Of the Paradox of Anglican Tradition

It is a paradox of the Anglican Way that one of its traditional tenets is that tradition is unreliable as an independent source of authority. This paradox is evident in the works of the judicious Hooker (who never mentioned a three-legged stool) and the more authoritative Articles of Religion. Anecdotally, I have seen this paradox play out a number of times in religious community and the ecclesiastical life of the church. Time and again, people who come to religious life, or to positions of leadership in the church, expressing a desire to be under authority come to reject that authority when it proves either less than authoritative or authoritatively asserts something contrary to what they independently want to believe. It is as if they are saying, “I want to be told what to think,” but when they are told to think for themselves, or are told something they do not find congenial, dig in their heels or shake the dust from them. It has been my experience that the most schismatic and disobedient are the ones who profess to hate schism and claim obedience “to a higher authority” — code for “one that agrees with me.” They head off to seek a church or community which either tells them what to do, or places them at the apex of leadership.

Anglicanism, as it is expressed in The Episcopal Church, lives in this tension, and seeks to help people to find a mature faith growing from within rather than impressed from without. Instead of formation — molding the person to fit a necessary pattern — it is education — the drawing forth of insight, relying (it is true) on a framework, but trusting to the power of the indwelling Spirit to guide and nurture.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Disagreement, Good and Bad

The Church of England is in the process of exploring the limits of disagreement on matters of sexuality. One might say the Anglican Communion as a whole is doing the same. England already reached a settlement on the propriety of women bishops, allowing "both integrities" to flourish side by side in peaceful contradiction. (The nation that gave us Lewis Carroll has done itself proud in this.)

The goal, of course, is a peaceful detente, going by the name "good disagreement." The church has been plagued by disagreement -- good and bad -- from the days of Peter and Paul. Ultimately it is the object of the (dis)agreement that determines whether it can be (a) a peaceable willingness to bear with difference or (b) a cause for schism. "It seemed important at the time" is the watchword of warning for any church tempted to divide over what may turn out in the long run to have been a minor point of dispute. Remember the common cup, and vernacular liturgy? Or circumcision? The church's history is draped with conflicts that in retrospect have faded and lost their color; so much so one is tempted to ask, "What was the matter?" What matters — the living Text — is Christ, and him crucified, died, buried, risen and ascended. All the rest is gloss.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

What is an Anglican?

It strikes me that there are two meanings of Anglican, as it is commonly used. It can be understood as a tradition with certain characteristics derived from a historical reality (I assayed an essay on what I think the central characteristics are a decade ago in The Anglican Triad), or more formally as the fellowship of churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, members of the Anglican Consultative Council -- there is a list of membership one can look up. By analogy, one could say that some of the "independent" catholic churches are "catholic" but not officially so from the perspective of Rome, which does recognize a number of non-Latin churches as directly relating to it, but not these "independent" bodies. In the looser sense of heritage, one could say that the Methodists are part of the Anglican tradition, and but for some accidents of history, might still be so formally, and yet may!

The problem with ACNA, as I see it, is that they violate one of the key principles that are a part of that Anglican (and indeed catholic) heritage that I laid out in the essay linked above -- the geographical and canonical notion that there should only be one Anglican jurisdiction in any one place. But neither is ACNA an official member of the Communion (in spite of their recognition by some member churches who say they are in communion with them; but the same can be said of, say the ELCA: with whom TEC is in communion, but that communion with them renders them neither Anglican nor members of the Anglican Communion. The same is true of Porvoo churches in relation to England.)

On the one-church-in-a-location issue, I think that, for a time, the "state" was a good balance point for Anglicanism, reflecting as well the settlement in Europe of cuius regio eius religio -- but that this worked best in an established church, which was the case at the time. The lack of establishment across most of the Anglican Communion today, and the increase in means of communication, have made the "national" ideal much more difficult to maintain, as people have less sense of a legal restriction (though it is still an active canonical principle) and the concept of a network is replacing that of either a pyramid or a hub-and-spoke. That doesn't mean I don't still think the nation or region to be an ideal in Anglicanism, but it may be one whose time has passed.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Confusion in California

A California court has rendered a decision in the remaining property dispute concerning congregations (or parts thereof) who had chosen to depart the Episcopal Church. At issue in this case, rather different from most others, is a letter from the bishop of the diocese written in 1991 telling the congregation they could buy some property that would not fall under the prevailing canonical “trust” of the diocese or the general church. The judge has found that the bishop did not have the authority to waive the canons, which state that all real property is held in trust; and moreover that the bylaws of the congregation also declared that all property they hold is held in trust. This renders the letter and the “gentlemen’s agreement” a nullity. This only came to a head, of course, when the congregation chose to depart the church.

Some have wrongly seen this decision as creating a whole new requirement for the sale of church property, even alleging that all church property transactions might have to come under national approval of some sort. This is a mistaken view for several reasons:

First, the decision of the court involving the supposed waiver of a trust, is distinct from the attempted alienation of property (dealt with as a consequence, since it was the alleged waiver that the congregation thought permitted the alienation.) As the trust requirement is canonical, it cannot be waived by any authority other than the national church through an amendment of the canon itself, or perhaps by legislation clarifying the meaning of the canon (as the General Convention is the authorized interpreter of the canons, through its actions.)

Second, the canons do provide for the alienation of property, which does not require national approval. All that is required for a parish to alienate property is the approval of the bishop and standing committee. This is true for parishes that remain within the Episcopal Church and any which choose to depart — in a few cases amicable settlements have been reached by which congregations leaving TEC have been able to retain their property upon reaching an agreed settlement with the diocese. Parishes cannot simply walk away in possession of property they held in trust.

Third, and this is the most important principle: parishes may well hold title to their property but they do not own it free and clear — and this was true long before the enactment of the so-called "Dennis Canon" — as attested by the other long-standing canonical regulations that restrict the sale of church property, and require diocesan approval (of bishop and standing committee) for such sale. Church property is not allodial, but feudal — its disposition is not entirely in the hands of those who hold title because of other legal restrictions. This is actually true of most property even outside of the church, where zoning laws and eminent domain and other state and local regulations restrict what one can do with one's property.

So those who were claiming that this court decision opens a can of worms for all church property ownership have wildly missed the point.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Postscript and update:

I am flattered that the venerable Anglican Curmudgeon has taken note of my musings. I fear he has mistook me in small part (which I attribute to my hasty comments at Thinking Anglicans more than to my effort here). Suffice it to say he and I have continued some discussion at his well-worth-visiting blog. I posted a couple of comments there the gist of which I will share here, as I think it helps to offer some additional clarity to my view of the situation, edited slightly for this different context.

As I see it, the main issue involves the distinction between the trust itself and the alienation of property.

I have to agree with the finding of the court that the bishop exceeded his authority in attempting to waive the trust. There is no suggestion that a bishop acting alone, or even in concert with the Standing Committee, could waive the trust established in the canon (acknowledging that some feel the canon itself is irregular and overreaching, it is nonetheless “on the books” and the courts appear in general to defer to it as consistent with what Jones v. Wolf mused might be one appropriate way to flag the existence of such a trust in explicit language.)

Let me add that I do not think any duplicity was involved in the action of the bishop or his canon to the ordinary, and it is a matter of some concern that succeeding bishops, and others, have chosen not to honor that commitment, even if it was inappropriately made. It seems to me that both sides in that agreement were poorly advised as to the state of the law at the time, both ecclesiastical and civil. It would more likely have been advisable for the parish leaders to undertake the establishment of a separate not-for-profit corporation to obtain the property and then to have leased the property to the parish for its use, none of which would have required the consent of the bishop, though an episcopal nod would have been seemly. This would have improved on the gentleman's agreement and provided legal protection.

The issue of the alienation or sale of property is distinct from the existence of the trust. I believe that the current court decision, even if upheld on appeal, should not concern any parish so long as it remains part of the Episcopal Church. That seems to me to be the plain reading of Canon I.7.4. (The "Dennis Canon.") I read "otherwise" in this canon not in reference to the trust (for the Church and Diocese thereof) but in reference to the normal property rights enjoyed by the parish restricted only by the immediately preceding section of the Canon (I.7.3) which describes the procedure and the requirements for encumbrance or alienation.

So my point is that the bishop and standing committee cannot waive the trust, but they can permit the sale or long-term lease of property so long as the parish is part of the Episcopal Church. (Which is the case for the vast majority of congregations.) 

Furthermore, I do not see how this decision would apply to property transactions for parishes that remain part of the Episcopal Church -- or, indeed, who would have standing to challenge such a legitimately permitted and canonically correct sale if the Bishop and standing committee, and the vestry of the parish, have approved it – or even who would care to do so.

Matters are different for parishes that choose to leave the Episcopal Church. I am aware that national leadership have attempted to forbid amicable and fair-value settlements to departing congregations in a few cases; and very likely look askance at sales for a mere token; but I imagine that the urge to challenge even the latter in court will depend on the willingness to meet the legal costs, and I for one would hope that urging reasonable settlements would prevail.

TSH

Post-postcript

Further conversation with A Curmudgeon was very helpful and directs me to what I think is the difficulty I have with his position. This devolves to two points.

The attempted waiver on the acquisition of the property was really an attempt to waive responsibilities de futuro (pardon my mixing marriage law with real estate... just that my head is rather involved in work on the former at present), in other words, proactively to hold property free from the trust in the case of some future alienation. The court found that the trust relationship cannot be so dissolved, either in the future or the present. As I suggest, there were other possible ways to structure this, but a bishop cannot essentially authorize a sale of property (a parish doesn't yet own) in the future, or apply the dead hand to require a successor so to do -- and the St Com approval is also needed in any case. In the present, however, a Bp and SC can authorize an encumbrance (sale or lease) -- not "waive the trust." Which brings me to my second point.

Mr. Haley is interpreting the encumbrance of property in I.7.3 as a waiver of the trust in I.7.4. But it is not a waiver of the trust, since the value of the property remains for the use of the church. It is a transaction within the trust, not an escape from or waiver of it. It was the attempted waiver de futuro -- essentially to allow a parish allodial title to their property -- that the court found to be a nullity. Parishes do not hold their property free and clear.

I.7.3 was on the books long before I.7.4 was a glint in Walter's (or Blackmun's) eye. The trust element was, as various courts have stated it, implicit, in part because of the long-standing limitations on the encumbrance of property to the extent that a higher authority (Bp and SC) had to approve sales or long-term leases.

I do not see this as a case of special pleading, but an across the board requirement. Parishes are not able "to deal freely with their properties" even within TEC. They must have Bp and SC approval for any encumbrance. In NY this is written into the Not-or-Profit Religious Corporations statute as well (predating Dennis), so we need approval of the Supreme Court as well!

TSH

Comprehension Requires Contention

Saint Paul observed, in an almost Hegelian way, that controversy and party-spirit, however deplorable in themselves, were almost necessary to the discernment of truth (1 Cor 11:19) There is nothing new in seeking, or at least pining after, an end to all controversy. I would suggest that the current press for an Anglican Covenant stems in part from this desire.

That this should happen within Anglicanism is natural, but to be regarded with some suspicion, as a desire for an end to contentions may merely conceal a desire for the peace of the world rather than the peace of God, which is not achieved by compromise but comprehension. I was perusing the pages of the work of the eminent Mr. Trollope the other day, and came upon a relevant passage. Here the Anglo-Catholic Mr. Arabin discourses with the Widow Bold on the subject of contention in the church, chiefly the Church of England, and dissuades from the easy solution of a governing head to put an end to controversy.

“Do not such contentions bring scandal on the church?”

“More scandal would fall on the church if there were no such contentions. We have but one way to avoid them—by that of acknowledging a common head of our church, whose word on all points of doctrine shall be authoritative. Such a termination of our difficulties is alluring enough. It has charms which are irresistible to many, and all but irresistible, I own, to me.”

“You speak now of the Church of Rome?” said Eleanor.

“No,” said he, “not necessarily of the Church of Rome; but of a church with a head. Had it pleased God to vouchsafe to us such a church our path would have been easy. But easy paths have not been thought good for us.” He paused and stood silent for awhile, thinking of the time when he had so nearly sacrificed all he had, his powers of mind, his free agency, the fresh running waters of his mind’s fountain, his very inner self, for an easy path in which no fighting would be needed; and then he continued: “What you say is partly true: our contentions do bring on us some scandal. The outer world, though it constantly reviles us for our human infirmities and throws in our teeth the fact that being clergymen we are still no more than men, demands of us that we should do our work with godlike perfection. There is nothing god-like about us: we differ from each other with the acerbity common to man; we triumph over each other with human frailty; we allow differences on subjects of divine origin to produce among us antipathies and enmities which are anything but divine. This is all true. But what would you have in place of it? There is no infallible head for a church on earth. This dream of believing man has been tried, and we see in Italy and in Spain what has come of it. Grant that there are and have been no bickerings within the pale of the Pope’s Church. Such an assumption would be utterly untrue, but let us grant it, and then let us say which church has incurred the heavier scandals.”

Barchester Towers, Chapter 21

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Thought from retreat 01.21.10

Bubbles don't look like bubbles from the inside.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

One More Time

Over at Thinking Anglicans, someone has opined that the departure of individual dioceses from The Episcopal Church is analogous to the departure of the Church of England and the See of Utrecht from the Roman Catholic Church.

These are not properly analogous, however, and not simply as matters of scale. The diocese -- all claims to the contrary notwithstanding -- is not self-sufficient in the Catholic tradition, in part because it can only obtain a bishop with the consent of the bishops of other dioceses of the province of which it forms a part (or, in some places, the metropolitan or archbishop). If it is a "unit" is like a cell of a body, or brick of a building: not self-sufficient on its own.

The historic actions in the 16th and 19th centuries, whereby the Church of England and the See of Utrecht severed their ties with Rome relate both to their original autonomy and to the understanding that these bodies represent "churches" rather than simply dioceses. (This is what having an archbishop is about, in part, and having metropolitical or provincial status.) The "national church" or province was the minimal defining entity as a "church" in the Christian (i.e., Orthodox) tradition until Rome began to assert a universal primacy. Individual dioceses have no authority to withdraw from their province unilaterally; national churches do have the right to assert their autonomy from the central hegemony of Rome. Two different things.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Thought from 01.25.09

From yesterday's sermon:

Paul tried to tell the difficult Corinthians that by squabbling over the gift they were destroying it, like peevish children who fight over a toy and end up breaking it beyond repair...

A lesson for the church today?

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

How they got here

I see from a news report that the Anglican Communion Network (h/t Thinking Anglicans) is prepared to pass a sputtering torch to the new, emerging “Anglican” “Province” in North America. (I may run out of scare quotes before this is all over.) The Network confesses that it has failed in its purpose to recall the Episcopal Church to its standards of orthodoxy, and even goes so far as to suggest that this purpose is beyond achievement. Thus the torch they are passing to ACNA is not only sputtering but extinguished.

This reminder of the Network’s failed purpose helps to bring into focus one of the major problems with the present mess into which the Anglican Communion has descended. Though I acknowledge the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada played their part in providing grist for a particular mill, still, the decision to drive that mill at a pace which has caused the whole mechanism to fall apart seems to lie with the Network and its allies — and their almost complete misunderstanding of what they had been advised to do or not to do by Archbishop Rowan Williams.

At this point they already said that Rowan Williams counts for little — he has not backed them up in what they have wanted to do. But it is worse than that. It may be that he did not understand them, but surely they did not understand him, nor did they follow through on doing what he asked them to do. I have not been alone in noting the nuanced and sometimes impenetrable language Rowan Williams uses, but the more I listen to him and the more carefully I listen the more consistent and thoughtful he appears to be. Perhaps, like Mark Twain, we are all learning that while our father in God seemed, in our youth, to be incredibly dense, we have discovered that the older we grew the wiser he has become.

The main thing people misunderstand about Rowan Williams — on both sides of the aisle — is that he is resolutely committed to working things out through the existing mechanisms of the organization. He is what some might call an institutionalist. Hence his initial displeasure with the Episcopal Church — holding as he does to the notion that Lambeth 1.10 represents the mind of the Communion, even if his own opinions tend another way (and I think they still do, by the way, contrary to what I think are other misreadings of some of his statements — but this just goes to show the depth of his commitment to proper process.) We might note as well his continued pressing for some kind of covenant, some rules in a book instead of facts on the ground. Everything Rowan Williams says has to be understood with this hermeneutical key: people should follow the rules. Perhaps he is a Benedictine at heart?

It is by failing to grasp this fundamental Rowanite principle that the Global South and its North American supporters/ambassadors have come to their present situation, on the verge of walking apart from the Canterbury-centered Anglican Communion.

This has been going on for a long time. When Bishop Duncan and his friends approached the Archbishop with the proposal to form a ‘network of confessing parishes and dioceses,’ the archbishop gave the nod. What, after all, is wrong with that? Anglicans have been forming networks or parties from the very beginning — in England the great mission societies emerged through that very process, as evangelicals and high church Anglo-Catholics worked within their own circles to build up the church in the way they thought it ought to be built.

But almost from the very beginning, the Network functioned, not as an underground body continuing to work within the structures of the larger church, out of step with which it felt itself to be — which is, after all the model for a confessing church in the manner of Bonhoeffer. No, the Network came to see itself not even as leaven in the loaf, but more like the dedicated portion of the challah loaf, though in this case a portion which would come to replace the rest of the body since it could not transform it. The rhetoric of “two churches” instead of a movement within one church began very early on in this particular turn of the Episcopal carousel.

And so it continued. In spite of Archbishop Rowan’s repeated declarations of the “un-helpfulness” of such things as AMiA and CANA, and his refusal to recognize as Anglican bishops those who staff these adventures and incursions; in spite of his explicit comments about those who chose to absent themselves from Lambeth, and his references to the language of “walking apart” from the Windsor Report — in spite of all this, the “Anglican Church in North America” still seems to hold out that sputtering hope that they will become the official Anglican presence in North America.

They shall become something; what they will become is too soon to tell. But I surmise that they will not, like the Episcopal Church, be a member of the Anglican Communion, a fellowship of autonomous churches in communion with the See of Canterbury.

Tobias Haller BSG

More on tolerance

Harking back to a conversation I had with Richard Helmer last summer, I am moved by the announcement that the Roman Catholic Church has come out in opposition to a proposed UN declaration that would call for the repeal of criminal statutes and punishments aimed at homosexual persons. (H/T Episcopal Café.) While intended to address the harsh punishments inflicted upon such persons in certain parts of the world, the rationale offered by the Vatican is based on the concern that states that did not provide for same-sex marriage might somehow come under threat of punishment on that account.

This reveals one of the dynamics about which Richard and I spoke last summer. People and organizations who are intolerant tend to imagine that they will also not be tolerated. A dynamic of projection is at work. They know what they would do if they were in charge — indeed, we saw what the Roman Catholic Church did when it was in charge, in those uncouth times when the secular arm could be employed to torture and to kill. One gives thanks for the decline in that capacity.

As a result of this projection one often sees a rhetoric of fear; calls for a “safe place” or for “security” — as if they are going to be made to do something they would not choose to do, and be punished if they did not do it. The idea that churches are going to be forced to perform same-sex marriages, or punished if they do not, is ludicrous: in much of Europe the state does not even recognize church marriages as having any standing whatsoever. As we have already seen in California and now on the global stage, however, the Roman Catholic Church does not simply wish to protect its own rights not to perform same-sex marriages, but to see to it that no one else does it either — as if that were in any case the purport of the proposed declaration!

Closer to home, canonical regulations concerning the ordination of women are a case in point in our own church. As it now stands, bishops are not required to ordain anyone against their will; while at the same time the process leading to ordination must remain open in all dioceses, without regard to sex or sexual orientation. The individual bishop with a conscientious objection to the ordination of women is only required to provide a way for women to explore the possibility of being ordained; and the actual ordination can be performed by another bishop. Nor is any bishop forced to ordain a gay or lesbian person, celibate or not. It is true there may be some social pressure, but there is no legal penalty for not ordaining someone.

Nor is there any persecution — unless it is the “persecution” of being disagreed with; which is where we come back to the basic nature of intolerance: the desire that all should do as one does oneself. And it strikes me the root of intolerance may simply derive from a lack of empathy — the lack of ability to imagine that there might be people who do not in fact insist that all do as they do. This seems to be the chasm fixed between tolerance and intolerance.

Another dynamic that I’ve observed: One finds language of the most appalling sort on some of the conservative blog comments, aimed at Episcopal Church leadership, and accompanied by moans of protest should a sharp-tongued liberal reply in kind (one thinks of my friend the Mad Priest, and of course, I too have been known to make the odd sharp remark). And indeed my first posting on tolerance was a result of someone styling this blog as “vicious” — I think a rather wild exaggeration, especially compared to some of what passes for dialogue in the blogosphere.

This kind of asymmetrical behavior is essentially adolescent. The intolerant believe in the world of “No fair hitting back.” It is a mind-set of testing boundaries, full of insecurities masked with bluster, resentful of limitations but creating rigid systems of rules and hierarchies to stabilize their world. And worst of all, they project all of their fears upon “the parent” — who was portrayed as forcing their response.

Later today, at a conference in the Windy City, it is said that a safe haven for fearful Anglicans and former Anglicans will be unveiled. Only time will tell what becomes of it; but I think its foundations are built on the sand of fearful imaginings.

Tobias Haller BSG

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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

Act of Toleration

One of the most common charges leveled at “progressives” or “liberals” when they make any criticism of, or raise any objection against, a “conservative” or “reactionary” is that they are being hypocritically intolerant or exclusive. This happened here in a comment left on one of my earlier posts. This accusation of viciousness gives me the opportunity to make a number of observations on the matter of vice and virtue.

First, tolerance is, properly speaking, not a virtue but a political strategy or policy. Tolerance, in this political sense, is the willingness to allow others to express opinions or hold beliefs with which one (or the majority) disagrees. Thus the Church of England eventually came to tolerate the practice of Roman Catholicism, without in any way affirming it.

Second, there is a difference between toleration of the right to hold an opinion or belief, and any suggestion that this need extend to action. Thus, I am perfectly tolerant of the opinions of Bishop Duncan, Iker, &c., but I do not approve of those of their actions which I believe to be illegal under Canon law.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, tolerance is not a religious virtue, though it may call upon the exercise of some of those virtues, such as patience and fortitude, as well as charity. But I do not expect the Roman Catholic Church or The Episcopal Church to be tolerant of those who wish to remain members while teaching things at variance with their corporate beliefs. Thus, while it may be intolerant of the Pope to discipline a Jesuit for teaching something at odds with the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, he is well within his rights to do so. The same goes for The Episcopal Church, though this authority is very rarely exercised. I would thus say that TEC is relatively more “tolerant” of the expression of contrary opinions than is the RCC; that is, we rarely discipline clergy merely for holding or even teaching a contrary opinion, at least if it stops short of action such as attempting to lead a parish or diocese into secession.

Fourth, the fact that one tolerates an opinion need not mean that one agrees with it, nor, on the contrary, does disagreeing with an opinion — even strongly — mean that one is intolerant. Toleration has to do with people’s rights to have opinions, not to be right.

Thus I can strongly disagree with Duncan and Iker without being intolerant of them; but at the same time I do not have to tolerate actions I believe to be illegal.

Which brings me to the whole idea of inclusivity. Someone once said that anything can be tolerated but intolerance — but I’m not sure that is true. As I note, the English eventually came to tolerate the existence of a relatively intolerant body, the Roman Catholic Church, as long as its intolerance was directed towards the discipline of its own members — a thing they have every right to do; that is, the Roman Catholic Church does not have to put up with (i.e., tolerate) its clergy teaching doctrines at odds with the magisterium.

The same can be said of inclusivity — which I also do not see as a virtue in and of itself, though, like toleration it may call upon the exercise of real virtues. Obviously it is difficult to include within any body a person set upon the overthrow of that body — this is why the political freedoms granted to Americans stop short of any right to foment revolution or insurrection.

It is quite true that many speak of inclusiveness as if it were a virtue in and of itself. I do not accept that theory. The same goes for tolerance. Neither of these things requires or implies agreement with what the one being tolerated or included thinks or says. It is neither intolerant nor exclusive sharply to critique any notion advanced or position argued. And if a state, or a church, is required to exercise discipline when an opinion or a teaching goes beyond the pale into insurrection or disobedience, well, the state or church has the right no longer to tolerate the behavior, and to exclude the member.

So, I do not disagree with the Roman Catholic Church, or the Mormons, or the more conservative segment of TEC, for example, for being “intolerant” or “exclusive” — they have every right to be so! However, I think they are wrong — and I have every right to critique them in the strongest language — though, I think, I am really rather forbearing in my tone. Of course, I could be wrong on this as well.

Tobias Haller BSG

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A Push or a Caution

Episcopal Café reports that Ruth Gledhill of the Times has scooped a story on the continuing saga of the dis-integrating Anglican Communion. It seems the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and the Anglican Consultative Council is thinking about some way to discipline the Church of the Southern Cone for its adventures in North America, about which I've commented a number of times.

Whether this action will be taken as the caution it should be, and throw cold water upon the December 3rd unveiling of the New Improved North American Province, or simply push the separatists over the edge remains to be seen. What we have already seen is a tendency to be willing to cross borders, real and virtual.

Tobias Haller BSG

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UPDATE: Episcopal News Service questions the accuracy of the "leak" -- at least so far as the meeting has progressed. Ah, Ruth, whither thou goest, I think I will not go. Again.

Tilting at the Windmills of His Mind

As has been amply reported, Bishop Iker of Fort Worth has been inhibited by the Presiding Bishop (following the due canonical process on the recommendation of the review committee and with the consent of the three senior bishops) for having abandoned "the communion of this Church" — "this Church" of course referring, as it always does in our Canons, to The Episcopal Church.

Surely there can be no doubt that Iker is out of communion with TEC — I mean, isn't that the point of removing all references to TEC from the diocesan constitution, and joining the Southern Cone? That the Church of the SC is a member of the Anglican Communion (for now) is irrelevant to the abandonment canon, since it refers not to the Anglican Communion, but to communion with TEC. (There can be churches in Communion with TEC, or the C of E for that matter, that are not part of the Anglican Communion, such as the ELCA in our case. Communion is not transitive, as anyone who has been involved in ecumenical discussion well knows.)

The Bishop and Standing Committee of what still calls itself "The Episcopal Diocese of Forth Worth" has issued a response to the PB's action. They make a good deal of fuss about the inhibition, which, as they rightly note, is of no actual effect to the extent that Jack has already hit the road (virtually, not in actuality, as he is still geographically in Fort Worth, not the Southern Cone.) All the inhibition actually states is that Iker is not to execute any episcopal functions in The Episcopal Church. Iker makes much of his indignation, but one wonders why, if he has no intention of trying to pretend to be still the bishop of a diocese of The Episcopal Church.

The strangest part of the FW response, to my mind, is the closing word of the Standing Committee. They accuse the Presiding Bishop of "border crossing." Clearly the "borders" involved here are the mental borders of allegiance, not the geographical borders of this earth, or the canonical borders of the provinces of the Churches of the Anglican Communion. It has already been noted that the Church of the Southern Cone is in express violation of its own Canons in attempting to take extraterritorial dioceses under its wings. And as is well established, there is no provision in the Constitution and Canons of TEC to allow a domestic diocese to become independent of this Church once it has entered into union with it. Even missionary and overseas dioceses of TEC can only become independent with the consent of the General Convention. And bishops cannot "resign" from the House of Bishops without the consent of that House. To think that a domestic diocese can simply, motu proprio secede from The Episcopal Church is an exercise in cowboy fantasy.

But then again, the whole thing is rather fantastic, isn't it?

Tobias Haller BSG

Reminder about the Communion

As the Duncanian coalition of former Episcopalians and never-were Episcopalians coalesces or congeals into form in a few weeks, they appear to remain hopeful that whatever they are will be recognized as a new Province of the Anglican Communion.

This is unlikely, for two reasons.

First, one would assume that to be a member of the Anglican Communion one needs to be in communion with the Church of England. That is determined, according to English Canon Law, jointly by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the two English Primates.

Second, to be listed on the schedule of Churches or Provinces that are part of the Anglican Consultative Council requires an affirmative vote of the Council and the assent of two-thirds of the Primates of the already existing member Churches or Provinces.

Both of these seem unlikely. In the first case, the Archbishop of Canterbury has already indicated his not wanting to depart from the long tradition of geographical integrity that has formed a part of Anglicanism since the Reformation. (See Article 37 of the Articles of Religion.) His personal "nightmare" as he mentioned in a speech some years ago, is having St Mary's Anglican Church across the street from St Joseph's Episcopal Church -- members of two different provinces of the Communion in the same location. (Previous rare exceptions on the basis of history, as in Europe, or because of cultural or linguistic differences, as in some Church of South India parishes functioning in the US, are anomalies -- and more important, are engaged in a cordial and mutual relationship; not the antipathy and lack of communion we are seeing develop with Duncan et alia.) Archbishop Rowan has to date steadfastly refused to recognize any of the extant bishops of this constellation, though he is of course quite willing to meet with them to talk. But it seems unlikely he will back a second province for disaffected Anglicans in North America.

Secondly, it is very unlikely two-thirds of the Primates would want to see such a development, as it would open the door for similar adventures in their own Provinces.

Of course, there will be a parcel of Primates who will go ahead and recognize the New Duncanian Thing, whatever the ACC or Canterbury and York say about it. There have long been signals from the Global Southerners that they think they can do without Canterbury, and they may soon have to see what that is like.

What such a blend of partial recognition (by some Primates but not enough to change the Constitution) and nonrecognition (of and by Canterbury) will lead to remains to be seen. My prognostication is a temporary division in the Anglican Communion As We Know It, as some, but not all, of the Globally Southern and Their Friends in Other Places create some boundaries between themselves and the rest of the Anglican Communion. Such a separation may not, in the long run, be a bad thing. One reality I've learned in parish life is that trying to keep unhappy people involved doesn't solve their unhappiness or promote the happiness and effectiveness of others.

Tobias Haller BSG

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

The Fog of Pittsburgh

Religious Intelligence has published an essay on the legal tangles around the move to recognize that Bishop Duncan of Pittsburgh has abandoned the communion of The Episcopal Church.

What a strange mixture of strained readings and false statements.

This is not a trial, nor even a hearing. It is a proceeding to determine if the certification of the Review Committee is to be sustained in light of Bishop Duncan's response to same. Bishop Duncan did receive timely notice of the January certification of the Review Committee, and issued his response in March. His shock that he's only received five days notice (for a meeting he says he plans not to attend anyway) sounds as believable as that of Captain Renault on finding gambling at Rick's.

His written response, taken in conjunction with his much more important statements and actions towards "realignment" have made it very clear that he does not deny there is -- in his mind -- a two-church situation at play, and that he is making his choice not to be in communion with The Episcopal Church (the one with General Convention), regardless of any actions taken by his diocese -- which he has urged to follow the course of realignment. I have long maintained that this urging in itself is actionable -- it is a form of incitement or conspiracy -- and that the action of the diocese is not determinative of the guilt of the bishop.

For Duncan has urged "realignment" publicly and unapologetically. He no longer wishes to be part of The Episcopal Church whose House of Bishops will soon be meeting, though he recognizes it has the authority to discipline him. He has played the word game that he and those who believe what he believes represent the "real" Episcopal Church -- on his tendentious reading of the Preamble to the Constitution of TEC (though his hopes that TEC would lose its status of being in communion with Canterbury fell flat; he has rather painted himself into a corner in this regard.) Duncan had a chance to back down from his course of throwing in his lot with Common Cause against and opposed to the "course" of The Episcopal Church, and he refused to take it. He is for realignment -- which in this case is just another word for abandonment of communion with one Church in order to join another, in this case assembled from the fragments of several dozen churchlets also not in communion with The Episcopal Church. To suggest this is not schismatic involves a distorted view of the nature of schism.

Back to the Intelligence article: There is no need for this consideration to be "on the agenda" of the House of Bishops' meeting, as the Canons say the PB is to place the matter before the next regular or special meeting of the House after the two-month period for response or retraction. (The red herring of the sessions at Lambeth is typical obfuscation -- those were not meetings of the House of Bishops, but provincial gatherings of those bishops who happened to be present at Lambeth.)

Duncan's choice to stay away from what his coterie characterize as a "trial" would simply be contumacy if it really were a trial. If he wants to assure the House of his bona fide he should show up and recant his program of realignment. In this case it is Duncan who is "steeped in so far" that turning back is difficult. But it is still a lively option.

Further, citing Robert's Rules is in vain as the Canons and the Rules of Order of the HB cover this situation without any need to appeal to the stopgap of Robert's. (RRoO is only called upon to address matters not dealt with.)

Moreover it takes a two-thirds majority (not a simple majority as the article states) to overrule the chair's decision on a point of order on appeal, according to rule XV of the House of Bishops.

For those who want to judge for themselves if Duncan's response to the certification of abandonment was adequate, I copy it out below. This was posted originally in mid-March. While he acknowledges himself to be "subject" to the discipline of this Church, he in no way indicates any sympathy with it, but rather his opposition to it. Which would be fine if he stopped short of realignment -- about which his "response" says nothing. His actions speak much louder than his words in this regard. If this was intended as a good faith retraction, it fails miserably.

Tobias Haller BSG

Duncan's Response:

Dear Katharine,

In response to the request set forth in your letter of January 15th (which enclosed the certification of the Title IV Review Committee), I state that I consider myself "fully subject to the doctrine, discipline and worship of this Church."

In particular:

1. I have striven to follow the Lord Jesus with all my heart and mind and soul and strength, all the while relying on God's grace to accomplish what my sinfulness and brokenness otherwise prevent.

2. I have kept my ordination vows – all of them – to the best of my ability, including the vow I made on 28 October 1972 to "banish and drive away all strange and erroneous doctrines contrary to God's Word."

3. I have preached and taught nothing but what faithful Anglicans and mainstream Christians have always preached and taught, with the exception only that I have supported and encouraged the ministry of women in Holy Orders.

4. I have been present to all but two meetings of the House of Bishops (out of twenty-four) during the last 12 years. In those meetings I have clearly and openly opposed the theological and moral drift of the Episcopal Church, often in the face of great hostility and sadly, at times, derision.

5. I have made no submission to any other authority or jurisdiction.

6. I have gathered Anglican fragments together from one hundred and thirty-five years of Episcopal Church division, vastly increasing understanding and cooperation, though preserving the jurisdictional independence of all.

7. I have, with the clergy, people and para-church organizations of my diocese, built missionary relationships all over the world, fielding both missionaries and resources on five continents.

8. I have faithfully served and shepherded the clergy and people of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh through what has, by God's grace, been one of its greatest periods of extension and blessing. My intention is to continue in this call for what remains of my active ministry.

Faithfully in Christ,
The Rt. Rev. Robert Wm. Duncan
Bishop

William Reed Huntington

Today is the transferred feast of William Reed Huntington, the 99th anniversary of his death. He was renowned for a number of his writings and his patience as a pastor and teacher. Perhaps best known as the creator of the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, he was an optimist about the possibilities of the church holding varying views together in dynamic tension. I don't know what he would say about our present state of affairs, other than to deplore the divisions and to appeal for unity in spite of differences of opinion. Here is a brief passage from his 1891 book, Popular Misconceptions of the Episcopal Church, from the chapter, "That it is a house divided against itself..."

The great need of American Christianity is unification. The civil system of the country has been so knit together that we are able proudly to declare it "an indestructible Union of the indestructible States." Our commercial system also has become so completely welded, part with part, as to defy breakage. It is in the ecclesiastical system alone that we note the mortifying lines of fracture. One people as respects the administration of law, one people as respects the transaction of business, we are still many peoples as respects the endeavor to win supremacy for the faith of Christ. In religion, disintegration is our curse.

The new consciousness beginning to dawn in the heart and mind of the Episcopal Church is the consciousness of a special call to play an intercessory and mediatorial part in the needed work of a general reconciliation. What makes it possible for an Episcopalian to take this line of remark, without subjecting himself to any just charge of arrogance, is the fact that he bases his peace-making effort wholly upon historical, and not at all upon personal grounds. He does not say, "Trust us as reconcilers because our ecclesiastics are so much more astute, our theologians so much more profound, and our communicant members so much more devout, than yours." He simply says: "Look at the history of Anglican religion, as a history, and judge for yourselves whether it do not give evidence of a greater power of inclusiveness, a more promising facility at comprehending a large variety of types, both of character and of action, than any rival system..."
. . . . .
The unity of which American Christians are in search is a "live and let live" unity. They perceive that the shutting-out policy is what has brought us to our present broken estate. What they are reaching after is the Church that shall be intolerant of these two things, and of only these two things — first, wickedness; secondly, the denial of what is confessedly central to the faith. Purity of character, as estimated by the ethical standards of the New Testament; purity of belief, as tested by the primitive Creeds — these are the only points upon which a united American Church would find it needful to insist.

But the overtures ventured by the Episcopal Church in the matter of unity are met with merciless ridicule, on the ground that the theological divergences and party differences within its own borders are so marked as to have become notorious. "Physician, heal thyself!" Is the not unnatural rejoinder of those to whom Churchmen address their affectionate invitations to reunion.

I propose to meet this rejoinder by taking the ground that it is the existence of these very divergences alleged, and the continuance of their existence within the Anglican Communion, that gives to that communion its best right to make a plea it does....

I hope at some point to post the entire essay. For now, especially in light of the Lambeth Conference now in session, this should provide us enough food for thought.

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.

Between Rochester and a Hard Place

Bishop Nazir-Ali of Rochester is reported as repeating his reading of the Windsor Report, that those bishops who disagree with (and have acted in opposition to) the decisions of Lambeth 1998 should absent themselves from Lambeth 2008. Whether or not this is an accurate understanding of the Windsor Report’s recommendation that bishops in this category should refrain from “representative functions” in the Anglican Communion is a matter of separate debate on a number of grounds, from the “authority” of the Windsor Report itself to the question of whether Lambeth is a “representative” body or a conference of bishops.

My chief concern here is the extent to which Bishop Nazir-Ali’s reading makes sense in the context of a more important document, the Gospel, and in the more prosaic context of how people get along in dealing with disagreement in a day-to-day world of varying contexts, points of view, perspectives, and — yes — beliefs.

It seems to me that the Rochester Position assumes that the majority is always right; and by exiling those who disagree with or act in opposition to the majority, effectively puts an end to the dialogue which has not only been called for, but which represents the only real possibility for engagement and change, if either the majority or the minority is in error.

The ministry of prophet often consists primarily in being a round peg in a square hole — whether the pigeonhole of irrelevancy in which dissenting voices are often placed, or the literal cistern into which the unwanted Jeremiah is often deposited. Nazir-Ali of Rochester is taking the role of Amaziah of Bethel, who told Amos to keep away from the temple and the court, to take his unwanted prophecies and shove them. Amos, of course, humbly deferred the title, though he believed in the work and the words, and did his duty.

On that more prosaic level, banning the opposition from the assembly may buy peace, or the appearance of peace. But Jesus did not promise such peace, the peace which comes from attrition rather than the hard work of engagement with those with whom we most ardently disagree.

At the same time, I recognize that Rochester himself has stated he will not go to Lambeth, even though he represents what his colleagues continue to assert is the majority opinion. As his confrere of Abuja is fond of saying, “Can two walk together unless they agree?” This is, of course, more from Amos (3:3) — though unfortunately in the flawed KJV. For the real significance of the text isn’t about “agreement” over the content of belief, but as to the meeting itself, that is, “Can two walk together unless they meet first?” So the issue is, once again, the importance of meeting, not of withholding one’s presence from a meeting — and certainly not demanding that all agree before they can assemble to come to some agreement — and then walk together.

As to the Gospel, it is in how we relate to those with whom we disagree that we reveal our likeness to Christ, who came to us and was among us while we were yet sinners, who was in fact most commonly found meeting with the sinners as opposed to the righteous. The “mind of Christ” which we are called to have in and among ourselves was the mind that brought him to us empty of glory, in order to save. Christ himself did not delay his coming to us until we were suitably redeemed: the whole point of his coming among us, while we were at odds with God, was to bring us what we lacked — unity in him, and forgiveness. It is not the healthy that need a physician, nor is it the unanimous who require a meeting.

Tobias Haller BSG

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