Mary Douglas Glasspool has just been nominated as suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles. There will be a whirlpool about this nomination, both now, during the process of confirmation, and later, since, whether confirmed or not there will be controversy! Why? Mary is a same sex partnered woman. A report is http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_117538_ENG_HTM.htm.
Kendall Harmon has commented:
"This decision represents an intransigent embrace of a pattern of life Christians throughout history and the world have rejected as against biblical teaching. It will add further to the Episcopal Church's incoherent witness and chaotic common life, and it will continue to do damage to the Anglican Communion and her relationship with our ecumenical partners."
There are in fact some good things about this decision (assuming, for a moment, that confirmation will be granted). One good thing is that it gives a definitive interpretation on the mind of TEC as expressed at its recent General Convention: this church is not for turning from its resolve to admit no discrimination on any grounds between people inclined heterosexually and people inclined homosexually. Another good thing is that it invites the Communion to carefully consider that Gene Robinson's role as Bishop of New Hampshire within TEC is neither an aberration nor a temporary phenomenon (as in, with enough pressure he could be forced out). Partnered gay and lesbian bishops are here to stay.
The quick response (I guess) is: "Excommunicate TEC. Yesterday. Act quickly, ++Rowan." But there is another response; to think more slowly about whether we might be a Communion in which we have differing standards around clergy and singleness or marriage. This is a scary path because it means attempting to be a Communion united in a determination not to let difference over human dignity divide us. Why might we do this? Here are two reasons.
One, the people we are tempted to divide over are human beings. We may disagree furiously with their choices (e.g. to be in partnership, to offer for episcopacy). We may be aghast at the failure to secure agreement within the Communion on these matters. But that is part of being human: to not agree on all things. Do we walk away or keep talking, respecting who we are in the Lord?
Two, a formal schism in the Anglican Communion changes absolutely nothing about the fact that a bunch of people in the world's eyes call themselves Anglicans (or Episcopalians) and have a significant disagreement. It cuts no ice in mission to say, "We are the Anglicans without error. They are the Anglicans with error."
But this is not to imply that I think Los Angeles has been helpful to the Anglican Communion. It has not, for it is has placed local interest ahead of the global health of the Communion, as More than a Via Media points out. The goodness I see here is the goodness of clarity, not the goodness of shared conviction. The situation is not without possibility for remedial work on how we cope with it; but that is harder work than the situation where we walk together at the pace of the slowest members of the walking group.
Well, nothing said here will stop the whirlpool!
26 comments:
"But there is another response; to think more slowly about whether we might be a Communion in which we have differing standards around clergy and singleness or marriage."
Why stop there? Why these hang ups aboput sex? Why not have different views on the Trinity, the Incarantion, salvation, the uniqueness of Christ, etc etc? These abound in Tec!
Peter, the game is up. Obesa cantavit.
Hi Anonymous
"Obesa cantavit"?
The game may be up; and it would be particularly so because of the greater issues you mention: the differences re Trinity, the Incarnation etc. But, and you may call me naive, TEC has been notoriously difficult to pin down on these matters as an 'actual school of heresy'.
Should the Communion institute a commission of inquiry into the life, times, and theologies of TEC?
PS Anonymous
Am off to a conference for a day or three ... may not be able to respond to any riposte you make till return!!
'The fat lady has sung.'
The disintegration of Anglicanism is painful to watch and even more painful to endure, but there is no need to make it more so. GAFCON and ACNA offer a way ahead.
Sad to say, Rowan Williams' 'leadership' has been an abject failure, but this was only too obvious to those with eyes to see in 2002. Windsor, DES, Dromantine, Lambeth '08 etc were a toothless waste of time and money.
Enjoy your confrence, Peter.
“Why stop there? Why these hang ups about sex? Why not have different views on the Trinity, the Incarnation, salvation, the uniqueness of Christ, etc etc?”
Indeed. Why not return to a biblically-based morality? Stoning adulterers; defrocking divorced and re-married clergy (the ACNA has quite a few!) excommunicating pork eaters, etc., etc.?
If there is to be an Anglican Communion, you are seeing its future. Just as Anglicans 200 years ago saw their future reflected in the involvement of laypeople and lower clergy in the democratic governance of the Church, in the election of Missionary Bishops to speed missions abroad, and in the initial moves in setting up the AC itself. Get used to it.
Or, you could join reactionary little sects such as the Reformed Episcopal Church, ACNA, etc.
Kurt Hill
Brooklyn USA
“Should the Communion institute a commission of inquiry into the life, times, and theologies of TEC?” Fr. Carroll
Fine with me, as long as the Communion also launches a commission of inquiry into the life and times of the Diocese of Sydney and the Diocese of Nelson. Calvinism, in all of its forms, is a heresy to me; TULIP is an abomination to God.
Kurt Hill
Brooklyn USA
"Indeed. Why not return to a biblically-based morality? Stoning adulterers; defrocking divorced and re-married clergy (the ACNA has quite a few!) excommunicating pork eaters, etc., etc.?"
- because, for anyone who knows his or her NT (it's the latter part of the Bible, Kurt) stoning adulterers or prescribing pork isn't NT morality. You may have a point about loose (re-)marital standards, though, which ACNA should look into.
"If there is to be an Anglican Communion, you are seeing its future."
- a big 'if' there, Kurt. Do I have to tell you where the vast majority of Anglicans live? (Hint: it isn't Brooklyn.)
"Just as Anglicans 200 years ago saw their future reflected in the involvement of laypeople and lower clergy in the democratic governance of the Church, in the election of Missionary Bishops to speed missions abroad, and in the initial moves in setting up the AC itself. Get used to it."
- Matters of governance is adiaphora; nothing to do with theology or .... Biblical Morality (that phrase again).
"Or, you could join reactionary little sects such as the Reformed Episcopal Church, ACNA, etc."
- tsk, tsk, such snobbery. Tec is 'the little sect' - a mere shrinking shadow of its old self, average age over 60, living off Dead Men's money....
Hi Kurt
A Communion wide commission of inquiry into the theological good health/ill health of member provinces/dioceses therein could, indeed, have a lot of work to do, well beyond a focus on TEC.
There is, however, one difference between (say) Sydney and TEC worth pondering. The general theological direction of Sydney -which some say is only 4.5/5 TULIP :)- is pretty much out there in the public domain, unashamedly espoused and owned up to. The theological direction of TEC is more difficult to determine (in my experience of both running this blog, and reading other blogs). Perhaps it is clear. But if that is so, it is interesting how many American based commentators seem unconvinced of that!
"Calvinism, in all of its forms, is a heresy to me; TULIP is an abomination to God."
Mary Tudor would have agreed with you. That's why she executed Ridley, Latimer and Cranmer. Read the 39 Articles: they're a fairly Calvinist document. Then read Jewel's 'Apology for the Church of England'.
“The theological direction of TEC is more difficult to determine (in my experience of both running this blog, and reading other blogs). Perhaps it is clear.”-- Fr. Carrell
It’s not difficult to determine at all, if one knows a bit of American Church history. Our foundations are Low Church Laditudinarianism and High Church Catholicism. Evangelicalism, particularly the Calvinist kind, has never been popular here. If you have a taste for such sour fruit, there are plenty of Protestant sects in America which can provided it to you. In the New World people do not become Episcopalians to become Calvinists.
Calvinism is a heresy, full stop, period. Calvinists do not belong in any Anglican province. Not in 1549, not now, not ever. The fact that the CofE---as a state church--- had to put up with them does not mean that TEC has to tolerate them at all. They have the REC (and now the ACNA too).
“Mary Tudor would have agreed with you.”--Anonymous
Indeed, much of the English “Reformation” was a big mistake. A mistake that TEC has worked, over the centuries, to correct.
The Articles of Religion have never been very popular in the American Church. In the Proposed Prayer Book of 1785, the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England were dissected and cut down to twenty. In the first authorized Prayer Book of 1789 they were left out altogether. The question of their reinstatement proved to be a subject of considerable debate within the American Church. Although a modified set of 38 Articles was included and bound at the end of the Prayer Book in 1801, nobody in the American Church, either clergy or lay, has ever had to “subscribe” to them. (In 1789 we also perminately excised the Black Rubric.)
Kurt Hill
Brooklyn USA
Kurt, to hear you hold forth on Tec and heresy reminds me of that old saying about a dog walking on hjind legs: 'The wonder is not that it does it so badly but that it can do it at all.'
Puhleeze - learn some church history. The religious dilettantism of a few Yankee patricians has little or nothing to do with historic and global Anglicanism.
Hi Kurt
Your summary of the "theological history" of TEC is illuminating and underlines why we have reached a point of considerable difference between TEC and the remainder of the Communion. For example, in many parts of the Communion a much stronger appreciation exists of evangelical theology, and of the foundational character of the 39A. Sometimes this appreciation is strongly imbued with Calvinism (the Diocese of Sydney?) and sometimes not (my evangelical diocese, for instance, is not particularly Calvinist).
In the spirit of critiquing what you locally can affect – when are you writing about the bishops in your province who are contrary to the Bible? On your blog you write a lot about a couple in TEC – is there something preventing you from writing about the ones in your own Province? There appear to be no other blogs attending to any of this in your Province.
Hi Anonymous
I tend to write about what is in the news! No NZ bishops are in the news at the moment, least not for being 'contrary to the Bible'. By contrast quite a few items of news have flowed out of TEC in the past few days, exciting all sorts of comments. The news flowing out of TEC is of interest Down Under because it appears able to influence the life of the Communion; but the news flowing out of my church, more or less not much at all, seems incapable of influencing the life of the Communion at the moment.
'..the news flowing out of my church, more or less not much at all, seems incapable of influencing the life of the Communion at the moment.'
oligopiste! ;) You will have 'influence' where it counts if you have 7000 that have not bended the knee to the baal du jour.
Semper fidelis, frater!
Guilty as charged.
I am struggling to believe that NZ can win the next World Cup!!
That someone who hides behind the mask of anonymity accuses me of “not knowing church history” and “dilettantism” is a real hoot.
With all respect, Fr. Carrell, “the remainder of the Communion” has yet to be heard from. We can discount a lot of the sound and fury from the Global South in that most of their membership (many of whom are illiterate), know nothing about the theological, social and political issues involved. From what I can tell, most Anglicans in the West (outside of the conservative Anglo-Papalist and Evangelical factions) don’t believe that TEC “innovations” are Communion-breaking. In fact, the liberals (Evangelicals as well as Catholics and Broad Church) in these provinces are pleased that we Americans have pioneered in such areas as the recovery of pre-Reformation liturgies, prayers and customs; the consecration/ordination of women clergy; and the recognition of the full personhood of gay people within the Church.
It is true that in the post WWII era that Evangelicalism has been on the rise in the CofE and Anglicanism generally. Also, non-Anglican Evangelicalisms were very assertive here in America as well beginning in the late 1940s. There are signs, however, that this era is coming to an end. Certainly in America, the very term “Evangelical” is fast becoming a suspect word among the younger generation. I would guess that the Evangelical ascendancy in the West has run its course---just as other ascendancies (Laudianism, Latitudinarianism, Anglo Catholicism, etc.) have run theirs.
(By the way, Wesleyan Evangelicals have always been much more welcome in the American Church than the Calvinist variety).
"We can discount a lot of the sound and fury from the Global South in that most of their membership (many of whom are illiterate), know nothing about the theological, social and political issues involved."
True enough. Some of these colored folks don't even know how to use a fish knife. But they do have wonderful sense of rhythm, don't you think?
Hey, time for an Advent joke! How many Episcopalians (I won't say teccies!) does it take to change a light bulb?
Two - one to mix the drinks while the other phones the electrician. Cheers!
Well, Anonymous, I have a Holiday Joke for you:
An Englishman wants to marry an Irish girl and is told he needs to become Irish before he can do so. It is a very simple operation where they remove 5% of your brain.
Anyway the Englishman wakes up after the operation and the doctor comes up to him looking all worried and says:
"I am terribly sorry, there’s been a mistake to be sure,we accidentally removed 50% of your brain instead of 5%!"
The man sits up and simply says "She'll be right, mate"
Yes, we Kiwis like jokes like that about our Trans-Tasman cousins :)
Kurt: as I used to tell that joke, the man sat up (it was a fine spring day) and said:
"Well, isn't that absoid?"
The reason that there is little news from NZ in comparison to TEC is not just the difference in size but the considerable difference in approach. TEC is open, transparent and honest. News is not controlled. There are numerous blogs and sites. The election of a bishop is followed in real time with real prayer, not secretively with each diocese following quite a different process with deals and interventions kept well hidden from the public. All news from your province is carefully massaged to fit an upbeat profile. Scandals or problems are kept well hidden. As far as I can tell, yours is the only blog in your whole province open to discussion. Yet when it comes to your province and its bench of bishops it is as if you too are subject to the same protocols.
Hi Anonymous
I am not quite sure that mine is the only blog etc (Kelvin Wright's Available Light, for example, does, from time to time, make comment upon the life of our chuch) but I agree that we are not a transparent church on a number of matters. Sometimes that is understandable: we are small, friendly, even related to each other, and certain forms of transparency could be straining on good relationships. Other times I am not alone in regretting that our leadership is not transparent: to give but one example, I urge our bishops to publish the results of their deliberations together. However I tend to presume that this lack of transparency is for want of establishing a custom of transparency rather than a desire to suppress news.
On the specific matter of not being more overtly critical of our leadership on this blog, on the one hand I simply admit to being a friend of a number of bishops and other key leaders, and on the other hand, with respect to some issues raised by commenters, I refuse to be drawn into a 'game' where I am provoked to make criticism on the basis of widespread belief which, on careful scrutiny, falls short of certain knowledge.
Anonymous @2:55 makes some fair points about the culture of secrecy, control and conformism that exists in the NZ church. But it's part of the national psyche as well.
I recall those lines from Yeats:
'The best lack all conviction,
The worst are filled with a passionate intensity.'
Tec has plenty of the latter. But are NZers still 'The Passionless People'?
Anonymous, I wouldn't know about that, since I'm not originally from Brooklyn.
Kurt Hill
Brooklyn USA
"Anonymous, I wouldn't know about that, since I'm not originally from Brooklyn."
Yeah. we nu dat from der fancy way you speaks, Koit.
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