The History and Future of Anglo-Catholics (Part 3)

     In 2006 the largest Episcopal Church in the United States was not located in New England or California, but in the Diocese of Dallas, Texas. Christ Church Plano had more people in worship on an average Sunday than many Episcopal Dioceses in the country.  Christ Church Plano is an evangelical congregation with nearly 2,500 in Sunday attendance. It adheres to the 39 Articles as its statement of faith. After the General Convention of 2006, Christ Church approached Bishop James Stanton, Bishop of Dallas, and told him they were leaving The Episcopal Church (TEC). Stanton, a friend of evangelicals, worked out an amicable arrangement for the congregation to buy its building, pay its apportionments and wished them well.  Christ Church initially made a connection with the Church of Nigeria. The Anglican Communion worldwide is made up of over 32 million people. It is a very robust and growing Church. It is also a very Protestant Church and bishops from around the globe were outraged at the behavior of TEC in 2006. Some (not necessarily Anglo-Catholic) did not support the presence of a female “archbishop” in their consultations. But the more serious issue was the abandonment of the Scripture as evidenced by the authorization of homosexual ordination. Over the course of months many of these evangelical national churches outside the United States started making allowance for dissenting evangelical and orthodox congregations who were leaving the TEC to unite with them, thus preserving their ties with the Anglican Communion. Old notions of geographic boundaries to a diocese or a province became irrelevant. Thus began the Anglican Realignment. TEC harshly and energetically pursued these congregations and the four bishops who took their dioceses out of TEC.  In 2008 all the various constituent churches and bishops formed the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) as a new Province for the United States and Canada.  Christ Church Plano affiliated with ACNA as have approximately 1,000 congregations and ministries in 21 dioceses with a membership of well over 100,000 people. Christ Church alone The ACNA has a goal of planting 1,000 new churches before 2014.

     Forty miles west of Christ Church Plano is the Diocese of Fort Worth, a bastion of Anglo-Catholicism, struggling to hold on to the declining number of churches it already has. The diocese is led by Bishop Jack Iker, SSC.  Iker graduated from General Theological Seminary in New York City but now serves on the Board of Directors for Nashota House.  Respected by evangelicals for his stand against TEC by withdrawing his entire diocese from the apostate denomination, nevertheless Bishop Iker is no friend to Protestant Anglicans in his diocese.  There are no congregations with any evangelical expression in his diocese. Iker has been known to support and encourage priests who have publicly humiliated, harassed and threatened evangelical members who wanted a more balanced expression of historical and world-wide Anglicanism in the church’s life and teaching. This writer served on the staff of one such congregation. Protestant Anglicans in the Fort Worth Diocese learn to keep quiet about their beliefs in light of this de-friending by zealous Anglo-Catholic priests and vestries. Six churches voted not to follow Bishop Iker out of the TEC. They formed a new TEC Diocese of Fort Worth with a new Bishop. Iker has temporarily aligned himself with the Province of the Southern Cone in South America, a member in good standing with the ACNA.

     This schizophrenic Episcopal identity in the Fort Worth Diocese has duplicated itself in several communities in which factions have left Iker-led congregations to start “real Episcopal churches.”  Lawsuits abound. TEC inhibited (removed from office) Bishop Iker and initiated legal proceedings to recover their properties. The merits of the case are not the subject of this paper. However, the Anglo-Catholics under Bishop Iker lost the first round and are now appealing the ruling to the Texas Supreme Court.  Regardless of that decision, the scandal of Christians in court is expected to drag on for years until the final verdict is rendered in the U.S. Supreme Court, depleting church coffers to pay teams of attorneys who, of course, always “remain optimistic” about the outcome.  Meanwhile, churches decline in membership and remain in buildings currently declared the possession of TEC.

     What is the future of Anglo-Catholics? Many Anglo-Catholic parishioners have left the church to join Roman Catholic congregations. Indeed, five of Bishop  Iker’s priests have joined the Roman Catholic church, including his most recent Canon of the Ordinary. At least eight churches have already expressed their intent to take advantage of Pope Benedict’s Episcopal Ordinariate of 2009. This organizational structure will allow Anglo-Catholic priests (and supposedly a bishop) "to maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared." When asked about his intent regarding the Ordinariate, Bishop Iker said that decision would be delayed until the question of church property is settled, thus leaving the door open to the possibility. Although ACNA has made provisions for each congregation to own its property and each diocese to establish its own practice regarding the ordination of women, it is clear that Bishop Iker and the Anglo-Catholics will not find a long-term home in the ACNA. ACNA endorses the ordination of women, but more importantly, affirms the 39 Articles as the true expression of Anglican faith. This can only mean that Anglo-Catholics will become even more of a declining fringe group within a rapidly growing, dynamic ACNA. Before totally dying out, the last Anglo-Catholic diocese in the United States, losing influence by its rapidly declining numbers of both members and income, will unite with the Roman Catholic Church and bring to an end nearly 200 years of Anglo-Catholic revisionism in the historic Protestant Anglican church.

The History of the Anglo-Catholics: Part 2

     Anglo-Catholics rode the twin waves of 20^th century modernism and urbanization to prominence in the United States. Their anti-establishment Bohemian criticism of the establishment was initially welcomed into academia long before it invaded churches. From New York (General) and New England (Berkeley) and other Episcopal seminaries, the Social Gospel became as prominent as the Articles of Religion. This allowed young Episcopalians to identify with the down-trodden while at the same time not having to give up their wealth and elite social status.  The growth of cities after the Second World War brought many cultures into closer proximity and Roman Catholic influence was more accepted. Episcopalian priests began to call themselves “father” instead of the more Protestant “Reverend.” As divorce became more accepted in society, Anglo-Catholicism became a popular re-marriage compromise for divorced people and their blended families.

     The Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s became the watershed event for 20^th century liberal theology.  Conservatives in all the mainline denominations, believing primarily in individual conversion, were ignored and often ridiculed by the more activist minority who were adopting Liberation Theology, a Marxist re-invention of the Gospel as freeing people from unjust economic, political, and social conditions. First introduced by Roman Catholic radicals in Central and South America, it took root and gained traction with a growing number of Anglo-Catholics. The Bible was not to be taken literally. Sin was conceived as not a personal problem, but an institutional one. Jesus was portrayed as a revolutionary subversive, a teaching completely at odds with Roman doctrine. The Second Vatican Council (1965-68) sought to limit the damage done by these modern, urban myths, but change was in the air. The Mass was no longer to be said in Latin and a new Roman Missal containing the words and rubrics of the mass was ordered.  

     In 1975, largely influenced by the growing acceptance of modern Anglo-Catholic practice, the Episcopalians introduced a new Book of Common Prayer.  The General Convention of 1976 allowed the new Prayer Book to be used as an alternative to the 1928 book and at the same time authorized the ordination of women. Something new was emerging that enraged both the evangelicals and Anglo-Catholic traditionalists.

     The new Prayer Book was adopted in 1979. Churches were forbidden to use the 1928 Prayer Book.  New liturgies in contemporary English replaced the traditional use of “thee,” “thou,” and other arcane phrases.  But the updated language was a minor change in comparison to the theological and organizational changes implemented by the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The name of the church was no longer the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, but The Episcopal Church.  The 39 Articles were demoted to a section at the back of the book called “Historical Documents” where they were promptly ignored.  Baptismal regeneration became the accepted theology (that people were actually saved by the sacrament) rather than the invoking of the Holy Spirit that “the person may be born again” as specified in the 1928 service.  Compare the ordination questions from the 1928 Book with those of its successor.

Bishop. DO you think in your heart, that you are truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and according to the Canons of this Church, to the Order and Ministry of Priesthood?
    Answer. I think it.
    Bishop. Are you persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contain all Doctrine required as necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ? And are you determined, out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge; and to teach nothing, as necessary to eternal salvation, but that which you shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture?
    Answer. I am so persuaded, and have so determined, by God’s grace.

Bishop         My brother, do you believe that you are truly called by God

and his Church to this priesthood?

Answer        I believe I am so called.

Bishop        Do you now in the presence of the Church commit yourself to this trust and responsibility?

Answer     I do.

Bishop     Will you respect and be guided by the pastoral direction and leadership of your bishop?

Answer     I will.

Bishop     Will you be diligent in the reading and study of the Holy Scriptures, and in seeking the knowledge of

such things as may make you a stronger and more able minister of Christ?

Answer     I will.

Bishop     Will you endeavor so to minister the Word of God and the sacraments of the New Covenant, that the reconciling love of Christ may be known and received?

Answer     I will.

     Whereas in the 1928 Book, the Lordship of Jesus Christ was affirmed ahead of anything to do with Church polity and organization, by 1979 Jesus has disappeared and primacy is given to the church, especially bishop. Scripture was demoted from the content of ministry to a place on the priest’s reading list alongside "such other things as may make you a stronger and more able minister of Christ." When the Word of God is finally mentioned in the later Book, it is in the context of Sacraments. Other changes are too numerous to identify here, but the direction of the 1979 Book was to a hyper-sacramental viewpoint inconsistent with the origins of the Church and its Articles of Religion. Having successfully compromised the authority of the Bible in favor of catholic tradition, schism was thought a worse sin than heresy.  Many left the Episcopal Church but the majority of evangelicals decided to stay and effect change within. Like the Anglo-Catholics before them, they organized into supportive communities and tried to recover the orthodoxy of the church. These groups held sway at the General Convention of 1994 in which the church affirmed there was value in the position that women should not be ordained. But by the next Triennial that position was wiped out, declaring "the canons regarding the ordination, licensing, and deployment of women are mandatory and that dioceses noncompliant in 1997 shall give status reports on their progress toward full implementation." Battle lines were being drawn between the three main groups that made up the American Episcopal Church: evangelicals, traditional Anglo-Catholics, and the now majority of Post-biblical inclusivists.  In 2006 the Episcopal Church decided to toss a bomb into the worldwide Anglican Communion, electing the first woman Presiding Bishop and affirming the ordination of openly homosexual individuals.  This began the Great Anglican Realignment.

A History of the Anglo-Catholics: Part 1

     It amazes me that so few Episcopalians know anything about their church’s history. They learn about Henry the 8^th’s break with the Roman Catholic Church in the 16^th century, but are told precious little about what happened after that and how it continues to impact the organizational and spiritual schizophrenia that has seriously divided the Episcopal Church in America, and will in all likelihood kill Anglican orthodoxy in North Texas.

     The trouble began with King Henry’s sequential polygamy in search of an heir. The Pope would not grant him a divorce from Katherine who had born him only a daughter (Mary), so Henry took over the Church in England. He didn’t just take it over organizationally; he installed himself as Head of the Church. Henry hated the Lutherans in Germany. There was little difference between the earliest Anglican Church and the Roman Church except who was in charge. Cranmer, a Protestant, helped Henry attain his divorce and marry Anne Boleyn. But she produced only a daughter, Elizabeth. Henry got his male heir from Jane Seymour, but after Henry's death, his son, sickly Edward, reigned only a short time and set in motion a struggle not only for political power but control of the Church in England. Mary Tudor was a staunch Roman Catholic. When she came to the throne she burned many Protestants at the stake and attempted to purge England of every Reformer. Upon Mary's death, Elizabeth became Queen, declared the English Church essentially Protestant, confirmed the Thirty Nine Articles as what Anglicans believed, and tried to put an end to the horrible religious pogroms. When Elizabeth died, the pendulum swung back to the Roman Catholic version of things until Cromwell and the Presbyterians took control, beheaded King Charles, and established a republic in England. This was the bloody English Civil War that raged for nine horrible years. Cromwell and the Parliamentarians lost to the royalists and the monarchy was re-instituted under Charles the Second. By this time, people were worn out with religious wars. There followed a period of time from the late seventeenth to the mid eighteenth century when the Church in England just wanted to rest.

     But rest soon turned to lethargy and corruption. The Church of England under the Georges became less and less relevant to the times. The Church became the place for the nobility to send their second sons. Their first-born became lords and warriors while their second-born sons went to serve the church. Spirituality was replaced with dull, elitist cultural conservatism. Sermons were abstract and academic. Only the aristocracy was encouraged to attend church out of a sense of duty. The working people were looked down on, shunned and made very unwelcome. Out of this rigid class morass emerged a renewal movement in the 1740’s, a movement for ordinary folks centered on Bible study and dynamic preaching, and the very non-English emotional enthusiasm to reach people with the good news of Christ. They were called the evangelicals. The early leader of the movement was John Wesley, an Anglican priest, who ironically came from Oxford where he was a teacher. The evangelicals started Sunday Schools to help teach children from the slums and city how to read and write, a scandal among the high-brow Anglicans. But it was from Oxford that some of the traditional elitists decided to launch their own renewal movement in reaction to the rise of evangelicals and their success among the working class. Known as the Oxford movement, they wanted to reunify with the Roman Church. This would allow them to preserve the elite, medieval position of bishop and priest and at the same time demonstrate a vigorous piety. They called themselves Anglo-Catholics, teaching that the English Church was one third of the Holy Catholic Church along with the Roman and Eastern Orthodox branches.  The evangelicals called them Episcopalians, the name by which they officially identified themselves in the American colonies when the Revolutionary War forced their separation from the Church of England.

     The Anglo-Catholics began the work of undoing the growing Protestant identity of the Anglican Church.  John Henry Newman and Edward Pusey wrote and distributed pamphlets and books. They wrote 90 tracts in all and were also known as the Tractarians. But the last tract Newman penned in 1841 evoked the wrath of his bishop when he contended that the Thirty Nine Articles were completely compatible with the teaching of the Roman Church. Well, that was just a bit too much over the top. Newman ‘fessed up and left the Anglican Church and became a priest in the Roman Church. The Tractarian movement was strongly felt in the United States with the establishment of Nashota House Seminary near Milwaukee in 1842. Because Tractarians could not often get placements in churches, they began working in the slums of cities and began a critique of bourgeoisie values they associated with the mainline denomination.

     In 1855 a new group took over the propagation of Anglo-Catholicism. The Society of the Holy Cross (SCC) was begun by Charles Lowder and five other priests who needed a support group in a generally unfriendly Protestant denomination. They secretly practiced a hyper-ritualism that included wearing vestments, frequent celebration of the Mass with intentions, the veneration of Mary and saints, the use of bells, elevating the host, and confession to priests, all of which were anathema to the 39 Articles and had not been practiced in the Church of England for hundreds of years. These activities were severely criticized by the Archbishop of Canterbury and in 1874 were outlawed by Parliament under the leadership of Disraeli.  However, in 1906 that law was repealed, largely owing to the positive public relations of the humanitarian efforts of Anglo-Catholic priests in the cities and slums. This work was part and parcel of the Anglo-Catholic’s belief in the necessity of works to be counted righteous.

      But perhaps the most endearing legacy of the Anglo-Catholics to the modern Episcopal Church and that which accounts in large part for its decline and its upcoming demise is the elevation of tradition above Scripture as the authority for the Church. Roman teaching is that the Bible is the product of the Church, thereby making Church Councils pre-eminent to Scripture. Episcopalians in the 50’s and 60’s (today’s cradle Episcopalians) were told the myth of the three-legged stool (still found on the TEC website today). The Church, it was said, was governed by three authorities: reason, Scripture, and tradition. Methodists added the fourth leg: experience. Richard Hooker, who first used the three-legged stool analogy in the 15^th century, was referring to a milking stool, common in that time. A milking stool had one leg longer than the other two. In Harper’s illustration, the Scriptures were pre-eminent over all matters of church and faith. Where the Scriptures were silent, tradition could be consulted with the help of reason. But by the time of the cultural revolution of the 60’s and early 70’s, the stool analogy was misappropriated and misquoted by Anglo-Catholics who were gaining a majority position in a Church struggling to find relevancy in the Age of Aquarius.