Repairing the Broken Wall
(Isaiah 58:12)
Anglican news has recently been breaking: a female bishop (and progressive) as the new Archbishop of Canterbury (with, I should add, a reputation for collegiality), and the declaration of GAFCON’s departure from (or their sole constitution as) the Communion. Both make clear what many had already concluded, that the Church of England understood its first primacy as primarily for England, and that Nigeria, Rwanda, and Uganda understood the ‘line in the sand’ to have been crossed awhile ago.
I would add a third conclusion already reached, namely that Lambeth 2022 spelled, alas, the end of two decades of effort to render the Communion Instruments capable of addressing the ‘rent net.’ While individual friendships continue locally (and are important!), and the Anglican Communion Office would foster fellowship as it was able, no more formal structure was in the offing to guide Anglicanism.
However, to the surprise of many, these developments have not spelled the end of efforts on behalf of the Communion’s future. Who could have foreseen a revitalized IASCUFO (the very meaning of the acronym being obscure to many- ‘Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith, and Order’)? (We in Dallas appreciate that alumni like Christopher Wells, Jordan Hylden, and Matthew Olver have contributed to its main themes of ‘differentiation’ and ‘communion-across-difference,’ drawing from the modern ecumenical movement).
The goal is still now, as it has been since the Windsor Report, to seek ‘the greatest degree of communion possible,’ though perhaps in a more modest key. In this spirit I have opened this reflection with the post-exilic verse from Isaiah, to strengthen what remains, which articulates this modesty. Appropriate to this moment are the current Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, which deserve our support. They take focused steps to keep those still willing to talk together. They recognize the historical role of Canterbury. They originate with the rising Churches of the global south. About them there is a debate within our own Church, and a decision pending from the Anglican Consultative Council in the new year. And in a strange and surprising way, both announcements make the limited, modest steps of Cairo- Nairobi more pragmatically plausible (indeed the only plausible way). By God’s grace may we take what steps we can to strengthen what remains.
+GRS
