My intention is to reflect upon the expression “the Network” as used in the phrase. “the Anglican Communion Network.” This meditation may serve to clarify for people in the USA and elsewhere what is this new society/organization and where it can or will go.
It is claimed by insiders that the formation of the Network was originally suggested by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, in a private meeting in London with two Americans. Initial plans for the Convocation were laid at a gathering of “mainstream” Anglican leaders (including four Primates) in London in November 2003. A Memorandum of Agreement came out of this meeting and was ultimately signed by thirteen bishops of the Episcopal Church. The Memorandum stated the intention of these bishops to begin taking steps toward organizing a network of “confessing” dioceses and congregations within the Episcopal Church [ECUSA]. The signing of the memorandum by a bishop did not indicate that his diocese had joined the network. Since then, a total of ten dioceses — Albany, Central Florida, Dallas, Fort Worth, Pittsburgh, Quincy, Rio Grande, San Joaquin, South Carolina and Springfield — have ratified their affiliation.
The Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes was officially launched on January 20, 2004, at the Network’s Organizing Convocation held at Christ Church, Plano, Texas. That meeting included representatives from 12 Episcopal dioceses, as well as persons from geographic regions and one non-geographic area that were designated as convocations. The gathering unanimously adopted a Structural Charter and affirmed a Theological Charter. The Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan was elected Moderator of the new Network and will serve for a three-year term. The Organizing Convocation also elected a 12-member Steering Committee composed of persons from across the country. The Network was given financial help to get started and to continue by the American Anglican Council, and the two organizations remain close but distinct.
We do not know what Rowan Williams had in mind when he suggested “a Network” and we do not know whether what he understood as a network was the same model in the mind of Americans present with him, the very men who brought back the message that he had suggested a network. The word is used today in a variety of ways, for example:
- An openwork fabric or structure in which cords, threads, or wires cross at regular intervals.
- Something resembling an openwork fabric or structure in form or concept, especially:
- A system of lines or channels that cross or interconnect: a network of railroads.
- A complex, interconnected group or system: an espionage network.
- An extended group of people with similar interests or concerns who interact and remain in informal contact for mutual assistance or support.
- A chain of radio or television broadcasting stations linked by wire or microwave relay.
Then there is the growing use of “network” by international companies to describe the relation to each other of offices, plants, distribution centers, factories and the like around the world.
In most uses of this word in modern discourse, the network is a primary thing and describes the relation to each other of primary realities – e.g., the railroads that cut across the country, or the spies in a country or region, or the various physical manifestations of an international company.
However, in the religious use being considered here, the network is very much a secondary, dependent and supportive thing. The dioceses are first of all dioceses of the Episcopal Church and the parishes are first of all parts of actual dioceses. Their membership of the Network is voluntary and can be ceased at any time. Further, though persons may feel a stronger level of moral commitment to the Network than to the original ecclesial structure/institution, the fact of the matter is that their primary existence derives not from the Network but from the ECUSA. This remains true even if it is conceded that the Network is planning (though there is no evidence for this yet) to become a Province of the Anglican Communion.
Certainly the country is organized into geographical regions and non-geographical interest groups (e.g., the Forward in Faith NA) and there are local officers (who assume ecclesial titles such as “Very Rev.” !) but again this is all voluntary and all who participate have a primary residence in and legal connection to a unit of the Episcopal Church of the USA or other ecclesial body. Such organization is not new, for not a few voluntary societies have had and still have diocesan or geographical chapters across the country and they are also “networks.”
What all this means is that this specific Network is not the visible Church as such (it is not a Province with dioceses and dioceses with parishes); but, it is to be likened to a missionary society or a voluntary, not for profit, organization, or an advocacy group for a special kind of Anglicanism, or a reform movement working for changes in the Anglican Way, or something else – or all of these.
Now the Network’s full title is, “The Anglican Communion Network.” Obviously this is intended to make a statement that, as half of the provinces of the Anglican Communion are not in eucharistic or doctrinal communion with the ECUSA, this group within the ECUSA wants to maintain full communion with those provinces which have anathematized the ECUSA. Yet, we must remember that communion is wholly dependent on the gift of the bishops, dioceses and provinces outside of the ECUSA and cannot be caused by the will of the Network membership, for as Episcopalians they are, as it were, under the ban.
The oddity of the title may be seen by reflecting upon the reality that being part of the ECUSA the actual membership of the Network is actually within the very Province with which a majority of Anglican Primates and Provinces are in impaired or broken communion. So the Network membership relies on the promises of Primates from the Global South that it (i.e., they as “the orthodox”) are excluded from the blanket condemnation of the ECUSA for its innovations and refusal to repent of them. Thus the use of “Anglican Communion” functions as a statement of intent and as an expression of hope for the membership of the Network. Yet it is a “loose” expression with flexible content.
To conclude this short meditation.
When you have a voluntary society, even one which has the verbal support of important people at home and overseas, you always run the risk (in a culture where private opinion is highly rated and where doing one’s own thing is celebrated) of losing momentum, of dividing into various interest and pressure groups, and of being taken over by external or internal stronger forces. Right now, the Network appears to have a variety of goals and purposes, all of which appear honorable and noble; but unless it has a clearly stated supreme goal that is seen as worthy of sacrificing for, a clear commitment doctrinally and morally to the full Anglican Way, and unless its leadership actually walks the walk as well as talks the talk right now, it will (as I have said before) probably, like the Episcopal Synod of the early 1980s fail in its declared vocation. The only clear goal that would take genuine sacrifice and wisdom, and that I can think of, is the creation of a new, orthodox province of the Anglican Communion on American soil – a province which would include (to use the unfortunate noun preferred by the Network) not only the Network but also the present diaspora of Anglican jurisdictions outside the present ECUSA and official Anglican Communion of Churches.
(see also the related essay on the Doctrinal Basis of the Network above)
petertoon@msn.com November 29, 2005
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