All this matters today because the integrity of the Communion is under threat from the impoverished extremes of liberals and conservatives. If liberals want to broaden the priesthood to include women and gay bishops or if conservatives want to oppose any such development, then they must produce theological arguments from within the Episcopal tradition. Both must also respect the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury as ”˜first among equals’. Otherwise, liberal and conservative bishops would depart from Anglican orthodoxy and loose their own legitimacy.
It is hard to see how the conflicting visions can be reconciled. But in order to reunify the 80-million strong worldwide Communion, Anglicans could do worse than recover Anglican theology. Rowan Williams has taken a first step by questioning the non-theological motivations that prompted liberals to press ahead with appointing a gay bishop and conservatives to establish a rival council of bishops.
His critics rightly contend that his leadership since 2003 has not succeeded in breaking the deadlock. Though he inherited many problems from his predecessor, thus far he has failed to change the terms of the debate ”“ not least because his own stance has at times oscillated between social liberalism and theological conservatism.
I think that the most interesting assertion in the article is found in the following text: [blockquote] It is true that the clash between liberals and conservatives focuses on gay and female bishops. But the trouble is that by reducing these questions to scriptural interpretation and historical precedent, both sides ignore the Communion’s formative tradition and sources of authority. It is this ignorance that continues to prevent a proper theological debate between the warring sides. Conservatives condemn liberals for embracing secular moral norms incompatible with Anglican teachings on ethics and marriage. Liberals accuse traditionalists of intolerance and scriptural literalism at odds with Anglican inclusiveness. Both are right about each other, but wrong about their church. [i] In reality, liberals and conservatives share much more in common than they are prepared to admit. Both claim a monopoly on biblical interpretation which neither has. Both purport to speak for a majority of Anglicans which neither represents. And both view Anglicanism in partisan ideological terms rather than from a robust theological perspective. [/i] As a result, the deepening divide between liberals and conservatives hides a more orthodox and more radical vision. Such a vision transcends the current divide and situates the Communion alongside the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches firmly within the Episcopal tradition. [/blockquote]
Now before someone condemns me as an adherent to the purportedly discredited “branch” theory of ecclesiology, what about this notion that liberals and evangelicals both err by focusing on individual choice, i.e., autonomy and political action, to the neglect of larger ecclesial structure?