Anglican Agonistes: a breakup in the works?
According to Wikipedia, the Anglican Communion , which consists of the Church of England and those churches in other countries that are in full communion with it, has 80 million members. Statistically-speaking, the name “Anglican,” as in “England,” is a misnomer. It should be more properly named the “African Communion.” As historian Philip Jenkins has noted, the typical Anglican is not a middle-to-upper-class Englishman, but instead, a poor African woman. Demographic diversity poses no threat to the Anglican Communion. On the contrary, it has revitalized Anglicanism even as membership and participation has declined precipitously in England and North America. What poses a major threat, however, is theological diversity, a.k.a., apostasy and heresy, courtesy of the American Episcopal Church. A recent story in Britain’s Daily Mail told readers that Church leaders from Africa and Asia, led by Bishops from Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda, “are threatening to walk out of a crucial...