That Anglican Communion rescue plan in full

By Damian Thompson
Apr 24, 2009

Mea culpa. Yesterday I made fun of a plan to create a "multi-layered Anglican communion". Now that I have been leaked fuller details of the proposals, I can see how ingenious it is. You'll recall that the covenant, by virtue of a quasi disciplinary process, is likely to create a multi-layered communion, with the "conservative" provinces in the inner circle, with full voting rights at all the communion bodies, and the pro-gay liberals on the outer circle and presumably some rights removed, if they insist on consecrating more gay bishops or sanctioning gay marriage.

What I didn't know is that the proposals are tied to an intricate scale of "degrees of communion" - full, impaired, partial and broken - that will ascribed to different provinces by a Lambeth Communion Review Commission, which will itself be multi-layered, supervising Review Sub-Committees based on the Indaba model that will ascribe State of Communion Assessments to individual dioceses, non-territorial episcopal oversight areas and parishes. It would, of course, be inappropriate for the same Review Sub-Committees to cross the boundary between inner and outer circles of the Anglican Communion, and so - in a radical proposal drafted by Dr Rowan Williams himself - the Lambeth Communion Review Commission will divide into inner and outer circle Areas of Special Responsibility that will shadow each other's assessments. the rest