A new statement from 'First Things'
First Things have issued a statement regarding The Church of Ireland Preamble and Declaration and being ‘in Communion’.
This is a significant period in the life of the Church of Ireland, the Anglican Communion (AC), and other fellowships such as the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) and the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) with its most recent announcement of the Global Anglican Communion (GAC).
The Nairobi-Cairo Proposals (2024) will be brought to the Anglican Consultative Council in 2026 as the beginning of a new conversation on the shape, and instruments of, the Anglican Communion. The Cairo Covenant (2019) of the GSFA is a foundational document developed as a ‘reset’ for the Anglican Communion complete with a doctrinal basis and a formal governance structure. The Jerusalem Declaration (2008) was published as the foundational basis of GAFCON and remains a standard for Anglican Identity in its recent declaration of the ‘Global Anglican Communion' (2025). The GAC is stated to be a re-ordering of the AC, and a restoration of its original structures as autonomous provinces, bound together by reformation formularies, as reflected in the first Lambeth Conference in 1867.
Each of these documents and the bodies or fellowships from which they come, point to some form or reordering, resetting, or reforming of what it means to be ‘in communion’. They merit deep engagement and consideration. There will be a wide range of views and undoubtedly much debate will follow. To help guide such discussions beyond mere subjective opinion or unhelpful caricature, it may be helpful to revisit our own foundational statement - the Preamble and Declaration BCP p.776.
That this foundational declaration exists at all points to a time in the life of our church when reordering was necessary and our autonomy as a self-governing church was declared. Fundamental principles were stated as to what it means to be the Church of Ireland, and what it means for our church to be in communion with other churches. Our identity as protestant and reformed was asserted and understood as a resetting and reordering, along with a remaining in continuity with the ancient catholic and apostolic church on the island. In short, at times like these when debates about doctrine and structures may become fraught, we need not be afraid – we have been here before. Our Preamble and Declaration is a gift and a guide to help us to navigate the path ahead.
The scriptures are the rock on which everything stands for our church. They are primary in life and faith and occupy their rightful place in Section 1 Clause 1. Inspired by God, containing all things necessary for salvation, and professing the faith of the primitive church (1.1), the scriptures establish the sacraments (1.2), shape the threefold order of bishops, priests and deacons (1.2), and guard against innovations in doctrine and worship (1.3).
The rightful embrace by Anglicans of scripture, reason and tradition is not a simplistic ‘three-legged stool’ – at least not one on which any reasonable person would choose to sit, as the legs are not of equal length! Scripture sets parameters by which tradition and reason may assist and guide our faith.
Section 2 contains peculiarly Anglican distinctives that are essential to us. These are the Thirty Nine Articles (1634), the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal, both in their 1662 form. The BCP 1662 remains the touchstone for our doctrine, even though alterations may be, and have been made, for liturgical use, by the lawful authority of the church. This lawful authority is found in the Preamble, namely in the two houses of representatives that make up the General Synod – the house of archbishops and bishops, and the house of clergy and laity.
It is in the context of all the above – fundamental principles of doctrine and ordering – that the issue of ‘communion’ arises. Taken together Sections 2.3 and 2.4 direct us to an important theological point. Christ is head of the Church, and as such it is Christ who gives us our communion. At its deepest level, communion is seen as something that we ‘maintain’ rather than create. With whom then do we maintain this communion?
We are in automatic de facto communion with the sister Church of England. There is no mention of the See of Canterbury or the Lambeth Conference, even though the first Lambeth Conference took place in 1867, three years before the Preamble and Declaration. It is simply a given that one autonomous church (The Church of Ireland) is in communion with another autonomous church (The Church of England), based on a complete alignment with regard to the scriptures, the Book of Common Prayer, the sacraments, ordering of ministry, and Thirty-Nine Articles.
However, with extraordinary vision and generosity, the Preamble and Declaration asserts that we are also in de facto communion with ‘all other Christian Churches agreeing in the principles of this Declaration’. Our communion with such churches is not conditional on their being in communion with the Church of England. It is simply a matter of discernment as to whether or not equally autonomous and ordered churches are committed to and confess the ancient, catholic and apostolic faith, founded in scripture, affirm apostolic order and episcopacy, practice the dominical sacraments, maintain the reformed and protestant faith, guard against innovations in doctrine and worship, and when liturgical and confessional variations might exist, that nothing of substance is contrary to the BCP and Thirty-Nine Articles.
Our foundations for communion are therefore doctrinal and theological, rather than organisational or institutional. It was 50 years later at Lambeth 1930 when communion with the See of Canterbury was expressly stated as being a hallmark of what it meant to be in communion as the Anglican Communion. Within this fellowship, our Church has participated in the shaping and forming of ‘instruments of unity’, developed to provide a structure or scaffold supporting the interdependence of autonomous churches. At every juncture however, maintaining communion is not dependent on whether these, or any other instruments for that matter, exist; but rather, we have communion according to the fundamental doctrinal and theological principles as set forth in the Preamble and Declaration.
We may ask the question – ‘If a church with which we have been historically in communion no longer agrees with our doctrinal and theological principles, how does that affect our communion with them?’. This is probably the most central question that has tested the Anglican communion for some decades now, and has largely led to the present situation in which we now find ourselves. We may also ask – ‘If a church declares that it is no longer in the historic Anglican communion but declares that it is in continuity with ancient catholic and apostolic Anglican orthodoxy, how does that affect our communion with them?’. That is fast becoming a central question to which we, and other churches, will have to attend.
In all of this, the Preamble and Declaration is both a gift and a guide, reminding us that we have been through seismic shifts before, and pointing the church of Christ to the faith of Christ that will prevail.