There is reason to hope and pray that when the House of Bishops meets with the Archbishop of Canterbury later this month, they will all move quickly and responsibly through the hot-button topic of homosexual love and sexuality, then purposefully onward to the more central concerns of the Church and the Communion: our mission in the world around us. If so, the bishops and the ABC will help to liberate all but those most invested in the controversy, to enjoy and to share the Love of God more effusively. Toward that end, a few observations around the polity of the Church and the canonical interrelationships of the Churches of the Anglican Communion may be useful.
It will benefit all concerned when Left, Right, and Centrist recognize that the Church is bound by the State when it comes to the definition of marriage. The State defines marriage; the Church does not. The Church acknowledges this in our canons at Title I, canon 18a, which requires that “before solemnizing a marriage the Member of the Clergy shall have ascertained that both parties have the right to contract a marriage according to the laws of the State.” Thus, when people either raise the fear or raise the hope that the Church is ready to define marriage to include couples who are of the same sex, such claims simply are not true because it is simply not possible for the Church to do so. Fear not, the State defines marriage; like it or not, the State defines marriage. The bishops, the ABC, and the Church as a whole will do well to waste no further time or energy around false fears and false hopes that ignore this fact.
The question then becomes whether or not the Episcopal Church, under its polity, would or should pursue, by institution of a new rite and ceremony, the creation of a ‘category of marriage’ that is not recognized by most states as factual and legal. It may be argued that such an act of civil disobedience is justified as part of an effort to move secular society toward the official inclusion of same-sex unions in its definitions of marriage. However, the people paying the real costs for this strategy would be the gay couples themselves. So it seems prudent to ask whether or not this strategy uses gay couples as tools of a cause more than it helps them as persons desiring pastoral care and the Church’s solidarity.
This is a question rightly posed to those diocesan bishops who have sanctioned parochial blessings of gay unions, especially where they have identified such unions as ‘marriages.’ For, the sad reality for the gay couple is that their union, unlike that of heterosexual couples legally married in the Church, does not enjoy official recognition in the Church. The couple’s union may be blessed at St. Bill’s; but once outside the door, and, indeed, once inside the doors of any other parish church, the blessing of their union does not carry over and exist in the same way that the blessing of a straight couple’s marriage. The blessing that the gay couple enjoy in their home parish or even in their home diocese simply is not a blessing offered by the Church. To some, merely going through the motions of a rite and ceremony that doesn’t actually exist in the life of the Church, but which exists only in the particular moment of a particular congregation, seems a poor substitute for the real thing to offer to fellow Christians. Pastorally, one must consider, as must the couple, assuming they’ve been fully informed, whether or not it is better and more honest to offer meaningful prayers of blessing while holding out for the real thing in terms of an official rite and ceremony, and to insist that the Church offer them nothing less.
Here it is possible to make a good argument for the recognition of sanctified love between two people committed solely to one another as long as the two shall live. It is increasingly apparent to many that an injustice exists where the Church continues to state or to imply its support for the teaching that outside of marriage sexual expression of love is sinful behavior while failing to provide gay persons access to a ceremony that is ecclesiastically equivalent to the one provided for straight couples. The spiritual reality that sexual intercourse is profoundly intimate behavior that can entail the blessing of a transcendence of self in the embrace of the other makes commendable the view that it is best reserved for the support given it in the covenant of marriage. Pastorally and spiritually, then, it is well argued that gay and lesbian Christian couples are due access to a formal sanctification of their love and commitment. The Episcopal Church is rightly continuing to pray and work toward a resolution of the discord that will be grounded in justice, grace, and faith, and in accord with its particular polity.
This makes it important to observe that the polity of the Episcopal Church is unique to itself. As is true of every other member Church, our polity has no jurisdiction over the polity of any other Church of the Anglican Communion. Thus, what this Church decides to do for and with the people of its fellowship rightly belongs to the determination of these same people. Interference by foreign powers over the internal workings of the local province has long been rejected by this Church, and rightly so. The Church of England itself was born of exactly the same claim to an autonomous polity. It bears noting that, while commenting or even criticizing them, this Church has never held that the decisions of polity of other Churches of the Communion have been offensive impingements upon our witness. Likewise, it may be argued that others cannot rightly or accurately claim that the decisions of this Church regarding its own polity has factually interfered with them. To the contrary, differences in polity among member Churches of the Communion have always offered each of these Churches the opportunity to highlight to the world the uniquely Anglican blessing of the mix of our interrelatedness and independence. We are not the Roman Catholic Church; but we are the Church catholic and apostolic. Few other Churches and Communions are able to make this claim with the same depth of integrity as are we.
Where offense is inferred or claimed, such attempts may best be ignored in favor of paying attention to more faithfully productive efforts. Failing that, providing a reminder of the time-honored Anglican practice of the recognition and respect of provincial autonomy should suffice. Here again, the bishops, the ABC, and the Church as a whole will do well to refuse to waste further time and energy around the offenses supposedly taken by those seeking, for some reason, to misdirect the Church’s focus from its rightful mission and ministry on behalf of those beyond itself.
It might benefit the bishops, et. al. to remember that in its original form, the revered Anglican triad was listed as Scripture, Reason, and Tradition, and that it was so ordered purposefully. Tradition was viewed cautiously, and unreflective obedience to tradition as superstitious and hazardous to the soul. In an age of rising religious fundamentalism of every stripe, it is becoming increasingly apparent that acceptance of and respect for differences are rare commodities that require the use of reason and the gift of wisdom to preserve. To address the spiritual error of fundamentalism by trying to create some form of Anglican version of it seems a poor choice indeed, even a sinful one. For the House of Bishops to continue always and carefully within the polity of the Episcopal Church, and for the primates and officers of the Anglican Communion to persist with the practice of the autonomy of its member Churches is surely the best course for all.
It is a uniquely Anglican witness to God’s Love that we have in our Communion the ability to provide reasoned refuge to those souls seeking respite from fundamentalism and from the needless arguments that it spawns. Our House of Bishops, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Church, and the Communion will be wise to hold this witness humbly and gently, and securely. It is worth hoping and praying that these few simple observations of polity and practice will help enable our Communion move away from further distraction and forward in our ministry and mission to the world around us.
Jim +
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