Lance Lawton sees very different Anglican groups sharing one brand.
It’s been argued in parts 1 & 2 that the Anglican Communion (AC) is not fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. The present protracted upheavals over radically differing views and practices regarding sexuality and marriage are better seen as symptoms of a deeper and wider gulf. It includes very different principles for reading and applying Scripture, but is fundamentally cultural. As such, in the view of this writer, there’s little prospect of harmonising the approaches under a single hierarchical structure such as the AC. Are there then other more functional ways of being Anglican at an international level? One place at least to begin might be to consider some approaches of other Christian traditions.
Lutheran
Among other branches of Protestantism, Lutheranism is arguably the closest tradition to Anglicanism. Lutheran denominations across the world are commonly governed synodically at regional or national level. They vary widely in forms of ordained ministry. Some, much like Anglicans, observe the historic threefold order of bishop, presbyter and deacon, including apostolic succession of bishops. Beyond those, most have an office of bishop in some form, though commonly as a temporary elected office and often not formally titled “bishop”. Quite a few have an office of deacon, though not necessarily as an ordained order.
Although, as for Anglicans, there’s commonly a single major Lutheran denomination in most countries, it’s not at all uncommon for there to be smaller parallel Lutheran jurisdictions, if not widely known. Where this is the case, the various churches will typically be affiliated with one or more separate global Lutheran bodies.
One feature of particular note, by way of contrast with Anglican norms, is the existence of multiple separate global Lutheran networks. The largest of these is the Lutheran World Federation. Others are the International Lutheran Council, the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference, and the Global Confessional & Missional Lutheran Forum. (And there’s a further list of unaffiliated individual Lutheran churches as well).
What’s plain with all of these global networks is their largely consultative nature and flat structure. None of the leaders of any network is accorded any authority or seniority over member churches, nor any authority to speak for “Lutherans” collectively.
Presbyterian
Some would argue that Anglicanism is a kind of halfway house between Lutheranism and Calvinism. The Reformation in Scotland, as distinct from neighbouring England, took eventual shape in a church polity more closely aligned with Calvin and the continental reformers. Hence the Christian stream best known in the Anglosphere as Presbyterian.
Presbyterians are most plainly distinctive from Anglicans (and Lutherans) in rejecting the office of bishop, in favour of rule by a body of elders (or presbyters) in each local church, with oversight from a regional eldership. Ordained ministers are among the elders.
Somewhat similarly to Lutheran associations, several global Presbyterian / Reformed bodies exist, with member (usually national) churches affiliated with one or more such bodies. Again much like international Lutheran networks, these bodies are also largely consultative and in no real sense authoritative or publicly representative.
One striking feature of Presbyterianism particularly in Britain and the US, and to a lesser extent others such as Australia, is a frankly mind-boggling history of splits and mergers over centuries as well as in current times. A notable consequence is often a multiplicity of separate Presbyterian denominations. Australia for instance has nine. If that sounds a lot, try the US, where the number appears to be 42.
Why mention this? Well it isn’t to urge a similar Anglican smorgasbord. Division on such a scale is hardly to be celebrated. However for Anglicans it may serve to highlight that multiple parallel jurisdictions with a common tradition – including a recognisable label – is not an uncommon phenomenon globally. Anglicans, especially in Australia, are not used to the idea. But it’s far from unknown across the body of Christ.
Non-Communion Anglican
Though not widely known in Australia or Britain, there have been multiple parallel Anglican denominations in many countries for quite some time, most created in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries. Australia and Britain have been no exception, though not to the same extent as several others. Lest there be any ambiguity, this means a large number of international, national or regional / state denominations identifying as Anglican (or Episcopal), with bishops in the apostolic succession, observing Anglican doctrine and order, and not part of the AC. Or in other words, not in communion with Canterbury.
The site Anglicans Online tries to track these churches, listed under the heading “Not in the Communion”. It’s a complex list with some overlap. On a raw count it currently numbers about 148. Between them all they cover much of the globe. The single country with the highest proportion of them is the United States (about 35). Assuming currency of information, there appear presently to be five in Australia.
Baptist
In respect of church government, the Baptist tradition is congregational in form. In that sense it might be thought out of place in a study like this one. There is technically no authority over the local congregation that’s external to it. Certainly no episcopal structure, nor even individual bishops, and also no regional collective presbyteral oversight such as in Reformed or Presbyterian traditions.
But one characteristic that appeals to this writer in this broad context (structural associations between churches of a common tradition), perhaps a less well-known one, is the place classically accorded to individual or shared conscience, among Baptists at a local level.
What brought this to my greater awareness was a recent controversy within an Australian state-level Baptist church association. The subject of controversy was the same one now most prominently and visibly dividing the AC, sexuality and marriage. But what was further controversial in this Baptist case was, to many Baptists, the un-Baptist way it was addressed. Not only did the state association adopt a public position on marriage and sexuality (itself considered by many an un-Baptist approach to a moral question), but churches and ministers were disaffiliated from the association on that basis. In other words, personal and local church conscience was not given the weight it properly deserves in classical Baptist thinking. As I reflected a few months ago, it was observing this Baptist case unfolding, and listening to a number of Baptist friends in the midst of it, that set me to pondering how attention to personal or congregational conscience might, could, or even perhaps should, be freshly considered within Anglican communities.
Continued alliances
Observably the AC is not travelling well as a body united globally around a common set of doctrines and disciplines, at present most notably with approaches to sexuality and marriage. And as I’ve argued, the prospects of that situation changing in the foreseeable future are bleak, thanks in the main to substantial cultural and theological differences predominating between Anglican communities of the Global North and South respectively. It’s therefore the view of this writer that, in contemporary colloquial idiom, the AC is well past its use-by date, not fit for purpose in the 21st century, and due a decent burial. And Anglicans are good at burials.
This opinion is offered of course recognising that such a ’nuclear’ option stands in marked contrast with the views and aspirations of most constituent parts of the AC. This notably includes the Gafcon movement or network, whose leaders have very recently published a nuclear option of their own, declaring by public communique that “The Future Has Arrived”, in a reordering of the AC as the Global Anglican Communion, ‘divorced’ from Canterbury, restoring the Communion to its original design as they in best conscience understand. This is not the place for an analysis of the communique or its intention. But one might note the critical assumption undergirding it: that a uniquely authentic global body with a global leader is of the very essence of Anglicanism.
Might we Anglicans rather consider other ways of being in communion, by observing and learning from other branches of Christ’s body? The one conceivable way the bleak dissolution just proposed might be avoided could be the adoption of a conscience-affirming form of association, such as our Baptist sisters and brothers have held; traditionally at least. So this would mean those globally scattered Anglican provinces currently comprising the AC resolving to remain in association not on the basis of an entirely uniform set of disciplines, but rather resting on the historic doctrines now affirmed by Anglicans, the Book of Common Prayer and derivative authorised liturgies, the historic threefold orders of ministry, and mutual respect for varying convictions of conscience in moral order as each member province listens to Scripture.
If nothing else, such an approach might be much in keeping with the 2024 Nairobi-Cairo Proposals of the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order, which significantly Archbishop of Canterbury-designate Bp Sarah Mullally has commended for consideration by all members of the AC. Proposal 1 includes the phrase “common counsel in conference” as part of a revised definition of the AC.
Is such a vision conceivable and realistic? It could be a very refreshing thought. But does it sound Anglican enough? That’s the point at which it starts to look doubtful. Doubtful I suggest, ultimately because we’re an episcopal tradition. (And commitment to episcopal order might be nearly the only point of nearly universal Anglican agreement). Whether the emphasis is the reformed theme of the bishop as teacher and guardian of orthodoxy, or the patristic identification of the bishop as centre of unity and Father in God (the latter central to Anglo-Catholic spirituality), episcopal church order is inherently centralist and conformist in ethos. Authority vested in a central overseer who sets and administers common standards, under whom and to which all should conform. It’s simply difficult to conceive of such an ecclesiology accommodating variations driven by personal or local conscience, and literally on a global scale.
So if not a monolithic episcopal communion, and not conscience based either, then what? One of the particular ways of journeying together Anglicanism and Anglicans are noted for, is synodical government and decision making. Might not that provide a template for a new way of holding values and traditions in common, in a way that’s consultative, dynamic and adaptable? Is that not what the 21st century almost demands?
In other words devolve a straining monolith into a plurality of groupings with a consultative character, each of which finds sufficient in common internally to work comfortably and functionally together, and with the freedom to realign and for provinces to belong to more than one grouping. It does mean relinquishing a kind of “trademark” mentality beloved of Anglicans in AC provinces, a belief that only “we” can use the label “Anglican” (or “Episcopal”). An understandable assumption, perhaps. But hardly real when there are already about 150 Anglican jurisdictions around the world. That horse bolted long ago. If our mostly-episcopal Lutheran sisters and brothers can work with their “brand” as an adjective used by many rather than a noun belonging to one, why can we Anglicans not do the same?
In fact groupings are already a reality within the Communion. And with the cultural-theological gulf between North and South more likely to widen than narrow, it’s surely inevitable that there’ll be more. A united fellowship is a glorious ideal. But the world has entered an age where the dynamic is replacing the institutional. Other Christian communities are living there comfortably, if not perfectly. Maybe we Anglicans should join them as together we all await the promised glorious unity of the thousands upon thousands, in unending song, around the sea of glass, before the Lamb’s throne.
First Published at Fullofgraceandtruth.net.
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