Another 'must read'

George Conger is usually worth a read. This piece from the Church of England Newspaper, however, is outstanding - not least because it signifies an historical moment. As he identifies, the Primates' Council, which was once crucial for the doctrine and discipline of the Anglican Communion, has pretty much voted, in a very un-Turkey like fashion, for the ecclesiologial equivalent of Christmas: "Dr. Williams has now effectively gathered the authority once held by other instruments of the communion into his own hands, and into those of a London-based bureaucracy."

This is the new real politik of the Communion, and must equally be the signal for a new self-understanding of the Church of England:

Dublin primates meeting marks an ‘end to the communion as we know it’

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Guardian "Comment is Free" Article on the Archbishops' Proposals re Women Bishops

The Guardian asked me to write a piece for them on the Archbishops' proposals on the introduction of women bishops. I don't think the strap line quite gets it, though: "A conservative evangelical condemns the Archbishops' measures to make room for opponents of women priests." Either that, or I didn't make myself clear, but it was done at very, very short notice.

[...] Analysts may detect the intricacies of Rowan Williams' thought and the niceties of John Sentamu's legal background. Yet whether or not it upsets the supporters of women bishops, the real question is whether it will satisfy the opponents. And here I have to say the answer is probably not.

The solution to the issue of "delegation" certainly does have something to commend it, since this is a genuine anxiety for many. If the duties of the female diocesan are simply delegated to a male substitute, then those to whom he ministers are still under her authority. Jurisdiction given under the amended Measure could, as the Archbishops hope, instead be regarded as being conferred "by the decision of the Church as a whole", independently of the diocesan.

Many will feel, however, that the Archbishops overemphasize the issue of delegation whilst overlooking anxieties about the essential shape of the proposed legislation. For at the moment we would see each diocese developing a local scheme essentially under the control of the diocesan bishop. And whilst that bishop would have a "duty to have regard" to a Code of Practice, opponents simply do not trust this requirement or the posited Code. Indeed, on the basis of past and present experience, nothing less than legally defined and conferred jurisdiction will allay these worries. Read more

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Rowan’s Pentecost letter in a nutshell

Help me out here. I am trying to finish working on the bathroom and tidying up before my wife gets home, so I really don’t have time to read through Rowan Williams’s Pentecost letter as thoroughly as it no doubt ought to be read. What it seems to add up to, though, is this (readers of Billy Bunter school stories will be familiar with the scenario): 

The pupils of the lower fifth have been warned about talking in class, but that naughty Jefferts-Schori girl, sitting at the back with her friends, has done it again. The patience of kindly-but-stern Dr Williams has snapped, and he has decided to keep the whole class in from break.

Meanwhile, he plans to ask the school council what else he can do to stop this class from disrupting the entire fifth year. But of course Ms Schori, along with the other talkers in the lower fifth is on the council, so that is going to be a difficult move.

Dr Williams has meanwhile retreated to his study, where he is perhaps wishing he could go back to the good old days of giving out six-of-the-best.

That seems to be the sum of it, unless I’ve missed something vital.

Yarooh!

John Richardson
29 May 2010

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Fulcrum: their challenge to Canterbury and the challenge they must face

Those of us who have watched (and experienced) the opposition of the open evangelical group Fulcrum to many of the conservative attempts to address the problems within the Anglican Communion over the past several years must greet with charity and relief the announcement from the Fulcrum leadership published yesterday in the Church of England Newspaper.

We may feel it has taken them a long time to wake up to what some of us regarded as the obvious. However, their statement not only finally recognizes the intractable problems within TEC but forcefully challenges the Archbishop of Canterbury in a manner entirely similar to conservative pronouncements from which they have distanced themselves in the past.

In response to the consent of the bishops and Standing Committees of TEC to the election of Mary Glasspool as bishop suffragan in the diocese of Los Angeles, the statement is clear that any claims of an adherence to the ‘letter’ of past agreements is now impossible:

We are now indisputably in a radically new situation. TEC as a body has determinedly, perhaps irrevocably, chosen autonomy over “communion with autonomy and accountability”.

There are three other important recognitions. The first is that

... this is not simply a matter of disagreement about biblical interpretation and sexual ethics although these are central and important. It is now very clearly also a fundamental matter of truth-telling and trust.

Their understanding, in other words, is that TEC’s version of truth-telling is not the same as that understood in the rest of the communion, and that therefore TEC as a body cannot be trusted. This is a major and significant conclusion.

Secondly, they recognize a problem within TEC with “their understanding of how the Spirit leads them.” This has been evident for a long time to those with ‘ears to hear’. But acknowledging the problem must demand from Fulcrum a clear identification as to where authority does lie. We have here a ‘clash of spiritualities’, and yet the open evangelical movement as a whole is undoubtedly vulnerable to just the approach that TEC has adopted. How the Spirit leads the Church is, and always has been, a critical question for Christians, and it is one on which Fulcrum could now usefully speak with clarity to its own constituency.

The third recognition is that members of TEC must now act against the overall polity of TEC and be supported in this by Anglicanism worldwide:

The only hope now is for TEC dioceses to reject TEC’s path by committing to the covenant and for such commitment to be recognised by the Communion.

But this raises the question of recognizing ACNA — something which Fulcrum and it’s associates have seemingly been hitherto reluctant to do. (Canon Simon Butler, who has posted articles and comments on the Fulcrum website, vigorously opposed the original motion in General Synod to support ACNA, although he voted for the final motion.) Will Fulcrum, then, follow the logic of its own conclusion and now respond more positively to those who have already stepped away from TEC? If, as the statement asserts, the Communion “must now proceed in its common life without TEC”, will it be encouraged to do so with ACNA?

Most importantly, however, the statement calls for action from the Archbishop of Canterbury. It is not assumed that TEC will take itself into the wilderness. Instead,

The nature of the Communion’s structures at present is such that effecting this distancing will require clear and decisive action by the Archbishop of Canterbury. At the very least he needs to make clear that bishops participating in the May consecration in Los Angeles will thereby exclude themselves from being invited by him to participate in the Instruments or to represent the Communion in any form.

And the statement is absolutely clear about the implications of any failure to act:

 Unless he does this all that the Instruments have repeatedly said in relation to TEC’s conduct will be undermined. The sickness of TEC’s inability to say what it means and mean what it says to the rest of the Communion will then have infected the Instruments and will surely destroy the Communion.

Understandably, the statement is at pains to recognize Rowan Williams’s past efforts. Yet it is remarkably frank in the call it now makes upon him:

Many ... both within the Church of England and the wider Communion (particularly in the Global South which meets next month) have been patient and sought to work with him by supporting the Windsor and covenant processes. They need now to make clear that unless he gives a clear lead then all that he and others have worked for since the Windsor Report and all that is promised by the covenant is at risk because of the new situation in which TEC has placed us.

When news of consents to the election of Mary Glasspool first broke, Fulcrum issued the briefest of responses which ended with the words, “Actions have consequences.”

That same phrase is used in their new statement, one of the consequences they identify being that “TEC as a body has revealed it is incapable of signing the Anglican covenant.” We must be truly grateful that the strong smell of coffee has finally wafted its way to the nostrils of the Fulcrum Leadership Team. We must now ask whether — and indeed how — they will reposition themselves in relation to the leadership of GAFCON, FCA, etc, who have for years been saying the same things, for entirely similar reasons, if not always in a manner of which Fulcrum would approve.

We must also observe that inaction has consequences. If what the Fulcrum Leadership Team has demanded now fails to materialize, will they take things further, and if so, how?

John P Richardson
26 March 2010

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Rowan's Roman Bluff

For a man hardly renowned for his robustness, the recent speech given in Rome by the Archbishop of Canterbury was remarkably robust. Of course, it was given partly in response to the announcement from Rome on October 20^th of effectively a ‘safe haven’ for Anglicans disenchanted by the policies of the Church over which Rowan Williams presides. Few will forget his somewhat glum and deflated appearance at the press conference called for that purpose, which must have been an intensely difficult and embarrassing moment for him.

Could it be that the man has feelings just like the rest of us, and that his visit to Rome came as a personal opportunity to put a few things straight? Despite its donnish language, there are elements of the speech which are decidedly ‘in Rome’s face’, and some will welcome this.

Yet in the present climate, it is necessary to look at any such speech not only in terms of how it challenges Rome, but how it accords with the nature and doctrine of the Church of England. And here, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is of as little comfort to the Anglican as it is to the Roman orthodox.

Williams begins with a claim that there has been real ecumenical progress and convergence. Indeed, his theme throughout is that Rome and Canterbury are so close as to be almost touching. What, then, is keeping them apart? He responds that there are three key issues, whose significance must therefore be considered.

... the major question that remains is whether in the light of that depth of agreement the issues that still divide us have the same weight — issues about authority in the Church, about primacy (especially the unique position of the pope), and the relations between the local churches and the universal church in making decisions (about matters like the ordination of women, for instance).

Over against these issues, there is substantial agreement on what Williams feels are the things which really matter. And this is not just a question of theorising. The life of the Church is suffering whilst we delay:

When so very much agreement has been firmly established in first-order matters about the identity and mission of the Church, is it really justifiable to treat other issues as equally vital for its health and integrity?

But to show the difference between ‘first order’ and ‘second order’ issues, we must understand the nature of the Church itself. And this, Williams argues, mut be defined ‘theologically’, not ‘institutionally’, not set up by divine command establishing a ‘chain of command’ but ‘emerging’, as it were, from the nature of God and the incarnation.

Briefly, but importantly, Williams sums up the underlying theology of the Church as being that God is a Trinitarian community, the incarnation opens up the possibility of people being drawn into this community and the Spirit makes this actual. The Church is then constituted by a ‘filial’, godward, relationship and ‘communal’, human, relationships.

So, regarding the sacraments there is a substantial, if not always acknowledged, overlap:

The whole discussion of sacramental life is centred upon how the believer is established in filial communion through the act of the triune God; there is little to suggest that outside the Roman fold there is any ambiguity over this priority of the divine act, or any separation between the act of God in salvation and a purely or predominantly human activity of recalling or expressing that act through human practices. (Emphasis added.)

In the light of this understanding, which Williams clearly believes should be a matter of common agreement, he argues that current ecumenical debate is not really about the essential shape of the Church but “about where the fullest realisation of communion is to be found.” So we return to his three key issues three key issues, on which he poses a series of questions. On authority and the magisterium:

Is there a mechanism in the Church that has the clear right to determine for all where the limits of Christian identity might be found?

On primacy:

Is the integrity of the Church ultimately dependent on a single identifiable ministry of unity to which all local ministries are accountable?

On the universal Church:

Is it an entity from which local churches derive their life, or is it the perfect mutuality of relationship between local churches – or indeed as the mysterious presence of the whole in each specific community?

For Williams these are, it seems, the remaining stumbling blocks in the way of fuller ecumenical recognition. Yet his answers in each of these areas are confusing. On authority, he speaks of how responsibility is distributed amongst “the communion of the baptised”. But on reaching agreement, he says simply that we have different ways of expressing this.

On primacy he says, starkly, there are two options regarding the present papal model: either it is essential, or it is not ‘fit for purpose’. Yet in its place he offers“a recognition of a primatial ministry” that is “not absolutely bound to a view of primacy as a centralized juridical office”, and appeals to the Anglican covenant as an example of communities bound by what he refers to earlier as “terms of lasting loyalty, shared theological method and devotional ethos.”

On the ‘local’ and the ‘universal’, he argues that, “the church is local community gathered around the bishop or his representative for eucharistic worship not as a portion of some greater whole but as itself the whole,” whilst nevertheless recognizing it exists in connection with the other parts. Thus,

... the question here becomes one about what criteria help us establish that the same Catholic life is going on in diverse communities.

To this, he poses a further question:

The facts of corporate reading of Scripture, obedience to the Lord’s commands to baptise and make eucharist, shared understanding of the shape and the disciplines of what we have called filial holiness — can these be utilised as they stand or do we need a further test — visible communion, say, with a universal primate?

The answer lies in decision making processes — say, for example, on the ordination of women. And on this, Williams poses a direct question to Rome:

... the challenge to recent Roman Catholic thinking on this would have to be: in what way does the prohibition against ordaining women so ‘enhance the life of communion’, reinforcing the essential character of filial and communal holiness [the ‘godward’ and ‘human’ elements] as set out in Scripture and tradition and ecumenical agreement, that its breach would compromise the purposes of the Church as so defined [in terms of reading Scripture, baptism and eucharist]?

Williams answers with a further question, but appeals to Anglican experience:

Even if there remains uncertainty in the minds of some about the rightness of ordaining women, is there a way of recognising that somehow the corporate exercise of a Catholic and evangelical ministry remains intact even when there is dispute about the standing of female individuals? In terms of the relation of local to universal, what we are saying here is that a degree of recognizability of ‘the same Catholic thing’ has survived: Anglican provinces ordaining women to some or all of the three orders have not become so obviously diverse in their understanding of filial holiness and sacramental transformation that they cannot act together, serve one another and allow some real collaboration.

So far, the structure of Williams’ argument is clear: we are almost at full, ecumenical, agreement. Fundamentally, we agree on the shape of the Church and the nature of its sacramental life. We are kept apart only on what are apparently second-order issues, and within Anglicanism itself, we have found a way to organize our life which can overcome our own internal tensions. But then, still on this issue of women’s ordination, he becomes completely unrealistic, if not downright disingenuous:

It is this sort of thinking that has allowed Anglicans until recently to maintain a degree of undoubtedly impaired communion among themselves, despite the sharpness of the division over this matter. It is part of the rationale of supplementary episcopal oversight as practised in the English provinces, and it may yet be of help in securing the place of those who will not be able to accept the episcopal ministry of women. There can be no doubt, though, that the situation of damaged communion will become more acute with the inability of bishops within the same college to recognise one another’s ministry in the full sense. Yet, in what is still formally acknowledged to be a time of discernment and reception, is it nonsense to think that holding on to a limited but real common life and mutual acknowledgement of integrity might be worth working for within the Anglican family? And if it can be managed within the Anglican family, is this a possible model for the wider ecumenical scene?

The problem, of course, is with the phrase ‘until recently’. For what Williams presents as a successful balancing act, which might be “a possible model for the wider ecumenical scene” is, of course, likely to come crashing down, and is precisely the reason Rome acted in the way it did via the offer of the Personal Ordinariate.

Moreover, it is surely exactly the experience of the Church of England at this point which demonstrates it is not the way to go. Extraordinarily, Williams says that this is “still formally acknowledged to be a time of discernment and reception”. Yet as we know, the decision making processes of the Church of England mean that process has been pushed forward by facts on the ground —not least the avoidance of consecrating traditionalist bishops —and is now dominated by a ‘kill everybody’ mentality on the part of the pro-women’s ordination lobby.

Like the desperately-unhappy John and Mary O’Leary in Father Ted, he seems to hope that a smiling face will conceal our domestic conflicts from the visiting priest. Yet if there is deceit, it is one which Williams himself seems to believe, for he asks, in apparent seriousness,

At what point do we have to recognise that surviving institutional and even canonical separations or incompatibilities are overtaken by the authoritative direction of genuinely theological consensus, so that they [the divisions] can survive only by appealing to the ghost of ecclesiological positivism?

“Are we missing something?” he seems to be saying, “Or are we just waiting to clear up some trivial difficulties between Rome and Canterbury in the way that the Anglican communion is already doing so successfully?”

All I have been attempting to say here is that the ecumenical glass is genuinely half-full – and then to ask about the character of the unfinished business between us. For many of us who are not Roman Catholics, the question we want to put, in a grateful and fraternal spirit, is whether this unfinished business is as fundamentally church-dividing as our Roman Catholic friends generally assume and maintain. And if it isn’t, can we all allow ourselves to be challenged to address the outstanding issues with the same methodological assumptions and the same overall spiritual and sacramental vision that has brought us thus far?

And at this point, the reader may wish to pause for breath, for it is nothing if not a bold take on the ecumenical venture and on the issues which have divided us for the last 450 years.

Yet if we simply survey it from a confessionally Anglican perspective, it is a vision which raises as many questions for Anglicans as it must for ecumenists.

To begin with, is Williams right in his claims regarding what truly divides the Church of England from the Church of Rome? Is it our understanding of the nature and function of the Church, or is it rather, as it was when we divided, still the nature of grace and our response to it, and in connection with that, that nature of sacrament and the ‘sacramental’ priesthood?

A glance through the Anglican formularies would suggest it is still the latter. And the test of this will surely be the liturgical traditions which Anglicans will be allowed to carry over into the Personal Ordinariate. Will this include the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, rubrics and all, or will it only allow the non-sacramental services? And what about the requirement that the standard of belief will be set by the Roman Catechism? One only has to look at the sections on justification and grace to know that Catholic and Protestant are still as deeply divided as ever on this subject, where the Church of England is committed via Article XI to justification by “faith only”.

Again, Williams’ doctrine of the Church, whilst couched in terms of episcopal and sacramental significance that would appeal to many in the Anglican hierarchy, is a long way from Article XIX’s understanding of the Word of God preached as being fundamental to the Church’s nature.

And aside from all this, one must ask why, if the ordination of women and their consecration as bishops are second-order issues which we are so effectively resolving, they generate so much heat and so much potential for real division. Why, if they represent a ‘glass half full’, are so many saying that there must finally be a ‘like it or lump it’ acceptance by those who, as Williams puts it, are still possessed of some ‘uncertainty’ on the subject?

For all its robustness of tone, Williams speech represents what happens when a ‘fuzzy’ theology encounters institutionalized clarity. His appeal, in the end, relies on the acceptance of the same fuzziness. But perhaps because this is its intellectual centre, it seems blind to its own inherent contradictions. Not only is it fundamentally un-Anglican in key areas, it is not even a reflection of the realities on the ground, in the parishes, in the dioceses and in the decision-making bodies of our own national church.

It is a bold try. But Williams does not have the substance behind him to back it up.

John Richardson
21 November 2009

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The Papal Bull in the Anglican China Shop

The headline Ruth Gledhill chose to describe yesterday’s breaking news was ‘Rome parks tanks on Rowan’s lawn’. The phrase is both eye-catching and apt. Nevertheless, I have adopted a headline of my own, first because Apostolic Constitutions are, apparently, issued in the form of a Papal Bull and, secondly, because the approach from Rome is to be made to Anglicans globally, not just —as some of the newspapers seem to be assuming —to those in England.

But what exactly is on offer, why is it being offered and what does it mean for the future?

The first question is difficult to answer, quite simply because what has been announced is the preparation of an Apostolic Constitution, not the Constitution itself. Furthermore, the structure of what will be on offer is something unfamiliar to most Anglicans, namely a ‘personal ordinariate’.

An ‘ordinariate’ is presided over by an ‘ordinary’ —someone who has ecclesial jurisdiction. The bishop of an Anglican diocese is thus the ‘ordinary’. However, in the newly-proposed body, the ordinary will not necessarily be a bishop. The proposed Ordinariates will be ‘personal’, in the sense that they will not be defined by persons, not geographical areas. The parallel suggested on the Vatican’s own website is with a Military Ordinariate which cares for members of the armed forces and their dependents. However, these particular Ordinariates will be formed in consultation with the local Conference of Bishops, so they will be set up wherever there is demand in a particular area.

It is clear that in some sense these Ordinariates will have an Anglican element —not least in their being made up of former Anglicans. Nevertheless, insofar as the Vatican website itself uses the word ‘former’, there is going to be some discontinuity with their present identity. However, what is envisaged is evidently not the same as Anglicans simply ‘becoming Roman Catholics’. Perhaps the most significant element is that married Anglican priests will be able to be ordained as priests in the Roman Catholic Church (though they will not be able to become bishops). Everyone in the Ordinariate will thus be in full communion with Rome, and the liturgies they use will be subject to approval by the presiding Conference of Bishops, but they will not be entirely subject to Roman discipline and will thus in some respects remain distinct.

That is as much as I have been able to glean, and given that we still await the Apostolic Constitution itself, that is perhaps as far as it is wise to go. What, however, might it all mean?

I was talking earlier on the phone to an Anglo-Catholic friend (who, incidentally, knew several days ago that this was coming) and his opinion was that in the immediate short-term this was of ‘atomic bomb’ proportions, but that the really important question in England was how Forward-in-Faith and others would react in the long term.

Significantly, he did not foresee immediate large-scale defections. Indeed, he observed that there are many Anglo-Catholics who, like himself, view Rome as simply wrong on some points, for example in insisting that certain beliefs (including papal infallibility) are salvation issues. In this and other ways they regard themselves as authentically Anglican members of the Catholic church, in no need of ‘reception’ into Rome’s branch of the same (although very happy to recognize Rome as special).

There is also the vexed question of money. It was quite one thing, as he put it, to ‘take the money and run’ back in the early nineties, when clergy who left the Church of England over the ordination of women received a reasonable compensation package. It would be quite another thing for them to leave now when the Roman Catholic church in this country is in no position to offer them either posts or funding. Of course there is nothing to stop a congregation funding its own minister, but that is, as the Australians say, ‘a big ask’.

Nevertheless, we both agreed that the nature and timing of this announcement is highly important. First, in his view, it is an indication that Rome’s patience with Canterbury has run out. The ecumenical discussions of recent decades have been conducted with the hope that something was achievable through official negotiating channels. One result of this was that ‘private’ approaches to Rome were politely rejected. The recent actions of Anglican bishops, and the decisions of the English General Synod, however, have suggested that Anglicans are saying one thing but doing another. Consequently, Rome has decided it is time to listen to and deal with individuals rather than the institution.

Secondly, we both feel this speaks volumes about Rome’s attitude towards Anglicanism, where it is no longer felt necessary to keep Anglican ‘officialdom’ onside. Despite references on both sides to ecumenical negotiations, the Apostolic Constitution is not the result of a ‘deal’ but rather is an offer which the Church of England literally cannot refuse. And as in the culture from which that phrase comes, the maker of the offer by that action indicates a sense of strength with relation to the one to whom it is made. In other words, Rome must feel it has nothing to lose and a lot to gain from this.

Personally, I likened it to the Argentinian landings on South Georgia which preceded the Falklands War. From a military point of view, the landings were an irrelevance, and in a similar way, I doubt that numerically the Apostolic Constitution will have much impact on global Anglicanism. But as an indication of the Argentinian view of the balance of power in the South Atlantic, the invasion of South Georgia was crucial. In the same way, Rome now clearly feels it can act unilaterally to invite existing Anglicans en masse back into the fold — and the fact that this can be done at a press conference alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury on English soil surely signals that in the eyes of Rome, Anglican fortunes are approaching their nadir.

In this respect, Ruth Gledhill’s comment is entirely right. This is, indeed, a tank on Rowan’s lawn. And the sheer fact that it is sitting there is enough. The big question now is not so much how many Anglicans will leave, as how Anglicanism will regard itself. It will be very difficult to continue with the notion that it is a ‘world player’ of which Rome must take note. Rome has taken note, and its verdict is clear: the door is open, you’re welcome any time.

Andrew Brown in the Guardian is probably over-stating things when he says this is the end of the Anglican Communion, but it is clearly the end of Anglicanism’s previous relationship with Rome —first as an enemy, then as a cautious, but mutual, friend. From now on, Anglicanism vis à vis Rome is a leaking balloon.

What, finally, of the Evangelical response? Reform has issued a press release which says, rightly in my view, that, “It is illusory to pretend that this development is an outcome of ecumenical dialogue.” Rather, it suggests that this “illustrates the difficulties the C of E faces.”

However, I suspect that the release is over-optimistic when it asserts that, “Anglicans concerned about protecting the basic Christian faith need not go to Rome, because we now have the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA (UK)) which holds together those who want to stop the orthodox faith being eroded.”

The reality is that FCA UK is neither as widespread nor as coherent as this might suggest, and in any case the Apostolic Constitution will prove a considerable distraction to at least some of those whom FCA UK has sought to embrace. At least a proportion of these will ask why one should look to doubtful support from overseas Anglican bishops when one can join a community within England backed by the not-inconsiderable might of Rome.

Whatever else happens, this has undoubtedly sown confusion in the ranks. Of course, I have been arguing for years that Reform-type Evangelical Anglicans should seek episcopal oversight under the provisions of the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993, and thereby create the pressure for an Evangelical ‘flying bishop’ (or three), with the aim of getting for themselves what the Anglo-Catholics have enjoyed for a decade and a half. But that would be too obvious!

Perhaps I may close with another military analogy. It is a generally acknowledged fact that a successful internal insurgency in any country requires a powerful outside backer. The IRA had the Americans and the Libyans. The Vietcong had North Korea, China and Russia. The Iraqi insurgents had Syria and Iran, and so on. The Apostolic Constitution may therefore have precisely the opposite effect to what some people imagine —rather than encouraging defections, it may encourage Anglo-Catholic internal ‘insurgency’ in the Church of England. But if that is the case, the Conservative Evangelicals are left high and dry. They have no friend in Rome, and they have few friends amongst their own bishops. Of course, they may feel they have enough of a friend in Jesus, and in soteriological terms that is true. But in ecclesio-political terms it may only be enough to sustain them as an isolated and beleaguered minority.

John Richardson
21 October 2009

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Liberals and Evangelicals: with friends like these ...?

The Modern Churchpeople's Union has published a lengthy critique of recent pronouncements by both Archbishop Rowan Williams and Bishop Tom Wright on the present position of The Episcopal Church.

In the light of the latest developments —or non-developments in the evangelical wing of the Church of England —it raises two interesting challenges.

The first is whether the apparent alliance between Williams and Wright is as ‘opportunistic’ as Stephen Kuhrt, a prominent Open Evangelical, suggested was the alliance between Conservative Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics in the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans.

According to Kuhrt:

[...] FCAUK’s temporary ‘alliance’ with Forward in Faith suggests a willingness to combine with those with whom they have deep theological disagreements, so long as they have a current objection to authority.

According to MCU,

Both Williams and Wright show themselves to be dogmatic authoritarians. [...]

The current alliance between these two theologies cannot be stable: they disagree with each other about too much.

Of course, both Kuhrt and MCU may be right. It may be that neither the FCA nor the Williams-Wright alliance can survive. However, it is notable that MCU has itself joined an alliance which includes at least three evangelical groups with whom they would doubtless take issue over matters like the atonement, judgement, Christ’s physical return (or maybe even his physical resurrection) and so on. It is all very confusing.

The other challenge, however, is the clear perception within MCU that Open Evangelicalism belongs in the same camp as themselves —which may be why they have no embarrassment about their own alliances. Thus their critique of Williams and Wright continues,

Neither position is characteristic of Anglicanism. Other Anglicans, calling themselves open evangelicals, or liberal catholics, or broad church, or radicals, or liberals, have not been part of this programme to condemn the Americans and introduce an Anglican Covenant.

Now I am sure there will be many Open Evangelicals who would rightly reject this suggestion of comparability as far as they are themselves concerned. However, the perception must be regarded as significant. The problem is that Open Evangelicalism is, by its own definition, a diverse and diffuse movement, and it is clear that it contains —and more importantly is willing to contain —both those for whom the traditionalist view of sexuality is correct and those for whom it is not.

And the very fact that Open Evangelicalism is not split by contradictory views on human sexuality suggests that the MCU is right. The old ‘orthodoxy’ is now optional. There is therefore no reason to split with TEC over this issue, even whilst one may (as a private individual) hold opinions that disagree with the prevalent view within TEC.

I write this not to pick a fight with Open Evangelicals —there are enough of those going on already —but because I find it increasingly difficult to see how we can talk about one ‘Evangelicalism’ with two (or three) ‘aspects’: Conservative, Open and Charismatic. It all depends whether a particular understanding of sexuality is viewed as necessarily Evangelical. Fifty years ago, it would undoubtedly have been so. Today it is undoubtedly not —at least, not by all who regard themselves as ‘Evangelical’.

Yet when orthodox sexuality becomes optional, it is perhaps significant to note who emerges as one’s new bedfellows. Dr Williams is now clearly regarded by his erstwhile friends as little more than a traitor, whilst Dr Wright is described as being Puritan and Calvinist (but in a bad way). Open evangelicalism, however, is embraced as being true to the ‘inclusivity’ of real Anglicanism —along with TEC and so on.

If I were an Open Evangelical, I would be more worried about this than I was about the possible depredations of FCA. It is a fine mess to have been gotten into. The question is, how to get out of it.

John Richardson
21 August 2009

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A good article from Charles Raven

There is a very good article on his website by Revd Charles Raven, whom I would describe as an Anglican working outside the structures, on Bp Tom Wright's take on ABp Rowan Williams' 'Reflections'. I commend it for reading.

John Richardson

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Reflecting on Rowan's reflections on General Convention

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s reflections on the Episcopal Church’s 2009 General Convention, ‘Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future’ make for demanding reading, and not only for their prolixity —but if you have to look up what that means you may want to give the full 2,900 words (longest sentence, 90 words) a miss.

It is perhaps ironic that in a situation frequently described as a crisis, where there is a widespread call on both sides for clarity, the man at the hub is so given to lengthy expression. Nevertheless, there are, I think, three points worth noting from the document as a whole.

First, the Archbishop seems to have accepted the line (strongly advocated by TEC itself) that, “if the wording is studied carefully” (para 1), resolutions DO25 and CO56, on ordinations and blessings, do not mean what they have been widely taken to imply.

The difficulty here, though, as many will recognize, is that it involves detaching the words of the resolutions from the substance of the debate and the context in which they have been put forward. It is as if Nazi Germany’s construction of so-called ‘pocket battleships’ had been greeted by a discussion of the nautical meaning of the word ‘pocket’, rather than an awareness of just what a battleship is for. No doubt, the words of the resolutions may accept an alternative construction, but their meaning may also be read from where we have been in the past, where we are in the present and where it evidently seems we are going in the future.

Secondly, however, these ‘reflections’ seem to have shifted the framework within which the whole issue of human sexuality needs to be discussed within the Anglican Communion, for we now have several references to “the Church Catholic” as something over against the Anglican Communion, of which the Communion has to take full account in its decision-making.

This is not the first time Dr Williams has used this phrase, but it is not, apparently, how he has always thought. In an interview with Paul Handley, he once said that he was an Anglican because “this is the Church Catholic in this place”. That principle, however, sits awkwardly alongside paragraphs 8 and 9 of his reflections, where he says both that,

... a blessing for a same-sex union cannot have the authority of the Church Catholic, or even of the Communion as a whole. (para 8, emphasis added)

and,

So long as the Church Catholic, or even the Communion as a whole does not bless same-sex unions, a person living in such a union cannot without serious incongruity have a representative function in a Church whose public teaching is at odds with their lifestyle. (para 9)

adding, in brackets,

There is also an unavoidable difficulty over whether someone belonging to a local church in which practice has been changed in respect of same-sex unions is able to represent the Communion’s voice and perspective in, for example, international ecumenical encounters. (para 9, emphasis added)

This may indicate that Dr Williams has listened to the chief complaint of Forward in Faith in this country, that the real issue is not sexuality but whether the Anglican Communion, let alone a single Province, has the right to come to decisions which are fundamentally at odds with the Church’s received understanding of faith, morality or Order (with a capital ‘O’).

I may be wrong in suggesting this is relatively new, but if it is indeed the case, then it changes the whole debate, for it means that the person ‘chairing’ it has accepted a different set of rules than hitherto.

Thirdly, although Dr Williams remains committed to the Covenant process, in paragraph 22 he talks of “at least the possibility of a twofold ecclesial reality in view in the middle distance”, which he elaborates as,

... a ‘covenanted’ Anglican global body, fully sharing certain aspects of a vision of how the Church should be and behave, able to take part as a body in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue; and, related to this body, but in less formal ways with fewer formal expectations, ... local churches in various kinds of mutual partnership and solidarity with one another and with ‘covenanted’ provinces.

This is as close as he comes to admitting ‘schism’. In fact he specifically rejects the word in paragraph 24, describing it as simply “two styles of being Anglican”. Nevertheless, it envisages a future quite unlike the present, resulting from the decisions and actions of TEC and others.

Those of us who believe TEC is schismatic, who basically support ACNA and who are convinced the Covenant is a dead duck should not greet Dr Williams’ statement with automatic scorn. Its length is no more than we would expect from him, and its willingness to see both sides is intrinsic to his own theology. Nevertheless, there must still be a concern that he does not seem to accept the fundamental logic of what must happen when people pull in different directions.

Holding people together in such circumstances, whether by a covenant or by some other convention, may succeed, but it is in principle contrary to the underlying processes. Unless some means may be found by which TEC and others within the Communion can be made to pull in the same direction, then tensions will continue and a split is virtually inevitable.

Revd John P Richardson
27 July 2009

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Why, then, the law? Christianity in a changing legal environment, Part 1

Ed: Part 2 has now been posted here.

Ever since Dr Rowan Williams made his remarks about Shari’ah law, I have been saying that although the suggestions he made were wrong, the questions he raised were entirely right.

Until quite recently, English law developed and functioned under the influence of an explicitly Christian moral framework. At one stage, our divorce laws, laws against Sunday trading and restrictions on homosexual practice all derived essentially from this standpoint. However, as each of these examples shows, since the 1950s there has been a substantial drawing back from this Christian basis for lawmaking.

At first, this seemed unexceptionable. Whilst many here regarded broadly ‘Christian’ values as unquestionably those of any ‘civilized’ society, there was a recognition that specifically Christian beliefs were not universal. It could be argued that allowing easier divorce, Sunday trading and consenting homosexual acts between two adults in private was an appropriate extension of liberty, based on conscience.

Now, however, we increasingly face a new state of affairs — and one to which Dr Williams might usefully yet give his attention. For the question which must now be asked is whether the law ought to be allowed to impose any moral framework on people.

Recently, Mr Ken Livingstone, an ardent Socialist and the Mayor of London, opined that “To impose on a people an enforced acceptance of ... a Christian code or a Muslim code is fundamentally wrong,” adding, “That is a deeply conservative and authoritarian position and it is one that cannot possibly survive in a world that is becoming as open as ours.” On the contrary, he said, “We need to be able to choose freely” how we wish to live our lives.

Yet there is one condition he himself imposes: “As long as you obey the law you should be free to live your life as you choose.” And of course this condition drastically modifies the proposition that you are free to live life ‘as you choose’, for you are free neither to break the law nor to disregard it’s authority over your life. Furthermore, it raises fundamental questions: Who makes the law? Do they have the right to do this, or simply the power? On what basis will they decide what is permissible and what is not? Who will judge whether this basis is itself right or wrong?

This is where Rowan Williams was entirely right in raising the questions he attempted to address:

There is a position — not at all unfamiliar in contemporary discussion — which says that to be a citizen is essentially and simply to be under the rule of the uniform law of a sovereign state, in such a way that any other relations, commitments or protocols of behaviour belong exclusively to the realm of the private and of individual choice.

This, Dr Williams said, “is a very unsatisfactory account of political reality in modern societies; but it is also a problematic basis for thinking of the legal category of citizenship and the nature of human interdependence.” Yet increasingly it is the problem we face. Indeed, one of the commonest criticisms of Dr Williams’ suggestions, in both secular and religious circles, was that there ought to be one law for all which precisely did not allow religious ‘scruples’ any leeway. And the reasoning behind this was that the law ought to impose a moral framework to which all should be subject.

Thus it appears that we have moved hardly at all in terms of our basic understanding of the function of the law. Or rather it seems that the basic understanding shifted just long enough in the initial forty years following the Second World War to dismantle the old framework in the name of ‘freedom’ before beginning to impose a new one.

For what we have now is a ‘moralism’ just as determined as any which might have putatively existed in Puritan England or Calvin’s Geneva. The difference is in the morality, not in the rigour with which it will be imposed. We find ourselves living not in a new-found freedom but under newly-empowered masters.

And the Christian cannot address this by creating legal ‘enclaves’ for Muslims in the hope that similar ‘enclaves’ will be found for themselves.

On the contrary, we now find ourselves needing to confront the fact that the Christian ethos is essentially in tension with all legal frameworks. And this tension derives entirely from the words and works of Christ himself. On the one hand, he simply disregarded, where he deemed necessary, the law (the ‘Shari’ah’) of his own community. On the other hand, he established that there are legal authorities which must be obeyed, even by such a community, irregardless of their ‘godliness’. His saying, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s,” not only answered the immediate question about paying taxes, it established a remarkable new framework for the engagement between faith and law.

Thus again, on the one hand, it rendered unnecessary the establishment of a ‘theocracy’. If the godly have a duty to obey Caesar, then the godly can live with Caesar. On the other hand, it established that Caesar’s demands are limited. Potentially, therefore, the godly can, and at times must, disregard or even disobey Caesar. The latter point, of course, was rapidly demonstrated during the long period of the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire.

It only needs to be observed that Caesar is any and every system of human government, and we see why the Christian engagement with contemporary society in the UK cannot be presumed to be straightforward. We have had perhaps 1500 years of things going conveniently our way. From here on, though, there is likely to be increasing conflict.

In a planned Part II, I hope to examine further the tension between gospel and law, and to propose how Christians ought to engage with the questions Rowan Williams raised about faith and society.

Revd John P Richardson
17 February 2008

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The Debt Disaster: Rowan Williams questions 'loans at interest'

(See an update on this, 25th April 2008.)

In the Q&A after his famous 'Shari'ah' speech, RW was asked about the practice of usury. His answer was very similar to the things I've been saying about the subject (also search Debt Disaster on this blog for other posts in the same vein).

LP: Thank you. Another, another fairly down to earth. "Our existing world order is based upon usury with control by manipulation of rates of interest. In Islam this is not just illegal but sinful. How can this be reconciled with Christianity? And this Christianity also condemns the existing order as the law of Mammon."

RW: I've often been rather surprised by the ease with which the Christian church changed its mind about usury in the sixteenth century, without any very great public fuss. Martin Luther strongly disapproved of it; he was a good medieval Catholic in ail sorts of ways, and he disapproved of it like his medieval predecessors on the basis of the Bible, tradition and the authority of Aristotle. But within about fifty years of the beginning of the Reformation, virtually everybody had mysteriously and imperceptibly decided that there wasn't a problem.

Now, without going into details of the history of that fascinating issue, I think that in all seriousness what theologians and moralists have said about lending at interest in the modern economy, is simply to raise the question "Is this what is prohibited in Jewish scripture?" And they've answered on the whole, "No". And yet I have to say there remains, or should remain for the Christian moralist, a level of discomfort around this. Taking absolutely for granted the manipulation of rates of interest as the engine of an economy, ought to leave us with some unfinished moral business, let's say, and I believe that rather than, so to speak, address that head on, we need to look - and this has been said by many people - at what are the alternative protocols and ethical frameworks for banking that are around. And that is one reason why ! am personally go very interested in the ethics and practice of micro-credit as a way of addressing serious poverty.

Read the rest of the Q&A here.

Thanks to Peter Kirk for the tip.
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Jesus' "no" to Shari'ah

(See also Rowan and Islam for Dummies)

From one of my favourite books: Mission to Islam and Beyond (pdf file), by Jens Christensen (originally The Practical Approach to Muslims)

29. Muslims (and some Christians) will tell you that as man is limited by the imperfections and evils of sin, a practical shariat like that of Moses or of Muhammed is a necessity. Everybody knows that a state needs laws. What the Muslim and some Christians forget is that the word ‘shariat’ implies a God-given, revealed law for a kingdom of God here on earth. (It makes no difference if that kingdom of God is thought of as identical with the kingdom of Israel or the kingdom of Islam.) That is what our Lord protests against. The kingdom of God is the Kingdom of heaven; it is not of this world, and therefore the subjects of that kingdom must not and cannot blend or confuse its laws with that of any temporal state. Its laws must be purely religious (that is, related directly to God) and unattainable.

‘Why unattainable?’, is the question that both Christians and Muslims ask. The answer is simple. For if sinful man could attain perfection by keeping the law then he is either no longer sinful, or else sin has become a recognised and admitted part of the kingdom of God. The righteousness of the Pharisees was the best, the highest of which the Jews knew, and our Lord said that unless your righteousness exceeds theirs you cannot have a hope of getting into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:20). The unattainable nature of the Christian way of life constantly reminds man of his sinful state and of his need of God’s righteousness.

30. The Jews thought this was a strange, astonishing, new teaching. So it was. The Muslims feel exactly the same way about it. However, until the Jew or the Muslim sees that Christ has unconditionally rejected the idea of a theocratic state as bringing in the kingdom of God, he will not be able to understand our Lord’s attitude towards his shariat.

31. Let me illustrate this very important point in another way. Our Lord said the law and the prophets all hang on these two commandments: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God . . . [and] thy neighbour as thyself’ (Matt.22:37–40). The first of these commandments is taken from Deuteronomy, the second from Leviticus. The second more or less obscure command is found in Leviticus 19:18 and reads like this: ‘Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’. When the lawyer asked our Lord to define ‘neighbour’, He would, if he had accepted the context in which that commandment is written, have said; ‘The children of your people, whom you contact’. Instead, He made the Jews and (of all people!) the hated Samaritans neighbours. Our Lord took the sense, the idea, in the old commandment and lifted it out of the covenant law which was the state law and applied it universally and personally.

32. When our Lord said, ‘Those of old said such and such, but I say unto you . . .’, He was not just spiritualising the law, as some would have us think. He was actually introducing a new element. He was introducing the consequences of His own preaching when he said: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye and believe the Gospel’ (Mark 1:15). The kingdom of God is the kingdom of heaven.

No theocratic state with its shariat could ever bring it near. Repent, that is, turn your back on that idea, and believe the Gospel, believe that the Messiah, the Son of Man, the suffering and dying servant of Jehovah, has brought the kingdom near, and has introduced God’s righteousness for all men equally, everywhere.

33. The difference between our Lord and the Jews of His time was, concisely, this: The Jews knew that Jehovah had chosen them to be His covenanted people on earth. They therefore thought that they should establish a worldly kingdom of God on earth, probably through the work of the coming King Messiah. Jehovah had given them a shariat together with the Covenant. This they thought was everlasting and was to be applied universally as the law of that universal theocratic state, for by keeping it men became pleasing in the sight of God.

34. Jesus, on the other hand, said that while the purpose of the Covenant with Israel was to establish a special relationship to them, it was not intended to establish a universal theocratic state with a universal law, in which Israel, as a nation, was God’s viceroy on earth. No theocratic state, no shariat, could ever establish righteousness on earth, that is, God’s righteousness. With the rejection of the theocratic state, the law of that state (as the instrument appointed by God whereby men could be wellpleasing in His sight) must also be thrown overboard. Righteousness, God’s righteousness, could only come, as Isaiah said, through the suffering and death of Jehovah’s righteous servant, the Son of Man or, if you like, the Messiah.

35. If you will take this whole idea and apply it to Islam you will find how remarkably applicable it is. Although some of the details will differ (as for example, sabbath-keeping, which is unknown in Islam), yet as such, the picture is clear. Our Lord would be in direct, clear-cut opposition to the Muslims at every step. Nothing they could do would be right, because it is all based on the idea that they belong to the people whose God-given right it is to dominate the world in Allah’s name and thus bring in the ‘kingdom of God’ (although they never use that particular expression) on earth.

36. The Jews thought that they were bringing in the kingdom of God. The Muslims think they are bringing in the kingdom of God—and our Lord says to both: The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the Gospel, which you need as well as every other person on earth.

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