Adelphoi,
The crisis in the ECUSA offers us an opportunity to look again at familiar
but very recent church practices and rites. Please read on for reflections
on one of them, familiar to most of you.
THE KISS OF LOVE
In the mid-1990s when I was a guest preacher at St John's Church, Savannah, Georgia, and while I was addressing an adult Sunday School class, I said in answer to a question, "The modern Passing of the Peace is THE primary Sacrament of Panentheism" and immediately the distinguished (now deceased) Rector, the Revd Dr William Ralston, let out a great roar of approval.
Whatever did I mean? I meant that the several minutes, often five or more, spent at the middle of eucharistic services, when people walk about the church to greet each other by handshakes or by hugging or by kissing, is a ritual that expresses the doctrine that worshippers know God especially in the intentional, physical coming together and by words and body language the "peace of God" to one another. [Pan-en-theism is the popular modern doctrine in the liberal Churches, especially favored by the feminist movement, which states that the world (nature & humanity in particular) are in God and that God is not God without his/her creation being included within him/her. Thus it is neither Pantheism (God is the world) nor classic Theism (God is separated wholly from the world which he made).]
This practice of the walk-about with physical contacts, which is widespread in eucharistic services that use modern rites, is very NEW as far as the Church of God is concerned - beginning in the west in the 1970s. Likewise so is the lesser intensity of shaking hands and saying "the peace of God be with you".
Its distant, and very distant, pedigree is the "Holy Kiss" (as St Paul calls it four times - Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26; and see 1 Peter 5:14 where it is called "the kiss of love" and linked to peace).
The holy kiss was used in the very early period of the Church both as a greeting between full church members (the baptized who took Holy Communion) and by the Bishop to newly baptized believers. It was not allowed for use by catechumens, or between Christians and non-Christians, for it was "holy" and a sign of "God's peace or salvation". It involved a kiss on the cheeks or on the lips and was not offered between people of a different sex. This holy kiss was revolutionary for its time but like so many good things in the young Church was quickly open to abuse when a small society became a large assembly.
Not surprisingly this practice dropped away as the Church grew in numbers and became " a mixed multitude". It was open to easy and obvious abuse. It was transferred (in part) to a kiss between clergy and in the East to the kissing of icons and the like (which practice still continues) and in the West the rite entered the liturgy as words "The peace of the Lord be with you:/ and with thy spirit" spoken by the Celebrant to the assembled people (which is still to be heard in the old Latin Mass of the R Church and in the Holy Communion Service of the first BCP of 1549 and in the Missal Masses used by modern Anglo-Catholics in the USA). In the latter western services the idea is that before receiving the blessed Sacrament the baptized are to reconciled one to another and be filled with the peace of God so that they are worthy recipients of the body and blood of the exalted Saviour.
It is of special interest that NONE of the Protestant Reformers attempted to revive the holy kiss even though they were biblically motivated - for them it was a cultural expression of fellowship and it was the fellowship that mattered.
Significantly for its meaning and development, it was in the very physical, experiential and revolutionary late 1960s & early 1970s, that liturgists keen to restore ancient practices to their modern rewrites of Eucharistic Liturgy, followed ancient pre- 325 AD structures and placed the PAX at the center of the Eucharist, at the end of the Ministry of the Word and Prayer and before the Ministry of the Sacrament. They supplied only minimal explanations of it and it was usually accompanied by the rubric " a sign of peace may be exchanged". However in practice as the years went by the "may" became "shall be"! Because it was at the center it achieved a prominence in an extremely strong experientialist environment that the liturgists probably had not intended for it. For them it was one of a variety of ancient practices they tried to revive but for many people it became the center of their worship experience.
And there developed, according to local circumstances and clergy feelings, a variety of ways of "passing the peace" in the 1970s and 1980s. It certainly fitted the mood of many who appreciated the relaxing of the formal and the entrance of the casual and they naturally used forms of greetings that they already used at Gates in Airports to greet loved ones or friends (the frontal squeeze) or in social exchanges (shaking of hands etc.).
In some churches, where, for example, there has been in increase in temptation caused by the proximity of male and female flesh in frontal meetings, attempts have been made to control the forms of greeting - e.g., hugging only allowed sideways on, not by means of frontal encounter.
Other churches have sought to control the whole thing by having a dignified movement from the celebrant to the deacon and assistants, from them to the first row and thus through the church, with no movement from seats (except turning around) and with only the words "Peace" or "God's peace" as hands are touched or another form of simple communication is used.
Yet other churches have made sure that there is one service on the Lord's Day where there is NO actual physical passing of the peace at all, for there remain a minority in the Anglican and Roman Ways who do not appreciate the interruption of their concentration on the Lord and the Sacrament.
The question arises: If the practice (suitably controlled) is not the sacrament of Panentheism what is it? Well, if it is done in a dignified way and if it is accompanied by appropriate teaching, it can be a means of emphasising the importance of true fellowship and communion one with another in the local Body of Christ and that it is as the Body of Christ that we receive the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ. But it must be done in a dignified and reverent way to be such.
[There are some very useful books & learned essays on the Holy Kiss - see L. Edward Phillips, The Ritual Kiss in Early Christian Worship, Cambridge, 1996 who lists many such.]
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Monday, August 25, 2003
Forget about Gay Bishop; think upon the LORD
Adelphoi in the ECUSA,
Letus forget about the ECUSA & a gay bishop and think for a while about ECUSA & the LORD our God.
Where have we, who now roundly condemn the ECUSA's General Convention for its confirmation of the "gay" Canon Robinson been, for the last thirty years or so? Did we not see the "writing on the wall" often and with respect to a variety of changes, modifications, and additions made by the same General Convention since the 1960s? Do we not realise that the confirmation of Robinson, though wholly wrong, was only possible because of decades of changes in the mindset of the leadership of the ECUSA at diocesan and national level?
In fact, do we not see that it is radically changed thinking about and attitude to YHWH, the LORD, the Blessed Trinity of the Father, the Son & the Holy Ghost, that have been the root cause of the multiple changes made in the worship, doctrine, and discipline of the Episcopal Church since the 1960s
If this can be stated in one sentence it would something like this statement:
"From the holy, ordered and covenantal relation to the almighty, transcendent Father, through the Incarnate Son and by the omnipresent Holy Ghost, the ECUSA has moved to a convenient, experiential relationship with a God who is more immanent than transcendent and who is usually presented as One Person made known in three Modes and/or Names (old style Father, Son and Holy Ghost, new style Mother-Father, Child and Spirit, or Creator, Redeemer & Sanctifier)."
The loyalty to the new Deity lies behind (a) the continuing changes in liturgy and especially the fixation on expansive language and the multi-this and that concerns; (b) the continuing changes in moral standards and norms related to modern human rights and personal autonomy & self worth agendas; (c) the virtual disappearance from the ECUSA of commitment to classic patristic dogma and the teaching of the "standard" Anglican divines concerning the central verities held by the Anglican Way, and (d) the lip-service to the Bible which is now read wearing spectacles allowing only post 1960s "light" to pass through them.
Compare the doctrine of the 1928 edition of the classic Book of Common Prayer repudiated by the General Convention in 1976/79 with that in the recent volumes, this time authorized by General Convention, called "Enriching our Worship".
A relationship (as used today) is very much a post 1960s arrangement where you have two or more parties agreeing to some form of being together until such time as one of them decides to move on or quit. In contrast "relation" (note the use of "relatio" in classic dogma) points to permanency and to the divine initiative in creating the "relatio". May the LORD our God establish with us a "relatio" in which we see with new eyes and act with new vision and energy so that we pursue His glory whatever the cost to ourselves.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Letus forget about the ECUSA & a gay bishop and think for a while about ECUSA & the LORD our God.
Where have we, who now roundly condemn the ECUSA's General Convention for its confirmation of the "gay" Canon Robinson been, for the last thirty years or so? Did we not see the "writing on the wall" often and with respect to a variety of changes, modifications, and additions made by the same General Convention since the 1960s? Do we not realise that the confirmation of Robinson, though wholly wrong, was only possible because of decades of changes in the mindset of the leadership of the ECUSA at diocesan and national level?
In fact, do we not see that it is radically changed thinking about and attitude to YHWH, the LORD, the Blessed Trinity of the Father, the Son & the Holy Ghost, that have been the root cause of the multiple changes made in the worship, doctrine, and discipline of the Episcopal Church since the 1960s
If this can be stated in one sentence it would something like this statement:
"From the holy, ordered and covenantal relation to the almighty, transcendent Father, through the Incarnate Son and by the omnipresent Holy Ghost, the ECUSA has moved to a convenient, experiential relationship with a God who is more immanent than transcendent and who is usually presented as One Person made known in three Modes and/or Names (old style Father, Son and Holy Ghost, new style Mother-Father, Child and Spirit, or Creator, Redeemer & Sanctifier)."
The loyalty to the new Deity lies behind (a) the continuing changes in liturgy and especially the fixation on expansive language and the multi-this and that concerns; (b) the continuing changes in moral standards and norms related to modern human rights and personal autonomy & self worth agendas; (c) the virtual disappearance from the ECUSA of commitment to classic patristic dogma and the teaching of the "standard" Anglican divines concerning the central verities held by the Anglican Way, and (d) the lip-service to the Bible which is now read wearing spectacles allowing only post 1960s "light" to pass through them.
Compare the doctrine of the 1928 edition of the classic Book of Common Prayer repudiated by the General Convention in 1976/79 with that in the recent volumes, this time authorized by General Convention, called "Enriching our Worship".
A relationship (as used today) is very much a post 1960s arrangement where you have two or more parties agreeing to some form of being together until such time as one of them decides to move on or quit. In contrast "relation" (note the use of "relatio" in classic dogma) points to permanency and to the divine initiative in creating the "relatio". May the LORD our God establish with us a "relatio" in which we see with new eyes and act with new vision and energy so that we pursue His glory whatever the cost to ourselves.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Friday, August 22, 2003
Reforming Forwards through Experiment in the ECUSA.
One of the characteristics of the Church in western nations since the 1960s has been the new way of calling for, and implementing, claimed reform and/or renewal of the Church.
In the past reformations looked to the past – the age of the Bible, of Jesus, of the apostles, of the Fathers etc. – and sought to change and renew the present by restoring what had been in place and was authorized by either clear biblical or patristic teaching. Historians of course will tell us to what extent their project was valid, their methods appropriate and their results justifiable. But the point is that all serious attempts at reformation or renewal did look back to the Scriptures and often to (assumed) pure tradition. This is true for example of the Protestant Reformation, Vatican II and the early Liturgical Movement of the 20th century.
In recent times, in the liberal Churches there has begun the process of introducing an innovation and then claiming that whether it is God’s perfect will or not can only be ascertained through allowing the innovation space and opportunity and then testing it and discerning what is its use and value. The open process of receiving and testing these innovations has been called, by Anglicans especially, “the doctrine of reception”. (But it is not the only doctrine of reception. In the old Anglican text-books “reception” is the receiving of the teaching or dogma of a council by the dioceses and parishes, the clergy and people so that it is a doctrine that has the consensus of the whole Church. And in the ecumenical movement “reception” is that process of one denomination receiving from outside itself, e.g., from an ecumenical consultation, a doctrine or practice.)
The three obvious examples of this modern method of reformation forwards (rather than backwards) in the ECUSA are the ordination of women; the blessing of marriages that are part of serial monogamy, and the blessing of same-sex couples (with the ordaining of persons in such). In none of these cases can any full appeal be made to Holy Scripture and sacred tradition. Any use of the Bible to justify these things is according to types of exegesis and interpretation that were unknown in earlier times and which to earlier times would be seen as wholly misguided.
The ordination of women has been said to be necessary for the Church in order for the Church to exhibit that humanity before God is female and male; but no such practice has ever existed before in any obvious way in the long history of the Church. Nevertheless it was introduced under pressure from the women’s movement and then it was said from within the churches that the Church was in the process of receiving it through testing and discernment (which open process appeared to many to be a cloak to cover its rapid advance which continues). It is clearly a case of Reformation forwards and is being very successful!
The marriage of divorcees in churches is said to be necessary to be loving and kind to all and to face a real pastoral emergency and need. Yet again there are no precedents in the Western Church for this; but, it was introduced and has been widely practiced on the basis that time will show that it was good and right. It is clearly a case of Reformation forwards and is being very successful, as the large proportion of remarried persons in ordained ministry and in the membership of so-called “orthodox” churches reveals.
And the same method is being used for the blessing or “marriage” of “gay couples” in the churches. There are no precedents for this; but, these people are said to be in FAITHFUL partnerships and God, it is claimed, loves faithfulness between couples; therefore they deserve God’s blessing and they should have it. Time will show, it is argued, that this is good and right. Again this is Reformation forwards! And it is already the majority view in the ECUSA.
Reformation forwards as a method seems to work in a modern secular culture where the innovation being brought in is regarded as good and wholesome by much of the surrounding society and is to the personal benefit of those who profit from it.
THEREFORE, as I have repeatedly said, the renewal of the ECUSA, or of dioceses within it, is much more than repudiating same-sex blessings and bishops who approve such and are in such. Renewal involves a change of a mindset, a change in the way we read and use the Bible, profound changes in our liturgy, doctrine and discipline. It includes recovering a proper understanding of “Reformation backwards” as guided by the Holy Ghost.
(I owe the expression “Reformation Forwards” to my learned friend, Louis Tarsitano of Savannah, Georgia.)
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
In the past reformations looked to the past – the age of the Bible, of Jesus, of the apostles, of the Fathers etc. – and sought to change and renew the present by restoring what had been in place and was authorized by either clear biblical or patristic teaching. Historians of course will tell us to what extent their project was valid, their methods appropriate and their results justifiable. But the point is that all serious attempts at reformation or renewal did look back to the Scriptures and often to (assumed) pure tradition. This is true for example of the Protestant Reformation, Vatican II and the early Liturgical Movement of the 20th century.
In recent times, in the liberal Churches there has begun the process of introducing an innovation and then claiming that whether it is God’s perfect will or not can only be ascertained through allowing the innovation space and opportunity and then testing it and discerning what is its use and value. The open process of receiving and testing these innovations has been called, by Anglicans especially, “the doctrine of reception”. (But it is not the only doctrine of reception. In the old Anglican text-books “reception” is the receiving of the teaching or dogma of a council by the dioceses and parishes, the clergy and people so that it is a doctrine that has the consensus of the whole Church. And in the ecumenical movement “reception” is that process of one denomination receiving from outside itself, e.g., from an ecumenical consultation, a doctrine or practice.)
The three obvious examples of this modern method of reformation forwards (rather than backwards) in the ECUSA are the ordination of women; the blessing of marriages that are part of serial monogamy, and the blessing of same-sex couples (with the ordaining of persons in such). In none of these cases can any full appeal be made to Holy Scripture and sacred tradition. Any use of the Bible to justify these things is according to types of exegesis and interpretation that were unknown in earlier times and which to earlier times would be seen as wholly misguided.
The ordination of women has been said to be necessary for the Church in order for the Church to exhibit that humanity before God is female and male; but no such practice has ever existed before in any obvious way in the long history of the Church. Nevertheless it was introduced under pressure from the women’s movement and then it was said from within the churches that the Church was in the process of receiving it through testing and discernment (which open process appeared to many to be a cloak to cover its rapid advance which continues). It is clearly a case of Reformation forwards and is being very successful!
The marriage of divorcees in churches is said to be necessary to be loving and kind to all and to face a real pastoral emergency and need. Yet again there are no precedents in the Western Church for this; but, it was introduced and has been widely practiced on the basis that time will show that it was good and right. It is clearly a case of Reformation forwards and is being very successful, as the large proportion of remarried persons in ordained ministry and in the membership of so-called “orthodox” churches reveals.
And the same method is being used for the blessing or “marriage” of “gay couples” in the churches. There are no precedents for this; but, these people are said to be in FAITHFUL partnerships and God, it is claimed, loves faithfulness between couples; therefore they deserve God’s blessing and they should have it. Time will show, it is argued, that this is good and right. Again this is Reformation forwards! And it is already the majority view in the ECUSA.
Reformation forwards as a method seems to work in a modern secular culture where the innovation being brought in is regarded as good and wholesome by much of the surrounding society and is to the personal benefit of those who profit from it.
THEREFORE, as I have repeatedly said, the renewal of the ECUSA, or of dioceses within it, is much more than repudiating same-sex blessings and bishops who approve such and are in such. Renewal involves a change of a mindset, a change in the way we read and use the Bible, profound changes in our liturgy, doctrine and discipline. It includes recovering a proper understanding of “Reformation backwards” as guided by the Holy Ghost.
(I owe the expression “Reformation Forwards” to my learned friend, Louis Tarsitano of Savannah, Georgia.)
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Thursday, August 21, 2003
A SERMON ON WHOREDOM AND ADULTERY
Adelphoi,
The Anglican Family is much concerned at this time with what kind of sexual relations are right before God.
The Bishops of the Church of England in the 1540s were also much concerned with sexual standards & relations in the nation.
Thus Archbishop Cranmer had specially written for the 1547 Book of Homilies (a part of the foundation of doctrine of the Church of England) A SERMON ON WHOREDOM AND ADULTERY.
I have recorded this sermon - it is in three parts - and in all it takes 40 mins to hear. It is as much a word to our permissive society and church as it was to the people of England in the 16th century.
You can hear it at the website of Christ Church -- www.christchurch-biddulph.fsnet.co.uk - if you have speakers on your
computer.
If you want a CD of it to play to a group or in your car, we can make one for you for £3.00 plus the postage.
Thank you,
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor www.christchurch-biddulph.fsnet.co.uk
The Anglican Family is much concerned at this time with what kind of sexual relations are right before God.
The Bishops of the Church of England in the 1540s were also much concerned with sexual standards & relations in the nation.
Thus Archbishop Cranmer had specially written for the 1547 Book of Homilies (a part of the foundation of doctrine of the Church of England) A SERMON ON WHOREDOM AND ADULTERY.
I have recorded this sermon - it is in three parts - and in all it takes 40 mins to hear. It is as much a word to our permissive society and church as it was to the people of England in the 16th century.
You can hear it at the website of Christ Church -- www.christchurch-biddulph.fsnet.co.uk - if you have speakers on your
computer.
If you want a CD of it to play to a group or in your car, we can make one for you for £3.00 plus the postage.
Thank you,
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor www.christchurch-biddulph.fsnet.co.uk
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Midwest Conservative Journal
Dear Friends,
Here is the web link to the "Midwest Conservative Journal" (which in turn has lots of links to other useful sites), followed by commentary by Fr. Geoffrey Kirk of FiF in England on the failure of so-called "conservatives" in the PECUSA.
From the Midwest Conservative Journal:
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Here is the web link to the "Midwest Conservative Journal" (which in turn has lots of links to other useful sites), followed by commentary by Fr. Geoffrey Kirk of FiF in England on the failure of so-called "conservatives" in the PECUSA.
From the Midwest Conservative Journal:
PIPE DREAM II - Those of us who hope that the October meetings of conservative Episcopalians and Anglican primates will figure out a way for us to remain Episcopalians, should, according to the Rev. Dr. Geoffrey Kirk, Anglican Vicar of St Stephen's, Lewisham in the diocese of Southwark in Britain, stop wasting our time and start looking for new churches immediately:
Will a separate province emerge for Anglican traditionalists in America? It does not appear so. The reasons are many, and the time has come to list them. ECUSA traditionalists are, to put it succinctly, few, divided and, in the strictest sense, unprincipled.
Isn't that a bit harsh? Not really, says Dr. Kirk. The unfortunate truth is that conservative and evangelical Anglican numbers in the United States are small and are only going to get smaller:
American traditionalists are, self-evidently, a small group in a declining church. It is true that the confirmation of Gene Robinson as Coadjutor Bishop in New Hampshire passed by only nine votes in the House of Bishops, and that over forty voted against it. But that state of affairs will not long persist. Just as the number of bishops opposed to women's ordination dwindled rapidly to the present three, so will opposition to gay bishops quickly wither. And, like those opposed to women priests, once gone they will not be replaceable.
And let's just say that conservative Episcopal relations with other conservative Christian denominations have been considerably less than cordial:
ECUSA traditionalists are, if that were possible, even more attached than the liberals to this overweening institution. They are simultaneously afflicted by Anglophilia, and Tudoritis. They have, until very recently, viewed their co-belligerents who left the Episcopal church in the late seventies to form 'continuing' Anglican bodies, as second class citizens. They have conspicuously failed to make common cause with the small but robust Polish National Catholic Church. They share the scarcely veiled contempt with which WASP Anglicans generally view the Roman Catholic Church. And they find the Orthodox inexcusably ethnic. In short, they are an embattled minority simply because they have consistently refused to make common cause with the majority.
The same can be said for their relations with each other:
All this would not be so bad were the traditionalists not also fatally divided amongst themselves. The epitome of that division is the tiny but significant Anglican Mission in America. This group of (mainly evangelical) parishes has grown into an ecclesial entity which claims oversight from the Primates of Rwanda and South East Asia. But structural and ecclesiological problems dog AMiA at every step. Rwanda is a province which ordains women to the priesthood; SE Asia is a province which does not. What should be the attitude of AMiA (which has from its inception included both women priests and their opponents) to the innovation?
A wide-ranging process of consultation has begun, at the end of which it is envisaged that a binding decision will be taken. It is significant that hardly anyone (even those in FiF/NA who have soldiered on for twenty years and borne the heat of the day) has had the courage to explain to the leadership of AMiA the manifest absurdity of a splinter of a splinter, depending for its authority and authenticity on the good will of two other splinters, deciding the nature of orders in the Universal Church. Nor, it appears, has either Primate explained what must undoubtedly be the case - that whatever decision is reached one or other of them will be obliged to withdraw, since neither is competent to act contrary to the canons of his own province.
Then Dr. Kirk slides in the stiletto:
Finally the ECUSA traditionalists are unprincipled. That is to say that they have never defined the basis of their rejection of the authority of the 'National Church'.
Is it scriptural? In which case why was the confirmation of a Gay Bishop, rather than the continuation in office of an heresiarch like Spong, the defining issue? And why have so many 'traditionalists' in ECUSA accepted with little or no question the divorce culture which is now normative for Episcopalians?
Is it ecclesial? In which case why has the demand for alternative oversight of those opposed to women's ordination been so muted and so ineffective? And why has repudiation of the authority of the diocesan, when it has come (as in the leafy Philadelphia suburb of Rosemont), been complicated by so many other attendant issues?
There is almost nothing to argue with here. Rev. Kirk has brilliantly described the Achilles heel of conservative Episcopalians. What, an Episcopal liberal might justifiably ask, is all the fuss about? The Episcopal Church has tolerated bishops who have explicitly denied the faith for forty years, refusing to take any action against them. What is the difference between the church refusing to excommunicate John Shelby Spong and confirming Gene Robinson?
One is forced to admit that there is none. We Episcopal conservatives have a great deal to answer for. We stayed in the Episcopal Church, tolerating heretics rather than demanding that the church expel them. We stayed while the Book of Common Prayer was ground into gruel and forced down our throats. We stayed through the politically-correct rape of the Hymnal. We stayed as the church's imprimatur was granted to one secular liberal political stance after another.
Given that track record, why in the name of common sense should Gene Robinson surprise anyone? And why should American conservatives be granted their own province? I will still wait and see what emerges from the October meetings; with God, all things are possible. But I am looking around. And I put my chances of remaining an Episcopalian after October at no better than 10%.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
urgent : William Rusch on Reception
Adelphoi,
Is any kind person able to help me.
I need to read as soon as possible a book published in the USA to complete a study I am doing on The Doctrine of Reception within the C of E and anglican communion.
William Rusch, Reception an Ecumenical Opportunity (1988, Fortress, Philadelphia).
I am happy to pay for its photocopying and postage to me here in the UK if any can help.
THANKS
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Is any kind person able to help me.
I need to read as soon as possible a book published in the USA to complete a study I am doing on The Doctrine of Reception within the C of E and anglican communion.
William Rusch, Reception an Ecumenical Opportunity (1988, Fortress, Philadelphia).
I am happy to pay for its photocopying and postage to me here in the UK if any can help.
THANKS
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Monday, August 11, 2003
General Convention, ECUSA, 1976 & 2003 & The Ecumenical Doctrine of Reception
In 1976 the General Convention as the Synod of the Episcopal Church made the decision to ordain women as presbyters. This should have brought into operation within the ECUSA, as well as in related provinces of the Anglican Communion of Churches, what was called (in ecumenical circles since the 1960s) "the doctrine of reception" - i.e. the dynamic process of testing the acceptance of women in orders which begins with a synodical majority decision and is finally accepted when everyone ( or say 90 per cent) in the Church accepts it [or is finally rejected when it is clear that a large majority of the faithful do not accept the innovation].
Regrettably, this decision was never treated by a majority of bishops of ECUSA as being a process to be tested and its nature and fruits discerned. It was rammed down throats and eventually the General Convention. in 2000 made it a mandatory belief for office holders. Thus those engaged in what they believed to be the process of reception who had not been able to receive it were sidelined and treated as enemies of the new order.
In 2003 the General Convention made the decision to confirm the election of a bishop elect, Gene Robinson, and because of his personal circumstances, thereby also declared that stable "gay" relationships are acceptable as the dynamic equivalent of holy matrimony. Other decisions about blessing "gay" partnerships confirmed this innovatory doctrine.
Again, according to the doctrine of reception, an innovation passed by a Synod goes out for the process of testing and discernment in the province that passed it and also into other provinces that are prepared to test it. This innovation of same-sex "marriage" is being definitely tested already in Canada (Vancouver area) and apparently in parts of Great Britain and Australia in an unofficial way.
The question facing the ECUSA is this: Is its General Convention prepared to undo this decision about "gay" marriage if it becomes clear that there is an overwhelming majority against it in the Anglican Communion as well as in the ECUSA itself? Reception as a process is NOT completed until it is very generally accepted by the faithful. OR Will the ECUSA, as it did with the ordination of women, exercise its autonomy selfishly (shaking a fist as it were both to God and to the universal Church) to mandate belief in same-sex blessings?
With the meeting of the 38 Primates in mid-October in London, it is possible that they will declare there and then by a vast majority ( say 36-2) that this process of reception is invalid for same-sex marriage because the synodical decisions in Vancouver and in the ECUSA were totally wrong. So there is no basis on which the doctrine of reception can be based and function! The innovation is banned and should cease forthwith!
Let us pray daily and fervently for Rowan Williams and the 37 other primates.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Regrettably, this decision was never treated by a majority of bishops of ECUSA as being a process to be tested and its nature and fruits discerned. It was rammed down throats and eventually the General Convention. in 2000 made it a mandatory belief for office holders. Thus those engaged in what they believed to be the process of reception who had not been able to receive it were sidelined and treated as enemies of the new order.
In 2003 the General Convention made the decision to confirm the election of a bishop elect, Gene Robinson, and because of his personal circumstances, thereby also declared that stable "gay" relationships are acceptable as the dynamic equivalent of holy matrimony. Other decisions about blessing "gay" partnerships confirmed this innovatory doctrine.
Again, according to the doctrine of reception, an innovation passed by a Synod goes out for the process of testing and discernment in the province that passed it and also into other provinces that are prepared to test it. This innovation of same-sex "marriage" is being definitely tested already in Canada (Vancouver area) and apparently in parts of Great Britain and Australia in an unofficial way.
The question facing the ECUSA is this: Is its General Convention prepared to undo this decision about "gay" marriage if it becomes clear that there is an overwhelming majority against it in the Anglican Communion as well as in the ECUSA itself? Reception as a process is NOT completed until it is very generally accepted by the faithful. OR Will the ECUSA, as it did with the ordination of women, exercise its autonomy selfishly (shaking a fist as it were both to God and to the universal Church) to mandate belief in same-sex blessings?
With the meeting of the 38 Primates in mid-October in London, it is possible that they will declare there and then by a vast majority ( say 36-2) that this process of reception is invalid for same-sex marriage because the synodical decisions in Vancouver and in the ECUSA were totally wrong. So there is no basis on which the doctrine of reception can be based and function! The innovation is banned and should cease forthwith!
Let us pray daily and fervently for Rowan Williams and the 37 other primates.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
Sunday, August 10, 2003
ECUSA, DIVORCE, SAME- SEX BLESSINGS
One thing has become clear to those within the ECUSA to whom God has given eyes to see.
A jurisdiction of the Church that has for decades allowed and encouraged divorce and remarriage - serial monogamy, and has further regularly accepted that this is contrary to the plain words of Jesus and the intent of historic canon law, should not be surprised when there is a call (on the basis of human rights as for the divorced) for the blessing of same-sex couples who claim to be faithful to one partner at a time.
To say this does not mean that every divorce is wrong or that remarriage is not possible in some cases by the permission of the Ordinary, but it is to state that the existence of a large divorce culture within the ECUSA is at least the context in which the call for same-sex blessings makes sense to human reason, guided by human rights and modern views of individual autonomy, and aided by novel ways of reading the Bible.
Those who are protesting against the election of Gene Robinson and who are calling for a new alignment of "orthodox" parishes/dioceses need to bear in mind that unless they first address the marriage question they will not morally improve upon the position of the General Convention of 2003.
I offer this radical suggestion to those critical of the Gene R decision.
Let all divorced and remarried priests step down from office as the first sign of a new attempt to recover divine order and as the firstfruits of a major attempt by the "orthodox" to begin to recover some biblical standards! Let lay leaders in the same position do so also. Let bishops begin to be graciously strict on this matter from now on! Let us all repent and seek the face of the Lord!
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
A jurisdiction of the Church that has for decades allowed and encouraged divorce and remarriage - serial monogamy, and has further regularly accepted that this is contrary to the plain words of Jesus and the intent of historic canon law, should not be surprised when there is a call (on the basis of human rights as for the divorced) for the blessing of same-sex couples who claim to be faithful to one partner at a time.
To say this does not mean that every divorce is wrong or that remarriage is not possible in some cases by the permission of the Ordinary, but it is to state that the existence of a large divorce culture within the ECUSA is at least the context in which the call for same-sex blessings makes sense to human reason, guided by human rights and modern views of individual autonomy, and aided by novel ways of reading the Bible.
Those who are protesting against the election of Gene Robinson and who are calling for a new alignment of "orthodox" parishes/dioceses need to bear in mind that unless they first address the marriage question they will not morally improve upon the position of the General Convention of 2003.
I offer this radical suggestion to those critical of the Gene R decision.
Let all divorced and remarried priests step down from office as the first sign of a new attempt to recover divine order and as the firstfruits of a major attempt by the "orthodox" to begin to recover some biblical standards! Let lay leaders in the same position do so also. Let bishops begin to be graciously strict on this matter from now on! Let us all repent and seek the face of the Lord!
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
(Presiding Bishop Griswold voted for Gene Robinson's confirmation as a bishop even though he knew that all the Primates had agreed that a gay bishop was not appropriate or right!)<hr>
ACNS 3547 | USA | 9 AUGUST 2003
Text of Presiding Bishop Frank T Griswold's Friday sermon
Reiterating themes of 'receive, repent, reconcile, restore'
74th General Convention
Friday 8 August 2003
Readings: Romans 10:13-17; Psalm 96:1-7; John 7:16-18
[ACNS source: Episcopal News Service] On this, the last day of this General Convention, the Church invites us to call to mind St. Dominic, who in the early years of the 13th century founded the Order of Preachers, a brotherhood whose whole purpose was to proclaim, by word and example, the good news of God in Christ, to speak not of themselves, as today's gospel tells us, but of the One who sent them. Evangelization was the bent of their being, and every spiritual and intellectual tool available was to be pressed into service.
One of Dominic's biographers describes his sense of purpose thus:
"Wherever he went he showed himself in word and deed to be a follower of the Gospel. ... Frequently Dominic made a special personal petition that God would deign to grant him a genuine charity, effective in caring for and in obtaining the salvation of humankind. For he believed that only then would he be truly a member of Christ, when he had given himself totally for the salvation of all, just as the Lord Jesus, the Savior of all, had offered himself completely for our salvation."
Is this not the call God extends to each one of us? The Holy Spirit has poured the love of God into our hearts, a "genuine charity" that makes it possible for us to overleap all the boundaries of self-interest and self-protection and embrace the whole creation with the arms of compassion - a compassion not our own, but a compassion worked in us by grace.
As you are all well aware, we have been carefully watched over these past two weeks by the media. And what has been remarked upon, again and again, is our civility. I think, however, that our civility is not the point. It is not civility that has been at work among us, but love. To be sure there has been a certain amount of sinfulness on all sides, but there has also been a tremendous amount of grace at work as well.
Love is not just a feeling: it is a matter of the will. And the willingness of many of you who are deeply distressed by certain actions of the convention to stay, quite literally, at the table, is a profound act of love for which the community can be grateful. Some have felt obliged to leave the table. While we must respect their freedom to do so, it is very much my prayer - and I am sure yours as well - that they will find themselves able to return. Their leaving diminishes us all.
Love takes other forms as well. It is love that gives us the desire to enter into the pain of the other and to bear it as one's own. It is love that gives us the desire to exercise restraint and forbearance for the sake of one's brother or sister.
What has this convention been about and what do I take away? This 74th General Convention has been about love. It has been about love at work in a community that heretofore had been able to live with both/and realities and now was forced to make an either/or decision. And yet, in doing so, something has happened that is larger than any one perspective or even the decisions this Convention has made. Paradoxically, our differences writ large have stripped us of our facile civility and plunged us into the vast sea of the divine agape. That is not to say one position is right and the other wrong. It is to say that God in Christ is with us.
"Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field. I'll meet you there," said the Sufi poet Rumi. The field is the field of the divine compassion where all things are reconciled in ways that we can only dimly comprehend.
"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved," Paul tells us in today's first reading. What does it mean to be saved, but to be drawn out of our little worlds of self-preoccupation and placed in the open space of God's transfiguring and all transforming love? And how does this happen? It happens because life accosts us; circumstances force themselves upon us and we are obliged to leave the security of our various Egypts, our states of certitude that are often forms of bondage - and launch out into the wilderness with no clear sense of destination.
All we know is that we are being led by a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. And yet, in the wilderness, manna appears, a gift is given, love descends - supplying hope and giving courage, as well as the strength to journey on.
I know many of you are asking: what is going to happen when I get home to my congregation, my diocese? What is going to happen to the Anglican Communion? I don't know. But, what I do know is that love has been at work among us.
"In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself," and we, in our struggle to be faithful - personally, as a community of faith, and as global citizens open to the world, are caught up through baptism into the costly work of giving flesh and blood to all that God has brought about through the blood of the cross. As a church, we are called to live the mystery of God's reconciling love for the sake of the world.
Receive, repent, reconcile, restore: such is God's mission, God's project, God's work, and ours as well. We have been engaging in that work during these days in many forms: in our prayer, in seeking the mind of Christ, in bearing one another's burdens, in opening ourselves to the suffering of the world, and especially the suffering borne by our brothers and sisters in Liberia and other places wracked by violence, poverty and disease. We have opened ourselves more fully to the suffering of the world, and through our actions here we have committed ourselves to a stance of global partnership. One example of this commitment is that we have embraced the Millennium Development Goals.
Love does indeed take many forms. Some are intimate and personal, some take us across the globe to feed the starving and stem the spread of disease. Some involve words. Some involve actions. Yet all is part of that vast articulation of Christ's deathless love which is God's mission and ours as well.
"Preach always," said a contemporary of Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, "and if necessary use words." Francis' life, as well as that of Dominic, was a sermon in itself, a living exposition of love. Can the same be said of us personally and as a household of faith? At its deepest level this is what we have been discovering during our General Convention. This is what has captured public attention beyond the presenting issues. Can we be a living exposition of God's reconciling love?
There is still much to receive, much to repent of, much to be reconciled, much to be restored. With Jesus, we must go up to Jerusalem with the sober yet confident awareness that we only can know the power of his resurrection by sharing his sufferings. So we move into the future knowing with St. Paul that "suffering produces endurance (patient endurance), and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us" (Romans 5:4).
My dear brothers and sisters, may this deep and tenacious love be with us all as we go forth and return home. May its reconciling force heal us and whole us for the sake of God's world.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
ACNS 3547 | USA | 9 AUGUST 2003
Text of Presiding Bishop Frank T Griswold's Friday sermon
Reiterating themes of 'receive, repent, reconcile, restore'
74th General Convention
Friday 8 August 2003
Readings: Romans 10:13-17; Psalm 96:1-7; John 7:16-18
[ACNS source: Episcopal News Service] On this, the last day of this General Convention, the Church invites us to call to mind St. Dominic, who in the early years of the 13th century founded the Order of Preachers, a brotherhood whose whole purpose was to proclaim, by word and example, the good news of God in Christ, to speak not of themselves, as today's gospel tells us, but of the One who sent them. Evangelization was the bent of their being, and every spiritual and intellectual tool available was to be pressed into service.
One of Dominic's biographers describes his sense of purpose thus:
"Wherever he went he showed himself in word and deed to be a follower of the Gospel. ... Frequently Dominic made a special personal petition that God would deign to grant him a genuine charity, effective in caring for and in obtaining the salvation of humankind. For he believed that only then would he be truly a member of Christ, when he had given himself totally for the salvation of all, just as the Lord Jesus, the Savior of all, had offered himself completely for our salvation."
Is this not the call God extends to each one of us? The Holy Spirit has poured the love of God into our hearts, a "genuine charity" that makes it possible for us to overleap all the boundaries of self-interest and self-protection and embrace the whole creation with the arms of compassion - a compassion not our own, but a compassion worked in us by grace.
As you are all well aware, we have been carefully watched over these past two weeks by the media. And what has been remarked upon, again and again, is our civility. I think, however, that our civility is not the point. It is not civility that has been at work among us, but love. To be sure there has been a certain amount of sinfulness on all sides, but there has also been a tremendous amount of grace at work as well.
Love is not just a feeling: it is a matter of the will. And the willingness of many of you who are deeply distressed by certain actions of the convention to stay, quite literally, at the table, is a profound act of love for which the community can be grateful. Some have felt obliged to leave the table. While we must respect their freedom to do so, it is very much my prayer - and I am sure yours as well - that they will find themselves able to return. Their leaving diminishes us all.
Love takes other forms as well. It is love that gives us the desire to enter into the pain of the other and to bear it as one's own. It is love that gives us the desire to exercise restraint and forbearance for the sake of one's brother or sister.
What has this convention been about and what do I take away? This 74th General Convention has been about love. It has been about love at work in a community that heretofore had been able to live with both/and realities and now was forced to make an either/or decision. And yet, in doing so, something has happened that is larger than any one perspective or even the decisions this Convention has made. Paradoxically, our differences writ large have stripped us of our facile civility and plunged us into the vast sea of the divine agape. That is not to say one position is right and the other wrong. It is to say that God in Christ is with us.
"Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing there is a field. I'll meet you there," said the Sufi poet Rumi. The field is the field of the divine compassion where all things are reconciled in ways that we can only dimly comprehend.
"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved," Paul tells us in today's first reading. What does it mean to be saved, but to be drawn out of our little worlds of self-preoccupation and placed in the open space of God's transfiguring and all transforming love? And how does this happen? It happens because life accosts us; circumstances force themselves upon us and we are obliged to leave the security of our various Egypts, our states of certitude that are often forms of bondage - and launch out into the wilderness with no clear sense of destination.
All we know is that we are being led by a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. And yet, in the wilderness, manna appears, a gift is given, love descends - supplying hope and giving courage, as well as the strength to journey on.
I know many of you are asking: what is going to happen when I get home to my congregation, my diocese? What is going to happen to the Anglican Communion? I don't know. But, what I do know is that love has been at work among us.
"In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself," and we, in our struggle to be faithful - personally, as a community of faith, and as global citizens open to the world, are caught up through baptism into the costly work of giving flesh and blood to all that God has brought about through the blood of the cross. As a church, we are called to live the mystery of God's reconciling love for the sake of the world.
Receive, repent, reconcile, restore: such is God's mission, God's project, God's work, and ours as well. We have been engaging in that work during these days in many forms: in our prayer, in seeking the mind of Christ, in bearing one another's burdens, in opening ourselves to the suffering of the world, and especially the suffering borne by our brothers and sisters in Liberia and other places wracked by violence, poverty and disease. We have opened ourselves more fully to the suffering of the world, and through our actions here we have committed ourselves to a stance of global partnership. One example of this commitment is that we have embraced the Millennium Development Goals.
Love does indeed take many forms. Some are intimate and personal, some take us across the globe to feed the starving and stem the spread of disease. Some involve words. Some involve actions. Yet all is part of that vast articulation of Christ's deathless love which is God's mission and ours as well.
"Preach always," said a contemporary of Dominic, St. Francis of Assisi, "and if necessary use words." Francis' life, as well as that of Dominic, was a sermon in itself, a living exposition of love. Can the same be said of us personally and as a household of faith? At its deepest level this is what we have been discovering during our General Convention. This is what has captured public attention beyond the presenting issues. Can we be a living exposition of God's reconciling love?
There is still much to receive, much to repent of, much to be reconciled, much to be restored. With Jesus, we must go up to Jerusalem with the sober yet confident awareness that we only can know the power of his resurrection by sharing his sufferings. So we move into the future knowing with St. Paul that "suffering produces endurance (patient endurance), and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us" (Romans 5:4).
My dear brothers and sisters, may this deep and tenacious love be with us all as we go forth and return home. May its reconciling force heal us and whole us for the sake of God's world.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
A wise move from Archbishop Rowan
Rowan Williams moves quickly to seek to keep the Communion together
ACNS 3544 | LAMBETH PALACE | 8 AUGUST 2003
Archbishop to convene primates meeting
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is to convene an extraordinary meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion this autumn. The meeting will take place in London in mid-October and it is expected that invitations will be sent out in the next week.
Dr Williams said that the effects of recent developments at the ECUSA General Convention were being felt throughout the Communion and there was a need for the Primates to meet to consider them.
"I am clear that the anxieties caused by recent developments have reached the point where we will need to sit down and discuss their consequences. I hope that in our deliberations we will find that there are ways forward in this situation which can preserve our respect for one another and for the bonds that unite us.
"I hope we can use the time between now and then to reflect, to pray, to consult and to take counsel."
The original release from Lambeth Palace is available from
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/releases/030808.html
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
ACNS 3544 | LAMBETH PALACE | 8 AUGUST 2003
Archbishop to convene primates meeting
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is to convene an extraordinary meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion this autumn. The meeting will take place in London in mid-October and it is expected that invitations will be sent out in the next week.
Dr Williams said that the effects of recent developments at the ECUSA General Convention were being felt throughout the Communion and there was a need for the Primates to meet to consider them.
"I am clear that the anxieties caused by recent developments have reached the point where we will need to sit down and discuss their consequences. I hope that in our deliberations we will find that there are ways forward in this situation which can preserve our respect for one another and for the bonds that unite us.
"I hope we can use the time between now and then to reflect, to pray, to consult and to take counsel."
The original release from Lambeth Palace is available from
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/releases/030808.html
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
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