The eCrozier

Some in the Diocese have inquired about the recent communiqués in the Anglican Communion between the Archbishop of Canterbury (and his staff) and our Presiding Bishop. There are actually more communiqués than that as Primates and other leaders around the Communion are responding with their perceptions. I urge you to go to the Episcopal Church’s website and to the Anglican Communion’s website and read all these documents. Any commentary I might provide on all this cannot replace you actually reading the various missives yourself.

Let me share, however, my understanding of what is occurring. The Archbishop of Canterbury has proposed, and the Secretary General of the Communion has acted, to withdraw our Church’s representatives from a couple of ecumenical committees, or in one case, to reduce our Church’s representative to that of “consultant.” The Secretary General’s action, as stated, was a result of the consecration of Bishop Glasspool last month. It seems the Secretary General has every right to take this action, which he justifies based on our Church’s violation of one of the three moratoria laid out in the Windsor Report.  What strikes me as unfair is that other provinces (Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, & Southern Cone) that have had recurring violations of the moratorium on cross-diocesan incursions for the past seven years are not being addressed as well.  We will have to wait and see if this double standard persists.

There are many other ways the Episcopal Church[1] is officially connected to the Anglican Communion, but in those instances, it seems we are not being asked to withdraw. For example, The Compass Rose Society, which is a wonderful organization that supports the ministry of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion, has nineteen board members, the majority of whom are from the Episcopal Church. Are we not being asked to withdraw from the Society because the board members are a prime source of funds? I wonder.

I believe we need to accept the judgment of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Secretary General while also continuing the conversation and the many mission relationships our Church has throughout the Anglican Communion. The Communion operates in very different ways depending on the particular constituent Church. The Episcopal Church has a very democratic polity while other Churches in the Communion have highly hierarchical polities where archbishops alone make decisions for the entire Church.  This makes communion a challenge because different bodies “speak” for their respective Churches. It will be a long while, maybe decades, before all this is settled. In the mean time, my hope is we can always be gracious, open to the voice of the other, and ready to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit in all things.

+Scott

[1] I prefer to use “The Episcopal Church” rather than “ECUSA,” because we are an international Church. We are not just in the USA. Our Church has dioceses in Taiwan, Micronesia, Honduras, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe (Austria, Belgium, France, German, Italy, & Switzerland).