The Prospects for a Polycentric Anglican Communion

Bishop Ian T. Douglas is the retired Bishop Diocesan of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut and the former Agnes Dun Professor of Mission and World Christianity at the Episcopal Divinity School. With Kwok Pui-lan, he has coedited Beyond Colonial Anglicanism (2001) and Living Postcolonial Anglicanism (2025). In this episode, he discusses the historical backgrounds of these two books. In the past two decades, we have increasingly seen postcolonial Anglican structures and realities across the Anglican Communion. Yet, the postcolonial Anglican church is always a church becoming. As the Anglican demographic has shifted toward the Global South, the Anglican Communion is increasingly polycentric. Douglas has participated in many commissions and council meetings of the Anglican Communion. He argues that we can’t use a politics of containment to uphold authority and instead must celebrate differences among churches, including racial, cultural, and linguistic differences. Ian T. Douglas’s book Living Postcolonial Anglicanism Listen wherever you get your podcasts Watch full episodes on YouTube Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X Website www.kwokpuilan.com