Beloved in Christ,

The General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC) is now well over, but the ramifications of the actions taken there are starting to hit the grassroots level in those few remaining orthodox TEC dioceses. From South Carolina to Albany, from the Midwest to South Central, conversations are taking place where Episcopalians gather. It takes a while for parishioners who don’t follow Anglican news closely to become aware that the General Convention was another disaster for orthodox Christianity, not just for Anglicans, and for them to start talking with each other and then with their priest, but it’s now happening.

The problem for the orthodox in TEC is that no one has yet put forward a well-thought-out, realistic, attainable way forward, other than leaving TEC. Since the Archbishop of Canterbury has issued an analysis which, while accurate in many respects, lacks a concrete plan of action that he is willing to implement, the question is "what is the way forward?" If Dr. Williams were willing to act in favor of Anglican orthodoxy, granting independent recognition of the Communion Partner Bishops and Diocese, and similar recognition for ACNA, things would begin to settle down. But, it appears, Dr. Williams isn’t going to come over and rescue anyone, and so the question lingers, "what is the way forward?"

For those who have left and formed the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) the question has been answered, but for those still inside TEC who avow that they will never leave TEC, the future is decidedly unclear and unsafe. And if, in an orthodox diocese, many orthodox parishes decide to leave, the result can be a formerly orthodox diocese which is nearly evenly split between revisionist and orthodox congregations, such that a diocesan departure is not possible. Then what can happen is that the orthodox bishop retires, more congregations decide to leave, and eventually TEC will establish its aberrant form of Anglicanism where once orthodoxy lived and thrived. Orthodox faith alone isn’t enough; the church needs leaders who are also visionary, courageous and bold, and have a sense of how strategically and tactically to move the church committed to their protection forward.

We anticipate that before the end of the year, dozens of orthodox congregations across the United States and Canada will decide to leave TEC or the Anglican Church of Canada (ACC). Already some revisionist bishops are boldly going after the orthodox congregations left in their dioceses. One of the game plans involves the bishop expressing his/her concern for the mental well-being of an orthodox rector, and insisting (by godly admonition or pastoral directive if needed) that the priest see the diocesan psychiatrist. If the priest refuses, he or she is inhibited and cut off from the parish because the bishop is "concerned about the safety of both priest and the congregation." Checkmate, game over. If the priest has the evaluation, he or she is, of course, reported to be over-stressed, not mentally well, and in an unstable time of life for making decisions, so the priest (who is usually not allowed to see the actual report), is inhibited while he or she recovers. Checkmate, game over. There are effective counter moves to these revisionist tactics against priests which the AAC can provide, working within a one-on-one counseling relationship. You don’t have to lose your parish and be declared nuts by a revisionist bishop’s unfriendly psychiatrist.

One of the great hopes that the orthodox Anglicans in the United States have had, in the midst of the turmoil and suffering, was that other so-called mainline denominations, such as the Lutherans, would see the wreckage that the homosexual lobby has made of the Episcopal Church, and that sane and thoughtful Lutherans would step back and say, "We don’t want our church to go through that." For orthodox Anglicans to have endured the persecution but also to have provided a warning to other denominations would have made the difficulties easier. Apparently this is not to be, for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has passed this week the first of several homosexual-agenda pieces of legislation by an astounding two thirds majority. The most critical vote is Friday, August 21, and this vote, to permit homosexuals to serve in congregations as pastors, only requires a simple majority. Pundits call it a slam dunk. Why have Lutherans, like lemmings, raced over the spiritual edge of the cliff, following their Episcopalian counterparts into greater heterodoxy? We will have to listen to the Lutherans from both sides of the issue to find the reasons, but it suggests that there will be a Lutheran exodus as well, as those good Lutherans who are faithful to the Gospel will realign somewhere. It is a sad day to see another great church body choose the spirit of the age rather than the Holy Spirit as the guiding presence of their denomination.

There will come a day, I am sure, when the heterodox Episcopal Church and a heterodox Lutheran Church will merge. Apparently TEC has now entered into inter-Communion with the Moravian Church. Do the Moravians have any idea of what they have done and with whom they have allied? May God help the Moravians.

The final defining line through Christianity won’t be on liturgy or vestments, it will be over Christology and Holy Scripture, and one can pray that these two also become the basis for the reunification of faithful orthodox Christian Churches in the battle for the soul of humankind.

May our Lord bless and sustain you in every good thing,

The Rt. Rev. David C. Anderson, Sr.
President and CEO, American Anglican Council

It is interesting to find ourselves writing this review of the latest pronouncements from The Episcopal Church (TEC) on this particular date. Eleven years ago today (August 5), the 1998 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops overwhelmingly adopted a resolution (1.10) reaffirming historic sexuality doctrine and deeming homosexual practice "incompatible with scripture."

As events would have it, it was on this same date six years ago that the Episcopal General Convention gave its approval for the consecration of divorced, actively homosexual cleric Gene Robinson – a direct rejection of 1.10. Since 2003, much has changed – notably the North American ecclesiastical landscape – but the general trajectory of TEC has not.

From our perspective, the only surprise about July’s Episcopal General Convention in Anaheim would be if any U.S. Anglican/Episcopalian was surprised by it, or thought that it made any significant change in The Episcopal Church’s position, intentions or practices, despite the sensational headlines it attracted.

The only really new (and we think, commendable) thing the convention did was to be honest enough about where it stands that it finally convinced some holdout observers – most notably Durham’s scholarly Bishop, N.T. Wright – a leading moderate, institutionalist conservative, and close confidante of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams – that TEC has broken from the Anglican Communion. That was an important development for conservatives (on which more later).

Even so, there is now such a lengthy record of dealings with the U.S. Church that we do not understand why it was not glaringly obvious to Wright and others of his mindset long before this point that TEC’s liberal-dominated leadership might slow its destructive efforts to revise Anglican doctrine and order but would never be persuaded to halt or reverse them for the sake of global Anglican unity.

Not by Scripture or Tradition, nor by Lambeth 1.10, nor by the 2004 Windsor Report and its requested moratoria on actively gay bishops and same-sex blessings (as well as cross-boundary interventions), nor by repeated admonitions from Anglican primates and the Anglican Consultative Council, nor by the efforts to secure a unifying covenant between provinces, nor, finally, by the appeals of Archbishop Williams, the last of which were made on the spot in Anaheim.

There, the Archbishop stood by Communion sexuality policy in arguing that the convention do nothing to widen divisions in the global church. Yet he has been lenient with and protective of The Episcopal Church, due, some believe, to his personal sympathies with its views, his apparent distaste for real discipline, and/or a widely-suspected fear of losing TEC’s major contribution to the Communion budget. Rather transparently, Dr. Williams has sought to block any course of events that could lead to TEC’s exclusion from the Communion for its brazen contraventions of Anglican sexuality policy.

In the run-up to Lambeth ‘08, for example, he preferred to incense leaders representing the Communion’s faithful majority rather than bar U.S. violators of Resolution 1.10 (save only Bishop Robinson) from the once-a-decade Conference in Canterbury last year. There, Dr. Williams’ "indaba" program of candid conversation gave TEC participants a soft landing, while becoming the latest of his ineffectual approaches to resolving the Communion’s current conflict.

SET AGAINST THIS BACKGROUND of favoritism toward TEC, Dr. Williams’ decision to cross an ocean and a continent to deliver words of encouragement as well as admonition in Anaheim implied a confidence or hope that General Convention would actually heed his appeals for restraint; a belief that somehow, in the case of TEC, sparing the rod had not spoiled the child.

If so, the Archbishop badly miscalculated, especially about a convention that – due to the secession of four dioceses and other losses – had a smaller conservative minority of delegates than previous conventions. So it was that Episcopalians in Anaheim, supposedly meeting in the spirit of "Ubuntu" ("I in you and you in me"), rewarded the Archbishop’s efforts on their behalf with a figurative third-finger salute and clear decisions to allow homosexuals access to all levels of ordained ministry (Resolution D025), and to begin work toward a churchwide rite or rites for blessing same-sex unions (Resolution C056).

But C056 also has an immediate effect. It says that bishops – especially those in civil jurisdictions that permit gay marriage or unions – may provide "generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church." The resolution set no limits on that response. Meanwhile, practicing homosexuals have already been included among the nominees for bishop announced in the Dioceses of Los Angeles and Minnesota.

Bye-Bye, B033

Of course, as we suggested earlier, neither D025 or C056 were really anything new: Both resolutions built upon and more clearly established what already had been authorized or going on in practice in TEC for quite some time. For example, a previous convention approved any same-sex blessing rite that a "local faith community" cared to use, and the church’s canons have long stated that the ordination process is open to all persons regardless of sexual orientation.

In re-emphasizing the latter position in D025, however, that resolution was taken by many – including, initially, by TEC’s own official news organ – as a repeal of Resolution B033, the 20 06 measure urging dioceses to withhold consent for the consecration of further partnered gay bishops. B033 was given grudging, 11th-hour approval at the 2006 convention in response to international Anglican calls for TEC to signify its adherence to the requested moratoria – though the measure was widely seen as temporary concession necessary at that time (but now not for another nine years.) to ensure that Episcopal prelates could process into Canterbury Cathedral and attend a tea party with the Queen as full participants in the ‘08 Lambeth Conference.

For indeed, as D025 made clear, TEC wants to keep its membership in the Anglican Communion, even while refusing to abide by its standards. To be sure, since at least 2006, TEC, which itself encompasses off-shore jurisdictions, has had a "Plan B" to make itself the nucleus of a rival Anglican Communion if threats to expel the province from the official fold are ever realized. However, one likely but unvoiced reason that it wishes to retain its standing in the establishment Communion is at the affiliation gives the American province – whose declining numbers already qualify it for sect status in the U.S. – the recognized and historic international platform it needs to be considered credible and worthy of attention.

Moreover – and more ominously – Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her liberal colleagues seem to believe that TEC is called to remain engaged with the wider Communion so as to convert more of it to the U.S. Church’s positions.

Uniqueness Of Christ, Heresy, And Persecution

And in that endeavor, The Episcopal Church is almost certain to bring its influence to bear on more than just the issue of sexuality: Revealing again the depth of TEC’s anti-orthodoxy, the Anaheim convention , in discharging Resolution C069, bypassed another opportunity to affirm the uniqueness of Christ in a multi-faith world.

As well, Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori denied that an individual can be saved through a sinner’s prayer of repentance. In her opening address in=2 0Anaheim, she termed the notion "that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in a right relationship with God," the "great Western heresy."

"TEC means to push ahead with its current heresies, false doctrines and aberrant practices, and find new ones to add, and yet [demands that it] be fully a part of the Anglican Communion," Bishop David Anderson, head of the American Anglican Council (AAC), wrote recently. TEC’s persecution of the orthodox, also unrestrained by international appeals, was on display again in Anaheim as well. The convention allocated $7 million – reportedly a large increase – for legal assistance and aid to reorganizing and other TEC diocese s that are trying to claim the property of dioceses and congregations that, for theological reasons, have largely realigned with other parts of the Communion, notwithstanding the fact that it is the same Communion of which TEC claims to be a part.

All this, while the convention acknowledged declining revenues by slashing program and headquarters staff up to 30 percent. Since the 2003 convention’s approval of Robinson9 9s consecration, and the resultant departure of four dioceses and hundreds of congregations or congregational groups, the number of property lawsuits by the national church and its dioceses has risen dramatically.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Jefferts Schori "has come very close to deposing more faithful American Episcopal bishops and clergy in her three-year tenure than have been deposed by all presiding bishops of TEC since 1789," noted the AAC’s Bishop Anderson. "There is also a near-frantic concern among TEC leaders" that the new Anglican Communion in North America (ACNA), led by Archbishop Robert Duncan and comprised mainly of refugees from TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada, "not be given any recognition by the Communion, as that will set up an equivalency that they can’t live with, Anderson recently observed.

Indeed, when word came that the Church of England’s General Synod may consider recognizing the ACNA, Bishop Jefferts Schori sternly warned against any such action, stating that "schism is not a Christian act." But the aforementioned Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright – a theologian, author, and contributor to the Windsor Report – countered in a Times of London column which dropped like a sort of bomb while the convention was still underway that it is TEC that is "formalizing the schism they initiated six years ago" by consecrating Robinson as bishop. The Anaheim convention’s outcome "marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion," Wright declared. "In Windsor’s language, they have chosen to ‘walk apart.’"

KJS: Honest, It’s Not As Bad As You Think

Apparently attempting some damage control after the convention, Bishop Jefferts Schori and House of Deputie s President Bonnie Anderson claimed in a letter to Archbishop Williams that General Convention "has not repealed Resolution B033." Resolution D025, they wrote, is "descriptive rather than prescriptive in nature – a statement that reaffirms commitments already made by The Episcopal Church and that acknowledges certain realities of our common life." They admitted, though, that some diocesan bishops and standing committees may see D025 as giving them "more latitude in consenting to episcopal elections."

Episcopal News Service, though, had earlier quoted the Rev. Susan Russell, president of Integrity USA, a GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered) Episcopal advocacy group, as saying that she was confident that D025 "moves us beyond B033." In adopting D025 "we told the truth about who we are …This is a church that is ready to move on. It was a clear vote for mission for this church." (And as we noted, two dioceses currently have open homosexuals among bishop nominees.)

In a separate letter to Dr. Williams, Jefferts Schori and Anderson also main tained that, while C056 allows each bishop to determine what "a generous pastoral response might mean in her or his diocesan context," the resolution "does not authorize public liturgical rites for the blessing of same-gender unions." The Book of Common Prayer’s marriage rites and view of marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman remain unchanged, they contended.

GenCon’s Challenge

For our part, we regard Ms. Russell’s "take" as accurate, and the efforts of the P.B. and Deputies’ leader to put lipstick on a pig as amusing but irrelevant: No matter how you spin them, D025 nor C056 are outside the parameters of orthodoxy . From where we sit, then, the main import of General Convention was that – however inadvertently – it confronted the "Mother" Church of England, the wider Communion and its leadership with a weighty and pivotal question, albeit one that has been dogging the global church for a long time. (GenCon has also challenged conservatives remaining in TEC, but we will leave them for another time.)

The implied query from the Anaheim meeting to other Anglican provinces goes something like this: General Convention "told the truth about who we are," so what of substance – if anything – are you now going to about i t? We happily note that, in more than a decade of international wrangling, you have neither arrested our heterodoxy nor clearly disassociated the Communion from TEC. If that situation continues, will you be content with the message that it sends to the world, to the wider Universal Church, and to God Himself – that in some measure you condone our version of Anglican Christianity, and are willing to have us proselytize for it among Anglican brethren and others? Or – if Bishop Wright is correct that TEC is "walking apart" from the rest of the Communion – will we soon see the Church of England and other provinces officially join the 20-some provinces that have already declared broken or impaired communion with TEC? Will they join other provinces in recognizing the new ACNA?

GOING TO THE HEART OF THE QUESTION, ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan recently said the key choice to be made for Anglican Christians, the Communion’s councils, "interdependent provinces," and Archbishop Williams, is "between two religions, two roads, two cities, two sets of conflicting values and behaviors. In Deuteronomy, chapter 30, Moses sets the choice as between blessing and curse, life and death. For contemporary Anglicanism the present choice is this stark." No one likes stark choices, least of all the present Archbishop of Canterbury.

But in a recent column titled "Rowan Among the Ruins," Anglican e-journalist David Virtue argued that Williams’ "own time came and has now gone. There is no retrieving it." The Archbishop’s attempt to remedy the TEC situation – which Virtue saw as based on the liberal sentiments of the "Affirming Catholicism" movement, which Williams helped found – has failed, because it did not rely primarily on the authority of Holy Scripture. "The time has come for Williams himself to choose," Virtue wrote.

The Archbishop’s "Choice": The Anglican Ways

The evident "choice" of the Archbishop – the man who plays such a large role in setting the course for the Communion – is outlined in a July 27 reflection titled, "Communion, Covenant, and Our Anglican Future." The document is one of Williams’ strongest and least ambiguous statements on homosexuality in several years, and has much to commend it from the orthodox viewpoint. Perhaps the faithful can thank General Convention for that.

The Archbishop’s recommended way forward may give them more pause, however. (More on that in a minute.) In his statement, Williams gave the convention, and homosexual and liberal Anglicans their due, but indicated that TEC leaders’ assurances that the convention actions did not have the "automatic effect of overturning the requested moratoria" on gay bishops and blessings were unlikely to be convincing to the wider Communion, or "allay anxieties" that TEC had chosen to walk apart. He further made clear that blessing LGBT relationships cannot be viewed simply as a "justice" issue because it is ultimately a theological one, and if the theological argument is not there, the church cannot move forward on the issue.

TEC had gone ahead with same-sex blessings and practicing homosexual clergy without engaging in a "painstaking biblical exegesis" and seeking a "wide acceptance of the results within the Communion," as "a major change naturally needs a strong level of consensus and solid theological grounding."

As things stand, "a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole," the Archbishop also said in part. Nor should any member of the clergy-bishop or priest-be "living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond," he added. The homosexual or unchaste heterosexual lifestyle "is not one that the Church’s teaching sanctions, and thus it is hard to see how [persons involved in such lifestyles] can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires."

By permitting gay clergy and blessings without first "including in its discernment the judgment of the wider Church," TEC risked "becoming unrecognizable to other local churches," Williams wrote. The way ahead, Archbishop Williams said, was through an Anglican Covenant between provinces which would provide structures of "mutual recognizability, mutual consultation, and some shared processes of decision-making." (The draft pact is still going through a final20revision phase, so TEC has not voted on it yet.)

HAVING DELIVERED this rebuke to TEC, though, Williams’ translation of it into practical, institutional terms is one that veers away from choosing between two religions, or between keeping the status quo for TEC or giving it the boot. He does not acknowledge what happened at GenCon as schism, or an end to the Communion.

Instead, he re-commends a concept he outline d a few years ago: that of a two-tiered or two-tracked communion of covenanted and non-covenanted provinces – an inner and outer circle, if you will, and "two styles of being Anglican."

Some observers likened the scheme to Williams’ indaba experiment, viewing it as another creative but sad attempt by the Archbishop to hold a fractured and fracturing Communion together, and/or to buy more time in the hope that the two tracks now going in opposite directions would somehow ultimately converge.

We suspect (seriously, though we realize this may generate some mirth.) that it is also Williams’ attempt to suggest a more civilized and pleasant model of schism for the 21st century. Figuratively speaking, the parties move into different houses in the same general neighborhood rather than as far away as they can get from each other, and try to cooperate where they can, though the role of the second tier in the affairs of the first would be limited – supposedly.

Of his concept, Williams wrote: "There is at least the possibility of a twofold ecclesial reality in view in the middle distance: that is, a ‘covenanted’ Anglican global body, fully sharing certain aspects of a vision of how the Church should be and behave, able to take part as a body in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue; and, related to this body, but in less formal ways with fewer formal expectations, there may be associated local churches in various kinds of mutual partnership and solidarity with one another and with ‘covenanted’ provinces…

"It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are – two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude co-operation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion. It should not need to be said that a competitive hostility between the two would be one of the worst possible outcomes, and needs to be clearly repudiated. The ideal is that both ‘tracks’ should be able to pursue what they believe God is calling them to be as Church, with greater integrity and consistency. It is right to hope for and work for the best kinds of shared networks and institutions of common interest that could be maintained as between different visions of the Anglican heritage…"

Is It Really Enough?

To us, the key question is whether the ostensible removal of TEC to (as one report put it) "the periphery of the life and witness of the Anglican Communion" is an adequate solution in this case. Will a separate-but-still-linked arrangement do enough to end the Communion’s current mixed message about homosexual practice, which seems to be that it is sinful in most parts of the world but not in a few others? We doubt it. And how real or artificial – or invisible to the average onlooker – will the distinction between the inner and outer circle be? These questions seem await answer if and when further details of the plan take shape. But at least one conservative leader saw in the scheme the opening for the supposedly-demoted TEC to "continue to dominate."

How credible or workable is the arrangement? Consider it as applied in another context. If, for example, the Socialist Party was troubled by the development of a virulent and incorrigible libertarian element in its midst, would anyone not find it highly amusing if, instead of expelling the d issidents, the Party set them up as a second or lower tier of its organization and touted the "two styles of being Socialist"?

A MORE SERIOUS ISSUE is the peace and welfare of the Communion’s faithful majority, a concern that seems to have been regularly subordinated to efforts to try to "keep everyone at the table," even when some are badly misbehaving.

Giving TEC a reduced status within or on the fringes of the Communion, rather than fully ostracizing it, may seem a better way of proceeding in the new millennium, but better for whom? We think that anoth er of the AAC’s leaders, the Rev. Dr. Phil Ashey, is correct in concluding that "the battle for orthodox Anglican Christianity in TEC has been lost," and the "battle for Christian orthodoxy in the Anglican Communion has already begun."

And in that struggle, he argues that TEC presents a "clear and present danger" to the Communion. Elaborating on a point we made earlier, Ashey said recently that "TEC believes that its ‘Manifest Destiny’ is to share its con victions with the rest of the Anglican Communion, and to convert [it] to the false gospel which lies behind its repudiation of confessional Christianity, personal salvation through Christ alone, Communion teaching on human sexuality and holy orders (as stated in Lambeth Resolution 1.10) and the moratoria on gay bishops and same sex blessings."

IN THE MAIN, Dr. Williams should be lauded for his July 27 statement, which goes farther in reapproaching the homosexual issue from the catholic standpoint than anything we have seen from him in quite a while. But –while we know the odds are against it – we hope and pray that he takes the good sense he demonstrates one critical step further. For the peace and welfare of most Anglicans, we hope he will join Bishop Wright – and provinces that have already weighed in on the issue by cutting or reducing ties to TEC – in fully acknowledging the current reality in TEC, and supporting moves in the Church of England to do the same.

Actions speak louder than words, and whatever TEC says to the contrary, it has acted over and over like it is not part of the Anglican Communion. That is the reality. Is there not some simple, swift way to meet the real need that we think now exists to officially acknowledge that, without it running afoul of or getting bogged down by arguments about the current limits of authority in the Communion, the need to wait for the covenant’s adoption, etc.?

Is there not some expeditious way to do what General Convention did (rather courageously, if you think about it) – tell the truth in a way that has consequences? How improbable it seems, based on his past track record, but how refreshing it would be, if Archbishop Williams, instead of presiding over the conversion of the Anglican Way into the Anglican Ways, joined other archbishops in simply recording their conclusion that TEC has adopted for itself the role of a jurisdiction outside the official Anglican Communion, and continuing about their duties on the basis of that understanding.

With two TEC dioceses already fielding homosexual candidates for bishop, and the situation quickly growing more volatile, it seems likely that events will unfold differently – (e.g.) that conservative Global South archbishops will step into the breach and issue some statement or take some action of their own, and Dr. Williams will have to decide whether to follow their lead or go his own way. But it does not have to be that way unless the Archbishop wishes it to be.

——–Sources for the foregoing included The American Anglican Council, The Living Church, Episcopal News Service, VirtueOnline, The Washington Times, The Church of England Newspaper

Social

The more sinful the church, the more that church is reducible to the descriptions of the social scientists, the more “merely” it functions just as any other organization…. So, the theological analysis that does indeed need to be done, should includes this question:  which ecclesiology are we now to grasp after, one oriented to our sin or one oriented to our redemption? 

In an article entitled “Why direct sign-on now to the Covenant is a bad idea” (that appeared on his blog PRELUDIUM shortly after our article “Communion and Hierarchy”) Fr. Mark Harris has done us all a big favor.  He has made clear the full scope of the widespread view among TEC’s present leadership that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s observation about the possibility of covenant ratification on the part of dioceses is both harmful and unhelpful.

Fr. Harris registers five objections to ratification on the part of individual dioceses. We will address each in due course. First, however, there are two general comments that will help frame the disagreements we have both with his assessment of the situation and the objections he lodges against the possibility of diocesan ratification of the proposed covenant.

Let it be noted first that the chief concern of those individual dioceses that might want to ratify the covenant is not, contra Fr. Harris, a desire to leave TEC for another jurisdiction.  Neither is it a desire to create an international form of governance.  The chief concern is, given the fact that TEC has provisionally rejected the Covenant by repudiating the Communion teaching the Covenant requires and given that is unlikely that TEC will ratify a covenant that places limitations on the course of action taken at this past General Convention, it is more than likely that TEC’s relation with the Instruments of Communion and a large majority of Anglican Provinces will be compromised.  The status of TEC’s relation to Canterbury in this case will at best be ambiguous. Further, its relation with many provinces will remain or become broken. As a result, both the Anglican and catholic identity of TEC will have been compromised.  The reason for diocesan ratification in this case is therefore not a change of jurisdiction.  It is the continuation of both Anglican and catholic identity under circumstances where a province has compromised both.

The second comment is that Fr. Harris’ title, “Why direct diocesan sign-on now (emphasis added) is a bad idea” misconstrues the present situation.  Until the end of the year, no provision will have been made either by the ACC or any other Instrument of Communion for anyone, province or diocese, to sign on now.  At present, the ACC has made it clear that it is asking “member churches” to ratify the Covenant.  Given that TEC has provisionally repudiated the Covenant, “member churches” must be understood to include the constituent dioceses and extra-provincial dioceses and churches of such member Churches.  What individual dioceses can do right now is express their support for the Covenant by signing the first three sections of the Ridley/Cambridge Draft that have already received final approval.  There is certainly no let or hindrance that stands in the way of such an action, and indeed ACI urges dioceses to take precisely such action.  To do so will let both members of TEC and the larger Communion know that not all segments of TEC support the direction taken at the last General Convention, and that they desire to be part of a covenant community even if TEC declines membership.  It is difficult to see why an action of this sort on the part of individual dioceses would subvert the democratic process of which Fr. Harris is such a strong advocate.

These things being said, why does Fr. Harris believe “diocesan buy in is a very bad idea”?  We note that in posing the question in the body of his text rather than in the title Fr. Harris no longer speaks of buying in now but speaks in more general terms of buying in at all.  In any case, his first objection is that it would be a bad idea to make provision for diocesan ratification prior to the time TEC as TEC has had opportunity to study the Covenant and give its decision in respect to ratification.  Why?  He gives two reasons: (1) “Those affirming the Covenant would by that deny that they are bound together with the rest of The Episcopal Church in a common decision making community;” and (2) “they would be acting in the face of what they fear would be a negative vote on the matter in ways contrary to any consensus building at all.”

In response, let us say first that, in principle, there is nothing wrong with waiting for the results of provincial consideration and then acting independently of the province if it refuses to ratify the Covenant and the Communion makes such an allowance.  Indeed, all things being equal, waiting for a provincial decision is the most orderly course of action to follow.  The problem is that not all things are equal.

By rejecting Communion teaching TEC has already provisionally repudiated the Covenant. Its rejection is highlighted by the fact that the most recent General Convention has taken decisive action in respect to the moratoria that runs counter both to Lambeth 1:10, the statements and requests of all three other Instruments of Communion, and a direct appeal by the Archbishop of Canterbury.  It is simply beyond the realm of credibility to think that TEC will respond favorably to a covenant containing the account of consequences to be found in section four of the Ridley/Cambridge Draft.

Note also that the first three sections of the Covenant’s text appear to be fixed, and are no longer formally open to further discussion and revision.  Yet the recent General Convention has acted in ways that are in stark contrast to these sections (especially 3.2).  Once more we note that it challenges belief that TEC will adopt this Covenant, or if it does, that its adoption will do anything but subvert the texts plain meaning.

We, therefore, are forced to the conclusion that, given TEC’s actions to date, postponement of action for three years does not provide an opportunity to build consensus, as Fr. Harris suggests.  Rather, it appears as a strategy by TEC’s leadership to buy time in which to put together an international alliance more favorable to its more federalist views of an Anglican future.  Or, it is a move that seeks to guard autonomy and resist interdependence, no matter what the consequences of this for all.

If provision were made for diocesan ratification, a decision by a diocese to ratify would in point of fact not be taken out of fear of a “negative result” and in “ways contrary to any consensus building.”  The dioceses that made such a decision would not be acting out of fear but out of conviction that TEC has set itself on a course from which it cannot turn back.  Further, they would not be acting in ways contrary to consensus building because it has become clear to them that consensus building is not the goal of those who now hold the levers of power in TEC.  Those who hold power have acted decisively in ways founded on crude majoritarian vote rather than consensus. Ratifying dioceses would, in short, be acting, should they be invited to do so, in order to distinguish themselves from the actions of TEC’s General Convention and the majority of its bishops, and in order to establish their full membership in the Anglican Communion.

Would they, as Fr. Harris states, “by this action be denying that they are bound together with the rest of The Episcopal Church in a common decision making community?”  No! They, as members of The Episcopal Church, would be taking action as dioceses of The Episcopal Church that is allowed by the constitution of that church.  They would not be removing themselves from a common decision making process.  They would be taking an extraordinary course within a decision making process because the common decision making process of The Episcopal Church had arrived at a decision that compromises the constitutionally-defined identity of The Episcopal Church. That is, by its constitution, The Episcopal Church defines itself as a church in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and a full member of the Anglican Communion. When these identifying marks are in question, so obviously is the identity of those bodies that so define themselves.  Why then should a diocese, while remaining a part of TEC, not seek to establish its bona fides as a diocese of the Anglican Communion?

II

Fr. Harris’ second objection is that since TEC is not the only church that has problems with the Covenant, dioceses from several provinces might sign on.  This is a bad idea because then, he says, there might be a list of six or seven hundred dioceses that belong to the communion rather than a list of thirty-eight provinces.  An unmanageable mess!  Further, it is unclear to whom the announcement of joining would be made–to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Meeting of the Primates or the ACC?  If the latter, who would then, as he says, pay the freight?  The dioceses?

These concerns appear to us an unreasonable attempt to reduce a reasonable argument to the status of an absurdity.  To think that six or seven hundred dioceses from around the Communion would be part of provinces that did not ratify the Covenant is way beyond the bounds of credibility.  If there were that degree of disagreement among the provinces, the Communion would have effectively fallen apart.  The Covenant would have failed.  Far more plausible is a signing of the Covenant by a wide majority of provinces, and alongside this provision for those “churches” (dioceses, parishes, etc.) that wish to covenant when the province in which they reside has refused this direction.

As to the worry about who would receive the various diocesan ratifications, speculation on this matter can only be speculation.  If provision is made for ratification, it is reasonable to assume that provision will be made for its reception (much as the current text of Section Four already indicates).  To say that the Communion does not have the infrastructure to handle the applications will remain the case until such time as the communion takes action to make the option of diocesan ratification a possibility.  Presumably provision will be made for receiving and vetting these applications.  Provision of this sort need not be complicated if it is indeed desired.  Fr. Harris simply doesn’t desire it.

Further, there is no reason to hold that reception of diocesan ratification by the ACC would mean that dioceses would belong to the ACC as dioceses and so pay part of the expenses.  The ACC is not composed of dioceses, but provinces.  The question would be what form of representation dioceses that were allowed to ratify the covenant would have in the meetings of the Instruments of Communion, including the meeting of the ACC. (Currently, such extra-provincials are represented by Canterbury). The question is one that would have to be answered, but individual diocesan membership in the ACC or the Meeting of Primates is surely not a proposal anyone would take seriously since there are already provisions in place that address this.

III

In his third objection to diocesan ratification, Fr. Harris returns to the claim to which we objected in our response to his previous posting, viz., that diocesan ratification leads directly to “the madness of yet another papal system.”  If such were the case, we would object to diocesan ratification. So Fr. Harris’ objection deserves serious scrutiny, even though he worries about an eventuality that, in so far as we can determine, no one wants.

Just why does he believe such an eventuality lies hidden in the bosom of diocesan ratification?  The first reason is that diocesan sign on is a “sign of connective relationship” that is “directly between the diocese and the Archbishop of Canterbury.”  He objects to this because the Archbishop of Canterbury controls invitations to meetings of the Instruments of Communion.  This control he goes on to say “gives to the ABC and the Primates central power.”  He further objects that the Primates involved would be only those of provinces that had signed on.

It seems reasonable to say that only Primates whose provinces have ratified the Covenant would be involved in inviting people to meetings of the covenanted provinces (and dioceses).  That being said, “central power” as employed by Fr. Harris is a very loaded, and in this case misapplied, term.  It could mean lots of things, including the plenipotentiary power of the Pope.  However, the power accorded to the Archbishop of Canterbury (not the Primates) takes the form of authority to gather the Instruments of Communion.  The authority to gather implies the authority to withhold an invitation.  However, it is unlikely that the Archbishop would exercise this authority apart from the agreement of the Primates in a covenanted communion.  It is reasonable to say that the authority to gather belongs to the Archbishop as the first among equals. However, to compare this sort of authority to the power of the Pope is at best a gross exaggeration.  The Archbishop has only a very limited form of authority in the Communion as a whole. He gathers!  Further, he gathers with the advice and consent of the Communion as a whole. (And as we already know, no one has to come!) He has no jurisdictional powers. No curial centrism is apparent here.  We wonder if the real reason for calling up the specter of papal power is worry that TEC will not be “gathered” once the Covenant is in place.  If this is the worry, it would be better to state it directly rather than alluding to an eventuality favored by no one.

The second defense of the claim that papal power lies hidden within the diocesan option is that with a direct connection with Canterbury, “a diocese could be so out of connection with its own province, its own Church, that it identified entirely with the ABC.”  It is certainly the case that if a diocese in fact asks to ratify the Covenant because its province has not, there has taken place a weakening of the connection between diocese and province.  How could that not be the case?   The extent of that distancing no doubt would vary from diocese to diocese and from province to province.  However, to say that a diocese could be so out of touch “that it identified entirely” with the Archbishop is a misrepresentation of the facts. If a diocese remains a part of the province in question it has not “entirely” identified with the Archbishop.  What it has done is to say that its primary identity is a diocese of the Anglican Communion.  As such it is also a diocese of The Episcopal Church.  Nevertheless, it has said that the center of catholic identity is never simply a national church.  It is the church catholic of which various national churches are constituent parts or partial expressions. By signing the Covenant, a diocese is making a statement about the ordering of the aspects of its identity.  First the church catholic, then the national expression of the church catholic!  That is the proper lexical order of loyalty.

This observation brings us to our primary objection to Fr. Harris’ analysis, with its implicit proposal that dioceses are subject in a final sense to the determinations of a national governing body.  We have on numerous occasions shown that, within TEC, there is no constitutional basis for this claim.  According to its constitution, as a national church, TEC is not hierarchical.  It is hierarchical in a constitutional sense only at the diocesan level. The burden of Fr. Harris’ argument is the opposite, namely, a national body that is sovereign within its own borders governs TEC.  TEC is, in short, a denomination in the same sense as are the Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches.  Is TEC an expression of catholic Christianity or is it but another denomination within the spectrum of American denominationalism?  This is the ecclesiological question with which both The Episcopal Church and its constituent dioceses are now confronted. We need to point out, however, that this question was answered in favor of “catholic Christianity” many years ago, through the very processes that underlay the development of the Lambeth Conferences and the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral!

That Fr. Harris’ supports a denominational ecclesiology becomes plain in his fifth objection to diocesan ratification (an objection that for the sake of clarity we discuss prior to objection four).  He says that what he most dislikes about the notion of diocesan buy in is “that it is in total denial of the Episcopal Church as a body that makes decisions together.”  Here the issue once more is misstated.  A diocese that determines to take advantage of the possibility of ratification apart from a province that decides not to ratify is not denying the province in question as a body that makes decisions together.  It is saying that the province of which it is a part has made a decision that compromises a more basic aspect of its identity.  Assuming the capacity will be guaranteed them, they are saying that it is not enough for them “to uphold the moratoria on their own.”  Their representation within the Communion has been compromised, and they must, therefore, seek a direct relation apart from the compromised one provided by the province to which they belong. In taking the step of direct ratification they would be saying no to a Christian identity defined first of all by the boundaries of a nation state and the confines of a denomination that locates itself first of all within those boundaries.

IV

It is this view that in fact prompts his fourth objection.  He asks why those that want TEC to sign the Covenant do not wait for the next General Convention and there cast 51% of the votes for ratification. If this time were taken before a final judgment, there might, he says, be some possibility of a provincial decision by “the so called ‘local’ Church.”

It is of course the case that if no provision is made before that time for dioceses to ratify the Covenant, then dioceses would not have to hold off casting their votes.  They would have no vote to cast. The question would be moot. However, if provision is made for diocesan ratification dioceses that want to ratify the Covenant would simply be foolish not to do so.  First The Episcopal Church has already taken steps that both effectively repudiate the approved portion of the Covenant and make ratification of a Covenant that limits its autonomy impossible to imagine.  Second, a provincial decision that is the result of consensus building among those who support the decisions of the General Convention and those who do not now sadly lies beyond reach and has, in any case, been contradicted by a majoritarian system of decision-making.  Pronouncements of victory have been heard resounding from the halls of our deliberations.  “It’s time to move on” is the mantra that focused the attention of the vast majority of all three orders and both houses.  How then can there be consensus building that includes those who have a problem with the majority if they have no way to contribute to building such a consensus. According to the reports we have received, a declaration of consensus by majority vote has already been made.

In such a context “minority influence” must be exercised in new ways.  Thus, in taking the step of direct ratification the minority would, as previously noted, be saying no to a Christian identity defined first all by boundaries of a nation state and the confines of a denomination that locates itself first of all within those boundaries.  Again, as previously noted, the primary objection we lodged against Fr. Harris’ first two articles on these subjects is that they locate the identity of The Episcopal Church first within the boundaries of a nation state.  His further explication of his views makes doubly clear that this is indeed his position.  And having stated it in this way, it becomes increasingly clear that Fr. Harris not only believes this innovative understanding of our polity is true, but also that it must be enforced as true by making all dioceses and members suffer whatever fate is in store for a province that does not intend to sign any covenant restricting a course of action undertaken, for example, like that of the last General Convention.  All must go where the church of the nation goes, whether they want to or not, even if to do so calls into question their belonging to the Anglican Communion.

V

We have stated very serious disagreements with the concerns Fr. Harris expresses.  Nevertheless, we welcome the care with which he has given expression to the view of TEC’s identity now common among TEC’s leadership.  It is a view that has found expression in the representations of the Office of the Presiding Bishop in the cases now under review in San Joaquin, Pittsburgh, and Fort Worth. Nevertheless, it remains largely unarticulated in a consistent, thorough, and coherent manner.

We believe a comprehensive and coherent statement of this novel understanding of Episcopal and Anglican identity held by Fr. Harris is of the utmost importance.  We say this because the views Fr. Harris expresses, views he shares with the Presiding Bishop and much of the present leadership of our church, are views that go against its constitution and change, indeed almost reverse, the way in which TEC has understood itself since its foundation.  Our founders were careful to define TEC in relation to the doctrine and worship of the Church of England.  Latterly that definition changed to communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury and membership in the Anglican Communion. Both definitions place The Episcopal Church within a communion of churches, the whole of which is more fundamental to Christian identity than its national expression.  We do not know if it is any longer possible to carry on a meaningful discussion of this crucial issue, but we are grateful to Fr. Harris for making an attempt.

Reaction to the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent reflections on the actions of the Episcopal Church’s recent General Convention have come from such diverse sources as advocacy groups, bloggers, breakaway Anglicans and the Vatican.

There is much to affirm in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s reflection on the 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church:

- In response to assurances by the leadership of TEC that nothing has changed, his stated assessment that Resolutions D025 (gay bishops) and C056 (same sex blessings) will neither repair broken bridges with other provinces nor allay anxieties that these resolutions are prescriptive and not merely descriptive (para. 2);
 
- His declaration that "a blessing for a same sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic or even of the Communion as a whole," and that persons living in such unions "cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle." (paras. 8 and 9);

- His declaration that changes in societal attitudes are not reasons in and of themselves for changing the discipline of the Anglican Communion (para. 10);

- Reaffirmation of the venerable principle that "what affects the communion of all should be decided by all" (para. 13), that innovations in either sexuality or sacramental practice without regard to that principle threaten to end Anglicanism as a "theologically coherent community of Christian communities" (para. 18), and that local pastoral needs and "context" are insufficient to justify such unilateral action by a province (paras. 11-17).

On the other hand, despite the overwhelming evidence presented to him in our Primates Report, and the Presiding Bishop’s opening declaration that confessional Christianity is a heresy, and Calvary merely a "waypoint" among other ways, it is not clear whether he recognizes that TEC’s theological convictions are a false Gospel.  Despite TEC’s denial of the uniqueness and universality of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of all – a principle which the Church of England has affirmed at its General Synod (1) and which TEC specifically rejected at this General Convention – he seems to suggest that these "deeply held theological convictions" are well within Anglican Christianity and deserve respect! (paras. 24 and 26). And he is quick to reassure the innovators that "there is no threat of being cast into outer darkness" (para. 22).

In response to TEC’s actions at GC 2009, Dr. Williams is advocating a "two-tracked" Anglican Communion.  For those of us who watched him argue passionately for the paradigm of "Communion with autonomy and accountability" at ACC-14, his essay is a sad but necessary acknowledgement of the reality we have known for some time, that there is a "torn communion" dominated by TEC and its proxies, and a robust and growing "Confessing Communion" largely in the Global South.

The Bishop of Durham has addressed this subject in his analysis of Dr. Williams’ statement:

"Many will not regard the language of a ‘two-track’ Communion as a strength. Some have objected that this is forcing apart what ought to be held together. Others, conversely, have sneered that ‘two-track’ sounds like a vote for pluralism pure and simple, a kind of ecclesial version of ’70s pop-psych ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’: you go your way, we go ours, and we’re both just fine as we are. But the ‘two-track’ option is not intended as an indifferentist, shoulder-shrugging thing (though no doubt some who find themselves in the incipient Track Two will want to see it like that). To say ‘two-tier’, as some have done at earlier stages in the discussion, implies that the two are still ‘tiers’ of the same thing, whereas ‘tracks’ may be going in quite different directions. And it is one ‘track’ rather than the other which will possess the coherence to work together in full solidarity, not least in ecumenical relationships."

The real question is which Communion will the ABC choose to work with?  Which one will he try to build the future of Anglicanism upon?  If he is genuinely interested in an Anglican Communion which has at its heart covenanted provinces with "intensifying relationships," will he continue to legitimize the false gospel of TEC and its proxies?  When they show up to the councils of the Communion (as they most certainly will) – to the Joint Standing Committee, the ACC, and inter-Anglican ministry networks – will he welcome them?  Will he allow their representation to continue to undermine the very Covenant processes he publically champions?  Or will he finally turn to the orthodox within the Communion and build with them upon their uninterrupted commitment to a vision of Anglicanism that is biblical, catholic and conciliar?

The false gospel of TEC presents a clear and present danger to the Anglican Communion. TEC considers it both a theological imperative of justice and a cultural imperative of "manifest destiny" for TEC’s leadership to spread this false gospel to the rest of the Anglican Communion.  It has already infected, perhaps fatally, some provinces in the Global North.  Jesus said, "let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’" (Matt. 5:37)  +Rowan Williams’ "Yes and no" will not stop the spread of this false gospel – even and especially to the mother Church of England.

The Bishop of Durham seems to have finally recognized this imminent threat, and for this very reason asserts: "It is thus up to the Archbishop himself to move swiftly to implement what he himself has said, counting on support from bishops around his own Province and the whole Communion."  Can we count on the Archbishop to consult with the orthodox Covenant-affirming Primates, especially the GAFCON Primates and FCA Bishops regarding implementation?  Can we count on the Archbishop to work with the GAFCON Primates and FCA Bishops to provide the same Covenant connection and Alternative Oversight to the orthodox that those now in ACNA sought unsuccesfully from him – and the rest of the Communion, including the Bishop of Durham – for the last six years?  In the face of his very public denunciation of "cross-provincial interventions," and the moral equivalency he drew between the actions of TEC and the pastoral response of the GAFCON Primates, can we expect the Archbishop to make an about-face?

What can we actually expect from the Archbishop of Canterbury?

The orthodox leaders of the "Confessing Communion" must now insist upon a robust theology of the Church that goes beyond the Ridley Cambridge Draft of the Proposed Covenant and beyond the Covenant processes.  If the Archbishop of Canterbury wants to avoid the same unilateralism and colonialism imposed on the Communion by TEC, he must now actively work with the orthodox leaders of the "Confessing Communion" to address the theological and ecclesiological issues that will be at the heart of an Anglicanism for the next 100 years -an Anglicanism that will have the theological coherence to work together in full solidarity with our ecumenical partners.

We therefore renew our call to the Anglican Communion to prayer, and especially for theologians from the Confessing Communion to come together as soon as possible to both rebut TEC’s distortion of the early church’s baptismal theology and to articulate a theology of the church that will sustain a biblical, confessional and conciliar Anglicanism for the next 100 years.  Pray for the leadership of the Confessing Communion to refuse to accept representation by TEC and other innovators in the very Councils and processes of the Anglican Communion that the innovators seek to subvert.  Pray for Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.

And to our friends, our North American brothers and sisters in Christ, who are being systematically litigated and canonically abused into oblivion, to those who with Jeremiah and Daniel-like callings remain in TEC to witness for the faith once delivered – and to those bishops, clergy and lay deputies with whom we broke bread, and prayed, and laughed and grieved every day at General Convention, please know this:

The American Anglican Council stands with you.  We are praying for you.  We thank God for your witness at General Convention.  And we stand on God’s promise for you and all of us in the Anglican Communion:

"’For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11)

Yours in Christ,
The Rev. J. Philip Ashey, J.D.
COO & Chaplain, American Anglican Council

—————————–

(1) the Church of England General Synod directed its House of Bishops at their February 2009 meeting to report back on "their understanding of the uniqueness of Christ in Britain’s multi-faith society, and offer examples and commendations of good practice in sharing the gospel of salvation through Christ alone with people of other faiths and of none."
 

PRESS STATEMENT

The Episcopal Church General Convention adoption of resolutions D025 and C056 is a deliberate defiance of the wider Body of the Anglican Communion. We believe this is the choice they make to be politically correct with circular popular opion which seeks continually to destroy the moral fibre of people in general as we see the decay all around us. The blessings of the same-sex unions and the ordination of practicing gay clergy is inconsistence with the Word of God written; it is theologically uninformed, incoherent with the wider church, endorsing schism in the Anglican Communion and threatens ecumenical fellowship and relations.

The statement of their presiding Bishop Katherine Jeffert Schori on salvation of individual seems to strip the gospel of its transforming power of each one of repentant persons when in Christ to be “a new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). The Episcopal Church has made its choice to journey alone. We as the Anglican Church we still uplift the Biblical standard of guidance in moral behaviour. We do not seek any political correctness, but call upon all people to repentance and change of life and patterns of behaviour for a new character in line with the demands of the Word of God. Our programme is of pastoral care that transforms lives, eradicate poverty, heal the sick e.g. HIV and Aids, remove crime from our streets and build a sound family life in conformity to God’s demands as revealed in the scriptures (Mtt 5:48).

On the issues of homosexuality, we continue to journey on until all people come to the obedience of faith (Rom.15:18). The nation of South Africa must not be deceived, God will bless us only when we seek after righteousness.

Bishop Bethlehem Nopece, Anglican Diocese of Port Elizabeth. 31 July 2009AD.
 

The adoption of resolutions D025 and C056 by the 76th General Convention speaks to an unhealthy degree of theological ignorance and ecclesiastical incoherence at work within the higher councils of The Episcopal Church [TEC], Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said in a statement released July 27.

While the adoption of resolutions on rites for the blessing of same-sex unions and the consecration of gay clergy to the episcopate have not created a de facto schism, they do signal TEC’s likely removal to the periphery of the life and witness of the Anglican Communion through the creation of a two-tier communion of covenanting and non-covenanting provinces, Archbishop Rowan Williams wrote.

A spokesman for the archbishop said the statement titled “Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future” had been released via the Lambeth Palace website as a “reflection” on the actions of the General Convention.

Archbishop Williams offered thanks to the convention for the “generous welcome” extended to him, and acknowledged the concerns of many bishops and deputies for the wider Anglican Communion and for the “crushing” social and economic problems faced by the developing world. He also affirmed that he had received Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s and president of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson’s assurances that the passage of D025 and C056 did not “have the automatic effect of overturning the requested moratoria, if the wording is studied carefully” on gay bishops and blessings.

However, he said these assurances would not be found persuasive by some and would be “unlikely to allay anxieties” within the Communion that TEC was going its own way. There were “two points which I believe need to be reiterated and thought through further” by TEC, Archbishop Williams said.

By moving forward on same-sex blessings and gay clergy, TEC erred by not engaging in a “painstaking biblical exegesis” and seeking a “wide acceptance of the results within the Communion” as “a major change naturally needs a strong level of consensus and solid theological grounding.”

This work has not been done, Archbishop Williams wrote. He emphasized that “a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole.”

Nor should any member of the clergy—bishop or priest—be “living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond,” Archbishop Williams said. The homosexual or unchaste heterosexual “chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church’s teaching sanctions, and thus it is hard to see how they can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires.”

By permitting gay clergy and same-sex blessings without first “including in its discernment the judgment of the wider Church,” TEC risked “becoming unrecognizable to other local churches,” the archbishop wrote. The actions of General Convention necessarily reconceived “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’,” he said.

The way forward, Archbishop Williams said, was through an Anglican Covenant that provided structures of “mutual recognizability, mutual consultation, and some shared processes of decision-making.”

He acknowledged that within TEC “some will not choose this way of intensifying relationships,” but he believed that “it would be a mistake to act or speak now as if those decisions had already been made.”

The Anglican tradition had “thus far” been able to contain “diverse convictions more or less within a unified structure,” Archbishop Williams wrote. If the present structures “turn out to need serious rethinking,” this was not a statement of the “end of the Anglican way,” but an opportunity for a “new era of mission and spiritual growth for all who value the Anglican name and heritage.”

(The Rev.) George Conger

Written by: Dr NT Wright (in collaboration with ACI and Fulcrum)
Thursday, July 30th, 2009

1. In the two days since the Archbishop released his ‘Reflections’ on TEC’s General Convention, they have already generated widely differing responses. We always knew, say some conservatives, that the ABC was a hopeless liberal, and this has confirmed it. Not so, declare many horrified radicals: he has obviously sold out to the conservatives. Some have warmly welcomed the statement and hailed it as paving the way forward. Cautious voices in between are trying to discern strengths and weaknesses. In my view, there is much to welcome, and much whose implications need further unpacking. The two main sections of this paper deal with these two aspects.
2. I have tried to bear in mind that the Archbishop is himself not only an Instrument of Unity but the one which has to hold on to everything at this moment. Lambeth 2008 didn’t say much (apart from what the ABC himself said); the status of ACC and Primates are under question in various quarters; it is up to him. He therefore has an obligation to maintain as broad a conversation as possible, and that is continually to be seen in his statement. As often (for instance in his poems, and in his recent book on Dostoevsky) the Archbishop’s writing challenges its readers to pause, to ponder, to think things through. One commentator has suggested that he employs a characteristically British habit of inviting the reader to draw the really important conclusions and giving them the space to do so. This piece is an attempt to take up that challenge and invitation.Welcome
3. The ABC rightly indicates that the Communion is indeed already broken. In (2) he speaks of ‘the broken bridges [from TEC] into the life of other Anglican provinces’ as the existing reality, and stresses that GenCon 09 has done nothing to repair these broken bridges. Though his explanatory clause ‘very serious anxieties have already been expressed’ is (perhaps deliberately) imprecise, the whole passage indicates, as the Primates did in 2003, that the breach has already occurred. We are not, then, looking now at TEC choosing for the first time to ‘walk apart’, but at the recognition that they did so some time ago and have done nothing to indicate a willingness to rejoin the larger Communion. This is all the more the case if it is indeed true, as the Presiding Bishop has said, that the new Resolutions were ‘descriptive’, that is, stating what is already the case: that is a way of saying, in fact, what some of us thought at the time, that the supposed ‘moratoria’ of GenCon 06 were never binding. This is what the ABC means, in the penultimate section of the whole document, by saying that the different priorities identified by different parts of the Anglican family ‘are bound to have consequences’. For too long TEC, and various other parts of the Communion, have spoken and acted as though there were no consequences. The ABC has now made it clear that this is not the case.
4. Once we penetrate the complex language, the ABC is also eventually clear that the great majority at GenCon voted, in effect if not in so many words, against the two relevant moratoria. ‘The repeated request for moratoria . . . has clearly not found universal favour’ is a roundabout but ultimately unambiguous way of saying ‘the majority voted against the moratoria’. This puts in a different light the reference in the first paragraph to ‘an insistence at the highest level’ (i.e. a letter from the Presiding Bishop) that the relevant resolutions ‘do not have the automatic effect of overturning the requested moratoria’. That may be true in a strict legal sense, though many will see this as an example of typical TEC behaviour, a grandmother’s-footsteps game of creeping forwards without being noticed. But the resolutions that were passed clearly had the effect (a) of reminding people that the way was in fact open all along to the episcopal appointment of non-celibate homosexuals, and (b) of reminding people that rites for public same-sex blessings could indeed be developed. The ABC is now clearly if tacitly saying, throughout the document, that there is no reasonable likelihood, at any point in many years to come, that TEC will in fact turn round and embrace the moratoria ex animo, still less the theology which underlies the Communion’s constant and often-repeated stance on sexual behaviour. Nor is there any reasonable likelihood that TEC will in fact be able to embrace the Covenant when it attains its final form a few months from now. That is the reality with which the Reflections deal.
5. Section 2 of the ABC’s Reflections addresses the presenting double-headed issue of same-sex blessings and the ordination (not simply the consecration as bishops) of non-celibate homosexuals. Here he basically reaffirms the church’s traditional stance, articulated in Lambeth 1.10 from 1998 but universally held, prior to that, whenever the point had been raised. First, the church cannot sanction or bless same-sex unions. Second, since the ordained ministry carries a necessarily representative function for the life of the church, those who order their lives this way cannot fulfil this representative role – cannot, in other words, be ordained. This is perhaps the strongest statement that the ABC has yet made of the Church’s position, and it should be noted carefully that he refers to the whole ordained ministry, i.e. deacons and priests and not just bishops. This has of course always been the official position of the whole Anglican Communion, repeated again and again by Lambeth Conferences, ACC and Primates and never overturned, for instance, in the Church of England’s General Synod. The ABC’s clear statement indicates once again that the two moratoria here expressed (with the second one actually strengthened) should be explicit prerequisites of Covenant membership. However much people may protest – and they have and will – that in some cases this is honoured more in the breach than in the observance, that is not an argument that the position is wrong, but a challenge to the way the church’s order and discipline currently functions. Creating ‘facts on the ground’ which fly in the face of the church’s well-known official teaching does not, as some suppose, generate a moral high ground; it is a form of dishonesty. If people want to object, they should argue the point, not assume it.
6. An aside at this point: some in TEC insist that their theological position has in fact been argued, and that the rest of the Communion is ignoring it. As far as I can discern, there are two main arguments routinely used. First, the supposed modern and scientific discovery of a personal ‘identity’ characterised by sexual preference, which then generates a set of ‘rights’. The Archbishop has commented on ‘rights’ in this connection. Without entering into discussion of the scientific evidence, it must be said that the Christian notion of personal identity has never before been supposed to be rooted in desires of whatever sort. Indeed, desires are routinely brought under the constraints of ‘being in Christ’. This quite new notion of an ‘identity’ found not only within oneself but within one’s emotional and physical desires needs to be articulated on the basis of scripture and tradition, and this to my mind has not been done. This leads to the second point, the appeal to baptism. It is routinely said that all the baptised should have access to all the sacraments. This appears to ignore the New Testament teaching about baptism, that it constitutes a dying to self and sin and a rising to new life with Christ, specifically characterised by a holiness and renewed humanity in which certain habits and styles of life are left behind. From the first century until very recently it was universally understood that this included sexual immorality, and that that included homosexual behaviour. To try to use a supposedly baptismal theology to overturn the universal Christian tradition of the meaning of baptism is a bold move. Most theologians will think that the first argument above (the proposal of an ‘identity’) is not strong enough to justify it.
7. Section 2 contains strong and important warnings against personal prejudice and bigotry. The ABC does not spell out the difference between prejudice and bigotry on the one hand and a principled, thought-out moral stance on the other, but he clearly indicates that the two must be sharply separated. It is most welcome that he indicates the Church’s calling to a genuinely prophetic lifestyle: ‘if society changes its attitudes, that change does not of itself count as a reason for the Church to change its discipline’. No indeed. One of the most astonishing volte-faces in my lifetime has been the change from a liberalism which sought to be counter-cultural, anti-establishment, ‘agin the government’, protesting against the drift of society, and the present would-be liberalism which insists that because society has now drifted in a new direction the church should follow where that culture, the new ‘establishment’, and now even the government, are going. The ABC is far too good a theologian to be taken in by that.
8. Section 3, on the global and local decision-making processes, is a great strength. Though the ABC does not say so, this is basically a combination of the very heart of the Windsor Report and the one really good bit of the Kuala Lumpur Report (Communion, Conflict and Hope, para. 104). At this point the ABC is simply articulating what the Windsor Continuation Group had said clearly before, during and after Lambeth 08. The ABC here does three vital things and then homes in on the key point. (a) He insists that this is not (as is often sneeringly said) about bureaucratic or centralized ‘control’; (b) he warns against churches becoming ‘imprisoned in their own cultural environment’ (cognate with the point at the end of my previous paragraph); (c) he broadens the question so as to make it clear that this applies equally to issues such as lay presidency or inviting the unbaptized to receive Holy Communion. The key point then is this (his paragraph 13): though some things can indeed be decided by a local church, the decision as to which things can be decided locally is not itself one that can be taken locally. And the criteria upon which the global church can decide this all-important question are (as in Kuala Lumpur) ‘intensity, substance and extent’. This really needs spelling out, but within the ABC’s document, and for that matter the present one, this can be left for another occasion.
9. Within the same section, the ABC makes the vital point that in our ongoing ecumenical work is it vital that our partners know ‘who speaks for the body they are relating to’. If many Anglicans don’t see why these presenting issues should matter, the same is not true for our ecumenical partners, particularly among the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. What is at stake, as well as Anglican identity and ecclesial density (i.e. being a church with a high doctrine of Communion, rather than a loose federation), is ecumenical credibility.
10. Many will not regard the language of a ‘two-track’ Communion as a strength. Some have objected that this is forcing apart what ought to be held together. Others, conversely, have sneered that ‘two-track’ sounds like a vote for pluralism pure and simple, a kind of ecclesial version of ’70s pop-psych ‘I’m OK, you’re OK’: you go your way, we go ours, and we’re both just fine as we are. But the ‘two-track’ option is not intended as an indifferentist, shoulder-shrugging thing (though no doubt some who find themselves in the incipient Track Two will want to see it like that). To say ‘two-tier’, as some have done at earlier stages in the discussion, implies that the two are still ‘tiers’ of the same thing, whereas ‘tracks’ may be going in quite different directions. And it is one ‘track’ rather than the other which will possess the coherence to work together in full solidarity, not least in ecumenical relationships.
11. Finally, the ABC recognises that one of the most urgent questions concerns those within TEC who have remained loyal to TEC itself and yet fully intend also to remain loyal to the rest of the Communion. Having already mentioned in paragraph 2 ‘a significant minority of bishops’ who have clearly said they intend to remain within the Communion’s consensus, he returns to them towards the end. His paragraph 25 is tantalisingly brief where many will want it to be elaborated and explicated, but there can be no doubt that here he holds the door wide open for such people ‘to be free to adopt the Covenant’. How this might work out we must consider below.

1. Sex and ‘rights’. In relation to Section 2, someone, sooner or later, needs to spell out (wearisome though it will be) the difference between (a) the ‘human dignity and civil liberty’ of those with homosexual and similar instincts and (b) their ‘rights’, as practising let alone ordained Christians, to give physical expression to those instincts. As the Pope has pointed out, the language of ‘human rights’ has now been downgraded in public discourse to the special pleading of every interest-group. The church has never acknowledged that powerful sexual instincts, which almost all human beings have, generate a prima facie ‘right’ that these instincts receive physical expression. Indeed, the church has always insisted that self-control is part of the ‘fruit of the Spirit’. A call to celibacy is not, after all, the same thing as discovering that one has a weak or negligible sexual drive. The call to self-control is for all: for the heterosexually inclined who, whether married or not, are regularly and powerfully attracted to many different potential partners, just as much as those with different instincts.
2. Representation on Ecumenical bodies. In paragraphs 9, 15 and 23 the ABC speaks of certain people being unable to represent the Communion’s voice in ecumenical encounters. He does not say who he means or how this is now to be worked out (as it must be very quickly if major ecumenical work is to proceed). Presumably the end of paragraphs 10 and 14 are a reference to the dangers inherent in TEC’s position, but again he does not spell this out (no doubt because it isn’t only TEC that faces this danger). In particular, the membership of the newly constituted international Faith and Order Advisory Group raises some questions, particularly (see below) if this group is to advise on the future role of the Instruments and the future structural shape of the Communion.
3. The depth of the problem. (i) Apparent Caution: We should be careful to read the ABC’s cautious words in paragraphs 22 and 24 in the light of the crucial paragraph 2 (see above). The ABC says ‘it would be a mistake to act or speak now as if those decisions’ [i.e. on signing up to the Covenant] ‘had already been made’; and he warns against speaking ‘in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication’. He also speaks of the ‘twofold ecclesial reality’ as a ‘possibility’ in the ‘middle distance’.  (ii) The Reality: But, as he himself has indicated, key decisions have been made (obviously not yet in terms of voting on the Covenant, but certainly in terms of taking stances which will lead directly to such votes); schism has already happened; and not just a twofold, but a confusing and pluriform ecclesial reality, is not just a middle-distance possibility but an on-the-ground and in-your-face fact. (iii) Confrontation Already Exists: Warning against ‘a competitive hostility between the two’ tracks may seem somewhat unrealistic to many in TEC and Canada who have lost churches, livelihoods and in some cases their Holy Orders – and, we should in all fairness stress, to others who, though theologically orthodox themselves, have been sniped at or sneered at by those who use the ‘orthodox’ label as a pretext for personal gripes or power-games. Speaking of an ‘ideal’ whereby both ‘Tracks’ ‘should be able to pursue what they believe God is calling them to be as Church, with greater integrity and consistency’, will sound, well, idealistic at best, when several loud voices in TEC are saying that what God is calling them to is to spread the ‘gospel’ of ‘inclusivity’, and several other voices are saying that God is calling them to resist precisely this. (iv) Mutual Respect? Pleading for ‘mutual respect for deeply held theological convictions’ will seem straightforwardly unreal both to those who are fed up being called hopeless liberals by unthinking conservatives and to those who are fed up being called hopeless conservatives by unthinking liberals. ‘Deeply held theological convictions’ of course characterize plenty of other groups, not least (for instance) serious Muslim theologians, and I respect such convictions, while still believing it proper to argue against them. This kind of plea could simply park the question, insisting in good Anglican style that we treat everyone as being in reality what they are in profession but seeming to ignore the call, to bishops in particular, to guard the faith, teach the truth and refute error. Did Athanasius respect the ‘deeply held theological convictions’ of Arius and his followers? Perhaps he did; certainly he took them seriously enough to refute them vigorously. If the separation of two ‘Tracks’ generated, at last, a full-scale theological and exegetical discussion of disputed points, rather than emotive sniping, we might all be better served in the long run.
4. How do ‘Communion Partners’ sign on? (i) The question presses, then, as in the ABC’s paragraph 25, as to how dioceses, parishes and individuals within TEC will be able to sign the Covenant and thus not only align themselves, but be recognised by the wider Communion as aligning themselves, with that wider Communion itself. As the ABC says, ‘there should be a clear answer to this question’, and actually the ABC himself is now the main person, if not the only person, in a position to give a clear and authoritative answer. He is certainly here referring to the ‘Communion Partner’ bishops, and to the parishes and individuals who take the line they do. (ii) The Anaheim Statement: We are here faced with a particular question: what now happens in between what TEC has said and done and what the ‘Anaheim Statement’ of CP Bishops and others indicates? Some reports indicate that bishops who voted with the majority are now realising the predicament they’ve put themselves in and are beginning to sign up to Anaheim instead. It may be that the Anaheim Statement will become a rallying point around which more may gather than had initially been supposed. (iii) What about Parishes and Individuals? But here’s the problem: it is one thing for bishops and their dioceses to be ‘Communion Partners’, recognised by Lambeth and the wider Communion as full ‘Track One’ members. (That carries its own problems, but if the diocese is the primary unity, as the ABC has insisted, it is clearly possible.) It isn’t so clear how that would work for parishes, let alone for individuals. But a way must be found. The now largely discredited ‘DEPO’ system (‘Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight’) may have been a signpost, albeit one that didn’t seem to be capable of working well, towards some kind of a solution. Granted, the Covenant will provide some kind of a line in the sand. (iv) Getting from Here to There: But how a parish in a non-signing diocese, or an individual in a non-signing parish or diocese, can become a ‘Track One’ Anglican, recognised as such globally, remains to be seen. Many in that position neither want nor intend to join a movement like ACNA, nor should they be put in a position where they have no other option. We may need some interim structures to get us from where we are to where we need to be – and not only in TEC, but also in Canada and perhaps elsewhere. But we need these now, not in six months let alone six years. The Communion Partner bishops should perhaps restate their willingness to provide, with the permission of the relevant Diocesan, alternative oversight for parishes in Dioceses whose bishops might find their relation to the wider Communion to have changed. Issues of polity should, if possible, be dealt with at a provincial, not a global, level.
5. What about ACNA? All this raises, then, the question of ACNA itself. Without some kind of clear steer on the issues just raised, we can expect that ACNA will continue to attract individuals, congregations and perhaps even dioceses. This is, indeed, already happening. However, though the situation on the ground is often confused, ACNA has expressed a clear willingness to work with the Communion Partner bishops towards whatever greater good may come. And ACNA itself has shown itself eager to sign the Covenant when it is complete. All this will go into the melting pot of whatever new alignments the Communion will discover over the coming months. It is important that bridges, not fences, be built during this period.
6. ‘In Communion’? A pressing question in all of this must be: who, both during this process and at its end, will be ‘in Communion’ with whom? Once Tracks One and Two have been identified, will there be mutual recognition of ministries? Presumably not if Track One is committed to Paragraph 8 of the Archbishop’s paper while Track Two is committed to demolishing it. Will communicants be welcome across the gap between the Tracks? If the Covenant becomes the gold standard, and if ACNA sign up as they may well, will the rest of the Communion (including of course the C of E) be ‘in communion’ with ACNA? These are difficult and uncomfortable questions. But they will certainly emerge; there is already a motion on the subject slated for General Synod in February 2010, though by then all sorts of things may look different.
7. No Delay. As this process continues to unfold, there is one major problem with a proposal to put all the eggs into the Covenant basket. (I had always understood that the Covenant was not designed to deal with the post-2003 problem, but rather to head off quite different problems that might arise in the future. I remain wary of trying, now, to put all the weight for the full sorting-out of the 2003 problem on to the Covenant, especially on to one brief, dense and inevitably controversial section of it, and particularly when the final drafting of that section is in the hands of a very small group, albeit then reporting to the ABC.) Now that GenCon 09 has happened, even if the Covenant is completed within a few months TEC will assuredly say that it can’t consider it until 2012, and that such consideration could only be preliminary, looking to a more definite decision in 2015. This delaying tactic – twelve years from 2003, when the crisis really began! – must be seen for what it is, and headed off. The obvious way to do this is to declare that ‘Track One’ is open, right away, to Covenant signatories, and only Covenant signatories. How precisely that could be done (granted that the Joint Standing Committee, for instance, includes some from TEC and other sympathetic provinces) remains a question. But it needs to be done, and done quickly.
8. Section 4 of the Covenant. Picking up the point just made: Section 4 of the Covenant needs to proceed swiftly to its final form. This process is far too important to be left to a small group advising the Archbishop. When the Archbishop receives the group’s work, he should consult with key Communion representatives to ensure that there are no remaining hidden problems. In this process, any reduction or limiting of Section 4 will be a large step away from the mind of the Communion as the ABC has himself expressed it, and would have the effect of nullifying all that he has said in his Reflections.
9. Retuning the Instruments? A further problem, not too far down the line, is contained in the ABC’s brief references to a restructuring or reworking of the Instruments themselves. (i) New Cross-Track ‘instruments’? In paragraph 24 he speaks of hoping and working for ‘the best kinds of shared networks and institutions of common interest that could be maintained as between different visions of the Anglican heritage’. What might these be? Clearly not the Lambeth Conference, the ACC and the Primates. They, we must assume, will be Track One institutions; if they are not, the whole point (not least the whole ecumenical point) will be lost. So do we need some new institutions to enable the two tracks to talk to one another and to work together on shared ‘mission and service’ projects? This would constitute an unprecedented kind of internal ecumenism, fraught with frustrations and bad memories; yet perhaps it needs to be attempted. (ii) The existing Institutions: And what about the existing Institutions? Paragraph 26 speaks of the present structures needing ‘serious rethinking in the near future’. This, presumably, will be a task for the newly constituted international Faith and Order Advisory Group – though, since some of that Group come from parts of the Communion which now appear likely to be in Track Two, that raises other difficult questions. (Why was the group chosen and named just before General Convention?) But the thought of the complex discussions that might swirl around any reshaping of Lambeth, ACC and Primates, and any ‘covering-both-tracks’ new institutions, is daunting. We already have a highly confusing situation both globally and nationally, with the ACO and Lambeth sitting uncomfortably side by side and with the shape and role of the existing Instruments remaining unclear. We need, if anything, to simplify and clarify, not to create more complexity. Complexity simply hands power to those with time on their hands and with well-developed skills in political manipulation.

1. Having worked very carefully through the Archbishop’s Reflections several times, having read what several others have said, and having had various conversations, I can understand the frustrations of those who wanted something more obviously crisp and clear. Yet at the heart of this document are two things which the Communion has badly needed to hear, hedged about with all kinds of assurances which make it clear that this is neither a knee-jerk reaction nor a mere statement of prejudice: a strong reaffirmation of the Anglican position on sexual behaviour, and a strong insistence on the Windsor point that global issues cannot be decided locally – and that the decision as to what is global and what is local cannot itself be decided locally. The ‘so what’ of all this needs now to be drawn out, and in my view this needs to happen more or less at once, not postponed until Section 4 of the Covenant is redrafted and ratified. In particular, the Communion Partner bishops, and parishes and individuals who take that stance, need to be assured that what is said rather briefly in paragraph 25 does indeed apply, and will indeed apply, to them, and that ways will be found very quickly to turn that into a reality.
2. How can this ‘so what’ become a reality? We remind ourselves again that the ABC has no juridical authority outside his own Province, and that he is aware of himself being involved in the danger of trying, as a local Primate, to decide things for the whole Communion. Yet, as Archbishop of Canterbury, he carries within the whole Communion immense moral and pastoral authority, rooted in his exposition of scripture and articulation of the whole Christian tradition; and this, as he himself has insisted, is the real heart of all authority within the body of Christ. Too often in recent times legal and juridical ‘authority’ has been used, and perhaps abused, in the place of the genuine apostolic authority of the word of God and prayer. It is thus up to the Archbishop himself to move swiftly to implement what he himself has said, counting on support from bishops around his own Province and the whole Communion. The Covenant (which the ABC has repeatedly affirmed as the new instrument of our unity and common life) needs to be completed and offered to all Anglicans for signature. Those within TEC who sign it need appropriate oversight – if bishops, Primatial oversight, if parishes or individuals, episcopal oversight. Ways by which this can be done have been worked out by the Communion Partner bishops, and it is with them, first and foremost, that the Archbishop must work towards the necessary and urgent solutions.
3. I have said many times that the main priority at the moment for all those involved in this whole messy situation is prayer. That remains my conviction and my plea. Prayer for the church; for Archbishop Rowan; for wisdom, courage, clarity and vision; for God’s glory, the extension of his kingdom, and the power of the gospel and the Spirit at work in hearts, lives, communities and throughout our world.

8. …a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole. And if this is the case, a person living in such a union is in the same case as a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond; whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivity such persons must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church’s teaching sanctions, and thus it is hard to see how they can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires’

 9. In other words, the question is not a simple one of human rights or human dignity…

‘In the last month, the contrasting behaviors and values of the religious leaders who met in these two small cities made each a symbol of Anglicanism’s inescapable choice. The two Anglican Churches in the United States represent two cities. Jerusalem and Babylon come to mind as the Scriptural cities which are enduring symbols of choices to be made by God’s people.’ 

22. … For those whose vision is not shaped by the desire to intensify relationships in this particular way [The Anglican Covenant], or whose vision of the Communion is different, there is no threat of being cast into outer darkness – existing relationships will not be destroyed that easily. But it means that there is at least the possibility of a twofold ecclesial reality in view in the middle distance: that is, a ‘covenanted’ Anglican global body, fully sharing certain aspects of a vision of how the Church should be and behave, able to take part as a body in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue; and, related to this body, but in less formal ways with fewer formal expectations, there may be associated local churches in various kinds of mutual partnership and solidarity with one another and with ‘covenanted’ provinces.

23. This has been called a ‘two-tier’ model, or, more disparagingly, a first- and second-class structure. But perhaps we are faced with the possibility rather of a ‘two-track’ model, two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage, one of which had decided that local autonomy had to be the prevailing value and so had in good faith declined a covenantal structure. If those who elect this model do not take official roles in the ecumenical interchanges and processes in which the ‘covenanted’ body participates, this is simply because within these processes there has to be clarity about who has the authority to speak for whom.

24. It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are – two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude co-operation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion. .. The ideal is that both ‘tracks’ should be able to pursue what they believe God is calling them to be as Church, with greater integrity and consistency.

Read here

(Clip)

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has offered some reflections on the Episcopal Church’s General Convention, which was held July 8-17 in Anaheim, California.

Williams, who attended convention for the first two days and met with a cross section of the Episcopal Church, said in his July 27 reflections, "No one could be in any doubt about the eagerness of the bishops and deputies of the Episcopal Church at the General Convention to affirm their concern about the wider Anglican Communion."

However, Williams noted "that a realistic assessment of what convention has resolved does not suggest that it will repair the broken bridges into the life of other Anglican provinces; very serious anxieties have already been expressed."

He was referring to the passage of two resolutions (D025 and C056) that focused on issues of human sexuality and the Episcopal Church’s commitment to the Anglican Communion.

Resolution D025 affirms "that God has called and may call" gay and lesbian people "to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church."

Resolution C056 calls for the collection and development of theological resources for the blessing of same-gender blessings and allows bishops to provide "a generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church."

Williams said July 27 that "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, although a significant minority of bishops has just as clearly expressed its intention to remain with the consensus of the communion."

The two presiding officers of General Convention wrote to Williams offering explanations of both resolutions. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and President of the House of Deputies Bonnie Anderson said they understand Resolution D025, in particular, to be "more descriptive than prescriptive in nature."

Regarding both resolutions, the presiding officers said: "It is not our desire to give offense. We remain keenly aware of the concerns and sensibilities of our brothers and sisters in other churches across the communion."

In his reflections, Williams said, "The statement that the resolutions are essentially ‘descriptive’ is helpful, but unlikely to allay anxieties."

Williams also offered some thoughts about the future of the Anglican Communion, its response to LGBT Christians and same-sex unions, and his hopes for the proposed Anglican covenant.

While Williams underscored that "no Anglican has any business reinforcing prejudice against LGBT people," he also noted that the issue "is not simply about civil liberties or human dignity or even about pastoral sensitivity to the freedom of individual Christians to form their consciences on this matter. It is about whether the church is free to recognize same-sex unions by means of public blessings that are seen as being, at the very least, analogous to Christian marriage."

Williams concludes that blessings for same-gender unions cannot, at present, have "the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the communion as a whole," because "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."

Finally, Williams upholds the proposed Anglican covenant as a way for the communion to maintain unity amid different viewpoints on human sexuality issues and theological interpretations.

The covenant, Williams says, "seek structures that will express the need for mutual recognisability, mutual consultation and some shared processes of decision-making. They are emphatically not about centralization 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, which is the point of the current appeal for a moratorium on cross-provincial pastoral interventions). 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."

Williams acknowledged that the covenant has been criticized as "exclusive" in intent. But, he said, its aim "is not to shut anyone out — rather, in words used last year at the Lambeth Conference, to intensify existing relationships."

The full text of Williams’ reflections is available here.

The 76th General Convention has come and gone. In some ways it was exactly like all of the previous six General Conventions I have been to as your Bishop. Issues of human sexuality, and specifically homosexuality, were once again front and center and I will get to them in a moment.

But first let me say how totally proud I am of our deputation. Whether in the open hearings or in the legislative sessions – or, in the case of our Canon to the Ordinary, in the daily media briefings – they were engaged, faithful, active, and persistent.

In many of the hearings it seemed as if our people were virtually the only ones testifying for what I understand to be the orthodox position. (That is a slight overstatement, but not much of one.)

All of which underscores the one huge way in which this Convention differed from previous ones.

In previous years the polarization was enormous. Back in 1991 I was literally under a death threat and I had a bodyguard provided by The Episcopal Church. The hostility among the Bishops was so great that Presiding Bishop Ed Browning shut down the legislative process entirely and led us into six closed door executive sessions to try to deal with it. Successive General Conventions have been political battlegrounds.

This one was not. Issues were debated respectfully and without rancor. And, in my opinion, in several areas a number of good decisions were made, which the deputation will tell you about in a few minutes.

But with regard to sexuality the “conservative” side has been greatly diminished. Many people have left The Episcopal Church altogether, and the “progressive” or “liberal” majority now dominates by more than a two to one margin. Debate was polite, but the outcome was never in doubt. I wrote to one person that our voices have become irrelevant. “Irrelevant? Don’t you mean hated?” she replied.

No, not at all. We presented ourselves charitably, and we were heard charitably. But it just didn’t matter when the votes were taken. We were certainly not irrelevant to God or to his Church, but we were irrelevant in terms of changing any of the voting outcomes.

As far as sexuality is concerned, it all came down to two major Resolutions, which are now being interpreted in a variety of ways, but which I believe signal a clear intention on the part of The Episcopal Church to move even more boldly than it has thus far in the areas of same-sex blessings and the ordination of non-celibate gay and lesbian persons.

C056 called “for an open process for the consideration of theological and liturgical resources for the blessing of same gender relationships.” It directed the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, in consultation with the House of Bishops, to “collect and develop theological and liturgical resources” regarding such blessings, and to report to the 77th General Convention. It invited “provinces, dioceses, congregations, and individuals” to share in this work. And it said that Bishops, “particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this Church.”

C056 did not authorize same-sex blessings. But in the context of the discussion what it said was that Bishops may do so within their dioceses. And, of course, many of them have been doing that for years. But now some who have not done this previously say they will begin to do so. And the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music is to “collect and develop” such liturgies, and report to the next General Convention.

Does that commit the 77th General Convention to authorizing such rites?” No, but in all honesty, I can envision no scenario in which it will refuse to do so.

The Resolution went on to say that the Convention honors “the theological diversity of this Church in regard to matters of human sexuality,” which is to say that for now at least such blessings will not be mandatory. But that is what General Convention initially said about women’s ordination. And then it became mandatory.

D025 had seven Resolve clauses. The first three reaffirmed The Episcopal Church’s desire to remain a constituent member of the Anglican Communion, to support it financially, and to participate “to the fullest extent possible” in its life and ministry.

The fourth Resolve reiterated the recognition, first officially stated by Convention in 2000, that among the baptized membership of The Episcopal Church there are couples living in committed same-sex relationships.

The fifth Resolve said that some of the gay and lesbian persons involved in such relationships “have responded to God’s call and have exercised various ministries” within the Church.

The sixth Resolve is the critical one. It said that God “has called and may call such individuals to any ordained ministry” in the Church, and that our discernment process for ordination is open to everyone, “in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church.” If God “has called and may call” gay and lesbian persons to ordained ministry the implication is inescapable that the Church can call and should call them as well.

The seventh Resolve said we “are not of one mind…about some of these matters.”

The Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies immediately sent an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and a similar letter to the Primates of the Anglican Communion, arguing that D025 did not repeal the Resolution from the last General Convention, which called upon Bishops and Standing Committees “to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider Church and will lead to further strains on communion.”

I believe that statement is technically correct. D025 did not mention any Resolution from the 2006 Convention. But it clearly says we no longer consider ourselves under any obligation to exercise the “restraint” that it called for. (Some would argue we never really were.)

Interestingly, the morning after the Bishops voted on D025 the headline on The Episcopal Life Daily was “Bishops approve opening ordination to gays.”

(The editor of the Daily was apparently called on the carpet for publishing that interpretation of D025, and that afternoon she appeared before the House of Bishops to offer her abject apology for doing so; and the headline the next day was a much-subdued “Convention passes Resolution D025.”)

“Integrity,” the gay and lesbian advocacy organization, released a statement at the end of Convention that said, “We came to this Convention committed to moving the Church beyond B033 [the 2006 Resolution] and forward on…the blessing of same-sex unions – and we…have realized both of these goals.”

I want to say to you that I am deeply saddened that these two Resolutions have been passed, though I am not at all surprised.

But, please hear me clearly: neither of them will have any direct effect on the Diocese of Central Florida. By the unanimous action of our Diocesan Convention back in 1992, we have a canon – a law of the Diocese – that says this:

“All members of the clergy of this Diocese, having subscribed to the Declaration required by Article VIII of the National Constitution, shall be under the obligation to model in their own lives the received teaching of the church that all its members are to abstain from sexual relations outside of Holy Matrimony.”

In 2004 the following paragraph was added:

“All members of the clergy of this Diocese may allow to take place in their cures, officiate at, bless or participate in, only those unions prescribed by Holy Scripture: the wedding of one woman and one man. Said clergy are forbidden to allow to take place in their cures, officiate at, bless or participate in any other unions, as proscribed by Holy Scripture.”

So, we simply are not going to go there. We understand that the culture is changing, and that many believe differently, but this is where the Diocese of Central Florida is.

We are currently in a distinct minority within The Episcopal Church, but as I said in my Pastoral Letter a year ago April, “We believe we are in the mainstream of historic Anglicanism, and the positions we hold are those of the overwhelming majority of the world’s Anglicans and other Christians today….We remain committed to making the Great Commandment and the Great Commission the twin priorities of the Diocese of Central Florida. We strive to encourage each other to remain ‘faithful to Jesus, loyal to the Gospel, obedient to God’s Word, filled with his Spirit, rejoicing in his love.’”

At the end of the General Convention I was one of thirty-five Bishops who signed a Statement that included these five reaffirmations:

We reaffirm our constituent membership in the Anglican Communion, our communion with the See of Canterbury, and our commitment to preserving these relationships.
We reaffirm our commitment to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of Christ as this Church has received them (BCP 526, 538).
We reaffirm our commitment to the three moratoria requested of us by the Instruments of Communion.
We reaffirm our commitment to the Anglican Communion Covenant process currently underway, with the hope of working toward its implementation across the Communion once a Covenant is completed.
We reaffirm our commitment “to continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship” which is foundational to our baptismal covenant, and to be one with the apostles in “interpreting the Gospel” which is essential to our work as Bishops of the Church of God.

July 27 2009 | Articles

Letter from the Communion Partners to the Archbishop of Canterbury

1.

1. No-one could be in any doubt about the eagerness of the Bishops and Deputies of the Episcopal Church at the General Convention to affirm their concern about the wider Anglican Communion. Their generous welcome to guests from elsewhere, including myself, the manifest engagement with the crushing problems of the developing world and even the wording of one of the more controversial resolutions all make plain the fact that the Episcopal Church does not wish to cut its moorings from other parts of the Anglican family. There has been an insistence at the highest level that the two most strongly debated resolutions (DO25 and CO56) do not have the automatic effect of overturning the requested moratoria, if the wording is studied carefully. There is a clear commitment to seek counsel from elsewhere in the Communion about certain issues and an eloquent resolution in support of the ‘Covenant for a Communion in Mission’ as commended by ACC13. All of this merits grateful acknowledgement. The relationship between the Episcopal Church and the wider Communion is a reality which needs continued engagement and encouragement.

2. However, a realistic assessment of what Convention has resolved does not suggest that it will repair the broken bridges into the life of other Anglican provinces; very serious anxieties have already been expressed. 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 favour, although a significant minority of bishops has just as clearly expressed its intention to remain with the consensus of the Communion. The statement that the Resolutions are essentially ‘descriptive’ is helpful, but unlikely to allay anxieties.

3. There are two points which I believe need to be reiterated and thought through further, and it seems to fall to the Archbishop of Canterbury to try and articulate them. To some extent they echo part of what I wrote after the last General Convention, as well as things said at the Lambeth Conference and the ACC, but they still have some pertinence.

3.

4. The first is to do with the arguments most often used against the moratoria relating to same-sex unions. Appeal is made to the fundamental human rights dimension of attitudes to LGBT people, and to the impossibility of betraying their proper expectations of a Christian body which has courageously supported them.

5. In response, it needs to be made absolutely clear that, on the basis of repeated statements at the highest levels of the Communion’s life, no Anglican has any business reinforcing prejudice against LGBT people, questioning their human dignity and civil liberties or their place within the Body of Christ. Our overall record as a Communion has not been consistent in this respect and this needs to be acknowledged with penitence.

6. However, the issue is not simply about civil liberties or human dignity or even about pastoral sensitivity to the freedom of individual Christians to form their consciences on this matter. It is about whether the Church is free to recognise same-sex unions by means of public blessings that are seen as being, at the very least, analogous to Christian marriage.

7. In the light of the way in which the Church has consistently read the Bible for the last two thousand years, 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.

8. This is not our situation in the Communion. Thus a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole. And if this is the case, a person living in such a union is in the same case as a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond; whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivity such persons must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church’s teaching sanctions, and thus it is hard to see how they can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires.

9. In other words, the question is not a simple one of human rights or human dignity. It is that a certain choice of lifestyle has certain consequences. So long as the Church Catholic, or even the Communion as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, 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. (There is also an unavoidable difficulty over 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 in, for example, international ecumenical encounters.)

10. This is not a matter that can be wholly determined by what society at large considers usual or acceptable or determines to be legal. Prejudice and violence against LGBT people are sinful and disgraceful when society at large is intolerant of such people; if the Church has echoed the harshness of the law and of popular bigotry – as it so often has done – and justified itself by pointing to what society took for granted, it has been wrong to do so. But on the same basis, if society changes its attitudes, that change does not of itself count as a reason for the Church to change its discipline.

3

11. The second issue is the broader one of how a local church makes up its mind on a sensitive and controversial matter. It is of the greatest importance to remember this aspect of the matter, so as not to be completely trapped in the particularly bitter and unpleasant atmosphere of the debate over sexuality, in which unexamined prejudice is still so much in evidence and accusations of bad faith and bigotry are so readily thrown around.

12. When a local church seeks to respond to a new question, to the challenge of possible change in its practice or discipline in the light of new facts, new pressures, or new contexts, as local churches have repeatedly sought to do, it needs some way of including in its discernment the judgement of the wider Church. Without this, it risks becoming unrecognisable to other local churches, pressing ahead with changes that render it strange to Christian sisters and brothers across the globe.

13. This is not some piece of modern bureaucratic absolutism, but the conviction of the Church from its very early days. The doctrine that ‘what affects the communion of all should be decided by all’ is a venerable principle. On some issues, there emerges a recognition that a particular new development is not of such significance that a high level of global agreement is desirable; in the language used by the Doctrinal Commission of the Communion, there is a recognition that in ‘intensity, substance and extent’ it is not of fundamental importance. But such a recognition cannot be wished into being by one local church alone. It takes time and a willingness to believe that what we determine together is more likely, in a New Testament framework, to be in tune with the Holy Spirit than what any one community decides locally.

14. Sometimes in Christian history, of course, that wider discernment has been very fallible, as with the history of the Chinese missions in the seventeenth century. But this should not lead us to ignore or minimise the opposite danger of so responding to local pressure or change that a local church simply becomes isolated and imprisoned in its own cultural environment.

15. There have never been universal and straightforward rules about this, and no-one is seeking a risk-free, simple organ of doctrinal decision for our Communion. In an age of vastly improved communication, we must make the best use we can of the means available for consultation and try to build into our decision-making processes ways of checking whether a new local development would have the effect of isolating a local church or making it less recognisable to others. This again has an ecumenical dimension when a global Christian body is involved in partnerships and discussions with other churches who will quite reasonably want to know who now speaks for the body they are relating to when a controversial local change occurs. The results of our ecumenical discussions are themselves important elements in shaping the theological vision within which we seek to resolve our own difficulties.

16. In recent years, local pastoral needs have been cited as the grounds for changes in the sacramental practice of particular local churches within the Communion, and theological rationales have been locally developed to defend and promote such changes. Lay presidency at the Holy Communion is one well-known instance. Another is the regular admission of the unbaptised to Holy Communion as a matter of public policy. Neither of these practices has been given straightforward official sanction as yet by any Anglican authorities at diocesan or provincial level, but the innovative practices concerned have a high degree of public support in some localities.

17. Clearly there are significant arguments to be had about such matters on the shared and agreed basis of Scripture, Tradition and reason. But it should be clear that an acceptance of these sorts of innovation in sacramental practice would represent a manifest change in both the teaching and the discipline of the Anglican tradition, such that it would be a fair question as to whether the new practice was in any way continuous with the old. Hence the question of ‘recognisability’ once again arises.

18. 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. 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’.

4

19. As Anglicans, our membership of the Communion is an important part of our identity. However, some see this as best expressed in a more federalist and pluralist way. 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 centralisation and authoritarianism are the most worrying. There is nothing foolish or incoherent about this approach. But it is not the approach that has generally shaped the self-understanding of our Communion – less than ever in the last half-century, with new organs and instruments for the Communion’s communication and governance and new enterprises in ecumenical co-operation.

20. The Covenant proposals of recent years have been a serious attempt to do justice to that aspect of Anglican history that has resisted mere federation. They seek structures that will 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, which is the point of the current appeal for a moratorium on cross-provincial pastoral interventions). 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.

21. They have been criticised as ‘exclusive’ in intent. But their aim is not to shut anyone out – rather, in words used last year at the Lambeth Conference, to intensify existing relationships.

22. It is possible that some will not choose this way of intensifying relationships, though I pray that it will be persuasive. It would be a mistake to act or speak now as if those decisions had already been made – and of course approval of the final Covenant text is still awaited. For those whose vision is not shaped by the desire to intensify relationships in this particular way, or whose vision of the Communion is different, there is no threat of being cast into outer darkness – existing relationships will not be destroyed that easily. But it means that there is at least the possibility of a twofold ecclesial reality in view in the middle distance: that is, a ‘covenanted’ Anglican global body, fully sharing certain aspects of a vision of how the Church should be and behave, able to take part as a body in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue; and, related to this body, but in less formal ways with fewer formal expectations, there may be associated local churches in various kinds of mutual partnership and solidarity with one another and with ‘covenanted’ provinces.

23. This has been called a ‘two-tier’ model, or, more disparagingly, a first- and second-class structure. But perhaps we are faced with the possibility rather of a ‘two-track’ model, two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage, one of which had decided that local autonomy had to be the prevailing value and so had in good faith declined a covenantal structure. If those who elect this model do not take official roles in the ecumenical interchanges and processes in which the ‘covenanted’ body participates, this is simply because within these processes there has to be clarity about who has the authority to speak for whom.

24. It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are – two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude co-operation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the Communion. It should not need to be said that a competitive hostility between the two would be one of the worst possible outcomes, and needs to be clearly repudiated. The ideal is that both ‘tracks’ should be able to pursue what they believe God is calling them to be as Church, with greater integrity and consistency. It is right to hope for and work for the best kinds of shared networks and institutions of common interest that could be maintained as between different visions of the Anglican heritage. And if the prospect of greater structural distance is unwelcome, we must look seriously at what might yet make it less likely.

25. It is my strong hope that all the provinces will respond favourably to the invitation to Covenant. But in the current context, the question is becoming more sharply defined of whether, if a province declines such an invitation, any elements within it will be free (granted the explicit provision that the Covenant does not purport to alter the Constitution or internal polity of any province) to adopt the Covenant as a sign of their wish to act in a certain level of mutuality with other parts of the Communion. It is important that there should be a clear answer to this question.

5

26. All of this is to do with becoming the Church God wants us to be, for the better proclamation of the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ. It would be a great mistake to see the present situation as no more than an unhappy set of tensions within a global family struggling to find a coherence that not all its members actually want. Rather, it is an opportunity for clarity, renewal and deeper relation with one another – and so also with Our Lord and his Father, in the power of the Spirit. To recognise different futures for different groups must involve mutual respect for deeply held theological convictions. Thus far in Anglican history we have (remarkably) contained diverse convictions more or less within a unified structure. If the present structures that have safeguarded our unity turn out to need serious rethinking in the near future, this is not the end of the Anglican way and it may bring its own opportunities. Of course it is problematic; and no-one would say that new kinds of structural differentiation are desirable in their own right. But the different needs and priorities identified by different parts of our family, and in the long run the different emphases in what we want to say theologically about the Church itself, are bound to have consequences. We must hope that, in spite of the difficulties, this may yet be the beginning of a new era of mission and spiritual growth for all who value the Anglican name and heritage.

+ Rowan Cantuar:

From Lambeth Palace, Monday 27 July 2009

© Rowan Williams 2009
Read here.
 

"I assume that the bishops and deputies who claim that nothing really changed at the 2009 General Convention would absolutely have no problem if their children’s schools announced that they were going to explore the development of policies that would permit students to engage in the responsible use of illegal drugs and alcohol. Such actions would not be an approval of such practices, but rather, they would serve as means for study and "deep listening", in recognition of an undeniable reality, which some are trying to change into lawful practices.

The well-documented destruction of lives brought on by drugs and alcohol would be irrelevant, as the General Convention is exploring the blessing of behavioral practices that in many (well-documented) cases, have led to the demise of many gifted and wonderful people. I’m sure those same bishops and deputies would applaud the schools for being "honest", and as we saw in 2003, honesty is sufficient justification for overturning practices and traditions that are in conflict with personal "revelation" and fulfillment. Moreover, the school leaders would be able to assuage any fears, by assuring parents that the spirit of "inclusion" and (anti-discriminatory) justice led them into this process."

After the New Orleans HOB meeting in 2007, I wrote an article titled “The Dog That Didn’t Bark”, referring to the Sherlock Holmes case solved by asking what did NOT happen. Here is one question from that article which the 2009 General Convention not only did not repent of but reaffirmed with gusto:

Question: Will you continue to ordain priests who are practicing homosexuals?

The Episcopal House of Bishops has been commended in some press reports for “drawing back” from ordaining any more homosexual bishops until at least 2009. What are we to make of this concession? Is it a sign of reassessment of what is required for a bishop to be a “wholesome example to the flock of Christ”? In order to think that such a reassessment is in mind, the moratorium would have to be extended to the ordination of priests and deacons as well, unless one swallows the rather absurd idea that homosexual practice is acceptable for certain offices but not for others. But this is neither mentioned nor contemplated. Indeed, the current Episcopal canons are rather explicit that no candidates for ordination are to be barred on grounds of “sexual orientation,” now interpreted to include sexual practice. And it is really hard to imagine that Episcopal leaders intend to set up a glass ceiling to prevent homosexual priests from becoming bishops.

So then, why did Resolution B033, reaffirmed by the House of Bishops’ Statement, offer to restrain dioceses on the election of another gay bishop? Clearly, it is a temporary accommodation to the hot-button election of Gene Robinson in 2003. Robinson’s election has had the potential to cut both ways in the debate over homosexuality. On the one hand, it has “incarnated” the aims of activists by giving the world a walking, talking embodiment of a gay bishop, whose photo and comments are shot round the world on the internet. Hence, church leaders and even ordinary people in the Anglican Communion react to Gene Robinson in a way they did not react to formal resolutions or other under-the-radar-screen acts within The Episcopal Church.

The other side of Robinson’s notoriety is that attempts to get The Episcopal Church to “repent” have focussed exclusively on the gay bishop question. Sometimes, it seems some Anglican bishops are asking for a kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy to the effect “so long as we don’t have to meet and break bread with a gay bishop, we don’t care what else goes on in your church.” Clearly such a blinkered position is willfully obtuse. The real problem is not Gene Robinson. It is the Episcopal officials who elected, confirmed and consecrated him as bishop. It is the majority of bishops who teach the flock that God’s exclusive design for human sexuality in marriage is optional or wrong and that Scripture is either mistaken on this subject or can be twisted to say something it manifestly does not say.

The problem is not just at the level of public relations. For ordinary people, it is the priest who is the main point of contact with the wider church, who models the holiness of Christ. So to truly gauge a change in the temperature of the Episcopal Church, one has to answer the question: so, what about exercising restraint on the ordination of gay priests leading an openly unrepentant life? And the answer to this second question is also a resounding NO: we shall continue to recruit, educate and ordain homosexual clergy for The Episcopal Church and acclaim “They are worthy!”

Whether one thinks Resolution D025 overrules the previous Resolution B033, it is clear that it will not restrain the ordination of practicing homosexuals as priests. Even if TEC restrains itself in consecrating another homosexual bishop – or rather, restrains itself until it doesn’t restrain itself – D025 surely gives a total green light to ordination of more homosexual priests and makes opposition to such ordination harder to maintain in moderate and conservative dioceses.

Stance could open fissures throughout religious spectrum

The Episcopal Church in the United States has done it again. Having marched out of step with the majority of the worldwide Anglican Communion, American Episcopalians have declared their intention to walk even further apart. 

The world knows about the ordination of a bishop in a same-sex relationship and the ways in which that has torn the fabric of the communion, as the primates have said, at its deepest level. (This, by the way, is also a classic description of schism.) It also is widely known that people have their same-sex unions "blessed" in many parts of the Episcopal Church and such people also can be candidates for ordination.

All this continues despite the clear teaching of the 1998 Lambeth Conference that it should not.

So what is new? In passing Resolution DO25, the General Convention has openly stated that ordination should be open to those living in same-sex unions, which it also regards as exemplifying "holy love." In a further resolution, CO56, the Episcopal Church has agreed to bring liturgies for blessing same-sex relationships to the next General Convention, in 2012, for final approval.

Why are all of these developments important? Are they not simply a formalizing of what happens anyway, and is the church not just reflecting the culture in which it is set?

Let it be said, straightaway, that this issue is not a second- or lower-order one on which Christians can agree to disagree. It profoundly has to do with how men and women are created together in God’s image and together given a common mission in the world. This mission they fulfill in ways that are both distinctive and complementary.

No Bible-believing Christian can say that "men are from Mars and women from Venus." They are not distinct species but have been made for each other in their distinctiveness and complement each other. This is the burden of the earliest chapters of Genesis that are strongly and unambiguously affirmed in the teaching of Jesus himself. As a whole, the Bible’s teaching on human sexuality clearly affirms that the proper expression of our sexual nature is within the context of married love. The alternative, for those who have this gift, is dedicated singleness in the fulfillment of God’s purposes.

In the pagan world, in which the Bible was written, such a view was vigorously countercultural. Many of Israel’s neighbors tolerated both heterosexual and homosexual practices that are rejected by the Bible because they violate the holiness of God, the order of creation and respect for persons.

It is often the case that where the fundamental teaching of the Bible regarding marriage is not upheld, the status of women, in particular, suffers and they are reduced to being either a source for male self-gratification or chattel who maintain the home while men seek gratification elsewhere.

Today also, in the context of permissive cultures, the church has sometimes to take a countercultural stand so that the dignity of persons, made in God’s image, is not debased.

As to same-sex attraction, there may be a predisposition toward it, even if we do not know all the reasons for it. That does not mean it must be gratified. Not every desire can or should be given active expression.

There may be relationship issues with a parent or a seeking of the man or the woman "I want to be" in others of the same sex. Those in such situations need to be cared for and to know that God loves them. They need to be helped so they can conform their lives to the stature of the fullness of Christ.

As they are welcomed to church and hear God’s word, they will meet with Christ and be transformed by the renewal of their minds, spirits and bodies. They will be nurtured by word and sacrament but also by friendship.

Again and again, people say it is the affirmation of Christian friends, the role model of a wise, perhaps older Christian and the fellowship of the church family that have brought them to a new place in their discipleship.

None of this seems to bother the decision-makers in the Episcopal Church (though it may bother the faithful more than we think). They will have caused a schism despite repeated entreaties by the rest of the communion not to take unilateral action that contravenes the teaching of the Bible, the unanimous teaching of the church down the ages and the understanding of the vast majority of Christians today.

There can be little doubt that the latest moves in the Episcopal Church will further damage the fellowship among Anglicans. There will be more talk of the rupture, impairment of communion and the like. The moves also will further damage ecumenical relations with other churches, such as the Roman Catholic, the Orthodox and various evangelical and Pentecostal bodies. Interfaith dialogue, especially with Muslims, also has been adversely affected, with dialogue partners asking how what they have hitherto regarded as a "heavenly religion" can sanction a practice that most religions do not permit.

In all this, those who remain orthodox in faith and morals will need to remember that any disruption of fellowship is for the sake of discipline and the eventual restoration of those who have chosen to go their own way to the common faith and life of the church. It is for this that we must work and pray.

The Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali is Anglican bishop of Rochester in England. The bishop was born in Pakistan to Christian parents.