1. For the Sake of the Kingdom (London: Anglican Consultative Council, 1986), para. 97, p. 60.Google Scholar

2. See Journal of the General Convention, 2000.Google Scholar In an action directly contrary to the advice of the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, The General Convention of ECUSA held in 2000 mandated that in the future all diocese of the Episcopal Church open the ordination process to women. (See, e.g., Resolution III.4 of the Lambeth Conference of Bishops, 1998.) This action on the part of the General Convention effectively did away with a ‘conscience clause’ that had been in effect since the General Convention sanctioned the ordination of women in 1976.

3. The Lambeth Conference 1948 (London: SPCK, 1948), p. 84.Google Scholar

4. For a helpful and interesting discussion of the authority of these sources for Anglican theology see Henry Chadwick, ‘Tradition, Fathers and Councils’, in Sykes, Stephen and Booty, John (eds.), The Study of Anglicanism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), pp. 91–105.Google Scholar See also Doe, Norman, Canon Law in the Anglican Communion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), pp. 197–200, 378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Only rarely do Anglicans go on to draw an important implication from this belief; namely, if agreement cannot be reached about what constitutes ecclesial integrity and tolerable diversity, the absence of the Holy Spirit ought to be assumed. For a well-argued defense of this conclusion see Radner, Ephraim, The End of the Church: A Pneumatology of Christian Division in the West (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998).Google Scholar

6. An example of the first of these inadequate strategies is the recent suggestion of the Lambeth Conference of Bishops to give more authority in settling contested issues to the Primates of the Anglican Communion. See, e.g., Dyer, J.M., Gbonigi, E., Rumalshah, M., Etchells, R., Symon, R., Clark, E.G., The Official Report of the Lambeth Conference, 1998 (Harrisburg: Morehouse Publishing, 1999)Google Scholar, Resolutions III.6a-c. An example of the second option is a paper by Professor Norman Doe presented to the March 2001 meeting of the Primates suggesting that rationalization of canon law throughout the communion is the way to deal with diversity. See also Doe, N., Canon Law in the Anglican Communion: A Worldwide Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 274–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The third strategy is illustrated by a chapter in To Mend the Net entitled ‘The Formularies @Limits of Diversity’. Here a case is made for the authority of formularies such as the Ordinal and the Articles of Religion in settling contested matters. (Gomez, Drexel and Sinclair, Maurice [eds.], To Mend the Net: Anglican Faith and Order for Renewed Mission [Carrollton, TX: The Ekklesia Society, 2001], pp. 93–105).Google Scholar The decision of the Ecclesiastical Court in the trial of Bishop Walter Righter for heresy provides an example of the final strategy. The court found against the plaintiffs because it judged that the defendant, in ordaining a non-abstaining homosexual, had not violated ‘core doctrine’. (See Reno, R.R., ‘An Analysis of the Righter Decision’, Pro Ecclesia 5.4 [1997], pp. 392–96).Google Scholar

7. The notion of core doctrine may be taken as analogous to others like ‘fundamentals’ or ‘essentials’. Stephen Sykes has shown with remarkable clarity how difficult these ideas are to employ in any controlled and helpful manner. He points out that there is no agreement about what the fundamentals are, that the basis of their authority in an undivided church is difficult to sustain, and that they have proven themselves again and again ineffective as a means of overcoming ecclesial division. See Sykes, Stephen, ‘The Fundamentals of Christianity’, in Sykes and Booty (eds.), The Study of Anglicanism, pp. 231–44 (242).Google Scholar See also Sykes, Stephen, The Integrity of Anglicanism (London: Mowbray, 1978), pp. 11–14.Google Scholar

8. I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness for the primary form and content of the argument that follows to an unpublished article by the Revd Dr Ephraim Radner entitled, ‘Authority in Anglicanism: A Paper for the Methodist Episcopal Dialogue, February 2003’.

9. Radner, , ‘Authority in Anglicanism’, p. 7.Google Scholar

10. For a description of this erosion and a suggestion as to how it might be reversed see Turner, Philip, ‘The Way Forward’, The Anglican Digest 44.4 (Transfiguration 2002), pp. 57s–63.Google Scholar

11. See Reno, R.R., In the Ruins of the Church: Sustaining Faith in an Age of Diminished Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2002), pp. 83–96, 149–64.Google Scholar

12. I owe this brief history in large measure to DrRadner, Ephraim's paper, ‘Authority in Anglicanism’.Google Scholar

13. See The First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI (London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, 1957), pp. 286–88.Google Scholar

14. The First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI, p. 8.Google Scholar

15. The First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI, p. 287.Google Scholar

16. The First and Second Prayer Books of Edward VI, p. 287.Google Scholar

17. Cranmer, Thomas, ‘Preface to the Great Bible’, http://wwwbible-researcher.com/cranmer.html, p. 4.Google Scholar

18. Radner, , ‘Authority in Anglicanism’, p. 8.Google Scholar

19. Radner, , ‘Authority in Anglicanism’, p. 14.Google Scholar

20. Radner, , ‘Authority in Anglicanism’, p. 14.Google Scholar For the original actions, resolutions and correspondence see Journals of the first conventions (ed. William Stevens Perry; Claremont, NH, 1874).

21. See ‘An Open Opinion on the Authority of General Convention’. This statement can be viewed on the website of The Living Church (http://www.livingchurch.org) and on that of SEAD (Society for Ecumenical Doctrine) International (http://www.seadinternational.com).

22. It is well to note, however, that the American arrangement of a convention of the whole was different from the separate but interacting institutions of the Church of England. The English institutions served to make decisions based on consensus; but, because of their greater degree of separation, they necessarily went through a more gradual process than their American counterpart to reach their goal. The American arrangement brought about more immediate results, but at a cost. The cost is decisions reached in haste by a body that is dominated by its own internal dynamics, and that has no on-going accountability to a constituency.

23. Radner, , ‘Authority in Anglicanism’, p. 14.Google Scholar

24. For a recent description of the interlocking councils that define Anglican polity and canon law see Doe, , Canon Law, esp. pp. 43–126, 339–82.Google Scholar

25. ‘An Open Opinion’, p. 8.Google Scholar

26. ‘An Open Opinion’, p. 8.Google Scholar

27. Bishop Gore thought he could stave off the effects of biblical criticism by elevating the status of the creeds. Thus, a reference more primary than Scripture itself was elevated to a position of supreme importance. Bishop Gore failed to notice that the creeds can be subject to the same critical analysis as can be the books of the Bible. He thus failed to secure a place for the defense of Christian belief that stood, as it were, above Holy Scripture as a means of protecting its essential content.

28. See Sykes, Stephen, ‘Anglicanism and the Doctrine of the Church’, in Unashamed Anglicanism (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), pp. 116–18.Google Scholar In the same volume see also ‘Authority in the Church of England’, p. 168Google Scholar where he writes: ‘Giving the whole people of God access to the Scriptures through the interpretive medium of the liturgy was the fundamental catechetical act of empowering the people, taken in the sixteenth century’.

29. See Sykes, , The Integrity of Anglicanism, pp. 44–52.Google Scholar

30. Sykes, , The Integrity of Anglicanism, pp. 61–75.Google Scholar

31. Sykes, , The Integrity of Anglicanism, pp. 50–51.Google Scholar Sykes is right to contend that Anglicanism has doctrinal content and not simply theological method. Nevertheless, I question his location of this content primarily in the doctrine of the incarnation. I believe, rather, that it is the doctrine of the trinity that is most basic to Anglican belief and practice. Justifying this belief would, however, take an article, if not a book, in itself. Suffice it to say that I believe that prayer to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit lies at the center of the doctrinal content of the Book of Common Prayer. It is for this reason that I believe the most serious issue in respect of ecclesial integrity and tolerable diversity that faces the Anglican Communion does not concern women's ordination or the ethics of sex, but attempts to diminish or rid ECUSA's Book of Common Prayer of use of the Trinitarian name, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

32. Cited in Sykes, The Integrity of Anglicanism, p. 43. For Wiles' original essay see, Christian Believing (London: Doctrine Commission of the Church of England, 1976), p.130.

33. Sykes, Stephen, The Integrity of Anglicanism, p. 44.Google Scholar

34. The charge for the Primates of the Anglican Communion to assume an ‘enhanced responsibility’ was given in Resolution III.6 of the Lambeth Conference of Bishops held in 1998.

35. Gomez, and Sinclair, (eds.), To Mend the Net, p. 29.Google Scholar

36. Gomez, and Sinclair, (eds.), To Mend the Net, p. 29.Google Scholar

37. Since completing the initial draft of this article, the General Convention of ECUSA has given consent to the election of an openly gay man to be Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire and has passed a resolution that in effect gives permission for dioceses that so choose to allow for the blessing of gay unions. These two actions have posed the very issue addressed in this article; namely, whether or not the Anglican Communion will remain a communion, become a federation, or divide in some way. These are the issues at stake in the current debate over ecclesial integrity and tolerable diversity.

38. For a discussion of the disorderly way in which the ordination of women became a practice of ECUSA see Turner, Philip, ‘Communion, Order and the Ordination of Women’, Pro Ecclesia 2.3 (1993), pp. 275–84Google Scholar; ‘Episcopal Authority in a Divided Church’, Pro Ecclesia 8.1 (1999), pp. 23–50.Google Scholar

39. Dyer, et al. , The Official Report of the Lambeth ConferenceGoogle Scholar, Res. III.4.

40. Cited by Doe, in Canon Law, p. 26.Google Scholar For the statement of fundamentals see The Constitution and Canons of the Anglican Church of Korea (1992).Google Scholar

41. For a more extended defense of the argument that follows see Turner, Philip, ‘The “Communion” of Anglicans after Lambeth '98: A Comment on the Nature of Communion and the State of the Church’, Anglican Theological Review 81.2 (1999), pp. 281–93.Google Scholar