Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Monday, March 10, 2014

New ACNA Catechism Teaches Roman Catholic Doctrines of Grace and Justification?


Does the new ACNA catechism teach the Roman Catholic doctrines of grace and justification? 
 

By Robin G. Jordan

In this article we examine Part IV of Being a Christianity: An Anglican Catechism. Titled “Behaving Christianly: The Ten Commandments and Obedience to Christ,” this part of the new ACNA catechism goes well beyond an exposition of the Ten Commandments. It serves as a platform for indoctrinating those studying the catechism in the teachings of one particular school of Anglican thought in a number of key doctrinal areas.

Both the answer to question 256 and the answer to question 259 give the appearance of having been taken from an unidentified work on the Ten Commandments. The new ACNA catechism, however, does not provide footnotes identifying its sources. Such footnotes should have been included with the catechism.

In the answer to question 263 we are introduced for the first time to how the new ACNA catechism views sanctification: “I learn God’s Law now so that, having died to sin in Christ, I might love him as I ought, delight in his will as he heals my nature…” This view of sanctification does not exclude the Roman Catholic view of grace and justification. As we shall see, the Catechism of the Catholic Church has a similar view of sanctification.

The new ACNA catechism’s view of sanctification also appears to be indebted to the psychologizing of Christianity, a twentieth century development that influenced a number of denominations, including the Episcopal Church. The Anglican Church in North America is an offshoot of the Episcopal Church. Most of its bishops and other clergy were trained in seminaries in the Episcopal Church or other denominations influenced by this development.

The answer to question 264 reiterates what the catechism teaches about faith, regeneration, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The answer to question 265 infers a particular doctrine of the Church, doctrine that is historically associated with Anglo-Catholicism and Roman Catholicism and is based on tradition, not Scripture. It is not a doctrine of the Church with which all Anglicans are in agreement. The answer to question 266 emphasizes a connection between the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and the process of “learning and living God’s Law.”
In the Lord’s Supper or Holy Eucharist, I hear the Law read, hear God’s good news of forgiveness, recall my baptismal promises, have my faith renewed, and receive grace to follow Jesus in the ways of God’s Laws and in the works of his Commandments.
What is notable about the answer to question 266 is that it presumes that the Ten Commandments will be read at every celebration of the Holy Communion. This is certainly not the case for ACNA congregations using the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Even the trial services of Holy Communion authorized by the ACNA College of Bishops do not require the reading of the Ten Commandments at every celebration of the Holy Communion. 

What is also notable about this answer is that it infers a Roman Catholic view of grace. See the explanation of actual grace and sanctifying grace in Grace:What It Is and What It Does on the Catholic Answers website. It certainly does not infer the Protestant view of grace as unmerited and unearned divine favor, a view of grace that historic Anglicanism has shared with other forms of Protestantism.

The answer to question 276 offers a part of the rationale that Anglo-Catholics have used to justify their practice of decorating their churches with crucifixes, paintings, and statues, a Medieval practice that the English Reformers rejected as idolatrous in the sixteenth century and over which Anglicans are divided in this century. The inclusion of question 276 appears to be unwarranted except to provide an argument that Anglo-Catholics can use to support their continuation of this practice and to promote its adoption by other Anglicans.

In the answer to question 279 we encounter the tendency to use terminology associated with the psychologizing of Christianity. As we shall see, this tendency is pronounced in the new ACNA catechism’s discussion of sanctification.

For the rest, see:

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