The authority of the Episcopal Church resides at the diocesan level. This is witnessed to by the structure of the church as “that of a voluntary association of equal dioceses.” Also, the Constitution and Canons of the Church make no provision for either a central hierarchy or a Presiding Bishop with metropolitan authority. Furthermore, our General Convention representation is as dioceses and not as communicants, with only an administrative role for the convention leadership, the voting members of the leadership themselves drawn from the diocesan deputations. In addition, the ordinal does not contain any language acknowledging or committing to submit to any metropolitan or central hierarchal authority.

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This is a very forthright document by Bishops who are trying to keep The Episcopal Church together but are not willing to do so at the price of cutting themselves off from the Anglican Communion or acquiescing to novel interpretations of the constitution and canons of The Episcopal Church. They are in effect insisting that The Episcopal Church be The Episcopal Church and act in accord with its own law and traditions. This is precisely what Bishops ought to do when they intend to be faithful to their vows.

There are a lot of questions raised here for future discussion. I am completely convinced that the Statement is an accurate description of the polity of The Episcopal Church as it has ever been and as it now stands. Our polity is indeed unique but not for the reasons usually put forward about the participation of the different orders in decision making but rather because it envisions a provincial structure with a level of diocesan autonomy unparalleled in most other Anglican jurisdictions. Unlike most provinces we have no archiepiscopal order. It remains to be seen how this order can be integrated into a true communion of churches. The proposed Anglican Covenant is a step in that direction and would represent for Communion Partner Bishops and their dioceses a willing surrender of some aspects of their present autonomy for the sake of the ongoing unity and communion of the church.

There is also the very pertinent question of how the instruments of unity in a church whether they be the instruments of unity of the Anglican Communion or of a local diocesan synod or convention are actually and practically in the service of unity in faith, witness and mission.

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Viewed as a political prize, however, the Church ceases to be a Church. Its mission is being determined by politics rather than under the governance of the Holy Spirit. So long as the battle rages for the prize, the fiction that it is a Church has to be maintained at all costs, because no one who could affect the outcome must realize what is at stake. And with the publicizing of views like those expressed in the Bishops’ Statement, the risk is now great that the momentum so carefully accumulated over the years will be seen for what it is: nothing more (or less) than a political attempt to take over a money machine.

And that is why the Bishops, the ACI and its lawyer have received the treatment they did. Only those who are plotting already can regard the publication of such a power-renouncing statement of subsidiarity as “an unprecedented power grab by anti-gay bishops who will assert they are not bound by the Episcopal Church’s governing body: General Convention.”

The spectacle of taking over a church politically, of even speaking in terms of a church “power-grab”, is so antithetical to the essence of a church that in the end it must be self-defeating.

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My main quarrel with the Bishop’s Statement is not that it is defective in its assessment of what was envisioned when PECUSA was established but rather its silence about what has evolved subsequently. Like it or not, the powers of the diocese in the matter of church property and the election of rectors has evolved, most particularly in the past 35 years. In part it is framed in the Dennis Canon which seems to claim ownership of church property by the diocese rather than the parish and by the national church over the diocese. It is also suggested by the creation of local diocesan laws which have largely taken away the rights of parishes to call rectors. A miriad of diocesan regulations have emerged, ironically on the grounds that dioceses have the right to establish methods of rectorial election, unsupported by national Canons. In short both the National Church and the dioceses, and diocesan bishops now claim authority far from that claimed by the founders of PECUSA. In some areas this has established laws far beyond those our founders granted to the National Church, and dioceses have established regulations which have limited parochial rights as established by the Canons. In short both the National Church and the Diocese assume to theirselves authority far beyond the intentions of the founders or the text of the Constitution and Canons.

Our founders were persons who believed that rational people could compact a union which permitted each level of organization to function at that level with little coercion. People of good will might be trusted to act as rational human beings. It was perhaps a Utopian ideal but one which inspired the creators of the United States. Subsequently a more cynical/practical view emerged, reacting to what was perceived to be abuse of power at differing levels. Thus, at least to my mind, it is not sufficient to evaluate TEC solely in the light of “original intent.” Yet I would suggest that a contemporary evaluation cannot lose sight of original intent and in this context the statement of the Communion Partners Bishops is a valuable recall to that intent.

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“Our Anglican tradition is blessed by the ability to share common prayer and sacraments while holding different interpretations of scripture and different opinions and practices. Our diversity reflects God’s creation and allows us to proclaim the Gospel in many forms to people in many settings.

“We are especially dismayed that this attempt to undermine the Church’s governance involves leaders who have held positions on the Communion-wide body that produced the proposed Anglican Covenant. The various drafts of the Covenant have each created impediments to the full inclusion of all baptized Christians in the Communion and thereby undermine God’s gift of unity. Regrettably, we must now question the full intent of these documents.

“We pray that our brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion Institute will return to embrace our common tradition and polity and recognize the reconciling power of the Spirit to make all things new.”

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I am sure Fr. [Mark] Harris is well aware that the articulation of TEC’s polity in the Bishops’ Statement is hardly novel, but has long been the standard understanding of our governance. See, for example, the widely-used series on “The Church’s Teaching” by Dr. Powel Dawley of GTS, the work by Dr. Daniel Stevick of EDS on Canon Law and the article by Dr. Robert Prichard of VTS, one of TEC’s leading historians, in the current issue of “Anglican and Episcopal History,” who reviews this history and my paper and concludes that my work is “cogent and based on good historical argument.”

Finally and most importantly, none of this should deflect attention from the Bishops’ Statement itself. It is what it is says it is: a statement by fifteen bishops of this Church, including a candidate for Presiding Bishop in 1985 (Bishop Frey), a candidate for Presiding Bishop in 1997 and one of the three Senior Bishops of the Church who exercise canonical responsibilities under Title IV (Bishop Wimberly) and the immediate past president of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice (Bishop MacPherson). I urge Fr. Harris and others to focus on this Statement by fifteen distinguished Bishops rather than discuss obviously confidential emails that should never have been made public in the first place.

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We, the undersigned laity and clergy of the Episcopal Church, offer the following as a testament to our concern for the life and witness of our church and its membership in the Anglican Communion. The God-given bonds of affection that unite us to one another are based in the prior unity of love that is God’s own Trinitarian life; for this reason, our corporate life should continually strive to be an icon of this same love. At the present moment, we are particularly mindful that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself” (II Cor. 5:19), and that because of this we have been given a “ministry of reconciliation” (II Cor. 5:18). It is our prayer that the Holy Spirit will give the Episcopal Church a renewed awareness that at the heart of our common mission lies the ministry of reconciliation, which endeavors “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ” (BCP Catechism, p. 855).

To that end, we

Affirm that evangelism lies at the heart of the Church’s mission, understanding evangelism to subsist in the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which calls all people to repent from sin, to be united in the Body of Christ through baptism, and to be continually discipled in the communion of the Church.

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A communications initiative to tell the Episcopal Church’s story was launched on Ash Wednesday at www.episcopalchurch.org where visitors will find a new interactive feature called “I Am Episcopalian.”

The so-called “microsite” contains short videos of people “sharing their deep, personal connections to the big, wide, vibrant church that we are,” said Anne Rudig, who joined the Episcopal Church Center in New York as communications director on January 5.

Not only will the videos illustrate the diversity of Episcopalians — “all ages, all walks of life, all ethnicities,” said Rudig — but the site also will let users upload their own videos.

Uploaded videos will be monitored before being posted and should be no longer then 90 seconds, said Rudig. “I am Episcopalian” will be the website homepage throughout Lent, with a link to the rest of the Episcopal Church’s web content.

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I do not believe I would be guilty of exaggeration if I were to say Anglican polity simply couldn’t work apart from general acceptance of the account of communion TSAD sets out and defends. Apart from this understanding and its centrality, the mechanisms of governance and consultation Anglicans have put in place over the years will work largely in support of local concerns and commitments, and will move the life of the provinces relentlessly toward more and more fragmentation. Progressives will move toward increasingly particular moral and social agendas and those who place central importance on common confession will find themselves ever dividing into opposing theological camps.

Even under the most ideal circumstances, even if “mutual subjection” is agreed upon as the operating principle of the Communion, it is still the case that a covenant would be of no effect if it had no means to address the question of what happens if a province refuses to ratify its terms or, having ratified them, does not abide by its commitments. This question clearly posed the most difficulty for the drafters of TSAD. Given the Anglican propensity for muddling through, it is not surprising the proposal put forward presents an involved process for reconciling differences that can last up to five years.

Having said this, however, I hasten to add that the proposal, though it does not use the word discipline, does involve real consequences that would place a recalcitrant province in what the Archbishop of Canterbury has nicely termed “a diminished status” in relation to the Communion as a whole. Time does not allow me to sketch the entire process. In its present form it is cumbersome, complex and far too lengthy to be effective. But in brief, if a matter comes up that threatens the unity and mission of the Communion, it is referred to the Archbishop of Canterbury who in turn can send it on to three assessors who in turn can send it on one or another of the Instruments of Communion. If at the end of all this, it is determined that a province has gone beyond the limits of diversity and refuses to alter its behavior, either the offending church or the Instruments of Communion are to understand that “the force and meaning of the covenant” has been relinquished. In short, the offending province by its own choice or by the decision of the Instruments now is in a diminished status in relation of the rest of the provinces of the Communion. That means it will not take part in the common councils of the Communion, though it may enjoy bilateral relations with one or more of the provinces.

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This is only one example of what people do not want to lose in the life of the Communion. And it is a good Pauline principle, if you read II Corinthians, that we should be glad of the honour of being able to support other churches in their need. Who knows whether some other structure than the Communion as we know it might make this possible? But the bare fact is that what now, specifically, makes it possible is the Communion we have, and that is not something to let go of lightly. Hence the difficult but unavoidable search for the forms of agreed self-restraint that will allow us to keep conversation alive ”“ the moratoria advised by Lambeth, very imperfectly observed yet still urged by the Primates as a token of our willingness not to behave as if debates had been settled that are still in their early stages at best.

The Communion we have: it is indeed a very imperfect thing at the moment. It is still true that not every Primate feels able to communicate at the Lord’s Table alongside every other, and this is indeed a tragedy. Yet last week, all the Primates who had attended GAFCON were present, every one of them took part in daily prayer and Bible study alongside the Primates of North America and every one of them spoke in discussion. In a way that I have come to recognise as very typical of these meetings, when talk of replacing Communion with federation of some kind was heard, nearly everyone reacted by saying that this was not something they could think about choosing. We may have imperfect communion, but we unmistakably want to find a way of holding on to what we have and ‘intensifying’ it ”“ to use the language I used last summer about the proposed Anglican Covenant. Somehow, the biblical call to be involved with one another at a level deeper than that of mere affinity and good will is still heard loud and clear. No-one wants to rest content with the breach in sacramental fellowship, and everyone acknowledges that this breach means we are less than we are called to be. But the fact that we recognise this and that we still gather around the Word is no small thing; without this, we should not even be able to hope for the full restoration of fellowship at the Eucharist.

Read it carefully and read it all.

In respect to this issue, a final comment is in order. If the Communion makes provision for individual dioceses to ratify the Covenant, it will prove easier for that to happen in TEC than in many other churches of the Anglican Communion. It will be easier because of the unique character of TEC’s constitution. TEC’s constitution makes no provision for a metropolitan bishop, givens no real authority either to its Presiding Bishop or its General Convention to impose its will on a diocese; and I am convinced it allows for a diocese to remove itself from TEC. If provision were to be made for ratification at the level of a diocese, individual dioceses within TEC would have a degree of freedom in this respect that dioceses in many other provinces would not.

So now we come to the question, “What then shall we do?” For many in TEC a covenant with any real consequences is out of the question. It is likely that they will answer the question “What then shall we do” by refusing to ratify the covenant and forming an alliance with other provinces of like mind. In all likelihood they will continue to claim membership in the Anglican Communion, seeking from within their diminished status, as they are want to say, “the greatest degree of communion possible.” It may well be, however, that in forming such an alliance, they in fact end up by creating another communion altogether. In any case, the forces at play in these circumstances will be centrifugal rather than centripetal.

For others of a more confessional frame of mind a covenant may be a part of their future, but, at present, they are skeptical that the final draft will have sufficiently clear commitments to shared doctrine and practice. For those who have cast their lot with ACNA, their future in relation to a covenant is at best uncertain. At present, only provinces can ratify the covenant. It is unlikely that ACNA will realize its goal of provincial status in the near future. Further, should there be an arrangement for individual dioceses to ratify, there are only three, perhaps four, dioceses now a part of the ACNA group. They might be given access to ratification, though that is doubtful. Even, however, if they were allowed to ratify the covenant as individual dioceses, the majority of ACNA’s membership would not be so allowed because it is unlikely that they would be able to establish diocesan status.

For my own part, these first two options appear fraught with difficulty. I believe that the present proposal of the Covenant Design Group, even though it is surrounded by questions, provides the best way forward for Anglicans if they wish to maintain both communion and catholic identity.

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Over the years of my adult life and ministry I have witness[ed] Catholics and Evangelicals adopting more rigid and isolated positions in the face of Liberal triumphalism and in the process become more and more distressed by the abandonment of many in all sections of what we used to term Anglican Comprehension of a commitment to mutual tolerance and symbiosis. It is as if Anglicans have divided into two camps, the one planted in dogmatic conclusions about a past “golden age” of Anglicanism as solely authentic and the other intent on burying for good the traditions, spirituality and theological conclusions of Anglicanism in its “past” multifaceted ethos.

And now I find myself on the edge, on what a friend of mine describes as a conveyer belt leading out of the church I have loved all my life, first in England and now in America. Even during my long years as an extra-mural Anglican bishop, as I sought to serve those who left TEC, I worked hard to keep at the fore the breadth and depth of an Anglicanism which embraced the truths taught and lived by men and women of many forms of what we once termed Churchmanship which made up the whole cloth of our tradition.

I have mentioned before the irony of my entering TEC because it was the American expression of worldwide Anglicanism in communion with the See of Canterbury and now finding myself in a church which may purposely sever its links with that Communion as it affirms independence over mutual interdependence and may become the largest of those groups which have abandoned Anglicanism for sectarianism: a liberal trendy modern Deist group wrapped in the garbs of sacramentalism or a respectable form of Theosophy.

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The call for an Anglican Communion Covenant resulted directly from the Windsor Report (sec. 113-120), and the Windsor Report itself was a crisis response document. It is therefore not possible or desirable to evaluate any document that emerges from a drafting process without asking the question: “Will it address the crisis facing the Communion?”

That said, the crisis has also raised issues of the identity and governance of the Anglican Communion that have lain dormant for many decades. From time to time, the Lambeth Conference began to address these issues, but more often than not it punted them further down the field. Now many of us feel that the conflicts and contradictions of Anglican identity and governance must be squarely faced. A covenant could be just the sort of document to do this. Or not.

It is my contention in this essay that the official Anglican Covenant process under the direction of Abp. Drexel Gomez will not be able to produce an adequate document to meet the requirements of the hour. In the two years since the formation of the Covenant Drafting Group in September 2006, a new team has taken the field, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. Meeting in Jerusalem in June 2008, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) published a statement of identity ”“ “The Jerusalem Declaration” ”“ and formed a Primates’ Council claiming extraordinary authority to separate from a heterodox Province or to recognize an orthodox Province. It seems likely that this Council will soon recognize a North American Province separate from The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

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I mention this because as we prepare for the upcoming 218th Convention of the Diocese of South Carolina the stormy seas have not abated in the almost six years since General Convention 2003. If anything, the swath from the northeaster has broadened and intensified, engulfing more and more provinces of the Anglican Communion. While nothing is certain at this point, it seems clear to me that there is no immediate solution to our present crisis. In the midst of a storm, most of us can only react to changing circumstances as they develop. My commitment is to keep in line with the Scriptures, the historic faith of the Church, and the larger Anglican Communion. So long as we can remain Episcopalian and keep with these three instruments of trustworthy navigation, there is no reason at this point to man the lifeboats. Though many would like to see this crisis ended, or hear prophetic predictions of calmer seas, such are not likely to be forthcoming. The next foreseeable sounding of significance is the Primates’ Meeting in February 2009 and the Anglican Consultative Council in May. At both meetings, issues regarding the Anglican Covenant and, I suspect, the proposed new province in North America will be in the forefront. Then comes TEC’s General Convention in July. It’s questionable that any of these will be ports of decisive destiny; still, vigilance is a virtue.

While there are many dimensions of our present situation we cannot control, (what else is new?), that does not free us from discerning God’s vision for the Diocese of South Carolina as we near the end of this first decade of the 21st Century and prepare to enter the next. Rather, it makes it even more imperative. This raises for me the question””“What is a diocese supposed to do?” Theologians often reflect on what a diocese is””such as those who say, the Diocese is the basic or fundamental unit of the Church. But that is a statement of being, not of doing. I have spent more than a little time lately reflecting on this question. And from there, the more specific question””“What is the Diocese of South Carolina supposed to do?” Or put another way, “What is God calling the Diocese of South Carolina to do?” This is demanding but essential work if we are to maintain both a macro and micro-perspective in God’s kingdom. In fact, it is all the more essential if we are to be proactive about our future rather than merely reactive to the tossing of every gusty wind and swelling wave. Therefore, I will seek to articulate what I believe this is at our upcoming convention.

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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.

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These convictions and commitments are reflected in patient and enduring witness rather than in strategies and tactics designed to bring about desired future states. They grow from trust that God will use faithful witness in his own time and in his own way to bring about his purposes””purposes that do not stem from our imaginings or our desires but from God’s justice and God’s mercy.

Just what are these convictions and commitments? Here we must summarize a host of conversations to which we have been party over the past several years. The convictions revealed are these.

1. The weakness and disarray of TEC (and indeed of the churches of the West) are best understood as the result of divine displeasure at pervasive misconstruals of Christian belief and practice coupled with a common life that blows neither “hot nor cold.”
2. It is a form of delusion and disobedience to place oneself and ones friends outside the judgment God intends for the health of his church. Rather, fidelity calls for acceptance of the judgment as both just and merciful. It calls also for faithful Christians to live through that judgment to the end. This way is none other than the way Christ himself walked, believing not in a future state of his devising and constructing but in God’s power, through his death, to give life to the dry bones of his people.
3. The pattern of Christ’s life suggests the necessity of a clear differentiation between a way faithful to his life and teaching and one that has simply assumed the form of the culture with which the leadership of TEC has identified.
4. The obedient form of differentiation suggested by the pattern of Christ is not separation but faithful persistence along a different path within the fellowship of the church that has nurtured one as a Christian but has, nonetheless, gone astray.

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Update: Sarah Hey has a lengthy response to this here which concludes this way:

Let’s be clear. There are Episcopalians who are most interested in the “inside strategy.” The fact that the ACI and I assume the Communion Partners group eschews the “inside strategy” does not mean that those Episcopalians do not exist.

On the other hand, it is good to see the ACI and the Communion Partners continue to clarify their goals publicly. Their expressed goals do not make them “bad organizations.” Their goals merely express who they are and what they intend to do — and it’s important for clergy who are making decisions about participation in either organization to be aware of what those organizations mean to do. There are some good people in both organizations and, from the perspective of this layperson, the Communion Partners is currently the only place that an inside strategy clergyperson can gain some fellowship.

In the same way, we all know what the new Anglican entity — the ACNA — is clearly seeking. Those who leave for the ACNA have obviously abandoned any “inside strategy” as well.

At this point, those Episcopalians interested in the inside strategy need to connect with one another, and seek counsel where they can — but with crystal clarity that there is no organizational or institutional or national help for them. We are, as I have said for the past almost two years, on our own. Acknowledging that fact is the first step towards clarity and healing and seeking help where we can find it, with those who share our goals — and of course, fellowshiping with joy with all orthodox Anglican brothers and sisters, whether in the ACI, the Communion Partners, or the ACNA.

Prof. [Ephraim] Radner, one of 10 members of the group drafting the proposed Anglican Covenant, made no bones about division as an endearing reality in the church’s life. He called unity a thing not to “cleaned of division,” but rather emanating from “the blood of the cross, from which there is no escape. We are called to be one,” he said, “but our soul depends on the sharp sword of division.”

Bishop [James] Stanton, billing his talk “a report from the front lines in the struggle for a Communion Covenant,” took issue with too-easy attempts to define the Greek word koinonia as mere “fellowship,” when the “koinonia” of God through Christ ”“ his entering into flesh and blood” in fact brings unity through restoration of “fallen, broken humanity.”

“It belongs to koinonia,” he said, “to endure sacrifice and suffering until the battle is through.” Among the obstacles to achievement of koinonia, in Bishop Stanton’s recounting: inadequate education concerning the whole question; the lack of “corporation memory” concerning the church’s own promises to rein in divisive, free-lance activity by advanced spirits; and, last, inability “to articulate in a compelling way why the office and person of the Archbishop [of Canterbury] is critical to our continuing Communion.”

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The failure of the House of Bishops to discipline our own for lesser infractions than pulling a diocese out of TEC (thereby giving incontrovertible proof of violating the oath to “conform to the doctrine, discipline and worship of The Episcopal Church) is a matter of significance, I think. Bishop Duncan in particular has done a number of things which should have called for a disciplinary response from the HoB. Indeed, he asked for it specifically, back in September 2002, when he stated to the House that he had deliberately “provoked a constitutional crisis” (his words) by interfering in a parish in another diocese. And nothing happened. That the present Presiding Bishop is acting may be closing the barn door after the horse has left. But just leaving it swinging in the breeze would be dereliction of duty.

In the final analysis, our polity exists to support a dynamic missionary expansion as its first priority, and it does this admirably. After all, TEC, despite our small size, has launched about one-quarter of the provinces of the Communion. As such, it is less well suited to resolving significant conflicts about doctrine and discipline, because sufficient agreement on these is presupposed in the structures themselves. How can you undertake to evangelize the world if you do not have enough basic trust in each other’s grasp of the Gospel and catholic order””the synthesis that is the genius of Anglican ecclesiology?

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Like an unwatched pan of milk, readers of the Church Times have seethed up and boiled over in response to an analysis of the Church of England by the ever-controversial historian Jonathan Clark.

Professor Clark, once the enfant terrible of Peterhouse and All Souls, now wields his scalpel from remote Kansas, but it cuts as sharply. The Church of England, he argues, is “losing command of its history”, thus losing its identity (as if a man had lost his memory, one might say).

In the 20th century, he notes, “Anglicanism was powered by German theology rather than by Anglican historiography”. One result is a loss of authority, which “is ultimately historically grounded”. That’s why, he says, “feminism and gay rights should today occupy so much of the attention of Anglicans”.

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Perhaps we are seeing three devel­op­ments, overlapping and reinforcing each other. First, increasing numbers of able ecclesiastical historians in England have for some time been Roman Catholics ”” Aveling, Bossy, Duffy, Gilley, Hastings, Ker, Mayr-Harting, Morrill, Nockles, Questier, Riley-Smith, Scarisbrick, and others ”” and the Church of England has found no adequate reply.

This cannot just be chance. Increasingly, the Anglican history of the years since the 1530s is implicitly emerging as a phase, not a norm.

Second, the Church of England is increasingly indifferent to its his­torical dimension, neglecting the teaching of its history, unconcerned at the fate of ancient libraries, actively resistant to promoting scholarly clergy who might have historical views that would threaten a reigning consensus established on other evidential grounds than the historical.

Third, the few Anglicans who are historically aware now often depict the Church of England as essentially a radical Protestant denomination with a revolutionary foundation in the early 16th century, and revolutionary implications for morals and manners in our own day.

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So it’s official; we are past the worst of the crisis in The Episcopal Church. The presiding Bishop has told us so. The remarkable thing was surely not that she predicted the imminent end of the crisis, but that she admitted that there was a crisis at all.

The eerie thing about TEC has been the ‘business as usual’ attitude of its proprietors as parishes and dioceses have abandoned ship, clergy have been jettisoned and litigation has grown. In the Church of England we have been nervously asking: what in the world is going on, and could it happen here?

An answer to those questions is pressing. And so I will try to give it.

What has been happening? The answer is simple but unpalatable. There has been a logical and inevitable outworking of the Doctrine of Provincial Autonomy.
The idea that provinces of the Communion are sovereign in matters of doctrine and order was invented in the late Sixties/ early Seventies to facilitate the ordination of women to the priesthood.

At the time it must have seemed convenient and unexceptionable. The Communion had always been made up of national churches with their own discrete codes of canon law; provincial autonomy (though it had never actually been exercised in the areas in which it now came into play) was merely a function of that reality.

But ‘untune that string and Hark! what discord follows’. Provincial autonomy, as understood in the United States, had at one leap rendered doctrine and orders subject to geography and democracy. The POLITY of The Episcopal Church (O fatal and oft-repeated word!) had come to mean that the General Convention, by majority voting, could with impunity reverse the Vincentian Canon. It could do what previously had been unknown to any, anywhere and at any time.

It is strange that Americans, with the glaring example of the Civil War in their own history, were not more circumspect about the consequences of democratic self-determination. Its ultimate result is secession. For who is to determine (except arbitrarily) at what level or in what forum finality resides? Is it the Union, or the States? Is it the National Church or the dioceses or the parishes? And since a democratic vote is merely the aggregation of individual consciences, what place does the individual have in this economy?

In recent times The Episcopal Church has placed a high value on individual autonomy, allowing, for example, the continuance in office of plainly heretical bishops from Pike to Spong. More recently the case of Dr Ann Redding has highlighted this issue. Redding claimed to be ‘following Jesus’ into Islam. Now her bishop, Geralyn Wolf, is disciplining her for ‘abandonment of communion’ (the very accusation against those who have left TEC for the Southern Cone).

I have to say that I have a great deal of sympathy for Redding. Her only offence is to fail to take the creeds literally. ‘We Christians, in struggling to express the beauty and dignity of Jesus and the pattern of life he offers, describe him as the ‘only begotten son of God’. That’s how wonderful he is to us. But that is not literal.’ If this is an offence, then it is a very Episcopalian offence. And Bishop Wolf is being inexcusably picky.

In short, it is a strange Church which can tolerate Jack Spong, eject Ann Redding and depose Bob Duncan – in the same breath and for the same reasons. It is a very strange and wholly inconsistent Church which will not extend its tolerance of individuals to dioceses or parishes; and which acknowledges the plenary self-determination of its General Convention, but will not allow the secession of its constituent diocesan Conventions.

What is happening in The Episcopal Church is the gradual unfolding of the implications of Provincial Autonomy. What is remarkable is that no one seems to have noticed the fact.

And can it happen here?

Naturally, what is happening in the United States is taking a very American form. An ecclesial re-run of the War between the States is hardly likely in the United Kingdom – where ecclesial devolution preceded political devolution by decades or even centuries, and where the latter is unlikely to lead to bloodshed. But if the question is: ‘will the liberal tendency in the Church of England prove as rapacious as its North American counterparts?’ the answer is, most probably, yes.

The aim of Liberal Entryism is to steal the assets (and especially the intellectual property) of the previous occupants. It is important to them to present themselves as the legitimate heirs of the Christian centuries. And in order to do so they have both to re-invent Anglicanism as traditionally tolerant of almost any doctrinal deviation (which, needless to say, it has never been), and to persecute to extinction those who have the temerity to point out the deception.

People talk about ‘illiberal liberals’ as though it were a paradox and as though there were in fact another kind. But I beg to differ. If, as the proponents of women’s ordination and homosexual equality have done, you advance your case by fabricating evidence and rewriting history, you have no course, in the end, but to treat as enemies those who seek to nail the lie.

And if you base yourself on an ethical a priori proposition, you have nothing to stand on except assertion, which will consequently degenerate into violence, physical or intellectual. We can agree with Lady Bracknell that it ‘reminds one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you know what that unfortunate movement led to?’

What is already evident in some quarters – where revisionists are crying ‘We are the real Catholics’ whilst shying bricks at the Holy See – cannot, as I see it, fail to become the stance of the whole church, which, to justify its self-will, will wilfully sever itself from the root of which it is a branch.

Mrs Schori may well think (but she would think that, wouldn’t she?) that the crisis in The Episcopal Church is nearing its conclusion. But there can be no doubt that the manner in which she is seeking to end it is likely to store up further problems in the Communion as a whole. Bishop Bob Duncan, who is not famous for his jokes, has a good one up his sleeve: that more bishops of the Anglican Communion recognize him than recognize his former Primate.

He is probably right.

–This article appears in the November 2008 edition of New Directions

I realize that for some of you this means that at the conclusion of this Convention, you will no longer recognize me as your Bishop and that the House of Bishops of TEC will initiate plans to depose me as a Bishop of TEC. However, it is important to understand what such an action can do and what it cannot do. I cannot be un-ordained any more than I can be un-baptized. Holy Orders, like Holy Baptism, bestows an indelible character and imparts a grace that is irrevocable. A deacon, priest or bishop who is deposed may be deprived of exercising his ordained ministry in congregations of The Episcopal Church, but he is not thereby un-ordained or removed from Holy Orders. The clergy of this Diocese were ordained not just for The Episcopal Church, but for the one holy catholic and apostolic church. We are deacons, priests and bishops of the Church of God, not an American denomination. As the Preface to the Ordination Rites says on page 510 of the Prayer Book, “The threefold ministry is not the exclusive property of this portion of Christ’s catholic Church.” I can assure you that all the clergy of this Diocese, under the authority and protection of the Province of the Southern Cone, will continue to exercise our ordained ministry as deacons, priests and bishops in good standing in the worldwide Anglican Communion. Our Province will change, but the validity of our sacred orders will remain unchanged.

I am certain that in the months ahead, leaders of TEC will move to depose not only me, but every deacon and priest here present who votes for realignment at this Convention. Sad to say, some of you here in this Convention hall will cooperate with and facilitate those plans. It is my belief that such a course of action is not only unreasonable and uncharitable, but violates our ecclesiological understanding of what the Anglican Communion claims to be. If we are a worldwide Communion of Provinces who share a common faith, practice and ministry, then it does not make sense to depose clergy who move from one Province to another. No one is abandoning the Communion of the Church by realigning with another Province. The far better way to proceed would be for TEC to accept the fact that a realignment has occurred, to recognize the transfer of this Diocese to another Province of the Anglican Communion, and to wish us well in the name of the Lord. There is something deeply disturbing about a Church that would prefer to litigate and depose rather than to negotiate a peaceful, amicable separation among brothers and sisters in Christ who can no longer walk together.

I call upon the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church and her colleagues to halt the litigation, to stop the depositions, and to cease the intimidation of traditional believers. Instead, let us pursue a mediated settlement, a negotiated agreement that provides for a fair and equitable solution for all parties, and let us resist taking punitive actions against our opponents. Christians are called to work out our differences with one another, not sue one another in secular courts.

Read it all.

I hold doggedly and dearly to the primacy of Scripture. It forms the bedrock of both my faith and my action. It constantly and properly confronts me with inadequacies and failures along with inspirations and opportunities. At the same time, I see no way in which contemporary people can continue to fly in the face of what, for example, a scientific discipline such as Genetics may yet reveal about why any of us is as we are. But through-out my main point is that the dynamic, pro-active theological method of Scripture, Tradition and Reason contains within it an elasticity of approach and a faithfulness of intention to new situa-tions, problems and difficulties: with Scriptural authenticity; within the total Tradition; informed by Reason both in terms of Hooker’s understanding of the natural law as revealing something vital
of God and in terms of rigorous criticism, scholarly acumen and scientific credibility. For none of these I make an apology in an Anglican world. The Church of Ire-land is not a confessional church and the
Anglican Communion is not a confessional Communion. Anglicanism is built on a foundation of the saving work of God in Christ but also on the utter provisionality of existing ecclesial institutions and earthly articulations of belonging. This is to do nothing more radical than to say that Anglicanism, in its self-definition, takes eschatology very seri-ously. I see a great deal of sense in the final sentence of the Editorial of The Church Times of June 20th 2008 following events in St Bartholomew’s Church, Lon-don: ”˜The challenge for the Lambeth Con-ference, and for GAFCON before it, is to demonstrate how Christians can disagree profoundly and yet recognize the work-ing of the Holy Spirit in those with whom they disagree.’ This, my friends, is where The Tower of Babel meets The Day of Pentecost and is redeemed in the encounter.

Read it all.

TWR’s solution was to give extant pan-Anglican instruments of union legislative and juridical authority. Member churches were to commit themselves to submit innovations in doctrine or practice (especially those concerning whom the Church is prepared to ordain and bless) to the instruments of union for approval, and to refrain from giving such changes institutional expression until such approval was secured. In other words, pan-Anglican instruments were to be given a veto power over any changes of ”˜essentials’ by national churches. TWR suggested the mechanism of a pan-Anglican covenant, whose provisions would be given legal force through member churches changing their canons.

Rhetorically, TWR is remarkable for presuming its own legitimacy. It speaks throughout as if TWR polity were already in force and as if TEC and New Westminster had violated covenant commitments. Rhetorically, TWR encouraged the instruments of union to act on this presumption. Rhetorically, TWR was persuasive.

So when TWR went on to suggest ways of disciplining TEC and New Westminster (putting them on probation by asking them to withdraw from participation in pan-Anglican instruments until matters were settled, until TEC and New Westminster had repented and enforced moratoria on ordaining non-celibate homosexuals and blessing homosexual partnerships) and of protecting the faithful in (what came to be known as) non-Windsor-compliant dioceses or provinces, the ABC and the primates at Dromantine took authority and proceeded to do just that.

Read the whole argument

An Anglican version of the Roman Catholic church’s “inquisition” is proposed today in a document seen by The Times.

Bishops are urging the setting up of an Anglican Faith and Order Commission to give “guidance” on controversial issues such as same-sex blessings and gay ordinations.

The commission was put forward as a proposal this week to the 650 bishops attending the Lambeth Conference as a way of preserving the future unity of the Anglican Communion. Insiders compared it with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the body formerly headed by the present Pope as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and previously known as the Holy Office or Inquisition.

This morning’s “observations” document is the second in a series of three. The third will be published next week. The document says: “Anglicans are currently failing to recognise Church in one another.”

Read it all.

A postcolonial conversation, a critique of colonialism involving patient listening and that includes everyone equally, is long overdue, yet most Anglicans tend to avoid the discussion, said the Rev. Joe Duggan, an Episcopal priest from the Diocese of Los Angeles and a doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester’s Lincoln Theological Institute (LTI).

LTI, along with the Journal of Anglican Studies, co-sponsored the panel discussion, “Anglican Identities and the Postcolonial,” a Lambeth Conference “fringe event” held at the University of Kent’s Darwin Hall. Featured speakers included: Robert Young, author and a professor of English and Comparative Literature at New York University; Bishop James Tengatenga of Southern Malawi; Bishop Mano Rumalshah of Pakistan; and Bishop Assistant Stephen Pickard of Adelaide in the Anglican Province of Australia.

Duggan said the panel discussion was planned for Monday, the day bishops would be addressing Anglican identity and mission. “We wanted to initiate a global conversation about what is the postcolonial in a way”¦not caught up in polarization with controversy in the debate, but a patient listening. Our hope is that you’ll take these questions back to your dioceses.

“There’s never been a Lambeth Conference that’s looked at what is the theology and ecclesiology after the colonial period,” Duggan told the gathering of about 75. “If you look at Anglican theologians around the world, the space given to colonialism is very brief and very short. So it’s not surprising we’re in the situation we are. We are trying to step back and provide resources”¦to begin asking the questions.”

Read it all.

Is there an argument for weakening the authority of Canterbury over Anglican churches in other countries? Theologian Theo Hobson and the Right Reverend Nick Baines, the Bishop of Croydon, discuss the importance of international relations within the Church.

Go here and head down to the segment for 08 40.

In contrast to scholars like Ian Douglas, subsequently her professor at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as well as a member of the design group for this year’s Lambeth Conference, who propose a vision of globalization which she describes as “diversity globalism”–that is, “characterized by the affirmation of cultural and experiential diversity” and “nothing more clearly defined than general mutual good will”–Hassett writes that conservative Northerners and Southerners have together built various networks into the interconnected structure she labels “accountability globalism”:

This is no veiled anti-globalism or reactionary vision, in which older authority structures of white male Euro-American dominance are reestablished to maintain order in an increasingly complex worldwide organization. Instead, this conservative vision embraces the diversity and complexity of the contemporary world…call[ing] for power to shift away from traditional centers and to locate instead in a worldwide network of church leaders united in their commitment to Anglican orthodoxy. New, global patterns of discipline are envisioned in the service of correction, help, and, above all, accountability among Anglican churches around the globe.

While Anglicans, like Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians, have historically organized their ecclesiastical polities around local bishops whose jurisdiction is largely defined by territorial boundaries, Hassett sees the potential of the nascent affinity networks which are manifestations of accountability globalism to radically transform relationships within the church:

[P]articular connections between individuals, parishes, dioceses, and provinces…bypass and even subvert the centralized, nested geographical authority structure of the Communion. It remains to be seen whether the total “realignment” of the Communion into networked clusters of Anglican bodies defined by affinity rather than geographical proximity will come to pass…Today many believe that such networks will become, functionally if not officially, the new organizing structure of the whole Anglican Communion.

Read it all.

The answers the fellowship develops to the practical questions raised above in relation to the “how?” question are vital. They will also likely in large part depend on the actions of Lambeth and the Instruments. The ball is therefore now in the court of Lambeth and the Archbishop of Canterbury. They must consider how they will relate to GAFCON and whether they can offer a more constructive and truly conciliar way of addressing the questions we face. In particular these are the urgent questions concerning reform of the Instruments, the need for an Anglican Covenant, and the necessity (perhaps the fruit of the Windsor Continuation Group) for a clearer and more decisive Communion response to those bishops and churches who continue determinedly to reject the Communion’s repeated requests for restraint and repentance since the last Lambeth conference.

Instant reactions to GAFCON are, sadly, in our day and age necessary and inevitable. This is especially so when its proponents, warning against delay, call on people and congregations to take a stand and make what they describe as fundamental choices in the face of what they portray as a false gospel. There are, however, high levels of fear, anger and past hurts on all sides in the current climate and the power of the existing political alliances and prejudices surrounding GAFCON cannot be denied. These factors ”“ together with the complexity of the current situation – mean it is vitally important that GAFCON’s proposals and reactions to them do not get so fixed that they fuel further breaches in bonds of affection. All of us””from individuals and parishes being urged to sign up in support of GAFCON to the hundreds of Anglican bishops gathering later this month at Lambeth””need time for prayerful discernment as to what God is saying and doing in these tumultuous times and what part GAFCON plays in his reshaping of Anglicanism.

Read it all.