Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner: How Shall we Hope for the Anglican Communion?

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

As we move into a new year, there is a special spur to pose the question, “what hope is there for the future of the Anglican Communion?”. To which I would answer: “from God, there is much hope indeed; but not from women and men”. With mortals, it is impossible, but with God all things are possible (cf. Mark 10: 27). “Put not your trust in any child of earth, for there is no help in them When they breathe their last, they return to earth, and in that day their thoughts perish. Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help!” (Ps. 146:2-4).

November of 2010 was an illuminating moment, a convergence of false human hopes. A raucous and highly touted effort was inaugurated, filled with misinformation, to derail the ongoing process to consider positively the Anglican Covenant in the Church of England; for all that the Church of England Synod voted overwhelmingly to move the Covenant along to its dioceses; yet in doing so, no serious discussion took place as to the Covenant’s internal and external challenges; and within moments almost of the Synod vote, a statement by key Global South Anglican primates denounced the Covenant altogether, even as the Archbishop of Canterbury let it be known that all was well with the Communion’s leadership and they would be meeting in January despite promised absences by many leaders fed up with the inability of their councils to follow through with decisions. The confluence of messages in these few days was almost surreal in its display of unrepentant contradiction by the shepherds of the Anglican flock, a Babel of non-communicating and self-affirming declarations. the rest