LA, LA, LA, LA, LA!!

from Midwest Conservative Journal by The Editor

ROWAN WILLIAMS CAN’T HEAR YOU!!

"Let me give an outline of what I want to say in the half an hour or so available. The strong convergence in these agreements about what the Church of God really is, is very striking. The various agreed statements of the churches stress that the Church is a community, in which human beings are made sons and daughters of God, and reconciled both with God and one another. The Church celebrates this through the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion in which God acts upon us to transform us ‘in communion’. More detailed questions about ordained ministry and other issues have been framed in this context."

Debatable. If your Christian tradition allows a person into a position of church leadership who denies all tenets of the Christian faith(i. e. John Shelby Spong) and then makes no effort whatsoever to remove that man or even express a corporate rebuke of him, your alleged “agreement about what the Church of God really is” can and should be called into serious question by anyone with a functioning intellect.

"Therefore the major question that remains is whether in the light of that depth of agreement the issues that still divide us have the same weight"

Yes.

"issues about authority in the Church, about primacy (especially the unique position of the pope),"

Yes.

"and the relations between the local churches and the universal church in making decisions (about matters like the ordination of women, for instance). "

Yes.

"Are they theological questions in the same sense as the bigger issues on which there is already clear agreement?"

Given that they presuppose two readings of Scripture that are fundamentally at odds, I’d have to go with yes here too.

"And if they are, how exactly is it that they make a difference to our basic understanding of salvation and communion? "

See above.

"But if they are not, why do they still stand in the way of fullervisible unity?"

Ditto.

"Can there, for example, be a model of unity as a communion of churches which have different attitudes to how the papal primacy is expressed?"

Given the following, I’m thinking not.

"It is of course impossible to open up these issues without some brief reference to issues of very immediate interest in the lives of the Anglican and Roman Catholic communions. The current proposals for a Covenant between Anglican provinces represent an effort to create not a centralised decision-making executive but a ‘community of communities’ that can manage to sustain a mutually nourishing and mutually critical life, with all consenting to certain protocols of decision-making together. As Harvesting notes, Anglicans have been challenged to flesh out their rhetoric about communion through the crises and controversies of recent years, and this is simply part of a variegated response that will, no doubt, continue for a good while yet to be refined and formulated."

In other words, a church that can actually decide stuff now and then can be in communion with a church that avoids actual decisions like the plague. Can’t see it happening, Your Grace. And I doubt that the Holy Father can see it happening either.