We oppose the Draft Anglican Covenant on the grounds that
Ӣ it would transform the Windsor process from admonition and counsel into an
unprecedented and unjustifiable ecclesiastical coup d’état;
Ӣ its central proposal is to transfer power from the presently autonomous Provinces to a
Meeting of the 38 Primates. The ambiguity of the text leaves open the possibility that
this power would be unlimited, unaccountable, and irreversible;
Ӣ the consequences of this development for Anglican theology and polity, and for
ecumenical agreements, would be extensive and have scarcely been explored;
”¢ the proposed innovation in granting juridical power to the Primates’ Meeting would be
a distortion and not a legitimate development in Anglican ecclesiology;
Ӣ the consultative processes and timetable are wholly inadequate and in particular they
completely marginalise the voice of the laity;
Ӣ the proposals have not been adequately justified in their own terms (the creation of
trust) nor in the wider terms of better ordering and facilitating the mission of the
Church;
Ӣ and yet Anglicanism has a rich storehouse of dispersed authority, of hospitality,
mutual respect and trusting co-operation, of valuing difference and openness to new
developments, of the honest and open search for truth, all of which can provide an
alternative to the Draft Anglican Covenant as grounds for hope for the future.
Yet another example of the impossibility of a covenant communion with the liberals. They will fight it with every underhanded backstabbing method available to them to prevent it from taking form. It would take away there ability to minority rule. If covenant communion is what you want, then step 1, not 27, is jettison the liberals.
Well said, the Modern Churchpeople’s Union. I especially appreciate this (emphasis mine):
And in response to #1 — robroy, can you explain to me how announcing that one opposes a particular proposal, and citing reasons for opposing it, constitutes “underhanded backstabbing methods”?
• it would transform the Windsor process from admonition and counsel into an unprecedented and unjustifiable ecclesiastical coup d’état;
The Windsor document called for a covenant. How can adopting one be a distortion of Windsor?
• its central proposal is to transfer power from the presently autonomous Provinces to a Meeting of the 38 Primates. The ambiguity of the text leaves open the possibility that this power would be unlimited, unaccountable, and irreversible;
So long as the provinces maintained the “bonds of affection” and worked on the premise that what affected all was decided by all, then an external authority was not needed. The reason that Holy Scripture tells us not to sactify children to Molech is that there were probably people who were doing this. When unwritten agreements are not followed with the reasoning “there is nothing written down forbidding X,” then written agreements and external authority are required.
• the consequences of this development for Anglican theology and polity, and for ecumenical agreements, would be extensive and have scarcely been explored;
The Covenant does not invalidate any other agreement between any province and any other church body. In fact, it enhances our ecumenical work by letting the others in the Church catholic know where we stand and that we do have a final authority.
• the proposed innovation in granting juridical power to the Primates’ Meeting would be a distortion and not a legitimate development in Anglican ecclesiology;
If the Anglican Church embarks on this path (and I hope it will), then it will be by definition “a legitimate development in Anglican ecclesiology.”
• the consultative processes and timetable are wholly inadequate and in particular they completely marginalise the voice of the laity;
The timetable is just as adequate as the timetable that produced +Robinson and authorized the blessings of same sex unions. The voice of the laity is not marginalized as each provinces’ juridical bodys would be required to approve the covenant.
• the proposals have not been adequately justified in their own terms (the creation of trust) nor in the wider terms of better ordering and facilitating the mission of the Church;
Yes, trust is at an all time high between the provinces. What we have now does allow for the building of trust because TECUSA’s bishops are seen to be saying one thing and doing another. The covenant increases trust because there will be backing to the given word.
• and yet Anglicanism has a rich storehouse of dispersed authority, of hospitality, mutual respect and trusting co-operation, of valuing difference and openness to new developments, of the honest and open search for truth, all of which can provide an alternative to the Draft Anglican Covenant as grounds for hope for the future.
Because of the break in our common bonds, something must be done to heal that break. The fabric of our communion has been rent asunder (=schism). This fabric was not torn by those who have maintained the teaching of the Church. The fabric was torn by those who attempted to change the teaching of the Church in a back door method. We need something to stitch the fabric back together. The Covenant can do that, if we let it.
My brothers and sisters. If we approach the Covenant as a way to heal the divisions and not as a political battle to be won or lost, we can find our hearts again joined together with God. If we approach it as a political battle, then who ever “wins,” we all will lose.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I did not “read the whole thing;” 17 pages is a lot at one go — but Ross quoted a section that disdains “foundationalism.” That is a term that I have not heard before, but it sounds as though it means that a foundationalist believes that there is a certain core of beliefs and practices that serve as a foudation for a group or institution, without which the group or institution ceases to be what it claims to be.
So I guess I am a foundationalist. I think that the Church should affirm certain core convictions and practices as being essential to being a Christian body. It sounds as though the “Modern Churchpeoples Union” want the Church simply to be an ever-evolving conglomeration of people, where idea gives rise to idea, and the original purpose and conviction is simply something of historical interest, not something to be cherished an upheld.
I wonder if the MCU simply does not want to be constrained by anything outide their own little group — but at the same time, wish the whole Communion to accept them on the MCU’s terms. “We will do as we please, and you will do as we say.” That is the message from GenCon & 815, and it seems to be the message of the MCU.
I will stick with the foundations of the Apostles, thank you very much. They are more reliable than the latest intellectual fashhion.
Ross- the inherent issue with this document is found in the contradiction of these two sections:
“3.2 The justification of innovation. We recognise … Innovation should be judged by its capacity to order and enable the mission of the Church to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Innovation should not be inconsistent with Scripture, should be in loyal continuation with the (Christian and Anglican) traditions which we have received, and should be in accord with the ecclesiology of the Church. Authentic continuity is necessary but not sufficient: innovation should also be judged by its capacity to enable the Church to thrive.”
AND
“6.1 The devaluation of diversity … In §3.135 of the Draft Covenant the definite article seems to govern the whole sentence. The ‘catholic and apostolic faith, order and tradition’ makes sense at a broad level of generality. This may be appropriate for a Covenant. However, without further elaboration, the sentence might seem to deny that the tradition also contains an innumerable array of traditions when ‘faith, order and tradition’ are described with greater care.”
This document postulates the existence of several traditions, contradicting the hitherto understood unitary Tradition consistent with Scripture and Reason. In avoiding innovation in the first citation, it creates a strawman argument that it then proceeds to demolish in the second. Finally, it refuses to recognise that the motive for the Primatial demand for Covenant is one which seeks to bring back Tradition to its proper place in discerning the true mind of the Communion.
Ross, you don’t think the smoke filled back rooms are plotting against the covenant?
#2. So MCU is effectively arguing that the “common mind” of the church implies the local context – in other words a local church can do what it wants without being held accountable for their actions or beliefs. Otherwise, I don’t see the distinction between “common mind” and “mind of the church”.
Wasn’t the Draft Anglican Covenant proposed by the standing committee of the ACC which includes the laity and the clergy?
Even if the liberal/gay agenda folk don’t like it, it is past time for the Anglican Communion to grow up! And this will help it do just that.
4. Hakkatan says:
Actually, that’s not quite what they mean. Here is the relevant section of the document:
As you may guess, I am strongly opposed to “foundationalism” in this sense.
#6 robroy says:
Actually, I think the “plotting” against the covenant is taking place right out in the open. A lot of people have expressed varying degrees of opposition to it (including me, here.) If it comes up for debate and vote at Lambeth, I expect vigorous discussion; but even if it passes Lambeth and ACC-14, it sounds like it will be a hard sell to GC ’09.
What drivel. These people are basically calling for more of the same… liturgical unitarianism.
In contemporary epistemological theory, foundationalism is the position that all knowledge is built up from a handle of self-evident principles, accepted by all, and these foundational principles can then be built on to establish others. If the chain is complete, the conclusions follow inevitably. Descartes would be a classic example.
I do not believe that classical Calvinism is an example of foundationalism, and it is certainly not an example of a position that denies that appropriation of revelation is mediated through human reason, or that Scripture is not to be interpreted. In fact, Calvin would have argued that revelation is necessary precisely because fallen human reason stands in need of correction. And because of the tendency of human reason to place itself in judgment of revelation, biblical exegesis must be a careful exercise in which proper linguistic and historical tools are used, and reason must be willing to allow itself to be taken up short in its initial expectations, and be transformed as it yields to the inherent meaning of the text. Calvin and Luther complained, after all, that the Medieval Church had repeatedly imposed its own misreadings on the text, and, of course, they were also two of the originators of modern exegetical study of Scripture. Any history of biblical exegesis pays homage to the significance of Luther and Calvin in this regard.
I’m not defending Calvin or Calvinism, just pointing out that the writers have invented a straw man to once again paint a false choice between narrow obscurantist fundamentalism and enlightened sophisticated liberal Protestant theology.
These are not the only two alternatives, either in theology or philosophy. Similarly, Moral and epistemological relativism are not the only alternatives to Cartesian foundationalism.
Having read the Covenant for myself I’m quite amazed that progressives seem overwhelmingly opposed to it. It demands too little in my opinion. I can only interpret the adamant opposition and the complaints about fundamentalist and popistical authoritarianism to mean either that the complainers believe even less than the covenant demands, or that they are unwilling to concede that Anglicanism makes any epistemological or moral demands whatseover. Either position would, of course, only provide evidence of why a covenant is necessary.
I remember driving from Austin to Dallas one weekend. I was scanning radio stations to find one to listen to. I came upon a fundamentalist (real type) preacher who said: “Scripture is not to be interpreted! See, it says here that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation. (Quoting 2 Peter 1:20)” The preacher paused and then said: “What this means is….”
I didn’t hear the rest because I was laughing so hard.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
Phil Snyder
To your point in #3, most orthodox Anglicans see the debate in terms of theology. For most on the left, this is a political battle. It is important for them to be able to change the meaning of Christianity in order to attempt to gain moral authority for their left wing secular political ideology.
Opposition to the covenant is a continuation of ’60s ethos of do your own thing, free sex, free love, you are not the boss of me, never trust anyone over 30. For many of these people, they never grew up and are eternal adolescents who do not want any restrictions on how the Bible may be interpreted, and therefor on their behavior.
For them, modern culture and their desires determine their theology, and God and the Bible must bend to what they want in a way that justifies their lifestyle.
For most orthodox Anglicans, we recognize that God and the Bible provide the standard, and we must guide our behavior by the requirements of the Bible.
If we do not recognize that this is a political fight, and strategize accordingly, we will lose, Anglicism will lose, and there will be no more AC.
William Witt, could you summarize the differences between natural law and foundationalism? They sound awfully similar. I had not thought that foundationalim had to be based on *self-evident principles* . . .
I await your wisdom eagerly.
Sarah
More, later . . . as I’m heading to church, but “natural law” is an ontological postion (which may or may not include a foundationalist epistemological commitment); foundationalism is an epistemological position, which may or may not include an endorsement of natural law. One can be a foundationalist atheist or nihilist.
And now, the “more.”
As I said above, foundationalism is the epistemological position that begins with certain self-evident principles, available to all, and then, building arguments based on those principles, works out an entire philosophical or theological system, which, because it is supposed to follow inexorably from the self-evident principles, cannot be honestly rejected without rejecting the self-evident principles themselves.
Theistic examples would include:
Cartesianism, which builds everything on the one indubitable principle that is impossible to doubt: I think, therefore, I am.
Post-Enlightenment evidentialist apologetics, which often proceeds along something like the following lines: 1) Proof of the existence of God; 2) Proof of the historical reliability of the Scriptures; 3) Proof of the resurrection of Christ; 4) Confirmation of Scriptural authority by fulfillment of prophecy, etc.
There can be atheistic foundationalism, e.g., logical positivism, which builds everything on the initial claim that nothing is meaningful that is not empirically verifiable.
Foundationalism has become largely discredited in contemporary philosophy because on the grounds that 1) there are insufficient commonly agreed self-evident principles; 2) Human beings have to assume much more knowledge than the foundationalist allows to even function in the world, and do so long before recognizing self-evident principles; 3) All knowledge is culturally mediated by complex historical and social traditions. There is no neutral knowledge available to all, and thus no universal self-evident first principles; 4) A proliferation of foundationalist epistemologies has produced no agreement either on the fundamental self-evident starting principles or on the necessary conclusions that follow from them.
Athough foundationalism itself is largely discredited these days, there is no single agreed epistemological alternative. Rather, the critique that one’s opponent is a foundationalist is often a way of ending the conversation. All agree that foundationalism is bad. One can often disguise the weakneses in one’s own epistemological alternative to foundationalism by accusing one’s opponent of foundationalism–as does the Modern Churchpeople’s Union in this rejection of an Anglican Covenant.
Sarah asks whether natural law is foundationalist. Natural law is a way of saying that morality or the Good is somehow inherent to the very nature of the cosmos. Various alternatives would include voluntarism (something is good simply because God says it is right; God does not command something because it is inherently good), relativism or nihilism, etc.
Natural law theory can be foundationalist, and often has been. For example, post-Enlightenment Roman Catholic theology has proclaimed natural law as the theory that all human beings have a fundamental awareness of right and wrong based on principles that are self-evident in themselves. Humanae vitae, Pope Paul VI’s famous (or infamous) anti-contraception encyclical, is such an example of foundationalist natural law. Paul VI argued against artificial contraception based on arguments that were ostensibly self-evident to all right thinking people, not just Catholics, and which did not appeal to revelation. (To argue against the Catholic Church’s position on contraception on sectarian grounds misses the point of Paul VI’s argument.)
OTH, affirmation of natural law is not necessarily epistemologically foundationalist. Oliver O’Donovan, in
, argues that natural law has to do with ontology, not epistemology. O’Donovan argues that there is an inherent objective order to which the moral life must confirm, but this order is known properly only through revelation and the re-creation of human nature that comes with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, because all human beings are part of nature, which is undergirded by natural law, non-Christians necessarily have some kind of (incomplete) knowledge or awareness of the moral good.
I am not a foundationalist, but, then, neither are most contemporary theologians or philosophers. Contrary to the claim of the Modern Church People’s Union, there is no connection between the Anglican Covenant and foundationalism. In fact, the notion of an Anglican Covenant does not presuppose any particular epistemological theory beyond some kind of commitment to epistemological realism, as opposed to skepticism or relativism.
And, please, as usual, ignore my inability to type without messing up html formatting, or typing “must confirm” when I meant “must conform.”
# 17, 18 – you raise some very important issues I’d like to come back to later, maybe on a new thread (I’m thinking here of alvin Plantinga & warrants for believing in God)