The Rev. Dr. Michael Poon, Asian Christianity coordinator of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in Asia, Trinity Theological College, Singapore, writing in The Living Church reflects on the future of the Anglican Communion:
In whatever ways we justify and reinterpret the Communion instruments of the Anglican Communion, it is clear the instruments no longer unite Anglican churches worldwide. Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meetings have become obstacles rather than means of healing the Communion ills.
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They have now become part of the problem, and have lost their legitimacy in the new conditions of the new century. For one, international conferences are expensive exercises, which are hardly sustainable in present-day economic conditions. More important, there is a worrying disconnect between what happens at Communion levels and what occurs at local levels. The faithful in their parishes are expected to remain loyal Anglicans week in and week out. To them, the Anglican disputes are irrelevant. Many of them perhaps have not heard about the Anglican Communion Covenant. Churches of weaker numerical strength and in more fragile conditions are sidelined as well in a high-stakes and wasting religious war.
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Today’s issues, however, have become intractable, and are fast plunging the Anglican Communion toward breakup. Polemicists from different sides of the disputes have not really addressed the deep-seated powerful currents that are twisting the ways we connect with one another…
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