The Anglican Scotist

Open Communion and Time

2011-05-10T13:55:00.003-04:00

Again CWOB is in the news, and however tempting I do not want to revisit my old arguments. Rather, I wish to add a note about how time seems to be conceived in the debate. I'll keep it brief.

"Time" is hardly a univocal term. It can refer to the passage of minutes, hours, days, months, and years in orderly, predictable succession: a march of carefully arranged units that most of us count on in organizing our daily lives. So, for instance, it is a mark of sanity to recognize that it is 2011 rather than 1911; the man who habitually cannot remember what time it is endangers his job, his relationships, his well being. It is perfectly normal to conceive of one's life set out in these conventional units, so that one may plan accordingly the upcoming weekend's festivities, class prep for next semester, next May's wedding, paying off the mortgage, retirement. One may take this sense of time to be exhaustive, to be all there really is to time.

Of course, one might recognize that time is experienced differently from how it is measured in regular units. The animated conversation makes the car trip back home much shorter than the ride up alone, though "strictly speaking" the trip took the same time both ways. Or one may wish to argue the metaphysics of ordinary time; should we be three or four dimensionalists, say? It is unsurprising that "time" has many senses.

But among the various senses enumerated, I think it is safe to say the ordinary sense of "time" divided and subdivided into regular units has a kind of priority; it is the one we take to be most real, most pressing--the one to which we must be prepared to answer.

No doubt the debate over CWOB takes the ordinary sense of time for granted, as--so far as I can tell--unquestioned background. There is to be a regular sequence in the normal reception of Communion: Baptism then Communion. Or better: Baptism & Instruction in some sequence with Confirmation, and then Communion. The notion of a sequence requires the notion--or better, a notion--of time, inescapably. And at just this point it seems to me we typically read our ordinary notion of time as the proper notion through which to conceive the sequence in question.

That reading is tempting and eminently understandable--hardly anything to run off to Confession over--but it is also a textbook case of eisegesis, of reading into old notions (like Baptism and Communion) contemporary ideas (about time) that are foreign to the old notions. The old notions are at home with events like the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-9, Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28-36), the climactic vision of Stephen at his martyrdom (Acts 7:56), and not much later, the idea of the copresence of the timeless eternal to the mundane flux of the world here below. The old notions are at home with such things because the old notions were conceived through a different idea of time from that we take for granted. On the pre-modern idea of time, the flow of time in ordinary life is permeable at every point to interpenetration by the eternal; such a thing makes no sense on our modern conception of time. Indeed, we might feel sorely pressed to demythologize here, rejecting the notion of a timeless eternity, and reading the Transfiguration and Stephen's vision as not implying anything about copresence: eisegesis.

I mention this point as context for discussing CWOB. Maybe the pre-modern idea of time is wrong in such a way that it must be dropped from serious theology, but maybe not. I want to see the argument. That pre-modern idea sits well, after all, with the notion that Communion has an eschatological side, a notion that I think carries wide acceptance, but which can only be read as poetic, i.e. can only be deflated, by one who will accept only the modern notion of ordinary time, divided up into regular units.

What do we mean by "God"?

2010-09-06T03:24:00.003-04:00

Here Archbishop Williams speaks with Richard Dawkins, making the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Virgin birth sound like "poetic language"--which is not, I gather, how he would have wanted to come across after being edited. "Nature opening up to its own depths" can be understood in other ways, but would Williams agree with Dawkins that the Church is committed to it as a "statement of fact" that is true or else false? Just what did Williams mean to say?

Some (see the comments) have responded to Dawkins on God by saying, or agreeing with the saying that "I don't believe in the God that Richard Dawkins doesn't believe in, either." OK, fine, but then what God are we talking about? Is there a consensus among the faithful or are we each stumbling in the divine darkness? As with Williams, an important part of the content of the faith, referred to in the Quadrilateral and in the Creeds, seems to be read in a new way; in just what way is it being read?

On Paul Jones

2010-09-04T22:10:00.007-04:00

Paul Jones, I think we can all agree, was right to oppose American involvement in World War I in 1917, and the HoB was gravely mistaken in calling, as a result, for his resignation. If you seek the causes of WWI, you will likely dig up a standard list fairly near the surface: a system of alliances, competition among imperialist powers for a greater slice of the economic pie, et cetera. But the catastrophic bloodletting, the unprecedented violence, the sheer magnitude of death and injury, were grotesquely out of proportion to the causes; WWI is a paradigm case of wasted life, young men charging into machine gun fire for nothing: human wreckage. Alas, in 1918 he was alone in being pressured to resign for his anti-war stand.

Between now and then we do not seem to have learned very much about war. The current Iraq War--or whatever that obscenity is now that, mirabile dictu, combat operations (or is that "combat operations"?) have ceased--is another case of a war fought for nothing, a war whose evil is grotesquely out of proportion to its justification. I have heard it said that around the time of the first Iraq War, soon after the fall of the Eastern bloc, quite apart from the accidental doctrine of the preemptive strike that featured later under Bush II, the Rubicon had been crossed; we would live under an international political and economic "order" based on a magnitude of death and destruction that can only come from war.

As far as I can tell, opposition from churches, from Christendom as a whole, has had no effect on that order, or just about as much effect as the witness of Bishop Jones. Perhaps it might have had an effect; one may imagine some anti-war movement of a size and intensity commanding political power sufficient to have prevented the war or forced a withdrawal. I am not so sure though; I am not sure the anti-war movement had much an effect on the conduct of the Vietnam War, especially after Kent State. Moreover, actual Christianity as a whole has been disproportionately quiet on the Iraq wars--and the Afganistan war; it's hard to picture such a fractured, self-obsessed body rousing itself to anything so immediately significant and controversial.

Do we have anything cogent to say about war? Why would a serious person whose time is scarce pay any attention to anything any Christian church has to say about the Iraq wars, or any war for that matter? I am tempted to fall back on a Papal this or an NCC that, but come on. That stuff hits with a thud, as well it should; people take churchbabble about as seriously as Rowan Williams takes his piece on the body's grace. It seems a case could be made for a rather sad a priori: most any given church will either be firmly on the side of those profitting from the carnage, as the Episcopal Church was in the time of Paul Jones, or it will be near to the last to arrive at skepticism or disapproval, if it is, or once it has become, common sense. As an aside, I wonder how far such an a priori could be applied, suitably modified, to other hot issues. Such wonder is not idle, inasmuch as people inferring unreliablity from that a priori may well feel justified in extending skepticism to the Gospel, or to whatever the churches seem to be saying these days about Jesus. And who can blame them? You should know the smell of bullshit is going to travel.

It is difficult to prise a simple lesson from the witness of Bishop Jones, except to say that in spite of the HoB's error then, and the torpor of the churches now, his witness was right and good, in spite of his being alone, and such a witness would be right and good today as well, whatever would befall the churches.

Natural Law in Aquinas (ST I-II); Part 1

2010-07-07T02:33:00.004-04:00

I have promised something here in defense of natural law, in hope that it can be used as a basis for arguing in favor of, say, blessing same sex unions. Since natural law theory has been used in the past--indeed, seems typically to have been used in the past--to defend conservative moral positions in the Christian community, one might well wonder whether my hope is simply misplaced. What can I say? The proof is in the pudding; if I can produce a defensible version of natural law theory that does the work I hope it can do while resisting the use conservatives might wish to make of it, I think my work will be done.

We might approach the topic of natural law in Aquinas with what he calls the eternal law; taking a Christian starting point for granted, there is nothing to obstruct starting with God. The eternal law is “the plan of governance of the world existing in God as the ruler of the universe” (Q91 a1 resp)—basically the decree from eternity that God has ordained in his providential care for his creation. Given God’s providence, his reason will rule over creation, but a law just is “a dictate of practical reason by a ruler who governs a perfect community.” (ibid) Thus, there exists, Aquinas claims, a law governing creation—an eternal law, as God’s plan is conceived timelessly, from eternity.

A neat little argument, but coming “from above” it might seem just a bit too neat, even a bit presumptuous. Supposing God creates, who am I—who are you—to say that God must have a law, decreed from eternity, that constitutes his providential design? Can we be sure there is no other way? I think Aquinas would say that given God’s activity as creator, God will have some intention about what to create, and that this intention—what God intends to create—will constitute the decree of eternal law.

One could still resist the argument, of course, by rejecting Aquinas’ perfect being theology: denying, in effect, that God is an eternal creator. Indeed, I suspect such a rejection would gather much favor among contemporary Christians across the political spectrum. One intent on defending natural law theory may find it necessary, as a practical matter, to find some other starting point while eliminating, if at all possible, controversial talk of an eternal law.

I will save the development of such a defense for another occasion; for now, I am more interested in the uneasiness one might have with Aquinas’ argument from worries about evil. Given the manifold atrocities, say, of just the last century, of Hiroshima, of the Holocaust, of numerous other genocides, of the advent of totalitarian regimes and the rise of the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction, one might ask whether there is any evidence supporting divine providence, supporting the existence of an eternal law. Aquinas’ approach here, proceeding from above, might be seen as intensifying doubt about the reality of the eternal law; he seems to miss the problem. But consider what Aquinas says:

…the end of God’s governance is God himself, and his law is indistinguishable from himself. And so the eternal law is not ordained to another end. (Q91 a1 ad3)

Part of what this means, I think, is that the eternal law is not decreed to attain some other end, like maximal moral goodness, or maximal aesthetic beauty, or, say, maximal justice. There is no standard independent of God, like the Platonic Form of the Good, against which his decree is measured. That is, creation as a whole has no moral quality on account of its meeting a standard independent of God, because, I think Aquinas would say, there is no such standard. More: its having such a quality is not possible, since such an independent standard is not possible. Thus, it is not as if a world like ours brimming with atrocity lacks some moral quality that it should have had, or even could have had. Logically speaking, creation—and even God’s providential care—is consistent with a great deal of evil in the world.

Granted, there is not much comfort in such a logical nicety; one may well wonder why God’s providential design tolerates, and even in some sense calls for, the contingent acts of atrocious evil which in fact obtain—quite apart from any question about the moral quality of creation as a whole. In my opinion, the worry over evil is a pressing one, and until something can be said to shed light on it, my treatment of eternal law may well have the feel of fiction to it.

Baptism (Been Busy)

2010-06-14T02:09:00.005-04:00

We recently baptized a second daughter in Daytona, Sophia. This picture captures the scene just a few minutes before the procession back to the baptismal font, near the old entrance to the church building.

On the left is my older daughter, adjusting her younger sister's baptismal gown; we're up near the front of the nave, missing a bit of the sermon. They are, in fact, both dressed up for Baptism--my older daughter having some sense of the rite as a re-affirmation. My wife, Susan, is to my right, and a young friend of my older daughter looks on, rather intently curious--this whole deal is not a part of her liturgy where she goes to worship. Further down in the pew, a young fellow whose mother--not visible in this pic--worships at another Episcopal parish sits with a friend of his, who is turning around to say something in hushed tones to his mother, seated behind him. Interestingly, entirely of their own accord, some members of our party refrained from participating in Communion--even some who were baptized. One of these was my oldest daughter, not yet confirmed. But another, old enough and perfectly knowledgeable, was--as best I can tell--carrying out a kind of "conscientious objection".

A couple points here: (1) two children is alot of fascinating work, and we wish we had gotten started earlier, in our twenties, when three or so would have--who knows?--seemed more reasonable. The thirties are fine, mind you, but we are on the verge of "Slow down, junior!", and we would have happily brushed aside much of what we considered precious in grad school if we knew then what we know now. Word to the wise. (2) Communion can be really quite significant for a wide variety of people with different practices of faith, to the point where they feel compelled to take private, and earnestly heartfelt, stands on the practice without discussing or debating them. I wonder how common that kind of reticence is. I would love to have a clearer sense for how the experience of the Baptismal liturgy proper, up at the font, impacted their decisions on Communion, if the experience had a significant impact (I think it most definitely did, but it is difficult to say just what).

Communion Without Baptism....

2010-06-05T21:59:00.006-04:00

Assorted minority positions end up finding a voice here: for the ordination of "actively" homosexual bishops, for the blessing of same-sex unions, for the use of natural law theory on the ecclesial "left" (a topic to be pursued here, I hope, in the near future), and for Communion without Baptism. It's not that I like controversy; I would like to think I am open to being refuted. But, strongly suspecting that actual refutation is neither sufficient nor necessary for moving one off a position, I conduct my discussions of these positions from behind the aegis of epistemic humility. However strong an argument I may think I have, I maintain a second order commitment to the possibility of my being wrong. Whether I, or anyone else, moves off a position as a result of argument might be interesting, but is of secondary importance for the most part. Who knows? Something, somehow, may come from pursuing the controversy over Communion without Baptism (CWOB), even if the whole matter has come to feel rather stale.

I.
OK, so where were we? I wrote this piece on CWOB not that long ago, which still seems right to me. In its defense, I address some critical comments made when I posted it.

Rick Allen said "I think the problem is that you infer, from a permitted hope that all may be saved, that we must therefore abandon all efforts directed toward the end of saving." The argument would only call for being permitted not to use, or have used, Baptism on the occasion of Communion toward the end of saving, which is quite a bit weaker than what Allen is worried about.

Paul Gorings wondered if [A4] was supposed to support the contentious [A3](2); I think so. We should hope that God saves everyone, and that is one way of pushing CWOB: the Church can act on that hope by treating even the unbaptized as if they were full members of the body of Christ--now, even when they actually are not in the mere present. I mention in passing that the Eucharist participates in the Eschaton; that is important because it implies that we may act on the hope that the person unbaptized now is not merely unbaptized now, but is now baptized in virtue of his presently participating in the Eschaton. In the Eucharist, the participant's (present) existence is not bounded by what is merely present. Or: presence is not limited in the Eucharist to what you can sense here and now. But you already knew that?

JOHN 2007 said that anything--e.g. "murder", "adultery"--could be put in for "CWOB" in [A1](1), with the result that if my argument were sound, anything goes. He rightly presumes that would go too far--waaaay too far. But wait. Communion is the kind of thing the Lord does at the Eschaton. Granted, we do not know what heaven or teh New Jerusalem, et al, will be like in concrete terms, but Scripture uses feasting to fill in the blank. The Eucharist is like a bit of the eschatological feast here and now. Murder and adultery are not the kinds of activities that we are invited to engage in at the Eschaton, at least in the New Jerusalem. So there is a bar for what can go in for "CWOB" in [A1](1): if it is not the sort of thing that the Lord permits at the Eschaton, forget it.

JimB refers to the canon: it's cut and dried, especially in Central Florida, I might add. True, but two things: (1)the argument only implies a permission to CWOB, not an obligation. A celebrant might well do no wrong in refusing Communion to the unbaptized. (2)In some cases, disobedience might be called for. Personally, I think alot depends on context here--the individual at the rail in a given congregation, within the history of that congregations worship practice. For instance, CWOB might well be wrong in a congrgation that neglects the importance of Baptism, but permissible in a congregation that stresses the importance of Baptism. It may even be the importance of Baptism is such that CWOB should never be practiced outside canonical disobedience--the stakes being that grave all the time. I.e. "Are you prepared to be disciplined for administering communion to this unbaptixed person? If you are not, then you should not administer it."

To Father Haller, I would insist on the eschatological element in Communion. One need not speak a syllable of predestination if one sees the Sacrament as implying participation in the Eschaton; of course, I am rather robust about that, seeing it as involving a "real presence" of sorts. But I think such realism about the eschatological element has traditional and modern theological support, and need not be regarded as a piece of exotic, foreign metaphysics from who knows where.

I thank everyone for taking time to reply. These were all good comments, in my opinion, and trying to respond has been helpful to me.

II.
Then there is the more lengthy reply of Father Olsen, which has also been very helpful. We have gone back and forth a few times on this topic, and I am not sure how much light may come from hashing it out again--full disclosure. You should also read this piece by Father Olsen, which he refers to in his post; it may be where the meat is.

Father Olsen notes "Frankly I’m not clear how this is different from his earlier attempt"--and he is right. It does not differ that much in the formal part, because I am convinced the formal part has not been refuted. I may be at fault in that conviction, and would deeply appreciate someone--even Father Olsen himself--pointing out the flaw.

Granted, he does say

The fundamental flaw remains the same. The Scotist has found himself a practice that he thinks has some merit. So he goes and tries to find a theology that will support it. Is this really the way we proceed?

But, as several of his commenters noted at his site, that is exactly how the Church has proceeded in the past in a number of cases. Practice has quite often come before theology. That cannot be the "fundamental flaw". Indeed, if nothing better can be found, it seems to me the case against CWOB is in very deep trouble indeed.

Anyhow, Churchmouse at his post provides some reasoning against CWOB that I would like to respond to. Churchmouse says

"How can someone believe they are receiving the Presence of Christ Jesus without understanding who He is..." The bar there is too high to do the work intended. Children confirmed cannot in many cases distinguish Nestorianism from Chalcedonian christology, for instance. But if that sort of thing is not meant, then the seemingly required sense can be conveyed in seconds.

"There is a reason young people and converts are baptised and generally catechised...if you don’t understand what Christianity is about, why receive the Sacrament?" Understanding what Christianity is about does not require Baptism or being catechized. The bar there is pretty low, nota. And the odd intellectualism & individuallism.

"Holy Communion is not an all-inclusive meal. We are there not for ourselves but to receive the Sacrament of Our Lord...." The first sentence is dead on; someone opposing my argument would have to say something like what that first sentence says, I think: not all are included in Holy Communion. Now, I would point out that given the eschatological element of the Eucharist, that implies not all will be included among the saved, that some are damned, definitely. That may be true, but I would insist that we are not obligated to believe that, and may act on a contrary hope. Anyhow, Churchmouse hit the main issue here.

"Why are so many of us so willing to overturn hundreds of years of Church teaching to accommodate a few people who come as guests or enquirers?" This, I believe, is a bad point all around. Those few might be precious to the Lord, so much so that he would overturn all sorts of things, even tradition, to recover those errant sheep. It may suit the Lord to let the scales fall from our eyes only now, so that we see in earnest the need to repent an odious element of our practice.

I am not trying to be hard on Churchmouse here; the comments Churchmouse left are important and deserve note at least because--I suspect--many who oppose CWOB do so for some such reasons. Nevertheless, those reasons do not seem decisive.

III.
The meat of Father Olsen's case may rest with his Daily Episcopalian piece on salvation, which has much interest apart from the controversy around CWOB. Go have a look.

I suspect there is something in that piece which he might want to work up at greater length, but I am almost sure that I will get it wrong if I try to work it out into an explicit argument. One major point I agree with wholeheartedly: "Being a Christian is about participating in new life, in divine life, in sharing the very life of God" and not about getting somewhere in the sky after one dies. He says we receive that life in Baptism: "a life hid with Christ in God." This looks like a conditional:

if one lives the new, divine life, then one has been Baptized,

in which case if one has not been baptized, if follows one lacks the essential life of God.

That does get right to the heart of the matter, I think. For Father Olsen, there are two kinds of life (I am guessing here to some extent): biological life, which is subject to decay and death, and divine life, in which we come to participate as Christians. That may be absolutely correct, for all I know, and it is just the sort of premise that he could work into a case against CWOB.

However, I disagree with the premise, though it comes with a pedigree. There are a number of ways in which to mark the disagreement--I am thinking of theologians who deny a secular as opposed to sacred sphere, or who deny the reality of a natural as opposed to supernatural realm. I think one could work up a response on that basis.

But I would like to take a slightly different approach, following the argument I gave in my earlier post. On that argument, the Church is permitted to hope all are saved--that is, that in the end at least all will live the divine life. Inasmuch as the Eucharist has an eschatological element, that implies in the Eucharist the Church is permitted to view the unbaptized as living the divine life, in virtue of the possibility that they may live it at the end. Why? They are not bounded in the rite by how they are in the merely here-and-now. Receiving Christ in his Real Presence, they participate in the Eschaton just as those already baptized. In effect, at least here if anywhere the sacred/secular, natural/supernatural distinctions break down or are shown to be spurious.

One could reply in a number of ways, adopting an anti-realism about the eschatological element or denying the unbaptized could possibly receive Christ in his Real Presence. But those moves each bear a cost. Exactly here, it seems to me, we as a Church are in a very dangerous place, we are standing on Holy ground. Adopting an even worse reply as a way of denying CWOB seems to me so dangerous that it might be better to let the whole thing drop. But then there are those whom I know and cannot forget, and life, even divine life, would not be the same if they could not be brought across the Jordan, even if they were not (yet!) part of the household.

Williams/ Schori

2010-06-05T02:13:00.002-04:00

It seems to me that Naughton's take on the latest Anglican dust-up is right:

reflecting on Rowan Williams’ letter wasn’t a worthwhile use of my time; writing it was not a worthwhile use of his....

Who has not, at long last, wearied of these pathetic spectacles? Yet...it is worthwhile even now to recall there are some, Anglican or not, in Nigeria, Uganda and elsewhere who are gay, lesbian, transgendered or bisexual; how we--TEC--respond to Williams, and how we play out the close of this match with the See of Canterbury may well have consequences for them. It is one thing not to be straight in the UK, Canada, or the US, and--it seems--quite another in Nigeria, Uganda, et al.

Williams, it seems to me, will never turn his back on the Global South contingent, regardless of its leadership. He is something of a liberation theologian whose primary loyalty, in theological terms, is to the people of the Global South: marginalized, exploited, crucified. I wager he would like to have TEC demonstrate the same kind of loyalty, a loyalty willing to tolerate extremely costly sacrifice in the name of solidarity with the poor.

He does not seem to consider what has been publicly remarked upon quite often, that his version of solidarity with the poor of the Global South cannot help but marginalize those in the Global South who do not have the requisite degree of straightness. It is not so much a matter of relatively wealthy Americans bearing the brunt of Williams' unity agenda--bad enough, but in Williams' eyes, it seems to me, justified. It is more a matter of his having to scapegoat the GLBT people of the GS, who labor under a compounded oppression.

Pursuing unity--or whatever it is the ABC intends--by scapegoating is contrary to the way of the Cross. TEC should not play into that effort, whatever the stated end. But we have to be very careful; the clean break that could be easy for us to contemplate might well betray our GLBT comrades in the Global South. We should take our stand explicitly with them, come what may--and that may mean enduring humiliations from Williams et al. We should not care; taking a stand with them would be worth it. The Cross calls for no less.

Adorno/Girard

2010-01-30T01:44:00.005-05:00

It seems that events in the AC and TEC are unwinding in a rather predictable course, though at a tedious pace. So enough of all that.

I'm still here, but I've been working on finishing a book and some articles, the most interesting of which, I think, is a piece on Adorno and Girard, "Baptizing Adorno's Odysseus."

The basic idea? Move political theology toward ecclesiology. Girard's theory of scapegoating can be adopted into Adorno's account of the failure of working classes to complete the work of their own liberation--a problem whose global ramifications have been displayed of late in the US' spectacular financial meltdown. Rolling back the disposition to self-sacrifice would require a counter-praxis--a ritual--expressing a rejection of scapegoating. But not just any ritual would do; it must express an ultimate rejection, requiring a transcendent reference point: God. The transcendent reference point stuff is not especially new, but a staple of political theology (think Schmitt, Benjamin). What might be new, and what I want to emphasize, is the tie between the transcendent and repeated ritual. A mere occasional reference won't suffice.

The idea's weakness, as I present it, is its neutrality on God--on its face theism is enough, specifically Christian theism is not required. There are two ways to go, so far as I can tell: something about the Crucifixion and Resurrection necessarily uniquely ground God's rejection of scapegoating. That would do the trick, but I couldn't find the argument. Or one might think the Trinity would serve as a necessary, unique ground; how could one prove that though? Hence, an aporia.

Communion Without Baptism, Again

2009-09-23T03:40:00.007-04:00

Perhaps--who knows?--movement to CWOB is driven by sentiment void of argument; I think there are decisive arguments in its favor. Even if there were none, that in itself would not imply the act cannot be supported by argument. And while it would probably be better for any given community to be able to explicitly, cogently argue for what it feels compelled to do, there are some kinds of actions whose performance need not await the support of cogent argument: breathing, eating, loving God and your neighbor. I suspect the "urgency" around CWOB--urgency that may puzzle some observers--has to do with a visceral conviction that the Eucharist's importance is on the order of breathing and eating--life, a certain kind of life, seems impossible without it.

Someone might say, quite correctly it seems to me,

it is by the Font that we are visibly, explicitly, personally made and recognized as members of Christ’s Body,

and that truth concerns what God has ordained; being part of Christ's body requires being baptized with water. But God is also quite free to include whomever he pleases in the Church without using Baptism as a means. To deny this would be to deny that God could have done otherwise than institute the sacrament of Baptism as a condition for membership in the Church; to accept this is to admit God may operate by his absolute power to attain ends by means apart from those he has revealed to us as means. I am not sure God is obliged to divulge all his means to us. It may well be that a feeling for the contingency of the sacramental order--for all its importance in formation--goes with epistemic humility. What is essential? Knowing the Father through Christ in the Spirit; the sacramental order is not essential in the same way.

It may be that the modern Church--or postmodern, or whatever--differs fom the Church in earlier eras on account of what may be called its experience of the contingency of God's ordination. Nothing obstructs the sacramental order from expressing its own contingency, and in so doing making such recognition part of the formation it accomplishes. Whatever else CWOB does, it at least does that.

II.

One may look at CWOB instrumentally: is it working, does it aid in the work of the Church, can we recognize the work of the Spirit in it? Sometimes such questions are put in terms of whether CWOB will bring large numbers of people into the Churh or to Baptism and full, explicit membership here below. Granted, it would be nice if CWOB could do this--or aid in such an effort--and perhaps some advocates of CWOB have argued that way.

In my opinion, there is not much we can do to bring large numbers of believers into the Church, and I don't think CWOB will do the trick. It seems to me CWOB is important in cases of single believers or candidates for belief (so far as we can make such a designation), not large numbers: one at a time rather than as a mass altogether. Personally, I think of relatives and close friends who are unbaptized but for whom CWOB would have evangelical significance, being the sort of practice that might ignite conversion--lile letting a child play on the grand piano or squeak on the violin; the child may never be quite the same. As with children, so with the unbaptized--we should let the children come to Jesus, we should not put obstacles in their way. Often I find it difficult to grasp the significance of large numbers in concrete terms, but I have no trouble grasping the importance of Jesus to this one child here and now.

III.
Sometimes the case for CWOB is put in terms of hospitality--an art I fear we have lost. While I am not sure whether the suppliant relationship was as strong in Jesus' time as in Abraham's, it seems to me that when we speak of CWOB and hospitality, proper respect for tradition would call for hospitality to be understood in terms of the unbaptized approaching the Lord as suppliants. Recall Priam's visit to Achilles at the end of the "Iliad" or the visit of the three strangers to Abraham and Sarah as examples.

Is it impossible to enter the Church as a guest and sit at the table with the rest of the people? It is not as if CWOB renders one a member of the Church; I hope that is not what advocates of CWOB claim. It is rather that there is something wrong with a host who will not take care of the guests, and who will not see that they have what they need. In the case of the unbaptized, we know what they need--Jesus--and we can offer him in the sacrament of the Altar.

It may be that they can understand the Real Presence without being Baptized. Sometimes people say this is not so, and claim that the importance the BCP '79, and other churches in the liturgical movement, place on Baptism is undermined by the practice of CWOB. Well, that need not be so. Regardless, those who argue in that way against CWOB would do well to note, I think, that the very importance of Baptism renders CWOB more intelligible as an option. Baptism of adults requires time; if one can understand what is going on the rite, we require that it be understood by the candidates, and this usually takes weeks if not months. There is no time for that kind of instruction in some cases where Communion of the unbaptized is possible--there may be just this chance for some contact, for some seed to be sown.

IV.
Time for the argument? One might add that just as nowadays we invite the fiance to dinner even before the marriage, so we might have the unbaptized at the table before the betrothal, before the actual Baptism. I am not sure this was done in Jesus' time, or in the days of the early Church, but wouldn't you agree it makes sense now?

Anyway, the argument:

[A1] (1) If CWOB is forbidden, God is not omnipotent.
(2) God is omnipotent.
Thus, (3) CWOB is permitted.

One wants to derive CWOB from Nicene principles, so as to say it is the sort of thing the universal Church should have always permitted, and to provide a sure foundation: in this case, God's omnipotence. But what does omnipotence have to do with CWOB? The connection can be spelled out in a couple steps.

[A2] (1) Suppose CWOB is forbidden.
(2) If CWOB is forbidden, then God cannot save all human beings.
(3) If God is omnipotent, then God can save all human beings.
Thus, (4) God is not omnipotent.

[A2] is meant to disturb, especially at step (2). Why hold [A2](2)?

[A3] (1) If God can save all humans beings, we are obligated to hope that God does save all human beings.
(2) If we are obligated to hope that God does save all human beings, then CWOB is permitted.
(3) Suppose CWOB is forbidden.
Thus, (4) God cannot save all human beings.

I.e. the fact God, in his omnipotence, could save all grounds the practice of CWOB, since on that basis we are permitted to hope all--even the currently unbaptized--will be saved, and to act on that hope:

[A4](1)If the church is permitted to hope that all humans are saved, then it is permitted to act on the hope that all humans are saved.
(2)The church is permitted to hope that all humans are saved.
Thus, (3) the church is permitted to act on the hope that all humans are saved.

You do not need to be a universalist to make this argument; von Balthazar too thinks we are permitted to hope all might be saved, and that is not to say all will be saved. You do, I think, need to see the Eucharist as actually practiced already containing an eschatalogical element, i.e. manifesting the End here and now.

Anyway, the idea that there is no argument for CWOB is just an empty canard. There is mine--and any of the points made before this section could easily be made into formal arguments.

Let us hope critics of CWOB will be moved.

Polyamory Next?

2009-07-30T13:03:00.003-04:00

Will Christian churches actually come under internal pressure to bless polyamorous unions?

Suppose, contrary to facts as they stand, that secular American society ended up legally recognizing polyamorous unions, so that one could go to a justice of the peace and have one's polyamorous union given legal standing by civil authorities. What should the Church do, as a matter of general policy, in such a case?

One would hope the Church has by that time developed a better theological understanding of marriage, so that it can render intelligible, if not persuasive, to civil society whatever it ends up doing. I would hope the Church could mount a convincing defense of--how shall we call it?--binary marriage unions, and this is what it would likely do.

But why? What makes binary rather than polyamorous unions so special? Can we say anything persuasive? Suppose the Christian polyamorist argued:

(1) The Bible supports unions exhibiting fruits of the Spirit;
(2) The Church is permitted to bless unions that the Bible supports;
(3) Some polyamorous unions exhibit fruits of the Spirit;
Thus, (4) the Church is permitted to bless those polyamorous unions that exhibit fruits of the Spirit.

Will GC resolutions follow on (4)? What's wrong with that argument? Or do you think that anything is wrong with it? I have some ideas about what's wrong with it that I'll share in a bit, but I wanted first to ask the question.

Archbishop Williams' Latest Missive

2009-07-27T19:52:00.008-04:00

+Williams' latest missive directed to the Anglican Communion, concerned with GC2009, should not come as much of a surprise. If anything, there is a softening to his rhetoric around the Covenant and his curious notion of--what shall we call it?--diocesan autonomy. In particular, the menace implicit in his near-closing remarks (4.25),

the question is being more sharply defined of whether, if a province declines such an invitation, any elements within it will be free...to adopt the Covenant,

is softened by the parenthetical--and new?--

granted the explicit provision that the Covenant does not purport to alter the Constitution or internal polity of any province. A year or so ago he might have encouraged dioceses to break away, discounting the reality of what he here calls the "local church" altogether; we should be thankful for this small movement in his apparent ecclesiology.

I.
My main concern is with section 2, where there does not seem to be much movement in his thinking (his pre-office writings now ancient history), and where he seems to take sharpest issue with TEC's actions. He opens with a wonderfully crisp Modus Tollens (spread out over 2.6-8) which may well represent the hardest and most recalcitrant element in his thinking on display in the missive:

(1) If the Church is free to recognize SSUs..., then there would be a strong consensus and solid theological grounding in the Church for that freedom.
(2) There is no such strong consensus and theological grounding in the Church.
Thus, (3) the Church is not free to recognize SSUs....

I am pretty sure Williams' MT is unsound, as (1) looks false to me. It seems the New Testament offers evidence of liberties taken before there was strong consensus, or--please--at least solid theological grounding. It is hard to imagine the earliest generations of the Church as capable of providing a strong theological grounding--in a sense univocal with Williams'--for any of the innovations they developed. It seems rather that such a capacity took centuries to develop, and that in fact what was developed is now seen as largely in error: who takes the impassible God of the Creeds seriously high up in the AC anymore? Or the Creeds' substance metaphysics? Do we have to accept Leontius of Byzantium's interpretation as truth, or, rather Truth?

(2) might be true, but it is decidedly odd. He is not saying unanimity is required, and he later on implies the lack of "strong consensus" may be an error (3.14-15)--so exactly where is the line where "strong consensus" is achieved? I would bet he has absolutely no clear idea, and he is not nearly fool enough to offer anything definite. Should we read "strong" as requiring a supermajority, so that we should see God as moving through overwhelming numerical superiority? That seems rather unbiblical to me, or at least ad hoc--a concession to the sorts of cultural feelings of propriety whose normativity for the Church Williams elsewhere questions.

But then what? An ecumenical council? Could such a provision be maintained for other areas of innovation over which he presides in the CoE and AC? Is there strong consensus in the Church--not merely a local church like the CoE mind you, or a mere clot of locals like the AC, for ordaining women to the episcopate? It seems to me a double standard is not a particuarly good standard. Williams does not--after all this time and all this wrangling--have a defensible standard to offer the Anglican Communion, and while that is no sin, it is worthwhile noting.

II.
I think Williams' opening argument in section 2 is unsound--but that is not the worst part of section 2. Things deteriorate precipitously after the second sentence of 2.8, right through 3.11.

First, there is what seems to me like a bone-headed error, a possibly revealing slip which he might wish to have edited out. He thinks it follows on (3) that:

a person living in such a union [a SSU] is in the same case as a heterosexual person living in a sexual relationship outside the marriage bond....

According to Williams, the case of a same sex couple that has sought out the blessing of the Church (big "c"), and irregularly received such a blessing, is equivalent to the case of a single heterosexual person--not even a couple--living outside the marriage bond. It is not merely that the situation of a hetero couple that merely cohabits but does not want marriage--having the real possibility of marriage open to them--is being compared to a same sex couple that wants to marry but cannot, not having the possibility open.

That would be bad enough for Williams, because their situations are obviously different: optional mere cohabitation and cohabitation without the marriage option are different, and, um, the difference seems morally relevant. How on earth could he discount it? Now add in that the relevant same sex couples want to be married, but cannot be--the difference is even more glaring. Irregular blessings do not exist for Williams; let us pass over them for his sake.

Anyhow, Williams is implying that for the Church, these obvious differences amount to no moral difference which the Church is free to take into account when delivering blessings; indeed, more: no moral difference, period. But that is just wrong. If the Church were mistaken about not getting behind blessing same sex unions--something Williams has implied is possible--that would not affect their sacramental character. They would have a sacramental character even without the recognition of the Church; so the Church regards the marriage sacrament. That is to say, pace Williams, the truth of (3) would not imply there is no difference between the same sex couple and the hetero single, as the Church could be wrong and the sacrament could be present for the same sex couple.

However, the real kicker is his likening the same sex couple to a heterosexual individual sleeping around, as if the couple's bond is nonexistent, as if there is nothing there that would make the couple more than one individual sleeping around and another individual sleeping around. That is, to say the least, insulting. But it also seems to defy reality; there are lifelong, exclusive, loving homosexual unions. That seems, one would think, to be different from the swinging single's case in a way that the Church, and Williams, should register.

But it doesn't register with him, and--alas--its not registering does not seem to be a cognitive slip or a mere fault of expression. He writes

In other words, the question is not a simple one of human rights or human dignity. It is that a certain choice of lifestyle has certain consequences.

Does he know better? Who knows. Is being gay a lifestyle? What exactly is a lifestyle? Is being gay something that gays choose? All of them? This seems comic. I submit what seems to me to be obvious:

there are cases of gays who are homosexual without there having been an occasion, a time t, in each of their cases at which they effectively chose to be gay.

Bulletin to the Archbishop: that's not how it works. Being gay is not, and certainly is not always, a mere lifestyle that is chosen. There are, for instance, habits, dispositions, nonconscious desires and mental content, and socialization to take account of; extend the list ad plac.

Strictly speaking, Williams' argument in 2.6-8 may be ignored if--as it seems--he means to address people who choose to adopt a gay lifestyle. It seems to be that the Episcopal Church means to minister to, and has baptized, genuinely gay people, men and women who--shock!--really are gay through and through, and not just sampling the wares like Williams' single heterosexual on the prowl. If we are to take Williams at his word, then contrary to what might have been his intention, he is not addressing what TEC intends to do by blessing SSUs. A fort, he really has nothing to say here about ordaining gays.

In a deep sense, we are talking past one another.

III.
There is more to say; someone should take him to task for positing the separation of sacred and secular realms, as if there are secular facts really distinct from the religiously significant. I hope he does not believe that, but the missive seems to presuppose such a distinction.

I will stop with just one more point. Williams wrote (2.7)

In the light of the way the Church has consistently read the Bible for the last two thousand years, it is clear that a positive answer to this question....

Ugh. Is there really a single way the Church has read the Bible over the course of its existence on any question, much less the one of blessing SSUs? Why all the make-believe? There's the obvious problem that there have been several different ways the Church has read the Bible over its history, and not merely one way. There's the problem too that there is no one Bible for the Church, even now, that could be read or referred to as object for this fictional One Way of Reading. And then there is the problem that the Church existed for some time without a Bible, but merely with its "Scripture" being a version of pre-Jamnia Hebrew Scripture not quite the same as our Anglican OT--likely the LXX, with some really wild stuff like the Enoch literature added on. In other words, he should be a little more circumspect before perpetuating partisan fictions.

But the main point is, even if there were exactly one Bible and exactly one right way of reading it, would we be reading about people who are gay? That seems to me to be a substantive question, and one pressed by Williams' bizzare picture of gays having chosen a gay lifestyle. If the Bible on homosexuality merely addressed heteros who tried to exchange their hetero orientation for a gay one (a la Romans), that would not carry obvious implications for people who are gay simpliciter, without any exchange. If it did not seem to recognize there were gay Israelites in speaking to men having sex with men, the same question arises: is this speaking to people who are gay? It may be, even if Williams were right about the Bible and reading, the impressive historical consensus on homosexual activity does not speak directly to people who are gay. For all the years and all the unanimity, there is a yet a gap, a question about whether all of that addresses people who are gay, who really are gay. And alas: the Bible will not speak of itself to that question.

What makes this worse: it seems the Church will succeed in avoiding this gap if it can. TEC and gays in general are not powerful enough to compel the Church here below to take the question up qua question. Those on whose behalf the question would be taken up are--considering them worldwide--among the weak, the marginalized, the unseen.

Intitial Reaction to GC2009

2009-07-16T14:04:00.003-04:00

Taking D025 in the context of C056, I think the Episcopal Church has decisively moved away from its earlier de facto moratoria on ordaining openly homosexual candidates to the episcopate and performing same sex unions. It is notable that the moratoria held from GC2006 until now; this suggests to me that GC2009's moves are deliberate ones, as circumspect as we can reasonably expect from such institutions as the HoB and HoD. There is no practical way of returning to a status quo ante.

Various schismatic Anglican movements will be re-invigorated by GC2009; what had been a rather disappointing denouement may turn out to be meaner-spirited and more divisive than anything we have seen up until now. Here is one well-informed comment from a priest who may be something of a conservative-moderate:

This convention (when the Deputies concur with the Bishops tomorrow) has abrogated every positive gesture it has made toward the Anglican Communion since 2003. Everything we did three years ago in response to the Windsor Report is down the drain.

Moderates who feel this way may find it increasingly difficult to remain moderate and not to join in some schismatic Anglican movement; they may find this to be a time of trial.

While I support these resolutions, having supported GC2003, I am haunted by a sense that the Church lacks the cognitive means at this time for conducting a debate on--or even for collectivelyruminating over--the issues these resolutions raise. I don't just mean the Episcopal Church, but all the Church's bits and bobs. We are living through an era of inescapable theological pluralism, where different parties in the Church operate from within different conceptual frameworks whose overlap on basic points does not preserve an overall common intelligibility. For instance, I might approach these questions from a Thomistic or Scotistic point of view--but nearly nobody else will, and the result is that I will not mean what most other Christians nowadays mean by "God", "Christ", "Trinity", "Incarnation", etc. We might be using the same words, but we will not mean the same things by them: we will be equivocating in the course of arguing with each other, or even discussing peaceably.

One upshot of this conceptual pluralism is that it is likely most people are wrong on every substantive question of theological detail. That is, most Christians will live out their lives here below in a state of material heresy on virtually every matter of dogmatic detail. Our sincere efforts will fall short in ways we will not realize, regardless of our sincere efforts.

This is worth keeping in mind when deciding how to react in days and weeks and months ahead, as the sounds of GC2009 reverberate throughout the Communion. Right practice will come to matter even more where right belief slips through our fingers. We just cannot quite manage right belief, but we must still live with each other, pray with each other, and commune with each other. It will help perhaps if we hesitate to regard each other as wicked--as formal heretics--because we disagree and cannot even meet each other on common conceptual ground. We should hope for the grace to mutually bear the burden of our all-too-human inadequacy.

First Take on the Covenant Partnership

2009-04-27T12:36:00.003-04:00

To their credit, the latest formation of a conservative episcopal faction in TEC seems to abhor schism as a means to maintaining a firm hold on the substance of the faith: thus their otherwise curious elevation of the Anglican Communion's sundry offices to ecclesial status. Only with such status would there be something these dioceses and their bishops could be part of which would make leaving TEC something other than an act of schism.

That may seem to imply they maintain a unity with the rest of TEC without the spirit of unity, or a unity merely pro forma. Maybe, but even such a thin unity would mean something, and even such a--to my mind--strained attempt to leave separation open while avoiding schism is a positive step.

Isn't there some way to build a more perfect, spiritual unity on that positive basis?

The Great Litany...

2009-01-19T19:39:00.003-05:00

...sung, here, at Youtube.

All things considered, this rite seems like a good thing to return to on occasion. Thanks go out to St. Barnabas, Falmouth , MA. The Lord be with you!

What's Going on in Gaza?

2009-01-17T15:06:00.010-05:00

What's going on? In a sense, nothing new; what the state of Israel is doing in front of the unsleeping eye of the world's media has already been done by other states--including the United States--on a much larger scale. Seeing the bitter conflict in Gaza up close, as it were, enables us to reflect and perhaps even to learn something.

It seems to me at least two things are going on.

(1)Shock the people.
The state of Israel seems to be applying the "shock doctrine" to Gaza, and not in the anodyne sense of trying to "shock and awe" them with a violent spectacle. The idea is--it seems to me--to create a general population overwhelmed by disaster, a people unable for the time being to function normally in carrying on with what they had previously taken to be ordinary life.

Thus, it is not enough for the IDF to narrowly target actual combatants and leave as much of the fabric of everyday life intact as possible; the entire population must come to fear for its life and property. In this, they seem to me to have succeeded: no question. Why? Other avenues, other options were available different from those the state of Israel has taken if that state had wanted other things, but it seems to be Israel recognizes

(a) the people of Gaza support Hamas,

and so

(b) any democratic settlement in Gaza will in the near term at least be led by hamas or the equivalent.

What the shock doctrine aims to do is cow the democratic will of the people, to put the people in a state of numbness, so that they will accept or succumb to otherwise unpalatable programs that they would actively resist if they could. In a state of enforced numbness, where survival is in question and one is reeling from mental and emotional trauma, effective resistance is much harder to mobilize.

What programs? Here I am unsure about specifics, but in general, programs favorable to the prosperity of Israel, including favorable access to large natural gas reserves off the Gaza strip, and submission to policies that will keep an educated Gazan middle class from developing--an educated middle class has much more virulent radical potential than a half-starved semi-proletariat.

Beret tip to Naomi Klein. Pace well-meaning observers like Colonel Lang, targeting children isn't an act (from Haaretz!) lacking a serious point. But we should really take this a step further:

(2) Creation of the Muselman
Gaza has been turned into a space where anything is possible, where one is permitted to slaughter Palestinians on a whim without fear of legal repercussions, domestic or international.

Of course Gaza is not the first such space, and Israel is not the first state to create such spaces (think of the history of the US and Native Americans). But what we witness today in Gaza is evidence that states have learned how to create such spaces as a matter of course. Beware: Gaza may possibly become the standard by which other peoples in other places will be measured, as the US decided to employ "the Salvador option" in Iraq.

The upshot of repeated exposure to Gaza-type situations is the creation of a kind of person called the Muselman--a term taken by Agamben now to have general application, inasmuch as the kind of space needed to create such persons can be readily created by states across the globe. I won't dwell on the awful irony (it literally means "the Muslim") of the term.

The Muselman is beaten down: starved and emaciated, weak and indifferent to more abuse, the Muselman staggers around in a daze barely able to function, if able to carry on with ordinary tasks at all. He does not care to struggle for food, to defend himself, to find a latrine in order to defecate--he just cannot care anymore. Nobody wants him; what remains for him is just to die.

The Muselman on a mass scale in Gaza would be an effective counterpart to the operation of the shock doctrine. A population too apathetic to voice its political will is one unable to resist, unable to mount retaliatory strikes or maintain its own cultural identity as Palestinian. Pace Klein, the Muselman would be Cameron's "blank slate" on which a new personality and new culture--one more favorable to the state of Israels' interests--could be inscribed.

Having said all this, the problem for the state is that the shock/Muselman strategy is unrelable. In this case, the invasion is winding down and the Palestinians are not cowed; if in shock, they do not appear to have been reduced to "blank-slate" status. If (1) and (2) were aims, it seems they have not been achieved. With this sort of thing--it is worth contemplating--one is either all in, or out. One might well infer part way in does not count.

And that is terrifying. It seems to me a Christian--indeed any decent human being--should have (as much as possible) nothing to do with such state strategies. Indeed, here--if needed--is an impetus to rethink the flag in the sanctuary, to rethink the Anglican tendency to erastianism, to rethink and appreciate our tradition of being apart from the world, though in it.

Pray for Gaza

2009-01-11T04:56:00.005-05:00

Tanks running over civilian corpses, including the body of a dead infant left to decompose for days; children starving next to their dead mothers as soldiers stand nearby; shelling houses full of civilians, shelling UN schools--and largely a show for Israeli and American electoral politics.

Israel is not the only state that takes such savage measures--and it is worth remembering the state of Israel acts with the full support of the freely elected government of the United States, which abstained from a UN resolution calling for a cease-fire, and whose House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution supporting the invasion.

Israel is not at all alone: recall the recent admission that the US slaughtered thousands of South Korean civilians, shoving them into mass graves, during the Korean War--at least 100, 000 between the allies. At least 100,000--in Korea. When do you think we will find out from our government how many civilians the United States and her allies slaughtered in Iraq? It was a deliberate policy of the United States to shoot civilian refugees in Korea-and I expect it is a policy of Israel to do what it is doing now to the civilians of Gaza. That is just how states work.

Where do you think Jesus is in all this? (It is worthwhile remembering that question--inter alia--when the Constantinian settlement is brought up) I have no doubt Jesus is with the children left to starve next to the rotting corpse of their mother.

Imagine, if you can, the moment for those children when the Red Cross workers walked in. And then imagine those children for whom there will be no workers, no help.

Let us consider slipping in a few words of intercession for them.

the Episcopal Church and Scripture: "Opening the Bible", Ch. 1

2008-12-06T22:13:00.007-05:00

Ferlo's initial approach to the Bible in Chapter 1 expresses hesitation; given who we are, "[c]an we still regard the Bible with the reverence and awe with which our ancestors regarded it--as 'the revealed Word of God' and 'the rule and ultimate standard of faith,'....?" (6)

In my opinion, this type of self-questioning should always be before the Church. Can we really be sure we are even capable of standing in a proper relation to Scripture? That at any point when we take it in hand, we are regarding it properly?

After all, "books are far more readily available" than they were in Cranmer's day, say, and "they no longer wield an intrinsic authority" (5); worse: we have lost the habit of attentive reading. Few of us "read anything at all with the diligence and care that a serious book demands"; we just "don't have the time" and, shockingly, "don't have the skill." (6) Ask yourself, dear reader, whether you truly have the skill, the developed set of settled dispositions, necessary to attend to Scripture with the requisite degree of comprehension. Have any of us reached a point where we cannot do better? If so, then how many--and is the number increasing? Indeed, how much rancor in the Church is really due mostly to intellectual vice, a kind of sloth ignorant of itself, hidden in eager assertion?

Episcopalians "recognize no central interpreting authority to decide for them what is true and what is not". This latitude comes with a high "price": we encompass "a wide spectrum of approaches to reading the Bible, and an even wider spectrum of convictions about the nature of the book itself." This can result not merely in disagreement, but more importantly a pressing variety of ignorance: our having "no idea what a responsible method of reading would look like." (7) Truth be told, a number of us became Episcopalians from fleeing fundamentalism or "the revival tent" approach to faith, and the presence of the Bible can make "a surprising number of people uneasy." (1)

With these blocks, and no doubt others, to reading the Bible hampering our efforts, what are we to do? No doubt some critics of the Episcopal Church would join in these worries, adding their own as well. What does Ferlo say?

II. Exposure to the Bible
The capacity to carry out a responsible reading of the Bible need not arise among us ex nihilo, as it were; the soil is already prepared in virtue of the nature of Anglican worship as expressed in the forms of the Prayer Book. In effect, even among the uneasy and the underprepared, worship--weekly or daily--can largely by means of repetition begin to help equip us with the dispositions needed to make a responsible reading. What are we to do then? Judging by Ferlo, committed worship--with the Book of Common Prayer--is a good place to start: weekly if need be, but daily would be better.

Worship with the BCP inevitably--by its very design--exposes the petitioner to large sections of the Bible, and some very important sections rather often, over and over again: the Psalms, the Magnificat, the Song of Simeon--even the Bible almost whole appears in the lectionary, repeated over and over in the reading of worship. This design is an imprint from the Reformation, according to which, Ferlo says, it was "every believer's right to read the Bible freely and openly, translated into a language everyone could understand"; indeed, "in matters of faith ony the Bible mattered," contra the Roman Catholic emphasis on tradition and "papal authority". (2) More specifically, the Thirty-Nine Articles declared the Bible "containeth all things necessary to salvation", such that nothing unprovable from Scripture could be required of the believer. Thus, Cranmer designed the prayer book of the Church of England with an "increased amount" of Scripture to be read aloud in "public worship"--and the worship language of the BCP itself cribs over and over from the Bible. (2)

Mere repeated exposure to large stretches of Scripture in the context of worship, private and public, is not enough, as Cranmer seems to have recognized; such exposure could just as well develop dispositions of inattention or incomprehension--say, just letting the spoken or sung words glide by as if they were mere ornaments, or thoughtlessly reading into the text what it does not say. Ferlo notes "[f]ree access to an English-language Bible"--to which the Church of England was committed after 1558--" provoked storms of controversy in the 1500s and 1600s" (3) Cranmer himself, concerned "that the subversive rabble would start expounding Scripture in alehouses" advised Bible-readers to "consult 'learned men' who were authorized to expound Scripture's meaning." (4-5) That is, from the beginning of Anglicanism proper in the English Reformation, a "bare reading" of the Bible has not been the norm; Ferlo notes that Richard Hooker "insisted that the book must always be read in context--not just in the context of common worship, but also in the context of received tradition" which presumably would contain the "reliable, responsible commentary" that the Bible demands. (5) Knowledge of "the tradition" for Hooker et alia seems to have meant something narrower than what the phrase means in Roman Catholicism: not so much knowledge of "the context of ancient cultures and languages in which the Bible was first written and published," which was taken for granted, but more particularly "the first four centuries of Christian believing." (5-6)

To this, Ferlo adds knowledge of "the context almost two thousand years of intellectual, scientific, religious, and social change." (6) He throws in the kitchen sink, maximizing the context against which the Bible should be read. That is, any piece of information--economic, historical, political, and so on--is potentially relevant to a reading of the Bible. He seems to imply, in other words,

[A] there is no domain of merely secular information irrelevant to reading the Bible.

I happen to agree with [A], inasmuch as I believe there is no merely secular domain, but I wish if Ferlo had meant to hold [A] he would have been more explicit about it. Whereas a Christian in Hooker's day, using Hooker's seemingly more restricted notion of context, might have hoped to master the patristic tradition against which the Bible is to be read, nobody can reasonably hope to master the wide context Ferlo envisions. One result of adopting Ferlo's approach may be that our readings, however informed, are incomplete. More can always be added; meaning overflows the bounds of the propositions used to expound the text.

III. An Approach to the Bible

Where does Ferlo see this going? Are we not at sea if nobody here below can reasonably hope to master the wide context of interpretation that the Bible calls for? And isn't this sort of trouble exactly what the critic would have feared? Ferlo notes Episcopalians "as people of faith share a certain conviction about the Bible: that God the Holy Spirit lives and breathes in these pages, and in those who seek with humility and compassion to understand such challenging, ancient texts." (8) That is to say, though "the Bible has a history that determines how it should be read" it "recounts a history" as well, a history which is ours as people of God, "the history of God's continuing actions among us...."; in the sacrament of Holy Baptism "we claim God's history as our own." (8)

In other words, Ferlo comes back to reading in the context of worship; he writes "[i]n Luke's understanding [Lk. 24:25-32] voice precedes script: Scripture must be told ans heard before it is written and read." (12) The fact that the Bible is read in the context of worship is decisive for its meaning. Reading it in acts of worship, we the baptized should always have background in its history--though we cannot hope to master that history. The point of reading the Bible in worship is not to have attained a comprehension of its historical sense; this is simply not necessary. More important are the facts that the Spirit moves through the Bible, and the Spirit moves through the baptized reader of the Bible.

Ferlo quotes Luke 24:25-32, Jer 15:16, Ez. 3:1-3, and Rev. 10:9-10--places where the Bible seems to portray its own reading. These texts envisage reading as eating; "[t]he prophets ingest God's word just as Adam drank God's breath. By its own account, reading the Bible can transform your life, as food transforms your body." (10) Ferlo recommends techniques of reading which can model eating: "the slowly meditative, 'ruminative' methods (called lectio divina, or sacred reading) that characterized the study of the Bible as an integral part of the monastic discipline." (11)

Coming at the Bible intending to master its literal sense by having mastered its historical context, we risk missing what for Ferlo is the main point of reading the Bible: being transformed by the Holy Spirit. Proper reading, a historically informed reading in the context of worship, is already tacitly pictured as effected in grace, in the presence of the Spirit. That presence, Ferlo acknowledges, may be either sweet and delightful, or bitter an threatening. (10) True, "[c]ommunion with God is made possible by tasting the sacred page" (10) and "[h]earing Scripture prepares the ground for the encounter with the Holy One, but it does not substitute for it" (12), but we are not mere voyeurs reverently peeking through at God-in-history over there; we are meant to be participants. Or: our reading of the Bible is primarily meant to bring God-in-history over here, to us. We may "read the book" variously informed, "but in the end it is God who reads us." (13)

In reading Scripture, we see God, but more than that: we see God seeing us, "leaving us with our hearts burning within us." (13) Communion with God, Ferlo seems to be saying, cannot be indifferent to our identity, to who we are. We come into contact with God through Scripture, and who we are can be transformed. Seeing how God sees you can lead you to keep doing certain things as you have, or it can lead to repent and reform the orientation of your mind and your life, bringing it in line with what God's will intends for you. This communication of new life by means of an encounter with God is, Ferlo seems to say, the main point of reading the Bible.

IV. And its Authority?

Thus, for Ferlo, the authority of the Bible among Episcopalians is rooted both in our commitment to it as the criterion for faith and dogma, a commitment that comes to us especially from the English Reformation, and its central place in our common worship by the prayer book, public and private. These are not equiprimordial foci, though; the Bible cannot simply be read on its own as a source for dogma; it needs a context if its meaning is to be reliably discerned. The most important part of that context is not its history but worship--without the context of worship, the transformative power of the text would be muted if not lost. Thus, on reflection, Ferlo would seem to say the authority of the Bible is rooted in its power to transform our lives according to the loving will of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. Ideally, the Bible is read as a criterion for dogma in the context of such transformation.

Would this palliate the critics? I think not entirely; what Ferlo has emphasized is a necessary condition: that Scripture be read open to the transforming, convicting power of God. But, I should think, they will want to hear more about the connection between a reading informed by an encounter with God, and the dogmatic content of such readings. More needs to said: what is our way in toward discerning the determinate content of Scripture?

Nevertheless, I should hope what Ferlo has said might help put to rest the more egregiously excessive, hyperbolic, and bitter criticism levelled at the Episcopal Church. Episcopalians have not completely or utterly disregarded the authority of Scripture, particularly if they are open to being transformed by it and hold that God moves through its pages. Would the critics disagree there? If not, then shouldn't we have more common ground in our disputes than in fact we do?

Could the Word have incarnated a female human nature?

2008-12-05T17:01:00.008-05:00

I say the Word could have done so; whether or not one says that such a thing would be fitting, such an act is within the range of God's absolute power.

Addendum, in case what should be obvious is not:

As Christ could have been Christa, say, there is no obligation on the Church's part that a bishop or priest be male; Christa could have represented humanity as well as Christ did.

One who nevertheless obstinately holds that only males can be ordained to the episcopate--that there is an ontological block to female ordination and not merely a block in fittingness--is committed to denying the absolute power of God, and that implies a commitment to denying God.

The result, as there is and can be no other God, is that any who deny that women can be ordained--as a matter of ontology--are committed to atheism, which to say: heresy.

Still, there is an argument to be made for restricting ordination to males resting on the symbolic value of having humans who cannot bear children mediate grace to the laity. Their very barreness serves both to elevate the grace-filled fecundity of Mary as a model for Christian virtue, and to point away from the male clergyman as a model. However, that argument implies a block not of ontology--as if women could not be ordained--but only of fittingness. For some congregations at some times in some places, restricting ordination to males serves better. But that restriction, enabled by merely contingent, historical circumstances, is itself entirely contingent. Thus, to turn it around, one might imagine circumstances under which ordination should be restricted to females as a contingency. More to the point, it becomes entirely intelligible from a critical point of view how the Church over time should have moved from restricting ordination to males to opening ordination up to females.

the Episcopal Church and Scripture

2008-12-04T22:18:00.005-05:00

From time to time one hears the presenting issue between the Episcopal Church and its critics is really not the morality homosexuality so much but rather the authority of Scripture; here is R. Albert Mohler, President of the of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in 2003:

For a church to move to ... elect a homosexual bishop is to abdicate biblical authority in such an extreme way that it raises questions about the whole integrity of the church.

A bit closer to home, here is the Episcopal Church's Canon Kendall Harmon of South Carolina in 2005:

While the clash over sexuality makes the headlines, it is only the tip of the iceberg; underneath the debate about non-celibate same-sex relationships lurks the deeper issues of the authority and interpretation of scripture and the way authority is dispersed in the Church.

One could easily multiply instances; here is the spokesman for the new ecclesial entity of Quincy, one-time Episcopalian vicar John Spencer in 2008:

We feel the Episcopal Church has been on a fast, major drift away from scriptural authority and historic Christian teaching....

Blogger Ramsey Wilson of what was once the Falls Church congregation of the Episcopal Church put the gist of the contention well back in 2006:

The 2003 confirmation of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, a divorced father of two who is an admitted, non-celibate, unrepentant homosexual, no doubt is important to orthodox Christians in the Episcopal Church. The importance, though, derives from the fact that Bishop Robinson’s confirmation is merely the latest in a long line of instances in which the Episcopal Church has expressed an utter lack of respect for the authority and reliability of Scripture. [emphasis mine]

Whatever the efficacy of homosexuality as a sexy wedge issue around which to rally the discontented, the conservative Anglican case for criticizing the Episcopal Church stands or falls on exactly this point about the authority of Scripture. In other words:

[A] If the critique is justified, then the Episcopal Church must have an utter lack of respect for the authority of Scripture.

By "the critique" I mean the cluster of opinions of both those who would merely like to see the Episcopal Church reprimanded in some severe way by the Anglican Communion as a whole, and those who would like to see the Episcopal Church replaced as a province in the Anglican Communion. The severe reprimand above would compel the Episcopal Church to choose either to conform to the order of the Anglican Communion or else assent to leave it.

The point I wish to make with statement [A] is that if the Episcopal Church did indeed after all have respect for Scripture's authority, then the critique would be a significant overreaction. The ordination of VGR cannot be merely an isolated instance of error, or merely part of a contingent pattern of error; it has to be part of a systemic failure rooted not in an innocent or superficial mistake, but in a conscious and settled rejection of Scripture's authority. Otherwise, our critics would have needlessly introduced dissension and division into the Body of Christ.

So, I contend that

[B] the Episcopal Church respects Scripture's authority.

If [B] holds, it would follow from [A] that our critics are not justified. In that case, the actions of CANA, GAFCON, etc would be rooted in error--an error dangerous to the substance of the faith, inasmuch as the orthodox are credally pledged to believe in the unity and catholicity of the Body of Christ, and these critics are exactly such orthodox by their own proclamation.

The case for [B] is quite strong in my opinion, inasmuch as the Epicopal Church has left little question as to where it stands on the issue of Biblical authority; volumes from the most recent two Church's Teaching Series from the '70s and late '90s have been devoted to the issue, and there are several other monographs with similar degrees of authority. Moreover, it seems to me equally clear that the actions of GC2003 are rooted in the approach to Scripture outlined in these publications.

Thus, I propose looking into these volumes to see what the Episcopal Church actually says about Scripture and Biblical authority; alas, I am unwilling merely to take our conservative brothers and sisters at their word on this one.

Where to start? Why not with Roger Ferlo's Opening the Bible; you can pick it up new for $12 and used for $3, plus 4$ shipping at Amazon, for instance.

Fret not over Global Realignment, should it come

2008-11-28T22:18:00.003-05:00

Sure, in Scripture Jesus prayed that we all might be one, noting that this would be a sign to the world of the truth of the Way. But then again, he seems to have had personal experience here below of division and discord among his followers; from the synoptic narratives:

(Mark 9, NRSV):
38 John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’ 39But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. 40Whoever is not against us is for us. 41For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward....'

(Luke 9):
49 John answered, ‘Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he does not follow with us.’ 50But Jesus said to him, ‘Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you.’

While it is easy to take issue with my application here, the basic idea seems sound: at some point we are on the same side, in spite of all the wrangling, and what's more: even if the Secessionists deny that we are on their side. It's not as if converts to the conservative variety of evangelical Christianity can be safely contained in a bottle, to be uncorked only when needed to elect Republicans. The Spirit: taking care of business is its name.

Or, from Mark 4:
26 He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, 27and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. 28The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. 29But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.’

That's right: it is not our job to know how, or even to be anxious about how. We have been given the seed, and it is our job (1)to go out from wherever we are, (2)to scatter seed on the ground, and (3) sleep some. Do not lose any sleep over realignment: it is of no ultimate importance.

A Community Dying From Avarice?

2008-11-01T14:36:00.007-04:00

Our dessicated prattling around secession--pro and con--invites trivial ripostes constituting a degenerating discourse full of sound and fury, strutting and posturing--in the end signifying nothing.

In case we have not noticed, our nation and its saints here below are in the midst of an economic crisis of historic proportions, one that challenges the foundations of our republic--a challenge moreover that comes at a very bad time, as we are trying to wrap up two lingering wars without pre-emptively starting a third. Chaos is upon us--families are suffering, children are suffering, and things could get much worse for very many very soon.

Shouldn't the church address these realities directly, acknowledging them in their due weight and noting their roots? How many pulpits have sounded out on our crises? Or do congregations-at-worship exist in parallel worlds really disjoint from the mundane one in which crises and storms break out, only appearing to be part of it?

Maybe the problem is we do not have the habit of addressing personal sin by name, especially the sins of the middle class, our principal constitutency, and so we do not have the habit of calling for personal conversion--much less repentance.

Against Semipelagianism

2008-10-30T00:18:00.003-04:00

Semipelagianism (hence "SP")--developed by John Cassian in response to Augustine's polemic against Pelagius--implies that one makes a free first step toward salvation, a first step that is in the power of the individual apart from grace. That first step in itself is incomplete, and can be completed only with God's assistance by means of grace.

It seems that SP implies

(A) there can be human actions apart from God's grace,

and that is a proposition I wish to deny. No aspect of human action is possible apart from grace. Insofar as there is an aspect of human action--moral or otherwise--it owes its reality to God's act of creation. But God's act of creation is one of grace--it is a sheer gift. However, since SP implies (A), and (A) is--so far as I can tell--false, it follows SP is false.

salus populi est suprema lex

2008-10-12T18:02:00.007-04:00

Derek replied some time ago to my reflections on Mary--and though this is perhaps now an ancient controversy, I still have something left to say.

I.
Things seem to have "wound down" considerably, as we might have reached bedrock conviction on a number of issues.

Consider the distinction between dogma and doctrine; "[t]his," he says, "as far as I’m concerned, is why this is worth fighting over." He is right to say that if the fifth Marian dogma is in fact a true dogma, I should wish to see him converted to it, as dogma by its very nature is mandatory. I agree with him. But look: timing is everything. I would wish him to be converted--but when? When I want to see it happen? No--in God's time. Sure, we have to sow the seeds of dogma, but that doesn't imply they will sprout on my schedule. At the suggestion he might be an anonymous Marian--that he might have already, anonymouosly have accepted the fifth dogma regardless of his conscious dissent here below--he is offended:

I hate to say it, but this completely rubs me the wrong way. If a roshi told me that I was an anonymous Buddhist, or if I were told by an imam that I was an anonymous Muslim, I’d thank them nicely for their complement of my character but feel a bit annoyed at their condescension.

Well, what if the roshi or the imam were right? John reflects on our preference for darkness and shadow in his gospel--annoyance would be an expected reaction to confrontation with dogma--on Scriptural grounds even. That may be condescending, but I think John would say I prefer darkness on other issues and practices; who can stand to leave the shade for long?

But, on the other hand, this may be bedrock for him: the notion of an anonymous Christian or Marian or whatever is--perhaps--just inconceivable. To the contrary, it strikes me that this is just how God operates elsewhere. Who would have guessed you'd be born--exactly you and not some other? Approximately nobody--and God didn't ask your permission first. You were thrown into the mix, and that's all there is to it. Who's to say you won't get tossed around again? I think of God as throwing us into new--even scarcely conceivable--existential situations, but Derek does not. And that seems to be a bedrock difference.

II.
Consider too how Derek develops the theological notion of recapitulation to help make sense of Marian dogmas. He writes:

The central question for me, then, is origin and volition: was the choice of obedience at the annunciation Mary’s free, “unaided” will, or was it her choice assisted and inspired by the Spirit already at work in her life? I can’t see it any other way than the second. To my way of thinking, even Mary’s “yes” was at God’s initiative through grace. It was surely not a coerced “yes”, but the prime mover for the action, its true origin, was in God and not Mary herself.

He has come to several large issues here--how human will relates to divine will, the nature of human action, how grace impacts action and the will, et al. These issues are so large, reasonable people may well be expected to disagree--like Banez and Molina, say. If settling on whether to accept the fifth dogma depends on addressing these issues, it may be each side has at least a prima facie reasonable case, and tolerance is called for from each side toward the other. We can probably agree on that.

Even so, another bedrock difference might emerge. It seems Derek has a rather Lutheran view of freewill--taking Luther's debate with Erasmus as defining where Luther stood. On that view--if I understand Derek correctly--Mary is no more an autonomous agent when she says "Yes" to God than an axe is when I swing it and split firewood, to adapt a figure from Luther. Surely in each case Mary and the axe play a role, perhaps an essential role, but their roles have nothing to do with autonomous freedom or incompatibilist freedom, to use the technical term. But on just this point, I side with Erasmus. To put it crudely: Mary and God act together in producing her "Yes," but she contributes something apart from God, which God could not contribute on his own, without which there would be no "Yes" at all--and could not be. Pressed, I would fall back on an amalgam of Scotus and Molina (as yet unpublished, mea culpa) in defense. Anyhow, here we seem to have another bedrock difference.

Given these differences, it's a good thing we can tolerate each other. There is something in our compatibility that recommends the Anglican ethos; for instance, neither of us are obligated as Anglicans to refuse to participate in the Eucharist with the other. To him, I'm probably confusing dogma with doctrine, but the doctrine is relatively harmless if a bit bizzare. To me, he is in for a big surprise.

Is it over yet?

2008-10-12T16:18:00.007-04:00

Like those Japanese holdouts from World War II who stayed the course right through the '40s and '50s, right-wing Anglicans continue to insist on fighting yesterday's battles tomorrow.

I.
In case you've been hiding in the jungle for the last couple months or so, you should know that the last shreds of the ragged fabric of conservative ideology have unraveled, disintegrating spectacularly across the globe. Once upon a time Neoconservatism seemed compelling--can anyone after our five years in Iraq and Afganistan mouth neocon pieties with a straight face? And I still have relatives who self-identify as fiscal conservatives, though they are currently in a state of shock. I don't personally know anyone who follows fiscal conservatism out to its logical extreme--libertarianism or anarcho-capitalism--but there are a few high-profile examples out there on the radio and the internet. The Republican Party from Reagan forward--who remembers Nixon fixing prices?--has been happy to run huge deficits on principle, and that has always seemed to me sufficient to show that their fiscal conservative/libertarian rhetoric a la Buchanan, Tullock and von Mises was just for chumps, alot of chumps. Classical liberalism has long been dead.

Nevertheless, there are too many dead-enders with too much invested to abandon folly. Or, just as credit markets are said to be "frozen," we might say these secessionists are frozen, locked into their course.

What remains? Visceral, grumpy conservatism: paleocons, mashing together Burke with Kirk, social Darwinism and christianist fundamentalism, all with little regard for consistency--consistency which would lead to the already discredited neocon or classical liberal positions.

There are still consistent conservative positions available, yet to be tried: Carl Schmitt & Martin Heidegger might do in a pinch as the focus for new efforts willing to tacitly give up on Christianity's truth. I am impressed at how far the U.S. seems to have adopted Schmitt's point of view, as one can see in how our Executive Branch's powers have expanded in the War on Terror. But I do not think right-wing American voters are ready to embrace Schmitt/Heidegger openly. More likely: the right-wing elite embraces them, moving away from Strauss, while the elite's PR wing produces a front for their mass following consisiting of a jumble of grumpy, fiscal, and neocon positions. And from that quarter we will likely hear an intensification of calls to confront the Enemy for, say, defying "our" religion or "our" political values or "our" way of life.

II.
I've made the point before that GAFCON's efforts are riddled with inconsistencies; there is nothing there to serve as a stable foundation for debate, much less a form of life. Likewise with the Southern Cone: Preludium makes the point that its reception of Schofield and Duncan generates internal inconsistencies. And so what? Like right-wing dead enders, Anglican dead enders have no remaining coherent ideology, Christian or otherwise. What we are dealing with in the Anglican Communion is power politics, Machiavelli writ large, or maybe "theologico-political realism" for lack of a better term. The end of realignment justifies the praxeis necessary to produce the relevant result, so the key is to work out the mechanics of how to get to realignment.

That is ironically the very thing Archbishop Williams probably detests most of all; yes--he detests liberalism in its various forms--political, classical, theological--but liberalism is rooted in realism as an attempt to move realism in an ethically circimscribed direction: not Hobbes' leviathan but Locke's polity, not mercantilism but Smith's mostly free markets, etc. The problem is that such ethical circumscription does not typically restore theological primacy. Williams likely did not see TEC's Global South critics in terms of machiavellian realism, at least until very recently. Sure, maybe the GS is actually rightly characterized as accepting theological primacy for the most part, and the problem is rather with Minns-primacy; I hear he was once a high-powered businessman well-placed in the world. Maybe he--and other American GS leaders--picked up machiavellian habits from long habituation to the "rules of power" in the marketplace. Who knows? Williams wanted to restore theological primacy, even before seeing it take a left-wing course; thus he was willing to work with the GS as long as it seemed they too accepted theological primacy, even if wishing it to take a right-wing course.

III.
Now? We're waiting for Fort Worth, and perhaps others, to consummate their union with the ethos of machiavellian realism through performing the act, the act of schism. Won't be long now.

And what then? Preaching the Gospel and celebrating the Eucharist: what else? The Episcopal Church will have failed--this time--at containing competing factions within a common worship. Do you think the Church of England hasn't likewise failed? Remember the roundheads. More important than success at maintaining a common worship is fidelity to the effort. That may seem tragic, but it is not, since we are called to a common worship, to common prayer--e.g. it is not hubris. As awful as it may seem to say, our situation is not a tragedy at all, but more like a comedy, even a farce.

quot homines, tot sententiae

2008-08-31T16:08:00.007-04:00

Continuing with debate over the proper place of the Virgin Mary: Derek responded with Denuo..., and I should like to say a few things as well.

Where better to begin than with a quote von Balthasar: One is ashamed for a Christianity which today is ashamed of its own Mother. (tr. Aidan Nichols)

I.
Derek says: Show me the evidence, Scotist, that this was held by the undivided Church, and I’ll be happy to consider it more deeply. It is hard to know what level of evidence if desired, but there are some interesting bits and pieces from the Church Fathers--I presume Bernard, Bonaventure, and the like do not count, or at least do not count as much:

Expanding on one of the "causa salutis" reference of an earlier post, here is Irenaeus:
Just as Eve, wife of Adam, yet still a virgin, became by her disobedience the cause of death for herself and the whole human race, so Mary, too, espoused yet a virgin, became by her obedience the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race. (Adversus haeresus, III, 22)

And again from Irenaeus in the same work: And as by the action of the disobedient virgin, man was afflicted and, being cast down, died, so also by the action of the Virgin who obeyed the word of God, man being regenerated received, through life, life . . . For it was meet and just . . . that Eve should be "recapitulated" in Mary, so that the Virgin, becoming the advocate of the virgin, should dissolve and destroy the virginal disobedience by means of virginal obedience. (Ibid, III, 22,24)

St. Jerome put it briefly (Ep, 22, 21): Death through Eve, life through Mary.

Modestus of Jerusalem has it that through Mary we are redeemed from the tyranny of the devil. (Patrologia Graeca 86, 3287)

John Damascene addressing Mary: Hail though whom we are redeemed from the curse.
(Patrologia Graeca 86, 658)

There 's a neat saying from Augustine: Christ is truth, Christ is flesh: Christ truth in the mind of Mary, Christ flesh in the womb of Mary. (Sermo 25, Sermones inediti, 7: PL 46, 938)

And in that spirit, a bit from Origen's Commentary on John: The Gospels are the first fruits of all Scripture and the Gospel of John is the first of the Gospels: no one can grasp its meaning without having leaned his head on Jesus' breast and having received from Jesus Mary as Mother.

This is just a list I pieced together; it is not exhaustive, but might serve as a ground floor to the discussion, as all of it would be accessible free of charge to anyone with Google. Anyway, maybe there is enough here to merit further serious consideration. Although such quotes might be explained away individually--no great feat--that strategy is beside the point. Rather, we were seeking evidence for an appropriate base of belief or practice in the "undivided" church which might have found faithful articulation in the fifth Marian dogma. Such quotes, from diverse authorities spanning centuries, seem to me to constitute the desired evidence justifying further inquiry, or deeper consideration. This call for deeper consideration is not much--granted. And there is no demonstration of my case from these quotes--granted.

To Derek's section II, I shall have to plead ignorance. There is too much in Lumen Gentium which I cannot claim to understand, though it seems to me anyone holding to the analogy of faith would disavow any consideration of a Marian dogma apart from other dogmas; abstraction would produce new content. As I believe RC theologians generally take the analogy of faith seriously, they would seem to have to prefer considering Marian dogmas only as part of a greater dogmatic whole. Of course, that's not quite what I am doing, as the greater dogmatic whole a RC theologian might recognize is probably something I would not recognize.

The real difference between us, quotes from the Fathers et al aside, seems to be the distinction Derek draws in his section IV between doctrine and dogma. He writes dogmas are absolute and binding in a way that the more general term doctrine does not require, as a dogma is a belief we must hold about the faith, whereas a doctrine is a belief we actually hold. He might entertain the fifth dogma as a doctrine, something some hold where he thinks we may see popular devotion gone awry, but there is no sufficient basis, he seems to say, for regarding it as dogma.

I can live with that--both the doctrine/dogma distinction and the rejection of the dogma. Why? He is willing to tolerate Marian devotion as a doctrine, even if not as a dogma. And indeed though I think it really is a dogma, proving that in Anglican terms, from Scripture, might be impossible. There is no reason, as an Anglican and an Episcopalian, I have to convert him and others to belief in the fifth dogma as dogmatic, however desirable conversion would be.

Moreover, and perhaps more controversially, the text Derek quotes from the RC Catechism defining dogma as truth in a form obliging the Christian people to an irrevocable adherence of faith has a certain looseness to it. A devotee of Rahner, familiar with the notion of an anonymous Christian, might think there could be anonymous Marians as well.

That is to say, even an Anglican who would think the propositional articulation of the fifth dogma is in error could nevertheless be a Marian in spite of himself, were he disposed to regard Christ with the heart of Mary. In that case, he might have a faithful relation to the dogma in question--an irrevocable adherence as it were. True, the fullest adherence for a rational animal might include propositional articulation, but adherence might well be possible in the absence of such articulation, or even in the presence of a contrary affirmation, as when words are uttered contrary to the inward disposition.

erga veritatem

2008-08-21T15:11:00.003-04:00

In reply to Derek's Contra Scotistam I, I'd like to defend some of the points I made earlier about Mary--though I have to reinterate my disavowal of expertise and experience. Others with more exposure to Mariology should do better than I can, or at least be more accurate; caveat lector.

I.
Doctrine develops, and it develops naturally from devotion.

Whence the Chalcedonian definition? I should say: development from reflection on sacred text, sacred practice, and secondary theology--development that worked. Verily, saying

Thus, early devotion to the BVM as I see it was not fundamentally about doctrine. [But is any devotion fundamentally about doctrine?] Yes, there certainly was doctrine about the BVM, but as Christopher notes, it was in relation to Christology

would not preclude that early devotion developing into a separate doctrine, even a true doctrine. The contingent historical practices of ancient patronage making that early devotion intelligible as an historical phenomenon need not be essential parts of the developed doctrine. Just so, contemporary doctrine articulating the need for obedience to the last commandment of the Decalogue does not require taking women as property; nor do the inital commandments require henotheism. And rightly so.

II.
One may see Mary as the Church--"here is your mother"--in SoS commentaries and elsewhere; that symbolism is consistent with taking Mary to be Mediatrix. In fact, it seems to set up a structure crying out for just such doctrine. The schema I threw around was:

the Father---the Son---Mary---the Bishop(---the Priest)---the People.

Nothing precludes the schema being elaborated thus:

the Father--the Son--the Church [Mary--....].

That would be to say the Father is normally mediated to the people through the Son only in the Church, where Mary represents the Church before Christ.

III.
The gist of what Derek wants to say, the main point I think, is here:

The bottom line for me is this: Yes, Anglicans should honor Mary, giving her the veneration she is due....But does this mean we must embrace modern Roman dogmas in her regard, especially the contentious issue of “co-redemptrix”? I think not. Yes, our salvation comes through her as she bore the Christ and shared with him her humanity, but redemption proper is a function of the Uncreated Godhead. If she were to be “co-redemptrix” for her role, by extension the patriarchs must also become “co-redeemers” for their role in the unfolding of salvation according to both the flesh and the spirit. (And you won’t see the Roman church pushing for that anytime soon…) So, devotion to Mary? By all means. Scholastic dogmas of Mary? Unnecessary, I think. Illicit? No, I don’t think that either—but not required.

First, I do not think that the argument beginning with "If she were to be "co-redemptrix"... is sound. What the Roman church pushes or does not push for is not a necessary criterion for how doctrine should develop. More importantly, the roles of the Patriarchs differed from that of Mary. While they contributed to the history of salvation, their contribution was significantly different from Mary's. In virtue of that difference, her contribution might merit a different title.

Well, what's the difference? Picture Mary and Abraham witnessing the life of Jesus. They would see the same events of the very same life, but they would see them differently inasmuch as Mary has a connection to Jesus that Abraham does not simply from the fact she is his mother and he is not.

You might say--and this is very close to my main point--Abraham knows something like what Mary knows when he takes Isaac away to be sacrificed. Kierkegaard mentions this likeness in Fear and Trembling, though he does not make anything of it in terms of Marian doctrine: both Abraham and Mary are paradigms of faith. In Kierkegaard's treatment, Abraham's first-person experience of taking Isaac out to be sacrificed matters; indeed it is essential to the truth God wishes to communicate in Genesis 18 et al.

Just so, Mary's first-person experience of Jesus' life matters. Is it essential to the truth God wishes to communicate?

It seems Derek would say "No!" here. That is, it seems according to him you do not need to see Jesus as she saw him; nothing essential to the faith is gained by it. Whatever she knew of Jesus that was peculiar to her is a remainder that well remains with her alone, with no ultimately significant loss to us.

Of course I disagree with this hypothetical Derek, and say "Yes". Genuine faith in Jesus requires grace, at least so that we might regard the object of our belief, the Jesus of the Gospels--Jesus as Mary knew him--with grace. That is, not as a patron with whom I negotiate a mutual exchange or from whom I first and foremost get what I want, but as beloved.

Of course Abraham and Mary are not exactly parallels: e.g. Abraham's faith was not formed by the actual sacrifice of Isaac; Mary was not so fortunate with Jesus; Mary saw the life of Jesus unfold with a type of grace that Abraham lacked in seeing Isaac. So far as I can tell, these differences would intensify the significance of Mary's first-person experience of Jesus. Coming to regard Jesus as beloved, in grace, is sharing the most relevant and essential aspect of Mary's experience of Jesus. There is no other type of love fitting for him.

I call having this love for Jesus that Mary had "having the heart of Mary", and then went on to say:

anyone who partakes of the Eucharist without the heart of Mary fails to discern the Body in its fullness, and fails to partake with the fullness of meritorious faith.

That still seems right to me. If it is, then there is a sense in which grace is mediated to the Church through Mary, though that grace does not originate with her, and the work of redemption Christ completed is not her work.

A Speculation on Marian Devotion: Hardcore Anglo-catholicism

2008-08-17T21:37:00.005-04:00

I come at Roman Catholic praxis from way, way outside; my early contact with Christ came via Jehovah's Witnesses. Thus I do not get that bent out of shape over Spong et al. But in the past I have been quite alarmed at the clear trend in the Roman Catholic Church toward the promulgation of additional Marian dogma which gives her the titles of "Co-redemptrix" and "Mediatrix"; it seemed some might be led into regarding her as somehow divine, as another Christ. So far as I can tell, that is not the intent of the dogma at all, but then one might ask, what is its intent? It seems the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church stands or suffers on exactly this question, at least for those looking in.

I. Statements & the Drive for Promulgating the Dogma

Irenaeus had referred to her as causa salutis rather early on; St. Antonius (c. 300) had said "All graces that have ever been bestowed on men, all came through Mary." "All" is rather strong--and is sure in some quarters to raise eyebrows and ire, no? St. Bernard says Mary is "the gate of heaven, because no one can enter that blessed kingdom without passing through her"; St. Bonaventure speaks at greater length in a very important passage:

As the moon, which stands between the sun and the earth, transmits to this latter whatever it receives from the former, so does Mary pour out upon us who are in this world the heavenly graces that she receives from the divine sun of justice.

I suppose instances of support from tradition could be multiplied, and it ought to give one pause: is it all just poetic fluff, or is there something more serious here? Consider the line of relatively recent Popes who have promulagted the doctrine:

Pius X: We are then, it will be seen, very far from attributing to the Mother of God a productive power of grace - a power which belongs to God alone. Yet, since Mary carries it over all in holiness and union with Jesus Christ, and has been associated by Jesus Christ in the work of redemption, she merits for us de congruo, in the language of theologians, what Jesus Christ merits for us de condigno, and she is the supreme Minister of the distribution of graces.

Benedict XV: As the Blessed Virgin Mary does not seem to participate in the public life of Jesus Christ, and then, suddenly appears at the stations of his cross, she is not there without divine intention. She suffers with her suffering and dying son, almost as if she would have died herself. For the salvation of mankind, she gave up her rights as the mother of her son and sacrificed him for the reconciliation of divine justice, as far as she was permitted to do. Therefore, one can say, she redeemed with Christ the human race.

Pius XII: It was she, the second Eve, who, free from all sin, original or personal, and always more intimately united with her Son, offered Him on Golgotha to the Eternal Father for all the children of Adam, sin-stained by his unhappy fall, and her mother's rights and her mother's love were included.

JPII: Mary, though conceived and born without the taint of sin, participated in a marvellous way in the suffering of her divine Son, in order to be Co-Redemptrix of humanity....

As she was in a special way close to the cross of her Son, she also had to have a privileged experience of his Resurrection. In fact, Mary's role as Co-Redemptrix did not cease with the glorification of her Son.

Mother Theresa and cardinal O'Connor signed on to Mark Miravalle's drive from the '90s to call on JPII to promulgate the dogma--a drive that has gathered six million signatures from 148 countries, including over 40 cardinals and 500 bishops. That's bigger than GC--and Lambeth, I dare say. The drive continues under Benedict XVI--and opposition to promulgation seems not to come within the RCC on theological grounds, but rather merely pragmatic grounds: the timing is not right; Protestants etc will be unduly alarmed. Ladies and gents, it is only a matter of time. What's going on here?

What's an Anglo-catholic to do? There is a strong case for getting on board, it seems to me.

II. Inside the Dogma, so far as I can tell
The problem is simply that we--and all of creation--are broken off, contrary to our natures, from the Father. The whole point is to get back to him. An additional problem: we are very, very low, and the Father is very, very high--we are bound to mess up the effort to get back to him unless he makes a special effort to "bridge the gap." One could from a Christian point of view look at religions outside the Judeo-Christian line as attempts to get back to the Father that have gone awry in various ways; it is not as if we have not tried, as if we could stop trying. But we will never get it right on our own.

Hence the Advent of the Word in flesh, the Bridge that crosses the Abyss, who makes it possible for us to approach the Source, the One, God as Father, even Daddy. Hence Christ in his
life among us, his Crucifixion and Resurrection, makes it possible for us to return to the Father: he is our Mediator; we could say it in a schema like this:

the Father---the Son---the People

since it would not work to simply leave it as:

the Father---the People.

And I think lots of Christians would be quite happy to leave things at that: Christ is our Mediator; we need a relationship with him, and through him we are reconciled with all creation to the Father--true so far as it goes.

But there's a problem: Christ has ascended. Can't deny it: it's right there in the Creeds, in Scripture, in tradition. And it's obvious to experience: search the world, and you will not find the risen Lord strolling through Jerusalem. Is he just gone then? Has he abandoned us? How could he possibly mediate grace through which we might be reconciled to the Father if he is simply gone? Well, he is present through the Holy Spirit. How exactly? In lots of ways, but most especially in the sacraments, in the Holy Eucharist. So: the mediation of Christ is itself mediated by the Eucharist; but the Eucharist cannot mediate on its own, which is to say our schema is now a bit more complicated:

the Father---the Son---the Bishop(---the Priest)---the People

And many more Christians will be happy to leave things at that--and many high Anglicans too, I suspect. Here is where the Marian dogmas come in: the mediation of grace from the Son through the Bishop must itself be mediated--in the salvation economy of this state. But by whom? Mary; hence our schema will look like this:

the Father---the Son---Mary---the Bishop(---the Priest)---the People

What's the point? Succinctly: anyone who partakes of the Eucharist without the heart of Mary fails to discern the Body in its fullness, and fails to partake with the fullness of meritorious faith--of course such partaking is possible only through grace, not by our own fiat.

The point is there is more to the needed discernment than what the intellect alone could possibly provide. What matters is a reception of the sacrament with a will aligned to that of God's--a will suffused with holy charity. Do not partake of the sacrament thinking "Thus I shall escape Hell" or "With this I shall enter heaven" or the like; that is not genuine charity, and signifies a will out of alignment with that of God. It is not genuine love that loves for what one will get in return; such "love" is fallen, suffused with sin, vitiated and of itself without merit. What then? Love God for who God is; when you know that Christ is in the sacrament, you are to love him for who he is, not for what he can do for you.

Yes, an instrumental approach to Christ might be useful as a beginning, but only as a beginning to the reception of the sacrament in grace, where Christ is loved simply for who Christ is: true reception in the Spirit. But how? What would such grace look like from within? Here we come to Mary: Mary free from sin is able to love her son as we fallen are unable to love at all. To the extent we are able to love Christ with genuine charity, we love him with the same type of love that Mary loved him--all through grace of course. We see him with eyes of grace, with her eyes, inasmuch as we can only approach hm through the Gospels, i.e. through the very mysteries by which she knew him. So we should learn to regard Christ with her eyes, with her heart, and in that regard we come to discern him in fullness. Hence the point of developing Marian devotion: one becomes with God's help disposed to charity.

On this view, the Bishop and Priest are--considered strictly--like empty vessels, vehicles conveying grace through the Eucharist and essentially no more. The living content in the Eucharist, the presence of the Lord for us, passes through the lens of Mary--as it were--in the sacrament. After all, one can learn all this from the unordained; a teaching bishop is strictly accidental. Likewise, Bishops and priests are only accidentally fitting models for mimesis; even corrupt clergy may still be vehicles for the Eucharist, but Mary is always a fitting mimetic model.

Anyhow, this is the core of what I can make of the Marian dogmas. There is more, and there are other angles to take, but this one seemed apt.

III. And Anglicans?
To the extent Roman Catholics, driving to promulgate this doctrine, love their neighbors, they will wish to bring their neighbors closer to God, as Christ commanded, for instance. Given the truth of the schema above with Mary playing a role as Mediatrix, promulgating the dogma would be of some importance, especially to fellow Chistians; otherwise they are obstructed from the fullness of reconciliation. Thus pragmatic considerations are of immense import; if Protestants are not ready to receive, promulgation may drive them further into alienation from the Father. How then to prepare them to receive?

It seems to me that the Anglican Communion could contribute something here, even now. On the one hand, its members have succeeded here and there in drawing mainline Protestant fragments together: Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians even. To that extent, modest Anglican devotion to Mary has an opportunity to grow in other mainline churches. And to the extent that succeeds, the right time, the kairos, for promulgation draws nearer. To the extent, however, the AC is drawn over into a modern, Calvinist orbit, one wherein Marian devotions are dismissed with scorn, that day recedes further away.

Back to Business

2008-08-06T18:45:00.000-04:00

Having been at this thing for a while, I thought it might be useful to compile some of the writings on this blog about GC2003's presenting issues: ordaining Robinson and blessing SSUs.

Oddly enough, the controversy brought me to active membership within the Episcopal Church once I saw that the decisions of GC2003 were rooted in what I thought was a persuasive, antecedently developed theology. It seemed--indeed it still seems--that controversy raged without serious theological engagement, despite what seemed to be an obvious opportunity. Now I would say with more confidence that the dearth of engagement from critics of GC2003 is deliberate, and not a matter of ignorance or oversight.

Some links:

Episcopal Argument & my Argument
An Older Version of my Argument
the Oldest Version
& Subsequent Debate:
I
II
III
IV
V

Charles I

Against Kendall Harmon's "Sex Without Form and Void"
I
II
III
IV

Reply to Witt

Against Harding's Critique of the Episcopal Church's Argument
I
II
III

On "Claiming our Anglican Identity"
I
II
III

Kennedy on Heresy
I
II

the homosexuals/ homosexual activity distinction

homosexuality and the Holocaust

the church and the ordination of active homosexuals

holiness

sexuality and personhood

reconciliation and SSUs

complementarity

Seitz on plain sense

the AAC and plain sense

Nigeria's laws

Lambeth 1998 1.10

Lambeth 1998 and epistemic humility

epistemic humility

defending epistemic humility against Harding

reading Romans I:26-7

plain sense and metaphysics

ACI on plain sense

more defense of epistemic humility against Harding

Against Gagnon
I
II

Post Lambeth: This is Going to Take Alot of Work

2008-08-04T21:19:00.005-04:00

It seems to me Theo Hobson is right:

Yet liberal Anglicanism failed to make a stand. There were obviously lots of angry noises, but they didn't add up to anything. Amazingly enough, Williams' call for patience was generally heeded. The nature of liberal Anglicanism quietly shifted. It became meek before the rise of evangelical orthodoxy.

Is it still possible to be a liberal Anglican? Not in the old way. Liberal Anglicans have to follow Williams onto the high wire, to some extent. By staying within an institution that has taken an anti-liberal turn, they collude in his act. In other words, liberal Anglicans have been Rowanised. They buy his long-range hope for reform that the church as a whole can accept.

Many on the Anglican left who supported GC2003 or the like have, in fact, followed Williams up onto the high wire, remaining within an institution lurching rightward in hope of something better coming in the future: extending the reforms of GC2003 et al would be all that much harder were the Anglican Communion to split. "Moratoria or marginalization" is clearly the message, whether it can be enforced or not.

This sort of message is not too surprising from Williams. He is not sympathetic to political liberalism, and although there is an element of liberation theology in his work, he does not seem to have been formed by anything analogous to the Civil Rights movement in the US--which seems to me to have decisively impacted the moral sensibilities of Episcopalian bishops. Liberation themes in his work--I have Resurrection in mind--could well indicate Williams will not tolerate acting so as to cast off provinces in the developing world, come what may, even if their primates and policies are offensive for one reason or another. He would rather call for sacrifice and toleration from the developed world than lose them--and from a certain scriptural point of view that kind of strategy is cogent.

That is to say Williams intentionally burdens the Episcopal Church, Canada, and any province sympathetic to GC2003 et al with the task of bringing the other provinces "on board." He simply will not assist; it is not in his job description, and it would risk driving away just the provinces with which he most wishes to keep in communion.

We are in the position of having to "thread the needle":

Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ (NRSV, Mt. 19:23-4)

We are like the rich person seeking to enter the kingdom of heaven--rich relative to other provinces. We have our problems, to be sure, but whether one considers FGM and the institutions of child marriage and honor killing, or infant and maternal mortality, or per capita GDP, literacy, economic and political freedom--and so on--it is clear that we have a vast array of advantages, much of which is ours from luck.

For us, in the midst of this wealth--this power--to cultivate something like poverty of spirit or meekness is like a camel going through the eye of a needle. The temptations to discard genuine meekness and poverty of spirit are just too strong. After all, we have arguments, hermeneutics, and what seems to be a slowly gathering international consensus on our side; we feel we are in the right, that it is a justice issue, that fidelity to the Good is at stake and fidelity to our own outcasts, the gay Christians in our congregations and even more outside looking in. And so far as I can tell these feelings are correct.

It seems to me our House of Deputies--accurately representing the vast weight of the laity and clergy--is considerably further to the left of the bishops. And it seems that way in England too; I would conjecture to many in the Church of England, Williams seems like some far-out, out-of-touch old man. And he probably is very much so. He and our bishops are in danger of being brushed aside, swept away--as we saw Williams brushed aside in the CoE's proceedings on ordaining women to the episcopate.

But remember these words from our Teacher:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

There is simply no sense in turning our advantages in political power and moral theology into more self-righteous hypocrisy; the church has plenty of that as it is. Abusing our power will not leave us happy in the end. Perhaps it is worth considering whether we should take on the poverty Williams requires of us, whether we should take on this poverty even if it should bring mourning with it, even as the thirst for righteouosness goes unabated. The last bit from the quote above grabbed my attention: it seemed to imply poverty of spirit can go with the prophetic calling. There is no inconsistency between answering the prophetic call and the moral standard of the Beatitudes.

In plain English that must imply consenting to the moratoria does not mean betraying our gay brothers and sisters. Though it seems impossible, foolish even to try--like the camel going through the needle's eye--nevertheless there is a way, there must be a way.

When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astounded and said, ‘Then who can be saved?’ But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’

Again, in plain English, here are some tentative suggestions about what this might come to in concrete terms: at the very least, the work of building a case for the actions of GC2003 should continue. And we might well admit that the theological case for those actions can be made better, clearer, more persuasively. If the rest of the Communion is to brought over to our side--seeing that right wing assistance from the developed world will not soon abate--the making of a more cogent case should be a priority.

Then we should also bring agitation for civil rights for gays in Nigeria et al to the fore; that issue should receive a much higher profile in the affairs of the Communion. And there will be sacrifices--as when pastoral affairs at the parish level grind against moratoria at the Communion level. Father Dudley is something of an icon here--it being safe to assume the CoE sets a tenable pattern for unofficial, parish-level rites around blessing SSUs. The real sticking point will be around the election of another partnered gay bishop. Still, it seems there may be a number of ways forward; e.g. the bishop is gay, but becomes partnered only some time after election. There is no logical inconsistency here that should prevent assent to moratoria.

The Communion qua institution will see things as an institution, but it is surely true that the life of the church is largely outside the bounds of the necessary institution, and it is there we might find the life of the Spirit, in a type of exile looking forward to the day when institution and Spirit are brought closer together. It will take alot of work.

For a Theologically Explicit Covenant Process

2008-07-30T14:53:00.006-04:00

Lambeth 08 seems to be lurching toward a covenant process concerned primarily with questions of procedure and procedural fairness, a process in which questions of theology about the nature of God, the nature of Christ, the church, and scripture are shunted to the side. That would be tolerable--it's definitely the liberal thing to do--except for the fact that the Communion's procedure-talk makes reference to theological questions of the type I mentioned as if they were settled in the Communion, as if, say, there were a consensus about the doctrine of the Incarnation.

But is there really such a consensus about dogma? If not, then the talk about procedure is empty: make-believe.

Maybe it would be a good idea to compel our bishops to talk theology at Lambeth in their indaba groups, so that they could render a basic, core theology explicit as part of the Covenant process--at least so we could be sure there really is some theological core to refer to here.

I do not picture anything ostentatious, like flowery churchbabble. Keep it simple. Could they agree:

Jesus Christ is the Lord.
Jesus Christ is the Savior??

And maybe even:

Jesus Christ is both fully human and fully divine.
God is three Persons with one nature.
Christ is one person with two natures??

That would be an awful lot to go on. That might even be enough for Lambeth 08--tears of joy would flow freely throughout the Communion. Indeed: it might calm things down a bit if we could see where the bishops stood.

Maybe some would confess "We do not understand what it means to say God has a nature"--and that would be fine; we would see where the confusion is, and we could also see whether those who would confess the above can defend and explain their confession.

But an admission of confusion is still a far cry from a settled confession to the contrary; it is one thing to say I do not like the word "Lord" and quite another to simply say Jesus Christ is not the Lord--there are others with an equal claim. Still, it would be good to saee how many bishops would choose to affirm contraries to such propositions as those above.

Here's the thing: a process that codifies disciplinary measures to be used against dissenters will be used eventually as a weapon by each side against its opponents, escalating fissiparous pressures rather than soothing them. There is a good chance, it seems, that even if Williams receives the covenant he seems to want, that it will nevertheless be used against the unity of the Communion.

Rather than, as it were, hand feuding parties firearms for settling their dispute, it might be better to let them talk about something substantial at the root of their dispute rather than merely procedural and likely counterproductive. Aren't our bishops capable of doing theology together?

Don't Conflate Anglican Conservatism with Orthodoxy! Here's Why

2008-07-29T15:30:00.005-04:00

Some comments I recently made in conversation here seem to have struck a nerve. So let's bring them out into the light; my hypothesis is that affirmations of faith made in the narrative mode are gibberish and nonsense, but relatively benign nonsense for all that. That is:

I would not dare conflate Anglican conservatism with doctrinal orthodoxy, just as I would not wish to conflate Borg-style panentheism with orthodoxy. The elite populating our consvervative Anglican think tanks cannot actually say "God exists" and mean it in the traditional sense, much lass confess Jesus is Lord and Savior. And I mean "cannot" in its strict, logical sense; it is logically impossible, unless they back down from their so-called "orthodox" theology.

Why? Any adherent of Lindbeck or narrative theology relativizes discourse, including especially theological discourse, to a conceptual framework, a way of life, a language game. That is inconsistent with traditional orthodoxy, which made affirmations of faith in an absolute sense, not in a relativized sense. In the traditional mode (a la Aquinas) one simply confesses "Jesus is Lord and Savior" simpliciter; in the narrative mode one confesses "Jesus is Lord and Savior" only relative to some language game. Thus, when a "Lindbeckian" says "Jesus is Lord" what she means cannot be the same as what is required of the faithful. This is a problem indeed: God wishes to be worshipped in Spirit and Truth, and not truth-relative-to-language-game-n.

As a confirmation of the seriousness of the charge, note that Lindbeck himself was compelled to disavow his own theories in First Things, claiming to profess a form of Realism. Ludicrous, yes, but Linbeck seems eventually to have "got it"--many others still seem lost in the dark. Here is Dulles making my point in a relatively innocuous fashion:

If we are to worship, speak, and behave as though the Son of God were himself God (as Lindbeck rightly affirms), is it not because the Son really and ontologically is God, whether anyone believes it or not? By inserting the homoousion in the creed, the Council of Nicaea was indeed laying down a linguistic stipulation; but more importantly, it was declaring an objective truth.

[Full disclosure: I did not realize Polanyi was a metaphysical realist contra Wittgenstein, presuming Dulles' reading in the article is correct. That's a sore point indeed--I've been wrong about Polanyi in the past then, criticizing Harding's recourse to Polanyi, as if that tied Harding to language game relativism. While there is an issue about whether his "participatory realism" is sufficient, it at least seems to be an effort in the right direction.]

Here is Lindbeck's response (scroll down); first he sees Dulles' issue:

He [Dulles] thinks that my stress on their intrasystematically regulative role makes it doubtful that they also function propositionally; or, in more conventional terms, he suggusts that the emphasis I place on truth as coherence with other beliefs obscures the primacy of truth understood as correspondence to objective reality. He concludes that “Lindbeck’s own program concedes too much to postmodern relativism.”

Then he makes the disavowal; first:

This indictment, I shall argue, is a mistake, but as I am in part responsible for the misunderstandings which occasioned it, I shall not blame the Cardinal, but simply seek to clarify the confusions that have led him astray.

That is:

The ontological truth claims of the creedal confession of faith remain existentially foundational and are also chronologically prior to its becoming dogma in 325 and 381.

I love it. And from Lindbeck....Oh well: Wittgenstein defenestrated. Looks like meat's back on the menu:

Cardinal Dulles infers that I am “postmodern” chiefly from my use of Wittgenstein and Geertz. That use, however, was heuristic rather than probative and could be entirely omitted without materially affecting my argument.

What's left of the ruined edifice, i.e. "my [unaffected] argument"? Lindbeck again:

Formally, however, it would be better to say from a doctrine-as-regulative perspective that the linguistic stipulation protected (not “declared”) objectively true affirmations.

"Protected" you say? Wittgenstein and narrative theology were to be deployed the way you'd set out O'Douls Amber for the kiddies at the prom party; or: it's not the full-strength version of Wittgenstein, it's Wittgenstein-changed-into-water. And I did not see Lindbeck spelling out what "protected" should be taken to mean here. Dulles acknowledges the movement Lindbeck has made:

At the end of my review I expressed the hope that George Lindbeck could amend his cultural-linguistic theory to give greater attention to the capacity of religious language to disclose the reality of God. I am gratified to find that in his response he shows a great willingness to move in this direction without forfeiting the strengths of his present position.

Have his Anglican followers made this crucial defenestrating movement as well? Making it seems to "downgrade" Wittgenstein all the way--leaving only, in Lindbeck's terms, cognitivist and expressivist ways of articulating the faith. The "cultural-linguistic" approach, post-movement, seems to be a way of articulating an updated cognitivist/propositional approach, better armed now to battle expressivism. To my knowledge, though, Lindbeck's conservative Anglican admirers have not followed him in his return to the propositional approach.

Thus, it still seems there is a problem for Lindbeck's people. In a sense it is O.K.: their affirmations may be taken as so much inspired babbling in tongues. In this case there is the benefit that everyone already knows what they are trying to say b/c the noises are so similar to genuinely significant speech--thus Paul's strictures on babbling are satisfied.

Some Reflections on the UU Church Shooting

2008-07-29T00:22:00.012-04:00

As Lambeth '08 grinds on and on toward its--so it seems--rather disenchanted but eminently reasonable outcome, little signs percolate to the surface of the news cycle from the mission field. I am not referring to Archbishop Williams' scapegoating Bishop Robinson--I think it is quite apparent that scapegoating him has not worked, and will work even less to secure anything like unity with catharsis in the future. Too many people left and right know better by now, and excluding him presents the Communion to much of the globe as a pathetic parody of itself

I. ....the newspaper in one hand

One of these signs--it seems to me--is a recent mass shooting at a church in TN. It turns out the shooting at a Unitarian Universalist church was not a random, murderous mass shooting, but a hate crime, where the accused gunman acted specifically out a hatred for Liberals and Gays; he identified himself as a "Confederate" and a "believer" in "the Old South". The NYT wrote:

A man who the police say entered a Unitarian church in Knoxville during Sunday services and shot 8 people, killing two, was motivated by a hatred for liberals and homosexuals, Chief Sterling P. Owen IV of the Knoxville Police Department said Monday.

He was shooting up a childrens' play; he planned to keep firing his shotgun until the police took him down. The man is not exactly a poster boy for John Calhoun's malevolent iteration of Jeffersonian agarianism--feeding on shit like "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by Sean Hannity, and "The O'Reilly Factor," by Bill O'Reilly, he managed to blame liberals and gays for his being unemployed. It probably did not strike him as noteworthy that any unemployment benefits he enjoyed he owed to the efforts of the political left.

II.
His situation is worth pondering for a moment. He connected (A)his being unemployed with (B)liberals and gays, and then he connected (B) with (C): the UU church--apparently oblivious to the glaring cognitive dissonance implied in those connections. Yet these connections do not seem random; they seem rather to be commonplaces this poor sop picked up from our common culture ready-made when he sought a "reason" why he was without a job. "Common culture" is loose, but the term has to be loose given its a wide extension: print media, TV, movies, the internet, water-cooler conversation, etc.

Oh--perhaps there are people offended by the use of "church" for Unitarian Universalism; I've been in the company of many Christians who use "Universalist" as a term of abuse when they use it at all, an epithet of disdain--presumably for the UU take on the Trinity and Incarnation--like this anonymous poster who wrote (on 7/28):

There is no problem defending the orthodox position if, like myself, you are reasonably orthodox. Nor do North American Anglicans who are in fact unitarians and deists seem to have trouble defending their positions, at least in their opinion....

Instances could be multiplied; I have in mind comments like these made in 9/07, comments which reflect what seems to be a certain type of violent mindset on the right, in the context of conflict between Schori and Episcopalian conservatives:

He was really upset by this –in tears and shaking- and it included deposition, law suits, not allowing him to resign. . . We were quite angry on hearing this and wondered if they realized they were talking to a NM – TX bishop. Their cities may have a lot of urban gang problems; but, they don’t realize most of us have guns, know how to use them and nobody’s gonna mess with our bishops!

And:
It is sad that we have to feel the need to defend ourselves, almost to the point of doing that one thing most of us who have done it, pray we never have; to take up arms to defend our way of life. That is what the reference to Small band of paratroppers was.

And:
I’m already reaching for my pistol…
followed by:
Agreed. However, “reachin’ for my pistol” is an old expression I use around here. No threat is being made.

Interestingly, the saying is misattributed to Goering and Streicher, but is actually taken from Johst's play Schlageter performed for Hitler's birthday in '33:

Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning, or: Whenever I hear 'culture'... I remove the safety from my Browning (tr. at link above).

One could reach outside the narrow band of our troubles to refer to such things as Coulter's fun-and-games call for murdering a Justice:

"We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said. "That's just a joke, for you in the media"--

an instance of what David Neiwert at Orcinus has felicitously called an ideology of "eliminationism". Christians, Christians who make a big deal out of how they are following a Christ versus Culture model a la Barth's Bremen Declaration, have absolutely no business playing with our secular culture's tolerance of violence and the cultivation of domestic terrorism.

III.
One might ask: are these violent sentiments worth protecting? Should Lambeth provide any shelter in its institutional arrangements for such sentiments?

This TN incident would not be the first time gays were targeted--recall that the Holocaust targeted gays. And what will we say about Leviticus 20:13?

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Some Christians, including one of GAFCON's major backers, Howard Ahmanson seems to think--still--that stoning gays is permitted; indeed, homosexuality is criminal, and even a crime for which one can be executed, in a number of GAFCON and GAFCON-sympathetic provinces.

Is it OK to live by 20:13 now--is its being OK a matter relative to culture? Was it ever OK to live by 20:13? When "biblical authority" comes up , Lev 20:13 should come up. Lev 20:13 is not alone for brutality in Scripture.

Consider the conquest of Canaan, e.g. the command at Numbers 31:17--even male babies and children carried in the womb are to be slaughtered on divine command. God commands the death of babies in numerous instances, e.g. most famously the mass murder at Exodus 12:29, and the command at I Sam 15:3--which Saul gets in big trouble for disobeying inter alia; God promises to tear pregnant women and their unborn infants apart at Hosea 13:16; God commands the deaths of the infants and childern of Ai in Joshua 8...had enough?

The Bible shows--reveals--to us who God is, the character of God, and we are meant to love God. With that in mind, these savage passages--which only partially represent the blood-soaked pages of Holy Scripture--provide a test for any set of hermeneutical principles with which one might approach Scripture, and especially for their consistency.

Anyhow, my point in closing is twofold: (1)Lambeth should not provide any shelter at all for violent sentiments against gays, or for sentiments tolerating violence; (2)Christians are people of an especially violent book, and in particular a book explicitly promoting violence against gays. In view of (1) and (2) it seems Christians--even those at Lambeth--bear a special burden for disengaging their religious practice from the culture of violence that targets gays. One hopes our bishops will remember this.

Mean Lambeth Quotes

2008-07-28T02:41:00.005-04:00

Mouneer, Deng & Wright are not oblivious ninnies; Mouneer knew what he was doing, I should think, when he said:

I do not believe that The Episcopal Church is going to
change its direction. It is not all about sexuality but about biblical interpretation, Ecclesiology and Christology. This reminds me with the position of US administration before and during the war in Iraq. They refused to listen to millions of voices that cried against the war. The North American churches believe that the truth was revealed to them and that the other churches in the Communion need to follow them.

The comparison between the Episcopal Church and the odious Bush Administration is a trope by now--as is the distorted portrayal of the Episcopal Church as if it were going alone. Such tropes identify the speaker with a community within which they are expected, intelligible, normative. Their being false does not matter so much as the mutual recognition such tropes bring--"he really is one of us after all"--and the resulting constitution of the speaker's identity, an effect that requires a crowd.

How important is such recognition and conservative identity? It seems to become more important as such recognition and identity are more thrown into question--and what it means to be a conservative Anglican is very much up for grabs right now. Mouneer, Deng, and Wright seem to be trying to give some definition to the phrase "conservative Anglican," as if they might function as an alternative to GAFCON if they were to be seen by Anglican conservatives as legitimate options.

What does that mean for TEC? Anglican conservatives would not need such rallying if they already held defensible ground--and that is the problem. At the moment they do not hold defensible ground. Rather than "charge" their chaotic position and drive them into an outright rout, it seems the bigwigs of the Communion, including especially a moderate like Williams, want to cede some defensible ground to conservatives, so that they will have some small place. Perhaps such sentiments are behind the push to enact a ban on ordaining gay bishops--who knows?

If that is the case, at the very least TEC and its friends should be sure to get a clear condemnation of cross-border poaching as well--a condemnation which by implication would condemn GAFCON as it stands.

The Curious Rise of Cosmological Dualism?

2008-07-27T14:39:00.006-04:00

There is no need, one hopes, to argue for the centrality of the Shema to Christian faith:

שמע ישראל יהוה אלהינו יהוה אחד

or, read with appropriate deference to the holiness of the Tetragrammaton:

Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad;

or in the LXX:

ἄκουε Ισραηλ κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν κύριος εἷς ἐστιν;

in other words:

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God! The LORD is One!

Across languages, across the vagaries of translation, the cry of the Shema has endured the passing of time, the rise and fall of empires and princes: an essential point of reference, if anything can be.

I.
Eventually, in the course of Israel's long love affair with the Lord, the elements of henotheism that might have attended initial use of the Shema drained out, leaving a committed monotheism in its place--so far as I can tell. And that shift toward monotheism is, I should think, extremely significant, even decisive for any contemporary canonical reading of Scripture.

So, for instance, it is difficult not to read the P creation story as carrying implicit, tacit criticism of Babylonian creation mythology. The Lord had no need to slay a Dragon in order to fashion the world of our acquaintance; the earth passively awaited his mere word in obediential potency. Such was his power, a type of power apparently beyond the comprehension of pagan myth. I take it we should see the P creation myth, in its scriptural context, as establishing a trajectory in Israel's knowledge of God, so that although the P story does not actually teach creation ex nihilo, later Jews encountering Greek metaphysics during the intertestamental period will look on the doctrine as coherent and complementary to their story's prior articulation. The one Lord God comes to be understood as a Creator God whose power is of such extraordinary magnitude, he not only need not slay a dragon--he needs no dragon at all: no co-eternal sludge from which to work.

There are not two principles of creation, God and something else--a primordial sludge, say, awaiting his word. And a fortiriori there are not two opposed, contending principles of creation, God and an anti-God, a principle of Good and a principle of Evil, fighting it out on the cosmic stage. That would be a cosmology reminiscent of Manichaeism, a faith of the third century persian Mani whose teaching so famously tempted Augustine. I do not mean to contend that Augustine's temptation is ours, that Manichaeism has returned to tempt the unwary away from the Shema's canonical monotheism. Rather, I mean to point out the general doctrine of which Manicaeism is merely a species has returned to tempt us into revision: what I will call cosmological dualism, the idea that God must compete with another principle, personal or otherwise, an idea implying the wrongheadedness of the Shema's devotion. Maybe I am just plain wrong, blowing minor indications up out of proportion, but if I am right, I hope you will agree we have a problem indeed.

II.
Contemporary Judeo-Christian theology has largely given up the traditional notion of divine apatheia, or impassibility, generally under the impression that "only the suffering God can help"--and not merely suffering in terms of Christ's human nature, as Aquinas might have parsed the phrase. After the horrors of Hiroshima, the Holocaust, the traumas of Nazism and Stalinism, the genocides and atrocities of the twentieth century, it is thought surely God suffers with us--and in particular the Father, or God in his divinity. Consider a quick survey of the literature: Nicolas Berdyaev in The Meaning of History, Miguel de Unamuno in The Tragic Sense of Life, Emil Brunner in The Christian Doctrine of God: Dogmatics I, Karl Barth in Jungel's The Doctrine of the Trinity: God's Being is in Becoming & Barth in Church Dogmatics IV/2, Moltmann in The Crucified God and The Trinity and the Kingdom of God, Bonhoeffer in his Letters and Papers from Prison, Abraham Heschel in The Prophets--is there any sense in revisiting the revision of the Doctrine of God with a who's-who list like this favoring passibility? Oh yes--the Anglican Communion started playing with passibility early on, with JK Mozley's The Impassibility of God, commissioned by the CoE, from the '20s. And I should mention the contemporary evangelical open theism movement, with a list of books in favor here, and against here; do not forget process theology--see the lists here and here.

What worries me about the move toward accepting passibility in our concept of God is the danger of losing our grip on the canonical monotheism developed so slowly and painfully through the OT/Hebrew Scripture. In effect, we seem to run a risk of falling away from the devotion properly expressed by the Shema into something henotheistic, or dualist--I want to say "pagan" but that would not be quite right, inasmuch as early henotheistic Israelites would not have counted as pagan; it is better to say that we should--with more than a milennium of Christian theology behind us--be more circumspect. We should know better.

Implied in giving up the notion of apatheia is a revision of the notion of God--and Christ--Pantocrator, and the concomitant creedal profession of faith. Omnipotence or being all powerful had been thought to go with God alone, who had no rivals, no obstacles, who could do whatever was possible. But to say God suffers is to subject God to the flux, to succession, and to imperfection: there are some things God cannot overcome with Power, which he must--being Love--suffer along with us. For instance, it might be thought he cannot overcome the human capacity to misuse freedom for sin by his mere power alone. A divinity who could not share our pain would be somehow deficient--especially seeing that he could not overcome it by an exercise of his power--and a divinity that could but would not share our pain would not be a loving divinity, or so it might be thought.

I disagree with such sentiments, and they seem to me to lead to a costly revision of our concept of God--a costly one, inasmuch as a revision here implies across-the-board revision. That is, if we revise our understanding of God to accept passibility into the concept, then we shall have to revise our understanding of the Incarnation, and with that the Atonement, the Doctrine of the Trinity, and that of the Church, and so on, as each of these makes use of the notion "God". At each point, we shall have to--it seems--move from a traditional teaching to a contrary teaching, inasmuch as passibility and impassibility are contradictories--or at least contraries.

What does all this have to do with cosmological dualism? On the face of it, when passibility is introduced into the concept of God, it is done so for the reason that God faces an obstacle that could not be overcome by power alone--or knowledge and goodness alone. The obstacle puts a limit on what God could accomplish given his power, knowledge, and goodness, and coming up against that limit, being a God of love, God cannot remain indifferent: he suffers, or so it is thought. It seems to me that such an understanding opposes an obstacle to God; there is something, X, over and against God, which he cannot rule and overcome alone. The X may be the human capacity for free choice, say, or something else. Whatever it is, this X explains the crappy state of things in the world; God would prefer things be better, but given X, this is the best that can be done. In opposing God's preferences, X functions in this scheme like a principle of evil, a reason for evil, and as a consequence we muct understand the world to feature a struggle between God and X--whatever X may be, even if it is impersonal like a human capacity of some sort. The schema "God vs. X" is a type of cosmological dualism--not Manichaeism exactly, nor mere paganism, but a dualism nevertheless related to the teaching of Mani by resemblance.

III.
My criticism is all too brief; I admit it. But I hope the intent is clear enough. Let us reconsider, and at least pause, at the introduction of passibility into our understanding of God. It seems to introduce a tension into our faith, as it seems to be incompatible with the canonical reading of the Shema evident in Scripture and tradition, and that incompatibility should be like a red flag, an indication that the new revised version of God bears an especially great burden of proof, as it asks so much of us in asking that we back away from the profession of the Shema:

Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God! The LORD is One!

An Interview with Naughton

2008-07-27T08:59:00.003-04:00

It seems to me Jim's responses in this brief interview are worth reading if you have a moment; they succeed in summarizing the state of things in the Anglican Communion while providing a larger socio-political context--a context which I have neglected in the past--in which our conflict is intelligible.

A couple quotes jumped out:

...the idea that you would harness the people of Uganda who live with incredible ethnic strife and widespread disease and just crushing poverty, you would harness their numbers to advance the cause of people living in the richest suburbs in the United States is obscene, but that's what's happened.

That strikes me as absolutely right. Another important point:

I mean I think one of the things that GAFCON has done is demonstrate that whatever concessions you make to these folks, they will want more. I mean the notion that we all need to go back to the 1662 Prayer Book and the 39 Articles of Religion from Elizabethan times is kind of whacky, yet that's at the core of their movement. So we can't give up enough to please them, and yet retain any kind of identity.

Feel free to take a look for yourself.

optimus prime on the GAFCON critique of the Covenant

2008-07-19T13:14:00.003-04:00

Whoever optimus prime may be, he seems to have a good critical grasp of GAFCON's latest bit; here is the bit from GAFCON dismissing the Anglican Communion's Covenant project, and here I quote optimus prime's point-by-point response:

I will begin with the most obvious critique: the drafters of this response have clearly missed the mandate of the Covenant Agreement (CA). The CA is not intended to address current issues; rather it is intended to provide a framework for establishing definitions of what it means to be in a relationship that is faithful to that which has already been given to us by God in Christ.
Next, the responders critique of the CA document as something “defective and not correctable by piecemeal amendment because they [its defects] are fundamental,” which is “theologically incoherent and its proposals unworkable,” is itself rather incoherent given the vague, broad brushed criticism provided and its already noted lack of understanding of the intention of the CA itself.
Now my critique by points: 1. This point is irrelevant. As discussed above, addressing current issues is not, nor has it ever been, the intended purpose of the document.

2. This issue of autonomy in communion is addressed throughout the document but in particular, it is addressed in the following section 3.2 and in the appendix: [deleted by me]

3. I have no idea what statement 3 is meaning to say. “The entire document, and particularly the statement concerning ‘the inheritance of faith’ in paragraph 1, is detached from the Scriptural narrative of salvation and redemption from sin, which Churches in the Communion have seen realised.” What exactly have the Churches in the Communion “seen realized?” “The unity of Christians flows out of the redeeming work of Christ and the incorporative ministry of the Spirit.” The introduction of the CA establishes this; although it could (and as responses have thus far suggested) be articulated more strongly. The entire document is attempting to argue that any structure we develop is based on the prior determinative reality of what God has done in Christ.

4. No any doctrine of the Church presupposes a doctrine of God. The first two sentences in the response are both misguided. The document has begun with a doctrine of God. These first two statements are liberal hog wash. The remainder of this paragraph is a rather obvious statement and I don’t see its value.

5. “Its preoccupation with institutional processes is at the expense of a proper sense of our corporate and individual accountability to God on the Last Day for proper custodianship of the deposit of Faith.” How does one purport to shape and form a corporate sense of accountability without developing a structure capable of accounting for our still sinful nature. How are we to move forward without institutional process? I would however agree that more should be included in the CA that speaks of our sin and God’s judgment. I would be particularly happy to see more that acknowledges our continual division and self proclaimed righteousness as the sin it is and that God is indeed judging our divided churches; both the liberals and conservatives for our lack of humility and charity.

6. Obedience to the Word of God. What does that mean? Liberals claim they are being obedient to the Word of God and that conservatives are not and vice versa. I am not going to argue that there are not biblical truths that we must obey: I believe there are. But this response provides a vacuous statement; the type the CA has sought to avoid by presenting a framework for the means of discerning the Word of God. Being obedient to the Word of God necessitates being obedient to its discernment within the body divinely given. It cannot mean individual interpretation: that is what has gotten us into this quagmire in the first place. It also cannot mean a propositional set of statements of faith: that does not account for the living dynamic between history, humanity and God.

7. Neither truth nor unity can be pursued in a mutually exclusive fashion as this response seems to imply. They go hand-in-hand. This response is absolutely vacuous in and of itself. It takes no account of nearly 100 years of ecumenical discussion concerning this issue of truth and unity, most particularly discussions at Malines, ARCIC, Ut Unum Sint, BEM. Without unity, the truth is simply obscured by our own shadow.

To summarize: This response is lacking in background, research, and coherent biblical and theological argument. It is clearly driven by a mistaken assumption of the intent of the CA document itself and a desire to set its writers in opposition to the “weeds” of the Church. Look out I say, for that log, it seems dangerously close to poking this group in the eyes. Where I ask, are the suggestions for amendments? Or is this simply a statement to justify a movement toward yet another division in Protestant Christianity? Shall we discuss this sin?

Not bad, though considerably to the right of my own position; this guy should be promoted to "Canon" somewhere. He goes on:

Actually jamesw, it is not; and I have that on good authority. Furthermore, it is evident by its very nature that it is not meant to address present issues but rather has grown out of an obvious and particular recognition of the challenges that lay ahead.

It is of course a document that will enable us to handle Communion controversies; however, its intention is not aimed at addressing crises, rather it is aimed at articulating the manner in which we engage one another in relationship.

Why should the issues be dealt with ahead of time? The Covenant is defining the requirements for living together in mutually accountable relationships that enable the discernment of the Word of God across time. If the extreme right or the extreme left choose not to enter into a relationship that demands charity and humility in articulating (speaking and living) their faith, then no Covenant can force people into this relationship.

Could the Covenant, were it in place 25 years ago, have addressed this issue? That is an interesting question. I would venture to say that it most certainly would. We must remember though, that this document is still in draft stages. To walk away from it is simply shutting the door to the opportunity it presents; it is a response of fear and protection rather than a response of courage and trust. Rather than walk, let us gird up with the faith that has been so graciously given to us, take courage and respond to the document as conservatives so that the Covenant Design Group cannot help but hear a constructive and humble plea for a polity grounded in Scripture and tradition (not an arrogant liberal dismissal - you should hear their arguments against the draft).

If we walk away and simply criticize the document, we will either end up with the route proposed by GAFCON which if you have read or have read commentaries on, is short on substance and practical means of ordering or we will end up with a rather liberal shaped Church. Either way we will shatter into many sects; not a fruitful or faithful way forward.

He writes clearer prose than anyone currently defending the Covenant process at ACI--though for all I know he has already been hired by them. There is more:

Hi Stephen+
[from Stephen]
That being the case, however, it raises the question of whether the covenant is a wise idea right now. A covenant presupposes trustworthiness and commitment on the covenanting parties. That is both the blessing and the deficiency of the covenant as it takes the stage now. It can’t do all that is needed in the communion today.

[from op] Actually I would suggest that this is in fact the genius of the Covenant; that is, the Covenant itself should not be ‘doing’ anything but giving us a Scripturally derived (one that still requires some work Scripturally) framework for what it means to be in relationship. We must then in faith, willingly enter into relationship in which all sides, liberal, conservative and in between must submit to God’s shaping of our discernment process across time. This structure has divine integrity (allows us to be shaped by God) by the fact that it leaves time and space for God to work. The players (all of us) have been limited in our ability to forge ahead with our own ‘vision;’ our power has been necessarily limited as Nicholas of Cusa ("The Catholic Concordance"), a conciliarist theologian of the late medieval Church argued was necessary to allow God to shape us. The Covenant, in following this vision (or so I believe), is attempting to equal the playing field to limit power and yet to also require a humility and self giving in discernment in decision-making.

I think that the only thing that will create (and should create) trust is faith and prayer. I think the Covenant enables us to enter with faith if we are courageous enough to accept. If TEC and the ACoC want to sign onto the CA, they will need to abide by its call to mutual accountability and to not acting according to their own ideologies. Because you’re right, we cannot force relationships (not only does it not work, it borders on Pelagianism). We must enter with trust and I think the CA creates the conditions necessary by limiting power and autonomy while giving us over through time and space, to God’s shaping.

I certainly understand the ‘suffering’ that forms your third paragraph. It is very agonizing. And I do indeed fear you may be right. This is why I so passionately hope and pray that we, as conservatives, might offer response to this document to help strengthen it and amend some sections that definitely need amendment. But to walk away or write it off is to turn our backs both on one another and on God.

And finally:

Allen - The critique, in its lack of offering constructive proposals for amendments, has indeed simply dismissed the Covenant.
Further the critique has erred in identifying what the “task” of the Covenant is. The problem is, predicated upon this faulty understanding, the subsequent critique lacks substantive merit.
But where is the section which deals with the case where a Province does not deal in good faith?
(3.2.5.d) to be willing to receive from the Instruments of Communion a request to adopt a particular course of action in respect of the matter under dispute. While the Instruments of Communion have no legislative, executive or judicial authority in our Provinces, except where provided in their own laws, we recognise them as those bodies by which our common life in Christ is articulated and sustained, and which therefore carry a moral authority which commands our respect.
(3.2.5.e) Any such request 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.
In addition to the appendix which provides the ‘teeth’ you are seeking; the ‘juridical force.’
There is also a background assumption that the Anglican Communon somehow represents the Church Catholic to the extent that a “general consensus” is enough for it to change the definition of “the faith once delivered.” I do not believe that the Anglican Communion can arrogate that status to itself.Nor do I believe that this is a status that the AC can arrogate to itself. Before I comment further, could you please explain how you are using the term “general consensus?” and what you mean by a “definition of the faith once delivered” (i.e. the Kerygma, etc).
If you are concerned that the Covenant would enable a Church subject to the social whims of its members with no conviction of biblical/theological truth, I would ask if you believe then, that the Spirit has abandoned the Church? Scripture tells us that God will keep us in the truth; but does this mean at all times and places? Perhaps the Spirit has abandoned us; but which parts? Just the ones we think are all liberal, but what if there is just one who has faith in those churches, would God abandoned even one of his flock? Perhaps in our divided state, we have all been left to God’s judgment, to suffer the humiliation of our arrogance and sinful division, stuck in a quagmire of unrepentant and continuous division. Perhaps when we’ve divided to the point where we recognize we’re not right but broken, we’ll be open again to hearing his Word and receiving his guidance. Perhaps that is what the Covenant agreement opens us to; recognition that all of us are so devoid of the truth that we are willing to submit not to being shaped by human structures, held back by human structure yes, but held back so we might be in a posture of receipt.

It does not sound like Radner or Seitz--is it Uffman? Who knows?

One oddity in all this is how GAFCON seems intent on splitting Communion conservatives; the GAFCON critique of the Covenant process seems aimed at undermining the efforts of Gomez, Radner et al and prying away institutional support for the Covenant such as may come from Howe and maybe Stanton et al.

But, as optimus shows, if that is the intent, the critique should have been a little more cogent. GAFCON was a gamble borne out of the growing weakness of a fading faction that had insisted on cutting off its own legs by overreaching, a bold attempt to seize lost initiative and change the flow of momentum. I think it is evident the GAFCON effort--so far--has failed. Maybe these documents were part of a continuing effort to assert some cognitive relevance in the Communion, but GAFCON's Primates have succeeded only in marginalizing themselves and their viewpoint, weakening its representation at the level of the Communion--and documents like these critiques of the Covenant process are so weak as to risk rendering GAFCON's viewpoint a laughingstock for anyone with the patience to read them through.

At this point, all that GAFCON has going for it is the power of its numbers, a power that does not depend on the articulation of a coherent and convincing theology for its efficacity. Thus, Williams and others will have to hold their tongues in check, lest the beast be roused to even greater wrath. As far as a credible conservative response to the Covenant process, it seems now that the ACI and Gomez' camp is the only remaining game in town. One must wish them well, seeing that--for some reason--GAFCON seems intent on burying them.

Harding v Chane

2008-07-18T16:28:00.009-04:00

One wants to hear more from Harding about "imperial pluralism," as it seems his piece criticizing Chane succeeds in engaging the Episcopal Church's current leading theology. Sure, the article is a bit polemical, but that is to be expected given the state of our community.

Chane's Move
Bishop Chane was quoted as saying:
I think it’s really very dangerous when someone stands up and says: ‘I have the way and I have the truth and I know how to interpret holy scripture and you are following what is the right way. It’s really very, very dangerous and I think it’s demonic.

Perhaps a poor choice of words; I suppose Chane should have done more to parse "demonic"--certainly an incendiary choice of words for a bishop at Lambeth. But maybe the article omits whatever nuances he managed to add. Regardless, Chane's basic point is not idiosyncratic, but expresses what--for around thirty years by my fallible reckoning--the Episcopal Church has adopted as its theology of choice. The category of the demonic applies to a created person's attempts to "seal" him- or herself off from God, as if effort could achieve the aseity proper to divinity. Chane could be picking the category up from Kierkegaard, or perhaps Tillich; who knows?

The Episcopal Church's leading theology, expressed in Holmes, Westerhoff, Griffiss, et al, extols the virtue of epistemic humility as the necessary mark of a finite person in relation to God. God, being radically free and unconstrained in his absolute power, is beyond finite comprehension--even in the event of beatification. In our relationship with God the Father, we must ever stand ready to respond in obedience to God's will for us, and never presume we comprehend the whole of what he has ordained. Thus, take a passage of Holy Scripture S and a period of time, t. Suppose God wills from eternity that the church understand S at t to mean XYZ; that is consistent with God willing from eternity that the church understand S at t' (later than t) as ABC--where "ABC" is contrary to "XYZ." For the church to complain How will we be able to tell? is understandable, but God--being omnipotent--is able to communicate with the church. The church's role is to listen and obey, listen and obey.

OK--so there is a sketch of the leading Episcopalian theology. Chane seems to be worried that someone claiming to know with certainty that S simply means XYZ not only infringes on the absolute power of God to ordain that S mean whatever he pleases it to mean (and only that can be Scripture's literal meaning), but also attempts to seal him- or herself off from God's commands. That attempt would count as demonic.

Harding's Counter
He writes,

John Chane charges the traditionalists with the crime of certainty. This is a commonplace. It is a corollary of the reigning intellectual culture among the intellectual elites of the West....

and that sounds right though a touch polemical; he then goes on to add:

[i]t is a consequence of the dogmas of post-modernism.

That is debatable--unless one wishes to date Postmodernism to the Early Modern period and include people like Bayle--the trope of uncertainty, and in particular uncertainty as applied to revelation, predates the likes of Lyotard and Derrida. Worse: one could follow the likes of Quine and other assorted analytic philosophers, and come away with a cogent general skepticism about ontology and moral value--but this would not be at all postmodern. He goes on:

It is based on the conviction that there is very little that can be known with certainty, perhaps just a very few “facts” of science, perhaps not even them. The dogma at work here is the ironic post-modern dogma of the certainty of uncertainty. Consequently according to this post-modern dogma, to claim certainty in the area of beliefs and values is immoral and especially so given the huge variety of religious and philosophical options....

The only part to take issue with is the formulation "the ironic post-modern dogma of the certainty of uncertainty." One might well pin this on, say, middle & late period Derrida, but I do not think it fits the Episcopal Church's position well. It's leading theology may look defensive: a modest core set of beliefs that are held with certainty are surrounded by beliefs and positions held without absolute certainty--but the core is there. Recall the Righter trial's verdict: Righter didn't violate the core, not that there was no core at all. A conservative might say in response:

(A) the core is absurdly thin, and missing necessary elements,

or maybe even

(B) the distinction between core and periphery is not defensible;

and the conservative may well contend

(C) the days of positivism are over--there is no need to be so defensive;

but the complaint

(D) there is no core--all is up for grabs,

seems mistaken as applied to TEC.

When Harding goes on to say "[t]his protest against certainty claims the moral high ground and sounds on the surface as though it is based on a generous tolerance" I strain to recall any theological defense of tolerance by any near-current, leading Episocopalian theologian.

The notion of tolerance--running from Locke up to today--presumes inter alia one side is convinced it knows the truth and the other side is thought to be mistaken in an especially morally troubling way, but that the side thinking it has the truth restrains itself from suppressing the others by whom they are troubled. Thus, tolerance is a virtue for those without a case of epistemic wobblies. For instance, if Nigeria's Akinola--certain in his interpretation of Scripture on homosexuality--were to decide nevertheless to rub shoulders with TEC's pro-GC2003 bishops at the Altar, that would exhibit tolerance in the relevant sense.

"Tolerance" seems to be the wrong word for what Harding is getting at; he might have spoken of the ancient skeptic's virtue instead: epoche, a la Pyrrho, or suspension of judgement. For it seems that Harding thinks of TEC, in my view misreading TEC's leading theology, along postmodern lines as skeptical about the ancient faith once delivered.

It would be wrong in my view to speak of "Episcopalian epoche" as if TEC's leading theology were a form of dressed-up Pyrrhonianism. Epistemic humility of the sort defended by TEC is consistent with having to take sides, make judgements, formulate definite interpretations with definite content, etc all stepping away from mere nomos, as TEC has done of late, whereas for an exponent of epoche, these things would be inconsistent--and there would be no core doctrine at all, however slim, for the skeptic.

The essential point about the Episcopal Church seems to be that when it takes those stands, it does not take them thinking itself to be infallible, to be closed off from correction by God's will. The actions TEC takes in disciplining a bishop, passing a resolution or condoning a type of action are ever taken to be defeasible. That is to say, the choice between absolute certainty and postmodern skepticism sets up a false dichotomy; pace Harding, there is terrain between the extremes.

But Harding has an ace:

It [TEC's leading position] is saying, in effect, "before we talk you must agree that your beliefs and values are the sort of thing that I say they are and I say they can never be more than one opinion among others. If we are to talk, you must give up all your truth claims before you come to the table. With regard to the rules of the table, I will be the final referee.”

That's mistaken, Harding thinks; he quotes Newbigin:

“In a pluralist society such as ours. . .any claim to announce the truth about God and his purpose for the world, is liable to be dismissed as ignorant, arrogant, dogmatic. We have no reason to be frightened of this accusation. It itself rests on assumptions which are open to radical criticisms, but which are not criticized because they are part of the reigning plausibility structure.”

That might work against a postmodernist or a theological pluralist. But TEC's position is--not yet at least--pluralist or postmodernist. Notice Newbigin's "any" in the quote. That word covers alot of ground--too much ground for TEC. The Episcopal Church has core doctrine, though maybe not enough for Harding; that is not to say it has no core at all.

Thus, it is not clear that TEC's leading theology demands all comers to the table first give up their unqualified truth claims, claims made with certainty. TEC might be better portaryed as saying something like "Your position is substantive and goes beyond our core doctrine; you better have a really good argument." And in a sense we have come face to face with our chief problem: a paucity of good theology. In our disputes, neither side seems capable of making a case with really good arguments--indeed, the structure of the arguments given is scarcely discernible. However, that does not mean there is no good argument to be made, or that with practice we would remain unable to speak for ourselves.

The polemical bit from Harding I spoke of above is here:

Bishop Chane’s protest sounds high minded and tolerant but it is in reality the rhetoric of the despot who is beyond rebuke.

Oh dear--this comes perilously close to calling Chane a despot outright, though Harding is merely accusing Chane of talking like a despot. I suppose it will entertain at least a few readers who need some good news in this Lambeth season: a utilitarian justification, alas.

The Rot in the 39 Articles

2008-07-17T19:31:00.005-04:00

It is well that Article XXI, present in 1571 and 1662, is omitted in the 1801 version (my brackets):

Of the Authority of General Councils. [A] General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes. [B] And when they be gathered together, (forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of God,) they may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture.

Recall the Jerusalem Declaration's points (4) and (6):

(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.

(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.

If I were a gambling man, I would bet point [A] in Art. XXI will be selectively "read out" of the 1662 BCP and the 39 Articles. But how far will GAFCON engage in selective reading? Should the whole of Art. XXI be omitted? If it were excised, that would seem sufficient to establish the legitimacy of critical reading in confronting formularies: formularies need not simply be taken as authoritative on their face. That is, we would agree excision in principle is permitted, and then we might argue about what is to be cut and what kept. However, the Jerusalem Declaration is silent about any such practice, giving the impression that all will be kept intact--I suspect a thoroughly misleading impression.

On the One Hand
Anyhow, the serious trouble in Art. XXI surfaces in part [B]--it is this bit which leads me to speak of the Articles qua part of the Anglican formularies as rotten. Presumably, the Articles were not found ready-made on golden tablets, and were not dictated by angels; they were produced by an assembly of men. It follows that Article XXI is self-referential in a certain sense. That is, in speaking of assemblies of men, it speaks of the assembly that produced the 39 Articles, and in particular Article XXI. Thus, Article XXI implies that it may be wrong--in effect, that the assembly of men that produced Art. XXI might be wrong about Art. XXI. That is roughly equivalent to admitting that there may in fact be an infallible magesterium or assembly. I am not sure such an admission was intended when the Articles were produced, or is intended now when the Articles are cited as authoritative. Nevertheless, it is logically implied. That is quite a remarkable implication, in my opinion, inasmuch as it had seemed to me at least that the 39 Articles expressed a moderate Calvinist take on the faith. For the admission of the possibility of an infallible magisterium would seem to commit anyone accepting the Articles to a view of ecclesial authority consistent with that of the Roman Catholic Church.

In fact, there is more. As Art. XXI implies the assembly producing the Articles may be mistaken, logically, given Art. XXI, the Articles as a whole may be read so as to be mistaken on all points. It follows, so far as the Articles are concerned, there may be an infallible magisterium, and such a magisterium would not be bound--ceteris paribus--to any point of doctrine expressed elsewhere in the Articles. That would mean strict adherence to the Articles is consistent with--indeed logically requires--accepting the possibility that other interpretations of the faith inconsistent with the Articles are true. That is, the Articles provide a foundation for epistemic humility--but is that the intention of GAFCON in taking them as authoritative? I think not. Of course, if one rejects epistemic humility, it may seem instead that as the Articles stand in the BCP 1662, they are radically self-defeating.

On the Other Hand
Most likely the assembly that produced the Articles did not intend to undermine itself and make a super-subtle endorsement of the Roman See--or of epistemic humility. Far from it.

I take it they simply did not notice the self-reference in XXI and the trouble it causes. Nevertheless, that instance of blindness to scope is not innocent, inasmuch as they probably intended the article to have a wide scope, enveloping assemblies of men in general, and at least those beyond the early ecumenical councils. To try and limit the scope to some assemblies but not others would be troublesome: what criterion could be accepted as plausible and cogent--and yield a non-empty set that excluded what probably were seen as tendentious Roman Catholic assemblies to whose authority the authors of the Articles did not want to be tied?

I do not know, but as a consequence of the incoherence in the Articles, it follows the problem of authority in Anglicanism remained open: i.e. mandating allegiance to an inconsistent set of propositions is not a solution. It probably also may be said in consequence that whatever authority was--and is--exercised in Anglicanism cannot have the Articles as a proper and sufficient foundation. That is, when someone quotes the Articles as an authority carrying some definite content, there is prima facie reason to think that there is a confusion: anything at all follows from a contradiction, e.g. the Law of Duns Scotus: from Q, it follows that if not Q then R--where R can be any proposition at all. Normally, it might be thought that citing Q and not Q--i.e. the Articles--as authority for accepting R--any proposition in contention--is suspect.

Bishop Robinson at St. Mary's, Putney

2008-07-15T13:16:00.002-04:00

It seems Robinson delivered the goods at St. Mary's; I had not heard much from him in the past in terms of preaching or theology, but it seems he does them well:

We should not be fearful for the church, for the church is not ours to win or lose. It is God's gift to us.

My homosexuality is not my sin - but I am just as frail and self-absorbed as the next person. I am not unworthy - I am made good by Jesus Christ.

Right here, in St Mary's church, Putney, I am going to divulge the homosexual agenda. It is Jesus!

Hints of a theology of the Cross, an evangelical sensibility, no? With a hint of eschatological inclusivism:

Peter Akinola and I are brothers in Christ, and one day we will be in heaven together. And we will get along, because God wouldn't have it any other way."

Here's +Fraser's take, which seems right to me:

What makes this person so interesting is that he has lost any sense that he is able to support himself spiritually through his own effort alone. His recognition of his "failure" to cope is precisely his strength. The theology is pure Luther: only when you recognise that you are unable to make yourself acceptable to God under your own steam can you collapse back upon God as the sole source of salvation. Later in the sermon, he described going from a meeting of the US House of Bishops to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, and being relieved that, at this second meeting, he could at last speak about God.

One thing: if Robinson can keep doing this, with God's help, the opposition to his ordination will seem incredible. It makes sense that in spite of everything the Episcopal Church would want him out front; the very fact of his presence--where he does things like this--does terminal damage to the efforts of GAFCON and the sour machinations of Radner. Indeed: Robinson doing this creates an audience for a critical reading of Scripture.

Anarchy in the UK?

2008-07-08T11:50:00.010-04:00

OK, not quite anarchy in the UK, but at least an eruption of sorts.That simmering pot of ecclesial stew--uncomfortably spicy but dependably stable--has simmered over its edges and spilled over its bounds. Or: the contents Williams managed to repress for so long have been emphatically expressed.

First, Father Dudley blessed a SSU between two ostensibly active gay priests; he was duly reprimanded by the relevant authorities, but to some conservatives it seemed Dudley had been merely slapped on the wrist. Moreover, it seems Dudley had not been the first (last paragraph in the linked article): blessing SSUs a covert practice already established in the Church of England? Then, following GAFCON, foreign bishops Venables, Orombi and Jensen crossed the Church of England's borders in an effort to woo parishes, clergy, laity, etc away from the Sees of Canterbury and York, prompting condemnation from Williams and Sentamu--and even several lashings from Wright. Finally, the CoE has committed itself to ordaining women as bishops, prompting worries that traditionalists will split to Rome or effect schism.

From the Anglican Communion Institute

It seems events have overtaken the old TEC (and Canada!) vs the rest of the Anglican Communion drama. Consider the latest emission (thanks, Katherine) from the ACI, here: the thing is dead on arrival. E.g.:

A second issue that requires immediate attention is the vulnerable state of those Anglo Catholic dioceses and parishes in TEC that do not believe that the ordination of women is in accord with catholic tradition.

Oh dear. And those within the Church of England? It gets better, believe me:

Though the issue is a disputed one, it is nonetheless the case that the Communion has judged this practice a matter of “reception” rather than "right". Within TEC, however, the ordination of women is no longer treated as a matter of reception.

Now that's rich. Shall we say "Within the CoE, however, the ordination of women is no longer treated as a matter of reception"? I think we shall. Finally:

If no remedy is provided them, two results will follow—the splintering of TEC and the Communion will continue unabated and the counsel of the Communion to treat the ordination of women as a matter of reception will have been rebuffed in a way that further weakens the claim of Anglicans to belong to a communion rather than a federation of churches.

Shall we say the same counsel applies to the Church of England? I think we shall; the CoE apparently has rebuffed the counsel of the Communion. Hey, by the way, did "the counsel of the Communion" come up during the debates at Synod, and if so, did the notion "have legs"? Or shall we say the notion is significant primarily in the minds of Seitz, Radner and Turner, who seemed to need it as a cudgel with which to bludgeon the Episcopal Church and Canada--will they now turn their rhetorical weapons against the Church of England? Will the Church of England have to join the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada among the banned in covenant proceedings? My, what would that look like?

After all, one could make a case that the ACI's initial item,

First and foremost among these is the already announced intention of a significant number of bishops within TEC to allow clergy within their dioceses to bless unions between members of the same gender,

is so broad that it snags or at least soon shall snag the Church of England. The key weasel word is "allow": if Dudley is not disciplined, then he should count as having been allowed by the bishops of the CoE to bless a SSU in their jurisdiction--just what TEC is accused of tolerating. Moreover, given the rather radical motions passed by Synod over ordaining women, is ACI still confident the CoE can be counted on to hold the line on blessing gay SSUs or ordaining actively gay bishops? Has not the CoE's position already demonstrably eroded with its toleration of gay civil unions?

Finally, notice how in their zeal to isolate the Episcopal Church, the authors conveniently leave out the Anglican Church of Canada--an innocent oversight? They also make no mention of other bishops in the Communion who seem willing to move in the Episcopal Church and Canada's direction on homosexuality: the Church of Ireland is ready to move our way, and is considering whether to allow gay unions. Scotland has long been close to TEC on the question of ordaining active gays--their Primate has an interesting theology--and recent comments from Primus Jones--as well as from the Archbishop of Mexico--call for tolerance on homosexuality. We can count on New Zealand, Brazil, South Africa, and much of Australia to be at least sympathetic. The ACI sweeps this support for the Episcopal Church "under the rug" without mention--why? It could be intellectual laziness or dishonesty, but it seems more likely that the covenant process under Gomez and the ACI's leadership needs the fiction of the Episcopal Church as a radical loner in its Communion narrative in order to get the covenant it wants in the end, namely--in their words--

a covenant that “is in line with our common classical Anglican heritage of biblical, historical and reformed formularies of faith and ecclesiology,”

presumably one that institutionalizes opposition to ordaining actively gay bishops, blessing SSUs, and that provides special arrangements for those opposed to ordaining women.

That strategy of isolating TEC, long pursued by ACI and other critics of the Episcopal Church, seems to have come undone with GAFCON expanding its efforts to target the Church of England: much of what animates GAFCON to deny TEC's authority will animate it to deny the CoE's authority--but why stop there? The ACI's latest missive would tolerate the formation of factions like GAFCON in the Communion commited to crossing boundaries to poach people, prelates and property: this is sublimated in their rhetoric:

as the recent GAFCON conference has shown, the sort of face-to-face conversation for which the upcoming conference is designed can, despite internal divisions, produce real results

"Real results" indeed; we may well see GAFCON "deny the authority" of Ireland, Scotland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, and on and on without end, as GAFCON's super-special Primates see fit: GAFCON as a machine geared up to destroy the remnants of catholic authority in the Anglican Communion.

The ACI means to resist schism, one supposes, by working the covenant into an instrument to appease conservative tastes: communion, maybe even more particularly communion with the Sees of Canterbury and York, means something or other to them: just what, in the wake of GAFCON's ecclesiology? Whatever: this missive, by catching the Church of England, Canada--and who knows how many other provinces in the short term--in a net designed to entangle the Episcopal Church alone aids GAFCON's efforts to sow division at the very same time it seems to weaken the covenant process by all but openly inviting factions to make it an instrument to their particular struggles. GAFCON has no monopoly on inept theology. Aren't there any adults left in the Communion interested in brushing these ninnies aside so that serious, cogent work on the covenant might get done?

Why the Sudden Rout of the Anglican Right?

Not long ago it seemed the fortunes of the Anglican right were waxing, and that TEC would indeed be isolated or expelled from the AC while being quartered by foreign efforts to poach parishes and dioceses. That seems like a long time ago, though of course Anglicanism's right wing will continue poaching because, having defined itself negatively, it only knows how to keep doing the unsuccessful things it has already done: failure sublimated again and again as "Renewal" will not rouse evangelical suspicion. The right overreached in its border crossing in the US, pace Wright's dismaying equivocations--but the right failed to learn from that, and now Canada and England are victims of right-wing aggression, an aggression that cannot see itself as it is, that cannot limit its lusts, an aggression incapable of moderation.

I have already noted the incoherence in GAFCON's program. At root the incoherence comes from another absurdity, so far as I can tell: wanting biblical authority to stand while wanting biblical authority to fall. Let me explain. GAFCON and its sympathizers make a point of the need to obey biblical authority: let the Scripture's plain sense reign on the issue of homosexuality. In this sense they wish biblical authority to stand, and will claim this authority is at stake. But, as duly noted on the Anglican Continuum, GAFCON et al obstinately refuse to acknowledge plain-sense Scriptural condemnations of divorce and ordaining women--and maybe even of abortion. In that sense they want bibllical authority--as they conceived it in treating homosexuality--to fall. And that is no accident--their integrity depends on holding together groups whose self-serving, selective reading of Scripture gives them their identity. In short, GAFCON makes the main issue to be Scriptural authority, on which it does not have a coherent and principled position. Logically speaking, anything follows from a contradiction. What would you like to "infer" from an incoherent stand on Scripture? Whatever you really, really want to infer: like a power to deny the authority of the catholic church (Jerusalem Declaration, #6 & #13).

Maybe--finally--parties throughout the Communion outside the Episcopal Church are waking up to what the Anglican right has unleashed. Even if they do not see it in quite the way I do, they may nevertheless sense that with GAFCON, the limits that should be there are not there, that something has gone off the rails, something is missing. That recognition is late, but welcome.

Criticizing GAFCON's Theology from the Right

2008-07-05T20:34:00.006-04:00

Logical consistency on theological issues is always difficult to achieve, especially if first principles are not in view. Thus, it came as no surprise to see Continuum published a piece by the Archbishop of the Anglican Catholic Church on GAFCON pointing out the Jerusalem Declaration's inconsistency from another angle. There is no doubt that Archbishop Haverland would find TEC's current positions in an even greater and more dangerous state of error--but that is not my point. Rather, with Haverland's writing in view, it seems clear even GAFCON's touted conservatism is merely an ersatz conservatism--going not quite far enough to achieve internal coherence from a staunchly conservative/traditionalist point of view.

That is to say, what kind of genuine Christian traditionalism could GAFCON actually intend to promulgate when

(1) it maintains "its silence concerning the ordination of women to the diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate"--for "all three Holy Orders are male in character,"
(2) contrary to the Jerusalem Declaration, "there are Seven Ecumenical Councils, not merely Four,"
(3) the document continues tolerance of divorce among its supporters when "valid Christian marriage establishes an indissoluble sacramental bond which cannot be broken save by death,"
(4) it declined to comment at all on abortion depite the fact "human life is sacred from the moment of conception to natural death, and directly willed abortion always is gravely sinful" ?

Moreover, the Declaration's reference to uniquely authoritative formularies is erroneous as well. He writes:

...all Anglican formularies, practices, and beliefs properly are subject to evaluation and interpretation in the light of the central Tradition. If both the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches reject something that some Anglicans believe, then that something probably is false, particularly if it concerns a matter of importance. Our security lies in the authority of Scripture as interpreted by the universal Tradition and by the living consensus of the great Churches, not in peculiarly Anglican notions.

Not bad stuff. There is more:

...while the 1662 Prayer Book has many strengths, it also has some notable weaknesses, including a truncated Eucharistic Canon, which the 1928 American, 1954 South African, and other later Prayer Books have corrected.

Which is not to say he supports use of the BCP 1979:

the 1979 Episcopalian Prayer Book, and many other contemporary language books at use in the official Anglican Communion, are radically flawed and are often subject to grave theological objection...

What is at stake here? How we should read Scripture and respond to Christian tradition: without clarity on Scripture and tradition, we are unlikely to be able to reason well on theological issues. GAFCON seems to read Scripture and tradition with an expedient,
selective conservatism:

actively gay bishops are a problem, but not female clergy,
blessing SSUs is a problem, but not divorce and apparently not abortion,
inventing a new gospel is a problem, but not gerrymandering authoritative councils and formularies.

That is, the reading of Scripture and tradition that enables dismissal of prohibitions on female ordination, divorce and perhaps abortion, and that engenders a "shop as you go" mentality toward authority in the church--namely GAFCON's reading--also enables dismissal of prohibitions on ordaining actively gay bishops and blessing SSUs. It's the same style of reading, the same type of treatment of tradition. In effect, GAFCON exhibits another inconsistency: if it were truly principled--that is, if it applied its way of handling Scripture and tradition consistently--it would tolerate the Episcopal Church and Canada; but of course it does not.

Of course, one might turn this around on Haverland: what about his reading of Scripture and tradition on slavery and usury? Note, the Roman See has never come out--to my very fallible knowledge, ready here to be utterly refuted--and said slavery was an absolute moral wrong. Would Haverland agree, given his criterion for sound doctrine--agreement with the Roman and Orthodox Sees--quoted above? I do not know; that is perhaps an argument for another time. Regardless of how he would respond personally, it seems GAFCON still has a problem.

Iker Embracing GAFCON?

2008-06-30T11:48:00.005-04:00

Iker's endorsement of GAFCON & its communique (6/29) puzzled me. Fort Worth should have, in my opinion, held out for something with a firmer grip on tradition. For it is surely a sign of our troubled times that Fort Worth should trade catholicity for GAFCON's heretical ecclesiology. Should we expect FiFNA-type Anglo-catholics in general to line up behind the Communique?

Closing Thoughts on GAFCON

2008-06-29T16:16:00.009-04:00

In spite of all the trouble that the Communique portends, I cannot help but feel rather pleased with the outcome of GAFCON.

It seems to me some comments--from those sympathetic to GC2003--correctly anticipate stepped-up, shameless efforts to split parishes and dioceses from the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, and perhaps others. The Jerusalem Declaration promises more border crossing: newly minted American purple (CANA, AMiA, et al) needs feeding. I suppose that is something to be upset about; after all, TEC has no sustainable protocol for handling separatist actions. Schori's ad hoc handling of Schofield and the DSJ points up shortcomings in the canons; recourse to the courts may end up undermining catholic ecclesiology in the eyes of the law. TEC will have to come up with sustainable procedures for easing disaffected reactionaries off to Africa, the Southern Cone, or wherever. But I assume that can be done; I have seen how it could be done in Central Florida with Howe. Working out such procedures should be a primary task of GC2009.

What's so encouraging about GAFCON then? I take no pleasure in what seems to be the inept phrasing of (8); I know the GAFCONites do not really intend to be as tolerant as (8) sounds. What then? They are still in the Anglican Communion. The very fact that the Communique makes GAFCON's essential activity out to be catholic border crossing & poaching shows that GAFCON is too weak to sustain schism at the level of the Communion and that right wingers in the US and Canada are too weak to sustain schism on their own without help from abroad. The best that can be done--after five years of turmoil--is a redoubling of efforts to create a vampire, a province in North America "parallel" in some sense to those already there whose life comes from stealing the life of the provinces already there.

Why is the existence of such a vampiric parasite encouraging? The weakness, the inability to point out any new kind of essential activity beyond the formation of a new bureaucratic institution--a Primates Council or some such entity--and the inability to offer positive content for self-definition show a movement that has lost initiative in the Anglican Communion. It is open for others outside GAFCON to seize intiative by offering the AC a positive form of activity--outside that of watching the parasite at work and cheering or hissing. This is Lambeth's task: what accessible positive form of activity is there? The answer is obvious: writing the covenant. You may frown, but hold on and see where I am going with this. If you disagree, you are free to come up with an alternative.

A second point: as I've mentioned before, the Jerusalem Declaration is heretical, at least in a material sense. Given the inept wording of point (8), one cannot--alas--credit the writers with surplus acuity. In particular, points (6) and (13) contradict, implying that the Declaration is theologically incoherent. So what, you ask? Ideally, the positive form of activity the AC takes up could press GAFCON on this incoherence, forcing GAFCONites to make a choice between different forms of coherence: (1) give up catholicity in order to pursue parasitism, (2) give up parasitism in order to remain catholic. My bet is some GAFCONites, those whose purple depends on parasitism, will opt for (1)--but many who can live well enough without parasitism will opt for (2). In other words, GAFCON can be split in the formation of a covenant on the question of catholicity.

What's the tension between (6) and (13), exactly? (6) commits GAFCONites to catholicity through allegiance to the Creeds contained in the traditional formularies to which (6) refers. (13) commits GAFCONites to denying the authority of those churches in the AC with whom they disagree.

Please note as an aside that the wording of (8) is so weak, it leaves the cause of border crossing unclear, inasmuch as TEC and the ACC have not violated (8) as it stands; unless (8) is amended, on its own grounds the Jerusalem Declaration implies the border crossings are unjustified. However, let's put that point aside for the sake of argument. I expect claims of rational consistency will not move GAFCONites to restraint.

Authority is a mark of the catholic church: if X is a church, X has authority, and if X has no authority, then X is not a church. It follows if TEC is a church, TEC has authority, and if TEC has no authority, it is not a church.

But is permissible to deny that TEC has authority only if TEC has no authority. That is, anyone wrongly denying the authority of TEC ought to say otherwise. Since (13) commits GAFCONites to denying the authority of TEC, and presumably the GAFCONites mean well, it follows they are committed to TEC not being a Christian church as a condition of the permissibility of their denying TEC's authority.

But the Episcopal Church is a Christian church; the members of TEC are Christians who ordain and are ordained, who baptize and are baptized, who give thanks in the Eucharist and most importantly, in their worship they accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. Moreover, by remaining part of the Anglican Communion, GAFCONites remain members of an organization that recognizes member provinces--still including the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church--as Christian churches. If they disagree with that assessment, it would seem GAFCONites would be obliged to say so; they would be obliged to say the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada are not Christian churches. But they have not said so. Sure, they have come close, but merely coming close does not count.

So on the one hand, by denying TEC's authority, GAFCONites are committed to TEC not being a Christian church, but on the other hand, TEC is a Christian church, and the GAFCONites' continuing membership in the Anglican Communion confirms their agreement with the claim the TEC is a church and is Christian. That is, the GAFCONites are committed to an absurdity: TEC is a Christian church and it is not a Christian church. The same goes for the ACC.

That absurdity is manifest in the praxis promised by the Declaration: border crossing treats the Episcopal Church as no catholic church should be treated. The Declaration's pet praxis denies in action what GAFCONites have committed themselves to in words by their allegience to the ancient creeds. What if in effect the Declaration rationalizes sin against the Holy Spirit--as the creeds name the Spirit as the agent of ecclesial catholicity--in the name of the Holy Spirit--as GAFCON explicitly claimed the Spirit was acting in its deliberations? Perilious indeed.

I believe GAFCON's Communique leaves their movement open to a crippling response via the upcoming covenant. Any covenant that refuses to take catholicity seriously, thereby colluding in GAFCON's attempt to rationalize--even institutionalize--sin against the Holy Spirit should be rejected out of hand. Any church submitting to such a covenant would have compromised its catholicity, thereby putting its very being as a church in peril. A proper respect for catholicity would seem a minimal condition of the covenant's acceptibility. It would seem a "no-brainer": the covenant should punish border crossing, implicitly recognizing the bankrupt ecclesiology of the Declaration as the theologically incoherent fraud it is.

the GAFCON Communique: They're Still In

2008-06-28T20:01:00.010-04:00

They are still in, and that is all that really matters:

We cherish our Anglican heritage and the Anglican Communion and have no intention of departing from it. And we believe that, in God’s providence, Anglicanism has a bright future in obedience to our Lord’s Great Commission to make disciples of all nations and to build up the church on the foundation of biblical truth (Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 2:20).

Fine by me.

True, there are some veiled threats further down, but the point is they are veiled, and surrounded by theological mush. For instance:

[I] 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:[II] 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. [III] 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.

I've added the brackets. Point [I] reiterates the opening affirmation of Communion unity, and--in virtue of its prominent placement here--should control the rest of the content in the paragraph. The threat, point [III], is not to be seen as contradicting (I): maybe these guys intend, say, to move the Communion away from Canterbury in the covenant process, or further in the future. Of course, in its ambiguity [III] also seems to voice the readiness and willingness of GAFCONites to split, had it been practically possible. The mush is in point [II]; nothing elsewhere in the communique explains what these things are taken to mean. The 39 Articles, the Ordinal, the BCP: what are they trying to accomplish by returning to these, exactly, and not some other formularies?

I suspect there are no other suitable formularies to which a return as here envisaged could be made; their importance at this point comes simply with the gesture of returning from where we are--presumably a very, very bad place indeed--to an earlier, purer time rather than with any special content these formularies have. In sum, the paragraph "turns up the heat" with a threat to the See and some ominous but indefinite mush, but overall it is still fine by me.

After all, they're still in.

On the Jerusalem Declaration
It would have been better for them to have stuck with the Creeds, or failing that, to have proclaimed something ostentatiously simple, like the Quadrilateral. There is a certain unseemly hubris in multiplying unnecessary entities; if the BCP, Ordinal and Articles are the standard, what are we doing with the additional rule? But they just had to have a "rule", so let's take a look at the novelty they cooked up all special-like for the occasion. I take it most everyone will agree with some of this stuff, namely parts (1), (2), (9-10), (12) and (14) of the new "rule":

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....
2. 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....
9. We gladly accept the Great Commission of the risen Lord....
10. We are mindful of our responsibility to be good stewards of God’s creation...
12. We celebrate the God-given diversity among us which enriches our global fellowship, and we acknowledge freedom in secondary matters....
14. We rejoice at the prospect of Jesus’ coming again in glory....

Some other things in the "rule" are infelicitously put, so although I know what they are trying to say--I think--the words come out wrong; still, no big whoop:

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.
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.
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.
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.

Again with the Articles, the Ordinal and BCP 1662; there's some possibly tendentious weirdness going on with the allusions to councils and creeds & apostolic succession, but OK. So we're pretty good with (1-4), (6-7), (9-10), (12), (14). That's ten out of fourteen: some substantial agreement, and maybe enough to work with.

That leaves us with some problems.

(5) is innocuous if it is read to leave room for inclusivism and is not meant to enshrine Substitutionary Atonement. Indeed, I read it as neutral on those points, given that Substitutionary Atonement could easily have been mentioned explcitly but was not, and inclusivism could easily have been ruled out by name so as to leave no question, but was not. So I'm fine with (5); good Anglican fudge! That's eleven out of fourteen: praise be to the good Lord and Savior.

(11) and (13) are just plain mean, committing GAFCONites to future strife and scandal:

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; this toys with denying the orders of those with whom GAFCONites have ongoing disagreements. In (13) we read "we reject the authority of those churches and leaders who have denied the orthodox faith in word or deed." The only way that the rejection promised in (13) is logically consistent with their allegiance to the formularies in (6) is if those with whom GAFCONites disagree are not really Christian and do not have churches except in name. Otherwise, they would be doing offense against the Body of Christ, putting their GAFCON allegiance before their allegiance to the
church catholic. Now, I have no evidence this inconsistency between (6) and (13) is intended--remember they are in the Communion in which they have said the Spirt providentially moves. That implies recognition of TEC and the ACC as Christian.

Thus, the inconsistency between (6) and (13) seems to be an instance of mere material, not formal heresy.

It should come as no surprise that GAFCON has--already--fallen into heresy, a heresy whereby they stand in contradiction of the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. Getting the faith exactly right without some measure of epistemic humility is awfully hard. And note: this is why you should not fiddle around with novel rules and creeds. What we already have is more than enough. While they get their theology together in upcoming months/years, they are still welcome to worship with me at the Holy Altar. We are patient.

With great perplexity I come to (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.

This is a monumental ignoratio elenchii. Same sex unions are not marriages; acceptance of (8) is consistent with GC2003 and with much after. There are liberal clergy willing to bless SSUs and who are clear on SSUs being different from marriages. In fact, is not this what recently passed in the CoE with Father Dudley? If we are to take (8)--and GAFCON--seriously, then TEC is in compliance with (8)--as is the ACC. Are Communion conservatives so tolerant of late that they will let this equivocation slide? Perhaps the wording is not an accident, but is intended: meant to accomodate the CoE evangelicals who might be canonically bound to recognize civil unions of some sort.

Whatever: (8) is confused. To maintain (8) while continuing to hold TEC is at fault for moving to permit the blessing of SSUs and ordaining actively gay bishops is incoherent, immersing the entire controversy over GC2003 et al into a miasma. Again, this is why fiddling with novel confessions is silly: the convocation looks inept.

The controversy has shifted to dealing with borders and limits to bad behavior in the Anglican Communion: how long will GAFCONites persist in the heresy embodies in the conjunction of (6) and (13), insisting on catholicity with their lips while denying it in their works? That is why their still being in the Anglican Communion is important. If they are serious about the Creeds--and I believe at least some of them are--then they will eventually come around to respecting catholicity as their dream of schism fades.

Another GAFCON Update: 6/24

2008-06-24T16:32:00.007-04:00

Poor Bishop or "Moderator" Duncan, who had addressed the GAFCON gathering as those who

recognize that the Reformation (Elizabethan) Settlement of Anglicanism has disintegrated. We know that we are at a turning point in Anglican history, a place where two roads diverge. One road is faithful to Jesus’ story. The other road is about some other story…The choice before us is a choice before all Anglicans. It is just as certainly a choice before the upcoming Lambeth Conference,

sounding a note open to, if not openly encouraging, a movement ending in full schism. He assailed "[t]he distortion of Anglicanism in the West – the deceit the Enemy has sown," namely "that Anglicanism should be the bridge between the Church and the world." Give him credit: Duncan seemed to mean it; he just received approval from the state of Pennsylvania for a new corporation, "the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh."

But while he assailed Anglicanism building a bridge to the world, his GAFCON comrade Nazir-Ali was busy extolling what sounds to me like correlationist, i.e. liberal, theology, saying

Translatability belongs to the very nature of Anglicanism. In the preface of the BCP and the Articles of Religion, every church has a responsibility to render the good news in terms of its culture.

If he keeps that up, he'll get an office at 815. Just another gaffe? Or a sign of theological incoherence accompanying the ambient political incoherence? Is our trouble as a communion rooted in accepting correlation at all, or do we rather need more of it?

Speaking of the dangers to Christianity of cultural immersion, I have to mention this press-conference exchange between Baxter, Akinola, Orombi and Jensen. There's capitulation rooted in prejudices, about which one has never bothered to attain a critical perspective:

Iain Baxter: You’re not aware of any who are in jail for being lesbian or gay?
Peter Aknola: I am not aware of any.
IB: But these are the laws in your countries.
PA: But where, give me an example?
IB: I can give you an example: one woman who has claimed asylum in the United Kingdom, she has applied for asylum, her name is Prossy, she is a Ugandan lesbian, she has been… first of all she was jailed, she was raped in the police station, before that she was marched for two miles naked through the streets of Uganda, the British government has accepted this, the fact that she was tortured, and have agreed this in her asylum application, but however they are saying she could be sent back safely to a different village in Uganda and she is appealing. That’s one example. The laws in your countries say that homosexual acts, actions are punishable by various rules. I don’t need to argue. Do you support these laws, or do you think they should be repealed?
PA: OK. Every community, every society, has its own standards of life. In ancient African societies we had what are called “taboos”, things you should not do, and if you break the taboos there are consequences. Alright, so in your Western society many of these have arisen but in some of our African societies many things have not arisen and this happens to be one of them. In fact the word in our language does not exist in our language. So if the practice is now found to be in our society it is of service to be against it. Alright, and to that extent what my understanding is, is that those that are responsible for law and order will want to prevent wholesale importation of foreign practices and traditions, that are not consistent with native standards, native way of life.So if you say it is good for you, it is not good for us …. If they say it is not right for our societies then it’s not right, and that’s it..

Cheap grace indeed: Akinola falling back on sheer moral relativism to excuse his participation in what he himself called "taboo," a relativism one would have thought incompatible with commitment to the Gospel.

Orombi sounds a different note, one even more confused. At first, sure, he seems to be merely agreeing with Akinola, adding that those oppressed by the law for their being homosexual are being moved back to proper godliness:

Can I just come back to say that, that’s an example given for my country. There’s very little influence to stop the legislation of a law, an institute, in practice by the church. The church’s practice is to preach, to proclaim, so that people who find themselves in a position where they go away from the word of God, the same word of God can bring them back to life.

But then he seems to flip out of the frying pan altogether:

I would be in trouble if I were to say to my people in Uganda that tomorrow I can officiate at a same-sex marriage in my church. First of all the church will be closed.. Two, I might even be fired from my job because the question they are going to ask me is “Have you not read the word of God? And teach us now.” Simply saying that the Christian faith that we practice, which was brought from the West, by the way, taught us what biblically sexuality is. We’ve embraced that faith, we are practicing that faith, and moving away from that faith would be a contradiction to what we have inherited.

He speaks--falsely, it seems to me--as if the Gospel and the moral obligations following from it are settled by what was brought from the West, or whether his church buildings will be closed, or even whether he would be out of a job. Incredible.

When the topic comes up again, Orombi simply sounds as if he has lost his grip on reality, prompting Jensen to jump in and say what neither Orombi nor Akinola could bring themselves to say:

RB: We’re not talking about freedom of expression, he was specifically referring to the use of torture and rape.
HO: I would not believe a thing like that is done in the public knowledge of the people of Uganda because the gay people who are Ugandans are citizens of the country and we would cherish the fact that we would want to send it our people. For some of those things probably you get information in England and we may not even get information, I don’t know how they get their information.
Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen: Can I add to that, because I think it needs to be said, on behalf of these brothers, if not by themselves, any violence against any person, is in Christian terms wrong....

In my view, Jensen's right to jettison Akinola's moral relativism and Orombi's mix of mercenary motives and flat-out denial and simply say the violence was wrong, period.

But it seems to me Jensen displays another type of cultural immersion, one First-Worlders have seen time and again in the polished equivocations of partisan press-conferences: the techne of the spin artist. It's not that there is anything wrong in the propositional content of his spoken paragraph; he's got serious polish:

I certainly have public condemned and will continue to publicly condemn any violence against any people and in particular gay and lesbian people. I am certain that this is, I understand, what Archbishop Orombi says and that is exactly the position and I am very glad that this opportunity has arisen for the question to be raised again because I thought it was not answered in the answers which were being given to the others side of the question. But I think I am right in speaking for all of us here and, indeed, if that were not the case I would certainly stand alone here and say it but I am sure I speak for all in saying that any such violence, any such behaviour within the prison system, for Christians of another variety, or whatever, is condemned by us.

He knew what needed to be said, and he said it and said it well--it's a perfectly formed and most likely sincerely felt bit. The problem is rather in the performative aspect of his utterace, which functions rather as a whitewash, as denial. There is sound evidence that Jensen in fact is not speaking for Akinola and Orombi. Maybe Akinola and Orombi are on pilgimage to a point where they will be able to sincerely speak what Jensen did, but there is reason to think they are not quite there with Jensen yet.

And that in itself is a grave problem; the future of the Anglican Communion, and the Episcopal Church, and the Anglican Church in Canada, and the Church of England to a large extent has been in the hands of those two--and their assorted ghostwriters.

It's been five years or so, and the Anglican right's leadership has not developed to the point where its members openly agree that violence against--and the political oppression of--gays is wrong. Jensen paraded his personal convictions at just the right moment; good for him, But it does not settle the issue. It is as if Jensen wove a story, a bit of narrative everyone would like to believe in because it would be so much nicer if it were true. But our really, really wishing we could count on Akinola and Orombi's moral convictions does not make it true that we can count on their moral convictions--indeed, Orombi seems to have tried to rationalize oppression. How many GAFCON leaders share their ambivalence? Is socking it to the Episcopal Church real good, and securing the private property of Minns' Virginia congregations on the side, that important? Surely not, surely not.

We should not let Jensen's skillful display distract us from what remains a very real problem in the Anglican Communion, a problem many suspected was there before GAFCON, and one which GAFCON has confirmed.

GAFCON update

2008-06-23T01:11:00.002-04:00

From GAFCON's website:

Akinola also emphasised that GAFCON is not going to break away from the Anglican Communion. “We have no other place to go, nor is it our intention to start another church.”

Who really knows what will actually unfold; a break could still come to pass. "The spirit is willing" but Akinola's comment, and the GAFCON site's giving that comment such high profile, seem to confirm suspicion that our Separatist brothers and sisters have lost momentum. If so, why? I do not suppose rhetoric of separation was insincere. Rather, if indeed the momentum for separation has waned, it seems the prospective leaders of the anticipated separation must have realized they held "losing hands": the costs of separation at this time outweighed the benefits. Perhaps not enough English--and American--evangelicals were on board.

Anyhow, failure to separate is dangerous to GAFCON partisans, inasmuch as a large measure of their strength comes from those who expected a separation now: true blue believers. Delay might disappoint them and further weaken the GAFCON faction--if the disappointed separatists are permitted to disengage from the drama of the Anglican Communion.

Thus, it seems to me that the leaders of the GAFCON faction will have an incentive to keep tension and conflict going. That will mean more negative hyperbole, more efforts to seduce rectors and bishops, more attempts to prise away parishes and dioceses amidst high-profile, international purple events: more of the same, at least as shrill if not even more urgent. And it will mean, perhaps, the GAFCON faction will have an incentive to participate at the Communion level in the formation of a covenant. I would not be surprised to see those who can still attend Lambeth with street credibility intact do so. To be brief, the survival of the AC does not mean peace in our time.

A SPREADing Weakness among the Separatist Faction?

2008-06-11T09:49:00.007-04:00

Something I recently noticed in the Anglican alphabet soup: SPREAD. Its call for a new Anglican communion disjoint from that based in Canterbury has gathered attention, both supportive at SFiF and critical at the ACI. I have little to add to Radner's excellent reply on behalf of the ACI; anyone taking the covenant project seriously will likely look askance at calls for pre-emptive schism.

Rather, I want to speculate--and it is mere speculation-- about what SPREAD might hope to accomplish with its acerbic hyperbole, coming on the eve of GAFCON. First, it seems to me SPREAD's criticism of Archbishop Williams will not garner much support outside an already committed base of extremist Separatists. In fact, its critique of Williams sounds so shrill it is more likely to drive the curious away than bring them into SPREAD's fold. That shrillness and its attendant consequences seem intentional, not accidental. Why would anyone intend to adopt a divisive, shrill tone?

Well, second, Anglican critics of TEC and the ACC are already divided among themselves. Some wish to work for a covenant, others wish to separate now. Those working for a covenant have the advantage of working with the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that advantage is hardly negligible.

Given the first two points, it follows SPREAD's approach is unlikely to gather new support from conservatives who wish to work for a covenant: witness Radner's reaction. Yet, SPREAD's acerbic tone is not entirely without positive effect for them. It seems, third, that critical hyperbole has become an Anglican trope of late, not just a curiousity at the SPREAD site, just because it has the effect of energizing the base. How else to break up parishes, fracture dioceses, fragment provinces, and split the Communion when most of the people occupying these levels in the church would otherwise find a way to get along? The base must be made to believe the other guys are not just mistaken or wrong, but malevolent and evil. The aim is not to bring new folks inside, but to make sure the folks already inside stay inside.

But why should SPREAD be so concerned to energize its base in such a costly manner? It just may be its base is losing its ferfor for separation--that is my fourth and final point, to which the first three lead. SPREAD's appearance is a sign of weakness, and in particular a sign of a willingness at GAFCON to stay within the AC. On the face of it, it would be no surprise if GAFCON's Separatists got "cold feet": the moderation of the covenant proposal recommends itself, and it is only prudent to examine alternative courses of action with judicious circumspection. Their base is willing to compromise and refrain from the requisite leap; they must be "reminded" of how awful the Anglican Communion and Williams, TEC and the ACC really are. Restraint is precisely what extreme Separatists behind GAFCON do not want: in effect, nothing happens except the beginning of another ten year wait for the next Lambeth, during which time Separatists will have to find some way of retaining their momentum.

Wandering in the Kraalspace

2008-05-27T00:24:00.007-04:00

This post made the rounds among right-wing blogs recently; it included this tasty tidbit which I thought I'd share:

The sterile evil that now controls the Episcopal Church will never willingly allow Christian belief to remain unmolested. Conservatives who think that they can negotiate some sort of truce, or even a ghetto existence within the larger, demon-possessed church, are deluding themselves. As C.S. Lewis wrote, the sort of "agreement" these people come up with consists of saying "Oh, you can believe what you want, as long as you do it alone," and then they mutter under their breath, "and we'll see to it that you're NEVER alone." It's in their nature to try to eradicate every voice that answers their lies with the truth, because they rightly sense that it is the only way that they can survive.

The post, you might agree, is typical of where the church is right now: different sides consigning the Others to Hell-bound demon possession. I'd wager there is not much love for errant Episcopal lefties in Kraalspace's post; it is not just that one can dig up such strident hyperbole with ease, but rather, this is our witness to the world, how the world sees we love one another. I'm put in mind again of Nietzsche's On the Genaeology of Morals; I'll quote just a choice bit:

In my view, Dante was grossly in error when, with an ingenuity inspiring terror, he set that inscription over the gateway into his hell: “Eternal love also created me.” Over the gateway into the Christian paradise and its “eternal blessedness” it would, in any event, be more fitting to let the inscription stand “Eternal hate also created me” — provided it’s all right to set a truth over the gateway to a lie! For what is the bliss of that paradise? . . . Perhaps we might have guessed that already, but it is better for it to be expressly described for us by an authority we cannot underestimate in such matters, Thomas Aquinas, the great teacher and saint: “In the kingdom of heaven” he says as gently as a lamb, “the blessed will see the punishment of the damned, so that they will derive all the more pleasure from their heavenly bliss.”

Or do you want to hear that message in a stronger tone, something from the mouth of a triumphant father of the church, who warns his Christians against the cruel sensuality of the public spectacles. But why? “Faith, in fact, offers much more to us,” he says (in de Spectaculis, c. 29 ff), “something much stronger. Thanks to the redemption, very different joys are ours to command; in place of the athletes, we have our martyrs. If we want blood, well, we have the blood of Christ . . . But what awaits us on the day of his coming again, his triumph!” — and now he takes off, the rapturous visionary:

“However there are other spectacles — that last eternal day of judgment, ignored by nations, derided by them, when the accumulation of the years and all the many things which they produced will be burned in a single fire. What a broad spectacle then appears! How I will be lost in admiration! How I will laugh! How I will rejoice! I will be full of exaltation then as I see so many great kings who by public report were accepted into heaven groaning in the deepest darkness with Jove himself and alongside those very men who testified on their behalf! They will include governors of provinces who persecuted the name of our Lord burning in flames more fierce that those with which they proudly raged against the Christians!

What to say of a Christianity whose obedience is constituted in part by the anticipation of such a "blessedness"? Something has gone wrong, and it is not just a matter of the Anglican Communion's koinonia going off the rails, but rather another manifestation among Christians of a by-now predictible failure. Tertullan, Aquinas, me, you: it is not as if one can say simply "Whoops! My bad, I got it wrong; maybe the Others are not among the Hell-bound demon-possessed, literally."

Consider this opuscule as an alternative to the polemics you'll find here and at Kraalspace: Frank C. Strasburger's Why the Anglican Communion Matters, which seems to me one of the very best things written recently about why we should strive to remain part of the Anglican Communion. But more on that in another post.

Pace the strained analogy to Hindu myth, the post alludes to Luke 11:17:
But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth. (KJV)

Point taken, but what "kingdom" here below is wholly given over to Christ? I would not presume to be any better off than the Apostle Paul, who wrote in Romans 7:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me.

So I find it to be a law that when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? So then, with my mind I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.

It is sad to say, but the Church here below shall ever be a divided kingdom filled with members each of whom is a little divided kingdom, and there is no other Church. To put it bluntly: here below we shall not find that final peace we crave, but only civil war. The fact that the Episcopal Church is divided in numerous ways is...well, it is just what one would expect. It is divided between conservatives and liberals, between Xs and Ys, which is to say between sinners of varying stripes and spots. What's new?

That is a bit too blunt, of course; Paul's plaintive tone looks forward to the Pax of the Eschaton, and in the meantime to a via crucis, a continual entrance into repentance and incremental--if even that--movement toward conversion here below.

I take it Kraalspace, thinking a sterile evil drives a demon-possessed Episcopal Church, thinks Episcopalians are not on the via crucis. How she helps herself to that vicious conclusion I do not know. The point is, she might say, not merely that Episocpalians are divided like everyone else, and that their denomination is divided, but that there is no devotion to the way of the Holy Cross, to repentance and conversion: their experience of pauline division is sterile that way, contrary to Paul'a admonitions.

That could only be true if the sacraments of the Episcopal Church were invalid, if all the Baptisms in the strong name of the Holy Trinity, if all the Eucharists, Ordinations, acts of Penance, last Rites, and so on were not at all genuine signs of grace, but were entirely worthless.
After all, repentance is a part of all of these sacraments.

To deny that our sacraments are signs of grace is to deny that the Holy Spirit works through them--that is what I take Kraalspace to imply. Not the Holy Spirit, but demons; surely Kraalspace does not really mean it:

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’ And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered. (Mark 3)

Again (Matt 12):
All the crowds were amazed and said, ‘Can this be the Son of David?’ But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, ‘It is only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons, that this fellow casts out the demons.’ He knew what they were thinking and said to them, ‘Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man? Then indeed the house can be plundered.

That is dangerous territory for anyone--me and you included--to wander through; it would be better "to err on the side of caution" when throwing sacraments into question:

‘Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin’— for they had said, ‘He has an unclean spirit.’ (Mark 3)

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, people will be forgiven for every sin and blasphemy, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. (Matt. 12)

Who can say whether the Other will repent? We can't know; so far as we can tell it's open and it is not our place to put on the God pants and decide who's damned and who is not. Therein is a vision of where we can head if we really wish: an Anglican Communion descended into utter blasphemy, doing Nietzsche one better by anticipating not just obstinate pagans--this not being bad enough for our jaded tastes--but even other Christians burning and screaming endlessly in Hell.

Somehow, nevertheless, there is a possible--even accessible--future where Episcopalians and Kraalspace, et al are in real communion, one written, as it were, in the heart (Jer. 31). That future seems worth working for.

The Case of Pastor Sean Allen

2008-05-21T22:23:00.005-04:00

A bit of local news: Sean Allen, the Baptist Pastor of a rather large congregation right down the road from where I'm typing this in DeLand removed the church's flag along with the national flag from the sanctuary.

As a result, he received at least three death threats, including one in his home mailbox; he's now on extended leave. Note, he did not order the national flag removed from church grounds altogether.

In my opinion, Pastor Allen is 110% right on this; the nation's flag should be outside the congregation's sanctuary: a no-brainer.

If you have a moment, please consider making some intercession on his and his congregation's behalf.

A Bit from Pastor Wright

2008-05-14T02:58:00.003-04:00

...a Youtube link to part of one of his sermons...The center seemed to be his bit on Malachi 3:6:

Where governments change, God does not change. God is the same yesterday, today and forever more. That’s what his name I Am means. He does not change.
God was against slavery on yesterday, and God, who does not change, is still against slavery today. God was a God of love yesterday, and God who does not change, is still a God of love today. God was a God of justice on yesterday, and God who does not change, is still a God of justice today. God does not change.

The climax at the end of the selection recounts Amos 1-2, & esp. the turn in 2:6-8 to Israel. It's interesting to see that the old trope retains such raw, explosive power.

Moving into a Bifurcated Society

2008-05-04T00:03:00.004-04:00

An interesting link from Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Law, arguing that the middle class is vanishing away.

She's a very good, very clear lecturer.

Why is her thesis relevant? Well consider, for instance, one of her factoids: children this year, in fact since the late '90s, are morelikely to live in a household undergoing foreclosure than undergoing divorce. Is there a point to devloping an intentional pastoral response at the parish, diocesan, or provincial level? Is there any even implicitly relevant part of our liturgy?

I think there are many obviously relevant points of contact. To take just one example: dispute over what constitutes a genuine marriage is at least the occasion behind the current turmoil in the Anglican Communion. Behind the vitriol is a worry--among other worries--that marriage is weak and getting weaker, that the weakening of marriage weakens families and tends to damage their members, and that tolerating civil or ecclesial gay unions would add to a permissive social current, further weakening marriage: a downward spiral. At least that is one of the worries--I don't wish to take issue with it here, though I think the concern is misplaced.

Pace the question of whether there is some valid worry there, ask: which vectors contribute most to social chaos and the enervation of marriages and families? It seems to me we should be able to agree that economic stress and chaos do more damage than tolerating gay unions, and a communion genuinely concerned with marriage and the family should be able to manage a proper, proportional response.

A Reading of the PB's Easter Message

2008-05-02T18:53:00.004-04:00

That is always a danger, perhaps, of confusing the Kerygma, the Gospel proclamation, with the moral response the Gospel requires--which may well vary in particulars as the vices besetting the hearers of the Word vary.

For the PB, it seems Evangelism essentially includes moral appeal along with the proclamation of the Gospel. I'm speculating, but her basic idea might be that the Spirit operates with prevenient grace outside the bounds of the church to prepare potential disciples to respond to their Lord's voice.

They are prepared in many cases by a graced sense of conviction of sin not yet fully or clearly articulated. The Gospel tagged with a call to repent--delivered in preaching or proclamation by example appealing through mimesis--articulates the previously dim moral sense of being vicious, bringing it to clarity: at that very moment one is ready to begin conversion--the seed is sown.

She is betting--it seems to me--that our special sins, the grotesque distortions we are particularly prone to, have to do primarily with Gluttony: materialistic excess in hedonistic consumption that ends up abusing creation in defiance of divine will.

We already dimly know we consume too much, we waste too much, we take more than our fair share, we are emotionally addicted to materialistic pleasures and therein conceive ultimate happiness...and we already in a dim sense know better, and in a dim way know we are courting ultimate ruin in mortal sin.

To hear a clear call to repent from these sins of Gluttony in the name of Jesus is to know the Shepherd's voice as authentic, and to be positioned for an authentic response. Her proclamtion in the letter is patterned, so far as I can see, after an evangelical on the left. Her messages' critics, if I am right, may be caught up in actively resisting her call to repent. Witness their talk about her Easter message as if it were only concerned with cow flatulence.

I'm not kidding. Here is a partial list:

StandFirm
Midwest Conservative Journal
Hills of the North
VirtueOnline (see the comments)
Daily Camera--see Kendall Harmon quoted in the body

But ask yourself, why are cow farts a problem? Might it be because we are Gluttons--we can't help but connect our high standard of living to high consumption of beef, for example? A rather earthy fact the PB might well be onto and which her critics miss. But a timely fact as well: people are starvingto death for lack, in part, of the resources we spend on ourselves, growing fat cows for our fat selves.

Indeed, if you read her critics, going on about bovine flatulence, as in effect justifying our pluriform practices of Gluttony in spite of themselves and without really knowing what they are doing--ironically enough given Dean Turner's theme--as if her critique were some catastrophe, as if Vegetarianism or even a reduction of meat consumption were literally unthinkable, their "critique" of her Easter message appears, I dare say, in a rather new light.

Just an accident? Or a conscious shift to the ad hominem style?

2008-05-01T15:39:00.011-04:00

An observer to our Anglican unpleasantness might well have thought--since around the last HoB meeting in New Orleans--that the various Separatist factions had "overplayed their hands," fracturing among themselves along various lines, losing wider sympathy in the Communion and in our modest province with repeated border-crossing, squandering the prima facie good-will initiatives of Rowan Williams, pursuing the Realignment Agenda at the expense of the Windsor Process, presenting a chaotic spectacle while trying to drag out dioceses, etc.

All that remained was a long, cold burn-out: the sickening vision of expensive court cases going on and on, more finger-pointing and mean-spirited, hyperbolic accusations of apostasy, attempts by very unhappy right-wing radicals to poach congregations, more creative alphabet soup from Asia, Africa, South America, and the UK, etc etc. More of the same, getting more and more boring, more and more tedious.

But now maybe the venomous ad hominem attacks on PB Schori by Dean Turner and the memo now circulating the HoB--aimed at bringing Schori to trial--herald something new, something rather more exotic, something needed to ratchet excitement back up among the jaded Colosseum crowd of the right-wing echo-chamber, hungry for more blood sport.

It seems Bishop Robinson is still Rowan Williams' favorite scapegoat. When the cohesion of the Anglican Communion is at risk, and it falls on Rowan to say something, you can count on him shifting attention to Bishop Robinson being made to pay as an object of blame somewhere in the speech or document. So it comes as no surprise to see Williams trot out the scapegoat mechanism again. Of course, trading in sacrificial gestures can be dangerous--people given over to literalism might get caught up and take that type of thing too seriously; so it is reassuring (I'm being sarcastic) to hear from Williams that literal sacrifices of active gays are not called for; symbolic sacrifices are quite enough. This sort of thing passes for episcopal ministry--no wonder he has to go out and make a case for the mere relevance of the church: golly, don't mention ethical relevance to Dean Turner: who knows what he'd say next? Anyhow, the problem of relevance is rooted pretty close to home; his text does not show much awareness of the bitter irony. Is laughter appropriate?

How many times can Robinson get scapegoated before the scapegoating loses the desired cathartic effect? It doesn't turn the head and catch the ear like it used to, perhaps. A new scapegoat is needed; certainly the right needs a more attractive lamb. This is where PB Schori comes in.

If she doesn't start looking out, they'll make damn sure she gets...a shearing.

Make no mistake: for Wingers of all persuasions pushing this crap, millions of dollars in assets are involved on top of millions already throne in, careers are on the line, an awful lot of face is at stake given the rather dark means employed--without a shouting throng in the Colisseum willing to pony up for these hucksters, it will all dribble down the toilet, circling the tidy bowl with exquisite slowness at ten year, supersized Lambeth-style intervals.

What better sacrifice, what better scapegoat than PB Schori? And in a year where Senator Clinton has a high profile too, it seems to me the prospect of leading her to the Altar must promise the right wing quite a strong measure of cathartic release from strife, anxiety, infighting. Surely, and this is the true measure of its effect, the right wing, having failed to unite around Christ, can at least unite around Schori.

Maybe it is so; I could well be wrong. It could be intentional right now, or it might still just be coincidence, something taking shape, a new message, a new promise of unity, a new hope for the disaffected, a new focus and context for old Scripture:

And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him— provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel.

Do you, dear reader, really think Dean Turner and the rest of the throng will relent--much less repent or apologize--when they read this from PB Schori? In her Pentecost letter she seems to go out of her way to reassure anxious conservatives. That is the right thing for her to do. Even so, I can't help, suspecting Turner's "black is white, white is black" style as indicative of what's typical, to fear the worst.

Turner's Ad hominem

2008-05-01T11:34:00.007-04:00

It is quite shocking to see Turner--a seminary dean!--stoop to tendentious criticism ad hominem. I do not think the charges against her stick, and I have no idea what psyhcological tic moved Turner to such excremental effusions. It's as if the ACI has become an ideological, partisan mouthpiece like the American Enterprise Institute or the National Review at exactly the time it is supposed to be working with the interests of teh whole Anglican Communion in mind.

Perhaps his writing is "a sign of the times," a sign of the church dividing into factions, a sign of its members left and right taking on merely institutional personae in an effort to extend and centralize power in the name of their particular version of the Tower of Babel. Who knows? It's difficult to resist responding in kind to Turner--very difficult--but it is worthwhile to resist the degeneration of our common life into internicine strife, strife that Turner's piece seems to invite.

With that ideal in mind, one point from Turner might merit further comment: his criticism of her easter message, which you can review here. Turner's criticism seems a nearly perfect instance of the ecclesial division between the growing low-church, left-wing evangelicals and other factions. He writes,

If, in this instance, she did not know what she was saying, then one must conclude that she does not understand the central tenets of Christian belief, namely, the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection. If, however, she does understand what she is saying, she is suggesting a novelty that forces one to ask if her version of Christian belief is in fact recognizable as what Christians through the ages have believed and professed.

Notice please what I've underlined--a false dichotomy along the lines of "Either you are with me or against me," and a mortally dangerous one for Turner to take, as his employment of it panders to the reader's pride, inviting the reader to try and take up a position he or she should never take up in order to stand in judgement on the Presiding Bishop.

I assume Christian tradition is nearly unanimous in proclaiming that the Resurrection of our Savior is a mystery of faith that is impossible for us to intellectually comprehend in this life here below--and in some quarters, the beatific vision is taken to include an ongoing process of growing comprehension of such mysteries in the face-to-face presence of God: a vision for the next life, not for this life. I'd wager nobody understands what is said when the Resurrection is proclaimed--there is always much that is not understood, and probably some that is wrong.

But the fact we lack understanding does not mean we understand nothing about the Resurrection--and in particulcar our ignorance does not preclude us from referring to the event in proclamation, in preaching, in liturgy and prayer, in pastoral letters. That is why Turner's dichotomy is false: the fact one does not understand the Resurrection obviously does not mean one fails to understand anything about it. His extremism panders to the readers' pride, indulging hubris--can any reader, can Turner himself, be any but at best marginally better off than the Presiding Bishop? And--ironically--could readers really be even marginally better off and indulge in Turner's type of condemnation without inconsistency, inasmuch as he must--absurdly--insist the miracle can be comprehended by us in this life?

He goes on to say that the Presiding Bishop's Easter message is inconsistent with orthodoxy:

If, however, she does understand what she is saying, she is suggesting a novelty that forces one to ask if her version of Christian belief is in fact recognizable as what Christians through the ages have believed and professed.

I am speechless at Turner; he goes on to quote the PB, who wrote:

How can you enact the new life we know in Jesus the Christ? In other words, how can you be the sacrament, the outward and visible sign, of the grace that you know in the resurrected Christ? How can your living let others live more abundantly?

And one might have though that would have been enough for her message to be "in fact recognizable"--what is novel about procaliming the Resurrection? What is novel about living the new life we have in Jesus? What is novel about making our lives a sign of God's presence--and Jesus' presence in particular--in the world? What is novel about seeing Christian life as a life of service? About knowing grace in the Resurrection? It seems whatever the Presiding Bishop has to say will be viciously interpreted by such critics as Turner.

For instance, what seems to unhinge him is the thought that being an Easter people obligates us to live responsibly in God's creation. He writes:

This means for her that each member "consider how your daily living can be an act of greater life for other creatures." This one can do by living in a way that allows others to live more abundantly. Indeed, it is by living in this way that one fulfills the promise of TEC's baptismal covenant to respect the dignity of one's fellow creatures. Concretely, a commitment such as this means paying attention to "the food we eat, the energy we use, and the goods and foods we buy, the ways in which we travel."I note only that the significance of the resurrection of Christ is here presented in entirely moral terms.

He reads her message in the worst light he can manage, as if she were reducing the Easter message to environmentalism--that's why he uses the term "means" instead of something like "implies"--rather than saying, more reasonably it seems to me, that she sees living with a commitment to ecological resposibility as an entailment or implication of the Easter message. He seems completely blind to the disitinction--and that blindness is essential to his carping.

That is, once you replace his term "means" with "implies" you will see the Presiding Bishop is right, obviously right. On Scriptural grounds alone we are justified in taking ourselves to have moral obligations to our environment. It is not ours; we are its stewards, standing with God or in God's place--thus it seems at the beginning on the Bible, in Genesis, and at the very end, in the Book of Revelation when creation is ultimately renewed, and between, where nature is pictured as sharing in our fallen condition and finally renewed in the working out of Providence, groaning for redemption in the meantime.

But Turner bizzarely ignores Scripture, and even seems to flatter himself into believing the Doctors and Fathers of the Church share his apparent, perhaps merely occasional, ignorance. That's hard to believe, of course; he must know Scripture and tradition better than he lets on here: he simply must, right? How convenient for him, and how inconvenient for the church which must correct such distorted readings of Holy Scripture and Church history, which must try to undo the damage he does by inciting scandal and division.

However, I'd bet Turner is not alone in his criticism. What is at stake, it seems to me, is style--we've seen precious little of substance floating through Turner's piece, but what comes through is a clear, set-in-concrete difference of style.

In particular, Turner and his sympathizers seem dead set against finding any implications for environmentalist critique in the Easter message or Kerygma, whereas the Presiding Bishop and her sympathizers seem dead set in favor of finding such implications. There is a real question here about whether one of these camps is right; I think it's a no-brainer: PB Schori is right on Scripture alone, and even more obviously when one considers Scripture in conjunction what we know from science and philosophy.

Indeed, as you may know, the Episcopal Church has already set out a Catechism on creation, endorsed by Schori and even Kendall Harmon: true; they agreed on something. It's here; to see the endorsements one must look at the back cover, which can be seen if you order the text here--about $5.

A Brief Note

2008-04-27T21:38:00.002-04:00

From the Financial Times, of all places:

Oil’s steady rise from below $15 a barrel in 1999 suggests that the world can weather price rises without significant harm to inflation or growth. A higher price makes oil exporters richer and oil importers poorer, but provided the prices of other goods adjust smoothly and workers do not demand higher wages to reflect their lower standard of living, then there should be no lasting effect on inflation.

Indeed.

Another Illustration: High vs. Low Church

2008-04-24T10:47:00.005-04:00

The topic of hunger is replete with Gospel and sacramental--particularly Eucharistic--overtones of course, and possesses a rather specific Anglo-catholic resonance; consider typical Anglo-catholic practices like reserving the sacrament, adoring the Host, fasting before and after the Eucharist, and so on. The doctrine of, and devotional practices around, the real presence of Christ in the sacraments implies the importance of the doctrine of the Incarnation for Anglo-catholics, I should think, and it goes without saying that there is a tradition of Christian socialism at home in Anglo-catholic spirituality. It is not at all as if high churchfolk have no resources from which to draw in addressing the concrete monstrosities of hunger, malnutrition, and starvation.

Having said that, I should mention Anglo-catholicism's public face in the US--which probably is constituted largely by Fort Worth and the like rather than, say, Affirming Catholicism types like Griswold--likely does not give the impression of being sympathetic to socialist intervention on any level of society.

The leftist evangelical is bound, however, to be struck forcefully by news of Haiti's government falling from food riots, food riots erupting in Yemen, development ministers urging steps be taken to address a world-wide food crisis, Walmart in the USA "rationing" rice, and--recalling Barth's mention of holding a Bible in one hand with the day's newspaper in another--to feel Christians are duty bound as Christians to do something now. They might feel the MDGs are highly relevant as a moral response to the kerygma, even concomitant to living faith. You might find them celbrating a Eucharist with an MDG banner behind the Altar instead of, say, a banner of Charles I behind an altar, a banner of choice at the rather Anglo-catholic St. Clements. Yes, one could work out the social relevance of Charles I with, for instance, the reissue of Trevor-Roper's provocative biography on Laud on hand--even so, so what? That kind of virtuosity is, and will most likely ever remain, too much of a stretch for many in the pews.

There is a difference here, I'm convinced, between high church, Anglo-catholic responses to news of global hunger and left evangelical responses--even if both embrace the virtue of almsgiving. For instance, moving afield from Anglicanism, consider some well known authors who seem to me typical of these different approaches. Onn the low-church, evangelical left:

Ron Sider, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?

and one of my favorites: Rich Christians In An Age Of Hunger , which came out in a new version, it seems, here.

Speaking of reissues, don't miss this one, whose timing--considering the real and terrifying propect of global economic chaos--is exquisite. And the list could be extended with works from Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo, among numerous others. My point? Well,

(1) This left evangelical stuff is well done and immediately accessible. It does not require the kind of familiarity with ritual that goes with smooth celebration in Anglo-catholic parishes ("Just when do I cross myself around here?") or even, say, using the Daily Office at home--much less familiarity with the technicalities of Eucharistic or Incarnational theology (what I mean by the "metaphysical theology" embedded in the Creeds). Yet this stuff is solid enough to stand as a credible articulation of what a life lived under the Gospel really looks like; it is sufficient qua moral response to the kerygma.

That is to say, it's not just catechetical; it's the didache--from the left evangelical point of view.

Thus, (2) the left evangelical point of view has its own coherence and cogency quite apart from Anglo-catholic sensibility, even if the two are, as I think, compatible and even mutually reinforcing. Moreover, it seems important to note left evangelical moral sensibility, going light on metaphysical theology, stands a good chance of appealing to modernists--say, those schooled in and sympathetic to the scientific method--in a way high churchfolk insisting on high and not simply aesthetic views of the dominical sacraments, anthropology, the church, ordination, Incarnation, and the Trinity could not. Saying "this high stuff is a pretty part of our story, so let's keep these claims around in our liturgy and common life" is quite different from saying "this high stuff is literally true, and you had better come around to believing it, brothers and sisters, if you know what's good for you." The latter is apt, I'd contend, to offend a modernist--and the left evangelical might not ever get around to saying the latter.

So, (3) the left evangelical point of view can always become detatched and in practice within a denomination, foreign and even competitive with other points of view, like the high church, Anglo-catholic point of view. This is already happening in the Episcopal Church with mutual ministry--which could easily lead to lay celebration, communion without baptism, and preaching MDGs as necessary moral response to living the life Jesus wants you to lead.

On the basis of (1)-(3), it seems the left-evangelical movement will likely gather momentum in the mainstream and in the Episcopal Church, eventually becoming the majority voice heard in the prayerbooks. One can, I think, already see this among our Lutheran friends; their new prayerbook seems to me to lean in a left evangelical direction.

What we do not need as a response to this development, if it comes to be, is more fracturing and splitting from Anglo-catholics. That is what is most distressing about how Fort Worth is responding to the rise of left evangelicalism in the Episcopal Church. I presume deals could be made with Griswold et al, and Fort Worth-types could come to make uneasy peace with Affirming Catholics. But PB Schori is definitely not another Griswold; her tenure represents, to me, the ascendency of left evangelical spirituality in our church. Left evangelical spirituality is dangerous to Fort Worth-types in a way left Anglo-catholicism is not--dangerous enough to drive them to do very un-Anglo-catholic things, like pretend the Anglican Communion is a church. The issue of how we may yet live together will not go away anytime soon.

NB "High church" is a bit ambiguous, as is "low church." Granting one may have high church baptists, reformed folk, and so on, I'm conflating high church sensibility with Anglo-catholicism for convenience, to give the term some concrete sense, and low church sensibility with evangelicalism likewise, ready to admit other parties are kicking around.

An illustration: High vs. Low Church

2008-04-23T08:12:00.004-04:00

The question? "Why do we celebrate the Eucharist on Sunday?"

Here's how the Episcopal Church's liturgical officer, the Rev. Clayton Morris responds:

The worship life of the Episcopal Church is ordered in a series of rhythms. The liturgical year is punctuated by seasons: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost and Ordinary Time.

From Advent to Pentecost, the life and ministry of Jesus is the thematic focus, Sunday by Sunday. From Trinity Sunday until the last Sunday after Pentecost, the weekly gathering of the community reflects on how it can "seek and serve Christ in all persons and strive for justice and peace among all people," in the words of the Baptismal Covenant. The week has its own rhythm.

The Book of Common Prayer calls the church to daily prayer, providing offices for morning, noon, evening and night. The prayer book also calls the church to gather as a congregation once a week to celebrate Eucharist.

Why does the church gather around a table with food and drink in its primary act of worship? Because God calls the church to a ministry of reconciliation. The church is called to restore the dignity of creation. It is all about feeding and being fed. It is all about making certain that all God's children are safe, whole and nourished. The ritual breaking of bread in the midst of the assembly reminds us of our task while it embodies its reality.

In its early history, the church always celebrated the Eucharist on Sunday. For a host of historical and circumstantial reasons, weekly Communion fell out of fashion over time so that, by the time Anglicanism was transplanted to the North American continent, Sunday morning worship without Communion was common. The drafters of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer were very clear about restoring the Eucharist to Sunday morning as a way of underscoring the church's ministry in the world.

So, as faithful Christians, we use the Daily Office in some form, alone or in community, to say our daily prayers. On Sunday, we gather as the body of Christ in the eucharistic assembly. We take bread, bless it, break and share it. Then we take our nourished bodies and souls into the world to do the work God has given us to do.

There is some stuff here that looks straightforward but is not, and could be unpacked--I've put it in boldface. This type of explanation strikes me as low, left evangelical, and rather well done for what it is. Notice a critical and, it seems to me, high-church reaction from a layperson on Fort Worth's Standing Committee (empahsis via boldface added by me):

This article written by the Rev. Clayton Morris, liturgical officer for the Episcopal Church, concerning “Since You Asked: Why Do We Celebrate the Eucharist on Sunday?” (Episcopal Life, March 31, 2008) is shocking in its explanation of the Holy Eucharist.
This explanation could apply to any secular gathering or meal where the goal is to make sure that “all God’s children are safe, fed, nourished, and whole.” This could be such things as a food bank project or any number of community gatherings or meals.
This has nothing to do with the Christian meaning of the Eucharist! Where is the saving, atoning death of Jesus on the cross in this explanation? Where is any mention of Jesus’ Body which was given for us and His Blood which was shed for us, as a final and complete sacrifice? Where is even a simple word about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist? Where is any mention of our part in preparing to receive the Eucharist – “earnestly repenting of our sins, being in love and charity with our neighbors, and intending to lead a new life . .?” And where is any word about forgiveness of sins, strength, and amendment of life granted to partakers in this blessed sacrament by our Lord and Him alone?
The above explanation of the Eucharist has nothing to do with the holy sacrifice of Christ’s Body and Blood in this sacrament. It is appalling in its omissions.

The blog Apostolicity reporting this exchange presents it without comment, as if it did not need one: just another in a long series of events no longer needing elucidation. That is the saddest thing about it, I think; the layperson from Fort Worth sees only a complete negation of proper doctrine, a line of sentences completely secularized, having literally nothing to do with the genuine article. It might be natural for the layperson from Fort Worth to take the additional step of suspecting the Episcopal Church is apostate, or slipping into secularism, or committed to another religion altogether.

I'd disagree with the assessment from Fort Worth; it seems to me if the boldfaced items from Rev. Morris' piece were unpacked, they would coincide with the core concerns of the critic's piece. The difference is one of style (low-church evangelical vs. conservative high-church) and general emphasis or direction (left vs. right), not one of substance. The church catholic ought to be able to include both peacefully.

Social Justice From Below

2008-04-20T18:51:00.005-04:00

Recently I made this point elsewhere in another context, but on reflection it seems worth making again here. At times one hears complaints that parts of the Episcopal Church are stressing social justice too much, and especially at the expense of the church's really essential business, its sacramental life. I'm sure there are abuses where, say, the social justice preacher is a closet Zwinglian, but one must be very careful treading over such ground. Treading on the territory of social justice we are NOT merely touching the Ethical, even if the words give that impression; we are touching the Religious, and one ought to take off one's shoes in the presence of God's desire that justice be done.

It does not really seem that difficult to tie concern for social justice to sacramental life, seeing that every normal Sunday Eucharist begins with an offering; i.e. the labor of the church community is sanctified with the Real Presence of Christ and returned to the community, sent out into the world to continue work as the body of Christ.

There are a number of themes integral to the Eucharist and the notion of justice–note how multiple Exchanges and Labor (even Objectification) are essential to the sacrament, how Communication of the Elements could bring up questions of what constitutes a fair exchange, how the collection of the offering implies a notion of common good, how the presentation of the elements imples a notion of representation, etc.

There is no–there cannot be–an apolitical or a politically neutral Eucharist.

Granted, loosey goosey lefty preachers might preach social justice and be too dull to notice the sacramental context in which they preach is soaked with the political. And how could it be otherwise than soaked when God is so clearly The Sovereign in our Eucharistic prayers? Just how could one fail to notice Christ the King?

But there is also a loosey goosey mentality abstracting the Eucharist from the political, as if real labor and real money and real paychecks and real exchanges were not actually involved and actually sanctified, as if it were all just symbolic or even pretend. Surely a priest with such an odd mentality can celebrate a valid Eucharist--no problem there. However, given the essentially political nature of the Eucharist, given that any political/sacramental dualism necessarily fails whatever the celebrants' mentality, given that discerning the body in Faith must carry the weight of a political commitment where witness could make a martyr, it seems fair to ask: what kind of faith goes with such a mentality? To the point: is it possible to be committed to Christ as Lord--as Lord--and Savior and not be politically committed precisely on account of one's commitment to Christ? Sure, insofar as commitment here below isn't simply binary as the question seems to imply. But insofar as discerning the Body must carry political meaning, and one is obligated to discern the Body as a condition of partaking in the Eucharist, an apolitical mentality at the Altar seems out of place.

Two Vey Brief Notes

2008-04-14T09:14:00.005-04:00

(I.) Is this right--the Roman Catholic Church should be taken to teach that slavery is not unjust according to, and is consistent with, the natural law? That seems to be the gist of "Development or Reversal?” by Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J. in First Things' October '05 issue.

(II.) Given that this blog has been rather critical of +Radner's recent efforts to help formulate an Anglican covenant here and here (and see this on Seitz), it may be of interest to see how +Radner replies to my criticism, here.

Holmes: What Is Anglicanism? (Ch.s 3, 4, & 7)

2008-04-09T15:36:00.011-04:00

Whence authority in the church? How can one know the church's authority? Holmes in Ch. 2 refers to councils, to epistemological worries, to the need to cultivate what amounts to epistemic humlity, to the need for accepting vagueness as the price for avoiding tyranny. "Sure" you might say, "but it's all rather bloodless." Where is Christ in it, and the Cross?

the Incarnation, ch. 4

Holmes notes Tillich once called the doctrine of the Incarnation "the Anglican heresy," dramatizing Tillich's distance from what should be "a central doctrine to Anglicanism" (25), and--it seems to me--implying the innovations of Robinson, Borg, and Spong, et al. who in various ways deny or drastically reinterpret the doctrine of the Incarnation, are peripheral to the core of the Episcopal Church--pace its more strident critics.

Nevertheless, commitment to a high, Chalcedonian doctrine of the Incarnation would seem to give even strident critics rather significant common ground with the likes of Holmes and those high churchfolk who might be tolerant or supportive of GC2003 and who think roughly as Holmes does. It seems to me, for instance, that arguments about GC2003 generally have not been carried on from mutual acknowledgement of the Incarnation as even potentially decisive. There seems to be a presumption the doctrine is broadly irrelevant to the issues in play.

Even though "we will never plumb the depths of God's true purpose in becoming humanity," (27)Holmes says we can and should nevertheless accept the doctrine's implications. To begin with, Holmes writes as "God created everything that is," it follows "[t]he material world is good." That is not to say, and indeed rather rules out, that, as pantheism would have it, God is identified with nature; Holmes rightly sees the Incarnation within the doctrine of creation as incompatible with pantheism. Rather, God works out his purpose "in and through creation, and yet [that purpose is] incomplete in and not infrequently thwarted by nature." (27-8)

For Holmes, the "image of God in humankind is the presence there of the logos of God" namely "the ability to act in a self-conscious or reflective way," and the "principle" of this is Christ himself. (28) Though defaced by sin, "[w]e do not believe that this [the image of God] is ever totally destroyed in us." (28) That is quite significant, rendering "insignificant those who struggle against the great discoveries of science...." (28) We should not see human reason as so damaged by the Fall that its scientific exercise is somehow unreliable, and we should expect science and the faith to be, ideally, compatible; there need be no incompatibility between them.

Still, "[w]ith the ability to reason comes the ability to sin," in effect to refuse "to serve with God as co-creators, partners in bringing to fulfillment his vision for creation;" instead in sin "we impose upon each other and the world in general our personal preferences, with no concern for God." (29) God created us for partnership with him; this is "announced" (29) in the Incarnation. Indeed, even if we had not sinned, Holmes holds "God would have become flesh." (27) The material world, and God's partnership with humanity in the ongoing work of creation, are important enough to enjoy a kind of priority to sin and its effects.

Somewhat mysteriously, even tentatively, Holmes writes we should understand "the Incarnation embraces the totality of life," namely "the entire experience with all its conflict and ambiguity." (29) He means to speak of evil; God, Holmes seems to say, permits evil in the world in order to work good through evil. This was so even with Christ; "Christ's passage into the darkness we call Hell," Holmes notes, "was not an abstraction" or "playacting" but "a confrontation with the terror of nothingness both within and without;" Christ was "staring into the face of evil" and at Mark 15:34 made "an authentic cry of pain"--the fully divine being also fully human. (30) God knows the evil of the world, the evil from which we suffer, first hand, and nevertheless still creates, still works his purpose in the world; God does not sanitize the world or give it anesthesia to knock it out in the meantime, so to speak.

The only proper response to this, for Holmes, is "dread": "[t]he Incarnation teaches us to live into the fecundity of dread"--"the mystery of God's darkness." (30) The darkness "in us" is also "in God," Holmes says (30). That is not to say God sins, or is malicious or sadistic. Perhaps the point is that the futility, the waste, the pain of evil are part of our experience being human, part of what we must go through "armed with the cross of Christ" (31), and God in Christ has not insulated himself from this part of who we are, but has even gone so far as to take it into who he is.

Holmes writes we should not think of God in "sanitized" terms, so that "God becomes", for instance, "a southern gentleman"--a Compson man, perhaps. Actually, for what it's worth (and I apologize for any offense in advance), it is quite interesting to contemplate the Compsons of The Sound and the Fury and Absalom! Absalom! with Holmes' meditation on the problem of evil in mind. But that's work for another day.

A proper vision of God's darkness, Holmes hopes, preempts a "debased Anglicanism" that "confuses cultural ideals and values with the mind of God." (31) Rather, with the Incarnation in mind we should understand that "Christ transforms culture, he is not a projection of the culture"--indeed, a "radical incarnationalism" yields a religion that "keeps us on edge" returning continually to "the Cross of Christ," (31) a religion spreading an awareness that "never allows us to take our rest, but calls us to rise up and seek the promise." (32) Christ is, as it were, present on the outside among those who suffer, and in particular among those who suffer as he did at the hands of agents of an evil, sinful culture. Any church in solidarity with Christ is there with him, on the outside as he was, prepared to suffer as he did. For with Christ, as with the church, the evil in a culture is not there to be tolerated or forgotten, but transformed even at the cost of suffering, even great suffering.

the Bible, ch. 3

Holmes claims that for Anglicanism, "the authority of the Bible is without question" but "hearing what the Bible says is not a simple matter"--its "fresh and telling message" is "so difficult for us to hear." (23) Part of the problem is with a kind of resistance from the readers. To hear what the Bible says we have to be properly oriented to it. We should "understand ourselves" in the sense of being open to having the Bible examine and reprove us; we "have to be willing to let the text call us and our pet theories into question." (22) Being open to having the Bible criticize us implies "we have to risk our interpretation within the larger dialogue" rather than rest content with "private interpretation," even if that means we end with more questions. (22-3)

Moreover, and perhaps more subtly, we have to be careful to read the Bible "as whole" lest we "allow ourselves to cherish our favorite book" or verses, "dismissing those that do not appeal to us" and gerrymandering a reading of Scripture to fit comfortable prejudices, insulating ourselves. (21) Anglicans should have, and Holmes claims normally do have, a "discomfort with the use of 'proof texts'." (20) Our practice of reading Scripture according to a lectionary helps here, he notes--another reason for the Daily Office, if one is needed. (21)

Thus we might fail to hear the Bible, Holmes seems to say, on moral grounds by culpably presuming our way of life and our understanding is already sufficient. Failure to read the Bible whole--and to actually study the whole of it, and failure to leave our cherished ways and readings open to reproof are not merely intellectual errors. It follows we ought to be constantly ready for reproof from Scripture, and reading Scripture in general should not be a matter of coming to a final understanding, isolated from the need to revise and even begin anew.

But we may also fail to hear the Bible by failing to "probe its mysteries." (23) We should not only aim "to understand the words" and what they meant when they were written, but we also should aim "to understand the author" in terms of "what the author would be likely to think and do, given his culture and society," as with such an understanding we can see "how he builds his reality." (22) The aim is to avoid imputing meaning to the text that it could not have had, or would be unlikely to have had, given the concrete, historical reality of the words of the text and the text's author(s). Holmes notes "there is no perfect text of the Bible," and we should accept "the cultural conditioning of the books of he Bible as self-evident." (19) Thus, the "authors and editors of the Bible were historical human beings with the normal biases we would expect." (19) We are obligated to attend to historical criticism in reading the Bible--a reading neglecting the warts on the text and the authors is not just unreliable but irresponsible.

These conditions for reading Scripture well-- in his words probing its mysteries and letting ourselves be touched by it--are consistent with understanding the Bible as Holmes holds it should be, namley as inspired. That is not to say he advocates "verbal inspiration," as if "every word was dictated by God." (20) Rather, his phrase is "plenary inspiration" (20). That is, read whole, the Bible is inspired to convey a certain story, and in conveying the story it has its authority.

We are to see it telling "the story of a God who reveals himself in the history of Israel and finally in Jesus of Nazereth," which is also "the story of God's love for humankind," a story that "confronts us, convicts [us] of our sin and calls us to new life." (20) In the text, the text within the church telling this story, the church has "the record of God's personal self-disclosure of himself to us," a disclosure that "recounts a lover's longing for the beloved" and "if we are to move beyond the words to experience that love, it is the power of the story and the rhythym of the poem that will draw us there." (21) Grasped by the story this way, it "can be a means of God's saving grace changing the lives of those who read it." (19)

the episcopate, ch. 7

Holmes argues that bishops are necessary not for the being or even the well being of the church, but rather its full being; going without an episcopate does not make a community non-Christian, but instead merely impedes its relationship with Christ. (54) Though each of the four orders of the church--counting the laity--"represents the church to God," bishops priests and deacons "also represent God in Christ to the Church, " and the ministry of the priest and deacon "is an extension of the bishop's" (55), implying that the bishop has a special responsibility, greater than that even of the priest and deacon, to represent God in Christ to the church. Those "in Holy Orders" according to Holmes "do not merely perform the functions of the church" (55)--they "are the embodiment of a transcendent Word" (56): "high doctrine of the episcopacy" indeed.

Holmes seems to derive his understanding of the episcopate from that of Hobart, whom he celebrates not only for invigorating the once moribund practice of the episcopate in this country, but also for rendering it theologically defensible. For Hobart and Holmes, going "beyond simple biblical proof," the episcopacy is not a matter of "tactual succession" where apostolic power or authority, conceived in material, mechanical terms, flows through bishops as through a pipeline, pace the Tractarians. (53) Bishops embody the Word by their "profound symbolic power"; a bishop is "the real symbol, of the universality of the church" (53). The church, being "the primordial sacrament of Christ" is obligated to "transcend the immediate time and the particular place" so as to be "a historical incarnation of the eternal Lord in all times and all places." (53) Strong words: he seems to understand the church in these quotes to be the Body of Christ in a strong sense, not a merely metaphorical or figurative sense.

Holmes sees the episcopate as symbolizing the church's peculiar transcendence in which it "incarnates" the Lord always and everywhere. He seems to mean that without bishops, the church's effort of presenting God in Christ would remain abstract, and to that extent defective. That is--and here I'm piecing bits together on Holmes' behalf--whereas the bishop, being designated as an apostle, embodies or at least ought to embody a transhistorical praxis, a way of life going beyond "cultural expressions" and ""purely national interests." (53)

Laity, for instance, standing with the bishop, participate in that concrete, transhistorical praxis. Or, in other words: the church brings Christians into its transhistorical reality primarily through participation in the praxis of its bishops. And not just laity--"[p]riests and deacons cannot reproduce their own kind. Their ministry is an extension of the bishop's" (55). The serivice ministry peculiar to deacons is an extension of the bishop's ministry, and the parish priest "serves there as the bishop's representative." (54) It follows, Holmes notes, that bishops are especially responsible not merely for the discipline of the church required for retaining its continuity in catholicity, but especially its teaching and preaching, wherein the bishop "speaks out of the universal experience of the church" so that the church is enabled to "transcend the immediate situation" and hold onto "a catholic vision." (53)

On Holmes' model, "authority flows both from the church and from God and is rendered incarnate in the life and ministry of the bishop" (56); Holmes does not conceive episcopal authority apart from subordination to the church community as a whole. Still, with such a view it is not much of a surprise that he objects to the Episcopal Church's polity; he claims in TEC often "we expect our bishops, rather than calling us to a new awareness of what it means to be the people of God, to assure us that we are all good people." (56) This alleged tendency to the election of mediocre bishops is rooted, he claims, "in the American system of electing bishops," a system which reinforces a tendency "to look for someone who will please." (56)

Evidently Holmes would not be averse, ceteris paribus, to reforming our polity so that it would be less democratic and less responsive to the will of the laity, at least in choosing bishops. He writes "the constitution of the Episcopal Church as a result of the inordinate fear of prelacy so limited the bishops as we know them that they have relatively little real power." (52) Here I have to disagree, having some knowledge of Bishops Schofield, Duncan and Iker--and some would add PB Schori. The episcopate's powers can be circumscribed and checked without impairing their essential symbolic function.

I recall Holmes' earlier point (Ch. 2, 15) that authority in Anglicanism should be exercised through councils; accountability seems essential to the proper exercise of episcopal power. The issue might be the location of the council to which the individual bishop is accountable: the national province, or something larger? We have here at least the roots of an intuition contrary to Williams' seeming ecclesiology, which saw the bishop and diocese as fundamental to the church, separable from and prior to the province. If accountability points "upward", to the necessity of embedding the diocese in a larger structure if the bishop is to move the church toward its full being, subsidiarity would seem to point "downward", toward embedding the diocese in the lowest possible level of conciliar authority. The result, so far as I can see, would be to embed the diocese in a province wherever a province is available, rather than in some larger entity.

Putting all of this together

I think Holmes is pretty clear in pointing out that bishops and councils will not yield clear-cut, much less infallible, specific answers to problems and questions vexing the church or the world. In particular, he might say it is just wrong-headed to seriously expect Lambeth, or TEC's GC, to pronounce on the absolute truth about whether actively gay bishops may be ordained, or whether the church may perform blessings for SSUs. That is to wrongly conceive their authority.

For example, the bishop--charged with teaching the faith--who turns to the Bible in order to find the answer, God's truth, about whether an actively gay bishop may be ordained in a rule the way one would turn to the canons or better, the statutes of traffic or maritime law, has made a mistake about the authority of the Bible. Reading the Bible as it should be read is to take it as a narrative, and that places the Bible wholly in a genre rather different from that of traffic law.
However, the bishop who reads the Bible as delivering a narrative is positioned to ask about ordination or the blessing of SSUs; it seems hardly Holmes' intention to silence the Bible by insisting on its narrative character for the church. One would be asking, in effect, how are we being called to continue this story? Oddly enough, I think Holmes and NT Wright are "on the same page" with regard to hermeneutics, which is to say the strategy offered is potentially politically neutral.

Of more interest to me, at least, is Holmes' general picture. It seems he pictures the bishops of a province leading the church there in a "radical incarnationalism" that seeks to continue the biblical narrative by discerning where culture requires transformation and then actively confronting and convicting culture, taking up the Cross and accepting whatever pain and confusion results, all in an obedience to Christ that waits not for infallible deliverances about what is to be done, but takes stands in willingness to repent when needed. It goes without saying such a church would be politically active in its mission--and it seems to go without saying as well that Holmes would not recognize an episcopal office apart from prophetic duty.

Holmes: What Is Anglicanism? (Ch. 2)

2008-03-30T22:25:00.003-04:00

Holmes believed the reticence of what he called the Anglican sensibility to be compatible with there being--and our pursuit of--truth about how God is, truth not merely relative to or located within the space of a particular way of seeing God, but absolute truth. We should not be surprised to find ourselves faced with the question Holmes raises at the beginning of his second chapter: Is this experience true? That is, from within our way of experiencing God, it may seem clear that some theological proposition Q holds, for instance that an actively gay priest may be elected bishop; we should ask whether Q is true, or merely what seems true given the limited perspective of the relevant way of seeing God.

To figure out whether Q is true Holmes requires us to appeal to an authority. One might take a
single member of the church, like the Pope speaking ex cathedra on matters of the faith or morals, to be an infallible authority guided by the power of the Holy Spirit, or one might take any individual to be authoritative who reads Scripture and is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but Holmes would have us reject such sources of authority. He takes "the Puritans" to be his
principal target--people stressing the sufficiency of the individual, inspired reader of Scripture. On that view, Holmes thinks, Scripture can be read without regard for the tradition of its interpretation, and it yields a certainty beyond science-bound human reason.

Instead, Holmes holds out an ideal strategy of reasonable interpretation. Human reason, illuminated by grace, is capable of discerning truth inasmuch as the Creator is himself rational, and our reason is "seeded" by divine reason--our rationalilty "participates" in divine rationality. We should see nature and the supernatural not as really distinct, disjoint realms, but rather as complementary and "continuous" so that the "sincere pursuit of truth opens God's mind" to our understanding, whether in theology, math, biology, or any other field of inquiry. Holmes notes "heresy trials are alien to us" in that we may trust natural theology has a sufficient foundation for our confidence that the truth can come out with sincere inquiry.

I suppose his idea is basically Thomist in spirit: divine reason operates like a Platonic Form, serving as an exemplar modelling genuine rationality for us to imitate and reflect in partial, fragile ways which may be, via grace, enough like the model that truth may be accessible to us, though Holmes is careful to say saving knowledge requires revelation if we are to possess it. Anyhow, the likeness is one not of univocity but analogy. Being a scotist I'd contend for univocity instead, but nothing depends on the univocity/analogy distinction at this level of generality.

Reasonable interpretation cannot be carried out by the individual alone; it requires, Holmes claims, "collaboration." As we consult the text and see what others--and "others" here must be rather broadly conceived so as to include not just theologians & scholars in academia, but unschooled lay believers, secular scientists, et al--have said, we immerse ourselves in an interpreting community. For Holmes, human reason is social by nature, to the point where private interpretation would fall short of normative rationality, as he puts it: reflecting one's opinion as if with divine authority. Holmes locates the "origin of schism" here.

God's self-revelation is self-disclosure between "lovers"--apparently Holmes would grant the Song of Solomon high status as disclosing the type of relationship with us, suffused with eros, at which God aims. This revelation in Scriptural canon "confronts" the church with an essential norm--not only in terms of what is in it, but also in terms of what is not contrary to it. In short, his idea seems to be that while we may be obliged with regard to what may be shown from Scripture, we are not obliged with regard to what is not contrary to what may be shown from Scripture. If playing cards is not contrary to Scripture, one is not obliged qua Christian to forsake it.

Interestingly, Holmes holds that confrontation continues between God and the church after the formation of the canon in our own day as the concrete, historical church reflects on God disclosing himself in the context of its canon and tradition. How should the church reflect? In councils--but not because in them we shall find a happy infallibility. Holmes claims conciliar authority comes with the consent of its members to the council's findings: the findings must be received by those the council represents. But even received findings of a church council cannot properly claim infallibility though, and it is likely, Holmes notes, councils will be frustratingly vague. This vagueness is necessary, however. The alternative is "tyranny" as, given the fallibility of councils, only conciliar vagueness is consistent with our liberty as Anglicans.

Holmes: What is Anglicanism?

2008-03-25T09:54:00.007-04:00

Written in marginally calmer times, Holmes' monograph (in print from Morehouse, used copies starting at $.01) was one volume in an international effort among Anglicans to articulate an Anglican theology, touching on Scripture, spirituality, morality and other topics. While Holmes' interpretation of Anglicanism did not represent the views of the contributors in general, and so of course he does not speak as a one-man magisterium, neither is it simply foreign to their understanding of Anglicanism. In other words, his view can claim, it seems to me, status consistent with the broader self-understanding of Anglicanism evident in the series as a whole.

Preface & Chapter One
Holmes comes right out and says to be Anglican is to

(i) use an official BCP,
and (ii) be in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury.

A minimal account prima facie, but he seems to think--rightly in my view--(i) and (ii) are not compatible with just any Christian practice. That is, a certain content goes with (i) and (ii) obtaining, such that without that content one either would not be worshipping according to an official BCP or one would not be in communion with the Archbishop.

It follows from (i) that belonging to a provincial church is essential to being Anglican, insofar as a diocese cannot decide on its own what will count as an official BCP. That is, Holmes would end up disagreeing with Rowan Williams, who said recently that the diocese alone was sufficient unto itself as the basic unit of the church. Insofar as dioceses have contracted into relationships wherein they cannot unilaterally determine theor own BCPs, and worshipping according to an official BCP is essential to being Anglican, it seems on this account their being Anglican tethers them to the larger province. From (ii) it follows that an Episocopal Church out of communion with the Archbishop would not be Anglican--and so it seems, given the importance Holmes puts on being Anglican, that he would put great store in maintaining the province's ties with Canterbury. Whether that effort to remain in communion with Canterbury makes sense seems to depend on (a) whether there is a close connection between (ii) and the content which purportedly goes with (ii)'s obtaining, and (b) whether that content is indeed significant. In my view, for what it's worth: to (b), I think the content Holmes describes is significant enough to defend, and to (a), I'm not sure the content can only--or even best--be defended in communion with Canterbury.

Well, being Anglican to Holmes is characterized by catholicity--as we should well hope--and "freedom of a sort unsurpassed," a freedom we have to "disagree openly" rooted in "the many-formedness of human knowing." That latter bit about freedom seems to give Anglicanism its distinctive essential content in Holmes' view. Sure, you could come up with other distinctive features of Anglicanism, but that one is essential, and should stand with catholicity to mark us out as having a distinctive if "provincial" "way of looking at Christian experience."

That freedom has an outer bound: what Holmes calls reasonableness; one's position should not contradict a reflective, balanced examination of experience carried out by one believing oneself in love with God. Presumably, though I may be wrong, those believing themselves in love with God by that standard would include not just other Anglicans but also Christians of other denominations, Jews, Islamic believers, Hindus, and other monotheists far and wide.

Holmes seems to be thinking that of course they will disagree with each other, ending up holding positions at variance, but they will nevertheless be able to recognize certain positions of those with whom they disagree are reasonable, or rational, insofar as they do not contradict one's own position. Why? Reconstructing Holmes' view, it seems he means that one recognizes one's own position is formed by one's religion, what he calls in Chapter One a way of making sense of the experience of God. More: even if not formed from within some religious way of seeing, one's view of God is nevertheless formed from within some other nonreligious way of seeing; unformed ways of seeing get ruled out tout court. In effect, then, whereas an Episcopalian would say

(1) God is a Trinity,

and a Hindu would say

(2) God is not a Trinity,

these two should, Holmes implies, recognize each other's assertions as reasonable, inasmuch as each is shaped by a way of making sense of the experience of God. That is, though prima facie (1) and (2) contradict, in reality they do not. If their deep structure, say, was apparent, we could read them as saying

(1)' According to the Anglican way of making sense of the experience of God, God is a Trinity,

and

(2)' According to the Hindu way of experiencing God, God is not a Trinity.

(1)' and (2)' no longer contradict; inasmuch as neither takes the other as in contradiction with the faith, each can view the other's take on what faith requires as reasonable.

One problem with this emphasis on being reasonable, as Holmes recognizes, is that such a kind of translation scheme as he has in the background seems to invite relativism--even religious pluralism a la John Hick. But Holmes thinks he can have his translation scheme without relativism or pluralism.

At the end of Chapter One he notes comprehension does not imply tolerating "palatable" relativism. That is, there is a Truth (big "t", absolute) to how God is, and so we should say there are better and worse ways of experiencing God, and some ways of experiencing God may get the Truth right in part. There is no way for us of stepping outside ways experience is shaped--religious or otherwise--to get direct access to God--Holmes notes quite rightly one never experiences anything raw; experience is always already shaped. Our commitment to the rightness of the way of experiencing God disclosed to us in Jesus cannot be guaranteed by any such direct access to Truth; it can only be rooted in faith.

In particular, the revelation of Jesus in Scripture is not a means for us of getting direct access to God. Inasmuch as God is transcendent and other by nature, we cannot express what he is literally in any discourse, even religious, even scriptural; we shall have to have recourse to metaphor, approaching God in truth through the ordinary. Yet Holmes holds God can be known through metaphor; revelation is God disclosing divinity through metaphor, making certain metaphors normative for a religious community--and in an Anglican Christian saying this, one already makes a movement of faith identifying Scripture as the source of the metaphors God has chosen for self-disclosure.

Alas, the content of metaphor cannot be captured and reduced to the content of propositions. We shall be unable to give final, propositional expression to the content of faith disclosed in Scripture; it follows our understanding of God can only ever be "penultimate" and not ultimate. We can only accurately apprehend God with a certain degree of ineliminable ambiguity. For example, Holmes claims following Julian that God discloses himself as mother in Scripture, but that metaphor does not imply the proposition God is female or even God gives birth.

There is another problem, one which Holmes recognizes but does not dwell on: while religious ways of seeing are not the types of things that might contradict each other, religious ways of seeing still might be mutually exclusive. That exclusivity could create conflict; e.g. from within one's way of seeing, other ways of seeing should be declared unreasonable and not be tolerated. It is no surprise, then, that Anglican reasonableness is a fragile thing--after all, the Elizabethan Settlement did not succeed in peaceably holding Christians at variance with one another togteher. But that fragility does not make reasonableness unworthy of defense.

Cognitively speaking, God's ineffability is like "darkness"--a darkness that Holmes notes can protect us. Anglicanism's freedom to disagree is rooted in a self-conscious awareness of the darkness in which God is shrouded, of the limits of our religious discourse and cognitive capacities. That self-conscious awareness takes the shape of a distinctive sensibility with us, according to which we have, or perhaps should have, the courage to live with the fact of our ignorance rather than hiding it via spurious speculation and made-up authority. Holmes may be thinking that once we can admit to the darkness of God and our ignorance, we can be kept from suppressing or persecuting those at variance with us by the recognition that we may be wrong about the points of contention. The moderation that goes with this Anglican sensibility, Holmes may contend, is worth defending, and especially worth catholic Christians defending.

This Anglican sensibility, for Holmes, implies the freedom that gives Anglicanism its distinctive content, a content Holmes recommends as of great value. In effect, to recommend Anglicanism is to recommend taking catholicity with this distinctive sensibility.

reading & the anglican right

2008-03-21T15:21:00.005-04:00

The latest dust-up, this time over the canonical status of the HoB votes to depose Bishops Cox and Schofield, is ripe for reflection.

Critics and defenders of the vote seem to approach the canons with a curious strategy, namely that the meaning of the text can be apprehended in abstraction from how the text was read--and acted upon--in the past. That is, in the case of the canons, critics seem to interpret the text in abstraction from tradition, according to how it seems to make sense in their own eyes at the moment.

Here's an illustrative comment:

Now let me list three phrases. Those who think the depositions were canonically valid, would you please be kind enough to point out the one phrase that is not like the others:

1) “all Bishops entitled to vote”
2) “by a majority of those present”
3) “whole number of Bishops entitled to vote”

I am not sure why, Mark, you don't seem to think that phrases 1 and 3 have a common meaning, with 2 being the odd man out. Instead, you seems to believe that phrase 1 is the odd man out, with 2 and 3 having the common meaning.I think the canons are very clear as to what the required number of consents are, the this number was simply not obtained. [boldface added]

What is all this thinking based on? Who knows--maybe what strikes competent users distributively as obvious? Would this be a sound approach to Holy Scripture? Rubrics?

The temptation to try to encapsulate the normative content of a historical practice--like voting or praying--in a declarative sentence or two seems absurd. That approach would not do well when it comes to learning to tango, or learning how to ride a bike, or learning to love; in all these cases there is something more to the practice in question than can be learned reading books. Nobody, I hope, would dream of writing a book exhausting the significance of Macbeth or Heart of Darkness, but when it comes to the peculiar darkness and ambiguity of the canons, are matters significantly different?

Another way of putting the point woule be to refer to Kripke's reading of Wittgenstein on the rule-following paradox, but perhaps that is using a cannon to kill a gnat. There are a number of other ways to drive the point home: rules gather meaning only from being embedded in wider practices.

Thus, the relevant question for anyone questioning the HoB vote is whether those votes to depose are logically consistent with other instances. Do they fit with precedent? If they do, there is insufficient ground to object on the basis of the canons themselves--though one could well object on other grounds, say, that the canon or its practice ought to change. Thus, I think one should read this comment from T19,

Using the you cite figures from 2006, it really boils down to this: do you need a vote by 32 Bishops in order to depose a Bishop who is alleged to have abandonned the Communion of this church, or do you need 142?

as an inadvertently disguised claim for formally revising the canon. As settling the meaning of the canons in question, it's not the right kind of consideration to carry that kind of weight.

I am unsure how history breaks on this question, although from the fragments I have gathered it seems the HoB has not always followed the critics' reading, and in fact bishops have been deposed with a procedural variety seeming on its face to defy the gravity requisite for such proceedings in critics' eyes.

Radner & ACI & the furture of Anglicanism

2008-03-21T12:33:00.010-04:00

There is no Anglican Church.

If you keep that in mind, much of the diaphanous sophistry of the ACI dissipates like a chill mist gradually burned away in the rosy-fingered dawn.

Uses of "Anglican Church" make sense, to be sure, in that they are parasitic on applications of "church" to genuine churches. We know what it means to say "the Church of England" or "the Roman Catholic Church", and the Anglican Communion at times may resemble these, like a glass eye may resemble a live eye--so one might even innocently utter "the Anglican Church" referring to the Anglican Communion.

But Radner and Seitz' uses are rather darker, part of a larger attempt--an effort that I strongly suspect meets with the avid approval of our Archbishop--to impose a reality, an Anglican Church, on the heels of imposing a new usage, where "Church" in "the Anglican Church" is univocal with "Church" in "Roman Catholic Church." So you see, Schofield did not really abandon the communion of this church by joining the Southern Cone--they would seem to say there is no real distinction between the communion of the Episcopal Church and the communion of the Southern Cone because what may seem to some to be their distinct communions are really the same as the one communion of the Anglican Communion.

But that gets the notion of communion backwards--the communion of the Anglican Communion could only supervene on the communions of its member churches, at least for now. That's why, for instance, we say our common life is damaged when some member withdraws from it, as Nigeria's Primate boycotts the Eucharist with the other primates, and threatens to withold its bishops from Lambeth. It can't be that the various communions of the member churches derive their being from the communion of the Anglican Communion, particularly if they exist in such a way that they may withdraw from it and form other, really distinct networks. At most one could argue the being of a member church's communion is filled out or amplified by its being a member of the larger network--a matter not of esse, but of plena or bene esse, a contingency. To get what the ACI wants, the AC would have to change what it is, and its members would have to change what they are as well.

The long term goal seems to at least include the imposition of a centralized, bureaucratic structure, with power of its own to discipline and observe at the level of the Anglican Communion as a whole, an imposition whose practice is carefully circumscribed by a constitution or social contract so as to be incapable of responding to correction from the Holy Spirit that would require communion-wide repentance and amendment of life, as with adoption of the ordaining of women or the breaking down of race barriers. To conservatives, this is merely insurance against what some would call "social justice" and what they might call "liberalism": Amaziah of Bethel banning Amos.

Ironically, the scheme is directly analogous to Gordon Tullock, James Buchanan, and Hayek's thoughts on constitutions and Keynesianism. The idea with Hayek et al. was that economic management by the federal government--as in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, WIC, etc--could be eliminated and in the future precluded by constitutional reform, esp. reform locking out deficit spending, and the leading edge of what they saw as socialism. And a general potentially growing threat to the institution of private property could be cut off, or as Norquist would later say, strangled in the bathtub. Buchanan, additionally, saw himself as preserving something precious from the heritage of the Old South. Of course, these guys are all liberals--classical liberals in the mode of Say, Sisimondi, "Smith": what we would now call "right-wing liberals." Structurally, ACI seems to be inthe same boat, so to speak. It is odd--to say the least--to see Williams and Radner plumping for a structural solution to our crises in the style of classical liberalism, of all things.

Loose Canons?

2008-03-19T08:21:00.003-04:00

So far as I can tell, discussion of the HoB's recent vote to remove Schofield and Cox fails to establish what the precedent is for such votes. Surely there is a body of precedent, and if it is consistent, it could lend some guidance to what the canons should be taken to require, no?

Arguing a priori from what seems like the obvious and clear sense seems tendentious when there should be a body of practice already in place. Does anyone have information about what such a history would indicate?

GAFCON: living Postmodernism

2008-03-11T17:56:00.007-04:00

What does theological postliberalism look like in practice? Go review Archbishop Williams' statements criticizing various aspects of political liberalism in the UK and TEC. What does postmodernism look like in practice? I'd concur with Michael Poon: GAFCON. He says,

GAFCON holds before the Communion a new and unfamiliar utopia that is post-modern to its core. Webmasters and web bloggers render synodical processes irrelevant. They preside over web blogs in the virtual worlds of their own fabrication. Its power in shaping public opinion on ecclesiastical authorities simply cannot be ignored. A communion that is no longer dependent on patient face-to-face encounters and governed by geographical proximity: it is a Gnostic gospel that renders the Cross in vain.

I. Argument...
That last clause sounds like hyperbole, but let's take it seriously for a moment. What's the argument? Maybe this:

(1) Communion requires face-to-face encounters.
(2) Face-to-face encounters require geographical proximity.
(3) GAFCON's utopia is incompatible with geographical proximity.
Thus, (4) GAFCON's utopia is incompatible with communion.
But, (5) The Gospel and Cross require communion.
Thus, (6) GAFCON's utopia is incompatible with the Gospel and Cross.

Well, Poon does have an argument here worth taking very seriously if you're a Separatist, and it has prima facie credibility. In particular, one could work up considerable support from Christian tradition for the crucial, contended premise (1). It seems to me (2) and (5) are beyond reasonable doubt, and I trust Poon as a reliable source for (3), as it seems to fit with much of what comes through larger media groups about GAFCON. In sum: I take (3) as true at least for the near future and (2) with (5) as true simpliciter. As (6) follows from (4) and (5), and (4) from (1)-(3), the whole argument rests on the truth or falsity of premise (1).

So what of it? Does communion require face-to-face encounters? That is the issue on which Poon's confrontation with postmodernism hinges. I take it we're not talking merely about Holy Communion or the Mass, as (1) would surely then be trivially true, but irrelevant to Poon's argument. GAFCON isn't envisioning a fully virtual Mass, complete with sacramental simulacra rendering Real Presence really problematic. I take it Poon's talking about communion in a wider sense, about something like communion-in-concrete-community where the relevant ecclesial units are marked by a community sharing a form of life in bodily proximity. Dioceses consisting of geographically discontinuous congregations in mostly virtual contact--cultivation of which GAFCON seems to be holding out as a constitutive, necessary step in its proper development--lacks a form of life in bodily proximity or what I've called concrete community.

The staunch postmodernist might well be unimpressed: virtual contact between congregations suffices for the kind of community called for by the Gospel and Cross: e-mails, webcam-speeches, blog posts, webcasts, etc, etc can really be strung together in some configuration constituting Gospel community between congregations. But is the postmodernist right? I don't think so; here, rather, Poon is right, so far as I can tell.

What a virtual cluster of congregations crucially lacks is (a) the relevant kind of connection between members of its disjoined congregations and (b) between members of its congrgations and the world in bodily proximity outside of thecongregations. For both (a) and (b), one should see that human life necessarily consists of bodily interactions in which the Gospel and one's response to the Cross is lived out. Not even the Resurrection seems to cancel that truth out about us. That is, we are just not the type of beings who could live apart from bodily connections--and it is just those connections which, minimally, are held out by the Gospel as the arena within which we make our response to the Gospel and the Cross. GAFCON's postmodernism seems to imply that exactly those connections can be surrendered in a faithful, orthodox Christian life in return for mostly virtual connections.

That is precisely the bite of Poon's point about GAFCON's gnosticism: the implicit picture of human beings as satsified in their response to the Gospel and the Cross by merely virtual community as the ground for real communion. That picture is analogous to Gnostic Platonism's picture of humans as spirit beings called to leave crude matter behind. The historical Gnostics cultivated an interior, immaterial spiritual self; the GAFCON-gnostics cultivate an interior, dematerialized virtual self. True, the virtual is not the spiritual, but Poon has hit upon a good analogy. Whether the self to be redeemed in communion is pictured as spriritual or virtual, what is denied in consequence is the gravity of the material human being and material human relationships. There is, then, something to be said for Poon's premise (1).

II. ...and consequences
You will have noticed that the apparent soundness of Poon's argument leaves us with the rather sharp claim of (6):

GAFCON's utopia is incompatible with the Gospel and the Cross.

Apparently, ecclesiology matters after all, and the order of the church, and in particular the polity of the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada, matters as well. For that polity is the order within which a common life in all of its gritty materiality, materiality identified by Poon as necessary to responding to the Gospel and the Cross, is carried on.

It is perhaps odd to think of treating that fragile common life, that embarassingly fragile common life, as something so grave that ostentatiously prima facie orthodox parallel groupings as GAFCON supports (think AMiA, CANA, etc) would in reality be so radically unorthodox.

At least one would suppose serious Anglo-catholics in Fort Worth and elsewhere--for whom ecclesiology is already important--would hesitate before following Schofield into a virtual community. It seems that is just what Poon is talking about: real community dissolving in the acids of virtual community, an unhappy real world traded for the shiny silver of the postmodern utopia.

Martins on Schori's Actions in the DSJ

2008-03-06T21:07:00.006-05:00

Although Dan Martins has repeatedly made alot of noise about the PB's efforts in the DSJ, the issue of whether the PB is permitted canonically to do what she is doing in the DSJ should be settled, in my view, by Canon I.2.4:

The Presiding Bishop shall be the Chief Pastor and Primate
of the Church, and shall:
(1) Be charged with responsibility for leadership in initiating
and developing the policy and strategy in the Church and
speaking for the Church as to the policies, strategies and
programs authorized by the General Convention;....
(3) In the event of an Episcopal vacancy within a Diocese,
consult with the Ecclesiastical Authority to ensure that
adequate interim Episcopal Services are provided;

Part of being a Chief Primate for the DSJ is having a power to initiate and develop policy. In cases of pressing need beyond precedent, as exists in the DSJ, doesn't it seem that such a power would be operative, if anywhere? It seems like common sense to me; this is exactly what she is doing in the DSJ: initiating and developing policy.

Moreover, (3) above charges here with a duty--properly exercised only in council--to ensure adequate interim episcopal services. Such actions are not merely supererogatory. And that is exactly what she is doing, carring out her canonical duties to ensure adequate interim episcopal care.

But what seems obvious to me is not obvious to Martins. Perhaps he has some reading of the canons where black is white and white black, and the PB is not permitted by the canon I cite to do what she has done. Would General Convention then have the requisite authority for Martins? It seems to me--though I may be mistaken, of course--that

(1) the General Convention is the highest administrative authority in the Episcopal Church.

The GC makes the rules, etc within which the rest of TEC is bound to proceed. But as the GC only meets at long intervals, it is necessary that authority in the interim be delegated. It should come as no surprise that, reading I.IV.4, sections 1a & 2e,

(2) the Executive Council may act on behalf of the General Convention,

and presumably the GC can both bind and overturn decisions of the EC, or they may choose not to, and by their silence validate the EC's actions--see section 1b. The EC of the GC may have need for someone like the PB to do the same kind of thing the EC does for the GC. After all, the PB is a member of the EC by section 1c. Sometimes action must be taken which the EC is not in a position to implement for practical reasons: meeting at intervals or the need for a member of the EC to take the lead in delineating a policy. Thus, it should come as no surprise that

(3) the Presiding Bishop may act on behalf of the Executive Council,

and presumably the GC and EC could both bind and overturn the decisions of the PB, or they may choose not to do so, and by silence validate the PB's actions. That the EC may so delegate its power seems implied by the canonical provision in 2e that it

may initiate and develop such new work as it may deem necessary.

and more importantly by I.IV.4.3a & f, which hold the PB is President, Chair, and CEO of the EC, permitted to implement its work. That is not to deny other parts of TEC, like the HoB, may similarly delegate authority to the PB. Thus, I take it that

(4) the Presiding Bishop may act on occasion with the highest administrative authority in the Episcopal Church,

inasmuch as that authority is delegated transitively to the PB. That is, on occasion the PB may act to do what you would expect the GC to be able to do, because that authority is delegated to the PB. And in addition, I mean to say not only that (1)-(4) are just what sound common sense would expect, but that they are also consistent with the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church.

It is important to see that (4) does not imply the PB may act as a sovereign authority, above the canons and constitution, unaccountable to anyone in TEC. To the contrary, I hope that the way I have argued for (4) shows the power referred to in (4) is conditional and circumscribed. Inasmuch as it is strictly a delegated potency, lines of accountability are clear: the PB answers to the EC and to the GC. Moreover, the authority referred to in (4) is operative only in the absence of a potentiality--in practical terms--for the exercise of authority by the EC and GC. In that sense, the power of the PB is conditional.

All of this would seem to come as a surprise to Dan Martins, who writes

Anyone who is complicit in the election of a new Standing Committee at the special convention is acting in defiance of the Constitution and Canons, and is appropriately subject to ecclesiastical discipline.

Well, he's entitled to his opinion. Evidently, he seems to believe or at least be committed to

(5) the Presiding Bishop is forbidden from acting on any occasion with the highest authority in the Episcopal Church,

perhaps because he also holds or is committed to

(6) the power of the EC of GC cannot on any occasion be delgated to the PB without some express designation,

like a GC or EC resolution explicitly to that effect. I do not think he, or anyone else in the DSJ, has managed to argue soundly for (5) or (6).

Indeed, ironically enough, the power Martins arrogates to the SC of the DSJ only exists in the absence of the DSJ's bishop on condition the GC permits; see the Constitution, Article IV:

When there is a Bishop in charge of the
Diocese, the Standing Committee shall be the Bishop's Council of
Advice. If there be no Bishop or Bishop Coadjutor or Suffragan
Bishop canonically authorized to act, the Standing Committee shall be
the Ecclesiastical Authority of the Diocese for all purposes declared
by the General Convention.

The power of the SC of the DSJ in the absence of a bishop is not absolute; it is rather conditional. If the authority of the GC may be delegated to the PB, then of course the PB may do exactly what she has in fact done--notify the SC that its authority is suspended. There is a case to be made that--contrary to Martins--the PB has precisely this power according to the Constitution itself.

I hope to have shown the rather ill-tempered comment by Martins that the PB's effort in the DSJ

represents the raw exercise of naked illicit power by the Presiding Bishop

is not adequately grounded in reality. Is it really raw and naked when a case can be made for it directly from the Constitution and Canons? Why the nasty hyperbole? We have yet to see a decent argument that it is in fact illicit, and it seems given his penchant for strife, we are owed at least that.

P.S.
My apologies: I actually like theorizing over law; maybe there's a calling. Who knows? Anyhow, here are a couple more speculative arguments: enjoy.

According to the Constitution in Article V, section 1 the GC is the agent behind the formation of a new diocese. The DSJ is not a new diocese being formed, but an old diocese whose normal administrative apparatus is being reconstituted. The authority to form a new diocese is greater; it follows that GC would have the lesser power to reconsititute if need be. of course, this is already implicit in my Proposition (1) above; these comments serve so far only to confirm (1) supra. As that authority, normally residing in the GC, may be delegated to the PB in virtue of the power inherent in her office, it follows the PB may do what she is doing by the authority of TEC's Constitution, contrary to Martins.

Note at any rate, Article V, section 3 of the Constitution gives a new diocese the power to designate its own bishop, should bishops from dioceses from which it was formed prescind from occupying that office. Normally that power would most likely be overseen in its exercise by the Standing Committee. At any rate, a power to designate a bishop is not alien to the diocese; this section may provide a relevant precedent for action in unusual circumstances, even though the DSJ is not new; it is, of course, an old diocese in an unusual--even unprecedented--situation. That is, given it seems that the Standing Committee of the DSJ is unable to perform, the current PB may simply be acting on behalf of the GC to recognize, and thereby validate, an exercise of power--permitted in the Constitution--by the DSJ on its own behalf. While the SC might be the normal conduit for the flow of this power, it is by no means necessary for the flow of that power, as the power is inherent in the diocese itself. That exercise would be permitted, based on a power inherent in the diocese, referred to in this section--again, contrary to Martins.

Seitz on catholic anglicanism

2008-02-27T16:45:00.005-05:00

On T19 recently I came across this comment from Seitz of the ACI, a comment which seems mistaken:

Anglicans are Christians in a Communion (hence ACI). They are not national churches where one uses a retinal scanner to get into a new ‘Christian’ zones. And neither is the Communion a collection of the like-minded in Provinces which are inventing a new kind of Anglicanism—even for very pressing reasons. If it comes to that, the Communion is over anywhere. It may come to that. Some may want it to come to that. Others are wanting to do everything possible to prevent the fracture of anglicanism whilst maintaining things like ‘CA Principles’ (e.g.).

The Anglican Communion to which Seitz refers is not a church; this is not how it was envisaged at its inception, and nothing in its history to this day indicates that over time it became a church. Whatever communion exists in the Anglican Communion, it is not the same communion as that celebrated and enacted in the sacraments of Holy Baptism and the Eucharist.

To my limited knowledge, nobody is ordained simply into the Anglican Communion as a deacon, priest, or bishop or simply baptized into it as laity: "you're a Communionite". Nobody celebrates simply on the Anglican Communion's behalf, save in a derivative sense. At the moment, it cannot be done; there is no causally accessible path.

Indeed, there may be said to be a communion associated with membership in the Anglican Communion, but "communion" in this sense is derivative from a prior relation established in the dominical sacraments as practiced in Christian churches.

Thus, as the Anglican Communion is not a church, if what were known as national churches are not really churches after all, then there are no Anglican churches anywhere. What then of our orders? Our sacraments? All irregular, all the time? Or maybe he would suggest there are in fact many more Anglican churches than anyone ever realized, each diocese being an Anglican church unto itself whether it knew itself to be that or not? Maybe--who can tell? He just seeems to be making this stuff up. Or better: it seems a peculiar service to render expedience, a new liturgy if you will: the ad hoc ministration.

But seriously, his ecclesiological fantasies are supposed to express a normative notion of catholicity? Who buys this rather private notion of "catholic anglicanism"? Foisting this patent absurdity on our divines does them no service. Surely, foisting it on the Episcopal Church and the rest of the Anglican Communion is no service either.

San Joaquin & the Southern Cone

2008-02-27T08:15:00.002-05:00

On the face of it, it appears that what Abp. Venables of the Southern Cone was tring to do with Bishop Schofield and the Diocese of San Joaquin was contrary to the canons of the Southern Cone itself. One might have greeted the news of Venables assuming authority as a marginal improvement in the situation, inasmuch as Schofield and those going along with him would then at least have been formally accountable to someone, and would not be left simply to improvise while wandering in a limbo of their own design. But now it seems such optimism was hasty; Venables' assumption of authority reproduces the same type of disorder Schofield's assumption of authority produced. That is, he acts not merely in an area neglected by or left vague in the relevant canons, but acts contrary to the canons. In effect, he assumes a position of sovereignty with respect to those over whom he exercises this power; he enters in to a state of exception with regard to them.

In my opinion, any exercise of that type of authority is grave; what it means for those believers who have in practice been dragged into Schofield and Venables' experiment is that, as I've noted earlier

[t]hey are now in a kind of limbo. They have been made to exist in a space where anything is possible, insofar as they are parishoners.... They have been made the exceptions on the receiving end of an exercise of [extracanonical] sovereign authority, a kind of self-constituting act by Schofield [and Venables]. That is, by acting just as a genuine, regular bishop may, he [and Venables] might constitute[their] power as genuinely and regularly episcopal

and the result for the time being is

[n]ot just a kind of state of nature, but rather a kind of normalization of certain aspects of the state of nature, or better: a new communion of provinces is envisaged with relief, pride, and joy where these aspects are considered normal. Where community is established through such means beyond canon and law, beyond ethical rationality and accountability, it cannot help but instantiate the camp as its type.

That is, the ripples of ecclesial disorder and diminished being initiated by Schofield's salto mortale--recall for example his risible effort to remain both in the Episcopal Church and the Southern Cone as a viable bishop in each--have not gone away. They are spreading and have apparently already enveloped Venables and the Southern Cone.

Secret Plans!

2008-02-23T14:26:00.015-05:00

As you've likely heard, a tiny international clique--a clique that seems to only tenuously include our Presiding Bishop--has launched secret plans to rescue the Episcopal Church, and perhaps thereby the Anglican Communion, from an even wider and more violent schism than we've yet seen. And the plans may succeed: they seem tolerable, they do not reward the extremists from among the Separatists, and indeed seem to sidestep the wild Minns/Sugden axis with its Duncan/Iker/Schofield/Venables/etc minions. One might look forward with a modest measure of hope to a general resolution to the conflict among those who differ over the presenting issues of GC2003, but are acting in good faith to avoid schism. That is, it seems those bent on schism from the Windsor Process' inception are not players in this. These plans are not a recipe for pleasing them; the reasonable majority seems to have finally realized that cannot happen here below. Perhaps then some settlement can be forged from among the good faith parties, with this initial, secret international affair providing a starting point?

Still, this way of doing things just seems so unfortunate: a public forum in the Episcopal Church, or in the Anglican Communion, that could function to support the type of discourse that might have a chance to keep the Communion from fracturing simply does not exist. If solutions are to be found, they must be found sub rosa, on the basis of personal relationships among the remaining reasonable members of the power elite. The General Convention, Lambeth, the Primates meetings et al have in effect forfeited the role of providing the compromises necessary for reconciliation. It would be interesting to ask:

I.
Why this evacuation of power from public discourse? To what extent have competing, purity-obsessed factions become so powerful in our public councils that a Leviathan-prince is required to keep parties in check?

I'm presuming recollection of Hobbes' argument for civil polity's requiring submission to an absolute sovereign, to whom I attach the tag "Leviathan-prince"--the faint allusion to Machiavelli is meant to underscore how much this whole affair looks to the outside like an unprincipled exercise of power. Of course I don't mean to imply there is just one guy involved; strictly, it might be better to speak of an oligarchy with a princeps inter pares in this case.

Regardless of whether we're dealing with one secret sovereign or many, we should ask: Do we really need this Leviathan-prince? Do we need to belong to a Communion that enables such a concentration of unrepresentative and unaccountable power?

There is no open protocol, no provision for representation, no formal, institutional check on the exercise of power in such proceedings as these. They amount to an exercise of pure sovereignty, carried on outside the rules--here indeed thankfully for the sake of a perceived common good--and if actually efficacious, what precedent will have been set? What praxis will have been thereby encouraged?

II.
Are such shady proceedings morally permissible? To some extent, if the irregular procedure succeeds in securing the common good, it is justified, and one may let it pass as--hopefully--a one-time affair. But who thinks the occasion for recourse to the backroom deal will pass soon? Must we look forward to this sort of thing happening again and again? It's alimentary: the patient peristalsis of time and institutional process will likely leave extremists in positions of power on the inside for quite a long time before requiring they pass.

That is, it seems alongside the apparent instruments of unity, about which we have heard so much, and alongside the actual canonical institutions of ecclesial power, the shadowy real instruments of unity and real institutions of eccelsial power may be taking shape.

So: is it morally right for us to submit ourselves to the power such a Leviathan-prince? Even if it were the pragmatic way, maybe we--being faithful rather than merely pragmatic--would be required to prescind and take the resulting consequences.

III.
What then of the apparent instruments and institutions? Why take them seriously? Why pretend? In short: do these proceedings have implications for the development of a Covenant? I should think they do, and I say so with certain words from Seitz in mind:

For those Dioceses which wish to abide by Camp Allen Principles, this Plan offers a way to model full and enthusiastic compliance with Communion life. This is particularly important at a time when the terms of belonging to the wider Communion are under assessment and negotiation.

The discernible trajectory desired by the elite is no secret: finding some way to codify "Camp Allen Principles", or some set of measures of which they would be a principal proper part, for the Communion. It may not matter whether those principles appear in the open letter of the document, or are understood tacitly as principles guiding a sovereign praxis.

IV.
The apparent institutions/instruments which seem to channel power are one thing; and they were already operating outside fair procedure in the Primates' Meetings in my opinion. The stream of discourse issuing from them occupies a great deal of time and energy; one reads them and analyzes them taking their justifications and interpretations at face value to represent what is actually going on and why it is going on with a rough accuracy.

But what if, behind the apparent stream of institutional discourse, there is another genuinely efficacious discourse, in which horses are traded, deals made, authentic opinions voiced and the painful alternatives weighed while compromises grind through? Would that render the apparent stream of institutional discourse merely ideological, a mere shadow play for the children--and the adults obliged to sit through it all? Would that make the Covenant in the end an ideological instrument, a sop for chumps, so that it becomes a stick to be weilded--whatever it might say in the end--by members of the elite against those who defy its dictates?

The good sought by this slice of the Anglican power elite, whether it really includes our Presiding Bishop, is laudable: peace in our time. But proceed with your eyes open.

Among the Whoas of Exclusivism

2008-02-06T12:54:00.000-05:00

The angelic doctor, Thomas, touches on something important with his

beati in regno coelestia videnbunt poenas domnatorum, ut beatitudo illis magis complaceat, [The blessed in the kingdom of heaven will see the punishments of the damned, in order that their bliss be more delightful to them, STIII Suppl Q94, Art1, tr. Clark and Swensen; i.e it's quite literal]

which I first came across in Nietzsche's Geneology. There is something, well, barbaric about this strain of "hallowed" Christian tradition, a strain quite alive today.

But then what's an exclusivist to say? Does the end of the damned torment the saved--the lost brother, mother, sister, father, spouse, friend? That wouldn't be much of a salvation. Nor would it seem fitting for them to be neutral about it, shrugging their shoulders as it were with a heavenly "Oh well." Sure, CS Lewis (The Great Divorce) might say that the damned should not have the power to torment the saved--but that's a dodge; the question is not one of the damned actively causing sorrow in the saved. Even if the pain and sorrow were, say, merely supererogatory, still it would be a surprise to hear all of the saved always feel neither pain nor joy at the fate of the damned.

Then what? Maybe God "damns the memories" of the lost, so that memories of them are wiped clean from the saved. Is that metaphysically possible though? That is, one could make a strong case that the Augustinean "inner man" would not survive such a mutilation intact, at least in some cases, e.g. where a parent or child or spouse is damned.

And if it were possible, would that be the kind of act God would have recourse to, even if it were permissible? That's a tough question, of course: God is free, free, free. But that is enough perhaps for a seed of doubt about exclusivism, no?