Editor’s Note: This article appears as part of a symposium responding to a recent essay by Joe Colletti (“The Young Anglican”), in which he announced his departure from the ACNA to join The Episcopal Church as part of what he describes as an Anglican “reconquista.” Please check back in the coming weeks as we continue this important conversation.
Introduction: Looking Back 20 Years
Over the last several decades, the mainline churches, American descendants of the Magisterial Reformation, have been beset with splits and splinters. Those leaving the mainlines to form new church bodies have typically pointed to the increase of theological liberalism in the mainlines that has resulted in widespread abandonment of core Christian beliefs and practices. The mainlines, in turn, have often responded with the claim that schism is worse than heresy.
Recently, Joe “Young Anglican” Colletti announced his decision to join the Episcopal Church (TEC), the mainline Anglican church in the United States. Much of his reasoning boils down to seeing his former church, the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), as schismatic, and TEC as the legitimate heir of Anglicanism in this country. Colletti has documented his Anglican journey over the last three years on his popular YouTube channel. About twenty years ago, I underwent a similar multi-year journey, which ended with me joining the ACNA. Indeed, Advent of 2026 will mark my sixteenth year in this church body, and I do not regret my decision in the least. I maintain that the ACNA is not schismatic when considering the global Anglican landscape. Rather, it is the churches of the Anglican Communion that are encouraging false teaching and heresy who are truly schismatic, for they have left the Christian faith.
At the end of the day, my reasons for staying in the ACNA are the same reasons that led me to the ACNA sixteen years ago. What follows is a description of my journey to the ACNA and why I came to believe it to be the legitimate representative of Anglicanism in North America.
The Background
I have spent most of my life in liturgical churches. My father had been a lifelong Episcopalian, and my mother had been a lifelong Roman Catholic. I was baptized as an Episcopalian a few weeks after my birth in 1979. My younger siblings, on the other hand, were baptized as babies in the Roman communion. Due to my father’s military career, we moved every few years when I was a child. Whether we would worship in the local Roman Catholic parish or local Episcopal parish varied from duty station to duty station, based on which local church would better uphold the truths of the Gospel. As a child in the 1980s, I could see few differences between the two traditions, other than that Episcopalians had married priests and allowed children to come to communion. I also preferred the physical books used by Episcopalians; I was fascinated by the Prayer Book and Hymnal. I have a vivid memory of flipping through the Book of Common Prayer around age seven, and wondering why we never said the Apostles’ Creed, but always the Nicene Creed on Sundays.
When I was in junior high school in the early 1990s, the base chapel got a new priest who focused more on Catholicism than the gospel, so we transitioned into generic Evangelicalism for several years. We initially attended one of the early megachurches in Southern California, followed briefly by a small Baptist church when we moved to Texas. Despite having active and attractive youth groups, I was not satisfied in that world, nor were my parents and siblings. It just did not fit who we were as liturgical Christians.
When I was in ninth grade, some friends invited us to a Messianic Jewish congregation. This brought us back into liturgical worship. In fact, Messianic Judaism initially reminded my parents of their experiences in the Charismatic Renewal movement that came to both the Episcopal and Roman Catholic Churches when my parents were teenagers in the 1970s. In college, I began to use an Orthodox Jewish Siddur as the main prayer book for my personal devotions and grew to love its highly structured, traditional liturgical worship as my preferred way of relating to God. In Messianic Judaism, we had liturgy, vibrant traditions, and beautiful bible-based music. We also made lifelong friends. I served, worshipped, and ministered in the Messianic movement until approximately 2005.
By this time, I was in the early stages of my graduate studies at Wayland Baptist University, where I had encountered the writings of the late Robert Webber. Webber, a Wheaton professor who became an Episcopalian, emphasized the common pattern of Word and Table in all early Christian worship, and urged a return to this historic worship model across the denominational spectrum. Other studies in Church History gradually convinced me of the importance of bishops to historic Christianity and taught me to value my infant baptism. All this led me to question many assumptions I had about what it meant to worship in a biblical and historic fashion. Eventually, I rediscovered the Book of Common Prayer. I found it to be everything I loved about the Siddur, albeit with a focus on Jesus.
2005-2010: The Search
This began approximately five years of active searching for a new church home. I knew I needed to find a church that was liturgical, regularly celebrated Communion, and had bishops. This, of course, made for slim options in those days.
At times, I visited local Roman Catholic churches with friends. While these certainly checked my boxes, I could not get past the non-biblical dogmas of the Roman communion. As someone who felt a call to the ministry, I could not accept Rome declaring things not provable from Scripture to be on the same level as Scripture and the Creeds. Nor did I find myself called to the single life, a prerequisite for the priesthood in that tradition. The Roman Communion could not be my final church home.
For the better part of a year, I regularly visited a small Episcopal parish near my apartment. Again, they checked all my boxes, and I even got to use my Book of Common Prayer! But I could not accept what I knew of TEC’s increasingly widespread acceptance of unbiblical views of human sexuality. The Moral Law in the Scriptures is both clear and unchanging, especially when it comes to sexual ethics. How could I submit to a church that refused to discipline clergy and other leaders who were openly engaged in homosexual activity, actions condemned in the bible? Indeed, not only did TEC refuse to discipline such clergy, but over the objections of the rest of the Anglican Communion they had recently consecrated a bishop openly engaged in such things, a man who left his wife and children for another man! The leadership of TEC celebrated this abandonment of family duties and rebellion against biblical morality in the name of inclusivity and love. Though the local church I had been visiting seemed relatively solid (or at least silent) on the issue, this told me that TEC was not a long-term solution to my search.
I even visited a local Continuing Anglican Church, whose rector was a friend of my prior rabbi. While this congregation certainly checked the boxes, I immediately recognized that they were part of what I (uncharitably) called a “splinter group” at that time. That is, though they technically had a bishop, they were relatively disconnected from the rest of the Church. I saw it as a very isolated congregation in a very small denomination. Though my ecclesiology was still underdeveloped, I knew from my time in Messianic Judaism the problems that such a disconnected position could foster. While part of a church with episcopal polity, this congregation was effectively independent, which meant that there would be a lack of true accountability. It also meant that there was very little infrastructure beyond the local congregation. In short, though they had a bishop, this church didn’t seem to meet the spirit of my criteria. I didn’t really understand the concept of schism at the time, but my instincts told me that something was critically missing.
Problems with the Search
Indeed, this hints at the kind of thing Colletti seems to have been looking for when he was trying to decide which church has true jurisdiction in the United States. Simply having bishops is not enough. What is the connection with the wider Church? Can “splinter groups” with bishops really have the bishop as a sign of the Church’s unity?[1]
At the same time, unity without doctrinal orthodoxy is also a non-starter. If simply having bishops was not enough, neither was institutional unity and venerable history. The Roman communion has elevated its tradition to be on the same level as God’s Word, the very thing Jesus often condemned the Pharisees for doing. And TEC had abandoned orthodox moral ethics in areas that are explicitly condemned by both Old and New Testaments. Despite neither communion committing the heresies condemned by the Creeds and early Councils, their explicit departure from Scripture in key areas meant that my search had to go on.
Christians in modern America are burdened with a responsibility that was simply not possible for most of Church History: choice. Truth be told, we probably have too many choices, and I sympathize with my Zoomer brethren who feel almost paralyzed by those choices. Nevertheless, choice remains, and we must make the best of it. While no church is perfect, we have a responsibility to find a church in which “the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments be duly administered according to Christ’s ordinance.”[2]
And thus, my search continued. However, by God’s grace, things were about to change.
Landing in the ACNA
In 2009, I heard about the formation of the ACNA in the wake of the first Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON). I had been following tidbits about the Anglican realignment via the message boards on the blog of the late Michael “Internet Monk” Spencer. Like Spencer, I considered myself a bit of a refugee in the Evangelical wilderness. The announcement of the ACNA was a hint that the “splinter group” problem of the Anglican realignment may have had a solution.
GAFCON was more than a gathering of the “alphabet soup” of conservative Anglicans. It was a gathering of orthodox bishops and primates from throughout the Anglican Communion. These bishops represented the Provinces of the Anglican Communion that had remained faithful to the Gospel and were growing rapidly. Indeed, one could argue that they were becoming the true center of gravity for the Anglican Communion in terms of church participation. As one bishop told me about a decade ago, demographically speaking, the average churchgoing Anglican is now a young Nigerian woman.
These bishops and Provinces had been calling for discipline within the Anglican Communion for over a decade, and now they were ready to act. In 2008, they issued the Jerusalem Declaration, which affirmed the Scriptures, Anglican Formularies, and the historic biblical approach to sexuality and other moral issues. The Declaration also included an explicit rejection of “the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed.”[3] In historic context, this rejection of authority (and jurisdiction) was largely aimed at TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada. Thus, the GAFCON bishops called for the formation of a new Province in North America to fill the gap. The ACNA was born out of this call for reformation and repentance.
The ACNA, then, was not a schismatic group of conservative former-Episcopalians who were tired of fighting for orthodoxy. No, the ACNA was the result of orthodox bishops and Provinces of the Anglican Communion coming to the rescue of their North American brethren, brethren who had often been sued and deposed for standing for the bible.
As for me, I had finally found an ecclesiastical communion that had bishops, was connected to the rest of the worldwide Church, regularly celebrated the Eucharist, and was liturgical in the best of ways. All my boxes were finally checked. As of 2010, my search was complete.
Later Reflections
Since returning to my Anglican roots, my own life has changed tremendously. In 2013 I took Holy Orders. In 2014 I got married. In 2015 I became a father. In 2017 I became the rector of that same Anglican Church I had visited during my search. It turns out that they were one of the first local churches to join the ACNA.
In the last sixteen years, I have had two diocesan bishops and one suffragan bishop in authority over me. These men have been my pastors, mentors, and examples of godliness. I cannot imagine being under the authority of a TEC bishop who twists the words of Scripture to celebrate actions Scripture says are abominations. I cannot imagine raising my daughters in a Church body that thinks men should have access to girls’ bathrooms and has developed rites to celebrate men pretending to be women and vice versa. I cannot imagine being a priest in a church that requires its clergy to affirm people in their sin rather than calling them to repentance. Indeed, knowing my own proclivities to self-justification and making excuses for my sins, I need a church that is willing to give me both Law and Gospel from God’s Word. I need a church that calls me to repent and then assures me of God’s absolution and forgiveness for the penitent.
In fact, that’s why I haven’t taken Communion on the (very) few times I have been to a TEC parish since 2010, not even at my grandparents’ funerals. Neither my bishop nor my own conscience would be satisfied with my participation in the sacramental sign of unity in a church that has fractured Christ’s body by embracing false teaching and heresy. Furthermore, I have counseled several parishioners along similar lines when asked whether they should take Communion when visiting family who attend TEC parishes. Rejection of their authority and jurisdiction is a rejection of their Communion.
What about our own problems in the ACNA? It is no secret that the ACNA is going through a rough spot. We are in the midst of a leadership crisis in which our Archbishop is currently under investigation. We also have some theological problems from parts of the ACNA that are more concerned with progressive politics than the truths of Scripture. TEC has shown us where that path leads. Nevertheless, like the GAFCON primates and Provinces, I do indeed continue to bet on the ACNA. We may be sick, but I am not convinced that we are on our deathbed. Besides, where else would we go?
But even if the ACNA is “sick unto death,” there can be no return to TEC unless TEC repents and reforms. Despite some of Colletti’s conclusions, neither the Apostles, nor the Fathers, nor the Reformers would counsel submitting to the teachings of heretics and false teachers. Departure from orthodoxy is an abdication of ministerial authority. It is an abdication of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Far from being compassionate and loving, by compromising on biblical morality, TEC is endangering peoples’ souls. I cannot help but hear the echo of the first lie behind all this: “Did God really say…?” I, for one, don’t want to find myself following in Adam’s footsteps by listening to such a serpentine voice.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
