At the moment, I don't think it is. The present arrangement is a fairly recent affair born of the collapse of the British Empire. The denominational formalities are becoming increasingly absurd ('we are/are not in communion with X diocese' etc etc) and an obstacle rather than an aid to truth speaking and the actual unity of Christians with one another. I was prepared to believe that Rowan Williams' softly softly strategy might actually work, but today I think that it has been mealy-mouthed: he should have had the courage to say either 'look, I am pushing for the full inclusion of active homosexual people in the ministry of the church, like it or lump it' or 'I am not prepared to accept it at all and if you push for it you are not in communion with me, go choose another church.' (A third option would have been to resign).
Either way, we would have known we all stood. As it is, I think the communion is going to be worse broken than it would have been. Sheesh.
18 comments:
OUCH Mr Jensen! Now if that don't get the comments rolling I'll go heeee. What has got up your goat in Cambridge that you should post such strong words? ... not that you're alone. Indeed, that is part of the very problem. I wish you were, as I'm sure you do to.
Michael for those of us who are out of the UK loop: <genuine question> is there a particular public development that's the trigger for this statement? You say "but today I think" ... what changed? </genuine question>
You listed three options, but I suspect there's also a fourth: that as A. of C. he considers his own view to be secondary to his role as a symbol of unity and a kind of caretaker of the current Anglican disarray. Yes?
As for being born of the collapse of the British Empire: the B.E. was not exactly a small thing, nor insignificant for world affairs; and isn't it to the good that we consider ourselves family, and try to get on at some level?
--As for being born of the collapse of the British Empire: the B.E. was not exactly a small thing, nor insignificant for world affairs; and isn't it to the good that we consider ourselves family, and try to get on at some level?--
Yes, but as a guess I suspect he has more specifically in mind the arrangements which surrounded the amalgamation of the CSI.
My own feeling is that for so long we've felt on the cusp of "something happening" (one way or t'other) and that it's dragged on so slowly and painfully like an ill-suited couple that can't bear to break up, but who are causing more and more misery for themselves and everybody else. Oh for some resolution...
yes, but Sam, isn't the couple (if married) meant to resolve their problem from within the marriage? rather than run off with the neighbour.....
I heard Rowan Williams speaking recently, talking about discipleship - one of the things that he said was that discipleship is being and staying with Jesus and as such we will 'be and stay' with those who Jesus is in the company of. whether we like it/them or not.
But that doesn't mean we need to set up institutional unity with every Christian everywhere. In any case, most parties in the Anglican scene are at last admitting that there's more than one religion in the fold.
The couple in my analogy were young and unmarried and demonstrably unsuited to marriage but so used to going out they can't yet countenance the thought of breaking up...
I think that it's important ecclesiologically that it's the liberals who leave. In 1 John, one of the marks of the Antichrist is that they leave the Church...
I think/hope what Williams has been doing (yes, while doing as bruce says above) is giving them every chance to stay but still making sure at the end that it's them who leave.
Sorry everyone, this counts as a rant. I just wish it would all END>
I second Bruce's question - has there been a new devlopment that I missed?
I second Byron's first question, even though his next question may be a real stinker :-)
No, no new developments. Just a grumpy old man day.
Bruce, it is the 4th option, which is Williams' stated approach, i am beginning to lose faith in. That is, it has the appearance of greater wisdom but: does it really?
preach it, bro.
Of Williams' approach: it has the appearance of greater wisdom but: does it really?
I am too provincial to have a useful independent view on that, I think. But as for Williams' approach from Williams' point of view: by all accounts his concern with what he understands his role to require is genuine rather than feigned, so I am predisposed to respect it ...
Sincerely, passively going down with the ship?
Well I don't know, paul: because an office-holder is not doing what you would want them to do, does that necessarily make them passive?
And in an earlier generation of ethical thought in our culture, a willingness to go down with the ship --- if necessary --- would have been admired. And commitment to many good but ultimately fragile things necessarily involves that risk.
Thus we come to "sincerely". (I actually described his concern as "genuine rather than feigned", but sincere will do as well.) Please understand me. I don't claim that merely because just-some-guy does or thinks something "sincerely", it follows that other people must agree with it or approve it. This is a silly notion and a tired one, well past its use-by date. However, RW is a substantial thinker with a reputation for personal godliness that is not (the last time I checked) in dispute. I think that makes his considered policies worthy of respect.
This doesn't of course mean that they will "work". Lots of things don't "work". But this is no automatic criticism of the people involved ...
The Anglican Communion is indeed worth saving. It is the only eccclesiastical community in the world born of the Reformation which still has some form of accountability across ethnic boundries.
Why is this important? Because of hermeneutics. You give the Bible to American theologians or English theologians or, God knows, Arab theologians, or Nigerian theologians, and they will sooner or later go off the deep end.
Pentecost presented the church as the reconstituted humanity which was scattered at Babel. Jesus says the word church twice in the Gospels, both in Matthew. One of those times is in ref to church discipline and excommunication.
Therefore discipline and acccountability are of the essence of the church. Autonomy is not, pace TEC. Also, a healthy and balanced hermeneutic requires contributions from all ethnic, linguistic, and cultural groups.
Right now the only churches in the world that have this are the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. Orthodoxy's presence in the West is so meager that it cannot count itself with the other two.
But discipline and accountability are not merely institutional realities (and I wouldn't accept them as the essence of the church anyhow I have to say since these passages in Matthew are not - according to Luz's commentary for example - talking about this).
I have experienced more mutual and international hermeneutical accountability accross denominational boundaries than I can see occuring with the Anglican Communion, where Western liberals are just plainly deaf to others on this and want to spit in our eye. The Anglican communion ought not to imagine itself as more significant than it is in terms of world Christianity...
I thought this thread had gone cold, but here it is, still warm. As to liberal high-handedness and arrogance, over against the claims of discipline/accountability/solidarity, a few points:
(1) Isn't the incomprehensibility of the North American agenda, looked at from outside the West, one of the arguments against that agenda? This tends to reinforce abu daoud's argument, however overstated.
(2; related to 1) I have non-Christian American friends who are capable of understanding that there is a difference, from a Christian perspective, between a church in some place "going native" (as they are supposed to) and going entirely their own way (as parts of the North American church seem to have done). And that the rest of us have problems with the N.A. Episcopalians for that reason. (For the record, I guess that my friends are themselves in some sympathy with the liberal agenda.) If the fight were solely an Anglo-American stoush, or even one within the English church, I wonder if this would be so apparent. This is really a point about the appeal of international fellowship to the human imagination, rather than a natively Christian argument, but I think it carries some weight.
(3) As a credal and conservative Christian, but not a fully-paid-up-movement-evangelical, I sometimes ask myself why I hang around with evangelical Anglicans. I am sure others ask this question from time to time, maybe with a different emphasis: according to some perspectives, after all, I am not supposed to exist.
Anyway, when I do ask myself such questions, evangelical preoccupations and stubbornness --- and dare one say it, arrogance --- are often what provokes me.
On the other hand, a liberal friend once remarked that the problem with most liberal churches in the US is that they don't teach from Scripture, or if they do they don't treat it with respect. Officially, I don't think my friend is supposed to exist either.
So what's the point? Some of us are noncombatants, civilians, whatever, and we get left off the map in partisan discussions. And as for me, institutional breakup and war-talk scares me. I am just as likely to get hurt if it comes to fighting; and will there be any place for me in someone else's brave new world?
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