From various sources and from various leaders of groups within the Anglican Communion we are beginning to see the lines of demarcation and advocacy more clearly. It would be useful to set these out and consider them as we face into a very difficult season, waiting and praying for a way forward for Anglican Christianity that is pleasing to God as 30 September 2007 approaches.

1.  Canterbury as hub of localist options: Canterbury is in communion with various local sectors of the Anglican family, though they are not in communion with one another, due to developments of the past five years. Presumably, Canterbury could be in communion with sectors within a province which are not in communion with one another, but it is likely that this very reality will frustrate such an ecclesiology at the practical level, whatever one might make of it as an actual ecclesiology. In some ways, it gives Canterbury a curious kind of papal individuality, but without any obvious theological or scriptural warrant. At the same time, it undermines the ecumenical capacity of Anglicanism.  It is also not clear how the Primates Meeting would bring these various disputants and communion-fractured entities together under a single presidency. This appears to be the way forward recently articulated in The Living Church, by the Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council, the Rev’d Kenneth Kearon. “What holds the Communion together,” he said, “is the ‘figure of the Archbishop of Canterbury’ as Anglicans across the globe are ‘not in communion with one another but with him’.”

2.  Plural confessional communions: ++Nigeria (and/or other individual Primates?) form ‘convocations’ in districts outside their own provinces. Canterbury’s ‘permission’ is not required for this, because ‘facts on the ground’ are made by virtue of alterations within the canons of a given individual region, independently of approval from Instruments of Communion. On this understanding, Anglican Christianity devolves (or evolves for a season only; this is unclear) into groups which deem they are ‘in communion’ on the basis of certain theologically common understandings, and the will to enforce larger, trans-provincial arrangements without need of approval beyond those so electing. It is unclear whether Instruments of Communion are vitiated by this kind of possible future, but it is clear that only with difficulty could one imagine a Primates Meeting or a Lambeth Conference or an Anglican Consultative council adapting themselves to this kind of initiative and actually meeting.  As above, the ecumenical capacity of Anglicanism is called into question by such arrangements made apart from their coherent ordering by the Instruments of Communion.  It may also be the case that such arrangements are not meant to determine Anglicanism’s future because ++Nigeria does not intend them to be more than  an emergency measure based upon larger hopes for a renewed conciliar Anglicanism  (see 4. below).  This, however, remains unclear.

3.  Federated churches: The Communion becomes a Federation of autonomous national bodies, on analogy, presumably, with the Lutheran World Federation. One can make the argument, as is happening, that this is the way things have always been (highly questionable though that may be), but fail totally to demonstrate how such an arrangement can actually hope to contain the various challenges and extreme disagreements within any one given ‘autonomous’ church body – short of ‘minority’ groups just leaving or being driven off. These ‘minority’ groups inside of one ‘autonomous’ church have, however, their counterpart in majority ‘autonomous’ churches elsewhere, so it is hard to see this as a coherent option – except for individuals in one region hoping thereby to drive out unwanted others. “Balancing” the often conflicting poles of “local” and “global”, in the recent words of Dr Douglas of the Episcopal Theological School in Massachusetts, drives the federated model in a consistent political instability, one that tends to follow democratic dynamics of contestation.  Again, the ecumenical ministry of Anglicanism is thwarted.

4.  Conciliar Communion: The Anglican Communion follows the direction given by its preeminent councils, whose cooperative work represents most fully the mind of the Anglican church.  This means now that the Communion must proceed forward on the understanding that the enhanced role given to the Primates’ Meeting by the other Instruments of Communion is warranted by these Instruments’ unconstrained choosing; that the Dar es Salaam communiqué offers the conciliarly agreed away forward; that the initial response of The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops  is initial only (insofar as all that has been asked of it has yet concretely to be adjudicated) and cannot hold hostage in any event what Dar has requested, short of the Instruments of Communion so declaring. On this understanding the decision of Canterbury to visit the TEC’s House of Bishops near to the deadline of 30 September in no way compromises the work of the Primates’ Meeting and may indeed assist in helping them form a response to what TEC’s bishops declare as of the deadline given to them. There is no reason to believe that Canterbury is visiting for any other reason than as the President of the Primates’ Meeting who will return to that meeting on the basis of what was said when last it adjourned. This understanding of the future of Anglican Communion Christianity also supports the work of the Covenant Design group, precisely because such work is warranted by the Windsor Report, authorized by the Primates, sent on to the Provinces and gathered at the Lambeth Conference, to be then discussed at the ACC, and because this work is crucial for comprehending the very way forward that is represented by conciliarity, of which it is an integral part.

This last option is consistent with the understanding of Communion argued for by the ACI, on the basis of its congruence with Scripture and the historical realities of the Anglican Communion as this has taken form in God’s providence over the historical course of its existence as an international Gospel and missionary movement.

Christopher Seitz, on behalf of

The Anglican Communion Institute