Note from Bishop Don:
We have just concluded the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) Leadership Council meeting in Dallas.
I’m pleased to tell you that the Leadership Council has reviewed all applications for membership and has approved ANiC as a diocese in ACNA. We are one of the 28 dioceses and dioceses-in-formation approved. As a result, we will be able to send all three ANiC bishops, four clergy, four lay members and three young adult members as delegates to the June 22-25 ACNA inaugural provincial assembly (synod).
Emerging Anglican Province announces 28 dioceses
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 25 April 2009
Dallas/Fort Worth – Leaders representing Canadian and US orthodox Anglican jurisdictions approved applications for membership of 28 dioceses and dioceses-in-formation and finalized plans for launching the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). Twelve Anglican organizations are uniting to form the ACNA.
The ACNA Leadership Council, in addition to accepting these dioceses as constituent members, finalized a draft constitution and a comprehensive set of canons (Church bylaws) for ratification by the provincial assembly. A list of the new dioceses, the constitution and the canons will be available at www.united-anglicans.org.
“It is a great encouragement to see the fruit of many years’ work,” said the Right Reverend Robert Duncan, archbishop-elect of the Anglican Church in North America and Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. “Today 23 dioceses and five dioceses-in-formation joined together to reconstitute an orthodox, Biblical, missionary and united Church in North America.”
The Anglican Church in North America holds its inaugural provincial assembly 22-25 June 2009 in St Vincent’s Cathedral, Bedford, Texas. Delegates to this inaugural provincial assembly will be selected by the 28 constituent dioceses and dioceses-in-formation according to an agreed apportionment (contained in Title I, Canon 5).
In addition to the official delegates, a number of other Anglican and ecumenical Christian leaders are expected to be present at the provincial assembly, demonstrating the breadth of recognition and fellowship accorded ACNA. Already, three prominent Ecumenical leaders are confirmed speakers at the ACNA provincial assembly:
- Pastor Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church,
- His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, the Archbishop of Washington and New York and the Metropolitan of All America and Canada for the Orthodox Church in America, and
- the Rev Todd Hunter, Director of West Coast Church Planting for the Anglican Mission in the Americas.
Earlier this month, seven Primates (Archbishops leading Churches in the Anglican Communion) issued a statement recognizing the Anglican Church in North America as an Emergent Province. These Primates, who represent 70 per cent of committed Anglicans worldwide, said in their statement, “Though many Provinces are in impaired or broken communion with TEC [the Episcopal Church] and the Anglican Church of Canada, our fellowship with faithful Anglicans in North America remains steadfast. The FCA [Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans] Primates’ Council recognizes the Anglican Church in North America as genuinely Anglican and recommends that Anglican Provinces affirm full communion with the ACNA.”
The Anglican Church in North America unites some 100,000 Anglicans in 700 parishes into a single church. Jurisdictions which have joined together to form the 28 dioceses and dioceses-in-formation of the Anglican Church in North America are: the dioceses of Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy and San Joaquin; the Anglican Mission in the Americas; the Convocation of Anglicans in North America; the Anglican Network in Canada; the Anglican Coalition in Canada; the Reformed Episcopal Church; and the missionary initiatives of Kenya, Uganda, and South America’s Southern Cone. Additionally, the American Anglican Council and Forward in Faith North America are founding organizations.
That’s great. But I think the real accomplishment will be when we are able to have a unified Canadian diocese, or at least some sort of Canadian umbrella group of ACNA dioceses and parishes, to better co-ordinate church planting and evangelism in Canada. Keeping in mind that dioceses in ANCA are not necessarily geographical, it would still be good to work together to establish the ANCA name and presence in Canada as much as possible. (I know you’re working on that… still, it did strike me as strange that this would not be the obvious time – with the official launch of ACNA – to form a united Canadian diocese. There do not seem, as in the case of FiFNA parishes – for example, to be any major theological reasons for a separate structure.)
The Provincial Assembly is not actually a “synod.” Under the provisional ACNA constitution it has extremely limited powers. It elects the Provincial Council and ratifies the canons and constitutional amendments that the Provincial Council adopts. If the ACNA Governance Task Force’s two proposed amendments related to the Provincial Council were adopted at the Fort Worth/Dallas meeting, it has even less powers. These amendments changed the composition of the Provincial Council and took away from the Provincial Assembly the power to elect the Provincial Council. Except for ratifying the legislative acts of the Provincial Council, the Provincial Assembly primarily serves as a periodic mission conference of the ACNA like the Winter Conference of the AMiA.
I am surprised that the Anglican Network in Canada accepted the reduced status of an ACNA diocese. Under the provisional constitution and proposed code of canons of the ACNA an ACNA diocese does not choose its own bishops. The ACNA College of Bishops chooses the bishops of an ACNA diocese. The diocese may nominate two or three candidates for the office of bishop for the consideration of the College of Bishops. However, the College of Bishops is not required to select one of these candidates. The provisional constitution and proposed code of canons do not prohibit the College of Bishops from choosing its own candidate instead of one of the diocese’s candidates. If the College of Bishops rejects a diocese’s candidates, the proposed code of canons makes no provision for the diocese to nominate additional candidates. As the proposed code of canons is worded, the parent Province of an ACNA diocese that is also an extraterritorial jurisdiction of a Province outside of North America can play a substantial role in the nomination process and even one person such as in the case of the AMiA Primatial Vicar can have the final say in who is nominated by the diocese. US bishops dominate the ACNA College of Bishops and US bishops will be selecting the bishops of the Canadian dioceses of the ACNA. I would have thought that the Anglican Network in Canada would have sought special status as a sub-province of the ACNA with its own synod and full power and authority to elect its own bishops and to confirm their election.
The ACNA provisional constitution and proposed code of canons contains provisions that are a serious barrier to the participation of two groups of orthodox North American Anglicans in the ACNA—classical evangelical Anglicans who do not subscribe to the Anglo-Catholic position on the historic episcopate adopted by the ACNA in its fundamental declarations and orthodox Anglicans who value the autonomy of the diocese, especially the long tradition of North American dioceses electing their own bishops, and a synodical form of church government.
I would like to examine the finalized draft of the ACNA constitution and code of canons. The provisional constitution and proposed code of canons had a substantial number of problems. A detailed analysis of these problems can be found on the Internet at http://anglicansablaze.blogspot.com/2009/04/acna-provisional-constitution-blueprint.html , http://anglicansablaze.blogspot.com/2009/04/acna-draft-canons-analysis-of-their.html , and http://anglicansablaze.blogspot.com/2009/04/acna-draft-canons-analysis-of-their_18.html . This analysis was submitted to acting ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan and the ACNA Governance Task Force with a number of proposed changes to these documents. I would be interested to see if the finalized draft of the constitution and code of canons address these problems.
I checked the new United Anglicans web site but it is still under construction.
So, from what I understand, under this arrangement you could have an ANiC, AMiA, and REC church in the same city, and they would all be in different dioceses? This seems a bit of a crazy situation. Hope that the various Canadian jurisdictions will be quickly combined into geographically based dioceses.
What would be crazy about that situation? So long as there is no confusion among bishops about who’s overseeing whom what’s the problem?
The one thing we know about the geographic diocesan system is this: in North America: it hasn’t worked. It hasn’t safeguarded the faith or preserved Godly order, which is why we have bishops.
Havibg said that I would guess that ANiC and ACiC will be able to unite without undue difficulty when its leadership has time to worry about such things. Once that is settled is the time to attempt to gain subprovince status if we think we need it. My guess is that the REC with its long history will stay as it is, which is fine.
Canada won’t have geographically based dioceses, at least not right away. ACiC did not join ANiC, though they were invited to do so. ACiC, I understand, will continue to be part of AMiA, which will give them more latitude and autonomy in furthering their work of church planting. This should be apparent in the list of dioceses when it is released.
–I learned this from a priest who attended the meeting.
I am surprised by the lack of response to Robin Jordan’s critique of ACNA’s proposed constitution. I notice that Essentials earlier had a link on its homepage to someone making criticisms of ACNA’s provisional constitution, but that link has now been removed. Is there no serious concern or discussion within ANiC about these constitutional problems?
Chris (#6), I can think of a couple of explanations. First, Robin’s comment was made two days after the original post. Unless a vigorous conversation begins soon after a post is made, the thread quickly goes stale and few people revisit the comments. Two days is a long time in the blogosphere. Your comment and mine will likely be read by virtually no one. They are already ancient history. It’s the nature of the beast.
The second reason – and here I am speaking for myself – is that details of polity don’t greatly interest me. Unless doctrine and theological foundations are solid, everything else is built on sand. This is why the spiritual poverty of ACoC and TEC will never be corrected by synodical resolutions, special committee reports, and the like. If the spiritual underpinning are solid, the superstructure, although it may have flaws, still has a good chance of getting sorted out in time. Accordingly, I, for one, am not especially concerned about the “provisional” constitution.
Warren,
I read it.
I can’t get worked up about the organisational details either and agree with your analysis.
I confess, I didn’t read it. I agree with Warren on that score.