A view from New Zealand on the Primates Meeting in DublinJames Joyce’s volume of short stories entitled ‘The Dubliners’ could be interesting reading for the primates when they meet in Dublin, January 25-31. These stories, set in a time of Irish crisis, feature moments of illumination which give new insight into familiar issues of life. In mutated form they are already being told prophetically about the course of this Dublin Primates’ Meeting, Peter Carrell writes in The Living Church this month.
One predictive story of the Primates’ Meeting goes like this: it is a very, very important meeting. Here would be present the titular heads of the member churches of the Communion. But they are not all coming; and if they did, they would not share the Eucharist together. No communion must therefore mean no Communion: the end is nigh. Accordingly, this boycotted meeting, so the prognosis goes, will be the effective ending of the Communion as we know it, the historical moment when Anglicans recognize that all is not well and never will be well again. In this case there will be a terrific fight to win the battle to determine who has been the culprit: TEC or GAFCON? North America or the Global South? Or will fingers point to Archbishop Rowan Williams, the man who would not disinvite Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori? Or, perhaps, to the Presiding Bishop herself, who knows that not going to Dublin would potentially be a fruitful decision for the health of the Communion.
A second narrative comes from a vigorous chorus of voices which say that the meeting is not important, just a clearing house of ideas and feelings. And the primates are, well, a little pompous as they presume prelatial privilege — maybe even an Anglo-papal power which they simply do not have. Real Anglican power lies with the people: synods, conventions and the Anglican Consultative Council count; pontificating primates do not!
This view is odd in one way. It discounts the value of one of the Instruments of Communion. If it is not important, are the other instruments also unimportant? And such a view offers a surprisingly low estimation of episcopal leadership in a communion of episcopal churches: are primates not to be trusted to convey the mind of their respective churches to the Primates’ Meeting? Sure, some Anglicans say their bishops, let alone their primate, do not “speak for them,” but what if bishops and primates are speaking for the silent majority?
Finally, the voice of wisdom prophesies a third version of the meeting. Yes, it is a very bad thing that some primates are boycotting the meeting — following on, moreover, from the boycotted 2008 Lambeth Conference. But one swallow (or two) does not make a summer: the Communion is in a slump, an all-time low in otherwise fruitful Anglican fellowship, but it will come through this. The day to day life of the Communion continues. Anglicans meet together in a host of commissions and conferences which are not headline news, probably because no one boycotts them! Unheralded global partnerships in mission remain intact. New primates will be elected, simmering tensions will settle down, and reason will prevail over emotion. In ten years or so all will be well again. The 2028 Lambeth Conference will have 110 percent attendance (even ACNA will be back in the fold). January 2011 will not end anything, whether by whimper or bang; the Communion will carry on, come what may. On this account, GAFCON will have faltered: it offered an alternative way forward, historians will say, boldly touting a way of being Anglican without Canterbury, but it proved to be a dead end. The Communion always was the only game in town.
The Rev. Dr. Peter Carrell is director of education for the Diocese of Christchurch, Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia
More at
http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2011/1/7/the-dubliners