Anglican Communion(s) both with strong convictions

Hello for this week. If you would prefer not to read, once again (and again and again ...) about Anglican Communion machinations, then here is a lovely post about heaven and the late Diane Keaton. 

PS: as a bonus article, thinking about feature films, then, courtesy of breaking news, do we have a plot line for you who are script writers! 

PPS: And, finally, in non Anglican Communion news, but true to this blog's Down Under interests, as a loyal Kiwi, I feel a need to post reason #995 for not moving to Australia, possibly not even going there for a holiday :).

ANGLICAN COMMUNION OR GLOBAL ANGLICAN COMMUNION?

As already noticed by commenters here to my previous post, during the past few days there has been a stirring and bold announcement re the Anglican Communion.

The essence of the announcement is that the already existing GAFCON - network of like-minded Anglican provinces, dioceses, and individuals, coming together periodically for conferences as a whole network, and Primates of some provinces and other episcopal leaders meeting regularly - having met in (note) Sydney, has announced the formation of the Global Anglican Communion as the "real McCoy" Anglican Communion. Thinking Anglicans has "all" the links here, including responses to the GAFCON announcement.

From the GAFCON communique we read these key steps:

"We resolved to reorder the Anglican Communion as follows:

1. We declare that the Anglican Communion will be reordered, with only one foundation of communion, namely the Holy Bible, “translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading” (Jerusalem Declaration, Article II), which reflects Article VI of the 39 Articles of Religion.

2. We reject the so-called Instruments of Communion, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and the Primates Meeting, which have failed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion.

3. We cannot continue to have communion with those who advocate the revisionist agenda, which has abandoned the inerrant word of God as the final authority and overturned Resolution I.10, of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.

4. Therefore, Gafcon has re-ordered the Anglican Communion by restoring its original structure as a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the Formularies of the Reformation, as reflected at the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, and we are now the Global Anglican Communion.

5. Provinces of the Global Anglican Communion shall not participate in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the ACC, and shall not make any monetary contribution to the ACC, nor receive any monetary contribution from the ACC or its networks.

6. Provinces, which have yet to do so, are encouraged to amend their constitution to remove any reference to being in communion with the See of Canterbury and the Church of England.

7. To be a member of the Global Anglican Communion, a province or a diocese must assent to the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, the contemporary standard for Anglican identity.

8. We shall form a Council of Primates of all member provinces to elect a Chairman, as primus inter pares (‘first amongst equals’), to preside over the Council as it continues “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3)."

What is new here is the claim to re-ordering the Communion as a whole, which, by implication means, since no one is naive about this, that those who so align with the above paragraphs will deem themselves to be "the" Anglican Communion and those who don't will call themselves what they will, but they will not be the (adjectives hard to work out, but here goes) real/true/actual/genuine Anglican Communion. Of course, there will be, in reality, two similarly named bodies, the Global Anglican Communion [ex GAFCON; hereon, GAC] and the Anglican Communion [AC].

Here, in italics is my commentary on the paragraphs cited above:

"We resolved to reorder the Anglican Communion as follows:

1. We declare that the Anglican Communion will be reordered, with only one foundation of communion, namely the Holy Bible, “translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading” (Jerusalem Declaration, Article II), which reflects Article VI of the 39 Articles of Religion. 

This is a new dimension to GAFCON's general beef with the Communion as a body in Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury. The key words are "declare" and "reordered" and "one foundation". The Bible has never been the one foundation of the reformed Church of England and its subsequent growth and development into the Anglican Communion. The lack of reference to liturgy is striking. Can one be Anglican in any meaningful sense of that word if there is no reference to the role of authorised liturgies in the life of the Anglican church? 

More concerning, I suggest, is that an announcement about a re-ordering of the Anglican Communion should, at least as a matter of genuine interest in such re-ordering, offer a warm, broad invitation to all Anglicans to align with the re-ordered Communion. Focusing on the Bible alone in this way is precisely the opposite of that warm, broad invitation. It appeals to the like-minded who are already aligned with GAFCON. It may appeal to the other major grouping, the Global South, or may not, but I see no particular olive branch being offered to the Global South here. (Of course I may be missing other, less public communications between GAFCON and Global South). I would be most surprised if this Bible alone focus, you must sign up to the Jerusalem Declaration approach will appeal to many in the Church of England, or to any female Anglican clergy anywhere and of whatever theological persuasion.

2. We reject the so-called Instruments of Communion, namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), and the Primates Meeting, which have failed to uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion.

This is not new, at least for the reason that key GAFCON players have not turned up to these meetings for some time.

3. We cannot continue to have communion with those who advocate the revisionist agenda, which has abandoned the inerrant word of God as the final authority and overturned Resolution I.10, of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.

A continuing point of debate as 1.10 has two parts to it, and it is not clear that any province has faithfully followed both parts of it. Further, resolutions of the Lambeth Conference only have force in each province if adopted by said provinces. Thirdly, "the revisionist agenda" is not defined here (which is an important observation as many things about being Anglican have been revised through the years, including the years since 1998), and it has never been a formal part of Anglican identity that the Bible is "inerrant."

4. Therefore, Gafcon has re-ordered the Anglican Communion by restoring its original structure as a fellowship of autonomous provinces bound together by the Formularies of the Reformation, as reflected at the first Lambeth Conference in 1867, and we are now the Global Anglican Communion.

I have no idea what the "Formularies of the Reformation" are (though I assume that something about the role of the 39A is in mind). A reference back to the 1867 Lambeth Conference is plausible: that conference was called, at least in part, to deal with perceived error in the expanding set of Anglican churches around the world. 

5. Provinces of the Global Anglican Communion shall not participate in meetings called by the Archbishop of Canterbury, including the ACC, and shall not make any monetary contribution to the ACC, nor receive any monetary contribution from the ACC or its networks.

Nothing much is new here. See comment above. 

6. Provinces, which have yet to do so, are encouraged to amend their constitution to remove any reference to being in communion with the See of Canterbury and the Church of England.

Without developing the point, commented on from time to time here, to be "Anglican" and to not be in communion with the See of Canterbury (or the Church of England) raises many, many questions. Am I a member of my family if I disown my mother and formally commit to never seeing her again? 

7. To be a member of the Global Anglican Communion, a province or a diocese must assent to the Jerusalem Declaration of 2008, the contemporary standard for Anglican identity.

Effectively this is the criterion for membership of GAFCON. 

8. We shall form a Council of Primates of all member provinces to elect a Chairman, as primus inter pares (‘first amongst equals’), to preside over the Council as it continues “to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3)."

GAFCON already has a primatial council and a chair of that council.

[End of commentary on individual sections of the announcement.]

With appreciation for comments made already in response to this announcement, and with sanguinity about whether much changes or will change "on the ground", following this announcement, I offer this observation:

The strength of conviction lying behind the formation of the Global Anglican Communion will be matched by the strength of conviction lying behind the continuation of the Anglican Communion.

While there are many Anglicans around the world who enjoy the freedom of thought that being Anglican offers, and no doubt a number of Anglicans who live with doubts about this and that, and may, when push comes to shove, admit openly to some uncertainty about synod motion X or Nicene Creed clause Y or whether eucharistic service alternative Z really is a good option, I suggest that in any kind of showdown between GAC and AC, all such Anglicans, along with many other Anglicans self-identifying as Anglicans-with-strong-and-clear-theological-convictions (but not wholly aligned with the "Jerusalem Declaration"), will have a very strong conviction that GAC is not the way forward for "being Anglican". Rather, there will be a strong and certain conviction that the AC is the way forward, both because within that form of Communion are some ways and means to think differently, and pluralistically, and because, if we are going to be historical ("Reformation", "Lambeth 1867") then history indeed matters and that includes communion with the See of Canterbury and with the Church of England.

I also offer this observation: the communique has a very simplistic view of the Bible as "foundation" to the Anglican future. The Bible is a complex document. It actually houses within it a variety of views, Two approaches to Israel's history, for example, and four gospel presentations of Jesus. The Bible alone is not a guide to doctrinal clarity. The Reformation alone teaches us that (both because the Bible had not guided the then Catholic church of Europe beyond error, hence the Reformation, and because the Reformation then involved notorious, and ongoing disputes about the meaning of the Bible). On some modern issues, the Bible alone is not resolving those issues. Across those four presentations of Jesus there are differing views on divorce and remarriage (as there are within GAC). The question of woman being ordained presbyters/priests and bishops is a point of division within GAC: the Bible appears not to be sufficient foundation for resolving that question. (Responding that the ordination of women is a "second order" issue actually makes the point that the Bible is not, taken as a whole, an unambiguous document, since it only appears to be unambiguous on first order issues, and the Bible does not tell us what are first and second order issues!)

A more honest approach is for GAC to focus only on the Jerusalem Declaration as its foundation (and to make suitable statements about the role of the Bible in informing the development of this declaration).

Well, the future has arrived, and it comes with a divisive understanding of the role of the past in Anglican identity. Choose you this present day whom you shall Anglicanly be!