'Membership' in the Anglican Communion

As the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina draws new scrutiny at the invitation of some members of the diocese, folks are renewing their struggle with various and strained notions of what it is to be a member of the Anglican Communion.  May I presume to try to help?  It seems well and good to pay attention to Anglican ecclesiology here.  Neither 'South Carolina' the state nor 'South Carolina' the Episcopal Diocese thereof has the ability to 'remain a member of the Anglican Communion.'  Only the Churches of which dioceses are subsidiary parts are members of said Communion.

In addition, an 'appeal to the Archbishop of Canterbury' is completely outside the ecclesiology of both the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (PECUSA) and the Church of England.  Both Churches are independent of one another.  Neither the Church of England nor the Archbishop of Canterbury has ecclesiastical authority in the PECUSA.  An appeal to Canterbury from a member of this Church in the 21st century is reminiscent of someone from the Church of England appealing to Rome in the late 16th century.  In either case, it is entirely un-Anglican thinking to suppose that such is appropriate.  This, besides the fact that it is unconstitutional and non-canonical.

Denied but Important Aspects of the Proposed covenant

Recent discussions of the proposed Anglican covenant largely ignore certain aspects of the proposal that need airing; specifically the affect of the proposal's adoption upon LGBT persons and upon TEC's ministry with, of, and to LGBT persons and couples. I've noted once or twice a suggestion that LGBT persons should just wait for now, as though discrimination is acceptable for a while longer (!), but, rightly so, this suggestion has been challenged and put down.

But largely the conversations have ignored the origins of the proposed covenant in both misogyny and homophobia. One need only remember that it was the ordination of priests who are women that led to the "crisis" identified by the Archbishop and his Commission on Communion and the Ordination of Women, which then led to the Virginia Report and its suggestions of a "universal authority;" and that it was the "crisis" of the election of an unapologetically gay man to be a bishop that led to the Archbishop's appointment of a Lambeth Commission on Communion.  I hope people are seeing here a top-down reactionary response to the autonomy of TEC (and of the Church of Canada) in the identification of ministries of which the Archbishop disapproves as subjects of 'crisis.' So influential has the ABC been in the processes of these Commissions that he has been able to set the terms purely by fiat. Without conversation, dialogue, or debate the Archbishop has taken extraordinarily presumptuous privilege in naming these ministries as crises in the Communion. And his approach has been quite effective, because the rest of us have been on the defensive ever since.

Myths behind the proposed covenant

In conversations about our relationship as the Episcopal Church with other Churches of the Anglican Communion, it seems to me important that we recognize that we need not allow our attention to be taken hostage by the attempts of some to focus us on the proposed Anglican covenant.  It is merely a proposal and we can do a lot of good for our sister Churches if we reinforce this reality in our conversations.  In like manner, we can do a lot of good also by recognizing that our relationship with sister Churches of the Communion are not different in any practical sense from our ecumenical relationships with Churches of communions other than the Anglican.  
              
The proposed covenant is rooted in many false assumptions.  And its sponsors and authors seek to perpetuate many more.  The claim that the proposal is voluntary may be legally true; but more accurately described, it is coercive.  It seeks to perpetuate the myth that the Anglican Communion is a single Church, rather than an association of constitutionally independent Churches.  It seeks also to perpetuate the myth that there are four Instruments of the Communion.  The idea of four "instruments of Communion" was introduced in the Virginia Report of the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission, published in 1997.  

The Church vs. the Institution

Insight that rises from people with genuine experience of ministry in the day-to-day world of parish communities is worth much.  There is too little platform for this and too much its opposite.  Personally, my congregation and I have grown weary of hearing about the business of Church.  Here in the Diocese of Texas, none of our bishops practiced parish ministry for an appreciable length of time before joining the business center at the diocesan offices, then going on to be elected bishop or bishop suffragan.  I suspect that in the case of almost any bishop anywhere a lack of ground-level front-line experience affects negatively the ability of bishops to set an inspiring and relevant tone in their respective dioceses, as I know it does here.  There is only so much that leaders trying to set the tone can say about the costs of running the diocese, and about the theory of the costs of running a parish, without all of us realizing that they are consumed with a business model for the Church. 

Transperancy, Servant-hood, and Leadership

At our annual Council, held yesterday, our Diocese of Texas had some opportunities to express our support and care of 'the least of these' among Jesus' followers and those who might yet choose to follow him.  The proposals that some of us here at ECR offered for approval provided the diocese a number of chances to do more than rhetorically oppose discrimination against LGBT persons and others who are on the margins of society, both in and outside the Church.  Each was a chance for the community of the diocese transparently to declare by actual deed its position on exclusion and discrimination against people marginalized for being outside the norm and refusing to apologize for it.  The diocese rejected each one and, by this, transparency was achieved. 

Shrill cries for centralization

There are increasingly shrill cries for a centralized authority over the Churches of the Anglican Communion.  Some are now claiming that there is such crisis in the Communion that the only possible resolution is in granting the Lambeth Conference and the Primates’ Meeting a ‘Conciliar authority,’ although no one can say who it is that would or could, under Anglican polity, grant such authority.  These arguments are claimed to be rooted in the principle of ‘What affects all, should be decided by all.’  These arguments are based on two premises, one of which is false and one of which is faulty. 

The assumption that the Anglican Communion is in crisis is false.  Only those who have a craven lust for power view the state of affairs in the Communion as dangerously critical.  In reality, there is no crisis.  On the other hand, views such as these do indeed threaten to create one.  If people begin to accept the premise that the Anglican Communion (read: 'the Anglican Church') is in crisis, then people may in fact choose to accede the authority that God has entrusted to them as faithful protestants.  In that case, the Communion would indeed enter a crisis, a critical destruction of the virtues of autonomy and autocephaly that the Communion has represented since its emergence in the late 1800's. 

2 Advent B - 7 December 2008

2 Advent B - 7 December 2008
Isaiah 40:1-11; 2Peter 3:8-15a, 18; Mark 1:1-8
James V. Stockton

The hard times are over. I know it’s difficult to believe. The daily news cycle reminds us that the jobless rate in our nation is the highest it’s been in over thirty years. The stock markets nationally and globally continue to cost millions of people millions of dollars. Major industries, major state governments, scores of large city governments, and hundred of banks and financial institutions are forming a line to the Capital Building in Washington D.C. to plead for government bail out money.

Some people will suggest that we all relax because the economy is correcting itself in ways that have been foreseeable and are unavoidable due to the effects or the failures of certain government policies. Others will suggest that this is exactly the time to bring the panic and some accountability to those who indulged regulations and loopholes for quick profit and gain with little regard for the longer-range consequences to the people of this nation and this world as a whole. Some will say that both are true. Few, though, if any, are saying that the time of hardship is coming to a close. I would like the Church to take the lead in declaring that the Good News that the hard times are ending, that amazing and wonderful things lie ahead for us all.

Rector's Study December 2010

There are some good things about the possibility that Christianity and faith in God are now less the cultural norms than they once were, as recently as fifty years ago. It means that Christianity is increasingly a counter-culture. It means that faiths in God, and in God’s goodness in Christ Jesus, are counter-cultural. Christians don’t find today the cultural supports and validations that perhaps Christians did in an early time. It means that Christian faith and practice are no longer the cultural assumptions that they once might have been, so Christians today must increasingly be Christians because they mean to be.

One of the truly counter-cultural aspects of Christian faith is the anticipation that Christians have around the coming of Christ. Yes, the secularized culture of apathy toward questions about God will, of course, has similar disinterest in Christ Jesus and his coming into the world. Still further, though, still more counter-cultural, is the presence of anticipation at all.

Failure of 'Covenant' progress

As is evident from the Episcopal/Anglican media, the fantastic juxtaposition of the Archbishop of Canterbury's efforts to force the proposed 'Anglican Covenant" through the Church of England's synod with the GAFCON statement of rejection of same is rattling the comfort cages of a lot of people who have invested themselves in the thing's passage.  This is, I suggest, a good and healthy rattling.  Some continue to assume that the autonomous and autocephalous Churches should take their disagreements to the Archbishop of Canterbury.  Where, one wonders, does this bizarre ecclesiology originate?  The Episcopal Church has never, ever, been a subject of the Church of England.  To the contrary, its existence is predicated on its rejection of Canterbury's claim to have authority over it.

Propoganda for the "Covenant"

Regarding the proposal for an 'Anglican Covenant, I recently witnessed a presentation by the Rev. Robert Pritchard of Virginia Theological Seminary. The presentation rightly noted that there was no such thing as the Anglican Communion, or even hints thereof, until the early to mid-twentieth century, since the Churches deriving from the Church of England were almost all colonial appendages of the Church of the Empire (C of E). Mr. Pritchard's presentation, though, was skewed toward presenting the history of the Episcopal Church as though our history has basically always assumed a world-wide 'Anglican Church.' In fact, Mr. Pritchard used the term frequently in his presentation, even though there is no such thing as 'the Anglican Church.'

Consumerism - the wrong approach

Probably the single most destructive influence in the Church of modernity and of the West is that of consumerism. Today, membership in the Church on all levels, from that of the individual in the parish or mission, to that of the Province in the Anglican Communion, resembles more an entitlement than a privilege and responsibility. The member in the parish, the parish in the diocese, the diocese in the Province, the Province in the Communion, all are using techniques of the enlightened consumer in holding the larger organization hostage to the particular wishes of the customer. It's the approach by which the client threatens to take his or her business elsewhere if the company or franchise fails to accede to his or her wishes.

Rector's Study November 2010

Rector’s Study ~

I recently read the suggestion that one thing that all people have in common with one another is the universal capacity for God. I like this idea. Bernard of Clairvaux , 12^th century monastic and theologian, wrote frequently of humanity’s capacity for love and of how any increase in this capacity is purely a gift from God. Bernard nearly equates love with God. Bernard is credited with introducing the idea of humanity’s capacity for love, and so is credited also with introducing the concept of humanity’s capacity for God.

His theory was that awe in wonder, pain in need, and joy in abundance or victory were all potential avenues by which people can meet and know God. The sudden need for God in a distressing situation, or the meeting of God in speechless awe can move a person to transcend himself or herself. In this moment, the person finds the inner capacity for God and for loving God is increased. It is in these moments, in these events, hat people are able to love others, and even to love themselves either in ways that are new to them or in ways that they have forgotten.

Who pays and who prays

The Diocese of Texas has long chosen not to pay its full asking to the 'National Church. It is well-known here in the Diocese of Texas, that the main, if not the sole, reason for this is that the diocese has long accommodated and nursed an animosity toward the 'National Church' and about 15 years ago adopted a 'local option' that invited congregations to designate that their diocesan missionary asking would be directed toward specific agencies, thus away from the 'National Church.'

Despite claims to the contrary, there has been little if any discussion among leader lay and clergy about specific misgivings about the way the 'National Church' spends it resources.  It simply has been here in the DoT an official response to the so-called 'liberalism' of the 'National Church,' and nothing else.

Rector's Study October 2010

From the Rector's Study ~

Relationship is what it’s all about. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles describes the zealous and explosive birth of the Church; the Book of the Revelation describes the early Church’s fear of demise in the face of tremendous challenge. I’ve been reading through and studying both of these rather concurrently, and I come to the conclusion that opportunity for relationship with fellow followers of Christ is what gives birth to the Church and is also the source of energy that sustains it. Relationship with God in Jesus and in the body of Christ, the Church, is what Christianity all about.

One of my favorite reflections on God’s creation is the suggestion that before creates anything – stars, seas, sun, moon, plants, animals, people – God first creates a void which is not filled with God’s presence. God deliberately makes room for that which is not God, even before that which is not God is brought into existence. God chooses not to crowd out the possibility of anything else. Instead, God opts to create a space that creation and creatures can fill. It is a grace that people seldom ponder, the grace that God chooses to bring into being something other than God’s self.

The Weaker Brother - NOT

I agree with those who claim that the Church has much to consider, but the . We do indeed have much more to consider than LGBT persons. We have the gospel itself to think about, pray about, and live it out. Exclusion today of fellow Christians because they raise 'the ick' factor in some is as offensive to the gospel as it was in the days when the early Church struggled with equalizing Hellenized Jews or, later, equalizing Gentile members of the fellowship. But despite those who continue call it into play, the 'weaker brother' argument simply is not analogous to any of this. This is why the Church, in its wisdom and providence, did not delay inclusion of fellow children of God until to do so somehow became acceptable to those who raised objection. Those claiming the status of the weaker brother are over-using and mis-using the analogy.

Rector's Study September 2010

From the Rector’s Study ~

I think everyone will agree that our responsibility and desire is to be the people of God in the way we can best do so. For our community here at ECR, our collective vocation is the do this as best we can as this particular community in this particular place and time. Just yesterday I met with our bishop, the Rt. Rev. Andy Doyle, to discuss in detail our desire and intention to do so. He agrees that all of this involves our campus makeover project; and that it involves far more, as well.

I’m pleased to find that the bishop is highly supportive of our intentions, and very impressed with the commitment that we are bringing to its accomplishment. And again, this involves far more than the installation of additional parking lots and driveways, and the erection of a new Family Life Center, as important as these are. We need to be ever vigilant and ever honest about where our expression of God’s Love for all needs to be improved so that we can be ourselves at our best.

Rector's Study August 2010

At the basis of humanity’s engagement with religion is humanity’s experience of God. It may seem an absurdly simple observation. It describes the plain fact that an aesthetic experience of God is determinative of a people’s or a person’s relationship with God. Yet, it is, I suggest a powerful insight. It indicates that for all the attempts at rational proofs for God’s existence, an endeavor stimulated by the intellectual and philosophical developments that characterize the period in western history known as the Enlightenment, are not determinatively persuasive on their own.

Western culture, of which our own is a part, overtly claims to assign definitive authority to rational thought and intellectual reason; however, in practice the collective culture can be found rather superstitiously idolizing the systems and the persons upon whom it projects its cultural valuations of reason and rational thought. In a sense, professors, physicians, and attorneys are the modern era’s shaman, wizards, and priests. Envy does not lie at the root of this observation; rather inspiration does.

Rector's Study July 2010

With Fr. Jim away for vacation, this edition of the Radiant Cross provides a good opportunity to help our members and friends know a little more about our rector. Here is an updated biography of Fr. Jim.

Fr. Jim and his wife Lee Elena are recently celebrating their twenty-second year together. They met in St. Louis, Missouri where Jim was born and raised, and near Lee Elena’s hometown of Monticello, Illinois. Lee Elena is a Nurse Practitioner working at a clinic in Elgin. Their three children are Valerie, soon to be 20, Emily, 18, and Melanie, 15. Fr. Jim attended a Lutheran elementary school and credits his early education in this Christian environment as formative of his faith in God. It was there that he began to sense a vocation from God to Holy Orders.

Before attending college, Jim worked variously as a self-defense instructor (earning a black belt in Chinese Kenpo), as a carpenter building custom homes, then as a laborer and/or department supervisor at a variety of manufacturing companies. Responding to a re-emerging sense of call, Fr. Jim returned to church life in his mid-twenties. Having drifted from the Lutheran Church of his childhood, he looked up “Church” in the white pages of the phone book. There he found a local Church of Christ congregation listed and began attending worship services. It was at this congregation that he was blessed to meet Lee Elena Mathis, his wife-to-be.

Marriage and the BCP

As the Church's discussion around marriage and same-sex unions now becomes determinative, it bears remembering that it is our Constitution and Canons, not the Book of Common Prayer, the determine the Church's theology of Holy Matrimony. The Prayer gives this theology expression, yes; but it does not determine it. Further, while it may be true, perhaps, that weddings have been celebrated religiously for thousands of years, yet even the most conservative estimate holds that Holy Matrimony is identified by any authoritative Christian voice as a sacrament no sooner than the sixth century, not defined papally as such until Innocent IV in the the early 1200's, and not is declared as such conciliarly until the Council of Florence in 1438. While some weddings may certainly would have been celebrated religiously before this time, many if not most were not. Certainly many if not most weddings throughout human history were not celebrated according to the Christian religion. So, the religious practice surrounding weddings either in history or today can hardly be leaned upon too heavily as determinative of the Church's current theological reflection and practice.

Rector's Study June 2010

From the Rector's Study ~

As a season in the cycle of the Church’s annual life, Pentecost reminds Christians that we are living in a distinct era. Different from the age in which people lived in hope and anticipation of a promised, but not yet arrived, Messiah; different from the short period of time when Jesus lived among the people of Galilee and Judean; ours is the era of post-resurrection and post ascension. To understand this era as well as possible in body, mind, and spirit is to give this era fuller meaning for us. To understand this era as fully as possible helps us to appreciate more fully both the blessing and the responsibility of living in it.

Some refer to Pentecost as the birth of the Church. On Pentecost Sunday, someone wished me ‘Happy Birthday’ as a reminder of this fact. The Spirit is God become present to humanity more intimately than any could ask or imagine. The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost certainly makes this ‘the age of the Holy Spirit.’ “The Spirit of Jesus indwells Christian consciousness. It animates the community of faith and leads to a deeper appreciation of the life and message of Jesus. That is clear.” So observes author and theologian Anthony H. Kelly in his book The Resurrection Effect: Transforming Christian Life and Thought. And while this is a fine concept, I find that I still have reservations that we Christians tend to move rather more quickly than we ought past Jesus’ resurrection. Author Kelly has his own reservations, noting that “the event of the resurrection as something happening to him [i.e. to Jesus] can be bypassed, a more or less mythic expression of the origin of a new spiritual awareness.”