tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post376503664492216625..comments2024-03-28T22:29:52.666+13:00Comments on Anglican Down Under: What Preludium doesn't get!Peter Carrellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-84143282118027317712015-11-06T17:24:42.696+13:002015-11-06T17:24:42.696+13:00Bryden, we seem to agree on several broad points o...Bryden, we seem to agree on several broad points of theology, but not on the tempo with which they should be applied to the duties of the Church. But then, if I were dodging cloud bursts and basking with seals, I might not be replying to online comments at all. So I thank you for your brief message, and hope that the Holy Spirit will show us all something soon. <br /><br />Bowman Walton<br /><br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-45565433566702804262015-11-05T10:50:56.618+13:002015-11-05T10:50:56.618+13:00Thank you Bowman; appreciated!
And while I squand...Thank you Bowman; appreciated!<br /><br />And while I squander time on our West Coast, alternatively dodging cloud bursts and basking w the seals in the sun: I have to try to consider what might be the difference between accommodation and compromise. And if the latter belongs to the body politic while the former might - just might - reflect the body of Christ. Yet even that move asks, with Oliver: to what, to whom are we indebted? Where he starts his first volume (you ref the extract from his second...)<br />And I have had to conclude (too soon? After 25 years conversation ...) that, as with Mk 10 and divorce's accommodation due to hardness of heart, so too, shld the Church surrender to current proposals, it'll be compromising with a form of naturalism, a humanistic philosophy that says: if it is the case, then who are we to say no?! Au contraire; I'd step back and ask: (with Oliver perhaps) what is the due order of things? Especially in a fallen world undergoing redemption? Ie what are the possibilities under the Holy Spirit's leading and power of precisely transforming our seemingly natural (fleshly) desires?<br />Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-16475674192165875262015-11-03T07:31:27.289+13:002015-11-03T07:31:27.289+13:00Belated congratulations, Bryden, on the publicatio...Belated congratulations, Bryden, on the publication of your book last summer, and timely thanks for breakfast reading today. We seem to share an interest in thinking about the Trinity in a personal way and in other systematic loci (eg essays from Jenson's Princeton period on justification and atonement). <br /><br />On accommodation, I agree thay caution is as wise as you and O'Donovan say, but paralysis of analysis is more than dangerous. Mortals want prompt answers to their existential crises, and feel little compunction about taking godless answers if they see no prospect of godly ones. So we must proceed with a prudently deliberate godspeed.<br /><br />Have you seen on Fulcrum the excerpt from Oliver O'Donovan's new book?<br /><br />Bowman Walton Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-6528328165500431412015-11-02T12:47:57.127+13:002015-11-02T12:47:57.127+13:00continues
Yet there is more to be said than that. ...continues<br />Yet there is more to be said than that. The gospel does have implications for the way we conduct ourselves in the world, and the way we conduct ourselves in the world is differentiated as the forms and circumstances that constitute the world are differentiated. There are special needs because there are special contexts within which the Christian life has to be lived out. Traditionally these have been discussed in Christian theology under the heading of “vocation.” The preaching of the gospel can and must address distinct vocations, even though it must address them only in the second place, after it has spoken to us all as human beings, not in the first place. “He will gather the lambs in his arms, and gently lead those that are with young” (Isa 40:11). Let us imagine a gay person who has “heard” the message of the gospel but is yet unaware of any bearing it may have for his homosexual sensibility. Must there not be some following up of the good news, something to relate what has been heard to this aspect of his self-understanding? It is helpful to keep the analogy with teachers, magistrates, and financiers in our mind. Suppose a Christian teacher who has found in the gospel no implications for how literature is to be read and taught; or a Christian politician who has found no special questions raised by the gospel about policies for military defense; or a financier to whom it has not yet occurred that large sums of money should not be handled in the way a butcher handles carcasses. A pastoral question arises. In the light of the gospel, neither literature nor government nor money are mere neutral technicalities. They are dangerous powers in human life, foci upon which idolatry, envy, and hatred easily concentrate. Those who deal with them need to know what it is they handle. The teacher, politician, and banker who have not yet woken up to the battle raging in heavenly places around the stuff of their daily lives, have still to face the challenge of the gospel. It is any different with the powers of sexual sensibility?<br /><br />Of course, this pastoral train of thought does not entitle us to demand that the gay Christian (or the teacher, politician, and banker) should repent without further ado. Theirs is a position of moral peril but also a position of moral opportunity. In preaching the gospel to a specific vocation, we must aim to assist in discernment. Discernment means tracing the lines of the spiritual battle to be fought; it means awareness of the peculiar temptations of the situation; but it also means identifying the possibilities of service in a specific vocation. The Christian facing the perils and possibilities of a special position must be equipped, as a first step, with the moral wisdom of those who have taken that path before, the rules that have been distilled from their experience. A solider needs to learn about “just war,” a financier about “just price,” and so on. Again, can it be any different in the realm of sexual sensibility? Discernment is not acquired in a vacuum; it is learned by listening to the tradition of the Christian community reflecting upon Scripture. In this exercise, of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that we may reach a “revisionist” conclusion. No element formed by tradition can claim absolute allegiance. But the right to revise traditions is not everybody’s right; it has to be won by learning their moral truths as deeply as they can be learned. Those who have difficult vocations to explore need the tradition to help the exploration. The tradition may not have the final word, but it is certain they will never find the final word if they have failed to profit from the words the tradition offers. And if it should really be the case that they are summoned to witness on some terra incognita of “new” experience, it will be all the more important that their new discernments should have been reached on the basis of a deep appropriation of old ones, searching for and exploiting the analogies they offer. No one who has not learned to be traditional can dare to innovate.<br />Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-25605906344799562232015-11-02T12:47:19.736+13:002015-11-02T12:47:19.736+13:00Lastly, on accommodation.
Yes; it was OMTO’D who ...Lastly, on accommodation.<br /><br />Yes; it was OMTO’D who taught me Just War Theory - as just that, a form of accommodation. But the question remains: whether it is appropriate here and now to usher in yet another form of accommodation regarding this liberalizing of “identity” - when too the likes of O’Donovan rightly decline to give that an unqualified tick! I quote from “A Conversation”, pp.105-108.<br /><br />Homosexuality is not the determining factor in any human being’s existence; therefore it cannot be the determining factor in the way we treat a human being, and should not be the determining factor in the way a human being treats him- or herself. Gays are children of Adam and Eve, brothers and sisters of Christ. There is no other foundation laid than that. “He will feed his flock like a shepherd”; from which it follows, simpliciter and without adjustment, that he will feed gays like a shepherd, too.<br /><br />Yet, it can be replied, there are other less fundamental senses of “identity.” Can we not speak of a “homosexual identity” in this less fundamental way, as we might speak, without denying anything in human solidarity, of a racial identity or a class identity? And may we not ask how the good news may be addressed specifically to it? Since Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Rule, bishops and other preachers have been preoccupied with how to address the gospel to sections of the flock with special needs—a gospel for the rich, a gospel for the poor, a gospel for the powerful, a gospel for the powerless, etc., etc.—which, as Gregory claims, “solicitously oppose suitable medicines to the various diseases of the several hearers.” I have to confess a reservation about this. I am not sure that it can be disentangled from Gregory’s idea of the preacher as rector, or “ruler,” who safeguards and services a certain kind of Christianized social order built on role differences. Gregory’s preacher strives to make role differences comfortable for everyone chiefly by preventing them being overstated—excellent managerial sense, no doubt, but not the primary business of a Christian evangelist. The gospel is addressed to human beings irrespective of their condition, and there is no prima facie place to dismember it into a series of gospels for discrete social sectors. Why would there by a gospel for the homosexual any more than a gospel for the teacher of literature, for the civil magistrate, for the successful merchant (to name just three categories that the early church viewed with the same narrowing of the eyes that a homosexual may encounter today)? It is for the church to address the good news, we may say; it is for the recipient—homosexual, pedagogue, politician or captain of industry—to hear it and say how he or she hears it in and from this or that social position.Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-51877553104040375282015-11-02T12:23:06.578+13:002015-11-02T12:23:06.578+13:00Re theosis, Bowman: while the Fathers made a good ...Re <i>theosis</i>, Bowman: while the Fathers made a good start on this notion, I sense we’ve additional work to pursue once we appreciate truly the significance of the Trinitarian nature of deity. That is, following Rahner, we’ve to realise the significance of “Grace gives rise to not–appropriated relations of divine persons to man [sic].” Which too Robert Jenson has a particularly important take on.<br /><br />Myk Habets has begun some of this additional work. See his Theosis <i>in the Theology of Thomas Torrance</i> (Ashgate, 2009). [BTW: TFT loves Athanasius!] I too have addressed this concern in my own <i>The Lion, the Dove and the Lamb: An Exploration into the Nature of the Christian God as Trinity</i> (W&S, 2015), via the trinitarian model I have constructed.<br /><br />A fair bit falls into place naturally re “That Topic” once we do this ... Enjoy!Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-37199343889035357922015-11-02T11:16:05.200+13:002015-11-02T11:16:05.200+13:00I've read C Taylor's two key works (the la...I've read C Taylor's two key works (the latter might have benefited from an editor ...). And have concluded I prefer: JKA smith , How (not) to be secular: Reading Charles Taylor. <br /><br />Thereafter: the genealogical history comprises these key elements: the inability of offering rational assent to the doctrine of the Trinity (cf. Jason Vickers); the increasing tension between human being as an autonomous self-positing personal subject and human being as that creature in the triune divine image. And that does reduce to an either/or eventually.Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-5368295770156554182015-11-02T06:20:11.874+13:002015-11-02T06:20:11.874+13:00(k) Are (a)-(f) open to a trinitarian anthropology...(k) Are (a)-(f) open to a trinitarian anthropology? I do not see how they could foreclose this possibility. The sort of deconstruction for reconciliation that they indicate may be the only churchly vehicle for this lies open.<br /><br />Has Charles Taylor written the genealogical history that you suggest?<br /><br />https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sources_of_the_Self<br /><br />Personally, I have invested some effort in understanding the theosis of SS Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Cyril.<br /><br />Bowman Walton<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-68090192749442941852015-11-02T06:17:46.365+13:002015-11-02T06:17:46.365+13:00(i) Do (a)-(f), perhaps in a liberal manner, reduc...(i) Do (a)-(f), perhaps in a liberal manner, reduce theology to ethics? No, (b), (c) and (d) all facilitate retrieval of neglected theological positions, and some meeting of those polarised by historical circumstances. <br /><br />(j) What is the theological rationale for accommodation?<br /><br />With respect to This Topic, the concept of *accommodation* was introduced to the Pilling Commission by Oliver O'Donovan. <br /><br />Our end has been inaugurated in the resurrection, but is not yet fully realised (Romans 8). For example, we cannot find a theological rationale for anything like war in the Church's memory of an emphatically pacifist Jesus. What we have found is just war theory, a strategy of *accommodation* that guides peaceful Christians who must, in God's mysterious providence, protect others in a fallen world that remains violent. Rightly understood, just war theory does not transvalue approved wars into holy wars; it simply restrains Christians in the world from some consequences of a properly zealous pacifism. Of course, not all Christians practise such strategies of accommodation; monastics, for example, will not even eat meat, let alone fight wars. But because both monks and soldiers recognise the force of Jesus’s teaching-- often better than the rest of us-- each can respect the other’s calling. In this aeon in which we see the light but from shadows, our approach to the new creation must sometimes be provisional. <br /><br />The idea of *accommodation* bears comparison with the principle by which we recognise the holiness of the Law, but also that unwise human enforcement of it can in some instances frustrate the divine *economy*. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-59529865679462623332015-11-02T06:16:07.396+13:002015-11-02T06:16:07.396+13:00(h) Do (a)-(f) reduce theology to science? No, I d...(h) Do (a)-(f) reduce theology to science? No, I do suggest a robust role for evidence-based knowledge, and even science, when available, but not scientism. <br /><br />While I do respect the very suggestive work of Roy Bhaskar, we should also attend to arguments from some main figures of philosophy of science in the analytic tradition.<br /><br />In making them ex nihilo, God has endowed his creatures with stable characters distinct from his own (Ibn Sina, Maimonides, St Thomas Aquinas). This divides the traditions of Jerusalem from those of Varanasi. <br /><br />Therefore, as you implied earlier, students of nature do have some theological ground for confidence that they can observe patterns of change (St Thomas Aquinas), and can infer patterns of causation (Karl Barth), subject to the limitation that, without God’s self-revelation, they cannot discern the teleology of things (St Bonaventure), and especially cannot see that “the great end for which God created the heavens and the earth” was the love of the Father and the Spirit for the Son in the perichoresis of the Trinity (Jonathan Edwards, Karl Barth, Thomas Torrance, Robert Jenson). <br /><br />Because consciousness is intrinsically teleological (Franz Brentano, Thomas Nagel), our current scientific practise, which brackets teleology, is therefore unable to *explain* consciousness (Thomas Nagel). Moreover, although scientists do make many plausible inferences about the self’s identity, free will, etc from evidence, when selves cannot rearrange themselves to accord with these inferences, this casts doubt on either their ethical usefulness (Ingmar Persson), or their logical status as explanations, or both. This does not mean that science can find nothing of cultural value, but it does mean that culture cannot be reduced to science.<br /><br />Moreover, eliminative materialists (eg Richard Dawkins) have no epistemic ground for their confidence that the past achievements of science were enabled by materialism (Edward Feser); that the mind is an epiphenomenon of the brain (Robert C Koons, George Bealer); that science as presently practised will eventually explain consciousness (Thomas Nagel); and that these explanations will be *reduced*, directly or indirectly, to physical laws alone (Hilary Putnam). Materialism has been subjected to withering critique (Robert C. Koons, George Bealer), and we do not lack for alternatives to it (Edward Feser, Charles Landesman).<br /><br />Indeed, the Enlightenment project that pits empirical observations over against metaphysical constructs and value judgements in the discovery of knowledge has long been recognised as incoherent (W.V.O. Quine, Hilary Putnam). Hence, although science can find some truth, and that truth can be too credible to ignore, scientism-- science alone-- will not do as a reasonable basis for anthropology.<br /><br />http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2009/06/materialist-shell-game.html<br /><br />https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/24693-leibniz-s-mill-a-challenge-to-materialism/<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-11546992353700685722015-11-02T06:14:55.382+13:002015-11-02T06:14:55.382+13:00Thank you, Bryden, both for your reply and for kee...Thank you, Bryden, both for your reply and for keeping notes of the theology of science, theological anthropology, and theological ethics in our conversation. My few talking points hardly amount to anything so grand as an attempted paradigm, but you may welcome a few brief clarifications, signposted for easier reference. I’ll break this into four parts.<br /><br />(g) Are (a)-(f) a via media? Not quite. A via media assumes the survival of its extremes. The expanding centre indicated by (a)-(f) could reconcile them or otherwise survive them. <br /><br />Anyone can see the concrete factors that have brought polarisation to the Anglican Communion, and also that these factors are ephemeral. To name just a few of them-- the several polarisations in recent American politics that are reflected in TEC and ACNA; the ambivalence about English hegemony that nearly all post-colonial churches feel for a time; the very ‘Reformed’ cast of the plurality of the remaining protestants in the Communion; the world-centred liberalism of the remaining catholics in the Communion; the differences between those formed by Bultmann and Tillich and those formed by Barth and, taking a representative figure, Wright. Similarly, at this moment one unitive force on which Anglicans have always counted is weak-- the historic episcopate is not helping us to the mature multipolarity of a global communion as it might have done if liberal bishops were less synodical, conservative bishops were less confessional, and the other major sees (obviously, Sydney, Washington, Nairobi) were as responsibly mediating as Canterbury has been. So (a)-(f) point toward deconstructing now, when it is actually useful, the same happenstance tensions that doctoral students will be deconstructing in a few decades anyway.<br /><br />Bowman Walton<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-51377891141902268322015-11-01T11:38:31.274+13:002015-11-01T11:38:31.274+13:00If I am hearing and seeing you aright Bowman - and...If I am hearing and seeing you aright Bowman - and it could be quite a conditional of course -if I am ‘reading’ you aright, I am beginning to notice you are trying to construct something of an intriguing temperamental methodology here. I am almost tempted to name your search for a 21st C “centrist” stance an attempted <i>via media</i> such are the uses to which this hallowed expression has been put these past recent years among some members of the AC (falsely, in my view, given its due history).<br /><br />Yet I am also detecting a real reductionism, if this is the case. For even while there’s a legitimate place naturally for such elements as the neurological, the psychological and the sociological re persons in organizations, vols 2 & 3, <i>reality</i> and <i>theory</i>, of McGrath’s <i>A Scientific Theology</i> (2002/3), with his extensive use of Roy Bhaskar’s notion of a “stratified reality”, require there to be no place for a Skinnerian-like reductionist behaviourism. And this is certainly the case with a fulsome personalist philosophy (ala say JP2) coupled with McGrath. Reality and truth are to be apprehended by other means, I sense, than those you proffer - especially when we’ve to factor in divine revelation as well. <br /> <br />In addition, one of the better books around regarding “That Topic” is O’Donovan’s <i>A Conversation Waiting to Begin: The Churches and the Gay Controversy</i> (SCM, 2009), published in the US as <i>Church in Crisis: The Gay Controversy and the Anglican Communion </i> (Cascade Books, 2008), after the original “Sermons” on the Fulcrum website. For his very first chapter spells it out: “The Failure of the Liberal Paradigm”. Here we see indeed a brief history of theology reduced to ethics, carefully spelt out. And that, especially here in ACANZ&P, is tragically the case in many western parts of the AC nowadays: theology has been made to take a backward step, and ‘the political’ (from a variety of quarters) has tended to dominate.<br /><br />And so, while I agree wholeheartedly with your (a) and especially with your (f), I cannot find any theological rationale for anything like your (e). For indeed, “framing” the very Topic is central; and this (to date) I do not see your attempted paradigm is able to achieve. The sort of historical analysis we need to embark on goes back (in my view) to at least 1700, as we try to see how we have reached the impasse we have [my first question posed here on ADU to Motion 30 when it first hit the headlines in 2014]. And, as I’ve noted above (October 17, 2015 at 11:49 AM), in the last two paragraphs, sheer logic will not accommodate the sorts of solution being sought here in ACANZ&P [my second question of last year, now repeated].<br /><br />What we need is a far deeper <i>dianoia</i> after the likes of an Athanasius when confronted with the Arian controversy. There the issue was essentially theological; here the issue is essentially anthropological, the fulness of humanity <b>in the triune God’s image</b>.Bryden Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15619512328964399016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-76262910187085463712015-11-01T05:58:07.876+13:002015-11-01T05:58:07.876+13:00Ron, I enjoy your style.
With (c) I am saying th...Ron, I enjoy your style. <br /><br />With (c) I am saying that arguments that we are treating as 'traditional' --eg the shift from procreation to the psychology of the binary; the eschatological significance of the binary in scripture-- are in fact quite recent. While there is nothing wrong with having new arguments in the mix, they do not get fair scrutiny or the chance to develop thoroughly when they are prematurely presented and received as the wisdom of the ages. And of course, when that happens, the actually traditional views, for what they are worth, are lost to the Church's memory at a time when we cannot be so confident in our forgetting. Lesser mortals such as ourselves will have healthier discussions with longer memories and less polarisation.<br /><br />On the procreationist perspective, the deepest discomfort with it is felt by those who programmatically want a non-biological definition of human nature. While we should be open at this stage to whatever arguments for that project can be made-- it would be helpful to see arguments here rather than assumptions-- the present cultural climate does not favour it. I cannot think of a bookstore in Harvard Square that does not have displays of popular books on evolution or neuroscience or some convergence of the two. People today understand their embodiment and much of their psychology in evolutionary, biological terms. Meanwhile, most of those who buy these books believe with Richard Dawkins that Christians devoutly believe that the earth was created in six days, and that the first professor of philosophy was a snake. So, if only for apologetic and evangelistic reasons, we cannot duck our own ancient tradition of reflection on procreation, and might gain something from bringing it up to date. <br /><br />As you see, my (f) covers a lot of ground by implication. Clearly yes, there is a need for better scientific and social understanding, and also for a theological habitus that enables pastors and others to pay attention to them.<br /><br />However, the Church's pastoral responsibility in the three disorders mentioned does not depend on their etiology. For one thing, we may never know the directions of all the causal arrows. With the knowledge we have today, who can say that the same factor could not predispose a person for both a disorder and a disorientation? However, the association between religion and suicide uncovered by Emile Durkheim a century ago can be supported with recent data and is very suggestive. My most immediate concern in (f) is that debate about SSM has substituted an ecclesiastical culture war for a pastoral duty. As you say, Pope Francis appears to agree, and I suspect that you do too.<br /><br /> <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-19800133792361400702015-10-31T19:14:54.766+13:002015-10-31T19:14:54.766+13:00Thank you, Bowman, for your response to my respons...Thank you, Bowman, for your response to my response to you!<br /><br />I have to agree that the bases of our arguments have been between the two poles of 'Tradition' and 'Experience' on matters of sexuality and gender. Even the Pope (dear man) is having difficulty with the conservatives at the Vatican on the propsect of any transition from 'Certainty' into the more tentative area of 'Possibility'. So how can we lesser mortals do any better?<br /><br />However, on your point (f), I have to say that the over-exposure of the 'non-binary' bearers of sexual attraction to religious criticism - as well as that of most heterosexuals in even today's society - is probably the major source of the 'mental health challenges' you here enumerate. Perhaps the word 'suicide' evokes the most interesting reaction. This factor, in itself, is reason enough for the involvement of the Church in what Pope Francis calls pastoral mercy, but also the need for a better scientific and social understanding.Father Ron Smithhttp://kiwianglo.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-30095533760892990552015-10-31T06:38:11.671+13:002015-10-31T06:38:11.671+13:00Bryden, Ron, you may find Ian Paul's morning p...Bryden, Ron, you may find Ian Paul's morning post today interesting--<br /><br />http://www.psephizo.com/sexuality-2/navigating-the-transgender-agenda/<br /><br />Again, Ron, thank you for responding to my comment. <br /><br />Yes, whenever debates are framed in ways that set compassion and authority in zero-sum conflict, the liberal and conservative temperaments will clash and deadlock. However, I believe faith seeks understanding of that framing to ask how what was conjoined on the cross can again be conjoined in our thinking.<br /><br />I notice that you and I, at least, have different memories of the history of debate on that That Topic. We are after all remembering it in different from different circles in locales. It might avoid misunderstanding if I describe what I do remember, but I cannot do that today. Instead, I will mention six inferences from those memories that seem salient--<br /><br />(a) There are deep differences between the arguments that make sense in the court of Caesar and the ones that make sense in the Body of Christ. <br /><br />(b) The rationale of the Church’s first proponents of same sex marriage was not as divisive as the rationale given today, and their social achievement has been unjustly ignored.<br /> <br />(c) Thus far, our choice is not between an old view and a new one, but from among three perspectives-- a traditional one (procreation) and two quite recent replacements for it (sexual binary, sexless gender) that have not stood the test of time.<br /><br />(d) In the past 65 years, changes in the intellectual ground on which these perspectives have been discussed has radicalised the competing positions. Perhaps this can be reversed. <br /><br />(e) Between the extremes of total rejection of all and routine acceptance of all lie some centrist proposals for discerning accommodation of same sex partnerships. <br /><br />(f) The mental health challenges of those with same sex attraction-- eg higher risks of depression, adolescent suicide, domestic violence-- are pastoral problems for the Church as a whole.<br /><br />These are not a manifesto. They simply clear some ground at the centre for discussion.<br /><br />Bowman WaltonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-47002061609710691252015-10-29T12:30:21.973+13:002015-10-29T12:30:21.973+13:00A lovely summary of the Anglican situation from Bo...A lovely summary of the Anglican situation from Bowman Walton:<br /><br />"The bitter outrage comes from those who are either confused about what they want, or who cannot accept that others want something very different. Both conditions arise from prior illusions that are hard to let go. Disillusion is painful, but in Him, the reality itself may not be."<br /><br />I think Bowman has hit the nail on the head. Conservative 'tradition' is sometimes congenitally averse to any desirtability for change. Even Good Pope John XXIII, in calling the reformative Vatican II Council, earned the hostility of the conservatives at the Vatican. Pope Francis, in following in the footmarks of Vatican II, has uncovered more reluctance to change - and that's only in the Roman Catholic Church!<br /><br />The world sometimes moves ahead of the Church in crying out for justice to be granted to minorities. In the case of gender and sexuality issues, the Global South Churches have not kept pace with others in the need for a new paradigm - not anchored in a first century understanding of these issues.<br /><br />If the Anglican Communion needs to separate out into its constituent parts, in order to operate with the freedom to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ in different contexts, then so be it! I'm sure God can manage to deal with human instransigence - as has happened for all of the history of Christianity. Maybe perfect Unity if a gift and has to wait for the Second Coming of Christ for its full realisation. Father Ron Smithhttp://kiwianglo.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-51769876029597809262015-10-29T08:05:26.865+13:002015-10-29T08:05:26.865+13:00Peter, I notice that inconsistency without quite c...Peter, I notice that inconsistency without quite condemning those caught up in it. This is, at its psychological heart, a lovers' quarrel in which each side argues on while trying to conserve cherished illusions about the relationship without which there would be no argument in the first place. Our long-cultivated sense of mutual belonging plays infuriating tricks on us. <br /><br />It plays those tricks on me. If America's congregationalists adopted the BCP 1979, I would see the glass as more than half full because I do not expect 'them' to do anything so orthodox. They would still not be episcopalians, but my heart would sing that another American church had such scriptural, eucharistic liturgy. Yet when TEC which wrote the BCP 1979 practices it much as those same congregationalists might do, then the glass seems so much more than half empty to me because I once expected so much more of 'us'. One reality, two perceptions. And the irony, familiar to embittered lovers, is that the harsher perception is of the beloved, who is never allowed to be anything but what we had so fondly dreamed. <br /><br />This psychomachy seems to have roiled the minds of our African fathers with respect to TEC. If they had seen Episcopalians as simply unanglican, then their prodigious effort to rescue traditionalists here would never have made any sense. That some of those traditionalists were easier to rescue than others may have been the first clue to Africans that TEC has never ever been quite the same sort of bird that they are. In the end, the Pygmalion that emerged from their efforts looks less like TEC than like the post-colonial Anglican churches more familiar to the global south. We may admire the resulting ACNA or not, and it may thrive in America's religious bazaar or not, but like a sketch from an old memory, it shows the lineaments of a lost illusion. <br /><br />As you say in today's fine post about Richard Bauckham on St John 6, Anglicans who think that they want to be a communion would be wise to start, not from our fallible perceptions of each other, nor even from what we say in all seriousness about ourselves, but from what God says about koinonia. <br /><br />Bowman WaltonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-8171254965456810062015-10-28T22:59:37.748+13:002015-10-28T22:59:37.748+13:00Thanks Bowman
I particularly appreciate your notic...Thanks Bowman<br />I particularly appreciate your noticing the inconsistency of (some) Anglicans flouting ancient canon X while sternly condemning (some other) Anglicans for flouting ancient canon Y.Peter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-51367600947780584472015-10-28T19:05:21.492+13:002015-10-28T19:05:21.492+13:00Peter, thank you for hosting this discussion in yo...Peter, thank you for hosting this discussion in your evenhanded and gracious way. <br /><br />All things shall be well, and all things shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Some Anglicans want communion that is close, reciprocal, and global. Others want a loose Anglican heritage league. Neither desire is evil, and God in his providence may well grant both of them.<br /><br />The bitter outrage comes from those who are either confused about what they want, or who cannot accept that others want something very different. Both conditions arise from prior illusions that are hard to let go. Disillusion is painful, but in Him, the reality itself may not be. <br /><br />It once deeply offended my ecclesiological scruples that Anglicans in Africa were planting churches in TEC's American provinces. But after I noticed that successive General Conventions had voted on communion-without-baptism, and heard the reasons why this first got on the agenda and then returned to it, I could hardly complain that foreign prelates had transgressed the C4 Apostolic Canons. <br /><br />Different Anglicans want different things. It seems wiser to accept this than to resent it. <br /><br />Bowman WaltonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-13691430490126131162015-10-28T00:02:28.499+13:002015-10-28T00:02:28.499+13:00Thank you Ron and Michael for contributions to cla...Thank you Ron and Michael for contributions to clarifying various GAFCON/Global South/other Communion matters.<br />I am happy to publish the correspondence to date even though it heads towards 'ad hominem' territory (e.g. using wrong titles for clerical leaders).<br />But this is a friendly note to remind you not to keep pushing the boundary!<br />ThanksPeter Carrellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09535218286799156659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-16079501786154916822015-10-27T23:33:17.380+13:002015-10-27T23:33:17.380+13:00"who, however, obviously could not manage to ..."who, however, obviously could not manage to get the Egyptian Authorities to grant visae for some of the Gafcon Primates"<br /><br />I just want to focus on this a bit more because it provides a good illustration of some of the nasty things that are said about Gafcon by its opponents. The implication is that there is something infamous about Gafcon Primates such that they would be refused a visa by government authorities. That is not only untrue, but the suggestion was made mischievously, i.e. with no basis. <br /><br />It is also misconceived - simple mathematics demonstrates that there were more NON-Gafcon Primates who did not make it to Cairo than there were Gafcon Primates. <br /><br />On a somewhat lighter note, the plural of "visa" is "visas". Whilst the ultimate origin is Latin, the French in 19th century began to use it to mean a particular administrative document, with the plural "Les visas". We in turn adopted the word from French, including its plural. MichaelAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-81933023332885678602015-10-27T23:00:55.842+13:002015-10-27T23:00:55.842+13:00"I'n sure Father Mark knows as much as an..."I'n sure Father Mark knows as much as anyone in the non-Gafcon Anglican world about the goings on in Cairo."<br /><br />No, I don't think he does. He wrote that it was a meeting of Gafcon, and it wasn't. I don't know why you are so sensitive - everyone makes mistakes from time to time, and this is clearly a mistake. <br /><br />"who, however, obviously could not manage to get the Egyptian Authorities to grant visae for some of the Gafcon Primates"<br /><br />Why is it "obvious"? Whilst that is possible, it seems far more likely that some Primates couldn't change their schedule at such short notice. <br /><br />"Further gossip it that Mr.Beach (Acna Primate),"<br /><br />Any relation to Mrs Katie Schori (TEC PB)?<br /><br />"a schismatic Church founded by Gafcon"<br /><br />You are mistaken: the schismatic church is TEC, and ACoC. <br /><br />"was readily accepted by at least the Gafcon Primates"<br /><br />The statement doesn't make any reference to Gafcon at all - it is a statement of the Global South, and the Gafcon Primates were distinctly in the minority at the meeting. <br /><br />"In the meantime, the Word-made-flesh of Christ in the eucharist will continue to be celebrated in other parts of the Communion, with the understanding that intentional schism does nobody any good."<br /><br />Of course - that is why I celebrate the Eucharist in the sure understanding that the intentional schism of the liberals does nobody any good. MichaelAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-77507296369120168152015-10-27T20:43:53.760+13:002015-10-27T20:43:53.760+13:00Don't fret about Mark Harris' seeming lack...Don't fret about Mark Harris' seeming lack of information about the G.S. Primates Meeting, MichaelA. I'n sure Father Mark knows as much as anyone in the non-Gafcon Anglican world about the goings on in Cairo. We were well aware of the shift from Tunis to Cairo - expedited by one of the G.S. Primates who, however, obviously could not manage to get the Egyptian Authorities to grant visae for some of the Gafcon Primates<br /><br />Further gossip it that Mr.Beach (Acna Primate), leading, as he does, a schismatic Church founded by Gafcon, was readily accepted by at least the Gafcon Primates in the Gafcon/GS sodality as a new partner in the Global South fraternity (but not necessarily of the Anglican Communion), in order to confront the non-Gafcon Primates at the upcoming ACC Primates' Meeting with some sort of fait accompli: "Here he is. He and Acna are part of us, and we are the largest grouop in the whole Communion, what are you guys prepared to do about it?<br /><br />I don't think Archbishop Welby will be intimidated by the Gafcon show of force. He will realise that his own Church of England's Anglican provenance would be at stake with any deference to the ambitions of the Gafcon Primates to control the soul of the Anglican Communion.<br /><br />In the meantime, the Word-made-flesh of Christ in the eucharist will continue to be celebrated in other parts of the Communion, with the understanding that intentional schism does nobody any good.Father Ron Smithhttp://kiwianglo.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-32084173458076097392015-10-27T11:08:40.287+13:002015-10-27T11:08:40.287+13:00Something else I forgot to mention: Archbishop Wel...Something else I forgot to mention: Archbishop Welby also attended the Cairo meeting. MichaelAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3915617830446943975.post-38159203120823570542015-10-27T11:00:29.123+13:002015-10-27T11:00:29.123+13:00A factual correction to Mark Harris' blog. He...A factual correction to Mark Harris' blog. He writes, "Either way the ABC will have allowed the GAFCON Primates to upstage his efforts. The GAFCON Primates are meeting on this matter in Cairo."<br /><br />In fact it is the Global South Primates who met in Cairo. That is distinct from Gafcon. There were 12 Primates present, of whom 4 or 5 also happened to be members of Gafcon, but it was a GS meeting not a Gafcon meeting. <br /><br />The reason for the low turnout (the Global South comprises more than half of the provinces of the Anglican Communion) is that the GS meeting in Tunisia had to be cancelled at the last minute due to security concerns. Egypt provided a venue and visas for a re-scheduled meeting but only 12 of the GS Primates could make it. <br /><br />This is a link to the communique after the meeting: http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/images/uploads/CommGSPCairo2015.pdf. Readers will note that ACNA has been invited in as a partner province of the Global South, and I have read elsewhere that ++Beach has been given a vote in the GS Primates Meeting. I am surprised that Mark Harris missed this - I would have thought it is a more significant development than the issue he raises about attendance at the January meeting. MichaelAnoreply@blogger.com