I’ve refrained from commenting much on the Lambeth Conference as there has not been anything official to react to and media reports do not give a good flavour of what is essentially a closed event.
However, now we have a published address from Rowan Williams.
At first sight, it seems reasonable enough. Indeed, he is making an honest attempt to hear and articulate the feelings and emotions of two hypothetical voices on either “side” of the debate.
The fact is, it is the conception of the Communion as having these two sides that is the real problem.
I don’t actually think that the attempt to sum up the “liberal” side comes anywhere near to my position at all.
The things is, its all about human rights, Rowan. This is not just about the rights of gay and lesbian people in the US, it is about all of us. It is about the rights of people in all parts of the world to self expression, to practise their religion, to live freely with dignity before God. It is about the whole people of God, (you know, the laos, you must have heard of it, you’ve read a bit of theology) being able to speak in decision making in the church. It is about women and men being treated as equal human beings. It is about the western church standing up for persecuted brothers and sisters wherever they are. It is about having the confidence that Muslim and Anglican can live together in the same street and not attack one another.
Sometimes, that means standing up to bishops, such as condemning the inflamatory remarks made by Akinola connected with inter-religious rioting in Nigeria. We’ve not yet heard any condemation from the Lambeth Conference of the circumstances which caused the UK Government to offer policial assylum to a gay Anglican this week because of the violence and persecution he could expect from his home church. That shames the whole church.
It is only when a human rights agenda gets woven into all of this that there will be dignity for all those affected.
We need human rights missionaries. We need to interfere in other jurisdictions until all God’s people are free and safe in their societies and in their churches. We need to set those high, inclusive moral standards amongst all Anglican peoples. That Covenant you are suggesting is not a patch on that vision. It is a step in another direction altogether.
Any covenant which allows anything less than treating all the baptised as equally enriched and empowered by the potential of God’s grace will result in non-juring Episcopalians again in Scotland. That would be communion breaking, not communion making. You might have some problems with it even closer to home than Scotland too.
What is proposed is not a solution. What is proposed is the problem.
Martin, I agree that it’s very far from straightforward! I know Ted Luscombe’s and Gavin White’s work well, and I also can thoroughly recommend Patricia Meldrum’s ‘Conscience and Compromise – Forgotten Evangelicals of Nineteenth-century Scotland’, which I reviewed favourably in ‘The Edge’, the Edinburgh diocesan magazine. She writes as an insider, being a member of St Thomas’s, Corstorphine.
My point is that I still think that parallel jurisdictions – or even liturgical congregationalism – can be the lesser of two evils. Furthermore, sometimes I wonder what “being in Communion” really means. For instance, at Lambeth there are a good number of bishops who are not in communion with some of the other bishops there – I mean, of course, women bishops and those who don’t recognise them. I think it’s healthier that they are there together, co-operating insofar as they can, rather than staying away and hurling anathemata at each other. Similarly, the SEC is not “in Communion” with the Church of Scotland, and yet Episcopalians and Presbyterians frequently receive Communion in each other’s churches, often on an official basis through various kinds of ecumenical partnerships.
It seems to me far better to work together beyond our differences, rather than allowing the differences to become an insuperable barrier.
Robin, thanks for the steer – I’ve got Patricia Meldrum’s book, but have only dipped into bits of it. Must read further! I think the point I was trying to make was that episcopal oversight from outside Scotland would be an innovation rather than a revival of a previous system.
Completely agree with your last sentence! I suppose the question is how to hold things together in a creative tension?
It’s an interesting point you make – if I’m picking you up correctly – that there can be a meeting place in the eucharist. Sad that at the moment in the Anglican communion this is the place of rejection. Ironic that presbyterians and episcopalians in Scotland can find this meeting place when Anglicans worldwide can’t!
Martin, thanks for your comments. You’re right, I think, that there was no *formal* episcopal oversight from outside Scotland, and that such formal oversight would be an innovation – although I have to confess that in today’s circumstances it’s an innovation I’d be inclined to view sympathetically.
On the eucharist, things have changed astonishingly since I was a lad. The analogy that used to be used was, “You don’t have sex before marriage.” This analogy seems to have lost its force in today’s world!!! Instead, the invitation customarily given nowadays is to all people baptised in the name of the Trinity, and even the absence of baptism is not an impediment in some Anglican churches I know of.
I’ve already mentioned how common intercommunion now is with e.g. Presbyterians. If the Anglican Communion split in two along GAFCON lines and I happened to be in Nigeria or Uganda, I wouldn’t hesitate to present myself at the altar – and if Archbishops Akinola and Orombi, after such a split, presented themselves for Communion at the altar of my own liberal church in Edinburgh, or offered to celebrate there, I’d be amazed, as well as disappointed, if this caused a problem.
As regards RCs and the Orthodox and Oriental Churches, I have an advantage in that as a young server I often served, or attended, two Masses in the days when to communicate once only in a day was the rule. I was therefore used to feeling that I had participated fully in the Mass even if I hadn’t communicated, and so when I attend an RC Mass and don’t communicate I don’t in any way feel left out, as I know those do who have never been used to non-communicating attendance within our own church.
I like the idea that the eucharist is the true meeting place – of those present, as well as between Earth and Heaven. If the Anglican Communion split tomorrow, there would be a lot of huffing and puffing from prelates and synods and committees; but for ordinary worshippers finding themselves in different (and, on paper, “not in Communion”) provinces, I don’t expect there would be the slightest bit of difference!