Sleeping in Separate Bedrooms? The Anglican Compromise?

Stephen Castle:

The creation of a lighter and looser relationship among the churches might be enough to allow Canterbury to maintain relations with the Episcopal Church and, say, provinces in African countries, which have encouraged their governments to criminalize homosexuality. The archbishop’s statement stressed that he was not in a position to dictate policy. “We have no Anglican pope,” he wrote. “Our authority as a church is dispersed, and is ultimately found in Scripture, properly interpreted.”

His aides confirmed, however, that while he was not proposing any specific solution, the archbishop was open to discussion of a new, looser federation.

On Wednesday, Lambeth Palace, the seat of the Communion, confirmed as accurate British newspaper reports citing an unnamed source as saying that the archbishop felt he could not leave his eventual successor in the position of “spending vast amounts of time trying to keep people in the boat and never actually rowing it anywhere.”

If such an outcome were agreed upon, members of all the churches would be able to call themselves Anglican, but the change of structure would make clear that there need no longer be a common doctrine.

When asked by The Guardian newspaper whether this would represent if not a divorce, then a legal separation, the source responded: “It’s more like sleeping in separate bedrooms.” The archbishop’s office confirmed the authenticity of the quotations.

In his statement, Archbishop Welby said that the agenda of the meeting would “be set by common agreement with all primates encouraged to send in contributions,” but added that it would likely include topics such as religiously motivated violence, the protection of children and vulnerable adults, the environment and human sexuality.

He also noted that “the difference between our societies and cultures, as well as the speed of cultural change in much of the global north, tempts us to divide as Christians.”

“A 21st-century Anglican family must have space for deep disagreement, and even mutual criticism,” he added.