At least from the mid-twentieth century, traditional gender and sexual mores have been coming “unstuck” in Europe and North America. Legal and social prohibitions have been lifted–first against divorce, then divorce and remarriage; against extra-marital sexual activity and cohabitation; against birth control and abortion; against out-of-wedlock pregnancies; against homosexual activity and partnerships; against adoption by singles and homosexual couples. Reproductive technologies have opened the possibility of effective birth control, in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood and other biological-clock extensions. In some places, public consensus is beginning to resettle and to take the form of positive legal provisions–no fault divorce laws with equal parental rights; legalized abortions; a variety of legal arrangements for cohabiting and/or reproducing couples; and–in this country most recently–civil partnerships open to same-sex as well as mix-gendered pairs. Likewise, after a post-war lull, women have re-entered the workplace and moved into the professions. Slowly, laws have been passed to guarantee equal access, to require equal pay for equal work, to institute maternity/paternity leaves, and to remove glass ceilings.
In all of this, our Church has been a follower rather than a leader. Where divorce and the remarriage of divorced persons were concerned, the Church ”˜waited upon’ secular consensus before making changes in its own canons. Despite the Queen and Margaret Thatcher, the Church delayed the ordination of women to the priesthood until 1991, and only in the last two synods has voted to creep ahead towards making the appointment of women bishops possible. While not yet church-dividing, the Anglican communion generally and the Church of England still officially regards the ordination of women as pending reception and in principle reversible. North American church moves to treat homosexual partnerships as legitimate–by authorizing rites for blessing (New Westminster, Canada) and by ordaining +Gene Robinson, a coupled gay man, bishop of New Hampshire–now focus a furor in the Anglican communion. Just last month, the Archbishop of Canterbury extended the new, gay-friendly woman Presiding Bishop of ECUSA (now, TEC) his prayers, but not his congratulations.
Whether or not these gender developments constitute a/the cause or even a symptom, conservatives have made them the pretext for an institutional crisis within the Anglican communion. The Archbishop’s recent proposal, ironically entitled Challenge and Hope, reads like a recipe for dividing our Church. For modern church persons, these rough-and-tumble developments raise a host of questions: Where were we? How did we get here? Why? Where do we go from here?
Read it all (Word document).
Conservatives once again spring full-fledged from the head of Zeus to challenge the retractive postmodern conceptions forced into the (alleged) history of Anglicanism de jour. Leads once again to consideration of Piled higher and Deeper as the meaning of a certain academic titles, it does.
Does anyone buy this folderol of historical anachronisms anymore?
[blockquote] Where do we go from here?[/blockquote]
I would guess polygamy and incest are next in the progression.
#2 Matt Kennedy says:
…a picnic?
Who doesn’t like a picnic? Sometimes they even have tea. Not to mention crumpets.
The central point seems to be: “Human reason and experience can provide no infallible access to Who God is and what God wants.” (Section V). Therefore who are we to exclude ANY point of view. Nevertheless McCord states near the beginning that, traditionally, the Bible, the BCP and the creeds have defined Anglicanism.
This is mistaken. Anglicanism has simply been the extension of the CofE. All (most?) of the protestant churches as the broke from the catholic church were sponsored by local monarchs who agreed to “uphold the faith”. We might make fun of the catholic doctrine of infallibility of the Pope but as Anglicans we essentially trust in the infallibility of the monarch in selecting the archbishop!
One benefit(?) of this arrangement is that it absolves the church leadership from the responsibility of selecting the next leader and allows the apparent liberty highlighted by McCord but this is not sustainable.
The most gaping question that is raised in this paper appears in section V[7]. McCord states: “experience and reason are allowed to trump plain-sense Scripture and/or tradition”. WHOSE “experience and reason”?? HOW is the E&R;translated into doctrine? Can different provinces each claim universal truths that contradict each other?
If the Bible, the BCP and the majority opinion carry no weight then what is left? If we have no common vision then we don’t even have a corporation by modern standards let alone a communion or a church!
She marches out the old accusation that Texas money buys Global South votes. She also claims that many cultures are conservative on homosexuality. The reality is that every world religion teaches against sodomy. “A Shameless Defense of a Liberal Church”? I call it shameful and intellectually dishonest.
And reappraisers say it isn’t really all about sex for them, that reasserters want a spy in every bedroom. Hah.
Where do we go from here? Let me see. . . 1) it’s HOT (very), 2) it’s unpleasant (extremely), 3)it’s smelly (awfully), 4) it’s is full of sinners (so you won’t be lonely) Could it be. . . Southbeach?
This is tiresome stuff, for it is not what it appears to be, tht is, genuine scholarship. Rather, She has started with a conclusion and the reached backwards to find the arguments, even poorly supported, tht will make a case. Her real case is this, that the liberal changes are all good, and the implied and unavoidable extension is that future changes are also acceptable because the C of E is a catchall whose boundaries are infinitely extendable.
How often have we read this? Over and over again? The very same argument. At last, she has said that standards need not be established because a broad church, rooted in scripture et al, does not need them. Now this last statement appears to be an oxymoron – and so it is.
I cannot imagine libing under papal rule, but this is what she is supposiing that Anglicans are undertaking because they are conservative. Cause and effect here are unclear, but I certainly can say that THIS conservative, however much he admires the present pope, would never belong to such a church.
Should we separate from the liberal wing? This is the best possible evidence for doing so. This essay, under the guise of the work of a scholar, is simply another exercise in selling a social agenda that has very little to do with scripture and a lot to do with
trendiness. Inclusivity is one of those small virtues, like tolerance, that can be invoked when circumstances demand it, but it is not the universal rubric under which religion can operate, because inclusiveness and tolerance, by definition, can accept no limits to their application or they cease to be what they assert. No ocean is big enough to contain all the fish. LM
[blockqoute] Best of all, liberals are convinced that God is a liberal, and that we are called to be liberals in the image of God! [/blockquote]
Why are we bothering with this pseudo-intellectual drivel! While this appears in the conclusion it is clearly one of her basic assumptions and therefore colors everything and anything she might say.
Sorry about being off thread, elves, but I need a place to popst this note:
For those of you who were interested in the Mary in Scripture thread, I have posted a reading of the Greek text because I have grown inrritated at the certainty of those who maintain Mary’s ever virgin status in spite of the clarity of the text. Clear scripture is either the standard or it is not. (I suppose it was the prior lengthy post in that thread that was the proverbial straw on the camel.)
Larry
#6. Ross, Please don’t worry about the water being hot enough to make tea.
#14:
I feel compelled to link to this, which suggests that wherever one holds this picnic boiling the water won’t be a problem.
#15. Ross, Many thanks for the link. As a physicist, I delighted in it.
— Stan