The Fraying Anglican Communion

Since its establishment in the mid 16th century the Anglican Church has encompassed a very wide spectrum of views, ranging from Calvinistic puritanism to papist Anglo-Catholicism. At times, the debates between the factions have been extremely vigorous, even bitter. Yet, despite the tensions, the Anglican communion held together through a common adherence to the Thirty Nine Articles of Religion.

The basic principle underpinning the 39 Articles, which allowed the warring factions to co-exist, was that, as set out in Articles VI and XXXIV, Anglican beliefs, rites and ceremonies should be consistent with scripture.

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.... (Article VI)

It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one, and utterly like; for at all times they have been divers, and may be changed according to the diversities of countries, times, and men's manners, so that nothing be ordained against God's Word... (Article XXXIV)

In modern parlance, do your own thing so long as it is not contrary to scripture.

Then, increasingly from the 1960s, along came the liberals (for want of a better term) who rather than accept the hitherto universal Anglican principle of diversity within the bounds of scriptural authority, arrogantly demand that everybody do the liberal thing, whether or not it has scriptural authority. Thus we came to the current controversy over homosexual priests.

There is no doubt that the concept of homosexual priests has no scriptural authority. Indeed, as far as I can see, the liberals have never sought to make their case in other than secular terms, specifically, the language of human rights. Many individual Anglicans find this rejection of scriptural authority unequivocally unacceptable and so are being forced by their consciences to consider leaving the Anglican communion. In fact, the undermining of the basic principle uniting the Anglican Communion - scriptural authority - is threatening schism.

At present, the flow of churches away from the Anglican Communion is a trickle, most notably the Church of Nigeria and a relatively few, but increasing, number of parishes in the American Espicopal Church. However, the flow is threatening to become a flood, with African churches taking a lead. It is beginning to look like orthodox Christians within Episcopalian Church will be left with little choice but to follow their consciences down a similar course.