There are proposals, of course, to make us either a federation or a confederation, or God forbid, a unitary governmental structure such as the Roman Catholic Church has. The draft Anglican Covenant is a serious concern in this regard, particularly because it abrogates the constitutional principles that make us Anglicans. It abrogates the principle of lay participation in the governance of the Church by placing disproportionate emphasis on the views of the highest ranking bishops. It abrogates the principle of toleration by imposing a standard, and more frighteningly a mechanism, for judging orthodoxy other than the idea of common worship. Most dangerously of all, it appears merely to compromise the principle of autonomy when, if fact, it virtually destroys it by vesting the right to determine what is a matter of common concern, what the common mind of the Communion is, and what punishment is appropriate for violations of the common mind in the Primates Meeting. It is as if the English Reformation, to say nothing either of the Elizabethan Settlement or the constitutional development over time of independent churches voluntarily cooperating on the basis of a shared heritage, never happened.
I do not believe it is impossible to create an Anglican covenant that is constitutionally consistent with existing Anglican polity. The Inter-Anglican Commission on Mission and Evangelism has proposed one.(24) I do believe the current draft being considered, rather than being an expression of our constitutional identity, would be a complete replacement of it with something far less significant as an experiment in being the Church than is the Elizabethan Settlement.
In truth, the Anglican Communion does not exist with a governmental structure at all. It is, rather, a voluntary association of autonomous churches bound together by a shared heritage from the Church of England and enjoying cooperative relationships for the purpose of mission, nothing more. It is not at all unlike the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches in that regard, and they somehow manage to function reasonably well without a central government.
The term Anglican Communion arose, after all, not from an international constitutional convention but from the usage of Horatio Southgate, the American missionary bishop to Turkey in 1847.(25) Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as the Anglican Communion at all in an institutional sense. There are, instead, ways in which Anglican Christians affirm their heritage and further their missional ends by mutual respect for the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury and participation in the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates Meeting, as well as, probably more importantly, countless informal relationships that bring them together across racial, cultural, and geographic barriers for a common purpose in the service of the Gospel of Christ. What the Anglican Communion already is, I would suggest, is quite enough.
If there is no meaningful, Anglican Communion, then TEC should not object when the Anglican Communion votes to kick TEC out of an organization which does not exist.
BillS, that’s not going to happen, however much we might wish it. 815 funds entirely too much of the current non-existent Anglican Communion structure for an expulsion to occur.
Is it just me, or does Bishop Saul’s paper read entirely too much like a boy saying after he’s not been allowed to join a club “I didn’t really want to be in their stinky club anyway”? It’s a rationalization of why the Anglican Communion can’t expel or discipline and if it does, why such an event doesn’t matter anyway.
mousestalker,
I m under no illusions that the AC will kick TEC out. And I agree with your comment. Sauls is denigrating the AC so that regardless of what happens, TEC can say it doesn’t matter, and it is business a usual.
My hope is that anyone who chooses to remain part of TEC will at least recognize that TEC will never, never, never change its direction of worshiping its new Trinity, Global Warming, MDG’s, and the gay agenda. The battle to reclaim TEC and turn it in a more orthodox direction is lost.
Any strategy for the future must recognize this “fact on the ground”. VGR is consecrated, and TEC is not going to undo it. As a result, the only hope for orthodox Anglicans in the US is to get out of TEC under the protection of an Orthodox Province in the short term, and for CCP to provide an alternate US Province in the longer term.
[blockquote] Is it just me, or does Bishop Saul’s paper read entirely too much like a boy saying… [/blockquote] “I wanna do what I wanna do! I wanna! I won’t play! You can’t make me!”
Yep, BillS, you nailed it.
oops, I mean, way to go mousestalker!
sorry.
This is an interesting construction but is not the view of those of us in the Church Catholic. Episcopal, after all, means “governed by bishops” as I was told when I joined TEC in 1976. It is also a corporate construction of the church and not one of the Church supernatural as the Bride of Christ.
The real problem for Bishop “Stripper” Sauls is a legal one, not spiritual. If the AC is more than just a club, then parishes and Diocese who have left TEC can and will argue that the hierarchy goes past the PB and to the ABC.
If the hierarchy goes to the ABC, then parishes have only left TEC, but are still members of the AC, which weakens the TEC argument that departing parishes and diocese cannot take the property with them when they go.
Occasionally we need to be reminded that we are made in the image of God and not to do the opposite that is make God in our image. Bishops Sauls seems to be making a similar mistake, that is making the Anglican Communion in TEC’s image. I believe that TEC needs to reflect the image of the AC if it wants to claim and hold membership in the Anglican Communion.
Well, I will repeat what I said earlier, that the work on the covenant may produce a conciliar government, if government it can be called.
The council is essentially a horizontal, not a vertical, structure, so t hat the autonomy, such as it is, of the dioceses will not be damaged, and yet, the decision of the council should be binding because, as we know now, some sort of discipline is necessary for an identity to continue to exist – especially in so corrosive a world as ours. Is it not time for a counciliar movement? Larry
Bp. Sauls is either practicing a subtle mendacity here in order to gain/maintain a rhetorical advantage over those who believe that the concept of Christian communion needs to have real apostolic doctrinal content or he is guilty of historical ignorance of the first order. 1559 was an attempt at doctrinal detente, not a work of religious inclusivity. It had to be clarified in 1562, and again in 1571. While Queen Elizabeth did state that she would not use her authority to make “windows into men’s souls”, she was also quite clear that the “tide of innovation must cease” (rejecting the Zwinglianism and low Calvinism that had gained some prominence in the reign of Edward II) and that the new Church of England was “reformed catholicism”, and not another brand of Protestantism.
If Bp. Sauls wants to parallel the doctrinal ambiguity of certain elements of the 1559 prayerbook with the pluriformity of current TECusan thought, then he needs to inform his readers that the 1559 experiment didn’t work and that it was done for very different purposes. He should also let them know that it took a very autocratic queen to hold everything together. Ah-hah – now the reason for the legalistic tone of PB Schori’s letters is made clear. The next stage of TECusan evolution will be the great matriarchy.
Bp. Sauls is practicing a subtle mendacity. Yes, and that is the whole problem. We tend to think of TEC as a religious organization. It is not. It is a left wing, secular, political organization dressed up to look like a religious organization.
There are faithful Episcopalians with TEC, but TEC as an organization is mainly about gender identity politics, global warming, tax rates (higher), drilling in Anwar, pro abortion, MDGs, minimum wage, perceived racism, reparations for slavery, etc etc.
It is because TEC is primarily a political organization that it cannot just let orthodox parishes and diocese go to proclaim the Good News of Jesus as they best see fit. To lose a parish or Diocese is like losing the Iowa caucus, too dangerous to the left wing political agenda to be allowed.
We are debating on theological terms, while TEC is debating on secular political terms. For this reason, no matter how brilliant Dr. Harmon is in his recent lecture series (which is very, very good) he is addressing issues that are largely irrelevant to the leadership of TEC. It is not about God and Jesus, it is about secular power politics.
It is for this reason that no change is possible within TEC, and the only option long term for orthodox Episcopalians is to leave TEC to their politics and join an Orthodox Province.
He alludes to the Orthodox, but the Orthodox have a history of kicking people’s asses up around their shoulders when they do things like try to change right and wrong from the old definition.
I do not ascribe mendacity to Bp Sauls and think it’s a mistake for others to do so. Having blinders on as to what’s really important in a religious organization, yes. Failing to acknowledge that any human organization can be flawed (regardless of polity), yes.
On the surface this piece appears to be a scholarly history and analysis of polity. But a closer reading shows that it is much more of an advocacy piece. As such Bp. Sauls, a lawyer, needs to be reminded of a lawyer’s duty to disclose contrary authority. His disparagement of reasserters’ property cases fails to acknowledge that in California case law directly supports the reasserters (which is undoubtedly why the CA Supreme Court took up the contrary appellate decision from Southern CA). In VA, TEC is desperately fighting to prevent a court finding of denominational divide, which would allow all the parishes to depart with property. As those two states represent the bulk of ongoing litigation and in both states the situations are somewhat more favorable for reasserters (albeit for different reasons), Bp. Sauls’ blithe dismissal of reasserters’ legal positions certainly borders on mendacity and ethical impropriety.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. I’ve got one of them law degree thingies & I’m confused.
How can you get mad when you get kicked out of an organization that you claim does not exist?
Peace,
Bill Matz, you’ve got rose-colored glasses on if you think VA is a favorable landscape for dissenters from hierarchical churches. Does VA allow them a chance they don’t have elsewhere with the division statute? Sure. But it’s far from clear that chance will do them any good.
Also, the lawyer’s duty is to disclose controlling contrary authority, not all contrary authority. So when you’re not in court, as Bp Sauls is not, it doesn’t apply at all.
[blockquote] But it’s far from clear that chance will do them any good. [/blockquote] [url=http://babybluecafe.blogspot.com/2007/12/division-of-episcopal-church-first-post.html]It’s becoming clearer by the day.[/url]
Well spoken, by one who genuflects at the altar of legalities. It’s interesting that there is NOT A SINGLE reference or appeal to Scripture within this entire document.
It’s hard to imagine a better roadmap than this towards an answer to the BIG question: “what is wrong with ECUSA?”
Bp. Sauls is blowing a certain amount of smoke in his attempt to suggest that TEC in its infancy was really broken from England anyway as a result of the Revolutionary War and there were really no bishops in charge anyway, so it was really on its own and has always been so. In fact, it has always been called the Episcopal Church, just as the Anglican Church in Scotland has been always called the Episcopal Church of Scotland. America’s first bishop was ordained by a Scottish bishop precisely because America was at war with Great Britain – so Sauls’ story has holes. Bp Sauls, much like W.C. Fields, when asked why he was reading the Bible, said he was “looking for loopholes”, is looking fgr loopholes in a legalistic manner to bolster the legal mumbo jumbo concocted by he and David Booth Beers. His comments suggesting how historically important the laity is to the “successful” functioning of TEC, fail to acknowledge how much lobbying and vote-trading by those such as “Integrity” and similar ilk truly demonize the alleged “democracy” of TEC. A cousin of my own wife has drunk the Kool Aid of TEC for decades, is about as spirit-filled as my dog, and attends each convention as a hand-picked representative of his diocese while having not a clue about things such as the gifts of the spirit. Spare us the Sauls of this church. He is an example of how a lawyer cum seminary grad can do and say just about anything in this church and remain unchallenged.
The reign of Elizabeth that Bp. Sauls references was run by the Lord Chamberlain Henry Carey [ Lord Hunsdon ], a very tough hombre whose descendant, Archibald Cary [ who personally funded the Virginia militia in the Rev. War, built Ampthill House which stands in Richmond, and who died in 1786 ] , known as “Old Iron”, had a hand in setting up the very Virginia diocese which TEC now seeks to wrest away from his various real and spiritual descendants. I do not think the initiating essence of Archibald Cary’s Virginia diocese would go gracefully into the manicured hands of Messrs. Beers and Sauls – Cary was a guy who once threatened to stab Patrick Henry if the latter became emperor, as he had apparently threatened, and who physically picked up and threw down a member of the Virginia legislature [ on the steps thereof ] whom he regarded as a pain. He physically built Williamsburg, was a 1730 graduate of William and Mary, chair of the House of Burgesses and would probably kick Sauls’ rear if he were alive today.
Lord Hunsdon (and his sister Catherine, wife of Sir Francis Knollys) were very likely illegitimate children of Henry VIII by Mary Boleyn, the younger sister of Anne Boleyn, who preceded her sister as Henry VIII’s mistress (and who refused to sleep with Henry until their “marriage” was virtually a sure thing). Mary was subsequently married off to Sir William Carey to provide a name for her children (whose paternity Henry was understandably reluctant to acknowledge, given his interest in marrying Anne Boleyn).
Lord Hunsdon’s tomb in Westminister Abbey was the loftiest – his epitaph referred to him as “Hunsdon” rather than “Henry”. His funeral was bankrolled by the queen. He sired ten sons.
In 20/20 hindsight, Henry VIII obviously kept the wrong Boleyn. Elizabeth I was a strong monarch, but she was also the end of the dynasty, and led directly to the Stuarts and Cromwell. Of course, Henry didn’t let his brain do the thinking at that point in his life….