"Doctrinal Indifferentism"

The Bishop of Durham, +N.T. Wright has had an exclusive interview with Ruth Gledhill. Unquoted passages are apparently paraphrases.

For Wright, the lines seem pretty clear, and guess who ought to get short shrift?

Windsor as a tool of punishment:

The Primates have little choice but to follow Windsor at the meeting next week. And if Windsor is followed, then Gene Robinson and those who consecrated him should voluntarily absent themselves from the councils of the Communion, including the Lambeth Conference, unless they express regret in the terms set out in Windsor.

Will ++Peter Akinola be expected to follow Windsor to the letter, too? Better let the churches in Virginia know.

On The Episcopal Church:

. . .too many in TEC are guilty of "doctrinal indifferentism."

Thanks.

On America and +Gene Robinson:

"There are many in America who are trying to have their cake and eat it, who are doing the schismatic thing and then accusing those who object of being schismatic."

In America there are dozens of breakaway bits and pieces, it is confusing and very messy. It is very American. But it is very unhelpful to the cause of the Church and the Gospel. As for what would happen to Gene Robinson? Pass. I really do not think there is a good answer to that one. The Windsor Report quotes the Archbishop of Canterbury himself saying in 2003 that if Robinson were in most other provinces of the Anglican Communion, he certainly could not be a bishop. As a priest he would be under discipline because of what has happened in terms of his marriage and partnership. In most provinces he could not have been a bishop. Therefore to ask other provinces to come to Lambeth and accept Gene Robinson as one of their number is a very big ask.

Ouch. Well, we always were a bunch of rebellious, misbehaving colonists, weren't we, doing the "schismatic thing. . ."

On General Convention and ++Katharine Jefferts Schori:

"At Dromantine the Primates said they wanted Ecusa to answer some questions. Ecusa did what they did last summer, which was not to answer the questions. They gave half an answer to two of them, and no answer at all to the third, which was about authorising blessings. Bishop Jefferts Schori herself authorised same-sex blessings in her former diocese in 2003, so she is one of the bishops who did what Lambeth specifically asked not to be done. Whenever she has been asked to comment on that, she says she stands where she always did. That is a real problem. That is the real issue. The fact that she is a woman is not the point."

"The fact that she is a woman is not the point." Me thinks thee dost protest too much.

"Almost everybody involved with this question recognises that there is no way forward from here without pain. It is painful for everybody. There are not going to be winners and losers. There are going to be losers catergory one, two, three, four and five. When there is some kind of parting of the ways it is always painful for everybody. But I do think there is hope that the rootedness of the Anglican Communion in Scripture and tradition, that by doing its reasoning work wisely, this will enable it to come up strong after this crisis. Even if it means a bit of pruning, the plant will be healthier for it. And I rather hope that anything that needs pruning will not be lost but grafted back on sooner or later."

Gledhill notes that +N. T. Wright is very close with the Arhbishop of Canterbury.

Looks like we're about to feel the sharp edge of the pruning shears.

Too many of us are trying to "have our cake and eat it too?"

There are prices to pay for standing up for and with the marginalized. We may be about to pay them. We're in good company. Remember the likes of Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Ghandi, Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Francis of Assisi, and. . .oh, yes. . .that guy, Jesus Christ?

Honestly, Bishop Wright, I'm not sure I want the cake that is the Anglican Communion if this is how we are to be treated for following what we see are Gospel principles. . . and for bearing the wrath of our companion Christians for doing so. Call me guilty of suffering "doctrinal indifferentism" as you like. I don't pretend I could hold a candle to your great mind or scholarship.

But I will say that the honest risks we have taken in standing with our faithful LGBT brothers and sisters and a duly-elected and consecrated bishop of The Episcopal Church hardly seem indifferent to me, doctrinally or otherwise.

Jim Naughton has sharper words than mine at daily episcopalian, and Marshall goes more in depth at Episcopal Chaplain at the Bedside. Mark Harris has just posted, too. And so has Raspberry Rabbit. And now, Fr. Jake! The Anglican Scotist further deconstructs some of Wright's arguments.

Head, Heart, and Hope

Part IV of a Series of posts from attending Epiphany West 2007: Re-visioning Anglicanism, at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California.

I open this post with an apology for the harsh terms I used in yesterday's posting when referring to +John-David Schofield, Bishop of San Joaquin. (I have since removed the remarks, but my regret remains.)

It is far easier to judge someone I have not met, and far easier to blog with snarkiness than to seek face-to-face conversation. The community I currently serve is in the deanery where Bishop Schofield once was priest, and so I inevitably walk in places he once walked and know and love clergy and laity who once labored in the vineyard alongside him.

Anyone who has been following San Joaquin closely the past few years is probably aware that Bishop Schofield has been suffering from ill health. However accountable he should be held for leading his diocese down the road to schism, punitive action should be tempered or even supplanted with compassion. Having met people from the diocese, it strikes me that San Joaquin languishes to some degree from isolation and dysfunction with multitudinous causes. The present situation there is creating profound anxiety, hampering mission, and weighing down gifts that might otherwise be building up the people of God.

Attacking Bishop Schofield does not help and is far outside the bounds of what Christ taught his followers.

I very much doubt he takes the time to read my words, but if Bishop Schofield does, I pray he will hear in this my heartfelt regret.

There is no call for harshness on San Joaquin, but rather listening hearts and deep prayer for their leadership, and for all those who stand in harm's way if the wheels of schism begin to roll. For those who hope for a brighter future there, we must offer all our solidarity and best Christian love.


Democracy and Violence

The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, Rector of Church of the Ascension, Pueblo, Colorado, opened this morning with a remarkable, thought-provoking lecture, The Wound of Division: The Political Character of Fragmented Communion.

Through the lens of his experience as a missionary in Burundi, and the transition there from a military dictatorship to a fragile, infant democracy, Radner tied together a wealth of sociological, political, and ecclesiological perspectives to illuminate the present realities of our global situation and, to some extent, the place of Anglicanism within it.

Dr. Radner is an outspoken apologist for both the Windsor Report and the Anglican Covenant that he is helping develop as part of the Design Committee. He minced no words in stating his belief that "the world needs this, and God wants it for the sake of life."

Concern for life was very much at the heart of his lecture, which examined a phenomenon that is only just starting to receive deep scholarly examination in secular circles: that democracies are frequently birthed in violence. No more true is this than in Africa where, as tyrannical regimes have fallen, an armed populace arises through a free flow of weaponry and newly acquired individual autonomy.

The primary challenge is that autonomy in both new and even existing democracies, if left unchecked, can become uncontrollably violent. Dr. Radner pointed to the stories now coming to light in the Rwandan genocide, where otherwise faithful Christians committed unspeakable atrocities in an orgy of violence. At present, bands of militias, armies with no true national loyalty, and warlords have enormous sway in Central and East Africa. Dr. Radner posited that when all the numbers are in, nearly 2 million people may have been killed at the hands of these groups, many of them formed in the midst of newly born democracies.

While Dr. Radner left the subject largely untouched, the parallels with contemporary Iraq are deeply illuminating. His research into the broader global phenomenon of democratization provides profound insight into the current frustrations of the Iraqi government, the Bush administration, and everyone involved with the situation there. Individual autonomy can only be functional and beneficial in a context of what Dr. Radner calls a "common good," a structure of agreed-to laws that limit autonomy and re-channel it for the benefit of greater society. Individual accountability must be dispersed throughout the democratic society in order for it to flourish.

Into this current global context of rising democratization and coinciding violence, Dr. Radner suggested the Anglican Communion's presence and witness are incredibly important. We have a faith tradition that, at its best, reflects a concern for mutuality and "common good" and dispersed accountability. Moreover, Anglican churches are burgeoning on the ground in places and are heavily involved with the development fragile democracies, like Burundi. (There, Anglican churches are largely in charge, at the government's request, of schools). We therefore have unique gifts to offer these new and renewed societies recovering from civil war and violent upheaval.

Dr. Radner's approach, while thought-provoking, stopped short of speaking at length to the question of autonomy in Anglicanism. I was tempted to read into his words a subtle critique of the articulation of provincial autonomy that plays into the current controversy. But perhaps the Windsor Report makes this argument for him.

He did, however, go so far as to say The Episcopal Church needs to learn that "pure autonomy" can embody death, and that only through death to self do we rise again into the life of community. I'm not convinced that assertion fully comprehends the Episcopal Church's stance in the current controversy. While autonomy has come up as a question, "pure autonomy" does not seem suggested to me by our general solidarity with each other and the concern that our General Convention and leadership has shown for the greater Communion.

But the question remains in the Anglican Communion as in fledgling democracies: how do we honor autonomy without it becoming a self-serving and even death-dealing force in the community?

Dr. Radner expressed his profound sadness over the breaks and schismatic actions that have ended dialogue and engagement in the Communion. Indeed, the path forward he sees -- and I agree with him heartily -- involves a rebuilding of trust. And trust can no longer be cultivated when a relationship is utterly broken.

While invigorated by Dr. Radner's towering intellect, I was a bit unclear at first about how it moved the discussion about the Anglican Communion forward in any thoroughgoing way, except to raise deep questions of what we mean when we consider the "common good" and how we can best contextualize it on the ground. (As The Rev. Dr. Bill Countryman once commented on a paper I wrote, "I found this more discursive than helpful!")

But following Dr. Radner's presentation, I entered some conversations that were very helpful indeed. Part of Dr. Radner's style, it seems, is to raise provocative questions and then let his listeners find the truths in conversation about them.

And he, too, then engaged for nearly an hour with a group of us in discussion. And there emerged some important insights and developments that are under way for us as an Anglican Christians:


The Covenant Design Group

During the discussion, Dr. Radner outlined what is under discussion in the Covenant Design Group, which met last week. Some of this may be old news, and some of it may indeed be news, as I have not been following this process as closely as say, Mark Harris, but here is what Dr. Radner felt permitted to offer in a public setting today:

1. Through study and discussion, the group has generally settled that covenant is understood biblically and traditionally as centered on trust and word keeping. The Design Group is taking this seriously as a modus operandi.
2. There should be nothing "new" in the formulation and articulation of an Anglican Covenant. In other words, the Covenant will be based on agreements and theological expressions that are already extant in the Communion and rooted in Christian tradition. In this case, the baptismal covenant (even as found in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer) is figuring prominently as a resource.
3. The Covenant will not be addressing the particular disputes on the table at present (i.e. human sexuality, women's ordination, etc.) but will rather provide a touchstone for how disputes may be addressed in the Communion in the future
4. Ways of living together in Communion that have been ad hoc in the past may be made more intentional for the future through the Covenant.

I found this hopeful, but I urge caution on drawing too many conclusions at this point, as we bloggers are overly prone to do! I will say that Dr. Radner did seem to make clear, however, that there are expectations, particularly on one "side" of the present mess, that will not be met by this covenant process: namely, expectations that a definitive answer to the present theological controversies and questions of biblical interpretation and polity will be forthcoming. Rather, the group is focused on creating a covenant structure that will help cultivate and engender trust so that further disagreements in the Anglican Communion will have a bounded context in which disputes may be negotiated and/or mediated.

ENS just released a report on the Covenant Design Group


A Question of Hermeneutic Weight

Coming out of this morning's session, I was left with at least one unsettled question about Dr. Radner's approach. He made reference to "bear one another's burdens" in Galatians 6, and another reference to Ephesians 2. Both passages have a great deal of traction in evangelical circles. I note in Ephesians 2: "You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient." Pretty heavy-hitting stuff when talking about accountability.

But I was puzzled why the Summary of the Law -- the heart of Gospel ethics, it seems to me, and certainly a foundational piece of our baptismal covenant -- was never mentioned, nor the word "love" brought into the conversation in any thoroughgoing way.

"Love your God. . .and love your neighbor as yourself," strikes me as clear an antidote to the trouble of unrestrained autonomy in democracy as any, as does Jesus' clear witness of self-giving inexorably combined with a strong sense of personal freedom to articulate and live into the divine truths he embodied. It also contextualizes and even incarnates our notions of truth in the face of our neighbors and our common life with them. "Common good" as an abstraction begs many questions: Whose good? What do we mean by good? And who gets to define what is common and what is good?

And, as yet another reference not made today, non-violence is a hallmark of the best Christian witness centered on the Summary of the Law, from the early Christian martyrs, to Francis, to Martin Luther King, to Desmond Tutu.

Whether Dr. Radner's omission of a central gospel passage highly relevant to the subject at hand was simply an oversight (or I didn't hear it when he mentioned it) or we are seeing Dr. Radner's natural gravitation to the Epistles, or there were deeper hermeneutic reasons behind his choice of Scriptural references, I am uncertain.

Behind my concern about this is that there is a widely-observed tendency in the present controversy on one "side" to favor the epistles and pastoral letters (particularly some of the Pauline and Johannine works) over the witness and Jesus' teachings found in the synoptic gospels.

I wonder if the heremeneutic roots of the current mess have something to do with the differing weight we place on various parts of the New Testament, depending upon our particular perspective. Part of the discussion forward may involve an honest unpacking about what each of us, as individuals and as dioceses and provincial bodies, most gravitate toward when defining our core biblical principles to address ethical questions and how to live together in community.

Solidarity

Dr. Jenny Plane Te Paa's softer voice, lilting New Zealand accent, and gracious presence have been a constant thread running through this Conference. She is a profoundly important figure at the present time, as she was one of the members of the Eames Commission who helped forge the Windsor Report.

She had asked of Dr. Radner in the morning the role of maleness in violence found in democratization, suggesting that the role of women in the process globally might help temper this tendency. This was a profound foretaste of what she was about to express.

This afternoon was her turn to speak to the Conference, as she presented Guessing the Spirit of Global Anglicanism: Perspectives of an Indigenous Lay Woman.

The great surprise was Dr. Te Paa's opening, which far beyond gracious, expounded a love and solidarity that I can only describe as inspired by the Holy Spirit. She had attended our General Convention this summer and commended to us the enormous love, sorrow, and breadth of what she saw there as a very Christian struggle with justice and love in divine relationship.

She expressed in a moving way how many provinces of the Anglican Communion still admire how The Episcopal Church organizes and carries out its mission, and articulated sadness at the way our province has been treated as of late:

• how we have been, along with the Church of Canada, unfairly singled out and patronized in the present mess, and how our LGBT members have been scapegoated in overt and subtle ways
• how several (male) leaders both inside and outside of the Episcopal Church have taken advantage of weaknesses in the Episcopal Church and Anglican structures to forward potentially schismatic agendas and vilify our church membership and leadership, including ++Katharine Jefferts Schori
  
• how the Windsor Report's recommendations against cross-jurisdictional interference have been ignored while it has, at the same time, been used as a punitive instrument -- something Dr. Te Paa has clear reason to take personally
• how in some quarters The Episcopal Church has been conflated with the worst of United States foreign policy, and the complexity of our context has not been properly understood or taken into account
  
• how The Episcopal Church has shown enormous grace and restraint in voluntarily withdrawing from Anglican structures (i.e., the Anglican Consultative Council) at the request of the Primates, and has tolerated and taken care to provide room for internal dissent
  

And, most critically, she noted how historically marginalized peoples in the Anglican Communion have most identified with the challenges we in The Episcopal Church now face.

I was stunned by the incredible love, compassion, and solidarity Jenny Plane Te Paa wove into her words. Her words helped me recognize that, since 2003, The Episcopal Church as a whole has ceded a degree of privilege, let go of some of the numbing effect of our traditional avoidance of taking bold steps, and indeed stepped further -- in many places -- into the embodiment of Christian justice, most particularly at this point for lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgendered people.

Struck by this insight coming from an indigenous woman, whose blood ancestry knows oppression, and whose life experience breathes with the battle for identity in the face of institutionalized racism (often, sadly, in the Christian community), I was deeply moved.

I probably didn't invent the word, but it came into my mind and heart and seemed so apt for the Episcopal Church at this point in our journey. We are engaging in "re-indigenization," which might best be described as our reclaiming of the embodiment of Christ in our deepest, most human identity: a humanity that has been disenfranchised in many different ways and suffers violence as we have experienced and engaged in oppressive structures.

Many indigenous people, as I have encountered them, know the deep bonds with the land, the rhythms of the earth, and identity that is profoundly contextual, viscerally felt, and physically manifested. I have also encountered this in my wife, a native of Japan, who, as a woman, grew up in a still very patriarchal and sometimes oppressive culture. This, too, has been my experience with many of my LGBT friends and colleagues. Why? They all have been led by oppressive forces to wrestle hard with their identity and have therefore moved into deep places of self and relationship that many privileged, heterosexual males around the world have not felt the need to reach. From this comes a profoundly incarnational, rooted sense of being. In these deep places of being, as well as in the Other, we encounter God in Christ.

Likewise, oppressed peoples everywhere have had similar experiences. I am approaching the language of resurrection here. It is found in the deep truth articulated this afternoon by Dr. Te Paa in how the Gospel breathes transformation, liberation, and new life most directly into the situations of the down-trodden, the voiceless, and the oppressed.

By shedding some of our long-standing privilege in the Anglican Communion, the Episcopal Church, wittingly or unwittingly, has moved as a faith community into a more vital position of identity. . .identity with those who most easily embrace, internalize, and embody the Gospel. Our Spirit-led movement towards this re-indigenization, while incomplete at present, promises to revitalize and empower our ministries in ways we can only begin to imagine.

* * *

Dr. Te Paa offered in her stirring paper several vital suggestions for a way forward for the Anglican Communion:

• continuing to offer each other a generous patience as we move through this conflicted time
  
• articulating and understanding our common faith as one that transcends our particularities, but is expressed in and through them
  
• confronting and calling out, in relationship with each other, the racism, sexism, and other prejudices that keep us apart
• making restorative mission for the world our shared priority, which, as we engage in it, will create room and context for us to explore our disagreements
  
• recognizing that the dismissing of native cultures, the appropriation of native lands, and the stripping of native peoples of their livelihoods is a major component of church history and restoration and accountability must be our Christian response to this legacy
• moving beyond the distortions of identity politics -- the most visible context of our current disputes. This privileging of secular politics in our present discourse should undergo thorough theological scrutiny.
• living into the profound truth that baptismal water is thicker than blood. We are, first and foremost, Christians with a common heritage centered around Jesus Christ
• forming coalitions of soldarity against all forms of oppression
• setting aside the desire to create new structures in favor of real, tangible engagement with each other as a way to renew our appreciation for one another as people formed in the image of God

Many of us were moved to offer Dr. Te Paa a standing ovation.

I will close this post with one thought. It has been much too rarely noted that most, if not all of the powerful, visible, and strident voices of the present mess are male. We have a history as Anglicans of male-dominated decision-making and power-brokering processes. Yet our churches, for centuries, have been cared for and nurtured in the day-to-day incarnational reality by women, so many of whom have remained unknown or forgotten by history.

After hearing Jenny Plane Te Paa this afternoon, if I am certain now of anything, it is that all of us will find ways forward by watching, listening to, involving, learning from, and engaging with our sisters in Christ at every level in the great diversity of the Anglican Communion. They may well together hold the key to our shared future and show us a new way to raise up all that is good, beautiful, and divinely inspired as a worldwide body of Christians witnessing to the Risen Christ.

Part I: Anglican Romanticism
Part II: A Mess of History
Part III: Claiming the Re-visionist Label
Part V: Beyond Modern Anglicanism

Remembering Courage

As a quick post in the midst of Epiphany West 2007, Florence Li Tim-Oi was remembered yesterday in Lesser Feasts and Fasts and at our Evening Prayer service at CDSP.

Mark Harris has posted, in his usually insightful style, a remembrance of this saint in our Anglican tradition, and how her Christ-like witness in the face of delay and isolation by the broader Communion speaks to our present conflict.

The icon of the Rev. Dr Florence Li Tim-Oi was written by the Rev. Dr. Ellen Francis Poisson, Order of St Helena, New York. It was dedicated at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London on 24 January 2004, the Diamond Jubilee of Florence Li Tim-Oi's priesting.

Enough is enough

A number of blogsites are beginning to question the wisdom of the current framing of the argument in the Anglican Communion, if not the framework of the Communion itself and unsettling developments as of late:

(1) The Archbishop of Canterbury has assembled a committee to begin drafting an Anglican Communion covenant that may lend considerable power to the Primates over provincial authority. (I'm taking a wait-and-see approach on this one, but others have commented extensively.)

(2) ++Katharine Jefferts Schori must now not only endure the tasteless equivalent of excommunication by some of her brother Primates in the communion, but continues to be attacked as a "heretic." This although she holds the same views about the salvific acts of Christ for all humankind that have been articulated by many theologians and other bishops of several Christian faiths. . .views that are not outside the bounds of traditional "orthodoxy." Jim Naughton has a post that documents a recent interview with ++KJS speaking directly to this point. I'm dubious of calling anyone a "heretic" based on scant evidence (in this case, found only in heavily edited news reports and brief interviews). Heresy must be a thoroughgoing position, if it is to carry that heavy title. Heresy is a fighting word in Christianity, and much blood has flowed at its utterance over the centuries. I would not wield it so lightly. Let the reader beware. This may well be the insidious wolf of misogyny parading about in sheep's clothing, even in the arguments of well-intentioned individuals.

(3) Conservative evangelical and fundamentalist forces have had a good crack at quagmiring the Episcopal Church's, if not the Anglican Communion's mission and ministry in a hotbed of conflict over human sexuality. This borders on the demonic. LGBT Christians remain unfairly shouldered with whether the AC fails, +Gene Robinson in particular, and we all continue to get deflected from the mission of serving the hungry, the sick, and those desperately needing to hear the Gospel while power-machinations and heterosexism take over and work out their pathologies in our midst.

(4) Thinking Anglicans reports that the head of a dissenting group in the Church of Nigeria has received death threats unless he "repents."

Enough is enough. Jesus would surely weep.

Mark Harris offers a pithy, comprehensive manifesto. Jim Naughton poses a question of stewardship the current conflict raises, and whether the Anglican Communion, to put it bluntly, is worth it. The Bishops of Nigeria (once again) call on The Episcopal Church and the rest of the Anglican Communion to see it their way, or else. And Fr. Jake points to the growing evidence that we are looking squarely in the face of institutionalized evil using even the unsuspecting in a game to undermine the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Welcome to the Church.

Enough is enough. We are seeing the end-game unfold now, and it is getting close to time for us to move on, with or without some of our detractors.

For the best way forward, we can only turn to God's grace in prayer. May those making critical decisions for the future of the Church in the coming months do so. And may we all with much-needed humility.

On a happier note, Tobias Haller has posted this day, the lesser feast of St. Aelred, an inspiring sermon. Aelred of Rievaulx taught us about Christian friendship, the cornerstone of any holy union, any covenanted relationship.

Fear Wins A Round?

Well, sorta'.

The Anglican Communion's Panel of Reference has released their recommendations regarding Fort Worth's appeal over its moratorium against ordaining women.

Based on the report itself, it seems Bishop Iker and his Diocese appealed because they were afraid of the following:

(1) That a canonical change passed in 1997 by General Convention would force the remaining holdouts (three dioceses) in The Episcopal Church to begin ordaining women.

(2) That Fort Worth would not, upon Bishop Iker's retirement, be able to elect a new bishop opposed to the ordination of women and successfully see him through the required consent process.

(3) That Forth Worth would no longer be a member of the Anglican Communion. There's a subtext there worth noting, but I'll leave that for others or maybe another post here at some point.

Here's a quote from the Report proper: Ideally the Diocese of Fort Worth ought to be able to find a place within ECUSA without a sense of isolation or victimization.

I'm reminded of a scene from Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail, in which a peasant yells, "Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

More seriously, I am reminded of the complaints of a white supremacist at an undergraduate school I attended. He frequently opined he was being marginalized because his views (which included heterosexism, antisemitism, overt racism, and a denial that the Holocaust was an historical event) were not given a "fair" hearing. It's an extreme example, but one worth noting as it highlights what can happen when our oppressive or exclusivist viewpoint is no longer mainstream in a given context. We might suddenly cry foul and assume our own victimization.

The Panel found that, in fact, Fort Worth has a process in place in which women seeking Holy Orders are referred to the Diocese of Dallas, and, if ordained women enter the Diocese of Fort Worth (25% of the diocesan members support the ordination of women, according to the report), they are overseen by Dallas with Fort Worth's cooperation.

On the surface, this seems to be a compromise worthy of being called Anglican, but when I put myself in the shoes of a woman seeking Holy Orders, at best I would feel patronized. At worst, this is what I imagine I would be hearing:

"That's okay, I'll send you elsewhere, because I don't want to soil my hands or conscience by ordaining you." The message this sends: I'm dirty or there's something wrong with me since I am a woman seeking Holy Orders.

The problem here is that all of this appears to be deeply rooted in a theology of fear:

Firstly, fear of change.

Secondly, fear of the other: fear of other dioceses who ordain women (that they might not consent to the consecration of another opposed-to-ordination-of-women bishop in Fort Worth).

Thirdly, fear of women. That they might somehow contaminate the holiness of the Church? Or the sacred hands of men? Or the sacraments would be less than valid? Or a sacred apostolic tradition would be lost? (That the essential apostolic tradition makes no mention of gender requirements seems not to apply.) But there are plenty of theological arguments on this elsewhere. Scholarship and incarnational witness around the ordination of women is easy to find and very well-developed, now that it is almost forty years in practice in The Episcopal Church.

Fourthly, fear of The Episcopal Church proper and recent decisions of General Convention. Fort Worth and Bishop Iker seemed to lose very little time in launching their appeal as soon as the Panel of Reference became available. They are eager to distance themselves from the authority of The Episcopal Church and get close, along with other "network" constituents with the Archbishop of Canterbury and other Primates so they can survive somehow as Anglicans when, in some hoped-for apocalyptic moment, The Episcopal Church ceases to be part of the Anglican Communion. I hear echoes of Revelation or maybe even the Left Behind series.

The Panel of Reference, in some attempt to be evenhanded, recommends that The Episcopal Church "clarify" its stance towards dioceses not ordaining women.

It seems to me an effort to assuage the fears of Fort Worth and +Iker. This the Panel justifies with the process of reception by which the Anglican Communion as a whole discerns the ordination of women (and makes room for provinces who disagree to remain in communion). I am tempted to call this a lengthy probation period, in which, as Bishop Iker indicates in response to the Panel's recommendations, the church may decide, even after several generations, to turn back the clock and end the ordination of women. Or so he hopes, it would appear.

I find this at first to be an uncomfortable warning. If we take +Iker's understanding of reception seriously, no ordained woman in this church or anywhere in the Anglican Communion can presently be assured that her ordination will be considered valid, simply by virtue of her gender, in ten, twenty, or fifty years -- and that includes ++Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Fear begets fear. That the women priests, deacons, and bishops I know and, I'm sure including ++KJS, have chosen to end the cycle by refusing to live into this fear commends courage and exemplifies a deep trust in God. May we all learn from them.

At the end of the day, this is not ultimately about +Jack Iker, Fort Worth, Quincy, or San Joaquin. . .or The Episcopal Church. . .or The Anglican Communion.

It's about misogyny. And, like all "isms," it is rooted in fear. My good friend, John Kirkley, sums it up in no uncertain terms over at meditatio. Just to be clear, most of us guys are recovering mysogynists at some level. It's still in the cultural water. Remember, for example, that women's suffrage only became reality in America in the twentieth century. I say this to make only one point: I am not, in this piece, trying to vilify +Iker or anyone else opposed to the ordination of women. He's certainly got a bad enough rap from me already. But I am trying to cast light on the root of the opposition in all of us.

Anglicanism has been a good place for pastoral accomodation. We have a penchant for giving each other room when we disagree. And every community has to deal and live with a certain level of fear much of the time if, for no other reason, to keep conflict at bay. Like a family, we have to find a way to relate with and even love the sexist uncle, the homophobic parent, or the racist sibling.

But, ultimately, the Gospel demands that the fear be addressed, and the resulting conflict must be managed.

We're not good at that yet. The present conflaguration over human sexuality is a case in point.

At some stage, The Episcopal Church will need to draw the line on the ordination of women. Apparently the 1997 canonical change wasn't clear enough. Having a woman Presiding Bishop is not yet a strong enough signal, either. Or perhaps she is. Maybe this is one reason Fort Worth was one of the first out of the gate with an appeal for "alternative primatial oversight." Ah, I begin to understand.

They see the handwriting on the wall: keeping women out of ordained ministry is a dying regime in this province.

I guess that would frighten me, were I in their shoes. But surely their God is greater than their fears.

Mine sure is.

Mark Harris has a take on this subject in light of the announcement of the Anglican Covenant Design Committee. Father Jake has additional insights on this as well.

A New Bishop?

Thinking Anglicans has just posted The Very Rev. Mark Lawrence's open answers to pointed questions regarding The Episcopal Church's pending approval for his consecration as the next Bishop of South Carolina.

There is a great deal of material there. Mark Lawrence is clearly not given to glib answers, which I find initially impressive. (More conservative bloggers have fallen into calling the opposite of glib "episcobabble," but it seems that even some of their favorites are not immune.) I am thankfully not entrusted with the weighty decision of approving his consecration and investiture. That duty belongs to our current bishops with jurisdiction and our diocesan standing committees. But among some of my puzzlements stemming from his writing, there are two big concerns that surfaced immediately:

He writes:

"I too am a member of a diocese that has asked for Alternative Primatial Oversight. . ."

Yes, namely The Diocese of San Joaquin, which just took a first vote overwhelmingly in favor of effectively seceding from the Episcopal Church. I cannot help but wonder how Mark Lawrence voted.

He avoids answering the hypothetical question #2 -- one asking simply if he would support The Diocese of South Carolina if they voted to secede -- by hedging against a "future crisis that could send any of us into a conundrum of canonical contradictions." The future is now, I'd say.

He writes elsewhere:

"I also recognize that [Katharine Jefferts Schori's] actions as bishop of Nevada in condoning same sex blessings, for which she has expressed no regret, put her in violation of the Windsor Report and, consequently, compromise her ability to function in primatial authority and relationship."

As part of a lengthy justification for marginalizing the new Presiding Bishop in a place where he may end up having jurisdiction, Mark Lawrence appeals to her "violation of the Windsor Report." Canons can be violated. So can constitutions. But I'm not sure the Windsor Report can be. It was not handed down as a prescription to be followed to the letter, nor was it given authority over this or any other constituent province of the Communion. It was a starting point for discussion amongst the instruments of unity -- and it has already been taken very seriously by this Church -- as the tears and heartache around the pained B033 at last General Convention testify. Must it also be enshrined as canonically significant?

Mark Lawrence's claim that our Presiding Bishop is somehow "compromised" in her ability to function as our Primate by her "violation" of WR is just as specious (not to mention slightly presumptuous -- does he speak on behalf of the Primates?) as appealing to the WR as a precedent for "Alternative Primatial Oversight" -- a phrase that never appears even once in the lengthy document.

Mark Lawrence acknowledges that Katharine Jefferts Schori was duly elected as our Presiding Bishop. Just like Bishop Schofield of San Joaquin, ML+ was granted his priesthood and license to function as an ordained member in the Episcopal Church by the same set of canons that contain provisions granting ++KJS her authority. To bar the PB on the one hand and approving of appeals to extra-canonical authority on the other (namely, APO from the other Primates, who have no direct canonical authority in this Province of the Communion) does not express to me a willingness to fully engage in the unity of The Episcopal Church -- something that, as bishop, he would be called upon to safeguard.

It might be convenient at times to dismiss the polity of canons and constitutionality on biblical grounds. He seems to argue elsewhere in this apologetic that liberals have done the same (I agree, although the canons were subsequently brought into line through due process at General Convention.) But where Mark Lawrence appears to be flagging, and most dangerously, is that the canons and constitution exist primarily not to hold the church back from innovation, whether "progressive" or "traditionalist." While they have been used this way, note how San Joaquin, Quincy, and Fort Worth have continued for over thirty years to bar women from priesthood: a canonical violation, but tacitly respected out of pastoral consideration from GC and the House of Bishops. (I'm not happy with that consideration, but it goes to show that bending the canons and constitution on pastoral grounds and out of deference to more local autonomy cuts all ways.)

Rather, it seems to me the spirit of the constitution and canons is first and foremost to set the boundaries of our common life most precisely when we are in conflict. Like right now. . . So that we keep a common life by "fighting fair", i.e. threats of divorce are kept off the table (as in any healthy marriage -- an analogy that Mark Lawrence appeals to). . .a common life that seeks to safeguard unity, even when we strongly disagree. . .a common life as the Body of Christ expressed in our core sacramental practices of Communion and Baptism, and yes, around Scripture, as heated as our differing interpretations and understandings may get.

The more I consider Mark Lawrence's writing, the more I understand the unease many have with the thought of his becoming bishop in The Episcopal Church. Be that as it may, withholding consent of a bishop-elect is a very weighty matter, and would likely lead to more schismatic acts. But then, so may giving consent in this case, based on what ML+ has written.

May our Bishops and Standing Committees pray deeply over this decision. My prayers are with them. My best one remains: "May God's will be done. . ." in this and in many difficult matters facing our common life at present.

You can also see Tobias Haller's comments on this matter, as well as two posts -- Mark Lawrence and his answers and Time to say No by Mark Harris over at Preludium.

With a Clear Voice

The Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris, the first woman bishop in The Episcopal Church, sounds off in support of +Katharine Jefferts Schori. Harris does not mince words, but then that is one luxury of being retired! The title of the posting over at The Witness says it all:


She Will Not Be Alone



The election of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori as 26th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church is momentous for several reasons -- not the least of which is that many General Convention deputies, visitors and bishops themselves did not believe the House of Bishops had the moral courage to choose the obviously superior nominee. The conventional wisdom was that a "compromise" person, palatable to both sides of the church and the rest of the Anglican Communion, would be chosen in the hope that we might "get on with it" -- whatever "it" is.

Read more

A Line in the Sand

While the news of the election of Bishop Jefferts Schori as our new Presiding Bishop was still hot off the press, The Diocese of Fort Worth issued a statement, declared to both houses of General Convention, calling on the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates of the Anglican Communion for "alternative Primatial oversight" for their diocese. In doing so, they made a specious appeal to the Windsor Report's suggested provision for alternative episcopal oversight for local churches that feel their pastoral needs cannot be met by their diocesan bishops.

It would be funny if it weren't so blatantly offensive.

This is no less than a "pre-emptive strike" on Katharine Jefferts-Schori. Bishop Iker and his Diocese, it seems, will brook her no respect. I find this abusive, and here's why:


Vows of the Order

Bishop Iker made vows when consecrated to "guard the faith, unity, and discipline" of the Episcopal Church. By not ordaining women, he has stretched, if not broken this vow. General Convention, the highest ecclesiastical authority of this Church, mandated the ordination of women within the last decade. Women have been ordained in the Episcopal Church now for well over a generation.

Bishop Iker and the Diocese of Fort Worth, in addition to the two other Episcopal dioceses (San Joaquin and Quincy) who refuse to ordain women, have enjoyed the privilege of being afoul of the canons and practice of the Episcopal Church simply on the basis of the majority's honoring their God-given conscience. . .on the basis of a long-held communal humility that acknowledges the human limits of parliamentary process, no matter how prayerful.

But rather than attempting to evaluate, in the biblical tradition of the gospels and Paul's Letter to the Galatians, the fruit of the Spirit that our women clergy have wrought at great personal cost in this Church over the past thirty years. . .Bishop Iker and his Standing Committee further abuse the privilege they have been afforded by snubbing the Presiding Bishop-elect out of hand.

To be fair, it could be correctly counter-argued that prayerful conscience led to the bold, extra-canonical ordination of women in this church to begin with. Such extra-canonical acts might have been grounds for presentment then, but the prayerful and sometimes painful workings of General Convention led to a new canonical precedent upholding these ordinations, rather than a condemnation. Sure, people left the Episcopal Church over this. I follow the advice of the bishop who ordained me priest: if ever the Episcopal Church moves, as a whole, through due process and prayerful discernment in a direction that I cannot abide, I hope I would fight fair or else resign my office, renounce my orders, and seek God's call elsewhere. That seems to me good conscience in the Light of Christ.

Now the shoe is on the other foot. Rather than working within the processes of discernment in this Church -- a prayerful, constitutional process that all bishops of the Episcopal Church have sworn before God and God's people to uphold -- Bishop Iker and his Standing Committee have determined themselves, in Christ's name no less, to be completely beyond procedural grounds. . .beyond the discipline of this branch of the Christian Church as they so arrogantly appeal outside of it.

This is profoundly sad and deeply disingenuous. Where is the loving truth of Christ in this?

Bishop Iker seems protected at this point from presentment by only two things I can see: 1) simple Christian charity and 2) the sheer cost -- emotionally, spiritually, and fiscally -- of ecclesiastical trial against a bishop and his diocese.




Windsor Distorted

This move abuses the Windsor Report. . .which is just that. . .a report. It is not a canonical precedent or an Anglican whipping rod. The Archbishop of Canterbury is not beholden to the document. Nor, frankly, are we in the Episcopal Church. It was designed to open exploration to a way of holding the increasingly diverse Anglican Communion together. Bishop Iker's move along with his Standing Committee is therefore deeply insulting to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the authors of the Report. While our delegates and bishops wrestle to the point of exhaustion over the Episcopal Church's response to the Windsor Report, the Diocese of Fort Worth arrogantly grants the document an almost divine authority, short-circuiting any and all honest listening, sweat, and toil of our sisters and brothers in Christ.

All this notwithstanding, the provision in the Windsor Report on alternative oversight appeals to an atmosphere of reconciliation. How is this pre-emptive move by the Diocese of Fort Worth at all indicative of a desire for reconciliation with our Presiding Bishop-elect and the Church she has been called to lead and represent?



High-handed Misogyny

Cloaked in "orthodoxy" and parading about in the name of Christ, this move abuses women. I don't know what scriptural contexts Bishop Iker uses in defense of his action, but the Jesus I read about bucked the patriarchal cultural mores of his day and spoke publicly with women and welcomed them amongst his disciples. They were the first to see the empty tomb at Easter.

With this in mind, the least the Bishop of Fort Worth could do is afford Presiding Bishop-elect Katharine Jefferts Schori an opportunity for responding to the request before the appeal was publicly made over her authority and the authority of our current Presiding Bishop to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates.

With this pre-emptive move, Bishop Iker and his diocese seemingly objectify her as an abomination rather than a person lovingly made in the Image of God, with basic human dignity. . . who through time-honored process and prayerful discernment has been properly elected as a leader for this church.

This is misogyny par excellence.


The Breaking Point

It seems to me that the long-feared schism has already occurred. By throwing down the gauntlet and flagrantly dismissing the open process of discernment in the Episcopal Church, Bishop Iker and the Diocese of Fort Worth have left the building.

Let's stop kidding ourselves. Let them go.

Good old fashioned Christian charity says the door opens both ways. If indeed we are so apostate that Bishop Iker and Fort Worth can't stand it anymore, they should leave, and, in good biblical tradition, shake the dust from their sandals.

May the love of Christ go with Bishop Iker and the Diocese of Fort Worth. God only knows why they have chosen to stay so long.

For the present, I am grateful that Katharine Jefferts Schori has the backbone, compassion, intelligence, and pastoral understanding -- God given -- to weigh carefully any response to this appeal. I sincerely hope the Archbishop of Canterbury stands up to this abusive behavior and, if he decides to respond, at least asks to meet with Bishop Iker and Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori together for an open discussion. If Bishop Iker won't have it, I think he, nor his diocese, deserves any response from the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Primates. Just as they deserved and received no response from either House of General Convention.

May we soon get on with the Christian work our Presiding Bishop-elect envisions through the words of Isaiah:

"The poor are fed, the good news is preached, those who are ostracized and in prison are set free, the blind receive sight."

God be with her, the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies.

God be with the Episcopal Church.

More importantly, may we be with God. After all here is said, this is the best prayer this thirty-something, green-around-the edges priest can offer from the comforts of home for everyone still hard at it in General Convention. 2006.

Order and the Holy Spirit

a sermon for Pentecost

Episcopal Innovations

Throughout the past three years of conflict in our denomination, a question has haunted me. John Kater, who was one of my professors at CDSP and remains a close friend once posed to me the current debate over human sexuality in the Anglican Communion in the form of a simple question: “Can God do something new?”

Last Sunday morning, I was catching up with opening office mail when I happened across a tract written by Peter Toon and published by the PBS. When most of us hear “PBS,” at least if we’ve grown up or raised children or turned on the TV in the past thirty years, we think of public television. This was most certainly not that. It was a tract paid for, published, and delivered – timed, it seemed to coincide with Anglican Communion Sunday – by none other than the “Prayer Book Society,” whose board includes Bishop Keith Ackerman of the Diocese of Quincy, a Diocese where I attended church and taught Sunday School for a time as an undergraduate.

On the cover was the shadowy silhouette of an unnamed bishop, looking to me rather menacing, and the title read loudly: “Episcopal Innovations: 1960-2004.” I didn’t have to guess what the book was about. Over the next few days it bounced between the recycling bin and my desk as curiosity wrestled with my fatigue over the late, great argument in the Anglican Communion.

Despite sophisticated theological language, “Episcopal Innovations” pulls no punches in its assertion of its understanding of orthodoxy. I could not honestly bring myself to read word for word, cover to cover, but the gist from what I read was clear: since the 1960’s, the tract goes, the Episcopal Church has been in a downward spiral, consumed by the “liberal” inclinations of the broader culture, overcome by feminism, liberation theology, the quest for civil liberties, a welcoming of diversity, and other so-called innovations. This is all connected to the church’s turning away from the practices and theology of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer and turning towards the apparently unfathomable (read: heretical) theology of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer and its progenitors.

The current crisis in the Anglican Communion, it explains, is precipitated by the Episcopal Church’s heretical march away from being “Reformed Catholic,” and the hierarchical order that should come from that identity. It was this hierarchical order that apparently was more the foundation of our culture before the 1960’s. And this order was important, we are told, because it was the construct that shows us the place of God, men, women, and children in the church, in the household, and in society. The text pointed to the dominance of masculine imagery and the patriarchal cultural milieu of the Bible and posits these as evidence of how God made things – the order we have been charged by Christ to preserve.

The natural conclusion of the tract was clear. With the battle lines drawn, it issued a thinly veiled threat. The current state of crisis in the Anglican Communion, it suggests, is our fault as Episcopalians in the context of the United States, and we are now approaching the brink of decision at our upcoming General Convention. . .one that may necessitate the formation of a new Anglican Province in North America, with the remaining Episcopal Church out of Communion and continuing a decline towards the abyss.



Worlds of Order


I was slightly stunned. . .not that I hadn’t heard much of it before. The Bible was indeed written in cultural universes of hierarchical, patriarchal order. Here are samples of the biblical cultural understandings of the world, in broad strokes:

As hard as it might by for us to imagine, the world, flat as it was perceived, hung in the balance between heaven and the underworld. The sky was a dome beyond which dwelled the domain of God on His throne. Spirits and angels, both divine and demonic, broke God’s hierarchical order and wandered the landscape of humanity. Men were the center of society, the power brokers and holders of wisdom and knowledge. Women’s identity was valued only in relationship with her husband or family. Children were chattel, useful only as far as they were economically beneficial by assisting with the work of the father, or being sold into marriage when they were old enough.

Echoes of these cultural perspectives have come down the ages in various forms – some benevolent, others not so: from the feudalism of the Middle Ages to the dominance of Popes, to the scourges of slavery, the prevention of women’s suffrage, and the abuse of child labor.

But back to the tract, if indeed the Episcopal Church decided in the future to turn the clock back, as we are apparently supposed to do if we are to remain “orthodox” and in God’s good graces. . . shut out women clergy, and toss the ordination of homosexuals, children receiving communion, and the host of other “innovations” of the past forty years out on their ear – well, would I, as the young, white, straight male (a dreamboat, it seems, of the old orthodox hierarchy) want to stay?
But that led almost immediately to another even more painful question. Would I be allowed to stay even if I wanted? There are many places we could turn back the clock to in our “Reformed Catholic” tradition. If we turn the clock back far enough, my marriage would be suspect, imperiling my ability to remain an ordained priest. Some of you may remember the anti-miscegenation laws of a prior generation. They touched the life history of the Christ Church community in some profound and sad ways. They prevented marrying across traditional racial boundaries, including Asian and Anglo. That was another way of preserving order, quite defensible by at least one scriptural passage I can think of. And then I wonder, what would that make my son Daniel, a child of Japanese and Anglo ancestory. . .disordered, perhaps?

In yet another two striking examples, not so long ago, anti-Semitism was justified using an “orthodox” reading of scripture, including our hallowed Gospel According to John. It took the Holocaust to finally convince Western Christianity to come to grips with centuries of our evil abuse of the Jewish people. Turn back the clock another few generations, and we might, if we wish, defend slavery with biblical authority.

This is not to suggest that Peter Toon or anyone on the other side of this debate in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion would utter something terrible about my son, want me deposed over my marriage, or attempt to validate the Holocaust or defend slavery. I certainly hope not! My argument is only this: anyone can talk of preserving a particular kind of order in the name of orthodoxy, Scripture, and in the name of God, for that matter. The question remains: How do we as people of faith evaluate which claim to order is correct?




The Coming of the Holy Spirit

Today is Pentecost. And we are celebrating the birth of the Church: the coming of the Holy Spirit.

And we turn to our story today from the Bible. But not for instruction on how to reconstruct a hierarchical culture, but for the story itself. And today’s story, with apologies to our sister and brother Anglicans who are considering making a break for the door right now, is most certainly not about order.

It is, I believe, about the chaos of transformation. In Acts, before the Spirit arrives, the scene is reasonably peaceful in Jerusalem. The disciples are gathered together in a room – the old order is still in place. And they receive the crazy gift of language, finding themselves suddenly intelligible to people from all over the Mediterranean. Every conceivable mark of decorum and order is lost. The scene is chaotic enough to encourage some of the observers to wonder if the disciples are drunk, but the strange wonder of the event leaves its mark.

The Gospel of John tells the story from another viewpoint – the doors are locked, the disciples gathered, and the old order, the old way of understanding time, space, and the universe itself, is suddenly disrupted by the appearance Christ among them. He gifts the amazed disciples with the Spirit and calls them into the awesome responsibility of forgiving sin.

In both stories the disciples of Christ are drawn. . .driven even. . .out of the old order and into the world to boldly proclaim the Gospel. What follows is the formation of the Church, and all the controversies, arguments, sweat, and toil that come with it.

The Spirit from the very foundation of our history as a Church answers John Kater’s question that I shared at the beginning. Yes, indeed, God can do something new. And God is. And it’s not always easy to understand. And it most certainly is not always ordered. Certainly, we may not all agree with what God may be doing. Perhaps, I daresay, God may not be “orthodox.”

This is Good News of Pentecost. What binds us together with our brothers and sisters in the Anglican Communion around the world is not order, or even a particular way of understanding the Bible. What really binds us together is Spirit – God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit that we all were touched with in baptism and in our constant turning back towards it.

Here's our "heretical" 1979 Book of Common Prayer theology: our baptism calls us – through God’s Spirit, we believe – to honor the dignity of all people. . .to recognize and truly honor Christ’s face in men, women, children, gay, lesbian, straight, ordained, lay, Asian, European, African, American, rich, poor. . .in our tradition, or out of it. This diversity is inherently disordered, but is made lovely and embraced by the coming of the Holy Spirit. Through this Spirit, God in Christ is creating a new order – what we as Christians often call the Kingdom of Heaven or the Reign of God. It cannot be fathomed by any one of us, but God forges it in the heart of our communities of faith, and each of us has a gift from the Spirit to bring to this new creation.

Pentecost is the way forward for our Church. The 2006 General Convention, which begins this coming week, is likely to be a bit messy – less ordered than many would prefer. So will be the fallout for the Anglican Communion. Some of our brothers and sisters will love their own sense of order and hold their understandings of scripture too dear to stay. Others will find room in the great Spirit of God to remain in the diverse, disordered community of the Spirit, staying present and seeking deeper life even in the strong, conscientious disagreements about the way the world. . .and the church. . . should be. And together we will continue sharing the Good News of a transformative, compassionate God who breaks the old orders and makes the world anew.