An Anglican version of the Roman Catholic church’s “inquisition” is proposed today in a document seen by The Times.

Bishops are urging the setting up of an Anglican Faith and Order Commission to give “guidance” on controversial issues such as same-sex blessings and gay ordinations.

The commission was put forward as a proposal this week to the 650 bishops attending the Lambeth Conference as a way of preserving the future unity of the Anglican Communion. Insiders compared it with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the body formerly headed by the present Pope as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and previously known as the Holy Office or Inquisition.

This morning’s “observations” document is the second in a series of three. The third will be published next week. The document says: “Anglicans are currently failing to recognise Church in one another.”

Read it all.

The answers the fellowship develops to the practical questions raised above in relation to the “how?” question are vital. They will also likely in large part depend on the actions of Lambeth and the Instruments. The ball is therefore now in the court of Lambeth and the Archbishop of Canterbury. They must consider how they will relate to GAFCON and whether they can offer a more constructive and truly conciliar way of addressing the questions we face. In particular these are the urgent questions concerning reform of the Instruments, the need for an Anglican Covenant, and the necessity (perhaps the fruit of the Windsor Continuation Group) for a clearer and more decisive Communion response to those bishops and churches who continue determinedly to reject the Communion’s repeated requests for restraint and repentance since the last Lambeth conference.

Instant reactions to GAFCON are, sadly, in our day and age necessary and inevitable. This is especially so when its proponents, warning against delay, call on people and congregations to take a stand and make what they describe as fundamental choices in the face of what they portray as a false gospel. There are, however, high levels of fear, anger and past hurts on all sides in the current climate and the power of the existing political alliances and prejudices surrounding GAFCON cannot be denied. These factors ”“ together with the complexity of the current situation – mean it is vitally important that GAFCON’s proposals and reactions to them do not get so fixed that they fuel further breaches in bonds of affection. All of us””from individuals and parishes being urged to sign up in support of GAFCON to the hundreds of Anglican bishops gathering later this month at Lambeth””need time for prayerful discernment as to what God is saying and doing in these tumultuous times and what part GAFCON plays in his reshaping of Anglicanism.

Read it all.

It seems that most of my speaking engagements in recent years have focussed on three topics. Each of these is a subset of that traditionally unmentionable trio – politics, sex and religion. A standard conversation at home is “What are you speaking about this time? War? Homosexuality? The Anglican Communion?”. Of course I’ve often found myself speaking about two of the three on the same occasion – I’m sure you can guess which two! Today I think is a first in that I’m going to speak about all three in the same presentation!

My decision to include war is obviously triggered by the title’s use of ‘conflict’ but also by two memorable quotations. One comes from Herbert Butterfield, the distinguished 20th century Christian historian. He apparently once suggested that one could adequately explain all the wars fought in human history simply by taking the animosity present within the average church choir at any moment and giving it a history extended overtime. The roots of war, in other words, are found within the conflictual life of the church at every level. The other comes from the memorable response in 2000 of the then Primate of Canada to the consecration by the Primate of Rwanda and the then Primate of South East Asia of two American priests to serve as bishops in the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA). “Bishops”, Michael Peers, said, “are not intercontinental ballistic missiles, manufactured on one continent and fired into another as an act of aggression”. The means of war, in other words, have their parallels within the life of the church at every level.

Of course, we are, thankfully, no longer likely to kill each other and that is not an insignificant development and difference from literal ‘war’. However, having said that, the events of recent weeks announced by Changing Attitude are a sad and shocking reminder that physical assault and threats to kill are still real dangers for some who openly identify as gay or lesbian and something all of us need to oppose and make sure we don’t in any way encourage. We must also confess that at a spiritual level Stephen Bates was sadly not too far wrong in calling his book “A Church at War”. We risk as an international body the sort of self-destruction brought by war. We need to recall Paul writing to one of the many New Testament churches wracked by conflict – “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other” (Gal 5.13-15).

So, how are we to think about conflict and making good moral decisions? What I am going to say falls into two parts – broadly a longer one on conflict and one on covenant….

Read it all.

This is a thoughtful, prayerful letter and deserves to be treated as such by all Anglicans. It cannot possibly have been easy to put together.

There is much here to be welcomed.

First, he shows a profound awareness of the gift of the Anglican communion and its fragility at the present time, and desires our unity in Christ. Unity plays a strong role in the New Testament. To be part of the third largest Christian family in the world is an awesome responsibility and privilege. If Anglicanism falls apart, everyone loses. I simply cannot say how strongly some reasserters need to hear this message. Dr.Williams says he writes this “out of the profound conviction that the existence of our Communion is truly a gift of God to the wholeness of Christ’s Church and that all of us will be seriously wounded and diminished if our Communion fractures any further.” I wonder if our words and actions have a similar motivation?

Second, there is a strong underscoring of scripture’s authority and importance in our common Anglican life:

The common acknowledgment that we stand under the authority of Scripture as ‘the rule and ultimate standard of faith’, in the words of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral; as the gift shaped by the Holy Spirit which decisively interprets God to the community of believers and the community of believers to itself and opens our hearts to the living and eternal Word that is Christ. Our obedience to the call of Christ the Word Incarnate is drawn out first and foremost by our listening to the Bible and conforming our lives to what God both offers and requires of us through the words and narratives of the Bible. We recognise each other in one fellowship when we see one another ‘standing under’ the word of Scripture.

Third, there is a strong criticism of TEC’s actions. Note carefully that the actions in question were not one but two breaches caused by that fateful gathering, one having to do with the confirmation of an episcopal election, the other having to do with actual liturgical practice. The 2003 actions were not only unilateral, but they plainly imply “a new understanding of Scripture that has not been received and agreed by the wider Church.” Here we have again a reference to Scripture and the need to read and understand Scripture in, with and through the church. Given the importance of this decision, it should have been done with the wider church, but it was not. We should have sought to make a convincing scriptural case for its actions. but we failed to do so.

Let there be no mistake, the heart of the current crisis among Anglicans is a change “in our discipline” and “our interpretation of the Bible.”

More than this it is clear that New Orleans House of Bishops meeting and the JSC Report were insufficient. True, hard work went into them, but there are serious problems here, as to the assurances that were sought. In the case of Episcopal elections the tie in to a possible future General Convention receives special notice, and welcome reference is made to “the distinctive charism of bishops as an order and their responsibility for sustaining doctrinal standards.”

In the case of same sex blessings, what was asked for has simply not been given:

But the declaration on same-sex blessings is in effect a reiteration of the position taken in previous statements from TEC, and has clearly not satisfied many in the Communion any more than these earlier statements. There is obviously a significant and serious gap between what TEC understands and what others assume as to what constitutes a liturgical provision in the name of the Church at large.

(This is a much clearer and more accurate summary than that of the JSC report which had to be corrected by various participants in the New Orleans meeting).

Fourth, there is a welcome description of the Lambeth Conference as “a meeting of the chief pastors and teachers of the Communion, seeking an authoritative common voice.”

Fifth, there is again an underscoring of the need to treat homosexual and lesbian persons with the care of Christ himself. “The Instruments of Communion have consistently and very strongly repeated that it is part of our Christian and Anglican discipleship to condemn homophobic prejudice and violence, to defend the human rights and civil liberties of homosexual people and to offer them the same pastoral care and loving service that we owe to all in Christ’s name.”

That having been said, one is also left with many questions.

How can he recommend consultants given the degree of the breach? I am concerned that the Archbishop of Canterbury underestimates the depth of this problem, alas. “Actions which they deplore or which they simply have not considered” is not strong enough to describe what is, has, and will be happening. The Windsor Report’s language was stronger:

By electing and confirming such a candidate in the face of the concerns expressed by the wider Communion, the Episcopal Church (USA) has caused deep offence to many faithful Anglican Christians both in its own church and in other parts of the Communion.

(Please note carefully, not just offense, but deep offense)

Also, has he not undermined his own argument about Lambeth in the way Lambeth 1998 has been treated? If Lambeth ”is a meeting of the chief pastors and teachers of the Communion, seeking an authoritative common voice,” then why has a province which has unilaterally and blatantly repudiated that voice not suffered real consequences for so doing? What is the point of coming to a meeting to establish a common voice when those who so establish it will not honor it as common in the common life of their own province?

It is very important to underscore here something which many have missed, namely that is is simply insane to come together and discuss whether to do something which has always been considered immoral when one member family of an extended family is already doing it.

I also wish to ask why there is no mention of the fact that there has been no primates meeting since Tanzania? The Primates set in motion the process that produced the Windsor Report, received and deliberated over the meaning of that report for the wider Anglican family, and then set specific guidelines in place for TEC to respond to in order to repair the enormous breach which the TEC leadership caused. Surely they are the logical body to evaluate and deliberate over TEC’s response in New Orleans? The Archbishop of Canterbury risks arrogating to himself too much of a role here in this matter.

Finally, when Dr. Williams writes

I also intend to convene a small group of primates and others, whose task will be, in close collaboration with the primates, the Joint Standing Committee, the Covenant Design Group and the Lambeth Conference Design Group, to work on the unanswered questions arising from the inconclusive evaluation of the primates to New Orleans and to take certain issues forward to Lambeth. This will feed in to the discussions at Lambeth about Anglican identity and the Covenant process; I suggest that it will also have to consider whether in the present circumstances it is possible for provinces or individual bishops at odds with the expressed mind of the Communion to participate fully in representative Communion agencies, including ecumenical bodies. Its responsibility will be to weigh current developments in the light of the clear recommendations of Windsor and of the subsequent statements from the ACC and the Primates’ Meeting; it will thus also be bound to consider the exact status of bishops ordained by one province for ministry in another

He surely puts the emphasis in the right place but he raises so many more questions than he resolves. Who decides who is in this group or not and why, for example? What criteria do they use? By what deadline do they make their decisions? And: given that meetings and consultations have failed so far to resolve the current chasms in the Communion, how will this lead to any different outcome?

With regard to boundary crossings and the like, has not Dr. Williams allowed allowed this letter to look as if it supports the very equivalency between those actions and what TEC has done which the Tanzania Primates meeting said did not exist? Also, I do not feel that the Archbishop of Canterbury realizes that these actions have been undertaken because the Instruments of Communion have sought to provide a refuge for Communion minded Anglicans in the province of TEC, but they have consistently failed to do so.

The bottom line for me is this: we have here truth, but no consequences.

I sense Archbishop Williams really wants to have a Lambeth Conference as a conference of the whole communion. There is, I believe, a way to do this. It will mean not inviting bishops whose diocesan practice contradicts the mind of the communion; it will involve warning those who have been involved in increasing disorder in our common life, it will involve a clear declaration of the nature of the Lambeth Conference and its focus on the Covenant and that Covenant’s relationship to future Lambeth Conferences, and it will involve a called Primates meeting in the middle of the fall of 2008 to consolidate and elucidate what Lambeth and has said and done and its implications for our common life.

All though this crisis Rowan Williams has decided not to decide, and here he has done it again. Although his description of the problem is most welcome, the solution will take a Herculean effort without which the Lambeth Conference will no longer be a real instrument of the whole communion. In a real communion, there is truth, but there are consequences. I am concerned that with the underestimation of the degree of the problem and the lack of clarity involved in a real solution, Dr. Williams Advent letter will be too little, too late. I pray it may be otherwise–KSH.

Instruments of Mischief: Over the last decade and a half, sex-and-gender liberals in TEC/CoE have shown themselves vulnerable to this sort of reasoning. They have conceded sex-and-gender conservatives’ construals of what liberal tolerance and inclusiveness entails, and they have responded by handing sex-and-gender conservatives two (what I shall call) instruments of mischief. The CoE led the way with the Act of Synod which complicated the polity of the CoE to allow for flying bishops: a plan which allowed sex-and-gender conservative parishes to refuse to welcome geographical diocesans who had ordained women, and to request the episcopal offices of another bishop with clean hands. Candidates for ordination are also allowed to request a ”˜clean hands’ flying bishop to ordain them. This model has been twice adapted and applied in TEC, with the institution of Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight (DEPO) and now the presiding bishop’s scheme for Episcopal Visitors. Once the concept of individual congregations or dioceses not being bound to their duly elected geographical diocesan or PB is introduced and legitimized, it is an easy leap to appealing to bishops and primates of other Anglican provinces as well. The trajectory of +Duncan shows how slippery the slide from parallel ecclesial units within TEC (his diagnosis at the end of General Convention 2006) to schism (the move to form a separate North American Anglican church entirely, and/or to affiliate with some other ”˜orthodox’ Anglican province).

The second instrument of mischief is the The Windsor Report-proposed and Archbishop Drexel Gomez-interpreted Anglican covenant, which constructs a wider Anglican body politic in which a conservative majority would be guaranteed for the foreseeable future. Like the PB-sponsored House of Bishops’ ”˜pause’ (its resolve to withhold consents to non-celibate LGBT candidates for the episcopacy, and to refrain from authorising rites for the blessing of homosexual partnerships), consent to a Gomez-style Anglican covenant would represent a liberal concession not to implement their conscientious sex-and-gender beliefs at an institutional level. Talk about pastoral care defines the maximum scope within which conscientious liberal sex-and-gender convictions would be allowed to hold sway: to the private sphere, to what goes on individual to individuals, perhaps counter-culturally and covertly. And some Anglican communion primates are insisting on their right to invade privacy and put an end to the blessing of same-sex couples under the rubric of pastoral care.

Liberal concessions and sponsorship of these instruments of mischief represent not only a major political victory, but also a rhetorical triumph for conservatives. If tolerance and inclusiveness always trump, then liberals will never be in a position to press their conscientious content-beliefs about Kingdom-coming in the face of clever ([IPP]-invoking) conservative opposition. No wonder liberals are regularly caricatured as making idols of tolerance and inclusiveness, while betraying the Gospel!

Read it all.

There are clearly a number of centrifugal forces currently threatening the unity of the Anglican Communion. The focus of these for many is the issue of the proper response to same-sex unions and here I have suggested there is a wide spectrum of views among Anglicans which can be broadly classified into four groups: rejection, reassertion, reassessment and reinterpretation.

Faced with these divisions, the Communion responded by addressing the underlying ecclesiological questions relating to how we live together in communion and maintain our unity in the face of diversity. This produced the Windsor Report and now the Windsor Process (and within it the covenant process). This has articulated a vision of life in communion that I have called ‘communion Catholicism’ and then sought to apply that to the differences over sexuality.

The danger is that this process has, in turn, produced (or perhaps uncovered) further points of tension. At the level of principle there are new fracture lines developing as, competing with the Windsor vision, there are at least two other alternative ways of envisioning our life together – what I’ve called connectional confessionalism and autonomous inclusivism. These now supplement the tensions over sexuality and (in as much as there is a correlation between these and the two extremes of the sexuality spectrum) they may strengthen and reinforce them. At the level of practice there are those who, even if they share Windsor’s vision of life in communion and reject these two alternative paradigms, are unhappy with at least some of Windsor’s practical outworkings of this vision in relation to how the Communion should respond to its diversity over sexuality.

In addition to these three different levels of tension over more theoretical areas – attitudes to sexuality, visions of life in Communion, the implications of Windsor for sexuality – there is now the added and most pressing concrete question of discerning whether, if one accepts Windsor’s proposals in relation to the current crisis, TEC has (as JSC argue)accepted and implemented Windsor’s recommendations.

Finally, these forces are at play within and between at least four different institutional arenas within the Communion’s life – individual provinces and their relationships with other provinces, the Instruments of Communion, coalitions of provinces, and unofficial networks of committed protagonists.

Miraculously, for the last five years (since the current high-level tensions really began with the decisions of New Westminster diocese) the Instruments have been able to bring together all the provinces (though at ACC Nottingham, TEC and Canada attended as observers) and facilitate ongoing conversation across these various divides and wide spectra of beliefs and visions for the Communion. It has done so even as inter-provincial relationships and eucharistic fellowship among the Primates broke down. The challenge now is whether and how that achievement can be maintained, especially in relation to Lambeth 2008, and, if it cannot, what sort of viable ‘second best’ arrangements can be developed or ‘amicable separations’ negotiated.

Read it all.

His five arguments are:

–Present Anglican polity has severe design flaws.
–Our doctrinal boundaries are too vague.
–Current “Instruments of Communion” are not up to current challenges.
–Liturgical chaos prevents unity.
–Doctrine trumps polity and Scripture trumps tradition, not vice versa.

Read it all.

The way the individual Orthodox churches have handled international disagreements between them is unfamiliar to Anglicans but well known to the Orthodox.7 The disagreements have often been concerned with rival jurisdictions, which might seem trivial compared with the doctrinal and ethical problems facing Anglicans. Nevertheless, the serious way the Orthodox have handled them is illuminating. Since the various Orthodox churches are independent of each other, irreconcilable disagreements between them have tended to result in excommunication, though this is not necessarily mutual. In 1870 Constantinople excommunicated the Church of Bulgaria for insisting on intruding a Bulgarian bishop into the territory of Constantinople, to minister to its own nationals. The two churches remained out of communion until 1945. Since the Oecumenical Patriarch is only a first among equals, however, his action did not exclude the Church of Bulgaria from the Orthodox Church, and the Church of Russia remained in communion with both contestants.8 In 1996-7 the Oecumenical Patriarch was himself excommunicated for a short time by Moscow for restoring the autocephalous Church of Estonia without Moscow’s consent. Obviously, excommunication is a very serious step to take, expressing not just difference of opinion but the gravest disapproval””a step which needs to be withdrawn as soon as it properly can be; but the experience of the Orthodox is that it does not destroy the church, and may sometimes bring about the necessary change of heart without a long delay.

If, therefore, after the latest Primates’ Meeting, following whatever time for reflection the Meeting has decided to allow, there has been no sign of repentance on the part of the Episcopal Church, and it seems that nothing short of excommunication can bring home to that Church the error of its ways, the individual Anglican churches should not hesitate to take this unprecedented step and the more of them that do so the better, as their action will not be irreversible. If there is disagreement within a province whether to take this step, some of its dioceses may want to take action individually, and
there does not seem to be any reason why they should not do so: in that case, the archbishop will be in the same position as any other diocesan bishop. Provision will obviously need to be made for those who are the victims rather than the culprits in the American tragedy, and determined efforts made to reunite all the scattered fragments of faithful American Anglicanism which exist outside as well as inside the Episcopal Church. It is a task which seems likely to require much patience and understanding, but in the changed situation might be achievable.

Read it all.

With about seven weeks to go, hope for a unified Communion is not any brighter than it was seven months or ten years ago. Rather, the intransigence of those who reject Biblical authority continues to obstruct our mission and it now seems that the Communion is being forced to choose between following their innovations or continuing on the path that the church has followed since the time of the Apostles.

We have made enormous efforts since 1997 in seeking to avoid this crisis, but without success. Now we confront a moment of decision. If we fail to act we risk leading millions of people away from the faith revealed in the Holy Scriptures and also, even more seriously, we face the real possibility of denying our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The leadership of The Episcopal Church USA (TECUSA) and the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) seem to have concluded that the Bible is no longer authoritative in many areas of human experience especially in salvation and sexuality. They claim to have ”˜progressed’ beyond the clear teaching of the Scriptures and they have not hidden their intention to lead others to these same conclusions. They have even boasted that they are years ahead of others in fully understanding the truth of the Holy Scriptures and the nature of God’s love.

Both TECUSA and ACoC have been given several opportunities to consult, discuss and prayerfully respond through their recognized structures. While they produced carefully nuanced, deliberately ambiguous statements, their actions have betrayed them. Their intention is clear; they have chosen to walk away from the Biblically based path we once all walked together. The unrelenting persecution of the remaining faithful among them shows how they have used these past few years to isolate and destroy any and all opposition.

We now confront the seriousness of their actions as the year for the Lambeth Conference draws near..

Read it all.

Update: Simon Sarmiento has very helpfully provided a more user-friendly version of this document.

Another Update: Stephen Noll has a comment here in response which includes the following:

…In terms of the present crisis, I think he is clear that he sees it has culminating in seven weeks, not at Lambeth 2008. Indeed, he has been quite clear about this for at least 18 months since commissioning “The Road to Lambeth.”

I hope against hope that Canterbury will heed Abp. Akinola’s call and take the necessary disciplinary steps against those who have openly defied God’s Word in Scripture and the fundamental articles of the Communion’s identity. I say “hope against hope” because I fear Rowan Williams does not see the situation with the same eyes. But even beyond his personal views, I think he probably represents the Church of England’s inability to accept the reality that a new day has dawned, not ruled from the Anglo-American centers of power. As I have written elsewhere in “The Global Anglican Communion: A Blueprint,” I do not think the Communion can or should be governed as it has in the past. The sacred “Instruments” themselves are of relatively recent origin and overlapping in authority and function. A Communion Covenant is a good thing, but only if it addresses the issues and structures that have led to the present disruption.

From The Living Church:

It’s popular in conservative circles to say that our identity is anchored to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Bishop Jeffrey Steenson wrote a forceful apology for a Canterbury magisterium in the Anglican Theological Review (“The Unopened Gift,” Vol. 87), various Windsor bishops’ statements have said as much, and the Windsor Report itself seems to give the archbishop such a place of honor.

But with great respect for Bishop Steenson and the Windsor bishops, just to say something doesn’t make it true, and to say it often doesn’t make it less false. The Archbishop of Canterbury has never been the focal point of unity in the Anglican Communion. Instead, the focus of unity has always been a theology, what the prayer book calls “the substance of the Faith,” of which the archbishop is obligated to uphold. To give Canterbury control over our identity gives him far more power than he was ever meant to have.

According to Ian Douglas (Understanding the Windsor Report, coauthored with Paul Zahl), the four “instruments of unity” described in the Windsor Report were never identified as such before 1987. The Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Singapore in 1987 considered a paper that brought the four together for the first time. Yet, in reading the Windsor Report, one would get the feeling that these four ”” the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council, the primates, and Lambeth Conference ”” have always been authoritative.

Read it all.

In 1851, French President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte seized dictatorial powers that eventually allowed him to become Emperor Napoleon III, the last monarch of France. His actions gave currency to the term coup d’ètat, literally “strike the state,” which has described political takeovers from that day to this.

The parallel phrase coup d’èglise (strike the church) has not made it into the common lexicon but may be the only way to accurately describe the lightning ascendancy of the primates of the Anglican Communion. From their first meeting in 1979 to their asserted role in the proposed Anglican Covenant, the group has moved from non-existence to centrality. This may or may not be what the Anglican Communion needs; it may or may not be what every devoted Anglican wants; it may or may not be the leading of the Holy Spirit; but we should all know that it is happening.

For most of its history the Anglican Communion lived with three basic facts of life: The members had a common root in the Church of England, a common focal point in the Archbishop of Canterbury, and common mission on a selective basis. A common doctrinal base was assumed but basically unexamined.

The idea of ecumenicity in the late 19th century led to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, which was as close as the Communion ever came to formal doctrinal expression. The Quadrilateral was so broad that it was said that when we speak neither the pope nor the premier of China can say for certain they are not Anglicans.

This hazy sense of communion lasted until the emergence of indigenous leaders in the post-colonial church brought pre-existing differences of perspective and orientation into clarity and conflict. These differences became an Anglican crisis when the American and Canadian provinces gave tangible expression to a faithfully developed, but to many intolerable, view of human sexuality. That crisis provided the platform for the primates’ move to power.

Did I miss something? Where is the reference to the 1988 or 1998 Lambeth meetings? Just thought I would ask. Read it all.

Given this situation, we would make the following points and raise the following questions:

1. ACI has defended not only a collaborative understanding of the Instruments of Unity, but their integrity as well. The failure of the ABC publicly to state that the Dar es Salaam Communiqué is alive and well has been injurious to our common life. It has also been intimated in certain quarters that the adjudication of the Communiqué will be undertaken by a Joint Steering Committee of the Primates and the ACC. We trust that this rumor is mistaken. The Primates have worked hard and declared their intention, and their recommendations and requests are fully within their remit as an Instrument with enhanced responsibility, whose present character was requested by other Instruments of Communion. Lacking any clear understanding of the precise fate of the Communiqué has left the field open for manipulation and the multiplication of other initiatives, borne of fear, concern, power balancing and so on.

2. ACI has sought to work with the Windsor Report, the Covenant, and within the US, the Windsor Bishops. One can watch with curiosity and concern the proliferating of various groups within the conservative ranks, most recently, a Common Cause College of Bishops (as proposed), CANA, and others. The Anglican Communion Network would appear to have split into those bishops now headed toward the Common Cause College, and those who wish to continue on the Windsor path. But to the degree that the Windsor Bishops have no clarity about the future of the Primates’ Tanzanian Communiqué, and hence a comprehensive, ordered response to their Communion life in troubled times, they will collapse altogether. Indeed, one wonders what role they might be expected to exercise in the light of such unclarity.

3. It is our understanding that the recent issuing of Lambeth invitations was done in the light of organizational concerns and the timing of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s leave. The ways in which the Archbishop has reserved to himself all manner of options, discernment, and counsel regarding the ultimate character of invitations–which is his right to do–means that speculation about the character of the conference is bound to be only that. Still, it is speculation capable of generating unease and reaction that is not always constructive.

Read it all.

(ACNS)

Members of the TEAC (Theological Education for the Anglican Communion) Working Group held a consultation in Singapore 10-16 May 2007, to explore ”˜The Anglican Way in theological education’. Participants in the consultation included members of TEAC’s Steering Group and Anglican Way Target Group, as well as a number of other people who brought particular expertise and helpful cross-links to the process.’The meeting was honoured with the presence and contributions of Archbishop Rowan Williams for two days of its discussions. Participants in the consultation explored how the Anglican Way was informed by specific concerns; e.g. contextual issues, educational process, recent developments in Anglican ecclesiology and Anglican ecumenical conversations. A key document ”˜The Anglican Way: Signposts on a Common Journey’, which seeks to set out key parameters of the Anglican Way as a framework for Anglican theological education, was agreed by the consultation (see below for the complete text of this document). A number of specific projects to help resource the teaching of the Anglican Way were devised and will be developed over the coming months. Additionally, the meeting provided an opportunity to welcome TEAC’s new Regional Associates and induct them to their tasks.

Members of the consultation wish to express their special thanks to Archbishop John Chew, the clergy and people of the Diocese of Singapore, and the Principal and staff of Trinity Theological College for the gracious welcome they received and the considerable help that was offered which enabled the smooth running of the consultation. ‘TEAC is also grateful to the St Augustine’s Foundation who generously funded the meeting.

Theological Education for the Anglican Communion (TEAC) The Anglican Way: Signposts on a Common Journey[1]

This document has emerged as part of a four-year process in which church leaders, theologians and educators have come together from around the world to discuss the teaching of Anglican identity, life and practice. They clarified the characteristic ways in which Anglicans understand themselves and their mission in the world. These features, described as the ”˜Anglican Way’, were intended to form the basis for how Anglicanism is taught at all levels of learning involving laity, clergy and bishops. This document is not intended as a comprehensive definition of Anglicanism, but it does set in place signposts which guide Anglicans on their journey of self-understanding and Christian discipleship. The journey is on-going because what it means to be Anglican will be influenced by context and history. Historically a number of different forms of being Anglican have emerged, all of which can be found in the rich diversity of present-day Anglicanism. But Anglicans also have their commonalities, and it is these which hold them together in communion through ”˜bonds of affection’. The signposts set out below are offered in the hope that they will point the way to a clearer understanding of Anglican identity and ministry, so that all Anglicans can be effectively taught and equipped for their service to God’s mission in the world.

The Anglican Way is a particular expression of the Christian Way of being the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. It is formed by and rooted in Scripture, shaped by its worship of the living God, ordered for communion, and directed in faithfulness to God’s mission in the world. In diverse global situations Anglican life and ministry witnesses to the incarnate, crucified and risen Lord, and is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Together with all Christians, Anglicans hope, pray and work for the coming of the reign of God.

Formed by Scripture

As Anglicans we discern the voice of the living God in the Holy Scriptures, mediated by tradition and reason. We read the Bible together, corporately and individually, with a grateful and critical sense of the past, a vigorous engagement with the present, and with patient hope for God’s future.
We cherish the whole of Scripture for every aspect of our lives, and we value the many ways in which it teaches us to follow Christ faithfully in a variety of contexts. We pray and sing the Scriptures through liturgy and hymnody. Lectionaries connect us with the breadth of the Bible, and through preaching we interpret and apply the fullness of Scripture to our shared life in the world.
Accepting their authority, we listen to the Scriptures with open hearts and attentive minds. They have shaped our rich inheritance: for example, the ecumenical creeds of the early Church, the Book of Common Prayer, and Anglican formularies such as the Articles of Religion, catechisms and the Lambeth Quadrilateral.
In our proclamation and witness to the Word Incarnate we value the tradition of scholarly engagement with the Scriptures from earliest centuries to the present day. We desire to be a true learning community as we live out our faith, looking to one another for wisdom, strength and hope on our journey. We constantly discover that new situations call for fresh expressions of a scripturally informed faith and spiritual life.
Shaped through Worship

Our relationship with God is nurtured through our encounter with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in word and sacrament. This experience enriches and shapes our understanding of God and our communion with one another.
As Anglicans we offer praise to the Triune Holy God, expressed through corporate worship, combining order with freedom. In penitence and thanksgiving we offer ourselves in service to God in the world.
Through our liturgies and forms of worship we seek to integrate the rich traditions of the past with the varied cultures of our diverse communities.
As broken and sinful persons and communities, aware of our need of God’s mercy, we live by grace through faith and continually strive to offer holy lives to God. Forgiven through Christ and strengthened by word and sacrament, we are sent out into the world in the power of the Spirit.
Ordered for Communion

In our episcopally led and synodically governed dioceses and provinces, we rejoice in the diverse callings of all the baptized. As outlined in the ordinals, the threefold servant ministries of bishops, priests and deacons assist in the affirmation, coordination and development of these callings as discerned and exercised by the whole people of God.
As worldwide Anglicans we value our relationships with one another. We look to the Archbishop of Canterbury as a focus of unity and gather in communion with the See of Canterbury. In addition we are sustained through three formal instruments of communion: The Lambeth Conference, The Anglican Consultative Council and The Primates’ Meeting. The Archbishop of Canterbury and these three instruments offer cohesion to global Anglicanism, yet limit the centralisation of authority. They rely on bonds of affection for effective functioning.
We recognise the contribution of the mission agencies and other international bodies such as the Mothers’ Union. Our common life in the Body of Christ is also strengthened by commissions, task groups, networks of fellowship, regional activities, theological institutions and companion links.
Directed by God’s Mission

As Anglicans we are called to participate in God’s mission in the world, by embracing respectful evangelism, loving service and prophetic witness. As we do so in all our varied contexts, we bear witness to and follow Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Saviour. We celebrate God’s reconciling and life-giving mission through the creative, costly and faithful witness and ministry of men, women and children, past and present, across our Communion.
Nevertheless, as Anglicans we are keenly aware that our common life and engagement in God’s mission are tainted with shortcomings and failure, such as negative aspects of colonial heritage, self-serving abuse of power and privilege, undervaluing of the contributions of laity and women, inequitable distribution of resources, and blindness to the experience of the poor and oppressed. As a result, we seek to follow the Lord with renewed humility so that we may freely and joyfully spread the good news of salvation in word and deed.
Confident in Christ, we join with all people of good will as we work for God’s peace, justice and reconciling love. We recognise the immense challenges posed by secularisation, poverty, unbridled greed, violence, religious persecution, environmental degradation, and HIV/Aids. In response, we engage in prophetic critique of destructive political and religious ideologies, and we build on a heritage of care for human welfare expressed through education, health care and reconciliation.
In our relationships and dialogue with other faith communities we combine witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ with a desire for peace, and mutual respect and understanding.
As Anglicans, baptized into Christ, we share in the mission of God with all Christians and are deeply committed to building ecumenical relationships. Our reformed catholic tradition has proved to be a gift we are able to bring to ecumenical endeavour. We invest in dialogue with other churches based on trust and a desire that the whole company of God’s people may grow into the fullness of unity to which God calls us that the world may believe the gospel.
TEAC Anglican Way Consultation Singapore, May 2007

1. This document currently has only the authority of the TEAC meeting in Singapore which agreed the text.

From here:

Some Anglicans, especially critics of the authority of the Primates Meeting as an Instrument of Unity/Communion, have tended to see the four Instruments of Communion as competitors. There is no evidence that this view is held by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is himself an Instrument, and who presides at the Lambeth Conference, the Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. Clearly he views the Instruments as mutually encouraging, even as they have a specific and discrete identity and remit.

It has been the consistent position of ACI, going back to ”˜To Mend the Net,’ that the specific authority given to the Archbishop of Canterbury is that of gathering and inviting. And the place where that authority is his alone is the Lambeth Conference invitations.

But there is no evidence whatsoever that in making invitations for the 2008 Conference, +Canterbury has set aside or ignored the authority of the other Instruments.

It needs also to be underscored that the response of the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church to the requests of the most recent Primates Meeting says nothing probative in any way about the vitality and purchase of these requests. The means for providing regularization of various emergency extra-territorial ”˜missionary’ initiatives is the Pastoral Council Scheme and the Primatial Vicar. It is not the job of the Archbishop of Canterbury unilaterally to declare the regularization of these initiatives by inviting the bishops acting in such a status to the Lambeth Conference. That would be to reject the work of the Primates Meeting still alive and waiting final prosecution ”“ especially in the light of how the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church finally responds as of 30 September 2007.

It is tempting to wish to see individual initiatives, individual bishops, and individual Instruments as more definitive than others, and this instinct is alive on both ends of the Communion spectrum. What we are in fact seeing is the unfolding of a specific Anglican Communion polity, now come of age, and its hallmark is the mutual cooperation of four Instruments of Unity. The timing is such that the recent statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury is being given a specific kind of enhancement, but that may be misleading. In no way does his action in signaling an intention about present and future invitations stand over against the work of the other Instruments of Communion, and we can be sure he and his counselors have had this foremost in their minds.

We also wish to note the language of his statement””and this has not been properly emphasized due to concerns about CANA or New Hampshire””which points to the assumption that those Bishops attending do so with a commitment to the Instruments of Communion, and the statements and actions emanating from them. So far as we are concerned, the best indication of the mind of the Instruments in this season of disarray and challenge is what the Dar communiqué called the Camp Allen Principles: because these reaffirm Lambeth 1.10, Dromantine, The Windsor Report, and the serial statements and actions of all four Instruments.

It is our view that the efficient working of the Lambeth Conference, which is the desire of the Archbishop of Canterbury, needs an assumed commitment to these principles, if the meeting is not to be distracted and politicized according to this or that discrete concern or cause. We hope that the language used by the Archbishop of Canterbury at this juncture will receive specific commentary and elaboration. We believe we hear him rightly and trust that this perspective represents what is best for the healthy working of the Anglican Communion and the mission of Jesus Christ in this part of his Body the Church.

For a long time a number of posters on House of Bishops/deputies listserv and prominent TEC leaders have gone on and on about the Anglican Communion’s Instruments of Unity having no real authority.

What is interesting to me about Archbishop Williams statement is that he acknowledges the authority he has to invite, or not to invite, indeed possibly even to withdraw a given invitation, to the Lambeth Conference. He then chooses (in a rare instance in Anglican history) to exercise that authority in a few “cases.”

This goes all the way back to Mend the Net.

So let’s end the fiction that the instruments do not really exist, or that they don’t matter, or don’t have any real authority.

They do have authority. And we do seek to be an Anglican Communion. Whether we ever become what God wants us to remains to be seen–KSH