There are occasions when families do not talk to each other, and have deep tensions. Yet they remain families, whether they want to be or not. Family members can make pompous statements ”” “I am no longer your sister” ”” yet they obviously are. Likewise, in the Anglican Family, exclusion makes little sense, and the Lambeth Conference can survive as a less formal gathering, whether or not the bishops share communion or agree about anything much.
The Anglican Family worldwide can be seen to flourish in many different ways, even within parts of its extended family, such as the Methodist Church, that have developed a separate ecclesial identity. In turn, the Anglican Family can also be seen to be a part of the extended Catholic Family, whatever recent popes have thought about the validity of Anglican orders or shared communion.
All Anglicans have a common genetic link with the Church of England, but they have expressed their inheritance differently. However much we may regret this, we are now unlikely ever again to be a Communion. Yet perhaps that can free us to be something else.
We need not strive for conformity. We can be free to explore shared convictions with like-minded family members around the world, without denigrating other members who do not share these convictions. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee has wisely done this for years.
As a post-colonial Church, the Anglican Family would learn to move beyond power and authority ”” no more Lambeth Resolutions or Windsor Process. Instead, we might discover the joys of sharing and learning from different members of the same family. We might even rekindle some of the genuine family affection that I have seen so often in my travels. Be not afraid. We can indeed flourish as the Anglican Family.
Sounds like they’re resigned to schism in England when shills for liberalism like the English Church Times and Robert Gill admit the game is over.
It’s over. Just a few weeks now. Lambeth 2008 might as well be scrapped.
What he seems to be saying is “Let’s not deal with the fact that we’ve destroyed something–let’s just pretend that the ruins are something wonderful, new and the proper development for our time.” One of the consistent faults I see in most liberals is that they take for granted the stability given to them by the very institutions they are trying to take down–assuming that we can be an “Anglican Family” when everything that has held us together as Anglicans is disintegrating is just another example of this short-sightedness.
It seems that Dr. Gill is using a ‘human family’ composed of equally ‘fallen’ humans’ as the model for his analogy.
When we accept Chirst as our Savior, we Christians become spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ. In fact, He becomes our big brother whom we follow in faith and obediance.
Likewise, God becomes our spiritual Father and as such, God the Father calls upon us to obey His word as received through the prophets and as given to us by His Son, Jesus Christ.
This spiritual Christian family is a family of ‘top down’ leadership in which Jesus Christ and God the Father are in charge. It is a paternalistic family led spiritually by Jesus and God who are always referred to by male gender pronouns such as He and His.
It is not like a human family in which gentic lineage may determine who is the ‘senior’ person in the hierarchy, but which in fact is a mini-political entity in which there are continual power struggles.
So, if Dr. Gill is comparing the entities of the Anglican Comunion to a human family, he is only partly correct. It is the humanness within the Communion that is causing spiritual problems within the Communion.
The family that binds the Communion together is the spiritual family in which the entities of the Communion act in concert as bothers and sisters in Christ and in which we are mindful to be ever faithful spiritual children of God our Father in Heaven.
It is a lack of faithfulness to the Word of Christ and the Word of God the Father that is causing the dissension within the all too human Anglican family.
I see orthodox/traditional Anglicans as trying to be true brothers and sisters in Christ and obedient children of God the Father. The revisionist/progressive people who call themselves Episcopalian/Anglican are members of a wayward human family that is very confused regarding the nature of the spiritual Christian family.
Institutions that are resilient also evolve. Kendall also have pointed this from the same issue,
http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/content.asp?id=43206
“If it can be done in Spain, there is no reason why it cannot be done at Canterbury. In reality, of course, those who refuse to turn up at the Lambeth Conference will be those who do not want peace. They want control. Yet, if we as a Church cannot model the necessary risks for reconciliation, we are a useless bunch of pious frauds. That is what the world at large will think. And it will be dead right. “
What a lot of talk about schism etc there is. As far as I can see it there is only one issue. What is the answer of TEC to the Primates to be? The rest of the Communion and its relationships continue. The only prospect of schism is if anyone were to be unwise enough to undermine the Primates, but although I hear much speculation, that is all it is at the moment. Now that would be a recipe for schism.
So what is the answer to be? We must wait and see and pray for all our leaders and particularly our wonderful Archbishop of Canterbury who managed to hold things together at Dar when probably no one else could have. Commeth the hour, commeth the man?
There seems to be a misaprehension in TEC that the CofE will wish to cosy up to them in any split; well love y’all to bits and all that but I am not sure anyone here is terribly impressed with the unilateral way TEC has behaved over the last few years.
But lets see – the Church Times is not what it was – I read the Church of England News to find out what is going on.
In reality, of course, those who refuse to turn up at the Lambeth Conference will be those who do not want peace. They want control.
That’s not really what it’s about, you know – control/peace. It’s about being faithful Christians or not.
Perhaps I’m being naive here, but it seems to me that it’s not so much a problem of some being faithful Christians and others not. Rather, our difficulties lie in our different approaches to being faithful Christians. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not advocating, “Oh, we’re all the same. All opinions are equally true.” Some are probably closer to the Truth than others, but none of us have the whole picture (or necessarily even a majority of it). To declare automatically that your brothers and sisters in Christ (whether “reasserter” or “reappraiser,” liberal or conservative, “Global North” or “Global South,” gay or straight) are “unfaithful” or “wayward” is [b]extremely[/b] shortsighted.
I think this idea of an “Anglican Family” would soon wind up being neither.
In 50 or one hundred years time, when most of the Christian church resides in billions in Asia and the South, the hand-wringing of the minority historic Western wing, and their apocalyptic talk of ecclesial decimation and schism will seem a quaint, antiquated idea. We’re not as big as we think we are, and far more important than we deserve credit for being. God lives.
Interetingly – I think he is really saying that the Anglican Communion doesn’t exist – there are just networks of ideas and relationships and they should be able to flourish or not without anyone worrying too much about it.
But my thought is – what doers this mean in practice. It’s all remarkably abstract and his one pratical example is how he, as a Professor, can lecture in different places and find they are different.
Yet what about ordianry parishioners in England or the US (or wherever) what difference would his proposal make to them? Should parishes be able to control their own property, should communities be able to pay their Parish Share to whichever Diocese around the world they wish, can parish leave their Diocese and band together with others to form new Provinces as they wish etc. etc.
If he’ saying this he’s implying major changes in Canon law (and legislation in England). If not – it’s just another way of saying ‘can’t we all get along’. That doesn’t even work with my 3 children so goodness knows why he thinks it might work with the Anglican family.
From the last paragraph of the article:
[blockquote]As a post-colonial Church, the Anglican Family would learn to move beyond power and authority[/blockquote]
This reappraiser refrain is long past threadbare by now. For me, and I think most reappraisers, the issue is that we are born lost and separated from God and the Church and its members of the body of Christ are to be setting out in the Gospel lifeboats to save as many as possible from the shipwreck. We have no time to fritter away with living into sanctifying our lusts, we will have to give an account for every idle word and all the deeds done in the body, and that to One who knows all the facts and is perfectly righteous and just, and to whose judgments we can make no answer or rebuttal. What will He say to each of us? “Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of My Father.”, or, “I never knew you. Depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”?
PM:
“We must wait and see and pray for all our leaders and particularly our wonderful Archbishop of Canterbury who managed to hold things together at Dar when probably no one else could have.”
I quite understand that the ABC might be viewed as wonderful in the CofE (and many of us in the US and elswhere as well), but I’m not so sure that he can take the responsibility for managing to hold things together at Dar. I believe that he came in with a different agenda and it was the strength of many of the primates
who forced the agenda out of which came the communique to the HofB.
Hi Bill C
The reports coming out of Dar from the Primates of different views were generally positive about his role during the meetings. I do not know what his agenda was only that he produced a consensus where others thought there would be a very different result. I for one would not want to be in his shoes at the moment.
I think we can expect to see a lot more pieces like this from reappraisers over the next few weeks and months as they come to grips with the fact that the Communion has spoken and their theology has been rejected. We are moving toward the concentric circles model of Anglicanism where the central circle is the historic Communion and beyond that circle there are a variety of other “family” relationships. The TEC is now in the process of moving from the central circle of full membership in the historic Communion to an outer circle of relationship but not full-communion. Articles like this are intended to reassure reappraisers that this new relationship really isn’t so bad and they can live with it. The question is, can they really?
PM:
I don’t disagree with you about the various reports that came about the ABC but I believe that he came with the knowledge of the ACC’s conclusions about ECUSA. I also can’t conceive how tight his shoes must feel right these days -which of course is a very different thing from even remotely contemplating filling his shoes.
RE: Robert Gill:
“We need not strive for conformity. We can be free to explore shared convictions with like-minded family members around the world, without denigrating other members who do not share these convictions.” … and … “All Anglicans have a common genetic link with the Church of England.â€
I frankly wouldn’t use the term ‘genetic’ with regards to Anglicanism and the CofE. There are several instances of churches/denominations, which have left the CofE, and no longer would be called members of the AC family.
What do you do with a church like TEC? They are still essentially members of the AC, albeit members in no particularly great standing. However, at some point they can not ‘qualify’ as members of the AC. A genetic link cannot be undone. However, a church whose drift is further and further distant from the broadest of Anglican definitions becomes something other than Anglican.
I see the efforts to work with ECUSA over the last few years as akin to major attempts to effect medical care, which escalates, to intensive care treatment. The question is when does critical care become hospice care. Is ECUSA salvageable? A particularly inappropriate term to use for human beings in the church but perhaps not so for the institution. Traditional/reasserter Christians are Treating ECUSA at all these levels: some leaving, some questioning and uncertain, some ‘unable’ to leave, some remaining to fight for healing to draw ECUSA back into the mainstream family.
The assumption that ‘all members of a like-minded family’ works but the term ‘like-minded family’ is becoming less and less ‘like-minded’ when we talk about much of the the AC in general and ECUSA specifically. How can fellowship exist when some say Jesus is one way and he is expressed (and perhaps defined by) in the love we bear to each other, and many (traditional and orthodox) say He is the only way and He is alive, independently of us, and He is our Saviour in the fullest sense and our Lord in the fullest sense?
Unless our prayers and God’s grace work miracles.
I’m sure I don’t know the answer to all this – perhaps God is working his purposes in spite of the mess we make of things and perhaps what is happening is a sign that He is moving.
It can’t do any harm to pray for His wisdom and guidance for all involved.
Comment No. 6 “Its about being faithful Christians or not.”
It seems to me that many involved in these struggles unfortunately choose the path blazed, with considerable success, by the right to life movement in defining their struggle as involving whether you are in favor of murdering children. Assuming the conclusion as your premise usually makes for a short and sweet argument. I think that most people on both sides of these disputes honestly feel that they are striving to be faithful Christians.
Of course that’s correct- all parties think they are right – but all parties cannot be right (unless we accept a thorough going relativism) – and there’s the rub.
Assuming the conclusion as your premise usually makes for a short and sweet argument. I think that most people on both sides of these disputes honestly feel that they are striving to be faithful Christians.
It was a more honest answer to me than saying this all about whether control vs. peace. But maybe that’s where you are.
fSorry, I see I’ve been misunderstood – I didn’t mean to say one “side” was being faithful, the other not, though we all have opinions on that, but that the issue lies there, in our different ways of trying to be faithful.
Sherri, I don’t agree. One side abandoned Scripture and is trying to justify its actions.
Br. Michael wrote: “Sherri, I don’t agree. One side abandoned Scripture and is trying to justify its actions.”
No, Br. Michael, one side interprets Scripture differently from the other. We have not abandoned it, and to say so a) does not make it true and b) is grossly insulting.
PW: You say: “No, Br. Michael, one side interprets Scripture differently from the other. We have not abandoned it, and to say so a) does not make it true and b) is grossly insulting.”
Yes, PW, one side does interpret Scripture differently from the other. And I agree that you have not abandoned it. However, most of ECUSA’s leadership accepts Scripture in patches, distorts the words and purpose of Jesus, rejects other parts, is critical of the Pauline letters and other epistles, etc. Apparently, Christianity is but one way to God, God is found in loving one another, and many find it difficulty to say the Nicene and Apostles creeds with integrity. This doesn’t apply to everythone in ECUSA but it is difficult to ignore the statements of the PB, the words of many on the HoB/D listserve, and other statements made by other bishops that I have read or heard.
So I’d modify your with your ‘a’ and reject your ‘b’ as grossly overstated.
Comment No. 19. “-but all parties cannot be right”
Is being “right” the only issue? After all, those Parishes and Dioceses which cannot contenance the ordination of women as priests are absolutely sure that they are “right,” as are those on the other side of the issue who have little trouble with the idea. They both, however, have had the good sense to realize that there is more to the Episcopal tradition than this issue and have found a way to accomodate each others’ positions without requiring one to be found “right” and one “wrong.” I think that this is the point that Robin Gill was trying to make. While there is a line out there somewhere which cannot be crossed, I wonder whether this is an issue that it is worth splitting up the silverware over.
What I intended in my comment No. 18 was to say that, while we are thrashing these matters out, it would be helpful if those on both sides refrained from loading up the issue so much.
Sherri, with respect I disagree with you. At some point “interptetation” becomes abandonment. And I think that your side has reached that point. “Officer I interpret that ‘stop’ sign as a ‘go’ sign.”
When I read this in the ‘Church Times’ (in an issue which seemed to provide numerous reasons for cheer instead of the expected gloom), I thought it was a good piece. I still do. No doubt it would be wonderful if all Anglicans agreed on everything (or all Christian denominations agreed on everything), but they don’t. And they won’t. So the choice is: muddle along or split into ever smaller groups. I still think the latter is stupid, destructive, self-destructive, irresponsible, deeply solipsistic, un-Christian. I don’t of course take that view of the many sincere Christians who think the latter course preferable/inevitable.
In a sense I agree with that, and suggest it would have been a wise counsel for those promoting change. Is it really so important that they be right? Is it worth splitting TEC or the Anglican Communion apart? Was it worth consecrating a Bishop before the church had come to a common mind? Was it worth insisting on the rightness of procedure without first coming to a common mind on the rightness of discipline? However, unfortunately, none of that has been the case. It then ill behoves those who have supported such precipitate (‘prophetic’ if you wish) actions based on their preception of rightness to tell others who have not been persuaded to ‘live and let live’.
It is hard to see the conservatives as having brought this crisis about. They have constantly been reacting to precipitate decisions taken by those who were convinced that we Anglicans couldn’t just ‘muddle along’ as we were. IMO it’s a bit strong to characterise such precipitate decisions as:
but they seem to be your view.
As to comment 19: I agree that it would have been wise counsel for those promoting change to have followed at the time the Bishop was being considered. Just because it may be a more or less democratic process and you have followed the rules and you have the votes does not mean that it is a good idea to force the issue. That being said, it is still wise counsel today for everybody involved, including those of us who did not promote these changes. As my mother told me so many times, two wrongs do not equal a right.