Anglican Centrist

Tim Chesterton on Williams and Wright

2009-08-06T04:23:00.000-07:00

Tim Chesterton is Rector of St. Margaret's in Edmunton, Canada:

Unlike many of those who are commenting on recent statements about the future of the Anglican Communion by Rowan Williams and Tom Wright, I have no wish to enter into theological controversy with them. On the basic issue, I agree with them (well, with Wright, anyway; even now, I'm really not sure exactly what Williams' personal position is, because of his previously stated conviction that his role as Archbishop of Canterbury requires him to attempt to speak for the Anglican Communion as a whole, rather than giving his own personal views).

I will say, though, that I don't think Rowan Williams takes any personal joy in outlining this particular view of the Anglican future. I suspect that, in his heart of hearts, he is still enormously sympathetic to gay people and would prefer to preserve a big-tent Anglicanism in which a diversity of viewpoints on this issue is tolerated. But this is not the political reality of the Anglican Communion, and Rowan has to deal with the reality, not the ideal. The majority of Anglicans worldwide have said that a decision to continue down the road of same-sex blessings and gay ordinations is a decision to walk apart from the rest of the Communion. Whether he likes it or not, this is the political hand that Rowan has been dealt.

Tom Wright, however, disappoints me. I say this as a person who has great respect for his enormous scholarship. His books about Jesus and Paul (including The New Testament and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God, What St. Paul Really Said, and so on) have had a huge impact on the way I read the Bible, and have really helped me understand the life and teaching of Jesus in its proper context in the first century world. Tom Wright as New Testament scholar is an inspiration to me, but Tom Wright as an international ecclesiastical politician repels me. This is because he really seems to relish the cut and thrust of the debate and the imagining of future ecclesiastical realities in which he is cut off from erstwhile friends and colleagues in a new two-track Anglican Communion, simply because they disagree with him over one issue. He sees the future in terms of new configurations and new excommunications and possible new instruments of unity between the two tracks. What is absent in what he has written is how he sees the future for gay and lesbian couples who love each other. He is dealing with an issue, not with individuals and couples.

I repeat, it pains me to have to be so critical of one from whom I've learned so much in my reading of the New Testament. But I must say that one of the strongest arguments against the Church of England's system of crown appointments is the appointment of Tom Wright as Bishop of Durham. He should have stayed in the world of biblical scholarship and resisted the temptation to become an ecclesiastical grandee. His growing image (justified or not) as a mouthpiece of the Anglican right wing is only going to hurt the image of his scholarship, and in my view this would be a tragedy.

I repeat, I do not disagree with his view of same-sex unions or gay ordinations. Nor do I doubt that he and his friend Rowan Williams have read the mind of the Anglican Communion correctly. What I miss in their writings, though, is a tone of regret that things should have come to this.

After all, is it not a shame that people with a professed high view of the authority of the Bible and the consensus of the early church should have chosen to take their stand on this particular issue, to have drawn this particular line in the sand?

They could have chosen a couple of other issues, on both of which the Bible is every bit as clear (more so in my view), and which are every bit as relevant to the struggles of people in the modern world.

The first is the issue of war and peace. It is acknowledged by most people that, for the first three centuries of Christianity, the infant church was overwhelmingly pacifist in its interpretation of the teaching of Jesus and the apostles. The early Christians believed and taught that followers of Jesus must not kill others, even as soldiers in war or as magistrates imposing legally-sanctioned capital punishment. This position began to soften later in the post-apostolic period, and when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire in the fourth century A.D., it was not long before a new position emerged, based on a marriage of pagan philosophy and Old Testament teaching: the so-called 'just war' view. But when it was first proposed this was a novelty, an innovation as startling to the early Church as acceptance of same-sex unions is to traditional Christians today.

So why not draw this line in the sand, if we're going to draw lines? After all, the biggest threat to Christian unity is not when Anglicans and Roman Catholics disagree about papal authority or who is or is not a real priest. The biggest threat to Christian unity is that, in many places in the world (recent tribal conflicts in Africa come to mind) it is considered quite acceptable for Christians to kill their fellow-Christians out of loyalty to their own ethnic group. Pacifist Christian groupings such as the Mennonites are sometimes classified as 'sects', but surely this is the ultimate sectarianism: the division of worldwide Christianity into national churches or ethnic churches which then legitimise the killing of fellow-Christians.

So if we're going to draw lines in the sand, why not this one? Early Christianity agreed that Christian faithfulness excluded violence and war. Those who are willing to go along with the early consensus of Christianity in its interpretation of the New Testament could be in track one of the Anglican Communion; those who accept the revisionist interpretation of the just-war position could be in track two.

Or if we want another issue, how about usury? Most Christians today don't even know what that word means! But the Bible is unanimous in disallowing the lending of money at interest; everywhere the practice is mentioned in the scriptures it is condemned. Furthermore, for the first fifteen centuries of Christian history, this was the view of the overwhelming majority of Christians, a view that was not challenged until the Protestant Reformation gave more of a green light to capitalism.

Now, granted, there was a certain amount of hypocrisy in the way that this view was applied in medieval Christendom (Christians weren't allowed to lend money at interest, but kings needed those loans anyway, so they made the Jews the investment bankers of the medieval world; it's unclear to me how Jewish people squared this with the Torah, which is where the strongest condemnations of usury are found). Granted, also, many modern scholars question whether the sort of money-lending which the Bible condemns (taking advantage of your neighbour's poverty by charging him interest on relief loans when he's down and out) is exactly the same as the provision of loans for homeowners and businesses today. But then, isn't this exactly the same sort of argument that gay and lesbian Christians make, when they say that biblical references to homosexuality do not refer to couples who want to live in lifelong monogamous faithful unions? So if we allow one 'revisionist reinterpretation' (the legitimising of usury), why not another (the legitimising of gay unions)?

So why isn't the Anglican Communion making this the line in the sand? Surely it's a huge issue today; it can be argued that usury has condemned millions of people in Africa to lifelong poverty with no hope of relief. Why isn't the Anglican Communion worldwide standing up and saying, 'Acceptance of usury is unfaithful to the teaching of the Bible and it perpetuates poverty and injustice in the world today, so those who accept it will from now on be relegated to track two of the Anglican Communion'?

I have a nasty suspicion about the reasons why the Communion is not going to take a stand on these two issues of war and usury. I suspect that the reason has a lot to do with the fact that taking this stand would have an enormous cost for huge numbers of us. Many Anglicans are in fact investment bankers, or stockbrokers, and many, many more take advantage of the modern capitalist system (which is based on usury through and through) to get loans to buy houses and cars and to start businesses and so on. Dissenting from this all-pervasive system would have enormous economic and social consequences for us. And in a similar way, we all depend (or at least, we think we do) on our armies to keep us safe from international rogue states and terrorists and so on. Making a decision to follow Jesus in loving our enemies and refusing to strike back against them would inevitably have deadly consequences: after all, it led Jesus to the Cross, and he assured us it would do the same for us ('take up your cross and follow me').

Sadly, for the vast majority of Anglicans the issue of homosexuality does not carry that personal price-tag. Most of us are straight; we aren't the ones who would be bearing the cross if the church as a whole agreed that same-sex unions are not a legitimate part of a life of following Jesus. Gays and lesbians are an easy target, because there aren't many of them (tho' more, perhaps, than some Christians would like to think).

Personally, I think it's a tragedy that we're drawing these lines in the sand at all. Historically, it's not been our way as Anglicans. On the (equally clear) biblical teachings about war and peace and about usury, we've allowed for a variety of biblical interpretation. Why is homosexuality so despicable that we don't make similar allowances?

For me, a two-track Anglican Communion would be a tragedy. As I've said, my own view on the subject is traditional, but there are many people with whom I disagree on this issue but agree on almost every other facet of the Christian faith. Contrariwise, there are people with whom I agree on this issue but strongly disagree on many other elements of Christian faith and practice.

So to go back to Rowan and Tom. I think it's a tragedy that Rowan's role as Archbishop of Canterbury requires him to play the role of an ecclesiastical politician in planning the future structures of a divided Anglican Communion, and I think it's sad that Tom seems to relish his role in these global machinations. Maybe they think that (in Luther's terms) 'Here I stand, I can do no other', but if that is the case, I wish they would reflect on why they think they can do no other; is it in the service of God, or is it in the service of the Anglican Communion? Because, of course, these are not necessarily the same thing.

Whither Thou Goest

2009-07-31T12:23:00.000-07:00

By Eric Von Salzen

Several years ago, my wife and I were in London, and we spent a few hours in Southwark, the formerly slummy, but now trendy, area on the south side of the Thames, and of course we had to see the great Southwark Cathedral. As we wandered through this ancient edifice, we noticed a little side chapel dedicated to John Harvard, whose name adorns my alma mater. We went in, just to look around, but a moment later, a vested priest and a couple of helpers entered and we found ourselves participating in a midday Eucharist. Although we were in a foreign land, we felt entirely at home with the service, because, after all, it was the same service we have at home.

It’s good to be part of an international communion. It’s good to know that wherever you may go in the world, if English is spoken there, it’s likely there’s an Anglican church in the vicinity.

Still, though, when I was confirmed at the Washington National Cathedral 18 years ago, it was the Episcopal Church that I understood I was joining, not the Anglican Communion. Oh, of course I knew that the Episcopal Church was a member of the Anglican Communion and that, in some sense, at the tip top of the clerical totem pole sat the Archbishop of Canterbury. But that fact didn’t make me feel that I was becoming an “Anglican” rather than an “Episcopalian”, any more than the fact that the United States is a member of the United Nations makes me think that I am a citizen of the world, rather than an American.

I recalled these experiences recently when I read the post-Anaheim reflections of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Rowan Williams described two “conceptions” of the Anglican Communion: one, “essentially a loose confederation of local bodies with a cultural history in common”, the other, “a theologically coherent ‘community of Christian communities’“. That’s nicely put, but what surprised me was Williams’ insistence that the latter conception, the theologically coherent community, is what the Communion presently understands itself to be, and what it has understood itself to be, particularly during the last half century. Until I read this, if you had asked me to free-associate “loose confederation of local bodies with a cultural history in common”, I would have responded, “The Anglican Communion.” If you’d said “theologically coherent Christian community”, I’d have said “The Roman Catholic Church”.

I thought it was a point of pride to Episcopalians that we don’t insist on theological cohesion, that we worship together even if we disagree with each other. And I thought that was an “Anglican” feature of our church.

How could I have been so wrong?

The second surprise to me was the Archbishop’s assertion that the forthcoming Anglican Covenant will demand that the component churches of the Communion choose between these two “conceptions”. The purpose of the Covenant, Williams says, will be to “intensify existing relationships”. Those “whose vision is not shaped by the desire to intensify relationships in this particular way”, who favor “a more federalist and pluralist” approach, will not be cast into the “outer darkness”, but they will not be part of the “‘covenanted’ Anglican global body” either. I think he’s saying they won’t be part of the new Anglican Communion.

I had been under the impression that the Covenant drafters had been moving away from an authoritarian model under which agencies of the Communion could evict provinces from the Communion if they failed to conform to the theological cohesion. I was hoping we would see a kind of “Mere Christianity” covenant that would remind us of those things on which we agree, and to which all Anglicans could comfortably subscribe.

Have I been wrong about that, too?

Mind The Frost

2009-07-27T08:07:00.001-07:00

Robert Frost is the first poet I ever studied. My parents were very fond of Frost, and he was quoted from time to time around the house. Like many Americans who studied English literature in high school and college, I had to commit a number of poems to memory, but sadly, to this day, The Road Not Taken, and the first verses of The Canterbury Tales are all I remember.

Perhaps Bob Duncan also knows only two poems, for in his recent open letter to the entire Anglican Communion, he has called Frost's Road into the service of his stark vision of the on-going tales of Canterbury.

The first and founding Archbishop of the newly formed Anglican Church of North America, with its 69,000 members in the United States and Canada, has proof-texted Robert Frost in the service of his claim that The Episcopal Church/Anglican Church of Canada are on the bad road, which must be avoided, and that the Anglican Church of North America is on the good road, which must be taken if righteousness is to be followed.

What is bizarre, of course, is that Frost's poem is not at all a reflection on dualism between good and evil. No, of course, Frost's poem asserts that there are two roads, each with its own merits, with much in common, and that while the road chosen was the one less frequently travelled by, it was not necessarily or inherently 'better' than the other. A bright twelfth grader, who actually did his homework, could see that this poem has absolutely no bearing at all on whether or not one road is 'Blessing' or another 'Curse.' Yet, Bob Duncan makes this very mistake.

But he doesn't just get Robert Frost all wrong.

Duncan begins his epistle of division by recalling Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities. What is particularly galling about this is that Dickens was by any contemporary standard that Bob Duncan would employ a liberal Anglican broad-churchman. Dickens, who for so long was a Unitarian, fond of the Boston Transcendentalists, and an advocate of broad toleration of all Christian denominations in the establishment minded England of his time, dedicated Tale of Two Cities to Lord Russell, who was also very much a tolerance-minded liberal Christian.

Duncan then goes on to enlist the great St. Augustine of Hippo, by again taking the dualism of the City of God, and applying it to what he sees as the duality between The Episcopal Church/Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of North America. Again, this is patently absurd and erroneous. Augustine was an ardent opponent of the Donatists, that African-based schismatical sect which sought to purify the church, and argued that within the church there would always be a mixed body -- both wheat and tares. It seems patently obvious that Bob Duncan is asserting that the cause of purification has led him and his allies to create a new, pure, orthodox, and true church, departing from the ways of the old, impure, heterodox, and false church. Even the Pardoner, in his Canterbury tale of greed, and in his own fallen state, conveys the Augustinian response to the Donatists asserting that even sinful clergy can be means of God's grace in sacramental ministration.

Rowan Williams once said that when Jack Spong posted his "Twelve Theses" calling for a radical new reformation of Christianity they looked like the questions a bright senior in high school might pose. In the same way, Bob Duncan's bold call for radical reformation of Anglicanism along a 'Two Ways" dichotomy between blessing and curse, purity and mixity, and his use of literature to make his point, reminds me of the sort of argument I might expect from a bright 12th grader, who has neither read, or understood, the works he cites.

Imagining Our Future

2009-07-22T13:50:00.000-07:00

Now that the General Convention has largely stated where The Episcopal Church stands in regards to the welcome we offer to gay Christians to full membership and leadership within all orders (whether celibate or in a nuptial union), I wonder -- what will we talk about with equal passion in the years to come?

While it was abundantly clear at the recently concluded General Convention that the overwhelming majority are going to support such inclusion, I wonder if we will have either such a large degree of unanimity on other questions -- or -- whether those who have essentially joined arms for this matter will remain together for the next matters?

Specifically, I am concerned that we begin to look beyond the question of applying a uniform sexual ethic to all persons regardless of orientation (celibacy or nuptial union) and focus on other matters like, prayer book revision, and our practice/policy regarding sacramental issues of baptism, confirmation, communion, confession/absolution, etc. I personally am very much more concerned that the great treasures of the faith which I see amply and beautifully attested to in the language of the 1979 Prayer Book, the catechism, etc., be put forth with great gusto in our worship, preaching, teaching and mission.

So I'm wondering - is there the same degree of passion or agreement on controversial points like 'communion without baptism' -- or the full-scale reworking of the Prayer Book -- or doing away with confirmation -- etc., etc.?

On this blog, I have gathered that we tend to be a group of folks who are 'catholic' on the essentials pointed to in the quadrilateral, and generally very interested in preserving the maximal degree of traditional verities and gifts as we can. I also have gathered the sense from this blog that many of our readers are very well informed in theology, church history, biblical study, etc.

What do you all think? Are we looking at the beginning of a new moment, when for once we will not be as focused on questions of including persons of different sexual identities, and may begin to refocus on other questions of sacramental theology, church practice, worship texts, etc? Is there a degree of variety on these questions that does not really any longer exist on the question of including glbts?

Please let me know. Frankly, I'd be very interested in our going into the next generation clearly proclaiming the Gospel as currently testified to in the 1979 Prayer Book/1982 Hymnal -- with but few emendations or modifications to certain pronouns and whatnot. I see absolutely no strong case for the reversal of the canons on communion without baptism - or the age-old argument that we should be phasing out confirmation. As well, I see absolutely no strong case for adding to or deleting any of the six eucharistic prayers (Rite Ii and ii; Rite II abcd). The idea that we need anything more than a very lightly modified post-millenium update of 1979 is very suspect to me.

Moreover, I'd be much more interested in seeing our diocesan and general convention be focused a great deal more, and with equal gusto, in prayer, worship, mission strategy, church growth training, and discussion of partnership with other Christian bodies with whom our separation is a complete waste of time (and the Gospel itself.)

Please chime in -- let's think about the next chapter in our common life -- and what the big issues are.

Eliminating Evangelism

2009-07-20T06:35:00.000-07:00

I published this on my blog last night, but I think it's too important to not share as widely as possible.

I was disheartened to see this on Fr. Terry Martin's blog:

A drastically reduced budget has been approved by General Convention. Among the cuts are various programs at the Episcopal Church Center.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that the entire Evangelism program, including my position, has been eliminated from the budget.

Other program officer positions eliminated include Worship and Spirituality, Women's Ministries and Lay Ministry.

All together, 37 positions at the Episcopal Church Center have been cut. No explanation has been offered as to why these programs were chosen for elimination.

One of the most frustrating things about this unexpected development was that it follows right on the heels of the positive time I spent last week with the Evangelism Legislative Committee as they carefully crafted various resolutions. There were plans in place to host evangelism events with our ecumenical partners, create an innovative evangelism "toolkit," and develop training programs for evangelists, among other things. All these resolutions passed both Houses.

To think that "the entire Evangelism program ... has been eliminated from the budget" of the Episcopal Church! And with "no explanation given"?

We Episcopalians love to tout the Baptismal Covenant in The Book of Common Prayer. As we should. So what about the Baptismal Covenant promise to "proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ" (The Book of Common Prayer, p. 305)?

In light of how often during the year we typically renew this covenant promise to be evangelists, as well as the general ineptitude of most of us in the Episcopal Church when it comes to claiming and living out what it means to be an evangelist, what does it say that we will not be putting our money where our mouths are?

If, as Jim Wallis has often pointed out, "a budget is a moral document," then the values expressed in a budget that cuts the entire Evangelism program are crystal clear. It says that evangelism is not sufficiently valued at the highest level of our Church to merit funding. Which means it's just not that important, period. Sorry, folks, you'll just have to figure this out on your own at the provincial, diocesan, or parish/mission level.

So what is more important than evangelism? Perhaps this report from The Living Church, which shows that litigation funding was dramatically increased, suggests an answer:

Virtually every department saw a reduction in funding from what Executive Council recommended with the exception of the Presiding Bishop’s Office, especially legal funding. Legal Support for reorganizing dioceses was increased 900 percent to $3 million over the next three-year period. Title IV and Legal Assistance to Dioceses was increased to $4 million, an increase of 122 percent. These items are all categorized under the Presiding Bishop’s Office, whose overall budget increased 15 percent.

This suggests a strong maintenance as opposed to mission mindset. The message this sends is that we will protect the institutional Church at all costs, even if that means failing to do the most basic work the Church exists to do: effective proclamation by word and example of the Good News of God in Christ.

All of this renews my concern that the leadership of our Church has failed to heed the wake-up call issued by C. Kirk Hadaway, our Director of Research for the Episcopal Church Center, in the recently issued "Episcopal Congregations Overview: Findings from the 2008 Faith Communities Today Survey," as well as the report submitted to General Convention by the House of Deputies Committee on the State of the Church. Both of these documents very clearly show the crisis we are in, a crisis which we are failing to adequately address. As I've noted on a previous posting, that crisis can be summed up as follows:

Aging membership + conflict + declining financial health + little interest in or understanding of evangelism = no viable future.

It sounds like we are responding to the reasons why we are losing membership and money by not funding efforts to deal with the loss of membership and money.

There may be an elephant in the Episcopal Church living room ...

What Does it All Mean?

2009-07-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

With the passage of D025 and C056, many are wondering: What does it all mean?

In a nutshell, it seems to me that what D025 and C056 mean is that The Episcopal Church has told the truth about who and where it is on the controversial issue of fully including gay Christians living in nuptial unions into all orders within the priesthood of all believers. It also tells the truth about where the Episcopal Church is as regards our desire to remain in full communion with the other churches of the Anglican Communion.

The truth on both questions is this: we are not exactly sure yet.

We are not exactly sure what the future will bring for us on both things. We recognize that within our own body is a degree of opinion that varies from staunch support/opposition to staunch ambivalence. As such, D025 essentially upholds a degree of local option on the question of ordaining Christians in same-sex marriage-like unions. It does not in any way guarantee that all or any dioceses will be open to calling and ordaining such persons. (Yes, God calls through the Church.) It does say, however, that the discernment for such is entirely entrusted to dioceses provided they conform with those national canons which are pertinent. In other words, the resolution affirms the status quo ante (before 2006) of how discernment for clerical orders is done.

Does D025 have the effect of 'over-turning' B033? Hard to say in actual fact. B033 was not a 'rule' or a canon, it was a form of urging. Likewise, D025 is not a law either -- it simply reaffirms the sufficiency of the canons vis a vis discernment processes. When it comes right down to it, if a priest were elected to the episcopate whose 'manner of life' was likely to cause difficulty globally, D025 would not have any necessary effect on whether or not said person was consented to by the Standing Committees/House of Bishops and/or General Convention.

Does D025 have the effect of 'looking like' a repudiation of the so-called 'moratorium' sought by Windsor? Of course it does. And likely, in a way, so does C056, which has to do with marriage equality -- which similarly brings us back to a kind of status quo ante 2006 [*see Christopher's important critique of this point in comments below]. Again, it is a resolution which suggests that we support local pastoral options, and are continuing to examine what if any liturgical/canonical revisions would be made at the General Convention level down the road a stretch.

Both of these resolutions, however much they basically reset the clock to somewhere around GC 2000 (with its D039 resolution that triggered the AMiA formation), will be perceived globally as some kind of repudiation of the Windor moratoria. The real question though is, "Does this matter?"

If D025 and C056 represent an effort for the Episcopal Church to tell the truth about where we are (as messy as that is) then truth-telling is called for as to the state of the Anglican Communion.

Facts on the Ground
The fact is that those who most demanded the Windsor moratoria did not accept that we had abided by them -- and they have never made any sincere attempt even to look like they were abiding by the moratorium that applied to them. Indeed, when it comes to facts on the ground, the movement that has never done a single thing to abide by Windsor, has many more of them. If The Episcopal Church has one openly partnered gay bishop, and an ongoing practice of local option regarding blessing same-gender couples' unions, the GAFCON movement has created dozens of separatist/schismatic bishops, and have created a continent-sized new province which is actively soliciting recognition by the Church of England synod to be fully recognized as a province in full communion with the See of Canterbury.

Moreover, if we are telling the truth, whereas The Episcopal Church has essentially gone not forward but "back to where we once were" -- with D025/C056 largely looking like a return to the kinds of resolutions which passed in 1991-2000 General Conventions -- the GAFCON movement has gone way off into an anachronistic future whereby the faith is expressed according to the epistemological, theological, cosmological mindset of late 17th century Britain. Notably, we have seen the full-fledged launch of what will likely be an alternative Anglican communion devoid of those developments in Anglicanism which have arisen since the Oxford Movement.

To be sure, The Episcopal Church is not an exemplary model of the Gospel and the catholic church either. I still hold that we are now, perhaps more than ever, a church convinced of the priority of our autonomy - and I find that troubling at times.

On The Other Hand
Then again, on the other hand, I also recognize that while neither salvation nor discernment of God's will are individualistic endeavors -- there is a part of the process which requires the individual (person or church) to perceive God's vocation even against the opposition of other perso's who likewise are seeking to be faithful.

I do believe that the witness to Christ given by many gay Christians (in various orders of ministry) is a fact in our midst. Their witness to so many of us in the Episcopal Church is also available to many around the Anglican Communion -- and I do believe that people will increasingly come to see that they are proclaiming Christ -- born, crucified, risen and ascended. By being a place where such witness is fostered, the Episcopal Church is, I believe, doing the hard thing (in fact) by standing for a discernment of God's will which does not yet meet easy and widespread approval.

In this, of course, it will remain to be seen whether we are doing something prophetic, or not. If we have decided to stake our selves, our souls, and our bodies on this sense that God is indeed calling for a new thing, (thereby we are perceiving ourselves to have a prophetic vocation), then of course we must do what we believe God is calling us to do. We may of course know that it won't be well or widely received by all. We must of course know that there will come pain and reaction. We must know that -- unlike the people whom Jonah spoke to -- the whole place will not immediate change their ways. We must be willing to receive the reaction against what we perceive to be true -- and to do so graciously and humbly.

Indeed, if we are acting in any way prophetically by passing D025 and C056, we must be prepared to turn the other cheek when the slaps come, and continue to maintain the posture of faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, who was born, died, rose, ascended and will come again as part of the fulfillment of God's plan before the worlds began, to make all things well.

MUST READ: Schism Peril in Anglican Church (c. 1914)

2009-07-15T14:27:00.000-07:00

From the New York Times (January 3, 1914)

Small Incident in East Africa Threatens to Cause an Irreparable Conflict -- All Over the Communion -- Admission of Methodists and Others to the Service Excites a Fierce Controversy at Home

London, Jan. 3, 1914 -- The famous Kikuyu controversy, which appeared as a cloud no bigger than a man's hand on the East African horizon last summer, is fast becoming a storm that threatens to shake the Church of England to its foundations, and on many sides fears are expressed that the controversy may result in a schism which will rend the Church in two.

For weeks many letters on the subject have been appearing in The Times, but not till this week has the controversy assumed alarming proportions. Now the newspapers are printing columns of letters daily as well as leading articles, and, if the amount of space devoted to the subject be any criterion, the Kikuyu controversy is one of the burning questions of the day, eclipising even Home Rule, David Lloyd George's land policy, and "votes for women."

Even those who seek to minimize the danger to the Anglican Church agree that history is being made, and that "Kikuyu" may become one of the significant and crucial names in the annals of the Protestant Church, marking one of the important stages in its evolution.

The cause of the threatened schism is as extraordinary as it was unexpected. The Moslem faith had been advancing rapidly in East Africa, and, to stem its advance, various Christian sects combined and held a meeting in the little town of Kikuyu in June. The sixty missionaries who assembled could have had no idea of the storm of controversy and heated feeling that would be engendered. Their object was merely to consider how the denominational missions, working in the same field, could act jointly so as to present the solid front of Christianity to Mohammedanism.

The conference was eminently successful and fraternal feeling was so strong that at the close a united communion was held, the Bishops of Uganda and Mombassa officiating.

It was the admission of the Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and others to the communion administered by Anglican Bishops according to the order of the Anglican prayer book, which excited the fierce disapproval of a portion of the Church. The Bishop of Zanzibar openly accused the Bishops of Mombassa and Uganda of heresy and sought to impeach them, demanding a formal condemnation by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Then begun what has been called "the hurly-burly of the Bishops," and a flood of letters to the papers. The discussion quickly widened until now it embraces the whole subject of Christian unity. It is the general sense that the decision of the Bishop of Zanzibar's action may affect far deeper religious and ecclesiastical interests that those of the African mission field.

In a striking letter to the press, Dean Hensley Henson, Canon of Westminster Abbey, says that the appeal now is to the English people on the question as to whether the English Church shall remain Protestant or become Roman Catholic.

Lord Halifax, one of the leaders of the High Church wing, while admitting the gravity of the situation in a letter to The Times, says:

"I pray to God that the controversy may not occasion a schism which shall rend the Church in two. The dangers are only too obvious and can hardly be exaggerated. They involve consequences, affecting not only the Church of England, but the whole of Christendom."

Writing to The Times the Bishop of Oxford says he doubts if the cohesion of the Church of England was ever more seriously threatened than now, and adds:

"The reason for this is that three sections of the Church are pursuing their own principles to a point where they become really intolerable to the main body."

He concludes that unless the great body of the Anglican Church can again speedily arrive at some statement of principles, such as will avail to pull it together again, it will go on the certain way toward destruction.

The Archbishop of York in his New Year's letter to his diocese, says that unless the issues raised by the Kikuyu affair be wisely handled they will set back the course of Christian unity if only by endangering the unity of the Anglican Church.

Amended D025 Passes HoBishops

2009-07-13T19:55:00.000-07:00

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That the 76th General Convention reaffirm the continued participation of The Episcopal Church as a constituent member of the Anglican Communion; give thanks for the work of the bishops at the Lambeth Conference of 2008; reaffirm the abiding commitment of The Episcopal Church to the fellowship of churches that constitute the Anglican Communion and seek to live into the highest degree of communion possible; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention encourage dioceses, congregations, and members of The Episcopal Church to participate to the fullest extent possible in the many instruments, networks and relationships of the Anglican Communion; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention reaffirm its financial commitment to the Anglican Communion and pledge to participate fully in the Inter-Anglican Budget; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm the value of "listening to the experience of homosexual persons," as called for by the Lambeth Conferences of 1978, 1988, and 1998, and acknowledge that through our own listening the General Convention has come to recognize that the baptized membership of The Episcopal Church includes same-sex couples living in lifelong committed relationships "characterized by fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God" (2000-D039); and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention recognize that gay and lesbian persons who are part of such relationships have responded to God's call and have exercised various ministries in and on behalf of God's One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and are currently doing so in our midst; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm that God has called and may call such individuals, to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church,; and that God's call to the ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church is a mystery which the Church attempts to discern for all people through our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention acknowledge that members of The Episcopal Church as of the Anglican Communion, based on careful study of the Holy Scriptures, and in light of tradition and reason, are not of one mind, and Christians of good conscience disagree about some of these matters.

Marriage Equality Resolution - C056

2009-07-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

Jim Naughton writes at Episcopal Cafe:

As I mentioned a second ago, a major resolution on same sex blessings has cleared the Prayer Book Committee by a huge margin (6-0 among bishops, 26-1 in deputies).

The text of the resolution follows:

Resolved, that the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, in consultation with the House of Bishops Theology Committee, collect and develop theological resources and liturgies of blessing for same-gender holy unions, to be presented to the 77th General Convention for formal consideration; and be it further
Resolved, that the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, in consultation with the House of Bishops Theology Committee, devise an open process for the conduct of its work in this matter, inviting participation from dioceses, congregations, and individuals who are or have already engaged in the study or design of such rites throughout the Anglican Communion; and be it further

Resolved, that all bishops, noting 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; and be it further

Resolved, that honoring the theological diversity of this Church, no bishop or other member of the clergy shall be compelled to authorize or officiate at such liturgies; and be it further

Resolved, that the Anglican Consultative Council be invited to conversation regarding this resolution and the work that proceeds from it, together with other churches in the Anglican Communion engaged in similar processes.

Bishop Henry Parsley supported the resolution, but in a minority report will argue that the "generosity" in resolve 3 be limited to states where same sex marriage is legal.

D025 Resolution Goes to Bishops

2009-07-12T18:24:00.000-07:00

This resolution has passed in the House of Deputies. What do you all think?

Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, [not yet of course], That the 76th General Convention reaffirm the continued participation of The Episcopal Church in the Anglican Communion; give thanks for the work of the bishops at the Lambeth Conference of 2008; reaffirm the abiding commitment of The Episcopal Church to the fellowship of churches that constitute the Anglican Communion and seek to live into the highest degree of communion possible; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention reaffirm its financial commitment to the Anglican Communion and pledge to participate fully in the Inter-Anglican Budget; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention affirm that God has called and may call such individuals, to any ordained ministry in The Episcopal Church, which call is tested through our discernment processes acting in accordance with the Constitution and Canons of The Episcopal Church; and be it further

Resolved, That the 76th General Convention acknowledge that members of The Episcopal Church, as of the Anglican Communion, based on careful study of the Holy Scriptures, and in light of tradition and reason, are not of one mind, and Christians of good conscience, disagree about some of these matters.

Center Aisle Endorses D025

2009-07-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

From the Center Aisle (Diocese of Virginia):

Features & News - D025: 'This is Not a Great Leap Forward'

Two of the deputies who crafted the original Resolution D025, which deals with consecration of bishops, spoke to Center Aisle last night about their work and their hopes.

The Rev. Dr. Ruth Meyers of Chicago and D. Rebecca Snow of Alaska began working in 2007 on this resolution, which may come before the House of Deputies today through Special Order X009.

This resolution, Ms. Meyers said, “is really about affirming those relationships” we have with others in the Anglican Communion. “Then it says, ‘This is who we are in conversation with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered people. We have been in dialogue for many years. We have moved to a different place than many other provinces.’”

D025, Ms. Snow and Ms. Meyers stressed, emphasizes the importance of self-differentiation, “saying who we are so we can then be in authentic relationships with others in the Communion where they are.”

Ms. Snow called D025 “the way forward. … an attempt to make a contribution to the Listening Process by making another stab about who we are and where we are.”

“Tell the people that we know that not everyone in the Episcopal Church agrees with what’s in here, and not everyone in the Anglican Communion agrees with it, but we are all acting in light of” Scripture, tradition and reason.

The two deputies described how they came to work together to craft the original resolution.

Ms. Meyers, formerly of Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, is the new Hodges-Haynes Professor of Liturgics at Church Divinity School of the Pacific and a founder of the Chicago Consultation, a
group of 50 bishops, clergy and lay people supporting full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion. Ms. Snow is a senior deputy in the House and has served on two special legislative committees that addressed issues of sexuality in previous Conventions.

In 2006, Ms. Meyers said, she was in line to testify with a piece of blank paper and a pen in her hand, not knowing what to say. She recalled her own experiences as a woman priest who could not serve in one diocese as well as the words of Archbishop of York John Sentamu, who urged members of that Convention to look for signs of crucifixion in themselves. When it came her time to speak, she said, “I cannot and will not be a party to hammering those nails into the hands and feet of my sisters and brothers.”

Following that Convention, she said, she and others knew they “really had to make this different at the next Convention. We need to bring people together and do this in a way that celebrates the relationships we have in the Anglican Communion, which are gifts of the Spirit. So are the steps the Episcopal Church has taken welcoming lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people, which are also gifts of the Spirit.”

“God,” Ms. Meyers said, “is calling us to hold those together.”

Ms. Snow decided to participate because she was “in favor of trying to find ways to be as gracious and giving as we could. … I was interested in getting to something that looked forward. Rather than try to get rid of something in the past or tie ourselves to the canons, we have to keep marching forward.”

Ms. Snow said the two “agreed that we’ve gotten to the place we’ve gotten in the Episcopal Church because we have spent all this time listening, including those who are opposed to homosexuality.”

“I think we have to be very careful not to act in ways that exclude people who don’t want to be on this train,” Ms. Snow said, “who are not in agreement with moving anywhere, the people who want to hang on to B033 and are fearful of the consequences of not doing so.

“We are not better off for the loss of those voices – however uncomfortable they made others feel, we’re still not better off without them.”

“Even if there is an overwhelming majority (supporting D025), remember, when we go home to our dioceses, there will be parishes at home that will be unhappy.”

Said Ms. Snow, “This is not a great leap forward.”

Archbishop of Canterbury's Remarks at General Convention

2009-07-09T17:00:00.000-07:00

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

The 76th General Convention of The Episcopal Church
July 9, 2009

Meditation

One thing you learn very quickly as Archbishop of Canterbury is that everything you say is scrutinised and interpreted and picked over for hidden meanings and agendas. Something tells me today will be no exception…

But because I don’t actually like coded messages or hidden agendas, and because I believe they’re an aspect of a whole rather unhealthy culture of suspicion – not to mention conspiracy theories - I’m going to begin by saying two things as simply and directly as I can, so that we can get on to the more important matter of reflecting together on the Scripture passages we have been given in this Eucharist.

The first thing is to say thank you. Thank you for the invitation to join you on this occasion and to share something of my mind with you; and so thank you too for your continuing willingness to engage with the wider life of our Communion. I do realise that this engagement has been and still is costly for different people in different ways: some feel impatient, some feel compromised, some feel harassed or undervalued, or that their good faith has been ungraciously received. I’m sorry; this has been hard and will not get much easier, I suspect. But it is something for which many of us genuinely are grateful to you and to God.

And it’s related to the second thing I want to say. Of course I am coming here with hopes and anxieties – you know that and I shan’t deny it. Along with many in the Communion, I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart. But if people elsewhere in the Communion are concerned about this, it’s because of a profound sense of what the Episcopal Church has given and can give to our fellowship worldwide. If we - if I – had felt that we could do perfectly well with out you, there wouldn’t be a problem. But the bonds of relationship are deep, for me personally as for many others. And I’m tempted to adapt what St Paul says to the Corinthians in the middle of a set of tensions no less bitter than what we have been living through and in the wake of challenges from St Paul a good deal more savage than even the sharpest words from Primates or Councils: ‘Why? Because we do not love you? God knows we do.’

Well: to business. Our readings put before us a vision of Christ’s Church that is both simple and alarming. We have been called and chosen. It is not that we have ourselves chosen Jesus, and it is certainly not that we have earned the right to be chosen by him (because we’re so orthodox or so open or so faithful or so creative or whatever). We have simply been spoken to by Christ and our fellowship has been created by his word to us. What is more, that word makes us his friends; and as his friends we share some understanding of what he is doing because he has allowed us to overhear his eternal conversation of love with the one he calls ‘Abba, Father.’

So we’re ‘holy’, a holy people, a holy nation, because we have been brought within earshot of that eternal conversation, that immeasurable intimacy. We know that this is Jesus’ business – living in an intimacy with the Father that opens him up to the needs of creation, so that the eternal conversation overflows and transforms an entire world. As John’s gospel tells us time and again, we come to be where Jesus is; and that is our holiness. Not what we have achieved, what we have held on to, what we can trade for rewards from God, but simply the fact of being in the Holy place that is Jesus at prayer. The intimacy of the Source and the Word becomes intimate to and in us. And we turn to the world so that our humanity, newly transparent to God the Trinity, can itself become a word, a transforming message and gift – a humanity living in mutual generosity, intimacy with each other and delight in each other, like the delight and intimacy that exists for ever in heaven.

This is what we are here for as a Church. Our life as church declares to the world that God’s longing is for a humanity like this, a humanity broken open for intimacy. Broken open: because there is a cost in the creation of the humanity that God longs for. At the very beginning of all things, and at the very beginning of the story of God’s people, the word of God speaks into a dark emptiness and brings life and light. By sheer divine freedom, God brings light, makes a humanity where there was no humanity, a community where there was no community. And God makes us able to receive his mercy where once we could not even understand that we needed it. In a word, we have been called from nothingness; but this means that we still stand over that abyss of emptiness – an inner void that only the Word of God can hold and fill and make to be something that is real and living. Sin is our constant temptation to slip back into nothingness, into unreality – the void of our own individual desires and agendas, the void of a self that deludes itself into the belief that it is really there on its own, independent of God and of others.

So when God in Jesus Christ restores humanity to its proper place in God’s heart, Jesus has to face full-on the strange power of nothingness, the power of the terrors and dreams that are generated out of the self in its urgent attempts to keep itself alive by its own strength. Jesus dies because we don’t want to die – to die to our fantasies and self-centred plans and dreams. To follow him is to risk stepping into life by recognising that something in us must die – so that everlasting and true life may live.

The Church is a place where indestructible life is made manifest: it “presents and represents in its corporate life creation restored in celebration of the Word of God” – words from one your own prophets, the greatest Episcopalian theologian and perhaps the greatest American theologian of the twentieth century, William Stringfellow; not the least of the gifts which the Episcopal Church has given the rest of us. Stringfellow is writing about the calling of the Church to be a ‘holy nation’ - a community that is free from every kind of local and uncritical loyalty so as to show the world what an institution looks like when it lives by the self-communication of God. And above all, he says, it is an institution which looks death in the face and declares it to be overcome.

Our contemporary world is still very recognisably the world that Stringfellow wrote about in the seventies and eighties, a world in which death and nothingness have what looks like a powerful advantage. We collude with the death of the poor, with the almost unimaginable ravages of HIV/AIDS in Africa, with the ruination of small economies in the strange adventures of the global market, with the impending extinction of the possibility of human existence in some parts of the world by rising water levels. In the last nine months, we have learned, with more surprise that we should have felt, how our financial affairs are based on a passionate quest for “growth” that has increasingly led us to make profit out of literally – nothingness, out of empty words and manufactured figures. The poisonous effect of death and nothingness can be seen in a reeling international economy and a fearful bewilderment about our human future, not only financially but materially, as inhabitants of a planet in which limitless material growth is impossible. And in this world, the Church is there to name death and to promise life – the life that comes in relationship, not selfish speculation or protective barriers against the poor, but relation with God through Jesus Christ and with each other, relation that is grounded in our knowledge of the will of God for the wealth and welfare of God’s creation.

To be holy is to be a witness for life in the face of these and many other forms of death. But Stringfellow adds another dimension to this. We have to face and acknowledge death in ourselves – not just death at work in the world in general, not death at work in other believers that we disapprove of, but the fact that we like all other believers we disapprove of, but the fact that we like all other believers are where we are and what we are because we have called from nothingness and still experience the drawing of death and emptiness in our own depths. Because of this, we proclaim the victory of life through our corporate confession and repentance: Stringfellow says ‘if want to know what you can do to justify yourself, the biblical response is: You must give up trying to justify yourself and confess your utter helplessness in the face of the power of death….The repentance at issue is such that it apprehends the empirical risk of death or of abandonment; that is, the risk that there is no Word of God to identify you and give you your name. Without that gift of your name, you do not exist; you are dead or, as they say, as good as dead.’

Life is proclaimed not in our achievement, our splendid record of witness to God, but in our admission of helplessness and of the continuing presence and lure of death in our lives. To be able to speak of this, and not to retreat in fear or throw up defences is part of true life; it is to know that our name is spoken by the Word of God and that we do not have to battle in resentment and anxiety to create an identity of our own. It is already there: we are already called friends. we are already bound to each other, and our life is invested in each other, in those we see and those we don’t, those we like and those we don’t. We are in the holy place with Jesus, a holy nation, a royal priesthood.

Here at the Eucharist we state who we are and where and why. We give voice to our hunger and helplessness; we name death, in us and around us; we give thanks that we are called from emptiness to life, and our own true names are spoken by the Word. May this gathering be a sign of life in the face of death, a declaration of who we are in Jesus and with one another, in the heart of God the Holy Trinity: chosen friends who, miraculously, know something of that God’s longing for what has been made.

Sudan Upholds Partnership with Episcopal Church

2009-07-08T08:02:00.001-07:00

Sudan primate upholds 'mutual understanding, true partnership' with Episcopalians

By Matthew Davies, July 07, 2009

Click image for detail

[Episcopal News Service] Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan (ECS) has written to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and all the bishops, priests, deacons and laity of the U.S.-based Episcopal Church underscoring the importance of partnership between the two churches and offering an update about the urgent situation in Sudan.

In his June 30 letter, Deng expressed his gratitude for the invitation to attend the July 8-17 General Convention in Anaheim, California. Deng is one of more than 70 international and ecumenical guests expected to share in the Episcopal Church's triennial policy-making gathering.

"I am humbled and honored by your invitation to this convention and I greet you all in the precious name of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," said Deng, who was enthroned as Sudan's archbishop and primate in April 2008. "Thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to ... cement the ever growing relationship between our churches on the sure foundation of mutual understanding, true partnership and above all the love of Jesus Christ our Lord who covers all multitudes of sin." The full text of Deng's statement is available here.

Jefferts Schori told ENS that the Episcopal Church "has long been concerned about the disastrous conditions in Sudan, and I expect the convention will respond with heightened advocacy efforts and humanitarian responses to the tragedy in Sudan."

Deng made headlines during the 2008 Lambeth Conference for telling media that he thought openly gay bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire should resign. His comments were made at an impromptu news conference organized by a British journalist, who like many journalists present was frustrated with the closed nature of the Lambeth Conference.

While Deng has said that he does not agree with some of the Episcopal Church's recent decisions regarding human sexuality, he has been clear that its partnerships with Sudan should continue.

The U.S.-based Episcopal Church has long-standing partnerships with ECS through companion diocese relationships, Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) programs and the advocacy work of the Office of Government Relations.

Current companion relationships include Albany (New York) with the Province of Sudan, Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) with Kajo Keji, Chicago with Renk, Indianapolis with Bor, Missouri with Lui, Southwestern Virginia with the Province of Sudan, and Virginia with the Province of Sudan.

In his recent letter, Deng urged the Episcopal Church "to retain the peace of the Sudan as a top priority, working to prevent further genocide and assisting in the humanitarian effort to bring better living conditions to believers.

Deng explained that he has undertaken major tours of Southern Sudan during the past year and has "witnessed first hand the suffering of my people and the increasing fear of communities on the ground because of a situation of ever-increasing insecurity."

Sudan, Africa's largest country by area, has been devastated by two back-to-back civil wars spanning some 40 years. Although that war officially came to an end with the January 2005 signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the northern Government of Sudan and the southern people, a conflict lingers in the Darfur region of western Sudan that is reported to have claimed more than 300,000 lives. The CPA was negotiated with the involvement of U.S. envoy to Sudan John C. Danforth, a former U.S. Senator from Missouri and an Episcopal priest.

Despite initial hopes for the success of the peace agreement, southern Sudanese leaders have been frustrated by the northern government's refusal to live into the major terms of the agreement, including sharing of oil revenues and the drawing of fair borders.

Sudan is scheduled to hold its first democratic elections in 24 years in February 2010 and a 2011 referendum will give southerners the opportunity to determine whether to secede from the north or remain a unified country.

Jefferts Schori told ENS: "We will pray for the people of Sudan, and we will do what we can to give evidence of the faith that is within us, knowing that God expects peace for all our brothers and sisters, not war and privation."

Deng said that the U.S. Government "has a duty to prevent Sudan from returning to war," and urged General Convention to increase its advocacy "on behalf of the Sudanese people to President [Barack] Obama, Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton and Special Envoy [Jonathan Scott] Gration. We need to let those in the west who support the cause of peace, freedom and justice for Sudan know that the churches are key partners in the work of peace-building on the ground.

"God bless Episcopal Church of America. God bless our partnership; and God bless the Episcopal Church of the Sudan," Deng concluded in his letter.

-- Matthew Davies is editor of Episcopal Life Online and international correspondent of the Episcopal News Service.

Tobias Haller Piece

2009-07-08T04:48:00.001-07:00

God crushed the heads of Leviathan and gave him to the people of the desert for food... -- Psalm 74

The English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes, in his great workLeviathan, posited that the good of the corporate political body transcended the rights of the individual members as a way of ensuring the greatest well-being for the whole. This idea received more precise formulation in the work of philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham, and there were echoes of it in early communism as well.

We find an earlier instance of it in the language of Caiaphas: it is expedient that one should die for the many. And, of course, that makes moral sense so long as the one who dies is offering him or herself freely and without constraint, in utter freedom of choice to be an atoning sacrifice. But it is a horror and a crime when the many choose, compel, and constrain one of their number to suffer on their behalf, a scapegoat and victim without choice or freedom.

My point in this is to stress that the church as a body ought never tread the path of Caiaphas, speaking in terms of acceptable losses and victims and scapegoats for the greater good -- suggesting that the few should suffer for the sake of the many. In doing so the Church becomes false to its own ends, as well as to its beginning.

For the church exists for the benefit of each an all of its members, not for the many of its members against the few. Moreover, the church was made for humanity, not humanity for the church; it is not an engine fueled with human flesh, to be kept running at any and all costs, blind to its purpose as it consumes the very substance of which it consists, like Ouroboros eating its tail, or a horrific autoimmune disease.

But some will say, The church is the Body of Christ. And so it is. And the Body of Christ was not ordained to be lifted up, carried about, or adored, but to be put to the use for which it is intended: salvation. The church is not an end in itself, but a means to a greater end, a transcendent end. It is not an institution to be maintained at all costs, at the loss of its true self. It is the church as a whole that gives itself for the life of the world, if it is to be true to the one in whose name and by whose grace it exists.

Seeds of Schism in England Planted

2009-07-07T06:57:00.000-07:00

In a recent post, I stated that underlying the formation of the Anglican Church of North America was the necessary claim on their part that The Episcopal Church was no longer a valid Anglican or even Christian church. Such a claim is necessary for them to believe they are operating in good faith as they work towards replacing The Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Church of Canada, in these lands.

The movement which has begun ACNA is now doing the same in the United Kingdom with what is called the FCA. Of course this is going to be the forerunner of a schismatic entity in Great Britain. What's hilarious is that the movement says they are going to do these things, they then do them, and all the while they also have their own advocates and spin doctors simultaneously denying that they are doing anything of the sort. I am reminded of the old joke about how the Germans invaded France by walking in backwards and saying they were leaving. On the one hand this movement -- which exists on both sides of the Atlantic, with its roots in former members of The Church of England as with The Episcopal Church and Church of Canada -- says that TEC, CofC and CofE are essentially apostate, heretical and even Satanic, and on the other hand they say they would never say such a thing.

Anyhow, here is a piece by Toby Cohen for the UK website Religious Intelligence:

A new power in the Church of England is waiting to take control if the current leadership permit any further liberalization, warned the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) UK at its launch in London today.

Over 1,600 people turned up at Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, including leaders from around the Communion, to celebrate the fellowship which currently describes itself as a movement rather than an organization. However, Archbishop Bob Duncan, of the new Anglican Church in North America, made clear that FCA UK could follow the route of the North Americans in forming a new Church if they saw the Church of England stray too far from its traditional roots.

He said: “The American Church and the Canadian Church are radical churches. They are revolutionary Churches. Our hope is that that’s not what the Church of England will be. It really depends on- the ability for the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans to be a force within the Church of England depends on- the attitude of the leadership of the Church of England.”

That leadership was criticized in no uncertain terms by the Bishop of Fulham, the Rt Rev John Broadhurst, the Chairman of Forward in Faith International, who said: “Satan is alive and well and he’s residing in Church House.”

Consecrating women as bishops in the Church of England without proper provision for those opposed to the move would prompt FCA UK to challenge the current Church leadership. The Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Rev Wallace Benn, maintained that the fellowship was hopeful that this would not be necessary.

He said: “I think we are hopeful that the Church of England will see sense and provide properly for loyal Anglicans of both integrities. The Lambeth Conference talked about both integrities being loyal Anglicans and for a Church to want to push out one or the other is very unfortunate and should not be a Church dividing issue if proper action is taken. I think most of us are optimistic that some sort of solution will come out of that.

“If the Church of England was to be foolish and to drive people out of a conscientious issue then we would need to look for help and support from elsewhere. At the moment we’re not pessimistic.”

Archbishop Gregory Venables, Primate of the Southern Cone, underlined how serious the theological distance was between FCA and other parts of the Church, he said: “This is about the essentials of theology, and that’s where the division is coming. Those who say there is only one way; Jesus Christ, stand with us, stand with him, and those who say there are a lot of ways, Jesus is one of them. That is what this division is about and it’s not schism, it is real separation over Gospel truth.”

While speculation surrounded the retiring Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, as to whether he would be taking a leading role with FCA, he said: “I’m just a foot-soldier.”

Testing of Paul

2009-07-06T08:35:00.001-07:00

The Pope recently exhumed the crypt of the Apostle Paul, long buried beneath the Vatican, and allowed the human remains inside to be tested.

The tests came back postive -- at least as far as age goes. Testing affirms that those bones in that crypt date to the time of Paul. They date to the era when Roman, Greek and Jew alike heaped insult, persecution and hardship on the likes of Paul. To the time when Paul, the brilliant Jewish rabbi turned evangelist for Christ extraordinaire, would ultimately lose his head for the sake of God's grace in Christ.

I’m sure glad I’m not Paul. Aren’t you?

If I were Paul -- for sure by now – I’d have been whipped with 39 lashes; beaten with rods three times; stoned once; shipwrecked three times; cast adrift on a salty sea for 36 hours. And, so often, I'd be hungry, tired and weak. I'd have no wife, no children, and my only home would be the cross I carried. I’m glad I’m not Paul, because if I were, I’d be suffering more, and one day they'd cut my head off.

Yet, as a Christian who believes in the power of God, I feel very lame at how glad I am that I am not suffering like Paul -- or the thousands of witnesses to the faith in the earliest generations. Or the thousands even now in so many places -- on the front lines against the evils of the world.

I mean I'm a Christian -- but I ate burgers and hot dogs on the Fourth of July, lit off fireworks with my kids, and was happy to be free and alive in a rich and democratic land.

It always gets me to thinking, when I hear 2 Corinthians, "Am I really engaged with Christ as Paul was? Or the other disciples and apostles and martyrs? Am I really engaged?" It's an important question. It's a necessary one -- for those seeking to be followers of Christ. After all, if real disciples practice costly discipleship -- what am I doing? Am I giving praise to God in all things? Am I aware that God's grace is sufficient for me? Am I content -- which is to say fulfilled -- by knowing that my life exists for the sake of Christ?

What about you?

Paul certainly suffered a lot -- for the faith. He also was privy to visions and revelations that typical joes don't often have. He didn't have a family or the comforts of earthly home and hearth -- but, he did have the gift of an unbelievable mental genius, an unbelievable work ethic, and an unbelievable genius for surviving some dicy situations. Yes, he was mightily afflicted, and mightily gifted by God. And twenty centuries later -- we're still interested enough in him to check out his bones, and read his mail.

But you and I -- are different. We are almost certainly less mightily gifted and less mightily afflicted. We are almost certainly not going to achieve even a teensy fraction of his stature historically and theologically in Church History.

But...we have our circumstances. We have our blessings, and our thorns in the side. We may not have the Roman empire after us, but we all have somebody or something after us -- don't we? Some form of sin, fear and death are piercing us so that we may not boast of our greatness. We may not be Paul, but we have our circumstances. We have our blessings. We have our thorns. And we are all just a phone call away from circumstances far better or far worse than we are prepared to take.

No, we are not Paul, and we don't need to be Paul. For it is not Paul we serve, and it was not Paul whom Paul served. We do not proclaim ourselves, and as Paul well knew, it is not ourselves which ultimately matter.

No, whomever we are, and wherever we are, whatever our blessings or cursings may be, Jesus Christ is seeking us -- in His Grace -- for healing, for courage and for joy.

Jesus Christ is calling us as we are, and equipping as we are, to become not more like Paul, but more like Christ by the power of Christ which he sends to us in prayer, sacrament, Word and worship.

I am sure that Paul did not want the kind of iconic heroe worship that even his bones are important to people. But I do believe he did want all that he had and had to endure to serve a sacred purpose -- and that's why he offered all of his circumstances and life to Christ's power.

May the same be said of us. Whatever our personal circumstances -- we may offer them to Christ -- and witnesses we will be. Christ will work through our weaknesses of faith, of courage, and of thankfulness -- and work wonders through even the smallness of our lives.

Stephen Sykes: Gore Lecture 2003: Basis for Anglican Fellowship

2009-07-01T19:09:00.000-07:00

The Basis of Anglican Fellowship: Some Challenges for Today

24 February 2003 at 12:00 am -- Stephen Sykes, at Westminster Abbey

‘The Basis of Anglican Fellowship in Faith in Organisation’ is the rather stodgy title which Bishop Charles Gore gave to an Open Letter he wrote to his clergy in the Diocese of Oxford in 1914. I have adopted it as the title of this lecture partly because Gore is a major contributor to the formulation of the principles of Anglicanism; but more particularly, because we need constantly to remind ourselves that we are not the first to face serious challenges to the coherence and integrity of our communion.

Indeed Gore begins his letter with a very clear indication of the international character of the crisis which required his response.

My Brethren [he wrote], The Bishop of Zanzibar has certainly succeeded in raising in an acute form the question of the coherence of the Church of England and of the Anglican communion generally.

The Bishop of Zanzibar? Bishop Frank Weston, a former slum priest, devout, highly intelligent Principal of St Andrew’s Training College Kiungani from 1901, the author of a fine work of kenotic christology, The One Christ 1907, and a passionate Africanist remembered for his self-identification with African life, was also a passionate Anglo-Catholic controversialist. He and his diocesan staff trained in the traditions of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa had been deeply troubled by the participation of two bishops of neighbouring, Anglican dioceses, Bishop Peel of Mombasa and Bishop Willis of Uganda, in an attempt to create a federation of denominations in East Africa - or as he put it, characteristically, ‘in federating the Protestant Sects with their Churches’. (Bell, Davidson, p.692)

Not a man to take half measures, he accused Peel and Willis of heresy in word and action, and indicted them to the Archbishop of Canterbury. If they were not prepared publicly and completely to recant their views, Weston requested the Archbishop:
to appoint us a day and a place in which, conformably with Catholic precedent, we may appear before You and not less than twelve of your Grace’s coprovincial Bishops sitting with your grace as Judges of this cause, and to permit us there and then to meet the aforesaid Lord Bishop of Mombasa and Lord Bishop of Uganda, and in open Assembly to allow us to make and sustain our charges and accusations against them.

The reason for appeal to the Archbishop was that since there was no Province of East Africa at the time, the Archbishop was the one to whom these bishops all owed canonical obedience.

The letter of indictment was written at the end of September 1913, and the Archbishop’s initial reply, asking for time to consider all the relevant evidence, followed a month later. Willis returned to England in November, and by then it had become clearer that the issues at stake had diminished to two matters: first, the precise ecclesial character of the proposed federation, and secondly, the fact that an Anglican Service of Holy Communion had been celebrated to which Non-conformists had been invited and in which they had participated.

The solution of Archbishop Randall Davidson, which he reached in February 1914, was a sort of compromise. He refused a heresy trial which Bishop Weston had demanded, but appointed the Consultative Body of the Lambeth Conference, an elected group of fourteen Bishops from difference provinces, to advise him as to the two main issues. It met, amazingly, in late July 1914, a few days before the outbreak of War. It was not until Easter of the following year that the Archbishop had the leisure to complete his judgment. Its nuanced terms in the event satisfied neither party. The Archbishop did not support the idea that the non-episcopal churches could simply be thought of as outside the church (this was, in effect, a repudiation of the Tractarian ‘branch theory’). On the other hand it was not satisfactory to sanction the receiving of Holy Communion by Anglicans at the hands of non-episcopally ordained ministers. Of the liturgical event which had concluded the Kikuyu Conference, the Consultative Body’s reply elicited the following witty summary: ‘The Commission comes to the conclusion that the Service at Kikuyu was eminently pleasing to God, and must on no account be repeated.’ One notable feature of the Archbishop’s judgment was its sensitivity to the impact of speed of communication upon the communion ‘in a world of quick tidings and ample talk’.

The row in the English Press was immense. Bishop Gore wrote to the Times on 29 December 1913, ‘I doubt if the cohesion of the Church of England was ever more seriously threatened than it is now’. Bishop Weston regarded Gore as an ally, despite the fact that he disapproved of what Gore had earlier written on the subject of kenosis. Gore’s Open Letter to his clergy did not purport directly to deal with the issue which was, at the time, so to speak, sub judice. But he took the opportunity of warning the Church of England that it could not hope to muddle its way through such disputes without a grasp on its foundational principles. In his view what the Church has objectively stood for in its history was threatened by three tendencies; extreme protagonists of biblical criticism are undermining the basis of faith; extreme evangelicals are threatening to dispense with the requirement of episcopacy; and extreme Catholics are engaged in romanizing developments which leave them defenceless against the claims of a full-blown papalism.

It is not my intention to pursue the details of this fascinating controversy further. But is relevance to our own day is obvious. Events in a part of the Anglican communion provoke acute controversy in that place, because leading bishops and theologians hold contradictory views of the matter. The disagreement is considered sufficiently important by one of the parties to appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury to decide it. The archbishop grasps the fact that modern communication imposes on him the necessity of attempting to resolve something which is of general relevance to the communion. He requests an existing international body of bishops to advise him, considers their advice and writes his own judgment. All of these features bear upon the argument we are currently having about Christian teaching on same sex relationships, and so does the outcome of the Kikuyu controversy – none of the protagonists considered that the Archbishop’s judgment closed the matter and in part it has gone on being controversial ever since.

At this point I hope you will forgive me for referring to the task which I have of Chairing the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission, which body has been asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates Committee of the Anglican Communion to study and report on the theological question of communion in the church, and what sustains or inhibits it, and especially the nature of communion in the Anglican Communion. Subsequently we have had remitted to us for analysis and comment the volume, To Mend the Net, an appeal by a group of Bishops and theologians from various parts of the Communion, to strengthen the role of Primates in the Communion and to give them a disciplinary function and responsibility. You will understand why Gore’s title, ‘The Basis of Anglican Fellowship’, appeals to me. You will also, I think, appreciate that my current role and task both informs and inhibits what I have to say this evening. If I may, I would like to return towards the end of this lecture to the way in which the Commission is going about its task.

I would, however, like to share with you one of my hopes for the Commission. That is, to escape from a rather predictable and stultifying impasse which all too quickly descends upon the terms of the discussion. The opposing camps line up in the following way: those who have most to gain from the imposition of conservative discipline argue for the necessity of the Anglican communion developing international organs with decision-making powers and a capacity for imposing sanctions, whereas those who have most to gain from permission to revise conventional teachings argue that Anglicans have no tradition of, or need for such bodies. It is certainly understandable why a polarisation of this kind should take place. The plaintiff, after all, in the Kikuyu Conference controversy was the conservative Frank Weston. It was he who asked the Archbishop to curtail the actions of his neighbouring bishops and their dioceses. Only a central body or person could do that. The association of discipline and strong central instruments of authority is nothing if not intelligible. But it is, nonetheless, a mistake, as the outcome in 1914-15 makes clear. In the event the Archbishop did not uphold the argument that Bishops Peel and Willis had fallen into heresy, nor could he support the idea that non-episcopal churches could simply be regarded as sects. A central authority, be it individual or corporate, can disappoint the hopes of the disciplinarians. And then there is the far from negligible issue of reception. Although the Archbishop gave his judgment and it carried weight, Gore himself publicly stated that he could not accept all of it. The opinion of the Archbishop did not, for Gore, represent the final judgment of the Church.

Gore’s attitude, at this point is not infrequently to be met with amongst Anglicans in my experience. The highest views of episcopacy are professed. But if the judgment of a local bishop or college of bishops departs in any particular from what the individual holding such views approves, it will be set aside as mere opinion. As a leading Nonconformist justly observed at the time, ‘Catholicity’ under such circumstances is simply private judgment under another name. At all events the arguments in favour of attributing a disciplinary role to a central person or body are in principle separate from the arguments which such a person or group might consider persuasive in any given instance. It should be possible to consider the question whether living in communion as Christians understand that term involves or may involve accepting the decisions of a central body about the terms of that communion, without the suspicion that one is covertly or indirectly arguing for or against disciplinary sanctions in any particular matter.

The fundamental question is, what is it like to be the Church? How are we to understand being a member of Christ. If we fail to begin at that point inevitably we will assimilate our understanding of the Church to the nearest secular equivalents. We will think in terms of clubs and society we belong to, and their rules and regulations, and fees and officers, and committees and decision-making arrangements, and management and accountability. It is not, of course, that the Church is exempt from the requirement of being intelligible and effective as an organisation. It needs to express in every aspect its life what it is there to be and to do; it has, in other words, to have its own unique mission at its heart and not the necessarily different task of a different sort of body [Note: I want permission to use the word ‘body’ here without falling prey to the criticism aimed at Working As One Body (the Turnbull Report of 1995) for adopting one image – and that the most conservative – for the Church. I am fully aware of the varieties of models of the Church in Scripture. In this case ‘body’ simply refers to what the Church is in its corporate existence.]

At this point I need to ask your permission to move rather rapidly from the absolutely general question with which I have begun, to one very specific instance of what it means to be the Church. The example I want to take is only one of many, and not necessarily the most important. But it illustrates, I believe, something of very great general importance. The Church, at its heart, has a divinely bestowed mission of embodying kindness. Put away from you, says the author to the Ephesians:

All bitterness and wrath and anger and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you. (Eph. 4:31-2)

This kindness can and should take the form of hospitality - so we have the explicit teaching of the New Testament about hospitality (which I have no need to summarise). But hospitality is an established cultural practice taking many particular and different forms in different groups. It is a manifestation of gift-giving and gift-exchange and the subject of numerous diverse conventions. The teaching that membership of the Church entails the obligation of hospitality has to be worked by members of the church in such a way that it is recognisable as hospitality in their own given context, and also that it is motivated by a kindness consistent with the love lying at the heart of Christian mission. But plainly, as we gather examples of hospitality from different contexts, the what and the how of the gift-giving involved in all hospitality varies from place to place. What counts as a gift, the language, including the body-language, with which it is given, what kind of obligation it entails, if any – all these are highly particular. And, of course, mistakes and distortions can occur. What is supposed to be hospitality can become, if one is not careful, a form of aggression or condescension, or be motivated by self-interest. The fundamental idea of kindness, then, is anything but redundant in the shaping of hospitality; but it remains the case that kindness can have diverse outcomes within particular cultural traditions.

Now this, of course, is familiar theological territory often known as ‘inculturation’. To be the Church, we say, is to be embodied or inculturated in a particular context. But another way of speaking of this situation is to distinguish two ways of describing what inculturation involves, respectively the ‘thick’ embodied way and the ‘thin’, general or universalised way. In terms of our example of hospitality the Church is the Church in deed and in truth when it practices a genuinely kind hospitality (along, of course, with many other requisite characteristic) in a particular place at a particular time. That is its ‘thick’ embodiment, and it is the primary and real form of the Church. But the Church is also the Church when it teaches Christians in every part of the world the divinely-given mission of kindness, one result of which teaching is that Christians from different parts of the world, with different traditions of hospitality, can recognise kindness when they experience hospitality in a different form.

This distinction between thick and thin ways of understanding particular cultural traditions has recently been used by an eminent American political philosopher, Michael Walser. He has applied it in a particularly sensitive and interesting way to the problem of distributive justice. How is it, he asks, that we know enough about justice to recognise gross injustice when we encounter it internationally, but not enough to imagine that we (in our Western context) can satisfactorily draw up rules for distributing resources, say in China or Afghanistan? The idea of justice, he argues, is inherently thick. ‘Here it is’, he asserts, ‘richly referential, culturally resonant, locked into a locally established symbolic system or network of meanings’ (p.xi). That is how we learn it and practise it, in our own particular contexts. But we need to be sophisticated enough to accommodate a sufficient amount of relativity (but not complete relativism) if we are to understand why our solutions to distributive questions ought not, and cannot be applied in every part of the world. It is because of the experience of thick forms of justice that we can construct a universal, or thin view of it, in the light of which particular forms of injustice in different parts of the world can be identified and opposed. The case, he argues, is not that we start with a thin universal or minimalist account, and try to ‘translate’ it into thick provisions. The correct sequence is important, and gives primacy of place to thick, local traditions.

Now I have already argued that the Church has its own mission, and ought not to adopt the practices or procedures of any other organisation. So I am not about to argue that this illustration from political philosophy can be transferred without further consideration into ecclesiology. But I do want to suggest that Walser is correct to argue that, in relation to justice, our experience of a thick local tradition is the primary datum; and that the same is precisely the case in the experience of being the Church. The New Testament indeed is the literary deposit of the thick experience of being the local Church. The absolutely concrete way in which Christians of the early communities practised hospitality towards each other – and we know it was put into practice because, predictably, we hear of abuses – was one embodied form in which they were kind to one another, and not merely to each other but also, it seems, to strangers. And that was how they came to meet, so the author of Hebrews assures us, angels unawares (Heb. 13:2).

If you have followed the argument as I hope, it will be evident that it has an important general bearing on the formulation of a universal doctrine of the Church. If the primary being of the Church resides in its thick local embodiment, we arrive at a thin or universal understanding of the Church by a process which involves reflecting on a plurality of local forms of embodiment. This reverses the sequence from the widely held and understandable assumption that we begin the process of reflection by formulating a universal doctrine of the Church which is then, as it were, ‘translated’ or ‘inculturated’ into a diversity of contexts. One must take this project absolutely seriously and respectfully because it is the current teaching of the Roman Catholic Church; on one aspect of this I want to comment shortly.

But permit me to observe at this point of our argument how much more intelligible this makes our relationship to the understandings of the Church which we find in the pages of the New Testament. It is notorious, for example, that we are confronted by a plurality of images of the Church – one well-known study put the number at ninety-three – and a variety of stages of self-understanding corresponding to different contexts and pressures. These are all, in terms of the distinction we are using, ‘thick’ ideas of the Church, and they are diverse. It makes, therefore, no sense to try and accumulate them into one universally applicable ‘doctrine of the Church’. The process is more indirect than that.

The same distinction helps us also with the problem of what is sometimes called ‘primitivism’, the attempt of a modern church to fashion the whole of its life according to the form and substance of the primitive church. Inevitably this leads to acute problems, not merely because of the variety of structures developed in the early communities, but also because of the sheer difference in scale, attitudes and context in the modern world. To recognise the New Testament as evidence for a plurality of thick ecclesiologies, though it makes the task of being the Church in our context more complicated, nonetheless frees one from the superstition that our duty is simply to recreate the primitive church.

How then are we to interpret the massive achievements of Roman Catholic ecclesiology, which holds, in the famous phrase of the Second Vatican Council, that the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church ‘subsists in’ the Roman Catholic Church (Lumen Gentium I, 8)? Roman Catholic ecclesiology and Canon Law can be seen as a massive and remarkable attempt to fashion and to enforce a thick, universal ecclesiology – and this is precisely how Michael Walser sees it, the ecclesiological equivalent of the vain attempt to conceptualise universal standards of distributive justice (see Thick and Thin, 48f). But on this, as on so many other questions, it is a mistake to think of the Roman Catholic Church as an ideological monolith. There is, in fact, a vigorous discussion, not as well known to Anglicans as it should be, precisely about this question; can there be a proper degree of local relativity of ecclesiologies consistent with the ministry of a universal primacy? Put in terms of our distinction, can you have both thick local ecclesiologies and a thin, universal ecclesiology? But precisely if that is a correct way to pose the question, the answer is plainly, Yes. The difficulty for Catholic ecclesiology is to acknowledge the conceptual primacy of the local embodiment of the Church.

One of the aspects of the current debate in Roman Catholic ecclesiology concerns the familiar, but also new term ‘subsidiarity’. It is important to be clear about the definition of this word, which, of course, is linked to the familiar adjective ‘subsidiary’. ‘Subsidiarity’ (Subsidiarität in German) is the doctrine that higher bodies are subsidiary to lower bodies in respect of certain questions. It was formulated as a social-philosophical principle in the Encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno in 1931, and encapsulated three basic ideas:
Human beings are themselves the subject of rights and no collectivity must claim the sole competence to do what is within the individual’s power Larger units in society should not deprive smaller units of the capacity to carry out those actions of which they are capable The state, in particular, has the duty to help lower units carry out what is within their power and competence

The negative side of the first and second of these ideas has been pithily phrased by the contemporary management theorist, Charles Handy, in the maxim, ‘Stealing people’s decisions is wrong’. At the same time, however, the social context for formulating the idea of subsidiarity implies both the existence of a state, and its capacity to define what is within the power and competence of a lower unit. Subsidiarity does not, and cannot mean the dissolution or abdication of the responsibilities of the centre. Handy is quite clear that even a devolved, de-centred company organisation needs the emergency power of swift intervention if something goes wrong in a part of it. Subsidiarity is not another name for every small group or individual claiming the unfettered right to do what is right in their own eyes.

The relevance of all this to ecclesiology is obvious; and its bearing upon Anglican ecclesiology has recently made public in two recent documents, one internal to the Church of England, the Turnbull Report of 1995, the other the report of the International Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission, the Virginia Report of 1998. Both of these affirm that Anglican ecclesiology is committed to the doctrine of subsidiarity. In the Church of England terms, it would not therefore be right for the Archbishop’s Council to deprive, let us say, the dioceses of the capacity to carry out the mission of the Church in their area. Stealing diocesan decisions would be wrong. In Anglican Communion terms, it would not be right for, let us say, the Lambeth Conference, the Primates’ Committee or the Anglican Consultative Council, to deprive a member province of the capacity to carry out the mission of the Church in that province. In the Virginia Report there is brief description of the different levels where competency of a certain kind exists. The task of central bodies is to help units at a ‘lower’ level (and the term ‘lower’ is put in inverted commas to indicate the absence of any judgment of inferiority – on the contrary, the ‘lower’ level is closer to where the Church is real). No one should prevent them from carrying out what is within their power and competence. And the reason why there should be a privileging of these more local embodiments of the Church is the Church’s commitment to face-to-face relationships.

All this argument in favour of subsidiarity cannot, however, be construed as asserting any kind of provincial, diocesan or parochial autonomy. It cannot, and does not mean that each unit does what it prefers irrespective of the rest. Subsidiarity, if it is to work, implies the existence of a competency over competencies. It is totally foreseeable that there will be disagreement about what falls to the competency of a lower unit. If anarchy is to be avoided it must be possible for a decision to be arrived at which establishes at what level a given question can be decided.

Let us summarise the position we have reached:
We have seen that to be the Church means to be deeply immersed in a particular community’s life, ways of thinking, assumptions, and patterns of behaviour. You only understand the Church if you can give of it a ‘thick description’, in face-to-face contact with what is going on in a particular place. It’s that kind of engagement that we glimpse in the pages of the New Testament.
We have argued that it is not impossible for a church both to be committed to, indeed to privilege such a local embodiment and also to preserve a capacity to decide what is within, and what is not within the competence of a lower body.
We have used the example of hospitality to illustrate both the kindness which is or should be characteristic of all local churches. This is an element of its ‘thin’ ecclesiology, and the particular traditions of hospitality in which such kindness is embodied at a face-to-face level. The existence of such a universal teaching is the necessary condition of Christians being able to recognise other traditions of hospitality as genuine expressions of one and the same reality.

In this way, I believe, we have shown the possibility of the co-existence of both thick and thin ecclesiologies, of both subsidiarity and competency over competencies. There can and should be for example, an ecclesiology for Australian Anglicans – indeed there is, in the writing of Bruce Kaye – without it implying that the Anglican Church in Australia, let alone any single diocese in it, is free to do precisely what it wants.

Finally, I wish to redeem the promise I made at the beginning of this lecture to refer explicitly to the current method of work of the International Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission.

As we all know, the argument about same sex relationship threatens the disintegration of our Communion. The reason for this is not just that people disagree profoundly with each other; that, in a way, is quite normal for Christian history. The crucial matter is rather that this issue is said by some of those who oppose the change in the Church’s teaching and discipline on the same sex unions to be church-dividing. In other words, it is asserted that it is impossible to remain in communion with those who teach that such partners are within the way of holiness laid down as the Christian life. It is important to realise that we are not being asked to make up our minds whether or not such teaching is consistent with Christian doctrine and ethics. The issue for the terms of communion is sharper. If your church, through its representative processes and in the person of its representative teachers, proposes this view, that is, that same sex partnerships are consonant with Christian teaching and ethics, can one consistently remain in communion with such a body and such persons? That is the issue about communion in the Anglican Communion. The Commission is not asked to study the issue of lesbian and gay relationships; but it is asked to consider the problem of communion which teaching on this matter raises in the the minds of some Anglicans

We are preferably well aware that there are those for whom the reference of this question to an obscure commission, which would take years to report, is a classic way of burying it. The last trump will sound, and Anglicans will doubtless appoint another commission to enquire into what it means – footnotes to a note, one might say. But this Commission believes that it has stumbled on a method, which we dare to think is original and has real merit. The planned meeting of the Commission was scheduled for the days immediately following 11 September 2001. As a consequence the diminished number of those who were able to assemble began their work by asking the whole communion for help with four questions. These we posted on the internet and circulated to all bishops and theological institutions. To our surprise we received nearly 100 replies. Encouraged by this response, we have now analysed the correspondence we have received, and have circulated six propositions with signed commentaries attached. These represent where our thinking is going at the moment, and have again been posted with an invitation for further replies.

We do not know of any other commission which has worked in this way. And we believe that the act of corresponding publicly on our progress is a way of nourishing and building up the very communion we are seeking to understand.

Let me close by citing one of the six propositions, number four. It reads:

Since the beginning of Christianity disputes have arisen in which the truth of the Gospel is seen to be at stake. Not all disputes are of such significance, but some are. In a communion made up of many different churches, discernment is required to identify what in any particular context are the crucial issues for the life of the Church.

Then follows a commentary which strongly coheres with the themes of the current lecture. ‘The Scriptures themselves’, it affirms, ‘themselves bear witness to varieties of understanding within the people of God’. This is the case for both the Old and New Testaments. The instances where a plurality of views is appropriate are balanced by occasions where it is clear that the very terms of the covenant or the new covenant are at stake. In our day we can expect diversity of practice and of theological interpretation to continue, bearing in mind the huge diversity of contexts and circumstances. At the same time we must note the conciliar process which the church evolved for identifying and dealing with the major issues. A later proposition takes up the theme of arbitration in disputes and affirms that the Church ‘needs to develop structures for testing, reconciliation and restraint’.

The Trees and the Forrester

2009-07-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

By Eric Von Salzen

It seems that Kevin Thew Forrester’s selection as Bishop of Northern Michigan has not been approved. People whose opinions I respect opposed his elevation, so I’m sure that it’s a good thing that he will not be a bishop.

I haven’t posted anything, here or elsewhere, about this controversy, because I frankly found it well above my pay grade. When people start arguing about what Gregory of Nyssa, or Nicholas of Cusa, or Julian of Norwich, said, well I’m darn proud to say I recognize the names (thank you EFM!), but I couldn’t begin to figure out whose interpretation is right.

And that brings me to my point. How do the opponents of Thew Forrester answer the folks in the pews if they ask why this fellow shouldn’t be a bishop? The folks in the pews don’t know Gregory of Nyssa from Gregory Peck, and probably think that Julian of Norwich is a dress designer. I suspect that their eyes would glaze over if you tried to explain the fine points of atonement theology, or the Doctrine of Theosis, or the difference between pantheism and panentheism (that last one even confuses my spell-checker).

The “Muslim Priest” was an easy call. Most folks can understand that the Episcopal Church can’t have a priest who’s a Muslim – some folks may disagree with that decision, but they can understand it. If Thew Forrester could have been fairly dubbed a “Buddhist Bishop”, that would have made it easy to explain why he couldn’t be a bishop of the Episcopal Church. That’s how Wikipedia handles it, describing Thew Forrester as controversial “due to [his] status as a Christian who practices Zen Buddhist meditation.” But as I read the comments of Thew Forrester’s opponents on Anglican Centrist, it really wouldn’t be accurate to say that Buddhism is why so many serious orthodox Episcopalians opposed him.

Back in March, Father Jones posted a sermon by Thew Forrester on Anglican Centrist. It’s the only Thew Forrester sermon I’ve read, and I found it turgid, boring, and unconvincing, but not outside the wide range of views that we tolerate in the Episcopal Church. Frankly, I’ve heard worse in several Episcopal churches. So how does one explain to the folks in the pews why he couldn’t be a bishop?

One answer, of course, is not to try to explain it to laymen. You could say: Look, this is a theological issue, you wouldn’t understand. So just trust the judgment of the bishops, priests, and other scholars of theology that Thew Forrester’s views are beyond the pale.

There are two problems with that approach. First, Episcopalians as a group aren’t sheep-like enough to take that for an answer. Second, and more important, to duck the issue that way would be to miss a real teaching opportunity. If his heterodoxy regarding atonement theology (etc.) is serious enough to justify denying Thew Forrester the cathedra, then isn’t it important that Episcopal laypeople understand and appreciate what atonement theology means and why it matters?

I suspect that a lot of good Episcopalians have no clue that there’s anything wrong with “replacing references to salvation with references to union with God”. “Union with God”? That sure sounds religious doesn’t it? Just as Dan Brown’s book, The Da Vinci Code, provided an opportunity to educate people about the teachings and history of the Christian church, perhaps the Thew Forrester episode can be an opportunity to educate lay people about some important theological issues.

Of course, a 15-minute sermon isn’t ideally suited to dealing with complex theological issues. Churches need to provide other opportunities for laypeople to learn about what our religion is all about. But sermons can be a good way to alert laypeople to the issues and encourage them to seek more knowledge about them. A “theological” sermon can be dull, of course (as Thew Forrester himself proved on Trinity Sunday 2008), but it doesn’t have to be. For example, on Trinity Sunday 2009, I happened to be at St. Michael’s, Raleigh, and heard an excellent and enlightening sermon about the Trinity (as difficult a theological issue as you can find). None of the listeners looked bored to me, and they learned some theology, too, whether they knew it or not. Unfortunately, the sermon hasn’t been posted (yet?) on the St. Michael’s website – perhaps Father Jones will read this post and take the hint. Reading the sermon, however, won’t be the same as being there, because Greg Jones began the sermon by singing the first few lines of St. Patrick’s Breastplate. Theology and music! That’s the ticket.

Pre General Convention - Again

2009-06-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

This summer's General Convention will be very important in determining the future of the Episcopal Church in terms of our relations with the other churches of the Anglican Communion but also in terms of our own inner life -- as to what we proclaim, and how we conduct our mission and ministry. In slang terms, the decisions we make this summer in Anaheim will show ourselves and our sister churches around the globe, 'How we roll.'

I am thinking in particular of the rather large number of resolutions which pertain to overturning B033 -- a hastily prepared resolution put forward last triennium in order to assure our communion partners that we were responding to calls for moratoria on elections of bishops non-celibate gay persons. I am also thinking of the similarly large number of resolutions coming forward which go to the question of marriage equality.

It is for sure that the parties in the Anglican Communion most adamant that the Episcopal Church be expelled or vanquished or in some other way chastised for the consecration of Bishop Robinson have not prevailed in getting their wishes. The Episcopal Church is still a member in good standing of the Anglican Communion, we named the first women ever as primate, and we continue to be at the table. But, at the same time, in the six years since 2003, we have seen a de facto realignment within the Communion by several provinces, as well as the formation of a self-styled new province for North America. The recent deliberations of the Anglican Consultative Council were frought to say the least - but the decision to continue improving the Anglican Covenant appears to stand.

This General Convention therefore is under no pressure to consider the Anglican Covenant. The only folks who are insistent upon immediate action against the Episcopal Church are largely now themselves self-exiled. At the same time, the only other folks insistent upon immediate and strident action are those who seek, as Integrity states on their website, to "effectively nullify the effects of B033 and to pass a resolution that will signiﬁcantly advance rites for blessing same-gender relationships."

To be sure, if resolutions are passed which would effectively nullify B033 and amount to the authorization of blessings of same-sex unions, many more member churches of the Anglican Communion will take this as a direct affront. Advocates for immediate action argue that 1) The Communion effects will be minimal; or 2) We shouldn't worry about the Communion consequences; or 3) We will be saddened by negative consequences, but we believe this is absolutely necessary to do this now.

In my view, the only faithful attitude would be the last one. This is the one that says, "Yes, these decisions will have obvious impacts on our partners, and many of them may see them as a sign that we no longer wish to be in a meaningful communion relationship whereby we actually give up a bit of our full autonomy, and believe we are called to walk more alone for the sake of this thing we believe we must now do."

However, while I think it is clear that many faithful actions do require taking this latter attitude -- I question whether or not the actions called for are indeed both just and timely. In other words, there is a range of possible actions which may be taken by General Convention, and I am not sure that taking the one that goes the furthest down a given trajectory is the wisest one.

Specifically, I think that there is no particular urgency to overturn B033 in fact.

The resolution itself is not particularly binding, and it is likewise rather vague in its wording. It is referred to as a de facto moratorium on non-celibate gay bishops, but that is not so. The de facto moratorium -- if there is one -- is in place by virtue of the fact that people know that if we do consent to a non-celibate gay bishop, the global response will be one of increased division, tumult and disharmony. That knowledge alone is what constitutes the boundary, and whether or not B033 is in place makes no meaingful difference.

In line with what the Presiding Bishop has said, I advocate not repealing B033, and simply leaving it where it is.

As well, as one in the midst of a theological task force appointed by my bishop to examine the church's teaching on marriage, I am convinced of only one thing: the average Episcopalian, lay or clerical, cannot yet have a particularly deep theological conversation about what we say marriage is -- and there remains a wide array of arguments among those who know a great deal, but who don't agree. I feel much better about taking a look at the theology of marriage bound up in our Book of Common Prayer, seeing what it is we really uphold and affirm already, see what if anything in depth it has to do with Church/State questions, and also ask how it is we might be called by God to expand the range of who may be married.

Given that in my humble opinion the best short book on the subject of same-sexuality and the church yet to be written has only been published this year -- Tobias Haller's Reasonable and Holy -- and that a great many of the prevailing arguments are not anywhere as deep or well-argued as his -- I simply do not believe that a sufficient portion of the Episcopal Church is prepared theologically to authorize the development of common rites.

As such, I would advocate for acceptance of resolutions which actively promote the deepening of the listening process as called for by the Windsor Report, but also do the hard work of thinking theologically about what we already really uphold about public and solemn covenants between two people in the presence of God. As well, I would advocate for a resolution -- if one is even necessary -- which acknowledges the pastoral latitude of our diocesan bishops to permit the liturgical blessing of relationships between persons for whom the Book of Common prayer's rites of marriage are not an option.

There are two resolutions which go along these lines, the first is Resolution C014, entitled "Theological Study of Christian Marriage," from the Diocese of El Camino Real which says:

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That the 76th General Convention authorize a committee of both houses to examine the theological dimensions of Christian marriage, to develop a program for discussion in the dioceses, and to report to the 77th General Convention.

And second, C004, entitled Full Participation of LGBTI Community, coming out of the Diocese of Newark in the House of Bishops which says:

Resolved, the House of _______ concurring, That the 76th General Convention affirm that there are no restrictions on a diocesan bishop's authorization of the liturgical blessing of committed relationships between same-sex partners.

I think we need to keep moving forward both mindful of those who require our pastoral ministry, but also with regard to how God is speaking to us in deep theological reflection, and in regard to our global sisters and brothers. It is not easy to move forward this way, but it may be more fruitful in the long run.

To this end, I am almost finished with Tobias book, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Tony Clavier on ACNA

2009-06-30T15:16:00.000-07:00

From Covenant:

The “Anglican Church of North America” has been formed. What it will become is yet to be seen. From the outside it seems to be a bewildering mixture of structures, including rump former Episcopal dioceses, collections of congregations which were formerly parts of the Anglican Church of Canada, ecclesial extra-territorial missions of overseas Provinces which have established ‘mission’ in North America and appointed missionary bishops, an Anglo-Catholic society, Forward in Faith which developed originally as a coalition of ‘Catholic’ clergy and parishes within TEC after the ordination of women and at least one jurisdiction which created its own self-identity in the midst of the Catholic Evangelical disputes of the 19th.

What unites this disparate constituency is a common belief that there is no room at the inns we term The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada, the official Anglican Provinces of the Anglican Communion in this Continent. This is not the first attempt to create a common home for the alienated. In 1977 in St. Louis a Congress met which attempted to create a similar united alternative expression of Anglicanism. If anything the differences of appoach, even of faith and one must say personalities which made a shambles of that movement are even more pronounced in Bedford, where the new Archbishop will be enthroned tonight. One significant difference is to be noted. This time those attempting to create “common cause” in Texas this week have the support and perhaps in an informal manner the oversight and counsel of overseas Provinces and dioceses and again in an informal sense those charged with leading ACNA have a larger constituency overseas to which they must answer. We shall see whether the “particularism” which seems to be in the American bloodstream south of the Canadian border will be as potent in ACNA is it is in TEC. The temptation to claim a special revelation vouchsafed to Americans and to be exported abroad has been manifest in both groups, although from different prospectives and both have been potent dividers in the Anglican Communion.

Three main problems face the newly formed ACNA, and they are all formidable. All of them in a sense limit the ability of ACNA to break free of its emotional and psychological attachment to that which has brought them to this point. The first revolves around property disputes. I wrote to bishops and deputies to General Convention today suggesting that a trust or trusts be formed to administer disputed property and to enter into temporary agreements in cases in which a vast majority of parishioners in such properties wish no longer to be in TEC, negotiating leases, shared arrangements and creative solutions to take these disputes out of the secular courts. I was not encouraged by the responses I received, most of which accused those leaving us off stealing property or of being so bigoted against gay and lesbians that in justice they should be shunned. Justice, I am told, trumps charity.

The second problem revolves around the language used to depose bishops and other clergy who have joined ACNA which, if language means anything at all, purports to laicise such clergy rather than merely to desprive them of the right to exercise ministry in Provinces in which they have no desire to exercise ministry.

The third is the problematic relationship between ACNA and the Instruments of Unity of the Anglican Communion which has exported American problems worldwide and threatens to destroy the unity of the entire Communion. If indeed the Communion comes apart because of what has happened here, ACNA will, whether it deserves to be blamed or not, bear a good deal of responsibility for a tragic schism, a responsibility in which it will ironically, be accused of sharing responsibility with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, to what extent perhaps is a judgment differently assessed by people on differing sides of this tragedy.

These drawsbacks into that which has happened harm both sides in the dispute. TEC and the ACofC have a psychological, territorial and monetary investment in their commitment to retain property, diocesan identity and to disown those who have left them. ACNA has a similar investment in retaining property, diocesan and jurisdictional integrity and the status of their clergy.

Thus the ghost of things past haunts both households. Both also are driven to defend what their part has been in all this and such a defense is capable of compromising the essential identity and mission of the church. Causes replace Gospel and self-authentication replaces mission. In such situations it is easy for both groups to become mirror images of each other, or other sides of the same coin, trapped in their own involvement like a couples in a lengthy, bitter and unresolved divorce.

Those of us in TEC who were once moderate “traditionalists” are now driven to the edge and wonder just how welcome we are in a growingly monochrome and less comprehensive Episcopal Church, a church now impelled to justify its narrowing “comprehension” to the rest of the Anglican Communion and capable of being as militantly reactive to anything and anyone whose faith is that of the Prayer Book and the Catechism as it has been to those who have left. Those of us who are “Communion Partners” are already being branded as schismatics merely because we wish to adopt an Anglican Covenant at diocesan level whatever the General Convention eventually decides to do once a Covenant is offered to the Communion.

General Convention has an opportunity to reach out to those who have left and to those of us who remain by adopting a language of charity and forbearance, the language of the Cross rather than that of institutional self-justification and protection. We shall see.

Orthodoxy is a Funny Thing

2009-06-24T06:52:00.000-07:00

I found this comment on Episcopal Cafe by the Rev. Michael Pipkin to be worth repeating:

Orthodoxy is a funny thing. Yes, it’s a word that has been hijacked by the more conservative wings of most religions, and it is a word that has been wielded for millennia to achieve the selfish aims of so many sick-minded theologians who are trying to make God into their own image. As we struggle to regain our sense of what Orthodoxy is and is not, we must take care, as you suggest, to err on the side of the inclusive embrace, or else run the risk of missing the core message of Jesus’ ministry (which I would define as reconciliation).

I would, normally, fully embrace the general understanding of orthodoxy that you describe: "that Christ lifted up on the cross drew all people to himself as he had taken all of human life to himself, moment by moment throughout Jesus’ life among us.” But I think that what you are affirming is not the availability and desire of God to embrace us all through Jesus Christ – what you seem to be suggesting is a universalizing blessing of God’s embrace on all that we might encounter or endure as a definition of salvation – and I’m not sure that this is true. While I do believe that God’s blessing is universally available, indeed, woven throughout everything as a product of creation – I think that there is also an element of intentionality and reception that are necessary.

Yes, I do believe that God would like for all of us to warmly receive him, and to believe in his Son, and to know the richness of that relationship. That is what was/is behind the Incarnation itself. But to say, “what Christ did not assume, he did not save” is not the same thing as saying that everything is good and right and blessed because God became Human. Yes, God ennobled Humanity when Jesus became human (Anselm?), but that ennobling does not override the necessary function of Human choice and the freedom of the will. These are still factors that must be considered, and it remains a part of the human condition that we can and do reject God – and it remains a part of the Covenant that God lets us.

It must be so. Without our ability to reject God, and without God’s allowance for us to reject him, we would be nothing more than mere puppets playing out a sick game – and I don’t think that any of us believe that.

No, we must choose God – we must choose the loving embrace – and even if blessing is forced on us, love cannot be compelled. I am focusing on “choice” because Orthodoxy itself suggests that there must be some kind of choice – even the kind of Orthodoxy that you suggest Irenaeus defends that “holds an opening for universal salvation, union, and knowledge of God.” Even your words suggest that there is only an “opening” – and I imagine that your words suggest a door that is open (invitationally), not a black hole that is sucking us all in. If that is the case, then, as we contemplate the choice of God, we must also contemplate what we are choosing, and what we are excluding.

The very same Ecumenical Councils that you cite as wrestling with Christology did, indeed, come up with some exclusionary language for what is and what is not Christian. The creeds themselves are at once doctrinal, theological, devotional, and prayerful (if I may take language from Jaroslav Pelikan), and as such betray our human wrestling with an imprecise language that is trying to articulate universal and relative/personal experiences of God at the same time.

Even so, the Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325 stated “The catholic and apostolic church anathematizes any and all those so-called Christians who presume to deviate from their creed or alter it in any way.” So, even as you say, "orthodoxy consistently rejected enlightened, high-minded efforts to narrow, refine, protect, and make wholly consistent the church’s faith and practice," I must object and suggest that there *were*, indeed, very successful attempts to narrow, refine, protect, and make consistent the faith and practice of the church.

Yes, in general, I think that we are being called to reconcile the world to Christ – to bring the world to Jesus Christ in a radical way, in an inclusive way – but I disagree with your interpretation of Irenaeus’ own ministry and theology, and want to suggest that any definition of Orthodoxy requires some lines, even the most radically inclusive definition.

You seem to be working very hard to defend the election of Kevin Thew Forrester, even to the point of claiming a sort of Gnosticism on the part of bishops and Standing Committees of the Episcopal Church (using words like elitism and secret knowledge in the process). Perhaps it is more innocent than you presume.

We have a process of consent in the Episcopal Church in order to evaluate and maintain a sense of unity, orthodoxy, and identity. I do not believe that we are attempting to create cookie cutter processes, and generally dioceses are free to use whatever process of election seems good and right to them… generally. But a Bishop is elected and “called to guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church” (BCP 517) – which is the answer to your question: “Why would we subject any preacher who is actively engaged in pastoral and missionary theology to a line by line scrutiny of sermons-once-preached to see if phrases drawn from ancient Christian and contemporary cultural sources might be taken to imply something that deviates from a central ‘core of orthodoxy.’”

I do not think that we are attempting some kind of Gnostic perfection by examining any preacher’s writings as part of the Episcopal Election Consent Process. Rather, I think that it is an attempt to be faithful to an understanding of our faith and polity, while exercising our responsibility as an ecclesial body that is called upon to ask these questions without the presumption of a foregone conclusion. The consent process is not meant to be a rubber stamp process, and for it to have integrity, I believe that those involved must attempt a faithful examination. I trust that this is what they have done – prayerfully, faithfully, and with deep love for the people of Northern Michigan.

Anglican Church in North America Birthday

2009-06-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

Today, at the Bedford, Texas gathering of delegates representing what has been known for the past year or so as the Common Cause Partnership a new constitution has been approved, and a new ecclesial community born. The Anglican Church in North America has also named former Episcopalian bishop Robert Duncan as its archbishop. Though deposed from holy orders by The Episcopal Church, Duncan has been recognized by several non-U.S. Anglican provinces as a bishop in good standing anyway. The Anglican Church in North America is not a province of the Anglican Communion, but it is being recognized by several provinces anyway. As well, significantly high ranking non-Anglican figures were present at the meeting, notably Pastor Rick Warren, Orthodox Metropolitan Jonah, and a high ranking cleric from the Missouri Synod Lutherans.

On the one hand, while the ACNA has declared The Episcopal Church, and significant portions of the Anglican Communion (including Canterbury), as fundamentally flawed apostate churches which no longer are to be recognized as valid, they also claim to be rooted in the love of God in Christ.

To put it bluntly, the two claims are necessary in order for them to have any validity or integrity themselves. Firstly, of course, if they are not rooted in the love of God in Christ, then they are not in anyway Christian. Secondly, but importantly, unless it is true that The Episcopal Church and large portions of the Anglican Communion (centered as it is in Canterbury) are invalid as Churches, then the ACNA has moved too autonomously, too precipitously, and against normative Anglican methods and identity.

Time and the Holy Spirit will tell.

For now, it is up to The Episcopal Church and the wider communion to focus on the first and primary question of all -- 'Are We Rooted and Totally Focused on the Love of God in Christ?'

That's our claim to Christian identity, and ultimately, the only reason we or the Anglican Communion should exist anyway.

Secret Committees and Deja Vu in Reverse

2009-06-18T08:37:00.001-07:00

Much is being made at present by some of my good friends about how bad it is that the House of Bishops has a committee exploring sexuality and theology -- but whose members are not yet publically known. Other blogs have begun 'outing' the membership -- and thus far we find the names Ellen Charry (PTS) and Daniel Westberg (Nashotah). Perhaps, it would have been better had the House of Bishops simply identified the panel by name, and then requested that they be left to do their work in privacy. That seems perfectly reasonable, and indeed preferable to me.

However, in a way, we have been here before.

At the 1991 General Convention a compromise resolution was passed, A104sa, which formed a committee to produce a large-scale questionnaire and pastoral response on questions of human sexuality. The report, entitled Continuing the Dialogue, was released at the 1994 General Convention. However, before it was released, an early draft was leaked and then widely condemned by a number of conservative critics -- including several who have left The Episcopal Church altogether. Notably, Stephen Noll and Terrence Kelshaw (now with Uganda), and Mike McManus (now of Evangelical Presbyterian Church), along with the Episcopalians United group, condemned the report, the process, and the direction they pointed toward. Chief among the points of criticism was the alleged secrecy under which the group operated. Notably, the left (and P.B. Ed Browning) launched a counter-attack against the conservative critics. The following article from the Integrity archives tells the story:

THE CASE OF THE PURLOINED PASTORAL

by Kim Byham

By now, most Episcopalians know that the 4th Draft of the House of Bishops' Pastoral Teaching on Sexuality, which had been under an embargo, was first leaked to the press by person or persons unknown, and then widely distributed by Episcopalians United for Revelation, Renewal and Reformation ("EURRR"). After an extensive investigation, this journal is able to reveal the story behind the story.

At the 1991 General Convention, Resolution A104sa affirmed the church's teaching that sexual expression was appropriate only within the context of heterosexual marriage, but also recognized the 'discontinuity' that exists between the church's teaching and the experience of many of its members. The resolution called for "all congregations ... [to] enter into dialogue and deepen their understanding of these complex issues." More than 30,000 persons have participated in the dialogue. The resolution also called on the House of Bishops to develop a pastoral teaching on the subject of sexuality informed by the churchwide dialogue, as well as from "insight as is necessary from theologians, theological ethicists, social scientists, and gay and lesbian persons." During the past three years a 15-member committee that included nine bishops, three clergy deputies and three lay deputies submitted four drafts of a pastoral teaching to the House of Bishops for refinement.

Since the convention in Phoenix, the bishops have met twice a year in closed meetings with most discussion limited to small table groups of about ten bishops each. The stated purpose was to develop consensus on pastorals regarding racism and sexuality. Bishops agreed not to publish either statement, not comment on the content of either, until they had built consensus. [The Racism Pastoral was a "Letter," which meant that unlike the Sexuality "Teaching," it was required to be read in all congregations -- which it was in June.]

The first press account of the leak came June 1, when conservative Scripps Howard columnist Terry Mattingly fired a broadside at the pastoral. Mattingly has written fairly extensively for "The United Voice," the EURRR newsletter, but he claims he "didn't get [the draft pastoral] from EU[RRR] or any other logical place." In his column he stated:

"The complete 42-page text has not been officially released, but many of its critics and defenders are circulating detailed commentaries that dissect the early drafts. It is impossible to keep church debates behind closed doors in the age of photocopy and fax machines, not to mention electronic mail."

Mr. Mattingly, of course, was being disingenuous because it was only the "critics," not the "defenders," who circulated copies. Indeed, Mattingly confirmed in his June 1 article that he had spoken with "a number of bishops" who were "moderate and conservative critics" of the document. These were chiefly bishops in Province 7, all of whom with the exception of Bishop Sam Hulsey of Northwest Texas, had written a strong statement condemning the 4th draft.

Mattingly's points of criticism were, of course, in the eyes of the beholder:

"It's hard to discuss what the Bible says about sex without mentioning marriage. Nevertheless, the Episcopal House of Bishops is studying eight guidelines for sexual morality that call for lifelong relationships between 'mature adults' without making a single reference to marriages between husbands and wives. This latest modernized sex creed also embraces same-sex unions.

"The sixth guideline proclaims: 'We believe sexual relationships reach their fullest potential as healthy relationships and minimize their capacity for ill when in the context of chaste, faithful, and committed lifelong union between mature adults. We believe that this is as true for homosexual as for heterosexual relationships and that such relationships need and should receive the pastoral care of the Church.'"

A review of the document [which was sent to this reporter and all deputies and alternates by EURRR shortly before we went to press in July] indicates that pointing to this guideline gives a distorted view of the document.

But as of June 1, no one in the leadership of Integrity had seen Draft 4 of the pastoral. Louie Crew immediately posted his concerns about the breach of confidentiality. Mattingly responded electronically on June 3:

"Quite frankly, there are so many copies of the 4th draft floating around that you can get it all over the place. A question for you: Honestly, you DON'T have the 4th draft? I will be stunned if you don't have it."

When Crew did not answer his query by June 6, Mattingly wrote:

"So I will assume ('Man For All Seasons' is one of my favorite movies) that your silence is the same as an affirmative answer to my question: Do you have a copy of the 4th draft? The follow-up question, of course, might be: What role did you plan in helping with the research of the 4th draft?"

This time Crew responded:

"How dare you bully me by sending me unsolicited material and then presuming all manner of things by my silence! How do you expect anyone to trust you? I have not seen the 4th draft. I have had no role in helping with the research for any of the pastoral.

"Both of my bishops have much too much integrity to share with me any material they are not supposed to share, and I would never violate material shared with me in the manner that you have done. You have taken it upon yourself to tell the whole world only those parts that you want the world to see. As a deputy I am appalled that you have so little concern for the processes set in place by General Convention. I would have preferred a more open discussion myself, but that is not what we as a church chose to put in place."

Mattingly apologized to Crew that day, but said:

"My point was that I have had trouble finding many people in the Episcopal Church who have not seen all or various chunks of the pastoral dialogue, or whatever the document is called at the moment. I'm amazed that many writers and columnists in the press haven't already aired this thing out. It's probably hard to justify making much of an effort to probe the views of such a small denomination."

The final installment of this dialogue came from Dr. Crew:

"If you genuinely want to find Episcopalians who have not seen a single one of the drafts, I can point to 99.99+ percent of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark.

"Far be it from me as a writer myself to applaud excessive secrecy, especially in a House that has abused secrecy on numerous occasions in the past. But it was your conservative bishops who fought so hard to force secrecy. Why are you -- a reporter as clearly identified as 'conservative' as I am identified as 'liberal' -- now leaking the report in chunks of your own choosing to the press?

"Are your sources leaking the material through you because they have lost confidence that they can win in any other way besides whipping up the homophobes?"

Mattingly never responded, but the next day, June 10, another even more conservative syndicated Episcopal columnist, Mike McManus, also wrote a column condemning the pastoral by grossly distorting its contents:

"In a still secret fourth draft of a Pastoral Teaching on 'Human Sexuality,' America's Episcopal bishops have abandoned marriage as the norm for sexual behavior, endorsed homosexuality and said they would 'respond pastorally to those persons whose sexual behavior does not conform to the traditional standards and norms of the Church.'"

McManus, undoubtedly unknowingly, makes an interesting observation about the weakness of the conservative position:

"How do the bishops view homosexuality biblically? Who knows? The First Interpretation citing Romans 1:26-7, is traditional: 'Scripture forbids homosexual behavior.' But a Second Interpretation written by Los Angeles Bishop Frederick Borsch says: 'The complete lack of reference to homosexuality in Jesus' words and in the Gospels ... may mean that it was not considered particularly threatening.' Conservative bishops fought to have the traditional point of view included, and it was, but placed next to Borsch's more polished advocacy that 'homosexual orientation was unknown to biblical authors.' Thus, the conservatives have been co-opted -- and even misled. For the document's guidelines have gotten more libertarian."

McManus then quotes the only bishop to speak publicly about the document before its release by EURRR:

"It's horrendous" says Rio Grande Bishop Terence Kelshaw. "It's a minority report for the affirmation of the homosexual lifestyle that 80% of church members don't want. We give no guidance to young people who are not homosexual for their personal development."

Even before McManus' article appeared, Kelshaw was widely viewed as the most likely source for the "leak" of the document. Before being elected bishop, Kelshaw was a member of the faculty of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, the conservative seminary in Ambridge, Penn., and has been rabidly anti-lesgay in his pronouncements in the House of Bishops.

McManus' article also was the first public acknowledgement by EURRR that they had copies of the draft.

"The Rev. Todd Wetzel, director of Episcopalians United, a conservative coalition, sights: 'It undercuts the authority of Scripture. ... It substitutes in its place the paramount value of human experience.'"

A few other newspapers picked up the story in the next few days, but usually in only summary fashion. Just as the story seemed to be dying down, EURRR announced on June 23 that it was making copies available to anyone who wanted them. The July issue of "The United Voice," issued on that day, included very selective excerpts and the entire pastoral guidelines section. EURRR justified this, in a lead editorial, entitled "Breaking the Silence."

"The 15-member committee charged with preparing a Pastoral Teaching on sexuality for the House of Bishops has declared its work embargoed since the first draft. The committee's *unilateral* decision has made the process needlessly furtive and anything but a true dialogue about the Church's teachings on sexual morality."

The justification continued in Todd Wetzel's signed editorial, "Publish Sad Tidings: The Fourth Draft is a Disaster."

"EU has chosen to publish the fourth draft for several reasons:

"- The mass media began reporting on the Pastoral Guidelines in early June. It's time somebody in the Church offered a comprehensive picture of the Pastoral Teaching.

"- *The embargo on all drafts was an arbitrary decision of the A104sa Committee.* Resolution A104sa neither required nor recommended a secretive process for preparing the Pastoral Teaching.

"- This secretive process has been unhealthy in the life of the Church, leading to distrust and gossip, and excluding nearly all lay people and clergy from a crucial discussion.

"- The fourth draft of 'Continuing the Dialogue' is every bit the theological travesty as suggested by rumors circulating throughout the Church.

Of course, as with all EURRR reporting, there was considerable untruth and half-truth in this justification. While A104sa did not call for secrecy, the embargo was a decision of the House of Bishops, not the A104sa Committee. This was confirmed in an interview with the Rt. Rev. Sam Hulsey who heads the Kanuga Planning Team for the House of Bishops, whose committee recommended the embargo. Moreover, EURRR may have been using its own selective release of the draft and the subsequent coverage to justify its broadscale release. EURRR's admitted purpose is to derail the pastoral:

"'Continuing the Dialogue' attempts to codify the local option, in which bishops are free to ordain noncelibate homosexuals and priests are free -- in the name of pastoral care -- to bless same-sex unions. The revisionist theology reflected in 'Continuing the Dialogue,' and the false peace offered by the local option, merely increases the pressure to reject the Church's traditional teachings on sexual morality.

"The committee, however, has shown a repeated willingness to ignore the concerns of orthodox bishops and to move the document further into heterodoxy.

"... Finally, we encourage you to let your bishop know what you think about 'Continuing the Dialogue.' The future of the Episcopal Church is far too important to be shaped by a purported dialogue held behind closed doors and resulting in heterodoxy by pronouncement."

One of the articles in "The United Voice" is by Stephen F. Noll, Professor of Biblical Studies and Academic Dean of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, who apparent has had access to all of the drafts:

"I have followed the drafts of the House of Bishops' pastoral teaching on sexuality since Fall 1993. The committee appointed by the House of Bishops to produce this new teaching has maintained a consistency of purpose throughout -- to legitimate homosexual practice -- muddled only enough in its wording of earlier versions to appear 'inclusive' of all views.

"... In conclusion, it seems clear from reading the drafts sequentially that the drafting committee is intent on advocating a sea change in the moral teaching of the Christian faith. We may be thankful the latest draft is even more clear-cut than the earlier ones, as it becomes obvious that conservative objections cannot be incorporated into this document without leading to theological chaos."

Apparently the drafts of this pastoral were confidential only from Integrity and the lesgay community, while they were widely available in Ambridge.

In another low blow, and a foretaste of tactics to come in Indianapolis, EURRR also condemned the composition of the A104sa Committee, particularly the Rev. Jane Garrett, who is openly lesbian. This, they suggest, automatically invalidates the document, while the presence of Bishop Harry Shipps, who recently called for the excommunication of all "open" lesbians and gay men ["Voice," Summer, 1993], is necessary to represent the true feelings of the Church.

By now, the 4th draft was widely available, and on June 23, Associated Press writer David Briggs did an extensive article. He interviewed numerous people:

"The document doesn't take a stand one way or the other, basically," said the Rev. Jane N. Garrett, a member of the drafting committee. "It leaves everything open for a continuation of the dialogue.

"But Bishop William Frey, dean of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, said presenting different points of view is not pastoral teaching, but a reflection of the chaos in the church on these issues today. 'The nicest thing I can say is that parts of it remind me of theology by Oprah and Donahue,' he said. 'In its present form, it would be the most embarrassing document the bishops have every produced.'

"Committee members would not comment on the contents of the final draft, but said it would not shake up the church. 'It's not going to be a particularly radical document,' said Bishop Frank Allan of Atlanta. 'if people want to get titillated by it, they can get titillated by something else.'

"Garrett said given the tensions in the church the drafting committee deliberately avoided taking a stand on issues such as the ordination of homosexuals. 'There's no way at this moment to reconcile those differences,' she said.

"Wetzel disagrees. He said the document is a sophisticated attempt to place homosexual relations on a par with heterosexual relations. 'I think the real intent of the document is pretty clear: to legitimate homosexual practice,' he said.

"But a leader of an Episcopal gay rights group said that is already happening -- with or without a statement from the bishops. E. Kim Byham, publisher of 'the Voice of Integrity,' said blessings of same-sex unions have occurred in churches throughout the country, and homosexuals have been ordained in some 35 dioceses. 'It's really a done deal,' he said."

PRESIDING BISHOP CONDEMNS EURRR

The following day, the Most Rev. Edmond L. Browning broke his silence on the purloined draft in a letter to all bishops:

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

I write to make you aware that, in defiance of the careful process established by the House of Bishops, Episcopalians United has released draft four of the pastoral teaching on human sexuality. They have issued a press release urging Episcopalians to request a copy of the report from Episcopalians United headquarters.

Further, the pre-Convention issue of their publication, under the guise of "critiquing" the report, is devoted to discrediting the report, the House of Bishops process, and the committee. I find this action utterly reprehensible and unworthy behavior for those who declare themselves to be part of our household of faith.

Careful reading of their newspaper and press reports, as well as exposure to their disgraceful fund-raising materials over the years, seems to indicate that they assume they hold the truth on all of the difficult issues before us, based on their unambiguous interpretation of scripture, which they categorize as "orthodox." They have determined that the fourth draft does not adhere to their position, and apparently believe they are therefore justified in using whatever means to derail the process the bishops have established.

They have characterized the House of Bishops process as "clandestine" and erroneously stated that it was the "unilateral" decision of the committee which made the process "needlessly furtive." As you are aware, the process reflects the House of Bishops efforts to respond to General Convention resolution A104sa.

Episcopalians United charged that there has not been a dialogue. In actual fact, we know that the teaching was not meant to be a dialogue but rather the work of the bishops in consultation with ethicists and biblical scholars. In addition, the teaching was informed by churchwide dialogue involving an estimated 30,000 persons, as reported on by Bishop O'Kelley Whitaker's committee.

Contrary to the substance and spirit of the Episcopalians United coverage, we know that the report reflects the faithful effort of the bishops to help the church continue together in dialogue as we seek to discover God's will. We know that our report will not be an end, but a beginning.

What I find the most difficult about the Episcopalians United action is that their organization has supporters in most of our dioceses, many of whom are unaware of the decidedly un-Christian tactics of Episcopalians United, and of its highly one-sided point of view. These supporters give credence to Episcopalians United claims, regardless of how misleading, incorrect, or totally disingenuous they might be.

It is very important that you know that I spoke yesterday in a conference call to all of the members of the A104sa committee who could be reached, including Bishops Frank Allan, Steven Charleston, Mark Dyer, Rogers Harris, Richard Shimpfky and Vincent Warner and also the Rev. Barnum McCarty and Mary Meader. They are extremely pleased with their efforts on the fifth draft, which is significantly different from the fourth, based on the comments of the House. I regret that the debate around the church provoked by the Episcopalians United action will be about a document that is no longer relevant. I hope that energy will be maintained for a good discussion about the actual report itself.

I believe the most appropriate response to the action of Episcopalians United is first to be aware of it, which is the purpose of this letter, and then be prepared to provide, and to help your clergy provide, accurate information. More important, I believe we, the House of Bishops, must stay on the course we have been following over these last years, and continue to be guided by the Covenant that informs our life together. We must honor our process, which has been open and consultative, and we must honor our sense of what it means to serve as bishops.

-- Edmond L. Browning, Presiding Bishop and Primate

EURRR'S RESPONSE

In response to Bishop Browning, Todd Wetzel wrote a letter defending himself to the House of Bishops, closing with, "[P]lease know that we are deeply saddened by and take exception to both the tone and inaccuracies of the Presiding Bishop's recent comments regarding Episcopalians United and the progress of the dialogue." Nowhere, however, does Wetzel indicate what the inaccuracies are.

Not one to miss an opportunity, Bishop John Howe of Central Florida, also wrote to the Presiding Bishop giving a unique defense of EURRR, in a letter which was circulated by them.

"First, your accusation that EU[RRR] has done something 'in defiance of the careful process established by the House of Bishops' is itself disingenuous. Episcopalians United never agreed to the process by which this 'Pastoral Teaching' has been prepared. ... It is true that the House agreed to the Committee's decision, but obviously one or more of our members broke faith with that agreement. That is not the fault of EU[RRR]. ... I am saddened to say that your letter seems strangely shrill, defensive and antagonistic toward a constituency within this Church that is simply trying to bear allegiance to the 'faith once delivered to the saints' -- at least as they understand it."

This journal is going to press before "The Living Church" has commented on the "leak," but it is safe to assume that that magazine will consider the distribution of an embargoed paper by EURRR to be much less troubling than Integrity's fully authorized reception at the House of Bishops' meeting in Panama.

Sermon by New Primus of Scottish Episcopal Church

2009-06-14T06:13:00.001-07:00

Sermon preached in St Salvator's Chapel, St Andrews on 30th November 2008 by Rt Rev David Chillingworth

Readings: Isaiah 64: 1 - 9 and Mark 13: 24 - 37

Sermon

I'm delighted to be here today - or to be more exact. I'm delighted to be here. But not so delighted about today. It's a good day in some ways. St Andrew's Day - marking a missionary apostle - honouring this place and of course Scotland which has been good to me - marking the title of the diocese in which I exercise ministry.

But it's also Advent Sunday. There are some Sundays which present difficulties for the preacher. Trinity is one. Advent is another. But I like Advent. I like the music - rich hymns and minor keys. I like the urgency of the scripture passages and the apocalyptic writing - the drawing back of the veil and the invitation to contemplate what is beyond contemplation. I like the counter-cultural element of it. Even in these straitened times, the world is winding itself up towards Christmas and we are preparing for the birth of the Saviour. But we are also contemplating the end and the four last things, death, heaven, hell, judgement.

I suppose it's not really fair on St Andrews Day in St Andrews in Scotland to say that I find Scotland astonishingly secular. I've lived with enough overbearing religion in my life to be untroubled by that. But it's hard here to get in touch with the extent to which religion is in the air and in the water and just about everywhere else in Ireland. And I'm thinking particularly today of the religious traditions which really live within the paradigm of the scripture today - the people who put notices on trees on dangerous corners saying 'Prepare to meet thy God'. Or the people who would take me aside in the middle of the night when I was ministering as a hospital chaplain to a faithful disciple coming to the end of life trusting in the generous forgiveness of a merciful saviour and ask me 'Do you think he is ready?'

The challenge of those people to me is the implied question about what I see when I look at life. Do I recognise and live in the knowledge that what I see is but a part of what there is to see and know - the whole of which will be revealed at the end. And as I live, trying to be at ease with myself, my fellow man and my God, can I grasp the call to 24/7 waking and watching and expecting - preparing for the breaking in of the kingdom, the judgement, the reckoning and the end.

Archbishop Rowan Williams recently spoke about his meeting with a man who had been the Senior Consultant Psychiatrist at Broadmoor - who carried throughout his working life the line from the Tempest spoken by Prospero to Miranda, 'What seest thou else?' And through the lens of that universal question comes a new way of looking and seeing - seeing disturbed and violent human beings; nations at war; slaughter in Mumbai; cholera in Zimbabwe. And of course there also comes a way of educating our own world view.

What seest thou else? The danger today is that faith is perceived often as leading us into a smaller world rather than a larger one. Faith seen as a suspending of disbelief appears to be the pathway of those who have chosen to view the world through a lens which reduces it and suggests that, whatever the question, there is only one answer.

But on this Advent Sunday we read in Isaiah and Mark of a cosmic view of the universe we inhabit - of a God far greater than the friend in need to whom we often shrink him - or heavens torn open and mountains which quake - of darkness and falling stars - of urgency and readiness.

But what do we see .. can we see, we who are the clay in the hands of God the potter, that we are not the centre of our own world. Can we see - can I see - that my world view is partial and limited because it is centred on me? Can I see that, even as the Hubble telescope gazes out into world far beyond our imagining, that there are other worlds of sense and beauty and experience far beyond the tiny corner of life which I inhabit and make secure by blessing it with familiarity.

Above all can I see that this is the making of a God of infinite power and of infinite love - that even if I am awake 24/7, ready and prepared, I can never be ready and prepared precisely because I am limited, partial, fallible, sinful. And that if I tremble at the scale and the majesty of what is revealed in these scriptures on this Advent Sunday yet I still tremble in expectation and gratitude and above all Advent hope that all this may yet be for my saving - from the very limitedness which denies what I do not see, cannot see and wilfully refuse to see.

Because it seems to me that Advent Sunday invites us to set aside the domestication of God - the shrinking of God to one who suits our personal and individualistic society - the God who is there for me but whom I don't invite to let me see more than I see. And in so doing it brings us back to that sense of smallness, inadequacy and failure which the domesticated God is seldom allowed to mention to us. And we seek forgiveness in a pentitential season.

The Gap II

2009-06-10T19:01:00.000-07:00

In looking at the comments at Mark Harris' blog, in which opinions are solicited in regards to the Thew Forrester matter, I discern a bit of a generational dynamic, as well as a bit of a culture-shift dynamic also.

Namely, The Episcopal Church -- where growing -- is growing by folks who are joining it, not by birth, but by choice. In some places, those who are joining by choice are also doing so because it is where they want to raise children. I see a lot of this.

What I am noticing, as TEC's make-up begins to change, is that the usually older generation of Episcopalians (older Boomers, mid-20th century modernists) who so often seem completely enamored of the likes of John Shelby Spong, Kevin Thew Forrester, Elaine Pagels, etc., are not replacing themselves with like-minded folks.

On the other hand, the people I am seeing becoming more newly active in TEC seem increasingly to share a great deal of affection for the ancient streams of ancient Latin, Eastern and Celtic theology and practice, along with the desire to see the Church not become either 1) Calvinist/Contemporary Evangelical/Socially Conservative or 2) Modernist/Protestant/Capital 'L' theological Liberal.

Among the rather large number of people I know who have become active in TEC in the past decade, (and at least half from other backgrounds), I see a lot of them seeking an alternative to today's non-denominational/evangelical/contemporary worship/Saddle Back type of Christianity, AND, the boring, stuffy old-shoe Mainline business as usual type. I see folks very much excited by the sorts of communities that Diana Butler Bass describes -- those 'intentional practice' ones -- who likewise are looking for intelligent theology, artful worship traditions, and of course a place to openly practice 'mere Christianity' while leaving the brain turned on.

In the parishes I have served, and among the parishes I know about and look up to for what they are doing in ministry, I see significant growth in all the traditional practices of faith (prayer, service, study, fellowship, welcome, etc.) and also in worship attendance and membership figures.

In my view, therefore, I think those who are currently becoming active in TEC are increasingly attracted to that blend of creedal orthodoxy and classical worship forms that are inform our core identity as a denomination. Certainly, I also find a number of folks who have joined because they felt personally or categorically rejected in more 'conservative' denominations -- either because they were gay, or minded toward social justice, etc. Yet among these, the desire I see being pursued is for a welcoming/inclusive Christian home with compelling liturgy, proclamation and mission -- not a place where all the good old basics are constantly deconstructed, the liturgies constantly tinkered with, or local authorities presume to do it the way they want to all the time.

Generation Gap

2009-06-09T19:34:00.001-07:00

Several of the leading members of what I will call the 'establishment Left' are quite upset with the lack of consents in the election of Thew Forrester. They are beginning to cry, 'witch hunt,' and 'theological oppression.' Others are beginning to cry, 'but he's actually orthodox.' Still others, 'this is the beginning of the end of true intellectualism in the Church.' Still others seem to have begun a process of shaming those 'fellow liberals' who voted against Thew Forrester.

What we are seeing is the Gap between parties in the Episcopal Church who have not historically been seen to be different. The party of theological 'free thinkers' who have eschewed since the 1960s any appreciation for theological and liturgical coherence are awakening to see that there are also Episcopalians who favor the ample and generous orthodoxy of the Prayer Book and Hymnal, and are looking for a more inclusive church, but who are not looking to tweak, revise, redact or avoid the core elements of the faith, or make revision and innovation the constant modus operandi of the church either.

The party of folks who want to keep things loose, open, and 'challenging' -- are finding new resistance from those who want to keep things theologically and liturgically coherent, in and of themselves and in line with centuries of faith and practice, as well as with the global Anglican Communion.

The past number of years has perhaps seen folks from both parties operating together - because both agree with the affirmation of women and glbt people. But, perhaps now, we are beginning to see that once the equality issues are more widely agreed upon internally in TEC, other areas are much less agreed upon.

As I have begun to see on this blog, as well as on Episcopal Cafe, there is an impressive cadre of Episcopalian laity and clergy who are very serious (and usually very educated) about theology and the Anglican tradition. This group tends to agree on matters of theology, liturgy and church order, AND, in regard to the affirmation of women's ordination and the inclusion of all the baptized into sacramental life and leadership.

General Convention: Structural Considerations

2009-06-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

The Rev. Chris Epperson, Rector of St. Columba's in Middletown, Rhode Island writes:

In my diocese, like many others, we hold a clergy gathering with the deputies going to GC. It is a time for sharing information, asking questions and clarifying opinions about the issues on the table. Our GC forum was just last week. In the days since, I have found myself pondering GC itself as a legislative unit, rather than the issues that will be considered.

In the midst of our economic upheaval, some say we should cancel GC. It is too expensive. It should be a teleconference. Some have argued that we should shorten it and just deal with budget. The immediate crisis is rarely a helpful force for sound decision-making or long-term vision.

In a somewhat different fashion, the economic crisis has crystalized my thinking about the Episcopal Church. The failure of General Motors has sparked something for me. GM, once the largest corporation on the planet, has failed and sought reorganization after years of decline. It has been clear through most of my lifetime that GM was not in a position to compete over the long-term with manufacturers like Honda and Toyota. GM has long been top heavy, slow and cumbersome in operation. Every CEO of GM over the last thirty years has promised to improve vehicle quality and profitability. Yet, the slow, stumbling giant has fallen to his knees. An elixir with chunks of SUV will not help him to his feet. What now?

If GM is to survive, it will be through a radical transformation. A top to bottom renaissance is required. I hope GM can make it work.

I wonder what it was like to be inside GM during the long slide. It seems that some raised the alarm. Why was the response inadequate? I imagine some just wanted to believe everything would be fine, after all, we are talking about GM...I am sure many didn’t want to let go of the known for the unknown.

The Church is in the midst of decline. The Mainline has been in a slide for quite some time, maybe as long as GM. As a denomination, we don’t seem to be doing very much about it. Some have examined the data considering birth and death rates. Some have noted growth in larger parishes, and argued that we are experiencing a shift and not decline. Some will argue that faith, health and vitality cannot be quantified.

The numbers included in the “State of the Church” piece of GC seem to illustrate simple decline. There are fewer members of the Episcopal Church. There are fewer people in the pews of Episcopal parishes on your average Sunday.

The Episcopal Church is not a business. There are a zillion ways comparing the Episcopal Church to GM is unfair, but I am thinking about practical dynamics. How connected is GC to the actual state and health of the Church? GC is a legislative body that produces a huge number of resolutions, revisions and what not. How effective is GC at empowering the Church to be the Church? For that matter, how effective is our present model of “being” Church? Do GC, current diocesan structures and parish structure serve the Church well at present, or will they serve the Church of the future?

My questions are not asked out of fear or scarcity. I am not saying we should pare down to run the enterprise more inexpensively. What I desire is a more vibrant, committed, exciting and growing community of servants of Jesus Christ. We face real decisions as the Church. Will we simply operate the way we always have, and pretend that the slide of the last thirty years isn’t happening? Will we expend all our resources and energy propping up an institution that is not currently structured to meet our needs? If GC had the will and support of the rest of the Church, maybe we could do a new thing, a better thing, a more faithful thing. With the aid of the Spirit, it is time for the Church to remake itself.

Uncommon Prayer and Radical Individualism

2009-06-06T20:12:00.001-07:00

One of the things I've long been offended by was the presumption of bishops, priests, deacons and laity to make changes in the Prayer Book which haven't been made by the Church as a whole. It is always one thing to excercise liturgical creativity in special circumstances, on occasion, or in small groups settings. But it is also another to make essentially permanent local option use of things not authorized by General Convention for normal use in this Church.

But why say more when Tobias Haller can do it better:

It is not within the authority (nor in many cases the competence) of individual bishops and parish clergy to tinker with (or radically revise) the texts of the Book of Common Prayer on their own initiative. I have no difficulty with bishops exercising their constitutional authority to allow for the development of liturgies for which no common text exists — though even in this case a bit of research may turn up work already accomplished elsewhere with greater grace and wisdom.

But when it comes to the texts of the Book of Common Prayer, it is important to recall the penultimate word: Common. These are notmy prayers, they are our prayers. They are not mine to tinker with, to alter as the whim (or the Spirit, or the Ego, or both) strike me. There is plenty of scope for creativity in the liturgy without the need to refashion the Eucharistic Prayer or the Baptismal Covenant to suit my own peculiar views. This isn’t about peculiarity, but commonality.

These common prayers are there precisely to be central and uniform (though in the Eucharistic Prayer with considerable variety from which to choose.) They are the center stabilizing point of the compass whose inclusive reach can best be extended and expanded with a rich selection of hymnody (though there are limits there as well! — read the rules), vibrant preaching, and intercessory prayer adapted to the hearts’ content of the people for whom and by whom it is offered.

To those individuals tempted to tinker with the Common Prayer, I offer some old advice, “Put it down; it don’t belong to you.”

— Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Thew Forrester Situation

2009-06-06T14:46:00.000-07:00

The following standing committees did not give consent to Kevin Thew Forrester:

Alabama
Albany
Arizona
Arkansas
Bethlehem
Central Florida
Central Gulf Coast
Colombia
Colorado
Dallas
El Camino Real
Eau Claire
Europe
Florida
Fond du Lac
Fort Worth
Georgia
Hawaii
Iowa
Los Angeles
Louisiana
Maryland
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Northern California
Northern Indiana
Northwest Texas
Northwestern Pennsylvania
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh
Puerto Rico
Quincy
Rhode Island
Rio Grande
San Diego
Springfield
South Carolina
Southwest Florida
Southwestern Virginia
Tennessee
Texas
Western Kansas
Western Louisiana
Western Michigan
West Missouri
West Tennessee
West Texas
West Virginia

Presumably, there will be some more as well.

In looking closely at these dioceses, one certainly sees a range of provinces, churchmanship, and place in the 'spectrum' of Episcopalianism. It is indeed very interesting to look at these dioceses, as well as those who have given assent, and see what may be learned from all of this about 'where we are' as an Episcopal Church vis a vis teaching and church practice.

Northern Michigan Bishop Elect Is Not Affirmed

2009-06-06T06:06:00.000-07:00

Bryan Owen writes:

The Bible Belt Blogger reports that Kevin Thew Forrester, the bishop-elect of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan, has failed to receive the number of consents required for his consecration:

Fifty-six standing committees have now decided to withhold consent, while 29 have given consent, according to a survey by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock. Roughly 16 committees, including seven based outside the United States, are still in the discernment process. Another 10 or so committees have voted, but are currently declining to reveal their vote.

Barring last-minute vote-switching by dioceses across the country, Thew Forrester will not be seated by the House of Bishops. He would be the first bishop-elect to be vetoed by a majority of the Episcopal Church’s 111 standing committees since at least the 1930s.

I certainly hope this holds without undue intervention "from above."

The Bible Belt Blogger also summarizes the controversy surrounding Forrester:

Thew Forrester, the rector at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Marquette, Mich., was overwhelmingly elected bishop by representatives of the Diocese of Northern Michigan on Feb. 21. Since then, he has been heavily criticized on theological and liturgical grounds. Critics said Thew Forrester altered the denomination’s baptismal covenant to make it more closely reflect his own personal theological views. He likewise rewrote the church’s Easter Vigil and reworked the Apostles' Creed. Critics said the changes removed or obscured key Christian teachings about the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross, the problem of sin, the will of God and the identity of Jesus as the eternally divine and only-begotten Son of God. Thew Forrester said the changes were needed to keep the church relevant in the 21st century and that they reflected popular Christian beliefs that predated the Middle Ages.

I have repeatedly taken a stand against Forrester’s theological and liturgical innovations, but I take no pleasure in what must certainly be a difficult time for him and for his family and friends. They need and deserve our prayers.

My hope is that the pain this most surely causes will not be in vain, but rather that, by God’s grace, it will bear fruit for the Episcopal Church. Commenting about all of this over at Episcopal Café’s “The Lead,” Bill Carroll says it about as well as anyone could:

In this case, I think history will remember this as the point when the Episcopal Church began to show some backbone about basic Christian doctrine. For too long, we have allowed our respect for difference to mean anything goes. There are boundaries. We might be wrong about whether Fr. Forrester has crossed the line (I find his defense to be unconvincing), but we are not wrong that the Creeds and the liturgy give us some standards (based ultimately in Scripture) that one has to live up to. I would think this would hold for any baptized member of the Church. It is particularly important for bishops, who are charged with guarding the faith. … The danger for us has not been witch hunts. It has been an amorphous Christianity that does not adhere to the standards it sets for itself.

Many have noted the way in which this case has united Episcopalians across the theological spectrum. Given the depths of division on so many other issues, I consider that a hopeful sign that there remains a background of agreement behind our disagreements. I pray that we will continue to find ways to build on that background of agreement, and not just in cases like this in which we are united in what we oppose.

But I'm not naïve enough to think that everything is hunky-dory. For the agendas espoused by the far-left and the far-right on the theological spectrum continue to advocate for departures from the generous orthodoxy espoused by the mainstream of the Anglican tradition. The Forrester case is, indeed, a wake-up call that the Episcopal Church has been infiltrated by both bad and heretical theology. It may not be as pervasive as the more stringent doomsayers cry, but it's there and, left unchecked, will spread and come to seem more and more "normal." It's up to the "diverse center" of the Episcopal Church to remain vigilant and to have the courage to say "no" to those agendas.

In the end, if all of this wakes the Episcopal Church up to the necessity of “show[ing] some backbone about basic Christian doctrine” and adhering to the norms laid out in Scripture, the Creeds, and the liturgies of the Prayer Book, then the Forrester case will have served an important purpose.

Who Are We?

2009-05-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

In Lent of 1849, the estimable F. D. Maurice explained in a sermon just 'who we are' as Christians.

He proclaimed:

This, and nothing less than this, is implied in our Church-life, and our acts of Communion. We are actually taken to be members of Christ, children of God. The words are simple, but, oh what a depth is in them, what an infinite reproach to every one of us!

"The Bible," we are told sometimes, "gives us such a beautiful picture of what we should be."

Nonsense! it gives us no picture at all. It reveals to us a fact; it tells us what we actually are: it says, "This is the form in which God created you, to which He has restored you: this is the work which the Eternal God, the God of truth and love, is continually carrying on within you."

Prayer Book Revisers Take Caution!

2009-05-28T16:31:00.001-07:00

Christopher is becoming one of my favorite theologians in the Episcopalian blogosphere. He writes:

Recently, a commendation was cobbled together from principles of the Quadrilateral with two additional principles added besides toward a vision of what we share in our unity in Jesus Christ and through Him and in the Holy Spirit as participation in the Life of the Holy Trinity. Not only as Christians, but specifically as Anglican Christians. The fifth reads:

The Book of Common Prayer as authorized in this Church in General Convention as the normative standard of worship in this Church.

Nothing in this commendation is new. It's a reframing of what others have handed to us, especially Maurice and Reed Huntington, but also Ramsey, Gore, Elizabeth I, and many, many others. This commendation, among other things, works within a generous framework to nevertheless affirm Prayer Book discipline. Fortuitiously, as at least one author, myself, had not read the latest Cambridge-Ridley Covenant Draft, yet it does seem that those who proposed this Anglican Covenant and some of us who remain hesitant or skeptical of such a Covenant in its juridical and discerning capacity, do nonetheless see need for further elucidation of principles beyond the Quadrilateral: Prayer Book discipline (Common Prayer in a National or Regional Church) and Diakonia (service to the world). The former lends us to God, the latter to our neighbor.

Though the Covenant addresses the Communion and this commendation addresses The Episcopal Church, agreement in this much is not a waste of time or mediocre as so many are suggesting. Further articulation of what it means to be Anglican is to be welcomed, even if what is articulated is merely elucidation of what has been said in other ways by ancestors in faith. This elucidation of Prayer Book discipline and Diakonia could be said to be a co-incidence of what is seen as important and necessary in the life of a particular Church (after all the Quadrilateral began its life here) and the life of the Churches-in-Communion--a deepened elucidation of what it means to be an Anglican Christian

While a shared national or regional liturgy is an assumption of the Church Universal, a la Maurice, and we can see this in most of the Churches even of the Reformation. For example, the Lutheran Territorial Churches in Germany have orders of service to this day. The current situation in the ELCA of do-it-yourself orders and emphasis on "resource" is anomalous, and very U.S. American rooted somewhat in its amalgam history of ethnic groupings and in a trend toward the new. Nevertheless, the Prayer Book is a particularly and peculiarly Anglican take on Church and Communion life, and this way of unity through common prayer needs highlighting, especially in a milieu in which do-it-yourself is all the rage. We are not a do-it-yourself tradition. Some of us became Anglican, at least in part, because of a consistent pattern of worship.

Besides being one of the most careful expositors toward an Anglican ecclesiology, because of his refusal to import other ecclesiological systems Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant or otherwise, and because of his being firmly rooted in an understanding of the historical contingencies and particularities of Anglicanism, Bp Sykes offers an important word on the Prayer Book and its import for our common life:

One should expect, therefore, the Prayer Books of the Anglican Communion to express with a certain clarity, but not with overdefinition, the principal features of an understanding of the unity of the Chuch. This unity is implicit, of course, as much in the rubrics as in the text....The linguistic and behavioural order of the congregation needs to express and embody [I would say articulate which assumes both] the priority of Scriptural symbols....The fact that the symbols are part of a system of communication, that they must proclaim and embody 'the Gospel', implies that they are in need of revision, since cultures have their own symbol systems, some of which make it impossible for the Gospel to be heard. Constant and fussy revision, hoever, undermines the significance of repetition, which is a key factor in the way in which human beings are embedded within the Christian world of meaning. Elite groups within the Church [clergy and scholars both--as well sometimes as laity] are occasionally insensitive to the fact that their manipulation of variety or alteration of common texts is an affirmation of their dominance over 'lower' participants in the Church. The repetition of symobls constitutes a major way in which the whole Church exerts subversive power within a culture, adn the preservation of a common text is the delivery into the hands of the whole people of God an equal share in the resources which all will need for their 'vocation and ministry'. (Stephen Sykes, Unashamed Anglicanism, 117-118)

Note something very central to common prayer. It is the inheritance, right, and responsibility of the whole Church, not just experts or clergy. An increasing tendency of localized revisions, usually the whim of clergy, is an abuse. The laity are right to resist.

Further, repetition is central to common prayer. Idiosyncratic or personalized (most often clericalized) changes not only to the text or even to the rubrics, but to articulation in full, including space, music, posture (including orientation of clergy ad orientam or versus populum according to parish custom), and gesture in a particular parish/congregation is to be avoided and changed only due to theological necessity or violation of rubrics (which means, we have quite a range of latitude and clergy should not whimsically make changes to a congregational customary and certainly not without real conversations that may entail thoughtful lay "pushback"). In other words, any changes made should be made on careful liturgical and theological grounds, remain respectful of the congregational customary, and occur only in conversation with the community. A presbyter or bishop who single-handedly (and often, ham-fistedly) imposes his or her piety and latest learning and desires on long-standing and efficacious articulation in a particular parish or diocese is abusing the parish or local Church.

This increases in a social milieu rife with want for the novel and next greatest thing. The point of Prayer Book practice in any given congregation and local Church (diocese) is not novelty and trend-setting, but consistency and constancy. A regular, known liturgy changing only within the seasons of the Church, tells us of God's constant love and leads us to deepened trust. We get God deep in the bones.

I would hasten to add that in want to be relevant culturally, we sometimes sell ourselves (and newcomers) short because it's easier to change our worship than to catechize to our worship. Granted I'm a bit geeky. Nonetheless, if I, a 21st century American of Celtic-Saxon extraction can at the age of 19 enter into the worship of a Greek-speaking Greek Orthodox parish without any exposure beforehand besides icons (and no knowledge of Greek), do we not think we might be able to catechize the interested to our own riches already in a "language understanded of the people"? We're too quick to change rather than patient to be changed. We're too quick to sell centuries of literature and liturgy down the river rather than do the hard work of education to our rite. Rite II is turning 30 this year. I am 34. Many are proclaiming Rite II outdated and practicably doing so by doing their own thing. I would contend we have barely settled into Rite II enough to be formed. Rootedness, stability are not something to take lightly in a sped-up world, and it is we younger people who perhaps know this more sorely:

Finally, in a time marked by sore divisions, we encourage due care and lack of haste in making revisions to or providing for a future Prayer Book, and when such revision or provision is made, that an “appropriate educational component” be provided for throughout this Church before implementation.

Non-Consents in Forrester Election

2009-05-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

As I understand it, Kevin Thew Forrester will need 50 yes votes from diocesan bishops with jurisdiction, and 56 yes votes from diocesan standing committees.

Here's the tally of "No" votes that I have.

Easton,
Olympia,(Public letter from Bishop Rickel)
Bethlehem (Public letter from Bishop Marshall)
Louisiana,
South Carolina,
Kentucky, (Public letter)
N. Indiana,(Public letter)
Southern Ohio, (Public letter)
Rhode Island,
Atlanta,
Albany,
Central Florida,
Springfield,
Dallas,
Western Louisiana,
Southwest Florida,
Arkansas,
Mississippi,
North Carolina (He's my bishop)
Western Kansas
San Diego
Texas
Arizona
North Dakota
Hawaii
West Texas
Fond du Lac
Maryland
Central Pennsylvania
Tennessee
West Tennessee
Montana
Upper South Carolina
Central Gulf Coast
Virginia
West Virginia
Alabama
Southeast Florida (by virtue of abstention)
Florida
Northern California
Ohio
Western North Carolina
Puerto Rico
Colombia
Los Angeles

As well, the following standing committees have likewise not given consent:

Alabama
Albany
Arizona
Arkansas
Central Florida
Central Gulf Coast
Colombia
Colorado
Dallas
El Camino Real
Eau Claire
Europe
Florida
Fond du Lac
Fort Worth
Georgia
Hawaii
Iowa
Los Angeles
Louisiana
Maryland
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Northern California
Northern Indiana
Northwestern Pennsylvania
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh
Puerto Rico
Quincy
Rhode Island
Rio Grande
San Diego
Springfield
South Carolina
Southwest Florida
Southwestern Virginia
Tennessee
Texas
Western Kansas
Western Louisiana
Western Michigan
West Missouri
West Tennessee
West Texas
West Virginia

Anglican Covenant Section 4 Working Group

2009-05-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

The Archbishop of Canterbury has named the folks to take the lead in revising the controverted fourth section of the Anglican Communion Covenant. They are, John Neill of Ireland, John Chew of South East Asia, Eileen Scully of Canada, Gregory Cameron of Wales. Two archbishops, one bishop, and one scholar -- three from liberalish Anglican provinces, and one from a conservativish province. For those on the right who were hoping for four staunch conservatives, they will be very disappointed. For those on the far left who continue to fear the Covenant as something shoved down the world's throat by a power-hungry anti-progressive centralizing party -- sorry, that narrative just won't tell.

What we have here is the exact thing we at the Anglican Centrist have been predicting (happily) for some years now. We have the honing of the Anglican Covenant into something that will be theologically solid on the essentials, and reminiscent of Elizabethan Compromise on the questions of discipline.

Maggie Ross Letter in Support of Thew Forrester

2009-05-23T12:42:00.001-07:00

I found this on the Diocese of Northern Michigan website. On first glance, it looks like it contains a number of historical errors of fact. It is also very reminiscent of the blend of proper Celtic Christian theology with the New Age sort of stuff being offered by Newell, Thew Forrester and others. It's better than the Da Vinci Code theology so many have, but not much. Tell me what you all think:

The controversy over the election of Thew Forrester as bishop of Northern Michigan is a sign of the times, a sign of the great danger that Western Christianity, particularly Christianity in America, particularly The Episcopal Church finds itself.

Forrester is a sign of hope: he understands, along with the earliest and greatest writers on Christianity such as Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor, that realizing our union with God is the heart of Christianity. He understands with them that salvation comes through the encounter with God in the depths of the soul. God offers us the free choice to turn away from confusion and pain to explore the prayer of silence in its infinite depths. (For an excellent and readable history of union with God in Christianity, see "Becoming God: The Doctrine of Theosis in Nicholas of Cusa" by Nancy J. Hudson). It is the loss of this understanding that salvation comes through seeking the vision of God, from which everything else in our lives must issue, that has led to the flattening of contemporary Christianity in every sense.

Gregory, for example, explicitly states what is understood and implicit, that "salvation [is] the purification and illumination of the mind." [Hudson, p. 23]. This is not "platonism;" these early writers are actively anti-Platonist. The body and the created world are integral and inseparable, "the union of the mental with the bodily presents a connection unspeakable and inconceivable." (Hudson p. 19) "Its created being itself makes a true theosis possible." (Ibid. p. 22) Nicholas of Cusa says very plainly that the image of God in us is the mind's ability to transcend itself [by grace].

Much of the New Testament speaks of this union: Jesus' continual reference to the Father is a familiar metaphor and the heart of his prayer, particularly in the Gospel of John (14-17). The great kenotic hymn (Phil. 2-5-11) which lies at the heart of the liturgy for Holy Week and Easter, is a way of speaking about the laying-aside of our pretensions so that we may realize the divinization that is inherent in, even the purpose of, our creation.

These early writers do not speak of "original sin" or an inherited flaw in human nature. They understand that our difficulties arise from yielding to the "flesh" or "passions," that is, our believing that the appetites and distortions that flood into our perceptions are real and then yielding to them, their noise, their distraction. As Pascal puts it, all of our troubles arise from our inability to remain alone in a room. What we need to be saved from is this unreality in ourselves, the noise and chaos of our own minds that trap us in destructive behaviors and attitudes such as anxiety, greed, and dispersal. If it is our minds that trap us, then it is by turning our minds into the silence of God that frees us.

The earliest baptismal traditions do not speak of dying and rising (see Ephrem, for example), or, when they do, the dying is used as a metaphor for the changing of perceptions that is part of the catechetical process (see the writings of Cyril of Jerusalem.) The notion of the human person in this theology of union is exalted, and its aspiration at once humble and positive. But religious institutions do not like its constituents to think too much, or to be too whole. Therefore these fundamental insights about silence and union were suppressed to serve institutional consolidation of power.

The practices of 1400 years were abandoned, and the institutional focus changed from "putting on the mind of Christ," which focuses us on God in the infinite silence of the mind-in-the-heart, to "imitation," which locks us into narcissistic stereotypes at the most superficial level of our minds, stereotypes which are easily controlled by institutions.

But this policy has backfired. People are rediscovering the depths for themselves. But when they go to church to seek support for their prayer they encounter only banality, trendiness and a lot of noisy performance art. In consequence, they leave. They have discovered that the institution has cheated them of their spiritual birthright, and are turning to ancient and medieval sources for the support the churches can no longer (and will not) give them.

They reject denigration of the creation God has called good, the Creation God draws ever onward to realize its divinity. Julian of Norwich sums up the entire tradition. She repeatedly asks Christ, "what is sin?" But Christ tells her that he cannot even see sin; he can only see what is like himself, which is us, and all that is needed is to "seek into the beholding."

It is significant that modern translations of the bible no longer use the word "behold." This word is arguably its most important word in both Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament. Each time it is used it signals an annunciation, the essential choice of turning away from our own skewed perceptions to be drawn into the light and life of God so that we may be transfigured. "Look" or "see," the words which have been substituted by translators for "behold" by contrast are analytical, and self-reflexive, while "behold" gives us a moment of being "lost in wonder love and praise."

Forrester seems to understand that if the church is to survive it must return to the practices from which the richness and depth of Christianity sprang and by which it was nurtured for more than a thousand years.

Yet the election of Forrester is being opposed by a number of bishops precisely on these grounds. Their writings reveal a shocking lack of knowledge—or a refusal to communicate—the history of Christian doctrine. The bishop of Southern Ohio insists on atonement theology, a theology that comes very late in Christian history and first gets toe-hold as part of a campaign to justify Charlemagne's bloody slaughter and forced conversion of the Saxons (see "Saving Paradise" by Brock and Parker for an extremely readable account of this history). Atonement theology was developed as a means to control, to exploit people's guilt, and it is one of the major sources of our cultural depression and negative aspiration today.

The Bishop of Southern Ohio objects to a revision of the baptismal service that Forrester wrote "in which references to salvation are replaced with references to union with God." If salvation is not union with God, then what is it? What does the Bishop of Southern Ohio think salvation is?

The bishop of Southern Ohio further writes that he opposes Forrester because "...our (unrevised) Baptismal liturgy (Book of Common Prayer, beginning at p. 299) is extremely clear about what it means to be a follower of Jesus: we are to turn to him - the same Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified and rose again and continues to invite us into a personal relationship with him - and accept him as Savior." What does he mean by "savior?" How more personal a relationship can there be than to realize union with God through Christ indwelling?

What does this bishop think "turning to Christ" means in a practical day-to-day practice? It means this silent prayer, this beholding in which the humble God, the creator of all, allows us to hold divinity within us, even as we the creatures are held and sustained by that divinity. It means that all our obsessive thoughts and ways, our favorite idols of doctrinal declaration are left behind.

The Bishop of Southern Ohio appears to be hung up on slogans without any understanding of what they mean in practice. Turning to Christ means putting on the mind of Christ and gazing always on the Father. It is by this means that we realize that we are heirs with him and are saved from our pathological narcissism.

Like many of us, Forrester has turned to meditation to deepen his prayer. He is an active member of a Buddhist community. The bishops who object to his election show their ignorance of this tradition by citing his commitment to the community with whom he meditates as a barrier to his confirmation as bishop.

But Buddhism is not, strictly speaking, a religion: it does not worship a god or gods, but teaches detachment from mental idols. It is an acutely observed philosophical psychology that uses an elaborate metaphorical system to illustrate how the mind works and while engaging the emotions and the whole person, bringing all to a single focus. While some practitioners may literalize these metaphors and use them superstitiously, this is clearly not Forrester's practice, nor is there any conflict in his practice with Christianity. In fact, many contemplative Christian monasteries encourage the practice of sitting Zen style and actively use Zen texts.

There is also no comparison of Forrester's situation with the recent de-frocking of Ann Redding, who claims to be both Muslim and Christian. By contrast with Buddhism, Islam is most assuredly a theistic religion and the use of the word "Allah" is vexed. While some might say that Christians and Muslims worship the same God under separate names and that all are children of Abraham, Christians in Malaysia, for example, cannot use the word "Allah" (the only word in Malay for "God") for fear of offending Muslims.

Furthermore, Islam is rigidly hierarchical, while Buddhism and, in theory—in spite of the institutional church's opportunistic adoption of the very hierarchical system that Jesus spent his life opposing—Christianity, are radically dedicated to the sanctity of every human person and to more lateral ways of conducting human affairs, as we recently have heard again from the Dalai Lama.

The link with hierarchy, of course, is key. As long as bishops insist on the slogans of atonement, implicitly undermining the aspirations of their congregations, they hold them in thrall by exploiting their guilt. The self-help industry operates in the same way: its message is that there is always something more wrong with you that needs to be fixed and only another self-help book can tell you how. Institutional Christianity in the West latched on to this idea of exploiting guilt in the Middle Ages to increase its power and wealth, and even changed the Eucharist from a celebration of thanksgiving for our theosis to the notion of sacrifice and atonement. (See the excellent discussion in "Saving Paradise.")

In short, the Episcopal Church is at a crossroads: if Forrester is not confirmed by the House of Bishops, then it will have taken another step along the road to extinction. To return to the essential truth that Christianity is about union with God and that everything else—prayer, interpretation, liturgy, ethics, solitude and community—should flow from that yearning and encounter is institutional Christianity's only hope.

To truly convert the church would require radical re-education of clergy and laity alike, but particularly of clergy. This re-education would include a re-evaluation of what power in the church means, and it would be based on the recovery of the silence tradition, taught and practiced individually and collectively by laity and clergy alike as the starting place.

As a bishop-elect, Thew Forrester is the first sign of hope that in fact this conversion might be possible. The ignorance displayed by the bishops who oppose him—out of envy, perhaps (for envy they crucified him)—is cause for despair.

New Visions of God’s Creation by Robert J. Schneider

2009-05-19T12:53:00.001-07:00

Today the Atlantis crew released the Hubble Space Telescope from its robot arm, and watched it slowly drift away. For four days the astronauts replaced cameras, gyroscopes, batteries, and other equipment in order to make Hubble serviceable again, giving it ten to fifteen more years of life and making it an even more powerful instrument of exploration than it was when launched nearly twenty years ago.

In its years of service Hubble’s telescopes have transfixed viewers with images of the universe never seen before. If seeing is believing then we Christians have been blessed with much more to believe in: views of God’s creation that were unimaginable a quarter century ago (http://hubblesite.org/gallery/). Untold billions of galaxies, with billions of planets; galaxies forming, colliding, dying; enormous gas clouds birthing new stars—all of these magnificent and inspiring sights have given us a window on the universe unlike any we have had before. “The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows God’s handiwork,” that cry of praise from the psalmist (19:1), has taken on an even deeper meaning for us staring in awe at the depth and breath of these heavens and of God’s glory that shines in its countless lights. Now Hubble can show us even more of the cosmos, more views that surely will take our breath away. How blest we are to live at this time!

These images have brought so much more understanding of the Creation, yet they have not taken away the mystery of it all--if anything they have brought us deeper into that mystery. They invite us to believe even more deeply that Holy Mystery dwells in every hydrogen atom fusing with another, in every planet given the conditions for life, and in every living creature on this planet, past, present, and future, that makes more vivid the web of life. Hubble has shown us what the author of Job (ch. 38-42) knew by faith, that this universe is ultimately incomprehensible. It is good to seek understanding and enlarge knowledge, and rejoice in every new awesome sight that Hubble may reveal, as Job’s God rejoiced and took such pleasure in his creation. But in the end we can only cover our mouths and stand mute before this unfathomable world.

Anglican Covenant Process

2009-05-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

It seems that the Anglican Consultative Council at its recently adjourned meeting in Jamaica has approved the first three sections of the Ridley-Cambridge Draft of the Anglican Covenant. I say, 'bravo.' The controversial fourth section was not sent forward as it stands, and needs more revision. Again, I say, 'bravo.' I think the first three sections are perfectly fine, and more importantly, go a long way to rather sufficiently outlining what the essence of the Christian faith and Anglicanism as a coherent fellowship of regional churches professes and practices. Many on the extreme left have not wanted even that much clarity, but I sense that those of us somewhere in the center of Anglicanism, who primarily are concerned with orthodoxy as much as 'generosity' in orthodoxy, feel that putting the basics down in rather clear form is worth doing. (After all, in a sense, isn't that similar to the Anglican/Episcopalian impulse behind our having a Book of Common Prayer and Hymnal which we can point to and say, "This is what we believe.")

As Suffragan Bishop of New York Cathy Roskam pointed out, and perhaps rightly, the controversial fourth section had the ring of a prenuptial agreement to it - and in that sense goes to undermining the covenantal nature of -- well -- the covenant. As I understand a covenant, there is no 'out' clause.

I was interested by the tenor of critique coming largely from the extreme left and right in recent days. Predictably, both are largely against the Covenant in form or process. The extreme left has always been against it, arguing that we "just don't need" any kind of articulation or clarity in the profession of our faith and identity. Behind much of that, I sense, is that the extreme left (in my view) has coupled two elements -- one is a support for the inclusion of married gay persons into all orders of ministry and the other is a lack of support for ...well... any notion of theological boundaries for the good of the integrity of catholic proclamation. The covenant would be sort of a double-nightmare, because it might both seek to prohibit inclusion of partnered glbt folk from ministry, AND, it would be 'confessional.' On the extreme right (in my view) we have the strong conviction that glbt folks are living in sin when in partnered relationships, that such sin should not be blessed or approved of in any way, AND, they are also quite frequently looking for an excess of precision in confessional statements which often looks more like evangelical/Calvinist protestantism than comprehensive Anglicanism. Both groups also tend to be fairly ambivalent to the value of the Communion anyway, and seem to prefer the idea of either a 'radically autonomous Episcopal Church' or a hermeneutically homogenous Anglican Communion.

Somewhere in the middle of those extremes, however, we find folk who may disagree over the degree and/or timing of inclusion of partnered glbt folks, or their biblical hermeneutic, or their liturgical preferences, but who also can agree that they prefer to remain together and work out the differences. Those, in other words, who are looking for comprehensiveness are willing to compromise -- or fudge (as the extremists always call it) -- generally agreeing to tolerate significant disagreement over important issues. This latter group tend to be the sorts who can remain together despite disagreement over either timing or the principle of the ordination of women, the principle of remarriage after divorce, sacramental theology, or questions of liturgical form.

As I have long believed, the genius of Anglicanism (which transcends any of its member provinces), has to do with identifying and professing a narrow but sufficient bundle of essentials, discerning which very important things are of a secondary nature, and agreeing to tolerate some uncomfortable differences for the sake of the dream that God wishes us to be one.

I think the first three sections of the Ridley-Cambridge draft go a long way in making the essentials clear enough.

What was also interesting in the press conference held by Kenneth Kearon was how conservative interlocutors argued that the ACC, and the leaders of the process, were engaging in word games, a degree of muddledness, and leaving important words vague enough to be understood differently by different hearers. I say this is a funny charge, considering that as I have always understood it, the Nicene Creed itself was the result of such a process. Arguably, it ultimately failed to hold East and West together - but in a way it lasted for a good long time.

Thew Forrester's Discharge of Chaff

2009-05-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

Bishop-elect Kevin Thew Forrester of the Diocese of Northern Michigan has posted a nine-page defense of his theology and practice here.

Kevin is a talented wordsmith and he and I do indeed agree on a few points - these being chiefly that God is love, that God is the creator, that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that, when God's will is complete, "all will be well."

And I do like his phrase, "I behold a cross which reveals the boundless depth and breadth of God's love and forgiveness."

But, again, the trouble is what else the Bishop Elect says. Based on what he says here and in other writings, Thew Forrester believes the cross is not part of God's plan, or that the death of Christ has any intrinsic connection to the salvation God has wrought in Christ.

From 'Approaching the Heart of Faith,' we are led to believe that God's salvation is wrought by the Incarnation alone. Thew Forrester resorts to dubious historical interpretations to diminish the importance of Christ's bloody Cross. He argues that the Church's focus on the bloody cross is a late development, rooted largely in Anselm's desire to promote the Crusades. While for sure there is truth to the claim that medieval piety developed in relationship to the crusader cause, it is nonetheless a Da Vinci Code-like error to reduce the necessity of the Cross for our salvation from such grounds. Notably, the cross and its importance is extremeley well attested to in the Gospels and Epistles -- to say the very least. And while for sure the Resurrection -- as Thew Forrester to his credit rightly points out -- was the main matter of the early kerygma -- that should come as no surprise. After all, seeing folks die on crosses was not unusual to the earliest disciples -- seing folks rise from tombs was. Indeed, though Thew Forrester employs the lovely phrase "Resurrection Paradise," the Resurrection is likewise buried beneath his overwhelming interest in the Incarnation. (See the entry below for an explicit rebuttal of the claims Thew Forrester makes as regards Anselm, etc.)

To this point, precious little attention is paid to either the Resurrection or the Ascension, and this in conjunction with his overwhelming discounting of the imporance and necessity of the Cross. That three of the four key mysteries of the 'Christ-event' are paid short-shrift or largely ignored goes to the concerns folks have about Thew Forrester. Oddly enough, though one of Forrester's axioms is that "recovering this ancient tradition...is inclusive...it neither discards nor dismisses," that is exactly how he appears to handle what many consider to be essentials of the faith.

To be fair, since much of the criticism against him has focused on his view of the cross, it may be that is why he doesn't speak much to the other key mysteries. Nonetheless, it seems clear to me that Thew Forrester is plainly arguing that the key to salvation is the Incarnation, and the cross appears at best to be a tragedy which God did not will, but Jesus nonetheless endured. If that is what he is saying - frankly - that ought to disqualify him.

In his discussion of the Trinity, he rightly attempts to connect the economy of the Trinity with the ecclesiology of the Body of Christ. But, it would appear that this is upheld in some sense over against what the early church discerned to be the relationship between the Gospel and the order of the church. (If any are interested in this, Michael Ramsey's The Gospel and the Catholic Church is the book still to read.)

In his vision of what it means to be a bishop, here I think he again falls off the rails of what might have been a good track. He says he agrees that a bishop is called to be a guardian of the faith. But, he interprets that to mean that the faith received is no more worthy of protection than the faith yet to be received.

In this he reveals his signature move. Since in his view the content of the faith is always unfolding, as a priest (and as a bishop) he would see his leadership in protecting that unfolding. In light of his previous arguments that there are can be no boundaries at all to what "we may know," Thew Forrester appears believe that all aspects of the Church's doctrine and practice are therefore open to change, and not only change, but deep change, and not only deep change, but dismissal and discarding.

This latter point of view undergirds what appears to be his primary modus operandi. His m.o. appears to be that of one singularly focused on innovation (as well as the redaction of doctrine and discipline as seems good to him). He seems to be quite proud to lead a parish which as he says is the diocesan leader in liturgical exploration and innovation. And while that can be a perfectly fine congregational vocation - it does depend on some key specifics. If one goes to the heart of the essential proclamation of the faith as bound up with the church's liturgical expression, and significantly discards or dismisses it, (as we have already mentioned above,) then I think one has gone too far. One can imagine, for example, that if a parish used "Rite III" every week -- in addition to be outside of the canons -- they could pretty much do anything they wanted. We all already know of parishes which do not regularly say the confession or Nicene Creed, and which openly invite the unbaptised to receive the elements. What if an entire diocese largely decided to come up with its own normative forms of baptism, eucharist, etc.? How is this anything but going too far?

I think we could rightly suspect that this is exactly what would "unfold" under the leadership of Thew Forrester in the Diocese of Northern Michigan.

And to put it quite plainly, while I agree that God's revelation is unfolding, for that unfolding to be realized in the normal practice and proclamation of a very small group of people -- which is losing membership at a frightful rate -- in very short order - so as to lead to a form and message quite unrecognizable to so many Episcopalians in various places and contexts -- one might rightly ask the question: "Is it God's will that is unfolding here?" National church statistics reveal that the Diocese of Northern Michigan lost over a third of its baptised membership in the ten years between 1997 and 2007. The average Sunday attendance likewise dropped in that same period from under a thousand to about 700. In the same period, St. Paul's, Marquette, where Thew Forrester is interim, lost twenty-five percent of its baptized membership, and in 2007 had an average Sunday attendance of 75, down from a 100 the year before.

The bishops who have published commentary on their no-votes have already rightly focused on the real issues. And they remain. Firstly, the published writings continue to reveal a theology which is rooted in catholic Christianity, but appears to have adroitly left out significant pieces of the universal whole, and has also sought to take root in other sources, such as Buddhism. This indeed seems more akin to coming up with a Christian-based syncretism than it does putting forward a generously orthodox vision of the Christian faith, suitable for our times and our places. Secondly, his career appears to be one entirely dedicated to coming up with his own stuff and constantly innovating with disregard to the faith and order of the Church as it now is. This is reflective not merely of an awareness that God's revelation will continue to be unfolded, but rather a deep discontent with what we currently uphold as a church of common prayer and practice. Thirdly, as interesting as it may be, the idea of a diocese (again, which is as small as a large parish) having only one candidate for bishop is highly suspect.

While this piece offers some good material - it represents on the whole a cleverly designed discharge of chaff. The Diocese of Northern Michigan has released it into the ether for the purpose of obfuscating the discernment of those yet to have voted in the matter of consent and offering a cloud of material which in some ways seems 'o.k.' and may provide sufficient cover to what is the real location and trajectory of Thew Forrester and perhaps the entire Diocese of Northern Michigan.

An Open Letter to Kevin Thew Forrester

2009-05-07T01:43:00.000-07:00

Professor Thomas Williams of the University of South Florida is indeed a progressive on a number of key issues of our time. Yet, like many of our friends here at the Anglican Centrist, he is also committed to creedal orthodoxy. He blogs here. He writes:

Dear Fr Thew Forrester:

I most earnestly beg you to stop talking about Saint Anselm. You simply do not know what you are talking about, and your apologia is not helped by your insistence on perpetuating pseudo-historical claptrap about this great theologian.

In Approaching the Heart of Faith, you quote a passage from Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire in which the authors say that "Anselm's doctrine of the atonement gave support for holy war" and that his "theology and piety crystallized the religious foundations of the Crusades." "Christians," the authors say, "were exhorted to imitate Christ's self-offering in the cause of God's justice." Exhorted by whom? Certainly not by Anselm, who would have rejected any such notion as fundamentally incompatible with his key conclusions in Cur Deus Homo: the sufficiency of the God-man's self-offering and the inability of fallen human beings to do anything on their own to effect a reconciliation between themselves and God. Indeed, the idea that Anselm's soteriology could provide theological underpinnings for the Crusades is not merely a gross libel against Anselm but rather obvious nonsense.

The authors seek to paper over this nonsense by sleight of hand, invoking "Peace by the blood of the Cross." I take it we're to think that the notion of the bloody Cross as an instrument of peace leads naturally to the Crusades. But for Anselm, the peace that is made by the blood of the Cross is peace between God and humanity -- a peace that is entirely of God's own making, that he initiates and sustains because he loves us and created us for himself -- and the blood of the Cross can only be the blood of the God-man, offered once for all as a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and (yes) satisfaction. How any reasonable or fair-minded person can think that this soteriology supports wars of conquest and religious imperialism is beyond me.

The authors' casual admission that Anselm "forbade his own monks from joining the Crusades" rather understates the case. Anselm disapproved of the Crusades, period. I would commend to you Sir Richard Southern's wonderful biography, Anselm: A Portrait in Landscape, for more on this point.

What I find most disturbing is the authors' tendentious quotation of a passage from Cur Deus Homo 1.12 in support of the (presumably Crusade-justifying) claim that "When authorities in the Church called for vengeance, they did so on God's behalf." If one actually bothers to read the passage the authors quote, and to attend to its context, it will be obvious that Anselm is not talking about anything remotely like the Crusades. He's thinking of ordinary punishment for criminal wrongdoing, punishment that is carried out by rulers on those over whom they have lawful authority. Moreover, Anselm makes the statement immediately after warning us that we are not to arrogate to ourselves the prerogative for vengeance that is properly God's alone. Either the authors know Anselm only at second hand, or they are deliberating twisting his words to make them carry a much more insidious meaning than they can really be made to bear.

As for the claim that "Anselm's theology helped to provide justification for Christendom to embark on its first pogroms against the Jews of Europe," I should very much like to see some evidence that Anselm's theology -- which is to say, views that Anselm actually held, as opposed to views ascribed to Anselm by people who have never bothered reading him -- played some role in such heinous sins. In the alternative, I should like to see some even minimally plausible argument that takes Anselm's soteriology for its premises and issues in the conclusion that pogroms are well-advised. Seeing neither of these, and being confident that neither of them is forthcoming, I will simply say that Anselm is ill-chosen for the role of all-purpose Bad Guy that he plays in Approaching the Heart of Faith.

It is also odd that you would chose Julian of Norwich as an alternative to Anselm's teaching on "peace by the blood of the Cross." By contrast with Anselm, who uses the word 'blood' only twice in Cur Deus Homo (both times when someone else is the speaker) and gives no attention at all in that work to the physical agony of Jesus, the Lady Julian fixes our attention on the bloodshed and suffering of the Cross. Consider:
Then I suddenly saw the red blood tricking down from under the crown of thorns, hot and fresh and very plentiful. (Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love, trans. Elizabeth Spearing, 45)

[T]he bodily sight of the plentiful bleeding from Christ's head remained. The great drops fell down from under the crown of thorns like pills, as though they had come out of the veins; and as they came out they were dark red, for the blood was very thick. (50-51)

And after this I saw, as I watched, the body of Christ bleeding abundantly, in weals from the scourging. It looked like this: the fair skin was very deeply broken, down into the tender flesh, sharply slashed all over the dear body; the hot blood ran out so abundantly that no skin or wound could be seen, it seemed to be all blood. (59-60)
And Julian is as clear as Anselm that the suffering and death of Christ are on account of sin and for our sake:
It is true that sin is the cause of all this suffering. (80)

And so now we have reason for grief, because our sin is the cause of Christ's suffering; and we have reason for lasting joy, because endless love made him suffer. (126)

Look and see that I loved you so much before I died for you that I was willing to die for you; and now I have died for you, and willingly suffered as much as I can for you. (76)
Repeatedly quoting "All will be well" from Julian, as though it were her only message for us, does as great a disservice to the richness of her thinking as your caricature of Anselm does to his.

Nothing I say here constitutes a positive defense of Anselm's soteriology, let alone an affirmation that his soteriology is either complete in itself or binding on all Christians. (Anselm himself emphatically denies that he has said the last word on the Incarnation and Atonement; he denies, in fact, that any last word on those mysteries can ever be said.) I do not ask that you accept Anselm's account of why God became incarnate. I ask only that you stop mispresenting Anselm by repeating the preposterous slanders against him that are made by people who mistake invective and invention for sober scholarship.

Yours faithfully in Christ,

The Rev'd Dr Thomas Williams
Professor of Catholic Studies and Professor of Philosophy

We Should Absolutely Stand Up for the Essentials of the Faith

2009-05-02T10:26:00.000-07:00

In an article by Frank Lockwood for the Little Rock Democrat-Gazette, retired bishop Rustin Kimsey is mentioned. Mr. Lockwood, who is very interested in the case of Thew Forrester has this section:

But retired Bishop of Eastern Oregon Rustin Kimsey says the church is diminished if it rejects nonconformist thinkers, including Thew Forrester, the late-Bishop of California James A. Pike and retired Bishop of Newark John Shelby Spong.

Spong is known for denying the divinity, virgin birth, bodily resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.

“I mean there are a lot of things that Jack Spong has said that I don’t agree with. That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be a bishop, for heaven’s sake,” Kimsey said.

“I’m very dismayed by this [opposition] because I think it undercuts the basic genius of the Episcopal Church: to be bigger than we’re behaving right now, to be more buoyant and more understanding of other viewpoints and welcome them,” Kimsey said.

By referring to the genius of the Episcopal Church as having to do with an essentially borderless belief-system, Bishop Kinsey errs in at least two ways.

First, from my perspective, he speaks of the Episcopal Church as having its own form of genius - which I'm not sure as an Anglo-Catholic I recognize. At most I would prefer to identify the genius of the New Testament, the Scriptures in general, the creeds or catholic Christianity as read through the lense of Anglicanism - which yet remains but is hardly restricted to the Episcopal Church. I indeed am a dyed in the wool loyalist and servant of Christ in the Episcopal Church, warts and all, but I'm not sure I recognize a particular genius to my beloved American branch of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church - other than that which we share with other Anglican churches -- and many non-Anglican churches -- around the globe. Certainly, beyond the particular genius of Anglican comprehensiveness which we generally attribute to the Prayer Book's history largely in England, but then in the U.S. also - I'm not sure I see much else. Our extreme similarity to the constitutional organization of the United States is frequently lauded, but I'm not sure we should totally buy into that. First of all, the United States is a nation not a church. Secondly, the United States actually has more clarity in its tripartite governance then the Episcopal Church. Moreover, our church's polity (and I do not buy into the diocesan argument put forward by the ACI) is nonetheless as likely to be perceived as a defect as a form of genius. Indeed, as I point out in my article in the current Anglican Theological Review, the deep political embrace in our church's constitution and canon of Western enlightenment/republican/democratic ideals and forms is one which faithful Anglicans have wondered about for sometime. As folks ranging from Newman to Stringfellow have noted - we may well be as beholden to powers and principalities in our very polity as the Church of England and Rome. We just give those powers different names, and check and balance them in different ways, some not successful.

The second, and more serious error in my view is to continue perpetuating the sophomoric notion that we should glory in an ideal of a borderless set of doctrine and discipline -- as if a body need not skeleton, cell wall, nervous system, or the salutatory differentiation of internal organs and systems.

In both instances, the glorification of the autonomy and particular genius of the Episcopal Church over against any apparent concern for ecumenism or communion with fellow Anglican churches, and the apparent disdain for clarity and obedience regarding doctrine and discipline, while bizarre, are not new. In fact, this attitude seems to be the defining one for many observers of the Episcopal Church - internally and outside -- for over a generation. Since, at least, well, the time of Bishop Pike.

It seems to be fading, if the number of non-consents to Thew Forrester is any measure, and hopefully giving way to a new-old attitude which seeks to uphold the genius of the catholic faith, while also exploring certain expansions of the boundaries of church order and discipline which God is understood to be calling for - in a discernment which roots this apprehension in the framework of the essentials of the faith itself.

In other words, if we expand the boundaries of church order and discipline (primarily for the purpose of including persons heretofore left out), it needs to be done because we believe the God of Scripture and Tradition, in discernment performed with the gifts of memory, reason and skill, is calling for it. And, importantly, others outside our own church should likewise be capable of affirming that. (Not of course everyone, but some.) Such expansions must not be made simply because "they feel right" or because Hollywood, Harvard or contemporary norms of happiness commend them. Notably, we would be looking at questions of order and discipline, not items of core catholic theology.

It is for this reason that folks like Tobias Haller, Christopher Evans, Derek Olsen, and many others, are to be lauded for finally saying out loud: 'let's keep the faith, and also, in accordance with that faith, find a way to include as many as possible into it.'

This is Not What the Baptismal Covenant Upholds

2009-05-01T06:58:00.001-07:00

Among the things that have many so alarmed about the election of Kevin Thew Forrester to the episcopate -- not merely in Northern Michigan, but for the whole church -- is what looks like a deeply different religion than that upheld and proclaimed by the Book of Common Prayer. It is not a matter of slight differences - or even a question of pushing the limits of our usual Episcopalian latitude. No, the faith proclaimed by Fr. Thew Forrester, and it appears to be shared widely in the diocese where he ministers, is intentionally and thoughtfully articulated, believed and put forth. There is a degree of integrity to it, to be sure. But, it is not the doctrine or order of the Book of Common Prayer. Simple as that. It truly is - something sufficiently different as to warrant being its own denomination. That so many seem so comfortable with such a deep and categorical departure (this has nothing to do with inclusion my friends) is what bothers so many of us who hold dear to the essential elements of the Christian faith sufficiently and widely-enough put forward in the Quadrilateral of creed, sacrament, scripture and historic episcopate.

The following statement is exactly the kind of articulation of an alternative faith which is normative and fully supported in Northern Michigan - and is exactly the sort of faith which bishop-elect Thew Forrester holds dear.

Please, I invite your comment.

Already One God
On the 19th of February, 2007, the Primates of the Anglican Communion, meeting in Dar es Salaam, released a Communiqué. We, as the Diocese of Northern Michigan, offer our response.

Unity is a Grace

We recognize that a basic challenge to us in the Anglican Communion is centered in our vision of who God is and who we are. In classical theology, we only exist because God exists in us. The ramifications of this insight are both profound and extensive. Unity is not an achievement. Unity is not, in its most basic sense, a work of human hands. Unity is a grace. Unity is a given.

We affirm the theological truth that we are always already one in God; otherwise we would not be. The tragedy of the current moment, which is recurrent throughout history (remember the conflict that led to the first council in Jerusalem), is that we fail to see this unity and so we grow anxious and afraid.

In our anxiety, we tend to confuse the absence of conflict with love. Love is patient and love is kind, to be sure. Love also knows conflict is a part of the human condition, as we respond to God’s invitation to remove any and all boundaries to the scope of God’s eternal embrace.

Listen, Learn, Lead

We acknowledge that our Communion is in conflict. We know this conflict in our parishes, in our dioceses, in our church, in our culture. We often fail to recognize, however, that conflict is not resolved by assuming the agenda of the person across the table and making it our own. Years of interfaith dialogue have taught this truth. Conflict is not resolved by the denial of who one essentially is. Decades of ecumenical dialogue have taught this truth.

Conflict is resolved through honest recognition and respect of who we all are, in our diversity. The Anglican Communion is itself rooted in this mutual recognition and respect among its Churches. Unity may not be collapsed into uniformity, making one parish’s, dioceses’ or Church’s polity or ethics determinative for everyone else.

Because God is always already present, leadership begins with being receptive to what someone has to say. Leadership is about continually learning and being transformed in heart, mind and body. Leadership is a response to this learning, which is a continual movement of the Spirit.

We invite all to God’s table. What we expect, in turn, is that those who come to the table likewise recognize the right, by being children of God, of everyone else to be at the table.

Baptismal Ecclesiology

We proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ that everyone and everything belongs. We are continually being created in the image of God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Baptism confirms this most basic truth which is at once, the Good News: all is of God, without condition and without restriction.

We seek and serve Christ in all persons because all persons are the living Christ. Each and every human being, as a human being, is knit together in God’s Spirit, and thus an anointed one – Christ. Jesus of Nazareth reveals this as the basic truth of the human condition:

God is more in me than if the whole sea
could in a little sponge wholly contained be. ~Angelus Silesius

We strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being, because each person embodies the living God. Life is inherently and thoroughly sacramental, which is why we love one another without condition. We stand with Meister Eckhart who, when he gazed deep within himself, as well as all about him, saw that "the entire created order is sacred" as it is grounded in God. We do harmful and evil things to ourselves and one another, not because we are bad, but because we are blind to the beauty of creation and ourselves. In other words, we are ignorant of who we truly are: "there is no Greek or Hebrew; no Jew or Gentile; no barbarian or Scythian; no slave or citizen. There is only Christ, who is all in all." (Colossians 3:11).

Everyone is the sacred word of God, in whom Christ lives. This baptismal vision of a thoroughly blessed creation leads us to understand the reason for the incarnation in a new way:

People think God has only become a human being there – in his historical incarnation – but that is not so; for God is here – in this very place – just as much incarnate as in a human being long ago. And this is why he has become a human being: that he might give birth to you as his only begotten Son, and as no less. ~Meister Eckhart

Affirmations

Because each and every one of us is an only begotten child of God; because we, as the church, are invited by God to see all of creation as having life only insofar as it is in God; because everything, without exception, is the living presence, or incarnation, of God; as the Diocese of Northern Michigan,

We affirm Christ present in every human being and reject any attempt to restructure The Episcopal Church’s polity in a manner contrary to the principles of the baptismal covenant;

We affirm the full dignity and autonomy and interdependence of every Church in the Anglican Communion and reject any attempt of the Primates to assume an authority they do not have nor have ever possessed;

We affirm the sacramental gift of all persons, their Christ-ness, especially those who are gay and lesbian, and reject any moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions and consents of gay bishops, as it would compromise their basic dignity.

August 11, 2007
Standing Committee
General Convention Delegation
Et. Al.

Bishop of Tennessee Explains 'No' Vote on Forrester

2009-04-27T17:56:00.001-07:00

The Rt. Rev. John C. Bauerschmidt: Statement on the Consent Process in the Episcopal Election in the Diocese of Northern Michigan

The process of consent to an episcopal election does not always generate a great deal of interest in the Episcopal Church, but it has done so in the case of the Rev’d Kevin Thew Forrester, bishop-elect in the Diocese of Northern Michigan. The process for election of a bishop in this case requires consents from a majority of bishops and Standing Committees in the various dioceses of the Episcopal Church before a bishop is consecrated. This is one of the many ways in which we are reminded that our obligations to each other go beyond the local Church.

I voted against consent to his election. Hesitations have been expressed in many quarters on a number of grounds. Decisive for me has been the fact that the Rev’d Thew Forrester has used liturgies not authorized for use in the Episcopal Church, on a regular and ongoing basis. The permission of one’s bishop is beside the point. No bishop of the Episcopal Church is able to authorize liturgies for use in our Church, as alternatives to the regularly appointed services, that have not been approved by the General Convention as supplements to our Prayer Book liturgies. Certainly no individual priest or vestry is able to do so. The clergy of the Episcopal Church are not free to use in church other Anglican liturgical formularies, including those authorized in other provinces of the Communion, or liturgical resources from other traditions, except within the limits set forth in our own Prayer Book. These limits have not been observed by Thew Forrester.

This discipline of the Church may be thought too narrow or unsuitable to our own age. Yet it is the order we have. The theologically inadequate baptismal rite used at St Paul’s Church, Marquette, under the aegis of Thew Forrester, is a reminder of why individuals are not allowed to write their own liturgies. Liturgies which are formulated around idiosyncratic statements of what we are renouncing and exactly what we are embracing beg the question of what community we are being initiated into, and whose disciples we have become. If there is a moment for liturgical and theological clarity, Holy Baptism is it.

Priests are called to conform to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Church, and bishops in particular promise to guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the Church. Liturgy is a crucial articulation of this nexus of Christian faith and Christian community. I do not withhold consent to this election lightly or without knowledge of the difficulties that may be caused by failure to confirm the candidate. But those who are supposed to hold others accountable must have a creditable history of being accountable themselves.

Chris Epperson on Sacrifice

2009-04-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

Sacrifice
by Chris Epperson

Giles Fraser, the vicar of Putney, wrote an interesting piece on atonement theology, a week or so back. It is an interesting little piece published in the Guardian. I link it HERE .

Fraser is quite correctly critical of a particular kind of doctrine of the atonement, we might refer to as substitutionary. The idea is that God demands a sacrifice to restore right relationship with humanity and Jesus becomes that sacrifice. The formulation of this way of thinking about the atoning death of Jesus is much more complex and subtle, but this is the broad brush.

It is troubling for all the reasons Fraser mentions. It smacks of brutality and violence. It doesn’t portray God in a very positive light. In certain global quarters, it might even lend support to practices most of us would consider quite barbaric.

I am not sure, however, that it would be appropriate to divorce Christianity of the atoning death of Jesus on the cross of Good Friday. The scriptures clearly see Jesus death in sacrificial terms. Surely, Jesus death in the minds of the writers of the scriptures, and in my mind was “for us”. So there is a sense in which Christ is the sinless victim for a sinful humanity. I don’t think you can simply walk away from Christian history, teaching and the Bible.

That said, I don’t think we need to be forever tied to a particular vision of the meaning of sacrifice. Usually, ritual sacrifice denotes an unwilling victim to be the offering. In the case of Jesus, the scriptures portray a victim, conflicted, but having a choice. It seems that Jesus chose to accept his death in service of God. The Bible does not indicate Jesus death was a transaction. It speaks in terms of kenosis, the free pouring out of life by choice in service of God. St. Paul certainly speaks of his life in these sacrificial terms. The martyrs of the early Christian Church seemed to embrace this same vision of sacrifice.

Here in the west, we don’t care for sacrifice. We rightly reject the implications of ritual sacrifice. However, we don’t much care for the notion of kenosis either. Offering ourselves and accepting less is not our strong suit. God is not a hungry, blood thirsty beast, that tends to be our territory. Maybe what we need is a deeper grasp of the mystery of Jesus’ self- authenticating, self-sacrificing acceptance of the cost of love?

St. Thomas and the Shroud of Turin

2009-04-20T10:59:00.000-07:00

By Eric Von Salzen

Over Easter weekend, the Wall Street Journal carried an interesting piece about the Shroud of Turin. I was surprised to see this, because I had thought that scientists had thoroughly debunked the claim that the Shroud was the cloth in which the body of the crucified Jesus was wrapped before being laid in the tomb. Indeed, the Journal article mentions that in 1988 several teams of scientists dated the cloth of the Shroud to between 1260 and 1390.

Yet the Shroud won’t go away. The Journal tells us that a Vatican researcher has found medieval documentation that the Shroud was in the possession of the Knights Templar between 1204 and 1353 (before the cloth was made, according to the 20th Century scientists). The article reminds us that no one has yet come up with a scientific explanation of how the image on the cloth was made, an image of a crucified man.

Interest in the Shroud is understandable. To those who claim that it is the burial cloth of Jesus, the Shroud is scientific evidence of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Evidence of these events seems important to Christians because our religion is based on the belief that the Crucifixion and Resurrection actually happened as events in the real world. So far as I know, no other major religion is so dependent on the truth of a particular event.

I’m no expert on comparative religion, but my impression is that if you were to persuade a devout Jew that the Exodus didn’t really happen, he might be disappointed, but he would not have to abandon his faith; he could accept that the Exodus was a myth or an allegory about God’s relationship to the Jewish people, rather than an historical account, because the relationship between God and the Jews is what counts, not the historicity of the Exodus. If you persuaded a faithful Muslim that what he had been taught about the life of Muhammad was wrong, he would not have to abandon his faith, because it is the teachings of the Qur’an that really count. A Buddhist could be a Buddhist even if you persuaded him that there had been no Buddha.

But if you persuaded a Christian that on the third day Jesus of Nazareth stayed dead, that on the second day his followers stole his body and hid it where it has never been found, that there was no Resurrection, no Easter, how could he remain a Christian? As Paul told the Corinthian Christians, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”

But what, you ask, about the story of Thomas, “Doubting” Thomas, as he is known in popular culture (or was so known when popular culture was still Biblically literate)? After the Risen Lord displayed to Thomas the wounds of the crucifixion, and Thomas acknowledged him as “My Lord and my God”, Jesus said, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Doesn’t that mean that we are wrong to want evidence, that we should just suspend our rational faculties and believe?

Well, certainly it is true that belief is, in the end, a decision (as well as a gift). We decide whether we will believe or not. But I don’t think the writer of the Fourth Gospel meant us to think that evidence is irrelevant. The very next verses of his Gospel, after Jesus’ remark to Thomas, are: “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” The writer we call John devoted all his skill as a writer and a theologian to tell the story of Jesus in a way that would persuade those who read his Gospel, or heard it read aloud, to come to believe.

Similarly, Luke says that his objective in writing his Gospel was to “write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed.” Luke used his wonderful skills as a story-teller to persuade Theophilus and all other readers and hearers of his Gospel that it was true. Matthew’s approach is different, but his constant references to the Hebrew Scriptures, tying the events of the life and ministry of Jesus to Psalms and Prophets, were clearly intended to persuade his Jewish Christian audience that the story was true. Mark’s style is spare and unadorned compared to the other Gospel writers, and he doesn’t tell us what his motivation was in writing, but isn’t Luke referring to Mark’s Gospel (and other now-lost writings) when he refers to predecessors who have “undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word”?

The Gospels and the other writings we call the New Testament were created so that those who read and hear them – us – may know the truth, may come to believe. When John set down the story of Thomas, he knew that his readers could not have the experience that Thomas had, to see the Risen Lord in the flesh and examine his wounds. We are the ones who must “come to believe” without seeing, if we are to come to believe at all. We are the ones who are blessed if we do so.

When I first heard about the Shroud of Turin I thought it would be cool if it were true. The Shroud would not only be contemporary evidence of the Crucifixion and Resurrection, it would be evidence in a form that could not have been meaningful until the modern era, almost 1,900 years after the event. The image on the cloth could not be appreciated until it was photographed in 1898 and was seen in the photographic negative. Until the modern era, tests didn’t exist to show how the image on the cloth was created, so only now do we understand that it was not produced by any known, non-miraculous, process.

Now, though, I’m less excited about the Shroud as evidence. When scientists concluded twenty years ago that the cloth of the Shroud was woven in the Middle Ages, that didn’t prove that the Crucifixion and Resurrection didn’t happen, and if the scientists change their minds after further tests and conclude that it was woven in Jerusalem in 30 AD, that would not prove that the Crucifixion and Resurrection did happen. Even if science never figures out how the image was formed, that wouldn’t prove that it was formed by a miracle.

We don’t need more evidence that the Resurrection and Crucifixion happened. We have the evidence of scripture, and each one of us has the evidence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives. We have all the evidence we need if we choose to believe.

Which brings us back to Thomas. He is mentioned in John 20 for two reasons. First, he was apparently harder to persuade than the other disciples. Second, once persuaded, he declared that Jesus was “My Lord and My God!”, the first disciple to do so (Mary Magdalene called Jesus “Teacher”). In a sense it’s a shame that we remember Thomas more for his doubt that for his eventual belief. But on the other hand, when we are troubled in our own belief, Thomas gives us hope. Recall that in scripture Thomas is not referred to as “Doubting” Thomas, he is called Thomas the Twin. We aren’t told anything about his twin, but I often feel as though I were Thomas’s twin. Don't you?

Bishop Pierre Whalon on the new Covenant Draft

2009-04-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

Bishop Whalon is always worth reading:

Covenanting to covenant
The Rt Revd Pierre W. Whalon, D.D.

Four-and-a-half years after the publication of the Lambeth Commission’s Windsor Report, with its proposal and draft text of an Anglican covenant, the Anglican Consultative Council will consider next month what might be the last iteration of a draft covenant for the Anglican Communion. It could conceivably send it back to the hardworking Covenant Design Group, the creator of now three draft covenants, the last of which was published on April 2, 2009, under the title “The Anglican Communion Covenant: The Third (Ridley, Cambridge) Draft” (hereafter “Ridley Draft”), so named because it was composed at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, England.[1] Or else the ACC could accept the draft and commend it to the forty-four autonomous-but-interdependent churches that make up the Communion. Or the ACC could nix the whole project.

This writer has just finished reading An Anglican Covenant, by Norman Doe (Norwich, England: Canterbury Press 2008). Subtitled “Theological and Legal Considerations for a Global Debate,” it is an exhaustive treatment of the covenant process as it lurched on its way on to the 2008 Lambeth Conference. Professor Doe is to be commended on this massive and even-handed compendium of texts and commentaries, arranged by formal categories: what is a covenant, how are they composed, what are their effects. In a way it reminded me of Lambeth Indaba, the compilation of the structured discussions of the Lambeth bishops that is the fruit of the recent Conference. Doe takes note of responses from great and small, strong and weak, as well as the documents by the Lambeth Commission, Design Group, churches, dioceses and Communion networks, official (International Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations, for instance) and unofficial (the Anglican Communion Network). Like Lambeth Indaba, everyone has had a say, and it has been noted.

Of course, things have moved on since Doe’s book first appeared. This writer had the privilege of being part of an Indaba Group at the Lambeth Conference that included among others, Archbishop Drexel Gomez, chair of the Covenant Design Group. It became apparent in that daylong discussion that most bishops were uneasy with a covenant that had a prescriptive disciplinary procedure, and indeed, the disciplinary Appendix to the second Design Group draft (“the St. Andrew’s”) was completely dropped in the latest iteration. A lawyer and a theologian, working together, reportedly wrote it. My Group also had a member from the Nippon Sei Kop Kai—the Japanese Anglican Church. Bishop Zerubbabel Katsuichi Iota, of the diocese of Kita Kanto, told us that he and his fellow bishops were dead-set against the Covenant. There is no word in Japanese for “covenant”—it can only be translated “contract.” “And we do not make a contract to be with Christian brothers and sisters,” he said through a translator. (Earlier, he had agreed with a point I had made that the Covenant should be no more than a page in length, “in fact, why not just four lines, like say, the Lambeth Quadrilateral?”)

Doe noted that there are multiple meanings to “covenant“. In particular, the term is used biblically as the establishment of a salvific relationship between God and people. First with Noah, then Abraham, then with the people of Israel, with the Levites and Phineas, and finally, with David. The New Covenant is for all nations, with Jesus Christ as mediator, effected through his death and resurrection, and accepted through faith. Covenants are also made between people, such as the one between Ahab and Ben-hadad in I Kings 20:34. The secular use of the word relates to legal agreements that are enforceable. One rule of thumb is that contracts have stated dates for beginning and end, while covenants continue in force until abrogated.

The large majority of comments and responses collected by Doe and later, Lambeth Indaba, as well as very recent comments on the Ridley Draft, show that few people wanted a Covenant that could be used to decide that a particular church is no longer part of the Anglican Communion. Overwhelmingly, people were far more content with a document that presents a theological, biblically-grounded notion of covenant. The rich and varied experience of the Reformed churches, for whom “covenanting” is of first importance in their understanding of what is a church, also points to the desirability of continuing to define relationships among Christians in the terms by which we became Christians. The Ridley Draft delivers a panoply of theological statements, supported by a lot of texts that have received unanimous acceptance by the constituent churches of the Communion. There is a final section that sets forth a consultative process for determining whether a church has violated the Covenant. It is then up to the Instruments of Communion—the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates Meeting—to decide what to do next. It unequivocally states that each church remains independent in terms of its own internal life. Signing on to the Covenant does not confer any power on outside jurisdictions to interfere in any church’s affairs.

Doe quotes the Rev. Dr. Kathy Grieb, a noted New Testament scholar, professor at Virginia Theological Seminary, and member of the Covenant Design Group: “The idea of a covenant is itself neutral. Everything depends upon its purpose.” (p. 53, n.1) So what is the real purpose of this Covenant? The Ridley Draft Preamble (like previous drafts) states it thus: “to proclaim more effectively in our different contexts the grace of God revealed in the gospel, to offer God’s love in responding to the needs of the world, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and together with all God’s people to attain the full stature of Christ (Eph 4.3,13).”

At first glance, this sounds like voting for motherhood and apple pie, as Americans say. These words, “to proclaim more effectively in our different contexts” what we all can affirm together, point, I think, to the actual raison d’être of this document, which conceivably goes something like this: The effectiveness of our proclamation of Jesus as Lord depends on the quality of our common life, which is nevertheless lived out in vastly differing contexts around the world. It isn’t very effective these days, because of lack of regard for that common life. So let’s re-state our common faith, re-commit to “mutual interdependence and responsibility,” as we did in Toronto in 1963,[2] and get on with supporting the mission of God in Christ.

But, "Within any important issue, there are always aspects no one wishes to discuss", as George Orwell purportedly remarked. One such aspect has to do with churchmanship. Now, whether one is Low, High, or Broad is not supposed to matter anymore—everything boils down to “Liberal” or “Conservative,” cutting across confessional lines. But clearly, in the comments and responses, including the most recent, the church parties re-appear in what people say is lacking in the Covenant. The Low-church folks want doctrine, clearly stated, accepted Or Else, about Scripture and how it is to be interpreted, and could we have the 39 Articles, too? The High-church folks want as much prelacy as possible, some citations of the Church Fathers thrown in, and why not a little Aquinas, and many more references to sacramental liturgies and quotes from them. The Broad-church folks, the “hazy ones” (“High and crazy, Low and lazy, Broad and hazy”), would rather have no document at all. But if we must, then let it be a brief reminder to us that the poor we will always have with us, never mind all this palaver about doctrine and liturgy and (ecch!) Bishops! —and that we should go out and get on with doing justice, making peace and feeding the hungry. Since none of the parties get what they want in this Ridley Draft, which would be in effect to bend other Anglicans to their party agenda, this is certainly a strength.

Another unspoken aspect is the influence of the Virginia Report, which is not referenced in the Ridley Draft. This Report, apparently little-read (this writer heard Bishop Stephen Sykes complain that to his knowledge, fewer than one hundred people had actually perused it), is a reflection on the Church’s life structured by life in the Holy Trinity, and how this reality might guide the re-structuring of the Communion’s global decision-making. The Report asked all the right questions:

1.8 When Christians find themselves passionately engaged in the midst of complex and explosive situations, how do they avoid alienation from those who by baptism are their brothers and sisters in Christ, who are embraced in the communion of God the Holy Trinity, but who disagree? How do they stay in communion with God and each other; how do they behave towards each other in the face of disagreement and conflict? What are the limits of diversity if the Gospel imperative of unity and communion are to be maintained?[3]

This report introduced the term “instruments of communion” into wider parlance. Its background is a 1988 Lambeth Conference resolution (Number 18)[4]creating the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission, asking for an essay from the Commission exploring a Trinitarian ecclesiology. In those times, people were wondering about the ordination of women to the episcopate and its effect on the communion (the Greek word koinonia is often used) of Anglicans. The Eames Report, presided over by the then-Archbishop of Armagh, Robin Eames, had made a preliminary answer in 1994. Archbishop Eames then chaired the IATDC as it produced the Virginia Report. In a separate but related development, the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Consultation was exploring similar themes, but in relation to universal primacy. This gave birth to its 1998 report called The Gift of Authority.

Thus the proposed Covenant’s pedigree is in fact an attempt in our days to begin to answer the questions posed by the Virginia Report. The mostly tacit koinonia that had kept the Communion together had begun to crumble, due to the centrifugal forces that began pulling at the Communion since the 1960s (remembering that the Communion doubled in size since “Mutual Responsibility and Interdependence” in 1963). These have only gotten stronger with the passage of time. It is worth noting that the Covenant does not try to define how the four Instruments should interact. It only pushes back to them a perceived threat to the integrity of the Covenant, not the Communion, from among the signatory churches.

A classic Anglican formulary, to which all Anglicans pay homage, is the Sixth of the Thirty-nine Articles, that Holy Scripture contains all things necessary to salvation, though it does not spell out what those necessary things are. Similarly, this Covenant tries to define a “containment area” in which decisions on the Virginia questions can be made, without spelling out the particulars. Having made this Covenant, in other words, Anglicans could then work toward defining structures and procedures for a global communion of churches.

Two more undiscussed aspects are the blessing of same-sex unions and ordination of people in them, and the incursions by other provinces into The Episcopal Church. Furthermore, a new group has come into being, the Anglican Church of North America, competing with The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada. In March 2009, the Church of Nigeria recognized it, and a few days ago a group of Primates (the “Global Anglican Future Conference Primates”) meeting in London did so as well.[5] The ACNA claims to unite under one jurisdiction a disparate cluster of churches, missions of other provinces, and dioceses calling themselves Anglican.

From the Windsor Report on, it has been constantly repeated that the Lambeth Commission process has not been about homosexuality. So what has it been about? The Episcopal Church since 1976 has had a number of developments that exacerbated the previously existing tensions that already had shortened the tenure of Presiding Bishop John Hines in 1974. These were not about churchmanship, but rather reflected the developing split along liberal/conservative lines evident in American political life that began during the Kennedy years. This conflict was exported. And then it was re-imported. Already in 1998, prior to the Lambeth Conference of that year, a Rwandan bishop took over a parish in, of all places, Arkansas.

In this sense, the Covenant serves to recall Anglicans to their roots, in re-affirming together the essential doctrines of Christianity. The unspoken hope is that doing so will enable Anglicans to work together again, and enable the Communion to function as the global entity that lives and works locally. And as the Lambeth 2008 bishops from outside the West learned, in some churches homosexuality is an issue that cannot be ducked.

As for interventions from other provinces, it would seem that the Anglican Church of North America has sublated the various provincial efforts (Southern Cone, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda) into a jurisdiction under American leadership. There should be no doubts about the intent of the ACNA leaders. They intend to supplant The Episcopal Church and the Church of Canada as the North American province of the Anglican Communion.

The Ridley Draft has these provisions:

(4.1.5) It shall be open to other Churches to adopt the Covenant. Adoption of this Covenant does not bring any right of recognition by, or membership of, the Instruments of Communion. Such recognition and membership are dependent on the satisfaction of those conditions set out by each of the Instruments. However, adoption of the Covenant by a Church may be accompanied by a formal request to the Instruments for recognition and membership to be acted upon according to each Instrument's procedures.

(4.1.6) This Covenant becomes active for a Church when that Church adopts the Covenant.

The Old Catholic Churches of the Union of Utrecht might choose to sign the Covenant. And the Covenant may be a good means to further the ecumenical ambitions of Anglicanism. This writer thinks it would be worth reconsidering insertion of Article XVII of the Windsor Report Covenant text, which would require churches in the Anglican Communion to consult more closely together when entering into full-communion agreements with ecumenical partners.[6]

But what happens when the ACNA signs the Covenant, as it will inevitably? Clearly, the Instruments of Communion will have to decide which province(s) is which. This will set up yet more controversy.

One solution would be to allow for the ACNA to function as a non-geographical jurisdiction alongside the two existing geographical provinces. This would however present major difficulties. As the bishop of a non-geographical jurisdiction, assisting in another, the practical problems of having such arrangements are themselves strong contra-indications to entertaining this solution.[7] But there are graver issues. For the Communion to recognize two provinces in one country—one geographical, growing from its historical roots, and second, existing in order to further a particular theological agenda—would spell the doom of any coherent Anglican ecclesiology. The First Council of Nicaea, faced with the Novatian controversy (a somewhat similar situation, actually), ruled that there can only be one bishop for one diocese. Anglicans have always followed this rule, for good reason.

Finally, returning to the American context (and this really does apply only to dioceses in the United States), the present conflict over church properties should end with The Episcopal Church winning back its properties and endowments from people departing from it, if court rulings so far are any indication. But the struggle to remain the Anglican province in that country will continue. If the Anglican Consultative Council does endorse the Ridley Draft next month for consideration by the churches of the Communion, grassroots Episcopalians across the globe will spend the next three years considering it and reporting their deliberations for the General Convention 2012.

I would encourage us in The Episcopal Church to take the long view. Signing the Covenant—if indeed that is what we decide—will be the culmination of a fresh new consideration of what it means for our international church to be part of a global Communion. 1963, the last time we really thought about it, was a while ago. Then we were willing, along with all the other provinces existing at that time, to renounce independence for “mutual responsibility and interdependence.” We should not be influenced by whether the ACNA signs on to the Covenant. What matters most is in fact what the Ridley Preamble claims: is this Covenant a means to make our contribution to God’s mission in the world more effective?

Norman Doe writes,

"There is nothing extraordinary in the Anglican enterprise [of the Covenant]. Although the project may be driven by theology, ecclesiastical politics and pragmatism, covenanting would actually involve participation in a conventional ecclesial experience for which there are numerous enduring theological and legal principles and precedents. While an Anglican covenant would appear novel to churches of the Communion, in point of fact, spiritual, sacramental and structural covenanting is a well-trodden Christian path." (p. 221)

And another question is to consider how we came to this place, and what to do in the future. The ecclesiology of The Episcopal Church is, I believe, a very practical way to govern a church, and I would argue that it is an authentic expression of Anglicanism. But we need to apply it, if we are ever to hope to move beyond the paralyzing effects of the conflict that has diverted so much of our time, effort, energy and money from the work the Spirit has given us to do. This will mean that the House of Deputies become less of a debating club and more responsive to the support of the several dioceses in their mission and ministry. The House of Bishops needs to reclaim its teaching ministry, and, as Episcopal bishops are subject to the House and its Rules of Order, to expect more discipline from its members. (Other episcopal colleges require attendance at meetings, for example. One Methodist bishop said that if he were to miss a meeting of his bishops, he had better be dead, or at very least, dying.) And the shape, role and powers of the office of Presiding Bishop should be re-examined. What seemed good in 1940 has probably become obsolete.

In my lifetime—a mere blink in terms of church history—The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion have gone through amazing changes. We have done some wonderful things to further the spread of the Gospel and validate its reality. And we have failed in many ways, as well. As we come to yet another moment of reflection and decision, let us remember that our ministries, our selves, and all our life come from and return to the Holy Trinity, who through Christ has bound us into communion with God and each other. This is the one, true, good, and beautiful reality that makes all our strivings worthwhile, and calls us each day into new and everlasting life together, whether we like each other, or not. Pace the ACNA, there are no irreconcilable differences, in Christ.

So we might as well get along together now.

Bart Ehrman's New Book - Greg Jones Comments

2009-04-16T20:25:00.000-07:00

University of North Carolina religion professor Bart Ehrman writes in the first paragraph of his new book Jesus, Interrupted that while the Bible "is the most widely purchased, extensively read, and deeply revered book in the history of Western Civilization" it is also likely the most "thoroughly misunderstood, especially by the lay reading public." This sentence, while in some sense factually true, bears within it a seed of what's wrong with Bart Ehrman's entire project.

That is further demonstrated by his claim that "scholars of the Bible have made significant progress in understanding the Bible over the past two hundred years, building on archeological discoveries, advances in our knowledge of the ancient Hebrew and Greek languages in which the books of Scripture were originally written, and deep and penetrating historical, literary, and textual analyses."

What's wrong with these two sentences? Allow me to elucidate.

While it is true that the Christian Bible is clearly the most influential single body of writing in Western Civilization, Western Civilization may not necessarily be that important to the Bible (either its form or its interpretation). After all, Christians have cherished the Bible since antiquity in a cosmos of various and exotic cultures not all considered to be particularly Western - Celtic, Egyptian and Ethiopian to name just three. Indeed, it is almost certainly true (as modern scholarship upholds) that nearly all of the books of Scripture were composed by Jewish people living in Africa and Asia. The Bible is much more properly understood to be a world book than merely a 'Western' property.

Which gets to Ehrman's entire problem: he continues to define the meaning of the phrase "understanding the Bible" in terms of the rationalistic, historical-critical, skeptical methods of the modern West -- even though the Bible was not written, edited or even now largely read by persons who share that hermeneutic.

Factually speaking, the recent discoveries made by scientists have not been of things never before known. No, much of what has been done is to restore a degree of familiarity with the languages and contexts of the ancient world which -- well -- the ancients were totally familiar with by virtue of being alive then. To put a plain point on it -- the knowledge of Scripture that Paul exhibits, for example, when he wrote his own letters (which would become Scripture themselves) is of a degree that I seriously doubt whether Ehrman could even come close. Paul, after all, is likely to have been versant in biblical Hebrew, as well as Aramaic, Greek and Latin. As a trained bible scholar -- a Pharisee -- Paul probably had committed the Scriptures to memory to a large degree, as well as a large oral tradition, and he would have been exposed to manuscripts far more 'original' than any Ehrman has ever seen.

Of course, Paul wasn't the only one. Folks like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Jerome -- to name three -- all likely knew far more about Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic and the cultural/physical contexts in which the Bible arose than today's scientists will ever know.

Second, the notion that modern Western scholars somehow better "understand the Bible" is likewise predicated on a definition that frankly is unacceptable to any believing Christian (or Jew.) For we who believe in the God of the Bible -- "the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord." In other words, "understanding the Bible" is a goal which can only be reached (however partially in this life) by prayerful study of the Bible from within the community of faith.

That's right: no individual, no matter how scholarly - can "understand the Bible." The Bible belongs not to the 'public' or the individual reader, but to the Church (or in the case of the Hebrew Scriptures to faithful Jews.) It is the Church which together -- with one heart and one mind -- engages the Bible. We use the God given gifts of memory, reason and skill in this pursuit. We recognize that from time to time we will have to accept tensions, disagreements and what logical inconsistencies. We do this trusting that the goal is Spirit-inspired Wisdom, not 'man-based knowledge.'

For Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, mainline Protestants, and Jews, the Bible is much more complex and inspiring than the paper-thin, literalistic book of straw that Ehrman likes to knock down. We don't deny the many inconsistencies between the two testaments, three original languages, multiple literary genres and sixty-six individual books which comprise the sacred library of Scripture. Rather, we uphold these in tension, just as we likewise uphold the incredible depths of intrabiblical harmony which also cohere these many pieces of writing together into something we recognize as inspired by God's genius.

I have said this before (the last time he wrote a book with almost the exact same content), but I'll say it again: Ehrman is a fundamentalist who's lost his faith, but has found nowhere else to look but back, and there with a bitter and critical eye.

Tobias Haller on Kevin Thew Forrester

2009-04-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

I have posted this in the larger post previously, but I would like to put greater focus on the depth of Tobias' comments regarding the theology of KTF. Tobias is a very important voice in the church - for clearly he is an advocate of inclusion -- and thus to some, a 'progressive.' Yet, he is also very much a creedally orthodox teacher and proclaimer of the faith -- which is why he is an advocate for inclusion and justice in the first place. Just as Karl Barth once said of William Stringfellow, "listen to this man," I say the same of Tobias Haller. (But of course I'm a tiny speck compared to the great Barth.)

He writes:

I have read Bp Breidenthal's letter with some attention. I had also read some of the sermons to which he refers, as well as other material from Bp-elect Thew Forrester.

I approach this from the language of the canons, which requires standing committees to state that they "know of no impediment" to the consecration. This leads to a discussion of "what is an impediment." It seems to me that the impediment (if it is truly there) in this present case would be the impediment of "defective intent." Thew Forrester is not happy with the present theology of the Episcopal Church, it seems. It is not that he denies the "satisfaction theory" of the atonement, but appears to deny the need for any theology of atonement whatever, as the "division" which "at-one-ment" is designed to remedy is purely illusory -- and artifact of human imperceptions.

Just as in marriage counselling I advise couples not to marry if they are intent on "changing" their partners to become more what they wish they were (a formula for disaster in my experience) so too I do not think it wise for one to seek to take up the mantle of a guardian of the faith if one is intent on being its reformer. This is not to say we need not work for change in certain aspects of the church's life -- but the object of change the Bp-elect seems to be intent on is a "core doctrine" --- and if one cannot sign on to that core doctrine, as it stands, it seems to me that there is an instance of defective intent.

I said the same thing regarding the Bp of South Carolina in terms of intent to observe the discipline of the church; and was heartened by his eventual clarifications that he had no intent to lead his diocese out of the church. The clarifications that the Bp-elect of N.Mich. has issued to date do not offer me the same kind of assurance in view of doctrine. He really does appear to think what Bp Breidenthal perceives him to think. He is welcome to those thoughts -- but it seems to me not to commend his episcopacy.

... I think Thew Forrester reveals himself to be a more than able administrator -- I would say it is his strong suit. And if that's all that being a bishop was about, I'd say, fine. But I don't think it is unusual to expect bishops to have a theological grounding and centering in those basic Christian doctrines. (BTW, I do not think T-F is inclining in an Eastward direction (at least towards Eastern Orthodoxy) and notions of theosis -- which is always in and through Christ. He admittedly passes further east to notions of awakening, shedding of illusion, and so on. Reading his sermons was an eye-opener for me. And if it is true they've been removed from public view, that seems all the more suspicious.

So in the long run, I don't think an examination of theological views is likely to stifle the election of theologically astute bishops. To expect bishops to be articulate exponents of the church's teaching is, I think, not too much to hope for.

[Certainly]... all doctrine is subject to further examination and elucidation -- that is part of the theologian's task. But "core" doctrine is "core" because it contains the postulates of the faith, some basic affirmations upon which the rest of the doctrine is built. Which is not to say they are a closed book: to date the church as a whole has not settled on any one particular theology of the Atonement, for instance.

But when core doctrines appear to be, not just being understood in new ways (which I think is great) but dismantled or misused (T-F's explication of kenosis in one of his "responses to criticism" seems to me to be almost completely backwards); or not clearly explicated (as in his response concerning the Incarnation) then I find that there is a question about suitability for the office of bishop.

As to N.N.'s observation that the church might be wrong, I not only agree but can join the 39 Articles in affirming that it is definitely sometimes wrong. I do not think the core doctrines are under threat by gays and women -- on the contrary, I think they are being more fully realized.

..... [The issue of including GLBT Christians is very important to me] but I don't see it as having any relevance to the discussion of bishop elect Thew Forrester. Here we are dealing, not just with novel ways of expressing or exploring the old truths concerning God and the nature of God, but with what appear to be rejections of the old truths -- which are not true because they are old, but old because they are true.

We will indeed see some old things pass away (God willing) in our lifetimes; but there are also eternal realities that will stand, indeed, upon which the change in the others is dependent. This is part of what Jim is referring to as intellectual coherence.

I would welcome from Thew Forrester, for example, a clear answer -- in his own words and without resorting to quotes from anybody else -- to the question, "What essential differences do you see between Buddhism and Christianity?" I have no objection to the use of Buddhist practice, and many of the moral ideals of Buddhism are remarkably congruent with a Christian life. But it appears to me that there are important distinctions as well, and I remain troubled by what I see as some of the elements of Buddhism that do not sit well with Christianity being imported into KTF's teaching and liturgical expression. A comment on the difference between satori and salvation, for example, would be helpful -- as KTF appears to see the latter in light of the former.

It is not that I'm trying to get him to say the words I want to hear, but that I want to hear something I recognize -- in its meaning -- as at the heart of the Christian faith. I see that in Rahner, I see that in the Cappadocians -- but in spite of quoting from them I don't see it in KTF -- in his own words.
-- Tobias Haller

Why Vote No in the matter of bishop-elect Kevin Thew Forrester?

2009-04-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

I have been heartened by what many respected theologians and bishops in the Episcopal Church are saying about the election of Kevin Thew Forrester in Northern Michigan. A significant number of leading Episcopalians - particularly in the center and even left-center -- are saying that Kevin Thew Forrester's practice and theology are sufficient cause to deny consent.

To an extent not seen much in recent years, we are seeing progressives and moderate leaders standing up to say, "We are for inclusion, and a broad spectrum of folks in our Church, but we also uphold the doctrine and discipline of the Book of Common Prayer."

Notably, bishops Tom Breidenthal, Michael Curry, Ted Gulick, Paul Marshall, and Gregory Rickel have all said they are not giving consent. Breidenthal, Marshall and Rickel have published well-written epistles explaining their non-consent. These writings in my view are something all Episcopalians should read -- because they are good examples of theological reflection in the service of the faithful discharge of one's duties.

In addition to these bishops, a number of progressive and moderate laity and clergy have likewise asserted the importance of bishops-elect upholding the doctrine and discipline of the Prayer Book. Here are some quotations:

It didn't seem on my reading that +Breidenthal is using penal substitutionary atonement as a litmus test (as some do) but that he's protesting an absence of the concept of sin.
---- Derek Olsen

Bishop Breidenthal wrote, "According to Thew Forrester, Jesus revealed in his own person the way that any of us can be at one with God, if only we can overcome the blindness that prevents us from recognizing our essential unity with God. The problem here is that the death of Jesus as an atonement for our sins is completely absent, and purposely so. As I read Thew Forrester, nothing stands between us and God but our own ignorance of our closeness to God. When our eyes are opened, atonement (not for our sins, but understood as a realization of our essential unity with God) is achieved."

I live quite near the epicenter of the Unity School of Christianity, this understanding of Jesus seems quite familiar to me. It is a modern quasi-Gnosticism, in which the believer's right perception is important, and not any existential act of God in Christ. The most esoteric of the Christian mystics never denied that our unity with God is in and through Christ. Most of those who speak as Bishop Breidenthal describes never quite get to a docetic Christology; but theirs is certainly one of Jesus as Great Moral Teacher, and perhaps as Prophet, but not as Messiah.

I can't speak to the accuracy of the Bishop's interpretation, because I haven't seen the documents myself. However, if this is how Bishop Breidenthal understands Bishop-elect Thew Forrestor's Christology, I can't blame Bishop Breidenthal for choosing not to support the election.
-------Marshall Scott

If Fr. Forrester's views are as Breidenthal describes them, there is every reason to withhold consent. I know that Breidenthal is a judicious , charitable, and intelligent man. It is clear he bent over backward to give Forrester a fair hearing and was not in the end convinced. His letter acknowledges a broad, generous orthodoxy, including a variety of interpretations of the atonement, but there are some limits imposed by the basic Christian narrative and the normative exegetical-liturgical traditions as we have received them and are attempting to carry them forward as the Church in our own day. If you can't develop some positive account of what it means to assert that "Jesus died for our sins and rose for our justification," you probably can't do the job a bishop is required to do. Same thing goes for denying the bodily resurrection by the way. God's gracious initiative in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus liberates us from the power of sin and death. A bishop is fundamentally an apostle: an embodied witness to the Easter Gospel and its life-changing power.

... Forrester's failure to use the baptismal rite of the 1979 Prayer Book alone, in my view, disqualifies him from confirmation as a bishop. The Prayer Book has the force of canon law, and, while there is some latitude in how the liturgies are fleshed out, Forrester's departure seems to be of such a kind that he is no longer conforming to the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Episcopal Church.

Sorry to disappoint some of my liberal friends, but I think Bishop Breidenthal got it more or less right.

I also think that, if as he alleges, the process in Northern Michigan, which had no proper election, is consistent with the canons, then the canons need to be amended so that this kind of thing can't happen again. I am gravely concerned that a single unopposed candidate was brought forward.
------Bill Carroll

I have read Bp Breidenthal's letter with some attention. I had also read some of the sermons to which he refers, as well as other material from Bp-elect Thew Forrester.

I approach this from the language of the canons, which requires standing committees to state that they "know of no impediment" to the consecration. This leads to a discussion of "what is an impediment." It seems to me that the impediment (if it is truly there) in this present case would be the impediment of "defective intent." Thew Forrester is not happy with the present theology of the Episcopal Church, it seems. It is not that he denies the "satisfaction theory" of the atonement, but appears to deny the need for any theology of atonement whatever, as the "division" which "at-one-ment" is designed to remedy is purely illusory -- and artifact of human imperceptions.

Just as in marriage counselling I advise couples not to marry if they are intent on "changing" their partners to become more what they wish they were (a formula for disaster in my experience) so too I do not think it wise for one to seek to take up the mantle of a guardian of the faith if one is intent on being its reformer. This is not to say we need not work for change in certain aspects of the church's life -- but the object of change the Bp-elect seems to be intent on is a "core doctrine" --- and if one cannot sign on to that core doctrine, as it stands, it seems to me that there is an instance of defective intent.

I said the same thing regarding the Bp of South Carolina in terms of intent to observe the discipline of the church; and was heartened by his eventual clarifications that he had no intent to lead his diocese out of the church. The clarifications that the Bp-elect of N.Mich. has issued to date do not offer me the same kind of assurance in view of doctrine. He really does appear to think what Bp Breidenthal perceives him to think. He is welcome to those thoughts -- but it seems to me not to commend his episcopacy.

... I think Thew Forrester reveals himself to be a more than able administrator -- I would say it is his strong suit. And if that's all that being a bishop was about, I'd say, fine. But I don't think it is unusual to expect bishops to have a theological grounding and centering in those basic Christian doctrines. (BTW, I do not think T-F is inclining in an Eastward direction (at least towards Eastern Orthodoxy) and notions of theosis -- which is always in and through Christ. He admittedly passes further east to notions of awakening, shedding of illusion, and so on. Reading his sermons was an eye-opener for me. And if it is true they've been removed from public view, that seems all the more suspicious.

So in the long run, I don't think an examination of theological views is likely to stifle the election of theologically astute bishops. To expect bishops to be articulate exponents of the church's teaching is, I think, not too much to hope for.

[Certainly]... all doctrine is subject to further examination and elucidation -- that is part of the theologian's task. But "core" doctrine is "core" because it contains the postulates of the faith, some basic affirmations upon which the rest of the doctrine is built. Which is not to say they are a closed book: to date the church as a whole has not settled on any one particular theology of the Atonement, for instance.

But when core doctrines appear to be, not just being understood in new ways (which I think is great) but dismantled or misused (T-F's explication of kenosis in one of his "responses to criticism" seems to me to be almost completely backwards); or not clearly explicated (as in his response concerning the Incarnation) then I find that there is a question about suitability for the office of bishop.

As to N.N.'s observation that the church might be wrong, I not only agree but can join the 39 Articles in affirming that it is definitely sometimes wrong. I do not think the core doctrines are under threat by gays and women -- on the contrary, I think they are being more fully realized.

..... [The issue of including GLBT Christians is very important to me] but I don't see it as having any relevance to the discussion of bishop elect Thew Forrester. Here we are dealing, not just with novel ways of expressing or exploring the old truths concerning God and the nature of God, but with what appear to be rejections of the old truths -- which are not true because they are old, but old because they are true.

We will indeed see some old things pass away (God willing) in our lifetimes; but there are also eternal realities that will stand, indeed, upon which the change in the others is dependent. This is part of what Jim is referring to as intellectual coherence.

I would welcome from Thew Forrester, for example, a clear answer -- in his own words and without resorting to quotes from anybody else -- to the question, "What essential differences do you see between Buddhism and Christianity?" I have no objection to the use of Buddhist practice, and many of the moral ideals of Buddhism are remarkably congruent with a Christian life. But it appears to me that there are important distinctions as well, and I remain troubled by what I see as some of the elements of Buddhism that do not sit well with Christianity being imported into KTF's teaching and liturgical expression. A comment on the difference between satori and salvation, for example, would be helpful -- as KTF appears to see the latter in light of the former.

It is not that I'm trying to get him to say the words I want to hear, but that I want to hear something I recognize -- in its meaning -- as at the heart of the Christian faith. I see that in Rahner, I see that in the Cappadocians -- but in spite of quoting from them I don't see it in KTF -- in his own words.
-- Tobias Haller

The Episcopal Church states that it upholds the ecumenical creeds, the canons and the apostolic succession/historic episcopate. This connects us organically to one particular set of communities out of the mix of so-called early Christianities.

It pains me to see many progressive Christians making a bee-line for ancient heresies, often without ever looking at the wide breadth of Christianities that fall entirely within credal orthodoxy.
-- Derek Olsen

A Church without core doctrine is intellectually incoherent.
------Jim Naughton

Bishop of Olympia Explains Non-Consent on Forrester

2009-04-15T06:25:00.000-07:00

This is excellent:

Dear Ones,

I write to you regarding my decision not to consent to the election of the Rev. Kevin Thew Forester as Bishop-elect of Northern Michigan. Some of you have been eagerly awaiting this, and I am sorry for the delay. I wanted to allow time to discuss this with our Standing Committee, not to persuade but simply to make sure they heard the following directly from me, which they have. I also wanted to converse directly with Kevin Thew Forrester, which I have done, and I am most grateful to him for that offering.

The Examination within "The Ordination of a Bishop" in our Book of Common Prayer reads as follows:

"My brother, the people have chosen you and have affirmed
their trust in you by acclaiming your election. A bishop in
God's holy Church is called to be one with the apostles in
proclaiming Christ's resurrection and interpreting the Gospel,
and to testify to Christ's sovereignty as Lord of lords and
King of kings.

You are called to guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the
Church; to celebrate and to provide for the administration of
the sacraments of the New Covenant; to ordain priests and
deacons and to join in ordaining bishops; and to be in all
things a faithful pastor and wholesome example for the
entire flock of Christ.

With your fellow bishops you will share in the leadership of
the Church throughout the world. Your heritage is the faith
of patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, and those of
every generation who have looked to God in hope. Your joy
will be to follow him who came, not to be served, but to
serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Are you persuaded that God has called you to the office of
bishop?
Answer: I am so persuaded.

Bishop: Will you accept this call and fulfill this trust in
obedience to Christ?
Answer: I will obey Christ, and will serve in his name.

Bishop: Will you be faithful in prayer, and in the study of
Holy Scripture, that you may have the mind of
Christ?
Answer: I will, for he is my help.

Bishop: Will you boldly proclaim and interpret the Gospel of
Christ, enlightening the minds and stirring up the
conscience of your people?
Answer: I will, in the power of the Spirit.

Bishop: As a chief priest and pastor, will you encourage and
support all baptized people in their gifts and
ministries, nourish them from the riches of God's
grace, pray for them without ceasing, and celebrate
with them the sacraments of our redemption?
Answer: I will, in the name of Christ, the Shepherd and
Bishop of our souls.

Bishop: Will you guard the faith, unity, and discipline of the
Church of God?
Answer: I will, for the love of God.

Bishop: Will you share with your fellow bishops in the
government of the whole Church; will you sustain
your fellow presbyters and take counsel with them;
will you guide and strengthen the deacons and all
others who minister in the Church?
Answer: I will, by the grace given me.

Bishop: Will you be merciful to all, show compassion to the
poor and strangers, and defend those who have no
helper?
Answer: I will, for the sake of Christ Jesus."

Often when called upon in this vocation to make difficult decisions, I reread these words. On the day of my own examination, these words fell heavy upon me, and with very good reason.

One of the duties of bishops in the Episcopal Church is to consent to diocesan elections taking place within the greater church, and to the results of those elections. This consent process is part of the checks and balances within the church, and, perhaps more importantly, a very real part of the discernment of the Body of Christ-the whole Church.

It has been said that the role of the bishop is to be a bridge, interpreting the universal to the local and the local to the universal. This particular role is often very difficult; however, our history and polity are clear: we do not operate in a vacuum, alone, in our local situations and contexts. We work within a larger context-the Anglican Communion and the rest of the global community-with many more to consider than just those who we see within our midst.

The process in Northern Michigan has many complexities and issues; which issue is most important and serious varies from person to person. Below are the major issues I have considered. After I present each as I understand them, I will address each one from my perspective. The issues are:

1. The election in Northern Michigan included only one candidate: the Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester. Standing committees and bishops were asked to consent to an "election." Although the gathered convention of Northern Michigan did in fact vote on this one candidate, some have questioned whether an election took place in this case, since an election typically includes at least one other candidate and some process of voting.

2. Thew Forrester's practice of Buddhism and especially his "lay ordination" in that belief system (My Christian Faith & the Practice of Zen Buddhist Meditation, Kevin Thew Forrester, 26 February 2009and Letter to the House of Bishops, Kevin Thew Forrester, March 11, 2009).

3. Thew Forrester's rewriting of the approved liturgies from the Book of Common Prayer, including the Baptismal Liturgy. (Baptismal Liturgy, Season after Pentecost, St. Paul's Church, Marquette, Mich. and Letter on Liturgy of Baptism, Kevin Thew Forrester, March 27, 2009)

I want to be clear that my decision is in no way a criticism of Total Common Ministry (TCM) or the work the Diocese of Northern Michigan has done in this area. Just over a year ago, I had the great fortune to sit with a group of people from the Diocese of Northern Michigan at the Living Stones Conference in Des Moines, Iowa. I have always been deeply intrigued and inspired by the work of this diocese since the time of Bishop Tom Ray and continued under the inspiring leadership of the late Bishop Jim Kelsey. Their exploration and advocacy of ministry, rooted in our baptismal vows, has been a tremendous gift to the Body of Christ. Kevin Thew Forrester has been an integral part of that work, which I recognize.

During that meeting in Des Moines, this very process of Northern Michigan's selection of a bishop was the topic of our case study. While inspired by their approach and discernment, I and some of the other bishops present, cautioned that the newness and innovation in their approach would most likely require much more education and explanation to the whole church if it were to go forward. The process itself is not nearly the concern for me that it is for many, and in and of itself would not necessarily be a reason to withhold consent. Some have read my decision as proof that I do not support TCM. I emphatically disagree. I believe and have often stated that TCM is part of the emerging church, and one I want to engage, support, grow and learn from. In fact, I continue to urge the planning group of the House of Bishops to bring into our midst representatives of the emerging church and Living Stones. I strongly believe in TCM and at the same time, no emerging system exists outside the collective discernment and the shared authority and oversight which our tradition has always upheld. It is built into our system that the local does not decide such matters alone.

2. Thew Forrester's adherence or learning of meditation practices through the Buddhist belief system does not, in and of itself, trouble me. In my first parish, I invited and participated in a Buddhist-Christian dialogue, which was deeply enriching to me. However, what we discovered in our time together was the fact that though many of our meditation practices were quite similar, what we were attempting and to whom we were connecting in the meditation was quite different. In one document (My Christian Faith and the Practice of Zen Buddhist Meditation, February 26, 2009), Thew Forrester states that his lay ordination in the Zen Buddhist tradition included a welcoming ceremony that included "a resolve to use the practice of meditation as a path to awakening to the truth of the reality of human suffering." In the same document he states, "It embodies a pragmatic philosophy and a focus on human suffering rather than a unique theology of God." This to me is quite different from our resolve in Christianity: that at the heart of our faith and our baptismal covenant are the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this same document, he states that his ceremony "included no oaths" although in a letter dated March 11, 2009 and distributed to the House of Bishops he provides more details including the "one vow I took and the precepts I affirmed." While he quite succinctly interprets what he intended to do with these vows and affirmations in relation to his Christian faith, to take the step of any type of ordination and "naming" within another belief system seems to me to be a deeper step and one I would take very seriously in relation to the vows taken in our Christian ordination. To this end, the lay ordination does cause me pause.

3. Finally, what troubles me the most about this situation is Thew Forrester's revision of liturgical texts, most especially the Baptismal Liturgy, the very core vow and liturgy of our faith. In a document circulated for the House of Bishops from Thew Forrester, he states that he and his congregation have "explored" the Baptismal liturgy, removing the reference to "Satan" and "accepting [Christ] as the way of Life and Hope." This action was to "complement the BCP"( Liturgy and Community, The Diocese of Northern Michigan, Kevin Thew Forrester, Lent 2009). In the same document, he states that he uses the Book of Common Prayer as a "primary resource." This brought me full circle. The very basis of Total Common Ministry and our very call to life as a Christian-the baptismal vow and liturgy-was being revised, and this is a concern.

I am faced with a situation where any one of these alone might be something that could be worked through; however, the panoply of these made me very uncomfortable and unready to move forward with consent.

This is one of the most, if not the most, difficult decisions I have had to make in my time as bishop. I want very much to honor those in Northern Michigan who have discerned this person and this outcome, but at this time, with the information I have, I cannot. I know and I have heard from many who do not agree with me and are greatly disappointed in my decision. I hold your opinions and feelings with great care and know them to be equally heartfelt. I hold in my prayers Kevin Thew Forrester, the Diocese of Northern Michigan, our diocese and this Church. I pray for the Holy Spirit to continue to enlighten us and I trust what should happen will, regardless of my role. This is my burden to carry. I do it on your behalf and I do not do it lightly, even when we disagree.

Faithfully,

The Rt. Rev. Gregory Rickel
Bishop of Olympia

How about this at General Convention?

2009-04-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

Christopher proposes something along these lines be promulgated by the next General Convention. I say, "Amen." Christopher writes:

Draft: Comprehensiveness in Generous Catholicity: A Commendation to this Church in Preparation for the 76th General Convention

Preamble

Appreciative of the core doctrines of our faith, Incarnation and Trinity, as Charles Gore so succinctly summed them a century past, we are reminded that these teachings point not to themselves but refer us to and lead us into living relationship with the Persons of the Triune and Living God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We desire to commend to this Church anew those signs that we do share across program and party and school if we would call ourselves catholic and Anglican.

Therefore, rather than a program for persuading the Church to a particular point of view on matters of justice or on matters of ecclesiology, we recognize that our unity is founded in and maintained by Jesus Christ through Whom in the Holy Spirit we are all children of a merciful Father. Our unity is neither founded in a program for or preaching of earthly renewal important as this is, nor a scheme for or theory of churchly organization as necessary as this be, but rather in our incorporation into this self-same Jesus by Holy Baptism. In the words of F.D. Maurice, noting conditions similar wracking the Church of his own day, “And those who are sighing over the condition of the Church, and have tried scheme after scheme for reforming it and bringing back its unity, and have found only fresh disappointments and despondency, will learn that they may go back to the one source of Reformation and Restoration; to Him who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.”

To this end, we commend anew to this Church those catholic signs[1] we do share as pointing us to and bearing us forth to the truth of and knowledge of and relationship with the Living God:

- The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as “containing all things necessary to salvation,” and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.

Needs filling in...

- The Apostles’ Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.

Needs filling in...

Events of these past days have reminded us of our Nicene faith. Many of us will never again say the Creeds lightly or without recognition of this costly inheritance from our ancestors in faith. We commend anew to this Church and do profess our faith as sufficiently stated in the Apostles’ and Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creeds.

We affirm the use of the Apostles' Creed in our Rite of Holy Baptism as appointed in our Prayer Book and the saying or singing of the Nicene Creed at every principle Sunday Holy Communion as required by our canons.

-The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself — Baptism and the Supper of the Lord — ministered with unfailing use of Christ's Words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by Him.

Needs filling in...

-The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church.

Needs filling in...

As heirs to the apostles and guardians of the faith once delivered, we affirm the desire of our bishops to uphold the "doctrine, discipline, and worship" of this Church.

-The Book of Common Prayer as authorized in this Church as the normative standard of worship in this Church.[2]

As the rule of our belief set in prayers inherited and shaped by a comprehensiveness borne of the struggles, thought, and faith of our ancestors in faith, we commend the use of our authorized Prayer Book throughout this Church with particular encouragement to maintain consistent use of those prayers as provided for our central rites: Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.

In a Church hungry for spiritual blessings and richness of prayer life, we commend the rites of Morning and Evening Prayer as generously set out and well appointed in the Prayer Book. And further, encourage their daily public praying in every parish of every diocese throughout this Church.

-Service of our neighbors’ and the world’s needs in proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ…[3]

Needs filling out...

The apostolic and primitive Church made the concerns of the world their own. This emphasis, though changed, has never been lost to the Church, for it is the concern of Jesus Christ who calls us into being and sustains us as His Body. In a world hungry for signs of God’s love, our Church rooted in its core faith, engaged in its central practices, and turned to the world’s needs in proclamation of the gospel, shall be set free from our ecclesial preoccupations.

The undersigned

Jesus Rises from Death - For Real

2009-04-11T17:11:00.000-07:00

Have you all noticed something lately?

I watch a lot of movies and tv - whenever I can - and I have noticed a trend in the past thirty-five years since my dad showed me how to turn the TV on. (For which I am grateful.)

I have noticed that we have gone from an era of science fiction to an era of fantasy.

Thirty-five years ago - you could watch all sorts of sci-fi shows featuring robots, flying saucers, ray guns and utopian images of society perfected by technology and human progress.

But nowadays - the big shows are all about mythological contexts, replete with medieval imagery, wizards, magicians and broomsticks.

When I was a boy - you had Robby the Robot, Hal 9000 and Commander Spock.

Now, you've got Dr. Manhattan (the demigod superheroe), Gandolph or Harry Potter.

It's an interesting cultural shift.

Indeed, in much of the 19th&20th centuries, Western thinkers tended to be very much rationalistic, scientific and futuristic. Some were optimistic, and others pessimistic, but the normative ideology was that human destiny was tied up with dreams of human self-progress.

In recent times, we are seeing a great deal more interest in mystery, magic and myth. We are seeing a shift from science fiction based on the premise of human self-progress to fantasy based on the premise of a universe of eery unknowns, and clouded by forces beyond our control.

For many in the past generation, the rise of technology to incredible heights has not been joined by a rise in hope for human progress based on technology.

I know some still dream of a future where robots and machines feed everyone and suffering and illness are wiped out - but we an also imagine a dark future where those same robots and machines do quite the opposite.

Even though in my pocket I have a tiny computer from which I can call my children, surf the internet, and listen to music -- I could also use that same tiny pocket computer to launch an attack on anyone anywhere -- if I were a villain, terrorist or other ne'er do well.

Yes, we have come to see that technology and the myth of human progress are not likely to save us - and so many of us have shifted in culture to things mystical, things mysterious, things magical.

For, we hope, maybe there will we find a savior.

But, though I too am a disciple of mystery, there are also dangers here.

For in an escape to mystery and myth there is also the threat of finding ourselves lost in a fantasyworld which does not exist either, and which is but the figment of our own imaginations, and thus cannot save us - however entertaining it may be for a while.

----------

I bring all this up to say quite simply that the death of Jesus on the Cross is not a myth, or the product of human fantasy, but is rather the historical event in which the myth of human self-progress is shattered.

Yes, what happened on that Good Friday when Jesus died, was that the myth of human self-progress also died. You see, when the world's greatest political, technological and military power kills someone like Jesus without a moment's regret (not to mention the thousands of others they routinely killed) it may be said that even at their civilized best, the human being is racked with sin and evil.

And this has not changed.

Moreover, I say all this about myths of progress or fantasy, to also point out that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is not a fiction, myth or legend either.

No, Jesus' resurrection is the historical event in which the power of man-made mythology is also overturned, because unlike the stories of Zeus, Mithras or Gandolph ... this actually happened in the course of people's lives.

The Gospel is not the Gospel because it's a good idea, a good story, or because it was told by imaginative good apostles.

No the Gospel is the Gospel - if it's any good news at all - because Jesus who though really and completely dead, did really and completely get back up.

And people saw him.

Indeed, if you look at the core of what the apostles said, what Paul said, what the Gospel writers said, what they all said was, "Jesus was dead and buried, then on the third day some women saw the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty, and then, they saw Him, and then so did the rest."

As all four Gospels say (and you know they sometimes disagree on points) Mary Magdalene, a single woman who had once herself been involved in witchcraft, and thus not a particularly strong choice for a witness if you were gonna make this stuff up, went down to that tomb, and saw it was empty, and then saw Jesus - risen.

Yes, Jesus died, and by the power of God he got back up.

And folks experienced this in time and space - in Jerusalem, in Galilee, at dinner and at breakfast.

Now, we live in a world where some will say this scientifically cannot have happened, and others will say "it's a good story, even if it didn't really happen."

But what we are saying is -- and what I am saying for sure -- is that it did happen.

It happened; and because it did, we no longer need to be disillusioned by the utter lack of human self-progress or the delusion of fantasy-land ideologies.

We can rest assured that God is real, does love us, has forgiven us, and will make things right. And this process has already begun.

I need this hope - don't you?

I am so grateful to have it. For, this hope has given me my life.

I'll tell you the first time it gave me my life.

My uncle died on Good Friday almost thirty years ago.

He put on his good suit, drove his new car half-way across Key Bridge in Washington, D.C., and he jumped.

When my father took care of his body, and my grandmother weapt so much, despair was all they had to make of it.

Neither my dad nor my grandmother believed what Mary Magdalene saw in those days.

But when my mom woke me up in the middle of the night early on that Holy Saturday to pray for Perry who had just been found -- even as a boy -- I knew who to pray to. I knew he would understand. I knew he would show compassion, and mercy and love. And I knew that because of what Jesus had done, my uncle Perry, broken as he was, would find himself in the arms of a loving savior -- and not before an angry God, or an gaping hole of nothingness.

I knew that because I had been led to trust the witness of Mary Magdalene and all those who likewise saw and bore witness with her, from then til now.

And because I knew, I have always been so glad, so deeply grateful, for this gift, this gift of hope, that can only come from God.

For God is not the product of industry or imagination.

No, God is love, and that love has been poured out for real in the course of human events.

That love became flesh, and that love knew death and defeated it.

For us.

Christ is risen!

Amen.

Jesus is Dead

2009-04-11T07:59:00.000-07:00

Jesus is dead, his body laid in a borrowed tomb. Jesus son of Joseph, the carpenter from Nazareth who became for awhile a popular itinerant preacher and healer, is dead.

In Jerusalem, behind locked doors, his former disciples talk in lowered voices, worrying and wondering about what to do, now that their hopes have been defeated.

They remember, and remind each other, of the things that Jesus said during his too-short ministry. They recall the parables through which he taught. The story of the man who had been assaulted by robbers and was succored by a Samaritan – a Samaritan of all people! Yes, and that was after a priest and a Levite had passed him by. Through this story Jesus taught us who we should love as a neighbor. They retell the story of the young man who took his inheritance while his father still lived, and wasted it on riotous living in foreign lands. Yet when he returned home, his father welcomed him. He told this story to teach us how YWHW loves us and wants us to return to him.

Do you remember that he said that those who mourn will be comforted, that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled? We mourn, but who comforts us? We seek righteousness, but there is no righteousness. He said that the merciful will receive mercy, but he was merciful and no one showed him mercy. He said that the poor in spirit, and those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, to them belongs the kingdom of heaven.

The kingdom of heaven! He said it was at hand, that it was actually here. But he was wrong. The Empire of Caesar turned out to be more powerful than the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed. The Empire killed him.

Yes, he was wrong about the kingdom of God, and so what use are all those teachings that we thought were so true? We thought he was a wise teacher, but in the end his teachings led to torture and death for him yesterday, and perhaps for us tomorrow. What use are his teachings, now? Who will listen to them, the words of a failed Messiah? When we are gone, will anyone remember his name, much less his words?

In another room, the women disciples gather. They are in despair like the men, but they are women and they have obligations. Tomorrow morning, some of them will go to the tomb to anoint the dead body of their leader and teacher.

By Eric Von Salzen

Holy Triduum Reflections

2009-04-10T20:12:00.000-07:00

During this Holy Triduum, it seems appropriate to offer some thoughts from two great Anglican theologians.

"The central Christian belief is that Christ's death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter. ... Theories about Christ's death are not Christianity: they are explanations about how it works. My own church - the Church of England - does not lay down any one of them as the right one. The Church of Rome goes a bit further. But I think they will all agree that the thing itself is infinitely more important than any explanations that theologians have produced. I think they would probably admit that no explanations will ever be quite adequate to the reality. ... We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed."

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (1943)

"The time had now come when, at last, God would rescue his people, and the whole world, not from mere political enemies, but from evil itself, from the sin which had enslaved them. [Jesus'] death would do what the Temple, with its sacrificial system, had pointed toward but had never actually accomplished. In meeting the fate which was rushing toward him, he would be the place where heaven and earth met, as he hung suspended between the two. He would be the place where God's future arrived in the present, with the kingdom of God celebrating its triumph over the kingdoms of the world by refusing to join in their spiral of violence. He would love his enemies, turn the other cheek, go the second mile. He would act out, finally, his own interpretation of the ancient prophecies which spoke to him of a suffering Messiah. ...

"The pain and tears of all the years were met together on Calvary. The sorrow of heaven joined with the anguish of earth; the forgiving love stored up in God's future was poured out into the present; the voices that echo in a million human hearts, crying for justice, longing for spirituality, eager for relationship, yearning for beauty, drew themselves together into a final scream of desolation.

"Nothing in all the history of paganism comes anywhere near this combination of event, intention, and meaning. Nothing in Judaism had prepared for it, except in puzzling, shadowy prophecy. The death of Jesus of Nazareth as the king of the Jews, the bearer of Israel's destiny, the fulfillment of God's promises to his people of old, is either the most stupid, senseless waste and misunderstanding the world has ever seen, or it is the fulcrum around which world history turns.

"Christianity is based on the belief that it was and is the latter."

N. T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (2006)

Bishop Kimsey Responds to Bishop Breidenthal

2009-04-08T09:18:00.000-07:00

Bishop Kimsey may find that he is going to have to write to Bishops Marshall, Alexander, Gulick and beyond. His letter essentially accuses of Bishops Breidenthal (and the rest who agree with him) of an 'inquisition' like approach in the matter of consents. The simple fact is that there is a doctrinal core, that it must be upheld, and that these theologian bishops who are witholding consent do not believe Thew Forrester would do that. Moreover, there are questions of canonical obedience - such as Forrester's penchant for rewriting liturgies and supplementing the authorized liturgies of the church for his own as it suits him. Moreover, after having read all of Pelagius' extant works, I can say that Pelagius did believe in sin, did believe in atonement, and where he certainly differed from his opponents (who smeared him) Pelagius looks like a giant of catholic orthodoxy compared to the things I've read of Thew Forrester.

Moreover, the simple fact that the House of Bishops should be broad in its theology and open in its mind (while true) does not preclude bishops and standing committees from determing in faith that a given candidate is out of bounds.

Kimsey likewise claims that Breidenthal (and those who agree with him) are "blocking access" to the floor of the House of Bishops - as if such access were a birth right of anybody. That's simply not so. As well, to accuse Breidenthal and others of "shutting off a faucet" of conversation and theological exploration likewise goes to rhetorical extreme that is simply absurdist. Finally, to suggest that Forrester was "elected overwhelmingly" is likewise nearly meaningless -- since Forrester was the ONLY candidate. Getting 88% of the vote would normally be impressive - unless you run uncontested.

Bishop Kimsey writes:

Dear Thomas:
I am alarmed by your March 31, 2009 letter regarding Kevin Thew Forrester’s fitness for his episcopal election.

If I am accurate in my reading of why you refuse to consent to his election, you maintain that unless a person holds the same view of a theology of atonement that you do, they have no right to be a bishop. “Being alarmed” does not come close to the emotion I know by your position in this matter.
The theological issue you raise has to do with the question of what did God wrought on that Good Friday through the death of my Lord, Jesus. You maintain: the conviction at the heart of our faith tradition, namely, that we are in bondage to sin and cannot get free without the rescue God has offered us in Jesus, who shouldered our sins on the cross.

And you maintain that: he (Kevin) appears to be settled in his conviction that our relation to Christ is not about salvation from a condition of objective alienation from God, but about a more realized union with God.

My alarm is simply this: are you attempting to stifle and/or eliminate a theological discussion that is as old as our faith tradition? Are you attempting to say that the Augustinian view of Original Sin is the only game in town? You and I could cite theologian after theologian who disagreed with one another over this pivotal issue of our nature--and the corresponding issue of the nature of God’s grace--and what occurred on Good Friday--and what was consummated on Easter morning, but the primary point of my entreaty to you is that we should welcome the debate. I find it reprehensible to even think of denying you access to the floor of the House of Bishops because of your theological belief about atonement. In the same vein, I find it reprehensible to think of your denying Kevin Thew Forrester access to the floor of the House of Bishops because of his
theological views on this pivotal issue. I also believe you are naïve if you think Kevin is a lone voice about union and communion with God through Christ being THE cardinal tenet for our understanding of salvation. Irenaeus comes to mind and there are more….and more….and more.

One of my fondest heroes in my twenty years in the House of Bishops was Bennett Sims. Bennett was a great admirer of Pelagius, that irascible and wise opponent of Augustine of Hippo, and Bennett often would proclaim it time for a heresy (Pelagianism) to be revisited for the sake of truth seeking. Bennett was ever the guardian of digging deeper and exploring more widely the parameters of our blessed faith tradition, and the House of Bishops was more attentive to one another and wiser because of him.

You may be right about those things that matter most to you, but you do not have the right to turn off the faucet of discussion and discernment in our quest for the truth. I have been a bishop for twenty eight years and I fear for the environment of our great Church when lines are drawn in the sand as you have done with Kevin’s consent process and proclaim that a good Christian person does not have the right to pursue his quest for truth as a bishop…..even when elected overwhelmingly by his brothers and sisters in Christ in a diocese he has served faithfully for eight years.

If you prevail and Kevin’s election is not agreed to, what is the next litmus test to be? And perhaps the telling question is: if you prevail and Kevin’s election is not agreed to, what word do you have for the people of Northern Michigan? I would suggest you cut us all some slack and withdraw your opposition to Kevin’s election. In so doing you would add a moment of grace to a Communion that, I believe, is in search of openness and transparency, not inquisitional standards employed through the consent process.

Thank you for your attention, and I wish you well.

I am Faithfully yours in Christ,
Rustin,
Assisting Bishop for the Diocese of Alaska

Latest Draft of Anglican Covenant Available

2009-04-08T09:12:00.000-07:00

The Draft Covenant. I haven't read it yet. Please let me know what you think.

F.D. Maurice on the Creed

2009-04-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

Hat tip to Christopher:

The Creed

from a sermon preached on Septuagesima Sunday, 1849, by Frederick Denison Maurice. In The Prayer Book. London, James Clarke & Co., 1966.

And they that know thy name will put their trust in Thee: for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee. -- Psalm 9:10

Every one must, I think, at some moment of his life, have been startled by the wonderful force of the words in Scripture with which he had been most familiar, and which had seemed to him most common-place. For instance, the word 'trust' which meets us at every turn in the Book of Psalms -- how soon we came to think of it as a kind of catch-phrase, as one which was characteristic of a peculiar people who lived some thousands of years ago in the East! In overwhelming troubles, in a time of utter weariness, when every calculation has been disappointed, when there seems no fair ground for expecting help from any quarter, when all is dark without and within, how has this little word dawned upon a man, what a witness it has seemed to give of a world of light somewhere, perhaps not far off! To be told that he may trust, or put his trust, in God; that this is not a sin, but a duty; that it has nothing to do with prospects of success, or even with the conditions of his own feelings; that the command is addressed to those who are in the midst of failure, upon whom the world has been frowning, who have found no resources in their own present consciousness, or in recollections of the past; to learn that such persons have best understood the command, and have obeyed it best; this is strange; what was a common-place becomes a paradox, and yet in that form the man receives it, entertains it, ascertains it to be true. To fear God he knew was right, whether he did it or no; to love God he had always held to be right, were it possible. But to trust in God, without being certain that he does either fear or love; to trust because all is in God which he has not and feels he has not, in himself, this is precisely what he needs, and precisely to this the book which had seemed a dull repetition of unmeaning sounds is inviting him.

There is another word in my text which has an inseparable connection with this. The great privilege of the Jew throughout Scripture is said to be this, that he knows the Name of God. He is not called to trust in some power which has sent him into the world, and which is exercising dominion over him, and with the nature and purposes of which he is unacquainted. It is assumed on the plainest ground of reason that such trust would be impossible. It might be prescribed, but the rule could not be obeyed; it might be desirable, but no one could practice it merely because he wished it. You cannot trust a thing, or a mere power, or a mere law. Trust must be in a Person; you cannot trust a Person whom you suspect of possible malevolence to you. Therefore this was the feeling which grew with the growth and strengthened with the strength of every Jew who understood his own position; 'If I am to trust in God He must declare Himself to me. I trust Him because He has made me feel and know that He is Righteous, and that He cares for me. I cannot see Him, but I know His Name.'

Let us understand this well, brethren, for it is very important in reference to notions that are current in the present day. If there is to be a religion of trust, and not of slavish cowardly fear, that religion must have a Revelation, the revelation of a Name for its basis. A religion which creates its own object cannot be one of trust. I cannot rest upon that which I feel and know that I have made for myself. I cannot trust in that which I look upon as a form of my own mind or a projection from it. . . Neither can I trust in any shadowy, impalpable essence, or in any Soul of the world. If this be the God I worship, my worship will be one of doubt and distrust, whenever it is at all sincere. If I do not seek all strange, monstrous means of propitiating the unknown Being, it is only because I am altogether uncertain whether he is real enough for such services. . . All superstition, all priestcraft, in its worst and most evil sense -- we cannot repeat this proposition too often, or put it in too may shapes -- has its root in vague, indefinite religious apprehensions; not resting upon the knowledge and confession of a Being who is not our image, but who has declared Himself to us that we might receive His image . . .

The Christian Catechists taught their disciple the Name into which at baptism he would be received. We are not left to conjecture the nature of the instruction. The short treatise of St. Augustine, 'De Catechizandis rudibus' is at least a voucher for the African Church in the fifth century. From the severe opinions which we have heard imputed to that great man, and which unquestionably may be drawn out of his controversial writings, you would imagine that he especially might be inclined to lay the foundation of his doctrine in some dark view of the Divine character, however he might afterwards introduce the consolations of the Gospel. A man who had felt sin so deeply might, one would have thought, have laboured first to awaken the sense of it in his Heathen converts before he proceeded to any other side of divinity. The great duty he conceives of the Catechist is to set forth the absolute eternal love and goodness of God. He is to declare God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. Here was the first step in the divine revelation; that which laid the axe to the root of devil-worship, divided worship, material worship; that which offered to the victims of each a high tower in which they might take refuge. No doubt they would often have a hard struggle in flying to it; the enemies would dog them continually; they would be asked how they knew that there was such a Being whom their senses told them nothing of. They would be called Atheists and self-deceivers. Polytheists, and Philosophical seekers after Unity, would mock them equally. Their own hearts would repeat the scoffs which came from without. But are the words true or not? If not men must of course go on in their delusions; there is no helping them; material worship, divided worship, devil-worship, must be left to degrade and rend in pieces the Universe. If the words are true, they will prove themselves true. The Father Almighty will prove himself to be a Father. They that know that Name will trust in it. They must. Their misery, their Atheism will drive them to it. And He will not fail those who seek Him.

But the question -- How is He a Father, how do I know He is? cannot be evaded. The Church had no wish to evade it. She acknowledged that something more was implied in the Revelation of a Father than His Name; that there must be some one to reveal Him. She proclaimed the Name of His only-begotten Son, our Lord. She says that He revealed Himself as he Son of God by being conceived of the Holy Ghost our Lord, by being born of the Virgin Mary, by suffering our death, our burial, by going down into the Hell we tremble to think of; by facing all our enemies visible and invisible, all that we actually know we must meet, all that our imagination dreams of; that He rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven, and sat down on the right of the Father, and will come again to judge the quick and the dead, If God be absolute, eternal love, as St, Augustine makes the Catechist affirm, how has he shewn it? Has it come forth, or is it all hidden in his own nature? Has it come forth to some other creature, or to man? Has it met him where he needs to be met or somewhere else? Has it encountered the actual woes of mankind, or only those which affect a particular set of men? Has it been found mightier than these, or has it sunk under them? Has this love been cheerfully entertained, or did it encounter ingratitude? Was the ingratitude too strong for the love, or the love for the ingratitude? Is the victory for all times, or only for that time? Is He who you say is our Lord really our Lord? Does He reign over us? Will he leave all things just as they are, or set them right at last? These questions have a claim to be answered; that is no Gospel to humanity which does not answer them; the Christian Church said, 'This is the answer' . . . And again, supposing the words be true, all we have to do is to proclaim them and live upon them. He who has sent us into the world for that end can prove them. Those that know His Name will trust in Him, and so they find that He has not deceived them. . .

I believe in the Holy Ghost. I believe that there has come from the Father and the Son One who can reveal them to me and to all men; who does promise to dwell with us for ever, and to remove the corruptions that hinder us from receiving the Light which would enter in and fill us. I believe that he has brought men into a Unity which is not based upon different notions and opinions, but upon the Divine Name, a Church for all kindreds of nations. . . I believe that He who quickens our Spirits will quicken also our mortal bodies, will deliver them out of he bondage of corruption, and make them like Christ's glorious body. I believe that we shall not always see truth in dim mirrors with winking and feeble eyes, but shall mount up on wings as eagles, and gaze upon the sun in its brightness, and enjoy that life everlasting, which is the knowledge and love of God. . .

Yes! 'I believe:' in this form the Church taught its baptized member, if not its Catechumen, to speak. For she felt that the baptized man is not to lose hold of that which at such a cost has been won for him, but that he has need to be trusting every moment the Name that has been made known to him. And so this creed, this baptismal formulary, has become a Christendom possession, which all beggars and nobles, old men and children, have a share and a right in. There is no charm in its words: they may have been varied at different times; new clauses may have been introduced into it to protect the rest from invasion. The worth of it is this especially, that it has so little to do with sounds, that it is so much a Creed of acts, that all the Divine Mystery comes forth in real manifestations meeting real necessities that are common to all.

It is a creed for the people which the schoolman cannot and dares not meddle with; and yet which he is obliged to confess says much more than he can say in hundreds of folios. It is a tradition -- often it has been called the tradition of the Church. As such we receive it, and rejoice in it. But on this ground especially, that it is a continual protection against traditions, that when they try to force themselves upon us, we can always put this forward as a declaration that what we believe and trust in is not this or that notion, or theory, or scheme, or document; but that it is the Eternal Name into which we are baptized and in which the whole Church and each member of the Church stands. As it has come down to us it must be a tradition. But it is a tradition which we cannot value for its own sake. Not the utterance, but that which is uttered; not the form, but the substance which it sets forth is the object and ground of our belief. . .

No protests against those substitutes for living faith in a living God, which have been introduced into any part of Christendom, can have anything like the force which there is in a distinct, personal, united assertion of that faith. And this especially because the Creed occurs in the midst of confessions, prayers, thanksgivings, which interpret its use. We do not put it forth to shew what a different religion from other men. We say in whom we believe, because we are about to cast ourselves upon Him in utter helplessness, to ask help from Him for ourselves and all mankind, to beseech the Father through the Son to renew in us that Spirit of Holiness, and Fear, and Love, who can enable us to know His name, but to trust in it evermore.

Go Virginia

2009-04-07T18:24:00.001-07:00

If the Diocese of Virginia wins their appeal - they will have done a service to all hierarchical religious bodies in the Commonwealth of Virginia. When one looks at it from this perspective, one may see their resorting to the secular courts as having the shape of seeking just redress via the only means available. While I am wary of Christians using the courts to deal with issues best resolved internally - as Scripture commends - it may be that in this case there was no internal means. Nonetheless, the particular statute in Virginia which allows the Nigerians to heist what never belonged to them (according to the established principles of The Episcopal Church) does seem clearly to interfere with the internal doctrine and discipline of The Episcopal Church -- and all the many other churches which have made themselves known as 'friends' of the Diocese of Virginia in this matter.

Here is what the Diocese said:

Determined to restore constitutional and legal protections for all churches in Virginia, and to return loyal Episcopalians in Virginia to their Episcopal homes, the Diocese of Virginia today filed a petition to appeal The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Virginia v. Truro Church, et al.

The Diocese is appealing on a number of grounds, including a challenge to the constitutionality of Virginia’s one-of-a-kind division statute (Va. Code § 57 9(A)) and the rulings of the Circuit Court in applying the law.

According to the filing several key issues – issues that impact people of faith throughout Virginia – are at stake:

Whether it is constitutional for a court to impose a congregational majority rule requirement on hierarchical churches, against their faith and traditions;
Whether “neutral principles” should be used for resolving property disputes between congregations and denominations; and
Whether property may be held in trust for hierarchical churches.
The appeal calls upon the Supreme Court to reverse the Circuit Court’s judgments – judgments that awarded Episcopal Church property to those who chose to leave the Episcopal Church – and to issue final judgments for the Diocese, and recommends that the cases be remanded for further proceedings on the Diocese’s suits for declaratory judgments.

Christopher on Anglican Core

2009-04-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

Christopher writes something which I find very well said:

Anglicans do not have a magisterium or a confession, but we do have a guiding set of minimums expressed in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral:

(a) The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as "containing all things necessary to salvation," and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.

(b) The Apostles' Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.

(c) The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself — Baptism and the Supper of the Lord — ministered with unfailing use of Christ's Words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by Him.

(d) The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church.

It’s a reserved set with a lot of nuance and room for divergence, disagreement, and diversity—all of which we have in abundance. For example, “standard of faith” in part (a) is directed toward understanding that in Scripture what we can glean from the word is who God is and who God is for us. The words of Scripture are not self-referential, but in study, prayer, and especially in public proclamation refer us to the Living God we know in Jesus Christ. This is distinct from a Puritan or Fundamentalist understanding that scripture is the ultimate standard of faith and morals, or faith and science. Rather, part (b) makes clear what is saving in the Scriptures, namely who God is and who God is for us uniquely and ultimately as revealed in Jesus Christ. These are “sufficient” statements, meaning that we recognize they cannot fully capture the Mystery of God, as no words could, but that they tell us adequately and savingly who God is and is for us as shown in Christ, and that God is consistent in character in God’s infinitude as with God’s self-communication in Christ. In other words, God in all of God’s mystery will not be at odds with the nature and character of God as revealed in Jesus. The Creeds do not overdefine, but rather mark out unacceptable options that the early Christian communities faced, such as thinking that creation and material existence are other than the gifts of a good and loving God, suggesting that the God of the Old Testament is other than the God of the New, determining that Jesus is other than fully human or fully God, or teaching that the Holy Spirit is less than God.

So, at the heart of the Creeds sit two core doctrines which Anglican Christian tradition will not cede: Incarnation and Trinity. We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human and that in the Second Person of the Trinity come among us, the invisible or unknown God is both visible and known, such that, for example, the three Persons of God and their sociality are shown forth in the full event of the Incarnation--birth, life, teaching, death, resurrection, ascension, coming of the Spirit, formation of the Church.

For Anglican Christians, these core doctrines have important and liberative dimensions for creation and the oppressed, as flesh and matter and history are the loci through which God is present and works—Archbishop William Temple once remarked that “Christianity is the most materialistic of religions.” And the sociality of the Triune God impacts how we are meant to relate to one another—Archbishop Desmond Tutu has remarked that “I don't preach a social gospel; I preach the Gospel, period. The gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is concerned for the whole person. When people were hungry, Jesus didn't say, "Now is that political or social?" He said, "I feed you." Because the good news to a hungry person is bread.”

Bishop Paul V. Marshall: No on Forrester

2009-04-07T09:11:00.000-07:00

Bishop Marshall, diocesan of Bethlehem (Pa.) and author of Prayer Book Parallels, is one of the notable theologians in the House of Bishops. Not all bishops need be published scholars, but I am glad that some are!

Having used Prayer Book Parallels when writing my thesis at GTS on the history of the baptismal regeneration controversy ten years ago, I have long been grateful for his scholarship. Now I am grateful for his frank clarity in the service of witnessing to Christian truth in his letter regarding the election of Thew Forrester in N. Michigan. I am particularly thankful for his honest indictment of our entire Church (and yes we need to be held accountable) not for our movements toward full inclusion of all the baptized, but for our often very weak proclamation of the basic Christian message so amply attested to in our baptismal covenant (the whole covenant, not just the last sentence.)

I say this not because I wish ill on Fr. Forrester qua human being. But because I wish that any consecrated to the historic episcopate is both capable and interested in proclaiming the faith of God in Christ as amply demonstrated in the creeds, Scriptures, and sacraments.

Bishop Marshall writes:

The Church, as it ponders scripture, tradition, in the light to the best reason it can muster, is itself the judge of the Church’s latitude in doctrine and practice. It defines that latitude from time to time, seeking to welcome the broadest possible expression of the basics of the faith. Core doctrines are maintained most notably by unambiguous reference in liturgy and catechism.

Thus when Bishop Righter was tried for allegedly violating the Church’s doctrine in accepting certain persons for ordination, the court was able to say that while the question was a theological question, it was not a matter of core doctrine and was not addressed in our central documents. Unpublished documents from the right wing opine that they subsequently think they would have more likely gotten a conviction if they had charged Righter with violating the discipline (operating rules) rather than the doctrine of the Church.

When Bishop Robinson was elected, there was again a question of doctrine, but no core doctrine in prayer book and canon to which appeal could made. (Attempts to apply to documents from the UK still cause me to wonder.) When a multiply-divorced man was elected in Northern California, at least a majority in both houses believed that the New Testament teaches about divorce, and particularly its prohibition of remarried bishops did not form an absolute barrier. Although I did not agree, this made a kind of sense, the question of moral modeling aside, because the Church is in fact now more open to remarriage. Beyond that, both Bishops Pike and Righter had contracted serial marriages, not to mention many priests.

In the case of the bishop-elect of Northern Michigan, perhaps we can get our ducks in the correct rows. His Buddhist practices are sensational but not the point. In sermons and other writings (including eucharistic prayers which I fear were used outside Rite III settings, giving us a question of discipline as well as doctrine), the bishop-elect makes it clear that the doctrine of the Trinity as confessed in the Creed and explained in the Catechism is not what he holds.

He will use base-three theological language, but never in service to the proposition that in Jesus of Nazareth God became fully human. Similarly, his understanding of the atonement is not conformable with the liturgy or catechism, but appears to be something like gnostic enlightenment. His writings represent a very shaky understanding of the Second Person of the Trinity, God incarnate, severely weakening his gospel.

Apart from his sense of freedom from the seeming minutiae of rubric and liturgical text, in which he is by no means alone, Fr. Thew Forrester seems to have been an exemplary priest, a saintly pastor and an enviably fine human being. That is not the point. The point is that there has been no time like the one we inhabit for bishops to proclaim unambiguously the gospel of Christ in all its fullness.

In a cardinal church in the west the creed is never used, and a eucharistic prayer from around the world is used each week, along with other ritual freehand before and after the gathering. I couldn’t tell what I had just attended or what the church actually celebrated.

As a Church we are increasingly a laughing-stock. Not because we welcome lesbian and gay people, and carry on social ministries that enact the sacrifice of Christ on a corporate basis, and certainly not because of our latitude and the conversation it engenders. We are a laughing stock because we do not consistently proclaim a solid core, words as simple as “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” yet “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.”

Increasingly it seems that the Cross has become foolishness in the Church, and our former hallmark teaching of the Incarnation is seldom heard, and less seldom heard to matter. If our embarrassment is going to end, the voices of bishops as clear, traditional, and powerful evangelists need to be raised in the churches and in the market place. Many bishops find a number of techniques that come from the social sciences useful in their ministries, and have significant investment in Eastern meditation—their qualification to be bishops, however, is as the chief confessors of the creeds and presidents at the sacraments. They are to be unambiguously ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through them.

For these reasons I believe the present election cannot go forward and hope that it will not.

Paul Marshall