The recent turmoil in the loosely affiliated churches that are described as “The Anglican Communion”, has produced or thrown into prominence several new committees and quasi executive bodies. Among them is a group that is called, somewhat quaintly, “The Primates’ Meeting”. These meetings began after the Lambeth Conference of 1978, but only recently have they seemed to mimic some of the organs of the much more tightly hierarchical Roman Catholic Church. Thus, at a fairly recent meeting in Tanzania, they requested (though, directed would seem more accurate) the Bishops of ECUSA, to “make an unequivocal common covenant that the bishops will not authorize any Rite of Blessing for same-sex (they mean, I assume, same-gender) unions in their diocese or through General Convention”. The Primates go on to insist that anyone living in a same-sex (sic) union should not be approved for Episcopal orders. I am not clear whether this means that such a life-style is permissible for deaconal or presbyteral orders.
I won’t reproduce my entire comment at the site, merely the following extracts:
“I have no quarrel with your recounting of the historical record, not would I deny the parallels with today, but does not it not strike you that today’s demands for a greater degree of conciliarism (regardless of whether or not you think them wise) are simply reflective of changes on the ground, many of which none of the parties to the church conflicts of the nineteenth century could have begun to imagine?”
“While it is true that ‘autonomy’ language can be found in nineteenth century Episcopal sources, this is usually in relation to the inapplicability of such instruments as the Ornaments Rubric to American churches. The issue of what to do in the event of a serious doctrinal division between the churches (as opposed to within both of them) was never formally tested.”
“It is not conservatives alone who have wished to impose a certain meaning on Anglicanism in the twentieth century. Anglican Evangelicalism as a force on both sides of the Atlantic was moribund by the 1930s and I would attribute its revival as, to some degree, a reaction to the efforts of Bishops Robinson and Pike to make Anglicanism ‘relevant.’ Robert Prichard has a fascinating essay (written in 1991) on the changing understanding of the nature of Anglicanism in the United States from Hobartian confessionalism to Bishop Manning’s “mere Christianity” compromise (1920-1950) to the changes promoted after 1950 by a slew of graduates of Union Theological Seminary who moved on to teach in many Episcopal seminaries.”
“It seems to me that waving the fundamentalist stick in these debates is as futile an exercise for progressives as kicking the modernist dog is for conservatives. There is a very real theological divide that pits people of good conscience and deep personal devotion (hailing from a parish that boasts both, I can speak with some authority on this) against each other. Analogies with the nineteenth century are helpful, but only up to a point. If nothing else, the Church of England at that time enjoyed a standing in the wider community (and a relationship with the state) that is today completely eclipsed.”
In his first paragraph, Canon Hein has a quibble about words with which I disagree.
Might I suggest that one difference between conservatives and liberal is that conservatives think that dictionaries should be PREscriptive as opposed to the liberal idea that dictionaries should be only DEscriptive. As a conservative in more ways than just theological, I should like to point out that in terms of their original definitions, [i]sex[/i] is a biological term, while [i]gender[/i] is a grammatical term. The term “same-sex blessings” is, in my eyes, correct, while “same-gender blessings” is not.
To use the word, [i]gender[/i], where the word, [i]sex[/i] was needed was an innovation of the feminists in an attempt to soften the attitudes they were trying to change. Unfortunately, the change caught on, and two very useful words have now lost their distinction, much in the same way that so few seem to know the distinction between [i]precipitous[/i] and [i]precipitate[/i], as has been obvious in the writings of many bishops in recent weeks.
My mistake, I meant “Canon Mein”, not Canon Hein. My apology to him and to all.
Paul Bagshaw has an interesting comment expanding on the history of the Colenso case, which closes with the sentence I quoted in my comment there:
“Autonomous Churches need not recognise one another’s territorial claims; co-ordinate churches should do so.”
Perhaps Simon or Paul could explain the apparent contradiction here in the current unpleasantness. TEC/815’s position has consistently emphasized two points:
1) The absolute, complete, total autonomy of TEC.
2) The absolute, complete, total unacceptability of extraterritorial episcopal oversight of Anglican congregations.
It would seem from the statement above that TEC must choose one or the other of these positions; it can’t have both.
??
A review of the allegation of “careful empirical science” would reveal much that is NOT careful and much that is NOT empirical and much that is NOT science being paraded as all three. One could regret such errors in a document purporting to look at historical data. It raises the question of how much care is used historically when there is no evidence it was used in regard to “careful empirical science” in the first place.