Williams Lays Out Two-Tier Membership for Anglicans

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, said Tuesday (June 27) that "the best way forward" for the deeply divided Anglican churches is to adopt a Communion-wide covenant and a two-track membership system.

Under Williams' plan, churches that agree to the as-yet-unwritten covenant would be "constituent" churches, while those that don't would be "churches in association," he said in a letter to the top bishops in each of the communion's 38 provinces.

The Episcopal Church, with 2.2 million members, is the U.S. branch of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion.

"There is no way the Anglican Communion can remain unchanged by what is happening at the moment," Williams said.

The archbishop's statement comes amid a tumultuous summer for the Episcopal Church and more conservative sister churches who have lost patience with the Americans' liberal stances.

Though the outlines of the plan remain sketchy, it seems to raise the possibility that the Episcopal Church could be pushed to the margins of Anglican life if it continues its independent-minded course on matters of human sexuality.
One of the largest U.S. parishes, Christ Church Episcopal in Plano, Texas, said Monday it plans to disassociate from the national church "as soon as possible." With an average of 2,200 Sunday worshippers, the church's size rivals some dioceses, including Nevada, whose bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, was recently elected the denomination's next presiding bishop.

In the neighboring Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, Bishop Jack Iker has asked to place his flock under the oversight of a foreign primate because he does not accept Jefferts Schori's leadership. Fort Worth is one of three U.S. dioceses, including San Joaquin, Calif., and Quincy, Ill., that does not ordain women as priests.
Williams said recent events have made clear the Communion "lacks a set of adequately developed structures with which to cope with the diversity of views that will inevitably arise in a world of rapid global communication and huge cultural variety."

While the ordination of women continues to be a source of tension in the Communion, particularly among conservative "Global South" churches, the "trigger for much of the present conflict" was the consecration of an openly gay man as bishop of New Hampshire in 2003, Williams said.

Though the consecration of Bishop V. Gene Robinson was hailed by many Episcopalians as a breakthrough for gay rights, conservative Anglicans bashed the American church's perceived abandonment of Scripture and tradition.
As archbishop of Canterbury, the fount of the original Church of England from which the Anglican Communion springs, many look to Williams to solve divisive problems. Though he lacks the power of a pope, the archbishop holds great moral sway within the church.

Continued on page 2: An Anglican covenant in the offing? »