Daily Episcopalian

By Frank M. Turner

One of the most fertile political concepts to emerge in the past quarter-century is Benedict Anderson’s “imagined community.” Anderson, now a retired Cornell professor of international studies, government, and Asian studies, contended that the emergence of modern nationalism involved the creation among various groups living in their own localities with no direct interaction between or among themselves of the idea of an imagined community with other people on the basis of supposed common histories, customs, language, and ethnic identity. The reality of the community resided in the imagination of those drawn to these ideas that circulated in the print media of the day.

Over the past twenty years proponents of what is called “The Anglican Communion” have sought to establish a similar imagined ecclesiastical community among various provinces around the world whose churches derived in some fashion from the Church of England. In the case of the Episcopal Church the derivation of Episcopal orders was not direct but through the Scottish Episcopal Church and its character was strongly influenced by its eighteenth century American setting. The so-called Anglican Communion exemplifies a religious version of Anderson’s “imagined community.” At its most banal, the Communion exists to justify bishops traveling about the world on funds contributed by the baptized. At its worst, it has come to represent an imagined community several of whose Episcopal spokespeople now seek to persecute and degrade or relegate into a second track churches who have opened themselves, their process of ordination, and their episcopate to gay and lesbian people. In this respect, it this ecclesiastical imagined community replicates in its drive to exclusion the persecution that ethnic minorities have experienced at the hands of dominant nationalist groups from the early nineteenth century to the present day.

In his recent garrulous meditation on the General Convention of the Episcopal Church the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote of the Anglican Communion being important to “our identity.” He did not identify the antecedent to “our.” Certainly throughout the world the people who most identify with the so-called Anglican Communion are bishops. If one looks to the website of the Anglican Communion (the Internet being the equivalent of the print media within which early nineteenth-century nationalism emerged), what are described as the “Instruments of Communion” overwhelming relate to the various episcopates. The laity play little role and would seem to be intended to play little role. In this respect, the modern so-called Anglican Communion is an invention and ecclesiastical innovation of the clerical imagination. Indeed the term “Anglican” itself achieved modest common currency only in the l830s with the phrase “Anglican Communion” being first used in l847 by the American missionary bishop, Horatio Southgate.

One of the reasons for the use of “Anglican Communion” as part of what the Archbishop of Canterbury terms “our identity” resides quite simply in the hubris of the claim that the Anglican Communion is the third largest Christian denomination in the world after the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. It is, however, important to recognize that the churches in this communion are not all the same, represent distinctly different histories and cultures, use different prayer books, different liturgies, and different modes of ecclesiastical governance.

“The Instruments of Communion,” now being given supposed histories and purposes different from their actual origins and being made vehicles for the controlled invention of identity, are of relatively recent origin. The Lambeth Conference, first convened in 1867 by Archbishop Charles Thomas Longley for providing “Brotherly Counsel and encouragement,” gathered amidst much controversy. Several bishops of the Province of York refused to attend, and Dean Arthur Stanley denied the group the use of Westminster Abbey. In neither its origin nor in its decades of meeting was the Lambeth Conference ever intended as a general conference of the whole church or as a legislative body. Not until 1969 did the Anglican Consultative Council first convene. Only in 1978 did the Primates begin to gather regularly, and they refused to define those meetings as any kind of higher synod. The Lambeth Conference of 1998 (Resolution 3.6) stated that the activities of the Primates should not interfere with the judicial authorities of the several constituent provinces. All of these gatherings were collegial in character designed to further communication and bonds of fellowship among the vastly different churches of what was evolving as an imagined worldwide Anglican Communion.

What most notably demonstrates that the so-called Anglican Communion is merely a still-emerging imagined community is the fact that only in the past few years (really the past few months) have some of its leaders decided that they must construct a covenant determining what beliefs and practices actually constitute its theological and ideological basis. That is to say, the Anglican Communion presumably having existed for its present proponents since the first Lambeth Conference in l867 must now actually figure out what holds it together theologically and ecclesiastically. What the effort to establish a covenant demonstrates is that the so-called Anglican Communion does not really exist but must be forcibly drawn into existence. Radical innovation rather than tradition hence drives the process.

The idea and the effort to establish a covenant that might at great cost of conscience and intellect call into being an actual as opposed to an imagined Anglican Communion unhappily recalls moments in the history of the Church of England that many people have chosen to forget. During most of the twentieth century spokesmen for the Church of England and for those various churches around the world in one way or another derived from that church have emphasized the reasonableness and moderation of Anglicanism, and thus the Church of England displayed itself for most of the past century. But in point of fact, throughout much of its earlier history the Church of England was an actively persecuting church. Under Elizabeth it persecuted recalcitrant Roman Catholics. After the Restoration in l660 the Church of England drove out the Protestant Nonconformists. Thereafter until the late l820s the Church of England benefited from legislation that prevented Protestant Nonconformists and Roman Catholics from participating in English political life. Over the centuries the authorities of the Church of England sometimes on their own and sometimes with government aid excluded or drove from its ranks the likes of John Bunyan, Philip Doddridge, Isaac Watts, eventually the Methodists, and John Henry Newman. In the second half of the nineteenth century the authorities of the Church of England led by its bishops and its Archbishops of Canterbury persecuted and took to court the liberal authors of Essays and Reviews, the pioneering work of Victorian English biblical criticism, and the Anglo-Catholic ritualists including the Reverend Arthur Tooth and Bishop Edward King. The essayists and the ritualists remained in the Church of England but only after intense experiences of persecution.

Knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously, the present Archbishop of Canterbury seeks to revive this tradition of centralized arbitrary exclusion and chastisement. Edmund Burke, a great friend of the Church of England, wrote that most vices throughout human history were championed on the basis of plausibly attractive pretexts: “The pretexts are always found in some specious appearance of a real good.” The good that the Archbishop of Canterbury seeks to achieve is the unity of an imagined Anglican Communion that has virtually no existence in reality. In support of that unity he willingly sacrifices the ordination of women in some dioceses, the appointment of women to the episcopate in some churches, and the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from ordination and the episcopate. For the sake of unity of a communion that does not really exist, he has (perhaps unwittingly) fostered turmoil, dissension, and schism. He has urged the adoption of an ill-conceived covenant for the purposes today of excluding those churches who would embrace as part of the divine creation gay and lesbian people. But whom will the covenant exclude next year? The precedent for exclusion and persecution will have been established, and on the pretext of unity future dissidents and yet to be designated minorities could be targeted.

The Episcopal Church through its long established institutions of ecclesiastical governance, combining lay and clerical voices in equal measure, has chosen to tread the path of Christian liberty. Over the past decades the Episcopal Church has concluded that the perpetuation of unity with an imagined Anglican Communion being increasingly drawn into a reality for the purpose of persecuting and repressing gay and lesbian people is not acceptable and is not Christian. The Episcopal Church has decided to reassert not only that Jesus Christ has redeemed us, but that he has also made us free. In accord with St Paul’s injunction to the Galatians the Episcopal Church has chosen to stand fast “in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free” and not to be “entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

Frank M. Turner is the John Hay Whitney Professor of History and director of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Yale University.

Tags:

Frank M. Turner

Comments (21)

What an extraordinary statement: Clear, concise, and wise! May it find its way into Episcopal dioceses and parishes whose leaders are using the chimera of Anglican unity to sustain and promote bias.

Robert T. Dodd

Posted by Bob | September 9, 2009 5:18 AM

Right on Frank!

A covenant would make our relationship conditional ... it feels like your mother is going to give you a test before you can be her child.

Tom Lippart

Posted by Thomas E Lippart | September 9, 2009 9:02 AM

Very well written! We need more such polemics from the TEC side!

(Editor's note: Thanks, Kurt. We need your full name next time.)

Posted by Kurt | September 9, 2009 9:29 AM

My only problem with this is that it treats Dr. Williams too kindly. "...he has (perhaps unwittingly) fostered turmoil, ..." Dr. Williams is many things I am sure but one is not stupid. He certainly knows that when he tosses off suggestions for "networks," excludes legitimately elected bishops from meetings, and takes council with rump groups of bishops he is causing turmoil.

In fact, it appears from this remove his actions are intentional bullying. That alone is a good reason to oppose the covenant. After all it would formally place the bully in charge!

FWIW
jimB
Jim Beyer

Posted by jimB | September 9, 2009 11:17 AM

As someone who serves out in the "Anglican Communion," I find this essay most helpful. The AC indeed is an "imagined community," and as such really cannot have stringent rules for belonging. The Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion of a two-tier, two-track approach violates everything that truly exists in the Communion: A common belief in Jesus Christ, a common prayerbook (which as we all know is not "common" at all), and provincial autonomy. Putting a Covenant in place means that we would all have to agree to be governed in the same manner; who among us is willing to change our governance to accord with another's?

I know that in Sudan, where I served previously, the American style of governance is simply not acceptable. Conversely, the Sudani style of governance is not acceptable to Americans. So where does that leave us? Either we choose to walk together in the commonality of the Risen Lord, or we reject each other. But such division is not necessary, especially within the Anglican ethos, where the exigencies of time and place (and, I would add, culture) have always been part of who we are.

I do hope that many will read this essay in order to answer the question posed the other day: What difference does the Communion make? (My own reply: It keeps us from being tiny little sects of Christianity.)

Lauren R. Stanley
TEC Missionary in Haiti

Posted by laurenstanley | September 9, 2009 12:23 PM

I'm of two minds about this essay. On the one hand, I have long maintained that Rowan Williams has acted out of his "Anglo-Catholic fantasy" of what the Church is rather than serving the Church as it actually is.

On the other hand, I do think that there are some real connections with Christians throughout the world, and that the Anglican Communion has been a vehicle for God's mission. The problem comes when we try to make it more than that. Communion is God's gift and it cannot be legislated.

I would note that in the biblical sense, the covenant is God's irrevocable gift. The People may break faith; God will not. To use this word for a proposed set of institutions that are of purely human origin with a bigoted and sinful intent runs the risk of blasphemy.

Posted by Bill Carroll | September 9, 2009 1:26 PM

Thanks for a great essay, Frank.

It has led me to wonder if we might not apply the same concept to the NT´s various imaginative expressions of what the church is called to be not just at the macro level but at the congregational level as well: the first fruits of God´s Reign here on earth, the Body of Christ, a new Jerusalem, etc.

Even if we fall into thinking of ourselves as a contractual corporation or as a social services agency, or as the paying clientele of professional clergy, etc., I trust this imaginative vision of community lies at the core of what the church is supposed to be.

By calling the followers of The Way "a Holy People (laos), a priestly Nation (ethnos)" 1Peter is naming such an imaginative community. Coupled with Paul´s "Body of Christ." (1Cor) into which we are incorporated through Baptism and Eucharist. 1Cor, similarly Col).

IMO AngloCatholic visions of church unity as dependent on uniformity of doctrine and practice in a hierarchical body modeled on Rome is stuck in the XIXc recovery of medieval eclessiology and liturgy.

The Early Church constructed identity and authority through the process of incorporation known as Initiation by answering their first crisis (inclusion of gentiles) and the question it posed, if all may join this laos, ethnos, how are they to do so? With he answer,

"through self-selection,
followed by a period of transformation,
leading to incorporation into the body through a bath and a meal,
followed by developing the meaning of what just happened."

Our task then is to rediscover our identity (ourselves as an imaginative community) in this process of incorporation through a pattern of conscious and deliberate development of relationships in a local congregation rather submission to a top-down structure of authority.
This is of course, also profoundly American.

In this view, at the core of the BCP, the Laos, the Ethnos, the Imaginative (and actual) Community that is he Christian congregation then delegates ITS authority UP to the ordained, in specific ways through ordination to a specific type of work.

At is core the "Anglican Communion" problem today is that as an imaginative community it is still largely informed by medieval notions of church membership, identity and structure, rather than the Early Church´s bottoms-up ecclesiology, which was grounded in the members of our Christian imagined community. --a process well on the way already for TEC just as it is in the post-Vatican II RC church to the frustration of those who´d rather continue to live in 1200/1850 AD.

Posted by Juan Oliver | September 9, 2009 2:21 PM

I was Googling to see if I could say that Sir Walter Scott had invented Scotland, as the rabbis and scholars in exile in Babylon seem to have invented Jewishness -- history, laws, culture and all. I found a book by Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Invention of Scotland, that seems to apply not only to nationalist myths like Scotland and Anglicanism but to group-thinks like Christianity as well:

“I believe that the whole history of Scotland has been coloured by myth; and that myth, in Scotland, is never driven out by reality, or by reason, but lingers on until another myth has been discovered, or elaborated, to replace it.” –Hugh Trevor-Roper

(Bill Carroll: Does it matter that Noah and Abraham are myths, and covenants with them also must be myths?)

Murdoch, spouse of Gary

Posted by garydasein | September 9, 2009 3:00 PM

I see that the concept of "imagined community" which Frank introduces is quite an attraction as concept even as it takes on different meanings depending on who is using it. In Frank's words: "the creation among various groups living in their own localities with no direct interaction between or among themselves of the idea of an imagined community with other people on the basis of supposed common histories, customs, language, and ethnic identity. The reality of the community resided in the imagination of those drawn to these ideas that circulated in the print media of the day."

But notice how elastic the concept is, depending on who is using it.

While Anderson seems to have applied it to modern nations, Frank applies it to the community imagined by those who would make the Anglican Communion more hierarchical. He focuses on the "supposed history" and the like. The imagined community is that artifice, and Frank doesn't like it. Neither do I.

Meanwhile, Lauren, picks up on the idea that the "imagined community" is more organic. For her, it is the de facto Anglican Communion, set against a structure like the Roman Church. For Lauren the Anglican Communion now - prior to an Anglican Covenant with teeth - is a good thing, or at least morally neutral. "The AC indeed is an "imagined community," and as such really cannot have stringent rules for belonging." [But if "imagined community" originally applied to modern nations what about the legal notion of citizen?]

And then Juan enters with the idea of the early church was an "imagined community". Christians were not a tribe (like the Israelites). They were united by their beliefs and their modes of worship.

Certainly, in all these cases we have another element that Anderson emphasized: "An imagined community is different from an actual community because it is not (and cannot be) based on everyday face-to-face interaction between its members. Instead, members hold in their minds a mental image of their affinity."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagined_communities

It is hard for me to see how this would not also apply to the Roman church -- which is of course what Frank is saying we'd become more like if there is a binding covenant.

I very much appreciate Frank's paragraph on the instruments and how they are being given a supposed history of authority they never had. Some amplification of this would be welcome.

I wonder if the span of imagined communities grows as the cost of communication falls. It's often be noted that much of the trouble in the communion comes about because reports can be dashed off and sent with the click of the mouse, and bishops can fly about almost effortlessly.

Finally, if the Anglican Communion is essentially "hubris" (we're #3, we're #3!) why are should we care what happens to it?

Posted by John B. Chilton | September 9, 2009 3:22 PM

The questions of unity and uniformity, as well as how they relate to one another, have to be prayerfully considered.

Another question that I haven't heard anyone ask is whether the position of ABC would be opened to the consitutant members of any formalized Anglican Communion? OR will we just be welcomed to have orders be handed down from across the pond? In the RC Church, at least there is the possibility that the pope can be elected from any nation.

Posted by Peter Pearson | September 9, 2009 3:36 PM

Speaking autobiographically, I become a Christian first through talking with a CofE chaplain while living in England, then by taking a course at an Anglican church in Sri Lanka where I was later baptized. I since have returned to the US to be confirmed in my local Episcopal parish and have struck up a close friendship with a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada. I also have enjoyed attending services at Anglican churches in Barbados and Egypt. For me the Anglican Communion is very real indeed and I thank God for it as it was through this international church body that he has seen fit to draw me to Himself.

[Dear Ex, Our policy at the Cafe is that we sign with our first and last name. Thanks, ed.]

Posted by Ex-atheist | September 9, 2009 5:16 PM

What an excellent essay and discussion thread. Turner reminds us of much of the history of Anglicanism which we tend (and perhaps wish) to forget.

The best of the Anglican Communion is demonstrated by its relationships in "the bonds of affection" and its mission. As I see it, we are in communion if we share Communion at the table of the Lord. Those who choose to stay away from the table are those who are out of communion.

June Butler

Posted by GrandmèreMimi | September 9, 2009 6:03 PM

I am stunned by Dr. Turner's essay. (I mean that in a good way!) I don't think he says anything that I didn't already know, but I had never quite put it all together that clearly. I've been around long enough to remember the "old" Anglican Communion -- we were all in communion with each other, and we worshipped with each other when we went abroad, and we were active in joint missionary activities, and we cared about each other. I recall that when I was a young man we were visited by Joost de Blank and Ambrose Reeves and Trevor Huddleston from South Africa, seeking our prayers and support in the struggle against apartheid. We thought it was cool that all the bishops got together every ten years for the Lambeth Conference. We had Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence, which seemed like a good thing (and still is!). But none of this really had to do with ecclesiastical organization (I don't belong to any organized religion, I'm an Anglican!). Somewhere along the line we've gone astray, and I think we need to stop it. Perhaps we would be better off if we decided that the Anglican Communion really would be healthier and more focused on the Kingdom of God if we were more like the Lutheran World Federation. (Göran, are you lurking out there?) For heaven's sake, we're in communion with the Lutherans and the Moravians and working hard on the Methodists and the Presbyterians -- why can't we be in communion with ourselves, without trying to run other Churches?

In retrospect, it may have been a mistake to start using the word "Province" for anything other than its original meaning (Canterbury/York, Dublin/Armagh, the TEC 9, the Canadian 4, the Australian 5, etc.). We are not "Provinces" of the Anglican Communion, we are autonomous Churches within the Anglican Communion.

I would quibble with Dr. Turner about a couple of points: The Church of England did not persecute recusants for being "old believers" but for treason against the crown (Regnans in excelsis). The Nonconformists were not driven out, they pulled themselves out by their utterly trivial (mostly) complaints at the Savoy Conference (plus ça change...).

My heart breaks because Lauren Stanley can't go back to Sudan. Is it time yet to say "enough!"?

Everyone drop what you're doing right now and go to http://anglicansonline.org/ on "Taking Lambeth"!

Permalink: http://morgue.anglicansonline.org/090906/

Posted by Bill Moorhead | September 9, 2009 6:05 PM

Mr. Turner's assault on the very idea of Anglican catholicity at least has the advantage of giving a clear and decisive answer to the Archbishop of Canterbury's question: "Are we prepared to work at a common life which doesn't just reflect the interests and beliefs of one group but tries to find something that could be in everyone's interest - recognising that this involves different sorts of costs for everyone involved?"

Posted by Bryan Owen | September 9, 2009 8:08 PM

This is a very helpful essay. I read it as I was finishing my own latest post on why the Anglican communion is a bad idea. The Communion may not be imaginary, but, as a concept, it surely is fuzzy. Particularly bizarre is the recent talk of each “Instrument of Communion” having its own notion of membership. When we have two tracks to the Communion, we can then have eight different lists of who’s in and who’s out. Won’t that be fun!

—Lionel Deimel

Posted by Lionel | September 10, 2009 12:00 AM

In re: Bryan Owen: I think we ought to be careful to distinguish "catholicity" from "high church" or "sacerdotal." It's quite possible to be catholic, in terms of adherence to Scripture, the Creeds and canons of the first seven Ecumenical Councils, the historic threefold ministry of deacons, priests, and bishops, and reception of the lessons of the history of the Church without also buying into the Anglican Covenant. My opinion, actually, is that the Covenant is a radical innovation on the order of the absolutist Papacy. It is profoundly anti-catholic and anti-orthodox, from the standpoint of our historical commitment to the first seven Councils. If we are we willing to forsake that, why not just become Papists and be done with it?

Posted by Michael Lockaby | September 10, 2009 12:38 PM

Thank you brother Turner for this fine essay. On the House of Bishops and Deputies' listserv I have maintained, since the Windsor Report came out, that the Instruments of Communion or Unity were fiction. Turner has ably defined exactly what sort of fiction it is.

Having no international constitution and no system for developing consensus the Instruments and the Anglican Covenant are nothing more than devices being created to shame and harm TEC and the Church of Canada.

We must remember that we existed in a state of impaired communion with many Provinces after ordaining women to the priesthood and then the episcopate. We did not too dramatically alter that landscape with our decision to be inclusive of glbt people.

Posted by Michael Russell | September 10, 2009 2:51 PM

Turner's article is the finest, most succinct, and historically aware treatment of our current situation. What also needs to be emphasized is that the instruments of communion should NOT be made synonymous WITH communion.

Communion is still an important goal, but we should not collapse this theological, eschatological and human phenomenon with an institutional one (that would be the Roman Catholic system). Institutional functioning is not the same thing as sacramental communion. I think the way TEC is pursuing this, with many others (eg. the international Anglican Women's groups) is much more organic and much more focused on building real communion, NOT virtual communion, and NOT institutional communion.

So yes, by all means, we should be seeking the highest degree of communion possible; however, we should never equate institutional structures with a robust, incarnate communion in the Body of Christ.

Posted by Peter Antoci | September 11, 2009 10:07 AM

I appreciate Frank Turner's scholarly and readable piece, though I have a few points of disagreement with him. Beginning with his opening paragraph. Not quite sure what Benedict Anderson's theory of "imagined communities" has to do with the Anglican Communion. Anderson's theory, as I understand it, is part of a historiographical conversation about when and how modern nation-states constituted themselves. If Turner's point is that our Communion is socially constructed rather than primordially ordained - and that therefore the Instruments of Communion are suspect and conditional - he ought to note that Anderson approves of the social construction of nations. If we are extrapolating from Anderson, as Turner implies we can, then the "imagined communities" theory would tend to support the proposed Anglican Covenant. But I think it is loose scholarship to extrapolate anything at all about ecclesiology from Anderson's history of the formation of nations.

I disagree also with the conclusion of Turner's piece. He writes that the Episcopal Church "has chosen to tread the path of Christian liberty...and not to be 'entangled again with the yoke of bondage.'" This is the kind of moralistic preening that enrages the rest of the world against Americans and constitutes an ecclesiastical equivalent of George W. Bush's language of triumphalism and exceptionalism. I give credit to the Episcopal Church for often trying to do the right thing, as our American nation often tries to do the right thing, but both our church and our nation tend to let their privileged status blind them, to conflate self-interest with divine right and to ignore history where it suits us. Here is one instance: we are far from being disentangled from "the yoke of bondage." Black Episcopalians tell us that our church has yet to acknowledge the ways in which it promoted and profited from slavery.

We tend to "tread the path of Christian liberty" where it serves our class interests but to walk away when it does not. Let us be honest: the Episcopal Church follows the mores of the American haute bourgeoisie. For some time now, this class has determined that sexual preference should be no bar to professional advancement, including advancement within the ranks of the clergy. I am an American bourgeois, and I am in full agreement, but I cannot therefore consider myself to be in the company of Gandhi, King and Mandela. Taking down the Anglican Communion does not constitute a principled stand, as Turner seems to think, but rather an abandonment of solidarity with and an evasion of responsibilities to brother and sister Anglicans, with whom we inevitably disagree on this and other issues but who also lead lives at great risk in failed and failing states. For them, liberty and bondage are not rhetorical flourishes but hopes and dreams bought only at great price. We need not sign on to the Anglican Covenant if it ill suits us, but let us not say, as Turner does, that the Communion "has virtually no existence in reality." Those African and Asian brothers and sisters of ours are very real, and they are legion.

Posted by Erik Schwarz | September 17, 2009 3:05 AM

An excellent essay on the Anglican Communion. I have always thought that it was a rather irrelevant idea. "At its most banal, the Communion exists to justify bishops traveling about the world on funds contributed by the baptized" hits the spot, I think. Any real unity is between my church fellowship (in England) and another church somewhere else - maybe the USA, maybe Nigeria. Bishops are mostly irrelevant to this process.

I have however come to the conclusion that all these debates with ECUSA or the CofE are irrelevant. Try as I can, I cannot see how a Protestant church can ever be Episcopalian. They just don't mix. The only reason why Protestant Episcopalians don't end up as "bottom up" congregationalists is the ownership of the physical assets.

Posted by David Waters | September 17, 2009 5:44 AM

The thesis that the Anglican Communion is 'imagined' is true so far as people need to buy into it for it to exist. The fact remains that many of us DO buy into it. Now, it is a very imperfect analogy, but one needs to look at the example of the Orthodox Church. Like the 'Anglican Communion', it is a very loose federation of geographical churches that in many cases maintain hierarchies in the same area. They are undergoing the same identity questions we are. Many use the same liturgies (St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil), but there are national variations (consider the confusion of a Russian at how many things differ in the Greek liturgy of the same name).

The idea is that the 'denomination' or 'communion' is defined by communities being in communion with each other. Covenants, agreements, joint statements really don't show communion. Real relationships do. For us to think that Anglicanism is 'imagined' ignores the fact that lay people from all over the globe find a common ground, even with our differences.

I guess the point of this ramble is that we really don't need a written covenant to be a communion.

Posted by Lee Hughes | September 28, 2009 10:15 PM

Add your comments

Reminder: At Episcopal Café, we hope to establish an ethic of transparency by requiring all contributors and commentators to make submissions under their real names. For more details see our Feedback Policy.

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)

CATEGORIES

Archives