Future of the Continuing Anglican church

This month’s Jt. Synod was a historic event for the Continuing Anglican movement, after four decades of both standing on Anglo-Catholic principles and also seemingly endless schism. The hope is that this event — and the intercommunion agreement announced there — will mark the eventual reunification of the Continuing churches into a single jurisdiction, as originally envisioned 40 years ago.

The history of the Continuing movement is recounted in The Day-Spring from on High, a first person memoir published earlier this year by the Rt. Rev. Paul Hewett. Bp. Hewett was involved in the movement since the beginning and since 2006 has been bishop of the Diocese of the Holy Cross. The book was for sale at the synod — while I bought mine in Kindle format in July, after meeting and sitting with Bp. Hewett at this summer’s Forward in Faith assembly.

How We Got Here

In September 1977, nearly 2,000 Anglicans gathered at the Congress of St. Louis to reject doctrinal changes recently approved by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America. The following January 28, four new bishops were consecrated in a ceremony led by retired ECUSA bishop Albert Chambers. As Hewett explained:

We divided the United States into four quadrants, such that Robert Morse was consecrated for the Pacific West, James Mote for the Rocky Mountain States, Peter Watterson for the Southeast, and Dale Doren for the Northeast. 

However, conflicts soon arose among the four men. Hewett continued:

In October of 1978, the Anglican Church in North America had a Synod in Dallas, Texas, to vote on canons and a new name. The fault line that had been widening finally broke open. One side would call itself the Anglican Catholic Church, led by Bishops Mote and Doren. The other side consisted of two Dioceses, Christ the King, and the Southeast, led by Bishops Robert Morse and Peter Watterson.

The two factions eventually split. Today, the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions formed after St. Louis include:

• 1978: Anglican Catholic Church (ACC), founded by Doren and Mote
• 1978: Anglican Province of Christ the King (APCK), founded by Morse; meanwhile, Watterson later left for the Roman Catholic Church
• 1981: United Episcopal Church of North America (UECNA), founded by Doren after splitting from the ACC
• 1991: Anglican Church in America (ACA), formed by splitting from the ACC and joining with the American Episcopal Church (established 1968 by splitting from ECUSA)
• 1992: Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC) formed from the ECUSA
• 1995: Anglican Province of America (APA), formed by splitting from the ACA
• The Diocese of the Holy Cross (DHC) (according to Hewett’s book) separated from ECUSA in 1989, joined the EMC, left the EMC for the APCK in 1995, then left the APCK in 2003 to become an independent diocese

At one point or another, all were involved or represented in the Fellowship of Concerned Churchmen (FCC, est. 1973), and most in the Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas (FACA, est. 2006). Additional insight into the first three decades of the Continuum can be found in a 2009 conference paper by longtime FCC president Wally Spaulding.

Reunification: Now and Future

On October 6, the ACA, ACC, APA and DHC signed an intercommunion agreement. They have announced plans to move towards full ecclesial integration, including common canons, hierarchies and merged dioceses. These jurisdictions share the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, and a common understanding of Holy Orders (i.e. opposition to women’s ordination).

As participants (unofficially) acknowledged, this cooperation was made possible by the retirement of the first generation of Continuing bishops. In Bp. Hewett’s book, these clergy come across as charismatic, visionary and stubborn — none more so than Bp. Morse (1924-2015), his former mentor and head of the APCK from 1978-2008.

The “G-4” (as they call themselves today) represent 217 parishes in the U.S., according to a joint prayer list posted in February.  Other major non-ECUSA Anglican groupings in the US include:

• Within the Continuing jurisdictions, the G-4 have prioritized three jurisdictions totaling 94 parishes: the APCK with 43, the EMC with 26, and the UECNA with 25 parishes (according to their current websites). The FCC website lists numerous other smaller jurisdictions, including the American Anglican Church, Anglican Church International Communion, Anglican Orthodox Church and United Anglican Church. 
• The largest grouping of Anglicans in the US and Canada outside ECUSA is the Anglican Church in North America, formed in 2009 which (according to Wikipedia) had 1,019 parishes in June 2017. It has its own liturgy, a modified version of the 1979 Rite II. Overall, the majority of dioceses do not (today) ordain women, but disagreements over this practice have been a source of tension within the ACNA.
• Within the ACNA, approximately 150 parishes are members of the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC, est. 1873). The REC has much in common with the G-4 churches: it is a member of FACA, has many parishes that use the 1928 BCP (while others use their own prayer book similar to the 1928 BCP), and it shares a common view of women’s ordination. However, its history emphasized a more Presbyterian (i.e. Reformed) view of Anglicanism — as do numerous REC parishes today — explicitly rejecting the Anglo-Catholic movement.
• Other non-ECUSA jurisdictions include the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) and the Charismatic Episcopal Church (CEC), but neither use the 1928 BCP or could be conceivably considered to be Anglo-Catholic.

These churches both cooperate and compete for attention, parishioners and resources. The biggest challenge for consolidation of the Continuing Anglican churches is the proliferation of purple shirts, suggesting that some changes may depend on retirements of the existing bishops.

Still, there is no denying that the Continuing movement is now more unified and coherent than at any time since 1978. We pray that this cooperation continues to grow, strengthening the traditional Anglican alternatives to ECUSA.