A New Direction for the Anglican Communion

The Anglican Communion, the world’s third largest grouping of Christians after the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox churches, is on the brink of disintegration.

The battle that pits liberal modernizers against traditionalist conservatives is fast dissolving the fabric underpinning Anglicanism, threatening a permanent breakup.

Anglican Christianity needs a new direction if another schism is to be averted.

The birth of Anglicanism is commonly associated with King Henry VIII when the Church of England rejected papal authority over Henry’s multiple marriages.

But the Anglican Church can be traced to the 6^th-century Christianization of Britain, the first Archbishop of Canterbury in 597 AD and the formation of an English Church (ecclesia anglicana) in the Middle Ages.

With England’s global influence, national congregations were established overseas and Anglicanism was formed. Partly as a result of the Protestant Reformation, no single Anglican church could wield supreme authority, since each national congregation is fully self-governing.

American Independence consolidated the autonomy of national Anglican churches, a model that was subsequently exported by the British Empire and Christian missionaries to Australasia and Africa: with almost 20 million members, Nigeria has the largest Anglican church.

Historically, what binds the Communion together is ties with the Church of England and the primacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury who is ‘first among equals’ within the body of Anglican bishops.

Theologically, Anglicanism represents an authentically reformed Catholicism, true to Christian roots in the Church Fathers and the Middle Ages, which also resonates with important aspects of Eastern Orthodoxy.

But the bitter conflict between liberals and conservatives undermines this uniqueness and the Communion’s ability to act as a bridge between Christian churches.

Last Monday’s decision by the Church of England to approve the consecration of women bishops has further strained relations with Rome, with the Vatican expressing deep regret and concern for the future of ecumenical dialogue.

Moreover, this decision has exacerbated tensions between the liberal and the conservative wing. These tensions mirror a wider rift within the worldwide Communion between an increasingly militant liberal faction and a rising conservative Evangelical wing, especially since the 2003 election of a practising homosexual priest as Anglican Bishop of New Hampshire.

Last month's meeting of Evangelicals in Jerusalem approved plans to establish a separate global council of conservative bishops. Their intention is not to set up a separate church but to take over the Communion by excluding those whom they view as liberal heretics, including Rowan Williams, the reigning Archbishop of Canterbury.

The rebels are boycotting this month’s Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade assembly of Anglican bishops in Canterbury which has no formal decision-making powers but is seen as the collective mind of Anglicanism and an unifying instrument of the Communion.

This sectarian attitude contrasts sharply with that of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, which is sending Cardinal Walter Kaspar to Canterbury in order to reaffirm the Vatican's commitment towards a full reunification of all episcopally-based churches.

It is true that the clash between liberals and conservatives focuses on gay and female bishops.

But the trouble is that by reducing these questions to scriptural interpretation and historical precedent, both sides ignore the Communion’s formative tradition and sources of authority. It is this ignorance that continues to prevent a proper theological debate between the warring sides.

Conservatives condemn liberals for embracing secular moral norms incompatible with Anglican teachings on ethics and marriage. Liberals accuse traditionalists of intolerance and scriptural literalism at odds with Anglican inclusiveness. Both are right about each other, but wrong about their church.

In reality, liberals and conservatives share much more in common than they are prepared to admit. Both claim a monopoly on biblical interpretation which neither has. Both purport to speak for a majority of Anglicans which neither represents. And both view Anglicanism in partisan ideological terms rather than from a robust theological perspective.

As a result, the deepening divide between liberals and conservatives hides a more orthodox and more radical vision. Such a vision transcends the current divide and situates the Communion alongside the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches firmly within the Episcopal tradition.

Episcopacy – the body of bishops – differentiates Anglicanism from schismatic Protestants like the Baptists by preserving the apostolic succession – the unbroken link of bishops with Jesus’ twelve apostles.

The practice of apostolic succession both safeguards the legitimacy of the Anglican mission and preserves the continuity of local Anglican churches with the authoritative universal (or catholic) Church.

What is specific about the Anglican Episcopal tradition is that it fuses traditional liturgical and sacramental practices with progressive political and socio-economic ideas – a legacy that goes back to the founding fathers of Anglican theology in the 16^th century such as William Tyndale and Richard Hooker.

As such, Anglicanism has always sought to represent a reformed Catholic alternative to both Protestant liberalism and conservative Evangelical fundamentalism.

All this matters today because the integrity of the Communion is under threat from the impoverished extremes of liberals and conservatives. If liberals want to broaden the priesthood to include women and gay bishops or if conservatives want to oppose any such development, then they must produce theological arguments from within the Episcopal tradition.

Both must also respect the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury as ‘first among equals’.

Otherwise, liberal and conservative bishops would depart from Anglican orthodoxy and loose their own legitimacy.

It is hard to see how the conflicting visions can be reconciled. But in order to reunify the 80-million strong worldwide Communion, Anglicans could do worse than recover Anglican theology.

Rowan Williams has taken a first step by questioning the non-theological motivations that prompted liberals to press ahead with appointing a gay bishop and conservatives to establish a rival council of bishops.

His critics rightly contend that his leadership since 2003 has not succeeded in breaking the deadlock.

Though he inherited many problems from his predecessor, thus far he has failed to change the terms of the debate – not least because his own stance has at times oscillated between social liberalism and theological conservatism.

However, Williams is uniquely positioned to articulate a new direction for the Communion because the current divisions hide a more visionary option which he has always sought to convey: a canceling of the opposition between liberals and conservatives by a revivified theology that preserves and extends the Anglican Episcopal tradition.

Unless he wants to preside over a de facto schism, Williams needs to set out a renewed vision of Episcopal Anglicanism and rally Anglicans around it.

Those who reject his authority and this vision on non-theological grounds will exclude themselves from the Communion.

Thus, a properly figured and reinvigorated Anglican theology is indispensable to the preservation of the global Communion and a rapprochement of Christians across the world.
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