When facing a major problem in church or state, one way to give the appearance of seeking a solution, and also, at the same time, to ensure that it is not truly solved, is to set up boards of enquiry, commissions of study, and investigations of facts: and then to debate their findings and proposals with vigor and in depth and detail. Meanwhile, the problem does not go away but becomes part of the context and scene in which the ecclesial or the political life continues. Eventually what was originally seen as a major problem causing a major crisis is accepted by the majority, through exhaustion or boredom or because “there are other things to deal with and we must move on.”
Paralysis through Analysis is a well tried way in church and state to face a problem without doing anything vital about it. It is often, but not necessarily always, the open door by which innovations enter the common life, and do so against what was originally a majority intention.
With respect to the current crisis in Episcopalianism & Anglicanism over the status and authority of the Bible in the moral and relational lives of human beings as male and female persons, we can see the real possibility of “paralysis through analysis” occurring down the line within the next five years or earlier. Even now people are tired of the subject and want to stop reading, talking and listening about it. Yet they are being counseled to wait for the next General Convention, the next Primates’ Meeting, the next Lambeth Conference and the next something else.
Looking back on the history of the Episcopal Church since the 1960s, one can see that from the 1970s (the decade of “rights” in the USA) there have been continuing debates, studies, commissions, reports and controversies within the General Convention and diocesan conventions about what in ecclesial terms it means to give full human rights to those who denominate themselves as “Gay, Bisexual and Lesbian.” By the beginning of the twenty-first century the topic had been analyzed from many perspectives – see the published Reports of the General Conventions from 1973 onwards for the details. There have been partial acceptances and partial rejections of “full rights” in a variety of resolutions. Thus by 2004 there was exhaustion and near paralysis of the majority who, set aside the protests of the evangelicals of the American Anglican Council and others and opened the door for Gene Robinson, a self-professed “gay” man, to be made a bishop.
The attack on the ECUSA for its innovatory decision is now serving to make the majority in its leadership rise to the defense of “the beloved Episcopal Church” and to its democratic principles and also to be prepared to join in its openness to moving with the God of surprises into the future, ready to be guided by him/her, in the prophetic task of making Christianity credible and relevant to post-modern society.
Looking back we can see that since the 1960s, the Episcopal Church has adopted major innovations which also, after paralysis through analysis, became part of the mainstream of the Church’s life. For example, in the 1970s (the decade of rights) the Episcopal Church changed its internal character and its external face by:
(a) coming to terms with the divorce culture and the new sexuality by changing the nature and content of its canon on marriage in 1973 and then of its marriage service in the new prayer book (passed 1976 & 1979);
(b) coming to terms with the powerful feminist movement by making deaconesses into deacons (1970) and then passing the legislation to allow the ordaining women to all three orders of the Ministry (1976); and
(c) changing the doctrine of the Church on the principle “the law of praying is the law of believing” by creating a new prayer book with varied services and varied doctrines and calling it by the hallowed name of the traditional book, “The Book of Common Prayer” (1979).
In the latter case, the Church was exhausted after using and discussing a series of trial services from the late 1960s onwards and so readily accepted the end of the process, a new book, to bring some stability. The new book brought new doctrine and rejected the classic Anglican Way as it set aside the received Formularies. In the former cases people were weary of the incessant public debates from the 1960s onwards and so decided it was easier to go with the flow than keep up resistance. Now in 2006, divorced and remarried clergy and laity comprise at least a quarter, and possibly up to a half of the Church’s membership; women clergy are a fixed part of the scene and only a few members remember what “The Book of Common Prayer” really means as a historic title of one of the most important books ever published in the English language, a book known in the USA in its editions of 1662, 1789, 1892 and 1928.
Accepting all this, it is also true, to change the metaphor, that there can only be genuine treatment for sickness if the sickness if rightly diagnosed. And it is surely obvious that the sickness of the Episcopal Church – and with it of Anglicanism in the West – is much more than having new doctrine and practice of sexual relations, approved and blessed inside churches.
My own view is that if we look at all the major innovations since World War II we see that they all are aspects of a general rejection of what used to be called Reformed Catholicism, the Anglican Way solidly based upon the Holy Scriptures and secondarily, upon the historic, classic Formularies (The Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal). To put it solely in biblical terms, they represent a growing and accumulating setting aside of God’s revealed order for creation and the new covenant of grace. In this perspective, the consecrating of Gene R. is the icing on the cake of apostasy and the sign of what has been going on in terms of the worship of the new Episcopal deity, “the God of surprises.”
Before a cure there must be a diagnosis, but there must come a time when the surgery is attempted and the new regime of treatment is begun. Diagnosis must not lead to paralysis.
To change the metaphor, after analysis, there must be not paralysis but a major U-turn on the road, and a walking back to the adoption of the revealed, divine order set forth in Scripture and Formularies. This is much more then returning to the status quo of say the General Convention’s position in 2000. It is in simple terms the creation of a new Province of the Anglican Communion in North America, solidly based upon the Holy Scriptures and the received Anglican Formularies (regrettably ditched by the present ECUSA).
To avoid paralysis through analysis there must be decisive action; cooperative and coordinated. Merely waiting for this and that to happen and hoping that the crisis and problem will go away is to accept paralysis as the order of the day! Let there be diagnosis and then action.
[See Peter Toon, EPISCOPAL INNOVATIONS 1960-2004. Theological and Historical Reflection on the current crisis in ECUSA (published March 5th, 2006 as a 64 page booklet by The Preservation Press of the Prayer Book Society of the USA – view it on pdf on www.episcopalian.org/pbs1928 and order by calling 1-800-727-1928; special prices for bulk orders.)]
petertoon@msn.com Shrove Tuesday 2006 Dr Peter Toon
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