The General Convention of The Episcopal Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury are moving in different directions. How’s that for the understatement of the year?…
Where does this leave those of us who have been resolute in our commitment to remain both as dioceses, clergy and people of The Episcopal Chuch, and covenanted members of the global Anglican Communion as well? This includes, but is not limited to, those identified as “Communion Partners.”
The Constitution & Canons of The Episcopal Church are clear. In the Preamble, we claim for ourselves constituent membership in the “Anglican Communion, a Fellowship within the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted Dioceses, Provinces, and regional Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury”¦” (emphasis added). What happens if we are no longer in communion with the See of Canterbury? By our own definition we would cease to be part of the Anglican Communion.
It has become clear to me in discussions with Episcopalians inside and outside the Diocese that not everyone has the same appreciation or understanding of the importance of remaining “in communion with the See of Canterbury.” (A woman at coffee hour one Sunday remarked: “We always thought Anglicans were nice people, but we never thought of ourselves as Anglicans.”) I, on the other hand, have always used the terms “Episcopal” and “Anglican” synonymously. In fact, I was able to join The Episcopal Church precisely because it is part of the worldwide Anglican Communion, thereby demonstrating its catholicity as a church of the redeemed “from every family, language, people, and nation”¦” (Revelation 5:9), and not existing in isolation as a small protestant denomination in the United States. This precious fellowship with the Archbishop of Canterbury and, through him and the bishops in fellowship with him, with millions of saints around the globe is essential to my understanding of what it means to be part of the Church catholic. It is this gift of “communion” that the Anglican Communion Covenant seeks to preserve and foster.
Thanks for posting this, Kendall. Also compare this with the PB’s directive to Bishops (1 Aug), where the terms ‘anglican’ and ‘episcopal’ are mutually exclusive.
Very well articulated by the good bishop. What he describes is where many of us stand. What I don’t get is the value of being connected to TEC (unless it is just to not get into property wars). What value would a congregation within a non-convenant diocese get in attending a diocesan convention or a non-convenant diocese in participating in GC? If TEC is not a part of the covenant being required to be a part of it to be a covenant participant sounds strange to me? But then what do I know.
Bishop Smith also wrote a letter to the diocese following GC. This struck me. It echoed +Mark Lawrence a bit. No more “business as usual”
http://ndbishop.blogspot.com/2009/08/july-august-2009-sheaf-letter.html
[blockquote]Thank you for your prayers. We will clearly need more of them as we discern our paths in the future. One thing commonly understood at this past General Convention is that “business as usual†is far from the order of the day in our dioceses, in the national church or in the global communion. After my Anaheim experience, I have entered a time of seeking God’s will and direction for myself personally and for the Diocese of North Dakota. What is God calling us to do given the reality of our local circumstances? Come, Holy Spirit, come.[/blockquote]
My thought exactly as I read it, Karen.
Dr. Harmon, in three months’ time, will you answer to “Anglican” or “Episcopalian?”
GenConv has been very good in sharpening the issue, without so much obfuscation as before. +RDW’s letter serves the CP cause, and +NTW’s application of it to the specifics of the situation reads like a template. SE Asia’s letter was very welcome. Now we have MN and LA-suffragen upping the ante, right off the bat. And the PB clarifying on 1 Aug that ‘anglican’ is something out there, whilst she is an Episcopalian.
The two track business is smoke and mirrors. If the Covenant is the determining factor, the very liberal Tobias Heller is predicting that the Covenant will be so diluted that the TEClub will sign on. He doesn’t use those terms, but he is correct.
And who is responsible for the Covenant being diluted into insipidity? That would be Rowan “Everyone at the table” Williams.
This is a bold and interesting development. More and more I see that “institutional loyalists” are displaying a noble integrity in daring to stand firm and speak truth to TEC power.
As a supporter of inclusive orthodoxy (support LGBT inclusion and WO within the catholic tradition and in full support of the creeds and other first and 2nd tier truths i.e. The Trinity, The Incarnation, The Atonement, etc.) I fully support the options of affiliation the Bishop of North Dakota lays out. 815 has to see that it is and will loose orthodox members who lean progressive on certain issues. Only the most radical and leftist will go along with seperation from the Anglican Communion.
For myself, as one regarded here as a reappraiser, I am not willing to support (intellectually, financially, or otherwise) any move which removes me from the Anglican Communion and the Church catholic. So my options (in the diocese of Rochester, NY) would be to attempt to find a church that would dare to support the Covenant or, thank God, transfer my certificate of baptism and any other such documents to a Covenant supporting agency or organization set up to receive individuals. I give thanks for the good Bishop of North Dakota for being the first (that I am aware of) to find a way to include individuals who may worship and serve in a TEC congregation (both do to limited options and so as to remain a missionary presence for inclusive orthodoxy within TEC). If TEC chooses to become an Associate member only of Anglicanism it will become a de facto Protestant church. For even liberal anglo-catholics this is unacceptable.
And if TEC cannot sign onto the Covenant, what lets anyone think that it will allow a diocese or parish to sign onto it? Anyone hear of abandonment of TEC? For further details see the new and imporved Canon IV.
Br. Michael #8: I’d be interested to hear your take on how or why, with some specificity, adoption of the Anglican Covenant–using the Ridley-Cambridge draft as our present text–by a diocese, or even by a parish, would transgress our current canons. I’ve heard this asserted in a broad-brush way, but never with any specific citation. I’ve read the R-C draft carefully and am reasonably familiar with the Constitution and Canons, and I find very few areas where there are even hints of contradiction. In two specific areas of interest, bishops, dioceses, and even parishes have vast canonical discretion in areas of ordination and deployment of ordained ministers and bishops and rectors and other clergy have as well vast discretion over matters related to marriage and liturgical practice. Although I believe it would be, at present, beyond the canons to *require* a diocese, say, or certainly the wider body of TEC, to institute a discretionary practice (or refrain from instituting a practice) as the result of extra-canonical discernment in the wider Communion, but what would prohibit a bishop, diocese, or rector from acting within canonical discretionary areas in accordance with that discernment?
Bruce Robison
It all depends on whether Section IV of the Covenant will have any disciplinary “teeth”. If not, then TEC can sign the Covenant and act as it will with impunity. I have no faith that the JSC, as currently constituted, will produce such a Section IV. Even if it did, TEC would say it will be another four years to the next GenCon to take action. The ball is now in the court of GAFCON, Communion Partners, Confessing Anglicans, etc to force the action. I would take the bold step of ratifying the last draft of the Covenant as the standards for communion among the Orthodox constituency of the Communion.
I too welcome the clarity of this document and of the other statements cited by Dr Seitz.
But, having just skimmed the copy of the covenant attached, I wonder with no. 10 what exactly would prevent TEC from signing, saying it’s Anglican and in communion with Canterbury etc., and then going its own way. I’m not saying TEC could do this; I am just not completely clear about where the sentence is in the covenant draft or where the mechanism comes in that would prevent this. I expect that’s it’s in there–but a very quick read leaves the answer hidden to me; but I may well have missed the crucial word or phrase or logical connection. So I’m simply asking for help on that one.
I like Bishop Smith’s letter for two reasons, besides its candor and well-expressed clarity. One is that he does something that some of us have been urging for years: he performs an educative function, working hard to let his people know why AC participation is important. Second he lays out a plausible administrative structure that should, with a little understanding and charity from all sides, work perfectly well.
I suspect that I am not the only person who has been a bit surprised by the upside of GC2009: things sorting themselves out much better than before.
A crucial Instrument of Communion, the one actually involved in production of the Covenant, is pointedly not going to allow anything other than a province to officially sign on to it, so I’m not sure what the point of a diocese or parish “signing” on would be. And right now “a small working group” is presumably revising the Covenant to make it acceptable to TEC. As a refresher here is what the ACC resolved back in May at the Jamaica meeting:
I too welcome this clear and forthright letter by +Smith. The problem with it, from my point of view, is that it isn’t radical enough. The Covenant, even if the crucial RCD section 4.1.5 remains intact and uncompromised, simply won’t suffice.
The old wineskins of the AC have failed. New ones will have to be created to take their place. Attempts to patch the deep tear in the fabric of worldwide Anglicanism are futile, and will only backfire (recall the warning about trying to patch old wineskins in Mark 2:21).
Nonetheless, I applaud +Smith for this courageous letter.
David Handy+
The covenant is just one more form of Anglicanism’s “hollow uniformity” as evidenced by #7’s comments.
[9]
Here is my speculation as to what might happen if a bishop were somehow officially – however that might be – to sign a multilateral covenant:
(i) To the extent a covenant emerges that embodies some degree of potential submission to a body outside TEC, then TEC might argue that attempting to accept that degree of submission (n.b., when the leadership of TEC has not) is evidence of departure from the communion of TEC – that is, a bishop’s attempt to submit that diocese to non-TEC bodies is an abandonment of communion of TEC because that degree of submission is owed exclusively to the leadership of TEC.
(ii) In addition to (i), such actions may be construed as evidence of the intent to depart from the communion of TEC because signing the covenant is an arrogation of the authority to deal with communion bodies at a level that is below (i.e., a constituent thereof) the provincial leadership of TEC.
Of course, all of this is within the context of several such claims having been pursued over the last few years in what might be described as novel circumstances.
I may add that I am not optimistic that the RC draft will emerge unscathed.
🙄
9, my understanding is that PB Shori has said that only a province can sign onto the covenant. In addition you are talking about a province that has applied the canons as they want to apply them.
AS regards to the clergy (other than bishops) canon IV, 16. 3 provides in part: “if it shall determine by a vote of three-fourths of all the members that the Priest or Deacon has abandoned The Episcopal Church by an open renunciation of the Doctrine, Discipline or worship of the Church, or by the formal admission into any religious body not in communion with the Church, [b]or in any other way[/b]” I think that covers the matter. TEC would decide what “in any other way” means.
The point is that it is for TEC to say, not the AC. TEC can depose you, the AC can do nothing either way.
All of this will have to be tested, all the way down the line. Of course various parties will press for this or that understanding of polity. The outcomes are far from obvious, especially if the global character of anglicanism continues to factor heavily. One thing that will need cleaning up in the legal contexts, is the idea of a uniform character to hierarchy within the US. RCs, United Methodists, Presbyterians, e.g., all have hierarchies and none is the same, and TEC is claiming one kind but has not proven it in the least, and it is distinctive over against what obtains in England, Scotland or Canada, for that matter. It is good to see CP Bishops pushing back, after the clarity achieved in Anaheim.
It is probably equally clear that those who prefer an altogether different province or anglicanism will in the nature of the case insist that a different way of moving forward will not work. That has been clear for many months.
It looks as if it’s becoming increasingly clear at 815 that remaining in an international communion is not entirely necessary, and may even become an annoyance rather sooner than later. I don’t think TEC will really expend much effort either to remain in, or opt out of the Communion, but will let the chips fall where they may, i.e., if the “Instruments of Unity” somehow work up the gumption to give TEC a pink slip, TEC will simply shrug it off and carry on “progressing”.