The case for the defence - Abp of Canterbury George Carey (ret.)

FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 2007 issue of the Church of England Newspaper -

The case for the defence

Sir, Kenneth Kearon suggests (CEN May 25) that the decision not to invite
AMiA bishops, or the recently consecrated CANA Bishop, to the Lambeth
Conference relates to a precedent I set in 2000. This set my mind flashing
back to the circumstances of that period. My opposition to the consecration
of the two AMiA Bishops related to the setting up of Episcopal activity in
the United States which I regarded as unconstitutional and unnecessary (at
least at that period).

Although I regarded these bishops (both honourable and good men) as
'irregularly' consecrated, there was no question about the validity of their
consecrations.

This, of course, was before 2003 when the Episcopal Church clearly signalled
its abandonment of Communion norms, in spite of warnings from the Primates
that the consecration of a practising homosexual bishop would 'tear the
fabric of the Communion'.

It is not too much to say that everything has changed in the Anglican
Communion as a result of the consecration of Gene Robinson.

The Archbishop of Canterbury's prerogative to invite bishops to the
Conference is a lonely, personal and important task. Before each Conference
a number of careful decisions have to be taken, with the focus being on the
well-being of the Communion. The circumstances facing each Archbishop of
Canterbury will vary according to the needs of the hour. For these reasons,
I believe, that Dr Rowan Williams should not regard the advice he has
evidently received that this matter is 'fixed' as necessarily binding on him
in the very different circumstances of 2007. He and all his colleagues will
be in my thoughts and prayers.

Lord Carey of Clifton
London

------------------------------

A Response to Will Scott

The following letter to the editor appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Following the letter is my response. ed.

Global Christianity

Editor -- As both an Episcopal priest and one who grew up in the parishes of Virginia, I find Michael Gerson's May 20 column, "Bringing the faith to American Christians," deeply troubling. Gerson, former speechwriter for President Bush, apparently shares Nigerian Archbishop Akinola's opposition to ordaining women, gays and lesbians.

Although the Anglican Communion has long been unified, Gerson celebrates the decision of a tiny minority (less than one-half of 1 percent) in the Episcopal Church to join Akinola's splintering vision. The "consecration" of Martyn Minns, who stood unsuccessfully for election as a bishop in the United States, aims to shatter global Anglicanism, not build an emerging global Christianity.

As part of an emerging global Christianity that supports ordaining women, gays and lesbians, I recently attended an Anglican conference in South Africa on ending poverty, and caring for the sick and for the Earth. I met Anglicans, particularly African young people, who are glad to work with the mainstream U.S. Episcopal Church.

Indeed, Kenyan theologian Esther Mombo has challenged Akinola to abandon his predatory practice of splintering the U.S. church and focus instead on the critical needs of Africa. The church and news media should make room for authentic voices of African women such as Mombo rather than former presidential spin-doctors, such as Gerson.

These disaffiliating American churches do not represent emerging Christianity, as they suggest, but an arrogant ideology aimed at furthering their narrow agenda.

The Rev. WILL SCOTT

Associate Pastor

Grace Cathedral

San Francisco


Response

Fr. Scott seems to have missed the last four years of Anglican church history. Here's a little refresher: PECUSA was told by the Anglican Communion that to consecrate an active homosexual man to the episcopate would tear the fabric of the communion. Memo to Will - It has. What Fr. Scott terms "Akinola's splintering vision" would more correctly be termed PECUSA's lack of concern for the vision of a unified Anglican Communion. The arrogance that Scott projects onto Abp. Akinola would more rightly be placed on PECUSA who has since at least 2003 said to the other 70 million or so Anglicans that she will do as she sees fit whether or not anyone else in Anglicanism agrees. Apparently Scott isn't aware of this global consensus. Nor is he apparently aware of the growth of Anglicanism in the Global South while PECUSA continues to lose tens of thousands of members each year. This "emerging global Christianity that supports ordaining women, gays and lesbians" is a figment of this priest's imagination. The truth is that this viewpoint is not emerging as much as it is declining. It hasn't won over America, South Africa, or any other place where it has been tried. The Church of Nigeria is growing by the millions; whereas the emerging church that Scott points to is actually dying. How did this priest with such a skewed vision get onto a cathedral staff? I think we all know the answer to that one.

Bishops Rely on Talking Points?

Karen B. at TitusOneNine noticed a bit of parallel between the words of two bishops, Hollingsworth of Ohio and Smith of Arizona. In letters about invitations to the Lambeth Conference Hollingsworth writes:

"I write to let you know that I am aware of the current scope of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s invitations to the Lambeth Conference and respect his privilege and prerogative in making those invitations. I also want to be clear with you that I do not believe it is Bishop Robinson’s “manner of life” that has “caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the Communion,” rather it is the divisive actions of those who have used it in an intentional effort to divide both The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion."

Meanwhile, in Arizona, Bp. Smith writes this:

"Certainly the Archbishop is within his rights to invite whomever he pleases. However, I cannot help but express my dismay that he would treat these men in the same way. Whatever you may think of Bishop Robinson, I do not believe that his manner of life has caused division or scandal in the communion, rather it is the actions of those who have used his ordination in an intentional effort to divide both our own Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion who are responsible."

Karen B. picks up another piece from the same letters. Hollingsworth:

"Bishop Robinson’s presence at the Lambeth Conference might be awkward or difficult for some of the other participants, but that is hardly uncommon in Christian community. There are plenty of bishops whose presence in the councils of the Church I find difficult, and doubtless plenty who find mine the same. However, Bishop Robinson, throughout his ministry, has been unfailingly honest and open, consistently establishing and maintaining trust within the diocese he has faithfully served and throughout the Church. Time and time again he has been an instrument of reconciliation and resolution."

Smith:

"Bishop Robinson’s participation at the Lambeth Conference might be awkward for some of the other participants, but that is hardly new. There are plenty of bishops whom I have a hard time working with, and doubtless they feel the same about me. But I can tell you from my own relationship with Bishop Robinson that he has been exemplary in maintaining an honest and open attitude of trust within his own Diocese, and in the House of Bishops, he as worked tirelessly to be an agent of reconciliation and resolution."


A coincidence, or are the bishops being spoon-fed talking points? You'd think that bishops could think for themselves, after all, we're told by our presiding bishop how smart our people are, but the evidence suggests that a good deal of group-think goes on in the HOB. It's a shame that the HOB is so myopic that they can't see how out of step they are with the Anglican Communion and the wider church. If these bishops were truly interested in being agents of reconciliation and resolution they would embrace the Windsor Report and comply with the Dar es Salaam Communique. Don't hold your breath.

Episcopal Church faces ‘significant pruning’ over doctrine, bishops says

By Mike Sullivan
5/24/2007

Our Sunday Visitor

HUNTINGTON, Ind. (Our Sunday Visitor) – Episcopal Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh has been interviewed by nearly every major news outlet in the country within the past few years, but not necessarily for something he wishes was happening.

Bishop Duncan has emerged as the leader of a movement within the Episcopal Church in the United States to realign Episcopalian doctrines with those of traditional Christianity.

The disagreements between the American church and the worldwide Anglican Communion have capture headlines around the world. He is one of 110 diocesan bishops and numerous laity within the Anglican Communion who were dismayed with the ordination of a bishop who is living an openly homosexual lifestyle. The movement for realignment includes about 900 of the 7,000 congregations within the U.S. Episcopal Church.

In the following interview, Bishop Duncan shares insights about this “realignment” and offers a courageous example for all faithful Christians to truly live their faith, even when it is unpopular.

Our Sunday Visitor: Would you describe the movement to realign the Episcopal Church with the traditional doctrines of Christianity?

Bishop Robert Duncan: The movement that I lead has been called the Anglican Communion Network. The Episcopal Church, during the last four decades, has been headed on a path of innovation. As these years have passed it’s become clearer and clearer that the Episcopal Church, if it hadn’t previously stepped outside the boundaries, it would at one point do that clearly enough for all to recognize.

That point of great clarity came in August 2003, when the Episcopal Church agreed to a bishop who had been married, divorced and was in a long-term same-sex relationship. The movement that I lead is a movement that’s attempting to hold to the truth that the church has received and has always taught, as opposed to the innovations that are being held up now.

We’re in the midst of a reformation of our tradition, and, in fact, we think we’re actually in the midst of a major Christian reformation. Pope Benedict XVI wrote, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, that the Western church will not be fruitful again until it was severely pruned – referencing John 15. We’re in the midst of a significant pruning, and not only of the Anglicans but also of the whole of the Western Christian church.

That’s what we’re in the midst of. And again, it’s affecting all of the churches in the West, it must do so because God always reforms his church, and in the words of our lady, in her song, which we sing daily at vespers, he’s always casting the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly, because the mighty think somehow they’re God, and so God always realigns his church.

Our Sunday Visitor: You are considered by many to be a leader of a “conservative” faction of the Episcopal Church. Is what you stand for a “conservative” viewpoint, or do you see it in a different light?

Bishop Robert Duncan: My understanding is that it’s simply what the gospel says, and that it is what the mainstream of Christianity has always held. All of the great Christian traditions, all of the major streams of Christianity would teach precisely what we teach on these issues. And again, it’s what the ages have always taught as well.

So, is this conservative? Well, it is conserving. And, of course, Christianity is a revealed religion. It’s not a religion that keeps unfolding.

We have the “word made flesh” as a definite center point in history, into which and from which and at the end of which all things must submit and against which must be judged. That incarnate Word also has inspired, through the Holy Spirit, the revealed word, and all we’re doing is saying, “Well, this is what the revealed word says.”

Our Sunday Visitor: I’ve read that some of the more “progressive” elements within the Episcopal Church are very critical about you and your work for doctrinal realignment. What words would you offer in response to such criticism?

Bishop Robert Duncan: Well, the harshest of this criticism began in the fall of 2003, after I led 20 other bishops to stand before our triennial synod and protest that the action the convention had taken had departed from the mainstream of the Christian faith.

When I stood, and led others to stand that fall, the Lord gave me a passage from my local synod, which was taken from 1 Corinithians 16, the 13th and 14th verses, where St. Paul says, “Be watchful, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong,” and then he says, “Let everything you do be done in love.”

And for those who would stand, the New Testament is utterly consistent. Folks often criticize me for breaking the unity of the Church, and they often quote John 17. In fact, if you look at this chapter of John, it says exactly what these two verses in 1 Corinthians say. It says that Jesus is consecrated in the truth, and in the truth people will be one. So, it’s always truth and love. And it’s not just love and it’s not just truth.

Our Sunday Visitor: How do you respond when people accuse you of dividing the church?

Bishop Robert Duncan: It’s rather like a father in a family who confronts a teenager who’s acting out. And what the other members of the family say is, “Dad, don’t be so hard, you’re dividing our family.” It’s a bizarre argument, but it appeals to the modern heart and mind because it gives the modern heart and mind precisely what it wants.

That is to say, “We ought to be able to do what we want to do.” And the modern Church has no doctrine of sin and no sense of boundaries. So, I divide the church by simply saying: “Well, sin is what human beings are wired to do and from which they’ve been delivered, and the father actually has boundaries, rules and a way he wants us to live because he’s designed and called us to live that way. It’s what’s best for us.”

The other criticism that gets made is that we’re just worked up over sex. That’s not it at all. We’re actually worked up over what scripture says, and in every regard. We’ve been lax about allowing remarriages after divorce. We’ve been lax on what scripture clearly says about human life and its sanctity. We take those positions in morality because of what the word says. Because of what the Lord said. And that’s the same thing that Catholics have always done.

Our Sunday Visitor: For Catholics, the church’s doctrines are clearly defined for the faithful by the church. We know the doctrines of the faith as they are handed on to us by the popes and the magisterium. Would you comment on the basis of the authority for those in the Episcopal Church?

Bishop Robert Duncan: For Anglicans, tradition helps us to understand Scripture, but scripture is the ultimate authority, and Anglicanism as a result of [the Council of] Trent also factored in human reason.

That is to say that God had given men and women the ability to think and understand, and that reason should also be applied to the plain sense of scripture and of how you coordinate scripture and tradition as you try to live it in the present.

That understanding – that scripture is the ultimate rule and standard, mediated by tradition and by human reason – has stood intact until the very recent sort of postmodern assault where truth and words mean what you want them to mean. In fact, in the Episcopal Church now, it would be said that reason and human experience is the trump. Not scripture or tradition. And so we’re in midst of this vast battle because the basis of authority has been so altered.

Our Sunday Visitor: Many Catholic observers see your strong stance in favor of traditional values as a bridge between the more conservative Anglican community and the Catholic Church. In what way is this common ground a bridge to ecumenical dialogue?

Bishop Robert Duncan: Well, absolutely. One of the greatest encouragements, people still speak of it, to us as we began this movement came in the fall of 2003 when then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote to us, to a meeting of almost 3,000 Episcopalians gathered in Plano, Texas, and he wrote from Rome saying, “We are watching you, our brothers, you who are standing against these innovations are standing with us.”

When the cardinal became Pope Benedict XVI, the letter was hung in our office. We’ve also had approaches from the Russian Orthodox Church who historically were very tied to Anglicans and very much wanting to work with Anglicans. And they’ve actually broken off all relations with the Episcopal Church, but they have asked that we enter into a process of beginning to restore relationships with them.

The only way to unity is unity in Christ, and the nearer you get to what Christ teaches the nearer you get to each other. The farther you get from what Christ teaches, the farther you get from each other.

So, our standing in this way has brought not only the kind of intercession for us that I spoke of earlier, but also actual initiatives between us that have increased our mutual respect and understanding.

- - -

Mike Sullivan writes from Ohio for Our Sunday Visitor.

L.A. Times: Anglican event excludes two U.S. bishops

The pair are central to a widening division between the U.S. Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.
By Rebecca Trounson, Times Staff Writer
May 23, 2007

Two bishops at the heart of a deepening rift between the U.S. Episcopal Church and much of the worldwide Anglican Communion will not be invited to a global gathering next year of Anglican leaders, the secretary-general of the communion said Tuesday.

Neither Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire nor Bishop Martyn Minns of the breakaway Convocation of Anglicans in North America have been asked to attend the next Lambeth Conference, a once-a-decade gathering hosted by the archbishop of Canterbury. The conference is scheduled for next summer in England.

The communion's secretary-general, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, spoke at a briefing for reporters in London, and his remarks were later distributed.

In the invitation sent Tuesday to more than 850 Anglican and Episcopal bishops, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the 77-million-member communion, said he had decided to forgo invitations to Robinson and Minns so that the meeting would focus on holding the increasingly fractious fellowship together.

Including bishops "whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the communion" would hurt efforts to create trust, Williams said.

But Robinson, whose 2003 consecration as the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop caused an uproar with conservative church members in the U.S. and abroad, may be asked to attend the conference as a guest, Kearon said.

He said there was no question that Robinson had been properly elected as a bishop according to Episcopal Church rules. The 2.3-million-member church is the American branch of the Anglican Communion.

He said Williams was not considering a guest invitation for Minns, who was installed May 5 by Nigerian Archbishop Peter J. Akinola to lead conservative congregations that have broken away from the Episcopal Church.

In a statement to U.S. bishops, Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, urged a calm reaction to the announcement and noted that "aspects of this matter may change."

In February, Anglican leaders gave the U.S. church until Sept. 30 to state that it would stop consecrating gay bishops and take other actions or risk losing its full membership in the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal bishops are scheduled to meet in New Orleans about a week before the deadline.

Robinson said in a statement that he was disappointed by the news: "At a time when the Anglican Communion is calling for a 'listening process' on the issue of homosexuality, it makes no sense to exclude gay and lesbian people from that conversation."

Akinola said in a statement that it was premature to say whether he or others would attend the conference.

The Episcopal bishop of Los Angeles, the Rt. Rev. J. Jon Bruno, said in an interview that he was saddened by Williams' exclusion of Robinson and had not decided whether to attend.

*

New York Times: Gay and Dissident Bishops Excluded From ’08 Meeting

May 23, 2007

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

The archbishop of Canterbury sent out more than 800 invitations yesterday to a once-a-decade global gathering of Anglican bishops. But he did not invite the openly gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire and the bishop in Virginia who heads a conservative cluster of disaffected American churches affiliated with the archbishop of Nigeria.

The exclusions offended liberals and conservatives in the worldwide Anglican Communion, which has been threatened by schism since the election in 2003 of the bishop of New Hampshire, V. Gene Robinson, who lives with his gay partner.

The gathering, the Lambeth Conference, is shaping up as a crucial test of the unity of the communion. It is scheduled for three weeks in the summer of 2008 in London.

The archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, issued a statement saying if an invitation was not extended to his bishop in Virginia, Martyn Minns, he would regard that as “withholding invitation to the entire House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria.”

The Nigerian archbishop leads the largest of 38 provinces in the communion, with as many as 17 million members.

Bishop Robinson said he was extremely disappointed at his exclusion and asked in a statement, “At a time when the Anglican Communion is calling for a ‘listening process’ on the issue of homosexuality, how does it make sense to exclude gay and lesbian people from the discussion?”

The archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, who has expressed liberal views on homosexuality in the past, has been determined to keep the communion intact. In his invitation letter, Archbishop Williams wrote, “I have to reserve the right to withhold or withdraw invitations from bishops whose appointment, actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or scandal within the communion.”

The secretary general of the communion, Canon Kenneth Kearon, told reporters that the archbishop of Canterbury was contemplating inviting Bishop Robinson as a guest, rather than a participant, but not Bishop Minns.

Canon Kearon said that the leaders of the communion recognized that Bishop Robinson was “duly elected and consecrated according to the proper procedures of the Episcopal Church.”

But to invite him, the canon said, “would be to ignore the very substantial and widespread objections in many parts of the communion to his consecration and his ministry.”

He said there was “no parallel” between Bishop Robinson and Bishop Minns, a rector who was installed as a bishop in Virginia this month by Archbishop Akinola, a crossing of boundaries that the archbishop of Canterbury criticized.

Bishop Minns heads a consortium of churches that have left the Episcopal Church, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. Canon Kearon said the convocation was not a recognized body of the Anglican Communion.

Bishop Minns said in a statement, “One thing is clear, a great deal can and will happen before next July.”

At the last Lambeth Conference, in 1998, the bishops passed a resolution “rejecting homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture” and declared their opposition to blessing same-sex unions.

The archbishop of Canterbury said in his letter to the bishops that he wanted the next conference to focus on prayer and reflection more than setting policy.

Integrity, an advocacy group for gay Episcopalians, said its members were “outraged and appalled” at the ostracizing of Bishop Robinson and called on American bishops “to think long and hard about whether they are willing to participate in the continued scapegoating of the gay and lesbian faithful as the price for going to the Lambeth Conference.”

American bishops are reacting cautiously. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said in a brief statement, “I urge a calm approach,” and added that the situation could change over the next 14 months.

The bishop of Vermont, Thomas Clark Ely, said: “It’s hard for me to see my colleague in a different status than I am. I think there’s still time to try to work this through. I would hope there is.”

Canon Kearon said two other bishops risked being disinvited. Church officials said one was Nolbert Kunonga, the archbishop of Harare, Zimbabwe, and an ally of President Robert G. Mugabe, who has been accused of human rights abuses. The other bishop was not identified.

Diocese Violates Canons Once Again

Note to readers: I have received word that the diocese does not believe that they have violated canon law in the way that they have handled discovery in the presentment of David Bollinger. I have not yet received any communication directly from the diocese about this. ed.

The Diocese of Central NY, in its presentment of the Rev. David Bollinger has violated the canons concerning the disclosure of information prior to the presentment trial. No later than sixty days prior to a presentment trial both parties, in this case Fr. Bollinger and the diocese, are to present evidence to the other side. During this discovery phase Fr. Bollinger's lawyer has requested and not received specific items including the Shaffer (sp.) Report. The Shaffer Report is an inquiry by the church attorney concerning the charges against Fr. Bollinger. In addition to the canonical requirement that has been violated by not releasing this report and other materials to Fr. Bollinger's legal counsel, members of the Diocese of Central NY have also asked that the Shaffer Report be made public. Consistent with its general policy of non-disclosure, the diocese continues to keep the Shaffer Report and other matters under wraps. The presentment trial is scheduled for July 16-18.

Response to the Statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury Regarding Lambeth Conference Invitations

Written by the Rev. Dr. Christopher Seitz
Wednesday, 23 May 2007


Some Anglicans, especially critics of the authority of the Primates Meeting as an Instrument of Unity/Communion, have tended to see the four Instruments of Communion as competitors. There is no evidence that this view is held by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is himself an Instrument, and who presides at the Lambeth Conference, the Primates Meeting and the Anglican Consultative Council. Clearly he views the Instruments as mutually encouraging, even as they have a specific and discrete identity and remit.

It has been the consistent position of ACI, going back to ‘To Mend the Net,’ that the specific authority given to the Archbishop of Canterbury is that of gathering and inviting. And the place where that authority is his alone is the Lambeth Conference invitations.

But there is no evidence whatsoever that in making invitations for the 2008 Conference, +Canterbury has set aside or ignored the authority of the other Instruments.

It needs also to be underscored that the response of the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church to the requests of the most recent Primates Meeting says nothing probative in any way about the vitality and purchase of these requests. The means for providing regularization of various emergency extra-territorial ‘missionary’ initiatives is the Pastoral Council Scheme and the Primatial Vicar. It is not the job of the Archbishop of Canterbury unilaterally to declare the regularization of these initiatives by inviting the bishops acting in such a status to the Lambeth Conference. That would be to reject the work of the Primates Meeting still alive and waiting final prosecution – especially in the light of how the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church finally responds as of 30 September 2007.

It is tempting to wish to see individual initiatives, individual bishops, and individual Instruments as more definitive than others, and this instinct is alive on both ends of the Communion spectrum. What we are in fact seeing is the unfolding of a specific Anglican Communion polity, now come of age, and its hallmark is the mutual cooperation of four Instruments of Unity. The timing is such that the recent statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury is being given a specific kind of enhancement, but that may be misleading. In no way does his action in signaling an intention about present and future invitations stand over against the work of the other Instruments of Communion, and we can be sure he and his counselors have had this foremost in their minds.

We also wish to note the language of his statement—and this has not been properly emphasized due to concerns about CANA or New Hampshire—which points to the assumption that those Bishops attending do so with a commitment to the Instruments of Communion, and the statements and actions emanating from them. So far as we are concerned, the best indication of the mind of the Instruments in this season of disarray and challenge is what the Dar communiqué called the Camp Allen Principles: because these reaffirm Lambeth 1.10, Dromantine, The Windsor Report, and the serial statements and actions of all four Instruments.

It is our view that the efficient working of the Lambeth Conference, which is the desire of the Archbishop of Canterbury, needs an assumed commitment to these principles, if the meeting is not to be distracted and politicized according to this or that discrete concern or cause. We hope that the language used by the Archbishop of Canterbury at this juncture will receive specific commentary and elaboration. We believe we hear him rightly and trust that this perspective represents what is best for the healthy working of the Anglican Communion and the mission of Jesus Christ in this part of his Body the Church.

C Seitz, On behalf of the Anglican Communion Institute
22 May 2007

Fractured Identity and Broken Trust: TEC’s Invention of Itself

Written by the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Wednesday, 23 May 2007

In the midst of an increasingly exhausting and exhausted ecclesial struggle, we are now once again hearing the plea, “Why can’t we just get along?”. It is a question many have long raised, but its renewed urgings, from leaders within TEC or recently from e.g. South Africa, have about them the resonance now of anxious desperation. We are watching relations slip from our grasp, relations that were once dear, and once fruitful, and that, in the face of the tremendous human needs of the world’s confused peoples, seem more precious than ever. Is there no way to go back to the days before Anglicans fought so bitterly with one another?

The answer from many within the trenches of conflict is that “no, too much is at stake”. For conservatives what is at stake is a perceived doctrinal heresy that has taken root within TEC’s life and other parts of the Communion, a heresy close to if not actually crossing the line into apostasy. For some progressives what is at stake is likewise the core of the Gospel message, which they see as demanding the “full inclusion” of homosexually active persons into all aspects of the Church’s life. These are not matters that, for the disputants, admit of compromise.

The reply of the exhausted to such intransigence is that doctrine and discipline have never been the communion-breaking elements they now seem to have become. Why the problem now? And there is some truth to all these questions and responses. There was doctrinal disagreement, and on important matters, within the Communion and within many of its churches some time ago and over a long period. Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics struggled over doctrine and discipline around the world. We know about DeKoven and his failure to receive episcopal consent in 19th-century America, and about Doane’s presentment. We know of the profound estrangement between parties in places like Tanzania until at least the 1970’s, reflecting the attitudes of different missionary societies through which divisions stretched across the oceans. ECUSA was already for a long time highly suspect in the ‘60’s and ‘70s for its “liberal” permissions, particularly among Evangelicals. When I went as an appointed missionary to Burundi in the early 1980’s, there was a good deal of anxiety about my coming on the part of British church workers there, and of some Africans, because of what kind of disagreeable views an American Episcopalian might be bringing into their midst. Yet, except in limited ways (not counting, of course the many and often violent separations of non-conformists in the 17th century and later the Methodist split) Anglican churches held together over the last two centuries.

And in the midst of this was even a level of respect, despite the clear sense of difference among various groups. To focus on the current occasion of dispute, for instance, discussions about homosexuality were already open in the late ‘70’s. I even remember the topic was being addressed, in a general way, within Burundi in the early ‘80’s: Barundi with a certain level of global awareness knew about some of the realities of sexual practice and debate going on in Europe and America. They knew about it among Roman Catholics in their own country especially, among indigenous and foreign clergy both, some of whom were known to be homosexually active. In these realizations, there was at the time both a level of disgust and bemusement. I myself was fondled several times by Africans while riding the bus. No one was particularly surprised to hear this, and the “acceptance” of these realities back then is all well-known territory. Even in the 1990’s Frank Griswold visited Nigeria, and efforts were made to talk and learn, including post-Lambeth. None of this rose, even remotely, to the level of today’s acrimony.

So what happened? How did it all fall apart? Clearly, Gene Robinson was a watershed, and with it went a lot of other matters building up and associated, often in profound and logical ways, with the seemingly radical change in sexual discipline that General Convention 2003 represented. But “doctrine” alone doesn’t explain the tidal shift in relationships.

The central problem, I believe – one noted by both Windsor and Primates -- is the loss of “trust”: trust among Anglican churches was broken, and by and large, the initiative for this breaking (although not wholly) has come from one direction. In sum, TEC and her leaders broke trust with the Communion, and Global South leaders and conservatives within and outside TEC lost “trust” in the American church and her leaders. This is related to TEC’s changed doctrine and discipline; but, as I said, only partly. One can navigate doctrinal difference and dispute, even of the most essential kind, if there is a trusted means of doing so. The real issue has been the sense that TEC is no longer what she was, that her word is not worth anything, that she cannot keep promises, that she is no longer trustworthy and therefore she that cannot be dealt with consistently and openly in terms of discussions and common counsel. The doctrinal and disciplinary dispute of the present is “irreconcilable” not only because the divergences at issue are vast, but because there is no commonly coherent means of resolving them. The difference between 1970’s and the 2000’s is that in 1970, for all the suspicions and even dislike and outright worries about its liberalism, ECUSA was still “trusted”; now she is not.

And why was ECUSA trusted then, and TEC is no longer trusted now? In brief, because TEC has lost her bearings within a coherent history others once recognized; because she no longer evidences a consistent character others once encountered; and because she is no longer engaged in a committed Christian discussion of critical matters in a Christian way with her Anglican sisters and brothers she once pursued. This claim is now worth unpacking.

One major debate today – and it has emerged only now, but necessarily and essentially – is over the identity of the Episcopal Church’s history, and thereby the church’s historical character. The debate has been attached to a new argument that has been promoted of late by, e.g. the House of Bishops, and that has also been taken up by the House’s allies and apologists. The argument is that TEC has an exceptional character vis a vis the rest of the Communion: she is a “democratic” church. And this “democratic” character means that the church is governed by a comprehensive set of representatives well-beyond the episcopal order, committed to “liberative praxis”, to breaking the shackles of colonialist imperialism, to upholding the needs and aspirations of oppressed and marginalized peoples, and to working to fulfill the inclusivist project (or “mission”) of God to bring all people, whatever their condition and social status, into a reconciled and egalitarian participation within the Church’s authoritative order. This articulated self-identity has been used to justify the direction taken by TEC’s General Convention on matters of sexual morals and discipline (not to mention other elements like “open communion”), even when this direction has gone counter to previously stated hopes, claims and promises.

Now, this newly argued Episcopalian identity may indeed be a hope for some or even for many. But it in no way represents the historical character of TEC in a purely factual or sociologically tethered fashion. The new progressive liberative identity is a constructed or invented history that is being foisted on the church by its proponents through the mechanisms of political rhetoric and strategic procedure. But it does not reflect what TEC has in fact been, or even is today (leaving aside the question of whether it is faithful to the Gospel of the Scriptures itself, which, in many crucial respects, I believe it is not).

Obviously, the historical character of the Episcopal Church is going to be debated, just as the historical character of any institution or social body has been and will continue to be debated by parties and individuals seeking control of that body’s future. And in the process of such debate many claims will themselves be constructions, designed to support and further a given agenda (however christianly admirable). But distortions and outright false constructions need to be confronted, as in this case, largely because people both within TEC and in the Communion recognize the dissonance, and precisely this recognized dissonance must undermine trust.
The false historical character of the currently promoted liberative picture of TEC’s identity is in fact false both in what it covers up negatively and in what it omits positively.

Negatively, it ignores the deep exclusivism and homogeneity – socially and otherwise – of Episcopal denominationalism in US history. This has moved in directions completely opposite to the emancipatory claims of the present, not only in the past, but currently. Even the Presiding Bishop recognizes this when she boasts that the average educational and economic levels of Episcopalians are e.g. tied to low birth-rates (cf. her remarks on why the Episcopal Church is shrinking relative to Catholics and Mormons, whose “lower educational” social level is tied to higher birth rates and poor control of contraceptive resources). For the fact is that, even today (and perhaps more today than 100 years ago), TEC is predominantly professional, highly educated, and highly remunerated, mostly white in its make-up. Actual funding and congregational outreach for mission and ministry outside its predominant social setting e.g. to the inner-cities and to immigrant or native peoples, is below that of 50 years ago, as is engagement in non-Western areas of the world. Likewise, educational outreach, once one of the Episcopal Church’s evangelistic strong points, even in the realm of historically black colleges, has alarmingly faltered. Who in reality is the liberative Gospel of TEC touching, and who has it actually touched in the past?

What is also ignored in the current historical reconstruction of TEC are the positive corollaries of these obscured negative realities. The cultured homogeneity of TEC in the past was also the vehicle of a particular kind of Scriptural and liturgical formation in common prayer, tied to a certain literary achievement that maintained a singular intellectual and theological tradition vital both to the development of America and of ecumenical life. The current fall from the (limited) missionary endeavors of the past does at least point to the relatively robust character of that earlier missionary work --- in 19th-century America and its frontiers, in Asia and in the cities and among the working class (esp. among Anglo-Catholics) in the 20th century, however much motivated by noblesse oblige. The Anglican re-appropriation of the of the ancient church’s and early British “missionary bishop”, now used so effectively in Nigeria, was an Episcopalian charism, shared with others and then left behind. Next, the ecumenical vision, wisdom, and even holiness of TEC was a remarkable gift to the larger Church that was not a once-off bequest, but an ongoing and vital contribution. Or have we forgotten someone like Bp. Charles Brent, leading the world in the early 20th century on this front, but only leading on the basis of earlier American challenges such as that which led to the Chicago Quadrilateral and even to the promotion of the first Lambeth Conference? Related to this, finally, was the Episcopal Church’s seminal role in imbuing the notion of “communion” into Anglicanism as a global phenomenon. This began, in a deliberate way, with the mid-19th-century reconnection of PECUSA with the Church of England in a self-consciously articulated vision of shared ecclesial character. This, in turn, opened the way to the first Lambeth Conference, and was followed by the movement through Huntington to Brent and Bayne – a coherent line of interest in the communion of the body of Christ that, if hardly at the center of internal PECUSA self-awareness, represented a consistent set of lived commitments vis a vis the world, ones that fueled a widening missionary outreach to Asia and beyond, as well as within the boundaries of America.

Not that the orientation towards the ministry of “justice” was invisible. In the 1960’s, there was real admiration elsewhere for ECUSA’s official, and in many cases individual and congregational engagement in the Civil Rights movement as a Christian vocation. But this commitment came increasingly to dominate the official self-image of the church, now broadly extended to the whole political liberationist sphere. As a result, there has arisen an internal sense within parts of the church that a new history was being spun out of political fantasies that were invasive and suffocating, and that were being promoted at the alarming expense of other and more rooted realities, e.g. of the church’s worship tradition, theological rigor, connectivity, mission and evangelism, and open generosity of resources.

But the “new history” took hold of decision-making, embracing especially the liberative sexual agenda of the ‘70’s onward: easier and accepted divorce and remarriage, unquestioned premarital sexual intercourse, abortion rights, and, increasingly, affirmation of homosexual relations. The problem was that this historical self-image was more and more at odds, not only with the past, but with the self-identities and historical consciousness of many Episcopalians and other Anglicans. When AIDS emerged as a central human tragedy, first in the U.S. and then in areas like Africa, the liberative consciousness of the new ECUSA history simply could not sustain the complex realities of the disease’s behavioral and social implications, and the dissonance created by the “new” became, for many, magnified into an open hostility. And at the same time, the decision of ECUSA, divorced and insulated from the larger history and character of the church, moved more and more obsessively in directions positively contradictory to the previous character and finally actual and articulated commitments of ECUSA and its leaders. This grating incongruity was noted and felt more and more.

One finally sees at this point the way that the fruit of broken trust grew and flourished in this context. House of Bishops and General Convention statements on marriage were more and more ignored or dismissed, commitments to refrain from unilateral alterations of ethical teaching and discipline were contradicted, reports by appointed commissions or committees urging self-restraint on these fronts because of obvious lack of consensus for change were brushed aside. These have been retrospectively justified as expressions of TEC’s special vocation, that can and must lead her to take positions counter to the larger Church and Communion, although at the time they were generally simply made in an ignorant and complacent willfulness that never forthrightly analyzed, let alone grappled responsibly with the almost arbitrary changes of direction these decisions represented.

By the time we see bishops and Presiding Bishops publicly agreeing to certain courses of action in Communion gatherings and then returning to the US and doing the opposite, the contradiction, while obvious, appears to be but the concrete expression of a much deeper and long-standing habit of living out a false history. It is false because it is wholly distanced and limited from the past and present, and the proof of its falsity lies precisely in the internal and Communion-wide reactions to its dramatization: protest, opposition, deliberate agitation, and finally ecclesial departure. And so too, the official reactions to these responses proves the new history’s perverted power over self-awareness: blindness and denial. In the face of falling attendance and resources, failed mission, disintegrating liturgical traditions and more, TEC’s leadership attributes discussion of such factual realities to skewed attitudes, exaggeration, depression, and malicious hostility.

What is at issue in all this, then, is not simply TEC’s doctrinal deviation. That is a symptom, and a critical one, indeed a symptom that must be confronted and addressed. Still, more fundamental and motivating in this sorry narrative is a fractured cultural personality, one that by definition can no longer be trusted even to recognize the need to deal credibly with the problems one’s own actions represent.

For what is trust? Is it not the integrated ability to promise, to keep one’s word, and to have that word accepted and acted upon by others in an ordered engagement over time? And such trust is based upon a coherent historical character. This is obvious in intuitive ways. It has also been argued conceptually by, for instance, the great Christian philosopher Paul Ricoeur (cf,. his “Self as Ipse” in the Oxford Amnesty Lectures of 1992). Human identity is not a matter simply (or even at all) of pointing to the “same” entity at various moments in time, as if, in the case of a church, the demonstration that the ecclesial entity formed in 1789 is “in fact” the “same” church now known as “TEC”. This might prove a feasible legal demonstration, and one that is necessary in cases of property dispute. But it is not equivalent to the “identity” we ascribe to human, let alone “divine”, organisms, such as the Church of Christ. For the identity upon which human life is based – not only nor even primarily as atomistic individuals, but as cooperative relational beings leading social lives in common – is given in the coherence of a narrative or history, through which a consistent character if formed and through which social engagement is pursued, such that promises can be made and mutually held to account. And that is, in fact, what “trust” is all about.

We are familiar with the lack of such coherent character in the extreme cases of schizophrenia, addiction, narcissistic and borderline disorder and socio-pathology. And one of the most destructive features of and outcomes to such personality incoherence is the complete breakdown of trustworthiness. To be sure, TEC cannot, as a social body, be characterized in terms of a simple pathology. But the embraced incoherence of its officially assumed historical character has as its consequences the same breakdown of trust: TEC’s promises are no longer believable, because no one, even the inner circle of her national leadership, knows who she really is any longer.

And to add to this confusion, the unconscious attempt to rediscover an integral character has led to a proliferation of alternative manufactured “histories” and “characters”, especially among reactionary groups driven to uncover some new basis for Christian trust in their ecclesial existence. Hence, the appeal to the 39 Articles, this or that edition of the Book of Common Prayer, a particular scriptural hermeneutic or conversionary paradigm, etc., as if an embrace or establishment of this ecclesial criterion, fixed now de novo in the midst of a historical map that simply doesn’t lead to this singular destination, could create a cohesive authority capable of garnering the wide trust of any but a small group of local devotees. This kind of invention of an imaginative history, however predictable, is not a novel reaction in Anglican history especially in times of confusion, as we see in eras when the Church’s “history” as been forcibly re-constructed and imposed on the larger body by religious cliques. The result, in the past as in the present, has been further fracturing in the face of an accurately perceived breakdown in ecclesial trust that has overwhelmed common purpose and common knowledge (e.g. the 1550’s, the 1630’s, the 1660’s, etc..).

In the 1970’s and ‘80’s, the rest of the Communion still had a sense that ECUSA’s character was in continuity with her historical persona. That persona was not one that was necessarily welcomed everywhere or without stint, hence the suspicions over liberalism or high churchmanship here and there that were felt by non-Western evangelicals in Africa and Asia for instance. But there was also admiration for ECUSA’s steadiness as a friend, her generosity, and even her courage in some areas. And promises – explicit or implied – had been made and were still perceived as being kept. The canonically illegal ordinations of the first American women priests in Philadelphia in 1974, however, had already begun to trouble the trust of significant numbers back within ECUSA, even sympathizers of women’s ordination. As the self-identity of “prophetic” overturners of unjust restraints – now called “taboos” in a jingoistic appropriation of patronizingly anthropological language – took posession of the imaginations of those holding the levers of power (the national church’s bureaucracy, Executive Council, etc..), movements of rhetoric and decision followed that were no longer coherent either with the church’s past or with broad swathes of her memberhip’s self-understanding. “TEC” had begun to emerge as the Jacobin folly of Anglicanism. This new persona was cheered on by some, but generally seen as a revolutionary self-image, bent on devouring her own young, with a word whose constancy was tied to the consistency only of her cravings’ insatiability.

It could be argued that in all of this, TEC is simply demonstrating her cultural captivity, in this case her subservience to a larger American ethos in which “history” is precisely about personal and discontinuous re-invention, rather than corporate continuity. This aspect of America, that derives perhaps from the earliest colonial immigrants’ attempts at “starting new” and putting behind them the burdens of their pasts, seeps through every pore of American life and makes every attempt at articulating a “tradition” rather an exercise in self-construction. Historians like Michael Kammen (cf. his Mystic Chords of Memory) have begun to study this aspect of American culture quite carefully; but it has always been noted, from de Tocqueville on, and even earlier. Although TEC leaders seem to view “Puritanism” as a moral failure, in fact they hold much in common with the Puritan mission of breaking the vessels of the past, especially when adapted to the radical politics of anti-establishmentarianism. Like the 19th-century President of Yale, Noah Porter, who famously said that "the history of thought and speculation [is] the history of confusion and error", our leaders now seem to embody a kind of cross between Cotton and Paine in their rejection of tradition as the gathered flotsam of dead wood. The study of history has never been an American strong point – as a discipline, accepted into university curricula only late – and this weakness is born mostly of an ideological antipathy towards the past. Although this quintessentially American attitude has never sat well with Episcopal commitments, for a host of obvious reasons, it continues to press against ecclesial catholicism. And it is odd to see, just at the time when the reality of the Anglican Communion might in fact fulfill some of the deepest catholic yearnings of the Episcopal Church’s unusual place within the spectrum of American denominationalism, the TEC open itself to a complete capitulation to its cultural milieu.

But much like the larger world’s reaction to the present American administration’s flouting of international agreement and counsel, other churches now look TEC with disturbed puzzlement: “We no longer know who you are; and your current claims are not believable, because they do not match your past character.” So the Communion, in its own increasing incoherence, addresses TEC as she stands before it. And TEC’s children, the agitating or smaller groups within TEC or those that have left her skirts behind, offer only rustling and conflicting protests in response. So that the next question follows perforce: “And who, then, shall we trust?”.

If we were to trace the figures of the Scriptures, we would expect this situation’s resolution to lie in long Wilderness wanderings or in the bitter adjustments to Exile, where the chosen incoherence of Israel’s life and character, born out of a rejection of God’s gifts to her, is refashioned by the force of divine circumstance. But that is God’s choosing and doing, not ours to manipulate. For our part, we are called, certainly and without question, to give ourselves over to the rebuilding of trust, as a Christian church living in a Christian Communion. That is our task, whether we want it or not. And the task, it seems, demands at least the following:

1. We must re-grasp past promises and uphold them. Trust cannot be restored by making new promises, since none of them are believable until the old are recognized and followed. It is simply not possible to keep saying, in the face of every attempt to make agreements or respond to the Communion’s lost trust, “whatever it seems we are doing, it is not and cannot be a ‘turning back’ on the path we have followed to this point”. Each time this is said by the Presiding Bishop or by the House of Bishops or by individual bishops or by the Executive Council --- and we have heard it many times now -- it stands as an assertion of continued untrustworthiness, removes a beam of confidence, and furthers fracture. Unless there is a “going back”, back to the stated teachings and discipline, back to the promises of cooperation and consultation and collegial decision-making of the ‘70’s and ‘80’s and even ‘90’s (cf. B….of 1990), TEC’s identity is without substance and its word without foundation. Trust involves the stewardship of what one has “received” (cf. the vows made by priests, which is why the present choices being made by TEC’s leadership threaten the ability of clergy to adhere to the current direction of self-proclaimed Episcopal decisions). And such stewardship demands first of all the upholding of that trust in its fullness, not in bits and pieces, leaving other parts to fall by the wayside. This is, without doubt, the hardest thing for many to hear: Robinson’s election, consent, and consecration must somehow be reversed – he must resign or accept his withdrawal; the claims to optional (though apparently Gospel-demanded in the minds of some) embrace of same-sex affirmations must be set aside; there must be a willingness to step back. The most recent statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury regarding invitations to Lambeth provides just this opportunity to step back – and not just Americans! – in way that is not simply governed by a sullen acquiescence to perceived coercion, but out of a sincere desire to re-establish bonds of trust now more than just frayed.

To many this will appear to be simply an impossibility and a repellant affront. But the reality – not the invention of self-despair – is that homosexual life in the US, including in TEC, is among the most comfortable of existences in the world, even were it to be lived in the midst of a reaffirmation of TEC’s previous commitments and discipline. Part of the dynamic of TEC’s fall into incoherence is precisely its lack of self-awareness—socially as much as anything -- and its forging of fictitious realities and identities, because they are limited, unrepresentative, and dismissive of past truths. To face this fact and admit it, let alone retreat from its consequences, is obviously an enormous threat to some people’s agenda. But human health and ecclesial trust demands it. And if this demand is rejected – “no, but we are the church of liberative protest and utopia, on every front, and we will not accept alternatives!” – it will simply be an admission that there is no church here at all that is worth dealing with on a basis other than commercial interchange, a peculiarly American enterprise that now characterizes the life of modern relations around the world: what can we get, what can we earn, what can we squeeze out of one another; then let’s move on. This is the “communion” of the suspicious, the untrusting, and the untrustworthy. TEC may well be left behind because of this, but not without already poisoning the trust of many other churches in the Communion.

2. We must once more renew the study of our history. If nothing else, the present debacle of TEC is a wake-up call, not just to Episcopalians, but to all Anglicans, to get beyond the clichéd and superficial assertions regarding “Anglicanism” and “our character” that have so bedeviled clergy and their flock for so long, and dressed people up as experts in nothing more than their own prejudices. I hardly claim that the historical outline sketched here constitutes the “truth” of the Episcopal Church’s identity, except to the degree that it underlines the current confusion over that identity. The debate over the history and character of the Episcopal church is a real one today, but only in part because it is complex. By and large, it is real because of ignorance, bad education, and laziness. We will need the humility to pursue such study, and also the perseverance to avoid preemptive and premature conclusions. But that is not because such historical judgments can never attain to a greater degree of truth, but rather because the truth demands that its apprehension take place with the care of knowledge and argument. Some today may fear the wisdom of Robert Conquest’s claim that we are all most reactionary about the subjects we know best; but that is no excuse to run from study.

3. The councils of the church are based on trust. To carry on meeting and gathering and discussing when trust has been so dissolved is to further distrust, and to fuel the downward spiral of the Communion’s and the larger Church’s unraveling. This cannot be overemphasized. And therefore, the Communion itself needs to make some difficult decisions among its members as to the shape and timing of further council. Who should – and, in the sense of trustworthiness, who “can” – participate? TEC is not the only church whose trust has been questioned, although we are the most egregious in our communal infidelities. The approaching Lambeth Conference is clearly the most critical place with respect to which such decisions about participation need to be made. I am hardly sure about the best way to approach this. But I will say this: if Lambeth takes place without first clarifying the basis for renewed trust among its members – including TEC, its progeny, its sworn and secret enemies – it will be no Christian conference, but an occasion for further scandal and destruction. This is not because alienated Christian brethren should not gather for the sake or counsel and reconciliation. Rather, it is because the alienation in council among estranged brethren has now proceeded so far as to undermine the ability of further general counsel to do anything more but feed mistrust. There can be no more conciliar “business as usual”. For the ecclesial “persons” now capable of meeting are too ill to think or speak responsibly.

The question of the proposed Covenant – leaving aside its particulars – remains, to my mind, critical to this entire reality. And here is where, finally, TEC’s lost sense of identity is most challenged. For in the face of the call to a covenanted relationship, with all of its admittedly untried hopes yet deeply necessary accountabilities, the constant response we hear from some TEC quarters that “we have not had a covenant, we do not need it, it contradicts who we are” is sounding more and more like the pleas of a person no longer believed, no longer trusted, and no longer capable to moving with others, and somehow recognizing unconsciously his or her own abandonment within the fantasies of their illusions. There is no reason to expect an arousal from such constricted fear except this: in God’s world the truth will prevail. “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth” (Jn. 18:37). Within TEC, even this truth will eventually liberate (Jn. 8:32).

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 23 May 2007 )

Another Story About PECUSA Inclusivity

Priest is braced for more battles
Episcopalians will again attempt to name Lawrence leader of diocese
By CAROLYN CLICK - cclick@thestate.com

The Rev. Mark Lawence says he is prepared to re-enter the ecclesiastical fray once the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina renews its bid to elect him as bishop.

There is no question the Lowcountry diocese wants the conservative California priest as its leader. In a recent letter to parishioners, retiring bishop Edward Salmon Jr. wrote of a consensus among leaders that “the Holy Spirit has spoken in the election of Fr. Lawrence.”

But Lawrence said Thursday he knows he will not escape a second round of divisive debate that mirrors in many ways the theological struggle in the larger Episcopal Church.

“I am sure it will happen again,” he said in a telephone interview from his office at St. Paul’s Episcopal Parish in Bakersfield, Calif. “How it unfolds is hard to know.”

His first election was invalidated March 15 by the Episcopal Church’s presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, because some of the 56 diocesan votes, called consents, were obtained via e-mail. Church law requires that each American diocese file written consents.

It was the church’s first rejection of a bishop in nearly 75 years. But beyond the technical difficulties, the election revealed a growing fault line between biblical conservatives like Lawrence and the more liberal wing of the American denomination. The Episcopal Church in America, with 2.3 million members, is part of the 77-million worldwide Anglican Communion.

The 2003 election of V. Gene Robertson, a practicing gay priest, as the bishop of New Hampshire exacerbated the divisions. But other issues also have alienated a handful of dioceses enough for them to seek alternative leadership. Lawrence’s diocese, the Diocese of San Juaquin, and the Diocese of South Carolina are among them.

“The issues that we are dealing with, from the authority of scripture to issues of sexuality to the doctrine of the church internationally, these are things we will struggle with for at least a generation,” Lawrence said. “They are not going away.”

The diocese has resolved to fight for Lawrence’s election and has set in motion a process for re-election that begins June 9. Once the diocese elects him, it has 120 days to obtain consents from around the country.

“I guess we will see whether those who speak often of reconciliation will be conciliatory,” Lawrence said. “If South Carolina does re-elect me, there is an opportunity for the Episcopal Church to say we are this big tent, this inclusive body, that we claim we are.”

Some in the diocese have questioned why Lawrence’s would be the only name placed in nomination, said Steve Skardon, a Charleston Episcopalian who runs a Web site called South Carolina Episcopalians (www.dioceseofsc.com).

“There has been plenty of conversation about at least having a choice,” he said. But Skardon said there is no sentiment for a huge battle, and he believes most Episcopalians in the diocese are willing to accept and embrace Lawrence.

“I think people have been kind of worn down by the controversy and are very anxious to get back to their parishes and doing the Lord’s work,” Skardon said.

Crazy '08 and the Episcopal Church

One of my annual habits is to read a baseball book each spring or summer. This year's choice is Crazy '08 by Cait Murphy. Murphy is an assistant Managing Editor of Fortune magazine and she brings her business acumen to the subject of what she regards as the greatest year of baseball, 1908.

In the early pages of her story Murphy recounts the start-up of the American League. Before it was launched as a rival to the National League it was a minor league outfit called the Western League. The idea of a rival league to the National League was hatched in 1893 in Cincinatti. A few franchises of the Western League were moved to the east coast to give the new league a truly national presence and the hegemony of the senior circuit.

The new league would be markedly different from the National League. As Ban Johnson, the league's founder, declared, "Clean ball is the main plank in the American League platform, and the clubs must stand by it religiously" (quoted in Murphy, p. 22).

This next sentence is what really makes the comparison of the launching of the American League with the current realignment of the Anglican Communion in North America: "Being in the mainstream is not the same as being smart, and the NL owners failed to comprehend the realities around them - that attendance was poor, labor relations worse, and the threat from Johnson real" (p. 23).

At every turn the Episcopal Church (also known as pecusa, which is short for protestant episcopal church usa) has failed to understand the realities around them. For example, we have the presiding bishop saying frequently that the number of congregations leaving pecusa is less than 1/2 of 1%. What she will not say in public is that some of those churches leaving are larger than some dioceses in pecusa. What she will not say is that the largest churches in a number of dioceses have left pecusa. What she will also not say is that Sunday attendance in pecusa is poor and getting worse.

She will also not say that pecusa has lost some of her most talented priests. The priests of these congregations have in a number of cases led their churches from numbering in the hundreds to numbering in the thousands. What the p.b. will not say publically is that the threat from the Anglican Communion Network in North America is real.

"Being in the mainstream is not the same as being smart," observes Murphy, and we could say the same about pecusa. The Episcopal Church has chosen the path that has been earlier chosen by the United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Church. The path that pecusa has chosen is one that leads to diminishment, and the UCC and the UC are both evidence of this. Why pecusa thinks that it can grow on the path to eclesial suicide is explained by Murphy, "Being in the mainstream..."

The NL and AL coexist together now as members of Major League Baseball. We cannot expect such a happy ending for pecusa and the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church has said through her General Convention, p.b., and the House of Bishops that she will not turn around from her path of self-destruction. It's shame really. As an ad this week taken out in the New York Times by the bright ones at the national headquarters pointed out, pecusa has a long and glorious history. It is a shame that pecusa has chosen a path that will lead to a less stellar future.

PECUSA (NON) Compliance Report

The American Anglican Council Report on PECUSA non-compliance with the Windsor Report and the Dar Es Salaam communique:
http://www.americananglican.org/atf/cf/%7B0124EFED-8D9A-4067-9C7C-969A768F1648%7D/CCO-Report_to_Primates_No2.pdf

CoE Newspaper on CANA Installation

Bishop Martyn Minns was installed as Missionary Bishop in the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA) by Archbishop Peter Akinola, at Woodbridge, Virginia, on Saturday. Among the many greetings was one from 30 members of the Church of England General Synod, including the Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham and the Bishop of Rochester.

“We want to remain faithful members of the Anglican Communion,” said Bishop Minns at a press conference preceding his installation. He thanked Archbishop Akinola for establishing CANA, which is now a duly constituted convocation of the Church of Nigeria.

CANA, which has more regular worshippers than nearly 50 of The Episcopal Church’s (TEC) dioceses, currently consists of 34 parishes, with others queuing up to join. About one third are in Virginia and the rest are spread across 11 other states. About a dozen of the churches have predominantly Nigerian membership.

Saturday’s ceremony took place at a non-denominational chapel, and Archbishop Akinola was accompanied by a number of Nigerian bishops along with several American and Canadian bishops, including the Bishop of Pittsburgh.

The service started with representatives of each of the CANA churches carrying their banners, followed by a procession of the dignitaries. As the service progressed it became more informal, with Bishops dancing at the front and Bishop Minns holding his tambourine aloft.

Breaking with tradition, Archbishop Akinola did not preach and it was Bishop Minns who delivered to the 1,500-strong congregation, a sermon, which touched on the tensions in the global Anglican Communion. “The Communion is wrestling with irreconcilable truths,” Bishop Minns said of the dispute over homosexuality. “It’s not clear how it will turn out.”

“My priority,” he said, “is to support the growing movement of Anglicans who wish to honour the authority of Scripture as the Word of God and remain steadfast in the historic teachings of the Church. CANA hopes to replicate the growth of, and enthusiasm for. Anglicanism now evident in the Global South.”

Martyn Minns grew up in Nottingham, graduated from Birmingham University and sensed God’s call to the ordained ministry while working for [the] Mobil [Oil Corporation] in New York. For the last 16 years he has been Rector of Truro Church in Fairfax Virginia, ministering to its congregation of over 2,000 people.

By the end of the ceremony, some Nigerian congregants danced and all broke into a spirited singing of “Days of Elijah.” Archbishop Akinola told those gathered that the ceremony was “simply the first step” on a long road.

He said: The Church of Nigeria itself stands to gain nothing from this. We are doing this on behalf of the Communion. If we had not done this many of you would be lost to other churches, maybe to nothing at alL”

The Washington Post came out with a report on Sunday headed “Rebel Anglicans appoint a bishop.” It might have been nearer the mark to say that estranged Episcopalians were reasserting their true Anglican identity.

–The Church of England Newspaper

Federal Hate Law Will Persecute YOU

Googled and posted as per anon.'s comment after last post. ed.

By Rev. Ted Pike
April 30th, 2007
Download MP3, M3U, RAM

The federal “anti-hate” bill, to be voted on Thursday by the U.S. House of Representatives, says anyone who verbally “intimidates” members of federally protected groups faces indictment as a hate criminal, a violator of federal law. Also, anyone who “aids, abets, counsels” 1 that criminal will face charges. This means any talk show host who interviews me could face a federal “hate crimes” trial!

Since I first sounded the alarm on the federal hate bill last November and warned of its almost certain passage in the Democrat-controlled Congress, I have been interviewed on 114 national talk shows. My message against the hate bill has probably “intimidated” two groups the federal hate bill would especially protect: homosexuals and Jews. Homosexuals are intimidated because I regularly quote Holy Scripture describing their sexual behaviors as an abomination. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith is intimidated by my exposure of them as architect of thought crime laws worldwide. ADL is, in fact, so intimidated they don’t dare to mention my name on their website for fear tens of thousands will visit http://www.truthtellers.org/ and hear the whole truth about them.

The same goes for a cluster of Jewish activist organizations presided over by B’nai B’rith International. ACLU, People for the American Way, American Jewish Congress, American Jewish Committee, Southern Poverty Law Center, etc. rarely, if ever, mention Ted Pike. In contrast, I expose their anti-American, anti-Christian activities to the world from the highest place of attention I can find - talk radio and the internet. If H. R. 1592 becomes law, I and the 33 talk show hosts who have “aided and abetted” me since November are eminently indictable.
Who else will have to look over their shoulder, fearing charges as a speech criminal? Are YOU in that danger? (more…)

posted by Chris Womak at 8:53 PM

Message from AAC President Canon David Anderson

[For the full message, go to the AAC website.]

Friday, May 11, 2007

"When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees... Otherwise, when you eat and are satisifed...and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God... If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely perish." (Deuteronomy 8:10-14,19)

Beloved in Christ,

As announced in February, the AAC is monitoring the Episcopal Church's compliance with the primates' Dar es Salaam Communiqué through its newly created Communiqué Compliance Office (CCO).

We continue to encourage you, our readers, to send us any material pertinent to this effort, by e-mail, phone (800-914-2000), or regular mail.

The most helpful materials include diocesan newsletters, church newsletters, diocesan-wide (or church-wide) e-mails, and other pieces of information that indicate compliance or defiance with respect to: (1) the primates' call for a halt to litigation; (2) the communiqué's request for clarification of the Church's position on ordination of bishops who are living active homosexual lifestyles; (3) clarification of the Church's position on same-sex blessings; and (4) the primates' pastoral scheme for providing relief to orthodox churches and dioceses. In addition, the CCO files include any material that indicates a diocese's or bishop's rejection of Scriptural authority.

The CCO is collecting information through Sept. 30, 2007, by which time the Church must respond to the communiqué's requests. Regular CCO reports are issued to global Anglican primates and leaders, as well as to the public.

The laity and clergy within U.S. Episcopal dioceses are the AAC's eyes and ears for what is happening within each diocese. Your help is imperative to the success of our efforts!

Although these Weekly Updates go out to a large number of subscribers, most of whom are supporters of the work of the American Anglican Council (AAC), some individuals of a contrary point of view also subscribe to check up on us, and that's okay. My weekly piece shares my own opinion on the current events, and from time to time, as new information arrives or circumstances change, I will want to recast my analysis. This format provides an opportunity when needed.

The Communiqué Compliance Office’s April report has just been completed, and a full PDF format will be released on the AAC Web site next week. The report is best used when you are already connected to the Internet so that all the hyperlinks to original documents work. (A limited quantity of the full-text version that includes the back-up documents will also be available for those who do not have Internet access.)

Last Saturday’s installation service in Virginia of the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns was a glorious event. The Primate of All Nigeria, the Most Rev. Peter J. Akinola, presided over the installation of Bishop Minns as missionary bishop for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), the mission arm in the United States of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. Based on the anxious anticipation of the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church (TEC), as well as that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Dr. Rowan Williams, it appears that the installation is seen as a turning point in North American Anglican affairs. If Jefferts Schori had been paying attention, she would have known of the installation weeks in advance, and yet she waited so late to protest that it suggests that her protest wasn’t really about stopping the event so much as registering her displeasure. Perhaps the same could be said for Dr. Williams’ letter, which wasn’t sent until the Nigerian primate was in New York, en route to Virginia, at which point it was then leaked by Canon Jim Rosenthal (the Anglican Communion Office’s director of communications) to the press. However, the actual copy of the letter to Archbishop Akinola only reached him after the event had taken place. Was this on purpose?

One wag suggested that TEC was investing in a new growth area, lawsuits, by putting together their own TEC-branded law firm franchise, to be called Dewey, Suem, and Howe. Two of the principals were formally in a firm called Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe, but have now moved into liturgical litigation. The new law firm will require proper vestments and will build a company mission statement using the so-called Baptismal Covenant of TEC.

The use of lawsuits by ostensibly Christian organizations such as TEC to terrorize churches, vestry members, and the folks who sit in the pews is unconscionable. The frustration behind TEC’s rage is that they cannot force the laity or clergy to go along with their polytheistic theology and beliefs on homosexuality, and people and clergy are voting with both their feet and purses. If TEC had canon law jails, many of us would be locked up, never to see the light again—but, fortunately, they don’t. Many of the church properties on which they spend millions of dollars to seize TEC will finally have to sell for 10 cents on the $1 because the buildings won’t have viable congregations to keep the properties up and make repairs. The idea in suing vestry members and clergy is to frighten people about losing their own private homes and automobiles to a tyrannical bishop bent on punishing the orthodox Anglicans. Now the Presbyterians’ liberal leaders are joining in the fray in the Anglican world—a macabre ecumenism based on terrorizing their own church members.

The Rev. Don Armstrong, who is currently under attack by the Episcopal bishop and Diocese of Colorado, has now come under harassment and stalking by hate groups affiliated with the homosexual activist agenda. One activist crept into last Sunday’s worship service underway and threw a pie at Armstrong, narrowly missing him as he stood in the pulpit preaching. Another activist for the homosexual agenda took pictures of Fr. Don as he parked his vehicle in front of Starbuck’s to dash in for a quick cup of coffee. Multiple photos of Fr. Don appear on a homosexual activist Web site, where he is shown parking his car, text-messaging on his Blackberry, and drinking his coffee. It makes one wonder, what is the point of this if not to harass him and encourage others to do the same? As the state legislatures hurry to put “hate crime” laws into place, the laws should be crafted to also protect the free speech of the Christian community to name sin as sin, and to protect Christian leaders and clergy from harassment and violence for their witness.

It seems the entire Western world has gone crazy—and the ride isn’t over yet. Remember that the Gospel of Jesus Christ should shape the world, not the other way around.

Blessings and peace in Christ Jesus,

The Rev. Canon David C. Anderson
President & CEO, American Anglican Council

Episcopal Leadership Embraces The New Age

May 07, 2007

Joe Bell

I recently attended an off-the-record discussion of the Episcopal Church where the guest was an Episcopal bishop. The name of the bishop is unimportant; it is the discourse that was significant and it provided a clear understanding as to why the church will eventually break apart. The church cannot remain intact because it houses conflicting ideologies about the most basic components of the Christian canon.

Arguably the primary belief in Christian theology is the role of Jesus. In John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.”

Jesus declared, very directly and without equivocation that those who wish to receive forgiveness for their sins and spend eternity in heaven must accept Him as their savior. Millions of individuals around the world believe that is the truth and millions believe it is false. Everyone has the right to exercise his or her free will, however, one would expect leaders in a Christian church would accept John 14:6 fully and without reservation. Nevertheless, when the bishop was asked about Jesus being the only way to eternal salvation he hedged, not at the beginning of his response but certainly at the end.

He said, “As far as Jesus being the way, the truth and the life, I believe it absolutely. I am unapologetic. But can God work in other ways? Can He save people who don’t believe in or know Jesus? Maybe.”

This is not a small detour from Christian theology. The bishop said he believes Jesus is who He said He was, but he also believes the Almighty might work in other ways. Well, yes, He could - but He doesn’t. Of all the ways that God could have chosen to deliver salvation to humanity the Bible states He sent His only Son into the world. The forecasts of the coming of Jesus are found throughout the Old Testament. In Isaiah 53 the prophet speaks of the coming of Jesus and describes Him as “a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.” Isaiah said, “By oppression and judgment he was taken away” and “he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.”

Despite the bishop’s reflection that God may at some point choose to save people who do not believe in Jesus, the Bible gives the Christian nothing to hang that theological meditation upon. Nowhere does Scripture say God “might change His mind at some point and renege on the Jesus deal” or that He might “develop an express salvation.”

There are many religions in the world that individuals may embrace as they search for a theology that speaks to their heart and soul and grants them the inner peace and fulfillment they seek. Millions of people throughout the world live devout lives that have nothing to do with Jesus. But the question before the Episcopal Church is: Can a person be a Christian when he or she has reservations regarding an essential component of the Christian canon? It would seem that the answer would have to be “No.” It would be pointless to follow Jesus if one has doubts about the veracity of John 14:6 because that brief passage encapsulates the entire reason Jesus came into this world.

The bishop supported the election of Gene Robinson, a homosexual, to the position of bishop of New Hampshire, despite the fact that the Bible declares homosexual acts to be sinful, as are any adulterous sexual relations. The bishop justified his position saying that he knows Bishop Robinson is a good man. He also said that the love we should have for each other “trumps some other prohibitions.” A number of points must be made. First, what other prohibitions might love trump? Stealing? Lying? Heterosexual adultery? Are these actions also excused and trumped by love in the Episcopal hierarchy?

Second, the promotion of Robinson to the position of bishop does not begin and end with his being a “good man.” Every day good men and women struggle with sin but the goodness of their other actions does not absolve them of the need to repent and neither will good works alone grant one entrance to the kingdom of heaven. In “Mere Christianity” C.S. Lewis wrote, “We must not suppose that even if we succeed in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world – and might be even more difficult to save.”

We should all strive to be courteous to those we interact with and show consideration to others. But while “being nice” is necessary for a stable society it is not going to deliver salvation. Episcopalians should expect that those who rise to leadership positions in their church are more than “nice people.”

Several years ago I wrote, “The rip in the fabric of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA), began to open at least as far back as the 1960s when California Bishop James Pike decided the Holy Trinity did not exist and that there had been no Virgin Birth. Nevertheless, he also decided to remain at his post as a Christian leader. …Heresy charges were invoked against Bishop Pike but there was neither the will nor the numbers to move forward. Whether overwhelmed by the counterculture of that era, or perhaps Pike’s doubts were widely shared, the Episcopal Church failed to reprimand the obstinate bishop.”

When leaders of the Episcopal Church began to reject Christianity’s most sacred components it placed the church on unsteady ground. It has been wobbling ever since. Listening to the bishop the other night reinforced my conviction that the Episcopal Church will split. The theological interpretations of church leaders are contemporary and flexible. They are also inaccurate. Regardless of what religion one embraces, all should be tolerant of those who seek God in different ways as well as of those who choose not to seek God at all. But a proper tolerance of another person’s religion does not mean rejecting primary components of one’s own doctrine. That is the corner in which the Episcopal hierarchy has placed its flock.

###

Joseph Bell has hosted a radio talk show and is a former editorial writer/columnist for several Connecticut newspapers. A former liberal Democrat, Bell has not been on the conservative side of the aisle for very long. He voted for Clinton/Gore in 1992. Abandoning the convictions that he had held and defended through adolescence and into adulthood was not easy. Sincere soul-searching and a commitment to distinguish fact from fiction compelled him to accept that liberal ideology was bankrupt.

jbellopedresponse@hotmail.com

AAC Celebrates Installation of Bishop Martyn Minns, New Season for U.S. Anglicanism

May 7, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Nash Nunnery
770-414-1515

The American Anglican Council (AAC) joined Anglicans world-wide this past weekend in celebrating the installation of the Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns as missionary bishop for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), the U.S. branch of the Anglican Church of Nigeria and fellow Common Cause Partner with the AAC. Three staff members represented the AAC at the Woodbridge, Va., service, which filled over half of the 3,500-seat Hylton Chapel.

“This weekend’s event was a high point in North American Anglicanism,” said AAC President and CEO the Rev. Canon David C. Anderson, who attended the event with his wife. “We are extremely grateful for the courage and faithfulness of the Nigerian church and its leader, Archbishop Peter Akinola, who formed CANA two years ago.”

AAC Director of Finance and Development Doug Mussey as well as AAC Director of Human Resources Mary Orr were also present to help cover the event for the Council.

In his remarks, Anderson congratulated Minns on this new phase of his ministry and assured that the AAC’s prayers and full support are with him. Minns, an AAC Board of Trustees member, has been very active with the ministry of the AAC in addition to serving as rector of Truro Church in Fairfax, Va., for 16 years.

With over 30 affiliated churches, CANA has experienced tremendous growth since it was formed in 2005 and has emerged as one of the forerunners in the renewal of an orthodox Anglican presence in the United States. The presence of leaders of other orthodox Anglican groups at this weekend's service, Anderson said, was a particularly hopeful sign that there will be a renewed effort to work together and build one another up through shared mission and ministry.

“The energy and zeal of the Church of Nigeria have come to the U.S. through CANA, and we pray that the result will be a re-strengthening of the historic, biblical Anglican faith in this nation after decades of accelerating moral and theological decline in the Episcopal Church,” Anderson said. “Bishop Minns’ installation marked what we hope is a new season for all U.S. orthodox Anglicans.”

-30-

Abp. Akinola to the ABC

Archbishop of Canterbury
Lambeth Palace, London

Sunday, May 6th, 2007

My dear Rowan,

Grace and Peace to you from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus the Christ.

I have received your note expressing your reservations regarding my plans to install Bishop Martyn Minns as the first Missionary Bishop of CANA. Even though your spokesmen have publicized the letter and its general content I did not actually receive it until after the ceremony. I do, however, want to respond to your concerns and clarify the situation with regard to CANA. I am also enclosing a copy of my most recent letter to Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori.

We are a deeply divided Communion. As leaders of the Communion we have all spent enormous amounts of time, travelled huge distances - sometimes at great risk, and expended much needed financial resources in endless meetings, communiqués and reports – Lambeth Palace 2003, Dromantine 2005, Nottingham 2006 and Dar es Salaam 2007. We have developed numerous proposals, established various task forces and yet the division has only deepened. The decisions, actions, defiance and continuing intransigence of The Episcopal Church are at the heart of our crisis.

We have all sought ways to respond to the situation. As you well know the Church of Nigeria established CANA as a way for Nigerian congregations and other alienated Anglicans in North America to stay in the Communion. This is not something that brings any advantage to us – neither financial nor political. We have actually found it to be a very costly initiative and yet we believe that we have no other choice if we are to remain faithful to the gospel mandate. As I stated to you, and all of the primates in Dar es Salaam, although CANA is an initiative of the Church of Nigeria – and therefore a bonafide branch of the Communion - we have no desire to cling to it. CANA is for the Communion and we are more than happy to surrender it to the Communion once the conditions that prompted our division have been overturned.

We have sought to respond in a measured way. We delayed the election of our first CANA bishop until after General Convention 2006 to give The Episcopal Church every opportunity to embrace the recommendations of the Windsor report – to no avail. At the last meeting of the Church of Nigeria House of Bishops we deferred a decision regarding the election of additional suffragans for CANA out of respect for the Dar es Salaam process.

Sadly we have seen no such respect from the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church. Their most recent statement was both insulting and condescending and makes very clear that they have no intention of listening to the voice of the rest of the Communion. They are determined to pursue their own unbiblical agenda and exacerbate our current divisions.

In the middle of all of this the Lord’s name has been dishonoured. If we fail to act many will be lost to the church and thousands of souls will be imperiled. This we cannot and will not allow to happen. It is imperative that we continue to protect those at most risk while we seek a way forward that will offer hope for the future of our beleaguered Communion. It is to this vision that we in the Church of Nigeria and CANA remain committed.

Be assured of my prayers.

Sincerely,

+Peter Abuja

Vocation Deferred: The Necessary Challenge of Communion

Written by the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner
Anglican Communion Institute

Sunday, 06 May 2007


One of the casualties of the current Anglican Communion struggle is our responsible grappling with the challenge of Christian communion as a church. It might seem that, with the Anglican Communion’s own survival at stake, there would be a robust examination taking place of what it means to live “in Christian communion” and why it is important. Yet, despite strong encouragement from numerous sources like the Windsor Report, the topic has almost disappeared from serious engagement. Indeed, from a practical standpoint, parties in the Communion are pressing their commitments in a way analogous to political groups and their external allies within a civil war: discussion and “agreement” has value only if one can gain a place of advantage from which later to destroy the opposition. While the notion – and reality – of Christian communion is one constituted by common standards and commitments and not simply compromise, the manner in which these standards and commitments embody themselves differs greatly from the (often antagonistically) competitive character of present ecclesial confrontations. It is just this difference that few seem willing to engage.

In what follows I want to reflect on the difficulty we have had in facing up to the challenge of Christian communion, the consequences of this avoidance, and finally a possible way of understanding communion and Anglicanism in terms of a particular vocation or mission, in analogy within the Nations to the mission given long ago to St. Benedict. Certainly, we are avoiding the challenge of communion not simply at our peril as Anglicans, but at our already obvious loss. But we are also perhaps simply and straightforwardly being unfaithful to a specific purpose we have been given by God as a provisional church. That purpose is to act as a “school for communion” for the sake of the larger Church’s healing. Communion is not simply a useful or at least expedient concept to deploy in the face of Anglicanism’s centrifugal dynamics. It may well be central to Anglicanism as an ongoing instrument of God’s evangelical purpose. Why are we running from it?



The localist and confessionalist subversions of communion



There are at least two working conceptions of the church vying with one another in our midst as Anglicans that have consumed the energies of almost all of our councils. Neither of these two views has shown any real interest in figuring out Christ’s call and prayer to unity among his disciples. Furthermore, neither can coexist with each other. Their continued promotion will represent not only a turning away from communion but will most certainly destroy the practical realities of the Anglican Communion itself.



One view, which I shall call the “localist” view, is one that the TEC’s general leadership seems to be vigorously pressing at the moment. It claims that every local church fulfills the Gospel calling wherever it is and according to whoever it is, and is faithful only as it does this. The Gospel is fully or at least rightly realized insofar it is incarnated in this or that place. This is the church: an autonomous act of faithfulness – of which there may be many, none of which impinge upon the integrity of the other. The localist view represents a certain kind of self-sufficiency with respect to the church – the sufficiency of local faith.



Another view, which I shall call the “confessionalist” view, is held by many conservatives (though not all), in both Western and non-Western churches. It defines the church according to a definite framework of belief and practical assertion, and claims that where the Gospel is rightly preached and the sacraments duly administered, there is the church, and nowhere else. There is, in fact, only one church – not many instances of it; but this oneness is given at any moment only in the congruity of true preaching and sacrament. The true church is an event, sometimes extended in space but not necessarily, that takes in the breadth or narrowness of ecclesial reach at any given time. This view represents another kind of self-sufficiency – the sufficiency of identity.



The two views are very similar in outcome, for all the conflict they experience with one another. For both, the “self” of the church subsists in a particular setting and reality. The church’s self is a given – locally or according to a set of beliefs -- that one holds and lives within. The only way to answer the question “what is the church?”, according to these two views, is to point to oneself, if in slightly different ways. Neither view holds to the notion of “giving up one’s life for the other”, for that would mean that the self of the individual Christian or of the church is actually defined by the other, if even the other’s need or fall or desperation. Neither view can assert that “the church lies outside myself” or “away from myself”, or that the church’s future is to be found “far from myself”. the church is present, here, now, with me.



More important, these two views – leaving to the side whether one or the other is true or not – simply cannot coexist together. Here, it is their differences that become voracious. For the confessionalist view defines the other – the other church or the other professed Christian -- according to itself and its own framework of belief; while the localist view defines itself according to itself and none other. And thus, these two ecclesial selves can concede nothing to the other. The confessionalist has no room for the localist; and the localist has no space for the confessionalist. If these two views of the church remain in place within Anglicanism, the Communion will die. One or the other must go. And because they will not – and that is the source of our conflict, with or without the proliferation of “alternative” Anglicanisms -- they must therefore change, if the Communion is to survive. Indeed, if the Communion is to survive, a different working perspective must be adopted vigorously, seriously, and devotedly.



For some, of course, it is not clear that the Anglican Communion should survive, at least in its present configuration and with its present identity. And certainly, neither localist nor confessionalist visions of the church can in fact incorporate the Anglican Communion as it now exists. But it is not obvious that either view can deal coherently with the claim of Paul that “with all lowliness and meekness, with patience, forbearing one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” we are “called” to live in a way that witnesses to the “one body, and one Spirit, …one hope… one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God an Father of us all” (Eph. 4:2ff.)”; or that “whoever eats the bread of drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord” and “anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats an drinks judgment upon himself” (1 Cor. 11:27, 29); or, more pressingly, with the stated desire of the Lord Jesus Christ himself that, “they all may be one”, so that “the world may believe”(Jn. 17:21) – this, in the shadow of the question he also asks, as to whether, when he returns, he will “find faith on earth” (Lk. 18:8) or rather “love grown cold” (Mt. 24:12)? Indeed, “why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Lk. 6:46). Why?



In any case, to answer the question of whether or not it matters if the Anglican Communion survives one must at least have a clear idea of what “communion” itself might be, and why it is or is not important. And this question has been abandoned, wholly and shockingly, as if it were a leprous house. Some have quite deliberately let it drop, claiming (in line with the two views just outlined) that “communion” is some kind of code-word for hierarchical oppression – “prelates”! -- or that it expresses but the desperate worries of a threatened institutionalist agenda emanating from a frightened Canterbury.



Communion-thinking has a history



Such claims are, on reflection, quite misplaced, since the concern with “communion” as the basis for our church’s life is hardly new and do not derive from such secret and nefarious forces. Not only does the concern with communion reflect, rather obviously, the growing sense of ecclesial vocation within Anglicanism since the mid-19th century – hence the emergence of something actually called the “Anglican Communion”, with all of its self-analysis with regard to koinonia (cf. already at the 1920 Lambeth Conference). But “the Church as Communion” has been at the center of ecclesiological and ecumenical discussion for almost 40 years, both within a context like the World Council of Churches and, most importantly, that of the Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue and agreed statements. And in this respect, “communion” derives from a deep yearning for the Church’s healing and transfiguration. The Windsor Report’s interest in “communion” as the lens through which to view the nature of the Christian Church was not therefore something smuggled in to ornament a disciplinary conundrum, nor was it an egg-headed idea dreamed up by the Virginia Report committee, written in a seminary corner. It was rather the expected and even demanded theological framework that TEC and other Anglicans had been using – and commending! – for several decades already in the course of their own apprehension of their calling.



But autonomy always seems to trump communion: why?



Still, it is possible that “communion” has never really had much traction in actual decision-making because it has appeared to many as a hard-to-understand abstraction at best, and as a distracting and unworkable ideal at worst. When the Windsor Report tries to talk about communion, it often struggles with the practical -- because well defined and “legally asserted” -- realities of local self-determination among Anglican churches. How fit this juridical “independence”, frequently described in Anglican self-definition, with the notions of mutual constraint? What kind of constraint? For what reason? How determined? Under whose initiative? In trying to describe the nature of Anglican “autonomy”, then, the Report resorts (understandably) to non-Scriptural terms such as “freedom-in-relation” and “interdependence”, terms that are less than clear in concrete life and that, frankly, must inevitably find their clarification on the side of what is “known”, that is, always in terms of legally defined autonomy itself. Thus, the Report notes that a diocese may understand “interdependence” with respect to its relation to a province, or a parish with respect to its relation to a diocese, but that is precisely because both these relations are defined by canon law. On the other hand, provincial churches seem not to grasp their “interdependence” in relation to the wider Communion (par. 81). And surely that is because provinces arenotlegally defined in terms of communion at all, but rather in terms of some kind of explicit “autonomy”.



But if “freedom-in-relation” is a non-Scriptural term used to describe the Church, even more so and more negatively is the continued use of the term “autonomy” to describe the church in any fashion. And thus, for all of its legal status, the term “autonomy” itself is probably one of the greatest stumbling blocks to a practical engagement with the far more theologically-rooted (and more Scriptural) notion of communion, especially as this term is bound to the quite Scriptural claim that the Church is a “body”, even Christ’s own.



But, with the best of intentions, even where an alternative way of thinking is groped after, autonomy seems to rear its head and return with a vengeance to seize back control of the ecclesial discussion. Take for example the appeal to Orthodoxy made by many Anglicans. Searching for a living parallel to its argument that ecclesial autonomy makes sense only in terms of a faithfully constraining relationship, the Windsor Report points to “autocephaly” (self-governance by individual churches in communion with one another) within the Eastern Orthodox churches (par. 75). But does such an appeal serve its purpose? For a look at the concrete realities of “autocephaly” quickly shows how ill-fitted such an analogy is, and how even here autonomy takes over the ecclesiological reins.



The Windsor Report, for one thing, does not note how the practice of autocephaly is unresolved at present, even practically, as Moscow and Constantinople, for example, remain at odds over who has the right to “grant” or recognize a self-governing church. Even the Anglican Consultative Council, in theory, has this authority for new provinces within the Communion. But, more like the Anglicanism of the present, the Report does not grapple with the still acrimonious overlapping Orthodox jurisdictions in America, furthermore, and the way that self-governance is disputed in a number of cases such as this within Orthodoxy. AMiA and CANA and Europe and other areas within Anglicanism represent the same challenge. Windsor does not point out how in these disputes, “autonomy” continues to trump constraint, in a way that indicates its all-too-human weaknesses as a principle for ecclesial self-identity.



But even conceptually, autocephaly is a difficult notion to untangle within the context of Scriptural language about the Church. Orthodox theologians like John Erickson or Lewis Patsovos, for instance, will speak of “unity” or communion in terms of a single “body” under the one “headship” of Christ, a body that functions through a common confession and discipline according to the ancient councils of the Church. This single headship somehow holds together the diverse “local” bodies of churches whose self-determination, within Eastern Orthodoxy, has historically matched national or ethnic borders. But is this really how Anglicanism wants to present its desired communion? For “autocephaly”—“ self-heading” -- is something of a strange name for this set of ideal relations, precisely because it cannot, in itself, explain and it even confuses – especially given all the disputes in practice – how body, head, and members truly exist as one in Christ. Rather, the notion of ecclesial autocephay it posits many “sub-heads”. What are we to make of this, if there is in fact “one body” and “one Lord”? A “member” of a single body, after all, is never “autonomous” in any sense, and is not even able to speak for itself: the eye cannot say what the eye is on it’s own, for it cannot think or speak on its own. The very discussion of the church in terms of “body parts” rules out “autonomy” as a working term, at least in any context in which “communion” is to be central. Some other term is needed to deal with the relationship of provincial churches and the “larger” church, and Anglicans should be working on this tirelessly instead of continually proving to one another that “autonomy” is their real ideal.



What about terms such as “local” and “universal”? These have been suggested and but to work in a number of contexts. But even here, their use as categories to provide the building blocks for a working notion of communion has proved challenging. The “local”, just because it is the concrete place of most people’s Christian life, usually ends by overwhelming any practical consequence for “universal” Christianity, and the discrete ecclesial entities associated with defined territories are quickly invested with much of the theological fullness of “the Church” on their own. One commonly hears things like, “when the local church gathers for the Eucharist, there is the ‘whole’ Church present”, claims that have real legitimacy from one vantage, but that often reinforce practical justifications for local autonomy. The localist vision of the Church, after all, is often buttressed by just such claims to the universal significance of parochial self-regard. And autonomy sweeps back into the well-swept house, along with its friends.



The continued assertion of communion through the episcopacy’s Scriptural ministry



For all that, however, the reality of Christian communion has maintained a pull on these tendencies to the degree that communion itself is allowed to maintain a vital profile in self-reflection. The 1999 Agreed Report on the Local/Universal Church by the Anglican-Roman Catholic Consultation in the United States of America, for instance, veers all over the place on some of these matters. Yet it nonetheless offers some surprising claims regarding communion especially given the fact that its authors include American Episcopalians. For one thing, the smallest unit of the “local”, according to the Report, is the “diocese”. This means that bishops are the “local” expression of whole (in the familiar sense of embodying the “whole church” while presiding at the Eucharist).

But the explicitly episcopal character of this representation has profound practical implications, most pointedly underlined when episcopal links are “visibly” severed and “mutual recognition” of episcopal communion is jeopardized or lost. If, as the Agreed Report argues, the local is not a “subdivision” of the universal church, nor is the Universal Church an “aggregate” of the local churches, the visible and mutually recognized functioning of the episcopacy must act as the ordering means of their relationship. That is, the bishops bear the responsibility for the congruence of the local to the universal church:

“In sum, we agree that the Church's authentic catholicity requires visible manifestation of the unity of faith in a communion in which the local and the universal church are interdependent and co-constitutive. The unity of the communion is effected by the Eucharist and preserved by its bishops, whose unity with each other is manifested in conciliar practice and primatial service.”

“Conciliar practice” and “primatial service” are, of course, very concrete ministries, and their function can be measured and held accountable, precisely in the acts and manner of gathering, decision-making, and trust-keeping as they are publicly embodied by individual bishops and their leadership. The Windsor Report, in this regard, has forcefully taken up on this vision, and strengthened and nuanced it considerably in a particularly Anglican way by rooting the episcopal character of communion in the commending, teaching, and guarding of Scripture’s authority within the Church. It is a claim, furthermore, that significantly fills out the character of episecopal synodality and conciliar accountability in a way that is not only relevant to present Anglican struggles, but just because of that has been deeply obscured by various parties in these struggles.

For the localist vision of the church refuses to grant such accountability for itself through a universal episcopacy of Scriptural commendation (and in TEC’s case, forthrightly denies the episcopacy itself such a role), while the confessionalist vision, episcopal or otherwise, cannot concede such accountability to synodical judgment. Again, whether one is right or not, neither vision can apparently adjust itself to the character of communion life as it is here expressed.

The character of communion

And this character, as I have emphasized, has not been defined in a novel way. The 1990 Agreed Statement on the Church as Communion by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission still stands as the clearest exposition of what the Church’s life as communion represents (or should), and informs all the reflections engaged by the Windsor Report and before. It is worth citing a central section of the Statement, because it articulates a vision of the church that is simply different than those embodied by Anglicanism’s warring parties, although it comprehends key elements of each:

In the light of all that we have said about communion it is now possible to describe what constitutes ecclesial communion. It is rooted in the confession of the one apostolic faith, revealed in the Scriptures, and set forth in the Creeds. It is founded upon one baptism. The one celebration of the eucharist is its pre-eminent expression and focus. It necessarily finds expression in shared commitment to the mission entrusted by Christ to his Church. It is a life of shared concern for one another in mutual forbearance, submission, gentleness and love; in the placing of the interests of others above the interests of self; in making room for each other in the body of Christ; in solidarity with the poor and the powerless; and in the sharing of gifts both material and spiritual (cf. Acts 2:44). Also constitutive of life in communion is acceptance of the same basic moral values, the sharing of the same vision of humanity created in the image of God and recreated in Christ and the common confession of the one hope in the final consummation of the Kingdom of God.


For the nurture and growth of this communion, Christ the Lord has provided a ministry of oversight, the fullness of which is entrusted to the episcopate, which has the responsibility of maintaining and expressing the unity of the churches. By shepherding, teaching and the celebration of the sacraments, especially the eucharist, this ministry holds believers together in the communion of the local church and in the wider communion of all the churches. This ministry of oversight has both collegial and primatial dimensions. It is grounded in the life of the community and is open to the community's participation in the discovery of God's will. It is exercised so that unity and communion are expressed, preserved and fostered at every level: locally, regionally and universally […]


Throughout history different means have been used to express, preserve and foster this communion between bishops: the participation of bishops of neighboring sees in episcopal ordinations; prayer for bishops of other dioceses in the liturgy; exchanges of episcopal letters. Local churches recognized the necessity of maintaining communion with the principal sees, particularly with the See of Rome. The practice of holding synods or councils, local, provincial, ecumenical, arose from the need to maintain unity in the one apostolic faith.



All these inter-related elements and facets belong to the visible communion of the universal Church. Although their possession cannot guarantee the constant fidelity of Christians, neither can the Church dispense with them. They need to be present in order for one local church to recognize another canonically. This does not mean that a community in which they are present expresses them fully in its life.(The Church as Communion, 45-46).

This is clearly a broad definition that covers much ground. But we should note some key elements that are agreed as being “constitutive” of the church’s communion, and that go beyond simply a common creed or confession: for instance, there are “shared” moral values (an entire Agreed Statement was issued on this topic alone in 1993), common commitments to a single mission for the church, consultation of the faithful, disciplined and committed and engaged counsel by bishops within a common ministry of “oversight”, and submission to one another in accepted standards of behavior one towards another. None of this is spelled out in a way that particularly justifies one group or another within the church. Yet these are all elements that were agreed as being actually “constitutive” of communion; they are not just helpful ancillary aspects. However, it is the case that TEC and many other provinces within the Anglican Communion – and most importantly, their episcopal leadership -- have simply failed to look at themselves and their actions by means of this mirror. Indeed, within both TEC and among the Communion instruments themselves, this Agreed Statement was never officially acted upon, perhaps because of its profound challenge to habits of thinking and living.



The historical reality of imperfect and failed communion: mission and martyrdom



This discomfort is now being recognized. And they are being recognized particularly as the hopes generated by discussions and dialogues give way to the realities of disagreement, division, and unilateral assertions within Anglicanism itself. In 2000, Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops had met together in Canada “to address the imperative for Christian reconciliation and healing in a broken and divided world at the beginning of a new millennium, to assess the progress made in Anglican - Roman Catholic relations and to chart a way forward for the future”. The hopes at the end of that meeting were high, in part because our bishops believed that communion itself was now properly understood and embraced as a calling and could therefore be pursued with confidence. But in late 2006, the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCUM) issued an Agreed Statement on the fruit of the last 40 years of Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue. And six years of reality check had demonstrated that the hopes of just a few years before were too naïve: the disintegration of Anglican common life, embodied in wildly differing views about doctrine, morals, and discipline, had revealed the vast distance between hope and present life.



Still, IARCUM’s sobered evaluation of Anglican-Roman Catholic relations was not a judgment against the vocation of communion itself. Rather, it underlined the fact that, as had already been stated in earlier agreements (cf. Church As Communion, 18, 22), the Church’s communion is a mission, and not a static essence or characteristic of the Church that she holds by virtue of existing in the first place (cf. Section 2). Communion, understood in the fullness outlined above, is a mission, that is, an historical task that must define the shape of our conversion in that it embodies the form in which and the degree to which we have answered the call of Jesus and been taken up by his transforming Spirit. Communion is not a given in the Christian life of the Church, and its own apprehension in time is an instrument of all of the other aspects of evangelical witness through which the conversion of Church and world takes place. Finally, communion defines our conversion because it defines the shape of our judgment in God’s hands: will our love be cold? will the “body be discerned” as we adore God in Christ? will there be faith on earth when Christ returns?



Living through time as the Church in the world, following Jesus in his power and form of power, the Church will continually be thrust into the discomfort of communion’s demands, and faithfulness will ask her to die. This, after all, is the very definition of “oneness” that Jesus himself gives in John 17. If there is such a thing as the missio Dei, “God’s mission” into which we are called – and this has been a common way of articulating our vocation in recent years – it can only be the mission of the Father who “sends” the Son to die in love for the world’s sins, and so bring reconciliation (Jn. 17:21; 1 Jn. 4:10; 2 Cor. 5:14, 19). For “as the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (Jn. 20:21), a mission that includes far more than the doing of good deeds, but demands the conversion of the world through the Cross and Resurrection. This is none other than the missio communionis, the mystery of one “true witness” and martyr who is Jesus Christ (Rev. 1:4; 3:14).



Archbishop Drexel Gomez’s paper on “The Church As Holy”, presented at the 2005 South-South Encounter puts it this way:



Martyrdom’s “for-ness” – for Jesus, for his Word, for his people, and for the world – must lead the Church ever more deeply into a life lived as bound to others. “Greater love has no one that this, that a man should lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13), says Jesus to his disciples, something that Paul then extends to the whole world of sinful creatures: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). What is often called the “communion” of the Church – or the “Church as communion” – is really the expression of the Church’s holiness as the Body of Christ that is “sent out” in order to be “given away” for the world. It is a gift that is formed and lived first within the Body – a giving away for one another, for one’s “friends” (and cf. Rom. 15:1ff; and, of course, Phil. 2:1-11). But it is finally fulfilled in the conformance of the Church’s life to the Father’s own gift of love for the world (“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” – John 3:14). The world hears the Gospel most clearly as the Church “loves” “to the end” (cf. John 15:35; 17:21). Jesus is sent “for” the world. And only a Church that is “for” each other and “for the world” too can itself be “sent” on her holy mission to proclaim a word that saves. In this regard, the ordering of the church’s life in communion is both essential and finally a gift to be used for the salvation of the world. Communion is mission, because it embodies the holiness of God’s own work.





It is only in the context of this missionary sense of communion’s vocation that communion’s incompleteness can be understood from a Christian point of view. It is because communion is a mission undertaken in the limited course of time, a history that itself provides the means and demands of martyrdom, that communion’s imperfection becomes the very instrument of its evangelical perfection: there would be no communion in the Scriptural terms of the Father’s “mission” or “sending of the Son”, did not sin provide the context in which love asks us to die for one another in God.



Here finally, perhaps more than anywhere, we see why communion is something that is driving Anglicans away: for the “saying” of communion is “too hard, and who can listen to it?” (Jn. 6:60). It is “too hard” because it is the vocation of the “body given away”. The vocation is more easily shunted aside; and if obscured, if increasingly felt as undemanding, how can the vocation even be that important? Fear gives way to irresponsible lethargy.



A particular Anglican mission?



But if in fact communion is our missionary vocation, the struggle we are experiencing for grasping its imperative perhaps helps us to see Anglicanism’s special calling in a broken Church. TEC localists are right when they argue that the current burdens of communion – as expressed in the demands of the Anglican Communion upon TEC – do not fit with the political realities of the past. Were we not all once “autonomous”? How can the petitions of others outside our local church now bend our wills? But the localists are quite wrong in thinking that this sense of the historically anachronistic nature of communion derives from the fact that the burdens of communion are some invented novelty manipulated by conservative forces from across the seas. The burdens do not “fit” because they represent a vocation whose demands have long been deferred because of their challenge. It is not homophobia – fear of the “same” (sex) -- that is driving this train away from communion; it is theophobia, the fear of God’s reality; and hence most truly, it is heterophobia, the fear of what is truly “other”, that is the culprit.



And Anglican confessionalists are also right in thinking that the doctrinal and moral demands of communion have been increasingly contradicted by, among others, the localists themselves. But they are wrong in thinking that therefore the burdens of communion have been abrogated by another’s difficulty in following. Just the opposite: in this unwillingness, we are being confronted with our vocation ever more profoundly, so that the Lord may not say, “they went out, that it might be plain that they are not of us” (1 Jn. 2:19). The “burden” of communion are to be borne by “one another” (Gal. 5:2). If there is a special calling being issued to Anglicanism, a calling within the larger and difficult vocation of communion for the entire Church of Christ, is it not to suffer communion’s judgment among ourselves, so that our healing might mean in fact “life from the dead” (Rom. 11:15) and so stir up the churches and give glory to God?



What Anglicans in general seem to have forgotten is that we are on a mission. Both localists and confessionalists, each in their own way, have perceived the church (their own) as “sufficient” unto itself, as the place or act of faith by which the Church is fully subsistent in their midst. But what the (imperfect) communion of the Church tells us is that our life as Christians now is “not yet already obtained” in its perfection (Phil. 3:12), and that it is only in pressing forward “to make it our own” (3:13) that the Church will find its subsistent reality. And what this pressing forward in the mission of communion tells Anglicans, in our deferral of this mission, is that we are called to the judgment and transformation of ecclesial lives, “bearing on our bodies the marks of Christ” (Gal. 6:17), so that the Church might “carry around the life of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:10). Of all people, we are being called to subject ourselves to communion for the sake of the mission of communion that is given to all Christians. We are called to be molded by the force of communion so that communion can be apprehended and taken up by all. If Anglicanism is a “model”, it is a model in the New Testament sense of those ancient architectural models, imagined, worked through, constructed in miniature for copying, and then finally destroyed when the true building is wrought (Heb. 8:5; 9:23). Such a church in mission is always a provisional church, one that seeks something greater, grasping it “from afar” (Heb. 11:13).



There is nothing grim about this, however difficult the calling may appear. As Archbishop Gomez has noted in another recent essay, the broadly and astonishingly expansive life of Anglicanism has acted to draw more and more people, in all their differences and recalcitrance, into the molding power of communion’s current. It is a current that has acted as a formative equipping, even as it has demonstrated – just as Jesus prayed – that the Father has truly sent the Son into the world and that this truth holds the power to change us:



[T]he fundamental missionary thrust of Anglican life has not provided a continuing set of invented ways of being the church. Rather, the Anglican way of being an ordered vessel for the Gospel’s energy has provided a revelation of sorts, an uncovering of the world, and of the nations, and of the power of the Gospel to work among them. These revelations, that have moved the Anglican Church into that family of churches around the world, have matured the order of the church, not rebuilt it. Until the recent fragmentation of common prayer in several parts of the Communion, it was possible to find more or less the same vehicles of Scriptural adoration and praise present in this or that setting in any number of national churches. And, in theory, that vehicle is still indwelt in common. But within this, the order has required a recognition of those who are present and gathered in this vast crowd. The missionary thrust of Anglicanism has meant that we are still discovering, in places where we had not thought to look or forgotten to revisit, that the Gospel lives, that people hear, that there is power in Christ to make us new and make us one (“On Being Anglican In The 21st Century”, Temple Lecture, Blackburn Cathedral, March, 2007)



The particular ministry of Anglicanism within the larger church is thus to be a school for communion, for the koinonia that can only arise from a specific form of evangelism and ecclesial life that, through its outgoing reach, raises up the challenges of the Body of Christ as judgment and opportunity both. That is its constant demand for conversion and change, offered not only to the world, but to the Church as she is renewed by the Spirit of Christ constantly speaking to her and calling her out (Rev. 3:19-22).



To grasp this calling is to see how mistaken is the attempt to view the Anglican church primarily in terms of its political – read “canonical” – character. It is a missionary church that has been given a particular task by God, and its mission must necessarily define the meaning of its canons. This is why, for instance, the recent TEC House of Bishops claim to be the sole interpreters of TEC’s Constitution in the area of its relation to the Anglican Communion is so wrong-headed. Not only is it a suspect claim on purely legal grounds, but it is clearly a false claim on ecclesiological grounds, the grounds upon which the church of Jesus Christ is built and lives. For that ground is the church’s vocation from God, and nothing less. To use the canonical instruments of polity – according to or in contradiction of their letter – to evade such a vocation is a Jonah-like act of betrayal that can only bring destruction upon all who are touched by it. So we pray for the renewal of the “sign of Jonah”, Jesus’ sign, in our midst today (Mt. 12:39; 16:4)!



The School for Communion: the Rule of Anglicanism



To be a “school for communion” is itself hardly a novel ministry and mission. The “church as school” is an image that goes back to the Fathers of the Church, and St. Bernard made the phrase famous when speaking of the monastery as a schola caritatis, a school of charity (the title to a fine book by Evelyn Underhill on the Creed). He was drawing on Benedict’s own description, in his Rule, of the monks’ common life as a “school for the service of the Lord” (dominici schola servitii –Prologue), whose purpose is to “build up charity” through a disciplined life of mutual obedience, accountability, and, of course, prayer. The Benedictine scholar of Pachomius, Armand Veilleux, has quite explicitly reflected on “Benedictine Life as School of Communion” (a talk from 1996), carried out on a number of different levels of relationship, from communion with God, through communion within the local community and larger church, to the world as a whole. More particularly, he also sees this school as a specific kind of “charism” that is entrusted to the community by God for the sake of the larger Church and in a way that is accountable to the larger Church: living in Christian communion is a service that is properly fulfilled only as it is subject to the needs and counsels of the Church as a whole.



There is a good argument to be made that the Anglican reform of the 16th-century functioned as a laicization, a re-embodiment in the form of the people of the church as a whole, of, in a broad sense, the Benedictine vocation. Especially on the level of “common prayer” and the church’s ordering, the English reform provided quite concretely to the people as a whole the same charism previously entrusted to an order of monks or nuns, and derivatively, to the priesthood alone. The cultum Dei, or the “service of God” as Cranmer put it (using a phrase central to the medieval description of Israel and the Church’s vocation), was, according to the English Reform, to be taken up by the people in a common and practiced manner: they would read or hear the Scriptures articulated “through” in their breadth and prayed together in a disciplined and ordered fashion, and they would do this for their “edification” in godliness. Cranmer’s Preface to the 1549 Book of Common Prayer makes this clear, and specifically describes the Reform in terms of this popular reordering of what had become an increasingly marginalized and constricted monastic and clerical vocation (or so the Reformers thought). The Benedictine character of this simple, singular, and whole-scale reappropriation of the dominici schola servitii for the people of the church (and nation) as a body has been noted by many (cf. Peter Anson in his The Call of the Cloister and other books dealing with British and Anglican monasticism; his book on Bishops At Large also – a history of 19th-century self-appointed vicars of unity and orthodoxy -- makes salutary reading for Anglicans today). While never particularly self-conscious, especially as Anglicanism both developed and spread around the world, this Benedictine character is embedded in the purpose of the Book of Common Prayer’s essential and formative place in Anglican mission. Unless we grasp it, we cannot understand the nature of Anglicanism’s peculiar vocation with respect to communion and we frequently distort it.



It is not, therefore, the serendipity of ecumenical scheduling that led the Archbishop of Canterbury recently to speak of “Benedict and the Future of Europe” while visiting Rome in November, 2006. Although addressing a specifically political and cultural issue touching European society as a whole, he might well have been addressing the Anglican Communion, and his remarks certainly derived from a self-conscious understanding of Anglicanism’s peculiar and transposed “Benedictine” charism. Williams outlines three elements of Benedictine life that the political culture of the West needs to reclaim: the structuring of time away from simple production and entertainment, and towards human growth (in and through God); the character of obedience as mutual discernment and support within an ordered life in common; the commitment to full participation by all – the offering and receiving of support -- within the common life. In the Rule itself, these elements are explained in a different order, where the virtues of desire, charity, and humility, whose practiced coincidence within the order of time that Williams points to, are honed into the instruments of holiness through the molding force of obedience itself – obedience to the Rule, to the common life and counsel of the community, and to the abbot. All of which, of course, constitute obedience to the call of the Scriptures into holiness of life.



And it is this molding context of obedience that gives substance to the reality of communion in a way that provides that concrete traction communion seems to be missing in modern discussions. The presence of a Rule, according to which behavior can be yearned after, aimed, and measured; the actual discussions held in common, carried out in the wisdom of listening and attentiveness (as Williams rightly describes it); and the discerning, humble, yet ultimately decisive authority of the abbot that is to preside over, yet with the others subject himself to, these elements – all this represents an actual way of life that has been and remains embodied in the actual relationships of men and women over the centuries within Benedictine communities. These elements underline, in fact, some of the weaknesses of discussing “communion” apart from the more robust substratum of the Church as the “body of Christ”, whose tangible contours, in all their imperfections, are exactly what allows communion to descend from the level of the ideal or the abstract to the vocation of the Cross and Resurrection’s disciples.



It is because the vocation itself is so real as to be susceptible to stumbling before the failures of human faithlessness, that the local community is accountable to the larger Church: a charism, as Veilleux stresses, is always a “trust” on behalf of the Church, not a possession. And if it is misused, it is for the Church to discipline and redirect that trust’s usage. The famous Chapter 64 of the Rule states, with respect to the abbot’s election, that “if the [local] community elects someone who encourages their wickedness, and this is made known to the bishop of the diocese or other abbots and good Christians in the area, these should then annul the choice. And they should choose a worthy overseer of God’s House”. Although Benedictine houses are “independent” in their governance, one from another (and since the Middle Ages have been independent even of diocesan supervision), the Rule here makes it clear that there is no such thing as autonomy of vocation, but rather a responsibility to the Church which has, by definition, the authority and indeed the calling to put right locally what undermines the Gospel and the communion it entails.



This ought to describe the general form of Anglicanism’s own mission in a larger ecclesial shape: as a schola communionis, her local bodies evangelize in the peculiar way of forming, through the Scripture’s molding force, the nations and their recalcitrant energies for a life lived in the commonality of Christ’s body within a broken world. A sense of locality is necessary for this, by definition, since it is a particular people’s specificities of life and death, of sin and hope, that are the objects and subjects of Christian communion’s imperative. But the mission itself itnota local one, and it is answerable to – in the sense of being called out and called to account by – the larger Church and the breadth and gathering of her many localities, whose embracing communion represents the prayer of our Lord at work (Jn. 5:17)and the power of his death and resurrected life. Every attempt, by contrast, to make the Church subsist self-sufficiently apart from this responsible accountability is a contradiction and abandonment of the charism with which Anglicanism has been entrusted. Like salt that has lost its savor, it is worth no more than to be trampled underfoot (Mt. 5:13).



Anglicanism’s final challenge?



This is why, in my opinion, the proposed Covenant is so important – if the Anglican Communion can survive long enough to articulate it and receive it. For with a clearer sense of its peculiar mission, Anglicanism now needs also a “rule” by which to order its formational existence, which stands at the heart of its vocation. In this sense the Covenant needs to be revised in a way that better expresses not only the vocation itself – communion in the Gospel and Body of Christ – but also the formational means by which obedience can mold the virtues of this missionary life. But this very challenge, it seems, has been derailed in its urgency by the mistaken and internecine claims of localism and confessionalism, which would strip the Church of her body and her history both.



There are no doubt other ways to approach the vocation of communion, if it is a vocation at all. Who has taken the time these last months – now mounting into years – to ask? For what is not acceptable is the insistent silencing of the question at this point in time. While localism and confessionalism churn their way through the fields of the church, leaving only stubble for a Communion, the lethargy of ignorance and denial over the question itself is like a flame set to the barren stalks. We seek some other outcome. But perhaps the fire is already set, and another prayer of our Lord is wending its way to fulfillment (Lk. 12:49).



Last Updated ( Monday, 07 May 2007 )