The Archbishop of Canterbury has written to the other leaders of the Anglican Communion inviting them to a special gathering to discuss its future.
A spokesman for Justin Welby said the meeting, to be held in January, would be an opportunity for them to talk face to face, including a review of the Communion’s structures, and decide together their approach to the next Lambeth Conference.
The Guardian reported that the archbishop would propose the Communion be reorganised as a group of churches linked to Canterbury but no longer necessarily to each other.
There was no confirmation of this but a Lambeth Palace source said the archbishop felt he could not leave his eventual successor in the same position of “spending vast amounts of time trying to keep people in the boat and never actually rowing it anywhere”.
And the archbishop said: “A 21st-century Anglican family must have space for deep disagreement, and even mutual criticism, so long as we are faithful to the revelation of Jesus Christ, together.”
The agenda for the meeting will be set by common agreement with all leaders encouraged to send in contributions. It is likely to include the issues of religiously motivated violence, the protection of children and vulnerable adults, the environment and human sexuality.
The archbishop said: “I have suggested to all primates that we need to consider recent developments but also look afresh at our ways of working as a Communion and especially as primates, paying proper attention to developments in the past.
“The difference between our societies and cultures, as well as the speed of cultural change in much of the global north, tempts us to divide as Christians: when the command of scripture, the prayer of Jesus, the tradition of the church and our theological understanding urges unity.
“We have no Anglican pope. Our authority as a church is dispersed, and is ultimately found in scripture, properly interpreted. In that light I long for us to meet together under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and to seek to find a way of enabling ourselves to set a course which permits us to focus on serving and loving each other.”
The proposed dates for the meeting, in Canterbury, are January 11th-16th.
The Guardian said the Archbishop believes successful discussions would allow him to maintain relations both with the liberal churches of North America, which recognise and encourage gay marriage, and the African churches, led by Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria, who are agitating for the recriminalisation of all homosexual activity in their countries.
Both will be able to call themselves “Anglican” but there will no longer be any pretence that this involves a common discipline or doctrine, it added.
The consecration in November 2003 of Canon Gene Robinson, a divorced man in a gay relationship, as bishop of New Hampshire in the US is one factor that has led to divisions within the Communion.
In July 2008 the Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade gathering of the worldwide Anglican bishops in Canterbury, passed largely without mishap after a boycott by about quarter of the bishops who objected to the presence of US bishops responsible for the consecration of Bishop Robinson. – PA