Dividing Over Untruth? By Revd. Jon Shuler

When the earliest version of the Quadrilateral was revealed to the world, the one sent out from the American House of Bishops in 1886, there can be little doubt that the words “the historic episcopate locally adapted” did not preclude some historic Protestant Churches from inclusion. But to a small minority of Anglicans, by 1886, the catholic argument for the essential nature of the developed threefold pattern of “apostolic orders” had become a non-negotiable. Over the next century that position would gain more and more traction among Anglicans. Unfortunately this position is historically untrue to the Anglican Reformation, and to early church history as well.

What is true is that by the late second century there is no known place in the Christian world where the offices of bishop, presbyter, and deacon are not the norm for the set apart ministry of the church. All three offices were universally held by faithful men, who had been approved by the church in which they served. So where is the untruth? The scope and pattern of these offices by the 19th Century had become radically different from what was true in the early centuries.The early offices were local, not diocesan. There is no such thing as a diocese in the church until long after the murderous Emperor Diocletian (Roman emperor from 284 to 305), for whom the Roman administrative districts were named. Under his reign diocese contained provinces, not vice versa.The emergence of the three-fold offices is ancient, indeed may well date to the time of the apostles, but it was not organized on the diocesan pattern of the the Medieval Church of Britain. It was much more congregational, and local.

The Reformed churches of Europe knew these facts, as did the bishops of the English church in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries. It was also well understood by the founding generations of the Episcopal Church in America. Their commitment to their own historic tradition did not cause them to unchurch those protestants who had received another. What has happened among most of the world’s Anglicans, however, is that they have made a non biblical tradition an item of division. In spite of the Anglican doctrine declaring that “nothing is to be ordained that is contrary to the Word of God.” we have made submission to this human tradition mandatory. When the Quadrilateral was first shared with the world, this was not the intention. Unity among believers was.

Can this point of division be ammended? A thorough commitment to being reformed under the Word of God would seem to demand it. There is more than one way to maintain “the historic episcopate.” It is hardly the only tradition where modern Anglicans should welcome reformation, but it is certainly one of the ones that demands attention. Such a possibility depends upon the presupposition that submission to the Word of God, and not the traditions of men, is central for all Anglicans. That of course takes us back the Reformation, and the first of the points made in the Lambeth Quadrilateral, the authority of the Word of God. Once again we are face to face with this question: “Is the Anglican Family called to be reformed – again – under the Word of God or not?”

Next Week: Reforming Governance?

Is the Quadrilateral Dead? By Revd. Jon Shuler

Great hope spread through much of the Christian world after the Lambeth Conference of 1888. The “Declaration on Christian Unity” promulgated by the Lambeth Fathers stirred decades of excitement and seemed to hold the promise of a new day of reunion among many of the historic Christian churches of the Reformation. It ended in failure. In retrospect it can perhaps be seen as the highpoint of Anglican influence in the global church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Is the Quadrilateral now truly dead?

The new ACNA Book of Common Prayer (2019) does not contain it, which must be seen as a statement of mortality on the part of the scholars and clergy whose theological presuppositions shaped that book. Nevertheless, it seems still to be alive in many other parts of the global community that gave it birth. Should we put it to its final grave as an instrument of unity? This year’s Lambeth Council was certainly anything but a gathering for the unity of the wider church. Has Gafcon rejected it?

Four points define the Quadrilateral, one on Holy Scripture, one on the two gospel Sacraments, one on the two creeds, and last of all one on “the historic episcopate.” As with any attempt to summarize a large body of truth, there were disputes at the time about the adequacy of the summary. Necessarily many things were not included, but were any of them not essential? That proved to be the rub. In time the four points themselves came to be in dispute. Let us look at them as they were given to us.

No church openly denies, in a formal doctrinal statement the centrality of Scripture? Here the issue is one of interpretation and discipline. The text says Holy Scripture is “the rule and ultimate standard of the Faith.” What has come to pass is that some Anglican leaders, and some Anglican churches, have declared and ordained that which is clearly contrary to Holy Scripture. And such error has gone undisciplined, though not without vigorous protest from a minority of bishops attending Lambeth this year.

The Lambeth 1888 declaration concerning the two sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion was utterly consistent with Anglican teaching and practice for nearly four hundred years, but over time the theology of Rome concerning the sacraments made its way into many Anglican theological centers, and thus the second point of unity died. Five more “sacraments” were said to be essential by those who came to dominate many of the provinces of the Anglican world.

The same pattern has been seen in the unwillingness of some, heavily influenced by Western Theology, to except the absence of the doctrinal document known as “the Athanasian Creed” from the third point of the Quadrilateral. To exclude it proved unacceptable to many, including ACNA and Gafcon.

The biggest practical challenge, however, was the meaning of the “historical episcopate.” The fourth point seems to have become its graveyard. Or has it?

Next Week: Dividing over Untruth?

Facing Facts. By Revd. Jon Shuler

My wife and I drive a British car made in 1952, which we have owned for 55 years. When the weather is fair we drive her every Sunday afternoon. An MG TD, she is a much beloved reminder of the days of our courting and marriage, but she is a luxury.

It was many years before I realized that my affection for Hannah (as we call her) was similar to my affection for the form of Anglicanism in which I was raised. My early struggles with the Anglican slide into error and heresy, were almost all aimed at preserving forms and statements that were minted in previous ages. I was particularly concerned to hold on to the classic Anglican Formularies, the Ordinal of 1550, the 39 Articles of 1571, and the Book of Common Prayer of 1662. On a fair day they still serve.

The questions that I believe must be asked are several: “Do the Formularies really equip the church for the stormy battle she faces today?” Is it time for a new explication of the truth of the gospel, and its proper consequences, for those who would believe? To truly follow the Lord Jesus Christ today must I follow the teaching of previous centuries, or can I stand under the Word of God for a new day?

To all those who point me to the settled Anglican documents, I ask one question: “Where in the world is fidelity to the Formularies equipping the church to spread the kingdom of God as a first priority? Is there anywhere in the Anglican world that this focus is transforming a town, or a region, or a nation? Anywhere?

Some who have not traveled to the nations may point to one or two, probably Uganda or Nigeria, but honest conversation with those who serve there will soon reveal that two things are true: non Anglican Christianity is frequently spreading very effectively, and the Anglicans are largely identified with the cultural elites. Any argument that the future culture of those nations, let alone the present, is being turned to Christ from modernist heresy by the Anglican Family must be looked at askance.

What of the Motherland? If the Anglican Way is to be commended, what must be said of its effect in Britain? Though there are remnants of Christian understanding and morality, that nation has overwhelmingly turned its back on the church. The solemnity of Royal Weddings and Funerals not withstanding, the church is remarkably weak. It is not that there are no true Christians, but rather that they have become a ghettoized remnant in a sea of neopaganism.

Demographic study in nation after nation where the faith has been taken by Western Anglican missionaries often reveals the same truth. The foothold Anglicans have in such places is one of privilege and protection. Whenever a new movement of grace and evangelistic truth and growth emerges it often chooses to move out of the orbit of the Anglican Family, lest it be choked and die. Sometimes it is shown the door. Facing these facts is hard for me, and for my historic church family, but they must be faced.

Next Week: Is The Lambeth Quadrilateral Dead?

≈ 21 September 2022

Next Week: Is The Lambeth Quadrilateral Dead?

Can You Give Me An Example? By Revd. Jon Shuler

Recently I was approached to take part in the training of those called to be Deacons in my diocese. By that was meant those who were going to be what has come to be called “Permanent Deacons” as opposed to “Transitional Deacons,” the latter of whom are already headed for ordination to the Presbyterate. Leaving aside for today the wisdom of that distinction, I want to focus briefly on the training program I was invited into.

I was shocked, I can honestly say, when the full scope of the training was unfolded before me. It is a multi year academic preparation, that for all intents and purposes, bears a strong resemblance to the academic curriculum which would have been normal for a man training for the priesthood a generation or two ago. I had imagined, when asked, that the work would be much more about the practical details of the modern liturgical functioning of the diaconate, as it has come to be exercised among North American Anglicans. But no, it is about entering a junior version of the clerical community of the church. I was immediately thrown back in my mind to the Apostle Paul and his leadership challenge in Thessalonica.

The story is well known. Paul and his companions were run out of the city after preaching there for only three Sabbaths. Yet the church had been planted, as we know so well from the Thessalonican Letters. Not only that, by the time Paul wrote his first letter to them they already had designated leaders to whom the whole church is to be responsible. How can that be? No multi-year intensive academic curriculum?

Of course Thessalonica is not normative, but it does highlight with great clarity that the early church, the faithful church, the kingdom expanding church, understood spiritual leadership very differently than we do today. The incontestable evidence is that the early church was taught to identify and raise up leadership as a foundational part of the body from the beginning. There was not to be a long drawn out process by which a tiny few were given an elite status. Instead the local flock were to have shepherds who were to lead them in obedience to the Lord Jesus through the Word of God. It is historically clear, as well, that the selection of deacons became normative in every congregation from the beginning. One only needs to read the Pastoral Epistles.

Those called to what would one day be known as Holy Orders were indeed to be tested. Yet the clear implication of that requirement in the context of the New Testament is a testing for the genuineness of their faith and character. Paul was convinced that could be determined by Timothy and Titus. That quality of leadership could be known also in the congregation of the faithful. Is that so hard to understand or live out today?

This example is only one of many that should show clearly that we have made a profession out of the Holy Orders of the church, and that like all the professions the fences around entry have grown and grown. But it is a fine club if you can join.

Next Week: Facing Facts

A Church for Clergy or One That Submits to Christ? By Revd. Jon Shuler

I have been a priest for 49 years. I have been praying with the Book of Common Prayer, in one of its various incarnations, since I was a child. I have loved the cadences and content for most of my life. And it has been at the center of my personal devotion from the day I first, wholeheartedly, yielded to the claims of Christ Jesus. From that day the Holy Scriptures started to come alive for me, and today I wear out a Bible faster than I wear our a Prayer Book. Once it was the opposite. Twenty years after I was called to the priesthood I became convinced that the Final Command was the mission I had to live as a priest, as a Christian.and thus as an Anglican. I had to put fidelity to the Scriptures ahead of fidelity to the Book of Common Prayer. But I love the book.

Nearly thirty-five years have gone by since that intervention, which was by the Spirit of God I believe, and in those years I have decided that the current state of the Anglican Church in my own country is best described as a wonderful home for clergy. Secondarily a wonderful home for those who like clergy, and clergy things: liturgy, ecclesiastical architecture, academic theology, good books, speaking, good fellowship, and (in my diocese at least) drinking. The company of clergy is a fine one, and most of those I have known seem to love the Lord and the Church. What I have rarely found, however, is a love of the clear command of Holy Scripture to make disciples. Overwhelmingly, clergy and those they influence (as with me for twenty years) like making another Anglican.

It is dangerous to read the Scriptures every day, if you believe they have divine authority as God’s Word written. Two places of great danger, terrifying, for me, are Mt 7:22,23 and Luke 13:25. I should probably add Mk 8:38 as well. These remind me that I can give myself to a religious life, an ostensibly Christian life, as a leader in the Household of God, and not be found welcome in the courts of heaven. Faithfulness to the Word of God is the test. All of it, as the Holy Spirit reveals the meaning in Christ Jesus, and him crucified. This the faithful church has always understood to be her calling.

Clergy were first set aside, called out of the midst of the Flock of God, to give oversight to those who were children of God. From the beginning they were to care for, teach, and protect them. They were to grow them up. Of all duties, they were to first ensure that the church submitted to Christ, by teaching what that meant and by living it.

For at least eighty years first a few, then more, then a majority of the Anglican clergy in this nation have neglected that task, and almost none of them have ever been called to account – on earth – for what they have neglected. Most of them have been, outwardly, good examples of priestly behavior, as that is understood by non believers.

A new season began some years ago, with a wonderful group of people seeking to put things right.There was a desire for a New Anglican identity to be what people would now aspire to. My concern is this: Will it be just more of the same, in time? A great home for clergy, or a kingdom doorway into the courts of the Lord for all people?

Next Week: Give Me Some Examples, Will You?

Do What I Say, Not What I Do. By Revd. Jon Shuler

Every parent has, at one time or another, tried to get their children to do what they were not themselves doing. It is always a mistake. The way to parent is to live what you desire the children to imitate. My dear brother left the Episcopal Church of our birth when he was 16 years old. He had become a true believer, and could not abide the chasm between what the church was teaching and the way she was actually living. He had been given a neck chain cross that said “I am an Episcopalian” in raised letters on the back, and he filed the words off. He wanted to be known as a Christian.

Some years ago I met a wonderful young ordained Nigerian Anglican, raised in the United States. He shared his testimony, briefly, with a class I was leading. This is what he said: “I was baptized, I was confirmed, I fell away, I got saved, I came back, and I am not wanted.” It has been the true sad story of many in our Anglican history, and all to often it remains so today. Why?

If there is one answer that is preeminent, it is this: Anglicans say that “It is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written” (Article XX) but we have done it repeatedly. And we are doing it still. When someone believes what we say about the authority of Scripture, deeply, and seeks to live it, they are generally marginalized or shown the door.

From the time of the English Reformation, all reputable theologians and leaders of the Church of England have asserted that the primacy of Holy Scripture is the foundation upon which all else rests. Without this there wouldn’t have been a Reformation. This primacy defines Christian fidelity to the Lordship of Christ Jesus. All the formularies explicitly say this is so. From declaring this in the 16th Century, this principle has defined the Anglican inheritance. But is it really so, or is this actually a form of collective denial? Do we deceive ourselves that it is true when it is not?

Criticism of the English Reformation came from both the right and from the left, so to speak. The Roman Catholic critique was solidly rebuffed from the beginning, and the case for rebuttal was always firstly the plain teaching of the Holy Scriptures, and only secondly reason applied to scripture and the church’s traditional understanding of them. The Roman claims were not biblical. The church took her stand there, and she was not in denial.

The next most serious critique came from within, however, as a more and more careful reading of the Holy Scriptures convinced many clergy that the reformation in England needed to go further. They believed Article XX. The movement would one day be defined as “Puritan.” At the time of the Restoration, after the English Civil War, the King and the church firmly rejected the Puritan critique, without effectively answering it. A deep unwillingness to face the evidence of Holy Scripture, and to give it priority over tradition, settled in to the Church of England, and it characterizes her still. Via Media.

Next Week: A Church for Clergy or One That Submits to Christ?

Collective Denial. By Revd. Jon Shuler

The Barnabas Road Initiative (BRi) is challenging clergy to do two things: bring one young man each year into a disciple-making relationship with themselves; and to begin to change the way the local congregation is governed by bringing him into the oversight of the congregation, if and when appropriate. Undergirding both of these challenges is the conviction that there is only one mission for the church of Christ Jesus, and that is the Final Command. (Mt 28:19) This conviction is based on the historic teaching of the Anglican Family, affirmed to this day, that the Holy Scriptures are the supreme authority in the church. But is that teaching really what Anglicans believe, or do they only say that it is so? Do we go on claiming something, while denying, by our actions, that it is true?

The conviction that something is true when it is false, especially if a deeply held “core belief,” makes openness to its being wrong very difficult. It is well known that this frequently can cause a great deal of psychological harm. The lack of the emotional courage necessary to face the truth leads to much personal and familial pain and suffering. It also can cause great harm to any organization. Every business that has every died in the marketplace went through such a season of denial. There was a denial of the reality of decline, until it was too late. This is true of the Western Church in general, and of the Anglican Family as well.

Some will say, ‘But the Anglican Family is growing in the Southern Hemisphere,’ and of course in some parts this is true. But look at England, Canada, the USA, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. There the story is not true. There you will see steady decline for generations, and massive decline in several, especially in the UK. Let us leave them and just be honest about North America, can we?

It is undeniable that the Lord Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is to grow. Many parables could be cited, but of all of them the Parable of the Sower might be the best to consider.(Mt 13:1-9, 18-23) In that parable only one fourth of the seed sown brings forth a harvest. One half is lost completely, one forth is “unfruitful.” (v. 22) and one fourth is productive. The seed that was sown was the “word of the kingdom.” (v. 19) Can anyone deny that that is to be the message of the church? Does it only apply to Anglicans in the Southern Hemisphere? Of course not. What then is the difference?

In the Southern Hemisphere, where Anglicans are faithful and growth is occurring, it is expected that those who are baptized as infants come to saving faith and embrace the way of Christ. They are taught how to follow with all their life. They are taught that Christ is Lord of all. They are taught to believe the Holy Scriptures are true. They are taught that the word of God “cannot be broken.” (John 10:35) In short, they are “made disciples” as the Risen Christ commanded his church to do. And when that happens, they in turn help make other disciples. That shows true faithfulness to Holy Scripture, to which they submit. They grow. They do not live in collective denial.

Next Week: Do What I Say, Not What I Do.

The Priority of Matthew 28:19. By Revd. Jon Shuler

The Barnabas Road Initiative (BRi) is challenging clergy to bring one young man each year into a disciple-making relationship with themselves, at the center of their ministry. There are two overlapping hopes for this project: first that the number of disciple-making men in the life of the local church would increase; and second, that the local oversight of the congregation would be reformed by their inclusion into the spiritual governance, when appropriate. Undergirding both of these hopes is the conviction that there is only one mission that encompassed all that Jesus desires for his church, and that is the Final Command. (Mt 28:19) But is this so? Do the other gospels give us a different choice?

In the Twentieth Century, the majority of New Testament scholarship became focused on the way the New Testament came to be, rather than on the authority of what it taught. As part of that transition, the question of which gospel was written first came to the fore. The primacy of Matthew was generally denied. The moment someone lifts up Matthew 28:19 as the mission of the church, he can expect to be challenged by someone querying the priority of that command over the teaching of other parts of the gospel witness. The implication is almost always leaning toward the assertion that the social dimensions of the gospel must be given at least equal, if not more, authority. But is this so?

All four gospels record clear commands of the Lord Jesus, at the very end of his earthly life and ministry, to carry on his mission by the preaching of the gospel. For anyone who is truly submitted to the Word of God written, that is a true Christian, the evidence is overwhelming. Were that not enough, the witness of the Acts of the Apostles makes manifest that the early church grew exponentially because it believed the command of the Lord to be central. Can it be doubted that the church grew because all Christians were committed to making disciples? Not just a few. They were obeying the absolutely clear commandment, given to the church, as evidenced most clearly by Matthew’s recording of the Risen Lord’s Final Command. It encompasses all the others. Nothing Jesus commanded is left out. Nothing.

Believing this to be so, and preaching and teaching it, an Anglican in North America would have been thought odd over the last several generations. Many thought that this priority made one a Baptist. But gradually that has changed. The Book of Common Prayer (2019) actually incorporates the Final Command at several places, most significantly within the Prayers of the People in the Standard Text. But sadly it places it fourth in the petitions. In the Renewed Ancient Text, it is eliminated. Permission is even given (in the Additional Directions) to eliminate it always.

Is the Final Command really the mission of the church? If it is should it not have the priority in the life and ministry of the church, as Mathew 28:19 clearly suggests? If it is the Final Command of the Risen Lord Jesus, which the generations have always believed, shouldn’t every faithful leader and layman know it and live by it today?

Next Week: Collective Denial

Is There Only One Mission? By Revd. Jon Shuler

Historically I would argue that it has always been believed to be so by faithful leaders, and that in every place and time that the gospel of the kingdom has been expanding to more and more people, it has been believed without question. So why is it a radical idea today in the historical churches? Though there may be many other reasons, the principal one is a loss of confidence in the truth of God’s Word written.

During the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, two forces converged to drive biblical confidence to the edge of Christendom. First was the Darwinian revolution, and second was the Freudian revolution. The intellectual ideas associated with both of them grew more and more intensely hostile to historic orthodox Christianity, and anti Christian ideas moved relentlessly through the cultural hierarchy of the western nations. By the middle of the Twentieth Century many men being trained for vocational ministry in Western seminaries were graduating with a subtle mistrust of the Holy Scriptures as fully authoritative. Nevertheless, for Anglicans, the biblical framework of the historic Book of Common Prayer served to keep many of the people of God and many clergy on an orthodox path for multiple decades. With the authorization of the BCP of 1979, and its break from historic Anglican orthodoxy, that constraint was almost entirely broken.

As a consequence of those changes at least two other factors reinforced the damage being done. Losing complete confidence in Holy Scripture changed the preaching normally heard in an Episcopal (Anglican) congregation. Clear teaching of the gospel of Christ diminished, and thematic, anecdotal, and psychological teaching took its place. The biblical truth that a baptized child must grow up to personally affirm the faith, and be demonstrably born again of the Spirit, almost entirely disappeared. Conversion was no longer understood to be the bedrock of orthodox Christianity. At the same time, the Sexual Revolution which erupted in the 1960’s, swept more and more churchgoing people into an unexamined moral and theological framework that was destructive of the family, the church, and society.

Nevertheless, every bible printed placed Matthew’s Gospel at the front of the New Testament, and its final verses made explicit that the one work the church was to do, the mission she was given by her Risen Lord, was to “go and make disciples of all nations.” Today, globally, God is awakening faithful leaders to its absolute priority.

Next Week: The Priority of Matthew 28:19

Canons & Parochial Freedom. By Revd. Jon Shuler

The Barnabas Road Initiative (BRi) is challenging clergy to bring one young man each year into a disciple-making relationship with themselves, at the center of their ministry. There are two overlapping hopes for this project: first that the number of disciple-making men in the life of the local church would increase; and second, that the local oversight of the congregation would be reformed by their inclusion into the spiritual governance, when appropriate. I am arguing that this would be a return to early apostolic and sub-apostolic patterns. Today let us think about the authority of the local parish in the light of the Canons. Can one parish reform the ministry in its own household?

Canonical lawyers are a unique breed, and I am not one of them. I do, however, hold tenaciously to the truth that the Canons are for the good of the church in its ministry to save souls. Whatever assists that end is a good rule for the church.

Recent court decisions in South Carolina have devastated some parishes, and seek to turn their properties over to those who have no right to them at all, in the sight of God. It is a moral and legal travesty, but it is the civil law. In the church, a law that is immoral would be excised from the canon. Indeed, it should never have been there in the first place. The same is true of any law that restricts, unduly, the ministry of the salvation of souls. It is not helping the ministry of the church, it is impeding it. No person of good faith would deny this. But what if the accumulation of canonical precedent is drowning the churches ability to get on with its primary task? Not that any of it is of evil intent, but, that it crushes the very advance of the kingdom of God by its burden?

Suppose that a diocesan bishop was willing to give a parish that desired it the opportunity to try this experimental reform. Could they not give a specific dispensation from canons that would be contrary or prohibitive, and grant a season of trial reform? The Vestry of such a parish, and the necessary bylaws, could be temporarily suspended. That parish could then prayerfully move toward the call and ordering of a local ministerial college, that would be overseen by the rector. Such a step could include a regular, perhaps annual, review of the reform by the diocesan bishop. He could retain the right, similar to that of the Episcopal Visitor of a religious order, to adjudicate any problem that had become intractable, and bring godly counsel. Those who joined the trial leadership team would know that it was a probationary venture.

If a bishop was willing to oversee such a change, how would those called to join this local team be chosen? Surely the clear guidance given by the apostles in the New Testament would be the guide. The qualification of a presbyter/elder, and that of a deacon, is clearly given in the Pastoral Epistles. The congregation and rector would make prayerful selection of those candidates chosen and set apart to serve.

The whole purpose of such a trial would be to see if it helped the spiritual growth of the body of Christ. Are more true disciple-making disciples of Jesus being made?

Next Week: Is There Only One Mission?