Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: Time for an Apology?

During the Week or really the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18 to 25) The Church of England is evidently going to apologize on behalf of past generations for the excesses of the English Reformation.The apology will include regrets for iconoclasm, the dissolution of the monasteries, the Catholic martyrs, etc. This statement of repentance comes as Christians commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. This comment struck me as starting off in the wrong direction:

“As the Church of England prepares to celebrate the Reformation, it should also repent of the violence and brutality it sometimes committed in God’s name,” commented Rev. Andrew Atherstone, a member of the Anglican synod.

Atherstone said that aspects of the Reformation are “deeply embedded in our national psyche,” and was [sic] the historical context for the attempted invasion of the Spanish Armada and the Gunpowder Plot, when Catholic would-be revolutionary Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up Parliament.

That seems like a strange thing to do in the midst of preparing for a statement of reconciliation--if you're apologizing or repenting for things your side has done in the past why bring up things the other side has done in the past? 

The U.K Daily Mail story quotes Anne Widdecombe, a former Anglican and former Conservative Member of Parliament: "These gestures are pointless. The Archbishop has not put anyone to death, as far as I know," she said. "Modern Christians are not responsible for what happened in the Reformation. You might as well expect the Italians to apologise for Pontius Pilate."

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is a project of the World Council of Churches which developed this year's theme:

It was in the context of the Reformation Anniversary that the Council of Churches in Germany took up the work of creating the resources for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2017. It quickly became clear that the materials for this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity would need to have two accents: on the one hand, there should be a celebration of God’s love and grace, the “justification of humanity through grace alone”, reflecting the main concern of the churches marked by Martin Luther’s Reformation. On the other hand, the materials should also recognize the pain of the subsequent deep divisions which afflicted the Church, openly name the guilt, and offer an opportunity to take steps toward reconciliation.

Ultimately it was Pope Francis’ 2013 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”) which provided the theme for this year, when it used the quote: “The Love of Christ Compels Us” (Paragraph 9). With this scripture (2 Cor 5:14), taken in the context of the entire fifth chapter of the second letter to the Corinthians, the German committee formulated the theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2017.

It will be interesting to see the statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, God bless him. He is obviously trying to respond to the second part of the theme: to "name the guilt, and offer an opportunity to take steps toward reconciliation."

The New Archbishop of Canterbury: Justin Welby

With all the shock and surprise of Benedict XVI's renunciation of the Papacy and Pope Francis' election to the Papacy, I have quite overlooked the installation of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. The American Spectator describes his background in this article and touches on some surprising facts:

This is why Archbishop Welby looks so interesting: He is an authentic Anglican evangelical, homegrown from the 21st century’s most successful outreach movement, known as HTB-Alpha. It began 30 years ago at Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in West London, the mega-church that welcomed Welby at a dark time in his life, when he and his wife were devastated by the loss of their first born child, 7-month-old Johanna, killed in a Paris car accident.

“It is in our pain and in our brokenness that we come the closest to Christ,” said Martin Luther. His words have a resonance with Archbishop Welby’s spiritual journey. At the time of his daughter’s death, he was a rising star in the oil industry, finance director and treasurer of the FTSE 100 company Enterprise Oil. He loved the buzz of acquisitions and mergers. But as he nursed his wounds in bereavement, Welby heard God’s call. A talk at HTB by one of the leaders of the U.S. Vineyard Churches, John McClure, inspired him to seek training for ordination. This was not an easy path, for his local bishop rejected Welby as a candidate, saying he had “no future in the Church of England.” But the influential vicar of HTB, the Rev. Sandy Millar, persuaded his parishioner to keep knocking on the door of the ordained ministry, and eventually Welby was accepted for training at St. John’s College, Durham. . . .

ARCHBISHOP WELBY is proud of his HTB roots, but he should not be simplistically pigeonholed. He has a Catholic spiritual director. He spent some years working in Nigeria, which has given him an understanding of the African provinces in the Anglican Communion. They are ultra-conservative in comparison to many liberal American and English churches, and Welby will need to work hard to prevent quarrels and schisms within his international flock. Fortunately he seems well-equipped for this and for the even greater challenges that lie ahead of him.

He also has a background in business, having had a secular career before becoming an Anglican minister and bishop. Justin Welby certainly does face a great many challenges trying to hold the Anglican Communion and the Church of England together. It is interesting to note that the Archbishop of Canterbury is "enthroned":

First, the Archbishop will be installed on the Diocesan throne as the Bishop of the see of Canterbury, the oldest diocese in the English church. He will then be installed on the chair of St Augustine as Primate of All England – the ‘first bishop’ in the country. This latter enthronement has also come to respresent the Archbishop's inauguration as the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion.

And, according to that same page, it's interesting to note the date chosen for Justin Welby's enthronement:

The date of the ceremony resonates in several ways: March 21st is the day when the church remembers the martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1556. It is also the feast day of St. Benedict of Monte Cassino, a significant figure for both Canterbury Cathedral and Archbishop Justin himself, who is an oblate of the Order of Benedict.

Pope Francis sent him a message and the Archbishop commented on Pope Francis' installation as Pope.