Instead of debating the covenant, then, I believe we would better spend our time rebuilding the foundation — laying aside our rigid positions and stereotypes of the “other side” in favor of authentic dialogue. Then, when we have made significant progress in that direction, we can reconsider the covenant, this time as an affirmation of our restored bonds of affection.
Could not yet have any traction? I hear a lot of impatience in the communion these days: a desire to “get over it and move on.” Yet short of outright division, how exactly do we “move on” without rebuilding the foundation of trust?
Rebuilding, in turn, calls for another word that generates impatience: listening. The whole idea of a listening process — particularly its failure to take place on a wide scale — has generated cynicism, and justifiably so. But there’s no other way to build trust. As we listen, we discover that our adversaries are not precisely who we thought. Subtle variations of belief and character come to the fore. Common ground emerges. We start to revise, and often discard, our preconceptions. In the process, we wonder what else we’ve misperceived, what else we have in common, and that drives up deeper into dialogue.
If you want to rebuild trust, you first have to stop the behavior that destroyed that trust. Next you have to repent and work to restore the trust that was destroyed.
TEC and the Anglican Communion are lacking in trust. Why is that? I believe that a large part of it could be laid at the feet of TEC. First claiming that our teaching on sexual expression had not changed and then changing it while still saying it had not changed.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
The appeal to “authentic dialogue” is a non-starter. “Authentic dialogue” in the Anglican wars has always meant one thing: the concession that the “new revelation” of the revisionists should be treated with the same deference and reverence as the faith of the universal church for the past two millennia. “Authentic dialogue” is the sound of one voice talking, and it isn’t the voice of creedal Christianity.
Ummmm what does Amos 3:3 say, Mr Backman? This is an appeal from an organization which finds itself destroying itself and wants to find a more successful way of winning.
Rebuild trust by telling other people “not yet” on the Covenant whilst plowing on with one’s own agenda? If one is genuinely interested in building up trust then offer to give up something that you care about. That is, the “not yet” should first be offered with respect to TEC’s own “inclusion” agenda. Then trust might, just might begin to regrow. Otherwise it does look like just another delaying tactic…
The usual bovine recyclable but methanogenic climate-destroying stuff.
Recycling this detritus is clearly not going to save either the AC or the environment.
Give a copy of The PB Primata’s Easter address from 2 yrs ago. This guy is so yesterday.
News Flash: The Moratoria were put in place to build trust and foster dialogue.
If a long standing vegetarian society does not discipline the member who first adds bacon to the soup, albeit illegally, then others will follow suit. Over time many of the society might be won over by bacon soup and even enjoy bacon soup but will confuse themselves and others if they continue to claim they are authentic vegetarians. If they then make life difficult for those opposing bacon soup and eventually remove them from cooking duties and simply allow them to remove the bacon bits if offended…then the whole thing decends into farce.
Now replace ‘vegetarian society’ with part of the ‘holy Catholic and Apostolic church’, replace ‘bacon’ with ‘women priests’ and recognise those desiring to remain vegetarian but lacking authority to cook with those seeking to remain faithful to the original teaching of the Anglican church and the analogy works very well.
It is not a lack of listening that has led us into this mess but the fact that innovation and deliberate re-interpretation of belief has not been disciplined but embraced.
I think this is an interesting thesis. What he essentially seems to want is “let’s hit the replay button on the past 7 years” — let’s try again, all over again, what has already been tried and what he claims did not work for varying reasons. In other words, it’s a play for time.
You’ve got it backward, Sarah, it’s a time for play. Seriousness, integrity, that’s toast. Eat dessert first ,dear. Larry
First you destroy the standard that allows the dialogue to be adjudicated. You can deny its authority or its perspicuity, or you can assert the limited nature of man’s understanding. All that matters is that the standard be neutralized. This puts everyone on a level playing field regarding authority. In practice, this prevents one side from pre-empting the discussion by appealing to the standard. It also implicitly teaches that there are no final answers, for how would we know when we stumbled upon it? Truth becomes a process, and not a proposition.
Then you assert that the conflict is the result of honest misunderstanding and good will, and appeal for the emergence of a common synthesis between the sides. Dialogue becomes the vehicle to carry forward the emergence of synthesis. Every man brings an important perspective that shapes the outcome. No man knows the final outcome because no man is fully responsible for it. Men simply know the outcome has been achieved because consensus is finally reached. Whence cometh truth? It proceeds from the struggle of man with himself. Certainly this is no biblical model, for truth does not proceed from the mouth of man.
Let there once be a standard asserted and the whole process stops dead. If God has spoken, then why do we need to dialogue about it? This constant appeal for “dialogue” is not so much an appeal for understanding as it is a denial of adjudicated difference. It is a denial of the revealed boundaries the limit the reach of man’s behavior. In order to cross the boundary, you must first deny the boundary can be identified. People who insist on pointing it out in clear firm words must be silenced – one way or the other. “Dialogue” is just the velvet glove for achieving this objective.
carl
Well, ironically perhaps, I’d say that there is actually some merit in the position that it’s “[i]not yet[/i]” time to endorse the Covenant. But I’d argue that it’s for a totally different reason than liberal Via Media spokesman John Backman has set forth. As Sarah has rightly said (#8), in his case it’s just a ploy to stall for more time.
Whereas I think the GS leaders were absolutely right and wise in Singapore to decline to endorse the current Covenant until the fatally weak section 4 is given real teeth, not least by taking away the administration of the Covenant from the hopelessly compromised and utterly untrustworthy Standing Committee of the AC(C).
FWIW, as a former priest of Albany, Backman’s parish, St. Paul’s, is one of the very few liberal bastions in Albany. And despite my reservation stated above, I’m actually glad that Albany voted (overwhelmingly) to affirm the Covenant as a protest against the reprehensible actions and totally anti-Christian agenda of TEC’s leadership.
David Handy+
Maybe Kesha has something intelligent to say about “authentic dialogue”:
“Stop talk, talk, talking that blah, blah, blah!”