Anglican Communion May Be Beyond Repair --Justin Welby

During the last eighteen months or so I have had the opportunity to
visit thirty-six other Primates of the Anglican Communion at various
points. This has involved a total of 14 trips lasting 96 days in all.
I incidentally calculated that it involves more than eleven days
actually sitting in aeroplanes. This seemed to be a good moment
therefore to speak a little about the state of the Communion and to
look honestly at some of the issues that are faced and the possible
ways forward.

A Flourishing Communion
First of all, and this needs to be heard very clearly, the Anglican
Communion exists and is flourishing in roughly 165 countries. There
has been comment over the last year that issues around the Communion
should not trouble us in the Church of England because the Communion
has for all practical purposes ceased to exist. Not only does it
exist, but almost everywhere (there are some exceptions) the links to
the See of Canterbury, notwithstanding its Archbishop, are profoundly
valued. The question as to its existence is therefore about what it
will look like in the future. That may be very different, and I will
come back to the question.

Secondly, Anglicanism is incredibly diverse. To sit, in the space of a
few months, in meetings with the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal
Church, the Primate of Australia, the Primate of South Africa, the
Moderator of the Church of South India, the Primate of Nigeria and
many others is to come away utterly daunted by the differences that
exist. They are huge, beyond capacity to deal with adequately in the
time for this presentation. Within the Communion there are perhaps
more than 2,000 languages and perhaps more than 500 distinct cultures
and ways of looking at the world. Some of its churches sit in the
middle of what are literally the richest parts of the globe, and have
within them some of the richest people on earth. The vast majority
are poor. Despite appearances here, we are a poor church for the poor.
Many are in countries where change is at a rate that we cannot even
begin to imagine. I think of the man I met in Papua New Guinea who is
a civil engineer and whose grandfather was the first of his tribe to
see a wheel as a small aircraft landed in a clearing in the forest.

At the same time there is a profound unity in many ways. Not in all
ways, but having said what I have about diversity, which includes
diversity on all sorts of matters including sexuality, marriage and
its nature, the use of money, the relations between men and women, the
environment, war and peace, distribution of wealth and food, and a
million other things, underpinning us is a unity imposed by the Spirit
of God on those who name Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. This
diversity is both gift and challenge, to be accepted and embraced, as
we seek to witness in truth and love to the good news of Jesus Christ.

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