ACI: 'COMMUNION & DISCIPLINE' SUBMITTED TO LAMBETH COMMISSION

This paper has been written for the Lambeth Commission in response to an express request from the Commission’s officers for a constructive paper that would assist them in their forthcoming meetings. It has been written by a number of theologians associated with the Anglican Communion Institute (ACI).

This organization seeks through conferences and scholarly writings to encourage creative and thoughtful engagement with Anglican theology and practice within the context of the Communion’s life in the world. Its recent publications such as Nicene Christianity indicate its commitment not only to careful scholarship but also to a generous, ecumenical, and dynamic orthodoxy, rooted firmly in Scripture and the Creedal Tradition.

More recently, however, it has sought of necessity to place its theological resources at the disposal of the wider Anglican Communion in its struggles with the vexed issue of homosexuality and the varied responses to this within the Communion. In this difficult time, which threatens (in the words of the Primates gathered at Lambeth last October) to “tear the very fabric of our Communion,” it would have been an irresponsible form of scholarship that failed to offer its assistance based on our commitments to the Communion, to Anglicanism, to scholarship, as well as to godly living and pastoral practice.

The entire paper can be downloaded in PDF form from the Anglican Communion website.

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