Irish Troubles

Some reflections by me on the forthcoming Primates Meeting in Dublin are published here at Living Church. Hopefully I have covered myself in sufficient blandness to protect me from being convicted of false prophecy. The biblical consequence for that being ... well, you know!

Scripture Alone (2)

Anglicans seem to be comfortable with the thought that being Anglican means having Scripture at the centre of our lives, most obviously expressed in liturgies requiring two or three readings from Scripture and the preaching of a sermon, at least for Sunday services. I have noticed in my years of engaging in Anglican conversations on the internet that some Anglicans are not so comfortable with the phrase 'Scripture alone.' As I understand this discomfort 'Scripture alone' may provoke the following (overlapping) concerns as to a not so hidden agenda being promoted:

(a) Puritan Anglicanism in which only what is (affirmed) in Scripture should be part of the church's life and what is not in Scripture should not be part. (Bishops might survive this form of 'Scripture alone' but candlesticks will not).

(b) Fundamentalist Anglicanism which has no appreciation or insufficient appreciation of the roles tradition and reason play (or ought to play) in true Anglicanism alongside Scripture. Thus in Fundamentalist Anglicanism, Scripture may be used in a blunt manner to suppress or avoid other considerations on a given matter, considerations which tradition and/or reason would helpfully bring to discussion. In my personal experience creationism has a presence in some Anglican contexts which are fairly described as Fundamentalist Anglican. (But, for the avoidance of unnecessary comment, I am not saying that all Fundamentalist Anglicans are creationists).

(c) Reformed Anglicanism which understands that 'Scripture alone' pertains first and foremost to understanding salvation: all we need to know to be saved is in Scripture. The discomfort here could range from mistrust ('Reformed Anglicanism? Huh, I bet it is really Fundamentalist or Puritan Anglicanism we are talking about') to a simple question, 'What about the Catholic part of Anglicanism (understood as 'reformed-and-catholic')?'

What I would like to explore in this little series are questions such as Is there more to Scripture Alone than the three options above? and Is there a future to Scripture Alone which we could embrace with affection rather than avoid with fear?

Arrival or departure?

(I will get back to 'Scripture Alone' but that has been an item on the Anglican agenda for some 500 or more years ... so no hurry).

In recent days news of a prominent ceremony of blessing in a cathedral with a bishop presiding and two well-known clergywomen has been reported, mostly in terms of it being a 'marriage'. All three clerics are licensed clergy in TEC, the ceremony is being justified in terms of a resolution of TEC's General Convention, and nothing I have read suggests that anyone of note in TEC is concerned that this event will have any bearing at all on the immediate future of the Communion (bearing in mind the imminence of the next Primates' Meeting, at the end of this month, in Dublin).

Cranmer writes of the matter with clarity:

"But when does a blessing become a marriage?

The Revd Peter Ould has performed an autopsy on the liturgy used in this service, and determined that it is indeed a marriage ceremony. Like that presided over by the Revd. Martin Dudley in London, the Rt Rev M Thomas Shaw has been content to amend the Prayer Book to accommodate the same-sex union.

And so all references to procreation have been excised.

While this may be nothing new in the US, it illustrates that The Episcopal Church has departed from the traditional Christian understanding of marriage and the orthodox teaching of the Worldwide Anglican Communion.

In Genesis 2, God says: “It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make a help mett for him’ (v18). It continues: ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh’ (v24). Although these verses do not purport to define marriage, they do describe its origin, and are therefore crucial for understanding the Bible’s teaching on marriage, which is both heterosexual and monogamous. This precludes homosexuality (Exod 22:19; Lev 18:22f) and Lesbianism (cf Rom 1:26f). Some heterosexual unions are also prohibited (Lev 18:9-17; 20:11-21; Deut 22:30; 27:20-23). Bigamy, though evident in the OT, is not ideal (Lev 18:18; Deut 17:17), being portrayed negatively (Gen 16:4ff; 21:10) or deemed problematic (Deut 21:15-17).

Three purposes for marriage can be identified out of v24: (i) the procreation of children; (ii) companionship, and (iii) sexual union. Marriage is a covenant before God, which is explicitly confirmed by Jesus when he states that marriage is that which ‘God hath joined together’ (Mt 19:6); when a person ‘leaves’ and ‘cleaves’. Jesus refers to being ‘yoked together’ (Mt 19:6; Mk 10:9), the Greek term meaning a profound union. The marriage covenant was designed by God to last until at least one of the spouses dies (Rom 7:2), though it could be severed by divorce.

This is the unequivocal Anglican position, as stated in the Book of Common Prayer."

Except these days I suppose it is, for some Anglicans, the equivocal position!

Cranmer is right. With the Primates' Meeting imminent (a prayer for which is here), this is a point of departure. But who is departing from whom? Has TEC arrived at a new point of unequivocal commitment to difference from the majority of the Communion?

I will publish comments on this post which discuss (1) the (in)significance of this event of blessing in Boston for the life of the Communion (2) whether or not "The Episcopal Church has departed from the traditional Christian understanding of marriage and the orthodox teaching of the Worldwide Anglican Communion" (3) the likelihood of any consequential alterations being made to the Primates' Meeting in Dublin at the end of this month. I will not publish comments which (1) include ad hominem comment on anyone involved in the event of blessing or other episcopal leaders in TEC or the Communion (2) engage in general discussion about human sexuality.

Toronto Blessings?

If you have nothing better to do with your time you might be interested to follow a conversation between Toronto Anglican bishops and Ephraim Radner over at Covenant. It is a civil conversation. The blessings being talked about are not the Toronto Blessing of the 1990s!

Scripture Alone (1)

Scripture talk in Anglican circles can be tricky to negotiate. One wants to raise the 'but' of reason and tradition necessarily standing alongside Scripture. Another wants to ask 'what Scripture?', meaning the Bible as the ancient church knew it (OT in Greek not Hebrew) or as Jerome argued for (OT in Hebrew), with possible cognoscenti distinctions being made between Greek New Testament texts (Byzantine or modern eclectic, for instance?). Then recent debate seems to implicitly if not explicitly have what I will call the sexual ethic issue lurking, as in 'I know where this is heading, you just want to end up with a position which underlines/sets aside commandment against loving same sex relationships.' But negotiating these matters is important: Scripture at the centre of our life is a distinguishing feature of being Anglican. Why, for instance, are our liturgies not cluttered with references to Mary and various saints? (Because we do not find support for doing so in Scripture). Why do we have formal, written down liturgies which take care with words authorised for use? (Because these words rather than other words capture the scriptural detail of our theology, so much so that most of our liturgies are drawn directly from Scripture). This last point has to be nuanced - Roman and Eastern liturgies have similar attention to Scripture, but the scriptural detail of our theology means we part company on one or two points in the eucharist (at least, many Anglicans do, I have been part of 'Anglican' liturgies which borrow Roman words to do with 'offering' sacrifice!)

While some Anglicans seem to play fast and loose with Scripture, the reality of the core of Anglican theology as resolved by synods and conventions approving prayer books and making other resolutions of theological importance, is that it is strongly aligned with Scripture, if not tightly bound to it. Where we discover that some kind of deviation from Scripture has occurred, the first criticism to arise is that 'this is not Scriptural'. We are a church with Scripture at the centre.

That's enough for today. More soon on the theme of 'Scripture alone.'

Anglican Ordinariness

The first bishops etc from the C of E have been received into the Anglican Ordinariate. We are told that within a couple of weeks they will have been ordained priests. They and we can all sleep better for knowing their sacramental ministries can move from pretence to reality :) Perhaps this is a moment to consider those of us who are not following them. We could call ourselves members of the Anglican Ordinariness and ponder the virtue of being ordinary Anglicans. In the background to my reflection is taking up again Diarmaid McCulloch's History of Christianity as some holiday reading (and contributor to depression, Christianwise!!): what a hash Christians have often made of the fullness of life in Christ.

Three virtues I note are (1) Scripture at the centre of our lives, as measure of truth and treasury of the gospel (2) Christ unconstrained and unclouded as direct mediator of God's salvation (and therefore as guarantor of validity of sacramental ministry) and (3) continuity with the ancient church aligned with flexibility as church of present and future ages.

A vice? As simply as I can express it, the brilliant national Church of England has spawned a struggling international Anglican Communion, uncertain of how it should govern or manage itself in relation to the three virtues above. Somehow the 'catholic and reformed' character of the C of E, post 1559/1662, has translated poorly into a larger body.

Postscript

Not long after finishing the above post, I came across Ephraim Radner's latest essay at ACI; a heartfelt cry of despair concerning the future of the Communion, unless God saves it. Including this:

"I have long since abandoned any expectation that writings like this would be heeded by those about whom they are written; that, in this case, Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori would voluntarily stay away from the Primates Meeting; that other Primates would drop their boycotts and demonstrate ceaseless hope; that the Archbishop of Canterbury would speak clearly and forcefully to the actual obstacles before our Communion’s healing and would follow through with concrete means of removing them. I write instead for a few others, who simply wonder what it all adds up to – a warning and an encouragement. A warning: ultimately, through their actions or lack of them, our leaders have asked us all to rely on them or on ourselves, and not on God. That is the hopelessness they are engendering. But in the days to come – this year and the next and the next after — we cannot put our trust in “children of men”, the “princes” of our church. And encouragement: hope for our Communion, our churches, and our souls, lies with God."

To which we may observe that God has promised the Communion nothing, we may be left to wither on the vine!

A Long Road to Nowhere

It has been good to have a holiday from blogging, and I come back to posting resolved to post my opinions a little less this year while reserving a right to post lots of news items, should there be any.

To be honest life is a bit depressing at the moment, Anglicanwise. A sharp set of shocks on Boxing Day seems to have set back restorative hopes for some of our Anglican parish buildings in Christchurch. For reasons I won't go into here I am more rather than less worried about a bright future for the Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia. As for the Communion, nothing is looking good from my Down Under viewpoint and to make matters worse I had an epiphanic moment which implies the future of the Communion is very dim indeed.

My epiphany for Epiphany is this: a council denied authority to disapprove also has no authority to approve.

TEC is stoutly resisting any and every attempt to have its Communion dividing decisions judged by the Communion. It denies authority for any Instrument of Unity to make such judgement, save possibly for the ACC which it is doing its best to control. Where Anglican leaders have given up on an Instrument of Unity, bishops staying away from Lambeth and primates from the Primates Meetings it holds its hands up and wonders why such choices are being made when All is Well because the canons and constitution of TEC have been scrupulously observed. A war is being waged on the Covenant, well led by leading TEC pundits, with the likely outcome that the Covenant will be approved in such a manner that it will have no effective authority where it counts: calling into Communion coherency those member churches which have moved away from coherency of doctrine and practice.

But if the signs pointing to a TEC victory, a Communion with no council to disapprove its actions, become reality, we are then left with a frustrating future. TEC will be a pioneering member of a Communion which has no conciliar means of approving TEC's ground-breaking decisions as properly part of Anglican lore if not law.* In our life as global Anglicans we will have a serious alteration to Anglican doctrine of marriage occurring which is neither disapproved nor approved. Further, we will be tied in knots as to how we might organise ourselves to become decisive. Naturally some will make even more of a virtue of being indecisive, but many will wonder what kind of Communion disables itself from making decisions!

I suggest this will prove, over time, to be unsatisfactory on all sides of the Communion. Why are we unable to risk a conciliar disapproval of a decision in order to seek conciliar approval? That smacks of a lack of courage and of resolve to find common ground together. The effect will be further disaster for the Communion, as we will have journeyed further down the road to nowhere as a Communion with a name which means something (common doctrine and practice). Or, alternatively, we will be further down the road to a Communion with a name which means nothing (uncommon doctrine or practice cannot be restrained).

PS For the assuaging of doubt that TEC is embedding change to Anglican understanding of marriage as a covenanted relationship between a man and a woman into the fabric of its life, you might like to read this Episcopal news service report of an episcopally presided event repeatedly described as a 'marriage' involving one of the best known Episcopalian theologians.

*I am more than well aware that TEC, as other member churches do, makes decisions according to its canons and constitution which are properly made (and am also aware that some of its decisions may have been improperly made, according to commentators such as The Anglican Curmudgeon). I am not here talking about whether TEC by its own lights has made decisions it is entitled to make, but about whether on some matters of wider Communion interest it has made decisions which might be recognised as contributing to the development of Anglican doctrine and practice around the Communion. Further, my ongoing point on this blog is whether 'Communion' means a body of Christians with some things in common which go beyond a shared heritage in the Church of England or not, and whether we have any real accountability to one another or effectively are a body of observers of one another's claims to be genuinely Anglican.