Relatioships Rock, Issues Bite!

It has been nearly a month since I last put fingers to keyboard and posted to this blog. Of course, Holy Week and Easter were there, so there is some justification for silence. Mostly, however, I wanted to give some time to the random thoughts drifting around my brain to form some sort of coherent whole before "uploading" them to blog text. Friends of mine are far more qualified than I am to opine on the various theological and ecclesiastical goings on right now in the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion. However, I did want to highlight one particular essay, written by The Rt. Rev. Pierre Whalon, Bishop in Charge of the Convocation of American Churches in Europe. I'm a big fan of Bishop Whalon's, not least because he attempts to chart a center course in an era where polarization is the norm. His latest effort is a reflection on the Anglican Covenant where, among a great many other things, he says:

What matters most is in fact what the Ridley Preamble claims: is this Covenant a means to make our contribution to God’s mission in the world more effective?

Many years ago, a number of us in Gathering the Next Generation (GTNG), what I refer to as a "Generation X mission society" came together for a regional gathering. The unofficial theme of that gathering was an assertion that: "Relationships Rock, Issues Bite!" Though more nuanced, I find that same sentiment in both Bishop Whalon's essay and, interestingly, in some of the reviews of the Covenant itself. Efforts to make the Anglican Covenant into an Anglican Contract and to make it proscriptive rather than descriptive seem to be waining in favor of putting out a document that sets out in very simple theological terms the basis of our common mission and life together--and it isn't that we agree on all the issues, either! I look forward (though with a perhaps too jaundiced and cynical eye) to the debate that will commence with the meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council and, in this country, with General Convention 2009. I hope that it focuses on our unity in Christ and the relatioships we have with one another, rather than any sort of doctrinal conformity. We'll see...

When Church Inhibits Community

As the Lambeth Conference fades into history and as clergy and laity enjoy the waining weeks of summer and gear up for the beginning of the program year, I am thinking of how often the institutional policies and processes that are designed to define and defend the Christian community from outside threats sometimes end up choking the life out of precisely what they are designed to protect. I've often likened the church to an aircraft carrier--incredibly tough, durable, and very difficult to sink but has a very difficult time turning and has an incredible amount of momentum. Like the United States during the Cold War, the church has built up defenses over the centuries to large scale threats to its institutional life. However, in this post-Cold War (and post-Christian) world, there is more call for speedboats than for aircraft carriers. In other words, things like the emergent church movement and other ways of deconstructing the institutional church and replacing it with a more agile form of Christian community seem to be more effective in the 21st century ministry context.

I say that because I was very interested to read Andrew Gerns's reflections on Lambeth in 'The Lead' section of the Episcopal Cafe, where he begins by writing:

In many ways the Lambeth Conference had dual personalities. There was the listening, engaging personality of the Indaba groups, along with the Bible Studies, the worship. Then there was the organizational side where the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Anglican Communion Office and the Bishops attempted to find a structure by which the Communion could hold together.

I would assert that what emerged from the Lambeth Conference was a highly relational understanding of church, with bishops engaging one another face-to-face and, in many cases, finding that while their official institutional churches were on opposite sides of the sexuality debate and other issues, they personally got on well together. It was when they attempted to find a structure to reflect and protect those relationships that they seem to have reverted to previous win/lose and us/them institutional polarizations.

As I see this on the international scene, I'm also preparing for a church board program planning retreat this coming Saturday and reflecting on the interrelationship between people and programs. My hope and prayer is that, partially as a result of this retreat, we come to a fresh appreciation of our identity as brothers and sisters in Christ and members of Christ's body, the church. There is a great temptation to resist taking risks, leaps of faith, in order to protect the institution from failure. Yet if the church (locally, nationally, or internationally) simply sees itself in a defensive way--as an defense against "the world, the flesh, and the devil" and not as a network of care for those both within and outside its walls then we will simply rot from the inside and all that will be left will be the walls and stained glass windows protecting a "faithful remnant" inside.

I hope that as the Anglican Covenant process unfolds in the next year that it will find a way to support and uphold the face-to-face relationships that are, after all, the true foundation of the Anglican Communion.

Relationships, Rules, and a Reflective Covenant

As I have attempted to follow the sometimes convoluted reports of the discussions happening at the Lambeth Conference, it occurs to me that there is a reality that transcends the hierarchy and the official statements made or not made. That reality is that these bishops value their relationships with one another, regardless of their stance on issues of sexuality. Even after the Archbishop of Sudan suggested that if he were Bishop Robinson he would resign for the good of the church, many TEC bishops and bishops from Sudan stressed their desire to continue to work together and forge stronger bonds of friendship and mission.

If the reality of relationships is accurate, then perhaps rather than an Anglican Covenant of rules and regulations (which is actually more like a contract) there should be an Anglican Covenant that reflects this reality of relationships over issues. The reality is that Christianity is a profoundly incarnational faith and thus requires human contact. That sort of contact, between flawed, sinful human beings, is bound to be messy, imperfect, and full of miscommunication and hurt as well as understanding and healing. From what I've read from various bishop's blogs, those relationships have been what have been the most valuable aspect of the conference, as they are with all good conferences that I've been to.

An Anglican Covenant that is reflective of the vital relationships that currently exist within the Communion and that seeks to strengthen those relationships in spite of theological differences rather than attempting to either gloss over them or legislate them out of existance would seem to the most helpful document for our ongoing life together.