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The Anglican Church, centered in historic Canterbury, England, is coming apart. For example, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh recently became the second diocese to secede from the US Episcopal Church (the first was in Fresno, CA). Other Episcopalians from South Carolina to Southern California have been disassociating themselves from the Episcopal Church and placing themselves under the authority of conservative Anglican bishops. One of the major reasons (but not the only reason) for this fragmentation was the 2003 ordination in New Hampshire of an openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson. The national US Episcopal Church insists on the ordination of openly gay clergy and on blessing same-sex marriages! Also, without question, the national Episcopal Church has tolerated ministerial leaders who deny the deity of Jesus Christ, the singular authority of Scripture and uniqueness of Jesus as the only path to salvation. The Episcopal Church of the United States and the larger Anglican church centered in England have been turning their respective backs on all the major doctrines that characterize historic, biblical Christianity. (The US church is down to 2.4 million from its peak of 3.5 million in 1965.) How should we think about all this?
- First, the larger Anglican Communion is in deep trouble. George Will correctly observes that “the typical Anglican is a middle-aged African woman. The burgeoning Nigerian church says that it has 20 million members; [the Rev. Robert] Duncan [former Episcopal bishop of Pittsburgh] believes it may have 25 million but perhaps chose to underreport so as not to exacerbate tensions with Nigerian Muslims.” He goes on to observe that “In London, more Muslims attend Friday prayers than Anglicans attend Sunday services. Last December, on the Sunday after former Prime Minister Tony Blair was received into the Catholic Church, more Catholics than Anglicans attended services in England, an increasingly common occurrence now, five centuries after the Reformation.” Anglican inclusiveness, which embraces all theological believes and all lifestyle choices, is resulting in fewer and fewer English Anglicans!! Why can the leadership of Anglicans not see the connection?
- Second, this past summer the ten-year Lambeth Conference was held at Lambeth, two miles from the historic Canterbury Cathedral. At least 617 of the world’s 880 bishops attended Lambeth at the University of Kent. But some 230 bishops, mostly from Africa, declined the invitation of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to attend Lambeth. Instead, Anglican conservatives rallied about 1,200 bishops, pastors and lay leaders in Jerusalem to attend the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON). Timothy C. Morgan summarizes the four-page Jerusalem Declaration that came from GAFCON: “That document condemned as a ‘false gospel’ any church teaching that would undermine the authority of Scripture or the uniqueness of Christ, or that would normalize homosexual relationships. The declaration called for the creation of a new advisory body (Primates Council) to return Anglicanism to its orthodox roots, and launched the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans to organize conservatives.” Anglicanism is faced with a huge division between those who wish to press forward with more gay ordinations and same-sex blessings and those who oppose such initiatives, and the evangelicals, who represent the largest segment of active churchgoers in Anglicanism, most of whom come from Africa. These evangelicals are growing in number and in influence and they seem to have two major goals: to preserve theological orthodoxy within Anglicanism and to isolate the Episcopal leftwing of the church. Will Anglicanism split? There is a real possibility that this could indeed occur. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, faces the politically impossible task within Anglicanism of trying to please everyone and still maintain unity. He is trying to walk some kind of middle line between all the factions. At this point, he is not really satisfying anyone.
The Anglican Church has rich, historical roots in the 16th century Reformation. Under Queen Elizabeth I, it sought a via media, a middle way between Protestantism and Catholics. Its theology was to be thoroughly Protestant (really Calvinistic) but to be Catholic in ritual and liturgy. The Anglican hierarchy is keeping its ritual, but it is abandoning its commitment to sound doctrine—and in my judgment that is the reason for its decline. The demise of Anglicanism is one of the great tragedies of modern church history. Once it lost its theological roots, it lost its reason for existence. The Apostle Paul preached much about “sound doctrine.” Anglicanism needs to return to that sound doctrine or it will die!
See Will’s essay in the Washington Post (19 October 2008) and Timothy C. Morgan, “Defending the Faith,” in Christianity Today (October 2008), pp. 92-94. |
