The Anglican Communion seems to be epitomized by the primates’ meetings and the decennial Lambeth Conferences. Some traditionalists seem to think that, if the Episcopal Church’s bishops weren’t invited to the 2008 Lambeth Conference, or if our presiding bishop didn’t attend the primates’ meetings, we’d lose our co-equal status in the Communion, and thus that which (supposedly) makes TEC “special” as a church.
But the “Anglican Communion” is something of a phantom:
- The Lambeth Conference resembles nothing so much as the U.S. Conference of Mayors (except that the Lambeth Conference meets only every ten years and only by invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury).
- The primates’ meetings appear to be closely analogous to the U.S. National Governors Association.
- And the other “instruments of Communion” — which some trads are quietly starting to call “Instruments of Unity” — namely the Anglican Consultative Council and the Archbishop of Canterbury, have essentially zero real authority in the churches of the Communion (except of course for the ABC’s primatial authority in the Church of England).
Suppose a politician were to claim that his state owed its political identity to its governor’s membership in the National Governors Association and its mayors’ invitations to U.S. Conference of Mayors meetings. His constituency would think it decidedly odd.
It’s likewise decidedly odd to think the Episcopal Church’s ecclesiastical identity is primarily symbolized by our PB’s attendance at primates’ meetings and our bishops’ invitations to Lambeth.
The Episcopal Church existed long before the Anglican Communion did. If we were to stop participating in its various meetings, and even if we were booted out entirely, life would go on — and maybe we could even get back to work bringing people to God.
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