Analysis: Anglicanism on the brink

WASHINGTON, July 8 (UPI) -- "The Anglican Communion is on the brink," a prominent prelate said Monday as the 70-million member denomination awaited the news about the identity of its next Archbishop of Canterbury, their titular leader.

They expect this announcement to be made as soon as Tuesday, sources at the Church of England's General Synod currently meeting in York told United Press International. Insiders said that the appointment of liberal Archbishop Rowan Williams of Wales seemed "a done deal."

World Anglicanism is already in a serious crisis over what the feisty magazine, The Christian Challenge, called the unchecked liberal revisionism in North America.

At a time when two dioceses -- one in Canada and one in the U.S. -- incurred the wrath of the current Archbishop of Canterbury and Southern cone primates over their decision to allows the blessing of same-sex unions, Williams' liberal inclinations troubled many traditionalist church leaders.

"We need Williams' nomination like a whole in the head," said the Rev. David Holloway, co-founder of the Church of England's evangelical Reform group. By his own admission, Williams has ordained a priest of whom he knew that he lived in a "committed partnership" with another man.

But Canon Vinay Samuel, one of the leading voices of Anglican evangelicalism, told UPI he could "work with Williams," whom the Crown Appointments Commission has apparently proposed to Prime Minister Tony Blair as successor to George Carey, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, who will retire in October.

However, Samuel urged the world's Anglican primates to meet no later than in the coming autumn to address issues such as the ethical problems caused by the two North American dioceses.

According to leading African and Asian clerics, such a conference is already being planned, following a harsh condemnation issued by last week's Oxford Consultation on The Future of Anglicanism.

In Oxford, delegates from Africa, Australia, Latin America, the Caribbean North America and Europe resolved that the actions by the dioceses of New Westminster (Vancouver) and Kansas were unconstitutional.

"They violate the commitments to the historic faith and order of Anglican Christianity entrenched in the foundational documents of the churches involved. They are unfaithful to 2000 years of Christian teaching and, as such, are schismatic," the Consultation's statement read.

It called the decision to permit the blessing of homosexual couples a violation of the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops. Archbishop Carey, who participated at the Consultation labeled the New Westminster actions as "schismatic" and as "ecumenically embarrassing."

It was the outgoing English primate's harshest condemnation so far of what Anglican bishops in the global South, including Australia, view as an out-of-control wayward drift of their North American co-religionists.

Should an emergency meeting of the world's Anglican primates prove incapable of checking this development, then "it will only be a matter of months before parallel provinces will be established," predicted Indian-born Canon Samuel.

For example, the United States could then officially wind up with two Anglican provinces -- the liberal Episcopal Church USA and a traditionalist denomination.

A rudimentary structure for this is already in place: Two years ago, an African and an Asian archbishop consecrated two bishops for the Anglican Mission in America, which considers itself part of the worldwide Communion, although it has not been recognized as such by Carey.

Whether Williams' elevation to See of Canterbury will help matters, remains questionable. Traditionally, evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics alternate on this post. Carey is evangelical; Williams calls himself an Anglo-Catholic, although his views concerning issues on faith and order do not exactly fit that description.

He has come out in favor of the consecration of women as bishops. But this would fracture the Church of England and block all prospects of unity with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, Geoffrey Howell, bishop of Europe, told the General Synod in York.

Williams also favors the right of divorced persons to remarry in church -- and the ordination of homosexuals. It was for these reasons that Archbishop Carey vetoed Williams' appointment to head the diocese of Southwalk in England three years ago.

Wales is autonomous from Canterbury, however. This is why Carey had no say over Williams' elevation to the primacy of that principality's Anglican Church, which is not state-related. Carey also plays no role in the nomination of his successor. That is the Prime Minister's job. He will name the spiritual leader of the Church, following the Crown Commission's recommendations.

The Church's secular leader is Queen Elizabeth II. But her part in all this is nominal. In a sense, by appointing the Prime Minister's man she simply notarizes his decision.

If appointed, Williams may well be the last spiritual head of the state church. According to the latest opinion poll, already 48 percent of the English favor the CofE's separation from the secular government; only 36 percent still favor this union.

Moreover, the new Archbishop will face a rapid decline of his faithful. A mere 968,800 English Anglicans attend Sunday services regularly. A study conducted by University of Sheffield sociologist David Voas showed that of the 48 million British subjects living in England only 23,94 million are baptized Anglicans.

Thus, the Church of England has become a minority institution in its own country for the first time since its separation from Rome in 1535.

In the meantime, its sister churches in Africa and Asia are burgeoning -- and very conservative. As an African observer at the General Synod in York told UPI, "With figures like these, our brethren on Europe and North America had better pay a little more attention to what we are saying."