Readers are encouraged to read through much related material to the House of Bishops study document at this (relatively new) website–KSH.

(ENS)

Mary Frances Schjonberg

The Theology Committee of the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops on June 1 released a study document aimed at helping the bishops respond to the requests made to them by the Primates of the Anglican Communion.

The 15-page “Communion Matters: A Study Document for the Episcopal Church” is available online. A color PDF version of the document is available here. A black-and-white PDF version is here.

Theology Committee chair and Alabama Bishop Henry Parsley told Episcopal News Service that the report is meant for bishops to use in conversation with the people of their dioceses in the three and a half months between now and the mid-September meeting of the House of Bishops in New Orleans. Rather than call for responses from individual Episcopalians, Parsley said the committee will in late August and early September gather input from bishops on the result of their conversations in their dioceses.

He said the committee hopes that Episcopalians will “read, mark, inwardly digest and then come talk” about the document with their bishop.

“Every diocese will have to do that in their own way,” he said. “We didn’t want it to be an individual thing. We wanted it to be a diocesan, corporate process overseen by the bishop.”

Parsley said the corporate nature of the conversations is important, given the nature of the requests made by the Primates at the end of their February gathering in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania via a communiqué.

“The Anglican tradition is always that bishops are in the midst of the people of God and, when thinking about important matters, need to take counsel with the deacons, priests and laypersons in order to be well-informed and to listen to the Church,” he said. “We felt that since the communiqué addresses the request to the House of Bishops in response to resolutions of General Convention, we couldn’t just act unilaterally. We needed to take counsel with the people of the Church in responding to the communiqué.”

He added that bishops need to exercise their “unique role as chief pastors and teachers … but we exercise it best when we are in conversation with — in counsel with — the Church in our dioceses.”

“Communion Matters” begins with a preface in which the committee writes that it offers the document “as a contribution to the discernment of this church as we seek the mind of Christ and endeavor to be faithful to our calling as members of the Anglican family in the world.”

It includes three chapters of information, a set of questions for reflection and resources for more background.

The preface says that the guide aims to be a summary, not an exhaustive history.

“Constraints of space and concerns about maintaining easy readability prevent us from recounting all the important details of the conversation taking place in our church and Communion,” the committee writes. “We hope that we have faithfully described the essentials.”

Parsley reiterated the preface’s hope. “We wanted this to be readable, brief and accessible to all of our people,” he said. “In that way, it’s a little simpler than some people might want, but we want it to be read and stimulate conversation.”

The chapter on “Relationships within the Anglican Communion” says that the Communion matters because “in this fellowship all give and receive many gifts,” “it enables us to be disciples in a global context,” “we have sought it for many years,” and “the maintenance of mutuality and trust with the Communion effects future mission opportunities.”

The next chapter, titled “Our Special Charism as Anglican Christians,” says that Anglicans have always valued the via media — “the middle way between polarities” — as a “faithful theological method.”

The chapter describes the via media as an approach that “acknowledges paradox and believes even apparent opposites may be reconciled or transcended.”

“Moreover, many within our church believe this is a good thing and a major charism (gift),” the chapter says. “In our own day, we especially need to preserve this special Anglican charism, not only for our own Communion but for all Christians.”

The third chapter sets the Dar es Salaam communiqué in the context of the Communion’s on-going debate about human sexuality, noting that “because the Communion has no central constitution and no form of synod or council beyond that of each province, issues of authority and conciliarity can present acute challenges for the maintenance of communion.”

The chapter references the 1998 Lambeth Conference debate and the previous objections by the Primates Meeting, traces the Windsor Report process, outlines the Episcopal Church’s response to the Report, summarizes how the Primates Meeting came to be and summarizes the pertinent parts of the communiqué and the House of Bishops’ statements about it to date.

The House of Bishops has already responded to a portion of the communiqué. In three “Mind of the House” resolutions passed during their March meeting, the bishops said, in part, that the Primates’ proposed “pastoral scheme” for dealing with disaffected Episcopal Church dioceses “would be injurious to The Episcopal Church.” The bishops urged that the Executive Council “decline to participate in it.”

The communiqué gave the bishops of the Episcopal Church until September 30 to “make an unequivocal common covenant that the bishops will not authorize any Rite of Blessing for same-sex unions in their dioceses or through General Convention” and “confirm that the passing of Resolution B033 of the 75th General Convention means that a candidate for episcopal orders living in a same-sex union shall not receive the necessary consent; unless some new consensus on these matters emerges across the Communion.”

The third chapter states that these two requests “raise significant issues about the role of the primates in the Anglican Communion, Anglican ecclesiology, and the role of the House of Bishops in the Episcopal Church,” including:

“Are such requests appropriately addressed by the bishops as chief pastors and teachers, or more representatively by the General Convention?”
“How best may theological and mission development take place in churches which are ”˜autonomous in communion’?” and
“How can the Communion appropriately consult about important matters such as these without a centralization of authority that is unknown to Anglicanism?”
The three chapters are followed by a series of eight questions for reflection with some background on each question, and then a page of online resources for more background. When viewed on a computer in its PDF form, the clickable links on the resources page send readers to electronic versions of the documents.

“As bishops we are charged in ordination to guard the faith and unity of the Church. Being charged with this task does not mean it falls to us alone,” the document concludes. “This study document is written to allow us to hear and receive the response of the whole of this province so that together we might respond faithfully as a constituent member of this great Communion.”

In addition to Parsley, the members of the Theology Committee are David Alvarez of Puerto Rico; Joe Burnett of Nebraska; Robert W. Ihloff, recently retired of Maryland; Carolyn T. Irish of Utah; Paul V. Marshall of Bethlehem; Steven A. Miller of Milwaukee and Jeffrey Steenson of Rio Grande.

The Rev. Dr. Ian Douglas, an Executive Council member and professor at Episcopal Divinity School, is the committee’s consulting theologian. Douglas also worked as a liaison between the Theology Committee and a subcommittee of the Executive Council’s International Concerns Committee (INC), which released a six-page study guide to the draft version of the proposed Anglican Covenant.

The covenant guide calls for congregations and individuals to submit responses by June 4. Responses will be used in the creation of a response by the Executive Council at its October meeting in Detroit, Michigan.

Prior to that, at the Council’s June meeting in Parsippany, New Jersey, INC will propose that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson appoint a Covenant Review Group to follow the covenant-development process, enable comments from the wider Episcopal Church and provide comments on behalf of the church to the Communion’s Covenant Design Group.

The Covenant process is, in practice, by-passing these questions, acting on the implicit assumption that we already have the answers ”“ that they are known and must be obeyed; so all we need to do is to set up the slow inexorable process of exclusion of those who question the traditional understanding of the answers. The Primates are demanding that ECUSA give assurances that they will cease giving any sanction to practices which go against Resolution 1.10 (Lambeth 1998) (Note 3), and the Archbishop of Canterbury in his letter to the Primates (5thMar 07) refers again to this requirement.

What has happened to the vital consideration of issues raised in the Windsor Report concerning ”˜essentials and non-essentials’ (”˜adiaphora’) ”“ core doctrines as opposed to other teaching? (Windsor paras 36f, 49, 87f). All this is in practice being put to one side. Why are we not, as a Communion seeking to find common ground regarding methods and principles of biblical interpretation, which are common to those involved in biblical scholarship across denominational boundaries? Or at very least clarify where we differ in regard to our hermeneutical criteria? Instead we are avoiding these crucial matters.

4) Covenant Design sets up procedures for exclusion
This is no exaggeration, because it must be known that ECUSA and the Canadian Province cannot be expected to ”˜back down’ from the convictions that they have come to over decades, in their understanding, in good faith, of how the Holy Spirit has led them in seeking answers to the above two fundamental questions. Yet Section 6 of the Draft Covenant makes clear provision for their exclusion if they fail to ”˜fall in line’: note the injunction “to heedthe counsel of the Instruments of Communion (para 4) and the reference to the Primates as giving direction (para 5.3). But far more specific is para 6, of this section: “where member churches choose not to fulfil the substance of the covenant as understood by the Councils of the Instruments of Communion, we will consider that such churches will have relinquished for themselves the force and meaning of the covenant’s purpose, and a process of restoration and renewal will be required to re-establish their covenant relationship with other member churches.” To what else can this possibly refer, but to excluding Provinces which believe they are called to affirm committed same-sex partnerships? And yet this is being proposed while avoiding any further rigorous theological and hermeneutical debate on the matter, let alone a serious listening to our gay brothers and sisters in the Communion who long to be affirmed in their committed partnerships.

5) The Communion needs to acknowledge the reality of a re-assessment of certain teachings
Concerning the two crucial questions which connect us all in this wrestling debate, there are two realities: there is the reality of the traditional teaching which the majority still hold to, and there is the reality of a reassessment of the traditional teaching which many believe to be prompted by the Holy Spirit. It is these realities which need to be respected. It is the challenge of the above two questions which need to be addressed. How can the Communion set in motion what is in practice a ”˜process of exclusion’ when the theological and hermeneutical questions are at best being shelved, if not being deliberately avoided.

Read it all.

One of the most significant failures of modern progressive Episcopalians is the belief that the application of reason to any given conflict will ultimately prove effective in convincing our opponents of the correctness of our cause.

This is proved false again and again, of course; people are often irrational. But our own innate ”“ sometimes arrogant ”“ belief in the reasonableness of humanity and its susceptibility to what we perceive as rational discourse seems to have the ability to overwhelm the mountains of evidence to the contrary.

This is clearly the case in the current struggle within the Anglican Communion. The majority in the Episcopal Church continues to maintain a tolerant attitude to those within our own province and in Africa who have adopted a stance toward our actions that has profound echoes of the scapegoating and exclusion that the first Puritans practiced.

It should be said that the perception of Episcopalian tolerance by these Puritan heirs is quite different than our own self-understanding. Part of their concern is, I think, that the very beliefs they abhor will be imposed on them, either by canonical action or the pressure of the majority. Calming fears is surely a part of toleration.

Yet those who stand against our vision are driven by a narrow imperial ideology that denies our right simply to exist and seeks to delegitimize our identity as Anglicans. The overall conservative message ”“ certainly presented by the leadership cadre of this group ”“ is “Think as we think, be ”˜our sort of Christian,’ or we will seek to exclude you from the Anglican community of Christians.”

Such rhetoric is not an empty threat. We continue to see well-planned and organized attempts to bring about the replacement of the Episcopal Church as the U.S. embodiment of Anglicanism by such groups as the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Communion Network, Forward in Faith North America, and, most recently, the “Convocation of Anglicans in North America” (Archbishop of Nigeria Peter Akinola’s extra-territorial “Nigerian” mission to the U.S.A.).

And such a strategy is being pursued elsewhere in the Anglican Communion, most notably in Canada, England, and Australia.

Until now we have not prepared well to face this assault. And so we have been blinded to this narrow totalitarian vision seeping into our nation’s and our faith’s ”“ and even our Communion’s ”“ DNA. It is a vision that threatens to destroy our open North American society and emerging Christian identity.

Read it alll.

In his book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman explains how our world has shrunk. Thanks to instant information and rapid transportation, hierarchical structures have been flattened.

One global organization that should be ideally positioned for this transformation is the Christian Church. The genius of its founder was that it was designed to be “flat;” small groups with a common vision, a common language of faith, and international networks that crossed national boundaries. As often happens, initial flexibility was soon lost and replaced by more predictable and controllable structures and the early vision forgotten while waiting for another fresh wave of inspiration and creativity.

We are witnessing such a new wave. A prime example is the Anglican Communion – an international community of more than 75 million in 164 countries, ordered into 38 separate provinces.

In the good old days mandates, money and missionaries flowed from the traditional power base of London and, more recently, New York to their grateful recipients in the developing world. But that is all changing now and we have, as noted Penn State religion and history professor Philip Jenkins describes it, ‘A New Christendom’ where much of the energy, leadership and vision now come from the Global South. The old ways of doing church are being shaken and we are rediscovering what it means to be part of a truly global community.

One example is the birth of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, or CANA. It was first conceived as a way to provide a safe harbor for Nigerian Anglicans who no longer felt welcome in The Episcopal Church because of its deliberate distancing from traditional mainstream Christianity but now includes a growing number of other Anglican congregations from across America.

This realignment isn’t simply about issues of human sexuality but on the other much more basic questions such as the role and authority of the Scriptures and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. It is part of an emerging movement of formerly Episcopal churches and new congregations, which are breaking out of their hierarchical straightjackets and connecting directly with other parts of the Anglican Communion. What unites them is a vision for global Christianity; a commitment to a common language of faith and abiding friendships that connect across challenging cultural divides.

Read it all.

(ACNS)

Members of the TEAC (Theological Education for the Anglican Communion) Working Group held a consultation in Singapore 10-16 May 2007, to explore ”˜The Anglican Way in theological education’. Participants in the consultation included members of TEAC’s Steering Group and Anglican Way Target Group, as well as a number of other people who brought particular expertise and helpful cross-links to the process.’The meeting was honoured with the presence and contributions of Archbishop Rowan Williams for two days of its discussions. Participants in the consultation explored how the Anglican Way was informed by specific concerns; e.g. contextual issues, educational process, recent developments in Anglican ecclesiology and Anglican ecumenical conversations. A key document ”˜The Anglican Way: Signposts on a Common Journey’, which seeks to set out key parameters of the Anglican Way as a framework for Anglican theological education, was agreed by the consultation (see below for the complete text of this document). A number of specific projects to help resource the teaching of the Anglican Way were devised and will be developed over the coming months. Additionally, the meeting provided an opportunity to welcome TEAC’s new Regional Associates and induct them to their tasks.

Members of the consultation wish to express their special thanks to Archbishop John Chew, the clergy and people of the Diocese of Singapore, and the Principal and staff of Trinity Theological College for the gracious welcome they received and the considerable help that was offered which enabled the smooth running of the consultation. ‘TEAC is also grateful to the St Augustine’s Foundation who generously funded the meeting.

Theological Education for the Anglican Communion (TEAC) The Anglican Way: Signposts on a Common Journey[1]

This document has emerged as part of a four-year process in which church leaders, theologians and educators have come together from around the world to discuss the teaching of Anglican identity, life and practice. They clarified the characteristic ways in which Anglicans understand themselves and their mission in the world. These features, described as the ”˜Anglican Way’, were intended to form the basis for how Anglicanism is taught at all levels of learning involving laity, clergy and bishops. This document is not intended as a comprehensive definition of Anglicanism, but it does set in place signposts which guide Anglicans on their journey of self-understanding and Christian discipleship. The journey is on-going because what it means to be Anglican will be influenced by context and history. Historically a number of different forms of being Anglican have emerged, all of which can be found in the rich diversity of present-day Anglicanism. But Anglicans also have their commonalities, and it is these which hold them together in communion through ”˜bonds of affection’. The signposts set out below are offered in the hope that they will point the way to a clearer understanding of Anglican identity and ministry, so that all Anglicans can be effectively taught and equipped for their service to God’s mission in the world.

The Anglican Way is a particular expression of the Christian Way of being the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ. It is formed by and rooted in Scripture, shaped by its worship of the living God, ordered for communion, and directed in faithfulness to God’s mission in the world. In diverse global situations Anglican life and ministry witnesses to the incarnate, crucified and risen Lord, and is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Together with all Christians, Anglicans hope, pray and work for the coming of the reign of God.

Formed by Scripture

As Anglicans we discern the voice of the living God in the Holy Scriptures, mediated by tradition and reason. We read the Bible together, corporately and individually, with a grateful and critical sense of the past, a vigorous engagement with the present, and with patient hope for God’s future.
We cherish the whole of Scripture for every aspect of our lives, and we value the many ways in which it teaches us to follow Christ faithfully in a variety of contexts. We pray and sing the Scriptures through liturgy and hymnody. Lectionaries connect us with the breadth of the Bible, and through preaching we interpret and apply the fullness of Scripture to our shared life in the world.
Accepting their authority, we listen to the Scriptures with open hearts and attentive minds. They have shaped our rich inheritance: for example, the ecumenical creeds of the early Church, the Book of Common Prayer, and Anglican formularies such as the Articles of Religion, catechisms and the Lambeth Quadrilateral.
In our proclamation and witness to the Word Incarnate we value the tradition of scholarly engagement with the Scriptures from earliest centuries to the present day. We desire to be a true learning community as we live out our faith, looking to one another for wisdom, strength and hope on our journey. We constantly discover that new situations call for fresh expressions of a scripturally informed faith and spiritual life.
Shaped through Worship

Our relationship with God is nurtured through our encounter with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in word and sacrament. This experience enriches and shapes our understanding of God and our communion with one another.
As Anglicans we offer praise to the Triune Holy God, expressed through corporate worship, combining order with freedom. In penitence and thanksgiving we offer ourselves in service to God in the world.
Through our liturgies and forms of worship we seek to integrate the rich traditions of the past with the varied cultures of our diverse communities.
As broken and sinful persons and communities, aware of our need of God’s mercy, we live by grace through faith and continually strive to offer holy lives to God. Forgiven through Christ and strengthened by word and sacrament, we are sent out into the world in the power of the Spirit.
Ordered for Communion

In our episcopally led and synodically governed dioceses and provinces, we rejoice in the diverse callings of all the baptized. As outlined in the ordinals, the threefold servant ministries of bishops, priests and deacons assist in the affirmation, coordination and development of these callings as discerned and exercised by the whole people of God.
As worldwide Anglicans we value our relationships with one another. We look to the Archbishop of Canterbury as a focus of unity and gather in communion with the See of Canterbury. In addition we are sustained through three formal instruments of communion: The Lambeth Conference, The Anglican Consultative Council and The Primates’ Meeting. The Archbishop of Canterbury and these three instruments offer cohesion to global Anglicanism, yet limit the centralisation of authority. They rely on bonds of affection for effective functioning.
We recognise the contribution of the mission agencies and other international bodies such as the Mothers’ Union. Our common life in the Body of Christ is also strengthened by commissions, task groups, networks of fellowship, regional activities, theological institutions and companion links.
Directed by God’s Mission

As Anglicans we are called to participate in God’s mission in the world, by embracing respectful evangelism, loving service and prophetic witness. As we do so in all our varied contexts, we bear witness to and follow Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Saviour. We celebrate God’s reconciling and life-giving mission through the creative, costly and faithful witness and ministry of men, women and children, past and present, across our Communion.
Nevertheless, as Anglicans we are keenly aware that our common life and engagement in God’s mission are tainted with shortcomings and failure, such as negative aspects of colonial heritage, self-serving abuse of power and privilege, undervaluing of the contributions of laity and women, inequitable distribution of resources, and blindness to the experience of the poor and oppressed. As a result, we seek to follow the Lord with renewed humility so that we may freely and joyfully spread the good news of salvation in word and deed.
Confident in Christ, we join with all people of good will as we work for God’s peace, justice and reconciling love. We recognise the immense challenges posed by secularisation, poverty, unbridled greed, violence, religious persecution, environmental degradation, and HIV/Aids. In response, we engage in prophetic critique of destructive political and religious ideologies, and we build on a heritage of care for human welfare expressed through education, health care and reconciliation.
In our relationships and dialogue with other faith communities we combine witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ with a desire for peace, and mutual respect and understanding.
As Anglicans, baptized into Christ, we share in the mission of God with all Christians and are deeply committed to building ecumenical relationships. Our reformed catholic tradition has proved to be a gift we are able to bring to ecumenical endeavour. We invest in dialogue with other churches based on trust and a desire that the whole company of God’s people may grow into the fullness of unity to which God calls us that the world may believe the gospel.
TEAC Anglican Way Consultation Singapore, May 2007

1. This document currently has only the authority of the TEAC meeting in Singapore which agreed the text.

For a long time a number of posters on House of Bishops/deputies listserv and prominent TEC leaders have gone on and on about the Anglican Communion’s Instruments of Unity having no real authority.

What is interesting to me about Archbishop Williams statement is that he acknowledges the authority he has to invite, or not to invite, indeed possibly even to withdraw a given invitation, to the Lambeth Conference. He then chooses (in a rare instance in Anglican history) to exercise that authority in a few “cases.”

This goes all the way back to Mend the Net.

So let’s end the fiction that the instruments do not really exist, or that they don’t matter, or don’t have any real authority.

They do have authority. And we do seek to be an Anglican Communion. Whether we ever become what God wants us to remains to be seen–KSH