First Among Equals:
JUSTIN WELBY Archbishop of Canterbury Challenging times The Archbishop of Canterbury is primus inter pares (first among equals) in his presidency over the worldwide Anglican Communion, an international association of churches consisting of the Church of England and regional Anglican churches in full communion with it. The Archbishop is the spiritual leader of a diverse, global body with an estimated worldwide membership of 80 million, encompassing a wide spectrum of belief and practice including evangelical, liberal and Catholic. Spiritual leadership of Anglicans comes with challenges that are not new today. The line of Archbishops of Canterbury goes back over 1400 years to St Augustine, who arrived in Kent in 597 AD, having been sent by Pope Gregory I on a mission to the English. The list of occupants of the Chair of St. Augustine includes St Thomas Becket, martyred in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170; Stephen Langton who is credited with dividing the bible into the standard arrangement of chapters used today and Thomas Cramer, a leader of the English Reformation who was burned at the stake in 1556 during the reign of Queen Mary. William Laud who was executed in office in 1645 in the midst of the English Civil War for his opposition to radical forms of Puritanism and his support for the Royal family.
Anglican world.’ Archbishop Okoh concluded that the resignation was not good news until the next leader ‘pulls back the Anglican Communion from the edge of total destruction.’ Is it hyperbole to say that the Communion is on the edge of total destruction? Controversy over positions on issues of human sexuality and the appointment of female clergy have widened the fissures in the church and led to splits within the communion, with Evangelical Anglicans in Nigeria and liberal Episcopalians in North America being on opposite poles. As the clefts have widened, provinces in the Global South have declared themselves to be impaired communion with their Western counterparts and different alternatives to the Communion (such as GAFCON) have been set up to include or exclude different groups across the world. Whether or not they consider the Communion to be on the edge of total destruction, many would agree that the current situation presents significant challenges for the incumbent Archbishop.
While there is little risk of martyrdom for a 21st century occupant of the chair of St Augustine, leading the Anglican Communion is no less demanding than it was 400 years ago. In fact, commenting on Rowan Williams’ resignation, the Archbishop of Nigeria, Right Reverend Nicholas Okoh wrote in the Anglican Ink on 18 March 2012 that Archbishop Williams was ‘leaving behind a Communion in tatters: highly polarized, bitterly factionalized, with issues of revisionist interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and human sexuality as stumbling blocks to oneness, evangelism and mission all around the
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