The Revd Dr Colin Craston, served 15 years on the Anglican Consultative Council including six years as Chair. He was in parish ministry in the Church of England for 50 years and in retirement lives near Bolton.
In 1993 the Anglican Consultative Council, of which I was then Chairman, met in Cape Town. Encouraged by some evangelicals in England some lay leaders of the Church of England in South Africa (CESA) asked to meet me. They included the former and current Registrars. With the Archbishop of Canterbury's (George Carey) support I agreed, recognising that it was the status of CESA they would raise. And indeed they urged me to persuade the Archbishop to recognise formally CESA's membership of the Anglican Communion. I had to point out that he had no powers himself to admit a member Church to the Communion. That could only be by decision of the Primates and the ACC, both of which he was President. I further indicated that until there was reconciliation and communion with the Church of the Province of South Africa (CPSA) there was no chance of the Communion recognising two unreconciled Churches in one country. CESA and CPSA had been separate since the Colenso controversy in the late 19th century. What I had to say seemed to astound them. They were placing reliance on Parliamentary decisions from the past, failing to realise they had no weight in the Republic of South Africa. They were obviously unconvinced as is apparent from subsequent letters to the Archbishop.
In 1981 a small group of negotiators from both Churches reached an agreement on a modus vivendi, but the terms were rejected by the CESA Synod. There was also in the 1980's an attempt at negotiation between some clergy from each side, conducted confidentially, which ended when lay leaders found out.
In the mid-80's Archbishop Robinson of Sydney, with the agreement of the Primate of CPSA, consecrated one of his priests (Dudley Ford) as a bishop for CESA (the former bishop, Stephen Bradley, having retired). Archbishop Runcie gave his blessing on the understanding that it was a move towards the reconciliation of the two Churches. Before long Dudley Ford resigned from CESA in frustration at the intransigence of its members.
Intransigence is always a tendency in those who hold strongly to an ecclesiastical tradition, catholic, liberal or evangelical. It is borne of a conviction of a full apprehension of the truth given by God, or at least a fuller knowledge than others. It can blind us to other aspects of the truth and to the fact that now we only see "through a glass darkly" CESA could not countenance reunion with CPSA because of other traditions in the latter, even though there were also evangelicals in that Church.
All this seems to have relevance to the current situation in England, notably in the diocese of Southwark, though doubtless elsewhere too. The cooperation of Archbishop Robinson with the Primate of CPSA, and encouragement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, stands in marked contrast with the decision of a CESA bishop to invade the Southwark diocese without its diocesan's approval to ordain three men in a church plant. It was inevitable that the diocesan bishop should revoke the licence of the minister of the church, who was acting with the support of Reform, in this irregular ordination. It was just the latest act in a series of anti-diocesan moves.
I am bound to refer to this and similar actions of some evangelicals as intransigence. Refusing to pay parish shares, financial blackmail really, refusing to accept diocesan bishops' episcopal ministrations, a parish determining where any of its ordinands will serve - all these betray a fundamental failure in ecclesiology. They also fly in the face of Article 26, to which the clergy at least have given assent.
At NEAC in Caister in 1987 Archbishop Runcie challenged evangelicals to review and clarify their ecclesiology. By and large the movement has failed to do that. Two things need attention. First, what is the basis of communion in Christ's Church? Ephesians 4 seems to be the starting point. Secondly, what is required of membership of an Anglican Church? It must include acceptance of Anglican order. Why do some evangelicals want to be still recognised as Anglicans if they cannot accept Anglican order? Would they not be more at home in a grouping like the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches?
These posts are by guest authors for Fulcrum