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.
what is TSAD?
TSAD = The Saint Andrew’s Draft (of the proposed new Anglican Covenant).
This is a typically thoughtful piece by Dr. Turner. While it is useful to consider the critical question of church governance raised in this lecture, however, ultimately I am left with the sense that he is missing a major point. Although Dr. Turner acknowledges at the start of his lecture that the crisis the Anglican Communion finds itself in is “theological and moral at its root,” he effectively goes on to ignore these theological and moral root issues so as to suggest that the real underlying issue is one of church order. This argument is much in line with the ACI position generally. Although they are certainly right that the Communion is dealing with a series of complex issues relating to church order, I don’t accept that these issues are the fundamental ones.
If we don’t confront the basic moral and theological failings in the Communion, no amount of reordering of our common life together is going to help. There’s a tendency here to over-intellectualize the problem and to reduce it to concerns about process. Process is certainly part of the problem, and a serious part of the problem, but if the root theological and moral issues are not addressed, no covenant will save us. Four instruments of Communion have not solved the basic problem, there is little to suggest that a fifth or a sixth instrument will help us any more than the existing four have.
The problem that Dr. Turner and his colleagues at ACI fail to tackle head-on is the root theological and moral crisis. What is that crisis? The crisis is, simply put, a failure to confront heresy. The problem of heresy is a very old one and it’s one that the church catholic has been confronting from the beginning. As a number of Primates are now openly acknowledging, there are two faiths inhabiting the Anglican Communion, and one of them is NOT Christianity! Just as the Nestorian and Arian heresies could not have ultimately been resolved through addressing issues of “order,” neither will the current heresy be resolved ultimately through a covenant or any other instrument of Communion. It will be resolved through courage, sacrifice, and honest confrontation. Such confrontation will not be neat, nor will it be pleasant — confronting heresy never has been. Transformation is not going to proceed in the ordered way that Dr. Turner and his colleagues at ACI want it to, but the good news is that it is happening anyway! Anglicanism is proving itself capable, on a global level, of confronting heresy. The failure has been moral and theological at the most profound level, which is why the “instruments of Communion” have proven insufficient. More instruments will not fix this problem – only moral courage and theological clarity will.
Anglicanism is evolving. We’re at a major moment of transformation in the life of Anglican Christianity. Change is coming, that much is clear. What’s also clear is that this change is not going to proceed in the neat procedural ways that Dr. Turner and ACI are talking about. It’s going to get a lot messier before this is over. The good news is that at the other end of this moment of transformation the Anglican witness to the gospel will be both different and stronger than it now is, and that ultimately, is a very good thing!
#3 Chris Taylor notes that my essay has failed to wrestle with the primary issue, which is heresy. His chides me (and ACI) for jumping to the secondary issue of church order. In order to prevent a long series of comments that argue over a point that is not at issue, I believe it is important to say that in a way Mr. Taylor’s response is to an essay I did not write, but have written in the past. The chief issue is indeed an inadequate and on occasion heretical grasp of Christian belief and practice. ACI has always understood this to be the case. The issue of this essay, however, is that the Anglican Communion does not at present have, as a communion, an adequate way to address divisions over belief and practice . The covenant proposal is one that provides a way to do so–one to which the provinces are being asked to commit themselves in order to remain a communion and not a federation. The result of not having an adequate form of Communion order is a number of ad hoc reactions that do not themselves remedy disputes over belief and practice, but do lead to increasing divisions within the Communion as contending groups each in their own way seek to address the issue in dispute.
Philip Turner
“The issue of this essay, however, is that the Anglican Communion does not at present have, as a communion, an adequate way to address divisions over belief and practice .” This is where we disagree. The problem is far less a lack of adequacy than a lack of will and courage – a core problem which will not be resolved by yet more process. However, the problem is now increasingly being honestly confronted by a growing number of orthodox primates. I understand you point and your analysis of the problem, Dr. Turner, I just disagree with it. All blessings.
I find myself in agreement with Chris Taylor in #3, and I think that the question of true and false doctrine is an issue a Covenant cannot afford to dodge. To say that a Province has “relinquished the force and meaning of the Covenant†and has (but retains) a “diminished status†is not the same as saying, “You are a false teacher and misleading the flock of Christ†(see the Exhortation in the 1662 Ordinal).
The failure of “truthful language†(to quote Ephraim Radner) in the final section of TSAD has real consequences, especially for those who cannot in good conscience remain in communion with heretics or who are themselves excommunicated in a heretical body. Under TSAD, the following situation will likely occur. TEC will choose for itself a “diminished status†while retaining “bilateral relations†with a dozen Covenanting provinces. The ACNA, on the other hand, will have bilateral relations with the GAFCON and other Global South Provinces, but under no circumstances or at any time will ACNA ever be permitted to enjoy Covenant membership, even if it is in full accord with the doctrinal commitments of the Covenant. Even if ACNA bowed the knee and returned to TEC, its churches and people would still have no recognition so long as TEC remained “diminished.â€
Now Philip Turner and the ACI seem to recognize this problem and propose that dioceses might be recognized as Covenant partners. (see the[url=http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/20294/#comments] Comments on Philip Turner’s earlier essay [/url] ). I suppose in one respect this proposal helps some North American Anglicans, but only those who reside in orthodox dioceses that can withstand the legal and canonical pressures of TEC. But why should, say, the Diocese of Dallas be granted Covenant status apart from the TEC and the Diocese of Pittsburgh refused simply because the former remains formally part of a “diminished†province.
Dr. Turner has said that the current Instruments of Communion have found no way to enforce discipline, and the Covenant is the fifth Instrument that will now provide that discipline. But it seems the Covenant itself, by creating the limbo of provincial “diminished status†and refusing all or most orthodox in that province koinonia in the wider Communion, is building in the very weakness which has caused the other Instruments to fail. Why not build into the Covenant an exclusion clause that will open the door to recognition of others (as was done in the “To Mend the Net†proposal of 2001)?
I can see two objections to doing the latter. The first is that to exclude a province like TEC is to reject the possibility of repentance, that a prodigal church might wish to return to the Communion. This is not an insuperable problem. The repentant body would be asked to be rejoin the orthodox church in that region. Humiliating, yes, but no more so than what has been accorded those orthodox who are now being presented with permanent separation on grounds of conscience.
The second objection is that it is not [i]politically[/i] possible for the Covenant Drafting Group and the Instruments to include such a provision. This may be, but then it is not the inability of the present Instruments to recognize heresy but their unwillingness to do so, which brings us back to Chris Taylor’s point in #5. It is for this reason that I would urge those who do seek a restoration of true koinonia in the Anglican Communion to move outside the box that has been built by the Instruments (especially Canterbury) over the past decade. That is what GAFCON is seeking to do, to stand outside the gate and call for a larger reform and renewal of Anglicanism, both doctrinal and ecclesiological.
Noll and Taylor do not say the same thing. Turner indicates that heretical problems must be addressed, but this was not the burden of this lecture. As for Taylor: what is the form of disciplining that will work longterm, for which the will and courage are lacking? Speaking of endless process has a nice rhetorical effect, but are people like Archbishop Chew simply benighted in their efforts formally to construct a modus operandi for exercising long term order and consequence? Of course this could fail. ACI wants the effort to be made and it applauds the efforts of +Chew and others to create a formal means for that.
Of course ‘moving outside the box’ sounds like a happy resolution or tertium quid, whilst for others it sounds like an avoidance of addressing the problem where it is.
It’s interesting.
Turner says this: “The issue of this essay, however, is that the Anglican Communion does not at present have, as a communion, an adequate way to address divisions over belief and practice.”
And Taylor says this: “The problem is far less a lack of adequacy than a lack of will and courage – a core problem which will not be resolved by yet more process.”
My question for Taylor then is this.
If it is true that the issue of disciplining a province that causes “divisions over faith and practice” is a “lack of will and courage” then by what means do you propose that the Anglican Communion use that will and courage in the discipline of Sydney as it moves toward the practice of lay celebration of the Eucharist?
Turner would say this about the Sydney situation: “the Anglican Communion does not at present have, as a communion, an adequate way to address divisions over belief and practice.”
What would Taylor say?
Chew has abandoned AMiA in a misguided effort to hold the Communion togeher.
To Prof. Seitz Taylor would say that the form of disciplining heretical deviation that will work long-term is to confront heresy directly and head-on. To name it, to point a bright light at it, to expose it fully for what it is, to challenge it both theologically and institutionally, to be honest and clear about what the problem is. If the institutional structures of the Communion have failed, if the leadership of the Communion has failed, then they too must be challenged and confronted. Does any of this sound familiar? This is ultimately how the challenge of heresy is always met. Nothing is new here, and this is what the orthodox primates are doing — in a variety of ways. There is no question that there are critical issues of order, no one is denying that, but the problem, at its root, is not one of order. Without detracting from the important issues ACI raises about order, it is possible to point out that the root problem is fundamentally not one of order, and, therefore, it cannot ultimately be resolved by addressing issues of order alone. Heresy, in fact, has and continues to benefit from the endless navel gazing that debates about order can and have degenerated into. What we have here is a paralysis of analysis, which is obscuring a fairly simple but horrible reality.
I am not arguing that the discussions of the Covenant are unimportant or irrelevant, they are, in fact, quite important. But they alone are not what is going to turn the tide. The Covenant might be, I think, an important way of confronting the true crisis in the Communion, but it is not the most important way. I do not think that the Covenant alone would have much effect, or at least not much more effect that the other four instruments that have already failed. My argument is that the crisis is so profound, and the instruments of Communion have proven so unable to meet it that radically new strategies have become necessary. Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, and I think that has been the case here. What is driving change and providing hope now is open honest confrontation, of the sort GAFCON and ACNA are engaging in. I would add that I think that to the extent that the proposed covenant has any hope at all will also be a function of the challenge and the pressure that the primates of GAFCON continue to apply to the historic instruments of the Communion. These historic instruments of Communion have already demonstrated that, left to their own devices, they unable or unwilling to meet the challenge. The reasserters have finally taken a page from the revisionists, and the former now realize what the latter have always known, that the instruments of the Communion will only respond when you change the facts on the ground. The proposed covenant and the instruments of Communion may indeed yet play important roles, but they will not play the decisive role that you think they will. These institutional structures have proven themselves repeatedly to be merely reactive in diffusing immediate crisis, not restorative and certainly not confrontational – even when that was critical.
I fully appreciate that you would prefer all of this to be much more orderly and conform to proper institutional process, but the depth and the extent of the crisis is now too great for that. Evolutional transformation of the magnitude we’re dealing with now will not be shaped by the very institutions that it is eclipsing.
Finally, to Sarah I would say that the issues raised by lay presidency in Sydney are of a profoundly different character than the ones raised by the crisis in North America. In fact, I would argue that the questions raised by Sydney are very familiar questions to Anglicans and they go right back to founding tensions in Anglicanism. This does not make them simple, but these are issues that Anglicans have faced for centuries. I am sure that resolving the issues Sydney is raising will not be easy, and we may not be able to resolve them ultimately to everyone’s satisfaction. However, the conversations that will be taking place between the Communion and Sydney will be conversations between people who share the Christian faith. That’s not what’s going on in conversations with the leadership of TEC and AC of C. To put these two different sorts of issues on the same level is to fundamentally misunderstand the complexity of the true crisis in the Communion.
RE: “To put these two different sorts of issues on the same level . . . ”
Right, but as I did not do that, that still doesn’t answer my question.
Turner stated that there is no adequate way to address divisions over belief and practice. You said yes there is. There is no question that the Sydney actions and beliefs are “divisions over belief and practice” and theologically-based to boot. No other province in the Anglican Communion believes as Sydney does about the nature of the priesthood or about the sacraments.
So my question again: “by what means do you propose that the Anglican Communion use that will and courage in the discipline of Sydney as it moves toward the practice of lay celebration of the Eucharist?”
You mainly said that we can’t resolve them to everyone’s satisfaction and implied that we should have conversations.
That sounds alarmingly like other things that other people have said over the past five years about something that I think is far worse. So far — unless I hear an answer that says something more than “no satisfaction for everyone” and “conversations” — I’m inclined to believe what Turner says: “the Anglican Communion does not at present have, as a communion, an adequate way to address divisions over belief and practice.”
If we were off disciplining the likes of Sydney et al, and refusing to discipline TEC, then I could see what Taylor is talking about. But we’re not. We’re fumbling around in precisely the same way: “conversations” and “no satisfaction.”
RE: “But it seems the Covenant itself, by creating the limbo of provincial “diminished status†and refusing all or most orthodox in that province koinonia in the wider Communion, is building in the very weakness which has caused the other Instruments to fail.”
Where does the Covenant refuse “all or most orthodox in that province”? The diocese of Pittsburgh has a little under 8000 ASA, Fort Worth 7000 ASA, San Joaquin 4000, Quincy 1000. Then we throw in the 200 parishes who have departed and call that 20,000 ASA. So let’s say 40,000 orthodox in the part of the province that has left over the past five years and yet still retained an Anglican membership.
How is that “all or most orthodox in that province?”
Furthermore, continuing through Stephen Noll’s comment, RE: “under no circumstances or at any time will ACNA ever be permitted to enjoy Covenant membership, even if it is in full accord with the doctrinal commitments of the Covenant. Even if ACNA bowed the knee and returned to TEC, its churches and people would still have no recognition so long as TEC remained “diminished.†. . . why should, say, the Diocese of Dallas be granted Covenant status apart from the TEC and the Diocese of Pittsburgh refused simply because the former remains formally part of a “diminished†province.”
First of all, this question seems to be asking what would happen if the Covenant were to ever become operational and TEC self-excluded.
But I was under the impression that nobody in the ACNA had any illusions that this would happen. In fact, [i]the lack of any hope for discipline[/i] was one of the primary reasons why the dioceses and so many parishes had to leave TEC.
I find it frankly incredible that after years of [i]begging[/i] by various members and leaders of the Communion — and [i]written begging[/i] too in various Anglican Communion documents — for dioceses and parishes to not leave TEC because it would cause chaos and fragmentation beyond imagining as the Communion processes ground their way along — that barely is the ink dry on the “we’ve left and we’re starting our own province” document that we have people complaining that they might not be able to sign on to the Covenant because of this nasty and artificial and clearly minor issue of their having left in the first place.
Huh?
The mind boggles.
This is exactly the issue that so many many people from the ACI downward have been bleating about for years. And now — now that the four dioceses have left — someone like Stephen Noll is saying “but wait — what if we want back in after you guys have disciplined TEC — then what?”
The reason why the Diocese of Dallas should have Covenant status and not the Diocese of Pittsburgh is because . . . er . . . the Diocese of Dallas is still in the Anglican Communion and didn’t start a new Anglican denomination.
The talks that will have to go on with the Diocese of Pittsburgh et all will have to be talks with an entirely new organization — one that has, incidentally, purported to take on the baggage, for heavens sakes, of another denomination, the 130-year-old REC, and incidentally another denomination, the AMiA, which has a “special charism” of church planting everywhere that it’s warm, along with oodles — and I do mean oodles — of new bishops.
The talks with the ACNA will have to be ecumenical work — and that takes a long long time.
But take heart — I hold out only the smallest shred of hope that the Covenant will ever become operational at all. Should that miracle occur, then I suppose the ecumenical talks will begin.
Sarah (Hey, I presume), you state: “There is no question that the Sydney actions and beliefs are “divisions over belief and practice†and theologically-based to boot.” I would agree, but they are not of the same order, or even nature, as the divisions between TEC leadership and the orthodox majority of the Communion. Anglicans have been struggling over issues of the sort Sydney is raising from the inception of Anglicanism. This is what Anglicanism is! It tries to hold in tension reformed and catholic Christianity. Don’t you see in the Anglo-Catholic/Evangelical split the very same sorts of issues Sydney is raising? Sometimes these things cannot be held in tension and you end up with Methodists or, until recently, the REC. To be Anglican is to believe that these differences can, and, in fact, in a post-Reformation world MUST be held in tension. What cannot be held in tension, and here is where we disagree, is Christianity and heresy. My own tradition within Anglicanism is Anglo-Catholic, so I’m about as far from Sydney within Anglicanism as you can get, but I recognize my brothers and sisters in Sydney as believers in Christianity. I don’t believe that the leadership of TEC is Christian any longer. Your diagnosis of the nature of the crisis is simply different from mine.
RE: “To be Anglican is to believe that these differences can, and, in fact, in a post-Reformation world MUST be held in tension.”
Well, no — to be Anglican is to believe the via media between Rome and Geneva. Sydney Anglicans are far — very far — outside the via media, so far out that no other province agrees with them. They don’t believe in any sort of priesthood, nor sacraments.
I see that — despite the fact that the Sydney position is in fact just the sort of massive division “over belief and practice” that Philip Turner has indicated the Anglican Communion has no means of dealing with — you have been unable to provide an answer to my question — “by what means do you propose that the Anglican Communion use that will and courage in the discipline of Sydney as it moves toward the practice of lay celebration of the Eucharist?” and that furthermore your main response has been to try to water down and deny that it is, in fact, a massive division “over belief and practice.” It begs the question to say “well, the Sydney folks are Christians” when in fact, so are Baptists and Pentecostals and Presbyterians, but they are not in the Anglican Communion — Sydney folks are.
Your response is precisely what I would expect people to say who understand that “the Anglican Communion does not at present have, as a communion, an adequate way to address divisions over belief and practice.”
You’ve answered my question and affirmed Turner’s statement in your responses.
Thanks for the exchange.