Anglicans and Methodists acknowledge need to tackle dividing issues

Representatives of the two Churches were in Cape Town, South Africa, this week for the Third Annual Meeting of the Anglican-Methodist International Commission for Unity in Mission (AMICUM).

The Commission was set up in 2007 to advance the full visible communion of Anglicans and Methodists at every level.

A communiqué issued at the end of the meeting said there was a “much clearer awareness of the need for the Commission to identify and begin to tackle some of the issues that are at the heart of our present denominational divisions”.

“These divisions and the causes behind them are not always being named in our churches worldwide,” the Commission said.

It said “significant” work would need to be undertaken on some specific areas over the course of the next two years if the goal of fuller communion was to be realised.

The areas identified in the communiqué related specifically to the interchangeability of ordained ministries and the ministry of oversight.

“Our hope is to find ways in which, in ever place, the churches of our two world families may work as one in the urgent task of mission,” the Commission said.

Referring to the local setting, the Commission said it could not forget the courage and conviction of those who had fought against the “sin of apartheid” in South Africa and who “set about a process of truth and reconciliation”.

“The Commission was left in no doubt of the need to be honest with each other if the painful divisions that deny the Gospel call to unity are to be overcome,” it said.

The Commission went on to acknowledge the bilateral conversations taking place between the two communions in the US, England, Ireland, New Zealand particularly.

In England, Anglicans and Methodists have been engaged in talks for decades but more formally since signing the Anglican-Methodist Covenant in 2003. The covenant bound the two Churches together on a path towards greater unity through the deepening of relationships and mutual trust.

In its communiqué, the Commission went on to say it had become more aware that questions of identity and belonging to wider Christian fellowships “require ongoing attention”.

Commission members from England included the Rev Gareth Powell, of the Methodist Church, and the Rev Canon Professor Paul Avis, of the Church of England.

It will meet again in February 2012, in Maryland, USA, where it will be hosted by the World Council.