The Anglican Covenant rears its head against innovation

I shouldn't have been surprised but I was. Two days ago I posted on the appointment of Digby Wilkinson to be Dean of Wellington Cathedral - an innovative appointment, taking a 'hybrid' Anglican priest and Baptist pastor from a Baptist pastorate and placing him into a significant Anglican ministry. Yesterday a friend drew my attention to this Facebook post from one of our parishes/vicars raising significant negative questions about the appointment. [LATER: The post has been pulled]. For those unable to access the post, it begins with this line before linking to the Stuff.co.nz announcement,

"And now for the latest from Disneyland (oops I mean the Bishop of Wellington) we have the prodigal dean."

Further down, the questioning begins,

"I just think it’s bizarre that the Anglican national cathedral now has a dean who knows nothing about Anglican worship, tradition, or the breadth of Anglican theology. I can believe that Baptists help make this world a better place, and can believe that even in Wellington that could be so, but why try this Baptist experiment with the Anglican Cathedral? "

What I was surprised but shouldn't have been surprised about is that the parish is St Matthew's in the City and the vicar commenting is Glynn Cardy.

OK. We live in a free church where questions may be raised about decisions. And 'Disneyland' or 'bizarre' may not be the worst thing ever said about the decisions of Bishop of Wellington. But Glynn's approach raises a few questions about the character of our church.

For instance, implicit (even explicit at certain points) in this Facebook post is a presumption that being Anglican is 'this' rather than 'that'. But what on earth could give Glynn Cardy the confidence that he knows what Anglicanism is and what it is not? Why would 'Anglican worship, tradition or the breadth of Anglican theology' matter, unless he assumes that there is a common Anglican mind, a shared set of Anglican values that these things matter? Against what Anglican 'thing' could a Baptist be a threat? Could it be a 'thing' which Anglicans wish to cherish, to defend and to exclude non-Anglicans from?

My answer to these questions, given here previously (e.g. here) is that an informal, unwritten Anglican Covenant controls significant tracts of Anglicanland. Whenever we Anglicans say something along the lines 'true Anglicanism is this' or 'that doesn't seem to be true Anglicanism' it is implicit that there is an idea or set of ideas which determine what we assert 'true Anglicanism' to be.

The (likely) defeat of the written Anglican Covenant will be a triumph of the unwritten Anglican Covenant.

This unwritten Anglican Covenant is a marvellous document in the hands of the hegemony which adheres to it: as seen here, it can be used to oppose innovation  when it suits, but it can also be used to support innovation when it suits, e.g. innovation about blessing same sex partnerships.

Much better, I suggest, to have a written Anglican Covenant since that is participatory (all may know its contents) and just (people may be held to account to a standard they know in advance). The inherent disturbance to the body politic of an unwritten Anglican Covenant is that it is elitist (it is largely in the hands of a self-appointed hegemonic Sanhedrin of claimants who know what true Anglicanism is), unjust (supporting innovation as it suits and not when it does not), and ill-mannered (so a bishop can be taken to task for appointing a licensed priest to a deanship but a priest can not be taken to task for using the epithet 'Disneyland' to refer to the bishop).

Incidentally, the Baptists, who have obviously lost one of their finest ministers, by contrast have been nothing but gracious, as you can read here.

Senior Baptist Pastor Nek Minute Anglican Dean

I have no idea why it has taken so long to publicly announce what has been a piece of "good news" clergy gossip for weeks now, that Digby Wilkinson will be the next Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, Wellington. But now, at last, the announcement has been made, via this article on Taonga.

As you will read there, this appointment is in keeping with the expectation that under Bishop Justin, life in the Wellington Diocese will take new, bold, and radical directions.

Digby is an Anglican priest who (as I understand things) has been performing licensed ministry in the Wellington Diocese, regularly presiding at 8 am communion in a Palmerston North parish church. So far nothing bold, radical or new about appointing him to be Dean.

But his current stipended ministry role has been as Senior Pastor of Palmerston North Central Baptist church. That more than hints something new, bold and radical about this appointment.

Is it a new = unprecedented thing for the whole history of the Anglican Communion for a Baptist pastor to become Dean of a cathedral in his next appointment?

Digby's appointment is bold because it means the Cathedral and Diocese has been willing to look outside the normal field of candidacy for such positions (i.e. currently stipended Anglican priests doing a sterling job in an Anglican context).

It is early days to predict that it will prove to be a radical appointment, but his background suggests that he will come into the role with eyes that will see clearly what the fundamental mission and ministry of a cathedral is, and work to reinvigorate that.

Watch this space!

Postscript: I have felt no need to comment on what could be diplomatically described as Digby's 'colourful past', but I now note that the media have risen to the bait. NZ Herald's headline is, "Convicted Burglar to Lead Church". Sometimes the media conform to stereotype!

Later: a more responsible headline is in the Dominion story: 'Grace and disgrace' led to new dean's rebirth.

This snub is worth it

Here is a tricky Anglican controversy to reflect on.

Many Anglican ministry units seek funding from sources outside the church, including from 'pokie charities', i.e. from funds derived from people playing pokie (gambling) machines.

Recently my colleague and friend, Jolyon White, has spear-headed a campaign against the proliferation of pokie machines.

The pokie industry has reacted by rejecting funding applications from Anglican ministry units, including one from our own Christchurch Cathedral.

The NZ Herald has a report here.

For what it is worth, I am with Jolyon. I do not think churches should receive funds from the gambling industry. Fullstop. I certainly do not think we should receive such funds if we ever think we are going to speak out against gambling.

What do you think?

And we think NZ Cricket has problems?

Next to God and godliness there is sport and sportiness.Your humble blogger has much to be humble about, as a follower of NZ cricket. Our heads have hung in shame recently, with poor performances on the pitch and (apparently) management and governance issues off it. Meanwhile mighty Australian cricket has marched on triumphantly, avoiding our mistakes and failures ... no, wait, that is not true ...

If you thought NZ cricket has problems, spare a dollop of sympathy for the state of the play of the West Island and its cricket association.

Our very own Richard Dawkins?

I am growing to like the weekly writing of Rodney Hide, Herald columnist who is famous in NZ for being a colourful politician. He writes well, with  lovely humour, clarity of thought and a well crafted final sentence.

But a Christian he is not. Here he is in full flight as NZ's Richard Dawkins!

What he does not seem to realise is that most Christians don't believe in the 'god' he doesn't believe in.

On the one subject that really matters ... we pass

In part, posts and comments here are on the state of the Anglican church. Sometimes the focus is global and there is much to despair about, since the global Anglican work is that of a 'Communion' and currently we have a Communion mostly in name only. Sometimes the focus is local, life in these islands, with an occasional nod to Anglican life in the West Island, also known as Oz.

When the focus is local, there is also much to despair about. With what statistics we can muster - we have no internal whole-of-church-in-these-islands attendance stats - (including census figures) we are at the very, very best on a plateau. Likely guess is that we continue in statistical decline. If we look aroundabout and see that the booming churches of our cities and major towns are nearly always non-Anglican churches, we might stop and ask what could we learn. In my experience we mostly do not stop, let alone learn. I think we do think about where we are going on the debate over same sex relationships, there is a rather long pause going on because we fear (and especially our bishops fear) division, and yet nobody has - to my knowledge - advanced a way forward which is hopeful for a future together. Then there might be temptations to localised local despair: the way one's diocese is going, the inability of the parish to agree on some detail of a building project, and the lack of harmony in the choir. The usual stuff of ecclesiastical despair!

However I am not personally despairing at all. Optimism is my middle name. Here is a particular reason why.

A privilege of the positions I have held in ministry education for 12+ years in two dioceses is the ability to visit parishes, here and there, town and country, anglo-catholic, broad church and evangelical, early and mid-morning services, and sometimes evening services (though few of these exist these days). I have had, as you might imagine, some interesting experiences of Anglican worship through these years. One service I went to might be the only example in the world of an ecumenical service featuring Roman Catholics, Brethren and Anglican. Another memorable service involved travelling to one of the most remote places of worship in NZ (two hours drive from the nearest town) for a service with a half dozen people. There have been services which have owed little to Anglican liturgical principles, services which took an unbearably long time (I cannot recall any services which were too short!), services in unbearably cold churches, and, yes, services which have inspired and lifted me to heaven. Out of all those services one thing stands out.

I was thinking about this one thing yesterday when in a new-for-me church (where, to my pleasure, the liturgy was excellent and the sermon superb). That one thing is love. In every congregation I can recall, there has been love. The liturgy may have been all over the shop, the sermon have dismally failed to engage the congregation, the music been too loud and the heaters inadequate for the winter frost. But there has been love. It was present in bucket loads yesterday. The secret of the continuing life of local churches is the love each has for the other.

Statistically, we Anglicans in these islands should be worried, much more worried than our leaders ever seem to be about the future. Liturgically, we Anglicans should be exercised, much more exercised than we ever seem to be, over what Anglican liturgy in Kiwiland should look like in the 21st century - especially in respect of inter-generational worship services. Homiletically, we could simply work harder at being better preachers, engaged effectively in connecting Scripture to life and life to God. Controversially, we could search our collective soul much more deeply than we are currently doing, about how we become a church which casts no one out. Yes, we could do better in the areas where we are failing.

But on the one matter which matters above all else, our love for one another, I believe we are succeeding.

And love covers a multitude of (ecclesiastical) sins!

Postscript: for a possible future of the church getting in touch with culture, try this ...



Andrew Brown's comment is here.

"If I was Jesus, which my wife often thinks I think I am ... "

So, how bad is the state of the church?

"I think we're moving into a place of more appropriate humility in the church. We're not that flash, we're not always getting it right in many cases. And we can no longer believe in a Christendom where the church must be the centre of society. That's well and truly gone. I think it's good for the church to stop resting on its history."

It seems as though +Justin of Wellington agrees with the direction of my previous post!

Anyway, the brilliant Dominion article about +Justin, from which the title and cited words above are taken, is here (H/T Taonga).