Originally published at The North American Anglican.
A Review of The Rev. Dr. Charles Erlandson’s Orthodox Anglican Identity: The Quest for Unity in a Diverse Religious Tradition
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Where are we headed?
The trajectory of Anglicanism is bleak or blossoming – depending on how you define Anglicanism. The Rev. Dr. Charles Erlandson provides a multifaceted definition for Anglicanism after weighing a variety of possible definitions along trajectories of ecclesial, normative, practical, and historical lines in his book, Orthodox Anglican Identity: The Quest for Unity in a Diverse Religious Tradition. The long title of this book indicates how difficult it is to adequately, much less sufficiently, and succinctly define Anglicanism. The Rev. Dr. Erlandson’s analysis is crucial for understanding why under the banner “Anglican” there exists contradictory diversities and dual “integrities” – much to the confusion of outsiders. This inability to articulate and define Anglicanism as a comprehensive and singular entity or theology frustrates non-Anglicans and Anglicans alike. Difficult as it may be, the Rev. Dr. Erlandson provides the clearest and most succinct definition of Anglicanism presently available: “Anglicanism is the life of the catholic church that was planted in England in the first few centuries after Christ; reshaped decisively by the English Reformation that reformed the received catholic traditions and also by the Evangelical and Catholic Revivals and other historical movements of the Spirit; and that has now been inculturated [sic] into independent, global churches.”[ii] However, such a definition fails to reveal an Anglican ethos that can guide orthodox Anglicans in the 21st Century and beyond. Before such a definition can be realized, Anglicanism’s present crisis must be properly diagnosed before a more sufficient and clear description can be articulated.
Trouble Defining Anglicanism
The ultimate definition chosen by the Rev. Dr. Erlandson is historical in nature, albeit through a healthy lens of the three stages (and emerging fourth stage) of Anglicanism he outlines in his work.[iii] Unfortunately, he rejects a normative definition in favor of a historical definition. He rejects a normative framework due to the present crisis in Anglican identity – namely the failure of ecclesial authority to enforce Anglican formularies.[iv] But this begs the question. Anglicanism’s present crisis, nay its disease, is a failure in ecclesial discipline enforcing its normative identity. Were Anglican provinces and the Anglican Communion as a whole to agree to enforce its normative foundations, the formularies, then it would not suffer from the disease of being ill-defined due to lax canonical discipline. As the author notes, “Anglicanism may be defined in terms of two kinds of formularies: general and special.”[v] These formularies include the universal catholic orthodox Church formularies[vi] and the uniquely Anglican formularies: “The Book of Common Prayer (especially the 1662), the Ordinal, the Thirty-nine Articles, and the canon law” of Anglican churches.[vii]
Defining Anglicanism – actual Anglicanism and not those who merely use the term “Anglican” in their name or as a description of their ecclesial tradition – must occur at the normative level. The abuse and disregard of the formularies within Anglican jurisdictions demonstrate those bodies stand outside the bounds of the formularies, and therefore orthodox Anglicanism. Other communions have similarly defined boundaries as to what qualifies as authentic Lutheranism, Roman Catholicism, Presbyterianism, etc. Certainly, there are Christian denominations that claim they are “Lutheran,” but fail to adhere or abide by the Book of Concord, thereby resulting in other Lutheran bodies avoiding intercommunion.[viii] Indeed, plenty of formerly Roman Catholic communions have been created by breaking off from Rome’s jurisdiction, but no one would claim these are Roman Catholic after rejecting papal dogma and authority.[ix] Likewise, it is through her formularies the Church of England defined herself as reformed catholic over and against the Roman communion. The subscription to the Articles of Religion, adoption of the Book of Common Prayer, and promulgation of the Book of Homilies were key in reforming the Church of England as a catholic church. This is demonstrated by the fact that those same formularies were quickly suppressed when Queen “Bloody” Mary reimposed Roman Catholicism during her brief reign. Once Queen Mary suppressed the formularies[x] and reinstated allegiance to the Pope, there was no doubt the Church of England had reverted to Rome – that is, until Queen Elizabeth I ascended to the throne and reimposed the Anglican formularies to once again reform the Church. In other words, to be Anglican, one must attest, uphold, and enforce the formularies.
“He rejects a normative framework due to the present crisis in Anglican identity – namely the failure of ecclesial authority to enforce Anglican formularies.”
Erosion of Authority
The present crisis, however, is the result of the slow erosion of the authority of Scripture[xi] within dioceses, provinces, and the entire Anglican Communion. The disease of denying Holy Scripture’s authority only grew as the formularies were ignored, [xii] cast aside as “Historical Documents” in the 1979 American Book of Common Prayer, and opened the floodgates. This cascaded into carving a great canyon separating entire provinces within the Anglican Communion due to a failure to impose discipline at all levels of the church: the diocesan, the provincial, and the Communion.[xiii] When whole provinces adopt measures contrary to Holy Scripture, how can those provinces (or dioceses) claim to be a “true Church [as] an universal congregation or fellowship of God’s faithful and elect people, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner stone.”[xiv] Further, whereas a “true Church … hath always three notes or marks, whereby it is known; pure and sound doctrine, the Sacraments ministered according to Christ’s holy institution, and the right use of ecclesiastical discipline,”[xv] can a province (or diocese) truly be Anglican (much less a church) if it fails to enforce adherence to Scriptural doctrine as received in the formularies?[xvi]
Anglicanism defined without her formularies is simply not Anglicanism but a wax nose free for the zeitgeist sculptor to craft into a post-modern horror on display at the Metropolitan Museum. Regrettably, even those who profess with their lips adherence to the Anglican formularies engage in problematic actions running contrary to them. For example, GAFCON has a task force[xvii] studying the possibility of women bishops, which is foreign and abhorrent to the formularies, and two member provinces have proceeded to ordain women bishops, despite a moratorium on the practice. Neither province has faced any repercussions from GAFCON, which is curious as GAFCON primates have criticized the Anglican Communion for its inaction after TEC ignored calls from the Anglican Communion to not consecrate Gene Robison a bishop.[xviii] The second instance, occurring in Kenya, has resulted in complete silence from GAFCON despite the former GAFCON General Secretary issuing a statement in 2018 affirming a moratorium was in place – albeit a moratorium without enforcement or repercussions when defied. The actions by the South Sudan and Kenyan provinces in consecrating women bishops fly in the face of the Ordinal,[xix] which is acknowledged at Point 7 of the Jerusalem Declaration “as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.” Likewise, the ACNA has essentially decided to “walk together” as a province that accepts “dual integrities” regarding women’s ordination to the priesthood. Although the College of Bishops acknowledges “this practice is a recent innovation to Apostolic Tradition and Catholic Order” and “there is insufficient scriptural warrant to accept women’s ordination to the priesthood as standard practice throughout the Province” no action has been taken or discussed to correct, terminate, or place a moratorium on this practice.[xx] These statements reveal some ACNA dioceses (and diocesans) are complicit in defying historic Christian teaching, order, and practice. Therefore, the ministry of Word and Sacrament is impaired in certain dioceses within ACNA, and the formularies defining what is Anglican are subverted in deference to personal whims.
Our Catholicity is in Question
At present, the ACNA College of Bishops excuses inaction by stating they “continue to acknowledge that individual dioceses have constitutional authority to ordain women to the priesthood.” This blaming of constitutional and canon law ignores that since the entire College of Bishops held women’s ordination to the priesthood defies the tradition and order of the universal catholic orthodox Church and is not normative in Holy Scripture, then women’s ordination violates the Fundamental Declarations of ACNA, found in Article I of the Constitution. Namely, how can ACNA claim to “being a part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ” if it engages in uncatholic and non-apostolic teaching, practice, and order? Furthermore, Points 6 and 7 of the Fundamental Declarations uphold the authority of Anglican formularies, namely the Ordinal “as a standard for Anglican doctrine and discipline” and the Articles of Religion “as expressing fundamental principles of authentic Anglican belief” – both of which preclude women clergy.[xxi] Irrespective of ACNA Constitution Article VIII.2 limiting the Province from canonically banning women’s ordination, if the practice has been unanimously found to be an innovation then either the practice must cease or ACNA jeopardizes its claim to uphold Holy Scripture, the Anglican formularies, catholic tradition, and apostolic order, and to being a member of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ as claimed in Article I of the Fundamental Declarations.
Sadly, we return to where we began. Anglicanism’s present crisis needs reframing from an identity crisis to a discipline crisis. Anglicans may wish to ignore their identity in the formularies or re-interpret them, but the end result is a church that does not resemble Anglicanism but a diocesan’s pet theology or even an altogether different church tradition. Anglicanism becomes a three streams mess of “Presbyterians with (without more than likely) Prayer Books”, “wanna-be” Old Catholics,[xxii] or “Charismatics with Sacraments,” with the end result being a smorgasbord ocean of liberal Western theology, “Zeitgeist with Vestments,” and choose-your-own-adventure worship. Ultimately, the formularies have not failed Anglicanism, Anglicanism has failed to uphold her formularies through ecclesial discipline.
“Post-Anglican Anglicanism”?
Where does this leave Anglicans? In need of diagnosing the problem accurately so that it may be remedied. The identity crisis stems from a discipline crisis. Unless diocesans, provinces, the fledgling GAFCON movement, and Global South Fellowship of Anglicans enforce the Anglican formularies then they will forfeit Anglican identity and replace it altogether with non-Anglican, uncatholic, heterodox, and non-Christian identities. Or what the Rev. Dr. Erlandson has termed, “Post-Anglican Anglicanism.”[xxiii] Whither goes Anglicanism? It depends upon her clergy and her laity. The path forward is the path back – towards doctrinal clarity, doctrinal enforcement, and doctrinal unity – as only the formularies may provide. This course requires bishops willingly to give power to the words of the formularies: through their enforcement. It requires priests to adhere to the formularies: through Word and Sacrament ministry. Anything less is a diseased tree that will wither,[xxiv] unless it is rooted in “the implanted Word, which is able to save your souls.”[xxv]
Notes
The Rev. Dr. Charles Erlandson, Orthodox Anglican Identity: The Quest for Unity in a Diverse Religious Tradition, (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2020), p. xvii, 14-20. (See page 36 for his concise definition).
[ii] Id. at 36.
[iii] Id. at 24-36.
[iv] Id. at p. 17. (“However, normative definitions require some ecclesial authority to define and defend them, and challenges to some of these historic norms are at the forefront of the crisis in Anglican identity.”)
[v] Id. at p. 16.
[vi] Id. (“These formularies have their basis in the two Testaments of the Bible and include: the creeds, the decrees of the ecumenical councils, the writings of the church fathers, and the common law of the church.”)
[vii] Id. (I would concur with The Rev. Dr. Peter Toon that the two Books of Homilies deserve to be included as an expression of how the formularies are interpreted.) See The Rev. Dr. Peter Toon, The Anglican Formularies and Holy Scripture: Reformed Catholicism and Biblical Doctrine, (Brynmill/Preservation Press, 2006) (available at: http://assets.newscriptorium.com/toon-collection/doctrine/angformularies.htm) (“What the three Formularies, together with The Books of Homilies and Canon Law, provide for us – as summarized for ordinary folks in the late 16th century by the great Lancelot Andrewes – is a simple 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 of the Anglican Way.”)
[viii] The LCMS, WELS, NALC, and AALC would dispute the ELCA is truly Lutheran due to its departure from Lutheranism’s confession, the Book of Concord.
[ix] The Old Catholic Churches (Union of Utrecht) and Union of Scranton come to mind, and dare I say, the Church of England? Each body argues they divorced from Rome in order to maintain their catholicity but no one would mistake them for Roman Catholicism due to underlying differences in doctrine.
[x] Note the Articles of Religion at this point consisted of forty-two articles and the Book of Common Prayer was in its 1552 edition. Both would be edited when Queen Elizabeth ascended to the throne and again reformed the Church of England away from Romanism.
[xi] Required in Article VI of the Articles of Religion.
[xii] See supra n. 1, at p. 6 (regarding the failure to do more than simply censure Bishop Pike).
[xiii] Although the Rev. Dr. Erlandson accurately depicts the inability of the Anglican Communion to enforce discipline across provinces, the limp-handed efforts at actually forbidding TEC representatives from attending Anglican Communion functions for three years after the Primates Meeting censured TEC demonstrates a failure in ecclesial discipline – not a failure with the formularies in defining Anglicanism.
[xiv] The Homily for Whitsunday, Two Books of Homilies, (Oxford University Press, 1859), p. 462 (available at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Two_Books_of_Homilies_Appointed_to_b/O58UAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=discipline) (italics original, quoting Ephesians 2:20).
[xv] Id.
[xvi] Before one objects to my quotation from this Homily as bearing any authority, one may find the essence of Word and Sacrament ministry within Articles VI, VIII, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI, XXII, XXIII, XXIV, XXV, XXVI, XXVIII, XXIV, XXVI, XXXIV, etc. constantly referring to Word and Sacrament ministry and upheld by “the discipline of the Church” in the words of Article XXVI.
[xvii] Task Force on Women in the Episcopate, Interim Report (2019), GAFCON, June 14, 2019 (available at: https://www.gafcon.org/resources/task-force-on-women-in-the-episcopate-interim-report-2019).
[xviii] A Statement on the Consecration of a Female Bishop in South Sudan, GAFCON, Feb. 8, 2018 (available at: https://www.gafcon.org/news/a-statement-on-the-consecration-of-a-female-bishop-in-south-sudan) (GAFCON issued a statement that provided an unsubstantiated excuse for South Sudan’s action); George Conger, First woman bishop for Kenya consecrated, Mar. 31, 2021, Anglican Ink (available at: https://anglican.ink/2021/03/31/first-woman-bishop-for-kenya-consecrated/).
[xix] The classic ordinal reserves all three ordained offices to be limited to men: “And none shall be admitted a Deacon, except he be Twenty-three years of age, unless he have a Faculty. And every man which is to be admitted a Priest shall be full twenty-four years of age, unless being over twenty-three years of age he have a Faculty. And every man which is to be ordained or consecrated Bishop shall be full thirty years of age.” The Preface, 1662 Ordinal.
[xx] College of Bishops Statement on the Ordination of Women, Sept. 8, 2017, ACNA (available at: https://anglicanchurch.net/college-of-bishops-statement-on-the-ordination-of-women/)
[xxi] I noted one instance in The Preface to the Ordinal. Another instance is within the Articles of Religion, where Article XXXII states “it is lawful for them [bishops, priests, and deacons], as for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion.” Furthermore, Article XXXVI upholds the classic Ordinal as being the manner in which clergy are “rightly, orderly, and lawfully consecrated and ordered” which is a requirement to provide Word and Sacrament ministry (Article XXIII).
[xxii] Archbishop Haverland on the Formularies of the ACC, Decaf Catholic, May 25, 2021 (available at: https://decafcatholic.postach.io/post/archbishop-haverland-on-the-formularies-of-the-acc) (As the largest Continuing Anglican jurisdiction in the United States, the ACC is leading the movement towards uniting the “G4” continuing bodies into eventual reunion. Notably, he outright rejects the Articles of Religion as a formulary and elevates “the Affirmation of Saint Louis [as] the lens through which we view all Anglican authorities.”).
[xxiii] Supra n. i, at p. 80-82.
[xxiv] Matthew 3:10 (ESV) (“Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”).
[xxv] James 1:21 (ESV).
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