By Timothy Sedgwick
The crisis confronting the the Anglican Communion is not necessarily a tragic moment of division. It is first of all an opportunity to discern what are the ways to respond to Christ's prayer to follow him faithfully that Christians may be one as he and the Father are one, that the world may believe (John 17:21).
Do the primates have the legislative authority to make such a pronouncement? No. But our bond and common identity as Anglicans is not governed by law but by the grace of relationships.
By Matt Townsend
Official and unofficial responses to the meeting have poured out, making clear that many within the Anglican Communion are walking and talking.
By Josiah Idowu-Fearon
The recent gathering of primates has attracted the attention of both secular and church journalists alike, and the blogosphere is so full of commentary and interpretation that I can barely keep up with it. The good news is that the world has noticed the Anglican Communion!
Some of us are both gay and conservative, and for us, the question isn’t so much how to hold diverse groups within TEC together — the more “progressive” lesbian and gay Christians “over there,” say, with the more “conservative” traditionalists “over here.”
What causes our divisions? Why do weak and heretical doctrines persist? I wish I didn’t find a solitary cave to be such a compelling option when I’m overcome by discouragement over the state of our Communion.
Is the Primates' Meeting disconnected from the reality of the Anglican Communion? Jesse Zink has claimed that “calling together a group of bishops has rarely been a good way of resolving conflict.”
Something like the Anglican Covenant remains “the only game in town," for the simple reason that it delivers a synthesis of Anglican thinking about the Church wrought as a vision for the future. The alternatives are amnesia at best, innovation at worst.