Editorial: After Singapore

From The Living Church-

Like those from previous encounters, the communiqué or “trumpet” from the fourth Global South to South Encounter in Singapore strives to address at once the Anglican churches of the global south and the wider Communion, and this is as it should be. The communion of Christ calls us both to speak to our own contexts — in this case, to cultivate a conversation among “the vast majority of the active membership of the Anglican Communion” that happens to share many challenges in church and society as well as a largely evangelical theological and missionary idiom — and the larger Body and its members, spread throughout the earth. At the intersection of these two audiences this latest communiqué speaks reflexively of a singular Church, following the theme of the encounter: “The Gospel of Jesus Christ — Covenant for the People, Light for the Nations,” from Isaiah. Unfortunately, the text falls short of the ecclesial confidence, and clarity, that it rightly aims for, even in the narrowed context of specifically Anglican communion.

The thesis of the communiqué may be found in its ninth paragraph: “We encourage Provinces to develop intentional plans and structures for Church growth in the post-Christendom context of today’s world. Above all, we call for a new quest for personal and corporate holiness in the [Anglican] Communion.” The final seven paragraphs, aimed at the wider Communion, break very little new ground, and where new suggestions are made they are underdeveloped, as in the intriguing final sentence of the communiqué proper: “We believe that there is a need to review the entire Anglican Communion structure; especially the Instruments of Communion and the Anglican Communion office; in order to achieve an authentic expression of the current reality of our Anglican Communion.” What precisely is being proposed here? The recently convened Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity Faith and Order has been tasked with this very work, following on and consolidating the foundation of the Covenant text. Are the global south leaders effectively commending this labor, or rather suggesting a parallel, and perhaps quite different, kind of “review”? It is impossible to say. Similarly, the text proposes in a single sentence that “the Primates Meeting ... should be the body to oversee the Covenant in its implementation” because they are “responsible for Faith and Order” (para. 21) — a suggestion that would need to be shown with reference to current Anglican structures or otherwise argued for on independent grounds.

More here-

http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2010/4/30/editorial-after-singapore