Anglican Consultative Council Sifts Through Issues from Lambeth Conference
Episcopal News Service. October 6, 1999 [99-151]
(ENS) Some of the frustrations from the 1998 Lambeth Conference of the world's Anglican bishops spilled over to a meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) in Scotland, as it spent a dozen days in mid September sorting through issues of unity, sexuality, international debt and globalization. The theme itself, "The Communion We Share," gave a clue to such continuing concerns.
Formed in 1968 to provide a forum to deal with pressing concerns of Anglicans worldwide, the ACC has no authority over the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion.
In an unusually blunt presidential address, Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said that Anglicans do not live by the principle of "anything goes," that "the constant interplay of Scripture, tradition and reason provide limits to diversity."
As Christians struggle to share their faith with the world around them, "vigorous debate and healthy intellectual engagement" are inevitable, he said. But he repudiated unilateral action by dioceses and provinces within the Anglican Communion.
"No one has the right to take decisions that affect the whole," he said, warning that "unilateral action which affects and impairs the whole communion...to engage in division is itself to undermine the truth."
Pointing to the absence of Archbishop Moses Tay of Southeast Asia, who was boycotting the meeting because it was being held in "one of the most heretical provinces" in the church, under the leadership of Primus Richard Holloway of Scotland, Carey said, "We are poorer without his voice." At the same time, the archbishop disagreed with the central thesis in Holloway's book, "Godless Morality," which suggests that God could be left out of the moral debate.
Holloway later said that he and Carey came from "very different theological traditions" and that "disagreement is central to the search for truth in complex areas, such as theology and ethics."
Efforts to increase the size of the ACC and make it more representative were rebuffed. The call to take a closer look at the composition of the ACC, regarded as one of the "instruments of unity" for the Anglican Communion, came from the last meeting of the ACC, in Panama in 1996, and from the Lambeth Conference which asked that the primate, a presbyter and person from each province be sent to ACC.
By a vote of 33 in favor and 28 against, the ACC chose not to make any changes. On the other hand, the ACC endorsed the idea of an Anglican Congress to be held in association with the next Lambeth Conference. It urged the archbishop of Canterbury to invite the diocesan bishop and four other persons, three of them laity, at least one a woman and one under the age of 28.
The Virginia Report, a theological exploration of the basis of unity in the Anglican Communion prepared for the Lambeth Conference, provoked some spirited debate at the ACC.
"It contains two contrasting trends, one which is centralizing and hierarchical, and another which is synodical and is characterized of life in all our provinces," said Dean John Moses of St. Paul's Cathedral in London. He worried that the Virginia Report would be used as an instrument to increase the drift towards a curia or centralized authority for Anglicans.
Holloway said that the ACC was one of the few structured vehicles in Anglicanism that might resist the tendency in the report to increase the authority of the archbishop of Canterbury, the primates and the episcopate in general.
The discussion also provoked an impatience among some delegates who resented the navel-gazing when there were more pressing issues in the world. Archbishop Glauco Soares de Lima, primate of the Episcopal Church in Brazil, expressed his concern about the on-going colonialism between countries and churches in the North and the South. He said that the report "is a sign of a still-colonial mind, even in the structures described."
Michael Hare Duke, former bishop of St. Andrews, later called for Carey's resignation, charging that "he just did not have the steel to lead the church into the 21st century while things remained in such disarray." He was dismayed by the public row between Carey and Holloway and said that most of the ACC meeting "centered on the issue of authority, who calls the shots in the Communion, but this should not be the priority for a church when society is concerned about the survival of the planet and the genocide in Kosovo and East Timor."
In a meeting chaired by Holloway, ACC delegates listened -- in closed session -- "respectfully and attentively" to gays and lesbians.
The session was in response to a Lambeth Conference resolution "to listen to the stories of gay and lesbian people, and we are trying hard not to make it a divisive issue," said Archbishop John Paterson of Aotearoa/New Zealand, ACC vice president and chair of the planning committee.
While some complained that the five presentations all advocated acceptance of homosexuality and were therefore not representative, Bishop Richard Harries of Oxford called it "a very positive step forward in the church's dialogue on this issue." He called it "a genuine issue that everybody has to grapple with, although people might have different degrees of conviction...The only way forward is by genuine listening to people of all points of view."
Bishop Simon Chiwanga of Tanzania, chairman of the ACC, said that it was "a unique experience of testimony and witness" as gay and lesbian Christians "shared with us their own story and pilgrimage."
Chiwanga said in his statement, "The whole area of human sexuality is complex, personal and comes wrapped in cultural understandings," provoking "broad and diverse" reactions. He said that Carey, in consultation with Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold, "has initiated a consultation between bishops representing all shades of opinion within the Communion. The first gathering of the group will take place in November in New York."
"It will be a conversation where we will look at how we understand the Bible and hear what homosexuals are saying," said Carey. "There will be no time limit, it may take many years. We need to get the African bishops and their churches to discuss this and not be fearful of the issue."
Debate over sexuality erupted in response to the report of the Anglican Peace and Justice Network and a resolution that called for support of gay rights, introduced by the Rev. Sam Koshiishi of Japan. It was withdrawn. Bishop Michael Ingham of Canada protested the failure of the ACC to address this issue and called its hesitance a "shameful failure of nerve." He expressed dismay that Koshiishi was pressured to withdraw the motion. The network will "consider the justice dimensions of the debate over homosexuality, in the hope of contributing to the dialogue called for in the Lambeth resolution."
A proposal for network status for a mission and evangelism group sponsored by American conservatives was referred to the next ACC after several delegates expressed reservations. Moses suggested that recognizing the Network of Anglicans in Mission and Evangelism (NAME) would actually be setting up "a parallel structure" to work already being done by the ACC.
On the last day of the meeting Carey returned to the issue of Anglican unity and authority. "We have to ask whether we are a federation of autonomous churches or an international communion which speaks with one voice. Whether we like it or not, political leaders and other church leaders look to the archbishop of Canterbury. Unless we speak together as primates and submit to one another in communion, we will lose the respect of other churches," he said.
Carey concluded, "We must keep in step with one another. The moment the local steps out of line with the whole, the communion is threatened." He opened the possibility that there might be times when he should be able to speak for the whole Anglican Communion on certain issues.
- resolved to strengthen its efforts and advocacy in favor of cancellation of the international debt of poor countries;
- encouraged a request for an Anglican Urban Network, asking for a report at ACC-12 on the "scope and viability" of a Faith in an Urban World Commission;
- affirmed the importance of the Office of Anglican Observer at the United Nations, stressing the importance of the church's voice in the halls of political power;