Tada! New ACNA Catechism Finally Online

In an interview on Anglicans Unscripted on January 13, 2014 Archbishop Robert "Bob" Duncan promised that the new ACNA Catechism would be available in "a week." On January 31, 2014, 18 days later, the Anglican Church in North America announced the release of To Be a Christian: An Anglican Catechism, the work of the ACNA's Theological Taskforce on the Catechism. The new ACNA Catechism and accompanying documents, The Vision Statement and Guiding Principles, may be found here.

I have not yet had an opportunity to closely examine the new catechism and its appendices. My initial impression was that the catechism is wordy. Wordiness may be used to disguise unacceptable doctrine. While J. I. Packer was the general editor, the catechism is lacking in his characteristic succinctness.

I have included for comparison links to the New City Catechism and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The New City Catechism is a joint adult and children's catechism consisting of 52 questions and answers adapted by Timothy Keller and Sam Shammas from the Reformation catechisms.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (or CCC) is a catechism promulgated for the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II. The new ACNA Catechism with its 345 questions and answers is modeled on the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

I have also included for comparison a link to Alexander Nowell's Large Catechism. In 1563 Nowell wrote his catechism at the request of the Convocation of the Church of England. The Prayer Book Catechism is adapted from Nowell's catechism.

UPDATE: I have so far looked at key sections of the new ACNA catechism. They confirm an observation that Gerald Bray made in a Churchman editorial back in 2011. In theory, Evangelicals, Anglo-Catholics and charismatics, Bray wrote, are all welcome to join the Anglican Church in North America but the influence of Evangelicalism--as it is understood in the United Kingdom, Australia, and other parts of the Anglican Communion--is minimal in the ACNA.

The new catechism shows the same leaning toward Anglo-Catholicism and Roman Catholicism that the ACNA's other theological statements--its constitution, canons, "theological lens," ordinal, and trial services of Morning and Evening Prayer, and Holy Communion--do. There is also a clear expectation that ACNA congregations and clergy adopt the catechetical process outlined in the expanded version of the catechism and use the catechism to indoctrinate long-time members as well as inquirers and new members in its particular teachings.

The College of Bishops' unanimous approval of the catechism suggest one of two possibilities. The first possibility is that some bishops did not closely examine the catechism. The second possibility is that ACNA has no bishops that represent the Protestant Reformed faith of Anglicanism and the Evangelical tradition in Anglicanism.

Only a few pieces are left to the puzzle. Enough of the puzzle has been put together at this point that the picture is recognizable. There are no doubts as to the direction in which the ACNA leadership is taking taking that denomination. It is in the direction of unreformed Catholicism, not the Protestant Reformed faith of the Anglican formularies.