Anglican Primates – adding up the numbers

There was a bit of a flurry of news last week about things which are now euphemistically called Communion Issues. A band of Anglican Primates who claim to represent the “Global South” issued an extraordinary statement, the Kigali Communiqué, in which they seem to walk away from the rest of the Communion. (Or perhaps I should say the actual Communion). Then, one of those in whose name the Kigali Communiqué was issued published an even more extraordinary piece which seemed to suggest that it had been done behind his back.

Then, there was (in my view a rather half-hearted) rebuttal from the Hon Secretary of the “Global South”.

I do hope you are following this, there will be a rather important quiz on it one day, I suspect.

Anyway, the point that I’ve noticed which does not seem to have been spotted by most people who have been looking at the texts involved in all this is the maths. The point is, the Kigali document was issued in the name of 20 provinces. As there are 38 primates, who represent 38 provinces, that is a voting majority. If however, as it seems, Njongonkulu Ndungane did not sign up to that agenda at all, the so called Global South had 19 out of 38. See how finely the sums add up.

All of this is pertinent to the text, which suggests that they want an extra primate, who takes their own view, from the US at the next primates’ meeting. It is all about numbers in the end.