The Diocese of Ottawa has said it will perform same-sex blessings, becoming the first Canadian Anglican diocese to make such a move since a ban was imposed on the practice by the international church.
The diocese said it is developing a liturgy and protocol for the rite and once they are created it will start performing the ceremonies for gay couples on a limited basis. But critics of same-sex blessings say those steps will widen the schism in the Canadian church.
Wonderful clarity. March on, lemmings!
What’s next ? Animal sacrifice? Come +Don Harvey…come and save the faithful.
Intercessor
So when’s ++Rowan’s next missive on the glories of shari’a coming out?
So, who’s the “Rogue Church” now, huh? (reference to an earlier post that called a church contemplating splitting from the Anglican Church of Canada a ‘rogue Anglican parish’).
Why are the ones who want to keep traditional Chrisitan teaching ‘rogue’ while those who split from that teaching are innovative?
I must have missed a meeting. When was a “ban imposed” and when did we become part of an “international church” instead of a worldwide communion of autonomous national churches. (Just because the secular press gets it wrong doesn’t mean we should.)
Rev. Russell:
The article was about the Anglican Church of Canada, not the Episcopal Church. Their General Synod imposed a ban on same sex marriages pending a review by the Primate’s theological commission. The ban is still in place pending changes to their marriage canons, anticipated to get first reading in ’10. If it passes, and it probably will given that most of us dinosaurs have left for ACNA, it will become possible for bishops to authorize SSM in ’13 after second reading.
What irks me is that Canon Moulton does not seem to be troubled by the mental gymnastics and sophistry required to make the violation of current canons into a part of a discernment process. As if calling skunk a housecat will get rid of the smell.
As far as the international aspect of the Communion goes, the Anglican Church of Canada is directly descended without any breaks from the Church of England in Canada. Two of the Provinces (and maybe all four) were incorporated by Acts of the British Parliament and still operate under successor legislation which name the connection with Canterbury as a primary object of the organization. Please do not confuse TEC and the Anglican Church of Canada; it may look as though they are identical, but the governance structures and foundational assumptions are quite different.
Note how when a diocese gets to this state of moral degradation it tosses aside even such simple precepts as basic honesty. They cannot bring themselves to say “We believe that this moratorium is wrong so we are not going to observe it.” Instead they pretend that open contravention of it is a way of observing it.
I’m curious Rev. Russell, what does the phrase: “worldwide communion of autonomous national churches” imply to you? Specifically, how do you hold together ‘communion’ with ‘autonomy’? I hope you will reply as I am honestly curious as to your answer.
Optimus [#8], as has been proposed before, a communion composed of autonomous churches is like an extended family composed of autonomous nuclear families.
[i] Wonderful clarity. March on, lemmings! [/i]
If it feels good, do it, eh?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[i] When was a “ban imposed� [/i]
Well, the ACoC and ECUSA are supposed to be complying with an open-ended moratorium. If you want independence, you’re free to go your own way.
So, D.C. and Susan, why do reappraisers tend to get so huffy when it’s pointed out that actions such as this break communion through openly flouting agreed-to moratoria?? If we’re just a bunch of “autonomous nuclear families,” how about dropping the pretense of desiring communion and WALKING APART?
Don’t go away angry…just go, and let those of us who want a real communion have one.
Pshaw, the Cannies are just trying to get into the limelight that the EUS/TEC/GCC/EO-PAC tries to get all the credit for. You know, to remind people that the NorteoAmericanos are no merely the ugly americans but also Canadians/Mexicans/Central Americans … but especially the Canadians.
“So, D.C. and Susan, why do reappraisers tend to get so huffy when it’s pointed out that actions such as this break communion through openly flouting agreed-to moratoria??”
Who agreed to these moratoria? They were thrown out by Rowan Williams at Lambeth. They elevated “border crossings” to SSU blessings and consecrations of homosexual bishops. This is despite DeS being quite clear that border crossings were not equivalent to homosexual blessings. The DeS requests were agreed to by everyone, including Ms Schori and Mr Hilz. And the moratoria said nothing about not ordaining homosexual priests…but they should have. And they should have requested homosexual priests stand down…but they didn’t. Those would have been in accord with Lambeth 1.10.
Joshua [#12], you don’t want a ‘real communion’; we’ve had one of those — a loose federation of autonomous national churches — for some 130+ years now.
What you folks want is a worldwide church with a central authority. Fine, knock yourself out; just don’t expect an autonomous national church, born of revolution, to meekly kowtow to your demands.
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Robroy [#13], y’all should have figured out by now that pronunciamentos of Lambeth Conferences and Primate Meetings have approximately the same status as Gallup polls or “mind of the House / Senate” resolutions in Congress. If you want something binding, then buckle down and do the hard political work it would take to make it happen. Stop whinging about how all us bad folks in TEC aren’t tugging our forelocks before your favorite purple-clad foreign ideologues.
#9 So how are “autonomous nuclear families” related to one another? What does the ‘extended’ part mean in the context of the Church?
Optimus [#15], the best way I can describe what I mean is to analogize to my own extended family on my mother’s side. My mother was part of a very large family, and so I have a LOT of cousins. We get together every couple of years or so, and enjoy it greatly. But I wouldn’t dream of telling one of my cousins what rules he (or she) should make for their kids. If I ever did, they’d tell me to mind my own business (and there’d probably be some adjectives involved). If I got so upset by their lax rules that I refused to come to family reunions, they’d shrug and say, your loss, cuz.
[i] Just don’t expect an autonomous national church, born of revolution, to meekly kowtow to your demands [/i]
It’s certainly interesting to see how ECUSA’s last 3 presiding bishops have arrogated to themselves authority that presiding bishops were never intended to have. From first among equals to autocrat—abetted by scores of listless, spineless, gullible bishops.
D.C.T. #16 What you say makes sense I suppose. So what you really mean by relationship is that people should be free to act according to their own conscience (a conscience ordered by a particular ideology), not according to the bonds of relationship that enable decision making for the common good based on common discernment of Scripture?
This is certainly one way of ordering Churches. It isn’t Anglican, it’s rather congregational in fact, but hey that works for many.
So I guess my next question is why do you wish to be a part of a Communion wherein there is an expectation of the common discernment of Scripture, adherence to the decision of the whole Church so as to enable common teaching, practice and mission (not uniform) that by definition places limitations on autonomy? Why not just become the Episcopal Church of the United States and the the Something other than Anglican Church of Canada?
Autonomy as you’ve articulated it is in fact quite a new concept and not at all consistent with Anglican tradition. One glance through the Lambeth Council resolutions will demonstrate that; but there is a much larger historical and theological case to be made in support of this. Why not just sever political ties now? Since the only thing that really holds us together are interdependent bonds of relationship that enable common (not uniform) practices and teachings, and the Episcopal Church is seemingly uninterested in relationship on anyone’s terms but their own … why bother? I guess I’m confused as to why Episcopalians retain any ties to the Anglican Communion at all? The rest of the Communion seems to be in your way and placing what you deem to be unfair limitations on the notion of relationship … so why do you bother with us? Why not form your own Church (logistically it would be easier if the Episcopal Church left since you don’t really want to be ordered according to the polity that has traditionally been in place anyway, and since those hoping to retain traditional Anglicanism are approximately 73-74 million of 77 million Anglicans in the world). Wouldn’t this be easier than what we’re doing right now. Although I suppose this will happen anyway if the Covenant Agreement is brought into play.
Optimus Prime [#18] writes:
@OP, what you’re describing is a false dilemma. Autonomy does not mean abandoning a decent respect for the opinions of our ‘cousins’ — nor vice versa.
Let’s modify the extended-family analogy a bit. My wife and I have belonged to the same Bible-study group at our parish for going on 15 years. The group’s members, all other couples, are some of our best friends. (A BSG analogy seems apt here, inasmuch as I think most informed Anglicans, other than those with an axe to grind, would analogize the Primates’ Meetings and Lambeth Conferences to Bible-study groups.)
Suppose our BSG’s consensus were that my wife and I should do X about a family matter. My wife and I would certainly pay serious attention. But the final decision would still be ours. And if, after due and prayerful consideration, we decided to do something completely opposite to X, we would expect the other BSG members to respect our decision — and they would.
Now suppose that a few of the other couples were disconcerted by my wife’s and my decision, so much so that they decided they could no longer participate in the BSG as long as we were still there. That’d be a shame. But the root cause would not have been my wife’s and my decision. The root cause would have been a fundamental clash of values, which was merely revealed — not caused — by our deciding to go against the group consensus.
I found your comment about ideology to be ironic, since from my perspective it’s precisely ideology that informs most claims made by traditionalists (those claims being largely unsupportable except within the self-contained framework of an ideology).
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@OP writes: “So I guess my next question is why do you wish to be a part of a Communion wherein ….””
I don’t, exactly. As a parish friend of mine once put it, I’m not an Anglican, I’m an Episcopalian. (He’s a cradle Episcopalian and current vestryman; I believe his family have been Episcopalian for generations.)
To be sure, when I’ve worshiped at Anglican churches in England, I’ve liked the familiarity of the liturgy, and I’ve especially liked being treated as ‘one of the family.’ But it would never enter my mind that I had any higher ‘rank’ in their family than that of a visiting cousin.
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@OP writes: “Why not just sever political ties now?”
You’re assuming facts not in evidence, namely that there is, was, or ever has been an Anglican polis in the first place. The polis is the national church.
DCT:
No actually functionally, this is not how we have worked up until about 10 years ago. TEC simply decided that it should act autonomously and has the ability to do so given that there is only a moral authority of relationship that has held the Communion together. But this hasn’t been, until very recently, the way of Anglicanism … hence the reason the Covenant Agreement is being moved forward to attempt to make explicit the bonds of relationship that have been implicit in Anglicanism. If indeed the polis is the national Church and you would prefer to keep it that way, I suppose you wouldn’t mind then simply not having your bishops and your archbishop come to Lambeth and to the primates meetings?
Respect is not the point. Of course we should respect one another. But Communion life requires more than this; it requires actions and practices of consent to agree to abide by the decisions made by the whole body of the Church in council. That is what it means to be in relationship. Autonomy in the Church then, is acting in a manner that does not live into the relationships of the body of which one is a part.
I would like to thank you for your insight. Your argument seems consistent with most other TEC/ACoC arguments I have heard. I suppose the reality is that I will not convince you with argument, nor will you convince me. Hopefully we will be able to engage in an orderly separation as this seems most inevitable.
The sad part in all of this is that regardless of our ‘truth’ claims, whether liberal or conservative, that we in general as the Anglican Church in North America have lost a good deal of our ability to convincingly proclaim Christ to my generation (Gen Y). I guess in my neck of the woods, my experience is that it is the evangelicals that are planting churches, engaging in Fresh Expressions and missions efforts to my generation, and these are the churches being built up .. they’re the one’s that are flourishing … everyone else is trying to figure out how to consolidate parishes, what church buildings to sell and close down. I guess only time will tell.
Actually DCT,
Let me go back for a moment. I just finished MP and realized I should have brought a few points further up.
1. You drew an analogy between family and the Church. You stated that you couldn’t tell someone in your ‘extended’ family what to do. But is that really true? Having any type of relationship, even between virtual strangers, requires norms of relating … things like, I don’t sleep with your significant other, I don’t punch you in the face, I do agree to uphold my commitment to meet with you when we agree on a time and place, etc. Point being, there are ‘rules of engagement’ for human relationship without which there is no trust, no way of communicating, nor anyway of speaking with any convincing words.
2. In our Prayer Book we have a Solemn Declaration that declares that “we shall continue in full communion with the Church of England throughout all the world, as an integral portion of the one body of Christ … and we are determined by the help of God to hold and maintain the Doctrine, Sacraments, and Discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded in his Holy Word, and as the Church of England hath received and set forth the same in the Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church according to the use of the Church of England … and to transmit the same unimpaired to our posterity.” This in fact does provide a potentially canonically binding case that the ACoC cannot act apart from the Solemn Declaration which provides the foundation for its constitution and its canons (which in turn refer back to the Solemn Declaration).
A case in Canada could be made in fact that the national Church is only a national Church if it is a member of the wider Anglican Communion. The Solemn Declaration was written in 1893, 25 years after the first Lambeth Conference and after 3 Lambeth conferences had taken place in which Canadian bishops had participated. It is clear from the resolutions, and from statements made by Canadian Bishops, although not legally binding, that the Church desired to and operated as an interdependent Church within the wider Communion, and Canadians understood themselves to be members of a Communion. Furthermore, until 2003, many years after constitutional changes to the governing relationships between Canada and the UK had occurred, the ACoC held to the decisions made at Lambeth and there is concrete documentation to demonstrate their consideration of the wider Church’s discernment, and their commitment to wait on the decision of the wider Church. This establishes precedent for what particularities of order constitute the ACoC. If I am not mistaken, I believe a similar case could be argued in TEC.
3. I am not particularly familiar with TEC’s Prayer Book, however, it would appear that a similar case could be made based upon your Preface … in tandem with your canons and constitution, and your precedent, until recently, of action.
So in fact, there is more than simply a moral authority by which both TEC and the ACoC is bound in determining how it lives out its relationships with the rest of the Churches in the Communion.
Optimus prime [#21] writes: “Having any type of relationship, even between virtual strangers, requires norms of relating … things like, I don’t sleep with your significant other, I don’t punch you in the face, I do agree to uphold my commitment to meet with you when we agree on a time and place, etc. Point being, there are ‘rules of engagement’ for human relationship ….”
Agreed — but according legal rights and spiritual status to committed same-sex couples seems hardly in the same category as punching you in the face or sleeping with your significant other.
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There certainly are issues where I favor liberalizing the traditional view, yet like you I see the wisdom and prudence of “wait[ing] on the decision of the wider Church ….” Those tend to be issues where the consequences of waiting aren’t especially severe, and the desirability of maintaining calm would likely outweigh any theoretical gains that would be achieved by immediate liberalization.
Communion without baptism and lay presidency are two such issues that come to mind — there would seem to be no significant harm in asking the non-baptized to come to the rail for a blessing only, nor in asking non-presbyters to refrain from acting as the celebrant at a Eucharist.
On the other hand, denying committed same-sex couples the legal- and spiritual status of spouses strikes me as doing non-trivial harm to those couples. To me, this justifies TEC’s and ACoC’s moving forward with same-sex blessings, at least on an experimental basis even without the consent of the rest of the ‘wider Church.’
Oh and one more thing I was wondering about. Why is it, Rev. Russell, that you post and then run, without committing to engaging what you have said? This does indeed seem to be in line with how many within TEC have engaged the rest of the Communion I suppose. I find this offensive and hypocritical. How is it that you can on the one hand, argue for equality and justice, and yet on the other, refuse to engage in the processes that enable equality and justice? Do you honestly believe that you can engage in proclamation of the gospel (the vocation of the Church) when you refuse to engage and adhere to decisions made in substantive relationships … not merely agreements that protect your own right to say and do as you deem fit? Who do you think is ever going to trust you and listen to you? Abiding by what you agree to in relationships and living with decisions that are made by the whole Church for the common good is necessary for mission; without it, we’re simply left with a (quickly shrinking) social club. And I find this offensive and uncharitable in that the mess you are leaving in the wake of your militant, autonomous action, is what you are leaving to my generation.
TCD
But here’s the challenge. We are a world wide Communion. I have a friend right now who is doing missions work in Africa. He is quite moderate, perhaps even somewhat left leaning and very mild mannered. Yet here are his conclusions after stepping out of the little Canadian Church: “We are also learning a lot about the Church in Africa. I understand far better why the African Provinces have been so upset over issues of sexuality. Besides the obvious reasons, issues of sexuality are HUGE here and in ways that they are not in Canada. Add HIV and Aids to the mix and you’ve got a good reason to get upset over sexuality issues. The government and the church is not shying away from speaking out against such things. In the bigger cities there are huge ads addressing these issues. It must be very hard for both of them to find credence here when the West is saying anything goes as far as sex is concerned.” He said, when I spoke to him on the phone, that our actions in Canada (and the US) are compromising the Church’s ability to engage in proclaiming the gospel.
The real problem is that our actions don’t just impact us locally; they have world wide impact in our ability to preach the gospel ‘to the ends of the earth.’ This is why we need to maintain adherence to the decisions we make as a whole Church … because we are making decisions for the common good; this is a fundamental principle of justice and equality. Without this, we have nothing and even the integrity of our local decisions erode into meaningless ideologies (on both the left and the right).
D.C. Toedt,
In what sense would Ottawa’s waiting on this effectively deny a same-sex couple legal status? We have legalized SS marriage in Canada, and suprisingly enough, the government acted to bring this to us without seeking approval of the church.
Also, I thought the diocese’s position is that the blessing of a SS union doesn’t indicate the participants have the spiritual status of spouses. The bishop seemed particularly keen on making this distinction.
Stephen+
RE: “Why is it, Rev. Russell, that you post and then run . . . ”
It’s called “counting coup” and it springs from high blood pressure and the irritation that comes with it. ; > ) It’s a native American custom that is “a nonviolent demonstration of braveryâ€â€”public demonstration in particular—consisting of “touching an enemy warrior, with the hand or with a coup stick, then running away unharmed.â€
RE: “I find this offensive and hypocritical.”
Hmmm. It’s not really possible for someone like SR to “offend” me. For that you have to have some expectations of something or other and some commonality of something or other. “Amusement — maybe — but no offense.