Our Reformed Anglican tradition in need of reform at the top?

The Vatican

Jorge Bergolio, the Argentine cardinal who was elected as the 266th pope in the Roman Catholic Church, will be inaugurated today as Francis I. By all reports, the ceremony will be amid less pomp than when the previous pope ascended the throne of St. Peter, and will have a few more nods to the branches of Christianity beyond the Vatican. All of this is good news.

I have posted here a number of commentaries in the last few days about the life story and style of the new pope. He has already brought much needed humility to the Vatican, and has shown a preference to the poor and a refreshing pastoral presence. Whether he will be a good pope, time will tell, and I leave that analysis to those better qualified than myself to comment on the Roman Catholic Church.

I would bid that all of us keep Francis in our prayers. Like it as not, Pope Francis is the most visible face not just of Catholicism but of all Christianity in the world. His success can only benefit the full Body of Christ in all places; his failure will hurt all of us.

That brings me to our particular branch of the Body of Christ, the Anglican Communion, which is the second largest communion of Christians in the world next to the Catholics. The Anglican Communion – that’s us – will be represented today at the pope’s inauguration by a delegation appointed by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who as it happens will also be inaugurated this week on Thursday. Let's also keep him in our prayers this week, for he is the most visible face of Anglicanism in the world.

Our Anglican Communion is officially represented today at the inauguration of the new Pope. But makeup of our delegation says a great deal about what is wrong with the governance of our communion.

We are an enormously diverse Communion worldwide, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at the delegation Archbishop Justin has appointed to represent us at the Vatican today. The 12-person delegation is nearly all men and mostly British (there is a Canadian, a New Zealander, an Irish canon and at least one American). There are two women, one who is a layperson. The delegation is top-heavy with bishops, but there are no women bishops. It is even being called a “fraternal delegation” by Lambeth Palace (our vatican).

To read the list of those on the delegation representing us, click HERE (and this is from the Archbishop's official website).

Canterbury Cathedral

There is a great deal that is wrong with this picture. You could argue that the delegation represents the major offices of the Anglican Communion, but that begs the question of who is in those offices and how they get there. It is at least as obtuse and inside-baseball as the Roman Catholic curia.

All of this ought to raise our hackles about reforming our Reformed tradition.

The previous archbishop, Rowan Williams, pushed very hard for an “Anglican Covenant” which contained a disciplinary proposal for keeping the 30-plus Anglican national provinces in line. His efforts failed largely because few wanted a top down worldwide system for discipline. We don’t want a pope.

Yet we should not let ourselves off the hook about the governance in our Communion. We ought to be embarrassed that primarily English men are representing our Communion, which has its center-of-gravity far outside Europe. The average Anglican is a poor African, not a vicar from Downton Abbey. There are probably more practicing Anglicans in Central and South America than there are in England.

While many critics point out that men dominate the Roman Catholic College of Cardinals, at least they come from many countries. Not so with the electors of the Archbishop of Canterbury. All come from one country: Great Britain. And the only eligible bishops for the head of our communion are British. And since women are still (inexcusably and inexplicably) ineligible to become bishops in Great Britain, only men are eligible to become Archbishop of Canterbury

We should be very wary about casting stones at the all-male College of Cardinals. Physicians, heal thy selves.

By James Richardson, Fiat Lux

The Anglican Covenant and other voices not my own

I have not commented a great deal, at least directly, on the proposed "Anglican Covenant" that would, if enacted, bring about a more formal structure to our very shaggy Anglican Communion. Part of my reluctance to comment is I've read the drafts and find them overly complicated, a lawyer's dream if you will.

Moreover, I am among those who are suspicious of creating a de-facto magisterium of archbishops and bishops. I have enough of an American independent streak to be wary of tying my local parish's fate too closely to the whims of committees and prelates far from our shores (see my posting from last week on this topic HERE).

Moreover, the direction the church should be going generally should be to flatten hierarchy and create more local autonomy. The creeds and the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888 are good enough for me.

And yet. . .

I also profess to be a priest whose orders are embedded in the historic Anglican Communion and the wider apostolic succession within the catholic (universal) faith. I am not just a local priest. My parish is not just a local non-profit organization. I am wary of selfish individualism and narcissistic autonomy. I am definitely not a congregationalist; I am suspicious of professions of redemption that are entirely focused on individual salvation. I believe our salvation depends entirely on the grace of God in Christ, and we are therefore all connected through God in Christ. We are people of the covenant, beginning with Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rebecca, Moses and Zipporah, and extending through to the "New Covenant" proclaimed by prophets and incarnated by Jesus Christ. We live free by covenanting to live within community by putting boundaries on our freedom. We come to the Promised Land together, not autonomously.

And yet. . .

I am much turned off by those voices for the "Anglican Covenant" who really seem to be looking for a way to gild their own bigotry against gays and lesbians and women in the priesthood, and justify a grab bag of other prejudices. They speak of covenant but their covenant seems only to exclude. They speak of sin but see not their own hateful ways and words. They weaponize the Bible much as an earlier generation used the Bible to justify slavery and segregation. They are part of an old shameful story; they are the Tea Party at prayer. My skin crawls when reading commentaries by David Anderson, a self-appointed bishop of the whacky right-wing American Anglican Council. My skin crawls when reading some of the snarky comments left on my own blog. I am mystified at the continuing appeasement by Archbishop Rowan Williams toward this crowd.

And yet. . .

I promised to bring you voices from around the Communion this summer from people I do not necessarily agree with. There are conservative voices who are not bigots, and people who are struggling to remain in communion with the rest of us. They are looking for how to include while staying included themselves. Some are worth hearing if only to test our own biases and to think more deeply about the issues we confront. The Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner of Colorado is someone whose writing is worth careful study. He is one of the architects of the proposed Anglican Covenant and perhaps its chief proponent within the Episcopal Church. He sometimes sounds like a voice crying in the wilderness, but give him credit for trying. Radner has considerable influence within the larger Anglican Communion and is worth hearing on that level.

I have heard Radner speak at conferences, and read much of his writing. While I disagree with his Calvinistic anthropology of human nature, he is an articulate voice for why a covenant is needed. His views are challenging, his writing nuanced. Ironically, while Radner speaks of a covenanted relationship, he sounds estranged from all camps within the Anglican Communion, including his own Episcopal Church. That said, Radner is not willing to break relations with any camp, and that is probably why I find his voice honest:

Thinking through matters in this light and making such proposals is hardly a matter of either attempting to stage a coup or playing footsy with corrupt powers. Rather, I believe it to be a responsible path to follow in what we all know to be a longer, more challenging, and difficult journey in our Communion’s vocation. I do not reject the ACC or its members and leaders; I will question vigorously those of their actions I think are ill-advised; I will resist strongly actions that appear to be improper. But the ACC are not my enemies; they are a part of the church of which I am a part. I do not reject the Archbishop of Canterbury. He is in fact someone whose heart and mind I deeply respect in Christ. I will question vigorously, however, judgments he makes or actions he takes that I think are ill-advised; I will even resist those that appear to be improper, as I would any within the church. But he is someone, quite apart from my personal views, whose role I honor in my very office as an Anglican priest. I do not reject the leaders and members of FCA – among them are individuals I do indeed respect and, out of a similar bond of ecclesial affection and shared ministry, I honor. But I will resist vigorously judgments and actions that seem ill-advised; and I will resist ones that seem improper. I do not reject TEC itself, of which I am formally a member and in whose ordering my ministry is placed. But I do maintain the calling of honesty, necessary dissent, and active resistance where called for.

I am not endorsing Radner's views, but I do think those of us on the so-called "progressive" side need to hear him if only because our own views will atrophy and become in-grown if we are only listening to ourselves.

Radner wrote a somewhat dense commentary on what we should do next on the proposed Anglican Covenant, and you can read his full commentary by clicking HERE.

It began by crossing out the King from the Prayer Book; Our Anglican divisions and where we go from here

In his day, Jacob Duche´ was the rector of the most important church in America – Christ Church, Philadelphia, located across the square from what became known as Independence Hall. On the afternoon of Thursday July 4, 1776, Duche´ watched as the Continental Congress declared independence from Great Britain. Then Duche´ walked across the square to his church, and convened a special meeting of his Vestry.

With the Vestry’s concurrence, Duche´ opened his parish’s large Book of Common Prayer, and he began crossing out all references to the King of England. He replaced those references with the “United States of America.”

The American Episcopal Church was, in effect, born that day with his act of independence from the mother country and the mother church.

As author Bruce Feiler explains in his superb book, America’s Prophet: Moses and the American Society, Duche´ understood well that his editing of the Book of Common Prayer was an insurrectionary act. When the British seized Philadelphia, Duche´ was arrested and imprisoned. As the war dragged on, and the Americans lost battle after battle, Duche´ became despondent. He wrote a letter to George Washington urging him to give up the war. Washington termed the letter “ridiculous” and released it to Congress.

Duche´ was forced into exile in Britain, a man with no country; he returned to Philadelphia after the war, and he was a broken man. Jacob Duche´ who had been the most important cleric in America died forgotten, and was buried in an unmarked grave.

The experience of Duche´ is perhaps a metaphor for The Episcopal Church’s tense relationship with the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion. In his book, Feiler quotes The Rev. Tim Safford, rector of Christ Church, Philadelphia, about the dilemma faced by his predecessor of two centuries ago: “[T]he life of a pastor is trying to hold very distant poles in some sort of tension with each other.” (p. 59)

Sometimes the center holds. Sometimes it doesn’t. We are living in one of those times when the center is not holding.

The root of our tension stems from the events of the American Revolution and our ambiguous relationship with the mother church. We claimed our independence from England long ago, and yet, for better or worse, we view our catholicity as somehow channeled through the historic see of Canterbury.

Our American relationship with the Church of England is usually just part of the wallpaper, and on any given Sunday, most of the time it doesn’t enter into our collective church conscience. So it is particularly jarring when the tensions of that relationship do burst into the open, as it did last week when the American Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori was asked to remove her mitre so as not to offend a contingent of the Church of England who will not accept women bishops (or, we suspect, women priests).

The slight has enraged many American Episcopalians who note that Archbishop of

Canterbury Rowan Williams and other British bishops are not asked to remove their emblems of ecclesiastical office when visiting the United States. Lambeth Palace, the headquarters of Rowan Williams, last week exhibited nothing but the airs of old-school British colonialism and the odor did not set well on this side of the Atlantic.

It has also been noted in recent days that Bishop Katharine was required to give proof of her ordinations before being allowed to preach and celebrate at Southwark Cathedral, London. Considering that she hosted Rowan Williams at last summer’s Episcopal General Convention in Anaheim, and did not ask him to produce seminary certificates or an ID card, the request to her came off as petty harassment.

More ominously, she was also asked to resign from an elected Anglican body, and she refused to resign. Other American Episcopalians were removed from various ecumenical commissions by the archbishop; all this in response to the Diocese of Los Angeles having the temerity to elect an openly lesbian assisting bishop, Mary Glasspool. As The Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, the general secretary of the Anglican Communion explained at a meeting of the Episcopal Executive Council last Friday, Archbishop Williams felt he had to do something.

On one level, all of this is rather silly – it is about a hat and a few petty insults. But the incidents last week go to the deeper rift between the two branches of Anglicanism – branches, after all, that at times have been rivals over the last two centuries. A number of excellent commentaries have been published on-line in recent days, among the best by Diana Butler Bass in the Huffington Post. You can read her commentary by clicking HERE.

Another frequent blogger, Father Jake Stops the World, suggests that Williams’ latest moves are designed to force The Episcopal Church to tie itself more closely to the English Church as part of an intricate legal strategy to regain church property in Virginia. You need to read Jake’s legal theory to understand what he is getting at by clicking HERE. I tend to think the Brits aren’t quite that strategic and are making this up as they go along.

Our tensions and knee-jerk responses on both sides, let me suggest, stem from a deeper cultural and historical divide. We are, after all, two peoples divided by a common language.

The Episcopal Church was, indeed, born in the crucible of the war for independence from Britain in 1776. Yet the Episcopal Church has never quite found a way to live completely independent from the mother church or the mother country. Other churches – Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans – went their separate ways from churches that birthed them, but not The Episcopal Church in the United States.

In the colonial era, no bishop lived in America. The Bishop of London was the bishop of colonial America. After the Revolution, the newly organized Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America sent Samuel Seabury across the Atlantic to be consecrated a bishop. The English bishops refused, and so he went to Scotland where the bishops there ordained him a bishop. The Americans never forgot the snub, and the American Episcopal Church remains close to this day to the Episcopal Church of Scotland. Bishop Katharine was welcomed enthusiastically there -- no ordination certificates required -- when she appeared there late last week.

Relations with English church counterparts remained sour for nearly 100 years after the American Revolution. The Episcopal Church developed within a vibrant American religious marketplace and a culture that respected the separation of church and state. The English church remained the established church of Britain, impervious to change, and its bishops appointed by the monarch and sitting in the House of Lords.

The modern Anglican Communion was born in the late 19th century after a series of meetings in Chicago and Lambeth that resulted in a succinct statement of what binds us, not what divides us. You can find it on pages 876-878 of the Book of Common Prayer. In a nutshell, the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral of 1888 sets four common points of communion:

1. Holy Scriptures are the ultimate standard of faith.
2. The Apostles Creed and Nicene Creed, though brief, are sufficient statements of Christianity.
3. Baptism and Eucharist are the two primary sacraments (the others being optional).
4. We are knit together by bishops through the long history of Christianity.

That is it. No lengthy covenant, no long “confession,” no tricky language with loopholes, no declaration of a “magesterium” like the Pope (or Archbishop of Canterbury), no dictation on

how church governance will be structured. Latitude is wide for how we live into those four points in our own local context.

The Anglican Communion began as an alliance (or peace treaty) between the American and English churches; it expanded to include other national Anglican churches as the British Empire contracted, much as the British Commonwealth of Nations filled the English psychic space left when the sun finally set on the Empire. Yet colonial attitudes die hard amongst the Brits.

In our own time, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and his Lambeth advisers consistently misunderstand and badly underestimate our differences in polity – and how those very different ideas of church governance and secular democracy influence our respective approaches to decision-making in the life of our respective branches of Anglicanism.

Williams and his entourage display little understanding or respect for American polity; their tone-deafness smacks of British colonialism, pure and simple. And Americans, for the most part, are unaware that Williams was chosen by a monarch upon the recommendation of a prime minister. It would be like having our Episcopal Presiding Bishop chosen by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and confirmed by President Obama and then seating her in the U.S. Senate.

Over the last century, the Anglican Communion has grown in size and complexity with ecumenical commissions, missionary boards, consultative bodies, observers at the United Nations and national primate meetings. Most of that structure involves primarily bishops, and while not exactly Roman Catholic, it is not surprising that this structure is viewed as parallel to the Roman Catholic world. The current Archbishop of Canterbury seems to edge in that direction, and he has attempted to use such structures as a weapon to punish the Episcopal Church for ordaining openly gay bishops.

“Everywhere I go,” Kearon said on Friday, “everyone wants him to act as a sort of an Anglican pope as long as he does what [they] want him to do."

Really?

Some Americans welcome the archbishop’s action. But do they really want an Anglican pope? Or to put it another way, do they really want to give up their American independence? And does Williams really want to be a pope?

It also seems a contradiction-in-terms to withdraw membership on an ecumenical commission as a means for enforcing a particular formulation of orthodoxy. Ecumenism by definition requires dialogue and soft boundaries around doctrine. Why bother talking about someone else’s faith if you don’t want to listen to what they have to say?

What then should our response be to all of this? Where do we go from here as Episcopalians living in a post-colonial world but with structures born out of British colonialism? Williams has proposed a complicated “Anglican Covenant” that places power with the national presiding bishops from the various national Anglican churches. His actions this week give us a glimpse of what life would be like under such a covenant with the Archbishop acting as a “magisterium.” The American Episcopal Church, along with the Canadians, Brazilians, South Africans and New Zealanders, are not likely to go along. In the name of unity, Williams is essentially threatening to split up the Anglican Communion. That well could be his legacy.

Or maybe after the pettiness and snubs of this past week, another course will be chosen by the clerics of Lambeth Palace. Perhaps Williams and his advisers will draw back from acting like the Vatican; perhaps this will be the low point of relations, and it will be uphill from here. Perhaps they will look again at the “indaba” listening process that Williams so brilliantly promoted at the Lambeth conference of bishops two summers ago. Perhaps. Lambeth Palace, with its British flair for obfuscation, is anything but transparent. We are left only to guess.

And what should we do in The Episcopal Church? I am inclined to agree with Diana Butler Bass: let us do as Jesus would do, walk the extra mile with those who would persecute us, carry their cloak – carry our hat in our hand – and listen for how the Holy Spirit is guiding us. Let the slights go. Walk the walk as disciples. As Bishop Katharine said in her sermon at St. Paul’s in January: “Be bold.”

Today's Collect for Sunday provides a perfect prayerful direction for all of us:

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your
holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom
you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness;
through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you
and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

We are called to serve as Christ’s hands and feet in the world, and we have much work to do. The Kingdom of God, which Jesus proclaims, is about inclusion and radical welcome of the outcast and the lowly, the sick and the lonely, prisoners and sinners, and those considered unworthy by the religious purists. Today’s epistle goes to the heart of the matter, and it is there where we should dwell:

“As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.”

Paul’s Letter to the Galatians 3:23-29

Anglican divisions: A view from Australia

A few days ago I suggested we hear voices seldom heard in our North American cloisters, and I posted here a commentary from Brazil about our Anglican predicament. Here is another voice from the Communion worth hearing, from Andrew McGowen, the warden of Trinity College, Melbourne, Australia.

He is critical of both Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and our American Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, but also suggests that much of the Anglican world is now turning to her for leadership. This is an interesting commentary, a bit dense with nuance, but well worth reading. McGowen's commentary is reprinted in full below:

The Anglican Babel: A view from AustraliaBy Andrew McGowen

Although historians will point to Gene Robinson’s consecration as a bishop in 2003 as the catalyst for the reconfiguration of global Anglicanism, Pentecost 2010 may turn out to have been a watershed of sorts too. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Letter, Renewal in the Spirit, and the responses to it, particular that of Presiding Bishop ++Katharine Jefferts Schori of The Episcopal Church, have ushered in a new era not only of frank disagreement but of practical disengagement.

The Australian Church has not been central in these discussions. We have our own microcosm of Anglican diversity, which often makes us hesitant to wade into Anglican Communion wars, lest we further destabilize our own delicate or illusory balance. Where we are contributing to the broader conversation at all, it is in correspondingly contradictory ways.

Primate ++Phillip Aspinall plays a leading role in the Anglican Consultative Council, working to defend or create a centre for the global Communion; others have had significant roles in inter-Anglican bodies. Yet ++Peter Jensen and his colleagues in Sydney, our most numerous and powerful diocese, are deeply involved in the GAFCON/FCA movement, and in the self-described ‘Global South’ (one of many signs that a particular conservatism and material resources are as good a ticket in to that company as any real issue of human and political geography - ask the Brazilians, Filipinos and South Africans).

Our divisions locally are arguably as deep as those in TEC a few years ago, but we Australian Anglicans generally believe in the Church. And in case or where we do not, the Australian Anglican Church is a fairly loose confederation of autonomous dioceses (which allows our spectacular diversity) and unlike our TEC sisters and brothers we do not have a strong sense of ‘national’ Church as an important ecclesiological category.

++Rowan is also held in real affection here, even in some (not all) of the more evangelical corners of the Church. Australian Anglicans have not wanted to weaken his position, and we—even those who disagree with him more and more about the Anglican Communion and its politics—still look to him for theological leadership. After these events however, I suspect there will be an increasing number here who look to ++Katharine and others for that leadership, as well or instead. I do hope it will be ‘as well’, myself; I think ++Rowan is sometimes better at being wrong than ++Katharine is at being right. This may be another sign that they need each other, and that the rest of us need them both.

++Katharine is right, I believe, in her more expansive articulation of the Spirit’s work as ongoing and dynamic. She is also right to reject centralization as alien to our Anglican heritage and to the roots of our more modern attempts to create a Communion.

However ++Katharine’s language of colonialism and control (or the romanticized take on Celtic Christianity, pursued further in Diana Butler Bass’ comment piece) in her pastoral letter responding to ++Rowan's will be unconvincing to many outside the TEC Choir being preached to, however sympathetic some of us are to the issues involved. Excluding some from obscure inter-Anglican bodies can be depicted as more-in-sorrow-than-anger discipline by the perpetrators, or as grasp-for-power oppression by the objects, but the reality all amounts to far less.

Appeal to the specifics of the (impressive) ‘Baptismal Covenant’ of TEC as a basis for distinctive action does not cut much ice here either (granted that we were not the audience); we Australian Anglicans want to talk about the demands of our common baptism, rooted in Christ for 2000 years, and resort to what characterizes TEC in the last 30 is not reassuring. This is where our admiration for TEC’s courage and leadership pauses, recognizing an apparent self-sufficiency which we refuse to attribute to ourselves. This is both what we admire most and what we find frustrating in TEC. This is where we are not sure whether ++Katharine’s being right, or similar forms of being right, will be enough.

++Katharine is still right here, however, and ++Rowan wrong. He is wrong in a tragic way—seeking, doubtless at great personal cost, a unity in the terms that existing Anglican Communion structures assume or require, but which in fact has now escaped us.

++Rowan is wrong in identifying the TEC ‘Communion Partners’ or others ‘who disagree strongly with recent decisions’ as those who want to be aligned with the Communion’s general commitments. I believe the vast majority of the members of TEC, including its leaders, do want to be aligned with the Communion’s general commitments and are, with specific and well-known exceptions. I have no more desire than the Archbishop of Canterbury to brush past the difficulties those exceptions present; but when did attitudes to homosexuality, rather than to the Creeds or the Sacraments, come to define the ‘Communion’s general commitments’?

This is an ecclesiological as well as a theological mistake, in that it characterizes the Communion not by its vast common depth of faith and hope, framed in specific and diverse history, but by the conversations of the thin layer that constitutes the ‘instruments of unity’, whose success has of late been desultory, and future significance increasingly uncertain.

++Rowan is also wrong in equating the positions in Inter-Anglican bodies such as IASCUFO with representation of the Communion as a whole. This is precisely the sort of context where Anglicans need to have the breadth of visions and voices that might take us forward in faith and charity, even if it is to a place of mutual disagreement and realignment. The removal of a TEC member of IASCUFO makes it a weaker body in all respects.

The position is slightly different regarding exclusion of TEC from the ecumenical dialogue groups, but the result no more inspiring; our dialogue partners may indeed now have a better chance of knowing ‘who it is they are talking to’—they will know precisely that they are talking only to some of us.

And while numerous commentators have suggested there are power grabs or constitutional problems with the dis-invitations, few have noted that membership of such bodies has never before been seen as a question of delegation, or of representing national Churches; rather their members have been chosen for expertise, and with a necessary diversity that reflects our own (than you Bruce Kaye for this point).

Not all blame, even for these specific missteps, should be laid at the feet of the Archbishop of Canterbury or of the Anglican Communion Office. It is patronising to conservatives in the 'Global South' and elsewhere to absolve them of responsibility. But here is where the singling out of TEC, at least as it appears in Canon Kenneth Kearon’s subsequentletter, becomes inexplicable (nb., after a week or two of no clarification, maybe change ‘inexplicable’ to ‘outrageous’). Most groups who have disregarded the other moratorium, of cross-border interventions, have not been mentioned in the prescriptions for dis-inviting participation in international bodies.

This apparent inconsistency turns the events of recent weeks from depressing but inconsequential to depressing but deeply troubling. Not that it would have been much better, I hasten to add, for conservatives to be similarly sanctioned; we need these brothers and sisters no less than others, whether they know it or not. At present however many of them are seeking communion only among the superficially like-minded, and would hardly notice their or our exclusion from these structures.

From this southern vantage point, I cannot hear the events of Pentecost 2010 either as a new centralizing will-to-power or as a rallying-call to liberal or progressive indignation. Rather, in a perverse reversal of the original Pentecost, we see ourselves further reduced to Babel, scattered abroad and unable or unwilling to understand one another’s speech. If the Anglican Communion’s central instruments are bound by circumstance to provide us with less than they were intended to, Australian Anglicans will not abandon them; but we will not abandon sisters and brothers in TEC or elsewhere either, as we all begin the long slow work of finding common language by other means, in the Spirit’s power.

Not a good day for dialogue in the Anglican Communion

There are a few developments today in the Anglican Communion, and I pass along this article from Episcopal News Service that explains it better than I can. The Archbishop of Canterbury has removed Episcopal representatives from various ecumenical consultative bodies as punishment for our consecrating another openly gay bishop. This seems rather inconsistent with his stated desire to mend relationships among members of the Anglican Communion and promote dialogue, but I also expect he felt backed into a corner and needed to respond. Here is the story, and you may draw your own conclusions:

Anglican Journal] Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has described the decision by Lambeth Palace to remove Episcopalians serving on international ecumenical dialogues as "unfortunate ... It misrepresents who the Anglican Communion is."

Jefferts Schori's comments were made during a June 8 press conference at theAnglican Church of Canada's General Synod 2010 in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Before the sanctions were imposed on the Episcopal Church as a consequence for having consecrated a lesbian bishop, Jefferts Schori said she had written a letter to Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams expressing her concern.

"I don't think it helps dialogue to remove some people from the conversation," she said shortly after addressing General Synod. "We have a variety of opinions on these issues of human sexuality across the communion ... For the archbishop of Canterbury to say to the Methodists or the Lutheran [World] Federation that we only have one position is inaccurate. We have a variety of understandings and no, we don't have consensus on hot button issues at the moment."

On June 7, the Rev. Canon Kenneth Kearon, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, informed the Episcopal Church representatives serving on Anglican dialogues with the Lutheran, Methodist, Old Catholic and Orthodox churches that their memberships to these bodies had been discontinued. One Episcopalian serving on the Inter-Anglican Standing Committee on Unity, Faith and Order, was "demoted" to the status of consultant, said Jefferts Schori.

Earlier, Williams proposed in a Pentecost letter issued May 28 that representatives currently serving on ecumenical dialogues should resign if they come from a province that has not complied with a moratoria on same-sex blessings, cross-border interventions, and the ordination of gay and lesbian people to the episcopate.

Williams singled out the May 15 consecration of the Los Angeles Suffragan Bishop Mary Douglas Glasspool, who is the Episcopal Church's second openly gay and partnered bishop.

The primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, Archbishop Fred Hiltz, has been asked whether "General Synod or House of Bishops has formally adopted policies that breach the second moratorium in the Windsor Report, authorizing public rites of same-sex blessing." Archbishop Gregory Venables, primate of the Anglican Province of the Southern Cone, has been asked for "clarification as to the current state of his interventions into other provinces."

Jefferts Schori said Williams' letter "really jumped" the process around the proposed Anglican Covenant, because it "imposed a number of the sanctions that were envisaged in the fourth section." The covenant is being viewed as way of addressing tensions in the communion over the issue of human sexuality.

Asked whether Williams has adequately addressed the issue of cross-border interventions, Jefferts Schori said, "I don't think he understands how difficult and how painful and destructive it's been both in the church in Canada and for us in the U.S. ... when bishops come from overseas and say, 'Well, we'll take care of you, you don't have to pay attention to your bishop.'" Such actions "destroys pastoral relationships," noted Jefferts Schori. "It's like an affair in a marriage," she said. "It destroys trust."

She added that it's "a very ancient teaching of the church that bishops are supposed to stay home and tend to the flock to which he was originally assigned."

Asked how Anglicans can focus on mission amid its issues over the place of gays and lesbians, Jefferts Schori said, "By focusing on mission, on the broader context. The hot button issues are an aspect of our mission."

The issue of human sexuality has a place in the communion's Five Marks of Mission, she said. "Where is good news in this conversation about human sexuality? I think we heard some in the [General Synod human sexuality] report ... That people felt they could speak to each other, be heard and speak in a gracious way and that was reported to be a significant shift from the last General Synod."

Part of the church's mission is to gay and lesbian people, she added. "Where's the good news in this for them?"

Another deals with addressing human suffering, she said. "Suicide rates among gay and lesbian teenagers are much, much higher than the national average in Canada and the U.S. How do we address that? That's an aspect in these Marks of Mission."

Developed by the Anglican Consultative Council, the Five Marks of Mission are:

• To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom;
• To teach, baptize and nurture new believers;
• To respond to human need by loving service;
• To seek to transform unjust structures of society;
• To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.

-- Marites N. Sison is staff writer of the Anglican Journal.

Reflections on our time with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori: "We are marching in the light of God!"

There were many enchanting moments in the three days we shared with Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori this past weekend here in Charlottesville as she helped us celebrate the Centennial of St. Paul's Memorial Church.

One amazing moment stood out for me more than any other:

About halfway through our 10 am Sunday worship we always have a children’s procession so that the children can join their parents for Holy Communion.

The kids march up the center aisle as the adults sing, “We are Marching in the Light of God!”

As we sang this Sunday, Bishop Katharine walked down and marched with the kids. And then as they sat around the Holy Table, she leaned down and blessed each child on his or her forehead, one by one.

As it happens, Iris Potter, our Sunday School director, had taught a lesson that morning about how Jesus touched Peter, and then Peter touched others, and they became the leaders of the Church. After Katharine blessed our children, they ran to Iris and asked her if they were now the leaders of the Church.

Later, at lunch, I told Bishop Katharine what the children had asked.

Beaming, she said “Yes! Yes! They are the leaders of the Church!”

Today I am offering a few reflections of our time with Bishop Katharine while these memories are still fresh. I would like to invite you to offer yours in the comment section of this blog (below this posting) while those memories are still fresh with you.

I cannot begin to express my delight that so many of you got to experience Bishop Katharine in so many settings, formal and informal. And I cannot begin to express my gratitude to her for being so generous with her time and so engaged with us.

These three days not only marked a celebration of our centennial, but also marked an historic milestone in the history St. Paul’s as we begin the second 100 years, uplifted by our Presiding Bishop -- and challenged by her -- to fully live out our mission and ministry.

Bishop Katharine implored us to keep our outward focus, to minister to each other and to the world beyond our walls, to fear nothing – to “Be Bold!”

In her time with us, she talked in detail about the Episcopal Church in Haiti, the damage and lost lives. She talked about our responsibility to care for the earth, our island home, and the call to us to grow a healthy transforming congregation that welcomes and nurtures new people.

She talked precious little about Episcopal Church politics.

Over the course of three days, Katharine shared dinner with teenagers, a potluck lunch with the St. Paul’s clergy, and a banquet table with the president-elect of the University of Virginia, Teresa Sullivan. We discovered Katharine has a weakness for macaroni-and-cheese and strong Starbucks coffee.

Despite a snowstorm, more than 200 of you made it to our Centennial banquet. There was something electric about seeing so many of you in your finest clothing waiting to greet her in the banquet hall. I am only sorry that more of you were unable to get through the snow to be with us (and we videoed all of it just for you).

I was struck over-and-over by the hospitality and the love extended by the people of St. Paul’s to this most courageous leader of our church. You opened your arms and your hearts, and I am so grateful for your spirit and your connection with her. I believe she left knowing she made many new friends, and confident that you will remember her in your prayers, just as she will remember you in hers.

Those moments of friendship with us were many:

On Friday, Bishop Katharine’s first appearance in Charlottesville was to a full audience in the historic Dome Room of Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda at the University of Virginia. Her appearance was open to the public. Before arriving in the Rotunda, she spent about a half-hour with students in our Canterbury Episcopal Fellowship, who then escorted her to the Rotunda.

At the Rotunda, Professor Margaret Mohrmann, a member of St. Paul's who is on the faculty of both the Medical School and the Religious Studies Department, ably interviewed Bishop Katharine, weaving together questions from the audience written in index cards.

That evening, Bishop Katharine shared macaroni-and-cheese with teenage youth groups from St. Paul’s and several other Episcopal churches in the area. Katharine and the teens sang a few camp songs in the chapel, and then Katharine took their questions.

She was asked to share some of her own life story; she told beginning life as a Roman Catholic and coming to the Episcopal Church as a teenager. She went to Stanford University in California, and later earned a Ph.D in oceanography from Oregon State University. Later, as her career as a scientist wound down, members of her congregation told her she ought to be a priest, an idea she first found improbable. My wife Lori and I got to know her when she was a seminarian in Berkeley at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific.

The teens were particularly fascinated by Katharine's transition from scientist to Episcopal priest, and then bishop of the Diocese of Nevada. Katharine was asked about how she reconciled her previous career as a scientist with the Genesis stories of creation.

“All of them are true,” she replied, explaining that science explains the mechanics of creation, while Genesis explains the whys of creation.

On Saturday morning, the schedule called for a private luncheon with the Presiding Bishop and the St. Paul’s clergy at the University of Virginia Colonnade Club. But with the snow heavily falling, we went to Plan B – soup and sandwiches at the church. That turned out to be one of the most enchanting moments of the weekend.

Katharine, in her blue jeans, walked over to the parish hall, and before we knew it she was picking up flower trimmings from the floor with our Flower Guild.

Meanwhile, John Reid, Tony Potter, Virginia Ritchie and a large cast worked tirelessly to get us ready for the banquet despite the snowstorm. They made dozens of phone calls, made sure the parking lot at Alumni Hall would be plowed and the caterer able to feed us.

My one job was to transport Katharine from the inn where she was staying to the banquet hall. I almost flubbed that assignment. At the appointed hour, the door to the inn was locked tight, and I could not get anyone inside to answer the doorbell or the phone.

Finally, University President-elect Teresa Sullivan, who it turned out was staying in the same inn, mercifully gave me entry. She and Katharine later shared the same table at the banquet.

There was something about the snowstorm that gave the banquet a forceful energy. It started with the line of snow boots in the entry hall and ended with those who lingered for one more photograph or one more signature in a prayer book. Those who got to the banquet hall were utterly determined to be there no matter what, and no one was in a rush to leave.

At the banquet, we showed a 14-minute documentary about St. Paul’s, produced and written by Bruce Carveth, Paula Kettlewell, Bob Gibson and Sarah McConnell. The film told of the courage of those who built St. Paul’s, and pointed toward the future of our ministry.

Bishop Katharine then spoke eloquently to us about our mission as witnesses of God’s reconciling love in our own time. She tied our work in caring pastorally for each other with our work caring for the community and the world around us; all of it interrelated. More broadly, she gave us a glimpse of the connection we that we share with the whole of The Episcopal Church in 19 nations.

Sunday morning dawned spectacular. The sun was brilliant, the sky blue, and the snow coated the trees and buildings.

We began with a small, contemplative Rite I Eucharist at 8 am with Katharine presiding. Afterwards, she shared a cup of coffee with those who lingered. Later, she remarked to me how prayerful our worship space feels, and how moved she was that we read the names of the soldiers, sailors and Marines who have died in our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the previous week.

We pulled out all the stops for the 10 am worship service, and close to 400 people filled the pews. How they found a parking space on the snowy streets is a mystery to me.

Our children’s choir sang an introit before we began, and what most of you did not see was Bishop Katharine with her ear to the door in the narthex, listening and smiling.

The procession of acolytes, candles (and our new banner!), choir and the clergy of St. Paul’s was as spectacular as the morning sunshine.

Bishop Katharine and Deacon Heather Warren, carrying the Gospel, processed last. As we walked down the aisle, I was moved close to tears by the looks on so many faces waiting to see the first woman Presiding Bishop and Primate of our church. Cameras clicked, voices sang, and the celebration rocked the roof.

And then Bishop Katharine stepped to the Altar and prayed with us. We were stilled.

In her sermon, Katharine challenged us to “be bold.” You can read the full text and hear the sermon in a posting below this one [You can also view a brief video made by Simeon Fitch of Bishop Katharine blessing the children by clicking HERE].

In her time with us, Bishop Katharine answered dozens and dozens of questions, and she never seemed to grow weary. After the 10 am worship, she fielded another wave of questions at a parish forum.

She was asked about the proposed “Anglican Covenant” that has been steadily pushed by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, as an attempt to quell the conflicts in the Anglican Communion of which we are the American constituent branch (you can read the proposed covenant by clicking HERE).

Katharine termed the proposal “an Enlightenment solution to a Post-modern problem.” She said the covenant is an attempt to put boundaries on innovation and impose a more hierarchical structure on the Anglican Communion with more authority for bishops. She termed that as anti-ethical to the traditions of Anglicanism, and noted that had there been such a covenant 30 years ago there would be no women priests or bishops now.

She was asked whether we will be “out of communion” with the rest of the Anglican Communion if we don’t endorse the proposed covenant.

She replied that we are already “out of communion” because several national provinces do not recognize the ordination of women, or recognize her as a bishop, or recognize anyone -- male or female -- whom she has ordained.

“I’m the problem” for those provinces, she noted.

I found her answers direct; she never equivocated or candy-coated anything; she said what she thinks, and challenged the rest of us to think more deeply and hold our faith more courageously. And she implored us to keep a wide tent, to give room to those who disagree, especially to those who disagree with her.

In the three days we enjoyed with her, I was much struck by how she absorbed the best that is St. Paul’s, and the greatness of this congregation when we are fulfilling our mandate to build God’s kingdom on earth. She synthesized who we are and who we can be in her sermon, and I end this reflection with her words:

The ability to tell those hard truths has something to do with courage, and a deep connectedness to God and all of God’s creation: the courage that St. Paul’s had right after the Second World War to challenge others in this community to contribute to rebuilding churches in Europe, the courage to say no to Harry Byrd’s program of

massive resistance to integrated schools, the courage to host a prayer vigil during the Viet Nam war, and the courage to say keep on saying yes to all comers in this community. Your next hundred years will be built on that kind of courage to speak truth, to pluck up and pull down human structures of injustice, and to build and plant a community of peace.

You will continue to be prophets here as long as you notice the hungry and figure out how to feed people, as long as you reach out to students who might not otherwise get here – how about inviting young people from Haiti or Liberia to apply for Skinner scholarships? The vision from Isaiah that Jesus read, the truth he proclaimed that nearly got him lynched in Nazareth, is the courageous truth we share – a healed and healing world. Prophets may be quaking in their boots, like Martin Luther King the night his house was bombed, but they keep on speaking, and they keep on moving toward God’s perfection.

May your words and deeds be bold!

Photos by Bonny Bronson. There are more photos from the weekend by parishioners on the St. Paul's website; you can view the photos by clicking HERE. Send more and we'll post them.

Vatican trying to lure Anglicans: What does this mean to us?

Church politics is like geology: the deep earth plates grind slowly, and eventually they set off earthquakes. What is on top of the earth is left crumpled and is never the same again.

This week we've seen another earthquake in the Church, and it is probably 7.2 on the Richter Scale. The aftershocks are continuing, and it will take years before we fully see what this quake hath wrought.

Pope Benedict XVI announced Tuesday he has formed a special office to receive disgruntled Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church. Under the pope's scheme, Anglicans may keep their distinctive form of worship, and men priests may keep their wives. Such priests must be re-trained and re-ordained since the Vatician has always considered Anglican orders to be "absolutely null and utterly void."

Amplifying the earthquake, the Vatican got Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to participate in a press conference announcing its move to scoop up Anglicans. You can read about Williams' participation and the reaction to Williams by clicking HERE.

Williams' participation must rank as one of the most boneheaded moves of his troubled episcopate. He said later he had been warned only a short time before by the Vatican about what it intended to do, which means he had more than an inkling of what was to transpire. In the very least, he should have declined to participate until fully understanding what Rome was up to. There are already calls in Britain for his resignation, and those calls may soon reach a roar across the Anglican globe, and rightly so.

To have lured the Archbishop of Canterbury to such a press conference was clearly intended to show at least tacit approval by the archbishop. The Vatican should be roundly criticized not just for this breach of Christian unity, but for taking advantage of Williams' best intentions of creating unity. The Vatican made him look gullible and spineless.

The Pope's move is predatory. Though advertised as pastoral, the timing betrays its intent. The Church of England is soon to vote on ordaining women bishops; a report recommending such ordination was issued only last week. The Vatican is clearly seeking to capitalize on the divisions within the Church of England, the Anglican Communion and our own Episcopal Church (the Diocese of South Carolina is set to vote on leaving the Episcopal Church this weekend). Some Catholic commentators (see The Washington Post on Wednesday by clicking HERE) are speculating that this is a sly way for the Vatican to pick up some married priests and thus fill a few of its empty pulpits (and I doubt the Vatican is looking to pick up property; it has plenty of buildings that need clergy).

None of this should surprise us. This move is coming from a Roman Catholic Church that is charging backward at warp-factor speed to pre-Vatican II liturgy and theology. The Roman Catholic Church still officially considers Protestants to be heretics; the incumbent pope, with none of the pastoral or public relations touch of his predecessor, dredged up the official Catholic stance that Islam is a "Christian heresy" (think of the audacity of that position for a moment: Islam is not even its own religion according to this pope). This also comes from a pope who welcomed back into the fold a Catholic bishop who denies the Holocaust. Benedict has demonstrated that he has no intention of ecumenical or interfaith dialogue except on his own terms. Meanwhile, the once vibrant theological and intellectual dialogue and scholarship within the Catholic church is heading underground. It was only recently that the Vatican repented of the wrong rendered to Galileo for having the audacity to prove that the earth is not at the center of the universe (and Rome is not at the center of the earth). Rome still has some catching up to do with the rest of us.

As for being Anglican, let us not forget that our church broke with Rome 500 years ago, and there were very good reasons for that beyond the divorce of King Henry VIII. We stood on the side of Martin Luther in our belief that we are saved by faith alone, not by our works. We are Protestants of the large tent who remain catholic in the sense of believing in the universal church that is truly universal.

Benedict is not our pope, and he is not one of our bishops, but he is our brother in Christ even if he does not recognize the same in us. We have long since moved on from Rome, and whatever illusions anyone had of reunifying with Rome will, at best, need to wait for another pope, perhaps in another century.

Where does this leave Anglicanism?

Benedict's move probably shreds Rowan Williams' effort to forge a "two-track" Anglicanism with the conservatives on one track and the progressives on the other. Rome just hijacked the first track, and bumped the archbishop off. Williams' effort at forging an "Anglican Covenant" now appears very hollow indeed. Perhaps we should thank Rome for putting the nail in this ill-conceived notion.

If anything, the Pope's move will have the unintended consequence of making it easier for us to move ahead with building an inclusive Anglicanism that truly embraces the gifts of all the baptized. An estimated 1,000 Church of England priests may soon leave for the Roman church, taking with them their votes, and that will make it easier on the Church of England to begin ordaining women bishops and openly gay people. Those whom Williams is desperately trying to keep are leaving, and that will make it harder for him to declare that the American Episcopal Church is "out of communion." If anything, the Church of England will look more like us. An inclusive Church of England might even grow when not dragged down by endless church infighting, and that can only strengthen our communion in the long run.

Meanwhile, what Benedict may soon discover is that a bunch of crabby Anglicans have now become crabby Roman Catholics. Those not satisfied with one church are not likely to be satisfied with another. It rarely works that way.

I don't know if anyone has kept track, but I would be willing to bet that in the last 30 years more Roman Catholic priests have become Anglican than the other way around. Benedict's move does nothing to stem that slide, and if anything, the continued rigidity of his church will only continue to chase people out. Perhaps we should set up a special Anglican office to receive Roman Catholics? Maybe Rowan Williams should have said something like that at the press conference. He is too decent to be that snide, but it would have made the point.

Interestingly, the news outlets in the United States report that none of the break-away bishops in the Episcopal Church are interested in joining Rome. They have gone too far down their own road, and I rather suspect they enjoy their new found independence and have no intention of handing it over to a headquarters in Rome. Why should they? They were never much interested in unity with those different from themselves to begin with. Quite probably, this move by the Vatican will only increase their isolation, rendering them neither Anglican nor Catholic, but rather a new denomination of Protestantism.

The Vatican will say that this move is pastoral in its intent. Let us pray it will turn out that way. It is my hope that our brothers and sisters who are unhappy with the Episcopal Church will find a home better suited to them. They are still our brothers and sisters in Christ. I have a very conservative friend in the Central Valley of California who renounced his Episcopal ordination to join the Roman Catholic Church as a lay person. He is still a friend and still a servant even if we disagree on many issues. The Central Valley desperately needs Roman Catholic priests. I hope he is able to reclaim his vocation. But he might have done that anyway without all the histrionics from Rome.

Finally, I am reminded of an amazing historical fact that I learned when taking church history from the Rev. Dr. Rebecca Lyman at the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. Here is that fact: For two-thousand years, despite all of the patriarchal church hierarchy, despite all of the church in-fighting and schisms, despite all of the tragedy, oppression, inquisitions, despite all of the malicious or merely stupid bishops, despite all of that, the Holy Spirit always finds a way to emerge in the hearts and minds of God's people. The Holy Spirit finds us in our every day life, and finds us in churches of every stripe and in faith communities of every sort. The Holy Spirit blows where it will.

All we need do is open our eyes to see and our ears to hear, and maybe stand somewhere to feel the breeze. The Holy Spirit is always in the midst of us, and is even in the Roman Catholic Church.

Photo of Archbishop Rowan Williams, left, and Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, right, at Tuesday's press conference. Photo by Matt Dunham, Associated Press.

Anglican update: Rowan Williams asked to stand against homophobia

When last we checked in on Anglican Communion politics, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury (pictured at right), had suggested a "two track" communion, one inhabited by national churches that adhere to his proposed "Anglican Covenant" and the other track inhabited by those who don't.

The implication has been that the "traditional" national provinces (read those who don't ordain gays or women) will be on the first track, and those who are more inclusive will be on the second track. Since making that suggestion in July, Rowan met with seven American bishops who inquired whether their dioceses could sign onto the covenant, and join the first track, even if the Episcopal Church as a whole did not.

Here is the update: Rowan has replied, politely of course, that while he welcomes support from individual dioceses and parishes, only a national province may decide to sign onto the covenant. In other words, a diocese may not leave its national church. That may seem obvious to most of us, but these days nothing is so obvious.

Rowan also is receiving criticism from his left wing in the Church of England. Dr. Peter Selby, the retired bishop of Worcester (pictured here), recently gave a speech maintaining that Rowan needs to stand up for more than just the preservation of institutions. Selby suggested that the archbishop would better serve the church by devoting his considerable energies to the values of inclusion in our institutions. This story appeared in the British religious journal Ekkelsia earlier this week:

Don't let homophobia set the Anglican agenda, says bishop

Dr Peter Selby, the former Anglican bishop of Worcester, has told a gathering of Christians that anti-gay sentiment should not be setting the tone of discussions about Anglican polity and that the Archbishop of Canterbury has a responsibility to speak up for more than just holding church institutions together.

"If homophobia is contrary to the intentions of those advocating the traditionalist cause", as has often been said, "it has been allowed to provide a good deal of the fuel for the debate, and the Archbishop's personal opposition to homophobia does not exempt him from complicity in the way that energy is being used", Dr Selby told the Inclusive Church residential conference “Word on the Street - reading the Bible inclusively”.

To read the full story, clicking HERE.

Selby's speech is worth reading in its entirety, though it is a bit longish. To read the speech, click HERE. In his conclusion, Selby notes (and this is worth a long quote):

Above all what we need is not to take our eye off the issue, that of the treatment to be accorded to LGBT people and the ways in which they have - over many generations, not just in the last few decades - sought to live lives obedient to the gospel within the cultures in which we all, sexual majorities and minorities alike, seek to do just that. To leave that issue behind in favour of the worthy but secondary issue of how to keep the Anglican Communion together will stunt our discernment - and not keep the Anglican Communion together either. The Archbishop says the enterprise is 'becoming the Church God wants us to be, for the better proclaiming of the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ'; but that means engaging in the search for the truth together, not settling for the stalemate which is what his paper actually advocates.

What is at stake is our faith that God's truth will be discovered. That is, that we shall learn which of the faltering steps we all take in the living of holy lives with our bodies and our passions will form part of the choreography of promise, the one that will prepare us for the marriage supper of the Lamb, where all our human loving will be transformed and celebrated. Towards that vision we look; and nothing less will do.

Meanwhile, the Church of England continues to struggle with whether to ordain women as bishops. Women were allowed into the priesthood in England only recently, and so-called "traditionalists" men clergy are still much resistant. A CofE committee this week called for allowing women to be bishops, but without as much authority in their own dioceses as their men counterparts. To read the full story on this development, click HERE.

In my opinion, Rowan's ambiguity on the issues of inclusion on gays encourages an ambiguous response on women, and vice versa. And while the archbishop regularly criticizes the actions of the Episcopal Church for tearing at the "bonds of affection" through our actions, the bonds will be torn badly should the Church of England decide that women bishops are not fully bishops. A number of my colleagues, myself among them, wonder if it is worth remaining in a club that is so hide-bound, so exclusivist as to be unrecognizable as a loving, caring community that fully embraces all people as fully human.

Finally, those who are new to this blog may want to read the longer commentary I gave on these matters in September. You can read it by clicking HERE.

The Anglican Railroad: Rumbling down the tracks, a train to somewhere (but where?)

There is considerable commentary in recent days on the latest conflicts in the Anglican Communion, which, at last notice, we are still a member in good standing. You may be excused if you find this topic tedious and not worth reading further.

Truthfully, I find this topic tedious, too, and much of it smacks of ecclesiastical inside baseball at its worst. You may rightly ask: What does any of this have to do with me, or my family, or my work, or even what does this really have to do with the life of my local church? All fair questions, and questions for which I have, at best, partial answers. I hope you will keep reading but I would not blame you if you stop here.

I want to start by saying I do not question the faith or sincerity of the advocates on any side of this. I leave that judgment to God alone. If everyone could subscribe that statement we might get somewhere. But not all do, and so into the swamp we go.

Before we get our ankles muddy, let’s take a few steps back. This conflict predates the election of Gene Robinson, the openly gay bishop of New Hampshire. The fight 30 years ago was over the prayer book and the ordination of women; before that it was a fight over whether African Americans were included in a predominantly white upper class church. Now it is an argument over whether gays and lesbians are included. Yet it is Robinson’s election in 2003 that sparked the latest fire in the Anglican Communion, and that fire is not going out anytime soon.

I highly recommend reading the commentaries of recent days put forth by advocates of differing points of view (and thanks to several of you for bringing these to my attention). Among the best I’ve seen recently is by Jim Naughton in the U.K. Guardian; you can it read HERE. Another, by Frank M. Turner, on the Episcopal Café blog, is a good critique of the mythology of the Anglican Communion as an “imagined community.” You can read Turner's piece HERE.

On the conservative side, Fr. Dan Martins from Indiana offers thoughtful comments as he works through how he and his diocese attempt to remain in an Episcopal Church even though he and his diocese see themselves much at odds with the majority in the church. His questions are genuine and should engage all of us. You can read Martins' comments HERE.

On the extreme side, you can read David Anderson’s commentaries, though I hesitate to send you to his screeds. They are worth reading if for no other reason than he reveals much about the motives, tactics and divisions among his right-wing allies. You can read his website HERE.

Now that I have sent you there, fair warning: I want to express in the strongest possible terms my disagreement with Anderson, who heads up the American Anglican Council, a self-appointed schismatic organization aligned with those seeking to create a new Anglican communion based on an exclusionary view of the Gospel. He long ago claimed the mantle of being “orthodox” though he has acted as anything but. He received an ordination as a bishop that was, at best, irregular and outside of any Episcopal election or confirmation process.

Anderson's use of language is no small thing. Most disturbing, Anderson uses creepy rhetoric of war and warriors to make his case for purging the Episcopal Church of gays, liberals and other ilk he finds heretical. In a recent commentary he talked of the church needing “war chiefs” and “peace chiefs.” How that is scripturally based is beyond me. Note well the tone and content of his words in his Sept. 4 newsletter:

"As with a nation, so does the church require an appropriate leader for the time and the circumstance. What do these days in the Anglican World Communion call for, a Peace Chief or a War Chief? I would argue that this present time requires a War Chief for the defense of the Gospel and the Anglican Communion."

It should also be noted that Anderson and his allies are using same tone as the extremist “tea-bagger” anti-Obama forces so vocal this August in a supposedly secular debate over health care. Anderson and his allies stand for continued militaristic confrontation with the Islamic world; are against a two-state Israel-Palestine solution; and are stridently anti-gay and anti-abortion.

That is no coincidence – the same people who are underwriting the schism in The Episcopal Church are the same people underwriting the attacks on President Obama in Washington DC and in townhall meetings, including the likes of Richard Mellon Scaife (who underwrote the scurrilous film that accused the Clintons of murdering Vincent Foster). Make no mistake: these people have a larger political agenda beyond the Episcopal Church. As Naughton points out:

“[A]warding the Anglican brand in North America to the schismatics would reverse the trend by handing the American right the opportunity to wrap its agenda in the endorsement of a major mainstream religious organisation.”

All this leads to one basic fact: The conflict in The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion remains an argument over power, and it is playing out in the arena of who gets ordained and who does not, who may be married and who may not. Various interests have attempted to dress this up as an argument over the authority of Scripture and the divinity of Christ, asserting that it is self-evident that there is only one interpretation of the Bible possible (their own).

Weaponizing the Bible, by the way, is as un-Anglican is it gets; one of the bedrock values of Anglicanism is the acknowledgment that it is just possible that there are competing interpretations of Scripture, so we best be humble when we throw our Bible verses at each other (see Article 20 in the Articles of Religion, p. 871 of the Book of Common Prayer).

Everyone in this conflict interprets the Bible, and none are abandoning their vow of discipleship of Jesus Christ as they see it. I do not doubt that David Anderson is a deeply devoted disciple of Jesus, though I wish he would acknowledge the same in Susan Russell and Louie Crew of Integrity.

In reality, there is precious little in the Bible to go on to guide us about who may be ordained and who may not, which is one reason everyone can claim to have the Bible on their side.

And while this sounds esoteric – and it is – and while this may not directly affect you if you have no intention of being ordained, it does boil down to this issue: Who holds power in the Church and how they get it. And that should concern you.

That brings us to where we are now: This past summer, the General Convention – the once-every-three years legislative meeting of elected Episcopal church leaders – approved two significant measures which roiled the waters further throughout the rest of the Anglican Communion. One resolution lifted a moratorium on ordaining new bishops who are openly gay, and the other resolution allows bishops to sanction same-sex blessings if they so wish.

And that brings us the Anglican Railroad.

After General Convention, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who is the titular head of the Anglican Communion (Note: he is the first among equals and not the Pope) stated that there ought to be two “tracks” in the Anglican Communion. He has no direct power to create such tracks, but his voice carries considerable weight throughout the Communion.

In Williams’ scheme, the first track would subscribe to his complicated proposal for an “Anglican Covenant” that would, in effect, declare that no province of the communion may do anything significant without consensus from the rest. Issues including the ordination of openly gay people and women would presumably remain on the backburner on the first track until everyone reaches a consensus.

How such a consensus would come about is not clear. The archbishop has pushed hard for the adoption of his covenant, and he appears to be proposing this “First Track” as an incentive for the provinces to sign up and fall into line.

The second track would be churches that don’t sign up for the covenant, but can remain within the communion at a lower status level. The consequences of being relegated to secondary status are not entirely clear.

There are a number of practical issues at stake, first and foremost which national province is running on which track and who gets to decide. The first track presumably would be those Anglican provinces subscribing to the more traditional structures of ordination (i.e., no gays and women), and those provinces it so happens coincide with the poorest countries in the

communion (Nigeria, Uganda, Sudan, etc).

To add a new layer of complexity, seven American Episcopal Church bishops met with Rowan Williams last week to explore whether they could bring their dioceses onto the first track while the rest of the Episcopal Church remained on the second track.

The seven American bishops signed a statement following General Convention stating that they have no intention of leaving the Episcopal Church but they are trying to find a way of co-existence without compromising their beliefs.

We shall see where this goes, but it begs the question: If individual dioceses can get onto the first track, what about single parishes, or individuals? This railroad could end up with many side spurs.

The second track is likely to be inhabited by the more liberal communion members who, it so happens, are mostly of the industrialized world – the U.S., Canada, Scotland, South Africa, and maybe even the Church of England itself.

The second track, it should be noted, is the track with the most money, begging the instant question about which track would, in reality, end up the first track. Even David Anderson sees that point and raised that issue in his Sept 4 newsletter:

"Opposing Dr. Williams is Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the pronouncer of heresy on the historic faith, the Presiding Bishop of the competing Anglican Communion, who will assume that if she is in a tier or track, it will be the favored and most blessed one."

The question of which track will end up the favored first track should give Rowan Williams pause about his two-track proposal. He is setting about to create a supposedly “separate but equal” system of church life. While at first glance that may seem of interest only to those bishops who crave invitations to Lambeth and tea with the Queen, there are real-life consequences to this for real people.

It is as basic as mosquito nets.

By creating two tracks, the archbishop would be sanctioning a great tragedy: the developed world could find an excuse to abdicate its responsibility to the poorest regions of the world; and the government-church power structures in the poorest regions could avoid enlisting assistance from the developed world.

Sanctioning two tracks will make it more difficult than it already is for church relief workers to operate in the undeveloped world. Lest you think this is theoretical objection, our Virginia diocesan missionary in Sudan last summer was ejected from that country at the behest of the Anglican bishops there because she had the temerity to suggest that the Sudanese people really do not care who marries whom in America. Her ejection was met with silence by Canterbury and the rest of the Anglican Communion. That is not a good sign.

I would also suggest the Archbishop of Canterbury’s proposal of two tracks further degrades his own position. His legitimacy rests entirely on the idea that he is an “instrument of unity.” In the name of unity, he is now proposing disunity. Unity cannot be won with a piece of paper called a “covenant,” nor can it be won by coercion from the top down based in a class system of multi-track communion members. I do not recall that Jesus had two tracks at his table, nor did he require signatures on a legalistic covenant to share at his table.

Sadly, Rowan Williams appears not to have learned the lessons of his own truly inspired leadership last summer at the Lambeth conference of Anglican bishops. He was at his best when he got the bishops to sit and listen to each other and their individual stories without ginning up reams of toothless resolutions. Rather than pounding on tables, the bishops discovered true unity in their shared discipleship of Jesus Christ. All of us share in that call as a people of faith, and we can discover this unity, one day, one prayer, one disciple at a time. Even bishops can find that unity, and they don't need a piece of paper or a railroad track to find it.

The photo of mosquito nets is from Oxfam, an amazing organization. For more information about Oxfam, please click HERE.

Cartoon by Dave Walker; apologies to the USC Trojans.