Archbishop
Williams critiques GAFCON primatial
council plan
by Steve Waring
The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church
have expressed vastly different opinions on the long-term significance of
the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which concluded June 29 in
Jerusalem with a communiqué calling for the launch of a fellowship of confessing
Anglicans.
Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori predicted that "much of the Anglican world must be lamenting the latest emission from GAFCON," and dismissed it as "merely another chapter in a centuries-old struggle for dominance by those who consider themselves to be the only true believers."
Archbishop Rowan Williams, on the other hand, praised the final communiqué. He said it contained much that was positive and encouraging. He also pointed out some potential weaknesses that he believes will need to be addressed.
"The tenets of orthodoxy spelled out in the document will be acceptable to and shared by the vast majority of Anglicans in every province, even if there may be differences of emphasis and perspective on some issues," he said. "I agree that the Communion needs to be united in its commitments on these matters, and I have no doubt that the Lambeth Conference will wish to affirm all these positive aspects of GAFCON's deliberations."
In the introduction to the communiqué, the GAFCON participants proposed that the Anglican Communion faces many opportunities and challenges if it is to have an impact in a 21st-century global culture. The GAFCON communiqué strives to avoid making human sexuality and The Episcopal Church's unilateral innovations in that regard the sole focus of its effort to reform and reshape the Anglican Communion. Its third premise makes clear that GAFCON participants believe The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are proclaiming a "false gospel," and that efforts by the current instruments of unity, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, "to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy," have been a "manifest failure."
The communiqué recognizes the desirability of territorial jurisdiction for provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion, but not for places like the U.S. and Canada, where GAFCON leaders believe that "the orthodox faith" is denied and the spread of its message prevented. In those areas, GAFCON participants pledge to continue working with those they see as theological allies, including episcopal oversight of congregations formerly affiliated with either The Episcopal Church or the Anglican Church of Canada. The group has also called for formation of a "Primates' Council" to oversee this work and to "reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed."
Archbishop Williams asks two pertinent questions about the rationale behind the group's thinking: "By what authority are primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council? And how is effective discipline to be maintained in a situation of overlapping and competing jurisdictions?"
Archbishop Williams asks, "How is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, and a situation where there are underlying non-theological motivations at work? We have seen instances of intervention in dioceses whose leadership is unquestionably orthodox simply because of local difficulties of a personal and administrative nature. We have also seen instances of clergy disciplined for scandalous behavior in one jurisdiction accepted in another, apparently without due process. Some other Christian churches have unhappy experience of this problem and it needs to be addressed honestly."
Recent parish defections from the dioceses of Central Florida, Dallas, Tennessee, Texas and Upper South Carolina come to mind in which the reasons for the departure and the means used by the intervening primate in deciding whether to accept the congregation were confusing. In other instances, clergy have been welcomed who are under threat of disciplinary action for reasons other than what Archbishop Williams describes as "a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity." This problem is compounded when members of the Common Cause Partnership are included. Many of these small and widely dispersed judicatories have functioned for decades with minimal oversight and scandals of their own. The GAFCON statement does not suggest any process of discernment, other than an individual's willingness to accept a confessional set of beliefs.
In an effort to draw into
its net as wide a percentage of orthodox Anglicans as possible, GAFCON participants
seem to be embracing a measured approach to needed reform of Anglicanism.
If they are to succeed, Archbishop Williams' two questions and others will
need to be sincerely and effectively addressed.
—Steve Waring is news editor of The Living Church. From that
publication's Web site.
