A Two-Track Anglican Future?
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has issued a thoughtful and (to my reading) poignant response to the recent decisions by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in the United States.
Here is a crucial paragraph:
18. 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. 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’.
The rest is here.
What a terrible conundrum Archbishop Williams has to face. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine a more thoughtful, intelligent man, or a man of greater Christian integrity, than he to deal with a question that has no easy answer. We must all pray for him.
Some years back — probably after the consecration of Bishop Robinson of NH brought the subject to a boil — I remember reading a piece by an Anglican priest (and theologian???) on what he perceived to be the stance of the American Episcopal Church to the effect that We Americans are in the enlightened lead on this question, and sooner or later the rest of you poor benighted Anglicans will catch up. Hmpf. said the priest — we’ve heard quite enough of this line from America already, and he meant specifically from George W. Bush, the War on Terror and the Irag invasion, the wisdom of which you poor benighted Europeans will eventually come to understand.
I remember chatting about Humanae Vitae more than 25 years ago with a professor friend, a neighbor of mine (like me, also married at the time). With an air of resignation, he said, “The laity have arrived at a practical resolution of this issue.”
I suspect we’re seeing the same evolution in thinking and practice in the Anglican Communion and, yes, even in the Catholic Communion.
Some Christians are more venturesome in expanding the inclusivity of their faith, and others less so.
Perhaps in time, practice on a larger scale will follow growing belief among the rank and file.
I should add, “Change can be so messy!”
Jesus “messed” with the political and religious leadership of his day, and he was eventually nailed to a cross for doing so.
At least we don’t have to worry about that :)
“the stance of the American Episcopal Church to the effect that We Americans are in the enlightened lead on this question, and sooner or later the rest of you poor benighted Anglicans will catch up”
That’s a satisfying rhetorical tactic, because most liberal Episcopalians would rather be compared to just about anything than to George W Bush’s brand of imperialism, but it misses an important reality. The truth is that until about 25 years ago, the vast majority of Episcopalians were essentially unaware of the existence of the Anglican Communion. They may have read a press release from one of the once-per-decade, explicitly non-legislative, Lambeth Conferences, and in some churches they might have heard a sermon from a fund-raising missionary or visiting bishop, but there was little sense of deeper connectedness. A real anglophile might have made a pilgrimage to Canterbury. I know this because I lived in England for a while and saw it as a sort of mission when I came back to the US to tell people about the Anglican Communion way back when, and generally received blank stares.
Back when the women’s ordination battles were taking place, in the ’70s, nobody wondered what the Church of Nigeria would think, not because we didn’t care what their opinion was but because it didn’t occur to us that they would have any reason to have an opinion. This sense of the national church as the whole story (plus a ceremonial attachment to the Archbishop of Canterbury, sort of like our fondness for the Queen) can be hard for Roman Catholics, who are used to looking to Rome as a matter of course, to grasp.
The modern sense of the Anglican Communion as a real entity almost tending toward being a single Church is a product of improved communications and especially of the internet. Whether it’s a good thing or bad thing may be clear in due course, though perhaps not this side of the grave.
I agree with Joseph Jaglowicz. Society is moving on this issue, as it did on those of slavery, female equality, freedom of conscience, religious freedom etc. The churches will follow suit. Rowan Williams comes close to pointing this out.
Ordaining actively gay priests creates a double standard between gay and straight clergy.
Heterosexual clergy (and everybody else) are required to remain abstinent until they marry. Episcopal clergy must also receive permission (usually pro forma) from their bishops to marry once they are ordained.
Ordaining actively gay clergy essentially creates a dispensation from these requirements for a subset of the clergy, and, by extension, the laity. Or, at the very least, it suggests that different moral guidelines apply to hetero- and homosexual activity.
I’d say that’s more than just “messy.” It calls into question what the Episcopal Church actually teaches about marriage and chastity–and whether it’s in line with the Anglican Communion, as ABC Williams notes above.
… I see I forgot to tie my comment back to the present. The point I meant to be making is that, even as late as 2003, the delegates to General Convention really weren’t thinking of themselves as part of an international entity.
One more thing that usually forgotten: the situation is further complicated by the fact that the 2003 convention didn’t pass a resolution saying “The Episcopal Church will consecrate bishops living in same-sex relationships” — such a resolution that would surely have failed — they simply declined to overturn the election of a very well known and highly regarded priest as bishop of New Hampshire. Overturning such an election is very rare, though it recently happened in the case of a priest in Northern Michigan who was deemed to liberal.
The other day, I pointed out a London Times article about an Epicopal cathedral in England that has two sets of Eucharitic wafers – one confected by a woman priest, which a number of members refuse to receive.
I think Fr. O’Leary is right. though the tension between current “teaching” and what many beleive will go on for some time. Sound familiar?
If Archbishop Williams, whom I much admire, were smart, he’d step down as AoC, cross the Tiber, and get appointed to a prominent see by BXVI. He’d then have plenty of time to pursue his scholarly interests because, as we all know, there’s nothing controversial going on among the Papists. ;)
Anglicanism is comprised of national churches. The national Anglican body in England is the Church of England. The Episcopal Church is the national Anglican wing 9for now) of the United States. There are no “Episcopal cathedrals” in England.
The two-wafer story strikes me as very strange but intriguing. As long as the wafers were made with unleavened bread, it shouldn’t matter who made them.
I’m inclined to believe that the real sticking point was that the wafers were consecrated by a woman priest, and that some attending cathedral services preferred to take those consecrated by a male priest. (For some time–perhaps still–C of E parishes were allowed to veto the appointment of a female priest and not obliged to accept communion from a female priest.)
Bob N., perhaps you could tell us more.
I know many Catholics are puzzled (even when they’re being partly humorous, William C) about why thoughtful Episcopalians don’t just turn Catholic, including ABC Williams. Most Episcopalians do not believe the RC Church is wrong so much as too narrow in its teachings.
Better a good Anglican than a bad Catholic?
“Most Episcopalians do not believe the RC Church is wrong so much as too narrow in its teachings.” One can only be “to narrow in its teachings” if one leaves out some of the elements of Truth. Which element(s) of Truth are you referring to?
My outsider’s understanding was that the rallying point for the Anglican Communion is the Prayerbook–a liturgical glue, if you will. In theory, if you can pray the prayerbook, you can consider yourself part of the big tent of Anglicanism if you want to. The possibility is for tremendous theological diversity within a community of dialogue, held together by that most central of Christian activities, prayer. The existence within the Communion of those who prefer “nose-bleed high” liturgy to those who worship in a way that looks much like standard Evangelical Protestantism was a tribute to the ability of the Prayerbook to hold disparate groups together. I’m sad to see such a diverse communion split along lines that really are not about the gospel in any clear and central way. Is it really more important to keep women silent and gays closeted than to gather together as a bunch of redeemed sinners to praise God?
Sorry, Jean, but I cna’t put my finger on the link on this, but i thought it was last Sunday’s London Times.
What i thought was interesting was it involved a Cathedral Church and the decsion to placate the divide.
I mentioned it really because this thread really redounds to my mind to a host of issues we talk about here.
That is, the toxicity of the divide on so many issues in our world that matter.
So not only women -as in the thread below on the gospel of Mary.
In my lifetime, I’v eseen (hopefully committed) gay relationships go from being criminal and mental illness to largely accepted, allowed in some States here as marriage and gay unions in others -with some apparent momentum.
I think this all happened because of an incraese in knowledge and sophistication.
But the fight about this in the Anglican church will go on as will the issue of women and gays in Catholicism and their will be develomewnt just as there has been in the past.
The problem is the toxicity of the divide.
I think the toxicity of the current times grew out of the toxicity in public discourse and politics.While partisanship has always been around, it has now grown apace to a wicked divide rooted in talk radio and think tank spin to (sorry those who don’t like the word) make anideology win.
I think much of that has spilled over into religious discussion as well and blogs often relect and perhaps deepen the phenomenon.
So Obama’s Supremee Court pick will be opposed by those who worship at the NRA altar, or else. His judivcial nominees and justice officials aren’t being confirmed.
Health care plans from the Dems will be fought tooth and nail.
Thurber us right, the ideological center is collapsing or has collapsed.
Obama recalling Bernadin, is too close to the center.
I thoughtit significan tthat NPLC is getting a new director as Fr. Hurley moves on.
How different today than when Benrnadin picked the late Msgr. Phil Murnion to try to bridge the divide.
I know there are good folk here on this blog who care deeply to work towrds that, buit I think it’s so much more uphill.
To what extent today the Anglican communion or our own Church can really be a coherent community is quite questionable, given both our discourse and behavior.
Jean–
I was being 100% humorous, or at least attempting to hit that mark. Archbishop Williams isn’t the kind of person who would jump ship. Another reason to admire him. He deserves our prayers as he deals with what, to this outsider, seems like a living example of what it means to be caught between a rock and the hard place.
A very thoughtful comment from Lisa, too, IMHO.
The story in the times is here – Worshippers who oppose women priests receive ‘untainted’ bread.
If you want to get a sense of how Episcopalians/Anglicans are viewing Rowan Williams’ response to the General Convention, here are two Episcopal Cafe pages …. Archbishop of Canterbury responds to General Convention (7-27) …. Tuesday roundup of reactions to ++Rowan’s reflections (7-28)
I think Rowan Williams, universally respected as he is, cares more about holding his church together than about having the courage of his convictions (or naybe they aren’t his convictions any more?). I’m pretty proud of the Episcopal Church for doing what I think is the unpopular but right thing.
Crystal, thanks for those links. I haven’t looked at the Episcopal Cafe in a while, though there was a big story about some of the issues to be discussed at the GC. I’ll go over and read about the “tainted bread.”
All, there are, of course, MANY books of common prayer in the Anglican communion, not just translations of the same one. For an overview:
http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/
The various BCPs, of course, have a common “ancestor,” and, in theory, a common spirit.
The Episcopal BCP was disliked by traditionalists when it was introduced in 1970s. You can still find a few churches that advertise themselves as using the earlier revised version from the 1920s.
But Episcopalians have so many new things to fight about, that the BCP squabble has largely been forgotten.
I’m not sure what Lisa means about the communion fracturing itself along lines that have nothing to do with the Gospel. Nor would I say that it’s all about shutting up women and closeting gays.
Rather, I think Bob Nunz gets to the heart of the matter by talking about “the decision to placate the divide.” The Anglican communion has always tried to accommodate a range of thinking on certain issues, it has always been proud of its media via stance between Catholicism and Protestantism.
Accommodation can, however, get out of hand and simply exacerbate or create confusion about where the common ground in the communion really is. Perhaps that’s the point Nancy D. is getting at, and I think it’s a valid one. Accommodation has, at times, replaced theology.
OK, enough thread-hogging from me.
I suppose that, to maintain unity among any group, whether it is a family, a rock band or a great religious denomination, the individual must be willing to set aside some individual autonomy and personal preferences, some of which are relatively trivial and some deeply held, for the sake of the group.
Many families and rock bands, for good or ill, decide that the sacrifices required to maintain unity aren’t worth the price.
Perhaps it is zeitgeist that I find it difficult to think about the benefits of unity without lapsing to the question, “What’s in it for me?” :-) Perhaps it is the very virtue of unity itself that whatever is in it isn’t for me, but the group.
Is it important that American Anglicans and Nigerian Anglicans mutually sacrifice in order to maintain some degree of unity, whatever that means? My intuition is that it is very important, but it isn’t easy to articulate why.
About the importance of unity – I think when the unity of the group becomes more important than the reason they united in the first place, then the group’s in trouble. I saw a sort of parody of the Episcopal/Anglican problem ….
“In the light of the way in which the priests and scribes have consistently read the Torah for the last three thousand years, it is clear that a positive answer to this question of Jesus and his clearly revolutionary teachings would have to be based on the most painstaking exegesis and on a wide acceptance of the results within the temple community, with due account taken of the teachings of other non-temple-associated partners also, e.g. Essenes, Zealots, etc. . A major change naturally needs a strong level of consensus and solid theological grounding.”
If unity was everything, there would be no Christians.
Hi, Crystal, I don’t know enough about Anglican ecclesiology to know their perspective, but a Catholic viewpoint could be that it is through the group that we encounter the risen Christ, so in a sense the group is the way to the reason we are united.
Hi Jim,
I think as an adult convert, I’ve never understood completely bout the importance of community in Catholicism, but I know that it is important. Must read more about it.
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt 18:20).
Jesus apparently doesn’t mind intimate company.
(Boy o boy, there go the cathedrals and churches not yet paid off :)
“If unity were everything, there would be no Christians.”
“Let them be one, Father, as you and I are one.”- Christ
Communion, from the beginning, is about unity, and God’s desire that we be united in Love.