PLANO, Texas (RNS) — Conservative Anglicans disenchanted with the liberal drift in their U.S. and Canadian churches say they are confident that a new church body launched last week will one day gain a seat in the worldwide Anglican Communion.
The new Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has been organized, its leaders say, as an alternative for Anglicans who disagree with the theology of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.
“This is the beginning of a recovery of confidence in Anglicanism as a biblical, missionary church,” said former Fort Worth Episcopal Bishop Jack Iker.
Iker and other former Episcopalians have criticized their former church’s embrace of female clergy and the election of an openly gay bishop. Iker seceded, with his diocese, late last year.
Delegates representing an estimated 69,000 active Anglicans from some 650 North American parishes met June 22-25 at St. Vincent’s Cathedral in Bedford, Texas, to ratify their church constitution and nine canons, or laws.
They also installed former Pittsburgh Episcopal Bishop Robert Duncan as archbishop in a ceremony June 24 at Christ Church, a Plano megachurch that cut its ties with the Episcopal Church three years ago.
Anglican Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya anointed Duncan, 60, as ACNA’s first archbishop; he will serve a five-year term. Duncan was removed from the Episcopal Church last year for leading his diocese to secede from the denomination.
Nine of the 37 provinces in the Anglican Communion sent official representatives to the inaugural Provincial Assembly, most of them from the rapidly growing “Global South” of Africa and Asia.
ACNA leaders say they have the momentum to eventually be recognized as an official province within the Anglican Communion, but they will need the approval of two-thirds of the world’s 38 Anglican primates, and a key international Anglican council, before they can be granted full membership.
Episcopal Church headquarters in New York kept a low profile during the ACNA launch, sticking to its long-held position that it is the only official branch of Anglicanism in the United States.
Duncan said he is in regular contact with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the head of the Anglican Communion, but had not received a formal acknowledgement of his election.