Category: Anglican

“Communion is, in fact, all about mutual relationships. It is expressed by community, equality, common life, sharing, interdependence, and mutual affection and respect. It subsists in visible unity, common confession of the apostolic faith, common belief in scripture and the creeds, common baptism and shared eucharist, and a mutually recognised common ministry. Communion means that each church recognises that the other belongs to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, and shares in the mission of the whole people of God. It involves practising a common liturgical tradition, and intending to listen, speak and act alongside one another in obedience to the gospel. In communion, each church acknowledges and respects the interdependence and autonomy of the other, putting the needs of the global fellowship before its own. Through such communion, each church is enabled to find completeness through its relations to the others, while fulfilling its own particular calling within its own cultural context.”

Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that marvellous? It is the The Windsor Report on the Anglican Communion – paragraph 49. I had no idea how exciting the Christian faith is, but this Anglican material states it loud and clear – and there is loads more where this came from. Let’s learn this off by heart, let us teach it to our children, let us bind it to our foreheads – ‘each church recognises that the other belongs to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, and shares in the mission of the whole people of God.’ Yup.

Theological commissions within provinces need to be made more conscious of, and conversant with, Communion-wide dimensions of theological discourse. In particular, we need to develop the habit, and thence the virtue, of that charity which listens intensely and with good will to widely different expressions of sincerely held Christian theology, at the levels both of method and of content. As a Communion, we need a common forum for debate, a common table to which we can bring our questions for a proper family discussion.

It is because we have not always fully articulated how authority works within Anglicanism, and because recent decisions have not taken into account, and/or worked through and explained, such authority as we all in theory acknowledge, that we have reached the point where urgent fresh thought and action have become necessary.

The Windsor Report paragraph 41

The most articulate discussion of the struggle for discipleship in the Anglican Communion has been going on over at Titusonenine. Here are excerpts from comments by Ephraim Radner and IRNS –

“Windsor itself is not just about practical actions, taken within some vacuum of public affirmation and meaning. There is an entire theology about the church, however broad, that upholds its recommendations, and this theology includes the character of teaching, witnessed life, and the place of Scripture as informing and even directing thisâ?¦ there is every reason to believe that â??bare actionsâ?? are and will be considered inadequate if they are not tied to clear and clearly-interpreted commitments. The matter of trust for the Communionâ??s future life is at stake in this.

No one can underestimate the destructive degree to which ECUSA has thrown a poisoned apple into the everyoneâ??s midst. There is every sign that Rowan Williams knows this, and may well realize that the poison has already been ingested by everyone. There is little cause for optimism here, and every cause for pleading with the Almighty.”
Ephraim Radner

“In my own diocese, a reappraiser and I asked the bishop the same question on the same day and received answers to suit our own particular reappraiser/reasserter positionsâ??in other words opposite responses from the same mouth. That is not leadership and is precisely why we are in the mess we are in.”
SD

“By remaining neutral as regards Lambeth 1.10, TWR [The Windsor Report] implicitly OKâ??d the idea that one could remain neutral, or even opposed.
There is no question that Lambeth 1.10 is the present teaching of the Anglican Communionâ??thank God!â??but there is equally no question that TWR leaves the question of changing that teaching open. Until it is clear that changing that teaching is NOT openâ??that some doctrines are not open to â??developmentâ?? or â??evolutionâ?? from one species of doctrine to anotherâ??then we will remain in a never-ending doctrinal guerilla war, a war that TWR has failed to mediate.
Broadly speaking, TWR addresses two interrelated questions, â??developmentâ?? and authority in matters of doctrine within the Anglican Communion (or â??receptionâ??). I believe that it solves neither of them, and in fact at best confuses the issues. The main reason why parties can continue to either disagree or even simply talk past each other while claiming to adhere to the Windsor Report is not because one side or the other is disingenuous (although there is certainly plenty of that to go around), but because the Windsor Report failed so spectacularly.” Iâ??d Rather Not Say

Read some more of this discussion at Titusonenine. For a longer statement on the decisions the Anglican Communion has to take, read Ephraim Radner’s If there is a future for ECUSA and the Anglican Communion…

The Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission asks for your comments on the following issues:

1. Anglicanism has always given a high place to the reading of Scripture as the ground of its worship and teaching. How is it possible for Anglicans in different parts of the world to listen to the Bible together?

2. The Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission (ATDC) and the Windsor Report are both emphasising the notion of ‘covenant’ as a basis and expression of communion. If a covenant is more than a constitution, what implications does this have for decision-making by churches that are in a covenantal relationship with each other?

3. How do you think the genuine and meaningful expressions of communion that your church experiences with Anglican Christians in other parts of the world will be able to survive current disagreements in the Anglican Communion?

4. What sort of language (theological and otherwise) is appropriate for speaking about Christian people with whom you disagree?

We also welcome contributions from individuals, and especially lay people, so we will be pleased if you feel able to spread the contents of this letter as widely as possible.

Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission

These are very reasonable questions. Wouldn’t any list of Christian characteristics, such as ‘godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness…’ (1 Timothy 6.11) be the way to reply? The Anglicans are God-marked people, distinuished by all the spiritual gifts that make up Christian discipleship.