Where now for the Communion?
jack Miles
| 15 Sep 2008
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What lies ahead for the Anglican Communion? GAFCON seems bent on becoming a strong vehicle for church governance, a kind of standing quasi-ecumenical council for Anglicans who want one.
Rowan Williams, for his part, in remarks made at the end of the Lambeth Conference in August, seemed to foresee a milder version of the same thing for the Communion over which he still presides – namely, the formulation of a “covenant,” by which constituent churches would accept or decline membership.
In his concluding address, Dr Williams said: “a covenanted future...has the potential to make us more a church; more of a ‘catholic’ church in the proper sense, a church, that is, which understands its ministry and service as united and interdependent around the world.”
But do the world’s Anglicans, leaving aside the GAFCON Afro-Anglicans and their American supporters, really want to be “more a church”?
In precise and dry language, an editorial appearing on August 15 in the (Anglican) Church of Ireland Gazette says no. “It is important to emphasize,” the editorial avers, “that the Anglican Communion is not, as Dr Williams did at least suggest in his statement, a church . It is a communion of churches ,” while “the Lambeth conference is, precisely, a conference. It is not a synod.”
Accordingly, Lambeth has no governing authority, and “members are free to attend or to ‘boycott,’ as they wish.” Such would not be the case if they did have a role in governance.
Full article:
http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/article.php3?id_article=2299
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