From Covenant-Communion.net by James Wirrell:
There seems to be a lot of confusion about the initial motion and subsequent amendment. The initial motion, if passed, would not have decided the ACNA’s place in the Communion, nor would it have been authoritative as to whether or not the CofE was in communion with the ACNA. I would suggest that the CofE is actually already and currently “in communion” with members of the ACNA - at least informally so (and I think that the language of the amendment reflects this - see my comments below). However, aside from this fact, the initial motion simply spoke of the “desire” of Synod to be “in communion” with the ACNA. Given my suggestion that (at the very least) a significant proportion of the CofE is “in communion” with a significant proportion of ACNA members, and that the initial motion simply expressed the “desire” of Synod that something be which already arguably is, the initial motion was less useful then many conservatives seem to have thought.
The amended motion is also, I think, much more important then many people think. This resolution was always ever going to be “symbolic” in nature. Parsing it out legally is of little use, because neither this motion nor the original one was going to make the ACNA part of the Anglican Communion. The CofE Synod simply did not have that authority.
The resolution which was passed makes some important points:
1) The Synod indicated it is “aware of the distress caused by recent divisions within the Anglican churches of the United States of America and Canada”. This is very significant language. Synod recognized what is going on in North America as a split WITHIN the “Anglican churches”. How would the 815 leadership frame the issue? They would say “distress caused by recent schismatic actions prompted by foreign bishops interfering in TEC.” The Synod has framed this issue very positively for ACNA.
2) The Synod “recognise and affirm the desire of those who have formed the Anglican Church in North America to remain within the Anglican family”. Much is being made that it is only the ACNA “desire” that is being “recognized” and “affirmed” but I think that this mistakes the import of this declaration. The terms “recognize” and “affirm” are not neutral terms - they imply a positive quality. The motion did not say that Synod “acknowledged” the desire, but rather “affirmed” the desire. If your daughter brought home a suitor and you met with this gentleman, and at the end you said “well, I recognize and affirm your interest in my daughter. Let’s see how this relationship develops over the next six months”, the clear indication is that of tentative approval. If you said “well, I acknowledge your interest…”, the indication is one of neutral or uncertain tolerance of the relationship, but not necessarily positive approval. If you said “well, I recognize your interest, but my daughter isn’t dating right now”, the indication is one of rejection. The CofE Synod chose to be positive.
I see this statement as saying basically “we are not rejecting you. We’d like to continue a relationship with you, but we need to study this further and see how things shake out.” Realistically, this was all that the Synod could really do. I think that folks don’t seem to realize that this motion could have been shot down, there could have been a motion critical of the ACNA, or this motion could have been passed with very neutral language towards the ACNA. None of this was done.
What we need to understand in Anglicanism is that we are in a fluid situation. We will not move from black-and-white situation to black-and-white situation, but rather we have moved from black-and-white to dark grey to medium grey to light grey to white, etc. It was always very unrealistic to think that this motion would have resulted in the ACNA being authoritatively brought into normalized relations with the CofE. Rather, we need to look at what movement and in what direction this development represents. That such a significant majority of the CofE Synod voted on a basically positive response to the ACNA is pretty amazing.
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