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ANGLICAN COMMUNION AT CROSSROADS
By David Phillips
When the Lambeth Commission delivers its report on Monday the crucial question will be whether the Anglican Communion is prepared to set any bounds for its belief and practice.
Every organization needs rules about what is and is not acceptable behaviour amongst its members. The Anglican Communion is being asked to decide what to do when some members deliberately break the agreed rules.
The dilemma still to be faced by the Communion is how any recommendations will be implemented.
Whilst the vast majority of practicing Anglicans now live in Africa yet it is the churches of the British Isles and North America who dominate the political bodies of the communion.
Whilst the majority of the Communion is Biblically more conservative, the western liberals, who have turned their back on the Bible, are heavily over-represented amongst the Bishops and Primates.
In the old world the Anglican churches are in decline and are being torn apart by liberalism.
Action is long overdue but unless the Communion now takes effective action against the Episcopal Church of the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada. Without such action the Communion has no future because, as the Anglican Homilies assert, discipline is a mark of the true Church.
David Phillips is General Secretary and General Synod Representative for St. Alban's Diocese and Church Society. Church Society exists to uphold biblical teaching and to promote and defend the character of the Church of England as a reformed and national Church.
