ACNS has published this press release: Archbishop of Canterbury: “Beware the danger of becoming less than we aspire to be as a Communion”.
The full audio recording is available to download here.
The full text of the address is now also available here.
In his final Presidential address, the Archbishop of Canterbury this evening told the Anglican Communion not to accept second best, but to seek a balance between corrective authority and enabling authority while still doing God’s work.
Speaking in St Mary’s Church, Archbishop Williams said the fellowship of Anglican churches worldwide needed to “be aware of the danger of becoming less than we aspire to be as a Communion.”
“I think that we do aspire to be a consensual catholic and orthodox family,” he told the members of the Anglican Consultative Council gathered for evening prayer. “I believe we do aspire to be a family that lives in mutual respect and recognition. And to step back from that simply into a federal model…doesn’t seem to me to be the best and the greatest that God is asking from us as an Anglican family.”
Archbishop Rowan said he believed Anglicans have a message to give the Christian world about how they can be “both catholic and orthodox and consensual, working in freedom, mutual respect and mutual restraint; without jeopardising the important local autonomy of our churches.”
He stressed that the Anglican Communion needed to work on the convergence of the different schemes and systems present across the Member Churches, and find “a legal spirit, an ethos that they share by consent and exploration and discovery rather than by kicking the whole issue upstairs to some higher legal authority.”
Authority was a theme to which he returned time and again. He suggested that the Instruments of Communion should not only have reactive or corrective authority, but also enabling authority…
The Archbishop is obsessed with the concept of authority. He cannot break free from the Roman model however much he tries.The whole joy of Anglicanism lies in affection and relationship and the freedom for churches to be the best they can in the areas in which they are placed.No central authority can ever tell people how they should best carry out their witness.That must be worked out in different circumstances and is influenced by local culture.Anglicans have always flourished on affection and trust and the Archbishop would destroy these. I hope and pray for a successor with a true Anglican… Read more »
Round and round he goes. Where he stops, nobody knows.
I await the new Archbishop of Canterbury with positive hope, wishes of good will toward others (all) and with a sharp clarity of understanding my own spiritual intentions. I wish to be of service where I can be useful and by being self-accountable and authentic…the person that God created me to be is my quest. The person that God has made it clear to that authenticity must be number one. First things first. No more doubletalking/lies/nonsense at Church/beyond that is cloaked by pandering to ¨pretenders¨ of unity and brotherly/sisterly love.
Rowan’s model of a “Magesterium” is a Roman model. It is a top-down imperial model of Church that the Roman Catholic Church has used for centuries. It is a failed model. It excludes and disenfranchises whole groups such women and the LGBT communities. Rowan is enamored by all things Roman. Too bad because he has a brilliant mind. An Anglican Magesterium might make it possible for Joe Ratzinger (Benedict) to formally recognize the “validity” of Anglican Orders, as if that issue needs a new visit. I would not be surprised to see Rowan received into the Roman Communion.
His closer is rather interesting.
““When we stand before the throne of God, it will be a very poor answer if when God says ‘Why did you not preach the gospel and serve the poor?’ we say, ‘We had too many internal problems to resolve, we couldn’t quite decide who had the authority to pronounce things’. God expects us to be disciples today, not the day after tomorrow.”
His Grace suggests an interesting litmus test for the relevance, or not, of the ACC’s deliberations.
“I think that we do aspire to be a consensual catholic and orthodox family,” he told the members of the Anglican Consultative Council gathered for evening prayer. “I believe we do aspire to be a family that lives in mutual respect and recognition. And to step back from that simply into a federal model…doesn’t seem to me to be the best and the greatest that God is asking from us as an Anglican family.” Archbishop Rowan said he believed Anglicans have a message to give the Christian world about how they can be “both catholic and orthodox and consensual, working… Read more »
Am I the only one who detected, in the final reports from ACC15, the possibility of a more regional ethos to the idea of collegiality in the Communion? There certainly has been talk of a more regional basis for meetings. This may become more necessary as GAFCON moves even further away from the concept of a unified, centralised authority through the Canterbury See. Murmerings from the Nigerian and Kenyan delegates after ACC15 have already indicated a ‘separatist’ mentality for the Global South (principally GAFCON). Could this be the beginning of a newly dispersed and more regionally governed Anglican Communion? This… Read more »