The Anglican World in Review – 2012: The Church of England Newspaper, January 6, 2012, p E4

First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.

The passions and partisan divisions that inflamed the Anglican Communion over the past decade burned low in 2011, with most Churches turning their attention to domestic affairs. Civil unrest, economic collapse, natural disasters and the culture wars pushed the Communion’s fight over doctrine and discipline to one side.

No grand agreements were made nor understandings reached on the issue of autonomy and the role of Scripture in guiding the life of the church. Rather an ecclesiastical ennui, an exhaustion of battles without end, led most Churches to concentrate upon local issues.

This displacement did not arise from a meeting of minds or suspension of judgment arising for the Listening Process sponsored by the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) or other Church-backed dialogues, but out of a sense of futility felt by traditionalists and alienation felt by the progressive wing of the Church over the management of the debates.

The decision to avoid conflict in hope of gaining time to allow passions to die away adopted at Lambeth 2008, drove global Anglican relations throughout 2011.

The year opened on January 1 with the establishment of an Ordinariate in England and Wales led by a former Church of England bishop and closed with establishment of its sister jurisdiction in America led by a former Episcopal bishop – the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St Peter led by the former Bishop of the Rio Grande, Jeffrey Steenson. While neither jurisdiction for disaffected Anglicans who sought corporate reunion with Rome appears to have attracted significant numbers of Anglo-Catholics, it did demonstrate the dire state of Anglican-Roman ecumenical relations.

The ARCIC talks continued in a new guise in 2011, but from the outset they were enveloped in controversy. The restrictions on participation in ecumenical dialogues placed by Dr Williams on the participation of members of those provinces who had breached the moratorium on gay bishops, blessings and cross-border violations was effectively ignored by the ACC. American clergy continued to serve on these committees but with the fig leaf of now being called consultants to, rather than participants in, the meetings.

After the 2008 neutering of the Lambeth Conference as an effective instrument of communion, the Primates’ Meeting suffered the same fate in 2011. Only 23 of the Communion’s 38 provinces were represented at the January 25-31 meeting in Dublin, and a majority of those present were not present at the 2009 meeting in Alexandria and appeared to have no memory of the undertakings made by their predecessors.

On 9 September, the Global South primates stated they had no confidence in Dr Williams’ leadership and the instruments of communion.  The Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, “have become dysfunctional and no longer have the ecclesial and moral authority to hold the Communion together.”

The Global South group said the ACC and various Communion-wide bodies “no longer reflect the common mind of the Churches” and their delegates would henceforth boycott their gatherings – a threat made good at the subsequent meeting in November of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) in Seoul.

The enthusiasm for the Anglican Covenant, which Archbishop Drexel Gomez of the West Indies in 2009 called the “only game in town” for the continued survival of the Communion, also waned in 2011. Three New Zealand dioceses along with the Maori Tikanga rejected the Covenant, as did the dioceses of Sydney and Newcastle in Australia, the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church, the Philippine House of Bishops and a number of American dioceses and the primates of the Global South coalition. Papua New Guinea, Mexico, Myanmar, the Southern Cone approved the Covenant, as did South East Asia – but with a proviso as to its understanding of the document, while the Church of Ireland subscribed to the agreement.

Political and military conflicts were more immediate concerns for many provinces. On 23 November the Anglican Church of Korea backed an inter-church call to appease North Korea after Communist troops shelled Yeonpyeong Island, located seven miles south of the Demilitarized Zone and 50 miles from the city of Inchon. The 17 December death of North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-il has since placed the country on high alert over regime changes in the North.

The Anglican Church of Myanmar benefited from the military regime’s slight relaxation of martial law, and welcomed Lord Carey – acting on behalf of Dr Williams – in December. The end of civil war in Sri Lanka brought the benefits of peace to the Church on the divided island – but the spectre of a return to civil war haunted the Church in Burundi. On 5 July Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi pleaded with Parliament in London not to make the East African nation an “aid orphan”.

The East African drought, rising Islamist militancy and corruption were pressing concerns for the churches of Uganda and Kenya. The Archbishop of Tanzania found himself in legal difficulties in June when he consecrated Stanley Hotay as bishop in violation of a court order. An arrest warrant was issued, but subsequently quashed. To avoid further legal difficulties, the province appointed Bishop Hotay vicar-general but not bishop of the Diocese of Mount Kilimanjaro.

The Episcopal Church of the Sudan celebrated the independence of South Sudan from the National Islamic Front government of President Omar al-Bashir in Khartoum. But peace has not come to South Sudan as tribal fighting in the west, the depredations of the Lord’s Resistance Army in the south, and a campaign of ethnic and religious cleansing mounted by the Khartoum government against Nuba Christians in South Kordufan province continues to bedevil the country.

Persecution continues as a fact of life for most Christians in Pakistan as the war in Afghanistan spills across the border and radicalizes Islamists in that country. While India and Bangladesh have not reported widespread persecution – the Churches report that militant Hindus continue their depredations in Orissa and other parts of India.  Corruption trials and allegations of misconduct by members of the House of Bishops in the Church of South India continued to sap that church’s energies.

Nigeria too has witnessed a sharp increase in sectarian divisions, with the Boko Haram militant Islamist group bombing churches and police stations in the north of the country. Fears the country could fall into civil war if the violence does not cease have been raised by church leaders, who are also concerned by the collapse of the country’s economic infrastructure.

Political unrest and persecution at the hands of a corrupt government was the focus of attention for the Church of the Province of Central Africa. Zambia saw a peaceful transition of power following national elections, while Malawi saw an outburst of unrest as the government of President Bingu wa Mutharika sought to consolidate power.

The persecution of Anglicans loyal to the province and Bishop Chad Gandiya in Harare and Bishop Julius Makoni in Manicaland continued in Zimbabwe – as did the country’s economic and social collapse under the regime of President Robert Mugabe. In October the Archbishop of Canterbury, accompanied by the Archbishops of Central Africa, Southern Africa and Tanzania, met with President Mugabe, giving the Zimbabwe strongman a dossier outlining the persecution suffered by the Church.

Civil unrest and crime continue to plague Papua New Guinea, with one bishop robbed of the gifts given to him at his consecration by bandits. Crime was also a topic of major concern for the Provinces of the West Indies and Mexico, with its leaders calling for an end to a gang culture that fostered materialism, violence and social decay.

The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East was caught up in the Arab Spring with revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria and civil war in Libya. The turn towards radical Islam last year has led to an increase in persecution and the flight of Christians from Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Egypt.

Natural disasters challenged the churches of Japan, the Philippines, New Zealand and Melanesia. An 11 March earthquake off Japan’s northeastern coast spawned a tsunami. Approximately 13,200 people were confirmed dead and 14,300 missing, while 167,000 people were forced from their homes by the floods and the subsequent melt-down at the Fukushima nuclear plant. While Japan suffered catastrophic damage from the tsunami, its effects also reached the Solomon Islands and northern New Guinea, bringing flooding and devastation.

Christchurch, New Zealand, was wrecked by a 22 February earthquake that devastated the city and eventually led to the demolition of much of the city’s Anglican cathedral.

Divisions over doctrine and discipline surrounding homosexuality were not absent, however, from the Communion in 2011. On 5 October the Bishops of the Church of Ireland called for a moratorium on clergy entering into same-sex civil partnerships. The threat of schism hung over the church in the wake of revelations that Bishop Michael Burrows permitted the Dean of Leighlin, the Very Rev Tom Gordon, to register a same-sex civil union.

The Irish bishops also asked critics of clergy civil unions to moderate their language while they debate the issue. “We urge people of all shades of opinion within the Church of Ireland to refrain from any actions or the use of emotive or careless language which may further exacerbate the situation within the Church. Such restraint will greatly facilitate the work ahead,” the bishops said, and promised a grand debate over the issue at a special meeting of synod in 2012.

In September the bishops of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa reaffirmed their stance on human sexuality writing that they remained “committed to upholding the moratoria of the Anglican Communion on the ordination of persons living in a same gender union to the episcopate; the blessing of same-sex unions; and cross-border incursions by bishops. Similarly, our Church has affirmed that partnership between two persons of the same sex cannot be regarded as a marriage in the eyes of God. Accordingly, our clergy are not permitted to conduct or bless such unions; nor are they permitted to enter into such unions while they remain in licensed ministry.”

However, the Church has not been able to move forward on plans to publish pastoral guidelines for clergy ministering to same-sex couples due to sharp divides within the House of Bishops and among the dioceses.

The Scottish Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Australia rejected proposals raised by their governments to legalize gay marriage – with both Churches saying that their understanding of marriage would not allow them to accede to civil or religious same-sex marriages.

The Anglican Church of Canada saw more dioceses adopt pastoral guidelines for allowing gay blessings, while the Episcopal Church in the United States began work on preparing liturgies and a theology for gay blessings.

Both North American churches were involved in lawsuits over the control of parish properties with the breakaway Anglican Church of North America (ACNA). The courts in the US and Canada have so far favoured the national Churches and dioceses in litigation with departing congregations, however, the disputes between the dioceses that quit the Episcopal Church have yet to be resolved.

The split between the Province of Rwanda and nine of the bishops of its Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) in December did not arise from disputes over doctrine, but in discipline and the exercise of authority and autonomy by the Bishop Chuck Murphy and his assistant bishops in America on behalf of Rwanda. Formed in 2000, the AMiA was the precursor to the ACNA and the first cross-border boundary-breaking in the modern era for the Communion. As of year’s end, its status and relation to the wider church remains unsure.

On the surface Dr Williams’ strategy of delay in that the passage of time will reveal the transitoriness of all things and particularly of all passions appears to have succeeded. “Political passions,” Proust writes in The Captive, “are like all the rest, they do not last. New generations arise which no longer understand them; even the generation that experienced them changes, experiences new political passions which, not being modeled exactly upon their predecessors, rehabilitate some of the excluded, the reason for exclusion having altered.”

New leaders among the primates, exhaustion among the combatants and disappointment with the rules of the game appears to have sapped the passion of the players from Anglicanism’s great game and proven Proust’s dictum.

Whether this will hold true in 2012 remains to be seen – but the fires have not been extinguished, merely banked low, and will likely burn bright if a change of leadership takes place this year at Lambeth.