When Repentance Sounds Like Risk Management: A Call for a Covenant of Courage from the ACNA Bishops

(Source Material: Report from the College of Bishops Meeting in Plano, TX)

The decision of the College of Bishops of the Anglican Church in North America to meet in early December was necessary, and their stated commitment to prayer and self-reflection in the midst of crisis is a welcome signal of seriousness. Our Province needed to hear from its shepherds.

Yet, as a priest, I am compelled to speak. My motivation is the apostolic command that God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control (2 Timothy 1:7, ESV). It is in this spirit—one of disciplined power and love for the Church—that I must address the language of the report itself.

The document rightly identifies critical symptoms: a "significant deficit of trust" toward the College, a failure in the sacred trust of oversight, and a lack of clarity in our disciplinary canons. But its effort at confession is deeply undermined by its method of communication.

A bishop's confession must be a model for the faithful; instead, the Province received an institutional statement designed to mitigate liability and manage risk. This is the core problem: The College has described the crisis of faith using the language of the Boardroom, not the language of the Bible. The resulting ambiguity is not humility; it is corporate double speak.

Where we needed specific admissions of procedural failures, suppressed information, or concrete acts of omission, we received vague, internal descriptions:

"We recognized moments of weakness in our relationships with one another..."

"...instances where our courage has flagged..."

By offering these abstractions, the College performs a nebulous confession. And a nebulous confession, by definition, cannot lead to authentic self-examination or meaningful healing.

In this act, the report becomes a microcosm of the very crisis it claims to address. It offers a vow of good intent ("we will endeavor to grow in grace") but provides none of the covenantal terms (specific accountability) that trust demands. This is the first failure: sacrificing the spiritual credibility of the episcopate for the sake of institutional stability, which is a false and damaging trade-off.

The Theological Failure: Nebulous Confession and Healing

The crisis facing the ACNA is fundamentally a crisis of integrity, stemming directly from this unwillingness to speak plainly. For the Church, confession is not merely an institutional duty; it is the covenantal key to healing.

Our tradition holds that true restoration is rooted in specific, humbling admission. The Apostle James lays out the standard for the community of faith:

"Therefore, confess your sins one to another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." (James 5:16, ESV)

The Failure to Confess for Healing

By substituting abstract spiritual language for concrete admissions, the bishops prevent the very healing they pray for. Healing—for the wounded, the Province, and the College itself—requires a clear definition of the injury and the sin. A nebulous confession attempts to bypass the painful process of public truth-telling.

The College’s statement reads like a carefully worded legal brief designed to limit exposure, rather than a pastoral lament seeking forgiveness. This is where the corporate double speak does its deepest damage. By using generalized terms, the bishops are engaging in semantic evasion—a classic tactic of risk management—that seeks to confess only what is legally or institutionally unavoidable. We see a leadership that is prioritizing image control over truth-telling, sacrificing its spiritual integrity for the sake of its organizational stability.

Sidebar: The Evasion Tactic

We understand this evasive language from the world of politics: the act of using a technical definition to deny a plain truth. The infamous denial, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman..." was a legalistic evasion that hinged on a semantic loophole. The College is attempting the same by confessing to generalized "weakness" while sidestepping the plain, specific truth of procedural negligence and failure of oversight.

Falling Short of Being "Beyond Reproach"

This failure to communicate with integrity violates a primary mandate of the bishop's office. Scripture requires that leaders be "above reproach" (1 Timothy 3:2). This does not mean sinless, but it means their character and conduct must be so transparent that they do not give the world or the flock a legitimate reason to reproach the Church.

The College’s evasive language gives the entire Province reason to question their moral fitness for oversight. By failing to take clear responsibility for the procedural and ethical errors that caused this crisis, they:

1. 1. Sacrifice credibility by appearing to prioritize self-protection over truth.

3. 2. Obscure the path to healing by refusing to define the sin.

A leader's silence, or their chosen words, must not be used to protect themselves. It must always be used to protect the integrity of the Gospel.

The Vow Must Become a Covenant: A Call to Radical Transparency

The College of Bishops closed its report with a promise: "We recognize that trust cannot be demanded, and we will endeavor to grow in grace so that, by God’s help, we may become increasingly trustworthy."

As a statement of vow, this is insufficient. The Province is waiting for a covenant—a binding, two-way commitment defined by action and accountability. Trust is not a gift earned through spiritual aspiration alone; it is a debt repaid through verifiable change. To confuse "growing in grace" with the verifiable implementation of "covenantal accountability" is to confuse piety with governance.

For the College to demonstrate that its repentance is more than just institutional damage control, it must immediately embrace radical transparency and specific, costly reforms.

The Tangible Work: Title IV and Systemic Change

The one concrete promise in the report is the commitment to the proposed canonical revisions concerning discipline, misconduct, and abuse (Title IV). This is where the work of restoring trustworthiness must begin, by fixing the structural failures that allowed errors and secrecy to flourish.

The Province needs the College to champion the following:

Abolish Adversarial Process: Fully implement the shift from the attorney-driven adversarial system to the new Inquiry Model, ensuring investigations prioritize truth and reconciliation over legal maneuvering.

Centralized, Neutral Investigation: Fully empower the proposed Reports Administrator and the standing Reports Investigation Committee (comprised of clergy and laity). This removes the power of initial investigation from individual bishops who may lack courage or competence, and places it in a dedicated, neutral body.

Presumption of Publicity: The canons must establish a clear "presumption that the proceedings are public." The widespread damage caused by this crisis demands an end to the self-protective confidentiality that has shielded bad actors and managerial failure in the past.

The Accountability of Communication

Beyond the canons, the College must change its communication style to match its office. The current crisis was deepened by a failure to act swiftly, clearly, and decisively.

To become truly trustworthy, the College must commit to:

Specific Self-Definition of Error: Issue a follow-up statement that defines the specific procedural failures—the what and the when—that led to the crisis of trust. This is the covenantal admission that validates their general repentance.

External Reporting: Establish a public, external mechanism to track and report on the progress of the canonical reforms, moving them outside the secretive chambers of the College and into the view of the Provincial Council and the people.

Conclusion: A Call to the Gospel Standard

The Church of Christ is not a corporation, and its leaders cannot behave as corporate executives. The integrity of the Anglican Church in North America is tied directly to the integrity of its shepherds.

The standard is not the world’s, but the Gospel’s: servant leaders must exhibit the historical biblical quality of servant—a quality rooted in humility, truth, and sacrificial transparency.

The College of Bishops has named the deficit of trust. Now, out of love for Christ’s Church and in the spirit of power and self-control, they must choose the covenant of courage over the vow of convenience. Let their next actions be so clear, so specific, and so radically transparent that their deeds finally drown out the corporate double speak and restore faith in the office they hold.

Father Randall M Graf, Ph.D. is a priest and psychologist. He publishes his articles here, exploring faith, wellness, and contemporary life.