A Vatican official told the world’s Anglican bishops that ignoring Christian tradition and making decisions apart from the wider church are like degenerative diseases.
At the Lambeth Conference, where the Anglican bishops are struggling with such issues as the ordination of women, gay bishops and gay unions, Cardinal Ivan Dias appeared to allude to a “spiritual Alzheimer’s” threatening to destroy the historical memory of the Anglican churches.
This presentation would be incomplete if we did not touch on the ecumenical dimension in the thrust for evangelisation which animates both the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church. Someone has rightly said in a humorous vein: “If Christians do not hang together, they will hang separately”. It is obvious that a united effort would certainly strengthen the implementation of Christ’s mandate to preach the Gospel to every creature. We must gladly recall here the Agreed Statement on Growing Together in Unity and Mission published in 2007 by the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM). The document thoroughly examines various aspects and prospects (worship, study, ministry and witness) for a common mission thrust. The more Anglicans and Catholics are able to study issues together and to discern an appropriate Gospel response, the stronger will be the impact of their mission endeavours. They could start with the points which unite the two Churches, and slowly strive to clarify their approaches and to perfect their attempts to harmonise their mission efforts.
Evangelisation is the unique prerogative of the Holy Spirit, who needs channels through which He may flow unhampered. This will be possible in the measure in which there is unity and cohesion between the members of the Church, between them and their shepherds, and, above all, between the shepherds themselves, both within the community as well as with the other Christian confessions. For, in the present ecumenical framework in which Providence has willed to engage the Churches, a unity which binds them together in the apostolic faith is intrinsic to the Church’s mission of speaking and spreading the Gospel. Hence, when they are of one mind and heart notwithstanding their diversity, their missionary thrust is indeed enhanced and strengthened. But, when the diversity degenerates into division, it becomes a counter-witness which seriously compromises their image and endeavours to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Much is spoken today of diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. By analogy, their symptoms can, at times, be found even in our own Christian communities. For example, when we live myopically in the fleeting present, oblivious of our past heritage and apostolic traditions, we could well be suffering from spiritual Alzheimer’s. And when we behave in a disorderly manner, going whimsically our own way without any co-ordination with the head or the other members of our community, it could be ecclesial Parkinson’s.
The first Indaba followed on from the Bible Study which today consisted of only five of us, a Bishop from Connecticut, North America, who is our facilitator, and three Indian bishops. It was a good experience, in which I was encouraged to participate fully. It was humbling to hear the answer to the question – set in the context of the story of Jesus walking on the water and saying to the disciples in the boat, ”˜I am, do not be afraid’ ”“ what are the things that bring fear to Christians in your own context? ”˜Waiting for the church to be burnt for the third time’, ”˜Waiting for an excuse to be attacked.’ And not just for being a minority religion, but for being linked to the West. For these brothers from India expressing faith in ”˜I am’ rather than living in fear was inspiring.
And the Indaba group? Well, so far, it’s what it said on the packing. We set some ground rules and then in quietness answered three questions. We then moved into two conversations in different pairs and then formed a group of five in which we explored in more detail the question, ”˜Who am I as an Anglican bishop?’ At this point I might have felt left out, but not only was I was fully included but the group immediately offered to ordain me to the episcopacy there and then, and were already improvising for a bishop’s staff and Episcopal ring! Of course I resisted. What followed was not significantly different to the conversation I might have with my Team Leader colleagues, or indeed all Regional Ministers.
We then took our one sentence back and with the other small groups within the larger group, shared findings noting points of convergence and divergence.
Whether the Anglican Communion’s dialogue partners will have the patience to wait while this journey unfolds is also unclear. In a letter of greetings to the conference, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State wrote the “ecclesiological questions which form the framework of your deliberations are a reminder that ministry conferred by ordination is bound by the apostolic faith handed down from the beginning and by the ‘regula fidei’ faithfully transmitted, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, through the ages.”
In a carefully phrased critique of recent theological innovations and ecclesial practices within the Communion, Cardinal Bertone said: “Our different understanding of the divine plan for this ministry in the Church is one of the issues which the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission has been addressing for the past 40 years. New issues that have arisen in our relationship pose a further and grave challenge to the hope for full and visible unity that has been the long-standing goal of our joint ecumenical endeavour.”
Alexy, the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia was blunt. “The topic of Christian morality, linked with that of gender, is high on the agenda of the present Lambeth Conference,” he wrote.
“There is intense debate about these issues among Anglican bishops, clergy and laity. It seems to me that members of the conference have a very serious task: they have to choose between the traditional, biblical norms of morality and tendencies which consider sin and general permissiveness as manifestations of love and tolerance. That is why there is laid on members of the conference such a great, historic responsibility.”
One of the highest ranking officials in the Vatican has warned that problems plaguing the Anglican Communion pose a ‘further and grave challenge for full and visible’ unity with Rome.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, secretary of state and second in command at the Holy See, made the comments in a previously unpublished letter that was issued yesterday to delegates attending the Lambeth conference, a once-a-decade summit of the world’s Anglican bishops.
In the letter, which was largely supportive of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bertone said: ‘New issues that have arisen in our relationship pose a further and grave challenge for full and visible unity.’
John J. Myers, the Archbishop of Newark and Ecclesiastical Delegate for the Pastoral Provision, addressed the Anglican Use Conference in San Antonio on July 11. Describing his “awestruck” reaction to his first Anglican Use liturgy, he spoke of the efforts underway to expand the Anglican Use and the Pastoral Provision to “continuing Anglican communities.”
Controversies within the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church have encouraged Episcopalian bishops, clergy, and laity to seek reconciliation with the Roman Catholic Church. Last September Jeffrey Steenson, the Episcopal Bishop of Rio Grande, New Mexico, resigned his office to become a Catholic.
Archbishop Myers in his lecture noted that modern ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans had been inaugurated during the historic meeting of Pope Paul VI and Michael Ramsey, the Archbishop of Canterbury on March 23, 1966. Dialogue since that event has been “quite promising at times” and he said that it continues “because the Catholic Church believes that the Anglican Communion holds a special place in relationship to her.”
“Even though the relationship and dialogue seem strained at times we are obliged to continue to pray and work for unity, to ”˜press toward the mark,’ so that the prayer of our Blessed Lord may be realized that all who profess faith in Him may be one,” he continued.
Pope Benedict called for all religions to unite against terrorism and resolve conflicts peacefully on Friday and heard an Islamic leader urge Christians to overcome “misconceptions and prejudices” about Muslims.
“In a world threatened by sinister and indiscriminate forms of violence, the unified voice of religious people urges nations and communities to resolve conflict through peaceful means and with full regard for human dignity,” Benedict told an meeting with Muslims, Jews and members of other non-Christian faiths.
The pope, in Australia for the Church’s World Youth Day, also said the Catholic Church was open to learn from other religions, a comment seen in the context of moves to improve relations with other religions, particularly Islam.
“The Church eagerly seeks opportunities to listen to the spiritual experience of other religions,” he said.
The Vatican Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity issued a Statement Tuesday regarding recent events within the Anglican Communion.
The Council is headed by Cardinal Walter Kasper. The statement reads:
“We have regretfully learned of the Church of England vote to pave the way for the introduction of legislation which will lead to the ordaining of women to the Episcopacy.
The Catholic position on the issue was clearly expressed by Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II. Such a decision signifies a breaking away from the apostolic tradition maintained by all of the Churches since the first millennium, and therefore is a further obstacle for the reconciliation between the Catholic Church and the Church of England…
Many of those who are not attending Lambeth are in Jerusalem this week for an alternative meeting, to discuss how they see the way forward. The parallel meetings are a clear manifestation that the bonds of communion have broken down. The Archbishop of Canterbury is not in Jerusalem, and is not welcome there. The breach appears irreparable and therefore the Anglican Communion’s days as a global community centred in Canterbury are numbered.
That is a sadness for those, like myself, who have affection for the Anglican sensibility. But sensibilities are not doctrines, and it cannot be the case that members of the same communion can hold directly contradictory views on matters of grave importance. The Canadian and American proponents of same-sex marriages are arguing that homosexual acts can be morally good, and even sacramental. The traditional Christian view is that such acts are sinful. That is a gap that cannot be bridged: Either one holds to the ancient and constant teaching of the Christian Church, or one rejects it in favour of a different position. It cannot be that both views exist side-by-side as equally acceptable options.
It is not a disagreement only about sexual morality. It goes deeper than that, to what status the ancient and apostolic tradition has in the Church today. There can be no doubt that the blessing of homosexual relationships is entirely novel and in contradiction to the Christian tradition. So if that tradition no longer holds, it raises questions about the apostolicity of those communities which have abandoned it.
An additional sadness for Catholic and Orthodox Christians is that if the Anglican Communion embraces the path of doctrinal innovation, they will be closing the door on closer ecumenical relations. By unilaterally choosing to do what Catholics and Orthodox have always taught is outside our common tradition, they would be choosing the path of division.
In the splendour of the Church of Santa Maria Sopa Minerva, Rome, the Very Revd David Richardson, former Dean of Melbourne, (Australia) was installed and blessed as the new Director of the Anglican Centre in Rome (ACR) on 7 May 2008. He also will serve as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s personal representative to the Holy See (The Vatican and the Pope). The use of this church, where the sacred remains of St Catherine of Siena rest, is the titular church of Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor of Westminster, and was offered to the Anglicans for this special service.
(ACNS)
The Third Anglican ”“ Lutheran International Commission (ALIC) held its second meeting at White Point, Nova Scotia, Canada between 14 and 20 May, 2007, under the chairmanship of the Rt Revd Fred Hiltz, Anglican Bishop of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and the Revd Dr Thomas Nyiwé, President of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cameroon.
The Commission has been established by the Anglican Consultative Council and the Lutheran World Federation to continue the dialogue between Anglicans and Lutherans on the worldwide level which has been in progress since 1970. ALIC intends to build upon the work reflected in The Niagara Report (1987), focusing on the mission of the church and the role of the ordained ministry, The Diaconate as an Ecumenical Opportunity (1995), and most recently Growth in Communion (2002), the report of the Anglican ”“ Lutheran International Working Group (ALIWG), which reviewed the extensive regional agreements which have established close relations between Anglican and Lutheran churches in several parts of the world.
Influential and controversial televangelist John Hagee has apologized to Catholics for referring to the Roman Catholic Church as the “great whore.” Hagee is supporting Sen. John McCain for president, which has led some Catholic leaders to criticize McCain.
Listen to the whole RealAudio report (An MP3 is also available if you follow the link provided on this page).
The archbishop of Canterbury, ahead of a private meeting with Benedict XVI, acknowledged that the Anglican Communion is going through an “unprecedentedly difficult time.”
Archbishop Rowan Williams told Vatican Radio before his encounter with the Pope today that he was expecting “a fairly informal and low-key meeting.”
Williams added: “I hope to bring him up to date on our plans about the Lambeth conference, perhaps to discuss with him a little what’s going to be happening at the [Christian-Muslim] conference this week at Palazzola and just touch base with him about China, the initiatives we’re involved in with regard to the churches in China.”
The Anglican leader is in Rome this week for the 7th Building Bridges seminar with Christian and Muslim scholars, scheduled for Tuesday through Thursday.
And he explained some of the initiatives regarding China: “We’ve been trying to build relationships with scholars of religious studies in China. We brought a group over a little while ago to meet some British theologians and that was very constructive; so it’s really a question of keeping the door open for something more than polite exchanges but more real theological dialogue.”
Pope Benedict and the Archbishop of Canterbury discussed Christian-Muslim relations on Monday in their first meeting since the Anglican leader caused a storm with comments on the role of Sharia law in Britain.
The Vatican said the Pope had received Rowan Williams in a private audience but gave no details.
An Anglican spokesman said the two spoke privately for about 20 minutes and discussed Christian-Muslim relations, inter-faith dialogue and the Pope’s impression of his visit to the United States last month.
He described the visit, the second official meeting between the Pope and the spiritual leader of the world’s 77 million Anglicans, as “warm and friendly”.
Update: Another article is there.
Today this stadium has resounded with passages from Holy Scripture bearing on the reality of the family. We have heard the plea and promise made by the young widow Ruth: “Wherever you go I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Wherever you die I will die and there be buried” (Ro 1:16-17). To hear these words is to be moved with a deep feeling for the strength of family ties: stronger than the fear of hardships to be faced; stronger than the fear of exile in an unfamiliar land; stronger than the fear of possible rejection. The bond that unites a family is not only a matter of natural kinship or of shared life and experience. It is essentially a holy and religious bond. Marriage and the family are sacred realities.
The sacredness of Christian marriage consists in the fact that in God’s plan the marriage covenant between a man and a woman becomes the image and symbol of the covenant which unites God and his people (cf. Hos 2:21; Jer 3:6-13; Is 54:5-10). It is the sign of Christ’s love for his Church (cf. Eph 5:32). Because God’s love is faithful and irrevocable, so those who have been married in Christ are called to remain faithful to each other forever. Did not Jesus himself say to us: “What therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder” (cf. Mt 19:6)?
Contemporary society has a special need of the witness of couples who persevere in their union as an eloquent, even if sometimes suffering, sign in our human condition of the steadfastness of God’s love. Day after day Christian married couples are called to open their hearts ever more to the Holy Spirit, whose power never fails and who enables them to love each other as Christ has loved us. And, as St. Paul writes to the Galatians, “the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness and chastity” (Gal 5:22-23). All of this constitutes the rule of life and the program of personal development of Christian couples. And each Christian community has a great responsibility to sustain couples in their love.
—Pope John Paul II in Columbia, South Carolina, during his U.S. Visit; Elizabeth and I were there together in the stands of William Brice Stadium on that day and remember it as a powerful witness to Christian unity. I did not note until this week that it was September 11–KSH.
Update: There is more on the then Pope’s South Carolina visit in 1987 here.
But another, growing problem lies in the fact that “fundamental Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called ‘prophetic actions’ that are based” on a reading of Christianity “not always consonant” with that found in the Bible and in Christian tradition.
While the pope did not offer specific examples, he has in the past questioned Christian communities that have decided to ordain women to the priesthood and episcopacy or to bless homosexual unions and ordain openly gay men and women.
The pope’s concerns obviously extend to the Anglican Communion and its troubled relations with the U.S. Episcopal Church and some dioceses in Canada.
The Anglican Communion is attempting to find ways to strengthen its structures for ensuring that one national member does not take actions that make other members of the communion uncomfortable. At times, bishops have been named to oversee pastoral care of members who do not go along with the changes.
Pope Benedict said it was unfortunate that some church communities have given up “the attempt to act as a unified body, choosing instead to function according to the idea of ‘local options.'”
Benedict decried the “splintering” of Christian churches over “so-called ‘prophetic actions’ that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition.” Such actions, he said, cause Christian communities to “give up the attempt to act as a unified body, choosing instead to function according to the idea of ‘local options,'” thus losing their connections to Christians in other times and places. Some, but not all, interpreted that as a veiled reference to controversy in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion.
“I think he did us the honor of giving us a serious address that I think needs to be read and reflected upon,” said New York’s Bishop Mark Sisk. Asked whether he thought Benedict had singled out the Episcopal Church in his remarks, Sisk responded, “It’s possible–but I would be rather surprised. I don’t think he was trying to send shots across the bow at particular churches. I think he spoke in a respectful way and I didn’t see that as a shot at the Episcopal Church.”
Faced with these difficulties, we must first recall that the unity of the Church flows from the perfect oneness of the Trinitarian God. In John’s Gospel, we are told that Jesus prayed to his Father that his disciples might be one, “just as you are in me and I am in you” (Jn 17:21). This passage reflects the unwavering conviction of the early Christian community that its unity was both caused by, and is reflective of, the unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This, in turn, suggests that the internal cohesion of believers was based on the sound integrity of their doctrinal confession (cf. 1 Tim 1:3-11). Throughout the New Testament, we find that the Apostles were repeatedly called to give an account for their faith to both Gentiles (cf. Acts 17:16-34) and Jews (cf. Acts 4:5-22; 5:27-42). The core of their argument was always the historical fact of Jesus’s bodily resurrection from the tomb (Acts 2:24, 32; 3:15; 4:10; 5:30; 10:40; 13:30). The ultimate effectiveness of their preaching did not depend on “lofty words” or “human wisdom” (1 Cor 2:13), but rather on the work of the Spirit (Eph 3:5) who confirmed the authoritative witness of the Apostles (cf. 1 Cor 15:1-11). The nucleus of Paul’s preaching and that of the early Church was none other than Jesus Christ, and “him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). But this proclamation had to be guaranteed by the purity of normative doctrine expressed in creedal formulae – symbola – which articulated the essence of the Christian faith and constituted the foundation for the unity of the baptized (cf. 1 Cor 15:3-5; Gal 1:6-9; Unitatis Redintegratio, 2).
Read it all (my emphasis).
Meanwhile, some members of the Anglican-Catholic team in Rome seem to live in a world of their own. Monsignor Donald Bolen, a Canadian priest at the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, recently printed once again the list of ecumenical documents signed by the clerical academics from both sides over some 30 years, implying that they represent a real advance in communications between the two bodies. (“Dialogue beyond the media sensationalism”, L’Osservatore Romano–English edition–February 13, 2008). But as Anglicanim in the West has been disintegrating since 1930, causing a splitting off from official national Anglican churches, this view seems highly dubious. Today, the “Traditional Anglican Church” community is a large umbrella for groups of Anglicans who broke relations with their national bodies as long as three decades ago.
Recently, their representatives in Britain asked for formal talks with Rome. The Church should work with them, not with the British/North American/Australian dissenting liberals whose intellectual and spiritual confusion is severing the last links with Orthodox Christianity.
Similarly, the Anglicans have split already worldwide. Contact should be taken up with groups in Africa and Asia who are defending traditional Christian doctrines against the rejection of biblical and moral teaching by the post-modernist secularizers among Western Anglicans. Canadian Catholic bishops, too, should discourage contact with dissembling Anglicans.
One thing must move us forward on this journey. What is in play at the beginning of the third millennium, is not the same as what was in play at the beginning of the second millennium, when there was the separation of East and West; nor is it the same as what was in play in the middle of the same millennium when there was the separation of Catholics and Protestants. Can we say that the way the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father or how justification of the sinner comes about are the problems that impassion the men of today and with which the Christian faith stands or falls? The world has moved beyond us and we remain fixed by problems and formulas that the world does not even know the meaning of.
In battles in the Middle Ages there was a moment in which, after the infantry, archers and cavalry had been overwhelmed, the melee began to circle around the king. There the final outcome of the fight was decided. Today the battle for us also takes place around the king. There are buildings and structures made of metal in such a way that if a certain neuralgic point is touched or a certain stone is removed, everything falls apart. In the edifice of the Christian faith this cornerstone is the divinity of Christ. If this is removed, everything falls apart and faith in the Trinity is the first to go.
From this we see that today there are two possible ecumenisms: an ecumenism of faith and an ecumenism of incredulity; one that unites all those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that Christ died to save all humankind, and an ecumenism that unites all those who, in deference to the Nicene Creed, continue to proclaim these formulas but empty them of their content. It is an ecumenism in which, in its extreme form, everyone believes the same things because no one any longer believes anything, in the sense that “believing” has in the New Testament.
“Who is it that overcomes the world,” John writes in his first letter, “if not those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1John 5:5). Sticking with this criterion, the fundamental distinction among Christians is not between Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, but between those who believe that Christ is the Son of God and those who do not believe this.
Nevertheless, it is true that agreement among exegetes is capable of surmounting antiquated contradictions and of revealing their secondary character. It can create new avenues of dialogue for all the great themes of intra-Christian controversy: Scripture, tradition, magisterium, the papacy, the eucharist, and so on. It is in this sense that there is, indeed, hope even for a church which undergoes the afore-mentioned turmoil. However, the actual solutions which aim for deeper assurance and unity than merely that of scholarly hypotheses cannot proceed from there alone. On the contrary, wherever there develops a total dissociation of Church and exegesis, both become endangered: exegesis turns into mere literary analysis and the church loses her spiritual underpinnings. That is why the interconnection between church and theology is the issue: wherever this unity comes to an end, any other kind of unity will necessarily lose its roots.
Read it carefully and read it all (emphasis mine).
When meeting the Pope it is customary to offer him a gift, and Benedict XVI has amassed many tokens of esteem. Tony Blair gave him a painting of the Catholic convert Cardinal Newman and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah presented him with a jewelled scimitar.
When the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, met the pontiff he gave him the Holy Grail, a beer brewed in Masham, North Yorkshire.
It was the highlight of the archbishop’s first trip to Rome to celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and to cement cordial relations between the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches.
But what about interchurch marriages? And how do they contribute to ecumenism?
Interchurch marriages create “domestic churches” where, according to some of our frail theological concepts, none should exist. That is, they create churches comprised of divided Christians. As such, according to King (and other writers), they serve as a “sign” or “instrument” of Christian unity ”“ a “foretaste of the eventual reunion of all Christians.”
Practically speaking, an interchurch couple has to shape a shared spiritual life from two traditions, “from the icons of the Orthodox to the simplicity of the Shakers, from Gothic cathedrals to Quaker meetinghouses, from austere, treatise-like homilies to charismatic, dynamic preaching, from gospel choirs to Gregorian chant, from ritualized congregational responses to spontaneous glossolalia, and from altar calls to orderly processions.” This very obviously means that they will have to learn, appreciate, and grow from the concrete experience of once foreign Christian traditions. (I can testify to this personally.) As Cardinal Mercier, who presided over the Malines Conversations between Anglicans and Catholics, once said, “In order to unite with one another, we must love one another; in order to love one another we must know one another; in order to know one another we must go and meet one another.” The search for institutional Christian unity, then, can obviously draw from the practical experiences of interchurch couples, who already have had to love, know, and truly encounter one another.
An interchurch couple’s attempts to truly live a unitive life together mean that they will have to surrender unnecessary biases and prejudices about another Christian tradition. King quotes the Salvatorian priest Jude D. Weisenbeck, “Married couples are better able than most to see their spouse’s tradition in the most favorable light. ”¦ Stereotypes and prejudices melt and flow away when other persons open their hearts to us and we to them in love. ”¦ This capacity to break down barriers can and will reach into future generations.” It can also reach priests and pastors. (In my experience, we should not underestimate the existence of these barriers on a popular level.)
Has the movement for unity among Christians gone into a coma?
The annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began Friday, a century after the first such celebration. In many countries, Christians deeply devoted to unity among their separate groups will gather in one anothers’ churches to pray and reflect on passages from Scripture. Since 1968, prayers and readings for the week have been jointly planned by the Vatican and the World Council of Churches.
But for most Christians, the week, centennial or not, carries no more resonance than, say, National Secretaries Week (now officially Administrative Professionals Week).
Has the ecumenical movement lost steam? Or has it, perhaps, fallen victim to its own success? One way or the other, does it make any difference?
I just read the article on T19 about Benedict’s invitation to prayer in this week for unity. I thought I would mention that, on this hundredth anniversary of the Octave, Church of the Holy Communion will host the annual (LARCUM) prayer service at 4:00, January 27 at 4:00 pm. Our choir will sing evensong. Mary Virginia Taylor, United Methodist bishop will preach. Also partcipating are: Bp. Donges of the ELCA, Bishop Henderson of Upper South Carolina, Fr. Alexander McDonald (representing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charleston) and Bp. Salmon. A reception will follow. All are invited.
–The Rev. Dow Sanderson is rector, Church of the Holy Comunion, Charleston, South Carolina
Participants described current relations among Anglicans and Lutherans in their home countries. They discovered considerable diversity but also identified a number of practices which already reflect mutual recognition, support, and common mission. They reviewed the work of earlier meetings of the Commission, particularly from Harare in 1999. They discussed Dr Ishmael Noko’s analysis of steps that would lead toward a full communion agreement: mapping current relationships among our churches; analyzing the contexts; taking account of the changing ecumenical landscape; developing common projects; and giving responses to historically divisive issues, both making use of ecumenical resources and speaking from African contexts.
The Commission decided to move ahead simultaneously along several lines. First, it will seek to work with bishops to plan a joint regional meeting of Anglican and Lutheran bishops in 2009: movement to full communion will require that the bishops deepen their networks of personal relationships, commit the resources of their churches, and endorse the theological vision in their communications. Second, it will ask the LWF and CAPA offices, with other structures, to seek ways to bring together sub-regional groups from all areas of the churches’ life – youth, women, theologians, etc.: movement to full communion will require staff support from appropriate international bodies. Third, members themselves will continue to develop the narratives of local relationships which were shared during the meeting in order to contribute to the process of mapping. These narratives will form the basis for the work of a group of theologians who will meet before the next full Commission meeting. This theological reflection will allow a proposal for full communion to emerge from the life of these communities in Africa.
The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations (IASCER) met in Cairo, Egypt, from Wednesday, 5th to Monday, 10th December 2007, under the chairmanship of the Most Revd Drexel Gomez, Primate of the Church in the Province of the West Indies. The Commission is charged with reviewing current international ecumenical dialogues involving Anglicans, and provincial and regional initiatives towards unity with other Christians. IASCER consists of representatives from each international dialogue involving Anglicans, including the multilateral dialogue of Faith and Order, and of certain other commissions and networks, and consultants who bring particular regional or theological expertise.
Reports were received of all current bilateral theological dialogues of the Anglican Communion, as well as of developments from particular regions of the globe. In the course of reflections on the current life of the Anglican Communion, the commission also responded further to the proposals for an Anglican Covenant following the publication of the initial work of the Covenant Design Group, which presented a first draft for a covenant to the Primates’ Meeting in February 2007. The Commission gave consideration to issues relating to the practice of admitting the non-baptised to Holy Communion, to issues raised by the recent Responses on the Doctrine of the Church issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Roman Catholic Church, and received information on the ecumenical dimensions of the forthcoming Lambeth Conference.