http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1313
[First Things] 12 Feb 2009--But it is precisely the “federal model”—Anglicanism as a federation of autonomous, doctrinally diverse local churches—that did not fare well at Egypt, just as it found disfavor last summer at Lambeth. We have seen, in both cases, something of a consensus emerging. The great majority of Anglicans worldwide seek a “deeper communion” with each other, and are prepared to cede a certain amount of their autonomy to achieve it.
Of course, the federal model does nonetheless have more than a few proponents. There remain both “federal conservatives” and “federal liberals” (as the English Evangelical Graham Kings has put it), both groups of which, for all their doctrinal differences, share the belief that Anglicanism as a communion does not matter all that much. How have they fared?
The “federal conservatives”—represented by Bishop Duncan’s new Anglican church (ACNA)—have, it would seem, taken a step back for the time being. Although acknowledged as genuine Anglicans by the primates in Egypt, their new body is far from being recognized as possessing full provincial status. It is, as the Windsor Continuation Group report noted, not clear what status groups within ACNA such as the Reformed Episcopal Church (which broke from the Episcopal Church in 1873) have in the larger communion, nor is it precisely clear what sort of recognition ACNA seeks.
Some, perhaps, hoped that official communion recognition could be bypassed altogether in favor of recognition by the GAFCON council. But the GAFCON primates themselves, in Egypt, have apparently decided that this route is premature. Instead, the primates at Egypt proposed that a professionally mediated discussion be initiated among all the concerned parties, with the goal of finding some sort of “provisional holding arrangement” that could have the blessing of the communion at large.
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