Challenging the Center

Members of The American Episcopal Church (TEC) that want TEC to avoid the Windsor/covenant trap that it is rapidly slipping into need to treat the challenge as the complex synodic political campaign that it surely is. The battle is for the center of TEC: moderate Bishops and other delegates to the General Convention next year. The Rubicon is whether the 2009 Convention will in fact ratify the Anglican covenant concept and its thinly veiled quid pro quo of trading “restraint” for “restraint.” Consciously or not, our clerics are using vague new notions of “communion” abroad as a justification for sidestepping their dilemmas at home, and far too many laity still have no clue how the two intersect. The issues that we must insist TEC face immediately are less theological than institutional. Most clergy have a general institutional bias, or they wouldn’t be clergy. But the people in the pews need to understand, and demand open debate on, certain specific institutional biases before they catch us off guard, as did BO33 in 2006. There is ample evidence that we are confronting a new institutional paradigm, one that cannot simply be challenged on traditional church leadership grounds.

What is compelling about the Anglican Communion to our clergy? It is probably not the obvious historical fiction that the covenant supporters are trying to sell, which even the hotheads dismiss except for its value as a wedge issue. Some clergy may welcome the challenge of bridging historical and cultural fault lines as a symbolic exercise of Christian healing. But to most it is about the practicalities of power, and the lure of what many, including our Presiding Bishop, describe as a huge coalition of 80 million capable of great service to the world’s needy. This includes the laudable hope of protecting women, children, GLPs and other marginalized groups in intolerant societies. Such a hope needs a candid reality test, as well as a frank comparison with the history of apartheid – Archbishop Tutu’s words. But the key issue is whether this power for good comes from kainonia, ekklesia, or merely strong common interests - the latter called a covenant of fate, not of faith, by a speaker at Lambeth. Given the clear inability of many Primates to appear subservient to former colonial masters, TEC must address the question whether the Communion will actually function better in the world without TEC and certain other national churches being “in Communion” in a way that constantly raises the subservience issues. Are we part of the solution to the Millennium Goals, or part of the problem? TEC laity can work with anyone, anywhere in the world, and do. The institutional barriers are those of the clergy. Are they being candid about their interests and their priorities?

There are specific institutional issues that we cannot ignore. Chief among them is the relationship between the “no poaching” resolution of the 1877 Lambeth Conference and any current negotiating for membership in a newly-minted Anglican Communion, defined, if not bound, by covenant. The basic deal being offered by southern Primates and the Anglican Church is that if churches like TEC and Canada do not sign on as members, or later are found (by somebody) to be outside prescribed cultural comfort zones in their practices, all bets are off regarding poaching. The threat is not just more offers of oversight from foreign bishops, but setting up competing churches without the normal permissions. Unfortunately, the poaching issue, which is a clergy not a laity problem, might have great influence on what the 2009 General Convention does, but it has not been addressed in most covenant discussions so far. I suspect it is a huge institutional concern, given our current struggles with dissident parishes and dioceses. We need to meet this potential deal-sealer head on, through discussions, blogs and critical thinking. We need to think through as a whole church whether a loss of clerical monopoly is a bad or a good thing. Will it relieve tensions in TEC if there are actual Anglican or other province churches established down the street as alternatives for conservative believers? Will their presence ameliorate church property disputes? Will loss of monopoly affect our Bishops’ control of their dioceses? Will it strengthen TEC by allowing it to practice what it preaches, or will it be a sign of weakness? The answers are not obvious, but to ignore them is to go into the Convention blind, singing hosannas to the Via Media while the basic decision to continue sacrificing many of our faithful, and our principles, for the sake of “unity” might well have been made.

We don’t have to waste time debating whether there should be an Anglican Communion. Of course. The unknown is what form(s) it will take in this multi-polar world. Our pressing choice is what relationship TEC should have with the rapidly evolving overseas structures, to do the most good AND to do no harm. Probably 99% of all comments on draft covenants simply assume that TEC is essential to the Anglican Communion, and that the Communion is essential to our mission in the world. Is this our national hubris speaking again? To choose wisely, we need humility and nuance. Should this marriage be saved by taking a separate vacation? Some national churches have already answered yes.

TEC leadership will no doubt try to water down the covenant concept, hoping to have it both ways, but all Bishops and other Convention delegates must get the clear message that we cannot tolerate “pause” in our journey while endless debate takes place. The cost to our faithful and to our future with the next generation is too great. Offers by covenant supporters of pastoral mechanisms for the 60% or more of the Communion faithful who are marginalized, or who are outraged at such presumption, is the ultimate in cynicism. Laity also must clearly recognize and reject the fiction that the General Convention does not “legislate” or create binding obligations. There is a point beyond which a progressive Bishop cannot go or risk losing the support of his/her peers on issues like the sacrament of marriage for all and encouragement of women and GLPs for the priesthood and higher offices. There is a cannon that requires that the House of bishops approve the election of a new Bishop. There are moderate Bishops who have emphasized that they would not approve another Bishop Robinson so long as there is a “policy” or “interest” of the national church that might be undercut. Continuing to recognize a formal commitment to staying in the Communion – as the Communion covenant defines “in” -would create such a policy. To say that the Communion covenant concept is “not binding,” or that our House of Bishops does not legislate in a binding fashion simply ignores reality.

There are specific things proponents of continuing our spiritual journey as TEC can do. One approach is to eliminate the cannon requiring approval of new Bishops, or make it non-binding, which will become the same thing. It was probably not meant as a barrier, but as a showing of blessing and unity. If our Bishops cling to jurisdictional monopoly, the cannons and process for disciplining Bishops who later break from TEC can remain in place. The distinction is an easy one: election is different from acts while in office.

Rather than closing ranks and restraining clergy at all levels from experimenting with inclusive ideals and practices that their laity support, the thrust of reform ought to be the opposite. Remove constraints. TEC won’t disintegrate. Those conservative clerics and laity who marginalize now can do no worse than the same. The movement will be inevitably in the other direction.

Larry R. Myers, parishioner in dioceses in DC and Maryland

Donald,

Thank you for this piece, rooted so clearly in the history and experience of our Church.

No to moritoria. Yes to communion.

We must not sacrifice our sisters and brothers for a false sense of peace and unity.

Donald, thank you for advocating "yes" to communion and "no" to moratoria. Let me take it one step further and suggest that rather than rescinding BO33 would be a resolution that "succeeds" it and affirms the polity of TEC and recommits us to our own canonical processes with their non-discrimination clauses.

Was an actual resolution passed in 1865? It would help to have the number and text, so that we can rescind it. Or did GC simply decide on silence as the solution to slavery?

Richard and Carol, thanks for your reflective responses, and Carol, yes, positive action makes more sense than rescinding.

Ormonde, it was deciding on silence rather than a resolution, or to put it another way, the evidence was in substitute resolutions and resolutions that died without a vote (tabled, I imagine). In addition to the NY Times piece I quoted and the HOB, and House of Deputies choices not to speak except about church unity, the sermon preached at the Convention's consecration of Bishop Quintard (Tennessee) by Bishop Stevens (Pennsylvania)celebrates the choice to preserve church unity around preaching only Christ crucified, noting that St. Paul could have advocated preaching against slavery and chose instead to focus on essentials. The sermon is at -
http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/ctquintard/consecration.html

I believe this type of conversation needs to happen in the church. I also believe that it pushes people -- a good thing-- in various ways. Some people may learn of the African American Episcopal history for the first time. It is not a popular subject taught in seminary and it is rarely talked about in parishes. Some may have a hard time with the Black Episcopal History and LGBT History being refered to as dealing with the same 'Moratorium'. The connections you raise are real and important for us -- the whole church -- to hear and learn from.

I liked the sharing of Black Episcopal history and how 'silence' has played in further marginalizations. However, In 1867, most Black Episcopalians left the church and the Episcopal church 'thrived' without them. African American's that stayed in the church worshiped under the conditions of silence. One could say that the 'silence' tactic worked. It got rid of the 'problem' -- blacks and conversations about their freedom, their membership in the church and the role of the church. In addition, the 'not in our church but the church down the road' evangelism when welcoming others gained validity and remains even today.

Rondesia Jarrett

The NY Times did a story on the slave galleries in an Episcopal Church in New York. This is a part of our church history that is rarely spoken of -- as Donald eloquently shared. Here is a link to the story called "Slave Galleries at St. Augustines".

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=60610bbc9014772c9050cfb57cd0d2026338de9e

Rondesia Jarrett

Reminds me also of Bishop Paul Jones of Utah who wrote the House of Bishops in 1918 resigning (at their demand):

"This action is taken with the distinct understanding that there are no charges standing against me touching my good character or integrity, for if there be such, I insist upon trial of them.

The commission, speaking, I take it, for the House of Bishops, maintains, first that war is not an unchristian thing and that no Bishop may preach that this war is unchristian; and second that a Bishop should not express the opinion that peace can be secured otherwise than by the prosecution of war when the Government and the preponderance of the membership of the Church believe otherwise. These conclusions I cannot accept, for I believe that the methods of modern international war are quite incompatible with the Christian principles of reconciliation and brotherhood, and that is the duty of a Bishop of the Church from his study of the word of God, to express himself on questions of righteousness, no matter what opinion may stand in the way.”

The HoB actually refused to accept this letter of witness (and resignation), so he had to write another just saying "I resign". And so he was cast out of the HoB!

How about a moratorium on peace activists? Makes as much sense....

John-Julian,

What a story. I'd heard a fragment of it before but never the whole account with the rejected resignation letter.

This one makes sense like Martin of Tours, Christian convert who was drummed out of the Roman Army for saying he could not fight because he was now a soldier of Christ, being honored as patron of soldiers, the French Army and the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps.

The other striking thing in this story is that in 1918, the bishops became passionate for unanimity. Whatever space they accepted to make them one house yet able to disagree about theology or church practice, when it came to politics, disagreement and a minority voice suddenly becomes impossible.

What does this cost us? We've got to stop.

Donald -

I want to agree with you because I trust you as my friend and brother.

But a huge red flag goes up when I see a comparison of "Teh Gay" issue with anything doing with black/white issues in the USA. These are not identical. The clearest evidence is that Senator Obama is called "black" when he is 50% not-black. We still insist on seeing things in terms of race. Our laws and our cultural understandings of race have allowed for one drop of "tainted blood" (of Indian, African or Japanese blood) to send one into legal nightmares. Blood or ancestry is not the same as sexual desire or the choice to act on it.

The parallels are clear, of course: for both racism and homophobia are a Gnostic denial of personhood present in the other. Within our tradition we have a lot of reasons - from St Paul on - to make claims for racial inclusion. But it will take a huge paradigm shift to see something often clearly condemned by our tradition (no matter what the few scriptural passages mean). We are doing something new here. We need to be honest about that.

I also take issue with your understanding of what I was raised to refer to as "the War". I'm not sure this is the appropriate forum for an extended discussion on this topic but so much of your piece is based on a view of history ratified by the victors and denied by the defeated.

Suffice to say the War wasn't fought only over slavery or the desire to free the slaves - some would argue it was not even primarily over those things. Nor did Southerners necessarily see this as a primary issue.

I can understand Southern Bishops' desire not to be pilloried alone. If Northern Bishops were to accept some of the blame - for not standing up to "King Abe" and protesting when he suspended the Constitution, the Freedom of the Press, Habeus Corpus, etc - maybe things would have been different. But, as John-Julian's letter shows, our Bishops have, at least until recently, been too willing to play the Gov't's game - be that the CSA or the USA.

I'm thankful things are different now - and that may be what we've learned from the past: how to lead.

But this needn't be made the litmus test for inclusion at our table. Our Lord's table is a place where we curb our freedom to include our Weaker Brothers.

Until they are strong enough to act, we must not make them stumble. And I don't want to be made into the stumbling block.

And while I realise that "they" are not playing by the same rules, in trying to exclude gays - and TEC and ACC - I know that "Weaker Brother" is *never* in the first person.

We must, as you state, "in love for our sisters and brothers (at home and globally) we’ve got to use print, video, scholarly publication, and face to face conversation to speak to those who don’t get what we’re saying and doing and -

- tell them all we’ve learned from the ministry of LGBT leaders among us,

- lay out (again and in detail) how we read scripture,

- say again why we faithfulness to scripture, reason and tradition demand we practice full inclusion of LGBT sisters and brothers,

- argue biblically from St. Paul’s refusal to accept a moratorium on baptizing uncircumcised Gentiles."

But, ultimately, that last led to the creation (and growth) of a strong anti-Semitic strain in the Church's theology as gentiles took the Church away from her Jewish roots. We're still working on the bad karma for that one!

We need to find, even, a *better way* than St Paul's refusal.

Until the national church says something officially about Peter Akinola's fascist attempts to get his gay enemies - members of his own flock, no doubt! - imprisoned in Nigeria, you'll forgive me if I don't take these arguments very seriously.

Are gay bishops really a higher priority than that? I don't think so, sorry. The only national Church to speak against Akinola - still! - has been Canada. And the ACC, from what I know, does a far, far better job than TEC does in terms of real, on-the-ground pastoral care for gay people.

Why does TEC feel the need to be "prophetic" all the time? Why the need to put an ineffectual, superficial band-aid on such a deep wound - a wound that the church itself has created? Same-sex blessings are only accepted where they're already acceptable! What's so wonderful about that, while at the same time rhetoric and actions such as Akinola's go completely unchallenged at the most basic level?

What a wonderful article! Thanks so much.

I'd like to suggest more reading about the struggle of black Americans and the terrorism they endured (and continue to endure) at the hands of church and state. Please consider reading the book, The Bloody Shirt.

Truth telling must not stop. It is the only way to prevent perpetrating our past sins on new victims.

Thanks,

Randall Keeney

Great article, Donald! You had some recommendations which include:

- lay out (again and in detail) how we read scripture,

- say again why we believe that faithfulness to scripture, reason and tradition demand we practice full inclusion of LGBT sisters and brothers,

- argue biblically from St. Paul’s refusal to accept a moratorium on baptizing uncircumcised Gentiles

I wonder if you would be so kind as to guide me toward the best resources for articulating these actions.

Thanks,
Bunker

I'm really glad for the thoughtful conversation we're having here and certainly welcome other thoughts, other directions, challenge and possible correction I'm reading in these responses. Thank you all for reading, thinking and speaking your mind.

Larry Myers' question of why clergy care about the communion (and suggesting that those of us who are clergy are more institutionally-minded) intrigues me. It seems possible. Still, my experience of lay people's response to the post-Minneapolis GC press was that the prospect we'd be cut out of the Anglican communion frightened many, and people whose convictions were with us and not responding negatively to Gene Robinson's consecration. They couldn't see how our Episcopal church would be itself without the communion . Maybe this is confirmation class thinking.

I can say that as a priest I care about the communion for the same reason that I care about the TEC and the joy and embarrassment it brings me. People experience Christian community in parishes. Diocese, national church, and communion stretch us beyond our parochial understandings and practices. As a priest whose work in the church deliberately pushed some boundaries, I wanted and needed an internal and external check for connection and accountability. Particularly living and working in California, I wanted to be able to tell people, 'We're not just making this up.' Tradition and communion push us toward humility and love. When the first George Bush was in office, I liked to tell our children that we belonged to the church of George H. Bush and Desmond Tutu. My wife says, I'd tell them that and then say, 'Go figure.' The dilemma and seeming contradiction of being in the same communion with those two men says something important to me about being Christian.

Recalling Tutu also aises for me something I want to say to Huw Richardson's question about 1865 GC and North/South. The tough part of sorting through the non-action at that Convention is that there may well have been a triumphalist intention to some of the call for prayers, particularly those for thanksgiving for preservation of the Union.

And in that same period in the North, there's good reason to take a hard look at labor conditions, particularly in New England's factories where the industrial revolution and the beginnings of massive immigration were beginning to make if not slaves, certainly another kind of underclass in the North. Slavery and freedom are matters of Christian conscience. Painfully (and without good guys), we'd come to something truer and holier in emancipation.

But the 1865 Convention rhetoric, the demand that nothing be said to shame heroic slaveholders who had died for the convictions sound very like Lambeth 2008 and some of what we've been hearing from Rowan Williams and the Primates' meetings. A consensus was achieved by claiming Church Unity as the first value from which everything else flows.

The moment in 1865 called for something we're still struggling to understand (let alone practice) - reconciliation. Silence is emphatically not the path to reconciliation, and Huw, you're right, neither is scapegoating. It may be something more like the Truth and Reconciliation Commmission, or at least some public practice of speaking and listening to complex truth and, where necessary hearing the terrible things that people have done and have suffered. It also needs to include celebration. We can apologize that our sisters and brothers were pained by Gene Robinson's consecration because we don't want to pain them. Maybe talking with them more in the years before would have changed that. But we also want to celebrate his graceful witness and leadership. We're grateful for where we've come and pretending otherwise isn't faithful to our own repentance and learning.

Randall, I'm struck by these words of yours -
"Truth telling must not stop. It is the only way to prevent perpetrating our past sins on new victims."

They remind me of a story James Alison tells in Raising Abel. The same day that the RC Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires made a public apology to Argentina's Jews about the church's failure to act to prevent the holocaust and the church's long history of anti-Semitism, literally the afternoon after that conversation with Argentina's senior rabbis and the press present, in a subsequent statement to the press, he proposed rounding up gay people and holding them apart from the rest of the population in a 'ghetto,' literally using that word.

The story I hear from Southern friends tells how, at the end of the Civil War the North was ready to stigmatize and ghetto-ize the South's old power establishment. An industrial and capitalist power elite had beaten an agrarian land-holding power elite. that's part of the story and Southerners see and feel that better than Northerners. The powerful thing about real reconciliation work is that it unmasks the ceremony of innocence. Slavery was an evil, but not the only evil of the time.

What we're doing here is talking to one another. The moratorium doesn't help conversation, but instead offers cover to some people's hopes that 'the problem' will go away. But, 'the problem' in 1865 was people (as it is today). then the church's hoping that black people and the embarrassing questions they raised about unity would go away. And to our church's shame black people acted on our wish. Hoping that they would go away almost worked.

Rondesia, and any other black readers, I'm glad we didn't fully succeed.

Our awakening church and cultural experience today is beginning to tell us that now (as then)it's not a 'problem' or an idea we're dealing with, it's people, and if we ask people who have come to us seeking welcome and blessing to just be silent or invisible, they will go away.

I'm continuing to read and learn about 1865. It's not a perfect analogy, but it is a powerful warning and a piece of history I hardly knew at all.

The Rubicon is whether the 2009 Convention will in fact ratify the Anglican covenant concept and its thinly veiled quid pro quo of trading “restraint” for “restraint.”

LRM, I'm not at all convinced there WILL be a Covenant to vote on by GC 2009: that's less than a year away!

be good citizens, and above all to do the best for the poor, unfortunate negroes, whose future is dark and miserable beyond conception. Already they are perishing by thousands, the whole race will now go out before civilization (so called) and competition, as the Indians are doing. We can survive the change, and one day flourish again; but not they; their fate is sealed.’

Donald, this is really a priceless quote, VERY MUCH with a condescension that sounds like a contemporary Anglican bishop claiming Christian charity toward homosexual people and concern that liberals are shielding ‘them’ from Biblical truth. Thanks for digging it up!

JC Fisher

They say "moratorium", I say "more a LOVE ye 'em!" (sorry ;-/ JCF)

Donald -

"The powerful thing about real reconciliation work is that it unmasks the ceremony of innocence. Slavery was an evil, but not the only evil of the time."

Like the Yankee promise of 40 Acres and a Mule that never happened, the actions (and nonactions) of whites in both north and south fulfilled the condescending yet prophetic words of the bishop.

We claim we've advanced since then: that we've moved beyond the simple win/lose sorts of politics in the past. I hope so! I'd be with you on a truth and reconciliation mission where "We can apologize that our sisters and brothers were pained by Gene Robinson's consecration because we don't want to pain them. Maybe talking with them more in the years before would have changed that. But we also want to celebrate his graceful witness and leadership."

We are humans in God's Church: what we do will be fraught with sin. Even doing too much of the right thing will take us too far off the spectrum. (I'm reminded of the one saint who said telling blatant lies is ok if they save someone from the executioner in the telling.)

Certainly a legislated moratorium would be a sin as would be a wilful violation of communion by an "in-yer-face" repudiation of everyone with a "You're not the boss of me" attitude. This last is our most-American of attitude problems. Left and Right, ee need to get over that! How do we hold to the via media and share the truth we know: that *everyone* is an icon of God, gathered around Christ's table, +Gene and +Peter, both?

I've no doubt that some parties won't want to play this game: but how do we start? And where do we go when even reconciliation is rejected?

Donald,

I am sharing this peace with some wonderful people in my parish who are doing everything in their power to prevent further discrimination against GLBT people in our diocese.

It was such an honor to meet you and worship with the wonderful people at St. Gregory's the Sunday before last. We have a long way to go in our diocese to be even as half as open as yours.

I had a bit of a slip in my comment earlier: "peace" should be "piece."

Josh, thanks for the good word and for passing this conversation on to your congregation.

Bunker,

About the bulleted hopes for our work of communication (which appear below) you asked,

"...you would be so kind as to guide me toward the best resources for articulating these actions."

I've been thinking about that and think the first one, how we read scripture---

- lay out (again and in detail) how we read scripture,

will take a number of us offering a variety of approaches and I'm at work on a response for her in the Cafe.

- say again why we believe that faithfulness to scripture, reason and tradition demand we practice full inclusion of LGBT sisters and brothers,

On this one, there are a number of good resources. Four that I like our 'For the Bible Tells me So,' (documentary available as DVD), Bill Countryman's excellent Biblical study, 'Dirt, Greed, and Sex,' two actually by James Alison, 'Faith Beyond Resentment,' and 'Undergoing God, Dispatches from the Scene of a Break-In,' and Jack Rogers, 'Jesus the Bible and homosexuality.' Bill Countryman is an Episcopal priest and professor of New Testament at Church Divinity School of the Pacific. James Alison is a Roman Catholic priest. Jack Rogers is a Presbyterian, identifies himself as an Evangelical and was the moderator of the Presbyterian Church's General Assembly (their national group like our General Convention). The approaches in these books are different, but they're all careful Biblical exegesis by people who take the book seriously.

- argue biblically from St. Paul’s refusal to accept a moratorium on baptizing uncircumcised Gentiles.

Huw's comment pointed to a difficulty with this one. historically we know that this was became a watershed decision that eventually marginalized Jewish Christianity and then left it to die. The value of it for our purposes is that it's an example in the Bible of the church claiming authority to re-interpret Scripture to include people who were explicitly excluded by clear passages in the Old Testament law and the living custom and memory of the community. Why were they included in Acts? Because their faith and the witness of the Holy Spirit convinced Peter (for a while at least) and Paul to welcome them without making them first accept Judaism and circumcision. The community decided that only a rudimentary kosher law would continue to apply to Christians (and we've since left that rule behind in most Christian churches). What we see in Acts is the church responding to experience, the Spirit, and new learning about how God is at work when a conservative group can quote a great deal of scripture against the church's choice. And the decision-making is there in the scripture itself and honored as the church declared it, 'It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.'

Hi Donald. Thanks very much for your article. When I was in the US in February I developed a much clearer understanding of how the Episcopal Church's 19th century history had impacted on the present day. If I can add an English perspective, it's humbling to see how the Episcopal Church is trying to work out the implications and consequences of the Lambeth Conference - what was and wasn't said, and what the way forward might be. The question of a moratorium ought also to be being considered by the Church of England since there are many parishes in the UK which are happy to bless same-sex couples and of course there are many gay priests in relationships, some of whom may be being considered for the Episcopate. So I hope that we, somehow, begin to have the same sort of conversations you are.

One bishop I spoke to thinks that we are perhaps moving towards a new kind of Communion which recognises the deep differences in theological positions without breaking communion. I'm not sure how a moratorium would help that process - especially one which is open-ended. It seems better to me that the discussions which seem to have been fruitful at the Lambeth Conference are continued so that the integrity of different ways of interpreting scripture in the light of tradition and reason are better understood throughout the Communion. Jesus came for everyone, and we seem to have lost sight of that.

It seems to me that the only way in which a moratorium could contribute to these discussions is if it is specifically time limited with the intention of, at the end, having a stronger Communion which doesn't deny difference but is united around the essentials of faith in Jesus Christ. The problem is that unless we have a real promise of movement among those resisting change, I can't see how that can happen.