Taking Counsel

From Fr. Dan Martins via BabyBlueOnline:

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

I have had this information for some time, and was never asked to embargo it. Nonetheless, it seemed best to wait until the event was actually in progress. It now is.

Seven diocesan bishops of the Episcopal Church are presently at Lambeth Palace for a brief--but, I'm sure, intense--consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury. All seven are members of the Communion Partners, and all seven are signatories to the Anaheim Statement.

I have no inside knowledge of the subjects under discussion, but it doesn't require any eavesdropping equipment to figure out that they're talking about how Dr Williams' "two tier/two track" plan might actually get implemented. More specifically, it is a safe bet that each of the seven is interested in what steps a diocese might have to take to remain on Tier/Track One even as TEC per se is assigned (consigned?) to Tier/Track Two.

The Archbishop's schema is going to happen; of that I am more certain than ever. It will happen too quickly and too decisively to suit the ruling party in the Episcopal Church. It is long since past happening too slowly and too subtly to suit those in what had been TEC's conservative wing, and who are now part of the GAFCON-ACNA axis. But the Archbishop has behaved with utter consistency and coherence since the advent of this crisis in 2003, and there is no reason to think he will deviate from that path now. He will never send the Presiding Bishop an email saying, "The tracks have been assigned. You're in #2." He will say something like, "Here's the Anglican Covenant. Churches that adopt it as their own will remain in full communion with the See of Canterbury."

The General Convention, of course, will never do so. In time, the consequences of that decision will be seen in the form of invitations to Primates Meetings that never reach 815, and registration materials for the Anglican Consultative Council that never make it to TEC's chosen delegates. It will not come with a bang. It won't even be a whimper. It will simply be the sound of silence.

The wild card in the mix, of course, is the ACNA. Despite the word "Anglican" in their title (and on the signs in front of their churches), it could be plausibly argued that the ACNA, technically, is not Anglican. Not yet, at any rate. But they are aligned with GAFCON, which represents the overwhelming majority of the world's actual Anglicans. So they are part of a matrix that is capable of putting immense political pressure on Lambeth Palace. I suspect the seven bishops and Dr Williams are discussing this fact as well.

So I pray ... and wait ... and pray. Like my bishop (one of the seven, of course), I have neither an intent nor a desire to separate from the Episcopal Church. I also have neither an intent nor a desire to be in anything less than full unhindered communion with the See of Canterbury (read: Track One). There is, admittedly, some tension between these twin commitments. I am looking for a way to honor both of them, and have hope that the next step in such a way is having a light shined on it by what's happening in London right now.


Posted by Dan Martins at 10:23 PM