This book is about how Anglicans can find each other around a common confession of faith and doctrine in a coherent way that is Biblical, apostolic, catholic and classically Anglican. Its premise is simple: Conciliar decision making (placing final ecclesiastical authority in church councils) has never been practiced at the international level of the Anglican Communion, where governance developed through “bonds of affection” while there was still a shared faith and doctrine. That consensus collapsed during the 20th Century, so that survival of the Anglican Communion is now in question. What would it look like if, at the international level, Anglicans were to make decisions together in the same conciliar way of decision-making that is found among the national Anglican Churches and their sub-jurisdictions? Such an extrapolation “From below” begins by examining the laws of various Anglican Churches to identify the common principles and practices of the “Church meeting to decide together.”
In sum this book proposes that the established theory and practice of Anglican conciliarism can be a viable organizing principle for the entire Communion of Anglican Churches – and does so from a canonical approach, that this, from an examination of the laws of Anglican churches:
• Chapters ONE and TWO examine the evidence for the principles and practice of conciliar decision-making in the laws and canons of the Church of England – from before the Reformation to the present.
• Chapter THREE examines the evidence from four representative Churches (Australia, South East Asia, Nigeria, and Ireland), with two of their dioceses each. Since this is a canonical study “from below” of the actual laws (constitutions and canons) of these Churches, the Chapter is heavily footnoted with citations to those laws.
• Chapters FOUR and FIVE focus on the historical development of Eleven (11) Principles and Practices of conciliarism, from the Great Schism of the 14th and 15th Century Medieval Catholic Church to the Reformation in the 16th Century.
• Chapter SIX examines the loss of conciliar principles and practices at the global level of Anglican Communion in light of unilateral actions by some Churches in the last 50 years that have stretched the current “Instruments of Communion” beyond the breaking point.
• Chapters SEVEN documents the significant differences in the principles and practice of conciliarism among the two contrasting North American Provinces and their sub-sets.
• Chapter EIGHT extrapolates the evidence in order to propose a model for conciliarism at the global level of Communion governance. The model that is proposed seeks to overcome the causitive “deficit of authority” via Fundamental Declarations, giving enhanced responsibility to Primates for doctrine, discipline and order, and a “Council of the Anglican Communion.” conciliar principles in this proposed model seek to promote “communion” and mission that is both loyal to its Christological center and intelligible to Anglicans and other Christians all over the world.
• Chapter NINE explains why the proposed and failed Anglican Communion Covenant is no substitute for the adoption of Fundamental Declarations of faith and doctrine. •
Chapter TEN explains why a shared and common good is essential to the very nature of Communion, and how that common good is rooted in the Scriptures themselves – specifically in Philippians 2:5-11.
Included as an Appendix is a comparison and contrast between the laws of the Churches in North America – The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church in North America, and two of their dioceses each – around the same Eleven Principles and Practices of Anglican conciliarism.
