wfn.org | [ENS] North American conservatives and global South Anglicans seek

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

discipline of ECUSA

1/13/2004

North American conservatives and global South Anglicans seek discipline of
ECUSA

by E. T. Malone Jr. 

ENS 040113-1 
  
[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
(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 Gomez. "The time has come to introduce such a mechanism into
our common life."

The Rev. 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 daily stronger
regardless of any future involvement by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan
Williams.

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

The Rev. 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 Williams will
have no choice but to deal with it, said the Rev. Ephraim Radner, one of the
speakers.

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 Rev. Christopher Seitz, president of the
Anglican Communion Institute. 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 U.S. 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 Radner. "Many people
have not heard of this scholarship."

"The authorities in ECUSA are not interested in sound theology," 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," Gomez
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 Rev. 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."

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

The Rev. 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 is 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 Rev. 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 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 U.S. 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 Rev. 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 Rev. 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," 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 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 [U.S. 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," 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.

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.

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, 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 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, Seitz replied that the AAC is a group whose
work is limited strictly to the United States.

-- The Rev. Canon E. T. Malone, Jr., is a free-lance writer living in Chapel
Hill, North Carolina.