Authority in the Anglican Communion

A.J. Pell is editor of the Canadian Evangelical Review and an instructor
of Liturgy, Anglican Studies Program, Regent College, Vancouver.

From 1969 to 1982, Bishop John Howe served not a particular diocese but the whole world-wide Anglican Communion, first as Executive Officer of the Anglican Communion (1969-1971) and then as Secretary General of the Anglican Consultative Council (1971-1982). He served in these posts during a period when the question of authority in the church, because of wider sociological realities and despite the 1984 Lambeth Conference statement on authority entitled “The Meaning and Unity of the Anglican Communion,” became a growing issue for Anglicans. Thus it is only appropriate that this collection of essays, compiled and edited by Stephen W. Sykes of the University of Cambridge and published in Canada, should focus on the issue of great concern to the man to whom they are presented as a mark of recognition and respect.

Following the introductory essay by the editor, “Why Authority?,” the remaining 14 essays are divided into three parts, The Theology of Authority, Anglican Structures and Usage, and The Ecumenical Future of Authority. The essayists are drawn from Africa, Australia, Britain, North America, Geneva (the World Council of Churches), and Rome (the Secretariat for Christian Unity). Topics range from “Ideology, Authority, and Faith,” to “Towards a Theology and Practice of the Bishop-in-Synod,” to “Catholicity and Authority in Anglican-Lutheran Relations.” Overall, the quality of the papers is high in both content and clarity.

In reflecting upon this collection of essays, three impressions remain. First, John Skinner has done the Christian community a great favour in his crisp distinction between ideology and faith. Ideology “is an attempt to capture the infinite, to enclose the transcendent, and to negate all critical thought” (p. 29) and thus “is an idolatrous substitution of what is proximate and finite for what is ultimate and transcendent” (p. 38). Faith “is the communal and personal response to revelatory events which focus definitively the creative and redemptive activity of God in nature and in history” which “must be able to discern the difference between the treasure and the earthen vessel which mediates that treasure to human beings” (pp. 41-42). Skinner’s essay deserves to be reprinted for wider circulation. Second, the African perspective of John Pobee, using the form of leadership and authority found in traditional centralized African societies (e.g., the Asante of Ghana) to highlight the social compact aspect of ecclesiastic authority, provides new insights in attempting to resolve the polarity developing between the authoritarian and laissez-faire styles of Anglican leadership. Finally, the ecumenical section seems, in typical Anglican fashion, to be too concerned with the attitudes and reactions of the Roman Catholic Church, an outlook which can only undermine Anglican relations with other Christian bodies, notably the promising Anglican-Lutheran dialogue.