12. The route from Sect-type, extra-mural Anglicanism, to the Denominational-type of Anglicanism (which is necessary in order to become an alternative Province to the PECUSA in the USA) is a route that has NEVER been undertaken before anywhere in the world. In the conditions of the USA (with great emphasis on liberty and the right to express personal opinions) it will be extremely difficult even to get started on moving on this unexplored and un-chartered route. But the Common Cause Partnership has begun. And we pray that out of the many will be made the One. [Yet one wonders whether the Primates who are encouraging the creation of the Sect-type, extra-mural, Anglicanism, have thought about in any detail the immensity of the task in creating an alternative Province to PECUSA. Further, has any one of them seriously thought about the 1977 seceders and whether or not they should be consulted and involved in the route towards one Province for all seceders?]
13. There is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father. Paul tells us that there cannot be truth without unity and unity without truth in his Epistle to Ephesus; and Jesus in his Priestly Prayer in John 17 prays that we shall be one for that is his will. Many of us appear not to desire to be one! We think that possessing what we regard as truth is sufficient to justify our isolated standing before God in sect-type churchmanship. Maybe we are beginning to change our minds and see that truth and unity, or unity and truth, belong always together and to claim to have truth and to shun unity is a totally false position.
He should write a history of what we are watching in these days.
It is always the final statement (# 13 in thsi unlucky case) that seems to stir the senses – and hopefully the mind. I think that Dr. Toon and Dr. Akinola should be confined in a small room with each other for several days to discuss the unity vs. truth issue. Perhaps Dr. Harmon would volunteer to be the moderator 🙂
I’ll throw this out there knowing its sound-byte-likeness and my own simple-mindedness: There is NO unity without truth. Truth is primary. Unity is its consequent.
2. Athanasius Returns:
It seems axiomatic to me that unity, absent truth, is unsupportable. I don’t see that Dr. Toon disagrees but his statement, “….to claim to have truth and to shun unity is a totally false position” leaves me in some doubt.
I’m not sure who is shunning unity. I was very impressed with the unity of the bishops in Pitsburgh. I am agast at the separatism of TEC.
I don’t believe that the distinctions made here between “sect” and “denomination” support the argument being advanced.
PECUSA is and has always been a sect since it ceased to be governed as part of the Church of England. It has always existed in competition with a myriad of other protestant bodies, and it remains tiny by comparison with others in the USA. It may have achieved a certain social status but it has never been the popular choice, and thereby “established” in any sense as a real denomination.
The Scottish Episcopal Church came into being, not as an “Anglican” church but as a very Scottish creature, half in and half out of communion with Rome, and through what seems to be a kind of defective ecclesiastical DNA, condemned forever to intermittent collapse through the incompetence of its leadership – with the consequence that the Presbyterian system displaced it. The tiny rump which survives appears to be in terminal decline as it seeks to corner a niche for itself as Scotland’s gay church.
The REAL question is whether “Common Cause” has the will to create a province which is potentially recognisable as a province of the Anglican Communion, not as the AC [i]has[/i] been, but as it is becoming, with TEC and almost certainly Canada excluded, and along with them Scotland if our bishops choose to be shackled to their American sponsors.
I don’t believe it will be recognisable as a province unless it can achieve interchangeability of ministries, both internally and externally, and that means ceasing to ordain women, and withdrawing recognition from those “ordained” by women.
The new Anglican Communion, without TEC and Canada, will almost certainly not contain women bishops, and any province which in future goes down that line may also find itself excluded from a Communion which is both more biblically-based and convinced of the need for catholicity of holy orders.
A Common Cause which ordains women is simply replicating TEC of thirty years ago, and the outcome will be the same – as indicated by the loose discipline with respect to divorce and remarriage which continues unchecked in both TEC and many of its illegitimate progeny – such as large parts of the present Common Cause membership. Once you deny the authority of one part of the bible, you can not require those who deny other parts of the bible the licence to do just the same. All are disobedient and it is only a question of identifying the area of disobedience.
Peter Toon’s concern expressed in this essay is legitimate. I suspect all of us worry about whether Common Cause may falter and splinter. However, I want to suggest reasons not to throw up one’s hands in despair.
While Dr. Toon’s typology of national church, denomination and sect has some merit, it is a rather blunt instrument. Who is to say when a sect is large enough to become a denomination? Is the PCA a sect or denomination? Missouri Synod Lutherans? Antiochian Orthodox? Seventh Day Adventists? One of the features that seems to me to differentiate the leaders of Common Cause from the continuing churches of the 1970s and perhaps the REC for much of its history is the strong commitment to evangelism and church growth. AMiA is quite explicit about this, as is CANA. They are supported in this thrust by the Evangelical churches in Africa to which they are joined.
In fact, of Dr. Toon’s typologies, I would be most frightened if I belonged to the vestigially national Church of England. How will it cope with the swirling winds of secularism within it and without? It seems to me the C of E has hardly begun to grapple with this problem.
Finally, let me say that those separating from The Episcopal Church see no other choice, since TEC has become a heretical body through and through. After 30+ years of attempting to work from within, many of us have concluded that TEC is unreformable. So the real choices facing orthodox Anglicans in North America are to leave for another historic tradition (Rome or Orthodoxy), to join a non-Anglican orthodox denomination or sect, or to try to reconstitute a reformed and missionary Anglicanism, with the help and assistance of other members of the Communion.
It has never been done before? Well, there may be an erastian virus in the Anglican body that God is purging through this current trial. Maybe some new form of Anglicanism is just what the Lord is prescribing.
I would second Stephen Noll’s comments. Are the Southern Baptists a sect or a denomination? There are something like eight Southern Baptists for every Episcopalian in the USA. Are the Copts a Sect or a denomination? There are 12 million Copts in Egypt, and (at most) 2 million (and shrinking) Episcopalians in TEC.
My issue with Common Cause is that I don’t see any plan to combine the partners into one province and then what do we do with all the bishops? Who decides which bishops get “demoted” to parish rectors. Is there any plan for AMiA, CANA, Kenya, Uganda, Southern Cone, and SE Asia to agree that their bishops will be transfered to any new province and no longer under their authority/protection? What happens if +Cantuar refuses to recognize CCP as a legitimate Anglican expression? What happens if he does?
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I agree with the with all of the above concerns. But is there any choice? No. The TEC will not be swayed from the present course. The leaders talk about slowing it down. This is a farce as well.
It is heartening that from its inception, CCP is a unifying force rather than the opposite.
Will this ABC recognize the CCP? Probably not. Will the next? I imagine so.
Earth to Dr. Toon! We are Anglicans. We chose the “truth before unity” road a long, long time ago. If we were talking about divisions over small and relatively trivial “truths” I might see the force of his argument. But he seems to be throwing stones from a Crystal Cathedral.
As the Episcopal Church in the newly independent United States began to organize it had three historical models at hand. One was the established church model of Virginia,Maryland, and the South. A second was the dissenting sect model of Massachusetts and Connecticut. And the third was the one-among-many model of Pennsylvaia, Delaware, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.
In Virginia from the early 17th century, in Maryland after the Glorious Revoultion of 1689, and in the southern colonies of South and North Carolina and Georgia from various times in the 18th century, the Church of England was supported by a local tax. In Virginia the tax was set by the local Vestry, a body appointed by the colonial legislature with authority to levy a per person tax for the support of the poor, building churches, and paying ministers. The amount of the tax varied with the needs of the community but typically was 30 pounds of tobacco per working person (white males 16 and older and slaves 13 and older). One worker could make between 1000 and 1500 pounds of tobacco depending on the kind of tobacco and the fertiity of the soil, so the tax was about 2 – 3 percent of income. That’s about the present national average bu those who give. Every property owner paid the tax for himself and his dependents.
North Carolina was first serttled by Quakers and others who objected to the tax, but later a local establishment was imposed by royal governors and provincial assemblies. Similar schemes were tried from time to time with more or less success in the other southern colonies.
As time went on and the number of dissenters increased opposition to the establishment also increased, and the early revolutionary assemblies stripped the vestries of the power to tax.
So the establishment model was not really available to the post-Revolution organizers of the Episcopal Church.
In Massachusetts and Connecticut the provincial legislatures authorized the towns to levy a tax for the support of the town minister, the town meeting house, and the poor. From the late 17th century on immigrants from England objected to this Congregational establishment and secured the right to have their tax paid for the support of the Church of England minister. In 1722 the President of Yale College and three other Congregational ministers declared at the college commencement that they were convinced of the invalidity of presbyteral ordination in opposition to episcopal. They went to England to be ordained in the Church of England and came back to serve Church of England congregations. One of these clergy, Samuel Johnson of Stratford, Connecticut, trained many young men, graduates of Yale and Harvard Colleges, for the ministry of the Church of England. But the New England Anglicans were largely a sect of immigrants through the colonial period. Their clergy were generally supported by grants from the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), forunded in 1702.
New York had its own form of establishment. The legislature thought it was setting up a system to provide tax support for the Dutch Reformed, but the royal governor (Queen Anne’s cousin) interpreted it to include only Church of England clergy.
In Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, no church was established. Church of England lay people, aided by the SPG, organized churches and vestries. So did Presbyterians, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Quakers, Mennonites, Moravians, and many others. Royal governors gave what support they could or wanted to.
The authority to issue marriage licenses and the fees that accompanied that power in England exercised by the church in America were considered part of the royal prerogative and exercised by the governors. When in the 1760’s the Church of England clergy in New England and the middle colonies began to agitate for an American bishop they were opposed by the governors, the New England Congregational establishment, and by the non-Church of England clergy and merchants.
The context of the early Episcopal Church was more complex than Dt. Toon states.
I see some Anglican congregations with women priests in Kenyan dioceses, others with men priests in Ugandan dioceses, Bishop Bena part of CANA and the Nigerian church, Bishop Fairfield in Uganda, Bishop Cox in the Southern Cone. Most of us still have the mindset of a geographical diocese, and I think that will have to go. Many of us recognize that the old “diocese owns all” model no longer works, and will not work in a re-formed North American Anglican church. Our fellow Anglicans in the REC and APA can teach us how to be an episcopal church without these remnants of the Constantinian establishment. The melancholy experience of the 1970’s “continuing churches” demonstrates how a focus on prescriptive rather than descriptive canon law can lead to division and impotence. God grant us grace to learn a new way based on grace not law.
Tom Rightmyer in Asheville, NC.
I should not let my unnecessary snippy first line communicate that I do not respect Dr. Toon’s overall argument, nor that I care little for unity. But I reiterate that as Anglicans we had no unity as Jesus was praying for, nor can we find that unity again by clinging to a unity which embraces clear falsehood on a Gospel-denying level. We helped to break the unity of the church at the Reformation for Truth’s sake. To begin to retrace our steps we must first be true to that Truth that led us here.
Organization theory sheds some light on the problems and challenges discussed by Fr. Toon.
In a large voluntary organization, most members tend toward APATHY and INERTIA. People go with the flow. They don’t consider it worth spending their time and trouble monitoring the organization and trying to help direct its course. Let someone else do it. Economists speak of “rational ignorance” and “rational apathy”: i.e., deciding that keeping informed and getting involved are not worthwhile; the costs to you exceed the likely benefits to you. On top of all this, many people remain loyal to churches, political parties, and other organizations despite being dissatisfied with the direction those organizations are taking.
Viewed as a group, people who left ECUSA in relatively small bands (e.g., in 1977) tended—almost by definition—NOT to fit this pattern. They disapproved of what they saw. They were not apathetic. They refused to go with the flow. They left old friends and familiar, debt-free buildings for something new, exciting, and sometimes loney. As a group they were more involved and had more emphatic theological convictions. All the more so for their clergy. Having freed themselves from compromise with ECUSA, they tended (again taken as a group) to be less ready to compromise with each other. They were both more fervent and more fractious than their clerical and lay counterparts in denominational churches.
Given these powerful forces of self-selection, you would (at a human level) EXPECT continuing Anglican churches to have difficulty uniting.
I have assumed that U.S. orthodox Anglican leaders, as exemplified by the leadership of the American Anglican Council and the Anglican Communion Network, have wanted to break with ECUSA in a way that would encourage as many orthodox believers as possible to come with us. (I say “we” because I trust them and look to them for leadership.)
So—if I’ve discerned the strategy correctly—we didn’t leave hastily. We gave ECUSA time to reconsider and repent. We sought to inform the apathetic and the self-identified moderates. We waited for primatial discipline of ECUSA. We watched as bullying revisionist bishops persecuted orthodox clergy and congregations. We have been more than patient. We haven’t jumped. In substance, we have been or will be squeezed out.
Whether this strategy of patient endurance will bear fruit in a viable, cohesive U.S. Anglican province remains to be seen. But we seem to be off to a good start in Virginia. Ditto, as best I can tell, for North Florida. Common Cause is also off to a good start. It restores communion with the Reformed Episcopal Church. It also envisions a structure that will give accommodate Anglo-Catholics. I hope the older continuing churches will join up. But if they choose separation, that is their choice. Common Cause members will have plenty to do building unity among themselves and carrying out the gospel mission.
As far as the distinction between sect and denomination goes, I would argue the primary elements stem from the perspective of those within the group, i.e. they must make the choice of whether to be a huddled, paranoid and embattled sect with wagons circled and nothing on their borders but conflict, or they can decide to be the Church (or denomination as Dr. Toon says) and speak with confidence, facing the outside with the assurance of the Gospel message.
I sympathize with much of what Dr. Toon states, but there are a number of problems to remaining in TEC for traditionalists. Among them: raising children in an environment that is spiritually libertine, and, for Anglo-Catholics, seeking to preserve the Apostolic succession. I suppose the Catholic Church in England was a shambles during the English Reformation but God obviously had a plan for her…God will provide for us, even in our Babylonian exile. And I believe God is calling on us to witness to Him through our suffering, and ‘claim the high calling Angels cannot share…’
Thanks Tom Rightmeyer for an interesting history lesson. I think that many of us as so woefully unaware of the history of the US Anglican Church that we wring our hands at what seems to be an unprecedented predicament, when really similar dilemmas have occurred.
I am probably pointing out the obvious, but we should never forget that protestant Christianity itself is the result of a movement from sect to denomination(s). For better and for worse, it’s in its DNA; the Anglican Communion has just been better at papering over the cracks than most. Any argument that too closely identifies unity and truth is intellectually suspect unless it’s put forward by a Catholic (or arguably Orthodox).
Sorry Peter, but all but a Roman Catholic would find your assertion to be suspect. Unity to protestants, orthodox and anglicans means something rather different. If unity is indeed gathering around and blindly obeying one infallible primate, then we are indeed fractious. If unity means coming together around Christ then we are capable today of working together toward that goal. As an Anglican, it is at Baptism that I become part of the Church universal as the Epistles so clearly state. All those who receive a valid baptism are my brothers and sisters in Christ.
[i]If unity means coming together around Christ [/i]
But here’s the rub: are you coming together around Christ, or your idea about Christ? Am I worshipping the Risen Lord Jesus, or simply a reflection of my own cultural bondage? And how do I know the difference?
[i]blindly obeying one infallible primate[/i]
This is a caricature irrelevant to actual Catholic practice, but does point to how I might be freed from my cultural ideologies. Not “one infallible primate”, but within a community in which real authority resides against which my ego and cultural bonds may be broken.
Words Matter, I said nothing against the Biblical precept of “submitting one to another.” This is the scriptural recipe for unity. An adherence to and discovery of truth by listening, learning and submitting to each other. I am, as are most Anglicans and Protestants, against the unbiblical idea of checking in our consciences and blindly following a supreme leader (other than Truth, of course). Roman Catholic and Protestant history of cults is littered with the disastrous effects of that action.
Reason is the primary tool used by the Logos to lead us to Truth. We embrace spiritual death when we disregard it’s leading. There’s nothing heretical about standing contra mundum and even contra ekklesia (with a small E) when both are contra Logos, as Athanasius did.
WM wrote: “But here’s the rub: are you coming together around Christ, or your idea about Christ? Am I worshipping the Risen Lord Jesus, or simply a reflection of my own cultural bondage?”
We have to believe, as Christ taught us, that when we ask for a fish, the Father will not give us a stone. In addition we have to constantly examine our spiritual eye for logs, and work with others to remove them. I cannot, as some Romans on this list have claimed, believe that personal objectivity and reason don’t exist, and that doctrine is self-contradicting and true. The irony is that these wonderful people used their reason to become Romans, and then learned that personal reason doesn’t objectively exist. This reeks to me of a trap. 🙁
justinmartyr –
Again, you caricature the Catholic positions, when you don’t simply mis-state them. For example:
[i]then learned that personal reason doesn’t objectively exist[/i]
Where in the world did you come up with that? Please cite the Catholics who have made such a claim. What Catholics should believe is that personal reason is not the supreme arbitor of Truth (which is not, btw, an abstraction, but a Man, the Lord Jesus).
The magesterium of the Church, expressed in the Catechism, the ordinary teaching office of the bishops (in union with the bishop of Rome), the extraordinary teaching offices of ecumenical councils and the office of the bishop of Rome is [i]how[/i] the Father gives us the “fish” of Truth. My sitting in a corner figuring things out, or even in a local group, bound to its own history, strikes me as a recipe for disunity. In fact, with nearly 30,000 protestants denominations and sects, reason would lead to the conclusion that, in fact, something [i]is[/i] wrong in the DNA of personal reason, at least when it functions as private judgement.
Actually, the Catholic Church does recognize the importance of conscience, with the provision that the individual conscience is formed in the context of the community of faith. But that begs the question: how do I know that my “reason”, tainted as it is by the Fall, is right? Against what might I check it? To say “scripture” ignores the fact that scripture is interpreted variously – the homosexualists are currently using scripture to claim that Jesus would have been on their side if he were alive today. Again, 30,000 (more or less) groups can’t all be right.
Really, I don’t read this site to do Catholic apologetics, but if someone wishes argue against Catholicism, it seems to me the arguments ought to be against what the Church teaches, not a caricature of what the Church teaches.
Words, my intent was not to caricature or attack Roman Catholics. I was responding to what I considered an unjust characterization of Anglican unity — on an Anglican site such as this, that is not beyond the pale.
You wrote: “Where in the world did you come up with that?” [that personal reason and objectivity don’t exist for Romans.]
Actually you’re the one saying it. Either I am able to objectively determine scriptural truth, or I am not. You made it very clear in your statement (right above this one) that as individuals we’re NOT able to tell right theology from wrong — hence the glorious infallibility of the Petrine See, and the horrendous division in Protestant sects and cults?
Fr Kimel is honest enough to admit that he sees MANY logical contradictions in Roman faith. He just does not see logic as the final arbiter, so, in a rather post-modern way, it doesn’t matter to him.
I’m happy to accept your claim that there are no logical contradictions in Roman theology, if you’d like to make that one. But it makes no sense to assert that an individual, with the help of the Holy Spirit, is unable to determine necessary, salvific, scriptural mandate. The Bereans would have laughed at you, as would all early Christians.
Where am I going wrong?
justinmartyr,
You are, of course, free to respond to anything you consider inaccurate, as I have done. The problem is that in doing so you have yourself made inaccurate statements. I accept that you didn’t intend caricature, but that’s what [i]blindly obeying one infallible primate [/i] and [i]personal objectivity and reason don’t exist[/i] are.
[i]Actually you’re the one saying it.[/i]
Actually, no I am not. What I am saying is that I and my personal opinions are not infallible; i.e., personal reason is not the final arbiter of Truth. I will add now that elevating my opinions some sort of absolute is idolatry. As I said before, you really don’t have a clue what Catholic theological discussion is actually like. We are anything but passive chicks being fed from our Papa Bird in Rome.
As a digression, as have a problem today in that the Papa Bird really is feeding us wonderful stuff – have you read [i]Jesus of Nazareth[/i]? What great food, but in it the Holy Father explicitely states that it isn’t “infallible” teaching, just his own theological reflections. In doing that, the pope himself is submitting his personal thoughts to the community of Faith, to the Church of which he is the earthly head. You might also read some of Avery Cardinal Dulles, who participates in the current discussions regarding capital punishment quite against the last pope’s opinion on the subject.
I would say that objectivity, as an absolute, doesn’t exist: we all live within the time and place of our birth, with the specific limitations of genetic, sociological, and psychological strengths and weaknesses. That doesn’t mean I can’t come to a conclusion outside of my limits – I do, after all have the Holy Spirit. The problem is that I am a sinner, a son of Adam and Eve and must have a reasonable check outside myself if I wish to progress in objectivity.
[i]I’m happy to accept your claim that there are no logical contradictions in Roman theology, if [/i]
I haven’t actually made that claim, but I probably would, since I can’t think of any. If Fr. Kimil happens to be reading this, I would be interested in what logical inconsistencies he finds in the Catholic Faith. I don’t remember his posting on that subject, although he’s written far more than I have read.
As with objectivity, I would agree that “logic” is often approximated but not realized. That doesn’t mean that “logic” doesn’t exist, or isn’t important. It just means that I am not God, and cannot claim infallibility in what I think is logical.
Words, I think you’re anything but a “passive chick,” — more reasonable than you give yourself credit for.
[i]personal reason is not the final arbiter of Truth[/i]
What induced you to say that? Reason perhaps?
Reason, simply put, is the ability to decide whether something is true or false. You used it before you made the above statement. You used it when you decided (quite reasonably, I might add) that we are not always right, and that the Pope is a wise man. You even used it when you determined the validity of the claims of the Roman Church. I’m not saying our judgment is always right. I am saying that we must always and do always judge. It is this personal judgment that determines to what we will submit.
I’m trying to get my head around the phrase [i]”elevating my opinions above all else is idolatory.” [/i]
“I know and am persuaded” that Jesus is the one true God. I hold that opinion above all others. Is that therefore idolatory?
I think what you mean is that God must come before all. The vehicle to coming to that realization is reason. Right is meaningless if it is indistinguishable from Wrong. As ears are to music and eyes are to light, so is individual reason to truth and falsehood.
The wise Benedict XVI translates Logos as Reason. According to the Pope, Christ is of essence reasonable.
Free will, a doctrine heroically defended by the Catholic Church is meaningless without the notion of individual reason. Scripture tells us that “all good and perfect gifts come from the Father”. Reason is our primary gift from Him.
[i]Jesus of Nazareth[/i] is a wonderful book, by the way. I’ve not read the entire thing but what I have is inspiring. On that we can agree 🙂
justinmartyr –
I know I’m not a passive chick… or passive anything. However, that seems to be the import of statements such as “blindly obeying one infallible primate”.
[i]What induced you to say that? Reason perhaps? [/i]
I would certainly say so, but remember that I am not arguing against reason, only that it belongs in the context of the community of faith. Even in the Anglican tradition, Hooker places reason not equal to scripture and tradition, but third.
I would define reason (or logic, for that matter) not as an ability, but a series of mental operations enacted upon preconceptions. Be that as it may, the issue is how reliable my reason might be. Against what do I check my ability to reason?
[i]“I know and am persuaded†that Jesus is the one true God. I hold that opinion above all others. Is that therefore idolatory? [/i]
No. You hold that belief in union with the whole Church. It’s not just your private opinion.
#18 “Sorry Peter, but all but a Roman Catholic would find your assertion to be suspect.”
There is no such assertion; I simply referred the concept of unity that the article seemed to use. That a properly protestant understanding of the unity of the church in Christ is different underpins precisely the very point I tried to make: one can’t take “unity” both ways. If that wasn’t clear I apologise.