A discussion starter
What keeps honest Anglicans, who differ in principle on the matter of ordaining women to the presbyterate and episcopate, officially together in basic [but not full] communion is the Doctrine of Reception. This doctrine came into the Anglican Communion from the ecumenical movement in the 1980s & 1990s and basically states that the Anglican jurisdiction of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church is in the process of receiving for discernment and evaluation the ordaining of women. At the end of the period of reception it will be known whether this innovation be of God or of human creation. Thus the whole experiment could be rejected in an orderly way (by phasing out women priests) or it could be adopted in an orderly way as a full doctrine of the Anglican Communion of Churches sometime in the future – say 2010 or 2020.
The way that this doctrine of reception entered the Communion was to address an emergency. Women were being ordained here and there and this was causing both great satisfaction and great pain. There was no way to control the development within autonomous provinces and thus the doctrine of reception came in as a way of handling the crisis by offering what seemed a reasonable way through it. Today, no one knows when the process of discernment and reception will end and how it will be agreed by all that it has in fact ended. Some (arrogant) provinces [e.g. ECUSA} have declared it ended while others have not even started the process!
What the presence of the doctrine has allowed within a Communion of autonomous provinces is the advancement of the cause of women’s ordination in a respectable way on the basis of a generally accepted doctrine and process. At the same time few these days (who are not within the inner loop, as it were) seem to know that the fact of women’s ordination as a permanent institution of the Church is not yet guaranteed and may never be guaranteed. Promoters of women’s ordination make use of it while opponents seem to say little or nothing about it!
It appears that those who are pressing for the blessing of same-sex partnerships have learned from the introduction and use of the doctrine of reception with respect to women. Although it is rarely trumpeted from the top of the church tower, from the pulpit or stated in a newspaper interview, there seems to be on the agenda of the lesbigay activists (a) the intention of getting the approval here and there by dioceses of same-sex partnerships (preferably by portraying leading laity & bishops in such unions); (b) claiming that there has been and is a discernment process going on in (the more sophisticated) parts of the Communion with regard to this innovation; and (c) asking that the discernment process be extended from dioceses as such so as to include several provinces – possibly a third or more of the 38 (in e.g., the North/the West, South Africa & South America). Further, that the whole discernment process be included within the doctrine of reception.
Once the matter of same-sex partnerships is placed within the terms of reference of the doctrine of reception (and it seems to have been in parts of the ECUSA, Anglican Church of Canada and the Church of England by the action of bishops and/or diocesan synods) it is virtually sure to assist in the gaining acceptance for the innovation wherever western culture is dominant in the church. In fact, it will most probably help to make the doctrine and practice respectable not merely on the basis of a doctrine of human rights but also within a supposed Christian doctrine of human relations based on the Bible. Those who threaten to break communion with dioceses which allow such unions will be a minority and they will be “shamed” into compliance (by being accused of homophobia and other like “sins”).
The actual ordination of women has had a momentum of its own – very much because of the larger context of the women’s liberation movement – and it has been very successful to date even though it has had to fight hard. The blessing of same-sex partnerships, while involving less people than the women’s movement, has also a momentum of its own – again very much in the context of claimed human rights by lesbigay activists – and those who are involved intend to work and fight hard for their cause. A “gay person” who is in a “faithful relationship” with another such person and is also a baptized Christian desperately desires to have the Church tell him/her that God loves him, that what he/she is involved in is being true to his/her nature, and that it is approved by Jesus & his Father. He or she will go to great lengths to get that full acceptance and thus the Lesbigay movement is using and will use the doctrine of reception amongst other means to promote and solidify its cause and ends.
In comparing the strategy of the Lesbigay and women’s movements I am not suggesting that they are in their basic claims of equal worth or value. I am merely pointing out that a strategy used by one is apparently being used by the other.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
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