The Once and Future Anglicanism

A rather amazing document was published yesterday by David Virtue. It is a petition drafted by Bishop John Rucyahana, Anglican Bishop of Rwanda, representing and organization called SPREAD, or "The Society for the Propogation of Reformed Evangelical Anglican Doctrine, along with Rev. John H. Rodgers. It is 45 pages in length, but the long and short of it is this - Bishops Rucyahana and Rodgers suggests in no uncertain terms that remaining in fellowship with heretical factions of Anglicanism is no longer acceptable.

This is significant on one hand bacause of the turmoil that the Anglican world has been in since the recent convention of the Episcopal Church here in the United States, in which the TEC refuse to turn from the ordination of an openly homosexual bishop and elected a pro-gay female presiding bishop. It is also significant because Rucyahana leads the Anglican Mission in America, the first American Anglican group to declare itself out of communion with the Episcopal church and to ordain bishops under the authority of other Bishops outside of the Episcopal church's jurisdiction, crossing jurisdictional lines.

But the text of the petition is the real story. The stated goals of the petition are to:

1) affirm and encourage the preservation of the Anglican faith, which holds, as a major expression of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, that the Church is subordinate to Scripture's sovereign authority;
(2) protect the churches and individual members in the Communion which adhere thereto; and
(3) prevent millions of souls from being lost.

Then comes the real kicker:

The petition seeks to encourage the Primates of the Global South to continue to exercise leadership in the Anglican Communion by continuing to build on the groundwork laid at the Third Global Anglican South to South Encounter in Egypt in October 2005.

Conservative, orthodox bishops in the Global South, in short, have been taking the lead to encourage repentance from the Episcopal Church and appear primed to go further, assuming even greater leadership in coming days. Lest this be seen as a mere power struggle, one should note the meticulous detail of the reasoning, the actions already taken, and the documentation of the responses. First, the reasoning:

(1) Scripture is God's Word written and therefore true;
(2) the Church is subordinate to the sovereign authority of Scripture; and
(3) the Church and its members are obligated to obey the commandments and follow the teachings of Scripture.

While the media and revisionists have pushed the issue of same-sex blessings and ordinations as the primary conflict, conservatives insist that issue is a symptom of a larger problem, a refusal to submit to or even accept the authority of scripture. Repeatedly the document insists on the Reformation principle that the church is subordinate to scripture. It also insists that the proper role of a bishop includes to "with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God's Word"



The petition documents that Global South bishops, led by Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola, called specifically on Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to intervene in the matter, and more specifically to repent himself, specifically for of his support of the view that the church is not under the authority of scripture. Williams has in the past been a supporter of same sex causes and has, the petition documents, used his positon to stave off efforts of conservatives to call the church back to its historic positions. Williams was urged to repent privatelya and publicly, in accordance with Matthew 18.

The ultimate conclusion of the petition is this:

The longer the faithful Anglican churches remain in communion with heretical bishops and churches in the Anglican Communion, the more they are vulnerable to becoming internally divided by the infiltration of false teachers, as has been the experience of the conservative dioceses of ECUSA.

In short, appeasement and dialog have repeatedly served the interests of the revisionists and harmed the cause of the orthodox. A little leaven leavens the whole lump.

This raises the ultimate question of church authority. What is to be done when the shepherds lead the sheep astray? How is this reconciled with the prayer of Christ for unity? This is the question the reformers faced. It is the question Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists and others may face. Can truth be sacrificed for unity?

But in this case the answer may be somewhat different than in other cases. Because here, the global south bishops insist it is the American Episcopal Church, with counterparts in Enland and elsewhere, that have left the faith and divided the church. What Rucyahana, Akinola and others call for is not a schism, but church discipline - cutting the cancerous lump out of the body for the sake of the body. They appear to be willing to act, and soon.

Anglicanism has always considered itself a "reformed catholicism" emphasizing both a protestant heritage and a connection to the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic faith". It is fitting that a new global reformation within Anglicanism may be a possibility.