Pope Benedict XVI’s offer of an enclave for disaffected Anglican traditionalists has been taken up by Forward in Faith-Australia (FiFA), which has voted to begin work on creating a “Personal Ordinariate” for Australia.

On Feb 13, a special general meeting for the members of the Anglo-Catholic group held at All Saints Kooyong in Melbourne unanimously adopted four resolutions backing the move to Rome.

It empowered its National Council “to foster by every means the establishing of an Ordinariate in Australia”; welcomed the appoint of the Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne Peter Elliott as the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference’s envoy, endorsed the formation of a working group to “set in train the processes necessary” to establish the Ordinariate; and invited Catholic minded Anglicans to join them in their quest for corporate reunion with Rome.

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We have learned today from Bishop Mouneer Anis that he has submitted his resignation from the former joint standing committee. Following so closely the release in December of the final text of the Anglican Communion Covenant, this resignation underscores the extent to which the Anglican Communion is at a major crossroads. At this decisive moment, however, substantial doubts have been expressed both publicly by Bishop Mouneer and privately by others as to whether this committee, now the standing committee of the Anglican Consultative Council, is the appropriate body to coordinate the implementation of the Covenant. These concerns point to the steps that we believe are necessary to restore the Communion so badly damaged by actions in North America over the last decade. In what follows, we seek first to outline the current structural challenges to the Covenant’s initial implementation. This will involve some important, if technical, analysis. Only then, however, can we make clear what, in our mind, these necessary steps for implementation are.

In summary, and on the basis of our continued conviction that the Covenant itself as currently formulated is a positive, faithful, and necessary basis for the renewal of the Anglican Communion and its member churches, we argue that:

1. The final Covenant text envisions a Communion of responsibly coordinated Instruments, ordered episcopally, that the current ACC-led standing committee is in fact undermining;
2. The current ACC standing committee is not necessarily the “Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion” indicated by the Covenant text, and cannot therefore automatically claim the authority it seems to be assuming;
3. The current ACC standing committee has little credibility in the eyes of a large part of the Communion and ought not to be claiming the authority it seems to be assuming;
4. Those Churches of the Communion who move fully and decisively to adopt the Covenant must work with a provisional and representative standing committee, continuous in membership with the other Instruments, that will direct the implementation of the Covenant in a way that can eventually permit a Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion to be formed as envisioned by the Covenant text.

read it carefully and read it all.

…there apparently is a new ACC constitution (now referred to as Articles of Association) that changes the membership procedures for the ACC. This new constitution (which has not been made public) also applies in some way to the adoption of the Covenant by other churches.
11. On the second question, “who can invite,” the Covenant is explicit in saying that this may be done by the “Instruments.” On its face, this means that any of the Instruments, e.g., the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Primates’ Meeting, could issue such an invitation, which would then invoke the procedures indicated: approval by the Standing Committee and consents from the Primates.

12. None of this is meant to suggest that such an invitation is necessarily imminent, but the procedures are far more flexible and responsive to developing circumstances than many have been led to believe.

13. With these principles in mind, we urge all churches and dioceses interested in committing to the life of mutual accountability and interdependence required by the Covenant to adopt and affirm the Covenant as soon as practicable and communicate their decisions to the Communion and its churches. We note that paragraph 4.1.6 provides that “This Covenant becomes active for a Church when that Church adopts the Covenant through the procedures of its own Constitution and Canons.” Thus, the Covenant will become active as soon as member churches begin to adopt it, and the Global South churches have indicated their intention to begin doing so as early as April 2010. By committing to the Covenant, a church or diocese will immediately begin to share in the Communion life represented by the Covenant even as the formalities of the Communion Instruments necessarily will take longer to implement.

Read it carefully and read it all.

…true encouragement comes from honesty before God and self and the strength of purpose to serve in the face of disappointment or uncertainty. Or so it should. I know a young person who sneered at the faith of an Episcopalian ”“ a more conservative person ”“ who chose to leave TEC for another set of ecclesial structures. “You would do such a thing”, this young person said to him: “yours is the generation, after all, who invented no-fault divorce”. In fact, in this case, the complaint was less directed at a purported hypocrite, than at what he perceived to be the witness of an impotent God, unable to garner the sacrificial steadiness of His adherents. But either way, faith is scandalized by those who do not have the strength, nor certainly seek the strength, to stand in the face of upheaval.

I will come back to this at the close of my remarks: honesty need be neither angry, miserable, nor defeatist. It should be the seed for hope, because it is the first and necessary turn to God who alone saves.

What is the difficult thing to speak, honestly? It is this: the Episcopal Church, as it has been known through the past two centuries, is no more, in any substantive sense. TEC is simply no longer the church filled with even the strength of purpose we saw only 10 years ago ”“ yes, even then, a church with a good deal of vital diversity and disagreement; but a seeming sense of restraint over pressing these in ways that overwhelmed witness and mission. And as a result, even then, it was church that was growing in outreach and faith. That church, shimmering still with some of the vibrancy of love spent for the Gospel seen140 years before, even 90 years before, is now gone. And TEC will not survive in any real continuity with this past and its gifts.

This is something we must face. To be sure, I am not speaking here of this or that diocese or bishop or congregation or clergy person within TEC: there are many through whose service the Gospel shines bright and the witness of the Kingdom flourishes. I am speaking of an institution as a whole ”“ not even in terms of its legal corporation, but in terms of its character and Christian substance given flesh in the Spirit’s mission.

Read it all carefully.

I want to stress, please, that people in the comments interact with what Ephraim is arguing for and actually saying. Comments not doing so will be dispacted into the ether. Many thanks–KSH.

A friendly reminder of where to find the information about it here.

Read it all.

CROSSROADS ARE FOR MEETING (AGAIN)

AN ADDRESS TO THE CONVENTION OF THE EPISCOPAL DIOCESE OF DALLAS ON THE PROPOSED ANGLICAN COVENANT

**
THE REV. DR. PHILIP TURNER

I

As you know, my subject is the Anglican Covenant. Is it really Anglican? Is it really necessary? Is it theologically defensible? Is it an effective way to address our present difficulties? I will get to these questions and others in due course, but first, to make sure we know what it is that we are talking about, I must take you on a little trip down memory lane. The first book I published was a collection of essays entitled “Crossroads Are For Meeting.” The date was 1986, and the particular cross in the road faced at that time by the Anglican Communion was the nature of its mission, and in particular its mission as a world-wide communion of autonomous churches. Previously, in 1963, The Anglican Congress had defined the inter-relation of these churches as being one of “mutual responsibility and interdependence in the body of Christ.” At this gathering, the assembled delegates took a dramatic step in defining the nature of Anglicanism as a communion rather than, say, a federation; but there were divisions over the Communion’s calling. If Anglicans are to understand themselves as bound by mutual responsibility and interdependence in the body of Christ, just what is the purpose of this communion under God?

The collection of essays I helped assemble revealed a profound division over this matter, one that is with us to this day. Is the mission of the Anglican Communion to join other Christian bodies in spreading the Gospel of reconciliation and redemption through Christ’s victory on the cross, or is it, with other churches, to join Christ in a sacrificial struggle to include the oppressed and marginalized and so to establish justice on the earth? Despite very articulate pleas that these two views need not be in conflict, they were in conflict then and remain so to this day. This conflict over the mission of the church has returned in our own time with such ferocity that it threatens any possibility of meaningful communion.

I hope I do not have to defend the statement that divisions over the mission of the church are lodged just below the surface of our current argument about sex. The crisis we now face has been building for quite some time, and it involves matters far more central and complex than disputes over sexual identity and conduct. To my mind, the big issue is how autonomous churches called to carry out God’s mission at a particular time and place can remain at the same time in a communion that is catholic in both belief and practice.

In its modern form this question was posed at the Lambeth Conference of 1948””the first to be held after the Second World War and the first to take place during the dismantling of the British Empire. At this meeting a committee of bishops asked, “Is Anglicanism based on a sufficiently coherent form of authority to form the nucleus of a world-wide fellowship of churches, or does its comprehensiveness conceal internal divisions which may cause its disruption?” This question defines the struggles of Anglicans in the post-modern period, but its roots go down into the soil of Anglican beginnings. The Church of England established itself as the church of a nation, but it sought to do so as an expression of catholic Christianity. The Episcopal Church sought to establish itself as a church independent of the Church of England, but nonetheless bound by its doctrine and discipline (and so also by its combination of both national and catholic identity).

Similar tensed goals are to be found in the numerous provinces that had their beginning the middle of the 19th Century and came to full flower after The Second World War. Just how are these churches to remain both local and catholic? That is the question. In response, Anglicans have at best stumbled toward an answer. In 1867 the first Lambeth Conference of Bishops was called to address governance issues brought into focus by growing independence within the colonial churches, the publication of Essays and Reviews, and by the Bishop of Natal’s view of Holy Scripture. The birth of many new and autonomous provinces after The Second World War issued in the Pan Anglican Congress, The Anglican Consultative Council, and The Meeting of Primates. The crisis brought about by the consecration of a woman to the Episcopate produced The Virginia Report along with linkage of a congeries of consultative bodies that were labeled “The Instruments of Unity” (now “The Instruments of Communion”). Finally, the actions of the Dioceses of New Westminster and New Hampshire in the matters of gay blessings and ordinations issued in the Windsor Report and the proposal for an Anglican Covenant.

All these institutional developments have been directed to the same end””both to guard the autonomy of the various provinces of the Anglican Communion and insure that each “recognizes” in the others fellow members of a communion of churches. This goal is easy to state, but extraordinarily difficult to achieve. To this point, the Instruments of Communion have not been able to provide the several provinces of the Communion with confidence that they, the instruments, can achieve this goal. Failure to address adequately the actions of the Diocese of New Westminster and those of The General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC) has strained the credibility of each and every one of them. The proposed Anglican Covenant is, in my view, the last best hope for achieving the goal of a communion of autonomous churches bound by common belief, practice, mutual responsibility, and interdependence. As I hope to demonstrate, it does so by placing responsibility for communion firmly in the hands of the autonomous provinces themselves. The proposed Covenant asks that the provinces and local churches of the Communion covenant one with another (rather than with a legislative or juridical body) and within this covenanted relationship exercise their autonomy within the limits imposed by membership in a communion of churches.

II
Now, is this proposed Covenant really Anglican? Is it necessary? Is it theologically sound? Will it succeed in achieving the goal its supporters have in mind? The best way to respond is to work through the main points of the proposed covenant with these questions in mind. You will remember that the latest version of the Covenant has four parts””the first three of which, along with an “Introduction,” “Preamble” and “Declaration” have been approved for circulation to the provinces for ratification. The fourth section, largely procedural in nature, is now being reviewed. Since they have already been approved for circulation, I will focus on “The Introduction to the Covenant Text,” the “Preamble”, and sections one through three. Though it is of central importance, my remarks on Section Four will be brief because we do not know what its final form will be.

Though it is not part of the Covenant itself, the” Introduction” provides the theological base for all that follows, and it does so by reference to the primary theological theme present in the ecumenical dialogues of the Anglican Communion. The foundational theme is “communion”. The churches, all of them, are called through Christ into communion with the Triune God. In this communion, Christians share one with another in the very life of God. The mission of The Anglican Communion is, therefore, to share with other churches in calling all peoples, through Christ, into the life of God and to manifest that life in the relations of its various provinces one with another. The Covenant, its proposers contend, is not intended to change the nature of Anglicanism. Rather, its purpose is “to reflect, in our relations with one another, God’s own faithfulness and promises towards us in Christ.” To reflect God’s purpose for the creation in this way, it is necessary that God’s mission be “carried out in shared responsibility and stewardship and in interdependence among ourselves and with the wider church.”

It seems to me that nothing could be more Anglican than this theological starting point. It accords with the catholic identity we have claimed since the Reformation, it accords with our self-representations in ecumenical dialogues, and it is faithful to our internal deliberations. Nevertheless, you are surely aware that many object to the Covenant because they believe it compromises the autonomy of the provinces and for this reason is “un-Anglican.” I can only say in response that neither in the foundation of the various Anglican provinces nor in their ecumenical self-representations have Anglicans understood the autonomy of the various provinces to exist as an unfettered right. Neither have Anglicans, despite claims to the contrary, understood mutual responsibility and interdependence to have no relation to common belief and practice. If anything is “un-Anglican” it is an unfettered claim to autonomy in which each province claims to be judge in its own case whenever its “autonomous” decisions are questioned by other provinces. So it seems to me that the covenant drafters are quite Anglican when they say in the “Preamble” that the churches of the Anglican Communion covenant together “in order to proclaim more effectively in our different contexts the grace of God revealed in the Gospel, to offer God’s love in responding to the needs of the world, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and together with all God’s people to attain the full stature of Christ.”

So far, at least, the Covenant seems to me to thoroughly Anglican and certainly theologically adequate. It surely can’t be a mistake to root one’s ecclesiology in the sacrificial death of Christ and the life of the Triune God. But let us test further to see if we can make similar affirmations in respect to the specifics of the proposed covenant. Section One concerns “Our Inheritance of Faith” and like the other two sections is divided into affirmations and commitments. The affirmations seem to me both thoroughly adequate and thoroughly Anglican.

What is affirmed in respect to our inheritance of faith? Communion in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church that worships one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! The Catholic and Apostolic faith uniquely revealed in Holy Scriptures and set for in the catholic creeds! This faith to which authentic witness is born in the historic formularies of the Church of England and appropriated in various way in the Anglican Communion! To this list of affirmations is attached the four elements of the Chicago/Lambeth Quadrilateral and participation “in the apostolic mission of the whole people of God.”

To what are Anglicans committed in respect to “Our Inheritance of Faith?” The answer is to a number of things but they all stem from a faithful and communal reading of Holy Scripture that is attentive to the councils of the Communion, our ecumenical agreements, the teaching of Bishops and synods, the work of scholars, and prophetic and faithful leadership.

Now, once again, (taking due note of the fact that the Covenant does not require subscription but only affirmation that the formularies of the C of E bear authentic witness to the catholic and apostolic faith) I see nothing “un-Anglican” or theologically inadequate in this. The rub for the Covenant’s opponents comes with the commitment to seek a common understanding of scripture that must be attentive to a host of voices that may well challenge deeply held convictions on the part of an individual province. But, once again, it seems to me less than theologically adequate to place the primary weight of interpretive responsibility on the shoulders of individual readers or even individual churches, as it appears many within our own church would prefer. It also seems to me theologically inadequate to define communion apart from unity of belief and practice””a cry heard with increasing force among the Covenant’s opponents.

Now to Section Two that concerns “Our Anglican Vocation”! This section affirms that the communion of the churches is to be placed within God’s providential ordering. The Anglican Communion is also to be understood as part of that ordering, and within that context the mission heritage of Anglicans is affirmed as offering unique opportunities. These opportunities are given greater specification by five commitments that echo the Baptismal Covenant found in TEC’s Book of Common Prayer.

Though I have quibbles with some of the wording of this section, I doubt that it will be the subject of much controversy, and so I will pass immediately on to Section Three that, if grasped in its plain sense, most certainly will cause great controversy. Here the Covenant addresses “Our Unity and Common Life”, and here we come to the heart of our present conflicts. How shall we understand communion on the one hand and autonomy on the other?

What is it that the covenant asks us to affirm? We affirm that by incorporation into the body of Christ we are called “to pursue all things that make for peace and build up our common life.” For Anglicans this affirmation signals a resolve “to live in a Communion of Churches” in which each “orders and regulates its own affairs”¦through its own system of government and law.” In doing so, however, it understands itself to be living “in communion with autonomy and accountability.” This accountability is not mediated through a “central legislative and executive authority” but by “mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the bishops in conference and the other instruments of Communion.”

From this basic affirmation flow certain commitments. Chief among these is “to respect the constitutional autonomy of all of the churches of the Anglican Communion while upholding our mutual responsibility and interdependence in the Body of Christ, and the responsibility of each to the Communion as a whole.” Concretely this means that each of the Churches of the Communion, before taking a controversial action, will seek a shared mind through the Communion’s councils. Further, it means that when an action “by its intensity, substance or extent” threatens the unity of the Communion or the credibility of its mission, a province will only act (if it does so at all) with “diligence, care and caution.”

Few, I think, realize how strong the words “intensity, substance or extent” and “diligence, care and caution” in fact are. The same lack of recognition applies too much of the vocabulary deployed in earlier sections of the covenant. I speak of terms like “shared discernment, accountability, and autonomy.” In deploying these terms, the Covenant’s drafters refer to a substantial and well-developed body of Anglican thought.
The generally accepted meaning of these terms places a heavy burden of proof on any province that exercises its autonomy in ways that other members of the Communion believe threaten their unity or their credibility.
III

I am forced to say (sadly) that by any reckoning, the recent actions of TEC’s General Convention are of sufficient “intensity, substance, and extent” to threaten the unity of the Communion. Further, given the seriousness of the threat and given the fact that TEC’s actions have been taken both against the counsel of all the Instruments of Communion and a direct plea by the Archbishop of Canterbury, it stretches credulity to say that they are actions that manifest “diligence, care, and caution.”

Indeed, given the fact that the first section of the Covenant clearly understands unity of belief and practice to be, in part, constitutive of communion, and given the fact that the third section makes clear that autonomy must be understood within the context of communion wide accountability, it would appear that TEC’s recent actions amount to a provisional rejection of the covenant. Apart from reversing the decisions recently taken, the only way TEC can with any integrity ratify the first three sections of the Covenant is to deny its plain sense and openly define communion univocally in terms of forms of mutual aid and hospitality that are decoupled from unity of belief and practice.

It is just this sort of talk that appears on the blogs and issues from the mouths of many of our present leaders. They do not like the Covenant because it compromises provincial autonomy and so is “un-Anglican.” By this charge they mean that the Covenant places limits on doctrinal and moral innovation, hinders innovations made necessary by the requirements of the mission of particular provinces, and places a curial hierarchy above the governing structures of individual provinces.

In response, one can only say that living in communion does place limits on doctrinal innovation and it does require that local adaptations for purposes of mission not make innovations other churches of the Communion cannot “recognize” as in accord with Holy Scripture and apostolic teaching. What, however, are we to make of the charge that the Covenant creates a curia that compromises the autonomy of the provinces? Opponents level this charge particularly against Section Four.

Since we do not have a final version of Section Four, I cannot respond in any definitive way to this charge. I will only say that in all the versions submitted so far the drafters have bent over backwards to protect the autonomy of the provinces. Rather than creating a curia that has legislative and juridical authority, they have sought procedures that will allow the provinces to act jointly and in good order when an action by a province, because of its “intensity, substance and extent”, is not “recognized” by the provinces as in accord with the belief and practice of the Communion as a whole.

The final section of the covenant in its penultimate form is procedural only. It does not establish an international hierarchy. It seeks only to present an orderly process for the provinces to preserve their unity and credibility through a process of “recognition” rather than adjudication. It is just such a process that the Anglican Communion has lacked and because of this lack, reactions to TEC’s recent actions have been piecemeal, chaotic, idiosyncratic, and productive of greater division rather than more extensive communion.

The simple fact is that without a strong Section Four that creates credible procedures rather than additional hierarchies, the Anglican Communion will perish as a communion of churches. So is a covenant necessary? I prefer to use the word necessary like St. Luke does only in reference to God’s providential ordering of his world. Whether a covenant or, indeed, whether Anglicanism itself are in this sense necessary I do not know. I can only pray that they are. Whatever the case may prove to be it is still reasonable to ask if a covenant is likely to be an effective means of preserving communion? I cannot answer this question with any degree of certainty. Nevertheless, I believe the Covenant is the only hope we have if we wish on the one hand to preserve a communion that involves more than mutual aid and hospitality; and on the other, in doing so, avoid the creation of an international hierarchy. At this point, I must be utterly clear. From a human point of view our choices are extremely limited. Either we have a covenant with real consequences like the “two track” proposal or the Communion will collapses. Many provinces from the Global South that support a covenant with consequences will simply go their own way, and those who have rejected a covenant with consequences will be left with something that is a Communion in name only. To return to the beginning, I believe the Covenant is our only hope to arrive at our present cross in the roads and meet rather than part forever.

——————————————–
i The Lambeth Conference 1948 (London: SPCK, 1948), p. 84.
ii For verification of this point see William Curtis, The Lambeth Conferences: The Solution for Pan-Anglican Organization, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), pp. 17-77.
iii Ibid, passim.
iv See e.g., the various reports of ACRIC and The Church of the Triune God, The Cyprus Statement of the International Commission for Anglican Orthodox theological Dialogue, 2007.
v Ridley Cambridge Draft (hereafter cited as RCD), “Introduction to the Covenant Text” (here after cites as Introduction) #5.
vi RCD, Introduction #7.
vii RCD, Preamble.
viii RCD, 1.1.1-1.1.8.
ix RCD, 2.2.2a-2.2.2e.
x RCD, 3.1.1.
xi RCD, 3.1.2.
xii Ibid. See also “A Letter from Alexandria”, the Primates, March 2009.
xiii Ibid. See also Lambeth Conference 1930.
xii RCD, 3.2.2. See also Toronto Conference 1963, and the Ten Principles of Partnership.
xiv RCD, 3.2.4; 3.2.5.
xv See Anglican Communion Institute, “The Anglican Covenant: Shared Discernment Recognized by All”, Anglicancommunioninstitute.com.

Consider making plans to come. The theme is Human Identity: Gender, Marriage, and Sexuality–Speculation or Revelation?

From the promotional blurb on the website:

Rather than restaging the arguments for and against the ordination of openly gay clergy, this day-long conference analyzes the threatened schism in the Anglican Communion in order to examine wide-ranging and interrelated issues of religion, secularism, globalization, nationalism, and modernity. How and why, we ask, has homosexuality come to serve as a flash point for so many local and global conflicts?

Check it out here.

Watch it all.

An Email from overnight:

Here’s how I would analyze inconsistency with B033 under general principles of law.

A legislative body can repeal an old resolution (or, for that matter, an old law) BY IMPLICATION, without naming and explicitly repealing the old resolution

If GC 2009 adopts a resolution inconsistent with B033, the rule of thumb would be that the new resolution implicitly repeals B033 TO THE EXTENT of the inconsistency.

The effect of the new resolution on the old one is ultimately a question of legislative intent.

In this context, what are we to make of the controversial comments by Archbishop Williams regarding the local bishop and diocese? Insofar as he has defined bishop and diocese as “primary” with respect to ecclesial “identity” and insofar as he has identified them as the “organ of unity” as opposed to the “abstract structures” of the province, he is presenting a vision of the Church that at least fits within the general notion of pastoral synodality I have outlined above. But might he also be setting his vision in tension with actual Anglican practice? I would argue that he is in fact expressing a tension that Anglicanism itself is working to overcome precisely by moving in the direction of the fundamental reality of pastoral synodality.

There is no question but that Anglican churches have by and large functioned according to a post-Nicene set of structural assumptions. But that functioning has always been under question, and it is the rise of the Communion itself that has had the greatest role in setting up dynamics that have moved us towards a re-appropration of the ante-Nicene understanding, not because it marks some Golden Age to be repristinated, but because it is in fact more properly expressive of the kind of missionary context in which Anglicanism herself has come to flourish. Once Anglican churches grew up within contexts in which they necessarily existed alongside other Christian churches, the Nicene model by definition was deprived of any even tenuous or imaginary theological rationale. The idea that geographical episcopal boundaries demand strict imposition when in fact multiple and often mutually non-communicating Christian churches exist within the same local area simply cannot be sustained with integrity. And even within the single tradition of Anglicanism, unless one views the world’s political nations as the primary ordering of human life ”“ a deeply problematic notion from a Christian perspective to say the least ”“ the division of Anglican churches into national, regionally political, or ethnic groups whose boundaries prove more powerful and imposing than Christian communion itself can only end up by subordinating ecclesial reality to human political and cultural limitations. And it is these that the episcopal press for synodality properly ends by overcoming.

The first Lambeth Conference of 1867 was obviously aware of this tension already inherent in the expanding Anglican churches around the world.

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Addressing directly developments in the United States and Canada, Archbishop Carey said, “Some provinces ”“ notably in North America ”“ press for total autonomy theologically from the Communion, while at the same time they impose total canonical autocracy within their dioceses. Ironically and oddly, in such a democratic nation as the United States, a system of ”˜prince bishops’ has arisen who appear to have unfettered control over their rapidly diminishing flocks [and] from which all who dissent from the regnant liberalism are being driven out.”

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Quoting his own son, the journalist Andrew Carey, Lord Carey identified the problem in the Anglican Communion as a “deficit of authority.” He thought the objections to an increased role for the Primates and the Lambeth Conference based on the lack of representation of clergy and laity in those councils an expression of a desire for a kind of church order other than that which Anglicans have received. Lord Carey said that he had no hesitation about empowering the Primates to have an increased role.

In closing he urged holding fast and holding on and commended the work of groups such as the Communion Partners. Lord Carey had two questions to leave with the audience. To the Instruments of Communion he posed the question of discipline. Can there really be no consequences other than of the mildest sort for those churches which act unilaterally as The Episcopal Church did in 2003 against the advice of all the Instruments of Communion? To the House of Bishops of The Episcopal Church Lord Carey posed the question, Can the orthodox have a future? Citing the example of Mark Lawrence’s consents the former Archbishop wondered aloud if it would not become impossible to elect conservatives to the episcopacy. Finally George Carey urged those in the audience not to give up hope but to work diligently for the raising up of a new generation of leadership.

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As [Rowan] Williams began his tenure as archbishop in 2003, though, the ordination of Robinson sent the issue of gay bishops to the head of the agenda. By last summer, with the Lambeth Conference approaching, schism seemed inevitable. Some bishops opposed to homosexual clergy held a rival conference in Jerusalem, denouncing Williams as a liberal pawn. Traditionalists announced plans to “go over” to the Roman Catholic Church or form their own church unless Williams got rid of Robinson. Gay activists circulated an old essay by Williams in which he had eloquently celebrated gay and lesbian relationships; the commentariat mocked him as a holy fool for some approving remarks he had made about Islamic law. Friends of Williams said he might resign. “God has given you all the gifts,” one friend told him, “and as your punishment, he has made you archbishop of Canterbury.”

The schism hasn’t come””not yet. The Anglican Communion, the world’s third-largest group of Christians after the Catholics and the Orthodox, is still standing””a “hugely untidy but very lovable” body, in the words of its most famous member, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel laureate. But its unity has been compromised. In December, a half-dozen bishops broke with the Episcopal Church in the U.S. and announced their plans to found a rival Anglican Community for North America.

It is now, with his office under pressure from both left and right, that Rowan Williams’s real work is beginning. Now he must persuade the aggrieved, quarrelsome people he leads to bear with one another once and for all.

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Some, perhaps, hoped that official communion recognition could be bypassed altogether in favor of recognition by the GAFCON council. But the GAFCON primates themselves, in Egypt, have apparently decided that this route is premature. Instead, the primates at Egypt proposed that a professionally mediated discussion be initiated among all the concerned parties, with the goal of finding some sort of “provisional holding arrangement” that could have the blessing of the communion at large.

What of the “federal liberals,” particularly in the Episcopal Church? As has long been clear, it is unlikely that it will sign on for the sort of robust covenant and institutional reform that the emerging consensus is envisioning. The church’s Executive Council recently published its response to the proposed Anglican Covenant, more or less saying that it is not interested in any sort of covenant with consequences. Bonnie Anderson, the president of the church’s House of Deputies, has for her part signaled that at this summer’s General Convention she will push to move away from an earlier resolution that called for restraint on further consecration of gay bishops. Although the American church does not plan on taking up the covenant at its convention this summer, the arrows thus far point towards an effectual rejection of its terms.

Tellingly and worryingly, the Executive Council’s response also asserted that the proposed Covenant may only be adopted or rejected at the provincial level, rather than the diocesan. For many “communion conservatives” who still remain within the Episcopal Church, this will amount to a deep crisis of conscience, since in effect their church seems bent upon forcing them to choose between the Anglican communion and the Episcopal Church.

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The two understandings of discipline and the roles of Canterbury and the Primates collided at the Primates’ Meeting in Dar es Salaam in February 2007. The early rounds of the conflict went to Rowan Williams, who had invited Presiding Bishop Katherine Schori despite a recommendation in the Dromantine Communiqué that Episcopal Church officials refrain from attending Communion events until Lambeth 2008. He then set the agenda of the meeting with only four hours devoted to the Episcopal Church’s reaction, and he endorsed a Joint Standing Committee report which claimed that the Episcopal Church had satisfied the conditions of the Windsor Report and the Dromantine Communiqué.

At this point, the Global South Primates interrupted the set agenda and pushed back.[46] The final Communiqué was surprisingly strong, in which the Primates “unanimously” [made their recommendations]….

For a few brief weeks, it appeared that a final separation was imminent. Then Canterbury struck back:

1. by issuing invitations to Lambeth 2008 to all Episcopal bishops except Gene Robinson (May 2007);

2. by accepting an invitation to the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans (September 2007) and commissioning a report from the Joint Standing Committee that was not part of the Dar “process”;[50]

3. by denying by word and deed that September 30 was a real deadline; and

4. by giving the Episcopal Church a weak pass in his Advent 2007 letter, which was all that was necessary to get it over the hurdles posed by the Dar Communiqué.

Most significantly, in the year intervening between Dar and Lambeth 2008, Archbishop Williams refused to call a follow-up Primates’ Meeting, despite the clear expectation in the Communiqué that he would reconvene the Primates to judge the Episcopal Church’s response and despite an urgent appeal from the Global South Steering Committee that he do so. Apparently the Archbishop had concluded from the Dar es Salaam Meeting that the Primates’ authority had been enhanced too much and that they needed to be relegated to the B-league as an honorary council of advice.[51] The hope of Communion-wide discipline of those who had broken fundamental Christian doctrine had evaporated in a cloud of verbiage and dithering.

Read it carefully and read it all.

This essay focuses on theological reasons for being suspicious of recent proposals within the Anglican Communion for resolving the conflict over homosexuality, including the suggestion that the Communion introduce novel doctrinal specificity, or more rigid forms of Communion authority. The substantial weaknesses of these initiatives are explored particularly through an analysis of the recently introduced concept of “core doctrine.” The paper argues that Anglicanism’s approach to the authority of Scripture, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the nature of doctrinal confession serve as important speed bumps to place in the path of the present momentum toward ecclesial innovation. Although there are considerable practical and ethical questions to raise about the present crisis within the Anglican tradition, this essay focuses on theological reasons for caution, as many of the current proposed solutions to the crisis represent substantial and problematic modifications to Anglican theology and ecclesiology.

The uproar within the Anglican Communion over the question of sexual orientation is threatening to alter the very nature of Anglicanism. Many theologians and church leaders have responded to the contemporary crisis by calling for a novel emphasis on doctrinal confession within the churches of the Communion. One symptom of this concern is the emergence of the concept of core doctrine, which some recent church authorities have resorted to in order to respond to the current dispute. Since the “heresy” trial of Bishop Righter in 1996, the term “core doctrine” has been invoked by the Windsor Report issued by the Lambeth Commission in October of 2004, and subsequently by the St. Michael Report of the Anglican Church of Canada in 2005. Although this desire for greater doctrinal clarity is understandable, such recent innovations are plagued by considerable theological problems. Careful analysis of the limitations of the concept of core doctrine and consideration of proposals for more centralized ecclesial authority within the Communion demonstrate that further theological reflection is required before such proposals are adopted formally by churches of the Communion.

Although there are considerable practical and ethical questions to raise about the present crisis within the Anglican tradition, this essay focuses on theological reasons for being cautious about the introduction of core doctrine and Communion-wide forms of canon law. Throughout this discussion, I question whether the current obsession with securing more rigid forms of church authority is consistent with the Anglican tradition, particularly its emphases on the authority of Scripture, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the nature of doctrinal confession.

Read it carefully and read it all.

Watch it all (about 47 1/2 minutes).

If you believe that Scripture, or Scripture and the institutional Church, is the Authority for deciding questions of meaning and morality, then you are far more likely to fall on the traditionalist side of these questions. If you believe that individual conscience is the Authority, then you are likely to be a progressive.

I don’t see how the two can be reconciled, unless it is agreed by a majority that the church in question doesn’t really stand for anything beyond itself. If you really do believe that Scripture and Tradition are wrong about same-sex relationships, and that it is a matter of basic justice that the teaching be changed, then you aren’t going to stop fighting for that change within the church. If you believe that we are not free to throw off the authority of Scripture (and Tradition) in such matters, then to have your church declare these matters open to negotiation would be to hollow out the meaning of what the church is supposed to stand for, all for the sake of a superficial unity.

Read it all.

…the game now is going to change from now on. The object has shifted from trying to reform the old Communion (by supplanting the liberals in the US) to forming a new one. Rowan’s task in the year ahead will thus change, too, from trying to hold together two disputatious groups in the same Church to trying to hold together two Churches. It can’t be done, especially now that he has lost the respect of the conservatives.

So, schism in 2009? It certainly looks like it, and then the numbers belonging to each side start to matter. The conservatives in the US are in a clear minority, but when allied to the millions of Anglicans in, say, Nigeria or Uganda, they become a force to reckon with, however much the liberals would like us to ignore them.

There are many things to like in this piece, but it is significantly marred by the fact that he gets wrong what happened in 2006 at the General Convention. There was no agreement on the bishops matter in the terms requested, and on blessings what was requested was clearly not agreed to. Since the Convention, there has been an increase in same sex blessings against the teaching and practice of the Anglican Communion. So it is simply nonsense to talk of a moratorium being lifted which doesn’t exist in practice throughout various parts of TEC. In any event, read it all–KSH.

Each new meeting of the Communion now reinforces this impression that the ”˜schism’ has taken place, because complete sacramental communion is demonstrably no longer possible. The most recent news, of course, is that an alternative province is being formed across North America bringing together the various acronyms and groupings we are coming used to: the Network, CANA, dioceses linked to the Southern Cone, and parishes under the oversight of Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, together with traditionalist continuing churches which long ago broke away.

In the absence of any meaningful overtures from the official American and Canadian leadership, and no proposals for any effective alternative oversight, and amid a determination to press on with scandalous and acrimonious litigation, there is probably no option now other than a third North American province. Furthermore, the level of theological heterodoxy in the Episcopal Church is worryingly high. A number of dioceses have rejected the moratoria which were called for with impunity and it looks clear that at the next General Convention it will be business as usual in the liberal drift of the denomination.

Apart from the sexuality issue, relativism both morally and theologically is normal theology in TEC. Very few Episcopal leaders will say with any confidence that Jesus Christ is the only way to God; instead they apologise for missionary activity in the past, and proclaim a muted, stunted, deformed Gospel to the world.

Yet the formation of a third province is not universally favoured by those who otherwise reject North American innovation. The Gafcon route is an ”˜outside’ strategy that has given up on the ability of the Anglican Communion to discipline itself in accordance with Bible and tradition. There is however an insider’s strategy as well, which believes that the Windsor process is roughly the right direction for the Communion to go, that it will actually result in discipline.

Read it all.

What about the definition of Anglican? In the October issue of First Things, I expressed the hope that last summer’s Lambeth Conference, and particularly the leadership of Archbishop Rowan Williams, gave strong evidence that the center of the Anglican communion intended to hold together; that the Episcopal left and the GAFCON right would not, in fact, carry the day and so lead the communion ever-further down the road to fragmentation and incoherence. Since that time, most of the action has been on the GAFCON and Bishop Duncan side; and the more influence they have, the less chance there is of an eventual coming-together of things.

But the ball is now in center court, as it were””this February’s meeting of the Anglican primates will be crucial, as will the meeting of the Covenant Design Group in April and the Anglican Consultative Council’s meeting in May. If Anglicanism is truly to mean something beyond the local, these meetings will carry forward the Lambeth vision of a genuinely covenanted “global” and “catholic church,” with its ministry, faith, and sacraments “united and interdependent throughout the world,” as Rowan Williams has put it.

There are, of course, no guarantees. The forces of dissolution and division right now are strong, and it is always much easier to pull apart than it is to hold together. The question “Anglican or Episcopalian?” may always be with us; but at the least, we may still be able to hope that the question “What kind of Anglican are you?” will not become just as common.

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The above is the topic for the Mere Anglicanism 2009 Conference. It takes place from January 15 – 17, 2009 in Charleston, South Carolina. Among the speakers: The Rt Rev’d Michael Nazir-ali, Archbishop Valentino Mokiwa; Dr. Stephen Noll, The Rt Rev’d Robert Duncan, The Rt Rev’d Mark Lawrence, The Rt Rev’d Jack Iker, Archbishop Benjamin Kwashi, Dr. William Abraham, and Dr. Albert Mohler.

There is much more information available here.

The brewing conflict between Common Cause Partners and Communion Partner Bishops and Rectors is the result of a lack of communication between the two groups. The former group has not heard the Communion Partners’ articulation of their call, which is to remain in TEC as a witness. The assumption has been that they have the mutual goal of reforming the church. Because of this assumption, it has been widely stated that the Communion Partners Plan is a “non-starter,” or that the Communion Partners will have “no alternative” but to join the new province once it is formed. When one substitutes the goal of being a witness for that of reforming the church, it becomes obvious that joining a new province is not an alternative at all. In fact, joining a new province would be an act of disobedience for those who are called by God to remain as a witness.

What is needed above all else is the spirit of charity. Those who are called to remain in TEC need to acknowledge and honor the call of those who are called to leave and form a new entity. Likewise, the reformers need to refrain from making assumptions about those who are called to be a witness and respect their chosen path of obedience. Although our ecclesiological goals may be different, our ultimate goal is the same; to proclaim the Gospel in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. May we be united in our mutual ministry and supportive of one another as we manifest our obedience along the distinct paths to which we are called.

Read it all. Careful readers of this blog will note that I have been harping on this theme of charity (follow the links) for a long time. There needs to be much more of it in the days ahead.

I remain convinced that to understand the heart of our struggles we need to recognise that there are two distinct but related issues. One is the issue of sexuality and attitudes to Anglican teaching, discernment and practice on this subject as found in Resolution I.10 of Lambeth 1998. The other ”“ in some ways the more complicated one, especially for evangelicals ”“ is the issue of ecclesiology and what it means to be a global communion of Anglican churches….

In relation to North America, GAFCON is clearly seeking to be the means of constituting a new Anglican province. While I am among those who believe this is a sign of failure, it is now the inevitable consequence of developments over recent years and the key task is to ensure it is at least as good a “second best” as possible rather than something worse. The aim must be not only to build the church and spread the gospel in the US and Canada. The aim must also be to establish a structure which, even if initially only recognised by a few provinces, is able and willing, once the Anglican covenant is agreed, to make the necessary affirmations and commitments and so align itself with the newly configured covenantal Communion. The danger is that this development may become ”“ whether intentionally or not – the trigger for a fracturing of the wider Communion and the founding of a more narrowly defined purely confessional fellowship which is shaped less by the ecclesiological vision of Windsor and more by the forces of post-colonialism and hostility to the American church’s response to same-sex unions.

And what, finally, of our own Church [of England]? That is, I take it, where much of our discussion will focus today and I don’t want to pre-empt that but a few comments as I close. We would be foolish to deny that the fault-lines in North America and the wider Communion are not present here or to pretend that realignment in these other contexts can take place without effecting us. In particular, if the failings of Lambeth place more weight on the Archbishop of Canterbury, they also place more pressure on the province of which he is Primate. However, it would be both foolish and dangerous to pretend that our own situation is anywhere near as dire as that of either the American or Canadian churches or to claim that we are called to follow their path. The challenge especially for evangelical Anglicans in the CofE is therefore to find a way of maintaining their own unity and rejecting further fragmentation, standing in solidarity with others here in England and across the Communion who are committed to biblical teaching, and supporting the covenant process and all other means of reforming, healing and revitalising the Anglican Communion and serving God’s mission in the world.

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7. It might be concluded from the above that GAFCON may be attempting to force the hand of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates as a whole. Here though we need to look at the deepest motives. Granted human failures that we all hold in common, we may safely assume that no one in this dispute is working purely cynically, and that by our lights we are all looking for a future God can approve. Revisionists believe that they are acting out of justice love. Conservatives seek to be loyal to the way of Christ according to the traditional interpretation and plain meaning of Scripture. Surely it is better that both follow conscience rather than demanding a compromise of conscience that neither is willing to make. Those with greatest responsibility in the Communion have corporate responsibility for preserving conscientious membership. Does it matter who it is who is taking the preparatory steps? The important thing is that they should lead to decisive measures that can be endorsed by the whole leadership?

8. It is clear that the decision whether or not to support a new Anglican province in North America is linked with the outcome of the Covenant Process. The presumption would be that the newly formed province would participate in the Covenant once established. TEC, still committed to its revisions, would not qualify as a participating member church. With these questions as yet unresolved there is actually a costly and very damaging process of litigation taking place, affecting many Episcopal parishes and some dioceses in the United States. Would the authorisation of a new Province and the establishment of a strong Covenant increase or decrease this level of litigation in the U.S. and increase or decrease the risk of similar conflict in other parts of the world? It could be argued that total clarity in the way the instruments of Communion seek to resolve this controversy will actually hasten the end of the litigation. North American leaders who believe in the alternative ethic will finally realise that they cannot co-opt or coerce fellow Anglicans to this new agenda and may be content to pursue it on their own and using the resources and plant that more naturally correspond to them.

9. Finally there may be a case for the Archbishops and Primates to support the initial steps in the formation of the new Province of North America, and require for their completion an ongoing process of collaboration and consultation with participants appointed at the Primates’ Meeting itself. How the new province is set up is crucial. The birthing of the new entity may need the work of a supervisory group chaired by a Primates’ appointee.

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I was General Secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion in the eighties. I saw this development before my eyes. While EFAC groups grew in England and North America and Australia, in Africa there seemed no need for them: for the Church of Kenya was evangelical; the Church of Uganda and Rwanda, fresh from the inspiration of the East African Revival was charismatic and evangelical. The Church of Tanzania had both evangelical and orthodox Anglo-Catholic roots. Where there was biblical evangelical and orthodox faithfulness, the churches grew. Where these elements were not present, the Anglican church stagnated as in Japan.

The result today is that two-thirds of the non-western Anglican Churches are biblically faithful Anglicans of the evangelical variety.This is the fruit of the identity and space forged for evangelical Anglicans in the Communion by the Keele Congress. Keele and its products validated the possibility of there being evangelical Anglicans in a liturgical Church that was seen as Catholic . As a result the Church of Nigeria for example could grow as an evangelical Anglican church.

The first time this reality came to global prominence was the 1988 Lambeth Conference. It was there that the African Bishops in particular were able to make a united stand for calling for a decade of evangelism. That was their idea. Then in 1998 they made a stand for orthodoxy in the communion’s teaching on sexuality. Then in 2008 they [chose for reasons of conscience no to attend]… the Lambeth Conference and held GAFCON.

It is not possible to understand these developments without understanding the emergence of Global non-western Anglicanism that is fundamentally orthodox. Since 1988 they have been slowly taking responsibility for the whole Anglican Communion.

This responsibility has been exercised carefully in the years since Lambeth 1998. There the non-western orthodox Anglicans took responsibility to safeguard the orthodox teaching of the communion on marriage. When this was challenged in the years after 1998, again and again the orthodox primates ensured that the primates meetings and the ACC repeatedly stood by Lambeth 1.10 and called for order and discipline.

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During the weeks leading up to the recently concluded Lambeth Conference, an approximately decennial meeting of Anglican primates, the rector of St. Edmund’s Episcopal Church, San Marino, California, to which I belong, saw fit to insert in the weekly worship leaflet a history of the conference in four short installments. Written by the Reverand Christopher L. Webber, a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut, the capsule history made interesting reading, perhaps especially for this cradle Catholic and former Jesuit.

One learned that the initial impulse for the Lambeth Conference only came in 1867 and then from Canadian Anglicans uneasy over their country’s evolution toward independence from Britain. If Canada became fully independent, would the Church of Canada, against its wishes, be forced to become the Canadian equivalent of the Episcopal Church in the United States? Reluctantly, the archbishop of Canterbury agreed to hold a meeting, but he insisted that it would seek only “brotherly counsel and encouragement.” At the second Lambeth conference, in 1888, a starchy resolution underscored this determination not to slide into a quasi-papacy: “There is no intention whatever on the part of anybody to gather together the bishops of the Anglican Church for the sake of defining any matter of doctrine.” The principle of unity proper to Anglicans was to be mutual forbearance such that “the duly certified action of every national or particular church…should be respected by all the other churches.” The archbishop of York, citing the Acts of the Apostles, reminded the conference tartly that differences among the churches began with Peter and Paul.

During the twentieth century, however, the issues of divorce, remarriage, intermarriage, contraception, and the status of women in the church-all of which fell plausibly within the avowedly pastoral purview of the Lambeth Conference-replaced almost completely such classic doctrinal issues as the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist in determining whether one was or was not a communicant in good standing. Thus, when the 1900 conference ruled that only the “innocent party” to a divorce might be readmitted to Communion after a civil marriage, it did tacitly claim a right to determine who was an Anglican. And since bishops attended the conference only at the invitation of the archbishop of Canterbury, a personal authority seemed to accrue to him to declare whether a given church was legitimately Anglican or not.

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The Anglican Communion is currently pursuing a number of activities in response to the acrimonious struggle over sexual teaching and discipline within our churches. These activities have been encouraged by the Communion’s leadership, including at the recent Lambeth Conference. I have, to various degrees, been a supporter of these activities, not least because I have trusted those who have promoted these means towards ecclesial healing. I am increasingly skeptical, however, that the way these activities have been framed ”“ descriptively and practically ”“ represents the true nature of our disputes.

Categories like “moratoria” and “reception” and “listening”, for instance, are now prominent elements in our strategic ecclesial discussions. Unfortunately, they no longer appear to be useful categories, in large part because they do not accurately reflect the actual relationship of expectation and possibility that the disputing parties hold, one to another and with respect to their own commitments. When one party says, while responding to the request for a “moratorium” on specific actions, “yes we will consider it; but there is no going back on our underlying commitments”; and another party says at the same time, “yes we will consider it; but only on the condition that you others give up your practical commitments”, then the very category of “moratorium” functions in very different ways in each case. Similarly, when “reception” is a “process” that seeks to discern the Christian authenticity of an innovative practice, but also does so by the very means of rooting that practice within the life of the church in different areas, the notion that discernment has a possibly restraining role to play seems practically undercut. Or when “listening” presumes an ecclesial practice even as it refuses to evaluate that practice, one is not so much listening as receiving justification ex post facto.

Read the whole piece.