BACK TO THE UPPER ROOM

Goodness knows why I was born in an age in which “programs” loom large in the life of the church. Those which relate to such areas as church growth, evangelism and related subjects often look rather like those enthusiastic group meetings beloved of commercial firms which exist to sell products. There’s nothing strange in this. We live in a commercial society. Every time we turn on our televisions we are bombarded by advertisements for products. The science of how best to exploit a market is the necessary adjunct to having something to sell.

It seems natural that as we have a Gospel to sell -or rather give away – we should be influenced by the culture of commerce when we consider how best to present to those outside our churches the Gospel we have been given as a trust to pass on. The way we tackle that commission nowadays is colored by the brand of Christianity we represent. In our denominational world, every community has a large number of brands all competing for the same market.  Look at the church page in your local newspaper and you will find all sorts and conditions of Christian communities advertising the times and places of their Sunday and weekday meetings. Web pages offer glimpses og what to expect if one decides to visit, to go through the church doors and experience that which is being offered.

So how do we capture a market, respond to those who come to our show rooms?  How do we prepare our devotees to welcome “new people”, make them feel at home enough to seek “membership” in our communities? After all we are “site based”  fellowships and most of our corporate Christian life goes on at those sites. As in the business world, our success is based on the number of people who meet together regularly to experience and participate in worship. So our preoccupation is worship based.  Worship has become our evangelism tool. Evangelical churches construct worship around a sermon, a talk often tailored to convert to Christ those who turn up for worship.  In “catholic” churches worship often assumes that those who are drawn in immediately proceed to a post-conversion life. Perhaps enquirers’ classes are tacked on to prepare people for commitment but it is usually assumed that those enquiring in a class are to form part of the worshipping community immediately.  We hope they will enjoy our way of worship even before they assent to what worship is all about.

In the past the Episcopal Church has prided itself on its ability to draw people from other religious traditions who find in what we do something they feel they have lacked before. Indeed a go0d deal of comment about the announcement that the Roman Catholic Church is opening itself up to  Anglicans has been countered by accounts of how many Roman Catholic Christians convert to Anglicanism.  Evangelism is in such a case based on weakening “denominational” loyalties which means that Christians feel free to shop around for the church which suits their needs.  In response many of our church growth activity centers on just how to attract such a market and make such shoppers welcome. One might describe this as ecclesiastical musical chairs.

During the past few decades our Episcopal Church has presented its wares in the form of culture which appeals to fairly affluent, educated and “progressive” people. The dwindling constituency of  traditionalist Anglicans in America peddles its products wrapped to appeal to politically conservative people, similarly affluent and well educated.  Church growth programs are assumed to be neutral in all this, with ideas and methods suitable for use by either constituency.  All buy into religious consumerism.  Buy the brand which best suits your needs and desires!

Meanwhile, as if by stealth, a growing number of people outside the churches are not in the market for any of these products. They live their lives untouched by “organized religion”, are often the second or third generation of post-Christians and see nothing on our web pages or advertisements anything which “attracts” them.  They are not atheists or agnostics in the traditional sense of those terms.  They are simply not attracted to Christianity and see no contact between what goes on in their day to day lives and what goes on in a church.

One of the contributing factors in all this is that our society is no longer particularly open to joining groups, unless one may belong “on-line”.  Men and women work. Children go to school, play sports and learn to play the violin!  Giving up time in such a frantic and exhausting life to spend in a community activity demands an extraordinary motivation and sacrifice.  The media, the internet and its components have taken the place of  clubs and organizations. “The family that prays together, stays together” seems an odd slogan in an age in which the family is narrowed to its smallest unit.

How then, do we adjust to the new world while remaining faithful to the Great Commission?  Jesus told us to “go tell”, “baptize”. “Do this in remembrance”, “Love one another”.  For centuries in the West, it has been assumed that the job was done.  After the Reformation our sights were centered on presenting our competing forms of Christianity to a population made up of believers. “Conversion” meant choosing which brand we would join, or our remaining faithful to the brand into which we were “born”.

Inevitably we assume that nothing has changed. “How do we attract new members” supposes that we have something attractive to offer.  As Episcopalianism dwindles in “membership”, in itself a deeply problematical term, its motive for evangelism becomes more and more centered, in practice, as how to get  enough people through the red doors to pay for clergy and the upkeep of Victorian piles or poorly constructed “modern” buildings which seem to deteriorate even more swiftly than older buildings. Whenever built, these community centers more and more are as attractive to outsiders as a masonic lodge.  I won’t enter into the subject of the job description now given to clergy, who are usually concluded to be care givers to those who belong.

Yet the life of so many post-Christians is lonely, isolated, and the growing complexity of life leaves many disoriented and their lives more and more dysfunctional.  It is not at all odd that those who can afford to do so resort to therapists, the new priests of our society.

How do we as Christians, by our very status disassociated from the rest of society -or are we? – to discover ways to share the faith that is within us?  We ask our parishioners to share with others what we have to offer.  Usually the response we get is that their friends go to a church.  Of course at least at school, at work, or where we eat out regularly, not all the people we meet are churched.  But then we are constrained by centuries of teaching that religion is personal, an optional addition to life and certainly not something to bother others with. That would be presumptuous.

So the question to which I have no ready answer is just how does the church starts to listen to the unchurched. To listen we have to communicate. Yet most of our intentional communication still centers around how we can make what we do more attractive to get people to “join” rather than finding out  how we may best enter into their lives and demonstrate how wholeness of life is the product of a life lived in communion with God and each other.  And it may just be that as we no longer actually believe that God much cares whether people are Christians or not, just as long as they are “good” – and goodness (Godness) is often a subjective determination – are they nice and kind and right thinking – we have become less  urgent about our discipleship to the world for Christ?

It is often suggested that we have return ed to a pre-Christian scene. No.  For when the Gospel was first preached it was preached to religious societies, “pagan” communities but yet communities to which some form of religion was usual.  But we are now sent to evangelize a world to which in the West is non-religious.  True, at funerals and perhaps marriages, God is still often invoked. Yet in day to day life God is absent, irrelevant, and the church mysterious, a club for those who like that sort of thing. We have retreated to the Upper Room for fear of those outside.

ANGLICAN?

What does it mean to be Anglican today?  Is there a deeper meaning to the word than establishing credentials by being in a body which nods to the Archbishop of Canterbury, sends its bishops to the Lambeth Conference and representatives to the Anglican Consultative Council, and whose Primates meet together from time to time?

 

Those who champion an Anglican Covenant, outlining common beliefs and discipline, autonomy and mutual unity, look to toughen up the boundaries which hold us together.  I am among them. And yet I wonder.  Most of the above relates to structure and to a minimal doctrinal commitment, perhaps an attempt to fill the hole when the Articles of Religion ceased to be a common theological position or perhaps an illustration of how Anglicans do theology in a definitive sense.

 

Yet all this could as well define what I might term “National Catholicism”.  The Utrecht Union has similar self definition, but it isn’t Anglican. That is no slight towards Old Catholicism. Old Catholics have a seductive and yet splendidly muted ambition. Anglo-Catholics are not importuning the Archbishop of Utrecht to give them space. They look to Rome. Rome offers them a home in which bits of pieces of Anglican tradition may be maintained, an offer to people who seldom use anything Anglican at all! I am more and more wondering whether in a splendid step of faith towards an ecumenical vision we have lost our hold on Anglicanism as an ethos and a way.

 

The 20th Century was the age of ecumenical optimism.  The extraordinary measures Anglicans took to move closer to other liturgical churches is seldom lauded or even noted. No where is this easier detect than in the liturgical revisions adopted by most Anglican Provinces.  Yes, many revisions  were justified on the basis that modern folk couldn’t access Elizabethan English.  The same people have mastered the jargon of organized sport, of the internet and computers and much else. Olde English remained the one lingo ordinary folk just couldn’t manage.  We will leave aside the patronizing aspect of such talk.

 

Apart from England the old Sundays after Trinity evaporated. Collects no longer had any necessary reference to the  Lectionary readings. The Revised Common Lectionary psalm readings often provide too long passages to sing. I won’t mention revised Anglican chant settings!

 

To the ecumenist these changes prepared the  way for closer patterns of worship and the language of worship. Certainly such a motive is salutary if there seemed some immanent possibility of organic unity. Yet after a hundred years of ecumenical initiative, little fruit for such labors seems obvious. It is certainly a positive that we no longer shun those who are not like us. Yet in the US at least the quest for organic unity has now taken second place to “treaties” of mutual recognition between church bodies which intend to remain discreet and separate in culture and tradition. But what of our culture and tradition?

 

No jurisdiction in Christendom has been so defined by its liturgical forms, not merely in worship but in doctrine. They remained remarkably constant although not frozen for centuries after their language ceased to be the common tongue. And yet the language remained accessible. It wasn’t a foreign tongue.  One could easily have abandoned “thees” and “thous”, dealt with notable archaisms, and even shuffled the shape of the liturgy, without losing the cadence of Anglican-speak, the rhythm of its worship and the underlying ethos of its rites and ceremonies.

 

As in so much else, no one actually asked the people outside the church or on its edges whether they would prefer something different.  The reformers were insiders doing things for insiders. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that our newer forms are heretical or even inadequate. Nor am I anti-ecumenical.  Yet, given the loss of an Anglican ethos in most of our contemporary worship, however “traditional” or well done, I wonder whether in forsaking our heritage we have opened the door to the paralysis we now experience in mission and evangelism. If I have forgotten who I am, it is hard to hold a conversation!

 

 

SERMON

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/sermons_that_work_116056_ENG_HTM.htm

HEALTH CARE

I rarely blog about matters political. After all my 44 years in the US is merely a temporary fling.  I begin, in the modern manner, which I normally avoid, by waxing anecdotal.

My grandfather was born in St. Lucia or mixws race ancestry. I first met him after World War 2 and disgraced my self by exclaiming “My Grandpa is a Black Man.”  He trained as a doctor at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, I have his diplomas on my bookshelf.  He practiced before the age of national health plans. He visited his patients in their homes, was paid in money, chickens, eggs and sometimes not at all. He believed that the Hippocratic oath obliged him to treat all, wheter he received payment or not.

My mother was a Yorkshire coal miner’s daughter. She didn’t go to High School. Determined to be a qualified nurse she sent applications all over England and was constantly rejected until a hospital chief nurse decided to take the risk and admitted her to nursing school. She “graduated” with a gold medal and went on to complete midwifery training. She was very proud to place after her name, SCN, SCM, State Certified Nurse, State Certified Midwife. Before National Health came into law, she visited all the sick in the villages which were her “parish” and delivered most of the babies, whether she was paid or not.  It was her calling.

I was too young when the National Health system came into play in England. No doubt there were those who fought against it because they could afford to pay and were damned if they would pay fo the poor to receive medical attention. I presume some of the opponents were doctors and some Insurance Company.

My cousin’s husband has just had a heart operation in England. It was paid for on the National Health. Mercifully Jack is doing well. He waited a few weeks, true. He wasn’t in great danger and if he had been would have been seen to immediately.

What baffles me totally is how Christians can support the idea that the right to “Life”, as in Liberty and Happiness, is somehow a lesser right than the right to a free education. It baffles me that people can oppose giving medical care to anyone in need. Baffling and deeply troubling.

ANGLICAN?

The term Anglican as a brand name is of Victorian vintage.  It perhaps summons up that feeling of English self-confidence which went along with the Empire and perhaps antimacassars. The British were not only in charge of vast areas of the world but were gifting to those populations Christianity clothed in the civil and moderate temperament of the Established Church.

It is true that there were battles about Churchmanship as bitter as those now fought over sex. The difference was that almost all the bishops who came to Lambeth in 1867 were British products of the better Public Schools and graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, sharing a common language, from the same “class” and all loyal to the British Throne.  Of course there were the Americans but they were busy emulating the culture and ethos of the Church of England in architecture, ceremonial and the method and content of theological education for the clergy despite their odd form of government.

A late Victorian would answer the question, “What is an Anglican?” easily. She would stutter something about membership of a Church in communion with the See of Canterbury, which used a recognizably common version of the Book of Common Prayer and for whom the Articles of Religion, parsed in either Catholic, Evangelical or Broad Church prose were “in use” (to quote the then wording of PECUSA’s Constitution.)

After the middle of the 19th Century there arose small groups who qualified in all aspects save that of being in Communion with Canterbury. They were located in South Africa, North America and England. Were these bodies Anglican?  Opinions varied but most suggested they were not. “Anglican” referred to a structural association, the leaders of which as individual bishops were recognized by the Archbishop of Canterbury by beinging invited every ten years to the Lambeth Conference. The bishops of these Evangelical outposts were not invited to Lambeth! Enough said. It was much more “British” to express disapproval by ignoring such types than to issue statements denouncing them.

During the past year  two events challenge this traditional use of the term “Anglican”. The first was the creation of the Anglican Church in North America.  The second, this week was the announcement that the Roman Catholic Church is to create Anglican Ordinariates for those who in faith and conscience have either left Provinces or the Anglican Communion or contemplate so doing.

Involved in all this is a linguistic shift of some importance.  When I was exercising the episcopate in what is termed now a “continuing church”  it was often suggested to me that my ecclesial body could not use the term Anglican in self-description because it was not in communion with Canterbury. When I sought a ruling from +Robert Runcie, then Archbishop of Canterbury he replied that the relationship was “fluid”: a delightful and typically Anglican fudge.

Rome now seems to interpret the term to mean a tradition, an ethos, a way of doing liturgy and perhaps pastoral work, or a cultural-religious phenomenon.  In affirming such an interpretation in formal canonical language it does Anglicanism no favor.  While “Communion-Anglicans” are struggling with the matter of structural and ecclesial integrity, concerning the breadth and limits of autonomy, Rome issues a Constitution which logically suggests that Anglicanism has no ecclesial and structural integrity at its core, but is rather a “spiritual” and traditional phenomenon, the essence of which may be captured and preserved without reference to what it actually is.  Anglicans should be concerned that we are seen no longer as a Church of Churches, but rather a flavor!

THIS AND THAT

THE ROME OPTION

In watching the press conference given by the RC Archbishop of Westminster in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury I felt very sorry for +Rowan. By all accounts he was given little notice that Rome was going to set up enclaves for former Anglicans within the Roman Catholic Church.  Despite all the assurances that ecumenical relations won’t be compromised, I find Rome’s action extraordinarily ungracious.  It is one thing to offer a home to people seeking to convert to Rome and quite another to permit the establishment of Roman Catholicism with an Anglican flavor.  That smacks to me of enticement.

What that Anglican flavor would look like remains to be seen. Most pro-Roman Anglo-Catholics in England already use the Roman Rite and the Roman Breviary. I doubt whether converting parishes will be able to take their buildings and the memories associated with those buildings with them. So what of an Anglican flavor remains other than a married priesthood?

Rome may have bitten off a pretty indigestible package.

BISHOP ACKERMAN

I know few people who have met +Keith who do not love him. While other traditionalist bishops in the House of Bishops assumed somewhat lugubrious aspects, +Keith always bounced around, a smile on his face, sincerely seeking to connect with all and sundry. He is a holy and devout man who cares very much for people.

Now he has been deposed.  He asked to be transferred to the Diocese of Bolivia in the Province of the Southern Cone and to be permitted to serve in TEC dioceses when not down in South America.  It seems that bishops who seek to move to other Anglican Provinces, like my friend +Henry Scriven and now +Keith Ackerman, will be deposed. Priests may obtain letters dimissory from their American bishops to serve abroad without facing desposition. It seems that this is not open to Bishops.

Granted relations between the Southern Cone and TEC are rather frosty (no pun intended) but as TEC hasn’t severed its communion with that Province one sees no logic in this new policy. On the other hand TEC regularly grants “collegial status” to overseas bishops who stay for a period over here.

Now of course if +Keith has used his status in the Diocese of Bolivia to perform episcopal actions in ACNA congregations he would commit a canonical offense. But he hasn’t so done.

I am sickened by the way +Keith has been treated.

RETREATS

I was delighted to lead the annual retreat of our Diocesan Daughters of the King last Saturday. I received some very gracious and appreciative comments afterwards. One of the thing which has troubled me since entering TEC ten years ago is the little opportunity I have been given to use my gifts with clergy and laity, in leading conferences and retreats. So, if you are planning such events, dear readers, think of me!

AN ENCOUNTER

For most of my early teens I lived with my mother in Norfolk, England. Mother was the district nurse. She visited the sick and delivered most of the babies in a group of villages. She was a single parent mother, struggling to educate me well and manage on a meager salary.She was a hurt and embittered woman who gave herself to me with a devotion which both enabled and hurt me.

I was the only server at the local parish church. The “churchmanship” as we then called it, was very middle of the road. Each Sunday there was an early celebration of the Eucharist. Sung Matins followed at 11a.m except on the first Sunday in the month when there was a Parish Communion. Evensong was sung at 6: 30PM.The parish church breathed the faith of all who had worshipped there for hundreds of years.

Our vicar was called up for six months as an army chaplain. While he was away we were served by Roger Boys, a wonderful old priest in his nineties, who attended Lincoln Theological College when the saintly Edward King was Bishop of Lincoln. Fr. Boys, who I remember daily in my prayers was a living link with the Tractarians. He didn’t impose ceremonial on us. He just lived a sacramental faith with great gentleness.

There came a Sunday when he was away. I arrived at church early to be met by the verger. “Tony” he said, “there’s a Roming Catholic priest in the vestry. Go and tell him this is the parish church. He don’t take no notice of me.”

We robed in the tower, so off I went and there stood a venerable old chap wearing a funny hat with a pom pom, a cassock with more buttons on than there seemed to be available material clutching a crumbled long white robe adorned with the sort of lace one usually saw on the back of chairs in the homes of old ladies.

I gulped and blurted out that this was the Parish Church. “Indeed” he said, “a parish dedicated to our Lady. I have come to say Mass.”  “Our Lady”, I thought. I think I mumbled that he was wrong. This was Saint Mary’s Church.

Our Parish Communion that day was like nothing I had ever seen. I always seemed to be kneeling at the wrong place, offering the wrong cruet, or standing when I should have been kneeling. The villagers were astounded by his antics but won over by his lovely sermon. He had spent his life as a missionary in Africa and now was retired, living in a nearby village.

A few weeks later, he turned up early one morning at our house and informed my mother that he was taking me on a day trip to Walsingham. I had no idea why we were going to such a remote village. I was amazed that the old chap was still wearing his cassock and a funny hat. Off we went.

My day at the Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham was a transforming experience. I have a devotion to the place ever since. There is an extraordinary atmosphere of holiness in that little village. Despite the memories of the destruction of the monastery and shrine by Henry VIII’s commissioners and the subsequent evidence of our “unhappy divisions’ in the presence in the tiny village of three shrines, Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox, somehow an aura of the Presence triumphs in a place dedicated to the Theotokos.

The Anglican shrine was restored by an eccentric, Fr. Hope Patten. He had recently died when I first went there. The liturgical devotions there at that time made the Pope look like a Presbyterian. Despite all its eccentricity there was something there. At the holy well people were healed of bodily and spiritual infirmities. “By their trust, “faith” we say.  Well that was so with Jesus’s healings. “Your faith has made you whole” What is more excellent that that?”  Ritualism and unreformed doctrine some mutter. But are we saved not by right precise doctrine but by faith, by trust in God?

When I was desperately ill a couple of years ago I sent an email to the Anglican Shrine asking for prayers. That amusing encounter fifty seven years ago has left me with an abiding devotion not only to Walsingham but to Mary.

I suppose my devotion is typically Anglican. I am vividly aware in my prayers of the presence of what the Creed terms “The Communion of Saints”.  I am challenged and amazed by the faith of  a young girl who submitted to the Divine Will to be the bearer of Jesus, True God and true Man. “Look at me”, she said, “I am God’s servant.”  Her Son echoed her words when in the Garden he said “Nevertheless not my will but your will be done”. I pray and struggle with that defining act of submission to God. It is at the heart of what evangelicals call a conversion experience.

As an Anglican I remain uncomfortable or shall I say untouched with attempts to make doctrinal definitions about Mary. I find them unnecessary. Was Mary received into Glory when she died? Of course she was. Was she without sin?  Like us all she was wa made true because of her Son’s love, as are we all by the merits of his life, death and passion and his resurrection and ascension. Certainly she demonstrated extraordinary grace by her submission, the role she played as Mother of Jesus, and her faith even when bemused by his ministry and torn apart by his death. In her devotion, even at the Cross, she demonstrates an immaculate devotion which challenges us and draws us closer to her Son. Even after the Reformation our church honored in its Calendar the Feast of the “Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary” as we did her Annunciation.

Perhaps like the Orthodox I can be drawn into a devotion to her unique role in our salvation without being persuaded by precise doctrinal definitions about her conception or the mode of her reception into Heaven. The terms by which the Angel addressed her are sufficient for me. I love the old tag, “Those who are not Marians are usually Arians.”

We live daily with Mary and the Communion of Saints. I say in the Creed that we believe that we live in that Communion. Communion means an interconnected and inseparable fellowship. I shudder when people use that term to mean a federation of autonomous entities. I belong to the Anglican “Communion”. That term doesn’t mean something like being part of the “United Nations”. “Communion” is a stronger word than “Church”, or rather it articulates practically that which the word “Church” means. If I am in communion, I belong and have a responsibility to submit myself like Mary to that vocation and calling. My little parish is a microcosm of Communion, of fellowship with the saints in light, with all Christians, alive and dead, with the Holy Church of God and with a family called Anglicanism.

Is it possible that Mary’s confession, “Look, I am God’s servant. I will be the person God has called me to be” can be a paradigm of our relationships within our temporary Anglican Communion, as well as an expression of “sweet communion, with those whose work is done.” Who ever had a work, achieved, which the maiden gave herself to and assumed  when the angel said to her that she would be the bearer of the Savior of the World and she said “yes”. And so I kneel and cry “Ave Maria” and pray that I may have the grace to follow her good example as I put God’s will before my autonomy and pray that, despite myself and my falleness, people may find in my faith, the Faith of Jesus which we own, Jesus Himself?

A CHURCH FOR WHOM?

The Church of England has designated this coming Sunday as a Back to Church day. http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr8609.html

A CofE Bishop is exasperated by what he believes to be a common view that the church is for the well-heeled and educated. For as long as I can remember there has been an emphasis on both sides of the ditch on people who are perceived to have intellectual doubts about the core teachings of the church. Not only has this seemed to become the sole missionary thrust of our church, it is has become fashionable for Anglicans in the West to pride themselves on parading their doubts. It is little wonder that we have become narrowly a church peopled by and speaking to and for intellectuals.

Now of course our faith requires us to use our minds and reason. Christianity is a reasonable faith. But it is a faith for everyone whatever their gifts and talents. If we eschew our mission to all we become a faith for a few. And that we have become. We talk about the poor and the less educated as subjects for our charity but not objects of our mission. Jesus is presented as a subject for deconstruction and not as Saviour and Lord.

We train our clergy to be experts in “criticism” and leave them with no common vocabulary or contact with ordinary folk.  We have nothing to say to those who read the sports page, who drive trucks, work in fast food places, and look after our daily lives in stores and supermarkets. Even “evangelicals” in the United States concentrate on the politically conservative middle class. We cheerfully consign the rest to the mission of fundamentalist groups.

It is little wonder that most people see the church as irrelevant to life and the harsh reality of relationships and survival. How ironic is this for a church which once embraced the whole “village” and was identified by its place at the center of community life?

CONTROL

Control is a reaction which sets in when trust evaporates. How do we protect ourselves when our security seems threatened and when it is no longer possible to negotiate in good faith?  When human relationships break down, participants look to protect what they have. Whatever the outcome, whether in families or institutions, protective and reactive measures deepen mistrust and encourage self-justification. Feeling badly done by, bitterness increases. People lose respect for each other and love turns to hatred.

When a marriage seems to be breaking down our church requires that the parties seek the counsel and advice of a priest. Such a priest is assumed to be neutral. The priest may call in a professional marriage counsellor or therapist whose task is to offer professional and objective help.  The whole premise here is that the vows and union formerly enjoyed by the couple should be a base to explore the strengths and weaknesses of a relationship, seeking to revive and build upon that which was once there.

It is no accident that many who came into our church from other traditions, who “fell in love” with “Episcopalianism” are the first to feel betrayed when their chosen church seems to become something else. They are not alone. Many who grew up loving our liturgy, our ethos reach the point when they find it difficult to recognize the continued presence of that which they love in what the church has become.

Of course those who have been active in promoting the utility or even the “justice” of the changes which have transformed the church find those who cleave to an older pattern obstructive and unenlightened. Those who have been attracted to the church as it now is, have no “memory” of what the church was and thus have little sympathy for old-fashioned types.

Habit is an essential ingredient in human nature. Habit provides security and stability. Granted there are those who become captive to habit and who become disoriented when the rhythm of life is destroyed. On the other hand there are those who love to move the furniture around, throw out the old and bring in the new. As Gilbert, of Sullivan fame remarked, we are “either a little liberal or else a little conservative, tra la la.”

I was thinking about this when I wrote an essay the other day on the social and historical background in which Richard Hooker, our first great theologian, wrote his seminal work. Particularly I was thinking about Elizabeth i’s chapels. Elizabeth grew up during the time when the Church of England became a national catholic church under her father. Henry VIII broke with Rome but during his life time the worship of the church changed very little. When Elizabeth came to the throne, and once again divorced the church from Western Catholicism, she was obliged to appoint to high office people with a different experience to her own. Many had gone into exile on the Continent and had espoused the Reformed views of Continental evangelicalism.

Stubbornly this “conservative” woman retained in her chapel many of the ceremonies and outward signs she had grown to love as a child. She insisted that the structure of the church remained traditional, in its retention of the provincial, diocesan and parochial system, in the rhythm of the Christian Year and a lectionary linked to that rhythm.

A case may be made that her stubborn conservatism enabled “Anglicanism” to resist the “liberalism” of Calvinism and gradually to bring together a comprehension between things old and things new. Had she not imposed her own stamp on a radical church, the Church of England would have become a Presbyterian kirk. The Queen and her third Archbishop gave protection to an unassuming parson, Richard Hooker, whose great work created a traditional synthesis between the past and the present. Hooker was five years old when Elizabeth came to the throne. He grew up worshiping according to the rites and ceremonies of the 1558 Prayer Book. He and many of his generation were shaped by the language and theology of the BCP.

Today there are many of us in TEC whose spirituality and doctrine of the church (ecclesiology) has been shaped by the way we worship.  We are alarmed by those whose religious experience is framed not by our structural heritage but by a religious experience which looks to an “authority” above and beyond the language and temper of our liturgy. Some are ultra conservatives, framed by “charismatic evangelicalism” and many, convinced that the church is not a safe home, have abandoned TEC and formed their own home.

The ascendant and dominating party in our church describes and limits our heritage in the light of their cultural, social and “justice” issues. For them the contents, structure and ethos of our worship is no longer the law of faith and of prayer, but a neutral reality which may be used as a vehicle for their reforms.

Those of us who are convinced Prayer Book Christians have no Elizabeth to protect us. We find ourselves in a “denominational” church untrammeled by that which they regard as the “traditional” ethos of Anglicanism.

The revised Prayer Book of our church has been in use for a scant thirty years. Yes, the 28 BCP didn’t have a long life but it was in touch with the temper and ethos of the past. The present Prayer Book has within it the possibility of framing a similar theology and spirituality. Yet it hasn’t had the chance to sink into the psyche of the people. The words and their meaning, the rhythm and meaning of its cadences are confronted by the doctrines and discipline of those who look beyond who we are to a cultural and social “theology” which finds its apex in the decisions of a governing body, General Convention, in the policies adopted by a majority rather than in the doctrine, discipline and worship of the church.

Is there a neutral and pastoral authority to which those of us who have been formed and are formed by Anglicanism as expressed in its structure and worship may appeal?  Seven bishops went to Lambeth to seek such pastoral advice from the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was his predecessor who intervened when TEC was being formed and insisted that our liturgy and structure remain firmly Anglican. In a global world, as members of a global “Communion”  those bishops and those of us whose faith and spirituality is framed in our worship and the words and meaning of our worship have nowhere else to go. Our Primate leads the reformers. Many of our bishops are reformers. Where then shall we go to find an authority which affirms that our theology and spirituality is that which our church affirms in its doctrine, discipline and worship?

The problem for us is that the other “party” in our dispute is not ready to join us in seeking counsel from Canterbury. They affirm the justice of their position and their absolute right to do their own thing. They are right. We are wrong.  The Primates have sought to offer committees and  bodies to help us in seeking some form of redress and support. Their offer has been rejected. And thus we now seek from Canterbury some assurance that we may retain our links and communion with the wider church and  retain our own integrity to be that which the church has been.  Many of the Elizabethan leadership were full of Calvin. They looked beyond that which the church was in structure and liturgy to a higher and external authority. They sought justice. Elizabeth, a remarkable woman, tempered their enthusiasm.  Where is our Elizabeth?

GENERAL CONVENTION?

Shortly after the possibility that Parliament would triumph over the Crown during the English Civil War a “General Assembly” was convoked. It met at Westminster. At least one Anglican bishop, the Archbishop of Dublin, took his seat. Archbishop Ussher, yes the fellow who divined that the world was 4000 years old, participated in that assembly. He did so as a champion of “limited” or constitutional episcopacy. Ironically he championed the authenticity of the Letters of Ignatius who, in the period after the Apostles, asserted the essential place of the episcopate in the life of the church. Ussher represented the moderate party who sought to advocate a form of episcopacy divorced from State power and limited by the authority of presbyters and laity. He lost! Episcopacy was abolished as was the Prayer Book and what we now term Anglicanism.

However that first General Assembly of clergy and laity defined and limited its own authority by adopting a “Confession”, a statement of doctrine which would serve as the binding standard on all future general assemblies. That confession remains a standard of faith for most Presbyterians in the United States.

Thus in a remarkable sweep of tradition an elected assembly aggregated to itself the authority previously assumed by Archbishops, bishops, and the assembly of clergy (Convocations) and the position of Parliament as the general synod of the English Church.

In many ways that assembly was prophetic. It asserted the right of all Christians to assemble together to govern the affairs of a national church. The growth of synodical government to become usual in Anglican Provinces is the result of this paradigm. However we noted that the Westminster Assembly swiftly limited its authority by the adoption of a Confession which outlined the form of Reformed theology and structure its members espoused. In the following years the compact dissolved as a plethora of sects claimed similar authority to advance their own “take” on the doctrine, discipline and worship of the Church.  Denominationalism was born.

There are now claims abroad which claims for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church a similar authority. The theory of limited episcopacy adopted when TEC was founded is now being interpreted as a doctrine which claims for General Convention all authority, or which claims that all authority, episcopal or lay is centered in the general authority of General Convention. But note that General Convention is not described and limited by some clear articulation of Anglican doctrine or by any authority which may adjudicate the theological or even canonical authenticity of the decisions adopted by General Convention.

Ironically the role of Archbishop Ussher at Westminster is now being assumed by the collective House of Bishops which seems ready to bow to the pressure of other clergy and laity in the House of Deputies simply because the majority of bishops are in favor of the present policies which call into question the fidelity of either House to the doctrine and discipline of the church as expressed in Liturgy and Constitutional and Canon Law. If indeed the traditional teaching authority of the episcopate is circumscribed by the prior and invincible authority of a Convention, is not something essential in the form and manner of what we term Anglicanism being radically and triumphantly re-asserted?  Note that recent communications from TEC to the Archbishop of Canterbury have been signed by the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies suggesting some form of co-equal status and authority. As I predicted in an essay I wrote for Anglicans Online in 2000, TEC is becoming or has become not an episcopal church but a “General Convention Church.”

Our bishops should take serious note of these precedents and demonstrations of power and consider whether they are becoming creatures of an assembly rather than successors of the Apostles. No one advocates absolute rule by bishops. That is not the question. Rather that which is in question is the role of bishops as guardians of the faith and centers of essential unity in concert with presbyters and the laity each with specific roles and functions.

All this came to mind when I read the preface to an article by an erudite lay person in England who seeks to answers the recent letter about TEC’s decisions at General Convention written by the Archbishop of Canterbury and sent to all the bishops in the Anglican Communion. The article countering +Rowan’s letter was prefaced by a paragraph or two seeking to level the ground between archbishop and the writer in question, by pointing out that the archbishop’s thoughts may be questioned!  Of course they may.  But one wonders whether what is being advanced is the sort of theory advanced by some fundamentalists that anyone may rightly interpret Scripture.  The office of Archbishop of Canterbury is due respect. When it is occupied by a person of undisputed learning and holiness one wonders whether the suggestion that his authority as primus inter pares, as a bishop and a scholar is of no greater import than the writings of an ordinary Clerk like me! Of course I am at liberty to “thwack” +Rowan’s points, but I certainly do not do so because I possess either the authority of his office or episcopate or the massive learning he employs.  Is the infallible? I am sure he would chuckle at the assertion. But is it undemocratic to think that I am not his intellectual or spiritual equal?  A teacher once commented to one of my class mates that while he had a right to his own opinion he had no right to assert that his opinion was equal to that of a Cambridge first class honors degree holder who was authorized to teach the class.

A POSTSCRIPT

A number of friends on the “left” have responded to my last blog by suggesting that even had TEC made firm pastoral provisions for those of us who are loyal to the Formularies of our church, those intent on schism would have acted as they have.  We have no real way of knowing whether a more pastoral approach to dissent earlier on would have prevented the scandal of schism.

I am sure that such people would have had a much smaller following and little excuse for schismatic activities. But that is not the point.  I think a case may be made that everytime Anglicanism has sought to enforce the views of a temporory majority on an historical “party” within our comprehension the result has been frightful and resulted not only in the alienation of loyal Anglicans, but in the conflict many with no ax to grind have fled a warring church. Coercion not only violates the nature of Anglicanism but violates basic Christian charity. That such a breach is driven by zealots on both sides excuses nothing. We worship a Lord who “stands at the door and knocks”. He doesn’t break the door down!

THE WALL OF SEPARATION

I attended a NNECA conference in Boston a few years ago.  This was before we had the problem of dioceses leaving TEC.  One of the conference speakers was on the legal staff of the National Church and is now very much involved in litigation for TEC. As I remember the substance of her argument it went as follows:

In the Constitution of the USA a compact was made with religious organizations which treated them in the same way as treaties with sovereign bodies like the Native American groups. In exchange for internal “sovereignty” the United States agreed not to invade the constitutional integrity of religious bodies. The “churches” abandoned any claims to “establishment” in return for complete liberty to order and govern their own affairs.

This wall of separation, the speaker suggested, was being dismantled by religious bodies which either condoned or permitted its “members” to violate state law, or by religious bodies inviting the secular arm to adjudicate its own affairs.  In the first category were cases where the churches seemed to protect its members from civil law. In such cases the State was obliged to enter into the area of ecclesiastical discipline and to force the churches to give restitution to victims of abuse in one form or another.

In the second example churches were seeking to discipline its own “members” by recourse to secular courts, judging that such churches were unable, by themselves, to enforce their own discipline or protect their own claimed property.

Whatever the matter at hand, the churches invited the State into their own sovereignty and thereby ceded such authority to the secular courts. In short such ecclesial bodies were acting as if they were in some respect “established” or subject to, or open to the State to resolve their own difficulties.

The speaker suggested that every appeal to the secular arm to provide adjudication eroded the separation of Church and State. What may seem opportune at a moment might well set a precedent for the future. It also illustrated an incapacity on the part of the “Church” to manage its own affairs without the help of the secular arm.

I have now to affirm once again my opposition to schism as a method of affording protection to those whose beliefs and ideals were normal in the recent past. The unwillingness of our church to adopt unusual methods to afford safe haven to a disenfranchised and impotent minority, because TEC is governed by a “winner take all” form of governance is in itself a scandal. A simple expedient of the English “flying bishops” idea, adopted by a church which has a real claim to historic and unique territorial diocesan integrity, a system adopted to preserve unity, in that it was rejected by our “denominational” church, only underlines the stubborn and “conservative” policy of our majoritarian leadership. The simple adoption of protective measures to afford a safe haven for those who cannot in conscience submit to current TEC policies would have trumped schismatic schemes which have led to our present divisions. Our church would be lauded for its tolerance and comprehension while free to pursue the ideals of the majority. What would have emerged would have been “comprehension” tailored to years of conflict.

Instead TEC has asked the secular State by its courts to adjudicate not only property disputes but explicitly in is pleadings the doctrinal and structural ethos of what it means to be an Anglican in America.

If TEC wins its battles it will have given itself security as an ecclesial body intolerant of dissent and the price will be a surrender of its autonomy to the secular State. The wall of separation will have been breached. If the dissidents succeed the ability of TEC to govern itself autonomously will have been undermined by action of the State.

Perhaps it is not too late for the powers that be to count the cost of recourse to the State to settle its affairs and to grant to traditionalists dioceses and parishes a measure of protection, demonstrating a pastoral care for all its members and once again avowing its commitment to Anglican comprehension. Traditionalists in TEC need more than nice words suggesting the value they are to our breadth and unity. They need action and they need it now.

A simple and suitable action would be for the Executive Council to propose to the next General Convention a proposal permitting Dioceses and parishes to affirm the Covenant and to create a form of DEPO which permits diocesan bishop the right to offer secure and untrammeled temporary “jurisdiction” to parishes in “progressive” dioceses whose vestries adopt precise resolutions seeking such oversight. Bishops should be “comprehensive” enough to permit such a temporary relinquishment of jurisdiction in the cause of unity and concord.

Are the anachronistic claims to territorial jurisdiction on the part of diocesan bishops more important than the creation of extra diocesan structures within our unity?

FAMILIAR TERRITORY

“The more things change the more they stay the same.”  “There is nothing new under the sun”.  We remember these sayings, learnt in our childhood.  I am fascinated by the way controversies fought and long forgotten have resurfaced as new concepts in our church.  I want to mention two, which were full of life during the Reformation period.

1. The Tudor “Empire”.

Justification for the breach between the English Church didn’t merely revolve around doctrinal issues, superstition and morality. There was also a political argument. It ran something like this. There was a fabled time in the days after the Romans left England when “England” was an Empire. An Empire, is was affirmed, as entitled to a discreet and autonomous “church”. One might have thought that the polemic historians who sought to justify the complete autonomy of the Church of England would have dragged up the Arthurian legends.  But it was to “Old King Coel” that merry old soul that such historians appealed.  Even respectable Reformed bishop-theologians like John Jewel of Exeter, Richard Hooker’s mentor sought to advance such an argument. Over the years others pointed to the Celtic Church, assuming that it held no allegiance to Universal Church.

Nowadays one would describe such attempts as conspiracy theories. Most such theories have some slim grounding in fact. Obviously the connection between local churches and the See of Rome in early periods were much less robust. Distance, communication methods and the complexity of post Roman Empire political structures precluded any formidable centralized system. The Roman See had not established formally the claims it would make to universal jurisdiction. Thus those who sought to advance a political theory to bolster the authority of the Later Tudors over a National Church found plenty of ammunition factual and imaginery, by culling through the historic records and legends of their day.

Now I do believe that the breakup of the Western Church during the Reformation was inevitable. It was so for theological and political reasons. It was so because Rome feared the house cleaning it needed. But the casualty was the Church and it led to the sort of “denominationalism” which is such an obvious part of the modern ecclesial scene in America.

After a century or more of Ecumenism it seems to me tragic that some in our church seek to resurrect a theory of a National Church, and yet one with a crucial difference from that advanced by “Anglicans” during the Reformation. The crucial difference is that no one claims that TEC is The Church of America.  Rather the claim is now being made that TEC, as a worldwide body, is a discreet and autonomous unit competent to advance and create not only a local flavor suitable to serve a disctinct “culture” but whose reference to any wider body is discretionary not only in local government and liturgical usage but in doctrinal “development” and a discipline stemming therefrom. Such claims, like those advanced by Tudor historians are proposed in order to justify local unilateralism. Thus some propose a theory of a “National Denomination” in voluntary association with other churces throughout the world whose origins are in the migration and missionary activity of the English.  Such complete “denominational” autonomy has no justification in a reasonable interpretation of Scripture or in the historical Tradition. Rather it relies on a concept of discreet “denominationalism” which is part of the heritage of Protestant American religion.

2. Mutual Ministry

The second takes us back to the controversy between the Church of England and those who sought a more thorough reformation “root and branch”  It is absolutely true that for a period of time Anglican reformers attacked what they termed “sacerdotalism.”  By this they meant a theory of ministry which suggested that bishops and priests possessed the ability to transform bread and wine into the actual physical Body and Blood of Christ. There were other elements derided,  many bound up with miraculous relics, masses purchased to hasten along a person’s period of time in Purgatory and of course Indulgences.  There is a case to suggest that the threefold ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons was retained in the English Church, at least in part, for political and social reasons. The idea of one church in one place at one time, within its ancient Provincial, Diocesan and Parochial system was regarded by the Tudors as an essential ingredient in preserving the unity of the nation under the Crown.

Yet, however Reformed the teaching on ministry and sacraments there remained a theological conviction that the pastoral Ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons was not merely functional. Only those set aside by solemn rite were competent to preach and administer the Church’s sacraments. The teachings of Scipture and the unfolding witness of the Tradition anchored such authority in a pastoral ministry guaranteed by a threefold ministry evident to be in place from “The Apostles’ Time” or so spoke the Preface to the Ordinal.

It is important to note that such ministerial authority was vested in specific persons, the Primate in the Province, the Bishop in the diocese and the Parson in the parish. However the radical Reformers, fearful of preletical and sacerdotal overtones sought a greater reformation in which ministerial authority was shared by the gathered church of elect pesons, from whose midst were located and elected ministers of Word and Sacrament whose pastoral authority was limited to those associating themselves with the “elect”.  The elect, the gathered, separated congregation, either gathered into wider fellowships in the Presbyterian model or totally discovered in each congregation in the Congregational model,  raised up and authenticated those who preached and presided at sacramental rites of Baptism and Holy Communion. Even then while most models recognized teaching elders, ministers, and governing elders, those elected as in a modern vestry, there was no suggestion that elements in “teaching eldership”  sought to distribute different elements in such ministry among the elect, ordained or not.

The Diocese of Northern Michigan recently sought to elect a bishop whose episcopal ministry would be distributed among ordained and lay “members” of that diocese. They did so relying on a theory of ministry first advanced in the Diocese of Nevada, as it faced the familiar problem in our church. How do small parishes which cannot afford a full-time, payed priest, provide themselves with a preaching, sacramental and pastoral ministry?  Thus a practical suggestion emerged, which naturally sought to discover theological and  traditional precedents for identifying ministry in the entire “gathered” congregation, raised up from that gathered congregation, sharing in the elements of ministry hitherto located in a person…Parson.  Small groups of people would seek to see who was good at visiting the sick, who “taking services”, who using “Sermons that Work” for preaching and so on.

There was an attractive, non hierarchical, egalitarian ring to such a system. It was left to the tiny group of congregations in Northern Michigan to adapt such a theory to episcopacy. What they produced was episcopacy by committee, by the elect.  Now at base such a theory was bolstered by TEC’s slide into denominationalism, to describe itself not as a parochial church but as a gathered church of those who liked being Episcopalian.  One is tempted to suggest that the Puritan ideal of a gathered congregation of those predestined to salvation has become a theory of a gathered congregation (and National Church) of people who like whatever Episcopalianism is seen to be.

Let me stress that even the most pronounced sectarians, no attempt embraced such a functional approach to ministry that would have allowed the principle Preaching, Sacramental and Pastoral authority – I stress authority or authenticity – in the  a selected group within a congregation,  those who regularly worship, support and belong to a church among whom elements of “ordained” ministy would be distributed.

The justification for some in our church embracing such a theory is variously justified by appeals to supposed “Father knows best” activities of parish priests, eccentric appeals to Early Church evidence and purely practical considerations. No one doubts that our present problems in small rural parishes and dioceses call for solutions which are not anchored in the ideal of a full-time parish priest.  Yet both in appeals to Tudor “National Church” theories and “Mutual Ministry” theories of a functional approach to ministy based on odd concepts of Baptism, of which another time, there is an ironic call for us to reach  beyond such nativist theories towards more robust concepts of “Catholicity” in our doctrine of the Church at “national” and all other levels, and one based not on seeking proofs to excuse local unilateralism and self will.

SERMON FOR PENTECOST 15

Mark 8:27-38

At least Jesus took poor Peter to one side!  There are few things worse than being shamed in public. Yet the story of this stinging rebuke – Get behind me Satan – somehow leaked out. Indeed there is a school of thought which attributes much of Mark’s Gospel to the words and memories of St. Peter. Perhaps in this account we are hearing his confession.

One may have enormous sympathy with Simon nicknamed Peter. He was one of the first to join Jesus and obviously loved him dearly. Peter was a bit of a “muscular Christian” prone to blurting out his thoughts and feelings, for better and for worse. Yet there is no deceit in him. What you see is what you get.

In the Gospel today we see Peter at his most inspired and in his most protective mood. He wants his Lord to be so much more than a mere prophet, even a famous prophet. “You are the Chosen One: the Son of the Living God”.  He wants the man he loves to be superhuman and to overcome everything so easily.

The word Messiah meant much more than a religious leader. Devout Jews believed that their long suffering as an occupied nation would come to an end by God’s direct intervention. The God of Israel would save his people by sending one specially chosen from birth. To a believing first century Jew that meant the Romans would be thrown out and a religious and political Israel would emerge restored and renewed.

Just as there were many in the occupied nations of Europe during World War 2 who dreamed of the day when the Nazis would be expelled, so first century Jews dreamed of the day when the tramp of the Roman legions with their idolatrous eagle banner would no longer be heard.

When Peter blurted out this statement, Jesus gave him high honor. “You are the Rock.”  Tradition suggests that Peter was a big strong man. “The Big Fisherman.”  A rock is strong and hard and immovable.  Peter must have stood tall. His faith was the rock on which Jesus’ Gospel would be built.

But then Jesus begins to talk about what a Messiah-ministry would look like. Rather like Winston Churchill who offered the British people nothing but “blood, sweat, toil and tears” in the battle against Hitler’s Germany, Jesus tells a story of redemption and renewal founded in his own personal suffering and death: suffering brought on by rejection, abuse, defection and death. Little did Peter know that he would play the coward when those dark moments arrived.

Jesus offered no easy religion to his disciples and he offers no easy religion to us. We don’t much like that. So often we think of faith as some sort of insurance policy against suffering, hurt, betrayal, sickness and death itself. Like Peter we don’t want a faith that goes there. We want a return for our investment. We want our rights. We want our freedom. The list of our wants go on and on. Like Peter we don’t want Jesus to suffer but is that in part because we don’t want to be caught up in his suffering?

It is easy to deal with the sufferings of others at a distance. We may support causes, write checks, travel to meetings in our nice cars and utter revolutionary thoughts!  We may be attacked by those who oppose our views. What a comfortable martyrdom. Yet always there, behind the altar, on the wall, however tasteful or ornate, is the Cross.  “If any would follow me they must take up their cross.”

Yet even at the gate of death we cry Alleluia. So speaks the language of our Prayer Book.  If our faith isn’t an escape from hurt, isn’t a faith about a Messiah who comes to do it all for us, it is a faith which brings us extraordinary joy in walking the way of the cross through death into life. Peter was crucified, legend tells us, upside down because he was not worthy to suffer as his Lord did. Poor Peter. He couldn’t prevent his friend’s death and he suffered the same fate.

If Mark repeats Peter’s own testimony in this passage, he demonstrates an honesty we would wish to emulate. Yes we believe. Yes we seek to avoid suffering: keep Easter but not Good Friday. Yes we want to liberate those who suffer just as long as we don’t suffer ourselves. Yes we want our rights and fail in our duty. But just as Jesus used the fallible St. Peter as the rock on which he builds his Church, so he uses the smaller, often split rocks of our uncertain faith to spread the Gospel to a needy world.

I AM ENCOURAGED

I am grateful to God that I knew Bishop Stanley Atkins. He was Bishop of Eau Claire, a Northumbrian with a taste of his Newcastle accent, who emigrated as a priest to Canada and then came south of the border to Wisconsin where he served as an Archdeacon and then Bishop.  He was a wise and holy man.

I remember his remarking that many influential Episcopalians came down “the sawdust trail” from fundamentalist churches and embraced the Episcopal Church as a place to counter their fundamentalist “pasts”. Some became “inverted fundamentalists”  whose embrace of “progressive” theology became as “fundamentalist” as in their early years embraced the theology and sociology of biblicism.  By “biblicism” Bishop Atkins meant  an interpretation of Scripture colored by political conservatism and “Americanism”.

I have found a similar if slightly different propensity among some who have converted from Roman Catholicism. Such people often discover in the doctrine of Synodical government, alleged to eventuate the voice of the people, an infallibility they once afforded to the Bishop of Rome: even if popes are rather more sparing in announcing infallible decrees. I describe Synodical Fundamentalism as the belief that a local church, often described as a “denomination”, has the the ability to announce that the Holy Spirit has guided a church assembly  to announce to the whole Church Universal a “doctrine” or discipline amended from a core doctrine which has no significant presence in Holy Scripture of in the Tradition – the life – of the Church through the ages. One notes that in this process the charismatic experience has been neatly institutionalized and captured to validate an essentially secular political process.

Even in the midst of this modern trend to impose upon the Church and a church some collective, corrective mind I am encouraged by the young men and women with whom I have contact who are entering the ministry and the life of the academy, having discovered and submitted themselves to the mind of the Church in history, and who take in utter earnestness Scripture as apprehended by collective godly Reason throughout the life of the historic Church.  The Covenant website is just one venue where these people may be found.

I was delighted to participate in an ordination last week, in which the driving force behind the Covenant wensite was deaconed. Dr. Joe Bailey Wells of Duke University urged Craig Uffman to emulate Augustine of Hippo and consecrate his considerable mind to the life and work of the Church within TEC.  Dr. Christopher Wells a recent doctoral graduate of Notre Dame University takes up his position as editor of the Living Church this month. His intellect and faith is bound to renew that magazine as a cogent advocate of orthodox Christianity and Anglicanism.

I am encouraged because these young men, of whom I have mentioned just two, are not grumpy young men. They are not separatists. They have good humor and a sense of proportion. They have a vocation to restore the Episcopal Church in the midst of the years, not by political or structural means, but by promoting “sound religion and virtue.”  I am encouraged.

DISCOVERY DOCTRINE

A few years before the Reformation began in England the Pope blessed the colonization efforts of Portugal and Spain as those countries “discovered” the New World and claimed sovereignty over lands, peoples and civilizations hitherto unknown. After the Reformation, or its first stage, England muscled in on colonization and in 1607 established a permanent settlement in what was called Virginia. I have written a booklet on the Jamestown Settlement which may be obtained from Forward Movement Publications.

I have seen no evidence to suggest that this small beginning of establishing a “British Empire” relied on any “doctrine” promulgated by the Roman Pontiff. One doubts seriously whether Elizabethan and Jacobean settlers, Anglicans or Puritans invoked or would have dreamed of invoking such a “doctrine”. English settlers in Virginia were inspired by commerical interests: they wanted to make their fortunes. The Puritans sought a place to establish their Godly Commonwealth. Insofar that either group saw it their duty to evangelize the indigenous population, they were inspired by their reading of God’s Word and by a sense of cultural superiority which is not dead today, even in the thinking of “liberals” who believe that they have been uniquely singled out by God to spread their Gospel of inclusion.Settlers or some of them “demonized” the culture of the “natives”. Demonization of cultures and people who do not conform to our “doctrines” is alive and well in our own church and by both extremes.

The impulse to wish to convert others to a more “Godly” way is not an exclusive prerogative of “evangelicals” or colonists. The mixture of religious fervor and cultural imperialism is not merely found among 16t Century Jesuits and Franciscans, 17th Century mercantile Anglicans or Wordly Puritans.

Granted that colonization involved much which is shameful and frightful, it is merely eccentric to damn out of hand the results of colonization. For an assembly of Christians, whose ancestors took land from Indigenous Americans or who have recently arrived on these shores to pass a resolution disassociated themselves from the actions of a Pope and colonists in other places seems to be eccentric at best and self-congratulatory at worst. Lacking time machines, we have no way to go back in time and right wrongs. Blanket condemnation of colonialism handily omits credit to the positive contribution of missionaries and merchants who brought advances in medical care, education and the very elements in what is termed “progress” so lauded in other contexts.

The problems we can and should address today are the residual negative effects of the evil of slavery and the dispossession of Native Americans whose plight remains a condemnation on our civilization and remains where our church exercises mission at this very moment. Go to the “reservations” in South Dakota, where we are closing churches and failing to fund measures to alieviate the medical and economic plight of brave a proud people. We spend so much time concentrating on sex and so little time and money on championing and advancing the lives of Native Americans and Hispanics.

Renouncing a “doctrine” which did not apply to Anglicans or what we did in North America may make us feel better. It is in fact a gesture which does nothing for those who are heir to both the best and the worst of “colonization”. We are Episcopalians because Anglicans landed in Jamestown. Americans for the most part, in law, language, political system and religion are heirs of those settlers. heirs to their hopes and their evils. Should General Convention denounce Jamestown and the impulse which brought English people to these shores? How may they do so without denouncing their identity and their country?  Doctrine of Discovery?  Nonsense.

TIME WARP

I live in a time warp. We are an hour behind South Bend time where the diocesan office is located. I have to remember that when going to see the Bishop. We only use Rite One at Mass here. The High Altar remains firmly in the “eastward” position. La Porte is a small Midwestern community, and large Victorian homes flank the roads around the stone church. My rectory adjoins the church building. I don’t even have to go outside to enter the sacristy. I always preach on the Propers and leave politics to the politicians. I have a good excuse. As I’ve only been in the US for just over forty years I haven’t had time to become a citizen let alone understand its odd form of government. We may have gay parishioners who attend. I don’t ask what people, gay or straight, do in their bedrooms.I have a weak stomach and anyway a gentleman wouldn’t.

Living as someone who believes that one must be in communion with the See of Canterbury as part of the Anglican Communion -communion is a much stronger word than federation and much clearer than “Church” – is for me instinctive and obvious. I have never believed that a “particular” church is omni-competent, not even the Church of England!   I find denominationalism unreasonable, unscriptural and untraditional. I believe that our Prayer Book contains the doctrine of the Church, expressed in the language of rite and in the Catechism.

By natural inclination and not virtue I am not inclined to shun those with whom I disagree, for I actually like people, all sorts and conditions of people and my experience informs my unwillingness to join “starter-churches”. I have many friends among those who have separated from TEC. Many of their clergy are heroic in ministry and could teach us a thing or two about building churches without external funds. I work in a diverse diocese in which we all manage to work together in great harmony, led by a pastoral, kind and orthodox bishop.

It is therefore easy for me to remain in TEC!  My “tolerance” comes at no great price. I am only challenged on line. Even then few vent their spleen in my direction and most who have share my own beliefs! There is an irony there.

I really feel for clergy and laity whose lot is not as fortunate as my own, who daily work in hostile environments, liberal or conservative and who must struggle against resentment and disillusion and often subtle and not so subtle persecution. I wish we could do something about this result of the narrowing of our comprehension and of our minds. I am sure that one of the real tests of just how Anglican our leadership really is will be demonstrated by whether provisions are now made to foster and safeguard the faith and ministry of Christians within TEC who do not find themselves able to receive the policies adopted at jurisdictional level, whether National Church or diocese. There was a time when our bishops thought it part of their job description to respect parochial integrity and tradition.

If, as I suspect, the Anglican Communion generally moves towards the adoption of a Covenant a way must be found for our “minority” to retain its full Anglican status and koinonia. Seven bishops will meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury shortly to discuss the plight of those of us who are hopelessly antediluvian. As I remember the last time seven bishops bucked the Establishment they were incarcerated in the Tower of London. Perhaps room is being prepared in a part of 815 for these new seven bishops!  Pray for them.

WHILE I WAS AWAY

I managed to be out of the country for most of the time General Convention met and for that period of reflection which came after the bishops and deputies returned to the reality of their respective homes and jobs. Of course even at a safe distance, in Yorkshire, Scotland and then County Durham, I heard and read of the decisions our leaders made for us. Mercifully not one of my relatives, well except for my older son, and he in passing, had the slightest interest in what TEC was up to in California. I was thus not drawn into the emotions surrounding TEC’s convoluted decisions to go it’s own way, wrapped in the mantle of exceptionalism and prophecy.

Towards the end of my stay in Durham, I did meet it’s Bishop a few times, unaware during our brief conversations that he exhibits megalomania ( as English Liberals in Changing Attitudes proclaim.)  Indeed Bishop Wright was approachable, humorous and very kind. But then I am an unashamed fan of his biblical writings and admire his integrity and purpose. It is not +Tom Wright who suggests that he is a prophet with a special message from God.

(My son Mark is now a priest in the Diocese of Durham, a lecturer at Cranmer Hall seminary and in the history department at the University there, as he reads for his doctorate and helps out in local parishes: the energy of youth!)

Again I am in the minority over here when I welcome the Archbishop of Canterbury’s measured and charitable response to the actions of General Convention on the ordination of partnered, sexually expressive persons of the same gender or the blessing, aka marriage, of same sex couples. I was amazed to read that some people didn’t understand what he was saying and that others thought he said too much. If one reads much of +Rowan’s work, the ideas of patience and civility come over with gentle firmness. The Archbishop obviously doesn’t think that drawing damning conclusions about behavior, however duplicitous, furthers conversation. He is not adopting the role of a Victorian father and ordering TEC and the Canadians from hearth and home, never to darken the doors of Lambeth Palace again. What he does say, again firmly and gently, is that actions have consequences and that those consequences cannot be evaded by equivocal or contradictory interpretations or an appeal to what were once described as “situation ethics.”  The consequence of going it alone is obviously a measure of disassociation, particularly if a Covenant is adopted by most of the Communion and rejected by General Convention.

American Episcopalians should not resent the fact that people overseas do not accept on face value claims that TEC has been uniquely singled out to teach the rest of the Communion God’s alleged new line on ethics. I remember being in Westminster Abbey as a young man. I was walking with a cleric of the Abbey when we saw a young fellow standing on a chair and addressing a group of bystanders. Michael approached the young man, who obviously was not a tour guide, and asked him who he was and what he was doing. He replied that he was a Latter Day Saint and was talking to his followers. Michael replied, “Stuff and nonsense!  If God had wanted to give a new revelation in the 19th. Century it would have been to an Englishman.”  Quite so.

Prophecy, we are informed by Scripture, is to be tested. At this moment most of the Communion, in varying degrees, is not convinced that what TEC prophesies is the authentic Word of God. TEC on the other hand, and its Canadian Anglican friends are convinced that the majority voice of a General Convention is an authentic expression of the will of the Holy Spirit. I suppose one might conclude that this theory is a sort of collectivized version of the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility, despite the fact that Anglicans have always held that the Church is indefectible but not infallible and that Councils do err, even ones which meet in California. One would be much happier if a trace of humility accompanied claims to Pneumatic Inspiration. But as with the matter of Health Care in the US, temperate reason has left our discourse, and partisans to the right of us and those to the left fire salvos at each other, shots which rarely hit home, but fly off over heads to hit those caught in a battle not of their making.

In a sense I am relieved that TEC has now charted its course. It is perhaps alarming to realize that one now belongs to a tiny minority in a largely monochrome church. It would be ironic if I found myself, once again, in a body out of communion with the wider Anglican world, a church whose leaders once chided me for being an Anglican in a “continuing church.”. God does have a sense of humor. In the meantime we must hope and pray that the Communion Partners Bishops take strength and require that faithful Anglicans in TEC be given a way to remain in communion with the See of Canterbury and space to get on with the task of talking about Jesus the Saviour.  We shall see. My son Mark believes that we should refrain from being distracted by issues and, emulating the Evangelicals and Tractarians who began to call the church back to mission as small groups of dedicated people without power or influence, get on with the work of evangelism.

CROMWELL LIVES: GC ASSUMESEPISCOPAL DUTIES.

I watched today a video of a press conference in which the President of the House of Bishops and members of her Council of Advice reported about a meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury held at General Convention now in session.  Bonnie Anderson stated that the Council explained to the Archbishop in a short meeting that TEC has a particular and novel ecclesiology which affirms that reactions to requests by Instruments of Unity may only be made by resolution of General Convention. No one may speak for TEC except the General Convention is session every three years. Specifically our bishops as a House may only speak as one House and not for the Church.

If this were the case in matters of negotiations between countries, and countries whose legislature only meets once in three years, what would be produced would be diplomatic paralysis. Yet there is something more vital here than “process”. Years ago I wrote an essay entitled “The General Convention Church” which may still be accessed at “Anglicans Online.”  What seems to be advanced here is a notion once embraced by non-episcopal denominations who advanced egalitarian and non-sacerdotal or episcopal doctrines and were free to do that which their governing bodies decided. Anglicanism at the Reformation stood against such notions even in their most reformed moments.

No one surely doubts that if one wants to know about TEC’s views of global warming, MDGs, even the war in Iraq, on its budgetary priorities, or even its mission priorities, the decisions of General Convention are the literature to access. However if one reads the Ordinal, the language of the service for the ordination and consecration, one reads language which affords to the bishops, individually in their dioceses, collectively in TEC and further in the wider church, for us the Anglican Communion and to the rest of Christendom and the world certain specific duties. They are to “guard the faith, unity and discipline of the Church”. Note the capital “C”. They “share in the leadership of the Church (capital “C”) throughout the world.”

Nowhere in the Baptismal, Confirmation, Reception, or ordination to the diaconate or priesthood is such language used or description of Apostolic function and ministry afforded or described.

Historically the House of Bishops is described and limited adjectivally in its present form in the great compromise which was framed to reconcile New England High Churchmen who were “Episcopalians” with Latitudinarian Southern Church people who thought that bishops were not of the “esse” of the church. The House of Bishops may block resolutions from the House of Deputies. The same is true in the other direction. Yet the veto power of the Deputies in no way compromises the Apostolic duty of the bishops to guard and defend and proclaim the Faith of the Church. Bishops collectively have the special charism to authenticate and proclaim the Faith the whole Church, capital “C” has received.

Of course bishops traditionally share this authority, or rather are advised by priests in their dioceses, and take note of the counsel of theologians and spiritual advisers.

All this is far from the dramatic claim that a synod of a “particular church” alone may exercise an authority which is essentially episcopal. The essential authority of the episcopate is not merely sacramental, as our polity affirms in diocesan government, but is also doctrinal, in matters of essential discipline, and in worship.

If indeed only General Convention,  disturbingly described as self-validating and omni-competent ( “no Supreme Court” as a member of the President’s Council of Advice smilingly advanced in the press conference) what was proposed to one of the most learned scholars of ecclesiology, Rowan Williams, was a form of particularism which is not only novel but thoroughly uncatholic – I here refer to basic teaching and not theological opinion – and unanglican and I would propose a form of ecclesiology much more radical than that embraced by the founders of TEC. In short the compromise embraced to include Seabury Anglicans is now being abjured. In matters of faith the House of Bishops is the Supreme Court.

I find this fundamentally more disturbing than matters of same-sex blessings and the ordination of gay bishops in sexual relationships. The Church has survived all sorts of novelties but in this case, as with much of Mutual Ministry theology we are being pulled far away from Anglicanism and into a quaint form of Puritanism.

TEC and ACNA

The “Anglican Church of North America” has been formed. What it will become is yet to be seen. From the outside it seems to be a bewildering mixture of structures, including rump former Episcopal dioceses, collections of congregations which were formerly parts of the Anglican Church of Canada, ecclesial extra-territorial missions of overseas Provinces which have established ‘mission’ in North America and appointed missionary bishops, an Anglo-Catholic society, Forward in Faith which developed originally as a coalition of ‘Catholic’ clergy and parishes within TEC after the ordination of women and at least one jurisdiction which created its own self-identity in the midst of the Catholic Evangelical disputes of the 19th.

What unites this disparate constituency is a common belief that there is no room at the inns we term The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church in Canada, the official Anglican Provinces of the Anglican Communion in this Continent. This is not the first attempt to create a common home for the alienated. In 1977 in St. Louis a Congress met which attempted to create a similar united alternative expression of Anglicanism. If anything the differences of appoach, even of faith and one must say personalities which made a shambles of that movement are even more pronounced in Bedford, where the new Archbishop will be enthroned tonight.  One significant difference is to be noted. This time those attempting to create “common cause” in Texas this week have the support and perhaps in an informal manner the oversight and counsel of overseas Provinces and dioceses and again in an informal sense those charged with leading ACNA have a larger constituency overseas to which they must answer. We shall see whether the “particularism” which seems to be in the American bloodstream south of the Canadian border will be as potent in ACNA is it is in TEC. The temptation to claim a special revelation vouchsafed to Americans and to be exported abroad has been manifest in both groups, although from different prospectives and both have been potent dividers in the Anglican Communion.

Three main problems face the newly formed ACNA, and they are all formidable. All of them in a sense limit the ability of ACNA to break free of its emotional and psychological attachment to that which has brought them to this point.  The first revolves around property disputes. I wrote to bishops and deputies to General Convention today suggesting that a trust or trusts be formed to administer disputed property and to enter into temporary agreements in cases in which a vast majority of parishioners in such properties wish no longer to be in TEC, negotiating leases, shared arrangements and creative solutions to take these disputes out of the secular courts. I was not encouraged by the responses I received, most of which accused those leaving us off stealing property or of being so bigoted against gay and lesbians that in justice they should be shunned.  Justice, I am told, trumps charity.

The second problem revolves around the language used to depose bishops and other clergy who have joined ACNA which, if language means anything at all, purports to laicise such clergy rather than merely to desprive them of the right to exercise ministry in Provinces in which they have no desire to exercise ministry.

The third is the problematic relationship between ACNA and the Instruments of Unity of the Anglican Communion which has exported American problems worldwide and threatens to destroy the unity of the entire Communion. If indeed the Communion comes apart because of what has happened here, ACNA will, whether it deserves to be blamed or not, bear a good deal of responsibility for a tragic schism, a responsibility in which it will ironically, be accused of sharing responsibility with the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, to what extent perhaps is a judgment differently assessed by people on differing sides of this tragedy.

These drawsbacks into that which has happened harm both sides in the dispute. TEC and the ACofC have a psychological, territorial and monetary investment in their commitment to retain property, diocesan identity and to disown those who have left them. ACNA has a similar investment in retaining property, diocesan and jurisdictional integrity and the status of their clergy.

Thus the ghost of things past haunts both households. Both also are driven to defend what their part has been in all this and such a defense is capable of compromising the essential identity and mission of the church. Causes replace Gospel and self-authentication replaces mission. In such situations it is easy for both groups to become mirror images of each other, or other sides of the same coin, trapped in their own involvement like a couples in a lengthy, bitter and unresolved divorce.

Those of us in TEC who were once moderate “traditionalists” are now driven to the edge and wonder just how welcome we are in a growingly monochrome and less comprehensive Episcopal Church, a church now impelled to justify its narrowing “comprehension” to the rest of the Anglican Communion and capable of being as militantly reactive to anything and anyone whose faith is that of the Prayer Book and the Catechism as it has been to those who have left. Those of us who are “Communion Partners” are already being branded as schismatics merely because we wish to adopt an Anglican Covenant at diocesan level whatever the General Convention eventually decides to do once a Covenant is offered to the Communion.

General Convention has an opportunity to reach out to those who have left and to those of us who remain by adopting a language of charity and forbearance, the language of the Cross rather than that of institutional self-justification and protection. We shall see.