Category Archives: anglican

The Dean of GTS has spoken

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Ward Ewing, Dean of The General Theological Seminary, my seminary, has written a statement regarding the Communique from the Primates Meeting.
Kendall posted it on his weblog. You can read it here. Read the comments. Really, read the comments. What have we come to? What are we devolving into? The triumph of the American religion, which bears little resemblance to what God calls us to, IMHO.

New demands

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Archbishops Akinola of Nigeria and Nzimbi of Kenya have demanded that The Church of England (Canterbury) certify to them by September 30th that they have stopped all same-sex marriages or blessings and do not ordaining homosexuals.

Led by Nigeria’s Archbishop Peter Akinola and Kenya’s Benjamin Nzimbi, the bishops said if Canterbury “does not come back to us by September 30, we will decide whether they will continue being with us or not.”
“Let us know if they will have stopped celebrating same sex marriages and ordaining homosexuals,” Bishop Akinola who is the chairman of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (Capa) said during the launch of an HIV /Aids prevention plan at Panafric Hotel.

Read the whole article. Via comments on In a Godward Direction.

Hard and complete scholarship

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Tobias Haller, priest, member of TEC’s Executive Committee, offers some thoughts on Ash Wednesday and the call of the Primates for adequate response by The Episcopal Church on his blog, In a Godward Direction. Read the post and the comments!
One thing I find encouraging about ++Katherine is that she comes from the “hard” physical-sciences and not the “soft” social-sciences. What I mean is that when she looks for justifications for positions or to prove a hypothesis she will look for actual data, thorough research, complete scholarship, etc. Too many of us from a social-science background or from within the Humanities over the last 30 years have resorted to arguments based on “feelings.” We must do this or that because it “feels right” or so that we do not damage the “feelings” of others, etc. The tendency is to do some studies, but only enough to give us enough confidence to press our point, not enough to persuade critics. Simplistic, I know, but that is a beginning. I have been through too many classes concerning social and personal “develop theories” and listened to too many people give justifications for doing this or that thing based no little more than “feelings.”
This issue of whether TEC has given good and rigorous and complete theological and Scriptural justifications for our attempts to change thousands of years of Tradition and Scriptural interpretation concerning the morality of homosexual relationships has come back to us with the answer of, “NO!” I agree, and I don’t think we have. I think there are too many people in the leadership of TEC (staff-priests-bishops) who wish to make justifications for our actions based too much on “feelings” (reflected in such subjective “proofs” as issues of justice, inclusion, and the like – as important as they are), rather than on hard, rigorous, and complete research and scholarship. The result is that we have been woefully lacking in our response to the challenge of the wider Christian community to our attempts to change Christian Tradition and understanding. We have not done our homework well – perhaps just enough to make ourselves feel good about our effort.
We have acted with hubris, not because our actions are intrinsically wrong, but because our attitudes are paternalistic towards all those “homophones” that refuse to accept our “enlightened” new understanding. It is time for hard theological work, hard research, and hard scholarship! Frankly, because of our arrogance it may be too late to persuade anyone. This is the legacy being realized my too much attention to “feelings” and not hard data and thorough scholarship over the last 40 years.
The hard work is what ++Katherine will hopefully demand of us, as she would demand of someone proposing a new theory concerning octopuses.
Then, from the comments, is the following:

When I was in college, there were several racist incidents on campus. House meetings were held, and campus-wide meetings were held. One of the African-American students in my house said something that struck me to this day. We were talking about how to understand each other better, how to bridge cultures and learn from each other. Several women suggested that we needed to hear from our African-American sisters, hear their stories and learn from them.
This particular lady stood up, crying, and said “WHY do I have to teach you? Why is it incumbent upon ME to educate you about this? I live it, I’m tired of it. Go out for yourselves and find out what we, as black women, are talking about. Take classes, read history, study it yourselves. It is not my job as a black woman to educate you all about racial injustice.”
As a lesbian, I’m feeling much the same way. There are myriad resources for these bishops, priests and congregations to use to educate themselves about our theological position. Why should we have to continually answer the call of “PROVE it to us!” They don’t want it proven to them. They don’t open their ears to hear, or their eyes to see the oppression of GLBT people in the church. I have had to educate MYSELF about this subject, they can, too. The bishops have the same resources (even more, I’ll bet) than I do. They are intelligent and learned. But their hearts and minds are closed.

It is a two-way-street, and what do we do when the other party has no interest in learning or any further study?

To change?

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Bonnie Anderson, President of the House of Deputies of The Episcopal Church, comprising 800+ clergy and lay deputies and meeting with the House of Bishops every three years at the General Convention, the Church’s governing body, has issued a statement in response to the Primates’ Communiqué.
Here is a couple statements that I find particularly poignant:

Their Communiqué, however, raises profound and serious issues regarding their authority to require any member Church to take the types of specific actions the Communiqué contemplates and whether they have authority to enforce consequences or penalties against any member Church that does not act in a way they desire. The type of authority for the Primates implicit in the Communiqué would change not only the Episcopal Church but the essence of the Anglican Communion.
All Anglicans must remember that the second Lambeth Conference in 1878 recommended that “the duly certified action of every national or particular Church, and of each ecclesiastical province (or diocese not included in a province), in the exercise of its own discipline, should be respected by all the other Churches, and by their individual members.”
This has been the tradition of the Anglican Communion. To demand strict uniformity of practice diminishes our Anglican traditions.

She used the word “recommended” rather than other words such as – “mandated,” “declared,” “established” – more in line with the Tradition of Anglicanism. Lambeth is not a body that establishes official doctrine for The Anglican Communion and all provincial Churches within it. It is not a “Curia” or a “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.” This has been repeated over and over again as the factual and historical Tradition of Anglican governance, yet reactionaries against the decisions of the last two U.S. General Conventions keep pushing and pushing as if the bishops assembled at Lambeth had such power.
Of course, as their relentless drive to so establish Lambeth continues, it will become the de-facto decision making body with “authority” unless there are those with enough backbone to say, “NO, this is not what Anglicanism has been and this is not what Lambeth is!”

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How the “world” sees our wrangling

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From The Living Church, via Titusonenine:

At the final press conference, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, said the meeting had damaged the church’s witness in the eyes of the world.
“Looking at the levels of human greed, terror and suffering around the world, it is difficult for people to have transformed views about the Anglican Communion when we have our own internal divisions,” he said as quoted by Episcopal News Service. “I do hope that people will bear the MDGs as the primary vision.”

I must agree with ++Rowan! We delude ourselves if we think the world will look upon all of our politicking and demands for uniform belief with respect, thinking, “oh, look at those principled and honorable people standing firm in their honest assertions of truth. I want to be part of them!” No, for the most part I think they see us as being out of touch with reality and the concerns of the world.

Draft Anglican Covenant

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Here is the Primate’s Final Communique and the draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant.
Go here for the final communique, which deal with The Episcopal Church a little more harshly.
The Anglican Covenant cover page begins:
Report of the Design Group
Introduction to the Draft Text of the Covenant
A Proposal for a Text of the Anglican Covenant
The Status of this Document
This document is the Report of the Covenant Design Group and includes a draft text for a possible Covenant proposed by the Design Group for discussion. It has not yet been officially adopted by any of the Instruments of Communion and is not offered for approval or authorization but released for wider consultation and debate. It was received and debated by the Joint Standing Committee and the Primates and changes are already proposed.
Read it here.
Download it in .pdf format here.
My initial take – well, it isn’t bad. It makes me nervous when at any time I think I am giving over autonomy. It was VERY difficult for me to vow to obey my bishop. VERY difficult, but I did it with complete intent because this is how this Church conducts its affairs, and I believe that I am called to this Church at this time. So, I make my vow, and I mean it, despite how it makes me feel at times.
We are not really giving over any actual autonomy. The four Instruments of Communion will take on new responsibilities, and will be given new types of authority as we live into the Covenant. Of course, this is only the draft. I’m sure changes will be made.
It does sound more Evangelical/Protestant than Catholic, but there is room for both. It does seem to take on a more centralized point of reference concerning new teachings or interpretations of Scripture that may cause particular concern or trouble for other Provinces. There does not seem, however, to be a mechanism for the Instruments of Communion to attempt to force a particular point-of-view on another Province, except for the removal of the particular Church from the Communion. That can be done, now, so it isn’t a big departure. Time will only tell what kind of authority is granted to the Instruments of Authority when such problems occur in the future.
If this is passed right now, I could live within it. The problems will come when my “living within it” does not match other peoples’ definition of “living within it.” Then, we are right back were we started.

Common is some places

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This, from a recent online article from The Living Church (an independent Episcopal news magazine) covering yesterday’s Sunday Eucharist for the Anglican Primates meeting at Christ Church Cathedral in Zanzibar:

Over 600 worshippers packed the Cathedral, built in 1878 on the site of Zanzibar’s former slave market in Stone Town. Archbishop Williams served as preacher, Archbishop Donald Mtetemela of Tanzania served as celebrant and the bishops of Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam served as deacon and sub-deacon in the elaborate Anglo-Catholic service which was conducted in both English and Swahili.
In high ritual style, Archbishop Mtetemela sung the liturgy, as clouds of incense arose from a censer held by the former Archbishop of Zanzibar, John Rahamdhani. The altar service reflected an ecclesial style seldom seen in The Episcopal Church, with copes, maniples, zucchettos and other finery. Yellow roses covered the front of the altar and much of the cathedral in honor of Quinquagesima Sunday.”

(emphasis mine)
Well, they are right, this kind of thing is seldom seen in The Episcopal Church these days, except for the cadre of High-Church and Anglo-Catholic parishes that are faithfully making their way forward. The overall Church, however, is far more high-church (high-ritual or “Catholic”) than it was 40 years ago! There are those who say that Anglo-Catholics “won the battle but lost the war,” meaning that a good bit of the style of high-worship has been adopted by the wider church (Eucharist every Sunday, sung Eucharist, vestments, etc.), but all the depth behind why Anglo-Catholics worship they way they do has not – some say “style over substance.” Of course, only certain things have made the transition to the wider Church, as the clip above suggests.
At my parish, St. Paul’s Church on Carroll St. in Brooklyn, we see and we wear such things as copes, maniples, cassocks, amices, and albs. We also have incense and sanctus bells. We genuflect during the appropriate part of the Creed, and all that. This seems so odd that I would be doing such things, coming from my Evangelical upbringing.
I’ve thought a lot about when I am called to a particular church with a free-standing (“west-facing”) altar where I face the people. I don’t want to be and should not be the center of attention, and I think facing the people causes that to happen. The people’s attention moves from being aware of all that is happening from the heavenlies on down to their individual hearts, to what the priest is doing with his/her hands.
I will certainly celebrate on a west-facing altar, but I might have to explain that during times such as Lent that I think I will have to face east with my back to the people. For me, particularly during penitential times, I cannot face the people as if I am separated from them, standing behind the altar. I am one of them and like them, a sinner, and with them all I must face symbolic East towards the source of our forgiveness, freedom, reconciliation, and peace. I don’t know how that will go over.
This high-ritual style of worship is considered a throwback by many of those “in the know” of TEC. “Anglo-Catholicism” has also developed a reputation in the U.S. as being reactionary and angry, very much opposed to the ordination of women and the like. This is not our Anglo-Catholic parish nor most of the others I know of. I’ve come across the good Fathers and parishioners who do fit that bill, however. Frankly, from what I read and experience, a new interest in and a rebirth of ritual can be seen in other religions like Judaism and within civil society in general.
What I read regarding demographic trends particularly among young people, this kind of “church” is a big draw. There is a desire for that which is ancient, tried and true, not trendy, and for a return of mystery. To many young people, the language of God sounds like Rite I old English, looks like traditional church architecture, is represented by clergy who look and act the part, and ritual that is contemplative and not anthropocentric. We see it in our congregation – younger people make up the majority of visitors.
We have something very much in common with our fellow Anglicans in Zanzibar.