate. Speaking at the Dioceses' 38th Annual Convention, Bishop Jack Iker stated that he was in a small minority of bishops in the Anglican Church in North America who ordained women to the Diaconate and that the practice was ‘an issue’, especially among diocesan clergy. To resolve this and to bring its practice into line with the majority of ACNA jurisdictions, the Diocese of Ft. Worth will discontinue such ordinations."
This renewal and restoration is sweeping through the Anglican Communion. Canterbury has become all but irrelevant, and the Church of England will have no more of a negative effect on this New Reformation than The Episcopal Church has had in recent years.
On January 3rd, Anglican Journalist David Virtue wrote on Virtue Online: “The Primate of the Anglican Church of Kenya says the tables have turned in the Anglican Communion thus it is time for the Global South to assert itself and take the gospel back to the West.
“In his New Year sermon delivered at All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi, The Most Rev. Eliud Wabukala commented that, ‘...in our modern context we need now to be thinking of mission beyond our borders. In the past we have been the recipients of missionary endeavour and we thank God for those who brought the gospel to this land, but now the sending nations of the West are in deep spiritual and moral crisis and it is time for us to take a lead in global mission.
“‘The majority of Anglicans are now in the Global South and that means we need to take greater responsibility in global leadership. We cannot simply stand by as we see many of the Anglican Churches in the West, including the Church of England itself, being severely compromised by the deepening spiritual and moral darkness of the societies in which they are set.’
“The evangelical archbishop noted, ‘The GAFCON movement is one way in which global Anglicans are responding to this need and I am very happy that in October this year, we are expecting the second Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON 2) to be held here in Nairobi and we look forward to welcoming Anglican leaders from around the globe.’”
“In his New Year sermon delivered at All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi, The Most Rev. Eliud Wabukala commented that, ‘...in our modern context we need now to be thinking of mission beyond our borders. In the past we have been the recipients of missionary endeavour and we thank God for those who brought the gospel to this land, but now the sending nations of the West are in deep spiritual and moral crisis and it is time for us to take a lead in global mission.
“‘The majority of Anglicans are now in the Global South and that means we need to take greater responsibility in global leadership. We cannot simply stand by as we see many of the Anglican Churches in the West, including the Church of England itself, being severely compromised by the deepening spiritual and moral darkness of the societies in which they are set.’
“The evangelical archbishop noted, ‘The GAFCON movement is one way in which global Anglicans are responding to this need and I am very happy that in October this year, we are expecting the second Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON 2) to be held here in Nairobi and we look forward to welcoming Anglican leaders from around the globe.’”
Years ago Pope John Paul II said that at the beginning of the third millennium if we are to overcome the divisions of the second millennium we must return to the consensus of the first millennium. That is what Anglicanism is all about - The Faith of the undivided Church. We have an important part to play in the plan of God. Join with us, “for God calls us to Himself!” The Third Millennium of Christianity may yet prove to be a new springtime for the Church.
