The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion

Dr. Chris Seitz

Background

After the last General Convention two gatherings of Bishops from the Episcopal Church took place. One involved an official of the Anglican Communion Office. It was an effort to resolve major differences within The Episcopal Church (TEC) by recourse to a Primatial Vicar scheme, viz., a Bishop appointed by the new Presiding Bishop of TEC to provide oversight for Dioceses at odds, for a variety of reasons, with the PB and with recent decisions of TEC. There is a history of proposals for alternative or delegated oversight that need not detain us here. There were two meetings of this group of Bishops and advisors.

A second series of meetings took place at Camp Allen, Texas (and some Bishops attended the other gathering as well). The Bishops in attendance were assisted by NT Wright, Bishop of Durham, and Michael Scott-Joynt, Bishop of Winchester, as well as Archbishops Drexel Gomez and Donald Mtetemela (the former convener of the Covenant Design Committee and the latter the host of the primates meeting) . The distinctive of this gathering was a commitment to certain principles by which the Windsor Report was to be held in common as the way forward for common life in the Communion. Public statements were made which clarified these commitments, and the mind of the gathering was that the primates meeting would be the occasion for dealing with problems presented by TEC’s actions and the decisions and resolutions of General Convention. Communications were made with the Archbishop of Canterbury and with the primates as a body. Proposals were made that addressed the irregularity of having foreign Bishops involved in the life of TEC dioceses. Serious discussion was undertaken about a way forward for oversight for those seeking to live by the Windsor Report’s understanding of Communion, in the language of the discussion, ‘an American solution to an American problem.’

When the primates met in Dar es Salaam, matters did indeed come to a head and the major issues were engaged with diligence and thoroughness. The ‘Primatial Vicar’ notion introduced at one gathering of Bishops after General Convention was combined with the specific oversight concerns articulated at the other gathering at Camp Allen. Moreover, the shared interpretation of the Windsor Report’s implications for TEC were described by the Communique in the language ‘Camp Allen Principles’ and these were held to be an appropriate means for distinguishing Bishops in TEC desiring to live in Communion in conformity with TWR. A Pastoral Council was to be set up, comprised of up to five members, two of whom would be nominated by TEC, and three of whom would come from the primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Those bishops subscribing to the ‘Camp Allen Principles’ were invited to nominate three Bishops, one of whom would be chosen by the Pastoral Council to serve as Primatial Vicar in TEC. Those of us involved in the work of Camp Allen/Windsor Bishops were encouraged by the commitment of the primates to work toward an oversight scheme that would embody Windsor Report calls for submission and forbearance across provinces of the wider Anglican Communion.

Response

Immediately responses came from individual Bishops in TEC denouncing the communiqué, saying the communiqué did not understand the polity of TEC, or claiming that TEC had a special warrant for pursuing its own understanding of the Gospel in the area of human sexuality and so forth. This served to underscore the significance of the scheduled meeting of the Bishops to take place at Camp Allen in mid March. After the full tenure of the preceding Presiding Bishop, this would be the first occasion for the new PB to chair the House of Bishops (HOB). She had attended the primates meeting in Dar es Salaam and had not sought to distance herself in any specific way from the Communique when it was first issued. The Communique came as a report from all the primates, even as statements were soon to be made that defended TEC’s special role in respect of human sexuality and matters of polity.

Three things at least appear to have emerged from the HOB meeting. Nominations were to have been made by the assembled Bishops for the Pastoral Council; the Archbishop of Canterbury, before the HOB meeting of TEC, indicated a date of 16 March by which time he would wish to receive nominations from the primates, so it was clear that things were moving ahead on this front so far as the primates were concerned. In spite of this, nominations were not made by the Bishops of TEC, and the Pastoral Council and Primatial Vicar notion, as stipulated by the primates, was declined as a way forward. Certain individual Bishops have since suggested that a different scheme may be proposed, though it is hard to know at this point within what Communion logic this might be said to function.

A second resolution requests a meeting of the HOB with the ABC and the standing committee of the primates. It is hard to know what this meeting is meant to achieve, and having it might suggest that the primates Meetings are not themselves adequate for communion life; or that the Archbishop of Canterbury has a specific role independently of that Meeting, unrelated to Lambeth invitations or some other quite specific role traditionally undertaken. It is clear that the Archbishop is carefully attending to the limitations and distinctive character of his office given the stresses and strains on the Communion.

Finally, anyone reading the various statements emerging from the HOB will see a steady insistence that TEC belongs to the Communion, passionately wants to remain, will remain on certain terms nonetheless, and will interpret the otherwise plain sense of the Preamble to the Constitution and Canons through the lens of General Convention. This steady insistence, whatever its logic might be otherwise, appears to be aimed at any contrary interpretation of membership, in the light of TEC’s claims to have a special polity and its now declared unwillingness to accept certain specific requests made of it by an Instrument of Unity/Communion (the primates meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury).

Where does this leave TEC?

On the specific matter of the Pastoral Council and Primatial Vicar scheme, one element of this proposal has declined to be involved on the terms of the Communique coming out of Dar es Salaam. The HOB has provided no nominations and appears to question the scheme as somehow un-Episcopalian. It is not my intention here to pursue the logic of this, except to say that the Bishops are of course free to work with any scheme if the alternative is ongoing intervention by bishops from outside TEC or dis-invitation from the councils of Communion life. There is nothing inherently impossible about allowing such a scheme to function as the Communion devises a covenant and asks which parts of the Communion can live within its vision. The canons of the church would not prohibit the development of such a scheme, if the will was there to see the request as both reasonable and practically the only way to preserve the TEC and the Anglican Communion both.

There were two other key elements in the proposal: the Windsor Bishops who accepted the Camp Allen Principles were to make nominations for the Primatial Vicar. From reports coming out of the HOB meeting, only one or two bishops attending previous Camp Allen meetings have publicly stated their concerns about the request made at Dar es Salaam, so this aspect of the Pastoral Council is still in effect. The Windsor Bishops should meet and make nominations.

The second crucial aspect of the Dar es Salaam proposal, mentioned above, was the provision of three members from the primates for the Pastoral Council, to have been received by mid March. It would be helpful to know what has happened on that score and we hope a report is issued as soon as that is possible.

It has been noted that the original request spoke of membership of ‘up to’ five Bishops for the Pastoral Council. Two out of three elements of the scheme can complete what is requested of them, and a decision can then be made about TEC’s apparent resistance, and how to address that. Making up a different scheme would look like arrogating to itself a role in creating polity and broad polity implications for the Communion which the Communion has been careful to safeguard against.

Polity quicksilver

Anyone looking on the American Episcopal Church situation will bound to be confused about the office of Bishop – and one need not be a Presbyterian or Baptist for this to be the case. Bishops appear to have a role within their own dioceses that they reserve to themselves, independently of clergy or laity or other Bishops; Bishops then say they cannot act because General Convention inhabits a unique US polity, and they must defer to that; Bishops are concerned that their Presiding Bishop must attend the primates meeting as a full member, and when she does so, and returns to the US having agreed in some way to the plenary communiqué, she appears unable or unwilling to use the strength of an office others have defended for her in a way consistent with the claims of the same office, to prosecute what the plenary statement requests.

The danger is real that in defending a special polity and deferring to that when difficulties arise the Episcopal Church will find it inhabits a ‘polity’ that is sui generis and idiosyncratic in ways that question altogether what it means to be a Communion church with Catholic Bishops. The claim to national identity and specific polity has something of Lutheran World Federation aspects; the claim to independence, spiritual endowments and new truth has aspects of ‘always reforming’ Presbyterianism, or even American Mormonism; the claim to rule over a diocese in ways that cannot be constrained when it comes to blessing things or giving pastoral direction is congregationalism without the usual high involvement of laity and committees assuring full participation precisely because the office of Bishop is unbiblical or not commended of God.

Many Bishops in TEC, upon seeing what the Communion was asking, responded immediately that they preferred to go it alone and to inhabit an Episcopal Church ‘come of age’ and not necessarily like anything else, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, congregational, or otherwise -- a church without affiliative tissue of any kind accept in prior historical, or more notional, terms.

The Communion, through an Instrument of Unity (primates meeting), presided over by a second Instrument (the Archbishop of Canterbury), has given TEC an opportunity to remain a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, by making certain clear requests, in the context of TEC’s own involvement through an elected Presiding Bishop, of the Episcopal Church. These requests stand now in a long line of similar charitable pleas, stretching back before General Convention 2003. The opportunity extended to TEC exists precisely so as to allow TEC to remain in communion fellowship, and it was not rejected on terms of improper polity by any member of the primates meeting at the point of its publication – not least because it was an effort to provide something of a charitable solution to a dilemma created by TEC itself.

The Communion would forfeit its own integrity as a Communion if it now simply said, ‘you tell us how you want to proceed, and when you have made your mind up, we will OK that, if you so wish.’ That is a single body part telling the Body what it wants to do, on the grounds that an eye can demand it sees things the Body does not. Whatever else this means, it is not an understanding of the Anglican Communion that has ever been the case, and should it be the case, the Communion would evaporate as a meaningful, providentially overseen, catholic and evangelical reality. Many may wish this of course, but for those of us committed, in Christ, to a Communion and ‘one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth,’ we pray ardently that the Bishops committed to Communion life, on the terms the Communion has asked, humbly and joyfully submit to that, and move forward together. Those who wish to insist on a special polity may find that their wish is granted, even if the role of Bishop is made more confused thereby.

We stand at a threshold moment. It is our prayer that the Communion be allowed to maintain its own life and its own integrity, in line with what was resolved at Dar es Salaam, acting from charity and in concern for the wider Body. The alternative is an unraveling of the fabric of Communion identity and mission, as new churches are created and new polities vie for the brand name Anglican. We pray that the Windsor Bishops meet, that the Pastoral Council be set up as requested, and that the Communion move forward on the terms it has set for itself.

There was a moment in the early history of Anglicanism in America when, fearful of the power of Bishops in a civil government now rejected in England, the fledgling Episcopal Church sought to create a polity that was all its own, in which the power of Bishops was circumscribed by a second House of Deputies. The Church of England indicated that was fine, but it would not be an Episcopal Church in Communion in consequence, and so the polity was carefully redefined.

Ironically, we may now find ourselves in a similar situation but for very different reasons. Now the Bishops themselves wish to depict restrictions upon themselves, and a special US polity, in order to defer or reject requests being made by Communion members as new and vibrant as the American church herself once was. It is time for the Communion to insist that America inhabit an Episcopal Church recognizable on terms all can see and identify as such. Restrictions on autonomy are not new, and it is time they be defended as fully appropriate to both Anglican Communion and Episcopal Church polity and identity.

Christopher Seitz
Anglican Communion Institute