Captain Yips comes through – the other comments in my query about the Anglican politics were helpful, but I think his really addresses the questions I have, and succinctly:
Let me try to explain this without using any trigger words like "Anglo-Catholic" or "protestant."
The Anglican Communion follows the map of British Imperialism. The various national Anglican churches that now make it up were formed and nourished by Church of England missionaries, and are now self-governing, self-sustaining entities.
There are four "instrument of unity" in which the Anglican Communion finds its unity: the Archbishop of Canterbury himself, the Primates Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Commission (ACC), and the every-ten-years Lambeth Conference. The Archbishop of Canterbury controls invitation to the Primates Meeting and to Lambeth. No Archbishop of Canterbury has used this power of invitation to exclude anyone in the past.
US membership in the ACC is currently sort-of-suspended.
After much thought, Canterbury decided to invite the new US Presiding Bishop to next month’s Primates Meeting, but has also invited an as -yet-unspecified group of American bishops to a premeeting. No one knows what that premeeting will discuss.
So, yes, Canterbury has the power to sever or change US membership in the Communion by not inviting. Archbishop Rowan will not do this, I think, without a clear consensus of opinion, at least among the Primates and possibly the bishops meeting at Lambeth in 2008. Should he do that, and should US membership in the ACC be ended, TEC would not in any practical sense be a part of the Anglican Communion. But on the other hand, none of these instruments of unity have any power to discipline or enforce reform on TEC. What Canterbury and the Primates can do is to create a new structure in the US. That may be about to happen.
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