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

Not Even His Party

David Anderson, ever the anxious kibitzer, has opined (without anyone asking) concerning the upcoming planned meeting of the Primates:

If asked my opinion, I would strongly advise the orthodox Primates to 1) organize before the Primates' meeting, and 2) attend and remove by force of numbers the Presiding Bishop of the American Episcopal Church (not physically, but by either voting her off the "island," or recessing to another room and not letting her in). The meeting is a place to gather and potentially to settle some of the issues that are pulling the Anglican Communion apart, and to begin to restore health to a most wonderful communion.

In the above case, if Dr. Williams did not go along with Jefferts Schori's exclusion, then I would suggest having the next-door-meeting without him. I just don't believe staying home from the field of battle helps win a war over the truth and nature of Christianity within Anglicanism.

My principle question is, whatever happened to "What touches all?" — the principle misapplied by the Windsor Report, but actually helpful if employed in its original sense. If the minority presence is to be "voted off the island" then we no longer have anything approaching a comprehensive communion, but something more like Lord of the Flies. Thanks for that image, David Anderson, you may now pass the conch to the next speaker.

The imagery of warfare and spiritual battle — clad in the armor of pure self-righteousness — is only imagery after all, more schoolyard bluff and bother. I don't know what the "force of numbers" implies, but the hustling off to another room or venue next-door sounds familiar. If the Global South cannot even bear the presence of those with whom they disagree, then perhaps it is time for them to walk apart, from the other Primates, from Rowan, and from the Anglican Communion.

h/t to Thinking Anglicans

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

Thoughts for 10.26.09

On the Global South Steersmen's View of Rome and Hopes for a Disciplinary Covenant

Continued bluffing after the cards have been played is an ineffective strategy. Les jeux sont faits.

i.e., had all y'all bided your time instead of launching your own forays contrary to the Covenant's intent, your urging the Covenant might persuade. You cannot pretend still to be playing chess after knocking the board over, or in this case, imagine White can win by purloining a few of Red's pieces before the game begins.

Sorry for all the game analogies, but it really does seem to be a game, doesn't it? Played with human lives...

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

The Province is the Church

Episcopal Café reports the following answer to the question of just what "Churches" are intended by the proposed Covenant.

In Anglican ecclesiology, there is a creative tension between the understanding of “local Church”, which is that portion of God’s people gathered around their bishop, usually in the form of a territorial diocese, and “Church” as a term or description for a national or regional ecclesial community, which is bound together by a national character, and/or common liturgical life, governance and canon law. Traditionally, Anglicans have asserted the ecclesial character of the national Church as the privileged unit of ecclesiastical life. The Church of England’s very existence was predicated upon such an assumption at the time of the Reformation. Recognised in most cases as “Provinces”, these national or regional Churches are the historical bodies through which the life of the Anglican Communion has been expressed, and they are the primary parties for whom the covenant has been designed. If, however, the canons and constitutions of a Province permit, there is no reason why a diocesan synod should not commit itself to the covenant, thus strengthening its commitment to the interdependent life of the Communion.

Which is more or less what I've been saying for some time. The notion that the diocese is autonomous from the church of which it forms a part makes no sense in an Anglican ecclesiastical framework. The "national church" was the idea from the beginning of the Reformation, on through the creation of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States of America (because the US was now an independent nation), the creation of the PECCSA (Protestant Episcopal Church of the Confederate States of America) when the southern states believed they had formed a new nation; &c.

Although Roman Catholicism enjoys the concept of a single world-church, Anglicans have tilted more in the direction of Orthodox autocephaly, with our own peculiar twist on things as a communion of autonomous churches bound together with shared history and liturgies springing from a common trunk, with many branches and leaves, and those apparently foresaken bonds of affection. Efforts to squeeze the individual Churches of the Anglican Communioin onto the procrustean bed of international uniformity cut against the grain of our rich tradition — cutting down perhaps our greatest gift to the whole Church of God, in that our provincial structure makes possible selective development in teaching and practice, limited not by some central magisterium, but by the natural process of reception. Thus change is limited in scope until (and unless) it becomes more widely accepted. (As I've said again and again, nothing TEC or the ACoC have done necessitates the Nigerian or Ugandan Churches approval, or their doing the same thing.)

The driving force behing this Covenant is a step away from this manner of thinking. It is a step backwards, and will prove to be an tool for division and fragmentation, rather than an instrument towards unity. Unless we all just sign up and get on with our lives, allowing it to serve its symbolic function with no real power over any of those who sign it.

The fact is, all of our problems began with Lambeth 1998, when it came to imagine itself capable to make doctrinal statements beyond its competence. The fathers of Lambeth ate sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.

Tobias Stanislas 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

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.

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

---

Quote(s) of the Day 03.05.08

...At the time of the massacre, Archbishop Peter Akinola was the president of the Christian Association of Nigeria... When asked if those wearing name tags that read “Christian Association of Nigeria” had been sent to the Muslim part of Yelwa, the archbishop grinned. “No comment,” he said...
— Eliza Griswold in The Atlantic Monthly, (hat tip to Fr Jake)

...one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.
— Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet I.v

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

Are You Being Served

The inestimable Ruth of the Times has given advance notice that a new draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant will see the light of day on Ash Wednesday. She reports that Archbishop Drexel Gomez seems to think that under the new draft (dubbed the Saint Andrew's) the Episcopal Church will be "unlikely to face discipline or any form of exclusion from the Anglican Communion as a result of consecrating Gene Robinson." (Ruth's words, not Drexel's.) She also reports him as saying (again, not as a quotation but in summary) that "most of the conservative churches of the Global South would welcome the text of the new draft."

As Captain Peacocke once said in reference to Mrs. Slocombe's dress (the one that made her feel 18 years old again), "A remarkable garment indeed."

However, I look forward to the revelation of the Saint Andrew's Draft (even though it sounds rather like a pint of bitter) on Ash Wednesday. Rather than a bitter brew, will it be an exercise in simultaneous cake possession and consumption; or perhaps a new form of Anglican Fudge? Perhaps it might be well to forgo both on one of the official Fast Days in the calendar. But if this new version is as good as seems to be claimed, perhaps it will be irresistible. We may soon know if we are being well served, and the extent to which anyone will be able to claim, having submitted to the bonds of affection, "I'm free!"

Tobias Haller BSG

Poon and Conflict Within

Thinking Anglicans is once again documenting the disagreements between the leaders of the self-styled Global Anglican Future conference and others in the Global South consortium. It appears the Gaffers have invited themselves to the Holy Land for a pre-Lambeth caucus without checking with the Anglican Primate of that Holy Land; who, it appears, has suggested that meeting after Lambeth might be better.

Meanwhile, Michael Poon's initial question, "What's all this then?" has been "slapped down" by an unnamed Primate and his amanuensis (the telltale trail of metadata seems still to be a type of forensic evidence some in the Global South are not yet skilled in erasing).

This back and forth all seems to me to be the consequence of people taking upon themselves the mantle of judgment; the habit of being judgmental soon comes to be applied within the group as much as outside the group. It is a bad habit, wherever directed other than towards ones own behavior. This is why Jesus said to love rather than to judge. It is a teaching simple to say but hard to practice.

Meanwhile, this effort to end the "paralysis" in the Anglican Communion has instead produced tremors and jitters rather than useful motion. Incompetent and self-appointed physicians have no right to peddle their nostrums — and the rest of Anglicanism would be foolish to swallow their treatments: ineffective at best, and toxic at their worst.

Tobias Haller BSG

Episcopoliticians At Work

I am hardly the first to notice the contradiction between the restrictive portions of the recent House of Bishops’ statement and the closing point: “We proclaim the Gospel that in Christ all God’s children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ’s Church.” Surely, it would be more consistent with the rest of the document if the phrase “full and equal” were struck.

While I appreciate this closing acknowledgment of the dignity of gay and lesbian people (presumably because they are a part of the larger class of people described in the Baptismal Covenant, which is to say, human beings), and the call for justice (one hopes, not justice as understood in Nigeria or under Islamic law), and deploring violence (did anyone think the bishops favored violence?), and even the call for certain unenumerated civil rights — still, this closing does not seem to sit very consistently with the commitments made earlier in the document. This inconsistency reminds me of that which plagued the mind of Thomas Jefferson, the slaveholder who was able to proclaim that all men have an unalienable right to liberty, if not with a straight face, at least in neat handwriting.

At the same time, I acknowledge that worse things could happen to one than not being confirmed as a bishop, or not being allowed to marry as one chooses. In particular, I would like to suggest that everyone remove from their store of similes references to crucifixion unless related to someone actually being nailed to a tree. I think, in the current context, Matthew Shepard qualifies; and gay and lesbian persons in much of the rest of the world, particularly under the tender mercies of some Christian and Islamic leaders. But for most of us in the West, the application of this kind of hyperbole is becoming tiresome.

As is the language of “a crucified place,” a phrase that grates on my senses (even if it were literally describing Golgotha) almost as much as “the Christ event” and “a kairos moment.” Very few of our bishops have come within spitting distance of anything remotely approaching “a crucified place” except perhaps on a tour of the Holy Land.

However, these observations aside, I feel that our bishops have made an astute and politic decision. They have given the Archbishop of Canterbury everything he needs to say, “They really are trying — and I don’t mean trying my patience.” This will also give the Global South’s most rightward-leaning sector all they need to proclaim that their Demands had not been met, and that they and their episcopi vagantes will soon be forming a new and improved, and purified, Anglican Communion.

And then, perhaps, the rest of us can get back to the work of the church.

Tobias Haller BSG

---

Ghost in the Machine

It came as no surprise to me to see that, according to a report in The Church Times, Archbishop Akinola’s recent agonized public letter was apparently ghosted, or at least very heavily edited, by someone other than the Archbishop. That it seems to have been Martyn Minns also comes as no surprise. (He is, after all, the Archbishop’s North American Representative.)

The reason I was not surprised lies in the text itself. Anyone who has heard the Archbishop speak or read transcripts of interviews with him, or any of his doubtlessly authentic writings, could see the difference in style between those texts and the agonized letter immediately. One could easily say the same concerning Archbishop Orombi, whose ghost writer is probably much closer to him than Abuja is to Fairfax. It does not take computer analysis to recognize such differences or similarities in style.

However, it would be quite wrong to suggest that these archbishops are no more than sock puppets for an American conservative point of view. It may be that the holy ghost writers, far from putting words into the mouths of those for whom they perform this not-so-unusual editorial function, are helping to restrain some of the more exuberant language in which the archbishops have been known to indulge, and to help frame their ideas in a form more palatable to a broader audience. So there is no need to raise the specter of colonial imperialism to join the ghost of authorship. Doubtless Akinola and Orombi both agree with the sentiments and ideas expressed above their names, whether the words are their own or not. Theories of verbal inspiration aside, it is ultimately the meaning that counts.

And it is the meaning that is wrong. As I said in my previous post, The Episcopal Church is not going to hell in a handbasket. Erroneous or heretical views may be expressed by individuals from time to time — and this happens among self-styled reasserters at least as often as it does among reappraisers, and in churches other than The Episcopal Church. But in spite of the publicity — and book sales — attendant on these fringe episodes, they remain precisely that — the reflections of a “heretic fringe.” There is no doubt some overlap between those who favor a revised understanding of the moral status of same-sexuality with those who embrace the odd heretical view; but there is also significant overlap between those who are opposed to such a revision and those who embrace heretical views.

For example, some years ago in the early stages of discussion on sexuality, the House of Bishops Theology Committee issued a document that stated that the divine image in humanity is incomplete without both male and female. (Karl Barth and John Paul II both made similar statements in their arguments against same-sexuality.) This erroneous idea contradicts the doctrine of the Incarnation, which asserts that the divine image in humanity is complete in Jesus Christ, and present in every human being. (The Angelic Doctor addressed this error at I.Q93.6.) It should serve as a warning to all concerned to see how far from orthodoxy some can wander — apparently without noticing it — in their efforts to “reassert” the church’s tradition on sexuality.

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to me where bad ideas come from — or good ones for that matter. Whether the words come from Abuja or Alexandria, from the Vatican or Cape Town — or even from the Bronx! — their meaning and significance must be weighed for their concordance with the heart of the gospel as revealed in Jesus Christ, and in accordance with his teaching. He is the standard of Truth against which all our theories must be tested.

Tobias Haller BSG

---

As I was saying...

Well, just a few days ago I wrote about the increasing number of Import Bishops being provided by some of the various provinces of the "Global" "South", and now there is to be one more, this time under the sponsorship of Uganda. I am not at all surprised.

Will this be the last? Uganda, Rwanda, Southeast Asia, Nigeria and Kenya are already on the map, or will be by early September -- all in advance of the Dar es Salaam "deadline." Who else has shown a willingness to reach over boundaries into other territories? Can you say, "Southern Cone?" I'm suddenly reminded of one of the "adult" jokes that were peppered through the old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon. Bullwinkle approaches a large pit in the ground neatly labled, "Snake Pit" and leans over, hand to mouth, calling out "Olivia? Olivia?" In this case I'm inclined to say, "Bolivia? Bolivia?"

The Patchwork Province of the Americas is taking shape: a thing of shreds and patches. Will Archbishop Rowan now realize that his hopes for unity run contrary to the Global South's hopes for uniformity?

Tobias Haller BSG

All about the polity

Recently a number of folks have tsk-tsk’d the appeals to polity made by the House of Bishops, in confessing their inability completely to comply with the requests of the Dar es Salaam Primates’ Communiqué. Surely, they seem to say, preservation of the communion is more important than polity.

First of all, what is the communion apart from polity? Not a few on the conservative side of the spectrum already refuse to recognize our communio in sacris, the unity we share in Christ and celebrate in the Eucharist. And others are proposing a new political structure in the form of a Covenant — which is nothing less than a form of polity for the Anglican Communion.

Secondly, polity is important; it is the law of the church. The matters before us touch upon some significant features directly addressed by that law. Bishops are not only pledged to preserve the unity of the church, but to abide by its discipline, and that discipline is embodied in these laws.

What bishops can and cannot do

The House of Bishops, acting alone, can pass a “mind of the house” resolution by which the House agrees “it” will not consent to the election of any bishop who might be offensive to the wider communion; or not authorize any novel liturgies in their dioceses.

What the House of Bishops, acting alone, cannot do, is make such actions binding upon all the individual bishops with jurisdiction, since the right and responsibility to grant or withhold consent, or to authorize liturgies, is a canonical right or responsibility belonging to each of them individually. (Article II.2, Canon III.11; Article X)

This is all tied up with the legal principle “What touches all shall be consented to by all” — and “all” means “all” — that is, a decision abrogating the legal rights and responsibilities of a member of an assembly can only be made either by a change in the law that grants or requires those rights or responsibilities (which the House of Bishops acting alone is not competent to do, since a change in the law of the Church requires concurrent action by the House of Deputies) or by unanimous consent (of which they are competent, but which is unlikely). And even unanimous consent does not have legal force in terms of compliance. This is part of the ABC of the laws governing assemblies.

At the same time...

As I have observed in the past, if enough of the bishops with jurisdiction voluntarily withhold consent to an election, then consent will fail. The same applies to diocesan authorization of liturgies: bishops can agree among themselves not to authorize novel rites.

Practically speaking, if such “mind of the house” resolutions were to be passed at the next session of the House of Bishops (with the understanding that under our canon law individual bishops will, and must, remain free to exercise their consciences on how they deal with the matters in their own dioceses) it would very likely be enough to satisfy the more irenic among the Primates, including the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In doing this the bishops will in fact be doing as much as they can do, under the law of the church, which they are sworn to uphold.

But should they take such a course, which will be seen by many as inadequate, others as cynical, and some as hypocritical? It is abundantly clear that nothing short of a complete and iron-clad reversal will please the more irate among the Primates. The CAPA-commissioned “Road to Lambeth” (September 2006) went far beyond the requests of the Windsor Report and called for “the resignation or removal from office of Gene Robinson and the passage of legislation which would bar any similar ordinations of priests and consecrations of bishops.”

There was an opportunity for at least the latter to happen at General Convention 2006. It didn’t. And it is not going to happen; not in September (where it cannot) nor at the next General Convention (where it will not). A number of Rubicons (perhaps one should say Potomacs) have already been crossed, and any number of dies cast. And although Bishop Robinson has not been invited to Lambeth as a participant, it has been mooted that he might be allowed to attend as a guest — surely a compromise that leans well towards the liberal cause rather than against it; especially considering the demands from the “Global South” that no Bishop who either consented to or participated in the consecration of Bishop Robinson be allowed to attend. Archbishops Akinola and Orombi are on record as standing by “The Road to Lambeth.”

At the other extreme, some liberals have suggested that the bishops stand in solidarity with Bishop Robinson, and refuse to attend. Although I understand the impulse and resonate with it, it seems to me that doing so would be to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — although taking this position does have its advantage in the delicate game of brinksmanship.

But it seems to me that now is not the time to issue ultimatums as resounding echoes to the trumpets from the “Global South.” It seems to me that wisdom and shrewd thinking are called for here, and a bit of common sense; and above all to trust that the Episcopal Church is, after all, right in its actions. The wind from the South has largely spent itself — though a bit of tacking will still be necessary as we chart our course for the coming years.

I will, in suggesting this, no doubt be accused of being too political. But then, it’s all about the polity.

Tobias Haller BSG

---

Invitations Sent and Withheld

Much is being made of the guest-list to Lambeth. To my mind, it seems above all that +Cantuar is giving +Abuja the opportunity to walk apart.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has been quietly clear about CANA (once it changed from a legitimate chaplaincy for Nigerians into an incursion and occupying colony for disaffected Episcopalians). ++Rowan described the consecration of Martyn Minns as "unhelpful" and urged against his installation in a private (though publicized) letter. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that Martyn Minns is not regarded as a "legitimate" bishop but rather as "irregular" -- joining the ranks of Rodgers and Murphy in that select group of modern Anglicoid episcopi vagantes. +New Hampshire, on the other hand, is commended as legal but as he is seen as a source for anxiety, he is simultaneously not sent an invitation but told he might attend as a guest; and I leave it to more subtle minds than mine to tell the difference, since +Cantuar is also clear this Lambeth Conference is not to be a legislative or doctrinal assembly or synod, but rather more along the lines of what +Peter Abuja has called a "jamboree."

So it appears to me that this current action on the part of the wily Welshman is a diplomatic move that gives +Abuja every reason to refuse to remain in Communion with Canterbury. As the Church of Nigeria constitution has already been amended to pave the way, it is now a simple matter to stroll apart in a globally southern manner.

Tobias Haller BSG

Communionism and Adhocracy

a thought on the Draft Covenant

The Draft Covenant stresses accountability in its last section, but makes no clear statement as to the basis or the substance of that accountability, and only limns out a vague process for (apparently unconditioned) accountability to the Primates. As with the Windsor Report, it seems to be an "agreement not to disagree" with a poorly defined (and I would say at the least mischievous and the worst malicious) open-ended authority to ensure conformity with whatever happens to be the current "mind" of the larger body as determined by an oligarchy. That is not communion. It has nothing to do with communion. It is "communionism."

I suggest a comparison with the very clear and useful "Called to Common Mission" document by which TEC and ELCA entered into full communion. Common ground is laid out; specific expectations are described; and there is, at least as far as I can see, no suggestion of a need for discipline -- each of the churches remains completely autonomous on matters that do not directly touch the relationship between them, and agree to work together in joint mission. That is communion.

Turning to Scripture

Now, the question is, Do we need a "political" solution to the tensions in the communion? Will a structure, or a code of law, solve the problems? Or simply provide a way to discipline those who do something the larger body doesn't like?

Now, this may sound shocking, but Scripture does not provide an answer for the dilemma of church polity, at least if one is looking for an international system or code of government. Scripture doesn't even provide a polity for a national church, let alone a communion! (This was, in fact, Hooker's primary argument contra the Calvinists). Scripture can give guidance on how Christians should behave towards each other, but it cannot and will not provide a blueprint for the governance even of a national church, far less an international body however constituted (as federation, communion, or curial monarchy).

It is quite true, as Ephraim Radner points out, that "autonomy" is not a biblical term -- but the "communion" spoken of in Scripture takes only two forms:

1) the fellowship enjoyed by all Christians in being part of the universal church, the Body of Christ, through baptism, a fellowship which is fundamentally the same everywhere, at the local and at the universal level; and

2) the mission and ministry that binds the various "local churches" together through charitable work and cooperative mission. This is the koinonía of Rom 15:26, 2 Cor 8 and 9; a "communion" or "fellowship" that is precisely about *service ministry* (overseas financial aid, in fact; the First Millennium Development Goals!). It has nothing whatsoever to do with governance, and barely touches doctrine except for the doctrine of the Great Commandment and mutual service, which unites us in an effective and loving communion. "Service unites; doctrine divides..."

Where the use of Scripture fails

The Draft Covenant is decorated with Scriptural citations, but most of them have little applicability to the real problems facing us. The arguments about how to deal with sinners (as in Matt 18 or 1 Cor 5) do not "map" to the level of churches dealing with other churches. There is no easy correspondence between the relationships of individuals Christians (as described in Scripture) and the structure of church polity (which has evolved in many different forms since apostolic times).

Our task is to find a church polity (which Scripture cannot provide) that continues to respect the individual Christian as a member of the body (which the Scripture does address), and potentiates mission and ministry. And I think Anglicanism as structured up to now has worked well in that regard. Which brings me to my final point for today.

Getting Real

The whole affair at present cannot be treated as an abstract exercise about developing a form of inter-provincial governance for Anglicans, either as if we didn't already have one (minimal as it is), or that this was just an exercise arising out of having nothing else to do.

On the contrary, this is a massive exercise in adhocracy, and until the veil on that is lifted and the real issue confronted, all the rest will be of no use. The Windsor Report took a dishonest view of the ordination of women (which can be seen as a far, far greater innovation and "threat" to communion than the events in New Hampshire or New Westminster, since it necessarily and actually creates an obstacle to mutual recognition of ministers, which as "Called to Common Mission" shows, is a cornerstone of communion). There has also been a pretense that "it isn't really about Gene Robinson" (hence he was not asked to speak in the consultations leading up to the WR). How often have we heard "it's not really about sexuality" only to find that the only concrete matters for a moratorium from TEC are about sexuality?

This doublespeak is not at all helpful in reaching clarity. I have yet to see a clear articulation of why or how the presenting issue is not capable of resolution in exactly the same way as the ordination of women -- that is, by a time of bilateral impairment through a process of reception (or rejection).

The notion that there is a "communion teaching" is specious and self-referential. The fact that Lambeth 1998 was coopted, as Archbishop Ndungane notes, is simply an example of how poorly things work when a "conference" imagines itself to be a legislature and departs from its "founding charism" -- it is this departure from our "Anglican founding charism" that marks the beginning of our woes -- not GC 2003.

As I have said in the reflection below: a return to our charism is the way forward, not a hastily constructed quasi-legal edifice. This charism includes keeping Lambeth as a conference to share common concerns (a "jamboree" as Archbishop Akinola puts it; rather than a legislature, which is what he wants). And above all a return to the baptismal unity that recognizes other Christians as children of God, and other local churches as our partners in mission. If we do not start there, I have no interest at all in where we end up.

Tobias Haller BSG

Those who walk apart

Seven of the "G"S Primates have refused to share in the Holy Communion with the rest of the body. They have issued the following statement, which I submit for your consideration.

Aside from the appalling self-righteousness, and the utter inversion of the principles of repentance and forgiveness (that is, it is only in one's own power to repent and forgive -- to demand either of others is not a Gospel value!), I suspect this may be the outline for any coming departure from the Anglican Communion to form some new coalition of national churches. The Anglican Communion, represented by the remaining Primates, will continue to do the hard work the Gospel demands -- which is to remain together in spite of our differences, as members of a body whose head is Christ.

I have observed elsewhere that the far-right coalition, both in the US and in the Anglican Communion, have missed or misunderstood the nature of our disagreements all along. They see the book as closed, as far as same-sex relationships are concerned -- they want repentance not so much for having breached the bonds of affection, but for having breached what they believe to be God's eternal and everlasting laws of nature. They are unwilling to see these supposed "laws of nature" as cultural artifacts, not universal values -- that even though they are "biblical" they represent cultural beliefs of particular times and places and peoples -- and they have been unable to prove otherwise, to a growing number of people throughout the world.

They do have the inertia of tradition on their side, and this has held the field in some quarters. Anglicans treat "tradition" with some significant suspicion, and are loath to give it the persuasive power to stand unexamined by reason. So it is that the Windsor Report itself envisions a possible eventual acceptance of same-sex relationships in certain contexts, as the church continues to explore and discuss the issue. Hence the use of such terms as "moratorium" -- which is a temporary suspension. The WR also alludes to changes in consensus, including, most importantly the lack of a current consensus on these matters as a reason for cautious dialogue rather than final action one way or the other (143); the Report also refers to the "current teaching" of the Communion, as an indication that such teachings can, and do change (69).

Indeed, if the book were closed, why would even Lambeth 1.10 have called for listening and dialogue? The Windsor Report goes even further not only in leaving the door open, but demanding that it remain open: "...[D]ebate on this issue cannot be closed whilst sincerely but radically different positions continue to be held across the Communion. The later sections of Lambeth Resolution 1.10 cannot be ignored any more than the first section, as the primates have noted." (149)

This is not what the "reasserters" want to hear. They do not want debate to remain open, but to be closed. For them the issue was settled by Leviticus, and sealed by Romans. But what they fail to see is the growing reasonable reassessment of these texts, placing them in a cultural context that is no longer applicable to our present day. They remain stalwartly unconvinced by these reevaluations. But a sea-change is happening, and the tide is against them. Or perhaps they do see it, and are as keen as Canute in seeking to hold it back.

Meanwhile: Here is the unsuprising news from Tanzania: (From the Globalsouth Website, reported at Stand Firm)

---

SITTING AT THE LORD'S TABLE :

Statement from Global South primates

CONN/100207

A number of the Global South primates have not shared in the Holy Eucharist today with their fellow primates. They include Abp. Peter Akinola, Abp John Chew, Abp. Benjamin Nzimbi, Abp Justice Akrofi, Abp. Henry Orombi, Abp. Gregory Venables, and Abp. Emmanuel Kolini. They represent more than 30 million faithful Anglicans. They have released this statement:

"We each take the celebration of the Holy Eucharist very seriously. This deliberate action is a poignant reminder of the brokenness of the Anglican Communion. It makes clear that the torn fabric of the Church has been torn further. It is a consequence of the decision taken by our provinces to declare that our relationship with The Episcopal Church is either broken or severely impaired.

Scripture teaches that before coming to sit with one another at the Lord's Table we must be reconciled. (Matthew 5:23-26 and 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 ) We have made repeated calls for repentance by The Episcopal Church and its leadership with no success. We continue to pray for a change of heart.

We are unable to come to the Holy Table with the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church because to do so would be a violation of Scriptural teaching and the traditional Anglican understanding, "Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways; Draw near with faith" (Book of Common Prayer)

This is a painful decision for us and also for our host and brother, the Most Rev¹d Donald Mtetemela. He understands our painful dilemma and accepts our decision. Pray for the Church."

Friday, February 16, 2007
White Sands Hotel, Jangwani Beach, Tanzania

Beginnings, Ends, and Friends

a sermon first preached at the Church of the Ascension, Manhattan, on the Feast of St Aelred 2004

Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” And Jesus told his disciples, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

In all the struggles with which the church has struggled during the last few decades, nothing has stirred the pot so much, raising it from a simmer to a boil, as the vexed matter of human sexuality. The problem with our vexation is that we have focused so much on the aspect of humanity which is not uniquely human — sex — and largely ignored the aspect of human nature that is (as far as we know) unique to human life: the capacity for self-giving and self-sacrificing love. This vexation and ignorance are no help in keeping our kettle from boiling over and making a mess of our ecclesiastical stove-top.

For conservatives in particular sex is almost always “the problem” — for at the same time they want to talk about what is “natural” they also want to preserve a strong distinction between humanity and the rest of nature. Thus, as archconservative Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria said concerning homosexuality just a few months ago, “Even animals don’t do such things.” Obviously the arrogant Archbishop is ignorant of the well-documented same-sex behavior among scores of animal species. But then, he and those who take his point of view aren’t interested in nature and whatever truth it might reveal to us; for they are quite content, upon being shown that animals do engage in such behavior, to turn around and accuse gays and lesbians of being “inhuman” for acting like animals — so I suppose in their view we really are neither fish nor fowl — nor human! — and shouldn’t even exist. As the wife of one of the bishops at Lambeth put it, that would be the final solution to the whole problem — “We don’t have homosexuals in Africa,” she said, “because we kill them.”

Though they might reject such genocidal homophobia, even more moderate conservatives display a similarly perverse exaltation of natural law that takes no account of real nature. For instance, as Roman Catholic moral theologians put it, Human sex is distinguished from animal sex in that only human sex leads to the birth of human beings. This surely qualifies for the theological “Duh” award of the decade. And while those who advance this triviality as if it were a helpful insight do so to preserve the dignity of human personhood — which of course only exists in human persons — in the end they are left with a dehumanized biological determinism, in which the primary good about a married couple is their fertility. This reasoning ignores the facts that not all heterosexual sex (even in the most loving of marriages) leads to the generation of new human beings — nor do we grant marriage annulments at menopause; nor are all heterosexual relationships loving; and some of those that are least loving may be the most fertile. It is not our capacity to breed — even to breed humans — that makes us human.

When one thus eliminates fertility and the creation of new human beings from the discussion, the conservative argument shifts in an enthusiastic appeal to a surmised “complementarity.” This circular argument limits the only legitimate human “other” for appropriately human relationships solely on the basis of the so-called complementarity of the sexes. In doing so it again reduces all human beings, male and female, to the status of mere prongs and holes, as if we were nothing more than the loose ends of biological extension cords, plugs and sockets designed to pass along some kind of live current, without regard to what that current is or is for. One conservative writer waxes eloquent on the imagined “fit” of male and female, which he says is like the fit of hand and glove: of course, notice who the glove is, and who the hand; women sure must get tired of being portrayed as accessories! So this supposedly noble effort to exalt human nature also ultimately undercuts human dignity.

These arguments also betray a kind of genealogical fixation— as if what most makes us human is our birth, rather than our life, as if the beginning of human life is all that counts, and not the human life lived to its human end; as if Genesis were the end of the story rather than the beginning. And it is this story which I wish to revisit and comment upon today.

I do this, in part on the basis of an appeal to our animal past, and the claims of nature, but more on the basis of the Gospel, and its supernatural claims upon our human present for our human future.

For what the Gospel shows us is the astonishing truth that love is unnatural. I’ll say it again: love is unnatural. Put another way, love doesn’t come naturally: perhaps that sounds less threatening! Love has to be urged and commanded. You have to work at it. Left to our own devices, our animal natures, the drive for life we share with all living things, we would seek only our own self-interest, only our own wants and needs, or at best the wants and needs of our species, as if human life were only meant to produce more human lives; as if we were nothing more than organic copy machines driven by our DNA to produce more DNA-producers, in some ways no better than a particularly large and noisy virus infecting the surface of the globe.

This driving energy, what the romantics used to call the “life-force,” is not love. On the contrary, “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower,” and drives the upbuilding of the universe is love’s opposite: self-interest, self-preservation, the survival of the fittest, call it what you will; this is the force that drove the rise of the universe from quarks to dust to stars to cells to animals and finally to us; it is this property of self-cohesion and self-preservation, the redundancy that what endures endures, and (as Doris Day sang) what will be will be, and that only what can reproduce will reproduce, that drove and drives the natural world. And although this leaning towards self-interest can take evil forms — Saint Augustine once said if you needed any proof of original sin, just watch a baby for a while — the tendency to self-interest is not evil in itself, even in human beings.

God, after all, created it as the means to build up the creation. God created the natural law of self-interest that alone could lead to the complexity capable of sustaining life. God provided nature with this inclination to self-preservation, and we have inherited it as part of our nature. So it is not evil in itself: as the rabbis taught, were it not for the yetzer ha-ra, the inclination towards self-interest, no man would build a house, or take a wife, or start a business.

But, as we know, when this drive predominates we get into trouble: and we’ve been troubled by it for a long time, from the moment we became aware of it. As the old, old story goes, it was the impulse to self-preservation that both drove Adam and Eve to their primal act of self-assertion, and convicted them with the knowledge of what they had done, when they fell into the knowledge of good and evil, the naked consciousness of the needy and assertive self, and knew what they had done, and what they had lost.

But they also learned what they still had. For in their fall they became aware that God had already given them something else, the good they weren’t aware of before they chose the evil, indeed before they knew the difference. God had balanced the force that launched the world at its genesis with another more personal gift.

God had imbued human hearts with love: which is not a creature, but the image of God’s self. Love is the gift which gave us the capacity to see and feel beyond our needs, beyond the needs even of our family or clan or society, the knowledge that we are not simply creatures living off each other, but creatures living for each other; that life is not based ultimately upon need but upon gift, and that life is not about the accumulation of assets and the preservation of the self or the species, but about the compassionate generosity that sacrifices even life itself for the sake of the beloved. God made us human, when to us, out of all creation, he gave this incredible energy that goes by the name of love. It is love itself, unnatural and counterintuitive love, which at its greatest sacrifices even its own life so that the beloved might live; it is love, the gift of God and the supernatural spark of the divine likeness that glows within each human soul, that makes human life truly human and most truly alive. It is love beyond price that makes life worth living, and worth giving up.

And when the time was ripe, God showed us this love in person, perfected in Jesus, who commands us to love each other the way he loved us: which is to say, not for what he could get out of us, but for what he could give us. God’s love is not based on need — God doesn’t need anything — but is rather God’s gift, stemming from God’s own nature, God who is love. The natural law of self-interest was merely God’s creature used to build up creation. But love is God’s self: and the love of God is not about transaction, but incarnation.

And when he had taught us this, we ceased being mere servants — who do as they are told but do not know why — and became friends, who do as they are commanded not in ignorance or out of fear, but out of trust, and in the knowledge of the love of God, who gave us life at our genesis, and gave us life again in the revelation of the Son of God, the beginning and the end, who became not only our savior, but our friend, who shared our life and of his great mercy allowed us to share in his.

* * *

This is the gospel truth as Jesus spoke it, the gospel truth that Saint Aelred of Rievaulx preached and lived. He did it in the setting of the monastery, among men committed to a life of common prayer and work, and most of all of unnatural love: the deeply unnatural love that Jesus commanded, the love that gives itself up and places others first, that sees other people not as means to an end (however good or exalted that end might be) but as ends in themselves, icons of Christ and images of God, and above all, as friends.

Now, let there be no doubt that whatever the experiments of his youth, in his later years we can rest assured that Aelred took the vows of celibacy seriously, both for himself and for the monks under his charge. But he also knew that human affection is a great gift, a gift that requires expression, and allowed his monks the familiarities of friendship that sterner ascetics would have found scandalous. Aelred walked that middle way between the biological determinists who saw human beings only in terms of their capacity for breeding, and the gnostic dualists who — misunderstanding the incarnation itself — wrongly thought they could escape the realities of their own embodiment. And so he allowed the signs of friendship to flourish in his monastery. And the monastery, the school of charity, became in its time, the preserver of the world. Not because it set out to do that, not as a means to an end, but because it was full of the love of God.

* * *

Today we have a great opportunity, not just to keep our ecclesiastical kettle from boiling over, but to preserve the world anew, and to teach the mystery of charity to a world hungry for love but steeped in self-interest. Our world has forgotten Sirach’s wisdom, that true friendship is beyond price and cannot be bought or sold in the marketplace.

And I firmly believe that gays and lesbians — whether they have legalized their domestic partnerships, had their unions blessed, or gone off to Canada to get married — can be teachers in this new school of charity for the church and the world, to offer a teaching as powerful as what the monastery taught in the days of Aelred.

And I don’t just mean more Queer Eye for the Straight Church — we’ve been there and done that for centuries; writing the hymns, playing and singing the music, crafting and leading the liturgies, designing the buildings and generally making the church more attractive than it would have been without us. No, what I mean is far more serious and far more challenging. I’m talking about the practice of the presence of God, who in Jesus Christ commands us to love each other as he loved us, with the love that does not abide in relationships built on quid-pro-quo or cost and benefit.

For I believe with all my heart that same-sex couples not only can show forth the great mystery of mutual love as well as different-sex couples do (or fail to do), but may well be able to do it better, and with greater freedom. Free from the shackles of biological determinism by which human cultures have falsely and conventionally come to believe that men and women are naturally and separately suited only for particular roles and destined as means to particular ends, we can emphatically declare and show forth in our lives that human beings are not roles, nor are they means to an end: whether that end be the brief spasm of sexual release or the procreation of a family, the maintenance of a home, or of a society. For as long as marriage is seen primarily for what one gets out of it: as a contract for the interchange of property or the grant of rights, for the building of a family or a home, for the maintenance of the social status quo — rather than for what goes into it: as a covenant of the mutual gift of two persons to each other for no reason other than for love, as long as we see the union of two hearts and minds primarily for its extrinsic worth rather than for its intrinsic value, it will be branded with the hallmark of commerce, rather than blessed as the sign and sacrament of generosity.

Such true freedom and mutuality are difficult when church and society still harp on what they call “appropriate” roles for men and women, when they place their trust in a nuclear family that even at its best was not the means by which God chose to enter creation when the time came to come among us as one of us. True freedom and mutuality are difficult when people talk the talk of self-sacrifice, but walk the walk of imposing sacrifice on others — and how many women have been told it is their natural lot to suffer in silence when men take advantage of them or neglect them, all in the hopes that it will make those men more “domesticated.” True mutuality is most difficult precisely when people are perceived to be unequal, complementary or incomplete.

And this is why gays and lesbians, free from any necessary or conventionally preassigned roles, can staff the school of truly mutual love and friendship, most especially love nourished by friendship.

And, my friends, the greatest irony of all is that such loving relationships, same-sex and different-sex, will save the world, just as the monasteries did through the troubled times of the middle ages, not because that is what they set out to do, not as means to that end, but because God wills it so, and has willed it so from the beginning, when he saw that it was not good to be alone. For just as only self-interest could build the world, only love can finally save and preserve the world. The rabbis were right: the yetzer ha-ra, the inclination to self, plays its role in building up the world; but love is at the heart of tikkun olam, our partnership with God our friend in preserving and bringing to perfection the great work of creation. As Saint Paul’s spiritual grandfather Rabbi Hillel, reflecting on both the inclination to self and the love of others, said, “If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

Christ has done us, you see, the great honor of calling us friends, friends of God in Christ and friends of each other. Friends, not servants: no longer in the dark about our friend Jesus’ plan, no longer fallen but raised to new life in him. As God is our true beginning, so too this is our true end: to honor and love God in each other and to find ourselves transformed in this honor and this love. Out of this love a broken world is pieced together, and all illusory divisions lose their capacity to divide — all of them — each and every one: and there is no more slave or free, or Jew or Gentile, or male and female, but all are one in Christ our friend. With this powerful and God-given spirit of friendship, this spirit of encouragement, this consolation and compassion, let us, at the commandment of Christ and following his example as friends together, of the same mind, having the same love, heart to heart and hand in hand, show the world, beloved, what love means. And if not now, when?

---

— Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG