Stephen's Witness

THE DAVINCI CODE: Fact or Falsehood?

2009-05-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

I recently bought a paperback copy of The DaVinci Code in the airport at the beginning of a long trip. I found the first half of the book (230 pages to be exact) entertaining reading, if one likes thrillers. The book has Western snob appeal, with references to the Louvre in Paris, to Leonardo, Vatican jets, French estates, English cathedrals, and Harvard professors.

But when I got to page 231, I stopped short because suddenly “Professor” Langdon was lecturing on something I happen to know about: the background of the Bible. “The Bible is a product of man, my dear,” he condescendingly informs his pupil Sophie. Well, yes, I too believe that “men moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke of God” (2 Peter 1:21).

That’s not enough for DaVinci, however. Author Dan Brown’s “experts” (clearly his mouthpieces) go on to claim that the New Testament as we know it was collated by the emperor Constantine in 325 AD, three centuries after the events it describes. Constantine, he says confidently, not only created our New Testament Gospels but suppressed other Gospels about a Jesus who did not die on a Cross but was married to Mary Magdalene with a daughter named Sarah.

“Fortunately for historians,” Brown continues, “some of the Gospels Constantine attempted to eradicate managed to survive,” such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Coptic Gospels. Wait a minute! I thought. I wrote my Ph.D. thesis on the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the late 1940s and 50s. The Dead Sea Scrolls have attracted more than their share of crackpot commentators, but the consensus of serious experts is that they are Jewish documents about Judaism that say nothing at all directly about Jesus and the Christian movement.

As for the Coptic Scrolls (discovered in Egypt in the 1930s), again the broad consensus of scholarship is that they are the work of “Gnostic” Christians, who wrote their “gospels” 150 years after the time of Jesus. The Gnostics believed that the God of the Old Testament was a devil and the material world He created was evil. Jesus, they said, came to share secret knowledge (gnosis) on how to escape from this evil world and become pure spirits. Jesus, the Gnostics taught, was a guru not a Saviour.

Whatever one thinks of the Gnostics’ theory, they almost certainly had no connection with the historical Jesus. Now The DaVinci Code trumpets on its fly-sheet that it is FACT: “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” As for the documents I know something about, I can tell you: this is a lie. The “facts” about the Gospels in The DaVinci Code are pure fiction, and no credible historian has upheld them.

What can we say about the real Gospels? Well, scholars vary somewhat, but only marginally, on when the final editions of the Gospels were produced. Dr. N. T. Wright, the Anglican Bishop of Durham, who has written three highly-regarded books on Jesus and the Gospels, sums up this way: “The canonical gospels – despite every effort to prove the contrary – are still regarded by the great majority of scholars as early, written within the first 50 years of Jesus’ lifetime, quite possibly much sooner.”

Would we trust the memories of Ugandans writing about Idi Amin’s era? Would there be eyewitnesses to Obote I and Obote II?* Clearly, the answer is Yes. Well, that’s the kind of evidence we have for the New Testament Gospels.

DaVinci’s Coptic Gospels, on the other hand, are as if Alice Lakwena were trying to write the history of the Uganda Martyrs. She might remember some facts from her school days and then channel the rest through her familiar spirit. Would you put your trust in the Gospel of Alice?**

So who are you going to believe: DaVinci or the Bible? According to DaVinci, Jesus was a great guru whose teachings have been perverted (page 234); all religions are figments of man’s imagination (page 342); the supreme sacrament is sex (page 310); and the whole Christian Church – note, not just the Roman Catholic Church – has been the great Enemy of the real truth of religion (throughout).

According to the Bible - let’s take St. Paul reporting eyewitness testimony - Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried and on the third day rose from the dead (1 Corinthians 15:1-8). By these saving acts, we are saved from sin, not in some airy-fairy world but in this world. No one has ever been saved by The DaVinci Code, and indeed many may be led astray.

So should you go see the movie? To the gullible, I would say: “Don’t go, because the video medium can be very deceiving.” For those who are sure of the truth, maybe you need to see DaVinci in order to present the real Jesus better to those who do not know Him.

For those who wish to dig deeper into this subject, let me suggest several websites: http://www.jesusdecoded.com/, http://www.markdroberts.com/ and http://www.thedavincichallenge.com/. Just a little internet sleuthing will not only show that DaVinci is not FACT but FALSEHOOD and inaccurate in just about everything, from art history to the floor plan of Westminster Abbey.

This review first appeared in New Vision (Uganda) 30 April 2006.

Notes for non-Ugandans

*Milton Obote was President of Uganda from 1962-1971 (Obote I) and from 1980-1985 (Obote II).

**Alice Lakwena was the godmother of the current Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony. Alice led an army against the Government in 1986, assuring her troops that her spirits would protect them from bullets. She was defeated and is in exile in Kenya.

RESUSCITATION OR RESURRECTION? Second Thoughts on the Demise of the Anglican Covenant

2009-05-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

Twelve hours after the fateful vote on the Anglican Communion Covenant in Jamaica on May 8, I posted some “Initial Reflections” with the theme: “The Anglican Communion Covenant is Dead: Long Live the Covenant!”

I have had some second thoughts on this subject. No major retractions, but some expansion of a couple themes, particularly about two archbishops – in this case, Henry Orombi and Rowan Williams – and a final reflection on whether and how the disaster of May 8 can be reversed or redeemed. [N.B. I have added some Third Thoughts at the end of the second section.]

Where was Uganda?

In looking at the crucial tallies – 33 to 32 against the “fourth moratorium” on litigation; 33 to 30 in sending the Covenant back for revision – many have questioned the depletion of Uganda’s delegation at the meeting. To be sure, Archbishop Henry Orombi was eligible to vote as a member for Africa of the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and Anglican Consultative Council. In addition, one other delegate, Bishop Paul Luzinda, cancelled at a late date. When it proved impossible to process another Uganda clergyperson (visa delays being standing problems for African travellers), the Church of Uganda turned to the Rev. Phil Ashey, who is canonically resident in Ruwenzori Diocese and who was already booked to attend. One of the early maneuvers of the powers-that-be came when the JSC denied Fr. Ashey a seat on grounds that he was a boundary-transgressor.

So Uganda was represented by one laywoman, Mrs. Jolly Babirukamu. Mrs. Babirukamu has held the important post of Provincial President of Mother’s Union, which in East Africa is a highly honoured institution. She voted with the Global South during the Covenant deliberations in Jamaica and called for prayer at a critical moment of confusion, but clearly she alone could not counter-balance the various politicos who dominated the session. With all due respect, this is why the claim that the ACC is the most representative body because it includes laypeople is a ruse. Assemblies like the ACC contain two types of laypeople: professional laymen, schooled in the wiles of ecclesiastical politics, and ordinary laypersons like Mrs. Babirukamu, who are expected to be seen and not heard.

I said in my Initial Reflections that I would have wished Henry Orombi to have attended the ACC meeting. On second thought, I would have liked him to be present on Friday. The rest of the week, so far as I can determine, was a colossal waste of time and money. At the risk of sounding like Judas, I ask: couldn’t the week-long cost of the meeting – add to that the $1.5 million indabafest funds – have been better spent on the Millennium Development Goals?

Henry Orombi is a powerful evangelist and charismatic leader, with a special passion for reaching young people. That is what he did before he became archbishop, and he continues this ministry inside and outside Uganda. Didn’t I understand that bishops are to be chief evangelists? Anyway, he decided that honouring a commitment to a renewal conference in UK took precedence over a week of political maneuvering in Jamaica. Would his presence in Jamaica have made a difference? Perhaps so, but it would not have been decisive had the Archbishop of Canterbury been true to his responsibilities.

While I do not want to excuse the Church of Uganda for its inept preparation leading to reduced representation at the ACC, I think it does say something about how the ACC is regarded in much of the non-Western world. The churches here know what a bishop is; they know what an Archbishop is and even a chief Primate is; hence they can understand three of the so-called Instruments of Unity in the Anglican Communion. But they don’t understand what a consultative council is, why it is constituted as it is, and they don’t frankly take much care in preparing for its meeting. Add to that the language barriers, the arcane procedures – most lay Africans are mystified by indaba – and it is easy to see how this Council is manipulated and ends up tarnishing what silver is left of Anglican integrity. I suggest that the ACC be offered up as a sacrificial lamb in place of the Covenant.

Where Was the Primate of All England?

Some have questioned my reference to “perfidious Albion” – the fact that Rowan Williams intervened at a critical moment to delay the approval of the Covenant - on the grounds that the current occupant of the throne of Augustine in Canterbury hails from Wales. True, and the occupant of York is Ugandan by birth. But the point is that the Church of England is the Mother Church and the Archbishop of Canterbury occupies his place of honor in the Communion for that reason. It was because of his role as primus inter pares that the Primates of the large Global South provinces deferred to his request to initiate the Windsor process and then the Covenant process. One must therefore pin responsibility for the breakdown of the Covenant approval on Canterbury.

But was he perfidious? From the left side of the isle, I am sure he is considered the quintessential Englishman, “doing his duty” to save the Communion, even if it went against the wishes of all the former colonies (save thirteen!). No doubt they expect him to emerge in six months time like a Chamberlain fresh from Munich with a piece of paper that all can sign onto or that all will reject as useless.

There are those on the right side of the aisle, however, who believe that he simply made a human error of judgement in allowing the delaying amendments to be voted on. The problem with this charitable view is that he himself stated that it was section 4 – the very section with disciplinary implications – that needed to be revised because it was causing dissension in the Communion. As if there had not been dissension heretofore leading up to this meeting!

Fine, I am willing to concede that Rowan Williams may have slipped up, or been snookered, in slowing down the approval of the Covenant. If, however, he himself recognizes this to be the case, then I would expect him to appoint a select review group that will uphold the Ridley Cambridge Draft and report out to the JSC an unaltered text or at least one where the key provisions of section 4 (including section 4.1.5) are still in place. I shall then expect him to face down Katherine Jefferts Schori and other objectors on the JSC and see the Covenant through to approval so that it may go out to the Provinces. But will he undo the damage of the ACC disaster? That will be the proof of the pudding.

If the above paragraphs sound skeptical, it is because many of us conservatives see so little evidence that we can count on Rowan Williams for anything. For instance, even though he signed the unanimous Dar Communiqué and pleaded with Bishop John Howard to refrain from forcing clergy and congregation out of their church home in Jacksonville (I almost slipped and said St. Augustine (!) because one of my former students, a Jamaican, was forced from his parish in that city by the same Bishop Howard), did he speak up in favor of the fourth moratorium? Did he vote for it? I don’t know, but if he did, it didn’t make the headlines.

A third thought (added 12 hours later): If Rowan Williams really did slip up, as even one of his critics (George Conger) hints, then he could, he must, undo the damage as best he can and as quickly as possible.

1. He can publicly state his error and apologize for the ensuing mess.
2. He can fire Canon Kearon and anyone else responsible for enabling this new crisis.
3. He could convene a special meeting of the JSC immediately and have it declare that the will of the majority of the Communion is to move forward with adoption?
4. He could declare unilaterally that the vote in Jamaica was invalid and that he is sending out the Ridley Cambridge Draft to the Provinces for adoption. There was no constitutional necessity for the ACC to approve the Draft, and in any case the Resolution passed violated the earlier protocol which stated that the Draft would be either voted up or voted down or returned to the Drafting Group.

If he cannot bring himself to do one or more of these items, he should resign.

The Way Forward

So what should orthodox folk do, now that the Covenant hope has been extinguished or at best put on hold? First of all, do what we are called to do: worship God and love your neighbor. Beyond that, I hope that the GAFCON and Global South bishops at the international level and the ACNA and Communion Partners in North America can find ways of working together for the up-building and mission of the Church. With or without the Covenant, we need each other. Each of our movements has its assets and deficits and we can share them as the Apostle commends to his churches (2 Corinthians 8:13-15).

Whither the Covenant? I believe that we should pursue dual tracks. Ok, the Ridley Cambridge Draft is not dead; it is on life support. It is my hope that Rowan Williams will repent of his mistake in Jamaica. I hope that “communion conservatives,” like the Anglican Communion Institute, will make a strong case for keeping the Draft exactly as is. I hope that Henry Orombi will attend the JSC meeting at the end of this year and insist on keeping the Covenant strong.

At the same time, I hope that the Global South movement – those identified with the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans and those not so identified – will resume its leadership on the Covenant. On the one hand, it can be patient and pressure Lambeth Palace not to change the text. On other hand, it can consider making the text stronger: by adding some elements from the Jerusalem Declaration and making the enforcement clauses even stronger. If the Covenant is not resuscitated by the end of the year, the Global South can ready a new Covenant – a resurrection, as it were – that will serve the mission of the Anglican Communion in the “Global Anglican Future.”

THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION COVENANT: Where Do We Go from Here?

2009-05-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

Initial Reflections

Thanks to the marvels of global communications, I was able to follow the so-called deliberations, a.k.a., manipulations, of the final session of the Anglican Consultative Council in Jamaica. As part of the flood of commentary following this “historic” session in the afternoon of 8 May 2009, I offer here a few initial reflections.

The Hope of the Ridley Cambridge Draft

As close observers of the Anglican scene may know, I have been a supporter of the idea of an Anglican Communion Covenant since it was raised as a part of the solution of the crisis in Anglicanism caused by the brazen violation by the Episcopal Church USA of biblical, traditional and ecclesiastical norms (especially Lambeth Resolution 1.10). I offered critiques of the early drafts produced by the Covenant Drafting Group, and finally an “Appreciation of the Ridley Cambridge Draft” (RCD). All of these essays can be found at http://www.stephenswitness.com/.

Here is the quick summary of my qualified appreciation (two cheers!) of RCD:

So why two cheers for the Ridley Cambridge Draft? In my previous critique I concluded:

"In my view, the two essential ingredients of an effective Anglican Covenant involve doctrinal substance and disciplinary efficacy. The Nassau and St. Andrews drafts in my opinion are adequate on matters of doctrine and inadequate on discipline, and both fail to deal with the current context of radical departure from the faith once for all delivered to the saints."

My first cheer then is for the doctrinal substance of the Cambridge Ridley Draft. It is orthodox and consistent in the main with the “providential ordering of Anglican history and mission.” While I might wish to express the essence of Anglican Christianity somewhat differently, I do not find myself wincing at glaring deviations from the faith once for all delivered to the saints such as one finds routinely in the speeches and writings emanating from The Episcopal Church. My second “50/50” cheer is for setting forth constitutional principles that might lead to the ultimate reform of the Communion and discipline of those who have thrown it into confusion. Whether the Covenant, as currently proposed, will lead to such a reform is contingent on many twists and turns of ecclesiastical politics, including the response of the GAFCON churches and the willingness of the Instruments, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury, to allow certain churches to self-select themselves out of the Covenant and ultimately the Communion. For let it be clearly stated, there is no future for a vibrant and coherent Anglican and Christian body that includes The Episcopal Church (TEC) and Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) as they now exist.

I proceeded in this essay to argue that there were wide areas of agreement between the RCD and the Jerusalem Declaration of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. Although I had no direct line to the decision-makers in Jamaica, I did try to persuade the GAFCON leaders to support the Covenant. In particular, I was asked by the Archbishop of Uganda to convene a group of scholars from the Church of Uganda to reconsider the RCD. This group of colleagues read my Appreciation and composed an instruction to the COU delegates, with this clinching paragraph:

The above concerns notwithstanding, we strongly recommend that the Church of Uganda signs up to the Ridley Cambridge Draft Anglican Covenant. The fundamental issues of doctrine and Authority of Scripture as the word of God have been appropriately addressed. The concerns mentioned in 1-4 above can be addressed with time given that there is a provision for amending the Covenant.

So the Church of Uganda, the second largest Province of the Anglican Communion, was fully supportive of the latest Covenant Draft and indeed voted consistently for it in the crucial showdown votes (I shall comment on its reduced representation below). The other GAFCON Provinces stood as part of the Global South coalition to vote for it. Still, it failed.

The Anglican Communion Covenant is Dead

So I cannot but conclude that the Anglican Communion Covenant is dead. Those who have not followed the “process” of drafting the Covenant may ask if this is not an extreme or premature diagnosis. Perhaps, but I think not.

The key section that gave hope to orthodox people in the Communion was section 4, the disciplinary section. On one of the blog discussions on the RCD, I stated:

My own preference, as I have said elsewhere, would have been for a transparent process of discipline, like that proposed in “To Mend the Net,” whereby a province could as a last resort be excommunicated.

Excommunication, in my view, is the biblical, historical and reasonable way for the church to exercise discipline when faced with obdurate heretics. Although the RCD did not have such a clear-cut provision, it had the makings of one. I argued that

the key disciplinary clause in RCD [4.2.5] goes significantly beyond the vague language in the St. Andrew’s Draft (3.2.5e), which states that offensive actions by a covenanting Church might lead to the “relinquishment by that Church of the force and meaning of the covenant’s purpose, until they re-establish their covenant relationship with other member Churches.”

Furthermore, I noted that section 4.1.5 of the Draft opens the Covenant for adoption by “churches” beyond formal provincial jurisdictions and their possible recognition by the Instruments of Communion. Although this provision was hedged around with caveats and further hedged about in the Resolution before the ACC in Jamaica, the fact remains that this clause bears within it the seed of reform. In other words, those who would come together in the Covenant could differentiate themselves from those who have defied biblical authority and begin a process that could lead to a restructuring of the Communion based on Covenant principles. What we saw in Jamaica on 8 May was the triumph of raw political power over the principles of an effective Covenant.

So my immediate conclusion is that the Anglican Communion Covenant is dead. More precisely, it has been etherized while one of the Instruments performs surgery on its vital parts. Surely the section 4 that comes out of Canterbury’s new privy council (we have such wonderful models – the Panel of Reference, episcopal visitors, indaba groups) will lack section 4.1.5 and anything that might lead to a change in the way the Communion is currently run. Our Lord said: “For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men (Matthew 19:12). The Covenant is to be numbered among the latter.

Perfidious Albion

That moment when Rowan Williams bestirred himself to suggest that there might be a majority opposed to passing the Ridley Text as presented will be remembered as a decisive moment of fulfillment of his prediction of the collapse of the Anglican Communion as we have known it.

That moment was prepared for by four weeks of silence from Lambeth Palace about the final Covenant Draft. Is there any question that the Covenant would have passed easily if Rowan Williams had used his bully pulpit, had campaigned with verve, had exercised his vaunted intellectual powers on its behalf? Some conservatives prior to that moment had taken heart from the impression that Canterbury was going to back the Covenant all the way. Even into the final session, they may have hoped that his “opposition” to the resolution excising section 4 from the Covenant altogether would be enough to pass it:

ABC: I'm not persuaded that I can support this resolution as it stands. I'm not sure that remitting this will get us forward. I appreciate the points that have been made so far and that provinces may not feel able to sign up if section 4 is in there. I'm not persuaded to agree to this resolution.

But at the end of the day, Rowan Williams failed to lead, or more likely, chose to lead the Communion into pandemonium.

Perfidious Albion! The Covenant was his baby. Why did he kill it in the cradle? Why did he betray the Archbishop of the West Indies and the Archbishop of Southeast Asia? I was present in Kigali in September 2006 when the Global South Primates were moving forward with their own Covenant Draft. This movement was short-circuited by the announcement that Canterbury had appointed Drexel Gomez Chair of the Covenant Drafting Group. Those who follow Communion politics immediately smelled a rat. One standard ploy of the Communion bureaucracy is to appoint a nominally conservative bishop to a committee “balanced” by and administered by liberals.

But this time it did not work out that way. Drexel Gomez, who had authored “To Mend the Net,” had a passion for the catholicity of the Church and the potential of the Covenant to restore it. He was joined by Archbishop John Chew, no pushover, and by Dr. Ephraim Radner, with his intellectual clout. Despite numerous attempts to neuter the Covenant by various indaba sessions and a blizzard of suggestions from the revisionist community, the final Draft actually stood for something. Having promised the Primates all the way back to October 2003 that help was on the way, Rowan Williams faced a dilemma: what to do about his own solution, the Covenant?

Here another factor comes into play: Williams’s centralizing of power in one Instrument, himself! This gathering of power to himself began by his repudiation of the Dar es Salaam Primates’ meeting, by various attempts to put the Primates in their place, by treating the GAFCON movement as if it did not exist, and by turning to the more manipulable ACC and JSC as his councils of choice. The final act of aggrandizement has now come with referral of the Covenant to a totally unauthorized “small group” who will report to another non-Instrument, the Joint Standing Committee of Primates and ACC.

I am not interested, frankly, in analyzing further Rowan Williams’s motives beyond what I wrote three years ago in a piece titled, “Look Not to Cantuar” (http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/weblog/printing/look_not_to_cantuar/). Earlier this year, I documented his perfidy after the Dar meeting in an address on “The Decline and Fall (and Rising Again) of the Anglican Communion.” I had hoped against hope that he would come through for the historic faith of the Church. That hope has proved vain.

I imagine this reality poses a dilemma for those who have faithfully supported Archbishop Williams over the past six years. Those who believe that loyalty is owed to “Canterbury” as an historic see, not a person, will have to take a very long view of the Anglican future, and many may decide that there are sees more historic than that founded by Augustine in 597. For others like myself and those who signed the GAFCON statement, Canterbury can no longer be a realistic focus for our Anglican identity.

A Tale of Two Archbishops

This brings me to two towering figures in the Communion today. One of them is literally towering – the Archbishop of Uganda; the other is diminutive in stature but towering in patient integrity – the President Bishop of Jerusalem and the Middle East. One of these figures was notable by his absence from the Jamaica meeting; the other was notable for his presence and passionate advocacy of the Covenant as presented.

These two Archbishops had made something of a splash two years ago at the New Orleans House of Bishops Meeting of the Episcopal Church. Henry Orombi had refused to go at the beck and call of Rowan Williams after the Primates had delivered an ultimatum to TEC; Mouneer Anis had gone and delivered a brave and prophetic speech. On that occasion, I thought Archbishop Orombi had the better case for conscientious absence, but I could not help but admire the courage of Archbishop Mouneer.

The Jamaica ACC meeting was different. Archbishop Orombi was the duly elected representative from Africa on the Joint Standing Committee. His own delegation was reduced by the absence of one bishop and one priest, and the alternate to the latter, the Rev. Phil Ashey, was cynically unseated by the JSC. The politician in me was disappointed by Henry Orombi’s choice to preach at a renewal conference in UK rather than to attend this important meeting. Maybe if he had been in Jamaica, we would have gotten the three votes needed to pass the Covenant. But on the other hand, his decision may reflect the utter breakdown of trust between many bishops in the Communion and Canterbury and the Communion bureaucracy. Who is to say the establishment would not have found a way to scuttle the Covenant even with Abp. Orombi present?

The real danger and promise from the tale of these two bishops hinges on whether this “defeat” of the Covenant will lead to a fresh wounding or to a healing of the Global South movement, which was cynically riven by the “divide and conquer” tactics of the powers that be in London and New York. There is now the potential for reassembling that movement, and Archbishops Mouneer and Orombi will be two key figures in it. Pray, brothers and sisters, for the unity of those who hold the common faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Long Live the Covenant!

The Anglican Communion Covenant is dead. No doubt the Communion Office will spew forth a fog of words “explaining” yesterday’s action as a temporary hiccup in the “process.” To which my response is: “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Even though I favored a Covenant that could be approved by the old Instruments and carry maximum support around the Communion, I feared that even if it were passed, it would become ensnared in the usual politics which have been so manifest since Lambeth 1998. So there is a virtue in getting out from under the existing framework.

I had urged in an earlier essay that the Covenant Drafting Group meet with the leaders of the GAFCON movement to see if they could combine the best of the Draft and the Jerusalem Declaration. There is now a possibility of this happening independent of the machinations of the colonial establishment. There is a possibility that the Global South movement, which took two branches in the road in 2006, can be reunited and reconstituted. Certainly our orthodox convictions regarding the inheritance of faith are compatible, despite varying evangelical, catholic and charismatic traditions. We also have a passion for full-blooded mission, including the elements enumerated in section 2 of the RCD. There are true bonds of affection that have grown up over these years among the Global South churches and also with many of their partners in the West, including the emerging Anglican Church in North America.

So my immediate sadness over the failure of the Covenant in Jamaica has been replaced with a new hopefulness for the Anglican Communion –for a faithful koinonia of mutually accountable partners – and for the Covenant – one that can bind us together in love. The Anglican Communion Covenant is dead. Long live the Covenant!

THE RIDLEY CAMBRIDGE DRAFT: An Appreciation

2009-04-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

I have written several articles on the topic of an Anglican Communion Covenant: one proposing a blueprint; another offering an “Evangelical Commentary” on the first “Nassau” draft; and more recently an evaluation of the Covenant process and drafts in the light of the Global Anglican Future Conference (available at http://www.stephenswitness.com/). As described in the latter piece, I have done so standing on the periphery of the Lambeth-appointed process and more in the midst of the GAFCON movement that led to the final Statement and Jerusalem Declaration.

Two things have been consistent in my writings to date: an affirmation of the positive value of a well-crafted Anglican Communion Covenant, and a critique of the official drafting process and the products that have been offered by the Covenant Drafting Group. In this essay, I intend to focus on the positive and propose two cheers for the third and most recent Ridley Cambridge Draft (RCD) that was published on Tuesday of Holy Week 2009.

Responding a week later in their Communiqué of 16 April 2009, the GAFCON Primates state: “We welcome the Ridley Cambridge Draft Covenant and call for principled response from the Provinces.” I hope this essay will represent the very kind of principled analysis that they are calling for.

Let me begin with an appreciation of the Design Group Chairman, Archbishop Drexel Gomez. I had the brief opportunity to work with Archbishop Gomez on the Global South Drafting Committee before he himself was drafted to head up the Lambeth Group. As a consultant to the latter group, I have dropped my small contributions into the alphabet soup of ideas coming from around the world with some confidence that I would get a hearing. And at the end of the day, it strikes me that, in view of the intentionally diverse (well, sans Evangelical) representation on the Group, the orthodoxy of Archbishop Gomez (and no doubt Archbishop John Chew) does come through in the latest draft.

Again, I would wish to appreciate the contribution of the Rev. Dr. Ephraim Radner, who has devoted much effort (and many words!) in promoting the Covenant as a vehicle of the Spirit and an authentic theological contribution to the future of Anglicanism and the wider ecumenical hope. While not claiming to be a source critic, I see his hand, or at least his ideas, most clearly expressed in the Introduction.

Finally, I would congratulate the Covenant Design Group as a whole on producing a relatively concise document, for improving the theological affirmations of the first “Inheritance” section, for strengthening the second section on “Vocation”(Mission) and for replacing the devious, cumbersome and confusing appendix to the St. Andrew’s Draft with a fourth section on “Our Covenant Life Together.”

So why two cheers for the Ridley Cambridge Draft? In my previous critique I concluded:

In my view, the two essential ingredients of an effective Anglican Covenant involve doctrinal substance and disciplinary efficacy. The Nassau and St. Andrews drafts in my opinion are adequate on matters of doctrine and inadequate on discipline, and both fail to deal with the current context of radical departure from the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

My first cheer then is for the doctrinal substance of the Cambridge Ridley Draft. It is orthodox and consistent in the main with the “providential ordering of Anglican history and mission.” While I might wish to express the essence of Anglican Christianity somewhat differently, I do not find myself wincing at glaring deviations from the faith once for all delivered to the saints such as one finds routinely in the speeches and writings emanating from The Episcopal Church. My second “50/50” cheer is for setting forth constitutional principles that might lead to the ultimate reform of the Communion and discipline of those who have thrown it into confusion. Whether the Covenant, as currently proposed, will lead to such a reform is contingent on many twists and turns of ecclesiastical politics, including the response of the GAFCON churches and the willingness of the Instruments, especially the Archbishop of Canterbury, to allow certain churches to self-select themselves out of the Covenant and ultimately the Communion. For let it be clearly stated, there is no future for a vibrant and coherent Anglican and Christian body that includes The Episcopal Church (TEC) and Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) as they now exist.

Introduction
The Introduction to the RCD defines the Covenant and the churches which adopt it in terms of the biblical idea of “communion” (koinonia). While the Introduction is little changed from the previous draft, the title does contain a possibly significant addition: from “The Anglican Covenant” to “The Anglican Communion Covenant.” Now I do not want to read too much into this change prematurely, but it seems to me that one can take it to mean that the real Anglican Communion, the one that conforms to the biblical concept of koinonia, is to be found among those churches that participate in the Covenant, whereas the formal “Anglican Communion” has become a network or forum of churches historically connected to the Church of England but which have widely diverse identities – a true description of the present reality. To be blunt, “we the Churches of the Anglican Communion,” may be in communion with Covenant partners but out of communion with others in the official list of 38 Provinces.

1. “Our Inheritance of Faith”
It should not be surprising that Anglican formularies have a family resemblance. Given, however, the skepticism that has accompanied the Covenant Design Group (CDG) and the controversy surrounding the Global Anglican Future Conference, what is striking is the similarity in what those bodies affirm. I have attempted to outline below the parallel statements of the Preamble and first section of the Ridley Cambridge Draft (RCD) and the Jerusalem Declaration (JD).

RCD Preamble
We, as Churches of the Anglican Communion, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, solemnly covenant together in these following affirmations and commitments. As people of God, drawn from “every nation, tribe, people and language” (Rev 7.9), we do this in order to proclaim more effectively in our different contexts the grace of God revealed in the gospel, to offer God's love in responding to the needs of the world, to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, and together with all God's people to attain the full stature of Christ (Eph 4.3,13).
JD Preface We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, have met in the land of Jesus’ birth. We express our loyalty as disciples to the King of kings, the Lord Jesus. We joyfully embrace his command to proclaim the reality of his kingdom which he first announced in this land. The gospel of the kingdom is the good news of salvation, liberation and transformation for all. In light of the above, we agree to chart a way forward together that promotes and protects the biblical gospel and mission to the world, solemnly declaring the following tenets of orthodoxy which underpin our Anglican identity.

RCD Section 1.1 Each Church affirms:
(1.1.1) its communion in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, worshipping the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
JD Preface In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit:

(1.1.2) the catholic and apostolic faith uniquely revealed in the Holy Scriptures and set forth in the catholic creeds, which faith the Church is called upon to proclaim afresh in each generation. The historic formularies of the Church of England, forged in the context of the European Reformation and acknowledged and appropriated in various ways in the Anglican Communion, bear authentic witness to this faith.(1.1.4) the Apostles' Creed, as the baptismal symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.
JD 3 We uphold the four Ecumenical Councils and the three historic Creeds as expressing the rule of faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
JD 4 We uphold the Thirty-nine Articles as containing the true doctrine of the Church agreeing with God’s Word and as authoritative for Anglicans today.

(1.1.3) the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as containing all things necessary for salvation and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.
JD 2(a) We believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God written and to contain all things necessary for salvation….

(1.1.5) the two sacraments ordained by Christ himself - Baptism and the Supper of the Lord - ministered with the unfailing use of Christ's words of institution, and of the elements ordained by him.(1.1.7) the shared patterns of our common prayer and liturgy which form, sustain and nourish our worship of God and our faith and life together.
JD 6 We rejoice in our Anglican sacramental and liturgical heritage as an expression of the gospel, and we uphold the 1662 Book of Common Prayer as a true and authoritative standard of worship and prayer, to be translated and locally adapted for each culture.

(1.1.6) the historic episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of his Church.
JD 7 We recognise that God has called and gifted bishops, priests and deacons in historic succession to equip all the people of God for their ministry in the world. We uphold the classic Anglican Ordinal as an authoritative standard of clerical orders.

(1.1.8) its participation in the apostolic mission of the whole people of God, and that this mission is shared with other Churches and traditions beyond this Covenant.
JD 9 We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations, to seek those who do not know Christ and to baptise, teach and bring new believers to maturity.

RCD Section 1.2 In living out this inheritance of faith together in varying contexts, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:
(1.2.1) to teach and act in continuity and consonance with Scripture and the catholic and apostolic faith, order and tradition, as received by the Churches of the Anglican Communion, mindful of the common councils of the Communion and our ecumenical agreements.
JD 11 We are committed to the unity of all those who know and love Christ and to building authentic ecumenical relationships. We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration.

(1.2.2) to uphold and proclaim a pattern of Christian theological and moral reasoning and discipline that is rooted in and answerable to the teaching of Holy Scripture and the catholic tradition.(1.2.3) to witness, in this reasoning, to the renewal of humanity and the whole created order through the death and resurrection of Christ, and to reflect the holiness that in consequence God gives to, and requires from, his people.
JD 8 We acknowledge God’s creation of humankind as male and female and the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family. We repent of our failures to maintain this standard and call for a renewed commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married.
JD 10 We are mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation, to uphold and advocate justice in society, and to seek relief and empowerment of the poor and needy.

(1.2.4) to hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the Scriptures in our different contexts, informed by the attentive and communal reading of - and costly witness to - the Scriptures by all the faithful, by the teaching of bishops and synods, and by the results of rigorous study by lay and ordained scholars.
(1.2.5) to ensure that biblical texts are received, read and interpreted faithfully, respectfully, comprehensively and coherently, with the expectation that Scripture continues to illuminate and transform the Church and its members, and through them, individuals, cultures and societies.
JD 2(b) The Bible is to be translated, read, preached, taught and obeyed in its plain and canonical sense, respectful of the church’s historic and consensual reading.

(1.2.6) to encourage and be open to prophetic and faithful leadership in ministry and mission so as to enable God's people to respond in courageous witness to the power of the gospel in the world.
JD Preface The gospel of the kingdom is the good news of salvation, liberation and transformation for all. In light of the above, we agree to chart a way forward together that promotes and protects the biblical gospel and mission to the world,

(1.2.7) to seek in all things to uphold the solemn obligation to nurture and sustain eucharistic communion, in accordance with existing canonical disciplines, as we strive under God for the fuller realisation of the communion of all Christians.(1.2.8) to pursue a common pilgrimage with the whole Body of Christ continually to discern the fullness of truth into which the Spirit leads us, that peoples from all nations may be set free to receive new and abundant life in the Lord Jesus Christ.
JD 12 We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters. We pledge to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues that divide us.

The two documents agree remarkably in what they affirm. The basic differences lie not in what is said but rather left unsaid. The theological framework of the Jerusalem Declaration is governed by the Evangelical emphasis on original sin, vicarious atonement, salvation by grace, justification by faith, and personal regeneration through the Holy Spirit. Hence the following clauses in the Jerusalem Declaration do not find an equivalent in the RCD:

JD 1 We rejoice in the gospel of God through which we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because God first loved us, we love him and as believers bring forth fruits of love, ongoing repentance, lively hope and thanksgiving to God in all things.

JD 5 We gladly proclaim and submit to the unique and universal Lordship of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgement and hell, who lived the life we could not live and died the death that we deserve. By his atoning death and glorious resurrection, he secured the redemption of all who come to him in repentance and faith.

RCD does not deny the Evangelical distinctives of the JD, but its emphasis is on participation in the divine life and cosmic reconciliation offered by Christ through the Church. Rather than a Romans-centred gospel, it is an Ephesians-oriented gospel (not to say Ephesians neglects the fact that “by grace you have been saved by faith”). Whereas JD finds a crucial recovery of biblical truth in the 16th century Reformation, RCD finds its sources in “a rich history of the Church in Britain and Ireland, reshaped by the Reformation” (2.1.2).

While the emphases in the two documents are not mutually exclusive, it does seem to me the tack taken by the RCD tends to avoid or minimize the current crisis in the Communion. According to the RCD, the primary sin burdening the Anglican Communion involves “failures of faith,” “divisions,” and “struggles and weaknesses.” Its primary paradigm for the present church crisis is the fractious Church in Corinth: “I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:12). The GAFCON Statement, on the other hand, identifies a particular fact or sin of our time which has torn the fabric of the Communion asunder.

The first fact is the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ (cf. Galatians 1:6-8) which is contrary to the apostolic gospel. This false gospel undermines the authority of God’s Word written and the uniqueness of Jesus Christ as the author of salvation from sin, death and judgement.

The GAFCON churches hardly claim to be sin-free or perfect (see e.g., JD 8), but they do believe it their duty to call attention to a fundamental denial of biblical truth that has led and continues to lead the Anglican Communion into chaos. They see themselves called to a prophetic and apostolic role (cf. RCD 1.2.6) of warning the church against false teachers and teachings. Their paradigm of today’s Communion is the church of the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles, summoned to a unity of the Spirit grounded in the unity of sound teaching (1 Timothy 6:5-10) in a situation where false teachers are leading the church astray (1 John 4:1-6; Jude 3-7; 2 Peter 3:3; Revelation 2:19-23). This prophetic stance no doubt explains one clause in the Jerusalem Declaration that has no explicit parallel in RCD:

JD 13 We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.

Again, the RCD does not deny the possibility that a church may be heretical, but it does not “discern the spirits” as indicating that such a state of affairs exists in the Communion.

Another difference between the two documents is found in the area of eschatology. The RCD emphasizes a theology of glory and cosmic fulfillment: “God’s communion in Christ with all people.” This is not to say that the RCD is universalistic in offering salvation outside of Christ and His Church. Again, the difference is less in what it affirms than in what it fails to mention: the wrath of God revealed against sin and our spiritual accountability before the judgement seat of Christ (1 Thessalonians 1:10; 2 Corinthians 5:10). In another clause without parallel in RCD, the Jerusalem Declaration makes explicit reference to the last things, in line with the creedal clause that Christ “will come again in glory to judge both the living and the dead.”

JD 14 We rejoice at the prospect of Jesus’ coming again in glory, and while we await this final event of history, we praise him for the way he builds up his church through his Spirit by miraculously changing lives.

It is part of the prophetic and apostolic witness that the Church lives under judgement and is called on to work out its salvation with fear and trembling. This includes the burden to preach the Gospel to all nations: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (cf. John 20:23). The future of souls is at stake in the failure to preach the gospel or in leading Christ’s sheep astray. The gospel is universally offered but salvation is not universally received (1 Timothy 2:4; Romans 10:15-18); hence the Jerusalem Declaration mentions that “Jesus Christ, the Son of God [is] humanity’s only Saviour from sin, judgement and hell…” The Prayer Book similarly contains warnings to lay and clergy who would provoke the indignation of the Lord (cf. Exhortation to Communion; Ordination of a Priest).

The purpose of this comparison between the two documents is not to reject the one and exalt the other. Both, I think, are on the side of the angels. The day may come when the Jerusalem Declaration may in whole or part be joined to the “Inheritance of Faith.” In any case, the comparison does show that they have much in common and differ in matters of articulation.

I want in particular to note the strengthening of the key portion on Scripture in RCD, of which I have been previously critical. It has added a clause (1.2.3) with specific reference to Archbishop Cranmer’s Collect, praying that we should “read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” the Scriptures. Along with the reference to the Lambeth Quadrilateral in 1.1.3, this clause ties the Covenant in more specifically with the Bible itself (1 Timothy 3:16) and with the Reformation position on the sufficiency, primacy, unity and clarity of Scripture (see Articles VI and XX).

It is unfortunate, in my opinion, that the Covenant refrains from naming the “elephant in the room” when it comes to human sexuality. The references in 1.2.2 and 1.2.3 to “moral reasoning” concerning “the renewal of humanity” will be spun to permit just about anything in the postmodern alphabet soup of sexualities. Even so, the plain sense of the oblique references to a “pattern of moral reasoning and discipline that is rooted in and answerable to the teaching of Holy Scripture and the catholic tradition” is surely consonant with norm in 1998 Lambeth Resolution 1.10, in which the Church, “in view of the teaching of Scripture, upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage.” The weakness of these clauses is only a problem if the Covenant includes members who willfully misread its meaning, which is a possibility but not a certainty.

The new clause on Scripture adds one significant phrase about the church’s “costly witness” to the Scriptures. This is not, I think, to be taken as a throwaway line. Indeed from the fires of Oxford to the fires of Namugongo, Anglican Christians have paid a price for their commitment to the Word of God. It is on this basis that many Provinces have separated themselves from TEC and ACoC on the issue of human sexuality. It will be relevant in evaluating under sec. 3.2.5 and 4.2.5 whether churches which break communion with other Anglican churches for reasons they consider a matter of essential and substantial biblical truth have themselves violated the Covenant. In other words, does the Covenant foresee the possibility, within its own ordering of the Inheritance of Faith, that a member church might say to its Covenant partners: “Here we stand, we can do no other!” Of course, the revisionists might make the same prophetic claim to step outside the Covenant framework, the difference being that they have no credible Scriptural ground for doing so.

2. “Our Anglican Vocation”
In my proposed “Blueprint” for the Covenant, I urged that mission be given a prominent place next to doctrinal confession. While Section Two of the Covenant Draft is not called by that name, it is focused on the mission of the Church. The Commentary notes that “the CDG notes that the St. Andrew’s Draft’s treatment of Mission was lighter than the treatment of other sections, and sought to give the section greater weight and substance in the RCD.” This is indeed a welcome expansion.

The term “mission of God” (missio dei) is a vessel into which different contents may be poured, from evangelization to the Millennium Development goals. It is to the credit of the RCD that it includes the various aspects of mission and in the proper order.

This section honours Anglican mission history as well as the “sacrificial witness of Anglicans from around the world (2.1.2), i.e. the role of the martyrs, a key pillar of Anglicanism noted by Archbishop Henry Orombi (“What is Anglicanism? First Things Aug/Sep 2007). In spelling out the five marks of mission, it speaks unapologetically about “bringing all people to repentance and faith” and “making disciples of the nations.” This evangelistic thrust is at odds with pronouncements from revisionists that there are many roads to God and the church does not try to convert people from one road to another.

The combining of evangelization with personal and societal transformation is another feature welcomed by contemporary Evangelicals (see e.g., the Lausanne Covenant, clause 5). There are further parallels between this section and the Jerusalem Declaration as noted below:

2.2 In recognition of these affirmations, each Church, reliant on the Holy Spirit, commits itself:
(2.2.2.b) "to teach, baptize and nurture new believers", making disciples of all nations (Mt 28.19) through the quickening power of the Holy Spirit and drawing them into the one Body of Christ whose faith, calling and hope are one in the Lord (Eph 4.4-6);
JD 9 We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord to make disciples of all nations, to seek those who do not know Christ and to baptise, teach and bring new believers to maturity.

(2.2.2.c) "to respond to human need by loving service", disclosing God's reign through humble ministry to those most needy (Mk 10.42-45; Mt 18.4; 25.31-45); (2.2.3) to engage in this mission with humility and an openness to our own ongoing conversion in the face of our unfaithfulness and failures in witness.
JD 1b Because God first loved us, we love him and as believers bring forth fruits of love, ongoing repentance, lively hope and thanksgiving to God in all things.

(2.2.2.d) "to seek to transform unjust structures of society" as the Church stands vigilantly with Christ proclaiming both judgment and salvation to the nations of the world, and manifesting through our actions on behalf of God's righteousness the Spirit's transfiguring power;(2.2.2.e) "to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain and renew the life of the earth" as essential aspects of our mission in communion.
JD Preface The gospel of the kingdom is the good news of salvation, liberation and transformation for all.
JD 10 We are mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation, to uphold and advocate justice in society, and to seek relief and empowerment of the poor and needy.

3. Our Unity and Common Life
The first two sections are intended as statements of faith and of mission, respectively. The third section is a statement of interdependence, with the resolve “to live in a Communion of Churches” (3.1.2). In accordance with the Lambeth Quadrilateral, it intends to constitute a biblically faithful church, a doctrinally orthodox church, a missionally dynamic church and an episcopally ordered church.

The formal basis of “our unity and common life” is our common participation in Baptism and Eucharist (3.1.1). While acknowledging this clause as far as it goes, I must note that the substantial basis of unity is union with Christ through the Holy Spirit. Not everyone who claims participation in Christ is a sheep of his flock (Matthew 7:22-23), including those who “sing” rather than “say” the Creed as divine Truth.

This general goal is consonant with the intention expressed at the Global Anglican Future Conference:

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, are a fellowship of confessing Anglicans for the benefit of the Church and the furtherance of its mission. We are a fellowship of people united in the communion (koinonia) of the one Spirit and committed to work and pray together in the common mission of Christ. It is a confessing fellowship in that its members confess the faith of Christ crucified, stand firm for the gospel in the global and Anglican context, and affirm a contemporary rule, the Jerusalem Declaration, to guide the movement for the future. We are a fellowship of Anglicans, including provinces, dioceses, churches, missionary jurisdictions, para-church organisations and individual Anglican Christians whose goal is to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world.

Furthermore, all Anglicans affirm the validity of the episcopacy as a form of church governance. This tenet of the Lambeth Quadrilateral is affirmed in RCD 1.1.6 and again in 3.1.3. It is likewise affirmed in JD 7 and in the establishment of a Primates’ Council. Going one step further, the principle of bishops-in-council is affirmed.

(3.1.2) Churches of the Anglican Communion are bound together "not by a central legislative and executive authority, but by mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the bishops in conference" and of the other instruments of Communion.

The notion of conciliarity among bishops (and others) is consonant with the aims of the GAFCON movement as witnessed at the Conference in June 2008. Indeed it forms the basis for the internal governance of the GAFCON Primates’ Council and any later bodies that are formed among the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. Why then did GAFCON form a separate “fellowship of confessing Anglicans”? First of all, it did so, reluctantly but hopefully, in the light of a major breakdown in Anglican polity as detailed in the three undeniable facts: that one or more churches of the Communion had embraced another Gospel; that this deviation had caused many churches to break communion with the offenders; and that the existing Instruments had proved unable to resolve the conflict.

Behind the practical breakdown in the Communion was a constitutional threat: the substitution of political structures for the theological foundations of orthodox Christianity. The GAFCON movement sees itself as restoring the rightful ordering of authorities within the Communion, with doctrine being primary.

Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard, and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it. While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Building on the above doctrinal foundation of Anglican identity, we hereby publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of our fellowship.

The “fellowship” declared that it was not leaving the Anglican Communion but summoning others to join together in its reformation. The “confessing” character of the fellowship was intended to place the identity of the Communion on its common confession of faith if necessary over against important but secondary structures of authority.

Is this reordering of priorities at odds with the Covenant? Not necessarily, I think. First of all, the Covenant itself involves a reordering which emerged out of the current crisis (in response to the Windsor Report). While not claiming to be such, the Covenant itself will be considered an Instrument of the Anglican Communion, indeed a foundational Instrument. It would be pressing the issue to call it a “confessional Instrument,” but it would appear that for those churches that adopt the Covenant, the authority of the formal Instruments of Canterbury, Lambeth Conference, ACC and Primates’ Meeting will become established by the Covenant and may be altered so long as the terms of the Covenant are upheld.

The GAFCON movement has assumed the ongoing validity of the Instruments. The Primates, bishops and other Provincial representatives continue to participate in the Primates’ Meeting and ACC. While many bishops chose not to attend Lambeth, most were issued invitations and some did attend Lambeth 2008. They continue to be active members in other associations like CAPA and the Global South movement. While the GAFCON Statement raised the question of the necessity of the See of Canterbury as a locus of unity, GAFCON churches continue to respect this role and have not attempted to propose any alternative.

For all these reasons, it seems to me that GAFCON churches and bishops could affirm section 3.1.4 as the status quo but as a status quo that could be changed through the Instruments themselves. If the Covenant is truly effective, it will carry authoritative weight within the Instruments including a possible reform of those Instruments.

I suppose many will latch on to the deference in the Covenant to the constitutional autonomy of the various churches of the Communion as a hallmark of the Covenant. They will think of the oft-repeated claims of TEC for its sovereign polity. It does not seem to me, however, that questions of constitutional autonomy will make or break the Covenant. Indeed, the Covenant may simply be accepting a legal and political reality which is inherent in the historic nature of the formation of the Anglican Communion and the corresponding national jurisdictions. Whether a Communion canon law might supplement the Covenant is an open question.

The test of coherence will occur if one or more Provinces adopts the Covenant while simultaneously authorizing practices like same-sex marriage which fly in the face of biblical and Christian moral norms. Sections 3.2.3-3.2.7 try to guard against such a situation, but that assumes a level of integrity among churches that has been singularly lacking over the last decade and more. One notes in particular the phrasing in 3.2.5 that churches must avoid “controversy, which by its intensity, substance or extent could threaten the unity of the Communion or the credibility of its mission.” Can anyone with a straight face claim that TEC or the ACoC have acted in accordance with this clause?

Again, the spirit of Section Three should be perfectly acceptable among orthodox Anglicans, given the many exhortations to unity in the New Testament. For its part, the GAFCON movement has brought together a wide variety of Anglicans from Evangelical, Anglo-Catholic and charismatic backgrounds who have joined together under the Jerusalem Declaration. These Anglicans are not seeking uniformity but unity in that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all.

4. Adopting the Covenant
We now come to the lifeblood of the Covenant, the provisions by which the Covenant will either come to life or be still-born. In my own critique of the earlier drafts, I have called for a clear excommunication clause of this sort (proposed change in italics):

We acknowledge that in the most extreme circumstances, where member churches choose not to fulfil the substance of the covenant as understood by the Councils of Instruments of the Communion, we will consider that such churches have relinquished membership in the Anglican Communion.

I have also commended the disciplinary process found in “To Mend the Net,” the 2001 proposal of Archbishops Gomez and Sinclair, which was deep-sixed by the Communion bureaucracy. The “To Mend the Net” proposal outlined a careful biblically-based process by which the Primates might discern whether a church had departed from Anglican essentials, coming to a relegation to observer status and finally, the recognition of a new jurisdiction. I continue to think this proposal would have staunched the flow of trouble inflicted by TEC on the wider Communion over the past decade. However, it was politically impossible, so long as the offending churches were serving as judges of their own cases.

Ironically, the unwillingness of the Instruments to discipline these churches has led to the piecemeal excommunication by many Provinces of TEC and ACoC and the formation of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. The Jerusalem Declaration explicitly authorizes the GAFCON Provinces as a body to break fellowship with churches and leaders that promote a false gospel:

JD 13 We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.

None of the three Covenant drafts have the kind of straightforward disciplinary approach found in “To Mend the Net” or in the Jerusalem Declaration. It has been argued by some since 2003 that no legal basis exists in Communion law for formal excommunication of a church by one or more of the Instruments and that the Covenant will supply that lack. Whether or not this argument is correct, the absence of an exclusion clause in RCD is a missed opportunity.

Section Four, according to the CDG, is a completely new section mercifully deleting sections 6.5 and 6.6 of the St. Andrew’s Draft and the byzantine process of adjudication that was hidden in an Appendix. The RCD Commentary states:

Section Four is therefore constructed on the fundamental principle of the constitutional autonomy of each Church. The Covenant itself cannot amend or override the Constitution and Canons of any Province. The Instruments of Communion cannot intervene in any jurisdictional way in the internal life of any of the Anglican Churches. The Covenant can only speak to the relationship between the Churches, and of the relational consequences of internal autonomous actions by a Church.

I might note that, so far as I can see, there was nothing in the earlier “To Mend the Net” proposal that violated the constitutional autonomy of a Province, and the proposal outlined precise relational consequences, with the final being withdrawal of recognition of a Province and recognition of a new jurisdiction. So what RCD is proposing now is not really revolutionary. It is only in its reluctance to spell out the relational consequences that it differs from “To Mend the Net.”

Hope for Genuine Discipline
While the RCD does not depart from the approach taken in the earlier Nassau and St. Andrew’s drafts, “Section Four: Our Covenant Life Together” does provide some hope that discipline might at the end of the day be effected. Let me explain why, working in reverse order from 4.2 to 4.1 because I think that the success of the Covenant in reforming the Communion will be more likely determined by who judges themselves compatible to join than by who is later deemed to be incompatible (witness the difficulty of expelling a member, even when they have blatantly violated biblical and Communion norms).

Subsection 4.2 on “Maintenance of the Covenant and Dispute Resolution” lays out a disciplinary procedure whereby a controversial action (3.2.5) by a covenanting church might be brought to the point of adjudication and even excommunication. In an extreme case (read Gene Robinson), the Joint Standing Committee of the Primates and Anglican Consultative Council

may make recommendations as to relational consequences to the Churches of the Anglican Communion or to the Instruments of Communion. These recommendations may address the extent to which the decision of any covenanting church to continue with an action or decision which has been found to be “incompatible with the Covenant” impairs or limits the communion between that Church and the other Churches of the Communion. It may recommend whether such action or decision should have a consequence for participation in the life of the Communion and its Instruments. It shall be for each Church and each Instrument to determine its own response to such a recommendation. (RCD 4.2.5)

One may object to the voluntary “may” language of this clause. One may also ask whether this authority was not already inherent in the various Provinces and Communion Instruments without the backing of a Covenant. Nevertheless, the use of the word “participation” (read koinonia) is surely not accidental. The relational consequences include excommunication. Not only may individual provinces excommunicate a sister province, as has happened over the past six years; but the Instruments are authorized, even advised in certain circumstances, to break communion with an offending Church.

Hence the key disciplinary clause in RCD goes significantly beyond the vague language in the St. Andrew’s Draft (3.2.5e), which states that offensive actions by a covenanting Church might lead to the “relinquishment by that Church of the force and meaning of the covenant’s purpose, until they re-establish their covenant relationship with other member Churches.” It is not clear in the St. Andrew’s draft whether an offending Church would ever be de-listed from the Covenant, much less the Communion itself. In other words, the St. Andrew’s Draft (and Appendix) contains no ultimate threat of excommunication. The Ridley Cambridge Draft does, even if one would wish for greater specificity in spelling out the consequences.

I would characterize Section Four as a “soft power” approach to Communion discipline. There may be an iron fist hidden in its velvet language about “relational consequences.” Nevertheless, we have empirical reasons from the last decade to wonder if the ultimate sanction of excommunication would ever be applied to the point where an alternative jurisdiction is recognized. For this reason, I think the more significant provision of Section Four is the subsection on “Adoption of the Covenant.” Let’s look at this section more closely.

RCD 4.1.1 and 4.1.2 spell out the spiritual basis of the commitment to the Covenant. Both clauses, one implicitly, the other explicitly, refer back to the three previous sections of the Covenant in terms of “a common faith and order, a common inheritance in worship, life and mission, and a readiness to live in an interdependent life” (4.1.1) and “a statement of faith, mission and interdependence of life which is consistent with the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith as it has received them” (4.1.2). It is worth noting that these clauses simultaneously forswear any interference in the polity of a jurisdiction and assert that doctrine, mission and conciliarity – not structures or even the Instruments – are the true basis of koinonia.

Let me note also two small phrases in this section which should be reassuring to conservative Anglicans. The first in 4.1.1 is that entering the Covenant is “a commitment to relationship in submission to God” (italics added). The phrase “in submission to God” should recall the bi-polar passages in the New Testament, calling on Christians to be obedient to the authorities as to the Lord (Romans 13:1-5) and also claiming a Gospel right of dissent, as when Peter said: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29). I would relate the balanced description in RCD 1.2.4 of “communal reading” to the earlier reference to the “costly witness” to the Scriptures. The Covenant, while a binding document not to be entered lightly, and conciliar relationships, however sacred, cannot finally remove one’s obligation to obey God. This freedom may include accepting “relational consequences” of conscientious objection; it can be counterfeited by those who are misled in their minds; but it is nevertheless part of our Gospel inheritance (Galatians 5:1).

The second small phrase in 4.1.2 is the commitment by a covenanting Church to order its life consistent with the principles of the Covenant and “with the doctrine and practice of the Christian faith as it has received them” (italics added). The phrase “as it has received them” recalls of course the role of tradition in Scripture (Deuteronomy 11:18-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:1-6) and “the voice of the Church,” as Richard Hooker puts it, throughout history. For American Anglicans, this phrase may also recall the Preface to the American Prayer Book which allows for liturgical variation “provided that the Substance of the Faith be kept entire”; and the “first promise” in the Ordination service to “be loyal to the doctrine, discipline and worship as this church has received them (1979 BCP, page 526). I among others have argued that Lambeth Resolution 1.10 is just such a statement of biblical and ecumenical doctrine received by the Church. In this case, no Province could in good conscience sign on to the Covenant while rejecting or defying Lambeth 1.10. Of course Episcopal leaders have a habit of “singing the Creed” and crossing the fingers when it comes to biblical and doctrinal truth.

Who Adopts?
Sections 4.1.4 and 4.1.5 answer the question “Who may adopt the Covenant?” The answer is twofold. First, there are those “churches” recognized by the Anglican Consultative Council, currently 38 Provinces and 5 “extra-provincial churches,” connected to Canterbury and one (Cuba) under a Metropolitan Council of North American bishops (see http://www.anglicancommunion.org/tour/index.cfm). These bodies are “invited” to adopt the Covenant by means of their constitutional procedures.

The second group referred to in 4.15 includes “other Churches.” There is no specification as to the identity or status of these churches. These churches are not “invited” to adopt the Covenant as are the first group, and they have no “right of recognition by, or membership of, the Instruments of Communion,” each of which may lay down “conditions” for recognition or membership. This provision, not found in earlier drafts, has revolutionary implications. It suggests that membership in the Covenant and the Communion may not be limited to Provincial territorial jurisdictions.

This provision has already stirred up lively debate on the right and on the left (see http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/21682/ and http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/anglican_communion/a_troubling_interpretation.html). In a response to an online question I asked about this section, “whether there is an explicit or implicit understanding that ‘We, as Churches of the Anglican Communion...’ can include entities other than the 38 Provinces,” Ephraim Radner, a member of CDG, gives his opinion:

Dr. Noll asks one of the question[s] very much in some people’s minds. The answer is that the word “church” is not carefully defined because it would have been overly limiting of a number of potential situations we did not feel it was wise to constrain in advance, including churches now in a relationship of ecumenical partnership, as well as future uniting churches, currently extra-jurisdictional dioceses, or future ones, etc.. The specific issue of ACNA or an individual diocese in a non-covenanting province was placed on the table, discussed at length, and we agreed that no limitation on this possibility would be defined. I.e., of course ACNA or such a diocese can sign and formally request recognition and participation. (The latter might finally function under some metropolitan aegis as currently happens with e.g. Lusitania.) The seeming inconsistency between the Preamble and these kinds of possibilities was noted, and understood to be acceptable as the price paid for the organic transformation of the Communion under the covenant…: the Communion is not static.

In a parallel dialogue with Jim Naughton of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, Dr. Radner suggests that “Southern Baptists could adopt the Covenant; Moravians could; a diocese could; a parish could,” but clearly the Covenant is addressed to Anglicans, in which case the last two entities in the series are more to the point, and this raises suspicions on the Left that the Covenant is part of a conspiracy to sideline or exclude Provinces like TEC, which might choose not to adopt the Covenant. Dr. Radner denies that this is so:

[The Covenant] was not designed to find a way to kick TEC out of the Communion; but nor was it designed as a way of permanently shutting down the alternative voices of those who have left TEC over the past few years, but may wish to engage the life of the Communion on the basis of teachings and witness that cohere with other parts of that Communion. Designing something that would provide a means of -- though certainly not the necessity for -- reordering the commitments of both these groups in terms of relations, consultation, and decision-making in a Christian fashion is obviously not easy.

I see no point in sniffing out conspiratorial motives on the part of the Covenant drafters (certainly there were liberals on the CDG), but it does seem to me that the Covenant should be an instrument for pruning the wild branches of the Communion, and if it does not, it will serve little or no purpose. This is why the section on Adoption is of crucial importance: it provides the means of a Province that cannot in good conscience uphold biblical and Anglican teaching to self-select out, out of the Covenant and perhaps ultimately out of the Communion.

The Politics of Adoption
Given the premise that GAFCON churches and the revisionist Provinces of North America cannot as they now stand simply come together in a genuine communion relationship, the following permutations seem set for the adoption of the Covenant:

Scenario A. GAFCON churches adopt the Covenant and TEC/ACoC refuse to adopt.
Scenario B. TEC/ACoC adopt the Covenant and GAFCON Churches refuse to adopt.
Scenario C. Both GAFCON churches and TEC/ACoC adopt the Covenant.
Scenario D. Both GAFCON churches and TEC/ACoC refuse to adopt the Covenant.

If my analysis above is correct, it should be logically and theologically easier for the GAFCON Churches to adopt the Covenant than for the revisionists. Therefore scenario A is one that the GAFCON churches should consider carefully and certainly not reject out of hand. Scenario B is, however, quite possible, especially given GAFCON’s cool response to the Covenant to date and the revisionists’ practice of realpolitik. Crossing their fingers and signing on might be tactically smart for the revisionists, in that they might gain influence over the “middle of the road” Provinces that join. If, however, they sign on at the same time they are moving forward with their theological and political agenda, it may subvert the Covenant process and drive the “middle of the road” churches to embrace the GAFCON churches as their natural fellows. Scenario C would maintain the status quo ante and doom the Covenant to irrelevance. Scenario D would make the Covenant a weak reed, with little influence among the governing Instruments.

It is my conclusion that the GAFCON churches should move to the front of the queue and sign on to the Covenant. GAFCON was very clear that it does not plan on leaving the Communion, indeed that it is seeking its reformation. How better than taking initiative and setting the precedent for Covenant membership and direction? Apart from the political reasons cited above, I think the Covenant is a good thing in principle and the Ridley Cambridge Draft is the best version we are going to get (note provision for amendment in 4.4.2). So two cheers is reason enough to support this latest proposal.

Here is a final consideration: when all the dust settles, what will the Covenant actually do for those who join it? If it simply preserves the status quo, then it will be a waste of time. If, however, the various partners who are theologically orthodox reunite under the Covenant and refocus on the work of mission and mutual up-building – the kind of thing which the Global South alliance was beginning to do - much good can come for the Churches of the Anglican Communion.

Having commended adoption of the Covenant by GAFCON churches, I am certainly not recommending that the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans fold its tents and simply wait for the wider Communion to sort itself out. It is quite possible that ecclesiastical politics, which have not served the cause of Christ and His Church well over the last decade, may again subvert any good that could come from the Covenant effort. I do not think therefore that the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans should abandon the work they have begun. Whichever scenario comes to pass, there will still be a need for the churches represented by the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans to be working and praying for the spread of Christ’s Kingdom. So whether with the Covenant or without it, Archbishop Greg Venables’ final words at the Global Anglican Future Conference ring true for faithful Anglicans: “Let’s get on with it, to the glory of God!”

The Factuality of Easter As the Foundation of Our Confidence

2009-04-12T21:22:00.000-07:00

It is early Easter Monday here in Mukono. The mosque has just announced it with the call to prayer! The Christians, I suspect, may be sleeping in, as Easter Monday is a national holiday, and there was much feasting yesterday.

Our Easter at UCU got off to a wet start. On Saturday afternoon, we had a brief but violent rainstorm pass through. It knocked down two big trees on campus, a fact that caused me to reflect and give thanks for the fact that in the nine years we have been here, we have not had a tree fall on anyone or even on any major building – which is quite an “act of God,” considering the number of large and beautiful trees on campus.

The wetness continued into Sunday morning. I woke up to the sound of steady rain, thinking, “Oh this will not be good for attendance at church services, especially with so many people having to walk.” I was wrong for us at least: Nkoyoyo Hall was full to overflowing and the generator lighted us up, even though the power had been knocked out by the storm.

The student choirs were in good form, with relevant contemporary numbers like “Celebrate Jesus” and “Alive, alive, alive for evermore” and “Because he lives.” When they are not singing contemporary music or vernacular choruses, Ugandan choirs draw on Victorian hymnody, in part a throwback, I suspect, to the missionary past. This was particularly true on Good Friday (“There is a green hill far away,” “In the Garden”). Could do a lot worse. For Easter one favorite that somehow escaped the Episcopal Hymnals is “Low in the Grave He Lay” (http://nethymnal.org/htm/l/i/lintgrav.htm).

The Victorian hymn that always touches me on Easter is “Thine Be the Glory,” which also managed to elude the Episcopal hymn editors, even with the pedigree of Handel’s score. In particular, I like the lines:

No more we doubt Thee,
Glorious Prince of Life.
Life is naught without Thee,
Aid us in our strife.

Which brings me to what I consider the particular message of Easter Day itself: the factuality of the Resurrection as the foundation of our faith. I have written on this subject a couple times (http://www.stephenswitness.com/2008/03/jesus-greatest-miracle.html and http://www.stephenswitness.com/2007/08/empty-tomb-sacrament-of-material-god.html) and quoted Updike’s poem on the Resurrection (see below).

Last night in reading over some blogs, I came across a piece by A.S. Haley, “The Anglican Curmudgeon” writing on the Shroud of Turin (see http://accurmudgeon.blogspot.com/2009/04/playing-back-resurrection.html). I have not followed the debate closely for the past thirty years over this mysterious piece of linen, which many have claimed to be the very burial cloth of Jesus. I think I may have been influenced by the “assured results” of some carbon dating in the late 80s that placed the Shroud as a forgery of the late Middle Ages. But Haley, who is a stickler for legal evidence, suggests that there is now new evidence that the carbon dating was in error and a new discovery in the Vatican archives indicates that the Shroud can be traced to Constantinople in an earlier century.

I do not know where the renewed investigation of the Shroud will end up, but I do want to make one simple point. There once was a Shroud of Jesus. Peter and John saw it (John 20:5-7), and there is good reason to think the disciples and church would have treasured it. Similarly, we can’t know for certain where the Empty Tomb of Jesus was located. In the Holy Land, the “Garden Tomb” attracts tourists because of its ambiance, but the incense-soaked shrine at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is the more likely place. Once again, the fact remains: Joseph of Arimathea had a real stone tomb, and Jesus’ body was placed there (John 19:38). But on Easter Day, the tomb was empty, and there were multiple witnesses to this fact.

Christian faith cannot be proven by facts, but it could be disproven by facts. The Jews knew this when they called for a guard on the tomb (Matthew 27:63-64), and modern doubters have offered various theories, all of them quite unconvincing apart from the mere assertion: “We know that miracles do not happen; therefore there must be some explanation.” The fact of the resurrection is the foundation of our personal confidence in Jesus’ risen life, even though that confidence goes far beyond the bare fact. Nevertheless, the foundation is important. The Handel hymn verse moves from doubt to life and life to strife. As a former doubter, I can attest to the change which faith in Christ brings and the life in the Spirit flows from God into our hearts. But I can also attest that doubt is never far from us, and to aid us in our strife, we need all the ammunition we can get, and this includes the apostolic witness to the truth of Jesus’ Resurrection.

In his Easter Sermon at UCU, Chaplain Frederick Baalwa made the point that the question “Who will roll the stone away?” reminds us that we do not need to worry about many things that might happen (“Will I find a husband?” “Will I get a job after Graduation?”) because God knows our need beforehand and will roll the stone away when the time comes. Again, factuality trumps fears and fantasies.

In another Easter Sermon (http://www.kendallharmon.net/t19/index.php/t19/article/21804/), Abp. Rowan Williams states: “St Paul in today's epistle [1 Corinthians 15] makes it clear that to speak of Jesus' resurrection is also to say something crucial about who and where we are, not just to make a claim about the past.” Fair enough, but Paul also makes clear that Jesus’ Resurrection is a fact witnessed by more than 500 and that if they were wrong, “your faith is futile and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17).

Abp. Williams’ point is similar to that made in the pietistic hymn, “He lives!”

He lives, he lives,
Christ Jesus lives today,
He walks with me and talks with me
Along life’s narrow way.
He lives, he lives,
Salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know he lives?
He lives within my heart.

I do not for a moment doubt that to appropriate the power of the Resurrection, a person must receive Jesus into his heart. Indeed this is the message of Pentecost and the Pentecost season of the church year. But for one day, let us stop and relish the factuality, the materiality of the Resurrection. To return to Updike’s stanzas (would that he had heeded them!):

Seven Stanza at Easter
Make no mistake: if he rose at all
It was as His body;
If the cell's dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit,
The amino acids rekindle,
The Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
Each soft spring recurrent;
It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the
Eleven apostles;
It was as His flesh; ours.

The same hinged thumbs and toes
The same valved heart
That--pierced--died, withered, paused, and then regathered
Out of enduring Might
New strength to enclose.

Let us not mock God with metaphor,
Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence,
Making of the event a parable, a sign painted in the faded
Credulity of earlier ages:
Let us walk through the door.

The stone is rolled back, not papier-mache,
Not a stone in a story,
But the vast rock of materiality that in the slow grinding of
Time will eclipse for each of us
The wide light of day.

And if we have an angel at the tomb,
Make it a real angel,
Weighty with Max Planck's quanta, vivid with hair, opaque in
The dawn light, robed in real linen
Spun on a definite loom.

Let us not seek to make it less monstrous,
For our own convenience, our own sense of beauty,
Lest, awakened in one unthinkable hour, we are embarrassed
By the miracle,
And crushed by remonstrance.

Have a Happy Easter Week!

Stephen

I wrote the following blog post for our UCU listserve.

THE FUTURE OF THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION COVENANT in Light of the Global Anglican Future Conference

2009-01-25T03:52:00.000-08:00

The call for an Anglican Communion Covenant resulted directly from the Windsor Report (sec. 113-120), and the Windsor Report itself was a crisis response document. It is therefore not possible or desirable to evaluate any document that emerges from a drafting process without asking the question: “Will it address the crisis facing the Communion?”

That said, the crisis has also raised issues of the identity and governance of the Anglican Communion that have lain dormant for many decades. From time to time, the Lambeth Conference began to address these issues, but more often than not it punted them further down the field. Now many of us feel that the conflicts and contradictions of Anglican identity and governance must be squarely faced. A covenant could be just the sort of document to do this. Or not.

It is my contention in this essay that the official Anglican Covenant process under the direction of Abp. Drexel Gomez will not be able to produce an adequate document to meet the requirements of the hour. In the two years since the formation of the Covenant Drafting Group in September 2006, a new team has taken the field, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. Meeting in Jerusalem in June 2008, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) published a statement of identity – “The Jerusalem Declaration” – and formed a Primates’ Council claiming extraordinary authority to separate from a heterodox Province or to recognize an orthodox Province. It seems likely that this Council will soon recognize a North American Province separate from The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

Despite the advent of the GAFCON movement, representing nearly half the Anglicans in the world, the Lambeth Conference proceeded with business as usual, including the promotion of the existing Covenant process, which now faces the likely outcome of being rejected by both orthodox and revisionist wings of the Communion. It is now time to step back and reexamine the process and principles of the Covenant. It is my conviction that the Anglican Communion is a house divided against itself, and that no covenant can ignore this fact without becoming irrelevant and hypocritical.

The Covenant Process

The Covenant process, like the Windsor process, is the brainchild of the Archbishop of Canterbury and several of his top advisors. This fact cannot be ignored. Rowan Williams has repeatedly expressed the view that, given enough time for patient listening and dialogue, the two apparently opposite theological poles, which I shall call orthodox and revisionist, can be reconciled in a creative synthesis. No doubt this philosophical position is reinforced by the real fear that having to choose one side or the other would lead to the division of the Communion. So in any process the Archbishop requires that all must have a voice.

But it is more complicated than that. The Archbishop and his advisors seem to have concluded that within the orthodox and revisionist camps, the “fundamentalists” of both groups should be excluded and the leadership be inhabited only by the “moderates,” namely, those who agree with the premise that “unity” is the preeminent virtue and that schism is the ultimate vice. In practical terms, this means that only “institutionalist” evangelicals and catholics on one side and establishment revisionists, i.e., those who are not notorious unilateralists on the other, are participants in these processes.

I intend to address here only the role of evangelicals in the Covenant process. In doing so, I shall have to indulge in what may seem self-serving narrative about my role over the past few years. I have been a recognized evangelical combatant in the debates within the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion for almost twenty years. In terms of the Covenant, I gave an address in 2005 on “The Global Anglican Communion: A Blueprint” and was chosen to serve on the Global South Drafting Group, which began working on an independent draft in early 2006. I was also asked to help draft “The Road to Lambeth” statement, which warned that unless the Episcopal Church were disciplined prior to Lambeth 2008, many bishops would not attend. In the latter capacity, I attended the Global South Primates’ meeting at Kigali where it was announced that Rowan Williams had appointed Abp. Drexel Gomez to chair the Lambeth Drafting Group. At that point, the Global South group ceased to function. Abp. Orombi then nominated me to be a member of the Covenant Drafting group. It would seem reasonable that a theologian with experience of both the Global South and the Episcopal Church would be a good choice for such a group. In the end, however, I was named to a “corresponding group.” So Uganda, the second largest province of the Communion, had no representative in drafting the Covenant, whereas the Episcopal Church had two representatives, one an institutionalist catholic and the other an institutional apologist for the actions of 2003. So far as I can see, no conservative evangelical and no one who subsequently attended GAFCON, serves on the Drafting Team.

In my role as a consultant, I have sent four submissions to the Covenant Design group. My most substantial attempt at consultation was entitled “An Evangelical Commentary on the Draft Covenant” (2007) based on the first “Nassau” draft. I attempted in that critique to propose a minimal number of changes to the draft which would at the same time meet the concerns that conservative evangelicals would want to see in order to own the Covenant. Although I submitted this critique directly to the Chairman of the Drafting Group and it was circulated widely on the internet and to a group of bishops in Oxford, none of these amendments made it into the St. Andrew’s draft. Similarly, I have joined in in two submissions from the Church of Uganda, neither of which has seen the light of day.

The moral of my story is this: the drafting process is skewed in such a way that the legitimate concerns of orthodox evangelicals and traditionalists will not be represented in the final Covenant document. The process itself is faulty in such a way that even orthodox men like Archbishops Gomez and Chew cannot produce an effective Covenant. It is part and parcel of the method used at Lambeth 2008 that produced a hodge-podge “Lambeth Indaba” with no authority and no conclusions. This process seems doomed to get worse, as the recent “Lambeth Commentary” proposes to subject subsequent drafts to yet further equivocation.

In the present political context, “time is not our friend,” as we say in Uganda. Inaction means victory for the revisionist party, which can proceed to carry out its “long march through the institutions” without fear of discipline. Over against those who urge patience in letting the Windsor and Covenant processes play out, there are more than a thousand Anglicans and 250 bishops who have concluded that there is no other way to preserve and reform the Communion than a movement independent of the Lambeth bureaucracy. They have concluded that a process orchestrated by Canterbury is not capable of addressing the crisis of the house divided, and whether or not that process meanders on or rushes on to completion, the resulting draft will be unacceptable.

What is Needed in an Anglican Covenant

In my view, the two essential ingredients of an effective Anglican Covenant involve doctrinal substance and disciplinary efficacy. The Nassau and St. Andrews drafts in my opinion are adequate on matters of doctrine and inadequate on discipline, and both fail to deal with the current context of radical departure from the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Both drafts have a section on doctrine echoing the Lambeth Quadrilateral: “The Life We Share: Common Catholicity, Apostolicity and Confession of Faith” (Nassau); and “Our Inheritance of Faith” (St. Andrews). These sections are the strongest part of the Covenant drafts, and many evangelicals can affirm them as far as they go; however, the treatment of the Thirty-Nine Articles, in relegating them by name to a footnote (St. Andrews) and stating merely that they “bear significant witness” to the faith, is problematic.

The next section of the drafts, which addresses matters of hermeneutics and ethics, contains several weaknesses, both critical in the present context. Here is the comparison of the two drafts with my proposed emendations in the “Evangelical Commentary” with proposed changes in the latter higlighted.

NASSAU DRAFT

3 Our Commitment to Confession of the Faith
(Deuteronomy 30.11-14, Psalm 126, Mark 10.26-27, Luke 1.37, 46-55, John 8: 32, 14:15-17, 1 Corinthians 11.23-26,2 Timothy 3:10-4:5;)

In seeking to be faithful to God in their various contexts, each Church commits itself to:

1. uphold and act in continuity and consistency with the catholic and apostolic faith, order and tradition, biblically derived moral values and the vision of humanity received by and developed in the communion of member Churches; ...

3. ensure that biblical texts are handled faithfully, respectfully, comprehensively and coherently, primarily through the teaching and initiative of bishops and synods, and building on our best scholarship, believing that scriptural revelation must continue to illuminate, challenge and transform cultures, structures and ways of thinking;

ST. ANDREWS DRAFT

Section One: Our Inheritance of Faith
1.2 In living out this inheritance of faith together in varying contexts, each Church of the Communion commits itself:
(1.2.1) to uphold and act in continuity and consonance with Scripture and the catholic and apostolic faith, order and tradition;
(1.2.2) to uphold and proclaim a pattern of Christian theological and moral reasoning and discipline that is rooted in and answerable to the teaching of Holy Scripture and the catholic tradition and that reflects the renewal of humanity and the whole created order through the death and resurrection of Christ and the holiness that in consequence God gives to, and requires from, his people;
(1.2.4) to ensure that biblical texts are handled faithfully, respectfully, comprehensively and coherently, primarily through the teaching and initiative of bishops and synods, and building on habits and disciplines of Bible study across the Church and on rigorous scholarship, believing that scriptural revelation continues to illuminate and transform individuals, cultures and societies;...

EVANGELICAL COMMENTARY

3 Our Commitment to Confession of the Faith
(Deuteronomy 30.11-14, Psalm 126, Mark 10.26-27, Luke 1.37, 46-55, John 8: 32, 14:15-17, 1 Corinthians 11.23-26,2 Timothy 3:10-4:5;)

In seeking to maintain the faith given once for all to the saints, each Church commits itself to:

1. uphold and act in continuity and consistency with the catholic and apostolic faith, order and tradition, and the historic Anglican formularies;

2. uphold the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as God’s Word written and to ensure that biblical texts are interpreted in their plain and canonical sense, through the preaching and teaching of pastors, the regular reading of the people, and the oversight of bishops and synods, building on our best scholarship, believing that scriptural revelation must continue to illuminate, challenge and transform cultures, structures and ways of thinking;

4. uphold the vision of humanity as male and female and our Lord’s teaching on the unchangeable standard of marriage of one man and one woman (or abstinence);

I gave the following justification for the proposed amendments to this section:

Explanation: The amended introductory phrase recalls the “once for all” character of the Christian faith, as contended for by St. Jude. The catholic and apostolic nature of the Church is given its due in subsection 1, along with the Reformation insights mentioned above.

I believe the authority of Scripture should receive a separate subsection (2) and be given priority in the order of “Word and Sacrament.”

The use of the phrase “God’s Word written” from Article XX is of great importance in the present crisis of authority. I propose interpretation in the “plain and canonical sense” as a somewhat stronger wording to stress the Reformation emphasis on the clarity and unity of Scripture, and I note the joint responsibility of upholding Scripture by people, pastors, scholars and bishops as a classic application of biblical authority.

Finally, I think that the Covenant should openly confront the presenting error of our day: the substitution of personal sexual fulfillment for obedience to God’s order of marriage and procreation. I refer to the “unchangeable standard” of marriage in the words of Resolution 66 (Lambeth 1920).

So in conclusion, the doctrinal component of the Draft Covenants could form a theological basis for Communion faith and mission, if it could be strengthened at key points, but these are the very points at which the current process will move, if at all, in the wrong direction.

When we turn to the question of effective discipline, both drafts are deficient in lacking a final point of excommunication, a.k.a “walking apart.” Now we should all agree that a process of discipline must be careful, with a “strategy of time” in which issues can be clarified and parties can change their minds and actions. In this regard, I think a return to the process proposed by Abps. Gomez and Sinclair in “To Mend the Net” is in order (see Appendix). In any case, process without end makes a mockery of discipline. So the exclusion clause is essential to an effective covenant, and this is the place where the current Draft Covenants fail. Again, I compare the key clauses with my proposed amendment highlighted.

NASSAU DRAFT

6 Unity of the Communion
(Nehemiah 2.17,18, Mt. 18.15-18, 1 Corinthians 12, 2 Corinthians 4.1-18, 13: 5-10, Galatians 6.1-10)

9 We acknowledge that in the most extreme circumstances, where member churches choose not to fulfil the substance of the covenant as understood by the Councils of the Instruments of Communion, we will consider that such churches will have relinquished for themselves the force and meaning of the covenant’s purpose, and a process of restoration and renewal will be required to re-establish their covenant relationship with other member churches.

ST. ANDREWS DRAFT

Section Three: Our Unity and Common Life
(3.2.5.e) Any such request [for discipline] would not be binding on a Church unless recognised as such by that Church. However, commitment to this covenant entails an acknowledgement that in the most extreme circumstances, where a Church chooses not to adopt the request of the Instruments of Communion, that decision may be understood by the Church itself, or by the resolution of the Instruments of Communion, as a relinquishment by that Church of the force and meaning of the covenant’s purpose, until they re-establish their covenant relationship with other member Churches.

EVANGELICAL COMMENTARY

6 Unity of the Communion
(Nehemiah 2.17,18, Mt. 18.15-18, 1 Corinthians 12, 2 Corinthians 4.1-18, 13: 5-10, Galatians 6.1-10)

9. We acknowledge that in the most extreme circumstances, where member churches choose not to fulfil the substance of the covenant as understood by the Councils of the Instruments of Communion, we will consider that such churches will have relinquished membership in the Anglican Communion.

*****

The Nassau and St. Andrews drafts refuse to concede that at some point membership in the Communion ceases and an alternative jurisdiction is necessary. The tortured nature of the language in this section suggests that a final blow will never fall. Rowan Williams has opined at times about the possibility of levels of membership in the Communion, an idea suggested in the St. Andrews draft which speaks of “degrees” of communion (sec. 3.2.6). At no point do these documents recognize the possibility that a church might be heretical and impenitent, and the process laid out in the Appendix to the St. Andrews draft is so byzantine that it is hard to imagine any member would ever be excluded. Such a “gentlemanly” approach to unity within the Anglican Communion may have sufficed during periods of our history, but it is totally inadequate to deal with the kind of division that now exists.

GAFCON and the Covenant

The Global Anglican Future Conference had the look of a constitutional assembly. To be sure, those present stated clearly that their purpose was reform of, not departure from, the Communion. But the production of a Declaration and the formation of a Primates’ Council, acclaimed by the entire assembly, recalls scenes of biblical covenant-making or -renewal (Deuteronomy; Joshua 24).

The Jerusalem Declaration itself mirrors elements of the two Covenant drafts in certain ways. The first seven clauses are primarily addressed to the “inheritance of faith” as found in the Scriptures, the Creeds and Councils, the Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer and Ordinal. The second seven clauses address a number of contemporary issues, including “the unchangeable standard of Christian marriage between one man and one woman as the proper place for sexual intimacy and the basis of the family” and the “commitment to lifelong fidelity in marriage and abstinence for those who are not married” (clause 8).

The Declaration lays down the basis for excommunication, although it does not spell out the process whereby that end point is reached:

We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord. (clause 13)

Clause 13 is not merely hypothetical. The Global Anglican Future Statement includes an indictment of some churches and bishops who have embraced a different “gospel,” causing orthodox provinces to declare themselves out of communion with them. It is because the existing Instruments of Unity have proved ineffective in dealing with this situation that the GAFCON movement and Primates’ Council commends the temporary arrangement of cross-border jurisdiction and the final recognition of a North American province outside The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

The spirit of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is not separatist or puritanical but ecumenical, with the hope of a recovery of a generous and dynamic orthodoxy, as reflected in the Jerusalem Declaration:

We are committed to the unity of all those who know and love Christ and to building authentic ecumenical relationships. We recognise the orders and jurisdiction of those Anglicans who uphold orthodox faith and practice, and we encourage them to join us in this declaration. (clause 11)

The necessary discipline of the Communion at this time may be painful, including the abnormal breaking of historic ties, but its goal is “the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

The Form of Communion Governance

The present crisis has brought into focus another area in need of reform: the governance of the Communion. The Global Anglican Future Conference resulted from the failure of the Instruments of Unity to work properly to discipline erring members. While the Anglican Communion was originally established as a colonial council of bishops, the direction for the past thirty years has been toward conciliar governance through the Primates. The overturning of this direction by the Archbishop of Canterbury following the meeting in Dar es Salaam led in a straight line to GAFCON and the formation of a Primates’ Council as a governing body of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. Clearly, the informal, even arbitrary way in which the Archbishop of Canterbury has exercised his authority calls for some sort of constitutional regulation. The Windsor Report speculated on the need for a stronger primacy for Canterbury. The GAFCON movement trends in the opposite direction: toward full conciliarity among churches and bishops. The idea of conciliar governance does not contradict the idea of a Primus inter pares, but it is not clear that this role needs to be tied to Canterbury, especially in light of the specific legal entanglements of Establishment. Clearly there is a need for a clarification of matters of autonomy among provinces and the roles of synods and bishops in leadership. These matters should also be addressed by a covenant.

Conclusion

The idea of a Covenant, or call it a Communion Constitution and Canons, is necessary if the Communion is to maintain the special identity of Anglican theology, worship, polity and mission. The current covenant process established by the Archbishop of Canterbury will not be able to reach that end, because it is compromised by failing to identify the brokenness of the Communion and by including those who have broken it in the Covenant process itself. In the meantime, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans has emerged, by the grace of God, and this Fellowship has many aims in common with those who are seeking a Covenant.

I would suggest the following steps for those who wish to see a sound and effective Covenant.

1. Affirm the Jerusalem Declaration;
2. Call for the reconsideration of “To Mend the Net” as a step toward genuine discipline (see below);
3. Call for an extraordinary meeting of the Covenant Drafting Group and the leadership of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans to find a way forward.

It would be most helpful if conservatives who did not favour GAFCON would join in this effort, as it will be in the interest of all Anglicans to find a way forward which is faithful to our heritage and open to Christ’s mission in the world.

Appendix: “To Mend the Net” (expounded)

The following steps in a disciplinary process are mentioned in the proposal “To Mend the Net,” pages 20-22. See To Mend the Net: Anglican Faith and Order for Renewed Mission, eds. Drexel W. Gomez and Maurice W. Sinclair (Carrollton, Tex.: Ekklesia Society, 2001). I have expanded and expounded a bit on each step in the process, with two concluding notes.

1. Self-examination by Primates. Jesus’ warning to “judge not lest you be judged” is a gospel truth: people are often ready to cast the speck from their neighbour’s eye while ignoring the log in their own (Matthew 7:1-5). For this reason, St. Paul urges us to “examine yourselves that to see whether you are holding your faith” (2 Corinthians 13:5). In the weighty matter of breaking communion, leaders must be particularly vigilant of their own hearts.

2. Educative Role of Primates. Heresy is rooted in deceptive, worldly understandings (Colossians 2:8). Hence it is important for leaders, in separating themselves from such understandings, to give an orthodox “explanation for the hope that is within” them (1 Peter 3:15).

3. Advanced Sharing among Primates. Any decision to break communion should involve patient consultation among orthodox leaders to establish the reasons that such separation is justified.

4. Preparation of Guidelines. Leaders should work according to established guidelines and not act arbitrarily in a crisis mentality.

5. Godly Admonition. Admonition is out of favour in today’s tolerant climate, yet it is still essential to church leadership (1 Thessalonians 5:12). So orthodox leaders must give clear warning and time for repentance to those who have gone astray.

6. Relegation to Observer Status. Paul urges the Corinthians to deliver the sinner to Satan “so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 5:5). Seen in a church context, those provinces or bishops who violate the orthodox faith should, after due warning, be relegated to a status where they may repent before it is too late.

7. Continued Evangelism and Pastoral Oversight. This step justifies “interventions” in jurisdictions that are, in effect, on probation. Observer status creates a vacuum of proclamation for those who are trapped in these jurisdictions and need pastoral care as well as for those who have never heard the Gospel. During this probation period, the work of the church must go on, even if it is opposed by those being disciplined.

8. Recognition of a New Jurisdiction. There comes a time in the disciplinary process when it is acknowledged that those who have offended will not repent, that they have hardened their hearts to the Gospel (Hebrews 4:4-6). The process of discipline therefore may require the formation of an alternative jurisdiction, under new leadership.

Note 1: “To Mend the Net” was submitted with a sense of urgency to the Primates’ Meeting at Kanuga (USA) in March, 2001, but was discussed only at a “fireside chat.” It was then referred to the Inter-Anglican Commission on Doctrine and Theology (IADTC). Although the Kanuga Primates’ Meeting chaired by George Carey. Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Wales was present at that meeting and no doubt consented to its demise, based on his comments on the March 2000 Primates’ Meeting in Portugal: “Anglicanism has always been wary of a central executive power…. The primates’ meeting showed no signs of wanting to become a ruling synod.” In the final Report of the IADTC (2008), “To Mend the Net” is not even mentioned.

Note 2: It can be justly asked whether the breaking of communion with the North American provinces by the GAFCON Primates (and others) has “overstepped” the process laid out in “To Mend the Net.” In one sense, the answer is yes, because these Provinces have been dealing with an unprecedented situation. However, one could also argue that Lambeth 1.10 concluded steps 1-5 and the remaining steps have been followed by the successive Primates’ Meetings through Dar es Salaam.

THE DECLINE AND FALL (AND RISING AGAIN) OF THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION

2009-01-16T16:31:00.000-08:00

Address Given at Mere Anglicanism Conference, 16 January 2009

This paper is dedicated to my bishop, the Rt. Rev. Robert W. Duncan, the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh. I am proud to serve under his wise and courageous leadership and to contribute this token of theology for the cause of Christ.

In Africa, it is expected that every speaker be prepared to give his testimony on request, and I am going to take this opportunity to share something of my testimony in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion running alongside a much more significant story: of how the judgment of God has fallen on the Communion and how the mercy of God is still operative.[1]

I do not intend to concentrate on the decline and fall of the Episcopal Church, which others like Philip Turner have documented on various occasions.[2] My story will cover the dozen years from the trial of Bishop Walter Righter to the Global Anglican Future Conference in Jerusalem in June 2008, with a brief vista of the way ahead.

The Righter Trial

The Righter Trial, as I see it, was the last serious attempt of the orthodox Episcopal hierarchy to stem the tide of radical revisionism which had been growing steadily since the 1960s with Bishop James Pike and from the 1970s on with Bishop John Spong. To give a brief review of events, Spong had ordained a practicing homosexual named Robert Williams in 1989, which caused a bare majority of bishops to disassociate themselves from his action.[3] In 1991, in reaction to this clear violation of biblical and Episcopal Church norms, Bishop William Frey had proposed a canon stating that “all members of this Church shall abstain from genital relations outside of holy matrimony.” The canon failed. By 1994, although the General Convention continued to mouth assent to the “traditional teaching” against homosexual practice, bishops were beginning to openly ordain homosexuals in many dioceses (three of the judges on the Righter Court had done so). Conservatives decided that the only resort feasible and conscionable was to bring a presentment against such a bishop, and since Spong’s action had just passed the five-year statute of limitations, they chose his assistant bishop, Walter Righter, who had ordained Barry Stopfel, another practicing homosexual, in 1990. So in 1995 Righter was presented for trial for holding and teaching doctrine contrary to that of the Episcopal Church, and the trial was set for early 1996.

On New Year’s Day 1996, I received a phone call from Bishop John Howe, one of the Presenters – a.k.a. “ten evil men” to the liberal church media – asking if I would help in writing the legal briefs. As a result, I wrote two pieces of theology, one on doctrine and one on discipline.[4] Firstly, I laid out the substantive case to the effect that Righter’s act did indeed involve “holding and teaching” a doctrine contrary to that held by the one holy catholic and apostolic church, of which the Episcopal Church claimed to be a part.[5] I summed up thus:

There is overwhelming evidence that the Church universal, and the Episcopal Church in particular, has held and continues to hold the doctrine that “physical sexual expression is appropriate only within the lifelong monogamous commitment of husband and wife.” The corollary of this moral doctrine is that homosexual practice is contrary to the will of God and incapable of serving as an example to God’s people. The fact that the affirmation of marriage and celibacy, rather than the prohibition of homosexuality, has been the dominant note in the Church’s doctrine is simply a reminder that wholesome sexual love and disciplined abstinence are part of the Good News of following Jesus Christ.[6]

So much for doctrine. The second part of the Presenters’ case was that, given the Church’s traditional doctrine, the canons called for disciplinary action against Righter. Once again, I argued that in the case of a bishop “holding and teaching any doctrine contrary to that held by this church,” (Canon IV.1 emphasis added) – whether that doctrine involved the doctrine of God or the doctrine of his holy will and design for human nature – that bishop has to be disciplined or the church will lose its credibility as a witness to the truth of God. I concluded the second brief thus:

A bishop who violates the clear biblical and traditional teaching of the Episcopal Church by ordaining a non-celibate homosexual undermines the Church’s discipline and unity. Furthermore, a Church hierarchy that condones by silence or endorses publicly such a violation likewise will become overseers of confusion and disorder among Episcopalians, separation from our ecumenical partners within the Anglican Communion and worldwide Christianity, and public ridicule from outsiders who see that the Episcopal Church is not theologically or morally serious about anything.[7]

So much for discipline. The Righter judges did not see things this way. They gave Bishop Righter a pass on the grounds that the disciplinary canon did not really mean any doctrine but “core doctrine” as defined by their episcopal highnesses.[8]

The Righter decision was the culmination of forty years of Episcopal refusal to deal with heresy, going back to the Bayne Report of 1967, which stated that “the word ‘heresy’ should be abandoned except in the context of radical, creative theological controversies of the early formative years of Christian doctrine.”[9] In renouncing heresy, the Episcopal Church was also renouncing discipline for heretics.[10] By refusing to identify heresy and to discipline individual heretics, the Episcopal Church made itself into a pandemoniacal body that would test the willingness of the wider Communion to exercise church discipline.[11]

After the Righter Trial, the battle for the soul of the Episcopal Church was all over but the shouting. There would never again be a serious threat to the revisionist domination of the official Episcopal Church, even though traditionalists mounted vigorous rear-guard stands at the General Conventions in 1997 and 2000. A more important denouement came by way of two events within months of the Righter decision. The first of these was the organizational meeting of the American Anglican Council in Chicago in June. I was to have a role on the founding Board of the AAC and as first editor of its newsletter Encompass. Again, I shall not focus on the domestic role of the AAC, which has had a mixed record of success. What is more significant historically is that the AAC became the main channel of access for orthodox Episcopalians to the Lambeth Conference in 1998.

The second event that overlapped the founding of the AAC was the calling of the “Anglican Life and Witness Conference” in September 1996 in Dallas. This Conference was sponsored by the AAC, the recently founded the Ekklesia Society under Dr. Bill Atwood, and Drs. Vinay Samuel and Chris Sugden from the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies in England. To my knowledge, this meeting was the first major interchange among bishops of the Global South and North America on the looming threat to the Communion, although it drew momentum from the “Second Anglican Encounter in the South” meeting of Global South bishops at Kuala Lumpur earlier in the year.[12] In an address to this conference titled “The Handwriting on the Wall,” I argued that, to paraphrase Churchill after Dunkirk, the battle for the Episcopal Church was over, the battle for the Anglican Communion was about to begin.

I subtitled this talk “Why the Sexuality Conflict in the Episcopal Church Is God’s Word to the Anglican Communion,” and I conclude with a warning that failure to deal with the crisis in the Episcopal Church will endanger the unity of the Anglican Communion. Representatives from your provinces, meeting at Kuala Lumpur, have already raised the alarm in your statement on “Anglican Reconstruction.” This is a question that cannot be delayed. What will become of Anglican unity if the American church breaks into two bodies out of communion with each other, with one body officially linked to Canterbury and the other officially committed to Kuala Lumpur? If Anglican leaders look the other way in 1998, such a situation is distinctly possible.

Many of the relationships formed at this Conference carried over to the Lambeth Conference, which met less than a year later, and my address was circulated at the Lambeth Conference in booklet form.[13]

Lambeth Resolution 1.10

The story of the Lambeth Conference 1998 and the approval of Resolution 1.10 on Human Sexuality has been told by some as a case of crafty Westerners seducing Global South bishops with offers of chicken dinners. This was hardly the case. Those of us who worked at the infamous Franciscan Centre did provide home turf where Global South bishops could meet each other and receive information to help them counteract the official propaganda put out by the Conference organizers at the Communion Office.[14] Global South bishops proved eloquent in their own behalf, and the final Resolution 1.10 proceeded from them.

The Times of London noted after the vote on 5 August 1998, that Resolution 1.10 was a “surprisingly trenchant verdict.” Surely the coherence at the heart of the Resolution derives from its doctrinal claim that the Conference,

in view of the teaching of Scripture upholds faithfulness in marriage of a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage;

and its corollary:

while rejecting homosexuality as incompatible with Scripture, calls on all our people to minister pastorally and sensitively…

I had no role in drafting the Resolution; however, I did attempt soon after to exposit the Resolution as a coherent statement of doctrine.[15] As I had argued in the Righter case, I maintained that morality, doctrine, and Scripture are all of a piece:

The moral premise is made in view of the teaching of Scripture. The Conference intends to make clear that moral norms are based on biblical authority. Scripture comes first. In a separate Resolution (III.1) the Conference “reaffirms the primary authority of the Scriptures, according to their testimony and supported by our own historic formularies.” Two of these historic formularies are relevant here: Article XX of the Thirty-Nine Articles declares that “it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Word written.” The Lambeth Quadrilateral, adopted by the Lambeth Conference in 1888 as the basis of Christian unity, holds that the Bible is “the rule and standard of faith.”[16]

I had made one other small contribution to the sexuality debate between the Righter Trial and Lambeth. That was a book titled Two Sexes, One Flesh: Why the Church Cannot Bless Same-Sex Marriage (1997).[17] In that book I tested the question whether homosexual practice can fit into the overarching biblical narrative of the human race. My conclusion was that not only is this practice incompatible with specific biblical texts (sufficient reason in itself to reject it) but it is contrary to the theme of what I called “the unchangeable glory of marriage”:

Jesus draws from the creation texts a central principle: “the two will become one flesh” (Matthew 19:5; Genesis 2:24). By this he clearly meant the two opposite sexes joined in one physical union. Like all Jews, Jesus grounded his understanding of marriage in creation; however, while Jews (like Roman Catholics after them) saw descendants as the main outcome of marriage, Jesus drew attention to the coming into being of a spiritual union of husband and wife. God has put something together, he said, which man cannot put asunder. It is Jesus’ understanding of the mystical union of a man and woman that forms the basis for the Christian understanding of marriage as sacramental.[18]

So when Lambeth 1.10 rejects homosexual practice in the light of Scripture’s teaching about marriage, it is not speaking of some jot and tittle of exegesis but rather a golden thread of truth running throughout the fabric of Scripture, one that touches on the very nature of God and his people, of the Bridegroom and the Bride. The centrality of the doctrine of marriage and its unanimous support in the biblical witness make it problematic for a bishop like Rowan Williams to “uphold” Lambeth 1.10 effectively while disagreeing with it personally.[19]

Gay rights apologists try to play off the normative clauses in the Resolution against the pastoral clause about “listening to the experience of homosexual persons.” While not denying that the latter clause was added due to pressure from the liberal side to soften the blow of the normative clauses, I note that the majority bishops made clear that “those who experience themselves as having an orientation” are not ontologically so determined. The experience of homosexuals needs to be understood in order to offer appropriate care, but that need does not change the church’s moral teaching. I explained this section in this way:

In light of the biblical moral norms, this clause challenges the Church to help those who think of themselves as homosexual to frame their self-understanding in terms set by the Gospel. The call to listen to the experience of homosexual persons was added by amendment and accepted by the majority of bishops in the context of the whole resolution. They recognize that homosexual orientation is psychologically complex and socially constructed in such a way that the Church must consider carefully how to bring the health of the Gospel to people so oriented. While pastors are urged to listen patiently to those who think of themselves as homosexual, their call is to bring such persons to understand themselves simply as disciples of Jesus, committed to him and to his standards of holiness.[20]

Oliver O’Donovan, the finest Anglican ethicist of our day, argues further that there are things which the church can learn about human sexuality from the phenomenon of contemporary homosexuality, beyond simply condemning it. He writes:

If the first good news for the gay Christian, then, is that the “great question,” the question of the self with all its pain and its hope, can be opened illuminatingly in the light of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, there is also a second good news. There is a neighbor with whom to explore the meaning of the contemporary homosexual situation, a neighbor who also needs, for the sake of his or her own integrity to reach answers to questions which the gay Christian is especially placed to search out…. The gay Christian thus faces in a particular way the choice that constitutes the human situation universally: whether to follow the route of self-justification or to cast oneself hopefully on the creative justification that God himself will work within a community of shared belief.”[21]

I agree with O’Donovan. I do not think anyone understands fully why homosexual attraction takes the particular form it does in our day, nor do I think the only proper response is to blame those who find themselves so attracted. The touching dialogue of Richard Hays with his dying friend is all too uncommon.[22] Further dialogue on the significance of homosexuality does not, however, change the evangelical norm enunciated in the St. Andrew’s Day Statement that the church “assists all its members to a life of faithful witness in chastity and holiness, recognizing two forms or vocations in which that life can be lived: marriage and singleness.”[23]

The Lambeth Resolution is unambiguous in stating the doctrinal norm and makes clear in its reference to Scripture that this norm is of the highest order in upholding Anglican identity. The Resolution does not specify, however, how compliance might be gained or what kind of discipline might follow for those bishops and churches that reject that norm. This lack is not a fault of the Resolution, but it did raise the question of whether the Communion had adequate structures or leadership to follow through on it.[24] Unfortunately, the answer to this question was No. Put simply, here we are, more than ten years later, after many meetings and proposals and much ink spilt and dollars wasted, and the Episcopal Church has not only gone forward with its “inclusion” project but it has been joined by others in Canada and other provinces.

The Resolution stands but was not to be acted upon, and the Communion has paid a high price for this inaction. Archbishop Rowan Williams has repeatedly referred to the authority of Resolution 1.10 with the qualification that it is currently the mind of the Communion.[25] This misstates the case. The bishops at Lambeth 1998 did not think they were giving an interim report but giving a permanent No, based on what is at all times and in all places the Church’s doctrine concerning the “unchangeable standard” of marriage and sexuality.[26]

Doctrine without discipline is a dead letter; arguably it is worse than no doctrine at all. Let’s put it this way: once a clear statement is made and then spurned, the authority and truth of that statement is called into question.[27] I am convinced that Lambeth 1.10 is the standard to which a faithful member of the Anglican Communion must assent ex animo. Every other mediating statement, every other interim body that fails to go back to the norm enunciated in 1998 draws a veil, successive veils, between speaking the truth and obeying it. Some people take comfort from the fact that Lambeth 1.10 still stands. I am not so sure, for at the end of the day God will not be mocked.

Aftermath of Lambeth 1998: The Problem of Discipline

The reaction to the passage of Lambeth 1.10 in the Episcopal Church was a firestorm of angry protest.[28] The General Convention of 2000 formalized its reaction in Resolution D039, which stated in a contorted way that the Episcopal Church caters for both those following the traditional teaching and for those contravening that teaching.[29] Resolution D039 makes no reference to the normative clauses of Lambeth 1.10 but does refer to the pastoral clauses in calling for more “conversation” on the subject.[30] In short, the Episcopal Church rejected the doctrine of the Communion and indeed moved very close to proposing a contrary doctrine.[31] So within two years, the authority of the Lambeth Conference had been formally and informally defied by the Episcopal Church. This situation exposed the larger problem for the Communion of how any discipline might be exercised across the boundaries of individual provinces.

The problem was inherent in the DNA of the Anglican Communion. The original Lambeth Conference in 1867 was called in part to deal with a perceived breach of orthodoxy by Bishop Colenso of Natal. However, as Professor Owen Chadwick points out, there was a contradiction in the very calling of a council of bishops through a mother church ruled by Princes (Article XXI).

If the [Lambeth] meeting was to be acceptable to some of its more moderate opponents, it seemed to be necessary to say that the meeting was only of a discussion group, and none of its decisions would have any authority. Archbishop Longley of Canterbury would only summon the meeting, and several bishops would only attend it, if its resolutions were declared beforehand to have no binding force. Some of the American bishops who were determined to take no orders out of England were equally strong that this meeting was “only” for consultation…

Now the chief makers of the first Lambeth Conference had no idea whatever of a meeting that would produce nothing. Selwyn and Robert Gray were fighting for an absolute principle, that the Church of Christ teaches truth and that it has the freedom to determine what is compatible with that truth. Nothing could be less irresponsible than their Athanasian stance. But the difficulty was that in order to have a meeting at all you must concede it to have no authority, and that necessity produced danger for the future.[32]

The problem of Communion identity and coherence was recognized early. The Lambeth Quadrilateral, adopted in 1888, set forth certain identity markers for the purposes of ecumenical relations. Successive Conferences considered proposals for a central tribunal or executive council, but these were not adopted. The problem was taken up again by the 1930 Lambeth Conference, which articulated the classic definition of the Communion:

The Anglican Communion is a fellowship, within the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, of those duly constituted dioceses, provinces or regional Churches in communion with the See of Canterbury, which have the following characteristics:
(a) they uphold and propagate the Catholic and Apostolic faith and order as they are generally set forth in the Book of Common Prayer as authorized in their several Churches;
(b) they are particular or national Churches, and, as such, promote within each of their territories a national expression of Christian faith, life and worship; and
(c) they are bound together not by a central legislative and executive authority but by mutual loyalty sustained through the common counsel of the bishops in conference.

The Committee which produced this definition made clear that “being in communion with the See of Canterbury” did not make the Communion a monarchical structure. In fact, it went the other way in proposing “that the true constitution of the Catholic Church involves the principle of the autonomy of particular Churches based upon a common faith and order” (Resolution 48). But suppose one of the Provinces should fail to uphold the historic faith and order: what then? The Committee opined:

This freedom naturally and necessarily carries with it the risk of divergence to the point even of disruption. In case any such risk should actually arise, it is clear that the Lambeth Conference as such could not take any disciplinary action. Formal action would belong to the several Churches of the Anglican Communion individually; but the advice of the Lambeth Conference, sought before action is taken by the constituent Churches, would carry very great moral weight. And we believe in the Holy Spirit. We trust in His power working in every part of His Church to hold us together.[33]

In one sense, the confidence in God’s guidance may have been justified in that the Communion has held together with somewhat muddled evangelical and catholic faith and order – until now. But what Lambeth 1930 feared has now come upon us. Its guidance seems to be: let Lambeth advise and Provinces act by breaking communion. That is what indeed seems to have happened since 2003.[34] A number of churches in the Global South have broken communion with the Episcopal Church on the basis of the latter’s false teaching and practice and clear violation of the Lambeth Resolution. Several of these churches have logically taken in tow North American clergy, congregations and dioceses that have themselves departed from the Episcopal Church. The piecemeal way in which this has occurred, though consistent with the advice of Lambeth 1930, seems contrary to good order and has added to the sense of malaise within the Communion and scandal without.

“To Mend the Net”: A Road Not Taken

There was an alternative to piecemeal breaking of communion. Had it been taken seriously and implemented, it might have avoided the chaos that ensued in the wake of the Gene Robinson debacle in 2003. In late 2001, Archbishops Drexel Gomez and Maurice Sinclair offered to the Primates’ Meeting a proposal called “To Mend the Net.”[35] This remarkable proposal with excellent supporting essays could have forged a way for Anglicans to face the specter foreseen dimly in 1930 which had come to haunt the Communion. As I see it, “To Mend the Net” answered two key questions in matters of Communion discipline. First, it asked: what process should be employed to confront, correct and exclude churches that have transgressed the limits of Anglican orthodoxy? Secondly, it asked: who should drive the process?

With regard to the first question, some of us have become inured to empty talk of process; there is, however, a biblical basis for a process of discipline. Jesus himself teaches that when a brother causes offense, he should be approached by the person offended, then by a small group (as in crisis intervention) and finally by the wider church (Matthew 18:15-18). Likewise “To Mend the Net” recognized the virtue of a “strategy of time” in dealing with innovations in the church, as set out, for example, in the “reception process” for women’s ordination. But it noted that “the strategy of time must work two ways: not only the avoidance of explosive reaction but also the enablement of timely intervention.”[36]

With regard to the second question, “To Mend the Net” recalled a major theme of recent Lambeth Conferences: the enhanced role of the Primates. In a Resolution on “Issues concerning the whole Anglican Communion,” Lambeth 1978 stated:

The Conference advises member Churches not to take action regarding issues which are of concern to the whole Anglican Communion without consultation with a Lambeth Conference or with the episcopate through the Primates Committee, and requests the primates to initiate a study of the nature of authority within the Anglican Communion.[37]

A further Resolution in 1988 on “Anglican Communion: Identity and Authority” continued the direction of the previous Conference in calling on the Primates’ Meeting “to exercise an enhanced responsibility in offering guidance on doctrinal, and moral matters”[38]:

We see an enhanced role for the primates as a key to a growth of interdependence within the Communion. We do not see any inter-Anglican jurisdiction as possible or desirable; an inter-Anglican synodical structure would be virtually unworkable and highly expensive. A collegial role for the primates by contrast could easily be developed, and their collective judgment and advice would carry considerable weight.[39]

Resolution III.6 of Lambeth 1998 reaffirmed once again the call for the Primates to exercise enhanced responsibility in doctrinal, moral and pastoral matters and further

asks that the Primates’ Meeting under the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, include amongst its responsibilities positive encouragement to mission, intervention in cases of exceptional emergency, which are incapable of internal resolution within Provinces, and giving of guidelines on the limits of Anglican diversity, in submission to the sovereign authority of Holy Scripture and in loyalty to our Anglican tradition and formularies…

Drawing from these Resolutions, “To Mend the Net” was not only seeking a solution to the sexuality crisis but addressing the larger problem of authority and discipline in the Anglican Communion. It was offering a clear vision of conciliar governance; indeed its proposals were aimed to lead the Communion into clarifying the murky relationships among the Instruments of Unity and between the daughter churches and the Mother.

“To Mend the Net” brought together a strategy of time and the enhanced authority of the Primates in a concrete proposal, outlining steps to deal with “cases of exceptional emergency”[40]:

1. Self-examination by the Primates individually and corporately to test whether a particular doctrine or practice involves legitimate diversity or a violation of Christian truth.

2. An educative role by which the Primates explain their understanding of their role in the disciplinary process and the limits of diversity.

3. Advanced sharing of these matters with each other through annual meetings and constant communication.

4. Preparation of guidelines for right teaching and practice on any disputed issue, with a communal commitment that any minority group among the Primates will adhere to them.

5. Godly admonition to churches or bishops who refuse to observe the guidelines, with the intent of calling them back to the truth.

6. Relegation to observer status in international meetings for any members who refuse to respond adequately to the admonition.

7. Authorizing efforts at continuing evangelization in the jurisdiction so relegated, presumably outside its official leadership.

8. Formation and recognition of a new jurisdiction in the case of “prolonged and evidently permanent rejection of the guidelines,” after which the rebellious jurisdiction would be excommunicated.[41]

“To Mend the Net” failed to receive the discussion and evaluation it deserved. This was not accidental. In a sense, it fell victim to the same dilemma that faced those who called for the first Lambeth Conference. Because the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican Communion Office controlled the agenda of the Primates’ Meeting held in Kanuga, North Carolina, in March 2001, “To Mend the Net” was never seriously considered by the Primates, being relegated to a fireside chat and then referred to the Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission. This Commission, which was appointed by Canterbury and did not share the urgency that motivated “To Mend the Net,” proceeded to smother the proposal in the cradle. In the Commission’s final Report, “To Mend the Net” is not even mentioned.[42]

As noted above, “To Mend the Net” attempted more than just dealing with Communion discipline. It also proposed a reform of Communion governance. Lambeth 1930 had argued that the Communion was more like the autocephalous churches of Orthodoxy than like the hierarchical structure of Rome. “To Mend the Net” envisioned a conciliar form of Communion governance by which Primates would work together to promote the mission of the church and to oversee its doctrine and discipline. One anomaly remained: “To Mend the Net” seemed to imagine that the Primates would function as a council of equals with the Archbishop of Canterbury as primus inter pares, but a supporting essay grounded the political authority of the Primates to discipline erring members in the power of the Archbishop to “gather” by invitation bishops to the Lambeth Conference and all other meetings of the Instruments.[43] In my opinion, this grounding was a flaw in the proposal, as it leaves a hierarchical mace in the hands of a single individual. As it turned out, the challenge to Canterbury’s role came in spite of “To Mend the Net.”

The Road to Dar and Beyond

The election and consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson opens a new chapter in our history. Robinson was the in-your-face embodiment of the Episcopal Church’s rejection of the authority of Scripture and the Lambeth Conference. From the point of view of a number of African Primates, Robinson’s elevation to the episcopate was the final signal after five years that the Episcopal Church was not turning back. They insisted on an emergency Primates’ Meeting in London in October 2003 to deal with the crisis decisively, and afterward, one by one, Provincial bodies declared a state of broken or impaired communion with the Episcopal Church.

At the meeting in London, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, showing no interest in reviving the proposal for collective discipline in “To Mend the Net,” begged for time to come up with another process.[44] In getting his way, he took the initiative away from those Primates who had come to London ready to act together against the Episcopal Church. The Archbishop not only delayed the disciplinary process but redefined it, using his “gathering” authority to appoint a “diverse” Commission to produce what became the Windsor Report. Some of the African Primates thought that this Report was intended to challenge the Episcopal Church on their behalf to repent or walk apart. Fifteen months later they brought that understanding to the Primates’ Meeting at Dromantine in Ireland where the Windsor Report was received. As presented by the Lambeth establishment, on the contrary, the Windsor Report was merely the first step in the Windsor process, which led on to the Covenant process and the “indaba” process at Lambeth 2008.[45]

The two understandings of discipline and the roles of Canterbury and the Primates collided at the Primates’ Meeting in Dar es Salaam in February 2007. The early rounds of the conflict went to Rowan Williams, who had invited Presiding Bishop Katherine Schori despite a recommendation in the Dromantine Communiqué that Episcopal Church officials refrain from attending Communion events until Lambeth 2008. He then set the agenda of the meeting with only four hours devoted to the Episcopal Church’s reaction, and he endorsed a Joint Standing Committee report which claimed that the Episcopal Church had satisfied the conditions of the Windsor Report and the Dromantine Communiqué.

At this point, the Global South Primates interrupted the set agenda and pushed back.[46] The final Communiqué was surprisingly strong, in which the Primates “unanimously” made the following points:[47]

1. They repeated the words of Lambeth 1.10 to the effect that “[the Conference] upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage.” They went on to warn that “a change in the formal teaching of any one Province would indicate a departure from the standard upheld by the Communion as a whole” (para. 11).

2. They concluded that “The Episcopal Church has departed from the standard of teaching on human sexuality accepted by the Communion in the 1998 Resolution 1.10” (para. 17). The Primates were reaching back through the intervening veils to the doctrinal standard itself.

3. They stated that “the response of The Episcopal Church to the requests made at Dromantine has not persuaded this meeting that we are yet in a position to recognise that The Episcopal Church has mended its broken relationships.” This statement was in direct contradiction to the judgment brought by Canterbury to the meeting.

4. They placed a series of disciplinary hurdles before the Episcopal Church. The first was the formation of a Pastoral Council for disaffected churches and dioceses, with members appointed by the Primates, Canterbury and the Presiding Bishop, which Council was to report to the Primates. The Primates also called for a cessation of all lawsuits by the Episcopal Church. Finally, they called for a clearer avowal by the Episcopal House of Bishops that they would not consecrate any practicing homosexual or authorize any same-sex blessing rite.

5. Then in a statement reminiscent of “To Mend the Net,” step 7, they stated:

The Primates request that the answer of the House of Bishops is conveyed to the Primates by the Presiding Bishop by 30th September 2007.

If the reassurances requested by the House of Bishops cannot in good conscience be given, the relationship between The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole remains damaged at best, and this has consequences for the full participation of the Church in the life of the Communion.

The promulgation of the Dar Communiqué sent shock waves around the Communion. The Episcopal bishops were incensed and quickly moved to scuttle the Pastoral Scheme. Presiding Bishop Schori, soon after returning to New York, reneged on her commitment at Dar.[48] Several weeks later, the Bishop of Florida turned a priest and congregation out of its premises, against the express recommendation of the Panel of Reference and personal plea of Rowan Williams.[49] Clearly, Episcopal leaders had no scruples about exercising their version of ecclesiastical discipline administered through the secular courts.

For a few brief weeks, it appeared that a final separation was imminent. Then Canterbury struck back:

1. by issuing invitations to Lambeth 2008 to all Episcopal bishops except Gene Robinson (May 2007);

2. by accepting an invitation to the House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans (September 2007) and commissioning a report from the Joint Standing Committee that was not part of the Dar “process”;[50]

3. by denying by word and deed that September 30 was a real deadline; and

4. by giving the Episcopal Church a weak pass in his Advent 2007 letter, which was all that was necessary to get it over the hurdles posed by the Dar Communiqué.

Most significantly, in the year intervening between Dar and Lambeth 2008, Archbishop Williams refused to call a follow-up Primates’ Meeting, despite the clear expectation in the Communiqué that he would reconvene the Primates to judge the Episcopal Church’s response and despite an urgent appeal from the Global South Steering Committee that he do so. Apparently the Archbishop had concluded from the Dar es Salaam Meeting that the Primates’ authority had been enhanced too much and that they needed to be relegated to the B-league as an honorary council of advice.[51] The hope of Communion-wide discipline of those who had broken fundamental Christian doctrine had evaporated in a cloud of verbiage and dithering.

“The Road to Lambeth” Becomes the Road to Jerusalem

I now return to my involvement in the story. In March 2006, I received a letter from Archbishop Peter Akinola, as Chairman of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA), asking me to work with several others to draft a document called “The Road to Lambeth.”[52] Archbishop Akinola made clear from the beginning what the thrust of the document should be: an apologia for attending the Lambeth Conference only if the Episcopal Church had been properly disciplined beforehand. So we wrote:

The Anglican Communion is at a crossroad. The idea of a crossroad – a meeting and parting of two ways – is woven into the fabric of Scripture. The people of Israel is confronted with the choice of ways – the way of the Covenant or the way of idolatry – and more often than not choose the latter (Jeremiah 6:16). So too Jesus describes a narrow road that leads to life and a broad avenue to perdition (Matthew 7:13). Hence the church must choose to walk in the light and turn from the darkness of sin and error (1 John 1:6-7).

Ephraim Radner has rightly insisted that the church find its guidance in the narrative of Scripture.[53] This, in fact, is what “The Road to Lambeth” attempted to do: to see the present crisis of the Communion in terms of the prophetic record of God’s judgment on the corrupt and idolatrous kingdoms of Israel and Judah. One can find prophets like Isaiah who protested while remaining loyal to the existing establishment. One can also find those like Jeremiah who at a later point in that history concluded that God’s judgment had fallen and that the only faithful road led into exile. “The Road to Lambeth” offered a genuine incentive to Canterbury as he prepared for the Primates’ Meeting in Dar and the Lambeth Conference to use his “gathering” authority to exercise discipline against those who had stubbornly refused to adhere to previous Lambeth Resolution 1.10. When he sent out invitations to the Episcopal Church House of Bishops to Lambeth in May 2007, he chose to ignore the warning of “The Road to Lambeth” and instead adopted a strategy to divide and conquer the Global South coalition. The result was a Lambeth Conference lacking more than 250 bishops, mostly from the largest provinces in Africa.

When it became clear in late 2007 that Canterbury was not going to heed the call for Communion discipline, the coalition of provinces behind “The Road to Lambeth” – it had lost some members who chose to go to Lambeth and gained one diocese (Sydney) that had previously stayed on the sideline in the Anglican wars – decided to host an alternative Conference, the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON). So the churches whose voice was heard in “The Road to Lambeth” went into voluntary exile, an exile that took us along “ancient paths” to Jerusalem and the land of Jesus.

GAFCON was, in the view of those who attended, a movement in the Spirit. It was the fulfillment of more than a decade of global relationships that had been growing since the first Anglican Life and Mission Conference as well as in the Global South Encounters.

GAFCON Addresses Doctrine and Discipline

I was a member of the Theological Resource Group preparing for the Conference and then served on the Statement Committee at the Conference. In that capacity I want to comment briefly on how the “Statement on the Global Anglican Future,” including the “Jerusalem Declaration,” constitutes a response to the crisis of doctrine and discipline in the Communion. The section on “Global Anglican Contexts” presents a prophetic indictment, stating three facts about the state of the Communion:[54]

The first fact is the acceptance and promotion within the provinces of the Anglican Communion of a different ‘gospel’ (cf. Galatians 1:6-8) which is contrary to the apostolic gospel… The second fact is the declaration by provincial bodies in the Global South that they are out of communion with bishops and churches that promote this false gospel… The third fact is the manifest failure of the Communion Instruments to exercise discipline in the face of overt heterodoxy.

Put simply, the acceptance of false doctrine has led to a crisis of discipline, which has been addressed regionally by provinces breaking communion with other provinces but which has failed at the highest level. The Communion fabric has been irreparably torn. It cannot simply be stitched together again. The Statement insists, like the writings of the latter Prophets of Israel, that it is necessary to accept these facts of God’s judgment.

Just as the Prophets’ oracles do not end in doom, neither does the Statement. It sees emerging out of the crisis a faithful remnant which looks to the future and to the God of the future.[55] And just as the Prophets claimed not to be traitors to Israel but its true heirs, so also the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) states clearly that it holds the title deeds of Anglican identity[56]:

Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words: The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal.

The first half of the Jerusalem Declaration traces the way “back to the sources” of Christian identity: in the Gospel message that Jesus is Savior and Lord, in the authority of Scripture, in the Creeds, Councils and Articles of Religion, in the sacraments and threefold order of ministry. These affirmations are in one sense commonplace, but many of us can attest that they are routinely denied, compromised, or ignored in the churches of the West and even neglected in some churches of the Global South. The Jerusalem Declaration is not a reactionary call to do things the same old way; in its second half, it brings those sources to bear on the situation of the Church in the world today, looking at the mandates for mission, marriage, justice and mercy, and ecumenism and all in the perspective of Christ’s coming Kingdom.

The Fellowship does not claim to have the final word on Christian doctrine. Clause 12 states:

We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters. We pledge to work together to seek the mind of Christ on issues that divide us.

This clause is two-edged. On the one hand, it recognizes and even celebrates the diversity which resulted when Anglican Christianity went out from England to the ends of the earth and other issues brought up by modernity and post-modernity which require careful deliberation. On the other hand, it recognizes existing differences that could divide its members and commits the Fellowship to confer about them. Women’s ordination and diaconal and lay presidency at the Eucharist are two such issues where there are diverse opinions and practices among the churches represented at Jerusalem.[57] The ideal of Anglican comprehensiveness is not mistaken simply because it has been abused in the current climate of “diversity.” It is possible that one side or one party among the orthodox may “win out” in future deliberations, or it may be that accommodations will be made for diverse traditions. But whatever comes from such discussions, it will be from people who share common Christian commitments and a desire to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Having laid the doctrinal foundation, the Jerusalem Declaration now turns in clause 13 to the matter of discipline:

We reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed. We pray for them and call on them to repent and return to the Lord.

This statement, I suggest, should be read in the light of “To Mend the Net” as reassertion of the Anglican position on heresy and excommunication. It is not rushing to judgment. It is basing its judgment, in the case of the Episcopal Church, on more than a decade of intense debate and futile attempts to convince that church and its leaders to turn back. As noted above, most of the FCA primates represent churches that have formally broken communion with the Episcopal Church. What they are saying in this clause is that they will exercise this discernment collectively. This is a step forward from the stance taken by Lambeth 1930, a stance which I believe was overly influenced by the belief that the Communion was helpless to exercise final authority.

The excommunication clause of the Jerusalem Declaration leads directly to the final section of the Statement recommending that the FCA Primates’ Council encourage the formation of a “Common Cause” province in North America. At this point, the Statement moves to the eighth and final step of “To Mend the Net,” in which the repeated stubbornness of an existing province leads to the formation of a replacement province.[58]

Toward a Conciliar Communion

The “Global Anglican Future Statement” addresses the concerns for doctrine and discipline that have plagued the Anglican Communion for many years and critically of late. The formation of the FCA Primates’ Council is equally an important step in restoring the direction of the Communion toward conciliar governance, a direction which had been well under way until it was interrupted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, especially since the Dar es Salaam meeting.

The idea of conciliar authority can be seen as inherent in the first Lambeth Conference, which was attended by 76 bishops, just double the number of Primates today. Once the Conference became established as a ten-year event, the need for a “consultative body” between times became apparent. The 1958 Conference designated the Primates and a few other bishops to constitute this body, but in 1968, the formation of the Anglican Consultative Council changed direction, including representative bishops, clergy and laity from various regions. Ten years later the Primates’ Committee (now Meeting) itself was born out of a felt need for the provincial heads to confer.

Recently, Dr. Ephraim Radner gave an eloquent defense of conciliarism as a mode of Communion governance under the title “Wheels Within Wheels: The Promise and Scandal of Anglican Conciliarism.” In this essay, he notes:

With the emergence at the same time, in the 1950’s and 1960’s, of newly independent younger churches, in Africa and Asia, Anglicanism was poised to present itself in a new form, as a restored conciliarist body, a Communion of churches bound by deep Scriptural roots of Reformation and Catholic concern, and representing, more perhaps than any other church, the shape of the primitive ecclesial ideal…. The younger churches, many engaged in what appeared (and not only romantically) to be a reconnection with the thrill of the Primitive Church’s evangelical ardor both Scripturally and evangelistically, were bringing to the staid structures of the Communion’s gatherings a sense of divine vitality and power.[59]

This description is roughly accurate, but it should also be noted that the kind of collegiality among Global South primates and provinces has occurred in spite of opposition from the Anglican Communion bureaucracy and has been frequently deterred by the lack of ardor from Canterbury himself. The Letter of the Global South Primates attending Lambeth 2008 makes clear that this collegiality will continue, even if it has been temporarily weakened.[60]

Ephraim Radner has not been a supporter of the FCA movement. I do think, however, his recent paper, “Truthful Language and Orderly Separation,” might form a basis for a convergence of the so-called “communion conservatives” and “federal conservatives, ” represented today by the “Communion Partners” and the “Common Cause Partners.”[61] In this essay, he notes the “assymetrical” responses of revisionists and conservatives to the issues plaguing the Communion. Liberals find change (repentance) “pragmatically impossible,” having made commitments to the gay rights movement that cannot be retracted. Conservatives, on the other hand, are open to change, reformation, for the very reason that they look to Scripture and tradition for authority. Even the most intractable of these issues, such as women’s ordination and diaconal and lay presidency at the Eucharist, are not beyond the bounds of “ecumenical” deliberation.

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans is one such conservative group. One can of course object that the FCA Primates’ Council is a self-appointed body. Out of necessity, I would argue. It has not been formed with a sense of superiority or exclusiveness. Its members have said explicitly they are not leaving the Communion and they have stated that they do not consider themselves the only true Anglicans. In particular, they have extended the hand of fellowship to non-members in CAPA and the Global South movement. Contrary to some stereotypes, the FCA is eager to talk with fellow Anglicans.

This eagerness, I believe, applies to two particular issues raised by the 2008 Lambeth Conference. The first is the Anglican Communion Covenant. It is true that the FCA Theological Resource Group gave a negative evaluation of the St. Andrew’s Covenant, overly negative in my opinion. This does not mean, however, that the FCA would not accept a Covenant at all. I myself was involved, at arm’s length, in the Global South and then the Lambeth covenant drafts. I believe a well-wrought Covenant could provide the constitutional basis for a unified and missionary Communion.[62]

One key to a good Covenant is a clear identity statement, including doctrinal and moral essentials.[63] The Lambeth drafts to date take hesitant steps in this direction in the section on “Our Inheritance of Faith.” The Jerusalem Declaration itself would, I think, constitute a far stronger statement, but the two are not that far apart. The second key is a clear and effective disciplinary process such as that proposed in “To Mend the Net.” Here the St. Andrews Draft is a failure.[64] Dr. Radner, a member of the Drafting Group, seems to realize the need for a final “differentiation” when he writes:

We must not fear the kind of clarity and accessible steps of implementation that would allow for such a differentiation [of orthodox and revisionist] if that is indeed the end towards which the present logics turn out to be moving.... A Covenant that makes clear that diversity has its limits and attaches consequences for violation of those limits preserves Communion while holding open the possibility of reconciliation.[65]

I believe such clarity is necessary to convince the FCA provinces to join in. If Lambeth cannot convince the largest provinces in the Communion to sign on, the Covenant process will have been an exercise in futility.

The second big issue has to do with the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Does Rowan Williams share the vision of conciliar government? His lecture given in June 2008, titled “Rome, Constantinople, and Canterbury: Mother Churches?” makes one wonder.[66] The very title recalls the “Branch theory” by which Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican are all validated as apostolic streams as opposed to Protestantism, which is sectarian.[67] While lauding the “communion theology” of Orthodox theologians like Afanasiev and Zizioulas, who emphasize the sufficiency of the local bishop-in-church, Williams says that the pendulum has swung too far and needs to return to a recognition of the dependence of churches on a mother church:

Hence the relation of local churches to a ‘mother church’ or a ‘primatial church’ is not a purely antiquarian matter. From very early in the church's history, certain local churches have been recognised as having had a distinctive generative importance…. A local church is indeed at one level a community to which is given all the gifts necessary for being Christ’s Body in this particular place; but among those gifts is the gift of having received the Gospel from others and being still called to receive it. Relation with the history of mission is part of the church's identity.

In his characteristically interrogative way, Rowan Williams asks if Canterbury is not such a mother church and that the Archbishop of Canterbury is a kind of Ecumenical Patriarch. The only problem is that this idea has never been affirmed in any authoritative Anglican documents. In 1897, the Lambeth Conference regularized the role of archbishop as metropolitan, but it is also made clear that Anglican archbishops do not owe allegiance to Canterbury.[68] The 1930 Lambeth Committee, which reflected high hopes for the ecumenical movement, likened Communion governance to Orthodoxy, but it did not liken the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Ecumenical Patriarch.[69]

In my view, conciliar governance can coexist with a lead bishop who is Primus inter pares – a “focus of unity” in the sense of representing the communion to those outside it – but not with a lead bishop who rules over his brother bishops by fiat or through a manipulative bureaucracy.[70] The “gathering power” of the Archbishop of Canterbury is a holdover of Crown and Empire which must be given up if the Instruments of Anglican Communion – and here I see primarily, Canterbury, Primates and Lambeth Conference – are to function as “wheels within wheels.”[71]

Rowan Williams is said to be influenced by a dialectical view of God’s action in history. In one sense, the ground is prepared in North America for a resolution. The Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada have knowingly departed from the biblical and catholic consensus on marriage and sexuality – and other classic doctrines if the truth be told. The FCA Primates have, for good reason, broken communion with the Episcopal Church and Anglican Church of Canada. With the formation of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), the establishment of an alternative province is, for all intents and purposes, a fait accompli. In the current politics of standoff, the question arises: how soon this church will be recognized by the “Instruments” of the Communion? Certainly the betting man’s wager is that it will take some time, given the political alignments in the Communion, but if Canterbury would make the first move toward recognition and graciously recognize the ACNA, it would be a huge step toward clarifying true loyalties in the Communion.

I have been critical of the actions of Rowan Williams as Archbishop, which I think derive from his personal theological convictions. Nevertheless, I think he also wishes the peace of the Communion and recognizes that the primary responsibility for disorder rests with the revisionists. As Radner says, the revisionist leaders of the Episcopal Church will simply not change and will not brook opposition. Their willingness to walk apart will become clear as day as soon as they lose their claim on Canterbury’s favor.[72] Is it possible that the brazen arrogance and lawlessness of Katherine Schori and her cronies toward Robert Duncan and Jack Iker may open his eyes to the impossibility of reconciliation within the old order of things? Many people in the Communion have been hoping and praying that in the end Rowan Williams will come through for orthodoxy and the greater good of the Communion. We shall see, perhaps at the upcoming Primates’ Meeting in February 2009. If not then, give the Episcopal Church a few more years – or months – and it may accomplish the task on its own.

Conclusion

In this essay, I have tried to narrate the recent history of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion according to the grid-lines of doctrine and discipline. I maintain that the breakdown of orthodox doctrine in the former over the past half century caused a crisis of discipline within the latter. The result has been a heretical church and a dysfunctional Communion. The crisis has also revealed a long-standing flaw in the governance of the Communion by an anomalous Mother Church and its Primate, anomalous in its Establishment form, in its late-modern cultural accommodation, and in its residual colonial mindset. This is the Communion which is no more.

The recent conference in Jerusalem concluded: “We believe the Anglican Communion should and will be reformed around the biblical gospel and mandate to go into all the world and present Christ to the nations.” The churches that gathered in Jerusalem do not want to go it alone. Like all Anglicans, they hold a high view of the catholicity of Christ’s Body, and they believe that God has gifted the Communion with potential to reach out to the many nations. The Prophets of Israel always followed up their oracles of judgment with words of consolation and restoration for God’s chosen people. I believe that the history of decline and fall has another chapter coming, one in which the Lord will address our Communion with love and hope for a new beginning.

“Is not Ephraim my dear son, the child in whom I delight? Though I often speak against him, I still remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I have great compassion for him,” declares the LORD. “Set up road signs; put up guideposts. Take note of the highway, the road that you take. Return, O Virgin Israel, return to your towns.” (Jeremiah 31:20-21)

16 January 2009

Notes
[1] In this line, I have included more personal anecdotes and references to my work than might normally be expected in a scholarly paper. Many of my writings during this period are collected at http://www.stephenswitness.com/.
[2] Philip Turner, “The End of a Church and the Triumph of Denominationalism: On How to Think about What is Happening in the Episcopal Church,” in Ephraim Radner and Philip Turner, The Fate of Communion: The Agony of Anglicanism and the Future of a Global Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) pp. 15-24; see also idem, “Episcopal Oversight and Ecclesiastical Discipline: A Comment on the Concordat of Agreement between the Episcopal Church USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,” in Pro Ecclesia 3 (1994) pp. 436-454; and “Episcopal Authority in a Divided Church,” Pro Ecclesia 8 (1999).
[3] Later Williams came out against monogamy, was forced to resign from the Episcopal “Oasis” ministry (not defrocked, however), authored a book Just As I Am: A Practical Guide to Being Out, Proud, Christian (1993), and died from AIDS on Christmas Eve 1992.
[4] “The Righter Trial and Christian Doctrine,” Churchman 110 (1996) pp. 198-216; “The Righter Trial and Church Discipline,” Churchman 110 (1996) pp. 295-324.
[5] In my opinion, “holding” a doctrine was intended according to the canon to include actions that would proceed logically from that doctrine. Hence even if Righter had not openly advocated homosexual practice (which he did), by his action in ordaining Stopfel, he “held” that teaching. The Court never affirmed or denied this meaning of the canon since it chose to redefine “teaching” itself.
[6] “Righter Trial and Christian Doctrine,” p. 215.
[7] “Righter Trial and Church Discipoline,” p. 320.
[8] The same Humpty-Dumptyesque hermeneutic of the Righter judges was applied to the Bible ten years ago by Bishop Charles Bennison: “…we wrote the Bible and we can rewrite it. We have rewritten the Bible many times.” More recently, this hermeneutic has been taken up by the Queen of Hearts, a.k.a. the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, in her treatment of Bishops Robert Duncan and Jack Iker. Pronouncing sentence on the former before he had committed the crime, she reasoned: “In these circumstances, I concur with my Chancellor and Parliamentarian that any ambiguity in the canon [actually there is none] should be resolved in favor of making this important provision [his deposition] work effectively…” In the case of the latter, she accepted his resignation in the absence of, and indeed his refusal to give, the actual letter of resignation required by the canons. Lewis Carroll said it all: “The Queen had only one way of settling difficulties, great or small: ‘Off with his head!’ she said, without even looking around.” For a less literary analysis, see Philip Turner, “Subversion of the Constitution and Canons of the Episcopal Church: On Doing What It Takes to Get What You Want,” at http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/?p=326; and Christopher Seitz et al, “Descent into Canonical Chaos: The Presiding Bishop’s Response to Bishop Iker,” at http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/?p=338.
[9] See Theological Freedom and Social Responsibility (New York: Seabury Press, 1967), p. 22. For extended commentary on this trend, see C. Fitzsimmons Allison, “The Episcopal Church: The Canary in the Culture’s Coal Mine” (November 2008) at http://www.wordalone.org/pdf/Allison-keynote-1.pdf.
[10] Exhibit A of this fact is Bishop John Shelby Spong, who after having denied virtually every article of the Christian Creeds continued to serve as a member and chairman of the House of Bishops Theology Committee and remains to this day a bishop in good standing (retired).
[11] For my thoughts on the subject of “Broken Communion,” see http://www.stephenswitness.com/1999/03/broken-communion.html.
[12] See Miranda K. Hassett, Anglican Communion in Crisis: How Episcopal Dissidents and Their African Allies Are Reshaping Anglicanism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007) p. 60. For the Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality, see www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/comments/the_kuala_lumpur_statement_on_human_sexuality_2nd_encounter_in_the_south_10/.
[13] The Handwriting on the Wall: A Plea to the Anglican Communion (Solon, OH: Latimer Press, 1998). Prior to the Conference, I had sent a copy of this pamphlet to Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, imploring him to take action to avert the impending crisis. Never having received a reply, I approached him after a press conference at Lambeth and asked if he had received it. Before his handler could whisk him away, he said “No.” Later that day, I had a copy slipped under the door of his room at the University of Kent. This is merely one vignette demonstrating that calls for dialogue by revisionist leaders are a mere tactic. Like an army on the move, they are all for dialogue when it comes to unconquered territory, but behind their lines, it’s all about suppression. The cultural bolshevists have learned their lessons well.
[14] In my role at the Conference as a stealth “journalist,” I had a pink name badge along with real journalists like Ruth Gledhill. For her take on the attempts at media manipulation, see “My Lambeth Hell” at http://www.geocities.com/faithmedia/readings/hell.html.In 2008, the Communion Office made sure that the Franciscan Centre at the University of Kent was unavailable for any repeat subversion by conservatives.
[15] “Lambeth Speaks Plainly” in Mixed Blessings: A Response to the Report and Resolution of the Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (Dallas: American Anglican Council, 2000) pp. 30-37.
[16] “Lambeth Speaks Plainly,” p. 33.
[17] Two Sexes, One Flesh: Why the Church Cannot Bless Same-Sex Marriage (Solon, Oh.:Latimer Press, 1997). Copies of this book were sent to all bishops and deputies to the 1997 General Convention. None of the bishops and deputies calling for dialogue bothered to respond to me, except for Bishop Herbert Thompson, then a candidate for Presiding Bishop, who thanked me and said he agreed with my conclusions.
[18] Two Sexes, One Flesh, p. 45.
[19] So I argue in “Look Not to Cantuar: A Friendly Rejoinder to Michael Poon” (2006) at http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/weblog/printing/look_not_to_cantuar/.
[20] “Lambeth Speaks Plainly,” pp. 33-34.
[21] O’Donovan, Church in Crisis: The Gay Controversy and the Anglican Communion (Eugene, Or.: Cascade Books, 2008) pp. 115-116. Generous though O’Donovan’s offer of serious dialogue is, it will never be seriously taken up by gay activists in the Communion. To do so would require stepping down from positions and actions that have led to political success in the Episcopal Church and elsewhere. The tacticians who propelled women’s ordination from forbidden to mandatory in 25 years are hardly going to step back into the closet for a tete a tete with Oliver O’Donovan, or Rowan Williams for that matter.
[22] Richard B. Hays, “Awaiting the Redemption of Our Bodies,” Sojourners (July 1991) 17-21.
[23] The “St. Andrew’s Day Statement” can be found at http://www.ceec.info/library/positional/St%20Andrew. As a principal author, O’Donovan comments further on this Statement in “Reading the St. Andrew’s Day Statement,” EFAC Bulletin 48 (1997) pp. 9-16.
[24] Later in this essay I criticise the role of Archbishop Rowan Williams in failing to exercise proper discipline. The same can be said as well of his predecessor, George Carey. Although Archbishop Carey did facilitate and publicly advocate the passage of Resolution 1.10, he allowed the Anglican Communion Office to continue to set the agenda of post-Lambeth affairs, most notably the Primates’ Meetings at Oporto and Kanuga in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Likewise the many conservative American bishops who voted for Resolution 1.10 failed to organize a strong defense of it in the face of public protests against it within the Episcopal Church.
[25] So from the Archbishop’s Advent Letter of 14 December 2007: “Insofar as there is currently any consensus in the Communion about [blessing homosexual unions], it is not in favour of change in our discipline or our interpretation of the Bible.”
[26] The phrase “unchangeable standard of marriage” comes from Resolution 66 of Lambeth 1920. If the standard can change or has changed, then the Resolution was false. As to the meaning of No, Ephraim Radner, “Truthful Language and Orderly Separation” (9 Sep 2008) at http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.com/?p=262, makes much the same case about the meaning of a “moratorium” on same-sex blessings and gay bishops. To the Left, the word means a slight delay until conservatives adjust to the new situation. Radner suggests that conservatives should use the word “cessation” instead.
[27] On a number of occasions, I have used the analogy with child-rearing. If a parent looks the child in the eye and says “Don’t do that!” and the child looks right back and does it anyway and the parent then walks out of the room, the parent has in effect communicated, “I did not really mean what I said.”
[28] In December, 1998, the Association of Anglican Congregations in Mission (AACOM) produced a “Petition to the Primates’ Meeting and the Primates of the Anglican Communion for Emergency Intervention in the Province of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America,” including two lengthy appendixes, which documented at length the widespread rejection of Lambeth 1.10.
[29] http://www.episcopalarchives.org/cgi-bin/acts/acts_resolution.pl?resolution=2000-D039
[30] For those wanting to understand the nature of “conversation” in the Episcopal Church, I refer again to Lewis Carroll, “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” in Through the Looking-Glass.
[31] See my article “The Official Position of the Episcopal Church on Sex Outside Marriage,” at http://www.stephenswitness.com/2000/08/official-position-of-episcopal-church.html.
[32] Chadwick, “Introduction,” in Roger Coleman, ed., Resolutions of the Twelve Lambeth Conferences 1867-1988 (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1992) p. viii. Note that Bishop George Selwyn and Robert Gray had both served as missionary bishops (in New Zealand and South Africa respectively) and had had to deal with problems resulting from the particular polity of the Established Church when it moved overseas.
[33] Report of Committee IV, Lambeth 1930, sec. I,8.
[34] Roger Beckwith, “The Limits of Anglican Diversity,” Churchman 117 (2003) pp. 347-362.
[35] To Mend the Net: Anglican Faith and Order for Renewed Mission, eds. Drexel W. Gomez and Maurice W. Sinclair (Carrollton, Tx.: Ekklesia Society, 2001). The Proposal is found on pages 9-23.
[36] To Mend the Net, p. 12.
[37] Resolution 11 at http://www.lambethconference.org/resolutions/1978/. The presenting issue in 1978 was the ordination of women to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. Resolution 13 (1978) makes clear that the guardianship of the faith is a collegial responsibility of the “whole episcopate” (Lambeth Conference), the Primates, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. These entities, along with that of the Anglican Consultative Council, came to be known as the “Instruments of Unity.”
[38] Resolution 18. The Resolution calls for the Primates to be consulted “on the appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury” and comments that the decennial Conference could be held elsewhere than Canterbury.
[39] Explanatory Note on clause 2. Another note on clause 5 makes clear that the Primates are meant to exercise oversight, whereas the Anglican Consultative Council is merely advisory.
[40] To Mend the Net, pp. 20-22. The following summary is a paraphrase, drawing out the implications of the proposal.
[41] The word used in step 8 of “To Mend the Net” is that “communion be suspended,” which seems merely a polite way of saying “excommunicated.” Presumably the new jurisdiction now becomes the territorial province, and if the former province were to repent, it would need to be incorporated into the new jurisdiction.
[42] Communion, Conflict and Hope: The Kuala Lumpur Report of the Third Inter-Anglican Theological and Doctrinal Commission (London: Anglican Communion Office, 2008) at http://www.aco.org/ministry/theological/iatdc/docs/communion_conflict_&_hope.pdf. In an earlier Report, “The Communion Study” (2002), Chairman Stephen Sykes offered a “yes, but…” evaluation of “To Mend the Net”: “It would be important to bear in mind the strong voluntary character of communion in the Anglican Communion and to be meticulous about seeking consent to the strengthening of international canonical procedures.”
[43] To Mend the Net, p. 87.
[44] Although “To Mend the Net” was scuttled at the Primates’ Meeting chaired by George Carey, Rowan Williams as Archbishop of Wales was present at that meeting and no doubt consented to its demise. Cf. his comments on the March 2000 Primates’ Meeting in Portugal: “Anglicanism has always been wary of a central executive power…. The primates’ meeting showed no signs of wanting to become a ruling synod.”
[45] For my evaluation of the Windsor process, see “Put Not Your Trust in Windsor” at http://www.stephenswitness.com/2008/12/put-not-your-trust-in-windsor.html. As for the indaba process, Archbishop Williams has announced that future Primates’ Meetings will be conducted with the indaba format.
[46] In the understatement of the Conference, they say: “Our discussions have drawn us into a much more detailed response than we would have thought necessary at the beginning of our meeting.” Indeed, the toe-to-toe confrontation went on past the official closing of the meeting.
[47] See the text of the Communiqué at http://anglicancommunion.org/communion/primates/resources/downloads/communique2007_english.pdf.
[48] She was inspired no doubt by the example of her predecessor, Frank Griswold, who had joined the “unanimous” decision of the Primates in October 2003 “not to take act precipitately on these wider questions” and then presided over the consecration of Gene Robinson less than three weeks later.
[49] For Archbishop Williams’s Letter to Bishop Samuel Howard and the Panel of Reference Report on Church of the Redeemer in Jacksonville, see http://www.redeemerlives.net/content/50/File/Panel%20of%20Reference%20Report%20and%20ABC%20Letter.txt. For the denouement, see http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/050807/met_168330981.shtml.
[50] For this reason, Archbishop Henry Orombi, one of the five members of the JSC, refused to attend. Archbishop Mouneer Anis did attend and wrote a highly critical assessment of the General Convention at http://youth.dioceseofegypt.org/OurNews/BishopAddress.pdf. His view was largely ignored in the final Report.
[51] Other signs of the relegation of the Primates include: dropping the Primates from the disciplinary process in the St. Andrew’s Covenant draft; the absence of any significant role of the Primates who did attend Lambeth (compare their role at GAFCON); and the reply as to why he had called a Primates’ Meeting by saying: “I haven't called it with any agenda, except to have a Primates' meeting. It's time we had one…” The final blow was his announcement that he planned to employ the indaba method for future Primates’ Meetings as well.
[52] For the full text of “The Road to Lambeth,” see http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/comments/the_road_to_lambeth_presented_at_capa/. My colleagues in drafting the statement were Archbishop Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria and Bishop Zac Niringiye of Uganda. We exchanged drafts by email and then met in May to finish the final draft. Archbishop Akinola himself added certain key phrases, all of which made the document even more pointed in its message. The statement was received by the CAPA Primates in Kigali in September 2006, but some Primates said they would need individual approval from their House of Bishops or Provincial Synod. It was later endorsed by the House of Bishops of Uganda, Nigeria, Rwanda and Kenya.
[53] Radner, “Wheels Within Wheels: The Promise and Scandal of Anglican Conciliarism,” (The Inaugural Lecture at Wycliffe College, Toronto and SEAD Conference 9-10 October 2007) pp. 22-23, at http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.dreamhosters.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/conciliarism.pdf.
[54] Some former students may remember with chagrin my lectures on the prophetic rib, fashioned after a legal indictment, with God functioning as prosecutor and Israel in the dock.
[55] Though a remnant in terms of official power structures of the Communion, the churches represented at Jerusalem number about half the practicing Anglicans in the world.
[56] The Statement refers to “a fellowship of confessing Anglicans.” The first Primates’ Council in August 2008 (http://www.gafcon.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=89&Itemid=31) raised the status of the term to “Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans” (FCA), although “GAFCON movement” may well persist as a memorable marker.
[57] See my essay “Diaconal and Lay Presidency, Perpetual Priesthood and the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans” (forthcoming in 2009) at http://www.stephenswitness.com/.
[58] In all honesty, the ultimate intention is to form a replacement, not a parallel province. Pragmatically, a two-track province in North America is inevitable, whether recognized by Canterbury or not.
[59] “Wheels within Wheels,” page 20.
[60] See http://www.globalsouthanglican.org/index.php/comments/statement_on_lambeth_conference_2008/.
[61] For the typology of four Anglican groups, see Andrew Goddard’s revised version at http://www.fulcrum-anglican.org.uk/page.cfm?ID=250. My argument holds that the Global Anglican Future Statement contains elements both of “confessionalism” and “conciliarist catholicity.” In this sense it might merge two of Goddard’s final categories. See Robert Munday, “Confessional or Conciliar: the GAFCON Dilemma” at http://toalltheworld.blogspot.com/2008/06/confessional-or-conciliar-gafcon.html.
[62] See my “The Future of the Anglican Covenant in the Light of the Global Anglican Future Conference,” at http://www.stephenswitness.com/.
[63] See my “The Global Anglican Communion: A Blueprint” at http://www.stephenswitness.com/2007/06/global-anglican-communion-blueprint.html.
[64] Sec. 3.2.5 states:
However, commitment to this Covenant entails an acknowledgement that in the most extreme circumstances, where a Church chooses not to adopt the request of the Instruments of Communion, that decision may be understood by the Church itself, or by the resolution of the Instruments of Communion, as a relinquishment by that Church of the force and meaning of the covenant’s purpose, until they re-establish their covenant relationship with other member Churches.
There is no final separation and no provision for an alternative jurisdiction. In my opinion, this is the way the Communion ends, not with a bang but a whimper.
[65] “Truthful Language,” p. 5. In the service of truthful language, I think it fair to say that “reconciliation” in the case of those who have torn the Communion apart means “repentance.” It is also hard to see how those who have caused such damage would be allowed to continue in positions of leadership.
[66] This was an address given to a conference on primacy sponsored by the Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in New York City on 5 June 2008. See http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1948.
[67] In “Whither the Branch Theory?” at http://www.westernorthodox.com/branch.html, Fr. Gregory Mathewes-Green, who converted from the Episcopal Church to Orthodoxy, concludes that this theory is “theologically defective, resting as it does on a non-Biblical, non-Patristic ecclesiology, very late in development and believed by a minority of those for whom it was devised.”
[68] Resolutions 6-10.
[69] Williams cites the Anglican-Orthodox Statement “The Church and the Triune God” (2006), para. 19-23 in support of his view. Para. 21 states:
The theological argument for primacy begins with local and moves on to regional and global leadership. Primacy thus receives increasingly wide expression through episcopal representation of the Church's life. This ensures a proper balance between primacy and conciliarity; and the primate is the first among equals in synods of bishops. Primacy should not be seen as the prerogative of an individual, but of a local church. In the case of the universal primacy this would mean the primacy of the Church of Rome.
While it may well be true that a regional primate is first among equals in a synod of bishops, it is not clear that there is a place for a “branch” primate of primates who is of distinctively different status.
[70] See Mark D. Chapman, “The Dull Bits of History: Cautionary Tales for Anglicanism,” in idem, ed., The Anglican Covenant: Unity and Diversity in the Anglican Communion (London: Mowbray, 2008) pp. 81-99. Chapman’s “caution” about the failure of conciliarism at the Council of Constance seems to prove the point that it is difficult to mix polities, in this case primacy and conciliarity. The Eastern churches seem to have a purer model. Even the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople has only the power of influence and representation, and even that is disputed by some of the Orthodox. Thus the Dublin Agreed Statement (1984) 27 g, says: “Thus, even though the seniority ascribed to the Archbishop of Canterbury is not identical with that given to the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Anglican Communion has developed on the Orthodox rather than the Roman Catholic pattern, as a fellowship of self-governing national or regional Churches.”
[71] I intentionally leave out the Anglican Consultative Council. The ACC is the weakest of the Instruments of Unity, being granted no authority in matters of doctrine and discipline. It is intended, according to its constitution, to share information and to coordinate Anglican ecumenical efforts. But the ACC has developed a secretariat which has exercised power over the other Instruments far beyond its charter and is more an arm of Canterbury and its Anglo-American financiers than the Communion as a whole. If a Communion bureaucracy is desired, it should be accountable to the Primates through the President of the Primates’ Council. There may be an argument for a Primates Council with lay and clergy representation, which is the direction taken recently by adding the Primates to the ACC, but if so the Primates and Consultative Council should function in tandem – wheels within wheels.
[72] If the Episcopal Church were to split off from the Canterbury Communion, it would of course expose the deep fissure in the Church of England itself. That fate, I believe, lies ahead for the Mother Church no matter what Canterbury does or does not do.

THE FUTURE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN NORTH AMERICA

2008-12-06T20:44:00.000-08:00

People are asking two questions about the Anglican Church in North America:

1. Does ACNA want recognition as part of the Anglican Communion?

2. What makes ACNA different from the alphabet soup of continuing bodies in North America?

To some extent the answer to both these questions is: GAFCON!

The GAFCON Final Statement not only makes clear that the participants, including all those who are in ACNA, wish to be part of the Anglican Communion but they consider themselves to BE part of the Communion. Would they like recognition by the “Instruments” of the Communion? Sure. Do they consider that such recognition is the only means of recognition? No, they do not. Are they willing to wait for full and final recognition in a reformed Communion? You bet.

Secondly, the Global Anglican Future Conference itself was a sign of something new in the Communion: a movement, not a moment, as we said. Pulling off the conference was something of a miracle and showed the high degree of commitment and creative energy behind this movement. It was the fruit of a global alliance that has been developing for more than a decade (see Miranda Hassett’s Anglican Communion in Crisis). This is not Naughton’s bevy of gay-bashers and “handful of likeminded leaders in Africa” (Jim, think Nigeria! think Uganda). I have personally been on the ground floor of much of this movement and tell you the relationships that were manifest at GAFCON are rich and deep.

Finally, GAFCON endorsed and encouraged the Common Cause leaders to move ahead. Let me observe that the North American leadership represented in the ACNA College of Bishops represents much of the best talent that has grown up in the Episcopal Church since the 1970s. Most of these leaders were successful parish priests who in a better world would have been bishops in TEC. Most of them, even the Anglo-Catholics, have a strong commitment to church growth and world evangelization. Many of them and their congregations have made hard choices to leave their property behind and start over. They are risk-takers. And above all, they really do believe in the grace of God working through His Church.

The way ahead is not going to be easy for anyone at this point in history. We are dealing with an increasingly secularized society in the USA, and in many parts of Africa and Asia an aggressive Islam backed by oil money. What are the alternatives? A dying TEC? The Communion Partners, I think, can hold their own territory and get the endorsement of the Communion hierarchy, but I do not see how they get far beyond that (I continue to believe that in time CP and ACNA will work together more fully). ACNA is no sure bet, but it does have a “hope and a future.”

This comment was posted on several blogs following the announcement of the Draft Constitution of the American Church in North America on 3 December 2008.

CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH IN THE ANGLICAN CONTEXT

2008-11-17T19:58:00.000-08:00

A Sermon Preached at Nashotah House on the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude
29 October 2008

Let me begin by thanking the faculty and trustees of Nashotah Theological Seminary for bestowing on me the honor of the Doctor of Divinity. It may be surprising to some of you to know that I interviewed for a job here thirty years ago this month. It was the road not taken, actually the road not offered, and I went on to Trinity School for Ministry, and that has made all the difference. Well, maybe not all that much difference, as I find that these roads – the evangelical and the catholic roads – have been converging in the darkening woods of North American Anglicanism over the past decade. It is my hope that together we can emerge out of this forest into a clearing of light, the light of the gospel illuminated by Scripture and the holy tradition of the Church.

Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude. These were the last-named of Jesus’ Twelve apostles, save “Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him” (Luke 6:15-16). Judas Iscariot of course gained a notoriety of sorts. The same cannot be said of Simon and Jude. Simon was called “the Zealot” and that’s about all we know about him. Jude is sometimes referred to as “the obscure” and the patron of lost causes because he himself is lost from the annals of history. However, as the “brother of James” he is associated with Jude, the brother of Jesus, and although they are probably different historical individuals, their honor has been conflated along with their name. One of the Judes wrote a one-chapter letter in the New Testament, and it is to that letter that I now turn.

The Letter of Jude is found in the collection of miscellaneous letters called the Catholic Epistles. These letters have generally received less attention than the Gospels or Pauline Epistles, but I think they are tracts for our times. Let me try this theory out. Each of the great theological crises in church history has focused on a particular section of the New Testament canon. The Trinitarian and Christological crisis of the first five centuries was focused on the Gospels, especially the Gospel of John, in spelling out how God could exist as three Persons and Jesus Christ as Very God and Very Man. The Reformation focused on the question of the reception of salvation by grace and faith alone, and the Reformers’ key texts were the major Pauline Epistles. The current crisis, in the Anglican Communion at least, is about ecclesiology, and the Catholic Epistles (along with the Pastoral Epistles of Paul) are the locus of authoritative teaching in this area. That this is so should not be surprising, as these letters reflect a transitional period to the age in which the authority of the apostles was being passed on to others and the order of the church and its leadership had become a matter of intense debate and conflict. This is what we find in Jude’s letter:

Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, being very eager to write to you of our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For admission has been secretly gained by some men who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. (Jude 1-4)

Allow me to make four quick comments on these first verses. First, salvation requires vigilance, even militancy. Jude states that he wishes to speak to them about salvation, but in their context he can do so only by a call to defend the faith. In our day, few who have followed the conflicts in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion can fail to miss the phrase “contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” A year ago I set up a website called “Stephen’s Witness” and gathered my writings over the past twenty years. They are not light reading, I must confess. I have considered editing them into a book titled “Contending for Anglicanism.” But who would read such a book? I suspect a book of polemics would be about as hot as a copy of “Fordyce’s Sermons” was in Jane Austen’s day. At least Jude was brief in this polemical epistle. Nevertheless, it is a necessary part of preaching the gospel of salvation that we defend it as well.

Secondly, contending for the faith is a task for the whole people of God. Jude is not addressing bishops or clergy but all “who are called… and kept for Jesus Christ.” To be sure, bishops in our tradition are particularly charged to guard the faith, which makes the situation in the Episcopal Church sadly ironic, since, as Philip Turner has pointed out more than once, most Episcopal bishops have put on the mantle of prophetic pioneers rather than the shield of faith. Many clergy have decided that it is not their duty to inform or equip the laity for the struggles in the church, either out of a desire to protect their tender consciences or for fear of losing them. This, I believe, is most unfortunate. Let’s be honest: being contentious is never popular, especially in protracted conflicts. Witness the loss of public ardor for the war on terrorism since September 11, 2001. Willingness to contend is nevertheless, if we take Jude seriously, a general obligation of discipleship. To shield lay people from this obligation is to deny them a part of their calling.

Thirdly, the danger to the church comes from real flesh and blood individuals. Jude mentions “some persons” (they could be men or women) who are troubling the church, and he refers repeatedly to “these persons” throughout the epistle. This is not a war of false teachings, but a war with false teachers. He goes on to specify that they are dangerous precisely because they are in the church but not in the faith. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Too often in the past years, many in the Episcopal Church have been willing to extend the right hand of fellowship to those whom they know to be undermining the Gospel and the church. The apostles had a much less tolerant attitude toward heretics, as epitomized in Polycarp’s story of St. John fleeing the bathhouse “because the heretic Cerinthus is within.” I don’t think John stopped to pass the Peace as he went out! There are indeed bonds of affection which we as Anglicans should have for those in our tradition; because these bonds are precious, we should be careful not stretch them like bungee cords over the chasm between us.

Fourth and finally, note that doctrine and morals cannot really be separated. The danger Jude confronts is not, strictly speaking, doctrinal but moral, what he calls “perverting the gospel into licentiousness.” The heretics were no doubt teaching something about how freedom in Christ and the Spirit liberates believers from moral rules; hence these teachings would become grounds for justifying sinful behavior. In the trial of Bishop Walter Righter in 1996, his defenders claimed that morality was an “indifferent” matter, whereas I argued that moral behavior is part of the apostolic rule, and hence one cannot put moral teaching, especially in matters of sexual purity, in a second rank. Therefore those who practice immorality are in mortal danger, those who justify immorality even more so (Matthew 5:18).

In the body of the epistle (verses 5-19), Jude moves to an act of remembrance of scriptural teaching about heresy. He does this by means of free prophetic exegesis of Scriptural types, in which each example refers back to “these men” who are corrupting the church.

His first two examples are painted on a two-storied cosmic canvas: the rebellion of the people of Israel in the wilderness and the revolt of the angels in heaven. For Jude the watchword in these examples is: “those who stand, beware lest you fall” (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:1-12). The people saved through the Red Sea had seen and tasted that the Lord is good, yet before long many were worshipping the golden calf. In the angelic realm, Jude looks to the story, alluded to in Genesis 6:1-4 and expanded in the Book of Enoch, of the “sons of God” or “watchers,” the guardian angels who “fell” for the “daughters of men” and were imprisoned until the Last Judgment. Jude reflects a common theme in the apostolic writings that the primal sins are idolatry and sexual immorality (note the exhortation to flee idolatry and fornication – not, I might add to free them or feel them – see 1 Corinthians 10:14; 6:18). These sins are joined at the hip – or joined at the loins – as misdirected desire leads to misdirected worship. In the case at hand, Jude sees the unnatural sin of Sodom as typifying his opponents’ “dreamings that defile the flesh, reject authority and revile the glorious ones” (verse 8). For Jude, these persons are not merely differing on a secondary matter but rebelling against nature and the heavenly host who oversee it.

Jude follows the examples from Scripture with what we might call an argument from the hierarchy of reason. He cites a legend of the archangel Michael arguing with Satan over the body of Moses, in which Michael submits his great power to the final judgement of God. When it comes to matters of Christian doctrine and morals, Jude says, the authority of God trumps any reason of man. Too often man’s reason turns out to be rationalization of wrong desire, which is rebellion against God’s sovereign wisdom. “These men,” he says, “revile what they do not understand, and they are destroyed by those things that they know by instinct as irrational animals do” (verse 10). The end state of such rationalization, Jude says, is destruction, although like Michael we are to leave that final judgement to God.

Jude’s next set of bad examples has to do with the danger of so-called “prophetic” individualism to true Christian community. He cites Cain, who wandered before God, Balaam the loner prophet for hire, and Korah who tried to splinter the unity of the people under Moses and Aaron. Likewise Jude claims that his opponents are “blemishes on your agape meals” (verse 12). In Jude’s view, false prophecy is heresy and heresy is schism. False teaching causes a break in communion, whether that leads to a formal division or not. This is also the view of the Protestant Reformers but directly contrary to various statements recently by some Anglican leaders that “schism is worse than heresy.”

Jude’s final example comes from the mysterious patriarch Enoch, who “walked with God and was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24). The legend of Enoch was extremely popular in late Judaism and early Christianity, and the Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) carried considerable prophetic authority. Enoch himself was thought to be a figure of such godliness that he was raptured into heaven, studied the book of providence, and came back to warn of coming judgment in the days before Noah. Jude seems to accept this version of the Enoch legend and links it to the false teachers of his day. This extra-biblical reference demonstrates that early Christians expected to find inspired guidance from prophecy outside what came to be the canon of Scripture. Having said this, we should note that the supreme authority, as Jude concludes his catena of witnesses, comes from the predictions of Jesus and the apostles themselves who stated: “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions” (verses 17-18).

It is worth remembering in our time that the idea that there will be false teachers in the church is found throughout the New Testament (cf. Matthew 24:4ff.; 2 Timothy 3:1-9; 2 John 7-11; Revelation 2-3). It is not an occasional or accidental feature of church life but a constant, which explains why contending for the faith is a regular and expected duty. We may find this truth unpleasant to accept, but we do so at our own risk - and the church’s. The presence of heresy is an ongoing eschatological sign. All Christians and particularly Christian leaders live constantly before the judgment seat of Christ and in the light of his coming. It is therefore of utmost importance to keep one’s conscience clear. In certain circumstances, conscientiousness may lead two individuals to differ as to how to respond to heresy, but if so, they should be careful to maintain the spirit of unity in the bond of peace with each other.

As the epistle draws to a close, Jude turns to pastoral guidance for the congregation in the midst of serious conflict over the faith delivered to the saints.

But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And convince some, who doubt; save some, by snatching them out of the fire; on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. (verses 20-23)

The good pastor or good parishioner is called on to “discern the spirits” within the church. Again as Philip Turner has pointed out, a “conciliar economy” of mutual submission within the communion of the church requires spiritual virtues: faith, prayer and patience, “waiting for the mercy” of Christ. Not all those who may appear to be under the sway of false teaching are themselves false or fallen. Some are genuinely perplexed; they should be encouraged and exhorted to think again, to repent. Some are lured by temptation to practice what others preach; they should be pulled out of the fire of temptation. In these cases, the pastor or friend must be prepared to stand the heat of the fire itself by patient listening but should also be clear that sin is unacceptable before the holy God. It is this God alone who can keep all of us from falling and present us without blemish. But finally, some are truly false prophets and teachers and must be avoided like the “garment spotted by the flesh.”

Jude concludes with a typical doxology but one particularly focussed on the problem at hand.

Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you without blemish before the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for ever. Amen. (verses 24-25)

The God whom he praises is the powerful God who saves us through his Son, the holy God who purifies us by his Spirit, and the almighty Father whose authority is established before all time and to the end. It is this God who has loved his Church from all eternity so that the gates of hell cannot withstand it. It is this Christ who has kept his Bride pure and spotless so as to present her before his Father. It is this Spirit who unites the saints of God in heaven and on earth in one Body.

Today few would deny that the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion worldwide have been undergoing a profound crisis of identity, faith and mission, so much so that many of the eschatological warnings in the New Testament, Jude included, seem to apply. There are some here today who have felt conscience-bound to depart from the Episcopal Church – or have been given an assist by the powers-that-be to that end. Others have felt conscience-bound to stay in. Does Jude have anything to say specifically to our situation?

I think the answer is No and Yes. Jude does not give us specific guidance on whether or stay or go. Were the saints Jude was addressing a majority or a minority? Were the false teachers bishops or prophets with some kind of official stamp of approval? We do not know. So the answer is No, we do not know exactly what he might say to our specific situation. Was he calling the saints to come out, or the heretics to go out (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:17; 1 John 2:19)?

But at the same time, I think Yes, we can find concrete guidance for our day. Jude clearly warns that the church and by extension the wider communion will be torn at its deepest level by conflict over the truth of the “faith once for all delivered to the saints.” He also makes clear that believers, all believers, must be prepared to contend for the true faith, which includes calling a spade a spade, indeed calling particular persons heretics. In looking back at the decline of the Episcopal Church, I wonder if we cannot identify one key moment to be the recommendation of the Bayne Commission in 1967, which was investigating Bishop James Pike, that “heresy” is an unhelpful category in church affairs.

Secondly, I think Jude would argue that in contending for the faith we must use all the tools: Scripture, tradition, from the Book of Enoch to the Church fathers to the Reformers and on, and godly reason based on nature. At the same time, Jude’s reference to the fallen angels reminds us that we are engaged in spiritual warfare and that we cannot expect to remain faithful or to conquer without the godly virtues of prayer, patience and humility, waiting on the sovereign judgment of God.

Thirdly, we should note that Jude speaks as a pastor and to pastors, who are to discern the situation of their people. Some folks need to be challenged to grow up and take their full responsibility as disciples (I think this applies to a lot of Episcopalians who just want the present unpleasantness to go away). Others, particularly those trapped in the bondages of sin, need to be loved and cared for so that they may change their minds. Others need to be identified as heretics with whom one should have nothing to do (2 Timothy 3:5; Titus 3:10). As for this last group, the question is: how does one do this when they are in control of the official structures of the church?

Let me conclude with one final observation, with special reference to you who are graduating today. We do not know the fate of Saints Simon and Jude. There is good though brief evidence that “the Lord’s brothers” – and this would include Jude the Lord’s brother - were traveling evangelists (1 Corinthians 9:5). Tradition has it that Simon and Jude were missionaries to Persia where they were martyred, reminding us of those today whose blood cries out around the world. Those who are commissioned today will certainly have to contend for the faith in our churches and in our culture. My point is this: whatever trouble we may find ourselves in in our particular church, the mission of Christ to take the Gospel to the end of the earth cannot be neglected. Indeed it may well be, in the providence of God, that help may be coming for our church and our communion from those very missionaries and martyrs like James Hannington and the Ugandan converts who paid the ultimate price for their faith [remembered in the American cycle of saints on October 29]. Let us not therefore cease to remember our brothers and sisters around the world and the Anglican Communion, and to do good for them.

May God have mercy on our church and our communion! May he light the path ahead through his Word and Spirit and the witness of saints and martyrs and equip present-day witnesses like those going out today. May he bring us to that upland where with all the saints in light we may offer praise and glory through Jesus Christ our Lord. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for ever and ever. Amen.

Note: RICHARD HOOKER ON THE EPISTLE OF JUDE

It may come as a surprise to some that the “judicious Mr. Hooker” wrote two sermons on the Epistle of Jude (see
http://books.google.com/books?id=O84CAAAAQAAJ&vid=OCLC02547900&jtp=462#PPA473,M1 pages 462-509)

However, given my suggestion that ecclesiology is the presenting issue of our day, it is not surprising that the Reformation theologian who most addressed in his day would have turned to the Epistle of Jude.

In an essay on “Broken Communion” ten years ago (http://www.stephenswitness.com/1999/03/broken-communion.html), I gave a brief exposition of Hooker’s argument as it applies to our situation today.

Richard Hooker’s Sermon on Jude

The following is taken from sections 11 and 15 of Hooker’s Sermon on Jude (on Jude 17-21)

11. . . . WE, whose eyes are too dim to behold the inward man, must leave the secret judgment of every servant to his own Lord, accounting and using all men as brethren both near and dear unto us, supposing Christ to love them tenderly, so [long] as they keep the profession of the gospel and join in the outward communion of the saints. Whereof the one doth warrantize unto us their faith, the other their love, till they fall away and forsake either the one or the other or both. And then it is no injury to term them as they are. When they separate themselves, they are autokatakritoi, not judged by us, but by their own doings.

Men do separate themselves either by heresy, schism, or apostasy. If they loose the bond of faith, which then they are justly supposed to do when they frowardly oppugn any principal point of Christian doctrine, this is to separate themselves by heresy. If they break the bond of unity, whereby the body of the Church is coupled and knit in one, as they do which wilfully forsake all external communion with saints in holy exercises purely and orderly established in the Church, this is to separate themselves by schism. If they willingly cast off and utterly forsake both profession of Christ and communion with Christians, taking their leave of all religion, this is to separate themselves by plain apostasy. . . .

15. Here I must advertize all men that have the testimony of God’s holy fear within their breasts, to consider how unkindly and injuriously our own countrymen and brethren have dealt with us by the space of four and twenty years, as if we were the men of whom St Jude here speaketh, never ceasing to charge us, some with schism, some with heresy, some with plain and manifest apostasy, as if we had clean separated ourselves from Christ, utterly forsaken God, quite abjured heaven, and trampled all truth and all religion under our feet.

Against the third sort [apostasy], God himself shall plead our cause in that day, when they shall answer us for these words, not we them.

To others, by whom we are accused for schism and heresy, we have often made our reasonable and in the sight of God, I trust, allowable answers. For in the way which they call heresy, "we worship the God of our fathers, believing all things which are written in the Law and the Prophets" (Acts 24:14).

That which they call schism, we know to be our reasonable service unto God and obedience to his voice which crieth shrill in our ears, "Go out of Babylon, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Revelation 18:4).

Comment:
Hooker begins with a standard Anglican refusal to look into the soul of those who "keep the profession of the gospel and join in the outward communion of the saints" (cf. Article XXVI). For Hooker, outward profession would include specific articulations of biblical Christianity, such as those summarized in the Creeds and the Articles. Those who abandon either doctrinal conformity or participation in the life of the church — or both — can be labeled heretics, schismatics, or apostates.

Hooker later distinguishes the three ways that people can "separate themselves" from the faith once delivered to the saints: heresy, schism, and apostasy. Heresy is the denial of "any principal point of Christian doctrine." For Hooker and the Reformation Anglicans, "doctrine" would certainly include the moral "Commandments" (note how he cites "believing all things written in the Law and the Prophets" as a defense of Anglican orthodoxy).

Schism applies to those who break "external communion," while apostasy applies to those who are both heretical and schismatic. The Roman Catholics had accused the Church of England of being apostate. Hooker’s response turns the tables. Anglicans, he says, are not schismatic; indeed they are obedient to God because they have departed from Rome. In other words, there come times in the history of God’s people when those who leave are faithful and those who remain are schismatic. Needless to say, all schismatics say this, but Hooker argues that part of one’s "reasonable service" to God is discerning when it is necessary to come out.

LAMBETH 2008 REFLECTIONS

2008-08-05T21:06:00.000-07:00

A Response to Sarah Hey on Lambeth 2008

Dear Sarah and Stand Firm team;

Thank you for your hard work of reporting, usually without too much editorializing apart from the headlines. The Stand Firm team – and Kevin Kallsen from Anglican TV - have shown how the younger generation can mobilize the new communications technology to shed light on the subject at hand, while George Conger continues a fine foot soldier of the old media.

I have been waiting for the analysis, and it was not long in coming (http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/15164/). Thank you again for an honest, if searing, review of Lambeth 2008. It is going to take quite a few doses of official Episcopal indaba-palaver to neutralize her acidic analysis.

Sarah’s review led me go glance back over my chronicle of Lambeth 1998, especially the third week. (http://www.stephenswitness.com/2007/12/lambeth-diary-1998-week-two.html). A comparison of Lambeth 1998 with 2008 might be worth the read. Please note that August 5 was the tenth anniversary of the passage of Lambeth 1.10, one of the last coherent and relevant statements of Anglican orthodoxy from the official Communion that we are likely to see for a long while.

This is not my spot to pontificate from afar, so let me just leave several brief observations on Sarah’s analysis.

Firstly, I am surprised that Sarah and other orthodox Anglicans were surprised at the course and outcome of the Conference. Frankly, I was overwhelmingly unsurprised. Saddened, but not surprised. The ABC and Design Team had telegraphed their intentions for over a year and they stayed the course, even with the absence of 200+ bishops and the challenge presented by GAFCON. (One sentence in the ABC’s final Address hardly represents reaching out to GAFCON, but we’ll see.)

Secondly, I agree with Sarah that Rowan Williams has now like Phaeton taken in hand the other three reins of Anglican authority (a.k.a. Instruments of Unity) and is the only charioteer in town. So Lambeth was pretty much a paper parliament, as stunningly revealed in the 37-page Reflections document. What I do not see is why she sees his actions and inactions as unintentional. I am reminded of how the colonists right up to 1775 were convinced that it was the Privy Council passing all those nasty taxes and if good King George only knew… At some point, one gives up wondering “what Rowan really thinks” and holds him accountable for the consequences that Sarah so ably describes and predicts.

Finally, I want to commend Sarah for sounding a hopeful note for the GAFCON movement when she says:

I believe that all of this new-found unity [among conservative Anglicans] -- if it holds -- can help both the GAFCON group and internal TEC groups. It appears to me that if GAFCON proceeds calmly, wisely, and methodically -- something that it is not always known for -- and with more unity among other GS Primates, that it will gather more Primates who have endured the bizarre summer camp of Lambeth. I don't think such a shift will be immediate -- but I think it will be slow and sure, again if GAFCON does not act imprudently or arrogantly.

I think this alliance among conservative Anglicans is a real possibility, as is the warning to the GAFCON leadership to tread carefully. I will be interested to read Matt’s reflections on this subject, as one who went to both Conferences.

Looking back on my journal, I note the passing reference to the lone incident of Bp. John Rucyahana taking pastoral oversight of a church in Little Rock. That crack in the dike has opened to a flood, and many of the British and American conservatives who worked with the emerging Global South leadership for internal discipline and reform, first within the Episcopal Church and then within the Communion, are now in GAFCON. If you had told me at Lambeth 1998 I would have soon been residing in Uganda, I would have been amazed. If you had told me the fellowship of the Franciscan Centre at Canterbury would be transferred to the Renaissance Hotel in Jerusalem ten years later, I also would have likewise been amazed. If you had told me that my new bishop, Robert Duncan, who did not even make it to Lambeth 98, would have become the bete noire of the Episcopal Church, well on it goes…

So, Sarah, as you leave behind the toppled towers of Canterbury and turn to face the vengeful conquerors of TEC, take heart that there is a diaspora and that like Jeremiah God may carry you willy-nilly off into it, where you will be welcomed with open joy.

Speaking of women warriors for the faith, I am reminded in reviewing my memoir of the loss of Diane Knippers, one of the lovely and resolute saints of God whom I was privileged to work with. We rejoice that she is with the Lord, even as we feel her loss.

WALKING IN THE LIGHT, REDEEMING THE TIME

2008-08-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

A Sermon Preached at Uganda Christian University Chapel
3 August 2008

Lesson: Ephesians 5:1-21

I was given the topic “stewardship of time” for today as one of the last sermons on “Being Christ’s Ambassadors in the Leadership Arena.” The more I thought about the topic of use of time, the more I concluded that it cannot be treated in isolation. Let me explain why.

We all live in time. Time is one of the dimensions of cosmic reality, or so the physicists tell us. We cannot separate time from space, the “when” from the “where” of our existence. Our very bodies are bodies plotted in time. Yesterday I saw a Google Earth picture of UCU. It looked very realistic. I could see the road network and the tops of buildings, but then suddenly when we worked our way over on the screen to the dining hall and Sabiti Hall, all that was there was a large piece of dug-up earth. The Google map had given us a picture of UCU more than three years ago! It was not a real-time map.

Even more importantly, time is an essential part of human consciousness. Animals, it seems, can recall or foresee danger by means of instinct, but they cannot actually remember the past or think about the future. Humans can. Indeed some thinkers like St. Augustine suggest that even the present is no more real than the past or future, as a present act or thought is past before it is actualized, and future events thrust themselves upon us like on oncoming Gateway buses. We cannot avoid them; at most we can turn aside and let them pass. And the final bus we cannot avoid. It is death.

So we cannot really think about use of time without thinking about our lives as a whole from beginning to ending. A week ago, a speaker at our Staff Day mentioned the verse of Psalm 90 which states: “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty…” She asked us then to calculate what portion of our life we had already lived. Well, it’s funny. I can distinctly remembering myself at your age, about 20, thinking: “Hey, I have 80% of my life yet to live. I can do anything.” Now I have entered the last fifth of that lifespan. Maybe by reason of strength and the help of modern medicine and artificial joints, I can make it another 25 or 30 years. In any case, the end is closer than the beginning, and it raises the inevitable question: “how have you used your years?”

My young friends, let me share this with you. This is a most important question. In fact, it is the question that we will ask at the end our lives, or perhaps will be asked at the beginning of our new lives. God will call us to account for the things we have done and left undone.

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. (Revelation 20:12)

It is this thought that haunts those who live much of their lives in rebellion to God and who then come to the light. One famous journalist named Malcolm Muggeridge wrote a book titled Jesus Rediscovered when he came to faith in mid-life. He then wrote a memoir of his earlier years titled Chronicles of Wasted Time. One might wonder whether writing a book about the wasted years of his life was not just more waste, but Muggeridge was engaged in what our lesson today calls “redeeming the time.” You see, God can even use our sins to show forth His grace and to bring others to the light. This does not mean we should sin more so that grace might abound. But it does mean that God is the Lord of the whole of life, even the dark parts.

In our lesson today, St. Paul says: “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16). “Look carefully how you walk…” When I read this, I think immediately of walking along some of the roads inside the campus on a dark night, especially after a rainstorm. There may be mud and puddles, there may be palm branches that have fallen across the path. It could even be worse: what if there is a snake coiled up on the road and I don’t see it. St. Paul suggests that this is the normal human condition, walking in the dark, “because the days are evil.”

You see, we are all born sinners from our mother’s womb, and while we can see naturally with our physical eyes, we do not see the unseen things naturally – truth, goodness, beauty, and yes, time – with a clear vision. Our selfishness clouds over these things, indeed it often conjures up phantasms that are just their opposite: lies, lust, ugliness and waste. And these sinful passions keep us in the dark like prisoners in a deep dark dungeon. It is only when Christ comes into our lives and breaks the bondage of sin that we can rise up and walk in the light. And so Paul reminds the Ephesians: “for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord” (verse 8).

There is some very good news bound up in that little phrase “you are light in the Lord.” Paul does not say you are beginning to glow, or flashing on and off like a firefly (oh, you haven’t seen these little insects, I guess), but he says: you are light. What he means by this is that when you come to Christ, you are completely forgiven, washed clean in his blood, and you appear before him whiter than snow (oops, I guess you have seen snow either, except on the tip-tops of the Rwenzoris). When we put our faith in Christ, we start out “in the light.” Indeed we are our own light source, our own torches, which can guide others through the Holy Spirit who is in us. Certainly, many who have come to faith have suddenly looked different to their family, friends and neighbours. “What happened to you? You seem so different!” At least this should be the case.

Christians live in time just as everyone else, and so it is not enough to be the light; we must “walk in the light” as Paul goes on to say. Actually he says “walk as children of light.” Being a child involves a process and progress of growth. In this sense, “walking” is not just in space, along a physical road, but in time, along a time continuum, a lifespan. What do we need for this journey in time? Back to our main verse, Paul says: you must use your time wisely, not unwisely, by buying it back. This last image comes from the market place, where a person has given up something of worth as a guarantee and then comes to buy it back when he has made a profit.

Let me give you an example. When we built Sabiti and the Dining Hall four years ago, we handed over to the Bank the title deed to the entire Mukono Hill property. The bank then loaned us almost two million dollars to build the halls and we pay the loan off every year, which is where a portion of your boarding fees go. Now our loan runs for 10 years, and in 6.5 years, we shall be able to pay off the debt and get our title back. But to do so we must be careful to make regular payments or we could lose it all.

“Buying back or redeeming the time” is similar. We have been given a great gift in the righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. He has given us the full value of his grace in advance and forgiven all that is past. He does not ask us to redeem our own sins – that has already been done on Calvary – but he does ask us to redeem the time which we have left on earth by showing forth his love and glory.

Making good use of time, Paul tells us, is a matter of being wise, not unwise. In this chapter, he outlines several areas of potential darkness where we must follow the light. The first of these is sexuality.

But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people (verse 3).

I know you have heard many talks on this subject. Let me just add that the point at which our natural instincts for love, for family, for excitement, come together is in the area of sexual desire; and this is also the point where our deep-seated sin rears up to darken our thinking and to talk us into immoral actions. In another place, Paul says: “Flee fornication,” like Joseph in Egypt flying away from the embraces of Potiphar’s wife. Paul even goes one step further and says:

Let there be no filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity, which are not fitting; but instead let there be thanksgiving. (verse 4)

Sexual temptations often arise through idle thoughts or talk – daydreaming or gossiping or browsing the internet. Not just sex but other temptations come this way, like drinking and gambling can come through being too casual as if you had all the time in the world to live.

Let me add at this point that there is a place for genuine leisure. To begin with, God made the Sabbath and commanded his people to rest, even the slaves. God gave us eyes to enjoy beautiful sights, voices to sing and ears to ring with the sound of music, taste and smell to enjoy good food. There is no sin in right use of leisure. Interestingly, the word “scholar” comes from a Latin word meaning leisure. Students and teachers need to have the luxury to sit back and think about the world they live in and how to live in it. It is not enough just to study feverishly at the end of the semester and then turn it all off until the next exam time. Even your time on recess is an opportunity to learn. Make all your senses and all your experiences captive to Christ and you will walk in the light and redeem the time.

Now St. Paul certainly includes warnings like these in his message to redeem the time, because the days are evil. But he has a better way: to be imitators of God (verse 1). How in the world can we imitate God, whom we have not seen? Paul’s answer: “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…” (verse 2). Christ is the image of the invisible God, and his way of life is the pattern for us to imitate. You may be tired of my speaking of servant leadership, but that is exactly what St. Paul is commending. Servant leadership does not ask “What can I get for myself? but “What can I give to others?”

Making good use of time will involve sacrifice and personal self-discipline. In one place Paul uses the image of the Christian as an athlete, beating his body into shape. The Olympians do not get where they are without hours of work and hardship. So also Christians must discipline their minds, their bodies and their spirits. In addition to self-denial, Paul commends a positive approach: fill the darkness with light, the emptiness with good things. He says: “The fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.” In another place he says much the same:

whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Philippians 4:8)

I think Paul would include in this many “secular” things: good food, good books, great art and music, good sports. These all come from the hand of a good God. But in particular, he would commend Christian activities:

addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, always and for everything giving thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father. (Ephesians 5:19-20)

My wife and I have the interesting problem of having our bedroom right across from Mukono Cathedral, where on many Friday nights we get to listen to overnight prayers – which include rather loud singing, preaching and exorcising spirits. It reminds me of some wild pentecostal meetings I went to when I was young. I think one needs to be careful not to think worship is more godly just because it is loud and late; but nevertheless, I am grateful that these folk are not full of wine but of the Spirit of God (see verse 18).

Our Anglican tradition has some resources for how to redeem the time. One of my favorite authors is the poet George Herbert (1593-1633). Herbert wrote a long didactic poem called “The Church-Porch” which spells out in a number of proverbs the kind of thing Paul meant, I think, when he said: “Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is” (verse 17). Here are some short verses from this poem:

George Herbert , “The Church Porch” (modernized)

Beware of lust: it doth pollute and foul
Whom God in baptism washed with his own blood.

Abstain wholly or wed: Your bounteous Lord
Allows you choice of paths: take no by-ways.

Drink not the third glass, which you cannot tame…
(Well, if you don’t take the first glass, you won’t be tempted by the third.)

Take not his name, who made your mouth, in vain.

Lie not, but let your heart be true to God.

Flee idleness…

Do all things like a man, not sneakingly.

By all means use sometimes to be alone.
Salute yourself: see what your soul doth wear.
Sum up at night what you have done by day;
And in the morning what you have to do.

Be thrifty, but not covetous…
Never exceed your income…
Spend not on hopes…

Play not for gain, but sport…

Be sweet to all. Is your complexion sour?
Catch not at quarrels….
Laugh not too much…

Envy not greatness, for you make thereby
Your self the worse, and so the distance greater.

Your friend put in your bosom…

Pitch your behaviour low, your projects high.

Scorn no man’s love, though of a mean degree.

Keep all your native good, and naturalize
All foreign of that name…

In alms regard your means and others merit.

Restore to God His due in time and tithe.
Sundays observe: think when bells do chime [drums beat]
Tis angels’ music; therefore come not late.

Resort to sermons but to prayers most:
Praying’s the end of preaching.

In brief, acquit yourself bravely, play the man.
Look not to pleasures as they come, but go.

My young friends, I know this is exam time, and at exam time, we all suddenly begin to focus on what is important. Actually, maybe not, as some people may make their exams their god for a couple weeks. But in any case, take the Word of God today as a word to you. Most of you have many years ahead to live and work and love. Those of you who know Christ have a head start on some people like Malcolm Muggeridge.

Commit yourselves today and your lives – past, present and future – to be imitators of God, giving thanks to the Father through Jesus Christ.

AMEN

CHURCH OF UGANDA CRITIQUE OF ST ANDREWS COVENANT DRAFT

2008-08-01T03:30:00.000-07:00

WORKSHOP ON THE ANGLICAN COMMUNION COVENANT
Opening Remarks by the Rev. Prof. Stephen Noll
Vice Chancellor, Uganda Christian University
27 March 2008

Easter Greetings in the Name of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ! And welcome to this Workshop about the Anglican Communion Covenant.

Let me begin by saying that I believe we are about serious deliberations concerning God’s will for His Church. I think the fundamental crisis in the Anglican Communion today comes from a loss of spiritual or theological identity. Those of us who come from the West, especially the Episcopal Church USA, have seen this identity crisis coming for many years. I first began writing on the subject twenty years ago when TEC began to introduce “inclusive language” liturgies that avoided any reference to God as “Father” or “He.” In fact, the loss of identity goes back much further to the advent of liberal theology in late-Victorian England, at the very time the CMS missionaries were bringing Evangelical Christianity to Uganda.

For much of Anglican history it was assumed that the formularies – the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles – were sufficient to preserve biblical orthodoxy, even if individuals doubted privately. In fact, this did seem to work insofar as outward form was concerned. But beginning in the mid-20th century, a line of radical bishops emerged in the UK – Bishops John Robinson and David Jenkins – and in the USA – Bishops James Pike and John Spong – who denied fundamental doctrines of the Creed: the Virgin Birth of Christ, the vicarious atonement, the Bodily Resurrection, and above all the truth and authority of the Bible. In the Episcopal Church, their views were gradually assimilated into the mainstream of bishops and clergy so that today many simply take for granted their radical skepticism. The current TEC Presiding Bishop Katherine Schori speaks non-stop heresy without even realizing she is doing it.

The radical takeover in the West began to spread to the whole Communion in the late 1990s. At first, many Global South leaders simply could not believe their ears; later they realized the chasm that separated their churches from those in the West. This separation became apparent at Lambeth 1998, where the liberal cause was stymied by the Resolution on Sexuality, declaring that homosexual practice was “contrary to Scripture” and “cannot be advised.” This Resolution did not stop the American bishops. They simply rejected it and refused any call to repentance from the wider Communion. Their rebellion culminated in the consecration of Gene Robinson in November 2003, which led to the production of the Windsor Report one year later.

The Windsor Report, in my opinion, is a mixed bag, reflecting the mixed membership of the Lambeth Commission that produced it. The so-called Windsor process has not led to repentance or discipline of the Episcopal Church and other Western churches like Canada. In fact, the Archbishop of Canterbury has, sadly, aborted the process of discipline laid out in the Dar Es Salaam Communiqué just over a year ago by ignoring the September 30 deadline, by willfully misreading the Episcopal House of Bishops’ non-compliance, and by inviting all Episcopal bishops to Lambeth, except Gene Robinson. (Let me cite here Matthew 5:19, where our Lord says: Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven…” The problem is not just with Gene Robinson but with those who endorse his behavior to the wider church. And these folk, hundreds of them, will be seated at Lambeth.).

So in a significant way, the Windsor Report delayed and even subverted the needed process of discipline. At the same time, one significant result of the Windsor Report was the proposal for an Anglican Covenant. The Report itself offered a sketch of a Covenant, which is largely procedural in nature. In my opinion, a procedure is not what is needed but a clear and fresh statement of the biblical and historic faith. Therefore I proposed a “blueprint” of such a Covenant in January 2006, which I then adapted for presentation to the Church of Uganda.

In early 2006, the Global South Steering Committee began working on its own version of the Covenant, and I was recommended by Abp. Orombi to serve on it. However, just before the Kigali meeting in September 2006, Abp. Rowan Williams appointed Abp. Drexel Gomez as chairman of a Lambeth Covenant Drafting Group, along with Abp. John Chew. Some of us feared that this was an attempt to co-opt the Global South group, and that does seem to have happened to some extent. There are good points in the first Draft that go back to the earlier Global South version, but it is also weak at key points. The second “St. Andrew’s draft” is even weaker, as the liberals were able to overwhelm the first draft with a raft of changes, the most significant of which is the relegating of the Primates to a second rank in the enforcement of the Covenant (this becomes fully clear only by reading the Appendix to the St. Andrew’s revision).

In July 2007, I published an “Evangelical Commentary” on the Draft Covenant (first draft). I thought one could keep the good stuff from the draft and strengthen it at key places. My suggestions were ignored in the St. Andrew’s Draft. The dynamics of a hand-picked group of people who do not hold the same convictions is bound to produce a muddle. And so it has.

So what do we do? I still believe the idea of an Anglican Communion Covenant is a good and necessary one. I think there remain a number of positive points in the present draft. Therefore I support His Grace’s request that Uganda submit an evaluation of the draft and suggest improvements. I hope we can do that today. However, I must say honestly that I doubt our suggestions will be any more successful than mine to date.

There is, however, another value in going through this exercise. The Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) will also be reviewing the Covenant idea, and it is even possible that it will adopt an alternative statement. So we shall have an opportunity not only to have input into the Lambeth Conference but to the Jerusalem Conference as well.

For these reasons, I invite you to work hard today in seeing how the Covenant can be strengthened to serve a reformed and renewed communion of Anglican Christians.

May God bless and guide our deliberations.

CHURCH OF UGANDA STATEMENT ON THE ST ANDREWS DRAFT COVENANT[1]

Introduction
Writing to the believers, Simon Peter stated, “Therefore I intend to keep on reminding you of these things, though you know them already and are established in the truth that has come to you. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to refresh your memory...” (2 Peter 1:12-13; also Phil 3:1). As members of God’s family in Christ Jesus, we shall not tire in pouring and sharing our hearts out on what we consider to be our common classical Anglican heritage of biblical, historical and reformed formularies of faith and ecclesiology.

As pointed out in various other circulated documents[2], we are fully aware that the ‘torn fabric at the deepest level’ of the Anglican Communion is still a living reality. Unless the primary reason for the current crisis and division in the Communion is properly addressed, and the broken and impaired communion restored, the common life of the Anglican Communion cannot be expected to continue normally. Let us face it – it is not possible to refer to the Anglican Communion in the present state as one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. The suggested idea of an Anglican Communion Covenant remains one of the key paths towards the ‘healing’ and ‘restoration’ of a Communion whose ‘fabric has been torn at the deepest level’. Healing and restoration must also start at the deepest level and we warn that stitching the surface will be futile and counter-productive.

Specific Comments

1. The heritage of the Holy Scriptures in the Church of Uganda
We have noted with great concern that the St. Andrews Draft has omitted the scriptural references that introduced the major sections of the Covenant in Draft one. The story of the Church of Uganda is one of obedience to the preaching and teaching of the gospel, according to the Bible. When the early missionaries announced the gospel of Jesus Christ to our fore fathers and mothers, they responded to the word of salvation. They acknowledged that Jesus is Lord and Saviour and for that reason gladly obeyed His word in Scripture. The transforming effect of the Bible on Ugandans generated so much conviction and confidence that even ordinary believers were martyred in the defense of the message of salvation through Jesus Christ that it brought. The adherents of the East African Revival, that broke out in the late 1920s and early 1930s (a movement that has shaped the ethos of our Church), were simple people who learned to take God at His Word. For the Church in Uganda, to compromise God’s call of obedience to the Scriptures would be the undoing of more than 125 years of Christianity through which African customs, beliefs, life, and society have been transformed for the better.[3] While it needs to be acknowledged that these scriptural references are not exhaustive, they should be included and expanded to indicate that our covenant is biblically based. It is improper to relegate scriptural references to the appendix or footnotes.

2. Human Sexuality as the context of the Covenant
It is imperative to mention in the preamble that ‘human sexuality’ is the presenting issue of this covenant. It forms the context of the covenant and we need to face up to this reality. A negative statement in the preamble to indicate that the biblical norms of human sexuality have been violated needs to be included. Also in the section on ‘Our Commitment to Confession and Faith’, the church must commit itself to “upholding the vision of humanity as male and female and our Lord’s teaching on the unchangeable standard of marriage of one man to one woman (or abstinence)”. This is the presenting issue and must be firmly stated.

3. The historic Anglican Formularies
We subscribe to the historic Anglican Formularies whose authority – under that of the Holy Scriptures - Anglican Christians have accepted. These historic formularies include the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer (1662) and The Form and Manner of Making, Ordaining and Consecrating of Bishops, Priests and Deacons (commonly called The Ordinal).[4] These are too important to be relegated to a footnote in section 1.1.2 (note 4). We suggest that this note be moved to the main text of the Covenant and their role in our Common Catholicity, Apostolicity and Confession of Faith clarified.

4. Concept of Episcopal leadership and synodical governance
The concept of the churches in the communion being individually episcopally led and synodically governed has been emphasized on several occasions without being clarified. We suggest that this be elucidated in the Covenant. The Covenant needs to put in checks and balances between episcopal leadership and synodical governance. The episcopacy has for long been understood as institutional rather than being missional. This needs to be corrected and clarified in the Covenant. The episcopate should submit and be answerable to some authority instituted by the individual provinces of the communion.

5. The Place of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lambeth
This Covenant needs to address the issue of the place of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lambeth. While wishing to respect the historical origins of our Anglican tradition, we have concluded that it is no longer possible in the present state, to continue to take the Archbishop of Canterbury as an instrument of unity in the Anglican Communion. It is hereby suggested that the headship of the Anglican Communion be separated from the headship of the Church of England. The current state is source of conflict of interest since the Archbishop of Canterbury is one accountable to the State (The United Kingdom) and the Anglican Communion. Besides, the appointment process of the Archbishop of Canterbury continues to be a function of the civil authorities in England and this can no longer be allowed to continue. The sum of all this has in a way contributed to the current theological impasse in the Anglican Communion. The Church of Uganda recommends a head of the Anglican Communion who is one among equals – the Primates will have responsibility to choose among themselves one to head the communion for a specified period. We take the view that the Lambeth Conference is a conference of Bishops. If this understanding is correct then it is not necessary to locate permanently the conference of Bishops in England. This conference should be rotated in the various member provinces of the communion.

6. Enforcement Clause
It is sad to note that the enforcement clause that was in Draft One has been edited out in the St. Andrews Draft. It should be possible by the articles or provisions of this Covenant for an erring church to permanently put itself out of the Communion. We recommend the wording of such a clause as follows:

We acknowledge that in the most extreme circumstances, where member churches choose not to fulfill the substance of the covenant as understood by the Councils of the Instruments of Communion, we will consider that such churches will have relinquished membership in the Anglican Communion.

True repentance of erring people should be seen before they are re-admitted to the communion. Pastoral concern will continue even to those outside the communion.

7. Primates Vs Anglican Consultative Council (ACC)
The St. Andrews Draft has given the ACC the final say in matters of discipline and this is not right. The Primates should have an enhanced role in matters of the communion including disciplining of erring members of the communion. The Primates and not the ACC should have the final say. The ACC should be more of a mission body – mobilizing people for mission rather than being judicial.

In his instruction to Timothy, St. Paul wrote: ‘Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers’ (1Timothy 4:16).

Members of the Consultation
Rt. Rev. Dr. Nicodemus Okille
Rt. Rev. Dr. Zac Niringiye
Rt. Rev. Joel Obetia
Rt. Rev. Eliphaz K. Maari
Rt. Rev. Wilson Mutebi
Rev. Canon Dr. John Senyonyi
Rev. Canon Prof. Christopher Byaruhanga
Rev. Canon Dr. Hamlet Mbabazi
Rev. Canon Dr. Edison Muhindo Kalengyo
Rev. Dr. Olivia Nassaka Banja
Rev. Dr. Solomon Nkesiga
Rev. Canon Grace Ndyabahika
Rev. Canon Alfred Olwa
Rev. Canon John Kateeba
The Very Rev. Stephen Tiromwe
Rev. Canon Geoffrey Byarugaba
Rev. Canon Prof. Stephen Noll

Notes
[1] A consultation of Church leaders and theologians set up by His Grace the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda – The Most Rev. Henry Luke Orombi, met on March 27th, 2008, April 10th, 2008 and May 5th, 2008 and deliberated on the St. Andrews Draft of the Anglican Covenant and came up with a statement which was carefully studied and approved by the House of Bishops of the Province of the Church of Uganda on May 6th 2008. This now forms the official response of the Church of Uganda to the St Andrews Draft Covenant. A list of Church leaders and theologians of the Church of Uganda involved in the consultation is attached.

[2] Church of Uganda: Position Paper on Scripture, Authority, and Human Sexuality: May 2005; Statement from the Global South Primates Steering Committee, London, March 13-15, 2008.

[3] This is the encounter of the believers in the Church of Uganda with the Bible. It might be helpful to put a footnote at 1.2.2 section of the Covenant pointing to an appendix that explains the experience of believers with the Bible in other areas of the Anglican Communion.

[4] This is further clarified and confirmed by the Chicago Lambeth Quadrilateral 1888.

N.B. I was the host of the first meeting and presented opening remarks. I also distributed my "Evangelical Commentary" based on the first draft, from which the language of the "enforcement clause" was taken. I was not, however, present for most of the sessions. The final version of this critique was forwarded to the Covenant Design Group prior to the Lambeth Conference in July 2008.

COMMUNING WITH CHRIST

2008-06-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

A WORKSHOP ON ANGLICAN ECCLESIOLOGY
Given at GAFCON 2008

Introduction
My brothers and sisters in Christ, as you know, we are here in extraordinary circumstances. The Anglican Communion stands at a crossroads and we have gathered in the Holy Land to enquire after the ancient paths so that we may discern for ourselves and the wider Church the path for the future that leads to life (Jeremiah 6:16). Let us not pretend that this Conference is not a sign of judgement, God’s judgement on our unfaithfulness as a Communion.

Thirty years ago, I was working on a doctorate on the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were produced by a group of Jews who dissented from the worldly leadership of the Jerusalem priesthood and who set up a New Covenant community in the desert of Judea. They saw themselves repeating or rather continuing the Exile of 587 BC, when the nation had been overrun and a remnant sent to the waters of Babylon. The paradigm of Exile and Return is fixed in the Old Testament prophets and has been applied at critical moments in the Church’s history. Martin Luther, for instance, spoke of the “Babylonian Captivity of the Church” by Rome. Each in his own way, George Herbert the Anglican and Richard Baxter, the Puritan, sought to restore the church from the ground up, producing two classics of pastoral care: The Country Parson and The Reformed Pastor.

So today it obliges us to retrace the paths which made the Church of England and its daughter churches great so that we may, with penitent hearts, seek God’s grace and guidance for the future of the Communion. In particular, I am addressing the topic of Anglican Ecclesiology, the doctrine of church, ministry and sacraments, and church discipline.

The Nature of the Church
We begin by asking about the nature of the church. Scripture gives no precise definition but rather a number of metaphors or analogies, two of which are of primary importance. The first is political, having to do with the Church and the Kingdom of God, as the Gospel introduces it: “Jesus came proclaiming: ‘the Kingdom of God is near’” (Mark 1:15). It is hard to translate Jesus’ use of “kingdom” properly; the idea of basileia is more a constitutional order, the result of a regime change, as it were. The Kingdom of God is in one sense an eschatological reality, coming to fulfillment in the end-time, but the regime change is starting now with the community around Jesus. The apostles are the first pupils of the Kingdom, learning its secrets in Parables and the Sermon on the Mount. They are its guardians, founded on the confession of Peter and given the keys of access (Matthew 16:19); and they are its witnesses (Acts 1:6-8), commanded to make and baptize more disciples until the end of the age. What unifies the end-time Kingdom with the present church is the Lordship of Christ as sovereign in this age and the age to come.

The Kingdom of God is inaugurated by Christ’s death and resurrection, which seal the new Covenant in His blood and empower it through the Holy Spirit and faith. The Church is the outpost of the Kingdom, and hence St. Paul can say:

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confidence of access through our faith in him. (Ephesians 3:8-12)

The second analogy of the Church is an organic one: the Church as the Body of Christ. Again St. Paul says:

The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body – whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink…. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. (1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 27)

One can hardly imagine a more intimate, holistic metaphor for the relationship of Christ and the Church, although Paul uses a related one when he speaks of marriage, with Christ as the husband and the Church as the Bride (Ephesians 5:22-35). The relationships within the Triune God Himself are mirrored in His relation to the Church. When we say: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship (koinonia) of the Holy Spirit” (2 Corinthians 13:14), we are acknowledging that our incorporation into Christ brings with it communion in the fullness of the Godhead, as St. Peter confesses: “that you may become partakers (koinonoi) of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4; cf. Ephesians 1:22-23).

The Attributes of the Church
Christian theology distinguishes between the invisible and visible church. According to Richard Hooker (Laws iii.1.2), the former “body mystical” cannot be “sensibly discerned by any man,” consisting, as the Westminster Confession (xxv.1) puts it, “of the whole number of the elect that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof.” “The visible Church of Jesus Christ,” Hooker continues (Laws iii.1.3) “is therefore one, in outward profession of those things, which supernaturally appertain to the very essence of Christianity, and are necessarily required of every Christian man.” Just as the Kingdom of God is present yet imperfectly fulfilled in this age, and just as the individual Christian has received merely the first-fruits of the Spirit, so also the visible Church, the so-called Church Militant, is but a partial and imperfect manifestation of “the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 21:2). In this age, the true citizenship of the elect is “kept in heaven” (Philippians 3:20) and not identical with membership in the church or reception of the sacraments. Indeed, Jesus taught that the Kingdom is like a field sown with grain and weeds, which will only be separated at the last judgement (Matthew 13:24-30).

When we say in the Creed that we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church, we acknowledge the attributes of the church in perfection which are imperfectly realized in the church as found at any one place or time. The church is one in the sense that is confesses one God the Father and one Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 8:6) and that this one God has only one elect communion of saints from all eternity, and “its division by discordant polities is an accident, contrary to its ideal” (H.C.G. Moule). The church is holy in that it is filled and transformed by the Holy Spirit. The church is catholic in that it is drawn from every nation, tribe, people, and language down to the end of the age (Revelation 7:9; Matthew 28:18-20). The church is apostolic in that it is founded on the truth of the Gospel proclaimed by the apostles in Scripture which is received by the hearing of faith (Ephesians 2:20; Romans 10:18-19) and passed on in the authentic teaching of the church (1 Corinthians 4:17; 2 Thessalonians 2:15).

The Marks of the Church
The marks of the Church are, according to the Reformers, those characteristics that distinguish a true church from a heretical church. The Homily for Whitsunday has the fullest definition of the marks among the Anglican formularies:

The true church is an universal congregation or fellowship of God’s faithful and elect people, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ being the head corner-stone. And it hath always three notes or marks, whereby it is known: Pure and sound doctrine; The sacraments ministered according to Christ’s holy institution; And the right use of ecclesiastical discipline.

This definition is broader than that of the Articles in that it speaks of a “universal congregation,” which may include what we today might call the worldwide (visible) church. By contrast, Article 19 is focused more locally:

The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached and the Sacraments duly administered according to Christ’s ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.

It seems likely Cranmer had in mind the collective society of English congregations gathered for worship. The health of Christ’s church cannot be measured by ecumenical dialogues, or the Instruments of Unity, or even by bishops in their cathedrals, unless it is manifested in vital, faithful congregations. Anglicans are not congregationalists, but according to the Articles we experience the congregation to be the basic unit of church life.

Another emphasis of Article 19 is the centrality of Scripture, with its insistence that the “pure Word of God is preached.” Anglicans rightly pride themselves on their rich lectionary of Scripture readings at every service. However, it is equally important that Scripture be practically applied to the lives of the people. The famous Scripture Collect captures this aim:

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them; that, by patience and comfort of your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ…

The people of the Church are to be hearers and readers of Scripture: note that the first East African converts were described as “readers” because the Bible was their first written text. Beyond that, the clergy are to help them discern the whole pattern of Scripture, the Old and New Testaments, and its culmination in the promise of salvation in Christ.

The marks of the church are not limited to preaching alone: the “due” administration of the sacraments is also necessary for the fullness of church life. It has been difficult for Anglicans to get this balance right. Evangelicals have relegated Holy Communion to an occasional service or tacked it on to a long service of preaching. Anglo-Catholics, on the other hand, have often treated preaching as no more than a grace note in crescendo to Communion. And charismatics often allow both notes to be drowned out in endless choruses of praise music.

It will be important for the future of Anglicanism that we claim our classic inheritance of the one holy catholic and apostolic church, marked by lively biblical preaching and reverent reception of the sacraments, in the spirit of worship and praise.

Finally, the third mark of the Church – discipline – is stated in the Homilies and either assumed in Article 19 or subsumed under the words “faithful men” and “duly administered.” Church discipline has been badly neglected in the Anglican tradition and is at the heart of the current troubles of the Communion, so I have reserved a separate section on this mark for the end of the presentation.

The Ordained Ministry
The exalted nature of the Church as Christ’s Body is accompanied by an exalted sense of the Spirit’s gifts for ministry. As Paul says:

And his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ… (Ephesians 4:11-12)

Paul begins with certain extraordinary offices – apostles, prophets, evangelists. The first three offices have a dual reference: to the original apostolic generation, whose works and words have become canonical; and also to contemporary missionary pioneers who bring the Gospel to unreached peoples and hostile territory. Sometimes this latter group arises outside the normal structures of the church; we Anglicans must find ways to deploy such people, as the Church of Nigeria is doing in sending its missionary bishops into already existing dioceses.

When we come to “pastors and teachers,” it is probably more accurate to translate “pastor-teachers” for the ordinary role of the clergy. A pastor-teacher is involved in a personal way with his congregation, in imitation of the Good Shepherd who said: “I know my sheep and my sheep know me” (John 10:14). It is one of the great failures I have observed over almost forty years of church ministry – and this observation applies both in the West and in Africa – that clergy seldom visit their people at home any more, except in crisis situations. I know all the excuses we give, but I think it is a serious falling away from the pastoral ideal.

The pastor is also a catechist and teacher, forming new converts and counselling the mature. In order to teach others, he must himself be educated in God’s Word and other necessary disciplines. Hence a Church that fails to provide adequate theological training for its clergy is negligent indeed. The pastor should consider it his duty to provide Christian education at all levels of the laity, beginning with the children. He should work hard in his preaching and catechesis to speak in language understood by the people, both in their vernacular and with appropriate illustrations and applications.

The office of priest or presbyter, according to Article 23, must involve a “lawful” call from the Church. The vocation is a weighty one, as ordinands are reminded in the Prayer Book service:

...that ye have in remembrance, into how high a Dignity, and to how weighty an Office and Charge ye are called: that is to say, to be Messengers, Watchmen, and Stewards of the Lord; to teach and to admonish, to feed and provide for the Lord’s family; to seek for Christ’s sheep that are dispersed abroad, and for his children who are in the midst of this naughty world that they be saved through Christ for ever.

I have emphasized here the role of the parish priest and pastor as the key to church ministry. It is only when the pastorate is well-supplied that the other orders of ministry will be properly equipped. Having said this, note that the aim of the ordained is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.” Laypeople have an equal role to play in the work of the Church. It is a particular challenge to a “hierarchical” church – again I see this problem both in the West and in Africa – to recognize and empower laypeople in their roles of building up the Kingdom of God, not through quasi-clerical functions, but in situ, where they live and work – at home and in the field and office.

We come now to the office of bishop (I leave aside the role of deacon, which strikes me as needing serious rethinking). In the apostolic church, the distinction between bishop (episkopos) and elder (presbyteros) was fluid. The sub-apostolic church appointed bishops as the clerical heads of the Church, even as they retained their pastoral oversight of metropolitan churches. The Anglican Reformers retained the threefold ministry in practice but were reluctant to assign separate orders for priests and bishops as an essential mark of the church (hence the “ordination” of a priest and the “consecration” of a bishop). To be sure, bishops functioned as de facto hierarchs in the Church of England, and the Lambeth Quadrilateral notes the historic episcopate as a non-negotiable of ecumenical agreement. The English and American parish systems also evolved checks-and-balances between the authority of the bishop, parish priest and the laity. The Communion Instruments also contained elements of mixed polity, but that balance has been badly damaged in the last few years.

The bishop exercises formal headship within the church, and this role has fallen exclusively to men throughout most of church history and even today across an ecumenical majority of churches. The notion that headship should be reserved to men has biblical support in the family (Ephesians 5:22-24) and in the church (1 Corinthians 11:2; 1 Timothy 2:12-14), although the New Testament in particular also raises the status of women in church and society as full partners in God’s kingdom (Galatians 3:28). Biblically faithful Anglicans need to wrestle once again with God’s order for the family and church; and unless there is overwhelming biblical justification and ecumenical consensus to change, we should reserve the episcopacy (at least) to men.

Worship and Sacraments
The adage that “praying shapes believing” (lex orandi lex credendi) is a commonplace among Anglicans. To begin with, it has deep biblical roots, as can be seen from the presence of liturgical nuggets throughout the Scriptures and the entire Book of Psalms. The formative role of prayer and worship in the Jewish and Christian tradition is beyond question. Anglicans in particular have been blessed by the Book of Common Prayer, Thomas Cranmer’s gift to the Christian world. One need only think of the great Collect for Purity, the Litany, the Prayer of Humble Access, and the General Thanksgiving to realize what a treasure we have been entrusted with. These prayers and others have been translated into numerous languages and adopted by many free churches into their orders of worship.

Another contribution of Anglicanism has been the use of the Church Year and a lectionary of Scripture readings, both in daily and Sunday worship. Morning and Evening Prayer in particular include biblical canticles, a rota of psalms, and serial reading of Old and New Testament texts. The Eucharist also includes provision for psalms and up to three lessons. Hence Anglicans who follow the lectionary (though this is a dwindling band, it seems) are exposed to the whole counsel of God in Scripture. The Church Year is reflected in seasonal collects and feasts and fasts, observed in differing degrees by low- and high-churchmen. The due observance of Sunday is recognized formally in the main worship service of the week, but in other ways Anglicans need to recover the fullness of celebrating the Lord’s Day as a distinctive time of each week, a true Christian Sabbath.

While recognizing the importance of liturgical worship on Christian faith and spirituality, it can be equally stated that “believing shapes praying.” It was Archbishop Cranmer’s project to revise the traditional liturgy in accordance with the doctrine expressed in the Articles. Furthermore, he provided a variety of media by which that doctrine might be appropriated. Take, for instance, what Ashley Null calls “Thomas Cranmer’s doctrine of repentance.” We find the following expressions of this doctrine:

Catechism:
What is required of those who come to the Lord’s Supper? To examine themselves, whether they repent truly of their former sins, steadfastly purposing to lead a new life; have a lively faith in God’s mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of his death; and be in charity with all men.

Exhortation to Communion:
Judge yourselves therefore, brethren, that ye be not judged of the Lord; repent you truly of your sins past; have a lively and steadfast faith in Christ our Saviour; amend your lives, and be in perfect charity with all men; so shall ye be partakers of these holy mysteries.

Invitation to Communion:
Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God and walking from henceforth in his holy ways: Draw near with faith and take this sacrament to your comfort; and make your humbleconfession to Almighty God, devoutly kneeling.

After Communion:
And we humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou has prepared for us to walk in, through Jesus Christ our Lord…

We may question whether the Reformers recognized the power of music to supplement the verbal expressions of worship. “He who sings prays twice,” it is often said. At this point, Evangelicals like Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley and Anglo-Catholics like J. M Neale came to enrich our tradition of worship.

For all its merits, the conformity required in using the Book of Common Prayer has had its down side. From the early Puritans with their prophesyings, to the Wesleyan chapels, to contemporary African “overnight prayer” services, Anglicans have felt the need to supplement formal corporate worship and said prayers. Contemporary liturgies often provide blended worship: space in the formal liturgy for spontaneous prayer, for testimony, for praise choruses and for healing prayer and calls to faith. By relaxing the form of liturgy, contemporary Anglicans have responded to the allure of Pentecostalism. Nevertheless, this compromising of the traditional with the contemporary constitutes an ongoing tension. We cannot afford to retreat into a rigid formalism nor can we embrace uncritically every latest trend in worship and music. There is a need, in my opinion, for a set core of identifiable Anglican prayer that can be memorized and is familiar to the flock worldwide.

The Sacraments
Sacramental theology has been one of the most disputed elements of church doctrine from the time of the Reformation down to the present. It will be important to understand the essential teaching of the Articles in light of the wider doctrine of the Church. Archbishop Cranmer’s first edition of the Articles included the following important preface: “Our Lord Jesus Christ hath knit together a company of new people with Sacraments….” This preface makes clear that sacraments are public signs of church membership. The Thirty-Nine Articles go on to state:

Sacraments ordained by Christ are not only badges and tokens of Christian men’s profession: but rather they are certain sure witnesses and effectual signs of grace and God’s good will towards us, by which he works invisibly in us, and not only quickens but also strengthens and confirms our faith in him.

This definition positions Anglicans and Anglicanism in the midst of a spectrum of interpretations of the sacraments and sacramental grace, especially concerning the Eucharist. These four views can be classified as:

--“memorials”, i.e., human aids to recollect or attest to Christ’s work;
--spiritual presence, that God’s grace is truly present through the “action” of baptizing and giving and taking the Communion;
--“real presence,” i.e., Christ is truly present in the sacramental elements without changing their outer substance;
--“transubstantiation,” i.e., that the sacramental elements are changed in essence to that which they signify and communicate grace ex opere operato.

In stating that sacraments “are not only badges and tokens,” the Articles reject the memorialist view. They also explicitly reject as unbiblical the Roman doctrine of transubstantiation and the practices that flow from that view. Between the other two views (usually identified as “Reformed” and “Lutheran”), the judgement of the whole tradition is less clear, and probably best left open to conscience.

In the case of baptism, Article 27 states:

Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference, whereby Christian men are discerned from others that be not christened; but it is also a sign of regeneration and new birth, whereby as by an instrument they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the church; the promise of forgiveness of sin and of our adoption to be the sons of God by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed; faith is confirmed; and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God.

At one level, the Article rejects baptism as a mere memorial of church membership and states that baptism conveys the reality of new birth in Christ, “as by an instrument.” The promissory character of the baptismal language – “seeing now that this person is regenerate and born again” – has been variously interpreted. For an adult, it gives assurance that the once for all salvation of Christ has been received by faith. In the case of an infant, this assurance is provided by the faith of the parents and godparents which must be owned by the child at confirmation or at a subsequent occasion of commitment to Christ. Assurance, however, is not to be confused with complacency, as St. Paul warns: “let him who stands beware lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12; cf. Hebrews 5:11-6:12). Finally, baptism conveys the communal reality of the Christian life: just as a child is born into a human family, so the baptized is “grafted into the body of Christ’s church” and “received into the congregation of Christ’s flock.”

When we turn to the Eucharist, a similar balance occurs, as is captured in the familiar Prayer Book words of Administration: “The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was given for you, preserve your body and soul unto everlasting life. Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you and feed on him in your hearts by faith with thanksgiving.” The first clause, like our Lord’s words of institution, sets forth an objective reality to the sacramental elements: “This is my Body; this is my Blood.” The second clause captures one powerful feature of Reformed theology: the requirement that God’s grace must be received by faith. The sacramental signs are effectual only when received by those who worthily receive them with penitent hearts. Yet even without faith, they are not bare signs, as they carry a negative effect on the ungodly, who “purchase to themselves damnation.”

Another characteristic feature of Anglican sacramental teaching – which appears in the Lambeth Quadrilateral – is the naming of two Gospel sacraments. As Article XXV continues: “There are two Sacraments ordained by Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say, Baptism and the Supper of the Lord….” The specification of two and only two is of a piece with the focus of the Anglican formularies on “those things necessary for salvation.” Baptism and Holy Communion are not only instituted by Jesus Christ but they signify his saving work on the Cross.

The Homilies concede a place for other sacramental rites:

But in a general acceptance, the name of a sacrament may be attributed to any thing, whereby an holy thing is signified. In which understanding of the word, the ancient writers have given this name, not only to the other five, commonly of late years taken and used for supplying the number of the seven sacraments; but also to divers and sundry other ceremonies, as to oil, washing of feet, and such like: not meaning thereby to repute them as sacraments, in the same signification that the two forenamed sacraments are. (“Of Common Prayer and Sacraments”)

Taken together, I think Anglican teaching is clear that a sacrament, strictly speaking, must convey Christ’s saving work, but that as part of the Church’s liturgy and ministry, other external signs can be edifying.

Church Discipline
As noted above, the Anglican Reformers considered church discipline, either explicitly or tacitly, to be one of the marks of the true church. In order to do this topic justice, we need to take the broadest perspective: discipline is of a piece with discipleship. The Risen Christ commands his followers to “disciple the nations, baptizing them and teaching them all that I have taught you” (Matthew 28:18). Discipline has a constructive, educative end – presenting the church blameless in Christ (Ephesians 5:27). The writer to the Hebrews makes clear that spiritual discipline requires believers to “lay aside every weight and sin that clings so closely” in order to run the Christian race, and he goes on to say that “the Lord disciplines him whom he loves” (Hebrews 12:1,6). Likewise St. Paul describes the pastor’s calling as a matter of rigourous edifying: “preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching” (2 Timothy 4:2).

The Anglican Prayer Book is itself a book of discipline. It provides the believer with a regimen of morning and evening prayer, a calendar of psalms and lessons, fast and feast days, and a way of “learning” the prayers of the congregation by memorizing responses and canticles. In Africa people often do not have individual Prayer Books and hymnals, yet even the children have the service and hymns memorized in their local language. The catechism in particular presents a summary of faith consistent with the more sophisticated Articles of Religion, and confirmation is set as a coming-of-age ritual to be taken with great seriousness.

Penance is not a sacrament for Anglicans, but the Prayer Book contains several exhortations to self-examination, preparation for Communion and confession of sin. Repentance and gratitude for Christ’s forgiveness of our sins is an ongoing way of life, not to be disconnected to the freedom and joy of walking as children of light (1 John 1:7). It is unfortunate that many clergy today skip over the longer forms of invitation to confession or even omit them altogether. This goes against the whole grain of the Prayer Book Eucharist as an act of thanksgiving for Christ’s death for our sins and offer of forgiveness and new life.

Articles 32-36 address aspects of discipline, though they are hardly comprehensive (Cranmer intended his reform of English canon law to fill in the detail, which sadly never happened). Three of these Articles relate in some way to clerical discipline. One establishes that clergy of the Church of England are lawfully called to the office. Another provides clergy and lay readers with a syllabus of homilies to assist them in preaching and teaching. And another opens the priesthood to married men, in contrast to Rome’s requirement of celibacy.

Clergy discipline is of great importance to the morale of the Church. Scripture and the historic church, along with the Anglican Ordinal, have been of one accord in insisting that discipline begins with the household of God, and that church leaders are therefore especially accountable (1 Peter 4:17). I have observed serious breakdowns in this area on both sides of the ocean, but only in the West has this been done shamelessly. In the Episcopal Church, clergy divorce has become rampant in the last 35 years. While the so-called “gay lifestyle” of some clergy in the West grabs the headlines, rampant divorce among clergy, some with several marriages (let’s call this serial polygamy) is probably the more corrosive factor in the decline of those churches. Whatever the precise meaning of a bishop being husband of one wife (1 Timothy 3:2), it seems to me to limit the highest office in the church to those who have not been divorced as Christians.

Article 34 may seem out of place in a section on discipline, as it speaks of the diversity of traditions within the church. It teaches us, on the one hand, to be slow to judge those who practice their religion differently from us. There are many customs – which we term adiaphora – which Christians may follow in good conscience. The Article goes on to state that we must follow our local traditions in cases where they are the law of our church. This Article lays the foundation for obedience to canon law.

Article 33 speaks frankly of excommunicate persons who by open denunciation of the church should be shunned until they repent and are publicly reconciled. This Article complements the disciplinary rubric which allows a priest to refuse Communion to a “notorious evil-liver.” For many Anglicans in the West the whole idea of excommunication seems quaint or even anathema, although the Episcopal Church USA has managed to reinvent it under the twisted rubric of “abandonment of communion,” which is being used to bludgeon the orthodox. In the Church of England, for instance, a priest can be brought up on charges to the bishop if he were to refuse Holy Communion to an openly gay parishioner. Coming from this permissive culture to Africa, I was rather shocked to find there the opposite tendency: large numbers of Ugandan Anglicans absenting themselves from the Eucharist because of irregular marriages which render them excommunicate.

In the Gospel texts supporting the practice of excommunication, the Lord Jesus himself entrusts to his apostles the keys to enter and remain in the church, i.e., the visible church (Matthew 16:19; John 20:22). In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus goes on to describe a process of discipline:

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 18:15-18)

We see here a careful process which moves from personal exhortation, to semi-private admonition, to public scandal and excommunication. St. Paul clearly understood the process in a similar way in dealing with the immoral man in Corinth (1 Corinthians 5:5) and the false teachers Alexander and Hymenaeus (1 Timothy 1:20). It is also worth noting that the laity is involved in various stages of this process.

John Calvin, perhaps the preeminent spokesman on the subject, teaches that church discipline is essential to preserve the honour and purity of the church, to protect the flock from false and wicked ideas and people, and to bring evil-doers back to Christ. On this latter aim, Calvin is the consummate pastor in advising that the aim of discipline is transformation:

Let us not claim for ourselves more licence in judgement, unless we wish to limit God’s power and confine his mercy by law. For God, whenever it pleases him, changes the worst men into the best, engrafts the alien, and adopts the stranger into the church. (Institutes xii.9)

I wonder whether African pastors have done enough in this regard to labour to restore to fellowship those who have contracted “customary marriages.” I believe many would wish to have their unions blessed if they were pursued and encouraged.

Communion Discipline
The problem of church discipline is not limited to individuals: it can involve whole churches. Indeed it was at the heart of the Reformation conflict. The Anglican Reformers were all excommunicate in the eyes of Rome and many, including Thomas Cranmer, paid with their lives. But they refused to accept this judgement. Indeed, Richard Hooker turned the charge back against Rome, saying:

That which they call schism, we know to be our reasonable service unto God and obedience to his voice which crieth shrill in our ears, "Go out of Babylon, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues" (Revelation 18:4). (from Hooker’s “Sermon on Jude”)

Heresy is schismatic, according to the Reformers, and hence to be labeled schismatic by Rome was a badge of honour.

Almost ten years ago, shortly after Lambeth 1998, when it became clear that the Episcopal Church was not going to heed the Resolution on Human Sexuality, I wrote an essay titled:
“Broken Communion: The Ultimate Sanction Against False Religion and Morality in the Episcopal Church” (www.stephenswitness.com/1999/03/broken-communion.html). In view of the Episcopal Church’s general intransigence, I called on faithful Episcopal bishops to declare a state of broken communion with those who openly advocated homosexual ordinations and same-sex blessings (no sitting bishop did so). Next I turned to the international church.

If the charges against the revisionist leadership of the Episcopal Church are true, the appropriate response is for the Primates of the Communion to threaten and if necessary declare a state of broken communion with the Episcopal Church or with those leaders who have publicly endorsed the gay-rights agenda….

Excommunicating bishops of the Episcopal Church or the Church as a whole may seem like a very long step to take. And it should be. No division of this sort should be taken lightly. On the other hand, for a church council to refuse to exercise ultimate sanctions when they are clearly called for is to undermine its own legitimacy. To put it bluntly, if the Episcopal Church calls the bluff of the Communion and the Communion flinches, the Communion will undermine its own authority and identity.

In 2002, several Primates and theologians produced a document called To Mend the Net, an entirely reasonable proposal for careful Communion discipline, in which a church that finally refused to conform could be excluded. Even the Windsor Report held out the possibility that a church might choose to walk apart. But To Mend the Net was consigned to outer darkness by the Communion bureaucracy, and the “Windsor process” seems to have made excommunication (a.k.a., “walking apart”) an ever-retreating mirage.

We are here this week because, after ten years of patient but futile calls for repentance on the part of the majority of the world’s Anglicans, the Communion, under the direction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, has flinched. Hence while it may seem that we are the ones who have excluded ourselves, the truth is, as Hooker put it, that this is our reasonable service to God.

We are not breaking the communion. The title deeds of the Church are ours, not by our own merits, but by his eternal Covenant. Our city is the Jerusalem which is above, who is our mother. Our communion is with God in Christ, who is the author of Scripture and the author of our salvation. To Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus for all generations for ever and ever. Amen.

26 June 2008

THE GLOBAL ANGLICAN COMMUNION and the Anglican Orthodoxy

2008-03-09T05:15:00.000-07:00

A Paper Prepared for the Theological Resource Team for the
Global Anglican Future Conference

It is a daunting task to be asked to define orthodoxy.[1] Such a task has occupied the minds of great theologians and councils throughout Christian history, and I consider myself hardly up to the task. However, in looking to the future of Global Anglicanism, it is necessary to put one’s hand to the plough and begin a furrow.

The need to define or describe Anglican orthodoxy today has an urgency about it, because of the actions of the Episcopal Church (TEC) and other Provinces of the Communion in blessing homosexuality against the clear teaching of Scripture, the historic Church and the Resolution of the Lambeth Conference 1998. Although this issue has dominated discussions, it is clear that it is symptomatic of a larger abandonment of biblical teaching and authority on fundamental matters of the faith. The fact that Bishop John Spong, a man who has denied virtually every article of the Christian faith, continues a bishop in good standing in TEC, while orthodox bishops are threatened with deposition for their witness speaks for itself.

Global Anglican Orthodoxy: A Blueprint

I have chosen to adapt an essay I wrote in 2006 titled “The Global Anglican Communion: A Blueprint.”[2] This essay sought to outline the essential elements necessary to an orthodox Anglican Communion Covenant which would serve both to correct the errors present in the Communion and to guide the Communion into the future.

The blueprint follows the framework of the Lambeth Quadrilateral. This formulary emerged from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church meeting in Chicago in 1886 and was intended as an ecumenical statement among the many American denominations and was adopted by the young Lambeth Conference in 1888 as an expression of what we now call Anglicanism.[3] In my view, it can continue to inform a worldwide fellowship of Anglicans and at the same time offer an ecumenical platform from which to seek unity with other Christian churches. Although the Quadrilateral is not a sufficient statement of Christian doctrine, it does contain the theological DNA which can guide us in articulating our ecclesial identity, along with the Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer. Together these formularies offer a kind of “branding” for Anglican bodies in their various social contexts.

Finally, let me suggest for strategic and tactical reasons that a statement of Anglican orthodoxy keep in close touch with the idea of a Covenant. Strategically the idea of a Covenant is a good one. The Quadrilateral itself was a kind of preamble to Anglican orthodoxy for the emerging Communion. Going back even further, one might suggest that the Articles of Religion were part of an Anglican Covenant before there was a Communion, as Thomas Cranmer intended the Articles to form the basis for an ecumenical consensus among the churches of the Reformation.[4]

The idea of an Anglican Covenant is also relevant in the present political context of the Communion. Those attending the Global Anglican Future Conference should maintain ties with those orthodox leaders who are working on the Communion Covenant. It seems unlikely that a final Covenant from Canterbury, filtered now through the Anglican Consultative Council, will be sufficiently crisp to deal with the present crisis. However, the opportunity may arise hereafter to negotiate an ecumenical Anglican Covenant that will serve as a means of warding off heresy and will chart the future of orthodox Anglicanism.

The Role of Scripture in the Church
The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, as the revealed Word of God (CLQ), containing all things necessary to salvation,” and as being the rule and standard of faith.

It hardly needs repeating that the foremost objection of the Global South churches to the homosexual agenda is the fact that it is “contrary to Scripture” (Lambeth 1.10) and that this spurning of the Bible as “God’s Word written” has infected the entire structure of authority within the most “progressive” churches of the Anglican Communion. Recovering Anglican orthodoxy must therefore include a restoration of Scripture to its rightful place of authority. I propose the following classic traits of Scripture as benchmarks of a restored biblical orthodoxy.

The Primacy of Scripture. Lambeth 1998 passed Resolutions affirming the primacy, or the primary authority, of Scripture in matters relating to Christian faith and life.[5] Primacy is not a call for bare submission to a sacred text, as in Islam, but includes several closely associated principles.

The Word as medium of the Gospel. The Reformation began with a dynamic sense of the recovery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as a verbal revelation, originating in God Himself as the Word (John 1:1-18). Hence the primary medium of communication is “preaching the Gospel” (Romans 10:14).

The self-authenticating character of Scripture. Although the Bible is an accommodated form of God’s revelation, God “lisping” to us (as Calvin put it), it is self-authenticating and cannot be “proved” by human science or Church edict.

Scripture as a means of grace. The Word of God presented in Scripture convicts and evokes faith in hearers. The same Spirit that guided the authors testifies in the heart of readers.[6]

The Unity of Scripture. The Reformation also declared that, despite the differences within and between the Testaments, a fundamental consistency undergirds the various books of the Bible.

Mystery and unity. As God’s triune nature is a transcendent mystery made known in the fullness of time (1 John 1:1-4), so biblical unity can include paradox and progressive development, without causing confusion in its overall message.

Hermeneutical center. The center of the Bible is the Gospel of Christ himself. A biblical theology must be evangelical, acknowledging the role of the Old Testament as preparation and of the New Testament as fulfillment, avoiding Old Testament-based legalism or New Testament-based libertinism.

Harmony of Scripture texts. The principle of “Scripture interpreting Scripture” is found in Cranmer’s Collect which urges ordinary Christians to “mark” i.e., compare, various passages in the Bible. As for the Church, it may not “so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another” (Article XX).

The Clarity of Scripture. The clarity of Scripture was the basis on which the Reformers insisted on a vernacular Bible that could be read and understood by the simplest “ploughboy.”

Simplicity of Scripture. The Reformers recovered the “plain sense” (sensus literalis) of the Bible.[7] Simplicity is not anti-intellectual. In fact, it is an invitation to study original languages and historical and social context.

External and internal clarity. Scripture is transparent, not a secret Gnostic document. External clarity is the way Scripture conveys the Word publicly to all who would come with a seeking heart. Because of the hardness of the human heart, internal clarity is required through the grace of the Holy Spirit. One must “have ears to hear.”

Exposition. “How can I understand unless I have an interpreter?” (Acts 8:31). Bible reading must be accompanied by expository preaching and teaching. Even mature Christians move “from the truth to the whole truth” through regular Bible study.[8]

The Sufficiency of Scripture. The idea of the “sufficiency” of Scripture asserts both its unique efficacy and its limited focus.

The End of Scripture – salvation. Sufficiency looks to the end or telos of Scripture, which is salvation in Christ alone (John 20:31). Any Church which is ashamed of this salvation cannot be using Scripture rightly.

Appropriation by faith. Just as the Spirit gives inward clarity, so the means by which salvation is grasped is faith alone. Only then does reason interpret Scripture and works of love apply it.

Trustworthiness of Scripture. Unlike human councils (Article XIX), Scripture cannot err in the sense that it is an infallible guide to salvation and a holy life. In this it diverges both from liberal caricatures and fundamentalist simplifications of fallibility and inerrancy.

In addition to an exposition of the nature of biblical authority, the Global Anglican Communion will need to grapple with the interpretation of Scripture. Again, we should draw on the resources of the Reformation, in its goal of recovering the “plain and canonical” sense of God’s Word, which is accessible for preaching, teaching and mission. At the same time, the contemporary crisis has raised issues of philosophical hermeneutics which must be addressed. The recent work of Kevin Vanhoozer, for instance, opens an avenue for developing a faithful mode of understanding Scripture as “God’s communicative action.”[9]

Finally, global Anglicanism needs to revisit the so-called Anglican tripod of Scripture, Tradition and Reason. While a tripod of three equal legs is an historical fiction and a theological Trojan horse, there is need for a reaffirmation and redefinition of the consonance of Scripture, tradition and reason, as articulated so pithily by Richard Hooker:

Be it in matter of one kind or of the other, what Scripture doth plainly deliver, to that the first place both of credit and obedience is due; the next whereunto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after these the voice of the Church succeedeth. (Laws V.8.2)[10]

A renewed study, and in places critique, of Richard Hooker is called for in finding a way forward.

The Church’s Historic Formularies
The Apostles’ Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol (LQ); and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.

“The voice of the Church,” as Hooker put it, has always been important for an Anglican Christianity that sees itself as part of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church upholding “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3).[11] Reformation Anglicans tended to look to particular classic periods as sources of authority, such as the first five centuries and four Councils. At the same time, they adopted confessional statements that addressed the new insights of Scripture study and the pressing needs of the day.

The present crisis in Anglicanism provides the opportunity to recover a modest and ecumenical confessionalism that takes into account the Great Tradition of Christian theology and adapts and applies its truths to the contemporary situation. Our Anglican heritage affords us rich resources in the Thirty-Nine Articles and Book of Common Prayer. At the same time, new challenges to orthodoxy have arisen requiring precise analysis and redefinition, such as the nature of marriage and human sexuality, the rise of modern science and technology and the place of other religions in God’s economy of salvation. I speak of modest confessionalism in the sense of a confession that guides without closing off legitimate dialogue and testing from Scripture, and ecumenical confessionalism as presenting an opportunity for the historic churches of West and East to seek together the mind of God as they face off against militant secularism on one flank and militant Islam on the other.

In his recent book How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind, Prof. Thomas Oden argues that Africa – and he means ancient Alexandria down to present-day sub-Saharan Africa – provides both the best rationale of “right remembering” of the apostles’ teaching but also the best examples of martyrdom, “where ordinary believers were unwilling to release their Scriptures to governing authorities who might debase them.”[12]

The Church’s Mission and Sacraments
The two Sacraments – Baptism and the Supper of the Lord - ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s words of Institution and of the elements ordained by Him.

A review and reform of Anglican doctrine should not omit the nature and role of sacraments. Sacramental theology has to some extent divided orthodox Anglicans, e.g., Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics, and one may wonder whether a renewed debate or a papering over of these differences will lead to new life. Undoubtedly renewed discussion of the nature and efficacy of the sacraments is called for among those who agree on biblical essentials.

As a small contribution to such a discussion, I would propose that sacraments should be understood within a theology of mission. The Reformation in general and the Church of England in particular seem to have been deficient in articulating a proper theology of mission. For all their virtues, the Articles of Religion have no single reference to Christ’s Great Commission to evangelize the nations.[13] Likewise, Articles neglected the Person and work of the Holy Spirit, and the Established Church often marginalized or expelled movements of “enthusiasm.” Indeed, much of the work of mission societies has been accomplished in spite of rather than with the full support of the mother Church.

In the context of state churches, the sacraments have often been regarded as rights and rites of national identity. This was not true in the apostolic church, nor does it work today (e.g., what does it mean that the Church of England claims 26 million members?). So I propose we take a dynamic approach to the Gospel sacraments, an approach which I believe is found in the Pentecostal teaching of the apostles (Acts 2:38-47). From this preaching I think we can identify the following marks of the missionary church:[14]

-The Church preaches the Gospel to its own children and to those who are far off - to the churched and unchurched, to the youth of the next generation and to those whom we today call “unreached peoples.”
-It calls people urgently to be saved from the idols of the present age in expectation of the imminent return of Christ.
-Baptism is a response to preaching, and it signs and seals individuals as members of the Body of Christ.
-It expects believers individually and the whole Church corporately to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
-It expects and experiences healing and miracles in its midst.
-It is growing in numbers, often with remarkable leaps forward.
-It is devoted to apostolic doctrine, koinonia, worship and Eucharist.
-It is committed to radical sharing of goods and hospitality.
-It respects authority (the temple) but circumscribes that authority in view of the ascension and reign of Christ.

If the Anglican Communion can orient itself to our Lord’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, perhaps it can also reorient its sacramental heritage to convey the eschatological presence of Christ with his Church.[15] Another gap in Anglican theology and practice – not unconnected with its lack of missionary zeal, I suspect – is the conviction that Jesus Christ will return, suddenly and imminently, to judge the living and the dead.[16] As eschatological signs, the sacraments should be seen as incandescent badges of Christian identity: incandescent both in the sense of aglow with the Spirit but also as antagonistic to the world. Global Anglican orthodoxy will need to look not only for faithful administration of Gospel sacraments but for signs of the Spirit and power that accompany it (Mark 16:15-18).[17]

Anglican Ecclesiology
The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church.

The present crisis in the Anglican Communion has revealed a constitutional weakness in its doctrine of the Church, its ecclesiology. In response to a blatant attack on the apostolic faith, the worldwide Body and its “Instruments of Unity” have proved unable to enforce straightforward discipline of heretical members. This failure has led many to conclude that Anglicanism is fundamentally flawed, and they have departed for other bodies.

We must start by admitting that global Anglican polity has leaned far too heavily on the benevolent patriarchy of the Established Church and the British Empire. The idea that a rapidly expanding body of Global South churches must be governed from a historic See dominated by a secular Government and a compromised mother church is, to be blunt, a dangerous exercise of nostalgia.

Does this mean that the historic episcopate is itself obsolete. I do not think so. Anglicans can rightly uphold episcopal governance and the value of the historic continuity of its ministry, even as they uphold the priesthood of all believers. For all the failures of bishops, we cannot blame the office; indeed we can argue that a rightly ordered episcopacy has provided stability and faithfulness over the centuries and is often emulated by free-church leaders. The second clause of the Quadrilateral – “locally adapted” – qualifies a rigid view of prelacy and specifically relates it to global mission, “the varying needs of nations and peoples called” into the Church. As an example of the latter, one thinks of the Church of Nigeria’s strategy of sending missionary bishops into under-evangelized portions of its own dioceses, or even of another jurisdiction.[18]

The primary role of a bishop is that of a willing and apt pastor-teacher (Ephesians 4:11; 1 Peter 5:2; 2 Timothy 2:24). Bishops are to be stewards (Titus 1:7), which means they bear the final accountability for the state of the Church. To be sure, episcopal authority is not the same as episcopal totalitarianism – an attitude which many Global South churches need to address. The “household of God” which the bishop oversees (1 Timothy 3:4-5) is a “mixed regime” with subsidiary units – congregations, parishes, dioceses and officers, clergy and lay – which must be represented in its governing structures.

We must rethink the role of bishops and polity at the Communion level. Just as national politics and international politics operate on different levels, so also it is right that national churches have autonomy within an overarching framework an international covenant. Much of the work of the church should be “locally adapted,” although we should acknowledge that the electronic communications revolution has brought these local contexts much closer together than heretofore.

This pattern of episcopal governance can function at the level of worldwide Anglicanism. This will involve reform, though not total rejection, of the current Instruments of Unity, including the following elements:

-A synod of bishops should meet regularly (decennially) and have authority to address matters of doctrine, discipline and mission.
-An executive body of Primates should be authorized to carry out the will of the synod in between meetings.
-A presiding Primate should serve as a focus of unity. Canterbury or another historic see could function as a locus of unity as well. However, such a Primate should be elected by the synod of bishops.
-A secretariat should assist these Instruments, with accountability to all. The current Anglican Consultative Council and Anglican Communion Office have failed to function in this way.

In one sense, this polity is not far removed from the “Instruments of Unity” that have evolved of late in the historic Anglican Communion. The likeness may be deceptive: a diseased body may look like a healthy body, at least in the earlier stages of the illness. I am saying that the fault is not with the outward form of the Anglican Communion but with the doctrinal deviation from its apostolic and Reformation origins. Orthodoxy by its very nature must identify and renounce heresy and discipline false teachers, as a last resort, expel them.[19] If the Canterbury-based Anglican Communion continues to tolerate heresy in its midst and welcome false teachers to its councils, then the day will come when an orthodox assembly must break communion with Canterbury and set up alternative structures. Since the trend-lines seem to doom the current Communion to endless compromise or worse, the sooner the shadow structures begin take form the better.

Finally, the global Anglican Communion will need to evaluate the role of the churches in relation to the secular realm. This is classic problem of political theology. Traditional patterns, such as the Established churches are obsolete. At the same time, new models proposed by liberation theology have proved ineffective. I think the political theology of Oliver O’Donovan, while not spelling out specific solutions, offers a framework for developing a theology of church and state under the Lordship of the ascended Christ.[20]

The Spirit and Future of Anglican Orthodoxy

Like any blueprint, the above-mentioned elements of Anglican orthodoxy merely define the principles and structure of a reformed Anglican orthodoxy. Without the structure, it is unlikely that the life of the Communion will long endure. But at the same time, without the Spirit speaking to and working through the churches and their members, such a blueprint will be an empty vessel.

It is not for me to try to capture the wind of the Spirit in a bottle. But I would suggest that Anglican orthodoxy should be:

-Bold in proclamation and clever in apologetics
-Visionary in mission outreach
-Prayerful in all things
-Ecumenical in openness to brothers and sisters in Christ
-Vigilant in guarding the faith and awaiting the return of the Lord

I have attempted to sketch a blueprint of a Global Anglican orthodoxy that will embody the best elements of our tradition and mobilize Anglicans to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. I believe that if the Global South churches and their allies will take bold action at this time, we shall see a new reformation in the Anglican tradition, one which reflects the movement of the Spirit of God in our day. If these churches, like the Church of Smyrna (Revelation 2:8-11), remain faithful, Christ will give abundant life. Jesus Christ is Lord and His kingdom reigns over all. The gates of hell will not prevail against His Church, which is His Body. Once we lift up our eyes from our own troubles and look at the worldwide scene, we shall realize that the Gospel is not in retreat but is beckoning to the uttermost corners of the globe. As Anglicans we have a stake in the global mission of Christ, and we have something to offer it from the riches of our heritage and our worldwide fellowship of churches.

Brothers and sisters, remember Lot’s wife. The present order is passing away. Behold the Global Anglican Communion is coming.

This paper was presented to the Theological Resource Team on 28 January 2008 and appears on the GAFCon website. It is a revision of my earlier paper, "The Global Anglican Covenant: A Blueprint" (2006).

NOTES
[1] There is even need to justify the “orthodoxy” as the chief term of reference in this case. Clearly Anglican orthodoxy is to be differentiated from Eastern Orthodoxy. It has been chosen as being broad enough to include various groups of Anglicans – Evangelical, Anglo-Catholic and Charismatic – who agree on the essentials of the faith. At the same time “orthodoxy” recalls the position of those in the patristic period who identified and contended against its opposite, heresy.

[2] The best available version (written and oral) of this address can be found at www.mereanglicanism.com/presentations.htm.

[3] The versions of the “Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral (CLQ) and the text approved by Lambeth (LQ) are slightly different.

[4] Cranmer’s design for the Church of England included reformed Articles, Common Prayer and Canons. See Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996) pages 500-513.

[5] In Resolution III.1, the Conference “reaffirms the primary authority of the Scriptures, according to their testimony and supported by our own historic formularies.” In Resolution III.5, “The Authority of the Holy Scriptures,” it likewise “affirms that our creator God, transcendent as well as immanent, communicates with us authoritatively through the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments; and in agreement with the Lambeth Quadrilateral, and in solidarity with the Lambeth Conference of 1888, affirms that these Holy Scriptures contain ‘all things necessary to salvation’ and are for us the ‘rule and ultimate standard’ of faith and practice.”

[6] In Uganda, the first Christian converts were called “readers” as the Bible was the first text to become authoritative in an otherwise oral culture.

[7] The meaning of “literal sense” has been revived in contemporary hermeneutics. I defended its use before the House of Bishops in 1992. See “Reading the Bible as the Word of God,” in The Bible’s Authority for Today’s Church, ed. Frederick H. Borsch (Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International: 1993) pages 133-167.

[8] This phrase is borrowed from Meir Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985) pages 50-51. It suggests that the biblical writers were capable of conveying a plain sense which leads the reader into a deeper consideration of its meaning without overturning its surface meaning.

[9] See esp. Is There Meaning in This Text? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998), and First Theology: God, Scripture and Hermeneutics (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2002) which lay the groundwork for his dogmatic work, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005). See my review, “Post Conservatives and Post-Liberals: Reflections on Kevin Vanhoozer’s The Drama of Doctrine,” at www.stephenswitness.com.

[10] Note that Hooker’s “credit and obedience” includes both theological dogmas but also what the Articles call the “Commandments called moral.” The idea that one could affirm the Creeds while disobeying the Commandments is foreign to classic Anglicanism.

[11] Note that the oneness of the Church is based on the “once-for-allness” (hapax) of the apostolic tradition entrusted to it.

[12] How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity (Downers Grove: IVP Books, 2007) page 128. In this quotation, Oden is thinking of North Africans like Cyprian, but one cannot help but remember the Uganda martyrs as well.

[13] Granted, Article XVIII states that “Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the name of Jesus Christ whereby men must be saved.” Still, the context of the Article seems to suggest doctrinal contention rather than missionary impulse.

[14] Curiously, the “Covenant for Communion in Mission” also has nine bullets. Only one of these, the sharing of goods, appears in both lists. The missio dei theology of this document emphasizes the “love, justice and joy which Jesus inaugurated” rather than His salvation from sin and death, as appears primary in Peter’s sermon.

[15] O’Donovan, On Thirty-Nine Articles: A Conversation with Tudor Christianity (Leicester: Paternoster Press, 1986), page 126.

[16] Note the omission of Cranmer’s articles on eschatology (#39-42).

[17] Even if the longer ending of Mark is not original, it indicates the linking of sacraments with mission in the early church.

[18] It is ironic that as Lambeth 2008 addresses “bishops in mission,” the one Province that has most successfully equipped bishops for mission will be absent. However, it is likely that Nigeria’s experience of missionary bishops would not be heeded any more than its lessons in the Decade of Evangelism.

[19] Note in this regard that the current crisis does not involve Bishop Gene Robinson so much as those in TEC who elected, confirmed and ordained him, knowing that his life was openly homosexual.

[20] O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations: Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

JESUS’ GREATEST MIRACLE

2008-03-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

Sermon Preached at Uganda Christian University
Lent 5, 9 March 2008
Text: John 11:1-44

We have been looking in the Gospel of John at some of Jesus’ “signs,” those things which John wrote in order that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Let me begin with some observations about miracles in general. I would like to argue that miracles by definition are extraordinary events but they are extraordinary in a certain way. They are in a sense extensions of the ordinary that reveal something new and important about God and His world.

Let me start with the first great miracle: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” from nothing. Surely this is an extraordinary act of God. God did not need to create the world. He willed to create it out of his abundant love. There are immense complexities about the birth of the universe and our planet Earth, about the emergence of life from non-life, and about the unique creature man, homo sapiens, in the image of God, possessing body and soul.

In one sense, all the miracles of the Bible are extensions of the first miracle of creation. They involve the stuff of creation acting under some of the laws of energy and motion. St. Augustine, on of the first Christian philosophers, noted that a miracle is not contrary to nature, but only to our knowledge of nature; miracles are made possible by hidden potentialities in nature that are placed there by God (City of God, XXI.8.2). Looking at it from another perspective, one might say that everyday events in our world are miracles made cheap. This is a truth worth noting in our daily prayers: we exist from moment to moment by the will of God and should look for new and surprising things to break forth in God’s world from God’s Word.

It is also true that miracles intervene in human affairs like a thief in the night. You do not see them coming beforehand, and immediately after they become welcomed into nature. C.S. Lewis put it this way: “The moment [a miracle] enters Nature’s realm it obeys all her laws. Miraculous wine will intoxicate, miraculous conception will lead to pregnancy… miraculous bread will be digested.” (Miracles, p. 64). Lazarus returned from the dead immediately returned to everyday life, including a future death.

Miracles, however, are not the same as everyday events. In fact, just the opposite: miracles are noted when everyday events are not everyday, when there is something unusual about them. People marvel at – they “admire” miracles, which is the meaning of the word. Repeatedly in the Gospels, people respond to Jesus’ miracles thus: “They were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!" (Mark 2:12).

This brings us today to Jesus’ Greatest Miracle: the raising of Lazarus. This is Jesus’ greatest miracle because in it He chose to display the power of the Resurrection. We hear at the beginning:

So the sisters Mary and Martha sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it." (verses 3-4)

To understand this, we must realize the urgency of the situation. Mary and Martha lived in Bethany, a village just outside Jerusalem. Jesus was in Galilee, more than a full day’s walk. But Jesus did not respond urgently to the warning. He waited for two days before leaving. This is a very strange response toward someone you love, and it says clearly that Jesus did love Lazarus and his sisters. Jesus, however, saw the potential in Lazarus’ dire illness to show forth the glory of God.

A second theme which appears at the beginning of this story is the threat to Jesus’ own life, as His disciples warn him:

"But Rabbi," they said, "a short while ago the Jews tried to stone you, and yet you are going back there?" Jesus answered, "Are there not twelve hours of daylight? A man who walks by day will not stumble, for he sees by this world's light. (verses 8-9)

Jesus is saying to them that a person cannot live out his life in constant fear. Some people live to be 90 or 100; others live to be 25. The important thing is to walk in the light, in the fullness of life. Jesus knew that the hour of His own fulfillment was coming. Indeed in Lazarus death and return to life, He saw His own hour coming.

As they made their way toward Lazarus’ home, Jesus told the disciples in advance that it was too late:

"Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up." His disciples replied, "Lord, if he sleeps, he will get better." Jesus had been speaking of his death, but his disciples thought he meant natural sleep. (verses 12-13)

As so often happens in the Gospels, Jesus speaks something on one level and the disciples hear it on another. In this case they misunderstand the words “Lazarus has fallen asleep.” Jesus’ comment reminds us of another occasion when He was summoned to the house of a ruler of the synagogue, whose daughter was deathly ill. Before he arrived, word came that the girl was dead. “"Why are you weeping?” he said. “The child is not dead but sleeping." (Mark 5:39). And he took the little girl by the hand and said “Arise!” and she got up alive. In this case, we are not completely sure whether the girl actually was dead or just seemed that way. Again, some miracles seem to streamline nature’s own healing processes.

But in the case of Lazarus, there is no doubt. “So then he told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead…” Jesus goes on to explain why he delayed going: “and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe.” (verses 14-15). Jesus’ miraculous signs were not performed for his own sake, as idle tricks, but with specific purpose – to lead people to faith. That is also why John has recorded some of them.

By the time Jesus and his disciples arrived at Bethany, the mourning rites were already well underway. I am sure you can identify with the problems people in Uganda have when a person dies up-country and the relatives live far way, maybe even overseas. In Lazarus’ case, they were required to prepare the body and put it in the tomb, because for Jews the dead body was unclean and needed immediate burial. Nevertheless the mourning was in full swing. But as the dearest friend of the family, when Jesus arrived, Martha rushed out to him.

It is interesting to note the reactions of the two sisters. Martha was the practical one. In this case her practicality led her merely to wish that Jesus had come sooner. "Lord," Martha said to Jesus, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (verse 21). Then Martha blurts out: “But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." Was she really calling for Jesus to raise the dead, or was this a kind of pious wish? Jesus deflects her question, reminding her of the Jewish hope of general resurrection of the dead, saying,

"Your brother will rise again." Martha answered, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." (verse 24)

At this point Jesus makes one of those amazing “I” statements that dot the Gospel of John:

"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (verses 25-26)

Martha, full of wonder replies:

"Yes, Lord," she told him, "I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world." (verse 27)

Did Martha really know what Jesus was saying? I rather doubt it. Like many other disciples, she grasped part but not all of Jesus claims. Perhaps she understood him to say that He would come as Messiah at the end-time when the dead were raised.

We know that Jesus favoured the other sister Mary as a model of faith. In this case, Mary had the same words for Jesus as her sister: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." (Probably the sisters had agreed on this.) But in addition, Mary fell at His feet and wept. This act of sorrow in the face of death, along with those who were with her, brought forth our Lord’s own heart of compassion.

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. "Where have you laid him?" he asked. "Come and see, Lord," they replied. Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, "See how he loved him!" (verses 34-36)

“Jesus wept” is the shortest sentence in the New Testament. It has been a word and a portrait of comfort to many who grieve because they know their Saviour has grieved before. But I think we are to see in Christ’s grief a greater agony, the agony of the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was weeping for Himself, for the cup of suffering which lay a mere two weeks ahead, in which he would bear the sins and griefs of the world. An old hymn puts it this way:

When Jesus wept, the falling tear
in mercy flowed beyond all bound;
when Jesus groaned, a trembling fear
seized all the guilty world around.

Fear seized the guilty world, as darkness covered Calvary, but it was a fear to be succeeded by the joy of Easter, a world unburdened by the Empty Tomb.

Even as He wept, some questioned His power, no, His love. "Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" (verse 37). It was now time for action, earth-shaking action.

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. "Take away the stone," he said. "But, Lord," said Martha, the sister of the dead man, "by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days." Then Jesus said, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?" So they took away the stone. (verses 38-41)

No doubt about it, Lazarus was dead, dead and decaying in the tomb. This was to be no resuscitation. It was to be pure miracle. And part of the miracle was to be the miracle of faith kindled in the hearts of Mary and Martha and all like them who trusted Jesus.

Then Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." (verses 41-42)

Jesus did no work apart from His heavenly Father, and for the sake of us, he prayed to Him. Yet I have called this Jesus’ greatest miracle because I think it was Jesus who initiated it, indeed it was by His word that Lazarus came forth. On Easter Day, it would be the Father Himself who raised His Son from the dead.

When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!" The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go." (verses 43-44)

Jesus, shout “Come out” and his command “release him” reminds us of another rather different occasion, where Jesus called out of the possessed man a legion of demons and commanded them to depart. Jesus is not just commanding Lazarus to come, he is commanding sin, death and the devil to go and let go their hold on Lazarus – and us. That is the miracle of redemption foreshadowed here and accomplished in the Cross.

The revival of Lazarus was an act of new creation. Cells that have died cannot be recovered. The must be reconstituted. Bodies that have begun to decay can only be reborn. The American poet John Updike describes the first Easter this way:

Make no mistake if he rose at all
It was as his body;
If the cells dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit,
The amino acids rekindle
The church will fall.
(“Seven Stanzas at Easter”)

Updike is here defending miracle, the miracle of Easter, the miracle of Lazarus. The philosopher Wittgenstein once said that “a miracle is, as it were, a gesture that God makes.” It is a sign, a loving sign, as in a father beckoning his child to his arms. Before the tomb of Lazarus, the Lord Jesus Christ gave the greatest sign of His earthly life, calling Lazarus to the arms of his family.

It is a sign, but it is also an act of creative power, of new creation. Many religions have had myths of rebirth, and the Jews held hope that a day would come when the dead would be raised. But never before had a dead man actually come back alive. Now one had, and shortly another greater One would come forth from the tomb.

“I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Jesus’ mighty miracle testifies to His power. It also testifies to His identity, the Great I AM, who formed the universe, the Word made flesh, the only Son of the Father. He is the Resurrection and the Life because He is also the sin-bearer, who went to the Cross not for his own sins but for those of the world. And as he took away our sins, so also he can give us new birth and new hope. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation,” St. Paul says. When we speak of being “born again” of water and the Spirit, we are saying specifically that we have a new existence, a new nature, within us. This new nature is not yet perfected or manifest to the wider world, but it is nevertheless new in a way that Lazarus was not. Lazarus came forth from the tomb only to die again. It is not so with Jesus Christ. As St. Paul puts it: “For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him” (Romans 6:9). Likewise, if we are in Christ, we shall not die. The wages of sin have been paid, the last enemy Death has been conquered. Our outward bodies will waste away, but our spirits shall be alive and reclothed in glory on the day when He comes to fulfill all things.

There is one final aspect of the miracle of Lazarus. It is the miracle of faith. Verse 45 says: “Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what he did, believed in him.” Jesus intended this miracle to be a sign to others, indeed a sign to all peoples and all generations. And John the Evangelist saw to it that this miracle was recorded “so that believing, you and I might have life in His Name.” Embracing Jesus is as much a miracle as the raising of Lazarus. Yet it is a miracle that happens and has happened daily since that first Easter Day and around the world, wherever the Gospel has been preached. Many of you have experienced that miracle in your own lives and hearts. For those who have not, Jesus’ offer remains alive for you: “Come out from your tomb! Come out and receive new life! Come out and share in the miracle of new birth!”

My brothers and sisters, we are approaching that holy time of year when we recall the mighty acts of God – His suffering and death and rising again. Let us prepare our hearts by considering the raising of Lazarus, who came out of the tomb released and alive so that we might share in his risen life. AMEN.

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST

2008-02-19T13:50:00.000-08:00

Sermon Preached at St. Michael and All Angels, Dallas
10 February 2008
Lent 1 – Matthew 4:1-11

Something there is in human nature which loves a hill or rather, I should say, a mountain. I know Texans may beg to differ on this point, preferring broad expanses of bush country (no pun intended). But then Texas has always been exceptional. In Uganda, where I live in East Africa, the capital city is built on seven hills like ancient Rome, and indeed on almost every is perched a cathedral or mosque. It is said that the Christians built on hilltops because the pagan people left them vacant, thinking they were the haunt of evil spirits. If so, this makes them different from the ancient Hebrews, who had to compete for the “high places” where the Canaanites worshipped their gods. Recall the popular psalm 27 – “I will lift up my eyes to the hills. From where shall my help come?” In this psalm David is probably contrasting the many hills (plural) of false worship from the one holy hill of Zion.

When we think of our Lord Jesus Christ, we find His life also punctuated with hills. Over this past Christmas, my wife and I were privileged to spend time in the Holy Land, where we walked from Mt. Zion in Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, and stood on the Mount of Beatitudes overlooking the Sea of Galilee and wound our way up Mount Tabor, the mount of transfiguration, which featured in last weeks’ Gospel lesson (by the way, Peter got his wish: there now is a shrine there commemorating the event).

In this week’s lesson, Jesus is tempted three times by Satan. Each of the temptations may be visionary, and each vision requires a lookout point. The first temptation occurs in the wilderness, not in a flat desert but in a wilderness of mountains, arroyos and caves. (Forty years ago, Bishop James Pike fell off a precipice and died in the wilderness of Judea, where he was searching vainly for the true Jesus.) The second temptation also involves a height – the pinnacle of the Temple - which itself stood on a hilltop, Mount Zion. According to the prophet Isaiah, in the latter days, this mountain would become the highest in the world and all nations would stream to it for instruction. Jesus refused the offer to sky-dive into the arms of waiting angels (note that his last help from the angels came after he renounced Satan and his ways, where it says that angels came and ministered to him).

The mountain of the third temptation, which I want to focus on today, is not named: Our gospel text simply says: Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor (verse 8). Could this very high mountain be the Mount Zion of the messianic age? Could Jesus, as Son of God, announce the coming of His Kingdom from this exalted spot? No doubt that is why the thought is a real temptation, since it does seem worthy of the recently anointed Son of God.

However, there is a hint in the text that this is a false mountain. The Greek word for “very high” (hypsilos) in describing this mountain is also used for an attitude of arrogance. Rather than being the summit of salvation, it is the mount of perdition with a direct chute to hell. Hear what Isaiah says of the arrogance of those who trust in their own power:

"How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, `I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.' But you are brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit. (Isaiah 14:12-15)

Now the end result of arrogance is not obvious or immediate. The kingdoms that Satan shows Jesus are real historical regimes that have existed and do exist and will exist in this age. In Jesus’ day it was the Roman Empire that imposed its version of “peace” (pax Romana) on the Mediterranean world, a peace which was bought with great oppression and harshness. There are kinder, gentler versions of empire, such as the mercantile empire of Britain and the wired empire of modern global capitalism or harsher ones like the rigid legalism of Islamic fundamentalism.

In this final temptation, Satan’s last and best offer, he reveals his true identity – a usurper who would demand the worship due to God alone: “All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'" (verse 9-10). Jesus rejects the offer and rebukes the Tempter. Beyond that, he turns away from the appeal to instant fulfillment of the Kingdom of God in favor of its achievement by the way of the Cross and the spread of the Gospel through His apostles. He reveals something fundamental about His Sonship and something fundamental about His followers. He came as the Servant of all, and he calls on us to be servants of all in His steps. Listen to this famous passage from St. Paul:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)

Jesus Christ begins at the pinnacle of all existence, of all eternity. He is I AM before the world was. He is before the angels and powers of darkness ever were. He is, as we say in the Creed, very God of very God. So when Satan takes Him to the highest earthly mountain, Jesus could have laughed and said: “What is this anthill?” He did not, however, reject the mountain because it was too petty, but rather because He had much, much farther to descend, even to the pit of death and destruction – for our sake.

As we enter the season of Lent, let me make a few comments on what Jesus’ refusal of worldly power means for us who follow him. First of all, we are awed at extent of God’s love that he has stooped to conquer, that He has borne the ultimate penalty for our sin. This should be a time of great gratitude to God for His amazing mercy and grace.

Secondly, we are called on to “have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus.” This means that we are challenged to turn away from the mountains of worldly power and pride – with regard to our personal ambitions and our corporate political policies. And we are promised that we already have the ability to do so, as His mind is ours in Christ Jesus. We may have the strength of arm to have our way, but we are called to withhold that strength for the sake of Christ. To mention one such situation from the contemporary Anglican scene, the leaders of the national Episcopal Church seems bent on dispossessing parish property and deposing clergy and even bishops – my bishop for one - from the sheer fact that they have the power to do so. This, my friends, does not display the mind of Christ.

As I am sure you are aware, Lent is to be a season of denial, of renunciation. There is in this simple discipline a great spiritual lesson. It is easier to acquire something than to give up something once acquired. It is easier to scale up one’s lifestyle and than to scale down. Many people who live overseas with people who are much poorer find it difficult to understand how wealthy people in the West manage to save so little and give so little. But it is a simple law of the world that appetite will never be satisfied and what may at one moment seem an aspiration becomes an expectation.

This law of acquisitiveness is all the more ironic in the light of the fact that we all know deep down that we shall have to give it all up some day, that we are dust and to dust we shall return. We engage in Faustian bargains with death, hoping that technology or Medicare will keep us going into the foreseeable future. We Americans in particular do not like to be reminded of unpleasant endings, but that is the message of the Bible, as the Preacher of Ecclesiastes says: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!”

There is a liberating side to the realization that we are dust and our days are numbered. The Preacher suggests that a person should “seize the moment” and “eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.” This is good worldly advice as far as it goes, but for Christians, for followers of Jesus, there is a more powerful satisfaction, that in taking up our cross (daily) and denying the way of the world, we may find a satisfaction that goes far beyond the ordinary satisfactions and will culminate with reward with God.

The Christian church has always held up for emulation a group of people we may call missionaries and martyrs. These are people who voluntarily give up their prospects of success and power in order to follow Jesus’ mission in the world. Let me give you a couple examples from my adopted country, Uganda.

Uganda, you may know, has about 9 million Anglicans, the largest single concentration anywhere (compare 2 million Episcopalians at most). Yet in 1875 there were no Christians and no Anglicans in Uganda. How did this turnabout happen? It happened through the tremendous efforts and sacrifices of the first missionaries and the first Ugandan converts.

For example, Alfred Robert Tucker arrived in Uganda in 1890 as its first bishop – really not the first, as his two predecessors had died en route. Tucker left his wife and son in England for the next twenty years as he trekked thousands of miles across the country. Tucker had an understanding far beyond his time. He believed that the Anglican Church of Uganda should raise up its own national leaders rather than relying on missionary clergy from the West. The most famous of all these pioneers was Apolo Kivebulaya. Kivebulaya was converted and baptized by a CMS missionary at age 30 and immediately offered himself as an evangelist to the eastern kingdoms of Uganda. After many years of work, at age 57, he had a vision of Jesus, who directed him to seek out the pygmy peoples deep in the Congo forest. He learned their language, translated Mark’s Gospel for them, and won them to Christ.

Bishop Tucker’s vision included the education of lay and clergy leaders. He founded a famous secondary school and proposed the building of a theological seminary, which was named after him shortly after his death. Today all the bishops of Uganda are black and have been trained at Bishop Tucker Theological College.

But God has a new vision for the church in the developing world, what I call higher education as mission. In 1997, the church decided to expand the work of Bishop Tucker Theological College so that it might include men and women doing courses in other fields, like education, social work, communications, law, nursing, and computer science. This is where my story comes in. In 1999, my wife and I visited Uganda and sensed a call to go there and help build up this new University. Since that time, it has grown from 850 to almost 8,000 students. Beyond this “worldly” success, the University has been overtly Christian, teaching all students Scripture, Christian worldview and ethics, and its graduates are sought after in the wider society has people of integrity.

My wife and I are not unusual saints, any different from you sitting here today. We gave up our normal way of life. We left our home the same week as our youngest daughter went to college. But you know, I can honestly say we have never regretted the decision and we have been blessed in ways we could not have anticipated, e.g., one daughter and her husband and two grandchildren are now working with us. This is in accordance with what Jesus promised: “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).

I was talking to a friend last week who is coming to a career change, and I said to him, “Jim, have you considered coming to Uganda to help us. You know, ten years ago, if you had asked me that question, I too would have been astounded. But God knew better.” Certainly not everyone is called to leave their home or business as we did. But all are called on to be ready to respond to the call of Christ and the needs of his people. Our Uganda Partners organization, headed by Mrs. Diane Stanton, has served over the past eight years to mobilize large numbers of people who have helped our mission with scholarships, building projects, consultation, and prayer. We are deeply grateful for this, including many supporters in Dallas.

Let me ask a simple question: what would you not do, or have done already, to put your sons and daughters through the best university available? Parents in the developing world have the same hope for their children. That is why they pay fees disproportionate to their income to our university. This is all good, but it is also the way of the world, looking out for one’s own. Jesus would take us to a higher mountaintop, to the height from which Christians see their brothers and sisters around the world as their own kin and their own responsibility, from which they see the unclean Samaritan as a sinner like themselves, from which they are willing to risk everything, hearth and home, to follow him.

I myself became a Christian in college, which may explain in part why God has landed me where I am today, working with college students. At that time, forty years ago, I read a book by Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer called The Cost of Discipleship. “When Jesus calls a man,” Bonhoeffer writes, “he calls him to come forth and die.” That is the message of Lent, that is the wicket gate through which we must pass, that is the valley which we must descend, before we can see the true city set on a hill – the heavenly Jerusalem. But we do not walk alone, for He has gone before us.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN

Baptismal Homily

2007-12-20T19:12:00.000-08:00

HOMILY
At the Baptism of Mary Mirembe Louise Bartels
Uganda Christian University Chapel
20 December 2007

Today we gather for a special event in the life of the Bartels and Noll families: the baptism of Mary Mirembe Louise Bartels. A baptism is always on occasion of wonder and joy, sealing the wonder and joy of childbirth. Today there is special significance in having both sets of grandparents present, along with their son and daughter, the father and mother of Mary Mirembe Louise. There is a special sense of the grandness of God’s desire for the nations in holding this ceremony in the Bishop Tucker Chapel, in Uganda, with a child of Biblical and African and English names.

I should add that there is an additional dimension for our family and my wife Peggy in particular. Today is the anniversary of the death of her only sister Mary last Christmastime. We miss her. “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord!”

Last night at our carol sing, I noticed that this sleeping child was passed around from person to person and rocked lovingly by each. Indeed when I held her earlier, I could not help thinking, “Who would not love a child like this?”

“Who would not love a child like this?” I want now to be brutally honest: God! God would not love a child like this. God is not a sentimentalist about babies. God sees into even the infant heart and finds the seeds of rebellion, the seeds of sin and death that is our lot as children of Adam. God created man and woman in his image and he commanded them to increase and multiply, but he never promised to love them, even as a human parent might love his children. After all, parental love includes a great deal of self-love as well, doesn’t it?

Baptism is not a ceremony of child-worship, even though it often seems that way. I should know. I was baptized as a college student along with a cute little black baby, who got just about all the attention. Maybe I have never recovered, and hence this sermon! It is perhaps clearer in adult baptism that a person is dying to the old self and putting on the new Man in Christ! One can see in the adult convert the dark past and the intention to walk in the light. But the same is true of the baby being baptized. She is a sinner of Christ’s redeeming.

Having started on this hard note, let me change direction and state that God is a loving Father, only that His love is lavished not on our children but on His Son. In God this love is not selfishness, at least not in the human sense. It is the eternal welling up of the being of the Triune Nature, the reciprocal indwelling of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. This is a love we humans can barely comprehend, and we have no natural claim on it.

It is this eternal love that was poured out by grace on the world in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary. A contemporary carol captures something of the mystery inherent in Mary’s reply to the Angel: “How then can this be, seeing I am a Virgin?”

Oh, Mary, did you know that your baby boy
is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy
will one day rule the nations?

Did you know that your baby boy
was heaven’s perfect Lamb?
And the sleeping child you’re holding
is the Great I Am!

In adult baptism and in confirmation, we may put emphasis on the confession of faith: “Do you promise to follow Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour?” “I do.” In infant baptism, we recall the precedent act of God in pouring his grace into our hearts. “We love, because he first loved us?” The basis of this grace is nothing less than the unmerited love of God through Jesus Christ.

God’s love is not a particular love, not favoritism toward this or that child or this or that family, although he does grant baptism as a sign for the children of believers. No, it is a cosmic love, a love for the world. In the Gospel today, it says: “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” There is an implicit call to mission, if you will, when a child is signed in baptism, a call that others, indeed the whole world, might come to know the Father’s love.

Of course, that love is also cruciform, cross-shaped, as the world will stop its ears to the Good News. John goes on to say: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him (1 John 3:1). So the baptized person will also have to live a different way, as salt in the earth. As she grows, she will need to learn not only the sweetness of parental and brotherly love, but the harshness of sin and injustice and tragedy.

Well, we’ll save those lessons for later, though they surely must come. Today we stand in awe before the mystery of God’s love. I believe the name “Mirembe” means more than “peace,” as in the Juba peace talks. I think it also has the sense of “miracle” and “marvel.” As we stand before the mystery of Christmas, we recognize that it is the same mystery as that signed in baptism: how God in his infinite Triune Love could lavish that love upon us, his miserable creatures.

Yet the mystery and miracle are true, especially to the eyes of faith, and today we sign and seal them in the life of this child.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Stephen Noll

LAMBETH DIARY 1998: Week One

2007-12-16T01:45:00.000-08:00

Diary from the First Week of the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops July 18-25, 1998

Setting
The first conference of 76 bishops was held at the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lambeth Palace in London. This year's conference, the largest ever with over 800 bishops and 600 "spouses" (all wives except for 4 husbands of female bishops), is being held on the campus of the University of Kent, located on a hill overlooking the town of Canterbury and its historic cathedral. The weather has been sunny and cool, easing the movement of the bishops who must walk from event to event as few of them have cars. The accommodations are spartan. Several of the buildings were designed by a mad geometric genius, and it is possible that some bishops are forever roaming the halls looking for their rooms. One gets the sense that the physical set-up impedes fellowship and organization among the bishops.

Even though the Western bishops are disproportionately represented (e.g., an average U.S. bishop may represent 5,000-10,000 laypeople, while the average Nigerian bishop represents 150,000-200,000) the predominance of non-white bishops here is striking. Sadly, this predominance is not matched in terms of the Conference leadership, which is largely white and largely liberal theologically.

Who's In Charge
The agenda has been set by the Anglican Consultative Council Office, a London-based bureaucracy set up in 1968 to keep the Communion going between decennial conferences. In the eyes of many, the ACC Office (note not AAC!) has been inordinately influenced by the West and the Episcopal Church USA in particular. To give an example from the most contentious issue of the Conference, the pre-Lambeth sexuality report, written by appointment of the ACC, totally ignored and indeed contradicted the Kuala Lumpur Statement on Human Sexuality, which was a document that emerged from an official meeting of "Southern" (i.e., Third World) Anglicans.

Unhappiness with the ACC Office boiled over last weekend when the Bishops of the Province of South East Asia circulated a letter expressing "grave concern about the General Secretary of the ACC [the Rev. John Peterson] and the future of the Anglican Communion." Speaking for the bishops, Archbishop Moses Tay of Singapore charged the ACC with bias in the firing of the Rev. Dr. Cyril Okorocha, an outspoken Evangelical who was fired this year as the coordinator of the Decade of Evangelism. This accusation has lead to a series of closed-door meetings and points to what may be a major political dynamic of the Conference: a revolt of the Third World bishops against the Western-dominated leadership.

The handling of the press reflects the top-down mindset of the ACC brass. The official news service is composed of Establishment church journalists, overseen by James Rosenthal of the ACC. There was a long delay in accrediting other reporters, including conservatives and representatives of "pressure groups." Only the week before the Conference did they decide to issue credentials to all comers, warning the bishops privately to beware of people in pink nametags.
The daily press briefings would do Mike McCurry proud, as his counterpart, Father Bill Beaver, makes sure that no controversy breaks out. This tactic may have backfired on Friday. The press conference seemed like a pep rally for Christian Aid, a group promoting "Jubilee 2000" and damning the World Bank. There was no inkling of how controversial Christian Aid's position truly is (see below).

Major Events of the First Week
The opening events felt like a convocation during the "Babylonian Captivity" in the 14th century, when there were two popes, one at Rome and one at Avignon. This time the rivals are the Archbishop George Carey in Canterbury and the Great Reformer (some would say Heresiarch) John Spong in London who were competing for headlines.

The Archbishop gave very proper opening addresses on Saturday and Monday, calling for unity and charity among parties. However, he also issued a veiled challenge to Spong's denials of a personal God and the Resurrection of Jesus. The Archbishop spoke of the Resurrection as "the very heart of Anglicanism and concluded: "My brothers and sisters, be very sure of this, that if our faith is not based in the personal God who has made himself known to us in Jesus Christ and who has raised Jesus from the dead, we have nothing, absolutely nothing, to offer our world." Ipso facto, Bishop Spong has nothing to offer the Christian faith and Anglicanism and should hie him hence to a Buddhist temple (if they will have him there).

The opening service on Sunday was held in Canterbury Cathedral, the central seat of the Anglican Communion. Much pageantry, with bishops all dressed in purple (rather clashing shades, one must confess). The music and liturgy reflected the multi-ethnic character of the communion, mixing "O For a Thousand Tongues" with "Sizohamba naye" translated "We are on the Lord's Road." What was strikingly missing from the service were the cadences of the traditional English Book of Common Prayer, which has been one hallmark uniting Anglicans worldwide.

Meanwhile back in Avignon… Bishop Spong had kicked off his triumphal tour the week before by referring to African Christians as "superstitious and fundamentalist." "They've moved out of animism into a very superstitious kind of Christianity." (Later on, in a rare admission, he asked that this statement not be taken literally.)

Then on Saturday, just as the Archbishop was speaking, the Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton, one Spong's 30-strong cadre of gay/lesbian clergy, celebrated the Eucharist at the chapel of King's College in London, the first time a lesbian has openly presided in England. According to a press report in The Guardian, "Mrs Kaeton has been living 'monogamously' with her partner Barbara, a nurse, for 22 years. They were both previously married and knew each other's families. After they fell in love and their marriages broke up, they lost custody of the four children from their marriages. Five years later the couple regained custody, adopted another child and had another through in vitro fertilisation."

The report went on to note: "Mrs Kaeton's licence to celebrate the sacraments as a priest outside the Church of England was approved by officials of the Diocese of London, who were apparently unaware of her background." From the Philadelphia Eleven (1974) to Ellen Barrett (1977), to Robert Williams and Barry Stopfel (1989-90), to you-name-it, the tactics of the revisers continue unabated. It is just possible, however, that the Third World bishops, who have experienced their share of bullying over the years, will not be cowed by this approach.

On Sunday, Bishop Spong preached in Southwark Cathedral in what he had earlier billed as an "alternative opening" to the Conference. Few if any bishops hearkened to his call. At the same time, two bishops and a few gay activists picketed outside the cathedral in Canterbury. One of them was Otis Charles, former Bishop of Utah and Dean of Episcopal Divinity School, who a few years ago abandoned his wife of thirty years for a gay lover in San Francisco.

Bishop Spong appeared at the Conference Monday and has been strangely silent since. Since nothing he does is apolitical, one may opine either he is biding his time for a grand blast or that he realizes that he may drive centrist Western bishops to support a conservative sexuality statement from the Third World. He admitted that conservatives could well succeed: "If they choose to move in that direction, they have the power to do so," he said to his loyal coterie in London and promised a minority report if that were the case.

On Monday, the Conference officially began with bishops attending plenary addresses and sections on the four assigned topics of the Conference. But the most newsworthy event of the day came at Vespers where Cardinal Cassidy, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity warned obliquely that "the commitment to unity is relativised if diversity and differences that cannot be reconciled with the Gospel are at the same time being embraced and exalted."

The spin doctors at the ACC Office tried to blunt the point by noting that "he did not specify any particular situations difficult to the Roman Catholic Church." This is a bit hard to reconcile with his actual words: "Are we not experiencing in fact new and deep divisions among Christians as a result of contrasting approaches to human sexuality for instance? When such attitudes are in the ascendant, disunity between Christians will remain unresolved. Moreover, disunity becomes an increasingly grave matter within the still separated Churches as well. Authoritative proclamation of the Gospel diminished."

The Cardinal was making a salient point. Not only does the sexuality issue doom any further ecumenical progress, but it threatens the Anglican communion with internal disunity. It is therefore ironic indeed that following the address, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, who has spent many years in Anglican-Roman talks, introduced the ecumenical representatives from the Roman Catholic Church. Bishop Griswold, one would think, must be awfully torn knowing that his support of the gay agenda and mandatory women's ordination has driven a stake into the heart of any unity between Rome and Canterbury.

Tuesday and Wednesday included plenary addresses on the Bible and moral decision-making that made some good points but seemed designed to suggest that using the Bible to determine matters of faith and morals was a terribly complex matter and that diversity in "communion" (the in-word for conference organizers) was the best way ahead for the Anglican Communion.

This ideal of diversity was shattered on Wednesday afternoon. Bishop Duncan Buchanan of Johannesburg, who had been appointed over the contentious sexuality section, had unilaterally promised gay rights activists that they could "tell their stories" to the bishops in his group. Bishop James Stanton, it is reported, objected to importing outside advocates to an internal discussion and argued that if the gay lobby was admitted, ex-gays and celibate gays must also be invited to speak. This objection led to an hour-long brouhaha and a 2-to-1 vote to overturn Bishop Buchanan's decision.

So the gay lobby was disinvited. Bishop Buchanan was later described as "shell-shocked and traumatized" by the "strength and ferocity of feelings and the dynamic of the group." The next day he said he was committed to the decision and the process as expressing the will of God. (The next evening, Archbishop Carey and 28 other bishops, apparently responding to the event, paid a visit to a cheese and wine reception by the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement and agreed to further face-to-face meetings.)

This rejection of gay testimony, plus a vote in the House of Lords blocking the lowering of the age of consent for homosexuals from 18 to 16, cast a dark cloud over "Rainbow Day" on Thursday. Richard Holloway, Primus of Scotland, who is resigning his post in order to run for Parliament, spoke to a bishop-less assembly of about 50 lamenting that the Lords' decision would be "perceived by the gay and lesbian community, especially among the young, as yet another rejection." Excuse my asking, but I thought the gay lobby favored only paramarital sexual relationships between mature adults. Does this suggest they favor genital acts between 16-year-olds or between 30-year-olds and 16-year-olds? Better that the Primus favor the raising of the age of consent for heterosexuals!

After his speech, the Rev. Earle Fox asked Holloway whether his mind on homosexuality might be changed by incontrovertible evidence. Holloway replied: "If, incontrovertibly, you brought me a personally signed fax from God, it might, but that's not likely." To which one is tempted to reply to him: "You don't need a FAX. You have Moses and the prophets; listen to them" (Luke 16:29).

Friday was International Debt day. Christian Aid, an advocacy group calling for the complete remission of the $215 billion in Third World debt, was given a place of privilege at all events. (No mention was made, for instance, of the "Five Talents" proposal, sponsored by the AAC.) This promotion, however, became problematic in the afternoon plenary session. The program began with a video from Christian Aid, highlighting the plight of the poor and criticizing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for placing too many conditions and restrictions in its loan reduction programs.

Archbishop Carey followed with an introduction that seemed to commit himself personally to the approach of the next speaker, James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank. "He is," said the Archbishop, "a man of high principle and broad sympathy. His own undeniable vision for a better, fairer world is challenging to all who claim for themselves the moral high ground on this complex issue. He too wants to get things done, but he more than most knows the economic realities which challenge simplistic solutions."

What followed was, it seems, not anticipated by anyone, including perhaps the speaker himself. Apparently, abandoning his notes, Mr. Wolfensohn began: "I believe I have never before been preceded by two such diverse introductions," referring to the film and the Archbishop. He proceeded into a spirited defense of the World Bank and attacked the data and spirit of the film. "I yield the moral superiority to nobody."

Wolfensohn has been responsible for a major policy change at the World Bank called the Highly Indebted Poor Countries"(HIPC) debt initiative, which provides for restructuring of loans and actual forgiveness of some debt. What has offended proponents of total debt forgiveness is HIPC's requirement that countries make political and economic reforms in order to qualify for debt reduction. Jubilee 2000 calls for total remission of debt, while HIPC retains the requirement that countries honor their financial commitments.
Wolfensohn by no means minimized the seriousness of the debt crisis, though he pointed out that there was a difference between "a debt you can live with," which everyone carries, and unsustainable debt. But, he said, "if someone comes to you and asks for $10,000 and is a gambler and a womanizer, will you likely to loan them your money. Countries are the same." He pointed out that even if the World Bank committed itself to total forgiveness, it would have only $23 billion at its disposal. The remaining assets of 150 billion belong to investors (like pension funds). "There is a limit to the extent to which we (the World Bank) and they (investors) are willing to forgive debt."

After Wolfensohn's blast, Bishop Ndungane of Cape Town got the program back on course by calling for an "international mediation council" or bankruptcy court. HIPC, he said, was dominated by the creditors, who serve as plaintiff, judge and jury. Bishop Ndungane's proposal may represent a moderation of the Jubilee demand for total remission, but it was clear that he expected the mediation council to side, more often than not, with the debtor nations. "I have a dream," he perorated in a weak imitation of Martin Luther King, "cancellation of debt by the year 2000."

Bishop Ndungane received a half-standing ovation from the assembly. Afterward some were angry at Wolfensohn's defensiveness and felt he had spoiled the day. Others appreciated the directness and realism of his speech after much utopian rhetoric. One senses that many bishops, while applauding total debt forgiveness publicly, realize that it is impractical. I pointed out the reason for this in the June/July Encompass editorial:

Creditors know how to "make friends with unrighteous mammon" (Luke 16:9). If we have learned anything in the last 25 years, it is that no-strings-attached welfare does not work at home or abroad. Programs like the HIPC Initiative of the World Bank combine market incentives with debt forgiveness. Why should we disparage their work by lofty proclamations that we cannot possibly carry out?

The week ended quietly in terms of plenary sessions, but the four section groups are moving toward final reports. From these reports, each section will send 3 resolutions to a Resolutions Committee. In addition, each of 9 regional meetings (regions are groups of provinces, which are themselves composed of dioceses) will submit 2 resolutions. The Resolutions Committee, which is one-sidedly weighted with liberals, will screen the resolutions that actually come before the whole assembly. Lambeth Conferences have always passed resolutions that have moral if not legal force throughout the Communion.

The AAC's Role at Lambeth
There were two big events sponsored this first week by the Oxford Centre/AAC. The first was the distribution of the Lambeth Directory on Monday. The Lambeth Directory is a complete listing, beautifully bound, of every bishop in the Communion, with a photograph and basic statistics. The book was researched by George Conger (amazingly the ACC Executive in London had only sketchy information), and it was paid for by the Bishop of Dallas and published by the Oxford Center and the AAC. Our staff fanned out across the campus to hand-deliver these directories. The directory makes it possible for bishops to identify each other and have more polite and accurate conversation. Archbishop Carey was ecstatic. "This is the Anglican Communion," he said. Many others, of all different political stripe, agreed that this was a wonderful gift. We see it as representing our primary mission to the Conference, to serve the bishops in their important work.

The second major event was a reception Thursday night to explain and celebrate the Five Talents project. The Five Talents idea emerged out of the Dallas Conference last fall, where we heard the concerns of the Third World bishops about poverty and debt. The project was researched and worked into a formal proposal by Robert Miclean of the Institute for Religion and Democracy, an AAC affiliate, whose director Diane Knippers raised the funding for Robert's work.

The term "Five Talents" is taken from Jesus' parable about stewards who used their money wisely in order to earn yet more (Matthew 25:16). It proposes a micro-enterprise development (MED) plan for the churches of the Anglican Communion. Five Talents would link up with Opportunity International, a Christian-based MED group that has 28 years of experience all over the world. The basic idea is that Five Talents would arrange to make small loans ($100) to villagers who would use the money to enhance their business. When they repay the money (and over 90% do), they qualify for further loans. This creates a revolving fund that can be expanded to others.

We hand-delivered invitations to each bishop's dorm room on Monday and began receiving RSVP's in large numbers. About 150 bishops attended the Thursday reception at the Franciscan Centre, which featured a tasty spread of pies and cheeses. Considering that we were competing with a production of Murder in the Cathedral at the Canterbury Cathedral and the Jubilee 2000 reception, the turnout was remarkable. The large preponderance of bishops was African, but there were several Western bishops, such as Michael Peers, Archbishop of Canada, and Rowan Williams, Bishop of Monmouth (Wales).

Bishop Simon Chiwanga, who is the head of the ACC (and much more sympathetic to our work than the bureaucrats in London), chaired the reception. "What we would like to see," he said, "is a resolution at Lambeth which endorses and commends to the Church the Five Talents Project initiative." He urged that the proposal be pushed forward in several sections, concluding: "As the Church implements Five Talents the world will see our concrete response to poverty. They will see the love of Christ and the tangible way in which we minister to 'the least of these our brethren' and God will be glorified."

We were ecstatic about the response. There seems to be momentum for the Communion to endorse Five Talents. We received notice on Saturday that Archbishop George Carey is the first contributor to the fund, donating £1000. Praise God! If all goes well, our work will be to raise the minimum $500,000 needed to begin the project. With God all things are possible, and we believe that this program will be ready to roll within a year.

Five Talents is not meant to compete directly with Jubilee 2000. The Conference may endorse both. But there are divergent principles at work. Jubilee 2000 aims at governments with the hope they will use money for the poor; Five Talents begins at the grass roots and hopes that strengthening families and villages will enhance the overall quality of life. Jubilee 2000 speaks of a "a moral obligation to forgive debt." Five Talents assumes that people will repay their debts when they contract them freely and that "to those who are faithful in a little, more will be entrusted." Jubilee 2000, like the original biblical Jubilee, is more a dream than a reality. MED's like Five Talents are already being successfully employed around the world.

Meet the AAC Team
There is a team of volunteers, working for the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and AAC. Most of these workers are operating out of the Franciscan Study Center, just off the Kent University campus, and are living together at Riverdale House, a dormitory of the Kent School of Art and Design. Meet some of the foot soldiers in our all-volunteer army.

Truro Episcopal Church has made a signal effort to help the AAC work at Lambeth. The Rector Martyn Minns and his wife Angela and their daughter Rachel have given up three precious weeks of sabbatical time to be here. Martyn leads devotions every morning at 8 am in the dormitory and is organizing various events, such as the upcoming meeting on sexuality to be held next Wednesday. Angela has become house-mother to all the team. She says she actually enjoys doing laundry and has kept us all in clean attire. Rachel interjects good-humored comments into our meetings just when things are getting too heavy.

Bruce Mason is Martyn's Executive Assistant at Truro. A young man with great organizational gifts, Bruce has helped organize the team, produced the nine-day cycle of prayer, and has worked on the Five Talents project. On Friday night he heard that a gunman had broken into the Whip's office in Congress where his wife Shay works. We gave thanks that she was not present at that time, even as we grieve with the families of the guards who were killed. Bruce is returning to the States and Truro this weekend.

Paul Julienne, a Truro parishioner, is an atomic physicst with the Bureau of Standards who believes in the power of prayer. He recruited one Episcopalian to pray for every diocesan bishop at Lambeth. On Friday, when my computer crashed, I sought Paul's technical support. The computer immediately booted up. "You really know what your are doing," I said. "Actually," Paul replied gently, "I think my prayer helped."

Warren Thrasher, another Truroite, took an early separation package from AT&T where he had been a vice-president. Finding himself between jobs, Warren decided to take the opportunity it afforded to serve. He has been ubiquitous during the week, setting up the office, overseeing the mail distributions, and equipping the team with cell phones (he has worked for AT&T no less) and keeping us theological types in touch with the layman's point of view (Warren's word or Bishop Spong is not heresiarch but hypocrite).
Marietta Julienne and Emily Thrasher are Truro parishioners who have been librarians in schools and churches. So naturally they began setting up the small but helpful OCMS library at the Study Center. This library provides resources to our team and to bishops who need to write position papers or news reports.

Looking Ahead to Lambeth, Week Two
Several main events are planned for next week. Two of these will seek to bring together bishops from particular regions. The first begins on Saturday, July 25. It will be a celebration of the East African revival, with worship and fellowship.
The second, on Wednesday July 29, will include bishops from India and Pakistan, many of whom have encountered discrimination and persecution from the Hindu and Muslim majorities in their countries.

The third event will be a forum of bishops and advisors to discuss the biblical understanding of sex and marriage, and to talk about the nature of homosexuality and how they may deal with and overcome this disorder. A letter of invitation, signed by 7 archbishops and 68 other bishops, is going out Saturday. We hope that out of this event, all those who share a commitment to biblical morality will be brought together, edified, and unified in their approach to this issue facing the conference.

Please pray for these events, along with our prayer team, which meets from 9am to 10 pm each day. While it is hard to gauge exactly how the conference is moving, we are, all in all, encouraged. We have experienced great encouragement working together and great encouragement from the many godly bishops here. Above all, we are encouraged by "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort" (2 Corinthians 1:1).

Submitted Monday, July 27, 1998. The entire diary can also be found at the AAC Archives, with Week One at http://www.americananglican.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ikLUK3MJIpG&b=689485&ct=3198219

LAMBETH DIARY 1998: Week Two

2007-12-16T01:41:00.000-08:00

Diary from the Second Week of the Lambeth Conference of Anglican BishopsJuly 26-August 1, 1998

Setting
I began my week with a memorable pair of images that I think may foreshadow the future of the Anglican Communion. On my way to worship early Sunday morning, I suddenly made a turn and was confronted with the tower of Canterbury Cathedral shining in the early summer sunshine. We worshiped in the choir area where the stones are chipped and gnarled by generations of reverent feet. The service was the traditional Anglican rite. I could not help thinking of Thomas Cranmer, the first Protestant archbishop, who had so shaped the Anglican way by his precious words, his cautious but principled government of the Church through many tribulations, by his final self-offering on the pyre.

Sunday evening I found myself seated around a table with bishops and archbishops from all parts of the world. As the meeting closed, the Most Reverend Joseph Adetiloye was asked to pray. Though soft-spoken, he radiates spiritual gravitas. He presides over the world’s largest province of Anglicans, where there are far more Anglicans in church on Sunday than in the United States and England combined. As the Archbishop prayed in precise but African English, I heard the same cadences of beauty and piety proceed from his mouth that I had heard that morning in the liturgy. George Herbert the poet once predicted that the power of the British Church would follow the horizon west. Truly in our day the vital glory of Anglicanism has taken residence south of the equator.

What Ever Happened to the Decade of Evangelism?
So how large is the Anglican Communion? The official figures for 1997 claim 63 million. A Sunday Times survey, however, claimed that only 23 million actually attend church on a given Sunday. The most embarrassing statistic is that while England claims 26 million baptized members, only a million attend church. Archbishop Robin Eames of Ireland explained that this gap "simply reflects the reality that not every baptised member is in church on Sunday every week." Huh? Denials like this are part of the problem.

It is hard to see that the Decade of Evangelism has had any impact in the West. But then the Decade of Evangelism was the Third World’s baby to begin with. (To be sure, the idea of calling the 90’s a Decade of Evangelism came from Bishop Alden Hathaway and was presented to the Episcopal Church in 1988.) But one gets the sense that many Western bishops humored their Third World comrades by voting for it. After all, who can oppose evangelism, especially if one is free to identify it with one’s own pet projects?

I have just seen the Report of the mission section "Called to Live and Proclaim the Good News." It is not bad overall, it has some helpful analysis of the missionary setting of the churches. Still, there is something missing, the urgency, the boldness, the sacrificial spirit that is called for by the Risen Lord. The problem is not in the plans but in the will to evangelise.

The Business of Lambeth
Although the Lambeth Conference is not a political legislature, it is the closest analogy to the early Church’s ecumenical councils that we have. To moblilize 800 people (and bishops to boot) to reach a conclusion on any one issue or range of issues is a colossal task. The key advantage in influencing so large an assembly clearly belongs to those who set the agenda. If one steps back and surveys the array of agenda-setting devices, it is perfectly clear that the "progressivist" leadership of the Anglican Consultative Council, which is heavily indebted to American Episcopal Church, has had a massive advantage. The Oxford Centre/AAC team has tried to offer a counterbalance to this initial advantage.

The bishops have spent much of the week in the four main "section" groups:

Section One: Called to Full Humanity, dealing with social ethical issues of environment, euthanasia, technology, sexuality, international debt.

Section Two: Holding and Sharing the Faith, dealing with mission and evangelism, interfaith relations, and youth.

Section Three: Living as Anglicans in a Plural World, dealing with structures of authority within the Communion.

Section Four: Seeking Full Visible Unity, dealing with ecumenism.

Many of these sections are divided into subsections by topic. Bishops were invited to sign up for the topic of their choice. Thus, for instance, it is not accidental that Jim Stanton and Jack Spong are both in the Human Sexuality sub-section. By the end of the second week, each section will have written a report on behalf of the whole Conference, along with accompanying Resolutions. The Reports are approved by the Conference and then bound together in a volume.

Clearly there has been much vigorous fellowship in some of the subsections. The Human Sexuality group has met overtime but seemed to have reached a conservative "consensus" by the week’s end. In other groups, there was clearly not enough debate. The euthanasia group appears to be prepared to defend, after very little debate, withdrawal of food and water from people in a persistent vegetative state. The International Debt section appears to be dominated by one agenda: a call for total remission.

Conference Resolutions, which will be debated next week, carry more weight than the section reports for a number of reasons. First, they are shorter and attempt to sum up the wisdom on a particular subject. Secondly, they represent the mind of the whole Conference rather than merely that of one section. Much of the Conference agenda for the third week will involve debate on the Resolutions.

Some Resolutions will sail through without debate as "Agreed Resolutions," unless fifty bishops sign a petition opposing them. As many of us know from Episcopal Church politics, one must read the fine print of such Resolutions as they go by. There was an Agreed Resolution on "Unity Within the Provinces of the Anglican Communion" that would place sole oversight of "alternative oversight" of parishes (like the one in Arkansas) with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Because this issue touches on the larger problems of theological disunity in the Communion, conservatives mustered fifty votes to oppose it.

Resolutions come not only from the four Sections but also from the 9 regional groups of the 37 Provinces, e.g., North America. It seems clear that some Resolutions from the sections will overlap with, and probably conflict with, the Resolutions of the sections. The task of the Resolutions Committee is to bring a coherent package to the full Conference next week. Whether the Committee, which is composed predominantly of liberals, will perform that task fairly is yet to be seen.

Looking ahead to the week of August 2-9, the key legislative sections of the whole Conference begin Tuesday afternoon and conclude by Friday noon. The closing session is held Saturday morning and bishops begin to leave on Sunday. Somewhat surprisingly, there is no final service at the Cathedral.

Events of the Week
The Spong Show is, of course, a running attraction. There was an ongoing debate about what Jack Spong said about the African Christians and what he meant. By mid-week Spong had made an apology of sorts for describing African Christians as having just "moved out of animism into a very superstitious kind of Christianity." This Clintonesque apology did not carry much conviction, as he went on explain: "I don’t know what to do about [their offence]. Religion is a deeply emotional thing. It gets into the very fibre of our soul. It is part of our security system." In other words, their reaction is a psychological defense mechanism to protect themselves from the painful recognition that he’s right.

Personally, I do not think Jack Spong is a racist. I do think he manifests that "politically correct" cultural arrogance characteristic of the Western knowledge class. What Bishop Spong cannot fathom is that the insult which the Africans most resent is the insult to Jesus Christ. It’s a theological offence, and they take it seriously. We in the Episcopal Church have become inured to this man’s constant blasphemy. Our African brothers and sisters have paid a high price for their faith, and they are not amused.

The week began with a discussion of Christian-Muslim relations. The morning press briefing included two rather different figures: Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, and Josiah Idowu-Fearon, bishop of Kudena in Nigeria. Nazir-Ali, who is Pakistani by birth but Etonian by education, is cool, sophisticated, and convinced that Christians and Muslims can live in harmony together, respecting each others’ rights. Idowu-Fearon, whose evangelism has been primarily among animists, is also interested in Christians learning about Islam, but he called Nazir Ali’s vision "an ideal, not the reality." The reality, he says, is that in Nigeria conversion to Christianity from Islam spells death. He described the way in which Nigerian Christians often experience deprivation and persecution in the Muslim north.

Tuesday was tea-time, as 2,000 bishops and spouses paid a visit to the nominal head of the Church of England at Buckingham Palace. Queen Elizabeth was generous in personally greeting many. The handlers made sure that she met the 11 women bishops, even though she is reported to be opposed to women’s ordination. (From the official press treatment, one would gather that women’s ordination, especially to the episcopate, is not an issue at all.) The Queen’s arrival was announced by a chorus of "God Save the Queen!" At 6pm, the anthem was played again, with the apparent message "Y’all go on home now!"

On Wednesday international debt was back in the headlines. World Bank President James Wolfensohn and his negative words were out of mind, and Archbishop Ndungane of Capetown, who apparently wants to make world debt the equivalent of apartheid, called for immediate action on the program of canceling all debt by 2000. The day before Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the G8 ministers pilloried by the Jubilee movement, promised an increase of $2.5 billion over the next three years toward international development. That’s about one year too late and $222.5 billion too little to achieve the Jubilee. If Ndungane’s international mediation court is set up, perhaps it can present the U.S. Congress with a bill for the balance. Isolationist conservatives and liberals would love such a move to argue for defunding the World Bank and IMF altogether!

The head of the section on international debt is Bishop Peter Selby of Worcester, who seems to regard the past decade not as a springtime of economic democracy but as the dark age of economic oppression (there has been no mention here of the fall of Communism since 1988). His section refused to consider the Five Talents project because, he said, the proposal did not sufficiently deal with certain justice concerns of the poor. Why doesn’t he let the poor decide about this? Interestingly, although Archbishop Carey himself made the first contribution to Five Talents of £1,000, the Lambeth Daily has not yet mentioned the existence of the proposal.

Each day the bishops meet for Bible study, with accompanying video presentations. Certainly this is good in principle. Apparently the videos are often quite powerful (e.g., one on reconciliation in Northern Ireland), but they are only tangentially connected to the text of 2 Corinthians. It is interesting to note that one bshop, Paul Barnett of Australia, has written a full-length commentary on 2 Corinthians and was not consulted about the Bible study. "Imaginative reading," rather than close exegesis, is a la mode.

The AAC’s Role at Lambeth
The Oxford Centre for Mission Study/AAC headquarters at the Franciscan Centre has become a hub of activity this week. There have been major receptions and meetings almost every night as well as daily meetings. We have offered bishops access to e-mail, FAX and phone facilities, and word seems to have gotten out that the Centre is a place for tired bishops to come get a break from the heavy schedule of the Conference.

In addition, several of our staff are specifically working with bishops in the four sections, helping them write up proposals and hosting meetings of bishops who need a place to come together.

Wednesday night was a backbreaker for the staff but a blessing for the bishops. Early in the evening, we first hosted a Paskistani-Indian dinner with genuine Tandoori food. It was wonderful to see bishops from these rival nations sitting together. Of course, they have much in common since in their countries Christianity is under attack both from militant Muslims and Hindus.

Immediately following this dinner, there was a gathering of 200 bishops and wives to hear a presentation from Christl Vonholdt, one of our team. Christl lives in the Reichelsheim Fellowship near Frankfurt, Germany. The Fellowship is a kind of L’Abri, and it has always included a number of homosexuals. We had earlier circulated six brochures by Christl which put the gay rights movement in the contemporary cultural context.

After Christl spoke, four former homosexuals gave their testimonies of transformation in Christ. They put a human face on the issue that has been hanging over this Conference. We had invited all 800 bishops to the meeting. Most of those who came were traditionalists, but some like Otis Charles, the self-confessed gay bishop, attended respectfully. He later said that Integrity figured there were only 10 ex-gays in the Episcopal Church and that many who did move out of the gay community left the Church for more evangelical denominations. Precisely!

The Five Talents project, as mentioned above, has been ignored in favor of grandiose lecturing of world leaders on macro-economics. In order to get approval, it had to be supported by a resolution from one of the regions. The Central and East African region failed at first to endorse it, but at a critical moment, God intervened. Bishop Simon Chiwanga found himself, uncharacteristically, with some free time. As he strolled outside te place where the region was meeting, he met two people who told him Five Talents was dead. Bishop Chiwanga proceeded into the meeting, pleaded for the project, and it was added as an agreed motion. It appears likely to go through unless 50 bishops choose to oppose it by petition.

Friday was Celebrate Nigeria night. Nearly 200 Nigerian bishops and wives came decked out in their traditional attire. There was worship, singing, and words of encouragement. One sensed corporately their confidence that their moment of leadership in the Comunion has come. May it be so, Lord!

On Saturday, the Franciscan Centre was quiet, but it is a calm before the storm. We are tracking the section reports and the proposed resolutions as they come in. We hope to be ready to help bishops respond to whatever comes out of the Resolutions Committee. But at this moment we feel like we are hitting tennis balls against a backstop. You are not sure how well prepared you are until you have a live player on the opposite court. The final set begins on Tuesday.

It’s Saturday night. I am planning to attend the Cathedral tomorrow again. Thomas Cranmer, pray for us!

Meet the AAC Team
Several members of the team left to go home, but others arrived to fill their ranks. The dormitory is so full that one person is sleeping in the kitchen!

Christl Vonholdt has been an immense help to the team. She had come to the Dallas Conference last September to share her expertise in understanding and counseling homosexuals. She has edited a collection of texts on homosexuality entitled Striving for Gender Identity. She speaks quietly but with complete confidence that homosexuality is a disorder that can usually be healed by God’s grace and by skilled counseling.

Rolf-Alexander Thieke is a Lutheran pastor and teacher from Baden, near Lake Constance in Bavaria. Rolf took his vacation time to drive over to Canterbury carrying the newly published pamphlets by Christl’s pamphlets on homosexuality. Rolf has his own ministry of writing and of counseling homosexuals. He stayed with us a week helping in whatever way he could.

Timothy Kujero is a priest and press officer from Nigeria. This has been Timothy’s first trip outside Nigeria and he has had some interesting reactios to Western food. Presented with a chicken sandwich, Timothy said, "In my country when you order chicken, they give you a chicken!" Timothy has been helping with all our projects and was the Centre host for Nigeria night on Friday.

Peter Aggarwal is an Anglican priest from Melbourne, Australia, who is pursuing doctoral studies at Oxford. He comes from Pakistani and Australian parentage. He took on the task of organizing the Pakistan-India dinner calling in a caterer on short notice. (Actually everything we do is on short notice!)

Yvonne Boltz is the captain of the prayer warriors. Yvonne, who is married to Roger Boltz, Chief Mission Officer of the AAC, organized a prayer team that goes off every morning and prays till 10 pm for the Conference and for the ministry team. We have had our ups and downs, our crises and near disasters. But God has gone before in every case, working good where we fell short. We are convinced that the covering of prayer is a major part of our fruitfulness and protection to date.

Les Martin is a priest from the diocese of East Tennessee. Les spent a month in England, attending the pre-Lambeth events. Once the conference began, Les collected all the stories for the day so that team members could be current on what issues were getting play in the press. We thank God for him as he heads home.

Bishop Alex Dickson, the AAC Vice President. is retired and thus is not an invited member of the Conference. However, he is a presence. Alex took the initiative to lead the American bishops in an act of repentance before the Africans at the pre-Lambeth conference of the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion (EFAC). Many believe that moment forged a bond of sympathy that has continued throughout the Conference. Alex has stayed on as an advocate for Bishop John Rucyahana of Rwanda, who is under fire for taking the Rev. T. J. Johnson and his parish in Little Rock under his wing.

Looking Ahead to Lambeth, Week Three
In our daily worship this week, we came across a remarkable concurrence of lessons. First, there was the proto-feminist Jael pounding the tent peg through Sisera’s temple (Judg 4:21). Next we had the apostles filling Judas’ hole in the apostolic band by electing Matthias (Acts 1:15-26). Finally, there was that pious man Joseph and the women seeing to it that Jesus’ body was properly buried (Matthew 27:57-61). It seemed to me the Word was telling us to do whatever it takes to complete the job God has set before us.

Please pray that the Lord will give us and the bishops grace to make a strong finish. We enter into the decisive week of the Lambeth Conference. We have helped consolidate a massive bloc of support from around the Communion, particularly from the Third World, to speak for a biblical agenda. However, a warning is necessary at this critical time. One prayer partner on the Global Intercessors forum notes:

At the 1988 Conference, the balance shifted at this stage. During the early sessions the voices of the African and other Third World bishops had been prominent, correctly reflecting the numerical balance of Anglicanism, which was noticeable even in 1988. When it came to the final third of the Conference, however, and the drawing up of resolutions, the Anglo-American axis took over, producing a series of statements which, on the whole, allowed Provinces to do whatever they wanted.

Pray that that scenario not happen again. Pray that the orthodox leaders will be wise, bold and cooperative. Pray that the Lord will foil the devices of the Enemy. Pray that unity and truth may prevail and that our Anglican Communion as a whole may be put back on the road to health.

Posted on August 2. This report can also be found at the AAC Website at
http://www.americananglican.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=ikLUK3MJIpG&b=689485&ct=3198223