On the eucharist, things have changed astonishingly since I was a lad. The analogy that used to be used was, “You don’t have sex before marriage.” This analogy seems to have lost its force in today’s world!!! Instead, the invitation customarily given nowadays is to all people baptised in the name of the Trinity, and even the absence of baptism is not an impediment in some Anglican churches I know of.

I’ve already mentioned how common intercommunion now is with e.g. Presbyterians. If the Anglican Communion split in two along GAFCON lines and I happened to be in Nigeria or Uganda, I wouldn’t hesitate to present myself at the altar – and if Archbishops Akinola and Orombi, after such a split, presented themselves for Communion at the altar of my own liberal church in Edinburgh, or offered to celebrate there, I’d be amazed, as well as disappointed, if this caused a problem.

As regards RCs and the Orthodox and Oriental Churches, I have an advantage in that as a young server I often served, or attended, two Masses in the days when to communicate once only in a day was the rule. I was therefore used to feeling that I had participated fully in the Mass even if I hadn’t communicated, and so when I attend an RC Mass and don’t communicate I don’t in any way feel left out, as I know those do who have never been used to non-communicating attendance within our own church.

I like the idea that the eucharist is the true meeting place – of those present, as well as between Earth and Heaven. If the Anglican Communion split tomorrow, there would be a lot of huffing and puffing from prelates and synods and committees; but for ordinary worshippers finding themselves in different (and, on paper, “not in Communion”) provinces, I don’t expect there would be the slightest bit of difference!

Completely agree with your last sentence! I suppose the question is how to hold things together in a creative tension?

It’s an interesting point you make – if I’m picking you up correctly – that there can be a meeting place in the eucharist. Sad that at the moment in the Anglican communion this is the place of rejection. Ironic that presbyterians and episcopalians in Scotland can find this meeting place when Anglicans worldwide can’t!

My point is that I still think that parallel jurisdictions – or even liturgical congregationalism – can be the lesser of two evils. Furthermore, sometimes I wonder what “being in Communion” really means. For instance, at Lambeth there are a good number of bishops who are not in communion with some of the other bishops there – I mean, of course, women bishops and those who don’t recognise them. I think it’s healthier that they are there together, co-operating insofar as they can, rather than staying away and hurling anathemata at each other. Similarly, the SEC is not “in Communion” with the Church of Scotland, and yet Episcopalians and Presbyterians frequently receive Communion in each other’s churches, often on an official basis through various kinds of ecumenical partnerships.

It seems to me far better to work together beyond our differences, rather than allowing the differences to become an insuperable barrier.

Much too boud up in authoritarian ideas. The 1950ies died many years ago.

Maybe Dr Rowan’s proposed solution could have worked thosedays, but nobody proposed it!

Many of those who oppose homosexual unions do so on the grounds that ‘it is forbidden’ and are opposed to letting the light of experience into Scripture.

To me this is a huge huge rift, and I would in no way be comfortable with a situation which turned Scripture into this kind of magic entity.

I’m perfectly happy with the transforming super evidential magic of the Eucharist, but a reductive counter evidential magic, no.

Also, there’s a bit of an easy conflation of the Qualified chapels with the later “English Episcopal” chapels, which arose in the 19th century in connection with a dispute over non-liturgical worship. This is where St Silas comes in, I think!

Gavin White’s take on all this is very interesting:

http://www.episcopalhistory.org.uk/10englishepiscopal.html

Kelvin, I suppose “reasonable” is in the eye of the beholder. I thought the address was dreadful from the beginning. My thought that won’t go away is, “Why didn’t the archbishop have Bishop Robinson in to play himself in the play-acting bit?” That would have been a good deal more authentic, don’t you think?

I keep trying to cut the ABC slack, but he makes it difficult. He truly seems not to get the human rights part. On the other hand, I like your bishop’s words quite a lot.

Well, we did have nearly three centuries of parallel jurisdictions here – from the Qualified Chapels right up to St Silas, Glasgow, in our own time. It probably saved a lot of hassle within the church and may well have been the lesser of two evils. Rather than wasting time and energy in doctrinal and ritual in-fighting, we were able to get on, in our parallel ways, with praying, worshipping and spreading the Gospel.

I agree that there’s less wrong with a Communion in which *all* provinces roam wild & free than one in which only *some* do given that the rule is *none* should at present.

It is worth noting that a sense of parochial territorial identity is something which the Scottish Episcopal Church has largely left behind and which others would regard as the bedrock of Anglicanism.