AAC: Was any progress toward reconciliation made at this House of Bishops’ meeting?
+Lawrence: We spent a day and a half on what was called a reconciliation retreat. What makes it difficult to answer that question is that, based at our table discussion, the table I was at, I thought we began to talk about the difficulties that are connected with that whole area of reconciliation. So in that sense, on a table level, I would say, yes, we made some progress. But once we got to the legislative portion of the meeting”¦reconciliation is always costly and the question is, who it’s going to cost and who wants to sacrifice in order to reconcile. Once we got to the legislative portion of the meeting and the deposition for Bishop Schofield and Bishop Cox, I wouldn’t describe the mood of the house as conciliatory to those who, for issues of faith, don’t feel like they can conform to order of the church.
What we have in The Episcopal Church (TEC) today is that many people feel like the faith of the church has been compromised or violated and in order to deal with what they feel is a profound compromise or denial of the faith of the church historically and biblically, they feel like they have to do things contrary to the order of the church. At that point, many in the House of Bishops and in various other formats of the church desire to impose the order of the church upon them. That is, if Bishop Schofield believes the faith of the church has been denied, he has to go beyond the order of the church as in the canons and constitution of TEC, and those who are in the forefront who are quite comfortable with the new faith of the church, so to speak, feel like they have to impose the order upon him or upon Bishop Cox.
The difficulty we have, then, is the very way we went about imposing the order of the church. That is, after the House of Bishops’ meeting, after the voting on the canonical depositions of Bishop Cox and Bishop Schofield, it seemed to be revealed that those depositions were done in a way that was contrary to the order of the church…
AAC: What is your next step?
+Lawrence: I know that Bishop Howe has recently called for a re-examination of this. The Standing committee and Bishop of South Carolina, myself, have issued a letter of protest that the canons were not followed. I don’t know where we will end up with all of that.
Read it carefully and read it all, noting that there is more to come later.
A key exchange:
AAC: Do you think anything will come out of Lambeth or be resolved?
+Lawrence: I think the issues that we are dealing with today are going to take 40 years to resolve.
Y’all ready for that length of time? FWIW, by then I’d be in my 90’s.
Athanasius – didn’t it take over 40 years to resolve the Arian controversy – even from the point where you were instrumental in its resolution (Nicea 325) to the point where it was finalized (Constantinople I, 381). I make that about 56 years.
We’ve had “Nicea” (Lambeth 1998). I would not be surprised if we didn’t see councils ([url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Sirmium#Third_and_Fourth_Councils]Like 3rd Sirmium in 351[/url]) favoring the reappraiser view at some point. However, I know that the Truth will end up victorious. I’ve read the book and I know how the story ends.
Regardless of what happens, I faith that Jesus is the head of the Church and that he was, is, and will be victorious over all the forces that gather against the Holy Trinity and try to change the faith to spite him.
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
TEC does not have another 40 years to blow on this. At the rate of attrition and defection, TEC has 20 years tops before it starts begging the UCC for merger. Meanwhile the new Anglican Province in America will have gained to the point of having about 1 million members. Aren’t you just proud? Makes you want to call your bishop and tell him/her to take a leap!
Choir Stall, I’m not so optimistic…..I give them ten years.
Phil, your comment stimulated some pre-coffee thoughts I want to offer. It is true that many of the controversies in the church took decades if not centuries to fully iron out. Some might even say that the Reformation is still working itself out. But I think Anglicans in North America in particular don’t have 40 years to work it out. For one, Anglicanism is not THE CHURCH, but only one moment of the church (the options were pretty thin in the days of Arias). When the Anglican Church has the engine tuned up, I think it is a very very good moment. But, even juice and cookie once a month communion cave dwelling fundamentalists (save a few snake handlers from my home town) are part of THE CHURCH. My point is, there are options, and some are quite good. Take Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Here is a young, growing, missional, reformed church, able to incorporate tradition and deep theology, in the most pagan city in America. Lots of people are going to leave Anglicanism, and few new folks will come in the next 40 years while we work it out. We need more decisive action now.
Another problem is in our day, if someone reads the front page of CNN on line, watches Oprah, and reads the comments on the back of the [i] Da Vinci Code [/i] at Barnes and Noble, they think they are an authority on a thing. And as long as our liberal and moderate leadership continue to feel compelled to make these people happy, our free fall will continue. As I see it, there are very few willing to take a stand in the ranks of the pews, and almost none in the collars. And even I, a priest, know that I can “work” somewhere else, and still be fully serving God, for example, as a Pentecostal. And heck, in 40 years, that hypothetical Pentecostal Church might look more Anglican than most of TEC or the ACC.
Athanasius Returns (#1) etc.,
I too found +Mark Lawrence’s answer to that last question by the AAC interviewer the most revealing and significant. 40 years to resolve this crisis?? Well, the hapless ++Rowan Williams has made similar comments (more or less).
Well, first off, like Athanasius Returns, I’m in my 50s too, so if that’s the case I may well not live to see it happen. That’s OK. The real question is, “WILL this crisis be resolved at all, at any time?”
Oh, sure, it will be setttled somehow, one way or another. But will it be peacefully “resolved” in a way that leaves the AC stronger than ever?
I’m not sure what the good new bishop had in mind, but I suspect he is being far too naive or coy here. If so, of course, he has plenty of good company. +Tom Wright, the noble ACI team, and many “Windsor bishops” still keep hoping against all odds that this storm is going to blow over without destroying the AC.
I disagree. Strongly. As my chosen moniker suggests, I firmly believe that we are in the early stages of what will prove to be nothing less than “the New Reformation.” And like the original Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, I’m totally convinced that this 21st century New Reformation is “a tragic necessity” (to quote the famous balanced assessment of the original Reformation by historian Jaroslav Pelikan, in his Lutheran days!).
After all, as our Master himself warned us, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Oil and water simply don’t mix, no matter how long and hard you shake them together in a bottle. Nor can heaven and hell be reconciled, or God and the Devil. The kind of heresy now rampant in TEC and much of western Anglicanism is simply intolerable. And heresy of such a deadly and pernicious sort is MUCH worse than schism in my book. Much, much worse.
To those orthodox disciples still in TEC, I’d love to say the virtual opposite of +Lawrence. Don’t wait 40 years to see how this thing turns out. Anglicanism is about to experience the most devastating schism ever. That much is certain. The only question is the scale and bitterness of it. So leave TEC. And leave NOW.
Remember what Gandalf said to Aragorn, Frodo, and the rest of the Fellowship of the Ring as he was about to fall into the vast depths of the pits of Moria, dragged down by whip of the fierce Balrog? The curmudgeonly wizard cried out, in his usual gruff way, “Fly, you fools!”
Don’t wait 40 years. FLY, YOU FOOLS!
Isn’t today the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic? April 12th? Well, don’t stay on board too long. Fly to safety while you can.
David Handy+
…and the advantages, exigencies of a 40 year pause???? Syncretism and pluralism, atheism……
7. +SC wasn’t saying there would be a pause, just no resolution. It reminded me of descriptions of the Anglo-French Hundred Years War. When it was done, nobody was alive who was there at the start and few could remember the casus belli.
TEC is presently declining in membership at a rate of about 2% per year. At that rate, there will be about a million Episcopalians in 2048 and an average Sunday attendance of about 380,000. However, the rate of decline has been increasing about a half percent per decade the past 30 years. Accounting for that increase, membership in 2038 would be about 575,000, with an ASA of 210,000. These rates do not account for mass leavings (parishes and dioceses), but simply tracks the decline over the past 30 years, which, in my opinion, is mostly attrition – folks dying off and not being replaced. Normally, I would expect the rate to decline when the reasserters and wafflers have left, and simply because when the raw numbers are smaller, a different social dynamic takes hold. However, the demographic bulge of the baby boom will be gone in 40 years, so perhaps the rates will continue as they have for three decades.
All of which is to ask the question: will there be an Episcopal Church in 40 years? Will that be the solution to the current crisis? And furthermore: who is it thatcares? By which I mean, what constituency(s) care if TEC dies? And which don’t?
Words Matter etc.,
Only God knows the future, but the prospects for TEC are very grim. Just look at how our average age (i.e., the median age of TEC members) keeps climbing (it’s now over 60). That can’t continue indefinitely. At some point (say when the average age hits 70), the gently falling slope of steady decline turns into a cliff and the size of TEC suddenly plummets.
And with regard to the passing of the Boomer generation, I find +Lawrence’s guess that it may take “40 years” to resolve this crisis very suggestive. For it inevitably reminds me of the 40 years it took for the Exodus generation (of little faith) to die off in the wilderness. So many of the leaders in TEC seem to interpret this crisis in terms of the civil rights battles of the 1960s (which they remember nostalgically). More importantly, they are products of the Sexual Revolution of the Sixties. Perhaps, just maybe, the Boomer generation of leaders has to die off, before we can get beyond this impasse.
David Handy+