But what does it mean to argue that the polity of TEC is unique? If the emphasis is on significant discontinuity with the character of that polity otherwise seen to be representative of Anglicanism, is the danger not in cutting TEC off from the Communion at large? Surely the continuity of the Anglican Communion””whatever the special features of this or that polity””is to be grasped in the Episcopal Office. No specialness can alter that feature without at the same time creating a truly national denomination. If this is what the President of the House of Deputies is calling for, let her indicate that she realizes that and wishes it to be so and means to make it so.
At the founding of the Episcopal Church in this country efforts were made to create a polity that constrained the office of Bishop, and held it accountable to a second House. Does the President of the House of Deputies mean that uniqueness lies in this sort of understanding? If so, it bears recalling that at precisely this point the new church had to defer to the spirit of recommendations of the Church of England, and the pleadings of Seabury, if she was to remain a branch of the catholic expression of Anglicanism. So the General Convention that then emerged did not in the least preempt or constrain the special responsibility of Bishops, and it is exactly that reality that serves to give proportion to any idea of special features.
It is important as well to keep comments like this in perspective given other recent trends. In the legal submissions made by the national church, we have seen a different argument for the ”˜special polity’ of this church. The fact that there are similarities but also differences suggests that these arguments serve the purpose chiefly of aiding in a cause, and less in the accuracy of their historical claims, or the consistency of their logic and presentation.
It strikes me that TEC has MUCH more profound problems vis-a-vis the wider Communion than the nature of its polity. Although much is being made of this issue at the current GC, we must not lose sight of the reality that this whole conversation about polity is mostly a cover for a difference in strategy between two camps of revisionistas: (1) the hardcore ideological folks and (2) the pragmatic institutional folks – that’s all.
The HOB and the HOD do NOT have a fundamental disagreement in their “theology.” The only difference I can discern is one of strategy. The HOD would prefer to embrace the “new theology” openly and proudly (they would say “prophetically”). The HOB has concerns about how this in-your-face challenge to the wider Communion will be received (especially with ACNA now in the picture). Many in the HOB would seem to prefer to have their cake and eat it too (i.e., more subterfuge and dishonesty — like B033 — for the public consumption of the wider Communion, while they proceed with the real agenda, which is also the “new theology”).
What’s unclear is why the handful of orthodox bishops still in TEC seem to want to align themselves with this strategy of maintaining the farce of B033 as the official policy of TEC. With the vast majority of orthodox voices now out of TEC, the only question and struggle seems to be how aggressively and openly to move ahead with the agenda that the vast majority of the TEC establishment represented at GC 76 embraces. What the handful of orthodox still in TEC gain by preserving B033 is unclear. Can any orthodox folks still in TEC offer an explanation of this? It will be interesting to see if the hardcore ideological revisionists can be held at bay by the more pragmatic institutional revisionists. This seems to be the context of the remarks the President of the HOD is making.