Once again, I am asking how far continuing disunion and non-recognition are justified, theologically justified in the context of the overall ecclesial vision, when there are signs that some degree of diversity in practice need not, after all, prescribe an indefinite separation. I do not pretend to be offering a new paradigm of ecumenical encounter, far from it. But the very quality of the theological convergence recorded, and very expertly and lucidly recorded, in Harvesting prompts the sort of question I have been raising. At what point do we have to recognise that surviving institutional and even canonical separations or incompatibilities are overtaken by the authoritative direction of genuinely theological consensus, so that they can survive only by appealing to the ghost of ecclesiological positivism? The three issues I have commented on may all seem, to the eyes of a non-Roman Catholic, to belong in a somewhat different frame of reference from the governing themes of the ecumenical ecclesiology expressed in the texts under review. If the non-Roman Catholic is wrong about this, we need to have spelled out exactly why; we need to understand either that there are issues about the filial/communal calling clearly at stake in surviving disagreements; or to be shown that another theological ”˜register’ is the right thing to use in certain areas, a different register which will qualify in some ways the language that has so far shaped ecumenical convergence.
Cardinal Willebrands would, I suspect, have been uncomfortable with the latter option and would have wanted (if he had agreed that these issues were critical, unresolved, and in need of resolution) to keep our attention fixed on the former, so that our language and thinking about the Church remained theological in a sense recognised by all involved in the discussion. To say this is not to foreclose consideration of these and other outstanding areas of diversity, let alone to say that they are ”˜political’ matters and that there is no point in approaching them theologically, or that they are ”˜second-order’ questions. But it is important to be clear about just how much convergence there is, as witnessed in the survey offered in Harvesting.
All I have been attempting to say here is that the ecumenical glass is genuinely half-full ”“ and then to ask about the character of the unfinished business between us. For many of us who are not Roman Catholics, the question we want to put, in a grateful and fraternal spirit, is whether this unfinished business is as fundamentally church-dividing as our Roman Catholic friends generally assume and maintain. And if it isn’t, can we all allow ourselves to be challenged to address the outstanding issues with the same methodological assumptions and the same overall spiritual and sacramental vision that has brought us thus far?
What is truly staggering is the absolute lack of self-awareness on display here.
The good archbishop should not be permitted to speak without a qualified person in the room who can translate his remarks into English.
It is said, very often, here and there, that Archbishop Williams is a very intelligent man.
Does he really think that women “ordinations” is a not so big issue for us (Roman Catholics)?
Secular media has been saying these days that the Pope and the (Roman) Catholic Church have insulted Rowan Williams and anglicanism…
After reading his remarks, and as someone who is “in communion with Rome” I feel insulted.
Where has ++Rowan been for the last three years? He should know very well about the damage that KJS has done, and yet he says there’s no proof that women bishops have caused any damage to the Church? Give me a BREAK!
He seemed to say that progress had been made over many years in
regard to the ‘weightier’ issues which had divided the Churches, but
that, perhaps, some way, somehow, issues such as WO could be
relegated to the back burner or treated as adiaphora. I did not feel
insulted by his words, but I think his perceptions of the situation
lacked a certain realism.
The ABCs questions are so very often just the right ones. What kinds of diversity are reasonable within a visibly united church? However, it’s not obvious to me that he has a response to this even within the Anglican frame of reference. Nor is it completely clear to me that ARCIC’s very catholic ecclesiology and sacramental theology in fact speaks authoritatively for Anglicanism. At the very least ARCIC post 1982 awaits reception not simply by the RCs but by the Anglican Communion as a whole. Thus is agreement on the “major” issues (such as what it means for the church to be communion) really as assured within Anglicanism, let alone with the RCs, as the ABC suggests?
In other words is it so obvious that the Anglican Communion itself agrees on the “major” issues or is even capable of coming, itself, to a shared understanding of what are the limits of acceptable diversity?
6.,
With all respect to the Roman Church, I think that Anglican dis-uniformity is likely a secondary issue so long as Rome’s approach to ecumenism is entirely concentrated on submission, rather than a unique unity in Jesus Christ. I get the reasons why (which is a plea not to get lectured on Roman ecclesiology), but it’s frustrating to see ecumenical dialogue portrayed as something other than Rome’s attempt to get us all to sing off her hymnsheet.
Play nice and agree to disagree on anything so we can all play nice.
Great ecumenical line. Not to mention the example of what results precisely when Rowan does/does not what Rowan says – the debacle of his theory in practice.
Kendell or Elves,
Could someone explain who the audience is for this lecture? Theologians? Vatican ecumenical diplomats? Teens in the queue for the new Twilight movie? Who?
Thanks
They seemed to many to be astonishingly open to dialogue with Anglicans – in part because of the historic wound of the separation of the Church of England and partly because the COE Anglicanism of the first two thirds of the 20th century seemed to have retained or recovered many aspects of Catholic theology and liturgy. Remember Archbishop Fisher’s famous line in 1951 about the COE having no doctrine of its own – just the doctrines of the catholic church.
However they may not have understood the diversity of the COE (not too surprising, since in the early 70s evangelicals in the COE were just coming out of decades of relative isolation) and they may not have understood that the ecclesiology of the COE hardly represented, and couldn’t, in the end, truthfully speak on behalf of, the worldwide Communion (again not surprising since the Communion had a surprisingly virtual existence in the 1960s).
It’s an effort to read but he’s traveling down the same track as usual, and I think there are answers to his questions- and not the ones he’d hope to hear. The AC’s own communion is the argument- for better or worse- for something like a Pope who can say no and mean it.
It’s something like this isn’t it:
1. We agree on so much that is theologically central
2. Shouldn’t our common life visibly reflect this unity – even if we still yet disagree on some things.
The reponse from the RCs is presumably something like:
1. Much good work has been done – we honor that and would like to be visibly one with you.
2. However do we really quite agree on these central matters – we would like you to be clearer, when you seem to equivocate.
3. Are you able to assure us that you (the Anglican Communion) actually agree on these matters?
#9 He does seem, in part, to be replying to what Cardinal Kasper said at the last Lambeth Conference.
As a classical Evangelical Anglican (Church of England), a great deal of this lecture from my Archbishop troubles me — not least his assertion that The claim of certain Anglican provinces is that the ordination of women explicitly looks to an agreed historic theology of ordained ministry as set out in the ARCIC report and other sources. … And do the arguments advanced about the “essence†of male and female vocations and capacities stand on the same level as a theology derived more directly from scripture and the common theological heritage such as we find in these ecumenical texts? The distinction between men and women is one of the few parts of Catholic Ecclesiology which can be derived directly and unambiguously from scripture. Archbishop William’s assertion that the representative functions of the priests, or the sacrificial nature of the Eucharist, which presumably he is accepting because he asserts that the essentials of the Anglican and Roman views on ordained ministry are the same and those are certainly essential to the Roman doctrine, are more directly derived from scripture than, say, the distinction between men and women with regards to the teaching and authoritative ministry is, to me, simply incredible. The former must be extracted via a tortuous process of reasoning, if at all; the latter is established by a direct reading of a few verses of scripture. If he truly agrees with the essential parts of Catholic Ecclesiology, then he would also agree with the statement that the Church has no authority to ordain women to the presbytery or Episcopate, which necessary follows. Since he doesn’t agree with the latter, despite his claims, he doesn’t agree with the former. I also note that despite that he doesn’t “want here to rehearse the arguments for and against the ordination of women” and discusses “the local decision to ordain women as priests,” and if local, then secondary, he then asserts “But for many Anglicans, not ordaining women has a possible unwelcome implication about the difference between baptised men and baptised women, which in their view threatens to undermine the coherence of the ecclesiology in question” as though the necessity of women’s ordination were first order. (To my mind, he has it the wrong way round. It is not that “not ordaining women” has an implication on ecclesiology; the distinction between men and women is an established and clear part of revealed Christian theology, including ecclesiology, which carries implications that affect the decision whether or not to ordain women.)
But my main objection is the incoherence of the introduction I quoted above. If, as he states, the Archbishop is in agreement with Rome on all essential matters, and if all that remains are doctrines such as the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, and if the Archbishop, as he implies, is fully committed to the cause of Christian unity, and if, as is clear, to Romans the primacy of Rome is not secondary but essential and therefore a matter upon which they will not budge, then why does the Archbishop not grudgingly submit to Rome? He would, after all, be violating no fundamental doctrine; the issue at hand, according to his statement, is one where it does not ultimately matter which way one goes. Since Christian unity does matter, it seems clear which way he should go.
Of course, as an evangelical, I do not accept that we are in agreement in first order matters (in fact, I find the division between “first order” and “second order” to be far too simplistic, but that’s another issue: I am using the Archbishop’s terms here). I agree with the Archbishop’s summary of the Christian faith, as do my Roman brothers, but we have clear disagreements on the mechanism by which our adoption as children of God occur — the doctrines of justification and so on. I also believe that the issue of the primacy of Rome, as the Romans define it, is a “first order” issue, one which I cannot accept; although I still respect the office of the Bishop of Rome to an extent, and I certainly respect its present occupant far more than I respect the current holder of the see of Canterbury.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at Archbishop William’s meeting with Benedict XVI. I would love to see what a man with the intellectual calibre of the pope would make of this lecture; sadly, decorum and politeness will probably ensure that his thoughts are never made public.
Boring Bloke, good job! Would you be willing to accept the full time task of following the Archbishop around and translating his remarks into English? I believe the position is open, but I am not sure how much it pays.
[blockquote] If, as he states, the Archbishop is in agreement with Rome on all essential matters, and if all that remains are doctrines such as the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, and if the Archbishop, as he implies, is fully committed to the cause of Christian unity, and if, as is clear, to Romans the primacy of Rome is not secondary but essential and therefore a matter upon which they will not budge, then why does the Archbishop not grudgingly submit to Rome? [/blockquote] Or on the other hand (taking the Archbishop’s apparent point of view), why does Rome not grudgingly submit to the Archbishop?
Sadly, I have more important things I need to do with my time.
I think that that is what the Archbishop is asking them to do: accept his view that the ordination of women is a “second order” issue and thus unimportant to ecumenical relations. I can imagine what the Vatican’s response will be.
Great comment in #14, Boring Bloke.
I imagine the Vatican’s response was a lot of people looking at their BlackBerrys while Williams spoke.
I don’t think there is any better example of a man whose yeses are not yes and whose nos are not no.
However, I think Rowan is very clear and consistent beneath all the verbal confusion that emanates from him. He simply isn’t honest about it. I think he is dedicated full-bore to secular progressivism and conforming the church to it, but his method is to avoid direct confrontations and instead sow confusion and uncertainty to cloak subversion. I think he’s as loony and heterodox as KJS, underneath his careful maintained public persona. His fruits show it.
I wonder if the ABC’s model of living with unresolved “second-order” contradictions doesn’t in the long run weaken the community’s identification even with the “first-order” truths. Aren’t these so-called “second-order” truths the way we Christians embody and make visible the “first-order” truths? Clearly, there’s room for complementary differences, but when contradictory differences occur even at the second-order level then loss of identity becomes a grave isssue. I guess all this is simply to repeat the common sense notion that churches with a clear message grow.