The Anglican Church of Canada’s management team met with National Bishop Susan Johnson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and her senior staff on March 18 and 19 to discuss ways to strengthen the relationship between the two churches, including plans for a joint General Synod/National Convention to be held in Ottawa in 2013 and the possibility of sharing national office space in the future.
“If full communion is really going to have some sense of visibility across the Canadian church, there have to be some pretty bold steps that we take together to help people realize that we are, in fact, churches in full communion,” said Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, noting that it has been eight years since the two churches reached an agreement to be in full communion.
Officers from both churches will meet next fall, followed by a joint meeting of the Council of General Synod, (CoGS, which governs the church between General Synods) and the Lutheran National Church Council, “probably in March 2011,” said Archbishop Hiltz. This would culminate in 2013 with a joint gathering of the governing bodies of each church. “It is exciting to see the momentum,” he said.
As they contract and merge, there goes apostolic succession. Any thoughts, Anglo-catholics?
Frankly, Rob Roy, I have been puzzled why this has raised so little ruckus. It’s not just Anglo-Catholics who should be concerned. All Anglicans are supposed to embrace the Apostolic Succession, which the Lutherans abandoned long ago. The full communion with the Lutherans was at least as big a reason why I favored leaving TEC as many of the other issues that have received more press.
monika
The Great Commission passage in Matthew suggests that [url=http://www.questioningchristian.com/2007/02/the_apostolic_s_1.html]apostolic succession passes through baptism[/url]. The argument that succession passes solely through bishops doesn’t seem to be supported by Scripture (not that that’s the determining factor), and also has a distinct whiff of episcopal aggrandizement to it – see, e.g., [url=http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.ii.vi.html]Ignatius’s epistle to the Ephesians ch. VI[/url].
D.C: With due respect, using your own op-ed piece to justify your argument is a little suspect, and the epistle you quote, while suggesting that bishops may not be infallible, appears to make it quite clear that we cannot all be bishops. I think we need to understand the distinction between apostles and followers. Jesus had many followers, but He chose only twelve apostles.
D.C.,
You don’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and you certainly don’t believe that the Great Commission in Matthew’s gospel is anything like the authentic words of the risen Jesus. And, of course, the Great Commission is not simply a reiteration of the two-fold command to love God and neighbor, which you have made clear many times you believe to be the only relevant teaching to come from Jesus’ lips. So what’s your point, other than to promote a rather sophistic argument for lay individualism, TEC autonomy and an “inner light” gnosticism more reminiscent of Quakerism than of historic Christian faith–whether Anglican or Lutheran?
Robert A. [#4] —
1. The “op-ed piece” to which I linked contained scriptural citations with further development of the argument. I probably could have been more explicit about labeling it as something I’d written. Do you have any comments about the arguments themselves, as opposed to disliking my reference style?
2. As to Jesus’ allegedly choosing only twelve apostles, recall that ‘apostle’ comes from the Greek apostolos, that is, [url:http://www.google.com/search?q=define:+apostle&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a%5Dsomeone sent out[/url], usually [url:http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/apostle?view=uk%5Da messenger[/url]; and then recall the apostolic mission of the seventy-two [or seventy] in Luke 10:
Also recall that in the Matthean version of the Great Commission, when “the eleven disciples” have made new disciples, they are to “[teach] them to obey everything I have commanded you”; the everything of this command is widely interpreted as encompassing the Great Commission itself — that is, all baptized Christians are themselves supposed to be apostles. The fact that an episcopal succession happened to arise in the early church does not suggest it must be thus for all time.
Wm. Witt [#5], I’m simply pointing out that the ‘orthodox’ have long made up, out of whole cloth, their arguments for an exclusively-episcopal apostolic succession. Even accepting arguendo their premises about the authenticity and accuracy of the New Testament, there’s no support there for the notion that apostolic succession passes solely through episcopal consecration.
D.C.,
The orthodox have not made up arguments for apostolic succession out of whole cloth. They derive from the Church’s conflict with gnosticism in the second century in which the Church defined its identity. Four factors were pointed to as identifying Catholic Christianity over against Gnosticism: 1) The Canon of Scripture; 2) The Rule of Faith (creed); 3) The apostolic succession of bishops from the original apostles; 4) Worship in Word and Sacrament.
All four were integrally related. (1) Those churches in which the canonical Scriptures were read were the Scriptures in which people were baptized according to the Rule of Faith, which could trace their history through an apostolic succession of bishops, and which worshipped by reading and proclaiming those Scriptures and celebrating the Sacraments of baptism and eucharist. Similarly, (2) the Rule of Faith was a summary of the essential teaching of Scripture; was proclaimed in the preaching of those churches which could trace their history through bishops who had succeeded the apostles, and which Christians were baptized according to the Rule of Faith. (3) Those churches which could trace their history through a succession of bishops going back to the original apostles were also those churches in which the canonical Scriptures were recognized; in which the faith summarized in the Rule of faith was proclaimed, and, who, when worshipping in Word and Sacrament, recognized the authority of the local bishop, who could trace his ancestry to the apostles, and whose doctrine could therefore be trusted because it was in continuity with the apostles; (4) Those churches which worshiped in Word and Sacrament read the canonical Scriptures in their worship; baptized according to the Rule of Faith, gathered for worship around the bishop, who was a historical successor to the apostles.
So to cite the Great Commission (from the canonical Scriptures) and to appeal to the sacrament of baptism (in which the candidate proclaims his or her faith reciting the Creed/Rule of Faith) as a grounds for rejecting apostolic succession of bishops is entirely incoherent. Canon, Rule of faith, sacraments, and apostolic succession are part of the same package.
Wm. Witt [#8], you’ve recounted an elaborate argument, which can profitably be shortened: It boils down to a self-promoting fiat by some of the early church’s leaders, e.g., Ignatius, saying in effect, the supreme authority in the church consists of those of us who happen to be able to trace our episcopal successions back to the Eleven, because we say so. If that’s not whole cloth, I can’t imagine what would qualify.
RE: “Wm. Witt [#8], you’ve recounted an elaborate argument, which can profitably be shortened: It boils down to a self-promoting fiat by some of the early church’s leaders, . . . ”
No it doesn’t.
It merely is for those who are deconstructionists in their analysis of Christian doctrine.
In other words, D.C. Toedt believes that the Christian doctrine that William Witt so simply and elegantly recounted is merely “self-promoting fiat by some of the early church’s leaders.”
But we already know that about DC and his view of the Christian faith.
Sarah [#10], please go back and re-read what I wrote, this time paying attention to more than just my name at the top. I’ve said nothing here about Christian doctrine. (I’ve certainly done so elsewhere, but that’s a subject for another time.) What I said was that Scripture, by which you set so much store, provides more support for baptismal succession than for episcopal succession. I find it fascinating, but unsurprising, that no one has addressed the substantive point on its merits.
In Acts 1, Jesus tells the eleven disciples that they will become witnesses to his resurrection (1:8). Then after the acsension, Peter stands up in a crowd of “about 120” believers and tells them that a replacement for Judas must be chosesn (1:15-22).
Peter says that one of those present must “become a witness with us to his resurrection,” (1:22) which is evidence that there was something different about the twelve (now eleven) disciples’ ministry that all of the other 110 or so believers present could not do. If all of the believers there with the eleven could have been “a witness to his resurrection,” then there would have been no need to name somebody specifically as Judas’ replacement.
Peter also says (1:22) that Judas’ replacement had to be “one of these men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John.” So we know that merely being baptized is not enough to guarantee one a spot in the Twelve’s ministry, though it is a prerequsite.
Would the Twelve have re-baptized Matthias once he was chosen to join the other eleven? Luke does not tell us whether they did, but since Peter said that whoever joined them had to have been baptized by John, it seems unlikely. The apostles did not, as far as we know, re-baptize those that John baptized. Yet Luke is clear that Matthias was one of the Twelve from then on.
At any rate, Luke tells us in Acts 1 that the condition of being an apostle is not conferred through baptism, unless Matthias was either not an apostle or was re-baptized by one of the eleven.
[blockquote]What I said was that Scripture, by which you set so much store, provides more support for baptismal succession than for episcopal succession.[/blockquote]
Sorry, DC, not what you said. You wrote–“I’m simply pointing out that the ‘orthodox’ have long made up, out of whole cloth, their arguments for an exclusively-episcopal apostolic succession.”–which is an entirely different argument.
What I pointed out (and which you sophistically refused to address) is that the connection between apostolic succession and Scripture is reciprocal. The canon of Scripture is part of an integrated package that came along with apostolic succession. To use Scripture as a tool to criticize apostolic succession is to cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face.
You are correct. Ignatius of Antioch (and Ireneaus of Lyons and Justin Martyr and Clement of Rome and Clement of Alexandria, and Tertullian and all the other church fathers who talk about the role of bishops in the second century church) may well have been engaging in self-serving lies to promote their own agenda. But by the same logic, the same self-serving church may have created the whole New Testament out of whole cloth; Jesus may never have existed but have been a mythological example of a divine aner like Apollonius of Tyana; Jesus’ miracles may have been based on the legends of Honi the Circle Drawer; Jesus’ teachings may well have been cobbled together from numerous rabbinic sayings, or have been the invention of the “Q” community; the sacraments may well have been stolen mythraic mystery rites. Why not?
And one’s grounds for making such claims would be every bit as valid as DC’s grounds for claiming that apostolic succession is “made out of whole cloth” . . . a “self-serving fiat by some of the early church’s leaders.” That is, absolutely nothing but one’s own wish that it might be so, and that it is always easy to dismiss inconvenient facts flippantly with an ad hominem dismissal of another’s motives, especially if the other is long dead and cannot challenge the contemptuous dismissal, rather than do something like ask intelligent questions relating to the role of episcopacy in the early church and the manner in which it was related to matters like canon and worship, and the survival of Christian identity amid persecution and Gnostic syncretism.
Kubla [#12], if we’re to take the scriptural language seriously, Jesus commanded all the baptized to carry out the apostolic mission, not just the Eleven, who seem somehow to have bootstrapped themselves into an exalted status in the early church.
Wm Witt [#13], you talk about a “reciprocal connection” between Scripture and apostolic succession. A less-ideological observer might well call it by its rightful name: a circular argument.
By the way, Wm Witt [#13], the reason I frequently cite Scripture is to show how you folks frequently read into it what you want to read, not because I give it the exalted status that you do.
[blockquote]Wm Witt [#13], you talk about a “reciprocal connection†between Scripture and apostolic succession. A less-ideological observer might well call it by its rightful name: a circular argument. [/blockquote]
Clearly you did not major in logic, DC. A reciprocal relation is when two things are mutually related to one another–as, for example, gloves and hands, smoke and fire, male and female. Such things can relate in numerous ways–dependence (no gloves without hands), causal (no smoke without fire), necessarily reciprocal (no males without female). Noting the mutuality of such relationships is not circular.
Any church history textbook can tell you about the mutual relationship between canon and episcopacy in the second century. It is a historical fact with which no competent scholar disagrees. Whether that relationship is one of dependence, causality, or necessary reciprocity can be discussed. Trying to dismiss the fact with ad hominem arguments, or facetious claims to circularity is simply intellectual laziness.
Wm Witt [#16], on further thought, I’ll concede that “circular argument” probably wasn’t the best term to describe your #8. No matter; I still have major problems with the rationalization you set forth there.
Your parenthetical comments, “no gloves without hands,” etc., suggests you think there would have been no bishops without Scripture, and perhaps vice versa as well. (That’s probably where I got the circular-argument remark.) I challenge you to point to anything in Scripture, however, to justify the claim that bishops have eternal primacy in the church and exclusive apostolic succession. It ain’t there; Jesus said zilch about how his followers should govern themselves. The episcopacy, and its notion of exclusive apostolic succession, seems to have been an ‘innovation’ that evolved along the way in the life of the early church.
The fact that a given ‘overseer’ of Church C could trace his chain of predecessors back to Apostle A would seem to be an incidental consequence of Church C’s continuity of existence. That fact was hardly a guarantee that the overseer’s teachings would be trustworthy, as demonstrated later on by the various bishops who hurled anathemas at each other for alleged heresy. Moreover, please explain why the overseers’ role was (supposedly) so important that only they, and no one else, could claim to be successors to the apostles.
To anyone who has read any political history, the fact that the church’s overseers soon gathered power unto themselves, and sought to justify doing so, is unsurprising who has read any political history. But their bootstrapped rationalization about being the exclusive successors to the apostles is risible.
[blockquote]Your parenthetical comments, “no gloves without hands,†etc., suggests you think there would have been no bishops without Scripture, and perhaps vice versa as well. (That’s probably where I got the circular-argument remark.) [/blockquote]
Indeed, that is exactly the argument I am making, or at least it is the most plausible argument to make for apostolic succession. It is a historical fact that the canonical scriptures were recognized as canonical only in those churches that had apostolic succession, and all the churches that had apostolic succession recognized the canonical scriptures. As I mentioned, there are four characteristics of catholic identity in the second century. They are always found together. So, yes. Although the bishops did not write the scriptures–the apostles did–we would not have the scriptures if it had not been for the bishops.
[blockquote]I challenge you to point to anything in Scripture, however, to justify the claim that bishops have eternal primacy in the church and exclusive apostolic succession. It ain’t there; Jesus said zilch about how his followers should govern themselves. The episcopacy, and its notion of exclusive apostolic succession, seems to have been an ‘innovation’ that evolved along the way in the life of the early church.[/blockquote]
Well, this is something like an argument. You are correct. Jesus said little (not nothing) about how his followers should govern themselves. I say “little” because Jesus made some very important comments about the role of his apostles, and about the power of the “keys” in particular. At the same time, the gospels that we have were not written by Jesus, but by second generation Christians in which the beginnings of church government were already apparent. Matthew and Luke, for example, were written after Paul, who was already talking about the role of presbyter/bishops. So those who wrote about Jesus, whom they accurately record as not saying a lot about how his followers should organize the church, were themselves members of that church that had at least the beginnings of organization, and believed themselves to be faithfully following Jesus in doing so.
The real issue here is about continuity (or discontinuity) between the earthly Jesus, the post-resurrection apostolic church, and the post-apostolic church. In terms of history, we can trace the progress as follows:
1) Before the resurrection: earthly Jesus and the twelve; oral preaching and teaching by Jesus.
2) Post resurrection: apostles, presbyter/bishops and deacons; writing down period of gospels and epistles by followers of Jesus.
3) Post apostolic church: bishops, presbyters, deacons; recognition of apostolic writings as canon.
All of the second century catholic church views this arrangement in terms of strict continuity. That is, during the post-resurrection period, the apostles are the authoritative witnesses to Jesus’ mission, and a primarily oral tradition is becoming written down in what would eventually be canonical scripture. After the death of the apostles, bishops (who can literally trace their history back to apostles in the churches where they are bishops), are recognized as their successors, and the canon is simultaneously recognized as containing the writings that come from the apostolic period and have apostolic authority.
These two claims–canon of scripture; bishop as successors of the apostles–are recognized by all catholic Christians. By no coincidence, the Gnostic heretics who reject the bishops claim they have their own secret apostolic tradition that bypasses the public apostolic tradition of the catholic church, and they have their own non-canonical gospels that speak of a Jesus who was not God become incarnate, was not truly a human being, who did not take flesh, who did not die and rise for the sins of the world.
Of course, if one rejects that the gospel accounts we have are accurate accounts of the earthly Jesus who lived in Galilee, who died, and rose again the third day, then one must believe that there is discontinuity not only between the canon and the second century church, but between the earthly Jesus and the canonical writings. Given such an assumption of discontinuity, one must provide an alternative explanation for the rise of bishops, and if one accepts without question the profoundly individualist, and anti-authoritarian premises of post-modern culture, one might naturally assume that the only possible explanation for the rise of bishops would be self-aggrandizing “will to power.” After all, as the current financial crisis shows, that is what primarily motivates modern Americans in their own organizational structures. That must be the plausible explanation for any organizational structure in the second century, except, paradoxically for the Gnostics, who are oddly often portrayed as selfless advocates of truth.
Such an “explanation” is not a historical argument at all, but rather an ad hoc rationalization adopted after one had already rejected the notion of historical and theological continuity. Since we know that there cannot be genuine continuity between the earthly Jesus, the risen Jesus and the apostolic church, and the post-apostolic church, there has to be some other explanation to account for the discontinuity, and human mendacity is as good as any other.
At the same time, the case for apostolic succession is not a logical proof. It is rather a way of reading the relation between Jesus, the post-resurrection church, and the second century church in terms of continuity. It depends on the convinction that the early Christians got it basically right rather than basically wrong. How one decides between a paradigm of continuity and a paradigm of discontinuity is not a matter of simple proof. It is rather something like adapting the paradigm that most elegantly and simply makes sense of the data available.
Wm. Witt [#18] writes:
WW, we don’t have to look very hard to find historical evidence that the will to power was at work in the early church. Even if we were to ignore the abundant examples found in the OT and in contemporary Roman history, the NT itself provides some revealing illustrations, such as:
• the undisguised ambition of James and John the sons of Zebedee to be Jesus’ chief lieutenants — even their mother got into the act! — and the other ten’s angry reaction to their self-promotion, followed by Jesus’ admonishment that leaders must be servants (Matt. 20.20-28);
• at the Last Supper, the disciples’ dispute as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest (Lk 22.24);
• the Fourth Gospel’s attempt at one-upsmanship, saying that the Beloved Disciple outran Peter and got to the tomb before he did (Jn 20.4), possibly in response to Luke’s failure to mention that anyone accompanied Peter (Lk 24.12);
• Paul’s claim to have received his gospel directly from Jesus, and his displeasure at having that gospel contradicted by the Jerusalem church (Gal. 1-2).
We could speculate that, after the events that came to be known as the Resurrection, the Eleven and the rest of the early church’s leadership thought and acted solely as selfless servants. It’d be unwise, however, to wish away all possibility that the will to power played any role at all in the origins of the episcopal system, and of the notion that only the church’s ‘overseers’ (bishops) can claim to be successors of the apostles.
[blockquote]WW, we don’t have to look very hard to find historical evidence that the will to power was at work in the early church.[/blockquote]
Yes, of course. Human nature being what it is–orthodox Christians call that “original sin”–it would be contrary to all expectations to presume that there were no such disagreements or struggles in the early church. They exist everywhere, and the early church was no exception. That the New Testament and the writings of the apostolic fathers openly acknowledge such conflict shows a kind of honesty about the reality of their communities. It is unhealthy dysfunctional communities that have to pretend that all is going swimmingly and there are no disagreements.
But will to power is not a historical argument that explains anything, as it is an equal opportunity argument to discredit any position. The rise of democracy can be traced to the Greek city states–but the history of the Greek city states is nothing if not a story of ambitious conflict. So democracy can be dismissed as nothing more than an attempt of the weak to win power over the strong. Thrasymachus makes exactly this argument about justice in Plato’s Republic–all claims to justice are nothing more than disguised will to power.
You touch on the key issue in your reference to Paul from Gal. 1-2. Paul claimed to have received his gospel directly from Jesus. If he was lying or deluded, then we are free to posit other explanations for his claim–and certainly will to power is always at hand. But we can do that only if we know that he was lying or deluded. If he really did receive his gospel directly from Jesus, then his complaints about the Jerusalem church had some validity.
So if we already know (on other grounds) that the relationship between the church of Jesus, the church of the apostles, and the church of the second century is one of discontinuity, then we can posit possible explanations for that discontinuity–including will to power. But to begin with will to power as an explanation is to beg the question of continuity rather than address it.
BTW, the 2nd century claim about apostolic succession is not the claim that the church’s bishops are the only successors to the apostles. It is the claim that the church’s bishops are successors to the apostles in certain very specific ways.
WW [#20], this discussion has been useful, and should enable us to reexamine the question that was implicitly raised at the beginning of the comments: Is the historic episcopate, with apostolic succession of bishops, so important as to bar full communion with churches not having it; and if so, why.
The [url=http://anglicansonline.org/basics/Chicago_Lambeth.html]Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral[/url] asserts that, when churches have the historic episcopate, locally adapted (plus the creeds and the two dominical sacraments), that provides a basis for their being in full communion with each other. Granting that episcopal continuity has some definite advantages, it’s not self-evident — and more than a little haughty to suggest — that churches lacking such continuity should be categorically disqualified from a full-communion status until their leaders are (re?)consecrated by bishops from churches that do have it.
If historic continuity is a significant concern, we could take the position that apostolic succession passes through baptism. In that way, the historic episcopate would require only that a bishop be able to trace his/her baptism back to the apostles.
For grandfathering purposes, I wouldn’t see any great ecclesiastical danger in establishing a rebuttable presumption that until proven otherwise, the baptism of any member of an ‘established’ church (in the non-legal sense) is deemed to be so traceable. I doubt that would be any less historically reliable than the charts some dioceses have, showing the chain of consecrations of their bishops purportedly dating back to this or that apostle. (My parish used to have just such a chart, in nice calligraphy, hanging in the narthex.)
[blockquote]Is the historic episcopate, with apostolic succession of bishops, so important as to bar full communion with churches not having it; and if so, why.[/blockquote]
I agree. This is the crucial question. The Lutherans (who don’t think episcopal succession is crucial) have creatively answered it one way. Anglicans and Episcopalians (some of whom think it is crucial) have answered it another. The Lutherans have agreed to have future ordinands ordained by bishops in apostolic succession in order to enter into communion with Episcopalians and Anglicans. They have not insisted that other churches with whom they have entered into communion (like Presbyterians) have apostolic succession themselves. The Episcopalians have been willing to accept the Lutheran agreement for future ordination, but have not insisted that all current Lutherans clergy be re-ordained–in your words, have “grandfathered” them in.
Interestingly, Lutherans agree with Anglicans that apostolic succession is important. They do not believe that it is defined by a particular episcopal office, but rather by continuity in historic Christian faith and practice-the church is where the word is rightly preached, and the sacraments rightly administered.
The result is a rather strange kind of intercommunion. Episcopalians are in communion with Lutherans. Lutherans are in communion with Episcopalians and Presbyterians. Presbyterians are in communion with Lutherans. Episcopalians and Presbyterians are not in communion with each other.