Diversity, Fidelity Mark ACC Gathering
Episcopal News Service. October 8, 1981 [81257]
Charles R. Lawrence, II, Ph.D., President, the House of Deputies
The Council is one of three Communion-wide bodies through which Anglicans seek to keep in touch with one another. The Lambeth Conference is made up largely of jurisdictional bishops and meets roughly every ten years while the Primates', which met in Washington, D.C. last spring, is made up of presiding bishops of the various autonomous churches which comprise our Communion. ACC is, therefore, the one body of the three that includes presbyters and lay people as well as bishops. In this respect it represents the governance of most of the provinces of a communion. According to my informal count, of the sixty-four members present, thirty-one were bishops, including fourteen archbishops. Nineteen were presbyters and fourteen were lay persons (four of the latter were women). The Archbishop of Canterbury, who serves as the permanent president of the Council, was present throughout our meetings, gave the sermon at the opening Festal Eucharist at Durham Cathedral, listened intently to debates in Plenary session, and was extraordinarily accessible to one and all.
Bishop John Howe, Secretary General of ACC, presented a thoughtful paper at the beginning of our first Plenary session. A major theme of that paper had to do with diversity and convergence. Bishop Howe noted that despite the great diversity among and within the churches of the Anglican Communion there are strong indications of convergence.
"Differences are not embattled as they were. More people are perceiving that they need what others can teach them. More people see differences that are capable of being overcome as impediments to the necessary thing -- the Gospel and mission of Christ. Perhaps nothing clarifies the Christian mind more...than an uphill struggle. Anyway, my experience through meeting Anglicans in homes and churches all over the world is of -- blessed word -- convergence," he said.
"...The Third World and the West can no longer live -- or worship -- apart; they know one another. Anglicans of South America not only know of Europe and Asia: often they have been there. The kind of relationship which facilitates the conferring together of the Anglican family was infinitely more difficult when the only conference available was held once in a decade, and when travel to it took weeks. But we are still talking somewhat in the realm of possibility. There are many who, perhaps because of their own self-confidence, remain unaware of much that is significant beyond their own coasts.
"For the Anglican Communion, at the heart of sharing, mission and universality, communication and relationships with other Churches is the role of the Anglican Consultative Council. It has a duty of service to all the Churches, and a single membership from all the churches of the family consisting of laypeople, clergy and bishops."