Where do we go from here?

As is obvious, my intentions to "keep up" the blog expressed in my Advent posting were not fulfilled. I am about to "violate" another of my own self imposed rules, and comment on the current state of the Anglican Communion. I have been inspired to do so by a variety of recent events, and by some postings that have been put up elsewhere on the net, and to some degree by comments those posts have drawn in various quarters. I am currently away from home, and I don't have access to my library, or the archives on my computer, so much of what I write below is somewhat dependent on a questionable memory.

I commend to you the recent posts put up by ACI ( www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com ), especially the piece by Dr. Philip Turner, that lay out the current state of affairs in the Communion. For the record, I have no connection with ACI, and nothing I say after this point should necessarily be taken as their opinion. I have taken an active part in the discussion of the Primates Meeting and its aftermath on various threads at StandFirm and T19, where I suppose one can see my thinking as it evolved. I would also recommend that everyone view the lecture by, and interview of, Archbishop Mouneer Anis at the Mere Anglicanism conference, and the post-Primates Meeting interview with Bishop Venables, all of which are available from Anglican TV, and also linked on any number of blogs and websites.

From those various sources, one can get a pretty good idea of where the Anglican Communion is right now. The Archbishop of Canterbury has come in for a lot of criticism, seemingly from all sides, and given that I have leveled no small amount of negative commentary myself, I will say that I think much of the blame for our current circumstances rests on his doorstep. But everyone knew he was a liberal when he took office, on that score, his actions have been consistent and predictable. What was not so apparent, and what has damaged the Communion more deeply is that his actions are remarkably inconsistent with his words, and that he seems incapable of keeping up with the pace of events. Which is to say, the Anglican Communion's time frame is much shorter than the Archbishop's, and he can't keep up. His call to everyone, politely, to slow down (ie- moratoria), was ignored first by TEC, and then the GS responded. He ends up asking bishops to consider not doing something that they have already done. And the archbishop seems also to be completely incapable of dealing with an ultimatum in a constructive way. When the ABoC encounters an ultimatum, and he will ignore it completely, whether it is the TEC ultimatums (we will perform this gay marriage on such and such a day, and consecrate this gay bishop on such and such a day) or GS ultimatum (if the PB of TEC is invited, we will not attend). He just ignores the ultimatum, and goes on as though nothing had changed once the ultimatum has been carried out. So he ends up making statements that are almost ludicrous in the circumstances, about the close cooperation in mission of churches that have entirely different doctrines, and which are diametrically opposed on interpretation of the Gospel.
The Anglican Communion is, as a result of that diametric opposition, currently misnamed. It would be more accurate to identify the "Anglican Communion" as the 60 million of the Global South and scattered throughout the rest of the world, who share a common Gospel and indeed have a high degree of communion, both spiritually and sacramentally. In addition, there are 20 million who view "autonomy" (some might say "hegemony") as the determining principle of Anglicanism. The irony of the calls for "autonomy within the Anglican Communion" is that "autonomy" and "communion" are antonyms. You can have only one or the other, you cannot have both.
However, it is the 20 million in favor of autonomy over communion who have all the money, all the media access, and control all the levers of power within the organization. Look at the current makeup of the ARCIC delegation. It is headed up by the Primate of a church (New Zealand) where you can substitute a home grown statement of faith for the Nicene Creed. It includes a TEC resident priest (ie- canonically resident in diocese of Chicago), who would otherwise be excluded under the Archbishop's Pentacost letter, but is currently teaching in a UK college- although he is an open opponent of Lambeth 1.10. (parenthetically, one warns the orthodox within the CoE that this has been a long term strategy of pushing the revisionist agenda in their church- the importation of wildly revisionist US professors into their seminaries). And a Canadian bishop from Toronto, which has openly defied the Windsor moratoria and the Windsor Continuation Group recommendations. How have any of these people been appointed to an ecumenical group rather than mainstream Anglican theologians? Well, because their churches wield power, while the majority of the Communion does not. And because the "powers that be" want to push the Catholic Church as far as possible in the ecumenical dialogue- including all the revisionist nonsense these people will spout in the meetings in the press releases- so that they can make the most outlandish revisionism appear "mainline" by making it appear that the Catholic Church is in dialog with them. If you wanted to represent the actual center of the Anglican theological spectrum, more sensible appointments might have been ++John Chew, Stephen Noll+ (an ex-pat American, if you must have one) and the bishop of Gibraltar. Such a group would have provided more diversity theologically and economically, and have better represented those who value Anglican formularies and commonly accepted doctrinal standards.

Another rather interesting very recent development that I am pondering is the recent editorial faux pas from the Church News of Ireland which has put up a current article on the resolution passed at last year's CoE Synod, proposing that the Synod at some later date take up the question of full communion between the ACNA and Church of England. The CNI article seems to have "borrowed" the headline from one of the more "optimistic" bloggers on the event last year, claiming recognition by the CoE for ACNA. All that resolution (after amendment) actually said was that the archbishops (Canterbury and York) were "invited" to study the matter and report back to Synod this year (which anyone who has followed the ABoC probably knew meant "at the later session of Synod, 2011- since Synod usually meets twice). This, of course, has raised all sorts of hackles among the TEC hierarchy.
In the course of discussion over at Stand Firm, commenter "Pageantmaster" (who appears to be a member of the CoE, and often has astute comments on the state of affairs in the CoE) let us know that Ms. Lorna Ashworth did indeed rise during the recent (ie- Feb. 2011) session of Synod to ask about the status of the Archbishops' study and whether they would be reporting back:
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/?/sf/page/27227/#455577
Those of us in ACNA in the US owe thanks to Lorna Ashworth, as the person who was bold enough to offer a resolution declaring communion with us (which was subsequently amended by the CoE bishops into the current resolution). This was quite a bold move for a lay woman from Chichester, and she is deserving of our thanks and our prayers. And it is good to know she is a member of the current Synod.

So, what do we do next? Whither the Anglican Communion?

Much of the criticism that has been leveled at ACI and even the Global South Primates is along the lines of "ok, you have pointed out the problem, now what is the solution?" and "so, that's great, but what have you done for me lately" and "when are you going to show us the way forward" and "when will orthodox bishops hold a conference?" Not that my opinion really amounts to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but here would be my recommendations for the orthodox Anglicans in the North America, Australia, New Zealand, the British Isles and Europe.

1) Pray daily for all that stand with us as Christians throughout the world. Thank those working to defend and expand the Church.

Recognize that people around the world have offered us enormous support over these last several years, acknowledge that, and thank them for it. Because the fellows at ACI are gifted theologians and analysts does not necessarily make them prophets, and they may not wish to take on that role. But be thankful for all the work they do. Likewise, the GS Primates are doing a lot, all the time, to further the work of Christ and His Church. And often, like now, they have things that are critically important that will take their attention away from the goings on in Communion politics. At this moment, Archbishop Mouneer in Egypt and Archbishop Daniel in the Sudan face simply enormous challenges going forward due to the political changes in their nations, not to mention the physical dangers faced by them as individuals and by their people. Christians are targets of hatred and terror in their countries, and many other nations of the Global South.

2) Study what has actually happened.

All too often, writers, bloggers and commenters seem ignorant of what has already happened, as though there were no action being taken to deal with the dissolution of the Communion due to actions of western churches.

Question: When will the GS hold a meeting of orthodox bishops and leaders from around the world? (asked by any number of commenters win the last few days in response to the primates meeting)
Answer: 2010 in Singapore. The Singapore "Global South Encounter" included bishops ranging from Nigeria and Rwanda to Communion Partner bishops from TEC. No one, other than Rowan Williams, received an invitation unless their church (or they personally) subscribed to Lambeth 1.10. As it turned out, ++Rowan was unable to attend due to his flight being canceled when a volcanic eruption grounded all the planes at Heathrow. "An act of God," one might say.

8 Primates signed statements that they would not attend the recent Primates meeting, and in 2 other cases, statements had been signed by their predecessors (S. Cone and Rwanda), due to attendance by TEC. The statement from the ACO office , if read carefully, says that 7 specifically wrote to Canon Kearon stating this, and is often misquoted to say that only 7 Primates did not attend due to the presence of the PB. However, Primates of 7 Provinces (the "Gafcon Primates"- not including +Duncan) signed the Oxford statement, which made this clear. In addition, ++Mouneer Anis, ++Ian Earnest, and ++John Chew were among the 7 who responded directly to Canon Kearon. So, while "only" 7 may have written to Canon Kearon, a total of 10 were on record, in writing, that they would not attend. Of the other 5 Primates who did not attend, we must accept the reasons stated by their various offices, at least until such time as the Primates themselves make some clarification of the reasons issued for their absence.

3) Determine who the orthodox bishops of the Communion are, and follow their lead.

Both Archbishop Mouneer and Bishop Greg Venables have stated that another pan-Anglican meeting is in the planning stage. We must pay attention to what they have to say to us, and stop telling them what they should or should not do. Full stop. Offer to them your skills and analysis, but be prepared to follow the lead of the orthodox bishops even if they are not saying what you want them to say. The Gafcon bishops and the "moderate" bishops of Africa and the Global South have been reaching out to one another in an effort to restore unity in the Communion (read the statements from the Singapore meeting and the CAPA meeting in Entebbe). Let us be part of that unity, and not become a divisive element for the Global South.

4) Reach out for communion.

For those of us in ACNA, let us stop demanding that "Church A should recognize communion with us." Might one rather suggest that the proper attitude here is not one expressed by "all orthodox Anglican Churches should declare full communion with ACNA." But rather, it is perhaps more appropriate for us in the west to approach these churches, where the modern martyrs are to be found, and where one might argue, our Lord is more "remembered", in a way more in keeping with the Prayer of Humble Access. After the mess we have made of the Lord's Church in North America, communion is something we are not worthy of. We should approach the table of Egypt, or Sudan, or Nigeria, or East Asia, with humility, and recognize the sacrifice and witness of these valiant Christians.

I really don't see the Church of England or Church of Ireland as representative of orthodoxy, but I do think they are still worthy of our respect- their churches are on a slippery slope, but they have not allowed them to descend to the levels of the churches in North America. So in these cases also, we must approach the question of communion between churches with humility rather than hubris. In many comments I read, I detect an attitude that "unless you declare communion with us, you are not orthodox Christians." My prayer would be that whether they decide to enter into a communion relationship with us or not, that they will say, "ACNA was not arrogant in our discussions."

5) Money.

I know it seems crass. But let's be real. Many churches in the Global South have sacrificed a great deal by refusing the monetary support of TEC, knowing that it comes with strings attached. While we in ACNA cannot approach the monetary resources of TEC, we must do what we can, as dioceses, parishes and individuals to support the Christians in faraway places who suffer violence, disease and famine, and we must support their ministries by assisting with such things as building churches, and sponsoring ordinands. And at home, by providing such support as we are able to those seminaries that maintain an orthodox Christian program of study.

So, there are my 5 recommendations for the future of Anglicanism. No, there is nothing there about re-establishment of Instruments, or calling for resignations, or breaking communion with this or that church. I would recommend that the GS implement the various disciplinary measures already agreed in Communion councils, but I think they are already doing that. Beyond that I will await the councils of the Global South and other orthodox bishops to make recommendations, and then follow their lead. The bishops of the GS have a much better perspective on how to advance the Lord's work in their provinces than I do, and a better perspective on what the Communion needs. My hope is that they find me, the little congregation I am a part of, and the fledgling ACNA worth of communion with their Churches.