D025 and Speaking the Truth in Love

Predictably, the Episcopal and Anglican world is abuzz over the passage of Resolution D025 at General Convention yesterday. While I could go on and on about it, I'll defer to Greg Jones at Anglican Centrist, with whom I very much agree, for an excellent article about it. The short, short version is that D025 states clearly the current state of much of The Episcopal Church regarding gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans-gender (GLBT) ordination, the Anglican Communion, and the "listening process." It's actually a little more vague and nuanced than I'd prefer (just call a spade a spade, for God's sake!) but it is what it is.

My preference for clarity has less to do with putting out an "in your face" statement and more to do with the inevitable multiple interpretations of the resolution from conservative and liberal ends of the spectrum. Conservatives are already crying "they've chosen to walk apart" and liberals are already dancing in the streets over the "end of the moratorium" on consent to the election of GLBT bishops, or the "repeal of B033" (the resolution asking for restraint in such consents). It is neither. Predictably, it is a middle course which simultaneously asserts our desire to be a continuing member of the Anglican Communion while also asserting that we are not free to violate our own Constitution and Canons nor to simply ignore the ministry of GLBT persons in our midst. Some Standing Committees and Bishops will still withold consent from GLBT bishops-elect, some won't. Some dioceses will elect GLBT folks to the episcopate, others won't. Sounds suspiciously like what we have now, without the ecclesiastical slight of hand or smoke and mirrors of saying one thing and doing another.

In any case, other pieces of legislation are in the pipeline and the next few days will result in a flurry of resolutions being passed, so there will be much to comment upon. All those of us in pulpit and pew can do is pray for God's will to be done, Christ's peace in the midst of everything that is going on, and the Spirit's power to grow and sustain the church through trial and tribulation.

General Convention, Day Five

While this is not technically my last day of General Convention, it is the last day I'll be blogging about for a bit, primarily because tomorrow will be largely a travel day for me. I will attend the UTO Ingathering and Eucharist tomorrow morning, then head back to my hotel for my airport shuttle and then home. I had a certain sense of sadness as I left the convention center this afternoon--knowing that I would not be attending any more legislative sessions which, though occasionally tedious, have some really bringht spots as well.

This morning at the Community Eucharist, Ray Suarez preached an outstanding sermon saying, in effect, that we need not apologize for who we are and that we as a church have weathered a long series of conflicts over the years and will weather the one about sexuality, too. It frankly made me change my mind about some of the things I've said in previous blog entries regarding the Episcopal Church. Rather than scaling back, I think we need to ask for a committment from each and every perosn in the pews to help us to fully live into the structures and programs that do so much for so many. While there is certainly room and need to focus, it seems like it makes more sense to do a little judicious pruning rather than wholesale limb removal, to use a gardening analogy.

That was the first shoe to drop for me. The second was a long speach by Jenny Te Paa, one of several international guests of House of Deputies President Bonnie Anderson. She said, in part, "

"I am a little surprised and saddened that too many Episcopalians are being affected by their sense of loss of face or vulnerability in belonging to the Anglican Communion," she said. "I am dismayed at the extent to which that seems to be prevalent. I don't believe that that is so … it is not how I perceive the rest of the communion regarding the Episcopal Church to be honest." Citing her own province's experience of being the only province to be censured by the Anglican Consultative Council for its constitutional changes empowering indigineous people, she went on toe encourage the Episocpal Church to make the decision it feels in needs to make in terms of its own sense of justice. I was, frankly, stunned. From reports, it would seem that the Episcopal Church is viewed by the rest of the Anglican Communion as stubbornly going our own way in spite of pleas to hold back. From what I head from Te Paa, that is hardly the case with any number of provinces.

I then travelled to the Disney California Hotel for a wonderful Virginia Theological Seminary dinner where I was reminded of how great a seminary it is and how much it also is tied in to the Anglican Communion. I return home acutely conscious not only of the breadth of the Episcopal Church, but the worldwide communion of which it is a part.

From Across the Pond: Bishop Nick

Through the Gathering the Next Generation (GTNG) clergy email list, I've recently been put in touch with a great blog from Bishop Nick Baines of Croydon (Diocese of Southwark). Hosted by Fulcrum, his blog makes interesting reading, relatively free from either the distress or the enthusiasm of some of the bishops from The Episcopal Church. I was particularly interested in this part of one of his posts:

When I asked a Zimbabwean bishop last year why they don't write their own indigenous liturgies and why they follow only the BCP (17th century vernacular English), I was told that this is what the missionaries brought with them. Christianity was synonymous with the trappings: BCP language and liturgy, English Victorian hymns, English vestments and robes, etc. To ditch (or 'move on from') any of these would be synonymous with changing the faith itself or moving on from (or 'changing') the Gospel itself.

I find that I have two reactions to this. First, it is increasingly clear to me that one of the largest challenges we have is that the Gospel message that was communicated via English missionaries (interwoven with the English culture of the time) has been so locked into place as the one and only unchanging Gospel that it is clearly difficult, if not impossible, for there to be any "new revelation" or "new interpretation" even considered. It would be like dishonoring your father or your mother. Second, I know that that we have some of the same things at work here in The Episcopal Church. How many people left the church when "the new prayer book" (i.e., Book of Common Prayer 1979) was adopted because they were so used to the forms of th 1928 BCP that they couldn't imagine worshiping God in any other way?

For me, I find that I need to be both compassionate and discerning in my response to this. Clearly, God is timeless and so is the Gospel. Yet, to the extent that we serve an incarnational God in Jesus Christ, someone rooted in a place and time, our expressions of worship will necessarily reflect our own place and time. More likely, they will reflect the place and time in which we were raised. Short of a cataclysmic "Damascus Road" experience, it is extremely difficult to transcend our own cultural upbringing and inheritance and embrace something new without a substantial spiritual grounding. Perhaps as we lament what we consider the limited wordview of our Anglican brothers and sisters in the developing world, we should realize that our view, too, is limited, just in different ways.

Independence Day, Interdependence, and Lordship

In the wake of the recent conclusion of GAFCON, the responses arising from it, and the anticipation (or lack thereof) of the upcoming Lambeth Conference, it is a tad ironic that today the United States celebrates Independence Day. Given that what we celebrate is our country's independence from Great Britain, the Episcopal Church (as a daughter church of the Church of England) was at the center of the birth of our nation. Fast forward 232 years and the world is a very different place. It is a post-colonial, post-Christian, and post-modern world in which nearly everything we thought was stable and solid has either cracked and fallen away or is being radically reshaped. The era where "the sun never sets on the British Empire" is long gone and one of the core foundations of the Anglican Communion--our common ancestry in the Church of England--no longer seems sufficient to unite an increasingly culturally, economically, and theologically diverse union of national churches. In many ways, we are the most "independent" we have ever been--set free from state, church, and the bonds of tradition and history.

As politicians, pundits, and poets wax eloquent about the glories of freedom and independence, our economy is in shambles, fuel prices are at record levels, and across the world many of those former British colonies are in the mids of strife and starvation. Doesn't look like freedom and independence is all it is cracked up to be, does it? And yet there are the beginnings a realization that as much as Americans revere the self-made man or the rugged individualist, events across the globe can rapidly impact our lives in both subtle and profound ways. The emergence of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is an example of our increasing awareness of the global issues that transcend both nationality and church membership. Morally and economically, we can no longer afford to either ignore or assume we can control the world. The current travails in the Anglican Communion, it seems to me, are as much about this renegotiation of power and influence as they are about anything else.

Ever since my Sabbatical a year ago, and my accompanying journey through the program of the Church Development Institute (CDI), I have been re-introduced to the liturgical and theological riches that support and strengthen both Anglican theology and Anglican ecclesiology. One of those areas of strength is the Benedictine rule of life which values stability, obedience, and conversion of life. My good friend and colleague Fr. Nathan Humphrey has written an excellent essay on Independence and Interdependence in which he links Independence Day (July 4) and the Feast of St. Benedict (July 11). It is well worth a read.

Just to add to my mental ruminations, the Gospel lesson appointed for this coming Sunday, July 6 include Jesus' famous words:

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:29-30)

Perhaps the best way to honor those who have come before us, who have blazed the way to independence from temporal authority, who have often paid for our freedoms in the price of their blood, is to freely surrender that independence not to a temporal power nor a set of rigid precepts, but to God in Jesus Christ with whom we have an ongoing and dynamic relationship. There is great reticence to using the word "Lord" in many versions of our liturgy, but what is Christianity but a voluntary submission to the Lordship of Christ and the communion brought about by Christ's work as our Savior?

Rather than chafing against all restrictions, what would it look like if we truly yoked ourselves to Jesus, went where Jesus leads us, depended on Jesus to help us, and realized that the yoke we bear is easy precisely because God is yoked right there alongside us, both leading us and helping us? That is a question with far more implications and ramifications than can be dealt with in a single blog entry, but is worth thinking on as we watch our contemporary "rockets' red glare."

What would a Postmodern Anglicanism look like?

In the wake of the recent statement from GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference), Canon Neal Mitchell writes that the statement reflects that many at GAFCON

..are responding in non-Modern ways, embracing certain aspects of Christendom in the Anglican Communion while dismissing other Christendom aspects of the Communion—which is a very Postmodern thing to do.

Canon Mitchell seems to rejoice in the Anglican Communion being set free from the hierarchical ecclesiology of a dead Christendom paradigm and seems also to advocate strongly that the prospect of overlapping jurisdictions formed by relationship rather than geography is not only inevitable, but a good thing.

At the same time, Bishop Pierre Whalon (Bishop of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe) attempts in a recent essay to define exactly what Anglican ecclesiology is. After describing the difficulties of such a definition, Bishop Whalon proceeds to identify some features of Anglicanism that relate specifically to how we structure ourselves and what that has to say about how we view God and the Church. He also looks beyond Lambeth 2008 to see what will continue to be issues facing the Anglican Communion.

Where these two essays meet for me is the question: What should the Anglican Communion look like in a post-Christian age such that it is both faithful to our own traditions and yet responsive to the contemporary world? In other words, what does a Postmodern Anglican Communion look like?

I don't know, and I suspect few others do either. However, it will be quite interesting to find out. I'm wondering if there is any structure, agreement, or statement that can take us beyond the present conflict and help us to get on with mission and ministry while addressing some of the underlying tensions. We'll see...

Semi-Sleepless in Seattle

I've spent the last week in Seattle, Washington completing the course of study at the Church Development Institute (CDI) that I started last summer at the beginning of my Sabbatical. It has been great being back here, seeing both new faces and those who, like me, started this journey last year. I'm also moving from the thought of "wow, I could use bits and pieces of this to tweak things we already do" to "wow, I could use a ton of this to radically reshape the parish I serve. Given that the Bishop's Advisory Committee (Vestry/church board) and I will be having a Program Planning Retreat on August 16, I'm in the process of thinking about how I might use the knowledge and expertise I've gained here at that particularly critical time in our congregation's life. We'll see what God has in mind, and if I'm listening clearly enough to understand God's will.

One unexpected blessing of being here is that there is little to no excuse to tune in on the news from around the Anglican Communion, which is generally depressingly more of the same anyway. I'm staying in the Greet Tortoise Hostel here and being with twenty-somethings from around the world who have no connection whatsoever with the church, much less the Episcopal Church, makes me realize just how insulated I can easily become as I serve God in both St. Alban's and the Diocese of Oregon. How much less earth-shattering the regular stream of local, national, and international news of the Anglican and Episcopal world means in this setting!

Anyway, I'm headed back to Albany on Friday and will be catching up on things and preaching and celebrating on Sunday, when we celebrate St. Alban's Day, our patronal feast. I will hopefully return with both new skills and a new perspective!

Whose conflict is this?

For at least several months now, I've been an avid reader of Dan Martins' blog "Confessions of a Carioca." Formerly a priest in the Diocese of San Joaquin, having left before the culmination of the current unpleasantness, and leaning towards the conservative side, he nonetheless has some interesting things to say about the current conflict (or "slow train wreck", as he calls it) raging in the Anglican Communion. In a recent post he writes, among other things:

I am angry with my own Baby Boomer generation, now pretty much running the Episcopal Church. That we are also running the country is also true, but too scary to contemplate--we are a generation of Peter Pans. We walk and talk like adults but we have never laid aside the self-indulgence of youth, and the mantra that we learned just as we were starting school in the 1950s, that we are special because there are so damn many of us. In the Church, our dominance is seen in the hyper-individualism by which we apprehend the Faith, and the complete sentimentalization of its content.

As a Generation Xer, who grew up seeing the families of his friends disintegrate around them, I've often thought about how similar the current strife is to a divorce and wondering whether this has as much to do with the generation "running" the church as it has to do with the issues in play. It short, I'm wondering whether, thirty years from now, we (those of us who are left) will look back and wonder why there was such a huge fight, much like we do when we look back on the fight over the "new" prayer book (now nearly thirty years old).

I'm also avidly watching the political scene, with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain, and it is looking like a serious generational choice is facing the country. As far as I can tell, Obama is a GenXer, Clinton a Boomer, and McCain a Silent/Builder. It will be interesting to see who ends up in the White House, after two successive Boomers (Bill Clinton and George W. Bush). So, perhaps both church and state divides can be attributed, to generational views, at least somewhat.

Something to think about...

Paradox and Polarization

One of the great things about the blogosphere is that there is such a treasure trove of opinion and research from which to draw. After my own blog entry regarding bishops, I happened upon this excellently written post by Fr. Tony Clavier which discusses exactly the difficulty we get into when we relegate our bishops to a political role as members of simply one of two Houses of General Convention. It is very much worth a read. Coupled with that, the Episcopal Majority blog has an excellent article by The Rev. Matthew Dutton-Gillett on the struggle for the church to embrace paradox over exclusion, something he points out that we've never done well.

In my opinion, both of these articles point to a difficulty we face in this conflict. We face a cultural chasm in which most Western cultures have been in conversation regarding issues of sexuality for decades, while in some African and Asian countries such discussions cannot even begin due to cultural taboos. Even beyond that, the foundational point in the modernist/postmodernist divide--the conflict between the "either/or" way of seeing things and the "both/and" way of seeing things--means that the clash between the "one truth" aspect of thinking (i.e., the "plain truth of scripture") wars with what former Presiding Bishop Griswold has referred to as "pluriform truths." I also note that, at least in my experience in the Episcopal Church, such a tolerance for paradox is less likely to occur in the Baby Boomer generation than it is in postmodern generations (Generation X and Millennials).

Add to this conflict in both culture and ways of thinking the fact that, at least according to this article in Ekklesia, most of us have both very short memories and very little tolerance for long explanations. The author also makes a point related to my last post, that is that:

Hard work will be needed if the gulf which has opened up is to be bridged. Moves towards increasing the power of senior clergy, and their unaccountability to those they supposedly serve, will not help. Why should laypeople used to taking responsibility in other areas of life, and having to argue their case if they are to persuade others to take their views on board, passively accept the pronouncements of bishops who have not done their homework, especially if this undermines local mission and ministry?

In other words, while I would assert that bishops do have a charism and responsibility for teaching and for 'guarding the unity of the church," they also have an obligation to study and consult widely as they consider their positions. As well, we are well past the time when anyone can be said to have the final word on anything, much less an aspect of a two-thousand year old faith tradition.

I'm not sure just where this leaves us, except that we need to be in a lot less of a hurry to resolve the situation and a lot more willing to deeply consider possible solutions, including the possibility that this particular issue may remain unresolved for a long time to come. Perhaps we just need to live with that fact.

Bishops and Democracy

The long-awaited Archbishop of Canterbury's Advent Letter has been published and is worth a read. Folks with far more free time on their hands than I have dissected and parsed the text trying to read between the lines for what it really says (or what they would like to think it really says) and I will leave that to them. The question which is as yet unanswered is this: Can the members of the Anglican Communion agree to disagree regarding ordination of partnered homosexual persons and blessing of same-sex unions, or are the irreconcilable differences of opinion on this one issue such that schism is inevitable? It seems more and more that this is a cultural, rather than a biblical or theological, divide, but it is no less critical for that.

I'm also interested in +++Rowan's thoughts regarding bishops:

A somewhat complicating factor in the New Orleans statement has been the provision that any kind of moratorium is in place until General Convention provides otherwise. Since the matters at issue are those in which the bishops have a decisive voice as a House of Bishops in General Convention, puzzlement has been expressed as to why the House should apparently bind itself to future direction from the Convention. If that is indeed what this means, it is in itself a decision of some significance. It raises a major ecclesiological issue, not about some sort of autocratic episcopal privilege but about the understanding in The Episcopal Church of the distinctive charism of bishops as an order and their responsibility for sustaining doctrinal standards. Once again, there seems to be a gap between what some in The Episcopal Church understand about the ministry of bishops and what is held elsewhere in the Communion, and this needs to be addressed.

Having just had my own bishop call for the election of his successor, and having seen from afar some of the issues with which he has been forced to deal, the question of what we in the Episcopal Church think is, to use the Archbishop's words, the "distinctive charism of bishops as an order." Do we think of the episcopate, or even the priesthood and/or diaconate, as simply jobs or positions? Do we believe in the "Bishop as CEO, Priest as Caregiver, and Deacon as Social Worker" model or do we believe that there is, in fact, some special gift of the Spirit that is conveyed or recognized at ordination? What do we think God does when we ask God to "make" someone a bishop, priest, or deacon in God's church?

More than sexuality, it appears that here is where the real divide between the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion lies. We like to dress our bishops up like everyone else, parade them around, and have them make speeches and wax theological, but God help them if they actually exercise any power! Ever since the first colonists came over and established a settlement at Jamestown 400 years ago, we have been uncomfortable with the role of bishops. I would submit that we often have far more in common with the Lutherans, for whom I believe that bishop is a role or job, not an permanently ordained ministry, then we are truly catholic in our ecclesiology. I keep seeing other bloggers wondering why we should give the resolutions of the Lambeth Conference so much weight and seeing the most representative body, the Anglican Consultative Council, as having the only true and legitimate authority in the Communion. Don't even get them started on the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Primates! Why? Why do we see democracy as having the highest authority? I would say that says more about our culture than it says about out theology. While we certainly shouldn't give bishops more authority than they are due, it may well be a part of what Dan Martins refers to as our "impoverished ecclesiology" (though that blog entry was written before the Archbishop's letter and referring to the unpleasantness in the Diocese of San Joaquin) that we give them so little authority.

In any case, I would love to see a discussion on what we believe ordination is and what we believe the ministry of a bishop is. As the Archbishop says, "this needs to be addressed."

Anxiety, Fear, and Expectation

As I contemplate Christ the King Sunday, Thanksgiving, this season of Advent, and the escalating unrest across the Episcopal Church and, to a lesser extent, the Anglican Communion, it strikes me afresh how much we are in an unsettled, Advent-like time in the church and in the world. We have had a spate of letters to various bishops from our Presiding Bishop warning against actions that could be seen as "abandoning the communion of the church" and, at least so far, seemingly not making a bit of difference in the subsequent actions of their respective Diocesan Conventions. It seems as if we are headed for uncharted territory in the Anglican Communion and the level of anxiety is as high as I've ever seen it.

As I've remarked before in this blog, anxiety is a difficult state from which to make good decisions. In such a state we tend to devolve to the "fight or flight" response to just about everything. I'm a lurker on the House of Deputies/Bishops email list and even (perhaps especially!) there, it seems that every comment, even a seemingly innocuous one, provokes a flurry of responses, many critical. It would be nice to simply declare a "time out" from all of this, take a deep breath (or several!) and simply wait for what God will do. In other words, what we apparently need is a season like...Advent!

I doubt the first "Advent" (weeks prior to the birth of Christ) was any less tense and anxiety-ridden as this current time. There were factions in the Temple, the country was occupied by a hostile foreign power, and God had not spoken to God's people in hundreds of years. Into this time comes Immanuel, God with us. God breaks in to an anxious world as the Prince of Peace. I hope and pray that these Advent weeks will be a time of deep breathing, expectation, and peaceful prayer as we wait not only for Jesus' coming again, but for all that God will do in, through, and sometimes in spite of the Episcopal Church.

More House of Bishops Summaries and Analysis

Well, the blog beat goes on in the wake of the recently-concluded House of Bishops meeting in New Orleans. An excellent, though somewhat tongue-in-cheek, summary of the meeting is posted by The Rev. Susan Fawcett on Episcopal Cafe.

There is an interesting time-line shaping up here. If the Anglican Consultative Council follows the pattern they have established of meeting every three years, then they will meet in 2008, the same year as the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference. One or more Primates Meetings, of course, may be held at any point in time. Following both of those meetings, the Episcopal Church will meet in General Convention in 2009. By that time, the overall direction of the Anglican Communion should be pretty clear, meaning that GC2009 will probably be dealing with the results of such meetings (possibly redrawing diocesan boundaries, etc...) rather than replying to yet another set of inquiries.

Keep praying...

Nigerian bishop says gay people are "Not fit to live"?

UPDATE: Mark Harris reports that "...the reporter for the News Agency of Nigeria may have misquoted Bishop Orama of Nigeria, or worse deliberately done so. UPI has pulled the story pending further investigation." I'm happy to hear that, but the environment that spawns even the possibility of such statements continues to exist in far too many quarters and from far too many people, including clergy.

Normally I attempt to stay somewhat out of the current wrangling in the church regarding sexual ethics. As a centrist, I try to steer a balanced, middle course. However, every time I'm tempted to veer a little towards the conservative end of the spectrum, a conservative cleric comes along and gives me something that either causes me to veer the other way or, occasionally, just makes my jaw drop. Such was a quote by the Anglican Bishop of Uyo (in Nigeria). A recent article quoted him as follows:

"Homosexuality and lesbianism are inhuman. Those who practice them are insane, satanic and are not fit to live because they are rebels to God's purpose for man,'' the Bishop said."

I cannot believe that a man of God, someone who professes to be a Christian, would seriously say that anyone is "insane, satanic, and...not fit to live." Such rhetoric, far from being helpful, appears to indicate, at least to me, that the "listening process" mandated by the much-referred-to Lambeth resolution has had next to no effect in parts of the Anglican Communion.

In any case, as the September 30 "deadline" looms, it may be well to recall that some of the "orthodox" harbor the above view. Many do not, but there is a strain of folks in the seperatist movement who regard homosexuality as utterly evil and those who "practice" homosexuality as people who should be cast into the darkness or the fires of hell. Hard to see a via media (middle way) here...

Theologically Orthodox and Socially Progressive

For many, many years now I have been making the assertion that it is quite possible to be both theologically orthodox and socially progressive. More specifically, it is possible to take Holy Scripture seriously, to see Jesus as the way to God, to hold mainstream views of the Incarnation, Resurrection, etc... and still believe in the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of homosexual persons. I happen to know several people, among them gays and lesbians, who nevertheless hold very traditional, orthodox views on core Christian doctrines.

Generally, when I make the above assertion to a conservative-leaning crowd, I am greeted with stares and responses of disbelief that such a thing is even possible. It seems that one's views on sexuality are the de facto litmus test on both one's orthodoxy and one's view of scripture as authoritative. I do not think that should be the case. Now, I have online proof that the orthodox theology and progressive views of sexuality can co-exist! Fr. Jake, in his blog, has a posting on Christians in a Pluralistic World which is well worth reading and pretty thoroughly orthodox, especially regarding evangelism and the unique revelation of God in Christ. Have a read, add to the more than 150 comments if you like, but note that Fr. Jake does in fact hold strong views of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and the impetus for evangelism. He's revealing what he calls his "inner Baptist."

So it is possible. Given that, might we hypothesize that there are thousands, perhaps millions of people who can affirm the Nicene and Apostles Creeds without reservation, see scripture as "containing all things necessary to salvation," and yet still affirm same-sex blessings and homosexual ordination? If there are folks for whom that is true, then if the real issue is the authority of scripture, then let us dispense with questions of sexuality, affirm the creeds, core doctrines, and witness of scripture, and we're done! That just leaves those who have some particular axe to grind with the issue of same-sex blessings and homosexual ordination, but since that isn't the real issue, the rest of us in the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion should be able to move on.

Gee, I solved the problem with more than a month to go before September 30! Hmmm....

Back on Oahu and Reflections on Current Events

Just got back from a week on Maui, capped off by a truly amazing performance of Ulalena at the Maui Theatre. Ulalena is a live-action theatrical presentation of the mythical creation story of Maui through the immigration of people from Tahiti, forced immigration of Chinese and Japanese people to work in the sugar cane fields, and the emergence of European influence on the islands. As I watched the show, I was reminded that the interaction of native people with European explorers, missionaries, and others has often had a less than positive result, to say the least. It is interesting to be a tourist and to see so much native culture on display, often at "touristy" events (luaus, etc...) On the plus side, the Hawaiian culture seems to have permeated the general culture of the Hawaiian islands much more than Native American culture has permeated the culture of the mainland. Unlike mainlanders, it is nearly impossible for residents of Hawaii to ignore native culture. The fact that such native culture is part and parcel of the tourist industry is perhaps a mixed blessing.

On a somewhat different topic, the "fun" continues with Fr. David Anderson reacting to the following quote from the Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu:

…I haven’t found that in Ecusa (sic) or in Canada, where I was recently, they have any doubts in their understanding of God which is very different from anybody. What they have quarrelled about is the nature of sexual ethics.

Fr. Anderson's response is that Dr. Sentamu just hasn't been looking hard enough. Citing Bishops Jefferts Schori (Presiding), Spong (Newark, retired), Bruno (Los Angeles), Bennison (Pennsylvania), and Borsch (Los Angeles, retired) he says that the real battle is over core doctrines, not sexuality.

The Diocese of York published a response a couple of days later, which essentially says that such citations are from the fringe of the Episcopal Church, not its center, and restates the Archbishop of York's orthodox credentials.

I would certainly agree with Fr. Anderson that there are several instances in which The Episcopal Church (TEC) has refused to discipline those who actively refute core doctrines of the Christian faith (Bishop Spong) and that many, many congregations practice "open communion" in violation of the canons. However, the Diocese of York's response is good, particularly the following:

By using such a broad brush to attack the Episcopal Church as a whole, Canon Anderson conveniently whitewashes the testimony daily offered up by all those faithfully reciting the creeds and liturgy that bear evidence to those doctrines which he alleges have been abandoned. The orthodox voice of the multitude is drowned out and ignored in Anderson’s analysis in favour of selective quotation from the fringe.

I have several difficulties with this entire argument. The first is that we have not, to my knowledge, had a prolonged and exhaustive discussion of the core doctrines of Christianity, nor do I believe that there has been a wholesale abandonment of such doctrines by significant portions of the Episcopal Church. I simply haven't seen that. Second, as much as folks talk about how sexuality isn't the real issue, it appears to be the pressing issue of the day. Archbishop Akinola is not debating the doctrines of the Incarnation, Resurrection, etc... with Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori or other bishops in the Episcopal Church, he is focusing on the issue of homosexuality. If that is not the issue, then why does it keep coming up? Last, why does Fr. Anderson simply quote a string of bishops? I know many, many priests and laity who are far more theologically grounded than many bishops (I was taught at Virginia Seminary by some of them). In simply rattling off a string of quotes from bishops, even prominent ones, Fr. Anderson seems to fall into the trap of thinking (or asking the wider Anglican Communion to think) that TEC is run and controlled exclusively by bishops.

As I look at the wrangling currently at work, I find myself reflecting on the Episcopal Church and our core Anglican identity and liturgy. My stint at the Church Development Institute in Seattle earlier in my Sabbatical has given me a new respect and appreciation for that identity and liturgy. As I also read Diana Butler Bass' book Christianity for the Rest of Us, I am struck by the rush to claim the Anglican moniker. As institutions and denominations matter less and less in many congregations, liturgical and theological heritage becomes increasingly more important. Perhaps rather than wrestling and wrangling about who gets to stick a shield or a compass-rose on their sign, we might more profitably go more deeply into what uniquely makes us Anglicans and do so on a congregation by congregation basis. Perhaps in knowing and valuing our own identity, we might more easily claim that identity.

An Anglican Non-Anxious Presence

My original plan for my Sabbatical was to take a break, or Sabbath rest, from news of the Episcopal Church. I unsubscribed from the Episcopal Life Online (ELO, which still makes me think of the group Electric Light Orchestra, but that's beside the point...) and vowed that I would avert my eyes from the news of the wider church in the interest of escaping from what seems the continual bad news emerging from various parts of the Anglican Communion.

That Sabbath lasted about a week.

There are two reasons that I decided to re-engage with the news events of the church. Initially it was because, frankly, I couldn't help myself. I hated being out of the information loop. However, in the wake of my experience at CDI-Seattle, my second reason (far better) was that simply running away, even for a time, from the conflicts raging around the church (or even the inevitable conflicts within my own congregation) increasingly seemed to be to be bowing to fear and a spirit of worry and anxiety. This is in sharp contrast to being what the late Edwin Freeman, in his book Generation to Generation, referred to as being a "non-anxious presence" in any given situation. As I see statements and counter-statements rage across blogs, church newspapers, and even the secular press, it strikes me that there is often precious little reason (the third leg of the Anglican three-legged stool) associated with them, and a substantial dose of either fear or anger. My newly-accepted challenge for my life and ministry is to remain present in the midst of national, diocesan, and congregational conflicts while not being overly anxious about those conflicts and discerning where God may be speaking through them.

In that spirit, I ran across the following blog entry on The Episcopal Majority blog. The author, The Reverend Matthew Dutton-Gillett, remarks on the recent essay by the Most Reverend Henry Luke Orambi, Archbishop of Uganda. on the topic "What is Anglicanism?" Fr. Dutton-Gilbert writes, in part,

"Debate about sexuality, or more precisely, homosexuality, is not really the issue; it is, rather, a very significant symptom. The real issue is this divide about how the Bible is to be interpreted and understood, and its place in the life of the church."

That is, in my opinion, indeed true. However, you rarely, if ever, see any sort of debate on that issue. Couple that with the current manifestation of the debate regarding homosexuality, with all the strong feelings and cultural issues that brings up, and you have a very challenging situation.

He also quotes what he takes to be Archbishop Orambi's central point:

"In the Church of Uganda, Anglicanism has been built on three pillars: martyrs, revival, and the historic episcopate. Yet each of these refers back to the Word of God, the ground on which all is built: The faith of the martyrs was maintained by the Word of God, the East African revival brought to the people the Word of God, and the historic ordering of ministry was designed to advance the Word of God."

Thus the entire Church of Uganda apparently stands or falls solely on scripture, and thus the "correct" interpretation of scripture. It is little wonder, therefore, that differing interpretations of scripture would have far more significance for them than for us in the Episcopal Church.

Contrast those pillars with the fourfold pillars of Scripture, Creed, Episcopate, and Sacraments in the Chicago/Lambeth Quadrilateral and you begin to see from whence the divide emerges. Arguably, we in the Episcopal Church have been marked by only one of the three "pillars of Anglicanism" at work in Uganda: the historic episcopate. Our martyrs are few and far between, revival has occasionally quickened the church but not often had a lasting impact, and we do not operate in nearly the sort of adversarial environment that the Church of Uganda does. Similarly, they do not operate in the sort of pluralistic, individual rights-based environment that we do. In the past, that was fine--without instant communication via the Internet, we could pretty much live out our faith in relative isolation. With the rise of globalization, that is no longer possible. So, how then do we live together?

For me, and I suspect for a great number of others, it comes down to what is essential to our Christian faith as opposed to what is important, but non-essential. Doctrines such as the Incarnation, Resurrection, and the Trinity as well as Holy Scripture as "the Word of God [containing] all things necessary to salvation" (Oath of Conformity, BCP, p. 526) seem like basic foundations on which most Anglicans and Episcopalians can agree. Even if that is not the case, all we can really do that is productive at this point is take a deep breath, pray, pray again, and then be as faithful to our own call from God as congregations and individuals as possible.

So, I will, with God's help, continue to be present to congregational, diocesan, and national church concerns, hopefully without giving in to the temptation to be anxious in the midst of inevitable conflict. After all, God is still in charge and it is God's church, not mine.

The Die Is Cast, at least for a few...

As those who have been tracking such things are aware, on Saturday, May 5 Archbishop Peter Akinola, Primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, Installed The Rt. Rev. Martyn Minns as a Missionary Bishop of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA). Numerous articles have been written and blog entries have been made (on PRELUDIUM, Episcopal Cafe, etc..), and no doubt the buzz will continue for some time to come.

My particular favorite quote of all of this is from Archbishop Akinola himself: "'The Church of Nigeria itself has almost nothing to offer,' he said, although the church is the largest in the global communion. 'We are doing this on behalf of the Communion. If we had not done this many of you would be lost to other churches, maybe to nothing at all.'" That would be well and good if not for the fact that the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the aforementioned Anglican Communion "on behalf" of which this act was done, specifically told Archbishop Akinola not to do this. The word "lost," especially in regards to other churches sounds like a very fundamentalist, narrow, and decidedly un-Anglican version of Christianity. Heck, if people can find life in Christ in the Lutheran, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, or other Christian church, more power to them! The point is life in Christ, not which color your jersey is!

Archbishop Akinola, in presuming to speak and act for the Anglican Communion, is setting himself up as an alternative to Archbishop Rowan Williams as head of the Communion. What, now are we going to have the Abuja Conference rather than the Lambeth Conference? In any case, it appears that the die is cast and that some disaffected members of The Episcopal Church will now move to the new "missionary diocese" and attempt to take their church buildings, documents, and names with them. Let the games begin (wait, they already have...)! Now I'm waiting for someone from the Episcopal Church to found a missionary diocese in Nigeria...

Seriously, folks, I need to remind myself constantly that all of this affects but a tiny percentage of churches, most of which are quietly, without fanfare, doing what God has called them to do, as our Presiding Bishop pointed out recently. I still plan to visit the homebound this week, preach on Sunday, and administer communion, regardless of convulsions of the wider church. Christ is STILL risen!