Addressing the “Ecclesial Deficit” in the Anglican Communion
by Canon Phil Ashey, AAC:
How can we proclaim Christ faithfully to the nations when the very foundations of that Gospel proclamation are being undermined by Anglican leaders and Churches—at the highest levels of leadership– throughout the largely Global North Anglican Communion?
The unilateral actions of the Diocese of New Westminster (Canada) in 2002 authorizing rites for the blessing of same-sex unions, and of the Episcopal Church USA in 2003 consecrating as a bishop a man in a same sex-relationship, in flagrant disregard of Lambeth Resolution I.10 (1998) and the pleas of the Primates of the Anglican Communion not to take such actions produced exactly what the Primates predicted—“tearing the fabric of Communion at its deepest level.” (2003 Primates Meeting). The subsequent failure of the four Instruments of the Anglican Communion (The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates Meetings) to take binding, ecclesiastical action against those who breached the boundaries of historic Anglican faith, order and practice revealed an “ecclesial deficit” within the structures of the Global Anglican Communion—a deficit in both authoritative teaching and the discipline to back up such teaching. In its 2008 Report to the Anglican Consultative Council, the Windsor Continuation Group identified this “ecclesial deficit” as:
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