Anglican consensus fails to make a firm decision on unity

FOR THE second time in just over ten years hopes for reunion among the English Churches have been dashed by the failure of the general synod of the Church of England to muster sufficient enthusiasm for the unity proposals before it. The negative side of the comprehensiveness that is one of Anglicanism's justifiable boasts is the existence on almost any question of dissident minority large enough to block consensus.
Ten years ago it was the "unholy alliance" of the Church's Catholic and Evangelical wings that prevented the adoption of the scheme for Anglican-Methodist reunion, the fruit of 16 years' negotiation that had its origins in the late Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher's 1947 appeal to the Free Churches to take episcopacy into their system.
Out of the failure of that scheme came the "talks about talks" and the formation of the Churches' Unity Commission, on which all the mainstream Christian Churches of England, including the Catholic Church, were represented. That produced the Ten Propositions and the idea of covenanting for unity: a system whereby Churches. while remaining independent. would agree to recognise each other's ministry and sacraments and thus be able to sanction official intercommunion and concelebration.
In the event only four Churches were able to consider covenanting with each other: the Church of England and the Methodist, Moravian and United Reformed Churches. (Originally the Churches of Christ were also involved, but they merged with the United Reformed Church last year.) For the Methodist and United Reformed Churches this meant accepting bishops into their system — which for the United
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merger in 1972 of Congregationalists and Presbyterians with their long tradition of rejecting prelacy. was a considerable sacrifice to make in the cause of Christian unity.
Nevertheless the covenant proposals gained the necessary two-thirds majority at the URC's general assembly in Bristol and, by a bigger margin, at the Methodist Conference in Plymouth. All now hinged on the decision whether or not to give the covenant proposals final approval to be taken by the Church of England's general synod on Wednesday last week.
An ominous pointer had been a synod vote in February 1981 on three controversial issues involved in the covenant when the recognition of the other Churches' ministries and the acceptance of their women ministers as presbyters both failed to gain a two-thirds majority among the clergy. At the time that did not prevent the covenant proposals going forward. But for final acceptance they needed a two-thirds majority in each of the synod's three houses of bishops, clergy and laity. On Wednesday last week they were supported by 77 per cent of the bishops and 68 per cent of the laity but only just under 62 per cent of the clergy.
Opposition centred on the fear that by accepting Free Church ministers as presbyters, the equals of Anglican priests, the Church of England would fatally compromise its claim to be part of the Catholic Church with its episcopate in the apostolic succession.
proposals received the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie, it was qualified support, and the qualifications centred on this very point. He remained, he said, very sensitive about the question: "Are you in danger of sacrificing our character as a Church which shares with the great part of Christendom a ministry given by God as a sign of continuity and unity?" He wanted to see a more explicit incorporation of the Free Church ministries within the historic ministry of the Catholic Church, which should be done in such a way that no Free Churchman need feel his ministry impugned.
But, as the Archbishop said, "covenanting demands people who are enthusiastically committed to it", and his lukewarm commendation could hardly raise such enthusiasm or convert those opposed to the covenant in its present form. And so another hope for Christian unity has died.
On another contentious issue the synod voted in favour of allowing women priests ordained elsewhere in the Anglican Communion to exercise their ministry when visiting this country — something that at the moment is strictly speaking illegal. to the considerable embarrasment of the Church of England when from time to time a visiting woman priest celebrates the eucharist. Recently three bishops of the Church of England took part in a eucharist celebrated by a New Zealand woman priest at the Swanwick conference centre.
But for this to be put into effect legislation will be needed. And legislation will need a two-thirds majority of each of the synod's three houses. If the vote on Deaconess McClatchey's motion asking for legislation is anything to go by, it will not get it.
It was in many ways a week when the Anglo-Catholics could feel things were going their way. The synod gave provisional approval to a form for what we would call confession something. to judge by the debate, that Anglo-Catholics seem much more passionately attached to than we of the Roman persuasion, perhaps because in the Church of England it has never been compulsory.
Finally. the synod committed the Church of England to a policy of British economic disengagement advice of the head of the Church Commissioners, Sir Ronald Harris, who preferred their policy of refusing to invest in companies operating wholly or mainly in South Africa while adopting a policy of constructive engagement with others.
What practical effect on British investment policies this move is likely to have is uncertain, but, as Canon Paul Oestreicher, secretary of the British Council of Churches' division of international affairs, pointed out, it certainly has an effect on the South African government.
Its embassy in London circularised synod members with a memorandum arguing strongly against economic sanctions on the ground that they would cause destitution among the black population and encourage violence.
Robert Nowell