Mark Harris, who blogs at Preludium, has a new post up that looks at some possible outcomes of next week’s gathering of Anglican Communion Primates and also offers a defense of the idea of the Communion itself.
Mark acknowledges a certain apathy, or at least fatigue with the issue;
There has been considerable “yawn” here in Episcopal Church land concerning the meeting and what might transpire. I suspect being tired of all this foolishness is pretty well the case in many parts of the Anglican world.
But he still seeks to rally us enough to care
Well, dear friends, it is important because in spite of all the hard feelings and anathemas being hurled at various churches, in spite of colonial history, there are residual feelings of real companionship in the Gospel and real hopes for engagement in common mission. We have been a community of considerable depth and mutual respect.In all the wringing of hands and lamenting of this or that deep hurt this fact is likely to get lost.
I believe his analysis of the specter of colonialism and its affects is pretty astute and worthy of engagement if we really want to understand the underlying issues that trouble the Anglican Communion. There are multiple imbalances, assumptions and a troubling history underlying the Communion that need to see the light of day if Christian unity is really important to us.
What is desperately needed is a combination of (i) theological work, driven by work in the newer churches, about what to do with the reality that the Gospel was brought in colonial and imperialistic containers and (ii) good solid on the ground building of deep friendships that cannot be contained by any cultural expectations.
What is needed is post-colonial paradigms for the Gospel and its containers, and renewed deep companionship.
Read it all here