Williams sets out his blueprint for twin-track Church
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
(Filed: 28/06/2006)
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, yesterday outlined radical plans that could force the liberal American Church out of mainstream Anglicanism if it refuses to toe the majority line on issues such as homosexuality.
In his most personal and direct statement on the crisis engulfing the worldwide Church, the archbishop made clear that his patience was running out with liberals who defy official policy yet want to stay in the Anglican "club".
In a six-page "reflection", Dr Williams set out a blueprint for a "two-track" Communion, with Churches prepared to obey official policy classed as "constituent" members and those who refuse to curb their autonomy being given "associate" status.
The "associate" Churches would still be bound by historic links but would not share the same constitutional structures, he suggested.
In a phrase that will alarm liberals, the archbishop said the relationship between the constituent and associate members would be like that between the Church of England and Methodist Church.
"The 'associated' Churches would have no direct part in the decision-making of the 'constituent' Churches, though they might be observers whose views were sought or whose expertise was shared from time to time, and with whom significant areas of co-operation might be possible," he said.
The move would effectively create two strands of Anglicanism and would be widely seen as the equivalent of a schism even if no individual provinces are formally expelled.
FULL STORYat
Williams Predicts Split To Resolve Anglican Conflict
Stephen Bates, religious affairs correspondent
Wednesday June 28, 2006Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has conceded that the worldwide Anglican communion might have to break apart to resolve its vicious internecine quarrel after the appointment of an openly gay bishop.In a lengthy statement from Lambeth Palace yesterday, the archbishop, who nominally heads the 77 million-strong international church, predicted it may need to reconstitute itself into a looser federation of a hard core of central "constituent" national churches willing to sign up to a full doctrinal covenant of shared beliefs and a ring of churches "in association" but outside the constitutional structure, accepting some, but not necessarily all, Anglican beliefs and disciplines. "It is not going to look exactly like anything we have known so far," he warned in the statement, which is being sent to the archbishops and presiding bishops of churches in the third-largest Christian denomination.
FULL STORY at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1807635,00.html
Archbishop raises idea of splitAnglican Leader Ponders Split