Fr. Todd Wetzel at Canterbury commenting on Tuesday July 29, 2008
There are a number of serious and deeply held misconceptions operative throughout the conference.
(1) One, stated by the Windsor Continuation Group, “the proliferation of ad hoc Episcopal and archiespiscopal ministries cannot be maintained within a global Communion.” Translation: Communion leadership is angry with Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, the Southern Cone et al., for consecrating bishops and charging them with the development of their missionary outreach in the States and Canada.
No one adds to this condemnation a simple statement of fact that these actions were taken because the Communion stood by and did nothing substantive while abusive actions against believing clergy and parishes (now whole dioceses) on the American shores continued. In the light of the Episcopal Church’s escalating abuse, they choose not to simply stand by in the face of Canterbury’s weak (no matter how well intended) response. Their intervention has put lifeboats in the turbulent waters at no small cost to themselves.
And, Christians under siege in the Episcopal Church, are heading for those lifeboats in ever increasing numbers.
I am reminded of the story of the Good Samaritan. Good upstanding representatives of the Communion passed by the one beset by thieves and robbers. They were in a hurry to carry on carrying on. Perhaps they would form a committee to investigate later. Fortunately, others in the Communion, willing to risk becoming outcast themselves, stopped by and sought to give aide.
(2) Two, the word “inclusive” has completely replaced an older and historically more familiar word “comprehensive” which, frankly, is the familiar word one used to describe a far healthier Anglicanism. The two words are not synonymous. The latter word, “comprehensive” is associated with a saying attributed to Augustine: “Unity in essentials, freedom in non-essentials and charity in all things.” This springs from a clear sense of what constituted the essentials – a clear statement of essentials in the 39 Articles and a transparent identity.
“Inclusivity,” on the other hand springs from the opposite: the lack of a clearly understood center and a fluid identity. We Americans defined the meaning of the word when, in the late ‘90’s, the Episcopal Church, fully present at the Richter trial, found that it had no “core” doctrine. It is this ethos of “inclusivity” to which the Episcopal Church is now so aggressively seeking to convert the Communion. It argues against discipline. Leadership mitigates against statements of doctrine. While that same leadership seldom hesitates to use the power of money to work its will. Curiously, that same “inclusivity” is being used to drive out the opposition.
There is an old story about an emperor and a town. Americans considering themselves proper Anglicans in their dress and demeanor parade about. Other members of the Communion fawn upon them and cheer them on. But there is a still small voice being uttered in this the Lambeth Conference: “They have no clothes!”
Take away the money and the political power and there is no longer any there there!
(3) Three, the Global Anglican South Conference, is spoken of with disdain. Attempts are afoot to redefine the “Global South” thereby excluding GAFCON’s leadership. True, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said that he is pained by their absence as do other bishops but it seems only to echo an earlier statement from the Episcopal House of Bishops who, when asked to repent of their actions said, “We’re sorry you’re upset.” No real regret there (let alone repentance). And, in the case of Rowan Williams his pain could have only evolved as a consequence of his own actions (or non actions).
The Global South, fearing that Lambeth would speak much and yet remain unwilling to discipline a stubbornly willful and recalcitrant Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada, fearing yet a further diminishment of the Christian Witness of the Communion, decided to stop wringing its hands and crying unfair. In short, in the face of constant jawboning, and leadership failure, the Global South, representing the rapidly growing Anglican areas of witness in Africa, Asia, the Global South and the mission efforts in America stopped reacting and seized the initiative. GAFCON affirmed Anglican orthodoxy in its “Declaration,” communicating clearly a way forward in its statement.
Even with the absence of over two hundred bishops of strongly Christian persuasion, there are still a good many orthodox and evangelical bishops here. Though by and large of more moderate persuasion than those of the Global South, they may graciously find the resolve to take leadership in this Lambeth Conference. What a wonder it would be to see something like the clarity of GAFCON’s “Jerusalem Statement” coming from Canterbury. Sadly I’m not sure if even this would be enough to hold the Communion together.
My guess would be that if anything positive comes out of this Lambeth Conference it will largely be because the Global South stopped reacting and clearly stated, “Here we stand, we can do no other!”
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Sunday, July 27, 2008
GAFCON PROVINCE for North America—much desired by some, and soon [?] to be granted by the GAFCON Primates?
Some preliminary observations and comments from Peter Toon
Ecclesial revolution is in the making in Canada and the U.S.A. The Common Cause Partnership in North American has petitioned the Primates’ Council of the GAFCON movement for recognition as an Anglican Province in North America. If granted, this extraordinary request will lead to a rival to the two existing Anglican Provinces of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, both of which are regarded by GAFCON as deeply flawed and probably apostate.
Further, if this petition is granted, then the new North American, cross-border entity will be unique. Not only will it be a province like unto no other either in the GAFCON membership or in the full Anglican Communion of Churches and Family, but also it will present a type of Province, the like of which there has not been in the history of either the Western or Eastern Churches since Provinces were recognized in the patristic era through to the present day. In fact, to call the recognition of the body, that is the present Common Cause Partnership, a Province will be an innovation for which there is only the minimal meaningful precedent.
However, it seems that someone in the Common Cause membership is thinking at least in semi-traditional terms for the Organization has asked not merely for general recognition of the Cause as a Province, but also for the Primates’ Council to seat its own “presiding bishop,” Bishop Bob Duncan, as a fellow Primate at their table. This is a remarkable request from a young and fragile fellowship, and is perhaps of the kind which perhaps only Americans on the move would be so bold as to ask!
It is possible, that, by making this request for Bob Duncan, Common Cause is (as already indicated) making use of an ancient ecclesiastical use of “province,” a usage continued today, for example, in England with the Provinces of York and Canterbury: that is, a specific geographical district or area, where the Church is wholly present and is ultimately (via diocesan bishops) under an archbishop or a metropolitan bishop (e.g., the Archbishop of Canterbury is still called the Primate of all England!). On this (supposed) model, offered by Common Cause, North America is the “district” (and here is the unlikeness to the ancient usage) in which there are no dioceses or Episcopal areas as such; but the whole area is open to all the Bishops of the constituent parts of Common Cause to evangelize and plant churches as they deem right in this district.
Order and fellowship it is assumed will be maintained because each Bishop has two loyalties and works both at the same time –one to the sponsoring diocese, or overseas province, or network, or denomination, or organization, within Common Cause that legitimizes him and which he serves; and the other to Bob Duncan, as Presiding Bishop of Common Cause and also the Primate of the district, to whom he takes some kind of oath of loyalty. Thus the individual bishop keeps watch over the members of his jurisdiction, making sure that they work well together and in harmony with their partners in Common Cause; and, at the same time, he is careful to work with and for his Primate in order to have general stability for the whole “Province.”
While the traditional Province of multiple dioceses is united by a common canon law and constitution, the new North American one will apparently be united primarily by the bonding of the Bishops, each of whom will operate with the canon law of his own jurisdiction (be in REC, AMIA, CANA or another) amongst his people. So there will be no general provincial rules for admittance to ordination; to Baptism and Confirmation; to Marriage in church if divorced; and so on. What each of the Partners accept and do will be acceptable to the Province for that is the nature of this new Province. Its total impact is, and will be, the net result of the action of its partners working alongside, and sometimes in opposition to each other, throughout the whole “district.” That is, it will be bottom upwards and the character will emerge as the bottom rises (as it were). So there will be differences over a wide range of issues and areas such as female deacons and priests, use of liturgy, exercise of discipline over erring members, ownership of properties, medical cover for employees, pension rights and so on. But this will be a part of the real character of this province.
In short, the character will be unity without uniformity and the unity will be a generous, comprehensive one, wherein all major “streams” and “schools” of the Anglican Way will be acceptable and probably present. General unity will be maintained by loyalty to the Primate whose person will be the symbol of this wide ranging and deep form of unity for the district/province.
Will it work? Only if the participants consciously become a different kind of Anglican than they are now and learn to subdue their pronounced “opinions.” That is an Anglican who sees unity as deeply integrated with truth and never apart from it, and reckons being “in Christ” together the primary goal and experience. Some may call this “compromise” but another way of putting it is “walking with Christ” where he sets the route and the pace, and takes along whomsoever he will on his journey!
The Revd Dr Peter Toon Trinity X 2008
Ecclesial revolution is in the making in Canada and the U.S.A. The Common Cause Partnership in North American has petitioned the Primates’ Council of the GAFCON movement for recognition as an Anglican Province in North America. If granted, this extraordinary request will lead to a rival to the two existing Anglican Provinces of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, both of which are regarded by GAFCON as deeply flawed and probably apostate.
Further, if this petition is granted, then the new North American, cross-border entity will be unique. Not only will it be a province like unto no other either in the GAFCON membership or in the full Anglican Communion of Churches and Family, but also it will present a type of Province, the like of which there has not been in the history of either the Western or Eastern Churches since Provinces were recognized in the patristic era through to the present day. In fact, to call the recognition of the body, that is the present Common Cause Partnership, a Province will be an innovation for which there is only the minimal meaningful precedent.
However, it seems that someone in the Common Cause membership is thinking at least in semi-traditional terms for the Organization has asked not merely for general recognition of the Cause as a Province, but also for the Primates’ Council to seat its own “presiding bishop,” Bishop Bob Duncan, as a fellow Primate at their table. This is a remarkable request from a young and fragile fellowship, and is perhaps of the kind which perhaps only Americans on the move would be so bold as to ask!
It is possible, that, by making this request for Bob Duncan, Common Cause is (as already indicated) making use of an ancient ecclesiastical use of “province,” a usage continued today, for example, in England with the Provinces of York and Canterbury: that is, a specific geographical district or area, where the Church is wholly present and is ultimately (via diocesan bishops) under an archbishop or a metropolitan bishop (e.g., the Archbishop of Canterbury is still called the Primate of all England!). On this (supposed) model, offered by Common Cause, North America is the “district” (and here is the unlikeness to the ancient usage) in which there are no dioceses or Episcopal areas as such; but the whole area is open to all the Bishops of the constituent parts of Common Cause to evangelize and plant churches as they deem right in this district.
Order and fellowship it is assumed will be maintained because each Bishop has two loyalties and works both at the same time –one to the sponsoring diocese, or overseas province, or network, or denomination, or organization, within Common Cause that legitimizes him and which he serves; and the other to Bob Duncan, as Presiding Bishop of Common Cause and also the Primate of the district, to whom he takes some kind of oath of loyalty. Thus the individual bishop keeps watch over the members of his jurisdiction, making sure that they work well together and in harmony with their partners in Common Cause; and, at the same time, he is careful to work with and for his Primate in order to have general stability for the whole “Province.”
While the traditional Province of multiple dioceses is united by a common canon law and constitution, the new North American one will apparently be united primarily by the bonding of the Bishops, each of whom will operate with the canon law of his own jurisdiction (be in REC, AMIA, CANA or another) amongst his people. So there will be no general provincial rules for admittance to ordination; to Baptism and Confirmation; to Marriage in church if divorced; and so on. What each of the Partners accept and do will be acceptable to the Province for that is the nature of this new Province. Its total impact is, and will be, the net result of the action of its partners working alongside, and sometimes in opposition to each other, throughout the whole “district.” That is, it will be bottom upwards and the character will emerge as the bottom rises (as it were). So there will be differences over a wide range of issues and areas such as female deacons and priests, use of liturgy, exercise of discipline over erring members, ownership of properties, medical cover for employees, pension rights and so on. But this will be a part of the real character of this province.
In short, the character will be unity without uniformity and the unity will be a generous, comprehensive one, wherein all major “streams” and “schools” of the Anglican Way will be acceptable and probably present. General unity will be maintained by loyalty to the Primate whose person will be the symbol of this wide ranging and deep form of unity for the district/province.
Will it work? Only if the participants consciously become a different kind of Anglican than they are now and learn to subdue their pronounced “opinions.” That is an Anglican who sees unity as deeply integrated with truth and never apart from it, and reckons being “in Christ” together the primary goal and experience. Some may call this “compromise” but another way of putting it is “walking with Christ” where he sets the route and the pace, and takes along whomsoever he will on his journey!
The Revd Dr Peter Toon Trinity X 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
Is Dishonesty the Best Policy for the Church? or The Wages of Fudge
© 2008 The Brynmill Press Ltd
Edgeways Miscellany no. 20
25 July 2008
All men are equal in the sight of God, people keep telling us, on what authority we don’t know—but not, anyway, in the sight of the Church of Rome or the Church of England or even the Methodist Church. Some but not all men are priests or ministers and others superintendents or bishops. One man alone is servus servorum dei. And women?
On the eve of the Lambeth Conference, and against the advice of the two archbishops, the Church of England General Synod decided to press ahead with legislation to make it possible to consecrate women bishops. On the question itself at this point we offer no opinion, nor about the wisdom of entrusting important decisions to a Mussolini-style democracy within a church claiming to be within the apostolic succession. Within the Church of England a wide variety of strongly held opinions is to be found. Whether the sex of a bishop is a theological matter is itself very contentious; also the degree of importance the question of male episcopacy has for the right ordering of the church, for there are those who hold seriously that it doesn’t matter much. Some ask what difference it can make when already some of the bishops are old women. These brief remarks are not to support any of these positions, but are about what can be learned of the Church of England from its handling of the question.
The doctrine of reception was developed by the Church of England as an aid to resolving the crisis of the 1990s over the ordination of women priests. Though in the considerable body of reports during the last twenty years the possibility was sometimes acknowledged that differences may simply be irreconcileable, the drive has been (as Dr Toon puts it in a lucid survey of Reception in the Church of England) towards “maintaining communion in the Anglican family despite differences over women’s ordination”.[1]
It is fair to say that the Eames Commission and the Rochester Report were predominantly trying to answer a how question, not a whether or a why: how full communion could be retained
within a church seriously divided on what some on both sides thought a very important matter.[2] One of the Rochester Report’s conclusions (just before its final recommendation of an eschatological perspective, because no “closure” is to be anticipated before the end of the world) was that “people of differing views will have to be enabled to live together in the highest possible degree of communion . . . .”[3]
Reception in the C of E is unlike the medieval doctrine, when Reception was the process of acceptance of decisions made by higher authority (e.g. about what constitutes the canon of holy scripture), behind which was, perhaps, the concept of the reception by the individual of the baptismal covenant. It is also unlike the more modern “reception” springing from the ecumenical movement, when one church might receive from another, over time, a practice or doctrine thought to be consonant with Holy Scripture and the tradition of the Church. The contemporary C of E reception was itself an innovation. The Church recognised division between two convinced parties and so introduced the ordination of women during a period of reception as what amounted to an experiment. The will of the Holy Spirit in this matter would be revealed and discerned over an indefinite period of time, during which all parties could keep to their views and live together in full communion (though with some refusing the administration by women of the sacrament of Holy Communion). It was essential to the honesty of the procedure that the possibility be entertained of the failure of the experiment, and this was clearly stated by a number of authorities. The Rochester Report for instance speaks of “the process of discernment by which a development could be either accepted or rejected”[4] and quotes the Eames Commission, “In the continuing and dynamic process of reception, freedom and space must be available until a consensus of opinion one way or the other has been achieved.”[5]
Obvious weaknesses of the process were that no criteria were formulated for judging reception, and no timescale was fixed. The process might be of indefinite duration. It was explained to the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament that “the safeguards will be there in perpetuity or for as long as they are required.”[6] The suspicion inevitably arose that, with the church bureaucracy committed to women priests and enabled to block the advancement of those opposed to female ordination, the outcome would be decided bureaucratically. One way or another, opposition to female priests was expected to fade away. But meanwhile, the Rochester Report said, “No time limit has been set for the process of the reception of the decision to ordain women priests to be concluded, because the fact that reception is a dynamic and open-ended process means that it cannot be arbitrarily halted on a given date. What is clear, however, is that while there is still substantial opposition to or hesitation about the ordination of women both within the Church of England and ecumenically the process of reception is not complete.”[7]
The word reception itself prejudices the issue by suggesting that something is being received, when it is possible that the something is in process of rejection. And if the whole process is genuinely experimental what is the position of women priests? Ordination can no more be experimental and conditional than marriage, and it would have been unthinkable to tell an ordained woman that after all she was not really a priest. As the Rev’d Rose Hudson was reported to have said, in rebuttal of the argument that female priesthood could be “repugnant to the Word of God”, “How can I, and the work I do, be repugnant to the God who has called me to a life of discipleship and service?”[8] Howbeit, the Church of England took the path of Reception, including the possibility that it might have erred by ordaining women priests, and with sufficient seriousness to be able to keep within the fold many members who did not believe that a female can be validly ordained to the priesthood. More than a decade later there has been no general recognition that Reception is complete, and both parties are still entrenched, as are those who wonder what all the fuss is about.
The Report of April 2008, GS 1685, differs from earlier reports not in explicitly discarding Reception but in its conclusion in bold type that “the moment for making choices has come.”[9] As the Synod vote went, this does mean the arbitrary halting of the process of Reception, but as a side effect, not a considered judgement.
The relevant part of the motion moved by the Bishop of Gloucester and passed by sufficient majorities without emendation reads “That this Synod: (a) affirm that the wish of its majority is for women to be admitted to the episcopate.”[10] The following clauses about arrangements for those who in conscience cannot accept the authority of female bishops are not in the spirit of Reception.
For them “special arrangements” will have to be made by a “code of practice”. No possibility is mentioned that the Church may be erring in a way that in future will have to be corrected.[11]
Women bishops are to come, and there’s an end on’t. But the process of reception of women priests has not been formally terminated, and numbers of Anglo-Catholics and a few conservative Evangelicals are still within the Church of England on the understanding that Reception continues. GS 1685 conceded that “Those who perhaps expected to see a steady contraction in the constituency of those theologically unable to accept women’s ordination will have been disappointed.”[12]
But what if the dynamic process of Reception continues, and the ordination of women priests is judged to have been rejected by the whole church? Would the newly consecrated female bishop have to resign because her priesting was invalid? This is of course unthinkable: but the inescapable conclusion is that the doctrine of reception was wrongly named. The outcome was never in doubt and was not in fact experimental. The doctrine of Reception has been shown retrospectively by the Synod vote to be the doctrine of Deception.
Reception, itself an innovation, should itself have been subject to a process of reception, with clear criteria and a timetable. That it was not was itself a sign of playing politics with a concept not in the interests of the Body of Christ but in order to keep together a ramshackle earthly organisation.
It is quite possible that any present muddle is caused by feeble-mindedness. A “vast majority” of the same 2008 Synod recognised that “this was the greatest issue confronting the church”.[13] The this was not women bishops, nor, as might perhaps have been expected, the fading of Christianity from English life and loss of countless souls. It was climate change. “Feeble-minded” because only a Christianity in the last stages of feebleness could take our stewardship of the earth to be the very centre of the gospel. There is very little about global warming in the Bible. And only delusions of grandeur could explain the belief that the Church of England can make any even infinitesimally small difference to climate change.
There is nothing to prevent dishonesty getting embodied as feeble-mindedness. Not all deception is deliberate. Quite likely some of the proponents of Reception were not Machiavellian schemers but adopted Reception without much thought. They should have thought hard; not to think hard was the insincerity of the occasion. The present deplorable state of the Church of England is a righteous judgement on its possibly absent-minded flirtation with the Father of Lies.
The Prayer Book thanks God that those who have received the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ are assured thereby of being “very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people”. Can deceit be a good basis for the maintenance of communion? Whatever the rights and wrongs of female bishops, they are certainly an innovation. The change will be in the established church, not in those who secede. But if it is not possible any longer to see the Church of England as the local part of the Body of Christ, the underlying reason is not so much its innovations as its feeble-minded dishonesty.
NOTES & REFERENCES
1 Peter Toon, Reforming Forwards? Latimer Studies 56/57, 2004, p. 39
2 See Women Bishops in the Church of England?, a report of the House of Bishops’ Working Party on Women in the Episcopate (the Rochester Report), GS 1557, 2004 and Report of the Women Bishops Legistlative Drafting Group, GS 1685, April 2008.
3 Rochester Report 8.1.18, p. 234.
4 Rochester Report 3.6.10
5 Ibid., 3.6.11, our italics
6 GS 1685, 68, p. 14
7 Rochester Report 3.6.33
8 The Church of England Newspaper, 11 July 2008. This clearly offers experience as authority. Traditionally the Church of England has recognised the authority, in descending order, of the Bible, the other formularies, the ecumencial councils, the fathers and reason, but not experiment.
9 Para 47, p. 11
10 Why the wording was altered from the published draft, “That this Synod: (a) reaffirm its wish for women to be admitted to the episcopate . . . .” is unclear. The version passed is odd in that the question what the majority wishes is one of fact not resolution, and whether any ecclesiastical lawyer will be ingenious enough to argue an interpretation of the motion not as affirming anything but reporting an opinion remains to be seen. In grammar a good case could be made, though the intention of the General Synod seems to have been otherwise.
11 The detail of the debate is hard to find. If there is a Synodical equivalent of Hansard we have not discovered it. The Synod website offers audios of the sessions when the question was considered but when we tried them they were not working.
12 GS 1685 21, p. 4
13 Church of England Newspaper, ed. cit.
Edgeways Miscellany no. 20
25 July 2008
All men are equal in the sight of God, people keep telling us, on what authority we don’t know—but not, anyway, in the sight of the Church of Rome or the Church of England or even the Methodist Church. Some but not all men are priests or ministers and others superintendents or bishops. One man alone is servus servorum dei. And women?
On the eve of the Lambeth Conference, and against the advice of the two archbishops, the Church of England General Synod decided to press ahead with legislation to make it possible to consecrate women bishops. On the question itself at this point we offer no opinion, nor about the wisdom of entrusting important decisions to a Mussolini-style democracy within a church claiming to be within the apostolic succession. Within the Church of England a wide variety of strongly held opinions is to be found. Whether the sex of a bishop is a theological matter is itself very contentious; also the degree of importance the question of male episcopacy has for the right ordering of the church, for there are those who hold seriously that it doesn’t matter much. Some ask what difference it can make when already some of the bishops are old women. These brief remarks are not to support any of these positions, but are about what can be learned of the Church of England from its handling of the question.
The doctrine of reception was developed by the Church of England as an aid to resolving the crisis of the 1990s over the ordination of women priests. Though in the considerable body of reports during the last twenty years the possibility was sometimes acknowledged that differences may simply be irreconcileable, the drive has been (as Dr Toon puts it in a lucid survey of Reception in the Church of England) towards “maintaining communion in the Anglican family despite differences over women’s ordination”.[1]
It is fair to say that the Eames Commission and the Rochester Report were predominantly trying to answer a how question, not a whether or a why: how full communion could be retained
within a church seriously divided on what some on both sides thought a very important matter.[2] One of the Rochester Report’s conclusions (just before its final recommendation of an eschatological perspective, because no “closure” is to be anticipated before the end of the world) was that “people of differing views will have to be enabled to live together in the highest possible degree of communion . . . .”[3]
Reception in the C of E is unlike the medieval doctrine, when Reception was the process of acceptance of decisions made by higher authority (e.g. about what constitutes the canon of holy scripture), behind which was, perhaps, the concept of the reception by the individual of the baptismal covenant. It is also unlike the more modern “reception” springing from the ecumenical movement, when one church might receive from another, over time, a practice or doctrine thought to be consonant with Holy Scripture and the tradition of the Church. The contemporary C of E reception was itself an innovation. The Church recognised division between two convinced parties and so introduced the ordination of women during a period of reception as what amounted to an experiment. The will of the Holy Spirit in this matter would be revealed and discerned over an indefinite period of time, during which all parties could keep to their views and live together in full communion (though with some refusing the administration by women of the sacrament of Holy Communion). It was essential to the honesty of the procedure that the possibility be entertained of the failure of the experiment, and this was clearly stated by a number of authorities. The Rochester Report for instance speaks of “the process of discernment by which a development could be either accepted or rejected”[4] and quotes the Eames Commission, “In the continuing and dynamic process of reception, freedom and space must be available until a consensus of opinion one way or the other has been achieved.”[5]
Obvious weaknesses of the process were that no criteria were formulated for judging reception, and no timescale was fixed. The process might be of indefinite duration. It was explained to the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament that “the safeguards will be there in perpetuity or for as long as they are required.”[6] The suspicion inevitably arose that, with the church bureaucracy committed to women priests and enabled to block the advancement of those opposed to female ordination, the outcome would be decided bureaucratically. One way or another, opposition to female priests was expected to fade away. But meanwhile, the Rochester Report said, “No time limit has been set for the process of the reception of the decision to ordain women priests to be concluded, because the fact that reception is a dynamic and open-ended process means that it cannot be arbitrarily halted on a given date. What is clear, however, is that while there is still substantial opposition to or hesitation about the ordination of women both within the Church of England and ecumenically the process of reception is not complete.”[7]
The word reception itself prejudices the issue by suggesting that something is being received, when it is possible that the something is in process of rejection. And if the whole process is genuinely experimental what is the position of women priests? Ordination can no more be experimental and conditional than marriage, and it would have been unthinkable to tell an ordained woman that after all she was not really a priest. As the Rev’d Rose Hudson was reported to have said, in rebuttal of the argument that female priesthood could be “repugnant to the Word of God”, “How can I, and the work I do, be repugnant to the God who has called me to a life of discipleship and service?”[8] Howbeit, the Church of England took the path of Reception, including the possibility that it might have erred by ordaining women priests, and with sufficient seriousness to be able to keep within the fold many members who did not believe that a female can be validly ordained to the priesthood. More than a decade later there has been no general recognition that Reception is complete, and both parties are still entrenched, as are those who wonder what all the fuss is about.
The Report of April 2008, GS 1685, differs from earlier reports not in explicitly discarding Reception but in its conclusion in bold type that “the moment for making choices has come.”[9] As the Synod vote went, this does mean the arbitrary halting of the process of Reception, but as a side effect, not a considered judgement.
The relevant part of the motion moved by the Bishop of Gloucester and passed by sufficient majorities without emendation reads “That this Synod: (a) affirm that the wish of its majority is for women to be admitted to the episcopate.”[10] The following clauses about arrangements for those who in conscience cannot accept the authority of female bishops are not in the spirit of Reception.
For them “special arrangements” will have to be made by a “code of practice”. No possibility is mentioned that the Church may be erring in a way that in future will have to be corrected.[11]
Women bishops are to come, and there’s an end on’t. But the process of reception of women priests has not been formally terminated, and numbers of Anglo-Catholics and a few conservative Evangelicals are still within the Church of England on the understanding that Reception continues. GS 1685 conceded that “Those who perhaps expected to see a steady contraction in the constituency of those theologically unable to accept women’s ordination will have been disappointed.”[12]
But what if the dynamic process of Reception continues, and the ordination of women priests is judged to have been rejected by the whole church? Would the newly consecrated female bishop have to resign because her priesting was invalid? This is of course unthinkable: but the inescapable conclusion is that the doctrine of reception was wrongly named. The outcome was never in doubt and was not in fact experimental. The doctrine of Reception has been shown retrospectively by the Synod vote to be the doctrine of Deception.
Reception, itself an innovation, should itself have been subject to a process of reception, with clear criteria and a timetable. That it was not was itself a sign of playing politics with a concept not in the interests of the Body of Christ but in order to keep together a ramshackle earthly organisation.
It is quite possible that any present muddle is caused by feeble-mindedness. A “vast majority” of the same 2008 Synod recognised that “this was the greatest issue confronting the church”.[13] The this was not women bishops, nor, as might perhaps have been expected, the fading of Christianity from English life and loss of countless souls. It was climate change. “Feeble-minded” because only a Christianity in the last stages of feebleness could take our stewardship of the earth to be the very centre of the gospel. There is very little about global warming in the Bible. And only delusions of grandeur could explain the belief that the Church of England can make any even infinitesimally small difference to climate change.
There is nothing to prevent dishonesty getting embodied as feeble-mindedness. Not all deception is deliberate. Quite likely some of the proponents of Reception were not Machiavellian schemers but adopted Reception without much thought. They should have thought hard; not to think hard was the insincerity of the occasion. The present deplorable state of the Church of England is a righteous judgement on its possibly absent-minded flirtation with the Father of Lies.
The Prayer Book thanks God that those who have received the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ are assured thereby of being “very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people”. Can deceit be a good basis for the maintenance of communion? Whatever the rights and wrongs of female bishops, they are certainly an innovation. The change will be in the established church, not in those who secede. But if it is not possible any longer to see the Church of England as the local part of the Body of Christ, the underlying reason is not so much its innovations as its feeble-minded dishonesty.
NOTES & REFERENCES
1 Peter Toon, Reforming Forwards? Latimer Studies 56/57, 2004, p. 39
2 See Women Bishops in the Church of England?, a report of the House of Bishops’ Working Party on Women in the Episcopate (the Rochester Report), GS 1557, 2004 and Report of the Women Bishops Legistlative Drafting Group, GS 1685, April 2008.
3 Rochester Report 8.1.18, p. 234.
4 Rochester Report 3.6.10
5 Ibid., 3.6.11, our italics
6 GS 1685, 68, p. 14
7 Rochester Report 3.6.33
8 The Church of England Newspaper, 11 July 2008. This clearly offers experience as authority. Traditionally the Church of England has recognised the authority, in descending order, of the Bible, the other formularies, the ecumencial councils, the fathers and reason, but not experiment.
9 Para 47, p. 11
10 Why the wording was altered from the published draft, “That this Synod: (a) reaffirm its wish for women to be admitted to the episcopate . . . .” is unclear. The version passed is odd in that the question what the majority wishes is one of fact not resolution, and whether any ecclesiastical lawyer will be ingenious enough to argue an interpretation of the motion not as affirming anything but reporting an opinion remains to be seen. In grammar a good case could be made, though the intention of the General Synod seems to have been otherwise.
11 The detail of the debate is hard to find. If there is a Synodical equivalent of Hansard we have not discovered it. The Synod website offers audios of the sessions when the question was considered but when we tried them they were not working.
12 GS 1685 21, p. 4
13 Church of England Newspaper, ed. cit.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Status of Dr Rowan Williams as Lambeth 08 formally begins – July 19/20
According to the British Constitution and the Canons of the Established Church of England, Dr Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primate and Metropolitan of all England. His Cathedral-See is the ancient See of Canterbury and his London home is Lambeth Palace. He has no ecclesiastical authority in Scotland, Wales or Ireland.
Because of this position and status, and because the Conference (not Synod or Council) of Anglican Bishops has always been held in England since 1867, the Archbishop has always been the one to invite bishops from overseas churches in fellowship with the Church of England and himself to the (usually every ten years) Conference, held initially at Lambeth Palace (thus the name of the Lambeth Conference).
For the July-August Conference of 2008 held at Canterbury, Dr Williams has generally followed the traditional set-up: he has invited the bishops; using advisory groups he has set the structure and content of the Conference, and he is presiding over it (which includes in 2008, his leading an initial Retreat for all bishops). What will be noticed at the end is the absence of any Resolutions on pressing topics (which has occurred from 1867 to 1998).
However, for the first time in modern times, a large number (between a quarter and a third of the whole of those invited) have refused and are not present. And these bishops come from provinces that are growing and which have large memberships.
Let us now ask: How do the bishops present view the status of the Archbishop of Canterbury as the Conference begins?
The fact that they are present, suggests very strongly that they accept his right to invite bishops, to fix the structure and content of the Conference and to preside over it. And they may connect this to his status as the Primate of all England.
Further, as there has been much talk in the last decade about the central place of the Four Instruments of Unity in modern Anglican life (see The Virginia Report of 1998 and The Windsor Report of 2004), the bishops also no doubt see Dr Williams as “the First Instrument of Unity,” and recognize his calling of the Lambeth Conference (itself an Instrument also) as part of this vocation. Other important aspects of this position include his calling of the Primates’ Meeting and his Chairmanship of it, along with his major participation in the Anglican Consultative Council, made up of clergy and laity. Thus has a very major role outside of England.
Amongst those present are a hundred or so bishops, who previously attended Gafcon in June in Jerusalem. Included in them is the Primate of the Southern Cone of S. America. It is now becoming clear that many in this group (as the 250 or so bishops not present) have a very reduced estimate of the role of the Archbishop outside England, and are beginning to say so in clear terms (see the very clear Message of the Primates of GAFCON to the Archbishop of Canterbury, dated July 18th, 2008, using “colonial” images).
This in general terms is how they have been expressing their problems with Dr Williams in a variety of forms over the last several months:
“There are at least two problems associated with the ABC.
One is the fundamental problem that he is appointed by politicians. Once, when England was more Christian it worked well enough.
But to have a major Church leader appointed without any serious grass roots engagement by the churches is unsustainable in the increasingly secular world.
The other is Dr Williams’ abysmal failure to uphold by discipline the resolution 1.10 from 1998.
The African primates would not be using colonial talk about the role of the present Archbishop, if he had done his job in this matter.
He would have saved the unity of the Communion had he done so. He has failed to be ‘the First Instrument of Unity’.”
The Primates of Gafcon also have very serious problems with the content of the latest version of the Anglican Covenant and their opposition to it means –because of their sheer numbers and influence--that it is already dead as a means of uniting the present thirty-eight Provinces. So this is a major blow to the plans of Dr Williams and others who placed high hopes in this Proposed Covenant (suggested originally by The Windsor Report).
So while it will be in a sense business as usual at Lambeth 2008 from July 20 to August 4, with the Archbishop as President, behind the scenes and around the world, it will be known that up to one third of Anglican leaders believe that he leads a basically colonialist structure and with this they want nothing to do!
Because of this position and status, and because the Conference (not Synod or Council) of Anglican Bishops has always been held in England since 1867, the Archbishop has always been the one to invite bishops from overseas churches in fellowship with the Church of England and himself to the (usually every ten years) Conference, held initially at Lambeth Palace (thus the name of the Lambeth Conference).
For the July-August Conference of 2008 held at Canterbury, Dr Williams has generally followed the traditional set-up: he has invited the bishops; using advisory groups he has set the structure and content of the Conference, and he is presiding over it (which includes in 2008, his leading an initial Retreat for all bishops). What will be noticed at the end is the absence of any Resolutions on pressing topics (which has occurred from 1867 to 1998).
However, for the first time in modern times, a large number (between a quarter and a third of the whole of those invited) have refused and are not present. And these bishops come from provinces that are growing and which have large memberships.
Let us now ask: How do the bishops present view the status of the Archbishop of Canterbury as the Conference begins?
The fact that they are present, suggests very strongly that they accept his right to invite bishops, to fix the structure and content of the Conference and to preside over it. And they may connect this to his status as the Primate of all England.
Further, as there has been much talk in the last decade about the central place of the Four Instruments of Unity in modern Anglican life (see The Virginia Report of 1998 and The Windsor Report of 2004), the bishops also no doubt see Dr Williams as “the First Instrument of Unity,” and recognize his calling of the Lambeth Conference (itself an Instrument also) as part of this vocation. Other important aspects of this position include his calling of the Primates’ Meeting and his Chairmanship of it, along with his major participation in the Anglican Consultative Council, made up of clergy and laity. Thus has a very major role outside of England.
Amongst those present are a hundred or so bishops, who previously attended Gafcon in June in Jerusalem. Included in them is the Primate of the Southern Cone of S. America. It is now becoming clear that many in this group (as the 250 or so bishops not present) have a very reduced estimate of the role of the Archbishop outside England, and are beginning to say so in clear terms (see the very clear Message of the Primates of GAFCON to the Archbishop of Canterbury, dated July 18th, 2008, using “colonial” images).
This in general terms is how they have been expressing their problems with Dr Williams in a variety of forms over the last several months:
“There are at least two problems associated with the ABC.
One is the fundamental problem that he is appointed by politicians. Once, when England was more Christian it worked well enough.
But to have a major Church leader appointed without any serious grass roots engagement by the churches is unsustainable in the increasingly secular world.
The other is Dr Williams’ abysmal failure to uphold by discipline the resolution 1.10 from 1998.
The African primates would not be using colonial talk about the role of the present Archbishop, if he had done his job in this matter.
He would have saved the unity of the Communion had he done so. He has failed to be ‘the First Instrument of Unity’.”
The Primates of Gafcon also have very serious problems with the content of the latest version of the Anglican Covenant and their opposition to it means –because of their sheer numbers and influence--that it is already dead as a means of uniting the present thirty-eight Provinces. So this is a major blow to the plans of Dr Williams and others who placed high hopes in this Proposed Covenant (suggested originally by The Windsor Report).
So while it will be in a sense business as usual at Lambeth 2008 from July 20 to August 4, with the Archbishop as President, behind the scenes and around the world, it will be known that up to one third of Anglican leaders believe that he leads a basically colonialist structure and with this they want nothing to do!
Changing evaluation of the See of Canterbury and its Occupant
A comment from Peter Toon, July 19, 2008
What has been whispered at conference tables, or discussed in darkened rooms, or stated in safe e-mail traffic, or mentioned over the phone to a trusted hearer, is now being disclosed in formal ecclesial statements. And it is momentous. It is this: The respect and status being given by half the leadership of the Anglican global Family to The Archbishop of Canterbury is changing significantly.
This is to be seen in the Response of the GAFCON leaders on July 18 to the evaluation made by the Archbishop of Canterbury of the closing Statement and Declaration from the Jerusalem Pilgrimage and Conference in June.
They end their Response in this way:
“We assure the Archbishop of Canterbury of our respect as the occupier of an historic see which has been used by God to the benefit of his church and continue to pray for him to be given wisdom and discernment.
Signed
The Most Rev Peter Akinola, Primate of Nigeria
The Most Rev Justice Akrofi, Primate of West Africa
The Most Rev Emmanuel Kolini, Primate of Rwanda
The Most Rev Valentine Mokiwa, Primate of Tanzania
The Most Rev Benjamin Nzmibi, Primate of Kenya
The Most Rev Henry Orombi, Primate of Uganda
The Most Rev Gregory Venables, Primate of The Southern Cone.”
This is significant because they speak of Canterbury and its Occupant in a way both to honor it and also to take away from it a unique position in present Anglican life globally. It has been used in the past and it may be in the future; but it becomes like York or other ancient sees, a historic see with no future assured role.
Perhaps this text is not as revolutionary as I suggest. What follows is, and gets to the heart of the matter.
The same Primates also responded to the latest Draft of the Anglican Covenant, which is intended to be a means of binding the Anglican Family of Provinces closer together. In their looking at the legal framework they noticed two problems:
“First, the document describes four instruments of Communion, which it proposes will provide solutions to disputes. It fails to recognise the disproportionate influence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who invites to the Lambeth Conference, chairs the ACC and calls the Primates' Meeting. The problem of this undue influence is compounded by the lack of formal accountability on the part of the Archbishop and the prominence the document envisages for this Primate is frankly colonialist. Secondly, the prominence given to the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and Primates raises problems in increasing further the ability of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the ACC to exercise disproportionate influence over the Primates, thereby tending in effect to silence dissentient primatial voices.”
To summarize the first objection: in Anglican global affairs the Archbishop of Canterbury has excessive authority and power, just as did colonial governors in the days of British Empire.
And to summarize the second: Primates who have legitimate matters of global concern to raise will be prevented by these legal arrangements, which are designed to give the Archbishop of Canterbury too much influence over the functioning of the Primates in the Communion.
In short, they are no longer interested in being part of a colonial structure, which they believe cannot serve the present needs and opportunities of the Church outside Great Britain.
Conclusion:
There is NO turning back. What has been a necessary part of perceived Anglican Polity—the role of the Metropolitan of all England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the leadership of the fellowship of Anglican Churches outside the Church of England-- is not only being challenged, but it actually being rejected by half of the membership of the Communion of Churches, if not yet half of the provinces as such.
It will take time for the implications of this momentous change to settle, if they ever really settle!
The July-August 2008 Lambeth Conference will be the last and it may also qualify as the least useful of all the Conferences since 1867! This is because it has been organized to have no prophetic function but to seek internal unity only.
What has been whispered at conference tables, or discussed in darkened rooms, or stated in safe e-mail traffic, or mentioned over the phone to a trusted hearer, is now being disclosed in formal ecclesial statements. And it is momentous. It is this: The respect and status being given by half the leadership of the Anglican global Family to The Archbishop of Canterbury is changing significantly.
This is to be seen in the Response of the GAFCON leaders on July 18 to the evaluation made by the Archbishop of Canterbury of the closing Statement and Declaration from the Jerusalem Pilgrimage and Conference in June.
They end their Response in this way:
“We assure the Archbishop of Canterbury of our respect as the occupier of an historic see which has been used by God to the benefit of his church and continue to pray for him to be given wisdom and discernment.
Signed
The Most Rev Peter Akinola, Primate of Nigeria
The Most Rev Justice Akrofi, Primate of West Africa
The Most Rev Emmanuel Kolini, Primate of Rwanda
The Most Rev Valentine Mokiwa, Primate of Tanzania
The Most Rev Benjamin Nzmibi, Primate of Kenya
The Most Rev Henry Orombi, Primate of Uganda
The Most Rev Gregory Venables, Primate of The Southern Cone.”
This is significant because they speak of Canterbury and its Occupant in a way both to honor it and also to take away from it a unique position in present Anglican life globally. It has been used in the past and it may be in the future; but it becomes like York or other ancient sees, a historic see with no future assured role.
Perhaps this text is not as revolutionary as I suggest. What follows is, and gets to the heart of the matter.
The same Primates also responded to the latest Draft of the Anglican Covenant, which is intended to be a means of binding the Anglican Family of Provinces closer together. In their looking at the legal framework they noticed two problems:
“First, the document describes four instruments of Communion, which it proposes will provide solutions to disputes. It fails to recognise the disproportionate influence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who invites to the Lambeth Conference, chairs the ACC and calls the Primates' Meeting. The problem of this undue influence is compounded by the lack of formal accountability on the part of the Archbishop and the prominence the document envisages for this Primate is frankly colonialist. Secondly, the prominence given to the Joint Standing Committee of the ACC and Primates raises problems in increasing further the ability of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the ACC to exercise disproportionate influence over the Primates, thereby tending in effect to silence dissentient primatial voices.”
To summarize the first objection: in Anglican global affairs the Archbishop of Canterbury has excessive authority and power, just as did colonial governors in the days of British Empire.
And to summarize the second: Primates who have legitimate matters of global concern to raise will be prevented by these legal arrangements, which are designed to give the Archbishop of Canterbury too much influence over the functioning of the Primates in the Communion.
In short, they are no longer interested in being part of a colonial structure, which they believe cannot serve the present needs and opportunities of the Church outside Great Britain.
Conclusion:
There is NO turning back. What has been a necessary part of perceived Anglican Polity—the role of the Metropolitan of all England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the leadership of the fellowship of Anglican Churches outside the Church of England-- is not only being challenged, but it actually being rejected by half of the membership of the Communion of Churches, if not yet half of the provinces as such.
It will take time for the implications of this momentous change to settle, if they ever really settle!
The July-August 2008 Lambeth Conference will be the last and it may also qualify as the least useful of all the Conferences since 1867! This is because it has been organized to have no prophetic function but to seek internal unity only.
Friday, July 18, 2008
The Lambeth Conference of 1930: its continuing influence on the Morals and Behavior of Anglicans.
“It is about as clear as any historical chain can get that the continuing implosion of The Episcopal Church is a direct consequence of the famous Lambeth Conference in 1930” [First Things, August 2008, page 40].
So what happened in 1930 of such consequence? Whatever did the assembled Bishops (mostly from the West in those days) do or say to be so important and far-reaching?
Do not be surprised! They spoke about sex and family life in which they said many helpful and even wise things (see Resolutions 9-20 of the Conference). However, in one Resolution, in which they were also trying to be helpful (and relevant!), they gave advice that was wholly innovatory in 1930 for a traditional Christian Church, be it Catholic or Protestant. Here is Resolution 15:
Resolution 15
The Life and Witness of the Christian Community - Marriage and Sex
Where there is clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, the method must be decided on Christian principles. The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence from intercourse (as far as may be necessary) in a life of discipline and self-control lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. The Conference records its strong condemnation of the use of any methods of conception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience.
Voting: For 193; Against 67.
In the Early Church, in the Medieval Church, in the Churches of the Protestant Reformation and in the Christian tradition to the 1920s (e.g., see the Marriage Service in The BCP 1662), any form of artificial birth control in order to make the sexual act sterile was regarded as a serious sin against God’s holy law. In 1930 the Anglican Council of Bishops, for what seemed to be good pastoral reasons, suggested ways for Christian couples in certain circumstances to reject this law. By this Resolution, which went around the world like wild-fire, the Anglican Way was changed permanently. No attempt has been made in any Lambeth Conference since 1930 to reverse it, and no national or regional synod of the Anglican Communion has officially rejected it. Thus it stands as part of the modern, Anglican teaching on sexual relations within marriage.
To quote from First Things again: “By giving benediction in 1930 to married heterosexual members purposely seeking sterile sex, the Anglican Church lost, bit by bit, any authority to tell other members—married or unmarried, homosexual or heterosexual—not to do the same. To put the point another way, once heterosexuals start claiming the right to act as homosexuals, it would not be long before homosexuals start claiming the rights of heterosexuals” (page 40).
Much ground is covered and many assumptions taken for granted, of course, in the last sentence, for, while the seed was sown in 1930, the fruit did not really begin to be seen till the 1970s and on into the twenty-first century. (For more detail on this period see my booklets from www.anglicanmarketplace.com “Episcopal Innovations, 1970-2004;” and “Same-Sex Affection, Holiness and Ordination”.)
The key moments and moves in the historical chain, which goes from the adoption of artificial birth-control, through marriage without procreation, to the pursuit of sterile sex between homosexual partners, include the following:
(a) The arrival of the “Pill” in the early 1960s and its impact on the easy availability of sterile sex for all kinds of heterosexual couples from then till now;
(b) The major change in the Episcopal Canon of Marriage in 1973, allowing for Divorce and then Remarriage in Church; and making “traditional marriage” as one of various possibilities.
(c) The new marriage service in the Episcopal 1976/79 prayer book, where procreation seen as an option within, not a normal part of, the “one flesh” union in healthy married couples.
(d) The widespread presence and acceptance of expressive individualism so that a person seeks self-worth, self fulfillment, self-justification and self-orientation. In this context, marriage is seen as created by the two concerned as a personal covenant, according to their own lights and needs. They marry into a subjective rather than an objective reality and order.
(e) The powerful homosexual lobby in the General Conventions and some diocesan synods from 1970 onwards; and the support for this major push given by those whose see morality in terms of human rights and human happiness in terms of expressive individualism as the norm for human identity.
(f) A sense of major support from the culture, its media and progressive Roman Catholics—via the continued major ridiculing of the official Roman Catholic teaching on right Sexual Relations and against artificial birth control and sterile sex, as found in Humanae Vitae.
(g) The election and consecration of the openly-active homosexual Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2004.
Other facts and details, of course, could be added to this list.
What seems to be the case is that the progressive liberals of The Episcopal Church, who favor full and equal rights for homosexual persons and couples, accept the general truth of this historical chain. They have long made their petition, “Give us what the heterosexuals enjoy in the Episcopal Church.” Also those few Anglicans who hold to the doctrine of Marriage provided in the Service in The BCP 1662 (see especially the Preface) generally find the historical chain makes full sense, as do Roman Catholics (see e.g., the essay, “The Vindication of Humanae Vitae” cited above).
However, many of those evangelical Anglicans in The Network, Gafcon and Common Cause, who describe themselves as “orthodox” or “traditional,” or both, seem to reject the historical chain presented above. Apparently, they actually believe that the historical chain does not begin with the Resolution of Lambeth 1930, and not even with the new Canon on Marriage of 1973 and the new Marriage Service of 1976/79! In fact, many of them have no quarrel with what these three teach!
Rather, they believe that The Episcopal Church got its first homosexually-active Bishop in 2004, and provided before then for the blessing of same-sex couples in varied dioceses, because during the 1980s and on into the 1990, the General Convention of the Church, followed by diocesan conventions, knowingly rejected the teaching of the Scriptures on sexuality in its traditional and straightforward meaning. That is, the supporters of same-sex arrangements worked over-hard to seek justification for their position by new and involved interpretations of Scripture, thereby twisting the meaning of the Bible to make it say the very opposite of what it actually says and had been heard to say by millions over millennia. And all this, it was alleged, was to avoid the clear sense and meaning of the Bible, which is that God has willed marriage for a man and a woman. (For details of this “new” use of the Bible to commend homosexual acts see my booklet, Same-Sex Affection.)
For many conservative Anglicans the primary question and issue has been, and remains, primarily hetero- or homo- sexuality. And for them absolutely and clearly hetero- is seen as the only Scriptural way. On this basis and from this mindset, it seems that, usually, they are happy to fall in with the Episcopal Church’s Canon Law and its 1976/79 Marriage Service. Why? Because they accept the “pastoral” need for divorce and remarriage in modern society and also they do not see any problems with “sterile” sex, if engaged lovingly and tenderly within a marriage. In real terms, one may observe they have accepted some if not all of the expressive individualism of modern society and are “realists,” not denying the full biblical doctrine of the one-flesh union (of the BCP 1662 Marriage Service), but seeing as an “ideal” for which to strive, not a commandment to follow now.
Finally, let us recall that the famous Resolution on sexuality of the Lambeth Conference of 1998, cited universally as a modern statement of Anglican orthodoxy, is, of course, the “orthodoxy” of post-1930, and it is within what we may call the modern, partial Anglican Christian doctrine of marriage.
Conclusion
While it is clearly the case that Anglican married couples are not prevented from following the full Christian doctrine of sexual relations within marriage, they do not as Anglicans belong to a visible branch or part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, which can claim to receive and proclaim the teaching of the Bible, the Early Church, and the Fathers on sexual relations in holy matrimony. And this situation will not change in the immediate future!
In fact, the Anglican Way may be said to have been permanently weakened and disturbed in its morality and teaching office. This means, in brief, that the Anglican Way has constantly to fight the harder to keep at bay innovations even in basic sexual morality. What it has endured in the last decade is merely a foretaste of that which is to come!
The Rev’d Dr Peter Toon July 18 2008 drpetertoon@yahoo.com www.pbsusa.org
So what happened in 1930 of such consequence? Whatever did the assembled Bishops (mostly from the West in those days) do or say to be so important and far-reaching?
Do not be surprised! They spoke about sex and family life in which they said many helpful and even wise things (see Resolutions 9-20 of the Conference). However, in one Resolution, in which they were also trying to be helpful (and relevant!), they gave advice that was wholly innovatory in 1930 for a traditional Christian Church, be it Catholic or Protestant. Here is Resolution 15:
Resolution 15
The Life and Witness of the Christian Community - Marriage and Sex
Where there is clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, the method must be decided on Christian principles. The primary and obvious method is complete abstinence from intercourse (as far as may be necessary) in a life of discipline and self-control lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless in those cases where there is such a clearly felt moral obligation to limit or avoid parenthood, and where there is a morally sound reason for avoiding complete abstinence, the Conference agrees that other methods may be used, provided that this is done in the light of the same Christian principles. The Conference records its strong condemnation of the use of any methods of conception control from motives of selfishness, luxury, or mere convenience.
Voting: For 193; Against 67.
In the Early Church, in the Medieval Church, in the Churches of the Protestant Reformation and in the Christian tradition to the 1920s (e.g., see the Marriage Service in The BCP 1662), any form of artificial birth control in order to make the sexual act sterile was regarded as a serious sin against God’s holy law. In 1930 the Anglican Council of Bishops, for what seemed to be good pastoral reasons, suggested ways for Christian couples in certain circumstances to reject this law. By this Resolution, which went around the world like wild-fire, the Anglican Way was changed permanently. No attempt has been made in any Lambeth Conference since 1930 to reverse it, and no national or regional synod of the Anglican Communion has officially rejected it. Thus it stands as part of the modern, Anglican teaching on sexual relations within marriage.
To quote from First Things again: “By giving benediction in 1930 to married heterosexual members purposely seeking sterile sex, the Anglican Church lost, bit by bit, any authority to tell other members—married or unmarried, homosexual or heterosexual—not to do the same. To put the point another way, once heterosexuals start claiming the right to act as homosexuals, it would not be long before homosexuals start claiming the rights of heterosexuals” (page 40).
Much ground is covered and many assumptions taken for granted, of course, in the last sentence, for, while the seed was sown in 1930, the fruit did not really begin to be seen till the 1970s and on into the twenty-first century. (For more detail on this period see my booklets from www.anglicanmarketplace.com “Episcopal Innovations, 1970-2004;” and “Same-Sex Affection, Holiness and Ordination”.)
The key moments and moves in the historical chain, which goes from the adoption of artificial birth-control, through marriage without procreation, to the pursuit of sterile sex between homosexual partners, include the following:
(a) The arrival of the “Pill” in the early 1960s and its impact on the easy availability of sterile sex for all kinds of heterosexual couples from then till now;
(b) The major change in the Episcopal Canon of Marriage in 1973, allowing for Divorce and then Remarriage in Church; and making “traditional marriage” as one of various possibilities.
(c) The new marriage service in the Episcopal 1976/79 prayer book, where procreation seen as an option within, not a normal part of, the “one flesh” union in healthy married couples.
(d) The widespread presence and acceptance of expressive individualism so that a person seeks self-worth, self fulfillment, self-justification and self-orientation. In this context, marriage is seen as created by the two concerned as a personal covenant, according to their own lights and needs. They marry into a subjective rather than an objective reality and order.
(e) The powerful homosexual lobby in the General Conventions and some diocesan synods from 1970 onwards; and the support for this major push given by those whose see morality in terms of human rights and human happiness in terms of expressive individualism as the norm for human identity.
(f) A sense of major support from the culture, its media and progressive Roman Catholics—via the continued major ridiculing of the official Roman Catholic teaching on right Sexual Relations and against artificial birth control and sterile sex, as found in Humanae Vitae.
(g) The election and consecration of the openly-active homosexual Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in 2004.
Other facts and details, of course, could be added to this list.
What seems to be the case is that the progressive liberals of The Episcopal Church, who favor full and equal rights for homosexual persons and couples, accept the general truth of this historical chain. They have long made their petition, “Give us what the heterosexuals enjoy in the Episcopal Church.” Also those few Anglicans who hold to the doctrine of Marriage provided in the Service in The BCP 1662 (see especially the Preface) generally find the historical chain makes full sense, as do Roman Catholics (see e.g., the essay, “The Vindication of Humanae Vitae” cited above).
However, many of those evangelical Anglicans in The Network, Gafcon and Common Cause, who describe themselves as “orthodox” or “traditional,” or both, seem to reject the historical chain presented above. Apparently, they actually believe that the historical chain does not begin with the Resolution of Lambeth 1930, and not even with the new Canon on Marriage of 1973 and the new Marriage Service of 1976/79! In fact, many of them have no quarrel with what these three teach!
Rather, they believe that The Episcopal Church got its first homosexually-active Bishop in 2004, and provided before then for the blessing of same-sex couples in varied dioceses, because during the 1980s and on into the 1990, the General Convention of the Church, followed by diocesan conventions, knowingly rejected the teaching of the Scriptures on sexuality in its traditional and straightforward meaning. That is, the supporters of same-sex arrangements worked over-hard to seek justification for their position by new and involved interpretations of Scripture, thereby twisting the meaning of the Bible to make it say the very opposite of what it actually says and had been heard to say by millions over millennia. And all this, it was alleged, was to avoid the clear sense and meaning of the Bible, which is that God has willed marriage for a man and a woman. (For details of this “new” use of the Bible to commend homosexual acts see my booklet, Same-Sex Affection.)
For many conservative Anglicans the primary question and issue has been, and remains, primarily hetero- or homo- sexuality. And for them absolutely and clearly hetero- is seen as the only Scriptural way. On this basis and from this mindset, it seems that, usually, they are happy to fall in with the Episcopal Church’s Canon Law and its 1976/79 Marriage Service. Why? Because they accept the “pastoral” need for divorce and remarriage in modern society and also they do not see any problems with “sterile” sex, if engaged lovingly and tenderly within a marriage. In real terms, one may observe they have accepted some if not all of the expressive individualism of modern society and are “realists,” not denying the full biblical doctrine of the one-flesh union (of the BCP 1662 Marriage Service), but seeing as an “ideal” for which to strive, not a commandment to follow now.
Finally, let us recall that the famous Resolution on sexuality of the Lambeth Conference of 1998, cited universally as a modern statement of Anglican orthodoxy, is, of course, the “orthodoxy” of post-1930, and it is within what we may call the modern, partial Anglican Christian doctrine of marriage.
Conclusion
While it is clearly the case that Anglican married couples are not prevented from following the full Christian doctrine of sexual relations within marriage, they do not as Anglicans belong to a visible branch or part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, which can claim to receive and proclaim the teaching of the Bible, the Early Church, and the Fathers on sexual relations in holy matrimony. And this situation will not change in the immediate future!
In fact, the Anglican Way may be said to have been permanently weakened and disturbed in its morality and teaching office. This means, in brief, that the Anglican Way has constantly to fight the harder to keep at bay innovations even in basic sexual morality. What it has endured in the last decade is merely a foretaste of that which is to come!
The Rev’d Dr Peter Toon July 18 2008 drpetertoon@yahoo.com www.pbsusa.org
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Rowan Williams responds to GAFCON
The following press release from Lambeth Palace was issued at 1641 BST today.
Press release from Lambeth Palace
For immediate use
Monday 30th June 2008
Archbishop responds to GAFCON statement
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has responded to the final declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference with the following statement:
The Final Statement from the GAFCON meeting in Jordan and Jerusalem contains much that is positive and encouraging about the priorities of those who met for prayer and pilgrimage in the last week. The ‘tenets of orthodoxy’ spelled out in the document will be acceptable to and shared by the vast majority of Anglicans in every province, even if there may be differences of emphasis and perspective on some issues. I agree that the Communion needs to be united in its commitments on these matters, and I have no doubt that the Lambeth Conference will wish to affirm all these positive aspects of GAFCON’s deliberations. Despite the claims of some, the conviction of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Lord and God and the absolute imperative of evangelism are not in dispute in the common life of the Communion
However, GAFCON’s proposals for the way ahead are problematic in all sorts of ways, and I urge those who have outlined these to think very carefully about the risks entailed.
A ‘Primates’ Council’ which consists only of a self-selected group from among the Primates of the Communion will not pass the test of legitimacy for all in the Communion. And any claim to be free to operate across provincial boundaries is fraught with difficulties, both theological and practical – theological because of our historic commitments to mutual recognition of ministries in the Communion, practical because of the obvious strain of responsibly exercising episcopal or primatial authority across enormous geographical and cultural divides.
Two questions arise at once about what has been proposed. By what authority are Primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council? And how is effective discipline to be maintained in a situation of overlapping and competing jurisdictions?
No-one should for a moment impute selfish or malicious motives to those who have offered pastoral oversight to congregations in other provinces; these actions, however we judge them, arise from pastoral and spiritual concern. But one question has repeatedly been raised which is now becoming very serious: how is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, and a situation where there are underlying non-theological motivations at work? We have seen instances of intervention in dioceses whose leadership is unquestionably orthodox simply because of local difficulties of a personal and administrative nature. We have also seen instances of clergy disciplined for scandalous behaviour in one jurisdiction accepted in another, apparently without due process. Some other Christian churches have unhappy experience of this problem and it needs to be addressed honestly.
It is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the Communion. If they are not working effectively, the challenge is to renew them rather than to improvise solutions that may seem to be effective for some in the short term but will continue to create more problems than they solve. This challenge is one of the most significant focuses for the forthcoming Lambeth Conference. One of its major stated aims is to restore and deepen confidence in our Anglican identity. And this task will require all who care as deeply as the authors of the statement say they do about the future of Anglicanism to play their part.
The language of ‘colonialism’ has been freely used of existing patterns. No-one is likely to look back with complacency to the colonial legacy. But emerging from the legacy of colonialism must mean a new co-operation of equals, not a simple reversal of power. If those who speak for GAFCON are willing to share in a genuine renewal of all our patterns of reflection and decision-making in the Communion, they are welcome, especially in the shaping of an effective Covenant for our future together.
I believe that it is wrong to assume we are now so far apart that all those outside the GAFCON network are simply proclaiming another gospel. This is not the case; it is not the experience of millions of faithful and biblically focused Anglicans in every province. What is true is that, on all sides of our controversies, slogans, misrepresentations and caricatures abound. And they need to be challenged in the name of the respect and patience we owe to each other in Jesus Christ.
I have in the past quoted to some in the Communion who would call themselves radical the words of the Apostle in I Cor.11.33: ‘wait for one another’. I would say the same to those in whose name this statement has been issued. An impatience at all costs to clear the Lord’s field of the weeds that may appear among the shoots of true life (Matt.13.29) will put at risk our clarity and effectiveness in communicating just those evangelical and catholic truths which the GAFCON statement presents.
© Rowan Williams
Marie Papworth
Archbishop of Canterbury’s Press Secretary
Lambeth Palace
London
SE1 7JU
020 7898 1280
Press release from Lambeth Palace
For immediate use
Monday 30th June 2008
Archbishop responds to GAFCON statement
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has responded to the final declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference with the following statement:
The Final Statement from the GAFCON meeting in Jordan and Jerusalem contains much that is positive and encouraging about the priorities of those who met for prayer and pilgrimage in the last week. The ‘tenets of orthodoxy’ spelled out in the document will be acceptable to and shared by the vast majority of Anglicans in every province, even if there may be differences of emphasis and perspective on some issues. I agree that the Communion needs to be united in its commitments on these matters, and I have no doubt that the Lambeth Conference will wish to affirm all these positive aspects of GAFCON’s deliberations. Despite the claims of some, the conviction of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as Lord and God and the absolute imperative of evangelism are not in dispute in the common life of the Communion
However, GAFCON’s proposals for the way ahead are problematic in all sorts of ways, and I urge those who have outlined these to think very carefully about the risks entailed.
A ‘Primates’ Council’ which consists only of a self-selected group from among the Primates of the Communion will not pass the test of legitimacy for all in the Communion. And any claim to be free to operate across provincial boundaries is fraught with difficulties, both theological and practical – theological because of our historic commitments to mutual recognition of ministries in the Communion, practical because of the obvious strain of responsibly exercising episcopal or primatial authority across enormous geographical and cultural divides.
Two questions arise at once about what has been proposed. By what authority are Primates deemed acceptable or unacceptable members of any new primatial council? And how is effective discipline to be maintained in a situation of overlapping and competing jurisdictions?
No-one should for a moment impute selfish or malicious motives to those who have offered pastoral oversight to congregations in other provinces; these actions, however we judge them, arise from pastoral and spiritual concern. But one question has repeatedly been raised which is now becoming very serious: how is a bishop or primate in another continent able to discriminate effectively between a genuine crisis of pastoral relationship and theological integrity, and a situation where there are underlying non-theological motivations at work? We have seen instances of intervention in dioceses whose leadership is unquestionably orthodox simply because of local difficulties of a personal and administrative nature. We have also seen instances of clergy disciplined for scandalous behaviour in one jurisdiction accepted in another, apparently without due process. Some other Christian churches have unhappy experience of this problem and it needs to be addressed honestly.
It is not enough to dismiss the existing structures of the Communion. If they are not working effectively, the challenge is to renew them rather than to improvise solutions that may seem to be effective for some in the short term but will continue to create more problems than they solve. This challenge is one of the most significant focuses for the forthcoming Lambeth Conference. One of its major stated aims is to restore and deepen confidence in our Anglican identity. And this task will require all who care as deeply as the authors of the statement say they do about the future of Anglicanism to play their part.
The language of ‘colonialism’ has been freely used of existing patterns. No-one is likely to look back with complacency to the colonial legacy. But emerging from the legacy of colonialism must mean a new co-operation of equals, not a simple reversal of power. If those who speak for GAFCON are willing to share in a genuine renewal of all our patterns of reflection and decision-making in the Communion, they are welcome, especially in the shaping of an effective Covenant for our future together.
I believe that it is wrong to assume we are now so far apart that all those outside the GAFCON network are simply proclaiming another gospel. This is not the case; it is not the experience of millions of faithful and biblically focused Anglicans in every province. What is true is that, on all sides of our controversies, slogans, misrepresentations and caricatures abound. And they need to be challenged in the name of the respect and patience we owe to each other in Jesus Christ.
I have in the past quoted to some in the Communion who would call themselves radical the words of the Apostle in I Cor.11.33: ‘wait for one another’. I would say the same to those in whose name this statement has been issued. An impatience at all costs to clear the Lord’s field of the weeds that may appear among the shoots of true life (Matt.13.29) will put at risk our clarity and effectiveness in communicating just those evangelical and catholic truths which the GAFCON statement presents.
© Rowan Williams
Marie Papworth
Archbishop of Canterbury’s Press Secretary
Lambeth Palace
London
SE1 7JU
020 7898 1280
Sunday, June 29, 2008
STATEMENT ON THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN FUTURE
Praise the LORD!
It is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. (Psalm 147:1-2) Brothers and Sisters in Christ: We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, send you greetings from Jerusalem!
Introduction
The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which was held in Jerusalem from 22-29 June 2008, is a spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ as we Anglicans have received it. The movement is global: it has mobilised Anglicans from around the world. We are Anglican: 1148 lay and clergy participants, including 291 bishops representing millions of faithful Anglican Christians. We cherish our Anglican heritage and the Anglican Communion and have no intention of departing from it. And we believe that, in God’s providence, Anglicanism has a bright future in obedience to our Lord’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations and to build up the church on the foundation of biblical truth (Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 2:20).
GAFCON is not just a moment in time, but a movement in the Spirit, and we hereby:
- launch the GAFCON movement as a fellowship of confessing Anglicans
- publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of the fellowship
- Encourage GAFCON Primates’ Council.
The Global Anglican Context
The future of the Anglican Communion is but a piece of the wider scenario of opportunities and challenges for the gospel in 21st century global culture. We rejoice in the way God has opened doors for gospel mission among many peoples, but we grieve for the spiritual decline in the most economically developed nations, where the forces of militant secularism and pluralism are eating away the fabric of society and churches are compromised and enfeebled in their witness. The vacuum left by them is readily filled by other faiths and deceptive cults. To meet these challenges will require Christians to work together to understand and oppose these forces and to liberate those under their sway. It will entail the planting of new churches among unreached peoples and also committed action to restore authentic Christianity to compromised churches.
The Anglican Communion, present in six continents, is well positioned to address this challenge, but currently it is divided and distracted. The Global Anglican Future Conference emerged in response to a crisis within the Anglican Communion, a crisis involving three undeniable facts concerning world Anglicanism. The first fact is the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ (cf. Galatians 1:6-8) which is contrary to the apostolic gospel. This false gospel undermines the authority of God’s Word written and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the author of salvation from sin, death and judgement. Many of its proponents claim that all religions offer equal access to God and that Jesus is only a way, not the way, the truth and the life. It promotes a variety of sexual preferences and immoral behaviour as a universal human right. It claims God’s blessing for same-sex unions over against the biblical teaching on holy matrimony. In 2003 this false gospel led to the consecration of a bishop living in a homosexual relationship.
The second fact is the declaration by provincial bodies in the Global South that they are out of communion with bishops and churches that promote this false gospel. These declarations have resulted in a realignment whereby faithful Anglican Christians have left existing territorial parishes, dioceses and provinces in certain Western churches and become members of other dioceses and provinces, all within the Anglican Communion. These actions have also led to the appointment of new Anglican bishops set over geographic areas already occupied by other Anglican bishops. A major realignment has occurred and will continue to unfold. The third fact is the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy. The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada, in proclaiming this false gospel, have consistently defied the 1998 Lambeth statement of biblical moral principle (Resolution 1.10). Despite numerous meetings and reports to and from the ‘Instruments of Unity,’ no effective action has been taken, and the bishops of these unrepentant churches are welcomed to Lambeth 2008. To make matters worse, there has been a failure to honour promises of discipline, the authority of the Primates’ Meeting has been undermined and the Lambeth Conference has been structured so as to avoid any hard decisions. We can only come to the devastating conclusion that ‘we are a global Communion with a colonial structure’. Sadly, this crisis has torn the fabric of the Communion in such a way that it cannot simply be patched back together. At the same time, it has brought together many Anglicans across the globe into personal and pastoral relationships in a fellowship which is faithful to biblical teaching, more representative of the demographic distribution of global Anglicanism today and stronger as an instrument of effective mission, ministry and social involvement.
A Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, are a fellowship of confessing Anglicans for the benefit of the Church and the furtherance of its mission. We are a fellowship of people united in the communion (koinonia) of the one Spirit and committed to work and pray together in the common mission of Christ. It is a confessing fellowship in that its members confess the faith of Christ crucified, stand firm for the gospel in the global and Anglican context, and affirm a contemporary rule, the Jerusalem Declaration, to guide the movement for the future. We are a fellowship of Anglicans, including provinces, dioceses, churches, missionary jurisdictions, para-church organisations and individual Anglican Christians whose goal is to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world. Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard, and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it. While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Building on the above doctrinal foundation of Anglican identity, we hereby publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of our fellowship.
The Jerusalem Declaration
In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit: We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, have met in the land of Jesus’ birth. We express our loyalty as disciples to the King of kings, the Lord Jesus. We joyfully embrace his command to proclaim the reality of his kingdom which he first announced in this land. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news of salvation, liberation and transformation for all. In light of the above, we agree to chart a way forward together that promotes and protects the biblical gospel and mission to the world, solemnly declaring the following tenets of orthodoxy which underpin our Anglican identity.
1. We rejoice in the gospel of God through which we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because God first loved us, we love him and as believers bring forth fruits of love, ongoing repentance, lively hope and thanksgiving to God in all things.
2. We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.
3. We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
4. We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.
5. We gladly proclaim and submit to the unique and universal Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgement and hell, who lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserve. By his atoning death and glorious resurrection, he secured the redemption of all who come to him in repentance and faith.
6. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.
7. We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.
8. We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family. We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.
9. We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations, to seek those who do not know Christ and to baptise, teach and bring new believers to maturity.
10. We are mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation, to uphold and advocate justice in society, and to seek relief and empowerment of the poor and needy.
11. We are committed to the unity of all those who know and love Christ and to building authentic ecumenical relationships. We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration.
12. We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters. We pledge to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues that divide us.
13. We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.
14. We rejoice at the prospect of Jesus’ coming again in glory, and while we await this final event of history, we praise him for the way he builds up his church through his Spirit by miraculously changing lives.
The Road Ahead
We believe the Holy Spirit has led us during this week in Jerusalem to begin a new work. There are many important decisions for the development of this fellowship which will take more time, prayer and deliberation.
Among other matters, we shall seek to expand participation in this fellowship beyond those who have come to Jerusalem, including cooperation with the Global South and the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa. We can, however, discern certain milestones on the road ahead.
Primates’ Council
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, do hereby acknowledge the participating Primates of GAFCON who have called us together, and encourage them to form the initial Council of the GAFCON movement. We look forward to the enlargement of the Council and entreat the Primates to organise and expand the fellowship of confessing Anglicans. We urge the Primates’ Council to authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith. We recognise the desirability of territorial jurisdiction for provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion, except in those areas where churches and leaders are denying the orthodox faith or are preventing its spread, and in a few areas for which overlapping jurisdictions are beneficial for historical or cultural reasons. We thank God for the courageous actions of those Primates and provinces who have offered orthodox oversight to churches under false leadership, especially in North and South America. The actions of these Primates have been a positive response to pastoral necessities and mission opportunities. We believe that such actions will continue to be necessary and we support them in offering help around the world.
We believe this is a critical moment when the Primates’ Council will need to put in place structures to lead and support the church. In particular, we believe the time is now ripe for the formation of a province in North America for the federation currently known as Common Cause Partnership to be recognised by the Primates’ Council.
Conclusion: Message from Jerusalem
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, were summoned by the Primates’ leadership team to Jerusalem in June 2008 to deliberate on the crisis that has divided the Anglican Communion for the past decade and to seek direction for the future. We have visited holy sites, prayed together, listened to God’s Word preached and expounded, learned from various speakers and teachers, and shared our thoughts and hopes with each other.
The meeting in Jerusalem this week was called in a sense of urgency that a false gospel has so paralysed the Anglican Communion that this crisis must be addressed. The chief threat of this dispute involves the compromising of the integrity of the church’s worldwide mission. The primary reason we have come to Jerusalem and issued this declaration is to free our churches to give clear and certain witness to Jesus Christ.
It is our hope that this Statement on the Global Anglican Future will be received with comfort and joy by many Anglicans around the world who have been distressed about the direction of the Communion. We believe the Anglican Communion should and will be reformed around the biblical gospel and mandate to go into all the world and present Christ to the nations.
Jerusalem
Feast of St Peter and St Paul 29 June 2008
It is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is fitting. The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. (Psalm 147:1-2) Brothers and Sisters in Christ: We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, send you greetings from Jerusalem!
Introduction
The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON), which was held in Jerusalem from 22-29 June 2008, is a spiritual movement to preserve and promote the truth and power of the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ as we Anglicans have received it. The movement is global: it has mobilised Anglicans from around the world. We are Anglican: 1148 lay and clergy participants, including 291 bishops representing millions of faithful Anglican Christians. We cherish our Anglican heritage and the Anglican Communion and have no intention of departing from it. And we believe that, in God’s providence, Anglicanism has a bright future in obedience to our Lord’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations and to build up the church on the foundation of biblical truth (Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 2:20).
GAFCON is not just a moment in time, but a movement in the Spirit, and we hereby:
- launch the GAFCON movement as a fellowship of confessing Anglicans
- publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of the fellowship
- Encourage GAFCON Primates’ Council.
The Global Anglican Context
The future of the Anglican Communion is but a piece of the wider scenario of opportunities and challenges for the gospel in 21st century global culture. We rejoice in the way God has opened doors for gospel mission among many peoples, but we grieve for the spiritual decline in the most economically developed nations, where the forces of militant secularism and pluralism are eating away the fabric of society and churches are compromised and enfeebled in their witness. The vacuum left by them is readily filled by other faiths and deceptive cults. To meet these challenges will require Christians to work together to understand and oppose these forces and to liberate those under their sway. It will entail the planting of new churches among unreached peoples and also committed action to restore authentic Christianity to compromised churches.
The Anglican Communion, present in six continents, is well positioned to address this challenge, but currently it is divided and distracted. The Global Anglican Future Conference emerged in response to a crisis within the Anglican Communion, a crisis involving three undeniable facts concerning world Anglicanism. The first fact is the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ (cf. Galatians 1:6-8) which is contrary to the apostolic gospel. This false gospel undermines the authority of God’s Word written and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the author of salvation from sin, death and judgement. Many of its proponents claim that all religions offer equal access to God and that Jesus is only a way, not the way, the truth and the life. It promotes a variety of sexual preferences and immoral behaviour as a universal human right. It claims God’s blessing for same-sex unions over against the biblical teaching on holy matrimony. In 2003 this false gospel led to the consecration of a bishop living in a homosexual relationship.
The second fact is the declaration by provincial bodies in the Global South that they are out of communion with bishops and churches that promote this false gospel. These declarations have resulted in a realignment whereby faithful Anglican Christians have left existing territorial parishes, dioceses and provinces in certain Western churches and become members of other dioceses and provinces, all within the Anglican Communion. These actions have also led to the appointment of new Anglican bishops set over geographic areas already occupied by other Anglican bishops. A major realignment has occurred and will continue to unfold. The third fact is the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy. The Episcopal Church USA and the Anglican Church of Canada, in proclaiming this false gospel, have consistently defied the 1998 Lambeth statement of biblical moral principle (Resolution 1.10). Despite numerous meetings and reports to and from the ‘Instruments of Unity,’ no effective action has been taken, and the bishops of these unrepentant churches are welcomed to Lambeth 2008. To make matters worse, there has been a failure to honour promises of discipline, the authority of the Primates’ Meeting has been undermined and the Lambeth Conference has been structured so as to avoid any hard decisions. We can only come to the devastating conclusion that ‘we are a global Communion with a colonial structure’. Sadly, this crisis has torn the fabric of the Communion in such a way that it cannot simply be patched back together. At the same time, it has brought together many Anglicans across the globe into personal and pastoral relationships in a fellowship which is faithful to biblical teaching, more representative of the demographic distribution of global Anglicanism today and stronger as an instrument of effective mission, ministry and social involvement.
A Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, are a fellowship of confessing Anglicans for the benefit of the Church and the furtherance of its mission. We are a fellowship of people united in the communion (koinonia) of the one Spirit and committed to work and pray together in the common mission of Christ. It is a confessing fellowship in that its members confess the faith of Christ crucified, stand firm for the gospel in the global and Anglican context, and affirm a contemporary rule, the Jerusalem Declaration, to guide the movement for the future. We are a fellowship of Anglicans, including provinces, dioceses, churches, missionary jurisdictions, para-church organisations and individual Anglican Christians whose goal is to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world. Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard, and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it. While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Building on the above doctrinal foundation of Anglican identity, we hereby publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of our fellowship.
The Jerusalem Declaration
In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit: We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, have met in the land of Jesus’ birth. We express our loyalty as disciples to the King of kings, the Lord Jesus. We joyfully embrace his command to proclaim the reality of his kingdom which he first announced in this land. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news of salvation, liberation and transformation for all. In light of the above, we agree to chart a way forward together that promotes and protects the biblical gospel and mission to the world, solemnly declaring the following tenets of orthodoxy which underpin our Anglican identity.
1. We rejoice in the gospel of God through which we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because God first loved us, we love him and as believers bring forth fruits of love, ongoing repentance, lively hope and thanksgiving to God in all things.
2. We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation. The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.
3. We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
4. We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.
5. We gladly proclaim and submit to the unique and universal Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgement and hell, who lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserve. By his atoning death and glorious resurrection, he secured the redemption of all who come to him in repentance and faith.
6. We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.
7. We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.
8. We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family. We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.
9. We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations, to seek those who do not know Christ and to baptise, teach and bring new believers to maturity.
10. We are mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation, to uphold and advocate justice in society, and to seek relief and empowerment of the poor and needy.
11. We are committed to the unity of all those who know and love Christ and to building authentic ecumenical relationships. We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration.
12. We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters. We pledge to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues that divide us.
13. We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.
14. We rejoice at the prospect of Jesus’ coming again in glory, and while we await this final event of history, we praise him for the way he builds up his church through his Spirit by miraculously changing lives.
The Road Ahead
We believe the Holy Spirit has led us during this week in Jerusalem to begin a new work. There are many important decisions for the development of this fellowship which will take more time, prayer and deliberation.
Among other matters, we shall seek to expand participation in this fellowship beyond those who have come to Jerusalem, including cooperation with the Global South and the Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa. We can, however, discern certain milestones on the road ahead.
Primates’ Council
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, do hereby acknowledge the participating Primates of GAFCON who have called us together, and encourage them to form the initial Council of the GAFCON movement. We look forward to the enlargement of the Council and entreat the Primates to organise and expand the fellowship of confessing Anglicans. We urge the Primates’ Council to authenticate and recognise confessing Anglican jurisdictions, clergy and congregations and to encourage all Anglicans to promote the gospel and defend the faith. We recognise the desirability of territorial jurisdiction for provinces and dioceses of the Anglican Communion, except in those areas where churches and leaders are denying the orthodox faith or are preventing its spread, and in a few areas for which overlapping jurisdictions are beneficial for historical or cultural reasons. We thank God for the courageous actions of those Primates and provinces who have offered orthodox oversight to churches under false leadership, especially in North and South America. The actions of these Primates have been a positive response to pastoral necessities and mission opportunities. We believe that such actions will continue to be necessary and we support them in offering help around the world.
We believe this is a critical moment when the Primates’ Council will need to put in place structures to lead and support the church. In particular, we believe the time is now ripe for the formation of a province in North America for the federation currently known as Common Cause Partnership to be recognised by the Primates’ Council.
Conclusion: Message from Jerusalem
We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, were summoned by the Primates’ leadership team to Jerusalem in June 2008 to deliberate on the crisis that has divided the Anglican Communion for the past decade and to seek direction for the future. We have visited holy sites, prayed together, listened to God’s Word preached and expounded, learned from various speakers and teachers, and shared our thoughts and hopes with each other.
The meeting in Jerusalem this week was called in a sense of urgency that a false gospel has so paralysed the Anglican Communion that this crisis must be addressed. The chief threat of this dispute involves the compromising of the integrity of the church’s worldwide mission. The primary reason we have come to Jerusalem and issued this declaration is to free our churches to give clear and certain witness to Jesus Christ.
It is our hope that this Statement on the Global Anglican Future will be received with comfort and joy by many Anglicans around the world who have been distressed about the direction of the Communion. We believe the Anglican Communion should and will be reformed around the biblical gospel and mandate to go into all the world and present Christ to the nations.
Jerusalem
Feast of St Peter and St Paul 29 June 2008
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Marriage on hold but not for ever: Back burner for Lambeth but ready to use there!
Some reflections from Dr Peter Toon, on The Nativity of John the Baptist, June 24, 2008
I begin with two assertions.
First of all, there would not have been GAFCON in Jerusalem this week (June 22-28) had not The Episcopal Church in its arrogance, but legalistically following its canon law, consecrated Gene Robinson in 2003 as a bishop, and thereby precipitated an on-going crisis of identity and authority within the Anglican Family of Churches.
And probably somewhat surprising to some, but just as true:
Secondly, there would not have been either GAFCON in June 2008, or even the consecration of Gene Robinson in 2003, if The Episcopal Church had not in 1973 changed its marriage canon.
In that year, this Church abandoned the basic, common Anglican position on marriage, on its books from its separation from the Church of England in the 1780s, and introduced (what sociologists of the time were calling ) “expressive individualism” into the Church’s law. In real terms, this meant that instead of each person marrying the other into an already existing order of creation and grace ordained by God and blessed by the church, each was free to marry the other into a revised, human order, there to have space to fulfill his and her own self-interests, while receiving – in the spirit of those times -- the blessing of the (revisionist) church at the same time.
In this new order sanctioned by The Episcopal Church procreation was seen as optional even for those in good health, and, further, a second or third marriage in church was deemed acceptable, if required by failure of earlier one. It was, of course, the period when the general availability of “safe” artificial birth control was widespread in the West and when “rights-monism” and the power of therapeutic accounts of life were in much in vogue, each giving strength to the new approach to marriage
In this new ethos and practical theology, there was a major opportunity for those committed to homosexual relations to develop their agenda, claims and make their witness for full acceptance in the churches, and this they did in all kinds of sustained ways. In fact they walked through the doors opened by the new “order of marriage” and even claimed that with a few changes of nouns and pronouns they could use the church marriage service for their blessing of partnerships or even for same-sex marriage.
What all this may suggest to some—as it appears to me—is that from June 2008 onwards the problem faced by the leadership of the successor of GAFCON in the Western Churches is not simply that of opposing same-sex blessings and partnerships and making general assertions about sexual relations within marriage only; but, more broadly and deeply, of making a major effort at restoring initially for the West the biblical, Christian doctrine of marriage as received in the Anglican Way – which is well set out in the Service of Holy Matrimony of the historic Book of Common Prayer in its authentic editions in use in the West (e.g. 1662 England, 1962 Canada, & 1928 PECUSA/TEC).
Here I tread on toes and apologize if it hurts! One pressing reason (and few want to recall this) for this needed, immediate and high vocation of restoration is that the minority in the U.S.A., which supports and is part of GAFCON, and which styles itself “orthodox” in the TEC and in the Anglican movements in the USA generally, is, in fact, in most of its expressions deeply itself affected by expressive individualism in its record of, and witness to, marriage. For its divorce rates and serial monogamy are national average, with a high proportion of its Ministers divorced, remarried and still working in full pastoral settings. Thus—and we mention what we do not normally mention in the U.S.A.--that the tragedy is that both the “orthodox” and “the revisionists” in the American Anglican Way, inside and outside The Episcopal Church with all its innovations and dyfsunctionality, reap the fruit of the revolutionary early innovations of the 1970s in The Episcopal Church—because (1) all have drunk deeply of the Liturgy found in the the Episcopal Prayer Book of 1979, and/or of its various additions and extensions since; (2) all have continued in strong or weak form of “expressive individualism in life style and worship; and (3) all have continued to drink deeply of rights-monism as a major for of moral guidance and self-direction.
On the Back Burner for Lambeth, July 2008
When you open the classic Book of Common Prayer in any of its authentic editions, the first service to leap from the page is not usually “The Form of the Solemnization of Matrimony” even though in terms of the amount of pages in the Book it is somewhere near the center! After all this is the Book of Common Prayer—prayer for morning and evening daily, weekly Litany and Holy Communion, followed by Baptism and Confirmation. Marriage one of the “Rites and Ceremonies,” which include the Visitation of the Sick and the Burial of the Dead, provided in the Prayer Book for important but occasional use.
In the ups and downs of the life of the Church in history, and within the providence of Almighty God, sometimes what is “an occasional office” assumes a critical and outstanding role, symbolism and doctrine. I suggest that “The Form of the Solemnization of Matrimony” in The BCP (1662) is there on the back burner of the Anglican, Lambeth stove, ready to be placed at the front, and allowed to boil.
What is it is about this short Service (only eleven pages in the pew edition) which makes it so important and deserving of full visibility and tasting at this time of crisis of Anglican identify and of teaching on sexual relations?
Negatively, it was written before and therefore avoids both the dominant expressive individualism of the post 1960s and the extreme rights-monism of the same period, not to mention the strong therapeutic presentations of human relationships much in vogue also. In other words, it presents marriage in a perspective and in a way that it is difficult to see it in the West at this time, except through this kind of mirror, as it were.
Positively, it presents—howbeit in classic prose of the seventeenth century—a fully biblical and traditional Rite and Ceremony for the joining of a man and woman in holy matrimony, according to the laws of human society and to the eternal law of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the Holy Trinity, and receiving his Blessing.
Comment on the BCP 1662 Rite of Holy Matrimony
What causes this Rite to stand out so clearly, over and above all other more recent forms of marriage in Anglican Prayer Books, is its clear doctrine in specific areas—the very areas which first the “Enlightenment” world of the eighteenth and beyond, and then in the human rights world of the twentieth century and beyond, have been attacked and often eclipsed. In fact Anglicans have usually been the ones to attack and remove them!
First of all, in the Preface to the Service, the clear relation of the holy duty and privilege of procreation (--think of it, creating new life in union with the one, unique Creator) in the context of one-flesh, holy union and growing friendship of man and woman, husband and wife, is stated as God’s will, and not negotiable!
Secondly, the whole content of the Service makes it clear that the man and woman are entering into an already existing order of creation, ordained by God himself, to which is added the rich blessing of the new covenant of grace. The Husband and Wife are not creating a new relationship and space for themselves, but entering into God’s existing relations of order and into his holy space. Thus they do not make up their own vows and promises but they make those already there—and in the U.S.A. they say “I will” and not “I do”!
Thirdly, the relation of order into which the man and woman enter in the covenant of marriage before God, the Holy Trinity, is most graciously and clearly that of “the man first in order and the woman second in order, but both equal before God as persons.” This clearly is stated in the promise made by the woman to the man; but, the context of love in which it is made in clearly state in the promise of the man to the woman first of all! Further, and this is often missed, this teaching of what is often called “male headship” is shown to be clearly scriptural and apostolic by the presentation of the duties of Man and Wife as given at the end of the Service from Ephesians 5; Colossians 3; and 1 Peter 3. These passages are part of the Service! [ As an aside, the doctrine of the Marriage service in terms of the relation of husband and wife is the doctrine one uses to interpret the Ordinal in its teaching of the duties of the Minister in the home and parish!]
As I have indicated above, this genuine Anglican doctrine of marriage from the primarily Formulary of the Anglican Way, The BCP 1662, has been eroded at these distinct points:
by dropping its God-given order and making it into primarily a human arrangement and contract which we ask God (who loves us!) to bless;
by the making of pro-creation an option, even for healthy people so that a fruit of the one-flesh union is negated;
and by the allowing of the entry into the current ethos of marriage both rights-monism and expressive individualism (opening the door not only for the advance of the homosexual cause but of much more as well).
At Lambeth 2008 will be the opportunity, provided by the providence of the Lord, for the courageous and wise Bishops from the West, along with the courageous and wise supporters of the Anglican Way, present at the Conference, to place on the front of the stove and bring to the boil this Anglican Doctrine of Marriage---and make it available for all to partake of in reading, study, meditation and desire for using to renew the doctrine and ethos of marriage on the western Church!
I begin with two assertions.
First of all, there would not have been GAFCON in Jerusalem this week (June 22-28) had not The Episcopal Church in its arrogance, but legalistically following its canon law, consecrated Gene Robinson in 2003 as a bishop, and thereby precipitated an on-going crisis of identity and authority within the Anglican Family of Churches.
And probably somewhat surprising to some, but just as true:
Secondly, there would not have been either GAFCON in June 2008, or even the consecration of Gene Robinson in 2003, if The Episcopal Church had not in 1973 changed its marriage canon.
In that year, this Church abandoned the basic, common Anglican position on marriage, on its books from its separation from the Church of England in the 1780s, and introduced (what sociologists of the time were calling ) “expressive individualism” into the Church’s law. In real terms, this meant that instead of each person marrying the other into an already existing order of creation and grace ordained by God and blessed by the church, each was free to marry the other into a revised, human order, there to have space to fulfill his and her own self-interests, while receiving – in the spirit of those times -- the blessing of the (revisionist) church at the same time.
In this new order sanctioned by The Episcopal Church procreation was seen as optional even for those in good health, and, further, a second or third marriage in church was deemed acceptable, if required by failure of earlier one. It was, of course, the period when the general availability of “safe” artificial birth control was widespread in the West and when “rights-monism” and the power of therapeutic accounts of life were in much in vogue, each giving strength to the new approach to marriage
In this new ethos and practical theology, there was a major opportunity for those committed to homosexual relations to develop their agenda, claims and make their witness for full acceptance in the churches, and this they did in all kinds of sustained ways. In fact they walked through the doors opened by the new “order of marriage” and even claimed that with a few changes of nouns and pronouns they could use the church marriage service for their blessing of partnerships or even for same-sex marriage.
What all this may suggest to some—as it appears to me—is that from June 2008 onwards the problem faced by the leadership of the successor of GAFCON in the Western Churches is not simply that of opposing same-sex blessings and partnerships and making general assertions about sexual relations within marriage only; but, more broadly and deeply, of making a major effort at restoring initially for the West the biblical, Christian doctrine of marriage as received in the Anglican Way – which is well set out in the Service of Holy Matrimony of the historic Book of Common Prayer in its authentic editions in use in the West (e.g. 1662 England, 1962 Canada, & 1928 PECUSA/TEC).
Here I tread on toes and apologize if it hurts! One pressing reason (and few want to recall this) for this needed, immediate and high vocation of restoration is that the minority in the U.S.A., which supports and is part of GAFCON, and which styles itself “orthodox” in the TEC and in the Anglican movements in the USA generally, is, in fact, in most of its expressions deeply itself affected by expressive individualism in its record of, and witness to, marriage. For its divorce rates and serial monogamy are national average, with a high proportion of its Ministers divorced, remarried and still working in full pastoral settings. Thus—and we mention what we do not normally mention in the U.S.A.--that the tragedy is that both the “orthodox” and “the revisionists” in the American Anglican Way, inside and outside The Episcopal Church with all its innovations and dyfsunctionality, reap the fruit of the revolutionary early innovations of the 1970s in The Episcopal Church—because (1) all have drunk deeply of the Liturgy found in the the Episcopal Prayer Book of 1979, and/or of its various additions and extensions since; (2) all have continued in strong or weak form of “expressive individualism in life style and worship; and (3) all have continued to drink deeply of rights-monism as a major for of moral guidance and self-direction.
On the Back Burner for Lambeth, July 2008
When you open the classic Book of Common Prayer in any of its authentic editions, the first service to leap from the page is not usually “The Form of the Solemnization of Matrimony” even though in terms of the amount of pages in the Book it is somewhere near the center! After all this is the Book of Common Prayer—prayer for morning and evening daily, weekly Litany and Holy Communion, followed by Baptism and Confirmation. Marriage one of the “Rites and Ceremonies,” which include the Visitation of the Sick and the Burial of the Dead, provided in the Prayer Book for important but occasional use.
In the ups and downs of the life of the Church in history, and within the providence of Almighty God, sometimes what is “an occasional office” assumes a critical and outstanding role, symbolism and doctrine. I suggest that “The Form of the Solemnization of Matrimony” in The BCP (1662) is there on the back burner of the Anglican, Lambeth stove, ready to be placed at the front, and allowed to boil.
What is it is about this short Service (only eleven pages in the pew edition) which makes it so important and deserving of full visibility and tasting at this time of crisis of Anglican identify and of teaching on sexual relations?
Negatively, it was written before and therefore avoids both the dominant expressive individualism of the post 1960s and the extreme rights-monism of the same period, not to mention the strong therapeutic presentations of human relationships much in vogue also. In other words, it presents marriage in a perspective and in a way that it is difficult to see it in the West at this time, except through this kind of mirror, as it were.
Positively, it presents—howbeit in classic prose of the seventeenth century—a fully biblical and traditional Rite and Ceremony for the joining of a man and woman in holy matrimony, according to the laws of human society and to the eternal law of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, the Holy Trinity, and receiving his Blessing.
Comment on the BCP 1662 Rite of Holy Matrimony
What causes this Rite to stand out so clearly, over and above all other more recent forms of marriage in Anglican Prayer Books, is its clear doctrine in specific areas—the very areas which first the “Enlightenment” world of the eighteenth and beyond, and then in the human rights world of the twentieth century and beyond, have been attacked and often eclipsed. In fact Anglicans have usually been the ones to attack and remove them!
First of all, in the Preface to the Service, the clear relation of the holy duty and privilege of procreation (--think of it, creating new life in union with the one, unique Creator) in the context of one-flesh, holy union and growing friendship of man and woman, husband and wife, is stated as God’s will, and not negotiable!
Secondly, the whole content of the Service makes it clear that the man and woman are entering into an already existing order of creation, ordained by God himself, to which is added the rich blessing of the new covenant of grace. The Husband and Wife are not creating a new relationship and space for themselves, but entering into God’s existing relations of order and into his holy space. Thus they do not make up their own vows and promises but they make those already there—and in the U.S.A. they say “I will” and not “I do”!
Thirdly, the relation of order into which the man and woman enter in the covenant of marriage before God, the Holy Trinity, is most graciously and clearly that of “the man first in order and the woman second in order, but both equal before God as persons.” This clearly is stated in the promise made by the woman to the man; but, the context of love in which it is made in clearly state in the promise of the man to the woman first of all! Further, and this is often missed, this teaching of what is often called “male headship” is shown to be clearly scriptural and apostolic by the presentation of the duties of Man and Wife as given at the end of the Service from Ephesians 5; Colossians 3; and 1 Peter 3. These passages are part of the Service! [ As an aside, the doctrine of the Marriage service in terms of the relation of husband and wife is the doctrine one uses to interpret the Ordinal in its teaching of the duties of the Minister in the home and parish!]
As I have indicated above, this genuine Anglican doctrine of marriage from the primarily Formulary of the Anglican Way, The BCP 1662, has been eroded at these distinct points:
by dropping its God-given order and making it into primarily a human arrangement and contract which we ask God (who loves us!) to bless;
by the making of pro-creation an option, even for healthy people so that a fruit of the one-flesh union is negated;
and by the allowing of the entry into the current ethos of marriage both rights-monism and expressive individualism (opening the door not only for the advance of the homosexual cause but of much more as well).
At Lambeth 2008 will be the opportunity, provided by the providence of the Lord, for the courageous and wise Bishops from the West, along with the courageous and wise supporters of the Anglican Way, present at the Conference, to place on the front of the stove and bring to the boil this Anglican Doctrine of Marriage---and make it available for all to partake of in reading, study, meditation and desire for using to renew the doctrine and ethos of marriage on the western Church!
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