that the Windsor and Network bishops will meet twice this summer:
Here are the dates from a VERY reliable source:
June 18-19, with a follow up meeting August 9-10, well in advance of September 30.
Just FYI.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
ACI: PECUSA IN DENIAL
It is becoming obvious that the leadership of TEC means to move resolutely ahead with its mission of civil rights and inclusion, insisting that these are imperatives of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a kind of brand name for American Episcopalianism. (We leave to the side whether inclusion or civil rights are being honored or thwarted by this idea.)
In the light of the failure to respond positively to the communiqué of the Primates Meeting, the course being charted is becoming increasingly clear. Apparently the Archbishop of Canterbury is prepared to hear out the leadership of TEC on an alternative plan that will deal with the problems it has created for life in Communion. But the disconnect that will result could be palpable, not least because TEC leadership does not acknowledge that it has created a problem that requires any remedy of the kind an Instrument of Unity has recently urged, with urgency. It views the problem as ‘conservatives’ out of step with the enlightened views it holds. The recent reports of Presiding Bishop Schori’s comments make this very clear indeed. She is to be commended for her candor.
The Archbishop of Canterbury will not be accused of failing to go the extra mile in this terrible mess. It might be suspected that his chief intention is to be sure he has a grasp of the facts at close hand. Proximity will in this case surely be a bracing thing.
Conservatives for their part continue, in some quarters, to admonish the Archbishop for failing to do something he is said to have the power to do: to refuse to give ‘protection’; to prescind from excommunicating; to fail to acknowledge a new province or group within TEC.
Yet this is manifestly wrong. Archbishop Rowan has made it clear he will not act as a Pope. He has neither the legal nor the moral right to do so, given the history of Anglican polity and the kind of polity he is himself trying to encourage at this moment in time. Moreover, it is hard to imagine what more could have been done than was done at Dar es Salaam. Creating a new province, or enabling one, is something that individual Primates may have designs about, but the effect would only be to fracture and divide the Primates as a body.
And it is not necessary. What is necessary is for the Dar es Salaam communiqué to be followed up on. It is not enough to point to the success of this or that ad hoc method of oversight, granted by this or that kindly Bishop and undertaken by this or that generous Episcopal neighbor. This is at most ‘finger in the dike’ stuff, and it fails to reckon with all that is now required. Who will go to Lambeth? Who will represent TEC at the next Primates Meeting? Who will care for the parish in the diocese which is not overseen by kind or generous Bishop X? The Dar es Salaam communiqué is a unique gift. It accepts a serious problem and deals with it. It has done so with astonishing agreement of mind. How that agreement has turned into confusion and dissembling is only further testimony to the resolve of TEC to have things always on their own terms.
It is becoming clear as well that a gift is only of any value if it is given and received both. Archbishop Rowan would be forgiven for being puzzled at the failure of conservative Bishops in TEC both to applaud and embrace the communiqué of Dar es Salaam and receive warmly what has been given. Not to gaze on it from afar or speak of its virtues only, but to unwrap and open and take good care of what has been given.
Efforts to delay or to seek another form of ‘peace’ can only be seen as yet another example of American unilateralism. There is nothing wrong, uncanonical, imperial, or otherwise with the communique’s requests. The requests address with clarity and charity a problem that unilateralists in the Communion have created. There is no evidence that the Primates are seeking fresh alternatives to the communiqué they crafted, and Archbishop Rowan is going the extra mile to take the pulse up close. Sadly, the patient is not only quite ill, but in denial as well.
Christopher Seitz
Philip Turner
Ephraim Radner
The Anglican Communion Institute
In the light of the failure to respond positively to the communiqué of the Primates Meeting, the course being charted is becoming increasingly clear. Apparently the Archbishop of Canterbury is prepared to hear out the leadership of TEC on an alternative plan that will deal with the problems it has created for life in Communion. But the disconnect that will result could be palpable, not least because TEC leadership does not acknowledge that it has created a problem that requires any remedy of the kind an Instrument of Unity has recently urged, with urgency. It views the problem as ‘conservatives’ out of step with the enlightened views it holds. The recent reports of Presiding Bishop Schori’s comments make this very clear indeed. She is to be commended for her candor.
The Archbishop of Canterbury will not be accused of failing to go the extra mile in this terrible mess. It might be suspected that his chief intention is to be sure he has a grasp of the facts at close hand. Proximity will in this case surely be a bracing thing.
Conservatives for their part continue, in some quarters, to admonish the Archbishop for failing to do something he is said to have the power to do: to refuse to give ‘protection’; to prescind from excommunicating; to fail to acknowledge a new province or group within TEC.
Yet this is manifestly wrong. Archbishop Rowan has made it clear he will not act as a Pope. He has neither the legal nor the moral right to do so, given the history of Anglican polity and the kind of polity he is himself trying to encourage at this moment in time. Moreover, it is hard to imagine what more could have been done than was done at Dar es Salaam. Creating a new province, or enabling one, is something that individual Primates may have designs about, but the effect would only be to fracture and divide the Primates as a body.
And it is not necessary. What is necessary is for the Dar es Salaam communiqué to be followed up on. It is not enough to point to the success of this or that ad hoc method of oversight, granted by this or that kindly Bishop and undertaken by this or that generous Episcopal neighbor. This is at most ‘finger in the dike’ stuff, and it fails to reckon with all that is now required. Who will go to Lambeth? Who will represent TEC at the next Primates Meeting? Who will care for the parish in the diocese which is not overseen by kind or generous Bishop X? The Dar es Salaam communiqué is a unique gift. It accepts a serious problem and deals with it. It has done so with astonishing agreement of mind. How that agreement has turned into confusion and dissembling is only further testimony to the resolve of TEC to have things always on their own terms.
It is becoming clear as well that a gift is only of any value if it is given and received both. Archbishop Rowan would be forgiven for being puzzled at the failure of conservative Bishops in TEC both to applaud and embrace the communiqué of Dar es Salaam and receive warmly what has been given. Not to gaze on it from afar or speak of its virtues only, but to unwrap and open and take good care of what has been given.
Efforts to delay or to seek another form of ‘peace’ can only be seen as yet another example of American unilateralism. There is nothing wrong, uncanonical, imperial, or otherwise with the communique’s requests. The requests address with clarity and charity a problem that unilateralists in the Communion have created. There is no evidence that the Primates are seeking fresh alternatives to the communiqué they crafted, and Archbishop Rowan is going the extra mile to take the pulse up close. Sadly, the patient is not only quite ill, but in denial as well.
Christopher Seitz
Philip Turner
Ephraim Radner
The Anglican Communion Institute
Monday, April 23, 2007
Peggy Noonan on the Va. Tech Murders and Aftermath
Cold Standard
Virginia Tech and the heartlessness of our media and therapy culture.
Friday, April 20, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
I saw an old friend on the Acela on the way to Washington, and he told me of the glum, grim faces at the station he'd left, all the commuters with newspapers in their hands and under their arms. This was the day after Virginia Tech. We talked about what was different this time, in this tragedy. I told him I felt people were stricken because they weren't stricken. When Columbine happened, it was weird and terrible, and now there have been some incidents since, and now it's not weird anymore. And that is what's so terrible. It's the difference between "That doesn't happen!" and "That happens."
Actually I thought of Thoreau. He said he didn't have to read newspapers because if you're familiar with a principle you don't have to be familiar with its numerous applications. If you know lightning hits trees, you don't have to know every time a tree is struck by lightning.
In terms of school shootings, we are now familiar with the principle.
Dennis Miller the other night said something compassionate and sensible on TV. Invited to criticize some famous person's stupid response to a past tragedy, he said he sort of applied a 48 hour grace period after a tragedy and didn't hold anyone to the things they'd said. People get rattled and say things that are extreme.
But more than 48 hours have passed. So: some impressions.
There seems to me a sort of broad national diminution of common sense in our country that we don't notice in the day-to-day but that become obvious after a story like this. Common sense says a person like Cho Seung-hui, who was obviously dangerous and unstable, should have been separated from the college population. Common sense says someone should have stepped in like an adult, like a person in authority, and taken him away. It is only common sense that if a person like Cho leaves a self-aggrandizing, self-celebrating, self-pitying video diary of himself to be played by the mass media, the mass media should not play it and not publicize it, not make it famous. Common sense says that won't help.
And all those big cops, scores of them, hundreds, with the latest, heaviest, most sophisticated gear, all the weapons and helmets and safety vests and belts. It looked like the brute force of the state coming up against uncontrollable human will.
But it also looked muscle bound. And the schools themselves more and more look muscle bound, weighed down with laws and legal assumptions and strange prohibitions.
The school officials I saw, especially the head of the campus psychological services, seemed to me endearing losers. But endearing is too strong. I mean "not obviously and vividly offensive." The school officials who gave all the highly competent, almost smooth and practiced news conferences seemed to me like white, bearded people who were educated in softness. Cho was "troubled"; he clearly had "issues"; it would have been good if someone had "reached out"; it's too bad America doesn't have better "support services." They don't use direct, clear words, because if they're blunt, they're implicated.
The literally white-bearded academic who was head of the campus counseling center was on Paula Zahn Wednesday night suggesting the utter incompetence of officials to stop a man who had stalked two women, set a fire in his room, written morbid and violent plays and poems, been expelled from one class, and been declared by a judge to be "mentally ill" was due to the lack of a government "safety net." In a news conference, he decried inadequate "funding for mental health services in the United States." Way to take responsibility. Way to show the kids how to dodge.
The anxiety of our politicians that there may be an issue that goes unexploited was almost--almost--comic. They mean to seem sensitive, and yet wind up only stroking their supporters. I believe Rep. Jim Moran was first out of the gate with the charge that what Cho did was President Bush's fault. I believe Sen. Barack Obama was second, equating the literal killing of humans with verbal coarseness. Wednesday there was Sen. Barbara Boxer equating the violence of the shootings with the "global warming challenge" and "today's Supreme Court decision" upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion.
One watches all of this and wonders: Where are the grown-ups?
I wondered about the emptiness of the phrases used by the media and by political figures, and how pro forma and lifeless and cold they are. The formalized language of loss hasn't kept up with the number of tragedies. "A nation mourns." "Our prayers are with you." The latter is both self-complimenting and of dubious believability. Did you really pray? Or is it just a phrase?
And this as opposed to the honest things normal people say: "Oh no." "I am so sorry." "I'm sad." "It's horrible."
With all the therapy in our great therapized nation, with all our devotion to emotions and feelings, one senses we are becoming a colder culture, and a colder country. We purport to be compassionate--we must respect Mr. Cho's privacy rights and personal autonomy--but of course it is cold not to have protected others from him. It is cold not to have protected him from himself.
The last testament Cho sent to NBC seemed more clear evidence of mental illness--posing with his pistols, big tough gangsta gonna take you out. What is it evidence of when NBC News, a great pillar of the mainstream media, runs the videos and pictures on the nightly news? Brian Williams introduced the Cho collection as "what can only be described as a multi-media manifesto." But it can be described in other ways. "The self-serving meanderings of a crazy, self-indulgent narcissist" is one. But if you called it that, you couldn't lead with it. You couldn't rationalize the decision.
Such pictures are inspiring to the unstable. The minute you saw them, you probably thought what I did: We'll be seeing more of that.
The most common-sensical thing I heard said came Thursday morning, in a hospital interview with a student who'd been shot and was recovering. Garrett Evans said of the man who'd shot him, "An evil spirit was going through that boy, I could feel it." It was one of the few things I heard the past few days that sounded completely true. Whatever else Cho was, he was also a walking infestation of evil. Too bad nobody stopped him. Too bad nobody moved.
Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.
Virginia Tech and the heartlessness of our media and therapy culture.
Friday, April 20, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
I saw an old friend on the Acela on the way to Washington, and he told me of the glum, grim faces at the station he'd left, all the commuters with newspapers in their hands and under their arms. This was the day after Virginia Tech. We talked about what was different this time, in this tragedy. I told him I felt people were stricken because they weren't stricken. When Columbine happened, it was weird and terrible, and now there have been some incidents since, and now it's not weird anymore. And that is what's so terrible. It's the difference between "That doesn't happen!" and "That happens."
Actually I thought of Thoreau. He said he didn't have to read newspapers because if you're familiar with a principle you don't have to be familiar with its numerous applications. If you know lightning hits trees, you don't have to know every time a tree is struck by lightning.
In terms of school shootings, we are now familiar with the principle.
Dennis Miller the other night said something compassionate and sensible on TV. Invited to criticize some famous person's stupid response to a past tragedy, he said he sort of applied a 48 hour grace period after a tragedy and didn't hold anyone to the things they'd said. People get rattled and say things that are extreme.
But more than 48 hours have passed. So: some impressions.
There seems to me a sort of broad national diminution of common sense in our country that we don't notice in the day-to-day but that become obvious after a story like this. Common sense says a person like Cho Seung-hui, who was obviously dangerous and unstable, should have been separated from the college population. Common sense says someone should have stepped in like an adult, like a person in authority, and taken him away. It is only common sense that if a person like Cho leaves a self-aggrandizing, self-celebrating, self-pitying video diary of himself to be played by the mass media, the mass media should not play it and not publicize it, not make it famous. Common sense says that won't help.
And all those big cops, scores of them, hundreds, with the latest, heaviest, most sophisticated gear, all the weapons and helmets and safety vests and belts. It looked like the brute force of the state coming up against uncontrollable human will.
But it also looked muscle bound. And the schools themselves more and more look muscle bound, weighed down with laws and legal assumptions and strange prohibitions.
The school officials I saw, especially the head of the campus psychological services, seemed to me endearing losers. But endearing is too strong. I mean "not obviously and vividly offensive." The school officials who gave all the highly competent, almost smooth and practiced news conferences seemed to me like white, bearded people who were educated in softness. Cho was "troubled"; he clearly had "issues"; it would have been good if someone had "reached out"; it's too bad America doesn't have better "support services." They don't use direct, clear words, because if they're blunt, they're implicated.
The literally white-bearded academic who was head of the campus counseling center was on Paula Zahn Wednesday night suggesting the utter incompetence of officials to stop a man who had stalked two women, set a fire in his room, written morbid and violent plays and poems, been expelled from one class, and been declared by a judge to be "mentally ill" was due to the lack of a government "safety net." In a news conference, he decried inadequate "funding for mental health services in the United States." Way to take responsibility. Way to show the kids how to dodge.
The anxiety of our politicians that there may be an issue that goes unexploited was almost--almost--comic. They mean to seem sensitive, and yet wind up only stroking their supporters. I believe Rep. Jim Moran was first out of the gate with the charge that what Cho did was President Bush's fault. I believe Sen. Barack Obama was second, equating the literal killing of humans with verbal coarseness. Wednesday there was Sen. Barbara Boxer equating the violence of the shootings with the "global warming challenge" and "today's Supreme Court decision" upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion.
One watches all of this and wonders: Where are the grown-ups?
I wondered about the emptiness of the phrases used by the media and by political figures, and how pro forma and lifeless and cold they are. The formalized language of loss hasn't kept up with the number of tragedies. "A nation mourns." "Our prayers are with you." The latter is both self-complimenting and of dubious believability. Did you really pray? Or is it just a phrase?
And this as opposed to the honest things normal people say: "Oh no." "I am so sorry." "I'm sad." "It's horrible."
With all the therapy in our great therapized nation, with all our devotion to emotions and feelings, one senses we are becoming a colder culture, and a colder country. We purport to be compassionate--we must respect Mr. Cho's privacy rights and personal autonomy--but of course it is cold not to have protected others from him. It is cold not to have protected him from himself.
The last testament Cho sent to NBC seemed more clear evidence of mental illness--posing with his pistols, big tough gangsta gonna take you out. What is it evidence of when NBC News, a great pillar of the mainstream media, runs the videos and pictures on the nightly news? Brian Williams introduced the Cho collection as "what can only be described as a multi-media manifesto." But it can be described in other ways. "The self-serving meanderings of a crazy, self-indulgent narcissist" is one. But if you called it that, you couldn't lead with it. You couldn't rationalize the decision.
Such pictures are inspiring to the unstable. The minute you saw them, you probably thought what I did: We'll be seeing more of that.
The most common-sensical thing I heard said came Thursday morning, in a hospital interview with a student who'd been shot and was recovering. Garrett Evans said of the man who'd shot him, "An evil spirit was going through that boy, I could feel it." It was one of the few things I heard the past few days that sounded completely true. Whatever else Cho was, he was also a walking infestation of evil. Too bad nobody stopped him. Too bad nobody moved.
Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
TORONTO: Anglican head Williams says anti-gays misread Bible
Theologian Robert Gagnon responds to the statements of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the next post down. ed.
By Tom Heneghan Religion Editor
Reuters, Paris
http://tinyurl.com/2xge57
April 17, 2007
The spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans has said conservative Christians who cite the Bible to condemn homosexuality are misreading a key passage written by Saint Paul almost 2,000 years ago.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, addressing theology students in Toronto, said an oft-quoted passage in Paul's Epistle to the Romans meant to warn Christians not to be self-righteous when they see others fall into sin.
His comments were an unusually open rebuff to conservative bishops, many of them from Africa, who have been citing the Bible to demand that pro-gay Anglican majorities in the United States and Canada be reined in or forced out of the Communion.
"Many current ways of reading miss the actual direction of the passage," Williams said on Monday, according to a text of his speech posted on the Anglican Church of Canada's Web site.
"Paul is making a primary point not about homosexuality but about the delusions of the supposedly law-abiding."
The worldwide Anglican Communion is near breaking point over homosexuality, with conservative clerics insisting the Bible forbids gay bishops or blessings for same-sex unions. Its U.S. branch, the Episcopal Church, named a gay bishop in 2003.
In fact, Williams also revealed on Tuesday that he had considered canceling the Anglicans' once-a-decade 2008 Lambeth Conference, which has the potential to become a flashpoint over homosexuality.
"Yes, we've already been considering that and the answer is no," he told the Anglican Church of Canada's Anglican Journal.
"We've been looking at whether the timing is right, but if we wait for the ideal time, we will wait more than just 18 months."
In the passage of Romans that Williams referred to in Monday's speech, Paul said people who forgot God's words fell into sin. "Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion," Paul wrote.
Williams said these lines were "for the majority of modern readers the most important single text in Scripture on the subject of homosexuality." But right after that passage, Paul warns readers not to condemn those who ignore God's word.
"At whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself," wrote Paul, the first-century apostle whose epistles, or letters, to early Christian communities elaborated many Church teachings.
NEITHER SIDE WINS
Williams said reinterpreting Paul's epistle as a warning against smug self-righteousness rather than homosexuality would favor neither side over the other in the bitter struggle that threatens to plunge the Anglican Communion into schism.
It would not help pro-gay liberals, he said, because Paul and his readers clearly agreed that homosexuality was "as obviously immoral as idol worship or disobedience to parents."
This reading would also upset anti-gay conservatives, who have been "up to this point happily identifying with Paul's castigation of someone else," and challenge them to ask whether they were right to judge others, he added.
"This does nothing to settle the exegetical questions fiercely debated at the moment," Williams said.
But he said a "strictly theological reading of Scripture" would not allow a Christian to denounce others and not ask whether he or she were also somehow at fault.
Williams warned of the danger of schism.
"The Communion has to face the fact that there is a division in our Church and it's getting deeper and more bitter," he said. "If the Anglican Church divides, everyone will lose."
(Additional reporting by Randall Palmer in Ottawa)
------------------------------
By Tom Heneghan Religion Editor
Reuters, Paris
http://tinyurl.com/2xge57
April 17, 2007
The spiritual leader of the world's 77 million Anglicans has said conservative Christians who cite the Bible to condemn homosexuality are misreading a key passage written by Saint Paul almost 2,000 years ago.
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, addressing theology students in Toronto, said an oft-quoted passage in Paul's Epistle to the Romans meant to warn Christians not to be self-righteous when they see others fall into sin.
His comments were an unusually open rebuff to conservative bishops, many of them from Africa, who have been citing the Bible to demand that pro-gay Anglican majorities in the United States and Canada be reined in or forced out of the Communion.
"Many current ways of reading miss the actual direction of the passage," Williams said on Monday, according to a text of his speech posted on the Anglican Church of Canada's Web site.
"Paul is making a primary point not about homosexuality but about the delusions of the supposedly law-abiding."
The worldwide Anglican Communion is near breaking point over homosexuality, with conservative clerics insisting the Bible forbids gay bishops or blessings for same-sex unions. Its U.S. branch, the Episcopal Church, named a gay bishop in 2003.
In fact, Williams also revealed on Tuesday that he had considered canceling the Anglicans' once-a-decade 2008 Lambeth Conference, which has the potential to become a flashpoint over homosexuality.
"Yes, we've already been considering that and the answer is no," he told the Anglican Church of Canada's Anglican Journal.
"We've been looking at whether the timing is right, but if we wait for the ideal time, we will wait more than just 18 months."
In the passage of Romans that Williams referred to in Monday's speech, Paul said people who forgot God's words fell into sin. "Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion," Paul wrote.
Williams said these lines were "for the majority of modern readers the most important single text in Scripture on the subject of homosexuality." But right after that passage, Paul warns readers not to condemn those who ignore God's word.
"At whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself," wrote Paul, the first-century apostle whose epistles, or letters, to early Christian communities elaborated many Church teachings.
NEITHER SIDE WINS
Williams said reinterpreting Paul's epistle as a warning against smug self-righteousness rather than homosexuality would favor neither side over the other in the bitter struggle that threatens to plunge the Anglican Communion into schism.
It would not help pro-gay liberals, he said, because Paul and his readers clearly agreed that homosexuality was "as obviously immoral as idol worship or disobedience to parents."
This reading would also upset anti-gay conservatives, who have been "up to this point happily identifying with Paul's castigation of someone else," and challenge them to ask whether they were right to judge others, he added.
"This does nothing to settle the exegetical questions fiercely debated at the moment," Williams said.
But he said a "strictly theological reading of Scripture" would not allow a Christian to denounce others and not ask whether he or she were also somehow at fault.
Williams warned of the danger of schism.
"The Communion has to face the fact that there is a division in our Church and it's getting deeper and more bitter," he said. "If the Anglican Church divides, everyone will lose."
(Additional reporting by Randall Palmer in Ottawa)
------------------------------
Rowan Williams' Wrong Reading of Romans
by Robert A. J. Gagnon
http://robgagnon.net/articles/homosexRowanWilliamsResp.pdf
April 18, 2007
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and titular head of the Anglican Communion, has been quoted by Reuters as saying that Paul's "primary point" in mentioning homosexual acts in Romans was to warn Christians against the smug self-righteousness of condemning the acts of others ("Anglican head Williams says anti-gays misread Bible," Apr. 17, 2007.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL1767470620070417).
So Christians apparently should not judge those who engage in homosexual acts, even though it is true that Paul regarded homosexual practice "as obviously immoral." If Reuters has accurately reported Williams' remarks to theology students in Toronto (always a big "if"), then Williams has seriously misread Romans. I say this with all due respect to the archbishop, who is a bright man and an able theologian (although not a biblical scholar).
Paul's own application of Romans 1:24-27 to believers later in Romans
Paul was emphatically not telling believers in Rome to avoid passing judgment on persons who actively engage in sexual immorality of an extreme sort, including homosexual practice. To the contrary: When Paul next used the term "sexual impurity" (akatharsia) in his letter (6:19), a term that he used elsewhere in Romans only in 1:24-27 to describe homosexual practice, he did so in direct address to the Roman believers. He reminded them that believers in Christ are no longer "slaves to sexual impurity," for to continue in such behavior was to engage in acts of which they should now be "ashamed" (echoing the shame language that dominates Rom 1:24-27 regarding homosexual practice). Such acts, he says, lead to death and the loss of eternal life (6:19-23; compare 1:32). Indeed, Paul's entire argument around the question "Why not sin?" since we are "under grace and not under the law" (6:15; cf. 6:1) culminates in 8:12-14 with the response:
If you continue to live in conformity to (the sinful desires operating in) the flesh you are going to die. But if by means of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For only those who are being led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
This quotation makes it clear, if it were not already, that mouthing a few words of confession that Christ is Lord does not exempt Christians from leading a life consonant with that confession, nor even from the dire eternal consequences that would arise from failing to do so. For Paul the outcome for a believer who lives under the primary sway of sin in the flesh is no different from the outcome for an unbeliever who so lives. Both alike face the prospect of exclusion from God's eternal rule.
Again in Romans 13, Paul makes clear that sexual impurity is definitely not one of the matters of ethical indifference, like diet and calendar issues, that later in 14:1-15:13 Paul will warn believers against judging fellow believers for. Paul insists in 13:13-14 that, in view of the coming day of salvation and judgment, believers "lay aside works of darkness" such as "immoral sexual activities and licentious acts" and thereby to "make no provision to gratify the sinful desires of the flesh." The Greek word for "immoral sexual activities" is koitai, which literally means, "lyings" or "beds," a term that obviously links up with arsenokoitai, "men lying with a male," in 1 Cor 6:9 as a particular instance of an immoral "lying." The Greek word for "licentious acts" is aselgeiai, which refers to a lack of self-restraint with respect to refraining from prohibited sexual behaviors.
This takes us back to the discussion in Rom 6:19-22 where Paul insists that believers stop putting their bodily members at the disposal of the kind of "sexual impurity" cited in 1:24-27, which makes them slaves of sin and lacking in sexual self-restraint. If Paul had wanted his converts to stop passing judgment on fellow converts who were engaged in unrepentant sexual immorality then he would have been a monumental hypocrite, inasmuch as he himself regularly made such judgments (we'll see more in a moment). It is far more likely, though, that Williams has misinterpreted Paul than that Paul was a monumental hypocrite, in my opinion.
The immediate context of Romans 1-2
Indeed, nothing in the immediate context of Romans 1:24-27 suggests that Paul would have been opposed to believers making the judgment that homosexual practice puts the offender at dire risk of facing God's wrath.
For Rom 1:24-27 depicts homosexual practice as a particularly egregious instance of "sexual uncleanness," grossly "contrary to nature," and an "indecency." In fact, Paul treats homosexual practice as analogous on the horizontal dimension of life to the vertical offense of idolatry since in both cases humans suppress the truth about God and his will for our lives that ought to have been self-evident in creation structures still intact in nature (1:19-23, 25). Does Williams think that Paul would have chastised believers as "self-righteous" for speaking vigorously against Christians who worshipped gods other than the God of Jesus Christ? I would hope not since Paul clearly regarded belief in Christ as absolutely antithetical to idol worship. For example, he described the conversion of the Thessalonians as a turning from idols to serve the living God (1 Thess 1:9-10). Moreover, he severely chastised the "strong" among the Corinthian believers just for eating in a idol's temple, !
to say nothing of worshipping an idol, because it could provoke God to jealousy and wrath (1 Cor 10:14-22). Yet, if Williams would concur with this point, then he would have to give up his point about Paul being opposed to "judging" persons who engage in unrepentant homosexual practice. For Paul's remarks in chap. 2, where Paul allegedly says, "don't judge" (incidentally, he doesn't say this, as we shall see), as much follow the indictment of idolatry as they do the indictment of homosexual relations.
Since we noted above Paul's stern opposition to idolatry in 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians as illustrations of his opposition to idolatry in all his letters, it bears mentioning that we see in these letters an equally stern opposition to any continuance in sexually immoral behavior. When Paul begins his moral exhortation in his first extant letter, he starts off by warning his converts not to engage any longer in the forms of "sexual impurity" (akatharsia) that once characterized their lives as Gentiles; and that failure to heed such a warning would leave them prey to an avenging God (1 Thess 4:1-8). Similarly, in 1 Corinthians Paul's couples idolatry and sexual immorality as the two main offenses that led God to wipe out the wilderness generation (10:6-12) and focuses an additional three chapters of his letter (5-7) on the paramount importance of sexual purity for believers. One need only compare Paul's command to "flee from idolatry" in 1 Cor 10:14 with his equally urge!
nt command to "flee sexual immorality" in 1 Cor 6:18.
Obviously, then, in Romans 1-2 Paul is not telling his readers to stop passing judgment on severe and obvious cases of idolatry and sexual immorality. For Paul states that idolatry and same-sex intercourse, among other offenses, are already and in themselves manifestations of God's wrath (not grace). The wrath appears initially in the form of God stepping back and not restraining humans from engaging in self-dishonoring behavior that arises from gratifying innate desires to do what God strongly forbids. Such behavior degrades the human being who has received the imprint of God's image. The continual heaping up of such sins, Paul says, will ultimately lead to cataclysmic judgment on the eschatological Day of Wrath (1:32; 2:3-9). Thus to accept homosexual practice in the church would be to consign persons who engage in such behavior to the ongoing wrath of God with the ultimate prospect of exclusion from God's kingdom (compare also 1 Cor 6:9-10; Gal 5:19, 21; Eph 5:3-8). This !
is not grace but wrath. This is not love but hate. This is not the absence of judgment but the substitution of one's own verdict of acquittal for God's verdict of wrath.
Paul in Romans 2 is debating, in the first instance, with a non-Christian, imaginary Jewish dialogue partner or interlocutor. Despite what Williams suggests, Paul does not tell the interlocutor to stop judging pagans for committing idolatry, sexual immorality, and an array of other sins (including murder, 1:29), as if by doing so the interlocutor could escape God's judgment of his own sins. Rather, Paul maintains both that God's judgment is indeed coming on those who do such things and that the interlocutor, when he does these or similar things, will likewise face God's wrath if he does not repent (2:3-4; he may sin less quantitatively and qualitatively than Gentiles but he knows more about God's will through Scripture). Essentially Paul is moving the interlocutor to the view that mere possession of the Jewish law of Moses does not exempt him from responding to the offer of salvation in Jesus Christ, an offer equally accessible to sinful Gentiles (3:3-26).
Everybody is in want of the atoning, amends-making death of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit of Christ that makes possible a life lived "for God" (compare Gal 2:19-20).
Yes, Paul has laid a trap for the Jewish interlocutor who evaluated God's judgment against the Gentile world as "just" and "righteous" (3:3-8). However, it is not a trap designed to preclude judgment of immoral behavior within the Christian community. Instead, it is a trap designed to convince moral unbelievers that they too need the grace of God manifested in the atoning death of Christ and the attendant moral transformation that comes with being a recipient of such grace: "For sin shall not exercise lordship over you, for you are not under law but under grace" (Rom 6:14). There is also a layered trap for Christians at Rome who judge one another over matters of moral indifference such as diet and calendar (14:1-15:13). As we have seen, though, sexual immorality, like idol worship, does not fall for Paul in the category of moral indifference.
Williams thus confuses his own context with the context for Paul's remarks in Romans. There is a big difference between, on the one hand, Paul chastising a non-believing Jew for using his sense of moral superiority to consign unbelieving Gentiles to hell while exempting himself from the need to receive Jesus as Savior (Rom 2:12-29) and, on the other hand, Williams chastising some in the church today for standing firmly against approving serial, unrepentant immoral sexual practices among institutional leaders of the church.
The parallel case of the incestuous man in 1 Corinthians 5
Just how far off the mark Williams' theological analysis of Paul's views on the matter is becomes clear when one looks at how Paul deals with the case of the incestuous man in 1 Cor 5-6. There an exasperated Paul asks the Corinthian believers the rhetorical question: "Is it not those inside (the church) that you are to judge?" (5:12). The news article about Williams, if accurate, suggests that Williams' response to such a question would be "no," at least as regards the comparable case of homosexual practice. But from Paul's standpoint "no" is the wrong answer. "No" is the answer that the "tolerant" Corinthian believers would give, but not the answer Paul wants them to give.
Far from tolerating the case of incest, Paul advocated temporary removal of the offending member from the life of the community and did so not only for the sake of the purity and holiness of the community but also for the sake of the offender who needed to be recovered for the kingdom of God (5:3-11; 6:9-11). Paul did not take the approach adopted by Williams, namely to caution the Corinthians against self-righteously passing judgment on the incestuous man's behavior. Paul also, in the broader context, explicitly rejected any attempt to view the morally significant issue of sexual immorality as comparable to morally indifferent issues surrounding dietary practices (6:12-20).
Clearly when Paul spoke of judging those "inside" the church he qualified that judgment in many ways. Judgment should be implemented (1) in a spirit of gentleness and an awareness that one's own self is vulnerable to temptation (Gal 6:1); (2) in a mournful manner (1 Cor 5:2) and with regard for the offender as a brother and not an enemy (2 Thess 3:15); (3) out of a desire to reclaim the offender for God's kingdom rather than punitively condemn the offender to hell; (4) with a zeal to restore him quickly and enthusiastically to the community following repentance (1 Cor 5:5; 2 Cor 2:5-11; 7:8-13); and (5) in proportion to the recalcitrance of the offender and the severity of the offense (1 Thess 5:14; 1 Cor 5:1-2). Yet, equally as clearly, Paul insisted that the church do its job of judging those within the community of faith who have deviated into serious sexual immorality. Anything less would be unloving.
Perhaps Williams would respond that a loving and consensual relationship between a man and his mother or stepmother is far more serious than a loving and consensual relationship between persons of the same sex. And yet I don't see how Williams could demonstrate such a point from Paul, taken in his historical context. For all the evidence from ancient Israel and early Judaism, as well as Paul's own description in Rom 1:24-27, indicates that Paul regarded homosexual practice as comparable to or worse than a case of man-mother incest, even of a consensual and loving sort.
There is no evidence that Jesus' view of the matter would have been any different since Jesus predicated his view on marital 'twoness' on the 'twoness' of the sexes: "male and female he made them" (Gen 1:27) and "for this reason a man may leave his father and mother and become joined to his woman and the two shall become one flesh" (Gen 2:24; both cited in Mark 10:6-8; Matt 19:4-6). For both incest and homosexual practice are instances of immoral sexual relations between persons too much alike on a structural or formal level (one as regards kinship, the other as regards the sex or gender of the participants). The only difference between the two is that a two-sexes prerequisite for sexual relations is more strongly grounded in the creation texts and is more absolutely sustained in Scripture generally and in the traditions of early Judaism (i.e. with no exceptions) than is even a prohibition of incest. Moreover, the issue of too much structural sameness, of a na rcissistic aro!
usal for what one already is, is if anything more keenly felt in the case of same-sex intercourse than in the case of consensual, adult incest. Of the two, the prohibition of incest and the prohibition of same-sex intercourse, the prior and more foundational analogue is clearly the prohibition of same-sex intercourse.
Partly what this boils down to is this: Williams does not regard homosexual practice as a particularly significant sexual offense, if even an offense at all. (I have read in the press that he may have moderated or even changed some of his earlier strong support for homosexual practice but the evidence for such a change is at best conflicting.) For I can't imagine Williams arguing that it would be inappropriate for the church to split over the issue of, say, ordaining bishops who were in committed sexual bonds with a parent, full sibling, or adult child. I suspect that in such a context he would never introduce issues such as 'judgmentalism' or self-righteousness or divisiveness on the part of those who opposed ordination of such. Yet neither he nor anyone else who talks in this way has made a convincing case that Paul would have viewed loving and committed same-sex intercourse involving people "oriented" to such behavior as a significantly lesser offense than adult, consensu!
al, and loving incest of the first order. Until he or anyone else makes such a convincing case, no basis exists for arguing that severing ties with a schismatic Episcopal Church of the United States of America would be an unfaithful, self-righteous, and anti-Pauline act. Indeed, the truly anti-Pauline act would be a business-as-usual approach to a renegade body that endorses sexual immorality among its leaders.
This is not the first time that I have addressed these issues. Much (though not all) of the material above in a different form can be found in works of mine already published, such as The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon Press, 2001; cf. esp. pp. 277-84: "Does Romans 2:1-3:20 Condemn Those Who Condemn Homosexual Practice?" and pp. 240-46: "Romans 1:18-3:20 Within the Sweep of Paul's Letter and the Situation at Rome") and a more recent article, "Why the Disagreement over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?" (Reformed Review 59:1 : 19-130, esp. pp. 83-90: "Addendum: Does Paul reject judgment of homosexual practice?" and "Is Homosexual Practice the Diet and Circumcision Issue of Today?"). It would be nice in the future if persons making the kinds of claims about Paul that the Archbishop has made could at least acknowledge the counter-arguments already made and attempt to respond to them.
If I have misunderstood the particulars of Archbishop Williams' reported remarks in any way, then I would be happy to be corrected. I respect him and nothing said here should be interpreted otherwise. Of course, I would be delighted to discover that the Archbishop actually does not believe that Paul warned his converts against judging believers who were actively engaged in sexually immoral behavior of a severe sort such as homosexual practice. One holds out the hope that it is the reporter, and not the one being reported on, whose interpretation of Paul's letter to the Romans is in need of correction.
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D., is a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. He can be reached at gagnon@pts.edu.
Copyright 2007 Robert A. J. Gagnon
---The Rev. Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon is Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. gagnon@pts.edu
------------------------------
http://robgagnon.net/articles/homosexRowanWilliamsResp.pdf
April 18, 2007
Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and titular head of the Anglican Communion, has been quoted by Reuters as saying that Paul's "primary point" in mentioning homosexual acts in Romans was to warn Christians against the smug self-righteousness of condemning the acts of others ("Anglican head Williams says anti-gays misread Bible," Apr. 17, 2007.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL1767470620070417).
So Christians apparently should not judge those who engage in homosexual acts, even though it is true that Paul regarded homosexual practice "as obviously immoral." If Reuters has accurately reported Williams' remarks to theology students in Toronto (always a big "if"), then Williams has seriously misread Romans. I say this with all due respect to the archbishop, who is a bright man and an able theologian (although not a biblical scholar).
Paul's own application of Romans 1:24-27 to believers later in Romans
Paul was emphatically not telling believers in Rome to avoid passing judgment on persons who actively engage in sexual immorality of an extreme sort, including homosexual practice. To the contrary: When Paul next used the term "sexual impurity" (akatharsia) in his letter (6:19), a term that he used elsewhere in Romans only in 1:24-27 to describe homosexual practice, he did so in direct address to the Roman believers. He reminded them that believers in Christ are no longer "slaves to sexual impurity," for to continue in such behavior was to engage in acts of which they should now be "ashamed" (echoing the shame language that dominates Rom 1:24-27 regarding homosexual practice). Such acts, he says, lead to death and the loss of eternal life (6:19-23; compare 1:32). Indeed, Paul's entire argument around the question "Why not sin?" since we are "under grace and not under the law" (6:15; cf. 6:1) culminates in 8:12-14 with the response:
If you continue to live in conformity to (the sinful desires operating in) the flesh you are going to die. But if by means of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For only those who are being led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
This quotation makes it clear, if it were not already, that mouthing a few words of confession that Christ is Lord does not exempt Christians from leading a life consonant with that confession, nor even from the dire eternal consequences that would arise from failing to do so. For Paul the outcome for a believer who lives under the primary sway of sin in the flesh is no different from the outcome for an unbeliever who so lives. Both alike face the prospect of exclusion from God's eternal rule.
Again in Romans 13, Paul makes clear that sexual impurity is definitely not one of the matters of ethical indifference, like diet and calendar issues, that later in 14:1-15:13 Paul will warn believers against judging fellow believers for. Paul insists in 13:13-14 that, in view of the coming day of salvation and judgment, believers "lay aside works of darkness" such as "immoral sexual activities and licentious acts" and thereby to "make no provision to gratify the sinful desires of the flesh." The Greek word for "immoral sexual activities" is koitai, which literally means, "lyings" or "beds," a term that obviously links up with arsenokoitai, "men lying with a male," in 1 Cor 6:9 as a particular instance of an immoral "lying." The Greek word for "licentious acts" is aselgeiai, which refers to a lack of self-restraint with respect to refraining from prohibited sexual behaviors.
This takes us back to the discussion in Rom 6:19-22 where Paul insists that believers stop putting their bodily members at the disposal of the kind of "sexual impurity" cited in 1:24-27, which makes them slaves of sin and lacking in sexual self-restraint. If Paul had wanted his converts to stop passing judgment on fellow converts who were engaged in unrepentant sexual immorality then he would have been a monumental hypocrite, inasmuch as he himself regularly made such judgments (we'll see more in a moment). It is far more likely, though, that Williams has misinterpreted Paul than that Paul was a monumental hypocrite, in my opinion.
The immediate context of Romans 1-2
Indeed, nothing in the immediate context of Romans 1:24-27 suggests that Paul would have been opposed to believers making the judgment that homosexual practice puts the offender at dire risk of facing God's wrath.
For Rom 1:24-27 depicts homosexual practice as a particularly egregious instance of "sexual uncleanness," grossly "contrary to nature," and an "indecency." In fact, Paul treats homosexual practice as analogous on the horizontal dimension of life to the vertical offense of idolatry since in both cases humans suppress the truth about God and his will for our lives that ought to have been self-evident in creation structures still intact in nature (1:19-23, 25). Does Williams think that Paul would have chastised believers as "self-righteous" for speaking vigorously against Christians who worshipped gods other than the God of Jesus Christ? I would hope not since Paul clearly regarded belief in Christ as absolutely antithetical to idol worship. For example, he described the conversion of the Thessalonians as a turning from idols to serve the living God (1 Thess 1:9-10). Moreover, he severely chastised the "strong" among the Corinthian believers just for eating in a idol's temple, !
to say nothing of worshipping an idol, because it could provoke God to jealousy and wrath (1 Cor 10:14-22). Yet, if Williams would concur with this point, then he would have to give up his point about Paul being opposed to "judging" persons who engage in unrepentant homosexual practice. For Paul's remarks in chap. 2, where Paul allegedly says, "don't judge" (incidentally, he doesn't say this, as we shall see), as much follow the indictment of idolatry as they do the indictment of homosexual relations.
Since we noted above Paul's stern opposition to idolatry in 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians as illustrations of his opposition to idolatry in all his letters, it bears mentioning that we see in these letters an equally stern opposition to any continuance in sexually immoral behavior. When Paul begins his moral exhortation in his first extant letter, he starts off by warning his converts not to engage any longer in the forms of "sexual impurity" (akatharsia) that once characterized their lives as Gentiles; and that failure to heed such a warning would leave them prey to an avenging God (1 Thess 4:1-8). Similarly, in 1 Corinthians Paul's couples idolatry and sexual immorality as the two main offenses that led God to wipe out the wilderness generation (10:6-12) and focuses an additional three chapters of his letter (5-7) on the paramount importance of sexual purity for believers. One need only compare Paul's command to "flee from idolatry" in 1 Cor 10:14 with his equally urge!
nt command to "flee sexual immorality" in 1 Cor 6:18.
Obviously, then, in Romans 1-2 Paul is not telling his readers to stop passing judgment on severe and obvious cases of idolatry and sexual immorality. For Paul states that idolatry and same-sex intercourse, among other offenses, are already and in themselves manifestations of God's wrath (not grace). The wrath appears initially in the form of God stepping back and not restraining humans from engaging in self-dishonoring behavior that arises from gratifying innate desires to do what God strongly forbids. Such behavior degrades the human being who has received the imprint of God's image. The continual heaping up of such sins, Paul says, will ultimately lead to cataclysmic judgment on the eschatological Day of Wrath (1:32; 2:3-9). Thus to accept homosexual practice in the church would be to consign persons who engage in such behavior to the ongoing wrath of God with the ultimate prospect of exclusion from God's kingdom (compare also 1 Cor 6:9-10; Gal 5:19, 21; Eph 5:3-8). This !
is not grace but wrath. This is not love but hate. This is not the absence of judgment but the substitution of one's own verdict of acquittal for God's verdict of wrath.
Paul in Romans 2 is debating, in the first instance, with a non-Christian, imaginary Jewish dialogue partner or interlocutor. Despite what Williams suggests, Paul does not tell the interlocutor to stop judging pagans for committing idolatry, sexual immorality, and an array of other sins (including murder, 1:29), as if by doing so the interlocutor could escape God's judgment of his own sins. Rather, Paul maintains both that God's judgment is indeed coming on those who do such things and that the interlocutor, when he does these or similar things, will likewise face God's wrath if he does not repent (2:3-4; he may sin less quantitatively and qualitatively than Gentiles but he knows more about God's will through Scripture). Essentially Paul is moving the interlocutor to the view that mere possession of the Jewish law of Moses does not exempt him from responding to the offer of salvation in Jesus Christ, an offer equally accessible to sinful Gentiles (3:3-26).
Everybody is in want of the atoning, amends-making death of Jesus and the indwelling Spirit of Christ that makes possible a life lived "for God" (compare Gal 2:19-20).
Yes, Paul has laid a trap for the Jewish interlocutor who evaluated God's judgment against the Gentile world as "just" and "righteous" (3:3-8). However, it is not a trap designed to preclude judgment of immoral behavior within the Christian community. Instead, it is a trap designed to convince moral unbelievers that they too need the grace of God manifested in the atoning death of Christ and the attendant moral transformation that comes with being a recipient of such grace: "For sin shall not exercise lordship over you, for you are not under law but under grace" (Rom 6:14). There is also a layered trap for Christians at Rome who judge one another over matters of moral indifference such as diet and calendar (14:1-15:13). As we have seen, though, sexual immorality, like idol worship, does not fall for Paul in the category of moral indifference.
Williams thus confuses his own context with the context for Paul's remarks in Romans. There is a big difference between, on the one hand, Paul chastising a non-believing Jew for using his sense of moral superiority to consign unbelieving Gentiles to hell while exempting himself from the need to receive Jesus as Savior (Rom 2:12-29) and, on the other hand, Williams chastising some in the church today for standing firmly against approving serial, unrepentant immoral sexual practices among institutional leaders of the church.
The parallel case of the incestuous man in 1 Corinthians 5
Just how far off the mark Williams' theological analysis of Paul's views on the matter is becomes clear when one looks at how Paul deals with the case of the incestuous man in 1 Cor 5-6. There an exasperated Paul asks the Corinthian believers the rhetorical question: "Is it not those inside (the church) that you are to judge?" (5:12). The news article about Williams, if accurate, suggests that Williams' response to such a question would be "no," at least as regards the comparable case of homosexual practice. But from Paul's standpoint "no" is the wrong answer. "No" is the answer that the "tolerant" Corinthian believers would give, but not the answer Paul wants them to give.
Far from tolerating the case of incest, Paul advocated temporary removal of the offending member from the life of the community and did so not only for the sake of the purity and holiness of the community but also for the sake of the offender who needed to be recovered for the kingdom of God (5:3-11; 6:9-11). Paul did not take the approach adopted by Williams, namely to caution the Corinthians against self-righteously passing judgment on the incestuous man's behavior. Paul also, in the broader context, explicitly rejected any attempt to view the morally significant issue of sexual immorality as comparable to morally indifferent issues surrounding dietary practices (6:12-20).
Clearly when Paul spoke of judging those "inside" the church he qualified that judgment in many ways. Judgment should be implemented (1) in a spirit of gentleness and an awareness that one's own self is vulnerable to temptation (Gal 6:1); (2) in a mournful manner (1 Cor 5:2) and with regard for the offender as a brother and not an enemy (2 Thess 3:15); (3) out of a desire to reclaim the offender for God's kingdom rather than punitively condemn the offender to hell; (4) with a zeal to restore him quickly and enthusiastically to the community following repentance (1 Cor 5:5; 2 Cor 2:5-11; 7:8-13); and (5) in proportion to the recalcitrance of the offender and the severity of the offense (1 Thess 5:14; 1 Cor 5:1-2). Yet, equally as clearly, Paul insisted that the church do its job of judging those within the community of faith who have deviated into serious sexual immorality. Anything less would be unloving.
Perhaps Williams would respond that a loving and consensual relationship between a man and his mother or stepmother is far more serious than a loving and consensual relationship between persons of the same sex. And yet I don't see how Williams could demonstrate such a point from Paul, taken in his historical context. For all the evidence from ancient Israel and early Judaism, as well as Paul's own description in Rom 1:24-27, indicates that Paul regarded homosexual practice as comparable to or worse than a case of man-mother incest, even of a consensual and loving sort.
There is no evidence that Jesus' view of the matter would have been any different since Jesus predicated his view on marital 'twoness' on the 'twoness' of the sexes: "male and female he made them" (Gen 1:27) and "for this reason a man may leave his father and mother and become joined to his woman and the two shall become one flesh" (Gen 2:24; both cited in Mark 10:6-8; Matt 19:4-6). For both incest and homosexual practice are instances of immoral sexual relations between persons too much alike on a structural or formal level (one as regards kinship, the other as regards the sex or gender of the participants). The only difference between the two is that a two-sexes prerequisite for sexual relations is more strongly grounded in the creation texts and is more absolutely sustained in Scripture generally and in the traditions of early Judaism (i.e. with no exceptions) than is even a prohibition of incest. Moreover, the issue of too much structural sameness, of a na rcissistic aro!
usal for what one already is, is if anything more keenly felt in the case of same-sex intercourse than in the case of consensual, adult incest. Of the two, the prohibition of incest and the prohibition of same-sex intercourse, the prior and more foundational analogue is clearly the prohibition of same-sex intercourse.
Partly what this boils down to is this: Williams does not regard homosexual practice as a particularly significant sexual offense, if even an offense at all. (I have read in the press that he may have moderated or even changed some of his earlier strong support for homosexual practice but the evidence for such a change is at best conflicting.) For I can't imagine Williams arguing that it would be inappropriate for the church to split over the issue of, say, ordaining bishops who were in committed sexual bonds with a parent, full sibling, or adult child. I suspect that in such a context he would never introduce issues such as 'judgmentalism' or self-righteousness or divisiveness on the part of those who opposed ordination of such. Yet neither he nor anyone else who talks in this way has made a convincing case that Paul would have viewed loving and committed same-sex intercourse involving people "oriented" to such behavior as a significantly lesser offense than adult, consensu!
al, and loving incest of the first order. Until he or anyone else makes such a convincing case, no basis exists for arguing that severing ties with a schismatic Episcopal Church of the United States of America would be an unfaithful, self-righteous, and anti-Pauline act. Indeed, the truly anti-Pauline act would be a business-as-usual approach to a renegade body that endorses sexual immorality among its leaders.
This is not the first time that I have addressed these issues. Much (though not all) of the material above in a different form can be found in works of mine already published, such as The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Abingdon Press, 2001; cf. esp. pp. 277-84: "Does Romans 2:1-3:20 Condemn Those Who Condemn Homosexual Practice?" and pp. 240-46: "Romans 1:18-3:20 Within the Sweep of Paul's Letter and the Situation at Rome") and a more recent article, "Why the Disagreement over the Biblical Witness on Homosexual Practice?" (Reformed Review 59:1 : 19-130, esp. pp. 83-90: "Addendum: Does Paul reject judgment of homosexual practice?" and "Is Homosexual Practice the Diet and Circumcision Issue of Today?"). It would be nice in the future if persons making the kinds of claims about Paul that the Archbishop has made could at least acknowledge the counter-arguments already made and attempt to respond to them.
If I have misunderstood the particulars of Archbishop Williams' reported remarks in any way, then I would be happy to be corrected. I respect him and nothing said here should be interpreted otherwise. Of course, I would be delighted to discover that the Archbishop actually does not believe that Paul warned his converts against judging believers who were actively engaged in sexually immoral behavior of a severe sort such as homosexual practice. One holds out the hope that it is the reporter, and not the one being reported on, whose interpretation of Paul's letter to the Romans is in need of correction.
Robert A. J. Gagnon, Ph.D., is a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics. He can be reached at gagnon@pts.edu.
Copyright 2007 Robert A. J. Gagnon
---The Rev. Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon is Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. gagnon@pts.edu
------------------------------
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Statement from the Anglican Communion Institute
The Anglican Communion Institute has argued consistently for solutions to our present conflicts that preserve the integrity of The Episcopal Church (TEC), the Anglican Communion (AC), and the full membership of TEC in that Communion. The overwhelmingly negative response of the House of Bishops to the proposals from Dar es Salaam made by the Meeting of Primates (MP) leaves little doubt in our minds that the Bishops and Dioceses of TEC will soon have to decide two crucial questions that touch the very center of these concerns. (1) How they individually and collectively are going to continue relations with the AC through its instruments of communion (the Lambeth Conference, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the MP, and the Anglican Consultative Council); and (2) how the Bishops and Dioceses of TEC are going to continue relations one with another through their own instruments of governance (the General Convention, the Executive Council, and the House of Bishops)? In like manner, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the MP are going to have to determine how they will continue or not continue in relation both to the various Dioceses of TEC and its instruments of governance.
It is simply the case that the recent actions of the House of Bishops bring to the surface differences between large sections of TEC and the AC that may well prove irreconcilable. They also reveal divisions within TEC that may well prove equally intractable. If the questions presented above are not addressed in a thoughtful and charitable manner by all parties involved we foresee divisions of a possibly irreparable character coming to pass within TEC and the Communion as a whole.
These questions present themselves to all parties in the present dispute, but our immediate focus is upon those Bishops and Dioceses that are Windsor compliant and supportive of the Camp Allen Principles. The possibly dire consequences our divisions portend tempt everyone to denial–especially those for whom Christian unity is of fundamental importance. Nevertheless, avoidance will most certainly bring the very outcome we fear most. It is therefore imperative that the following considerations be faced head on.
1. It is now clear that a large number (perhaps a majority) of our Bishops will not turn back from the course set at their last meeting.
2. It is difficult to imagine the Primates turning away from the communiqué adopted at Dar es Salaam and so also the Camp Allen Principles.
3. The Archbishop of Canterbury has agreed to meet with our Bishops, but it is highly unlikely that he would return to the Primates with a message that sides with the dominant voice in the House of Bishops.
4. There are two reason such a turn on his part is unlikely, indeed, almost unimaginable. One is political and the other semi-constitutional. The political reason is obvious. The Primates will not accept such a turn on his part. The semi-constitutional one is less obvious but no less forceful. Despite claims to the contrary, the MP is not behaving as a centralizing power. They acted in accord with the dictates of the Lambeth Conference that gave them warrant and assigned them an “enhanced responsibility” in situations such as the one precipitated by TEC’s consent to and consecration of Gene Robinson. Further, as Bishop James Stanton and the Rev. Ephraim Radner have shown, they have not acted in ways that are ab initio contrary to the constitution and canons of TEC. Indeed, had they done so, they would have acted in ways contrary to the dictates of the Lambeth Conference that insisted the enhanced responsibility to which they gave warrant be exercised within the limits of the constitution and canons of the province in question. In short, the Primates acted as the Communion has charged them while TEC has not acted in the way all the instruments of communion requested. It is for this semi-constitutional reason that the Archbishop of Canterbury cannot draw back without repudiating the entire process that has been developed within the Communion since (at least) the 1980’s.
5. On the basis of these factors it is difficult not to conclude that the MP will judge that those Bishops within TEC who do not abide by the requests of the Windsor Report and who do not accept the Camp Allen Principles have “walked apart” from the rest of the Communion.
6. It is further likely that the MP will insist that those Bishops along with our Presiding Bishop be placed in an asymmetrical position in relation to the rest of the Communion. It is likely that this asymmetry will take the form of a reduced or non-existent status at meetings of the instruments of communion.
It is this last point that raises the questions mentioned above in an urgent manner for those Bishops who are Windsor compliant and who support the Camp Allen Principles. In respect to the instruments of communion, how are these Bishops to continue in relation with them? In respect to the governing instruments of TEC, what sort of relation is to be maintained?
Questions such as these, as we have said, often lead to denial and avoidance. They are so painful that one simply does not want to face the possible future they suggest. However, the stakes for our entire church are high. For Bishops, avoidance in circumstances such as these amounts to a dereliction of duty.
Thus, in respect to the instruments of communion, it is of vital importance that Windsor compliant Bishops become active participants in a discussion with the Primates of the best way ahead in the likely eventuality that a majority of our Bishops take actions the Primates see as “walking apart.” If these “Windsor Bishops” do not take an active part in such discussions, the Primates will be forced to act without firm links to a way forward their supporters within TEC believe both workable and productive of greater unity within TEC rather than greater (and perhaps final) division.
In respect to relations with TEC’s mechanisms of governance, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that an entente cordiale between Windsor and Non-Windsor Bishops and Dioceses is at best wishful thinking. The matter of Mark Laurence, increasing litigation, and other actions by the governing mechanisms of TEC indicate that within TEC one can expect increasing pressures for conformity to be brought against Windsor Bishops and their Dioceses. Further, even if in the unlikely circumstances that an entente cordiale is struck, it will prove necessary to inquire about the terms of such an agreement. Thus, no matter how events transpire, a frank discussion of how to address “the powers that be” within TEC from a minority position is of utmost importance. We are about to enter a church struggle of fearful proportions, and to assume that business will go on as usual is quite unrealistic.
Our remarks have been directed primarily to those Bishops and Dioceses that are Windsor Compliant and supportive of the Camp Allen Principles. It is our belief, however, that those who are not in agreement with the way the instruments of communion of the AC have suggested we move forward ask the same questions of themselves we are asking of ourselves. Failure to do so can only make matters worse. An attempt to answer these questions might, however, open a way toward greater unity rather than further division.
Brothers and sisters, pray for the Church!
Christopher Seitz
Philip Turner
Ephraim Radner
The Anglican Communion Institute
It is simply the case that the recent actions of the House of Bishops bring to the surface differences between large sections of TEC and the AC that may well prove irreconcilable. They also reveal divisions within TEC that may well prove equally intractable. If the questions presented above are not addressed in a thoughtful and charitable manner by all parties involved we foresee divisions of a possibly irreparable character coming to pass within TEC and the Communion as a whole.
These questions present themselves to all parties in the present dispute, but our immediate focus is upon those Bishops and Dioceses that are Windsor compliant and supportive of the Camp Allen Principles. The possibly dire consequences our divisions portend tempt everyone to denial–especially those for whom Christian unity is of fundamental importance. Nevertheless, avoidance will most certainly bring the very outcome we fear most. It is therefore imperative that the following considerations be faced head on.
1. It is now clear that a large number (perhaps a majority) of our Bishops will not turn back from the course set at their last meeting.
2. It is difficult to imagine the Primates turning away from the communiqué adopted at Dar es Salaam and so also the Camp Allen Principles.
3. The Archbishop of Canterbury has agreed to meet with our Bishops, but it is highly unlikely that he would return to the Primates with a message that sides with the dominant voice in the House of Bishops.
4. There are two reason such a turn on his part is unlikely, indeed, almost unimaginable. One is political and the other semi-constitutional. The political reason is obvious. The Primates will not accept such a turn on his part. The semi-constitutional one is less obvious but no less forceful. Despite claims to the contrary, the MP is not behaving as a centralizing power. They acted in accord with the dictates of the Lambeth Conference that gave them warrant and assigned them an “enhanced responsibility” in situations such as the one precipitated by TEC’s consent to and consecration of Gene Robinson. Further, as Bishop James Stanton and the Rev. Ephraim Radner have shown, they have not acted in ways that are ab initio contrary to the constitution and canons of TEC. Indeed, had they done so, they would have acted in ways contrary to the dictates of the Lambeth Conference that insisted the enhanced responsibility to which they gave warrant be exercised within the limits of the constitution and canons of the province in question. In short, the Primates acted as the Communion has charged them while TEC has not acted in the way all the instruments of communion requested. It is for this semi-constitutional reason that the Archbishop of Canterbury cannot draw back without repudiating the entire process that has been developed within the Communion since (at least) the 1980’s.
5. On the basis of these factors it is difficult not to conclude that the MP will judge that those Bishops within TEC who do not abide by the requests of the Windsor Report and who do not accept the Camp Allen Principles have “walked apart” from the rest of the Communion.
6. It is further likely that the MP will insist that those Bishops along with our Presiding Bishop be placed in an asymmetrical position in relation to the rest of the Communion. It is likely that this asymmetry will take the form of a reduced or non-existent status at meetings of the instruments of communion.
It is this last point that raises the questions mentioned above in an urgent manner for those Bishops who are Windsor compliant and who support the Camp Allen Principles. In respect to the instruments of communion, how are these Bishops to continue in relation with them? In respect to the governing instruments of TEC, what sort of relation is to be maintained?
Questions such as these, as we have said, often lead to denial and avoidance. They are so painful that one simply does not want to face the possible future they suggest. However, the stakes for our entire church are high. For Bishops, avoidance in circumstances such as these amounts to a dereliction of duty.
Thus, in respect to the instruments of communion, it is of vital importance that Windsor compliant Bishops become active participants in a discussion with the Primates of the best way ahead in the likely eventuality that a majority of our Bishops take actions the Primates see as “walking apart.” If these “Windsor Bishops” do not take an active part in such discussions, the Primates will be forced to act without firm links to a way forward their supporters within TEC believe both workable and productive of greater unity within TEC rather than greater (and perhaps final) division.
In respect to relations with TEC’s mechanisms of governance, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that an entente cordiale between Windsor and Non-Windsor Bishops and Dioceses is at best wishful thinking. The matter of Mark Laurence, increasing litigation, and other actions by the governing mechanisms of TEC indicate that within TEC one can expect increasing pressures for conformity to be brought against Windsor Bishops and their Dioceses. Further, even if in the unlikely circumstances that an entente cordiale is struck, it will prove necessary to inquire about the terms of such an agreement. Thus, no matter how events transpire, a frank discussion of how to address “the powers that be” within TEC from a minority position is of utmost importance. We are about to enter a church struggle of fearful proportions, and to assume that business will go on as usual is quite unrealistic.
Our remarks have been directed primarily to those Bishops and Dioceses that are Windsor Compliant and supportive of the Camp Allen Principles. It is our belief, however, that those who are not in agreement with the way the instruments of communion of the AC have suggested we move forward ask the same questions of themselves we are asking of ourselves. Failure to do so can only make matters worse. An attempt to answer these questions might, however, open a way toward greater unity rather than further division.
Brothers and sisters, pray for the Church!
Christopher Seitz
Philip Turner
Ephraim Radner
The Anglican Communion Institute
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams speaks to the press
Toronto, April 16, 2007
Transcribed by Sue Careless,
News Editor of the Anglican Planet.
Not all the questions posed were clearly audible. After a few introductory remarks about being “delighted to be here” the Archbishop announced that he would visit the United States.
It’s taken a few weeks to put together all the details with a number of members of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council. These are complicated days for our church internationally so all the more important to keep up personal relationships and conversations of this kind.
I intend to visit the US [sometime during the scheduled House of Bishops meeting Sept. 20-25 in New Orleans] and whatever may have been said in the press in the last few weeks, there had never been any suggestion that I should decline that invitation. It’s a complicated job putting together a diary for a large number of people.
Yes, these are difficult days because the Communion in recent years has had to face the fact that the division on certain subjects, especially sexuality, has been getting much more deep and bitter and threatening to divide us. My aim is to try and keep people at the table for as long as possible to understand one another and to encourage local churches not only on this side of the Atlantic but elsewhere to ask what they might need to do to keep in that conversation, to keep around the table.
What will you say to those Anglicans who are going to General Synod in Winnipeg who will be voting on whether dioceses can vote on whether to have same-sex blessings? Have you got a word for them in advance of this historic gathering?
There is a touch of catch-22 about this. If I give a very strong steer, people will say I’m a colonial bully; if I don’t, people will say other things. What I would say is ask the question: “What is for the health of the Body of Christ both locally and globally?” People will answer that question in good faith in different ways.
How do you account for your evolution away from being inclusive of gay and lesbian people to now being actively opposed to their full inclusion in the Church?
Well that’s quite a pointed question, isn’t it? It’s partly an evolution of different kinds of responsibility in the Church. As a theologian and as a teacher for many years naturally I had the liberty to raise certain questions and to express personal opinions on the matter. As a bishop I have to keep people around the table in discussion on this. I’ve tried to say throughout that I’m strongly and consistently opposed to anything that suggests that gay and lesbian Christians are less than human, less than fully baptized, good faith members in the Church. The question is what are the forms of behaviour that the Church has the freedom and authority to bless? And for the Anglican Church that is not a question that can be settled by fiat means. What’s for the health of the Church? Can we maintain unity on this? Can we move ahead together in this rather than having different people finding different solutions?
Do you feel that the unity of the Anglican Church is more important than the full inclusion of homosexual and lesbian persons?
I don’t see that as an either/or, for any attempt to include gays and lesbians in the local church has to include how they are going to be included in the life of the whole Church--not just one corner of it. So if there is to be any change in the Church’s attitude to gay and lesbian persons then I hope it will be a change in the attitude of the Church as a whole. Otherwise it becomes just one group saying, “Well it’s alright with us.” and that doesn’t really help the church as a whole. Second point, it is a question on which there is real and principled disagreement. It’s not just about nice people who want to include gay and lesbian Christians and nasty people who don’t. What are the forms of behaviour that the Church has the freedom to bless and be faithful to Scripture, tradition and reason? That is the question that is tearing us apart at the moment because there are real differences of conviction.
How would you describe the process?
Slow because we are a very dispersed church. We don’t have a single, central executive so it takes that much longer. And the lack of that central executive makes it so much more complex. I don’t want to see a situation where there is a central executive but the cost is patience. It bears particularly heavily on those who still feel they are the objects of prejudice or exclusion in the Church.
You’ve been accused of being indecisive. How do you handle that charge? When does slow consultation become indecision?
I’ve had, in the last few years, to make a number of decisions which have been complex and often unwelcomed and hard to sustain. I hope I haven’t shrunk from making those kinds of decisions. At the same time there are some kinds of decisions that I can’t make solo. I need to make them along with my colleagues. I need to allow the time to be taken so that when a decision is made it really is owned. I would rather a slower process of decision-making that ends up with a decision that is more fully owned and agreed.
[Question about the Episcopal Church’s initial rejection of the Primates’ Communiqué]
I’m still waiting to see what the Episcopal Church will come up with as an alternative. The reaction from the Episcopal Church was a very strongly worded protest against what was seen as interference, although that wasn’t the intention of the primatial Communiqué. So the next question is “If not that, then what?” Is there another possibility on the table? I’ve spoken privately to people in the United States and am waiting to see what opens up.
[Question about the power of the primates]
It’s not a question of central authority. The primates do represent their churches. And although people have said this is prelacy as opposed to democracy the fact is every primate of the Anglican Communion works within a synodical and consultative system. Every primate within the Anglican Communion is elected. My own experience as I travel round the Communion--as I speak with people on the ground--it’s not as if their primate doesn’t represent what they are saying. Second point: the primates cannot make decisions for any province. Where we’ve come to is the primates’ meeting felt it needed to spell out possible consequences of continuing division or diversity in practice and to suggest some ways in which the unwelcomed consequences might be avoided. Those proposals are there on the table but they can’t be imposed, of course.
If there are irreconcilable differences, isn’t a schism inevitable?
It’s possible we may come to a point where people feel there are irreconcilable differences. And one of the things that seriously complicates the discussion is a certain overlap between the question of human rights that is civic and human dignities appropriate for gay and lesbian people in a democratic society and the question of what the Church theologically can approve or endorse. That latter question can’t just be settled by appeal to human rights. That’s what complicates the matter.
Will we get to an irreconcilable point? I can’t say. Naturally I hope we will find a way of working together on this because I believe very passionately that we need each other in the Anglican Communion. I believe that an Anglican Communion divided into–to use the stereotypes--a liberal segment and a conservative segment would be very much impoverished on both sides. And to the degree that that would isolate some of the churches in the so-called developed world from some of the more vulnerable churches of the global south, once again, all would be the losers.
I was recently at the conference in Johannesburg dealing with how the Anglican Communion is responding to the Millennium Development Goals. I was profoundly aware of the amount of work that is being done cooperatively across the Communion, even across theological divisions, on some of these Development Goals. I’m very reluctant to see that work imperiled.
So back to the question of unity and rights again. The loss of unity is not just the loss of some kind of institutional fiction; it’s a wound in an organism that tries to work together and that’s why it’s worth preserving as far as we can.
How much is the current controversy really about sex and morality and how much is it about formerly missionized countries asserting their place in the Anglican Communion?
An important question. There is a deeply global political element to this, a sense in some churches that others are making decisions for them, in a way that the West or the North have always made decisions on behalf of other people. Let me illustrate that. Both in ecumenical relations and in interfaith relations the decisions of the Episcopal Church have had complicating consequences. If you’re an Anglican Christian in Sudan or in South Korea or the Pacific you may very well feel that you are associated with a decision made by somebody else that has consequences for you locally that you haven’t chosen. There is a great deal of resentment and uncertainty arising from that. “We didn’t vote for this yet we have to carry the consequences locally.”
Is the Anglican Church obsessed with sex?
No. We’re trapped by questions about sex at the moment. If you ask almost any of our primatial colleagues, “Is this the subject you want to be taking about?” they would say no. But decisions have been made, problems have been raised which have proved very intractable. We’re drawn back into it again and again.
What level of consensus is needed?
General Synod will have to answer that for itself. I hope whatever decision is made will be made out of a resolution to maintain the highest degree of communion possible across the Anglican world, and not just to say “That is an unfortunate casualty.” Secondly, with some awareness of what level of consensus is needed for a church to go forward with a sense that a decision is owned--not just by a slender majority--but by a solid, defensible body of prayerful opinion.”
[There was also one question and answer on the environment.]
If General Synod does decide to allow dioceses to make their own decisions about same-sex unions what effect will that have on global Anglicanism? What signal will it send?
I won’t go into reactions to hypothetical outcomes but I don’t think it takes rocket science to work out that it will pose some problems.
You are a theologian. What doctrinal issues are involved in same-sex blessings?
Two doctrinal questions are tied in with same-sex blessings. First is the doctrine of marriage. Is there more than one form of covenanted sexual union that is sacramental of God’s grace? The Church has always said: only marriage is sacramental. The second is, what about the authority of Scripture and indeed of Tradition. I think there is more than one way of answering that, but that is clearly one of the questions.
You spoke earlier of not basing an important decision on simply a slender majority. Is sixty percent, which is currently the figure being proposed for local option, sufficient, or should the traditional canonical way hold, of a majority in all three houses over two consecutive General Synods?
I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on local issues.
If you had the decision to make over again, would you have become the Archbishop of Canterbury or would you have remained a theologian and the Primate of Wales?
I think it’s completely useless to speculate about that. I took on this job in the belief that I was called by God to do it and when God calls you to do things he never shows you the small print.
What outcome would you hope for in your meeting with the American bishops?
The minimum I’d hope for is simply a better understanding of the issues the primates are attempting to communicate on their part and a better understanding on the part of myself and the other members of the Primates’ Committee of what the evident problems are of the American Church’s constitution which are holding us up a bit.
Who will make the final decision on the issue of same-sex blessings?
Anglicans will answer it for themselves, eventually. The particular job I’ve been given to do is to steer and pastor the church in the process of discernment. I’m not like a prime minister elected with a manifesto to implement nor am I like a Pope who can end a discussion by fiat. My job is like that of a bishop in any diocese, trying to explain people to one another, creating an atmosphere of prayer in which it’s possible to make a decision that is not just reactive and prejudiced, and see how the Church moves forward. I know that sounds a very modest description of the Archbishop’s job but I think probably an accurate one. I have to be a servant of the churches and put into the discussion whatever I can of qualification, alternative perspective, which can look like time-wasting but I think in God’s timetable it isn’t. I say that in faith.
Transcribed by Sue Careless,
News Editor of the Anglican Planet.
Not all the questions posed were clearly audible. After a few introductory remarks about being “delighted to be here” the Archbishop announced that he would visit the United States.
It’s taken a few weeks to put together all the details with a number of members of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council. These are complicated days for our church internationally so all the more important to keep up personal relationships and conversations of this kind.
I intend to visit the US [sometime during the scheduled House of Bishops meeting Sept. 20-25 in New Orleans] and whatever may have been said in the press in the last few weeks, there had never been any suggestion that I should decline that invitation. It’s a complicated job putting together a diary for a large number of people.
Yes, these are difficult days because the Communion in recent years has had to face the fact that the division on certain subjects, especially sexuality, has been getting much more deep and bitter and threatening to divide us. My aim is to try and keep people at the table for as long as possible to understand one another and to encourage local churches not only on this side of the Atlantic but elsewhere to ask what they might need to do to keep in that conversation, to keep around the table.
What will you say to those Anglicans who are going to General Synod in Winnipeg who will be voting on whether dioceses can vote on whether to have same-sex blessings? Have you got a word for them in advance of this historic gathering?
There is a touch of catch-22 about this. If I give a very strong steer, people will say I’m a colonial bully; if I don’t, people will say other things. What I would say is ask the question: “What is for the health of the Body of Christ both locally and globally?” People will answer that question in good faith in different ways.
How do you account for your evolution away from being inclusive of gay and lesbian people to now being actively opposed to their full inclusion in the Church?
Well that’s quite a pointed question, isn’t it? It’s partly an evolution of different kinds of responsibility in the Church. As a theologian and as a teacher for many years naturally I had the liberty to raise certain questions and to express personal opinions on the matter. As a bishop I have to keep people around the table in discussion on this. I’ve tried to say throughout that I’m strongly and consistently opposed to anything that suggests that gay and lesbian Christians are less than human, less than fully baptized, good faith members in the Church. The question is what are the forms of behaviour that the Church has the freedom and authority to bless? And for the Anglican Church that is not a question that can be settled by fiat means. What’s for the health of the Church? Can we maintain unity on this? Can we move ahead together in this rather than having different people finding different solutions?
Do you feel that the unity of the Anglican Church is more important than the full inclusion of homosexual and lesbian persons?
I don’t see that as an either/or, for any attempt to include gays and lesbians in the local church has to include how they are going to be included in the life of the whole Church--not just one corner of it. So if there is to be any change in the Church’s attitude to gay and lesbian persons then I hope it will be a change in the attitude of the Church as a whole. Otherwise it becomes just one group saying, “Well it’s alright with us.” and that doesn’t really help the church as a whole. Second point, it is a question on which there is real and principled disagreement. It’s not just about nice people who want to include gay and lesbian Christians and nasty people who don’t. What are the forms of behaviour that the Church has the freedom to bless and be faithful to Scripture, tradition and reason? That is the question that is tearing us apart at the moment because there are real differences of conviction.
How would you describe the process?
Slow because we are a very dispersed church. We don’t have a single, central executive so it takes that much longer. And the lack of that central executive makes it so much more complex. I don’t want to see a situation where there is a central executive but the cost is patience. It bears particularly heavily on those who still feel they are the objects of prejudice or exclusion in the Church.
You’ve been accused of being indecisive. How do you handle that charge? When does slow consultation become indecision?
I’ve had, in the last few years, to make a number of decisions which have been complex and often unwelcomed and hard to sustain. I hope I haven’t shrunk from making those kinds of decisions. At the same time there are some kinds of decisions that I can’t make solo. I need to make them along with my colleagues. I need to allow the time to be taken so that when a decision is made it really is owned. I would rather a slower process of decision-making that ends up with a decision that is more fully owned and agreed.
[Question about the Episcopal Church’s initial rejection of the Primates’ Communiqué]
I’m still waiting to see what the Episcopal Church will come up with as an alternative. The reaction from the Episcopal Church was a very strongly worded protest against what was seen as interference, although that wasn’t the intention of the primatial Communiqué. So the next question is “If not that, then what?” Is there another possibility on the table? I’ve spoken privately to people in the United States and am waiting to see what opens up.
[Question about the power of the primates]
It’s not a question of central authority. The primates do represent their churches. And although people have said this is prelacy as opposed to democracy the fact is every primate of the Anglican Communion works within a synodical and consultative system. Every primate within the Anglican Communion is elected. My own experience as I travel round the Communion--as I speak with people on the ground--it’s not as if their primate doesn’t represent what they are saying. Second point: the primates cannot make decisions for any province. Where we’ve come to is the primates’ meeting felt it needed to spell out possible consequences of continuing division or diversity in practice and to suggest some ways in which the unwelcomed consequences might be avoided. Those proposals are there on the table but they can’t be imposed, of course.
If there are irreconcilable differences, isn’t a schism inevitable?
It’s possible we may come to a point where people feel there are irreconcilable differences. And one of the things that seriously complicates the discussion is a certain overlap between the question of human rights that is civic and human dignities appropriate for gay and lesbian people in a democratic society and the question of what the Church theologically can approve or endorse. That latter question can’t just be settled by appeal to human rights. That’s what complicates the matter.
Will we get to an irreconcilable point? I can’t say. Naturally I hope we will find a way of working together on this because I believe very passionately that we need each other in the Anglican Communion. I believe that an Anglican Communion divided into–to use the stereotypes--a liberal segment and a conservative segment would be very much impoverished on both sides. And to the degree that that would isolate some of the churches in the so-called developed world from some of the more vulnerable churches of the global south, once again, all would be the losers.
I was recently at the conference in Johannesburg dealing with how the Anglican Communion is responding to the Millennium Development Goals. I was profoundly aware of the amount of work that is being done cooperatively across the Communion, even across theological divisions, on some of these Development Goals. I’m very reluctant to see that work imperiled.
So back to the question of unity and rights again. The loss of unity is not just the loss of some kind of institutional fiction; it’s a wound in an organism that tries to work together and that’s why it’s worth preserving as far as we can.
How much is the current controversy really about sex and morality and how much is it about formerly missionized countries asserting their place in the Anglican Communion?
An important question. There is a deeply global political element to this, a sense in some churches that others are making decisions for them, in a way that the West or the North have always made decisions on behalf of other people. Let me illustrate that. Both in ecumenical relations and in interfaith relations the decisions of the Episcopal Church have had complicating consequences. If you’re an Anglican Christian in Sudan or in South Korea or the Pacific you may very well feel that you are associated with a decision made by somebody else that has consequences for you locally that you haven’t chosen. There is a great deal of resentment and uncertainty arising from that. “We didn’t vote for this yet we have to carry the consequences locally.”
Is the Anglican Church obsessed with sex?
No. We’re trapped by questions about sex at the moment. If you ask almost any of our primatial colleagues, “Is this the subject you want to be taking about?” they would say no. But decisions have been made, problems have been raised which have proved very intractable. We’re drawn back into it again and again.
What level of consensus is needed?
General Synod will have to answer that for itself. I hope whatever decision is made will be made out of a resolution to maintain the highest degree of communion possible across the Anglican world, and not just to say “That is an unfortunate casualty.” Secondly, with some awareness of what level of consensus is needed for a church to go forward with a sense that a decision is owned--not just by a slender majority--but by a solid, defensible body of prayerful opinion.”
[There was also one question and answer on the environment.]
If General Synod does decide to allow dioceses to make their own decisions about same-sex unions what effect will that have on global Anglicanism? What signal will it send?
I won’t go into reactions to hypothetical outcomes but I don’t think it takes rocket science to work out that it will pose some problems.
You are a theologian. What doctrinal issues are involved in same-sex blessings?
Two doctrinal questions are tied in with same-sex blessings. First is the doctrine of marriage. Is there more than one form of covenanted sexual union that is sacramental of God’s grace? The Church has always said: only marriage is sacramental. The second is, what about the authority of Scripture and indeed of Tradition. I think there is more than one way of answering that, but that is clearly one of the questions.
You spoke earlier of not basing an important decision on simply a slender majority. Is sixty percent, which is currently the figure being proposed for local option, sufficient, or should the traditional canonical way hold, of a majority in all three houses over two consecutive General Synods?
I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on local issues.
If you had the decision to make over again, would you have become the Archbishop of Canterbury or would you have remained a theologian and the Primate of Wales?
I think it’s completely useless to speculate about that. I took on this job in the belief that I was called by God to do it and when God calls you to do things he never shows you the small print.
What outcome would you hope for in your meeting with the American bishops?
The minimum I’d hope for is simply a better understanding of the issues the primates are attempting to communicate on their part and a better understanding on the part of myself and the other members of the Primates’ Committee of what the evident problems are of the American Church’s constitution which are holding us up a bit.
Who will make the final decision on the issue of same-sex blessings?
Anglicans will answer it for themselves, eventually. The particular job I’ve been given to do is to steer and pastor the church in the process of discernment. I’m not like a prime minister elected with a manifesto to implement nor am I like a Pope who can end a discussion by fiat. My job is like that of a bishop in any diocese, trying to explain people to one another, creating an atmosphere of prayer in which it’s possible to make a decision that is not just reactive and prejudiced, and see how the Church moves forward. I know that sounds a very modest description of the Archbishop’s job but I think probably an accurate one. I have to be a servant of the churches and put into the discussion whatever I can of qualification, alternative perspective, which can look like time-wasting but I think in God’s timetable it isn’t. I say that in faith.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
AAC Monitoring PECUSA Response to Primates
You can view the first report on the compliance or lack thereof to the Primates' Communique at Dar Es Salaam at the following webpage:
http://www.americananglican.org/atf/cf/%7B0124EFED-8D9A-4067-9C7C-969A768F1648%7D/CCO-ReportNo1_FINAL.pdf
Note: The Bishop of Central NY is quoted on page six of the report.
http://www.americananglican.org/atf/cf/%7B0124EFED-8D9A-4067-9C7C-969A768F1648%7D/CCO-ReportNo1_FINAL.pdf
Note: The Bishop of Central NY is quoted on page six of the report.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
CNY Diocese: Episcopal Church Gets Limited Status in Lawsuit to Seize Syracuse Parish
Thursday, April 12, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Raymond J. Dague 315-422-2052
http://www.DagueLaw.com
The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church (abbreviated DFMS) was told by a New York supreme court judge that it could participate as little more than an observer in the property dispute lawsuit by the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York against St. Andrews Church in Syracuse. Supreme Court Justice James P. Murphy in a written decision earlier this week ruled that “DFMS only asserts that St. Andrew’s property is held in trust for the benefit of the Episcopal Church as promulgated by certain Episcopal canons, and as such, the Court finds its legal interest to be insufficient.” The judge allowed DFMS to intervene in the ongoing lawsuit, but “that the permissive intervention of the DFMS should be limited.”
The court ruled that the attorneys for the Diocese must serve as lead trial counsel for both the Diocese and Episcopal Church. The Diocesan lawyers will also have to “submit, coordinate, conduct, and control all discovery, including depositions, on behalf of both” DFMS and the Diocese, and will “supervise and control all motion practice on behalf of both entities.” … “DFMS may also attend any and all discovery proceedings, but DFMS may not individually conduct any discovery without the express permission of the Court, following a showing that the interest of DFMS is somehow different or unique to the Diocese’s interest.”
“This is a win for the parish, but there is still far to go in our defense of the attempt by the diocese to seize our church,” said attorney Raymond Dague who represents the upstate Anglican congregation which split from the Episcopal Church last year and joined itself to the Anglican province of Rwanda. St. Andrews has successfully resisted the attempt by the diocese, and now the Episcopal Church, to take the parish through legal action, both last July and again last September. In September, the judge dismissed the part of the lawsuit where the diocese sued individual members of the parish vestry, and also denied a request for a preliminary injunction against the local church. The lawsuit against the parish and the rector was allowed to continue. It was this lawsuit which the New York City based church corporation sought to join in this intervention attempt.
St. Andrews Church was the first local parish sued by the Episcopal Church since Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori took office in November of 2006. The Episcopal Church has also intervened in the lawsuit by the Diocese of Virginia to seize 11 parishes in northern Virginia, including the historic Falls Church. A similar attempt by the Episcopal Church to intervene and assert claims against three parishes in the Los Angeles Diocese was dismissed by a trial court judge last year. Those cases are now on appeal.
The Syracuse case is apparently the first one in the country where the Episcopal Church was granted only limited rights to participate in the litigation between a Diocese and a local parish.
The parish and the larger church organizations which are suing it are on opposite sides of a controversy over homosexual bishops and the authority of Scripture which has plunged the Episcopal Church into litigation across the country. St. Andrews adheres to the traditional teaching of the church that sex outside of marriage is prohibited by the Bible, while the leaders of the larger church have been outspoken supporters of the actively homosexual bishop of New Hampshire.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Raymond J. Dague 315-422-2052
http://www.DagueLaw.com
The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church (abbreviated DFMS) was told by a New York supreme court judge that it could participate as little more than an observer in the property dispute lawsuit by the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York against St. Andrews Church in Syracuse. Supreme Court Justice James P. Murphy in a written decision earlier this week ruled that “DFMS only asserts that St. Andrew’s property is held in trust for the benefit of the Episcopal Church as promulgated by certain Episcopal canons, and as such, the Court finds its legal interest to be insufficient.” The judge allowed DFMS to intervene in the ongoing lawsuit, but “that the permissive intervention of the DFMS should be limited.”
The court ruled that the attorneys for the Diocese must serve as lead trial counsel for both the Diocese and Episcopal Church. The Diocesan lawyers will also have to “submit, coordinate, conduct, and control all discovery, including depositions, on behalf of both” DFMS and the Diocese, and will “supervise and control all motion practice on behalf of both entities.” … “DFMS may also attend any and all discovery proceedings, but DFMS may not individually conduct any discovery without the express permission of the Court, following a showing that the interest of DFMS is somehow different or unique to the Diocese’s interest.”
“This is a win for the parish, but there is still far to go in our defense of the attempt by the diocese to seize our church,” said attorney Raymond Dague who represents the upstate Anglican congregation which split from the Episcopal Church last year and joined itself to the Anglican province of Rwanda. St. Andrews has successfully resisted the attempt by the diocese, and now the Episcopal Church, to take the parish through legal action, both last July and again last September. In September, the judge dismissed the part of the lawsuit where the diocese sued individual members of the parish vestry, and also denied a request for a preliminary injunction against the local church. The lawsuit against the parish and the rector was allowed to continue. It was this lawsuit which the New York City based church corporation sought to join in this intervention attempt.
St. Andrews Church was the first local parish sued by the Episcopal Church since Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori took office in November of 2006. The Episcopal Church has also intervened in the lawsuit by the Diocese of Virginia to seize 11 parishes in northern Virginia, including the historic Falls Church. A similar attempt by the Episcopal Church to intervene and assert claims against three parishes in the Los Angeles Diocese was dismissed by a trial court judge last year. Those cases are now on appeal.
The Syracuse case is apparently the first one in the country where the Episcopal Church was granted only limited rights to participate in the litigation between a Diocese and a local parish.
The parish and the larger church organizations which are suing it are on opposite sides of a controversy over homosexual bishops and the authority of Scripture which has plunged the Episcopal Church into litigation across the country. St. Andrews adheres to the traditional teaching of the church that sex outside of marriage is prohibited by the Bible, while the leaders of the larger church have been outspoken supporters of the actively homosexual bishop of New Hampshire.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
A WORD ABOUT THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS' RESOLUTIONS
By James M. Stanton (Bishop of Dallas)
The response of the House of Bishops to the Communique from the Primates saddens me. But it was not a surprise.
The Bishops' work is grounded on the fundamental principle of the independence and autonomy of the Episcopal Church. In the run up to this meeting, and during the meeting itself, many bishops appealed to "the polity of our Church" as the basis for rejecting what was asked of the House.
Let us consider this representation.
OUR POLITY?
In 1991, the General Convention adopted the following resolution, B020:
"Resolved, the house of Deputies concurring, That this Church receive the report of the Standing Committee on Human Affairs as clear evidence of no strong consensus in the Church on the human sexuality issues considered or the resolutions proposed; and be it further
"Resolved, That the Office of the Presiding Bishop now be directed to propose to all the provinces of the Anglican Communion and all churches with whom we are in ecumenical dialogue that a broad process of consultation be initiated on an official pan-Anglican and ecumenical level as a bold step forward in the consideration of these potentially divisive issues which should not be resolved by the Episcopal Church on its own." (Journal of the General Convention, 1991: pp. 210-211, 807-808.)
The resolution was presented first in the House of Bishops by the Committee on World Mission, and moved to be adopted "without amendment." A few days later, it was adopted by the Deputies.
This resolution was a mandate of the General Convention directed to the Presiding Bishop. Such mandates are relatively infrequent in the resolutions of General Convention. Nevertheless, this one was never acted on. It remained in effect up to the Convention of 2003, as was pointed out by many at that time. It was effectively violated by the action of giving consent to the consecration of the bishop of New Hampshire, but was never rescinded.
Arguably, had this mandate of the whole of the General Convention been acted on, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion would have been spared the wrenching divisions that we now see. That is speculation, of course.
What is not speculation is that the General Convention itself understood the weight of the matters involved in human sexuality in such a way that it was prepared to act, and in fact acted, to surrender some part of its own autonomy for the sake of the larger good. "These potentially divisive issues . . . should not be resolved by the Episcopal Church on its own."
Appeals to "our polity" would be more convincing if we actually took our polity seriously.
Concerning the Pastoral Scheme, the first claim in the House of Bishops' response was this: "First, it violates our church law in that it would call for a delegation of primatial authority not permissible under our Canons and a compromise of our autonomy as a Church not permissible under our Constitution."
The Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts-Schori, went over the matter of "primatial authority" on Sunday evening. She was quite candid. She said that such primatial authority as she had was "pretty limited." When it came to the matter of delegating certain acts of the Primate of this Church, she offered examples of how delegation was, in fact, possible and was already a reality. She offered her opinion that the Pastoral Scheme could be carried out "under our Constitution and Canons."
As for a "compromise of our autonomy," the action of the General Convention in 1991 belies the claim that this is "not possible under our Constitution." Of course it is possible, if the larger good of the unity of the Communion and our place within the ecumenical body of Christians is important enough.
The truth is, we have lived for a generation in the Episcopal Church with bishops who, when they could not support or follow actions of the General Convention, rose to make a "statement of conscience" to the effect that they would not be bound by such decisions. Twenty-two did so in 1979, following adoption of A53 by the House of Bishops, and were followed by some lay and clergy when it was also adopted in the House of Deputies. The bishops said, "we cannot accept these recommendations or implement them in our Dioceses." It is now a staple of our common life that actions of the General Convention, unless they take the form of canonical changes or liturgical revision, are merely "recommendatory." How, I ask, is that taking "our polity" seriously?
The claim that the Bishops cannot clarify what they intended by their own action in adopting B033 (2006), on the matter of giving consents to consecrations, because of "our polity" rings hollow. And so does the claim that the Bishops cannot respond to assurances that same-sex blessing rites will not be authorized. (See Canon III.9.5.a(1).) Both of these are well within the purview of the Bishops under "our polity."
The "most important" concern expressed in the House of Bishops' response is purportedly this: "The pastoral scheme encourages one of the worst tendencies of our Western culture, which is to break relationships when we find them difficult instead of doing the hard work necessary to repair them and be instruments of reconciliation."
As to the substance of this concern: The Presiding Bishop's stated view was that the intention behind the Scheme was to provide a "container" and a "space" for "dealing with our own stuff," and so find a way to hold together. One might have thought that the way to do the "hard work" of repair would have been to retrace our steps and make some course corrections. In spite of this, the House of Bishops' resolution tries to promote a different principle at stake.
Fidelity to vows is the principle that should have been lifted up at this point. Bishops are ordained to "guard the faith, unity, and discipline" of the Church. If discipline serves unity, and unity serves the cause of faith, then a failure to live by "our polity," our discipline, marks the unraveling of unity and the obscuring of faith. The 1991 resolution faithfully expressed what our Constitution says: we are "constituent members of the Anglican Communion." It was on that basis that we bound ourselves not to act unilaterally, but in a conciliar way. We should not, we said, resolve these issues on our own.
But we do not remember what we have said. We do not live by our vows.
Much more could be said about this House of Bishops' response. I will put off doing so for now.
WHAT ARE WE TO DO?
The House of Bishops' document we have received says nothing we have not known before now. I said after the 2006 Convention, "There can be no question, given the facts as they have emerged since the Convention that the leadership of the Episcopal Church is set on a course that will not change." This document underscores that assessment. Many will take great joy and comfort in this prospect. Many have already drawn this conclusion and departed our Church.
On the other hand, the document changes nothing about where this Diocese stands. We have a long record of supporting the Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10, of supporting the Windsor Report and the Covenant Process. The Standing Committee and Executive Council have supported the Communique. We have overwhelmingly affirmed our desire to remain connected to the Anglican Communion.
The majority of our people in the Diocese of Dallas have exercised great patience over the past many months and years. I believe that the great value we place in being connected to the Anglican Communion has strengthened that patience. I trust it will continue to do so as the weeks ahead unfold.
I cannot tell you when or how the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates will respond, but I surely think we must wait until then. The Communique set out certain actions which the Primates together would do: e.g., the creation of a Pastoral Council. Whether and how this comes to be and what options such a move would offer remains to be seen. However, we reaffirm our commitment to the Windsor process and our participation in it and what emerges from the Primates' Communique. I remain committed to the Camp Allen principles articulated by the Windsor Bishops and commended by the Primates.
In the meantime, the first promise called for under the Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Common Prayer is to "continue in the Apostles' teaching." It is from fidelity to that teaching that our communion and fellowship, our worship, our ministries and witness, our outreach and service is shaped and empowered. The Apostles' teaching is what, in fact, informs what justice and dignity mean in the Church. So we will continue to uphold the Apostles' teaching.
And more than that, we will work to do what our Lord has called us to do. We are continuing to work to plant new congregations, to evangelize in our communities, to grow our congregations, to carry on mission abroad, to minister to the young, the weak, the poor and the sick. We will continue to measure our work together against the standard of the Apostles' teaching. And, accordingly, we will continue to welcome into our communities all who seek to hear the Word of God and receive the Sacraments rightly and duly administered. We will continue loyally to observe in the letter and the spirit the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. Thus we will live by our vows. On that score, nothing has changed. And the more we hold together, the greater these works will be for God's glory.
So long as God grants us the privilege of serving Christ together in this place and at this time, we will do so.
Faithfully,
The Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton
Bishop of Dallas
------------------------------
The response of the House of Bishops to the Communique from the Primates saddens me. But it was not a surprise.
The Bishops' work is grounded on the fundamental principle of the independence and autonomy of the Episcopal Church. In the run up to this meeting, and during the meeting itself, many bishops appealed to "the polity of our Church" as the basis for rejecting what was asked of the House.
Let us consider this representation.
OUR POLITY?
In 1991, the General Convention adopted the following resolution, B020:
"Resolved, the house of Deputies concurring, That this Church receive the report of the Standing Committee on Human Affairs as clear evidence of no strong consensus in the Church on the human sexuality issues considered or the resolutions proposed; and be it further
"Resolved, That the Office of the Presiding Bishop now be directed to propose to all the provinces of the Anglican Communion and all churches with whom we are in ecumenical dialogue that a broad process of consultation be initiated on an official pan-Anglican and ecumenical level as a bold step forward in the consideration of these potentially divisive issues which should not be resolved by the Episcopal Church on its own." (Journal of the General Convention, 1991: pp. 210-211, 807-808.)
The resolution was presented first in the House of Bishops by the Committee on World Mission, and moved to be adopted "without amendment." A few days later, it was adopted by the Deputies.
This resolution was a mandate of the General Convention directed to the Presiding Bishop. Such mandates are relatively infrequent in the resolutions of General Convention. Nevertheless, this one was never acted on. It remained in effect up to the Convention of 2003, as was pointed out by many at that time. It was effectively violated by the action of giving consent to the consecration of the bishop of New Hampshire, but was never rescinded.
Arguably, had this mandate of the whole of the General Convention been acted on, the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion would have been spared the wrenching divisions that we now see. That is speculation, of course.
What is not speculation is that the General Convention itself understood the weight of the matters involved in human sexuality in such a way that it was prepared to act, and in fact acted, to surrender some part of its own autonomy for the sake of the larger good. "These potentially divisive issues . . . should not be resolved by the Episcopal Church on its own."
Appeals to "our polity" would be more convincing if we actually took our polity seriously.
Concerning the Pastoral Scheme, the first claim in the House of Bishops' response was this: "First, it violates our church law in that it would call for a delegation of primatial authority not permissible under our Canons and a compromise of our autonomy as a Church not permissible under our Constitution."
The Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts-Schori, went over the matter of "primatial authority" on Sunday evening. She was quite candid. She said that such primatial authority as she had was "pretty limited." When it came to the matter of delegating certain acts of the Primate of this Church, she offered examples of how delegation was, in fact, possible and was already a reality. She offered her opinion that the Pastoral Scheme could be carried out "under our Constitution and Canons."
As for a "compromise of our autonomy," the action of the General Convention in 1991 belies the claim that this is "not possible under our Constitution." Of course it is possible, if the larger good of the unity of the Communion and our place within the ecumenical body of Christians is important enough.
The truth is, we have lived for a generation in the Episcopal Church with bishops who, when they could not support or follow actions of the General Convention, rose to make a "statement of conscience" to the effect that they would not be bound by such decisions. Twenty-two did so in 1979, following adoption of A53 by the House of Bishops, and were followed by some lay and clergy when it was also adopted in the House of Deputies. The bishops said, "we cannot accept these recommendations or implement them in our Dioceses." It is now a staple of our common life that actions of the General Convention, unless they take the form of canonical changes or liturgical revision, are merely "recommendatory." How, I ask, is that taking "our polity" seriously?
The claim that the Bishops cannot clarify what they intended by their own action in adopting B033 (2006), on the matter of giving consents to consecrations, because of "our polity" rings hollow. And so does the claim that the Bishops cannot respond to assurances that same-sex blessing rites will not be authorized. (See Canon III.9.5.a(1).) Both of these are well within the purview of the Bishops under "our polity."
The "most important" concern expressed in the House of Bishops' response is purportedly this: "The pastoral scheme encourages one of the worst tendencies of our Western culture, which is to break relationships when we find them difficult instead of doing the hard work necessary to repair them and be instruments of reconciliation."
As to the substance of this concern: The Presiding Bishop's stated view was that the intention behind the Scheme was to provide a "container" and a "space" for "dealing with our own stuff," and so find a way to hold together. One might have thought that the way to do the "hard work" of repair would have been to retrace our steps and make some course corrections. In spite of this, the House of Bishops' resolution tries to promote a different principle at stake.
Fidelity to vows is the principle that should have been lifted up at this point. Bishops are ordained to "guard the faith, unity, and discipline" of the Church. If discipline serves unity, and unity serves the cause of faith, then a failure to live by "our polity," our discipline, marks the unraveling of unity and the obscuring of faith. The 1991 resolution faithfully expressed what our Constitution says: we are "constituent members of the Anglican Communion." It was on that basis that we bound ourselves not to act unilaterally, but in a conciliar way. We should not, we said, resolve these issues on our own.
But we do not remember what we have said. We do not live by our vows.
Much more could be said about this House of Bishops' response. I will put off doing so for now.
WHAT ARE WE TO DO?
The House of Bishops' document we have received says nothing we have not known before now. I said after the 2006 Convention, "There can be no question, given the facts as they have emerged since the Convention that the leadership of the Episcopal Church is set on a course that will not change." This document underscores that assessment. Many will take great joy and comfort in this prospect. Many have already drawn this conclusion and departed our Church.
On the other hand, the document changes nothing about where this Diocese stands. We have a long record of supporting the Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10, of supporting the Windsor Report and the Covenant Process. The Standing Committee and Executive Council have supported the Communique. We have overwhelmingly affirmed our desire to remain connected to the Anglican Communion.
The majority of our people in the Diocese of Dallas have exercised great patience over the past many months and years. I believe that the great value we place in being connected to the Anglican Communion has strengthened that patience. I trust it will continue to do so as the weeks ahead unfold.
I cannot tell you when or how the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates will respond, but I surely think we must wait until then. The Communique set out certain actions which the Primates together would do: e.g., the creation of a Pastoral Council. Whether and how this comes to be and what options such a move would offer remains to be seen. However, we reaffirm our commitment to the Windsor process and our participation in it and what emerges from the Primates' Communique. I remain committed to the Camp Allen principles articulated by the Windsor Bishops and commended by the Primates.
In the meantime, the first promise called for under the Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Common Prayer is to "continue in the Apostles' teaching." It is from fidelity to that teaching that our communion and fellowship, our worship, our ministries and witness, our outreach and service is shaped and empowered. The Apostles' teaching is what, in fact, informs what justice and dignity mean in the Church. So we will continue to uphold the Apostles' teaching.
And more than that, we will work to do what our Lord has called us to do. We are continuing to work to plant new congregations, to evangelize in our communities, to grow our congregations, to carry on mission abroad, to minister to the young, the weak, the poor and the sick. We will continue to measure our work together against the standard of the Apostles' teaching. And, accordingly, we will continue to welcome into our communities all who seek to hear the Word of God and receive the Sacraments rightly and duly administered. We will continue loyally to observe in the letter and the spirit the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church. Thus we will live by our vows. On that score, nothing has changed. And the more we hold together, the greater these works will be for God's glory.
So long as God grants us the privilege of serving Christ together in this place and at this time, we will do so.
Faithfully,
The Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton
Bishop of Dallas
------------------------------
Ephraim Radner: The March Statement by the House of Bishops: Confusing the Flock
Many, including those opposing its content, have praised the recent House of Bishops Statement for its “clarity”. In what follows, I want to dispute that evaluation. The Statement is unclear in numerous important respects, except one, viz. its animus against the Anglican Communion’s Primates’ Meeting. The reasons for that animus, however, are hardly spelled out, are often contradictory, and are lodged within a tissue of assertions that are without stated rationale. This is not clarity at all. And in the context of the current agonized and conflicted debate within TEC and the Communion, the Statement amounts to an act of pastoral and theological irresponsibility of the highest order.
Many bishops who supported the Statement have since criticized conservative members of their church for drawing dire conclusions from their work, arguing that such conclusions are precipitous and uncharitable, even while they pat themselves on the back for finally “standing up” to the so-called Communion bullies. The celebration will be short-lived. The Statement itself, rushed out without open consultation on key elements which supposedly inform its perspective, in the face of pledges to hold off from just such rash and emotive response to the Primates, does nothing but encourage despair over our bishops’ capacity to exercise their ministries with a modicum of prudence, let alone the humility of Christian wisdom. The dire conclusions are more than justified, short of some unexpected reversal of attitude and performance by the House of Bishops in the near future.
The point in what follows is not to “defend” the Primates “against” the House of Bishops. The Primates are quite capable of defending themselves should they wish, and do not need someone like me as a proxy. This is rather about trying to establish some honesty within the debate among Episcopalians about our church’s future, and that honesty has been severely compromised by the House of Bishops’ Statement. The Primates are not all saints, by any means; and TEC’s House of Bishops is not a den of robbers (nor did all the bishops approve of the Statement their House made public). Moral shades and interpretive uncertainties are present and real, as are sincerely held convictions. But we have reached a stage in our church’s life – a stage close to actual collapse for Episcopalians committed to the heritage of their Anglican Communion identity – when it is no longer possible to be silenced by the scruples of nuance, much as one must continue to take such nuance seriously and into account. We have vows to maintain, and the space in which to do so is rapidly disappearing.
I. The Primates’ Meeting
Although the purported reason the bishops reject the proposed Pastoral Scheme suggested by the Primates is one of “American polity”, as we will see the bishops provide little support for their claim. Indeed, the main reason they give, implied as well as explicit, is the Primates’ own unworthiness to be considered as acceptable counselors and participants (e.g. in the Pastoral Council) within matters that concern the Episcopal Church and her position in the Communion. The House of Bishops variously associates the Primates with “unaccountability”, high-handed “prelature”, anti-Reformation power-grabs, anti-Gospel obsessions, undemocratic complicity with anti-Episopalian Americans, and “distressing” lack of concern with the suffering of the world. Katherine Grieb’s presentation on the Covenant to the bishops, which many of them have subsequently pointed to as an inspiring call to action, made the character exhibited by the Primates’ at Dar es Salaam the main reason for rejecting the proposed Covenant as a useful way forward, precisely because the Primates themselves could no longer be trusted with the conciliar role suggested for it in the document.
It is worth beginning, then, by considering these loose and unsubstantiated charges and implications, aimed mainly at the Global South Primates.
1. Have the Primates been irresponsible in their concern for human welfare as a central element of the Gospel?
It is difficult to know where to begin in responding to such a broad and unargued charge. Suffice it to say that, long before most bishops in the Episcopal Church knew what hunger, civil war, child-soldiers, AIDS among women and children, illiteracy, abandonment and exclusion of women, oppressive government corruption, violation of basic human rights really were, the church leaders of places like Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Burundi, Rwanda, India, and elsewhere were grappling with these realities face on, without resources or support from the West. They continue to do so, supported mainly with means from within their churches, or by funds from outside the Anglican churches of the West altogether – from Germany, Norway, Catholic charities, government and UN sources, and more. Who exactly should one be “distressed” with in this strange imbalance?
What needs to be said is that, for many of these leaders, the hard work of setting up grinding mills for women, working with AIDS widows and sufferers, re-forming the children of war, literacy etc. are activities that rely on the grass-roots engagement of lay women and men of the church itself, formed in the precepts of the Gospel, bound by the church’s common life, and renewed by the Holy Spirit in prayer and praise. Literacy-training often takes place through the teaching of the Bible, relationships within villages or even within urban slums through the building up of prayer groups, AIDS prevention through the teaching of sexual abstinence and marriage fidelity, the very hope for working in the face of overwhelming suffering and cruelty through the living presence of Christ shared through testimony and teaching. There is no separation for these leaders, as there apparently is among many in our House of Bishops, between the teaching of Scriptural faith and the works of Christ’s mercy; rather they are one and the same. And the attempt by some Americans to segregate Christian doctrine and morals into a marginal realm of “debated issues”, only of secondary importance to the Millennium Development Goals, is simply irrational and unfaithful in the eyes of many of the Primates and their people.
The leadership of many Anglican churches around the world has seen its failures and limitations (some of them sorrowfully spectacular), but given the circumstances, far fewer than one might have expected of frail human nature, even redeemed in Christ. And the American church has been generous in limited ways, but not nearly as much as it would like to congratulate itself as being. The sight of American Episcopal bishops lecturing the majority Global South Primates on the ministry of alleviating suffering is morally incongruous to say the least, short of some concrete, specific, and elaborated argument to the contrary.
2. Are the Primates unrepresentative of the church, because they are all male bishops?
Again, I am not sure what to say in the face of such a sweeping assumption, that flies in the face of the Church’s history and current practice, let alone of theological truth. Clearly “representation” does not depend, in Christian terms, on gender or social location, otherwise we would need to reject the representativeness of Jesus for all humanity. (There are, I realize, those who would argue just this; however, I am not sure the House of Bishops is really prepared to go such a blatantly heretical route.) Further, the ability of individual bishops who are either male or female to exercise their authority (however defined) would be severely compromised if Christian representation in authoritative positions required a multi-valent sexual/social person.
The question here, it seems, is whether bishops in particular do in fact have the role that the church – including the Episcopal Church, with its repeated emphasis on the bishop as chief pastor and overseer for the “whole” flock – has assigned them within its midst. The representativeness of Christian individuals, on behalf of the entire Body, is founded in Christ’s own life and shared Spirit within the Church, and through it, in the trusted (if accountable) ministry through which individuals are called to leadership, whatever their sex or social placement. It is possible that the current crop of Primates has failed in their calling to Christian representation. But where is the evidence? Have their people been polled? Is their a test that has been applied, according to which they have been found wanting? Does the American House of Bishops have some special insight into this question, and one which does not end by fingering themselves?
Some of our bishops, and others, have argued that the issue at stake here is less one of the representative person of a Primate, and more one of (politically) conciliar representation. Like the American church, they believe, the Communion should have some kind of system wherein the council of bishops is matched and balanced by a council or synod of clergy and laity. As a general suggestion for Communion polity, this is certainly something that might be considered by others. As the House of Bishops is well aware, however, this kind of system is both peculiar in its claims, and even where implemented (as in the United States), limited in its practical meaning (do our bishops really want to make the chauvinistic claim that the General Convention of TEC has proven a more faithful body of Christian decision-making than that of other churches?) Furthermore, there is a history and practice within the Communion, based on an episcopal and catholic ecclesiology (and some would say, Scriptural ecclesiology), that would require a good bit of readjustment, not to say deformation, were the demand for some new authoritative and non-Episcopal Communion synod simply to be asserted without careful discussion, one the House of Bishops has completely failed to engage.
One suggestion that one often hears, including one made by some of our bishops, is that the Primates are attempting to “usurp” the more representative role of the Anglican Consultative Council, that at least (as they see it) has clergy and laity as members. It needs to be pointed out, however, that in making suggestions and requests of the American Church, in the midst of a serious crisis of division that threatens the entire Anglican Communion and that has been initiated by the American church (including many of her bishops), the Primates are merely doing what they have been asked to do by all the other “instruments” of Communion, through the recommendation of numerous bodies that included clergy and laity, women as well as men. Obviously, the Archbishop of Canterbury supports these requests, but the Lambeth Conference (twice) encouraged the Primates’ Meeting to take on such a role, later taking up recommendations like that of the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission (The Virginia Report); the Windsor Report itself pointed in this direction (see its Appendix), and the ACC itself accepted these suggestions.
Again, taking up recommendations by the Windsor Report and earlier commissions, the ACC sought to integrate itself more fully with the work of the Primates’ Meeting by altering its membership to more adequately reflect the Primates’ leadership role (and this was done, as Windsor said, in order to make the ACC more, not less representative of the peoples in the churches of the Communion!). The ACC’s own track-record, furthermore, has been the subject of repeated criticisms precisely on the question of its own representativeness of the Communion, with a long series of complaints aimed at its purported subservience to American interests among other things.
Finally, the Constitution of the ACC focuses that council on cooperative mission more than anything else, and it would be a huge change in its constitutional purpose – subject, furthermore, to the Lambeth Conference’s direction — if it were to take on an adjudicatory role within the Communion on matters that pertain to doctrine and discipline.
None of this is confronted in the Bishops’ Statement, even as they assert the Primates’ lack of credibility to represent the Communion in its moment of near collapse.
3. Have the Primates repudiated their Reformation heritage?
The claim is made by the House of Bishops that the Primates’ suggested Pastoral Scheme contradicts one of the English Reformation’s foundational purposes, that is, to protect national churches from the intrusions of foreign “prelates” (an archaic term within Anglicanism used by the House of Bishops apparently only for its derogatory connotations). Not only is this claim highly anachronistic historically – the House of Bishops seems to have decided it needs to defend a British king’s sovereignty over the church as a model for the 21st century! – but it simply ignores the fundamental Reformation-based vows that the Primates, as Anglican bishops, have taken, which include: “Are you ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word; and both privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to the same?”. This vow, which goes back to the early 16th-century versions of the Book of Common Prayer, is no longer used in the American Church, to be sure. But its implications are straight-forward, and it can rightly be seen as at least one “Reformation” motive to the work of the Primates in the present, tying together pastorally elements from within the Articles of Religion and common Reformation commitments regarding Scripture, doctrine, oversight, and witness. I shall say more about the question of “foreign intrusion” below. But the focus by the House of Bishops upon a dubious political element tied to the Church of England’s struggle with Rome as defining the “Reformation heritage” by which to evaluate the Primates’ requests is historically and theologically bizarre.
4. Are the Primates “unaccountable”?
The House of Bishops claims explicitly and also implies at many reprises, that the Primates are a group of leaders whose actions are unconstrained both theoretically and in practice by the will of the larger Church, and that they answer to no one. Thus, engaging the Primates on the basis of “acceding” to their requests would be an act of submitting to uncontrolled power, a deeply dangerous act and precedent.
Does such a claim and fear have any warrant? The House of Bishops certainly offers none, and it is unclear whether their claim is a rhetorical ploy or just the expression of some unformed anxiety. At any rate, the claim represents a poor understanding of how most primates themselves function within their own churches, in the Global South as much as anywhere, and how they function together in their own meetings and with respect to other elements of common life within the Communion.
In the first place, the Primates are accountable to their own Houses of Bishops, to their own clergy, and to their own people. There are enough instances where Archbishops’ plans have been resisted, and their occasional power-grabs openly thwarted. Anybody who has, for an instant, been engaged in the life of Anglican churches around the world knows that the distance between an African Archbishop, for instance, and an American bishop in their respective attempts at “getting their own way” at home is nil. Secondly, Primates are accountable to their colleagues. And as much as some American bishops would like to think that there is a cabal of “Global South” Rasputins running CAPA and the rest of the Communion, the facts on the ground are completely otherwise. It is rather the case that many Anglican councils do not air their differences as publicly as in the U.S.. But struggles, honest discussion, and internal opposition abound. Thirdly, the Primates are accountable to the rest of the Communion in a variety of ways – through the councils of Lambeth, the ACC, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a host of commissions, gatherings, meetings, and public opinion. Many American bishops have now criticized the proposed Anglican Covenant exclusively on the basis of its suggestion that the Primates’ Meeting act as a conciliar coordinator for dealing with crises of division and as a final articulator of the Communion’s sense on a given matter of such kind . What they simply will not engage is the clear process by which the Primates’ Meeting, not only in the draft Covenant, but in fact (and the Covenant’s proposals are based on this current practice) is bound to a broad set of accountable counsel and decision.
Even on the issue of “border crossing” there have been debate and acts of mutual restraint among the Primates, motivated by a range of interests from within and outside their own churches, including TEC. I would myself (along with our bishops) prefer greater mutual restraint, but that is not the point. The Communiqué offered a way forward for ending border-crossing, and it was a hard-won agreement. That the recommendations are then received by U.S. bishops as the expression of unaccountable self-promotion by the Primates wholly misses the actual dynamics of their agreement.
It is hard to escape the sense that the only reason the American House of Bishops considers Anglican Primates to be “unaccountable” is because the Primates have refused to see the decisions of the American House of Bishops as acceptable to the Communion’s well-being and faithfulness. The Bishops’ Statement contains a long litany of purported rebuffs by the Primates to TEC’s attempts at explaining itself. Nowhere does it consider the possibility that the rebuffs derive from a consistent and well-founded belief by the Primates, upheld over and over by other councils of the Communion, that TEC has simply failed to meet the standards of teaching and discipline that the Communion holds as a whole. Who exactly is being “unaccountable” here? The seeming desire of the Statement to turn the tables rhetorically just doesn’t work.
In sum, the House of Bishops’ Statement’s hostility towards the Primates as an Anglican council whose requests have a moral authority worthy of presumptive deference is founded on assumptions that appear to be unexamined, inaccurate, and unfair.
II. Denying the reality of the Episcopal Church:
One of the most glaring elements of the House of Bishops’ Statement is its idiosyncratic image of TEC. In the history it offers concerning TEC’s relationship with the Communion, in its discussion of its own internal life in the present, in its allusions to its Anglican heritage, and finally in its sense of the Gospel to which it is accountable, the Statement presents a series of inaccuracies and half-truths that is astounding coming from a gathering of the church’s episcopal leadership.
1. Relationship with the Communion
Nowhere in the Statement do the bishops acknowledge their role in causing the breach that now characterizes TEC’s relationship with the Communion. It is a role that has included broken vows, denial, subterfuge, and more. Without going back too far, one can point to the 1991 Convention Resolution (B020) that promised that no change in the teaching and discipline regarding sexuality would be made by TEC apart from the rest of the Communion: “these potentially divisive issues should not be resolved by the Episcopal Church on its own”. The Convention then instructed the Presiding Bishop to initiate a “broad” process of “pan-Anglican” and “ecumenical” consultation to avoid unilateral action. This process never took place, and instead, the House of Bishops and Convention itself moved steadily forward with its permission of same-sex blessings and finally the consent and consecration of Gene Robinson, and this was done in the face of repeated warnings by the rest of the Communion that could only indicate that TEC’s path was being taken “unilaterally”. The Lambeth Conference (upheld by ACC), a series of Primates’ Meetings, the Archbishop of Canterbury – all spoke clearly to the American church and her bishops about this. Bp. Griswold himself signed the Primates’ Lambeth statement in 2003 that begged the U.S. bishops to stand aside from the consecration of Robinson. Yet in response, many bishops, including Griswold himself, went forward and participated in this action that was clearly viewed by the Communion’s leaders as knowingly destructive to the life of the larger body.
Despite the linguistic contortions of this or that House of Bishops and Convention resolutions of “apology”, an actual statement of contrition for the specific elements of this long series of broken promises and open rejections has never been made. Instead, the bishops’ Statement complains that TEC’s good will efforts at being nice to the Primates have all been ignored, time and again, and it implies that she is but the victim of their intransigent and mean-spirited hostility. This response, that bluntly refuses to engage the presenting issues and the behavior of the American church and of her own bishops, represents an astonishing denial of reality.
It is this kind of Humpty-Dumpty invention of idiosyncratic meaning and history that crops up again and again in the Statement. Do the bishops really think that TEC’s identity is deeply informed by its “liberation from colonialism”, an identity that joins her to the deep aspirations of oppressed people around the globe? Do they really believe that readers will not perceive that their use of the language of “colonialism” is but a craven attempt to appropriate the political categories of victimhood and emancipative virtue to a church and cause that has nothing to do with such realities? The American War was waged by colonizers against their own leaders, not by the poor and the tortured. And the Episcopal Church was founded by people whose lives were built upon the suffering of native peoples, African slaves and their descendents, and a host of minority groups (a pattern that has continued to the present day). The Episcopal Church has had its historical achievements (as has the United States), to be sure, and these include the support of liberal democracy; but anti-colonial liberationism isn’t one of them. Simply on the level of Anglo-American politics, our forebears do not fit the anti-colonialist categorization. I cannot imagine, for instance, what our Haitian church members think when hearing such strange claims. Who is “offending” whom?
A failure to see this is tied to the ongoing failure of TEC’s leadership to perceive their own standing in the eyes of most non-Western Christians
2. The Internal life of the Episcopal Church
The broken promises of the House of Bishops and the General Convention are noticeable not only to other Communion churches. They are visible to and felt by members within TEC as well. Beginning with those holding traditional views regarding the ordination of women, views that the Convention promised would be protected in political ways, but that it later decided had no place within the structures of the church (despite Communion pleas to the contrary), the assurances by TEC’s leadership of a “place at the table” to all members of the church and “respect of conscience” have increasingly rung hollow. The request for some form of alternative “primatial” care within TEC did not emerge out of the blue. The recent embarrassment of the church’s consent process in South Carolina’s episcopal election marks but the most recent moment in a long developing alienation that is actually applauded by many of the bishops themselves.
It is not worth trying to elaborate here a rebuttal to the consistent claim by TEC’s leadership that her internal life is marked by healthy cohesion and encouraged pluralism. It is enough to say here that many would dispute the claim on the basis of experienced reality, and it is the dispute that counts, not the counter-assertion by the bishops. The bishops know well enough of diocesan conventions where open debate is forbidden as “divisive”, because they themselves have promoted such conventions. They are well aware of the character of most of their seminaries, places where conservative scholars or leaders are protested against, and conservative appointments rarely made (and not for lack of good candidates). They know about Episcopal-related publishing houses that neither seek nor usually permit diversity of views. This has been a gradual evolution, to be sure, begun already in the 1970’s, but the direction has been steady, clear, and stifling. The bishops realize, finally, that some of their own colleagues regularly engage in smear campaigns against “dissident” members and leaders of the church, and in ways that hardly reflect Christian charity. There is little or no mutual accountability within the House of Bishops on any of these matters (among conservatives or liberals both, to be sure), and the claims of the Statement to the contrary mask a long-festering problem.
In the end, there is virtually no trust left that the House of Bishops has any intention to “listen” or “discern God’s truth” through open discussion and debate. On the presenting issue of teaching and discipline regarding sexuality, the Presiding Bishop and many individual bishops have stated openly that “there is no going back” on the direction the Convention and many dioceses have already taken with respect to “full inclusion”. The now seemingly-official teaching that the innovations on sexual life adopted by TEC are analogies to Paul’s defense of the Gentiles’ inclusion versus the rigidity and hypocrisy of Peter, makes it clear that the House of Bishops believes that they are on the side of the true Gospel, and all others are on the side of a false understanding of Christ. It is an opposition, they are certain, that the Holy Spirit will inevitably resolve in favor of TEC’s positions. A moment’s reflection shows that there is no room in this image of the “discussion” for true engagement of “diverse” views, for changes of mind by the House of Bishops and Convention, and for an actual pluralistic search for the truth (even if that were desirable). Is it any wonder that the repeated insistence by the bishops that “the listening process” to homosexuals within the Communion, commended by Lambeth I.10 in 1998, is viewed by many – given the bishops’ own complete rejection of the informing assertions of the Lambeth resolution itself – as a smokescreen for getting on with their own entrenched commitments, to the detriment of any opposing or alternative views?
Indeed, the Statement makes a commitment to a notion of the Gospel that is without negotiation. It is not only the case that the House of Bishops holds to a fundamentally different Scriptural “hermeneutic” than many in its own church and than the majority of the Communion. It is that this hermeneutic is intrinsically unteachable.
Any attempt to argue that this is not the case involves a profound incoherence: either the matter of “full inclusion” (including to the episcopacy and same-sex unions and blessings) is a matter “indifferent”, and hence is open to compromise for the sake of the Communion; or the matter is one of essential doctrine and discipline, and therefore the bishops should simply confess openly their inability to tolerate and accept alternative views (including within the Communion). Either the matter is one that in fact General Convention can order one way or the other (because indifferent), and so they could recommend to the Executive Council or Convention as a whole that they back off for the sake of “relationships” and the Communion; or it is not such a matter, and the bishops should have no fear in committing themselves even now, and on their own, to maintaining what the Convention in years past has upheld as the “traditional” teaching of the Church. What makes no sense is to claim there is “no going back” because of the essential evangelical issues at stake, yet also to proclaim a willingness to engage in open debate and possible new learning and readjustments of current discipline.
At the same time, the bishops avoid even mentioning the warning signs of church decline within TEC, signs pointed out by any number of students of the church’s health, including those working within TEC’s own research offices. No one denies that there are also “encouraging signs of life and hope within the church” here and there. But these signs are embedded within dynamics of falling attendance and revenues, departures and litigation. In their efforts to tell the Primates to butt out, the bishops have fallen prey to the petulance of autonomous disintegration. Looking for leadership from the bishops, we discover over and over again their preference for denial that there is anything that requires leading.
3. Denying the full heritage of the church
The Constitution of the Episcopal Church identifies her with those Anglican churches that “uphold and propagate” the “historic faith and order” of the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church”. As the bishops in their Statement enunciate their “gospel” of inclusion – which certainly seems to preempt any further decisions about the rest of the Primates’ requests in September – they make no attempt to integrate it with the “Reformation heritage” they otherwise astonishingly claim to embrace more fully than the rest of the Communion. Given that this is very much at the center of TEC’s conflict, it deserves some discussion.
Surely no one would dispute that an essential aspect of this Reformation heritage is the testing of all church teaching and discipline by the “word of God” in the Scriptures. But the bishops continue to ignore that this Reformation principle remains unapplied by them on a conciliar basis, either within TEC or within the Communion, where no council has yet agreed that the House of Bishops or the General Convention is in fact acting “in conformance with the Scripture”. At best, all such studies have found a lack of consensus on this subject. And in fact, the Communion has, for its part, applied the principle and found TEC utterly wanting. The one attempt TEC made to show that their actions in 2003 were not “contrary to the Word of God” – the paper presented to the ACC entitled To Set Our Hope On Christ, which only presented one view of the matter – has been deemed unpersuasive. But rather than accept this judgment for what it is worth, the bishops erroneously imply that no one has listened to them. The possibility that they have simply not made their case effectively is something they just cannot accept, and therefore seem to have decided that they have nothing more to say either to their people or the world on the matter, beyond the assertion of a “gospel” that is enunciated, it seems, into an ecclesial vacuum.
This is not only a blinkered approach to the church’s heritage. The refusal by the bishops to look at Christian religion in any terms other than the alleviation of human suffering, precisely because it avoids applying to our witness the context of the Communion’s sense of the “historic faith and order” of the Church, represents a denial of TEC’s own Constitution. The bishops, however, have no right, according to their own vows, to ignore the fullness of the heritage they claim. Indeed, the vows of our bishops bind them to “oneness with the apostles”, to a “guarding” of that apostolic faith and the unity and discipline of the church, and to a heritage shared with “patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs” and constrained by the “Church throughout the world”.
The picture the bishops present of themselves in all of this is of an increasingly isolated group, unwilling or unable to acknowledge the reality of opposition within their own church and within the larger Communion, refusing to engage the theological and ecclesial issues that they have set loose to the detriment of their own flock and the Communion they purportedly love, and now withdrawing into a posture of self-protecting denunciation. The picture is a sad one.
III. The Bishops’ claims against Pastoral Scheme
This ought really to be the meat of the Bishops’ Statement’s purpose. But, as already indicated, the bishops actually have little to say apart from unsupported assertion driven by apparently political animus. Let us look at some of claims they make. There are five that are stated explicitly, and several others that emerge from the Statement as a whole.
1. Is the Proposed Pastoral Scheme in “violation “ of TEC’s Constitution and Canons?
No citation is given by the bishops to support this claim, and no public consultation about such a rather major issue, if issue it is, was ever pursued. Given one of the “Mind of the House” resolutions by the bishops, as well as subsequent statements by diocesan chancellors, one of the presenting issues for the bishops appears to be their belief that only the General Convention itself as a whole (i.e. both houses) has the authority to “interpret” the Constitution. And if that is the case, the House of Bishops alone cannot make any decision regarding doctrine or delegation of pastoral authority, nor could a Pastoral Council or a delegated Primatial Vicar, as called for by the Scheme, possibly be in a position to make decisions about matters affecting TEC.
But in fact the Constitution of TEC has nothing to say about any of this. The General Convention has no authority over doctrine in any case, except if it be considered adiaphora, because the Episcopal Church is committed to doing nothing in matters of “essential” doctrine that would conflict either with the Church of England or, more importantly, with the Word of God (cf. the Preface to the Prayer Book, the Prayer Book’s consistent teaching, and the Preamble to the Constitution). It is certainly not up to the General Convention alone to decide what is or what isn’t in conflict with the Church of England’s essential doctrine, discipline and worship, or with the “historic faith and order” of the Church as “propagated” by the Anglican Communion. For this would be for the General Convention to tell the Church of England and the Communion what these two bodies actually believe, independent of their own self-articulation, which is absurd. Generally, some process of ordered arbitration takes place when there is a difference in interpretation, which is precisely what we are witnessing at present in the Communion as a whole.
Within a more limited sphere, it is obviously false to claim for the General Convention as a whole such exclusive interpretive authority, for otherwise it would be impossible for clergy and for bishops to be disciplined for teaching doctrine contrary to the Church’s. This is something for which ecclesiastical courts, and in the case of bishops, other bishops, are given authority to make determinations, without corroboration from the General Convention. Such decisions may not have applicability beyond the scope of the cases they investigate (cf. the infamous Righter Decision), but they clearly take place through the authority of bodies constitutionally granted powers over the interpretation of doctrine and discipline.
Thus delegation of authority, in these and other matters, is most certainly possible within the limits of the Constitution and Canons. And since, in fact, the Pastoral Council and the Primatial Vicar, according to the proposed Scheme, are seen as operating explicitly only within the Canons of TEC, and only according to the specific permissions of TEC authorities, and only for so long as that permission is given, it is very difficult to see on what basis the House of Bishops could reject the Scheme as inherently unconstitutional. The character and shape of the Scheme is one of request and permission. The unwillingness of our bishops to look at this carefully and instead insist on reading it in terms of “oppression” and “offense” is bizarre and irrational. Indeed, their rejection of the Scheme appears wholly capricious and arbitrary.
2. Does the proposed Pastoral Scheme “violate” the “Windsor and Covenant process”?
Again, the Statement gives no citations from the Windsor Report to undergird this claim. Indeed, the Windsor Report itself made a series of recommendations, which the Primates reiterated as their own at Dromantine, and the TEC authorities, including the House of Bishops, chose to respond to them as valid (although always with a clear sense that they were doing so out a posture of noblesse oblige). Why, all of a sudden, are requests by the Primates invalid? The final paragraph of the Windsor Report in fact envisions – although with some trepidation – the situation in which the TEC bishops now in fact find themselves: we are in the midst of a process of Communion arbitration, with sorrowful results looming for the future relation of TEC and the Communion. Is this all not exactly what the Windsor Report outlined and exactly as its “process” is unfolding?
As for the “Covenant Process”, it is clear that the Pastoral Scheme has been suggested as an “interim” arrangement precisely so that that process might unfold without further fractures in both TEC and the Communion, and with the maintenance of TEC’s full participation. This seems to wholly contradict the bishops’ accusations. It was revealing that, during the House of Bishops discussion of the proposed Covenant (at which I was present), Katherine Grieb’s proposal that TEC take an extended “time out” from the councils of the Communion (a minimum of 5 years) brought one specific question: one bishop rose to ask her, “but what will that do to our participation in the Covenant process?”, and Grieb had little to say. That is, the hope to put distance between TEC and the Primates that the House of Bishops’ statement clearly seeks, will obviously affect TEC’s place in the Covenant process; but that is what the House of Bishops seems itself to be choosing, not the Primates or the Communion. The Primates have in fact proposed a way to keep TEC a part of things. Why therefore are our bishops accusing them of violating the process itself, when it is they themselves who are consciously acting in a way that jeopardizes their ability to remain a part of the process?
3. Does the Pastoral Scheme violate TEC’s “founding” principles of post-colonial autonomy?
We have already noted the complete inappropriateness of this claim from a rhetorical and historical point of view. Theologically and politically, the autonomy of the Episcopal Church was, from the beginning, profoundly circumscribed by constraints (from the Church of England and internally) imposed by Prayer Book doctrine, by the configuration of Convention, by the general claims of Holy Scripture, and by the early reiteration by the Convention (1814) that the Episcopal Church is, from an ecclesial (though not civil) perspective, the “same body” as the “Church of England”. How exactly the notion of “autonomy” must be understood in terms of TEC’s “constituent membership” in a body of churches that upholds and propagates a common “faith and order” that is “historically” traceable is exactly what is at issue in the present conflict in the Communion. The Windsor Report remains to date the most carefully articulated response to this question, and it speaks in terms very different from the House of Bishops’. They in turn ignore their own history, whatever its debatable details, and pass by in silence the Communion’s own attempt at providing clarity to this matter.
4. Does the Pastoral Scheme violate the Reformation heritage of Anglicanism?
We have already seen that the bishops’ characterization of the “Reformation heritage” regarding episcopal vocation is deformed, as is the notion of “local governance” as a central bequest of the Church of England’s break from Rome. The notion of a larger accountability to the greater church’s guarding of Scripture is in fact given in Cranmer, Hooker, and of course in the origins of the Episcopal Church.
As for the “generous orthodoxy” of the “Prayer Book tradition” touted by the House of Bishops, their claim seems to ignore completely the rather ungenerous and often violent reality of Prayer Book “conformity” within the Church of England up through a good bit of the 19th century. If America has an essential historical link with this particular tradition, it is a negative one, through the non-Conformist exile that founded the colonies’ vigorous social life in the 17th-century – hardly the exemplar the bishops needed to make their case. If the Prayer Book tradition has an “orthodoxy”, it is neither generous nor ungenerous, but sui generis, and that is what should be examined, not some myth of a pluralist commonwealth of religious questers that seems to lie behind the bishops’ vision.
There is, finally, nothing primatially “exclusive” about the Pastoral Scheme or its acceptance by individual bishops, as they choose to consult, discern, and decide within their particular spheres of counsel with the whole church. The Pastoral Council, as proposed, is open to lay membership. And the decisions of the Pastoral Council are made with accountability and cooperation. And as we noted above, the House of Bishops, in this context, makes no attempt to confront its own failures and those of the General Convention to exercise responsible control over the life of their own church within the Communion, failures that make the Primates’ proposal necessary in the first place.
5. Is the Pastoral Scheme “spiritually unsound” in its encouragement of “breaking relationships”?
The issue of “breaking” relationships and trust is indeed at the center of our problems within TEC and the Communion. But the breaking of trust has been a large part of the House of Bishops’ own actions vis a vis the Communion for some time, as we have seen above. What the House of Bishops should be addressing is, “what is the value of our word or our church’s word within our own body and within the Communion?” What is it worth? Do our “vows” actually count? The litany of being ignored and rebuffed by the Primates that the Statement offers should rightly be reformulated in terms of a list of requests, pleadings, and warnings issued by the Communion that the House of Bishops and their Presiding Bishop have repeatedly spurned.
Yet the House of Bishops wants to claim the Primates are “kicking them out” of the Communion, when in fact it is they, the American bishops, who have deliberately chosen a path they know—if they are thinking clearly—must lead to this outcome. Even their own consultative bodies have told them this. Before the 2003 General Convention, the House of Bishops’ Theology Committee recommended that no action be taken on matters that would alter the discipline of the church in the area of human sexuality – such as the consent to Gene Robinson’s episcopal election. Such actions would divide the church, since, they argued, there was no clear consensus within the church that could support it. The House of Bishops knowingly and deliberately chose in 2003 to ignore their Committee’s recommendations. The “schismatic”, as Andrew Marvell wrote, is the one who causes separation, not necessarily the one who separates.
Perhaps what the Statement is claiming is that any form of church discipline that involves distancing someone or some group from positions of decision-making is inherently “injurious” to the church; or that any form of separation that is adopted for the sake of maintaining a provisional and fruitful peace is an assault upon relationships in Christ. On the face of it, however, such a claim would contradict Scripture and tradition, not to mention common practice in most cultures. Discipline within the church is not opposed to unity – even and especially eucharistic unity – but is a part of unity’s vital context of accountability. The provisional peace of self-restraint is a long-standing Christian virtue, applied pastorally in many instances.
There is, in fact, something morally unsettling about the Statement’s attempt to appropriate the categories of fidelity, even of marital fidelity, in their argument against the Primates. Much like their attempt to co-opt the language of anti-colonialism, it is contradicted by the facts on the ground, some of them embodied personally by bishops themselves.
Some of our bishops have called the Primates’ requests “offensive”. Yet Paragraph 28 of the Communiqué is clear as to the Primates’ Meeting’s intentions: holding TEC together and bringing healing. It may well be the Scheme is not the best possible way forward to this end. But the presumption of “injury” and “offense” in the face of the Primates’ own stated desires is a mark of the very “illness” of diseased trust that afflicts TEC and the Communion. There is little in the Statement that takes this seriously, that acknowledges any responsibility on the part of the House of Bishops for this illness, and that seeks to find ways to repair it with the same concrete attempts at offering healing that the Primates themselves attempted with much effort and perseverance. To label the Pastoral Scheme as inherently schismatic – driven by the serious spiritual disease of “breaking relationships” – contradicts the Primates’ own stated desires, and it comes close to calling them liars. More than anything, this kind of response seems reactionary.
From a broader perspective, it appears as if the bishops do not grasp — or certainly do not accept — the central point of the Windsor Report, namely, that communion rests in mutual subjection within the Body of Christ. Such subjection does not prohibit contrarian actions, but it does prohibit them from being undertaken as immediate, ill considered, and undiscussed forms of action. And when such actions are taken in such a way, the order and trust of the Body is torn apart, and ways of restoring such trust and order are demanded that engage willed changes within the heart and behavior of those involved. By contrast, the bishops are defining communion as historical association and
(perhaps) mutual aid, whose connections are not vulnerable to the deep and complex influences and imperatives of mutual subjection as understood by the larger Communion.. Perhaps this essential difference in perspective accounts for the fact that the bishops’ response remains largely on the level of ad hominim comment and tortured remarks about differing forms of polity.
IV. Questions raised by the Bishops’ Statement for Episcopal Clergy
Our own Prayer Book teaches us that our first commitment as a baptized Christian is to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship” (BCP p. 304) and that this following is of the very nature of the Church (p. 854). This commitment we have all made. At the same time, we are taught that it is the Church who leads us in the right interpretation of the Scriptures, the apostolic witness, through the Holy Spirit (853f.).
Which Church is this? Is it the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops? Is it her Executive Council? Is it her General Convention? Or is it not the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” church we confess in the Creeds? In any case, we are now being taught two opposing truths. The House of Bishops herself has set up before the faithful Christian in her midst a dilemma that must be resolved.
Those of us who are priests have vowed to be obedient to the faith “received” (p. 526). Received from whom? Surely from the apostolic heritage and witness, of which our bishops are to be guardians (p. 517), the “historic Faith and Order” that our Constitution tells us represents the very evangelical identity of the “Anglican Communion” of which our Episcopal Church is bound as a “constituent member” (borrowing the phrasing and meaning of a previous Lambeth Conference). It is clear that the historic Faith and Order is something shared. And if it is shared, it cannot be the sole possession of the Episcopal Church to define or to demand, as our bishops have resolved the Episcopal Church has the right to do. The bishops of the Episcopal Church are part of the “Church throughout the world” (p. 517), in time as well as space, and it is therefore this universal “trust” (p. 518) that they are called to guard. And it is this trust that we, as clergy, are solemnly bound, by a vow of “loyalty”, to uphold.
How shall we then today understand this trust? The wider Anglican Communion, through those councils that we share (p. 531) – the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates’ Meeting, and each according to the definitions offered by the Lambeth Conferences – have articulated the standard of the “historic Faith and Order” in the matters currently under fractious debate; they have also called on our bishops in the Episcopal Church to adapt themselves to this teaching and discipline, since the Anglican Communion has defined this standard as something essentially in accordance with Scripture (cf. 1998 Lambeth I.10), a matter our own Prayer Book tells us is the necessary criterion by which to evaluate the adequacy any church’s decisions (Preface) . Our bishops as a house have now refused the Communion’s trust, clearly and resolutely. They have done so without argument and without open consultation. They have done so with animosity.
With whom and under whom do we now fulfill our vows made before God? It is no longer possible to receive equally the claim made by the House of Bishops to be faithful to the apostolic trust, along with the claim by the “Church throughout the world” that this trust demands another set of actions and commitments. What then shall we do?
Our bishops have left us in a grievous and parlous position. It is true, as our bishops have said, that those who wish to “divide” the church are few. The concerns expressed above come from clergy, like myself, who have long labored to maintain the unity of TEC, internally and with the Communion. We do not wish what the bishops themselves, few in number though they be, are pressing upon us.
Let us who care for Christ’s embrace of Anglican Christianity in Communion redouble our prayers and our efforts to see that the will of Dar es Salaam unfold in God’s good time, and not be thwarted by another unilateral dictation of how the Communion ought to mirror the incoherent image of TEC. God help us. Much is at stake here. It is time to do all we can to assure that the Instruments of Communion be able to do their work unhindered. If TEC’s bishops do not wish to be a part of this, that is their decision. Let them have the courage of their convictions; but let us not quietly accept their invented Anglican Christianity that never existed anywhere before.
–The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner is rector of Church of the Ascension, Pueblo, Colorado, and a fellow of the Anglican Communion Institute.
Many bishops who supported the Statement have since criticized conservative members of their church for drawing dire conclusions from their work, arguing that such conclusions are precipitous and uncharitable, even while they pat themselves on the back for finally “standing up” to the so-called Communion bullies. The celebration will be short-lived. The Statement itself, rushed out without open consultation on key elements which supposedly inform its perspective, in the face of pledges to hold off from just such rash and emotive response to the Primates, does nothing but encourage despair over our bishops’ capacity to exercise their ministries with a modicum of prudence, let alone the humility of Christian wisdom. The dire conclusions are more than justified, short of some unexpected reversal of attitude and performance by the House of Bishops in the near future.
The point in what follows is not to “defend” the Primates “against” the House of Bishops. The Primates are quite capable of defending themselves should they wish, and do not need someone like me as a proxy. This is rather about trying to establish some honesty within the debate among Episcopalians about our church’s future, and that honesty has been severely compromised by the House of Bishops’ Statement. The Primates are not all saints, by any means; and TEC’s House of Bishops is not a den of robbers (nor did all the bishops approve of the Statement their House made public). Moral shades and interpretive uncertainties are present and real, as are sincerely held convictions. But we have reached a stage in our church’s life – a stage close to actual collapse for Episcopalians committed to the heritage of their Anglican Communion identity – when it is no longer possible to be silenced by the scruples of nuance, much as one must continue to take such nuance seriously and into account. We have vows to maintain, and the space in which to do so is rapidly disappearing.
I. The Primates’ Meeting
Although the purported reason the bishops reject the proposed Pastoral Scheme suggested by the Primates is one of “American polity”, as we will see the bishops provide little support for their claim. Indeed, the main reason they give, implied as well as explicit, is the Primates’ own unworthiness to be considered as acceptable counselors and participants (e.g. in the Pastoral Council) within matters that concern the Episcopal Church and her position in the Communion. The House of Bishops variously associates the Primates with “unaccountability”, high-handed “prelature”, anti-Reformation power-grabs, anti-Gospel obsessions, undemocratic complicity with anti-Episopalian Americans, and “distressing” lack of concern with the suffering of the world. Katherine Grieb’s presentation on the Covenant to the bishops, which many of them have subsequently pointed to as an inspiring call to action, made the character exhibited by the Primates’ at Dar es Salaam the main reason for rejecting the proposed Covenant as a useful way forward, precisely because the Primates themselves could no longer be trusted with the conciliar role suggested for it in the document.
It is worth beginning, then, by considering these loose and unsubstantiated charges and implications, aimed mainly at the Global South Primates.
1. Have the Primates been irresponsible in their concern for human welfare as a central element of the Gospel?
It is difficult to know where to begin in responding to such a broad and unargued charge. Suffice it to say that, long before most bishops in the Episcopal Church knew what hunger, civil war, child-soldiers, AIDS among women and children, illiteracy, abandonment and exclusion of women, oppressive government corruption, violation of basic human rights really were, the church leaders of places like Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Burundi, Rwanda, India, and elsewhere were grappling with these realities face on, without resources or support from the West. They continue to do so, supported mainly with means from within their churches, or by funds from outside the Anglican churches of the West altogether – from Germany, Norway, Catholic charities, government and UN sources, and more. Who exactly should one be “distressed” with in this strange imbalance?
What needs to be said is that, for many of these leaders, the hard work of setting up grinding mills for women, working with AIDS widows and sufferers, re-forming the children of war, literacy etc. are activities that rely on the grass-roots engagement of lay women and men of the church itself, formed in the precepts of the Gospel, bound by the church’s common life, and renewed by the Holy Spirit in prayer and praise. Literacy-training often takes place through the teaching of the Bible, relationships within villages or even within urban slums through the building up of prayer groups, AIDS prevention through the teaching of sexual abstinence and marriage fidelity, the very hope for working in the face of overwhelming suffering and cruelty through the living presence of Christ shared through testimony and teaching. There is no separation for these leaders, as there apparently is among many in our House of Bishops, between the teaching of Scriptural faith and the works of Christ’s mercy; rather they are one and the same. And the attempt by some Americans to segregate Christian doctrine and morals into a marginal realm of “debated issues”, only of secondary importance to the Millennium Development Goals, is simply irrational and unfaithful in the eyes of many of the Primates and their people.
The leadership of many Anglican churches around the world has seen its failures and limitations (some of them sorrowfully spectacular), but given the circumstances, far fewer than one might have expected of frail human nature, even redeemed in Christ. And the American church has been generous in limited ways, but not nearly as much as it would like to congratulate itself as being. The sight of American Episcopal bishops lecturing the majority Global South Primates on the ministry of alleviating suffering is morally incongruous to say the least, short of some concrete, specific, and elaborated argument to the contrary.
2. Are the Primates unrepresentative of the church, because they are all male bishops?
Again, I am not sure what to say in the face of such a sweeping assumption, that flies in the face of the Church’s history and current practice, let alone of theological truth. Clearly “representation” does not depend, in Christian terms, on gender or social location, otherwise we would need to reject the representativeness of Jesus for all humanity. (There are, I realize, those who would argue just this; however, I am not sure the House of Bishops is really prepared to go such a blatantly heretical route.) Further, the ability of individual bishops who are either male or female to exercise their authority (however defined) would be severely compromised if Christian representation in authoritative positions required a multi-valent sexual/social person.
The question here, it seems, is whether bishops in particular do in fact have the role that the church – including the Episcopal Church, with its repeated emphasis on the bishop as chief pastor and overseer for the “whole” flock – has assigned them within its midst. The representativeness of Christian individuals, on behalf of the entire Body, is founded in Christ’s own life and shared Spirit within the Church, and through it, in the trusted (if accountable) ministry through which individuals are called to leadership, whatever their sex or social placement. It is possible that the current crop of Primates has failed in their calling to Christian representation. But where is the evidence? Have their people been polled? Is their a test that has been applied, according to which they have been found wanting? Does the American House of Bishops have some special insight into this question, and one which does not end by fingering themselves?
Some of our bishops, and others, have argued that the issue at stake here is less one of the representative person of a Primate, and more one of (politically) conciliar representation. Like the American church, they believe, the Communion should have some kind of system wherein the council of bishops is matched and balanced by a council or synod of clergy and laity. As a general suggestion for Communion polity, this is certainly something that might be considered by others. As the House of Bishops is well aware, however, this kind of system is both peculiar in its claims, and even where implemented (as in the United States), limited in its practical meaning (do our bishops really want to make the chauvinistic claim that the General Convention of TEC has proven a more faithful body of Christian decision-making than that of other churches?) Furthermore, there is a history and practice within the Communion, based on an episcopal and catholic ecclesiology (and some would say, Scriptural ecclesiology), that would require a good bit of readjustment, not to say deformation, were the demand for some new authoritative and non-Episcopal Communion synod simply to be asserted without careful discussion, one the House of Bishops has completely failed to engage.
One suggestion that one often hears, including one made by some of our bishops, is that the Primates are attempting to “usurp” the more representative role of the Anglican Consultative Council, that at least (as they see it) has clergy and laity as members. It needs to be pointed out, however, that in making suggestions and requests of the American Church, in the midst of a serious crisis of division that threatens the entire Anglican Communion and that has been initiated by the American church (including many of her bishops), the Primates are merely doing what they have been asked to do by all the other “instruments” of Communion, through the recommendation of numerous bodies that included clergy and laity, women as well as men. Obviously, the Archbishop of Canterbury supports these requests, but the Lambeth Conference (twice) encouraged the Primates’ Meeting to take on such a role, later taking up recommendations like that of the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission (The Virginia Report); the Windsor Report itself pointed in this direction (see its Appendix), and the ACC itself accepted these suggestions.
Again, taking up recommendations by the Windsor Report and earlier commissions, the ACC sought to integrate itself more fully with the work of the Primates’ Meeting by altering its membership to more adequately reflect the Primates’ leadership role (and this was done, as Windsor said, in order to make the ACC more, not less representative of the peoples in the churches of the Communion!). The ACC’s own track-record, furthermore, has been the subject of repeated criticisms precisely on the question of its own representativeness of the Communion, with a long series of complaints aimed at its purported subservience to American interests among other things.
Finally, the Constitution of the ACC focuses that council on cooperative mission more than anything else, and it would be a huge change in its constitutional purpose – subject, furthermore, to the Lambeth Conference’s direction — if it were to take on an adjudicatory role within the Communion on matters that pertain to doctrine and discipline.
None of this is confronted in the Bishops’ Statement, even as they assert the Primates’ lack of credibility to represent the Communion in its moment of near collapse.
3. Have the Primates repudiated their Reformation heritage?
The claim is made by the House of Bishops that the Primates’ suggested Pastoral Scheme contradicts one of the English Reformation’s foundational purposes, that is, to protect national churches from the intrusions of foreign “prelates” (an archaic term within Anglicanism used by the House of Bishops apparently only for its derogatory connotations). Not only is this claim highly anachronistic historically – the House of Bishops seems to have decided it needs to defend a British king’s sovereignty over the church as a model for the 21st century! – but it simply ignores the fundamental Reformation-based vows that the Primates, as Anglican bishops, have taken, which include: “Are you ready, with all faithful diligence, to banish and drive away from the Church all erroneous and strange doctrine contrary to God’s Word; and both privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to the same?”. This vow, which goes back to the early 16th-century versions of the Book of Common Prayer, is no longer used in the American Church, to be sure. But its implications are straight-forward, and it can rightly be seen as at least one “Reformation” motive to the work of the Primates in the present, tying together pastorally elements from within the Articles of Religion and common Reformation commitments regarding Scripture, doctrine, oversight, and witness. I shall say more about the question of “foreign intrusion” below. But the focus by the House of Bishops upon a dubious political element tied to the Church of England’s struggle with Rome as defining the “Reformation heritage” by which to evaluate the Primates’ requests is historically and theologically bizarre.
4. Are the Primates “unaccountable”?
The House of Bishops claims explicitly and also implies at many reprises, that the Primates are a group of leaders whose actions are unconstrained both theoretically and in practice by the will of the larger Church, and that they answer to no one. Thus, engaging the Primates on the basis of “acceding” to their requests would be an act of submitting to uncontrolled power, a deeply dangerous act and precedent.
Does such a claim and fear have any warrant? The House of Bishops certainly offers none, and it is unclear whether their claim is a rhetorical ploy or just the expression of some unformed anxiety. At any rate, the claim represents a poor understanding of how most primates themselves function within their own churches, in the Global South as much as anywhere, and how they function together in their own meetings and with respect to other elements of common life within the Communion.
In the first place, the Primates are accountable to their own Houses of Bishops, to their own clergy, and to their own people. There are enough instances where Archbishops’ plans have been resisted, and their occasional power-grabs openly thwarted. Anybody who has, for an instant, been engaged in the life of Anglican churches around the world knows that the distance between an African Archbishop, for instance, and an American bishop in their respective attempts at “getting their own way” at home is nil. Secondly, Primates are accountable to their colleagues. And as much as some American bishops would like to think that there is a cabal of “Global South” Rasputins running CAPA and the rest of the Communion, the facts on the ground are completely otherwise. It is rather the case that many Anglican councils do not air their differences as publicly as in the U.S.. But struggles, honest discussion, and internal opposition abound. Thirdly, the Primates are accountable to the rest of the Communion in a variety of ways – through the councils of Lambeth, the ACC, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a host of commissions, gatherings, meetings, and public opinion. Many American bishops have now criticized the proposed Anglican Covenant exclusively on the basis of its suggestion that the Primates’ Meeting act as a conciliar coordinator for dealing with crises of division and as a final articulator of the Communion’s sense on a given matter of such kind . What they simply will not engage is the clear process by which the Primates’ Meeting, not only in the draft Covenant, but in fact (and the Covenant’s proposals are based on this current practice) is bound to a broad set of accountable counsel and decision.
Even on the issue of “border crossing” there have been debate and acts of mutual restraint among the Primates, motivated by a range of interests from within and outside their own churches, including TEC. I would myself (along with our bishops) prefer greater mutual restraint, but that is not the point. The Communiqué offered a way forward for ending border-crossing, and it was a hard-won agreement. That the recommendations are then received by U.S. bishops as the expression of unaccountable self-promotion by the Primates wholly misses the actual dynamics of their agreement.
It is hard to escape the sense that the only reason the American House of Bishops considers Anglican Primates to be “unaccountable” is because the Primates have refused to see the decisions of the American House of Bishops as acceptable to the Communion’s well-being and faithfulness. The Bishops’ Statement contains a long litany of purported rebuffs by the Primates to TEC’s attempts at explaining itself. Nowhere does it consider the possibility that the rebuffs derive from a consistent and well-founded belief by the Primates, upheld over and over by other councils of the Communion, that TEC has simply failed to meet the standards of teaching and discipline that the Communion holds as a whole. Who exactly is being “unaccountable” here? The seeming desire of the Statement to turn the tables rhetorically just doesn’t work.
In sum, the House of Bishops’ Statement’s hostility towards the Primates as an Anglican council whose requests have a moral authority worthy of presumptive deference is founded on assumptions that appear to be unexamined, inaccurate, and unfair.
II. Denying the reality of the Episcopal Church:
One of the most glaring elements of the House of Bishops’ Statement is its idiosyncratic image of TEC. In the history it offers concerning TEC’s relationship with the Communion, in its discussion of its own internal life in the present, in its allusions to its Anglican heritage, and finally in its sense of the Gospel to which it is accountable, the Statement presents a series of inaccuracies and half-truths that is astounding coming from a gathering of the church’s episcopal leadership.
1. Relationship with the Communion
Nowhere in the Statement do the bishops acknowledge their role in causing the breach that now characterizes TEC’s relationship with the Communion. It is a role that has included broken vows, denial, subterfuge, and more. Without going back too far, one can point to the 1991 Convention Resolution (B020) that promised that no change in the teaching and discipline regarding sexuality would be made by TEC apart from the rest of the Communion: “these potentially divisive issues should not be resolved by the Episcopal Church on its own”. The Convention then instructed the Presiding Bishop to initiate a “broad” process of “pan-Anglican” and “ecumenical” consultation to avoid unilateral action. This process never took place, and instead, the House of Bishops and Convention itself moved steadily forward with its permission of same-sex blessings and finally the consent and consecration of Gene Robinson, and this was done in the face of repeated warnings by the rest of the Communion that could only indicate that TEC’s path was being taken “unilaterally”. The Lambeth Conference (upheld by ACC), a series of Primates’ Meetings, the Archbishop of Canterbury – all spoke clearly to the American church and her bishops about this. Bp. Griswold himself signed the Primates’ Lambeth statement in 2003 that begged the U.S. bishops to stand aside from the consecration of Robinson. Yet in response, many bishops, including Griswold himself, went forward and participated in this action that was clearly viewed by the Communion’s leaders as knowingly destructive to the life of the larger body.
Despite the linguistic contortions of this or that House of Bishops and Convention resolutions of “apology”, an actual statement of contrition for the specific elements of this long series of broken promises and open rejections has never been made. Instead, the bishops’ Statement complains that TEC’s good will efforts at being nice to the Primates have all been ignored, time and again, and it implies that she is but the victim of their intransigent and mean-spirited hostility. This response, that bluntly refuses to engage the presenting issues and the behavior of the American church and of her own bishops, represents an astonishing denial of reality.
It is this kind of Humpty-Dumpty invention of idiosyncratic meaning and history that crops up again and again in the Statement. Do the bishops really think that TEC’s identity is deeply informed by its “liberation from colonialism”, an identity that joins her to the deep aspirations of oppressed people around the globe? Do they really believe that readers will not perceive that their use of the language of “colonialism” is but a craven attempt to appropriate the political categories of victimhood and emancipative virtue to a church and cause that has nothing to do with such realities? The American War was waged by colonizers against their own leaders, not by the poor and the tortured. And the Episcopal Church was founded by people whose lives were built upon the suffering of native peoples, African slaves and their descendents, and a host of minority groups (a pattern that has continued to the present day). The Episcopal Church has had its historical achievements (as has the United States), to be sure, and these include the support of liberal democracy; but anti-colonial liberationism isn’t one of them. Simply on the level of Anglo-American politics, our forebears do not fit the anti-colonialist categorization. I cannot imagine, for instance, what our Haitian church members think when hearing such strange claims. Who is “offending” whom?
A failure to see this is tied to the ongoing failure of TEC’s leadership to perceive their own standing in the eyes of most non-Western Christians
2. The Internal life of the Episcopal Church
The broken promises of the House of Bishops and the General Convention are noticeable not only to other Communion churches. They are visible to and felt by members within TEC as well. Beginning with those holding traditional views regarding the ordination of women, views that the Convention promised would be protected in political ways, but that it later decided had no place within the structures of the church (despite Communion pleas to the contrary), the assurances by TEC’s leadership of a “place at the table” to all members of the church and “respect of conscience” have increasingly rung hollow. The request for some form of alternative “primatial” care within TEC did not emerge out of the blue. The recent embarrassment of the church’s consent process in South Carolina’s episcopal election marks but the most recent moment in a long developing alienation that is actually applauded by many of the bishops themselves.
It is not worth trying to elaborate here a rebuttal to the consistent claim by TEC’s leadership that her internal life is marked by healthy cohesion and encouraged pluralism. It is enough to say here that many would dispute the claim on the basis of experienced reality, and it is the dispute that counts, not the counter-assertion by the bishops. The bishops know well enough of diocesan conventions where open debate is forbidden as “divisive”, because they themselves have promoted such conventions. They are well aware of the character of most of their seminaries, places where conservative scholars or leaders are protested against, and conservative appointments rarely made (and not for lack of good candidates). They know about Episcopal-related publishing houses that neither seek nor usually permit diversity of views. This has been a gradual evolution, to be sure, begun already in the 1970’s, but the direction has been steady, clear, and stifling. The bishops realize, finally, that some of their own colleagues regularly engage in smear campaigns against “dissident” members and leaders of the church, and in ways that hardly reflect Christian charity. There is little or no mutual accountability within the House of Bishops on any of these matters (among conservatives or liberals both, to be sure), and the claims of the Statement to the contrary mask a long-festering problem.
In the end, there is virtually no trust left that the House of Bishops has any intention to “listen” or “discern God’s truth” through open discussion and debate. On the presenting issue of teaching and discipline regarding sexuality, the Presiding Bishop and many individual bishops have stated openly that “there is no going back” on the direction the Convention and many dioceses have already taken with respect to “full inclusion”. The now seemingly-official teaching that the innovations on sexual life adopted by TEC are analogies to Paul’s defense of the Gentiles’ inclusion versus the rigidity and hypocrisy of Peter, makes it clear that the House of Bishops believes that they are on the side of the true Gospel, and all others are on the side of a false understanding of Christ. It is an opposition, they are certain, that the Holy Spirit will inevitably resolve in favor of TEC’s positions. A moment’s reflection shows that there is no room in this image of the “discussion” for true engagement of “diverse” views, for changes of mind by the House of Bishops and Convention, and for an actual pluralistic search for the truth (even if that were desirable). Is it any wonder that the repeated insistence by the bishops that “the listening process” to homosexuals within the Communion, commended by Lambeth I.10 in 1998, is viewed by many – given the bishops’ own complete rejection of the informing assertions of the Lambeth resolution itself – as a smokescreen for getting on with their own entrenched commitments, to the detriment of any opposing or alternative views?
Indeed, the Statement makes a commitment to a notion of the Gospel that is without negotiation. It is not only the case that the House of Bishops holds to a fundamentally different Scriptural “hermeneutic” than many in its own church and than the majority of the Communion. It is that this hermeneutic is intrinsically unteachable.
Any attempt to argue that this is not the case involves a profound incoherence: either the matter of “full inclusion” (including to the episcopacy and same-sex unions and blessings) is a matter “indifferent”, and hence is open to compromise for the sake of the Communion; or the matter is one of essential doctrine and discipline, and therefore the bishops should simply confess openly their inability to tolerate and accept alternative views (including within the Communion). Either the matter is one that in fact General Convention can order one way or the other (because indifferent), and so they could recommend to the Executive Council or Convention as a whole that they back off for the sake of “relationships” and the Communion; or it is not such a matter, and the bishops should have no fear in committing themselves even now, and on their own, to maintaining what the Convention in years past has upheld as the “traditional” teaching of the Church. What makes no sense is to claim there is “no going back” because of the essential evangelical issues at stake, yet also to proclaim a willingness to engage in open debate and possible new learning and readjustments of current discipline.
At the same time, the bishops avoid even mentioning the warning signs of church decline within TEC, signs pointed out by any number of students of the church’s health, including those working within TEC’s own research offices. No one denies that there are also “encouraging signs of life and hope within the church” here and there. But these signs are embedded within dynamics of falling attendance and revenues, departures and litigation. In their efforts to tell the Primates to butt out, the bishops have fallen prey to the petulance of autonomous disintegration. Looking for leadership from the bishops, we discover over and over again their preference for denial that there is anything that requires leading.
3. Denying the full heritage of the church
The Constitution of the Episcopal Church identifies her with those Anglican churches that “uphold and propagate” the “historic faith and order” of the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church”. As the bishops in their Statement enunciate their “gospel” of inclusion – which certainly seems to preempt any further decisions about the rest of the Primates’ requests in September – they make no attempt to integrate it with the “Reformation heritage” they otherwise astonishingly claim to embrace more fully than the rest of the Communion. Given that this is very much at the center of TEC’s conflict, it deserves some discussion.
Surely no one would dispute that an essential aspect of this Reformation heritage is the testing of all church teaching and discipline by the “word of God” in the Scriptures. But the bishops continue to ignore that this Reformation principle remains unapplied by them on a conciliar basis, either within TEC or within the Communion, where no council has yet agreed that the House of Bishops or the General Convention is in fact acting “in conformance with the Scripture”. At best, all such studies have found a lack of consensus on this subject. And in fact, the Communion has, for its part, applied the principle and found TEC utterly wanting. The one attempt TEC made to show that their actions in 2003 were not “contrary to the Word of God” – the paper presented to the ACC entitled To Set Our Hope On Christ, which only presented one view of the matter – has been deemed unpersuasive. But rather than accept this judgment for what it is worth, the bishops erroneously imply that no one has listened to them. The possibility that they have simply not made their case effectively is something they just cannot accept, and therefore seem to have decided that they have nothing more to say either to their people or the world on the matter, beyond the assertion of a “gospel” that is enunciated, it seems, into an ecclesial vacuum.
This is not only a blinkered approach to the church’s heritage. The refusal by the bishops to look at Christian religion in any terms other than the alleviation of human suffering, precisely because it avoids applying to our witness the context of the Communion’s sense of the “historic faith and order” of the Church, represents a denial of TEC’s own Constitution. The bishops, however, have no right, according to their own vows, to ignore the fullness of the heritage they claim. Indeed, the vows of our bishops bind them to “oneness with the apostles”, to a “guarding” of that apostolic faith and the unity and discipline of the church, and to a heritage shared with “patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs” and constrained by the “Church throughout the world”.
The picture the bishops present of themselves in all of this is of an increasingly isolated group, unwilling or unable to acknowledge the reality of opposition within their own church and within the larger Communion, refusing to engage the theological and ecclesial issues that they have set loose to the detriment of their own flock and the Communion they purportedly love, and now withdrawing into a posture of self-protecting denunciation. The picture is a sad one.
III. The Bishops’ claims against Pastoral Scheme
This ought really to be the meat of the Bishops’ Statement’s purpose. But, as already indicated, the bishops actually have little to say apart from unsupported assertion driven by apparently political animus. Let us look at some of claims they make. There are five that are stated explicitly, and several others that emerge from the Statement as a whole.
1. Is the Proposed Pastoral Scheme in “violation “ of TEC’s Constitution and Canons?
No citation is given by the bishops to support this claim, and no public consultation about such a rather major issue, if issue it is, was ever pursued. Given one of the “Mind of the House” resolutions by the bishops, as well as subsequent statements by diocesan chancellors, one of the presenting issues for the bishops appears to be their belief that only the General Convention itself as a whole (i.e. both houses) has the authority to “interpret” the Constitution. And if that is the case, the House of Bishops alone cannot make any decision regarding doctrine or delegation of pastoral authority, nor could a Pastoral Council or a delegated Primatial Vicar, as called for by the Scheme, possibly be in a position to make decisions about matters affecting TEC.
But in fact the Constitution of TEC has nothing to say about any of this. The General Convention has no authority over doctrine in any case, except if it be considered adiaphora, because the Episcopal Church is committed to doing nothing in matters of “essential” doctrine that would conflict either with the Church of England or, more importantly, with the Word of God (cf. the Preface to the Prayer Book, the Prayer Book’s consistent teaching, and the Preamble to the Constitution). It is certainly not up to the General Convention alone to decide what is or what isn’t in conflict with the Church of England’s essential doctrine, discipline and worship, or with the “historic faith and order” of the Church as “propagated” by the Anglican Communion. For this would be for the General Convention to tell the Church of England and the Communion what these two bodies actually believe, independent of their own self-articulation, which is absurd. Generally, some process of ordered arbitration takes place when there is a difference in interpretation, which is precisely what we are witnessing at present in the Communion as a whole.
Within a more limited sphere, it is obviously false to claim for the General Convention as a whole such exclusive interpretive authority, for otherwise it would be impossible for clergy and for bishops to be disciplined for teaching doctrine contrary to the Church’s. This is something for which ecclesiastical courts, and in the case of bishops, other bishops, are given authority to make determinations, without corroboration from the General Convention. Such decisions may not have applicability beyond the scope of the cases they investigate (cf. the infamous Righter Decision), but they clearly take place through the authority of bodies constitutionally granted powers over the interpretation of doctrine and discipline.
Thus delegation of authority, in these and other matters, is most certainly possible within the limits of the Constitution and Canons. And since, in fact, the Pastoral Council and the Primatial Vicar, according to the proposed Scheme, are seen as operating explicitly only within the Canons of TEC, and only according to the specific permissions of TEC authorities, and only for so long as that permission is given, it is very difficult to see on what basis the House of Bishops could reject the Scheme as inherently unconstitutional. The character and shape of the Scheme is one of request and permission. The unwillingness of our bishops to look at this carefully and instead insist on reading it in terms of “oppression” and “offense” is bizarre and irrational. Indeed, their rejection of the Scheme appears wholly capricious and arbitrary.
2. Does the proposed Pastoral Scheme “violate” the “Windsor and Covenant process”?
Again, the Statement gives no citations from the Windsor Report to undergird this claim. Indeed, the Windsor Report itself made a series of recommendations, which the Primates reiterated as their own at Dromantine, and the TEC authorities, including the House of Bishops, chose to respond to them as valid (although always with a clear sense that they were doing so out a posture of noblesse oblige). Why, all of a sudden, are requests by the Primates invalid? The final paragraph of the Windsor Report in fact envisions – although with some trepidation – the situation in which the TEC bishops now in fact find themselves: we are in the midst of a process of Communion arbitration, with sorrowful results looming for the future relation of TEC and the Communion. Is this all not exactly what the Windsor Report outlined and exactly as its “process” is unfolding?
As for the “Covenant Process”, it is clear that the Pastoral Scheme has been suggested as an “interim” arrangement precisely so that that process might unfold without further fractures in both TEC and the Communion, and with the maintenance of TEC’s full participation. This seems to wholly contradict the bishops’ accusations. It was revealing that, during the House of Bishops discussion of the proposed Covenant (at which I was present), Katherine Grieb’s proposal that TEC take an extended “time out” from the councils of the Communion (a minimum of 5 years) brought one specific question: one bishop rose to ask her, “but what will that do to our participation in the Covenant process?”, and Grieb had little to say. That is, the hope to put distance between TEC and the Primates that the House of Bishops’ statement clearly seeks, will obviously affect TEC’s place in the Covenant process; but that is what the House of Bishops seems itself to be choosing, not the Primates or the Communion. The Primates have in fact proposed a way to keep TEC a part of things. Why therefore are our bishops accusing them of violating the process itself, when it is they themselves who are consciously acting in a way that jeopardizes their ability to remain a part of the process?
3. Does the Pastoral Scheme violate TEC’s “founding” principles of post-colonial autonomy?
We have already noted the complete inappropriateness of this claim from a rhetorical and historical point of view. Theologically and politically, the autonomy of the Episcopal Church was, from the beginning, profoundly circumscribed by constraints (from the Church of England and internally) imposed by Prayer Book doctrine, by the configuration of Convention, by the general claims of Holy Scripture, and by the early reiteration by the Convention (1814) that the Episcopal Church is, from an ecclesial (though not civil) perspective, the “same body” as the “Church of England”. How exactly the notion of “autonomy” must be understood in terms of TEC’s “constituent membership” in a body of churches that upholds and propagates a common “faith and order” that is “historically” traceable is exactly what is at issue in the present conflict in the Communion. The Windsor Report remains to date the most carefully articulated response to this question, and it speaks in terms very different from the House of Bishops’. They in turn ignore their own history, whatever its debatable details, and pass by in silence the Communion’s own attempt at providing clarity to this matter.
4. Does the Pastoral Scheme violate the Reformation heritage of Anglicanism?
We have already seen that the bishops’ characterization of the “Reformation heritage” regarding episcopal vocation is deformed, as is the notion of “local governance” as a central bequest of the Church of England’s break from Rome. The notion of a larger accountability to the greater church’s guarding of Scripture is in fact given in Cranmer, Hooker, and of course in the origins of the Episcopal Church.
As for the “generous orthodoxy” of the “Prayer Book tradition” touted by the House of Bishops, their claim seems to ignore completely the rather ungenerous and often violent reality of Prayer Book “conformity” within the Church of England up through a good bit of the 19th century. If America has an essential historical link with this particular tradition, it is a negative one, through the non-Conformist exile that founded the colonies’ vigorous social life in the 17th-century – hardly the exemplar the bishops needed to make their case. If the Prayer Book tradition has an “orthodoxy”, it is neither generous nor ungenerous, but sui generis, and that is what should be examined, not some myth of a pluralist commonwealth of religious questers that seems to lie behind the bishops’ vision.
There is, finally, nothing primatially “exclusive” about the Pastoral Scheme or its acceptance by individual bishops, as they choose to consult, discern, and decide within their particular spheres of counsel with the whole church. The Pastoral Council, as proposed, is open to lay membership. And the decisions of the Pastoral Council are made with accountability and cooperation. And as we noted above, the House of Bishops, in this context, makes no attempt to confront its own failures and those of the General Convention to exercise responsible control over the life of their own church within the Communion, failures that make the Primates’ proposal necessary in the first place.
5. Is the Pastoral Scheme “spiritually unsound” in its encouragement of “breaking relationships”?
The issue of “breaking” relationships and trust is indeed at the center of our problems within TEC and the Communion. But the breaking of trust has been a large part of the House of Bishops’ own actions vis a vis the Communion for some time, as we have seen above. What the House of Bishops should be addressing is, “what is the value of our word or our church’s word within our own body and within the Communion?” What is it worth? Do our “vows” actually count? The litany of being ignored and rebuffed by the Primates that the Statement offers should rightly be reformulated in terms of a list of requests, pleadings, and warnings issued by the Communion that the House of Bishops and their Presiding Bishop have repeatedly spurned.
Yet the House of Bishops wants to claim the Primates are “kicking them out” of the Communion, when in fact it is they, the American bishops, who have deliberately chosen a path they know—if they are thinking clearly—must lead to this outcome. Even their own consultative bodies have told them this. Before the 2003 General Convention, the House of Bishops’ Theology Committee recommended that no action be taken on matters that would alter the discipline of the church in the area of human sexuality – such as the consent to Gene Robinson’s episcopal election. Such actions would divide the church, since, they argued, there was no clear consensus within the church that could support it. The House of Bishops knowingly and deliberately chose in 2003 to ignore their Committee’s recommendations. The “schismatic”, as Andrew Marvell wrote, is the one who causes separation, not necessarily the one who separates.
Perhaps what the Statement is claiming is that any form of church discipline that involves distancing someone or some group from positions of decision-making is inherently “injurious” to the church; or that any form of separation that is adopted for the sake of maintaining a provisional and fruitful peace is an assault upon relationships in Christ. On the face of it, however, such a claim would contradict Scripture and tradition, not to mention common practice in most cultures. Discipline within the church is not opposed to unity – even and especially eucharistic unity – but is a part of unity’s vital context of accountability. The provisional peace of self-restraint is a long-standing Christian virtue, applied pastorally in many instances.
There is, in fact, something morally unsettling about the Statement’s attempt to appropriate the categories of fidelity, even of marital fidelity, in their argument against the Primates. Much like their attempt to co-opt the language of anti-colonialism, it is contradicted by the facts on the ground, some of them embodied personally by bishops themselves.
Some of our bishops have called the Primates’ requests “offensive”. Yet Paragraph 28 of the Communiqué is clear as to the Primates’ Meeting’s intentions: holding TEC together and bringing healing. It may well be the Scheme is not the best possible way forward to this end. But the presumption of “injury” and “offense” in the face of the Primates’ own stated desires is a mark of the very “illness” of diseased trust that afflicts TEC and the Communion. There is little in the Statement that takes this seriously, that acknowledges any responsibility on the part of the House of Bishops for this illness, and that seeks to find ways to repair it with the same concrete attempts at offering healing that the Primates themselves attempted with much effort and perseverance. To label the Pastoral Scheme as inherently schismatic – driven by the serious spiritual disease of “breaking relationships” – contradicts the Primates’ own stated desires, and it comes close to calling them liars. More than anything, this kind of response seems reactionary.
From a broader perspective, it appears as if the bishops do not grasp — or certainly do not accept — the central point of the Windsor Report, namely, that communion rests in mutual subjection within the Body of Christ. Such subjection does not prohibit contrarian actions, but it does prohibit them from being undertaken as immediate, ill considered, and undiscussed forms of action. And when such actions are taken in such a way, the order and trust of the Body is torn apart, and ways of restoring such trust and order are demanded that engage willed changes within the heart and behavior of those involved. By contrast, the bishops are defining communion as historical association and
(perhaps) mutual aid, whose connections are not vulnerable to the deep and complex influences and imperatives of mutual subjection as understood by the larger Communion.. Perhaps this essential difference in perspective accounts for the fact that the bishops’ response remains largely on the level of ad hominim comment and tortured remarks about differing forms of polity.
IV. Questions raised by the Bishops’ Statement for Episcopal Clergy
Our own Prayer Book teaches us that our first commitment as a baptized Christian is to “continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship” (BCP p. 304) and that this following is of the very nature of the Church (p. 854). This commitment we have all made. At the same time, we are taught that it is the Church who leads us in the right interpretation of the Scriptures, the apostolic witness, through the Holy Spirit (853f.).
Which Church is this? Is it the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops? Is it her Executive Council? Is it her General Convention? Or is it not the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” church we confess in the Creeds? In any case, we are now being taught two opposing truths. The House of Bishops herself has set up before the faithful Christian in her midst a dilemma that must be resolved.
Those of us who are priests have vowed to be obedient to the faith “received” (p. 526). Received from whom? Surely from the apostolic heritage and witness, of which our bishops are to be guardians (p. 517), the “historic Faith and Order” that our Constitution tells us represents the very evangelical identity of the “Anglican Communion” of which our Episcopal Church is bound as a “constituent member” (borrowing the phrasing and meaning of a previous Lambeth Conference). It is clear that the historic Faith and Order is something shared. And if it is shared, it cannot be the sole possession of the Episcopal Church to define or to demand, as our bishops have resolved the Episcopal Church has the right to do. The bishops of the Episcopal Church are part of the “Church throughout the world” (p. 517), in time as well as space, and it is therefore this universal “trust” (p. 518) that they are called to guard. And it is this trust that we, as clergy, are solemnly bound, by a vow of “loyalty”, to uphold.
How shall we then today understand this trust? The wider Anglican Communion, through those councils that we share (p. 531) – the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates’ Meeting, and each according to the definitions offered by the Lambeth Conferences – have articulated the standard of the “historic Faith and Order” in the matters currently under fractious debate; they have also called on our bishops in the Episcopal Church to adapt themselves to this teaching and discipline, since the Anglican Communion has defined this standard as something essentially in accordance with Scripture (cf. 1998 Lambeth I.10), a matter our own Prayer Book tells us is the necessary criterion by which to evaluate the adequacy any church’s decisions (Preface) . Our bishops as a house have now refused the Communion’s trust, clearly and resolutely. They have done so without argument and without open consultation. They have done so with animosity.
With whom and under whom do we now fulfill our vows made before God? It is no longer possible to receive equally the claim made by the House of Bishops to be faithful to the apostolic trust, along with the claim by the “Church throughout the world” that this trust demands another set of actions and commitments. What then shall we do?
Our bishops have left us in a grievous and parlous position. It is true, as our bishops have said, that those who wish to “divide” the church are few. The concerns expressed above come from clergy, like myself, who have long labored to maintain the unity of TEC, internally and with the Communion. We do not wish what the bishops themselves, few in number though they be, are pressing upon us.
Let us who care for Christ’s embrace of Anglican Christianity in Communion redouble our prayers and our efforts to see that the will of Dar es Salaam unfold in God’s good time, and not be thwarted by another unilateral dictation of how the Communion ought to mirror the incoherent image of TEC. God help us. Much is at stake here. It is time to do all we can to assure that the Instruments of Communion be able to do their work unhindered. If TEC’s bishops do not wish to be a part of this, that is their decision. Let them have the courage of their convictions; but let us not quietly accept their invented Anglican Christianity that never existed anywhere before.
–The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner is rector of Church of the Ascension, Pueblo, Colorado, and a fellow of the Anglican Communion Institute.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)