{"id":386,"date":"2004-09-06T09:16:25","date_gmt":"2004-09-06T09:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=386"},"modified":"2004-09-06T09:16:25","modified_gmt":"2004-09-06T09:16:25","slug":"a_modest_proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=386","title":{"rendered":"A modest proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Considering the last post I made, I just read this post from the House of Bishops\/Deputies listserv.
\n
\nDate: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 16:52:31 -0400
\nFrom: Tobias S Haller BSG
\nSubject: [HoB\/D] A suggestion for impaired communion<\/b>
\nThe recent meeting of the Provincial Secretaries of the Anglican
\nCommunion leads me to believe that the predictions from conservative
\ncolumnists about the collapse of the communion may be somewhat
\nexaggerated. All but a handful of the 38 provinces of the Communion were
\nrepresented at this meeting, and of those, apparently only two (Uganda
\nand Nigeria) stayed away as an expression of their attitude towards the
\nEpiscopal Church, with which they have severed “communion.”
\nIn all of the discussions concerning the present crisis, however, I have
\nyet to hear a good and precise definition of exactly what “commuion”
\nmeans. I hope this may emerge from the work of the Lambeth Commission.
\nIn the meantime, people talk about communion in “nominative” terms, that
\nis: what does our communion consist of; what is its nature; is it like a
\nfederation or a coalition; and so on. My response is to suggest we treat
\ncommunion, or being in communion, in a more _verbal_ sense: What does a
\ncommunion _do_; how does it work?
\nAs I have noted in the past, when determining whether one is “in
\ncommunion” or “out of communion” with another ecclesial body, the first
\nthing you look to is the mutual recognition of ministers and their
\nability to _function_ as such within the various constituent member
\nchurches or provinces of the communion. Thus we move from ontology to
\naction. And this is also where talk of “impaired” communion has
\npractical implications.<\/em><\/p>\n


\n
\nNow, “impaired communion,” when you speak of it in the “nominative”
\nsense, is like “partial virginity.” But if we look at it “verbally” we
\ncan understand its practical implications, in particular as it relates
\nto the sharing of ministers. As I have noted in the past, the movement
\nto ordain women in some parts of the Anglican Communion severed this
\nministerial link that some would say is essential to any definition of
\necclesial communion. This impairment took various forms, from at one
\nextreme an unwillingness to recognize women as even capable of being
\nordained (even from some within the provinces where this was affirmed
\nand allowed), to a willingness to allow for local option and toleration
\nof such ministers’ functioning as long as they restricted their actions
\nto their own provinces, to other provinces that fully recognized the
\nministry of ordained women.
\nBut even at the beginning, the impairments were essentially bilateral:
\nthat is, only those churches or provinces that didn’t ordain women felt
\nthey had to be in “impaired communion” with those that did. The center
\ncould still hold, interestingly enough, even when the center province
\nitself (Canterbury as part of the Church of England) did not recognize
\nthe ministry of women in the episcopate. Yet Canterbury extended the
\ninvitation to women bishops to attend the Lambeth Conference even though
\nCanterbury itself, and some of the other bishops at Lambeth, did not in
\ntheir own minds or provinces allow or (in some cases) approve of the
\nministry of women bishops. The first Eames Commission addressed this
\nconcern, which limited the “impairment” of communion to the bilateral
\nacts of those provinces who refused to license or allow women to
\nfunction as ordained persons, while allowing that _on the whole_ \u00c2\u2014 and
\nvia Canterbury \u00c2\u2014 the communion recognized their ministry as legitimate
\nand good _within those provinces that did so._
\nI realize that some reject any likeness between the present crisis and
\nthat surrounding the ordination of women to the episcopate. But the real
\nissue I am addressing \u00c2\u2014 and which the Lambeth Commission was charge to
\naddress \u00c2\u2014 is not the question of sexuality, but the question of
\ncommunion. And I do not see why exactly the same solution could not be
\napplied in the present situation, since the earlier crises concerned one
\nof the cornerstones by which communion is most commonly defined, while
\nthe present disagreement is about a matter of pastoral theology no more
\nmomentous than the similar differences of opinion on divorce and
\nremarriage or polygamy. That is, communion would be impaired for those
\nwho feel it necessary as a witness to their point of view, and be
\ncomplete where it is complete as far as the individual bilateral
\nrelationships between member provinces go, but _as a whole_ the
\ncommunion, via Lambeth and the other instruments of unity, would
\ncontinue to function much as it has for the last century or so. Thus, as
\nArchbishop Rowan has noted, Bishop Robinson could not (at present) be
\nlicensed to function in the Church of England (due to the English
\ncanonical restrictions), echoing his predecessor Archbishop Robert’s
\nwords about Bishop Harris. But, as with Bishop Harris, Bishop Robinson
\nwould be welcome to attend Lambeth. Those that would choose not to
\nparticipate in Lambeth because Bishop Robinson is invited would need to
\ntake responsibility for their own actions and do as they see fit,
\nkeeping always in mind the admonition “not to neglect to meet together,
\nas some do.”
\nIf the whole is not more than simply the sum of its parts, then we do
\nnot have a communion, but a confederation. And if the whole _does_
\nnothing but is simply an entity whose bear existence is the end and goal
\n\u00c2\u2014 well, that strikes me as coming perilously close to idolatry. If
\ncommunion is what is wanted, and if it is _for_ something, then that
\nmeans modeling the behavior of Christ and honoring all the members, and
\nrespecting their ability to make decisions for their own governance and
\nlife, even if those decisions are not applicable in other particular
\ninstances, nor indeed universally in the Communion. I hope as well that
\nthe members of the communion can come to the place where they continue
\nto collaborate on the many other projects that serve the people of God
\nand the world, even while disagreeing on this matter of sexual ethics.
\nCommunion, then, means the willingness to treat each other as members of
\nthe body, even when we disagree. It is about staying together, as a
\nfamily does, in spite of differences. And what makes a family, the
\nGospel teaches us, is primarily based on what the members do, how they
\ntreat each other, rather than on who is related to whom by blood. The
\nchurch, after all, is a family in which all but one of the children is
\nadopted.
\nIn the long run I hope that the Lambeth Commission will hold the course,
\nto preserve the Anglican Communion as it has been functioning for so
\nlong, as a fellowship of autonomous churches bound by affection and the
\nHoly Spirit rather than by law. And where affection is strained, to hope
\nfor the grace of God’s Holy Spirit to compensate for our lack of charity.
\n__________________________________________________________________
\nTobias Stanislas Haller BSG
\nHoB\/D:2003.NY.C6<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Considering the last post I made, I just read this post from the House of Bishops\/Deputies listserv. Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 16:52:31 -0400 From: Tobias S Haller BSG Subject: [HoB\/D] A suggestion for impaired communion The recent meeting of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglican"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}