Anglican Communion
From Philosopedia
ANGLICAN COMMUNION
The group of churches that “are in communion” with the Church of England is called the Anglican Communion. This includes regional, provincial, and separate groups bound together by mutual loyalty as expressed in the Lambeth Conference of 1930.
In 1992 an estimated seventy million members were members who worshipped in a liturgical fashion regulated by the Book of Common Prayer.
Historically, Henry VIII repudiated papal authority by abolishing it. Although his divorce was the pretext, it was not the cause of the Reformation in England. By abolishing the papal jurisdiction and reducing clerical privilege and property, Henry VIII proclaimed the royal supremacy even in the church. In so doing he found strong national support, and although many considered him an unscrupulous ruler he generally was known—according to Canadian theologian Gerald R. Cragg—as one with unusual political perception. He had wanted some kind of papal title like Rex Christianissimus (France) and Res Catholicus (Spain). In recognition of a work on the seven sacraments against Luther, in 1532 Leo X dubbed him Fidei Defensir (Defender of the Faith). The 1534 Acts of Supremacy declared Henry VIII “only supreme head in earth of the Church of England,” legislation repealed in 1554 by Queen Mary but revived under Elizabeth I. Among prominent individuals who were executed for their opposition was former chancellor Sir Thomas More, whose moral idea expressed the reasonableness and open-mindedness of humanism. What the king had started as a period of enlightenment fast became one of bloody suppression.
In 1607 the first Anglican church in America held services in Jamestown, Virginia. When Americans could no longer accept the enemy George III as God’s representative, they avoided setting up a Church of America. Instead, they established a separate ecclesiastical body in 1789. Although the British and American groups have somewhat close ties today, the senior warden of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Tucson, Arizona, wrote the following to The New York Times (11 August 1998):
- The bishops of the Anglican Communion had a rare opportunity to teach Christian compassion at [this year’s] Lambeth Conference. But these would-be apostles instead chose to heap scorn on 600 million of God’s children who are gay and lesbian. The bishops chose the way of ignorance and arrogance. Surely they remember that Jesus inspired his disciples by offering unqualified love to the persecuted, the despised and the nonconformists of his day.
- Many American Episcopalians and their churches are determined to welcome homosexual sisters and brothers and support their ordination. The bishops’ pronouncement at the Lambeth Conference can only stiffen that resolve.
- Anglicans in America flourished for 178 years, from 1607 to 1785, without one bishop. We could do it again if we had to. Then we could give the money we now spend on Lambeth Conferences to the poor, as Christ taught us.
