Essay: Actions Now Have Consequences

From The Living Church via TitusOneNine:

Posted on: June 4, 2010
By Ephraim Radner

What should be the ecclesial consequences for Anglican churches that have consciously rejected the “mind of the Communion” during this past decade? Many have waited a long time for Archbishop Rowan Williams to spell out his own views. Since 2007 he has openly talked of the costs involved in going one’s own way, however conscientiously, in opposition to the formally stated teachings of the Communion on the matter of sexual behavior and other key matters of doctrine and discipline. But what costs? The archbishop’s Pentecost letter has now begun the formal process of both laying out and setting in motion these consequences. This alone makes the letter significant.

Until this point, the archbishop has steadfastly followed two tracks in responding to the divisions of the Communion. First, he has formally initiated and supported Communion-based processes of consultation and evaluation leading out of the 2004 Windsor Report. By and large, and based on commonly accepted standards of doctrine and discipline around the Communion, these have consistently pressed for Anglican churches around the world to adopt and enforce moratoria on the consecration of partnered homosexual bishops, on the affirmation and permission of same-sex blessings or marriages, and on the cross-jurisdictional interference of bishops in the dioceses or provinces of another church. Through the Instruments of Communion — the Primates’ Meeting, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Lambeth Conference — as well as through representative commissions like the Windsor Continuation Group, the acceptability of this track has been reiterated over and over. Yet, for all that, there has never really been stable resolution emerging from these repeated requests for moratoria.

The archbishop’s second track has been to champion the Anglican Covenant. The Covenant, he has continually insisted, would, if adopted sincerely by the churches, provide a stabilizing basis and framework for mutually sustaining common life and mission. The Covenant track was never itself intended to resolve the divisions over sexuality. But the archbishop (and others) perhaps believed that the process of drafting and discussion would refocus the life of the Communion’s churches in ways that might encourage them, out of a renewed sense of common purpose, to discipline themselves on the matters in dispute. This too has not happened.

Indeed, both tracks have hit major obstacles. The Episcopal Church, through General Convention resolutions and local synodical and episcopal actions (the latter also taken by several Canadian dioceses and bishops), publicly proceeded with same-sex blessings and with consecrating another partnered homosexual as a bishop; the cross-jurisdictional episcopal interventions by Rwanda, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, and the Southern Cone continued — taking North American congregations directly under their oversight, consecrating American bishops for these congregations whom they placed within their own houses of bishops; and finally, the stream of property lawsuits in North America between the Episcopal Church and departing congregations and dioceses turned into a torrent costing millions and millions of dollars, causing enormous scandal without prospect for abatement. As for the Covenant, its final text, at least in its procedural content, met a highly contested roadblock at the May 2009 Anglican Consultative Council meeting. This caused some key global south supporters of the Covenant to distance themselves from the process, and confirmed the suspicions of others that the idea was without merit.

The May 2010 consecration of Mary Glasspool — the Episcopal Church’s second bishop living openly in a same-sex relationship — was therefore hardly a Rubicon. It was the confirmation of a pattern seemingly out of control, disclosing that Anglicans “have not [been] brought” any “nearer to full reconciliation” over these past years, in the archbishop’s words. But Glasspool’s consecration did provide a kind of convenient bookend to the disintegrating process begun with Gene Robinson’s consecration in 2003, and thus was an occasion for the archbishop’s letter.

The letter is consistent with the archbishop’s steady approach: it speaks to the two tracks regarding the Communion’s Windsor moratoria and the Covenant’s renewing hopes. But now it both spells out some consequences he proposes, and opens the door to the formal consideration of further consequences.

1. The archbishop has proposed that the representatives of churches that continue to reject the moratoria no longer sit on Communion councils that make decisions regarding common doctrine and ecumenical relations. (They may still be used as consultants, however.) This includes the new but important Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order, and the particular international dialogues with Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and other Christian churches. The rationale for this is that these groups not only work for but propose and engage a common mind for the Communion as a whole; and for this reason individuals who come from an Anglican province that has consciously chosen to move in a direction that is opposed to the Communion’s already articulated common mind cannot provide prima facie credibility in the eyes of others for their commitment to such work.

2. The archbishop reiterated his own hopes for the Covenant as a vehicle for the renewal of the Communion, particularly with regard to mission. He spoke of this in terms of his personal passion and hope. Although he did not issue concrete proposals or exhortations on this front, the character of his statement was strong, and his defense of the structures granted the responsibility for the Covenant speaks to his continued support. Although he did not address the issue of these structures’ credibility, the representative consequences he has now set in motion certainly inform this debate in a new way.

What are the potential effects of these proposals? Here we come to certain levels of interpretation and speculation, and my views are therefore inherently debatable.

First, who is involved in withdrawing from the councils in question? The Episcopal Church is explicitly mentioned, but the implication is that other churches, like Canada, that by synodical approval permit same-sex blessings may also be affected. But so too are the representatives of all churches that have rejected one or other of the moratoria. In theory, this might include Rwanda, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, and the Southern Cone.

However — and this the archbishop did not mention — all but Rwanda, and perhaps Nigeria, are now disentangling their houses of bishops from the American bishops they have held under their wings to this point. It is probable that very soon most of these provinces will have no American bishops and congregations jurisdictionally linked to them. These Americans will all, instead, be a part of the Anglican Church in North America, rooted in North America (recognized by some though not all members of the Communion). If that is the case, the presence of these particular global south provinces on all the councils of the Communion will be, at least in this respect, formally unimpeded in comparison with the Episcopal Church.

Second, although the archbishop only spoke directly to the withdrawal of representatives from doctrinal and ecumenical commissions, he explicitly raised the question of other councils dealing with faith and order, including certain of the Instruments themselves: the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting (and, by explicit implication, the Standing Committee that with the Primates’ Meeting has been given oversight of the Covenant). The archbishop wrote that, because no one person can make a determination about this, he is in consultation with others, including especially the primates themselves, as to how these groups will be affected by the dynamics of consequence now being outlined.

That he raised this question openly is itself significant. At the least, he has thereby signaled that the “distancing” that cannot be avoided between the larger Communion and those “who are consciously at odds with what the Communion has formally requested or stipulated” is not necessarily exhausted by the terms of his letter. Furthermore, he is explicitly seeking the common counsel of the Communion’s primates on this topic, something he has not openly done over the past couple of years. Whether it is his intention or not, one can pick up once again the weight of the Communion’s voice as it shifts towards the global south. And it is this shift, one that many have both noted and urged heeding for some time now, that will determine the significance of these still emerging, but not clearly profiled, consequences to communion life.

What of the Episcopal Church? On the one hand, the letter changes little. The ability to sit on the Communion councils dealing with topics of unity, faith and order does not directly affect the American church’s internal life in the least, and to this extent the archbishop’s proposal does not impinge upon that life. But he has now issued a formal judgment that the Episcopal Church can no longer be “recognized” as “representing” the Anglican Communion as a whole within the wider Church and world. The ramifications of this judgment may prove far-reaching in terms of relationships and identity. That he formally recognizes some Episcopalians, like the Communion Partners, as still committed to the Communion may also influence questions of identity and mission in this regard, in that he has thereby indicated the possibility of providing distinctive recognitions of various groups within provincial churches. If the Covenant does proceed, these kinds of judgments and distinctions will inevitably play an important part in the Communion’s configurations, as they must inform the Covenant process itself as individual churches engage it.

For all the interest in the concrete details of ecclesial consequences, however, the archbishop’s letter is significantly framed by, and returns again and again to, a theology of the Holy Spirit that deserves reflection. Williams writes that God gives his Spirit to the Church for a particular reason: so that “diverse” human voices may be turned together toward hearing the one voice of Jesus Christ, and may recognize this one voice as the object and subject of the prayers said by one another. This is a concise explication of why the divisions of the Church, however frequent, cannot simply be accepted as inevitable, and must rather be seen as terrible judgments on her members. For when Christians separate, it means first, that they do not recognize the voice of Christ being heard and spoken by their Christian neighbors; and second, in this lack of recognition, caused and acceded to, the very redemptive purposes of God are being thwarted and rejected.

One senses clearly the anguish of the archbishop in the face of this admitted fact about the Anglican Communion. I might wish to question the prominence he gives to the categories of diversity and conscience as immovable realities with which we must ever grapple. Yet I cannot but agree with his plea that, for all the distance we have necessarily placed between some of us for the sake of faithfulness to our communion life with the wider Church, our desire and work for truthful reconciliation is not optional, but remains an ever-demanding claim upon our lives as followers of Christ. If there are consequences, they cannot include the wholesale rejection of one another, without risking our rejection of the Spirit himself as the Father’s gift in Christ. On this score, ecclesial politics is answerable to a deeper and more radical divine motive.

The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner is professor of historical theology at Wycliffe College, Toronto.