Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, has issued his much-awaited response to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church: “Communion, Covenant, and our Anglican Future.” Although it’s not as lengthy as Pope Benedict’s recent encyclical, it’s sure to be parsed almost as carefully and debated nearly with the same intensity by Anglicans throughout the world. The letter is worthy of such scrutiny: As he has done so often in the past, Archbishop Williams has given us both a substantively theological read of the present moment and a sound and hopeful way forward for the Anglican Communion.
For those keeping score, the leadership of the Episcopal Church—including the Presiding Bishop, the president of the House of Deputies, and the church’s chief ecumenical officer—had attempted to argue that the actions of their General Convention didn’t go against the repeated requests of the wider Anglican Communion to stop progress on same-sex blessings and partnered gay bishops. Williams was not convinced: “The repeated request for moratoria on the election of partnered gay clergy as bishops and on liturgical recognition of same-sex partnerships has clearly not found universal favor,” he wrote. In short: The communion’s request for moratoria has been answered, and the answer is “No.”
In fact, as Williams argues, to change the received Anglican position on sexual ethics would require a quite sharp re-thinking of biblical teaching, something that even if possible would require a level of consensus among Anglicans and ecumenical partners that simply has not been reached. “In the light of the way in which the Church has consistently read the Bible for the last two thousand years,” says Williams, “it is clear that a positive answer to this question would have to be based on the most painstaking biblical exegesis and on a wide acceptance of the results within the Communion, with due account taken of the teachings of ecumenical partners also. A major change naturally needs a strong level of consensus and solid theological grounding.” There is therefore no warrant for moving forward on this issue as a province, diocese, or parish.
As a result, Williams contends that “it is hard to see how [a person in a same-sex relationship] can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires. . . . A person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle.” In a similar way, it is difficult to see “whether someone belonging to a local church in which practice has been changed in respect of same-sex unions is able to represent the Communion’s voice and perspective.” Here, the logic of Williams’s argument is that the Episcopal Church’s consecration of Gene Robinson and its expressed openness to further such bishops, as well as its practice of offering same-sex blessings, must affect its ability to serve in representative roles both for and within Anglicanism.
This is so, Williams explains, because of the venerable catholic principle that “what affects the communion of all should be decided by all.” Without the difficult process of consulting the wider body of Christ when a local church seeks either to respond to a new question or to answer an old question in a new way, that church runs the risk of “becoming unrecognizable to other local churches, pressing ahead with changes that render it strange to Christian sisters and brothers across the globe.” The end result is a cacophony of churches all preaching different gospels, with none of them sure anymore if they are indeed proclaiming one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.
This does not mean—as Williams is quick to point out—that everything we do and preach must be precisely the same. On some issues, Anglicans may indeed agree to disagree, and there are no absolutely clear rules for determining when this will be permissible. But it does mean that developments in matters of faith and morals cannot be done independently, without the consultation of both the wider Anglican Communion and our ecumenical partners. “To accept without challenge the priority of local and pastoral factors in the case either of sexuality or of sacramental practice would be to abandon the possibility of a global consensus among the Anglican churches such as would continue to make sense of the shape and content of most of our ecumenical activity,” Williams argues. “It would be to re-conceive the Anglican Communion as essentially a loose federation of local bodies with a cultural history in common, rather than a theologically coherent ‘community of Christian communities’.”
Although this is clearly not how Williams envisions the Anglican Communion, he admits that not all Anglicans agree with him on this point. Some view Anglican fellowship instead “as best expressed in a more federalist and pluralist way,” he concedes. “They would see this as the only appropriate language for a modern or indeed postmodern global fellowship of believers in which levels of diversity are bound to be high and the risks of centralization and authoritarianism are the most worrying.” But although this is the self-understanding of many Episcopalians (such as Bishop Stacy Sauls, who has publicly stated that even the word “federation” is for him a bridge too far), Williams insists that this is not how Anglicanism has commonly understood itself, particularly in recent years with the advent of Lambeth conferences, instruments of unity and governance such as the Anglican Consultative Council, and ecumenical dialogues.
It is precisely this emerging ecclesial reality, he argues, that the Anglican Covenant proposal has sought to secure—namely, “to do justice to that aspect of Anglican history that has resisted mere federation.” Proponents of the covenant, Williams explains, are not out to exclude people or grasp power, but instead simply “seek structures that will express the need for mutual reconcilability, mutual consultation and some shared processes of decision-making. They are emphatically not about centralization but about mutual responsibility.” As such the proposed covenant is the best hope Anglicans have for strengthening the bonds of relationship that tie them together and avoiding the path of local isolation and fragmentation.
No one, Williams emphasizes, will be forced into this, and no one who chooses a different path need fear being “cast into the outer darkness.” Relationships of affinity and partnership in mission will no doubt continue in any case. But those who decline the opportunity to walk together with other Anglicans in mutual responsibility and discernment, electing instead to place a higher value on local and provincial autonomy, will have chosen a path that will inevitably lead to a degree of differentiation from their covenanted Anglican brothers and sisters. This is to be regretted, but such is a path that can be chosen in good faith and need not lead to acrimony. Williams strongly urges that such decisions be made peaceably and with respect for the conscience of all, particularly those who seek to covenant with the larger Communion but find themselves within provinces that choose not to. The treatment of such Anglicans—and here, Williams has both the Communion Partners within the Episcopal Church and others elsewhere in mind—is, he asserts, an “important” question that requires a “clear answer.”
Notably, Williams still expresses his “strong hope that all the provinces will respond favorably to the invitation to Covenant” with each other, even while acknowledging that the Episcopal Church had not kept to the moratoria the larger Communion had requested of them. This may lead some to wonder: Is there here a hint of Pollyanna, or perhaps Charlie Brown falling for Lucy’s football one more time? But there is much more going on here. The covenant has simply not been placed before the Communion in its final form, and it is not for him to say what the future decision of any province will be. That said, of course, the context for Williams’s reflections should not be missed—it is precisely following the actions of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church that he saw fit to lay out, once again, his understanding of the two paths that lie ahead for Anglicans to choose, one covenanted and one federated.
Clearly, it is his read of the present moment that the Episcopal Church, in its actions this summer, has moved further down the federated path. And it is his hope for the future that as many Anglicans as possible, both within the Episcopal Church and around the globe, will move ever further toward the covenanted reality that holds such great promise. This, quite plainly, will have to do with both respecting the threefold moratoria (border crossing, same-sex blessings, and partnered gay bishops) as well as with signaling clear support—at the provincial, diocesan, and parish level—for the Ridley-Cambridge draft of the Anglican covenant. While the all-important Section 4 of the draft covenant, which deals with relational structure and discipline, is now being looked at again after the Anglican Consultative Council—thanks largely to Episcopal Church delegates—forced its delay, the entire logic of Williams’s letter points toward its adoption in full without change. And the more dioceses and parishes that show their support, the likelier that will be.
Actions, as Williams concludes, are “bound to have consequences.” But while Williams’s letter strongly points to the need for consequences following the actions of the actions of General Convention, there is now further need for Williams to show that his words have consequences. Whether rightly or wrongly, too many Anglicans around the world view Williams as inclined too much toward talk, unwilling to take action when action is called for. As such, there are too many Anglicans who will perhaps not be convinced by the weight of his words alone. At present, two members of the Joint Standing Committee—which will make the crucial decision, at the end of this year, whether or not to pass along the final draft of the Anglican covenant to the provinces for ratification—are members also of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori and Dr. Ian Douglas of the Episcopal Divinity School. It may be both right and prudent to ask them to step down—for if the Episcopal Church has decided not to abide by Communion decisions, then what right have they to make decisions for the Communion? Their participation will only deepen Communion-wide distrust of international Anglican bodies, and by taking action Williams will help renew the trust of many in his own office.
What, after all of this, is the future for ordinary faithful Anglicans in the United States, whether in the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) or the Episcopal Church? The strong implication of Williams’s argument is that for both groups, the best and brightest future is with the Anglican Covenant. Both ACNA itself and the Communion Partners within the Episcopal Church have expressed their desire to sign on to the covenant, and while difficulties no doubt exist in both situations there is no reason to think that forward progress cannot be made by both parties. Where more serious difficulty exists, at present, is with those elements within ACNA that do not share an interest in the proposed covenant, as well as those places within the Episcopal Church that do not have the oversight of a Communion Partners bishop. Those who do have one or the other, however, can and should be confident in their ability to work from where they are for the good future of the covenanted Anglican Communion.
In my recent article, “Brave New Church,” I expressed a lack of confidence in the direction of the Episcopal Church’s leadership. But I do have confidence in the Communion Partners dioceses, both in where we stand and in where we're going. In my case, that means the diocese of Dallas, where I'm just now finishing up a summer internship, and my home diocese of North Dakota, where I'm a candidate for holy orders. I have good friends in ACNA too, many of whom recognize just as I do the need to work for the common covenanted future of the Anglican Communion.
We recognize that now is not the time for animosity and division; now is the time to work for the good of the entire Communion, wherever we may stand on the issues. That, I think, is where Rowan Williams is pointing us, and it’s my hope and belief that he’ll be in our corner as we work together for the Anglican future.
Jordan Hylden, a former junior fellow at First Things, is a graduate student at Duke Divinity School.
Comments:
One sees this incoherence in the wording of Archbishop Williams's text at key points. He says that changes in Church teaching must have "a wide acceptance ... within the Communion, with due account taken of the teachings of ecumenical partners also." Why require acceptance within the Communion, but only "due account" of the positions of ecumenical partners? If decisions affecting all should be taken by all, doesn't that mean that decisions affecting all should have the general acceptance (even if not absolutely unanimous) of all? Would it not affect the Catholic and Orthodox Churches if the Anglican Communion were to bless same-sex unions? Shouldn't the Anglican Communion wait until such momentous changes were accepted by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches?
This "venerable catholic principle" expresses an ecclesiology based on consent. But how can it be implemented in Anglicanism, where there is no consent on ecclesiology?
I must give you credit. You do an admirable job here of making painfully distorted intellectual contortions seem oh so reasonable. But you also demonstrate why the Anglican experiment has been doomed from the beginning and how it has acheived its currrent sad status as a rapidly declining post-Christian institution. Call it what you like, simply changing the parts of the faith you find inconvenient inherently removes you from the Body of Christ. So the only question remaining for Anglicans/Episcopalians is, do you want to be loyal to Christ or do you want to cling to the delusional hope that this irreparably fractured band of apostates is somehow connected to the universal Church.
Did not Thomas More address archbishop Williams' concerns?
But I do think Jordan resembles those two clerics in the cartoon that Terry Mattingly recently recalled. The TEC bishop and her lesbian lover are processing to the altar at National Cathedral in D.C. that happens to resemble a fat budda and the two clerics standing near a door remark, "one more thing like this and I'm out of here."
One of the omissions in Jordan's article is mention of the many orthodox Anglican "continuing churches" in the U.S. -- APA, ACC, The Episcopal Missionary Church and others -- that retain the liturgy found in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and turn from modernity and such stuff as the "ordination of women."
Yes, the numbers in their pews may not equal TEC, but that will change -- just look at how many parents have determined that home school provides a better education than the state's effort.
Rowan is in a fix because he's equivocated so many things that he can't discern a path. For me, it's important at these times to remember the circumstances that caused Paul to write all those epistles.
I take this to be the essential theological justification for many "innovations" in Christian faith and morals, almost all of which began with smaller bands of believers who faced opposition from the powers that be. To take one classic example, read Acts 15, which recounts the story of how the Jerusalem church erroneously -- and against the will of God -- attempted to force gentile Christians to become circumcised as a precondition for recognizing the legitimacy of their faith and ecclesial identity. What's interesting about this story is not that Peter and the episcopate got it wrong; it's that the Gentile Christians in Antioch and Syria and Cili'cia didn't submit to circumcision pending Jerusalem's change of heart. No, they kept on moving in the direction that the Spirit was leading them, confident that they were in the right and that eventually the powers that be would recognize this fact.
It seems to me that this is what TEC has done. While acknowledging that the wider Anglican community has not yet adopted their position on homosexuality, the church has stood firm to its conviction that, in the words of Acts, the church "lay upon [LGBT Christians] no greater burden than these necessary things: that they abstain from . . . from unchastity." Hence the church's position that same-sex couples should be given the option of formalizing their relationships through holy unions, and that those who have done so (or who abstain from fornication) should be given all the rights and privileges and responsibilities as other Christians, including the ability to respond to a calling as appropriate to serve as ministers and bishops.
The TEC position on this issue is imminently consistent and reasonable -- assuming, of course, that they have rightly discerned the will of God on this issue. It is the position of Rowan Williams that makes no sense. He should either declare that homosexuality is always and everywhere sinful, or that it is not, or even that the church is in a period of discernment where there has not yet been a final verdict on this issue. That's the sort of thing we expect an archbishop to do.
Instead, we gotten vacillation and obfuscation reminiscent of Peter, who to his discredit waffled on the extent to which Gentile converts were required to follow Jewish law, eventually prompting this sharp rebuke from Paul: "But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, 'If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?'" (Gal. 2:14).
While diplomacy is salutary, in this case we're dealing with evasion and muddling of serious issues. The result is an egregiously divided Anglican "Communion" that has done a disservice to its orthodox members and practically ended any hope that many of us have cherished for serious ecumenical discussion with the Catholic Church.
The truth is that the Anglican Communion suffers from a dubious founding and a present lack of decisive leadership. Those of us who try to remain loyal to this church are in a difficult place. Jordan Hylden's optimism for the future of this church is a rather pleasant illusion.
IMO, Anglicanism has an identity problem. It tries to affirm both the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church and that belief that it was corrupted as the Protestants believe. It's possible to make the case the God guides the Roman Catholic Church so the Roman Catholic Church doesn't stray more than God allows. So tradition is God's precedent law. It's possible to make the case that whenever Christianity is persecuted it is closer to the faith than when it gets comfortable and the early church had enough witnesses to make the bible and the process of picking the cannon reliable. So scripture defines Christianity and is God's version of Napoleonic Law (i.e. the literal law means exactly what it says).
Anglicanism wants to have it both ways, and as much as I find it attractive, I don't see how it's possible to mix these two incompatible law codes. IMO, if you try to pick and choose buffet-like, you end up with the TEC which will be by definition "traditional" in a generation.
As a former deacon in and long-time member of the Anglican Province of Christ the King, I know whereof I speak when it comes to Anglicanism in general and the continuing traditional jurisdictions in particular. And my knowledge of Anglicanism and its history were primary contributing factors in my deciding to convert to Catholicism. You're assertion that, "Yes, the numbers in their pews may not equal TEC, but that will change..." is quite optimistic indeed and doesn't quite jibe with reality. Almost of of the continuing jurisdictions have experienced either little or no growth and in some cases, steady decline, over the past 20 - 30 years. They are, in fact, tiny splinter groups and I've seen no evidence that that is likely to change. You say I need to consider a bit more grace. I would say you need to consider a few more facts.
My point is not to quibble over the distinction between behavior and belief of Peter (though it is interesting Paul condemns Peter for not being "straightforward about the truth of the gospel," which implies the behavioral problem was based on an error of belief, Gal. 2:14).
Rather, it is (1) that the Jerusalem church -- including Peter at some times -- actively taught that Gentile converts needed to follow Jewish law, including circumcision; (2) that this belief was opposed by some Gentile converts and some Jewish Christians, most famously Paul; and (3) that the latter faction eventually prevailed, though in the interim it is possible to say they "disobeyed" the Jerusalem church's teachings by failing to be circumcised as the Jerusalem church taught they must do.
1) The point is made that Anglicanism is ecclesiologically incoherent, in a way that can be traced back to its founding (Henry VIII, etc.), and which ultimately leads to the incoherence between a) supposing that "what affects the communion of all should be decided by all," and b) the manifest reality that Anglicanism is in a separated state, particularly from its Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox brethren.
I'm far from an expert on ecclesiology, but one answer might be along these lines-- first, one might agree with the Eastern Orthodox that there haven't been any true ecumenical councils since the first seven, and that as such it simply is not possible to make any decisions of a fundamental sort given the sinfully divided and broken state of the church as it now is. (This of course is a double-edged sword for Roman Catholics, since it would not support such actions as defining the Assumption of Mary as dogma.) Following on from that, second, one would agree that it is indeed not permissible (or at least, not desirable from an ecumenical standpoint) for one portion of the broken Church to undertake innovations in fundamental matters of faith and morals on its own. This, in fact, is precisely the position taken by distinguished Anglican theologians such as Michael Ramsey and Stephen Neill. And it would, arguably, apply to the matter of women's ordination, particularly to the episcopacy. This corollary has been drawn by many Anglicans as well; Rowan Williams, for his part, opposed the recent move by the English general synod to elevate women to the episcopacy for ecumenical reasons.
Does this mean, then, that there is some sort of fatal, fundamental flaw to Anglicanism itself due to its separated state from its catholic brethren? One read of this would be that it is perhaps better to envision us all as separated from one another, thus rendering the entire body of Christ broken and wounded. With particular regard to Anglicanism, we could be quite forthright in acknowledging that we have been incoherent and muddled to some extent from the very start, thanks in large part to the royal supremacy and the Elizabethan Settlement, then later on due also to the loss of consensus resulting from the rise of Evangelicalism and the Oxford Movement, and then finally due to the functional loss of the authority of the royal supremacy and also to the further loss of consensus resulting from the spread of Anglicanism around the world. In short: Yes, we Anglicans are all muddled up and have never quite got what we are, but the present crisis has led us to face up to our "ecclesiological deficit" (as the recent Windsor Continuation Group called it) and attempt to move toward catholic coherence with the proposed Anglican Covenant.
The charge that Anglicanism is indeed quite muddled can of course be sustained, but to say that Anglicanism is incoherent in a fundamental way that the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches are not is another question. By the above reading at least, we're all flawed more or less-- but that's not the point. Instead, the question to ask is this: What will move us toward coherence? What will heal and draw together the sorely broken body of Christ? This, at bottom, is the question to which Rowan Williams is trying to give an answer.
2) Are folks like me under the sway of some sort of delusion? I hope not. Perhaps so. I do actually find the ecclesiological vision set forth by theologians such as Rowan Williams and Ephraim Radner to be extraordinarily attractive. I welcome substantive criticisms of their view. Anglicanism does indeed, as I understand it at least, attempt to be both catholic and reformed. Where this comes from is this: In the 39 Articles, we hold that councils of the church may "err," and that as such we must hold out the possibility that we need to read the authoritative Scriptures afresh. There's a great quote from Pope Benedict that sums up the key point: He says that for the Roman Catholic, there are not two acts of faith in Christ and the Church, but instead one act of faith. Now, if you agree with him, you need to be a Roman Catholic. If you don't, but still think that we need to read and interpret Scripture together with the whole church (hence, no sola Scriptura), then you're an Anglican. I may be wrong on that, but I hope it's not just delusionary thinking.
3) Are there issues to be raised with Rowan Williams's leadership, perception, or perhaps honesty and integrity? I'd strongly oppose the latter sort of claims, and I don't intend to debate them. As for the first two-- yes, it's often been said that Williams needs to show himself a man of action and not simply words, or that he perhaps does not possess the political acumen necessary for the job. Whether right or wrong, these are I think fair questions to raise. I think his latest reflections were excellent, but I said myself in the article that they weren't enough. Action needs to follow, and very quick and significant action. Bishop NT Wright has some very wise words to say on this count, in my opinion.
4) Is ECUSA justified in its actions because of their prophetic, Spirit-inspired character, even and precisely because of their novelty as per Scripture, tradition, and the rest of the present ecumenical Church? I do not think so. It is an argument, and it is a very innovative one. Those who follow it must, I think, be very brave to suppose that they, against all others, are indeed at the forefront of the Spirit's movement. I do not dispute at all that such persons may well be quite brave. But I think they need to be very brave indeed to think and act thus, claiming to speak almost all alone for God.
Thanks again very much for the comments, folks!
Blah, blah, blah. You simply don't get it. And all your over-intellectualizing isn't going to change a thing. I've seen the same facile, empty rhetoric in many Anglican books and on a hundred Anglican blogs and none of it has ever succeeded in making Anglicanism legitimate.
Your characterization of the motivations of the ECUSA is more than a little unfair.
You wrote:
Is ECUSA justified in its actions because of their prophetic, Spirit-inspired character, even and precisely because of their novelty as per Scripture, tradition, and the rest of the present ecumenical Church?
But this question gets it wrong on so many levels.
First, it is uncharitable -- and probably a form of bearing false witness -- for you to claim that the Episcopalians with which you disagree hold their position on homosexuality "precisely because" of its novelty. To the contrary, most of the folks I worship with in my parish in DC have developed reasoned arguments on this issue that at least attempt to show how the practice of blessing same-sex unions has precedence in and does not contradict the deeper theological truths of Scripture, tradition and experience. Try reading the work of Catholic theologian James Allison, for instance (http://www.jamesalison.co.uk/).
Second, opposition to the ECUSA by diosceces like Nigeria does not appear to me to be based on any sort of concern about holiness, as one would expect if it were the work of the Spirit. Why, for instance, has Akinola supported extreme anti-gay measures -- as have both Rowan Williams and you implicitly by never publicly condemning him -- that even the Bush administration challenged as a breach of Nigeria's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights? (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Akinola#Homosexuality_laws_in_Nigeria).
And why has the ordination of a gay bishop by ECUSA led us to the point of schism -- both internally and effectively with the wider communion -- while traditionalists were apparently content to look the other way when certain other ECUSA biships (such as Shelby Spong) publicly denied the divinity of our Lord?
Is it really your position that it's okay for a bishop to deny Christ (perhaps because Peter did so as well, meaning there's at least some scriptural precedent for it!) so long as the bishop doesn't also support gay sex?
Finally, why do you scoff at bravery? "Fear not," "be not afraid," "let not your hearts be troubled": these phrases appear again and again in scripture, and they have been the watchword of Christians throughout history -- not only on a personal level, but in the midst of the church's great debates over faith and morals. You act as though all of this is something new. But there has never been an age in the church's history where matters of faith and morals were "settled" and not subject to great (and often bloody) controversy. Sometimes the innovators have prevailed, sometimes not. And sometimes, in hindsight, the alleged distinction between an innovation and tradition proves to be illusory (as perhaps is the case when we look back on the centuries-long medieval controversy over icons).
In any event, it seems strange to hear you dismiss the many interesting and important questions generated by the current debate over homosexuality (such as what is sex and gender and what is the true purpose of marriage) through an appeal to cowardice.
The key question, it seems to me, is whether one can speak of a universal Church that has the authority to render definitive judgments on matters of doctrine --- definitive in being irreversible, and also in the sense that a person or community that rejects the judgment is cut off from (full) communion with that Church. The early Church clearly thought so, and so have both the (Roman) Catholic Church and Orthodox Church. A clear illustration of this is that early Ecumenical Councils issued decrees that declared those who rejected them “anathema”. By contrast, it appears that Anglicanism has always held that there has never existed and never can exist a Church that has such dogmnatic authority --- hence the quite consistent assertion of the 39 Articles that Ecumenical Councils have erred. It seems to me that this is the fundamental difference between all Anglican ecclesiologies on the one hand and the ecclesiologies of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and the “early undivided Church” on the other. The former ecclesiologies do not recognize any Church as having dogmatic authority, whereas the latter ecclesiologies do.
It is true that Orthodoxy is in the anomalous position of living without Ecumenical Councils for the last 12 centuries. That does not mean, however, that they are without a functioning communion-wide dogmatic authority. Definitive judgments of doctrine do not require declarations of Ecumenical Councils or popes. In Roman Catholic terminology, there exists also the “ordinary magisterium”, i.e. the bishops of the world, even if not sitting in Council, can by their agreement in doctrine teach in a definitive way. That is how Eastern Orthodoxy has been functioning for 12 centuries. What would happen, for example, if an Eastern Orthodox bishop were to start ordaining “partnered homosexuals”? The answer is clear: the rest of the Orthodox Church would cut him off, together with those who adhered to him. So the Orthodox are not in the same position as the Anglicans now are; they believe themselves to possess and still exercise dogmatic authority.
Can dogmatic authority be dispensed with? It seems not. Even when it is disavowed on the theoretical level, it is exercised on the practical level, but disguised. What else is the attempt by some Protestant churches to draw lines between so-called “Bible-believing” churches and others? What is “walking apart”, except a more polite way of showing someone the door? It comes in a hundred forms and is described in a hundred ways, but in the end every Christian body that believes there is a “deposit” of faith that must be “guarded” (1 Tim 6;20) understands, at some level, that lines must be drawn and that someone has to draw them. Who does the drawing? The “catholic” answer has always been that the universal Church draws the lines, the orbis terrarum (as in St. Augustine’s maxim “the whole world securely judges”.) When Pope Benedict said that there is a single act of faith in both Christ and His Church, he was just expressing the catholic (as well as Catholic) view, expressed also by St. Cyprian of Carthage: “He cannot have God as his father who does not have the Church as his mother.” What did Christ mean, after all, when he said “he who hears you hears me; and he who rejects you rejects me”?
I think that one problem that some intellectual Anglicans may have in accepting the idea of dogmatic authority is that they may not appreciate that there can be at the same time a great deal of theological pluralism and definable limits to that pluralism. It is not all or nothing. There is an enormous field for speculation, debate, and intellectual investigation within the limits of Catholic and Orthodox dogma. Indeed, it seems to me that people are more free to run and jump and explore when the really dangerous areas are effectively fenced off.
Perhaps I misunderstood your previous comments. You had appealed to the "biblical principle" of the Spirit's unpredictable movement, which in ECUSA circles is often spoken of as God doing a "new thing" among us. As such, the admitted novelty of ECUSA's actions is seen to have theological warrant, even precisely in its novelty and unpredictability, as this is how the Spirit is wont to move among us. Did I misunderstand you?
As for courage-- it's precisely not my intent to disparage genuine courage. I've taken a bit of heat from conservatives for saying that there are undoubtedly some in ECUSA who have been genuinely brave in their actions. What I do mean to call to attention, though, is that the true virtue of bravery is indeed needed, since in so doing one is acting without clear Scriptural warrant (as Ellen Davis, Stacy Sauls, and others agree about), without support of the church's traditional practice, and also without the support of the ecumenical Christian community. And I hoped that ECUSA supporters of revision would take another look at themselves to see if they are truly exhibiting such courage. I also hoped that they would think again about the gravity and radicality of their undertaking.
Finally: No, it is not my position that it's OK to deny our Lord so long as one doesn't move the line on sex. I genuinely wish that all this had happened years ago with Bishop Spong instead of with Bishop Robinson. No, I do not support anti-gay legislation or opposition to same-sex relations based on prejudice. Rowan Williams is entirely right to say that the Anglican world has often been guilty on this front.
Go take a look at Bishop NT Wright's just-released statement:
http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/2009/07/rowan%E2%80%99s-reflections-unpacking-the-archbishop%E2%80%99s-statement/
It's far better than mine, and well worth the time.
Jordan
You now say -- for the first time, I believe, in your many postings on this issue -- that you "do not support anti-gay legislation or opposition to same-sex relations based on prejudice. Rowan Williams is entirely right to say that the Anglican world has often been guilty on this front."
Is this a denunciation of Anikola?
Do you support anti-gay legislation in general, provided its not based on "prejudice," whatever that means?
Are you prepared to support measures within the church to enforce Anglican teaching in this regard against all who (like the Nigerian church and its bishop) might seek to covenant with the Anglican Communion?
Or is ecclesial anti-gay bias, prejudice, and support for state-sanctioned violence against gays and lesbians one of the soft issues about which one may "agree to disagree" while remaining in full communion with the larger church?
And if the latter, why the difference? Is there a reason based on Scripture and tradition you can think of that does not rely, for instance, on Christendom's long tradition of making sodomy a capitol offense (e.g., Justinian's infamous law banning sodomy as necessary to prevent recurrences of the divine destruction visited upon Sodom and Gomorroh)?
And if you don't believe that sodomites should be subject to the death penalty (or castration, imprisonment, or similar criminal sanctions that in the US were only overturned in 2003), how do you justify this "new teaching"? Are gays not really as dangerous as Christians once believed? And if not, why not?
As for your question, yes, I do believe that God can and does do "new things." For instance, I see developments in the ECUSA regarding the separation of church and state (many of which derived from anabaptist and baptist theological insights) as a positive and welcome development in Anglican doctrine and practice. I wish the rest of the commmunion would follow our lead. I certainly do not find much warrant in the New Testament for the governing structure of the Church of England, under which Parliament gets the final say-so on the ordination of bishops and the truth of church doctrines. Similarly, the idea that Prince Charles will one day become the Supreme Governor of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith strikes me as deeply troubling from a theological perspective.
But apparently none of this presents a real problem in your worldview -- again, so long as gay sex isn't involved.
Finally, I am perplexed by your statement that you wish all of this had come to a head back when Spong was busy leveraging his status as bishop to hawk books and TV appearances. That implies those of us who support holy unions and the ordination of gays are at one with those who deny the divinity of Christ. But I can assure you that at my parish in DC we worship the same Father, Son, and Holy Spirit you do, reciting the same creeds and liturgies, reading from the same scriptures, and celebrating the same Eurcharist. There may be an overlap between the two camps, but it is not absolute. And your arguments will have more persuasive power to the extent that they recognize this fact.
At any rate, I appreciate your taking time to discuss these issues here.
Thanks for your response. To your point: I'm a big fan of Reinhard Huetter's book Suffering Divine Things, in which he makes an extraordinarily persuasive case for the necessity of authoritatively binding doctrine. At the time he wrote the book, Dr. Huetter was a Lutheran; it is probably no coincidence that he was eventually drawn to the Roman Catholic church. And you're absolutely right that so-called "Bible-believing" evangelical churches, precisely by way of their confessional lists of "biblical" truths they adhere to, have in a sense re-invented the Magisterium for themselves. And they even tend to re-invent the Vatican: the Missouri Synod has Concordia in St. Louis, other evangelicals have seminaries such as Dallas Theological Seminary, or Calvin, or etc. As you say, even when dogmatic authority is denied on the theoretical level, it often comes back surreptitiously. So, I'm very sympathetic to your argument, on several levels.
But like you say, here's the crucial question: Is is possible to have a coherent, faithfully Christian ecclesiology without a binding dogmatic magisterial authority? I agree with you that there's a fundamental, pivotal distinction between ecclesiologies that posit such an authority and those that do not. That's precisely what I meant to get at with my Pope Benedict quote.
Here, I need to admit that I've learned just enough at seminary to know that I need to learn much more about this question! So rather than try to answer you myself, I'm going to take a mulligan and give you a quote from Ephraim Radner:
"It is possible to try to identify or essentially link Scripture and Tradition through theological arguments regarding e.g. the single “authorship” or direction of the Holy Spirit. Eastern Orthodox have made these kinds of arguments. But even if one wished to do so, one would still have to distinguish the kind of work of the Holy Spirit accomplished in the writing of and gathering of and recognizing of the Scriptures from that accomplished by the providential ordering of the Church’s life and decision-making. How would one define this distinction? Personally, I don’t think that this has ever been done very satisfactorily within the Eastern Church. In any case, the Western Church has not deployed the pneumatic argument in the same way (or as consistently – and, perhaps, the Eastern Church hasn’t either!). Currently, the Roman Catholic Church tends to use the unifying category of the Word, rather than the Spirit, in a primary way. So, Tradition derives from the same Word as does Scripture. Again, however, one must be able to distinguish the form of this common derivation and witness. Here, I think Roman Catholicism has been more precise, but also historically less consistent, and the latter is a problem.
"Part of the historical problem is precisely what elements of the Reformation attempted to address: in what way is the same “Word” given in the Church’s councils as in the Scriptures? Or in the Church’s decrees and declarations? Or in the Church’s witness? Sticking to Anglicanism, her early reformers clearly determined that, historically, the reconciliation of Scripture and Tradition (demanded by the very concept of Tradition, with a capital “T”), was impossible; and it was impossible for theological reasons: the Church, in her history, decision-making, interpretations, decrees, practices, and so on, was not only fallible, but actually corrupt in many ways. She cannot be, in these things, the bearer and enunciator of the Word, except in a secondary and relative sense. Furthermore, Scripture can be the bearer of the Word in a primary sense: it is the “Word written”, as the Articles put it. Councils can and do “err” even in matters of faith; and therefore the Church, and her Tradition is “under” Scripture, certainly not over it and not at one with it. That does not mean that “Tradition” is pointless or irrelevant or even without authority. But it does mean that Tradition is bound to the contingencies of history in a way that the Scriptures are not. And therefore, Tradition is really a set of “traditions”, plural, that reflect, even in their interpretive work, historical diversity of an essential kind, and it/they need to be evaluated in a way that is appropriate to that historicity.
"The whole structure of the church and her teaching and witness does not collapse because of this. Truth is not made relative as a result. The past is not relegated to a dustbin. These sorts of accusations are simply not logical on the part of a certain brand of Catholic. However, the church’s life in this perspective is ordered by a constant recalibration, through faithful discernment, of its form and content with respect to Scripture’s own impress bound, yes, to the single and unchanging Word. Reformed understandings of Scripture, including Anglican ones, attribute to the Word Written an independent power that simply is not equivalent to ANY element of the Church’s interpretive and decision-making work. The church structure and teaching and witness, while not rendered optional and destroyed, is simply acknowledged to be imperfect, and decisions and life are ordered in the light of this acknowledgment. There is a certain common sense to this that only appears wanting when – as at present – things fall apart. But common sense is not dependent on things working out; just the opposite, at least when applied to the debris of historical uncommon sense (or common nonsense).
"The providential guarantee of this historical reality that is the church under Scripture is not thereby denied either. But the Holy Spirit will be seen as working in a different way, it seems to me, in this perspective than in the simple identity (which, as I pointed out above, is not really simple at all) between Tradition and Scripture that other versions might wish to maintain, but which seem to crash against the reef of historical reality."
Thanks again for discussing this with me, Dr. Barr. It's good for evangelicals like me to be pushed on this point!
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Mark H.,
I think we're talking a bit at cross-purposes here, I'm afraid. So, I'll just say this: Our gay brothers and sisters in Christ ought to be loved and respected within the Church just like anyone else, as we're all sinners saved by God's grace. Furthermore, with regard to secular law, no law that violates the basic human dignity and freedom of anyone, gay or straight, is ever valid. Those laws that work to isolate out a particular group for diminution and oppression (such as Jim Crow laws in the US or apartheid laws in S. Africa) are always pernicious and wrong. Any church that acts otherwise on either count is very wrong to do so. I think I'll leave that as an overall statement rather than attempt to discuss which churches have done so, and what consequences should follow from it. There's an important place for that discussion, but I don't think I'm prepared to have it on this blog. That's only because it's a very serious discussion to have, and I'd want to give it the attention and time it merits-- which, unfortunately, I don't have right now. Thank you for raising the point with me. I take it as an important one.
As for my Bp. Spong comment-- unfortunately, I was a bit vague. I'll try to clarify: The ecclesiological deficit that Anglicanism suffers from was, in my opinion, shown in all its radical incoherence in the heyday of Bishop Spong, not to mention Bishop Pike before him. My point was that I wish that the incoherence of present-day Anglicanism had been dealt with then, rather than now. You're right to say, of course, that although there's some overlap between the Spong and the Integrity-ECUSA camps, they're not the same. Eugene Rogers and James Allison don't deserve being grouped together with Spong; I'm well aware of that and I agree. I don't intend to do so. But that said, I was issuing a warning about the implications of moving beyond the norm of the canonical Scriptures, tradition, and our Anglican and ecumenical brethren. Has your church in DC denied the doctrine of the Trinity, like Spong has? No. But if not, why not? With reference to what authority? Who says? These questions start to loop back around to the questions that Dr. Barr asked me, and I do need to admit that I haven't resolved them to my own satisfaction. But I wish that progressive Episcopalians would ask them with a greater sense of how important and fundamental such questions are.
Mark, I probably won't have time to respond further. I'm somewhat swamped at present. But I thank you for the discussion and your interest in my article.
Here is one way that I look at it, for what it is worth. Every Christian must be prepared to confess his own faith, even at the cost of his own life. There are fundamental truths of the faith which to deny or even fail to affirm when challenged is to imperil one's soul --- hence the witness of the martyrs.
But "the faith" is not just the faith of individual Christians, it is the common faith of the Church herself. Thus St. Paul says there is "one Lord, ONE FAITH, one baptism." And so there are also times when the Church as a whole, as a Body, is challenged and must not deny or even fail to affirm her own faith. But if the Church has the obligation to publicly confess her own faith, she must also have the ability to do so. One cannot have the obligation to do what one does not have the capacity to do. So the Church must be able, as a Body, to look within herself and say, "This is what we believe; this we cannot deny; to this we are absolutely committed in fidelity to our Lord".
Popes, Ecumenical Councils, bishops, synods, etc indeed can all err and have all erred. But the catholic and Catholic view is that the Church has the capacity to discern the "one faith", which is after all HER faith, and to give voice to that faith when called upon to do so. And it is the catholic/Catholic view that God will give her the words to do so: "for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." (Matthew 10;16)
Neither Protestant nor Catholic can escape the fact that acts of discernment are required. The Protestant has to face the question, "Is this what Scripture really says?" He needs the Spirit to guide him in this process of discernment.
He also needs study, reflection, and debate. The Catholic Church faces the same question with regard to Scripture and Tradition. The Catholic does not imagine that Tradition provides an escape from the need for discernment. Tradition does not interpret itself in the way that some naive people imagine that Scripture interprets itself. It is not that Tradition always provides a clear and obvious answer to questions of what Scripture teaches; Tradition must be interpreted as well. What in the life and teaching of the Church through the ages is an authentic expression of Sacred Tradition and what is a distortion, deviation, corruption of it? This requires discernment, and that discernment requires study, reflection, and debate, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
But the catholic and Catholic believes that this process of discernment by the Church can reach a definitive conclusion, so that the Church can arrive at some point at a judgment whether something is or is not a part of her faith, and when she does so she is protected from error: Securus judicat orbis terrarum.
But that does not mean that such judgments exhaust what can be said about revealed truth or preclude further questions from arising. Nor does the Church try to come to definitive judgments on all or even most theological questions that arise.
I would be curious, Jordan, of the first seven Ecumenical Councils, which of their dogmatic definitions --- the doctrinal propositions taught in their Canons --- would you feel confident in asserting to be in error? I would ask the same of the other Councils taught to be Ecumenical by the Catholic Church.
Was not the acceptance of divorce planted at the beginning? Even Henry feared that if the right of supremacy was granted by the governed, the governed would be supreme.
Perhaps, that is the seed that haqs led to all of the other rights that are being demanded by the governed. The right to take lfe, the right to be made happy, etc.?