Thought for 09.28.09

Fruits and Consequences

There was an interesting short news story on NPR this morning concerning the drying-up of the Mesopotamian paradise long thought to be the historic background to the Garden of Eden. And it got me thinking whether the tale in Genesis 3-4 doesn't preserve an authentic memory — not of a change in location, but of climate.

Moreover, it strikes me that even if human interaction with the Garden didn't lead to its drying-up — though perhaps there is a hint in Cain's metier as a "tiller of the ground" and the movement from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist linked with the end of Eden — it strikes me that in our contemporary situation it is precisely our recent treatment of our "island home" that is rendering our being kicked off the island all the more likely.

We have plucked many fruits from the soil of this world, and may within the next century reap the harvest due to those who slash and burn. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, fruit for fruit, and "fire next time" in a slow bake, and hunger sore. Thus famine follows intemperate feast.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

The Upside-downity of Subsidiarity

I've been thinking more about the proposed Covenant and Archbishop Rowan's post-GC Reflections these last few days, including some helpful conversation in London, both with friends and in connection with other programs. I have also found Savi Hensman's essay to be of great help in providing some further digestive enzymes to break down the harder-to-swallow portions. I promise to offer some additional thoughts on the Covenant and the Archbishop's Reflections anon, but wanted to note a shift in direction within the Virginia Report and further movement in the Windsor Report which is, I think, to some extent diagnostic (if not prognostic) about less than helpful trends. It has to do with a shift in the understanding of subsidiarity.

The Virginia Report (4.8 ) helpfully quotes the Oxford English Dictionary for its definition of subsidiarity:

The principle of "subsidiarily" has been formulated to express this investment in the local and face-to-face. Properly used, subsidiarily means that "a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level."

and goes on to say (4.9):

Subsidiarity may properly be applied to the life of the Church in order to resist the temptation of centralism.

However, a bit further along the drift towards that very centralization begins to scrape bottom, including the introduction of vertical rather than horizontal language (albeit in scare-quotes):

4.10 ...Every "higher" authority ought to encourage the free use of God's gifts at "lower" levels. There must be clarity on what has to be observed and carried out at that level, and also on the limits of its competence. As much space as possible should be given to personal initiative and responsibility. For example, in the relationship between a bishop and a parish priest and congregation, there is initially a giving of responsibility to the latter for the task of worship, witness and service within its geographical boundaries or area of immediate influence. The priest and parish will be given a set of tasks which they are obliged to fulfil. These will be few in number and general in character The limits of their authority and responsibility will also be explained to priest and parish. These will essentially reflect agreements made previously by church synods, and expressed in canons and other ways. They will be honoured by all unless and until they are changed by the due processes of agreement. Subject to such boundaries the priest and parish will be encouraged to use all their gifts, energy and commitment to enable the gospel to go forward in that area. The bishop and parish priest will maintain the highest level of communication possible so that encouragement, advice, and, where necessary, correction can be given, together with new task as occasion arises.

4.11 Anglicans may properly claim that the observation of different levels and the granting of considerable freedom to the lowest possible level has been a feature of their polity. In Anglicanism today canonically binding decisions can only be made at the level of a Province or in some Provinces at the level of a diocese.

You will notice that the text I have italicized in section 4.11 has already inverted understanding of "subsidarily" from the assignment of broader duties to a more central authority into the grant of freedom to a lower level.

By the time we get to Windsor, even this dim memory has faded, and subsidiarity is essentially trivialized, and described as only concerning matters literally of no importance.

38 This highlights a fourth key strand of our common life: subsidiarity, the principle that matters should be decided as close to the local level as possible. Subsidiarity and adiaphora belong together: the more something is regarded as 'indifferent', the more locally the decision can be made. It does not take an Ecumenical Council to decide what colour flowers might be displayed in church; nor does a local congregation presume to add or subtract clauses from the Nicene Creed. In part this belongs with the missionary imperative: the church must give its primary energy to God's mission to the world, not to reordering its internal life.

39 The fourth reason for our present problems is thus that it was assumed by the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Diocese of New Westminster that they were free to take decisions on matters which many in the rest of the Communion believe can and should be decided only at the Communion-wide level.

And so it is that this notion, originally about the bottom-up nature of governance, which refers by a natural process broader functions to a more centrally coordinated authority, has become the classical pyramid of top-down government.

Yet surely it can be shown, as I have stated time and again, that the actions of New Westminster and TEC were precisely consonant with the original meaning of subsidiarity. To use the language of WR39, their assumptions were precisely correct, and the false assumption was that of those who felt such matters could only be decided at the Communion-wide level. However, as the Virginia Report notes, "In Anglicanism today canonically binding decisions can only be made at the level of a Province." There is no Communion-wide canonical procedure for the approval of the election of bishops, for example, and no bishop has any authority outside his or her own province -- that is, the province that, through its appropriate canonical processes (the only such processes that exist, approved his or her ordination. The office of bishop is precisely the locus of a subsidiary function. Until an Anglican Congress or Council is established, bishops of the whole Communion have been given no authority to legislate for the whole Communion. They have not yet been granted that subsidiary authority, to do what cannot be done more effectively at a local level, where, if a Province doesn't want to have a partnered gay bishop, it need not do so -- nor allow such a one to function within its borders.

I will not comment at length on the topic of same-sex marriage, since it is of even less necessary impact beyond those places where it may take place. No one is forcing any other province to do what it doesn't want to do. In the long run, either the individual Provinces have certain liberties in matters of rites and ceremonies -- an explicitly Anglican declaration of subsidiarity and provincial liberty from the very beginning -- or they don't.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Further thoughts on Grace

A previous short note on this subject generated a good bit of discussion. I asserted that the catch-phrase "cheap grace" is one of those handy terms that is misleading: grace is always free -- not cheap which implies some bargain-rate cost -- it is a gift, as Paul affirms: if it cost us something it wouldn't be a gift. (It cost the one who gave it everything.) The proper "cost" to us lies in discipleship, which is subsequent to the acceptance of the gift. Perhaps the free gift of grace might be thought of as something like the gift of a craft-kit, a knitting or embroidery project complete with yarn, or thread and canvas, together with a pattern in a neat plastic bag. Work will be required to follow that pattern to produce the final objective, ultimately both a gift from another and the work of one's own hands. Thus, as Paul says, we are saved by grace but also work out our own salvation -- even as we know that it is really God at work in us to empower us to action. (Phil 2:12-13)

Today's morning office reading from 2 Kings seems to me to be a short summary of the personality types who variously fall along the grace / works spectrum. Naaman clearly expects that he will be asked to do something extraordinary both to obtain healing (= salvation) and to give thanks for it. The true prophet demands only the simplest of tasks, and asks no thanks -- and Naaman accepts after a brief protestation on both counts. He represents, I suppose, the normal human who knows -- or thinks -- that important things are costly, but is willing to accept correction, and continues to give thanks and ask forgiveness for any subsequent missteps.

Then there's Gehazi. I can't help but see in him a kind of parsimony as to God's grace; that it really should be more costly. And so, on his own initiative he sets out to wring some profit from the man from whom the true prophet asked none. The ultimate irony is that the ailment of Naaman then falls upon him.

This suddenly reminds me of the themes in Cocteau's La belle et la bête: the cost of the plucked rose, the tedious and irksome discipleship of the magical kingdom where one is waited on hand and foot, La Bête's desire only for freely given love that would transform him -- even as he tries to purchase it with jewels and finery (all rubbish when compared to the surpassing freedom he desires), and the interchange that transforms greedy Avenant into a beast slain by Diana as he assumes the beast's likeness.

Clearly there is a deep taproot of mythic and authentic truth at work in this interplay between freedom and service -- salvation and ministry. May we rejoice always in our salvation, and work with willing hands and hearts to do God's will, as servants and disciples who do not tally cost, but serve as freely as the gift is given, whereby we are empowered to serve.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Saint Matthew the Accountant...

...renders his account.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

In London

Arrived in London yesterday in the wee hours, and spent the day walking about the city, and growing accustomed to the Underground. Midday had a fine walk from Charing Cross up the Strand and across Waterloo Bridge, from which the snap above "Time Pieces" was taken, and then on to lunch with Giles Goddard and Simon Sarmiento. This morning, said Morning Prayer in the Chapel at St Andrew's, on this the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Brotherhood of Saint Gregory. At breakfast sampled the fabled Marmite, but also some fine English marmalade. Hope to head off to see the Tate Britain, though the Turner exhibit is not yet open, and much of what I would have liked to have seen will be by this time likely moved into that installation. Still, no doubt there will be Constable, Blake, and others. On this my first trip to England I can attest that the sky looks just as Constable, Turner, and others, have shown it to be.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

September Midday Mass

The tall old priest entered the half-lit sacristy,
fresh from his usual Tuesday morning studies.
The fair-haired acolyte with the bad complexion
was ready, vested, standing in the dimness
quietly. The old priest noticed he was sniffing
and his eyes were red. A failed romance,
he thought; but keeping his own rule on chit-chat
in the sacristy, vested silently.
The old familiar motions and the prayers
displaced whatever thoughts he might have had;
the only dialogue to break the stillness was
the rote exchange of formal preparation.

Then, in one motion as he slipped his hand
beneath the pale green veil, the other hand
upon the burse, he lifted vested vessels,
turned and followed in the sniffing server’s
wake. Eyes lowered to the holy burden
in his hand, he failed to notice that
the chapel for this midday feria —
on other days like this with one or two
at most — was full of worshippers; until
he raised his eyes, and saw the pews were filled —
but undeterred began the liturgy:
the lessons and the gospel from last Sunday,
his sermon brief, but pointed, on the texts.

It wasn’t till the acolyte began
the people’s prayers, and choked out words of planes
that brought a city’s towers down, and crashed
into the Pentagon, and plowed a field
in Pennsylvania, that the old priest knew
this was no ordinary Tuesday in
September —
not ordinary time at all,
that day he missed the towers’ fall.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

first posted on March 8, 2008

The Heterosectual Communion

The soi-disant Anglican Communion Institute has a knack for inverting the old Latin tag, "the mountains labored and bore a mouse." In this case the gang of three, augmented by an attorney and a bishop, have given birth to a mountain of verbiage which in the long run, fundamentally flawed as it is, amounts to less than a mole-hill.

The attorney in question, Mr. McCall, of whose eccentric writings I have commented elsewhere, is apparently retired from the field of international law, in which, one hopes, he had some skill in practice. Unfortunately, as the old saying goes, when your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail, and so this paper applies the international law definition of the word autonomy to the very different ecclesiastical context, in which it has an almost antithetical meaning, and the more basic one, "self-governing." The notion of comparing the autonomy of a member church of the Anglican Communion (there being no superior synod as of yet) to an autonomous indigenous people living within the borders of another superior state — well, that is not the closest parallel I think most Anglicans would light upon. But as I say, Mr. McCall has trod that path before, with that peculiar leapfrog of governance from diocese to communion without recognition of the provincial authority that is, in fact, at the head of the governing hierarchy.

The more serious problem with this paper is its failure to understand the essential premise under which the Anglican Communion is actually working — pace Bishop Wright's and Ephraim Radner's insistence otherwise. That they both have worked at the behest of the Archbishop of Canterbury does not necessarily indicate that they have fully grasped the intent of his program — which is unity in difference, not division because of it. It should be clear to anyone but the most heart-set on purity of doctrine that the Archbishop desperately wants to keep the Communion together, not preside over its division.

The purpose for drafting a Covenant is not to ensure that all who agree to it will think and act alike and so because of that uniformity of thinking and doing stay together . (If that were the purpose, it is doomed from the start.)

The purpose of the Covenant is to ensure that we will stay together precisely when we have differences — that we won't start flying apart the next time some contentious issue comes along, as no doubt it will. The Covenant is designed to deal with future disagreements, not to settle the differences of the past or present. (Some suggest that this cause is equally doomed from the start.)

But the bright light at the tunnel's end is not, I think, a train heading our way. I sense a greater willingness in the Communion to hang together, to accept some of the differences of the recent past and present as not "communion-breaking" and certainly not as rendering participation by the majority of the member churches — including TEC — impossible. This is why the folks at ACI expend such futile energy in painting a very different picture — a picture of an Anglican Communion no longer inclusive of TEC, or anyone else who thinks otherwise than they do on an assortment of topics.

Fortunately, the language of the Covenant is not about settling the controversies, but about living with them. It is about the manner of life to be followed by the Communion as a whole, its chosen lifestyle, if you will: shall it be one that embraces difference of opinion under a loving and overarching charity; or shall it give in to the old fissiparousness that has plagued Western Christendom from long before the Reformation?

In short, How best can the Many be One.

Paul the Apostle provided one answer: unity in Christ in which the various organs of the body retain their different gifts and functions, and yet are part of one body, under one Head, who is Christ, and in whom unity emerges not from uniformity, but through fellowship, a vibrant fellowship that relishes its own heterogeneity and delights in its manifold gifts.

The ACI provides the other sort of answer, the uniformity that seeks to place some other thing in God's place -- unity itself idolized into a Golden Calf, to which difference is sacrificed, beaten to a homogenized pulp.

Little ones, keep away from idols.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

God's Gift

Grace is not only cheap, but free. The price was paid by someone other than ourselves, who came to us while we were in the depths of sin, and forgave us when we didn't know what we were doing.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Thought for 9.01.09

I was reading an interesting essay by Michael Poon today, and it led me to think about what happens when we mistake our own particular cultural models for the gospel. It seems to me that one of the singular tragedies of the missionary endeavors of the 16th through the 19th century was their "marriage" of Christianity with European Culture. For Native Americans, Africans, and South Sea Islanders to become "Christian" seems to have had less to do with Christ and more with conformity to a European dress code. Not only did European missionaries destroy much in the way of local culture and art, but they mistook starched collars and trousers, corsets and long skirts for the Gospel. The long-range effects of such cultural bondage had a deleterious effect on the real Mission of the Gospel. Clothing became an idol for the missionaries, who equated nudity with sin. (Nudity no doubt raising specific temptations in Victorian minds — but what was the locus of the sin? Who was the sinner, the unselfconscious bare-breasted islander, or the scandalized missionary?)

I suppose the question has to be, "What is today's church's idol?" What cultural artifact or folkway is being insisted upon as vital to the Christian life, to the detriment of the church's mission? Where are lines being drawn? When we place any symbol -- however venerable -- on the throne that belongs to God alone, we transform it into an idol, and that is when we become idolaters.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Failing Solomon's Test

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

BSG Convocation 2009 and Ave Maria

Where I was last week...

The setting of Ave Maria is by Charles Rus, used with his permission.

Friends, Romans, and Pagans

Over at Hobdee again, I was challenged on my assertion that natural law arguments derived from pagan philosophy form the major part of the traditional case against same-sexuality. One need only look at Aquinas to see a typical example; while he of course mentions the Scripture to support his argument, his primary appeal is to natural law.

Such an appeal to pagan concepts of natural law as opposed to Scripture on this issue go back to St. Paul himself in Romans 1, in his only extended comment on male homosexual acts. (As those who have read my book will know, whether he is referring to female homosexual acts or not is an open question; it is as likely, and more consistent with the argument he is making, if the reference is to women who "exchanged the natural use" by allowing their husbands, as the rabbis would say, "to turn the table" and make use of "penetration by the other way" -- at least that is how Clement of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo understood Paul.)

Paul himself critiques all of this behavior on pagan grounds, concerned as he is in this chapter with the pagans to whom he refers: those having failed to perceive God who is evident in nature and are convicted on the basis of their own understanding of and failure to abide by "natural law" derived from Stoic philosophy.

Jewish biblical law, as I hope most of you know, does not forbid lesbianism, nor "turning the table" between husband and wife. So Paul's appeal here must be to an extra-biblical law, in order to frame a cogent argument — since he is speaking of those "outside the law [of Moses]." This is also why NT Wright and others who read Genesis into Romans 1 are mistaken — the Gentiles to whom Paul refers didn't know Genesis, but, as Paul argues, should have been able to see what was right from nature, to which they did have access. That's point one of Paul's thesis. He then, of course, goes on to point two: blast those who relied on the Law of Moses for salvation.

That is the whole object of Paul's case, after all, in Romans: Gentiles are not saved by following natural law, Jews are not saved by following the Law of Moses — because no one is perfect in following any law at all. Law cannot save. All are saved, Jew and Greek alike, not by their own conscientious following of any law, but by Jesus Christ, and him alone, by grace through faith.

That is Paul's Gospel.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Musings after Repose

Well, I’m back from Convocation, none the worse for the restful time, but facing all of the usual residua to which that meeting gives rise: photos, videos, minutes, reports, updates, usw.

Meanwhile, over at the Old HoBD Corral, I’ve been having a discussion on the Prevailing Issue, and why it (discussion) is so difficult. I’ve observed that many among the “Reasserter” side of things seem content to reassert what they believe to be the True Answer to the problem; and rarely seem willing to discuss the issue in anything approaching a rational argument, moving from agreed upon premises to conclusions in logical steps. As the name implies, they usually articulate a reassertion of the premise/conclusion in circular form. And that is a logical fallacy. (It may be true, but it is illogical).

If this leaves us at an impasse, it is because the reasserters are unwilling to “do the theology,” as they often accuse the progressive / reappraiser side of doing. In fact, what I’m suggesting is we all need to do some reappraising together. When folks simply forbid reappraisal, we end up with a situation such as that in the Roman Catholic Church, which in regard to the ordination of women has confessed that the theological rationale of previous years was insufficient, and recognized that the more recent theological arguments were tending towards dodgy ground; and so finally ruled, “End of discussion.”)

In our situation, I think it is more helpful to engage the issue, as indeed I have gone to pains to do in Reasonable and Holy: to look at the various tele* or goods of marriage, as variously defined in the tradition, to see if a same-sex couple is capable of achieving those ends or enjoying those goods. It is, it appears to me after my study, possible to answer that question in the affirmative.

It is also helpful to look at the larger question, “What is the telos of the human being?” — about which there is considerable consensus in the Christian tradition, from both sides of the Catholic/Protestant divide: to know, love, serve and glorify God and to enjoy him for ever. And we have been taught that we achieve or thwart that end in connection to how we treat other human beings, likewise made in the image of God. This is why the theology of the imago Dei, and the recent distortions in that theology (in an unwise attempt to frame a theological defense of traditional marriage) are so important.

Now, this is not to place all of the blame on one side. Much of the argument on both sides has consisted in people talking past each other, mouthing their conclusions and waving their catch-phrases as if they were self-evident truths. This is why I try to engage people in going back to the first principles upon which we actually agree and then working forward in stepwise fashion, to see where we might end up. This necessitates a willingness to adopt up front the Anglican doctrine of humility: that we have no doubt erred, and may well err again.

For some on both sides, as well, the topic is ended, the book closed, there is no further reason for discussion. In the face of that reality, there can be any amount of dust shaken from plenty of heels, a parting of the ways — or a willingness to agree to disagree. Many in the Anglican Communion seem willing to adopt that kind of “watchful waiting” approach; it seems to be the hope of the Archbishop of Canterbury (more on this later) and the sense of “moratoria” (instead of “prohibitions”). Still, even in holding out this possibility for change Canterbury and the communion moderates are offending both those who want to see the church adopt an amended view on The Subject, and those who see such an adoption, or even its entertainment, as departure from the faith once given.

One of my interlocutors at HoBD suggested I was unwilling to adopt “first principles” myself, but I suggested that what he was offering as premises looked like conclusions to me. I rejoined that to find common ground we must get behind those conclusions to find something more basic. He offered one such principle, upon which I can agree as a basis for discussion, a classical concept well in keeping with the style of first principles: “The scriptures are ‘God’s word written’ and therefore normative for matters of salvation and Christian life.”

Although this statement itself requires a good bit of unpacking (and I look to Richard Hooker for the classical version of that task) it is something I can and do fully accept and affirm. In similar language it forms part of the Lambeth unpacking of Chicago’s Quadrilateral.

Where he and I part company is not on this fundamental premise, but on the conclusions we draw from it. So examining the arguments by which we reach these conclusions, the logical steps and inferences (and the related and sometimes unstated premises upon which they rely), would be a helpful form of engagement. Of primary importance is getting those other unstated premises out on the table. Sometimes these unstated premises are seen to be self-evident, but my experience is that they form another part of the obstacle to clear thinking.

One of the things we clearly disagree about is not whether the Scripture is a “normative” (I prefer the old language of “sufficient”) guide to salvation and moral living, but whether Scripture actually addresses The Issue upon which we disagree: is same-sex marriage possible, and if so, is it moral?

These are not easy questions, and any argument from Scripture or Reason or Tradition is going to be complex, as there is no explicit prohibition (or approbation) of same-sex marriage in Scripture; Reason alone is unlikely to provide a clear answer acceptable to those who think Scripture is clear; and Tradition, while generally tending one way, is also mixed. This is why a glib conclusion, either way, while tempting, will not settle the argument.

I am content to continue the discussion. As a starter, I want to comment briefly on one of the unspoken corollary premises of the reasserter position: that Genesis offers us a “one size fits all” divine pattern for all human sexual relations.

I address this assertion at some length in R&H, as well as the discontinuities of this premise with significant aspects of the tradition, but I want to raise an additional question here, concerning taking Genesis as a template at all, that is, questioning the very premise. Why is Genesis seen as a template for all sexual relations but not for any or all other human activities? Why, for example, do we allow other forms of industry than agriculture? (Given that was Cain’s metier and industry was the invention of the offspring of Lamech’s polygamous unions.) Why do we allow women to use anaesthesia in childbirth? (Roundly opposed on biblical grounds in the Victorian era, until Victoria herself made use of it.) Why aren’t we all vegetarians? (Yes, I know God changed the rules in Genesis 9, but if we were so keen on living in accord with God’s original intent, vegetarianism is the most biblical answer.) More importantly, Why, if the subjection of women to their husbands is a result of the fall, has it taken the church so long to recognize women as restored to their antelapsarian state as equal collaborators?

These seem to be to be questions worthy of reflection in opposition to the view that the patterns laid out in Genesis are necessarily the only options available to the children of Adam and Eve, the children of God and siblings of Christ.

However, if there is no willingness to engage these questions, if we are simply at a standoff — none of us able to convince the other of the truth of our position, or even to discuss the matter with some degree of mutual care and willingness to perhaps change our minds — then our challenge is to see if we are able to live together in harmonious disagreement, and wait for time itself slowly to winnow truth. I am certainly willing to do so, as I think there are far more important matters facing us, about which we do have significant agreement, and our efforts and resources would be well spent in their pursuit. Such as the mission of the church to restore people to unity with each other and God in Christ.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

---

* A helpful correction from Bill Carroll

Thought for 08.07.09

Inside every institutionalist there is an insurrectionist trying to get out.


—Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Biblical Wedding Cake Ornaments

Suitable for use as a bookmark in any Bible.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Reading Rowan — Part the Second

I ended the first section of this reflection on the Archbishop of Canterbury with reference to Truth; and I would like to focus on that theme in his second section. I will do that by sharing with you some of what I said to the Archbishop at the meeting in Anaheim.

Being True to Oneself

I deferred a call to ordained ministry for a number of years in large part due to the “don’t ask/don’t tell” policy that was in place in the Diocese of New York. I felt I could not in good conscience function in such a regime — in part because of the value I place on openness, authenticity, and honesty in pastoral ministry — and I could not imagine ministering effectively under such circumstances. With a change in that policy by the newly elected bishop, and a change in attitude reflected in the House of Bishops itself at the 1991 General Convention, I knew that it was time to answer that call. Little did I know that I would end up serving in a congregation 90 percent of whose members are from parts of the Anglican Communion in which I would not be able to serve with such honesty. In part because I preach the gospel and treat my personal life as a fact on the ground, as I think any pastor should, allows most of the members of the congregation to do the same. They support me, and my partner of 29 years, in our ministry with them; and they treat him with respect they would any clergy spouse. The women of the parish make cakes for his birthday, and people always ask after him when he is away on business.

However, as with all ministry, this is not ultimately about me: it helps the gay and lesbian members of my parish to be themselves as well. They come from parts of the world where they could only do that literally at the risk of their lives and safety, and more importantly, might never cross the threshold of a church.

This is an important witness to the Gospel, in the ultimate rule and moral standard that Jesus gave us: to treat others as we would be treated, to love our neighbors as ourselves. And to do that, we must be ourselves, reveal ourselves. Being forced to live in the closet — or even choosing it as the easier way — is a fundamental violation of human dignity as well as an almost gnostic violation of the embodied truth of persons in their integrity and identity.

I am reminded that the motto of the Anglican Communion, in the words surrounding the Compass Rose: “The Truth Shall Make You Free.” One of the principles of Ubuntu, a concept which has occupied so much of our thinking and working at this session of General Convention, is that we cannot authentically be ourselves unless we are in relationship. My question is, How can we be in authentic relationships if we are not open and honest about ourselves from the outset? If we are all wearing masks, it is not a meeting of true self with true self, but a masquerade, a game of mask facing mask, reflected “in a glass darkly.” What would happen; what wave of opportunities for new ministry might break forth across the Anglican Communion if we were to take off our masks — all of us? What would happen if we were to be set free by truth for Truth? I am reminded of an eponymous line from CS Lewis’s great novel, “How can we truly know and love each other face-to-face, until we have faces?”

What is Truth?

That is what I said, more or less, to the Archbishop. And of course, any discussion of truth, either with or without a capital T, is bound to be dicey. Let me say, first of all, I reject relativism: that is, I think truth has to do with reality; though perceptions can and will differ, I think there is something that is perceived. I also accept that certain things I believe to be true cannot be proven but must be taken on faith — such as that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. I believe other truths can be demonstrated: such as that committed, life-long, monogamous same-sex relationships are not only not sinful, but capable of showing forth the grace and love of God.

While expounding the truth, or what one believes to be true, can certainly lead to division, I also believe — and this is where I differ most sharply with the Archbishop — that it is expounding the truth that leads to unity rather than being in unity leading to truth. Let me be more precise (which may also serve to lessen the gap between me and the Archbishop somewhat) — it is first of all a question of knowledge, of what we believe to be true; in short, an epistemological question. How do I know anything at all, let alone whether it is true or not? Relationship is clearly an important aspect of knowledge — I learn from others, both human others and “the other” in the form of the sensible world, as well as the ultimate Other, God, through God’s self-communication in revelation and most particularly in the person of Christ. And I refine my knowledge (that is, I learn) in communication with those others, in listening to those others, and come to know what I believe to be true in that forum and interchange and relationship. And out of this there grows a form of dynamic community. This is how truth both leads to and fosters community, truth-speaking in dialogue and listening leading to understanding, and community (as opposed to division) fostering that conversation. As Paul said to the Ephesians, “So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.” One’s truth can only be heard if there are those willing to listen. Uncertain trumpets and ears not geared to hear are equally obstacles to the task of evangelism: a task which reveals the need to speak as well as to listen, and which itself testifies to the fact that, “All have not heard,” and that the Truth must be communicated and spread. The church as a whole and in its members is, after all, “called” — it is assembled by the proclamation, and then gives rise to yet more proclamation, in the sending forth to spread the Evangelical Truth.

It seems to me that the Archbishop may be calling “unity” what I am calling relationship or community. But he appears to me to have a more limited notion of the institutional forms in which such unity might be incarnated. He wants a tighter and more regulated union as opposed to what he dismisses as a federation — and yet it seems to me that federations work very well, or at least as well as more tightly unitary entities. Benedictines and Franciscans both have a lively sense of identity and community, incarnated in very different structures. And I cannot help but note that given the Anglican Benedictine heritage, it might be good to remember the essentially autonomous nature of each abbey — living a common rule but individually governed, with only a superficial ecclesiastical structure at a higher level of management, an arch-abbot whose primary task is to check in once and a while at each abbey to see how well they are following the Rule they hold in common, but exercise as individual foundations. Sounds like the Anglican Communion to me!

My concern about “unity giving rise to truth” lies in awareness of how central control can quash the very sensibility, adaptation to local circumstance, and experimentation through which truth is often perceived, expressed, and more widely received. Monolithic entities — especially when they think they already have the truth or even are infallible — tend not to be open to correction, reform or development; they often do not listen to the corrective warnings of the child who sees the naked emperor. It is very easy for unity and unanimity to lead to self-deception; even to conspiracy and repression of the truth. Sanhedrins often are not good at accepting input, even from some of their own number.

The Elephant in the Room

Let me take up for a moment the old parable of the blind men and the elephant. In their touching and feeling they think they are engaged with different things rather than one elephantine entity: a rope, a tree, a pipe, a wall, a fan. If they remain out of communication with each other they will of course continue in this misunderstanding. But they do not need to form a “union” or “unity” in order to come to a better mind — they need communion or community: in short, to communicate with each other, and the precise form of that communication — federal, synodical, or monarchial, is irrelevant. In the world of modern networking, a distributed and open communication system may be preferred over a central administration.

Of course, they must also have some prior concept of “elephanticity,” even if it is a vague or second-hand report of heffalumps or oliphants. Thus they build not only on their individual experiences but on their own past knowledge, gained from community, of an idea of an elephant. Had they no knowledge of an elephant, who knows what strange joint vision they might construct, without any relation to the reality of which they each had only partial experience.

But, and here I may be treading over into paradox and an Anglican koan — what if it is the elephant who is blind? What if it is the elephant who has no ability to form a concept of itself? How do you tell an elephant it is an elephant? How can the elephant know the truth of its own elephant-self without the help of those blind but sensitive witnesses whose limited knowledge can only be perfected in communion, yet without which communion cannot come to be. Mustn’t the elephant construct a self-identity as a unitary entity from the evidence of the individuals reporting on its aspects? It seems to me that the Anglican Communion — indeed the whole church — is best approached as an entity that has no understanding of itself apart from the understanding of its individual members, who jointly seek understanding: truth communicated leading to unity.

To use another analogy: Consciousness itself emerges from the bicameral nature of the brain: our brain is not a unitary entity, but a consortium of independent clusters of activity, cooperating with each other to give rise to self-awareness. The church is a body with many members, contributing different faculties to the whole in organs of sense and motion.

E Pluribus Unum

It is obvious that the church does not simply spring into existence fully formed. The One is formed by the community of the Many. It grows by the addition of new members. It is, as we ourselves are, woven in secret, knit together from various components with which it is equipped, to come together and grow together in Love. Perhaps the Anglican Communion needs a refresher course in Ephesians, to understand how telling the truth can lead to unity and communion, while duplicity (the dual-minded opposite of community) can produce only an appearance of unity, the masquerade of which I spoke, a false-front facade of an edifice that is empty at its heart, a Temple forsaken by the Spirit who does not simply bestow all truth, but who leads us into it.

This is why the so-called Listening Process is so important: and it reveals, to some extent, Rowan Williams’ own trust in an emergent unity — that is, if unity were necessary for dialogue, why treat dialogue and listening as a means to encouraging unity? This gives me hope that in the actual working out of things it may be that the Archbishop is an idealist and the Vicar is a realist, but we are both dealing with the same entity under it all. That is, we are looking at the same church from two different angles; and both of us are committed to the Listening Process as a means to a better end.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Reading Rowan — Part the First

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

The Tragic View of Life

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

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

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

A Scholar’s Way

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

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

A Truth Teller

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

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

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Huntington’s Way

Today is the centenary of William Reed Huntington. The Anglican Communion might well take a leaf from his book — or any of his books — in order to address its present squabbles. Huntington was as interested in consensus as any of us today, but he realized that we are very unlikely to achieve consensus on everything. Instead he set apart four basic points of reference for unity: the four points that go to make up the well-known Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral.

The chief dilemma facing the Anglican Communion today is our lack of common mind on certain questions of sexuality. In spite of the assertions that Lambeth 1.10 represented a consensus or a common mind, both the intensity of the debate and the politics surrounding its adoption, as well as the significantly divided vote, indicate at most a majority view not a consensus; and had the resolution been divided and voted on clause by clause, I am convinced that the vote on certain of them would have been even closer. Had it not been for the countervailing weight provided by the promise of "listening," I have no doubt that some who ended up voting for the resolution would have opposed it. We are now 10 years on and I do not believe the same resolution would have been adopted by as wide a margin.

So our present divisions come from moving beyond the issues upon which we do have consensus by raising particular items of pastoral theology to the level of dogmatic theology. And, for those who have raised the issue, it isn't about Scripture (one of Huntington's four points) or even primarily the authority of Scripture, but the interpretation of Scripture, and the weight the church chooses to give to those interpretations (which is really what authority means as a fact on the ground.)

Ultimately it comes down to the principles around which consensus will be centered. It is always "consensus on or about what?" Approximately half of the Anglican Communion does not see the sexuality issue as Communion-dividing, even among some who do not agree on a progressive trend on that topic. The other half do see this as worth dividing over --- some more permanently than others.

So there is no consensus even on whether this is a matter over which we must divide.

Can we maintain some form of Communion in spite of that lack of consensus on these particular issues? Do we even have a consensus that an Anglican Communion (as it has long been understood — a fellowship of autonomous provinces or churches in communion with the see of Canterbury) ought to continue? Those who think we can't or shouldn't, won't. Those who are willing to accommodate each other will.

The question — as with marriage — isn't, how do you hold together when you agree? It is, how do you remain together when you don't agree? Those who think, misunderstanding Amos, that you cannot remain together unless you agree (KJV; Hebr: make an appointment), appear to be making their choice to walk apart. They do not want to remain together "for better, for worse" but only when all agree with them on all on which they alone deem agreement to be vital.

The Communion and the church cannot long survive such self-fulfilling prophets. Only those committed to each other with a depth of toleration and charity — in spite of disagreements — will form the basis of the future Anglican Communion.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Reading Rowan's Mind

The Pluralist (Adrian Worsfold) has composed a stunning and biting satire of Archbishop Rowan Williams which I commend to your attention. It seems to me to be a particularly vivid portrayal of the divided mind of a Primate. It even touches, in an uncannily accurate way, on some of the conversation a handful of GC Deputies had with the Archbishop on the patio in Anaheim. So accurately, in fact, that I need not here recount further details of that conversation.

However, I want to respond to a public comment the Archbishop made at the beginning of his sermon at the daily Convention Eucharist, in what he himself alluded to as speaking "simply and directly." He said that said he hoped the Convention would do nothing that might "push us further apart." He also observed, in something that seemed innocent at the time, but took on a more sinister connotation as time went on, that "if we felt we could do perfectly well without you, there wouldn't be a problem." Hmmm...

But back to the "pushing." I hope that the Archbishop would grant that reacting and being pushed are not necessarily the same thing, and that people ought to take some responsibility for their own reactions to other folks' actions, Newton's Third Law notwithstanding. The church as a whole, and the various local churches of which it is constituted are not mere passive subjects of external action, but entities with their own energetic concerns and capabilities.

Being offended and taking offense are subtly different things. John's choice to eat asparagus may offend Jane who despises the vegetable, even though she is not forced to eat it. But she has a choice and responsibility as to how she reacts: She can simply tolerate the presence of the disliked stalks, or stalk from the room in an irritable hissy fit. But which is more Anglican? Whatever, after all, has happened to the good old English custom of ignoring unpleasant realities. Many things, if left alone, will work themselves out in time. And even if they don't, the Anglican talent for simultaneously believing two impossibly contradictory things (about the Eucharist) before breakfast, is as true for Queen Elizabeth's settlement as that of the Red Queen of Looking Glass Land.

As I have said before, it seems to me the greatest damage done to the Anglican Communion, beginning with Lambeth 1.10, was the reaction to rather modest liberalizing trends in the "Global North" and parts of the Global South (such as S Africa), which need have had no effect outside those limited spheres. The silly talk of "unilateral action" or comparisons to the invasion of Iraq indicate a level of fantastic paranoia, as if, to quote Monty Python, huge soiled budgies are going to come flocking out of people's loos and interfere with their privacy. For "budgies" read "gay bishops" and for "loos" read "dioceses." Any diocese that doesn't want a gay bishop functioning within its bounds need neither elect nor license one. The old rules that limit bishops in that way are a long-standing part of our catholic ecclesiology and there is no need for special sanctions or prohibitions.

At the meeting on the patio, I did manage to present Rowan with a copy of my book. He said he would read it, but I don't know if reading it will be of much help — apart from its appeal for peace and toleration. Rowan's problem is not with the theology of sexuality or blessing or orders, but with the institutional structure of the church, and the question of how its unity is to be constituted, guarded, and maintained. We Americans have been pushing our answer: the dignity of every human being through the Baptismal Covenant; while Rowan has been pressing for the more ecclesiastical Anglican Covenant.

Need I point out that the former reflects a truly catholic consensus, while the latter may simply be a road to the creation of a new confessional sect.

Such are my ruminations on this afternoon, sparked by Adrian's insightful parody. Blame him if you must.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

Only in New York

I was on my way to visit a parishioner in the hospital this afternoon, and as I approached the building, an Einstein Hospital van, used to transport staff from one of the scattered buildings on the campus (and across the Bronx) to another, pulled up. The doors slid open and two doctors in white coats stepped out. Both had intent, stern, New York doctor expressions, and hurried intently on their different ways. The first was carrying one of those "Human Organ" transport cases by the handle. The other cradled, between his vertically positioned hands, a clear plastic deli container with a large slice of cheesecake.

Only in New York.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG