Post by Theotokos on May 17, 2005 13:31:36 GMT -5
Anglicanism Runs Aground
Douglas Farrow
The good ship Anglican, as Archbishop Robin Eames acknowledges in his preface to the Windsor Report, appears to many observers “to be set on a voyage of self-destruction.” Indeed, Eames admits that “if realistic and visionary ways cannot be agreed to meet the levels of disagreement at present or to reach consensus on structures for encouraging greater understanding and communion in the future it is doubtful if the Anglican Communion can continue in its present form.”<br>
The aim of the Lambeth Commission on Communion chaired by Eames was to make proposals that might keep the ship afloat. It released its report at St. Paul’s Cathedral on October 18, 2004, in a tumult of media speculation, Internet acrimony, and lawsuits over church property in American courts. The ninety-three-page report comes in four main parts. The purpose of the first two is to consider the nature of the Communion and of the threats it faces; the third and fourth sections address the future function of the Communion’s four “instruments of unity” and offer specific proposals for negotiating the dangerous straits in which Anglicans now find themselves.
The Windsor Report succeeds at making no one entirely happy yet leaving everyone with something worth pondering. While it has been rejected as wrongheaded by, for example, retired American bishop John Spong on the one hand and Nigerian primate Peter Akinola on the other, it has been welcomed—albeit cautiously—by many on both sides of the dispute about homosexuality that has engulfed the Communion. Much now depends on the way it is received and deployed by those with decision-making power, and especially by the primates who meet in February to respond to it.
A careful reading of the report makes plain that the Spongs have better reason to be displeased than the Akinolas. The Commission did not address the issue of homosexuality but instead examined the Anglican understanding of communion and its attendant view of authority and responsibility. In attempting to articulate that understanding, the report applies Anglicanism’s understanding of itself as an ecclesial community at once catholic and protestant. And both strands of this analysis—the appeals to tradition and to Scripture—are deftly woven together into a rational repudiation of the actions of the Episcopal Church (ECUSA) and of the Diocese of New Westminster in British Columbia that have occasioned the crisis. It is made entirely clear that these actions—the unilateral consecration of an openly gay bishop and the official blessing of same-sex relations in the face of a clear No from the rest of the Communion—are unjustified and have stretched to the breaking point “the bonds of affection” without which the Anglican polity must disintegrate.
We need not hold it against the Commission that rational arguments, with or without the support of Scripture and tradition, may gain little traction in the places mentioned. We may, however, question the adequacy of the Windsor Report in at least two ways. Before we do that, we must take note of its proposals and recommendations.
Briefly put, the proposals are these: (1) that there be a moratorium on the appointment of gay bishops and on the approval of same-sex blessings; (2) that the bishop of New Westminster, and those American bishops who participated in the consecration of Gene Robinson, be invited to withdraw from representative roles in the Communion until they have issued an apology for acting contrary to the principles of communion (it is not made clear what is to be done about Robinson, or whether the moratorium should extend to the ordination of homosexuals to lower orders—matters that lie, apparently, within the purview of autonomous provinces); (3) that meaningful alternative episcopal oversight be offered to dissenters within provinces or dioceses that have deviated from tradition, and that their property not be taken from them; (4) that bishops who have intervened without approval in other provinces or dioceses desist from doing so and express regret for the negative consequences of their actions.
[to be continued - edited to correct tags]
Douglas Farrow
The good ship Anglican, as Archbishop Robin Eames acknowledges in his preface to the Windsor Report, appears to many observers “to be set on a voyage of self-destruction.” Indeed, Eames admits that “if realistic and visionary ways cannot be agreed to meet the levels of disagreement at present or to reach consensus on structures for encouraging greater understanding and communion in the future it is doubtful if the Anglican Communion can continue in its present form.”<br>
The aim of the Lambeth Commission on Communion chaired by Eames was to make proposals that might keep the ship afloat. It released its report at St. Paul’s Cathedral on October 18, 2004, in a tumult of media speculation, Internet acrimony, and lawsuits over church property in American courts. The ninety-three-page report comes in four main parts. The purpose of the first two is to consider the nature of the Communion and of the threats it faces; the third and fourth sections address the future function of the Communion’s four “instruments of unity” and offer specific proposals for negotiating the dangerous straits in which Anglicans now find themselves.
The Windsor Report succeeds at making no one entirely happy yet leaving everyone with something worth pondering. While it has been rejected as wrongheaded by, for example, retired American bishop John Spong on the one hand and Nigerian primate Peter Akinola on the other, it has been welcomed—albeit cautiously—by many on both sides of the dispute about homosexuality that has engulfed the Communion. Much now depends on the way it is received and deployed by those with decision-making power, and especially by the primates who meet in February to respond to it.
A careful reading of the report makes plain that the Spongs have better reason to be displeased than the Akinolas. The Commission did not address the issue of homosexuality but instead examined the Anglican understanding of communion and its attendant view of authority and responsibility. In attempting to articulate that understanding, the report applies Anglicanism’s understanding of itself as an ecclesial community at once catholic and protestant. And both strands of this analysis—the appeals to tradition and to Scripture—are deftly woven together into a rational repudiation of the actions of the Episcopal Church (ECUSA) and of the Diocese of New Westminster in British Columbia that have occasioned the crisis. It is made entirely clear that these actions—the unilateral consecration of an openly gay bishop and the official blessing of same-sex relations in the face of a clear No from the rest of the Communion—are unjustified and have stretched to the breaking point “the bonds of affection” without which the Anglican polity must disintegrate.
We need not hold it against the Commission that rational arguments, with or without the support of Scripture and tradition, may gain little traction in the places mentioned. We may, however, question the adequacy of the Windsor Report in at least two ways. Before we do that, we must take note of its proposals and recommendations.
Briefly put, the proposals are these: (1) that there be a moratorium on the appointment of gay bishops and on the approval of same-sex blessings; (2) that the bishop of New Westminster, and those American bishops who participated in the consecration of Gene Robinson, be invited to withdraw from representative roles in the Communion until they have issued an apology for acting contrary to the principles of communion (it is not made clear what is to be done about Robinson, or whether the moratorium should extend to the ordination of homosexuals to lower orders—matters that lie, apparently, within the purview of autonomous provinces); (3) that meaningful alternative episcopal oversight be offered to dissenters within provinces or dioceses that have deviated from tradition, and that their property not be taken from them; (4) that bishops who have intervened without approval in other provinces or dioceses desist from doing so and express regret for the negative consequences of their actions.
[to be continued - edited to correct tags]