Currently reading: The Caroline Divines and the Church of Rome by Mark Langham 📚
Now that developments have occurred in the Episcopal Church of North America and the Anglican Church of Canada (and, to a lesser extent, in the Anglican Church in Australia) which are unacceptable to a large number of Provinces elsewhere, what can be salvaged of the notion of communion for Anglicanism?171 Calls to strengthen the internal bonds of the communion are read by some Anglicans as a move towards imposition of an un-Anglican uniformity, and they have in reaction emphasised the diversity that, for them, essentially characterises Anglicanism. In a 2007 address outlining the polity of the Episcopalian Church, the Bishop of Lexington rejected the concept of an Anglican ‘communion’, preferring to speak of ‘a voluntary association of autonomous churches bound together by a shared heritage from the Church of England and enjoying cooperative relationships for the purpose of mission [and] nothing more’.172 Such an assertion leaves no clear role or protection for the concept of orthodoxy, and consequently undermines the case for apostolicity and catholicity. It is for this reason that at this time the writings of the Caroline Divines are particularly important, as they express a clear vision, scripturally and patristically based, and guaranteed by a clear sense of orthodoxy, of the catholicity and apostolicity of the Church. Such a teaching can provide an important reference point for the contemporary Anglican Communion in its difficulties.