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Editorial
A CONSULTATIVE FELLOWSHIP
In their Alexandria communiqué, the primates indicated that successive Lambeth Conferences had urged them "to assume an enhanced responsibility for the life of the Communion", referring to Lambeth Conference resolutions from the 1978, 1988 and 1998 meetings.
However, the relevant resolutions of Lambeth 1978 (Nos. 11 and 12) do not use the term "enhanced responsibility" at all; they advise member Churches of the Communion to consult with a Lambeth Conference or the primates on issues of concern to the whole Communion and request the primates to study Anglican authority and the best way to co-ordinate inter-Anglican meetings.
Resolution 18 of Lambeth 1988 urged an enhanced responsibility for the primates "in offering guidance on doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters". That 1988 resolution was reaffirmed in Resolution III.6 of Lambeth 1998, which then began to interpret what was meant in 1988, asking "that the Primates’ Meeting… include among its responsibilities positive encouragement to mission, intervention in cases of exceptional emergency which are incapable of internal resolution within provinces, and giving of guidelines on the limits of Anglican diversity in submission to the sovereign authority of Holy Scripture and in loyalty to our Anglican tradition and formularies".
Now the 2009 Primates’ Meeting refers to its purpose as a gathering "for leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation" as intended to mean that the primates are to act as "the channels through which the voice of the member Churches [are] heard, and real interchange of heart [can] take place". The communiqué cites the address of Archbishop Donald Coggan to the Lambeth Conference of 1978 for these quotations, but this appears not entirely to do justice to what Archbishop Coggan said. He said that if Primates’ Meetings, as occasions for "for leisurely thought, prayer and deep consultation", were to be fruitful "those primates would have to come to such meetings well informed with a knowledge of the mind and will of their brothers whom they represent. Then they would be channels through which the voice of the member Churches would be heard, and real interchange of mind and will and heart could take place." The emphasis here is clearly on that interchange of mind and will and heart - i.e. fellowship. Moreover, Archbishop Coggan also spoke of it as of the "ultimate importance" that the primates and the Anglican Consultative Council "should be kept in the closest possible liaison", thus involving bishops, priests and laity in deliberations that would assist towards "maturity in the exercise of authority".
Added to what at least appears to be a communiqué ‘spin’ on Archbishop Coggan’s 1978 address, in a press briefing last week the Archbishop of Canterbury referred to a "need for a shift of focus in the life of the Communion from autonomy of provinces with communion added on, to communion as the primary reality with autonomy and accountability understood within that framework". Precisely what that implies remains somewhat mysterious, but one can see the direction in which such a comment points. There is a slippery slope here, and it is important that the Primates’ Meeting should remain essentially for the purposes of consultative fellowship. The Anglican Communion should avoid a formal College of Primates.