On Presidency of the Anglican Communion

Look, if you do not want to read another post on the Anglican Communion, that is fine by me. My recommendation is that you read this book review instead. Or as well!

But if you must read on, here as a blast from the past, is an interesting thought by then ABC, Archbishop Rowan Williams, that the role of ABC [England] and ABC [rest of Anglican world] should be split, to some degree or another, in two:

“The Anglican Church is planning to hand over some of the global duties of the Archbishop of Canterbury to a "presidential" figure.

Dr Rowan Williams, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, said plans are being drawn up for a role to oversee the day-to-day running of the Anglican Communion and its 77 million members, leaving the Archbishop free to concentrate on leading the Church of England.

The tenure of the Welsh-born Archbishop, who steps down after 10 years in December, has been marked by a bruising war between liberals and traditionalists in the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion over the issue of homosexuality, including the ordination of gay bishops.

There has also been a divisive row over female clergy.

Admitting he may not have got it right he told the paper the top job might better be done by two people.

"I don't think I've got it right over the last 10 years, it might have helped a lot if I'd gone sooner to the United States when things began to get difficult about the ordination of gay bishops, and engaged more directly," he told the paper, adding: "I know that I've, at various points, disappointed both conservatives and liberals.

"Most of them are quite willing to say so, quite loudly."

Talking about the new role, he said: "It would be a very different communion, because the history is just bound up with that place, that office (Archbishop).

"So there may be more of a sense of a primacy of honour, and less a sense that the Archbishop is expected to sort everything."

He told the paper the role would be for a "presidential figure who can travel more readily".”

We are heading towards a new ABC since the term of ++Justin Welby is coming to an end (not sure when the exact end date is). The role is huge, or HUGE, and there is a lot going on in the CofE (internal challenges, external government/society facing challenges) and in the Communion. It could be attractive again for the powers that be to contemplate a split in the role, as ++Rowan once did.

But would that be the right thing to do? Might it be practical but with unfortunate consequences? Might it be practical for the office of the (currently single person) ABC-and-President of the Communion but unfortunate for the character of our "Communion"? 

The most obvious challenge a split in rule could entail is that a President of the Communion who is not the ABC could be a person who is not in communion with the ABC!

On any reckoning of the "how" a president could be determined and appointed, that "how" surely involves some sense of a majority view of the Anglican Communion. But that majority view is, via GAFCON and Global South developments of networks of influence on the shape, structure and character of the Communion, already arrived at [GAFCON] or heading in a direction [Global South] which is deeply opposed to where the Church of England is heading re human sexuality. In my view the chances of a President of the Communion being in communion with the ABC (i.e. with the Primate of All England) are low, not high and definitely not certain.

That would put the leadership of the Communion in a very odd position of being dysfunctional from day one of the new President being appointed.

Now, perhaps that odd position would also be an honest position - we are, after all, a divided Communion as things currently stand - and it is true that currently not every province (let alone every diocese or bishop) of the Communion values being "in communion with the See of Canterbury."

But the day we give up on being in communion with Canterbury as far as possible, with as many people as possible, including key positions of leadership in the Communion, is the day we should call a spade a spade - we should call ourselves the Anglican Federation and not the Anglican Communion.

For myself, I value communion in the Communion with all who see themselves, individually and corporately (dioceses and provinces), in communion with Canterbury. Such communion acknowledges and values that we are in communion with the body of Christ, past (historic connections), present (our life in the world today) and future (rapprochement with, e.g. Rome, Constantinople and Geneva, will be led by an appropriately leading leader, primus inter pares of the bishops of the Communion).

The human focus of unity in such a communion of the Communion, given our collective history with the mother church status of the Church of England, can only be with one bishop, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

To diminish the historical, and, dare I say it, theological significance of this office, by appointing a separate President of the Communion would be a tragic misstep in the life of our Communion (whose current situation is tragic enough - no need to make it worse).

Our focus as we move towards a new Archbishop of Canterbury being appointed should be on the following:

The support the role can be given, and the delegations the role may itself make in respect of expectations of the ABC within the life of the Church of England.

Ditto, for the role of the ABC within the life of the Anglican Communion. On that score, it could be that there should be a development whereby there is, say, a Deputy President appointed (possibly, even, a "Co-President"), drawn from outside of England, who undertakes - in communion with, in harmony with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary-General of the Communion - some of the work the ABC has been doing (or would have been doing if he had had more time through the period he has been in office).

Stretching things a bit further, there is a province in the Communion which is developing an understanding of a "shared primacy" in which three archbishops share the one primacy of the church (aka the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia) - perhaps that is a direction in which the role of the ABC as primus inter pares of the bishops of the Communion should go, if a greater sharing of the office of the ABC is again in view as a successor to ++Welby is sought.

But let there be no separate "President of the Communion" chosen with risk that this person might not actually be in, or remain in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury.