Conger

First published in The Church of England Newspaper’s Religious Intelligence section.

Anglican primates have endorsed a mediation programme to reconcile liberals and conservatives. A report backed by the heads of all the Anglican provinces around the world has put forward the innovative proposal as a way to settle the dispute between conservatives, who oppose the ordination of homosexual clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions, and liberals.

Over four days of closed-door meetings, the primates received presentations on the Sudan, Zimbabwe, global warming, the international financial crisis and co-ordination efforts amongst the church’s independent relief and development agencies. However, the focus of the conference, Dr Williams explained on Feb 5, had been “ecclesiology. What kind of church are we?”

The closing communiqué recognized the Anglican Communion was a divided church, one beset by “mistrust” and great theological tensions. The primates asked Dr Williams to engage outside mediators to bring the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) — a consortium of breakaway congregations and dioceses from the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada along with several continuing Anglican groups — together in conversation with the Episcopal Church and the Canadian church.

“We request the Archbishop of Canterbury to initiate a professionally mediated conversation which engages all parties at the earliest opportunity. We commit ourselves to support these processes and to participate as appropriate. “We earnestly desire reconciliation with these dear sisters and brothers for whom we understand membership of the Anglican Communion is profoundly important.

“We recognise that these processes cannot be rushed, but neither should they be postponed,” the primates said.

Dr Williams said the call for mediation and for “pastoral visitors” from Lambeth to act as “consultants in situations of stress and conflict” acknowledged the insufficiency of the approaches taken by the last two Primates’ Meetings to the North American problem.

The 2007 “pastoral scheme” authorized by the primates in Dar es Salaam “did depend upon the Episcopal Church taking ownership of it,” he said. Trying to “impose” a solution without it’s “cooperation would have been impossible.” However, there was no “schism,” Dr Williams said, but stated there was “deep division” within the Communion, but “what that will mean, we don’t know.” The way forward was to remain faithful to the Windsor process and form an Anglican Covenant. “Unless the Covenant is robust and accepted the federal model is on the horizon” for the Anglican Communion, Dr Williams said, adding that none of the primates wanted to change or loosen the current Communion of churches into a Federation of churches akin to the international Lutheran or Reformed church federations.

The communiqué reaffirmed the church’s teachings on human sexuality, as stated in the 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10, called for a continued and broadened “Listening Process” that Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda said meant including the voices of conservatives, and affirmed the moratoria on gay bishops and blessings, and violations of ecclesial jurisdictions.

Dr Williams conceded that the “moratoria are holding rather badly on both sides” but added that they were not “completely ignored.” Cross-border violations and gay blessings continued, but he said that the third moratorium had held as there were no new gay bishops. “We are trying to see the glass as half full and not half empty,” he explained.

Speaking to the media at the close of the conference, Dr Williams outlined three points he thought salient to the week’s discussions brought by a report given by the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG). The WCG urged a shift in the ecclesiological relations within the Communion. Dr Williams said these called for a “shift of focus” from a church perceiving itself to be “autonomous with accountability added on” to one where a church saw itself as “autonomous and accountable.”

The WCG also urged a rethink of the relationship between the four instruments of Communion: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council.

The primates also backed the WCG’s recommendation for mediation between the ACNA and the US and Canadian Churches. Dr Williams said that a mediation process had begun in Brazil between the Diocese of Recife and the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil, and he hoped this would lead to an eventual reconciliation.

The breakaway groups in the US and Canada remained part of the Anglican Communion, Archbishop Williams reported, but their “institutional relationship” remained “unclear.” Asked his personal view of the deposition of Canadian theologian JI Packer and Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, Dr Williams declined to answer, but noted the communiqué “deplores actions that deepen division or give rise to suspicion or hostility.”

Both liberals and conservatives came away pleased. US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told a reporter from the Episcopal News Service on Feb 5 that she was encouraged by the tone of the communiqué, but said the “long-term impact of ‘gracious restraint’ is a matter for General Convention. “We are going to have to have honest conversations about who we are as a church and the value we place on our relationships and mission opportunities with other parts of the Communion and how we can be faithful with many spheres of relationship at the same time,” she told ENS.

“That is tension-producing and will be anxiety-producing for many, but we are a people that live in hope, not in instant solutions but in faithfulness to God.” The hand of providence was also seen by conservative leaders in the meeting. “Something like the freshness of the Holy Spirit” descended upon the meeting, Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables of South American said.

There was “something different here, something special,” he said. “Without a doubt there was a lot of anger and tension” underlying the conversations, but the “orthodox had a calmness and peace” that Bishop Venables said had come from God.

“Archbishop Peter Akinola is pleased, I’m pleased, my brother Henry [Orombi] is pleased” with the outcome of the meeting, Bishop Venables told a reporter for The Church of England Newspaper on Feb 5.

The 2009 Primates’ Meeting was a spiritual as well as emotionally powerful encounter, as the primates took ownership of the brokenness of the church. “There is the recognition that this whole thing is falling to bits,” Bishop Venables explained. Past agreements had left him feeling “is this just pushing the ball forward” down the field? In Alexandria the primates agreed “this is a broken communion. Let’s start with that and see where we go,” he said.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s leadership in Alexandria also presented an opportunity to move forward. Dr Williams had grown in office conservative leaders told CEN, and had regained some of the trust lost over the last few years. Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda said Dr Williams “chaired the meeting very wisely” and was “very sensitive.”

Conservatives leaders were also impressed by the contribution of the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu who led discussions on the Christian response to the international financial crisis, as well as emerged as a strong advocate for the Anglican Covenant.

Bishop Venables and Archbishop Orombi stated that a legislative or legal solution at this phase of the debate would not resolve the splits. The question of recognizing a parallel province in North America was premature, they said, as the underlying theological differences had not been addressed. There was a visible church and an invisible church, they said. “Being an Anglican without knowing Jesus” conferred membership “in a club” and not in the true church, Archbishop Orombi said. Before a vote on a third province is taken “we have to see what happens to the Communion,” he said.

For traditionalists two different faiths were in contention. “A liberal expression of Christianity is not Christianity” as we know it, Bishop Venables said. Addressing this gap need take place before structural or legislative solutions were imposed on the church. The Anglican Covenant process would define where the parties stood and Archbishop Orombi said “it will be another way of describing we are not in Communion.”

Archbishop Orombi said he hoped that Dr Williams would call a theological council that could devote the time and expertise to engage in these issues. “My proposal is let’s have two sets of theologians and debate these things. Primates don’t have the time,” and the Primates’ Meetings are not the proper venue for these issues.

The two primates urged traditionalists in the United States to take heart from the agreement and both pledged the support of their provinces until a “safe place” had been established for them. Archbishop Orombi also urged ACNA to make its case to Dr Williams, setting forth both the factual and theological rationale for a new province.

Traditionalists must “hold together, remain together” and persevere in their fight, “for we are standing with you,” he said.

The future prospects of a united Anglican Communion appear bleak at the midpoint of the 2009 primates meeting, following two days of talks on the divisions over doctrine and discipline centering round human sexuality. While the 34 primates have spoken as one on the issue of Zimbabwe, they are sharply divided over the question of what the permissible limits of doctrinal and liturgical authority might be—-how far can a province go with theological innovation and local practices and still be called Anglican?

The venue for the Feb 1-5, the Helnan Palestine Hotel in Alexandria, Egypt, is best known as having been the site where the Arab League gave birth to the PLO in 1964. Should the meeting continue on its present trajectory, it may well be the site of the demise of the Anglican Communion.

However, crisis has been a constant at the Anglican primates meetings. At the mid-points of the 2005 meeting in Dromantine, Northern Ireland and the 2007 meeting in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the communion appeared set for collapse, but the meetings were saved by the personal intervention by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams. Whether Dr. Williams can pull off a third primates’ miracle is unclear.

The meeting opened for business on Feb 1 with a “meet and greet” day of prayer, conservation and welcome to the seven newly elected primates attending the meeting. In the evening the primates travelled to Central Alexandria’s St. Mark’s Anglican Church, and participated in a service consecrating the former colonial-era garrison church as a pro-Cathedral of the Diocese of Egypt.

In his sermon to the ebullient congregation of Alexandrine Anglicans, Dr. Williams spoke of the city’s place in Christian history, and offered an oblique criticism to the conservative primates. Extolling the virtues of finding Christ in one’s neighbor, he urged quietness, stillness and respect for diversity upon his peers.

While past exhortations for patience and tolerance from Dr. Williams had kept conservatives in check, after six years of meetings over the same set of issues, patience appeared to be wearing thin. Speaking informally outside St. Marks, the Primate of Nigeria, Archbishop Peter Akinola urged his colleagues to be consistent and honour the primates past agreements.

The primates started the formal business session of the meeting on Feb 2 with five presentations from the primates of Canada, Burma, Southern Africa, Uganda and the Episcopal Church of the United States on the question: “What impact has the current situation had on your Province’s mission priorities?”

These elicited a “very interesting discussion” the primates’ spokesman Archbishop Philip Aspinall of Australia told reporters, noting there had been a “huge diversity” of responses in the small group discussions that followed.

Dr. Williams’ selection of the five churches, allowed an artful display of the various views within the Communion. The Burmese Archbishop Stephan Than Myint Oo said that from a cultural perspective the discussion of sexual ethics was distasteful in his society. While the bishops had spoken of these issues, there was no desire to unsettle the church as a whole by pursuing this question in light of the pressing issues facing Burmese Christians.

Archbishop Henry Orambi spoke to the traditional views on human sexuality, citing Scripture and the church’s unbroken traditional teachings, while Canadian Archbishop Fred Hiltz noted that in his country, the issues of human sexuality were not being driven by the church, but were a live issue with the courts and government.

US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori defended her church’s actions, saying its decisions could not be limited by any outside authority, and noted that her church had been studying the issue for many years. South Africa’s Archbishop Thabo Makgoba urged tolerance and patience, reminding the primates of his own church’s struggle to hold together through the seemly intractable divisions of the apartheid era.

The afternoon session then turned to a presentation on the work of the Anglican Covenant Design Group, led by the Primate of Southeast Asia, Archbishop John Chew of Singapore. The media spokesman for the primates, Australia’s Archbishop Philip Aspinall said it was his impression that there had been a “pulling back from the language of sanctions and teeth” in the draft document.

The Covenant would be about “koinonia … fellowship .. of communion” between churches, he said and not a legal code for “hitting people over the head with sticks.”

In his briefing Archbishop Chew told the primates the Covenant was a work in process. Its drafters had taken on board the criticisms and comments offered by bishops attending the 2008 Lambeth Conference, and were also waiting upon responses due by March 9 from the 38 provinces. Once these materials had been collated, a final draft would be presented to the May meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council in Jamaica for ratification.

Dr. Aspinall told reporters there was an “increasing realism” within the Common on the practical limits of the Covenant’s legal reach. He believed the emphasis of the final draft would likely be on developing closer relations and “building trust.” The Covenant would request a “self-limiting” of authority on issues of doctrine and discipline from the provinces, but could not command obedience.

The primates closed their first day with an evening presentation on Zimbabwe, and issued a call for strongman Robert Mugabe to go.

On day two, the primates received a report from the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG). Dr. Williams imposed a media blackout on the document-delaying its public release until after the close of the meeting, and press spokesman declined to speak to the details of the conversations. However the intensity of the conversation led to an adjustment of the agenda, with discussions spilling over into the afternoon.

Chartered by Dr. Williams in the wake of his Advent Letter to the Primates in December 2007, the WCG was asked to advise him on the “implementation of the recommendations of the Windsor Report, how best to carry forward the Windsor Process in the life of the Communion, and to consult on the ‘unfinished business’ of the Report.”

The six member team led by the former Presiding Bishop of the Middle East and Jerusalem, Bishop Clive Handford offered three presentations to the bishops of the 2008 Lambeth Conference. It called for a moratorium on gay bishops and blessings, and a “holding bay” for disgruntled conservatives. It also rejected the “proliferation of ad hoc episcopal and archiepiscopal ministries,” asserting that such arrangements “cannot be maintained within a global Communion.”

In December the WCG met in Texas and prepared a final draft of their report to the primates, which was given to the primates at the start of the meeting. Primates contacted by CEN declined to speak to the issues raised in the meeting, though all agreed there had been a full and frank airing of views.

An evening session devoted to the perils of global warming broke the primates’ focus on the splits within the Communion, but after two days of talks, the primates appear haggard and exhausted. The positions of the various factions are clearer, but have also hardened, with little sign that a compromise can be reached. While two days remain to come to a common mind as to how the communion might go forward, Dr. Williams faces the formidable task of reconciling what one primate said appears to be “two irreconcilable positions” within one church.