First, though, a word about GAFCON. It came out of a gathering of a number of Primates (heads of provinces in the Anglican Communion) and other leaders in Nairobi in December. Mainly from the Global South-Africa, Asia, and Latin America- they represented more than 30 million of the Communion's 55 million active members. They met to consider the way forward amid the current Anglican divisions and confusions.

They decided, as announced on Christmas Eve, on a conference, namely GAFCON, to be held in Jerusalem from June 15 to 22 and to invite to it "fellow Bishops, senior clergy and laity from every province." As subsequently elaborated by Archbishop Akinola, its purpose is mutual support and the consideration of current challenges to orthodoxy, notably the allowance by some of "modern culture to overwhelm the word of God." GAFCON will have in mind the Lambeth Conference convening in England six weeks later but will not challenge it, at least not directly. For some bishops are likely to attend both conferences. (See www.gafcon.org)

The run-up to the HOB meeting; Canterbury's role

Now for the sequence of events giving rise to GAFCON. (Note: Herein "Canterbury" denotes both Archbishop Rowan Williams and the officialdom adjacent to him in Lambeth Palace and elsewhere, without apportionment of responsibility.) The story goes back to, and before, the 2003 General Convention of TEC with inter alia its ratification of an actively homosexual Bishop of New Hampshire and its acceptance of same-sex blessings. This article's focus will be the present chapter, beginning effectively with the Primates' Meeting in Dar es Salaam in February 2007. Their communiqué made specific requests of TEC. Among these were (1) acceptance of a Pastoral Council to which dioceses and congregations dissenting from the actions of the 2003 General Convention could adhere and (2) suspension of lawsuits against congregations that had left it for other jurisdictions. More especially, they called for clarifications by the TEC HOB of its position on consecration of additional homosexual bishops and authorization of same-sex blessings. For although the 2006 General Convention had given some assurances, they felt that these fell short of those called for in the Windsor Report of October 2004. Further, they asked for these clarifications by September 30, 2007. The first two requests TEC could and did reject out of hand, the former by the HOB meeting of March 2007 and the latter by a statement of the Presiding Bishop's Chancellor. But action on the clarifications had to await the next regularly scheduled HOB meeting, in September.

Prior to September, in fact in May, Canterbury, the other main actor, issued invitations to the 2008 Lambeth Conference. And contrary to previous practice, he invited individual bishops, not whole provinces through their Primates. This enabled him to withhold invitations from certain bishops. Among these were the Bishop of New Hampshire on the one hand but also, on the other, bishops consecrated for America by Global South provinces. But here already he seemed to be undercutting the role that the Primates' Meeting had come to play since the 2003 General Convention, notably through their calling TEC to account at their emergency Meeting in October 2003 and their Meeting in Dromantine in February 2005 as well as their February 2007 Meeting in Dar es Salaam.

As well as excluding certain bishops consecrated by the Global South, Canterbury's invitation included the Bishop of New Hampshire's consecrators. These features were already barriers to Global South attendance at Lambeth. Then an additional difficulty was posed when Canterbury's design team indicated that the Conference would be structured largely around fellowship among the invited bishops. This seemed to preclude consideration of resolutions such 1.10 of the 1998 Conference affirming the traditional view of sexuality, making it likely that there would be only further inconclusive discussion of the issues dividing the Communion.

The HOB's response to the Primates

The HOB meeting when it took place, from September 20 to 25, was closely watched to see if it would at last speak clearly, one way or the other, regarding its acceptance of Communion discipline. For the intention of the Primates' requests was surely to elicit such decisiveness. Also watched was Canterbury, who was in attendance for part of the meeting, for what he might say. But once again the HOB, and through it TEC, gave more a semblance of compliance than the substance. And Canterbury, in addressing the meeting, spoke only of his "gratitude" for the American bishops. The specific HOB responses to the Primates' requests were the following.

* We reconfirm that resolution B-033 of General Convention 2006 (The Election Of Bishops) calls upon bishops with jurisdiction and Standing Committees "to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion."

* We pledge as a body not to authorize public rites for the blessing of same-sex unions.

These statements may seem compliant; Canterbury, as noted, expressed nothing to the contrary. (Only Archbishop Mouneer Anis of Jerusalem and the Middle East, who was also in attendance, spoke the truth about TEC to the HOB.) Nevertheless they may be regarded as evasions. The first is not the HOB's own undertaking but instead a reference back to the action of the 2006 General Convention, which the Primates had already deemed unsatisfactory, which some 20 TEC bishops had declared they would not be bound by, and which the HOB itself considered subject to change by the 2009 General Convention. And the second does not preclude authorizations, and even less tolerations, by individual bishops of same-sex blessings. That the latter are continuing was shown at that very time in the case of Bishop John Bruno of Los Angeles. His statement that same-sex blessings were not authorized in his diocese coincided with an announcement in the New York Times of one that had just taken place there

Canterbury's response to the HOB response

Logically, since a Primates' Meeting had made the requests of the HOB, it would have been up to another Meeting to assess the HOB response. And given the predominance among the Primates of the Global South, it is likely that they would have found it wanting. Thus if Canterbury had called one, as several of them urged him to do, there would have been a measure of discipline for TEC, and on this basis the possibility of a continuing coherence for the Communion, for which some discipline is necessary. But he did not. For his assessment of the TEC HOB response he turned instead to the Standing Committees of the Primates and of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC). That in their joint report they considered the HOB response to be adequate should not be surprising. Of the Primates' Standing Committee, TEC Presiding Bishop Schori was herself a member, along with other liberal Western Primates. Another member, the truth-telling Archbishop Mouneer Anis, in issuing a dissent complained that he had not seen the report before it was issued. And the staunchly orthodox Archbishop Orombi of Uganda, fearful of the outcome, had not participated in the discussion. The ACC, for its part, has been said to be heavily dependent on financing by TEC.

To be sure, Canterbury also conducted a canvass of the Primates to ascertain their views of the HOB response, as if to mitigate his reliance on the Standing Committee's joint report. But he contacted them individually rather than as a body, and he did not divulge who said what, leaving him free to give his own interpretation of their responses. This may be seen as a further downplaying of the Primates' Meeting.

In conjunction with the foregoing, Canterbury's Advent Letter, dated December 14, deserves attention. For it contains his own words rather than inferences drawn from his actions.

The Letter, a model of limpid prose, starts off promisingly. It concedes that Canterbury's canvass of the Primates produced "no consensus" about the HOB meeting. It asserts the need of members of the Communion for mutual recognition of its "constitutive elements," the foremost being the authority of Scripture. "We recognize each other in one fellowship when we see one another 'standing under' the word of Scripture." And it makes additional orthodox-friendly statements, beginning with

When one part of the family makes a decisive move that plainly implies a new understanding of Scripture that has not been received and agreed by the wider Church, it is not surprising that others find a problem in knowing how far they are still speaking the same language.

It continues with the problems that such new understandings pose in relations locally and in ecumenical and interfaith encounters. And it acknowledges the ability of these to prompt other provinces to intervene. But at this point it makes a critical turn. This is its failure to recognize that the interventions that have taken place were not unilaterally decided on by Global South provinces but instead were responses to pleas from American congregations severely repressed by their liberal bishops. This failure leaves the way open to the condemnation of these interventions which the Letter expresses. There is a possible parallel here with Canterbury's recent advocacy of the inclusion of elements of Sharia law in the British legal system. In each case, despite his clarity about overarching principles, he overlooks practical implications, as if his vision did not penetrate to people on the ground: Muslim women whom Sharia would further disadvantage; orthodox congregations left entirely to the mercies of their oppressors.

The Letter's approach to TEC falls similarly short. It states, realistically enough, that nothing further by way of recantation is likely to be obtained from TEC. But it appears to accept this as a given rather than something that, as in the case of interventions, is to be condemned. It speaks of the Communion's responsibility for TEC as a reason to maintain relations with it. But real responsibility would seem to require that it be held accountable for its disruptions, that it be brought under discipline.

Even more serious is the Letter's reliance on "facilitated" discussions between representatives of opposing views to resolve the Communion's impasse. This is to take no account of the fact that years of earnest efforts involving both sides have failed to resolve the issues. From the Letter it appears that Canterbury, while denying a disciplinary role to the Primates' Meeting, has no effective alternatives to offer for maintaining the Communion's cohesion. To be sure, he looks ahead to the Lambeth Conference this summer. But as already noted, there is no indication that it will produce anything definitive.

In conclusion

Two questions remain to be addressed. One is what has prompted the course that Canterbury has taken. Among the possibilities suggesting themselves is a belief, on ecclesiological and/or practical grounds, that the Communion simply ought not to ostracise TEC, despite the distress which its actions have caused. Another, compatible with this, is a desire to maintain the Communion's status quo, or status quo ante, of predominant influence by the liberal West, rather than to allow this to pass to the Global South and its conservative western allies. To these ends the most effective approach may have seemed to be to prolong discussions as far as possible, in hopes that conservatives would eventually tire of the struggle and that divisions would emerge among them. Canterbury's course seems at least consistent with this strategy, and to be achieving considerable success.

The other question is our initial one: whether the Global South Primates, in the face of the HOB meeting's outcome and Canterbury's fostering of it, had any real alternative to GAFCON. In principle, they could have taken no action at all. But thereby they would have accepted relegation of the Primates' Meeting to its pre-2003 insignificance. Further, they would have broken ranks with their western allies, who in the wake of the HOB meeting have already stuck their necks out. Notable among these are the dioceses of Pittsburgh and of Fort Worth, which in November moved to secede from TEC, and the diocese of San Joaquin which in December actually did so. They thereby exposed themselves to inhibitions and lawsuits by the Presiding Bishop. Among them also is the still-fledgling Common Cause Partnership, consisting of the Anglican Communion Network, CANA under the auspices of Nigeria, the AMiA under the auspices of Rwanda, and bodies which seceded from TEC in the past. Its incorporation followed immediately on the HOB meeting. All these enterprises would be compromised by passivity on the part of the Global South. Even more serious would be loss of the Global South's own distinctive dynamism, through its being shown to lack the courage of its convictions about the gospel.

Another in principle alternative would have been to forego GAFCON and concentrate on making a showing at the Lambeth Conference this summer. Indeed the main criticism that conservative dissenters from GAFCON have leveled against it is that it will detract from Lambeth, which could otherwise be a chance to sort out the issues confronting the Communion. This was the burden of a message protesting GAFCON sent out recently over the names of 13 English bishops. Along these lines Bishop Tom Wright of Durham has been particularly outspoken, asserting that GAFCON is the project of certain western conservatives rather than of the Global South. But is the confidence of these critics in Lambeth really justified? Given what has already been announced of its design, and the track record of discussions over the last five years, Lambeth seems highly unlikely to result in other than a further postponement of the issues. And as for GAFCON being orchestrated by a few whites, this supposition betrays a continuing western stereotype about the competence of the Global South leaders, as pointed out by Dr. Vinay Samuel, who was present at the Nairobi gathering in December and is himself an Indian.

From the standpoint even of the Global South, GAFCON is not an ideal answer to the HOB meeting's outcome and Canterbury's espousal of it. It has evoked not only the aforementioned criticism from English bishops but also concern from Archbishop Mouneer Anis over the choice of the Jerusalem venue, thereby highlighting divisions in conservative ranks. But the Lord seldom provides us with ideal options. In obedience to him we are called instead to choose the best one available and to pursue it boldly, trusting in him to make good its deficiencies. Conceivably, out of the obedience of the Global South and its leaders he may bring forth a new center, more valid than heretofore, around which the Anglican Communion can cohere.

---The Rev. Theodore L. Lewis is part-time non-stipendiary assistant and resident theologian of All Saints' Church, Chevy Chase, Maryland. He can be reached at theodorell@aol.com