GAFCON and the highway - a footsoldier reflects

http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=7981

[Virtue Online] 31 Mar 2008--The following was first published as a Letter to the Church of England Newspaper

It is often said that the Anglican Communion is at a crossroad. I believe this to be an inaccurate description of the reality; we have long passed that juncture! A more apt picture is that of travelling on a highway (motorway). Anyone who has driven on a highway knows that to miss an exit is to consign oneself to a diversion of considerable distance and time. If one persists on that particular journey, one reaches, unsurprisingly, a different destination! To reach the original intended destination, one has to retrace one's steps and rejoin the particular exit he mistakenly left. All analogies fall down at some point, but the application of this analogy, with respect to the current state of affairs in the Anglican Communion, is clear.

It seems to me that many of our erstwhile brethren in North America left the rest of the Communion decades ago. It was, however, a deliberate rather than an unintended afterthought. The concept of retracing their steps and rejoining the rest of the Communion, at the point they first left, is anathema to them. Their leaders have time and again reiterated (somewhat patronisingly) how, given time and proper theological understanding, the rest of us will be sufficiently enlightened to join them on their travel. A recent meeting of North American theologians reminded us that the rest of the Communion is 40 years behind in our theological development!