Ten Years and a New Anglican Congregationalism

Written by: Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

It is ten years since Anglicanism’s current travails were formally inaugurated with the formation of an alternative “Communion” church in North America, the Anglican Mission in America. Not the cause, it was nonetheless the first major sign that “communion” was no longer a given in Anglicanism, but something to be variously asserted, antagonistically claimed, and built up or torn down as the case may be. And after ten years, I think it necessary to say that most of the work thus far has been one of tearing down. Tearing down, but also of exposing new things and clearer lines of calling, so that what had been emerging as a communion might now be seen as demanding deeper commitment for its flourishing than anybody had imagined. The work that many of us have been doing out of a commitment to the traditional Christian faith as Anglicans (and others) had received it has been worth the effort, and continues to be demanded. But what we are seeing, especially as Christian communion is being assaulted not only from within the Church, but more importantly by a rapidly dissolving Christian culture in the West, is that there are deeper roots to put down and nourish than we had perhaps first thought.

The tearing down, in any case, is what is most obvious, perhaps, to outsiders or onlookers from within. One by one, for instance, the so-called “Instruments of Unity” for Anglicans around the world have been eroded in their perceived integrity, and certainly in their effectiveness. the rest