I always appreciate Bishop Whalon's thoughtful approach to things. Here he may be right about what the "best practice" should have been, but wrong, I think about the likely impact of having completed any such theology paper.

This conflict is not about rational discussion it is about differing views on the nature of scripture, scriptural authority and the power of the Church to set aside what is found there. These views are held axiomatically which armors them against rational discussion because these axioms are affirmed by belief, not reason. People accept them as true not because they can prove them, but because their entire logical structure depends on them being self evidently true.

We could produce enough theology papers to fill Borges' Library and still the dispute would rage on. And we need to remember that the last "official" paper, produced during the Griswold era, concluded there was not enough justification to move forward on these matters. We have some "secret" HoB committee now working on these things again, and I can predict the outcome: If they agree with the so called orthodox position they will be applauded by TEC's detractors and if they don't agree they will be ignored and shredded as incomplete or wrong.

This dispute has left the realm of discourse and is now about power and the affirmation of fundamental convictions that are at odds. The fight will only stop when both sides are exhausted.

Diplomats might help, but theologians are irrelevant at this moment.

In a few concise sentences, how can we best respond to Bishop Whalon's challenge to the Church?

My first response is a question for the good bishop: Is one of the pieces of the theology we haven't done "To Set Our Hope on Christ" -- the theological and biblical apologetic we took to the ACC in Nottingham in 2005?

Or the Claiming the Blessing Theology Statement published in 2002? Or Tobias Haller's "Reasonable and Holy"?

Or the theological resources published by the Chicago Consultation?

Or is the good bishop referring to the fact that the House of Bishops' Theology Committee has pretty much steadfastly refused to do the work it's been charged by the church to accomplish?

If that's the case, then I have a follow up question: Is the only theology that counts the theology that's done by bishops?

The truth is we HAVE "done the theology" -- what we haven't done is overcome the objections of those who insist we haven't done the theology because IMHO there isn't enough theology in Christendom to convince those with sole possession of the Absolute Truth that it's possible to come to different conclusions on these issues and still be part of the same Body of Christ.

In point of fact, there are still those who maintain we haven't "done the theology" on women's ordination either.

I'm all for doing theology. The more "faith seeking understanding" the better as far an I'm concerned. But when our theological reflection becomes more important than our mission to proclaim the Good News of God's abundant love then I think we need to think long and hard about whether we're not doing the Peter thing and trying to build a booth to sit up on the mountain and theologize rather than get down on the ground and evangelize.

Not very concise after all. :) Oh well.

Blessings,
Susan Russell

Is the only theology that counts the theology that's done by bishops?

Susan beat me to it.

The theology is there. It's been there. I know, because I've read probably ALL of it.

It's there for anyone with half a mind (and I count myself there) and Google to find, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.

The only reasons I can think of not to know (or to deny) the theology that has already been done are laziness or (as Michael Russell notes) intransigence.

So what is it going to take, Bishop Whalon? Is it that the HOB is not going to articulate that theology for the clergy and laity until the Bishops do it themselves? And, if so, when in the name of God do y'all plan to get started?

Paige Baker

Am I wrong to think that when Bishop Whalon writes "even those elsewhere who agree with a full inclusion position do not on the whole support how we have gone about it" the "elsewhere" means the Church of England.

My question is has the C of E done the theology necessary to include women bishops? And if some say it has, why are some still saying it has not because by a plain reading of scripture women cannot be ordained?

Our House of Bishops was commissioned to do the theology. It has not. Is General Convention to be hostage to the hold up?

To put a finer point on it -- why is the duty of doing the theology left to the HOB? My first objection is that is not our polity. My second objection is that many of our bishops our elected more for their management and executive skills than for their skills in theology.

And a third objection (if I may be so bold) is that those bishops WITH "skills in theology" haven't managed to produce anything in spite of repeated charges from the rest of the church (AKA General Convention) so to do.

Exactly, Susan. That's what all the commenters thus far have said.

How is this for a few concise sentences:

1. The HOB was charged with doing the theology and has not delivered.

2. That failure holds the Church and its gay members especially hostage.

3. The theology need not and should not be done only by bishops. It goes against our polity, and it assumes our best theologians are all bishops.

4. Good theologians have done the theology. Would it not be appropriate for General Convention to consider them for adoption?

5. There will always be those who don't get their way who will say the theology has not been done, and that procedure was not followed.

Actually, I think Bishop Whalon is simply wrong. The theology has been done. It was done in the process of liturgical reform. We reformed and renewed the Rite of Baptism, and incorporated into it the Baptismal Covenant.

Once we'd done that, other factors came into play, and especially the recognition in the wider community, especially the medical and psychiatric communities, that GLBT folks are people - just people, trying to live out their lives in integrity as they found themselves to be. As we've sought to adjust our moral practics to accommodate other new learnings about human experience - that infants can experience pain, for example - we've sought to accommodate our commitment "to seek and serve Christ in all persons" to this recognition.

This is the point where those issues of axiomatic belief come into play. We wrestle with those we want to love, but who will only speak and hear in different categories of interpretation of Scripture, Tradition, and Reasoned Experience.

In that light, I'm not sure what Bishop Whalen would consider necessary. Do we need to pass a resolution at General Convention specific to this instance of new learning? Will we have to do so every time? Or just when folks disagree with us? And, having taken such a step, what would be different? We can articulate our fundamentals and our extrapolations. We can't compel them to our terms.

Marshall Scott

If one is at all ecumenically aware, one would know that Anglicans are accused of "not doing the theology" on a WIDE VARIETY of subjects and practices.

Our responses in ecumenical dialogue may vary somewhat, but they usually come down to Lex orandi, Lex credendi: if it works for us in worship, then It WORKS!

Why is it that "Concerned Anglicans" (Must.Not.Write."Concern.Trolls."!) only seem to get their knickers-in-a-twist about this ONE (or two: Blessing/Marriage, and Ordination, of partnered LGBT people) area of "orandi"---demanding a SEPARATE "credendi" to justify it?

I smell Double Standard. >:-/

JC Fisher

About the ordination of women, we argued for years, but when GC was finally ready all it took was a declaration that the word "he" should be understood to refer to both men and women. A majority having agreed, it was done. Gradually, as the doubters have experienced ministry from women, the conventional (as in conventional wisdom) theology of our Church has changed.
GC's confirmation of Bishop Robinson has done basically the same thing for the ordination of lbgt's. IMHO our Church's conventional theology will change in time as well and for the same reason.
GC went half way on the "blessing" issue. When liturgies are approved across the Church, this too will follow the same path.
I’m too young to have fully experienced the Church’s change in its conventional theology regarding divorce, but looking back now I’d be hard pressed to find an official church-wide theological statement that everyone accepted that justified the change before we changed our canons.
Tom Downs

I am surprised that anybody would really believe that a strong intellectual and faithful Christian case for including gay couples into marriage or holy orders has not been made. I'm not even an activist and I can think of four very solid ones off the top of my head. For Christians, Tobias Haller's "Reasonable and Holy" and the various writings of Eugene F. Rogers are terrific. Both of these Episcopalians (one a parish priest the other a lay academic) do an amazing job of employing what one might call the 'traditional' values of Scripture, patristics and reason to create arguments that are not only deeply compelling from an intellectual and faithful standpoint, but which are also appealing and succinct. From there, in the secular realm, I then suggest Andrew Sullivan's "Virtually Normal" and then, the opening statement of Ted Olson in his Supreme Court challenge of California's discriminatory Prop 8.

(signed for) Greg Jones

When I was in seminary (VTS), the only real "systematic" theologian on staff, Dr. Kate Sonderegger, was a dedicated Calvinist. I remember being in one of her lectures one day, when someone objected to some point she was making about atonement or some such. The objector said something like, "Yeah, that's what Calvin says in the Institutes. But what's the Anglican theology on that?" Kate just looked at the poor seminarian blankly. Another voice piped up from the back of the room: "Maybe its in the Thirty-Nine Articles?"

Friends, this is the moment the scales fell from my eyes. Brace yourselves. There. is. no. Anglican. theology.

Now--there are Anglican theologies (plural)--which is to say, theological writings by Anglicans. (Although frankly, most of the Anglican theologies we have are rather slight, occasional, and poetic. We don't have a real systematician in our history. There isn't anything especially wrong with this, except in the academy they value long and wordy and authoritative over short and poetic. Which is why the largest seminary in the Episcopal Church has exactly one theologian on staff, who happens to be a Calvinist.) For there to be a theology (singular)--which is what Bishop Whalon seems to be asking for--would require us to institute and maintain a body to create and defend such dogma. Something like the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (aka the Inquisition) for TEC.

Frankly, I don't think the Bishop's Theology Committee of the HOB is up to the task. Those people--Bishops--have other things to do. And as a few others have pointed out, there's no way in hell the deputies to GC would let that committee claim such power (at least not while Bonnie Anderson's in charge). If we're going to have an Inquisition, there had best be some lay people on it if its going to pass muster.

Looking back (as someone else pointed out) this has never been the way change has happened in TEC. Divorce is a good example. Who would have been around to "do the theology"? What "theology" was done? We changed some canons. There was debate, sure. There were differing theological opinions. But the idea that there was a theology officially adopted, and then we changed the canons . . . it just didn't happen that way. (I'm not old enough to remember this change either, which happened in the 1940s, but I wrote about it for a class I took in Canon Law at VTS.)

The idea that we should have a theology (singular)--and in essence, an Inquisition--is a new one within the Anglican fold, but its taken hold with a vengeance. Its implicit throughout the proposed Covenant, which is one good reason (among many) that I hope GC says thanks, but no thanks to that odious document. God help us all if the Standing Committee of the Anglican Communion is empowered to be the final arbiter of what it means to be Anglican.

Jason Cox

that GLBT folks are people - just people, trying to live out their lives in integrity as they found themselves to be.

Thank you Fr Scott for some of the most humanizing words I have yet heard by a priest. Your words move beyond polar dichotomies and singular reductions that either put us on a pedestal (sacrificial language) or reduce us to sex.

Jason,

A good comment there. I agree with most of what you say. I do suggest though that the Bishops' theology committee does have some really good folks on it -- and again -- one of them is excellent in this area: Gene Rogers.

Our diocese had a group looking at marital theology, and the journal we published this past month for our diocese to use as a resource includes a strong piece by Gene which I think gives a taste of what he presents. It's available as a free download from Lulu -- search "Writings on Marriage" at lulu.com to find the book. (I edited it and led the group.)

To your point -- what we've done is not to produce 'the Anglican theology' but rather to put forward a number of voices each coming from within our tradition.

Greg Jones

@Greg: Thanks for the tip--I look forward to looking through your compendium.

Three cheers for pluralism, diversity, and comprehensiveness (all wholesome Anglican traits, or so I thought)!

(Dare I add, "down with the inquisition"?)

Jason Cox

My Anglicans Online column has stimulated some good conversation, at least.

A few points: there is plenty of theology done around the full inclusion of gay people in the church. I have read most of it, if not all, over the years. None of it has been endorsed by the General Convention as reflecting the teaching of the The Episcopal Church.

The General Convention, not the bishops, sets the teaching of the Church. None of the documents cited were given that status.

To Set Our Hope On Christ, as good as it is, is a document produced privately, never discussed by either GC or the House of Bishops, before or after it was presented at ACC in Nottingham. Ask the delegates who are our friends there what they thought at the time.

It may be that the process currently starting in the House of Bishops with a group of fine theologians from across the spectrum of opinion will lead to something that both Houses can approve. Then again, maybe not. The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, which I am on, will be collecting resources for 2012, as well.

Of course there is an Anglican ecclesiology, and therefore a characteristic way of doing theology. Part of that way is the emphasis on local dioceses over against a larger structure, a longstanding theological perspective which has become known fairly recently as "subsidiarity". The Episcopal Church has practiced it since 1789, and I think it is a very sound way of being Church. But there is also the need for the whole, as well, to proceed together from time to time. In such a structure, making decisions that affect the whole is more difficult than in other more centralized polities.

In other words, there is no "inquisition." No magisterium, either. And no need of either. But the global nature of life today requires a joint effort.

Eventually we need to get around to changing canons, prayer books, etc., and to have some catechetical resources on the topic. And they should be official. There is a lot at stake, as all the posters are pointing out.

Hope this helps.

A blessed Lent to all.

Pierre Whalon

Let's continue comments at

http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/episcopal_church/bishop_whalon_responds.html

This conversation has helped me formulate some questions. First, it seems to me that the entire marriage/blessing issue is clouded by the legal requirement that clergy act as agents of the state. Is there any movement toward maintaining the religious integrity of the marriage service by performing it as a blessing of an already existing reality? Would this not then clarify that we are blessing not contracts? In which case the conversation then goes to a very different place.

Second, I have been fond of the old dictum that "if you want to know what an Episcoplian believes go and worship with them." At my father's memorial service my very Presbyterian father-in-law said of the service, that he had never heard the Gospel proclaimed so clearly. Thus, am I incorrect in my thinking that ultimately our theology is expressed through the liturgies (and rubrics) of the BCP?

Third, I was intrigued by Bp. Whalon's comment about the diocese existing over against the larger structure(s). However, are not our diocesan bishops now being held back (held hostage?) by a collegial (read: HoB) demand that nothing happen until something happens?

The conversation is good, and needs to continue. Thank you!