Anglican Mission in the Americas
| Anglican Mission in the Americas | |
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| Classification | Anglican |
|---|---|
| Orientation | mostly Anglican Charismatics and other Evangelicals, but some Anglo-Catholics |
| Polity | Episcopal |
| Leader | Bishop Chuck Murphy |
| Associations | National Association of Evangelicals, Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas |
| Geographical areas | Canada and United States |
| Origin | 2000 |
| Separated from | Episcopal Church in the USA |
| Branched from | Church of the Province of Rwanda |
| Congregations | 156[1] |
| Official website | www.theamia.org |
The Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) or The Anglican Mission (AM), formerly Anglican Mission in America (AMiA), is a Christian missionary organization active in the United States and Canada which emphasizes church planting. It was established as a missionary outreach of the Anglican Church of the Province of Rwanda in 2000.
The Anglican Mission is divided into three organizations: the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA), the Anglican Coalition in Canada (ACiC) and the Anglican Coalition in America (ACiA). Its Mission Center is located in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. The AM is led by Bishop Chuck Murphy.[2]
The AM was formed in response to the theological liberalism of the Episcopal Church in the United States (TEC) and the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC), the North American branches of the Anglican Communion. Anglican Mission members have criticized numerous actions, policies and doctrines of ECUSA as being in conflict with the traditional Christian understanding of the Bible.
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[edit] History
| Part of a series on the Anglican realignment |
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| Provinces | |
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Anglican Church in North America · Anglican Church of the Southern Cone of America · Church of the Province of Rwanda |
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| Associations | |
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American Anglican Council · Anglican Coalition in Canada · Anglican Communion Network · Anglican Network in Canada · Federation of Anglican Churches in the Americas |
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| Events | |
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Global Anglican Future Conference · Departures from the Episcopal Church |
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| Related churches | |
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Anglican Mission in the Americas · Anglican Province of America · Convocation of Anglicans in North America · Episcopal Missionary Church · Reformed Episcopal Church |
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| People | |
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Peter Akinola · Robert Duncan · Drexel Gomez · Gene Robinson · Gregory Venables · Rowan Williams |
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| Issues | |
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Anglicanism · Windsor Report · Ordination of women · Homosexuality and Anglicanism |
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The origin of the Anglican Mission was the First Promise Movement.[3] In 1997, 30 priests, led by Chuck Murphy, released a document called The First Promise which "declared the authority of the Episcopal Church to be 'fundamentally impaired' because they no longer upheld the 'truth of the gospel'".[4] The following year, St. Andrews Church of Little Rock, Arkansas, became one of the first in North America to come under the oversight of the Global South provinces.[5] The continued controversy in the Anglican Communion led Archbishops Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda and Moses Tay of South East Asia to consecrate Chuck Murphy and John Rodgers as bishops at St. Andrew's Cathedral, Singapore, on January 29, 2000. The Anglican Mission was officially established later in August in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The intervention of foreign Anglican primates into the provinces of the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada was and continues to be highly controversial within the Anglican Communion.
The Episcopal Church's acceptance of clergy in homosexual relationships is one highly publicized example of conflict between AMiA and TEC. In 2003, the election and ordination of Gene Robinson as the Episcopal Church's first openly gay, non-celibate bishop caused many conservative Episcopal churches to turn to the AMiA and similar Anglican break-away groups.[citation needed] In January 2006, the Anglican Coalition in Canada came under the AMiA's oversight. The following year the Mission was restructured as the Anglican Mission in the Americas. This new structure included within it the AMiA, ACiC, and the ACiA.
The Anglican Mission was a founding member of the Common Cause Partnership and of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). The Anglican Mission's relationship with the Anglican Church in North America was defined by protocol between the AM, the Province of Rwanda, and the ACNA.[6] According to the protocol, the AM was under the authority of the ACNA's constitution and canons except where those documents conflict with the AM's charter. On May 18, 2010, however, it was announced that the AM would seek "ministry partner" status with the ACNA and remain fully a part of the Province of Rwanda.[7]
[edit] Structure
The Anglican Mission remained under the oversight of the Church of the Province of Rwanda, a member church of the Anglican Communion, through 2011. On December 5, 2011 Bishop Murphy and most of the bishops of the AM announced to the Province of Rwanda that the Anglican Mission would shortly be severing its relationship with the Rwandan Church.[8]The two bishops who did not resign from the Rwandan church's House of Bishops were appointed by the Archbishop of Rwanda to oversee the parishes and clergy in the USA that remained in affiliation with the Province of Rwanda. All clergy had been ordained under the supervision of the Archbishop of Rwanda and other participating Anglican Primates and Rwandan bishops. Clergy were not sent from Rwanda but were drawn from North America and were often former TEC or ACC priests.
The Anglican Mission includes three organizations within its umbrella: the Anglican Mission in America, the Anglican Coalition of Canada and the Anglican Coalition in America. The division into three groups allows the AM to operate in both Canada and the U.S., and it accommodates two different positions on the ordination of women. The AMiA only ordains women as deacons while both the ACiC and the ACiA open the priesthood to women.[9][10]
The structure of the Anglican Mission is defined in its charter.[11] The Anglican Mission has been led by a Primatial Vicar who is the presiding ecclesiastical authority. The vicar was a member of the Provincial Council's executive committee and sat in the Rwandan House of Bishops. In Bishop Murphy's withdrawal letter, he noted that the formal connection between the Anglican Mission and the Province of Rwanda was confined to his own standing as the Primatial Vicar.
The Council of Missionary Bishops assisted the vicar in ecclesiastical leadership. When episcopal vacancies occurred, the House of Bishops of the Province of Rwanda appointed replacements from among candidates nominated by the council. Unlike most other Anglican bodies, the AM does not have dioceses. The Board of Directors, with the Primatial Vicar as chairman, is charged with conducting the Mission's secular business. The Executive Director manages daily administrative affairs and heads the staff of the Mission Center.
[edit] Status with regard to the Anglican Communion
The AMiA claim that it remained part of the worldwide Anglican Communion through the Province of Rwanda was recognized by many Anglican primates, including George Carey, who was Archbishop of Canterbury (head of the Anglican Communion) at the time of the formation of AMiA.
Archbishop Carey's comments from his final address to the Anglican Consultative Council in 2002 were:
I have been clear in my condemnation of the schism created by AMiA and the actions of those Primates and other bishops who consecrated the six bishops. Sadly, I see little sign of willingness on the part of some bishops in the Communion to play their part in discouraging teaching or action that leads some conscientious clergy to conclude that they have no option other than to leave us for AMiA.[12]
Many in the AM took issue with the above statements, holding that they were very much a part of the Anglican Communion through the oversight of the Church of the Province of Rwanda. Nonetheless, the AM was not formally in communion with the Church of England or recognized as being in communion with the worldwide Anglican Communion by any of its four instruments of communion. The current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has taken the same line on the standing of the AM by refusing to invite any Anglican Mission bishop or representative to the 2008 Lambeth Conference.
[edit] Related movements
The Anglican Mission has some similarities to the Continuing Anglican Movement with several obvious differences:
- it has claimed to be a part of the Anglican Communion, whereas most of the Continuing Churches disavow the Anglican Communion
- parts of the organization ordain women to the priesthood, and others only to the diaconate, while the Continuing Anglican churches do not ordain women
- some of its congregations continue to use the 1979 Book of Common Prayer of TEC which Continuing Anglicans consider to be defective. The AM has produced an updated version of the 1662, 1928 and 1962 (Canadian) Books of Common Prayer for consideration by its churches in North America. Peter Toon has led this effort.[13]
[edit] See also
- Anglican Communion Network
- Anglican views of homosexuality
- Convergence Movement
- Convocation of Anglicans in North America, a similar body established by the Church of Nigeria
[edit] References
- ^ Number of Anglican Mission churches. Accessed May 21, 2010.
- ^ The Anglican Mission: Current Leaders. Accessed March 13, 2010.
- ^ The Anglican Mission: Highlights of the First 10 Years. Accessed 16 March 2010.
- ^ "The Anglican Mission: It Began with a Promise..." Accessed March 16, 2010
- ^ "St. Andrew's - Our Story". Accessed March 16, 2010.
- ^ Protocol Governing the Relationship between The Anglican Mission in the Americas and the Anglican Church in North America. Accessed March 13, 2010.
- ^ The Anglican Mission’s Relationship with the Anglican Church in North America, May 18, 2010. Accessed May 21, 2010.
- ^ "Leaving Rwanda: Breakaway Anglicans Break Away Again". Christianity Today. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
- ^ "Our Structure". The Anglican Mission in the Americas. Accessed December 21, 2009.
- ^ The AMiA - The Anglican Mission in the Americas, Province de l'Eglise Anglicane au Rwanda. Retrieved January 21, 2009.
- ^ Canonical Charter for Ministry of the Anglican Mission in the Americas. Accessed March 13, 2010.
- ^ "Archbishop of Canterbury's Presidential Address". Anglican Communion News Service. Accessed December 21, 2009.
- ^ See Anglicanmarketplace.com and Pbsusa.org
