Rwandan Revamp of Anglican Ecclesiology

This headline should read "New Assault on Historic Anglicanism."

The new Archbishop of Rwanda, the Most Rev. Onesphore Rwaje, has vowed to carry on the policies of his predecessor, Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini, and push for the reform of the Anglican Communion.

In an interview with the New Times of Kigali published last week, the new archbishop, who will take office in January said he would hold fast to the church’s traditional teachings on human sexuality.

“Anything that is contrary to God’s family set-up is not acceptable; there is nowhere in the Bible where same-sex marriage is encouraged. God created a man and woman to be the basis of a family,” the archbishop said.

The Anglican Church of Rwanda has also been at the forefront of the reform movement within the Anglican Communion. While it supports in principle the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Anglican Covenant process, it has been less than enthusiastic about how such a structure might work, given the anarchy now prevalent across the Communion.

At the All African Bishops Meeting in Entebbe in August, discussion of the Anglican Covenant among the gathered bishops took a decided second place to the conciliar programme for a renewed Anglican ecclesiology propounded by Rwanda and the Global South group of churches.

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I posted this comment in response to this article which was posted on George Conger's blog:

I wonder what Kevin Donlan has in mind when he speaks of “a new model for a new day.” I have finished a careful study of the new Rwandan canons and the Anglican Mission canonical charter. They evidence the strong influence of the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law in language, doctrine, norms, and principles. In a number of places the Rwandan canons clearly are repudiation of the Thirty-Nine Articles and of authentic historic Anglicanism, and embrace in their place the dogmas of the Council of Trent. The provisions governing the relationship of the Rwandan Primate with Anglican Primatial Vicar Chuck Murphy are based upon the provisions of the Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law governing the relationship of the Pope to lesser bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. This causes me also to wonder what part Donlan himself played in their formulation.

I have on good authority that both documents were prepared by a former Roman Catholic priest. I do not know a whole lot about Donlan except that he comes from an Irish Catholic background and entered a Roman Catholic seminary at the age of 12 and left the seminary at the age of 24. He has a degree in canon law from Cardiff University and a doctorate in church history from Oxford. He was 30 years old when he left the Roman Catholic Church for the Episcopal Church. If Donlan’s “new model for a new day” is the old model of the Roman Catholic Church, I personally want nothing to do with it. Any Anglican body that adopted that model in my mind would cease to be Anglican.