A Word of Hope for Episcopalians

Following the Northern Plains Anglican's lead, I think this is very wise and timely remark from the comments section of The Deacon's Slant regarding the present situation of The Episcopal Church:

I do think TEC is still a church - just one in very bad shape - much like the Church before Francis or Dominic - intellicutaly lazy, adicted to secular power and taking its queues from the secular world. But it seems that everytime the Church gets into this position, God raises up a prophet (such as Francis - who was a Deacon by the way) to call the Church back into relationship with her Lord.

That is part of what I am trying to do in my little neck of the woods - be that prophet that calls the Church back to her Covenant.

YBIC,Phil Snyder

Unpacking the Archbishop's Statement

The Good Bishop NT Wright, in collaboration with ACI, has responded to Rowan's reflections here. This is an absolute MUST read if you are an Episcopalian or Anglican.

Rowan’s Reflections: Unpacking the Archbishop’s Statement

+++Rowan Williams Reflects

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has reflected (a very Rowan-esque thing to do) this week on the recent actions of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church to open the ordination process to homosexuals, transsexuals, and try-sexuals (people who will try anything sexual) and to "develop" liturgies for same sex blessings.

I won't post the whole reflection here, but I'd like to share and comment on a few pieces myself:

From 1.1, "No-one could be in any doubt about the eagerness of the Bishops and Deputies of the Episcopal Church at the General Convention to affirm their concern about the wider Anglican Communion."

This is perhaps the most amussing part of the whole reflection to me, because it seems to be that very thing that many, many poeple doubt, including his fellow senior bishop NT Wright.

From 2.8, "...a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole. And if this is the case, a person living in such a union is in the same case as a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond; whatever the human respect and pastoral sensitivity such persons must be given, their chosen lifestyle is not one that the Church's teaching sanctions, and thus it is hard to see how they can act in the necessarily representative role that the ordained ministry, especially the episcopate, requires."

This is one of the clearest statement I have ever seen +++Rowan make regarding same-sex relationships, and it seems he comes down here clearly on the side of orthodoxy.

An important point from 2.10, "...if society changes its attitudes, that change does not of itself count as a reason for the Church to change its discipline."

And finally, some very wise words about how the local church responses to various concerns from 3.12, "When a local church seeks to respond to a new question, to the challenge of possible change in its practice or discipline in the light of new facts, new pressures, or new contexts, as local churches have repeatedly sought to do, it needs some way of including in its discernment the judgement of the wider Church. Without this, it risks becoming unrecognisable to other local churches, pressing ahead with changes that render it strange to Christian sisters and brothers across the globe."

Rowan, without being unkind or vicious, manages to draw a line in the sand and spell out the consequenses for those who cross it. Not consequenses that he will impose with the heavy hand of the See of Canterbury, but consequenses that the line-crossers will bring upon themselves. It is not the clear anathama of the progressives that many of the orthodox were hoping for, but it is substantial none the less.

Also, a few commentaries of note on Archbishop William's reflection that I'd like to point out to my readers:

First, one by A.S. Haley (also known as the Anglican Curmudgeon) is probably the best one I have read so far, and I commend it to you heartily.

Others that are worth your time are those by Matt Kennedy, Peter Ould, and Jordan Hylden. I am still waiting for ACI to respond, and when they do, I'll let you know.

Overall, I am moderately pleased with Rowan's actions so far, although I am aware this puts me in a very, very, very small minority seeing that he has now managed to throw the progressives into a tantrum right along with the usual conservative poopooing of his efforts (here, here, and here). I will concede that Rowan's way forward is not altogether "strong" or "clear," but neither is is tyranical, mean-spirited, or proud. His prayerful, patient, and almost-to-a-fault-kindness and forebearance, though not a very popular way to lead, do have the smell of Christian to me. Many would accuse him of being "weak" or a "coward," but he seems to be attempting a difficult path of orthodoxy and unity that, to his mind, is faithful to the Jesus he worships, winning him precious few friends along the way. Quite a cross to bear and hardly the behavior of a coward. I will keep him in my prayers, and I hope others will do the same.

***UPDATE*** Roman Catholic church issues statement of support for Rowan Williams:
In a statement July 29, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity noted Archbishop Williams' concern for maintaining the unity of the Anglican Communion through common faith and practice based on Scripture and tradition. The Vatican office "supports the archbishop in his desire to strengthen these bonds of communion, and to articulate more fully the relationship between the local and the universal within the church," the statement said. "It is our prayer that the Anglican Communion, even in this difficult situation, may find a way to maintain its unity and its witness to Christ as a worldwide communion."
Read it all here.

Bishop NT Wright Weighs In

The man, the myth, the legend, the Bishop NT Wright has now weighed in on the recent moves by the Episcopal Church into what basically amounts to pan-sexuallity. It is so good, that I quote it here in full. From the Times of London Online:

In the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism, a decision taken in California has finally brought a large coach off the rails altogether. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States has voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion.

Both the bishops and deputies (lay and clergy) of TEC knew exactly what they were doing. They were telling the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other “instruments of communion” that they were ignoring their plea for a moratorium on consecrating practising homosexuals as bishops. They were rejecting the two things the Archbishop of Canterbury has named as the pathway to the future — the Windsor Report (2004) and the proposed Covenant (whose aim is to provide a modus operandi for the Anglican Communion). They were formalising the schism they initiated six years ago when they consecrated as bishop a divorced man in an active same-sex relationship, against the Primates’ unanimous statement that this would “tear the fabric of the Communion at its deepest level”. In Windsor’s language, they have chosen to “walk apart”.

Granted, the TEC resolution indicates a strong willingness to remain within the Anglican Communion. But saying “we want to stay in, but we insist on rewriting the rules” is cynical double-think. We should not be fooled.
Of course, matters didn’t begin with the consecration of Gene Robinson. The floodgates opened several years before, particularly in 1996 when a church court acquitted a bishop who had ordained active homosexuals. Many in TEC have long embraced a theology in which chastity, as universally understood by the wider Christian tradition, has been optional.

That wider tradition always was counter-cultural as well as counter-intuitive. Our supposedly selfish genes crave a variety of sexual possibilities. But Jewish, Christian and Muslim teachers have always insisted that lifelong man-plus-woman marriage is the proper context for sexual intercourse. This is not (as is frequently suggested) an arbitrary rule, dualistic in overtone and killjoy in intention. It is a deep structural reflection of the belief in a creator God who has entered into covenant both with his creation and with his people (who carry forward his purposes for that creation).

Paganism ancient and modern has always found this ethic, and this belief, ridiculous and incredible. But the biblical witness is scarcely confined, as the shrill leader in yesterday’s Times suggests, to a few verses in St Paul. Jesus’s own stern denunciation of sexual immorality would certainly have carried, to his hearers, a clear implied rejection of all sexual behaviour outside heterosexual monogamy. This isn’t a matter of “private response to Scripture” but of the uniform teaching of the whole Bible, of Jesus himself, and of the entire Christian tradition.

The appeal to justice as a way of cutting the ethical knot in favour of including active homosexuals in Christian ministry simply begs the question. Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace. The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means “treating everybody the same way”, but “treating people appropriately”, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations. Justice has never meant “the right to give active expression to any and every sexual desire”.

Such a novel usage would also raise the further question of identity. It is a very recent innovation to consider sexual preferences as a marker of “identity” parallel to, say, being male or female, English or African, rich or poor. Within the “gay community” much postmodern reflection has turned away from “identity” as a modernist fiction. We simply “construct” ourselves from day to day.

We must insist, too, on the distinction between inclination and desire on the one hand and activity on the other — a distinction regularly obscured by references to “homosexual clergy” and so on. We all have all kinds of deep-rooted inclinations and desires. The question is, what shall we do with them? One of the great Prayer Book collects asks God that we may “love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise”. That is always tough, for all of us. Much easier to ask God to command what we already love, and promise what we already desire. But much less like the challenge of the Gospel.

The question then presses: who, in the US, is now in communion with the great majority of the Anglican world? It would be too hasty to answer, the newly formed “province” of the “Anglican Church in North America”. One can sympathise with some of the motivations of these breakaway Episcopalians. But we should not forget the Episcopalian bishops, who, doggedly loyal to their own Church, and to the expressed mind of the wider Communion, voted against the current resolution. Nor should we forget the many parishes and worshippers who take the same stance. There are many American Episcopalians, inside and outside the present TEC, who are eager to sign the proposed Covenant. That aspiration must be honoured.

Contrary to some who have recently adopted the phrase, there is already a “fellowship of confessing Anglicans”. It is called the Anglican Communion. The Episcopal Church is now distancing itself from that fellowship. Ways must be found for all in America who want to be loyal to it, and to scripture, tradition and Jesus, to have that loyalty recognised and affirmed at the highest level.

Tom Wright is Bishop of Durham

Onward Into the Fog

As many of you are well aware, and as The New York Times is reporting, "The bishops of the Episcopal Church voted at the church’s convention on Monday to open 'any ordained ministry' to gay men and lesbians, a move that could effectively undermine a moratorium on ordaining gay bishops that the church passed at its last convention three years ago."

This after Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams addressed the General Convention by saying, "Along with many in the Communion, I hope and pray that there won’t be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart..." and "Action to negate that resolution [the moratorium against ordaining gays] would instantly suggest to many people in the communion that The Episcopal Church would prefer not to go down the route of closer structural bonds and that particular kind of mutual responsibility."

This is a sad turn of events for a church that for so long seemed to have a special "charism" for eccumenical work among Christians, and a special place in proclaiming the apostolic "faith once delivered to all the saints" here in America.

The responses have been many but there are two in particular that I would like to point out. One comes from the Anglican Communion Institute and can be found in its entirety here: A Statement on the Repudiation of B033, but I'd also like to quote a short section,

It is our expectation that many dioceses will not follow The Episcopal Church out of the Anglican Communion and the mainstream of apostolic Christianity. Instead, they will take immediate action to assure the Communion and the Archbishop of Canterbury of their continued commitment to [the communion]...To this end, we will continue to work closely with these dioceses and the Communion processes...

This points to what could ultimately be a hopeful future for orthodox Anglicans in America, though how it will all work out in the end is anyone's guess.

The second response to all of this of note comes from the other side of The Pond in England where a motion has been put forward for the Church of England to recognize the Anglican Church of North America, a recently created entity created by a coalition of orthodox Episcopal breakaways. The motion has picked up six Church of England bishops and 121 sponsors, and according to the London Times, this will "guarantee it a place on the next Synod agenda in February." The motion reads,

That this Synod express the desire that the Church of England be in communion with the Anglican Church in North America.

The London Times is reporting that "The Archbishop of Canterbury told General Synod today that he 'regrets' the decision by The Episcopal Church to overturn the moratorium on the ordination of gay bishops."

This could get very interesting for Episcopalians and Anglicans in North America for the foreseeable future, but it is beginning to look like there might be some light at the end of the tunnel for the orthodox, although it will likely not look exactly the way anyone would have expected. As for the progressives and revisionists in TEC, if they are not careful, they will find themselves throwing a party on the deck of a sinking ship.

As my readers will undoubtedly understand, this affects my wife and I very deeply as I am an aspirant to the priesthood. Please keep us, the Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Communion in your prayers. I feel as if I am walking confidently into a fog.

"...I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it...." -- Jesus as recorded in the Gospel according to Matthew