Dr. Philip Turner: Church Governance And The Fate of Communion

A Probe into the Present and Future State of the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church
The Rev. Dr. Philip Turner

An Address to Anglican and Episcopal Students at The Duke Divinity School
February 19, 2009

In 2006 Ephraim Radner and I published a collection of essays entitled The Fate of Communion. In that collection we sought to address the threats that now hang over the Anglican Communion. We sought to indicate that the crisis in which Anglicans find themselves, though theological and moral at its root, in fact involves church order as well. We attempted, though too briefly I believe, to raise a question about the adequacy of our forms of governance and the way in which we understand and use them.

Much has happened since the appearance of The Fate of Communion, and a great deal of what has transpired concerns the way in which the Communion is ordered and governed. There is a need now to say more than we did then about the way our common life is to be ordered, and this need presents a real challenge. Polity is a much-neglected subject, particularly on the part of those who teach theology and theological ethics. It is thought to be unimportant—indeed, something of a nuisance that detracts from the really important stuff. As a result, it has been removed from theology and ethics and shoved to the periphery of the formation given our clergy. Few either understand or appreciate its importance. However, as is often the case when important matters are neglected, they come around to bite us on the backside. the rest