We, the people, are the embodiment of the Anglican Communion. This point is so self-evident, banal even, that it seems on the face of it hardly worth blogging about. And yet the powers that be seem so obsessed with lining up the trees in nice, neat rows that they fail to notice the wood.

We, the blogging and tweeting community, represent this worldwide Communion in microcosm. What unites us is a shared love of the Anglican church, coupled with occasional exasperation. What divides us?  Well, we are no doubt a very mixed bunch. If you could assemble us all in one room, you might well wonder how such a disparate group could ever have got together. It would be like getting Mahler and Bartok together with Dolly Parton, Mick Jagger and Lily Allen. The film-maker, Jean Renoir, explained it thus in a television interview on 7 September 1979:

‘If a French farmer were to sit down to dinner with a French financier, they would have nothing to say to each other. But if a French farmer were to sit down with a Chinese farmer, they would talk late into the night.’

From their shared values, bonds of affection would develop. A certain amount of good-natured teasing might ensue over the different methods of farming. (Like the Australians persistently calling the Brits ‘Pommy bastards’, they ‘only do it to annoy because they know it teases’). But imagine if you started to try and pin this relationship down in paragraphs, clauses and sub-clauses: does anyone really imagine this would deepen the ties? To state the obvious, we have managed well enough until now on the basis of an agreement metaphorically written on the back of an envelope: the longer and more detailed our Covenant becomes, the more there is to disagree over.

Anglicanism has been accused of fudge, sweeping all controversy under the carpet, and saying collectively ‘If it’s not pleasant, it does not exist’. Well, as our grandmothers told us, together with remembering our manners, there are worse recipes for getting through the vicissitudes of life. Examining dusty corners with powerful halogen beams is unlikely to prove illuminating in the long run.

St Paul said it first, in his letter to the Philippians (4.8):

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

“We must not let in daylight upon magic,” Walter Bagehot famously wrote about the British monarchy. “We must not bring the Queen into the combat of politics, or she will cease to be reverenced by all combatants; she will become one combatant among many.” Autre temps, autre moeurs—or do I mean plus ça change… ?