It seems that most of my speaking engagements in recent years have focussed on three topics. Each of these is a subset of that traditionally unmentionable trio – politics, sex and religion. A standard conversation at home is “What are you speaking about this time? War? Homosexuality? The Anglican Communion?”. Of course I’ve often found myself speaking about two of the three on the same occasion – I’m sure you can guess which two! Today I think is a first in that I’m going to speak about all three in the same presentation!
My decision to include war is obviously triggered by the title’s use of ‘conflict’ but also by two memorable quotations. One comes from Herbert Butterfield, the distinguished 20th century Christian historian. He apparently once suggested that one could adequately explain all the wars fought in human history simply by taking the animosity present within the average church choir at any moment and giving it a history extended overtime. The roots of war, in other words, are found within the conflictual life of the church at every level. The other comes from the memorable response in 2000 of the then Primate of Canada to the consecration by the Primate of Rwanda and the then Primate of South East Asia of two American priests to serve as bishops in the Anglican Mission in America (AMiA). “Bishops”, Michael Peers, said, “are not intercontinental ballistic missiles, manufactured on one continent and fired into another as an act of aggression”. The means of war, in other words, have their parallels within the life of the church at every level.
Of course, we are, thankfully, no longer likely to kill each other and that is not an insignificant development and difference from literal ‘war’. However, having said that, the events of recent weeks announced by Changing Attitude are a sad and shocking reminder that physical assault and threats to kill are still real dangers for some who openly identify as gay or lesbian and something all of us need to oppose and make sure we don’t in any way encourage. We must also confess that at a spiritual level Stephen Bates was sadly not too far wrong in calling his book “A Church at War”. We risk as an international body the sort of self-destruction brought by war. We need to recall Paul writing to one of the many New Testament churches wracked by conflict – “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another in love. The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other” (Gal 5.13-15).
So, how are we to think about conflict and making good moral decisions? What I am going to say falls into two parts – broadly a longer one on conflict and one on covenant….
[blockquote]”Third, as presently constituted, the Instruments appear unable and/or unwilling to take greater authority to themselves in these matters…”[/blockquote]
That is not quite accurate. The primates’ meeting was willing to take on authority (in accord with prior Lambeth resolutions) and did, producing most recently the DES Communique. After that action, the ABC and ACO acted against that instrument of communion in order to frustrate the proper application and adjudication of the DES Communique.
Correct, tired (#1). Cantaur sabotaged the Dar accords, though the divided Primates’ Meeting also bears some responsibility for allowing this travesty.
Goddard’s analysis is clear and sound enough. The problem is his application, or non-application perhaps, of that analysis. Of course, he is in good company. Many other honorable orthodox leaders are still unable or unwilling to consider the “unthinkable,” that is, that the AC actually NEEDS to split (e.g., +Wright, ++Gomez etc.). However I take it for granted that the New Reformation of the 21str century will be just as much of a “tragic necessity” as the original 16th century Reformation.
That is, massive schism is not only inevitable, it is NECESSARY. It is urgent and absolutely critical that we purge the intolerable heresy in our midst. And I don’t mean just the “gay is OK” delusion that is a lie from the pit of hell. I mean the whole cancer of the theologically universalist, morally relativist sustitution of a false but culturally attractive “gospel” that has replaced the true one in much of western Anglicanism. That false gospel must be surgically removed and its liberal remnants bombarded by deadly chemo and utterly destroyed. It’s time to drive out Liberalism from Anglicanism once and for all.
And lest I be misunderstood, I do mean Liberalism as an ism, as a whole belief system, not the banishing of all liberal tendencies. I mean “Liberalism” in the specific sense of John Henry Newman or Gresham Machen. That anti-Christian religion must be pulled up from the roots and annihilated from Anglicanism.
And if ++Rowan Williams wouldn’t go along with that? Then let him be eliminated too. And I mean that literally.
David Handy+
Well said, both #1 and #2. My comment at SF —
Dr. G has presented an excellent analysis, but his conclusion—that the Covenant presents the best way forward—is incredibly naïve. If the straightforward requests and processes outlined by the Primates as a body—Windsor, Dromantine, the Panel of Reference, Dar, and so on—get lost and ignored in the fatuous dithering and relentless politicking between Canterbury, 815, and the ACO, then what earthly chance is there that the bureaucratic [b]schwärmerei[/b] of the Covenant’s Section 3 will have any prayer (if you’ll forgive the expression) of taking needed action, let alone within any reasonable time frame?
Moreover, of course, the Covenant adoption process itself is planned to stretch out indefinitely, and there is no doubt whatever that any Covenant eventually adopted, and indeed any Section 3 actions (in the far, far future) by the ABC, the Assessors, or any other Communion organ will be treated by TEO with precisely the same contemptuous legalistic pettifoggery that they have applied to all Communion requests up to this point.
The split implied by GAFCON and the Lambeth boycott are indeed extreme measures. But I’m surprised and somewhat disappointed that the perceptive Dr. G, after the demonstrated failure of process after process, endorses as an alternative yet another committee engaging in yet another process. Extra points for optimism will, I’m afraid, no longer be awarded.
#2: Sadly (because of all the grief this entails), what you say is true. Much of the talk about ’empathy’ on another thread misses the point that we really are confronted with two different religions both claiming the same name, language and symbols but really witnessing to very different views of reality. It is indeed similar to what Gresham Machen faced in the 1920s. There is no metanoia in Tec, only a highly legalistic attempt (based on the intrinsic imprecision of human language) to stay ‘inside’, while all along denying the historic, creedal core. Rowan Williams could’ve nipped this in the bud, but he didn’t want to. So we’ve had 5 wasted years, enormous expense, unreadable reports, deepening ennui, and an unceasing hemorrhaging of ‘Anglo’ Anglicanism.
Thanks, Craig (#3) and “the Gordian” (#4),
I appreciate your kind words and reinforcement. Craig, I’m glad you cross-posted your fine comment on SF, with which I agree completely. And I share your mixed sense of grief and outrage, the Gordian. The last few years have been very hard on everyone who is concerned about Anglicanism and its clouded and uncertain future.
But I trust that God is in control and “working all things for good,” albeit with the important Pauline proviso that this applies only to those “who love God and are called according to his purpose.” And that lofty, amazing purpose that God has for us is not our comfort or happiness or security, but our holiness, or our wholeness, as we are conformed to the likeness of Christ (Rom 8:28-29).
David Handy+
The British publication International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church commissioned a volume on Covenant and Communion in 2007. This essay was prepared by invitation for that volume several months ago, and it will appear in published form in May 2008. It was posted on the ACI site so that it could be referred to in the context of a General Seminary event in New York last week. The remarks prepared for that context are much briefer, and aimed at a more general audience. They should be posted as well on the ACI site shortly. This was an event attended by Archbishop Gomez and Gregory Cameron, as well as others. Archbishop Gomez is on the ACI Board. I was present as representative of Wycliffe College, University of Toronto. The IJSCC volume will be sent to all Bishops of the Communion.
Dr. Seitz (#6),
Thanks for the clarification. It’s always helpful to know the context of an essay like this. But just so we are all clear about it, you are referring to the Andrew Goddard essay here, aren’t you, and not your own essay on Covenants? I don’t mean that in an insulting way, but it’s at least possible that you may have meant to post this comment on the thread about your own essay.
David Handy+
I am traveling and posted this on the wrong essay. My comment pertains to my own essay. People asked why it appeared, for whom it was written, etc. It was commissioned and written for a January 2008 deadline. So it is not current in any time urgent sense. It was useful to be able to refer to it at the General Seminary event with +Drexel, et al. That is why I asked that it be posted on the ACI web-site. My GTS remarks should appear there as well. Over and out.