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Unopened Gift, The
Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2005 by Steenson, Jeffrey
The Windsor Report would enhance the Archbishops role in providing limited pastoral oversight to the provinces through the creation of a Council of Advice. It is a welcome but very modest proposal; the Council's task "to assist him in discerning when and how it might be appropriate for him to exercise a ministry of unity on behalf of the whole Communion" (para. 112) betrays deep-seated fears about the personal exercise of authority. Critics of the Windsor Report's proposal to expand the Archbishop's powers are concerned lest he be seen as an alternative Pope for Anglicans. It is a straw-man argument, to be sure, but it is a useful illustration of the underlying difficulty. The Lambeth Conference of 1998 took a first very tentative step in linking the problem of maintaining effective communion within Anglicanism with the "issue of a universal ministry in the service of Christian unity."8 The Windsor Report has served admirably to lay on the table specific recommendations for strengthening the instruments of Communion, as called for by Lambeth 1998; but what has not yet happened is a serious consideration of the "ecumenical implications" involved in this development.9 This can mean but one thing: the question of the one to whom the See of Canterbury owes its historic existence and its authentic primatial charism.
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And so we come to the neglected but effectual first principle of Anglican ecclesiology, the problem of our relationship with the Patriarch of the West, the rock from which we were hewn (Isa. 51:1). Pope John Paul II had invited a patient dialogue in his Ut unum sint (chap. 3, para. 96), and unfortunately it must be said that we were so preoccupied with our own affairs we missed this opportunity. Pope Benedict XVI represents a real second chance, and his own words about the possibility of a new beginning, although addressed to the Orthodox, should encourage Anglicans as well: "Rome must not require more from the East with respect to the doctrine of primacy than had been formulated and was lived in the first millennium."10 Indeed, our Reformers had asked for no more; perhaps they would be more disappointed with us their heirs at this point. I myself bear witness to a keen impatience to get on with this task, the absence of which makes the Windsor Report seem like a rather pointless exercise of providing minimal maintenance to a structure whose foundations have been eroded and neglected.
The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission has produced three impressive statements on authority in the church. Unfortunately, little effort is now expended on their reception within Anglicanism, no doubt because many now judge the statements' goals to be unattainable. ARCIC s most recent offering on the subject, The Gift of Authority, has been widely dismissed for its numerous idiosyncrasies and especially its quixotic outlook that the gift of papal primacy "could be offered and received even before our churches are in full communion" (IV.60).11 We should not acquiesce in such counsels of despair. The Gift of Authority does make an important contribution to the vocation of catholic unity in its call for our churches to encounter tradition anew, a process it terms "re-reception." Through the ministry of memory (II.30), the bishops exercise a particular charism and function within the symphony of God's people, and so the church is renewed in hope as forgotten elements of the tradition are reappropriated. "The Church has the responsibility to hand on the whole apostolic Tradition, even though there may be parts which it finds hard to integrate in its life and worship. It may be that what was of great significance for an earlier generation will again be important in the future, though its importance is not clear in the present" (II.24).
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