Prospects for Progressives, part 2

PROSPECTS FOR PROGRESSIVES, PART II

The flap over the ordination of women, which is not as “over” as many would like to think as far as much of Africa is concerned, has resulted in a state of “impaired communion” in Anglicanism these past thirty years. While we constituent members of the Anglican Communion are all in communion with one another, we do not all take communion from one another. A sizeable chunk of our clergy, including a growing number of bishops, are not even recognized as ordained persons in many parts of the Communion. This solution is sometimes called the “local option.” The American Church is free to ordain a woman to any order of ministry, and the church in, say, Rwanda (or Fort Worth!), is free to ascribe absolutely no meaning whatsoever to that sacramental rite.

Progressives in our church long hoped for something like that, as the best solution among those available, in the case of the ordination of gays and lesbians and the blessing of same-sex unions. We have known that the Bishop of New Hampshire would not be invited to participate in ordinations in Kenya, or that a gay marriage recorded and blessed in Massachusetts would not be honored in Honduras. It would be the best we could do while we waited for the world to catch up with us.

The reaction to GC 75 is confirming what Windsor had already made clear—the “local option” will not be acceptable to those who oppose full inclusion of homosexuals in the church. I asked one strong opponent of the consecration of Gene Robinson on scriptural grounds, who supports the ordinations of women, how he could justify holding both of those positions consistently. He was unable to answer my question fully for fear of blowing a cerebral artery at the effrontery of my question, but he managed to assure me that the two issues are not at all the same. (I still don’t get it, and would appreciate having someone explain to me calmly how the “plain reading of scripture” applies in one case and not the other. But if we are permitted to apply a more scholarly approach, and to consider contemporary scientific research and social conditions in the one, why not also in the other?)

Clearly, though, the way things have been is not going to suffice any longer. The de facto impaired communion we have experienced for decades is going to have to become some kind of de jure impaired communion, and the question is, what kind?

RUMINATIONS CAN BE OVERTAKEN BY EVENTS

While I was racking my brain for the full list of possibilities, I received a copy of the statement by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is floating as a trial balloon a possible solution to the Anglican dilemma.

To get around actually kicking anybody out of the Anglican Communion, he is talking about setting up multiple tiers of membership in the Communion. Apparently, when the Anglican Covenant the conservatives have demanded and the General Convention agreed to discuss is completed, the Provinces will all be invited to subscribe to it. Those that do will be “constituent” members of the Communion. Those that don’t will be “associate members.” We already know from the Windsor Report, the statements of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Primates part of what that Covenant will include: it will assert the primacy of scripture, as interpreted by traditionalists, supported by tradition, with a modicum of human reason. It will specifically call for “the plain reading of scripture” regarding human sexuality. Homosexual persons will be welcomed to fill our pews, volunteer their time in ministry, and give to their hearts’ content—so long as they do not trouble the Queens of Denial with any awareness of their existence.

The 76^th General Convention will undoubtedly decline to commit itself to any such statement, partly because of the content of the statement, but also partly because our true traditionalist position is that we are not a covenantal church. It would be out of character for us to subscribe to any confessional statement beyond the historic creeds, which have been quite sufficient for a number of centuries. So The Episcopal Church is destined to become an “associate” member of the Anglican Communion.

On the one hand, this merely formalizes what is already the case: we are fractured. Some Provinces are in communion with each other, but not with us. But it raises more questions than it resolves at the moment, and it seems clear that several years of discussion will be required to flesh out any such solution to anyone’s satisfaction.

Another development of the day throws a wrench into the incomplete machinery of the Archbishop’s invention. On the heels of his statement, the reactionary side in the U. S., in cahoots with Nigeria’s Archbishop, accelerated its drive to secede from The Episcopal Church. Pittsburgh has declared itself to be out of Province Three of TEC, and in the non-existent new Province Ten, to be presided over by their own PB. Nigeria has consecrated an American bishop to lead its missionary foray into darkest America. These events underscore a difficult aspect of the new Anglican order: we are not just talking about American Episcopalians moving apart from African Anglicans; we are talking about American Anglicans moving apart from their counterparts in their own regions—and echoes of the same in other places as well.

So there are two done deals now: The Episcopal Church will be demoted to “associate” status within the Anglican Communion. Pittsburgh, Fort Worth, San Joaquin, South Carolina (secession, anyone?), and as of this morning, Central Florida, will withdraw from the Episcopal Church. There may be other dioceses, depending on what kind of leadership is shown by Rowan Williams and Katherine Jefferts Schori, and what level of destructive behavior is exhibited by Bob Duncan and Peter Akinola.

Can a diocese do that? There is no precedent for it. Clearly, this schism is going to require months or years of complex negotiations to accomplish, and it will provide windfall profits for a legion of lawyers to the impoverishment of all of the church, whether conservative, progressive, or moderate. In the short term, there is no telling how many of the moderates in particular will run screaming for the exits. The great hope of the far right side is that, having lost our “constituent member” status in the Anglican Communion, sympathetic conservative courts will declare The Episcopal Church to be essentially out of business, so that dioceses and parishes whose leadership wants to secede from it may be free to do so, taking “their” property with them. The great hope of the progressive side is that jurists will be truly conservative, and will rule in accordance with established precedent, allowing anyone who wants to depart to do so, leaving the property for the church, or the diocese, to use in building a new entity.

With bated breath (I know, I’ll be turning blue), I await answers to these questions:

• Will Canterbury allow for parallel jurisdictions within a Province? Will he consent to be in communion, on different levels, with The Episcopal Church and The Anglican Church, USA, at the same time?
• Will the same kind of split occur also in Canada? New Zealand? Australia? South Africa?
• How about the British Isles? What if the Episcopal Church of Scotland becomes an “associate” member?
• How will the Archbishop take it if liberals in the Church of England want to split from him, and the Covenant, as well?
• If the Covenant forbids any kind of blessing of same-sex unions, will the Church of England accept it? Will the C of E lose its Established Church status in the face of European Union demands that member states grant full human rights, including matrimony, to gays and lesbians?
• If a diocese manages to withdraw from The Episcopal Church, what about its parishes that don’t want to go (there are a bunch of these in Pittsburgh, including large and wealthy ones)? How can they then withdraw from the diocese in order to continue as the Episcopal Diocese? Or will it go the other way, with right-wing congregations withdrawing to form a new Anglican diocese? (Either way, the bishoping business is about to expand, as dioceses propagate!
• Will we wind up with half the church members struggling to support twice the number of bishops?
• If a parish wants to withdraw from its diocese (as has already happened many times), what will be the fate of those members who don’t want to go? Will they continue to remain in possession of parish properties, or will the legal status change radically?
• Having succeeded in eliminating gays from their clergy rolls, the reactionary body will have no woman bishops from the get-go, and we need not expect to see any elected among them, either. Will they go after women priests next?
• Having lost the conservative sea-anchor that kept us relatively moderate, just how radical will the surviving Episcopal Church become?