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Covenant, Contract, and Communion: Reflections on a Post-Windsor Anglicanism

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Lewis, Harold T

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It was once alleged that the provinces in the Communion were held together by the Book of Common Prayer. And although that book had been translated into Swahili and Japanese and French, and scores of other languages, the shape of the liturgy was everywhere recognizable. The Anglican Communion has historically been seen as an extended family, and each province as a nuclear family within the larger system. The extended family has traditionally made allowances for and even embraced local, cultural differences that affected the whole, and when there was a squabble among certain members of the family, the Lambeth Conference (which came into being precisely because of such a squabble) met and smoothed things out. It is interesting in this connection to note that it took a century for the church to come to some agreement about polygamy. In 1888, despite the pleadings of Bishop Crowther of Nigeria, the practice was condemned as unchristian and unbiblical. After a hundred years of debate, the Lambeth Conference of 1988 made it possible for Muslim converts to bring their wives with them, with the understanding that they would call a moratorium on additional marriages. In light of recent developments, this decision is especially significant since through it, sanction has been given to a form of Christian marriage which differs from the heterosexual monogamy long held as normative.

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Now by any criterion, Anglicanism is messy. Strictly speaking, it has no unique theology. As a church guided by the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi, we look to the Book of Common Prayer for our sacramental theology. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, Anglicanism has no central authority. Unlike the Reformation churches, we have no charismatic theologian like Calvin or Luther to guide our theology. Without such points of reference, it is difficult to keep disparate groups together in some harmonious whole. But until recently this has been largely achieved precisely because of a bond and covenant among Anglicans.

Richard Hooker, Anglicanism's chief apologist, saw the church as "an integrated life of relationships which are continually being transformed by the abiding Spirit of Christ's authority who enables its structure to become a supple and enduring framework holding the Communion together at greater depth."1 In such a system, each group, retaining "a sense of the dynamic nature of history and of the way in which contextuality informs the intellectual process,"2 has trusted the other to run its affairs, and yet remain within the parameters of faith and practice of the Anglican Communion. In Hookers own words, "every former part gives strength unto all that followe."3 And when difficulties arose, those constituent parts followed the counsel of the prophet Isaiah: "Come let us reason together though our sins be like scarlet" (Isa. 1:18). In recent decades, for example, the Anglican family has agreed to disagree on the question of women's ordination. Many provinces still do not permit it, and some that do (including the Church of England) have allowed for ordination to the priesthood but not to the episcopate.

Covenant, Contract, and Communion: Reflections on a Post-Windsor Anglicanism

Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Lewis, Harold T

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