Whatever, it won't be Anglican

by John M Gessell

In 1895 a Bible conference of conservative protestants held in Niagara famously issued what became known as the five points of fundamentalism in reaction to what was then the new biological science and to historical criticism of the scriptures thereby installing ignorance and superstition as creedal claims.

A comparison of the first article of "A Common Confession of the Gospel" as issued by the American Anglican Council (AAC) reveals that association as perilously close to Fundamentalism. While the Niagara five points cited do not claim the inerrancy of Scripture, a subsequent article states the belief that the Scriptures are "God's Word written." Further, it is only with some difficulty that the AAC platform can be read as compatible in any way with the Thirty-nine Articles and the Lambeth Quadrilateral of a normative Anglican position.

But more importantly, classical Anglicanism never identified God's Word with the written Scriptures. The Word is Jesus Christ as in the prologue of John's Gospel. Further, Anglicanism never argued its authority on the basis of Scripture alone. It was for this reason that Richard Hooker insisted precisely on the triad of Scripture, reason, and tradition as the interpretative nexus for reflection on authority in the Anglican community. He sought to avoid continental claims of sola scriptura and Roman authoritarianism. Hooker's formulation which later came to be called the "three-legged stool" was to evade the narrow tyranny of interpretative theories of Biblical literalism and plenary inspiration.

Anglicanism is a subtle polity based as much on unwritten understanding as on canon. Today, its community comprises thirty-eight autocephalous provinces. They are recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury and have no juridical authority over one another and least of all, no primatial power to intervene under any circumstance or for any cause.

Anglicanism agrees on an episcopal form of governance whose bishops have limited authority. It is non-confessional and rejects any claim to infallibility. It seeks to take into account the best thought of the time and to reconcile current ideas and its faith. Thus there is no provision for any province to declare a state of "impaired communion" or to seek to provide "pastoral oversight" for those whom are judged to be in a state of crisis. To make such judgments is impertinent. In our own province there can be no legitimate appeal beyond General Convention.

The American Anglican Council's movement toward a "parallel province" appears to be a new church. Membership in it would require a loyalty oath. It would refuse to speak with those with whom it is in disagreement. It would assert the primacy of its individualized private judgments over those of any other eucharistic faith community. It would refuse to live into the tension of differing views to seek a deeper unity. It would practice the superstition of making distinctions between "clean" and "unclean behaviors" and the fear of contamination by those it designates as unclean -- a recrudescence of the Donatist teachings declared a heresy in the 5th century. It would be both a heretical and a schismatic church. Whatever the AAC church turns out to be, it won't be Anglican.

John Winthrop, America's first founding father, has given us a legacy in his sermon, "Christian Charity," preached to the English emigrants as they sailed from Southampton in 1630. It remains the inspirational message to America's churches. "We must," he proclaimed, "love one another with a pure heart, fervently," so that we "delight in each other, mourn together, labor and suffer together."

[COVENANT, Number 16, December 2003]

The Revd John Maurice Gessell, PhD, is professor of Christian ethics, emeritus, School of Theology, University of the South