The Story Goes Round…The Attempted Coup is at Hand, and Egypt is the Place. (revised 9/13)

Well, it goes round and round – the story that is of an impending dramatic set of actions that will shift the actual and real power away from the “first among equals” that is the Archbishop of Canterbury to a patriarch of an Anglican sort in the person of an Archbishop from the Global South. The body of Christian communities that would gather around that Patriarch would claim to be the true heirs of Anglicanism and would include certain groups of Anglicans in North America who embrace realignment.

The story goes round and round, and it came out here: The Scotland on Sunday just ran an article by Trevor Grundy titled, “Africans set to found rival Anglican church.” It quotes Archbishop Malango of Central Africa who said, “We’ve had enough.” This is the same Archbishop Malango who was interviewed by David Virtue, who reportedly backed off his statements, who Virtue later stated said exactly what he (Virtue) reported.

I went back to David Virtue’s interview with him. The punch line of the interview has obviously come up again in the Scotland on Sunday article. The Archbishop said then, “We shall meet as CAPA Primates in October (actually they meet in September) and one of the questions will be where a new Anglican Communion will be set up. (You will notice he did not say if.) We shall approach that question very carefully. The choice right now is Alexandria. We did not want it to be in Israel....too political, nor any other Middle East nation, nor Africa, for obvious reasons, nor Europe or Southeast Asia. We think Alexandria, Egypt is best as we can trace our historical roots from there.”

The Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) Primates will meet in September and in October the South to South Encounter, a meeting of Anglicans from the “non-West” will be held in Egypt. The advertised theme for that gathering is, “The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.”

In the past representatives to the South to South Encounter came from a wide range of Provinces in the “non-West” world, but not so this time. This time the Province of Brazil has been told not to come. The Chair of CAPA, the Archbishop of Nigeria, is also the chair of the South to South Encounter. He was the one to tell Brazil the sad news.

Prior to all of this an organization called the Council of Anglican Provinces of the Americas and the Caribbean (CAPAC) was formed. It consisted, interestingly enough, of two Provinces of the Anglican Communion (the Province of the West Indies and the Province of the Southern Cone) and two North American network organizations. The two network organizations, although of the “West” are considered part of the emerging realigned churches to become part of the new Patriarchy.

CAPA and CAPAC member churches seem to be the ones invited to the South to South Encounter…with one supposes representation from East Asia. One would suppose that all Provinces except the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada would be part of CAPAC, but not so. Only two Provinces are, and a founding member of the Encounter meetings, Brazil is not. Their exclusion has already taken place from CAPAC. At the CAPAC meeting the only representatives from Brazil were from Recife, claiming to be the Diocese of Recife. So the ouster of Brazil from CAPAC preceded the decision of the planning committee, or at least of its chair, the Archbishop of Nigeria to shut them out of the Encounter meeting.

All of this clearly points to the crux of the matter, reported by Mr. Grundy, namely, “A conference that could turn the Anglican community on its head takes place in Alexandria, Egypt, next month, organized by angry Africans and Latin Americans who say they are ‘sick and tired’ of endless debate about same-sex blessings and the ordination of gay Christians.”

So the story goes round and round - and what of its truth? It is hard to know. Archbishop Malango has twice now been quoted on the matter. The action of the Archbishop of Nigeria in ousting Brazil seems in line with the move to make the Encounter meeting one of like minded Provinces. The inclusion the Networks in the CAPAC agreement puts them there as partners in the enterprise. Some small part of this might be confusion on Archbishop Malango’s part, some small part may be confused reporting. But the letter from the Archbishop of Nigeria is there, and CAPAC is there, and the Encounter is taking up the matter of “the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.” And there is considerable reason to assume that they will indeed be concerned with the actions of churches in England, the US and Canada.

So, with all that in hand, now consider this: It appears that the Archbishop of Canterbury is invited to this South to South Encounter.

I hope he is advised to stay away, advice that must come from close at hand. And I hope he takes that advice. This is not because he could not do some good there. I think he could well be able to make a significant contribution to substantive theological dialogue. The problem, however, is that this meeting is not about theological dialogue. It is about decapitating the Anglican Communion, and the Archbishop of Canterbury has the head in question.

It is being rigged: Provinces that were formative to the development of the South to South Encounter are being dis-invited. By way of CAPAC the North American Networks will find ways to be present or be represented. The Archbishop of Nigeria is openly talking of suspending the Church of England from the meetings of the Anglican Consultative Council. The theme of the Encounter is far from benign: “The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” and the issue at hand is who claims the right to be the Anglican expression of that Church.

The several reports now begin to paint a picture which, if even true in part, spell disaster for any participation by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

(i) If the meeting is highly critical of the Church of England as well as the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada the ABC will be identified with the outcasts and the Encounter will have to prove it by deriding the ABC. There is no reason for the Archbishop of Canterbury, a fine person, to be subjected to ridicule. In terms of the office, such ridicule would spell the end of the ABC’s role as “first among equals.”

(ii) If the meeting actually leads to a break with anything like what Mr. Grundy reports, there will be a diplomatic disaster. He quotes an unnamed leading “gay vicar” as saying, “I also hear that African Anglicans plan to place a throne in a conference room and ask Archbishop Akinola to sit in it – while Dr. Williams is supposed to stand by and watch.”

Such a possibility could of course be nonsense. The way it is stated smacks of racism. The problem, however, is that it might be true. The whole business of a throne (and of course a room to go with it) is an exercise in ecclesial diplomacy. Patriarch in several of the Catholic Churches, East and West, use such rooms to greet delegations with chairs arrayed on either side of the throne or central chair. The fact that a particular person sits in that chair signals his (and it seems always to be a “his”) primacy in the gathering. If such a thing took place at the Encounter in Egypt, the Archbishop of Canterbury would simply have to absent himself, for not to be invited to sit in the seat of honor would signal his diminished authority. He might attempt to get around that, being the invited guest of a "chair" of the conference, but in such matters context is everything, and the reading of ecclesial tea leaves would leave nothing to chance. Better he not come to the Encounter at all.

(iii) Of course the primary reason for the Archbishop should stay away is that this is no longer an Anglican Communion gathering. The planners of the Encounter, or better yet its chair, have determined that it is a gathering of particular Provinces, groups, dioceses claiming to represent their provinces, etc., who are convinced of the need to “realign” the Anglican Communion and not the Provinces of the Global South in its entirety.

The call for the Anglican Consultative Council to disassociate itself from the Encounter if Brazil is unwelcomed is now something that requires the Archbishop of Canterbury’s exact and distinct action. He would be well advised, I believe, to refuse to go to Egypt and to do so in solidarity with the Province of Brazil. Actions taken at the Encounter in Egypt need to be seen as totally divorced from the workings of the Anglican Communion, and the work of those attending needs to be seen as an effort to effect a coup.

The story goes round and round...and it seems to come out here. I can earnestly hope that I am wrong.

(addendum)

Since writing this George Conger wrote a commentary on the article by Trevor Grundy. Here is my response to his commentary.

I appreciate Fr. Conger's words of caution about the Scotland On Line article. I also appreciate Tobias' comments on the HoB/ D list on the same.

Several notes on the Conger comments::

First George Conger's remarks, then my response:

The article says a meeting scheduled for October is to be held in
Alexandria, Egypt. This is not true.

OK, so maybe not Alexandria... but why list it there. At least can we settle on Egypt? That seems true enough. For that is what the Archbishop of Nigeria wrote the Primate of Brazil when he said, "Until we hear from you and your church your clear decision to correct these actions and statements, the organizing committee has agreed unanimously to withdraw the invitation for your province to be represented in Egypt." RICHARD N. OSTLING, AP RELIGION WRITER wrote of " a special international conference for conservative Anglicans in Cairo, Egypt, beginning Oct. 25" So he has it in Cairo, not Alexandria, but he does note "conservative Anglicans.". I assume October is the right month and Egypt is not a metaphor?

The article says the meeting is being "organised by angry Africans and
Latin Americans". This is not true.

But this meeting is being organized by a committee that has decided that a regular "Global South" Province is having their invitation withdrawn. This makes it at least different from the previous two South to South meetings. "Anger" may have been the wrong word, but upset might have been too limited. The limitations come from the upset by the committee.
By the way, it appears from Louie Crew's inquiry as to the funding of the South to South Encounter that none of the funds come from the ACC as the agent of the Anglican Communion "instruments of unity." They come from funds gleaned from the South. This does not mean that they do not come from friends elsewhere (dioceses, discretionary funds, friendly organizations, etc in the :"West," but that they don't come from the central program funds of the Communion. None come, it seems, from the Episcopal Church either. All of which means this is not a meeting constrained by any of the normal inclusionary norms of the Communion, namely that inclusion in the Anglican Communion is the primary context for inclusion in sub-groups, like the "non-West."

The article says the participants seek to supplant Rowan Williams with
Peter Akinola of Nigeria. This is fanciful nonsense--and no proof is
offered for this absurd allegation.

That seems correct...no direct proof except by extension of the remarks of several reporters.
.

This group does not seek to "exclude homosexuals from full church life"
as the article states--they all affirm the 1998 Lambeth Statement on
Human Sexuality: Resolution 1:10. To say they seek to exclude (homosexuals) from full church life is partisan raving-it assumes that salvation in Christ comes only with a plastic collar and purple shirt.

Both Archbishops have been quoted as saying things about gay and lesbian persons that are terribly hateful. Those were not quoted in this article.

George is exactly right about the writers' confusion of members of CAPA and the beginnings of CAPAC
The quotes from Archbishops Malango, Gomez and Akinola come from earlier printed reports-some of which the imputed speakers claim were taken out of context.

Some but not all.

The leading gay vicar is an original quote--but not one I
would put too much trust in. It's a good pub story-but is it anything
more?

Who knows?

The Nicholas Henderson story is unrelated-but as it involves
Anglicans, Africa and THE ISSUE has been tacked on for good measure.

I agree

My opinion: There is a great deal of heavy breathing, shoddy sourcing,
loony conspiracy theories and profound ignorance of the people, issues
and ways things are done in the Anglican Communion.

Certainly the story was short of the mark... but "ways things are done in the Anglican Communion" has come to include a lot of actions unbecoming Anglicans - and from all sorts and conditions of Anglicans.

Does this article advance the ball? No. Is the situation dire? Yes. Will
things fall apart after the October meeting? No.

I hope George is right. But I wait.

Let Brazil Through the Door!

In the past several days a letter from the Primate of Nigeria to the Primate of the Church in Brazil has been published on the net that says in part, "Until we hear from you and your church your clear decision to correct these actions and statements, the organizing committee has agreed unanimously to withdraw the invitation for your province to be represented in Egypt."

I call upon the ACC through its President and Chairman to disavow this retraction of invitation as it does not fulfill the intentions of the ACC. Member churches of the Anglican Communion must demand a retraction of this action on the part of the organizing committee of the South - South Encounter and if that does not occur member churches must petition the Anglican Consultative Council to withdraw sponsorship and any financial support for this meeting. Not to do so will increasingly invalidate the ACC as an instrument of unity.

The notion that 'actions and statements' taken by leaders of a particular province should determine whether that province should be included in the South to South Encounters was not, as far as I know, EVER part of the organizing principles for those meetings. The Provinces included were determined by the ACC on the basis of their current or former mission / financial / geographical status or position - their being "non-Western." Representatives from those Provinces came to the first gathering and have come to those following. The Primate of the church in Brazil affirmed this in his letter to the Primate of Nigeria.

The 19 May 2004 press release on the South-South Encounter in Limuru, Kenya gave a one paragraph history of the South to South Encounters:

"The ACC, upon the recommendation of the Brisbane 1986 Missions Conference, organized a gathering of the non-Western parts of the Communion for mutual consultation on their distinctive contextual mission challenges. The 1st South-South Encounter was held in Limuru, Kenya in 1994. The 2nd South-South Encounter (met) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1997..."

A 3rd South-South Encounter is planned to take place in Egypt in October, 2005, and it is this meeting from which the church in Brazil is being excluded.

The clear intention of the organization of the Encounter was that churches in the Anglican Communion "from the non-Western parts of the Communion" be included. For the organizing committee of the Encounter to take place in Egypt to exclude a member Province of the Anglican Communion already part of this Encounter is a breach of ACC intentions.

Immediate action is required.

New Orleans: Everything is Broken

Well, Bob Dylan is sure right for these days:

“Ain't no use jiving
Ain't no use joking
Everything is broken.”

(From “Everything is broken,” on his album, “O Mercy.”)

New Orleans was my home town for all my teen-age and college years.

It is a city I have loved and in which I found the glory of young adulthood after a long stretch of zits and braces. It was the city where I first understood the wild reach of politics and the lessons of history revealed. It was the city of my first faith, my first love, and my enduring love of poetry and art. It was also the city of my encounter with the familiar side of Mafia, anti-Castro crazies, the beginnings of the beat life and regular paid up New Orleans corruption and death.

New Orleans is where it is because something like a city had to be there. People did not for simple perversion decide to build a city below sea level with a lake and river both ready to pounce upon it. The perversion was more complex. The city was built there because the wealth of materials coming down the Mississippi River needed to get out to a world market. Transporting the materials from the river to Lake Pontchartrain and from there out into the Gulf was easier in the first years of commerce than trying to find a navigable passage through the mouth of the River. So the city was born of commercial need, and the commerce was of rough and tumble river and open sea traders.

The city began in the trust that there was money to be made and spent no matter the fact that no one in his or her right mind would actually want to build a city there. Commerce, the many varied modes of human intercourse (from gentile living to bawdy rascality) and of course the sometimes wild political, social and interpersonal requirements of the danger of such living, all merged into what in recent years has been called, “The Big Easy.”

The city has survived many things. When the passage to the Gulf was made reasonably secure the city had come far enough along to be the port of entry. Even after all the years and countless calamities due to the damn water, the politics, the slavery trade, the saints and sinners that mixed so well, the hurricanes and fires and pestilence, the city survived.

But now, everything is broken, or so it would seem.

There are those who are suggesting New Orleans now be simply allowed to be the lake it now seems to be and a new city built on “higher ground” to replace it, a new New Orleans, no longer precariously balanced between the needs of commerce and the forces of nature. This suggestion assumes the death of the old New Orleans, a victim of an old perversity, and the naming of some new place, “New Orleans” without the old perversities. This is a really bad idea, and unless the armed forces of the United States refuse reentry, people will be back – certainly to the higher grounds of the French Quarter, some parts of the city near the River, but in reality back to the whole city. The levees will be build higher and stronger, the pumps will be back at work. The city will continue.

Whatever might be proposed in its stead will not be New Orleans. New Orleans is precisely a perverse clinging to life where life is precious and worthless all at once. This city has been amazingly perverse and foolish, but also a pearl without price. It has real soul, but the body of decrepitude. It has hidden from itself and showed itself to the world all at once. If it was destined to catastrophe, at least its end would be that of a wasted city with soul. The new New Orleans would not have this soul, no matter it being safe and secure.

The matter of the dikes or levees is key, and it is a key that can be turned. If what is needed is higher sides to the bowl, then construct them. It is a practice that more and more cities are going to have to learn, for the waters are rising. But to suggest the city is finished because it is flooded is to think of cities as disposable. Is New Orleans disposable? In a consumer society, in a throw-away culture, sure. But New Orleans should never be confused with plastic plates and cups. New Orleans is old china, perhaps cracked and warn, but still real and solid. Giving it back to the water is deciding that it is without value. And I cannot see that.

Most of the essays on this blog concern the future of the Anglican Communion. Why write this note here? Because the despair in believing New Orleans a dead way of living out civic life is not unlike the despair of believing the Anglican Communion a dead way of living out Christian community and spiritual life. There are those who believe the Anglican Communion is broken beyond repair and that what is need is a new improved Anglican Communion. They too confuse the cracked and warn realities of life together for death. They confuse being left for dead with being dead indeed.

I believe we should not too soon put the bodies in the ground; perhaps they are only asleep, or in need of repair, or perhaps they are just fine, but living on the edge where the poets, thieves and saints are mostly to be found.

Everything is broken; but there is life.

Some Thoughts on Sex, Marriage and Sin

On the list for the House of Bishops / House of Deputies, at the end of a string on the election of a new PB the argument turned to issues having to do with the possibility of support of sex outside Christian marriage...and in that context, a member wrote that he believed that anyone who porported to be Christian and supported sex outside "Christian marriage" was damned, or perhaps doomed.

This issue, namely the nature and theological importance of "Christian marriage" is a central one to the ongoing crisis faced by the Anglican Communion, and yet I have this strong sense that the issues are not well addressed by simply restating the piety of the opening sentences of the Book of Common Prayer service for the celebration of a marriage. To simply state that the bond an covenant of marriage was established by God in creation does not tell the whole story of the social, theological and political importance of the "institution" of marriage.

I wrote these thoughts the matter of the support of sex outside marriage:

(i) Almost all young adults- folks in their late teens and twenties - I know, including those in my own family, have had sexual relations "outside Christian marriage." I have to be honest and say that I am mostly relieved to know that for the most part these young people do not seem to confuse sex (which can be everything from incredibly healthy to perfectly terrible in or outside marriage) and the covenant of marriage itself. While I share all the concerns that sex not become a cursive activity, a hurtful one, or that it become an idol (and we have idols all around), I believe that sex particularly before Christian marriage can be an important part of the awareness, and even the joy, that one can bring to the covenant of marriage. I make these observations with no desire to enter into a protracted argument about moral rightness.

(ii) I do not "purport" to be a Christian. I am one. Yet as a follower of Jesus Christ I find it difficult to find the courage to respond to the sort of statement that says we are damned and not really Christian unless we believe sex outside Christian marriage is wrong. That I find it fearsome is perhaps an indication of my lack of courage. Such comments are intimidating, and I wrote the paragraph above wondering if things have come to such an impasse that harboring such thoughts brings into question my belief that I am a Christian. Still my being a Christian is not dependent on the writer's view of the matter, but, I suppose, on Jesus' view.

(iii) I am reading for the first time in thirty years William Stringfellow's book, INSTEAD OF DEATH, in which he speaks of Christian marriage, in its institutional (and Christendom driven) form, as a distortion of the life giving possibilities of relationships in Christ. Given the strange mix of high aspirations, true faith and profoundly idolatrous baggage we find in Christian marriage as actually practiced / preached and condoned, I am not convinced by argument that Christian (or any other form of) marriage is the only context in which sexual relations are for appropriate.

I posted these three points on the list, and another writer opined that I condone sin, a falling short, by suggeting that non-marital sex is some how OK. The writer suggest that all such sexual activity falls short of God's ideal, and that to approve of it in any way is to impoverish the Christian moral vision. In response I wrote the following:

Actually, my own experience is that every sexual act in which I have been a participant "falls short," not of attention and wiz bang delight and even care and love, but of God's ideal and for that matter even my own. That is true of long friendships some now of forty years or more, a marriage of 38 years, and children from 28 to 35. In all these unions I have indeed fallen short.

The union possible in sexual activity, in marriage, in any covenant, in every union, falls short of God's union with us in Jesus Christ. I am often conscious of the fact that I can be a shadow of that union but my union with others, temporary or enduring, has always fallen short of that presented in the union between Christ and his Church, or between God and humankind. In that falling short I am indeed in sin, but not remarkably so, since that sin is always before me in so many other ways (including verbal excess.)

I do not believe that condoning or blessing sex outside marriage impoverishes the Christian moral vision. Give what I know of the impoverishment of the Christian moral vision also available within marriage and its imperfect unions, I would suggest that condoning and blessing ought to be viewed not as a gate to be closed to keep the vision pure, but as a gate held open so that that which is most reflective of God's glory can shine through. So when persons come to be married and tell me of their relationship I am given to asking them what they have found in their sexual, personal, social, political, religious and every other union activity that is indeed of God's glory, writ small and imperfect in their own lives. As you know the stories and the revelations of self an faith are at times wonderful to hear.

I do not believe I am condoning sin in speaking this way. Rather I am talking about the rather small thing of body and body against the backdrop of great good and evil in the world, and in the face of the Great Love that God in Jesus Christ has for us in the union that is not particularly about sex, most certainly is about body, and very amazingly is about Resurrection. But when I think on the things of these very temporary instances of body love, I do not come away believing that I have condoned sin, but rather that I have condoned a voice of a greater love than I can have, spoken almost as a whisper.

I don't think, by the way, that "God's ideal" is bound up with the particulars of the institution of marriage. The bond and covenant of Marriage was instituted in Creation, but such union or marriage is a manner of life, and not an institution. The institution of marriage, particularly as expressed in that great idol, the "American family" with all its strange artifacts, persists in being mostly about social, economic and legal amenities, and about social structures that are almost impossible to maintain. The state does not give a damn about the bond and union, and I sometimes think the Church does not either, since it spends so much time in talking about it not as a mystery but as a matter of exclusive property and body rights, the myth of the "normal" family, etc. Whatever we may say about Jesus' engagement with marriage and family, it would appear that his own family was wonderfully abnormal, extended, and with almost no visible relationship to a pure vision of Christian marriage to be seen. But then again, He is Jesus.

Ah, the human condition is quite a mess, and yet, in this or that moment with another I remember, even though we fell short and the union is only the flesh and of the moment, the presence of a delight that is itself a reflected glory.

The following, from the Stringfellow Book referenced earlier, INSTEAD OF DEATH, gives a more powerful statement of some of the points I have raised here.

"There is really no such thing as "Christian marriage" as the term is commonly used. "Christian marriage" is a vain, romantic, unbiblical conception. "Christian marriage" is a fiction. There is no more an institution of "Christian marriage" than there is a "Christian nation" or a "Christian lawyer" or a "Christian athlete." Even where such terms are invoked as a matter of careless formulation and imprecise speech, they are symptoms of a desire to separate Christians from the common life of the world, whereas Christians are called into radical involvement in the common life of the world....But not of these or similar activities or institutions are in any respect essentially Christian, nor can the be changed or reconstituted in order to become Christian. They are, on the contrary, realities of the fallen life of the world. They are inherently secular and worldly; they are subject to the power of death; they are aspects of the present, transient, perishing existence of the world."

"...in marriage and all else the Christian is fully participant in secular life; but at the same time he is constantly engaged in offering his involvement in secular life for the glory of God. In such an offering, that which is ordinary is rendered extraordinary, that which is merely worldly is transfigured, that which is most common becomes the means of worship, and each act or event of everyday life becomes sacramental -- a sign and celebration of God's care for every act and event of everyday life in this world. "

(From INSTEAD OF DEATH, by William Stringfellow, published first by Seabury Press in 1963 and republished by Wipf and Stock Publishers 2004, pg 40)

The whole chapter on Sex and the Search for Self makes a good read, as does the whole book.

There is an Anglican Communion future if we want it and, if we are mindful of the times we may be part of it.

The story about the Archbishop of Nigeria's purported remarks about suspending the Church of England from the ACC has raised a wide range of distressed and sometimes distressing comments.

My sense is that all the talk about the 'inevitable' split in the Anglican Communion, its falling apart or destruction, etc, and particularly about whether this is a good thing or bad, is precisely as AnglicansOnLine suggests, an extended game of RISK.

Behind the various scenarios being played out, however, are several things that seem to me to reduce the fear for an Anglican Communion future"

About defining the Anglican Communion:

The Anglican Communion is pretty much as described in the Preamble to the Constitution of the Episcopal Church:

",,,a Fellowship within the One, Holy, Catholic, and
Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted Dioceses, Provinces, and
regional Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, upholding
and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of
Common Prayer."

Which means, as I read it, that while we may (and indeed do) debate the extent to which the Episcopal Church or other Provinces have been truly "upholding and propagating the historic Faith and Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer," the issue of being in communion with the See of Canterbury is for the Archbishop of Canterbury to decide. Provinces can decide NOT to be part of the Communion, but only the ABC determines that we are part of it.

So the Anglican Communion is a fellowship whose membership is determined by the Archbishop of Canterbury / Church of England, and by no other person or body. Depending on how you parse the sentence quoted from the Constitution, the reference to "upholding and propagating" is either a further description of the Episcopal Church as part of the Anglican Communion - which we contend upholds etc - or it is a description of the fellowship we call the Anglican Communion. In either read that charge to uphold and propagate is always being tested by a cloud of witnesses.

Concerning Suspending the Church of England from the ACC.

The Archbishop of Nigeria can indeed quite properly propose that the Church of England be suspended from the ACC. Give the ACC's own recent history in which it saw fit to suspend involvement of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church I see no reason why the Archbishop's reported proposal should not be considered. Suppose it were considered and passed, what then? The Church of England's official representatives would then be asked to leave or stand on the side lines. The Archbishop of Canterbury has a peculiar role as both head of communion and head of church. He (as ABC) is president of the ACC. He is NOT a representative of the Church of England. He is president of the ACC, period.

Now if the current ACC proposal to amend the constitution of the ACC were to pass all Primates would be members of the ACC. I think this is a very bad idea, not the least of which is that were it enacted the ABC would be precisely a delegate from the Church of England and it could indeed be argued that he could be suspended from participation.

The Archbishop of Nigeria's reported remarks about proceeding:

The report suggests that the Archbishop of Nigeria intends to take the matter to a meeting of the "Global South" Primates and later to the Primates meeting. The growing use of the Primates meeting as a springboard for action by the ACC is a political attempt to divorce the matter of being part of the Anglican Communion from being "in communion with the See of Canterbury." Instead, being part of the Anglican Communion will consist of bodies represented at the ACC. If things are allowed to drift in this direction without care, thought and challenge, we could discover that the Constitution of the ACC had become the Constitution of the Anglican Communion. In that case the definition of the Anglican Communion in our Constitution would no longer hold.

That would have to be re-written as follows:

"...the Anglican Communion, an Organization within the One, Holy, Catholic, and
Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted Dioceses, Provinces, and
regional Churches who are members in good standing of the Anglican
Consultative Council, upholding and propagating the historic Faith and
Order as set forth in the Book of Common Prayer."

But of course by then another bad idea of the past would have been raise up again, that the Anglican Consultative Council's name be changed to become The Anglican Communion Council. Anyone interested?

Back to Basics:

We need not fear for the future of the Anglican Communion, if only we keep clear about the ecclesiastical politics of the moment.

As it stands, the Anglican Communion consists of churches in communion with the See of Canterbury. That's it. Leave it that way and let the Archbishop of Canterbury decide who he invites to table with him. I think we need to stand with that and live with the consequences. Who knows who will be invited to dinner and who will accept?

Any Province not invited by the ABC is not part of the Communion. Any Province that refused to attend because they are estranged from the Church of England or the ABC is at least temporally not part of the Communion.

Provinces are of course free to leave the Anglican Communion and restructure their fellowship with other churches in any way they wish. But the Anglican Communion remains that fellowship defined by communion with the See of Canterbury. Any effort to take the name elsewhere should be resisted.

The Episcopal Church could find itself outside the Anglican Communion if the Archbishop of Canterbury / C of E were to determine that it no longer was in communion with us, just as we could with them. I think that would a terrible loss, one to be avoided if at all possible. The very real possibility of some other Provinces breaking with Canterbury is in the making. That too would be a terrible loss. But that would be their decision, and if they were to leave we would want to relate to them with all the respect due our ecumenical partners, and we would pray for future unity.

Those who want the Anglican Communion to continue need to work hard to keep it a fellowship. To let it be taken over by the Primates, by way of the Anglican Consultative Council is unnecessary and foolish.

There is an Anglican Communion future if we want it and, if we are mindful of the times we may be part of it.