A Party or a Church?

Recently in the news we read about the ACC meeting in Jamaica which is gathered to discuss the sending of the Anglican Covenant around the provinces to debate and consider. There is an urgency for this document according to the chair of the drafting group (retired Archbishop Gomaz) that brings the communion of Anglican provinces to a serious crossroad and decision. I feel that the document fails miserably under the presuppositions it holds before it is even sent. Marites Sison, a staff writer for the Anglican Journal, reports on statements made by the chairman that really get to the heart of why the Anglican Communion is coming apart. The report reads,

Archbishop Gomez, who introduced the Ridley-Cambridge draft to the ACC delegates, said the principle that the Covenant Design Group adopted in writing was “the communion guides, each church decides.” He said that the new draft “firmly states that each church decides for itself,” adding that it “says quite clearly that nothing in the covenant can or should change the constitution and canons of any province.”

Section 4 of the draft, he added, “gives clarity over the processes of joining and leaving the covenant,” and it provides “ a method of dispute resolution” which is “not coercive but advisory.”

Someone please help me to see why this approach is not the approach the Apostle Paul rebukes in his letter to the Corinthians concerning party spirits? Note, this is the "PRINCIPLE" of the CDG's proposal to the communion! My theological understanding of the Church is that it is not a society that thinks up all sorts of ideas and recruits those who can adhere to follow them. In my small theological brain, this can only be understood as a party system that defines faith as 'one's cause and because we might like that cause we join up.' The Church of Jesus Christ is not a self-governing society that makes blind attempts to organize itself in ways that can be acceptable to all its members by the democratic vote consisting of majority and minority. Are there others out there who hold to a Catholic understanding of the Church who are also seriously struggling with this? Is this the Anglican Communion's newly proposed theological formulation of what it means to 'be church?' What is the result of such an approach?

To the readers' surprise perhaps, I think a sermon by the then Cardinal Ratzinger states clearly what this mechanism produces. He said,

But in all this we ourselves remain the sole actors. We want to offer programs and ideas that appeal to as many as possible. That God himself becomes active, that he acts is something that we no longer take for granted in the modern world. But precisely by making this assumption, we follow in the footsteps of the Corinthians: we confuse the Church with a party and faith with a party program. The circle of what we do and are remains closed.

It seems to me after hearing the Good Shepherd passages from this past Sunday's readings and in yesterday's Mass reading we are now more than ever called to listen for his voice. Faith demands that we let go of our own tastes, to renounce what we might ultimately desire and to follow the Shepherd of the sheep as the giver of eternal life. The Church can only be the Body when she follows the voice of her Shepherd not a party, not a club, not even a religious group attached to the state but to Christ himself. In order for the Church to be the Church and not a party it must be made and maintained by him not our own willing and deciding. Benedict XVI is right to remind us all that 'obedience toward him is the guarantee of our freedom.'

This has a huge practical impact on the priestly ministry. My concern is that the result of this is parish priests having freehold basically can become the pope of their own parishes and hence each builds his own church. Is this what we are really after as Christians? As members of Christ's Church, we are called upon to avoid all attachments that might interfere with our obedience and communion with Christ. A point for us all priests to remember is that our doctrine is not ours, it belongs to Jesus. Will the Anglican Communion recognise that we proclaim him not our party mechanisms? The answer “the communion guides, each church decides.”