The new fellowship could have a leadership of six or seven senior conservative bishops and archbishops, such as the Bishop of Pittsburgh, the Right Rev Bob Duncan ”” who chairs the US Common Cause partnership that acts as an umbrella for American conservatives ”” Archbishop Henry Orombi, Primate of Uganda, and the Church of England’s Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali.
The aim is not to split the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has 80 million members in 38 provinces, but to reform it from within. Formal ties would be maintained with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, but fellowship members will consider themselves out of communion with the US and Canada.
Fellowship members could attempt to opt out of the pastoral care of their diocesan bishop and seek oversight from a more conservative archbishop from their own country or abroad.
Wow, Kendall–you should have a “coffee/monitor” warning about the headline on the linked article…
I do not know if the article has it right or not — but the “inside strategy” has yet to work. It is not impossible, but so far, all we have seen tells us that reappraisers are better politicians than reasserters are.
A brilliant proposal. Here is how it could work : The Anglo-Catholics can have their church with their Bishops. The conservative evangelicals can have theirs. The liberals can have theirs. And the Fulcrum folks can pick up anyone left. Each wing funds their ‘wing’, with no cross funding. Each can have their own Lambeth. Each can brand themselves differently. Each group can establish new parishes without consulting the other group. They can unite in causes they want to unite in, and be separate in causes they don’t want to unite in. Each parish takes a vote to decide which wing they fall under. Majority rules. And each parish is free to vote to move from one wing to another at any time. And take their buildings and bank account with them. Peace reigns, and each wing gets on with mission ‘as they see it’. No more lawsuits. No more bickering. Everyone still falls under one umbrella organization, but its an umbrella organization with no power. There is a decreasing ‘transitional’ funding arrangement to cross fund from the wealthiest wing to the poorest wing for a transitional period of 40 years, and after that, each wing makes their own way financially.