The Common Cause of a Common Light

http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/weblog/printing/the_common_cause_of_a_common_light_ephraimradner/

{Global South Anglican] 17 July 2007--The movement towards a separated North American Anglican church, aligned perhaps with one part of the Anglican Communion and not another, appears to be gaining steam. The focus of the Anglican Communion Network’s official leadership has shifted perceptibly towards this goal, overtly transferring its energies from its work as a coalition of American traditionalist bishops working representatively with the larger Communion, to the strategy of a “Common Cause” formation of a new ecclesial structure that would function either as a new Anglican Communion province, or as a province in a new alternative Anglican Communion. Regular consultation among Network bishops has diminished in frequency, while the work on Common Cause has demanded new and steadier communication.

Is this shift of energies positive? As a founding member of the Network, I would urge more open discussion about this. Indeed, it is a discussion that has not taken place in any organized, illuminated, and Communion-wide basis, and it needs to, quickly and honestly and without rancor. Obviously, the topic has long been a staple of blog debate. But however informative such debate can be, it is not a substitute for common prayer, discussion, and discernment as a Body in the Lord. Indeed, most bloggers are anonymous or pseudonymous, their representative roles blurred or hidden, and their actual numbers limited by the psychological demands of the genre. Yet, from Lambeth to North America to Africa, much that we know about the hopes and strategies of the coming months comes only on internet discussions culled from partially leaked memos, recorded off-hand comments, indirect interviews, secret informants, and pure speculation. And on this basis people declare their allegiances! The Anglican Church is longing for an open council, un-manipulated by guile and passion; yet what we are getting instead are the sparks of competing political strategies that have the effect of inculcating ecclesial passivity drunk on anxiety.