Current Editorial
PAST EDITORIAL 14.2
"Kuala Lumpur & Rumours of War" - Winter 1997
The rumor was too good to be true: but what a good rumor it was. Supposedly, the Archbishop of South East Asia (Primate Moses Tay, the Bishop of Singapore) had sponsored a motion at a recent meeting of Primates in Jerusalem, recommending the expulsion of the Episcopal Church of the United States (ECUSA) from the Anglican Communion (a punishment richly deserved not only by ECUSA but also by the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC).In fact, however, no such motion was proposed, and anyway, the Anglican Communion has no means of disciplining its members through excommunication. Neither the Lambeth Conference, nor the Primates' meetings, nor the Anglican Consultative Council, nor the Archbishop of Canterbury, have any such authority, and there is no General Synod for the Anglican Communion. Historically, the Communion was held together by a voluntary submission of all its autonomous provinces to the doctrinal, moral, and liturgical norms inherited from the Church of England: a kind of gentlemen's agreement, which held as long as the provinces were ruled by gentlemen, and has broken down in the last three decades of wilful lawlessness on the part of ECUSA and the ACC.
Nonetheless, something significant did happen at the Primates' Meeting: "a frank and candid discussion" led by Archbishop Moses Tay, about two statements unanimously passed by the "Second Anglican Encounter in the South". This gathering of the Anglican church leaders from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Oceania (the provinces where the majority of the world's Anglicans live) had met in February in Kuala Lumpur, the booming capital of Malaysia, and had issued a Statement on Human Sexuality and a Statement on Anglican Reconstruction (complete text printed on page 3 of the AFP).
The Statement on Sexuality expressed "our profound concern about recent developments ... in some provinces in the North, specifically, the ordination of practicing homosexuals and the blessing of same-sex unions". These call "into question the authority of the Holy Scriptures", and with great firmness they stated, "This is totally unacceptable to us".
The statement was subsequently endorsed by the Standing Committee of the Province of South East Asia later in February, with the additional, very firm, resolution, "That this Province supports and be [sic] in communion with that part of the Anglican Communion which accepts and endorses the principles aforesaid and not otherwise" (emphasis added). No wonder the private discussions at the Primates' Meeting gave rise to rumors. In bringing this before them, Archbishop Tay threw down the gauntlet, warning ECUSA of the consequences it would have to face for its unilateral remodelling of Anglican norms.
The conservative Episcopal Synod of America (ESA) bishops were delighted, sending a letter of congratulations and endorsement to Archbishop Tay; but it must have come as a rude shock to the ECUSA presiding Bishop Edmund Browning. It must also have confirmed Archbishop Michael Peers, the Primate of All Canada, in the wisdom of the more cautious strategy announced through his former secretary, Michael Ingham, the Bishop of New Westminster, not to proceed with any such action immediately (but to content themselves with attacking the Church's present moral code).
The other statement moved at Kuala Lumpur is even more significant. The Statement on Sexuality had expressed "concern about mutual accountability and interdependence within our Anglican Communion." The second Statement on Anglican Reconstruction went further, questioning "the wisdom of retaining the complete autonomy of our many provinces", looking "for ways of strengthening mutual accountability and interdependence", and therefore asking "the Lambeth Conference to consider organizational and governmental changes in the Communion" to achieve these aims.
Will Kuala Lumpur bring the ECUSA to heel? It is hard to tell. But North America's bullying habits would change with surprising speed, if the 'Two Thirds World' of Southern Anglicanism continues what it has begun. For the sake of ECUSA and the ACC, let us pray it does. +
A note on our Editor:
The Rev'd Gavin Dunbar was Rector of the Parish of Ecum Secum, Nova Scotia, and now serves as an associate priest in the parish of St. John's, Savannah, Georgia.
He is the editor of the Anglican Free Press, and past Vice-President of the Nova Scotia / PEI branch of the Prayer Book Society of Canada, and a former instructor at the Atlantic St. Michael's Youth Conference. He has written and lectured extensively on a range of topics, and has many god-children.