Category Archives: church

a consensus document?

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There’s lots of advice around for those of us in the Episcopalian hoi polloi by now, telling us how we should read the HOB communiqué from New Orleans, some of it suggesting that we lack the ability to read for ourselves, either because we are not in the know or because we were not present in the room with the bishops as they consulted.

One writer puts the case pretty bluntly, saying that “hypercritical second-guessing of the bishops” is “unreasonable” and “unseemly.” Another describes the communiqué as “a consensus document” and advises that we thank the bishops for their leadership, suggesting that various statements from New Orleans are still being perfected. Another argues that the responses of those of us who don’t think the bishops wrote very well are “sophomoric and self-indulgent.” Still another commends the virtues of “wordsmithing” and argues for the necessity of such language in addressing the present dissensus in our church.

Part of this seems merely academic to me, but part of it seems an inevitable consequence of the publication of a document (a public document, by the way) that possesses all the worst features of documents written by committees. Worse yet, to my mind, the communiqué is a lawyerly document. The Anglican Scotist asks, “Why can’t compromise and discernment be messy? Why can’t an honest compromise leave everyone disappointed?” My answer is that an honest compromise would have addressed the demands of the “Anglican Primates in Dar es Salaam” directly and would have detailed the dissensus in the HOB, itself. I think the resulting document would have upheld the determination of the American Church to govern itself as the bishops affirmed in March instead of appearing to retreat from that determination, but I can’t know that.

As it is, the communiqué is being read as a retreat on every hand, and nowhere more clearly than in reflections of bishops from my home state of Texas. Retreat is the clear implication of reflections by Bishops Lillibridge and Reed of West Texas, who consider themselves marginalized within the HOB, but who nonetheless were able to persuade their colleagues to “go further than the Bishops were able to go in March.” Bishop James Stanton of Dallas has issued a statement in which he laments that the HOB didn’t retreat far enough but makes this rueful observation near the end:

It seems that, even with the best of intentions, we simply cannot get beyond the thought that we might learn from what the Archbishop of Canterbury called “common discernment;” in other words, that our decisions as a House might be wrong and at any rate ought to be subject to the advice and concerns of our Communion brothers and sisters. Many bishops argued for ambiguity as the most “honest” statement of “where we are.” Perhaps that is true. That is the effectual outcome of this meeting.

Though I should be leery of indulging in unseemly second guessing of my betters, I think the attempt to produce a consensus document when no consensus exists was a mistake. Bishops Lillibridge, Reed, and Stanton hold a minority position in the HOB, but it is a position that deserves to be heard. Other bishops, who represent the views of those of us on the left, deserve to be heard as well. Lawyerly language that obfuscates open dissensus serves nobody well. But perhaps the process was better than the document it produced. Many are saying of the HOB meeting as a whole that it was characterized by a lack of acrimony and a willingness to allow all members to make their own arguments. Here’s Bishop Stanton, again:

I am grateful for the tone of this meeting and for many aspects of the process and the contributions many bishops from very different perspectives made to it. I wish that such openness and frankness, and serious discussion, had characterized earlier meetings. (And here I refer to 15 years of such meetings!)

There will be more meetings, of course, and other position papers, and maybe some new legislation at the next General Convention. I pray for good news and hope I live to hear it. But as Dean Thomas Luck wrote yesterday, “in the scope of Christianity,” time is long.

–At seventy, I’m not getting any younger.

yet once more . . .

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Well, the pastoral letter has come. Not from the entire House of Bishops, but from Bishop Kirk Smith of Arizona (thanks to Nick Knisley at Entangled States). I agree with Bishop Smith that a good headline for any story about the House of Bishops’ work in New Orleans might have been, “Bishops Bend Over Backwards to Hold Communion Together,” but I think what actually happened in New Orleans is that the bishops bent over backwards to accomodate the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In this regard I’m sad to read Giles Fraser’s piece in The Guardian today which argues that “The deal that the archbishop has brokered with the Episcopal church in New Orleans protects the unity of the church by persuading US bishops that the church is more important than justice.” I’m not sure the deal even protects the unity of the church, as witness this editorial in the Global South Anglican.

Bishop Smith says that the HOB statement from New Orleans is a compromise. That’s putting the best possible construction on it, in my view. He also says the communiqué “is a confirmation of the actions of the 2006 General Convention, and that “Our polity is such that the House of Bishops could not have changed that position, even had we wanted to.”

Only too true. However, the bishops could have spoken descriptively of the present condition of our church with regard to ordinations and blessings, but they chose rather to speak legalistically in the main in a way that is being widely read as a recantation, and I think justly so (I have quoted the full text of two crucial paragraphs of the communiqué in the previous post). I don’t think these paragraphs are exactly the endorsement of the status quo that some are saying they are (see Fr. Jake, for instance).

Nor do I think the bishops’ communiqué is ambiguous; though I do think the summary (to which I believe some early responders reacted before they digested the whole text) is not a fair précis of the document. A midday post at the Episcopal Cafe argues that disparate responses to the bishops’ language reflect distortions in the media and muses ruefully that “It’s small wonder that some laity have expressed bewilderment.” Isn’t that just a lovely thought? As one of the “laity” I note the various interpretations of the communiqué that are being published by the bishops, themselves (some of them cited by this same author).

I am senior warden of a growing metropolitan Episcopal church in the city of St. Louis. I will go about my work in that capacity in the next weeks and months with a heavy heart. And as a human being and a citizen of the United States of America, my heart is even heavier because I am largely in agreement with Fr. Fraser in The Guardian that “the struggle for the full inclusion of lesbian and gay people in the life of the church is a frontline battle in the war against global religious fascism.” And when I read Bishop Smith’s statement that the House of Bishops of my church sought to be sensitive “to the cultural and theological beliefs of our partners of the Global South,” I am reminded of something else Fr. Fraser says.

Robert Mugabe has called homosexuals “worse than dogs and pigs”. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government denies that gay people exist in Iran, and hangs the ones it finds. The Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria thinks homosexuality “evil” and “cancerous”. There can be no compromise with any of this, irrespective of whether it is backed up by dodgy readings of holy texts or not.

I’m glad the bishops endorsed the “civil rights, safety, and dignity of gay and lesbian persons,” and I suppose they didn’t really mean to leave out bisexual and transgendered “persons.” But the bishops could have done, should have done, more. I think the New Orleans communiqué is an exercise in Episcopolitics (a wonderful word I have just learned from Tobias Haller). The bishops had a huge audience all over the world. If ever there was an opportunity for prophetic utterance, this was it. Instead, they labored like a mountain and brought forth a mouse. It’s a damn shame.

bishops stand down?

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I had an argument with my beloved today. As we were getting close to campus where I usually drop her off, she began to describe the AP wire story about the Episcopal House of Bishops’ statement yesterday in regard to sexual politics. The Post Dispatch had picked it up this morning. Here’s the lead:

NEW ORLEANS — Episcopal leaders, pressured to roll back their support for gays to keep the world Anglican family from crumbling, affirmed Tuesday that they will “exercise restraint” in approving another gay bishop and will not approve prayers to bless same-sex couples.

Since this was not the understanding I had from the Integrity Press Release, or from having read a summary of the talking points the bishops issued, I said, “Hey, wait a minute!” To which my beloved responded with a version of “I only know what I read in the papers,” and I signed off with a surly comment to the effect that most of what we read in the papers isn’t true–something I don’t, in fact, believe.

Because the devil is truly in the details. When I looked at a fuller text of the bishops’ statement, my heart sank. The Episcopal Cafe has published a summary of the press coverage around the world. It appears the bishops’ statement is being widely reported as the AP has reported it, and I think rightly so. I’m hoping that somebody can persuade me not to think the bishops simply caved.

To be fair, there’s a good deal of disagreement about what the statement means. Writers for The New York Times and the BBC have apparently read it in ways that are diametrically opposed. I wish I could agree with the Times and the Integrity Press Release. Changing Attitude Nigeria is also reading the statement more or less positively, and even Bishop Robinson has spoken more or less favorably of it. Part of the difficulty with what the bishops say is hermeneutic: some of the talking points, which apparently circulated in advance of the fuller text, are at odds with the fuller text. The first talking point might be read as a mere nod in the direction of resolution B033 of General Convention 2006, but the amplification makes it clear that the bishops mean to offer no criticism of that very bad piece of legislation–indeed, seem to expand its scope. To wit:

The House of Bishops concurs with Resolution EC011 of the Executive Council. This Resolution commends the Report of the Communion Sub-Group of the Joint Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates of the Anglican Communion as an accurate evaluation of Resolution B033 of the 2006 General Convention, calling upon bishops with jurisdiction and Standing Committees “to exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion.” (1) The House acknowledges that non-celibate gay and lesbian persons are included among those to whom B033 pertains.

I think the crucial statements are contained in 1) the passage in quotation marks referring to persons whose “manner of life present a challenge to the wider church,” and 2) the passage that includes “non-celibate gay and lesbian persons . . . among those to whom B033 pertains.” Here’s the next paragraph on the blessing of same-sex unions. It’s gives a bit more latitude to interpretation than the paragraph on consecrating bishops, but it’s still disappointing:

We, the members of the House of Bishops, pledge not to authorize for use in our dioceses any public rites of blessing of same-sex unions until a broader consensus emerges in the Communion, or until General Convention takes further action [italics mine]. In the near future we hope to be able to draw upon the benefits of the Communion-wide listening process. In the meantime, it is important to note that no rite of blessing for persons living in same-sex unions has been adopted or approved by our General Convention. In addition to not having authorized liturgies the majority of bishops do not make allowance for the blessing of same-sex unions. We do note that in May 2003 the Primates said we have a pastoral duty “to respond with love and understanding to people of all sexual orientations.” They further stated, “…[I]t is necessary to maintain a breadth of private response to situations of individual pastoral care.”

It would have been nice to encounter this paragraph without its first sentence (the one in italics). To be sure, the bishops have only affirmed the truth, as Susan Russell points out, but why did they have to pledge anything? It seems clear that the Global South bishops, whose bigotry and ambition are driving this controversy, and their American allies who are bent on leaving the Episcopal Church (or have already left) are unimpressed. What did the TEC bishops hope to accomplish? I expect to read a pastoral letter soon that will attmpt to persuade me that they have acted to preserve the Anglican Communion. But I’m not sanguine.

In fact, it seems to me that the bishops’ statement does nothing, says nothing, that will in any way soften the hearts of those on the Anglican right. But it does a very great deal to dishearten those of us who have been proud to think we were part of a church that opens its doors and its hierarchy of ministries to all persons. the Post Dispatch story with which I began carries this head in the online version: “Episcopal leaders promise restraint on electing gay bishops in face of Anglican demands.” But my reaction is more in line with the head I first read in the Metro edition that comes to my door: “Episcopal leaders stand down over gays.”

political ABC

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Fr Tobias, of In a Godward direction, has suggested this morning that the Archbishop of Canterbury is playing politics in the matter of the Lambeth invitations and that his tactic is to give “+Abuja every reason to refuse to remain in Communion with Canterbury.” To this take on the behavior of “the wily Welshman” is added a further political reading by Catholic commentator Rick Allen, who suggests that the Archbishop’s diplomacy may be directed at “both sides” in the durrent Anglican dispute:

Both sides have now been affronted by having one of their standard-bearers refused an invitation to Lambeth. Both sides now have principled voices calling for non-participation because of the “snub.”

But the rub is that he who stays away on principle runs the greater risk of being held to have abandoned the communion.

Allen’s point that the withheld invitations give “both sides the chance to bolt” seems reasonable to me in light of a number of the Archbishop’s recent public statements about division in the church. On the other hand, most commentators at Invitations Sent and Withheld support Fr. Tobias’s conclusion that the Archbishop’s diplomacy is directed at +Abuja.

What interests me most about Allen’s commentary is a prefatory statement to the effect that “both sides claim to be the bearers of true Anglicanism.” I wish this weren’t true but fear that it is. It would be helpful, it seems to me, if those of us who believe in the legiticimacy of Bishop Robinson’s consecration could make our case on procedural or moral grounds without making claims of orthodoxy or theological purity. It is difficult to do that, however, when one is called apostate by those who disagree. The whole thing becomes ad hominem.

And speaking of ad hominem, Fr. Knisely at Entangled States put me on to this observation at the Ember Days blog:

. . . Archbishop Williams has expressed two propositions:

(1) that Gene Robinson is a genuine bishop of the Anglican Communion, but a stumbling-block to the weaker brethren, and

(2) that Martyn Minns is an outlaw.

Both these propositions have the merit of being true.

Susan Russell would do well to hold her tongue.

I think I understand what the writer means by calling Bp. Minns an outlaw; and I probably agree, though I suspect Minns thinks of himself as practicing a high sort of civil disobediance. But I’m not at all certain who the weaker brethren are for whom Bp. Robinson is a stumbling block. On the one hand, I’m not sure who might be led astray by Bp. Robinson’s example; and on the other, the folks most loudly threatening division in the church are hardly weak.

But politics is politics, even when it most pretends to be something else. I’m not sure what point the writer at Ember Days means to make, though I’m certain it’s a political one. I especially don’t understand the writer’s last sentence, unless he means to say that the ABC has clarified things and Integrity shouldn’t be outraged about that.