I meet and interview a transgendered Anglican lady.
You will be stunned at what I learned.
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
8/28/2009
Dear VOL readers,
LITTLE DID I KNOW what was in store for me when I accepted a lunch invitation from a VOL reader whom I had never met. Soon, I found myself seated at a nearby Chinese restaurant, opposite a lady who proceeded to tell me that she is a transgendered person.
Specifically, she believes she was born with a condition called gender dysphoria, commonly known as transsexualism. I have never had an in-depth, face-to-face conversation with a person who had had a sex change operation, a person who was once a man and is now very much a woman. This may well be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me.
For the rest of the story, go to:
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=11098
Monday, August 31, 2009
Methodists Say No to Lutheran Gay Clergy
Via VirtueOnline:
by Lillian Kwon
Christian Post Reporter
August 27, 2009
Lutheran ministers who are in same-sex relationships will not be allowed to serve as clergy in United Methodist congregations despite the new full communion agreement between the two denominations.
Bishop Gregory Palmer, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, made clear on Wednesday that UMC's ban on noncelibate gay clergy still stands.
"Our Book of Discipline on that subject did not become null and void when they took that vote," said Palmer, according to the United Methodist News Service. "It still applies to United Methodist clergy."
Palmer was referring to the highly publicized vote last week by the chief legislative body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to approve a resolution allowing gays and lesbians in "life-long, monogamous, same gender relationships" to be ordained.
The controversial vote took place a day after ELCA delegates overwhelmingly adopted a full communion agreement with The United Methodist Church.
Full communion is not tantamount to a merger, church officials said. Instead, under the pact each church acknowledges the other as a partner in the Christian faith, recognizes the authenticity of each other's baptism and Eucharist, and is committed to working together toward greater unity.
The two denominations also express mutual recognition of ordained ministers for service in either church, according to the agreement. Some UMC leaders have already expressed eagerness to share clergy in underserved areas, as reported by the United Methodist News Service.
Although the agreement recognizes full interchangeability of all ordained ministers, UMC congregations will not be accepting partnered homosexuals from the ELCA.
As Palmer stressed, "the doctrine, polity and standards of ministry of the respective denominations in any full communion agreement are not wiped out when one denomination does something."
Last year, the highest legislative body of The United Methodist Church rejected changes to its constitution and voted to uphold its ban against the ordination of practicing homosexuals. United Methodists continue to hold that homosexual practice is "incompatible with Christian teaching."
Michael Trice, an ecumenical officer of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, noted that if partnered homosexuals in the ELCA want to serve in a United Methodist congregation, The United Methodist Church can say to them "we are sorry but that does not fit our protocols."
"Unity does not require uniformity in all cases," said Trice. "It requires faithfulness to the Gospel, honesty with our Christian partners, and wherever we can share a sense of mission and service in the world."
The agreement with the ELCA is UMC's first full communion relationship outside the Methodist tradition. The ELCA, meanwhile, has full communion pacts with The Episcopal Church, Moravian Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ.
END
by Lillian Kwon
Christian Post Reporter
August 27, 2009
Lutheran ministers who are in same-sex relationships will not be allowed to serve as clergy in United Methodist congregations despite the new full communion agreement between the two denominations.
Bishop Gregory Palmer, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, made clear on Wednesday that UMC's ban on noncelibate gay clergy still stands.
"Our Book of Discipline on that subject did not become null and void when they took that vote," said Palmer, according to the United Methodist News Service. "It still applies to United Methodist clergy."
Palmer was referring to the highly publicized vote last week by the chief legislative body of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to approve a resolution allowing gays and lesbians in "life-long, monogamous, same gender relationships" to be ordained.
The controversial vote took place a day after ELCA delegates overwhelmingly adopted a full communion agreement with The United Methodist Church.
Full communion is not tantamount to a merger, church officials said. Instead, under the pact each church acknowledges the other as a partner in the Christian faith, recognizes the authenticity of each other's baptism and Eucharist, and is committed to working together toward greater unity.
The two denominations also express mutual recognition of ordained ministers for service in either church, according to the agreement. Some UMC leaders have already expressed eagerness to share clergy in underserved areas, as reported by the United Methodist News Service.
Although the agreement recognizes full interchangeability of all ordained ministers, UMC congregations will not be accepting partnered homosexuals from the ELCA.
As Palmer stressed, "the doctrine, polity and standards of ministry of the respective denominations in any full communion agreement are not wiped out when one denomination does something."
Last year, the highest legislative body of The United Methodist Church rejected changes to its constitution and voted to uphold its ban against the ordination of practicing homosexuals. United Methodists continue to hold that homosexual practice is "incompatible with Christian teaching."
Michael Trice, an ecumenical officer of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, noted that if partnered homosexuals in the ELCA want to serve in a United Methodist congregation, The United Methodist Church can say to them "we are sorry but that does not fit our protocols."
"Unity does not require uniformity in all cases," said Trice. "It requires faithfulness to the Gospel, honesty with our Christian partners, and wherever we can share a sense of mission and service in the world."
The agreement with the ELCA is UMC's first full communion relationship outside the Methodist tradition. The ELCA, meanwhile, has full communion pacts with The Episcopal Church, Moravian Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America and the United Church of Christ.
END
Re-thinking how we do church
From the Anglican Journal via TitusOneNine:
Is it possible to grow the Anglican Church in Canada today? Rev. Gary Nicolosi’s response is an emphatic ‘yes.’
Sep 1, 2009
When it comes to declining enrolment in the Anglican Church of Canada, there is hope. In the first of a series of articles about a paradigm shift taking place across Canada, Rev. Gary Nicolosi, congregational development officer for the diocese of British Columbia, talks to Journal editor Kristin Jenkins about how we got here and what we can do about it.
THE FIRST THING you notice about Rev. Gary Nicolosi is that he speaks in sound bytes. He’s a passionate, articulate man and when he talks, people listen.
“This is the number one issue for the church today,” he tells a roomful of diocesan editors at the recent Anglican Editors Association conference in Victoria. “Yes, the stats are grim but we have to keep hope alive.” Even for this somewhat cynical crew, you can hear a pin drop.
Mr. Nicolosi is talking about the fact that the Anglican Church in Canada has lost more than half of its membership in the past 50 years. People just aren’t coming to church the way they used to. As a result, the number of people in the pews has plummeted by 53 percent, from 1.3 million in 1961 down to 658,000 in 2001. Citing statistics from Reginald Bibby’s Project Canada, The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, Statistics Canada and The Living Church, a U.S. Episcopal Church magazine, Mr. Nicolosi calls the drop in membership “precipitous.” When the census is taken in 2011, he warns, “I think the numbers are going to be under 600,000. I think people are going to be shocked.”
Tell people the truth, Mr. Nicolosi implores us, no matter how painful or humiliating. “God is a new god of transformation and death is not the end of the Christian story. We can move on.”
By the numbers
Canadian membership in an Anglican church
1961: 1.3 million
2001: 658,000
Percentage decrease: 53
Anglicans who attend church at least twice a month
325,000
American membership in the Episcopal church
1965: 3.5 million
2007: 2.2 million
Percentage decrease: 55
Statistics on average worship attendance, a key indicator of how healthy a church is, show that there are even fewer committed Anglicans going to church than we think. Of the 9,200 Anglicans enrolled in the diocese of British Columbia in 2007, for instance, only 4,755 actually made the effort to come to church two or more times a month. “These are the attenders and the givers,” points out Mr. Nicolosi, “and they determine the viability of a church.”
Look through this lens on a national level and declining membership drops to a shocking 325,000. “People are dying and we’re not replenishing the ranks,” says Mr. Nicolosi. “Our baptisms are not keeping up with the funerals.”
A transplanted American now living in Victoria, Mr. Nicolosi holds degrees from Temple University School of Law (J.D.), Trinity College, University of Toronto (M. Div.) and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (D. Min.).
Working closely with Bishop Jim Cowan and the diocesan congregational development team, Mr. Nicolosi is helping the 54 churches in the diocese grow as vital centers of mission and ministry. He also works with parish clergy and lay leaders to develop leadership skills for growing their congregations.
Work in other dioceses is taking root as well. In the diocese of New Westminster, a major strategic plan to revitalize the dioceses is in the works,” says Mr. Nicolosi. “It’s not fundraising. It’s re-thinking how we do church.”
The dioceses of Niagara, Toronto and Caledonia are also taking the issue of congregational development very seriously, says Mr. Nicolosi. And he points out examples of churches that are bucking the trend and growing their flock, including Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver and Trinity Church in Streetsville, Ont.
The good news about declining membership is that Anglicans will not have to “reinvent the wheel,” says Mr. Nicolosi. But we have to start talking as a crucial first step. “We talk about international issues over which we have little or no control or we talk about sexuality. We have allowed this to happen.”
There are no simple solutions. Each parish is unique. Still, some basic principles apply. For one, ministry has to be intentional, says Mr. Nicolosi. Being able to meet people where they’re at – not where we want them to be – is an important building block of congregational development.
“We need to get back to how to reach people, to understand them and to connect with them. We can’t just assume that they will come to us,” says Mr. Nicolosi. It also means coming to terms with where the mission culture actually resides. “It’s outside your front door, not in Africa,” he says.
Quantitative benchmarks are crucial. If you don’t measure, you’ll just end up with the status quo, says Mr. Nicolosi. “I think that we need to be sensitive to the intangibles and the pastoral side of the ministry but we also need to recognize that numbers matter. They don’t tell the whole story but they do tell part of it.”
Money is never the problem, he adds. Instead, underlying currents in the parish that affect giving, such as conflict, director style or the death of parishioners, affect the viability of a church.
In developed countries, including the U.S., England and the rest of Europe, membership and average attendance also are down. Fewer than one million attend church regularly in England, where the mother church is officially 28-million strong. “They just go to have the baby christened and never come back,” says Mr. Nicolosi.
In the U.S., the ranks of the Episcopal Church have thinned by 55 percent, dropping from a peak of 3.5 million in 1964 to 2.2 million in 2007.
Still, declining church attendance is not universal. Attendance at the Pentecostal, Baptist and Christian Missionary Alliance churches is growing. “Evangelicals don’t just study the Bible, they study the culture and then connect the two,” says Mr. Nicolosi.
Given the substantial age gap between the average Anglican (upper 60s) and the average Canadian (upper 30s), growing churches where the demographic is different from the outside community will be a challenge. The key is to build on strengths, says Mr. Nicolosi. If the congregation is made up of elderly parishioners, don’t start by building a youth ministry. The effort will suffer for lack of resources and staffing.
Can the Anglican Church of Canada change its approach without compromising its values to attract new members? Ultimately, changing an organization that is used to doing things the same way for so many years is profound.
There is no easy resolution but finding the answers does matter, says Mr. Nicolosi. “Christianity is always one generation away from extinction, so we all have a responsibility. If we are truly conservative,” he points out, “then we are conserving what is essential.”
Is it possible to grow the Anglican Church in Canada today? Rev. Gary Nicolosi’s response is an emphatic ‘yes.’
Sep 1, 2009
When it comes to declining enrolment in the Anglican Church of Canada, there is hope. In the first of a series of articles about a paradigm shift taking place across Canada, Rev. Gary Nicolosi, congregational development officer for the diocese of British Columbia, talks to Journal editor Kristin Jenkins about how we got here and what we can do about it.
THE FIRST THING you notice about Rev. Gary Nicolosi is that he speaks in sound bytes. He’s a passionate, articulate man and when he talks, people listen.
“This is the number one issue for the church today,” he tells a roomful of diocesan editors at the recent Anglican Editors Association conference in Victoria. “Yes, the stats are grim but we have to keep hope alive.” Even for this somewhat cynical crew, you can hear a pin drop.
Mr. Nicolosi is talking about the fact that the Anglican Church in Canada has lost more than half of its membership in the past 50 years. People just aren’t coming to church the way they used to. As a result, the number of people in the pews has plummeted by 53 percent, from 1.3 million in 1961 down to 658,000 in 2001. Citing statistics from Reginald Bibby’s Project Canada, The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, Statistics Canada and The Living Church, a U.S. Episcopal Church magazine, Mr. Nicolosi calls the drop in membership “precipitous.” When the census is taken in 2011, he warns, “I think the numbers are going to be under 600,000. I think people are going to be shocked.”
Tell people the truth, Mr. Nicolosi implores us, no matter how painful or humiliating. “God is a new god of transformation and death is not the end of the Christian story. We can move on.”
By the numbers
Canadian membership in an Anglican church
1961: 1.3 million
2001: 658,000
Percentage decrease: 53
Anglicans who attend church at least twice a month
325,000
American membership in the Episcopal church
1965: 3.5 million
2007: 2.2 million
Percentage decrease: 55
Statistics on average worship attendance, a key indicator of how healthy a church is, show that there are even fewer committed Anglicans going to church than we think. Of the 9,200 Anglicans enrolled in the diocese of British Columbia in 2007, for instance, only 4,755 actually made the effort to come to church two or more times a month. “These are the attenders and the givers,” points out Mr. Nicolosi, “and they determine the viability of a church.”
Look through this lens on a national level and declining membership drops to a shocking 325,000. “People are dying and we’re not replenishing the ranks,” says Mr. Nicolosi. “Our baptisms are not keeping up with the funerals.”
A transplanted American now living in Victoria, Mr. Nicolosi holds degrees from Temple University School of Law (J.D.), Trinity College, University of Toronto (M. Div.) and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (D. Min.).
Working closely with Bishop Jim Cowan and the diocesan congregational development team, Mr. Nicolosi is helping the 54 churches in the diocese grow as vital centers of mission and ministry. He also works with parish clergy and lay leaders to develop leadership skills for growing their congregations.
Work in other dioceses is taking root as well. In the diocese of New Westminster, a major strategic plan to revitalize the dioceses is in the works,” says Mr. Nicolosi. “It’s not fundraising. It’s re-thinking how we do church.”
The dioceses of Niagara, Toronto and Caledonia are also taking the issue of congregational development very seriously, says Mr. Nicolosi. And he points out examples of churches that are bucking the trend and growing their flock, including Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver and Trinity Church in Streetsville, Ont.
The good news about declining membership is that Anglicans will not have to “reinvent the wheel,” says Mr. Nicolosi. But we have to start talking as a crucial first step. “We talk about international issues over which we have little or no control or we talk about sexuality. We have allowed this to happen.”
There are no simple solutions. Each parish is unique. Still, some basic principles apply. For one, ministry has to be intentional, says Mr. Nicolosi. Being able to meet people where they’re at – not where we want them to be – is an important building block of congregational development.
“We need to get back to how to reach people, to understand them and to connect with them. We can’t just assume that they will come to us,” says Mr. Nicolosi. It also means coming to terms with where the mission culture actually resides. “It’s outside your front door, not in Africa,” he says.
Quantitative benchmarks are crucial. If you don’t measure, you’ll just end up with the status quo, says Mr. Nicolosi. “I think that we need to be sensitive to the intangibles and the pastoral side of the ministry but we also need to recognize that numbers matter. They don’t tell the whole story but they do tell part of it.”
Money is never the problem, he adds. Instead, underlying currents in the parish that affect giving, such as conflict, director style or the death of parishioners, affect the viability of a church.
In developed countries, including the U.S., England and the rest of Europe, membership and average attendance also are down. Fewer than one million attend church regularly in England, where the mother church is officially 28-million strong. “They just go to have the baby christened and never come back,” says Mr. Nicolosi.
In the U.S., the ranks of the Episcopal Church have thinned by 55 percent, dropping from a peak of 3.5 million in 1964 to 2.2 million in 2007.
Still, declining church attendance is not universal. Attendance at the Pentecostal, Baptist and Christian Missionary Alliance churches is growing. “Evangelicals don’t just study the Bible, they study the culture and then connect the two,” says Mr. Nicolosi.
Given the substantial age gap between the average Anglican (upper 60s) and the average Canadian (upper 30s), growing churches where the demographic is different from the outside community will be a challenge. The key is to build on strengths, says Mr. Nicolosi. If the congregation is made up of elderly parishioners, don’t start by building a youth ministry. The effort will suffer for lack of resources and staffing.
Can the Anglican Church of Canada change its approach without compromising its values to attract new members? Ultimately, changing an organization that is used to doing things the same way for so many years is profound.
There is no easy resolution but finding the answers does matter, says Mr. Nicolosi. “Christianity is always one generation away from extinction, so we all have a responsibility. If we are truly conservative,” he points out, “then we are conserving what is essential.”
Gay bishop attacks 'two-track' Anglican vision as 'abhorrent to Jesus'
I agree with VGR that the two track church is abhorrent to Jesus. Jesus, according to the apostolic tradition, would have pecusa totally removed from any real part of the Church. ed.
From The Scotsman via Stand Firm:
Published Date: 30 August 2009
By Tim Moynihan
THE first openly gay bishop in the Anglican communion yesterday criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion of a possible "two-track" church. Gene Robinson, the Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire, said: "I can't imagine anything that would be more abhorrent to Jesus than a two-tier church.
"Either we are children of God and brothers and sisters in Christ, or we aren't. There are not preferred children and second-class children. There are just children of God."
It emerged last month that Archbishop Dr Rowan Williams had spoken of a "two-track" church to deal with divisions over homosexuality within the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Dr Williams said such a move was a possibility as Anglicanism struggles to find a new set of rules to deal with issues such as teaching on homosexuality.
A "twofold ecclesial reality" would allow for a global Anglican body that shared certain teachings, he said, with local churches relating to this body but in less formal ways.
Last month, Scotland on Sunday revealed senior Scots clergyman, the Very Reverend Kelvin Holdsworth, provost of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, had called on Holyrood to change the law to allow same-sex partners to marry in church, in the same way as straight couples.
From The Scotsman via Stand Firm:
Published Date: 30 August 2009
By Tim Moynihan
THE first openly gay bishop in the Anglican communion yesterday criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion of a possible "two-track" church. Gene Robinson, the Episcopalian bishop of New Hampshire, said: "I can't imagine anything that would be more abhorrent to Jesus than a two-tier church.
"Either we are children of God and brothers and sisters in Christ, or we aren't. There are not preferred children and second-class children. There are just children of God."
It emerged last month that Archbishop Dr Rowan Williams had spoken of a "two-track" church to deal with divisions over homosexuality within the worldwide Anglican Communion.
Dr Williams said such a move was a possibility as Anglicanism struggles to find a new set of rules to deal with issues such as teaching on homosexuality.
A "twofold ecclesial reality" would allow for a global Anglican body that shared certain teachings, he said, with local churches relating to this body but in less formal ways.
Last month, Scotland on Sunday revealed senior Scots clergyman, the Very Reverend Kelvin Holdsworth, provost of St Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow, had called on Holyrood to change the law to allow same-sex partners to marry in church, in the same way as straight couples.
Interview with Bishop Martyn Minns
Anglican TV has interviewed the missionary bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. It can be found at:
http://babybluecafe.blogspot.com/2009/08/interview-with-bishop-martyn-minns.html
http://babybluecafe.blogspot.com/2009/08/interview-with-bishop-martyn-minns.html
Saturday, August 29, 2009
A New Sexual Ethic: Coming to a Parish Near You
From the American Anglican Council via a DCNY blog reader:
August 28, 2009
By Ralinda B. Gregor
A recent Huffington Post editorial by Unitarian Universalist minister Debra Haffner noted this has been a "stunning year for LGBT equality in the life of the Protestant churches."
However, she lamented that the focus on "lifelong committed relationships" by the Lutheran Church (ELCA) leaves out single adults (including clergy) who choose to have sex outside of marriage.
It is within this framework that she presents her pitch for a "new sexual ethic" proposed by the organization she heads, the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing, which seeks to "change the way America understands the relationship of sexuality and religion."
Just how they seek to change it is outlined in the organization's Religious Declaration which describes a new sexual ethic based on "personal relationships and social justice rather than particular sexual acts." The declaration states that "All persons have the right and responsibility to lead sexual lives that express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent, and pleasure" and that right "applies to all persons, without regard to sex, gender, color, age, bodily condition, marital status, or sexual orientation." It calls for the ordination of "sexual minorities" and the blessing of same-sex unions. The declaration also calls on faith communities to advocate for "sexual and reproductive rights" including abortion.
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) developed and released the declaration with 850 signatures in January 2000. Since then, the declaration has gathered more than 3,200 signatures from ordained clergy, professional religious educators, theologians, and staff of religious institutions.
Unfortunately, Haffner's editorial and the Religious Declaration are not just the opinions of extremist liberal clergy who are far removed from the average biblically orthodox Episcopalian or Anglican in the United States. The AAC notes with concern that those endorsers include 263 Episcopal clergy, staff and professors of Episcopal seminaries, including several bishops, executive council members and a former presiding bishop, along with many of the well known advocates for sexual freedom in The Episcopal Church (TEC). By signing this declaration, they are not just advocating LGBT sexual "rights," but the holiness of all consensual sex between lay or clergy people of any age, marital status or sexual orientation. And because this degree of promiscuity may likely result in unwanted pregnancies, they also advocate for-and thereby bless-abortion.
The recent decisions by General Convention to allow "pastoral generosity" in blessing same sex unions and to overturn the moratorium on non-celibate homosexual bishops also suggest that this "new sexual ethic" permeates TEC. Both resolutions (C056 and D025) received overwhelming support by the bishops, clergy and lay deputies.
What is less obvious are the attempts to export this new sexual ethic to the entire Anglican Communion. The Consultation, a group of 13 Episcopal peace and social justice organizations that enjoy the strong support of TEC leadership, hopes to export its vision of "baptismal ecclesiology"-all the sacraments for all the baptized-to the rest of the Anglican Communion. Although it stops short of openly advocating all consensual sex, the Consultation and its member organizations are on record as supporting marriage and ordination for LGBT individuals and abortion rights, and its leaders and members are represented on the list of Religious Declaration endorsers.
There is more here: http://www.americananglican.org/a-new-sexual-ethic-coming-to-a-parish-near-you
You can see who the Episcopalians were who signed on to this here: http://www.americananglican.org/assets/News-and-Commentary-Files/2009/August-2009/Sexuality-Statement-Endorsers.pdf
August 28, 2009
By Ralinda B. Gregor
A recent Huffington Post editorial by Unitarian Universalist minister Debra Haffner noted this has been a "stunning year for LGBT equality in the life of the Protestant churches."
However, she lamented that the focus on "lifelong committed relationships" by the Lutheran Church (ELCA) leaves out single adults (including clergy) who choose to have sex outside of marriage.
It is within this framework that she presents her pitch for a "new sexual ethic" proposed by the organization she heads, the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing, which seeks to "change the way America understands the relationship of sexuality and religion."
Just how they seek to change it is outlined in the organization's Religious Declaration which describes a new sexual ethic based on "personal relationships and social justice rather than particular sexual acts." The declaration states that "All persons have the right and responsibility to lead sexual lives that express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent, and pleasure" and that right "applies to all persons, without regard to sex, gender, color, age, bodily condition, marital status, or sexual orientation." It calls for the ordination of "sexual minorities" and the blessing of same-sex unions. The declaration also calls on faith communities to advocate for "sexual and reproductive rights" including abortion.
The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) developed and released the declaration with 850 signatures in January 2000. Since then, the declaration has gathered more than 3,200 signatures from ordained clergy, professional religious educators, theologians, and staff of religious institutions.
Unfortunately, Haffner's editorial and the Religious Declaration are not just the opinions of extremist liberal clergy who are far removed from the average biblically orthodox Episcopalian or Anglican in the United States. The AAC notes with concern that those endorsers include 263 Episcopal clergy, staff and professors of Episcopal seminaries, including several bishops, executive council members and a former presiding bishop, along with many of the well known advocates for sexual freedom in The Episcopal Church (TEC). By signing this declaration, they are not just advocating LGBT sexual "rights," but the holiness of all consensual sex between lay or clergy people of any age, marital status or sexual orientation. And because this degree of promiscuity may likely result in unwanted pregnancies, they also advocate for-and thereby bless-abortion.
The recent decisions by General Convention to allow "pastoral generosity" in blessing same sex unions and to overturn the moratorium on non-celibate homosexual bishops also suggest that this "new sexual ethic" permeates TEC. Both resolutions (C056 and D025) received overwhelming support by the bishops, clergy and lay deputies.
What is less obvious are the attempts to export this new sexual ethic to the entire Anglican Communion. The Consultation, a group of 13 Episcopal peace and social justice organizations that enjoy the strong support of TEC leadership, hopes to export its vision of "baptismal ecclesiology"-all the sacraments for all the baptized-to the rest of the Anglican Communion. Although it stops short of openly advocating all consensual sex, the Consultation and its member organizations are on record as supporting marriage and ordination for LGBT individuals and abortion rights, and its leaders and members are represented on the list of Religious Declaration endorsers.
There is more here: http://www.americananglican.org/a-new-sexual-ethic-coming-to-a-parish-near-you
You can see who the Episcopalians were who signed on to this here: http://www.americananglican.org/assets/News-and-Commentary-Files/2009/August-2009/Sexuality-Statement-Endorsers.pdf
PARTYING PRIEST IS RAIDED
From the New York Post via Kimgrams.org:
Last updated: 3:52 am
August 28, 2009
Posted: 2:59 am
August 28, 2009
Insurance-fraud agents have raided the health-care business of an Episcopal priest from Pennsylvania after his expensive partying in New York City came to light, it was revealed yesterday.
Investigators with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office removed filing cabinets and records from NewLife Home Care Inc. in Pittston, Pa., a private business run by the Rev. Gregory Malia.
Malia, who was ordained in 2001, has been under scrutiny by his church since December, when reports surfaced about him spending thousands of dollars on top-shelf alcohol and leaving five-figure tips at some of the trendiest nightclubs in Big Apple.
The Diocese of Bethlehem Episcopal Church almost immediately suspended Malia from his duties as a priest and vicar of a small church in Susquehanna County and began an investigation.
Diocese spokesman Bill Lewellis said Malia had six months to "make matters completely right" or be defrocked.
Malia has said the reports are exaggerated and defended his bar hopping as integral to entrepreneurial and church fund-raising activities.
8/29/2009 5:48 AM EDT
Last updated: 3:52 am
August 28, 2009
Posted: 2:59 am
August 28, 2009
Insurance-fraud agents have raided the health-care business of an Episcopal priest from Pennsylvania after his expensive partying in New York City came to light, it was revealed yesterday.
Investigators with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office removed filing cabinets and records from NewLife Home Care Inc. in Pittston, Pa., a private business run by the Rev. Gregory Malia.
Malia, who was ordained in 2001, has been under scrutiny by his church since December, when reports surfaced about him spending thousands of dollars on top-shelf alcohol and leaving five-figure tips at some of the trendiest nightclubs in Big Apple.
The Diocese of Bethlehem Episcopal Church almost immediately suspended Malia from his duties as a priest and vicar of a small church in Susquehanna County and began an investigation.
Diocese spokesman Bill Lewellis said Malia had six months to "make matters completely right" or be defrocked.
Malia has said the reports are exaggerated and defended his bar hopping as integral to entrepreneurial and church fund-raising activities.
8/29/2009 5:48 AM EDT
Presiding Bishop Defends ‘Heresy’ Address
From The Living Church:
Posted on: August 27, 2009
Asserting that the task of Christians is “to be in relationship with God and with our neighbors,” Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori offered a detailed defense of her July 7 opening address to General Convention, in which she called individualism the “great Western heresy.”
Writing for Episcopal Life, Bishop Jefferts Schori said the address had received “varied reactions from people who weren’t there, who heard or read an isolated comment without the context.”
Bishop Jefferts Schori said her definition of individualism is “the understanding that the interests and independence of the individual necessarily trump the interests of others, as well as principles of interdependence.” This she called “basically unbiblical and unchristian.”
“The spiritual journey, at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition, is about holy living in community,” she said. Pointing to Jesus’ summary of the Torah in Matthew 22, Bishop Jefferts Schori suggested that “this means our task is to be in relationship with God and with our neighbors.”
“If salvation is understood only as ‘getting right with God’ without considering ‘getting right with all our neighbors,’ then we've got a heresy on our hands,” she said.
“In my address, I went on to say that sometimes this belief that salvation only depends on getting right with God is reduced to saying a simple formula about Jesus,” the Presiding Bishop continued. “Jesus is quite explicit in his rejection of simple formulas: ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven’.”
“He is repeatedly insistent that right relationship depends on loving neighbors,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said. She also cited examples from the Epistles “that our judgment depends on care for brother and sister and that we eat our own destruction if we take Communion without having regard for the rest of the community.”
Saying that “salvation depends on love of God and our relationship with Jesus,” the Presiding Bishop asserted that “we give evidence of our relationship with God in how we treat our neighbors, nearby and far away.”
“Salvation cannot be complete…until the whole of creation is restored to right relationship,” she said, adding, “we anticipate the restoration of all creation to right relationship, and we proclaim that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection made that possible in a new way.”
“At the same time, salvation in the sense of cosmic reconciliation is a mystery,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said. “It is about healing and wholeness and holiness, the fruit of being more than doing. Just like another image we use to speak about restored relationship, the reign of God, salvation is happening all the time, all around us.”
Episcopal News Service contributed to this report.
Posted on: August 27, 2009
Asserting that the task of Christians is “to be in relationship with God and with our neighbors,” Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori offered a detailed defense of her July 7 opening address to General Convention, in which she called individualism the “great Western heresy.”
Writing for Episcopal Life, Bishop Jefferts Schori said the address had received “varied reactions from people who weren’t there, who heard or read an isolated comment without the context.”
Bishop Jefferts Schori said her definition of individualism is “the understanding that the interests and independence of the individual necessarily trump the interests of others, as well as principles of interdependence.” This she called “basically unbiblical and unchristian.”
“The spiritual journey, at least in the Judeo-Christian tradition, is about holy living in community,” she said. Pointing to Jesus’ summary of the Torah in Matthew 22, Bishop Jefferts Schori suggested that “this means our task is to be in relationship with God and with our neighbors.”
“If salvation is understood only as ‘getting right with God’ without considering ‘getting right with all our neighbors,’ then we've got a heresy on our hands,” she said.
“In my address, I went on to say that sometimes this belief that salvation only depends on getting right with God is reduced to saying a simple formula about Jesus,” the Presiding Bishop continued. “Jesus is quite explicit in his rejection of simple formulas: ‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven’.”
“He is repeatedly insistent that right relationship depends on loving neighbors,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said. She also cited examples from the Epistles “that our judgment depends on care for brother and sister and that we eat our own destruction if we take Communion without having regard for the rest of the community.”
Saying that “salvation depends on love of God and our relationship with Jesus,” the Presiding Bishop asserted that “we give evidence of our relationship with God in how we treat our neighbors, nearby and far away.”
“Salvation cannot be complete…until the whole of creation is restored to right relationship,” she said, adding, “we anticipate the restoration of all creation to right relationship, and we proclaim that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection made that possible in a new way.”
“At the same time, salvation in the sense of cosmic reconciliation is a mystery,” Bishop Jefferts Schori said. “It is about healing and wholeness and holiness, the fruit of being more than doing. Just like another image we use to speak about restored relationship, the reign of God, salvation is happening all the time, all around us.”
Episcopal News Service contributed to this report.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Big Changes at Episcopal Lobby Office
From the Institute of Religion and Democracy via VirtueOnline:
By Jeff H. Walton
August 26, 2009
Last month the General Convention of the Episcopal Church made steep budget cuts for the upcoming triennium. Church leaders were clear that every department at the church center was going to lose personnel. Some of the consequences were realized almost instantly - the wholesale axing of an evangelism program at the national level, for instance.
Other changes are gradually being determined. Recently, the church's Office of Government Relations (OGR) announced that Washington, D.C.-based Episcopal lobbyist Maureen Shea will retire at the end of the month. Similarly, New York-based Director of Advocacy Rev. Canon Brian Grieves will retire in October. The two roles had been set to be combined into a single position, but now the search for that position has been completely suspended.
It's tempting to celebrate the cutting of resources for the OGR. It is a group that has, in the name of Episcopalians, promoted unrestricted abortion-on-demand, backed a litany of pro-homosexuality and anti-family legislation, and enthusiastically supported high taxes and big government.
That being acknowledged, the OGR has also been an advocate for combating human trafficking. It supported the creation of the Commission on International Religious Freedom when the National Council of Churches vocally opposed it. Importantly, OGR staff worked on behalf of persecuted Anglicans in the Sudan long before Darfur entered the vocabulary of Hollywood celebrities. Shea herself joined with Honduras Bishop Lloyd Allen in authoring General Convention's balanced resolution on the political crisis in that Central American nation.
In an e-mail released through the Episcopal Public Policy Network, OGR staff said "we are being asked to do more with less - but with your help, our voice will be stronger than ever as we live into the challenging public policy issues before the country."
Of course, you and I know that when an organization cuts staff, priorities have to be set and more is not done with less. Less is done with less. This is a moment when the priorities of the church are going to come to light: will the Episcopal lobbyists and the advocacy center of which they are a part use their lessened resources to continue prioritizing religious liberty and human rights, or will they spend their time advocating leftist causes? To read a commentary by my colleague, Alan Wisdom, about how these denomination lobby offices function, click here [http://www.theird.org/Page.aspx?pid=1138]
Anglican Action will strongly advocate for religious liberty and the promotion of just democracy. We think that the OGR should serve all Episcopalians-not just the liberal activists. Its publications should stress the biblical teachings that Episcopalians hold in common. When the office presents information and arguments on a particular issue, it should fairly represent different positions held by faithful Episcopalians. It should let church members make up their own minds on particular legislation.
The OGR should be truly ecumenical and non-partisan. Our Episcopal office should be cooperating as frequently with Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists as it does with Presbyterians and the United Church of Christ. It should be aligned with the Republicans as often as with the Democrats.
---Jeff H. Walton is IRD Communications Manager/Staffer, Anglican Action for Faith & Freedom.
By Jeff H. Walton
August 26, 2009
Last month the General Convention of the Episcopal Church made steep budget cuts for the upcoming triennium. Church leaders were clear that every department at the church center was going to lose personnel. Some of the consequences were realized almost instantly - the wholesale axing of an evangelism program at the national level, for instance.
Other changes are gradually being determined. Recently, the church's Office of Government Relations (OGR) announced that Washington, D.C.-based Episcopal lobbyist Maureen Shea will retire at the end of the month. Similarly, New York-based Director of Advocacy Rev. Canon Brian Grieves will retire in October. The two roles had been set to be combined into a single position, but now the search for that position has been completely suspended.
It's tempting to celebrate the cutting of resources for the OGR. It is a group that has, in the name of Episcopalians, promoted unrestricted abortion-on-demand, backed a litany of pro-homosexuality and anti-family legislation, and enthusiastically supported high taxes and big government.
That being acknowledged, the OGR has also been an advocate for combating human trafficking. It supported the creation of the Commission on International Religious Freedom when the National Council of Churches vocally opposed it. Importantly, OGR staff worked on behalf of persecuted Anglicans in the Sudan long before Darfur entered the vocabulary of Hollywood celebrities. Shea herself joined with Honduras Bishop Lloyd Allen in authoring General Convention's balanced resolution on the political crisis in that Central American nation.
In an e-mail released through the Episcopal Public Policy Network, OGR staff said "we are being asked to do more with less - but with your help, our voice will be stronger than ever as we live into the challenging public policy issues before the country."
Of course, you and I know that when an organization cuts staff, priorities have to be set and more is not done with less. Less is done with less. This is a moment when the priorities of the church are going to come to light: will the Episcopal lobbyists and the advocacy center of which they are a part use their lessened resources to continue prioritizing religious liberty and human rights, or will they spend their time advocating leftist causes? To read a commentary by my colleague, Alan Wisdom, about how these denomination lobby offices function, click here [http://www.theird.org/Page.aspx?pid=1138]
Anglican Action will strongly advocate for religious liberty and the promotion of just democracy. We think that the OGR should serve all Episcopalians-not just the liberal activists. Its publications should stress the biblical teachings that Episcopalians hold in common. When the office presents information and arguments on a particular issue, it should fairly represent different positions held by faithful Episcopalians. It should let church members make up their own minds on particular legislation.
The OGR should be truly ecumenical and non-partisan. Our Episcopal office should be cooperating as frequently with Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists as it does with Presbyterians and the United Church of Christ. It should be aligned with the Republicans as often as with the Democrats.
---Jeff H. Walton is IRD Communications Manager/Staffer, Anglican Action for Faith & Freedom.
A Glimmer of Hope for Diocese of San Joaquin
Via VirtueOnline:
by A.S. Haley
Anglican Curmudgeon
http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/08/glimmer-of-hope-for-san-joaquin.html
August 27, 2009
This order, entered by the Fifth District Court of Appeal yesterday, affords a glimmer of hope for Bishop John-David Schofield in the San Joaquin litigation that the Court will agree to review the decision granting summary adjudication by Superior Court Judge Corona, which I discussed in this earlier post. Bishop Schofield had filed a petition for review with the Court on Friday, August 21.
Bishop Lamb and his attorneys now have until September 15 to file an "informal" response to Bishop Schofield's petition, and the latter will then have until Monday, October 5 in which to file a reply. (Monday, October 5 will also be a red-letter day in other Episcopal Church litigation. It is the first Monday in October, when the United States Supreme Court officially returns from its summer recess, and thus is probably the day on which we shall learn whether or not the Court has agreed to review the decision by the California Supreme Court in the litigation between the Parish of St. James in Newport Beach and the Diocese of Los Angeles.)
The reason the Fifth District Court uses the word "informal" in its order is that it simply wants to hear from the other side (and then have a reply to that response) before deciding whether to grant full review of Judge Corona's decision. So nothing is certain yet; we will not know the Court's decision in that regard until sometime after October 5. Most petitions for early review are denied; and most of those which are denied are denied immediately, without even asking for a response from the other side. To have made it to this point is at least to have the case deemed worthy of a full set of briefs before a decision to grant review is made.
If the Court decides to grant review, it will probably calendar a hearing date, and set a schedule for formal briefs to be submitted before the hearing. If the court grants review, it could also enter a stay of the proceedings in Judge Corona's court until it acts on the merits of the petition -- i.e., decides whether to reverse Judge Corona's decision, to modify it in any way, or to let it stand.
I will have further to say about the arguments on both sides after Bishop Lamb and his diocese have filed their informal response.
One way or another, the California Fifth District Court of Appeal might be the first appellate court ever to decide whether or not a diocese has the legal ability to withdraw from the Episcopal Church (USA). No higher court to date has ever been presented with the question.
END
by A.S. Haley
Anglican Curmudgeon
http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/08/glimmer-of-hope-for-san-joaquin.html
August 27, 2009
This order, entered by the Fifth District Court of Appeal yesterday, affords a glimmer of hope for Bishop John-David Schofield in the San Joaquin litigation that the Court will agree to review the decision granting summary adjudication by Superior Court Judge Corona, which I discussed in this earlier post. Bishop Schofield had filed a petition for review with the Court on Friday, August 21.
Bishop Lamb and his attorneys now have until September 15 to file an "informal" response to Bishop Schofield's petition, and the latter will then have until Monday, October 5 in which to file a reply. (Monday, October 5 will also be a red-letter day in other Episcopal Church litigation. It is the first Monday in October, when the United States Supreme Court officially returns from its summer recess, and thus is probably the day on which we shall learn whether or not the Court has agreed to review the decision by the California Supreme Court in the litigation between the Parish of St. James in Newport Beach and the Diocese of Los Angeles.)
The reason the Fifth District Court uses the word "informal" in its order is that it simply wants to hear from the other side (and then have a reply to that response) before deciding whether to grant full review of Judge Corona's decision. So nothing is certain yet; we will not know the Court's decision in that regard until sometime after October 5. Most petitions for early review are denied; and most of those which are denied are denied immediately, without even asking for a response from the other side. To have made it to this point is at least to have the case deemed worthy of a full set of briefs before a decision to grant review is made.
If the Court decides to grant review, it will probably calendar a hearing date, and set a schedule for formal briefs to be submitted before the hearing. If the court grants review, it could also enter a stay of the proceedings in Judge Corona's court until it acts on the merits of the petition -- i.e., decides whether to reverse Judge Corona's decision, to modify it in any way, or to let it stand.
I will have further to say about the arguments on both sides after Bishop Lamb and his diocese have filed their informal response.
One way or another, the California Fifth District Court of Appeal might be the first appellate court ever to decide whether or not a diocese has the legal ability to withdraw from the Episcopal Church (USA). No higher court to date has ever been presented with the question.
END
Latest Episcopal church's last rites in Englewood
Via TitusOneNine:
St. George's will dissolve, the latest in Episcopal exodus
By Electa Draper
The Denver Post
Posted: 08/28/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 08/28/2009 02:55:51 AM MDT
After a farewell service on Sunday, St. George's Episcopal Church will close its doors just short of its 100th anniversary — the latest parish to disintegrate in part because of the ordination of gay and lesbian priests.
The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado will officially deconsecrate the Englewood church, more recently called Holy Apostles, after its short-lived merger with another struggling congregation failed to save it.
"St. George's has been a church in turmoil for decades," said Rosamond Long, a 35-year member of the church. "We managed to get it back on its feet every time. This time, we're not going to be able to do it."
The remaining 30 or so congregants will scatter among other churches.
Even though these traditional, loyal and older Episcopalians did not object to the church's growing acceptance of openly gay clergy, they say, their former priest did.
The Rev. Roger Bower, who came to the church about two years ago along with members of the Church of the Holy Spirit, a startup congregation, left St. George's at the end of June.
By then, most of the new, younger congregants he had brought with him already had drifted away, family by family, alienated by a January announcement by Episcopal Bishop Robert O'Neill that the Colorado diocese would end its moratorium against ordaining partnered gay and lesbian persons.
The older and more staid St. George's members accepted O'Neill's pastoral innovations — but the younger Holy Spirit families, which had a very contemporary worship style, did not.
The shrinking parish could no longer afford a priest.
"We were a theologically conservative church," said Scott Field, who'd belonged to Holy Spirit before the merger. He later was elected senior warden of the combined church.
"Human sexuality is not the only issue of theological orthodoxy, but it seems to be the line in the sand many won't cross," Field said.
St. George's Episcopal Church will close its doors just short of its 100th anniversary — the latest parish to disintegrate in part because of the ordination of gay and lesbian priests. Do you support the ordination of gays and lesbians? Field and his wife, both cradle Episcopalians, are leaving the denomination.
"Change is with us," said St. George's parishioner Long. "I don't agree with everything the bishop says either, but community is more important. We are inclusive."
Left at the end of June with no rector, a combined membership of about 45 and inadequate financial resources, St. George's, which had fought dissolution time and time again, finally surrendered.
The vestry voted July 14 to pull the plug.
"The diocese won't help us," Long said. "They made it very clear."
The Colorado diocese, which had a membership of about 34,000 in 2000, had an estimated roll of just over 30,000 in 2007. In the same period, Sunday attendance fell from 15,000 to 12,000.
It isn't known how many of those losses can be attributed to doctrinal disputes. However, by the end of 2008, more than 25 Colorado parishes had affiliated with The Common Cause Partnership, a federation of conservative Anglicans. Of these parishes, 16 had either left the Episcopal Diocese or were formed outside its authority.
The most publicized and acrimonious church split in Colorado was the battle over Grace Church and St. Stephen's Parish in Colorado Springs, where the former pastor shifted allegiance to an Anglican province because, he said, he was angry over ordination of gays and lesbians and other deviations from orthodoxy.
The diocese countercharged that the Rev. Don Armstrong had stolen from the church. He is currently facing theft charges in El Paso County, and a court returned Grace Church properties to the diocese.
Diocese spokeswoman Beckett Stokes said no decision has been made about the St. George's property near East Hampden Avenue and South Clarkson Street — about 5 acres of church grounds.
"I know this is a loss for all of you personally," the bishop wrote to the parish July 31, "but I want you to know that the loss of your witness collectively as a community leaves a very real void for all of us in the diocese."
Wednesday was the last gathering of the women's sewing circle, which had been meeting in church since 1953.
"My son was married in this church. He's 62 now," said 87-year-old Marjorie Peterson, who came to America as a British war bride.
"It's devastating," said Anne Jansson. "We wanted to be buried in this church."
"Yes, Marjorie and I were looking forward to it," said 85-year-old Betty Jane "B.J." McClaflin, causing the ladies, gathered together to stitch small quilts for nursing homes, to erupt in laughter.
It didn't have to happen, said Tronette Hetts, founding member of the sewing circle.
It was a bad match — St. George's with the archconservative Bower and the other congregation, Long said, "but we were so anxious for it to work."
A few parishioners retrieved a large bas relief of St. George slaying the dragon from a back room — stored there when the church became Holy Apostles. The parishioners restored St. George to his place of honor in the church entryway.
It will be a brief stay.
"No one is ever going to know we were ever here," Jansson said.
St. George's will dissolve, the latest in Episcopal exodus
By Electa Draper
The Denver Post
Posted: 08/28/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 08/28/2009 02:55:51 AM MDT
After a farewell service on Sunday, St. George's Episcopal Church will close its doors just short of its 100th anniversary — the latest parish to disintegrate in part because of the ordination of gay and lesbian priests.
The Episcopal Diocese of Colorado will officially deconsecrate the Englewood church, more recently called Holy Apostles, after its short-lived merger with another struggling congregation failed to save it.
"St. George's has been a church in turmoil for decades," said Rosamond Long, a 35-year member of the church. "We managed to get it back on its feet every time. This time, we're not going to be able to do it."
The remaining 30 or so congregants will scatter among other churches.
Even though these traditional, loyal and older Episcopalians did not object to the church's growing acceptance of openly gay clergy, they say, their former priest did.
The Rev. Roger Bower, who came to the church about two years ago along with members of the Church of the Holy Spirit, a startup congregation, left St. George's at the end of June.
By then, most of the new, younger congregants he had brought with him already had drifted away, family by family, alienated by a January announcement by Episcopal Bishop Robert O'Neill that the Colorado diocese would end its moratorium against ordaining partnered gay and lesbian persons.
The older and more staid St. George's members accepted O'Neill's pastoral innovations — but the younger Holy Spirit families, which had a very contemporary worship style, did not.
The shrinking parish could no longer afford a priest.
"We were a theologically conservative church," said Scott Field, who'd belonged to Holy Spirit before the merger. He later was elected senior warden of the combined church.
"Human sexuality is not the only issue of theological orthodoxy, but it seems to be the line in the sand many won't cross," Field said.
St. George's Episcopal Church will close its doors just short of its 100th anniversary — the latest parish to disintegrate in part because of the ordination of gay and lesbian priests. Do you support the ordination of gays and lesbians? Field and his wife, both cradle Episcopalians, are leaving the denomination.
"Change is with us," said St. George's parishioner Long. "I don't agree with everything the bishop says either, but community is more important. We are inclusive."
Left at the end of June with no rector, a combined membership of about 45 and inadequate financial resources, St. George's, which had fought dissolution time and time again, finally surrendered.
The vestry voted July 14 to pull the plug.
"The diocese won't help us," Long said. "They made it very clear."
The Colorado diocese, which had a membership of about 34,000 in 2000, had an estimated roll of just over 30,000 in 2007. In the same period, Sunday attendance fell from 15,000 to 12,000.
It isn't known how many of those losses can be attributed to doctrinal disputes. However, by the end of 2008, more than 25 Colorado parishes had affiliated with The Common Cause Partnership, a federation of conservative Anglicans. Of these parishes, 16 had either left the Episcopal Diocese or were formed outside its authority.
The most publicized and acrimonious church split in Colorado was the battle over Grace Church and St. Stephen's Parish in Colorado Springs, where the former pastor shifted allegiance to an Anglican province because, he said, he was angry over ordination of gays and lesbians and other deviations from orthodoxy.
The diocese countercharged that the Rev. Don Armstrong had stolen from the church. He is currently facing theft charges in El Paso County, and a court returned Grace Church properties to the diocese.
Diocese spokeswoman Beckett Stokes said no decision has been made about the St. George's property near East Hampden Avenue and South Clarkson Street — about 5 acres of church grounds.
"I know this is a loss for all of you personally," the bishop wrote to the parish July 31, "but I want you to know that the loss of your witness collectively as a community leaves a very real void for all of us in the diocese."
Wednesday was the last gathering of the women's sewing circle, which had been meeting in church since 1953.
"My son was married in this church. He's 62 now," said 87-year-old Marjorie Peterson, who came to America as a British war bride.
"It's devastating," said Anne Jansson. "We wanted to be buried in this church."
"Yes, Marjorie and I were looking forward to it," said 85-year-old Betty Jane "B.J." McClaflin, causing the ladies, gathered together to stitch small quilts for nursing homes, to erupt in laughter.
It didn't have to happen, said Tronette Hetts, founding member of the sewing circle.
It was a bad match — St. George's with the archconservative Bower and the other congregation, Long said, "but we were so anxious for it to work."
A few parishioners retrieved a large bas relief of St. George slaying the dragon from a back room — stored there when the church became Holy Apostles. The parishioners restored St. George to his place of honor in the church entryway.
It will be a brief stay.
"No one is ever going to know we were ever here," Jansson said.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Evangelicals for Ramadan
From the Institute for Religion and Democracy:
Mark Tooley
August 27, 2009
The following article originally appeared on the FrontPage Magazine website, and is reproduced with permission.
“Emergent Church” guru and Evangelical Left activist Brian McLaren, a regular columnist for Jim Wallis’ Sojourners, is currently engaged in a Ramadan fast in solidarity with Muslim friends.
Maybe that’s nice. But would McLaren organize a similar fast on behalf of persecuted Christians and other victims of radical Islam? Or would that be too culturally confrontational for the post-modern evangelical who has shunned his conservative past and prefers creating common ground that creates alliances for the Left?
McLaren has complained that in America, “xenophobia and bigotry [too often are] passing off for patriotism and piety.” His own personal Ramadan journey is apparently a remedy.
“We are not doing so in order to become Muslims: we are deeply committed Christians,” McLaren declared on his blog, lest there be any doubt about the intent of his Ramadan fast. “But as Christians, we want to come close to our Muslim neighbors and to share this important part of life with them.”
As McLaren tells it, he’ll be joining Muslims worldwide who are fasting from “food, water, sex, etc., from dawn o dusk.” With a few Christian friends, he will join Muslims in Ramadan as a “God-honoring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness.”
McLaren noted that among Ramadan’s “core values” are “self control, expressing kindness, and resolving conflicts.” So when or if he and the others are “criticized or misunderstood,” they will avoid self defense or arguments, instead merely offering humble explanations and empathy.
As McLaren has explained, “So many people (sadly, including many Christians) display a prejudice against them [Muslims] that is not unlike the ugly racism and anti-Semitism that have been too common in our past (and remain so, tragically, in our present)? Would Jesus be friends with Muslim people if he were here today? Would he perhaps dare to eat (or in the case of Ramadan, fast) with them?”
Is American and Christian “prejudice” against Muslims the chief issue before the world? Like many formerly conservative Evangelicals, McLaren sometimes portrays his former kindred as now the focus of shame, from which he must endlessly extricate himself. Revealingly, last year McLaren wrote a book called: “Everything Must Change,” which argued that Evangelicals must overcome their former insular preoccupations and instead address truly planetary crises such as “unsustainable prosperity,” the “growing gap between rich and poor,” and confronting “potentially catastrophic weapons” with nonviolence. In other words, American evangelicals must turn Left to be relevant and atone for their past myopia.
Unlike the “attitudes of anger, superiority, hostility, disdain, and perhaps even fear” from critics of his Ramadan fast, McLaren boasts that he plans to “cross bridges, overcome barriers, identify with, and build relationships with people of different backgrounds.” If McLaren references radical Islam as a threat, it is only to equate it with conservative Christianity, or Judaism, which are at least equal threats.
In response to the Iranian theocracy’s suppression of anti-regime protests, McLaren opined in June that there are “two kinds of Christianity, along with two kinds of Islam, Judaism, and every other religion and non-religion too: one of social control and one of social transformation ... one to hold people down, one to lift them up ... one an opiate to pacify people into compliance, the other a stimulant to empower people to imagine a better world, a better future, a better life ... giving them the courage to live in peaceful defiance of violent, corrupt, and greedy powers-that-be.”
Contrasting himself with conservative Christians earlier this month, McLaren cited his own enlightened view of faith as a “catalytic force” and “agent of transformation” that “transcends those static left-right polarities altogether.” Meanwhile, conservatives “wholeheartedly supported the war in Iraq, the use of torture, Guantanamo, anti-gay laws, etc.” Citing John Esposito’s Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, McLaren asserted that Americans are proportionately more willing to kill innocent civilians than are Iranians are Saudis. He also bemoaned a poll purportedly showing that most white evangelical Protestants in the U.S. support “torture.”
Of course, McLaren believes that Evangelical support for Israel is an obstacle to interfaith harmony. While largely unwilling to criticize radical Islam by name, he has condemned the “terrible, deadly, distorted, yet popular theologies associated with Christian Zionism” that “create bigotry and prejudice against Muslims.” He urged Christian Zionists bravely to abandon their prejudice, just as white segregationists had to shed theirs 50 years ago, even if the result was rejection from morally blind church friends.
For a further peak at McLaren’s worldview, watch him sing and strum his folk song: “When We Gonna Wake Up?” “How we gonna fight terror with terror?” he throatily warbles. “How we gonna fight lies with lies.” Seemingly there is no great moral distinction between jihadists and the police and military forces that attempt to suppress them.
We can hope that McLaren’s Ramadan fast generates good will and inter-religious understanding. But more likely, McLaren’s interfaith ritual just further evinces the Left’s chronic misunderstanding that all cultural and international conflict can be remedied through apologies, folk songs, Western guilt, and flamboyant sentimentality.
Mark Tooley
August 27, 2009
The following article originally appeared on the FrontPage Magazine website, and is reproduced with permission.
“Emergent Church” guru and Evangelical Left activist Brian McLaren, a regular columnist for Jim Wallis’ Sojourners, is currently engaged in a Ramadan fast in solidarity with Muslim friends.
Maybe that’s nice. But would McLaren organize a similar fast on behalf of persecuted Christians and other victims of radical Islam? Or would that be too culturally confrontational for the post-modern evangelical who has shunned his conservative past and prefers creating common ground that creates alliances for the Left?
McLaren has complained that in America, “xenophobia and bigotry [too often are] passing off for patriotism and piety.” His own personal Ramadan journey is apparently a remedy.
“We are not doing so in order to become Muslims: we are deeply committed Christians,” McLaren declared on his blog, lest there be any doubt about the intent of his Ramadan fast. “But as Christians, we want to come close to our Muslim neighbors and to share this important part of life with them.”
As McLaren tells it, he’ll be joining Muslims worldwide who are fasting from “food, water, sex, etc., from dawn o dusk.” With a few Christian friends, he will join Muslims in Ramadan as a “God-honoring expression of peace, fellowship, and neighborliness.”
McLaren noted that among Ramadan’s “core values” are “self control, expressing kindness, and resolving conflicts.” So when or if he and the others are “criticized or misunderstood,” they will avoid self defense or arguments, instead merely offering humble explanations and empathy.
As McLaren has explained, “So many people (sadly, including many Christians) display a prejudice against them [Muslims] that is not unlike the ugly racism and anti-Semitism that have been too common in our past (and remain so, tragically, in our present)? Would Jesus be friends with Muslim people if he were here today? Would he perhaps dare to eat (or in the case of Ramadan, fast) with them?”
Is American and Christian “prejudice” against Muslims the chief issue before the world? Like many formerly conservative Evangelicals, McLaren sometimes portrays his former kindred as now the focus of shame, from which he must endlessly extricate himself. Revealingly, last year McLaren wrote a book called: “Everything Must Change,” which argued that Evangelicals must overcome their former insular preoccupations and instead address truly planetary crises such as “unsustainable prosperity,” the “growing gap between rich and poor,” and confronting “potentially catastrophic weapons” with nonviolence. In other words, American evangelicals must turn Left to be relevant and atone for their past myopia.
Unlike the “attitudes of anger, superiority, hostility, disdain, and perhaps even fear” from critics of his Ramadan fast, McLaren boasts that he plans to “cross bridges, overcome barriers, identify with, and build relationships with people of different backgrounds.” If McLaren references radical Islam as a threat, it is only to equate it with conservative Christianity, or Judaism, which are at least equal threats.
In response to the Iranian theocracy’s suppression of anti-regime protests, McLaren opined in June that there are “two kinds of Christianity, along with two kinds of Islam, Judaism, and every other religion and non-religion too: one of social control and one of social transformation ... one to hold people down, one to lift them up ... one an opiate to pacify people into compliance, the other a stimulant to empower people to imagine a better world, a better future, a better life ... giving them the courage to live in peaceful defiance of violent, corrupt, and greedy powers-that-be.”
Contrasting himself with conservative Christians earlier this month, McLaren cited his own enlightened view of faith as a “catalytic force” and “agent of transformation” that “transcends those static left-right polarities altogether.” Meanwhile, conservatives “wholeheartedly supported the war in Iraq, the use of torture, Guantanamo, anti-gay laws, etc.” Citing John Esposito’s Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, McLaren asserted that Americans are proportionately more willing to kill innocent civilians than are Iranians are Saudis. He also bemoaned a poll purportedly showing that most white evangelical Protestants in the U.S. support “torture.”
Of course, McLaren believes that Evangelical support for Israel is an obstacle to interfaith harmony. While largely unwilling to criticize radical Islam by name, he has condemned the “terrible, deadly, distorted, yet popular theologies associated with Christian Zionism” that “create bigotry and prejudice against Muslims.” He urged Christian Zionists bravely to abandon their prejudice, just as white segregationists had to shed theirs 50 years ago, even if the result was rejection from morally blind church friends.
For a further peak at McLaren’s worldview, watch him sing and strum his folk song: “When We Gonna Wake Up?” “How we gonna fight terror with terror?” he throatily warbles. “How we gonna fight lies with lies.” Seemingly there is no great moral distinction between jihadists and the police and military forces that attempt to suppress them.
We can hope that McLaren’s Ramadan fast generates good will and inter-religious understanding. But more likely, McLaren’s interfaith ritual just further evinces the Left’s chronic misunderstanding that all cultural and international conflict can be remedied through apologies, folk songs, Western guilt, and flamboyant sentimentality.
A bit off the usual DCNY blog path
From Late Night with David Letterman: Dave's Weasel Farm and Theology Camp
http://www.k-statecats.com/dl29_Dave_Weasel_Farm_7-23-92.mov
http://www.k-statecats.com/dl29_Dave_Weasel_Farm_7-23-92.mov
COMMUNION, FELLOWSHIP, COVENANT
By Ashley Dewell
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
August 26, 2009
I INTRODUCTION
The Anglican theological position has been summarised as: "in essentials - unity, in non-essentials - liberty, in all things - charity",2 however the Anglican Communion ("Communion") is currently suffering from disunity. Despite the publicity over human sexuality, the real issue is "a crisis over biblical authority and its clarity"3 created by increasing divergence of theological belief in essential matters, and in what constitutes an essential matter of the Christian faith.4
One proposed response to this crisis has been for the provinces of the Communion to adopt a formal covenantal relationship ("Covenant"),5 however its development has also been hindered by theological divergence. Despite discussions at the Lambeth Conference in 2008,6 and at the Anglican Consultative Council in 2009, there has been little progress towards the adoption of a Covenant capable of meeting the crisis facing the Communion. But while the wider Communion remains hamstrung by theological divergence, some Anglicans have demonstrated sufficient unity of theological belief in both essential matters and in what constitutes an essential matter of the Christian faith7 to form the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans ("Fellowship").
This paper will demonstrate that the Communion is no longer capable of adopting a Covenant capable of addressing the crisis facing the Communion, but that a Covenant between Fellowship members is both possible and necessary. This paper will also identify some of the challenges to the implementation of a Fellowship Covenant, and source methods of meeting those challenges from the principles of common law.
II THE COMMUNION, THE FELLOWSHIP AND COVENANT
A. The Communion requires a Covenant
Fundamentals of Union
Within in any group of people there will be agreement upon some matters and disagreement upon other matters. The extent to which a group can remain united depends upon two characteristics of the members of that group. The first is the extent to which the members hold consistent beliefs, and the second is the extent to which the members accept divergent beliefs of other members of the group. Where there is no divergence of belief there will be no disagreement and thus no threat of division, but such complete consistency is unrealistic. Groups avoid division where there is sufficient consistency of belief in relation to matters essential to the group, and sufficient acceptance of divergent beliefs in relation to matters deemed by the group to be non-essential.
2. The Communion requires a Covenant
Theological divergence in the Church of England was initially limited because it was created within the British culture and that cultural expression of Christianity was exported throughout the world.
Theological divergence increased as Anglican churches in the colonies developed into distinct provinces, however there remained theological consistency in relation to matters such as the authority of the Bible, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer.
Any theological divergence that existed was generally acceptable to the Communion as a whole. Theological divergence within the Communion increased during the twentieth century over the role of women in church leadership, and the actions taken by some dioceses were unacceptable to other parts of the Communion. Consequently, some Anglicans joined the Roman Catholic Church or formed splinter groups,9 but again this theological divergence remained acceptable to the majority of the Communion.10
In and around 2003, the Episcopal Church ("TEC") consecrated a non-celibate homosexual man as a bishop and some dioceses in the Anglican Church of Canada ("ACOC") began to bless homosexual unions. These actions were condemned by several Anglican provinces, and the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) severed its relationship with both TEC,11 and those Canadian dioceses.12 TEC has subsequently passed resolutions at its General Convention in 2009 affirming the blessing of homosexual unions and that there is no barrier to the ordination of homosexual people.13 These actions represent a theological divergence unacceptable to large parts of the Communion.
The theological divergence within the Communion is now so great that it must be regulated or diminished in order to avoid some form of division. Therefore a Communion Covenant capable of meeting the crisis in the Communion must facilitate firstly the identification of essential beliefs, and secondly the discipline of those who breach them.
B. The Communion cannot adopt a Covenant
1. Theological Consistency is required for Covenant
A Christian group can only remain united when its members exhibit sufficient theological consistency and sufficient acceptance of any theological divergence. Those conditions must also be satisfied by prospective members for entry into a Covenant, for entering into a meaningful covenantal relationship is an act of unity. Therefore in order to adopt a Covenant, all of the provinces of the Communion must exhibit sufficient theological consistency in essential matters and sufficient acceptance of any theological divergence in non-essential matters.
2. Sufficient Theological Consistency no longer exists within the Communion
The crisis in the Communion has seen some provinces sever relations with other provinces, and the Anglican Church in North America has been created by those who cannot accept the theological positions of TEC and ACOC. This example alone demonstrates there is no longer sufficient theological consistency within the Communion for the adoption of a Communion Covenant.
Further or in the alternative, the provinces which have joined the Fellowship are unlikely to adopt a Communion Covenant unless it allows for the discipline of those provinces holding theological positions considered by Fellowship members to be sinful ("sinful theology"). TEC and ACOC are unlikely to enter a Communion Covenant unless their freedom from foreign interference is guaranteed.
There is now such theological divergence between two sections of the Communion that neither will accept the position of the other. Therefore there is no longer sufficient theological consistency, or sufficient acceptance of theological divergence, for the adoption of a Communion Covenant. Therefore the Communion is no longer capable of adopting a Covenant.
C. Fellowship and Covenant
1. Sufficient Theological Consistency does exist within the Fellowship
The formation of the Fellowship demonstrates significant theological consistency and acceptance of theological divergence among its members. Those characteristics exist despite the traditional tension between the Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical wings of the Anglican Church, both of which have contributed members to the Fellowship. Those Fellowship members have joined specifically to identify particular matters as essentials of the Christian faith and to reject theological divergence in those matters.
Furthermore, the acceptance of the Fellowship members of the Jerusalem Declaration as a requirement for Fellowship membership establishes that the Fellowship is currently capable of adopting some form of covenant. However as the Jerusalem Declaration is a statement of principles and does not allow for cross-provincial discipline, it is not the type of Covenant discussed in this paper. Nevertheless, the Jerusalem Declaration still demonstrates the mutual concern of Fellowship members with theological divergence in essential matters.
2. The Fellowship needs a Covenant
The theological consistency of the Fellowship enables it to adopt a Covenant, but the existence of such consistency might also support the argument that the Fellowship does not require a Covenant. However the Fellowship may not always exhibit such theological consistency. The theological divergence which created the crisis in the Communion did not suddenly appear, but rather developed in provinces where the prevailing theology gradually drifted away from orthodox doctrine.14 By the time the consequences of that theological divergence became obvious, the majority of the decision makers in some provinces no longer subscribed to orthodox doctrine.
The Fellowship should therefore be concerned that it, like the Communion, currently lacks the capacity to subject members of one province to the discipline of the Fellowship as a whole. Therefore a risk remains that, in the future, one Fellowship province might become a safe-haven for those advocating theological divergence in essential matters. Should this occur, the Fellowship could sponsor the creation of a new province, as has been done in North America, but that is costly in terms of both human and financial resources. A Fellowship Covenant allowing for cross-provincial discipline would deal with any theological divergence and reserve those human and financial resources for evangelism and mission.
The Fellowship requires a Covenant not because of any current theological divergence but to ensure it has the capacity to regulate or discipline any future theological divergence. A Fellowship Covenant would represent a mutual commitment of Fellowship members which can be relied upon in the event of a crisis. The Fellowship must adopt a Covenant in the short term, while it retains the capacity to do so.
D. Challenges to a Fellowship Covenant
There are many challenges to a Fellowship Covenant, such as the traditional tension between the Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical wings of the Anglican Church. Other examples include differing views within the Fellowship on the ordination of women, and the relationship between Fellowship and non-Fellowship members of the Communion. The latter challenge is of particular importance as the Fellowship must continue to relate in a Christian manner with faithful Anglicans who have not joined the Fellowship. Many Anglican organisational units also resent outside interference in their activities.
Despite the many challenges facing the Fellowship, it has already united the strictest Anglo-Catholics and the greatest Evangelicals in an association. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, despite the many challenges to a Fellowship Covenant, the solutions to these challenges may be found in another of the great English traditions: the common law.
III COMMON LAW AND A FELLOWSHIP COVENANT
A. Norman England and Common Law
1. Historical Background
Between the withdrawal of the Roman legions and the Norman invasion, England was repeatedly invaded by ethnic groups who introduced their own laws and customs which varied from shire to shire.15 Although there had been several compilations of national laws,16 the central government was relatively weak and law was usually applied in a relatively informal manner by a local assembly.17
Duke William of Normandy conquered England in 1066 and declared that existing local laws would be maintained, but he also established a strong central government.18 The power of that central government was exercised by representatives who travelled among the shires to, among other duties, administer justice.19 A person with a complaint could therefore petition either the local lords or a royal judge. The royal judges became more popular because their judgments were enforceable throughout the kingdom and as visitors they were less likely to be subject to local prejudice.20 In time the royal judges replaced the local courts.21
The original judges were usually untrained in law and so relied upon decisions made by other judges.22 As these decisions were enforceable throughout England, they overrode any local custom and so became known as "common law".23
2. Development of Common Law Principles
Although statutes passed by parliament overrode common law decisions, there were relatively few statutes enacted by parliament until the reign of Henry VIII,24 leaving the common law to develop under the guidance of the judges. Speaking of the breadth of common law, Blackstone stated:
Thus, for example, that there shall be four superior courts of record; the chancery, the king's bench, the common pleas, and the exchequer .... that the eldest son alone is heir to his ancestor .... that property may be acquired and transferred by writing .... that a deed is of no validity unless sealed and delivered .... that wills shall be construed more favourably, and deeds more strictly .... that money lent upon bond is recoverable by action of debt .... that breaking the public peace is an offence, and punishable by fine and imprisonment .... all these are doctrines that are not set down in any written statute or ordinance, but depend merely upon immemorial usage, that is, upon common law, for their support.25
Many of these principles were later incorporated into legislation, but they were law in England long before that incorporation. In addition to particular laws, the common law also developed legal doctrines such as stare decisis and reception.
(a) Doctrine of Stare Decisis
The common law doctrine of stare decisis ("let the decision stand") requires judges to make decisions according to the manner in which they have been made previously. Lower courts are bound to follow the precedents set by higher courts, and the highest courts are expected to abide by their own decisions unless some compelling reason arises for the departure from precedent.26
Four advantages to stare decisis identified in Telstra Corporation v Treloar27 included firstly the certainty that comes from being able to rely upon the guidance of past decisions and secondly the equality that comes from treating all cases alike.28
Thirdly, subsequent courts need not re-examine issues which have been examined previously, and fourthly the appearance of justice is supported when the law is applied in a manner which does not depend on the personal views of a particular judge.29
Notwithstanding the doctrine, lower courts should follow the decisions of higher courts because if they depart from precedential decisions, the higher courts can simply overrule them on appeal.30 In this manner, stare decisis ensures an orderly and incremental development of legal principles.31
(b) Doctrine of Reception
As the legal system of the Empire of Great Britain, the common law also interacted with the foreign legal systems already operating in territory acquired by Britain. The doctrine of reception provided that when Britain acquired new land by conquest or secession by a foreign power, the existing laws of the foreign land remained valid except for those laws which were repugnant to the law of England.32
Blackstone described the doctrine as: But in conquered or ceded countries, that have already laws of their own, the king may indeed alter and change those laws; but, till he does actually change them, the ancient laws of the country remain, unless such as are against the law of God, as in the case of an infidel country.33 Section 4.
In this context, laws considered against the law of God included practices such as cannibalism, and would also have included any requirement to observe non-Christian religious practices.
B. Application of Common Law Principles to a Fellowship Covenant
This section identifies four challenges to the adoption of a Fellowship Covenant and demonstrates how a Fellowship Covenant based upon common law principles could meet each of those challenges.
There will be more than four challenges, but the common law principles are sufficiently adaptive to meet any challenge that might arise.
1. Discipline
(a) Challenge
The current crisis within the Communion has been brought about by theological divergence resulting in the propagation of sinful theology. Each instance of sinful theology is a theological divergence in a matter the Fellowship deems to be an essential matter of the Christian faith. The current structure of the Communion facilitated this crisis by ensuring that if the province in which a person is propagating sinful theology will not discipline them, they cannot be disciplined. The simple solution is to create a central body with the power to investigate and adjudicate accusations of sinful theology, and then to institute discipline which overrides any contrary decision of the local province.
However there remains significant divergence of theological belief in non-essential matters within the Fellowship, and its continued existence relies upon accepting that there are non-essential matters in which liberty is the proper response. Therefore the simple solution is impractical for two reasons. The first is that a central prosecuting body could be dominated by one segment of the Fellowship which insists upon a definition of essential matters which does not represent the views of the Fellowship. The second reason is that Anglican organisational units traditionally dislike external interference and would be unwilling to accept an arrangement which gave such overreaching power to an unaccountable central body.
The challenge is to facilitate the accountability of each Fellowship member to the whole Fellowship, while avoiding excessive centralisation. The simple solution fails to meet this challenge.
(b) Common Law Solution
Instead of replacing the local courts, the Norman kings offered an alternative. A petitioner could make an accusation before either the local court or before a royal judge. In the same manner, the Primates' Council could be empowered to judge accusations of sinful theology as an alternative to the judicial processes of local provinces. Thereafter a person wishing to make an accusation of sinful theology would have a choice, but like the Norman royal judges, the decisions of the Primates' Council would be binding throughout the Fellowship. This mechanism would allow the Fellowship to implement a unified judicial process, however this mechanism also immediately clashes with local autonomy.
The same unified judicial process could be established within the Fellowship without so great a clash with local autonomy by requiring any accusation of sinful theology to be made first through the judicial processes of the local province. The Primates' Council would only be empowered to act when local judicial processes were exhausted, and by way of appeal from the final decision of a province's highest internal court.34
The common law solution is therefore to empower the Primates' Council to act as a final court of appeal for the Fellowship. Either approach set out above facilitates the common law solution, however given the Anglican dislike of external interference the second is more practical. Nevertheless, either of those options would empower the Primates' Council to deliver decisions which were binding upon the parties in the case before them, but would then also serve as a precedent for the rest of the Fellowship. The Primates' Council would become, as the ecclesiastical representatives of the Fellowship, responsible for determining the standard which must be observed by the entire Fellowship.
(c) General Considerations
(i) Power of the Primates' Council
This solution would empower the relatively small Primates' Council to make decisions binding upon the Fellowship, but it is important to note that such judicial decisions would not be a directive or edict to the Fellowship. Those decisions would rather be an indication that if a similar dispute were brought before the Primates' Council in the future, they would make the same decision.
Accountability to such a small body may be difficult for independently minded Anglicans to accept, however mutual accountability is the only way for the Fellowship to avoid the crisis afflicting the Communion. Both mutual accountability and the satisfaction of concerns over the power of the Primates Council can be satisfied by making decisions of the Primates' Council appealable to the body of all Fellowship bishops.35 Given the practicalities of organising all Fellowship bishops to hear an appeal, such an appeal should only be heard if a sufficient number of Fellowship bishops consent to hear the appeal.36 Authoritative decisions which deliver precedent binding upon the entire Fellowship would therefore be made by the ecclesiastical representatives of the entire Fellowship.
This approach is consistent with the practice of the early church as recorded in chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles. When a theological dispute arose in Antioch, and it could not be settled locally, St Paul and St Barnabas were sent to Jerusalem to obtain the judgment of the apostles, and the bishops are the successors to the apostles.37
(ii) The Limited Power of Decision
Making A decision of the Primates' Council would require the parties involved to abide by that decision, and the relevant province to facilitate that decision, but the influence of the same decision over the Fellowship would be by way of precedent. Accordingly, if a similar accusation of sinful theology arose, the authorities in the local judicial process would be expected to apply the precedent set by the Primates' Council. While local authorities could make a different decision, perhaps by distinguishing the case before them from the precedent, the Primates' Council would also be able to overrule the local authorities if the matter were brought before them on appeal.
(iii) Limited Power
As a method of decision making based upon common law, this approach would be driven by complaints. The Primates' Council could only issue a binding decision when a claim of sinful theology is brought before them. The Primates' Council would not have the power to arbitrarily and voluntarily issue a decree which is binding upon the Fellowship. This limited power to issue binding decisions does not exist in the Communion, which has chosen provincial autonomy over mutual accountability. This power will provide for mutual accountability, but its limitations will also ensure that any loss of local autonomy is minimal. The Fellowship members will therefore only be subject to minimal interference while they learn to live in a mutually accountable relationship.
(iv) Inundation of Complaints
There is a risk that the Primates' Council would find their time monopolised by hearing appeals. While the Primates' Council would include a judicial role, the primary role of the Primates' Council would still be to lead the Fellowship, and each Primate would still have duties within his own province.
In order to fulfil their judicial role without compromising their other duties, the Primates' Council should appoint an advisory committee. That committee would review appeals and provide the Primates' Council with a summary of the issues and a recommendation. That recommendation might be that the Primates' Council refuse to hear the appeal,38 or that the appeal should be heard and determined in a particular manner.
As an advisory committee, the Primates' Council would always be free to disregard that advice, for it would be the Primates' Council which is empowered to make decisions. However an advisory committee would filter the appeals to ensure that any time spent by the Primates' Council exercising their judicial role is not wasted.
(v) Application to Modern Issues
Either implementation of the common law principles set out above in a Fellowship Covenant would effectively deal with the issues facing the Communion if they were to occur in the Fellowship. For example, if a province attempted to consecrate a homosexual bishop, the decision to do so could be appealed to the Primates' Council as sinful theology and the Primates' Council would have the power to forbid that appointment. An appeal from the Primates' Council would be determined by all Fellowship bishops, making the single province or diocese subject to the ecclesiastical representatives of the entire Fellowship.
However if the Fellowship adopts a Covenant in this form, that situation is unlikely to arise for the issue has only arisen within the Communion through decades of gradual drift from orthodox doctrine resulting in significant theological divergence. Either implementation would allow each increment of theological drift to be challenged and arrested through mutual accountability.
Therefore the consecration of homosexual bishops would not arise because the ordination of homosexual priests or deacons could be prevented. The ordination of homosexuals could be prevented because any claim that homosexuality is not sinful could be authoritatively dismissed within the Fellowship. Theological divergence would not arise in the Fellowship as has arisen in the Communion because the theological drift away from orthodox doctrine could be arrested.
2. Autonomy and Control
(a) Challenge
Anglican organisational units have traditionally prized autonomy and disliked outside interference, especially where the alternative involves submission by Anglo-Catholics to Evangelicals, or vice versa. However any covenantal relationship, from a marriage to a commercial contract, involves a surrender of some autonomy to become accountable to another. That surrender mirrors the journey of the Christian who surrenders their own autonomy to become accountable to Christ. Whatever the advantages of local autonomy, total autonomy has also created liberal safe-havens with no accountability to the wider church.
While a central authority displacing all local autonomy would settle this issue, the Communion has also traditionally rejected excessive centralisation. The challenge is to establish mutual accountability in such a manner that while disunity in essentials is prevented, liberty in non-essentials is maintained.
(b) Common Law Solution
(i) Theory
While the judicial decisions of the Primates' Council would be binding upon all Fellowship members, judicial power is limited. The Primates' Council could forbid an Anglican organisational unit from teaching or implementing sinful theology, but could not require a province to implement any particular agenda. In secular courts the power is described as 'judicial review' and permits the courts to invalidate certain legislative acts but does not permit the judiciary to require that any particular legislation be enacted. This power does not create a centralised legislative system with the power to replace local autonomy.
Furthermore, the Primates' Council would be expected to limit their decisions to prohibiting divergence of theological belief in essential matters. A person accused of sinful theology would be able to claim their practice relates to a 'non-essential' matter where liberty, rather than unity, should be enforced. The Primates' Council might refuse to hear such a petition on that basis, or hear the petition and determine that the matter should be determined locally rather than across the entire Fellowship.39
Therefore while a Fellowship province is free to make any decision they wish, as they are currently able to, those decisions would be ultimately subject to a veto by the ecclesiastical representatives of the rest of the Fellowship. That veto should however only be exercised if those representatives determine that such a decision does not represent an authentic expression of Christianity. While this approach involves submission to an external authority that authority is the body of the Fellowship, so what affects the Fellowship is decided by the Fellowship.40 It is a legal expression of the Scriptural exhortation: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Ephesians 5:21, NIV).
(ii) Practical Example – Worship Style
A dispute may well arise within the Fellowship due to the wide variety of worship styles within both the Communion and the Fellowship. Confusion over the significance of cultural meaning, a diocesan attempt to institute a compulsory order of service or a proper query regarding the validity of a particular worship practice might result in an appeal before the Primates' Council. But the Primates' Council is the best body to hear such a dispute.
Each Primate is leader of a province incorporating a variety of worship styles and practices so the Primates' Council will consist of leaders who represent a variety of theological positions on non-essential matters. An appeal from a decision of the Primates' Council would be heard by all Fellowship bishops, which is even more representative of divergent theological positions which are nevertheless accepted within the Fellowship. Determination by these bodies, which must reach a significant level of agreement before a worship style is deemed an expression of sinful theology, is the best protection for continued liberty in non-essential matters, without sacrificing mutual accountability.
Although the usual Anglican desire for autonomy stands opposed to the power of the Primates' Council to declare a theological position to be sinful, it is this power which will distinguish the Fellowship from the Communion. It is this power which will allow the Fellowship to avoid the crisis afflicting the Communion.
3. Membership of the Fellowship
(a) Challenge
The entry of a new organisational unit into the Fellowship will be meaningless unless it is subject to the same mutual accountability as the rest of the Fellowship. However entry of a new member ensures there will be an immediate clash between the rules, canons or procedures of the new member and those of the Fellowship. The challenge is to immediately subject new members to the mutual accountability necessary to make membership meaningful, while also protecting their autonomy and allowing them to learn to live as part of the Fellowship.
(b) Common Law Solution
According to the doctrine of reception, the laws applicable in a territory acquired by Britain through conquest or secession by a foreign power remained in force until specifically modified, save for those repugnant to the law of England. Those laws repugnant to the law of England were immediately invalidated. Any dispute was determined by the judiciary.
In the same manner, all canons, rules, statutes or other regulations governing a new Fellowship member would remain in force upon becoming a member of the Fellowship. However where a canon or other regulation of the new Fellowship member is in conflict with a precedent set by the Primates' Council, the new member could reasonably expect to find that canon or regulation challenged and overruled.
The Primates' Council would be responsible for settling any dispute regarding the existence of a conflict between the new member's canons or regulations and the Primates' Council's decisions. However a prospective Fellowship member will seek membership because they want to be subject to the discipline of the Fellowship, which means there should be little dispute in practice. 4.
Development of Fellowship Canon Law
(a) Challenge
The Articles of Religion state that "General Councils ... may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God."41 Yet while rejecting any claim to the infallible authority attributed to the Pope by the Roman Catholic Church, the Fellowship has also rejected the assertion that humanity cannot be sure of anything.42 But to require theological consistency of Fellowship members, the Fellowship must also be able to define the essential matters of the Christian faith. The challenge is to develop a method of making binding decisions which recognises the inherent sinbased limitations of humanity while accepting that humans do have the capacity recognise divine revelation.
(b) Common Law Solution
The common law doctrine of stare decisis required similar cases to be decided in a similar manner. On this basis, the common law became reliable, but never entirely settled, because the higher courts were still able to depart from precedent.
The incorporation of stare decisis would provide the same reliability to a developing Fellowship canon law because Fellowship members would be expected to abide by decisions of the Primates' Council. Failure to do so could lead to an appeal to the Primates' Council which would be able to invalidate any contrary decision made by local authorities.
Stare decisis would make it a characteristic of Fellowship canon law that a theological position becomes stronger each time it is affirmed, while reserving to the Primates' Council the power to revise prior decisions if it were deemed necessary. Therefore, without claiming infallibility, the Primates' Council would have the capacity to both define matters essential to the Christian faith and to re-address those decisions to express the eternal truths of Christianity anew to each generation.
IV CONCLUSION
A church seeking unity in essentials and liberty in non-essentials requires a Covenant to remain united, but the Communion is already too theologically divergent to adopt a Covenant. At the time of writing the Fellowship retains sufficient theological consistency to adopt a Fellowship Covenant and should do so without delay in order to avoid the theological divergence afflicting the Communion.
A Fellowship Covenant incorporating the principles set out above will introduce discipline while protecting local autonomy, and create a binding Fellowship canon law without the creation of a new papacy. In speaking of a Communion Covenant the Archbishop of Canterbury perfectly described the value of the principles set out above, the relevant parts of which the author sets out below.
[they]...express the need for mutual recognisability, mutual consultation and some shared processes of decision-making. They are emphatically not about centralisation but about mutual responsibility. They look to the possibility of a freely chosen commitment to sharing discernment (and also to a mutual respect for the integrity of each province, ...). They remain the only proposals we are likely to see that address some of the risks and confusions already detailed, encouraging us to act and decide in ways that are not simply local.43
A Fellowship Covenant will be a formal covenantal relationship allowing the Anglo- Catholic and Evangelical wings of the Fellowship to unite with the other halves of themselves to produce one orthodox Anglican Church. These principles represent a modern and practical via media found not in the rejection of Roman Catholic or Protestant but in the balance of problematic extremes. The author commends these principles to the readers' consideration.
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Allen, W H. Law Made Simple (5th ed, 1978)
Cook, Catriona et al. Laying Down the Law (6th ed, 2005)
Enright, Christopher. Studying Law (4th ed, 1991)
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Driver, Archbishop Jeffrey 'Anglicanism, Popes and three-legged stools' (Speech delivered at St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide, 14 September 2008)
Jensen, Archbishop Peter (Speech delivered at 2006 Synod of Sydney Diocese, Sydney, 2006)
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Lambeth Commission on Communion. The Windsor Report (2004).
Akinola, Archbishop Peter. A Most Agonising Journey towards Lambeth 2008 (2008) Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) < http://www.anglicannig. org/main.php?k_j=12&d=88&p_t=index.php?> at 29 July 2009
de Santis, Solange. 'Canada sees first sanctioned blessing', Anglican Journal (Canada) 1 September 2003
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Articles of Religion 1562, Art XXI.
2 Most Reverend Jeffrey Driver, 'Anglicanism, Popes and three-legged stools' (Speech delivered at St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide, 14 September 2008).
3 Most Reverend Peter Jensen, (Speech delivered at 2006 Synod of Sydney Diocese, Sydney, 2006).
4 Hereafter referred to as "theological divergence".
5 Lambeth Commission on Communion, The Windsor Report (2004), para 118.
6 Where the author was privileged to serve as a Steward.
7 Hereafter referred to as "theological consistency". Members of political parties in liberal democracies, such as Australia, demonstrate this principle as they are generally united in the principles expressed in the party platform, or are at least willing to accept those principles. However if the party introduces principles into the party platform which some members cannot accept, those members will leave the party.
8 In those circumstances some members might argue they should remain members of the party in order to change the party platform from within, however any continued membership represents some form of acceptance.
9 Eg Anglican Catholic Church in Australia.
10 Although in this case acceptance for many Anglicans was conditional upon being insulated from the ministry of ordained women.
11 Most Reverend Peter Akinola, A Most Agonising Journey towards Lambeth 2008 (2008) Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) < http://www.anglicannig. org/main.php?k_j=12&d=88&p_t=index.php?> at 29 July 2009.
12 Ibid; Solange de Santis, 'Canada sees first sanctioned blessing', Anglican Journal (Canada) 1 September 2003.
13 See eg: TEC General Convention 2009 Resolutions C056 and D025; General Convention 2009 Legislation (2009) The Episcopal Church
14 This is the theological 'drift' referred to by the Archbishop of the South Cone - Most Reverend Greg Venables, 'The Danger of Drift (2009) Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
15 C F Padfield, Law Made Simple (5th ed, 1978) 9.
16 Ibid 10.
17 James Crawford and Brian Opeskin, Australian Courts of Law (4th Ed, 2004) 6.
18 Catriona Cook, Robin Creyke, Robert Geddes and Ian Holloway, Laying Down the Law (6th ed, 2005) 11.
19 Padfield, above n 15, 10-11.
20 Cook, above n 18, 13.
21 Christopher Enright, Studying Law (4th ed, 1991), 125.
22 Cook, above n 18, 13.
23 Ibid 13.
24 Ibid 25.
25 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (first published 1765-69) Introduction, Section III.
26 Cook, above n 18, 75.
27 (2000) 102 FCR 595 at 602.
28 Telstra Corporation v Treloar (2000) 102 FCR 595 at 602, per Branson and Finkelstein JJ.
29 Ibid.
30 Cook, above n 18, 76.
31 Ibid 76.
32 Ibid 32.
33 Ibid Introduction,
34 This process is common in countries with a federal system of government, which includes common law nations such as Australia, Canada and the United States of America. However it also includes federal nations which do not have a common law system.
35 Any reference in this paper to a decision that can be made by the Primates' Council includes the capacity for that decision to be appealed to the body of all Fellowship Bishops, provided that a sufficient number of Fellowship bishops have consented to hear the appeal. 36 This process is similar to the political process of 'voter's veto' whereby voters can overturn the implementation of specific legislation by way of majority decision in a referendum on the issue. However the referendum can only be put to the voters if a significant percentage of voters request the referendum.
37 Most Reverend Henry Orombi, 'What is Anglicanism?' (2007) August/September First Things, at 27 July 2009.
38 Perhaps because it is a matter which in the opinion of the committee should be decided locally.
39 The author notes a variety of attitudes towards the ordination of women to the priesthood within the Fellowship. This may be the first example of a matter which, for the time being at least, is held to be one for local determination.
40 Letter from the Most Reverend Rowan Williams to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion, Reflections on the Episcopal Church's 2009 General Convention, 27 July 2009, para 13, (Note that Archbishop Williams was speaking in relation to the Communion).
41 Articles of Religion 1562, Art XXI.
42 Venables, above n 14.
43 Williams, above n 40, para 20.
----Ashley Dewell is a solicitor based in Alice Springs in the Diocese of the Northern Territory of the Anglican Church of Australia. He is a life-long Anglican who was baptized at St Richard's Parndana and confirmed at St Mark's Golden Grove, both in the Diocese of Adelaide of the Anglican Church of Australia. Dewell holds a degree in Computer Science; Bachelor of Laws (Honours); Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice; Master of Laws; and Master of Theological Studies (graduand only)
Special to Virtueonline
www.virtueonline.org
August 26, 2009
I INTRODUCTION
The Anglican theological position has been summarised as: "in essentials - unity, in non-essentials - liberty, in all things - charity",2 however the Anglican Communion ("Communion") is currently suffering from disunity. Despite the publicity over human sexuality, the real issue is "a crisis over biblical authority and its clarity"3 created by increasing divergence of theological belief in essential matters, and in what constitutes an essential matter of the Christian faith.4
One proposed response to this crisis has been for the provinces of the Communion to adopt a formal covenantal relationship ("Covenant"),5 however its development has also been hindered by theological divergence. Despite discussions at the Lambeth Conference in 2008,6 and at the Anglican Consultative Council in 2009, there has been little progress towards the adoption of a Covenant capable of meeting the crisis facing the Communion. But while the wider Communion remains hamstrung by theological divergence, some Anglicans have demonstrated sufficient unity of theological belief in both essential matters and in what constitutes an essential matter of the Christian faith7 to form the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans ("Fellowship").
This paper will demonstrate that the Communion is no longer capable of adopting a Covenant capable of addressing the crisis facing the Communion, but that a Covenant between Fellowship members is both possible and necessary. This paper will also identify some of the challenges to the implementation of a Fellowship Covenant, and source methods of meeting those challenges from the principles of common law.
II THE COMMUNION, THE FELLOWSHIP AND COVENANT
A. The Communion requires a Covenant
Fundamentals of Union
Within in any group of people there will be agreement upon some matters and disagreement upon other matters. The extent to which a group can remain united depends upon two characteristics of the members of that group. The first is the extent to which the members hold consistent beliefs, and the second is the extent to which the members accept divergent beliefs of other members of the group. Where there is no divergence of belief there will be no disagreement and thus no threat of division, but such complete consistency is unrealistic. Groups avoid division where there is sufficient consistency of belief in relation to matters essential to the group, and sufficient acceptance of divergent beliefs in relation to matters deemed by the group to be non-essential.
2. The Communion requires a Covenant
Theological divergence in the Church of England was initially limited because it was created within the British culture and that cultural expression of Christianity was exported throughout the world.
Theological divergence increased as Anglican churches in the colonies developed into distinct provinces, however there remained theological consistency in relation to matters such as the authority of the Bible, the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer.
Any theological divergence that existed was generally acceptable to the Communion as a whole. Theological divergence within the Communion increased during the twentieth century over the role of women in church leadership, and the actions taken by some dioceses were unacceptable to other parts of the Communion. Consequently, some Anglicans joined the Roman Catholic Church or formed splinter groups,9 but again this theological divergence remained acceptable to the majority of the Communion.10
In and around 2003, the Episcopal Church ("TEC") consecrated a non-celibate homosexual man as a bishop and some dioceses in the Anglican Church of Canada ("ACOC") began to bless homosexual unions. These actions were condemned by several Anglican provinces, and the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) severed its relationship with both TEC,11 and those Canadian dioceses.12 TEC has subsequently passed resolutions at its General Convention in 2009 affirming the blessing of homosexual unions and that there is no barrier to the ordination of homosexual people.13 These actions represent a theological divergence unacceptable to large parts of the Communion.
The theological divergence within the Communion is now so great that it must be regulated or diminished in order to avoid some form of division. Therefore a Communion Covenant capable of meeting the crisis in the Communion must facilitate firstly the identification of essential beliefs, and secondly the discipline of those who breach them.
B. The Communion cannot adopt a Covenant
1. Theological Consistency is required for Covenant
A Christian group can only remain united when its members exhibit sufficient theological consistency and sufficient acceptance of any theological divergence. Those conditions must also be satisfied by prospective members for entry into a Covenant, for entering into a meaningful covenantal relationship is an act of unity. Therefore in order to adopt a Covenant, all of the provinces of the Communion must exhibit sufficient theological consistency in essential matters and sufficient acceptance of any theological divergence in non-essential matters.
2. Sufficient Theological Consistency no longer exists within the Communion
The crisis in the Communion has seen some provinces sever relations with other provinces, and the Anglican Church in North America has been created by those who cannot accept the theological positions of TEC and ACOC. This example alone demonstrates there is no longer sufficient theological consistency within the Communion for the adoption of a Communion Covenant.
Further or in the alternative, the provinces which have joined the Fellowship are unlikely to adopt a Communion Covenant unless it allows for the discipline of those provinces holding theological positions considered by Fellowship members to be sinful ("sinful theology"). TEC and ACOC are unlikely to enter a Communion Covenant unless their freedom from foreign interference is guaranteed.
There is now such theological divergence between two sections of the Communion that neither will accept the position of the other. Therefore there is no longer sufficient theological consistency, or sufficient acceptance of theological divergence, for the adoption of a Communion Covenant. Therefore the Communion is no longer capable of adopting a Covenant.
C. Fellowship and Covenant
1. Sufficient Theological Consistency does exist within the Fellowship
The formation of the Fellowship demonstrates significant theological consistency and acceptance of theological divergence among its members. Those characteristics exist despite the traditional tension between the Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical wings of the Anglican Church, both of which have contributed members to the Fellowship. Those Fellowship members have joined specifically to identify particular matters as essentials of the Christian faith and to reject theological divergence in those matters.
Furthermore, the acceptance of the Fellowship members of the Jerusalem Declaration as a requirement for Fellowship membership establishes that the Fellowship is currently capable of adopting some form of covenant. However as the Jerusalem Declaration is a statement of principles and does not allow for cross-provincial discipline, it is not the type of Covenant discussed in this paper. Nevertheless, the Jerusalem Declaration still demonstrates the mutual concern of Fellowship members with theological divergence in essential matters.
2. The Fellowship needs a Covenant
The theological consistency of the Fellowship enables it to adopt a Covenant, but the existence of such consistency might also support the argument that the Fellowship does not require a Covenant. However the Fellowship may not always exhibit such theological consistency. The theological divergence which created the crisis in the Communion did not suddenly appear, but rather developed in provinces where the prevailing theology gradually drifted away from orthodox doctrine.14 By the time the consequences of that theological divergence became obvious, the majority of the decision makers in some provinces no longer subscribed to orthodox doctrine.
The Fellowship should therefore be concerned that it, like the Communion, currently lacks the capacity to subject members of one province to the discipline of the Fellowship as a whole. Therefore a risk remains that, in the future, one Fellowship province might become a safe-haven for those advocating theological divergence in essential matters. Should this occur, the Fellowship could sponsor the creation of a new province, as has been done in North America, but that is costly in terms of both human and financial resources. A Fellowship Covenant allowing for cross-provincial discipline would deal with any theological divergence and reserve those human and financial resources for evangelism and mission.
The Fellowship requires a Covenant not because of any current theological divergence but to ensure it has the capacity to regulate or discipline any future theological divergence. A Fellowship Covenant would represent a mutual commitment of Fellowship members which can be relied upon in the event of a crisis. The Fellowship must adopt a Covenant in the short term, while it retains the capacity to do so.
D. Challenges to a Fellowship Covenant
There are many challenges to a Fellowship Covenant, such as the traditional tension between the Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical wings of the Anglican Church. Other examples include differing views within the Fellowship on the ordination of women, and the relationship between Fellowship and non-Fellowship members of the Communion. The latter challenge is of particular importance as the Fellowship must continue to relate in a Christian manner with faithful Anglicans who have not joined the Fellowship. Many Anglican organisational units also resent outside interference in their activities.
Despite the many challenges facing the Fellowship, it has already united the strictest Anglo-Catholics and the greatest Evangelicals in an association. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, despite the many challenges to a Fellowship Covenant, the solutions to these challenges may be found in another of the great English traditions: the common law.
III COMMON LAW AND A FELLOWSHIP COVENANT
A. Norman England and Common Law
1. Historical Background
Between the withdrawal of the Roman legions and the Norman invasion, England was repeatedly invaded by ethnic groups who introduced their own laws and customs which varied from shire to shire.15 Although there had been several compilations of national laws,16 the central government was relatively weak and law was usually applied in a relatively informal manner by a local assembly.17
Duke William of Normandy conquered England in 1066 and declared that existing local laws would be maintained, but he also established a strong central government.18 The power of that central government was exercised by representatives who travelled among the shires to, among other duties, administer justice.19 A person with a complaint could therefore petition either the local lords or a royal judge. The royal judges became more popular because their judgments were enforceable throughout the kingdom and as visitors they were less likely to be subject to local prejudice.20 In time the royal judges replaced the local courts.21
The original judges were usually untrained in law and so relied upon decisions made by other judges.22 As these decisions were enforceable throughout England, they overrode any local custom and so became known as "common law".23
2. Development of Common Law Principles
Although statutes passed by parliament overrode common law decisions, there were relatively few statutes enacted by parliament until the reign of Henry VIII,24 leaving the common law to develop under the guidance of the judges. Speaking of the breadth of common law, Blackstone stated:
Thus, for example, that there shall be four superior courts of record; the chancery, the king's bench, the common pleas, and the exchequer .... that the eldest son alone is heir to his ancestor .... that property may be acquired and transferred by writing .... that a deed is of no validity unless sealed and delivered .... that wills shall be construed more favourably, and deeds more strictly .... that money lent upon bond is recoverable by action of debt .... that breaking the public peace is an offence, and punishable by fine and imprisonment .... all these are doctrines that are not set down in any written statute or ordinance, but depend merely upon immemorial usage, that is, upon common law, for their support.25
Many of these principles were later incorporated into legislation, but they were law in England long before that incorporation. In addition to particular laws, the common law also developed legal doctrines such as stare decisis and reception.
(a) Doctrine of Stare Decisis
The common law doctrine of stare decisis ("let the decision stand") requires judges to make decisions according to the manner in which they have been made previously. Lower courts are bound to follow the precedents set by higher courts, and the highest courts are expected to abide by their own decisions unless some compelling reason arises for the departure from precedent.26
Four advantages to stare decisis identified in Telstra Corporation v Treloar27 included firstly the certainty that comes from being able to rely upon the guidance of past decisions and secondly the equality that comes from treating all cases alike.28
Thirdly, subsequent courts need not re-examine issues which have been examined previously, and fourthly the appearance of justice is supported when the law is applied in a manner which does not depend on the personal views of a particular judge.29
Notwithstanding the doctrine, lower courts should follow the decisions of higher courts because if they depart from precedential decisions, the higher courts can simply overrule them on appeal.30 In this manner, stare decisis ensures an orderly and incremental development of legal principles.31
(b) Doctrine of Reception
As the legal system of the Empire of Great Britain, the common law also interacted with the foreign legal systems already operating in territory acquired by Britain. The doctrine of reception provided that when Britain acquired new land by conquest or secession by a foreign power, the existing laws of the foreign land remained valid except for those laws which were repugnant to the law of England.32
Blackstone described the doctrine as: But in conquered or ceded countries, that have already laws of their own, the king may indeed alter and change those laws; but, till he does actually change them, the ancient laws of the country remain, unless such as are against the law of God, as in the case of an infidel country.33 Section 4.
In this context, laws considered against the law of God included practices such as cannibalism, and would also have included any requirement to observe non-Christian religious practices.
B. Application of Common Law Principles to a Fellowship Covenant
This section identifies four challenges to the adoption of a Fellowship Covenant and demonstrates how a Fellowship Covenant based upon common law principles could meet each of those challenges.
There will be more than four challenges, but the common law principles are sufficiently adaptive to meet any challenge that might arise.
1. Discipline
(a) Challenge
The current crisis within the Communion has been brought about by theological divergence resulting in the propagation of sinful theology. Each instance of sinful theology is a theological divergence in a matter the Fellowship deems to be an essential matter of the Christian faith. The current structure of the Communion facilitated this crisis by ensuring that if the province in which a person is propagating sinful theology will not discipline them, they cannot be disciplined. The simple solution is to create a central body with the power to investigate and adjudicate accusations of sinful theology, and then to institute discipline which overrides any contrary decision of the local province.
However there remains significant divergence of theological belief in non-essential matters within the Fellowship, and its continued existence relies upon accepting that there are non-essential matters in which liberty is the proper response. Therefore the simple solution is impractical for two reasons. The first is that a central prosecuting body could be dominated by one segment of the Fellowship which insists upon a definition of essential matters which does not represent the views of the Fellowship. The second reason is that Anglican organisational units traditionally dislike external interference and would be unwilling to accept an arrangement which gave such overreaching power to an unaccountable central body.
The challenge is to facilitate the accountability of each Fellowship member to the whole Fellowship, while avoiding excessive centralisation. The simple solution fails to meet this challenge.
(b) Common Law Solution
Instead of replacing the local courts, the Norman kings offered an alternative. A petitioner could make an accusation before either the local court or before a royal judge. In the same manner, the Primates' Council could be empowered to judge accusations of sinful theology as an alternative to the judicial processes of local provinces. Thereafter a person wishing to make an accusation of sinful theology would have a choice, but like the Norman royal judges, the decisions of the Primates' Council would be binding throughout the Fellowship. This mechanism would allow the Fellowship to implement a unified judicial process, however this mechanism also immediately clashes with local autonomy.
The same unified judicial process could be established within the Fellowship without so great a clash with local autonomy by requiring any accusation of sinful theology to be made first through the judicial processes of the local province. The Primates' Council would only be empowered to act when local judicial processes were exhausted, and by way of appeal from the final decision of a province's highest internal court.34
The common law solution is therefore to empower the Primates' Council to act as a final court of appeal for the Fellowship. Either approach set out above facilitates the common law solution, however given the Anglican dislike of external interference the second is more practical. Nevertheless, either of those options would empower the Primates' Council to deliver decisions which were binding upon the parties in the case before them, but would then also serve as a precedent for the rest of the Fellowship. The Primates' Council would become, as the ecclesiastical representatives of the Fellowship, responsible for determining the standard which must be observed by the entire Fellowship.
(c) General Considerations
(i) Power of the Primates' Council
This solution would empower the relatively small Primates' Council to make decisions binding upon the Fellowship, but it is important to note that such judicial decisions would not be a directive or edict to the Fellowship. Those decisions would rather be an indication that if a similar dispute were brought before the Primates' Council in the future, they would make the same decision.
Accountability to such a small body may be difficult for independently minded Anglicans to accept, however mutual accountability is the only way for the Fellowship to avoid the crisis afflicting the Communion. Both mutual accountability and the satisfaction of concerns over the power of the Primates Council can be satisfied by making decisions of the Primates' Council appealable to the body of all Fellowship bishops.35 Given the practicalities of organising all Fellowship bishops to hear an appeal, such an appeal should only be heard if a sufficient number of Fellowship bishops consent to hear the appeal.36 Authoritative decisions which deliver precedent binding upon the entire Fellowship would therefore be made by the ecclesiastical representatives of the entire Fellowship.
This approach is consistent with the practice of the early church as recorded in chapter 15 of the Acts of the Apostles. When a theological dispute arose in Antioch, and it could not be settled locally, St Paul and St Barnabas were sent to Jerusalem to obtain the judgment of the apostles, and the bishops are the successors to the apostles.37
(ii) The Limited Power of Decision
Making A decision of the Primates' Council would require the parties involved to abide by that decision, and the relevant province to facilitate that decision, but the influence of the same decision over the Fellowship would be by way of precedent. Accordingly, if a similar accusation of sinful theology arose, the authorities in the local judicial process would be expected to apply the precedent set by the Primates' Council. While local authorities could make a different decision, perhaps by distinguishing the case before them from the precedent, the Primates' Council would also be able to overrule the local authorities if the matter were brought before them on appeal.
(iii) Limited Power
As a method of decision making based upon common law, this approach would be driven by complaints. The Primates' Council could only issue a binding decision when a claim of sinful theology is brought before them. The Primates' Council would not have the power to arbitrarily and voluntarily issue a decree which is binding upon the Fellowship. This limited power to issue binding decisions does not exist in the Communion, which has chosen provincial autonomy over mutual accountability. This power will provide for mutual accountability, but its limitations will also ensure that any loss of local autonomy is minimal. The Fellowship members will therefore only be subject to minimal interference while they learn to live in a mutually accountable relationship.
(iv) Inundation of Complaints
There is a risk that the Primates' Council would find their time monopolised by hearing appeals. While the Primates' Council would include a judicial role, the primary role of the Primates' Council would still be to lead the Fellowship, and each Primate would still have duties within his own province.
In order to fulfil their judicial role without compromising their other duties, the Primates' Council should appoint an advisory committee. That committee would review appeals and provide the Primates' Council with a summary of the issues and a recommendation. That recommendation might be that the Primates' Council refuse to hear the appeal,38 or that the appeal should be heard and determined in a particular manner.
As an advisory committee, the Primates' Council would always be free to disregard that advice, for it would be the Primates' Council which is empowered to make decisions. However an advisory committee would filter the appeals to ensure that any time spent by the Primates' Council exercising their judicial role is not wasted.
(v) Application to Modern Issues
Either implementation of the common law principles set out above in a Fellowship Covenant would effectively deal with the issues facing the Communion if they were to occur in the Fellowship. For example, if a province attempted to consecrate a homosexual bishop, the decision to do so could be appealed to the Primates' Council as sinful theology and the Primates' Council would have the power to forbid that appointment. An appeal from the Primates' Council would be determined by all Fellowship bishops, making the single province or diocese subject to the ecclesiastical representatives of the entire Fellowship.
However if the Fellowship adopts a Covenant in this form, that situation is unlikely to arise for the issue has only arisen within the Communion through decades of gradual drift from orthodox doctrine resulting in significant theological divergence. Either implementation would allow each increment of theological drift to be challenged and arrested through mutual accountability.
Therefore the consecration of homosexual bishops would not arise because the ordination of homosexual priests or deacons could be prevented. The ordination of homosexuals could be prevented because any claim that homosexuality is not sinful could be authoritatively dismissed within the Fellowship. Theological divergence would not arise in the Fellowship as has arisen in the Communion because the theological drift away from orthodox doctrine could be arrested.
2. Autonomy and Control
(a) Challenge
Anglican organisational units have traditionally prized autonomy and disliked outside interference, especially where the alternative involves submission by Anglo-Catholics to Evangelicals, or vice versa. However any covenantal relationship, from a marriage to a commercial contract, involves a surrender of some autonomy to become accountable to another. That surrender mirrors the journey of the Christian who surrenders their own autonomy to become accountable to Christ. Whatever the advantages of local autonomy, total autonomy has also created liberal safe-havens with no accountability to the wider church.
While a central authority displacing all local autonomy would settle this issue, the Communion has also traditionally rejected excessive centralisation. The challenge is to establish mutual accountability in such a manner that while disunity in essentials is prevented, liberty in non-essentials is maintained.
(b) Common Law Solution
(i) Theory
While the judicial decisions of the Primates' Council would be binding upon all Fellowship members, judicial power is limited. The Primates' Council could forbid an Anglican organisational unit from teaching or implementing sinful theology, but could not require a province to implement any particular agenda. In secular courts the power is described as 'judicial review' and permits the courts to invalidate certain legislative acts but does not permit the judiciary to require that any particular legislation be enacted. This power does not create a centralised legislative system with the power to replace local autonomy.
Furthermore, the Primates' Council would be expected to limit their decisions to prohibiting divergence of theological belief in essential matters. A person accused of sinful theology would be able to claim their practice relates to a 'non-essential' matter where liberty, rather than unity, should be enforced. The Primates' Council might refuse to hear such a petition on that basis, or hear the petition and determine that the matter should be determined locally rather than across the entire Fellowship.39
Therefore while a Fellowship province is free to make any decision they wish, as they are currently able to, those decisions would be ultimately subject to a veto by the ecclesiastical representatives of the rest of the Fellowship. That veto should however only be exercised if those representatives determine that such a decision does not represent an authentic expression of Christianity. While this approach involves submission to an external authority that authority is the body of the Fellowship, so what affects the Fellowship is decided by the Fellowship.40 It is a legal expression of the Scriptural exhortation: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Ephesians 5:21, NIV).
(ii) Practical Example – Worship Style
A dispute may well arise within the Fellowship due to the wide variety of worship styles within both the Communion and the Fellowship. Confusion over the significance of cultural meaning, a diocesan attempt to institute a compulsory order of service or a proper query regarding the validity of a particular worship practice might result in an appeal before the Primates' Council. But the Primates' Council is the best body to hear such a dispute.
Each Primate is leader of a province incorporating a variety of worship styles and practices so the Primates' Council will consist of leaders who represent a variety of theological positions on non-essential matters. An appeal from a decision of the Primates' Council would be heard by all Fellowship bishops, which is even more representative of divergent theological positions which are nevertheless accepted within the Fellowship. Determination by these bodies, which must reach a significant level of agreement before a worship style is deemed an expression of sinful theology, is the best protection for continued liberty in non-essential matters, without sacrificing mutual accountability.
Although the usual Anglican desire for autonomy stands opposed to the power of the Primates' Council to declare a theological position to be sinful, it is this power which will distinguish the Fellowship from the Communion. It is this power which will allow the Fellowship to avoid the crisis afflicting the Communion.
3. Membership of the Fellowship
(a) Challenge
The entry of a new organisational unit into the Fellowship will be meaningless unless it is subject to the same mutual accountability as the rest of the Fellowship. However entry of a new member ensures there will be an immediate clash between the rules, canons or procedures of the new member and those of the Fellowship. The challenge is to immediately subject new members to the mutual accountability necessary to make membership meaningful, while also protecting their autonomy and allowing them to learn to live as part of the Fellowship.
(b) Common Law Solution
According to the doctrine of reception, the laws applicable in a territory acquired by Britain through conquest or secession by a foreign power remained in force until specifically modified, save for those repugnant to the law of England. Those laws repugnant to the law of England were immediately invalidated. Any dispute was determined by the judiciary.
In the same manner, all canons, rules, statutes or other regulations governing a new Fellowship member would remain in force upon becoming a member of the Fellowship. However where a canon or other regulation of the new Fellowship member is in conflict with a precedent set by the Primates' Council, the new member could reasonably expect to find that canon or regulation challenged and overruled.
The Primates' Council would be responsible for settling any dispute regarding the existence of a conflict between the new member's canons or regulations and the Primates' Council's decisions. However a prospective Fellowship member will seek membership because they want to be subject to the discipline of the Fellowship, which means there should be little dispute in practice. 4.
Development of Fellowship Canon Law
(a) Challenge
The Articles of Religion state that "General Councils ... may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God."41 Yet while rejecting any claim to the infallible authority attributed to the Pope by the Roman Catholic Church, the Fellowship has also rejected the assertion that humanity cannot be sure of anything.42 But to require theological consistency of Fellowship members, the Fellowship must also be able to define the essential matters of the Christian faith. The challenge is to develop a method of making binding decisions which recognises the inherent sinbased limitations of humanity while accepting that humans do have the capacity recognise divine revelation.
(b) Common Law Solution
The common law doctrine of stare decisis required similar cases to be decided in a similar manner. On this basis, the common law became reliable, but never entirely settled, because the higher courts were still able to depart from precedent.
The incorporation of stare decisis would provide the same reliability to a developing Fellowship canon law because Fellowship members would be expected to abide by decisions of the Primates' Council. Failure to do so could lead to an appeal to the Primates' Council which would be able to invalidate any contrary decision made by local authorities.
Stare decisis would make it a characteristic of Fellowship canon law that a theological position becomes stronger each time it is affirmed, while reserving to the Primates' Council the power to revise prior decisions if it were deemed necessary. Therefore, without claiming infallibility, the Primates' Council would have the capacity to both define matters essential to the Christian faith and to re-address those decisions to express the eternal truths of Christianity anew to each generation.
IV CONCLUSION
A church seeking unity in essentials and liberty in non-essentials requires a Covenant to remain united, but the Communion is already too theologically divergent to adopt a Covenant. At the time of writing the Fellowship retains sufficient theological consistency to adopt a Fellowship Covenant and should do so without delay in order to avoid the theological divergence afflicting the Communion.
A Fellowship Covenant incorporating the principles set out above will introduce discipline while protecting local autonomy, and create a binding Fellowship canon law without the creation of a new papacy. In speaking of a Communion Covenant the Archbishop of Canterbury perfectly described the value of the principles set out above, the relevant parts of which the author sets out below.
[they]...express the need for mutual recognisability, mutual consultation and some shared processes of decision-making. They are emphatically not about centralisation but about mutual responsibility. They look to the possibility of a freely chosen commitment to sharing discernment (and also to a mutual respect for the integrity of each province, ...). They remain the only proposals we are likely to see that address some of the risks and confusions already detailed, encouraging us to act and decide in ways that are not simply local.43
A Fellowship Covenant will be a formal covenantal relationship allowing the Anglo- Catholic and Evangelical wings of the Fellowship to unite with the other halves of themselves to produce one orthodox Anglican Church. These principles represent a modern and practical via media found not in the rejection of Roman Catholic or Protestant but in the balance of problematic extremes. The author commends these principles to the readers' consideration.
Bibliography
Books Crawford, James and Brian Opeskin. Australian Courts of Law (4th ed, 2004)
Allen, W H. Law Made Simple (5th ed, 1978)
Cook, Catriona et al. Laying Down the Law (6th ed, 2005)
Enright, Christopher. Studying Law (4th ed, 1991)
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Driver, Archbishop Jeffrey 'Anglicanism, Popes and three-legged stools' (Speech delivered at St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide, 14 September 2008)
Jensen, Archbishop Peter (Speech delivered at 2006 Synod of Sydney Diocese, Sydney, 2006)
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Lambeth Commission on Communion. The Windsor Report (2004).
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de Santis, Solange. 'Canada sees first sanctioned blessing', Anglican Journal (Canada) 1 September 2003
Venables, Archbishop Greg. 'The Danger of Drift (2009) Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
Orombi, Archbishop Henry. 'What is Anglicanism?' (2007) August/September First Things,
Letter from the Most Reverend Rowan Williams to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion.
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Website
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William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (first published 1765-69) General Telstra Corporation v Treloar (2000) 102 FCR 595
Articles of Religion 1562, Art XXI.
2 Most Reverend Jeffrey Driver, 'Anglicanism, Popes and three-legged stools' (Speech delivered at St Peter's Cathedral, Adelaide, 14 September 2008).
3 Most Reverend Peter Jensen, (Speech delivered at 2006 Synod of Sydney Diocese, Sydney, 2006).
4 Hereafter referred to as "theological divergence".
5 Lambeth Commission on Communion, The Windsor Report (2004), para 118.
6 Where the author was privileged to serve as a Steward.
7 Hereafter referred to as "theological consistency". Members of political parties in liberal democracies, such as Australia, demonstrate this principle as they are generally united in the principles expressed in the party platform, or are at least willing to accept those principles. However if the party introduces principles into the party platform which some members cannot accept, those members will leave the party.
8 In those circumstances some members might argue they should remain members of the party in order to change the party platform from within, however any continued membership represents some form of acceptance.
9 Eg Anglican Catholic Church in Australia.
10 Although in this case acceptance for many Anglicans was conditional upon being insulated from the ministry of ordained women.
11 Most Reverend Peter Akinola, A Most Agonising Journey towards Lambeth 2008 (2008) Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) < http://www.anglicannig. org/main.php?k_j=12&d=88&p_t=index.php?> at 29 July 2009.
12 Ibid; Solange de Santis, 'Canada sees first sanctioned blessing', Anglican Journal (Canada) 1 September 2003.
13 See eg: TEC General Convention 2009 Resolutions C056 and D025; General Convention 2009 Legislation (2009) The Episcopal Church
14 This is the theological 'drift' referred to by the Archbishop of the South Cone - Most Reverend Greg Venables, 'The Danger of Drift (2009) Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
15 C F Padfield, Law Made Simple (5th ed, 1978) 9.
16 Ibid 10.
17 James Crawford and Brian Opeskin, Australian Courts of Law (4th Ed, 2004) 6.
18 Catriona Cook, Robin Creyke, Robert Geddes and Ian Holloway, Laying Down the Law (6th ed, 2005) 11.
19 Padfield, above n 15, 10-11.
20 Cook, above n 18, 13.
21 Christopher Enright, Studying Law (4th ed, 1991), 125.
22 Cook, above n 18, 13.
23 Ibid 13.
24 Ibid 25.
25 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (first published 1765-69) Introduction, Section III.
26 Cook, above n 18, 75.
27 (2000) 102 FCR 595 at 602.
28 Telstra Corporation v Treloar (2000) 102 FCR 595 at 602, per Branson and Finkelstein JJ.
29 Ibid.
30 Cook, above n 18, 76.
31 Ibid 76.
32 Ibid 32.
33 Ibid Introduction,
34 This process is common in countries with a federal system of government, which includes common law nations such as Australia, Canada and the United States of America. However it also includes federal nations which do not have a common law system.
35 Any reference in this paper to a decision that can be made by the Primates' Council includes the capacity for that decision to be appealed to the body of all Fellowship Bishops, provided that a sufficient number of Fellowship bishops have consented to hear the appeal. 36 This process is similar to the political process of 'voter's veto' whereby voters can overturn the implementation of specific legislation by way of majority decision in a referendum on the issue. However the referendum can only be put to the voters if a significant percentage of voters request the referendum.
37 Most Reverend Henry Orombi, 'What is Anglicanism?' (2007) August/September First Things,
38 Perhaps because it is a matter which in the opinion of the committee should be decided locally.
39 The author notes a variety of attitudes towards the ordination of women to the priesthood within the Fellowship. This may be the first example of a matter which, for the time being at least, is held to be one for local determination.
40 Letter from the Most Reverend Rowan Williams to the Bishops, Clergy and Faithful of the Anglican Communion, Reflections on the Episcopal Church's 2009 General Convention, 27 July 2009, para 13, (Note that Archbishop Williams was speaking in relation to the Communion).
41 Articles of Religion 1562, Art XXI.
42 Venables, above n 14.
43 Williams, above n 40, para 20.
----Ashley Dewell is a solicitor based in Alice Springs in the Diocese of the Northern Territory of the Anglican Church of Australia. He is a life-long Anglican who was baptized at St Richard's Parndana and confirmed at St Mark's Golden Grove, both in the Diocese of Adelaide of the Anglican Church of Australia. Dewell holds a degree in Computer Science; Bachelor of Laws (Honours); Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice; Master of Laws; and Master of Theological Studies (graduand only)
A Summary of the State of the Anglican Church in the USA and Canada
By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
August 26, 2009
A number of clergy and laity have written to VOL requesting a summary of the state of the Anglican Church in the U.S. and Canada for distribution to their parishes and friends. The following, we hope, is a useful compilation, albeit brief, of the situation as it is presently found in North America. This may be printed out and used for information purposes and discussion.
* The Episcopal Church USA has approximately 100 dioceses in the U.S. Most are liberal in ethos and theology. A handful, including the dioceses of Albany, Central Florida, South Carolina, Springfield, Western Kansas, Western Louisiana, North Dakota, Northern Indiana and Dallas, are considered orthodox. (While the bishops may be orthodox, it does not follow that their diocesan priests and laity reflect those views.)
* Four orthodox dioceses have left The Episcopal Church and are in legal battles for their properties. They are San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Quincy and Ft. Worth. Each diocese has a faux diocese, set up by The Episcopal Church, alongside the original diocese. These faux dioceses are challenging the right of the orthodox dioceses to be recognized as authentic Anglican dioceses. Each diocese has its own bishop, in effect creating eight bishops in the four locations.
* The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) was established to bring together under one umbrella some 28 orthodox Anglican jurisdictions. This follows communion threatening actions by the Episcopal Church concerning the Uniqueness and Universality of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of all, and whether we in fact believe, per Acts 4:12 and Article 18, that there is no salvation apart from him. Other communion threatening issues include the consecration of a non-celibate homosexual to the episcopacy and Women's Ordination. ACNA's archbishop is the Most Rev. Robert Duncan.
The following are the lead jurisdictions in ACNA. Many hold dual citizenship with their respective overseas provinces.
* AMIA - The Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) is the largest of the jurisdictions. It is based in Pawleys Island, SC. It is a missionary outreach of the Anglican Province of Rwanda. It has 10 active missionary bishops (including 3 being consecrated on September 9, 2009) with 131 congregations in the US and another 16 in Canada, the Anglican Mission has a total of 147 congregations with 328 active clergy in the US and 31 in Canada.
* CANA –The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA currently consists of more than 85 congregations and 179 clergy in 25 states. At its recent council meeting, CANA ordained three chaplains for the armed forces. Bishop Martyn Minns provides Episcopal oversight for CANA. Its linking jurisdiction is the Anglican Province of Nigeria.
* Uganda - The Rt. John Guernsey is Bishop for the Diocese of the Holy Spirit in the AC-NA, a transitional diocese of formerly Church of Uganda churches in the USA and now fully released by the Ugandan HOB into AC-NA.
* The Anglican Church of Kenya consecrated the Rev. Canon Bill Atwood and Rev. Bill Murdoch as Suffragan Bishops of All Saints Cathedral Diocese, Nairobi, to serve there international interest in the USA.
* The Reformed Episcopal Church (REC). Founded in 1870. It is now a constituent member of the ACNA.
* Forward in Faith NA. The Rt. Rev. William Ilgenfritz is their bishop. They are a member of ACNA
* The Anglican Relief and Development Fund (ARDF) is the relief arm of the ACNA
Continuing Anglican Jurisdictions
There are approximately 58 Continuing Anglican branches in North America. The following are the six largest.
* Anglican Catholic Church (ACC) --. Its Metropolitan and Archbishop is The Most Reverend Mark Haverland, Ph.D. He is based in Athens, Georgia.
* Anglican Province of America (APA) --The Most Rev. Walter H. Grundorf, DD is Presiding Bishop. He is also Bishop Ordinary, Diocese of the Eastern United States. He is based in Oviedo, Florida.
* Anglican Province of Christ the King (APCK) -- The Most Rev. James E. Provence is the Presiding bishop based in California.
* Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) --. The Archbishop is the Most. Rev. John Hepworth. They have two jurisdictions in North America: The Anglican Church in America and The Anglican Catholic Church of Canada
* United Episcopal Church of North America (UECNA) -- The Most Reverend Stephen C. Reber is archbishop. He is based in Charlotte, NC.
* Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC) -- The Rt. Rev. William Millsaps is archbishop. He is based in Monteagle, Tennessee.
In Canada there are three Anglican jurisdictions.
* The first is the Anglican Church of Canada. Like its counterpart, The Episcopal Church USA, it is comprised mainly of moderates and liberals. Approximately 25% of the 33 dioceses would consider themselves orthodox in faith and morals.
* Anglican Coalition in Canada (ACiC) comprises some 15 parishes. The Rev. Silas TAK Yin Ng, Rector of Richmond Emmanuel, British Columbia, will be consecrated bishop in September 2009. They are based mostly in Western Canada. The Anglican Coalition in Canada (ACiC) is also a member of AMiA.
* The Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) is a founding partner of the Anglican Church in North America, a "province in formation" in the Anglican Communion, and part of the global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans which affirms the Jerusalem Declaration. There are 30 parishes in the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), some small, some large. They have three bishops, 68 priests and 12 deacons licensed by ANiC under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. ANiC emerged out of the "Essentials" movement in the Anglican Church of Canada and remains affiliated with Anglican Essentials Network, Anglican Essentials Canada and Anglican Essentials Federation. Their Moderator is The Rt. Rev. Donald Harvey. He is based in St John's, Newfoundland.
Other movements of note include:
GAFCON - Global Anglican Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans comprises two-thirds of the world's orthodox Anglicans FCA -
FCA - Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans - UK, Ireland, South Africa and the US.
END
www.virtueonline.org
August 26, 2009
A number of clergy and laity have written to VOL requesting a summary of the state of the Anglican Church in the U.S. and Canada for distribution to their parishes and friends. The following, we hope, is a useful compilation, albeit brief, of the situation as it is presently found in North America. This may be printed out and used for information purposes and discussion.
* The Episcopal Church USA has approximately 100 dioceses in the U.S. Most are liberal in ethos and theology. A handful, including the dioceses of Albany, Central Florida, South Carolina, Springfield, Western Kansas, Western Louisiana, North Dakota, Northern Indiana and Dallas, are considered orthodox. (While the bishops may be orthodox, it does not follow that their diocesan priests and laity reflect those views.)
* Four orthodox dioceses have left The Episcopal Church and are in legal battles for their properties. They are San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, Quincy and Ft. Worth. Each diocese has a faux diocese, set up by The Episcopal Church, alongside the original diocese. These faux dioceses are challenging the right of the orthodox dioceses to be recognized as authentic Anglican dioceses. Each diocese has its own bishop, in effect creating eight bishops in the four locations.
* The Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) was established to bring together under one umbrella some 28 orthodox Anglican jurisdictions. This follows communion threatening actions by the Episcopal Church concerning the Uniqueness and Universality of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of all, and whether we in fact believe, per Acts 4:12 and Article 18, that there is no salvation apart from him. Other communion threatening issues include the consecration of a non-celibate homosexual to the episcopacy and Women's Ordination. ACNA's archbishop is the Most Rev. Robert Duncan.
The following are the lead jurisdictions in ACNA. Many hold dual citizenship with their respective overseas provinces.
* AMIA - The Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA) is the largest of the jurisdictions. It is based in Pawleys Island, SC. It is a missionary outreach of the Anglican Province of Rwanda. It has 10 active missionary bishops (including 3 being consecrated on September 9, 2009) with 131 congregations in the US and another 16 in Canada, the Anglican Mission has a total of 147 congregations with 328 active clergy in the US and 31 in Canada.
* CANA –The Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA currently consists of more than 85 congregations and 179 clergy in 25 states. At its recent council meeting, CANA ordained three chaplains for the armed forces. Bishop Martyn Minns provides Episcopal oversight for CANA. Its linking jurisdiction is the Anglican Province of Nigeria.
* Uganda - The Rt. John Guernsey is Bishop for the Diocese of the Holy Spirit in the AC-NA, a transitional diocese of formerly Church of Uganda churches in the USA and now fully released by the Ugandan HOB into AC-NA.
* The Anglican Church of Kenya consecrated the Rev. Canon Bill Atwood and Rev. Bill Murdoch as Suffragan Bishops of All Saints Cathedral Diocese, Nairobi, to serve there international interest in the USA.
* The Reformed Episcopal Church (REC). Founded in 1870. It is now a constituent member of the ACNA.
* Forward in Faith NA. The Rt. Rev. William Ilgenfritz is their bishop. They are a member of ACNA
* The Anglican Relief and Development Fund (ARDF) is the relief arm of the ACNA
Continuing Anglican Jurisdictions
There are approximately 58 Continuing Anglican branches in North America. The following are the six largest.
* Anglican Catholic Church (ACC) --. Its Metropolitan and Archbishop is The Most Reverend Mark Haverland, Ph.D. He is based in Athens, Georgia.
* Anglican Province of America (APA) --The Most Rev. Walter H. Grundorf, DD is Presiding Bishop. He is also Bishop Ordinary, Diocese of the Eastern United States. He is based in Oviedo, Florida.
* Anglican Province of Christ the King (APCK) -- The Most Rev. James E. Provence is the Presiding bishop based in California.
* Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC) --. The Archbishop is the Most. Rev. John Hepworth. They have two jurisdictions in North America: The Anglican Church in America and The Anglican Catholic Church of Canada
* United Episcopal Church of North America (UECNA) -- The Most Reverend Stephen C. Reber is archbishop. He is based in Charlotte, NC.
* Episcopal Missionary Church (EMC) -- The Rt. Rev. William Millsaps is archbishop. He is based in Monteagle, Tennessee.
In Canada there are three Anglican jurisdictions.
* The first is the Anglican Church of Canada. Like its counterpart, The Episcopal Church USA, it is comprised mainly of moderates and liberals. Approximately 25% of the 33 dioceses would consider themselves orthodox in faith and morals.
* Anglican Coalition in Canada (ACiC) comprises some 15 parishes. The Rev. Silas TAK Yin Ng, Rector of Richmond Emmanuel, British Columbia, will be consecrated bishop in September 2009. They are based mostly in Western Canada. The Anglican Coalition in Canada (ACiC) is also a member of AMiA.
* The Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC) is a founding partner of the Anglican Church in North America, a "province in formation" in the Anglican Communion, and part of the global Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans which affirms the Jerusalem Declaration. There are 30 parishes in the Anglican Network in Canada (ANiC), some small, some large. They have three bishops, 68 priests and 12 deacons licensed by ANiC under the jurisdiction of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone. ANiC emerged out of the "Essentials" movement in the Anglican Church of Canada and remains affiliated with Anglican Essentials Network, Anglican Essentials Canada and Anglican Essentials Federation. Their Moderator is The Rt. Rev. Donald Harvey. He is based in St John's, Newfoundland.
Other movements of note include:
GAFCON - Global Anglican Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans comprises two-thirds of the world's orthodox Anglicans FCA -
FCA - Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans - UK, Ireland, South Africa and the US.
END
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
FiF North America Consecrates First Bishop for Anglican Church in North America
by Bishop Jack Leo Iker
from VirtueOnline:
It was my joy and privilege on Saturday, Aug. 22, to share in the consecration of the Rt. Rev. William H. Ilgenfritz, the first new bishop for the Anglican Church in North America. Archbishop Robert W. Duncan was the chief consecrator, and the other co-consecrators were Bishop Keith Ackerman, Bishop Edward MacBurney, and Bishop William Wantland, who also preached at the service. Thirteen bishops participated in the apostolic laying on of hands in the historic ceremony. Bishop Ilgenfritz continues to serve as Rector of St. Mary's Anglican Church in Charleroi, Pa., in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. The service took place at the local Roman Catholic parish a few blocks away, called Mary, Mother of the Church. The new bishop previously served here in the Diocese of Fort Worth as Rector of St. John's Church in Brownwood from 1990 to 1994.
It is important to recognize that this first consecration was of a Forward in Faith Bishop and that it creates a new diocese for FIF congregations across the country. This new Missionary Diocese of All Saints begins with about 13 congregations and is charged with planting new churches for traditional anglo-catholics in the United States and Canada. Bishop Ilgenfritz continues to serve as Vice-president of Forward in Faith, North America.
This consecration fulfills the vision of the Episcopal Synod of America, formed in 1989 here in Fort Worth, to create a non-geographic diocese or province for congregations upholding the faith and practice of the historic catholic church, including the tradition of an all-male priesthood. It secures a continuing line of apostolic succession for traditional anglo-catholics, which is no longer possible in The Episcopal Church in the United States.
Please continue to pray for Bishop Ilgenfritz and this new missionary diocese.
The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth
Aug. 25, 2009
from VirtueOnline:
It was my joy and privilege on Saturday, Aug. 22, to share in the consecration of the Rt. Rev. William H. Ilgenfritz, the first new bishop for the Anglican Church in North America. Archbishop Robert W. Duncan was the chief consecrator, and the other co-consecrators were Bishop Keith Ackerman, Bishop Edward MacBurney, and Bishop William Wantland, who also preached at the service. Thirteen bishops participated in the apostolic laying on of hands in the historic ceremony. Bishop Ilgenfritz continues to serve as Rector of St. Mary's Anglican Church in Charleroi, Pa., in the Diocese of Pittsburgh. The service took place at the local Roman Catholic parish a few blocks away, called Mary, Mother of the Church. The new bishop previously served here in the Diocese of Fort Worth as Rector of St. John's Church in Brownwood from 1990 to 1994.
It is important to recognize that this first consecration was of a Forward in Faith Bishop and that it creates a new diocese for FIF congregations across the country. This new Missionary Diocese of All Saints begins with about 13 congregations and is charged with planting new churches for traditional anglo-catholics in the United States and Canada. Bishop Ilgenfritz continues to serve as Vice-president of Forward in Faith, North America.
This consecration fulfills the vision of the Episcopal Synod of America, formed in 1989 here in Fort Worth, to create a non-geographic diocese or province for congregations upholding the faith and practice of the historic catholic church, including the tradition of an all-male priesthood. It secures a continuing line of apostolic succession for traditional anglo-catholics, which is no longer possible in The Episcopal Church in the United States.
Please continue to pray for Bishop Ilgenfritz and this new missionary diocese.
The Rt. Rev. Jack Leo Iker
Bishop of Fort Worth
Aug. 25, 2009
Lutherans learned little from Episcopalians
From The Washington Times via TitusOneNine:
Lutheran schism feared after votes on gays
Traditionalist members threaten to defect
By Julia Duin (Contact) | Monday, August 24, 2009
MINNEAPOLIS | Last Friday, as members of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination were casting four historic votes recasting the role of homosexuals in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a mop-up operation had begun a few blocks away.
In a hospitality suite on the 12th floor of the Doubletree Hotel, Bill Sullivan's cell phone was ringing and ringing.
Mr. Sullivan, a former ELCA pastor, is national coordinator for the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), a collection of 226 congregations founded in March 2001 with 25 charter member churches dissatisfied with the denomination's liberal drift.
Now the trickle has turned into a flood.
"It's been going nonstop," he said of his phone.
On Friday alone, he scheduled three visits to ELCA churches in Buffalo, N.Y. Sioux City, Iowa and Jacksonville, Fla., for later this fall. They are thinking of leaving, as were the 15 people who had stopped by the hotel suite that day. Twenty-five inquiries had come in that week alone, and that was before all the vote tallies were in down the street at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
He glanced at his e-mail.
"The train wreck is just about over," he said, reading from a post sent by a delegate on the convention floor. "The first responders need to be ready."
He looked up.
"People have been calling all morning," he said. "They want this to be over. It's been going on for days. A small minority of people are changing 2,000 years of church teaching."
However, the "small minority" includes personages such as former ELCA Presiding Bishop Herbert W. Chilstrom, who posted an open letter July 27 in response to traditionalists' concerns about the upcoming convention. In it, he explained that church teachings have changed over the millennia.
"I knew that our decisions to ordain women and retain some divorced pastors on our rosters were not decided exclusively on the basis of a few biblical texts or our long-standing tradition in either area," he wrote. "We believed there were deeper streams in the Holy Scriptures that we needed to listen to. When I came to sexuality issues, I knew I could not employ a method that differed from what I had used to deal with those two issues."
The majority of delegates at the churchwide assembly were apparently using similar logic: It was the final day for the most important votes and the traditionalists were losing every one.
For the one-third of ELCA delegates who decisively voted against ordaining homosexual clergy and other gay-friendly ballot measures, Mr. Sullivan's group is a possible lifeboat in a sea of heresy.
The group calls itself "post-denominational," meaning churches can associate with it while retaining membership in other bodies. The only requirement is an agreement with the LCMC's statement of faith and constitution. The loose confederation of churches does not have bishops, but it does have an annual conference, set this year for early October in Fargo, N.D.
Into the suite walked a young man dressed in a clerical suit who identifies himself as a pastor of a 450-member church in Nebraska.
"Here's an ELCA refugee," chortled a member of the LCMC's board of trustees sitting in the suite. The pastor said he's there to "look at options" for his church.
"I've a congregation with a significant number of members who will leave," he said. "The theology of the social statement bothered us," referring to a 34-page document the denomination approved Aug. 19 that sought to establish a theological framework for differing views on homosexuality.
Church liberals said the document was long overdue; conservatives said sexual practices forbidden in the Bible should not be given equal moral status.
Until now, conservative Lutheran churches that have wanted to leave have generally been allowed to take their property with them, unlike in the Episcopal Church, where the denomination has sued nearly every departing congregation.
Lutheran clergy and bishops interviewed last week said that situation could change if there is a substantial exodus or if the local synod - which is like a diocese - holds the title to the property.
There are several Lutheran denominations in the United States. They include the 390,000-member Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), which posted a statement on its Web site Friday condemning the ELCA's decisions.
"It's unfortunate that many headlines have referred to the recent decisions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as something 'Lutherans' have decided," WELS President Mark Schroeder said. "We are saddened that a group with the name Lutheran would take another decisive step away from the clear teaching of the Bible, which was the foundation of the Lutheran Reformation."
After the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination is the 2.4-million-member Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Spokeswoman Vicki Biggs said Friday that her denomination has gotten inquiries from individual ELCA members.
"People are saying, 'If the ELCA goes this route, I might be looking at another church,' " she said.
However, neither the Wisconsin nor Missouri Synod churches ordain women, while the LCMC does - a factor important to many wishing to leave the ELCA.
The specter of departing congregations was one Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson addressed Friday as he begged conservative and liberal Lutherans to bear with one another.
"Those deeply disappointed today will have the expectation to continue to admonish and teach," he said. "Those who've experienced reconciliation today - you are called to humility. You are called to love."
Yet, Lutherans who testified and quoted the Bible during the lengthy legislative sessions repeatedly brought up the possibility of leaving.
"I believe what we are about to do in the social statement will split the church," John Seng, a member from the Northeastern Ohio Synod, told the crowd. "It saddens me that we are going this way."
Terri Stagner-Collier, a member of Southeastern Synod, tearfully told the delegates her family will leave the ELCA.
"I urge you not to do this to all those people in the pews and my family," she said before one of the votes.
In his final press conference Friday, the presiding bishop said gay Lutherans had stuck with the ELCA during the long years they were not accepted and he urged traditionalists, who felt the tables had been turned, to exercise similar patience.
"My appeal tonight is to those who feel they can't support the decisions this church has made," he said. "We need you in the conversation about the shape of our life together. ... It'd be tragic if we walked away from one another. Then the story I hoped to tell will not be the one told this week."
He repeated a few minutes later, "We must welcome to the table those who feel we have not been faithful Lutherans today ... I am pleading with people to stay with us in that conversation."
Lutheran schism feared after votes on gays
Traditionalist members threaten to defect
By Julia Duin (Contact) | Monday, August 24, 2009
MINNEAPOLIS | Last Friday, as members of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination were casting four historic votes recasting the role of homosexuals in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a mop-up operation had begun a few blocks away.
In a hospitality suite on the 12th floor of the Doubletree Hotel, Bill Sullivan's cell phone was ringing and ringing.
Mr. Sullivan, a former ELCA pastor, is national coordinator for the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), a collection of 226 congregations founded in March 2001 with 25 charter member churches dissatisfied with the denomination's liberal drift.
Now the trickle has turned into a flood.
"It's been going nonstop," he said of his phone.
On Friday alone, he scheduled three visits to ELCA churches in Buffalo, N.Y. Sioux City, Iowa and Jacksonville, Fla., for later this fall. They are thinking of leaving, as were the 15 people who had stopped by the hotel suite that day. Twenty-five inquiries had come in that week alone, and that was before all the vote tallies were in down the street at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
He glanced at his e-mail.
"The train wreck is just about over," he said, reading from a post sent by a delegate on the convention floor. "The first responders need to be ready."
He looked up.
"People have been calling all morning," he said. "They want this to be over. It's been going on for days. A small minority of people are changing 2,000 years of church teaching."
However, the "small minority" includes personages such as former ELCA Presiding Bishop Herbert W. Chilstrom, who posted an open letter July 27 in response to traditionalists' concerns about the upcoming convention. In it, he explained that church teachings have changed over the millennia.
"I knew that our decisions to ordain women and retain some divorced pastors on our rosters were not decided exclusively on the basis of a few biblical texts or our long-standing tradition in either area," he wrote. "We believed there were deeper streams in the Holy Scriptures that we needed to listen to. When I came to sexuality issues, I knew I could not employ a method that differed from what I had used to deal with those two issues."
The majority of delegates at the churchwide assembly were apparently using similar logic: It was the final day for the most important votes and the traditionalists were losing every one.
For the one-third of ELCA delegates who decisively voted against ordaining homosexual clergy and other gay-friendly ballot measures, Mr. Sullivan's group is a possible lifeboat in a sea of heresy.
The group calls itself "post-denominational," meaning churches can associate with it while retaining membership in other bodies. The only requirement is an agreement with the LCMC's statement of faith and constitution. The loose confederation of churches does not have bishops, but it does have an annual conference, set this year for early October in Fargo, N.D.
Into the suite walked a young man dressed in a clerical suit who identifies himself as a pastor of a 450-member church in Nebraska.
"Here's an ELCA refugee," chortled a member of the LCMC's board of trustees sitting in the suite. The pastor said he's there to "look at options" for his church.
"I've a congregation with a significant number of members who will leave," he said. "The theology of the social statement bothered us," referring to a 34-page document the denomination approved Aug. 19 that sought to establish a theological framework for differing views on homosexuality.
Church liberals said the document was long overdue; conservatives said sexual practices forbidden in the Bible should not be given equal moral status.
Until now, conservative Lutheran churches that have wanted to leave have generally been allowed to take their property with them, unlike in the Episcopal Church, where the denomination has sued nearly every departing congregation.
Lutheran clergy and bishops interviewed last week said that situation could change if there is a substantial exodus or if the local synod - which is like a diocese - holds the title to the property.
There are several Lutheran denominations in the United States. They include the 390,000-member Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), which posted a statement on its Web site Friday condemning the ELCA's decisions.
"It's unfortunate that many headlines have referred to the recent decisions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as something 'Lutherans' have decided," WELS President Mark Schroeder said. "We are saddened that a group with the name Lutheran would take another decisive step away from the clear teaching of the Bible, which was the foundation of the Lutheran Reformation."
After the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination is the 2.4-million-member Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Spokeswoman Vicki Biggs said Friday that her denomination has gotten inquiries from individual ELCA members.
"People are saying, 'If the ELCA goes this route, I might be looking at another church,' " she said.
However, neither the Wisconsin nor Missouri Synod churches ordain women, while the LCMC does - a factor important to many wishing to leave the ELCA.
The specter of departing congregations was one Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson addressed Friday as he begged conservative and liberal Lutherans to bear with one another.
"Those deeply disappointed today will have the expectation to continue to admonish and teach," he said. "Those who've experienced reconciliation today - you are called to humility. You are called to love."
Yet, Lutherans who testified and quoted the Bible during the lengthy legislative sessions repeatedly brought up the possibility of leaving.
"I believe what we are about to do in the social statement will split the church," John Seng, a member from the Northeastern Ohio Synod, told the crowd. "It saddens me that we are going this way."
Terri Stagner-Collier, a member of Southeastern Synod, tearfully told the delegates her family will leave the ELCA.
"I urge you not to do this to all those people in the pews and my family," she said before one of the votes.
In his final press conference Friday, the presiding bishop said gay Lutherans had stuck with the ELCA during the long years they were not accepted and he urged traditionalists, who felt the tables had been turned, to exercise similar patience.
"My appeal tonight is to those who feel they can't support the decisions this church has made," he said. "We need you in the conversation about the shape of our life together. ... It'd be tragic if we walked away from one another. Then the story I hoped to tell will not be the one told this week."
He repeated a few minutes later, "We must welcome to the table those who feel we have not been faithful Lutherans today ... I am pleading with people to stay with us in that conversation."
Rowan Williams and the Anglican Future
From First Things via Stand Firm:
Jul 28, 2009
Jordan Hylden
Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, has issued his much-awaited response to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church: “Communion, Covenant, and our Anglican Future.” Although it’s not as lengthy as Pope Benedict’s recent encyclical, it’s sure to be parsed almost as carefully and debated nearly with the same intensity by Anglicans throughout the world. The letter is worthy of such scrutiny: As he has done so often in the past, Archbishop Williams has given us both a substantively theological read of the present moment and a sound and hopeful way forward for the Anglican Communion.
For those keeping score, the leadership of the Episcopal Church—including the Presiding Bishop, the president of the House of Deputies, and the church’s chief ecumenical officer—had attempted to argue that the actions of their General Convention didn’t go against the repeated requests of the wider Anglican Communion to stop progress on same-sex blessings and partnered gay bishops. Williams was not convinced: “The repeated request for moratoria on the election of partnered gay clergy as bishops and on liturgical recognition of same-sex partnerships has clearly not found universal favor,” he wrote. In short: The communion’s request for moratoria has been answered, and the answer is “No.”
In fact, as Williams argues, to change the received Anglican position on sexual ethics would require a quite sharp re-thinking of biblical teaching, something that even if possible would require a level of consensus among Anglicans and ecumenical partners that simply has not been reached. “In the light of the way in which the Church has consistently read the Bible for the last two thousand years,” says Williams, “it is clear that a positive answer to this question would have to be based on the most painstaking biblical exegesis and on a wide acceptance of the results within the Communion, with due account taken of the teachings of ecumenical partners also. A major change naturally needs a strong level of consensus and solid theological grounding.” There is therefore no warrant for moving forward on this issue as a province, diocese, or parish.
As a result, Williams contends that “it is hard to see how [a person in a same-sex relationship] can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires. . . . A person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle.” In a similar way, it is difficult to see “whether someone belonging to a local church in which practice has been changed in respect of same-sex unions is able to represent the Communion’s voice and perspective.” Here, the logic of Williams’s argument is that the Episcopal Church’s consecration of Gene Robinson and its expressed openness to further such bishops, as well as its practice of offering same-sex blessings, must affect its ability to serve in representative roles both for and within Anglicanism.
This is so, Williams explains, because of the venerable catholic principle that “what affects the communion of all should be decided by all.” Without the difficult process of consulting the wider body of Christ when a local church seeks either to respond to a new question or to answer an old question in a new way, that church runs the risk of “becoming unrecognizable to other local churches, pressing ahead with changes that render it strange to Christian sisters and brothers across the globe.” The end result is a cacophony of churches all preaching different gospels, with none of them sure anymore if they are indeed proclaiming one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.
This does not mean—as Williams is quick to point out—that everything we do and preach must be precisely the same. On some issues, Anglicans may indeed agree to disagree, and there are no absolutely clear rules for determining when this will be permissible. But it does mean that developments in matters of faith and morals cannot be done independently, without the consultation of both the wider Anglican Communion and our ecumenical partners. “To accept without challenge the priority of local and pastoral factors in the case either of sexuality or of sacramental practice would be to abandon the possibility of a global consensus among the Anglican churches such as would continue to make sense of the shape and content of most of our ecumenical activity,” Williams argues. “It would be to re-conceive the Anglican Communion as essentially a loose federation of local bodies with a cultural history in common, rather than a theologically coherent ‘community of Christian communities’.”
Although this is clearly not how Williams envisions the Anglican Communion, he admits that not all Anglicans agree with him on this point. Some view Anglican fellowship instead “as best expressed in a more federalist and pluralist way,” he concedes. “They would see this as the only appropriate language for a modern or indeed postmodern global fellowship of believers in which levels of diversity are bound to be high and the risks of centralization and authoritarianism are the most worrying.” But although this is the self-understanding of many Episcopalians (such as Bishop Stacy Sauls, who has publicly stated that even the word “federation” is for him a bridge too far), Williams insists that this is not how Anglicanism has commonly understood itself, particularly in recent years with the advent of Lambeth conferences, instruments of unity and governance such as the Anglican Consultative Council, and ecumenical dialogues.
It is precisely this emerging ecclesial reality, he argues, that the Anglican Covenant proposal has sought to secure—namely, “to do justice to that aspect of Anglican history that has resisted mere federation.” Proponents of the covenant, Williams explains, are not out to exclude people or grasp power, but instead simply “seek structures that will express the need for mutual reconcilability, mutual consultation and some shared processes of decision-making. They are emphatically not about centralization but about mutual responsibility.” As such the proposed covenant is the best hope Anglicans have for strengthening the bonds of relationship that tie them together and avoiding the path of local isolation and fragmentation.
No one, Williams emphasizes, will be forced into this, and no one who chooses a different path need fear being “cast into the outer darkness.” Relationships of affinity and partnership in mission will no doubt continue in any case. But those who decline the opportunity to walk together with other Anglicans in mutual responsibility and discernment, electing instead to place a higher value on local and provincial autonomy, will have chosen a path that will inevitably lead to a degree of differentiation from their covenanted Anglican brothers and sisters. This is to be regretted, but such is a path that can be chosen in good faith and need not lead to acrimony. Williams strongly urges that such decisions be made peaceably and with respect for the conscience of all, particularly those who seek to covenant with the larger Communion but find themselves within provinces that choose not to. The treatment of such Anglicans—and here, Williams has both the Communion Partners within the Episcopal Church and others elsewhere in mind—is, he asserts, an “important” question that requires a “clear answer.”
Notably, Williams still expresses his “strong hope that all the provinces will respond favorably to the invitation to Covenant” with each other, even while acknowledging that the Episcopal Church had not kept to the moratoria the larger Communion had requested of them. This may lead some to wonder: Is there here a hint of Pollyanna, or perhaps Charlie Brown falling for Lucy’s football one more time? But there is much more going on here. The covenant has simply not been placed before the Communion in its final form, and it is not for him to say what the future decision of any province will be. That said, of course, the context for Williams’s reflections should not be missed—it is precisely following the actions of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church that he saw fit to lay out, once again, his understanding of the two paths that lie ahead for Anglicans to choose, one covenanted and one federated.
Clearly, it is his read of the present moment that the Episcopal Church, in its actions this summer, has moved further down the federated path. And it is his hope for the future that as many Anglicans as possible, both within the Episcopal Church and around the globe, will move ever further toward the covenanted reality that holds such great promise. This, quite plainly, will have to do with both respecting the threefold moratoria (border crossing, same-sex blessings, and partnered gay bishops) as well as with signaling clear support—at the provincial, diocesan, and parish level—for the Ridley-Cambridge draft of the Anglican covenant. While the all-important Section 4 of the draft covenant, which deals with relational structure and discipline, is now being looked at again after the Anglican Consultative Council—thanks largely to Episcopal Church delegates—forced its delay, the entire logic of Williams’s letter points toward its adoption in full without change. And the more dioceses and parishes that show their support, the likelier that will be.
Actions, as Williams concludes, are “bound to have consequences.” But while Williams’s letter strongly points to the need for consequences following the actions of the actions of General Convention, there is now further need for Williams to show that his words have consequences. Whether rightly or wrongly, too many Anglicans around the world view Williams as inclined too much toward talk, unwilling to take action when action is called for. As such, there are too many Anglicans who will perhaps not be convinced by the weight of his words alone. At present, two members of the Joint Standing Committee—which will make the crucial decision, at the end of this year, whether or not to pass along the final draft of the Anglican covenant to the provinces for ratification—are members also of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori and Dr. Ian Douglas of the Episcopal Divinity School. It may be both right and prudent to ask them to step down—for if the Episcopal Church has decided not to abide by Communion decisions, then what right have they to make decisions for the Communion? Their participation will only deepen Communion-wide distrust of international Anglican bodies, and by taking action Williams will help renew the trust of many in his own office.
What, after all of this, is the future for ordinary faithful Anglicans in the United States, whether in the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) or the Episcopal Church? The strong implication of Williams’s argument is that for both groups, the best and brightest future is with the Anglican Covenant. Both ACNA itself and the Communion Partners within the Episcopal Church have expressed their desire to sign on to the covenant, and while difficulties no doubt exist in both situations there is no reason to think that forward progress cannot be made by both parties. Where more serious difficulty exists, at present, is with those elements within ACNA that do not share an interest in the proposed covenant, as well as those places within the Episcopal Church that do not have the oversight of a Communion Partners bishop. Those who do have one or the other, however, can and should be confident in their ability to work from where they are for the good future of the covenanted Anglican Communion.
In my recent article, “Brave New Church,” I expressed a lack of confidence in the direction of the Episcopal Church’s leadership. But I do have confidence in the Communion Partners dioceses, both in where we stand and in where we're going. In my case, that means the diocese of Dallas, where I'm just now finishing up a summer internship, and my home diocese of North Dakota, where I'm a candidate for holy orders. I have good friends in ACNA too, many of whom recognize just as I do the need to work for the common covenanted future of the Anglican Communion.
We recognize that now is not the time for animosity and division; now is the time to work for the good of the entire Communion, wherever we may stand on the issues. That, I think, is where Rowan Williams is pointing us, and it’s my hope and belief that he’ll be in our corner as we work together for the Anglican future.
Jordan Hylden, a former junior fellow at First Things, is a graduate student at Duke Divinity School.
Jul 28, 2009
Jordan Hylden
Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, has issued his much-awaited response to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church: “Communion, Covenant, and our Anglican Future.” Although it’s not as lengthy as Pope Benedict’s recent encyclical, it’s sure to be parsed almost as carefully and debated nearly with the same intensity by Anglicans throughout the world. The letter is worthy of such scrutiny: As he has done so often in the past, Archbishop Williams has given us both a substantively theological read of the present moment and a sound and hopeful way forward for the Anglican Communion.
For those keeping score, the leadership of the Episcopal Church—including the Presiding Bishop, the president of the House of Deputies, and the church’s chief ecumenical officer—had attempted to argue that the actions of their General Convention didn’t go against the repeated requests of the wider Anglican Communion to stop progress on same-sex blessings and partnered gay bishops. Williams was not convinced: “The repeated request for moratoria on the election of partnered gay clergy as bishops and on liturgical recognition of same-sex partnerships has clearly not found universal favor,” he wrote. In short: The communion’s request for moratoria has been answered, and the answer is “No.”
In fact, as Williams argues, to change the received Anglican position on sexual ethics would require a quite sharp re-thinking of biblical teaching, something that even if possible would require a level of consensus among Anglicans and ecumenical partners that simply has not been reached. “In the light of the way in which the Church has consistently read the Bible for the last two thousand years,” says Williams, “it is clear that a positive answer to this question would have to be based on the most painstaking biblical exegesis and on a wide acceptance of the results within the Communion, with due account taken of the teachings of ecumenical partners also. A major change naturally needs a strong level of consensus and solid theological grounding.” There is therefore no warrant for moving forward on this issue as a province, diocese, or parish.
As a result, Williams contends that “it is hard to see how [a person in a same-sex relationship] can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires. . . . A person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle.” In a similar way, it is difficult to see “whether someone belonging to a local church in which practice has been changed in respect of same-sex unions is able to represent the Communion’s voice and perspective.” Here, the logic of Williams’s argument is that the Episcopal Church’s consecration of Gene Robinson and its expressed openness to further such bishops, as well as its practice of offering same-sex blessings, must affect its ability to serve in representative roles both for and within Anglicanism.
This is so, Williams explains, because of the venerable catholic principle that “what affects the communion of all should be decided by all.” Without the difficult process of consulting the wider body of Christ when a local church seeks either to respond to a new question or to answer an old question in a new way, that church runs the risk of “becoming unrecognizable to other local churches, pressing ahead with changes that render it strange to Christian sisters and brothers across the globe.” The end result is a cacophony of churches all preaching different gospels, with none of them sure anymore if they are indeed proclaiming one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.
This does not mean—as Williams is quick to point out—that everything we do and preach must be precisely the same. On some issues, Anglicans may indeed agree to disagree, and there are no absolutely clear rules for determining when this will be permissible. But it does mean that developments in matters of faith and morals cannot be done independently, without the consultation of both the wider Anglican Communion and our ecumenical partners. “To accept without challenge the priority of local and pastoral factors in the case either of sexuality or of sacramental practice would be to abandon the possibility of a global consensus among the Anglican churches such as would continue to make sense of the shape and content of most of our ecumenical activity,” Williams argues. “It would be to re-conceive the Anglican Communion as essentially a loose federation of local bodies with a cultural history in common, rather than a theologically coherent ‘community of Christian communities’.”
Although this is clearly not how Williams envisions the Anglican Communion, he admits that not all Anglicans agree with him on this point. Some view Anglican fellowship instead “as best expressed in a more federalist and pluralist way,” he concedes. “They would see this as the only appropriate language for a modern or indeed postmodern global fellowship of believers in which levels of diversity are bound to be high and the risks of centralization and authoritarianism are the most worrying.” But although this is the self-understanding of many Episcopalians (such as Bishop Stacy Sauls, who has publicly stated that even the word “federation” is for him a bridge too far), Williams insists that this is not how Anglicanism has commonly understood itself, particularly in recent years with the advent of Lambeth conferences, instruments of unity and governance such as the Anglican Consultative Council, and ecumenical dialogues.
It is precisely this emerging ecclesial reality, he argues, that the Anglican Covenant proposal has sought to secure—namely, “to do justice to that aspect of Anglican history that has resisted mere federation.” Proponents of the covenant, Williams explains, are not out to exclude people or grasp power, but instead simply “seek structures that will express the need for mutual reconcilability, mutual consultation and some shared processes of decision-making. They are emphatically not about centralization but about mutual responsibility.” As such the proposed covenant is the best hope Anglicans have for strengthening the bonds of relationship that tie them together and avoiding the path of local isolation and fragmentation.
No one, Williams emphasizes, will be forced into this, and no one who chooses a different path need fear being “cast into the outer darkness.” Relationships of affinity and partnership in mission will no doubt continue in any case. But those who decline the opportunity to walk together with other Anglicans in mutual responsibility and discernment, electing instead to place a higher value on local and provincial autonomy, will have chosen a path that will inevitably lead to a degree of differentiation from their covenanted Anglican brothers and sisters. This is to be regretted, but such is a path that can be chosen in good faith and need not lead to acrimony. Williams strongly urges that such decisions be made peaceably and with respect for the conscience of all, particularly those who seek to covenant with the larger Communion but find themselves within provinces that choose not to. The treatment of such Anglicans—and here, Williams has both the Communion Partners within the Episcopal Church and others elsewhere in mind—is, he asserts, an “important” question that requires a “clear answer.”
Notably, Williams still expresses his “strong hope that all the provinces will respond favorably to the invitation to Covenant” with each other, even while acknowledging that the Episcopal Church had not kept to the moratoria the larger Communion had requested of them. This may lead some to wonder: Is there here a hint of Pollyanna, or perhaps Charlie Brown falling for Lucy’s football one more time? But there is much more going on here. The covenant has simply not been placed before the Communion in its final form, and it is not for him to say what the future decision of any province will be. That said, of course, the context for Williams’s reflections should not be missed—it is precisely following the actions of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church that he saw fit to lay out, once again, his understanding of the two paths that lie ahead for Anglicans to choose, one covenanted and one federated.
Clearly, it is his read of the present moment that the Episcopal Church, in its actions this summer, has moved further down the federated path. And it is his hope for the future that as many Anglicans as possible, both within the Episcopal Church and around the globe, will move ever further toward the covenanted reality that holds such great promise. This, quite plainly, will have to do with both respecting the threefold moratoria (border crossing, same-sex blessings, and partnered gay bishops) as well as with signaling clear support—at the provincial, diocesan, and parish level—for the Ridley-Cambridge draft of the Anglican covenant. While the all-important Section 4 of the draft covenant, which deals with relational structure and discipline, is now being looked at again after the Anglican Consultative Council—thanks largely to Episcopal Church delegates—forced its delay, the entire logic of Williams’s letter points toward its adoption in full without change. And the more dioceses and parishes that show their support, the likelier that will be.
Actions, as Williams concludes, are “bound to have consequences.” But while Williams’s letter strongly points to the need for consequences following the actions of the actions of General Convention, there is now further need for Williams to show that his words have consequences. Whether rightly or wrongly, too many Anglicans around the world view Williams as inclined too much toward talk, unwilling to take action when action is called for. As such, there are too many Anglicans who will perhaps not be convinced by the weight of his words alone. At present, two members of the Joint Standing Committee—which will make the crucial decision, at the end of this year, whether or not to pass along the final draft of the Anglican covenant to the provinces for ratification—are members also of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori and Dr. Ian Douglas of the Episcopal Divinity School. It may be both right and prudent to ask them to step down—for if the Episcopal Church has decided not to abide by Communion decisions, then what right have they to make decisions for the Communion? Their participation will only deepen Communion-wide distrust of international Anglican bodies, and by taking action Williams will help renew the trust of many in his own office.
What, after all of this, is the future for ordinary faithful Anglicans in the United States, whether in the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) or the Episcopal Church? The strong implication of Williams’s argument is that for both groups, the best and brightest future is with the Anglican Covenant. Both ACNA itself and the Communion Partners within the Episcopal Church have expressed their desire to sign on to the covenant, and while difficulties no doubt exist in both situations there is no reason to think that forward progress cannot be made by both parties. Where more serious difficulty exists, at present, is with those elements within ACNA that do not share an interest in the proposed covenant, as well as those places within the Episcopal Church that do not have the oversight of a Communion Partners bishop. Those who do have one or the other, however, can and should be confident in their ability to work from where they are for the good future of the covenanted Anglican Communion.
In my recent article, “Brave New Church,” I expressed a lack of confidence in the direction of the Episcopal Church’s leadership. But I do have confidence in the Communion Partners dioceses, both in where we stand and in where we're going. In my case, that means the diocese of Dallas, where I'm just now finishing up a summer internship, and my home diocese of North Dakota, where I'm a candidate for holy orders. I have good friends in ACNA too, many of whom recognize just as I do the need to work for the common covenanted future of the Anglican Communion.
We recognize that now is not the time for animosity and division; now is the time to work for the good of the entire Communion, wherever we may stand on the issues. That, I think, is where Rowan Williams is pointing us, and it’s my hope and belief that he’ll be in our corner as we work together for the Anglican future.
Jordan Hylden, a former junior fellow at First Things, is a graduate student at Duke Divinity School.
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