Thoughts on the Anglican Communion at the very edge of the Precipice

http://www.anviljournal.co.uk/Editorials/24_1.htm

[Anvil] 21 Sep 2007--Once again, it appears, the Anglican Communion has reached the very edge of the precipice only to slam on the brakes just in time and move back (at least a little) onto safer ground. It seems, however, only a matter of time before renewed conflict over who should drive and in what direction will lead us all to peer over the cliff again - probably sometime in September or October given the deadline given to the American church by the Primates at Tanzania .

More positively, what is becoming clear, in and through the difficulties of recent years, is that the Communion is, painfully and precariously, embracing and seeking to deepen a renewed pattern of interdependent life together in communion and mission that is faithful to Scripture and to our Anglican heritage. The recent Primates' meeting, and particularly the work on a Communion covenant, mark major steps in these developments. It is therefore important to understand their significance and also the nature of recent conflicts.

The presenting issue is clearly differences over homosexuality and in particular the truthfulness of the 1998 Lambeth Resolution I.10 and its status within the life of the Communion as a whole. For many Anglicans, particularly evangelical Anglicans, this amounts - given the wording of part of that resolution ('rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture') and their own convictions as to Scripture's clarity and plain sense on this subject - to a fundamental question about the authority of the Bible. It has, however, become increasingly clear that interacting with this question is disagreement over an ecclesiological question about the nature of life in communion. The focus of this disagreement is the inter-relationships that autonomous provinces have with each other and with the Anglican Communion as a whole through the various Instruments of Communion, although a subsidiary question is how the Communion responds to a province where internal relationships of communion become severely impaired or broken. The 2004 Windsor Report from the Lambeth Commission on Communion is here the key text (equivalent to Lambeth I.10 in relation to sexuality), and disagreements over this also threaten division among Anglicans.