wfn.org | Episcopalians: Conference explores ecumenical implications bishops' role

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

October 14, 2002

2002-236

Episcopalians: Conference explores ecumenical implications 
bishops' role 

by James Solheim

(ENS) While waiting in the lunch line at a Roman Catholic 
retreat center near Boston, Massachusetts, one participant in an 
intense three-day conference on the power of bishops summarized 
the issue succinctly: "Bishops--can't live without them but 
sometimes can't live with them either."

The September 20-23 conference was sponsored by the 
Anglican-Lutheran Society, the Episcopal Diocese of 
Massachusetts and the New England Synod of the Evangelical 
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). It drew about 45 participants 
from Europe and North America to address a topic with broad 
ecumenical implications.

In a series of six lectures by Episcopal, Lutheran and Roman 
Catholic theologians--and some lively discussion in response--it 
was demonstrated quite forcefully that the role of bishops in 
the church has historical roots but has become an "ecumenical 
issue" as the churches entered an intense period of formal 
dialogues over the past 40 years or so that led to new 
relationships.

The role of bishops was a major point of contention, for 
example, in dialogue between Lutherans and Episcopalians that 
finally led in 2001 to adoption of Called to Common Mission 
(CCM), establishing full communion between the two churches. 
Most of the opposition among Lutherans centered on an agreement 
to install all future Lutheran bishops in the historic 
episcopate, a significant change in the pattern of oversight 
among American Lutherans.

By what authority?

Confessing that Lutherans are tied to their 16th century 
Reformation history, Professor Michael Root of Trinity Lutheran 
Seminary in Columbus, Ohio, described how the role of bishops 
has "become a problem for Lutherans." In fact, the problems 
began during the Reformation, he pointed out, because Luther and 
the Reformers were dealing with a serious confusion of secular 
and ecclesiastical authority exercised by the bishops at the 
time. The question became what authority could be exercised by 
those bishops in the face of a "careless mixture" of sacred and 
secular poewrs. 

How did Lutheran ecumenical discussions come to focus on a 
topic which usually is not thought of as one of the central 
themes of the Reformation? Root asked. Article 28 of the 
Augsburg Confession dealt with the power of bishops in a way 
that would finally divide the church because Lutherans felt 
"they had no choice but to exercise episcopal discipline over 
their churches and then later when they felt they had no choice 
but to ordain clergy without the participation of bishops 
recognized by Catholic church authorities."

The result was, according to Root, "an alternative and 
self-perpetuating church structure to that of the episcopal and 
papal structure that had been in place in the West from the 
third century. It was the practical rejection of the authority 
of the actual bishops on the spot that marked the move from a 
reform movement to a separated church."

Mixing sacred and secular powers

The Augsburg Confession also made it very clear that "in 
Christendom the teaching of Christian freedom must be preserved, 
namely, that bondage to the law is not necessary for 
justification" and that the "chief article of the Gospel must be 
maintained, that we obtain the grace of God through faith in 
Christ without our merit and do not earn it through service of 
God instituted by human beings." So the bishop has no power over 
the consciences of believers, even though they "may make 
regulations for the sake of good order in the church."

While Augsburg said that "it is our greatest desire to retain 
the order of the church and the various ranks in the 
church--even though they were established by human authority," 
hostile or heretical bishops meant that "the churches are 
compelled by divine right to ordain pastors and ministers for 
themselves, using their own pastors." 

Necessity of oversight

Moving to implications for today's ecumenical discussions, 
Root said that the question is whether Lutherans, "for the sake 
of unity," are committed to episcopacy as the preferable church 
order. When the ELCA adopted CCM, it was a sign that it was 
committing itself to a "historic and evangelical episcopate" and 
saw itself as still bound by the commitments of the Lutheran 
Confessions on this question, Root said. 

Yet Lutherans today do not agree on the role of bishops, Root 
observed. Contrary to the understanding of North American and 
Nordic Lutherans, some continental European theologians argue 
that structures that have developed since the Reformation "show 
no particular preference for episcopacy."  (On a practical 
level, that has meant that Nordic and Baltic Lutherans and 
British and Irish Anglicans could embrace 1996 Porvoo Agreement, 
establishing full communion, because they share the historic 
episcopate while the German Lutherans could not participate 
because they don't agree.)

In the crucial 1987 Niagara Report stemming from one of the 
official dialogues, Lutherans and Anglicans concluded that they 
have "always agreed that there exists a divinely instituted 
ministry to serve the mission of the Gospel," Root said. 
"Anglicans in their theological reflection and Lutherans in 
their practical experience have recognized that some form of 
oversight is a necessity." Niagara asserted that this ministry 
of oversight "is the heart of episcopal ministry. As a minister 
of oversight, the bishop is vitally related to both the unity 
and continuity of the church," said Root.

Episcopacy is desirable "not as by itself constituting the 
apostolic continuity of the church, but as one element in that 
continuity," Root said. "A truly historic and evangelical 
episcopacy is both a sign and an embodiment of continuity in the 
apostolic mission." Yet the CCM agreement sees the common 
participation in episcopal succession as "a sign, though not a 
guarantee, of the unity and apostolic continuity of the whole 
church."

Dealing with issues together

In a seldom-cited provision of the CCM agreement, Root said 
that the Episcopal Church agreed "to establish structures for 
collegial and periodic review of the ministry exercised by 
bishops with a view to evaluation, adaptation, improvement and 
continual reform in the service of the Gospel." If episcopacy is 
a real but fallible sign of continuity in the apostolic mission, 
"then it must be embedded in the midst of a variety of other 
ministries which stand alongside of episcopal ministry, at times 
correcting, at times being corrected, by it," Root added. "I 
would understand the logic of the recent Lutheran-Anglican 
agreements as mandating just the sort of synodical episcopacy 
that Lutheran and Anglican churches have come to embody in the 
19th and 20th centuries."

The idea also appealed to the Rev. Francis Sullivan, a Jesuit 
who described in his lecture the authority of the diocesan 
bishop in the Roman Catholic Church. After describing the role 
of the diocesan synod, a broadly representative "assembly of 
selected priests and other Christian faithful" that offers 
assistance to the bishop, and the pastoral council that has a 
similar consultative role, he offered some ideas for "the 
renewal and reform" of the role of bishop.

Sullivan said that there is "an urgent need of changes that 
would provide for a more effective participation of priests, 
members of religious orders, lay men and women, in the processes 
by which decisions are made in our church," he said. "The 
mistakes our bishops have made in the handling of cases of the 
sexual abuse of children make it all too clear that bishops need 
to tap the gifts of wisdom, counsel, and knowledge that are 
available to them in the other members of the church." 

Addressing issues ecumenically

"How does the new relation between our churches affect the 
way we are dealing with potentially divisive disputes in our 
midst?" Root asked. "Are we addressing these questions 
ecumenically? Are our bishops addressing them collegially, 
understanding that the college embraces both of our churches?"

Pointing to issues facing each church, Root said that "our 
relation means that Lutherans should have something to say about 
the dispute in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, something to say not 
as outsiders but as Christians in full communion; perhaps not as 
members of the immediate nuclear family, but at least as 
cousins. Conversely, why does the ELCA's task force on human 
sexuality include only Lutherans? We are certainly not alone in 
addressing this topic and whatever solution we reach will impact 
our relations with other churches."

One church catholic

"It seems to me that in contemporary America the combination 
of clear commitment to the Gospel and a sense of unity with 
wider tradition is what Lutherans and Anglicans together 
peculiarly have to offer," Root said. "What catholic 
Christianity, within which Lutherans and Anglicans belong, has 
to offer, what it should offer, is a strong sense of unity with 
the one church of all times and places...We need imaginative and 
creative ministries but our congregations are not 
entrepreneurial units, out there on their own. Every 
congregation or parish is a realization in its place of the one 
church catholic." 

Root concluded that "the peculiar challenge we face as 
churches sharing a historic and evangelical episcopate at this 
moment in American life, it seems to me, is to be truly and 
commitedly evangelical while also being flexibly but 
authentically catholic...We need symbols and signs of the larger 
realities we are part of...As churches we are to continue the 
mission Christ gave to the church through the apostles 'to the 
end of the age.' The historic episcopate is meant to symbolize 
the reality of this unity and continuity of all ordained 
ministry. and how that can be manifested locally."

The bishop as missionary

In his presentation, Professor Ian Douglas of Episcopal 
Divinity School in Massachusetts tackled the issue of "The Power 
of Bishops and the Missionary Episcopate in the Episcopal Church 
USA" by "placing the role and authority of the bishop within the 
larger missiological context of the church as mission."

Douglas traced the development of the Domestic and Foreign 
Missionary Society, the corporate name of the Episcopal Church, 
pointing out that "since 1835 the Episcopal Church has said that 
mission and the church are inseparable. To be an Episcopalian is 
to be involved in mission. The church is mission," and the 
mission field is the whole world. The General Convention in 1835 
"created the missionary episcopate."

He added, "The calling of the bishop was not so much to the 
settled community of believers, but rather to the world beyond 
the church," while not ignoring the needs of the church, its 
people or clergy. "The role of the bishop is to lead the church 
forward in mission, to go ahead of the people to extend God's 
healing community, and to motivate the faithful to full 
participation in God's mission."

"The authority of the episcopate resides not in the 
individual bishop, no matter what her/his charisma or leadership 
skills or lack thereof, but rather in the office of the bishop 
as a point of unity for all the baptized in mission," he said. 

New realities

The 1998 Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops in Canterbury 
introduced some new realities, Douglas pointed out. Church 
leaders from the industrialized West "had to wrestle with the 
fact that we in the West can no longer rest in the economic and 
political privilege of colonialism or the 
theological/philosophical paradigms of the Enlightenment."  
Until then Anglicans in the West, including bishops, "could 
ignore these radical shifts in the Communion and thus avoid the 
hard questions of identity, authority and power."

Lambeth 1998 signaled "a turning point in Anglicanism," 
demonstrating that "a profound power shift is occurring within 
Anglicanism," Douglas argued. "It became abundantly clear" that 
the churches in the developing world would not stand idly by 
while others set the agenda. How do these changes "challenge our 
understanding of Anglican identity and affect our understanding 
of authority, particularly the authority of bishops and/or 
archbishops?" he asked. "What forces are there within 
Anglicanism today that hinder us from living into the 
possibilities of genuine mutual responsibility and 
interdependence in the Body of Christ as a global Christian 
community embodying vast differences like we've never seen 
before?"

In answer to the question, Douglas pointed to two forces--the 
"ongoing legacy of colonialism" and the "philosophical and 
theological roots of modernity."

"Like it or not, colonialism and neo-colonialism die hard," 
he said, and "a lot of Anglican interaction today is not yet 
free from the vestiges of colonial power plays and/or new 
colonial abuses."

While the Anglican Communion has historically "traded on the 
power of the Enlightenment as much as it has on the power of 
Western colonialism," today the majority of Anglicans "are able 
to live in multiple realities, both the Enlightenment construct 
as well as their own local contexts." He added that the movement 
"from being a church grounded in modernity and secure in the 
Enlightenment to a post-modern or extra-modern reality is as 
tumultuous as the shift from colonialism to a post-colonial 
reality." It is particularly terrifying for those who have 
enjoyed privilege, power and control--and the transition is 
being "vigorously countered" by those people.

A dangerous trend

"There are some in the Anglican Communion who believe that 
these changing times require increased power for bishops 
augmented by a new central structure of authority...a curia, if 
you will...with new kinds of authority and responsibility for 
the unity of Anglicanism." That trend toward increased authority 
of bishops and greater centralization of primatial power is 
obvious in the "Virginia Report" prepared by the Inter-Anglican 
Theological and Doctrinal Commission in 1998.

Douglas pointed out that a Lambeth Conference resolution on 
the Instruments of the Anglican Communion "for the first time 
ever in the history of Anglicanism imbues the archbishops of the 
Anglican Communion with heretofore unheard of pan-Anglican 
authority and power," giving the primates authority to intervene 
in the life of local Anglican provinces when issues of diversity 
create problems.

The trend is applauded by those who are convinced that some 
churches in the Anglican Communion, like the Episcopal Church 
USA, "are pursuing an errant path with respect to issues of 
human sexuality," and they are looking for "guidelines on the 
limits of Anglican diversity." At a 2001 Primates Meeting in 
North Carolina a proposal emerged that laid out a role for them 
to serve "as chief judges and magistrates who had the power to 
throw a church out of the Anglican Communion for perceived 
errant ways."

Addressing a question directly to the Lutheran participants, 
Douglas asked, "What does your experience of episcopacy in its 
many forms across the Lutheran world have to offer us as 
Anglicans today? How can your historic emphasis on the pastoral 
and missiological imperative of ordained pastors serve as a 
check to our misappropriation of the mission episcopate and new 
found fondness for the curia in Anglicanism? Can Called to 
Common Mission help those of us in the United States, in 
particular, to reclaim the role of bishop as chief missionary?"

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--James Solheim is director of Episcopal News Service.