Is the Anglican communion made up mostly of conservative traditionalists, and if so, in what regard do they hold the more liberal parishes?
In sheer numbers, I would say yes. But you won't find them in US, UK, and Canada. They're in the southern hemisphere.
Indeed as Lowly Layman said, the most liberal of parishes you'll find in the US, UK, and Canada. Perhaps a few in Australia as well. But for the most part, the Anglican Communion is conservative...yet the liberals have a louder voice, unfortunate as it is, and they also rank high positions. This is why we must pray for the priests and bishops of the church, so that they might heed the words of Christ and recognise the traditions of the Church!
How they view the liberal parishes is being worked out now. And, whether they will act on their view (if negative) is a second question that is also being worked out. As an aside, I don't think GAFCON is the haven of conservatism that the Anglican blogosphere has painted it as.
What are we defining as liberal tbh? I find I am too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals. Conservatives often disagree on what they consider liberal and so do the liberals.
The Anglican Church of Australia is a little different in that much that demarks us is quite territorial. Mostly this is the accident of history. Sydney grew in the period of the Irish potato famine and is marked by an anticatholic kind of Protestantism. Newcastle grew in the wake of the Oxford Movement and historically reflected some of that. This is breaking down over time. Sydney is described as conservative however for some that needs to be inderstood as a non prayer book kind of conservative. For the most part the rest of the ACA would be seen to be various shades of liberal/liberal-catholic. Conservatives who have left are small in number and somewhat fractured. Fundamentally Anglicanism embraces a dialogue within the foundations. I think this is part of the heritage of the Elizabethan Settlement and the Lambeth Quadralateral.
Ultimately there is a problem with that view, in that it elevates the human mind to the position of God. But it doesn't end well, because it elevates our decisions as heavenly, no worse than any anyone else's. "You have your truth, I have my truth". This leads us to Herod's nihilistic "What is truth?", and to the destruction of all piety, sanctity, certainty, happiness, and devotion to God. Instead, we should approach this question from the other end. It's not about what we want, or what seems right to us. It's about what seems right to God, what he wants. And then we align ourselves to that, however we feel about it. What God wants is clear from the Sacred Scriptures, and from the constant teaching of the OT Prophets, the Fathers, and the Divines of the Church.
The problem is, we would agree with you there. It's not about what we want to be true, but what is true. We aren't just fence-sitters.
Yet the ability to do so is subjective in itself. The foundations of Anglicanism have a degree of subjectivity about them. The 39 articles whilst authoritative are not of themselves infalible. Whilst I don't want to descend into the quagmire of neo-modernist liberal blehh - I don't see and Anglicanism that sits of the pile claiming absolute truth unto itself as the only other possibility. I can accept that faith journey that we all have may be different, but not that the cross and resurrection are more or less relevant in our seeking to attain to the greater vision of the glory of God. I think what I am trying to say is that we are called to help people on their journey, not simply to force them onto our journey. The core of the Christian faith - the absolutes - are not relative. The Creed of 381 is probably the cleanest expression of the core that we currently have of the core of the faith. There are a lot of things we each believe beyond the Creed, but I feel we need to recover this. I tire of hearing people say that it is no longer relevant to what a Christian believes. I think we need to recover it.
No. Your view is the reason the Provinces in the West are suffering, and it is alien to the heart and mind of the Divines, and the Fathers before them. Whosoever shall affirm that any of the nine and thirty articles are in any part superstitious or erroneous, or such as he may not with a good conscience subscribe unto; let him be excommunicated ipso facto. — Canon V, 1604.
I shall ponder that, but hasten to point out that I did not suggest that the 39 are in any part supstitious or erroneous. I am not sure that the full weight of the woes of the western church should be on my shoulders.
I don't mean that you literally are causing troubles in the Church, far from it. I'm only pointing to the liberal mentality behind this view that had possessed our Churchmen during the 20th century, as if the doctrinal commitments and distinctives of Anglicanism were optional or non-absolute. This has led to wondering what else in Christianity may be optional and non-absolute. Where do you stop? The moderate (non-radical) liberals have decided that, if they dispense with Anglican formularies, they can at least rest on some prior absolute point, such as the Creeds. Right? We see you doing that above. But then your more liberal friends challenge you by asking, Why that? Who made that the absolute point? You have no defense, because you've bought into the liberals' basic premise that reasonableness, politeness, social and secular values regulate what the Church should teach and believe. It is entirely alien to the mind of the Divines, and the Fathers before them, in which what the Church says is absolute, and the secular society follows and learns about what is true and right from the Church.
Yet you seem ready to invoke the canons of 1604 to excomunicate me. I think the 39 pose many questions. I suspect the Agreed statement with the Oriental Orthodox 2014 might leave a question mark hanging over Article 19 (section 7 of the document) and 2017 (section 3) identifies a point which some conservative anglicans might not accept - Though clearly it does not contradict Article 5 it does represent a change from the position of 1549 1552 and 1661/2. The strength of the Elizabethan settlement was to ensure that every christian in the land could be loyal to God and Monarch, even when they had views at variance with one another on a range of issues.
My friend if you were alive then you would've excommunicated yourself. I am just citing history and data. I didn't write the canons of 1604. Even this is a liberal revision of what actually happened. Asking Elizabethans how they viewed themselves, you would see a Church which: -routinely excommunicated puritans and dissenters for violations of doctrine; -forced one single rite of liturgy on the whole Church; -automatically excommunicated anyone who rejected the BCP or the articles or the canons; -openly challenged the best of of Roman Catholics to bring their strongest arguments (Jewel's 1559 challenge); -in the Church had Gregorian chant and Choral canticles, choirs for 100+ voices; -bishops who were carried on palanquins and had a train of priests, archdeacons, deacons, and acolytes a mile long; -a profound study and scholarship of the Scriptures and the laws of Nature; -willing to die (and kill) for the faith; -martyrs who'd rather burn alive than recant; -and exploring and planting of the Anglican flag in America and around the world. This is not the milquetoast/toothless Elizabethan settlement written about in the liberal history books.
And even yet I have trouble believing that Anglicanism is or ever has been truly monochrome despite those who tried to make it so. And that by the way does not make liberal a reasonable description of my position.