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Windsor Report: Communion, Structure, and Covenant, The
Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Wondra, Ellen K
Kevin Flynn also judges that the Windsor Report takes inadequate notice of the extensive work by ARCIC on koinonia ecclesiology in Church as Communion and The Gift of Authority. ARCIC's agreements make clear that the local churches and the worldwide church are necessarily interrelated and even co-constitutive, and they point to challenges associated with a collegium of bishops. And the Report's discussion of adiaphora ignores the important Roman Catholic contribution of the idea of a "hierarchy of truths." Flynn concludes that the Anglican Communion has much to learn from Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogues at every level: openhearted listening, respectful attitudes, avoidance of controversial language, and a certain detachment from one's own desires and visions for the sake of communion with the other.
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General Convention 2003 and the Windsor Report have initiated what Jeffrey Steenson hopes will be "a truly fruitful period of development" for Anglican ecclesiology. The Episcopal Church's constitutional structure, modeled on secular government, tends toward making the church a "servant of the culture." The development of the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury from Lambeth 1988 through the Virginia Report and now the Windsor Report offers an alternative: Anglicans may voluntarily accept a primatial ministry at the worldwide level. Steenson goes further to identify the papacy of Benedict XVI as itself an opportunity for further Anglican reception of worldwide primacy. Perhaps the time is ripe for a deeper consideration of the possibilities offered in John Paul II's Ut unum sint and in ARCIC's The Gift of Authority.
In the final essay, William Gregg brings family systems theory to bear on the current crisis in the Anglican Communion. The work of Bowen, Friedman, and others meshes with koinonia ecclesiology in emphasizing the health of the body and the interdependent relations of all members. The Windsor Report's focus on formal structures and definitions of communion points to "too narrow and controlled an ecclesiology." Yet Gregg is hopeful for the Anglican Communion, in part because the Windsor Report invites the Communion to a process of growth and development.
After these essays were submitted, officially appointed scholars and leaders in the Episcopal Church responded to the Windsor Report's request for an explanation of "how a person living in a same gender union may be considered eligible to lead the flock of Christ" (para. 135). To Set Our Hope on Christ (New York: Office of Communication, Episcopal Church Center, 2005) reiterates the Episcopal Church's commitment to the unity of the Anglican Communion even while it confesses human fallibility and weakness. The response looks at evidence from Scripture, tradition, and reason to address the issue of holiness of life in same-sex relationships. It moves on to consider "the Episcopal Church's historical witness to unity-in-difference" (Part III), noting failures that have cost the church dearly as well as instances where the church has grown through trust in "the faithfulness of those with whom we disagree" (para. 3.22).
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