There is no unanimity among the autonomous and autocephalous Churches of the Anglican Communion. As each of these Churches is by definition a Protestant denomination, not a church, but denomination, there should be no expectation of unanimity. The very recent expectation of same is an anomaly to the history of the development of what has become the Anglican Communion. Only since people have begun to speak of the Anglican Communion as though it were 'the Anglican Church' have people been steered into thinking of these Churches as though they all comprised a Roman Catholic Church writ small; i.e. a single world-wide Church with a single authoritative head in the Archbishop of Canterbury. Reminder to all: the ABC is not our Pope.
The ABC doesn't even determine doctrine in his own Church of England. He has no jurisdiction whatsoever in any of the other autonomous and autocephalous Churches that are members of the Anglican Communion. This is especially true for TEC where we owe our first allegiance to the Scottish Episcopal Church as the first non-juruor Church whose example we most determinedly followed. It bears repeating often that the Lambeth meetings of bishops did not begin until as recently as the late 1800's. The modern manifestation of the Anglican Communion, i.e. a Communion with any sort of constitutional documentation, is only as old as the late 1960's, with the first meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council. Let's stop buying into this mythology that this Communion was begun by Henry VIII or by Thomas Cranmer. 'Taint so. In Church-time, it's a new phenomenon.
The Churches descendant from the Church of England either fought for and won their independence, along with concurrent colonial independence from Britain or, in later times, were begun with the full intention among all parties that the particular Church begun would become an independent Church ere long. The lovely irony here is that the very Church from which each Church of the Communion has descendancy of some kind from the same Church of England who declared the autonomy of its governance from that of Rome in terms of a specific rejection of interference by a foreign power. Now, we find the Archbishop of Canterbury doggedly trying to assert the authority of a power external to the autonomy of each of the Churches in the proposal of a 'Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion.' Huh?
It is truly fascinating to me that the ABC is so invested in proposing this thing, when it is almost certain that, even if a majority of Churches were to adopt it, he could almost certainly never get the British Parliament or the Queen to adopt it for the Church of England itself. The key question, I suggest, is how invested does anyone remain in this proposed covenant if we simply delete its Section Four? Take away the jurisdictional and punitive elements of this thing, and let's find out how truly important is this proposed covenant as an addition to the historic Creeds of the Church? I think the importance of Section Four discloses that this proposed covenant is all about a grab for power, an enforced unanimity.
One wonders if the primates trying to hammer through this covenant, including the ABC, would be so enamored of for it if they perceived that the unanimity they think they desire would lead to a world-wide declaration that Anglicanism is defined by full inclusion of LGBT couples and persons in the life and ministry of 'their' Churches. It won't happen of course, because TEC, the Canadian Church, and our fellow forward thinkers and movers, have no desire to insist on imposing our vocation in our contexts upon other Churches in their respective contexts. Unlike them, we are continuing to behave like the Anglican Protestants that we've always been.
Each of the Churches of the Communion is a Protestant Church. No such power or unanimity as is currently being proposed and rammed forward has ever before characterized the relationship of the Churches of the Anglican Communion. Primates can whine and moan and pretend that such unanimity is characteristic of Christianity, but it is not now and never has been. Better the vine has many branches, the mustard bush has many places, upon which may alight Christians of various distinction, than that a superficial unanimity and centralized human and pseudo-papal authority would supplant the charism of diversity.
As for the financial distress that TEC and other Protestant mainstream Churches are experiencing, I would humbly suggest that once we finally get down off this highly uncomfortable fence and come down on the side of clear and full inclusion, the absolute bottom to top cessation of discrimination based on sexual orientation in this Church, then the Church will be liberated from this now-antiquated argument to move forward in proclaiming with 21st century means to a 21st century world a gospel that communicates to people living in the 21st century. This continuing debate is encouraging TEC toward narcissistic over-concern with itself and too-dismissive regard for the world around it passing it by. This debate is over. Let's admit it, move forward, and begin again to grow.
Jim +
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