More on the GAFCON declaration

This response by Canon Neal Michell is brilliantly different and insightful:

Cra-a-ckk!! Can you hear it? Can you hear the cracks of the foundations of Christendom cracking in the Anglican Communion?

The 1148 Anglican laity and clergy meeting in Jerusalem in June 2008 just applied a sledge hammer to the Christendom-based unity of the Anglican Communion. And they did it in a brilliant fashion.

Under Christendom, the person at the top of the food chain is in charge, and you’re either in or out. Christendom is hierarchically-governed.

A non-modern approach—I don’t want to call it Postmodern, because many of the GAFCON crafters are from countries that have not gone through Modernism such that they are responding in a Postmodern way. No, they are responding in non-Modern ways, embracing certain aspects of Christendom in the Anglican Communion while dismissing other Christendom aspects of the Communion—which is a very Postmodern thing to do.

A Christendom-view of the Anglican Communion says that there is one Anglican franchise in each country. And it is the Archbishop of Canterbury determines who is granted the franchise in each country (some would say that the Archbishop of York has a say-so, and others would say that the Anglican Consultative Council also has a determinative voice).

And, under Christendom, you’re either in or you’re out. You’re either authentically Anglican, or you’re an Anglican wannabe.

A Christendom-based solution to the crisis in the Anglican Communion which came about as a result of the failure of a Christendom-based Anglican Communion to deal adequately with the willful disregard by the American Episcopal Church of the request by the vast majority of the Primates that the American Episcopal Church repent of its consecration as bishop of a gay man living in a sexual relationship outside Holy Matrimony and the consent of American Episcopal bishops to the blessing of same-sex unions.

The Americans at GAFCON really wanted a Christendom-based solution which would have split the Anglican Communion and called for the formation of an alternative Communion.
An alternative Christendom solution would have been the formation of a network of like-minded dioceses and provinces wholly within the Anglican Communion. This “network within a Communion” is what the Anglican Communion Network and the more recently proposed Communion Partners have called for.

Instead of the Christendom solution calling for a “you’re either in or out but not both,” the Jerusalem Communiqué says “you can be in and out, yet still in relationship, and we will still recognize your holy orders.”

Some have said that Anglicanism is now, in effect, a federation. I don’t thinks so. A federation still has Christendom writ large over it. Under a federation, all those in the federation agree that they are all a part of a federation. Under the auspices of the Jerusalem communiqué, not all of these Anglicans even want to be a part of the Anglican Communion (federation) if it means that the Americans and Canadians are a part.

The Jerusalem Communiqué changes Anglicanism from a Communion to a series of networks, or a series of relationships. And some of these members are in relationship with others and not in relationship with still others. Some are out of relationship because of their opposition to women’s ordination; others are out of relationship because of their opposition to the blessing of same sex unions. Some who oppose women’s ordination are in relationship with those who support women’s ordination because they both oppose the blessing of same sex unions. Sounds complicated, I know. But then, things were much simpler under Christendom.