A possible future for the Anglican Church of Australia was suggested in the presidential address (keynote speech) at the Synod (church parliament) for Southern Queensland late last month.
Referencing Gafcon, an international alliance of conservative Anglicans that called the Archbishop of Canterbury to repent following moves for the Church of England to allow same-sex blessings, Bishop Administrator Cameron Venables told the Brisbane meeting, “It is not impossible to imagine a future Primate of the National Anglican Church of Australia rejecting the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury and not attending the Primates meeting convened by the Archbishop of Canterbury. And, a future in which the Anglican Consultative Council’s work is ignored in favour of the work and direction of Gafcon councils.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury traditionally heads the official Anglican Communion that, is increasingly under threat of replacement by a conservative alternative.
Cameron Venables is in the role of Bishop Administrator as the Southern Queensland diocese seeks a new Archbishop of Brisbane. While his diocese generally leans progressive, his statement also reflected the emergence of a conservative majority in the Anglicans’ national body, the General Synod.
An overall progressive majority in the General Synod which had been in place since the Anglican Church of Australia was established in 1961, was flipped at last year’s meeting of the General Synod. A pivotal vote to affirm traditional marriage passed in the House of Laity 63-47 and House of Clergy 70-39, but the motion failed in the House of Bishops 10-12. A small change in the House of Bishops would see a conservative church, fulfilling the possibility suggested by Bishop Venables.
However, the whole scenario of a break with the Archbishop of Canterbury by the Anglican Church of Australia is unlikely in the near future. Similarly, any alignment of the national church with Gafcon (the Global Anglican Futures Conference), which, with another overlapping group, the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans (GSFA), represents conservative Anglicans worldwide, will take some time. At a Gafcon meeting in April, leaders from these two movements called on the Archbishop of Canterbury to repent of plans for the Church of England to have blessings of same-sex couples. They declared they no longer accepted his leadership of the Anglican Communion.
Together Gafcon and GSFA represent an alternative Anglican structure to the ones mentioned by Bishop Venables – The Anglican Anglican Consultative Council, Primates (national leaders) Meeting and the Archbishop of Canterbury. He correctly sees them as a possible replacement network for Australia to join.
Conservatives who oppose same-sex blessings continue to advance in the Anglican Church of Australia. The formula for setting numbers at General Synod is tied to clergy numbers. Representatives are based on a quota system in proportion to the number of clergy in each diocese. There is one clergy representative, and one lay representative for every twenty ordained clergy who are either in charge of a local church or in full-time or near full-time paid ministry. As more Conservative churches are planted and progressive churches plateau or shrink in numbers, there will be more conservative clergy and laity representatives.
The committee elected at the last General Synod that will elect the next Primate, the titular head of the Australian Anglicans, is dominated by evangelicals.
But any immediate, decisive break with Canterbury is unlikely, although, to be clear, this is speculation by The Other Cheek. The Anglican Church of Australia’s Constitution specifies that the church “will remain and be in communion with the Church of England in England and with churches in communion therewith so long as communion is consistent with the Fundamental Declarations contained in this Constitution.”
This sets up two possible scenarios for a break with the Church of England that is itself taking on a progressive character. The process of accepting same-sex blessings with ministers able to choose whether or not to use a new set of “Prayers of Love and Faith” looks likely to proceed at a November meeting of their General Synod.
1) A break may be triggered by a change in the doctrine of the Church of England, in particular, the doctrine of marriage. While conservative Anglicans believe adopting same-sex blessings does mark such a change, making the case based on the Church of England adopting same-sex marriage in the future will be more clear cut. This would be based on the words binding the ACA to the Church of England “so long as communion is consistent with the Fundamental Declarations contained in this Constitution.”
Those Fundamental Declarations include that the ACA “retains and approves the doctrine and principles of the Church of England embodied in the Book of Common Prayer together with the Form and Manner of Making Ordaining and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests and Deacons and in the Articles of Religion sometimes called the Thirty-nine Articles.” The Book of Common Prayer includes the marriage service, which sets man-women marriage as the standard.
Australian Conservatives would argue that the change to the doctrine of marriage in the Church of England accepting same-sex marriage will make communion with it no longer consistent with the Fundamental Declarations – because the Church of England would have departed from the doctrine of the Book of Common Prayer.
This means that Bishop Venables’ description of a possible future – and it needs to be stated he was not making a prediction but highlighting something “not impossible to imagine” – is possible but is some distance off. Same Sex blessings could be accepted in the Church of England this year, but they are not moving on marriage.
2) Another path to switching out of a Canterbury-aligned Communion to a Gafcon-aligned one would be a constitutional change for the Anglican Church of Australia, but the relevant part of the constitution about the fundamental declarations requires assent from “three-quarters of the diocesan synods of this Church including all of the metropolitan sees.” (The “metropolitan sees” are the dioceses of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane Adelaide and Perth). This effectively gives a veto on changing this part of the to both the conservative and progressive wings of the church.
So while a conservatively aligned Anglican Church of Australia is a distinct possibility, it will take time.
Theological Conservatives object to same-sex blessings. Adopting same-sex blessings has seen groups leave “official” Anglican churches to form new breakaway ones in Canada, New Zealand and in Australia, the Diocese of the Southern Cross. They object strongly to the moves in the Church of England to introduce same-sex blessings. But the point of rupture between the Anglican Church of Australia (if it retains a conservative majority) and the Church of England is more likely to come with marriage rather than blessings. This is because the legal justification for such a break is much easier to establish.
Please note, this piece is pure speculation by a writer with no authority whatsoever.