The Church of England’s General Synod approved an amended resolution Feb. 10 to “recognize and affirm the desire of those who have formed the Anglican Church in North America to remain within the Anglican family” and to “acknowledge that this aspiration, in respect both of relations with the Church of England and membership of the Anglican Communion, raises issues which the relevant authorities of each need to explore further.”
The original private member’s motion, proposed by Lorna Ashworth, not only affirmed the ACNA but declared the Church of England in communion with it. In effect, the resolution postpones further Church of England comment on the ACNA until General Synod meets again in 2011.
ACNA quickly issued a statement celebrating General Synod’s passage of the resolution on a 309”“69 vote.
It was interesting to me that this publication now carries a subhead saying it was for all Anglicans. (Not that I particularly want to read an apologia from Charles Bennison, or articles of that sort.)
It struck me as classic dithering and condescension, patting the new church on the head without giving it the recognition it wants. Then again both sides commune all baptised Christians so does it matter really?
Because it passed by such an overwhelming margin it would seem that everyone there felt this was the best way to move forward. It was interesting to hear it over the Internet yesterday and also wonderful that a layperson championed this motion.
General Synod’s votes was effective clear on a sufficiently ambiguous resolution. What’s new?
Simple. Recognition of two Anglican entities in the same geographic area.
There is no precedence that I know of for the recognition of two Anglican entities in the same geographic area, unless one considers the Episcopal churches in Europe which are co-located with other Anglican jurisdictions, and in light of this reality, there is therefore no reason why the ACNA cannot co-exist with, but not alongside TEC, nor in communion with them
And there’s the rub. Overlapping Anglican Communion jurisdictions in the same area could be dealt with. But the logic of a “Communion” is that all the members are in communion with each other — which is not the case right now, in the Anglican Communion, but the Covenant and other efforts hope to find some way to correct that and return to a state where a (possibly smaller) Anglican Communion is truly a Communion.
But ACNA was formed from people who could not stomach being in communion with TEC. The reason it was created was specifically to be Not-TEC. There is no chance in the foreseeable future of TEC and ACNA being in communion with each other — indeed, if relations ever improved to that level, there would be no reason for the two to exist as separate entities.
Which means that, looking forward to the day when full communion is restored to the Anglican Communion — even if that means there are two or more Communions — TEC and ACNA will not be in the same body. The only scenario I can envision in which the two are under the same umbrella is one where the Communion has decided to be a different kind of body altogether, a “federation” perhaps, in which it’s tolerable for members to be out of communion with each other.
But if we insist on being a Communion, or more likely Communions… then ultimately the other provinces will have to choose the Communion that TEC is in, or the Communion that ACNA is in. And this, I think, is precisely the outcome that Rowan Williams most wants to avoid.