Call me old-fashioned but I am pretty keen on the notion that an Anglican is someone who is in communion with the See of Canterbury.
It is not a bad notion, by the way, for diplomatically distinguishing Anglicans from Anglicans: if many people describe themselves as Anglican (or Episcopalian), what kind of Anglican they are can reasonably turn on whether they are in communion with the See of Canterbury. On this definition, for example, ACNA is not in communion with the See of Canterbury and, so, accordingly, not a member church of the Anglican Communion. But on this definition we also do not need to get stuck on whether members of ACNA are Anglicans or not: they are but they are not Anglicans in the Anglican Communion.
Nevertheless I am but a tiny voice, a long way away from Canterbury and my notions amount to nothing much at all when pressure is on the Communion with various actual member churches of the Communion raising questions about whether they can be in full communion with the See of Canterbury, given that See's current association with polity in the CofE is at odds with the polity of many member churches. Further, there is an increasing sense that the holder of this See, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is simply unable as one single human being to do justice to all demands made on her or him, from within the CofE, in respect of social/political expectations in the nation of the United Kingdom, supporting the Royal Family, leaning into significant ecumenical relationships and leading the Anglican Communion through actual travel to provinces of the Communion and to its various conferences and councils. There is also the question of whether Communion expectations (in a majority) that the Archbishop be a man unfairly presses the CofE to not consider any of its women as serious candidates for the role. (To be clear, notwithstanding my keeness expressed above, I am enitrely sympathetic to all these concerns.)
In response to these kinds of concerns, IASCUFO has been doing a bit of thinking about a new way forward, in respect of what "communion" means for Anglicans of the Anglican Communion and in respect of what the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury might be if it were to be changed.
See further here on the Anglican Communion website.
The "money" proposals are these:
Proposal 1 – Updating the definition of the Anglican Communion
The first proposal offers an updated statement (for the first time since 1930) of the nature and status of the Anglican Communion, a statement that reflects the “maturing of the 42 sister churches of the Communion.”
The proposed hopeful description states that (1) the churches of the Communion seek to uphold and propagate the Catholic and Apostolic faith and order, as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer; (2) they are properly autonomous, rooted in their various localities; and (3) they remain bound together in four respects: “through their shared inheritance, mutual service, common counsel in conference, and historic connection with the See of Canterbury.” The latter four characteristics “capture the present reality and ideals of the churches of the Communion, by which they seek to foster the highest degree of communion” with one another and with all churches and communities of the Universal Church.Proposal 2 – Broadening how the meetings of the Instruments of the Communion are led
The second proposal suggests broadening how the meetings of the Instruments of Communion are called, convened, chaired, and presided over, in order to diversify the face of the Instruments of Communion.
This includes “a rotating presidency of the Anglican Consultative Council between the five regions of the Communion, elected from the membership of the Primates’ Meeting by the same; and an enhanced role for the Primates’ Standing Committee in the calling and convening of both Primates’ Meetings and the Lambeth Conference.” These suggestions “fit with the identity and ideals of the Anglican Communion in a post-colonial era. The leadership of the Communion should look like the Communion.”
25 comments:
The Church of England shouldn't be blackmailed by misogynist threats from other churches *if* through the guidance of the Spirit (of truth) they discern that the best person to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury is a woman. My goodness, if the C of E discerned the best person was a bishop, say, of African heritage (such as John Sentamu) of Persian heritage (such as Guli Francis-Dehqani), and other churches threatened to leave the Communion because they were theologically wedded to the idea of a white European Archbishop, we would just call that out for what it is: racism. Why is sexism/misogyny more theologically acceptable?
Personally I hope it is a woman. Because the last 150 Archbishops of Canterbury have all been men, and that is quite absur (and even more so when women probably make up well over 50% of regular parishioners). And because the Church is wracked over issues of abuse and silencing, power and control, in which men are in a clear and vast majority as both perpetrators and silencers of abuse.
Who can fix the problems of the Communion!
I found this perspective - a critique of the policy of "church growth" in the C of E - refreshing and wise. I wonder about it being applied to the Communion: any strategy to "do more" may unwittingly take us away from the Spirit.
"This is one of the core arguments of Andrew Root and Blair Bertrand in their recent book When Church Stops Working: a future for your congregation beyond more money, programs, and innovation. As the title suggests, Root and Bertrand argue that the crisis of church decline tends to compel churches ‘to go faster, to do more and more’: ‘[o]ur attention, our deepest concern, must be directed toward a future that our bodies have not yet reached’. Their antidote, in a nutshell, is to be present and attentive to ‘the life we’re living right now’ and to those with whom we are sharing it. But to rediscover that attentive presence, they argue, there is only one route, and that is to find a humility that comes only through a kind of ‘death’: a surrender not to ‘despair, frustration, or resignation’, but to a form of ‘letting go, stopping, admitting, and waiting’, ‘moving from having to being, to dying, humbling ourselves, and confessing’ in which, in gratitude, we ‘dwell deeply’ with each other and with God."
https://thisestate.blogspot.com/2024/12/simpler-humbler-bolder-towards-anti.html?m=1
Thoughts? Well, I don't really have a dog in this fight, but since you invite comments, here goes.
1. A communion means a fellowship of churches which teach the same doctrine, teach the same morality (including teaching on sex and marriage), have the same interchangeable ordained ministry, have essentially the same liturgy and sacraments, and understand baptism and eucharist in the same way. By this standard, the Roman Catholic Church and the 21 or so uniate Catholic churches are one communion because they recognise the Pope as Christ's Vicar; and the Orthodox Churches of the East are a communion as well, bound to the same understanding of moral teaching, ordination and liturgy.
But the Anglican churches are not a communion because: different churches have radically different understandings about sex and marriage (TEC thinks same-sex 'marriage' is a graced state of being; African Anglicans think it will send you to hell); some Anglicans churches ordain women to the presbyterate and episcopacy, others don't recognise women's orders; it is very difficult to see Anglican liturgy as uniform throughout the Anglican world (even within some provinces), and Anglicans seem to hold radically different ideas about the eucharist, from Zwinglian to transubstantiationist, and nobody can arbitrate on any of these issues. You have no authority beyond the merely local.
So Anglicans are not a communion and haven't been one since at least 1975. At most, they are a federation of historically related churches which have now diverged radically in many ways.
2. I don't understand this fixation with the Archbishop of Canterbury as the 'head' of Anglicanism, or the idea that somebody could be parachuted in from Nigeria or wherever to have that role. The Archbishop of Canterbury has to be a subject of King Charles and he has a constitutional role within the government of the United Kingdom, as well as the Province of Canterbury. The job can't be farmed out to some American or Indian. The obsession with England looks to me to be the dying embers of Victorian imperialism, when global Anglicanism was really established, and it's time to get rid of such infantilism. Even Rome has broken free from the long deadly grip of Italian ecclesiastical and secular politics on the papacy. The British Empire is dead, and vastly more Anglicans are found in West and East Africa than in the old country. So if Anglicans want to continue as a global fellowship and not as the remnants of empire, choose a president from among yourselves, and let the English get on with the job of burying their old church. Under their present incumbent, they seem to have made enormous progress toward that goal.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Mark, thanks for both contributions. Over a cup of tea I've been enjoying your article link -and- the article linked to from your article. The latter I'll quote from shortly...
But first, from William's comment, "let the English get on with the job of burying their old church".
*
A Very Fertile Death......
I saw William's comment immediately after reading this passage:
"The great irony of course is that, while the Israelites grumbled about being in the wilderness, God provided for them. They received manna to eat, they were commanded not to work but to rest, they could see God’s presence physically leading them through the wilderness during those 40 long years. The wilderness was a time when the people deepened their relationship with God, when they received God’s commandments that would define them, when they had to trust God because they could no longer rely on their own resources. Entering the wilderness was a kind of death – but a very fertile death, out of which came transformation. Entering the wilderness was essential for the people of God then – and it is essential for us today.
From: Why we need an anti-growth coalition in the Church of England
https://thisestate.blogspot.com/2024/12/why-we-need-anti-growth-coalition-in.html
*
Thanks Mark and William! ~Liz
Dear William,
Given your hostility to all things Anglican - as well as human divetsity in general, including it's presence within theological forms - I do wonder why you comment here so often.
Mark, I thought it was obvious: out of my love for the truth and my desire that all should be saved. Also because Peter isn't thin-skinned about disagreements, he just likes people to be polite.. I have analysed Peter's use of the word 'communion' with respect to doctrine, sexual morality, holy orders, sacraments, liturgy, and authority, and concluded that since about 1975 global Anglicanism has ceased to be a communion (an international fellowship of churches with interchangeable ministry and common doctrine and liturgy). If there are errors in my reasoning and facts, please feel encouraged to discuss them. I'm not interested in ad hominem comments.
And do not imagine I am "hostile to all things Anglican". Nobody here quotes C. S. Lewis more than I do, especially his defence of Natural Law in "The Abolition of Man", and his defence of supernaturalism and repudiation of materialism in "Miracles". Strangely you can meet self-described Anglicans today who don't know that Natural Law thinking has always been central to Anglican thought since before the time of Hooker. Anglican thought really only began to diverge from the Great Tradition in the 19th century when Hegelian idealism took root in England and the United States and after that came the inevitable floodgates of liberalism. St John Henry Newman was sctually very grateful for his historic Anglican formation because it rooted him in the Church Fathers; but his prediction in his 'Biglietto' speech of where Anglicanism proved very prescient.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Liz, North Africa from Morocco to the border of Egypt was once the Bible Belt of the Church of the West, giving us Tertullian, Perpetua and Felicity, Cyprian and Augustine. Where is it now? Death isn't always followed by resurrection, at least in this world. Beware of facile and unreflective use of the Old Testament, such as you will find in "Thinking Anglicans ". The wilderness was also a time of severe chastisement for sexual and other apostasy according to Numbers and Deuteronomy, while Hebrews recalls that none of the exodus generation except Joshua and Caleb made it into the promised land. As Paul reminded the Corin3, the rest left their bodies in the desert. Sometimes these "thinking Anglicans " show a disturbing inability to read the Bible.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
"Mark, I thought it was obvious: out of my love for the truth and my desire that all should be saved."
William, it's very hard to ascertain *tone* without voice and body cues, so I'm entirely unsure if you're serious or not. I assume you're joking, as berating Anglicans for, well, being Anglican (how dare they call their fellowship a communion, their communion a sacrament!), and taking great delight in numerical church decline, as you are consistently wont to do, seems like an extremely odd, rather sadistic way of "saving people". The very idea that other baptized Christians need to be "saved", is, of course, anathema to most modern Christians, including Catholics faithful to Vatican II. So you must be joking.
But who would joke about salvation?
I had assumed you enjoy commenting here because you enjoy open discussion and an, at times, robust exchange of diverse views. There's not really a space for this, sadly, as far as I can see in NZ Catholicism. I regret the demise of the excellent CathNews (which has been bought out by the NZ Catholic bishops, cue squashing), but even that didn't have a facility where diverse views could be openly shared. Which is a great strength of Peter's blog, and, I would argue the Anglican tradition more generally. So we don't all agree on sexuality *and* we find to try to find a way to Iive together, to not make that into a salvation issue and break fellowship over. Maybe it won't work. But it does feel more honest than suppressing our difference for the sake of a putative uniformity.
"For while the Anglican church is vindicated by its place in history, with a strikingly balanced witness to Gospel and Church and sound learning, its greater vindication lies in its pointing through its own history to something of which it is a fragment. Its credentials are its incompleteness, with the tension and the travail in its soul. It is clumsy and untidy, it baffles neatness and logic. For it is sent not to commend itself as “the best type of Christianity,” but by its very brokenness to point to the universal Church wherein all have died."
(Michael Ramsey, The Gospel and the Catholic Church, p. 220)
True, William. And even Moses wasn't permitted to enter the Promised Land. The new generation however, under new leadership, did enter and God was with them while they remained faithful. Doesn't this offer hope for opportunity of renewal for CofE if only there's contrition and repentance for the wrong that's been done, including "sexual and other apostasy" - and for the things that have been left undone (which should've been done). Followed by shared spiritual discernment of a new and better way forward, and associated amendment of attitude and behaviour in church culture. Is such a thing possible? I'm not holding my breath - but I can watch, wait and hope! Is that so terribly misguided?
I had wondered if there was a touch of nostalgia in +Peter’s post, a longing for what has been rather than what is - a small part of worldwide Anglicanism?
The Anglican Church as it became established in England, did contain a wide variety of beliefs and practices, which has always been seen as one of its strengths.
But in England last year, I went with my cousin to her local Anglican church, where she is a faithful member. I hoped for communion but was met with a full Sung Morning Prayer that contained all the canticles. It took me back to St Mary’s, Geraldine in the 1970’s.
I suspect that the members of that congregation would have difficulty recognising the Anglican church in NZ, even though we acknowledge the ABC.
Mark, I wasn't joking. Call me 'sadistic' if you will, but don't analyse me, analyse my arguments and tell me if they are false or not. That's what I meant by not being interested in ad hominems. Peter's argument is essentially that global Anglicanism is really the same as an autocephalous Orthodox church. My answer is that it is nothing of the sort. Am I correct in my analysis?
Michael Ramsey's book was written in the 1930s, IIRC, at the high water mark of Anglo-Catholicism. He wouldn't recognise what one can see today.
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
Hi Moya,
Baffling meatless and logic, Anglican churches are very diverse. I must say I quite like that, now I'm truly into the second half of my life, as it seems reflective of a basic human truth and conundrum. It seems that human groups (families, villages, cities, nations religions) have always struggled with the tension between unity and diversity. People who study human behaviour and brains make the point that we can only take a certain amount of others as tribe, as self, before it becomes difficult for us to empathisize and relate to everyone - then we tend to create in groups and out groups, them and us. Transpersonal psychologists and contemplatives speak of the difficult journey to truly unitary or non-dual consciousness, such as we see rather shockingly in Jesus' inclusive embrace (of women, outcasts, Samaritans, Romans....) and Paul's trans-tribal, cosmic sense of the Christ. But under threat the human mind reverts back to dualistic thinking - out, in, liberal, conservative, saved, damned - including the religious mind of course.
Our modern, global world presents us with many challenges and opportunities in regard to the unity/diversity tension: cultural, linguistic, sexual, and religious diversity of a scake that we have never experienced before, the impossible challenge of empathizing with a global world, an increased appreciation of the diversity of personality styles in the micro-worlds within and between (most church religion still struggles to include both introverts and extraverts, for example). This is the context for the Anglican Communion.
When we eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil we create a deep split in ourselves - we create the good and the bad self, and begin to experience shame.
This is inevitable - all "culture" requires us to civilize/suppress parts of ourselves, though this differs radically around the world. In India, you are permitted to walk hand in hand with men, but not women. In NZ, it is definitely the opposite! We are all reviewing thrse sorts of splits now, though we still require a certain level of self-control and give and take to live together and that does require suspension of parts of self. But we often disagree on what is core, what can't be negotiated and what can (once again, the Anglican Communion....but also every other church, e.g. Catholic synodality).
The split is not just good and bad but also self and other. "The religious process", one author writes, is ultimately about healing this split, about "restoring us to wholeness" (though religions often are cultural human energies interested in creating and maintaing splits). It includes but transcends the ethical order. Christ, the author of our wholeness, is reconciling earth and heaven.
Isn't it interesting that we start in the Garden of Eden with just two human beings, but our end vision is the New Jerusalem, the city of God - an image of multitudes living peacefully together.
Anglicanism, as I read it and participate in it, is one very interesting Christian response to building the new Jerusalem - to holding the tension between unity and diversity without squashing either ends, and allowing God to work out a surprising, inclusive third way.
Ramsey's father was a congregationalist, and though he was most at home within an Anglican liberal catholicism, he was an ardent ecumenist, both within and outside the Anglican church. He certainly rejected the idea that one church party - such as Anglo-Catholicism - should win out, and always appreciated the integrity of both Anglicanism's evangelical and catholic streams. He was a political liberal (a supporter of the Liberal Party at one stage), and supported decriminalization of homosexuality in the 1960s, though in matters of religion was more conservative (as many were in his time). While continuing in his functions as the Archbishop of Canterbury and symbol of unity for Britain, the Church of England, and the Anglican Communion, he also famously said: "Establishment has never been one of my enthusiasms." What would Ramsey make of the present time? I don't think he would either condemn it, which you are implying, or rejoice. He would probably respond as other good Anglicans of his ilk - e.g. Rowan Williams - respond - humanly, with more humility, that we have more to learn, of the Church in conversation with the best of contemporary knowledge (say, on human sexual diversity), that there is more to be worked out and revealed together, and with some wisdom too - he had a genius for articulating the ongoing essence and unity of Christianity, while including in that essence (not rejecting or suppressing or trying to convert it) a real appreciation of brokenness, fragmentation, and falling short.
Thanks Mark, that’s helpful.
It reminds me of, and goes deeper into, my post in the last thread, if I may post again:
“Maybe the stone and the tree images are unable to be reconciled in our thinking, Liz?
Jesus seems to prefer growth images but the Scriptures do tend to present polar opposites about God without any attempt to bring them together. Even heaven and hell are categories like that, as well as justice and mercy and I am sure there are others. We wonder how both can be true!
It takes a degree of humility to say of God, ‘I don’t understand but I believe…’ The human quest for knowledge is endless but so is the One we call God and more so. That’s why the desire to be certain about him is dangerous.”
Definitely our view and understanding of God and Jesus Christ have to stretch!
"A communion means a fellowship of churches which teach the same doctrine, teach the same morality (including teaching on sex and marriage), have the same interchangeable ordained ministry, have essentially the same liturgy and sacraments,eaking as an ordinary parishioner, and understand baptism and eucharist in the same way...Anglicans are not a communion and haven't been one since at least 1975. At most, they are a federation of historically related churches which have now diverged radically in many ways." (William - who else!)
1. The table
Speaking as lay member of the church, I am unsure about the specifics of "interchangeable ordained ministry". I defer to Bishop Peter or others here in the know! Personally speaking, this is not a central aspect of my sense of an Anglican Communion.
Let's stay grounded, close at hand - with the communion table that we gather around and are fed from each Sunday:
"We who are many are one body for we all share the one bread."
Whether in India or England, Canada, Australia, or Aotearoa, my own experience of Anglican churches is of a very generous communion table. Simply put, my wife wouldn't be accepted at the Roman Catholic communion table in NZ (because she was baptized in a Baptist church); neither would my children (both baptized in Anglican churches), though I would. All are welcome in the Anglican churches I have attended who are baptized as Christians. So we simply share in the validity of this common sacrament, and insist, if pushed, on a few "Mere Christianity" fundamentals (water, the trinitarian name of God). Is it worth breaking communion with each other - is it right to rail off the body and blood of Christ - because my wife was dunked in an eighties spa pool, while I was sprinkled from neo-gothic, Indian marble?
As to the theology of the priest presiding, I really couldn't care less if so-and-so down the road is a Lutheran consubstantionist or Fr Andrew is deeply Thomist. True sacrament is true mystery, as Hooker and other early Anglican centrists affirmed. We agree on a few fundamentals - quite a few - and then leave it to God, faith of the heart, and one's own capacity to choose which church one receives communion from. Having a Zwinglian or Transubstantianist or Real Presence theology, when all the other Mere Christianity fundamentals ate present, isn't worth breaking communion over.
I'm interested in what you've shared Mark, it's only in recent years I've become aware of how different Catholic teaching is about communion. I'd definitely not be welcome to participate either, given I was baptised while in the Open Brethren (outdoor baptism in a river). The other thing that interests me is that at the last Lambeth Conference, didn't a small number of very conservative bishops refuse to fellowship at the same communion table as liberal bishops? In light of what you've said, this would appear to be an action that I should interpret as an *extreme* expression of dissent.
Hi Liz,
I'm going to delete my first response to your post (thank goodness for the delete button) as it wasn't very pretty. But if you refuse to share communion with your fellow bishops, that is so low. You're really out of communion with Canterbury at that point. As Bowman was fond of saying: out is out, in is in.
Mark and Liz are both mistaken on the Catholic doctrine and discipline of baptism. The Catholic Church accepts as valid baptism performed in Protestant churches provided the baptism is with water on the head of the candidate, the Trinitarian formula is used and there is an intention to baptise. Anglican and free church baptisms are accepted. On the other hand, Mormon baptism is not. Which brings up the interesting case of Episcopal Bishop of Utah Carolyn Tanner Irish, who was baptised a Mormon and never baptised again, despite becoming a Tec bishop. I guess Mark and Liz are happy with Mormon baptism? That's generous, isn't it?
Pax et bonum
William Greenhalgh
"Anglican Communion"
2. Whakapapa
While requiring the most minimal, essential requirement for inclusion at the communion table, it is also true that the Anglican Communion stands in a certain historical tradition. Just as Roman Catholics - for good or ill - are in communion with the Bishop of Rome, Anglicans have a unique whakapapa - for good or ill - of being in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the evolved and evolving church tradition he or she symbolizes and represents.
3. Not a secular society
Finally, we have a communion and not a federation because we are not a secular society or polity, because we are centred around the communion table of Christ, we are part of a spiritual body albeit one that is marked - for good or ill - by a specific historical, evolving whakapapa. We are one family with its own resemblances and distinctive traditions, and we are endeavouring not to be a family that smothers all difference for the sake of a putative togetherness, but is as open to as many joining it as is reasonable, wise, and loving.
Oh yes I know that about Catholic baptism, William, but being a baptized Christian is still not good enough for you to receive communion, though I know priests who hate enforcing this.
Hello
Thanks for comments here.
A few thoughts from me (but by no means responses to all points made above ... tempus fugit):
- communion in the RCC (assuming valid Trinitarian water baptism, per William above) is a matter of doctrinal agreement (marked by admission to the church) and not a matter of baptism. Some Protestant churches have been pretty strict doctrinally, also, re sharing in communion or not.
- yes, I am keen on the Anglican Commmunion via communion with Canterbury as a form of "English Orthodoxy" with similarity to the autocephalous Orthodox churches; but not a pure and simple following of that model, since my - generally the Anglican - approach - is to allow for local decision-making, diversity in liturgy, diversity in (say) accepting or not accepting ordination of women, discipline re marriage;
- diversity-in-unity re what "communion" means in practice is always subject to critique and I can both acknowledge William's critique (in sum, so much diversity that unity doesn't really exist, so the "communion" in Anglican Communion is really "federation") as having some force and also note that "communion" in the (so to speak) "Roman Communion" seems under pressure these days (as bishops critique the Pope; diversity over marriage discipline is in play in debates, even if no canons have change (yet?); and some Catholics claim to be true Catholics while out of sync with their local bishop (a dynamic at work locally here in the Catholic Diocese of Christchurch).)
'Whakapapa' means sonething to people studying Maori anthropology and ancestral genealogy but absolutely nothing to everyone else. What is the point of using this word (wrongly) in this context? Many years ago I studied the meanings of Hebrew genealogies in the OT but I wouldn't help anyone if I talked about my 'toledot'. I notice a tendency in some NZ socio-political writing to insert untranslated Maori words into discussions as if the words (like 'tanariki
Dear Anonymous: please provide at least your first name.
"Whakapapa" is now a common word in NZ English with no need for translation to be provided here in a NZ English-based blog.
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