Last week Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, issued an invitation to all of the Primates of the Anglican Communion (plus Foley Beach, head of the ACNA) to meet next year in Canterbury to discuss new ways of being the in relationship with another and with Canterbury. That he proposed a significant re-ordering of how member churches relate to one another as well as inviting the head of the schismatic Anglican Church in North America was largely met with a collective “meh.”
Tom Ferguson, in the guise of his blogging alter-ego Crusty Old Dean, responded with a post titled “It’s The End of the Anglican Communion As we Know It – And I feel Fine” where he writes;
Yet also in the title, and in the manic exuberance of the song, there’s also a sense of resignation, or outright relief, or even rejoicing, that world as we know it is ending — because we feel fine.
This is what Crusty thought when he read the Archbishop of Canterbury’s call for a meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion in Janury of 2016, which can be found here: It’s the end of the Anglican Communion as we know it, and I feel fine. In his call the Archbishop noted the need to “consider recent developments but also look afresh at our ways of working as a Communion.” He also wrote of the “way in which proclamation [of the gospel] happens and the pressures on us vary greatly between Provinces. We each live in a different context.”
Giles Fraser posits that it was the world-wide-web that did in the Communion. Once we had the ability to really get to know what other member churches believed and did, we discovered our vast differences but without appreciation of our various contexts.
But it was the world wide web that finally did for global ecclesiastical solidarity. Through the web, different churches could finally experience each other’s theology first hand. We could read their sermons and church pronouncements. And they could read ours. And we didn’t like what we saw. Western liberals saw anti-gay bigotry. African conservatives saw an abandonment of the traditional gospel. We had become strangers to each other. No, worse than that: we realised we were fighting on very different sides. And, however hard they tried (and Rowan Williams really did) the men in mitres could not put Humpty together again.
Laura Sykes writing at Lay Anglicana sees the potential for good news, or at least not bad news, says;
In brief, Archbishop Justin is suggesting that we cease to fall over backwards to hold on to the Anglican Communion as a force seeking to hold everything revolving around the centre (which, had the Anglican Covenant been passed, would have acted as the reference point). Instead, we could aim to be a force seeking to spread out into the world, according to broadly agreed principles (based on the understanding of the Bible by each Church in the Communion). {The Archbishop does not describe it thus, this is my interpretation}.
Further noting;
The loose federation envisaged by Archbishop Justin is not a new idea – so far as I can see it represents a return to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1886/8 which includes”The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, those who have worked hardest to undo the fabric of Communion, are not expressing much enthusiasm for the Communion or Welby’s plan either.
The GAFCON Primates said in their response;
They (the Primates) recognize that the crisis in the Communion is not primarily a problem of relationships and cultural context, but of false teaching which continues without repentance or discipline.
Consistent with this position, they have previously advised the Archbishop of Canterbury that they would not attend any meeting at which The Episcopal Church of the United States or the Anglican Church of Canada were represented, nor would they attend any meeting from which the Anglican Church in North America was excluded.
And David Virtue, long standing critic of the Episcopal Church, has urged the the GAFCON Primates not attend and rejects any notion of an Anglicanism that includes TEC;
(Virtue) believes they should not waste the airfare. There is nothing to be gained by their attendance. Nothing.
First of all, if there is no “common doctrine,” Anglicanism itself is meaningless. What does it mean to be Anglican if two different versions of the same faith are tolerated! To be an Anglican means a specific identity, a specific theological outlook. The Scriptures and the Gospels, the Apostolic Church, and the early Church Fathers are the foundation of Anglican faith and worship that make up the Anglican Communion.
…So the question must be asked again, can the two groups, orthodox and heterodox, live under the same roof and still call themselves Anglican? I think not. It is impossible.
Secondly, it presupposes that the Global South Primates are willing to agree to such an arrangement and admit that heterodoxy and orthodoxy can live as “two integrities” side by side when, in fact, they cannot.
For nearly two decades, the Global South primates and the GAFCON bishops have argued, pleaded, and fought with TEC to repent of its heresies. They have steadfastly refused to do so. TEC’s response has been to promote endless “reconciliation” talks and Indaba.
Nick Knisely, Bishop of Rhode Island and an Episcopal Café pioneer kept his response below 144 characters.
It seems to me that the Archbishop of Canterbury's plan for the Communion is a return to our older Anglican understanding of how we relate.
— Nick Knisely ن (@wnknisely) September 17, 2015
So, whither the communion now? What does it mean to be “Anglican” and does it affect our understanding of ourselves as Episcopalians or not?
You can read more thoughts on the Archbishop’s statement from the links here at Thinking Anglicans.