One of the most depressing things about being a reporter these days is trying to accept the fact that we live in a split, divided, warped news marketplace in which stories that, in the past, would have been Big News for everyone are now “niche” news items that half of our journalism culture feels totally comfortable ignoring.
This happens on the journalist “right” as well as the journalism “left,” or whatever word people are using instead of “left” these days.
This just in: One of the world’s great Christian traditions — the global Anglican Communion — ran into a wall late last week. The big idea: Anglican leaders from nations that represent about 80% of all Anglicans regularly IN PEWS — as opposed to being names on membership lists that may or may not be relevant — voted to cut the ties between Canterbury and the most of the Anglican Communion.
I’ve been watching for elite media coverage all weekend. Here is a Google News file with logical search terms. Please click that search, which was made Sunday night. What do you see? Obviously, at that moment, this was a “conservative” and/or “religious” media story.
You see, the Anglicans in the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) represent the growing (in some cases booming) churches of Africa, Asia and the Third World. They do not, however, represent the zip codes in which the major newsrooms of the Western world are located. They also do not represent the world’s richest Anglicans. Thus, to be blunt, what these “lesser” Anglicans say is NEWS is not news until the New York Times says that it’s news. Right?
With that in mind read the top of this report — long, but essential — from the venerable Anglican publication called The Living Church: “GAFCON Rejects Archbishop Justin Welby’s Leadership.”
On April 21, primates representing a large majority of the Anglican Communion formally repudiated the historic leadership of the See of Canterbury.
The acceptance by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby of a General Synod resolution to permit blessings for same-sex relationships “renders his leadership role in the Anglican Communion entirely indefensible,” according to the statement released at the end of the fourth GAFCON conference in Kigali, Rwanda.
“If he calls a meeting,” said Foley Beach, Archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), “we don’t recognize his authority to call the meeting.” Beach is the outgoing chairman of the Global Primates Council for GAFCON, and said he was speaking for the primates.
It’s difficult to overstate the enormity of the challenge posted by the Kigali Commitment, which declares: “Anglican identity is defined by [doctrine] and not by recognition from the See of Canterbury.” That stands in stark contrast to the Anglican Communion website, which defines the Anglican Communion as “provinces in communion with the See of Canterbury.”
Archbishop James Wong, primate of the Anglican Province of the Indian Ocean, declared at an earlier business session, “We are the real members of the Anglican Communion.”
If that is not blunt enough for you, the conservative Anglican Ink website put it this way: GAFCON has been “abundantly clear: The Chair of St Augustine is Empty.”
Now, Canterbury has acknowledged that SOMETHING happened during this meeting in the non-media-friendly environs of Rwanda.
Welby said, in effect, that a these Global South Anglicans cannot make changes in how they do church without the permission of, well, his colonial power structure. Here are most of his low-key and, thus, oh-so-Anglican statement:
“We note that The Kigali Commitment issued by GAFCON IV today makes many of the same points that have previously been made about the structures of the Anglican Communion. As the Archbishop of Canterbury has previously said, those structures are always able to change with the times – and have done so in the past. The Archbishop said at the recent Anglican Consultative Council meeting in Ghana (ACC-18) that no changes to the formal structures of the Anglican Communion can be made unless they are agreed upon by the Instruments of Communion. …
“The Archbishop continues to be in regular contact with his fellow Primates and looks forward to discussing this and many other matters with them over the coming period. Meanwhile the Archbishop continues to pray especially for Anglicans who face poverty, conflict, famine, discrimination and persecution around the world, and Anglican churches who live and minister in these contexts. Continuing to walk together as Anglicans is not just the best way to share Christ’s love with a world in great need: it is also how the world will know that Jesus Christ is sent from the Father who calls us to love one another, even as we disagree.”
Welby’s point of view, of course, plays a major role in the overture of this Kingali report from the establishment Church Times:
CONSERVATIVE Anglicans angered by the Church of England’s partial endorsement of same-sex unions have expressed their rejection of the structures that hold the Anglican Communion together.
Lambeth Palace has responded by restating that Anglican structures can be altered only by recognised agreement.
At the conclusion of the the fourth gathering of the Global Anglican Futures Conference (Gafcon) in Kigali, Rwanda, participants released a communiqué on Friday morning dismissing the four “Instruments of Unity” of the Anglican Communion, saying that they have “failed to maintain true communion based on the Word of God and shared faith in Christ”.
It says: “We have no confidence that the Archbishop of Canterbury nor the other Instruments of Communion led by him (the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meetings) are able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency and authority of scripture.”
Will we see elite media coverage today?
Take another look at the Sunday night Google News file (I am traveling and will try to update this). A few publications in the larger world of the British Commonwealth appear to know that something is happening.
My journalism point, once again: No matter what one thinks of this story, or this event, I find it hard to find a logical reason for this story not being worthy of major coverage.
What am I missing here?