From Stand Firm in Faith:
Introduction (by Sarah Hey)
They claim that the unwritten constitution is not enforceable by analogizing it to the unwritten international constitution, which they also say is not enforceable. Statement, p. 9. But they do not know their history very well. After World War II the United States and it allies had no moral qualms holding Nazi leaders responsible for crimes against humanity. Justice Robert H. Jackson of the United States Supreme Court was the prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials where a quiltwork of treaties and rules were enforced against the Nazis years before there was a United Nations Charter or any written international law. The six lawyer/judges just don’t know their history when they say that an unwritten international constitution cannot be enforced. So when they claim that the unwritten Anglican Constitution is like the unwritten international constitution, they have unwittingly ceded the point that we can indeed enforce unwritten rules of the Communion against them.
Matt Kennedy was good enough to contact Raymond Dague and ask for his response to the Bishops' Report. Over the weekend, Mr. Dague reviewed the report and wrote his reflections. Raymond Dague is an attorney in private law practice in Syracuse, New York. He is the assistant chancellor to the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany, and has represented many churches in litigation and clergy in Title IV proceedings. He got his Juris Doctor, cum laude, from the Syracuse University College of Law in 1978, where, among other honors, he was an associate editor of the Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce, and was awarded a certificate in International Legal Studies.
The Response
When a magician is on stage, and wants to do a trick, his first task is to keep his audience focused on something else while he performs the illusion. A pretty woman with the sexy sequined outfit, or showing us the empty false-bottomed box, or his mastery with a deck of cards are all calculated to divert our attention as he performs his trick. This is precisely what these six lawyer/bishops seek to do to the Anglicans watching worldwide as a majority of the American church defy the global Communion. They are reinterpreting the scriptures and 2000 years of Christian moral teaching as they try to get us all focused on what they claim is a constitutional (in other words legal) crisis.
Don’t be fooled by these six lawyer/bishops and their American church. This crisis is one of their own making, and try as they might, they cannot blame it on Nigeria, Rwanda, Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, or Canterbury. The buck for this crisis stops at 815 2nd Avenue in New York City, at Minneapolis in 2003 with the convention which blessed the consecration of an unrepentant homosexual priest and elevated him to be one of their bishops, and at Columbus in 2006 with a convention which ignored the worldwide outcry over Minneapolis, and did nothing but justify itself. The current crisis in the communion is not the fault of those of us who “reassert” the faith once delivered; it is the fault of those who are “reappraising” the faith once delivered, to use the terms coined by Kendall Harmon.
This Statement to the House of Bishops says that there is an “unwritten constitution” which governs the Anglican Communion. They get such ideals by saying that there is “international law” and they then analogize the relationships of Anglican provinces to the relationships of nations. Curiously though, Norman Doe, a leading canon lawyer for the Church of England, in his definitive work, Canon Law in the Anglican Communion: A Worldwide Perspective, fails to mention this supposed unwritten Anglican constitution or any analogy to “international law” which the six have discovered.
Doe finds scant evidence that any such communion-wide law exists. “Turning to the actual law of churches, however, there is little evidence of interprovincial law which expressly governs the relations of a particular church with other churches,” writes Doe, id., at p. 351-52. The various Lambeth Conference resolutions create a “quasi-legislation” but these resolutions have only moral and not legal effect on the churches of the Communion, according to Doe. What moral effect there is, such as 1998 Lambeth Conference Resolution 1.10, does the opposite of what these six bishops say. That resolution rejects “homosexual practice as incompatible with Scripture.” It also declares “in view of the teaching of Scripture [a requirement for] faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage.”
The six lawyer/bishops claim that this unwritten constitution of the Anglican Communion is “ever evolving” much like their perception of the “ever evolving United States Constitution, and the ever-evolving International Constitution.” Statement, p. 16. By this they apparently mean it is whatever a majority of the house of bishops or the general convention declares it to be at any given moment, which can change from age to age. As a direct consequence the “Anglican Constitution” is also not enforceable against any member church such at the American or Canadian churches. Statement, p. 9-10.
They claim that the unwritten constitution is not enforceable by analogizing it to the unwritten international constitution, which they also say is not enforceable. Statement, p. 9. But they do not know their history very well. After World War II the United States and it allies had no moral qualms holding Nazi leaders responsible for crimes against humanity. Justice Robert H. Jackson of the United States Supreme Court was the prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials where a quiltwork of treaties and rules were enforced against the Nazis years before there was a United Nations Charter or any written international law. The six lawyer/judges just don’t know their history when they say that an unwritten international constitution cannot be enforced. So when they claim that the unwritten Anglican Constitution is like the unwritten international constitution, they have unwittingly ceded the point that we can indeed enforce unwritten rules of the Communion against them.
One of the more revealing things in this Statement is the source of authority to which they appeal as the North American liberals declare homosexual relations to be a blessed lifestyle. While they give lip service to Scripture, they really look to the prevalent cultural trends in Western society as driving this change in theology and practice. And they are quite frank about this. They say that “the next issue of justice in American culture was emerging from a relatively rapid transformation in its understanding of human sexuality, in particular that of gay and lesbian persons,” and the pressures to change to an acceptance of homosexual relations “came externally from American culture.” Statement, p. 24 (italics supplied). They go on to inconsistently claim that “we must free ourselves, on all sides, from being trapped by feelings and cultural assumptions that are not only false but which get in the way of genuine consideration of the issues and the unity of our fellowship,” (see, Statement, p. 28) but that rubric apparently only applies to the traditional culture which was formed by the faith once delivered. They will take their signals from Hollywood culture, but not Judeo-Christian culture.
When they state their theology, they do no better than when they proclaim law. They have a notion of “new revelation” which justifies revisions of sexual morality.” Statement, p. 49. They declare “an ever-evolving sense of decency and right,” which flies in the face of man’s fallen nature, and affirms an Enlightenment view that we will all evolve to perfection. Statement, p. 51. Their notion of the Gospel is an anemic “Jesus [who] welcomed those whom others rejected, and he dies as the Rejected One to create a new humanity in which no one is rejected. That is authoritative gospel.” Statement, p. 50. This is called Situation Ethics. Nothing is fixed in such an ethical world, and every moral rule or belief of faith is always open to reappraisal. Declaring sin to be sin, and calling for repentance, a proclamation of the atoning death of Jesus on the cross, and regeneration in holiness for believers are found nowhere in this theologically shallow Statement.
One way to win an argument is to say that your opponent is saying something he is not saying, and then refute it. This Statement of the six lawyer/bishops says that conservatives want “a hierarchically, internationally monolithic, confessional, juridical polity” (see, Statement, p. 3, 4, 14) as opposed to their view which “requires theological innovation, but is happy with Anglicanism as it was delivered.” Statement, p. 5. They accuse traditionalists of wanting a Roman Catholic type of curia. But that is not so. We want only to enforce orthodoxy. The American church can otherwise govern itself any way it pleases.
The six on the other hand “do not seek to recognize and establish a body of law that is to be enforced in any way.” Statement, p. 19. Put another way, they want no accountability for what they do, or believe, or teach. Their model for this is the Episcopal Church presentment trial of Bishop Walter Righter. That trial dismissed charges against Bishop Righter when he ordained an unrepentant sexually active homosexual. In the words of the Statement, his acquittal proved that there is no “core doctrine” for the American church. Statement, p.77. Indeed with the likes of Bishops James Pike and John Shelby Spong debunking almost every tenant contained in the creeds of the Christian faith, the American church stands for nothing other than a church structure which holds no core beliefs at all. It cannot be held accountable to anyone for its beliefs and practices.
They claim that the conservative side “unapologetically seeks the utter defeat of the other,” (see, Statement, p. 7) yet it is their side which has poured unaccounted millions of dollars into lawsuits to crush and seize the property of parishes (and perhaps soon dioceses) which oppose their “theological innovation.” Our side just wants to continue with the work of the church in the fellowship of the others in the communion who acknowledge that same faith in Christ. We’re not suing them; they are suing us to destroy us.
While at Columbus at the 2006 General Convention the reappraisers of the faith wore buttons which read, “Communion Yes; Uniformity No.” That is the same sentiment expressed in a few words as this Statement of the six lawyer/bishops expresses in 98 pages. Basically the Statement says this: We will be a part of the Anglican Communion, but on our own terms and conditions, and with whatever beliefs and conduct we choose, and we will be accountable to nobody but ourselves. You, the rest of the Anglican Communion, have no legal mechanisms to enforce anything on us. You are stuck with us, but we will do whatever we want, and you can do nothing about it.
The six lawyer/bishops say that the current crisis of the Anglican Communion is something other than North American liberals redefining sin. They say it is a new revelation of the Holy Spirit. They tell us that the worldwide Anglican Church crisis is a legal problem, and they draw parallels to international law to analyze the issue. The problem, they say, involves the majority of the worldwide Communion (including American conservatives) trying to alter what these six lawyer/bishops call an unwritten “Anglican Constitution.”
In saying this they are diverting us from the real problem that this is a crisis which they themselves created. They are now critical that the worldwide Communion has now called them to the carpet for their conduct, and say that if they are held accountable that it will “revolutionize the Anglican Constitution.” By that they mean it will destroy the Anglican Communion. Saying that is like criticizing the fire department for causing water damage to the house when the firefighters stop it from burning to the ground.
No comments:
Post a Comment