The Pluperfect Mindset

In response to the ordinations of two new bishops in Los Angeles yesterday, the usual suspects from the Anglican Right are atwitter with comments about further rifts or tears in the Anglican Communion, accusations that the Episcopal Church has now walked apart in some formal way from that Communion, and that it certainly can't in good conscience sign on to the Anglican Covenant (as they conceive it, in a kind of anticipatory prejudgment of exactly what the policies and objects of discipline might be down the road once the new body is actually, well, embodied.)

It is important to remember that any "rift" or "tear" or any such "transection" is at this point "a rift in the Anglican Communion" -- it is not a rift between the Anglican Communion and some entity not a part (or no longer a part, as Anglican Mainstream and others would have it) of the Anglican Communion. No one has "walked apart" from the rest of the Anglican Communion, except perhaps those portions of it, such as Nigeria and parts of GAFCON / FoCA, who have chosen actually to reject the See of Canterbury as a focal point for gathering the Anglican episcopate for consultation, or who have established separatist outposts within the confines of other Anglican jurisdictions, declaring they are out of communion with the larger body.

So much of this is based on the self-fulfilling false prophecy of those who attribute more authority to the Instruments of Communion than they have heretofore exercised, or than they have been granted by the actual member churches and provinces of the Communion. Thus, conferring and consulting bodies have been lacquered with a quick coat of putative authority, which cannot completely cover the underlying texture: these bodies are not yet in possession of the powers with which some would like to invest them.

The fact is, a number of member churches disagree on a number of issues. (What else is new?) What we can say with some historical perspective is that Lambeth has no doctrinal authority (yet!); the Primates may express an opinion; but dissenters both to the left and the right are under absolutely no obligation to follow or concur with the judgment either of the gathered bishops or the Primates. The Windsor Report contains recommendations that the provinces have yet to endorse or act upon in a definitive way — and that includes TEC as well as ACNA, both of whom have taken actions contrary to the wishes expressed in Windsor.

Those at present with their undergarments in a tangle display a very much "make it up as we go along" sort of ecclesiology, in which they act as if what they want is what already is. Unless and until some form of the Anglican Covenant is signed off on, the Anglican Communion remains a "fellowship of autonomous provinces and churches" without a central governing authority, and with, at present, some serious disagreements among its members.

Only those who agree to the proposed Covenant will be part of whatever new constellation emerges, and will presumably submit to whatever governance to which they have covenanted. But for the meantime they are living in the pluperfect, as the New Anglican Thing has not yet come to be. And much depends on who signs up. (I've said before, I'd welcome a little more structure to the Anglican Communion. Either that or clearly back to that "fellowship." It's this living in-between with made up rules and assertion and arrogation of authority not yet conferred that I find wearing, troubling and un-Christ-like.)

In the meantime, Diane and Mary are bishops in good standing in the Episcopal Church, and hence, in the Anglican Communion. They will be welcome where they are welcome, and rebuffed where they will be rebuffed: actions entirely within the competency of any diocesan bishop outside of Los Angeles.

Deal with it.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG