The Bishop: What he is and isn’t

Clipped from: https://saint-aelfric-customary.org/2025/11/13/the-bishop-what-he-is-and-isnt/
By Fr. Brench

It’s no secret that the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) is going through the wringer right now. We’ve got two bishops under disciplinary investigation or trial, one special diocesan jurisdiction that just got ripped apart in an authority crisis between multiple bishops, and controversy over how each of these cases is being handled. Even some bishops and administrators not currently under scrutiny are being called into question over their alleged or apparent complicity with how various issues and cases have been mishandled in the past. There is a lot of heartache, a lot of broken trust, and a lot of confusion.

Archbishop Wood celebrating Eucharist at his installation as Archbishop, 2024

Fixing this will take more than slapping a canonical revision to Title IV onto the Province; it will take vulnerability and transparency; hard questions must be asked and hard answered given; liars must confess; sinners must repent; the disobedient must conform and the leaders must lead rightly.

yeah I made a meme

Apologia

I’m just a parish priest with a writing habit, sitting in a quiet spot in New England, safely distanced from pretty much everyone involved in provincial matters. I have no personal stakes for or against Archbishop Wood or any of the other men filling in for him in their various capacities, and I have no insider knowledge concerning who’s done what sins and who’s covering up what secrets. So I am very far from being able to offer any solutions; my place largely is to pray for them from my safe distance and strive to live up to the expectations placed upon me and the vows that I have taken as a priest in God’s Church.

As a writer, though, and specifically as a commentator on the Prayer Book that binds us together, I do have some observations on the nature of the episcopacy and how different understandings of that great office may be coming into play in the present crises.

The Bishop’s Vows

As with deacons and priests, one of the best ways to understand the ministry and identity of a bishop is to look at the questions posed to a bishop-elect at his ordination / consecration service. The Examination questions are answered by vows: the clergyman makes promises to his superior(s) that he will live accordingly. So let’s take a look at what the Bishop vows at his consecration.

1. Are you persuaded that you are truly called to this ministry, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Order of this Church? I am so persuaded.
2. Do you believe that the Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ? And are you determined out of the Holy Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge, and to teach or maintain nothing as necessary to eternal salvation but that which may be concluded and proved by the Scriptures? I do so believe, and I am so determined, the Lord being my helper.
3. Will you then faithfully study the Holy Scriptures, and call upon God by prayer for the true understanding of them, so that you may be able by them to teach and exhort with wholesome doctrine, and to withstand and convince those who contradict it? I will, the Lord being my helper.
4. Are you ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word, and both privately and publicly to call upon others and encourage them to do the same? I am ready, the Lord being my helper.
5. Will you renounce all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and live a godly, righteous, and sober life in this present world, that you may show yourself in all things an example of good works for others, that the adversary may be ashamed, having nothing to say against you? I will, the Lord being my helper.
6. Will you maintain and set forward, as much as you are able, quietness, love, and peace among all people, and diligently exercise such discipline as is, by the authority of God’s Word and by the Order of this Church, committed to you? I will, the Lord being my helper.
7. Will you be faithful in examining, confirming, ordaining, and sending the people of God? I will, the Lord being my helper.
8. Will you show yourself gentle, and be merciful for Christ’s sake, to poor and needy people and to all strangers destitute of help? I will, the Lord being my helper.

These are, naturally, very similar to the questions posed to deacons and priests, but there are some important differences too. The 5th question, for example, is markedly more severe than what is asked of other clergymen. Renouncing “all ungodliness and worldly lusts… that the adversary may be ashamed, having nothing to say against you” is more than we ask of our priests and deacons. And this reflects the teaching 1 Timothy 3:7, which says an overseer, or bishop, “ must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.” Note this is not just about holiness of life, but also of reputation! This suggests that even if a man is innocent but has a tarnished reputation, we should think twice before putting a miter on him and calling him Bishop.

my diocesan bishop, Andrew Williams, standing before Archbishop Beach upon his consecration, 2019

A Context of Recent Historical Confusion

Although these eight vows are the same historic questions and answers put to Anglican bishops since 1662 (and since 1549 with the exception of #7), there is one influential Prayer Book that broke from this pattern: the Episcopalian Prayer Book of 1979. And since that book was the most widely-used among American Anglicans for forty years before the ACNA’s Prayer Book was published, it is worth wrestling with the questions it asked of bishops. Here’s a comparison of the historic Anglican vows against the 1979 rewrite, lined up for comparison by subject matter:

It is worth noting that the departure in 1979 from the historic examination indicates a view of the episcopacy that is considerably more authoritarian and clericalist than what is found in the historic Anglican tradition:

• there are two questions on his calling instead of one,
• it spells out his sharing in collegial episcopal authority,
• it gives him the responsibility of “interpreting the Gospel to” and supporting all baptized people as “chief priest and pastor”.

All this makes the Bishop considerably more involved in various avenues of ministry.

A word for our leaders today

If we are to receive correctives from the classical tradition, which is restored and taught in our 2019 Prayer Book, we are inevitably pointed to a different picture. Instead of a busy bureaucratic micromanager, the Anglican Bishop is to be a man of God who renounces ungodly and worldly lusts more clearly and publicly than the priest is ever asked to do; the Bishop is to be faithful to carry out the episcopal ministry of examining, confirming, and ordaining his people; he is to be an apt teacher of the Word.

We don’t have to spend two questions dwelling on his sense of calling; his vocation has been made clear through the lengthy process of diocesan searching and examination and confirmed by the approval of the College of Bishops.

We don’t have to remind bishops that they are “chief priests and pastors” who need to sustain their priests and support their deacons; they are to be “faithful in ordaining, sending, or laying hands upon others” and be capable teachers of God’s Word for them and diligent exercisers of godly discipline.

At least one small part of our present troubles taking place at the provincial level of the ACNA can be accounted for due to these 1979-style conceptions of the episcopacy carrying over into a system that charitably assumes classically-Anglican bishops. The Bishop’s chief posture is not to be huddled up “with your fellow bishops in the government of the whole Church”, but instead to be ministering God’s Word to his people. I have seen a couple different articles popping up in recent weeks arguing for a reform of ACNA governing polity that takes the College of Bishops down a notch. At first I was indifferent to the idea, but having reviewed the Ordinal as I have presented it above I now see the wisdom in those proposals. Bishops are not meant to be bureaucrats, governors, or senators leading from an office building; the College of Bishops is not meant to be a College of Cardinals meeting in secret. The Anglican ideal, rather, is choosing a Bishop who evidently lives a holy life and has a reliable gift of teaching. If he doesn’t have great administration skills, that’s fine; that’s what the synods, canons to the ordinary, and other assemblies are for.

I don’t write this to condemn any Bishop or leader in particular – like I said before, I don’t know any of the provincial leaders personally. I write this to warn against false perceptions of the episcopacy that have permeated (and perhaps poisoned!) our Church. We mustn’t look to the clericalist authoritarianism of Rome; we mustn’t look to the business-success models of the megachurch movement; we mustn’t look to the cults of personality that surround many men of charisma. Rather, as Anglicans, we should be looking among our priests for the quiet, meek, holy, and faithful teachers whose lives and words proclaim the Gospel with equal measure and integrity.

This is, by the way, why many of our greatest bishops and archbishops throughout history were monks – not because of the early-medieval favoritism often given to the monastic life, but because that is where the men most devoted to a holy life and the Word of God were most often found. Many of the great leaders of the Church had no episcopal aspirations whatsoever – John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, Anselm, and many others much preferred the monk’s habit to the episcopal miter. If we are to rebuild a healthy provincial leadership paradigm, these are the sorts of men we need to be seeking, electing, and consecrating as our diocesan bishops.

No more bureaucrats and mega-pastors! Give me that old time religion! Give me a man who is above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. These are the bishops whose discipline and authority will not only be respected by their flocks, but loved.