Here ++Rowan Williams offers a generous recognition of those, such as TEC, who proceed down a pathway in which it proves that ‘local autonomy’ is greater than participation in a ‘covenantal structure’: each way is respected for they constitute “two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage” or “two styles of being Anglican”. When he then goes onto deny the possibility that each way can be represented at “ecumenical interchanges and processes”, he is simply noting that the majority viewpoint rather than the minority needs to represent the whole of the Anglican Communion at such meetings. This is not ‘two tier’ Anglicanism, but conciliar Anglicanism in which the council of Anglican views and doctrines is represented by the majority (i.e. those signing up to the Covenant) and not by the minority.
Of course, there is another alternative, in which the minority breaks away from the majority, or the majority expels the minority. But, with respect to ecumenical ventures, would that be advantageous to the minority? I think not. It is hard to see Rome or Constantinople opening up negotiations with both Canterbury and New York! (Even if Canterbury, following some posturing of English liberals, folded into TEC’s camp, would a New York-Canterbury Anglicanism be invited to Rome or Constantinople?)
In turn, this takes us to the extraordinary effort of ++Rowan to be realistic rather than idealistic. With phrasing such as “It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are” and “if the prospect of greater structural distance is unwelcome, we must look seriously at what might yet make it less likely”, the Archbishop offers the unremarkable assessment that this is the best we can do under the circumstances by way of a Communion in which disagreement has already led to a degree of schism. Tina, girlfriend of many a political leader is at hand here, ‘there is no alternative’!
If there is an alternative, ++Rowan’s critics have not produced it. Blathering on about taking on the conservatives, selling the LGBT movement down the creek, etc, are simply recipes to split the Communion not only in two, but in an irrevocable way. ++Rowan’s respectful yet realistic way of describing the future, two Anglican ways, but both will not pretend to be the mind and voice of the Communion, has the singular advantage of keeping the door open to a renewed unity in the future.
But a question or three remains….
There are two ways to worship god: the Baal track and the Yahweh track. Nope, doesn’t quite work. Not then and not now. As Joshua says:
Joshua 24:15 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”
Peter Carrell is, I guess, trying to think out loud among the rest of us – not a bad strategy when the issue to hand is clearly not quite to hand, like a rugby ball during a match when it’s very wet and muddy, and most of us lack the prescient skills of a Dan Carter.
And I personally am very grateful for these thoughts from Down Under – except for one thing that emerges after the section quoted. It appears in the very next paragraph after the paragraph beginning, “But a question or three remains.â€, the end of the post here. For it would appear that the most important criterion to distinguish our present divisions in the Communion has to do “with respect to attitudes to homosexualityâ€. Is this really the case?
Now; I venture that even Peter Carrell does not quite believe this to be true. His blog suggests as much. For rather than being the criterion itself, differing attitudes surrounding sexual matters are more likely to be symptomatic of deeper, more underlying differences: regarding divine revelation, Holy Scripture, the role of human experience in theological method, matters of authority both theological and ecclesiological, anthropology and human sin, Christology itself, and perhaps lastly for now, therefore nothing less than Christian salvation itself.
In which case the business of a Two Track Anglican reality by means of the proposed Covenant will naturally be “troublesomeâ€; Carrell is surely right: a wide number of presenting difficulties await us all ‘down the pike’. Yet precisely because the underlying causes of our present divisions are as deep as they are, it really does seem to me – despite many blogging comments from sites of both ‘reappraising’ and ‘reasserting’ persuasions to the snipping contrary – [b]the [i]least fragmentary[/i] way into “the middle distance†(the ABC’s Reflections) is at this moment in history only via the Covenant.[/b] Notwithstanding the Evangelical Fellowship of Irish Clergy, the Ridley Cambridge Draft, as it currently stands, is profoundly catholic and evangelical at once, being rooted and grounded in a Scriptural vision. But a vision that also allows new forms of ecclesial polity to emerge with as little disorderly array as some of us might prefer. Of course, congregationalist mind-sets and those with world wide church ambitions might think and wish to practise otherwise. Only may they be suitably “restrained†by our patient Lord (2 Thess 2:6-7). For then the truly “genuine†has a better chance of being “recognized†(1 Cor 11:19), in the fulness of time.
Just so, we are in ‘heated agreement’, Peter – apart from your piece of unhappy shorthand, which unfortunately has a tendency to lead so many folk precisely astray at this time, and notably regarding [b][i]political strategy[/i][/b].
Hi Br Michael and Art
Br Michael: as Anglicans we do not determine the judgment as individuals that member church X is apostate but do it in a conciliar manner. No council of the Communion that I am aware of has determined that TEC is apostate. I accept that many individuals wish to equate TEC with the Canaanites, but that is not the view of the Communion.
Art: while it is likely that underlying differences in theology determine differing attitudes to homosexuality and thus these differences could be tackled, perhaps by the Covenant, in order to renew the grounds for our communion together as the Anglican Communion, it is also true that these underlying differences cause us trouble at this time rather than previously because we have been able to accommodate those differences but are not now able to accommodate differences in attitudes to homosexuality. The fact is there are differences in attitudes to homosexuality between extreme liberals and extreme conservatives, but there are also differences between evangelicals (note, for example, two groups, “Accepting Evangelicals” and the “Evangelical Fellowship of Lesbian and Gay Anglicans” being among thirteen pro-gay groups in England which have recently signed a statement severely questioning ++Rowan’s response to GC 2009). Are all such differences to be resolved by the Covenant (which I am in favour of)?
Neither two tracks nor covenant will resolve the fracturing of the Anglican Communion. Tow tracks simply denies the reality of division, and the covenant will be claimed to mean everything that anyone desires. Just look at the history of communion statements and how they are “interpreted”.
Two visions have emerged that espouse radically different theologies and agendas, which will not be compromised.
Re-formation is inevitable, and when it comes it must include some form of central authority to adjudicate the boundaries. If not, the eventuality that presents itself is a continued unraveling of the Anglican Communion.
On the contrary, Fr Jack, Two Tracks affirms the reality of division, but allows for events to take their course in determining the true character of the Communion, rather than embark on messy blood spilling attempting to expel TEC. The Covenant is precisely a re-formation of the Communion. It will, in time, require a form of central authority to adjudicate its boundaries. That form may already be present in our midst in the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and ACC. (Personally I would re-form the Instruments of Communion, but that is another story).
True Peter (@#3); the Covenant on its own is too blunt an I/instrument to deal with all the different things we could list probably. But where it offers shelter most appropriately is via authentic collective memory, it seems to me. For, as Oliver O’Donovan has aptly shown in his Fulcrum “Sermons on the Subjects of the Day†(June 2006-January 2007), at root we are witnessing a real terminus with “the Failure of the Liberal Paradigmâ€. We are witnessing the real failure of reducing doctrinal and ontological matters to mere ethical options. The history of this European endeavour has run its course and is now dissipating into the sands. Which is another reason for my picking on your “unhappy†form of the divide supposedly surrounding ‘homosexuality’.
What therefore might hold western Christians together – and not just traditionally those who might be called Anglican?! Where Anglicans have an edge trying to answer this question arises from the possibility of these very westerners listening to their sisters and brothers from the younger churches of the Communion, where such Neo-Kantian answers as we assume – well; some of us! – so readily are just not on the agenda.
So what unites while permitting some variety? A trajectory that refuses mere faddish [i]Kulturprotestantismus[/i], as Carl Braaten brilliantly summarises, in favour of one that reaches back into our genuine Anglican roots, which themselves permitted due differences – but only those that [i]also[/i] do not reflect mere contemporary methodology versus those that themselves reached back [i]ad fontes[/i]. For such is the nature of “the strange new world of the Bible†that it may genuinely embrace most human particulars on their way to redemption – yet only those that do submit to that redemption! At least, that’s my own doctrinal take [i]in nuce[/i] … which I hope permits some flexibility on the polity front.
Hi Art
I agree wholeheartedly that we need a Communion which rejects ‘mere faddish [i]Kulturprotestantismus[/i]’, not least because the Liberal Paradigm is terminally ill (but, of course, it is not dead, otherwise we would not be having this discussion). When we have done that, and reached back [i]ad fontes[/i], are we not left, nevertheless, with the question of homosexuality and the response of the church? For the questions posed by faith, permanent, stable same-sex partnerships do not go away because we reject [i]Kulturprotestantismus[/i], nor because we eject this member of the Communion or that one. From memory O’Donovan would have us engage with those questions in a different temper and tone than is found in comments (e.g.) which carve the Communion up into Baal worshipers and Yahweh worshipers.
We are left with the question and the response, but that is to be handled the same as all other such questions. What do just the same as we do with the greedy, the immoral, the sinful in every way and in every other case. We accept them and welcome them into the Church which is our hospital and refuge for sinners. We just don’t ever tell them that God has changed his mind on these topics.