Timeline for a new Anglican Province

on November 19, 2008

Despite the flurry of organizational activity among Anglican conservatives following the controversial 2003 ordination of Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, some groups had expressed pessimism saying that a new North American Anglican Province was many years away. If forming a unified front was possible at all. As little as a decade ago, there were few Anglican congregations in the United States that were formally recognized by any other Anglican branches around the world.

In a recent weekly newsletter from the American Anglican Council, CANA Bishop David Anderson said:

“We feel with some real certainty that [a new North American province] will be a reality before Easter of 2009, and perhaps much sooner. We are actively at work with the other Common Cause Partner (CCP) church judicatories to develop the infrastructure and financing for the new province, protocols for joint recognition of orders, and inter-province governance.”

Similarly, Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh recently told the Beaver County Times in western Pennsylvania that the province could receive recognition as early as December.

The Rev. John Spencer, press officer for the recently separated Quincy Diocese, told the Quad-City Times that the timeline for the new organizational structure would involve some kind of provisional recognition in late December or early January. Spencer said formal approval of the new North American Anglican Province may come by early February, after the worldwide Anglican Primates’ council meets in Egypt.

Most recently, the CCP groups have announced a December 3 unveiling of a draft constitution for the proposed new province.

Two things have significantly changed leading to the likely acceleration of this process:

First, the CCP, a loose federation of eight conservative Anglican bodies, organized a college of bishops in September of 2007. Composed of the Anglican Communion Network (ACN), which enveloped a large faction of conservative parishes and dioceses within the Episcopal Church, the partnership also brought in the Rwandan-sponsored Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) and the Nigerian-sponsored Convocation of Anglicans in North America(CANA).

Perhaps most interestingly, the partnership has simultaneously attracted others including low-church bodies such as the Reformed Episcopal Church along with Anglo-Catholic high church bodies like Forward in Faith North America. Each of these organizations has vastly different histories. The Reformed Episcopal Church split from the Episcopal Church in 1873, whereas some groups departed the Episcopal Church quite recently. They have seen very different growth patterns: the AMiA has grown through aggressive church planting, while CANA’s growth comes from the recruitment of recently departed Episcopal parishes.
The CCP created a mechanism through which bishops began talking to each other with regularity, and clergy began sharing and joint missions and development partnerships took hold. The CCP mission statement includes as one of its four points: “to ensure an orthodox Anglican Province in North America that remains connected to a faithful global Communion.”

In an October 15 article in the Washington Post, Michelle Boorstein reported that “the [Virginia Episcopal] breakaway congregations, like dozens of others across the country, have voted to temporarily place themselves under more conservative branches of the Anglican Communion, mostly in Africa. After decades of being tiny, separate splinter groups, they have begun working together, have held their first summits with their overseas allies and are seeking recognition as their own U.S. church. They now comprise more than 580 congregations made up of more than 100,000 people, said Peter Frank, a spokesman for the new umbrella group, called Common Cause Partnership.”

“A lot of people’s willingness to take a step away from the Episcopal Church depends on the existence of a place to go,” said Steffen Johnson, an attorney who attends The Falls Church and is also co-counsel for the breakaway churches. “Now people who are leaving and people who have left can say, ‘Let’s join together.’ It builds momentum.”

GAFCON Primates’ Council

The second development that has accelerated the establishment of a new North American province was the successful Global Anglican Future Conference(GAFCON), which met in Jerusalem earlier this year and established a Primates’ Council. This grouping of Global South primates represents the vast majority of Anglicans in the world; it also provides a new authoritative instrument within the Anglican Communion alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Previously, groups held an Anglican identity primarily via their recognition by and relationship with the See of Canterbury. With the boycott of the 2008 Lambeth Conference by over 200 bishops, representing a majority of the world’s Anglicans, there has been a clear challenge to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s traditional role as the primary facilitator between these national churches and the touchstone of Anglican unity. Where Canterbury might be reluctant to alienate the Episcopal Church by recognizing a new North American Anglican Province as a co-equal, recognition by the GAFCON Primates’ Council of such a province would create the de-facto recognition of the province’s legitimacy.

communiqué issued following the first meeting of the Primates’ council in London in August said that the twofold task of the Council is ‘to authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith.’ The primates also said that, in developing the GAFCON movement, “it is expected that priority will be given to the possible formation of a province in North America for the Common Cause Partnership.”

Next Steps

With domestic Anglican groups organizing, and a new authority within Anglicanism posed to recognize a new province, things seem to be speeding along. That being said, I believe there are several important issues that need to be ironed out in the creation of a new province.

The first is who gets to be a bishop. The past year has seen a flurry of episcopal consecrations and installations within the various CCP member bodies. These bodies will have to agree upon a mutual review of candidates for bishop before consecration. There also may be too many bishops for a province that will probably number no more than 200,000 members in its infancy, assuming significant new defections from the Episcopal Church once the province is recognized.

Second, clergy intending to transfer from other bodies will want to bring their credentials. Establishing a standardized practice for this will take time. On the grassroots level, cooperation has already been seen on this front between CANA and the Ugandan-aligned churches, through their close association in groups like the Anglican District of Virginia. CANA bishops have visited Ugandan-aligned parishes, and Ugandan-credentialed clergy serve in CANA parishes. Since both bodies are relatively recent departures from the Episcopal Church, they have a high degree of flexibility and there are minimal differences between them. Establishing the same relationship between groups like the CANA and the older splinter groups will be more complex.

Third, the shape and nature of common episcopal oversight will need to be decided upon. Anglican churches have a history of organizing in either conciliar, hierarchical, or federation models, and a new North American province could employ any of these. Most of these bodies look to African churches with their very hierarchical episcopal structures, but many of them came out of the Episcopal Church, which has a model far closer resembling a federation with strong lay representation.

Lastly, ordination of women as either deacons or priests will continue to be a significant issue. Many of the splinter churches that left the Episcopal Church did so in the 1970s over women’s ordination. Even now, three of the four dioceses defecting from the Episcopal Church are doing so partly as a rejection of female priests. Some bodies, like the Ugandan-aligned parishes, recognize and ordain women to the priesthood. Other groups, like CANA, ordain women deacons but have yet to reach a consensus about women priests (note: CANA Missionary Bishop Martyn Minns has said he hopes CANA can be a model for groups that contain both kinds of congregations). Yet other groups reject female clergy as heretical. In some cases, this is the most active point of contention between evangelical and anglo-catholic bodies. A consensus may not have to be reached, but a structure will need to be adopted that organizes the women-ordaining bodies and the non-women-ordaining bodies separately, under separate bishops, also under a common North American provincial authority.

Data on the Common Cause Partners:

The American Anglican Council (AAC); the Anglican Communion Network (ACN); the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA); the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC); the Anglican Province of America (APA); the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA); the Anglican Essentials Federation (AEF); Forward in Faith, North America (FIF/NA); the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC); as well as bishops and congregations linked with Kenya, Uganda, and South America’s Southern Cone.

Statistics:
Reformed Episcopal Church
135 Congregations
13,400+ members

Convocation of Anglicans in North America
70 Congregations
11,000 members (estimate)

Anglican Mission in the Americas
133+ Congregations (62 more in the process of being formed)

Issues:
Transfer of Clergy credentials from other denominations
Ordination of women as either deacons or priests
Mutual review of candidates for bishop before consecration
The shape and nature of common episcopal oversight (conciliar, hierarchical, or a federation model)

 

No comments yet

The work of IRD is made possible by your generous contributions.

Receive expert analysis in your inbox.