Tectonic Shift or Slip of the Tongue?

The Secretary-General of the Church of England has just issued a clear response to the  syllabus of accusations raised by GAFCON that the said Church has "violated" the provisions of Resolution 1.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference.

I'm very pleased to see one particular affirmation in the letter: "clergy and laity alike are entitled to argue for changes to teaching and practice." Those with sufficiently long memories will recall that the principal reason for denying the episcopate to Jeffrey John was not the fact of his living in a civil partnership (which was within the bounds set) but the fact that he was advocating for something contrary to the teaching of the church.

It would appear that this "raison de ne pas être" has reached its sell-by date. It also indicates that same-sexuality need not be regarded as a first-order doctrinal issue, or a part of the permanent deposit of the faith.

UPDATE: GAFCON UK has responded to William Nye. The rejoinder continues the trend noted above to raise marriage to the status of a "core doctrine" — this time explicitly. And there you have the nub of the problem: GAFCON and its fellows believe and claim marriage to be a central doctrine of the Christian faith, about which there is one and only one orthodox position.

Obviously, as any reasonable review of Scripture and the Tradition show, this assertion is not true, since Scripture itself and the Tradition (both within Anglicanism and outside it) offer mixed testimony concerning the nature of marriage itself, and provide no evidence for a continuous place for marriage as a central doctrine. Marriage has rarely found a place as more than peripheral in dogmatic theology, if it is mentioned at all.

A further UPDATE: Stephen Noll has issued yet another response to Nye's letter. This is a particularly absurd example of revisionist history. It contains the astounding statement, "These [Lambeth] Resolutions, read together, form a fairly harmonious tradition." I suppose to give him benefit of the doubt his definition of fairly might differ to mine. But to pretend that Lambeth has consistency on matters of "family life" is an absurdity. Instead, the Lambeth resolutions explicitly rescind, overturn, or contradict each other on things such as birth control, polygamy, and remarriage after divorce.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

O, Canada!

In case you haven't heard the news, the Anglican Church of Canada has adopted a resolution towards the amendment of their canon on marriage, making marriage equality in the church a canonical reality if the change is ratified at the next session of the General Synod in 2019. The motion passed by the large required two-thirds majority in each order (bishops, clergy and lay) though not after some confusion due to a single affirmative clergy vote having been miscounted in the wrong order, and three other affirmative clergy votes not counted at all. In the end the super-majority prevailed by a comfortable margin.

It should also be noted that the ACoC Chancellor had already opined that even the current canon does not actually forbid marriages for same-sex couples; but some minds may rest easier given the adoption of the first reading of the amendment. Several Canadian bishops have indicated they plan to move forward on these bases, so as a practical matter marriage equality has arrived.

Other minds are not so easy, and the comment threads on the related stories at the Anglican Journal, in addition to expressions of joy and hope, are replete with the complaints of those so unhappy with this turn of events that they are abandoning the church, or mobilizing for a militant effort to defeat the canon change in at its second reading in 2019. Further afield, the trumpet from the Global South has not tooted yet, or at least not loudly or clearly enough to be heard here in the North; nor has there been a comment from Canterbury — though the Church of England has also just emerged from its own General Synod, in which the Shared Conversations formed a major part. That and the turmoil with the recent Brexit vote and the change in parliamentary leadership is no doubt occupying archepiscopal focus at the moment.

We continue to live in interesting times.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Pressure to Bear

With the upcoming Primates' Meeting looming, and in their latest effort to rewrite the past and influence the future, the busy scribes at the ACI have come up with this gem of a question: "Why does the PB insist on being present, e.g. at the Primates’ Meeting when she knows that this presence will derail the Meeting’s functionality?"

If it is the function of the Primates' Meeting to represent the breadth of the Communion as it actually is -- and I think it hard to argue that is not a major function of that body -- then it is the urged absence of the PB or the threatened absence of primates from elsewhere that disrupts the functionality of the meeting. Concerning the latter, none other than Bishop Fearon has urged the dissenting primates to think twice.

From the beginning, the reductionist view of the Communion supported by the ACI and portions of the Global South (if I dare reduce the verbosity of the scribes to "communion requires agreement") has dominated their side of the discussion. The church properly shows itself to be the body of Christ not only when it agrees, but when it loves and lives in hope in spite of disagreement. Consensus by elimination of those who disagree has a venerable history in the Christian past, but it is not a way to emulate. Comprehension requires more, and not to become too Hegelian, it is out of the process of addressing dissenting opinions that better understandings of the full truth will often emerge.

Schism is easy, faith and love are hard.


Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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

Purity Unrealized

Puritan movements are doomed to fail because people are not pure. Such coteries inevitably turn in upon themselves: having fondly imagined they can set themselves up as a society of the perfect, at the first sign of weakness the mob will turn on the one perceived as guilty and drive the offender out. Ultimately such a gathering is the antithesis of the Gospel, for it is based on judgment rather than forgiveness. It is also the antithesis of history, for it lives in a fantasy of realized eschatology rather than in the hope of a cooperative pilgrimage.

Because they are based on a goal incapable of realization -- a pure society with unrealizable standards, or a perverse double standard that acknowledges but cannot tolerate human imperfection -- they never cease from irascible critique, a toxic attitude by which they close themselves off from the wider world and then turn in upon, and digest, themselves.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Reactions and Intolerance

The Global South Bigwigs are hobnobbing in Bermuda, and reflecting on the state of the church and the world. In these reflections they make frequent direct and indirect reference to some of the difficulties plaguing their provinces, which they put down to the election and consecration of Bishop Robinson of New Hampshire, and the election and yet-to-be-accomplished consecration of Mary Glasspool of Los Angeles.

However, since none of these Bigwigs are required to consent to, tolerate, or even recognize either Robinson or Glasspool — and completely within their rights to forbid them the exercise of any ecclesiastical act within their borders whatsoever — one can only observe that any difficulties they experience are a direct result not of the American bishop and bishop-to-be, but of their own opposition to them.

The spring season's resurgence in the pollen count (exacerbated this year by early heavy rains) has put me in mind of an analogy. Pollen simply is. It serves a vital function in the propagation of many beautiful and essential plant species, as well as a few which, because of the inconvenience they cause to human beings, earn the label weeds. Some people are allergic to some of these pollens. The allergy lies entirely with them. They can take measures to avoid the pollen, and there are medications they can use to limit any eye, nose, or throat irritation they experience. They can rail at the pollen for this inconvenience and discomfort — but it is they who have the problem and they also who have the means to address it: which by no means includes ridding the world of pollen, much as they might like to do so.

In all this, I am suggesting that people need to take responsibility for their own negative feelings and reactions (and reactivity), and find positive ways to deal with them. For example, in places where news of these elections and consecrations has brought the local Anglican church into disrepute in the eyes of Muslims or Free-church Protestants, it is completely within the power of the local Anglicans to distance themselves from decisions taken halfway round the world, and of which they have every right to disapprove, and every right to ignore. (Whether this will mollify militant Muslims, or pacify petulant Protestants is another matter.)

But it makes no more sense to continue to blame the Episcopal Church, or especially to raise the spectre of colonialism or imperialism — as if the Episcopal Church were forcing these other provinces to accept its decisions — than it is for a lactose-intolerant person to blame lactose for her own intolerance of it. If it bothers you, don't drink it. No one is forcing you.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Failing Solomon's Test

The Hebrew scripture reading at Morning Prayer today was the account of Solomon's test of the two women who both claimed to be mothers of the sole surviving child in their household. When Solomon gave the order that the child be cut in two, the true mother, moved by pity, was willing to let the other woman have the living child. This revealed her identity and Solomon's wisdom.

When it comes to dividing the Anglican Communion I think we are dealing with a similar situation — though a less lethal one: that is, even if divided, some sort of Anglican Communion, or a split-level Anglican Communion, or perhaps two distinct Anglican Communions (each claiming the title) will continue to exist; hampered in mission, diminished in scope, but still able to say, with Monty Python's medieval peasant, "I'm not dead yet."

Where I see greater resonance with this impressive episode in Solomon's reign is the similarity of certain voices from the edges to the voice of the not-mother of the child, "Let it be divided!"

To be blunt, the far right represented by GAFCON has already moved on the division and is unlikely to recant short of a change in leadership and a change of heart. They do not wish to be part of an entity that fails to live up to their standards, and are confident that they represent the vital body while those they oppose are a tumor or a gangrenous limb, to be removed not simply as a matter of convenience but in order to preserve the life of the body.

But to be fair, there are also voices on the far left of the progressive end of the spectrum who have been equally vehement in their rejection of continued unity if it is going to mean any hesitation in or denial of adopting what they see as righteous, good, and just. "Let the schismatics go!" is the watchword; or even more extremely, "We don't need no stinking Communion..." (or words to that effect.)

Somewhere in the midst of all of this are those who see a virtue in unity even if it is an imperfect unity; who see virtue in staying together even if it means a lack of clear consensus; who see a value in compromise even if it means everyone not being entirely satisfied.
And this is where I once again return to my appeal for patience, a laissez-faire attitude, and honoring the provincial autonomy of the member churches of the Communion. For there are many provinces in the Communion who are willing to live with anomalies taking place in other provinces — not all are insistent that all must do as they do in all things.

We are not, after all, a world-church — which is simply a statement of fact, not an effort to short-circuit what might emerge as a world-church after a considerable period of time.The proposed Covenant — more proposed than a covenant at this point! — may find ways, one hopes particularly Anglican ways, of fostering our unity without undercutting our traditional liberty in matters of rites and ceremonies and, more importantly, the relationships and ministries for which those rites and ceremonies are designed, and which they institute and support.

The majority of provinces in the Communion appear willing to engage in this process of exploration, listening, and reflection: respectful of others' actions without the need to approve those actions. This seems to me to be on adult and mature manner of working.

And I do not think it takes a Solomon to see the wisdom of such an approach.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Reading Rowan — Part the First

I have promised a few people some thoughts on Archbishop Rowan Williams’ reflections on General Convention, “Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future.” Before getting to that, and by way of introduction, I want to offer some more general thoughts, in part based upon the very limited conversation I had with the Archbishop during General Convention. Not only did it help me to understand him better (as I hope it did, and hope it did him me), but it also helped me better to grasp some of the points on which the two of us approach issues of the Communion from somewhat different directions. So I promise I will get to a detailed examination of his reflections on GC, but in this first post address some aspects of the Archbishop which I think make it somewhat easier to grasp his sometimes vague and always nuanced meaning. Some of these aspects don’t fit into the usual mode of American progressive thinking — or conservative thinking, for that matter — and this leads, in my opinion, to misunderstandings on all sides.

The Tragic View of Life

First of all, Rowan Williams does not shy away from pain and difficulty. He has a very mature understanding of the church and its dynamics — that there is an undeniably Paschal and sometimes tragic aspect to the life of the church and its struggles. He is well aware of the “toil and tribulation and tumult of her war,” and believes that this is something that the church must work through. Much as he might like, as a sensible human being, to avoid pain and difficulty, he knows the truth of the old rabbinic saying, “no pain, no gain,” and the gospel concept, “no cross, no crown.”

I have used the word quixotic to describe this in the past, and fear I have been misunderstood. I do not mean that Rowan Williams is like Don Quixote in the comical, satirical sense; but rather in that kind of wild and tragic nobility that faces the dark, satanic windmills of the powers of this world in the knowledge that whether they are giants or not they can still be dangerous to life and limb — if one chooses to tangle with them.

This tragic or elegiac view of things seems to me to have a particularly British underpinning. Let us not forget that Rowan is Welsh, a poet, and named for one of the most magical of all trees. There is a kind of brooding melancholy of what another poet Williams (Charles) called “the Druid woods,” to Rowan’s character, relieved by a sparkling wit from time to time — these two aspects together being a hallmark of the Bard. At times I wish that Rowan could move away from the tragic a bit to see the whole story more in the way that sunny Italian Dante did, as a divine comedy, with a happy ending after all. Still, this Paschal attitude gives Rowan the capacity to endure a great deal of difficulty, ambiguity, tension, and imperfection — things which progressives tend to find annoying and reactionaries unacceptable — and which his office as Archbishop of Canterbury in this particular age provides him an ample supply.

A Scholar’s Way

It should go without saying that Rowan has a scholar’s mind. He is accustomed to the quasi-monastic life of academia, in which people have to get along with each other even though they may have radically differing philosophies or beliefs. This urge towards a collegial life is reflected in his longing for an Anglican Covenant, and a Communion bound more tightly not by unanimity of opinion or even uniformity of action, but by a truly radical desire to stay together even in the midst of disagreements. It is utterly wrong to think that Rowan is more upset with the Episcopal Church than he is with Gafcon — schism and division are the things he dislikes most of all, and he is bending over backwards to find a way to hold things together in dynamic tension. (One may think him foolish to try to hold such differing views together; but there you have it. Perhaps he is also wise enough to be a Holy Fool, for Christ’s sake? Scholars make the best Fools.

As a scholar, Rowan also attempts to be very precise; sometimes too precise for his own good. He chooses his words carefully, and I suggest the greatest disservice done to him, in various readings of his reactions to General Convention, is the tendency to paraphrase or summarize or expand what he says in directions that seem to me clearly at odds with his actual intent, based on close and careful reading. People think they know what he means and so massage what he says to fit that predetermined meaning — this is never a good thing in communication, but with someone as subtle and careful as Rowan it is disastrous.

A Truth Teller

Finally, Rowan brings these previous aspects of his personality and skill-set to bear in attempting to “tell it like it is.” Sometimes, in so speaking, people seem to think he is talking about how things ought to be. For example, when Rowan says that some action or other is going to have consequences or create difficulties, he is not necessarily saying that the action should not happen — remember my first point about the Paschal nature of the church. It is not that he’s Hegelian — he’s not predicting a final synthesis; but he is observing that if such-and-such happens, there will be difficulties — and we will have to work through them. Thus his language is more descriptive than prescriptive. What some are reading as a stop-sign is more correctly understood as “Dangerous Curves Ahead.”

I will end this first section of my comments on Rowan here, with the concept of Truth — as I hope to say a bit more about that in the next blog post.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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The Archbishop as Cognitive Therapist

One of the issues that arose in the discussion on the previous post regards the extent to which Archbishop Rowan Williams is responsible for the Network's having worked itself into its present schismatic position.

When I did my clinical pastoral experience, I served as a chaplain in the psychiatric ward, and was given some instruction in the basics of cognitive therapy, which is a gentle way of guiding delusional people back to greater engagement with reality. Part of this therapeutic technique involves being very clear about reality, as opposed to the unfounded beliefs that a delusional person may hold.

Archbishop Williams, bless his heart, has apparently not learned this valuable skill. He does not seem to grasp that if he gives people who are behaving badly a single thread from which to hang they will weave it into whole cloth.

This is evident in the reports of the recent meeting between the GAFCON primates and the Archbishop. Apparently he told them that he would neither support nor oppose the development of a new province of the Anglican Communion in North America. This carefully neutral statement is being taken not for what it actually says, but as a kind of tacit support; along the lines of "if he is not explicitly against us then he is really for us."

I do not, of course, know what actually transpired in the course of the meeting. It may be that the Archbishop said more than has been reported; for example, that the creation of a new province along these lines would be a novelty in the history of the Anglican Communion. He might have gone further and said, "I will not recognize such a new province." Whether he accepts the authority that comes with being Archbishop of Canterbury or not, it is in his power to recognize a new province — or not. And perhaps this is exactly what he meant when he said he would neither support it nor oppose it -- that is, contrary to the optimistic reading read into his statements by the GAFCON primates, his statement constitutes an essential veto — since his approval is required and he has said he "will not support" the venture. Thus, "he who is not for us is against us" may be the factual implication, since his consent is required for recognition as being in communion with the Church of England; as I've noted, a presumed necessity for being part of the Anglican Communion.

I once said to a bishop friend (now serving in the celestial choir) that I thought every bishop, prior to consecration, should do an additional unit of clinical pastoral experience. He shuddered at the thought. I am now inclined to think that not only should bishops undertake such an experience, but that they should do it on the psych ward.

Tobias Haller BSG

How Provincial (?)

The Church Times reports on the scheduled Wednesday unveiling of the Anglican Church of North America as a new province. The question, of course is, province of what? As noted in the comments at Thinking Anglicans, until someone or other declares it a province, it is just a collection of individual bishops, clergy and laity, formed into whatever subdivisions they imagine helpful to the existence of a church. Contrary to the assertion, the portions of former Episcopal Dioceses in this mix have all left behind the still-functioning, though diminished and in some cases needing restructuring, dioceses of The Episcopal Church. Also included are a number of groups that left TEC in earlier generations, some more than a century ago (The Reformed Episcopal Church), now coalesced in the Common Cause Partners. (One can be forgiven, in the midst of all of these associations, for thinking of the scene in Life of Brian where distinctions have to be made between the various splintering factions attempting to subvert Roman rule.) The new "emergent" province is part of a larger constellation that calls itself the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans — which includes a broad collection of entities and individuals around the world.

I have noted that it is unlikely the "Anglican Church in North America" will be recognized by Canterbury -- and they seem to have partaken of preemptive sour-grape-consumption in saying already, in the GAFCON Jerusalem Declaration, that they don't need Canterbury to be Anglican. But surely, as observed at TA, they need to be recognized by somebody if they are to be a Province, rather than a free-floating exercise in autonomous ecclesiarchitecture. For provinces are always provinces of; to use a Hebrew language analogy, a Province is always in the construct state, the state of being possessed by or related to some other entity.

So, at present it is best to describe it as part of a looser assemblage, a Fellowship. One assumes that word was chosen with care by the Fellowship of Confessing Anglican folks, and in the knowledge that that is how the Anglican Communion (centered on Canterbury) describes itself. So, it seems to me, preparations are already afoot, should a "Province" not be recognized by Canterbury, to form a new Acantuarian Anglican Communion altogether. And I think perhaps some, even of the most separatist-leaning of the present Anglican Communion provinces in the Global South, may wish to maintain a foothold in both Communions. Or am I misreading the tea-leaves.

Whatever the case, they had best be reminded of the danger of attempting to board a vessel while keeping one foot still firmly planted on land.

Tobias Haller BSG

Bibliomancy 101

Over at Facebook — and yes, I have an account, and find it restful to chat with folks and see what's a-doing, but I don't spend my life in an alternate reality (unless you count the Church) — Bob Griffith posted a game involving taking the book nearest you, opening it to page p, and then counting sentences and reporting on the text of the n^th sentence. I did so, the nearest book at hand being the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (the old edition). And here is what met my eye:

In 787, Lichfield was made an archbishopric, but the arrangement lasted for only sixteen years.

I am not into bibliomancy or even any other form of artificially assisted prophecy — I have enough trouble dealing with all those sycamore trees — but I can't help but wonder if this could be prophetic of the GAFCON New Anglican Province's fate?

— Tobias

Sur le pont d'Avignon

on y danse, on y danse...

There is due to be announced in short order the creation of what is being billed as a new and improved second Anglican Province in North America, consisting, among other things, of the some of the people, clergy, and former bishops of the dioceses of San Joaquin, Quincy, Pittsburgh and Fort Worth.

As Mark Harris has pointed out this would represent a very small fraction of the total membership of The Episcopal Church, even if the departures from these dioceses were total — which none of them are; the dioceses will continue as part of The Episcopal Church, though reduced in numbers for the time being. This is not to say it is insignificant, only to point out that what it signifies is not a great division in The Episcopal Church.

It may herald, however, a beginning of a larger schism in the Anglican Communion. For the time being the main extraterritorial ally of the former members of these four dioceses is the Church of the Southern Cone, which is, among the churches of the Anglican Communion, one of the smallest and most thinly spread. Again, this is not to play any sort of numbers game, as if numbers alone were significant of anything other than their numeric reality. But that reality will be important for future viability. If other provinces (and I'm thinking of those in the GAFCON continuum) sign on to this new Anglican Communion, it remains to be seen if they will also be able to maintain a presence in and connection with the other and older Anglican Communion — the one with Canterbury as first among equals; or unequals, as the case might be.

Some are beginning to liken this situation to the Great Schism that split the East from the West back in the eleventh century. It seems to me, however, since the focus appears to be more on leaders than on doctrine (all protests to the contrary notwithstanding) that the analogy to the other Schism sometimes called "Great" — the one that split the papacy in the fifteenth century — provides a better analogy.

Schisms by nature are not irrevocable. Time may heal all wounds — even, as someone once said, it wounds all heels. Fifty or a hundred years from now, it will be for those of that time to make a judgment on how sound were the reasons for those who felt a need to make this present split. In the meantime, the rest of the Anglican Communion should take this as an opportunity to refocus its attention on the mission to which it is called, which is not its own preservation as an institution, except to the extent that institution serves the cause of God, and cares for God's people, and God's world.

Otherwise this famous "bridge Church" risks becoming like the one in Avignon, which was little better than a dance-floor.

Tobias Haller BSG

Other Foot, Meet Shoe

Bishop N.T. Wright has responded to the GAFCON pronouncement with trenchant words, including this:

When one finds people coming high-handedly, who don't actually know what's going on, and say, 'We've now drawn up this list of 14 points and you've got to sign up to them and then we'll authorise you and you can be part of our club, and if you don't then we're going to sweep you aside'... anyone has a right to feel angry when faced with that kind of thing.... And to be told that I now need to be authorised or validated by a group of primates somewhere else who come in and tell me which doctrines I should sign up to is not only ridiculous it's deeply offensive.

My! Perhaps now that he's woken up and smelled the schism he may be getting a tiny inkling of how TEC felt in response to Windsor, Dromantine, and Dar es Salaam, to say nothing of multiple trumpets from the South -- all of them driven by the same engine and fueled with the same energy source he is facing now. Then there's this gem:

[As to GAFCON] taking a global sledge hammer to crack the American nut... There's a lot of bits that's going to fly around the room if you do that, especially here in England where we do not have the same problems that they have in America.

The problem being: I don't think +Dunelm has the slightest understanding of the "problems that they have in America" or how they differ from those in England. From his earlier writing, it is abundantly clear he doesn't really understand our Constitutional polity -- one of the things that is different from England, along with the fact that the English say "different to" instead of "different from."

It is also clear he felt it appropriate for Windsor (et alia) to make demands to which TEC had to "comply," but doesn't like it much when others make demands of him. The real problem is that Bishop Wright has been indifferent to the reality of The Episcopal Church, so absorbed is he in the "90 to 100 hours a week" he spends "doing the work of the gospel and the kingdom of God in my diocese and around the place." The "around the place" in particular can be taxing, as we all know. Perhaps in all the to-ing and fro-ing he forgot the Gospel maxim about not demanding of others what you are not willing to demand of yourself. Hard stuff, this equal weights and measures business.

Still, one hopes this is the dawning of some awareness as to what's going on, and of the mess into which, with his well-intentioned help (especially around the place), the Communion has been drawn by people who "have a monopoly on Biblical truth" and want everyone to do as they do.

Tobias Haller BSG

An additional note: Bishop Wright is still at his America bashing.

Fine Words from Rowan

The Archbishop of Canterbury has responded to the GAFCON statement with one of his own, and a fine and sane one it is. He rightly notes that most of the bugaboo issues (such as the denial of Christ) raised by the GAFCONites are not in fact widespread among the Communion's members. He also singles out some of the very real practical problems with the intrusion of foreign bishops upon other provinces' territory, and the danger of self-styled and self-selected Primatial conventicles passing themselves off as legitimate voices for the Communion.

So a hearty "Hear, hear" for the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Tobias Haller BSG

Bubble and Squeak

Well, the GAFCON statement from Jerusalem is now available for those interested in reading it. On the whole, it is rather familiar, and in most features and stretches of verbiage similar if not identical to former Global South pronouncements. At least this one isn't called a trumpet, unless I missed something.

The thing about all the GS statements along this line has been that aside from the militant tone, dismissive of anything good coming from Nazareth... uh... the West, and a generally chunky prose style, when it comes to theological concerns there is really very little that is new here — or much that most in the much maligned West couldn't sign on to (or didn't sign on to several centuries ago), perhaps apart from the insistence on the 1662 BCP — oh, and of course, the elevation of sexual morality to the level of doctrine. That's the one consistent novelty in all the GS word-smithing.

When it comes to what this actually means in practical terms, we are back to a Network of Confessing folk functioning within the body of the larger church but not at ease with it, at least not in much of the world outside the Global South, and probably not within large portions of the Global South as well. At this point it is not quite a schism (in spite of Judge Bellows saying a "division" exists; no one bothered to remind him that schism is Greek for "division," and these folks don't like being called and deny they are schismatic) but more the church within the church I wrote of earlier. As with Queen Mary, whether this will prove to be the gestation of a truly new thing to come, or a growth that will eventually require removal or kill the body — a Global Anglican Future or a Global Anglican Failure — remains to be seen.

In the meantime, this proclamation reads like a hodge-podge, a dish of hash, or what the Brits refer to as "bubble and squeak" (a tasty dish of leftover taters and cabbage that makes eponymous noises in the fry-pan). It is full of sound and fury, and though signifying something, it is nothing either new or likely to inspire much in those not already well inclined towards a meal that consists of warmed up leftovers from the Reformation.

Tobias Haller BSG

One More Time (Not) All Together Now

The Telegraph is reporting that GAFCON, instead of going for a full split and the creation of a new ecclesiastical body for "Orthodox" Anglicanism, will instead continue to work for change as a "church within the church."

This is not the first time this language has appeared upon the Anglican/Episcopal scene. In fact, this has been the language of Puritan (and puritan) movements from the very beginning: the separation of a portion of the church, the "true believers" from the bulk of the less-than-perfect members.

Not all of these efforts were born of failed schism — some were based more on piety and asceticism, and it was a fairly common usage for some of the more austere religious communities of bygone days to refer to themselves by the sobriquet ecclesiola in ecclesia — the little church in the church. Of course, such groups, unlike the radical puritans and protestants, were kept from going off the deep end by their particular devotion to the church catholic — with an emphasis on their own "littleness" and being "in" that larger church.

In more recent times (1989), the phrase reappeared in the language of the Episcopal Synod of America and its successor Forward in Faith / North America, both styling themselves as a "church within the church." This language has now been picked up by some of the folk at GAFCON. As time goes on it remains to be seen if disappointed or unwilling schismatists will, like the good catholic Cistercians, take cognizance of their place within the larger church, or like the sectarian puritans try to have as little to do with the whole church as possible, and attempt to fortify the boundaries between them and it while stopping short of complete separation — for the time being. But I fear the tendency is not to be at the center, but rather centrifugal, and when enough energy is built up, to launch out into the emptiness.

Tobias Haller BSG

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GAFCON Repackaging

The self-appointed arbiters of the Global Anglican Future, meeting in (but not of) Jerusalem, have been learning a good deal this week. First off, it appears that the Primates of Nigeria and Uganda were not aware of church support for laws criminalizing same-sexuality, or if aware, that this was a good idea in keeping with native custom and taboos; and to be surprised to hear that gay and lesbian persons are physically abused within their borders. The Archbishop of Sydney almost literally leaped to their defense and spoke for them when they seemed unable to articulate a response recognizably in keeping with either the gospel or the mandates of Lambeth concerning civil rights for sexual minorities. All in all, a fascinating exercise in reverse sock-puppetry and the power of cultural taboo over gospel.

The leaders also appear to be grasping that the revolution and reformation of Anglicanism is going to take longer than they thought. Rather than a turning point, GAFCON will be the continuation of more of the same, as the leaders continue to work from within at the glorious reform of the Anglican Communion. Perhaps they are realizing at long last that there is not the impetus for a split they may have thought there was. As the whole independence effort by CANA in Virginia was to prove there was a “division” in the Anglican Communion (and The Episcopal Church) — after all, the judge said so, so it must be true! — the language of “working from within” will be of little solace to those who were, quite literally, banking on a split.

In the German film Goodbye, Lenin, an ardent communist east-Berliner goes into a coma just before the reunification; when she emerges some months later, her doctors warn that she mustn’t have any shocks. So her son works overtime to maintain the pretense that reunification hasn't happened, scrounging for old Soviet era groceries — saving the containers and replacing the contents when the old products are no longer available.

Something of a parable, I think.

Tobias Haller BSG

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RSVP Reçu

Five of the Primates of GAFCON have responded via Nigeria to the letter from twenty-one English Evangelical Bishops beseeching them to come to Lambeth.

So now there are five clear signatures (or names at any rate) on the Not Going to Lambeth For Sure (Maybe) List. Venables is now listed among them, joining Akinola, Orombi, Nzimbi and Kolini. Jensen is not listed, though perhaps this is because he is not a Primate.

The signatories say they will not feel "at home" and will find themselves beset by "activists" -- rather than being assisted by an Archbishop such as their "champion" George Carey, who helped them through their "great difficulty in making [their] case heard in the face of the process of the conference [in 1998]." Yes, we know how helpful the Archbishop was in 1998. I would say he helped them make their case very clearly indeed.

Once again it appears that sexuality is the sticking-point for these bishops, the one point of Scriptural interpretation upon which they seem unable to conceive a legitimate difference of opinion. That was their view in 1998, and so it is now. Nothing has changed. One hopes this will once again silence the blather of those who persist in saying "It isn't just about sexuality." On the contrary, yes it is.

I continue to hope that their absence will remain circumstantial and topical, and that they are not heading towards the establishment of an alternative "Anglican" Communion. While I believe in laissez-faire, I am also of the mind that institutions can take on a life or longevity of their own, and persist long after the reason for their coming into existence has faded. The "walking apart" of Windsor always seemed to me to imply a possibility of "coming back together" after a time. This is much more difficult once jurisdictions have been set up.

Minds change faster than institutions; another of my reasons for not favoring a Covenant mechanism for brokering institutionalized agreement.

Tobias Haller BSG