Donatism was not a difference over morality””no one in Christian antiquity, Catholic or Donatist, thought that cooperating with persecuting authorities was without moral significance””but an error about validity, an error that dissenters within and without the Episcopal Church have not made. No one has argued that the episcopal orders of the consecrators of Gene Robinson were subsequently rendered null and void by Gene Robinson’s sexual habits, but that these bishops have, by their doctrine, broken communion with the rest of us. We, on the other hand, are not simply asserting that homosex is wrong””we are insisting that the claim that homosex is morally neutral is itself a falsehood, an untruth, and we will not have communion with a lie. We are not breaking fellowship with sinners (we’d all be in a lot of trouble if we did), nor are we declaring anyone’s sacraments invalid. Rather, we are refusing communion with heretics, something which St Augustine, even in his most rabid anti-donatist diatribes, never confused, never lost sight of, and would never have condemned.
If this comment by the Bishop of Arkansas is connected with the the controversy ripping apart the Anglican Communion””and I find it hard to believe that it is not””then it is of a piece with other recent utterances by North American Anglican Officialdom. The Presiding “Bishop” of the Episcopal Church is fond of citing “ancient principles,” , while Fred Hiltz, the Primate of Canada, refers to “ancient canons” and Michael Ingham, the Bishop of New Westminster, pleads “ancient traditions.”
Read it all and say it again after me, it is NOT about sacramental efficacy, it is about eucharistic fellowship and discpline.
Read it all and say it again after me, it is NOT about sacramental efficacy, it is about eucharistic fellowship and discpline.
Amen; Amen; a thousand times Amen. The fact that revisionists continue to whine about the former (“Donatists!”) when they know the issue is the latter can only be called “bearing false witness,” to use a Fr. Jake trope.
Sorry, Kendall, but when somebody refers to the Presiding “Bishop” of the Episcopal Church in sneer quotes, they are clearly denying that she is a bishop. That is a claim about sacramental efficacy, not about eucharistic fellowship.
When somebody invites Bishop X to perform episcopal acts in Bishop Y’s diocese without Y’s consent, they are clearly denying that Y has oversight, [i]episcope,[/i] over that diocese. That is a claim about the sacramental efficacy of his episcopal orders, not about eucharistic fellowship.
It is also a claim about the authority of the person doing the inviting (and Bishop X) to declare that Y is an excommunicate heretic. Apparently, we disagree whether Augustine “would never have condemned” a clergyman making such a declaration about his metropolitan and provincial synod on his own authority.
The original offense of Augustine’s Donatist opponents was to refuse eucharistic fellowship with those whom the broader church community regarded as valid members and ministers, on the basis that the Donatists had privately decided that the Church was wrong in offering its fellowship to these apostates. The next step was to invite in Donatist bishops and other clergy to substitute for the “traitors” who were regarded to have vacated their offices directly through apostacy or indirectly through having refused to break communion with the apostates.
Augustine argued the Catholic position that it is ultimately up to God to determine who is saved and who is not; the “power of the keys” to act on God’s behalf in binding and loosing was given to the Church, not to individuals. That inevitably means that there are going to be some tares growing among the wheat, but it is not up to individual church members to decide which plants to throw out of the field.
So, I have no problem with the Southern Cone, Nigeria, or anybody else moving in to North America if and when the Anglican Communion decides to exclude the existing TEC and ACofC hierarchies from its fellowship. Neither would Augustine. I do have a problem with people moving in because they have individually decided that the Communion [b]ought[/b] to depose the North Americans from its ministry. I’m not so sure that Augustine would not agree with me, rather than with RatherNot.
[blockquote]Sorry, Kendall, but when somebody refers to the Presiding “Bishop†of the Episcopal Church in sneer quotes, they are clearly denying that she is a bishop. That is a claim about sacramental efficacy, not about eucharistic fellowship.[/blockquote]
Yes, I do deny that Ms. Schori is a bishop. But that has nothing to do with Donatism or anything else that I mention in my post. That is a red herring.
[blockquote]When somebody invites Bishop X to perform episcopal acts in Bishop Y’s diocese without Y’s consent, they are clearly denying that Y has oversight, episcope, over that diocese. That is a claim about the sacramental efficacy of his episcopal orders, not about eucharistic fellowship.[/blockquote]
Wrong. Denial of jurisdiction is not the same as denial of validity of orders or efficacy of sacraments. You have it exactly backwards
This is not a case of wheat and tares, in which the secrets of men’s hearts are known only to God. As Article 26 of the 39 Articles makes clear, a valid priest can be secretly wicked and the sacrament still valid. Rather, this is a ceasing eucharistic fellowship based on an open denial of the truth.
This is such a difficult point to get clear with reappraisers. Perhaps it would help if they looked around and could see bishops with whom they have no fellowship but whose orders they don’t deny: orthodox and roman bishops of various types, for example. Now it gets a little more difficult when it comes to how the Romans look at us, officially at least. But, lack of fellowship doesn’t mean lack of validity.
Donatism has been waved as a red herring for decades towards those who oppose WO; it wasn’t and isnt’ donatism then or now. At the root of the inability of many bishops to get away from their donatophobia is a hidden notion that they are THE CHURCH in some long-gone medieval yearning for monarchical episcopate. Mrs Schori said it all when she revealed that her deepest resentments are about others “setting up shop” in her franchise territory. What would Augustine say about that?
The Presiding Bishop, KJ Schori, is not recognized by many as a bishop or a priest. That’s simply a fact.
Augustine would have denied that Schori was a bishop too, and he obviously wasn’t Donatist. Augustine, like other Catholics at the time, believed in standards for clergy, even if seriously immoral clergy still had valid sacraments in spite of their sins. If Augustine and other anti-Donatist Catholics were alive today there wouldn’t even be a debate about this, because neither Robinson nor Schori would have been made bishops in the first place, and had Robinson been consecrated and later found to be “marrying” a man, he would have been excommunicated quickly. Having standards for clergy and for Eucharistic fellowship does not equal Donatism. If it does, the Church Fathers, and the modern Catholic and Orthodox Churches are Donatist. Actually, in an article I wrote on the issue back in 2003, I argue that the Episcopal church, holding stubbornly to its own version of morality contrary to the wider Church, is acting more like the Donatists than any other Anglican jurisdiction.
Actually, I believe that the issue here is what I call “Reverse Donatism” on the part of the reappraisers. Donatism called into question the efficacy of the sacrament based on moral conduct. Those who were immoral could not validly celebrate the sacraments. They could not pass on “the inward and spiritual grace” of a sacrament.
One of the arguments we hear today is that people see so clearly God’s grace evidenced in the lives of men and women involved in homosexual sex. Since their lives evidence God’s “inward and spiritual grace” and they are involved in homosexual sex, then homosexual sex must not be a bar to expressing God’s grace and, thus, it must be morally neutral or even morally good in the same way that heterosexual sex is. Underlying this reasoning is an implied acceptance of the donatist heresy that is applied backwards. Since I see God’s grace in the lives of people involved in this sin, this sin must not be a sin.
That reasoning is dangerous because we are all sinners and we can all exhibit evidence of God’s grace. God’s grace is active in our lives, not because we are not sinful, but percisely because we are sinful. If it operated only in the lives of the non-sinful people, it would not be grace!
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
RE: “When somebody invites Bishop X to perform episcopal acts in Bishop Y’s diocese without Y’s consent, they are clearly denying that Y has oversight, episcope, over that diocese.”
No they’re not. They are denying that they are a part of the diocese at all and thus they need a bishop who will perform episcopal acts.
I should also note that nobody is saying that the eucharist or baptisms performed by episcopal male bishops — no matter how heretical in their theology — are invalid.
Not sure you can effectively delink Ecclesiology, table fellowship and discipline. Further, if they aren’t invalid, then what is the point? I can easily be offended by lots of people. It doesn’t mean I won’t eat with them.
RatherNot’s argument about heresy is … interesting, but nobody is arguing about the nature of Jesus or the trinity. We’re arguing about if our modern “obvious” reading of sexuality has any merit – or that the church catholic is right that homosexuality a disorder.
James Alison has a wonderful article titled, I think, a Catholic Reading of Romans 1 that points out that the reading we have of Romans, for example, as having much to do with sexuality is not a Catholic reading. The early church thought it might have to do with women having non-procreative sex with men. But they didn’t think, for example, that Romans 1:26 had anything to do with lesbianism.
Alison points out that, “According to the official teaching body of
the Catholic Church, Catholic readers of the Scripture have a positive duty to avoid certain sorts of what the authorities call “actualization†of the texts, by which they mean reading ancient texts as referring in a straightforward way to modern realities.” Our easy reading of scripture to defend our own uncoomfortableness does not render an interpretation true.
Rather not confuses “orthodoxy” with “it’s always been this way.” Our question is about truth.
What orthodoxy – what truth dictates is simple:
Go and learn what this means, `I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’
Unfortunately, the reasserters would sacrifice the communion based on their own judgment, a Koranic reading of scripture where we are trapped by the words, unable to use our own reason.
Re ##3-6: I’m not denying that someone who has been deposed cannot licitly exercise their ministry and therefore may be replaced. What I am saying is that I cannot personally depose somebody, and neither can any other individual. That sort of act must be performed by the Church through its authorized representatives. I have not been authorized to depose North American bishops, and neither has the Archbishop of the Southern Cone of South America. For a private individual to determine who can or cannot exercise ministry is precisely the error that led to the Donatist schism (quite apart from the Donatist heresy, which was to deny the validity of sacraments ministered by apostates, those ordained by apostates, and those in communion with apostates). That applies whether one conceptualizes it as denying the validity of a bishop’s episcope or merely his jurisdiction to exercise it.
Re #8: Obviously, those who claim to have left entirely can seek oversight by whoever they please. Most of these folks don’t claim to have left, however. They claim that they are still in the same parish and are entitled to the parish property; they are just free from the oversight of their former bishop. Again, that makes no sense without denying that he has, in some sense, lost his ability to licitly exercise the essential authority of the episcopal office over those who have accepted his oversight. That takes us back again to the question of whether an individual can privately determine that a bishop has lost that authority, or whether it requires formal action by the Church… action which has not occurred yet.
Dear #2: Augustine would never have ordained a woman as priest or a bishop…that act in and of itself is heretical. So I wouldn’t worry a whole lot about “Augustine agreeing with you.”
Dale, I think it is less a case of an individual no longer recognizing Bishop X as a bishop, and more a case of the individual deciding that the whole province is rotten and that the only way to escape from the bad theology being promulgated is to separate from it which includes, of course, Bishop X. In other words, it is TEC that is the problem, and to remove oneself from TEC one removes oneself from the authority of the local Bishop (X). Perhaps a better historical example would be an orthodox person living in an area taken over by the Albigensians.
#9, Executive Summary: No.
It really is all about heresy. If you can explain to me how V Gene Robinson would have been justifiably been made a bishop of an Orthodox (Greek, Russian or what have you) or Roman Catholic diocese, then you might have an argument. But he could never be made a Bishop in those churches. The theology that underlies his investiture is what is problematic. You are confusing the symptom with the disease.
There is a certain unreality about all this, when everyone in N America lives in the diocese of a validly ordained bishop with jurisdiction, and completely overlooks the fact because he is Roman Catholic…!
Equally those who have relinquished membership of TEC, or of a particular diocese of TEC (the local church as the ABC recently insisted) are no longer under its jurisdiction and can not be required in any sense to be in communion with them. Nor is anyone under any compulsion, according to “the ancient canons” (ie Nicaea) to remain in communion with a bishop who has demonstrated himself by his words or actions to be heretical. Quite the opposite!
Of course, if we were all to abide by the ancient canons, there would be no Dr Schori as PB. But I guess that, like the Scriptures, the canons are subject to the same Pick’n’Mix theology in the Donatist-free world of the Episcopal Church.
Dale argues: “That takes us back again to the question of whether an individual can privately determine that a bishop has lost that authority, or whether it requires formal action by the Church… action which has not occurred yet.”
Of course he makes this argument. It is the organization itself that is heretical and it will never declare itself in the wrong. This is a safe argument for him to make because the result he claims that only they can make will never come to pass.
There does come a time of private judgment. You must accept God’s grace, the church does not do it for you. TEC has never been as monolithic as Dale makes it sound or as TEC is claiming today. As far as the AC is concerned, the TEC argues that it is autonomous thus undercutting Dale’s argument on its behalf. If the AC is the larger body to make decisions then TEC should abide by all of Resolution 1.10 in deference to the larger body. TEC wants to claim all the benefits of being in the AC yet not of the responsibilities.
The larger structures are no longer working because the underlying assumptions of good will and common belief are no longer there. What did not have to be written because it was assumed or implied is no longer the case. For example it was assumed the TEC would not enact canons resolutions contrary to scripture. The wouldn’t because they couldn’t. The 39 articles said so and as a church in the reformed tradition the word of God was the supreme law. It didn’t need to be written down because it would never be an issue.
Now that the underlying assumptions and presuppositions no longer apply the structure is breaking down. As that structure collapses, in self defense, it must resort to arguments that Dale is making. They must resort to arguments like they made in Virginia that their is no division in TEC because only the institution that is being divided can declare a division. No declaration of division then no division. Unfortunately in such an institutional collapse only private judgment is left.
This just illustrates another example where reappraisers recreate history to back their claims. Remember, from a reappraiser perspective, the Elizabethan settlement proves that Anglicans have an open door policy and polity, accepting and welcoming every and all baptized as priests and bishops, and people living a life with homosexual desires and activity were unknown until the 19th century.
#15: A nice analysis, correct in every respect. LM
Thanks IRNS – spot on.
Of course, the church has spoken (Lambeth 1.10) and TEC is in open rebellion – no serious person questions this – the communion has declared it so. The question now is what the AC will do about it AFTER having already acknowledged alternative oversight in conciliar action (in the D and DES Communiques) and in the context of an ABC who currently *appears* to be thwarting further conciliar response.
tired – be careful of your rhetoric. I am a serious person and find the notion we are in “open rebellion” to be a matter of personal feeling, not of objective reality. Who are we rebelling against? You may feel like it is God, but you might be confusing “rebellion” with our disagreement with you. Hard to say what God wants, unless we’re looking at the fruits of the spirit. And then we just have to see what happens.
I do think we are rebelling against God, by the way. We all are, and have been, and you stand condemned as I do. Fortunately, God desires mercy.
John – we are in “open rebellion” against the teachings of the Anglican Communion. We have repeatedly said (by words and deeds) that we don’t care what the rest of the communion thinks – we are going ahead full steam with our innovation.
If you want to look at the “fruit of the spirit” in the case of blessing same sex unions or ordaining people engaged in extra-maritial sex, then look at the schism, anger, hatred, party spirit, lying, obfuscating, and lawsuits that have happened as a result of TECUSA’s rebellion against the Anglican Communion.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
#20- to “against the teachings of the Anglican Communion” I’d add the body of Church Tradition and Scripture, as well. ecusa’s reliance on provincial political autonomy as a rationale for its actions within the Communion stands in opposition to the core of Christian belief on how the larger church should operate.
That being said, “open rebellion” semantically is extreme. What has happened is not rebellion, but a political assertion of extreme Communion decentralization by a single province. Historically this has happened during the feudal periods when various ducal entities told their kings that his writ did not run in their provinces (e.g. Normandy or Burgundy seceding from France’s control). Similarly, the rise of the Russian Patriarchate separate from Constantinople demonstrated the ability of an entire church to secede from a prior subordination to its former leaders. (though the fall of the Byzantines made the role of the Constantinople patriarchs outside of the Ottoman’s realm rather weak)
Dale, IRNS’s argument would involve sacramental efficacy if he not only refused to recognize the orders of heretic bishops but also of those orthodox priests ordained by them, or if he continued to refuse the orders of heretics or immoral Christians even after their recantation and repentance. This was the Donatist heresy.
Re #22: For about the gazillionth time, I (personally) am not accusing the border-crossers of being adherents of the Donatist heresy. Nor am I defending American individualism against the obviously valid charge that it has flouted the will of the Communion and torn its fabric in a most serious way.
I am, however, saying that the dynamic that has led to the current border-crossings is very similar to that which led to the Donatist crisis. People who were deeply offended by immoral acts committed by persons claiming to be Christian clergy declared themselves to be out of communion with the apostates, even though the Church had not done so. Even though the Church regarded the repentant clergy as being in communion, the moral absolutists refused to accept the sacraments at their hands. Rather than cut themselves off from the sacraments, they invited in other clergy whose ministry they could accept. Within a few years, there were two parallel churches in North Africa, one Catholic and the other Donatist. The struggle between them so weakened Christianity in the area that it was decimated by the barbarians and then essentially swept away by the Muslims. That historical scenario is frighteningly similar to what seems to be going on now.
As #18 points out, our key question should be what the Anglican Communion is going to do about the American assertion of independence from the teaching of the Communion. It should not be what individuals are going to do because they do not trust the Communion. If they do not trust the Communion to the extent that they feel compelled to act outside its guidance, they are hardly in a position to accuse somebody else of “walking apart.” An ancient legal maxim goes “One must do equity to seek equity,” paraphrased as “He who comes seeking equity must have clean hands.”
The great Reasserter Crusade started out as an effort by concerned Episcopalians to remain a part of the Anglican Communion, even if TEC was disciplined or expelled. Some of us still see that as a worthy goal. Others have moved much farther, and are determined to belong to a church that shares all their important values, even if that damages or destroys the Communion. I must ask, how does that differ from the assurance of private revelation that has motivated TEC?
#19 I am puzzled by the shift from the corporate reference to TEC to the individual, or the reference to feelings, given the facts of TEC’s history.
Anywho, according to Merriam Webster:
[blockquote]rebellion
1: opposition to one in authority or dominance
rebel
1 a: to oppose or disobey one in authority or control b: to renounce and resist by force the authority of one’s government
2 a: to act in or show opposition or disobedience (rebelled against the conventions of polite society) b: to feel or exhibit anger or revulsion (rebelled at the injustice of life)[/blockquote]
The distinction between truth and charity alleged in the piece is merely a rational one on the part of the creature, as these are not really distinct in God. It is simply obscene to see such attempted elevation of mere creaturely distinction to absolute status–implying the impossible: a realm of autonomous nature.
The author says the donatist controversy was not about morality, when a few paragraphs earlier you noted it arose out of controversy around emperor worship. That sounds like self-contradiction: the author is speaking nonsense.
Dale, if it is for the gazillionth time why are you stil ignoring the critical difference between the Donatist situation and now: the lack of repentance or recantation of heresy? The lack of orthodox belief or practice present in those whose authority and orders are rejected, quite a different situation from when those the donatists rejected even though “the Church regarded the REPENTANT clergy as being in communion”, is the real dynamic here and in IRNS’s argument, which you denied in your previous comments.
Dale writes:
[blockquote] The great Reasserter Crusade started out as an effort by concerned Episcopalians to remain a part of the Anglican Communion, even if TEC was disciplined or expelled. Some of us still see that as a worthy goal. Others have moved much farther, and are determined to belong to a church that shares all their important values, even if that damages or destroys the Communion. I must ask, how does that differ from the assurance of private revelation that has motivated TEC? [/blockquote]
Dale, that happened when the AC refused to do anything and the ABC began to actively prevent anything from happening. He has not acted and the AC, as AC, has not acted. Only individual Primates and Bishops have acted. And that is why we are where we are. WE are not destroying the AC. The AC is doing that through its inaction.
And as far as I am concerned is the problem with the ACI. They may have great ideas on how to put out a fire, but they don’t have a fire truck or access to water or, even if they did, it would seem the inclination to use them, yet you and they are telling us to stay in the burning house. A garden hose today is better than a nice new shiney fire truck that never comes.
obscene?
[blockquote]The distinction between truth and charity is merely a rational one on the part of the creature, as these are not really distinct in God. It is simply obscene to see such attempted elevation of mere creaturely distinction to absolute status–implying the impossible: a realm of autonomous nature.[/blockquote]
I don’t know about “obscene,†but otherwise you are technically correct, although your observation is beside the point. The distinction between truth and charity was made by the bishop and his unnamed sources, and from a creaturely standpoint is discussed by, e.g., Aquinas, as I am sure you well know.
[blockquote]You say the donatist controversy was not about morality, when a few paragraphs earlier you noted it arose out of controversy around emperor worship. That sounds like self-contradiction: the author is speaking nonsense.[/blockquote]
Actually, I didn’t say it was about emperor worship, but about cooperation with the authorities during persecution. In any case, donatism was not about morality per se because no one disputed that such cooperation was immoral. The dispute was over the ecclesiological consequences of such immorality.
Dr William Tighe’s response to several of the comments [i]supra[/i] may be found here:
http://confessingreader.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/dr-tighe-responds-to-misconceptions-about-donatism/