Do the Bishops of the ACNA have teaching authority when they speak or not?
by Canon Phil Ashey, AAC:
On January 19, the Anglican Church in North America published Sexuality and Identity: A Pastoral Statement from the College of Bishops. This Statement from the ACNA College of Bishops sought to address at least three pressing questions:
- What should our biblical and pastoral response be to those within our Church who self-identify as Christians with same-sex attraction? This raises two more related questions:
- What is the biblical vision for transformation with regard to same-sex attraction?
- What is the most helpful language to employ in describing the reality of same-sex attraction?
In their Pastoral Statement, the College of Bishops reaffirmed the biblical, traditional teaching that marriage is a life-long covenant between a man and a woman “both to self-giving love and exclusive fidelity,” and that same-sex sexual practice is “the exchanging of the truth about God for a lie” and a “serving of the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25) according to the universal and uniform witness among the teachers of the Church throughout the ages.
In doing so, the College appealed not only to the plain reading of the Scriptures but also to a teaching authority they have as overseers in the Church of Christ. In exercising this authority, they sit with the teachers of the Church in their interpretation and application of the Scriptures both across time (temporally) and across the world (geographically). Elsewhere, I wrote about this as the consensus fidelium or “mind of the Church.”[1] Among Anglicans, important and controversial matters of faith, doctrine, and order must be guided by the mind of the whole Church—of which Bishops speak with special responsibility in guarding that mind expressed in the faith and order of the Church.[2]
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