In the absence of clear direction or confident resolve by the primates of the Anglican Communion as a body to work through their disagreements, the recently concluded gathering of some primates in Dublin opted at best for vague indecision, an admission of momentary defeat.
Speaking afterward at a press conference, Archbishop Williams described the document produced by the primates at Dublin, “Towards an Understanding of the Purpose and Scope of the Primates’ Meeting,” as the result of “very intensive discussion of our theologies of the church and of ministry.” The discussion may indeed have been intense, but the document is not. At just under 500 words including footnotes, written in an indaba-style brainstorm, it cuts an entirely less impressive figure than previous primatial communiqués. As such, it has been interpreted as a step back or away from what the Anglican Covenant calls the reaffirmation and intensification of our “bonds of affection,” including a “common understanding of faith and order” (Intro., para. 5).
In this interpretation of Dublin, the primates’ document marks a turn toward the diminished expectations of an Anglican federalism in lieu of full-blooded communion — a victory for the purveyors of a progressive “contextual theology” sans substantive mechanisms of corporate decision-making and accountability. In defense of this view, one can find in the Dublin text a good deal of what might be called process ecclesiology, characterized by “journeying together in honest conversation,” with little desire for closure or conclusion (lines 46-47). “Unity in diversity” is the mantra, with a presumptive emphasis on the latter (11; cf. 18-20, 40-41).
Hence the oddity of trotting out Archbishop Donald Coggan’s original rationale for the meeting in 1978, as an opportunity for “leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation” (5), while falling silent on the more recent urgings of successive Lambeth conferences: that the primates “exercise an enhanced responsibility in offering guidance on doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters” (Lambeth 1988), and even intervene “in cases of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within provinces” by providing “guidelines on the limits of Anglican diversity in submission to the sovereign authority of Holy Scripture and in loyalty to our Anglican tradition and formularies” (Lambeth 1998; see the Anglican Communion Institute’s thorough discussion). To be sure, one still finds in Dublin glimpses of the latter enlarged vocation — the primates shall “seek continuity and coherence in faith, order, and ethics,” we read at one point (24; cf. 25-27, 42-43). This is, however, another rhetorical world from the determined communiqués of the last decade — a placeholder, with a view to possible future teaching at a more propitious time.
Dublin’s approach accordingly is less principled than accidental, reflecting an absence of confident consensus even among those present. For the text itself must be contextualized. It is “A Working Document,” according to the subtitle. And the prepositional phrase of the title (Towards) similarly signals something short of settled teaching. This is ecclesiology in the subjunctive, where “we strive to express” unity in the Spirit, to whom “we look … as we endeavor to work together” for the Gospel (lines 11-15; cf. 30). In this mode, “continuity and coherence in faith, order, and ethics” can indeed only be sought, not guarded or passed on, as one would expect (24). And while the text apparently longs for genuine communion, of a sort that could sustain the five Marks of Mission (connected to the Anglican Covenant in a footnote: see line 23), it offers no means of arriving there, not least as it falls silent with respect to the present derailing of Anglican unity.
Given these shortcomings, it’s hard to see how the Dublin document advances even “honest conversation,” much less “our common life in Christ” (46-47). We will all have to do better.
1. With a full 15 of their membership missing in action, many for reasons of conscience, that the Dublin primates saw fit to produce any document at all on “the purpose and scope of the Primates’ Meeting” appears presumptuous and imprudent. In the current climate of broken trust, it was bound to be approached suspiciously. For what commonly accepted criteria of Christian decision-making were used, shorn of party prejudice? And if it is pointed out that the document lacks theological conviction as well as continuity with the recent past, this only creates other problems. Why publish such a thing, when the chances are small that the text, even as a non-committal working document, will be received by a future, restored Primates’ Meeting?
2. “No meeting can allow itself to be shaped wholly by the people who are not there,” said Archbishop Williams afterward, a sound general principle. Given the deep divisions within Anglicanism, however, which the several instruments of the Communion have proven increasingly unable even to address directly, much less resolve, it may have been better to call off the Dublin meeting altogether, as Canterbury reportedly contemplated at one point: refuse to press on with business as usual, in favor of an intervention or course correction. One hears an impatience in the archbishop’s statement that “two thirds of the Communion at least wish to meet and wish to continue the conversations they have begun.” Who will take responsibility for the whole by speaking publicly and candidly about the way forward and how we will get there? The archbishop himself has done so before and must do so again, as a “focus and means of unity” for the Communion (Anglican Covenant, 3.1.4).
3. In this capacity, we urge him to reach out without delay to the primates missing from Dublin, and to undertake with them a public profession of, and recommitment to, common faith and order. All appearances, and certainly any reality, of preference for “Western” and “liberal” ways and means must be wholly and resolutely renounced in favor of clear, direct, transparent, non-manipulative dealings. Only in this way can there be any hope of restoring trust between the alienated camps of Lambeth and the Global South.
4. We are gratified by the dogged determination of Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi of Burundi, who commented, as one present in Dublin, that not attending a given meeting “does not mean you are not participating in the life of the Communion.” He added: “I personally believe whether they are here or not in Dublin, their hearts and aspirations are to see that the Anglican Communion develops positively and works together for the furtherance of the kingdom of God.” And this comment must be given added weight considering that Archbishop Bernard chairs the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission for Unity, Faith and Order, charged with guiding the instruments of the Anglican Communion through this season of disarray and disregard. Their continued work, alongside renewed ecumenical labor, deserves our fervent prayers and support.
5. In the end, no real advance can be made until the instruments of the Communion are able to fulfill again the purpose for which they are named. No doubt repentance on all sides remains requisite. To this end, we pray that the uncertain trumpet of broken communion that sounded from Dublin may serve as a wake-up call, lest the factions of the Anglican family drift further into settled division.
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