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Now, of course it's open to people to come back and say episcopacy has broken down because of this and this. But then the critical thing, and this is where it is very similar, is that we have mechanisms—they demand patience, of course, which many of us don't have in great supply. But we have mechanisms for bringing things to the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates' Meeting, and ultimately to the Archbishop of Canterbury himself. And the real charge against New Hampshire and New Westminster, according to the mandate we were given, is not so much that they are hallowing, consecrating people who are practicing homosexual relations, though of course that is the underlying issue. The real charge that we were making is that they were going ahead with innovations without giving the proper theological rational, without paying attention to the rest of the communion, without doing all the things which as Anglicans we all thought we were signed up to doing before people make innovations.

The bishops and archbishops who have intervened in other people's provinces and dioceses are, in effect, at that level making the same error. The question underlying it, of how liberal American Christianity may have got, is the presenting issue, but we were very concerned that this report should not simply be addressing the currently presenting issues, but should be working out what it means to be the Anglican Communion for the 21st century. We're looking way ahead of current crises and we're saying we'd like to set up and see a framework which will enable us to be faithful, wise Anglicans in communion with one another in 20 years' time, in a way which will mean we don't have to have this kind of crisis again. It's hugely expensive getting all the people together and having all the extra meetings. What happened in New Westminster and New Hampshire has cost the Anglican Communion tens of thousands of pounds, which we could ill afford, when we're all actually more interested in spending money on taking our mission forward, not in trying to sort out our own backyard.

Theologian Kendall Harmon mentions that when there was a false teacher in the early church, orthodox bishops considered that see vacant and would go into that diocese.

This, of course, relates to several other questions, and it's not simply as easy as that, because who says that so and so is a false teacher? There's an article in this morning's London Times by our old friend Jack Spong. And actually I would recommend reading that article to anyone who thinks the report is not orthodox enough, because Spong is absolutely terrified that the report is far too orthodox and far too conservative. I read that and thought we must have done something right.

But the critical thing is that Spong, you see, would say that George Carey was a false teacher and that what George Carey did in influencing the Lambeth Conference in 1998 was so damaging that that now justifies other people acting against that. So you have to have some way of getting a handle on this and not simply one bishop saying that his next-door neighbor is out of line and therefore he's going to invade. That has never been the Anglican way.

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October (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48