The AAC's Response to the Archbishop of Canterbury's Statement on the Future of the Anglican Communion

June 27, 2006

For Immediate Release

Contact:
Cynthia P. Brust
770-414-1515

The American Anglican Council’s Comments on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Statement on “Challenge and Hope” for the Anglican Communion

The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued his reflections today on the future of Anglicanism, emphasizing that this statement is not designed to preempt the Anglican Communion’s “necessary process of careful assessment of the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) response to the Windsor Report.” Archbishop Williams describes his goal as defining a vision for “what kind of Anglican Communion we wish to be and to explore how this vision might become more of a reality.” We at the American Anglican Council are grateful for the Archbishop’s careful and insightful analysis of the complex issues facing the Communion and support significant action to incorporate the spirit of his statement.

In noting the fact that the Episcopal Church acted unilaterally not only in the Anglican Communion but also within its own province, Archbishop Williams emphasizes that there are consequences for sacramental actions outside the bounds of Anglican faith and order:

“Some actions – and sacramental actions in particular - just do have the effect of putting a Church outside or even across the central stream of the life they have shared with other Churches. It isn’t a question of throwing people into outer darkness, but of recognising that actions have consequences – and that actions believed in good faith to be ‘prophetic’ in their radicalism are likely to have costly consequences.”

Archbishop Williams also recognizes ECUSA’s failure to comply with the Windsor Report and Primates (February 2005 Dromantine Communiqué). The revisionist trajectory of the Episcopal Church is clear and uncompromising.

“The recent resolutions of the General Convention have not produced a complete response to the challenges of the Windsor Report, but on this specific question there is at the very least an acknowledgement of the gravity of the situation in the extremely hard work that went into shaping the wording of the final formula,” the statement reads.

ECUSA clearly abandoned basic Christian doctrines of Christ and salvation as well as marriage and sexuality at the 2003 and 2006 General Conventions. ECUSA has, therefore, made its decision to walk apart from Anglican faith and order.

We applaud the Archbishop’s clear assessment and his call for necessary structural changes embodied by “constituent” and “associate” churches centered upon a covenant with an “opt in” mechanism. We view this as a positive direction for the biblically faithful minority currently within ECUSA, and we commit to assist in an “ordered and mutually respectful separation between ‘constituent’ and ‘associated’ elements” of ECUSA. We view this proposal as the way to ensure clear theological and doctrinal unity based on Anglicanism’s traditional view of the supremacy of Scripture.

Archbishop Williams' vision offers a long-range direction for the Communion to consider and act upon. We urge the Anglican Instruments of Unity to act expeditiously to incorporate this vision. While a covenant process will be years in the making, nevertheless, we in America have an urgent need for temporary emergency pastoral protection through cross-provincial oversight.

The Diocese of Fort Worth has requested alternative primatial oversight, and we anticipate that a number of other dioceses will follow suit in the near future. The leadership of the American Anglican Council prays for and urges immediate implementation of such requests. Relief delayed is relief denied. In addition, we hear daily from individuals and congregations who are seeking help in leaving the heterodoxy of ECUSA and who have lost heart for Anglicanism. Many laity departing ECUSA are leaving quietly, going to Rome, independent churches, or most sadly, no church at all. This week, the largest church (in average Sunday attendance) in ECUSA, Christ Church, Plano, announced its decision to disassociate from the Episcopal Church. We fear tens of thousands of individuals will be lost from Anglicanism forever unless immediate, though interim, intervention is provided. The face of Anglicanism has been changed, and it behooves us to be creative in the midst of the restructuring process before us. The situation in the American church is rapidly deteriorating, and it is critical to act now in order to prevent the “balkanization” of the entire Anglican Communion.


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