Friday 30 November 2007

Mapping The Anglican Communion

Fulcrum have just published a piece I’ve written on the current state of play in the Anglican Communion as their November newsletter (also available as PDF)

In summary, I develop my earlier ’four quadrant’ view of different stances and suggest that the spectrum of views on homosexuality can be divided into 4 broad approaches (rejectionist, reasserter, reassessor and reinterpreter) and different views on what it means to be a Communion into three (Windsor’s vision of ’communion catholicism’ and two alternatives of connectional confessionalism and autonomous inclusivism).

I then suggest how these might inter-relate, particularly focussing on Windsor’s response to sexuality in terms of listening and dialogue, constraints on action and good order.

After sketching four powerful agents in the current tensions (the Instruments, the provinces, coalitions of provinces and international networks) I try to show how this analysis helps explain some of the challenges at the current stage of the Windsor process by looking at 3 different levels of challenge to the conclusions offered by the Joint Standing Committee after TEC’s bishops met at New Orleans.

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