Dear Brothers and Sisters,
We are ending in a moment of frenzied attempts to make sense of all of it. Let me sort out what I can.
We were in Bible Study groups that averaged 8 Bishops per group. Five Bible Study groups were then combined to make an Indaba group of approximately 40. And there were 16 Indaba groups.
16 x 8 x 5 = 640 Bishops participating. (By tomorrow) the Indaba groups will have met 13 times, for a little more than an hour and a half each time. Total = approximately 20 hours of discussion on a total of nine (somewhat related) topics.
Each Indaba group had a facilitator, a recorder, and a “listener.” (Each group nominated 3 Bishops to be listeners, and the Conference Design Committee selected from among the nominees to assure “balance” among the group of listeners.)
It was the job of the facilitator, the recorder, and the listener to record the comments that were made in all of these groups by all of these Bishops. As I said a few days ago, if a given comment came up five or six times in as many different groups, it was almost certain to make it into the final “Reflections” Statement that has been under construction throughout the Conference.
Tonight at 5 PM we had the final “Hearing” on the Fourth Draft of what we have seen three times before – now 23 pages in length; we had not quite an hour to offer our suggestions before it is finalized overnight. At 5:52 PM we were given “Part 2” – an additional 14 pages, not seen previously, that attempted to summarize the conversations of the last three days on the topics of human sexuality and the Anglican Covenant. We had another 38 minutes to offer comments on it (!).
What will be issued tomorrow, as a Statement of the Lambeth Conference 2008 will thus be the Herculean effort of a team that is attempting to capture (as in a “snapshot,” I suggested earlier) “where we are” as seen through the eyes of the Bishops who have been together these past three weeks.
Of necessity that Statement will be “all over the board.”
In all honesty, they have already done a better job than I would have thought possible. But, will it be of help to the Communion?
At one level, I think the goals of the Conference have, indeed, been fulfilled. We have spent much time in prayer and Bible Study (many have remarked that the Gospel of John has become a new book for them). Relationships have been built and strengthened. And there is probably more appreciation on everyone’s part for the breadth – and diversity – of convictions across the spectrum.
As the London Times reported this morning, we have avoided schism (though GAFCON is undeniable evidence that we are already living with it!); but at least we have at least avoided it here. There have been no angry speeches or staged walk-outs. Even the very strong indictment offered by the Archbishop of the Sudan was offered without anger.
But any who hoped we would finally speak with one voice, or even make significant progress toward resolving our differences in the area of sexuality, has to be deeply disappointed. I am afraid those hopes were unrealistic from the beginning.
I am reminded what theologian Martin Marty said to us when the Episcopal Bishops met with our Lutheran counterparts in the early 1990s. He commented that there have only been two issues that have so divided Christians in the history of the Church as have the issues of homosexuality: Christology, during the early centuries, and Justification at the time of the Reformation. “And,” he said, “in both cases it took about 300 years to sort the matter out. So, don’t expect any early or easy resolution.”
Thank you for sending me to this year’s Lambeth Conference. I hope I have done well in representing the Diocese of Central Florida, on the one hand, and in reporting back to you as clearly and helpfully as I can, on the other. And, one more time, thank you for your prayers.
With warmest regards to all of you in our Lord,
–(The Right Rev.) John W. Howe is Bishop of Central Florida
As a quick aside on a practical level, anyone wishing Bishop Howe’s email may write me off blog and request it. A few days back I wrote him a thank you note for his consistent and remarkably helpful missives about his Lambeth 2008 experience. Let me encourage you if you feel so led to do the same.
38 minutes?
We have witnessed the death throes of the Anglican communion over the last three farcical weeks and they finally spend 38 minutes on a rambling, incoherent document that asks, ASKS, where do we go from here. Well if you have to ask, the answer is obvious. Jerusalem. The main thesis of GAFCON was that the instruments of communion were irreparably broken. This conference has proved far better than any manifesto from GAFCON that this thesis is true. The only surprising thing is the obvious delight the communion’s leaders take in the fact that they were able to avoid saving the dying communion.
[blockquote]Of necessity that Statement will be “all over the board.” [/blockquote]
Just what the Communion needs right now: A jumbled, contradictory, confused, rambling report. Yeah, that’ll rally the troops.
Being on the front lines of this struggle at home and now at Lambeth, not forgetting his wife’s health, it would have been understandable if Bp. Howe had never said a word. Instead we get this opposite, not only blogging but daily. I have read quite a few Bishops blogs; Fulcrum, ACoC and TEC just being some, and I think it safe to say the Bp. Howe has been the gold standard here. His brevity, openness, and most importantly his ability to see value in all and still speak to what is or may be valuable has been and is a gift, literally.
God Bless you, and your wife, Bishop Howe and thank you.
I suspect that for many John’s gospel is indeed a new book. It is completely written off by many “scholars.”
Where do we go from here?
Can an orthodox Anglican co-exist with clergy and laity who hold vastly different views on core issues?
Can an orthodox Anglican share spiritual space with those who profess to be Anglicans but who hold beliefs that border on heresy, are heretical and sometimes are apostasies?
Is it the mission/ministry of orthodox Anglicans to try and reason with individuals who are political activists and who possess a level a theological literacy/competence comparable to a college sophomore who has just completed Comparative Religions 101?
What about those of us who are “sacremental?” What about those of us who are charismatic and wish to be part of a congregation worthy of the visitation of the Holy Spirit? What about those of us who want to be evangelists of the Anglican faith and are part of an ECUSA that is becoming more and more seen as a left-wing politically chic church?
Going to another mainline church means abandoning Anglicanism and “bugging out on” our orthodox Anglican brothers and sisters whom we leave behind. Besides, most of the main line churches are also being poisoned by the revisionist movement, aka radical progressives. It means not “fighting the good fight.” It means surrender and abandonment. It speaks of a weakness in one’s commitment to “…the Faith once given….”
It looks more and more like there needs first to be fighting stand taken by the orthodox Anglicans within ECUSA and then, when that fight ends in pyhrric victory for the revisionists, a renewal of Anglicanism within North America by establishing an orhtodox Anglican province for the continent.
I heartily endorse Rocks’ #4. Bp. Howe, in addition to everything else he is doing, has been the best source of information about what is going on. I have eagerly awaited his report each day because so little other information has been available. It was Bp. Howe that told us about the kindergarten-like action of a group of grown bishops gazing at pictures on a wall. It was Bp. Howe that told us about the idiocy of dividing husbands from wives in the (important) talk on abuse, prompting several bishops to walk out. IMO, this was a very important subject that was trivialized by the “asinine” (another wonderful gift from Bp. Howe, albeit in another context) presentation. For the avoidance of doubt, as we lawyers are fond of saying, my earlier comment was not directed at Bp. Howe, but at the managers of this conference that Bp. Howe himself has so obviously endured with far greater patience than one could find in my house. (My wife, sitting on the other side of the room, nods in agreement.)
[blockquote] As I said a few days ago, if a given comment came up five or six times in as many different groups, it was almost certain to make it into the final “Reflections” Statement that has been under construction throughout the Conference. [/blockquote]
Herein we see the beauty of ECUSA’s strategy – one in 5 bishops attending Lambeth is an American apostate (since TEC sent 22% of the bishops, I may actually be understating this number – John Howe and several others are in that 2%) – and they were all given talking points and under rigorous orders to stick to the script. Therefore, the document will be well salted with these talking points.
Let me repost Father Handy’s Stand Firm disputation of +Howe’s citation of the liberal Martin Marty:
[blockquote]I too would challenge the validity of Martin Marty’s analogy. Now granted, he is an eminent church historian and I’m trained as a biblical scholar, not a church historian, but there are still two huge problems with accepting his seemingly wise and appealing perspective on this fierce and protracted debate. That is, besides the one Harry already mentioned, that the witness of Scripture (and Tradition, I’d add) is clear, consistent, and overwhelming. And that sets this controversy apart from the Christological debates of the early centuries, or the Reformation debates over justification, where both sides at least had a plausible claim to biblical support.
The first problem with Prof. Marty’s analogy is this: he is highly biased, as a liberal on the issue at hand. He WANTS this controversy to play out over centuries, instead of being resolved quickly and decisively, as it should be. And so does ++Rowan Williams. They vainly imagine that time is on the side of the “enlightened†ones, who are in tune with the western cultural Zeitgeist or spirit of the times.
Second, Marty’s initially attractive analogy is deeply flawed because it overlooks the primary dynamic at work in this case, which was NOT true in the earlier two cases he cites as parallels. In the case of Christology and Justification, the Church was working through an inner conflict bequeathed by paradoxical elements found within the biblical record and the Christian tradition itself (Christ being divine and yet human, salvation being by faith apart from human works or merit and yet faith without works is dead). This is emphatically NOT the case with regard to the morality of homosexual behavior, for which there is simplyh no justification whatsoever in either Scripture or Tradition.
Instead, in our time, the conflict is driven, not by internal tensions within the biblical witness and the evolving doctrinal tradition of the Church, but by EXTERNAL cultural forces. And that makes all the difference.
I contend that two better analogies would be the fight against Gnosticism in the early centuries, and the fight against Deism and rationalism in the modern period (i.e., since the Enlightenment beginning around the time of our American Revolution). For in both of these two cases, the Church was contending with an alien, external hermeneutic or philosophy that was intruding upon the Church and threatened to totally corrupt it. And in both cases, that alien hermeneutic was driven by the influence of the surrounding culture and the external pressure thus exerted upon the Church.
And both with regard to Gnosticism and with regard to Deism, that challenge was fought off and overcome in much less than 300 years. Thank God for Irenaeus who decisively refuted the Gnostics like Marcion, Valentinus, and Basilides. And thank God for our own Anglican bishop Joseph Butler, who refuted the Deists with equal vigor and success.
Don’t let Prof. Marty fool you. I think +Howe may have been taken in by his plausible argument.
David Handy+ [/blockquote]
Indeed. I think that it is important to keep in mind what a small faction of Christianity that the liberal west represents. And that faction is rapidly disappearing. Thus, I would add to Father Handy’s argument that the liberal west doesn’t have 30 years let alone 300 to argue give their shallow arguments built on abysmal hermeutics, shoddy science and, of course, feelings.
Handy’s critique is
Martin Marty is a liberal. Thus, we shouldn’t trust him, even though he is an esteemed historian.
Then Handy offers a fairly unsatisfactory anthropology about internal and external cultures. This is contestable. What is true is the technology has changed the way we think, read, and experience relationships – whether it be the codex, the printing press, the microscope or the birth control pill. These are all “external” forces that put pressure on how we read texts.
We’re seeing a debate between multiple Christian cultures: one rooted in late 19th century hermeneutics, highly reactive to modernism (and thus a product of modernism); another that seeks to change culture while being a part of it, and one that sees Christ within culture. There may be more. Several good intellectual historians have argued that secularism is a direct consequence of protestantism, for example, and Brian Gerrish once said to me that liberalism and evangelicalism were once one and the same.
[blockquote]Handy’s critique is
Martin Marty is a liberal. Thus, we shouldn’t trust him, even though he is an esteemed historian. [/blockquote]
Hardly. Father Handy states that Mr Marty draws false analogies from history. And as I said, one has to be delusional if one thinks that western liberal “Christianity” will be around for more than a few decades.
John Wilkins repeats his “liberalism and evangelicalism were once one and the same” line. No, liberalism is like a blood sucking tick that draws life from Evangelicalism. It is a cross-less Christianity. It is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s cheap grace.
RE: “We’re seeing a debate between multiple Christian cultures . . . [said the revisionist who wishes to redefine the word “Christian”]”
No we’re not.
Brilliant argument, Sarah! You just destroyed Niebhur in three words! And JZ Smith. And others.
I’ve never been in the business of “defining” Christian, so I’m not sure how I would “redefine it.” That’s your job, helping God figure who’s in and who’s out. How’s it workin’ for ya?
I might not be much of a Christian, but I know what it is like to lead a Christian community; I say the creeds, read scripture, and am mighty glad that Jesus was raised from the dead. And although I’m mighty amused at a picture of God who check’s people’s id tags at the end of time, it’s not something that occupies my time much.
I suppose there are worse insults than “revisionist.” The economist Keynes once said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do sir?”
As far as a cross-less Christianity, Robroy, I’m not sure what you mean by that. If you mean I live in the light of the resurrection, then, yes, I don’t think I must bear Christ’s cross. He bore it for me, which pretty much changed everything. In history. If I have a cross, I give it to him. Not to you. Nor to gay people. The resurrection changed everything, much to your discomfort.
To mine, as well, for although I can’t intellectually handle the resurrection, the world without it would be lost. This I am sure is what matters. While you consider God’s mercy as hinging on how one reads a text or the particulars of sex, it is enough to see how God’s love changed everything.
But good luck with you while you preach your gospel. I’m sure you’ll have a gay-free church with people who think the same way. In my church there will be a greater diversity of people who read scripture and are also looking for the living God.