c. 1999 Religion News Service
DUNDEE, Scotland _ Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey opened the 11th meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council on Wednesday (Sept. 15) with a gentle rebuke of his host, Bishop Richard Holloway, primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and a missing prelate _ Archbishop Moses Tay of Singapore, who refused to attend the meeting because he disagrees with Holloway.
The dispute between the two prelates is emblematic of the divisions on such issues as women’s ordination and human sexuality that run through the 70 million-member Anglican Communion, the worldwide fellowship that includes the Episcopal Church in the United States. It prompted Carey to use his presidential address to the 70 bishops, clergy and laity who make up the ACC to again plead for unity. The group meets every two or three years between the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference, the gathering of all the world’s Anglican bishops.
Carey’s gentle rebuke was prompted in part by Holloway’s recent book,”Godless Morality,”in which the bishop of Edinburgh argues that religion should be left out of moral decision-making.
Tay, a leading traditionalist in the communion, refused to come to the ACC meeting and in a letter to Carey accused Holloway, who is also an ardent advocate of gay rights in the church, of making”horrendous and heretical statements.” Tay also expressed his distress at”the increasing number of bishops and primates who are deliberately going against”the 1998 Lambeth Conference’s resolutions on biblical authority and morality _ a reference to the resolution on human sexuality that rejected homosexual practice as incompatible with scripture.”The heart of his concern,”Carey said in his speech,”which I know is shared by some, is that the (Anglican) Communion is deviating from its traditional roots of faith. I don’t think that is true for a moment.” At the same time, Carey expressed his disagreement with Holloway’s central thesis that God must be left out of moral debate.
He said that in history some parts of the church had indeed operated on the basis of fear by claiming divine authority for its commandments and prohibitions with eternal punishment for those who disobeyed.”But surely to conclude that we must turn our back on scriptural insights and teachings, the body of doctrine in the church formed over the years, and theological learning, is an unacceptable option for us,”Carey said.”If there is such a thing as a `godless morality,’ it cannot be a fully formed Christian morality, even if there is a significant overlap.” Carey also renewed his call for unity in the church and warned dissident conservatives such as those in the United States who have threatened to form their own Anglican denomination not to take any unilateral action.
The archbishop, who is the spiritual head of the worldwide communion, said he did not believe that unbounded diversity was a defining characteristic of Anglicanism and the church did not live by the principle that”anything goes”_ a charge leveled against the liberal wing of the church by conservatives.
But he quickly added his warning against unilateral action.”No one has the right to take decisions which affect the whole,”he said.”The moment the `local’ _ and this is good Catholic and Anglican theology _ wrests decisions from the whole, it is engaging in division.”No diocese should take unilateral action which impairs the life of the whole province in which it is set. … No province should take unilateral action which affects and impairs the whole communion,”he added.”That only denies the nature of our communion and declares that in reality we are no more than a federation of independent churches. That clearly is not our ecclesiology, and we have to say so, again and again and again. To engage in division itself undermines truth.” Carey said he hoped those”tempted to go their own way”will”hold back and have faith in the loving purposes of God. … The unity of the body is so precious that those who risk undermining it are hurting the one (Jesus) whose body it is.” DEA END NOWELL
