Anglican Mainstream

Dr Bruce Kaye

In a previous posting I said I would provide more detailed arguments against the covenant in future postings:

There are four reasons why this covenant is not a good idea for Anglicans.

1. It is against the grain of Anglican ecclesiology (what we think the church is)

2. It is not an adequate response to the conflict in the Anglican Communion

3. In practical terms it will create immense and complicating confusion about institutional relationships and financial obligations.

4. It does not address the key fundamental issue in this conflict, how to act in a particular context which is relevant to that context and also faithful to the gospel.

This posting offers a fuller explanation of the first of these four reasons.

1. IT IS AGAINST THE GRAIN OF ANGLICAN ECCLESIOLOGY

Preliminary Comments

(1) Some introductory comment is appropriate about the claim to speak of an Anglican ecclesiology. Many texts on ecclesiology set out to show that the specific elements in a Roman Catholic, or Lutheran or some other ecclesiology can be read down from the New Testament or a portrayal of the gospel. The logic of this kind of argument is that a particular ecclesiology can be said to derive directly from scripture and further it is sometimes suggested that ecclesiology should be determined by what is claimed to be in scripture. One form of his argument can be seen in sixteenth and seventeenth English Puritanism. Richard Hooker’s argument against this was based not so much on what was actually said in scripture on church order, but that specific tradition ecclesiologies had to recognise that there was a testable tradition of the providence of God in the ongoing formation of specific ecclesial characteristics and practices. Scripture alone was not an appropriate starting point for dealing with this question.

(2) That does not mean that an ecclesiology can be simply invented out of a particular historical tradition such as Anglicanism. The apostolic material contains essential and fundamental material on the character of the church as a community of God’s people who live according to the Spirit in the light of the gospel. For example, that God gives gifts to those in the church for the encouragement and building up of the life of the community, that the gospel virtue of love is to be the necessary and fundamental quality of relations in the church. These are foundational for any ecclesiology and are principles and truths against which other things are to be measured.

(3) However when it comes to practices as to how a specific church might conduct its affairs, arrange its order and ministry and exercise its discipline there is already in the New Testament considerable variety. This is true even amongst churches founded by the one person, the apostle Paul. That variety has continued into church history and variety of practice can be found not only between traditions but also, admittedly to a lesser extent, within traditions.

(4) So when I speak of an Anglican ecclesiology I have in mind the pattern of practices that generally are found in the Anglican tradition of faith. Of course some practices are seen to have different significances by different Anglicans within this tradition. The obvious example is the way in which the ordained ministry is viewed. There has been a very long history of different views on how Anglicans legitimate or interpret the common practice of having three orders of. Much conflict in the history of Anglicanism has centred on these differences, though in general the fact of a threefold order of ministry disciplined in some way by an ecclesial judicature is the common almost universal practice in Anglican churches.

(5) The current disputes in world wide Anglicanism have principally to do with these practices which have formed over time into institutional arrangements. The dispute over same gender relations has principally to do with a place in the public life of the church whether it relates to the ordination of gay or lesbian people or clerical blessing of same sex relationships. It has to do with the intersection of a moral view about such relationships and the accepted institutional arrangements in the church. Similarly the practice of territorial dioceses for the purpose of ministry and discipline is another tradition created arrangement that is in dispute.

(6) In the last fifty years there have been experiments in practices to do with relations between provinces that have emerged around the world. Regional officers were tried briefly but ineffectually, an international theological college in Canterbury was tried but did not work. Some provinces have established Communion study centres. Relations between provinces have been thought of as an informal fellowship of churches. This view has prevailed almost universally, and strong theological arguments have been used to legitimate this model of the Anglican Communion as a fellowship of churches. It is represented n the vast array networks between groups of Anglicans around the world.

(7) Now it is being proposed to entrench a form of judicature. The re-emergence in the nineteenth century of synods of the whole church for governance purposes in a diocese of province was an earlier example of what was at the time an experimental innovation. In that case there was some reasonably extensive experience of such decision making and categories that might legitimate it. Furthermore there were significant arguments as to how such changes could be explained. Such arguments included appeal to conciliar precedent, an interpretation of the Royal Supremacy that identified parliament (in England) and the crown with the lay element in a longer history of church governance. Over the long history of Anglicanism there have been innovations and changes in a whole range of institutional arrangements. The current proposal is an institutional innovation that arises in the context of that ongoing history of change.

(8) One of the substantial difficulties in the present conflict is that it draws these recent institutional experiments into a conflict over differences about sexuality in the public life of the church. That combination has driven the more gently developing institutional innovations in inter provincial arrangements into overdrive. It is not surprising that this combination has created tension and conflict.

(9) In claiming that the covenant is against the grain of Anglican ecclesiology I want to acknowledge two things and defend them. First by Anglican ecclesiology I have in mind the practices and institutional elements in church arrangements that have been generally adopted in Anglican churches over the course of the history of the tradition. Clearly there are obvious counter examples within the tradition to what I am portraying. The period of the Royal Supremacy in England is a long an obvious example. I regard that pattern as a direct result of national political circumstances that have not been directly repeated elsewhere. Even though at the time in England it was justified by some Anglicans and in a variety of different ways, for the purposes of our current debate it is essentially a local exception which proved, even within the confines of the British Empire, to be unexportable.

(10) This is not to say that external political forces or local cultural considerations are necessarily excluded from the appropriate formation of ecclesiastical arrangements. On the contrary the practices of the church must inevitably relate to the local circumstances, not least because they are the circumstances in which Christians are to bear faithful witness to Christ. The influence of republican political attitudes on the shape of the constitution of the US Episcopal church, or of Chartist attitudes on the formation of synodical styles in some parts of Australia, or of tribal traditions and attitudes in Nigeria are not necessarily malign. They might be and they should be tested against the foundational virtues of ecclesial relations.

(11) So the picture of Anglican ecclesiology I have in mind here is drawn from the practices of Anglican churches over a long period of history and to that extent it is inevitably selective. I think the selective element is reasonable and the points I am seeking to make are kept at a fairly general level. Clearly others may wish to interpret this history differently and that could provide a basis for conversation on that point. I have tried to reflect this desire to keep matters at a fairly general level by speaking of the “grain” of Anglican ecclesiology.

(12) The second point I want note here is that the argument about the arrangements in the proposed covenant have to satisfy two levels of warrant which operate differently on the question. Clearly any proposed arrangement must satisfy the general foundational qualities of the life of any Christian church. Any institutional arrangements that do not facilitate or encourage the pre-eminence of love in relations in the church are clearly inadequate. However within a specific tradition such as Anglicanism such institutional innovations or reforms need to be able to show some reasonable continuity with the historic practices in that tradition and have arguments that might support the proposed innovation.

(13) This is the context in which I wish to assert that the proposed covenant is against the grain of Anglican ecclesiology.

Four elements in the Anglican tradition of ecclesiology provide the basis for this claim:

I. It is apostolic in that it looks back to the apostles and to Jesus Christ through a lineage of the history of the presence of God in the community of the faithful. Scripture is thus the ultimate standard but not the only one for the knowledge of God and the character of the Christian vocation.

(14) This point is clear in many Anglican formularies such as the Thirty Nine Articles and almost all the provincial constitutions of Anglican Provinces around the world. From time to time a number of Anglicans have espoused a doctrine of scripture alone, albeit in quite a variety of formulations and emphases. The doctrine has been explicitly rejected at various times in the history of Anglicanism especially in regard to ecclesiology. It is not represented in the general pattern of constitutions and canons of Anglican Provinces around the world.

(15) This point focuses our attention on the historical character of Anglicanism as a tradition of Christian faith and practice and draws attention to the history of practices in Anglican history that must be engaged with in moving towards any new arrangements.

II. It embraces institutions to express its life and continuity but does not regard these institutions as ever anything other than penultimate. They are necessary and serve the greater good of providing for the ministry of word and sacraments and sustaining the faith of the community.

(16) There is a long history of changing institutional arrangements. Even the universally accepted practice of a threefold ordered ministry of bishops, priests and deacons have been modified in their actual operation. They have also been viewed in very different ways and given different theological significance. This pattern can at least be regarded as in some sense the result of divine providence, as the Preface to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer does, even though it bases this on an historical claim that is patently inadequate. Indeed Anglicans often find themselves in trouble in conversation with their ecumenical friends because they do not wish to affirm the absolute significance of the form of the ordered ministry as Roman Catholics or Presbyterians wish to do, and yet are not really prepared in practical terms to give up these arrangements. JB Lightfoot made this point in the nineteenth century when his eyes were not on the tradition of Rome but of Geneva.

(17) This point draws attention to the reformability of institutions and to an openness to innovation. The question is not can institutional arrangements be changed in Anglicanism, but in what way and on what grounds. In the present experiment on the global scene. Some have suggested that the moves to more global organisational arrangements since the middle of the twentieth century have more to do with serial British and US imperialism. Yet on the other hand, especially in the last twenty years, distance between people around the world has dramatically shrunk because of extraordinary transport and communication technology. Anglicans around the world are much more visible to each other.

(18) It should be noted, however, that being more visible is not the same thing as being more connected. Further, those who are more visible are generally bishops with access to the media and attend the mainly Episcopal so called “Instruments of Unity”.

(19) The dramatic transformation in global communications might suggest that some move beyond the traditional provincial pattern of Anglican judicature might be appropriate. But as with republicanism in the US, Chartism in Australia and tribal structures in Nigeria, the kinds of changes arising from such globalism do not necessarily provide the model for changes in Anglican practices. Rather the values internal to the provincial range of Anglican ecclesiology need to be indentified and related to the foundational ecclesial virtues in any evaluation of proposed innovations.

III. The jurisdictional aspects of these Anglican institutions move from the local out to the regional. They are marked by authority dispersed in the community, a strand of conciliar principles and the sense that this proximity is necessary for effective power in a community ordered by agreed persuasion.

(20) The general pattern of jurisdiction, used principally to provide for a disciplined ministry of word and sacrament, begins in parishes and moves to dioceses and in some cases with appeals beyond to provinces. For bishops discipline is generally exercised at the provincial level. This pattern facilitates the involvement of the whole church through appropriate representatives and thus displays not only a significant element of dispersed authority but also a strong strand of conciliar principles. It also reflects the character of the authority n the church. Discipline operates effectively when there are reasonable levels of effective connection between those in different places in the institution. In a voluntary community the capacity for an office holder effectively to require action from another is directly related to the quality of the bond between them. Proximity yields the kind of persuasive power that is not only essential in a voluntary society, but is an adequate expression of the love and respect that are part of the foundational character of the church.

IV. Catholicity is the dynamic which mediates the connection between the local and wider fellowship and provides the balancing forces that sustain this regional community in the mainstream of apostolic Christian faith.

(21) All Anglican provinces claim to be apostolic and Catholic. Not in the sense of being Roman Catholic, but in the sense of being part of that great company of believers who have followed Christ from the time of apostles and of Christ himself. The Anglican attachment to the apostolic period provides a number of implications. Catholicity is one of them. Early Christians were shaped by a gospel which called for a personal response and which was also addressed to all. As a result of the mission of some and the testimony of Christians, local groups of Christians emerged with different patterns of group life. This diversity is clearly visible in the churches founded by Paul which suggests that there was no strict franchise pattern of group life. Yet it is clear that these Christians had a clear sense of the presence of God in their own lives and in the life of the Christian groups to which they belonged. That meant that they recognised the presence of God in their own church and those other churches which constituted a wider fellowship to which they belonged.

(22) The local church did not and does not exist on its own. It belongs with others and to a wider circle of churches. Its connection with them is the dynamic of catholicity. This dynamic helps them not to be captured by their local circumstances, to be unwitting prisoners of their local culture, or indeed to becoming a caricature of their own local ecclesial practices or attitudes. Such a dynamic holds churches to each other so that they are encouraged and enabled to retain an appropriate balance between their proper engagement with their neighbour and a faithfulness to the gospel universally addressed to all.

(23) It is important to recognise that proximity makes a difference to the kind of connection or fellowship that can exist between individuals or groups. The kind of connectedness is a parish community is necessarily and appropriately different from what pertains between parishes in a diocese or between parishes and the diocese itself. In the same way differences are to be found as you move from the diocese to the province. The pattern of relationship and texture of fellowship at each of these horizons cannot be the same. The move from province to global communion is a large leap as compared with those up to the province. The oft repeated phrase for fellowship (koinonia) as the ambition for the Anglican Communion as “the highest degree of koinonia possible” represents a serious mis-statement of the issue. The question is rather what would be the most appropriate pattern of fellowship for this kind of global community of provinces. As with the parish, the diocese and the province, we need to clarify what kind of thing this Anglican Communion is so that we can design appropriate institutions. There is a disturbing lack of focus on this in the journey towards the covenant.

(24) History has created in Anglicanism a tradition which sees the jurisdictional connection extended to where there is reasonable proximity to provide the basis for effective persuasive authority that would enable discipline. In this respect it has stood against the universal jurisdictional claims of Roman Catholicism on and off for a millennium while wishing for fellowship with Roman Catholics that recognised their own Anglican tradition. As Anglicans spread around the globe and provinces were created wider connections beyond the province have been sustained and developed. These connections have been those of fellowship and openness to the dynamic of the belonging of catholicity. There are serious underlying values involved in so called provincial autonomy in Anglicanism. It is not really autonomy. Rather it is local or proximate responsibility.

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(25) The trouble with the covenant and its jurisdictional ambitions is that it has brought together two things. On the one hand an emerging Anglican experiment in practices that might be appropriate to a changed situation brought about by increasing awareness of each other around the world through technological and political change. On the other hand serious conflict within and between some provinces over the place of homosexual people in the public life of the church. The second has been very powerful and elicited the desire of some to control the perceived deviations of others.

(26) This combination has driven the ecclesial experiment into a mode of institutional jurisdiction. It has been a very unfortunate combination of forces and they have come to focus in the move to a covenant. That covenant owes more to the current of external cultural notions of authority and power and has lead Anglicans to lose focus on the essential elements of their ecclesiological traditions and its underlying values. The covenant has thus become a bad idea for Anglicans because it goes against the grain of their ecclesiology.

(27) Not only so it is not an adequate response to the conflict in the communion, will only lead to more confusion and trouble and misses the key issue at stake in the globalised world in which Anglicans are called to witness, how to act in a particular context which is relevant to that context and also faithful to the gospel. These are matters I will take up in later postings.

(28) The argument set out above have grown out of work represented in several recent books:

Bruce Kaye, Web of Meaning. The Role of Origins in Christian Faith (Sydney: Aquila Press. Distributed from 2009 by Broughton Press, Melbourne, 2000).

Bruce Kaye, Reinventing Anglicanism. A Vision of Confidence, Community and Engagement in Anglican Christianity (Adelaide: Openbook, 2004).

Bruce Kaye, An Introduction to World Anglicanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Bruce Kaye, Conflict and the Practice of Christian Faith: The Anglican Experiment (Omaha, Nebraska: Cascade Books, 2009).

Posted by Bruce Kaye at 10:02 PM 0 comments
Labels: Anglican Covenant and ecclesiology

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