Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury and thus head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, announced a plan this week to set-up a two-tier system of membership for his church.  Full communion members would be those provinces (geographical church bodies) which agree to a new covenant.  Those provinces which will not agree to the new covenant would be relegated to "churches in association" and would have no official say in the worldwide church. 

Williams' proposal comes after the Episcopal Church (USA) named a woman this month as head of their province and in the wake of ongoing controversy over the decision to name a gay bishop in the Episcopal Church.  Many in the Anglican Church are opposed to women serving as priests and bishops. 

The U.K. Telegraph reports:

In his most personal and direct statement on the crisis engulfing the worldwide Church, the archbishop made clear that his patience was running out with liberals who defy official policy yet want to stay in the Anglican "club".

In a six-page "reflection", Dr Williams set out a blueprint for a "two-track" Communion, with Churches prepared to obey official policy classed as "constituent" members and those who refuse to curb their autonomy being given "associate" status.

The "associate" Churches would still be bound by historic links but would not share the same constitutional structures, he suggested.

In a phrase that will alarm liberals, the archbishop said the relationship between the constituent and associate members would be like that between the Church of England and Methodist Church.

"The 'associated' Churches would have no direct part in the decision-making of the 'constituent' Churches, though they might be observers whose views were sought or whose expertise was shared from time to time, and with whom significant areas of co-operation might be possible," he said.

The move would effectively create two strands of Anglicanism and would be widely seen as the equivalent of a schism even if no individual provinces are formally expelled.

Williams is a distinguished church leader with a long history of supporting social justice from a Gospel-center perspective.  Having said that, it is disappointing to hear him suggest the development of something akin to a theological caste system where the orthodox are considered more fully Christian.   

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