No Anglican Covenant - next steps

Until now the No Anglican Covenant Campaign has, for obvious reasons, focused strongly on England and the vote in English dioceses.

Malcolm French

A number of changes have followed the defeat of the Covenant in England.

Lesley Fellows has stood down as International Moderator and she deserves great praise and gratitude for the manner in which she performed this role.

Malcolm French has taken on the tasks of International Moderator.

Jean Mayland, a lifelong campaigner for change in the Church of England, is now the English Convener for the group.

Press Release here.

NACC attention is now turning to the US where the mood is difficult to read.

The Episcopal Church's General Convention meets in July in Indianapolis, Indiana. Three motions have already been proposed and the NACC motion is currently looking for sponsors. (OK, I'm being pedantic here. These proposals are all called resolutions. I believe that a motion becomes a resolution when it is agreed (resolved) not when it's put forward. But, when in Indianapolis ... So, I concede, and the texts will hereinafter be called resolutions.)

Three resolutions have so far been proposed. One for the Covenant, one for continuing engagement with the Covenant process, and one against the Covenant. All resolutions are listed here.

The one for the Covenant comes from a group who call themselves Communion Partners (firmly conservative) and was announced in 2009. The one opposing the Covenant comes from the Episcopal Church’s Executive Council. And the one in the middle seems to be a response to these two with the intention of keeping the ball in the air until everyone else has declared what they think. (Comparison at Preludium)

All these, and any others received in time, then go into a mincing machine which people have explained to me and I still have no clear idea how it all works.

The Covenant in (some) other Provinces

Wales

Archbishop Barry Morgan

The Covenant will almost certainly be endorsed in the coming Governing Body meeting in April (Agenda and papers). It went to Dioceses with the blessing of the previous Governing Body meeting and, to the best of my knowledge, has returned with no significant opposition.

The briefing paper (.doc) refers to advice received from the "Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Standing Committee of the Governing Body, and ... the Doctrinal Commission of the Church in Wales." and

... concludes that no new questions are raised for the doctrine or discipline of the Church in Wales in the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant, so that the adoption of the Covenant can be best addressed directly by a motion of the Governing Body rather than requiring a Bill.

This is despite the objections raised by the Church in Wales to the whole ethos and character of the Covenant in previous submissions. Few of its criticisms and suggestions have been answered, at least not publicly and not in the Covenant as promulgated.

Scotland

The Rt Rev David Chillingworth (second left) congratulated by the other
Scottish Episcopal Bishops on his election as Primus

In Scotland the mood is rather different. However some voices have been raised suggesting that Scotland might follow the Irish Church by "subscribing" to the Covenant rather than adopting it.

In my view this would be utterly foolish. The General Secretary of the Anglican Communion makes no such distinction. As far as he is concerned the Irish have signed on (as have South East Asia which made different reservations in their adoption of the Covenant).

The ACNS report of the decision says that in debate it was stressed that "this would leave the Covenant subordinate to the the Preamble and Declaration of the Church [of Ireland] and does not affect the sovereignty of the Church of Ireland or mean any change in doctrine." But what is said in debate is not necessarily the same as the terms of signing up to the document.

The US

At the last general Convention, 2009

As the General Convention approaches the dominant worry is how to manage shrinking budget. But the Covenant gets a look in too. Mark Harris compares and contrasts resolutions setting out the differing routes open to TEC.

Here in The Episcopal Church there are now three resolutions that have been publicized, one from Executive Council and two from members of the House of Bishops. The Executive Council resolution is perhaps the least supportive of the Anglican Covenant, although even that one is clear that it is not the Covenant as an idea that is a problem (although for some of us it is) but rather "its current form." The two other resolutions, one from Bishops Douglas, and others, and the other from Bishop Bauerschmidt and others, are more affirmational to varying degrees.

Ecumenically

And a point to which I had not given enough weight became clearer recently. John Milbank's article After Rowan: the Coherence and Future of Anglicanism, included the sentence:

It is important for Catholic readers to realise that Rowan Williams had sought this covenant, in part, for ecumenical reasons. The Vatican signalled to him at the start of his primacy that conversations leading to further unity could only be re-commenced if the Catholic Church could be sure that the Anglican Church was truly capable of acting as one body.

The Vatican: projecting Christian power in
a post-Christian world

That the deal had been so explicit was news to me. It has been evident that Rowan was particularly exercised about relations with Rome, sometimes to the apparent detriment of relations with other denominations. It has also become clear that what Rowan means by 'church' is more nearly realised in Catholic or Orthodox structures than in any other.

But the Covenant has not been argued for by direct reference to this precondition to negotiations (however gently expressed). It's been referred to in the general terms that it would make ecumenical discussion easier as our ecumenical partners want to know where we stand as a communion.

Furthermore this signal clearly also communicates that, if discussions were to recommence, they would do so on terms set by the Vatican. So the Covenant, and the reconstruction of Anglicanism as a single, centrally governed denomination, was to be  (in part) for the benefit of the Pope as much as for Anglicans.

I wonder whether many of the more Evangelical Anglican Churches would have been happy with this, and I'm pretty sure Henry VIII and Elizabeth would think we'd missed the point.

But it's always been about power. That's what makes Churches.

Truro Church, Fairfax, Virginia. One of the
churches restored to The Episcopal Church

By Associated Press, via the Washington Post

FAIRFAX, Va. — The Episcopal Church should be restored as the owner of several historic churches in Virginia, a judge has ruled, years after the denomination was essentially evicted by local congregations dismayed with Episcopal leadership’s liberal theology.

In a 113-page ruling issued Tuesday night, Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Randy Bellows reversed a ruling he made in 2008 giving custody to the conservative congregations. The Virginia Supreme Court overturned that ruling and ordered a new trial.

.....

It is unlikely, though, that the Episcopalians in Virginia will be able to return to their churches in the immediate future. The judge still has to construct a final order to put Tuesday’s ruling into effect, which will be complicated: It involves 42 separate deeds, as well as sorting out various personal property within the church. The one minor victory Bellows gave to the conservative congregations was that they could keep any donations and personal property associated with the churches that they acquired since the split.

It's the final chapter of this book, but it's not over yet. More here ...

The death of a pioneer

From the New York Times:

The Rev. Mary Michael Simpson, the first Episcopal nun to be ordained a priest and the first ordained woman to preach a sermon in Westminster Abbey, died Wednesday in Augusta, Ga. She was 85.....Even though the Church of England said it had no official objection to women joining the priesthood in the Anglican Communion — which includes the Episcopal Church — lay opinion and the private views of the clergy were often more conservative. By 1978, women had become priests in Anglican Communion churches in the United States, Canada and New Zealand, but not yet in the United Kingdom.

Canon Simpson addressed the issue directly in a sermon at Westminster Abbey on April 2, 1978, in which she asserted that the church treated women like “second-class Christians.”
“Christian creativity for the present age must not depend on male leaders,” she told a gathering of about 700 people. “Woman’s contribution — from women properly trained and authorized — is essential.”

...

And as a male in the church, I say Amen.

ACNA - a way forwards for liberal Anglicans?

'Archbishop' Bob Duncan

I have not been keeping up with comment on Anglican affairs recently.  Therefore if this is old hat then I apologise. However I thought it worth posting.

It is the length it is because I have sent it to MCU's Signs of the Times. However I may well work on a longer version because I think the subject deserves it.

The Anglican Church In North America

 

The Anglican Church In North America (ACNA) is the major schismatic grouping in North American Episcopalianism. It was created on 22 June 2009 and has received a welcome amounting to formal recognition from some Primates and leaders in other parts of the Anglican Communion. It purports to be a ‘Province-in-formation in the global Anglican Communion’ and claims a membership of 100,000 with 800 clergy.

 

ACNA has published its Constitution and Canons (www.acnaassembly.org). These documents encapsulate the leaders’ aspirations and commitment and simultaneously betray their weakness. They assert ACNA’s continued part in Anglicanism and create a radical new polity.

 

ACNA’s Constitution and Canons assert a juridical existence on a par with the 38 autonomous (their choice of adjective) Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Together they establish the structure of governance of the new entity with a presiding Archbishop, College of Bishops, a governing Provincial Council and an advisory Provincial Assembly. However the constitution inverts the monarchical ecclesiology espoused and exported by the Church of England and makes the whole structure accountable to the congregation.

 

The background to this development includes the fact that the polity of the Episcopal Church in the US has always been more egalitarian and inclusive of its laity than the majority of the Anglican Communion. Second, there is a strong conservative predilection for free market economics and resistance to the centralised state which is as strong in America’s religion as in other aspects of society.

 

More specifically ACNA’s origin is as a protest movement with many mothers. The Constitution lists eleven groups as founder members several of which owe allegiance to other parts of the Anglican Communion (including Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and the Southern Cone). Article VIII specifies that each member is a jurisdiction in its own right and retains all authority except that which it willingly grants to the umbrella body: no-one is giving up their separate identity.

One key element in the conservative protest against TEC centred on money. As they left many congregations went to court to retain ownership of church property and other assets. Most lost. Article XII of the ACNA constitution and Canon 6.6 recognise that parishes own their real and personal property and exclude the Province from any current or future claim over it. Furthermore congregations are given the right to change allegiance within ACNA or to secede from it altogether. Exhortations to tithe and to support the Provincial structures reveal the fundamental weakness of the federation. In churches, as in other walks of life, to know where power lies follow the money.

The congregation is not merely the owner of property. It is ‘The fundamental agency of mission in the Province’ (Article IV.1). Wider groupings depend on the congregation for their legitimacy and finance. The Canons come with an application form for any other ‘diocese, cluster or network (whether regional or affinity-based)’ or any such group ‘in formation’ which might wish to become a member. Thus wider groupings of congregations may be geographic or affinity based and congregations from several different members of the Province may co-exist in the same place. It is post-modern Anglicanism.

At the other end of this new polity the Archbishop, currently Bishop Robert Duncan, is elected for 5 years. He is thus made and kept accountable to his electorate (the College of Bishops) who are accountable to the congregations.

Perhaps ACNA offers the way forward for Anglicans. With a different preamble and affirmation of faith any group, or group of groups, could come together on something like this constitution. In this new Anglicanism power flows from the pocket and the hierarchy must give an account of their actions acceptable to those who chose them. It is worth further investigation.

Or, perhaps, another rule of organizations will come into play: over time power and wealth flows to the centre.

Paul Bagshaw

Schism deepened

A GAFCON too far

The headline was:

GAFCON Communiqué issued - ACNA recognized

Which begs the obvious question: by what authority?

On the GAFCON site a communiqué has been issued which, amongst other things, declares

The GAFCON Primates’ Council has the responsibility of recognizing and authenticating orthodox Anglicans especially those who are alienated by their original Provinces.

Strictly, of course, the sentence should add, after the word 'has' - accorded itself ...

The 6 men who comprise this Council, as self-appointed guardians of orthodoxy, are a fine group telling one another how righteous they are and therefore how heterodox and unrighteous are all the rest of the Anglican world. That they may do to their hearts content. It's annoying but it's harmless.

But to claim the right to determine orthodoxy, and to claim the capacity to 'recognize' another body, is simply schismatic. It is taking themselves outside the rules and structures of the Anglican Communion. In the word of the St Andrew's Draft Covenant they have excluded themselves from communion.

This is what the ACC should be dealing with. Of course we have been shuffling one foot after another to this point since Rwanda and South East Asia first consecrated Anglican 'missionaries' to intrude into the jurisdiction of TEC. But this is a qualitatively different step howsoever small it seems - it changes the whole politics of Anglicanism.

The reason this hasn't been obvious to date has been Archbishop Rowan's mistaken tactics. By siding consistently with the conservatives against TEC (I believe on ecclesiological grounds rather than those of sexual politics) he has permitted, glossed over and covered up the schismatic actions of the conservatives (presumably in direct contradiction of those same ecclesiological principles).

So I, in my small corner, say: enough is enough. Let them recognize who they like. Let them recognize and state openly that they have excluded themselves from the Anglican Communion in doing so.

No money, no takeover

Rev. J. Philip Ashey

It seems that the departed Anglican Church of North America is coming to terms with the fact that it won't be recognised as part of the Anglican Communion.

From The Living Church

“We do not believe that Canterbury will recognize us, at least while the current archbishop is still in office,” said the Rev. J. Philip Ashey, the AAC’s chief operating officer and chaplain, in a brief speech in the suburbs of Richmond, Va.

On the other hand that may not matter too much. There is always the second best:

Echoing the sentiments of the Jerusalem Declaration, Fr. Ashey suggested that Canterbury’s recognition will be less important as various provinces in the Global South recognize the ACNA. He said representatives from Kenya, Rwanda, the Southern Cone of South America, and Uganda are expected to attend a provincial assembly in Texas in June, where the ACNA will vote on a proposed constitution and canons.

The Three Legged Stool writes that 'the schismatics' are running out of money and, except in Virginia, are consistently losing legal battles over property.

It is, as TTLS observes, a long way from the high hopes of the Chapman Memo which outlined the battleplan of the conservatives in 2003.

Instead of replacing TEC leadership and direction they have mostly left and gone their own way. The consequent decimation of the conservative voice within TEC has left the liberals stronger.

The conservatives will now have to put a lot of time and energy into rebuilding their own structures, finances and planning for a longer term future as an autonomous denomination. This in itself will help bind them together.

They will have to do this on a different basis from the things which held them together as a protest group. Without TEC, and specifically the central leadership and bureaucracy of TEC, as their unifying enemy they will need some other internal bones on which to build some flesh. As they rebuild so they will reshape themselves.

Both processes will set them further apart from broader Anglicanism. In the land where private enterprise is still (notwithstanding the present blip) a central creed one more denomionation is scarecly going to ruffle the ecumenical waters.

In the Anglican Communion there will be a bounce, though a small one and probably not till long after the coming ACC meeting. If money is tight and no longer supporting conservative programmes in other parts of the Anglican world (not just Africa), and if the voice of those demanding division and a 'biblical' denunciation of inclusive attitudes is muted, then there will be no shift to global liberalism. There may well be a shift back to business as usual, and no bad thing.

In the mean time we await the latest version of the Anglican Covenant. Will it be soft and cuddly, all amigos together? Or will it still be a policeman with slightly concealed truncheon in the name of global unity and order? My money, such as it is, is on the latter.

Pray that they may be one

The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire (China Daily)

Episcopal Cafe received this email from Bishop Robinson this morning:

I am writing to tell you that President-Elect Obama and the Inaugural Committee
have invited me to give the invocation at the opening event of the Inaugural
Week activities, “We are One,” to be held at the Lincoln Memorial, Sunday,
January 18, at 2:00 pm. It will be an enormous honor to offer prayers for the
country and the new president, standing on the holy ground where the “I have a
dream speech” was delivered by Dr. King, surrounded by the inspiring and
reconciling words of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. It is also an
indication of the new president’s commitment to being the President of ALL the
people. I am humbled and overjoyed at this invitation, and it will be my great
honor to be there representing the Episcopal Church, the people of New
Hampshire, and all of us in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
community.
+Gene

Comment from Mike Allen at Politico:

“The president-elect has respect for the Rt. Rev. Robinson, who offered his
advice and counsel over the past couple of years,” an inaugural official said.
“It also has the benefit of further reinforcing our commitment to an open and
inclusive inaugural.”
...
Many of Obama’s supporters were furious at the choice of Rick Warren, the
evangelical pastor and best-selling author, to deliver the invocation at the
swearing-in ceremony.

Warren had endorsed California’s Proposition 8, which
bans same-sex marriage, with a statement saying: “There is no reason to change
the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2 percent of our
population.”

The furor has been Obama’s biggest clash with his party’s left
wing since he was elected.

An Obama source said: “Robinson was in the plans
before the complaints about Rick Warren. Many skeptics will read this as a
direct reaction to the Warren criticism – but it’s just not so.”
...

==============


I confess to some scepticism about Obama. My sense of American foreign policy is that the rhetoric changes much more than policy which has remained remarkably consistent for decades.

But perhaps it was Bush and the neocons who broke the mould - leaving Obama more room for manoeuvre than his Democrat predecessors. Perhaps the Empire has already been losing its grip (witness the failure to crush opposition in South America), and perhaps the financial crisis will further weaken its reach.

The mood music has already changed. It is likely to change still more - and this matters greatly to the culture wars. There has, I believe, been vicious and visceral attempts to smear Obama by association (with islam, and thence terrorism) and it's likely to get worse. But, at the moment at least, these now seem peripheral, the rantings of bitter losers. Yet they were influential against Clinton and the anti-Clinton warriors are still around.

It is the culture wars which matter for the Church. Maybe the big conservative funders will have to retrench and put their money back into the political fight which they thought had been won. Even if they don't they are now on the back foot: conservatives tried to lever TEC into the conservative camp. Only their lever broke, leaving them holding the handle and wondering what to do with it. Conservative splinter groups fostered in Bush's heyday will now find the weather much more inclement.

.

Bye Bob

ex-bishop Duncan, Pittsburgh

The deposition of Bishop Bob Duncan, previously of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, has been much anticipated and fully covered elsewhere (Thinking Anglicans, for example).

I would just point you to responses on the Global South site.



There Mr Duncan is welcomed with open arms. He is described as a modern Athanasius (by Bishop Mouneer Anis) and welcomed as a fellow expellee by ex-bishop Robinson Cavalcanti of Brazil.



It is clear that the GAFCON crown will continue to be in communion with him as a bishop - adding one more stone to the de facto schism in Anglicanism.

But I am surprised that Archbishop Drexel Gomez should add his name so publicly to the protest against deposition. Not because of his views nor his past practice, both of which have supported American conservatives, but because of the timing. He is chairing the Covenant Design Group in Singapore.

The man put in charge of holding the communion together by means of a covenant, and who regards the covenant as so urgent that it must be pushed through at almost any cost, is openly taking sides in an internal matter of one of the Communion's provinces. There is no way that this public partisan action is compatible with his role as saviour of the communion.



Drexel should be removed from his chairmanship of the Covenant Design Group with immediate efffect.

Disaggregation

Dave Walker's explanation of the Southern Cone

Thinking Anglicans has a round up of stories about the Southern Cone and Greg Venables' avoidance of Archbishop Fred Hiltz.

Viewed from where I stand (which is a long way away geographically and theologically) it is hard to see sufficient detail to be able to grasp the overall picture. I wonder what the relationship is between Archbishop Venables, a Brit, and the African Archbishops who, under the umbrella of GAFCON, are consolidating their raids into North America in the form of a North American province.

So, are there enough conservative congregations to go round with leading to conflict between GAFCON and the Africans? Are they in co-operative communion with one another in the same way in which both the Episcopal Church and the Church of England work in Europe? Or in competition with one another for the same fish in the episcopal sea? Is Venables trawling in Canada because the Africans have been too busy south of the border or because the Canadians were uncomfortable with the idea of African Archbishops? Are the two groups collecting different species of conservative?

In the meantime the Diocese of Pittsburgh continues to prepared for divorce by agreeing to 'a court-appointed neutral party inventory all of its property and assets as it prepares for a final vote on seceding from the Episcopal Church.' here.

To be all things to all

Trinity Cathedral, Pittsburgh

In one of the most divided dioceses of The Episcopal Church one church is considering how it might become a neutral oasis.

This September, Trinity Cathedral members will be discussing a resolution of Cathedral Chapter that would make it possible for Trinity to continue to be the cathedral church for all who are currently part of the diocese, regardless of their future Anglican affiliation. Their work has the full support of Pittsburgh Bishop Robert Duncan.

All here

Can it work? It is an ingenious idea to set at least one place aside from the fray and available to all Anglicans no matter what jurisdictions they find themselves under.

It didn't work in Pietermaritzburg when Dean Green and Bishop Colenso took services turn and turn about. But then these two men were directly opposed on sacramental theology (amongst other things), each wanted sole possession, and I doubt that the body of Cathedral members had been given the chance to create a peaceful and mutually acceptable compromise. (In 1883 the heretic, Colenso, was buried beneath its altar.)

At Trinity the 4-page resolution includes:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the people and Chapter of Trinity Cathedral affirm their desire to remain a unified Cathedral for what today comprises the whole Diocese of Pittsburgh, even if this means being the Cathedral seat of two Bishops, one from a Diocese within The Episcopal Church and one from a realigned Diocese of Pittsburgh, serving their respective parishes.

In effect the cathedral Chapter would become a non-aligned autonomous entity forever dependent on the goodwill of two diverging bodies. The two bishops (if so it turns out) would be co-chairs with equal weight and thus forced to choose between working together or walking out.

The Chapter would retain its rights in the nomination, appointment and discipline future staff but each step would require the 'concurrence' of the bishops - in effect the Chapter gives the bishops a veto. When either bishop can block the other but neither can initiate a development the greatest danger is pernanent stalemate. It will take great skill by the cathedral staff to prevent death from inanition.

The resolution looks forward to the day of a reunited dioces but, if all else fails, Trinity will give up being a Cathedral and revert to being a parish church. Though, pound to a penny, they'll not give up the pretensions to cathedral status.

But, can it work? Lionel Demiol (part of the Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh) sees the scheme not as an act of Christian generosity and trust but as a fall-back position for Bob Duncan who is prepared to share this major property only because he knows he cannot take it with him when he leaves TEC. If this is the case then the scheme is doomed from the start - it will only make the cathedral a battleground just as Pietermaritzburg was.

On the other hand, if goodwill can transcend distrust, my guess is that it might just work. If passed, the people and clergy of the cathedral will deliberately make themselves vulnerable to the whims of two people who will be at best wary and more likely hostile to one another. The cathedral will have to work hard to avoid contentious areas, at least to start. If it works then Trinity might become the place where ways for convergent conversations can take place. None of us know what the future holds.

It doesn't seem to me that this resolution will prove a model for others. It would only be possible for an organization with the legal capacity to determine or, at least, predispose its own fate. Any church subject to the control of national, diocesan or other authorities (which must be the vast majority) will be subject to their decision making.