If the rumors out of England are correct and tomorrow brings the English Evangelical organizations throwing down the gauntlet before ++Rowan, the future may become that much more clear. In the chess game that is the Anglican Communion, the ABC is a pinned piece. The Network can use him as leverage against liberals through a concerted movement of GS Primates. That is, unity with the ABC is wielded as a weapon in the apparently all important property disputes a la ‘we didn’t leave them, they left us’. If the C of E itself splits, however, in some sense the pressure is off—the pin disappears or at least is weakened greatly. Because both sides can’t have the ABC and it looks like the English Evangelical wing isn’t bluffing. If they do calve off, the ABC will stay right where he is and the Network will have to answer some really tough questions about how and why they’re willing to stay linked to the Primate of an increasingly more liberal church (I.e., conservatives leave, C of E becomes more liberal by default…). I’m guessing this isn’t a move that appeared in the Chapman Memo…
Interesting. Where did you get this bit of info?
So you don’t think, given how the CofE is becoming more and more irrelevant each day, that they are forced to being together whether they like it or not. I had a conversation with someone in London this past August who actually said that the CofE could literally fall apart in the next 5 years. That reality, along with the a lot of postulating that Charles would dis-establish the church, is what is seen as the reason CofE’s want unification with the bible moths, er… methodists.
Annie, these days I only read Thinking Anglicans for Anglican news. The other sites aren’t worth my limited energy at the moment…
And GL, no, they’re being forced apart. The conservatives believe that jettisoning the liberals will save them–financially if nothing else. And they do kinda have a point: the Evangelical churches are the ones that grow and have tithing members…
To be honest, I know of no growing CofE congregation that does not follow the Holy Trinity Brompton model of Alpha. And that’s not only evangeical/ conservative. That’s charismatic. And that is not Anglican, is it?
What other options are out there?