Source:  AAC Weekly Update The following message from Bishop David Anderson first appeared in the July 12, 2013 edition of the AAC’s Weekly Email Update. Sign up for this free email here. 
Dear Friends of the Anglican Realignment,
Recently I attended the Anglican Church in North America’s (ACNA) College of Bishops meeting in Nashotah, Wisconsin. One of the things that has been under discussion for some time is a new Ordinal [liturgy for ordaining Bishops, Priests, and Deacons] for use in the ACNA. Many have felt that the American Episcopal Church’s (TEC) 1979 Ordinal leaves much to be desired, and individual ACNA bishops have been using a variety of Anglican Communion Ordinals. The goal is to have a thoroughly orthodox Anglican Ordinal for common use in the ACNA. In the old 1662 English Prayer Book, which is the gold standard for much of the Anglican Communion, the ordination of a bishop has the following question to be posed by the Archbishop to the bishop ordinand: “Are you ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word; and both privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to do the same?” This challenge to the bishop ordinand was continued in the American tradition up to and including the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Then, in the 1976 trial-use Prayer Book, which was adopted in 1979 as the official TEC Book of Common Prayer, the above challenge to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine gave way to a question so mild that ordinands of questionable orthodoxy didn’t even need to cross their fingers: “Will you guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church?” Those who superintended the implementation of the 1979 Prayer Book prepared the way for the broad, pluralistic, “anything goes” church of today, where the current Presiding Bishop can opine that there are many ways to God: Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, whatever works for you. I think that this is exactly the kind of non-Christian false teaching that the old prayer books had in mind in charging new bishops to “banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word.” In fact, the old prayer book went even further in challenging them to not only practice this personally but to call upon others to do the same. There were at one point, before the realignment commenced, a number of orthodox bishops in TEC. Many of those orthodox bishops, both in active duty and retired, remembering the challenge they had accepted and affirmed in their ordination, banished the false teaching of TEC by leaving TEC and ultimately moving into the ACNA, which is concerned not only with orthodox Anglican Christianity but also with planting Great Commission churches and taking the authentic Good News of Jesus Christ to the lost in North America. Jesus told his followers “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you,” (Matthew 28:19-20 ESV). A key part of the Great Commission isn’t just the teaching and preaching that helps the individual come to the decision to be baptized, but also the discipling of the individual after the baptism. The work of the teacher and preacher is accompanied by a work of the Holy Spirit called prevenient grace, and then in the baptism itself there is an infilling of the individual by the Holy Spirit, and all of this is needed to rebuild the individual in the image of God. No matter our age, when we are newly baptized we need someone, or indeed several people, to love us enough to stay with us and mentor us into a mature Christian adulthood. Discipleship embodies the word discipline, and means that we are both willing and able to come under the discipline of the Lord, to pattern our life accordingly, and to accept the responsibilities that come with it. Then, later, we can in turn disciple others as we have been discipled. Discipling a new Christian means helping him or her to establish godly patterns daily and weekly that ensure good spiritual health and growth. This includes daily Bible reading and prayer time, fellowship with other Christians, at least weekly worship in a church, managing money according to Biblical principles, and taking opportunities to invest time and energy in service to others. Part of the battle in our present world that disciples have to face is the argumentation over what is true. We have heard some Episcopal Church leaders say that you have your truth and they have their truth, and the implication is that everyone can have their own truth and it’s all valid. The culture currently doesn’t help much, since truth and how one comes to know truth seem for many people to be up for grabs. Once people thought the sun revolved around the earth, then the heliocentric model pushed the former into the dustbin. Sir Isaac Newton and his theories of gravitation helped the new truth to make sense, until Albert Einstein brought in the theory of relativity, and then if that wasn’t enough of a shock, it became apparent that the truth for small particles in micro-space seemed to be different from the truth for large gravitational bodies in macro-space, with different types of mathematical equations required for each. Einstein struggled with the fact that the physics that he knew couldn’t bring both worlds together in a single set of laws and equations. A concept called Quantum Physics emerged and very strange things seemed to be permissible. All of this helped set the stage for a broad-scale questioning of truth, both in the physical world and in matters pertaining to God and mankind. I do firmly believe that eventually a common set of laws of the physical universe will be found, and there will be not several but one unified truth about the physics of very small objects and those of gargantuan size. It may take even more pages of equations than the solution to Fermat’s Last Theorem, but I believe it will be found, for I believe that there is only one lawgiver in and outside this universe, and only one set of laws given by him and only in and through God will final unity be found. Jesus Christ gave us the truth about the Father, about himself, about us, and about how our relationship with the Father can be established and sealed in grace. All truths put forward by different religions or even individuals are not necessarily complete truths. Some are partial truths while others are simply not true at all, and not all so-called truths have happy outcomes now or later. I do firmly believe that Jesus Christ is as he said of himself, “The Way, the Truth, and the Life, and none come to the Father except by me.” It is the duty of the bishop to drive away false teaching within the church, confront it in the public square openly and in reasoned argumentation refute it, and see that in the discipleship of the baptized they are taught to do the same. Everyone should be able to give testimony to the faith that is within him or her. Perhaps with the reintroduction of the mandatory challenge to bishops ordinand, we shall see less strange and erroneous doctrine being put forward and fewer errant clerics. Do keep the faith apostolic and historic, and remember that, for all of us, believing needs to be accompanied by discipline and action. May Jesus Christ bless you in this endeavor.

Blessings and peace in Christ Jesus,
+David The Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, Sr. President and CEO, American Anglican Council