The Anglican Triad

In an article in last month’s Nevertheless, I referred to Anglican theologian Richard Hooker’s order of priority that he assigned to Scripture, Reason, and Tradition. I didn’t include it in the article, but to be absolutely specific, I was drawing upon a quote from the Fifth Book of Hooker’s Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Chapter 8 "The Third Proposition," section 2. I think it has something still to teach us. (All the following quotations are from the 1977 edition from the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.)

In this section, Hooker refers to two kinds of laws that he believes the Church may properly establish: one for the sake of order, the other pertaining to doctrine. He does contend that “that which in doctrine the Church doth now deliver rightlie as a truth, no man will saie that it may hereafter recall and as rightlie avoutch the contrarie. Lawes touchinge matter of order are changeable, by the power of the Church; articles concerninge doctrine not so." Yet, he then says, in the specific quote to which I referred earlier, "Be it in matter of the one kinde or of the other, what scripture doth plainelie deliver, to that the first place both of creditt and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever anie man can neccessarelie conclude by force of reason; after these the voice of the Church succeedeth. That which the Church by her ecclesiasticall authoritie shall probablie thinke and define to be true or good, must in congruitie of reason overrule all other inferior judgmentes whatsoever." Here the casual reader will want to note that ‘succeedeth’ refers to ‘follows in order of succession’ rather than to ‘wins’ or ‘prevails.’

The Lingering Issue

Returning from a vacation spent drinking in the natural beauty of our great state, I’m refreshed and reminded of the wonder and goodness of God. In touch with the vastness of God’s creation, the urgent concerns of humanity tend to shrink in comparison. To be surrounded by the awe-inspiring rugged grandeur of the mountains, to sit quietly and hear the whisper of God in the silence of the desert, has been, for me, to gain a renewed appreciation of the timeless and divine blessings that God, I think, would have shape the lives of His people. In our supposedly more civilized settings of city and suburb there reside concerns or ‘issues’ that can drive us quite forcefully. And unless they are integrated with the eternal and divine, these are the issues that can most easily divide, and whose resolutions, if similarly divorced from the transcending goodness of God, can bring far more harm than healing. My experience in the past and of late has been that these ‘issues’ can be humbled, issue-driven-ness quickly can be tamed, in the context of less-mediated and less-distracted contact with God.

Natural disaster and a distracted Church

An ancient tradition of the Faith holds the Church to be a type of rescue vessel. Pope Boniface VIII described the Ark of Noah as a prophetic symbol of the Church, each vessel adrift in an endless sea as a sign and offer of rescue for souls floundering in the chaos. As early as the second century, Tertullian writes of the Church as navis, as ship. This tradition lies behind the name of the space in which we worship: the Nave. The Church can well be understood as a ship of salvation, driven by the windy motion of the Spirit of God, and propelled by the collective energy of all in it steadily pulling their weight. It’s an inspiring image. But the practical reality of a close fit aboard even as noble a vessel as the Church would lead to problems, and this seems to have been on Jesus’ mind.

‘If your brother, your sister, a member of your family in the Faith, a kindred in Christ should wrong you, then there is a way to handle this.’ And though few take time to notice, there is a first condition that must be met before one person may address the sin of another. The ‘sinful behavior ’ must be directed at the person who claims the status of one offended. It’s worth considering how much discord in the Church might be laid to rest if this qualifier were applied. But supposing an offense truly exists, then step after tedious step is to follow. And if resolution still proves elusive, the offended party is then simply be done with the offender if need be, and move on. All this said, and in order to adhere strictly to the text, we should note that when Jesus says, ‘if your brother,’ the ‘you’ is singular. There is nothing in this prescription that calls for a collective dismissal of a supposed offender. It is a personal, even intimate, process. And it is ponderously slow. It imposes patience. One wonders if perhaps Jesus intends the tedium to bring perspective in order to challenge his followers not to indulge in being too-easily offended; and perhaps to discover a better way.

HoB Covenenant Statement 2005

Criticism is easy of the recent Covenant Statement from ECUSA’s House of Bishops, their response to the recommendations of the Windsor Report and the ‘requests’ from the February meeting of the Anglican Primates. Simply to criticize is a cheap and easy imitation of true critical thinking; it demeans both the object of criticism and the critic. So, no criticisms here. The House of Bishops have taken a definitive position on the concerns churning the Anglican Communion. And they are to be commended.

In forming the Covenant Statement, the HoB has done something that actually borders on the courageous and wise. Our bishops have responded constructively and with integrity, graciously reminding folks (anyone who cares to pay attention) that they simply lack the authority that some wish them to exercise. They have nevertheless agreed to “withhold consent to the consecration of any person elected to the episcopate…until the General Convention of 2006” and to “encourage the dioceses of [the] church to delay episcopal elections….” Some see this response as petulant. But surely this is a narrow criticism. Simply put, there is nothing more that the bishops can do, constitutionally. And it’s a mark of courage that they have done no less. With regard to the Primates’ request that ECUSA withdraw its members from the Anglican Consultative Council, the HoB’s agreement to “defer to the [ACC] and the Executive Council…” reminds their critics again that the bishops of ECUSA have limits to their authority. The HoB has been both respectful and educative in their reply. They have responded from a renewed sense of the mutual accountability that all of us have in relationship with the wider Communion, and that the wider Communion has in relationship with us.

The HoB's Burdern of Irresponsibility

The Report of the Primate’s Theological Commission of the Anglican Church of Canada on the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions, also known as the St. Michael Report, is a document worthy of study, and an example of the kind of focused work that the Episcopal Church should be doing. It is available for review at . Whether or not the Church of Canada follows through is up to that Church. What ECUSA does is up to us. One hopes we’ll soon decide to take upon ourselves the responsibility that is ours, and if not from the episcopal order, then perhaps better still, this decision will emerge from the order of the laity.

It’s very disappointing to see that, stateside, something quite to the contrary has been unfolding. As recently reported in The Living Church, a scandalous number of our bishops have been busy demonstrating how well they are able to speak from both sides of their mouths. Rather than genuinely supporting a prayerful and reverent response to the call to enter into a sophisticated, credible, respectful, and respectable process of defining the theological groundings for what we do, and thus for who we are, they have been hiding behind a deceptive pretense.

Being Unafraid

A friend of mine once needed to consider moving from Austin to continue his work in ordained ministry. But he was loathe to leave his adopted home city. He told me that if it was true that he’d gotten himself into a rut here in Austin, nevertheless, it was for him, “a velvet rut.” Routine predictability, safety, and comfort are commendable goals. But before an individual, family, community, parish, diocese, or entire Church seeks single-mindedly the comforts of predictability, the safety of routine, and the peace and quiet of peace and quiet, they do well to pay close attention to the consequences that accompany this pursuit. For if the velvet rut is a furrow into which one may comfortably descend, there is also a hand that pushes one in and holds one there. Comfortable as the rut itself, it is a velvet glove fitted over the nasty claw of Fear.

Judging God

There are particular reasons that we are having this dispute about this particular topic. Certainly the dispute does indeed involve “how one regards Scripture,” and more importantly, I’d suggest, it involves how the Church as a whole regards Scripture. But let’s not delude ourselves. This is primarily about sexuality and love.

The current dispute among Episcopalians, indeed among many Western Christians of any stripe, has not been piqued by someone rising up at General Convention to ask ratification of a particular view of Scripture. Similarly, we’re not arguing here about the washing of hands, the eating of shellfish, the consuming of milk with meat at the same meal, or any of a large number of other scriptural commandments. We are not arguing about Moses’ edict that we “must neither add anything to what I command you nor take anything from it.” Nor are we arguing about the fact that Jesus himself violates this Mosaic command when he says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you l have love for one another.” We will do well to admit to one another and to ourselves that this dispute is about sexuality and love; more specifically, it is about same-sex sexuality, and love.

The Pause that refreshes

Honest disagreement shows that the people involved have truly listened to and heard one another, and so, come to a mutual realization that, on a certain matter, they will not be of one mind. If this happens often enough, though, the matters around which disagreement exists come to overwhelm commonality, and the final agreement is to part ways. So, perhaps better not to acknowledge our disagreement unless absolutely forced to do so? What to do?

At the risk of oversimplification, let me recall the process Jesus described for his first followers, those bound together by love of Christ. They were to begin with a private conversation between the party injured and the injuring party. If this failed to resolve the matter, there would follow another conversation that would include a fellow member or two of the family of faith, parties not disinterested, but also not as passionately invested in the disagreement as the original participants. If this also failed to achieve a resolution, the next move would bring the wider community of the Church into the matter, presumably to see if the moral weight of the Church could mediate a resolution. Failing this, the presumably righteous contender should, Jesus said, regard the offender as ‘a Gentile or tax-collector;’ i.e., as an undesirable; which is to say, someone outside the fellowship.For people who have gathered together in the Name, to turn from one another is also to turn from the Christ who was among them when they had gathered.

Orthopraxy

Someone once said, ‘I think if I ever found the perfect church, I could never be a member; because as soon I joined it, it wouldn’t be perfect anymore.’ Over the last month, it has emerged again that the Church is not a perfect thing. At General Convention, the attention garnered by votes to confirm the Diocese of New Hampshire’s election of an openly gay man as their next bishop has reminded both the world and the Church itself, that, while the Church is a divine institution, it is also a thoroughly human organism. The Church’s connection with God was evident in the fact that those at Convention came together out of a common desire to be faithful to God and to be faithful to one another in Christ’s Name, and that for the most part they conducted themselves accordingly. At the same time, the human messiness of the Church is apparent in the fact that there is a sizable contingent on each side of the issue.

First Impressions of the Windsor Report

It isn’t perfect, but the Report of Eames/Windsor/Lambeth Commission’s is surprisingly clear, especially considering it is an Anglican bit of work. And for this, it may be just what we need. It seems that the core difficulty of the current controversy has been not the fact that the issue involved is sex and sexuality, or authority and freedom, or revelation and inspiration, or faithfulness and interpretation, or justice and oppression, or any other of a nearly endless list of possibilities. Instead, I think it’s been difficult mostly because it’s been difficult for the Church to arrive at a common definition of the very issue that has defined the controversy. And this matters because if we haven’t been able even to agree upon what it is we’re arguing about, then surely we’ve done hardly better in being able to agree upon what it is that we stand for.

When Archbishop of Canterbury called this commission he told the members that they were to address what it means for Christians in the Anglican Communion to be actually in Communion with one another. In holding to this charge, the Commission’s Report now focuses all of us on this single phenomenon: Communion.

Reading between the lines of compliance

It is a mistake to read the current controversy with the template of the past. The revisionists on the Hard Right have learned well from the past, and have done so more quickly and thoroughly than have the rest of us. Due to this, the Hard Right has successfully adapted its tactics to gain ground ceded to it by the Pliant Left and which it has captured from the Broad Middle.

Most of the dissenting bishops have declared their intention not to ask their respective dioceses to leave the Episcopal Church. And they mean it. It is important, though, to recognize that their dissent makes it logically impossible for them to be loyal to the same Church whose Constitution and Canons they dismiss in their dissent. Thus, it is important to discern what these bishops and their dioceses are saying to avoid being trapped by the skewed logic of their claims.

General Convention 2003

Someone once said, ‘I think if I ever found the perfect church, I could never be a member; because as soon I joined it, it wouldn’t be perfect anymore.’ Over the last month, it has emerged again that the Church is not a perfect thing. At General Convention, the attention garnered by votes to confirm the Diocese of New Hampshire’s election of an openly gay man as their next bishop has reminded both the world and the Church itself, that, while the Church is a divine institution, it is also a thoroughly human organism. The Church’s connection with God was evident in the fact that those at Convention came together out of a common desire to be faithful to God and to be faithful to one another in Christ’s Name, and that for the most part they conducted themselves accordingly. At the same time, the human messiness of the Church is apparent in the fact that there is a sizable contingent on each side of the issue.

The Controversy 2001

The 152nd Diocesan Council provided us our annual diocesan-wide reminder of the animus that currently festers within the Church around the related issues of sexuality, biblical interpretation, and the boundaries of fellowship. Back in October of last year the dynamic of these issues emerged for me as I reflected upon the readings for 17 Pentecost. Two of the lessons bring before us, at least on the surface, the relationship of husband and wife, but I suggest that they speak to us more broadly, in a way that challenges, instructs, and encourages us as we navigate the current controversies.