wfn.org | ACNS3737 North American conservatives and global South

[Anglican Communion News Service <acnslist@anglicancommunion.org>]

ACNS 3737     |     USA     |	  13 JANUARY 2004 

North American conservatives and global South Anglicans 
seek discipline of ECUSA

by E T Malone Jr

[ACNS source: Episcopal News Service] Archbishop Drexel Gomez, Primate
of the Province of the West Indies, was among the speakers who stirred
the "Future of the Anglican Communion" conference meeting January 8-9 in
Charleston, South Carolina, with calls for disciplinary action against
the Episcopal Church, USA, (ECUSA) for its stance on homosexuality and
the interpretation of scripture and tradition. "In Anglicanism today
there does not exist a mechanism for dealing with our problems," said
Archbishop Gomez. "The time has come to introduce such a mechanism into
our common life."

The Revd Peter Walker of Wycliffe Hall, Oxford University, described a
growing "archway" of interest between Anglicans of the global South and
North American conservatives, which he said becomes stronger each day,
regardless of any future involvement by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr
Rowan Williams.

"This is the picture I have in mind," said Mr Walker. "The question is
whether Canterbury will be the keystone of the arch, or will it be left
out."

The Revd Christopher Green, vice-principal of Oak Hill Theological
College in London, declared, "There are very senior figures among
evangelical circles in Great Britain who would like to say to you
[traditionalist Episcopalians], 'Elect your own Presiding Bishop and
force Rowan Williams to choose.'"

"By the end of 2004 there may be a situation on the ground" of provinces
terminating communion with ECUSA that is so extensive that Dr Williams
will have no choice but to deal with it, said the Revd Ephraim Radner,
one of the speakers.

Mr Radner, a former missionary to Burundi who is now rector of Church of
the Ascension in Pueblo, Colorado, and a senior fellow with the Anglican
Communion Institute, said, "The more important thing is not the case
against the Episcopal Church but who we are as an Anglican Communion.
The reality of discipline is not some legal issue, it is an aspect of
life in communion."

Up to date

The conference, held at historic downtown St Philip's Church, was
sponsored by the Anglican Communion Institute, recently formed from the
merger of the Colorado-based Anglican Institute and SEAD (Scholarly
Engagement with Anglican Doctrine), headquartered in Charleston.

It was attended by a mixture of scholars, conservative activists, and
ordinary clergy and laity hoping to get some idea of what lies ahead for
the church.

The agenda and conference title, which had originally been "Claiming Our
Anglican Identity," were changed in light of recent developments, to
make it as up to date as possible, said the Revd Christopher Seitz,
president of the Anglican Communion Institute. Mr Seitz, professor of
Old Testament at St Mary's College at St Andrew's University, Scotland,
was formerly professor of Old Testament at Yale Divinity School.

Disregard of theology

A panel of Anglican scholars from the US and Great Britain presented
lectures to add to what they said is a growing body of theological
literature purporting to demonstrate why it is wrong to ordain
homosexuals or to condone blessings of same-sex couples.

"One of our challenges is to disseminate these well-thought-out
published arguments" bolstering the traditionalist case, said Mr Radner.
"Many people have not heard of this scholarship."

"The authorities in ECUSA are not interested in sound theology,"
Archbishop Gomez insisted. Leaders of the American Episcopal Church are
driven by purely secular agendas, he said, adding, "We must force the
authorities of ECUSA to face up to" what he termed are the actual
theological issues.

"The battle is on, and we must not allow ignorance to prevail," he
declared. He cited as an example of ECUSA's disregard of theology the
comment of an unidentified female priest, "God doesn't care what you do,
only who you are."

Objective truth

The Revd Thomas A Smail, senior visiting research fellow at King's
College, London, delivered a lecture titled "Cappadocia Comes to
Canterbury," in which he said the ascended Christ challenges the spirit
of the age.

Contemporary culture, he argued, "stops looking for objective truth, but
for affirming lifestyle-looking not for the truth but for my truth." But
God's judgment continues to be pronounced on what we do, he said. "There
is a truth out there not of our making or choosing, to which we are
accountable."

Mr Smail insisted, "The radical agenda seizes on talking about the Holy
Spirit without talking about Christ; hence no salvation, no redemption."

The Revd David McCarthy, rector of a fast-growing parish in Glasgow,
Scotland, described a complex local polity in which some churches own
their own property. He said orthodox Anglicans are a persecuted minority
in the Scottish Episcopal Church. "We need to stand together
internationally. There is a battle within the church. But let's not want
the power. Let's be like Jesus. Let's not be like the people leading our
church," McCarthy said.

Anglican Church of Canada bishop Anthony Burton of Saskatchewan said
Canada is undergoing a much more rapid secularization than in the United
States. "It is very difficult for Canadian orthodox Anglicans to discern
what practical steps to take," he said.

Looking for ways to proceed

Several participants in the conference said they were there to seek
answers as to the church's future direction.

The Revd Richard Brigham, rector of St Andrew's-in-the-Pines, Peachtree
City, Georgia, said, "I'm looking for ways in which I and my parish can
proceed." He said that he and his congregation are in a minority in the
Diocese of Atlanta, where the bishop voted at General Convention to
approve the election of Gene Robinson, a priest living openly in a
relationship with another man, as bishop coadjutor of New Hampshire.

"We want to establish a relationship with the authentic expression of
the Episcopal Church," said Mr Brigham. "Issues of property ownership
are crucial right now as well. I think the legal phase is just
beginning. My opinion is that title should rest with the local church,
but the US courts look upon dioceses as corporations. It's the laity who
have been so devastated by this. The bishops who voted aye on Robinson
were out of touch with their laity."

The Revd Robert Marsh, chaplain at Episcopal High School, Jacksonville,
Florida, said, "It was good to be able to put faces to the names I've
read on documents such as Claiming our Anglican Identity, True Union in
the Body, and Mending the Net. I liked hearing them articulate their
arguments. That was worth the trip. I don't know that I learned anything
new about strategy of the Southern Cone folks. I liked it that they
changed the agenda to fit where the church is these days."

The Revd M Filmore Strunk, rector of St Margaret's Church, Charlotte,
North Carolina, which he characterized as "evangelical Catholic," said,
"The thing that most crystallized the conference for me was Seitz saying
he realized how Americans are different from the British when he began
to try to understand the game of cricket as compared to American
basketball, where fouling may be part of the strategy.

"For Anglicanism to work there has to be a deep mutual humility. We're
not a curial church but a conciliar church," Mr Strunk went on. "For us
to be ourselves, our theology must be done in community, and that's what
we broke. We've decided to go our own way in arrogance, thinking we know
better than anyone else."

Tom E Myers Jr and Lynn Pagliaro of Charleston, lay members of the
steering committee of the Episcopal Forum of South Carolina, a "via
media" group hoping to keep the Episcopal Church together, were two men
very much in the minority at this gathering. "I don't hear any talk of
love here," said Mr Myers. "All that I hear is warlike metaphors and
desire for power."

No Communion without discipline

One speaker, retired Berkeley Divinity School at Yale dean Philip
Turner, said, "If the primates and Rowan Williams are prepared to
exercise some discipline on the American Episcopal Church and the
Diocese of New Westminster in Canada, then we will continue to have an
Anglican Communion."

He said that a second possibility is development of a federation, "in
which no one leaves, but we all do as we please, which is what [US
Presiding Bishop] Frank Griswold wants."

A third possible development, he warned, is a north-south split along
racial lines, "which would be horrendous."

Peter Walker pointed out that the climate is different now than in 1988,
when an earlier Eames Commission studied the implications of the
ordination of women to the episcopate and predicted a period of
reception of the idea. "The Communion has to understand that we are now
in a period of non-reception. We must take the high ground and not give
in. We must not get off the ship. This is a very difficult time," Mr
Walker observed.

Ephraim Radner suggested that discipline might take the form of a
"reduction in status" for ECUSA to the level of observer in the
Communion.

"I don't think that the Nairobi proposal is lost," he noted. Recognition
of "orthodox" bishops as the sole religious authorities in the church
was something envisioned by the Nairobi report, Steps of Discipline,
prepared by conservative theologians for the mid-October 2003 special
meeting of the primates in London. "It is nonsense that we can do
nothing because there are no present structures for action," he
declared.

Gomez said, "My own opinion is that discipline should be applied to all
bishops who voted aye on Gene Robinson and all who co-consecrated him."

The present crisis "poses a threat to our Catholic tradition," Gomez
charged. He said the negative reaction of other Christian groups, in
withdrawing from ecumenical talks with Anglicans and Episcopalians,
"makes it clear that actions of ECUSA contradict our catholicity."

Awaiting Canterbury Commission report

Most speakers stressed the need to wait for the report of the Archbishop
of Canterbury's Commission, appointed by Rowan Williams in late October
2003. Its main task would be to provide advice on dealing with the
situation that now threatens to divide the Anglican Communion. It is to
begin its work on February 9 and conclude by September 20.

Archbishop Gomez is a member of the Commission, which is chaired by
Archbishop Robin Eames, Primate of All Ireland, and has a membership of
17 persons.

Archbishop Gomez told the Charleston conference that the global South
does not want to attend any more meetings to discuss sex. "The Anglican
Communion stated its position on sex at the Lambeth Conference," he
said. "This new commission will talk about structure. We are aware that
so much rides on our recommendations."

Asked whether non-Western parties will be willing to wait that long,
Archbishop Gomez replied, "I think that our Communion has made a
wonderful contribution to the practice of Christianity, and it would be
a shame to break it. I don't believe that our brethren in the global
South will just break camp and leave, but they are not prepared to
compromise. After September, figures such as Archbishop Peter Akinola of
Nigeria will want some definite action."

Anglican Consultative Council called racist

"Many of our brothers in the global South resent that the minority North
still controls the Anglican Communion and sets the agenda for meetings,"
said Archbishop Gomez. "We must break the stranglehold of this monster
called the Anglican Consultative Council. Many of us feel that cultural
sensitivity is lacking at the Anglican Consultative Council in London,
that there is a lack of respect of persons. It is impossible to avoid
this implication. 

"There is the feeling that although we people of color are present, we
are not fully accepted. That is painful because we believe we are fully
brothers and sisters and want to walk together," he declared.

The Anglican Consultative Council (ACC), established in 1968, is a
69-member representative assembly composed of bishops, priests, deacons,
lay adults and youth from all churches of the Anglican Communion.
Representation in the ACC is based on church membership: churches with
over one million members are entitled to three representatives, those
with over 250,000 are allowed two representatives, and those under
250,000 are allowed one representative.

Tensions have surfaced between the ACC, the only one of the four
"instruments of unity" in the Communion that includes the laity, and the
Primates' Meeting, which the ACC predates by ten years. At the 1998
Lambeth Conference, the bishops asked that the ACC be made up of every
primate as well as one presbyter and person from each province, but at
its next meeting the ACC declined to make the change, citing budgetary
limitations. The decision was said implicitly to repudiate efforts to
increase primatial presence on the Council.

Dallas Bishop James Stanton, in a panel discussion, spoke briefly about
the newly formed Network of Anglican Communion Dioceses and Parishes,
whose memorandum of agreement has been signed by 13 American bishops and
which is scheduled to hold a "charter meeting" January 19-20 in Dallas.
"It does not yet exist in any identifiable form," he said. "Its
membership might exist of bishops, dioceses, parishes, or individuals."

One provision of the memorandum is that the network's moderator,
Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan, is directed to "take necessary steps to
obtain recognition of the Network from Anglican primates and provinces."

In response to a question about similarities between the American
Anglican Council (AAC) and the Network, Mr Seitz replied that the AAC is
a group whose work is limited strictly to the United States.

[The Revd Canon E T Malone Jr is a freelance writer living in Chapel
Hill, North Carolina]

___________________________________________________________________
ACNSlist, published by Anglican Communion News Service, London, is
distributed to more than 7,500 journalists and other readers around
the world.

For subscription INFORMATION please go to:
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/acnslist.html

To UNSUBSCRIBE or CHANGE your address, please click here:
http://mh.epicom.org/scripts/c.php?L=acns&E=wfn-editors@wfn.org