The Failure of Communion Governance and the Crisis of Contemporary Anglicanism: Thesis 3

Feb 2, 2023 by Jill

By the Rev. Dr. Stephen Noll

This is the third of FOURTEEN THESES TOWARD REVIVING, REFORMING, AND REORDERING THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION, with Commentary.

Thesis 3

Over the past century, the Anglican Communion has grown exponentially in numbers in the Global South while declining in the West. Although the “Instruments of Unity” appear on paper to give representation to the newer churches, in practice the Communion bureaucracy in England – the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Communion Office, and financial backers in New York and London – run the show.

COMMENT

It is something of a miracle that an Established national church in England became the “mother” of a communion of churches “from every tribe and language and people and nation,” proclaiming an eternal Gospel to the principalities and powers of the modern world. Even as Britain rose to become an imperial power, there was no necessity that its form and substance of Christian faith, worship and order would be inherited by in its dependencies.

And, truth be told, it was not the King or Parliament or the Bishops or the Archbishop of Canterbury who were primarily responsible for the fruit of Anglican mission. The primary movers of mission were voluntary societies, preeminently the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) and the Church Missionary Society (CMS), along with others, who recruited missionaries and missionary bishops and who promoted and funded evangelism, education, health and welfare throughout the emerging communion.

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