By Robin G. Jordan
Assembly 2014’s Provincial Assembly Delegates Meeting is
scheduled for late on Friday afternoon.
The meeting is scheduled to last an hour and a half, from 3:45 PM to
5:15 PM, which the top ACNA leaders deem sufficient time for the meeting to
conduct its business—rubber stamping the proposed changes to the ACNA
constitution and canons that will be presented to the meeting.
By this time the delegates will be caught up in the
excitement of the four-day long Assembly. They also be tired and hungry after a
long day and to some degree in a state of mental and physical exhaustion—the
kind of exhaustion that usually hits participants two or three days into a long
conference or convention. They are not going to be interested in lengthy
explanations of the proposals or drawn-out debates of their strengths and
weaknesses. Indeed their minds at this stage are not likely to be on the
proposals but elsewhere.
The top ACNA leaders who schedule the meeting for this time know this. It is the reason, I suspect, that they scheduled the meeting for
this particular spot in the Assembly program. Conditions will be optimal for
the ratification of these changes with little or no discussion.
Under these conditions the changes might even be ratified by
general consent with the chair asking if there is any objection to the
ratification of a particular change, and if there is none, announcing the
ratification of that change.
Three days into the Assembly the delegates are likely to be
in the frame of mind to go along with this manner of conducting business. Delegates
who are opposed to the changes are also less likely to raise objections. They
are going to face pressure from their fellow delegates to keep quiet,
particularly from those who are ready to take a nap or have a snack before
preparing for the banquet later that evening.
If the Provincial Assembly was a real legislative body, its
sole focus would be to adopt and amend the constitution, to make canons and
regulations, and to perform other functions as provided in the constitution. These functions might include the election of a new Archbishop. It,
however, is a “rubber stamp.” The constitutional and canonical changes that the
Assembly is meant to ratify are formalities they are expected to legitimate and
are done to create the superficial appearance of clergy and lay participation
in the governance of the Anglican Church in North America at the denominational
level [1].
The Provincial Assembly has no actual power. Its meetings
are tied to the meetings of the more powerful denominational organs—the College
of Bishops, Archbishop’s Cabinet, Executive Committee, and Provincial Council.
It cannot form committees and task forces of its own or conduct inquiries and
investigations and consequently cannot make meaningful recommendations to the
other denominational organs or to the several dioceses and networks. It is a
toy synod. It is the plaything of those who actually run the Anglican Church in
North America.
In this regard, the ACNA is like a company with shareholders
but whose directors are not accountable to the shareholders’ meeting. The
shareholders’ meeting is cosmetic—done for the sake of appearance. The
directors need the shareholders’ money to operate the business but they do not
want to give the shareholders a say in how they run the company. Disgruntled
shareholders are told that they can always sell their shares. In the case of
the ACNA, stakeholders are told they can always leave the denomination.
The Scriptures teach that Christians are not only accountable
to God but also they are accountable to each other. A denomination, judicatory,
or congregation in which leaders have no real accountability is not an
organization built upon biblical principles. Bishops without functioning synods
of godly clergy and laity to share in the governance of the Church and to serve
as a check and a balance to the episcopate are likely to abuse their office as can be seen from
the history of the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. This is a
lesson that the Anglican Church in North America has yet to learn and may learn it
to detriment of the entire denomination.
See also
Parsing Archbishop Duncan's Last State of the Church Address
The Anglican Church in North America Unveils Proposed New Rites and Governing Document Changes
Photo: CNS/Bob Roller
1 comment:
As of a few minutes ago the ACNA had posted nothing about the Provincial Assembly Delegates Meeting on its website. The only thing posted under the title "Friday, June 27: Provincial Assembly Day Three" was a summary of the breakout session "Becoming a Healing Church" and a video "Friday Morning Plenary - JI Packer and Os Guinness speak at Assembly 2014." The communications team either did not cover the meeting or it was asked not to post anything about the meeting. A third possibility is that the communications team did not consider the meeting important enough to post anything about it. Considering the paucity of information in the post about the Provincial Council Delegates Meeting on the ACNA website, no post on the Provincial Assembly Delegates Meeting may not be surprising.
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