A Critique of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of the Anglican Covenant - Part 1

This is the first of two parts of an analysis of Sections 1, 2, and 3 of the Anglican Covenant. Today, I introduce my critique and discuss Section 1. In the concluding post tomorrow, I will discuss Sections 2 and 3 and offer some concluding remarks.

Although much has been said and written about the Anglican Covenant, critics have been superficial and generous in their evaluation of its first three sections. Section 4 has been a lightning rod for criticism, which has both diverted attention from the rest of the Covenant and encouraged charity toward it so as not to be seen as uncoöperative. The devil, it is often said, hides in the details, however, and the exact wording of Sections 1, 2, and 3 is important. Churches considering adoption of the Covenant need to understand just what they are being asked to sign on to, so that they can evaluate the likelihood of their being subjected to “relational consequences” for their actions past, present, or future.

I have long thought the first three sections of the Covenant misleading and dangerous, but I have resisted the daunting task of making a systematic argument to that effect. In what follows, however, I offer a critique of Sections 1, 2, and 3 in the hope that doing so will encourage more thorough and honest discussion of those parts of the Covenant.

I undertake this task as a defender of the integrity of my church and with my skills as a technical editor, one who seeks clarity in a text and who is obliged to raise questions wherever clarity is lacking. In this instance, unfortunately, I cannot go back to the author and suggest rewording, since we have been told that the text to which churches are being asked to subscribe is the “final text.” I cannot, therefore, always provide a definitive explication of the meaning of the Covenant, but I can suggest what, in practice, it might mean. This is the best anyone can do.

I will not attempt to analyze the Introduction, which, according to §4.4.1 is not actually part of the Covenant. The Introduction is a page and a half of impenetrable gobbledegook intended to lend an air of religiosity to the Covenant and to discourage serious reading of what follows. Likewise, I will ignore Section 4 for now, which is of an entirely different character.

My observations will be of greatest interest to members of The Episcopal Church, and especially to deputies to the 2012 General Convention who will likely determine the fate of the Covenant in relation to The Episcopal Church. I trust that other Anglicans will also find my remarks helpful.

Preamble

Let me begin with the Preamble of the Covenant. Here and in what follows, I will quote the Covenant text sparingly. Readers should read my comments with the Covenant text itself readily available in order to follow my remarks.

The Preamble seems reasonably straightforward. I do find the citation of Revelation 7:9 to be both pretentious and irrelevant, but this is only a stylistic issue.

Section One: Our Inheritance of Faith

This section includes assertions that “each church affirms.”

Section 1.1.1 is certainly unobjectionable.

Section 1.1.2 is a bit problematic. What, exactly does it mean to affirm that

The historic formularies of the Church of England, forged in the context of the European Reformation and acknowledged and appropriated in various ways in the Anglican Communion, bear authentic witness to this faith.

A footnote explains that what is being referred to here are “The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.” The significance of the “historic formularies” has been downplayed somewhat in this draft over earlier ones. The Episcopal Church, of course, never used the 1662 prayer book, and I think that Episcopalians would not accept the Articles of Religion as a valid statement of their Anglican faith. Can The Episcopal Church “affirm” §1.1.2 in good conscience? I suspect not.

I cannot accept, and believe that The Episcopal Church cannot accept, the characterization, in §1.1.3, of the Old and New Testaments “as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.” This formulation has tended to earn a bye by virtue of being attributed, in a footnote, to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. Significantly, however, this particular wording appeared in the wording adopted by the 1888 Lambeth Conference. It was not part of the resolution adopted in Chicago by Episcopal bishops in 1886 and never formally adopted by the General Convention of The Episcopal Church. The wording of §1.1.3 seems to elevate Scripture over tradition and reason and could be—and almost certainly will be by some Anglican churches—seen as an assertion of sola scriptura.

Section 1.1.4 is also derived from the Chicago and Lambeth Quadrilaterals, but, again, the Covenant favors the Lambeth articulation. What, exactly, does it mean to affirm the Apostles’ Creed “as the baptismal symbol”? This seems to make no sense. And what of The Episcopal Church’s Baptismal Covenant in the 1979 BCP? Is it somehow incompatible with §1.1.4?

Section 1.1.5 also derives from the Chicago and Lambeth Quadrilaterals. What is the significance of “and of the elements ordained by him”? If wine is unavailable and grape juice is used, is this a violation of the Covenant? Perhaps this section is too specific.

I see no problems in §1.1.6.

Section 1.1.7 is clearly asserting that our churches are liturgical and, in one way or another, derive our liturgies from the first Book of Common Prayer. The phrase “shared patterns of our common prayer and liturgy” suggests a uniformity that does not exist, however. The wording is circumspect, perhaps in recognition that a distressing amount of Anglican worship is not based on the local prayer book.

What, exactly, is the “apostolic mission” referred to in §1.1.8? Do all Anglican churches understand this mission the same way?

In general, §1.1 gets into trouble by being too specific. It thereby encourages disputes regarding whether churches might be acting in a way that is incompatible with the Covenant. Doing anything to encourage such debates is not going to advance the reputed goal of keeping the Anglican Communion together.

Section 1.2 enumerates commitments of signatories of the Covenant. It is quite reactionary, although this has not been widely noted. The Covenant has a strong prejudice against change.

That prejudice is immediately apparent in §1.2.1. Churches commit

to teach and act in continuity and consonance with Scripture and the catholic and apostolic faith, order and tradition, as received by the Churches of the Anglican Communion, mindful of the common councils of the Communion and our ecumenical agreements.

When did the “Churches of the Anglican Communion” receive the faith they are supposed to uphold? Did the Church of England receive it before The Episcopal Church did? Did each receive the same faith? What about the Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil? What are the “common councils of the Communion”? The Lambeth Conference? The Primates’ Meeting? Whose “ecumenical agreements”? Does the Anglican Communion have any ecumenical agreements? (I don’t think so.) Does The Episcopal Church have to be “mindful” of the relationship of the Church of England and the Church of Sweden, since those churches are members of the Porvoo Communion? Does the Church of Nigeria (Anglican) somehow have to be respectful of The Episcopal Church’s relationship to the Moravian Church in North America? Does anyone really know—can anyone really know—what §1.2.1 allows and what it prohibits?

Section 1.2.2 may seem innocuous on first reading, but the reality is that the Communion has many conflicting ideas about what is “the teaching of Holy Scripture,” and many would argue that that teaching has been and is now in conflict with “the catholic tradition.” Ultimately, this section will mean whatever the Standing Committee says it means. That is unlikely to be what The Episcopal Church thinks it should mean.

It is significant (and disturbing) that neither §1.2.1 nor §1.2.2 acknowledges reason as a source of authority for the Communion. Apparently, Richard Hooker is not going to be the quintessential theologian of the Anglican Communion that will be created by the Anglican Covenant. The omission again illustrates the profound prejudice the Covenant has for forever keeping things as they are, since neither tradition nor a literal reading of Scripture allows latitude for change.

As far as I can see, §1.2.3 is complete gobbledegook. I have no idea what it means. It asserts that churches commit

to witness, in this [theological and moral] reasoning, to the renewal of humanity and the whole created order through the death and resurrection of Christ, and to reflect the holiness that in consequence God gives to, and requires from, his people.

I suggest that statements like this are not helpful if a layperson like myself can make so little sense of it. This section will endear Episcopalians neither to the Covenant nor to the Anglican Communion. This is the sort of statement that gives theology a bad name.

Section 1.2.4 overall seems reasonable, but it has some worrisome eccentricities. The “communal reading of … the Scriptures” seems to suggest that we all must interpret Scripture the same way. Surely, this is unacceptable. (Section 3.2.3 elaborates this theme.) I have no idea what to do with “and costly witness to.” Is this about martyrdom or what?

Section 1.2.5, concerning the handling of Scripture, is not, in itself, objectionable. The problem, of course, is that one person’s faithful, respectful, comprehensive, and coherent interpretation of Scripture is another person’s misreading. Provisions such as §1.2.1 lead me to believe that sincerity in interpretation will not be a defense for any interpretation deemed non-traditional.

Section 1.2.6 is just fine. It is perhaps the only provision in the entire Covenant that could be viewed as “liberal.”

Section 1.2.7 is another provision whose meaning is obscure. What does it mean to act “in accordance with existing canonical disciplines”? The Anglican Communion itself has no canons, so what canons are being invoked here? What does it mean “to nurture and sustain eucharistic communion”? I suspect this means that no church should do anything that would cause another church to declare broken or impaired communion. If so, it is another instance of a prejudice against any church’s rocking the Anglican Communion boat.

The final clause of §1.2.8 sounds lovely. But the notion of pursuing “a common pilgrimage with the whole Body of Christ” is another instance of the Covenant insisting that no church can do anything novel unless the whole Communion goes along. Here, in fact, there is a suggestion that all Christians, not just all Anglicans must agree. Thank you, no, I prefer a church that’s alive to one that’s preserved in formaldehyde.

Part 2 can be found here.

Getting the National Anthem Right

The Pirates are playing the Cubs at Wrigley Field this afternoon, and I just heard the national anthem sung before the start of the game.

Why is it that we often choose popular singers to sing our anthem at sporting events? More to the point, why do we choose people (1) who don’t seem to know or understand the words of “The Star Spangled Banner” and (2) who insist on augmenting the tune with ornamentation designed to show off, rather than to honor the nation? Why, in fact, do singers largely embarrass themselves when singing the national anthem, rather than taking the opportunity to enhance their reputations by displaying their competence, rather than their “originality”?

I raise these questions because the anthem was sung in Chicago today not by a soloist, but by a women’s chorus—not a girls’ chorus—of about 20 singers. (Unfortunately, the chorus was shown on television only briefly, so I neither caught the name of the group nor had time to count the singers.) The group used a straightforward choral arrangement whose only surprise was the last chord. The performance was, however, the most exciting rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” I have heard in a long time.

If you are responsible for selecting singers of the national anthem for a sporting event, please take note.

Growth of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh

In the Lent 2011 issue of Trinity, the newsletter of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, includes a story titled “Seven Parishes Join Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh.” It describes the addition of new parishes to the diocese, mostly in Illinois, but one as far away as Minnesota.

Pittsburgh newspaper readers no doubt have the impression that, since the split of the diocese in October 2008, the Anglican diocese is thriving, but the Episcopal diocese is not. Certainly, that is the impression one might take away from reading the reported numbers of members or parishes in each diocese. But the Anglican diocese has grown largely by the absorption of parishes outside the traditional boundaries of the Southwestern Pennsylvania diocese.

Bob Duncan and his Anglican Church in North America can, as far as I am concerned, organize itself in any way it wants to, so long as it is not stealing property from The Episcopal Church. It is ironic, however, that a church whose rhetoric emphasizes its commitment to “traditional Anglicanism” is willing to develop non-contiguous dioceses. Tradition in the definition of dioceses is not really the issue, however, so much as are the pragmatics of being a real diocese. The Anglican Church of the Trinity, one of the new “Pittsburgh” parishes, is more than 850 miles by car from the office of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh. Can the clergy and laypeople of such a congregation participate meaningfully in the life and governance of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh? I doubt it.

The Bishop Search Comes to St. Paul’s

After the 10:30 service today, representatives from the diocesan Nomination Committee held a meeting in the undercroft of St. Paul’s, Mt. Lebanon, to solicit views of parishioners to help the committee develop a profile of what the diocese is seeking in a new bishop. The meeting was run by Dana Phillips, the committee’s chair and someone known to many at St. Paul’s. She was assisted by committee member Frank Yesko.

I had spent some time thinking about what I wanted to say to the committee, but I had no idea what the format of the meeting would be. In fact, the committee had developed a series of questions, and participants were asked to pair off and interview one another, recording responses to the questions on a form provided. The relevance of some of the questions was not immediately apparent to me, but I was pleased that the questions were general enough that I could say all that I wanted to say to the committee.

After participants were given about half an hour to complete their interviews, the forms were collected, and the floor was opened to questions and comments. Since people had already said much of what they wanted to say, the question period was brief, though several matters of interest were raised:

1. Several people expressed the view that no candidates should come from our own diocese. Dana made it clear that the committee intended to consider all potential candidates on the basis of their qualifications, showing no preference as to sex, race, canonical residence, etc. (Personally, I think the committee should have a strong, if not absolute, prejudice against local candidates, who would necessarily elicit strong reactions, both pro and con, when their candidacy is announced.)
2. I suggested that candidates should not be too young. (Dana noted that objections have been raised in other parishes both to very young and to very old candidates.)
3. It was suggested that candidates should be “moderates.” (I, on the other hand, want to see candidates as liberal as we can get away with. I am tired of our diocese being on the fringes of The Episcopal Church. I want a bishop in the Episcopal Church mainstream, not the Pittsburgh mainstream—i.e., 20 years behind the times.)
4. Concern was raised about the dangers of nominations from the floor. (Bob Duncan was nominated from the floor.) Dana assured the group that such nominations would not be allowed.
5. The committee was warned to avoid candidates that seem too eager to be bishop.

For parishioners who could not attend the meeting, forms were left with the rector, so that those people could have their voices heard. Dana also indicated that the committee would post an on-line form on the diocesan Web site at some later time.

I found the program reassuring. The Nomination Committee seemed sincere in its soliciting the views of the people of the diocese. It will be interesting to see what kind of profile emerges from the data the committee is collecting. If the committee is truly committed to transparency, it will also release its raw data.

Abortion Vulnerability

The political right seems much better at coining seductive phrases to promote its agenda than the political left. Consider the likes of “death tax,” “job-killing,” or “pro-life.” Heaven forbid that progressives should combine the inevitable death and taxes, should want to extinguish jobs, or be seen as opposing life itself. Yet each of these examples of right-wing rhetoric is manipulative and disingenuous.

The most recent issue of Trinity, the official publication of Bob Duncan’s Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh, has introduced me to yet another crafty neologism from the political (and religious) right—“abortion-vulnerable.”

The Lent 2011 issue contains a story titled “New Pro-life Non-Profit finds Support among Anglicans.” (I don’t know what style guide would permit both “Pro-life” and “Non-Profit,” but grammatical consistency is not really the subject of this essay.) The article promotes a “new Christian endeavor in the Pittsburgh area” to discourage women from choosing abortions. The effort is the product of a non-profit called Vision for Life–Pittsburgh.

Both the article and the organization’s Web site describe the effort to drive “abortion-vulnerable women” to “pregnancy medical centers,” where, it is hoped, sonograms will discourage them from having abortions.

Normally, we do not speak of “liposuction-vulnerable,” “Botox-vulnerable,” or “facelift-vulnerable” women. Nor do we speak of “massage-vulnerable,” “shave-vulnerable,” or “financial-advice-vulnerable” men. To do so is frankly demeaning. It suggests that the consumer of a service is not so much an independent actor as a hapless victim of providers or circumstances.

To suggest that women contemplating or seeking an abortion are “abortion-vulnerable” is to deny their personhood. They are not being acted upon by inscrutable forces over which they have no control. Such a woman is not a potential disaster victim, but someone in painful circumstances faced with making an intelligent, informed decision that is necessarily a fork in the road that is her life’s journey.

Having an abortion is never a happy event, but neither is it a denial of “life” or an act of God. Women (and men) can and should make their own choices for their lives and avoid simply being abortion-foe-vulnerable.

Socks

I hate doing laundry—not the washing or drying, but the folding, hanging up, and the occasional ironing. Especially, I hate matching socks.

For some reason, I resolved to really finish doing laundry this week. That means washing everything that needs washing, putting it all away, and not having anything left over that requires repair, ironing, or, in the case of socks, matching.

This has been a multi-day project. Perhaps everything could have been done in one 24-hour period, but my aversion to the whole laundry thing and my having some sort of life not involved in doing laundry demanded that the project occasionally be interrupted for other matters such as eating, entertainment, or following the slow disintegration of the Anglican Communion.

But today has mostly been about socks. I determined that any unmatched socks or socks that were somehow defective were to be discarded. I construed as defective socks that were threadbare, had actual holes, were apparently embedded permanently with lint, or had tops that had lost elasticity. In the end, I discarded 48 socks, the equivalent of 24 pairs, though, of course, some socks were singletons.

It is those singletons that are most mysterious. Were some of their mates simply lost—left in washers or dryers, dropped on the floor, or forgotten under furniture? Perhaps they had been discarded for cause. Each unmatched sock represents a domestic mystery, usually a cold case with little remaining evidence.

I don’t like throwing socks away. It’s a little like saying goodbye to old friends. I’m sure that some of my discards today have been part of my life for decades, even if not intimate associates in recent years.

It was easier to dispose of a substantial number of white crew socks, including matched pairs, that were either quite worn or had virtually useless elastic. When buying replacements for such socks, I have usually not discarded older ones if they conceivably could be worn. Every few years, however, judicious culling is in order.

Somewhat to my surprise, when my matching and folding and discarding was through, I still had a full sock drawer, with its separate compartments for white and colored socks.

It has been a satisfying day.

Postscript. I spent a lot of time attempting to match socks. When will a sock vendor begin putting a unique serial number on each pair?

Ugly

I just received my latest copy of Time. Unsurprisingly, Osama bin Laden’s face is on the cover—with a large red X painted over it. The cover bears the label: “SPECIAL REPORT THE END OF BIN LADEN.”

One of Time’s more imaginative stories reports reactions from three of the children—now teenagers—to whom President George Bush was reading The Pet Goat when he was first told of the attack on the World Trade Center. Unfortunately that story was introduced with one of the ugliest and hardest to read pages I can remember seeing in an issue of Time. I have reproduced it below. See what you think.

Bin Laden Dead

One has to be uncomfortable in celebrating the death of anyone. It is difficult not to be happy to learn that Osama bin Laden has been killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan, however. Celebrating this death seems to be in the same category as expressing satisfaction with the death of Adolph Hitler.

The President suggested that justice has been done. That is perhaps not true, but what would justice for bin Laden really look like?

Breakfast of Champions

One of the sponsors of some old radio programs I have been listening to on CDs was the General Mills cereal Wheaties. The breakfast cereal first appeared in the 1920’s and has a surprisingly long association with sports and sports figures.

I had never given much thought to the name “Wheaties,” but, listening to the old commercials, it suddenly seemed odd and dated. The name, of course, is derived from the name of its main ingredient, wheat. According to Wikipedia, the name was the winner of an employee contest to rename what was originally called Washburn's Gold Medal Whole Wheat Flakes.

Clearly, “Wheaties” was an improvement, and it has become part of the linguistic landscape to which people seldom give a second thought. On the other hand, would you be inclined to try cereals called Cornies, or Oaties, or Ricies?

Another Poem about Christian Unity

I added another poem on the subject of Christian—and especially Anglican—unity to the Poetry section of Lionel Deimel’s Farrago today. This was not a hard poem to write, but it was a hard poem to revise and make into something satisfying. The poem is titled, perhaps not imaginatively, “That They All May Be One.” The poem and commentary on the writing of it can be found on my Web site, and the poem itself is reproduced below:

That They All May Be One
by Lionel Deimel

“That they all may be one,” they say he said,
But what of us when thus we pray?
Are not our bonds of wine and bread
Sufficient for the Church today?

Must Christians understand as one
The mysteries of God above?
Or should we learn from God the Son
That unity derives from love?

A View from Nigeria

Recently, Bishop John Akao, chair of the Church of Nigeria Theological Resource group, published an essay in Church Times under the title “Church of Nigeria and the proposed Anglican Covenant.” It appears that the Akao piece is not yet available on the Church Times Web site to non-subscribers, but it can be read at VirtueOnline.

Akao’s main interest is in explaining why Nigeria cannot sign the Anglican Covenant. His analysis of how the Covenant came to be what it is is instructive, particularly for Episcopalians who have not been paying attention to Communion affairs in recent years and are inclined to evaluate the Covenant apart from its historical context.

Whereas I hardly share Akao’s theological viewpoint, he has the history right, and, for the benefit of those newly attentive Episcopalians, I quote from his essay:

The idea of an Anglican Covenant was suggested by the Global South to check the drift of some members especially in TEC and Canada as well as some other parts of Europe like Germany and Britain in the wake of revisionist agenda manifested radically by the recognition of same -sex relationships by the Church, especially the consecration of two same-sex practitioners as bishops in The Episcopal Church of America.

Unfortunately, the original idea of covenant to bring back erring members who have embarrassed the Communion and torn its fabrics apart, was adopted by the Anglican Establishment, by fashioning a covenant which in motive, content and thrust deviate from the original objective of healing and unifying the communion. The present covenant to the African Anglicans, is crafted to persuade orthodox Anglicans to accept and commit to fellowshipping with revisionist groups who have perpetrated aberrations but who unrepentantly defy various moves and resolutions to bring them back on course.

In other words, a covenant was proposed to control the behavior of (especially) The Episcopal Church. Because the mechanisms to do that have been watered down in order to get agreement, the original intent has not been achieved.

If enough of the churches who wanted to halt the liberal trend in the West eventually do adopt the Covenant, is there any doubt that they will attempt to use it, amended if necessary, to accomplish the original objective?

Get your No Anglican Covenant merchandise at the Farrago Gift Shop.

The Covenant and the Archbishop

I continue to hear from friends in England that votes on the Anglican Covenant within the Church of England have less to do with the Covenant itself than with loyalty to Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Church of England General Synod had earlier rejected Rowan’s plan to offer stronger concessions to opponents of women bishops, for example, which made Synod members reluctant to hand the archbishop a significant defeat on the Covenant last November. Rowan, after all, seems to have put all his ecclesiastical eggs into the Covenant basket, and his church’s failure to adopt the Covenant would be supremely embarrassing.

From this side of the Atlantic, it is easy to deplore the obeisance shown to Rowan, but I can certainly appreciate it. I do feel proud when our own Presiding Bishop is appointed to a presidential commission or shows up in a television or newspaper story. I think twice before writing anything negative about our primate here or elsewhere. Certainly, the reluctance of our previous Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold, to act against the likes of Bob Duncan inhibited effective action by others, and his and Katharine’s support for B033 was sufficiently intimidating to achieve passage by a reluctant House of Deputies in 2006.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, however, is a special case. The incumbent in that office is accorded deference not only by his own church but also by the churches and people of the Anglican Communion in his role as primus inter pares.

Alas, Rowan has increasingly become a threat to the Church of England and to the Anglican Communion. He is, in the end, a political appointee of the English government who has exploited the respect given his office to wield power he has not been granted, to interfere in the affairs of churches not his own—rumor has it that Rowan’s was the hand behind B033, for instance—and to press for a Covenant that will change the nature of the Anglican Communion and, some would say, of Anglicanism itself. Moreover, the Covenant in which he is so invested will enshrine his office as an “Instrument of Communion” and give it even more power, since, as an “Instrument,” Rowan can decide by himself whether to impose the ominous but unspecified “relational consequences” that might be suggested by the Standing Committee.

As I asserted earlier, Rowan has acted as a tyrant. Why should we adopt a Covenant that will make him even more powerful? Episcopalians have no say in who occupies the office of Archbishop of Canterbury. Why should we be any less upset than were our colonial ancestors over the Stamp Act? I say, “No vexation without representation!” Reject the Anglican Covenant and hope that Rowan has the good sense to resign.

Get your No Anglican Covenant merchandise at the Farrago Gift Shop.

A Visit with Archbishop Henri Isingoma

I was intrigued by a couple of Bishop Kirk Smith’s tweets from the recent House of Bishops meeting:

Archbishop of Congo is hopeful about the future.
46 seconds ago

Archbishop of Congo now speaking in French: Does not feel that there has been adequate discussion of the Covenant among the Primates.
6 minutes ago

When I realized that Congo’s Archbishop Henri Isingoma was in Pittsburgh for a few days, I decided that it would be interesting to talk with him. (Actually, a friend suggested that I interview him, but I recognize a good idea when I see one.)

Isingoma’s big public event in our diocese is his preaching tonight as part of the Tuesday Night Lenten Preaching Series. (Apparently, the archbishop, whose preferred language is French, gave his first sermon in English Sunday at Calvary Church. Presumably, that was a trial run for tonight’s service at St. Thomas Memorial Church in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.)

Archbishop Isingoma was at Calvary last night. He took part in a brief Eucharist before addressing Diocesan Council. The service, which freely mixed French—the dominant language—and English, was a bit disorienting for me, who knows a little Latin and a little German, but no French. There was no homily.

Before the Diocesan Council meeting began, I was able to have a little time with Archbishop Isingoma in the sacristy. The Rev. Dr. Harold T. Lewis stood by to act as translator when my questions perplexed the archbishop. (I was surprised that his restatements in French often seemed very much longer than my original questions.) The archbishop answered my questions in passable English.

I can report that Archbishop Isingoma was charming and forthcoming. His visit to the U.S., which is not his first, will last about three weeks. He is a relatively new primate, having been elected only in 2009. He explained that he missed the recent Primates’ Meeting in Dublin, however, due to a visa problem.

I asked the archbishop a few questions about his church. He told me that there are about half a million Anglicans in Congo, making it a small, though hardly the smallest, church in the Anglican Communion. Services in Congo are conducted primarily in Swahili, but also in French and in several indigenous languages.

Because Episcopalians are perpetually trying to explain to other Anglicans that we elect our bishops, I was interested in learning how Province de L’Eglise Anglicane Du Congo selects its archbishop. Isingoma was, in fact, elected by secret ballot by the church’s House of Bishops.

This information offered an opportunity for me to ask Isingoma’s impression of our own House of Bishops. His answer was a bit surprising: at Kanuga Conference Center, he was struck by encountering so many bishops in one room. (His own church has but eight dioceses!) He noted a fact I had never considered, namely that our own church’s House of Bishops is one of the largest in the Anglican Communion. (Nigeria’s is probably larger.) Anyway, he described the size of The Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops as “a good thing.”

Of course, I was especially interested in what Archbishop Isingoma thought of the Anglican Covenant and how his church might respond to it. I learned that the Congo dioceses are in the process of studying the covenant, a process that is going on in The Episcopal Church, the Church of England, and, presumably, in other Anglican churches as well. The House of Bishops will discuss the Covenant in June, the archbishop explained, and the Provincial Synod will take up the matter near the end of 2011.

When pressed about his own view of the Covenant, Archbishop Insingoma responded in much the same way as did Katharine Jefferts Schori when asked about the prospects for Covenant adoption. (See ENS story here.) He suggested that the process that got the Communion to where it is now is actually more important than the Covenant itself. Some are satisfied with changing slowly, but others, he asserted, have been in a hurry and have wanted to end discussion quickly. He described the issues being dealt with by the Communion as “complicated,” and he is clearly pleased that there is a lot of listening going on.

Following the lead of our own presiding bishop, Isingoma ducked the question of what he though the Provincial Synod would do. (“That’s why he’s an archbishop,” Dr. Lewis suggested.) Isingoma did, however, say that his church is concerned, that its identity is very much tied to the Anglican Communion, and that he, personally, loves the Communion. He wants to continue in communion with The Episcopal Church and with the Anglican Communion.

______________

It is interesting that many bishops are expressing satisfaction with the discussion and deepening relationships that have seemingly been encouraged by the Windsor Process and development of the Covenant. (I am reminded again of Bishop John Saxbee’s remarks in the Church of England’s General Synod about favoring the process—as long as it never ends.) One can only be encouraged by this. Perhaps our churches were scared into talking with one another. (Of course, some primates continue to turn blue from holding their breath until everyone else agrees with them.)

Wouldn’t it have made more sense to encourage discussion among Communion churches before concluding that a covenant was “the only way forward.” Perhaps we would have discovered another, and assuredly better, way forward.

N.B. When I first posted this piece, my paragraph breaks were somehow lost, decreasing readability. I apologize for the problem and have now restored the originally intended formatting.

Stepping Back and Viewing the Forest

A good preacher can offer surprising insights and make them sound completely obvious. This thought occurred to me while reading Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s recent book The Heartbeat of God: Finding the Sacred in the Middle of Everything. In a chapter titled “Opening Doors to Women,” she comments on the current struggle to allow women bishops in the Church of England. In this passage, she illustrates just how ridiculous the whole dispute really is:

The English queen may wear a different kind of hat than a bishop’s miter, but it is the hat of respected and authorized leadership. An Englishman remarked to me recently that he thought the difficulty with female bishops in Britain was that British men didn’t want to be under the authority of women. Well, in England they have accepted the leadership of Elizabeth II—one of her many titles is “Defender of the Faith”—for more than fifty years.

Short and Sweet

As I’m sure many readers already know, Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court last week rejected Archbishop Robert Duncan’s request for a rehearing of his appeal from the decision of the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas that awarded diocesan assets to the Episcopal Church diocese. The diocese announced the March 29, 2010, order of the court on its Web site yesterday. No announcement has yet appeared on the Web site of the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh. (I do hope that the April 1 announcement, three days after the order was issued, was not taken by anyone as an April Fools’ Day prank.)

The Commonwealth Court decision should surprise no one, though Duncan held out hope to his increasingly anxious parishes that the court would be sympathetic. (See “More on the Petition for a Rehearing.”) The body of the court order denying the petition consists of a single sentence: “NOW, March 29, 2011, having considered appellants’ application for reargument before the Court en banc [i.e., before the full court] and appellees’ answer, the application is denied.” I find it amusing that the title of the litigation takes up approximately a page and a half, whereas the body of the order consumes only about a third of a page (see images of the two-page document below).

What Part of Speech Is That?

The baseball season has begun, and I have been watching the first two games played by the Pittsburgh Pirates on the television. The Pirates won yesterday but fell to the Cubs today.

I was surprised yesterday when I discovered the telecast branded as coming from Root Sports, rather than FSN Pittsburgh, last year’s network. A little Internet research led to the conclusion that only the name had been changed, though ownership of the sports network had been transferred somewhere along the line. (See, for example, this post on a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette blog.)

It was not intuitively obvious what the significance of “Root” was, and the press release from the Root Sports Facebook page proved something of a red herring:

“The unique distinction of each of the three regional sports networks [including the former FSN Pittsburgh] is that they can speak with the voice of the fan from a local, insider perspective and provide the opportunity to be part of something bigger,” said Geoff Walker, Vice President of Marketing for DIRECTV Sports Networks. “This approach creates an authentic product that is rooted and connected in the community, invested in its people and committed to providing the highest quality shared experience for its teams and their fans. This is the personality and attitude of ROOT Sports.”

Did the name of the re-branded network somehow come from the idea of being “rooted and connected in the community”? That seemed a stretch, and my assumption that “Root” was a noun left me without a good theory of what the name was supposed to mean.

Near the end of today’s game, however, the network ran a spot that seemed to clear up the matter. “Root,” apparently, is a verb, as in “root, root, root for the home team.” Who knew? The name is reasonable, I suppose, but I question whether Root Sports is such a great name if it takes so long to realize that it isn’t nonsensical.

No doubt, the long-suffering Pittsburgh Pirate fans will get used to it.

It’s Our Church, Too

I was delighted this morning to learn via The Lead that the Rt. Rev. Kirk Smith, Bishop of Arizona, was tweeting from the House of Bishops meeting. The bishops were discussing the Anglican Covenant, and I was quite interested in learning that the Bishop of Atlanta, as well as visiting archbishops from Congo, Canada, and Korea had expressed serious reservations about the Covenant.

I was just as surprised when Episcopal News Service moved a story on the House of Bishops session that included virtually nothing of reservations about the Covenant. The anonymous ENS account included only the following:

The panelists spoke frankly about the covenant and their provincial context. Each expressed their commitment to continued conversation internally and externally on the topic of the covenant. Everyone affirmed their relationship with the House of Bishops as friends and fellow Anglicans.

Perhaps “frankly” is really a code word, but Bishop Smith was rather more straightforward in this tweets. Here is a sample:

Archbishop of Korea: The Covenant is "colonialist" document. It does not free the Asia church but keeps it controlled by English church.

The Lead is now reporting that there will be no more real-time tweets from the House of Bishops meeting. Ann Fontain has noted that “there are concerns about confidentiality.”

Why are ordinary Episcopalians (and, for that matter, the larger public) not allowed to know what goes on in House of Bishops meetings? Why, in fact, are these meetings not simply open to the press? If truly confidential matters need to be discussed, the House can go into executive session.

I am an Episcopalian, and I have a right to know, and if ENS is not simply a propaganda machine, it should report news that is freely available on the Internet.

Needed: An Anniversary Prayer

An innovation brought to my parish by our current rector is the commemoration of birthdays and anniversaries on the first Sunday of each month. Worshipers whose birthday or anniversary falls in the current month are invited to the front of the church, and prayers are offered for each group. It has been the practice that the entire congregation reads the prayer for birthdays, namely, Prayer #51 on page 830 of the prayer book:

Watch over thy child, O Lord, as his days increase; bless and guide him wherever he may be. Strengthen him when he stands; comfort him when discouraged or sorrowful; raise him up if he fall; and in his heart may thy peace which passeth understanding abide all the days of his life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This is a perfectly acceptable prayer, though the congregation may stumble over some of the necessary substitutions—“children” for “child,” for example. No attempt is made to modernize the language—substituting “your” for “thy,” for example—which would be more consonant with our Rite II Eucharist. (One could address these problems by printing an edited prayer in the bulletin, but we don’t do that.) One might object, however, to the fact that this “birthday” prayer, despite its being labeled as “For a Birthday,” does not even allude obliquely to a birthday! Prayer #50 is more satisfactory in this regard, but it has an even trickier required substitution, as it is written to apply to an individual:

O God, our times are in your hand: Look with favor, we pray, on your servant N. as he begins another year. Grant that he may grow in wisdom and grace, and strengthen his trust in your goodness all the days of his life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This would be a more appropriate prayer if it were edited for the bulletin.

The anniversary prayer is read only by our rector for reasons not completely obvious. He uses the prayer at the top of page 431 of the prayer book, which is part of the Marriage liturgy:

O God, you have so consecrated the covenant of marriage that in it is represented the spiritual unity between Christ and his Church: Send therefore your blessing upon these your servants, that they may so love, honor, and cherish each other in faithfulness and patience, in wisdom and true godliness, that their home may be a haven of blessing and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This prayer shares a deficiency with Prayer #51, namely, it does not allude to the occasion being celebrated. It is remarkable that the prayers for various occasions that are listed beginning on page 814 do not include an anniversary prayer. How could the compilers of our prayer book have overlooked the need for such a prayer?

All this is by way of asking for suggestions for creating a completely satisfactory anniversary prayer. I have begun writing an anniversary prayer, but I am not sure I have all the right elements. The prayer should refer explicitly to the annual celebration and should avoid the analogy between a marriage and Christ’s relationship to the Church. (The Ephesians 5 notion that the wife must obey the husband as the Church must obey Christ is anachronistic in 21st-century America.)

Suggestions, anyone? If you already have such a prayer, please offer it.

Why the Anglican Covenant Should Be Rejected

Having just reported on a presentation of the pros and cons of the Anglican Covenant—see “Pittsburgh Covenant Debate”—I was a presenter myself in another such program last night. My talk, which I delivered at a Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh meeting at Church of the Redeemer, was titled “Why the Anglican Covenant Should Be Rejected.” Because the talk was rather long, I will only provide a brief summary here. You can read the whole speech in a PDF file here. [Since I wrote this post, I have corrected two obvious typographical errors in the original transcript.]

I summed up my view of the Covenant in this paragraph:

Unfortunately, the Anglican Covenant is a bad idea, badly implemented. Arguably, it is neither Anglican nor a covenant. The notion that such a pact is desirable is based on faulty assumptions, and the Covenant has been promoted out of mean-spirited motives. The proposed agreement has the potential to cause a fatal division of the Anglican Communion, whether or not it is adopted by a majority of its churches. Its potential for harming our own church is significant, and our ability to evade injury may be limited.

Most of the talk was devoted to supporting these assertions.

After giving a brief history of the Covenant and a summary of its contents, I addressed what I called technical problems. I identified two such problems: a strange adoption process and a dangerously vague compliance-enforcement mechanism. Here is some of what I said about the way the Covenant is being adopted:

There is no specified time period within which churches must act. Presumably, this is because the governing bodies of some churches meet infrequently. Our own General Convention meets every three years, for example. In principle, churches could take a year, or decades, or centuries to dispose of the Covenant. The failure to require timely response to the Covenant is potentially problematic, since enforcement of its provisions is placed in the hands of churches that have “adopted the Covenant, or who are still in the process of adoption [emphasis added].” The Covenant does not specify what constitutes being “in the process of adoption.” Presumably this odd provision follows from an even stranger one, namely that “This Covenant becomes active for a Church when that Church adopts the Covenant through the procedures of its own Constitution and Canons.” (Compare this to the case of the U.S. Constitution, which did not go into effect until 9 of the 13 states had ratified it.)

I then discussed the nature of Anglicanism, building on my paper “Saving Anglicanism,” which I wrote shortly before the 2006 General Convention was called upon to respond to the Windsor Report. No doubt, this paragraph will be controversial:

It is the latitudinarians, the broad-church Anglicans, who are most characteristically Anglican—one might even say the pure Anglicans. It is the broad-church people who willingly accept diversity within Anglicanism, concentrating on Christian mission, on one hand, and on their own spiritual journeys, on the other. Meanwhile, the radical Protestants, usually characterized today as Evangelicals, and the radical Catholics, usually described as Anglo-Catholics, continue their efforts to remake Anglicanism according to their own ideals. This struggle has been more or less active during various periods in the 400 years following the publication of Hooker’s Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity.

I went on to say that the extreme Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics are rejecting the Covenant, whereas the latitudinarians have no use for it. Only the institutionalists willing to trade belief for unity—Rowan Williams most notably among them—seem to have any enthusiasm for adopting the Covenant.

I then focused attention on the more prosaic difficulties with the Covenant, drawing on arguments that have been advanced elsewhere. One of my arguments restated an interesting point made by the Rev. Nate Rugh in his talk a week earlier:

Not only will the Covenant encourage Communion-wide conflicts, but it will also encourage dissidents in local churches to bump up their disputes to the Communion level, rather than trying to reconcile them in the national or regional church. This is exactly what Bishop Duncan did, even in the absence of a Covenant.

I concluded by listing some of the ways the General Convention might consider responding to the Covenant. This is a tricky subject that involves both what deputies might want to do and concerns about how the actions of the General Convention might be perceived. Not only do I lack a clear vision of what the church’s legislative assembly should do, but I was reminded, in the discussion following my presentation, that the voting rules of the House of Deputies might have an important influence on what resolution is put forward. Effectively, for any important vote, a super-majority is required. Because any resolution is therefore difficult to pass, wording becomes very important. Is failing to pass a resolution adopting the Covenant equivalent to passing a resolution rejecting it? What is the effect of rejecting a resolution to not adopt the Covenant? There may be an opportunity to employ some creative ambiguity here, but I am going to save thinking about that for another day.

Here is how I actually concluded my talk:

Our church will be criticized, irrespective of what it does. Why not do the right thing and reject the Covenant? I suspect that many churches are waiting to see what the Church of England, the Anglican Church of Canada, and The Episcopal Church are going to do. A rejection by the Church of England is, unfortunately, unlikely, as English Anglicans pay great deference to their bishops, and particularly to their archbishops. It therefore falls to the Canadian and American churches to say the obvious—the Covenant is not a good idea. Rejecting the Covenant may or may not derail what seems like an unstoppable express, but, at the very least, we will not be complicit in destroying Anglicanism or paying for the destruction of our own church. In the end, our mission might be to pick up the pieces of the Anglican Communion and reconstitute them as a fellowship that is truly Anglican.

Out of the Frying Pan

The news from Japan seems only to get worse. A nuclear catastrophe seems each hour more probable. This morning, I reflected on events of the past week in poetry. (My poem below can be found on Lionel Deimel’s Farrago here.)

Out of the Frying Pan by Lionel Deimel Plates shift Earth shakes Oceans move Quaking lasts Roads crack Shelves empty Earth stills Breathing returns Life resumes Sirens blare Some flee Some stay Waves arrive Cars float Buildings crumble Power fails Cooling stops Fears surge